by Harper North
Elias slows the group and turns to Talen. “How do you know?”
Talen marches to the next access point and Jase follows closely behind. He raises his hand to the display, holding it there for a few moments. With each passing second, Jase grows more agitated, chewing on his lower lip.
Davis’ eyes are wide as he stares at Talen. “How much longer?” he demands.
When Talen finally turns, Jase is nearly on top of him. “Well? Do they know or not?”
“Geez, Jase,” I say, irritated by his behavior. “You need to relax.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he hisses back at me.
I throw my hands up in the air and move back beside Emma.
“Well?” Jase nudges Talen with his gun. “What’s going on?”
“There’s no breach alert,” Talen says, turning to face him. “We can move forward.”
“See?” I say to Jase. “We’re fine.”
“You’re too trusting,” he shoots back.
I move toward him, but Emma throws out her hand to stop me. “We don’t have time to argue. If we haven’t triggered a breach alert yet, we will soon enough when they’re unable to contact the access guards.”
Jase shoves Talen forward. “Let’s go.”
Talen glances back, but complies. As we walk, I attempt to clear my mind, allowing myself to make some calculations of our odds, but, honestly, the stress of this is winning. I can barely focus.
“How long is this tunnel?” Elias asks Talen. “Are we almost there?”
“Yes,” Talen replies. “Ahead is the uplink station. It will be manned by several guards, and—” He stops, going stiff.
“What is it?” Emma asks, coming to his side.
Talen’s eyes grow wide. He turns his head toward Jase, eyes wide. “Run.”
“What?” Jase raises his gun again to Talen’s chest, but there’s no time. He cries out and drops to his knees, his gun clattering to the ground as his eyes roll up into his head.
My chest tightens as I clutch my gun. Elias rushes to his side, shouting, “Jase!”
“What’s happening?” I scream at Talen. “What are you doing?”
Talen’s face grows pale. “It’s not me.”
“Get back!” Emma yells.
Davis raises his gun at Talen as the rest of us move back. “I told you we couldn’t trust him.”
Talen stands firm, shaking his head.
“Wait,” Emma orders Davis. She looks to the device still fitted securely to Talen’s chest and then to the switch in her hand. “I-I don’t know. It can’t be Talen doing this. Everything is rigged correctly. It must be—”
“It’s from ahead,” Talen announces grimly. “I’m sorry, but they know. Don’t shoot, or you are dead.”
“Talen X-94,” calls out an unseen female voice.
My eyes search the hall as the sound of clicking boots draws nearer. I raise my weapon in the direction of the sound. A moment later, the owner comes into view: a female Aura op, the one who died at the Telhix settlement, her hand extended.
I gasp. How? She was buried beneath the rubble, crushed by an entire building. Three armed EHC ops march beside her, guns in hand. I want to turn and run, rush back to Drape and the hillside, but there’s no escape now.
The female Aura op continues to move forward, scanning our group. We might stand a chance if it were only the ops, but there’s no chance with her leading the group. Unaffected by our raised guns, she marches straight to Talen.
“Thank you for bringing them to us,” she says in the same robotic tone Talen once used.
My heart sinks at her words as Elias flicks his gaze back to me. Jase continues writhing on the ground, convulsing wildly. White froth bubbles from the corner of his mouth as his body contorts.
“Please!” I cry out. “Don’t let our friend die!”
The female operative ignores me, examining the device attached to Talen. Her eyes go to Emma’s hand on the switch, a sly grin crossing her face. “You are foolish if you think you’d be able to control an Aura.”
“He is controlled,” she whispers, still staring at her device.
“Your ability to work with tech is impressive,” the female operative commends, “but not as good as mine.” She rips the wires right out of Talen’s skin. He doesn’t even wince.
My mind races. I glance back down the tunnel, but I’d never outrun her, and I can’t leave behind my friends. Instead, I turn to face the EHC operatives, inching ever closer.
“And so ends your resistance,” the female says to Elias.
He slowly stands, leaving Jase jerking and twisting uncontrollably on the ground. Holding up his gun, Elias prepares to shoot the first operative. Davis stands firm beside him, his hands shaking as he tries to steady his aim.
The female Aura walks toward us, raising her hand. I brace myself for possible death as Talen slowly turns around to join them. As he does, he swipes a blade from one of the ops’ belts and, in one seamless move, lunges toward the female Aura operative, slicing open her neck. Blood seeps from her throat as she reaches up, gasping. Her eyes go wide, and her guttural choking strikes fear into each of us.
Before the EHC operatives can react, all three of them collapse face first to the ground. Talen stands behind them, brows furrowed. He lowers his hand, looking back at us.
“We don’t have much time. More are coming.”
CHAPTER 24
Elias spins back to Jase and kneels at his side.
“Thank you,” I tell Talen as he bends down to pick up an operative’s blaster. I don’t stop him. “We should go,” I say, nearly breathless.
When no one responds, I turn to see Emma’s staring at Jase. A feeling of dread washes over me as Elias leans back on his heels.
“He’s not…” I say, darting to Jase’s side. “There’s no way he can be—”
“He’s dead,” Elias whispers.
I kneel beside Jase’s lifeless body. His eyes are open and fixed. Looking at him makes my insides feel weak and scattered. To die in such a way must have been horrible.
“How can he be dead?” Davis asks, slowly easing forward.
Talen’s eyes stare down at us. “That’s what we do,” he says. “We never waste our ability on stunning if we have the chance to kill. I’m sorry.”
I want to comfort Elias. He needs more time to grieve, but we don’t have it. He should be able to stay for a few minutes at least, but that would mean possibly losing everything, and we’ve come so far.
“We have to go, Elias,” I whisper. “There isn’t time—”
“I know,” Elias interrupts, wiping a hand over his face. He turns to Davis. “You need to take Jase’s body back to the access point.”
Davis’ eyes go to Jase. “Of course.”
“Secure the exit,” Elias orders. “Tell the team we’ve made it through.”
“I will,” Davis promises.
Elias watches him. “And tell Knuckles and the others to be ready to head back to the transporter. We won’t be long. There will be payback for all the people we’ve lost.”
Davis nods and crouches down, reaching beneath Jase’s arms to drag him back to the access point.
“We must go,” Talen says.
Elias marches forward, a determined look on his face. He waves us to follow, and we move through the tunnel faster than before. The air is still cool and clean, but my head throbs from a lack of both sleep and food.
“Up ahead,” Talen announces.
I strain to see what Talen sees, but at the end of the tunnel is only a small door.
“Got it,” Elias says. “Fin, the uplink command center.”
This time, without waiting to scope out the room, Talen rushes to the entrance and kicks open the door. The two ops revealed on the other side stare wide-eyed at us. Before they can reach for their guns, Elias holds out his weapon, shoots, and sends them crumbling to the ground.
We move forward, stepping over their bodies, but as soon as we do gunf
ire erupts all around us. Bullets and plasma charges ricochet off the hard tunnel walls. Emma pulls back.
My eyes lock on a third operative, standing on a second level staircase. I raise my gun, and before he can fire at me, I blast him through the chest. His body rocks backward, then forward, sending him tumbling over a railing and to the ground. The hail of gunfire continues to echo through the cavernous room, sending me flinching as every shot seems to get closer and closer.
“There!” Elias shouts, pointing to a man standing on the second level railing.
Talen does not hesitate. The man is locked in mid-stride, then falls to the ground, shaking violently.
“Go now!” Elias orders Emma.
She inches away from the wall and makes her way to the hanging staircase. Elias shoots at two men coming in through a second door on the opposite side of the ovular room. Their bodies jerk from the pummeling and collapse to the ground.
“You go,” Talen tells me and Elias. “I’ll monitor the door for more activity.”
“We only have a few minutes,” Elias shouts so we can all hear him. “The room will be swarmed with ops soon.”
I dart after Emma. Ahead of me, she swings herself over the top rung. I scale the ladder and grab hold of the topmost rung, pulling myself up. Elias is right behind me. Emma already has three screens raised. I’m hoping one of them connects to the surface people’s broadcasting channel.
“Do you have it?” Elias asks.
“Almost,” Emma says between heavy breaths. She flicks through the screens, eyes darting back and forth as she processes the information. “It’s this one—”
Suddenly, more gunfire booms from below. I gasp as two more operatives fall to the ground and begin to shake uncontrollably. Talen lifts his gaze to us and I nod my thanks.
“Done!” Emma says. “I patched you into the main speaker system off all forty of the underground dwelling facilities, too. Quick, where’s the research?”
Elias reaches inside his jacket pocket and fumbles for something, stepping up beside Emma. “This is it,” he says, pulling out the holodrive with the research I stole from the EHC med bay at the operations base. It will prove everything.
“They’ll finally know,” I say.
Elias finds the uplink, inserts the drive into the system, then steps back. After a few seconds, the words Upload Complete flash over the screen.
“Are you ready?” Emma asks.
Elis nods. Emma taps a few buttons, and Elias steps closer to the system, inhaling deeply before he begins to speak.
“I’m broadcasting this message for all the people of the world to hear. Surface civilians, as well as to my brothers and sisters in the underground settlements below.”
He pauses for a second, gathering his thoughts.
“Since the Flip, humanity has been segregated. There’s the privileged who were lucky enough to be born into the right family, and those unworthy of modification who were dealt their hand by the EHC. You’ve been lied to. Humanity is adapting naturally, and I have the scientific proof that proves this. Soon we can all live on the surface as one unified civilization again.”
Elias leans closer to the screen, speaking as quickly and clearly as he can.
“The EHC has been keeping this data from you in order to keep their ruthless grip on society. We’ve uploaded classified EHC data and are broadcasting it to everyone, both on the surface and underground. This is your chance to force change. We are one!”
Elias taps the screen, ending the transmission. He plants his hands on the console, head dropping as if the weight of all humanity has lifted from his shoulders. In a sense, it has.
“They have to believe us now,” I say. “This is the start of everything.”
A slow smile spreads across Elias’ face. He turns and hugs me. I cry out in joy and laugh, hugging him back.
Tears well in Emma’s eyes. “I didn’t think we’d ever get this far, but you’ve done it. Fin is right. This will make a difference.”
Elias points to the screen in front of us. “It already has.”
Bright blues and silvers bounces around, slowly connecting to each other as a map of the EHC settlements illuminate.
“They know,” I say in awe.
“There,” Elias says, pointing to the third screen. Security alerts flash across the display. “It’s already happening. The message must’ve reached the people!”
“So fast?” I ask.
Elias turns to face me. “The Dwellers were waiting for a reason to revolt. Hopefully the ones on the surface will join them.”
“And we gave it to them,” Emma says.
The screens continue to light up as reports of chaos breaking out underground fill the digital map. At this point, I don’t even know what waits for us outside. It could be death, but at least we tried to make a difference.
“We should go,” Elias says after a few long moments.
I nod and race to the ladder, Emma and Elias following behind me. At the bottom, Talen greets us.
“Is it done?”
“Done,” I say. “You’ve held up your end of the bargain.”
Elias drops down from the ladder. “Which means you’re a free man.”
Talen sighs. “There could still be EHC outside. We still need to get out of here.”
He pilots us out through the small door and back into the tunnel, but we don’t come across any EHC. I want to believe they’ve fallen back to deal with the aftereffects of what we’ve done, but I keep my gun raised just in case.
As we cross back to the access point, I spot Davis up ahead, seated against a wall. I almost yell out to him, but then notice the three operatives who Talen took out are gone.
Emma rushes to her guard. “Davis?”
My body stiffens. Davis isn’t just sitting here waiting for us… he isn’t moving. He’s dead, and beside him is Jase’s body. I scan around us for the enemy, but no one appears.
Elias reaches down. “Maybe he’s—”
“Don’t bother,” Talen says. “He’s gone.”
I take a step back and look over my shoulder. “We have to get out of here.”
I grip my gun. Elias and Emma do the same as Talen forces the heavy outer door open, a warm breeze flowing across my face. Talen, Elias, and Emma fan out. Bodies are everywhere. The transporter is burning, dark smoke billowing from every window.
My hand flies to my head.
I struggle to see through the smoke and the outline of a mob takes shape. My heart drops into my stomach as a familiar figure steps out from the group,
No… it can’t be.
Lacy stands in front of a dozen EHC ops, wearing an Aura uniform. She grips a thin, lifeless body. With a flick of her wrist, she releases it, letting it crumple to the ground.
“Drape!” I scream,
Lacy folds her arms and a scowl consumes her face. The sinister glare remains fixed on her stiff face as she slowly walks toward us.
“Lacy,” I call, tears streaming down my face.
“Hello, Finley A298. Your little resistance is over. It’s time to clean up your mess.”
The End of Book Two
Exclusive Updates on Book 3 as well as free content: Be the first to find out when book three in the Manipulated series will release. In addition, get free content, giveaway opportunities, and other exclusive bonuses by joining my VIP List.
Thank you for reading Surfaced, book two in the Manipulated series. If you enjoyed reading this book, please remember to leave a review on Amazon. Positive reviews are the best way to thank an author for writing a book you loved. When a book has a lot of reviews, Amazon will show that book to more potential readers. The review does not have to be long—one or two sentences are just fine! I read all my reviews and appreciate each one of them!
www.harpernorth.com
Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to Torment Publishing! Without you this book would not have happened. I love you guys.
Thanks to all the early b
eta readers and the support of my fans.
Thanks to all my family for the support!
Credits:
Chase Night - Editor
Jack Llartin - Editor
David R. Bernstein - Publishing & Marketing Support
Jenetta Penner - Publishing & Marketing Support
