by Greg Dragon
Louis felt like he never knew his father, but his real conflict came from abandoning Eddie Jean. She had a true gift and should have been saved, not him. Louis wanted to leave Cloudland—had to leave Cloudland if he intended to bring Ava to justice. “Let’s fly.”
Susan smiled. “If someone asks, I’m going to help get your lab packed.”
He closed his eyes to ask, “If you had a weapon, why didn’t you stop Ava?”
“I stole it from Quitman’s office after what happened to you. Ava pretended you came for her treatment. When you signed the consent without discussing risks, I thought you decided to gamble on her cure.”
“Is anyone that desperate?”
“One or two were.”
“What happened to them?”
“They died. Ava won’t concede her treatment kills.”
“Eddie Jean healed my scalp punctures. I have no proof Ava injected me against my will. It’s my word against hers.”
“Not true,” Susan said, and patted the steering wheel. “My backpack is stuffed with slides and jump drives. Flameion films everything. How do you think I knew you weren’t a volunteer?”
He rubbed her arm. “Thanks for helping me. You could’ve left me.”
“Not after I saw what she did. I worked on Swarm with Quitman, but not XB11. After the cavalier way Peterson’s infection was treated, the utter failure to notify his family, I knew I had to get out. Quitman reads thoughts, so I could never let my mind think about escape. I made myself daydream about our cure.”
“Telepathy?” He released her hand. “Like Eddie Jean?”
“Yes, but only a few locals have telepathy. The kids call themselves XOs, for extraordinary. They aren’t the first ones born in Cloudland with special gifts. Quitman claimed they were the next step in evolution. Interestingly, Eddie Jean agreed.”
“No, she said a new evolutionary jump is on the way.”
Susan shrugged. “I’ll believe it when it arrives.”
“Did Quitman Delaney examine me?”
“No, he cares about one thing—Swarm disease. He’s angry at Ava for bringing you in without his agreement. I figured out people like us never leave Cloudland unless we cut a deal.”
Louis rolled down his window. Like my dad? “How long has Swarm been around?”
“More than two hundred years. Q said the virus comes up in a yellow, mist-like gas during the tiny earthquake swarms. People would breathe the gas and go rabid within two weeks. In the beginning, it was a rare occurrence on Delaney land. They killed and burned the victims because Swarm attacked Delaney relatives. The mist eruptions have escalated in recent years and show no signs of hibernation. Cloudland should be nuked.”
“You’ll go public at my side, won’t you? I can’t do it alone.”
Susan sighed. “No, you were victimized, I volunteered.”
“Like Ava, you had the Nobel dream?” he asked.
She squinted ahead and nodded. “Quarantines won’t work. My name will be written in history beside Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Quitman Delaney.”
Louis shook his head.
“How did Ava get you to come?”
“Hooked by sex,” he said, blushing like a fool.
She grinned. “Always knew she was a scorpion.” Braking beside a guard office, she rolled down her window and the man leaned out to ask, “ID?”
Susan passed him her Flameion badge. “Lab drill still on?” he asked, glancing from her ID to Susan’s face.
“They’re in review stage,” Susan said.
The guard raised the security rail, and they drove in and parked close to the exit hub.
“Act normal,” Susan cautioned in a whisper. “The airport isn’t tied into the lab emergency alert system. If they ask about Ava, just say Quitman delayed her.”
He nodded and opened the car door. Louis stretched, happy to feel alive. He took a few seconds to tuck in his shirt and buckle his belt. His trousers were still damp.
Susan grabbed an overnight case and dropped the gun into the trunk beside an emergency road kit.
Louis snatched it and put it in his pants pocket. Susan started to argue and bit her lip. She must have realized the gun meant security to him. He wasn’t himself. The last few hours had changed him. Louis unzipped her backpack. “I’d like to hold on to the jump drive containing my injection.”
Susan pulled a red one out. He wadded tissues around it and stuffed it into his tee-shirt pocket. To conceal it, he stuffed more tissues around it. Picking up her backpack, he closed the trunk, and led the way to the entrance. They stepped inside the hangar. The same flight attendant on the morning flight sat at the counter, sipping coffee.
She perked up when Louis waved. “How did you like Cloudland, Doctor Janzen?”
Louis scratched his head where Ava had injected him. “Beautiful! I didn’t want to leave, but my students need their midterm grades.”
She laughed. “Pilot said we’re ready when you are.”
Louis put a hand behind Susan’s back. “Shall we, Doctor Cho?”
“I’m looking forward to seeing your lab.”
The flight attendant opened a door. “Right this way.”
They followed her up the steps and into the familiar jet he and Ava arrived in. As he made his way to the seats, Louis thought he smelled Ava’s perfume. A sinking sensation followed and welts peppered his skin. His eyes scanned the empty cabin as his skin turned cold. Nerves stretched to snapping points. Susan took the window seat and he sat beside her.
He swallowed past a dry throat and let his inner rage fade. Ava would pay later, he promised himself. He put the backpack under his seat, slipped the gun into a seat pocket in front of them, and buckled his seatbelt.
The pilot spoke over the intercom. “We’ve got great weather and a good tailwind to help us ease into Charlottesville. Relax and enjoy the flight.”
The flight attendant sat down. Louis held his breath until the plane rolled forward. Beside him, Susan’s temporal pulse throbbed. It didn’t stop until the plane lifted. Susan clutched his hand. “I hope you’ll forgive me, Louis.”
Her guilt became infectious. He held her hand, and they watched Cloudland disappear.
A few minutes later the flight attendant served him juice and poured both a cup of coffee. “Would you like doughnuts or chocolate chip cookies?”
“Cookies,” they answered in unison.
She went to the galley and returned with a plate of warm cookies. Louis watched her pull a curtain and caught a brief glimpse of her opening a bridal magazine.
“What should we do first?” Susan asked, sipping coffee.
“I’m calling the local police.” Hunger overwhelmed him and he devoured two cookies.
“Locals have no way to evaluate my evidence,” Susan said.
“Then I’ll call a colleague,” he said, drinking juice. “She’s married to the head of the local FBI office.”
“Now you’re talking.”
They chatted about family. Louis loosened his seatbelt and reclined his seat. I’m safe. Fatigue passed through him, making him drowsy. His eyelids drooped. Beside him, Susan released her seatbelt and slipped past him into the aisle.
She leaned over and whispered, “She has my son, Louis. I cut a deal.”
Confused, he watched Susan walk behind the curtain as Ava stepped out. His heart pounded hard. Her beautiful hair floated around her head, giving her a halo aura. A smug smile made Ava look sinister and far from angelic. Betrayal stabbed him. The drugs in the juice helped dull the pain. He reached for the gun, but his thoughts floated away.
Ava laughed. “So glad you made the flight.”
He tried to grin, but his lips froze.
She leaned over behind his seat to retrieve Susan’s backpack. “Eddie Jean would never help me cover my mistakes. She liked Susan. She healed you, and you’re my proof XB works.”
“Liar.” His body went into a shaking spasm.
Ava waved her hand. “Your first brain map compare
d to your second one will silence skeptics.”
His gut roiled, but he had news she didn’t. The Anchorons were still there, so she couldn’t claim a cure. He would get the last laugh if she let him live.
“I have another lab I’m eager to show you, Louis.” Her laugh grated on his ears.
She leaned over to push an intercom button. “Perry, I’ve changed my mind. Swing over to Atlanta, please.”
Louis struggled to stay awake. He watched the flight attendant come down the aisle and stop five feet from Ava. “I’m sorry, Doctor Allen. Pilot says no override. Charlottesville is the first stop. Doctor Janzen has an escort waiting for him.”
Ava screamed curses and the flight attendant stepped backward.
“Tell him,” Ava shouted, stabbing her finger into the air.
“You can’t override Mr. Delaney’s personal code.”
Thank you, Eddie Jean.
“Go away!” Ava screeched and sank in a seat across from him.
His vision grew fuzzy. Louis leaned over and threw up his cookies and juice at her feet.
Ava jumped up cursing him.
Louis smiled before falling asleep.
Eddie Jean
The door opened into brighter lights. Scot stepped out first, scanned the upper walkways, and motioned her out. Eddie Jean headed to a computer pod and skidded to a stop. Her granddad—Quitman Delaney—dangled by a rope around his ankles just a short distance above a mob of Swarmers. Weapons his men used to catch the infected were heaped on the walkway.
Q saw them and yelled, “What took so long? Pull me up, kids.”
“EJ,” Scot said in a low voice.
She darted to the computer pod and opened up the system.
Scot said to Q, “XOs don’t follow your orders. They follow mine. Clear?”
“You’re no leader,” Q said with a sneer. “Eddie Jean was right, an evolutionary jump is on the way.”
“We’ll find our place without you. Your time is over.”
Eddie Jean tuned out their argument. She scanned the computer and got the shivers. No escapes to the outside, but Swarmers were everywhere. So many people had been caught by surprise. She searched for ways to release frightened workers, but the access she used on Doctor Cho’s computer wasn’t available. Doctor Cho had a key into the locked system, but didn’t share it. Why?
In one pod, Eddie Jean watched lab workers with scratches on their arms and faces saying goodbye to one another. She turned the camera off and her chest tightened. A premonition came, along with a taste of axle grease in her mouth. The land beneath her feet moved up and down like waves. Rivers changed direction and trees fell like toothpicks. She had to run for her life.
Hands shaking, she searched for the burn protocol procedure. The computer revealed the burning wouldn’t take place until 6:00 a.m. What? People were trapped. Why didn’t he release them first?”
{I set the delay and passworded it} Q beamed. {Little help, please}
She joined Scot on the walkway. The scent of scorched syrup made her nauseated. Body parts, blood, and sections of ripped and chewed flesh smeared the concrete floor. The showdown between him and his protégé Doctor Allen had been bloody. Eddie Jean couldn’t believe the prissy ice queen had gotten the jump on him.
In the Swarmer pit, Eddie Jean recognized the uniforms on the men who helped subdue Scot’s father and infect her. Next, she noticed Q didn’t dangle from a rope. Ava had harpooned him with a metal barb while he had been in the pit. The barb passed clean through his right calf. Then she tranquilized him with a red dart. A red feather protruded from his buttock.
After a drug knocked him out, someone secured plastic handcuffs around his wrists at his back. Men winched him up to a height just out of reach. Looking down, Eddie Jean watched the infected fighting over a rolling cart with dried blood smears on the top shelf. If a tall one got on the cart and jumped, Q was doomed.
“Why did Doctor Allen leave you like this?” she asked.
Q glared at her. “I told her Flameion was toast. Their drugs and hers would have to be canned because the dead virus reactivated, and I couldn’t figure out how. She flipped out. Ava romanced my team members to betray me. She locked them in after I was hung.” He spat on one.
“Doctor Allen injected a drug from here into another doctor. He didn’t become a Swarmer. Could the Anchorons prevent infection?” Eddie Jean asked.
“Who cares!” Q shouted. “Pull me up!”
“Karma is real. Your granddad is hanging like the blood lures he polluted the woods with every fall before hunting season,” Scot said in a flat voice. “My uncles told me about them.” His hands gripped the railing so tight his knuckles blotched white. “We clear, EJ?”
“No, still trapped.”
“How did Doctor Allen release Swarmers after you initiated the burn protocol code?” Eddie Jean asked Q.
“She seduced him into granting a delay,” Scot said.
Q laughed. “Righto, I thought we were good right up until she skewered me. The situation forced me to barter with her. She would leave Eddie Jean behind, and Ava had time to grab what she wanted before it kicked back on. I allowed one interruption to the countdown. It can’t be stopped again, but I do have an option if you’re interested.”
Below them, one of the Swarmers stood on the cart. The others shoved the cart against the wall. The noise reached a crescendo and settled down.
“Pull me up!”
“I helped Doctor Cho and Doctor Janzen escape minutes ago.”
Q spat on the Swarmers. “Doctor Cho was a smart cookie. She wrote her own code, I’m guessing, and she didn’t interfere with mine. Too bad she sold me out to Ava.”
“Can we get back to Doctor Cho’s computer?” Scot asked her.
“You tossed it off the pod. Everything burns at 6:00 a.m. unless we take his deal,” she said.
“Smooth,” Scot muttered.
“Leaders make backup plans. Now, pull me up.”
“Quitman designed the barb, you know,” Scot said, clearing his throat. “Called it the “impaler.” He had fun using it on the Swarmers he kept for tests. It’s poetic justice he got popped with his own invention.”
Before she could answer Q beamed, {Check out your dad, Scotty}
Eddie Jean put her hand over Scot’s. She felt his temper ease back, and then she spotted his father. Weeping pustules marred his handsome face and a few patches of blond hair remained on his head.
“Dad!” Scot cried out.
His father reacted to Scot’s voice. His white eyes focused on him. He tilted his head.
“He remembers you,” she whispered. “White eyes are from the airborne version.”
“Give the old man a hug, Scot,” Q goaded.
Scot wiped his nose and his head sunk into his shoulders. “How did your mother get infected?”
“Q gave her a live virus vaccine and it mutated. She infected Kimmy and then went dormant until today.”
Scot stared down at his dad. “Quitman doesn’t deserve to live.”
Eddie Jean nodded in agreement.
“Pull me up,” Q yelled. “This isn’t the time to be divided. It’s humans against Swarmers. I know Swarmers better than anyone.”
“You created them!” Scot pounded on the railing. “The white-eyed ones are aware.”
“Aw, thank you.” Q broke into laughter.
“I hate him.”
“Me too,” she said. “He’s lost all sense of right and wrong.”
“Thought you Christians turned the other cheek and forgave, lass. Give me a chance to fix this and save Cloudland. Pull me up!”
“Your call.” Scot choked over the words.
“I have a supplement to heal people, lass. Isn’t that where your heart lies?”
“He told me his cure doesn’t work on Swarm,” Scot said.
“Will work on what’s coming,” Q shouted back. He beamed details to Eddie Jean.
Anguish flooded her, making her sad. He never consider
ed his supplement might make things worse. “Scot, we don’t have to do anything. Time will take care of him, us, and them. You and I are the opposite of the Swarmers—we’re changed from the vibrations, and they’re changed from the yellow mist the vibrations release.”
Q said, “Have mercy on me, lass.”
“Remember what he did to you, to Kimmy, and our parents. Do you think the world needs more of Quitman?” Scot asked.
Eddie Jean bit her lip. “Why smear his blood on our hands?”
“I’m good with it.”
She couldn’t kill her own grandfather. The thought made her head spin until she closed her eyes. “Don’t let our last hours be cursed like this.”
“He deserves to feel the horror he’s set loose.”
She opened her eyes. Q’s face had turned gray and his voice had lost authority. “Pray with me, lass. I don’t know how.”
“Burning is too easy for him,” Scot said.
What did Scot want her to do? She believed in redemption and forgiveness, except she couldn’t forgive Q for injecting her mother with a killer virus. Maybe later. “You’re not a natural-born killer.”
“I’m what he taught me to be.” Scot pulled his hand from under hers and wiped his face with his shirt. “He needs a taste of his own medicine.” He reached down and removed a hunting knife from the equipment Ava Allen had left behind. “He wouldn’t show us mercy.”
True. “He wanted helpers who couldn’t be infected, so he brainwashed you. You’re not a killer until you act like one.”
“He’s not like you, lass. Think how he violated your trust.”
“You tried to infect her!” Scot shouted back.
“Daddy wouldn’t help him, so he pushed my mother at your father.”
“Jenna didn’t need me to push her, lass.”
“Go to the exit pod,” Scot said. “This is on me. I’ll follow in a few minutes.”
She swallowed. Scot wasn’t going to leave things alone because his grief blinded him. If he fed Q to Swarmers, he would be changed forever. “I can’t let you do that…”
