Killer Edge: Navigator Book Three

by SD Tanner

  “I don’t care. Shoot ‘em. Suit up in nav gear and rip their fucking heads off. Just make sure they’re disabled or we’ll be right back where we started.”

  The woman’s eyes widened and she said sharply, “Gimme a gun. I’ll shoot them.”

  He nodded at her. “That’s the spirit.”

  Before he could call the medical team to the main building, Hood grabbed him by his arm. “What did you do?”

  “I blew the baby bots before they got to the bottom of the nest.”

  Once the implications of his words sunk in, Hood gave him a look of understanding. “Oh, I get it now.” Nodding firmly at him, he added, “We’re on it.” As Hood walked away, he heard him ask the woman, “What’s your name?”

  “Alice,” she replied chirpily,

  Dayton and the medical team arrived within a few minutes and began to treat the injured. Critters tore bodies apart in ways that weren’t easy to fix without the full resources of a hospital and theirs was far too small. Some people were beyond saving, but at least they were able to medicate them for their pain. The shock of the attack was wearing off and people were finally beginning to do more than stumble about looking stunned. Some were throwing the critter parts out of the building, and others were crying as they carried the corpses of people who had been their friends. Amber found her husband and children, clutching them to her as if she would never let them go again.

  Hood organized his squads quickly and shots were already ringing out as they blew away the heads of the flattened critters. He was convinced it was only a question of time before the thing in the nest would reactivate its soldiers. There wasn’t much more he could do, and as he wheeled himself away from the floor, Dunk and Bill met him at the elevator door.

  “That was close,” Bill remarked dourly.

  “We didn’t get what we needed, did we?” Dunk asked.

  He shook his head, making Bill loudly curse as only a soldier could. People around them gave Bill a startled look and pulled away. He guessed they’d had enough violence for one day and he shook his head at Bill. It was what it was and there was no point wishing it were any different. If he’d made the wrong call then they would all pay the price.

  Looking at Bill and waving his hand at the room, he said, “You need to mop this mess up.”

  “Yeah, I’m on it.”

  A man followed by an aging dog and a woman made their way towards them. Stopping in front of his chair, the man said, “My name’s Ryan.” Gesturing to the dog, he added, “This is Binkin and the lady is Annalese. What do you need us to do?”

  He flicked his head at Bill. “Follow his orders.” As he turned to face the elevator, Dom’s excited voice came through his earpiece. “Ark!”

  “Don’t shout, Dom. I’ve already got a fucking headache.”

  “I found a bot. It’s still moving. It’s still filming.”

  For the first time in hours, a wide grin spread across his face and it pulled uncomfortably against the tightened skin around his mouth. “Fuuucking A.” Giving Bill and Dunk a wicked look, he said, “Gentlemen, we’re back in business. Dom found a working bot.”

  Dunk leaned forward and pressed the button for the elevator. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Free the mind (Cassie)

  Tensing while she waited to hear the voice of her monotone master, she realized her mind was finally her own again. The voice that could take control of her had vanished without warning and it made her wonder if it had ever really existed. Trying to sit upright, her wrists were being held against the railing on the bed. The cuff on one of her wrists felt loose and she pulled and tugged at it until she managed to free her hand. Her other arm was black and instead of a hand she had three lethally sharp claws. Using her human hand, she unbuckled the strap on her alien wrist, and leaning forward she untied her ankles. Drawing her knees to her chest, she felt something odd attached to her. Touching it, she traced her fingers over a small box that was firmly taped to her collarbone.

  Searching her memory, she tried to disentangle those that belonged to the master and those that were hers alone. Her mind was an untidy mess of thoughts and feelings, but the emotions were all hers. The fear and anger belonged to her, as did the anxiety and worry. Digging beneath her feelings for the cause, the face of a young boy floated through her mind. He was around four years of age, but she knew that wasn’t right. Bringing the boy into sharper focus, his face transformed into an older version of the toddler until he was in his late teens.

  “Ben,” she whispered to herself.

  Speaking aloud for what felt like the first time in months helped to untangle her thoughts and she said loudly, “Ben is my brother.”

  She touched the box taped to her collarbone. “They record everything I say.” Her mind grasped the thought and she realized she was wrong. “They record everything the master says.”

  The words she’d been uttering had not been her own and she hadn’t spoken for herself in a long time. “The master is gone.”

  Looking around the room, she remembered she was in a hospital and she held her alien arm to her face, studying it clinically. “I was infected.”

  She had a vision of a shadowy room lit only by a sticky substance. “I was in a room with other people and we could not leave.”

  The room and the master were connected. It controlled the sticky substance just as it commanded the ugly rubbery creatures. She didn’t want to think about the monsters and her mind shifted again to her brother. “I must find Ben.”

  Now feeling surer of herself, she edged her body to the side of the bed and dropped her feet to the floor. The hardness was cool against her bare feet and she shivered slightly. Every day a kind woman would help her move around the hospital, making sure she washed and ate. Everything she did was only under the guidance of the woman or the control of the master, and her mind and body had not been her own.

  Reaching under the bed for the slippers she knew were there, she slipped her feet inside of their comforting fluffy interior. Her body ached and forcing herself to straighten, she felt as if she was sixty years old and not a young woman of nineteen. “I…I…I hurt.”

  She had no idea where she was, and moving unsteadily to the door, she stared at the empty tall desk in front of her. It was where the woman who helped her every day sat watching over her while she mumbled and slept. Nodding at the table as if the woman was there, a tear slipped down her cheek. “Thank you.”

  Her reality had been secondary to that of the master. The master was not a person, or even a he or a she. It didn’t live to be alive and nor could it die. Much like its puppets, it existed to do a task and once complete, it would simply cease to move. “The master does not live.”

  It had no memories other than those it had learned since it was awakened. Inside of it were other minds and she could see theirs just as they could see hers. “I am not the master’s only slave.”

  The other minds had screamed and howled when they were first taken until they tired and became numb. There was no escape from the master and they couldn’t die any more than it could live. Like the master, they served a purpose and they would not cease to exist until it was finished with them. “We are the master’s prisoners.”

  Their minds contained information, but her mind was special to the master and she had not been fully absorbed. She provided the master with more knowledge than the other minds and it wanted her to stay as she was. “I am being used.”

  Anger leaked through her consciousness. She hadn’t agreed to being used. Whatever the master was, it had no right to take what belonged to her. “I hate the master.”

  It was more than hate, it was a burning rage and she wanted it to die, but she knew it couldn’t. “The master cannot die.”

  Shuffling along the corridor, she found a door that led to the stairs. Usually there were people in the hospital and she wondered where they were. “Where is everyone?”

  The long line of stairs leading downward looked daunting and she
hesitated, but the image of the young man floated through her mind. She wanted to find him, and clutching at the rail, she shuffled one foot over the edge of the first stair, worried she might tumble all the way to the bottom. The master could make her do things she didn’t want to and so could she. It could make people become things they weren’t supposed to be just as it had with her. Her change had been arrested, and while she struggled down the stairs, she wondered how that was possible.

  Based on what the master knew, she’d learned the seeds of change had been planted a millennia ago. “We were seeded.”

  It was a deliberate act to seed their planet and they were following a plan, but her master obeyed the orders of another. “The master has a master.”

  Exhausted by reaching the end of the first set of stairs, she stopped and allowed her trembling to subside. Thinking of the master helped distract her and she reached for the next bannister. The master felt no fear. It couldn’t die so there was nothing for it to gain or lose. It didn’t have desire or want. It didn’t care or grieve. There was nothing about the master that remotely resembled a human. It seemed odd that it would want the human race so badly that it would destroy everything to have it, but it didn’t want them for itself. “The master doesn’t want us.”

  Controlling a mind was a two-way street. The master had left as many footprints through her mind as she had through its. Taking one slow step at a time, she explored more thoughts the master had left inside of her mind. The master’s memory was filled with violent and chaotic scenes where people died horrifically. Cities burned and blood flowed wherever it went, but not all humans were sacrificed. More were held prisoner inside of the ruined cities. It had been told to gather them together, making her wonder why. When she searched the legacy left inside of her mind, she learned that other than to know that they were needed, the master didn’t care why. “The people are needed.”

  What purpose would they serve? She scanned the master’s memory looking for an answer and found nothing she understood. The master was not alone. It was only one of many master’s scattered across the planet. “There is more than one master.”

  The answer wasn’t even as simple as that. There were others, but they weren’t here yet. They were waiting to be called to the planet to take the final step. “More are coming.”

  When the others arrived, they would harvest the people, taking them to where they were needed. She still didn’t understand what they wanted them for, but she knew what they would do with them. “We will be harvested.”

  Their planet had been seeded, and like a well-planted crop, they had flourished for a purpose they knew nothing about. People had been born, lived and died believing that they existed only for themselves. Did a herd of cows know they existed only to be eaten? Were they only the herd of another species, allowed to live until they were needed? Did they exist only at the whim of the master’s master that had created them? The thought conflicted with everything she’d been taught. Nothing in her life had ever suggested she was no more than the cattle of another species. They had free will, but now she wasn’t sure they were supposed to. “Are we a mistake?”

  She’d reached the last of the stairs and the door to the outside world stood closed in front of her. The moment she opened the door the truth would be revealed. Was she the last person left alive? Had they already been harvested? Scanning her master’s memories, she found nothing that indicated their task was finished, and it gave her the confidence to push open the door. Outside, darkness peeked around the edges of the brilliant lights above the lawn. Bodies of the creatures were stretched across the scrubby grass, and people were moving between them. A sharp crack was followed by a bright light as they fired their weapons at the prone creatures, and the sounds of gunshots were ringing repeatedly from every direction.

  A man wearing a metal suit stamped heavily towards her. “Cassie!”

  She recognized him as the one who often stood outside of her door and he always spoke to her kindly. Her mouth curved into a smile, but he continued to point his gun at her chest. Stopping only six feet in front of her, he asked, “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

  Unsure what to do next she nodded shyly. The man shouldered his weapon and grinned back at her. “You’re awake.” Quickly covering the short distance between them, he gathered her into a tight hug so that his hard and unyielding armor pressed against her body. Pushing her away from him and staring at her eyes intently, he asked, “Can you speak?”

  She nodded again. “I…I know you.”

  Smiling even more widely, he laughed with delight. “I knew it! I knew you could hear us. I’m Jake. I’m sort of half a nav.” Shrugging and winking at her, he added, “Can’t use the visor and I’m a bad shot so they won’t let me outside of here.” When she looked at him blankly, he added, “I’ve been watching over you since you’ve been…sick.”

  His voice was familiar and she said tentatively, “You…you read to me.”

  Jakes eyes softened. “Yeah, I do. I knew you could hear me.” When she flinched at the sound of a gun firing near her, he wrapped his large arm around her and added seriously, “I need to take you to Ark.”

  She was already exhausted and didn’t think she could make her way around the clutter of prone creatures. Seeing her indecision, Jake easily lifted her in his arms and carried her across the lawn. While he strode towards the large building, he spoke to her in barrage of words. “Ark is in the command center. He’s gonna wanna talk to you. You’ve been saying some weird stuff while you were sick. Your brother has been sleeping at the hospital with you. That kid loves ya like crazy. He’s been training to become a nav and he’s doing really well. I think he wants my job, you know, to watch over you…”

  While he kept up his endless chatter, she studied everything around her. The creatures were mostly in pieces. Men and women wearing camouflage uniforms continued to push their bodies around, making sure every one of them was destroyed. Other people were covered in bandages and even more were moving around the building looking shocked. Something bad had happened and she searched her master’s memory again. “The master knows about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It knows you can break it.”

  “Break what, sweetheart?”

  “The plan.”

  Jake was clumping down the stairs taking her underground, jarring her body as she bumped against his hard armor. Using his broad shoulder, he pushed the door at the bottom of the stairs open, calling as he did, “Ark! Cassie’s awake.”

  A man in a chair swung around to face them as they walked into the room. She recognized this man too. His scarred face had stared into hers more than once. Opening her mouth to speak, her body stiffened as the master once more took control of her mind.

  “Cassie?” Ark asked softly.

  She couldn’t answer him, but even under the control of the master, she felt tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks.

  Shaking his head, Ark said, “Sorry, Jake, but I think she’s gone again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Calling a win (Leon)

  They were on their way back to CaliTech when Ark had interrupted their conversation to talk to Cassie. Ark said Jake had just carried her into the command center and even he wanted to know what she had to say. Only able to hear part of their conversation, Ark told Jake she was gone again. If that were true, then it was disappointing. Cassie was clearly in contact with whatever was inside of the nest, and if it was back then so were the critters.

  Their trip back to CaliTech had been strange. When Ark exploded the baby bots inside of the nest, every critter around them dropped to the ground and lost their strange green glow. They’d stopped to study one of them and it hadn’t looked dead to him. Dead critters dried out and flattened like a squashed spider, whereas the critters they’d seen were still a dull rubbery black. Although lying flat with their legs sprawled around them, they remained solid looking. Just as Ark informed Jake that Cassie was gone again, the area around him l
it with the familiar green glow of the critters.

  “Ugh,” Lexie complained. “They’re back.”

  “What was that, Lexie?” Ark asked.

  “The critters are back.”

  “I didn’t think we got it.”

  “I s’pose you’re mad at me now.”

  “Why would I be?”

  “Because I wouldn’t stay at the nest.”

  “I’m not mad at you. It was a no win situation.”

  Not wanting to listen to Ark and Lexie bicker in a flirtatious way, he said, “It wouldn’t have been safe to go inside of the nest anyway. The moment you blew the bots early, there wasn’t a lot we could do.”

  “That’s not true, Leon,” Ark objected. “The thing inside there clearly shut down for a while. It was probably the only time you could have gotten inside of the nest safely. You had a clear shot at it.”

  He supposed Ark had a point, but it was Lexie who’d flatly refused to stay at the nest. His squad would have followed Ark’s orders, and only she could have made him agree with her by insisting she would leave. He had allowed his need to protect Lexie to lead his decision to have them return to CaliTech. Once Ark had blown up the nest, the critters had collapsed and they weren’t needed at CaliTech after all. It was a complete fuck up and Ark knew it, but he sympathized with him. Against everyone’s better judgment, he’d gone to Seattle to find his wife and unborn son. It had been a wasted mission that could have ended badly. As it was, they’d arrived at NORAD a week later than they could have, and no one knew how many people had died in that short window.

  “You don’t know that, Ark,” he replied steadily. “We still don’t know what it is. For all you know it would have wiped us out. And at least we now know if we kill it then the critters die too.”

  It wasn’t like Ark to sound angry, but he did now. “I have to be prepared to lose my troops in battle. The fact that I’m not just makes me crappy battle commander.”