“I told him I’ve got the groceries and I’m heading home. He’ll get the gist.”
He could still hear sirens, but they weren’t coming any closer. The quickness of the transfer had worked in their favor, too soon for aerial surveillance to be in place. “How are you so calm?” he asked. “Do you do this kind of thing a lot?”
She suppressed a laugh. “I have a particular set of skills.”
She’d told him that before. Had she been given Emily’s identity because of those skills? But the quiet confidence that emanated from her had a soothing effect. Oliver settled back against his seat, finally able to relax. A prickling sensation stung the corners of his eyes.
He blinked, fighting the unexpected emotion.
Three or four miles later, they pulled into the driveway of a split-level house. Oliver and Jenifer both exited into the drizzling rain. She guided him up a set of stairs to the front door. A middle-aged man opened it and stepped out. Wordlessly Jenifer handed him the car keys as he passed. The man proceeded to the vehicle and she motioned Oliver inside.
“Altair?” Oliver asked.
“Who else?”
He watched through the front window as the gold sedan backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the road. “Are we safe here?”
“As safe as we can be anywhere. The local Smith has been a lot of help. He’d already had a couple inquiries about you before we were able to contact him.” Oliver glanced at her sharply. She only smiled. “I think there must be half a dozen people looking for you, at least. If we hadn’t come along, someone else would’ve been in that parking lot.”
He sat down hard on the couch, the gravity of his situation on him like a load of bricks. Tears, however unwanted, leaked from the corners of his eyes. He slumped his head back against the cushion, staring at the ceiling.
People had come for him. They had been waiting to pull him from the dark, abandoned abyss that had been his destiny since the day he was born.
He didn’t know what to think, what to feel. Even if this attempt at escape utterly failed, if the GCA in its entirety stormed this house and carted him off to Prom-E, he would go with the knowledge that someone had tried to stop it. Someone had tried to save him—a kid who wasn’t even worth saving.
Jenifer was beside him before he realized it. Careful of his injured shoulder, she wrapped her arms around him in a gentle hug and let him cry.
“There, there, little brother,” she cooed. “You’ve had some rough weeks. Get it all out and you’ll feel better.”
Chapter 24
Projected Calamity
Friday, March 8, 5:15 PM PST, Seattle
With some assistance from Jenifer, Oliver swapped his mismatched hospital clothes for less conspicuous items: a button-up shirt and blue jeans. She changed his bandages for him before belting him back into his shoulder brace and sling.
“All things considered, you look pretty dapper,” she said, mussing up his hair.
Embarrassed by his earlier show of emotions, he scowled and pulled away from her. She suppressed a snicker.
In the background, a television broadcasted the news. NPNN had said nothing yet about the missing school bomber, Oliver Dunn. He didn’t know why they were delaying, but it made him nervous. If the GCA wasn’t asking the public for help recovering him, it meant they believed they could accomplish it themselves.
“When is Smith coming back?” Oliver asked.
“He’ll come when he comes,” said Jenifer.
“And if he doesn’t?”
Her lips thinned. “This is an Altair safe house. They won’t just leave us here indefinitely.”
“So in the meantime we wait?” he asked, an edge of annoyance in his voice.
Jenifer favored him with a wry glance. “You’re not in any condition to do much else.”
His shoulder throbbed in response. Even the simple act of changing his shirt had set the healing wound afire. He was basically useless, except to sit around and stare at the wall.
Jenifer must have seen the discomfort on his face. “Do you need some painkillers?”
Oliver shook his head. “It’s fine. I haven’t been taking them for days now.”
Her brows arched, but she let the subject slide. “How about something to eat, then? Are you hungry?”
He was half-starved. For the first time in more than a week his appetite flared with a vengeance. Still, he had what was left of his dignity to consider. “It has to be something I can feed myself.”
“No steak, then. More for me, I guess.”
Oliver followed her back to the kitchen. “Is it okay for us to eat the food here?”
“They stocked it for us,” Jenifer said. She extracted a table knife from a drawer and pulled some bread from the opposite counter. “Peanut butter and jelly okay for you?”
He didn’t care what she fixed as long as it didn’t require her to cut it into small pieces for him, like he was a child. The sandwich, easily compiled, was also easy to eat. Jenifer made one for herself and a second for Oliver.
A frown creased his brows as he chewed. “So who else is looking for me?” That tidbit of information, given during the tumult of his escape, had lingered at the edge of his thoughts. He mulled over the possibilities.
Jenifer shrugged. “Smith might know more than I do, but he’s tight-lipped—that’s one of the requirements to become a Smith, that you know when to keep your mouth shut. Inquiries like this don’t generally come with a lot of information attached to them, though. Who do you think it is? Your precious Emily?”
That possibility had occurred to him. He blushed crimson at having it spoken aloud, but tried to play it off as nothing. “She’s the most likely person, I guess.”
“Are there others?” Jenifer asked.
There could be. In the incident when he was ten, Altair had smuggled five Prometheus students to safety. Oliver could have been the sixth and had refused the offer. “There was a ghost in the Prom system,” he said, watching Jenifer’s face to see that she understood that term in its proper context.
“You’re talking about Ben Birchard,” she said.
His brows shot up. “You know him?”
“No. Emily talked about him in her debriefing.”
That made sense. Ben Birchard was not even the man’s real name; he certainly wouldn’t be using it anymore.
Oliver schooled his surprise with a nod and returned to the subject at hand. “Altair staged his death, but all the higher-ups—General Stone, Principal Jones, Principal Gates—insisted that he was still alive.”
“Altair doesn’t typically kill people except on paper. They repurpose them.”
“So he’s a ghost somewhere else?” Oliver asked.
She shrugged. “It’s possible. It’s more likely that he went into hiding or transferred to one of the affiliates.”
“Like the Brotherhood?” Oliver asked. He recalled Birchard’s treacherous, smiling face. As the personal assistant to Genevieve Jones of the Prometheus A Campus, he had had access to every file in the Prometheus system and delighted in being an insufferable know-it-all.
Oliver couldn’t picture him hunkered down in an abandoned mine with no greater technology than a gun to cuddle.
“Probably not the Brotherhood,” said Jenifer. “You don’t get many from Altair who cross over to that particular affiliate.”
“How many others are there?”
“Half a dozen or more. Odeon and Tallmadge are the two I know off the top of my head. He wouldn’t have gone to Odeon—that one is for entertainers and creatives. I’m not even sure it exists, or if it’s just a rumor made up to help us believe that there are prominent people who support our cause.”
“What is your cause?” Oliver asked.
Jenifer’s face twisted into disbelief, as though he’d asked something any six-year-old would know. “Freedom from tyranny,” she said in a “Well, duh” sort of voice. “This country wasn’t founded so that government overlords could monitor and deci
de our every move.”
He had been taught all his life that people needed government, that it was the right of the elites to rule and guide those beneath them. He had, in his younger years, assumed he was among those elites. Life on the lower end of the spectrum had taught him how unpleasant an experience tyranny could be.
“What about the other group, Tallmadge?” he asked.
“It’s a spy ring,” said Jenifer. “Or rather, it’s part of Altair, but separate. Altair operates in cells. Those designated as ‘Tallmadge’ can pass from one cell to another. Most of the information Altair has comes through the Tallmadge network.”
Oliver grunted. “That sounds like Birchard to a tee.”
“Well, that’s probably where our Smith is headed after all of this is over,” said Jenifer. At Oliver’s questioning glance she elaborated. “I had to coerce him to come after you with me. We’re both acting like Tallmadge agents right now, but without the proper clearance. We had to jump through hoops to get the local Altair cell to talk to us. And since he’s a Smith outside of his own cell, if he draws too much attention to himself, there’s no way he can return to that post. The whole point of a Smith is someone who blends in with the crowd, someone who won’t draw extra scrutiny when authorities come looking for something. He’s already listed on the police report from when Abel Ross attacked you in the hospital.”
“So his name really is Moncrieff?” Oliver asked.
She shrugged. “That’s what his ID chip says at the moment, but anything digital can be reprogrammed. Mine said I was Emily Brent, remember?”
He tucked into his second sandwich on that thought. ID chips were supposed to lock in a person’s identity with their biometric data. Instead, Altair had subverted the technology into a means of hiding in plain sight.
In other words, the more secure things seemed, the less they really were.
Midway through the afternoon, the front door opened and shut. Jenifer and Oliver, ensconced in a back room playing cards together, looked up apprehensively.
Smith breezed through the doorway, removing a rain-spotted hat and trench coat. “I see we’re cozy here,” he said.
Jenifer visibly relaxed. “What took you so long?”
“I was visiting patients.”
“You’re not really a doctor, are you?” Oliver asked.
“As far as they’re concerned I am. I couldn’t very well bolt from the hospital when the security alert went out. Nice job on the escape, by the way. The nursing staff is passing around a video of you tasing that guard in the elevator like it’s candy. I’ve seen it half a dozen times on three different floors.”
“Isn’t that against protocol?” Jenifer asked. “Security footage is confidential.”
Smith shrugged. “The GCA is accusing the hospital staff of coordinating Oliver’s escape. They’ve dragged half a dozen workers into interrogations already. The staff, in retaliation, is bending their confidentiality rules. It was a really nice job, Oliver.”
The teenager suspected Smith was being sarcastic, but he could discern no such nuance. “Thanks. I saw a window and took it.”
The man nodded shortly.
“Thanks for saving me from Abel Ross, too.” The incident, more than a week ago, might have faded in Smith’s mind, but Oliver in his newfound freedom had determined to express his gratitude.
Smith spoiled the thank-you with cold, hard reality. “Unfortunately, that’s probably not the last you’ll see of him.”
Oliver’s heart spasmed in his chest. “Was he one of the people asking Altair about me?”
Smith looked to Jenifer, who made a careless face. “I told him there were other inquiries. There’s no harm in him knowing that.”
A sigh wrenched itself from the man’s throat. “Relations between Altair and the Brotherhood are strained at the moment. It’s unlikely that Abel Ross reached out through that channel, but not impossible.”
“Are they strained because of me?” Oliver asked, his nerves on edge.
“They’re strained because the Brotherhood made a full-scale attack on a school and killed close to three hundred people. But yes, them lying to us so they could pull you back into their clutches didn’t help matters. Their organization is fracturing thanks to Ross and his fellow renegades, and Altair will keep its distance until the fallout clears.”
“Do you know who the other inquiries came from?” Oliver asked.
“No,” said Smith, “but if you want to ask the local Smith, he’s paying us a visit this evening. I’ll warn you in advance, though: he won’t give you any names. At best he’ll tell you what channels made contact.”
A channel was better than no information at all. Oliver settled back in his chair, for the moment content to wait.
Evening brought heavy rainfall. Smith parked himself in a back room, where monitors displayed the feed of a closed-circuit camera system around the safe house. He read a paperback novel while watching for visitors.
Jenifer and Oliver, meanwhile, abandoned their card game after a few more rounds. Oliver, propped up with pillows on a couch, drifted off to sleep with the quiet patter of winter rain at the back of his thoughts.
As the daylight beyond the windows faded into a dreary evening, Smith emerged from his back room with a swiftness that jarred Oliver back awake. Jenifer, in the kitchen, looked up from the vegetables she was chopping for dinner. The man said nothing to either of them. Instead he crossed straight to the front of the house.
Oliver sat up and favored Jenifer with a questioning glance.
“The local Smith must be here,” she said, resuming her knife work. “We’d be bolting out the back otherwise.”
The front door opened and shut. Murmured voices carried from the next room, headed their direction. Oliver smoothed his shirt and instinctively checked the corners of his mouth for any crusted drool. He watched over the back of the couch in apprehension as Smith returned with a middle-aged man at his side. Shrewd black eyes peered from beneath tightly cinched brows to survey the teenager.
The local Smith, broad-shouldered with the first vestiges of sagging age, looked far more the part than the younger man beside him.
“So this is the asset,” he said, his attention fixed upon Oliver. His expression conveyed a vague displeasure.
“Yes,” said the younger Smith. “Would you like to sit?”
The older man crossed around to the smaller sofa. Jenifer abandoned her chopping in the kitchen to settle next to Oliver on the couch. Their Smith remained standing.
Inwardly Oliver wanted to shrink from the newcomer’s pointed scrutiny of him. Instead, he forced himself to meet the man’s gaze. This person had provided them with shelter, food, clothing, transportation. The displeasure that lingered on his face only brought to Oliver’s mind how much assistance the man had rendered. He deserved respect and gratitude, even if his disposition was as sour as a lemon.
“Here’s the long and short of it,” the man said abruptly, and he kept his focus on Oliver. “Abel and Kennedy Ross have headed south, through Oregon and into California. Some of the Brotherhood cells have gone with them, others are in pursuit to stop them, and still others have retreated back into their strongholds to ride out this storm. They’re fragmented. One of their commanders put out a general request that, in the event we were able to get the Level 5 null away from the government, we loan him back to them to rein in the Rosses and their followers.”
Jenifer’s scoff cut through the air.
The local Smith slid a dry glance in her direction. “We told him we had no intention of reclaiming the null.”
“Good,” she said. “And the null has a name. It’s Oliver.”
Brief approval flashed across his face, but he ignored her correction. “Luckily, with as high profile as the Brotherhood has been these past few weeks, they didn’t dare attempt a retrieval of their own. But they work best out in the wilds anyway.” He waved one hand as though to banish this thread of conversation. “We have a second request
from another affiliate. It’s generally agreed upon through all our networks that having the Rosses on the loose is a bad thing. There’s a rift in whether we should interject ourselves or let the government take care of it.”
“It’s more their problem than ours,” said Smith. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed and a critical expression on his face.
His older counterpart shook his head, a crease between his brows. “It’s not that simple. If they take Abel alive, he’s well enough versed in the Brotherhood’s procedures that he could compromise that whole organization. If that were to happen, he could possibly compromise a huge chunk of our networks in the process.”
“So leaving the government to rein him in is probably a bad idea,” Jenifer said, resting one hand on Oliver’s forearm as though sensing his growing tension. She gave him a reassuring glance.
The local Smith grunted. “Those higher up in the chain agree it’s not the ideal option. There’s a good chance the government won’t take Abel Ross alive, but if they do—”
“He’s a null,” Oliver interjected. “A weak one, but a null nonetheless. They’ll do with him whatever they do with all the other nulls they collect.”
The man’s mouth thinned, the corners drawing tight. “Do they know for a fact that he’s a null?”
“General Stone does. Cedric told him.”
He swore under his breath. “They’ll do everything they can to catch him alive, then. Nulls are too valuable to kill, except when absolutely necessary.”
Too valuable? Oliver’s breath caught in his throat. Of course nulls were rare, and of course they were useful, but useful and valuable were not always the same thing.
Before he could ask for elaboration on this point, the local Smith continued. “Catching Abel Ross would be a small matter if not for his daughter. Our network lists her as a Level 4 projector. No one wants to get anywhere near her, and if we can’t get near her, we can’t get to him.”
“So this second request you’ve had,” said Smith, “is from an affiliate that wants Oliver to disarm Kennedy Ross.”
Oliver Invictus (Annals of Altair Book 3) Page 17
