Too Young to Die

by Michael Anderle

  “So?” he asked. When he realized what she meant, his stomach dropped. “Oh, I don’t want to do this. I say we go, try to find the third key, and come back another time. Plus, we might learn more about who to trust that way.”

  “Justin, if there’s a way to get a key, we should do it.” She folded her arms. “Plus, she’s right. Even the one we killed said they were bandits.”

  “They were trying to make a living. Ugh, this is Les Miserables all over again. I hated that book. No, don’t ask. This one’s not nearly as good as Luke Skywalker’s story.”

  “I did like that one,” Zaara said wistfully. “My point is, these bandits are people who would be out on the roads, robbing and murdering otherwise. Now they’re wolves and they’re attacking people’s herds so the farmers can’t make it through the winter. Also, they are destroying the forest and the swamp, and the witch has the key.”

  “I agree,” Lyle said.

  “You said not to trust her,” Justin pointed out.

  “I’m not saying we should trust her. I’m saying we should kill the bandits.”

  Justin massaged his temples. His head was beginning to hurt.

  “Or,” a new voice said, “you could all come along quietly and no one will get hurt.”

  His head came up and his heart sank. Three bandits stepped out of the forest. No—he looked to one side and identified three more.

  Two to one. He wasn’t sure he liked those odds. On the other hand, whoever they were, they weren’t friendly. He hopped from the wall and noted how quickly each bandit followed him with their gazes. The one on the far right was the slowest and he marked that.

  “Why should we come with you?” he asked.

  “I told you,” the one who’d spoken before said. “So no one gets hurt.”

  “Ah,” said Justin and promptly charged. “Stooooooout!”

  “That’s my line!” Lyle yelled as he joined the battle.

  “Stoooooooout!” Zaara yelled. A crackling noise and a yelp suggested she’d thrown a fireball.

  “Both of you, stop it!” Lyle yelled. “My granda’ will be spinning in his tomb!”

  Justin slashed down with his sword and grimaced when the bandit he had targeted danced easily out of the way of his blade. Another ran face-first into his side, and although that seemed to hurt the attacker more than him, the heavy armor made it more difficult to recover from the impact.

  He took the sword in both hands and whirled it wildly. The first bandit hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch, but he stayed out of range and that was something. Others began to venture closer and he shifted the sword between hands to whip it out quickly to drive them back.

  This wasn’t a great stand-off for them, he had to admit. Triumphing in an outnumbered situation required the element of surprise, and they were already way past that point.

  Also, the bandits seemed to have focused entirely on him, which was strange given that he could still hear his friends fighting. His head snapped around to look and, with a sinking sensation, he realized that there were no longer only six bandits.

  Now, there were twelve.

  “I think you can see that it would be best if you came with us,” the leader said. He smiled and displayed teeth that seemed sharper than they ought to be.

  “Not a chance,” Zaara said tightly.

  That was all Justin needed to hear. He wasn’t of this world. For all he knew, it was better to go with them. If she didn’t think so, however, he would go with her judgment. After all, she had kept herself safe on the road, alone and in an unfriendly town run by a crazy wizard.

  He lunged and caught one of his adversaries in the leg. A fireball rocketed from his other hand and caught a second fully in the chest. The man dropped into the swamp with a scream and tried to put the flames out.

  “That was a bad choice,” the bandit leader snarled.

  “Like we want to be taken as slaves?” Lyle retorted. Justin couldn’t see his teammates from where he was, but a thud sounded a great deal like one of the dwarf’s punches landing and was followed by a grunt of pain that he hoped came from a bandit.

  Any chances of a peaceful resolution were gone, which made things a great deal simpler. He hacked, slashed, and fireballed his way through three more bandits. Zaara—or one of the female bandits—uttered a cry of pain before another fireball whooshed behind him.

  Lyle, meanwhile, had decided that the best accompaniment to a good punching was to throw in a monologue about the parentage and proclivities of the bandit troupe, down to what they brushed their teeth with. Justin considered his particular suggestions on that last front to be improbable.

  “Justin! Watch out!”

  He threw himself sideways and barely avoided a battle-ax that descended with earth-shuddering force. His heart froze as he stared at it. How on earth would his brain react to thinking he’d been split in two by a battle-ax?

  “Enough!” the bandit leader bellowed and to Justin’s immense surprise, the next slash of his knives went to the wielder of the battle-ax. He collapsed in the mud with a gurgle and the leader pointed his bloody knives at everyone else. “All of you, enough. I said I wanted them taken alive and you three can stop trying to fight an impossible battle. Come on.”

  Justin was hauled unceremoniously out of the muck, his sword wrenched away, and his hands chained, and Lyle and Zaara joined him a moment later as captives.

  “March,” the leader said grimly, and the three of them stumbled forward, surrounded by a group of battered and manifestly unfriendly bandits.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The experience of getting to New York was disturbingly smooth. The pilot at the private terminal knew Tad’s face and they were airborne within five minutes of his arrival. A car was waiting when the plane taxied to a stop and he was whisked through the ever-present New York traffic with astonishing speed.

  A young woman waited for him in the lobby of Diatek Industries. Her hair was cut in a severe bob, her dress revealed a strenuously thin form, and her genuine smile was disconcerting.

  “Senator,” she said.

  “Did we speak on the phone?” he asked her and extended his hand.

  “We did.” She shook it warmly. “Please, this way.”

  In her presence, the security gate was opened without fuss and the two of them took an express elevator to what he could only think was the top level of the building. Wherever it was, it was high enough that his ears popped on the way.

  The young woman led the way down a richly carpeted hallway to a set of frosted glass doors. Immediately, both tried to hold the doors open for one another. She laughed—again, shockingly warm in contrast to her appearance—and ushered him through and into a conference room. She did not enter and simply said, “The senator is here to see you, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Lauren.” The woman at the window turned to give her a smile before her gaze fixed on Tad. “Senator Williams. I’m glad you came. I’m Anna Price.” She came to shake his hand.

  She could have been an older version of her secretary. Also strenuously slim, she wore the kind of understated suit he had come to realize meant serious money. Her hair had once been blonde but was now more than half gray, although her eyes were a clear blue and her grasp was strong.

  Tad settled into a chair when she gestured to the table and cleared his throat. He had decided on the plane to let her speak first. Caution meant he didn’t want to give her any ideas or anything to seize on, especially since what Sylvia had managed to dig up was incredibly sparse.

  Anna Price had studied chemistry at Harvard and went on to work for a pharmaceutical company for several years before she married. Her husband and daughter had both passed away, however, the daughter apparently from a car accident, and the husband some years later, potentially from heart problems. During the years between the two deaths, Anna had founded Diatek.

  If there was little on Price, there was far more on Diatek—and none of it was particularly reassuring. The company had ext
ensive contracts with the Department of Defense and the FBI. It had flown under the radar in terms of exerting influence regarding different legislation, but Tad could only think this was because the company had direct access to the officials making the decisions.

  Price sat at the table and regarded him evenly. “It will save time, I think, if I tell you what I know about your situation. I know that your son, Justin, was involved in a car crash approximately six weeks ago and that he is now under the care of Dr. Jean-Luc DuBois and the three operating members of a company called PIVOT. I can only assume he is still comatose and being treated using virtual reality.

  “I know that, as of this morning, the FDA has arrested Jacob Zachary and given him twenty-four hours to shut the experiment down. I also know the leak of information to the FDA came from Dru Metcalfe, a lobbyist who works for several pharmaceutical companies, including the one that previously blacklisted Dr. DuBois’s research. I know that Mr. Metcalfe has also leaked isolated details of Justin’s treatment to the press. Would you say that is an accurate summation of your current situation?”

  Tad clenched his teeth and gave a brief nod. This woman was businesslike and far too calm to be discussing matters of blackmail. It was almost like none of it shocked her.

  He shouldn’t have bothered to come.

  Which was why he was surprised to hear Anna Price say, “What I believe you don’t know, Senator, is that my daughter died under very similar circumstances. Like Justin, she was in a car accident. Like him, she was in stable condition. She was a fighter, Senator. Her name was Mina.”

  Startled, he looked at her. Her face was still and he could only now see the strain around her eyes.

  “My husband and I were postgraduate students,” Anna explained. “We didn’t have much money and we tried everything we could. Both of us looked for different jobs. We sold our house, we sold everything we owned, and we lived out of our cars. We even tried to find research that might help Mina recover more quickly.” She raised her chin fractionally. “We ran out of money. We went bankrupt, our postgraduate placements ended, and our next insurance companies would not take Mina. She died—not from her injuries but because we ran out of money to keep trying to save her.”

  His mouth hung open. In all analyses of what he might face, he had not expected this.

  “The year after she died,” Anna Price said, “I secured funding to open Diatek. My goal was very simple. I wanted to ensure that no other family would have to go through what ours had. I had worked for a pharmaceutical company and I knew the technologies that were being developed, but it wasn’t an area of research that most companies were looking into, especially on the pharmaceutical side. It was always my focus. Diatek has made immense profits in other areas but all of them have been funneled into this research.”

  Tad swallowed. “I…see.”

  “Senator, I would like to fold PIVOT into Diatek Industries,” Price said bluntly. “Their research and Justin’s treatment would be covered indefinitely. I believe they are using an injection formula substantially similar to one we have clearance to test on human subjects. This would allow Justin’s treatment to continue without interruption.”

  The silence dragged on as he looked at her for a long moment.

  “You’re wary,” she said. It was not a question. “Given everything, I certainly can’t blame you for that. Is there any particular area of concern I can address?”

  He shrugged helplessly. “You know everything, which means you know why Dru Metcalfe is smearing me to the press.”

  “Yes.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “So you know my stance on blank checks and favors,” he told her. “If you’ll forgive me, your company came out of nowhere and were awarded a significant number of government contracts awfully quickly.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” She smiled bitterly. “You and I measure our morals differently, Senator. That is something you will need to come to terms with. I have made sacrifices in the name of progress and have collaborated on projects you would likely not find…ethical. I made my choice. I would not wish what happened to me—to my husband—on any other family.”

  “Your husband,” Tad said and suddenly felt lost.

  “He killed himself,” Anna said crisply. He could see the precision masked an anguish that had not diminished even slightly with the years. “If I didn’t have this, I might have done the same. I…was tempted.”

  He caught his breath and imagined the future stretching ahead. Years without Justin, where he knew that his son had not died because there was no treatment but because there was no money. The anger he already felt multiplied a hundred times and then a thousand times.

  Anna’s words struck a piece of him that was so raw, he wanted to press a hand over his chest.

  And Mary…how would Mary take it?

  Still, his reservations refused to be silenced.

  “What’s the catch?” Tad asked. Everything in him wanted to believe this was true, but Metcalfe had also offered the exact thing he wanted. This was even better, which he was sure meant the catch was even worse.

  “There is no catch.” Anna smiled now. It did not reach her eyes but given what they had discussed, he would have distrusted that even more. “I want to help, Senator. As I said, I have given a great deal to make sure other families do not face this same trial. The work done by Dr. DuBois and PIVOT is exceptional.”

  He considered this and nodded. “I…see.” Half of him screamed to run and the other half yelled to take the deal. “Let me think about it, please.”

  “Of course.” She did not seem surprised. Then again, he did not think she was surprised by very much. “You know how to reach me.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Justin woke in the freezing cold and his hands ached where he had curled them against his body. He couldn’t determine why it was so bright or why there was so much wind. Cautiously, he opened his eyes for a moment, closed them against the glare, and opened them again as he sat far too quickly.

  Dungeon cells were generally underground and deeply depressing, with a side helping of no-one-will-hear-you-if-you-scream. He had not enjoyed his brief stay in Riverbend’s jail, and he hadn’t looked forward to being in this one.

  As things turned out, there was more than one way to keep someone in captivity. He wasn’t chained, for instance, and his cell—such as it was—didn’t have four walls. Whatever had happened to these ruins, the side of this building had sheared off and left it open to the wind.

  Which, judging by the way it whistled and how close the fog lay, meant he was fairly high up. He estimated that it was at least ten stories, possibly more.

  He struggled to remember the night before. The three of them had been brought to the ruins, at which point their weapons and armor had been taken and they’d been blindfolded. He didn’t remember much after that beyond awkward stumbling over rocky ground and the sounds of muttered arguments about them. At some point, they’d been given food and water.

  Of course, he hadn’t noticed the bitter taste in the water until it was too late.

  It was reassuring to find out he hadn’t been killed, he decided morosely.

  Now, if he could only find out what these bandits wanted, that would be a significant step in the right direction. He looked around. The floor wasn’t particularly new but it didn’t creak ominously when he moved across it either. He flattened himself onto his stomach and inched forward with what was probably excessive caution.

  Still, despite the discomfort, excessive caution was better than being turned into jelly at the side of a tower.

  And he definitely would be if he fell. Now that he was at the edge, he could see exactly how far up he was, and it was excessively high. He spared a thought for whoever had bothered to haul their unconscious bodies up a mountainside and so many flights of stairs before he recalled that this was a video game and they had probably simply been ported up.

  Lucky bandits, he thought belligerently.

  It occurr
ed to him to wonder where the others were and if they’d been drugged.

  “Zaara? Lyle?” He edged back to the wall. The floor might be stable, but he still preferred it there. “Anyone? Zaara?”

  “Justin?” Her voice floated from his left. “Did you just wake up, too? Where are we?”

  “Uh…are you afraid of heights?”

  “Not really,” she said promptly.

  “Good. Because we’re way the hell up in a tower.” He pressed his back as far as it would go against the wall. What was the expression he’d once heard? A fear of heights is illogical. A fear of falling from heights, on the other hand, is prudent.

  “That explains why they haven’t bothered to keep us somewhere with walls.” She sighed. “Not to mention that I woke up when I almost fell through the floor.”

  His shoulders hunched around his ears. “Oh, God.” Like he wasn’t already feeling the sensation of falling, he now had to worry about the next time he fell asleep. What if he rolled? What if part of the floor collapsed and he couldn’t wake up in time to grab onto something?

  “I’d only have fallen one floor,” Zaara told him, “but still.” She sounded more grumpy than anything. “Where’s Lyle?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t hear him. Maybe he’s on your other side.”

  “One moment. Lyle? Lyle?” A creaking sound suggested she was walking. “Lyle!” More creaking followed. “He’s not over here—or he hasn’t woken up yet. Given how well he can sleep ale off, though, I’d say he probably woke up before we did.”

  “Fair point.” Justin considered this but not for long. “Okay, we need to find out where he is and if he’s okay, but I don’t think that’s priority one. What we need to do first is find out why we’re here. Or…maybe escape.”

  “I vote escape,” Zaara said. “If they only wanted to do some friendly bargaining, there wouldn’t have been any need for battle-axes. That was a good dodge, by the way. I don’t think even your armor would have stopped that.”

  He shuddered. “I think you’re right. Hmmm. You said there’s a hole in the floor?”