Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle

by Lackey, Mercedes

  The scrolling names stopped. The screen filled with three words.

  I found him!

  Before any of them could react to that, the words vanished and were replaced by what looked like some sort of form.

  All three of them crowded in together to read the screen. It appeared to be a “surrender” form, where a couple surrendered their child to the state. Uncontrolled, uncontrollable metahuman, was typed under the “reason for surrender”; a not completely unheard of and legal reason for parents giving up a child whose powers had…not manifested well. Most often, it was because those powers were killing the child, the parents couldn’t afford the medical bills, and they were willing to hand the kid over to someone like ECHO on the chance that those who had metahuman powers could find a way to save it. This page of the form was full of boilerplate legal language intended to keep the parents from changing their minds, or ever making a claim on the child or the organization that was taking it, ever again.

  But ECHO was not who these parents had surrendered their child to. Department of Metahuman Resources, the form said.

  “The hell?” John muttered. Vickie glanced at him. “Who’s that?”

  “Never heard of them,” she said flatly, and scrolled down the form to reveal the names of the parents and the child.

  They all froze. The parents—Gregory and Alice Marlowe. And the child. Zachary.

  John didn’t have a chance to brace himself for the vision. He and Sera were instantly thrust into it, but…this was different. It wasn’t nearly as clear as the others; this one was almost like it was coming through on a pirate signal, or some sort of distant station. The two of them drifted out of the vision and then back into it, back and forth. He felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo.

  Just as suddenly, both he and Sera were out of the vision, completely. And they knew.

  John gasped for a moment, and Sera steadied herself on his shoulder.

  “We can find him.” John looked into Sera’s eyes.

  “No,” she replied, her expression growing into one of deep determination. “We must find him!”

  * * *

  They were flying relatively low; only about a thousand feet up or so. It was a slightly cool, damp 4 A.M., even this high up. John and Sera were flying over the Florida Panhandle, as fast as they could manage. The sun hadn’t yet broken over the horizon, but it would soon; John couldn’t remember what sort of twilight they were in now, whether it was nautical or civil or whatever. He liked working at night; between having NVGs or his enhanced sight, it was an edge against enemies most of the time. Twilight would have to do.

  John and Sera weren’t flying by wire, with Vickie or Overwatch to guide them. The place they were going to wasn’t on the map, strictly speaking. Not the sort of place you could plug into a GPS, at any rate. It was an old mental hospital situated right on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, on the Florida side. It only had one beat-to-hell road, unpaved, leading to it, well off of the beaten path that most of the tourists would take to visit the area. John liked the outdoors well enough—he spent enough time in them, with his former occupation and even with what he did now—but he couldn’t see how anyone could enjoy the goddamned swamp. Maybe it was just a prejudice left over from the “Florida Phase” he did in his Ranger School training; that had been an ungodly amount of time spent with little to no food or sleep, and always, always in wet clothing. Too many mosquitoes for his liking.

  He glanced over at Sera, wiping a little of the condensation from his goggles to get a better look at her. She looked determined; she was pumping her wings hard, going as fast as she could. They could have been at the location in minutes, but they were trying for a more “stealth” approach. A giant comet coming straight for the hospital would have been a dead giveaway for too many people that were interested in them, not to mention whoever else was with Zach. For a brief moment Sera looked over to him, maybe sensing his gaze; she smiled back at him, showing teeth. Even with what was at stake, she was feeling exactly the same thing that he was: relief. They had found what they were looking for. No matter what happened now, they’d do what needed to be done. And I’m not crazy. Well, shit, crazier than usual. Figure that the average Joe would have to be a little bent to get caught up in this war an’ keep at it the way I have.

  John grinned back at Sera. We’re gettin’ close, darlin’. I can feel it. Or at least we better be close. I’m ready to get this hunt over with.

  He felt what could only be described as a “mental caress.” It had become a trademark of sorts between himself and Sera; something that they had developed together, more intimate than anything physical could possibly be, since it wrapped up emotion, intention, and so much more in an instant, with nothing lost in transmission. The hunt is only the beginning, beloved, she replied. The visions…fragmented as they were, I sense this will not be easy.

  Wouldn’t be any fun if it was easy, now would it? He banked playfully towards her for a moment before straightening out. Either way…wait. We’re there.

  There was supposed to be an old mental hospital, long abandoned. There did not match anything Vickie had pulled up on it; even satellite views had shown little more than some glimpses of a roof under massive, surrounding trees. They both pulled up and hovered; Sera had dimmed her fires down to nothing and was only a darker shadow in the night, wings beating strongly. John wished he could dim the fires that were keeping him aloft; he probably looked like some “tacticool” version of Icarus, right then. If there was anything or anyone looking up right now, he’d be a lovely aerial target for someone looking to get some practice in—

  “Darlin’, to hell with it. Let’s just get down there. If there’s gonna be any danger, we’ll feel it comin’ an’ react before it hits us. Time isn’t on our side, here.”

  For an answer, she folded her wings and dove like a falcon straight for the entrance. She caught him off-guard, leaving him still hovering while she was a third of the way to the ground. Try to keep up, he heard.

  John grinned, then gritted his teeth as he killed his fires. To hell with stealth. He let himself fall for about forty feet, head down, before he kicked them back on with a loud pop; it didn’t take him more than a second or two to catch up with Sera once he poured the speed on, but he actually was a little bit worried that she’d beat him, for a moment. She dove at the same rate a falcon would dive, about 180 mph. Vickie had timed her, too. It didn’t beat his top flying speed but it was certainly fast enough to outpace a Thulian Sphere at combat speeds. They largely didn’t rely on their speed in combat, but their agility and invulnerability.

  It took seconds for John and Sera to close the distance and touch down on the ground; Sera, abruptly opening her wings and somehow rotating in midair so that her extended foot touched the ground, exactly as a falcon would land, dropped into a crouch, folding her wings tightly against her back and manifesting her fire-spear.

  John did a front flip, ending right-side up instead of head down again, and flared his fires the last hundred or so feet, bracing for the g-forces. The ground was scorched under him before he cut out the fires, kicking up a small cloud of dust. He landed exactly as Sera had, manifesting his fire-claymore. He felt like the goddamned Rocketeer.

  “Ready, darlin’?”

  “I find it alarming that they have not come to meet us,” she whispered, staring at the closed double doors. Bland double doors; they looked like ones you’d see on the entrance of a hospital, a school…

  …or maybe a prison?

  “The lack of response is…troublin’. I mean, here we are, all dressed up an’ nothin’ or nobody t’meet us. I’d imagine they’d have some sort of surveillance or early warnin’ systems that should’ve let ’em know we’re here.” He thought for a moment. “Let’s knock.” The pair of them walked calmly up the steps on the porch; the entire front of the building was…institutional. The doors were glass, framed in aluminum. Cinder block, but coated with something that made it gleam like ceramic. Hard to tell what c
olor it was in this light, but it was probably a gray or pale green. The windows were also aluminum-framed, smallish, identical. And…barred. Not a good sign. The more exits, the better, though John supposed that they could just destroy a wall if they needed another way out.

  And this was certainly not the faux Antebellum mansion that the original mental institution had been. This looked like a government building of the sort that had sprouted in droves in the fifties in Florida, when the space program and more…clandestine…operations had taken root here. Cheap land, few neighbors, and fewer questions.

  Except this building didn’t show much age. Certainly not a half century’s worth.

  John and Sera pushed their way through the front doors; they weren’t locked, in any case. He still didn’t feel any danger, but something was definitely off. The lights were on, and the ceiling fans were still spinning, but…no one was to be found. The interior was like the outside of the building: cold, newer than it should have been, and…soulless, at the heart of it. This was a reception area, it looked like. Institutional green walls, ceramic tile this time, linoleum floor, heavy gray metal desk with a closed binder right in the middle of the desktop. No computer. Two speakers on the wall behind the desk. Green plastic chairs like a doctor’s office waiting room, a coffee machine that looked brand new and old at the same time. A carefully cultivated patina of neglect. It hit John all at once. It looked like a TV set, what some art director thought that a loony bin would look like. A finger of ice crept its way along his gut.

  “I’d say ‘curiouser an’ curiouser,’ but that would suggest I wanna know more ’bout this place. I’m officially creeped out, darlin’. I wanna find Zach an’ get the hell out of…whatever this is.”

  “I do not like this, at all. It is not unlike a theater set…and it is much too quiet. I think this is a facade.” Her eyes were getting that flicker of gold in them that meant she was ramping up for combat. John still didn’t feel anything through their battle-sense, though…it was throwing him off, because he had expected to be neck deep in whatever this place had to offer, by this point. They wouldn’t have gotten such a strong reaction through the Futures if they didn’t need to find Zach Marlowe now.

  “Let’s push on, darlin’. Crack this nut open, find our package an’ get outta here.”

  There was another double glass door like the entrance, just behind and to the left of the desk. They pushed through it and found themselves in a corridor lined with metal doors, everything still in the same institutional green with gray linoleum, with fluorescent-tube lights overhead. Lights which, oddly in John’s experience, did not so much as flicker. Hell, they flickered all the time at the CCCP HQ, and even in ECHO buildings. They continued down the hall and passed by metal doors; he had the feeling if there was anything behind them that they needed, he’d feel it. There was no sound, nothing, just their own cautious footfalls.

  The corridor ended in a T-junction. John looked quickly to the left and right. Two more identical corridors that dead-ended.

  “Well…shit. What now?”

  Her spear vanished, and she stared hard at the wall in front of her. “One moment, beloved…” She approached the wall, and laid her hands on it, just at shoulder height. Then, gently, she pushed.

  A door-shaped section of the wall, marked by the apparent lines of the ceramic tiles that the wall consisted of, receded, then slid to the side, showing…an entirely different sort of corridor.

  John hadn’t even seen the hidden passage, and he was usually really good at noticing small details like that.

  As soon as the door that Sera had found slid fully away to the left, John knew, not thought, that everything was wrong with this place. He didn’t want to be there. He recognized the architecture in the hallway, the layout, the lighting, even the smell.

  This was a Program place. A Facility. Where people were turned into tools, ripped apart and remade into something else with martial purpose. By the same sort of men that John had once turned to cinders.

  It was everything that he could do to not send an unending torrent of fire ahead of them, burning this Facility just like the one he had come from.

  Peace. You are a better man than that now. Stronger. The strength of a man comes from how little he uses his strength, not by how much. But he could also feel her anger—controlled and righteous.

  I’m not a better man, darlin’, he sent to her. Stronger, but not better. More in control of myself. I’m the man I was then, the man I am now, the man I will be in the future. It’s all me, and what I do. Important that I do better, an’ maintain that control. Does that follow?

  A different man, then. She glanced over at him and a flicker of a smile passed over her lips.

  Naw, I’m still just as handsome.

  So you are. We will do what we must here, but no more.

  “Agreed, darlin’. I want nothin’ more than to be back in Atlanta, far away from this place.” John’s claymore flared for a moment, a small mental nudge to his resolve. “Let’s get to it.”

  “And I want Zachary Marlowe away from this place with us.” Her eyes flickered gold, and her spear re-formed into a fire-sword. “The sooner, the better.”

  They continued down the hallway; John opted to dissipate his sword and bring up his suppressed M4. Somewhat less conspicuous than a great honking claymore made of Celestial fire, especially if they need to deal with someone quietly. Sera, in response, muted her fire-sword until it was the barest shimmer, almost insubstantial in her hands. He got an enormous sense of déjà vu as they progressed, and not the good kind. It had been years since he had seen the Facility that he had come from, but he remembered every horrible detail. There were large office rooms filled with cubicles, desks, copier machines and the like on either side of them; all were completely empty of any people. This first level would be administration; very low-level stuff, just the day-to-day activity necessary to process paperwork and keep the covert Facility functioning. Payroll, accounting, that sort of thing. This level was empty because it was too early for the nine-to-five crowd to be here. The levels below the first one were where things started to get interesting.

  John and Sera came to a stop at an elevator by a T-intersection at the end of the hall.

  “Do we take the elevator, beloved?” Sera asked, tilting her head. From the subtle trembling of her wings, John would have known she was uneasy about doing so, even without their connection.

  “Naw. That’s a metal coffin. For one, it’d be a tight squeeze with your wings. For another, they have control of it; they could lock us in there, then start throwin’ grenades down on top of it if they wanted. Or just open the doors t’greet us with a mess of automatic gunfire. Stairs are better. This way, darlin’.” They moved to the right of the elevator; John took the lead, his weapon up and ready after they breached the doorway. Stairwells could be tricky; easy enough to get cozy with an unfriendly grenade, or to miss an angle. Taking things slow and methodical helped. If it were a hostage situation, that would necessitate speeding things up, in order to keep surprise on their side while room clearing. But, for now, it looked like they had time.

  He paused outside the first door they came to on the way down. There was a subtle vibration in the floors and walls; that had to be the water pumps, keeping this place from becoming one gigantic swimming pool. “Ground water level” started not all that far under the topsoil in Florida. Second floor is going to be Indoc; place to prep “clients” and that sort of thing before sending them down to where the real work gets done. I figure we can skip it for now; besides, I don’t “feel” Zach on this floor. John adjusted his sling slightly after sending the telempathic message to Sera.

  I do not either. In fact…I sense no more than one or two people. Cleaning people, perhaps.

  I think you’re right. This is a much smaller operation than the one that I was involved with. That gig was running twenty-four/seven. If we’re lucky, maybe we can do this quiet, get in an’ out without anyone raisin’ a fuss un
til we’re gone.

  Do you think Zachary will be free to move about the Facility?

  John paused for a moment before replying. Depends. If he’s cooperative, and they’re feedin’ him a strong enough line of bullshit, he might be given a bit more latitude. I don’t think it’s likely, though; doesn’t seem like that’d be our boy, given what we want him for. So, he might be in Isolation. We might have to carry him out of here; dependin’ on how dangerous he is, they’ll have him doped up, potentially.

  They were on the upper landing between the third and fourth floors when there was a deep rumbling from somewhere deep in the facility, above or below, it was impossible to tell which, followed by a jarring concussion that almost made both of them lose their footing. Dust and plaster shook from the ceiling and stairs, and cracks formed in the walls. One rather large one appeared right next to John’s head; water immediately started to pour from it in a steady current. A beat later, Klaxons sounded and orange emergency flasher lights began to strobe.

  “So much for the subtle approach!” John felt a stab of urgency lance through him; whatever was happening, it was related to Zach, and they needed to get to him now. Sera felt it as well; wordlessly, they both started moving. The seventh level was where they stopped; there were still two levels below them, but it was behind this door that John felt the strongest pull.

  “Ready, darlin’?” he glanced to the side.

  “Abandon all hope,” she quoted aloud, grimly, manifesting both spear and sword.

  “So long as we’re together…never, darlin’. Let’s get what we came for.”

  John pushed through the door, Sera right behind him—

  —and they almost ran face first into two very frightened-looking lab technicians.

  “Holy shit!” One of them tripped over his own feet and tumbled backwards, landing hard on his rear. The other, a woman, seemed to shrink in on herself for a moment as she backed up. Even so, she was the first to regain her composure, as the man was still crumpled in a ball on the floor, covering his head.