The Amplifier Protocol (Amplifier 0)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  I dropped Macy at my feet, leaving her gasping, likely dying.

  I allowed the stolen magic to slip through me, healing myself as much as I could with her power. I peeled the bandages from my torso, finding raw-looking, light-pink scar tissue where the stitched wounds had been.

  Macy was trying to speak, trying to reach for me. Begging, maybe.

  I grabbed the sheet, ripping it into strips as I stepped over the healer and crossed to the door. I eyed the intercom and the door lock.

  Air whooshed through the vents, undoubtedly carrying odorless gas designed to kill me. To kill both of us, if Macy wasn’t already dying.

  I was out of time.

  I layered four sections of cotton sheeting over each other, wrapping the resulting makeshift mask over my mouth and nose and tying it as tightly as possible at the back of my head.

  I had to hope there were too many people who the Collective viewed as assets on the medical level to indiscriminately flood the halls with gas. Not until everyone was evacuated, at least. I had to hope that whoever was overseeing security didn’t decide to immediately gas the other four. Or that not all of them were trapped in their rooms yet.

  I dropped to the floor, crawling back toward Macy and the bed. Putting the air vents at the top of the walls was practical for camera angles, but the gas would take time to settle.

  Of course, they thought they had me trapped.

  I grabbed the IV stand and Macy’s arm. Keeping low, I dragged the stand and the healer back to the door. She was still alive. Good. I propped her up against the wall under the electronic locking mechanism. Quickly unscrewing the wheeled base of the IV stand, I snapped the pole in half. The metal twisted, then finally tore.

  Using its razor-sharp edges, I slashed Macy’s wrists.

  She didn’t have enough strength to cry out.

  Blood spurted.

  My eyes started stinging from whatever gas they were pumping into the room.

  I soaked the last section of sheeting in Macy’s blood, pressing the sopping rag against the door lock’s palm reader. I grabbed Macy’s hand and held it in place, my hand pinning hers.

  Then I pushed all the magic I had at my disposal through Macy’s hand — and therefore through the residual magic contained in Macy’s blood. Attempting to perform hasty, completely unsophisticated blood magic.

  The lock sparked, then shorted out.

  The door clicked but didn’t open.

  I hadn’t expected it to. Its electronic innards would have been compromised by the pulse of magic, though.

  But I was starting to get lightheaded. Dizzy.

  I dropped Macy. She slumped, sliding sideways down the wall to sprawl on the tile.

  Dead.

  But latent empathy or not, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry about murdering the healer before she’d managed to finish me. Proper kill order or otherwise.

  I moved to the door, bringing the two pieces of the IV stand with me. I forced the end of one past the edge of the door and heaved. I stumbled, falling to my knees. But the door opened a smidge. Staying down, I wedged the piece of the stand farther into the door, getting it open about an inch. Then I worked the second piece in, pulling them in opposite directions to create leverage.

  I forced the door open about two inches. I pressed my swaddled face into the gap to breathe the air from the hall in gulps and gasps. Then, holding my breath, I attacked the door again, wrenching it open just far enough that I could squeeze through it.

  I crawled out into the corridor, coughing and retching.

  Keeping low and dragging one of the pieces of the IV stand with me, I slipped into the empty, dark room across the hall.

  I pressed my back up against the wall just inside the open door, then wedged the IV stand in the door track so they couldn’t lock me in remotely. I tugged the sheeting away from my mouth, leaving it hanging around my neck as I glanced around for water. A bathroom stood to my far left.

  The silent alarm went off. The digital station over my head began flashing evacuation orders, indicating which elevators and stairwells would remain open. A ten-minute countdown took over the screen.

  “Took you long enough,” I whispered, coughing. “Sloppy, sloppy.”

  A well-armed tactical team would already be on their way. Unless the Collective wanted to sacrifice more employees. But I had time to get a drink of water.

  Using the wall for support, I gained my feet, then made it to the bathroom.

  The medical facilities were on level two of the compound, two floors underground. Our rooms were below that on the third level, sharing space with the common areas — lounge, cafeteria, gym — and the employee wing. But there was only one way to access the section of level three where the Five had lived since we were preteens. Only one elevator, one stairwell. Both would be locked, and I didn’t want to rely on magic I had no actual ability to perform to get me through them.

  If I was being honest with myself, it was next to a miracle that I’d gotten out of the room with a completely inept application of blood magic in the first place. Magic worked oddly, especially around anything electronic. At a guess, I had been successful only because Macy had already been tied to the locking mechanism. She had touched it dozens upon dozens of times previously.

  The team dispatched to intercept me would expect me to go up, not down. Same with the security detail tracking me through the cameras. They would expect me to try to escape, not to free the others. Short-term, reactionary thinking. But I couldn’t make it out of the compound without the other four. And even if I did, I’d be hunted down within days, if not hours. The compound was situated smack in the middle of a South American highland rainforest. I had nowhere to go. For most of our early years, our handlers had tried to keep the actual location of the compound a secret from the Five. Doing so had forced them to jump through many a magical hoop. Unfortunately, they couldn’t breed us for what they needed us for without making us smart. Tactical, rational choices had to be made on the fly. And if separated or compromised while on a mission, we had to be able to fend for ourselves. We needed to be able to blend in, to not draw unwanted attention.

  As such, we were educated relatively normally to some extent, though lessons about the world at large were always secondary to our physical and magical conditioning. Each of us knew how to operate multiple types of vehicles, but only Fish displayed a talent for mechanics and had been given further training. None of us knew how to cook, or even really how to clean. But Zans could drop a magical virus into a computer and strip it of anything the Collective wanted to get their hands on. We were taught math, reading, writing, logic. No history or music, though. None of the arts. Our access to books of any kind and to mass media was severely limited. All our education had a purpose.

  At Christmas, though, the employees used to hold a party in the cafeteria and lounge. And when the ongoing absence of the Five from the festivities had gotten too noticeable, we’d been tasked to attend, like it was a mission. During the last party, I watched my first holiday movie, ate gingerbread, and drank eggnog. The creamy drink had tasted terrible, but I’d loved the cookies and the movie, Die Hard.

  There were so many other things that we only knew existed because Bee started teaching herself about them. Then she started teaching us, through images and thoughts plucked from the minds of those around us. Because no matter how many charms the employees of the compound wore, keeping a telepath of Bee’s power out of their heads was nearly impossible.

  The Collective had tried to keep us ignorant in so many aspects of our lives. Perhaps because it fostered a dependence on them? A dependence on each other? Maybe they wanted to make us afraid to even think about leaving. But where would we go? And why would we even think about doing so?

  Unless, of course, we were fleeing an attempt on our lives.

  Even the team members we worked with most closely didn’t know the compound’s exact location. Most of them were teleported in and out — and they were all well pai
d to not ask questions. Our contact with the overseer and the few people local to the compound was severely limited. But unfortunately for the Collective’s obsessive need to keep us cloistered, once the Five started to be sent out on active missions, group teleportation from the compound to another secure facility wasn’t always an option. Planes and other transportation had to be used. And coastlines and main roads could be compared with maps, which we’d been taught to read because that was knowledge we needed for clandestine extractions.

  Things like common accents, currency, and clothing could be assessed, further narrowing down where the Collective’s main base of operations was situated. Adding in the lack of seasonal change to light and the length of the day, we figured out eventually that the compound was situated in the mountains of northern Peru. But given my current situation — naked, without weapons, and still healing — knowing my general location didn’t help me. Fleeing through the rainforest, even if I did manage to source some clothing and food before I went, wasn’t a great option.

  At least not alone.

  Repeatedly rinsing my nose and mouth cleared them of the gas as much as possible — though I couldn’t do anything about whatever had made it into my bloodstream. When I was done, I ignored the evacuation plan on the digital reader at the door. Stepping out into the empty corridor, I headed in the opposite direction. Keeping to the side of the hall, my bare feet were practically silent on the tile underfoot. I tried to dash between camera positions, though I could only guess at their actual angles of view. Finding a blind spot was likely impossible, but if I moved quickly enough, I might fool security for a moment.

  I felt a brush of magic from up ahead. A single sorcerer by its tenor. I dashed forward again, pressing myself back against the wall near the next doorway.

  A blond sorcerer exited that doorway. His head was down as he concentrated on stuffing a laptop into his satchel. Taking computers or other devices capable of digital storage from the compound was strictly monitored.

  Not that the sorcerer would make it to the checkpoint.

  I slipped up behind him, wishing he was taller than me so that I might have had the option to use him to physically mask my presence. I grabbed him at the back of his neck. Before he could react, I was already pulling his magic from him. Confusion, then dismay, flashed through me. His emotions, not mine.

  The sorcerer’s power flowed up my arm and across my chest. I coated myself in it, rather than absorbing it. Hoping to form a loop between us, hoping to confuse the cameras long enough to get through the next set of doors.

  “Keep walking,” I murmured.

  He stumbled but kept moving. “What … you?”

  He tried to look back at me, but I firmed my grip on his neck, disabusing him of the notion.

  We approached the secondary exit to the medical wing. I reached around the sorcerer, taking his badge.

  “Lock,” I murmured.

  He pressed his palm to the reader. The door whooshed open. I let the sorcerer go, instantly absorbing the magic I’d collected from him as I lost contact with his skin. I couldn’t drag him with me. He’d slow me down.

  The sorcerer stumbled to the side, rubbing his neck. He raked his gaze over me, head to foot, lingering on the scars slashed across my stomach and lower rib cage. “Amp5. I … never thought I’d see you in person.”

  “Well,” I said, stepping through the door before it slid closed. “It’s your lucky day. I suggest you stay on your side of the door.”

  “Or what? You’ll kill me?”

  I laughed harshly. “It’s me they’re trying to kill. Once the level is mostly evacuated, they’ll flood whatever corridor I’m in with gas. The doors seal, so you’ll survive if you stay behind this one.”

  I kept walking, instinctively picking out the locations of the cameras up ahead. Though that information was fairly useless to me without a premade obfuscation spell that might have concealed me from view.

  The sorcerer jutted his head through the door. “Kill you? That’s insane. You are … you are perfection. Why would they kill you?”

  The door slid closed, almost taking the sorcerer’s head with it as he stumbled back.

  That was the question. Why kill me? No assessments. No rehabilitation. Making an attempt on my life without a proper kill order felt personal. Except I had no relationships, no interactions that could have possibly created any sort of enemy. Especially not an enemy willing to incur the wrath of the Collective in order to wipe me out.

  So perhaps whoever had sent Macy after me had no idea what they were triggering.

  I reached over my shoulder, pressing my fingers to the blood tattoo on my T2 vertebra. Bee’s blood, Bee’s magic under my skin.

  “Bee,” I murmured, trying to get the telepath’s attention and hoping she wasn’t completely warded. Hoping that she and the others weren’t already dead.

  The lack of a proper kill order gave me hope that the other four still survived. But whoever was monitoring the situation, whoever was orchestrating it, would figure out my intentions quickly enough. And incapacitating the others — locking them in their rooms, knocking them out — would be a smart response.

  “Bee,” I murmured. “I’m out.”

  Nothing.

  I continued forward.

  Alone.

  A cluster of sorcerers had fortified the doors to the stairwell ahead — and undoubtedly the entire staircase leading down to the third level. Evidently, I hadn’t fooled anyone as to my objective.

  A murder of sorcerers. Not a cluster. Bee’s presence brushed through my mind. She laughed, quietly deadly.

  “Helpful,” I muttered, more relieved than annoyed. “Is everyone okay?”

  The telepath didn’t answer.

  I risked a glance down the long straight hall. Looking for possible egresses or anything I could use for shelter. There were none, which I’d already known — it was a straight run of concrete between me and the rest of the Five. But double-checking never hurt.

  A red laser sight bloomed on the wall above me. I was crouched down, so the gun-toting tactical team were aiming for where my head should have been. I retreated a couple of steps, running the floor plan in my head. I could backtrack, come at the stairs from one level down. But since they knew where I was going, eliminating the other four while they were trapped in their rooms was no doubt already being discussed.

  A botched attempt on my life was one thing. Perhaps the heart attack Macy had planned to induce was supposed to look like a complication from my wounds. But no matter that Zans thought the entire fifth generation was expendable if I died, murdering the others without a traceable kill order was going to be difficult to justify.

  Still, time was of the essence.

  I recognized three of the magical signatures at the end of the hall. Three of the team gearing up to face off against me. Three people who’d fought at my side for over two years.

  The three I’d chosen to not sacrifice on a rooftop in LA.

  I stepped out into the hall.

  Bee hissed in my mind. Wait. Wait. I’m trying to make a connection.

  I wasn’t waiting.

  “Stand down, Amp5!” Mark Calhoun shouted.

  I kept walking, one foot in front of the other. Steady but slow. Reaching up, I made a show of plucking the last remaining bandages from my torso and ribs until I was completely naked except for my scars. The magic embedded in the bandages was long faded, but I wanted to show I was unarmed.

  Three laser points bloomed on my chest. Undoubtedly two or three more had appeared on my forehead. I didn’t need to wonder which was Mark’s kill shot. The head. Unquestionably.

  I raised my hands to the sides, fingers spread. Then I stepped in a slow circle so they could see my back. Not surrendering. Just showing that there was nowhere I could have been hiding a weapon. Nowhere comfortable, at least.

  “Final warning, Amp5,” Mark growled.

  I couldn’t see them yet. They had to be situated behind a camouflage
ward that blended with the concrete and the white walls, making the hall appear empty.

  “Don’t I at least get three warnings, Mark?” I asked.

  No answer, but I caught a whisper of movement. Someone shifting their feet. Someone unsure about gunning me down, maybe.

  I paused a dozen steps away, feeling magic not my own gathering sluggishly around my spine. Bee’s telepathy. She was still fighting through some sort of interference — improved wards on her room, maybe — and trying to use me as an anchor. Plus the tactical team would definitely be holding charms meant to thwart psychic assault.

  Of course, such magic didn’t always work. Especially against one of the Five.

  I raised my hands higher, this time indicating surrender. Calhoun, Don Flynn, and Becca Jackson — the three whose magic I felt ahead of me but still couldn’t see — would know that a naked me wasn’t as vulnerable as I appeared. They would know that the chance of accidentally brushing their skin against mine was highly likely when every inch of my skin was in play. A thing to be anticipated.

  But to the team members I didn’t know, I might have appeared to be just a naked, wounded woman offering to surrender.

  Calhoun, gun raised and aimed at me, stepped through the ward line at the end of the hall, collapsing the camouflage spell. He was partnered with a male sorcerer I didn’t know.

  I glanced over his shoulder as he approached, noting the four other members of the tactical team. Calhoun appeared to be keeping Flynn and Jackson in the second and third lines, respectively. Smart.

  “The order was to kill, not capture,” the sorcerer with Mark snapped.

  Mark didn’t answer. But he was close enough now for me to see the tension etched across his face. Hard lines edged his hazel eyes.

  “Did you see a certified kill order, Mark?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me either.

  The sorcerer’s fingers tightened on his gun. He double-checked his aim.