The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2

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The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2 Page 24

by Michael Evans


  I go all out, exuding every last bit of strength in my body into a storm of concentrated energy that thunders out from my fists and connects with the window. That description, however, makes it sound way cooler than it actually was. My fists accomplish absolutely nothing in the goal of breaking the glass. The only thing my rapid punches against the window result in are bruised, bloody knuckles and a numb sensation in both my fists.

  It’s safe to say that if I didn’t break something from that, I got damn close to it.

  But that’s the last thing on my mind.

  Only one thought echoes in my mind above the beeping of the alarm, gunshots that are now being shot behind me with increasing frequency, and the high-pitched screeching of Jake having a full-blown anxiety attack.

  We are about to die.

  My heart is pounding so fast in my chest that the rapid beats of my heart turn into one constant stream of pulsation that makes the tips of my arms and legs feel like a bunch of needles are jabbing into them.

  The shock is too powerful for even an ounce of sadness to register in my mind.

  There’s not even enough time to think about the fact that I am letting my father down once and for all, that I am letting the world down. There’s not even enough time to think about how many millions of people may die in the future all because Justin caught me and Jake in the woods.

  Death is here.

  I can’t do anything about it but wait for the darkness to overcome me.

  But it never does.

  The beeping of the alarm shuts off, and in the same moment the screaming and gunshots echoing inside the aircraft cease to a halt. A punishing silence envelops my ears, and I stare at the window, not knowing if the trees feet below me are real or visions from an imaginary world that I have now entered.

  When the sound of the propellers whizzing back on hits my ears, I know I am not dead. The force of gravity lets up on my body. One minute picking my face off the ground proved to be a feat of extreme strength, but in real time I can feel the wave of force crashing down on me receding into nothingness.

  My body falls back to the floor as an explosion of force jerks the helicopter back into an upright position. The terror coursing through me is so intense that the low hum of the propellers accelerating against the force of gravity doesn’t even appear real.

  I stand up on the floor, my legs shaking and breaths erratic as I try to come to terms with reality that is happening so fast that my brain is having trouble processing it.

  The marble floor tiles feel firm beneath my feet as I rub a hand against the cold metal wall next to me that my body lay against for the entirety of the fall.

  I glance at Jake, who is regaining his footing, his curly hair looking more like the end of a mop than something that would grow on a human’s body.

  I smile as I finally realize what is happening. This helicopter from hell must be specially programmed to enter some sort of death sequence. The automated navigation features and propulsion devices on the vehicle saved us, but they wanted us to feel like we were about to die.

  The voice over the loudspeaker confirms my suspicion. The second the same speakers that were once beeping in a terrible pitch emit the voice of Charles, the Syndicate henchman that has tortured me numerous times and killed Riva with his own bare hands, I feel my chest tighten as one of the operatives lets out a fearful scream.

  “If any of you need more convincing that we are the ones who make the deals around here, feel free to speak up.” I don’t even need to see his facial expression to know that behind his airy, giddy tone is a wide smile. “We have a lot more where that came from.”

  “You fucking bastard,” I spit out, the lack of control I have over my breathing making the words putter out of me pathetically. Although I am staring directly at one of the lights, hoping that Charles can feel the energy of my stare, I can see the operatives regaining their composures out of the corner of my eyes.

  Their guns are all pointed directly at me.

  “If you say one more word, you will be killed.” Charles’s voice echoes throughout the aircraft. His words send chills down my spine.

  Both Ai and Jake stare at me in the silence that follows.

  Everyone is waiting for me to say something, for me to let one word roll off my tongue that will cause the tension in the room to explode.

  Then the door to the pilot’s cabin opens up.

  The second I see the wispy white hair and olive skin, I know exactly who it is. He has a backpack in his hands, the same backpack that contains the Chimera Cube, and a wicked smile on his face that will haunt my daydreams and nightmares for the rest of my life.

  His skin looks even more wrinkly form the last time I saw him, with discolored patches appearing on his face like cold, reptilian scales.

  It’s Charles.

  “It’s all fun and games until someone dies.” He laughs, holding up the bag as if it is a trophy collected from a hunt in the safari. “Oh, wait, it’s still fun then too.”

  I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off. I want to tear the flimsy black robe he is wearing and crack every one of his brittle bones until he becomes nothing more than a pile of dirt.

  But he holds up a finger to stop me.

  With the click of all three bullets loading into the chambers of the operatives, I don’t need any other reminder to stay quiet.

  The moment is out of my control now.

  He has the Chimera Cube.

  The Syndicate tricked us at our own game and now we have to suffer the consequences—this hell may never end.

  “We will be traveling nonstop to Beijing over the next ten hours. This thing has enough energy in its solar array to last for days.” Charles pats a hand on the doorframe to the pilot’s cabin. This must be his own personal aircraft designated for torture, how lovely. “We should arrive to the capitol building in the middle of the night. And when daytime comes, you two will be the new emperors of this country.”

  Charles eyes me and Jake, his facial expression at first serious until his dry lips give way to a crooked smile.

  “It’s time to begin our first step in taking over the world—together we will make sure our empire has no end.”

  He winks at me and then looks down at the bag with the Chimera Cube inside it. I don’t know what it is about his short, thick build and puny voice that makes me feel like he is hiding something beneath his clothes that I should stay away from.

  For the first time in a while, I feel genuinely scared when I stare into his eyes.

  Even if he can’t open that bag, he has all the power in the world in his hands. And as he closes the door to return to his refuge in the pilot’s cabin, I can’t help but think that I may never be able to fix this broken world if people like him exist.

  Chapter 27

  Beijing looks different when it’s asleep.

  No, I don’t mean that in any sort of creepy way, although now when I think about it, that thought sounds like something that would get me on a government watch list.

  What I mean is that the city has a different glow at night. With the billionaires sleeping in their penthouses and the millions of workers that keep this machine of a modern cosmopolitan city running back at home getting some shut-eye before they have to be up bright and early, the streets resemble a graveyard.

  For blocks and blocks there is nothing lining the sidewalks below but the hundreds of security cameras and infrared sensors that the Chinese government uses to monitor the people. Even at night, surveillance drones roam through the streets like a pack of birds flying away from a storm.

  We are currently at an elevation of over three thousand feet. The tallest skyscrapers are just a bit shorter than our elevation, their magnificent glowing spires cut through the clouds at the same level as this flying torture chamber that has buzzed at hundreds of miles per hour through the night sky. A sheet of wispy clouds blocks any light from the stars protruding into the veil of darkness that encapsulates this city. The only light comes fro
m the dull rays of moonlight that manage to slice through the clouds and the reflection of thousands of lamps off the glass windows of the skyscrapers.

  Something feels different about the skyline tonight.

  Maybe it’s because I know we are about to burn the entire city down.

  “I’ve been talking to one of the top leaders of the rén in Beijing for months.” Ai stands up from her seat, her balance a bit wobbly at first due to the high speed at which we are traveling above the city. Her short black hair that she always keeps beautifully brushed down one side of her head is messy, with thick strands falling over her forehead into her eyes. “There’s no way they would agree to a plan this risky. There’s no way.”

  “They might not have had an option.” Jake stares out at the suburbs of Beijing that are visible out of one of the windows, his voice groggy after finally talking for the first time in hours. He has a spaced-out expression on his face. He has been on another world for the entire flight from Tibet to Beijing.

  “None of that matters anymore.” I sigh, narrowing my eyes at the floor. We have been on a relentless mission to arrive at the Beijing capitol building before sunrise, and all I have been doing for the hours that this flight has dragged on is stare at the floor or ceiling and pick specific points in space to channel my anger into. “We have no other option right now. We have to do this.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Ai steps in my direction. She is back to talking so fast that all her words seem to slur together in one. For most of the flight she has been like this, constantly asking questions and wanting to know more when receiving answers. I can’t blame her.

  But I can’t help her either.

  I have no clue what is going on. I have already told her everything I know—but some things I can’t say in front of the Syndicate. Even if they already know, saying the truth about my dad, saying the truth about what they are ripping from this world is too much.

  I won’t do anything that will only bring another wicked smile to Charles’s face.

  “I’m not. I just do a good job at hiding my doubt.” I look up at her, my eyes likely bloodshot and my fists clenched with vexation. I have never been so angry in my life.

  I should have known this was going to happen all along.

  No one wins against the Syndicate.

  They are the ones who have designed the systems that this modern world runs off. This was their plan all along. They wanted me and Jake to escape to China in fear that the federal government in the United States would jail us for life.

  Every time I have tried to destroy them, they win in the end.

  When I tried to ruin the Chimera Promise, I instead helped them by creating the chaos they needed to enact their grand plan in America. After all, their entire goal with The Last Migration is to get a Syndicate insider elected into the White House so that they can then use the artificial intelligence program they developed through Chimera Life Pods to exert total control over the entire country.

  I essentially helped them more in that mission than any human on Earth besides my father. And in the process my dad died, Reno was taken away from me, and Riva was killed by the same man who is piloting this aircraft.

  This time I thought I had them beat.

  I thought Jake, Ai, and I could take over the Chinese government alone. I thought that with the Chimera Cube, I was untouchable. I thought I was the most powerful man to ever live.

  But now I realize that they wanted me to think those things all along.

  They wanted me to believe I had it all so that they could come in when I least expected it and take it all away from me. They wanted me to think that they were gone—that they had no clue where I was, when they probably had insiders at every monastery in Tibet prepared to let them know where I was all along.

  They won now.

  Charles has the Chimera Cube. Three Syndicate operatives are armed and ready to fire at us the second we don’t obey the commands of the brotherhood. And the Syndicate is about to take over China through an orchestrated terror attack on the city that is bound to kill hundreds of thousands.

  And all I want to do is shove my fist into my face.

  Because I know this was my fault. I know I could have prevented this, but now I have to deal with the reality that this city is about to explode and I’m going to be the one responsible for it.

  “Yeah, you do a good job hiding a lot of things.” She rolls her eyes. Her sarcastic tone has a way of cutting into my ego and making me feel more powerless and stupid than I already do. “Hiding the fact that you are an international fugitive, working with some secret organization vying for world domination, and that you currently have a technology that is probably highly illegal and has the potential to destroy the world. And I don’t know what else, we can call that a short list.”

  “We had to hide that stuff.” I refuse to look her back in her eyes although I can feel her menacing stare drilling into me. Jake shifts his gaze from the window to stare at us. All color has drained from his face, and by the way he is holding his stomach, he looks like he is about to vomit. “If we told you, we would have risked you getting killed.”

  “You know that’s not true. If you told me any of this, I would have said you were crazy, and my family would have never helped you.” She is hissing at me now, her words hitting me in a hard stream. “But now that you lied to us, you put us all in danger. No amount of money you give us will matter if we are all dead. And after tonight, that may just happen.”

  She refrains from physically assaulting me, but that is only because if she makes one aggressive move, the operatives will make sure it is the last time she ever talks. I open my mouth to respond to her, but the words never make it off the tip of my tongue.

  I don’t know what to say to her. I feel like a failure—I feel like I deserve whatever is coming for me. I thought I was invincible—but I was wrong. I thought I could hurt, even kill people to achieve my father’s grand vision for the world, but I realize now that makes me no better than any of them.

  I got caught up in the rush of being able to end people’s lives at will and the power of being able to create anything my mind can dream of that I forgot all the lives at stake.

  I forgot about everyone else in pursuit of my personal mission.

  And now I am all alone.

  No one is on my side anymore. The Syndicate controls me once again.

  “Say something, dammit!” she screams. Tears now flow out of her eyes, my silence seeming to be the one thing that throws her over the edge. Everyone in the small cabin of the aircraft remain motionless. Each operative has their masks back on, but their guns are pointed at the floor.

  None of them want to shoot us.

  None of the want to witness what is about to go down.

  But we all have no choice.

  “We are here now.” Charles’s voice booms over the speakers. Ai collects herself rather quickly at the sound of his voice. No one wants to try and talk back to him and see what happens.

  We are in a flying cage—he can do whatever the hell he wants with us.

  There is a bit of static before the speaker cuts off and the door opens to the front of the aircraft. Inside, I can see a large tablet and control panel along with comfy seating and a holograph projected in the center of the tiny space that has a panoramic view of Beijing. Of course he gives himself every convenience he could want as we are stuck out here in a cold, bare room with nothing more than a rack of life jackets and two benches to entertain ourselves.

  “It’s time to see what this thing can do.” He smiles and holds up the bag again. The same bag that has the Chimera Cube inside of it.

  “What are you talking about?” I straighten my posture, preparing to lunge forward and grab the bag right from his hairy, wrinkly hands.

  “Did I not tell you why you’re here?” Charles steps closer to me. Ai moves to the side, wanting none of the weird energy from my creepy interaction with Charles. When he smiles, his teeth have a way of look
ing like they are going to tear me apart.

  “No, you didn’t,” I say. Jake is still seated down on the bench across from me, his legs shaking erratically as he rubs his hands up and down his thighs. There is something deep in his eyes when he looks at me that tells me he knows exactly what is about to happen.

  “Ah, well, you are the one who is supposed to lead this operation.” His airy voice tingles my skin, causing goosebumps to line every inch of my exposed skin. “You see, Brett isn’t just the creator of ZOnion. He created the rén too. He fomented hate for the Chinese government starting over a decade ago on online forums and eventually the hate spread to more and more people. He’s the one who has been working with Ai for months to develop the plan to take down the Chinese government. The tunnels have been dug underneath the capitol building and are all packed with explosives. We have dozens of the rén at the foot of the skyscrapers full of billionaires prepared to set this entire skyline ablaze. The one part of the plan he left out is that you aren’t going to have to fight off the Chinese military and imperial guards as you take the throne. You are going to drop the bombs that kill nearly everyone in this city. And when the destruction is over, there will be too much smoke for aircraft to navigate to the capitol building, and Li’s servers will be completely destroyed. The streets will be covered in rubble, and you and Jake will be the ones who get to rise from the ashes.”

  “Do you think I’m a gullible child?” I stand up now, my mind racing with both rage and confusion as I try to figure out how the Syndicate could be so evil yet so genius to know everything this entire time. I feel the guns of the operatives swivel in my direction, but I don’t care. I want Charles to feel my energy, I want him to be able to taste my breath as my words roll of my tongue.

  I hate this man.

  And if I don’t ever get to kill him, I hope I can destroy whatever dark matter made him this way. I want to burn down the system the Syndicate has created, incinerate every person who has ever benefitted from it, and from the ashes resurrect a new society that’s not broken and rigged.

  “You wanted me dead just a few months ago,” I continue, the only sound besides the echo of my words being the low, rhythmic churning of the blades above. “You killed Riva. You killed her! You destroyed my entire family, ripped apart America, and you expect me to think that you are doing all of this right now just so that I can be the new leader of China?”

 

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