“I’m just playing,” Katya admitted, sniffing her food as she peeled back the foil. “These smell pretty good.”
“How is everyone feeling about getting started with construction?” Sarah Jennifer asked as they ate. “Any major concerns?”
“Not on my end,” Linus answered. “VR training took care of my guys learning how to operate the excavators. Everyone is ready to start digging out where the bots marked.”
Sarah Jennifer turned her attention to Bruiser and Ozzie. “Pipework?”
“All set,” Bruiser assured her. “We’re gonna work out timing after dinner so’s we’re following Linus’ teams.”
“Power lines will be just fine as long as Rory’s team figures out the insulation before we get rained out,” Little Ace added.
“We’re not going to see rain for a few weeks,” Geordie assured them. “Plenty of time to get the groundworks done and dusted.”
Rory pointed at him. “Not much to it besides point and shoot. Operating foam dispensers isn’t exactly rocket science.”
“Then my guys will lay the roads.” Katya crunched into her taco. “Mmm, ’s good.”
Sarah Jennifer nodded. “Brutus, Big Ace, and I will be circling the sectors to keep on top of manpower requirements.”
“Carver and I will be there when the dust gets to be too much for the equipment,” Jim promised. “You all know there’s gonna be breakdowns. Report them immediately so we can get a crew to you soonest.”
The conversation turned to lighter things.
“Is it weird I’m not mad about us being crammed into barracks again?” Linus asked. He ducked as everyone pelted him with the balled-up foil from their packaging. “Well, screw you assholes,” he complained.
Sarah Jennifer pointed at the empty space between the benches. “You’re going to regret doubling up on those meatballs, Linus. Get to kissing the floor.”
“Worth it,” Linus grumbled as he got into push-up position. “You guys suuuuck.”
After dinner, Sarah Jennifer made her way to the room she was sharing with Esme.
The witch was already there, unpacking her belongings. She smiled when Sarah Jennifer walked in. “There she is.”
Sarah Jennifer hugged her on the way to her bunk, collapsed on the bare mattress without taking her boots off, and yawned. “What a day.”
“Lilith called,” Esme told her. “She got hold of Ezekiel.”
Sarah Jennifer sat bolt upright. “And?”
“And nothing,” Esme answered. “He blocked her out soon as she spoke to him.”
Sarah Jennifer let out a grunt of frustration.
“She got something before he did,” Esme offered. “He was thinking about a vampire. She said he was dealing with some emotional turmoil.”
Sarah Jennifer didn’t know what to make of that. “You think he hooked up with the vamp?”
Esme shrugged, resuming her unpacking. “Could be.”
Sarah Jennifer wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and sleep for the next six hours, but she had to know what Lilith knew.
“I’ll be in the comm room if you need me.”
Sarah Jennifer left the residential hub and made her way through the habitat to the container where the long-range comms were set up. It took a few moments to connect to New Romanov, then she heard Lilith’s voice.
“Esme told you?”
“She told me you managed to contact Ezekiel, and he was thinking about some vampire,” Sarah Jennifer replied. “I came straight here to get the details from you.”
“I don’t think you’ll like what I have to say,” Lilith cautioned.
“I’d rather know.” Sarah Jennifer sighed. “Lay it on me. What situation has he gotten himself into?”
“I saw many memories of a female vampire. He has been with her for a while.”
Sarah Jennifer frowned. “You think since he dropped off?”
“It looked that way. You can never be sure with the human brain. Sarah Jennifer, there’s something else. The vampire is Mad.”
Sarah Jennifer almost dropped her headset. “What, like, Mad Mad?”
“Yes.”
Chapter Seven
Ezekiel felt Lilith’s probing presence as he dug out some clothing for Kain in his room. He didn’t have much that wouldn’t look like Kain had borrowed it from a child, but those were the breaks when a Were didn’t know to bundle before they shifted.
He had an overlarge tunic that could be easily modified, but the fleece-lined trousers he’d made to go over his winter clothing would at best look like capris on the muscular Were.
He returned to the main room in time to hear the end of Caitlin’s story. Kain gave the shirt Ezekiel offered him a pained look.
“It’s all I have for you,” Ezekiel apologized. “We’re not exactly compatible in build. Do what you need to. I don’t want them back.”
“Can’t be helped. Thank you.” Kain took the knife Caitlin offered and cut the sleeves off the shirt, then slit the sides a little to give himself a chance of fitting into it.
“The real question,” Helena continued, eyeing Kain appreciatively, “is where did you learn my name?”
“I was given your journal by a man named Stump,” Caitlin answered. She relayed the circumstances while Kain fought to squeeze into the trousers.
“That’s where I left those notes.” Helena smiled. “I spent days looking for them but couldn’t find them anywhere. It’s lucky my memory is so good. Otherwise, I’d have…”
She broke off as pain wracked her body.
Ezekiel was by her side in a second. “Helena, are you okay?”
Helena made her fangs drop. I’ll be fine, she told him, using their blood bond to speak mind to mind. Play along. I need to talk to you.
Maybe give me some warning next time? Ezekiel knelt beside her and murmured soothingly as he poured healing energy into her body.
You’re a terrible actor, Helena replied. Can we trust these people?
I’m not sure yet, Ezekiel admitted. They seem to be on the level.
We don’t tell them a thing until we know for sure.
They already know enough, Ezekiel countered. The nanocytes in the blood he’d given her earlier responded to his command, pushing back the rising tide of Madness that was always threatening to consume her.
Then we dance around the truth. Bethany Anne wouldn’t be very pleased if she knew we spilled her secrets to any hunky man who walked through the door. Helena clutched her stomach, letting out a groan that was only half-faked. She plastered a smile on her face as she forced her fangs to retract. “This doesn’t get any easier.”
Caitlin and Kain were too concerned to notice the surreptitious exchange.
Kain was the first to speak. “What happened?”
Ezekiel answered, “The Madness. Every time we feel as though we’re finally in a place where we understand the patterns, it throws us a curveball.”
Kain narrowed his eyes, smiling in appreciation. “Baseball analogy? Nice.”
“What’s baseball?” Caitlin asked.
Ezekiel didn’t reply. He left Helena’s side and walked over to add the time to the tracking sheet they used to monitor the frequency of Helena’s episodes.
Helena cast off the blanket that covered her, drawing Caitlin’s curiosity when she uncovered the bandage on her ankle.
Caitlin nodded at the injury. “How did it happen?”
“An unhappy accident,” Helena informed her. It was almost true. “Curse me for getting caught in a rainstorm and surrounded by hungry Mad. I knew I shouldn’t have risked searching the university, but we needed equipment that I just didn’t have.”
Kain tilted his head. “The university?”
Ezekiel returned to the seating area. “Chicago State, a few kilometers west of here in the main city.”
Kain’s eyes lit up. “We’re near Chicago? Kitty-Cat! We nearly made it. We’re near the other Weres!”
Caitlin was more circumspect. “W
hat were you looking for?”
Ezekiel’s head snapped toward the door, sensing the vamp just before she appeared.
“Nanocytes, of course,” Mary-Anne told Caitlin.
Ezekiel pushed away his initial reaction. The vamp was beautiful despite her tangled, bracken-mussed hair and the angry welts that covered her skin wherever the mud didn’t.
Helena flowed to her feet, her welcoming smile tinged with concern. “How in the name of the Queen Bitch and the Dark Messiah did you make it through all that sunlight?”
Mary-Anne gripped the doorframe, her breath coming in heaving gasps. “It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that much. There’s only so much shade beneath the trees before you’ve got to cross in the open, and no amount of vampire speed can combat the pain you feel when sunlight hits your skin.”
She was already healing. She refused the chair Helena offered, walking over to the sink to wash the mud off. “Please, don’t let me be a distraction from your conversation. This is real talk about real problems, and I need your help to purge this shit from inside me.”
Caitlin turned her attention back to Helena. “The nanocytes? You were looking for nanocytes?”
Helena looked at Ezekiel, who nodded.
I don’t think they’re the bad guys, he reasoned. Maybe we don’t dance. Well, not too much.
This would be much easier if we could get some of your blood into Mary-Anne, Helena told him.
Ezekiel’s mental snort was loud. Yeah, I’m not down with offering myself up to a vamp I just met. We do this the hard way. Trust has to be earned.
Helena inclined her head. Very well, but I still think a little misdirection is necessary. We can always correct their assumptions later. “Esme Proctor said it best. ‘Nanocytes are the secret to it all.’ Bethany Anne blanketed the Earth with the Kurtherian technology, which used to be exclusive to Weres and vampires. It is the code—the instructions—inside these tiny machines which has become corrupted, and the infected are acting as vectors for the Madness to spread even wider.”
Kain’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But how? How is that even possible? Humans have nanocytes now, too? How do you know this?”
And the dance begins, Helena sent to Ezekiel. “Extensive testing. You think decades of experimentation hasn’t yielded some answers?”
“How did it happen, though?” Caitlin asked. “How did the Madness begin?”
“And how do we end it?” Kain added.
The dog yipped. “Easy, Jaxon,” Caitlin murmured.
“One thing at a time.” Ezekiel wasn’t comfortable dissembling. “The truth is, we don’t know what caused the event. What we do know is that something cataclysmic happened way back when it all began. Some event that kicked everything off at once and caused the world to degenerate and devolve.”
Kain wrinkled his nose. “Like, a pulse of energy or something?”
Helena jumped on his misconception since it was close to the truth. “Yes! Exactly like a pulse.” She pulled a clean sheet of paper off the board and scribbled a quick diagram of the BYPS. “As far as I can figure, it was something big. Something powerful enough to affect everyone at once and cause the corruption. What is one of the only things in the world that can scramble every machine in range, but that humans and other sentient beings cannot feel when it happens?”
Mary-Anne turned from the sink, a towel in her hands. “An EMP?”
Helena pointed at Mary-Anne. “Bingo!”
Ezekiel frowned. Helena, they’re going to figure out we’re not telling the truth.
Then we plead ignorance, the vampire told him. We have a duty to protect the UnknownWorld, even from itself.
Jaxon launched into another frenzy of barks, putting an end to Ezekiel’s argument.
“Woah, woah, woah.” Caitlin calmed the dog with a touch. “An EMP?”
“Electromagnetic pulse,” Helena supplied.
Caitlin frowned. “Electro mag… What?”
Mary-Anne gave Helena an exasperated look. “She’s not from our time.”
“Or mine!” Kain chipped in.
Ezekiel suddenly understood how the Were knew about things that hadn’t been around since before WWDE.
“An electromagnetic pulse,” Helena repeated. “See, our ancestors were the gods of technology. We came to a point in time where tiny computers people carried in their pocket had more power in them than the rockets that first sent a man to the moon.”
Caitlin’s skepticism was clear to see. “People went to the moon?”
“Yes,” Helena replied. “So much technology existed that we were able to put computers into space. We called them ‘satellites.’ These computers gave us images of the Earth, helped the internet bring the world together, and gave us information on storms, weather patterns, and so much more.”
Helena continued, “Great technology that had the power to unite the world and keep signals bouncing invisibly across the globe. There are satellites up there now that belong to—”
Ezekiel cut in. “Don’t start praising Sarah Jennifer. I won’t hear it.”
Helena gave him a knowing look. “She was the one with the original knowledge. Without her and Esme, we wouldn’t know anything about the BYPS. The Baba Yaga Protection System, or BYPS, had only one flaw; it is connected to someplace on Earth. My life’s work has led me to believe a pulse was sent to the BYPS from this place, a pulse that somehow corrupted the nanocytes the Queen had intended as the solution to all of humanity’s ills.”
That was as much as she was willing to share. “However infinitesimal the probability, I can only conclude that we are the victims of fate’s capricious nature. All it would take is a slight surge in a faulty circuit. A single error in one circuit, leading to a cascading failure. The consequent ejection of the failing satellite from the system would be powerful enough to—”
Caitlin interrupted. “I’m sorry, a circuit?”
Ezekiel took over the explanation. “Think of it as a minuscule highway over which the electricity would run to make the machines operate.”
Caitlin looked at Ezekiel blankly.
“As I was saying,” Helena continued, “a slight surge in a circuit would be powerful enough to destroy it. To fry it and cause it to malfunction, which would set off the safety measures. Whoever designed the system made sure to build in enough redundancies to ensure the BYPS could run without maintenance for centuries. Magnetic pulses could do unspeakable damage to machinery across a vast range, potentially the world over. Much better to lose one satellite than the whole network.”
“That can’t be right!” Caitlin exclaimed. “Why would anyone do something like that?”
“Maybe it wasn’t intentional?” Kain had his attention on the tray of scientific instruments Helena had left out. “Maybe somebody did it by accident. You know, tripped over a wire, or mashed the wrong button, and sent the wrong signal to the satellites?”
“It really doesn’t matter how it happened, and this is all just my theory.” Helena sighed. “All that matters is that we find a way to fix it. We find the cure and set the world to rights.”
Her next words sent chills through Ezekiel.
“And now, the baton can be passed over to you.”
Caitlin looked at Ezekiel. “I’m sorry, what is she talking about?”
Ezekiel didn’t answer her. He grabbed Helena’s hand in both of his. “You need to stop talking like this. You can’t give up now. We will fix you before it’s too late, I promise.”
Are you going to speak to Lilith? Helena shot back.
If I have to! Ezekiel stated hotly. He dropped the mental link, too emotional to maintain it. “She knows the way, I’m telling you. If we just listen to her and go now, we can make it together. All of us.” He was desperate. He would do anything to save her.
Helena cupped Ezekiel’s face in her hands. “I’m already too far gone, my boy. You’ve seen what happens when I’m left alone. I won’t make it five minutes before I go Mad and turn on you all.”
Ezekiel wrenched free and looked away. His magic surged again as he fought to contain his fear of losing her.
Helena smiled softly. “Don’t think of it as a sad occasion. Think of it as though we’re turning the chapter on what has come before. I still have some fight in me, so I can help you prepare, but you know as well as I do that we’ve done as much as we can do here. It’s time to go to Lilith and discover what she knows. It’s the only way we’ll make everything right once more.”
Ezekiel released his grief, hot tears flooding his eyes. “No, Hel. No. I need you.”
“It’s time to let me go,” Helena told him, her voice gentle but firm.
Chapter Eight
Mars, Reynolds Plain
The next morning, Sarah Jennifer woke with the resolve to put Ezekiel from her mind for the time being. The knowledge he was alive had to be enough until either Lilith or Enora was able to glean enough information for her to act on. In the meantime, she had a behemoth construction project to manage.
She arrived at the site to find someone had set up a stage, complete with a ribbon to be cut.
Of course, she was expected to give a speech. She had prepared one, and for once, she was even looking forward to it. She smiled. The ribbon was a nice touch.
Brutus handed her a pouch with a long, bendy straw attached. “Plug it into your water feed,” he told her. “I know you didn’t stop for breakfast.”
Sarah Jennifer thanked him and plugged the pouch into her suit. The sweet sugary coffee hit her tastebuds, and she felt almost human again. “Gold star, cuz,” she told him.
“No one expects a rousing speech pre-caffeine,” he teased. “You ready for this?”
Sarah Jennifer nodded. “More than you know.”
She waved at Linus, Dinny, and Reg in the excavators as she contacted Enora through her comm chip. “Play me a few soundbites from appropriate occasions,” she requested, wanting to feel connected to other leaders who had been in the same position.
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