by S. S. Segran
Tegan slipped past and saw the door shut behind her just as she processed the many computer screens in front of her. These displayed live camera feeds from around the complex. As she moved to rest on a shelf she was shocked to see it was filled with ammunition and other military-type equipment.
Not your regular security service, she thought as she flew to the top of the shelf. She noticed some kind of remote control device resting on one of the racks as she passed by. Underneath the many buttons were engraved letters.
M.C.U.
Flashbacks erupted. Aari saw this on the mountain after the battle, didn’t he? That’s the Marauder Control Unit! The beasts are here? But . . . No, that can’t be it. If they were, I would have seen their kennel somewhere out there.
Turning back to the screens, she observed the feed for a few moments, then her vision picked up something else. Hello, what’s this?
A second set of monitors was arranged together on another wall. Another guard, just as menacing as the one who had walked out the door, was sitting in front of it. He glanced at the screens from time to time but for the most part was writing on a notepad; it didn’t seem as if he was too concerned with the images displayed in front of him.
Tegan brought the dragonfly closer to the monitors. The images displayed were of areas she hadn’t seen during her excursion inside. She hovered closer. This has to be underground. That metal door with the guards standing by it must be for the room Aari and I are in.
As she moved her attention to all the different monitors, she grinned to herself. Well would you look at that . . . They do have a lab down there after all.
63
Mariah trudged out of her room, hair in a messy bun. She found Jag and Kody in the kitchen, talking animatedly.
Jag grinned at her as she sat down with them. “Look at you, sleeping past lunch.”
She stretched. “Mmph . . . ”
“Guess what came just a few minutes ago,” Kody said, displaying a black, football-shaped object in his hands.
She stopped mid-stretch and gawked. “It’s here? Josh got it done?”
“Yeah.” Jag passed her a sheet of paper. “Apparently he had someone on standby to personally fly this out to us the moment he was done putting it together.”
Mariah took the paper from him. “This is a note from Josh.”
“Uh huh.”
“Mild explosive designed to disperse powderized anti-nanomite . . . Confirmed powder works on the nano specimen . . . Device designed to explode ten seconds after activation . . . Created the ‘football’ in a hurry . . . Not enough time to test reliability . . . ” She put the note down and assessed the palm-sized device. “Really? It looks pretty professionally done.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Jag said. “He sent us two of these in case one fails.”
Kody held the device up to inspect it. “What I’m worried about is that we may have tripped an alarm the last time we were there, which was why the nanomites came back way before sunrise and attacked us. Since we don’t know what triggered it, we’re probably gonna set it off again.”
“We’ll have to be quick, then, because the nanomites will be in their pod when we go this time.”
“By doing what we’re gonna do, won’t we alert the people behind all this?” Mariah asked.
“That’s why we’re doing a test run on this site first. Hopefully they’ll see it as a random malfunction of the pod and not necessarily part of a larger takedown effort. Marshall called this morning and said that he has connected with other Sentries in the League. They’re using the method we worked out to figure where the rest of the pods are located. Tonight’s outcome will determine how we move forward. If we succeed, the League can replicate this across the country and later, hopefully, the world.”
A sense of pride budded in Mariah as she listened to Jag. He’s changed. He’s no longer the kid who just a year ago wouldn’t take the lead on anything and instead got into trouble for stupid fights in school.
“What are we gonna do with Tony and his guys when we leave this evening?” Kody asked.
“We could give them something that they can eat with their hands tied behind them,” Jag answered, winking.
Mariah smirked. She had no problem with that proposal.
* * *
Walking single file to stay inside the security cameras’ narrow blind spot, Jag, Mariah and Kody rounded the garage that housed the nanomites. Jag knelt and pulled away the section of the wall they’d cut earlier while Mariah readied the black cloths to place over the cameras.
Jag went on his stomach and took a cautionary look inside, then hurriedly pulled back. “There’s someone in there! A woman’s sitting at one of the computers!”
Kody crouched beside him. “Oh, man, I should’ve checked to see if I could hear anything inside. Did she notice you?”
“No.” Jag bit his lip, jaw moving side to side rapidly as he searched for a solution.
Mariah shooed them away. She lay down by the hole and looked into the garage. A woman with short blue hair and stretched earlobes was perched on a stool, facing the bank of computer monitors. A lunch bag lay on the tabletop on one side of her and a bottle of water stood on the other.
I wonder if I can get the cloths past her without her seeing . . . Agh, probably not. Can I take her out?
There was a hefty toolbox on the shelf behind the woman. Would that be too obvious if anyone views the footage? The box just randomly falling on her? Hmm . . . What if it looked like an accident? It’s gonna be touch-and-go.
Mariah forced the stool out from under the unsuspecting woman. The lady’s fall wasn’t graceful and she ended up on her backside, stunned. Before she could recover, Mariah brought the toolbox down on her. The woman sprawled back, arms and legs splayed, out cold.
Taking the black cloths, Mariah hung them over the cameras and motion detector, then crawled into the garage. Behind her, the boys—unaware of what she’d accomplished but having heard the commotion—were beside themselves.
“What are you doing?” Jag demanded.
“Don’t worry, it’s clear,” she called once she was on the other side.
There was a delay, then Jag appeared through the low opening; Kody stayed outside to stand guard like before. When Jag saw the woman on the ground, he said, “You and Tegan sure know how to do some damage, don’t ya?”
“Don’t have time for compliments, buddy boy.” Mariah ran to the steel pipe that led to the pod in the chamber below. “Okay, here’s the wire. Jag, you wanna—Jag? What are you doing?”
Her friend was holding a rectangular black device. “Would you look at this?” he said. “This remote controls all the alarms and motion detectors around here. She probably disarmed them when she came in.”
“You said alarms and motion detectors. Anything there for the cameras?”
“There’s no label for that here . . . ”
“Then they’re still functioning, so there was a need for stealth regardless.” She walked toward the steel pipe with the automated cap—the nanomite conduit—that stuck out of the floor. “See if you can locate the circuit that powers the cap. Once the power is off, you should be able to work it manually.”
Jag walked briskly around the garage as he traced the thin wire. “It’s not connected to any of those computers. It goes underground for some reason. Moving on, then.” He took a wire cutter from his bag and snipped the wire, then knelt next to the cap atop the pipe. “You ready?”
Mariah had taken out the football-shaped charge. “Yep.”
He forcibly slid the cap open. “Go, go, go!”
She worked the switch to start the timer and dropped the device down the pipe. Jag shut the cap firmly and they ran to the other side of the room. They hunkered down, counting down the last seconds.
Five one-thousand, four one-thousand, three one-thousand, two one-thousand, one . . .
Nothing.
They peeked at each other through their arms, quizzical, then got up.
Jag headed back to the pipe. “Was there supposed to be a quiet blast, or . . . ?”
Kody stuck his head through the hole in the wall and yelled at them. “What the heck did you do?! It sounds like crazed bees down there! I can hear ’em going nuts!”
“The football didn’t go off!” Jag yelped. “Get the second one ready!”
Hundreds of clinking impacts were audible to Mariah’s ears now as well. “They’re trying to get out!”
Jag put his hand on the cap. “When I pull this, you’ve only got a millisecond to get that in there! Alright? Now!”
He slid the cap open once more and Mariah lobbed the device into the pipe. He jerked the cap shut and then bounced away, slapping at his arms as minuscule red dots appeared before them. “Some of them got out . . . Ow! Let’s get out of here!”
All at once, Mariah felt like she was being bitten by fire ants. She thrashed, attempting to shake the nanomites off her. They were angrily tearing at her; pinpricks of blood appeared on her arms, and she knew they’d bitten under her t-shirt.
A muffled boom came from under their feet and rattled the pipe. The metallic buzzing and clanking petered out and, at the same time, the nanomites hounding Mariah and Jag ceased their attack.
Jag slowly raised his arms and observed them. “Lovely. It looks like I have bloodied freckles.” He beamed at Mariah. “I think we did it! I guess if enough of them are taken out, the rest are affected as well.”
“I think you’re right. Mission accomplished.”
“Let’s get back to the truck so we can clean up and head home.” He started crawling back outside, humming to himself happily at their success.
“Jag,” Mariah complained. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” Jag called, already halfway out.
“This poor lady’s lying all splayed out on the floor! Shouldn’t we do something about her?”
“No, leave her be. It’ll look like she fell from her stool and was hurt by the toolbox when it fell—which is actually what happened, might I remind you.”
Mariah huffed as Jag grabbed the wire cutters they’d used and exited the building. She followed him, then laid prone outside the hole in the wall and removed the cloths from the monitoring devices. Kody pushed the wall section into place and the three of them strolled off the property, taking care to return everything to normal.
As they drove back to Concordia, Kody said, “Now that we know it works, we can report to Marshall and Josh, and the Sentries can handle the other pods. Should be smooth sailing from here.”
Mariah exchanged high-fives with him, grinning. “I sure hope so.”
* * *
“Mr. Dattalo?”
“Nngh . . . Speaking. It’s two a.m., this had better be important.”
“Sir, I’m sorry to wake you up but I thought you should know that the pod at Ransom is not responding.”
The Italian head of Quest Defense sat up in his bed, his covers falling around his waist. “Not responding?”
“Remember I called you a couple nights ago about the REAPR going on the offensive?”
“You said that was a false alarm.”
“Yes, but now I’m not so sure. It looks like we’ve lost connection with the pod’s systems.”
“Who’s in charge there?”
“Katie. I actually tasked her to be there day and night since the last incident.”
“Ah, good. I like that you’ve taken the initiative. So what’s the problem?”
“I’ve been trying to reach her. The cameras blacked out for a couple of minutes, but they came back on just now. I see her lying on the floor like she’d had some kind of accident.”
“Get someone there to check on her.”
“Yes, sir. Already on it.”
“Wait a moment. You said this was the Ransom pod?”
“That’s right.”
“Alright. At least it’s not the Texas one.”
“You mean in Vernon? Yeah, I heard they’re the new version.”
“They’re second-generation nanomites—we wanted to up their capabilities. In any case, make sure you see to Katie and fix the pod issue.”
“Yes, sir. Again, so sorry to wake you.”
Dattalo put his phone on the nightstand and lay back down. He tried counting sheep but after a hundred, knew he’d lost his need to sleep.
64
The Elders were alone in the temple, save for an older woman who sat at the opposite end of the hall with a leather-bound book in hand. It was late in the night but none of them had been able to sleep until they’d heard from Jag. When the boy had contacted Nageau with the news, they thought it best to hold a meeting straightaway.
“So,” Nageau said, spreading his arms, “the method to end this plague has been proven successful. The material given by the Sentry’s friend works.”
Saiyu smiled broadly. “It is certainly encouraging.”
“My only concern is that the first device Jag and Mariah used failed to work,” Ashack grunted.
“But the second one did,” Tayoka reminded him. “And the devices were put together in haste. The new ones will be more reliable, no doubt.”
“Now that we know the material works and how best to deliver it,” Nageau said, “we need to work quickly. We have been afforded a very small window of opportunity wherein we have the element of surprise. It will be only a matter of time before the enemy becomes aware that their tools of destruction have been neutralized.”
“How much time do you reckon we have?” Tikina asked.
“Less than two days.”
“Can we rally the League in such a short time?”
“Yes, thanks to Tayoka. Things are already in motion. From what the Sentry and the five have gleaned, there are two sites involved in creating this scourge. One is in a place called Redding and the other in Boulder City, which is where Aari and Tegan are. They have now assumed the role of infiltrators rather than prisoners and have given the Sentry useful information about the site.
“In addition to the sites that produce these devices of destruction, there are six—well, five now—major locations that house them in their pods, a kind of nest. I have reached out to and carefully selected the Sentries for this mission. Marshall has also contacted them and they have been assigned to their respective targets. There will be two Sentries assigned to each pod and four to the site in Redding. Tegan, Aari and the Sentry will take care of the one in Boulder City.”
“Who do we have in the other areas?” Saiyu asked.
“There are two lads—twins—who traveled some distance to be at Redding with two other Sentries. Jag, Mariah and Kody will be heading to a place called Vernon in Texas where another pod is located, and couple of Sentries are now positioned in Montana.”
Tayoka raised his hand partway. “Is that not where the five are from?”
“It is,” Nageau answered. “More Sentries are on their way to the other three places in the states of California, Washington and North Dakota and will be in position shortly to strike on our signal.
“They have done the groundwork. All they are waiting for is the delivery of the material to destroy the pods and their orders.”
“With the hand of destiny guiding our attempt to stop this blight, this mission will be successful,” Ashack said, perking up slightly, “but what does this mean for the rest of the world? How do we put an end to the scourge elsewhere?”
“The Sentry’s friend can produce more of the material within a moon cycle.”
Ashack frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that the best he can do?”
“It is difficult to produce as it does not exist in nature. It must be created.”
Saiyu fiddled with the bracelets on her arm. “So much damage will be done by that time, Nageau.”
“It is all that can be done for now, my friend. Sentries in different parts of the world have searched for alternate means to produce this material. It seems Marshall’s contact is the only one righ
t now with the capability to deliver the needed quantity in the shortest time.”
“By then,” Ashack added heatedly, “we will have lost our element of surprise. Knowing they are under attack, the enemy will increase their security measures, making it far more challenging to destroy the pods.”
Nageau placed a hand on the dark-haired man’s back. “Take heart, Ashack. The Sentries are keeping a very close eye and will be prepared.”
“I think we have momentarily forgotten an important question,” Tikina said. “Now that we know who the puppet master is, what do you suppose Reyor’s reaction will be?”
An uncomfortable chill came over the group. Nageau pulled a thread from his cloak. “I understand that the last thing we want to do is infuriate the person who is the living embodiment of what the ancient prophecy warns of, but this is something that can no longer be avoided. We must be prepared for Reyor’s retaliation. I will need to meet with Magèo to inform him about this and see what he can do to prepare to defend the village should the need arise.”
“If anyone, that batty inventor of ours should be able to devise some means of defense,” Tayoka chimed in.
“You really think Reyor would dare attack us?” Saiyu asked. “Here?”
“I doubt Reyor would bear any love for our home anymore, Saiyu. It is a worst-case scenario, but I suggest that we ought to be ready so we are not taken by surprise.”
The other Elders agreed, all of them quiet and somber. Nageau stood up and brushed his cloak. “Come, my friends!” he said, resonant. “Cast aside your masks of solemnity! We have received an encouraging sign this night. These are the times spoken of in the prophecy. This is when we must stand strong with the bearers of light against the dark storm. The five have arisen to fulfill their role as ordained, thus we must fulfill ours. The League stands ready. Let the incursion begin!”
