by A. P. Kensey
“Do you remember her from before?” asked Dormer.
“Never seen her,” said Adsen. “Never heard of her. Alistair must have picked her up after the medical facility was destroyed, or else she’s lying about working for him.”
“Why would she lie?” asked Dormer.
“Any number of reasons,” said Adsen. “What troubles me the most is that a Phoenix would work for a man like Alistair.”
“She wants to know how to find Haven,” said Colton, then paused. “Do you think she’s really the new Phoenix?”
Adsen gestured to the hole in the roof. “You saw the entrance she made. I don’t claim to know everything our kind is capable of, but that’s not on the list of ‘normal’. I have no idea why she wants to meet Haven so badly, but my guess would be that it’s not for anything good.” He looked at the cots near his own. Each one held a sleeping refugee from the med-lab. “How are the others doing?”
Dormer sighed. “Three won’t come out of their comas. Whatever Bernam did to them, it’s not getting any better. The two that were finally improving took a turn for the worse after our new friends showed up. Only two out of the total seven are showing any signs of improvement, including you.”
Adsen shuddered. He scratched at the spot on his arm where one of the spheres had pierced him with its long needle. “It should be obvious by now that one of the departed refugees told Alistair where to find the Dome.”
“It’s possible,” said Dormer. “If Alistair is really alive.”
“And why couldn’t he be?” asked Adsen. “You saw what he did firsthand. He killed Bernam and turned himself into a Nova. Who knows what it will take to stop him now?”
“It could be something else,” said Colton suddenly. “Remember Elena said that sometimes a Phoenix can sense the presence of others like us. Sometimes they can only sense other Nova, or their counterpart, or really strong Sources and Conduits. Let’s say Kamiko is the new Phoenix—say that Elena really did unwillingly pass her power to her instead of to Haven. Elena had the ability to detect a Nova anywhere on the planet as long as their signal wasn’t blocked. Kamiko might be able to find others like her—other potential Phoenix.”
“That’s not it,” said Dormer, “or else she wouldn’t be asking you to help her find Haven. Maybe she can sense all of us together in one spot, like a huge beacon, and that’s how she found the Dome.”
Adsen shook his head sadly. “If that’s the case, none of us will ever be safe until we eliminate her.”
A loud voice broke through the conversation. “Did someone say, ‘eliminate her’?” Marius walked over to the cots near the balcony railing with a big smile on his face. “You are speaking Marius’s language.”
“Keep your voice down,” said Dormer. “We’re conspiring.”
“Sorry,” said Marius quickly. The big Russian sat on the edge of the cot next to Colton and rubbed a calloused hand over the stubble on his balding head. Small black veins ran over his scalp and down over his temples. He coughed loudly and cleared his throat. “What is the plan?”
“No plan,” said Colton. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Marius has one,” he said. “Bullet in each of them.” He aimed an invisible gun down at the dome room floor and pulled his thumb-trigger at the guards stationed throughout the wide space. He searched for Kamiko with one eye squinted closed, then sighed and holstered his imaginary weapon when he couldn’t find her below. He scratched at his unshaven neck where small black veins criss-crossed like netting.
“How’s Corva?” asked Dormer.
Marius didn’t answer right away. “Not so good. She is strong, but this thing they did to her…” He trailed off and left his thought unfinished.
Colton had been to visit Corva earlier in her room. She lay on the bed, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling. Her short, stark-white hair was wet and a layer of sweat clung to her entire body. She shook as if she had a terrible fever. Colton was able to speak with her for a few minutes before Marius interrupted and said she needed rest. As Colton left the room, he saw Marius kneel down next her and take her hand. He pressed it to his forehead and muttered to her in Russian as tears fell from his tightly-closed eyes.
The poison they had all been infected with was hitting some harder than others. Little Micah was in bed with symptoms of a terrible flu. His body shuddered with coughs as he lay shaking on his cot, unable to drink anything but the smallest sips of water.
Colton had peeled off his own shirt earlier and looked at himself in the mirror. The thin black veins that had appeared on his neck and forearms were spreading and getting thicker. They crawled from his arms up to his shoulders and down his back. The black veins on his neck reached up around the back of his jaw and onto his scalp beneath his hair. He touched the skin over one of the veins. It did not hurt. He pressed harder, then released. His skin flushed white, then slowly the black veins crept back. Whatever they injected into him was changing his blood.
Changing into what? he wondered.
13
The others on the balcony were deep in conversation when Colton said quietly, “What happens when Haven comes back?” They stopped and looked at him. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they hadn’t thought about it yet. “Because she’s going to come back,” he said. “And when she does, she’s going to be royally pissed off.”
Marius frowned thoughtfully. “Haven is strong, but not strong like her,” he said, jabbing a thick thumb downstairs. “She must not come back. There is nothing for her here but infected people and a bad woman who wants to kill her.”
“Then we have to warn her,” said Colton. He looked up to the peak of the dome room and out through the jagged hole where the massive swirling fan used to be. If the garage was collapsed, that hole was the only way out of the Dome—and the only way to get up to the hole was by a long series of ladder rungs—old, rusty hand-holds that ran up the inside wall of the dome from the floor to the peak of the ceiling. Colton looked at the rungs of the long ladder and his stomach dropped from vertigo—halfway up the curved dome wall, whoever was climbing the ladder would have a hard time not keeping their legs from dangling in the open air beneath them. It was a long fall down to hard concrete if they lost their grip.
“You’re not getting topside without someone noticing,” said Dormer. “Not without a—”
He stopped talking at the sound of rapidly-approaching footsteps. Kamiko led a group of four soldiers up the metal stairs to the second-tier balcony.
“There must be a cure,” whispered Adsen as Kamiko and the soldiers approached.
“What are you talking about?” asked Dormer.
“They wouldn’t have made the disease without the cure. Find it and come back. It’s the only way.”
Colton leaned forward. “Where?”
Adsen said nothing. He just shook his head and backed away from the approaching soldiers.
Dormer growled. “For God’s sake, Adsen—”
Kamiko was already next to their cots, looking down at Dormer. The soldiers stood behind her, full of silent threat. She looked from Dormer to the rest of the group with a flat expression devoid of any emotion except cold indifference. Her gaze froze on Adsen.
“You,” she said, then snapped her fingers at the soldiers. “Bring him.”
They grabbed his arms and hauled him roughly to his feet as if they were expecting some kind of resistance. Adsen offered none. He groaned weakly as the soldiers carried him away, held so high that his feet didn’t even touch the ground.
Dormer stood slowly, facing Kamiko. She returned his icy glare and smirked when she saw his fists opening and closing in anger. Normally that would have been the time for whoever was on the receiving end of Dormer’s anger to get out of the way, but Colton knew his ability had been muted just like the others in the Dome, and so all he had for Kamiko was a murderous stare.
She glanced at Colton, then turned and followed after the soldiers. Instead of taking the stairs, she hopped
easily over the balcony railing and fell toward the floor. At the last moment, brilliant blue arcs of lightning shot out from her back like spider legs and dug into the concrete floor. Her descent slowed to the speed of a falling feather, and she stepped down to the floor gracefully, as if she had just been helped out of a carriage. The bolts of lightning receded into her back and, after one more glance up at Colton, she followed the soldiers into the holding cell between the training room and the Grove.
“That’s my room,” said Dormer, and sat down in a huff.
“Looks like you sleep on the couch tonight,” said Marius with a grin.
“Will you help me get out?” asked Colton, eager to get moving. He remembered Kamiko’s threat of what would happen to his friends if he escaped.
“As I was saying,” said Dormer. “You won’t get topside without a distraction.”
“Now is as good a time as any,” said Colton.
Marius clapped and rubbed his hands together. “Marius does distractions very well,” he said.
A thought burst into Colton’s mind and formed into a plan. There was no way he could disappear and leave his friends to torture, but he still had to go out and warn Haven before she stumbled headlong into a disaster. He had to at least see her again, but if he could send someone else with her in his place, then she would have more of a chance. He looked at Marius. “You should come with me,” said Colton.
“What?!” roared Marius. He looked at the thin metal rungs bolted to the wall of the dome leading all the way up to the ragged hole. “Marius does not climb,” he said with a scowl.
“Haven’s out there on her own,” said Dormer. “Some of us need to stay here because not all of us can leave. Don’t worry, I’ll stay and look after everyone.”
“What about Kamiko?” asked Marius.
“It seems she’s more interested in my brother than anything else at the moment. I’ll distract the guards so you and Colton can escape.”
Colton shook his head. “They’ll spot us climbing out. We won’t be able to move fast enough.”
“Leave that to me,” said Dormer. He stood and walked toward the stairs. “Give me five minutes. You’ll know when to move.” He descended the stairs and disappeared into the maze of shelves and machinery that made up his workshop on the first floor of the dome room. One of the soldiers stood nearby, gun held tightly, watching Dormer closely.
Marius frowned. “Marius does not climb,” he repeated. He sat there pouting like a child who didn’t want to take a bath.
“Adsen says there has to be a cure,” said Colton. “Think of Corva and everyone else in the Dome.”
“Of course Marius will go! But that doesn’t mean he must be happy about it.” He looked up hopefully. “Perhaps you go up the ladder first and drop rope?”
“No,” said Colton as he stood. “We go together.” He walked to the railing and looked down into the workshop.
Dormer moved quickly, darting back and forth between his equipment, constructing something inside a small metal box that he carried under one arm. Marius walked over to the railing, still grumbling, and stood next to Colton.
“What’s he doing?”
“I have no idea.”
“Between you and me, I think both brothers are a little loopy.”
Dormer fit a metal lid over the exposed side of the small box and looked up at Colton. He nodded quickly. The soldier next to him readjusted his grip on his rifle and took a step forward, as if he sensed that something was about to happen.
“Here we go,” said Colton. He eased away from the railing and toward the stairs as Dormer let out a loud yell and threw the box as hard as he could. It soared through the air in a high arc toward the middle of the room. Every soldier turned and pointed their rifles at the moving object, leading it with their sights along its trajectory.
Kamiko and two more soldiers burst out of the holding cell door just as the box cracked onto the floor in the middle of the room. It sat there a moment doing nothing. Dormer looked at it in confusion. He turned to Colton and shrugged right before the soldier closest to him tackled him to the ground. More soldiers swarmed nearby, moving up and down the cluttered aisles of his workshop with their rifles ready to fire. Kamiko walked to the box, tapped it lightly with the tip of her shoe, and it exploded.
14
Haven slowed the car when a flashlight beam cut across the desert ahead. She held up her hand for Bastian and Roku to be quiet, even though no one had spoken for the last ten minutes. Haven could see the dim outline of a mountain in the distance—the mountain that sat over the garage entrance to the Dome. She quickly cut off her headlights and killed the engine. She waited, breathing in the darkness, her heart pounding in her chest. Bastian stirred in the passenger’s seat, watching intently.
The flashlight beam shined in their direction but wasn’t strong enough to reach them. The sky was a deep purple and there was no moon yet, so the ground lacked its usual ghostly glow. If there had been even a sliver of moon, Haven doubted the car would have gone unnoticed by whoever was near the Dome. Faint stars twinkled far away, their dim light doing nothing to pierce the curtain of night that lay over the desert.
Sound carried well over the flat, hard-packed ground between the car and the Dome. She slowly cranked down her window an inch and listened. A light breeze was all she heard. Haven wasn’t too worried until the person holding the flashlight shined it on a dark figure—a tall soldier in body armor with a big rifle—then another soldier before it finally clicked off and the base of the mountain returned to complete shadow.
“Three total,” she whispered. “We’ll have to walk.”
“I take it that’s not normal, then,” said Bastian, nodding toward the area where the flashlight had been.
She shook her head and slowly opened her door.
“What about scorpions?” asked Bastian quickly.
She looked at him. “You’re not serious.”
“No,” he said, trying to cover up the fact that he was. “No, of course not. Let’s get moving.” He popped open his door as quietly as he could, then looked at Haven. “After you,” he whispered.
She rolled her eyes and eased out of the car. The thin layer of loose sand covering the hard ground beneath her shoes was comforting—it meant she was close to home. Bastian got out quickly and never kept his feet in one spot for more than a millisecond until he did a thorough scan of the ground and found that it was clear. Roku stood next to the car, silent as the desert around him.
After another moment of waiting, Haven set out from the car toward the mountain. Bastian walked a few paces to her right and Roku a few to her left. They hung back a little and she was reminded of a video she had once seen of coyotes stalking an elk in one of the National Parks. The three lead animals formed an arrow aimed straight at their prey. It wasn’t until the elk became aware of the three beasts that the other pack coyotes appeared from the trees on either side, cutting off every possible escape.
Haven wished some of her friends were with her. Instead, it seemed they were stuck in the Dome, held prisoner by whoever was in charge of the soldiers outside.
Bastian stubbed his foot on something and he leapt sideways. “A rock,” he whispered with relief. “Just a tiny little rock. There’s no stinger or anything.”
“Shhh,” warned Haven as they got closer to the mountain. She could now clearly see the soldiers moving around in the gloom. There was some sort of makeshift tent or guard shack a good distance from the garage. Next to the small structure was a large black helicopter outfitted with massive machine guns on both sides. Light glowed from a spot on the ground nearby, as if a big lamp was shining out of a hole in the ground. The light illuminated the sleek features of the nearby attack chopper. It took Haven a moment to realize that the light was coming from a hole where the large fan in the ceiling of the dome room should have been.
Static crackled from a walkie-talkie and one of the soldiers lifted it to his masked face.
“All cl
ear topside,” he said, and clicked the radio off.
Haven led Bastian and Roku behind a boulder that jutted up from the sand a hundred feet from the hole. The rock was large enough to shield all three of them.
“Now would be a good time to hit them,” whispered Bastian.
Haven held up her hand for silence while she squinted into the darkness. One of the soldiers was cleaning an automatic rifle. He clacked metal against metal as he worked to disassemble the gun.
“They just called to check in,” whispered Bastian. He crouched behind the boulder next to Roku. “That means they won’t check in again for a long while. We should move.”
Haven put her back to the rock and slid down to face him. “I’m not rushing in until I know what’s going on,” she whispered. “What if my friends are inside at gunpoint and they die if anyone attempts a rescue? You don’t know who’s in there with them. It could be anyone.”
“The longer we stay out here, the less chance they have,” said Bastian.
Haven looked around the boulder and studied the movements of the three soldiers. One was inside the makeshift tent, seemingly napping in his chair; one sat on a small boulder, cleaning his gun; one walked slowly around the hole in the ground that dropped down into the main dome room.
“Can you see a door at the base of that mountain?” she asked quietly, pointing toward the garage.
Roku scooted forward, staying low. He looked into the darkness for a long time. Finally he spoke quickly in Japanese and looked at Haven, expecting her to understand.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“I’ve no idea,” whispered Bastian. “I don’t speak Japanese.”
Roku sighed. “It looks like it’s been damaged.”
“I thought Bastian said you couldn’t speak English!” whispered Haven.
“He says a lot of things,” said Roku. “You should learn to tell the truth from lies more easily.”
Bastian punched him hard in the arm. “Enough of that,” he whispered.
