The guards were approaching the last car now. She watched their boots make tracks in the snow and heard men’s voices asking for identification. Still in bird form, she hopped under the car and out of view. She looked around, thinking.
If she shifted into a mouse, she’d be too short to reach the car. Squirrels were good climbers. She’d certainly seen enough squirrels in her life to be able to shift into one. She extended her wings and hopped along the ground until she felt her body grow heavier and longer as fur replaced feathers. She glanced down to take stock of herself, relieved to see the fluffy squirrel tail exactly where it was supposed to be. She reached up and pulled herself into a crevice, hugging the car’s metal undercarriage as it pulled away.
* * *
Skye absorbed every bit of information Tora threw at her. The girl’s intellect far surpassed that of most kids her age. She suspected Skye would be stiff competition in a battle of memory.
Tora closed her laptop. “Show me how to override the torches in tunnel eight, section K.”
Skye swiped at her watch face until she came to the appropriate screen. A few taps later, she was exactly where she needed to be to control the lights in that part of the sanctuary.
Tora nodded. “What about the door in tunnel fifteen, between chambers two and three?”
Skye didn’t even look up from her watch as she swiped and tapped faster than Tora ever had.
“And if you wanted to increase the temperature in here by a few degrees?”
“I already did that a while ago. I was cold. Hope that’s okay.”
Tora smiled, leaning over to give her a sideways hug. They’d already reviewed battle scenarios and safety precautions. Skye had kept up with no problem. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the same type of earbud she had given to Aspen. “From now on, I want you to wear this at all times. I’m giving one to everyone here. This will allow us to stay in contact 24/7, no matter where we are in the sanctuary. Aspen has one. I’m wearing one, too. See?” She moved her hair aside to reveal the earbud.
“It’s so tiny. I can barely see it,” Skye said, pushing her own earbud in place.
“Just tap once to turn it on, twice to turn it off. Like this.” Tora demonstrated, and Skye imitated the gesture.
“Will I be able to hear Aspen when she gets back?”
“You’ll know she’s back the same moment I do.”
“Cool.” Skye removed her earbud and studied it. She frowned, looking back and forth between her watch and the earbud.
“Is something wrong?”
“We’re the only ones here, right? Just Alpha Genesis and the newborns?”
Tora nodded. “Everyone else was evacuated.” She saw Skye’s wheels turning. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“With the SEA on the way, wouldn’t it be better if each of us could open the doors ourselves? That way, none of us would get stuck. Everyone would be able to move around the sanctuary freely and not have to depend on you, me, or Michael.”
Tora nodded. “That would be preferable, but there aren’t any keypads near the doors. My father and I didn’t want to run the risk of someone hacking their way in.”
“You installed a voice recognition system in each chamber, right?”
Tora nodded again, remembering the voice messages she and Aspen had left for Skye her first day here.
“Do you have more of these earbuds?”
“A lot more. Why?”
“If you let me borrow your laptop, I can program the system to recognize the voice of everyone in Alpha Genesis, so every door in the sanctuary will open when we tell it to. All I would need is a voice sample. I saved the recording that Aspen made for me the other day, so I can program the system to recognize her, too. I think it’s safer that way. If something happened and you couldn’t get back to entry point twelve, she’d be stuck outside. This way, she can open the door and let herself in.”
Dumbfounded, Tora stared at Skye.
“Sorry.” Skye shook her head and cast her eyes to the floor. “It’s a stupid idea, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s a brilliant idea. You may have just given us the edge we’ve been looking for. What do you need from me?”
“Your laptop.”
Tora handed it over without hesitation.
“What’s your passcode?”
“Ice queen.”
“Before today, that’s pretty much how I thought of you.” Skye met her gaze and smiled. “But I like you much better this way.”
“Me, too,” Tora admitted with a wink.
“You’ll have to hide the earbuds on both sides of every door in the sanctuary,” Skye went on. “I’ll write the code from here while you’re doing that.” Her fingers were already flying across the keyboard. “There are a lot of doors in this place.” She glanced up. “Maybe you should ask Oscar and the pack to help you.”
Convinced she was talking to a mini-Aspen, Tora decided to do just that. She kissed Skye on the forehead and hurried out of the bedroom to find Oscar and his pack. She didn’t know how much time they had until SEA soldiers arrived, but something told her there wasn’t a second to spare.
* * *
Aspen hung on for dear life as the car pulled into an underground garage and the doors sealed shut behind them. Two men climbed out from the SUV and opened the rear door. A third pair of shoes—much shinier than the other two—joined them. She looked on in disbelief as the tip of a black cane made contact with the ground, just inches from her hidey-hole under the car.
This had to be the man she had come for. Gaylord Cobbledick.
Hank was right. She should search for his parents and give them a good talking-to.
Men from the other two Suburbans walked over and waited near the man with the cane. Six bodyguards? Talk about overkill. He was obviously important to the SEA and, quite possibly, a target for assassination. But since Shrouds were too busy hiding and trying to stay alive, she couldn’t help but wonder from where the threat was coming. What Shroud in their right mind would attempt to assassinate a high-ranking SEA official? Other than her, of course. Except she wasn’t there to assassinate him. She was there to gather intel, return with reinforcements, and abduct the sonofabitch. Her plan did sound pretty insane, now that she thought about it. Even so, she was committed to seeing this through and giving Alpha Genesis the bargaining chip they needed.
With six bodyguards surrounding him, how the hell was she going to follow her quarry without being seen? If she let him go into the building without her, chances were she’d never be able to find him again in the time allotted. Think, Aspen. Think.
Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak sprang to mind. Something like that sure would come in handy right about now. Shaking her head to stay focused, she tried to plan her next move.
“Prestwick, will you fetch me my trench coat, please? It’s just right there on the back seat.”
Aspen listened as the rear door opened. Prestwick’s shoes disappeared as he climbed inside. He was back in a flash, trench coat in hand.
“Here you go, sir.”
“Thank you.” The trench coat fell to the ground. As the old man knelt to pick it up, the strangest thing happened. He waved a hand under the car and held the pocket open for her to climb inside.
Telling herself she was crazy for following the old man’s lead, she released her grip from the car’s undercarriage, shifted into a mouse, and scurried into the pocket in the amount of time it took him to sneeze. He was clearly stalling to give her enough time. But why? Once inside, she felt the coat being lifted as the old man stood.
She was jostled around in the pocket as she imagined he was sliding each of his arms into the coat. “There, that’s better. Let me see if I have some tissues.” He reached into the pocket and gently touched Aspen with the tip of one finger. “I’m afraid I must have left them at home.”
“I’ll get some inside for you, sir. If you’ll follow me.”
Aspen remained as quiet as a mouse. Careful not to
snicker at her own joke, she held on for the ride as they stepped inside an elevator. Instead of going up as she’d anticipated, the elevator began a slow descent.
Her mind raced with plausible explanations for this new development, but there was only one that made sense. The six men surrounding Gaylord weren’t bodyguards as Tora had thought. They were there to keep the old man from escaping. He had to be a Shroud. How else would he have known she was hiding under the car?
But why would the SEA keep one Shroud alive while murdering countless others? Unless they believed he was more valuable than a Shroud. The only thing more valuable than a Shroud was a Myriad. In the government’s view, their success in exterminating Shrouds from the population was all but guaranteed if they had a Myriad under their control.
Had she just played into their hands by willingly offering herself up to the enemy? Her heart hammered inside her small body. She thought of the newborns, Oscar, Tora, Skye, and the rest of Alpha Genesis. Everyone was counting on her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to prepare herself for what lay ahead.
* * *
“That’s the last one,” Tora said to Skye. Armed with tubes of rock adhesive, she, Oscar, and the rest of the pack had split up to install earbuds at every single door inside the sanctuary. The earbud’s gray color was perfectly camouflaged against the jagged surface of the tunnel wall. After she gathered her materials and turned back to inspect her handiwork, even she couldn’t spot it.
“Copy that,” Skye said, true to her role as mini-Aspen. “If all of you could stay where you are for just a minute…” Tora heard fingers typing furiously on a keyboard. “There. That should do it. Go ahead and test it out. Oscar, you first.”
“What command should I use?”
“Open sesame,” came Skye’s reply.
Tora, Oscar, and his pack had a good laugh. Tora knew if Aspen had been there, she’d be proud of her newfound protégé.
Satisfied the new voice command system was up and running, they agreed to meet back in chamber one.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Aspen heard the sound of elevator doors opening, followed by footsteps on linoleum. A man’s voice sounded above her, “Your coat, sir.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you. Can you find me some tissues, please?” The old man sneezed repeatedly as he slipped a hand inside his coat pocket.
Aspen quickly hopped aboard, hoping he would take care not to squeeze her too tightly. She was just as quickly deposited into a different pocket—a suit pocket, she guessed. His body heat radiated through the fabric like an electric blanket.
“Here you go, sir. We’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
“Thank you, Prestwick.”
She heard a door close, a desk drawer open, a TV switched on. She recognized the voice of a CNN news anchor. The old man walked across the room, closed another door, and turned on the overhead fan. “This is the only room that’s private. We don’t have much time,” he whispered, reaching into his pocket. She hopped into his hand once again. He withdrew her and gently deposited her onto the floor. “Shift now, please, so we can talk.”
She shifted to human form and stood before him, face to face. They were inside a modest-looking bathroom.
His Charlie Chaplin hat, cloud-gray moustache, soft wrinkles, and intelligent blue eyes lent him a distinguished look. “You’re a Myriad,” he said with a broad smile that reached the crow’s feet around the outer corners of his eyes. “My goodness. I never thought I’d see the day.” He removed a white glove and extended his hand. “Felix.”
“Aspen.” When their hands connected, she saw him as a massive lion with a thick dark mane. Much larger than Tora’s lioness, he circled her proudly, muscles rippling with every stride. He sized her up with bright yellow eyes—the truest sign of a Myriad.
“Felix,” she said aloud, stepping back. She remembered the story Beckett had shared about Great-grandpa Amos’s best friend, who also went by the name Felix. But that was impossible. That would make Felix over a century old. This man couldn’t be more than seventy. “You wouldn’t be Amos’s friend, by any chance?”
His eyes lit up. “Like a brother to me.” The old man regarded her warily as he replaced the white glove on his hand. “How do you know of Amos?”
“He adopted Henry, that little boy you saved. Henry was Beckett’s great-grandfather. Beckett and his son are…” She paused, trying to find the right words. “Well, they’re part of my family now.”
Felix smiled even more broadly. “I have so many questions, but we must use our time wisely.”
“I was told you go by a different name.”
The old man shook his head and lowered his eyes. “Forced upon me after my capture. The government’s twisted sense of humor, I’m afraid.”
At least she wouldn’t have to go looking for the old man’s parents now. One less thing to do. “If you’re Amos’s friend, that must make you, like”—she tried to do the math in her head but failed—“really old.”
He laughed quietly. “A hundred and twenty-eight last month. Myriads are blessed—or cursed, depending on how you look at it—with an unusually long lifespan. The government led me to believe I was the only Myriad left. The others are in stasis—”
“There are others?”
“Used to be eight of us. When I refused to do the government’s bidding…” He cleared his throat with tears in his eyes. “Four left now. As long as I do what they ask of me, they’re kept in stasis. If I refuse to cooperate, they die. And any hope for Shrouds surviving this war dies with them.”
“Are you sure they’re still alive?” she asked, feeling sorry for the old man and the agonizing predicament he’d been faced with all these years.
“They’re kept here, five floors below us. The SEA allows me to look in on them once every month.” He withdrew a gold pocket watch, flipped it open, and checked the time. “My next visit takes place in an hour.”
Her new mission became clear. She had no idea how they’d pull it off, but of one thing she was sure: she wasn’t leaving until every last Myriad was freed. She set a hand on his arm. “I think it’s time we rescued your friends.”
“Family,” he corrected her. “We share a bond deeper than any I’ve ever known.” He slapped his pocket watch shut, adjusted his grip on the cane, and regarded her. “I have a plan. But first, I need to know what your gifts are.”
“Afraid I come up short in that department.” She told him about the vaccine she’d received as a kid.
He removed his white glove once again. “Give me your hand. I’ll tell you what gifts you possess.”
* * *
Tora was the last to return to chamber one. She deactivated her earbud and stepped through the closet.
Skye glanced up from the laptop screen. “I’ve been monitoring the cameras like you taught me. Still no sign of the soldiers,” she reported.
“Where are the newborns?” No longer curled up together on the bed, they were nowhere to be seen.
Skye closed the laptop and set it on the bed. “I thought they were with you,” she said, standing.
Tora felt every drop of blood drain from her face. Did the SEA steal the newborns from right under their noses? How was that even possible?
Skye gave her an elbow in the ribs. “Kidding. Jeez, lighten up. They’re right behind you.”
She turned to find eight pairs of baby animal eyes staring up at her. Like stealthy little ninjas, they had somehow gotten around her without her seeing them. They were now slightly larger and more developed. They all looked healthy and strong.
“You’re too easy.” Skye laughed. “Aspen wouldn’t have fallen for that.”
Feeling her competitive nature flare up, Tora raised an eyebrow.
“She’s too smart.” The girl caught herself and looked sheepishly at Tora. “What I meant to say is, you’re book-smart, but Aspen’s street-smart.”
“Nice save.” Tora draped an arm around her. “And you’re a combination
of both.” She looked down at her watch as it vibrated furiously on her wrist. A high-pitched shriek soon followed that reverberated through her bones. She locked eyes with Skye, and they both tapped their watches to silence the alarms.
“Soldiers have breached the cabin entrance,” Tora said.
Studying her watch face, Skye dismissed the alert and brought up the camera in that section of the tunnels. “They’re in the tunnels now, on foot.”
* * *
Felix took a step back, his blue eyes wide with wonder. “You possess the rarest of any gift bestowed to a Myriad.”
“The ability to eat seven doughnuts in one sitting?” she joked.
He just stared at her.
“Okay, eight. But that was just once.”
“Manipulation of time,” he said, shaking his head as if to bring himself back to reality.
“Back to the Future is my favorite movie.” She waited for him to share what her gift really was. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Are you saying I have my own personal remote control over time? That I can rewind and fast-forward at will?”
“You can’t go backward. No one can. But you can move forward in time and then return to the present, which, I must say, is most useful in our present circumstance.”
She failed to see how such a gift could benefit them in rescuing the four remaining Myriads. “Even if I knew how to make that work—which I don’t, by the way—how does that help us?”
“By looking forward, we can work backward,” he said with a wink.
“Riddles hurt my brain.”
He cast his gaze to the floor and thought for a moment. “The very second we make a plan, you’ll move forward into the future to check the results of that plan. If you find failure, then we’ll adjust the plan accordingly. You’ll move forward into the future once again, and so on and so forth. We’ll keep at it until you confirm our ultimate success. By using this simple process of elimination, we’ll know which plan to implement.”
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