Renegades of PEACE (Secrets of PEACE Book 2)

by T. A. Hernandez

  The drive seemed longer than Zira remembered. When the walls finally came into view, her heart started to beat a little faster. A small, sentimental part of her felt like she was going home. The larger part warned that she was walking into a trap.

  Alma and Warren leaned out the open window to try and get a better look. A few people in the vehicles in front of them did the same; most had never seen the compound before. “That wall is a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” Warren said.

  “It’s just a wall,” said Zira. “And we know how to get through it.”

  Chase turned off the highway onto the narrow dirt road that led to the compound. Some of the other vehicles followed, but Alma and most of the drivers simply pulled off the pavement and carved their own paths across the open landscape on each side of the Humvee. The entire convoy stopped about two hundred yards away from the wall, and everyone got out of their vehicles and began unloading. By now, at least a dozen news drones hovered overhead. Most of them seemed to be grouped around the semi-trucks in the back as their doors opened to unload hundreds of combat-ready robots.

  Zira spotted Trinity a few rows of cars behind her. She stood in front of one of the rebels’ drones dressed in a smart pantsuit, reporting on the events unfolding behind her. One of the trucks held a technical crew who by now had probably hacked into the country’s main network to broadcast Trinity’s face on at least one or two major news stations. Considering she was the only reporter on scene, and certainly the only one not monitored by the Project, the public might be more inclined to tune in to her report, if only for curiosity’s sake. They’d get the truth—or at least something close to it—instead of a Project-censored version of what was happening. That could give the rebels a much-needed advantage in public perception, which would be important in the aftermath of today’s events.

  Zira checked the magazine in her pistol one more time, then walked to the back of the car. Alma handed her a rifle. “Do me a favor and check everyone’s weapons,” she said. “Make sure they’re locked and loaded by the time we move up.”

  “Sure,” Zira said. She went around to each of her squad mates one by one and checked their magazines. To their credit, none of them needed her help with their weapons at all, not even Warren, though a few seemed nervous. Zira tried not to show her own apprehension and offered what little comfort she could, but until all of this was over, they probably weren’t going to feel any better no matter what she said.

  “Alpha squad!” Alma shouted. “With me!” Zira fell into line with the rest of the squad and they formed up in a block to the left of the Humvee. Chase stood, hanging out the open door with one arm against the top of the vehicle for balance. A dozen men and women armed with assault rifles surrounded him. To the right of the Humvee, Tripp stood with the rest of his team. He waved to Zira and forced a smile as Chase gave the order to march.

  They moved forward in unison. Most people were on foot now, but there were several cars scattered throughout the group as well. A few, including Chase’s Humvee, had mounted machine guns. They reached the edge of the parking lot and kept going, maneuvering around the Project’s vehicles, which would provide the rebels with some decent cover once the fighting started.

  Chase ordered them to halt about forty yards away from the closed gate. He spoke into a microphone clipped to his shirt, and his voice boomed from speakers mounted on the hood of a car far to his right. “Chairman Ryku and all members of the PEACE Project, you are hereby suspended from your duties while we conduct an investigation into your activities. Open the gate and surrender and no one will be harmed.”

  Two figures appeared on top of the wall. Zira couldn’t make out their faces clearly from this distance, but she recognized the chairman’s stiff, confident posture. The person standing beside him was likely Revolver. Ryku’s voice echoed out across the pavement from the gate. “You come here with weapons and intentions of war when all we have ever given this country is peace and protection. We will not allow an angry mob to come in and destroy everything we’ve worked for. Go home—this is futile. Leave your weapons behind and none of you will be arrested for treason.”

  “This isn’t treason, Chairman,” said Chase. “We’re trying to save this country. You’ve stripped away the rights and freedoms of your citizens in the name of peace. You’ve created a country where people are afraid of their neighbors, afraid of their government, and afraid of the leaders who are supposed to protect them. If you will not open the gates and surrender, we’ll enter by force. Send your children somewhere safe. We don’t want to harm the innocent.”

  “We are all innocent here,” said Ryku. “But if you insist on fighting, we will defend ourselves and the good people of this nation.”

  A shot rang out and a man standing next to Chase fell to the ground. Zira caught sight of his mangled face as he went down, destroyed by a high-caliber sniper round fired from somewhere on top of the wall. Warren, who was standing beside her, retched a few times as gunfire broke out all around them.

  “Take cover!” Chase shouted, but his voice was muffled under the sound of gunshots. The rebels fired at nothing. The sniper—whoever it had been—was nowhere to be seen, and Ryku and Revolver had disappeared somewhere behind the wall.

  “Hold your fire!” Alma said. Some of the other squad leaders heard her, and the order spread throughout their ranks until the shooting finally stopped.

  For a few moments, everything was silent. Chase turned to Tripp’s group. “Get your team over there and open that gate. We’ll cover you if they start shooting again.”

  The squad leader nodded and motioned for her team to move. They sprinted towards the wall, followed by two dozen robots that would surround and protect them as they worked on the gate. Fearing for Tripp’s safety, Zira watched the top of the wall closely. Someone’s head popped over the edge. She shot at it without waiting for an order. More figures appeared all along the wall, and the sound of thousands of gunshots rang out again.

  Zira fired a few more shots and glanced at Tripp’s group. They were still running, but two of their robots had already been gunned down. The squad leader cried out as a bullet struck her leg. She stumbled to the ground. Tripp bolted past her on his way to the gate, then stopped.

  Don’t do it! Zira thought. She ducked back behind the Humvee’s rear tire as bullets hit the asphalt in front of her.

  When she dared to look out again, Tripp was helping the woman hobble across the last remaining stretch of concrete. They were going as fast as they could, but it was still too slow. Zira swore and took aim at another figure on top of the wall. All she could do to protect her friend was try and prevent anyone up there from shooting him. She had to hope that would be enough.

  When she looked back down, Tripp and his squad leader had ducked into the cluster of robots gathered protectively around the rest of the group. He was safe for now. Zira took cover to reload her weapon. Warren was huddled next to the other tire, frozen, his eyes squeezed shut as he muttered to himself.

  This was exactly what Zira had been afraid of. Chase’s rebels weren’t soldiers; they hadn’t known what they were getting themselves into. Still, upon looking around, Zira had to admit that most of them were holding up pretty well. Alma’s team was doing exactly as she and Zira had taught them, although one poor girl, Cassidy, struggled to reload her rifle. Zira shuffled over to the car she was crouched behind and cleared a jam in the weapon, then shoved the magazine into its slot and pulled back the charging handle. “Hang in there,” she said as she thrust the weapon back to the girl. “The gate should be open soon.”

  Behind her, someone let out a cry. Zira turned. Warren stood alone in the open, clutching his left shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingertips, and his gun had fallen to the ground. “Get down!” Zira screamed, but she hadn’t even finished saying the words when a second bullet hit him in the chest.

  His legs crumpled underneath him and he fell. Zira was sure he was dead until his hands reached up towards his ches
t, shaking violently. She turned to Cassidy. “Help me get him back here.”

  The other girl’s face paled, but she nodded. Together, they darted out from behind the car and grabbed Warren under each arm. Zira got his left side. The blood from his shoulder soaked through the ends of her sleeves as they dragged him back.

  When they were behind cover again, Zira looked him over. His entire body shuddered, and his hands were covered in red. He stared up at her with wide, pleading eyes and attempted to reach for her. Cassidy took off her jacket and pressed it over his chest as Warren sputtered. Zira clutched his hand and looked into his eyes. Seconds later, he went still.

  Cassidy looked at Zira in horror. “What do we do now?”

  Zira let go of Warren’s hand and swung her rifle back in front of her. “Keep fighting.”

  She fired off a few more bursts at the people on top of the wall. Tripp’s group was still huddled around the control panel, and the gate remained closed. Zira looked to Alma, crouched behind a car to their left. “What’s the plan?” she called out.

  Alma said something in Spanish through gritted teeth and took a few more shots at the top of the wall. “We can’t do anything until they get that gate open.”

  Zira looked back at the gate. She knew better than to trust her sense of time in this sort of situation, but surely this was taking too long. The gate should have been open by now.

  She peered over the top of the car. One of the robots surrounding Tripp’s team fell in a smoky mess of metal and sparks. Before the others could shuffle around to replace him, Zira met Tripp’s eyes through the gap. He shook his head. Something was wrong. The device wasn’t working.

  The rebels’ entire strategy hinged on being able to open that gate. As long as they were stuck out here, they were easy targets. Retreating now was out of the question. Ryku would hunt down and kill every last one of them. If they were going to die, it might as well be here while they were still fighting for what they believed in. Those were the risks they’d accepted when they decided to do this.

  But Zira didn’t want to die, and opening that gate was the only chance they had of staying alive. She slid a new magazine into her rifle and hoped for a miracle.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Blinding light filled Jared’s cell. He shrank into the corner and squeezed his eyes shut, only daring to open them in narrow slits, one at a time. The first thing he saw was his own hand, swollen and bruised. He’d injured it a few days before during one of his hallucinations when he’d tried to pound his way through the concrete walls. It looked gruesome, but not as bad as he’d expected judging by the pain, and he didn’t think it was broken.

  There was a clank as his cell door opened and he shuddered, but when he looked over, it was only Revolver. He carried a pair of handcuffs, which meant he was there to move Jared somewhere. Maybe he was finally going to be executed like the others. The thought was unsettlingly soothing. His resistance was weakening, or had broken already without him even noticing when it happened.

  Revolver helped Jared stand and cuffed his wrists. He was gentle with the injured hand and even offered him some water. Jared gulped it down as fast as Revolver poured it into his mouth. “Where are we going?” he asked when the bottle was empty.

  “There’s a rebellion happening outside.”

  “A rebellion?” It seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was just another hallucination.

  Revolver nodded. “A large group arrived with guns and robots. They told Ryku to surrender the compound.”

  “He won’t,” Jared said.

  “No. He seems to believe they have a chance of getting in, though. He ordered us to burn all of our records.”

  For the first time in weeks, Jared felt the tiniest spark of hope. Ryku was afraid, and he was only ever afraid if he had good reason to be. These rebels might actually have a chance. “What does he want with me?”

  “He didn’t say. It might have something to do with the fact that Judah is with them. So is Zira. Let’s go.”

  He nudged Jared forward and they began walking. If Ryku was afraid of what was happening outside and Zira was involved somehow, maybe he thought he could use Jared as some kind of bargaining chip against her. Or maybe he just wanted to show her he could kill Jared, show her he was still in control of this one thing even as he was losing control of everything else. The thought infuriated Jared. He suddenly found he was no longer willing to sit back and wait for death. He wanted to fight. He wanted to live.

  An idea came to him then—a desperate man’s last-ditch attempt at escape. He stopped walking and turned to Revolver. “Just let me go.”

  “I can’t. He told me to bring you to him, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Jared attempted to appeal to Revolver’s sense of logic. “Bringing me out there isn’t going to change anything. I won’t be able to stop whatever Zira’s involved in. You don’t have to follow orders.”

  “Maybe not, but I can’t let you go. He would kill me, or lock me up like he did to you.”

  “Make your own choices for once! You’re better than this.”

  “I’m not better or worse than anything,” Revolver said. “I’m just empty.”

  There was the faintest hint of sadness in his voice when he said it, and even his expression seemed to change. Jared had never seen any semblance of real emotion from him before, and he pounced on the opportunity. “Aubreigh didn’t believe that.”

  Revolver’s eyebrows knit together as he stared at Jared. Jared said nothing, allowing him whatever time he needed to process everything and make a decision. Finally, he reached forward and removed Jared’s handcuffs. “Go,” he said.

  “Thank you.” He walked as quickly as he could down the hall, ignoring the ache in his joints. He opened the cupboard behind the security desk where he had last seen Revolver put his clothes. They were still there, and he slipped them on. They didn’t fit quite as well as they used to, but he immediately felt a little more like himself. He left his old black armband sitting on the shelf and closed the door.

  Revolver was still there when he turned around, staring at the wall as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. “What are you going to tell Ryku?” Jared asked.

  Revolver turned to look at him. “Nothing.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Jared shrugged, and before Revolver could change his mind, pushed open the door.

  He emerged into a world that was much too loud and bright and put his hands over his ears to soften the noise. People ran around the compound in a frenzy, many with arms full of books and files. Jared followed one such woman around the corner of the building but stopped when he saw the fire. His first instinct was to turn and run, but he forced his feet to keep moving forward. This fire was real—he could feel the heat radiating from it even at this distance—but it couldn’t hurt him. Not like the flames in his cell.

  The woman he’d been following dumped her load of files into the blaze, where it was consumed in seconds. Jared walked past the fire and towards the front of the compound. The world seemed to tilt and rock in front of him, and when he could, he leaned on the outer walls of buildings for support. His vision darkened at the edges once, but cleared up again when he slowed down and took a few deep breaths. He had to pace himself. Zira was here and possibly in danger. He wanted to get to her, but passing out before he could even make it across the compound wouldn’t help either of them.

  The gunshots grew louder, almost deafening. Some came from above, where people in blue, green, and black armbands perched on top of the wall with rifles. The returning fire of the rebels outside was quieter, muffled by the wall, but he guessed there were far more people out there than there were here in the compound. The wall provided perfect cover, though, and the rebels had no hope of victory or even survival unless they could get in.

  He made his way to the guardhouse, ducking from one building to another and keeping an eye out for Ryku or Cecilia or
anyone else who might try to lock him back up. He was in no state to fight. Most of the people he passed didn’t even seem to notice him, though, too busy and panicked by the situation to worry about a stray E-2 operative.

  Former E-2 operative, he corrected himself.

  He passed several more fires along the way. He also passed a body, its arms and legs splayed out on the concrete at grotesque angles. A discarded rifle lay a few feet away. Jared picked it up and continued on.

  As he got closer to the gate, he could hear intermittent bursts of mechanical sputtering. The E-1 officer inside the guardhouse fought with the controls and didn’t even glance up at Jared as he entered. “Finally, some help. Here, take this.” She shuffled to one side and motioned for him to take over half of the control panel.

  Jared looked at the surveillance video projected in front of her. Seven military robots covered the five people standing outside the gate. One of them might have been Judah, but he couldn’t be sure with the way the feed kept flickering in and out. They had some kind of device hooked into the outer security panel.

  Jared crossed the room and shoved the barrel of his rifle into the guard’s back. “Get out,” he said. The woman stammered as she tried to respond, but Jared cut her off. “Get out, and I won’t shoot you.”

  She turned slowly, her mouth agape as she studied Jared’s face. She must have decided the threat was serious because she sighed and said, “All right, I’m going.” Jared marched her to the door and, once she was outside, shut and locked it behind her. He turned back to the controls and found the lever that would open the gate.

  A part of him hesitated. If he did this, he’d be betraying everything he’d ever known and cared about. Then again, hadn’t he already done that? And did it even matter? He’d made so many mistakes while serving under Ryku, and it would take more than a lifetime to make up for the things he’d done. But perhaps this one small act could serve as his first step towards redemption.