by Toby Minton
Even though their plan didn’t depend on it, Michael had hoped she would be alone in her room when they attacked.
When he whispered his suspicion to Gideon taking cover behind the tree next to him, the older man simply nodded like he’d expected as much and told Padre they were clear to proceed.
Impact
Impact adjusted his earpiece and rolled his head to stretch his neck.
He was alone in the Wasteland. Nothing but hard, cracked flatland and stunted bushes as far as the eye could see in every direction but west, where the uneven outline of the distant mountains met the slowly lightening sky. He was kilometers from anything or anyone. For now.
The only living creature in sight was a scrawny jackrabbit with whom he’d shared a weighing glance before they each decided to ignore the other and stick to their own business—the rabbit to fruitlessly searching for food, Impact to anxiously awaiting the signal and imagining a thousand variations of the conflict ahead.
His primary role in the plan was simple and left little room for improvisation, but his secondary mission was what really had his imagination in overdrive. It left all the wiggle room he needed to force a confrontation with Savior, if he was lucky. And every time he played through that confrontation, he took Savior down. Every time he imagined it, he stood up to the man whose disapproval and disdain had loomed over him his whole life, and he proved once and for all that he wasn’t Jon Hale the disappointment. He was Impact. And he wasn’t a failure.
It was just a fantasy, something he figured not every man daydreamed about—beating his father senseless to prove his worth—but it was one that gave Impact satisfaction in a way not much else did. Still, just a fantasy. He knew that when the time came he would obey his orders and stick to the plan, despite the wiggle room. He was a good soldier now, fighting for people he respected, people he wouldn't let down.
“Impact, the target is lit,” Padre’s even voice came through the earpiece. “You’re a go. Repeat—you’re a go.”
Impact took a breath to clear his head before he touched the com. “Copy.”
He lowered the thick goggles over his eyes and switched them on. The landscape before him took on a greenish cast, and to the west a bright, pulsing glow suddenly blazed in the distance between him and the mountains.
He set off at a jog, then a run, steadily increasing his speed.
The jackrabbit bolted, zig-zagging in the same direction, but Impact quickly shot past and left his desert companion in the dust as he concentrated only on pushing faster and faster. The land around him blurred as the pulsing glow filled his vision.
Nikki
Nikki’s eyes were glued to the genesis level indicator she could see on Radij’s screen. Through these low intensity waves, she’d been able to keep her eyes open and watch with a growing feeling of guilt as the indicator rose way too quickly.
She gritted her teeth at the pain cutting through her now, and watched the level pass 80%. If it kept climbing at this rate, they’d need maybe one more burst after this one to reach maximum capacity.
Why won’t you just stop! she mentally shouted at the display. And it did.
The electric fire water was still trying its damnedest to fry her nervous system, but the collector suddenly stopped dead at 81%. For a second, her short-circuited brain believed once again she’d developed mind powers. Then she realized she had more emotions rolling around in her system than she could rightfully claim—namely, relief wrapped up tightly in a blanket of concern and worry. An unmistakable mix.
Michael!
Right on queue, a tingle of power pulsed through her, lessening the burn of the fire water. Nikki wanted to roar a cheer. She wanted to laugh at the pain still burning through her and tell everybody in the room they’d better buckle up, even though they couldn’t hear her. She had the presence of mind to do neither.
For the first time in days, she actually wanted the pain to increase. She was no longer hurting for nothing—or hurting to power their insane experiment, rather. She was blessedly gloriously deliriously giddily whole again. Any pain they sent her way from now on would just make Michael stronger.
Little bursts of power tingled through from Michael, washing away her fatigue, lending her muscles the first real strength they’d felt in days. She barely stopped a smile as she imagined the look on his opponent’s face as whoever the idiot was realized his blows were no longer having any effect.
The pain wave ended abruptly. Radij and the other technicians had noticed the problem with the collector. They started scurrying around in a frenzy trying to isolate the cause of the problem. They apparently assumed it was mechanical.
Savior didn’t. As soon as Radij reported the problem, Savior’s eyes went straight to Nikki.
She slumped back into the BioGel, letting the arm restraints hold her up, and adopted her best confused/tired look. “Are we done? Or did I break this one too?”
He couldn’t hear her, but lip-reading was apparently one of Savior’s many talents. His mouth thinned as he turned his back to the observers and said something to Radij.
Nikki had no idea what he said. She was terrible at reading lips. But she recognized the controls Radij was manipulating. She’d probably have nightmares for the rest of her life involving that particular interface. He was starting another wave.
This is it, Nikki. You can do this. She took a deep breath and clenched every muscle she could. She saw only one way to keep this going. She had to convince them the problem was with their machines, not her. She had to make them keep trying, which meant she had to convince Savior to keep trying. With the strength Michael had given her, she knew she could do it. He’s just a man, after all. The day a woman can’t fool a man into thinking she’s feeling something she isn’t—
The pain ripped into her, stronger than before. Damn you, Radij. Nikki looked down to cover her flinch. Breathe through it. Breathe, dammit. She looked up like she couldn’t feel a thing as the fire tore through her veins.
“Are we not starting?” she mouthed, trying to play off her scrunched brow as confusion.
Savior walked closer to the tank, his gaze boring into hers.
Come on, fancy pants. Buy it. But she could tell he wasn’t. He knew.
He watched for only a second before saying, “shut it down.” That one she could read.
The wave ended, and Radij shot her an apologetic look as Savior reached over and turned on her intercom. He opened his mouth to say something she knew she wasn’t going to like, and the room shook.
Nikki thought she might have imagined it, but the room got quiet as everyone except Savior looked around in surprise. He just narrowed his eyes at Nikki. Then the alarms started going off.
Chapter 37
Elias
From his position, Elias couldn’t see Impact’s approach. The warning would have to come from Padre, if it came. To have the effect Michael and Gideon had calculated, Impact would have to reach a speed well beyond any they’d recorded from him before. If he succeeded, even Padre’s vantage might not give them much—
“Down!”
Elias reacted without thinking to Padre’s quiet but urgent command over the com. He pressed his forehead to hard earth and closed his eyes.
The shockwave that flattened the scrub and threatened to shove Elias against the rocks beside him must have been accompanied by a thunderclap because it tripped the noise dampener in his earpieces. To him it sounded like nothing more than the thump of a door closing.
He lifted his head to see dust blowing along the ground toward the main building and boiling back out higher in the air in thick, rolling waves—the russet and tan dust of the desert and the pale gray dust of powdered concrete.
The two-story east wing of the main building was covered by the spreading cloud. Rather, it was the dust cloud. As the lead edge of the cloud blew over him, Elias saw the gaping hole inside it. Half of the east wall of the wing had been vaporized, the rest was buckling as he watched, along with jagged se
ctions of the north and south walls.
Elias had seen his share of explosions and what they could do to people nearby, how deadly the shockwave could be. Despite that, he knew Impact should be unharmed. That’s how his gift worked—his resistance to impact damage increased with his speed. But the destruction in front of his eyes tried to convince Elias otherwise. If Padre had been wrong—if Nikki was in that wing—
He shut those thoughts down as soon as they formed. Now was not the time. The first responders were already reaching the hot zone, a handful of Savior’s soldiers, some of them visibly rattled, some on full alert, all of them trying to make sense of the scene.
No time to think. Just act. Choose a target, pull a sight picture, fire. Switch targets, sight, fire.
He pushed everything from his mind except the enemy in front of him, Coop on his left, Ace and Gram on his right, and Padre on the com. They were the sum of his world. Everything else was out of his control.
Michael
Michael started to rise at the rumble from the other side of the compound, but Mos’s firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Easy, kid,” Mos said, his deep voice just over a whisper and as calm as if they were about to walk into a room full of friends instead of armed enemies. “Wait for it.”
Right, he thought, not until Padre gives the order. His heart was racing with his own adrenaline and the power from Nikki, which he hoped would be enough. After one last quick burst, whatever they were doing to Nikki had stopped again just before Impact struck. Now that Savior no doubt knew they were here, he wouldn’t make the mistake of hurting Nikki again, Michael knew.
He looked over to find Gideon’s gaze fixed on him, the alien right eye glowing softly from the shadows of his hood.
“Was it enough?” Gideon’s low voice was almost a growl despite the expressionless mask he maintained.
Michael nodded once and shifted his own gaze to the solid-looking metal door of the security bunker. The strength tingling through him was more than enough to get them inside. But he knew that’s not all Gideon meant. He wanted to know if it would be enough to keep him standing while he powered up Nikki, or if that part of the plan failed, would it be enough for him to fight his way to her once Kate found her.
The truth was Michael didn’t know. He’d never fought like this. Nikki got carried away now and again and forgot to take her share of blows, but she never let him fall. She’d always been there to heal him if he got in trouble.
Not this time. Until he made her strong enough to break free from whatever was holding her, he was on his own.
Michael nodded once and looked back at Kate. He returned her reassuring smile without hesitating. It would be enough. It had to be.
Padre’s quiet command came over the com, and Michael rose from cover to follow Mos to the door.
Nikki
Savior stared at Nikki while the lab turned to chaos around them. One of the technicians was shouting about an explosion, others were rushing to secure their beloved machines.
Nikki didn't dare breathe. She needed Savior to buy it. She needed him to believe she didn't feel Michael. If he didn't…
“End transmission,” he said.
Dammit.
The screen showing the Chinese suits went dark.
“We're under attack,” Savior said calmly, but you'd have thought he shouted by the silence that descended over the room. “The explosion, where was it?”
“East entrance, sir.”
“Price, dispatch the Hunter to the South entrance,” Savior ordered. “Send the rest of your men to fortify the perimeter.”
Price nodded and turned for the door, already issuing crisp orders into his com. He stopped in the doorway, listening to a reply over his earpiece. “Sir.” He looked back at Savior. “Fire team two reports an intruder in the east storage, what's left of it.”
Savior's dark smile made Nikki's stomach lurch. “I'll take care of the intruder myself. Dr. Allayne, cool the BioGel.”
“Sir?”
Savior finally pulled his blue stare away from Nikki, and she let go of the breath she'd been holding. “Our volunteer's brother is here,” he said to Radij. “In all likelihood, she'll soon be able to break those restraints.”
“Sir,” one of the other technicians all but choked. “Will the Gel hold her?”
“Not for long,” Savior said without looking back as he strode to the door. “But it might give you time to evacuate, after you secure this equipment.”
The lab was so quiet Nikki could hear his next words clearly over the tank's intercom, even though he was already out the door.
“I suggest you hurry.”
Chapter 38
Gideon
“Clear,” Mos called over the com from inside the bunker.
Gideon stepped around the crumpled steel door and into a dimly lit short hallway, his human hand on Kate’s shoulder as much to restrain her as guide her in behind him. He was certain that without his restraint, Kate would have rushed inside right on Michael’s heels. When he stopped suddenly two paces into the narrow hall, that hand was all that kept Kate from running into him.
In front of him, down a short flight of concrete steps, the hallway would empty into the rectangular security com room, a room with lockers and gun racks along the right wall, a wide workstation centered in the left wall facing a dozen monitors, and two doors on the far wall. One door led down deeper into the bunker, the other back outside. Gideon knew all this not because he could see it from where he stood, but because he had seen it once before, in a vision.
Michael jogged up the steps to meet them. “We’re good,” he said, nodding and motioning Kate forward. Kate ducked free from Gideon’s hand and maneuvered past him, then followed Michael down the steps and out of sight.
Gideon followed more slowly. When he reached the com room, he stopped just inside the door to take in the scene. The room was exactly as he’d seen it the vision, the same dark concrete walls, the same metal racks and lockers painted a dull blue. Everything was just as he’d seen it years ago, right down to the two guards lying facedown on the floor with Mos binding their arms behind them.
Kate stepped over one of the guards and dropped into one of the two rolling chairs at the workstation. Michael followed and leaned over her, supporting himself on the workstation with one hand and resting the other on the back of her chair, just as Gideon had seen them before. At the time, he hadn’t known it was Michael standing over her. Until now, he hadn’t connected this vision—one he’d seen not long after Kate first joined his team years ago—with the twins and their competing destinies.
Gideon despised this flaw in his mental filing system. While every memory was stored and accessible, the very categorization that made total recall possible was itself a limitation. The mental shelves and rooms that kept his memories protected and categorized also prevented some connections that might otherwise be obvious.
Distanced as he was from his emotions by the alien’s barrier, Gideon still felt the chill of dread trickling its way through him on a stream of self loathing. His eyes cut toward the door to the lower levels that Mos stepped past as he went to check the outer door. Gideon could prevent this particular loss. He still had time.
But he knew he wouldn’t.
He could see now the role this event would play. It could be the means he needed to the end he wished he didn’t. In a way, it would make his job that much easier.
What have I become?
“Where's the closest entrance?” Michael asked Kate.
“There, but that one's no good. Look.” Her fingers danced across the controls in front of her and one of the images on the indicated monitor zoomed in on the crouched metal figure stepping through the open door. “I know you want guarded, but not like that. You're not taking on SETI on your own.”
Michael tried to argue, but Kate plowed on. “Give me a sec to savvy this layout and I'll find you something better.”
The door the lower levels swung
open, and Gideon almost turned away, but the part of him that was most sheltered, the part that would suffer the most, refused to let him look away.
The guard came through with a sleek, wicked looking pistol already held before him. A wave weapon, a weapon that worked much like a railgun, using magnetic coils to fire minute projectiles farther and faster than traditional weapons. A weapon like that was tightly restricted outside Japanese borders, and thus extremely expensive. Only the best for Savior’s men.
Mos reacted quickly, spinning back from the outer door, swinging his weapon up. But as fast as he was, Michael was faster. He closed the distance in one lunge and struck with both hands at once. One hand shoved the pistol aside, the other whipped into the guards throat, sending the man slamming back into the doorframe.
The wave pistol made very little sound as it fired just wide of Michael’s chest, just a light hiss and faint pop as the perforated barrel dispersed the sonic boom of the projectile. Then the guard crumpled.
Michael shoved the pistol from guard’s hand as he fell, and Mos stepped closer to cover the already unconscious attacker. Only then did Michael look behind him. The look on his face as he saw Kate crumpled on the floor was almost enough to bring down Gideon’s wall, but he refused to let the barrier fall. He had to see what he’d allowed to happen, but he didn’t have to feel it.
Gideon knelt beside Kate. Michael all but collapsed next to her.
“Jesus,” Mos breathed. “I cleared those rooms. Dammit, I swear—”
“She’s going to be OK,” Michael said, his tone more hopeful than confident.
Gideon knew otherwise. The blood spreading from her head should have told Michael as much. The boy gently brushed her bangs back from her forehead. The projectile had entered just over her right eye. It was a tiny entry wound, but more than enough. There was nothing they could do to save her. Or almost nothing.
