Lost Hope (The Bridge Sequence Book Three)

by Nathan Hystad

  “He had a reading room,” I reminded him. “Off the back porch. Lots of sunlight. Perfect for those with a green thumb.”

  That was where we went, with Lewen guarding the entrance. Tripp shoved open the double glass French doors, and we stared into the room. I held a flashlight, aiming it at the rows of books. One was dogeared on a table beside Hunter’s reading chair—Rewa’s chair, I corrected myself. The Zalt had been inside Hunter for decades, and that was the only version of the man we’d met.

  “There!” Veronica saw the plants before I did, and I followed her, my beam settling on them.

  “They’re dead,” Tripp groaned.

  I stuck my finger into the dirt of the first pot, and it was bone-dry. The snake plant was huge, the stalks stretching almost five feet, but they were brown and crispy. They’d been neglected. There were five pots, with various species of shrivelled plants.

  Glass shattered at the same moment Lewen shouted at us. I glanced behind me, seeing a red beam on the wall. Tripp was already on the move. I tackled Veronica as bullets splintered the expansive windows facing the yard. We fell in a heap, and one of the pots was destroyed. Pieces of clay fell on us as we held arms over our heads. Tripp returned fire from the next room.

  “Hurry up! Grab the damned sample!” he yelled.

  More gunfire hit the wall, ruining Hunter’s comfy chair. Fluffy stuffing shot into the air, snowing onto the hardwood.

  “Where is it?” I crawled, dragging myself on my elbows. The first was something I didn’t know the name for. My mother had always called them Swiss cheese. Then I found it: the same stubby leaf from the drawing. Only these were curled up, dried and dead.

  I pulled the pot closer and dug my fingers into the soil, seeking signs of life.

  Tripp shouted from nearby, and Lewen was firing from the front door, but the incoming assault had slowed. My fingers caressed the leaves, and I tried my best to use the flashlight to see. Tucked near the base in the middle of the plant was a single green leaf. I plucked it carefully, and took a few of the dried ones for good measure.

  “Let’s go,” I told Veronica. She didn’t have to be told twice. She stayed low, and we found Tripp near the back doors.

  “There’s two of them out here. Probably more out front.”

  “How did they know we’d come?” Veronica asked.

  “They didn’t,” Tripp said. “The Believers must have finally set guards to watch for anybody. We came, they fired. Jessica would have ordered them to kill on sight.”

  Lewen was by the front doors. She was bleeding from the thigh. “I’ve been hit.”

  “How many?” Tripp asked.

  “They’re solo.” Lewen’s lavender eyes were darker in this light. “You three go. I’ll draw them away.”

  “No. We can fight them,” I told her.

  “There isn’t time. We failed you, Rex Walker. Let me do this for you. Get to the Zalt. Complete your mission.”

  I was about to interject when Lewen sprang ahead, limping as she ran past the front door. Her weapon barked out five shots into the dark, and she rounded the house, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Tripp shoved me outside and stayed between us and any potential threats. We managed to cross the yard without issue, and when we entered the ship, I took one last glance, eager to find Lewen nearby. But all was silent.

  “Stop gawking.” Tripp hit the button, and the ramp closed. I saw a concealed figure watching us from the side of the mansion.

  Veronica threw the ship into the air and flew us straight south.

  3

  The farther Dirk went, the more worried he became. The walls felt like they were narrowing, and the air grew staler. He’d trudged through the metallic underground corridors for ten minutes without a sign of Opor. There had been no doorways either, which was extremely odd.

  Water pooled along the floors, with nowhere to drain. Dirk suspected that given enough years, this entire hall would be filled with rainwater from above.

  This had to be the destination Opor had mentioned, but why had she abandoned him like that? Rewa was an unlikely ally, and the longer he walked alone, the more he realized Rewa wasn’t a friend at all.

  Finally, Dirk spied an end to the corridor. There was no door, just a frame. He slowed as he neared it, resting a hand on the edge. A dim light cast shadows from the far side of a large circular space. Opor’s body was near the lights, and he crept closer, trying not to startle her. The light ran along the borders of another door frame, this one wasn’t set into the wall. It centered the room like a gateway.

  “Opor,” he whispered, suddenly not wanting to be alone in this place, but she didn’t respond. Dirk walked up to her and saw she wasn’t moving. He stepped in front of her and noticed her mouth was opened slightly, and her eyes were squinting. Rewa was gone, because they’d reverted to their usual color.

  “Opor!” he shouted, but she didn’t budge or blink. He caressed her cheek. She was cold, and her feet weren’t touching the ground. Her toes were pointed down, dangling an inch from the floor. She was stuck like that, in suspended animation.

  Dirk’s breath caught, and he staggered back. “What’s happening?”

  He tried to remember the tidbits Opor had spoken to him about their destination. She’d said they could travel to the Objects. He’d assumed she meant with their minds, not physically. Maybe he was wrong.

  The lights around the frame were a soft green, and they changed intensity as he stepped into it. He waved a hand, and nothing happened. “Bring me to your vessel!”

  The shouting fell flat against the metal shrouded room.

  He stared at Opor, wondering if he could take her away. Drag her outside on Rimia and see if she’d recover as herself.

  Dirk grabbed hold of her waist, attempting to move her, but she stayed firm. She was frozen in place. It was like she was floating in water and trapped in ice at the same time.

  “Opor,” he whispered, and thought he saw the slightest flicker in her eyelid.

  They’d come to fend off the Zalt invasion of Earth, and that was what Dirk would do. He set his attention on the door frame, trying to figure out how it worked.

  ____________

  Marcus lifted the hood of the giant one-ton truck, but had no idea where to start.

  Bill leaned over it, getting grease on his vest. “Distributor cap loose. Told you.”

  “How do you know so much about these?” Marcus asked him.

  “Dad was into this kind of thing. If we didn’t have some crappy old International truck in the drive, it was a bad sign. It meant there weren’t going to be any presents under the tree that year. That’s how my parents operated. Or my dad, at least. It was all or nothing. There was no saving for a rainy day. And for a few years, it rained a lot.” Bill slammed the hood shut and nodded to Evan in the driver’s seat. The engine choked and gurgled, but she fired up.

  “Good work, Bill. If this radio career doesn’t pan out, maybe you can get a job at the Bureau’s shop.” Evan winked.

  Marcus struggled to think of the future at the moment. With each passing minute, the chances of success decreased. “Can we discuss that later?”

  The truck was inside the third bay, and they had the loading zone door opened. The ramp led to the cracked parking lot, and Evan drove the vehicle outside. It made terrible noises, but Bill assured them it would run for at least twenty minutes. He’d mixed some old stabilizer into the fuel with a hope and a prayer, but so far, it was working.

  The Rodax soldiers lined a path, and Gren was at the end, holding a gun. “We’re coming in for extraction in two hours. Don’t be late.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Marcus said.

  They’d considered leaving someone behind, but in the end, a single person would be just as suspicious as three. From what they’d witnessed, hordes of Zalt-infested humans were walking to the hub, so they wouldn’t stand out.

  “We’d better not waste our luck
.” Bill nodded to the Rodax and opened the passenger door. Marcus hopped in first. He was much smaller than the radio personality and took the middle seat. Evan threw the truck into drive and lurched forward as soon as Bill had the door closed.

  “That smell.” Bill inhaled deeply. “Stale cigarettes, whiskey, and broken dreams.”

  “You should market that to the air-freshener people. Could make a killing,” Evan joked.

  “What’s gotten you in such a good mood?” Marcus asked.

  “Marcus, when you live to be my age…”

  “Shut up, Evan,” Bill said. “What are you, forty?”

  “So…”

  “Wait until you’re sixty.” Bill rolled the window down, and Marcus felt the chilly early morning breeze.

  “Can we just skip to it?” Marcus prompted.

  “We’ve already won, Marcus. We’ve managed to get this far. Remember the meeting near Boulder?” Evan grinned at him.

  Marcus gritted his teeth. “Sure. I was tied up to a girl and she died.”

  “You made it. Rex went to another planet. Two of them!” Evan was almost laughing hysterically. “Can you imagine? All we need to do is shut this hub off, and you have the tablet to make it so.”

  “It’s not so simple,” Marcus reminded him.

  “Think of it like piecework on the line at a factory. We have one job. When it’s over, we can go on break. Maybe crack a few beers and wait for the end of the day.” Evan signaled out of habit as they turned to head south. The truck creaked and groaned in protest as they crested a slight elevation change.

  “Evan’s right, Marcus. We finish this, we can count our blessings.” It appeared that Bill had joined Evan in drinking the Kool-Aid.

  “Okay, whatever you guys say.” Marcus glanced at the tablet. A red light blinked in the top corner, and he investigated. The battery was dying. He didn’t tell the others. There was no point in worrying them.

  The sky was brightening with the promise of a new day, and Evan took his time with the truck, not willing to push the limits or risk blowing out an old tire. Marcus noticed a stream of people walking toward the hub’s location, and he saw the faint glow of the shield barrier around the robotic alien device.

  “Crap, it’s giving out.” Evan pulled to the side of the road as steam hissed from under the hood.

  “We go on foot from here.” Bill was out of the truck in a flash, walking down the gravel road. There was nothing but dried farmland for miles.

  Marcus looked at the tablet one more time before putting it into his jacket. The battery had to last, or all was hope was gone.

  In a few minutes, they saw the first car parked on the street. The driver was dead, his cheek smeared against the window. The passenger door was open, and the chime rang softly from the dash.

  The closer they got to the throngs of Zalt, the more bodies there were. They went in line with the people marching for the hub, and Marcus tried to emulate them. Not many spoke, and they strode with purpose.

  Marcus lost count of corpses when he got to one hundred. Some had been killed in the attack by the hub earlier. Others would have died when the Zalt descended from the Objects once the network connected. There had been hundreds, maybe thousands of curious onlookers, and now they were either on the ground or circling the hub with an alien in their brain. Marcus wasn’t sure which was preferable.

  The gravel roads met at an intersection, and the crowd of people started to slow. It stank here in the fresh morning air. A nearby farm had cows, and their scent mixed with the body odor of the gathered, making Marcus feel sick to his stomach.

  Bill closed in on him, whispering in his ear. “They’re too slow. Too many people.”

  Marcus risked a quick check on the tablet. They needed to go another mile to be within range.

  “Come on,” Marcus said, walking off the road. He climbed over a wooden fence with three rows of chicken wire, and jogged.

  The Zalt paid little attention to them. They were focused on the light emitting from the center of the hub’s barrier. It was weak at first, but gained in brightness as it shot into the sky.

  Marcus feared the worst.

  ____________

  Lewen’s sacrifice weighed heavily on my mind. We could have prevented her death. We’d already lost Baska. If something happened to Gren and the others, I doubted we’d ever find our way back to Kabos. I struggled to decide if that was a good thing or not.

  The cabin of the ship felt empty without her. Three humans on a Rodax spacecraft.

  “This sucks,” Tripp told us.

  “I hear you,” I agreed.

  “No.” He leaned into his straps, shaking his head. His hair dropped over his eyes. “It’s terrible. A Zalt has your sister, and we’re planning to waltz in, offering them the Bridge? They’ll shoot us on sight.”

  “We’re doing it, Tripp.” Veronica’s tone meant there was no further discussion, but Tripp went on anyway.

  “There’s always another choice, Ronnie,” he said.

  I tried to remember Veronica as Ronnie Belvedere, the little blonde girl, thin as a twig, eyes bigger than the moon. I pictured her at Clayton’s funeral. They’d held it a week after Dirk’s. I could hardly bring myself to dress that day. The energy had been sapped from my entire family when we conceded that Dirk Walker must in fact be officially dead. The funeral had been one of the cruelest days of my life. Then we’d been told by our mother that we had to attend Clayton’s service.

  Bev had accepted the news with the same resigned expression she’d perfected. She couldn’t disobey her mother, not even close. I’d fought tooth and nail to stay home. All I wanted to do was remain in bed. Because when I did, I sometimes dreamt of Dad. He’d be on an adventure somewhere. Now I wondered if maybe I was catching a glimpse of him on Rimia. It was a possibility.

  “We’ll arrive in twelve minutes,” Veronica told us.

  “Rex, this might be it for us.” Tripp was never the most happy-go-lucky guy, but this was a side he rarely showed. “What did I even do with my life?”

  “Sounds like you did a lot,” I reminded him.

  “As in killed a lot of people? Then yes, you’re accurate.” Tripp was looking for something here, and I humored him, eager to ease his troubled mind.

  “You signed up for it. Is it that different than what we’re doing now?” I asked.

  Tripp gripped the straps, pulling on them. “I hated him. You know that? My father. The man was a complete prick. He drank too much. Treated my mom like she didn’t exist, which was better than the alternative, I suppose. I swore I’d never be like him. I was a military brat. Moved around the world. It’s what got me interested in working special ops. In the end, when I look in the mirror, I can’t help but see him. My father. I’m a damned replica.” He rubbed his stubble.

  “You’re Tripp Davis. You’ve saved both of us, led us into the heart of danger, and did it with class. Now stop wallowing in your past and focus!” Veronica nearly shouted the words, and Tripp’s lips sealed.

  “You think you’re the only guy with regrets? We all have them. Every single person on this planet. So clear your mind and pay attention, because without the three of us, nothing will matter within a couple of hours.”

  I glanced at my watch. Less than two hours.

  The ocean rolled continuously, a constant in our sea of unknowns. We were close, heading south over the coastline. The sun was up, casting glares across the waves, and I averted my gaze.

  The Bridge sat in the sack under my feet, and I tugged the ropes open. I hefted the Case out, recalling the moment Marcus and I had discovered it in Venezuela. If I’d understood what pain and torment the device would bring, I might have left it in hiding.

  I removed one Token, then the next. They were heavy, the symbols imprinted inside the smooth faces. I clicked them into place from memory.

  “Planning on taking a vacation?” Tripp asked.

  “Maybe. I hear Rimia is nice this time of year,” I joked.

&nbs
p; Tripp frowned and leaned toward me. “Sorry for freaking out. I’m here with you.”

  “Don’t sweat it.”

  I lifted a single Token and placed it into my pocket beside the seventh, then returned the Bridge into the bag, and held on like it might vanish if I let it go.

  “Rex, we’re almost there. I’m initiating the landing sequence,” Veronica told me.

  My nerves flared. I don’t think I’d ever felt so anxious for anything in my life.

  Tripp and I stood while she flew the ship in the middle of the yard. The place had changed. Twenty black SUVs were lined up near the estate’s garage, and there were hundreds of people watching us descend.

  “They’ve called in the cavalry.” Tripp pointed to the road beyond the property, saturated with a huge military presence. Two helicopters rose from behind the estate, big camouflage army birds.

  To me it didn’t matter what kind of force they had. I was here to accomplish the same goal.

  I sensed hesitation in Veronica, but she finally landed.

  With a quick double check that the herbs were in my other pocket, I followed Tripp from the cabin. Veronica grabbed my hand before we exited and kissed me. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it before. You know, when you told me you loved me.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I do. I think I do.”

  “Do what?” I goaded her.

  “I love you too, Rex Walker.”

  I kissed her again, this time savoring it.

  “If you’re done making out, we’ve got company.” Tripp hit the ramp release, and the doors opened, the steps extending.

  All three of us faced the incoming women.

  Jessica walked quickly, her determined steps deciding the pace. Beverly went at a more casual stroll, like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Hello, brother. Come give your big sis a hug.” Bev’s eyes gleamed black like oil.

  4

  “Excuse me,” Bill said, walking past the woman. She didn’t seem to notice him. Her eyes were closed, and she whispered something in another language. Probably the Unknowns’, or the Zalt… whatever they were.