Only that she was supposed to be here.
She made the end of the hall, descended the stairs and went down to the vault. She didn’t turn on the overhead light; instead she took out her small LED-type beam and held it in one hand, holding the sword in the other.
Blue-white LED light illuminated the darkness. The heavy vault door was still off the hinges. Just as they left it. Sheered away, and, despite everything that had happened, she found herself temporarily mesmerized with the thought of the impossible strength it took to do that. How Zac could be so apparently flesh and bone, so warm, so soft, so real, yet possess a superhuman power that was so unreal … How a seemingly human man, she thought, looking at the mass of the broken door, could do that …
She pressed on, entering and shining the light around the inside of the vault, looking for traps.
Everything was gone.
The maps on the wall, the cabinets, the files, all of it …
Gone.
Someone had been here. Not looters and thieves, not opportunists looking for treasure or car parts. Someone who knew exactly the value of this humble little farm. They buried the bodies and took what mattered.
She shone the light around the rest of the room, confirming the worst even as her heart continued to sink.
Then she heard voices.
**
It was strange sitting in the presence of Zac. No matter how normal he appeared, no matter how human, there was the ever-present sense of what he could do. When you knew, as Drake and everyone there in that room knew, it was hard to put it out of your mind. This handsome, bearded youth—by all appearances no more than an athletic stud—was a force beyond reason.
Drake glanced at the wrench, the one Pete had Zac bend. He’d been rolling it idly in his grip as the small group talked, squeezing it now and again. Feeling how solid, how metal it was. Frickin forged steel. Bent in half. Minutes after Zac arrived, when he was still being introduced, still getting his bearings, Pete asked him to bend it and Zac obliged. It had now become an unofficial part of the strat table, taking its place among the other odds-and-ends they’d been using to mark positions and layout plans. Drake had picked up the wrench when he sat a short while ago, leaning back in his chair and getting comfortable as the group discussion began.
He passed it to his other hand, his strong hand, and squeezed; harder, making sure no one noticed the quiet exertion. Of course the metal was entirely unyielding. Not even a little budge.
How the hell did Zac do that? And not an ounce of strain. Like folding cardboard. None of what Zac could do made sense. Drake had to imagine, if it weren’t for his long background with the Project and all the “impossible yet true” things he’d dealt with already, combined with the fact that they were in the middle of an alien invasion and all the realities that brought with it … without any of those things he would probably be having a much harder time processing it.
But Zac was one of the good guys. Once you talked to him, even for a minute, you knew he was friendly. You knew he wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they deserved it. In Zac’s mind the Kel deserved it. Which made him the perfect ally.
“They can’t be everywhere,” Cooper was saying. “So far their policy of open lockdown is spreading them thin but we know that won’t last. If this fails—even if it works—they’re going to change that. Our very action will ruin any hope of executing anything like this again. This will be our one good chance.
“If we do this,” he raised a cautioning finger, before anyone could say anything else, “we have to make it count.”
Cooper continued to be the loudest voice of dissent, but, seeing that this crazy, longshot, harebrained scheme had a majority vote, he was reluctantly throwing himself behind it.
Drake gave the wrench another squeeze. The precision the operation would require was off the charts. The timing. The scale of the brief control they would have to exert.
The value of the ancient Kel tablet, where this was concerned, could not be overestimated. The things Fang and his team had been able to do with that technology, what it revealed … Once Zac unlocked the tablet with his biometric scan everything flowed forward from there. New understanding filled gaps in possibilities, the places where ideas met obstacles with no way forward, opening ways to do what the resistance envisioned. They were now busily working to tie together the rest.
Confidence among the rebels was at an all-time high.
Drake put the bent wrench on the table. Said: “We need to include follow-on contingencies. So we’re ready to adapt to the next phase, at least until we can take advantage of what we’ve done.”
He looked across the table at Zac and made eye contact, then at Willet. Unlike Zac, Willet was as human as they came. Yet, even within that band of “normal” he was exceptional. Of a caliber like Heath and his team, beyond your average person in terms of stamina, willpower; can-do attitude all day long, incredibly bright, well trained, experienced. Experience on another world, of course, fighting in other wars, with other weapons; still, there was no denying the mark of an operator.
Humans on another world. Yet another new reality that had shattered the old.
“Sir,” a voice from across the room. Several heads looked up. There were a lot of “sirs” at that gathering. Drake was the head of this cell, but he was in the presence of great military minds, leaders such as Cooper and Heath, along with Fang who was a legend among his government elite, but the voice was up and coming for Drake, eyes clearly on him.
It was his communications chief, Max.
“We’ve got traffic,” he said. “From the site.”
Drake sat straighter.
His chief nodded. Max was a member of Drake’s last Project team, coming along with he and Bobby and a few others as they formed this arm of the resistance. When Max said “the site” he was referring to a very specific point of interest in the Project lexicon. At least as it related to operations before the invasion.
“Excuse me,” Drake said to the others seated around the large strat table, stood and went with him.
The “site” was the Bok farm in Spain.
Once things had settled, after the Kel finished crushing any and all Earth defenses and the resistance network began to form, Drake sent a team back to that zone. They’d been covertly in and out of the site, laying bugs, gathering what info they could, looking for interlopers, always ready to extract in a hurry. Drake was covering all bases as the Bok had become a huge lynchpin in this whole Kel invasion, and anything the Bok knew—anything and everything—Drake wanted to know as well.
“They have an intruder,” Max said quietly as he led Drake back to his station. Max sat at his computer and brought up the dedicated channel linking him to those field agents.
Drake found a chair and rolled it over. Max pulled on a headset and keyed the connection.
“Still there?” he asked. Drake could hear an affirmative over Max’s earpiece. Max handed Drake a headset: “I’ve got Drake.”
Drake pulled on the headset. “Drake here. What have you got?”
“It’s the girl,” came the voice on the other end.
“The girl?” But even as Drake said it he knew, somehow he knew exactly who they meant.
It could be no one else.
“Jessica?” he asked before they could answer.
“Yes. It’s her.”
Suddenly a body, looming in his peripheral vision, and he looked up with a start. That fast, right there, and for an instant he flinched and pushed away in the rolling chair.
“Shit!” he caught his reaction to late, startled by Zac’s abrupt presence. So quick, towering suddenly above him.
“I know,” came the voice of the agent over the earpiece, thinking the curse was directed at him. “We’ve got her but—”
Zac was taking the headset from Drake’s head and putting it on. Drake didn’t bother to resist.
“Who is this?” the young hero wanted to know. He pressed the earpiece against his ear. Drake did
n’t hear the response but Zac answered: “This is Zac. Jessica’s with you?” A pause. Then: “Put her on.” Another pause as the voice said something Zac didn’t like. Drake watched his brow cloud over.
Hurriedly Drake waved Max to give him his headset and pulled it on in a rush.
“This is Drake,” he said. “Put the girl on.”
“Hold on.”
And a girl’s voice was in his ear. And though Drake had only heard it a few times, in recordings or over tapped lines, he recognized it at once.
Jessica.
“Zac?” she asked, voice almost quivering in disbelief.
“Jessica,” Zac said breathlessly.
“Zac!”
“Where are you?” Zac wanted to know. He looked hard at Drake. “Where is she? How do we have this connection?”
“She’s safe,” said Drake. “Just settle down and we’ll sort it out. Please.”
“How do I get there?” Zac demanded, even as Jessica was asking the same question on the other end, asking Zac where he was. Drake cut them both off:
“How do you—listen. Zac. Jessica. Both of you. She’s in Spain, you’re in Scotland.”
“You’re in Scotland?” the girl’s voice queried on the other end, filled with surprise.
Drake shook his head, eyes firmly on Zac. “You can’t just run there.” He tried to ease the tension he saw building; corrected: “Okay. You could probably run there, but it would take way too long. Let’s think this through.”
“Jessica,” Zac said into the mic, “we’ll get you here.”
“I want to see you,” she practically gushed.
“Get me to her,” Zac said directly to Drake.
This was ridiculous. Drake stumbled. “We’ve got—” How did one deal with Superman when he wasn’t getting his way? “We’ve got a mission going on,” he said. “A big one. It won’t work without you. None of this works without you.”
“I don’t care,” he said. Then, into the mic: “Whatever you’re doing Jess, wait for me. I’ll come to you. I’m coming.”
As Drake grappled to get a grip on this wildly veering missile Jessica, mercifully, stepped in.
“Zac, listen,” she said. “This is fate. I know it. We can’t be apart. We’ve proven that. But … I came here with a purpose. I’ve got something I have to do.” Then: “God it’s so good to hear your voice! I was praying so hard you and Willet survived.” Then, desperate: “Is he ok?”
“He is.”
Drake could almost feel the sigh of relief on the other end.
“Look,” Jessica worked it through as she spoke. “This is all too much. I’m guessing this line isn’t secure for long.”
Zac looked to Drake, who in turn looked to Max.
“Let me just come there,” she decided. “We can regroup. Make a better plan. Can they get me there?”
Zac was staring at Drake again. “How fast? How fast can—”
Drake raised a hand. He turned to Max and handed him back the headset. “Here. Work it out. Get her up here.” He glanced sidelong at Zac then back at Max: “Soonest.”
Max nodded, took the headset and put it on. Drake didn’t hear what Jess said next but from Zac’s expression he could guess.
“I love you too,” the tall, dark-haired youth said into the mic, voice absolutely dripping with desperate passion. “So much.”
Max, who had just put on the headset, rolled with it. “I love you too,” he deadpanned, and most of the tension bled from the moment. “Both of you.”
Zac eased his stance. Girlfriend had been found, girlfriend was safe and, soon, girlfriend and boyfriend would be reunited.
**
Hansel couldn’t keep his eyes from the tigers. Three of them—three!—collared to heavy gold chains, laying on the floor, lethargic and well fed. His greatest preoccupation since their arrival had become gauging the length of each chain, desperate to ensure that no matter where he stood he was far enough away from any of the great cats that they couldn’t reach. It was a nerve-wracking exercise. There suddenly did not seem to be enough space in the previously expansive penthouse. The room was still the same size, still as grossly opulent, but with three six-hundred-pound predators shackled at various points around it ... the whole place had become very small indeed.
The Bok were no less tense, Hansel could tell, though they tried to pretend as if they weren’t. As if they were too powerful to be concerned with mere animals. Lorenzo alone was unflinching. It was their latest conceit, this little group of narcissists, determined to flash more wealth and power than they knew what to do with. It was not, apparently, enough that they’d been made heads of the world. They had to show it, they had to exude it at every turn.
We rule the world!
Of course Hansel expected no less.
Lorenzo had the tigers brought up and the cats were waiting when the Bok returned from their flurry of rushing here and rushing there with the Kel queen and her own deadly pet, Kang. They’d left the Kel bishop and the queen’s other lackeys in the archives. It all seemed to be part of Lorenzo’s plan.
“I don’t care,” he said to one of the other Bok who had just voiced a concern. That any of them were concerned about anything surprised Hansel, frankly. “And you shouldn’t either,” said Lorenzo. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But that’s everything from our past, every bit of leverage we have. And we know less of its detail than they soon will.”
“It isn’t.” Idly Lorenzo tossed a scrap of meat to the nearest cat. He sat on the edge of the giant conference table, the rest of the Bok milling about the huge room—safely away, as was Hansel, from the fangs in their midst. Nervous or no the Bok elite still managed to affect their usual, too-cool poses, glasses of wine in hand, some leaning against the windows looking out, others seated. Anything but appear interested.
The tiger nearest Lorenzo investigated the meat with a few heavy sniffs; took it in its mouth, thought to chew it then laid it back down. It was an excellent cut—the best—but the tigers were by then much too full. Hansel wondered if Lorenzo should keep feeding them like he was.
“Not everything,” the Bok boss gave a little shrug. “There are other secrets.”
This was a bombshell—for all of them. And the way he delivered it, so casual … All the seemingly disinterested heads in the room were suddenly staring right at him.
“Let the Kel queen do what she wants with what we’ve given her,” he continued in his casual tone. “Let them have their way. We’re holding the cards. In fact, their investigation will help us.”
“It’s the girl they want,” one of them pointed out. Moving past the allusions in Lorenzo’s statement with a forced disregard.
Another chimed in, accusing Lorenzo: “You’ve been saying all along she’s nothing, she isn’t the One, and now the Kel show up and we see she is connected. The queen wants her. Cee thinks the girl knows where to find the Codex.” Then: “And what of that? That was the reason we were ever here in the first place. Why do we never speak of it?”
Lorenzo said nothing.
“Is it really possible the girl could know?” another asked.
“Perhaps.” Lorenzo let that hang. His position on the girl, Jessica, the supposed herald, had been consistently unclear throughout all this, dismissing her relevance while, at times, admitting to it, leaving uncertainty among even his own as to what he thought she might mean to their future. He continued: “But the queen won’t find any evidence about her. Nothing useful. Only the girl knows what she knows, and it isn’t hidden anywhere but with her. Let the queen have our archives. Let her dig, let her feel she’s tracking down the secrets of the universe. We’ll find the girl and we’ll find the secret ourselves.”
Another bombshell. Now it appeared Lorenzo honestly saw the herald as a key.
The other Bok continued to feign disinterest. “If that’s so then where is she? How do we find her?”
Lorenzo looked past them, out the floor-to-ceiling windows of thei
r skyscraper capital. Brilliant multitudes of city lights stretched in all directions, surrounding the bay, up the cliffs.
Hong Kong was dazzling.
“I have a feeling it won’t be long before she finds us.”
CHAPTER 18: A THING TO SAY
How many times could she rush so hard into Zac’s arms, so heedless of all else, consumed with the thrill of him … Infinite times, if need be, and there she was again, smashing into him full bore and pressed against him with everything she had, arms tight around him and eyes closed, utterly absorbing him in a rush of desire.
“Jessica,” he breathed into her hair, face buried against her scalp.
“Oh, Zac,” she kept her eyes closed. She knew there were a dozen people watching. More. She’d burst into the safe house with her escort, looking immediately for Zac but he was right there, waiting at the front of the crowd, tall and more real than anything else. He grabbed her as she lunged into him and her eyes snapped shut. She could hear the others now, sense them, and did her best to put them from her mind. To throw herself completely into the force of the reunion and everything else be damned.
She could tell Zac was thinking the exact same thing.
“I can’t believe I lost you again,” he stroked her hair. She inhaled deeply of the smell of him, pressed hard against his chest.
Even his faint, wonderful scent had power in it. He was surging with power, in all things, all ways.
“I’m so sorry I left you,” she said. “It was the only way. I had to save the Icon. But I told myself you’d be okay. You had to be.”
He gave a short, sharp laugh. “Me?” his face brushed her hair as he shook his head. “Me? You …” She kept her eyes shut, knowing he would’ve been beside himself worrying about the fall on the other side. He finished quietly: “You made it.”
He pressed his lips to her scalp. She opened her eyes and turned her face up to his.
“I made it,” she whispered and he leaned in and kissed her. A deep, passionate kiss, a full audience on either side. She could see them now, from her peripheral vision. Again she didn’t care, so caught up in Zac that nothing, absolutely nothing else mattered and she let herself go; pushed up on her toes and pressed into him, kissing him back with just as much heat. No one said a thing, or at least if they did she didn’t hear. Maybe a whisper, maybe a quiet comment or a raised eyebrow; nothing that penetrated her awareness.
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