Heir Ascendant (Faded Skies Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Anton smiled. “Nice.”

  She sat on the floor and cut Marcus loose, who then freed her hands and snipped the riot ties off his brother. Maya swiped the cutter and cut the bindings away from Sarah before handing it back to Marcus. He set Emily free while Maya patted Sarah’s cheek and shook her. As soon Marcus untied Pick, he ran out, screaming for his sister.

  “We gonna go check on Book.” Marcus waved the cutter. “Might need this.”

  “‘Kay,” said Maya. “It’s Zoe’s.”

  “Mmm.” Sarah stirred. She opened her eyes, looked at Maya, and threw up.

  Maya patted her on the back until she stopped vomiting, then grabbed her in a hug. Though she cried, inside she seethed. “Are you okay?”

  “Dizzy.” Sarah sat up, holding a hand to the side of her head. “Ow. That bastard hit me, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.” Maya brushed Sarah’s hair away from her face. “You’re bleeding.”

  Sarah convulsed again, but didn’t vomit. “Doc?”

  Maya shook her head. “Gone.”

  “Daddy?” Emily burst into tears.

  “They always take him for a little while.” Sarah got to her feet, holding on to Maya for balance. “Got some kinda problem with a doctor wanting to be out here with Nons, I guess. Probably.”

  “You’re technically a Citizen too,” whispered Maya. “Your dad’s a vet.”

  Sarah glowered as if she’d been called something nasty. “So?”

  “That officer hit you. You’re not eighteen yet, and a Citizen. He could get in a lot of trouble if your dad filed a complaint.”

  “And then they come back here an’ give it to us worse.” Sarah grabbed Emily’s hand. “‘Mon.”

  Maya followed them back to the Changs’ apartment. As soon as they entered, Emily wailed “Mommy!” and jumped on top of Zoe, sobbing. Maya walked over to the medical station and hunted through two cabinets’ worth of pill bottles and disposable prefilled injectors until she spotted a box of slender green tubes. She plucked one out and turned it in her fingers to read the lettering melted into the plastic housing: ATQ-110C. Hmm. This is the stuff, but how much Placinox did they give her? She held the syringe up to the window light, noting it held about 2ccs.

  “What’s that?” asked Sarah. “You shouldn’t be touching Doctor Chang’s medicine stuff.”

  “It’s the antidote to the standard Authority tranquilizer shot. They use Placinox as a chemical restraint. I bet she put up a fight when they tried to take Emily, so they knocked her out. This will wake her up, but I’m not sure how much to use.”

  Sarah looked back and forth from the drug to Zoe a few times. “How long will she stay out if you don’t do anything?”

  Maya blinked. “I said I don’t know how much they gave her, but it would be at least a few hours.” She marched over to the unconscious woman while twisting a selector ring at the top end. “One cc shouldn’t be a problem. That little won’t do anything even if they didn’t give her any tranquilizer, and I’m sure they did. The worst thing it’ll do is fail to wake her.”

  Emily stared up at Maya with an expression that could’ve been hope or mortal terror. Maya pulled down on Zoe’s belt to expose a few inches of butt, and jammed the autoinjector home. It let off a weak hiss. Maya held it up again to confirm 1cc remained in the tube.

  “Why’d you hit her in the ass with it?” Sarah picked Emily up and held her.

  “Intramuscular.” Maya bounced up and put the injector back where she found it.

  The girls stood in silence for about forty seconds, all staring at Zoe until she moaned.

  “Mommy!” yelled Emily.

  Sarah set her down and edged to the door. “Maybe you should bring one of those for my dad. He always gives them a hard time.”

  Maya glanced at the cabinet. “Okay.”

  Zoe sat up looking groggy. “Emily? Where’s Em…”

  “Mommy!” wailed Emily as she clamped on to her mother.

  “Baby…” Zoe sniffled, patting her daughter on the back while rocking her. Eventually, she looked up at Maya. “What happened?”

  Maya explained everything she knew. Authority conducted a ‘security check’ and left everyone in restraints. Zoe grumbled about bullshit protocols.

  “They do it to be assholes,” said Sarah with a scowl. “They ain’t afraid of us. They’re cruel.”

  Maya rubbed the lines of fire around her wrists. “They got Genna.”

  “Where’s Mike?” Zoe kept rubbing a hand up and down Emily’s back. “Did they drag him to the Sanc again?”

  Both Sarah and Maya shrugged.

  “Bastards,” said Zoe. “He’s as clean as you can get.”

  “He’ll be okay,” said Maya. “Maybe he hid like Mr. Barnes.”

  Anton ran in and handed the wire cutter to Maya. “Book’s okay. Sarah, your dad’s pretty pissed off, but he’s not hurt. He wants to you help him put his arm back on. I couldn’t find Mr. Weber or Mr. Barnes. They took Naida for her shots. Brian’s gone. They left Arlene on the floor but didn’t cuff her. She couldn’t get up, so me and Marcus helped her to the couch.” He fidgeted. “She looked bad. I hope Doctor Chang comes back soon.”

  Maya glanced between him and Zoe. “Shots?”

  Zoe blushed. “Uhh. Naida’s job is, uhh, and―”

  “I know what a prostitute is,” mumbled Maya.

  “Well…” Zoe sighed. “They round them up and force vaccinations and other things on them… kind of like keeping up on rabies shots for a dog.”

  “That’s horrible!” Maya gawked. “It’s… it’s…”

  “We’re not even people to them,” said Sarah.

  Anton gestured at the door. “That’s everyone. Mr. Mason’s door is locked and he didn’t say anything when I banged on it.”

  “He’s not here,” said Maya. The coldness in her voice got a raised eyebrow from Zoe. “He’s at work.”

  Sarah shivered and stumbled to the side, woozy. “I… should go help my dad.”

  Maya grabbed Zoe’s arm. “They took Genna. We gotta go help her.”

  Zoe ran a hand over Maya’s hair. “Oh, Lisa… there isn’t anything we can do but hope they decide to let her go. I’m sorry, but it’s the Authority.”

  “But…” Maya scowled. I’m Maya Oman. I can order them to set her loose. “I can…”

  “Don’t go getting any wild ideas.” Zoe’s light brown hair turned near blonde as she leaned into a shaft of sunlight coming in from the patio doors. “You saw how they treated you when you weren’t in trouble. Being a kid isn’t any protection. All we can do is keep our heads down.”

  Maya’s lip quivered but she refused to cry. “Sorry about knocking your stuff all over.”

  “Forgiven. You had a good reason.” Zoe traced a finger over the bloody lines around Maya’s ankles. “You fought like a little tiger. Come on, let me clean that up.”

  Sarah wobbled to the doorjamb and clung. “Gotta go. Dad needs me.”

  Zoe carried Maya to the exam table and worked an alcohol-pad around where the riot ties had drawn blood, making her hiss and squirm from the stinging. Zoe grasped Maya’s left heel and raised her leg, spritzing around her ankle from a white spray can. The raw skin tingled for a second before it felt like it caught fire.

  Maya dug her fingers into the cushion on either side of her butt. “Ow!”

  Pain lasted less time than the yell. Zoe sprayed the Epi-seal (made by Ascendant) on Maya’s other leg and both wrists. Clear liquid flashed to white foam, and new skin faded in over the cuts like she’d never been injured.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie. You don’t want an open wound out here. It’ll get infected.”

  Maya folded her arms over her chest, shivering. “I know. Thank you. It just hurts. Doctor Chang needs to check Sarah. One of them hit her with his rifle on the head, and she threw up. That’s not good after a head injury. She might have a concussion.”

  Zoe scowled, looking angry and worried at the same time.


  Barnes walked in and approached Maya. “There you are. What happened?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Where the hell have you been? Thanks for leaving us tied up on the floor for an hour!”

  He showed little reaction to her outburst. “Securing the area and avoiding notice by the Authority. You weren’t in any danger, Maya.”

  “Maya?” asked Zoe. Recognition dawned. “Oh, my.”

  “Thanks.” Maya smirked. “The blueberries didn’t recognize me.”

  “They came for her?” Zoe picked Maya up and set her on her feet before putting Emily on the table. The younger girl hadn’t struggled as much and only had red marks, no bleeding.

  Barnes scratched at his head. “Hard to say. That was our initial thought, but seeing as how they left her here, I’m not so sure.”

  Emily clamped onto Zoe, refusing to let go.

  “They were looking for me, but I told them I wasn’t who they thought I was. I scanned as a Citizen, but I said my mom is a veteran.”

  Barnes chuckled. “Damn lucky thing we got those signal jammers up. Well, I suppose some good came of this. They’ve been here and decided you aren’t who they think, so any future tips will probably get ignored.”

  “It’s not good,” yelled Maya. “They took Genna. We have to go save her.”

  He rubbed his chin, his expression grim. “Damn. That’s a problem.”

  Maya grabbed his hand and shook his arm. “Bring me to the Sanctuary Zone. We have to help her.”

  Barnes walked out. Maya ran after him.

  Once in the hall, he went down on one knee and whispered, “If they took her, that means they don’t know she’s with us. If they did―”

  “They’d have shot her.” Maya looked down at her feet. “They’re gonna find out. We have to help her before they do.”

  “It’s not that easy. We can’t just run off and save her like they do in the movies. We don’t know what facility they brought her to. An operation to break someone out of prison isn’t a small thing. At best, it would take weeks of planning.”

  “What if she doesn’t have weeks?” Maya scowled. Anger didn’t seem to be working, so she drew her hands together under her chin and tried to look pathetic. “Please? They’re going to kill her. I just got a real mother. I don’t wanna lose her already.”

  Barnes cringed. “I’ll see what I can do, but don’t get your hopes up, kid. Good chance the only thing we’d do is get ourselves killed or captured too. Genna would want us to carry on and not waste everything we’ve accomplished over a poorly planned rescue attempt.”

  “How do you know she’d want that? Sounds like you’re just saying that because you don’t wanna go.”

  His resigned expression showed no signs of change. Maya stormed off, stomping all the way up to the seventh floor where she ran to Genna’s bed, flopped on her chest, and bawled.

  When tears ran out, Maya stared at the wall while drifting through moments of crippling sorrow, murderous anger, and shivering fear. Crumpled sheets stretched out before her face like a mountainous arctic waste. Would Mason try to grab her like he did Sarah? Without Genna here to protect her, what could she do?

  Maya pushed herself up and wiped her tears with the front of her nightdress. Fear of Mr. Mason morphed into hatred. He’d done this. He’d taken her mother away. How convenient the Authority showed up while he wasn’t here. Of course they’d spare their informant the humiliation of being ‘processed’ and left to the mercy of whoever found him. A slice of Vanessa surfaced in the back of her mind. No one messes with me like that and gets away with it. The Authority would be back… soon if any truth existed in the rumors they would release any of the people they’d taken. She didn’t hold on to much hope that Genna would be one of the ones they simply cut loose a few hours later, but perhaps Doctor Chang, Brian, or Naida would come home.

  She’d give the Authority what they wanted―a Brigade terrorist.

  It would only take a bit of setup and a little luck. She jumped from the bed and rummaged Genna’s desk, pulling open each drawer and rifling among junk, boxes of bullets, gun cleaning kits, knives, and wire scrap. The big drawer on the bottom left held two bras and several pairs of women’s underpants. Despite the awkwardness, Maya rooted around in case―for some strange reason―something to write on had been hidden beneath.

  Finding nothing of use, she ran out and back downstairs to Zoe’s place. Maya hesitated at the door, listening to the echoing voice and sound of Emily in the bathtub. She peeked inside the empty living room, searching back and forth until she spotted a notebook and a pen on one of the tables she didn’t knock askew. The door made a tiny creak as she brushed it aside and crept closer. Better for Zoe if she didn’t know anything about this plan. Maya would steal one page and borrow the pen. The slosh of bathwater came from the back hall, accompanied by Emily’s echoing sniffles. Maya locked her gaze on the hall as she snuck in.

  “Hey, you doing okay?” asked Zoe from the kitchen, behind her.

  Maya let off a yelp; she jumped and whirled to face her. “Uhh.”

  Zoe wandered over, a cup of coffee clutched in two hands. “You look terrified. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes.” Maya flashed her Ascendant smile. “I felt bad about messing up your work table. I wanted to help you pick up.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it.” Zoe winked. “But I appreciate the thought.”

  “Is Emily okay?” Maya stooped and grabbed tools, circuit scraps, and such from the rug, which she set on the table.

  “She’ll be okay. I think she wanted to wash the Authority off.”

  “Are you okay?” Maya peered up at the woman with a rehearsed-cute head tilt. “You look sad.”

  “I’ll feel a lot better when Mike comes home. Thank you. You don’t have to pick up if you don’t want to. I’ll get to it eventually. I needed to sit down and try to remember how to breathe. Still a little foggy from that shot they gave me.” Zoe trudged to the kitchen.

  “I don’t mind, Mrs. Chang.” Maya hurried picking up as many tools, electronics parts, solder, and other stuff she thought fell from the table.

  Splashing continued to emanate from the bathroom. Emily seemed happy, or at least distracted, by whatever she played with.

  With Zoe out of sight behind the kitchen partition, Maya edged over to the notebook and removed a blank page. She nabbed a pen as well, and headed for the door.

  “Bye, Mrs. Chang. I got all the stuff off the floor.”

  “Call me Zoe,” yelled Zoe. “And be careful, Lisa.”

  “I will.” Somewhat.

  Maya raced back upstairs and leapt into one of the kitchen chairs in her apartment. She flattened the paper out on the table and wrote down all nineteen addresses for Vanessa Oman’s homes. Everything from the decoy places she never bothered to set foot in to the three top-secret ones that only six or seven people in the world knew existed. Maya dug the pen into the paper on number seven. She hated that underground bunker. Vanessa had only taken her there once because she got stuck with her by virtue of travel plans. Even the rug was super-expensive, so Maya hadn’t been allowed to leave the small, undecorated bedroom. “Kids break things” had been Vanessa’s explanation for why Maya’s room was so empty. “You can have things when you’re older.”

  She daydreamed about spilling ink and stuff all over the white sofa and chairs, the expensive rug, and knocking all those stupid, hideous sculptures off the wall. For most of her life, she’d been so quiet and obedient, but even that failed to make Vanessa love her. Now, she didn’t care anymore. She had a real mom, and nothing would stop her from getting Genna back.

  With both sides of the paper filled with sector addresses, building numbers, and a couple of door access codes, Maya held it up to admire. A twinge of guilt and hesitation danced in her belly, but the memory of Mr. Mason touching her lessened it. Thinking of how Sarah had gone from tough and protective to a terrified child cowering under the stairs at his approach cemented her resolve. A
fter folding the paper up small, she ran to Zoe’s apartment only long enough to put the pen back, and rushed down the fire stairs to the ground floor. Mr. Mason would be home soon and she did not want to risk him seeing her again.

  She crept out of the landing into the first floor hallway. Mason’s apartment door, blue and dented, sat halfway between her and the exit to the parking lot. He’d taken over the superintendent’s spot, but he didn’t really do anything here other than collect rent money for the building’s owner. Zoe did all the work fixing stuff.

  Maya scurried to the door and tried to open it, but the knob wouldn’t budge. She looked around for a vent to crawl in―the movies always had one of those―but didn’t see any way in. A short distance deeper in the hall, an open door led in to a dirty room where two massive metal beasts, industrial hot water heaters, slumbered. The sight of them sent a shock of unease down her spine. This room looked like the stuff from which nightmares were made, and the idea that Mr. Mason lived right next to it caused a lump to swell in her throat. He’d keep her prisoner in here amid all the rusty pipes and old machines, do unspeakable things, and probably kill her so she couldn’t tell anyone… and no one would ever know.

  Despite feeling terrified that she’d spot a skeleton or signs of a previous victim, she forced herself to walk inside. Steel shelves flanked the door, laden with cobwebs, sections of pipe, wrenches and two toolboxes. A metal stairway at the far right side led down to the basement and the furnaces for the heating system. Breathing left the taste of metal and oil on her tongue. Grit crunched under her feet, a large part of it looked like rusted metal flakes. She stopped three steps in when she got a good look at the wall that separated the room from Mason’s apartment. No vents. Not unless she risked going to the basement, crawling into the boiler, and hoping the ductwork somehow connected. Maya tiptoed to the stairs down and lost a few minutes staring at the grill door on the front of one. It looked like a monster that wanted to eat her.

  She shook her head. “No way.”

  Sarah!

  Six flights of stairs later, Maya skidded to a halt in front of apartment 139. She knocked.