by J D Lasica
When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.
The Transition was upon us. The Seaduction may be burning, but there were still large quantities of the Fantasy Strain to be loosed upon the land. He called Adam Bashir.
“Before my jet takes off, I want somebody on your team to add as many containers of treated water to the cargo hold as possible.”
“I’ll see to it, Chairman,” Bashir said.
Volkov hung up and stormed out the door. One final thing to do before leaving the island. Make sure Kaden Baker is dead.
At the moment the swarthy guardsman flung Kaden backward off the edge of the precipice, she saw Bo react. Sprawled on the ground, he grabbed a coil of rope lying just to his right and hurled it directly toward her. It barely had enough heft to reach her. She lurched her hand toward the lifeline.
As she began to fall down the sheer cliffside, it astonished her how her mind went to the most mundane details of her plight. The length of the rope (at least twenty feet). Its width (thinner than a mooring line, thicker than a jump rope). Its makeup (nylon fibers) and strength (braided construction of eight strands, she guessed).
The likelihood she’d survive this? (Remote.)
She stretched out, clutched the strand of rope, wrapped it tight around her hand, and held on tight as she smashed onto the side of the cliff, a good twelve feet below the precipice. She heard Nico roar an epithet followed by the now familiar burst of the SCAR—but now in friendly hands. Moments later, a swarthy guardsman’s body swooped past her on the way to the rocky shoals a hundred feet below.
Bo peered over the edge. His arms held onto the rope but there was no way he could lift her up. “Kaden! Hold on!”
She held tight with both hands, but already her palms were burning and her injured shoulder straining at supporting the weight of her entire body without being able to get any footing.
She looked over her right shoulder and saw a billow of thick smoke rising from a ship in the far distance. Viper’s doing? She turned to check over her left shoulder and saw the Swift boat, which had been a distant speck only minutes before, drawing closer. Her heart sank as she heard the burst of the .50-caliber machine gun coming from the water and strafing the cliffside a good twenty feet below. The only saving grace was that the boat was still at least a quarter mile away.
But one shot was all it would take.
“I can’t lift her by myself!” Bo yelled to Nico, who sounded busy fending off the guards in the SWAT van. That’s when she heard Nico unleash his war cry and lay down a steady stream of hellfire as he charged the van. Or that’s what she imagined was happening.
She tried again to shimmy up the rope by herself but managed only a few inches more. The wind buffeted her body and twirled her around like a marionette as she struggled to find a small foothold on the rock face. She saw her hands were beginning to bleed.
Another report of gunfire from the Swift boat. This time it struck five feet below her. One more calibration and that would be the end.
She looked up and saw Bo continuing to struggle to hold her aloft. “Kaden, trust me, we’re going to get you out of this.”
She took a deep breath and struggled to stay dangling there. Might be her last words. “I trust you, Dad.”
He looked down and smiled. “You called me ‘Dad.’”
But a moment later she looked up again and Bo was gone. She had no idea what was happening up there. No idea whether Nico was shot or Bailey was in custody or if Viper was still on the loose. She managed to stop whirling, but this was no climbing rope and doubted she could hold on for more than another minute.
Amelia appeared in a corner of her smart contacts—still in Wi-Fi range—but Kaden didn’t have her earpiece and couldn’t sign. Amelia detected her body’s stress signals and signed an urgent message. Rock outcropping … your two o’clock. Kaden looked up and to her right and saw the narrow opening on the side of the hill. She shimmied up two torturous feet, swallowing the pain, and she squeezed her arm in there to support part of her weight—enough to give her a few precious seconds of relief from the pull of gravity.
She looked behind her. The Swift boat was getting closer and she could see two small figures examining her with their binoculars, no doubt discussing the best strategy to take her out.
“Kaden, hold on! We’re pulling you up.” Bo’s voice.
She began to move. Two feet. Four. Six. Nearly to the top. Behind her, the Swift boat strafed the side of the hill, blasting into the limestone walls where she’d been hanging ten seconds before.
Kaden reached the top and grabbed Bo’s hand. “I’ve got you,” he said. He pulled her up and over, and she now saw the rope, frayed to almost nothing, tied to the back of the police van with Nico at the wheel.
They hurried off the precipice and out of the Swift boat’s line of fire. The remaining Guardians were either dead or wounded.
She was sore as hell, but she’d be all right. She checked in with Red Team Zero home base. Annika shared the latest updates about Viper and Incognito. They’d learned his real name. Maxim Volkov.
“Good,” she told Annika. “We’ll need that for his obituary.” She turned to Bo. “We’ve got to find Bailey.”
“Where do we start?”
As if on cue, a black SUV barreled down the road and came to a screeching halt next to them. Kaden, Bo, and Nico trained their SCARs at the doors. The side entrance flew open and Bailey spilled out, holding the same model SCAR. She hugged Bo and then trained her weapon on Lucid, who sat impassively in the back seat.
Kaden looked down at her prison garb and the X across her heart. “This might raise a question or two. Let’s ditch these prison jumpsuits and find the others.”
And, she silently added, kill this son of a bitch Incognito.
Volkov donned his favorite motorcycle helmet, buttoned his Titan sport jacket, packed his favorite semi sidearm, and headed out on his Harley. He buzzed Lucid to ask about the status of the prisoners’ execution. The call went to voicemail, so he called up Lucid’s Eyecam and saw Bailey Finnerty leveling an assault rifle at Lucid’s chest. He immediately regretted he’d shown such compassion toward her.
Next he tried his unit commander at Devil’s Point. Radio silence. Were Kaden Baker and her father disposed of or not? He couldn’t get Lucid to order up another detachment of Guardians. Do I have to handle everything myself?
He exited the corporate campus and hit cruising speed as an idea began to take form. He had one last card to play.
Kaden, Bo, and Nico crowded into the SUV alongside Lucid, Bailey, and three of the other missing girls. They stopped at a clothing shop leading into Samana Village and swapped out their prison garb for tropical-friendly civvies—olive-colored shorts and drab T-shirts that wouldn’t raise attention. Kaden also stopped at an electronics shop next store and got a new earpiece so she could make calls over Wi-Fi and talk with Amelia again.
She paused before re-entering the SUV and saw she had a new voicemail from Annika. She called.
Annika sounded excited. “We just got a call from Paul Redman. We know where the others are! Looks like they were all being moved as one big group from Immersion Bay to a new location on the western half of the island.”
“How did he get a phone?”
“He didn’t. He's been wearing a smart jacket. There's a sensor built into the cuffs. When Redman’s group got put back with the others, Tosh got the sensor to connect to the Internet.”
“So I can reach them?”
“Think so. Tosh got a rudimentary audio bridge working. I’ll send you the IP address.”
Bo came up to her side. “What’s happening?”
“Looks like all the others are in one place now.”
/> “Where?”
“Amelia, ping this IP address and see if we can get an audio connection.”
Amelia’s voice came through the earpiece nice and clear. “Roger that. So glad you’re all right. Connecting now.”
She heard a high-pitched melodic ping once, twice.
“Hello?” Redman’s voice.
“Paul, it’s Kaden.”
She heard Redman hush the others. “Isn’t this the damndest thing, turning the cuff of my jacket into a phone?”
“Are you all there? Where are you?”
“Yeah, we’re all here. We’re locked inside something called the Fantasy Theater.”
She heard Alex’s voice edge closer. “It’s part of Fantasy Live, in the resort complex just southeast of Samana Village.”
Kaden looked at Bo. “How do I know this is really you guys? We were already burned once today.” Hard to tell reality from fantasy on Samana Cay.
“Let’s go around the room,” Redman said. Tosh, Carlos, Judy, Alice, Charlie, and Alex all sounded off in their familiar voices.
“That’s not good enough.” Kaden thought for a moment. “Let me ask you something the island’s AI wouldn’t know. Carlos, what did you have for breakfast on our final day in Zug?”
A pause—then Carlos’s voice came in loud and clear as she pictured him leaning close to Redman’s cuff. “Pastries, yogurt, cheese, Butter-Zopf bread. And it was delicious.”
She looked at Bo. Her voice cracked with relief. “It’s them.” Then to Carlos and the others: “We’re on our way.”
60
Samana Cay
Kaden, Bo, Nico, Bailey, and the girls pulled up to the entrance of Fantasy Live Resort and parked. They decided it would be safer if they didn’t split up, so everyone came along, including the driver and Lucid, who could get them a clean entrance and not set off any alarms.
The theater was a long, modern metal and glass structure, the largest building in sight. After Kaden jammed her SCAR into his back, Lucid waved his hand across the electronic touchpad at the northern entrance and the door whooshed open. A computerized voice said, “Welcome, Lucid and guests.”
They stepped inside what looked like a dark lobby. “Where are the lights?” Bo asked.
From behind, they heard the door lock click into place. Nico went up to the door, his big frame silhouetted against the day’s dying light. “I don’t like being locked in.”
Neither do I, Kaden thought. “Where’s Lucid? Get him to open it back up.”
They all looked around in the fragile light. Lucid and his driver were gone. Bailey checked the back of the room. “Inside doors are locked,” she reported. “He’s not here.”
A set of low-level lights flicked on around them, followed by a pair of bright lights above, revealing a slender white control booth. It hung twenty feet overhead and jutted into the lobby like a theater balcony. A plexiglass pane running across its length made it easy to see inside. She recognized the two figures.
Maxim Volkov and Paul Redman.
Volkov’s voice came from all directions. “Good of you to join us.”
Redman looked down on them, arms folded across his jacket. Volkov wore a gold and black helmet that made him look like one half of that old musical group, Daft Punk. But she doubted he was here to spin some jams.
Kaden nodded to Nico to take out the front entrance with his SCAR. “They know we’re here,” she said.
Nico released the safety on his smart rifle and pointed it at the glass entrance. “Stand back!” He pulled the trigger. Silence. “Not working!”
Kaden stepped next to him and aimed her smart rifle. Again, nothing.
A second set of lights appeared above and to their right, this time illuminating a booth with the same plexiglass pane but no computer console inside. Tosh, Carlos, Judy, Alex, Alice, and Charlie stood inside—the entire rest of their crew. Judy spotted her daughter Piper next to Nico and banged on the window, calling out for her, but the soundproof room swallowed her cries.
“Mom!” Piper called out plaintively, stepping closer to the soundproof booth.
“Silence!” Volkov commanded. “They cannot hear you.”
Volkov grabbed his helmet and lifted it off. He set it down on a narrow table, smoothed back his hair, and ran his fingers through his gray-brown beard. “No point in sustaining the legend any longer. Incognito is dead. Maxim Volkov is reborn.”
He held up a USB drive and showed it off. “Whoever controls the network controls destiny. Whoever controls the network controls reality. And the reality is that thirty minutes ago, one of our engineers noticed your flash drive in the Data Center. He reset the admin privileges and took back control.”
Kaden’s eyes swept over the faces of the others in her group. Bailey, Bo, Nico. And Ling, Piper, and Katarina, the three girls who’d breathed a few minutes of hope before it all came crashing down. They looked devastated.
Volkov turned toward Redman. “Paul Redman, a former silent partner in the Compact, has stepped up and shown his loyalty. As discussed, a large slice of your country, from Miami to Dallas, is your reward.”
“That’s generous of you,” Redman said.
Kaden looked up and saw Alice Wong crying, “No! No!” as she slammed her palm against the plexiglass.
Kaden projected her voice across the lobby. “Why, Redman? Why’d you sell us out?”
Redman looked to Volkov as if seeking permission. Volkov smiled and gave the slightest nod.
Redman peered across the lobby at Alice and Alex. “I do regret the way this turned out, Alex. Once I found out Alice sent you on an undercover assignment, I knew I had to intervene.”
And whisk their group of operatives into the waiting hands of that Samana Cay Swift boat, Kaden thought.
She saw Alex cursing Redman, jabbing his finger, his face a mask of rage. But the lobby was deathly silent.
“And you, Alice,” Redman went on. “Your predecessor asked a lot of questions, too. She signed an NDA so she could never discuss any of the tips about movers and shakers that poured into the newsroom—scandals involving CEOs, governors, presidents. Buying the rights to freelance investigative journalism and burying the stories proved to be a vastly more lucrative business model than actually running them. My vault is overflowing. But I never thought I’d have to do a catch and kill with a reporter on my own staff.”
“Enough of the past,” Volkov cut him off. “In a matter of days, as soon as we deliver the final payload, civilization will get a hard reboot. Our past lives, past identities will no longer matter. The Transition will cleanse the West and prepare us for the Reset.”
Volkov looked down on his captives. He bent forward to enter commands on his console, cutting off the audio feed. He said something to Redman. They turned and exited the booth.
Fifteen minutes passed with no movement around them. They explored every inch of the lobby but found no weak spots they could exploit.
From the back of the room, a doorframe lit up a bright blue. A guardsman stepped through the doorway, followed by another and another—ten in all. Half carried SCAR assault rifles, half were armed with military-style handguns, and all were dressed in military fatigues and berets. They formed a circle around Kaden.
“Kaden Baker, come with us,” ordered the guard she took to be the unit commander.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She thrust her head back.
“All right. We’ll take your sister instead.” The commander waved his gun at Bailey. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Stop!” Kaden saw she was out of options. “I’ll go.”
She followed the first five guards through the blue door while the remaining guards followed close behind.
The Guardians led her through a narrow hallway. They emerged in front of a large clear machine that reminded her of a TSA full-body scanner. “Step inside, hands over your head. Then hold still,” the commander said.
She stepped into the cylinder and watched as a thin red light scann
ed her from head to foot, zipping up and down with a buzzing sound every three or four seconds. She felt nothing. After a half minute they ordered her to step through a security gate. Two of the soldiers followed on her heels.
Kaden looked around at what appeared to be a waiting room. A severe-looking woman, dressed like an executive assistant and wearing too much rouge makeup, removed the earpiece from Kaden’s ear and placed it on a side table. She handed Kaden a neatly pressed dress and shopping bag. “Put this on.” She opened the door to a changing room.
Not much time. The Wi-Fi in here was still good, so Kaden began signing commands to Amelia.
Amelia, get word to Viper about all the captives being held in the Fantasy Theater.
Amelia replied, Message sent!
Thanks. Next, is there any way to get eyes on the room I’m about to enter?
Let me work on it. When we had control over the servers, I created an alias as a systems engineer as a backup in case we lost our super admin privileges. Should be able to log in. Also downloaded the schematics to all the buildings at Fantasy Live Resort as a precautionary measure.
Kaden thought, Good thing I set up those proactive protocols for Amelia.
Two quick raps on the door. “Is everything all right in there? He’s waiting.”
Damn! “Just a minute, almost there!”
She shimmied out of her shorts and peeled off her T-shirt. Then she slipped into the outfit, a stylish, low-cut red cocktail dress with an Eastern European flair, a bare back, padded shoulders, and a wrap front that ran up high and exposed most of her legs. She plucked out the items from the shopping bag: sheer stockings and a pair of black strappy high heels. She checked herself in the mirror. She looked like the hostess for some Russian dacha dinner party or something.