CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Zira waited all day to hear something from Jared, but each time she checked the computer, the display remained as blank as before. Tripp talked her into putting it away when night fell so she could eat supper with the others, then they all climbed back into the van and set off again. They drove all night but still hadn’t reached their destination by morning. When they stopped at a long-disused gas station to eat and stretch their legs, Zira took her bag to one of the bathrooms, locked the door, and checked the computer for messages again. Nothing. She took a few deep breaths and told herself it didn’t mean anything.
Tripp gave her a questioning look when she went back out to rejoin the rest of the group. She shook her head, and he followed her outside where they could talk alone. “Nothing?” he asked.
“No,” said Zira. “We should try to call them again. I assume we’re getting close to the base? This could be the last chance we have before we get there.”
Tripp shook his head. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“If Ryku caught them, he’ll have Jared’s CL, and possibly Aubreigh’s, too. They could track us, or at least narrow down our location. We have to assume the worst.”
Zira glared at him. “Assume the worst?”
“As a precaution. I hope I’m wrong, kid, but we can’t take the risk.”
“So we just give up on them?”
Tripp sighed. “We’re not giving up. We just can’t do anything until we know more. If they are in trouble, they’re going to need all the help they can get. You won’t do them any good if you let yourself get caught, too.”
She wanted to argue that point, but he was right. She just hated feeling so helpless and uncertain. “How much farther is this base, anyway?”
“We’ll probably be there by the end of the day. Ezekiel wants everyone to try and sleep for a couple hours, then we’ll be on the road again.” He reached for her bag. “Try to get some rest. I’ll keep checking the messages.”
She’d been too anxious and uncomfortable to sleep in the van during the night, and as soon as Tripp suggested resting, exhaustion hit her like a freight train. She nodded and pulled the computer out of her bag. “All right. But wake me up the second you hear anything.”
“I will.”
She went back inside and found a relatively clean spot on the floor between two empty shelves. Using her backpack as a pillow, she lay down and fell asleep in seconds.
* * *
Seth shook her awake a few hours later. “We’re getting ready to leave,” he said.
She sat up and stretched, combed her fingers through her hair, then went to find Tripp. He stood by the van, talking to Ezekiel as the others climbed inside. When Zira met his gaze, he just shook his head. She got in and took the back corner seat again. Tripp took the other corner.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her as the van pulled onto the road. “We did everything we could.”
They had done everything they could, hadn’t they? Zira still had her doubts, but she tried to keep her thoughts positive. Jared and Aubreigh were fine. They’d both made it out of the compound and just couldn’t risk trying to contact anyone right now. But they were fine. They had to be. She repeated it to herself over and over again, but she still couldn’t shake the hollow, gnawing feeling in her gut.
As the sun began to set, Ezekiel took the van back onto a major highway and, eventually, a freeway. A large green sign hung lopsided overhead with the words “New York City” in white letters. Right above that, a newer sign read, “Do not enter. Nuclear fallout zone.” Ezekiel ignored the warning and took the exit that would lead them to the city. Zira looked over at Tripp with raised eyebrows. “New York City? That’s where this base is?”
He grinned and nodded. “Last place you’d expect, right?”
“Yeah, because you’d have to be crazy to live inside a fallout zone.”
From the front seat, Ezekiel let out a loud, rolling chuckle. Tripp laughed with him. Seth had a smug, knowing smile on his face, but didn’t laugh. The rest of them, including Zira, looked at each other nervously.
“Relax,” Tripp said. “All that nonsense about the entire city being an irradiated wasteland is a myth. Well, the wasteland part is sort of true, but the radiation levels aren’t abnormal or dangerous.”
“You mean Project just lied about it this whole time?” a woman in the middle row of seats asked.
“Don’t act so surprised,” said Ezekiel. “They lie about everything else.”
“Towards the end of the war,” Seth said, “the city was evacuated because of a nuclear threat. The Republic of Asia bombed everything to pieces, but there were no nukes. They probably didn’t want to face the retaliation that could have resulted from that level of catastrophic damage and civilian death. But, since residents were originally told to leave because of a nuclear bomb, most people just assumed that’s what happened.”
Tripp nodded. “And once the war was over, the Project kept letting everyone believe that. Encouraged it, even. They made it part of the war’s official history and started teaching it in schools. They put signs up all over the place warning people to stay away. You’ve probably all seen the reports they put out now and then with statistics about radiation levels in different nuclear fallout zones across the country. New York is always at the top of the list.”
“It doesn’t fool everyone, obviously,” Seth said. “There are still plenty of people who lived in the city during the war, and some of them didn’t evacuate until after the bombings. But the Project is good at convincing the general public to believe what they want them to believe, and most people aren’t going to risk death just for curiosity’s sake.”
“Why go to all the trouble?” another man asked.
“All the buildings in the city are on the verge of collapsing,” Tripp said. “The Project doesn’t have the resources to even begin rebuilding here, and they don’t want people poking around and getting themselves killed in all the rubble.”
Looking out the window, Zira could see what he meant. There wasn’t a single undamaged building in sight, and most of them had been completely leveled. What few structures remained were mere skeletons, stripped and gutted and left to crumble. “If it’s so dangerous,” she said, “why make it your base?”
“First of all, because no one would even guess we’re here,” said Seth. “There was that story Trinity and some of her colleagues tried to write a few years ago about people living in the ruins, but nothing ever came of it.”
“Yeah,” Ezekiel said with a chuckle. “People might have believed them if they left out all that nonsense about humans mutating into monsters because of the radiation.”
Tripp grinned. “I forgot all about that—that was a good one. Anyway, even though it’s not safe to live above ground, we’ve got a pretty good setup in the old subway system.”
“So Trinity was partly right after all,” Zira said. She could only imagine the reporter’s delight upon being brought to the rebel base. “I bet she loved that.”
Tripp chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure she did.”
They exited the freeway and drove slowly through the remains of a city that in no way resembled the photos Zira had seen from before the war. Where the roads and sidewalks were visible under a thin layer of snow, they were cracked and uneven. Vegetation had grown up around the rubble and would cover much of the landscape in green come summer. Ezekiel had to maneuver the van around piles of debris and abandoned vehicles. Down a side street, what appeared to be a small stream ran right through the middle of the road. In the lengthening shadows of twilight, a fox darted from the remains of a nearby building.
They eventually came to an area where the rubble had been mostly cleared out of the street. Ezekiel pulled the van into a parking garage where several other vehicles sat in rows, and they all got out to unload their belongings from the trunk. Most of them had a single small bag or backpack. One man had nothing at all.
Ezekie
l pulled a handheld radio from his pocket and switched it on. “Home base, this is Ezekiel in parking unit two. Over.”
A gruff female voice responded. “Copy that, Ezekiel. We’ve been expecting you. How many are you bringing down?”
“Me and six others.”
“You have permission to proceed. The tracks should be clear. Chase wants you to take them over to his station as soon as possible, but you’ll have to go through security first. We’ll work on getting housing set up for them. Over.”
“Copy that. Over and out.” He turned to the group behind him. “All right, everyone. Follow me and stay close. It’s pretty dark down there at first and I don’t want anyone getting lost.”
They followed him outside and down the next block to a flight of stairs that descended underground. It was, as he’d warned them, very dark. He pulled out a flashlight to illuminate their path, but someone behind Zira still tripped and nearly sent her tumbling down the stairs. At the bottom, they found themselves in a small, unlit station with dusty tiles lining the halls and floor. Four figures stepped out of the shadows—a man, a woman, and two robots of different models, one significantly more humanoid than the other.
“Stop there,” said the woman, raising her flashlight to them. From her voice, Zira recognized her as the person Ezekiel had spoken to over the radio. “We’ll need to go through your bags.”
The man and woman each took a robot partner as they searched the group. They went through the bags while the robots took scans and photos of each person. When they got to Zira, the man pulled her pistol out of her backpack and called to the woman. “What should we do with this?”
“You’re Zira?” the woman asked.
“Yeah.”
She turned back to her companion. “Chase said she’d probably be armed. Let her keep it.”
The man put the weapon back in the bag and returned it to her. Zira was relieved they hadn’t confiscated the gun, but that feeling turned to disappointment a few moments later when the woman took the computer from Tripp’s bag and handed it to her robot partner. “We’ll return this to communications for you.”
“Sure,” said Tripp. When they moved on to the next person, he cast an apologetic glance at Zira. She frowned. Now they had no way of contacting Aubreigh or Jared, but she supposed that wouldn’t have been possible even if Tripp had kept the computer.
“You’re all clear here,” said the woman when she’d finished searching the last bag. “You can go on.”
“Thanks,” said Ezekiel. He went to the edge of the platform, hopped off, and began walking down the tracks. The others followed. Zira stayed behind Tripp at the rear, trying to catch glimpses of her surroundings in the beam of Ezekiel’s flashlight. The abandoned subway tunnels were eerie somehow, reminders of a time that seemed to have existed in an entirely different world. The air was cold and damp, with a musty smell Zira soon grew accustomed to. At one point, she swore she spotted a large, dried blood stain on the wall, but the light flitted away before she could get a better look.
She wasn’t sure how far they’d walked when a dim yellow glow appeared up ahead. A subway car was parked right in their path, the end door left open wide. As they approached, someone with a flashlight hopped out of it and came towards them. “Tripp?” a familiar voice called out. “Is that you?”
“Last time I checked,” he said, and raised a hand to greet Alma.
She picked up her pace until she reached them, threw her arms around Tripp, then immediately pulled back and punched him in the arm. “You made it. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see your ugly face again after what went down in San Antonio.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Tripp said.
“Are you kidding? We need you here. Chase has been waiting for you—for all of you. He sent me out here to make sure you hadn’t passed us by on your way to housing.”
“We won’t keep him waiting, then,” said Ezekiel. “Come on, everyone. His office is on the platform just through that car.”
Ezekiel led the way with Seth right behind him. Zira followed with the others. Tripp and Alma fell behind, chatting amicably in alternating English and Spanish about everything that had happened since they’d last seen each other. When they exited a side door at the front of the car, they found themselves on another platform similar to the one they’d first seen. This one, however, was slightly larger and better lit. An area on the far-right side had been partitioned off with a makeshift wall created from wood and mismatched sheets of metal. A humanoid robot armed with an assault rifle stood guard outside the door and turned its head towards the newcomers as they gathered on the platform.
The door opened and a man in a fitted black shirt and worn jeans stepped out. Chase was shorter than Zira had imagined him, and his face was a little more careworn. Despite that, he had an imposing, almost regal presence in the bleak surroundings. He looked like he belonged here, just one more puzzle piece that fit perfectly into a larger picture. One by one, he shook their hands and offered his thanks for the work they had done and the sacrifices they’d made. When it was Zira’s turn, he clasped her hand firmly and looked her in the eye. “I’m glad you made it here in one piece.”
Zira nodded. “Me too. I just wish it had ended differently.”
“So do I, but we’ll make the best of the cards we’ve been dealt. We always do. Thank you for trying.”
When he’d finished making his rounds, he took a few steps back to stand in front of the whole group. “I’m glad you could all make it here. Some of you have been working with us for years, and I know it was never easy or safe, but your efforts have made a difference. We wouldn’t be where we are now without you. Thank you.”
Some of the others returned his smile, but Zira kept her expression flat and crossed her arms. Chase went on. “Down here, we’re a team. We rely on everyone’s cooperation to keep things running smoothly. While you’re all here, I’d like to go over some rules and give out a few work assignments, then Alma will take you through the concourse and show you to your housing units. So, rule number one—no one leaves the tunnels unless you have training, work, or written authorization from me. We sealed off most of the exits anyway, so if you want to go above ground, you’ll have to go through one of the guard posts you saw earlier. If that sounds a little strict, it is. We’ve tightened security as part of our preparations for a full-on assault against the compound.”
“When will that happen?” someone asked.
“We haven’t nailed down a specific date yet, but it should be sometime in the next four to six weeks. I know that must seem sudden to many of you, but we’ve been preparing for this day for a long time. In light of all that’s happened recently, we can’t afford to wait much longer.”
At least they were planning to make a move sooner rather than later. Zira didn’t want to be stuck down here any longer than she had to be, and the sooner Ryku was out of power, the better.
“Second rule,” Chase continued, “no fighting. We have enough trouble to deal with above ground without fighting amongst ourselves down here. If you have a problem with someone, talk to them about it. If you can’t resolve your differences, come see me or Alma and we’ll try to help.
“Rule number three—you must complete your assigned work duty each day. Everyone pulls their own weight down here, even the kids. You’re all hardworking people, so I don’t think we’ll have any issues there, but come talk to me if you need to. My door is always open. I know they call me a leader, but I like to think of myself as more of a facilitator or an organizer. This is a team and I want us to work together, so please don’t hesitate to ask questions or inform me of any concerns you have. Does that sound fair?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Good. Now, work assignments. I don’t have jobs for all of you yet, but I’m sure we’ll find something in the next day or two. Seth, you’ll be working with the communications team to help the groups who are still straggling in. Tripp, I want you working with the infiltration team.
They’ve been programming a device that should let us open the compound gate from the outside, but you know that security system better than anyone else here. Make sure they got it right.”
“Will do,” Tripp said.
Chase turned his gaze on Zira. “Zira, I’m adding you to Alma’s squad. When we attack the compound, you and the rest of her team will be on the front lines. Once the gate is open, your objective will be to find and capture Ryku.”
“Capture?” she said. “After all the hard work we went to trying to kill him?”
“I understand your frustration, and I appreciate your efforts. We took a calculated risk, but it didn’t work out. I still think it was worth the attempt, but now we have to deal with the consequences of what happened. Killing him from behind the scenes when no knows who’s pulling the trigger is one thing. Killing him in public without a trial, with the entire country watching us—no.” He shook his head. “I won’t turn him into a martyr.”
Attacking the compound while Ryku remained in command was going to be far more difficult than seizing control while the Project was still trying to recover from his death. “You’ll be starting a war,” she said.
“We know.”
She wasn’t sure he really understood what she was saying. “People are going to get hurt and die. Your people.”
Chase gave a small shrug of acknowledgement. “Everyone here is ready and willing to make that sacrifice. We far outnumber those stationed in the compound at any given time, and not everyone in the Project has your capabilities. We’ve been training our people—all of them, from the day they got here. Alma used to be law enforcement. So were some of the others. We also have several hundred soldier-bots scavenged from the war. Does the Project have that kind of firepower?”
“Not quite,” Zira admitted. “At least not inside the compound. But what are you going to do about unit P and the military? There are bases all over the country, and combined, they have plenty of firepower.”
“Taking the compound and disrupting the Project’s ability to organize will be our primary objective, but we also plan to send groups to other major Project installations throughout the country, including military bases and regional distribution centers. We’re coordinating our efforts with another sizeable group of rebels stationed in the North Pacific region.”
Renegades of PEACE (Secrets of PEACE Book 2) Page 20
