“I don’t want to kill you, either,” I say. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Stepping into the night, I close the door behind me and we’re as separated and apart as we’ve always been, only not.
END OF BOOK TWO
Preview of
Regeneration
Book 3 of the Incubation Trilogy
I should have my mind on combat, but instead I'm thinking about irony.
Here I am—here we are, Wyck and me—back at Kube 9, close to a year after we ran away from it with Halla. I remember Wyck's knife slicing into my forearm to remove my locator, the fear catching in my throat as we escaped on stolen scooters, the wild dogs, the swamp, the secret lab. So much has happened. The RESCO, Halla's betrayal, finding my mother. Saben. An ache of longing sweeps through me as I think of him. And yet, here I am, back where I started, a chartreuse kudzu leaf tickling my nose so I have to scrunch it several times to keep from sneezing and betraying our position. It's weird to be back here, a little unsettling, and yet it feels a bit like coming home. Does Wyck feels the irony, too,? I glance at him a foot to my left, hugging the ground, kudzu draped over his helmet, his intelli-textile jumpsuit blending with the cover. Who am I kidding? Wyck doesn't do irony.
His gaze slides to me. "Ready, Ev?" he asks in a low voice.
I nod. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Wyck cocks his head, clearly listening to a communication from up the chain via his earbud. Idris, probably, who has the larger Defiance assault force assembled three miles from our position, preparing to hijack a train.
"It's a go," Wyck says, giving me a thumbs up. "You're up. Twenty minutes."
My mouth is suddenly dry. I manage a tiny nod and low crawl on my elbows and knees until I'm behind a tin-roofed shed some hundred yards away from Wyck and the others. I know the hillocks of kudzu betray my movements with swayings, but hopefully any watchers will write the ripples off as wind. Out of sight behind the collapsing shed, I push to my feet. Unlike the other Defiers secreted in the copse of gnarled tree branches canopied with kudzu, I'm not wearing camouflage. I'm wearing the sky blue jumpsuit of a Kube 9 resident, attire I wore every day of my life up until a year ago.
The suit fits physically, but not emotionally. Not any longer. I'm not the Everly Jax who left the Kube a year ago. No, I'm light years away from that girl. I don't look like her—not with my blond hair chopped off and tinted red and my blue eyes made violet by eye color changing tablets—and I don't even feel like her any more. That Everly Jax was obsessed with finding out who her parents were, and trying to work up the nerve to kiss Wyck. She giggled with Halla and argued with Dr. Ronan. The new me hasn't giggled in months. I'm pretty sure I no longer have the capacity.
Leaving aside these fruitless thoughts, I step out from behind the shed. I'm visible. Committed. I strike out toward the dome dominating the skyline. It rises from the flat Florida Canton topography, visible for miles. The green of crops blooms behind the transparent panes, and I'm pulled toward it by a hunger as instinctual as any locust's. It's not a physical hunger. No, it's a craving for the familiar, the comfortable. I imagine seeing Dr. Ronan again, hearing his gruff voice challenge one of my assumptions, and I almost smile.
That's dangerous. I can't afford to feel emotional about the Kube, not when I'm here as a Trojan horse, about to sneak in through the lab and open the main entrance so the Defiers can overrun the facility. I focus on the task at hand, drawing ever closer to the dome. I've left the kudzu-covered thickets behind and am crossing the barren stretch of land surrounding the Kube like a moat. The wind carries a salty tang and my lips taste faintly bitter when I lick them nervously.
I can see people inside the dome now, mostly clad in the sky blue of ACs, apprentice citizens, a couple in the white that indicates a staff member. As I watch, they gaggle toward the tunnel leading from the dome into the Kube; it's lunch time. We timed my arrival to coincide with lunch so there'd be less chance of my being intercepted. Movement to my right catches my eye, and I half-turn to see an IPF patrol emerge from the far side of the Kube complex, coming from the direction of the Infrastructure Protection Force barracks on the other side of the dome. All domes have a dedicated cadre of IPF soldiers; Amerada can't afford to lose its food production facilities to outlaws. With the locust swarms consuming every blade of grass, every budding leaf, growing food outside the domes is impossible, has been for decades.
Don't come this way, I mentally urge the soldier.
The ACV scooter swerves in my direction. Of course it does. Damn. I keep walking. I aim for a nonchalant stride, rather than a panic-stricken dash that would bring the soldier down on me as surely as grass draws locusts. The side entrance to the dome, the small one that leads directly into the lab, is twenty yards away. I lift a hand in casual greeting to the soldier when the ACV's hum tells me he's near, and keep walking.
Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop.
The ACV judders, and then slows. The soldier leans his weight to the right, hovering the ACV in my path. I'm forced to stop. My heart's pounding so fast it makes it hard to breathe, but I manage a smile.
"AC, what are you doing out here?" The soldier doesn't remove his helmet, the protective casing that makes IPFers look vaguely insectoid, so his voice reverberates a little. He doesn't dismount, either, so he's above me, the air cushion adding six inches to his already formidable height.
I think back to what Vestor taught me about appearing non-confrontational, and consciously lower my chin a couple of notches. "Did I do something wrong?" I ask in an uncertain, girlish voice. "Dr. Ronan sent me—"
"Him." The soldier's tone says Dr. Ronan has been a thorn in his side. No surprise there. "He shouldn't have sent you outside the Kube. We're on lockdown—reports of Defiance activity in the area."
I'm sensing a young man behind the IPF helmet, a youth puffed up by his authority, eager to impress. I look over my shoulder as if nervous about Defiers creeping up behind me, and take a step closer to the soldier, as if asking for his protection. "He told me to collect Eurycotis floridana specimens. He didn't say anything about outlaws." I congratulate myself on blending indignation and fear to great effect.
"Not outlaws, Defiers," the soldier corrects me, shifting his weight on the ACV so it seesaws.
"I should get inside, then," I say, making to move around him.
The ACV glides forward to block me. Suspicion in his voice, the soldier asks, "Where are the Yuri-whatevers, the Yuri coats, the specimens you collected?"
Aagh. I should have come prepared with cockroaches in a box in case I got stopped. I hesitate only a half-beat before saying dejectedly, "I couldn't find any. I'm going to be in trouble for that already, so please don't make it worse by making me late for the lunch period. Please?" My eyes plead with him.
"Oh, very well," he says, reversing the ACV three feet. "But I'll have to make a note of this incident in the log. Dr. Ronan will be hearing from my commander."
I could tell him that Dr. Ronan won't give a shit, but I am too busy thanking him and hurrying toward the gate. I hesitate by the iris scanner, waiting for the soldier to move on, but he stays put, shoulders back, apparently watching over me until I'm safe inside, damn him. If this doesn't work, if they removed my access when we ran away, I'm dead. There will be no creeping back to Wyck's squad if I can't get in, not with the soldier hovering there. The plan has always relied on Dr. Ronan's impatience with, indeed, total disinterest in, administrative matters that don't directly impact lab operations. I've never known him to delete access files when an AC leaves the Kube, but there's always a first time.
I take a deep breath. Clicking back the scanner cover, I bend until my eye is against the scanner. There's a faint whir and then . . . nothing.
"What's wrong?" the soldier asks, suspicion tingeing his voice.
"Scanner's dirty," I say, licking my thumb and rubbing it across the lens. It's got to work. When I can delay no longer, I open my eyes wide and press my forehea
d against the chill metal of the forehead support. The whir sounds again, and then . . .
"Access granted."
Nothing has ever sounded more welcoming than that robotic voice. Relief makes me limp. The portal clicks open, I wave to the soldier, and then slip inside. I lean back against the door when it slides closed, and shut my eyes for a grateful moment. Last time I came through this entry, I'd been caught in a locust swarm and had to be deconned. Not this time. I'm in, and no decon team is waiting for me, but multiple threats still stand between me and mission accomplishment. I think of Wyck and his squad waiting for my signal, and Idris and the larger force intercepting the train, counting on me to have the Kube's gates open by the time they roll up, and I collect myself. My task now is to make it through the lab and into the Kube proper, and then through the Kube to the front entrance, where I can disarm the gate and let the train with the Defiers in. I check the time. I've only got twelve minutes.
A Note from the Author
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Incubation. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you have five or ten minutes to spare, it would be hugely helpful if you were to write a brief, honest review on Amazon.
Gratefully,
Laura
About the Author
Laura DiSilverio is the national bestselling author of 16 mystery and suspense novels, and a retired Air Force intelligence officer. Her first standalone novel, The Reckoning Stones, was a Library Journal Pick of the Month and won the Colorado Book Award for Mystery. The third book in her Book Club Mystery series, The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala, comes out in Aug 2016. A past president of Sisters in Crime, she pens articles for Writer’s Digest, and teaches writing in various fora. She plots murders and parents teens in Colorado, trying to keep the two tasks separate. The Incubation Trilogy is her first science fiction series.
Laura DiSilverio
Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 25
