by Ramona Finn
“You still don’t trust me?” Jarid asked, getting in Syeth’s face.
“I trust that you’re not on BioPure’s side, but I also don’t trust your judgment. You don’t even know what they’re going to do with the cure today. You were tricked once, so they might well think you’re a willing target and able to get tricked again.”
“That’s great,” Jarid said. “So, what are you going to do? Act like Sledge and fire the place up when you arrive?”
“Not at all,” Syeth said. “I’m going to be there to help in case something goes wrong.”
Jarid sighed heavily. “Fine. Just don’t get in my way. They trust the Unpaired less than they do BioPure.”
Syeth removed the armband from his uniform. “It’s a good thing I’m not Unpaired anymore.”
The neutral site where we were to meet the managers was a bombed-out commercial area about a mile from the safehouse. We hadn’t let them know where we were located, and I doubted they were willing to give up many of their secrets, either. We were close enough to the border of BioPure-controlled territory to cause extra worry that we were being tracked. I tried my hardest to trust Jarid’s contacts, but we wouldn’t know anything for sure until the meeting.
The site was a dilapidated office of a defunct biotech company where the oldest of the coup managers had used to work before the original Zero crisis had come about. There was an SUV outside the building, and Syeth lifted his gun from his belt.
“That’s a nice way to greet them,” Jarid said with a snort.
Syeth sniffed in annoyance and holstered the pistol, but his hand rested on it—ready to pull it out at a moment’s notice.
We walked through the lobby, finding that debris and a thick layer of dust covered the floor. I coughed a few times, unable to dislodge the dirt from my lungs until Syeth handed me his water.
“Thanks,” I said as my feet crunched over the floor.
“Psst,” a voice called from our right.
Syeth moved in front of us as we faced an older man who was probably in his fifties. He had salt and pepper hair, and wrinkles cutting across his face.
“Marcus,” Jarid said, moving away from Syeth and me. They shook hands, but Marcus held our gaze.
“We’re in here.”
Inside the conference room was a large table with only a few chairs and three other people. They wore various shades of white outfits.
Jarid introduced two of them as the other managers—Felicity and Hester. Felicity was a short, squat woman with frizzy hair and a questioning eye. Hester was a thin woman of average height with pale blonde hair, and she looked as if a weak breeze could knock her down.
A man sat next to Felicity, and he appeared to match her in size. She introduced him as her husband. I had never met this man, but I recognized the blank stare of someone infected with New Zero.
We were testing the cure now. It was the best-case scenario since I hadn’t seen the cure work in person since retrieving it from my memory and had only gotten the word of the laboratory techs. And we wouldn’t have to wait long for an answer from them. I knew the cure worked, and soon enough, they would, too.
“This is my husband, Boris,” Felicity said, eyeing Syeth.
He stood by the door, his hand on his gun. Her eyes narrowed. The distrust between the sides was palpable.
“That’s my brother, obviously.” Jarid chuckled, trying to make a joke, but the others didn’t join his laughter. “He wanted to accompany us and meet all of you.”
While their distrust was a bit disconcerting, I understood that they wanted to be on Jarid’s side. They didn’t need to be there. They could have betrayed us already, but they looked more scared than anything else, and they were nothing like Mia.
“I’m Lora Flannigan,” I said to the group. “My father helped create the cure. Many people I love are infected, and I would like to help your husband, Felicity. If you’re willing.”
“Boris has been getting treatments from BioPure, but it hasn’t been working and he’s only getting worse, so I stopped them. Will this bring back all of his memories?”
“Yes, and those he’s gained while afflicted with New Zero, too.”
Felicity squeezed his shoulders, and he jumped as if he hadn’t realized where he was. Her lower lip trembled, but she held her composure.
I walked over to Boris. I placed my bag on the table and opened it as slowly as I could. Boris looked up at me with wide eyes. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve done this a bunch of times. I’ve heard that it barely feels like a pinch.”
Boris smiled up at me. “Are you a doctor? What’s wrong with my head?”
I smiled back at him. “I’m not a doctor, but I’m here to help you feel better. Are you ready?”
I glanced at Felicity, who nodded before rolling up one of his sleeves. Loading a syringe, I quickly swabbed a spot on the inside of his arm with rubbing alcohol before warning him of the impending pinch. A lot had changed since I’d had to let that nurse give my dad his injection; after all of our work in the lab and all of our testing, this was old hat to me.
Without prolonging the process, I injected him as quickly as I could. Once they saw it work, maybe the tension in the room would lessen.
Putting the cap back on the syringe, I stepped back while the managers drew closer to observe him. Silently counting backwards from ten, I made it to three before the haze and fog over the volunteer’s eyes cleared. Boris stood up and faced his wife. “Fel. Oh my gosh. I remember. I remember everything.”
Heat stung my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I would ever get used to any of the New Zero patients coming back into their own minds, recollecting everything they’d experienced before and during their infection. He glanced around with new clarity and tears in his eyes before Felicity sobbed and fell into her husband’s arms.
Marcus and Hester went up to them, checking out Boris.
“This is incredible,” Marcus said. “It’s so much different than the one that BioPure has been peddling around. Even physical clarity is much quicker and clearer.”
“So, you’re in?” Jarid asked.
“We want to be sure the cure sticks,” Hester said. “You understand that.”
“Absolutely,” Jarid said.
Marcus turned to face our group with a little less anxiety than he’d shown before. “If it’s still active in three days, we’ll help you remove Sledge and take down BioPure.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It had been three days since the cure had worked for Boris, and the BioPure managers had been elated, immediately agreeing to help.
“Do we still agree that this is a good idea?” Jarid asked through the phone. Syeth had him on the speaker on a secured line from within the boundaries of BioPure, where he was now back to work. He’d had to endure intense scrutiny from some of the higher-ups, but that had been short-lived since everyone at the company was busy promoting or working on the modified cure. While the pressure was currently off of him, he was doing his best to keep a low profile while coordinating the other managers to gain additional allies.
Now, Syeth and I were standing outside the Unpaired base and hoping to convince the Unpaired commanders to help, too. We needed to attack BioPure from both sides, and our plan wouldn’t work without everyone working together.
“Not at all,” Syeth said. “But she agreed to meet with us.”
We peered at the school in front of us. Beyond it was the Unpaired bunker, where we had to talk to Isra.
The Unpaired losses had been staggering once all the bodies were counted. The Unpaired had anticipated some pushback when they’d raided the warehouse, but no one had expected the large-scale, pitched battle, which our side couldn’t have won—especially after Sledge had called in air support and artillery. And when all was said and done, Isra had never gotten her revenge against Jarid since we’d managed to get him to safety. Would she make that a condition of helping us now?
I hated the idea of having to work with Isra, and I wor
ried over what conditions she would place on assisting us. “Harper got us in touch with the rebels in New Manhattan; maybe they will be enough and we won’t need the Unpaired here.” Even as I’d said the words, I knew the answer. Going up against a much larger force, there was too much potential for things to go south. We would need every able fighter on our side.
We had heard that Isra was promoted to the commander in charge of the Unpaired in Chicago, and we suspected that was mostly due to the sheer losses the rebels and Unpaired had faced. Not that she didn’t deserve it, as far as I was concerned; she had more field experience than many of our other soldiers. Her being on top, she was the only one we needed to convince of our plan. On the way there, we’d debated leaving Jarid out of it for fear of her still insisting on his head on a platter, but after much discussion, we’d decided the best way to work with her was to be upfront about working with Jarid. He was our inside man, and there was no way we could take down Sledge without him. Besides, she wouldn’t be a good commander if she turned down intelligence needed by our side.
We always had the bargaining chip of us being the discoverers of the cure to use, too. We were being lauded as heroes, so that had to count for something. Right?
“They’re coming.” Syeth didn’t grab for his rifle as he might have over any other potential danger. We couldn’t give them reason to feel threatened. Not now.
Isra strode toward us where we still waited at the base gate, followed by a half dozen Unpaired guards holding their rifles at the ready. As she neared, I caught a glimpse of the jagged wound cutting across the side of her face. It was pink, and looked to be as healed as it would ever get without a biomod to remove it. The other rebels had mentioned how sensitive she was about her shrapnel wound, so I tried to focus on her eyes instead.
“You’ve got some guts, coming back here,” Isra spat.
“We need to talk,” Syeth told her, ignoring her verbal jab.
Isra sighed and gestured to her bodyguards to stand at ease. “I assumed that when you said you were coming here to speak with me. Where’s Jarid? I can practically smell him on you two. Neither of you defied the rebel agenda until you connected with him again.”
“We have a plan to take down BioPure for good. Are you interested in hearing more?” Syeth asked her. From the way he fisted his hands and relaxed them, I could tell he was itching to say more.
“Where have I heard that before?” she asked, not moving from her position at the gate.
“We said we’d find the cure. We did that,” I said.
“At the cost of my men!” she shouted.
“Wars do that,” Syeth said. “We’re here to end it. Just let us in so we can talk.”
Isra lifted her chin. With the sun on her face, her wound appeared even brighter than it had. She looked like she planned to argue more, but then she stepped to the side and waited as one of the guards opened the gate for us to come in. Turning without a word, she headed back to the school. We followed behind her, flanked by the guards.
The walk through the rebel camp didn’t go unnoticed. Several lab techs on the way to work stopped in their tracks when they saw us. I gave them a small wave, silently promising that we’d visit soon.
In Isra’s office, we were surprised when two other officers followed her in, taking a position along the wall near the door. Syeth and I sat down, expecting her to take a seat behind her desk, but she came around the front to perch on the end of the desk with her arms crossed. We looked at each other in one last silent confirmation that we were really doing this, and then we began to tell her everything. Starting with Jarid drawing out the managers and showing them the cure, we worked to him going back inside to coordinate with the managers to convert others to our side and help bring Sledge down.
“You think middle-managers can get us close to him?” Isra asked. “Sledge is paranoid these days. Even more than usual. He surrounds himself with impenetrable security and multiple layers of quarantine to keep New Zero out.”
“He’s planning an event,” Syeth said, relaying the information we had from Jarid. It was the only opportunity to get to him, and it was scheduled for when he was most vulnerable to the public. “It’s a massive rally to announce BioPure’s successful development of the cure before they begin rolling it out to the public.”
The doctored “cure” would include wide-scale distribution of biomods that would make people more docile and easier to control.
“It’s why they haven’t released the version of the cure that we already have,” I said. “There’ve been delays getting the additives to work.”
“Where is this event?” Isra asked.
“It’s in New York,” Syeth said. “At BioPure Field.”
When I lived in New Manhattan, I’d only seen the big and flashy glass-and-steel stadium from a distance. It had been reserved for Level Two and One citizens only.
“He’ll be in the open there, surrounded by people. It’s the only opportunity we’ll have,” Syeth added.
“What about the harmonic shielding? He wouldn’t be stupid enough to stand on an open stage without protection.”
“Jarid said BioPure has rifles, which have specific tuning to pierce the magnetic fields, removing the bulletproof screens and making them penetrable enough for us to take him down,” Syeth said.
Isra’s eyes widened with interest. “You have access to these rifles?”
“The managers will hand them off to the Unpaired whenever you want,” I said.
Her eyebrows lifted. At her reaction to the mention of weaponry, I knew we had her.
Syeth tapped his fingers on the edge of his seat as if he’d started to believe in this plan with as much conviction as Jarid. His excitement was infectious, but we still needed to get Isra on board. “With their pull, they can get us inside the rally via compromised security.”
“It’s a good plan. In theory.”
“What questions do you have?” Syeth asked.
Isra reached up to touch her scar, but her delicate fingers hovered over it as if she questioned scratching the sensitive pink skin. “It’s risky. We’re already down in numbers. Entering a facility like that, we could end up on a suicide mission—ending the Unpaired for good.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t need your soldiers for the stadium work. We’ve connected with rebels in New Manhattan and surrounding areas. We have strike teams available who are connected within the city and will be able to enter unnoticed. We’re not interested in another incident like what happened at the lab. We’re hoping to minimize the bloodshed as much as possible.”
“So, where do we come in?”
Syeth took up the plan as he told her, “There’s a base just outside of the city that Sledge will call on for support once he realizes he’s under attack. We need the Unpaired to secure the base, take out their air support, and prevent any soldiers from leaving.”
“If everything goes according to plan, they won’t expect the attack and you should be able to secure the base before they realize what hit them,” I added, hoping I wasn’t pushing too hard. From the look on her face, she was still interested.
“Tell me how that’s going to work,” Isra said.
“One of the managers will hack into the system and release the BioPure records, showing that the company has been illegally testing biomods on the public. They’ll ping the information to everyone in the stadium and the city. Once the citizens realize what their government is doing, we’re expecting mass outrage.”
“Then what? Will the citizens rush the stage and take down Sledge? They’re no match for his elite security team. Civilians will die.”
I couldn’t help smirking at the next part of our plan. “You’re right. That would be suicide; especially with his elite force hopped up on biomods that keep them in peak fighting form. No. The managers will provide some of the rebels, who will be infiltrating the stadium, with the same top-flight biomods his elite team uses. Once they are juiced up, it will be their job to take out the
elite force. Then, our team will take out Sledge.”
“We all need to work together so that we’re able to take down BioPure,” Syeth said. “Once the citizens see the records, we’ll need to attack simultaneously, both outside and inside the stadium. That way, Sledge won’t have any back-up.”
Isra sniffed and nodded her agreement—at least with that part. No doubt, she was recalling the previous raid where that final airstrike had destroyed most of their forces.
“These people are smart,” Syeth said. “They have loved ones attending this event, and all we want to do is expose the truth. Working together is the only way that we can succeed and take down Sledge once and for all.”
Isra crossed her arms and walked over to her commanders. They spoke in hushed tones—enough that I couldn't hear their exact words.
Syeth’s hand snaked over mine and squeezed. I wanted to feel reassured, but I wouldn’t be until Isra agreed.
“We know the base you’re talking about,” Isra said after a few minutes of deliberation. The masks of impassivity from the other commanders stared back at us. I had no idea if they were willing to help or not. She turned to her commanders asking them, “With your intelligence on the location, tell me if we can raid it successfully. With our current numbers, as well.”
A somewhat intimidating guy with tattoos racing up and around his neck stepped forward. His hands remained clasped behind his back as he looked at Isra and Isra alone while he spoke. “The main issue isn’t the base. It’s getting from here to New York intact. Traveling with a group large enough to complete the task at hand is going to be tricky.”
“But not impossible?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not impossible.”
“Possibly suicidal,” the female commander said. She was as tall as the tattooed guy and had a grimace across her face that could have made a flower wilt.
“We’d be risking more soldiers than we have to spare,” the female commander said. “If we wait until Sledge is back in Chicago, at least we don’t have to use all of our resources to get there.”