by R. D. Brady
They had to win.
Quietly, she had spoken with the Treasury about how much money was on hand. She had also spoken with the Treasury Secretary and the head of Homeland to see how they could seize funds of wealthy Americans. As far as she was concerned, seizing those funds was no different than commandeering a car for a police action. Except here, the stakes were much higher. Congress had not been privy to those discussions.
“Bidding starts in one minute,” Chip said, a thread of excitement in his voice. The President wanted to slap the back of his head. This was not a time for excitement. Anyone with a shred of common sense knew this was a time for fear.
She flicked a gaze at Bruce. He stood staring at the screen, looking like his usual unflappable self, the beating of a blood vessel in his throat the only indication of the man’s concern. Strangely, that small tic made her feel better.
“It’s starting,” Chip said.
The President’s attention snapped back to the monitor.
Bruce stood, pulling up a chair next to Chip and taking a seat. “Okay. No bidding at first. Let’s feel this out.”
Chip nodded. “Opening bid: one billion dollars.”
Numbers flew fast and furiously on the screen. One billion quickly moved to two, then three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five.
“Now,” Bruce said.
Chip’s hands flew over the keyboard, the bid jumping to thirty-two billion.
Then thirty-three. Thirty-four. They were talking billions of dollars here, and yet the number kept going up.
“Seventy-eight bidders have dropped out,” Chip said.
The President only nodded, gripping the back of an empty chair.
Onscreen, the bid had jumped to eighty-two billion.
Then it jumped to a hundred fifty.
Then it went back to the previous bid of eighty-two.
“What happened?” the President demanded.
“Someone bid more than they could come up with. Yanovich did his homework. He’s keeping everyone honest.”
Twenty more bidders dropped out, then another forty-two. The bid reached 212, and there were only three bidders left. The President put her hand to her mouth as the numbers climbed. The bids were happening so fast, she didn’t even have a chance to read the number before it was replaced.
Come on. Come on.
Then the screen went black. Everyone went still. A message flashed on the screen: Thank you for your participation.
The President stared at the screen in confusion. “What happened? Did we win?”
“Uh…” Chip’s hand flew over the screen, replaying the auction. Finally his hands stilled.
“Well? Did we win?” the President demanded.
Chip looked up at her, finally looking his age. “No, we lost.”
Chapter 16
Tiwanaku, Bolivia
The farmhouse was quiet as the bidding played out on the monitor. Laney sat with her arms wrapped around her middle, trying to keep herself in her chair. Countries were bidding on the formula for the Omni. This was going to change the world, and not for the better. Because Gina was right, there was no country that was “good.” There was no country that could be trusted with this kind of power. There was no country who had demonstrated any ability to fairly dole out power.
As Laney sat there watching the numbers ratchet up and up, all she could think about was a quote from John Dalberg-Acton. Most people only remembered part of the quote: absolute power corrupts absolutely. But the full quote was “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
History had borne out the truth of that claim over and over again. Christopher Columbus, who “discovered” America, was lauded as a hero, but in reality he’d murdered, enslaved, and mistreated the natives of the Caribbean islands he came in contact with. In fact, he had even been found to have traded children as young as nine as sex slaves. JFK’s multiple extramarital affairs were well known and well documented, both during his time in the White House and before. Even Gandhi, who had taken a vow of celibacy, slept at night with young naked girls to “test” his resolve and had a documented history of racist remarks.
And in this day and age, she didn’t think any of the “great” men or women were going to be any better. Humanity just kept making the same mistakes over and over again.
When are we going to learn? It almost made Laney understand why God thought the flood was a good idea.
“There are only three bidders left,” Danny said.
Laney’s gaze flicked to the screen. The bid was at over a hundred billion dollars. How much good could be done with that money? Damn you, Elisabeta.
The screen blinked. And then a message in a white box appeared: Thank you for your participation.
“It’s over?” Laney asked.
Danny nodded. “Yeah.”
“What was the final bid?” Gina asked.
“Five hundred ninety-two billion dollars.”
Laney’s hand flew to her mouth. Oh my God.
“Who?” Henry asked. “Who won?”
“It wasn’t the U.S.,” Matt said quietly.
Laney turned to him. “How do you know?”
“Even with all our resources, we don’t have enough for that kind of bid.”
“Who does?” Gina asked.
“China, maybe Russia,” Matt said.
“What happens now?” Mustafa asked.
“As soon as the winning bid is deposited in an account chosen by Yanovich, the formula will be transferred to the winner,” Danny said. “It will probably take a little while to verify if the formula works. But if it is the formula for the Omni, within a week, someone could be mass-producing it.”
Laney felt sick to her stomach. These powers, they were not meant for humanity. Her powers were not meant for humanity, not en masse. Two hundred angels originally fell. The powers were restricted to those two hundred. But then they had children, and their children had children. Not all had powers, but some did, and slowly two hundred with powers became three, then four. That was bad. But this? This was beyond a nightmare. What would happen when whatever country unleashed hundreds more with abilities? What if those who were given abilities decided they didn’t need to follow orders? That they were a god in their own right?
And even if they followed orders, what would those orders be? Laney could think of no scenario where the world benefitted from an enhanced military force.
“So what happens now?” Danny whispered.
Laney couldn’t put the horror she envisioned into words.
But Gina could. Her voice was low, her words quiet, but they carried the power of a punch. “What happens now? Now the world goes to war.”
Chapter 17
Washington, D.C.
The control room was much fuller this time than the last time the President had been down here. She paced along the back of the room, glancing at the monitors every few seconds.
It had been a week since the auction. No one knew who had won, but all signs pointed to China. They had immediately gone dark at the close of the auction, shutting down communications, closing their borders, and recalling all their diplomats.
Many countries had followed suit. She had herself halted all visa programs and was admitting only U.S. citizens into the country. Citizens who were traveling abroad were warned that they may not be allowed reentry. International travel had plummeted, as had the stock markets, in response. Pockets of unrest were springing up all over the country, along with protests about the Fallen and counter protests decrying the treatment of the Fallen. Everyone seemed to have an opinion, and those opinions often boiled over into violent skirmishes.
She had been toying with the idea of instilling martial law until things calmed down, but she wasn’t ready to take that step. A nationwide declaration of martial law had never been declared, not even during the two world wars. The President hoped it would not come to that, but the reports she was receiving from law enforcemen
t across the country were not promising.
“We have him,” Chip called out.
The President’s head snapped up, pulled from her ruminations. She hustled over to stand behind Chip’s chair. The defense secretary stood up, offering his chair, but the President waved him down. She was too keyed up to sit. “Where is he?”
“A mile from the target. He’s on foot.”
The President nodded, her eyes on the screen, and the scene shifted in shadows of black and green. Former United States Marine Corps Captain Mark Li had been assigned by the CIA to China seven years ago. As far as the Chinese government was concerned, he was a wealthy U.S. businessman who had a factory in the southwest province of Yunnan, making electrical conduits. The factory was real. The CIA had set it up almost ten years ago. The parts were sent all over the world, and Li had used his position to send the United States information on the elite society members he interacted with.
Along with the legitimate business ventures, Li ran an underground gambling ring that catered to the elite. A few years back, he’d widened his clientele to include Chinese government officials. Li had maintained acquaintanceships with the officials, plying them with enough liquor to sink a ship. Or in their cases, loosen their lips.
For years, he’d been receiving intel and passing it on to Bruce Heller. Four days ago, he’d learned about a facility in Wenshan that was highly classified. The officials he spoke with weren’t sure what was happening there, but it had been emptied out of all but essential personnel three days before a large contingent of soldiers had been sent to it. That had been enough to greenlight Li’s excursion to the facility.
The movement on the screen stopped.
The President frowned. “What’s happening?”
Bruce stepped up to her side, pointing to another screen that depicted a satellite image of the facility along with infrared readings that showed people depicted as orange ghosts. “Security patrol. He’ll wait until they’re gone.”
Two orange figures on the bottom right of the screen moved by a single figure that crouched down, unmoving. Once they were gone, the unmoving figure sprang to life, running.
The President shifted her gaze between the orange figure and Captain Li’s night-vision recording.
The next few minutes were tense. Li evaded two other patrols and took refuge behind an army truck just outside the facility. He typed in a message: Coast clear. Heading in.
Li would be going in alone. They could not risk sending in air support or any other agents. If China got a whiff of what they were doing, it would spark an international incident. But if they waited, someone else would get there first. They knew at least a dozen other countries had operatives in China looking for this location.
“He won’t be seen?” the President asked.
Chip shook his head. “I’m running interference with their surveillance. It’s being looped.”
Li waited behind a truck. Then he sprinted forward until he was hidden behind another truck right next to the door. A second orange figure appeared from the building. Li burst from his hiding spot. Neither camera angle offered a clear view of what was happening as the two figures merged. Then one dropped.
“Bruce?”
“Not Li. He’s heading in now.”
The President nodded as the orange figure disappeared through the doorway after shoving the body under the truck.
They had no more satellite imagery to help as Li stepped inside. The President squinted at the night-vision screen before it shifted to regular lighting. He was in a hallway. There were three doors: two on the left and one on the right before the hallway turned. Li quickly made his way down.
As he turned a corner, a man in a white lab coat nearly collided with him. Without hesitating, Li reached his hands around the man’s neck and broke it. He caught the man, dragging him around to the other hallway before picking up his pace.
“He’s just leaving him?” Vice President Eric Brisbane asked.
“His time has been counting down ever since he stepped inside,” Bruce said quietly.
“Oh,” the Vice President said, stepping back.
The President had known they were sending Li on a suicide mission. Li had known as well. He was moving faster now, heading toward a large room at the end of the hall. From the little intel they had gathered, they believed it might be a laboratory.
Li paused at the door. He attached a small device to the electronic lock. Seconds later, the door popped open. Li pulled it back just enough to look inside.
It wasn’t a lab. Instead, a large gymnasium was spread out in front of him covered in gym equipment, reminding the President of an American Ninja Warrior course. But this course was built on a much, much larger scale. Rings were fifty feet up in the air. A man leapt up, grabbing on to the rings and swinging across with ease. Giant ten-feet-tall balls were being rolled up an incredibly steep thirty-foot ramp. In the corner, a dozen soldiers, men and woman, stood around a mat as two combatants fought. The speed with which they moved was dizzying.
The President was unable to tear her gaze from the screen. “It was them. They have the Omni.”
Bruce grabbed the mike. “Li, get out now, get out now!”
The President jerked her gaze from the combatants, zeroing in on one woman whose head was tilted to the side as she looked toward the door.
Li flew down the hall, moving incredibly fast. But not fast enough. A grunt was the only sound he made as he flew forward, his face slamming into the concrete tiles. His body was rolled over, and the same woman peered down at the camera. She reached out and yanked it up, her hand closing over it.
The feed went black.
The President sat back, staring at the screen. The Chinese had the Omni. They had already created a group of super soldiers. There were 1.6 million active-duty soldiers in the Chinese army. The U.S. had just over 1.2 million. If the Chinese dosed only half of their troops . . .
She swallowed hard. One soldier would be equal to at least ten non-enhanced individuals. No one would be able to stand up to them.
“Madame President, what are we going to do?” Eric asked.
The President looked back at him, maintaining eye contact, keeping all emotion from her face. “Convene a meeting of the security council and have my cabinet on standby. I want responses developed within the hour.”
Bruce nodded. “Yes, Madame President.”
The President strode from the room, nodding at her Secret Service detail as she crossed into the hallway. She kept her head up, her eyes clear, but inside she was shaking as she pictured that gymnasium. Eric’s question floated back through her mind.
What are we going to do?
But this time, instead of answering with the politically correct response, her mind forced her to answer with the honest one: I have no idea.
Chapter 18
Havenville
Two Months After the Auction
Gina’s words had proved sadly prescient. Just after the auction, all countries closed their borders. International travel came to a screeching halt as all countries scrambled to figure out what to do. The public didn’t know what had happened. News of the auction had not been made public, so all they knew was that all countries were now nervous and untrusting of one another.
Eventually, though, the truth leaked out.
China had won the bid. When a journalist broke the story, it exploded across the airways. It seemed like every country sent small assault teams into China, raiding their labs, their universities, looking for the formula. They never found it. Finally, they just started dropping bombs.
But China wasn’t going down without a fight. They dropped bombs of their own. Most of the damage had been away from highly populated areas, but thousands across the globe were killed, tens of thousands injured. And stories of enhanced Chinese troops rattled the world.
Sadly, that wasn’t the worst of the problems. Food shortages were reported worldwide, leading to violence and fear. It hit the cities the worst, an
d people around the globe were abandoning them in droves.
The only good that came of it was that no one was interested in visiting the Gate of the Sun. As a result, Danny had established a network outside, where he could monitor everything. The downside: They saw everything that was happening.
Now Laney paced the little farmhouse, her nerves on edge. Not because she was worried about her own safety. In this new world, she was the last person who had the right to worry about her personal safety. It was the non-enhanced people who had that worry.
She strode to the window, pushing the curtain back. “Oh, come on. Where are you?” But there was no movement out there. Everything was still.
She resumed her pacing, her skin crawling with tension. I should have gone myself. What if something’s happened?
Laney’s radio blared to life. Mustafa’s voice came through clearly. “Laney, the caravan’s approaching.”
Laney flew to the window. Sure enough, five cars were kicking up dust as they headed for the farmhouse. She got no stirrings of her power. No indication that any of them were Fallen.
She had to force herself to not sprint for the lead car. If anyone was watching the house, they could not see her blur. She yanked her hair back into a ponytail and crushed a hat onto her head. She moved to the door, forcing herself to breathe deeply and count to twenty. By the time she hit twenty, the first car should have reached the farmhouse.
At eighteen, she flung the door open and ran to the lead car, which hit the brakes. Her gaze met a pair of eyes that she knew as well as her own. She ran to the passenger door as it was pushed open. She dropped to her knees next to the car, flinging her arms around the passenger.
“Uncle Patrick.”
