by Ric Beard
Coward.
The remaining tank’s turret was turning now, and Reagan was horrified as she saw its target. The badlanders inside the cage had been annihilated and citizens were stepping over their bodies, arms at the ready, trekking toward the end of the cage, and outside the wall. The tank was pointed right at the gate out of which they flowed.
Reagan looked toward an open field southwest of the city wall as something that looked like a wall of water materialized and rippled. The watery shimmer faded, revealing the cloaked vehicle that Reagan and Sean had arrived in just hours earlier. Its turret was already raised, and a blue light grew brighter in the cylinder at its end.
Reagan smiled.
As the pulse cannon fired in the night and sent blue reflections across the grassy field, rockets raged out of the corners of what Sean called The Beast and rained down hell on the rest. The tank was bounced off its tracks as two mortars impacted it.
Reagan heard the unmistakable roar of thousands of badlanders coming from the trees. Fear shook her body as she turned her eyes on the crowd of people flooding out of the gate. Zooming and pulling back out, she desperately sought out Kade’s form among the chaos. When she located him, she wasn’t surprised to see he’d already breached the gate and was running full-tilt toward the woods from which the badlanders emerged.
Then a massive explosion so loud it rattled her ear drums shook the entire valley as a fireball raged a mile away, and a shockwave ripped through the trees.
Reagan ducked.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Oh, You Want A Fair Fight?
An eerie quiet pervaded the night in the wake of a massive explosion behind him. It had been the missile blowing the forest behind him all to hell. A look over his shoulder revealed a massive fireball in the distance climbing toward the sky and evaporating the snow that fell around it. His second and third ranks would be devoured.
Horace fumed.
Swinging his head back to the front, he was too late to stop the incoming object that caught him hard in the face and turned out the lights.
Blinking the liquid from his eyes and grinding his teeth against the pain surging through his head, Horace raised his arm and wiped it across his face. Huge wet flakes fell into his eyes, and he had to salute with his left hand as he tried to sit up in order to clear his vision. He managed to blink his eyes clear and saw two dark figures standing over him, the fire raging behind them. The backing firelight cast shadows across their faces, leaving them as black silhouettes, like the legends of the dark figures the people of the MidEast told their children about to scare them into compliance.
“So, you’re Horace,” a male voice said from the figure on the right.
“Who the hell are you?” Horace asked. Rolling onto his backside, he tried to push himself up.
A hard boot sole met his chest and he thumped back into the snow.
“Think we should take him to the city?” The female voice, coming from the figure on the left asked. The firelight behind her bathed her golden hair in orange.
The figure shook his head in response.
“Marie, when I met his friend in Asheville, I made him a promise.” The man turned his attention to Horace. “Did your man give you the message? The man I shot twice and left crippled?”
What the hell is he…oh yeah. That boy came back missing a foot and an arm. Said this guy was gonna…
Horace felt a smile creep across his face.
“Am I supposed to be scared of you, boy? You talk real tough when you’re the one standing. How ‘bout I get to my feet and we see what you can do.”
“Oh, you want a fair fight?” the man asked.
“If you’re man enough!” Horace cackled.
The man raised his rifle and jerked the pump with one hand before leveling it on Horace.
“The people of Asheville would’ve liked to have been given a fair fight, too.” The man leveled his rifle on Horace’s head. “Any final words?”
“Yeah, I got a fi—” there was a bright muzzle flash.
Chapter One Hundred
Why Are You Surprised?
They stood outside the tunnel Reagan had used to infiltrate the city unnoticed. Sean and Lexi wore large packs on their backs, fusion rifles in their hands.
Even Lexi hadn’t known about the explosive cores in the 7000 and 8000 Series devices. Since the failsafe box Reagan wielded worked in a line-of-sight fashion, it could also provide security in case anyone in the military or on the police force had their weapons stolen or if a citizen lost his or her mind and needed to be neutralized while carrying a JenCorp weapon.
After the tank blew a hole in the front-line forces, a wave of screams was followed by numerous badlanders running out of the forest on fire as the fiery ball from hell itself sliced through the trees and evaporated the rest. Its exploding core became harbinger of rage, creating a massive shockwave that ripped trees from their roots. Though it shook the wall and nearly deafened everyone standing behind it, the massive structure held.
Lexi figured the fire would burn itself out in a couple of days.
“We could use people like you, Reagan,” Lexi said. “We have plenty of room, and you’d never be hungry. It’s a hard life but a fulfilling one on days like this.”
“I’m going to stay for my father’s trial. Besides, I need to be here for Kade.”
The two women shared a look.
“Good for you. Both of you,” Sean said.
“For the record, I don’t think Mikael is going to excommunicate Vaughn,” Lexi said. “I think he’ll want to know where he is. Prison, most likely.”
“I guess. Anyway, thanks for the offer. Will you come back?”
“If we do, it will be a while.” Lexi held out her Tab.
Reagan looked at it and then pulled her own Tab out and tapped Lexi’s.
“So yours do that, too, huh?” Sean asked.
“Cell phones did it back in our day, so why are you surprised?” Lexi asked. She turned her eyes back on Reagan. “If you need us, use that frequency. You can upload code to the drones to send us a message, and the code will erase itself. But understand, we never know how long we’ll be at the compound. The Three—” she looked at Sean and corrected herself, “—The Four are going to meet up and plan what’s next. We might take a year or two, but then we’ll be off again. The MidEast needs stabilized, and The Horde is out there in the west, growing. So, if you change your mind, do it soon. After that, messages will still be received at the compound, but it might be a while before they’re relayed to us.”
“I understand.” Reagan stepped over and put her arms around Sean. “Thank you for getting me home.” She pulled herself back and kissed him on the cheek.
“Try to take care of yourself,” Sean said.
Lexi patted Sean’s back.
“We have a long trip, big brother. Lucian and Marie—Jenna, whatever—are scouting ahead, but we still have a couple miles to travel to get to our bikes.”
The two women clasped hands and squeezed, then released.
Reagan turned and walked back into the tunnel. Sean watched her go.
Lexi punched her brother on the shoulder. “Ready to start your new life?”
To his surprise, Sean felt excitement bubbling up inside. He was ready.
Chapter One Hundred One
Enjoying the View
The spring sun shone on Sean’s face as he lounged on the second story deck of the restored cabin once owned by his parents and watched the people of the community below. There were no walls here, no guards standing watch on the perimeter.
What had been dirt and gravel roads leading into and out of the community in the early twenty-first century grew over and washed out. The single path into the compound was wide enough for foot traffic and hover bikes, but the climb was steep, and any outsiders would think twice about scaling it, especially since no one knew it was here. If anyone adventurous did come calling, scanners set throughout the forest waited to report thei
r presence and warn the people here.
As they walked among the tall pines together a week after they arrived, Lexi pointed out the detectors Lucian built into the trees that monitored for air traffic. She explained that they sought out drones, hacked into their systems, and redrew the area in their databases as if it were an empty mountain top with a collapsed cabin and utility shed, a ghost of the old world that held little interest to cities both near and far.
The forest was also equipped with auto turrets, animal traps, and all kinds of other defense mechanisms to ensure the compound’s safety from the prying eyes of the still-evolving world below. As he looked out across the beautiful scene, lower rocky peaks over two green valleys, vertical rock faces, thick pines, and a sky he could see for miles, Sean wondered at what this community had built.
Everyone here had a purpose; even the children chipped in from the midst of their schooling. The underground compound, built by tobacco companies in the late twentieth century in anticipation of the legalization of marijuana, had been fashioned into a haven for these, the great-great-grandchildren of the old world. There were many more than Sean expected to find when they arrived. One elderly woman named Janice told Sean about how she had met his sister when she came to her township after she was raped. At the time, the woman had been nineteen years old. Janice was the anchor holding the community together when The Three, as they were called here, went off on their missions. But this had been the first time that their mission lasted years, and Janice was overwhelmed with joy to see Lexi and Lucian.
Sean’s first real conversation with Lucian really expressed what Lexi had become. While Sean bounced from township to township over the years, learning to grow food and helping towns bolster their defenses, his sister absorbed all the knowledge she could, built systems that helped this community thrive, and braved the world to obtain more knowledge and recruit the right people. Lucian, Jenna, and Lexi risked their lives to bring electronic books and hard drives to start the massive databases running on servers beneath the ground. Their parents’ plant research was there, including data on GMO technologies that helped them grow enough food to ensure survival through harsh mountain winters. Acquiring that information had been Lexi’s last stop before coming to the mountain. She’d lived off the company’s GMO stock for three weeks while she toiled over data, making sure she got what she needed.
There was a weapons lab further down the mountain on the treacherous north face. A plant research lab, a medical facility—it all blew Sean’s mind. It was a bi-level city unto itself. It struck Sean that this might be the most advanced scientific research location on the planet, regardless of Triangle city’s labs.
Down below, a hatch camouflaged by grass, rocks, and a tree sapling as real as a rubber houseplant opened from the ground, and a lovely head of red hair emerged atop a slender-but-muscular feminine frame. Lexi threw her arms up for a stretch and turned her face toward the sun. Lucian came up behind her. The sister he hadn’t seen in a century was a beautiful woman, brimming with confidence. In this place, she was both a leader and a matron to its people. She was a marksman and a confidant. She was an engineer of many disciplines. She was his family.
Since they arrived here, and Sean saw how Lexi embraced the people who had obviously anticipated her return, her shroud of violent determination blew away with the cool mountain breezes of winter, and a shadow of the Miranda he remembered was back with the spring. She was softer here, a gentle soul who laughed and cried with her people.
Lexi turned and looked up at the cabin. She saw Sean—the name by which she now called him—and waved. He waved back, unable to suppress the smile he felt creep onto his face each time he saw his living sister, his family, in the flesh. Sharing their stories, they’d laughed and cried together. They’d been inseparable from the moment they’d met on the steps of City Hall, and Sean wouldn’t have it any other way. He planned on keeping her in his sight this time.
Lexi ran over to the clearing below the cabin and looked up at him. She seemed to run everywhere she went. Lucian walked casually behind her until he caught up.
“Hey, guys,” Sean said.
“Hey, big brother,” Lexi yelled up at him. “Enjoying the view again?”
Sean looked out across the scene and waved a hand at it.
“I can’t get enough of it,” he said. “It’s so much better than the view of Old I-40.”
On April 1, 2137, Lexi, Jenna, Lucian, Sean, and Scruff—who still went by Scruff—sat on the second level deck of the cabin, looking up at the stars, chatting, and feeling the cool spring breeze pass across the mountain. Jenna’s fingers were interlocked with Sean’s, their rocking chairs scooted close together. The moon created ghosts of the daytime vista Sean enjoyed, reflecting the vertical rock faces in the night. As Sean looked around at the people with whom he shared this place, he realized with satisfaction that he had something he’d never had over the years, as he bounced from place to place, something he’d longed for, but never created for himself.
A home.
Epilogue
“The Black is survival,” they chanted.
“The Black is our shroud.”
“The Black is camouflage at night.”
“Like us, all colors of the spectrum merge into black.”
“One cannot take lightly the power or the responsibility of The Black.”
“We are The Black.”
Silence ensued as the blackness of the tower surrounded them. Moss’s slow, steady breathing next to Sasha was devoid of rhythm, lingering, smooth.
“Will you return to OK City?” Sasha asked.
“Focus, advocate.”
“When did you know Shaw was one of them?”
“Focus, advocate.”
She sighed.
“Don’t sigh, just focus.”
Was it a smile she heard in his voice?
“I do this every day, boss. Debrief, please?”
It was Moss’s turn to sigh.
“And tell them what?”
“What?”
“If I were to go back to OK City, what would I tell them? That Jenna Clark and Sean Stone slipped away from me? That Jenna was actually a spy? Do you think they might turn their eyes on me if I said such things?”
“I was just asking, boss.”
“Sorry, I’m a little wound up.”
“I understand. So, when did you know Shaw was a member of The Foundation?”
“We linked her to Miles through The Triangle City Underground when we tapped into the DarkWeb. We figured out she was Labyrinth. When we hacked her immigration record, we saw that she came to the city a few months before Miles…Lucian, I guess his name is.”
“Then why did she suddenly become the main target? Why did I put so much focus on her?”
“Because we figured out something else about her.”
“What’s that?”
“You know the mythology in the MidEast about the Widow?”
“Sure. The one who cleaned up the eastern townships? Got rid of the thugs and assassinated that Pratt fellow who proclaimed himself leader?”
“Yes, that Widow.”
“I’ve always wondered why they called her the Widow. Did her husband die?”
“There’s a deadly spider with a red mark on its belly. It’s called a Black Widow.”
“Wait a second, boss. Are you telling me Lexi Shaw is the assassin?”
“Yes.”
“But that would make her, like, fifty years old.”
“Much older, actually. Lexi Shaw lived before the fall.”
“Ok, you’re pulling at my boot straps, now, boss. Have you seen Lexi Shaw?”
“Met her in an alley in Triangle City.”
Sasha fanned herself. “It is, indeed, a pleasure to lay eyes upon that specimen of a woman.”
“Advocate.”
“Sorry. But boss, she can’t be thirty years old.”
“Right. Neither can Jenna Clark. Neither can Lucian Gray. As I’ve lea
rned recently, neither can Sean Stone.”
“They all know each other?”
“Stone and Shaw are siblings.”
“You have got to be shitting me!”
“Language.”
“Sorry.”
“Apologies are weak in the absence of the will to change, advocate.”
She had no response.
“How did Stone get the truck?”
“How else? When the abbot pulled back our forces and withdrew to cower inside the walls of our home, he sent an insurance policy to OK City in the form of a stealth weapon. Seems he is hedging his bets in case The Horde doesn’t keep up their end of the arrangement.”
“If The Horde is as bad as you’ve always told me, there’s no reason Abbot Foster will suffer any better fate than any other who has tried to deal with them.”
“You are wise beyond your years, Sasha.”
“So will we reach out to them?”
“To The Foundation? To Shaw and Clark?”
“Yes.”
“We will reach out when the time is right.”
“When?”
“When the time is right.”
“Do you have to be so god—” she hesitated. “So cryptic?”
“They’ve been away or a long time. They will want to recover and spend time with their families at their compound. But the aid given to the western Horde by our treacherous, traitorous abbot, will soon force our hands. In the meantime, let them rest.”
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