Genesis (Extinction Book 1)

by Nading, Miranda

  “To do what you do best, Melanie,” Bishop purred and leaned over her shoulder from behind to rub his damaged cheek against hers. “To fly, and to remember to whom you owe your allegiance.”

  A sudden lurch beneath her tossed Mel forward, forcing her to lean on Bishop. His smile said it all. He knew the desires that dominated her heart and would use them to put her on her knees. With a nod from him, the cuffs were unlocked and pulled from her wrists as the floor began a gentle descent towards the lower level.

  “How could this be without anyone knowing?” Mel breathed as the aircraft below began to grow closer, revealing their true size.

  “You’ve been gone a long time, Mel. Sixteen years.” He stroked her neck and she bit her bottom lip. Before Ryan, Bishop held the stars and the moon in his hands. But that was before she realized who he was, what he was capable of. “The old man kept a close eye on you. Steered you where he wanted you. All for this. All to come home and be who you were meant to be.”

  “And what is that?” she asked. “What am I meant to be?”

  “A queen in the new age of man.”

  The plate slammed home, the sound oddly muted among the magnificent aircraft that filled the strange hanger. On the ships she’d served on since becoming a Marine Corp pilot, metal on metal echoed the loudest, letting everyone know they were in the belly of the most powerful beast on earth.

  Hidden under the sands and waters of the South China Sea, the sounds were subdued, hushed. Despite the marvels around her, it felt like a tomb. Even her footsteps, as she stepped toward the nearest aircraft, were softened to a whisper as if afraid to disturb these sleeping dragons.

  Sleek and black, each was the size of a two-story house, their lines softened so no sharp edges or corners could be found. Sliding her hand along one stunted wing, she found the metal soft to the touch, and warm. Like nothing she had ever touched before.

  “Carbon fibers, a new matrix designed just for this fleet,” Bishop said, as if in answer to her thoughts.

  “I’m going to fly one of these?”

  “Sooner than you can imagine, but not yet,” Bishop took her arm as he had done years before, as if he’d never betrayed her. As if Ryan had never existed or come between them. He turned with her, heading across the cavern toward a Lear Jet. So common, so normal, after everything she had seen. “You have a little more training to go.”

  Dressed in tight-fitting black suits that crawled with tubes and conduits, a small squadron of men stood in formation, too far away for her to hear what they were saying in the strange, still air. “If not here, where?”

  “You remember your good friend Tom?”

  Mel stopped and stared at Bishop. Her mind reeling from the turn of events that had led her to this place, this time. Eagle’s body was not even cold yet, still she felt like a lifetime had passed. “You’re kidding.”

  “When the time comes, that is where we will need you to be.”

  “NASA?”

  “To start with,” Bishop smiled and took her shoulders. “Before the year is out, he’ll have you in command of the ISS.”

  “The International Space Station?”

  Sliding his hand around her neck, up into her hair, Bishop grabbed a handful and pulled her head back until she was looking up at him. His lips only inches from hers, she could see the Bishop she had learned to loathe burning in his eyes.

  “He trusts you, Melanie. I do not,” he whispered and leaned in close enough to kiss her. “Sixteen years isn’t so long as to make me forget what you did. I’ll be watching you. Give me one good reason and I’ll kill you.”

  “And does your hand have such a reach as the space station?”

  “Yes.”

  Mel smiled and stood on tiptoe, brushing her lips against his as she had done when they were both young. “I know where I belong.”

  “We’ll see.”

  12

  “Three agents remained on the train,” Ling announced as he slid the cabin door closed and took a seat next to Mittie Kate. “Why haven’t they tried to arrest us?”

  Watching the sunrise over Lake Baikal, Mittie Kate didn’t turn around. Sleep had been hard to come by through the night and the luxurious coach had become a prison, yet it had given her plenty of time to think. “They have no intention of arresting us. They’re still toying with us.”

  “Do you think they’ll let us leave?”

  “Yes.” She finally turned in her seat and refilled her coffee cup. “They’re keeping an eye on us to make sure we do. But they want us to know they’re watching.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Intimidation,” she sighed. “It’s an old game. They have at least three of our agents, maybe more. And they’ve made sure we know. Think about it, of the three people in Washington, someone had to turn them over. The new President? The Secretary of State? It has to be someone that holds my leash.”

  “Regardless of where we go, they have us trapped?”

  “Pretty much.” She took a sip, then smiled. “At least that’s what they think.”

  Ling moved to take a sip of his tea and was startled into a very un-Confucius like jump that made Mittie Kate grin. The grin faded as Ling looked at his phone, then glanced up to meet her eyes. “Unknown caller on the emergency number.”

  She nodded her head and he put it on speaker. “Hello?”

  “Ling, we have a serious problem.” The caller’s voice was unmistakable and Mittie Kate let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding.

  “Max, you old bastard.” Ling dropped his head into his hand, a rare show of his relief. “We’ve been trying to contact you. We’ve lost agents in Russia, China, and South Korea.”

  “You almost lost one in Dubai. Listen, I know who was behind Genesis, but you’re not going to believe it. William Maitland.”

  “Of the Central Organization for Research and Exploration? That William Maitland?”

  “None other. From the sounds of it, that was the least of his plans. The guy I spoke to seems to think Maitland’s end game is some kind of planetary coup.”

  “What exactly did he say?” Mittie asked, reaching for Ling’s free hand.

  “He referred to Maitland as the antichrist.” While Max filled her in on his conversation with Yousef, Mittie Kate grew cold. The picture he painted was one of such bleak devastation, she could barely fathom the sheer evil involved. The man the world saw as a technological genius, the savior of modern man, was insane.

  “Are you safe?” she asked when he finished his tale.

  “Yes, they’re prepping the cargo plane now, I’m hitching a ride to the U.S. via the scenic route with Yousef in tow. Istanbul to France and then the U.S.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Yeah.” Max sighed. “And you know that don’t come easy. I’ll be in Washington day after tomorrow. I think you’ll have better questions for him than I do.”

  “No.” Mittie Kate leaned forward. “Head toward location Delta. We’ll contact the others.”

  “Are you coming?”

  “Eventually. I think we need to make an appearance in Washington. They’ll be watching for us and they need to believe they have us hamstrung.”

  “Mittie, you’re not buying into this Armageddon thing, are you?”

  “Do I think Maitland is the antichrist? No. But he has certainly put himself in a position to bring the world to its knees if he chooses to do so. Merchant services, medical technology, it all ties back to him. Even if he was just responsible for the Genesis device, for what happened in Mexico, I would want his head on a pike. But our priority is finding out what else he’s been up to and what else he’s been hiding.”

  Ling gave her hand a squeeze, “Lay low for a while. All of you. We need Maitland’s men to believe the stinger has been pulled from our tail.”

  Mittie Kate held tight to her dearest friend. On the surface, she appeared calm, decisive. Inside, she was terrified. “We’ll let you know when you’ll be free to move abou
t. I want you on Maitland, take him out if you can, but get the rest on tracking down his assets. We need information.”

  “I just happen to have a pike with his name on it.”

  “Max,” Mittie Kate debated on whether or not to share her thoughts, “how long did your man think we have until Maitland shows his true hand?”

  “He didn’t say. It could be tomorrow or ten years from now. But something like this would take time, resources. Surely we’d have seen the trail of something this big in the works.”

  “He’s been so active in plain sight it could have been camouflage for what he was really doing.” In the end, she decided she cared too much for both men not to tell them what she was thinking. “I think you’re informant was right. Maitland’s technology is so entrenched, his reach so spread out, that killing him won’t stop what’s coming. There is always another megalomaniac ready to fill Hitler’s shoes and I’ll bet a buffalo nickel he has surrounded himself with men just like him.”

  “However, it may cause enough confusion in the trenches for us to figure out how to handle it,” Ling suggested.

  “That’s my thought on it,” Mittie Kate agreed. “At least mitigate the damages. All right, Max. Get home and watch your butt. We’ll be in touch when it’s safe.”

  “Ling, take care of the old girl.”

  “I try, my friend. Be safe,” Ling smiled and disconnected. When he turned to Mittie Kate, his eyes held a dark mixture of anger and fear that she was not used to seeing in those calm pools. “It’s not just clean drinking water and medical care, Maitland has his hands in everything now. He’s not just part of the system, he is the system. If he falls, there will be an economic and technological collapse. No government will allow that to happen. We have already seen proof of this with our agents. So how do we hope to do anything to stop this if we cannot trust our own government?”

  “I trust you and Max, my friend. No one else. From here on out, we are on our own.”

  13

  Ryan brushed a sleepy hand at his ear to rid himself of the insistent chirping, opening his eyes only after smacking himself in the side of the head. It took a moment for him to remember how he’d fallen asleep in such an uncomfortable position, but the gluttony of pizza and ice cream cartons brought it all back.

  Eve was a warm weight on his side, sleeping nuzzled up against him as she hadn’t done since she was a child. Easing out from under her, Ryan put the couch pillow under her head and reached out to shut the infernal phone off before it could wake her.

  Stepping into the kitchen, he put the phone to his ear and offered a groggy hello.

  “Ryan, this is Ellen.” Getting a call in the middle of the night from the secretary to the Board of Directors was never a good thing. “There’s been an accident.”

  After getting a few calls like this in the past, Ryan wished he’d never accepted the position on the board. The worst possible scenario was one that had become all too common, a girl had been caught walking back to her car alone. “Another rape?”

  “No sir. A fire. In the communications lab.”

  Ryan froze with a glass of water halfway to his mouth. It seemed to him that every neuron in his brain had ceased firing. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Cedric’s lab, Ryan. It’s been burned out. There are cops and firemen everywhere.” She spoke in a rush, then hesitated before adding in hushed tones. “They think Cedric and one of his students were in there.”

  Stunned, Ryan walked back around the corner of the kitchen to stare down at his child, sleeping with a full belly of junk food and a head full of Abbott and Costello. “I’m on my way.”

  Hanging up the phone, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t take his eyes off of Eve. Calling Marcus had lifted a huge weight from his shoulders. He’d been able to kick back and relax and enjoy a rare childish evening with his daughter. Now, it was no longer a crushing weight, but a wrecking ball.

  Unless Cedric or Adam spoke to someone, and he really didn’t think that likely, no one else had known what they were up to. That left Marcus. If he was involved, how much danger did that put Eve in? What lengths would they go to cover it up?

  “Eve, wake up,” Ryan shook her shoulder, hating to take her to such a horrible scene, but unable and unwilling to leave her there alone. “There’s been an accident on campus and we need to go.”

  Eve sat up, her eyes alert and the mind behind them appeared to be firing on all cylinders. Her youthful brain responded much faster than did his own. “Another girl?”

  “No, a fire. Get dressed, I’ll meet you at the car.”

  Grabbing a pair of jeans from his drawer, he had one leg in and the other started when the chiming began. Soft, buried under the clothes in his drawer, he barely heard it. With a trembling hand, he pulled it out. He didn’t need any more riddles, no more puzzles that pulled him deeper into this madness. Against his better judgment, he swiped the screen to reveal the message.

  “Keep her safe. Trust no one. When the collapse comes, get to Heart Mountain in Wyoming. Ask for Gunny, my brother.”

  “What in the hell have you gotten us into?” he demanded, typing as fast as his thumbs would go.

  No answer followed. Frustrated, he pulled the phone back, ready to throw it against the wall. At the last second he held it to his chest and clenched his jaw to keep from yelling. He moved to throw it back in the drawer and stopped. If she acknowledged him, he wanted answers. He’d text her every five minutes for the next ten years if it came to that.

  Shoving the phone into his pants pocket, he snatched his keys off the dresser and headed for the garage. Four in the morning was too early for the students of their little college town, or anyone else for that matter, to be out and about. The roads were clear so he turned on his hazard lights and ran every stop light between his house and the university.

  “Do you have the key I gave you for my office?”

  “Yeah.” Eve yawned. “Why?”

  “When we get there, if it’s clear, I want you to go in the back way to my office. Lock the door behind you.”

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  His heart screamed to tell her everything. The call from her mother, the satellite images, everything. “Just a fire,” he lied. “I just want to know exactly where you are in case they don’t have everything under control.”

  “You’ve never kept anything from me before. I don’t think I like it.”

  He should have known better. “I’m not sure, Peanut. And I don’t want to worry you with it until I am. Not until it’s necessary.”

  “It might help to talk about it.” She reached out and took his free hand, giving it a squeeze. “You know I won’t tell anyone what we talk about.”

  Pulling into the parking lot, he got as close as he could to his office without getting too close to the emergency vehicles or faculty cars that clogged the front few rows. Above them, steam and smoke boiled into the night sky, backlit by a few small cherries of light that the firemen were still focusing their hoses on.

  He shut off the engine and turned to look at his daughter.

  In many ways, Eve was as fragile as any flower. Crowds, close scrutiny from anyone not him, crushed something inside of her, leaving her a nervous wreck. He had no idea how the knowledge that the world was teetering on the brink of the worst catastrophe in human history would affect her.

  Worse still was the knowledge that Cedric and Adam had died because of him. He was her safe place, her only harbor in a storm of people and sensory overload. To see his failure reflected back in those green eyes would be too much.

  “They believe the fire claimed two lives tonight. Emotions are going to be high. I don’t want you around that. Not until things cool off.”

  Using her emotional shortcomings against her, felt like the final nail in his karmic coffin. The fact that it worked only made him feel worse.

  Her head snapped around to survey the smoking ruins at the top of the science building. “Someone was in there? Who?”

&
nbsp; “We’ll talk about it after I find out more. I promise.”

  She continued to stare at the damage, tears already forming in her soft eyes and he pulled her to him. He knew her brain wasn’t working over who might have been in there, but how they might have died. Her empathy, her wicked imagination, was only part of the reason she was so raw and vulnerable around other people.

  “We won’t stay any longer than we have to, Peanut.”

  Unable to speak, she nodded her head and pulled the keys from her pocket. He watched her small form weave through cars, avoiding the press of people gathered to watch the macabre show. When she disappeared into the shadows, he ran for the building.

  After a five minute search, he found the Fire Marshall. “Mike, what happened?”

  “Ryan.” Mike’s ready smile was nowhere to be seen as he shook Ryan’s hand. “Looks like an electrical short in one of the computer consoles. Once everything cools off, I’ll be able to get a better look at it to know for sure.”

  “A short?” Could it really be something so easy, something as mundane as a short in the wiring?

  “Yeah, come on up.” Mike tossed him a hat and jacket. “I’ll show you.”

  After adding knee length boots over his own tennis shoes, Ryan followed Mike as he worked his way up the front staircase. The floor to ceiling windows that graced the three floor stairway had shattered. Following the beam of Mike’s flashlight, Ryan felt as if he’d stepped into the smoke-filled, blackened hull of a ship instead of the stairs he had climbed just hours before.

  The doorway he had leaned against had been blown off its hinges. Inside was the dark remains of the most technologically advanced lab any campus ever had. Cedric’s dream machine. As soon as the thought was in his head, his eyes began searching for anything that even remotely resembled a body.

  “Ellen said she thought there was someone in here?”