Wilma stood firm and closed her eyes as her mind reached into the depths of her memories, remembering a quote she’d read a long time ago.
She wasn’t sure if the words she was remembering were an exact copy of what had been written by a tireless investigator, who went by the codename of Sundance. But either way, it was a conclusive rebuff of all things motivated. Plus, it seemed to apply to what she was feeling at the moment.
By pretending not to know, you effectively give yourself a free pass. There is no subsequent guilt. No actual connection to your own conscience. In the end, the denial of truth allows easier trespass against those who are innocent, allowing oneself to accept the lies, the falsehoods, and the scripted presentations that convince us we are on the right side of wrong. And, as a result, it demands that we grant benefit to our decisions, amid the overwhelming seeds of doubt.
She opened her eyes and took in a long, slow breath, then let it out at the same pace. She knew the pain in her chest wasn’t going away anytime soon. Neither was the ache in her gut. Not that it mattered. She had a job to do.
Wilma brought her eyes up to the calculations written in red and let them soak in for a bit before turning to Craven, who was across the lab from her. “You really need to see this, boss.”
The eyepatch-wearing scientist spun and peered her way from the stack of electronics that had been piled in a box on a table a few yards away. “What do you have for me, Rice?”
Wilma pointed at the board. “These red calcs, sir—I don’t think they’re random work at all.”
Craven walked over, his one good eye in a deadline pinch.
Wilma snatched a notebook hanging off the edge of a nearby desk. She cracked the binder open and fanned through the pages, stopping on one in particular. “I saw these notes earlier, but until I put them together with these equations, it didn’t make sense.”
Craven scanned the grease board from top to bottom, then took the notebook in his hand. He spent a long minute looking it over before he snapped it shut. He flared an eyebrow, looking almost amused. “EOD?”
“End of days, sir,” she answered, figuring her boss would latch onto that exact notation. The man rarely missed anything. He was always paying attention. Always evaluating.
“Looks like a bacteria problem. Something manmade, based on the scribble in the margins.”
She agreed. “That’s the problem with encapsulated ecosystems. Especially with humid, recycled—”
He continued her thought an instant later. “—air. All of it designed by wannabe demigods at the helm.”
Wilma didn’t agree with his generalized assessment of Edison, but she wasn’t about to correct him. Or disagree. Ever. “I’m afraid their food stores are useless.”
“Assuming it has spread, which, based on everything we now know, it must have.”
“No wonder they were desperate.”
“Desperate people make desperate mistakes,” Craven said.
“Especially when their idea of heaven caves in around their feet.”
“Fortunately for us.”
The bloody visuals from earlier came roaring back into her mind, driving the words out of her mouth before she could stop them. “And then Fletcher came along.”
“A necessary and glorious bastard,” he said. “The perfect weapon in an imperfect world.”
“They never stood a chance,” she said, thinking about the women and children that had been mowed down with vengeance.
Craven opened the notebook again, this time flipping through the second half of the pages with his thumb one at a time. “I don’t care how many search parties you send out, if you don’t account for the uncertainty principle in all things organic, then—”
“—you lose containment,” she added, wondering if he’d now offer up a remark about the unexpected creation and subsequent escape of the females.
Wilma waited for it, but Craven said nothing, only leaning the book her way.
She now had a direct view of a hand-drawn schematic involving a square object with wires leading away from it. The notes below it were written in cursive—not printed like the others.
He laughed. “So close, yet so far.”
She knew what he meant. “That confirms what Heston told us.”
“Which until now, I found hard to believe.”
Wilma couldn’t disagree even though she wished she could. “No wonder Nirvana was willing to trade so much for those identical panes of glass.”
“Baseline testing is all about quality control,” Craven said, pausing. “The question is—”
“—is this Edison’s or Morse’s genius?” she asked before he could finish his sentence.
“My guess—they were both involved.”
“Is this what you were hoping for?”
“Actually, it’s far better, assuming I choose to believe these efficiency numbers. Good God, Wilma. They hit a homerun with this tech. Imagine what else we’ll find inside these walls.”
She pointed to the right side of the page, just beyond the sketch of the window, where a set of thin lines had been drawn horizontally and spaced evenly apart. There were also wave guides drawn in next to them, with arrows leading to and from a triangle object drawn in the corner. “Looks like nano layers, with some kind of prism technique.”
“To split the wavelengths,” Craven said in a level tone, spacing his words out as if his mind was intent on releasing them one at a time. “Clever.”
“They must have figured out how to harvest more of the spectrum than we ever thought possible.”
“Otherwise, why go through all the trouble?”
“They’ve been very busy men,” Wilma said.
“Were—very busy men.”
“The same could be said for the rest, sir,” she replied as another twinge of pain slammed into her chest.
She walked next to Craven, paying close attention to her body language, not wanting him to see what she was really feeling inside. It was all about maintaining appearances. At all costs. He needed to remain confident and certain in his trust for her.
Everything she had become the past ten years came down to a single decision she’d made long ago. The one in which she’d picked a side and committed herself to this man and his mission.
Some might think she had a maniacal side, but it was more about the sheer lack of options in the new Frozen World. Back then, Frost was an easy ‘no.’ And now, after what she’d seen today, her decision to forgo Edison’s camp was also the right move as well.
She rolled her eyes at herself. Sometimes you just get lucky, making the right decision for the wrong reasons, even if you hate that choice every minute of every day.
Craven stopped a few steps later and shook his head. “Doesn’t appear to be here.”
“Then it must be in another lab somewhere.”
“Looks like we have more exploring to do.”
“While we’re at it, we need to start thinking about devising a counteragent.”
Craven paused before answering. “Otherwise, whatever got loose here will find its way to us.”
“Yes, sir. Exactly what I was thinking.”
“Then perhaps it wasn’t the best decision to barge in here after the others left.”
“We couldn’t have known, sir.”
“Just goes to show you, Rice. No matter how smart you are or how well you plan, sometimes you end up a little overconfident in your read on things.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to her loyalty or the fact that he had misjudged the aftermath of Fletcher’s attack and the value of the silo’s tech. “None of us are perfect, sir. But we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
CHAPTER 38
“All right, break time is over,” Krista said to her group, putting two fingers into her mouth and sending out a whistle in a short, high-pitched blast.
She put her arm up and made a circle gesture with her hand. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
One of her security te
am members led Horton and Scab girl from the trees lining the gulley to her right, taking a path to the second vehicle.
“Thanks for the consideration,” Horton said as he walked by. “Everyone needs a little privacy now and then.”
Krista didn’t respond, only giving him a cursory head nod. For some reason the bearded man thought it necessary to give the girl with whip marks across her back some privacy when she did her business.
The ‘consideration,’ as Horton had called it, seemed out of place. Modesty or shyness or whatever it was called didn’t seem to fit what Krista thought the Scabs were all about.
Then again, maybe Nomad had tamed them in some way when they were all shacked up in his hideout doing God knew what.
“I’m glad we stopped. He’s a lot calmer now,” Summer said, walking up and kneeling to pet Sergeant Barkley. “Aren’t you, boy?”
“That’s good, because I was just about done with all that drooling and jumping around. You really need to keep him under control.”
“I know. I’m trying. But he’s probably not a big fan of long trips. You know, all the strange smells of the forest and being cooped up and all.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” Lipton added, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He held up a stub of what he had been eating. “At least this jerky was edible.”
“Well, it wasn’t jerky,” Simms said as he walked up to Krista. “Repairs almost complete, boss.”
“What was it?” Krista asked.
“Some kind of carriage bolt. Big sucker.”
“At least it’s fixed.”
“Except the patch took longer than expected, but good thing they stopped when they did. Otherwise, they would’ve damaged the tire even more.”
“What can go wrong, does,” Summer said, getting to her feet. The dog sat on his haunches next to her leg with his tongue hanging out and tail wagging across the dirt.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Krista replied, appreciating Simms for taking the initiative to bring her a situation report. Most of her men would have waited for her to ask for one, wasting more of her time and energy.
“In retrospect,” Summer said, pausing, “I guess we took off a little too quickly. Otherwise, we would have remembered the spares.”
“Which is why I like to take it slow and run it by the numbers. It’s easy to forget something,” Krista said. “From now on, we’re going to need written checklists.”
“Honestly, I’m a little surprised you don’t already have them.”
“Honestly, that’s Wicks’ job. He took care of logistics.”
Summer tilted her head and changed to a lighter tone. “That isn’t all he took care of.”
“You really need to let it go, Summer.”
“I don’t get why some guys just have to get handsy, while others are just the opposite.”
“You mean like Nomad.”
“He really is different, isn’t he?”
“That’s one way to describe him.”
“He took all those women in and kept them safe. Then brought them to us for help, risking everything.”
“Desperate men make desperate moves.”
There was a pause before Summer replied, “Is that one of Edison’s sayings?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Must be Alexander’s then.”
Krista couldn’t place Morse’s voice in the memory playing in her head. “No. Not his either.”
“Well, I’ve heard it before so it has to be someone’s. In fact, I think the last word is supposed to be ‘decision.’ Desperate men make desperate decisions.”
Krista ignored the correction, continuing to search her mind. “You know, now that I think about it, it may have been Zimmer who said that.”
“Not that it really matters.”
“You’re right. Either way, it fits.”
Simms looked at Lipton. “Thanks for the idea. I didn’t know you could re-inflate with fire like that. Talk about a good old fashioned bush fix. Damn cool.”
“Another reason why you people need me. Someone has to do the three-dimensional thinking around here.”
“Hopefully, this is the last time,” Krista said.
“For his 3D stuff?” Simms asked, nodding in the direction of Lipton.
“For stopping,” Krista answered. “Make sure everyone understands we are Oscar Mike until we arrive. Cross your legs if you have to, but we’re way behind as it is.”
“I’ll spread the word,” Simms said, walking away.
“Simms seems like he’s finding his sea legs quite nicely,” Summer said, smiling as her eyes remained focused on the young man’s backside.
“Sea legs. Interesting term,” Lipton quipped.
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Lipton said. “By the way, he’s not interested. Not even remotely.”
Summer shrugged. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s obvious that your ovaries are on fire, but I’m afraid the feeling is not mutual.”
“Shut the hell up,” Krista snapped at Lipton, raising a fist and holding it there. “What do you know about anything? Especially that?”
“It’s called body language. For the trained eye, it speaks volumes.”
It was all Krista could do to stop herself from unleashing the punch she had coiled and ready. “Just go away before I hurt you. I don’t want to hear another word from that pie hole of yours. Understood?”
Lipton held for a moment, flashed an eyebrow, then turned and walked away, his feet taking him on a straight path for the passenger door of the gasifier.
Krista let the tension in her fist go. “I swear, I’m going to—”
“What about a assigning a guard?” Summer asked.
“For Lipton?”
“I thought you didn’t trust him.”
“I don’t,” Krista said, pausing. “To be honest, I’m kind of hoping he makes a break for it.”
“So you can shoot him.”
Krista put a hand on Summer’s shoulder. “You catch on fast, my young friend.”
“Well, he’s not that stupid.”
“No, of course not. In fact, he seems just a little too okay with all of this, don’t you think?”
“He did say something earlier about looking forward to a fresh start somewhere else.”
“Nah, that’s not it,” Krista said, remembering the man using those words. “He’s got something up his sleeve. I can feel it. Men like him, they don’t take a dump without a plan.”
“Which is why it would be smart to keep a guard on him at all times. He’s more than important for the whole Blackstone thing, so we need to make sure.”
“No, you’re right. As much as it pains me to admit, he is important. I’ll make sure it gets done, one way or the other.”
“Is that a promise? No shooting him in the back?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Or in the face?”
“Yes, that too.”
“Because bottom line, he’s more important than me. He has to be part of the trade with Blackstone; otherwise, it’s over, Krista. Tell me you understand what I’m saying here.”
“No, I get it. I really do. I’ll chain myself to him if I have to, but I’ll make sure he gets to the meet in one piece. Though, I have to say, he might have an extra bruise or two in the process.”
“Well, shit happens,” Summer said in a light tone, unable to hold back a smile. She held up her hand and Krista did the same, the two of them giving each other a high-five hand slap. “The good news is, we should have enough firewood now.”
“We better. We can’t keep stopping like this.”
“Plus, I think we’re all more than ready to get there and meet these people. Everyone seems a little amped up.”
Krista agreed, feeling her nerves amplify as they drew closer to the meet, although she was certain it was for different reasons than Summer’s. “Another hour. Maybe two.”
“Hey, come back here!” a guard calle
d out from behind them.
Krista turned to see one of her men chasing the Scab girl toward the tree line. Horton was right behind him and closing ground fast.
Helena stopped about forty yards later, then turned and flashed her teeth at Horton and snarled.
“Stay back,” Horton said as he grabbed the guard, both of them stopping in a heartbeat.
Helena held for a moment, growling, then whirled to face the trees, looking as though her focus was on a boulder that was shaped like a huge teardrop.
“She must smell something,” Horton said.
Helena took three steps forward in what looked like slow motion, then hunched over with her arms out and legs spread apart. Much like a wrestler preparing to start a match.
“Scabs?” Krista muttered to herself as she took off running toward the commotion.
Helena shifted her feet again, hunching and holding her pose in a snarl.
“No!” Summer yelled out from Krista’s right.
Krista stopped and turned to see if Summer was okay. What she saw was the girl lying on the ground with an outstretched arm in the direction of Sergeant Barkley.
The mutt was in a dead sprint for the trees ahead of him, with his ears back and tail low, looking the part of heatseeking missile.
Two strides later, the dog sent itself airborne over a collection of deadfall, soaring over the obstacle in a smooth jump. When his paws hit the ground, he started barking as he continued his jaunt.
“That thing knows how to bark?” Lipton called out from his position behind the second truck. “Who knew?”
Krista turned and sent Lipton a glare, knowing she shouldn’t leave the man unguarded, but other factors were at play.
Lipton held her gaze for a moment, then climbed into the truck’s rear passenger seat and closed the door before he rolled down the window a few inches.
Krista faced the trees once again, then put two fingers into her mouth and released another command whistle. She pointed at one of her men who’d just arrived. It was Simms. “Go help Summer.”
The kid broke formation and took off in a jog toward Summer, who was now getting to her feet.
Summer kept her head down while brushing herself off in a flurry of hand moves. A few strokes later, she must have noticed Simms coming at her because she stopped her hands, looked at Krista, and then pointed at Lipton in an exaggerated motion.
Silo Page 20
