He inched backward. “What do you have in mind?”
“I think we should backtrack. No sense in us getting caught in their trap. As of now, we have the edge.”
“Then let’s do this. We will have better cover in the forest.” He gestured to the tree line.
She backtracked and hid among the trees where the bot was hidden, then turned to watch Ninety-one make one last leap into the cover of the trees beside her. After scanning the brush and branches a moment, she motioned for him to follow.
They walked in silence, making their way through the thick brush being careful to hide their tracks. Twenty-four thanked her lucky stars that the rust bucket of a bot had been lubricated. Its squeaky joints would have alerted any insurgents or guards of their location. They had gone quite a distance when the cracking of branches and footsteps echoed through the silence of the forest. They quickly hid behind the trunk of a huge tree, keeping the bot between them.
Twenty-four peered around the tree, her gaze locking on a group of soldiers emerging from behind a thicket of large bushes. Their boots crunched in the leaves while they moved down the path she and Ninety-one had just come, toward the veld.
“I think they’re the king’s soldiers.” She kept her voice low as to not alert the soldiers of their presence.
“Yes. They have the king’s insignia on their uniforms. They are headed straight for the trap,” he whispered.
She shook her head. With the noise the troop made trudging through the forest, they deserved to succumb to the trap. “They are on their own. Besides, we can’t reveal ourselves to warn them.”
They watched from behind their tree until the soldiers disappeared into the brush and trees. They waited until the forest was silent again. The only sounds Twenty-four could hear was the rustling of leaves in the wind.
“I can’t see or hear them anymore.” Even with her enhanced vision, it was difficult to see more than a few feet beyond the path. The thick canopy of branches and leaves kept the moon from illuminating the forest.
“We need to get moving.” Ninety-one placed his hand on her shoulder.
His touch felt like a jolt of lighting throughout her body. Every nerve in her body tingled. When his fingers slipped up her neck and teased her hair, she turned to look at him.
“I have never felt anything so soft.” His gaze locked on hers, his fingers still toying with the mauve strands near her cheek. “The colors are beautiful.”
Her breath hitched, and her heart pounded hard in her chest. The tingling sensation became an ache deep within. She wanted—no needed to touch him, too. She hesitantly reached out to trace her fingers along the hard lines of his jaw. Gunfire sounded in the distance causing her to yank her hand away.
She took a deep breath and rubbed her face with her hands. What in the hell was she thinking? She had a mission to complete. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
She moved forward, sure that Ninety-one and the bot would follow her. Shouts filled the silence, as well as the sound of hand to hand combat and the rapid burst of shots fired. The soldiers had to have fallen into the trap. The sounds of the battle faded as they moved deeper into the forest.
Chapter Five
By the silence around them, Twenty-four knew they hadn’t been followed, but the skirmish had stalled their own search for the insurgents. For now, they needed a place to hide so they could get some rest. They had been tracking their targets for hours.
The path she had taken was wide enough for Ninety-one to fall into step beside her. She ignored the prickling awareness he seemed to cause whenever he drew close. She peered up at him. Who was he really? He had appeared so cold when they had first met, but now he seemed to have relaxed a little around her.
Her curiosity got the better of her. “Do you recall having a name? Not what the doctors named us but a real one? I’m Olivia.” Her voice quivered. She didn’t know why but she needed him to know who she was even if it bit her in the ass after their mission.
He held her gaze a moment. “Jason. My name is Jason.”
She let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. There was no way he would tell the doctors of her memories when they returned to Earth, since he remembered, too. What was she thinking? This was a one-way trip. There was no return, so he could never tell the doctors anything.
“Jason... Can I call you that? I have always hated the Institute’s nomenclatures. No matter what they have done to me, I will always be Olivia. What else do you recall?”
Jason shifted a branch out of the way. “Quite a bit, but this is not the time or place, Olivia.”
Her name rolled easily off his tongue, and it was the sweetest sound she had heard in so many years, since before the ill-fated bus ride to school. “True. We need to find shelter for the night and continue tomorrow.”
“I wonder who won the fight. The rebels or the soldiers.” Jason pushed deeper into the forest, taking the lead.
“Maybe we can see tomorrow when it’s daylight.” Olivia kept up with his long strides, being careful of low hanging limbs and vines.
“For now, let’s see if we can find a safe place to rest.” He continued forward at a steady pace.
Olivia screwed her face up behind his back. She resented him taking over, and his demeanor had changed back to his iceman persona. It would be just her luck if he got them lost in the damn forest.
“Stop! You’ve got no idea where you’re going.”
“Oh, and you do?” he called over his shoulder.
“Whatever,” she mumbled under her breath. Though she had to admit to herself she was just as clueless, so she let him lead.
They had been traveling uphill for quite some time, the trees started to thin, and the ground was littered with large boulders and rocks. From the topography, she knew they had to be at the base of a mountain range. Somewhere soon they should be able to find a safe place to rest for the night.
Jason stopped suddenly, grabbed her hand and pulled her closer, then pointed at an outcropping of rocks. Beneath it, she could barely make out a jagged crevice in the rock face. “That looks like it might lead to a cave.”
“Which could be the home of God knows what. Are you kidding me?”
“We won’t know unless we check it out. You stay here, and I’ll take a look.”
She studied the opening a moment, but it was too dark for her to see within the fissure. “I wish we had a flashlight.”
“It would help, but we don’t. Stay here.”
Olivia watched Jason enter the narrow opening. She shivered. It wasn’t cold, but the place was creepy, and they had no idea what kind of predators might be living inside. He was gone for what seemed to be a long time.
“Psssst. As far as I can see it’s empty. Come on,” he whispered suddenly, causing her to jump. “There are plenty of dry sticks on the ground. I’ll make a fire.”
“Bobo, stand guard.” Sideways, she edged through the narrow opening. After her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she noticed Jason seated on the ground, a pile of wood beside him. “You know how to start a fire without matches or anything?”
“Yeah. Weren’t you taught wilderness survival?” He made a little pile of what looked like shredded bark on top of one of the larger pieces of wood, then began to sharpen the end of a thin stick to a point.
“No. Not to that extent.”
“Strange. Why wouldn’t they teach you how to start a fire?” He placed the pointed end of his stick in the middle of the tinder and began to spin it quickly between his hands.
Fascinated, Olivia watched a wispy trail of smoke rise from the tinder. A few more spins and it ignited. He added dry leaves and smaller sticks. Before long he’d built a nice little fire.
She dropped down on the ground beside him enjoying the warmth of the flames. “I wonder how deep this cave is. I just hope no predators are lurking further down.”
“We can explore later if you like. I can make a to
rch for us now that we have a fire,” Jason suggested. “I’m not really tired. It’s still daylight for us.”
“I’m not tired either. We arrived on that beach only a couple of hours ago. I feel useless just sitting here. We should be locating our targets.” She looked around the cave. It wasn’t big, but she noticed several tunnels leading from it.
“Too hard to track them at night. We’ll continue tomorrow. Well... their tomorrow.” Jason poked at the fire with a stick.
“Jason, how do you feel about the Institute? About being an assassin?” she asked while examining the expression on his face—so much softer now, almost dreamy. The flames sent their light dancing across his features. His eyes had a distant expression in them. Gone were the ice cubes. He really wasn’t bad-looking. Matter of fact, now that she looked closely, she found him quite handsome, even if one side of his face was mostly cybernetic.
“I hate the place. Always have. I’ve dreamed of escape as long as I can remember.”
“You said you had memories. Do you know how you got recruited? How old were you?” she probed.
“My full name is Jason Van Haren. I was five when our house burned to the ground. They told me my parents perished in the fire. I was rescued, but badly burned and an explosion had ripped off part of my face. When I woke up, I was in the Institute.”
“I’m sorry. My parents died, too. Or so I was told. I was on a bus that exploded. Same as you, I woke up in the infirmary in the Institute. They told me my parents were gone and I was going to live there and train to become a soldier, which I didn’t mind at all because, even as young as I was, I had already made up my mind that when I grew up, I was going to hunt bad guys. My name is Olivia Fitzgerald, and I remember a brother and sister.”
“Were your parents on the bus with you?”
“No. It was the school bus. The doctors told me I was the only survivor.”
“It must have been terrifying for you.”
“It was. There were several men with guns. They killed the driver and the security guard, took us on a horrible ride through the city and then into the country while trying to make some kind of deal. One of them had a bomb strapped around him.”
“You think the doctors lied about your parents?”
“I think so. My mother and father were probably told I died in the explosion.”
“Interesting how they get their recruits. Many of them are babies and toddlers, though. I wonder where they get those children.”
The note Twelve had given Olivia flashed through her mind. If she activated her implant, she would die. The idea weighed heavily on her conscience. Did anyone at the male division know? Did Jason know? She had to tell him. He deserved the same opportunity she had to escape their fate.
She brushed her hand across his arm, then squeezed his bicep. Then let the words spill from her lips. “I have to tell you something, and you may not believe me. I can hardly believe it myself. It makes no sense.” She took a deep breath, then held his piercing gaze. “Our implants. If we activate them, we will die. There is no life for us after we complete our mission.”
His eyes widened, and a look of disbelief crossed his face. “You are sure about this? I knew we were expendable to Schultz and Schmidt, but I find it hard to believe they would actually have us kill ourselves.”
“Hell, Jason. I don’t know what the truth is, all I care about is surviving this mission and somehow finding my family. My parents and brother and sister. I won’t take the chance of activating the implant. Even if it didn’t kill me, I could lose what is left of my early memories.” She gave him a pleading look, hoping he would understand.
Her breath hitched when he reached up and toyed with the mauve strands of her hair that seemed to fascinate him, then gave her a whimsical smile. “I had never planned to activate the implant after our mission. I want to remember. The past, what the Institute has done to all of us...” He cupped her chin and studied her face. “You. I don’t want to forget you.” He dropped his hand and quickly stood. “How about we go and explore a bit?”
Olivia hesitated. She wanted to forget their mission, stay in front of the fire and just talk. She had never had that before. Camaraderie. She sure as hell didn’t want to forget him either. He had gotten under her skin, and she was starting to like the way he made her feel. “We don’t know what’s hiding beyond those tunnels.”
“We have our phasers. Come on. I hate just sitting here feeling counterproductive.” He held his hand out to her.
Olivia grasped his hand and allowed him to help her up. She had no choice but to go with him unless she wanted to stay near the fire by herself. “Okay, you lead, but first we need to camouflage the bot.”
She edged out through the crevice and began pulling branches off shrubs and trees, then draped them over Bobo. Jason had followed her and quickly helped.
“There, that should do it. You never know. That yellow color stands out against the shades of the forest and the rocks.”
After going back into the cave, Jason picked up a couple of larger sticks and held them in the fire to light the ends. “I don’t know how long these will burn, but they’ll give us some light.”
She followed when he headed into a tunnel. She saw nothing except cobwebs and the odd spider scurrying away. The sticks burned fast, but there were more on the ground, so each time a stick got too short, they’d pick up some wood and light it.
The tunnel wasn’t that long. It opened into another cave, this one much bigger than the one they had left.
“I can’t believe I’m seeing this. Look, there’s a door.” Jason held his flaming stick higher.
“Weird. Why would there be a door here?” Olivia stepped close to it and ran her hand across the metal. “It has no handle. Wonder how it opens?”
“Using a code. There’s a keypad here.” He pointed to an opening in the wall next to the door.
Olivia giggled. “Maybe we’ve found the door to a hidden treasure.”
“Much good that would do us here.” Jason stabbed at the numbers on the pad.
The door suddenly opened. Jason’s stabbing the numbers must have set off an alarm. A man with thick gray hair in disarray around his head faced them. He had a pistol in his hand. “You two are new. Who are you? Are you here to pick up the shipment? Why are you at this door and not using the regular one?” he asked while pointing the gun at them.
Olivia thought fast. “There were soldiers, and—”
“Soldiers? Here?” A shocked expression crossed the man’s features.
“Beyond the forest,” Jason said. “We had to hide from them.”
“Where’d you park the shuttle?” The man waved his gun at them to go inside.
Ignoring the question about the shuttle, Jason entered first. Olivia followed him while the man closed the door behind them. It was as if the guy was expecting them. Or someone.
They walked through a narrow passage, then into a large chamber that was brightly lit. Olivia turned to look at the man, and her heart almost stopped. She was gazing at a much older version of Schultz—his face lined from the ravages of time and living underground. She glanced at Jason, and by the expression on his face, he’d seen the resemblance, too.
The chamber was huge. She noticed a table and chairs, a bed, while the rest of the cavern looked like a laboratory. A computer stood in the far corner with a floating screen above it.
Who the hell is this man? He’s got state of the art equipment. A scientist? In hiding?
He pointed at the table. “Sit. I’ll get you something to drink.”
He left through an opening in the granite wall and soon returned with a jug of what looked like juice and several glasses. The man even had a kitchen? Where was he getting his power?
“I wasn’t told to expect different couriers. What are your names?” he asked while filling their glasses.
“I’m Jason, and this is Olivia.”
“All space travel is at a stands
till thanks to the terrorists holding the refueling station on Zahiria. How is it that you two were able to get here?” He rubbed his chin with his hand, a perplexed expression in his eyes.
“There are ways,” Olivia countered. She wondered about the shipment he had mentioned. The man had to be related to Schultz. The likeness was too uncanny. How long had he lived there?
The portal hasn’t been operational for that long. He must have traveled to Brevona by ship quite some time ago. And why is he here? In such a hidden lab?
Olivia’s mind overflowed with questions.
“You don’t have anything with you, no bag, no backpack. Where is my payment? My gold?” he demanded.
Jason jumped up and grabbed the pistol the man had laid on the table next to the jug. He took his phaser from its holster and pointed both weapons at the man. “Time for me to ask some questions. What is your name?”
He curled his lip at them. “I should have known when I saw you’re not the regular pick-up guys and came to the wrong door. No one knows about that entrance. Should have shot you instead of letting you in.”
Jason aimed his phaser at a broom that stood against the wall and turned it to dust. “That’s what will happen to you if you don’t talk. What is your name?”
“Ryan. Ryan Schultz.”
“I knew it. He’s related to Schultz. Maybe his brother,” Olivia said.
“Twin brother.”
Olivia gasped. That couldn’t be possible. “You’re lying. You’re much older than he is.”
He gave her a smirk. “John’s been injecting himself with the serum. I haven’t. Not yet.”
Jason prodded him with the phaser. “Why are you here, on this planet? In hiding?”
“No one must find out about the secret ingredients in the forever young serum. The ingredients are only found on Brevona. I collect and process them for John. You do realize you now know too much already. John will kill you when he finds out.”
Olivia laughed. “How is he going to find out?”
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