I climbed down the tree and sprinted for the trailer as the doors in the back opened. I drew my stunner. Simon jumped down from the truck, pointed his stunner toward the trailer. Keisha jogged toward me down the highway, hands free. Sweat gleamed on her face. She’d pushed it.
Explosions boomed north and south of us, along the road, and fir trees fell across the road, trees we’d rigged before. There. We were better isolated now.
No one appeared from the back of the trailer as I approached. There was sudden movement. I hit the pavement. My body armor banged against the ground, gauntlets scraping along the asphalt as I slid underneath the trailer
Black armored boots appeared on the far side as someone jumped down from the trailer with a thud. Another pair joined them. Boots swiveled, and suddenly leapt. “They’re jumping up!” I said into my wrist comm.
A big armored figure jumped over the back of the trailer and landed on top. The armor gleamed green-black. I sensed life amidst unlife, just like with the cables in the warehouse in Colombia.
I fired the stunner at the goon as another armored goon landed behind the first. I hit the first one full in the chest. The armor went from green-black to black. The goon still stood. He aimed a tube like launcher at a point behind me.
Shit, those things again. I scrambled up and back pedaled as a blob of green-black stuff hit the road and unfolded into a plant-thing that looked like a cross between a willow and a huge praying mantis. The thing hissed in my mind.
I fired the stunner at it, and the whip-like branches curled up. A metal saw blade spun into it, slicing it in half.
Keisha waved her arms and another hurled at the guard, slicing his arm halfway off. There was a muffled scream from inside the armor. I fought back bile. They were trying to kill us, I reminded myself.
The other goon crouched down and fired a blob directly at Keisha.
The air around him went zap. His armor turned black and he crumpled onto the trailer top.
Keisha ducked in time and the second blob landed just past her. She turned, but the thing unfolded with the speed of a nightmare. Branches whipped at her. She yelled and clutched her arms.
There was a big thicket of blackberries beneath the trees here. I knew because I’d grown them earlier just in case. I didn’t think we’d be fighting those walking nightmares again, but what the hell.
I sent the vines growing bigger, like an army of pythons at willow-mantis monster.
The vines slithered over the thing, grappled with it. I commanded them to tighten and pull it down. It had no way to cut the vines, disappearing beneath the vines until only a big tangle of sharp thorns remained.
Keisha was trying to stand. I helped her up, and she gasped. Her skin had turned a nasty shade of purple.
Poison.
I hit her with a hypo filled with ephedrine. “Catch your breath,” I told her, sounding like an idiot to myself.
Damn it. I hope that stuff worked.
I ran up to the trailer and around back, waved my stunner inside, but there were no more guards. There were racks, and hanging on the racks were green-black panels of living armor.
Connor and Simon joined me. Connor was white as a sheet, sweat dripping off his face. Even Simon looked worried.
I had Connor watch the rear SUV while Simon and I went up into the trailer.
I hesitated, then laid a gloved hand on a green-black panel.
A flash in my head, then it was the mirrored wall I couldn’t sense past.
Ellis’s fucking unlife. The lying bastard could lie all he wanted, but we’d found proof.
We just needed to get the armor out of there.
Fortunately it was in racks, four panels in each. There were like forty racks inside the trailer. No sign of a generator or power, guess they didn’t need it. We used the lift in the back to lower two racks. Then I noticed cylinders in another wall rack near the front of the trailer.
The cylinders had this green symbol on it, an oak tree over a DNA helix thing, all in green, surrounded by green vines. I forced myself to pull one of the cylinders out and take it with me. Proof that Ellis was making nightmares and had to be stopped.
Support would have to take action once I reported back.
We piled into the truck and drove up the service road, toward where Simon had left the helicopter.
I had to end the nightmares once and for all.
Frank was not happy to see us.
We had flown back to Redding, landing the copter at the airport, and then putting the armor and that cylinder into the back of another truck. We were supposed to drive back to Portland but I had a different idea, one that would get us more information on Emerald Biologic.
Frank opened the door a crack. “I told you I’m an independent contractor, remember?”
I nodded. “We need you for another job.”
She shook her head. “No way.”
This was getting nowhere fast. I hit the door, snapping the chain. I shoved my way inside, knocking her on her ass.
“You still are an independent,” I snarled. “We just need you for a new job. We’ll pay.”
She got up with a groan. “I gave you the reading that let you pull this job. That was all I was in for. ”
The others came in, Simon carrying one of the green-black armor panels.
Keisha loomed over Frank, and scowled at her. The ephedrine had done the trick and the swelling had disappeared, but Keisha was in a foul mood.
“Get ready to be useful again.”
Frank pushed herself up off the floor. Simon held the panel up to her, while Connor backed away, wide-eyed, and watched from the kitchen. The kid was spooked. For once I couldn’t blame him.
Frank shook her head. “I’m not touching whatever that is.” She crossed her arms. “You got your reading.”
She was stubborn, I’ll give her that.
I went over to her, nodded at Keisha, who went to Frank’s other side. We each grabbed an arm and pulled. Frank groaned, struggled, but we managed to get her arms free. “Simon, let her feel it,” I said.
He brought the panel up and I levered her arm around so that her palm faced the panel. She yelled, tried to fight it but her palm touched the panel.
Her eyes widened. “What the hell!”
“What do you see?”
Her eyes widened further. “Shit, what is this?”
Frank’s eyes took on a faraway look.
“This is alive but not like anything I’ve touched before.” She blinked. “There’s ocean, and a cave filled with these things, being grown and built at the same time.” She shuddered, pulled her hand back and collapsed on the couch.
“Where? Where was this?”
She shook her head. “Give me a moment, won’t you?” The anger was gone, she just sounded exhausted.
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Coughed. Looked at me, like she was seeing me for the first time. “That thing is something new. When I read an object, I can see where it’s been, pick up impressions. When I touch a person, I can do likewise. I can see their past, in little flashes.
“With this thing it’s both. It was born, made, created, whatever, in a cave on the Oregon Coast. I’ve been to that stretch of coast before, I recognized it. I have a clear picture of what the place looks like. I also felt the panel being moved.”
“But how can you see with something that doesn’t have eyes?” Connor interrupted. “That’s crazy. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Kid, I have no idea. It’s my power. I didn’t make it, it made me. Our powers make us who we are.”
Bullshit, but I’d let her talk anyway.
Connor clearly didn’t get it either, but he shut up. Keisha and Simon just let her talk, too. None of us could explain our powers, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t use them.
Frank went on to tell us about the place, there was a sunken building beneath the waves, connected to the cave on one end and another building atop the cliff. The place was neat, organized, contro
lled. A factory or a lab. Or both.
She finished. Went to a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of whisky and poured herself a shot. She knocked it back, then poured another.
She looked at me. “You’d be smart to head the other way from that place.”
“I’m not going to. We’re going to check it out.” I put my hands on my hips.
“And you are going to come with us.”
Chapter 14
Frank surprised me by not arguing, but instead getting really drunk. She kept knocking back drinks until we realized she was hell bent on getting way drunker than shit faced.
“Stop her,” I told Keisha, who watched her reach for another bottle. Frank wobbled. Keisha didn’t have to do much, Frank practically fell over. Keisha caught her before she did, eased her onto the floor.
“Why is she getting so drunk?” Connor asked me.
“Probably thinks it will keep us from taking her.”
Keisha looked up from the floor, her face hard. “Why the hell do we care? She already said she wasn’t going to help us.”
“I’m volunteering her.”
“Why do we need her?” Keisha asked.
“I want her to read on what we find there.”
Keisha gave me a blank look.
“Think about it,” I said. “She’ll be able to read items we find there, and help us connect the dots.” Which was true, as far as it went. But I also didn’t want someone else from the Scourge dropping by Frank’s after we left and finding out where we’d went.
Keisha looked over at Frank, who was passed out on the floor. “Maybe she’s trying to kill herself then.”
“I bet it would take a lot more booze than that to kill her.” Frank had all the signs of a hardcore drinker.
Simon stood by the door, watching us the whole time, no emotion on his face, not saying a word, until then.
“Why even do this?” We all looked at him. “Is this what the Scourge ordered us to do after we finished the job? We have seized armor and a biotech capsule. Shouldn’t we deliver them to your contact?” He said it coolly, without pulling any macho bull, just matter-of-fact.
Didn’t matter. I was in charge. Mat, not Simon.
“Because they’ll want to know about where this was produced. We might get info on how it was made. Hell, we might even get our hands on the chemistry and production how-tos.” I was reaching here, trying to come up with reasons that he’d buy.
He listened, didn’t react, just listened, which made me more amped up. “They’re looking for something to use against the Hero Council,” I said. There, I’d put that out in the air.
Simon raised an eyebrow.
“Fuck-what?” Keisha said, while Connor just looked confused.
Frank mumbled something in her alcohol-fueled slumber.
Keisha looked incredulous. “This is the first I’ve heard that they are looking for an angle against the Hero Council. I thought they wanted money.”
Simon’s eyes narrowed. “It was my understanding they were interested in learning more about where our powers came from.”
“They are. They want to know about that, want to know how it all works.”
“That, and money,” Keisha broke in.
“Yeah, money, too.” This was stupid. “But you all know the Inner Circle wants the Scourge to have the means to change things, right?”
Keisha shrugged. “Sure, but this is long-term, right?”
“Not necessarily. This might be the big chance they’ve been looking for.”
Keisha frowned. “Now who is the mushroom being kept in the dark?”
That felt like a punch to my gut. I didn’t have a comeback.
“We gotta do this,” I said.
Connor looked worried. “What are you talking about?”
“The job before this one, we were sent down to Colombia.”
“Found some nasty shit there,” Keisha said.
“Like what?”
Keisha scowled. “Tree-things that moved.”
Connor’s eyes widened.
I nodded. “Some kind of artificial life form.”
“You really believe this facility on the Oregon Coast is important enough to break into?” Simon asked.
Maybe I was grasping at straws, but the truck job was the first break I’d had in trying to find out who was behind the horror show.
“Yeah, I do.”
I turned the TV on, flipped the channels. I-5 was closed due to an accident, but that’s all the announcers said. “Funny they aren’t saying anything more about what happened,” I pointed out. The woman anchor had blow-dried hair and perfect makeup, with a perky but empty-eyed look. Must be reading from something. I flipped to another station. Same thing.
“See,” I said. “You’d think the army would be there after what we did, and that it would be all over the news.”
Keisha shook her head. “This is supposed to convince us, Mat? Really?”
If you looked up hard-headed in the dictionary, I swore you’d find a picture of Keisha. “Look,” I said, “the Inner Circle gave me some discretion with this job, so I’m using it.” No one argued, they just listened to what I had to say. “This subsidiary of Ellis’s, Emerald Biologic, has to have some pull with the government, otherwise the TV news wouldn’t be hiding the truth about what we pulled off this afternoon. And you heard Frank’s reading.”
The Inner Circle might get royally pissed at me for taking the cell and Frank off on a little unauthorized job, but I figured it was better to ask forgiveness afterwards than permission before, and maybe seeing the chance slip away, or being told no. My turn to call a shot and I was taking it.
The group stood there, considering what I said. After a moment, Simon spoke up. “She’s right,” he told the others. “We should investigate.”
“Great, another shit job for the junior varsity,” Keisha grumbled.
“So, we’re going on another job?” Connor asked, looking confused.
“Sure as hell looks like it.” Keisha said.
Frank didn’t wake up until we got to the Oregon border the next morning. Simon drove, like always, with Keisha up front, staring at the window, and Connor sleeping next to Frank on a bench in the back of the truck.
I was restless. Support was probably having kittens about now because I hadn’t contacted them in a few days, but they were the ones who reminded me I needed to be patient.
My necklace hadn’t vibrated, so no Empowered contact from the Inner Circle.
Frank groaned and grabbed her head. “Where the hell am I?”
“In Oregon.”
“Damn it.” She sat up, rubbed her eyes. “Why aren’t we all in a detention center someplace, waiting for a one-way ticket to Special Corrections?”
“Because Support doesn’t know where we are.”
“Fool’s luck,” she said. Her eyes were so bloodshot they looked like tomatoes. I passed her a bottle of water. “I could use some hair of the dog,” she said.
“Don’t have any.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” She drank more water. “So, why the hell do you need me? I told you where the Complex was.”
“Because we will need you to read what we find there.”
She put her head in her hands. “Shit. I wanted to be done with all this.”
“This is the last time,” I said.
She gave me a sour look, but didn’t say anything.
We drove up Highway 101, along the coast, the ocean stretching blue-gray off to the horizon, but so what? I didn’t notice it beyond the color and that the ocean was wide. I sweated figuring out how we could get into this secret complex. We had no idea how heavily guarded it was. It had to be a secret, but what did that mean? Was it the “secret” place that everyone in town either worked at or knew someone who worked at it? How could you keep a place like that under wraps? If the town was a little hole in the wall, than maybe all the people who worked at the Emerald Biologic factory/lab/whatever it was lived in dorm housing. Bu
t then you'd need to truck in all sorts of supplies.
It made my head spin trying to figure out how they could.
I tapped Keisha on the shoulder. “Let’s switch."
She started to say something, probably fuck off, then sighed, unbuckled her seat belt and traded places with me. She didn't even slam the little window between the cab and the back of the truck shut, just slid it slowly closed, and didn't even glance at Frank, just laid down on the bunk. Must be tired.
We all were, but I wasn't about to let that slow me down. Didn't have much time. Sooner or later the Inner Circle was going to want an update. I didn't want to have to argue with them.
And then there was Support. By now they must know it was my cell that hit the shipment. Chances are they’d give me a little time, but I didn't really know, especially not with Zhukova in charge.
I buckled myself in. The ocean had disappeared behind a hillside covered in trees. One of the capes, I had no idea which.
"You have a question for me." Simon said, eyes still on the road as he drove.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you aren't prone to engage in casual chitchat."
"I do make small talk."
"Not around us."
Okay, this was veering into dangerous territory. I didn't because I was a spy, and apparently a sucky one, since a smart spy would have figured out she needed to make small talk to keep people from thinking she was acting weird.
"Well, I do have a question for you."
Simon actually laughed. Sure, it was silently, but he laughed.
Yeah, okay, so I'd made his point. Sue me.
"The lab complex we are headed to,” I said.
"Assuming it actually exists."
"Why wouldn't it? Frank read it."
"This is assuming she and we interpreted her reading correctly."
"She saw a lab. She saw it on the coast, here. Recognized the landscape."
He shrugged. "Certainly that's what she thought she saw. But what if the reading was based off a false impression? Then she'd have wrongly interpreted what she saw."
I shook my head. I was screwed if that was the case, but I didn't see how. My face was hot. "Listen, she's right."
Empowered: Traitor (The Empowered Series Book 2) Page 12
