The Preston Six Collection: (Book 1, 2 and 3)

by Ryan, Matt

Poly glared at him, realizing what she was fighting for, what she was trying to get back. A promise needed to be kept. She noticed Travis in the background and an idea sparked. Max was so arrogant, it just might have a chance.

  “You may think you can stomp on this city, turning the people against each other with your money, pushing us down like we’re nothing . . . but I won’t let MM’s boot land on me ever again, not without a fight. Let’s settle this now, Max, with the world watching. I challenge you to a duel.”

  “HAVE WE MET?” MARCUS ASKED.

  “No,” the man said. “My name is Victor.”

  Marcus lowered his eyebrows, he hated when people volunteered information. As if he didn’t know. He could name Victor Splint and his three children. His dead wife, Daphne. He could recall every person that worked for him. Did Victor think he wouldn’t know an R7, someone who would be in charge of looking after his specials?

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Marcus said with a smile and extended his hand. “Emmett trained you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good then. How are they doing?”

  “They’re in bed together,” Victor said with a hesitant optimism.

  “Bring it up.”

  Victor pressed his fingers on the screen and the largest display showed a wide shot of Joey and Samantha.

  “I’m not sure if they are connecting, I hear her mention a girl named Poly sometimes when she’s alone. Also, the boy, called out for Poly a lot while he was in his fever state.”

  Staring at the screen, Marcus saw Samantha’s lips moving. “Can we get sound on what’s she’s saying?”

  “Not when they’re that close.”

  Dang world generator, it could create anything but a proper mic?

  “We can drug them?” Victor suggested.

  “No, we are trying to create perfection here.” Marcus briefly closed his eyes. It was eight thirty-seven in the morning, and he had already spent one minute too long here. He would have to rearrange his schedule for the adjustment.

  “Might speed things up,” Victor added.

  “I am well aware of the options. Are you in some kind of rush?” Marcus let the words hang, sevens sometimes got arrogant, especially Emmett’s, but they should always know who they are talking to. If Marcus cared, he may have slapped Victor for suggesting something like that. Victor met his eyes and returned to his screen.

  Marcus let out a tiny breath through his nose. He had been gone too long, his presence hadn’t been felt. He would have to make sure Victor would be involved in his next sparring session.

  “I have only five percent of my thoughts on this situation. Ten percent on Sanct. The remaining eighty-seven percent is on MM.” Marcus let the bad math hang in the air, as he located five ways to kill Victor, if he chose to correct him.

  Victor looked puzzled. “Of course, Marcus, I’ll let you know the second conception happens.”

  “Thank you.” Marcus looked at the screen. He could read Samantha’s lips as she spoke, but wouldn’t bother with such things. “Have they explored?”

  “Like, each other?”

  “No, I mean the surrounding area. Have they left the Manor grounds?”

  “No. They only take walks around the garden and splash in the fountain when they are outside.”

  Marcus wasn’t going to tell Victor, but Joey and Samantha knew they were in a simulation. Probably the actor they placed messed up on something. He wouldn’t punish her too much. It was only supposed to be a few days and now it turned into a week.

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Certainly.”

  If Poly was the one Joey wanted, he would bring her to him. He would do whatever was necessary to facilitate the perfect child. The possible savior. Poly was from the six, the end result should be the same. If they only knew how important their child was to all the worlds, they might be open to conception. Marcus typed into his Panavice as he left Victor, and held it to his ear.

  “Emmett, make sure Poly is alive, bring her to me.”

  Emmett didn’t respond at first. Marcus counted the breaths, five, before he did. “Yes, I’ll bring her in alive.”

  Marcus disconnected the call. How much different would have things gone in Sanct, if Emmett had headed it up to start with? What a disaster Max had turned the city into. For days, Max searched, turning up nothing, forcing Marcus to get involved. It took Marcus twenty-five minutes to locate her and Almadon’s server.

  It was an amazing thing to see what that woman produced on her own. If it wasn’t for that Julie girl hacking into the TV broadcast, he didn’t think he would have found it. Were there other Almadon servers out there? He would have paid her a massive salary to be part of his company. Too bad she chose a different path.

  He sighed as he entered the elevator and placed his hand on the screen. Finding talent he didn’t possess upset him. When the elevator plummeted, he let the anger and boredom burn away. As he approached the lower levels he smiled, he felt great. Joey had brought life back to him, Isaac, that crazy guy, redeemed himself from beyond the grave. Chuckling, he also thought of ways Harris could come back and work with him.

  It wasn’t easy having a rank nine go rogue, but he fully expected Harris to come back to him one day. They always did in the end.

  The elevator doors slid open and the putrid smell filled the elevator. He couldn’t get rid of the odor entirely. No matter how much air filtration he put in, it always smelled of rotting flesh. The moans started up as he entered the room, he clanked his sword against the steel cages as he walked down the aisle. It always stirred them up.

  “Hello, Marcus,” the doctor said.

  “Hello, Doctor Osburg.” He didn’t like to look at Doctor Osburg, his pale face, dirty nails and stained teeth were offensive. “How are the experiments going?”

  “Good sir, I can go over the latest—”

  “Turn the lights on please,” Marcus said.

  Doctor Osburg’s face grimaced, but he switched a knob on his desk.

  The groans and yells amplified as the zombies rushed to the steel wires keeping them in their cages. Marcus walked to the edge of the cage, a foot back. A child’s arm might be able to stick its way through, but he didn’t have a child yet.

  He looked for his favorite and spotted her blonde hair. It took some time to reanimate her, by the time he got her. He didn’t have Harris, but now he had his girl. She flung her dead body against the cage, smashing her face to get at him. Her black mouth groaned.

  “Looking good, Compry.” Marcus laughed.

  JOEY PULLED SAMANTHA CLOSER TO him. Over the last few days, he felt better each day. Half from getting better from his illness and the other half was due to the fact they were not taking him away at night, he hadn’t had a new mark on his arms since arriving.

  Samantha had been distant from him and he thought it was him calling for Poly while in his fevered state. But at the moment, she rested her head on his shoulder while they lay in bed. Before everything went to crap and they were whisked away to different lands, Joey would have fantasized about being alone in some mystical castle with Samantha. It would have been a soul-selling kind of deal. But now, he found himself thinking of Poly and his heart sank.

  He turned his head to look at Samantha’s perfect face. She had her eyes open, looking at the window and the fog beyond.

  “What are you thinking about?” Samantha asked.

  He stared at the intricate woodwork on the ceiling above their bed. “Who would spend so much time carving wood to go over a bed?”

  “Liar,” Samantha said and pushed against him. “You’re thinking about Poly, aren’t you?” A hint of jealousy crept into her voice.

  He didn’t respond, she hadn’t brought up Poly since the night he woke. He moved his arm away from her chest and rested it on her hip as she straddled a leg over him.

  “You used to look at me differently,” Samantha said. “I get a glimmer of it, but then you pull away. It’s her, isn’t it?”
/>   How could she know so much about him without talking to anyone about it?

  “When I look at you, I see the woman on my balcony, the night we kissed.”

  “I like that look.”

  “Poly and I had been through a lot together. She helped me get through the zombies and some other horrible stuff. I don’t think I’d be alive, if not for her.”

  “So you two were like a couple while I was gone, right?” She tried to sound casual, but she stiffened up against him.

  “Yes, near the end, I think we were.”

  “How much of a couple were you?” Samantha asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you know what I mean.”

  “We kissed a couple of times, is that what you’re looking for?”

  She rolled away from him and smiled at the ceiling. “All you did was kiss, it didn’t go any further?” It looked like she was relieved.

  “Yes . . . but only because we were caught,” he added.

  She paused before replying. “The way you’ve been acting, I thought you guys like did it or something.”

  “No,” Joey said. “Why do you want to know?” He thought he knew the answer.

  “A kiss is one thing, but sex is entirely different. You and Poly didn’t connect in that way. If you had, I wouldn’t be comfortable with . . . you know . . . you and me.”

  “I thought you said you felt as if they were alive?” he said more defiant than he wanted.

  “Does it matter?” She moved close to his ear and whispered, “Even if they are alive, it doesn’t matter, we are never going to get out of here. We will never see them again. Joey, it’s just you and me now.”

  She rolled on top of him and smiled, looking into his eyes. He hadn’t seen her with that kind of look, wanting. She lowered herself down, her hair cascading all around them. He closed his eyes, and focused on the feeling of her hair over his face. They had to put on a show for the watchers, but Samantha had never taken it this far. He watched as she giggled.

  “In time, you’ll accept our fate and see what you have right in front of you.”

  He felt the warmth of her mouth close to his before she kissed him, deep and passionate.

  She sat up. “Who knows if we’ll have tomorrow?”

  He sat up and grabbed her, bringing her down on top of him again, kissing her.

  LUCAS FELT HIS CONSCIOUS MIND waking. The senses came in, first feeling and then hearing. He heard men talking nearby. Something told him to pretend to be asleep. He laid still and listened to the nearby conversation.

  “You get all the mutants off?”

  “Yeah, would have been a lot easier if we could have just dumped them.”

  “Marcus was pretty clear about how to handle the mutants.”

  “Yeah, what do you think he wants with these two?”

  “I know better than to ask questions.”

  Lucas heard a steel door creak open.

  “Should we tie them up?”

  “Do you know how much gas we hit them with? I’m surprised they’re alive.” The footsteps dissipated and the steel door closed.

  Lucas kept his eyes closed and his body still. The men continued to talk, but the distance of their conversation gave him the confidence to open one eye.

  The cargo hold of the ship came into focus. He lay on the floor near the place he collapsed. He heard heavy breathing and he opened his other eye to find Hank lying next to him, apparently unconscious.

  Getting more daring, he turned his head, looking for anyone else. Kris and the mutants were gone. The only people in the cargo hull were him and Hank. He moved his hands, they felt responsive to commands.

  Sitting up, his head pounded and he lay back down, putting his hand over his forehead. His muscles ached as he used them.

  “Hank,” Lucas called out in a gravelly whisper. He pushed him with his hand, but Hank still didn’t respond. Lucas’s breath quickened, how could he have been so stupid to get caught? What happened to Harris and his ship? His hand shot to his pants pocket feeling for his Panavice. The square edges stuck out of his pants and he slid his hand into his pocket.

  He glanced at the closed steel door behind him and typed into his Panavice. We’ve been captured.

  The response read, Jack and Jill.

  Lucas typed, Ran down the hill. It was a safety question they had setup. Apparently Vanar didn’t have Mother Goose.

  We’re in the cargo hull right now. Hank is still knocked out. What do I do? Lucas wanted to put a dozen question marks at the end.

  Hold on, we’re trying to find you. Harris’s words appeared on the screen.

  Lucas stared at the screen, hoping for a solution to appear. Distant laughter worked its way past the steel door. He didn’t have time for a glance, he fell to the floor and adjusted his body in the same position he awoke in. He stuffed the Panavice under his back and closed his eye as the sounds of conversation approached the door.

  The steel door opened. “Thought I heard something.”

  Footsteps slapped the metal floor toward him. Lucas laid still, breathing slowly, trying to match Hank’s tone. The man stood over him, casting a shadow over his closed eyes. The sole of a shoe pushed on his chest and Lucas let his body move as the man nudged him. His body wanted to breathe hard and every muscle ached to grab the man’s foot, but Lucas focused on Hank’s breathing and kept his own even. The man stopped pushing at him and walked away. Lucas waited for the steel door to clank before opening his eyes.

  He took a deep breath and glanced at the door, grabbing for his Panavice. Lucas whipped his finger across the screen and read the list of instructions Harris sent him. The fear waned, and a smile crept on his face, as he read the list. He shook his head in admiration of Harris. If he was able to pull it off, he would be thanking him personally. Hell, if it worked, he would get Harris his own combustion car.

  With Panavice in hand, he searched for the electrical panel pictured on his screen. He spotted it against the wall, above Hank. Flipping the door open revealed the switch board. He switched number eight and sixteen. Then he pulled out a breaker with a wire dangling from it. He let the wire dangle below the door and kicked the metal door closed with his rubber soled shoe. The door broke the wire and sent sparks flying as the bare wire touched the metal. The sound of the motors changed, the normal humming drone became high pitched. They had to have heard the sound of his kick and if they didn’t, they would definitely notice the ship’s motor overheating.

  Lucas lay on the ground next to Hank, in the same position he awoke in, and waited. The steel door opened and the sound of the man’s feet stomped past Lucas to the switch board. Lucas opened one eye, watching the man grab the electrified door.

  Sparks flew and the man shook as he fell to the ground. The room filled with the smell of burnt hair. Lucas climbed to his feet, staring at the motionless man on the ground. Was he dead? Then he watched, as the man’s chest moved with a breath.

  Part one was complete. He turned and opened the steel door. Lucas peered into the next room. A man with a headset sat at the control panel.

  “You find the problem?” the pilot asked.

  Lucas glanced back at the electrified man. He didn’t think he was going to respond anytime soon. The pilot lifted his headset off and Lucas ducked behind the steel door and grabbed the fire extinguisher on the wall. Wasn’t exactly what Harris wanted him to do, but it would work if he got a good hit on the man.

  Lucas clutched the fire extinguisher and held it above his shoulder like a baseball bat. He breathed rapidly through his nose as the man approached. The pilot walked through the door and Lucas swung the extinguisher at his head. The man ducked. Lucas frantically swung it again, hitting the man in the arm. The pilot yelled in pain, grabbing his arm. His face changed to rage and he lunged at Lucas. Lucas slid to his side and fell backward into the control room, dropping the fire extinguisher as the man rapidly attacked him, landing a punch to his face.

  Stunned, Lucas st
umbled backward from the flailing limbs and kicked the pilot in the chest, putting a few feet between them.

  “No one could have awoken from that gas,” the man frothed. “What are you?”

  Lucas felt a string on the back of his hand and glanced down to see Prudence lying on the floor. He grabbed the string and pulled the bow up.

  The man’s eyes went wide, probably thinking an arrow was coming his way. Then the guy recognized that Lucas didn’t have any arrows and rushed him. Lucas climbed to his feet and side-stepped as the bull of a man tried to gore him. He struck the man in the face with his bow. The man’s rage pushed past the blow and he tackled Lucas to the floor.

  The fear of being killed overwhelmed him, as the pilot swung viciously at his face. Using Prudence and his arms to block the blows, he realized this man was going to kill him, if given the chance. So he turned on his side and swung his bow, striking the man in the face.

  With him stunned, Lucas rolled on the man’s back and pulled Prudence’s string across his neck. Grabbing the back of the bow, he pulled up while pushing the guy’s neck into the string with his feet, standing on the back of his neck. The man grabbed at the string, but it dug into his neck and wouldn’t budge against the force Lucas put into it. Spittle flew from Lucas’s mouth as he strained to hold the bow against the man’s grip. In a few seconds, the man’s arms dangled from his sides and blood trickled from his neck.

  Lucas struggled to breathe in enough air and staggered to his feet. His heart pounded and he felt nauseated. He stared at the still body at his feet, the guy’s face was down against the steel, with prudence still wrapped around his neck. He was dead. Lucas had killed him.

  Why did the man have to attack him like that? Lucas snarled at the man and kicked him at his side. “Why did you make him kill you?” Lucas hollered at the man and fell to his knees, pulling Prudence from the man’s neck.

  Gazing at his bow, he wiped clean the string with his shirt. The sweat dripped from his face and he sat back on his feet, staring at the man on the ground. Killing grinner’s and Arracks didn’t feel like anything but killing monsters. Killing a human with his hands was entirely another feeling. He probably had a wife and kids, waiting for their dad to return home from work.