“Dammit, Stephen, this is serious!” she shouted. “Put the damn suit on now! It’s a matter of life and death, and we’re running out of time!”
He folded his arms. “You have got to be kidding me.” He pointed. “I know that thing is impervious to everything, but what makes you think my risk of dying without it is suddenly greater than it was a few hours ago?”
“Just do it, please,” she whispered. “I can’t lose you. I can’t live without you, Stephen. And if you don’t put that suit on now, my life won’t be worth living either.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off when her phone began chirping. A text message. From Roddy.
She rummaged through her discarded clothes, found her phone, and opened the text message.
So his name is Stephen, is it? Enjoy your time with him while I’m gone. We’ll discuss making that arrangement permanent when I return. Roddy.
She dropped the phone and ran to the massive bedroom window, where she could see the massive Diasteel tower in the distance. Her trained eyes saw the extra puffs of smoke in the permanent cloud bank around the tower, and she knew the awful truth.
Roddy had tricked Oswald into letting them leave without her.
She didn’t wonder how Roddy had overheard her conversation at this point. Their conversation in her father’s office made clear he’d worked out the basics of her infidelity, if not the specifics. He’d want proof before approaching her, though. And that meant he’d bugged the room and had heard her profess her disinterest in living without Stephen.
She heard a loud noise outside, like a train rumbling through the sky. She searched frantically, watching as the missiles slammed into a building on the spur road.
Oswald and Roddy had left.
The missiles used to accelerate the activated Ravagers had struck.
And she was sitting without her Diasteel suit in her apartment forty stories off the ground.
She collapsed on the bed and began to sob uncontrollably.
She was going to die. And worse, she knew she deserved it.
After all, the entire plan had been her idea from the start.
twenty-six
Wesley Cardinal
…of the many human traits, it is the survival instinct that most ensured that our species still populates the planet today…
The History of the Western Alliance, page 1
Wesley’s mind kicked into high gear. With his life on the line, it had no other choice. He felt the adrenaline surge through him and he scanned the room with a detached calm. His eyes fell upon the tile grip tool.
Of course.
He seized the tool from the nearby wall and sprinted toward the door, sliding on his knees down the ramp from the main portion of the room to the entry. As he stopped, he slammed the tool down upon the tile nearest the door. The suction cups adhered to the tile and Wesley hoisted the floor panel up and tossed it behind him. He felt on his belt. The guards had left the miniature flashlight behind. Wesley pulled it free, flipped it on, and jumped into the open spot he’d created in the metal grid.
He landed and coughed as the disturbed dust invaded his nostrils. Straining his eyes through the forming tears, he shined the light forward, hoping he’d be wrong. But the exterior walls of the room went clear down the main floor. He’d not be able to crawl under the wall to safety. He was still locked in.
Locked?
He flashed the beam to the wires running up to the door. It might not work, but it wasn’t as if he had much choice at this point. He remembered the instructions he’d gotten for the facility: black wires carried electrical power, other colors carried information and data. He reached inside his boot and extracted the simple switchblade knife, gritted his teeth, and sawed through the black wire.
He could hear the silence as the power ceased flowing to the door and a tumbling sound. He didn’t know what the latter was, but he knew whatever locking mechanism was in use it would have no electrical energy left. He folded the blade, shoved it back inside his boot, stood in the opening, and propelled himself out of the hole. He grabbed the tile grip tool and slid the loose tile back into the grid, released the tool, and threw it aside.
No more use for it.
Sort of like him, from the Voice’s perspective.
“If I ever find you, Voice,” he vowed, “I will kill you in the most painful way I can imagine, preferably with a tile gripper.”
He sprang to the door and pushed before realizing the door slid sideways, into the wall. Which way, though? He searched his memory, then put both hands on the door and pushed to the left. The door didn’t move. Wesley felt a flash of inspiration. He grabbed the tile gripper and slammed it into the metal door on the right side, and then pulled with all his might to the left, hoping the door rested on rollers of some type.
It moved.
Inch by inch, he pulled with every bit of strength he possessed, muscles screaming in pain, his body doused in sweat. He finally got the door open a foot and tested it, squishing himself in even the most uncomfortable of bodily areas… and then he was out.
He fell to the ground in relief.
The klaxon blared overhead and he wrapped his arms around his head, this time covering his ears, until his body acclimated to the noise. He lowered his hands, realizing what it meant. The Ravagers had caused sufficient damage to trigger sensors and an automatic sounding of the alarm.
He could hear the thundering steps as people exited the real data center and swarmed toward the lobby. At orientation, they made clear that fire alarms and the like were built in such a way that they couldn’t be pulled as a prank or by accident, and thus any sounding of an alarm was a definite and immediate danger and required an orderly exit from the facility. He could see on the faces of those nearby that there would be little calm or order in the calm, orderly exit from the Bunker.
He’d never get out through the main door. It was a bottleneck. He wondered what fool had built the entry door to allow only single individuals in or out at a time, but decided it didn’t matter at this point. Even if it was the General…
He remembered. The secret stairwell at the end of the officers’ hallway. He’d be going against foot traffic, hopefully improving his chances of getting there in time. But as they neared the lobby and he saw the mass of humanity pushing and shoving and screaming, he knew that even travel in the “wrong” direction would be troublesome.
“Hey, what are you doing out?” someone shouted. “I thought you were in the brig?”
“Yeah, I saw it! You got tossed in for attacking Sheila Clarke!”
“They should have left you in there!”
“The General ordered me released to his office to offer an apology to Sheila Clarke.” He tried to keep his voice calm. “What I did was wrong, and foolish, and it shouldn’t have happened. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading that way…”
“Not my problem,” the woman nearest him retorted. “If I move, I’ll lose my place in line.”
“Didn’t you notice, Cardinal? The evac is sounding. We’re all worried about our lives here, not your dumb ass apologies.”
“Do you really think it’s wise to antagonize someone known for attacking innocent coworkers?” Wesley asked. He let his eyes go wild, and he could see the fear in their eyes. But they didn’t move.
In desperation, he tried the first thing that came to mind. “I’m going to kill you!” he screamed at the nearest woman. He dove at her.
But she wasn’t there. She and her coworkers had backed away, suddenly more concerned about Wesley’s attack than whatever had triggered the evacuation. He bounced into the wall and rolled off it into the open part of the lobby, away from the crowds.
“Thanks!” he said. “I’ll put in a good word for you with the General.”
He sprinted toward the hallway at the opposite side of the lobby, dodging around the outside of the massed crowd as necessary. He looked at the General’s office and punched in the code, shoving the door open and bursti
ng into the room. He ripped the drawer open and pushed the false bottom away.
No badge.
Jamison had already taken it, of course. That’s how they’d gotten into that room by the tank. He roared in frustration before existing Jamison’s office and racing down the hallway. Perhaps the badge wasn’t necessary. He put his hands on the spots from memory and pushed.
The hidden door cracked open.
He choked. “Seriously? It worked?”
There was no time to marvel at the intricacies of badges and manual entry to hidden staircases. He pushed the door open and emerged onto the metal landing, glancing down.
He sucked in a breath.
The Ravagers were through the thick walls of the underground area and had fallen upon the base of the stairwell.
He heard a door slam in the distance and looked up. Jamison and Clarke must have exited above.
The stairwell shook and he lost his balance.
He scrabbled his fingers around, gripping the edge of the landing as the surface dropped to vertical, untethered as the Ravagers shredded the base that held the entire lower half of the structure in place. He swung his other arm up and then gripped the first stair up toward the exit, hauling himself with adrenaline-aided ease to the step. He cried out in pain at the strain in his arms as he sprinted up the stairs, toward the exit nearly five stories up. He ran without pause, ignoring the growing stitch in his side and his desperate need to stop and breathe deeply. He didn’t dare look back.
He knew they were working their way up the stairwell. There was no more powerful motivator than the risk of imminent death.
He reached the last five steps when the stairwell lurched once more, and he seized the railing with his left hand before the stairs dropped from beneath him, hanging straight down. He knew it meant the Ravagers were closing in.
He caught the back of the nearest step with his right hand and swung his left over, trying to ignore the growing rumbling sound heading toward him. He pulled his feet toward him and stood on the back of a lower step before bringing his left hand over. He climbed the rest of the way to the final landing by the exit door, treating the stairwell as a ladder. He glanced down into the dark abyss climbing toward him as he pushed the door open to bright sunlight.
The sound reached him immediately, like a train rumbling overhead. He looked up, shielding his eyes with his hand, trying to see what caused the sound above him.
He saw the two cylinders as they began their descent toward the soon-to-be-former home of Jamison & Associates and realized he had only one thing to do.
He ran from the building as fast as he could, spurred on by the need to survive the pending cataclysm unfolding behind him.
The missiles struck the building thirty seconds later, burrowing through the upper levels of the building and parking floors, shearing through wood and tile and human flesh alike, not caring which they destroyed.
Ten seconds later, the warheads detonated.
twenty-seven
Oswald Silver
…without the ability to view the shorelines from above, mapmaking remains to this day an imprecise science, though the craft improves each year…
The History of the Western Alliance, page 2222
Oswald Silver spoke with his counterpart on the satellite-based telephone aboard his flying craft. “Everything is on schedule and running according to plan. The Select were out of harm’s way when Activation occurred.” He paused at the concern noted, and then nodded. “Yes, the most troublesome elements used to reach the completion of this stage are now stranded. If they aren’t dead already, they’ll be dust soon.” He nodded at the phone. “I’ll see you soon.”
He replaced the headset and stood, stretching. The plan was on schedule without delay. He’d worried Deirdre would ruin everything with her last minute gallivanting about trying to save her lover, but the man was not of the Select. Thankfully, he’d overreacted. Roddy told him that Deirdre had struggled to sleep the night before and had gone on a late night job and pushed through an early morning workout, and the fatigue had caught her. She slept in her cabin aboard the ship, and had asked not to be disturbed for several hours.
He glanced down at the map. Pulses of light fired where the caches of Ravagers were buried and now active. The land-based enclaves surrounded by protective walls of Diasteel were populated by the Select. The Elite—him, Deirdre, Roddy, and a few others—had more elaborate and comfortable accommodations awaiting while the plan unfolded. Deirdre’s ruthlessness had surprised him, but his daughter had proved as adept at laying out the initial plan as she’d been in seducing Light to join them, though the man had yet to realize what was happening. He still thought they were off on a business trip.
“A trip like no other,” Silver said to himself.
He walked to the bar and poured himself a drink, raising a mock toast to the map. “To a plan carried out to perfection.”
He finished the drink in one gulp and put the glass down before heading to the cockpit.
It was time to let Roddy know their destination.
He couldn’t wait to see the look on the man’s face.
###
The story continues in Detonate, Episode #2 of the Ravagers.
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Also by Alex Albrinck
The Aliomenti Saga
A Question of Will
Preserving Hope
Ascent of the Aliomenti
Birth of the Alliance
Preserving Will
Stark Cataclysm
Convergence
The Ravagers
Activate
Detonate [coming soon]
Deviate [coming soon]
About the Author
Alex Albrinck is a lifelong Ohio resident, where he lives with his wife and three children. When he's not trying to be in three places at once with his active youngsters, he's following local professional and collegiate sports teams, or possibly unscrambling a Rubik's Cube. In lieu of sleep, he writes fiction.
Table of Contents
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seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
Also by Alex Albrinck
About the Author
Activate The Ravagers Ep1v2 Page 14
