"Very well." He sounded very unconvinced. Whatever. I was going with this.
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. “
"What did you want to ask my opinion of?" His English accent made him sound even more skeptical.
Now my question sounded idiotic. "How would a secret lab like this operate? Assuming it does exist." And it sure as hell better exist or my ass was toast.
"You mean, assuming it was secret."
"If that armor came out of there, and so did that blob crap, then it had better be secret, otherwise people would be pissed off and want it shut down."
"Perhaps."
I rapped my hand on the dash board. "Come on, Simon! Of course they'd be upset."
He didn't argue with me, just listened. Didn’t even seem irritated. God, that was annoying.
I continued. ”They'd be at the gates, demanding the government do something."
"I'll grant that if the public knew, they'd want to have the government take action to deal with the situation."
"If they knew? If?"
"Assume that Emerald Biologic is acting in secret, for government contractors."
"You've thought about this."
He smiled a thin smile. "We have had some time on our hands, giving me time to consider this."
Simon was even smarter than he let on, which made him even more dangerous. He tended to see through things. That meant he could see through me. That was a nasty thought. I still had no idea what drove him, what made him stick with the Scourge. That meant I had no idea what he would do. How loyal he was to the Scourge, or how loyal, like that bastard Mutter, he might be to himself. Mutter had nearly killed me. Simon couldn't control the air like Mutter, but with his incredible reflexes he could knife me in the back and slit my throat a second later. The only friend I had in the Scourge was Keisha, and even she would probably try to kill me if she found out I was an infiltrator for Support. Simon would likely just kill me sooner if he learned.
"So, if the complex is secret, how do they keep it that way?” I asked him.
"Run a largely automated facility. Put it in the middle of nowhere, give it its own power supply."
"Automated?"
"Robotic production, computerized control, with minimal personnel."
A cold hand grasped my heart. Jesus. "That would cost a lot of bucks."
The thin smile again. "Ellis is a billionaire."
Stupid, of course he was. But still, having a robotic facility had to be spendy even for him.
"So how do they protect it?" I asked him.
The ocean reappeared as we came out of the hills. The shoreline was close to the bottom of the cliff the highway ran along. High tide.
"Maybe with onsite security. Probably by putting in a private beach area, closed off to the public."
Ruth had told me, once, that when she was young Oregon tried to make all the beaches open to everyone, but after the Three Days War, rich people were able to buy up beach access.
How hard would it be for a super rich guy to buy up someone else's private beach and the land around it? Wave enough money and people would jump at the chance.
I had another nasty thought. "What if they've got killer tree things?"
"Artificial plant forms like the ones in Colombia?" He looked skeptical.
"Why the hell not?"
"Because Oregon isn't a remote Colombia rain forest. Someone would probably find out."
"So, just security guards then?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps there are automated defenses. Certainly there will be hidden security cameras."
Yeah, that seemed likely.
"But what about the sea?"
He raised an eyebrow. Gotcha, Limey. You hadn't thought about that, and neither had they.
I smiled. That would work for me.
Chapter 15
The boat pitched in the swell, and I gripped the railing. Yeah, this had been my idea.
"You are one crazy woman, you get that?" Keisha said, then leaned over the railing and vomited her breakfast.
Connor laughed. "This is fun.”
I shook my head. Crazy kid. Before he was confused, and worried. Now he was having the time of his life.
My plan only worked because Simon knew how to drive, I mean, "pilot," a boat. He was in the pilot house, steering the boat through these too-big-for-me waves.
We were a long way from the city. I wanted to get back as soon as I could.
The shore was a dark mountain in the pre-dawn gloom, lit green in my night-vision goggles. Sunlight was just starting to smear the black sky with gray light.
Simon had picked a boat docked with half a hundred others a few miles south. We didn't have much time.
I tugged at my wetsuit. The thing was tight. Connor's eyes had bulged when I came out of the cabin wearing it for the first time. Yeah, it showed off my chest. I told him to watch his eyes. He had swallowed hard. ”Yes, ma'am," he'd said.
Yes, ma'am. I was maybe four years older than him.
Frank refused to come out of the cabin, so I went back inside.
Her face was greener than moldy cheese.
"Why don't you just shoot me now," she groaned.
"We don't carry guns, remember?"
She dry heaved. A bucket held her vomit. Geez, for someone who had drank her dinner the day before, then only eaten crackers and chicken soup, she had had a lot in her.
"I need you to give us another read."
She didn't bother arguing. I handed her the panel we'd brought with us. She brushed her hands over it, closed her eyes. For a second, her face looked less green.
"In a cove. It's in a cove. Go in east. Now."
She was so sure of herself.
I took the panel from her, and she suddenly slumped back, looked green again and dry heaved.
I put the panel back in the duffel bag, zipped it up and went to tell Simon.
"She says head in, straight east. Now."
He nodded. "I hope her information is accurate and she isn't just trying to take us with her."
"She doesn't seem the suicidal type." Of course, she was sicker than a dog at the moment from the swell, but she seemed to like life just fine.
Simon brought the boat around. We were running dark as he called it. His depth reader pinged as the shore grew closer.
The night-vision goggles showed a dock jutting out into the water.
We pulled alongside the dock, and I helped him secure the boat to the little pier.
"If there's a pier, why are we in these stupid wetsuits," Keisha groused.
"We didn't know there was one.” I adjusted my night vision goggles. “Check your breather masks.”
“I don’t know why we brought the damn things,” Keisha said, wiping her mouth. Sick again.
“Because who knows what toxic crap we might run into.”
Her eyes bugged. Yeah, that was a nasty thought.
I was getting restless. We didn't have much time.
"I suck at swimming," Keisha said, changing the subject.
"Now you tell me."
"I've told you before,” she groused.
Maybe. I couldn't remember.
I went into the cabin and got Frank. She did not want to come along, but I insisted. Her face twisted all nasty like, but she still came along with me. I guess mine must have looked nastier. We all got onto the dock and headed toward the land.
"We have perhaps an hour," Simon.
"Then what?" Keisha said.
"Daylight."
The dock ran up to a big wooden platform below a cliff. North of us was another hill, a cape I guess you'd call it. It looked like the ocean surged inside a cave there. It splashed around an opening.
Directly east was a beach, inland of it, trees.
"No sign of any buildings," Simon said.
"Hidden like you thought."
"What about cameras?" Frank asked. "They must have this place covered."
"Probably."
"What do you mea
n, probably? We're just walking into prison if we keep up with this.”
"Nah, we've got Connor." I glanced at him. Security cameras needed electricity.
“Can you send out a big jolt of juice at the trees?”
"Sure."
“Let's see how shielded any security cameras might be.”
Connor flexed his muscles, cracked his knuckles, closed his eyes, and reached out with his arms.
"Zap," he whispered.
The air crackled with sudden white flashes, and the fir trees ahead of us lit up. There were three places where the light flared brighter. Security cameras.
"Hit it again," I told him.
He grinned, and waggled his eyebrows.
I sighed. Teenaged idiot.
Again, a crackle of sudden white flashes. But no answering flares.
We pulled on night vision goggles we’d brought. They'd help for a bit longer.
"What about guards?" Keisha asked.
"I'll deal with them," I said. My ivy would entangle them, then Connor could stun them with a static charge.
But there weren't any guards. The wood was empty.
The trees shivered in my mind when I reached out to them with my power. They were afraid. The closer to the cave, the stronger the fear in the trees. The wood was almost like a garden, no undergrowth, except for shrubs right along the shoreline, blocking our view.
The air didn't have a fresh pine smell, it was something else. Something like the sour tang we had smelled down in Colombia.
Emerald Biologic had put another facility in the middle of a rain forest. I might not be the smartest Empowered, not by a long shot, but it was freaking obvious to me they were trying to use the forest in some way, but I couldn’t figure out how.
“Mat—hey!” Keisha hissed in my ear.
“What?”
“You weren’t paying attention.”
“Just trying to figure out where to go next.”
“What? You lead us here and then don’t have any clue where we should go?”
“Hey, back off.” I leaned into her, close enough our breasts mashed together. She took a step back, but I guessed she wanted to slug me. I sure as well wanted to flatten her. She’d been riding me this whole job.
“I’m in charge,” I said.
“If you gotta say that, I gotta wonder,” she retorted.
Before I could say anything Simon was there. “We need to stay focused. We don’t have much time.”
“No, no we don’t.” I tapped his arm. “The three of you go to the near building, the one with all the windows--it was shedding heat in the night vision display.”
“What about you?” Keisha said, suddenly suspicious.
“I’m going to check out the cave.” I could sense something there, even from a quarter mile away. Something living there, but not like the rain forest around us. The others needed to investigate the buildings.
“That wasn’t in the plan! What the hell?”
“We can fight about it later,” I said, working not to yell at her. That would be the dumbest thing I could do.
“Don’t go,” Frank blurted out the words. “It’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“It just is.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. We just shouldn’t split up.”
She was holding out on me, but there was no time to find out what. I’d just have to go and find out for myself.
“I’ll catch up with you guys.”
“How the hell will you find us?” Keisha demanded.
“We’ve got wrist coms.”
Her night vision goggles glinted as she shook her head. “Stupid,” she grumbled but did as I ordered.
Connor kept quiet. Probably scared shitless.
“I’ll check in ten minutes,” I said. “If you run into trouble, call right away.”
“Understood.” That was Simon, the cool and collected, never-flustered Limey.
My heart pounded. Yeah, I was being an idiot, but I was going to find out what was in that cave.
I jogged along a trail, the ocean surf white just past the shore. The ocean had to be deep there, coming up right against the rocks.
I climbed off the trail and walked over boulders, stumbling once and banging my shin. Hurt like hell. I got up, rubbing my knee. At least the wetsuit wasn’t torn.
The cave loomed before me, ocean flowing inside. There was a ledge carved inside the cave. I could make it out with the night vision goggles. The water glowed green.
I swallowed, and walked inside. I brushed up against a curtain-like thing hanging from the rock, like a membrane. I jerked away, closed my eyes, and reached out with my power.
It was alive, in that unlife way that the green-black blobs had. That the Venus flytrap monster things had. The killer tree-things.
I brushed at the membrane with my power. It trembled, and hissed softly in my mind.
Ran my fingers over it. It parted at my touch, and I slipped inside.
Light flared around me. Shit.
I yanked off the goggles, blinked in the harsh light. My eyes watered. I frantically looked around, trying to clear my vision. Trapped.
But there was no one there. The light came from the walls, from lichen-like stuff that glowed white. I whirled around to look back at the membrane. The white light would shine like a searchlight out into the sea. Point back at the cave, “Look, an idiot just walked in here!”
But the membrane shimmered, like some sort of magic veil. I could see the ocean outside, still dark. I stepped through the membrane. It was like being born into darkness. Outside, the ocean sloshed against the rocks, behind me the cave was dark, with black water churning. I stepped through. The light greeted me.
A magic veil for a magic cave. I uncoiled my power, stretched it out around me.
I staggered as the unliving force of the place slammed into me. The lichen stuff was also crystal, unliving crystal. Light glowed through it, and something else. The lichen crystal must be able to see the room, see movement and adjust the amount of light it put out. The ledge I stood on was now smooth and black, like obsidian. It looked man-made, or man directed. The water glowed green.
The place smelled. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed before, but it stank, like mold, rot, living and dying plant life. Something moved in the water, churning just below the surface. The stink made me gag.
I backed up against the wall, then jerked away when I realized I was touching the crystal lichen stuff. It pulsed against me.
I pulled on a breather mask. My eyes watered and I rubbed at them.
Part of me wanted to run out of here and beat feet back to the others, and get away.
But I wasn’t leaving. Not now. Not before I found more out.
I could breath again without gagging.
My eyes cleared. The ledge I stood on surrounded the pool. There were workbenches with computer boxes hooked up to flat screens.
I went over to the nearest one. It said “Ellis Systematic.” No surprise there. The computer needed a password. I had no idea. Simon might be able to figure it out, if he were here.
There was a metal door halfway down the stone, glowing lichen-covered wall. I walked up to it, noticing the pad set into the wall.
I’d seen one like that before. The door lock pads in the secret Support complex.
My mouth was dry. I went to the door, ran my fingers along the edge of the key Simon had given me. The universal key he called it. He had the other one.
The water churned again behind me. Gas bubbles broke the surface, sounding like farts when they popped on the surface.
Seaweed—kelp, floated to the surface.
But I couldn’t take the time to reach into it. I needed to see if the key would work.
I swiped the pad.
It chimed and the metal door slid open, disappearing into the rock.
The room was lit by run-of-the-mill ceiling lights. It looked like an office, crammed with a desk, computers, and a
nother windowed door at the far end. I walked inside and the door slid shut behind me. There was a bunk against a wall and a closet.
The bunk was big, big enough for a freaking tall person to lay on. I opened the closet, which was taller than me by two feet. Jumpsuits hung there, beside pajamas. Blue jumpsuits.
Shit.
Hero Council jumpsuits.
All fitted for a giant, someone at least eight feet tall.
There was one sanctioned Empowered that big. I lifted one of the jumpsuits on its hanger, turned it toward me. The gold HC logo glinted. On the other side was a word.
Titan.
Damn. It felt like I stood at the edge of a canyon, about to fall in, with the world swaying around me. This was crazy.
Titan was the Hero Council president. What was a jumpsuit fitted for him, and with his name on it, doing here?
My wrist comm beeped. I thumbed the comm receiver.
“White here,” Simon said. “We encountered robotic guardians.”
Shit. My heart began pounding. I should have been there.
“What happened?”
“Witch and the Kid took care of them. But alarms were triggered. We’ve got to go.”
“Got it. Meet you back at the boat.”
I yanked one of the jumpsuits off the rack. This was the last thing I thought I’d find here. Shoved it in my back pack.
I unhooked a computer case and shoved it in, too.
The far door had a window. I had to see what was beyond it. It felt like I was in a messed up dream, like I was sleep walking. I’d angled to get to this place. I was going to see what this room monitored.
I looked through the window.
My skin went cold. There was another room there, a big one. A pond filled most of the chamber. The walls glowed with a soft, golden light, like sunrise in rain forest.
Tendrils of green stuff, like moss covered vines, hung from the ceiling.
Bodies were in the water, small bodies.
Children’s bodies.
I couldn’t breathe.
They lay on their backs. Their skin shimmered green, like fish scales. The vines ran down to them, into them.
They were alive.
I squeezed back tears. Who would do this to them? Kids. Fuck sake, why?
Then I saw racks hanging from the ceiling. Racks holding green-black armor. Living armor. I reached out with my power then, and felt the unlife pulsing inside, connected to the unlife on the children.
Empowered: Traitor (The Empowered Series Book 2) Page 13
