The entrance was beehive of activity, and Aubrey didn’t know where to look first. But she knew she needed to keep moving—the lobby had to have security cameras.
She hurried toward the back of the hotel, following signs that directed her to the ballrooms. She didn’t have a lot of experience in big hotels—the biggest place in Mount Pleasant probably had twenty rooms, and she’d never stayed there. But, she figured that the best place to not be seen was the kitchen. Their room service hadn’t been cooked, which meant most of the staff was gone. There’d be no reason to set up much of a military kitchen if everyone was still eating MREs.
Her eyesight was getting worse as she entered the main ballroom, but she kept going, tripping over a cord and stumbling to stay on her feet. The ballroom appeared to be the central hub. A dozen long tables were set up, and cords were strewn everywhere to support the computers, laptops, servers, and who-knew-what-else that the army had arranged. There was a PC open and available right in front of her, but she could hardly make out the words on the screen. She headed toward the back of the room and through a door to the kitchen.
It was empty.
She breathed a sigh of relief and moved from cupboard to cupboard, trying to find one big enough to fit her inside. Finally, she came across a walk-in pantry with a heavy door. She made sure she could get out—there was a lever inside, too—and then pulled it closed. She sat in the corner, tucked between an enormous sack of potatoes and a crate of old oranges.
Aubrey smiled, smelling the old produce around her, and wondered what Jack would have thought of it. She’d noticed he was losing weight. The plainest of foods—bread or rice or even water—were so overpowering to him that he rarely ate as much as he should anymore.
She also wondered what he was thinking of her now. He knew that she was going to look for a place to hide, but the scent of Flowerbomb almost certainly couldn’t make it out this heavy door, and she’d seem to have disappeared completely. If he could track her at all. He swore he could, but he and Laura hadn’t been able to get very close. They were in an apartment nearly half a mile up the road.
So far, things had gone well. But all she’d done was get inside. She hadn’t tried to access a computer yet, or navigate the army’s systems. For now, she needed to rest. She took a drink from her water bottle and leaned back.
Aubrey didn’t know how much time had passed, but she felt stronger now. Her eyes were refocused—she was practicing reading the box labels across the pantry, and everything seemed to be clear. She had more energy and was ready to disappear again.
She reached in her fleece pocket and felt for the paper Laura had given her. There was also the little bottle of perfume, and she sprayed herself again before leaving. She was starting to love the smell.
She eased the pantry door open. The kitchen was still empty, the fluorescent lights only half-lit.
Aubrey hurried back to the ballroom. If possible, the room was even busier than before, with more soldiers at computer terminals and officers marching around giving angry commands.
Aubrey waited in a corner, away from the action for several minutes, watching for a computer to open up.
An officer walked nearby, talking on a cell phone and jamming a finger in his other ear so he could hear over the din of the room.
“Just get the message to him,” he said.
Aubrey moved a little closer to eavesdrop.
“I don’t give a damn about the Space Needle,” the officer said. “It’s a stupid tourist trap, and it was evacuated anyway. This is Boeing I’m talking about.”
There was a pause. Aubrey thought she knew what Boeing was, but couldn’t put her finger on it.
“You let him know,” the officer continued, “that we’re being destroyed out here. We can’t guard every business. Hell—we were guarding Boeing and it didn’t do any good. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we could be facing another Chicago up here.”
Boeing. They’d flown in a Boeing airliner. Was Boeing in Seattle?
A man stood and left his computer. Aubrey was tempted to stay and listen in on the conversation, but she didn’t dare.
She took his chair, sitting on the edge of it, exactly the way that he’d left it. He was still logged in.
The system wasn’t what she was expecting. It was older, less intuitive. She looked through the files on the screen, but didn’t see anything about the Lambdas.
She found a search bar and typed her name.
Aubrey Parsons Lambda
A picture of her appeared—a photo taken all the way back when they’d first been tested.
Aubrey Parsons
Lambda 4T: Limited form of invisibility (click here for medical report)
Special Forces 19th Battalion, ODA 9117
Currently stationed: Seattle, WA
The text continued, outlining her background and her eyesight problems, but there was nothing interesting there. It was all basic information—information she already knew and obviously not updated to reflect anything that had happened today.
Toward the bottom—she almost missed it—was the line “Ankle Band Detonation Code: 431-866795.” She deleted the number, and then searched to see if there was some kind of edit history where it could be retrieved, but the program looked old and all she could do was hope.
Next she searched for Jack.
Jack Cooper
Lambda 4T: Hypersensitivity (click here for medical report)
Special Forces 19th Battalion, ODA 9117
Currently stationed: Seattle, WA
She deleted his detonation code and then searched for “Laura Hansen Lambda.”
It was more of the same. Old information, probably not updated since they left Dugway a few days before. She deleted Laura’s detonation code.
She pulled the paper from her pocket.
Alec Moore Lambda
His picture popped up.
Alec Moore
Tested in the Dugway Quarantine Facility
No symptoms of the Erebus virus or Lambda attributes (click here for medical report)
Released to Salt Lake City transfer station October 9th
That picture. Aubrey recognized it. She knew him from somewhere. . . . Alec Moore. Who was that? It felt like only half a memory, like she’d seen him in a dream.
It was probably nothing. He’d been at Dugway. She’d probably seen him.
Next she searched for the other name Laura had given her.
Daniel Allen
Lambda 5M: Ability to manipulate the movement of minerals (click here for medical report)
Special Forces 19th Battalion, ODA 9128
Currently stationed: San Francisco, CA
Was found outside Price, UT, and surrendered willingly. Claimed to be hitchhiking to his home in Denver, CO, and his father corroborated the story.
Aubrey jotted down notes on where Dan Allen’s unit was located, and stuffed the paper back in her pocket. She deleted his detonation code as well; if they ever got to him, it needed to be deactivated.
She looked up to see where the soldier was, and found him a few tables away, talking to an officer. If anyone glanced over, they’d see the computer screen changing. She had to work faster.
She exited Dan’s profile and searched for “Space Needle.” The results came up empty.
Next she tried “Sergeant McKinney.”
21 results found.
Too many to dig through. Aubrey tried a couple more.
Sergeant Eschler
14 results found.
Captain Dane Rowley
2 results found.
She clicked on the first and knew instantly from the picture it wasn’t who she was looking for. She clicked the second.
His picture and profile were there, but above them, in bold type, were the words:
***UPDATE***
Killed in action while on a Special Reconnaissance mission watching over the Space Needle in Seattle, WA. Investigation is ongoing. It is known that he was given the
order to terminate his Lambda team, and the Lambdas attacked and killed all but one member of his team. Shortly thereafter, the Space Needle was destroyed, collapsed by some unknown explosion or force. Initial reports indicate that the Lambda team assigned to CPT Rowley could not have accomplished this on their own, due to their particular skill set, and it is theorized they had additional help with the destruction.
It is also not yet known who gave the order authorizing the termination of the Lambda team, or why. The radio transmission is being reviewed.
***FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE POSTED AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE.***
Aubrey exited the personnel records and returned the computer to the original screen.
“Jack,” she said. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but this isn’t good.”
FIFTY-ONE
AUBREY DROVE THE CAR, HER vision supposedly much better after having rested for a night in the apartment. Jack sat next to her in the front seat, watching the winding road ahead for the ever-present roadblocks. Laura would have preferred that he drive, but every time he did he got twice as many questions from the police—everyone wanted to grill him about his bandaged head.
It was hard for Laura to hide her happiness that they were going to get Dan with them. She’d done what she could to subvert the Green Berets, but that was all over now, and she needed help to hit important targets—she couldn’t do it on her own.
And she was looking forward to getting rid of the two lovebirds up front. Everything scared them; everything made them second-guess her. But once she was back with Dan, they’d come up with a way to get rid of Jack and Aubrey.
Laura had found keys to this sedan in the apartment they’d been hiding in. It was nice to not have a filthy car with busted windows. This one looked like three late-teens should be driving it; it was old enough to not look stolen, and it was intact, with one dent on the front fender.
“Roadblock,” Jack said, sitting up a little in his seat. “A couple miles ahead.”
Laura stowed her smartphone in the seat pocket. She’d stolen it from a neighboring apartment and had been messing with it all day. She’d been watching the news, tracking the other terrorist groups.
“Old Faithful is a pile of rubble,” she said, sitting a little straighter for the police.
“Weird thing to blow up,” Jack responded, staring ahead at the upcoming barricades.
“Not really. If the point is to scare people, then destroy the things they love. What’s more American than Old Faithful? You can’t even call it that anymore—they said it’s just a mound of rocks that kind of bubbles like a little fountain.”
“I never got to go,” Aubrey said.
“Me either,” said Laura. Not that she’d ever wanted to.
Aubrey turned to glance at Laura. “Did they say anything about Chicago? That was something that I heard in the hotel—that Chicago was bad.”
“Oh yeah,” Laura said, her voice a little quieter now. She’d been paying special attention to that. “A couple days ago—well, maybe about a week ago. It was like everyone—all the terrorists, I mean—converged on Chicago at the same time. The internet is spotty about reports, but most agree it was pretty well devastated.”
She paused, thinking of the implications.
“Devastated more than Seattle?” Aubrey said. “That place was a no-man’s-land.”
“Yeah,” Laura said. “More than that. Listen, I have friends there—I had friends there. I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
That should keep them quiet.
Jack glanced at Aubrey, who just nodded and said, “Okay.”
The roadblock was set up like most of the others, with three police cars blocking the road in a sort of Z pattern. Road flares were burned down to ashes, unnecessary in the daylight. The police car read “California Highway Patrol.”
Aubrey pulled to a stop and put the car in park, and after unrolling her window, she put her hands on the steering wheel. She’d learned from hundreds of miles of experience what the policemen liked to see.
“Where are you headin’?” he asked. He was an older man with a paunch and a gray mustache.
“San Francisco,” Aubrey answered.
“License?”
She held out her wrist bracelet. “I don’t have my real license—it got lost when I went through quarantine. But this is me. We all have them.”
Laura leaned forward and held up her wrist and the tamper-proof ID tag that declared her to be negative for the Erebus virus. The army couldn’t have given her a better present.
“What’s in San Francisco?” he asked, jotting down the identification number off Aubrey’s bracelet. All of the police wrote down the number, but no one had ever checked it, so far as Laura could tell.
“We have family there,” Aubrey said. She sniffled and wiped her eye. For being a goody-goody, Aubrey knew how to lie. “At least we did have family. We haven’t heard from them since the Golden Gate came down.”
“I don’t know if I’d head into the city right now,” the officer said. “It’s getting pretty bad in there, and I’m not talking about the terrorists. I’m talking about what happens when people don’t have any law and order and they all go crazy. To tell the truth, that’s where we should be, but the governor has us here watching the damned border.”
“We’ll be careful.”
He leaned down on the car window and pointed to Jack. “You take care of these ladies.”
“I will, sir.”
“What the hell happened to your head?”
“We were in Seattle when the Space Needle came down,” Aubrey answered for him.
“You’d never believe it,” Jack added. “We were half a mile away, in an apartment, and a piece of steel as big as a tree trunk came flying through the wall.”
“Oh, I believe it,” the officer said, and stood up. “You ask me, this is the start of World War Three. We just haven’t figured out who the damned enemy is yet.”
“I think you may be right,” Aubrey said.
“Well, you’d better get moving. With all these roadblocks you’ve probably got another six, seven hours before you hit the Bay. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks.”
She rolled up the window and shifted the car back into drive.
“One of these times,” Jack said, “someone’s going to check out our story.”
The beginning of World War III. Laura covered her mouth to hide her grin.
FIFTY-TWO
THEY DROVE THROUGH THE DAY, and when it got dark Jack took over—Aubrey’s eyesight just wasn’t good enough at night.
Not much was open anymore, but they found a McDonald’s outside of Vacaville. There was an armed security guard—not a cop, but a scary-looking mammoth of a man who had a Taser on one hip and a gun on the other. After everything she’d seen, Aubrey thought it was laughable that anyone thought this guy could stop a terrorist Lambda. But, at least the McDonald’s was open—the three of them were starving.
Aubrey ordered the food while the other two—both still injured and looking terrible—sat in a booth toward the back. Aubrey had noticed that there was a spot of blood showing though Laura’s shirt, but Laura refused to acknowledge it. It was like she was a machine—single-minded in whatever it was that she was trying to do. Aubrey just didn’t know what that was.
Aubrey didn’t have any great ideas for what they ought to be doing, but she didn’t know why Laura’s plan was any better than anything else. Why were they looking for Laura’s friends instead of Aubrey and Jack’s? They could track down Matt Ganza. He had to be somewhere. Or Nicole. She was with the State Department now, and if anyone could get them out of this mess, Nicole seemed like a good choice.
Aubrey wished that she had thought of that when she was going through the army’s computer.
While Aubrey stood at the counter, she watched the fry cook. The guy was skinny and pale, and Aubrey wondered what this kid thought about everything going on around him. He was still coming in to work,
which had to mean something: the kid had hope. Or desperation, maybe. At the very least, it meant that someone was still giving him a paycheck. The world hadn’t completely collapsed if a McDonald’s in Vacaville was open at midnight.
He was skinny and pale. . . . It reminded her of that picture—Alec Moore, Laura’s friend. Something about him had been nagging at Aubrey since she’d seen it. Had he been on TV? Where had she seen him before?
The food came, and she thanked the skinny fry cook.
Alec Moore. Who was he?
She took the tray of hamburgers back to the table, arriving just as Laura was gingerly standing and heading to the bathroom. She was holding her side.
“Do you know who Alec Moore is?” Aubrey asked, as soon as Laura was out of earshot.
Jack unwrapped his burger. “Laura’s friend? No.”
“I’ve seen him before—they had a picture on the computer—and it seems like I remember meeting someone named Alec. It’s weird. It’s like it’s been on the tip of my tongue since Laura first mentioned him, but I can’t place him at all.”
“Maybe you’re thinking of Alec Baldwin,” Jack said, with a smile. He took a bite of fries.
“I’m not thinking of Alec Bal—wait. Do you remember going to school with someone named Alec? Way back in like the third or fourth grade?”
“I don’t think so.”
It was coming back to Aubrey. Alec Moore. The guy she’d met in the quarantine zone, who had made a connection with her, to the other girls’ dismay.
“There was a guy,” Aubrey explained. “Back at Dugway. He said he lived in Mount Pleasant for a couple years when he was a kid. His name was Alec, and I’m pretty sure it was Alec Moore.”
Jack continued eating, but Aubrey had stopped.
“That’s a big coincidence, don’t you think?”
He ate another fry. “I’m pretty sure I don’t remember anyone named Alec in elementary school.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “But—I don’t know. Maybe I do. Back there, it seemed like I knew him.”
“Either way,” Jack said, “I don’t think it changes anything. If he grew up in Mount Pleasant, then that’s good, right? Kinda makes me trust him a little more.”
Blackout b-1 Page 24
