“What the hell was that?” John yelled at the top of his lungs. He shook in his chair. “Your armor will protect you! You could have charged right through those guys. That was the plan. Knock ‘em down. I take one, and we tear them apart.”
Xana didn’t move. She looked down at the man in the wheelchair. She reminded herself that he was always in pain.
“We went over it twenty times. Remember? Twenty times I said, don’t let them pin you down. It’s rule number one in open field conflict. How many times did I say it?”
Xana didn’t answer.
“How many? Xan? Are you listening?”
“Twenty.” At least.
“So what the hell happened?”
“There were so many men. I’ve never been shot at before! I’m not a warrior. I haven’t had your training.”
John dropped his head. “There were only seven of them.”
“Seven is a lot!”
“Not for you!” John yelled. “You just stood there. You almost got yourself killed. And everyone else.”
Xana threw her helmet to the gravel. It bounced and rolled a few yards. “Then this is stupid!” She turned and walked away.
John noticed Ian’s mouth was slightly agape. Whatever he saw, it clearly wasn’t what he’d expected. John’s hand spasmed. He clenched it and called after Xana. “If you can’t handle it, then go. No one’s stopping you. But if you stay, I expect you to do your job.”
They had stopped in an abandoned drive-in not far from Dr. Fears’s remote compound. The old screen at the front was stained and torn. The fence around the property was falling down. The face of a laughing clown, chipped and faded, adorned one side of the bunkerlike block that had served as a concession stand. The rain had moved off, but the air was cool. There were mountains in the distance. Everything was wet and smelled of pine.
John looked at Xana. He looked at Ian walking after her. He rolled to the back of the ambulance, where Wink sat at the command console. The bank of five flat screens were arrayed in front of her, each engaged in some different foolishness.
“Get Prophet.” It wasn’t a request. John grimaced from a phantom pain.
The girl didn’t turn her eyes from her scrolling screens. “I can’t jus—”
“Wink!” He raised his voice. It shook slightly. “Don’t argue. Just get him on the line.”
The little girl sighed and removed a touchscreen phone from its dock on the desk. “It’ll take a minute to route and set up the encryption. If he even answers.”
“Fine.” John moved the joystick on his chair and turned to face the others. Xana and some kid.
What had he gotten himself into.
Ian had tried his best to hide his shock when Xana had removed her helmet and he saw all the hair. He had just assumed someone that big was a man. He limped across mud and gravel to where she stood, turned away from everyone. Or maybe just from the soldier in the wheelchair. He waited in silence for her to acknowledge him, but nothing came.
“Hey . . . Sorry. I just wanted to say thanks. For back there. Thanks for saving my life.”
Xana nodded.
“I thought what you did was pretty brave. I mean, you stared down an entire firing squad. I don’t know of anybody else in the world who could’ve done that.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Ian noticed she had a slight accent. It wasn’t anything he recognized, but there was a hint of Caribbean spice. Still, it was clear enough she didn’t want to talk. “Well. That was all. I guess.” He nodded and smiled and backed away. He hobbled to the hollow remains of the snack bar, which was rimmed in dry ground. He put his back to a wall painted with a cartoon clown face and lowered himself slowly. He could see the sun reflected in orange off mountain snow far in the distance. It would be dark in a few hours.
Then what?
He hadn’t expected to survive. Not really.
A long moment passed before he noticed the soldier in the wheelchair looking at him. Ian turned back to the big woman, then he stood with a groan and limped back to the ambulance. His shoes pushed gravel into wet earth.
John rolled forward as Ian approached. “You doin’ okay?” he called.
Ian nodded. “You were a little hard on her.” He nodded to Xana, who had wandered further and out of earshot completely.
The soldier ignored it. “Wink said you had a rough couple days. Made it sound like you lost everything. Tough break.”
Not everything, he thought. He was still alive. “Yeah . . .” But he may as well have been dead.
Ian saw John’s hand move quickly to rub his face. He could tell it burned.
The man in the chair took a breath. “Well, for what it’s worth, you’re in good company. Xan’s trying to get her son back. Wink lost her whole family.”
Ian looked at John, at his atrophied arm, at his burns. He shook his head. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“I dunno. It just doesn’t seem real, I guess.”
“Real?”
Ian could tell the man was skeptical of him. “This whole time I’ve had this feeling . . . sort of like it was all just a vacation, ya know? Well, maybe not a vacation. But the same kinda break from normal life. A bad camping trip. And in a couple days, things would go back to how they were.” Ian looked down at his chest. “But now I have this thing inside me.” He stopped.
The Oric. He had almost forgotten it was there. He put a hand over his heart.
The soldier waited for him to spit it out.
Ian didn’t lift his eyes. “It’s never coming out, is it? Unless I’m dead.”
John didn’t answer. How could he know? How could anyone?
“Cap!” Wink called.
John turned back and nodded. “I gotta take this.”
Ian nodded.
The soldier in the chair rolled back to the ambulance. He glanced at Ian once on the way.
The kid looked like he was running on fumes. Wink handed John the phone and ran to the front of the truck.
John watched. That was odd.
The screen lit up.
CAPTAIN.
WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO
WITH THESE PEOPLE?
GET THEM READY.
THERE’S NO WAY THEY CAN DO WHAT
YOU WANT.
I THOUGHT YOU VOUCHED FOR MS. JACE.
OH, SHE’S A FIGHTER. SHE JUST DOESN’T
KNOW IT YET. AND I CAN’T GUARANTEE
SHE’LL COME AROUND IN TIME.
DO YOUR BEST.
ON TOP OF THAT, I’VE GOT AN ELEVEN-
YEAR-OLD.
WHO IS PROBABLY YOUR MOST
VALUABLE ASSET.
AND THIS KID? WHAT’S HE FOR?
IT IS UNFORTUNATE THE ARTIFACT
BONDED WITH MR. TENDO. WE HAD
SOMEONE ELSE IN MIND. KEEP HIM UNTIL
HIS USEFULNESS CAN BE EVALUATED.
AND IF HE DOESN’T WANT TO STAY?
CONVINCE HIM.
HIS WHOLE LIFE JUST BLEW UP. MAYBE
HE’S A GOOD KID. I DON’T KNOW. BUT
HE’S DEFINITELY NOT A FIGHTER.
THIS IS IT, CAPTAIN. THIS IS ALL THAT
THERE IS. WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.
PROCEED AS PLANNED.
YOU’RE NOT GETTING IT. THESE PEOPLE
AREN’T A TEAM. THEY’RE A THREE-PART
TRAIN WRECK.
IF YOU SEND THEM IN THERE, THEY’LL
ALL GET KILLED.
OR IS THAT YOUR PLAN?
GET THEM READY.
The messages disappeared and the phone rebooted.
“Shit.” John rubbed his eyes. The burns on his face were on fire.
Wink poked her head around the side of the ambulance like a grounded child. John held out the phone and the girl took it.
“Not gonna make a joke?”
She shook her head.
“You feeling okay?”
She nodded.
“What’s going on, Wink?
John heard footsteps on wet gravel. He turned his chair and saw Ian limping up.
The kid held his mouth open for a moment. “You all are going after them, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Wink blurted.
“Maybe,” John corrected.
Ian nodded. “You have room for one more?”
Wink looked at the man in the wheelchair. She held her breath.
John didn’t budge. “Not necessarily. Why you ask?”
Ian looked to the horizon. He wasn’t sure what kind of answer he had expected. But that apparently wasn’t it. “I know I don’t know anything about anything. But I do know the truth. I know they’re out there. Now. Even if I had a life to go back to . . . I’m not sure how I ever could. There’s this countdow—”
“We know,” John interrupted. “But that’s not your problem.”
“Isn’t it?” Ian shrugged. “Isn’t it everyone’s problem? I mean. Someone has to stop them.”
John studied him. “Maybe. But odds are anyone who tries isn’t gonna make it back. You understand?”
Ian shuffled to keep the weight off his ankle. “I don’t wanna die.” He looked away again. Then back. “But so many people have already. I’m not afraid, if that’s what you mean.” He looked John in the eye. “Not anymore.”
The soldier leaned back in his chair and thought. Wink watched expectantly.
He extended his good arm. “John Regent.”
Ian took it. “Ian Tendo.”
Wink smiled.
Xana trundled to the truck. She stood back from everyone. She looked at John. She spoke as if she’d rehearsed the words. “I’m sorry for yelling. It wasn’t right. You were just trying to keep me alive. You need to be tough. I just want to say, I would be in prison if not for you. Or dead. So thank you for giving me a chance. And for bringing me this far. I will not be a burden.”
Ian caught a special emphasis on her last sentence.
“Look . . .” John rolled closer to her. “Truth is, I was upset at myself. I had him and I let him get the drop on me. When I saw what had happened, what they’d done to him . . . I knew I’d made the wrong call.” John saw everyone’s faces. They didn’t understand. “It’s a long story. The important thing is we accomplished our objective. And nobody got killed. Doesn’t matter if it’s pretty. A win is a win.”
“But it wasn’t,” Wink complained. “Moron stopped me before I could get the location.”
“Moron saved your life,” Ian corrected.
“Did you get anything?” John asked.
“Not much. They were sending reports to an IP address in New York.”
Xana looked up. “New York?” Her lawyer had said AJ was in New York.
“Hold on.” John raised a hand. “Let’s get something straight right now.” He looked between them. “All this today . . . that’s as easy as it gets, folks. Right there. And we all damn near lost it. Myself included. Now they know we’re out here. This isn’t some third-world army handing rifles to teenagers. These people have duped the richest nations in the world. They’re organized. They’re efficient. They’re lethal. Next time, you better believe they’re gonna be ready. Will we?”
John looked at Xana. She looked down. Then at Wink. She didn’t answer. He gripped his chair. It was ridiculous. This whole op. Prophet didn’t care if any of them lived or died.
He asked himself how much a new pair of legs was worth.
John watched the kid look around at each of them, wide-eyed. He stopped at the big woman. John introduced her. “Xana Jace.”
“Ian Tendo.” Ian pulled a hand from his pocket and extended it. Xana’s fist swallowed it whole. He noticed the gold cross around her neck. She had pulled it free from her armor.
“If we’re all done holding hands now . . .” Wink threw up her arms and marched toward the driver’s side door.
“Hey genius,” Ian called. “You’re still not driving.”
“You don’t get to give the orders, moron. Prophet put me in charge.”
“Seriously?” Ian looked at Xana.
She shook her head. “The captain is in charge.”
The girl spun. “But he said!”
“Wink,” John chastised. He gave her a look and turned to Ian. “Can you drive on that leg?”
Ian looked down and shrugged. “I guess so. But where?”
The soldier passed his glance to each of them before sighing heavily. “Looks like we’re going to New York.”
“Ma’am?” The thin-faced assistant knocked gently on the wide office door. “I have an update on Project: Witch Hunt.”
“Tell me we have them.” The woman didn’t raise her eyes from the touch display in the glass desk. She had a faint Spanish accent. Sunlight came in angled beams through the blinds and made patterns on the knotted hardwood floor.
“I’m afraid not.”
She looked up. “What? Fears had Deadbolt, didn’t he? And the artifact.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The attendant walked in.
The woman was in her mid-40s with neat, wavy hair cut short. It was lightened, but the darker color had just begun to poke through at the roots. “Then what happened?”
“We don’t have all the facts yet, but apparently . . . we lost an entire strike force. And Dr. Fears is dead.”
Time was running out. They didn’t have a strike force to lose. Digby, on the other hand, was no great loss. “I never liked Fears. Or his psychological warfare. Mind games are always a messy business.”
“That’s not the worst of it, I’m afraid. Deadbolt was severely injured. He may not be recoverable.”
“Impossible.” The woman sat back. “There must be a mistake. Check again.”
The assistant set a tablet computer on the glass desk. The woman picked it up and flipped through blurry photos. She stopped at a grainy image of what could only be called a human tank. She stared.
The assistant went on. “He released a full discharge, completely emptied both his muscles and the capacitors we implanted. With the resulting EMP, we weren’t able to recover very much from the personal data recorders. Research hasn’t had time to fully analyze it of course, but they believe that—”
“My God,” she interrupted. “Someone’s put a team together.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Those were our thoughts exactly.”
The woman stared. It was inconceivable. “Do we know who they are?”
“Not yet. But we believe it’s three men and a child.”
“A child? You’re joking.”
“No, ma’am. And it would appear they’re able to . . .”
“To?”
“Break entanglement.”
She looked up. “What? How?”
“We don’t know that either. Also, Dr. Fears apparently allowed the Oric to fully gestate. We believe it bonded with one of them.”
“Jesus.” She tossed the tablet on her desk and sighed. Two impossibilities before breakfast. She looked again at the screen. “Who the fuck are these people?”
“Unfortunately, between the EMP and the explosion, there aren’t many leads. A search turned up blank for Dr. Fears’s subject, a Mr. Calrissian. We can’t find any photos of him. No social media, resumes, licenses. It’s as if he never existed.”
“They erased him.”
The assistant crossed his arms. “Wouldn’t that take weeks?”
“At least.” She thought for a moment. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“What should we do?”
“Turn it over to Records. Have them make new entries in the deep field network.”
“Priority One?”
She stared out the window. In a few weeks, they wouldn’t be limited to site-level entanglement. The world would be open. In the meantime, making these people Priority One would knock someone else off the top. She turned to the display in her desktop and brought up the list: a living plague, twin psychic psychopaths, a possible extraterrestrial, and on to the end. Every single one of them was a threat to the planet. “No. Make them a Three.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If they’re smart, they’ll avoid population centers, and we won’t get eyes on them anyway.”
“Do you really think it’s the hackers?”
So far the Minus Faction had been little more than computerized pests. But this was different. Wholly different. “It’s scary to think they’d be capable of putting a team together without our knowledge. But it’s even scarier to think we have a new enemy who has completely evaded detection.”
“Shall we upgrade their risk profile?”
That would send an automatic notification to the entire network. “Not yet. If we tell the others we failed to recover the Oric, they’ll call an assembly. Anders is looking for any reason to take control. If he convinces the others to put more talent on the problem, which is likely, that will jeopardize our time line.” She tapped the countdown at the top of her desktop screen. “Besides, it’s not these people I’m worried about. They’re just a bunch of freaks. Whoever organized them, that’s the real threat.
“Right now, all we know for sure is that someone, possibly rogue elements in the faction, played a card from our deck. They collected a few extraordinary people and struck first. But we’ll have our turn. So unless someone lays eyes on them, the best thing we can do is not tip our hand and not change our plans. We wait. I’m guessing we’ll hear from them before too long anyway. But when we do, we need to be ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m leaving for Alpha Site in the morning. I trust you can prep and brief a counter threat in my absence.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ll need at least two assets, plus armed backup. I’ll authorize weapons from the Armory. You’ll need bigger guns this time.”
“Do you have any preference on the personnel?”
“If Deadbolt pulls through, he’ll want another crack at them. Give it to him, but make sure he understands the consequences of another failure.”
“And the second?”
The woman tapped the screen on her desk and brought up the list. Her first choice was always Veronika Molotov, but her favorite fire starter was already on assignment. The woman scrolled through the picture-profiles. She turned to the grainy picture of the human tank. There were five unassigned assets but only one real choice. “Brickbat.”
“He’s still in solitary confinement.”
“Release him.”
The man hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Tell him if he tries anything again, we’ll expose him to Havek’s strychnovirus.”
“Of course.” The man turned to leave.
The woman picked up the tablet and stared in silence at the last of the dark, blurry images. Four figures, nothing more than grainy shadows. One was very large. One was very small. The others were turned away.
“What are the four of you after?”
[end episode three]
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