Rory didn’t need to be told twice. He took off, leaving Bas with Nova. She’d flicked her gun light on and was shining it toward the dead bodies.
“If Jeremiah was in here, he’ll have left a sign. Find it,” Bas ordered.
Nova nodded stiffly and turned away from the bodies, shining her light along the barn wall.
Bas’s adrenaline, his fading stim, and the overwhelming stench were all working together to make him sick. He never vomited anymore, but if he was going to, this would do it. They needed to find whatever was in here and get the fuck out.
His pulse pounded as he approached the corpses. The scent of decay, piss, and shit nearly overwhelmed him again, even through the mask—but the butane was stronger. The tarp had to be drenched in it.
Bas grabbed the edge of the long tarp and heaved it off the bodies with one swift movement, kicking off droplets of liquid butane.
Bas went to the end of the line, starting at the first body in the pile. He aimed his gun’s light at the first corpse and swallowed hard to keep his stomach from emptying.
An old woman, shit and blood stained clothing, yellowish… jaundiced skin, but the worst part—the scabbed over holes in her body. They were abscesses—what looked like hemorrhaged lymph nodes—tinged with something green. The woman’s corpse looked bloated, like she’d died days ago. The next body belonged to a much younger man—his corpse fresher—only a few hours old. Reddish blood and pus gathered in the abscesses, and Bas had to look away for a second, nauseous, a sheen of sweat popping up on his forehead.
This had to be the “mild flu virus” the Coalition was working so hard to hide.
Bas hurried down the line, shining his light on every face. He had to shift a few of the bodies, and the taste of bile flooded his mouth each time his gloves sank into their bloated flesh or he touched one of the open sores.
So far, none of them had Jeremiah’s dark skin tone and build. Every new stranger filled Bas with both relief and a growing sense of dread that the next body in line would be Jeremiah’s.
Miah had walked Haven’s Path and embraced the five Points as well as any of them. He and Bas hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye, but he was Xavier’s closest confidant. Jeremiah was just too important to the Haven family. It seemed wrong—impossible, even—that he could have reached the end of his Path here… like this.
This disease hit everyone, from young to old. Bas sucked in a shallow breath as he finally reached the end and shone his light there. A small child had been carelessly thrown on top of another body—like a ragdoll. The boy wore one small blue shoe.
Bas let out a small sound and looked away, breathing too fast, his heart pounding. Then he quickly nudged the child’s body aside with his boot. A teen girl lay beneath. Same blond hair, same staring blue eyes as the boy. Siblings, for sure. Had their parents died first, or were they still alive somewhere?
Bas’s throat closed, and he fought against a wave of panic and darkness as he whirled to face the wall, sweeping his light along it, searching for any sign Jeremiah had been here.
This was taking too fucking long.
“Bas!” Nova called out. She was gesturing at him from the opposite corner.
He went to her, passing Rory as he dragged the second dead guard—the female—through the barn door. Both soldiers were inside the building now, stripped down to underclothing.
Nova was kneeling in the corner of the barn, digging into the floor, desperately throwing clumps of the filthy, butane-soaked straw out of her way.
Bas shone his light on the post directly above it and found a sloppy pentagram, scratched low on the wall. Haven’s symbol.
“Fuck.” Bas let out a growl. He slammed his fist into the wall. “They have him. They already fucking have him.”
Nova just shook her head, and his pulse thrummed in his ears as he dropped to his knees beside her to help her uncover the floor. The packed soil had been disturbed, and another star had been scratched into the dirt.
“Faster.” Bas dug in beside her with his bloodstained gloves, ripping away the earth.
They uncovered a string first, then part of a cloth bag. Nova tugged hard, and it came free. There was nothing else in the hole.
She opened it, hands shaking, and Bas shined his gun light into it.
Nova pulled out the sole item in the bag, gingerly removing it. It was a scrap of t-shirt type material, wrapped in a tight bundle.
She exchanged a sick look with him, her tan skin pale, sweat beading her brow beneath her mask. The bundle was far too small to hold a transmitter… So what the hell was it?
“Get out here!” Rory hailed him from the door, gesturing frantically. “Pandemic Control is on their way back!”
Bas jumped to his feet, heart pounding, and Nova dropped the wrapped square back into the bag and ran with him for the front of the barn.
They slipped on the wet straw and grabbed onto one another to keep from falling.
Rory stood just outside the barn, holding a radio. Lex was sifting through one of the metal crates the soldiers had been guarding.
“We think… Jeremiah was in there,” Nova said, her voice rough as she held up the bag.
A crackling sound erupted from the radio Rory held, followed by a man’s voice. “Sergeant Taylor, I repeat, we’re en route. We have orders to cleanse the entire sector. Prepare for pick-up in ten. Respond.”
Rory looked at Bas and gestured to the radio’s holo display. “Radio’s keyed to the soldier’s chip and voice. Can’t fake a response.”
Bas’s nostrils flared. “We torch that barn ourselves. Now.”
“Is this a trigger?” Lex called out to Rory, lifting a yellow incendiary globe from the metal crate she was searching.
Nova dashed over to Lex to take the globe, and they all ran around the side of the barn to grab their packs.
Bas took the cloth bag from Nova and tried to take care as he slid it in the front of his pack, but his hands were shaking. He was sweating freely, but he’d gone ice cold inside, despite the humidity and the stims.
The Coalition has Jeremiah.
And soon they’d have Bas and his team if they didn’t cover their tracks and get the fuck out of here.
He scanned the horizon for the best escape route. The forest on the other side of the next field provided closer cover than going back the way they’d come.
“Head north, to those woods,” he said to Rory and Lex. “Nova and I will torch the barn.”
Rory and Lex took off, crashing through the crops, and Bas turned to Nova, who was already trying to activate the timer on the globe. Sweat ran down her smudged skin in rivulets beneath her mask.
She cursed as the globe blinked red. “It needs verification. A fingerprint.”
A low hum reached them, and Bas looked up. Far in the distance—a half-dozen specks of black appeared in the sky. Pandemic Control.
The hovers were heading straight for them, coming from the southeast, where the convoy had come from earlier.
Bas pulled his gun as he and Nova raced for the barn and ducked inside. The fumes permeated Bas’s mask, making his eyes tear again.
Nova squatted beside the soldier she’d shot, and her hands shook, as she grabbed the dead woman’s limp finger and pressed it to the globe.
The globe flickered from red to green.
“How long?” Nova asked.
“Two minutes.”
Nova set the timer and dropped the globe next to the dead soldier.
They raced out of the barn for the field. The hovers were clearly visible now, and wind whipped the trees behind them. There was still time—time to get away.
Adrenaline raced through Bas, lending him strength. His legs pumped as he sprinted through the field. The soggy ground sank beneath his feet, dead plants falling in his wake. He glanced back to make sure Nova was keeping up, and she was right behind him.
The hovers would reach the barn in a matter of minutes, and
then they would see Bas and Nova in their dark fatigues, running through the dry field ahead. So he pushed harder, ran faster, putting every last ounce of energy he had into getting as far away from that barn as possible.
The incendiary globe went off, and the explosion sent Bas to his knees. He looked back, ears ringing. The barn was in flames, black smoke curling upward against the blue sky.
The closest hover had backed off, changing its flight pattern in response to the explosion. Nova had fallen behind Bas, and he helped her up, dragging her with him as he ran.
They reached the tree line at the end of the field and kept going, heading as deep into the woods as they could before the pain in Bas’s side forced him to let up. They fell to the ground, and Nova ripped off her mask, gasping, and crawled for the nearest bush.
Bas looked away as she vomited, removing his own mask and his butane and blood-soaked gloves. He sucked down water from his canteen and scanned the foliage for signs of Rory and Lex. Had they made it?
A branch cracked to his right, and Bas tried to get his gun out, but his reflexes were too dull. Lex and Rory appeared there—Rory looked stricken, but Lex wore a calm, unreadable expression and barely seemed to be out of breath.
“Saw the hovers do a fly over…” Rory coughed and spit off to the side. “They’ll know their people were in that barn when they can’t find a signal on those chips.”
Nova lunged for Bas’s pack and pulled out the cloth bag they’d found in the barn. The team huddled in close as she carefully unfolded the bundle of t-shirt material.
“Found this buried beneath Haven’s symbol,” Nova said. “Has to be him.”
Bas’s heart beat harder, and sweat dripped into his eyes as he darted a gaze back the way they’d come. No pursuit. Not yet, anyway.
Nova got the bundle unfolded, revealing a small syringe inside, along with a small metal cube that had a series of numbers engraved in it.
“What the hell is that?” Bas asked.
“Jeremiah had a beacon with him,” Nova said, her voice coming out in a rush. “He must have injected it into himself.”
“But that tech isn’t ready.” Rory grabbed the syringe, holding it up to a light streaming through the half-dead forest canopy. “Medical never tested it to make sure it was safe and would work without the Coalition picking up the signal.”
“He wasn’t supposed to bring this. X forbade it—I heard him.” The words tumbled out of Nova’s mouth in a rush.
“What. Is. It?” Bas asked, impatient.
“The beacon,” Nova continued, “is an injectable silicone-coated chip that emits a unique signal after activation. He was trying to get it to work with our transmitters, so even if the Coalition jammed comms in an area or building, we might still be able to track people and objects.” Her hand shook as she held up the metal cube. “If it worked… and if we had a functioning transmitter… we’d be able to insert this cube and use it to lock into the beacon’s signal. We could track him within the zone. We could find him.”
Bas scanned the sky again and looked back through the trees. They needed a place to hide. To recover. To plan. Nova had to find a way to fix that transmitter. Leaving Jeremiah in the hands of the Coalition was not an option.
Acid climbed up Bas’s throat as he pulled the Haven safe house map from his pack. He traced their route with his finger, finding their approximate position.
Nova quickly rewrapped the syringe and cube and dropped them into her own pack. Then she leaned forward, stabbing a finger at the closest star on the map. It was miles to the northeast, but a straight shot through dense forest—which meant they had the best chance of not being seen. The other nearby safe house was south, in the wrong direction.
Black strands of hair stuck to Nova’s damp forehead, but her bloodshot eyes had lit up. “A Haven safe house—if they’re broadcasters, they might have the tools I need to fix the transmitters.”
Bas nodded. “We use the woods as cover. We’ll get there after nightfall.”
“Look!” Lex said, speaking up for the first time as she pointed back toward the fields.
Bas jumped to his feet and peered through the foliage. The barn still burned in the distance, but now the hovers were flying low in formation, and they were dumping something on the field Bas and his team had been hiding in less than an hour ago. Then the hovers rose high, putting distance between themselves and the crops.
The first field ignited, a solid wall of flame.
“Everyone take a triple-dose of stims,” Bas returned the map to his pack and quickly strapped it on. “We’re not gonna stop moving until we get to that safe house.”
Katherine had put out a dozen figurative fires by late afternoon. But she’d initiated half a dozen more on behalf of the Coalition. There were plenty of smaller corporations in the world that generated almost enough revenue to qualify for Coalition membership… but not quite. And she intended to keep it that way.
“Katherine,” Aurora piped up. “All heads of state are ready for your scheduled conference call.”
“Keep them on hold,” Katherine instructed the AI. “And tell them I’m handling an important matter and will be on the call as soon as I can. I’m not to be disturbed again.”
“Absolutely. I have informed them.”
Katherine spent the next half hour preparing for the weekly call, reading through the list Izzy had compiled of each nation’s requests and complaints. Then she set aside her notes and spent another hour on smaller tasks.
Today’s call was a pivotal moment in Katherine’s plan, and it was crucial that everyone’s patience had worn thin long before meeting began.
“Aurora,” she said, when the hour was up, “bring everyone online, but leave my channel dark.”
The holo array started up with a whir, and Katherine reapplied her lipstick and waited for all six heads of state to appear so she could study them before they knew she was there.
President Harris looked calm but bored. The leaders of United South America, the Asian Union, the Arab Emirates, and the African Federation were definitely irritated they’d been forced to wait. It was well past dinner time in London right now, and the Prime Minister of the Western European Alliance was still in her office. Tara O’Shannon’s freckled cheeks were pink, her lips in a thin line, fiery red hair undone, messy, like she hadn’t even bothered to clean up for the meeting. She looked like she was barely suppressing her anger. Excellent.
Katherine softened her features, putting on a friendly, well-rested expression. “Start the call, Aurora.”
When everyone was linked, Katherine made small talk with each leader, asking after their families, following up on previous conversations. She saved O’Shannon for last.
“And how are you, Tara?” Katherine asked. “Are your daughters enjoying the new hologear we sent over for them to try?”
“Who knows?” she replied tersely. “I haven’t seen them yet today. I expected this meeting to take place an hour ago.”
President Harris’s eyes widened at Tara’s blatant disrespect, but the others kept their expressions even. Sharks. They’d try to rip Katherine apart at the first scent of blood.
Katherine folded her hands. “As you know, I had an urgent matter to attend to.”
“And the rest of us don’t?” Tara tapped her holotab, pulling up a list similar to what Joss had displayed earlier. “I was hoping to discuss some things privately with you… but I’m sure everyone else is wondering the same thing we are. What is happening in your Southern states?”
The other leaders perked up, nodding in agreement.
“You’ve seen the news casts,” Katherine said, sitting taller in her chair. “It’s as they’ve reported. The Coalition has ordered the Department of Pandemic Control to several states in United North America, but it’s a precaution only. We’re dealing with a mild flu virus, and we need to ensure every citizen who needs treatment gets it.”
“Uh-huh. And the f
ires?” O’Shannon asked.
“It’s summer, Prime Minister. We’re facing droughts, just as many of your states are.”
Prime Minister Zhou, leader of the Asian Union, cleared his throat. “My cabinet is very worried. They’ve suggested we turn away all commercial flights coming into Asia until your quarantine is lifted.”
“It’s a mild flu virus, but we prefer to always be cautious, as you know. I assure you, if it becomes necessary, MetaTransport will halt all flights, and the Coalition will deploy Pandemic Control forces to your borders immediately.”
Zhou shook his head. “With all due respect, Ms. Raines, we lost hundreds of thousands of lives during the Ebola crisis last year. We would prefer to temporarily close our borders. If we had done so last year, an infected patient never would have made it here from Western Europe.”
Katherine surveyed the world leaders, tension marring every face but President Harris’s. He trusted her word. Why couldn’t the rest? Irritation made her skin feel tight, but she kept it hidden.
“I understand your concern, Prime Minister Zhou.” Katherine spoke extra slowly. “You will remind your cabinet that Western Europe welcomed Pandemic Control, and we quickly stamped out the virus. But your national police ignored our quarantine orders. Once the Coalition helped you privatize your last government-run forces, we successfully regained control of multiple regions and wiped out the virus. It was unfortunate that Asia lost hundreds of thousands of lives due to mismanagement. Once the Coalition came in with Pandemic Control troops, we were able to save millions of your people with Infinitek’s cure.”
The Coalition had rescued people of all these nations from pandemics, food shortages, and natural disasters on dozens of occasions. The other leaders nodded, calming, their faith in her restored.
All except for O’Shannon, who had flushed and looked like she was biting her tongue.
Zhou glanced down at his hands, as if they held something fascinating. “I apologize. I will let my cabinet know the Coalition has this under control.”
“Excellent. Let’s move on to the new trade agreements. I’d like to thank each of you for approving them.” The tightness in Katherine’s chest loosened, and her smile reappeared. “These new laws will benefit every nation greatly. The people of unrecovered states have suffered for too long. With time and the Coalition’s financial aid, they can rebuild. Then the Coalition will be ready to move in permanently to stabilize their economies for the benefit of all.”
Defective (Fractured Era Book 1) Page 13
