Into Light (Shadow and Light Book 2)

by T. D. Shields

  The jovial tone of the cheering crowd inside the bar suddenly shifted to groans and jeering as the match was interrupted by an alert tone. The message board beside us flickered to life as well, displaying a full-screen view of the Presidential seal as crackling audio announced, “Citizens, please turn your attention to this statement from President Cruz Rodriguez.”

  From the sounds of it, the people in the bar seemed pretty uninterested in what Cruz had to say. They just wanted the interruption to end, so they could get back to the game. My attention was firmly fixed on the video display, though. My stomach tightened into an all-too-familiar knot of dread as I wondered what Cruz was about to say.

  The image faded to a view of Cruz sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. It was infuriating to see him sitting smugly in my father’s place. But I felt a little better when I focused on Cruz himself. He looked pretty rough, with multiple deep scratches scoring his handsome face, one eye swollen nearly shut, and a colorful bruise darkening the right half of his jaw.

  Cruz addressed the issue of his injuries immediately, indicating his face with a short wave of his hand. “As you can see from my appearance, this has not been a typical day in the White House. I am sorry to tell you that earlier today I was ambushed and attacked by traitors who, by their own admission, sought to take my life.

  “I am even more sorry to say that those behind this assault were some of my closest advisors and cabinet members, including Luis Gutierrez, Madelaine Carlson, Antoine Carlson, Raymond Nexen, and Louisa Smythe-Garwick.

  “Because these conspirators have confessed their guilt in this plot, there will be no need for a trial. They are guilty by their own admission. The penalty for treason is immediate execution, and this sentence has already been carried out by mech troops. My condolences to the family and friends of these traitors. I’m sure that you are as shocked and saddened by these events as I am.”

  Cruz took a deep breath and flattened his hands on the desktop as if to brace himself. “The hardest blow is the realization that I, and indeed all of us as a nation, have been betrayed by someone we have long held dear.”

  Sharra cursed under her breath and slanted a look at me. “Here it comes.”

  I nodded in agreement. I was pretty sure of what we were about to hear.

  “Though we have mourned the death of Poppy Walker along with her father, it appears that we were deceived. Poppy was not killed in the attack that killed President Walker. She is alive and well at this very moment.”

  There was an explosion of commentary from inside the bar at that revelation, and I was gratified to hear that most people seemed glad to learn that reports of my death were untrue.

  “You cannot imagine my joy and relief when I saw Poppy enter my rooms this afternoon,” Cruz said, his voice choked with emotion. “Nor my devastation when I learned that she was not only involved in a plot to kill me but was actually the instigator of the plan.

  “Even worse, the assassination that killed President Walker was also instigated by Poppy Walker. If all had gone according to plan at that time, I would have attended the dinner that night, and I would have been killed as well. Apparently Poppy felt that she would be able to assume the Presidency at that point when the nation would be in shock due to the loss of so many leaders.

  “Indeed, it’s hard to say that the plan would not have worked. With the loss of the President, Vice-President, and all three governors, the line of succession becomes a bit muddied. And it’s fair to say that Poppy would have had a reasonable bid for assuming the position, given her massive popularity among citizens and government officials alike.”

  Cruz shook his head sadly, his eyes glittering with manufactured tears. “I am heartbroken. I do not have the words to explain how this terrible betrayal is tearing me apart.”

  My entire body was shaking with rage. I couldn’t believe he was trying to blame me for my father’s death. If I’d been standing in front of Cruz at this moment, I’d have shot him with his own gun without hesitation.

  The conversation coming from inside the bar buzzed with speculation. I couldn’t get a clear consensus as to whether people believed his story, but I did hear a few people claiming disbelief. The idea that people weren’t immediately accepting Cruz’s claims helped me calm myself. I took a deep breath and forced myself to unclench my fists.

  On the vid-screen, Cruz took a shuddering breath, seeming only a moment away from tears. He really was an incredible actor. A drawing of my face appeared hovering in the air beside Cruz. It was a pretty good likeness, I had to admit.

  “Poppy has changed her appearance,” Cruz told his audience. “She has cut her hair and has facial tattoos. Those have served as an excellent disguise for her thus far, but these characteristics will now help you to identify her.

  “Every citizen must be on the lookout for this fugitive from justice. You should consider her armed and extremely dangerous. Do not attempt to apprehend her, but contact the authorities immediately to report her whereabouts. There will be a reward of fifty-thousand dollars for information leading to her capture.”

  That was my cue to leave. I needed to get out of here before someone leaving the bar spotted us and noticed my incredibly close resemblance to the girl in the sketch. I signaled my destination to Sharra and she watched as I made my way across the dimly-lit street to the greenbelt area.

  I stepped behind another message board, using its bulk to hide me from any passers-by as I quickly stripped out of my tank-top and refastened my jacket to hide the fact that I was shirtless. I tied the tank over my distinctive bright hair, using my faint reflection in the screen of the message board as a mirror to tuck in the edges of the tank until it mostly looked like a headscarf. An unattractive headscarf, to be sure, but at least it wasn’t obvious that I had tied a shirt around my head.

  My sad bit of disguise complete, I sat down at the base of the message board, huddling with my head on my knees to keep my face out of sight. Sharra would bring Lucas and Roomie to find me when they left the tavern, so I just had to wait for them here where I was mostly out of sight.

  Unfortunately, my spot at the base of the message board meant that I could clearly hear Cruz as he continued to warn the public about my subversive and dangerous presence in the city. His measured and reasonable presentation was beginning to go downhill, I noticed, and he was starting to sound more like the wild and irrational man from the warehouse.

  “Poppy Walker is a traitor and an enemy of the state. Do not be deluded by her likable persona; she is a remorseless, ruthless killer who had her own father assassinated in a bid for political advancement. I warn you all that under no circumstances should you associate with her! By my order, any level of involvement with Poppy Walker or her so-called rebellion will be considered treason. I will not tolerate betrayal! If you ally yourself with Poppy Walker, you will be arrested and executed!”

  The screen above me abruptly faded to black, displaying the rotating logo of the NAA. I assumed that someone had decided to cut the transmission before Cruz could go full-bore psycho in front of the entire nation. A moment later, the original broadcast began to play again from the beginning.

  I pressed my head harder against my knees, trying to block out the sound of Cruz’s voice. But with his every word, I could feel my emotional devastation and rage receding to be replaced by cold, focused resolve to stop him. My mind raced with ideas and plans.

  I had briefly considered trying to turn some of Cruz’s confidants against him. From what he’d said in the warehouse, his relationship with Madelaine and Antoine Carlson was shaky. I might have been able to sway them back to my side long enough to get myself an inside track to Cruz. But given his angry rants against his former co-conspirators, I didn’t doubt that Cruz had ordered their executions. The only question was whether they had actually tried to rebel against him as he’d claimed, or if he just seized the opportunity to eliminate them and used his injuries as “proof” of their attack.

  I supposed it
didn’t matter in the end. That avenue was closed to me, and I wasn’t especially sorry. It would have been stomach-churningly difficult to work with any of the people who had participated in my father’s assassination, no matter how good the reasons. Now, I didn’t have to make that difficult decision.

  Instead, I knew I had the basis of a rebellion already in place, thanks to Martín’s efforts. A core group of rebels had been housed at headquarters, but Martín had said that most of the citizens in the rebellion were still in place in their homes, waiting for the signal. I knew the signal and I was sure Lucas could find a way to trigger it.

  I could take over with what I had and move forward with the plans as best I could. To do that, I needed to counter Cruz’s attacks on my character to keep my allies on my side and remind them that Cruz could not be trusted.

  As I pondered the best way to manage that, I heard the soft scuff of shoes against the pavement. I peeked out from behind the sign and gave a quick huff of relief as I saw Sharra and Lucas, with Roomie a few feet behind.

  “I have dinner,” Lucas told me. “We’ll go find some cover and eat, all right? Then we can figure out what to do next.” He helped me gently to my feet, still treating me like fragile glass. He didn’t know that Cruz’s broadcast had snapped me out of the haze of despair and indecision that had enveloped me.

  “I have some thoughts about both of those things, actually,” I told him, my voice a bit rough from disuse. “But I need to do one thing first.”

  Sharra gave a quick sigh of relief and bumped my shoulder with her arm. “Glad to have you back with us, my friend. What do you need?”

  I asked Lucas, “Is there any way to hack into the feed that Cruz is sending out? I need to send a message.”

  He thought about it, tapping a fist on his leg as he considered the options. After a few moments, he set the bag of food on the grass so he could poke around at the message board until he was able to pop a small panel free to expose a control board. With a grunt of satisfaction, he shrugged out of his pack to rummage around in its main compartment. He pulled out a tiny device and attached it to the message board via a small access port in the circuit board.

  He pulled out a tablet and began tapping quickly at the screen. It took several minutes, but he eventually turned to me with a wide smile.

  “I can’t do audio and visual, but we can send a text message. It will scroll across the bottom of the display, no matter what they’re playing across that feed.” His grin grew even wider. “Best of all, they won’t be able to get rid of it until they figure out that it originated from this particular message board and change the settings from here. We’ll have to get out of the area quickly so we can’t be tracked from here, but if you think the message is worth it, I can make it happen.”

  “It’s worth the risk. We’re not sticking around here anyway,” I told him. “How do I enter my message?”

  “Just type it on my tablet and it will mirror onto every display that receives the NAA feed.”

  I smiled fiercely as I typed.

  RODRIGUEZ LIES.

  HE KILLED MY FATHER.

  HE TRIED TO KILL ME.

  SLEEP LIGHTLY, CRUZ. I’M COMING.

  POPPY WALKER

  28

  My message sent, we gathered our belongings and got moving. I was shuffled to the center of our little group for concealment. Given my short stature, I was easier to overlook when flanked on each side by my attention-grabbing friends. With Sharra’s bright hair and Lucas’s tall, muscular build and gorgeous chocolate skin, they were eye candy. As long as I kept my face down, I hoped that no one would pay attention to me.

  Roomie walked separately from us. The cat was smart enough to realize that we would draw more attention by traveling with him. I didn’t worry about losing him; I caught enough glimpses of him moving through the shadows and side streets to be reassured that he was still with us.

  “We’re not far from the old part of the city. Head down this street for a few blocks,” I told my friends. I had the beginnings of a plan in mind, and it was hugely dependent on finding out if the old pharmacy where I’d hidden after my escape from the White House was still empty.

  We left the quiet neighborhood behind for a more crowded commercial district. People here were not inclined to stay home behind closed curtains. If the world was going down with a bang, they would see it out with a party. The streets were crowded and loud as we made our way through the district.

  We walked with studied casualness, doing our best to blend in with everyone else. All of us had enough street smarts to know that scurrying through the crowds would draw more attention than a careless stroll. Lucas dug around in the plasticene to-go bag he was carrying and handed around snacks to eat as we walked.

  “We don’t want these to go to waste,” he told us. “And they’ll be better warm.”

  I gladly accepted one of the little doughnuts he’d ordered to go with our burgers and chips. I was suddenly starving and more than willing to have dessert before dinner. The gritty sugar coating clung to my lips as I wolfed it down and looked for another, which Lucas thoughtfully had at the ready. I made that one disappear in a few bites also and then licked the last grains of sugar from my lips and fingertips to savor every trace of the sweet treat.

  “Make conversation, people,” Sharra said with a wide smile disguising her serious tone. “If we’re all stalking through the streets like avenging angels we’re going to catch more attention.”

  Lucas laughed and looped an arm around Sharra for a moment. “You have a good point,” he agreed. He nudged me with an elbow. “Right, Pops?”

  “Definitely,” I agreed, forcing a smile onto my lips. My cheeks felt like they might crack from the effort, but Sharra looked pleased.

  I tried to focus on carrying on a conversation, but found it hard. I probably should have been pondering the meaning of life and death after the horrible events of the day, or refining my plans for confronting Cruz, or even just focusing on our surroundings and making it safely to our destination. But I could think about only one thing.

  “Lucas, I need to ask you something.”

  He turned to look at me, caught by my serious tone. “What is it?” he asked.

  I could see him bracing himself for the next blow, and I almost didn't follow through, but I really needed to know.

  “Are you … going to eat that last doughnut?”

  Lucas just stared at me for a long moment, and then he started to laugh. He laughed much harder than I thought the question warranted. I was serious, after all. I really wanted the last doughnut. I was glad to see him laughing. I wasn’t used to such a serious version of Lucas, and I much preferred his usual cheerful demeanor.

  When he finally got his laughter under control, Lucas slung one arm across my shoulder and pulled me against his side in an affectionate hug. “It’s all yours, sweetheart.”

  29

  The streets grew less crowded as we moved deeper into the brick-paved streets of old Goodland. By the time we turned onto the street where the old pharmacy sat, the neighborhood was deserted. The streetlights had long ago burned out and were never replaced, so we moved through darkness relieved only by an occasional bit of moonlight reflecting off the dark windows of an abandoned storefront.

  There were probably refugees from the Warren and other unofficial citizens making themselves at home in some of these buildings, but they didn’t make themselves known. If they were here, they wanted to stay anonymous as well. They were likely to leave us alone—at least as long as they didn’t see me clearly enough to recognize me and turn me in for the reward.

  Roomie padded out of an alley to join us as I walked up to the pharmacy and gave the door an experimental tug. I squeaked in alarm when the entire door fell out of its frame and threatened to smash me into the sidewalk. Lucas jumped forward to catch the heavy door before it could strike me. I murmured a quick thank you and slipped through the entrance, followed by Roomie and Sharra. Lucas entered last and
muscled the door back into place behind us.

  We’d all spent enough time on patrol in Denver that it was second nature to quickly check the building for threats. The main room was easy enough to assess. It was all open space since the rows of empty shelving still lay in a jumbled pile where I had knocked them over on an attacking mech back when I was first running from Cruz. Everything in this area looked undisturbed since my last visit.

  “There’s a door by the back counter that goes into a little breakroom,” I said, pointing it out. “And the door over there on the other wall leads to a bathroom.”

  Sharra split off to check the bathroom as Lucas and I skirted around the fallen shelves to reach the breakroom. Roomie sprawled casually near the front entrance letting us handle the reconnaissance.

  Lucas pulled out a flashlight and shone it into the breakroom. Inspecting the room in the thin beam of light, I saw a layer of dust covering the floor and the cracked leather of the old sofa. No one had been in the room recently, possibly not since I had left it.

  “Bathroom’s clear,” Sharra called out quietly.

  “Breakroom too,” Lucas responded as we rejoined our friend.

  I looked at the last door leading out of the central store area. I knew it opened to a short flight of stairs leading to the basement storage room. If anyone was hiding in the building, it had to be downstairs.

  Roomie joined us as I opened the basement door, and he loped down the stairs before anyone else could make a move.

  “I guess Roomie’s on point,” Lucas commented with a little grin.

  A cheerful meow from the bottom of the stairs told us that Roomie was calling it safe, and we headed down to meet him. Lucas closed the basement door behind us, then took a moment to fiddle with the rusty lock until he could turn the old deadbolt and secure the door behind us. We carefully picked our way down the stairs in the narrow beam from Lucas’s flashlight.