With a nod toward the camera, his expression grows in intensity and determination. His face is a pillar of strength, a mast of confidence. Eyes shining, he speaks to us and to those beyond this cramped warehouse. I assume the other cells will be watching the face of their leader on a television screen and will decide to keep on fighting. For how could anyone decide anything else?
“This cell remains complete,” he announces proudly. “I trust out there it is the same and we’ll continue to fight the intruders together.”
Now James looks down and takes a hand to his chest. His fingers pick at something, a small patch over his black leather jacket. With one swift motion, he tears it off, revealing an insignia.
It’s a triangular shape. Red and orange flames rise up from its wide base, devouring dark, ghostly figures as the fire spreads toward the pointed top. James puts a hand over his heart and pats the spot twice.
“It’s time to IgNiTe and FiGhT,” he pronounces, eyes alight, shining with passion, ablaze with their own brand of fire.
The intensity of his gaze and the conviction in his voice let me know I’ve made the right choice. With James in charge, there’s no other outcome but victory against the Eklyptors.
Chapter 37
James turns off the video camera and hands it to Aydan.
“Send this to Kristen,” he says in a low voice. “She’ll know what to do with it.”
Checking his watch, he walks back to the van and, this time, retrieves a large cardboard box. He pulls a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and cuts the tape.
“There are jackets here for everyone. Your names are stamped on the collar,” James says, leaving the box and walking toward the table where the maps and plans for the mission still lay sprawled.
“What? We have to wear a uniform now?” Blare sneers.
“You don’t have to, but you’ll want to,” James says without taking his eyes off the table.
Clark starts digging in the box, trying to find the jacket with his name on.
“Oso, here’s yours,” he says, throwing one to the big guy.
“Wow, cool,” Oso says, shrugging into the jacket right away. “It fits like pantyhose on the legs of a hot babe.” He laughs.
Clark’s still digging, tossing jackets right and left. Mine flies across the air and hits me in the face. After impact, it slides down my chest and lands in my cradling arms.
Its leather is smooth in my hands. I turn it around and find the insignia. Up close I can see all the minute details outlined by different colored threads. Rich reds, oranges, and yellows for the flames. Black and many shades of gray for the shapes of screaming shadows. I have the feeling it’s James’s design. At the bottom, I can now make out the small letters woven with golden thread. As I look at each perfectly delineated character, Aydan’s voice cuts through my trance, repeating the words written on the insignia.
“IgNiTe and FiGhT.”
“I like it,” Oso says in a contemplative tone. “It’s catchy.”
I like it, too. I slip the jacket on, roll my shoulders and move my arms to test the fit. Its leathery scent brings memories of Dad. He used to have a brown leather jacket that smelled just like this. It feels light on me, molding to my body perfectly as if it’s custom-made. Curious, I check out everyone else. All except Blare are wearing their jackets now, looking tailored and shiny.
Oso examines everybody critically. “Look at you lot. You clean up real well, if I may say so.” He nods repeatedly, displaying a huge smile that seems to show every single one of his teeth. “We look pretty damn awesome.”
I catch James looking back at us, his mouth slanted by a small, satisfied smile. He looks like a father observing his kids after giving them a brand-new toy. My heart warms as if the insignia is seeping heat into my chest. James is a true leader. I have a feeling he and Dad would have been great friends, if they’d met.
With a sheepish expression, Blare puts on the jacket. The frown disappears from her face and I dare say she’s smiling, too.
“The man’s a genius.”
I jump. Xave is standing next to me after sneaking up unnoticed. I look up at him. His eyes are on James. “Don’t you think?” he asks, gazing back at me.
“Yeah, he is,” I agree and look at my hands. I didn’t realize Xave and I were back on speaking terms. He’s pretty much ignored me since that day at the arcade.
Cracking my knuckles, I try to hide my embarrassment. After the way I acted, I should have been the first one to try to break the ice. I feel selfish, but mainly, I feel dumb. Why was I even mad at him? It’s not like we could really be together, anyway. We know too much about each other, even if he doesn’t know the most crucial part about me: the part about being infected by one of the creatures he’s sworn to annihilate.
I sigh. At least it seems he still wants to be friends. I’m thankful for that.
“So … how did you hear about tonight?” he asks.
Oh, so this is why he’s talking to me. The last time I joined an IgNiTe meeting, Xave was the one who told me the time and place, right after Clark told him. Given that today I got here without his involvement makes it obvious that my connection with IgNiTe is now more direct than his. If he only knew.
“From Aydan,” I say.
Xave’s jaw tightens. “Aydan, huh? I see.”
“Since they were pressed for time. He and James … asked me to help with hacking one of the security devices.”
“Oh. You got an important job. Not just a lookout, like me.”
“Everyone’s job is important, Xave.”
He makes a skeptical sound in the back of his throat. “Sure. Well, enjoy it. I know that’s your element.”
Xave starts to turn away. I put a hand on his arm. He stops and stares at my fingers on his tense bicep. I snatch my hand away and something like disappointment flashes behind his hazel eyes.
“Um, be careful,” I say.
We exchange glances. More passes between us in the ensuing silence. Regret. Concern. Longing.
“You, too.” His voice is soft, with real concern behind it.
“I’ll be fine. Just sitting in the van in case something goes wrong with my code.”
“Good.”
Xave takes a few steps backward, holding my gaze. My lower lip trembles with words that need to be spoken. I bite them back and swallow hard. I have to keep reminding myself that I have nothing to offer him. Lies are not a good foundation for any type of relationship. And if I offered the truth, things would be far worse than they are now.
I break eye contact. I let him go.
Chapter 38
Aydan and I sit inside the van parked off-road under the cover of trees. We left the warehouse around 3:20 A.M. and drove west on I-90 for forty minutes or so. After Oso exited the interstate, I lost track of where we were. He took several secluded roads. And all I know now is that we are in the boonies, surrounded by mountains and lots of trees. I can’t see much else. It is dark and cloudy outside. Eerie, if you ask me.
We stare into four monitors that display different perspectives. The first one shows Rheema’s car’s dashboard with her hands at the steering wheel. The second, jumpy images of bushes and trees rushing by. They come from James’s camera, who—accompanied by Oso and Blare—left the van ten minutes ago and ran up the wooded hill toward the clinic. The third and fourth monitors show two empty roads where Xave and Clark are serving as lookouts.
A speaker crackles to life and Rheema’s voice resonates through the van. “All right, we’re here,” she says.
On the first monitor, her car slows down as it approaches a thirty-foot-wide metal gate.
“Okay, working on it,” Aydan responds through a tiny microphone attached to an equally small earpiece. He types on the keyboard at a prodigious speed, running the program that will allow Rheema and her companion entry to the compound.
When James described the place, I started thinking about it more as a compound than a fertility clinic. Located in a remote ar
ea, surrounded by tall stone walls, protected by a high-security system, it’s hardly a place that makes me think of cuddly babies. Apparently, Riverbend caters to Seattle’s elite. People who pay top dollar to receive advanced fertility treatments in anonymity and extra comfort. If they knew what they were getting, I bet they wouldn’t feel so special.
Rheema pulls over and turns slightly to her left. A hairy arm appears on the screen: the gate guard. He moves closer to the car.
“No signal yet, Rheema,” Aydan says as he continues to smash keys like a mad man.
I grind my teeth, a fist pressed against my lips. Oh please, please, work.
“Your card,” the guard asks Rheema in an unfriendly tone.
“Good night, or I guess I should say good morning,” she says in good humor, trying to make time.
“Your card,” the guard repeats after an annoyed grunt.
“Sure.” Rustling cuts through the speakers as Rheema pretends to dig in her purse. “It’s here somewhere,” she adds with a nervous laugh.
Aydan mashes the enter key with an index finger. “Got it!”
“Ah, here it is.” Rheema hands the guard a white plastic card.
Aydan explained that, when the guard flashes the card with his handheld device, Rheema’s picture will appear on his screen indicating whether she’s authorized to enter the facility at this time. During normal business hours, she would have no problem getting in. It turns out a few months back, she snatched a proper job as a lab assistant, and since then she’s been gathering information about the clinic’s operations.
Just now, Aydan managed to intercept the mobile’s signal and download all the required data to get Rheema and her companion through the front entrance. They didn’t have approval to be here today at this early hour, but Aydan’s program took care of adding them to the list on the fly.
I hear a beep. I assume it’s the guard running Rheema’s card through the security check. There’s a long silence, during which I bite my nails, hardly noticing what I’m doing. The computer monitor shows Rheema’s hands squeezing the wheel.
“Here,” the guard says. His face appears as Rheema turns to retrieve her card. The square-jawed man peers in to check the empty back seat then the person in the passenger seat.
“Your card,” the guard orders.
A hand holding a security badge crosses in front of the camera. It belongs to a man, a fertility doctor named Dr. Schmitt, who also works at the clinic.
The guard grabs the card and puts it through the same test. Aydan sits, hands on his lap, jaw working with a nervous tic.
Rheema’s job was to fool Dr. Schmitt in to accompanying her. He has clearance to enter the vitrification lab, something Rheema doesn’t possess. The doctor is in charge of readying embryos before implantation. Rheema, his clever lab assistant, has access to all medical records and informed him that one of his patient’s hormonal levels indicate the woman will be ready for implantation at 7 A.M., which is why they had to be here so early to prepare the sample.
Apparently, this is a common occurrence. It turns out fertility isn’t an exact science and women’s bodies will do whatever they want, whenever they want to, no matter how many pills and injections they push on them. So Dr. Schmitt came along suspecting nothing out of the ordinary.
“You’re clear,” the guard says, opening the massive metal gate. As the car enters the compound, both Aydan and I breathe a sigh of relief. We switch our attention to James’s monitor. It shows a dark backdrop punctuated by even darker shapes. Bushes, I guess.
“She’s in,” Aydan announces after pressing a button to switch audio over to James, Blare and Oso.
They have finished trekking up the steep hill behind the clinic and are now stationed outside the fortress, waiting for Aydan’s signal to climb the wall. The guards’ shift ends at 5 A.M., at which time they perform a patrol. If all goes well, the crew should have enough time to do what they need to do.
On the computer screen, Aydan pulls up the next piece of code. It will disable the various cameras and alarms that monitor the perimeter, giving James, Blare and Oso two minutes to scale the wall. This is a small window of time, but more than two minutes would cause a failover systems to activate, giving away our presence.
“Ready?” Aydan asks.
“Ready,” James’s deep voice rumbles through the speakers.
Aydan clicks on a button labeled “X Perimeter Security” and says, “Go, now!”
The images coming from James’s camera start moving as he runs toward the wall, which looms like a giant. Seconds tick by, flashing on Aydan’s computer screen.
“One hundred seconds,” Aydan informs James.
Oso gets ahead of James and drops to one knee a couple of feet away from the wall. He looks as if he’s about to propose. James doesn’t slow down. Instead, he leaps, uses Oso’s bent leg as a step stool and propels himself upward. In a blur, the wall passes by on the screen.
Once at the top, he secures a rope and lets it drop. James doesn’t wait for Blare and Oso. Instead, he jumps down on the other side and starts running toward the main building. His camera reveals a place that looks like a mansion, not a clinic: a perfect hideout for the rich and famous to get their little spawns implanted. AR-Tech’s tactics are scary. They target the wealthy, where Eklyptors seek to place parasites in positions of power.
“Sixty seconds,” Aydan announces.
James runs through an almost empty parking lot. I spot Rheema’s car already parked there. When he’s only a few paces from the building, he slows down, looks back and confirms Oso and Blare are right behind him. They soon catch up.
“No sign of guards,” James says.
There are supposed to be guards that patrol the grounds, but they’re probably sleeping, too confident in their state-of-the-art security system to care. One can never underestimate the complacency of an underpaid employee, Eklyptor or not.
Instead of going straight to the front entrance, James and the others approach from the side and walk along one of the walls. These are blind spots, so if the cameras activate again they’ll be in the perfect place to remain unnoticed.
“Forty seconds.” Aydan presses mute and glares at my hands. “Stop that!” I’ve been cracking my knuckles and hadn’t even realized it.
“Sorry,” I say.
James comes to a halt and presses his back against the wall. Slowly he peeks around the corner. In his camera, I see Rheema and the doctor standing in front of a huge glass door. Rheema’s monitor shows the same door, except up close. The palm, retina and voice scanners are in front of Dr. Schmitt, who lets the device take his bio-data.
A big thumbs-up from James lets Oso and Blare know everything is going as planned.
“Twenty seconds,” Aydan says.
“Welcome, Doctor Schmitt,” a computerized voice echoes through Rheema’s audio feed.
As soon as the thick glass doors slide open, James and the others rush in. Rheema walks into a large lobby, followed by Dr. Schmitt. After a few steps, she whips around, takes two quick steps, and stands only inches from the doctor.
James is quietly entering the lobby. From his perspective, I see the doctor’s back and Rheema wrapping her arms around the man’s neck, as if she’s going to … kiss him?
I look to Aydan, wondering what’s going on. I’m about to say something when Dr. Schmitt falls to the floor like a limp rag. Oso and Blare come in just as he falls.
“What did she just do?” I ask.
“Neurotoxin,” he says.
“Huh?”
Aydan looks at me as if I’m incapable of adding two and two together to save my life. “They made it in with time to spare. Too easy.”
“Shut up. You’re gonna jinx them,” I snap.
“Jinx them? You don’t seem like the superstitious type.”
“I’m not, but still.”
“Now to the lab,” Aydan says to no one in particular.
My hands have already been sweating, but the thou
ght that this part of the mission depends on my hack makes them feel as if I’ve dipped them in a pot of drool.
All four rush through long, expertly decorated corridors. When they reach the lab, Oso, who’s been carrying Dr. Schmitt over his shoulder, lets James grab the man’s hand and place his thumb on a little scanner. After the thumb print, it’s time to enter the six-digit number my program deciphered. They dump the doctor on the floor next to the door.
My gut clenches as Aydan pulls up the number onto the screen and starts calling it out. “Seven …”
Skipping beats, my heart makes itself noticed. My back tingles and a strange sensation rolls in waves down my spine. James’s hand goes up to the keypad.
“Wait!” I yell.
“Marci says to wait,” Aydan blurts out.
James’s hand freezes. “What’s wrong?”
Aydan gives me an incredulous look.
“I … what if the code changed?” I ask.
“Changed in the last couple of hours?” Aydan asks, sounding annoyed. We ran my algorithm more than once and got the same six-digit code every time. I don’t quite understand why all of a sudden I’m freaking out. But something feels funky in the pit of my stomach, like a swarm of bees buzzing their way up my esophagus.
“Yeah, it could have,” I say.
“Didn’t you check for maintenance programs that could change the code on us?”
“Of course, I did. There weren’t any.”
“Sooo?”
“What if they changed it manually?”
“I guess they could have, but that’s stupid and error-prone. So, not likely,” Aydan says.
“What’s going on?” James asks through clenched teeth.
“One sec,” Aydan tells him.
“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her with this.” Blare’s voice breaks through in a growl.
I ignore her. “Let’s run it again. Let’s see if it comes back with the same six numbers.”
“Marci, we don’t have time for that,” Aydan growls.
“It’ll only take five minutes,” I plead.
Ignite the Shadows Page 22
