The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2

by Brett Battles

  “I know the storm is bad, but you’d be heading for New Mexico anyway, wouldn’t you? That’s why you want Tamara and Bobby to hurry up. You need their distraction.”

  In the silence that followed, she knew he was regretting showing her the message from C8.

  “Matt, it’s too dangerous. You don’t have a large enough team. Besides, we haven’t done the necessary recon.”

  “I’ve been there before,” he said.

  “A long time ago.”

  “And nothing will have changed since then,” he said.

  “Except that they won’t be welcoming you at the door.”

  “You never know,” he said, trying to make a joke.

  “If you have to go through New Mexico, you damn well better stay to the north. Albuquerque straight into Arizona. Las Cruces is off limits.”

  “You’ve seen the message, Rachel. He’s there. NB219. Cut off the head and the body dies.”

  “Bullshit. It didn’t work at Bluebird. Why would it work now?”

  “Because of what happened at Bluebird. They’re already weakened. If they lose their second leader in a few weeks, it will rip them apart.”

  “Can you even imagine how much security he’ll have in place?” she argued.

  “Less than you think. In his mind, who’s going to come after him?”

  “Us.”

  “He doesn’t even know who we are.”

  “He knows exactly who you are,” she countered.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. And as far as anyone at Project Eden is concerned, I’m buried in the past. Rachel, don’t you see it? This could very well be the only chance we will ever get. They’ve pulled off their eradication plan; there’s nothing we can do about that. What we can do is stop them from being the ones who benefit from it. Someone is going to have to lead the human race into this new age, but I’ll burn in hell before I let it be any of them. Right now, they’re still decentralized. It won’t be long before this new principal director and his puppet directorate are buried beneath layers and layers of protection. We have to take advantage of this situation and you know it.”

  As much as she wanted to argue that point, she couldn’t.

  “Have you told the others?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “They might not be happy you kept it from them.”

  “I’ll deal with it.”

  She rubbed a hand across her forehead, her eyes closed. “If you do this, you can’t fail,” she whispered.

  “I have no intention of failing.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “I won’t fail. Better?”

  It wasn’t.

  WHILE THEY WAITED in the hallway that connected the comm room with the rest of the base, Leon, Crystal, Dennis, and Paul couldn’t help but speculate on what Rachel and Matt were talking about. But any attempt to find out came to an abrupt halt the moment the door flew open, and Rachel, her face strained, strode out.

  “How’s Chloe?” Leon asked.

  Rachel looked at them as if she hadn’t expected them to be there. “Chloe? Um, she fell off a roof, but she’ll be okay.”

  “How did that happen?” Dennis asked.

  Rachel started walking away again, but went only a few feet before she turned back. “Have we heard from Tamara and Bobby this morning? Have they made any progress?”

  The others all looked at Paul. He was the one who’d last spoken to the former PCN reporter and her cameraman.

  “No contact yet today,” Paul said.

  “I need to talk to them as soon as possible.”

  “Uh, sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Rachel walked off without another word.

  “Now I really want to know what’s going on,” Leon whispered to Crystal as they filed back into the room.

  Returning to their respective desks, they got back to work. For Leon, that meant trying to tease out what the series of numbers he’d written down from the radio message meant. Not coordinates. Not a phone number. A web address?

  Though the Internet had become spotty, with many websites unreachable as servers began to malfunction, other sites still worked exactly as they had been designed to do. He typed the number into his browser and hit ENTER.

  WEB ADDRESS UNKNOWN

  Not a web address, then. At least not one that worked anymore.

  Taking the shotgun approach next, he pasted the number in the box of a still functioning search engine, and clicked. He was presented with a long list of links, but none were direct hits.

  He was running out of ideas fast, and was tempted to consider it a dead end. But someone out there had broadcast it, someone who was still alive. He had to exhaust every possibility.

  That’s when he realized he had never dialed the exact number he’d written it down, but only tried alternate country codes. Given that there was no 881, he was sure he’d experience the same failure as earlier, but in the interest of being thorough, he had to make the attempt.

  He punched the numbers into his phone app.

  No series of tones. No call failed message.

  A ring.

  He slapped Crystal on the arm.

  “Hey! Watch it!” she said.

  He turned on the external speakers just in time to catch the third ring.

  “Who are you calling?” she asked.

  “The number,” he said, holding up the piece of paper.

  “But it didn’t work.”

  “I didn’t try it exactly like—”

  “Hailo?” A man’s voice, tentative and surprised.

  “Hello?” Leon said. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. Can.”

  The person on the other end sounded older, with an accent Leon couldn’t place yet.

  “Were you broadcasting your phone number on the radio?”

  “Yes! Yes! Radio. Number. Thank you, call.”

  “You’re welcome. My name is Leon. Who are you?”

  “Wait. Wait.”

  There was movement over the line, and then nothing.

  “Hello?” Leon said. “Hello?”

  “Are you still connected?” Crystal asked.

  According to the computer, he was. He tapped the button that would record the call, something he should have done right away, and said to Crystal, “Go get Rachel back here. She’ll want to hear this.”

  Crystal clearly didn’t want to leave.

  “She can’t have gone far,” Leon said. “Go and come right back. You won’t miss much.”

  She rose with reluctance and headed out the door.

  “Hello?” Leon said into his mic.

  Still nothing from the other end. He double-checked to make sure his mute function wasn’t on, and that the line was truly still connected, and everything was as it should be.

  The sound started out so soft he wasn’t sure he heard anything, but as it grew louder and louder, he realized he was hearing steps.

  “Hello?” a new voice said. A woman this time, younger.

  “Hello. My name is Leon. Who am I speaking to?”

  “I am Jabala.” She sounded excited. “So good to hear you.”

  “Good to hear you, too, Jabala. Where are you?”

  “The St. William Boarding School.”

  “Where exactly is that?”

  “I am sorry. I do not know the name of the town.”

  “Well, where is it near?”

  “Oh, um, it is a few hours away from Mumbai.”

  “Mumbai? Mumbai, India?”

  “Yes. India. Where are you? Are you close? Are there others with you?”

  He pulled up the list of country codes again. India was 91, not 881. “No, no. I’m in, uh, the US. And not alone.”

  “I am so happy to hear that.”

  “How many are with you?”

  “There are thirty-two of us now.”

  He pulled up the protocol sheet for first contact so he wouldn’t miss anything. The first question always made him pause. �
�Uh, how many of you are, um, sick?”

  “Sick? You mean with the flu?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one. How many of you are sick?”

  He knew from experience gained over the last several days that some survivor groups had at least a few people starting to show signs of the disease, so he was relieved to hear Jabala’s people were untouched. Still, she could have been hiding the truth. “We’re okay here, too.” Wanting to probe a bit further, he asked, “You’ve been able to avoid contact with anyone ill?”

  “For the most part, yes. But we are safe. We have been vaccinated.”

  Leon could feel his chest contract. Vaccinated? Was this St. William Boarding School one of Project Eden’s survival stations?

  “Where exactly are you?” he asked.

  “What do you mean? I have already told you.”

  “Tell me, Jabala, when did you receive the vaccine from the UN?” In his mind, he was already starting to write them off as future Sage Flu victims.

  “The UN?” she said. “We did not receive the vaccine from the UN.”

  That stopped him for a moment. “Then who gave it to you?”

  “My sister’s husband, Sanjay. He stole it for us.”

  Leon’s tension eased a bit. This Sanjay had probably gotten his hands on some kind of home remedy, or perhaps some antibiotics from a hospital. Neither would be effective against the virus, but they also wouldn’t be as deadly as Project Eden’s “vaccine.”

  “Maybe I should speak to Sanjay,” he said.

  “He is not here now.”

  “Okay, maybe I can talk to him later, but you need to listen to me very carefully. The people who are claiming to be from the UN are lying. They are not here to help anyone.” Behind him, he heard Crystal enter the room. He glanced back and was surprised to see she was alone. “You need to stay away from them. In fact, you should stay away from Mumbai completely. It’s not safe.”

  “We already know this,” Jabala said.

  Again, her response caught him off guard. “What do you mean, you already know?”

  “Sanjay. He told us the same thing. It is why he and Kusum went to the city. To find out for sure.”

  “He and…Kusum are in the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s very dangerous. They could get—”

  “They are very careful. They know what they are doing.”

  Maybe, maybe not, but there wasn’t much Leon could do to help them at the moment. “What made Sanjay think they were lying?”

  “The UN people are using the same location as the company that spread the disease through our city,” she began.

  When she finished telling him about Pishon Chem and the “miracle mosquito spray” Sanjay and others had been hired to douse the city with, Leon realized that maybe the vaccine Jabala’s brother-in-law had given everyone was the real thing after all.

  “I definitely need to talk to Sanjay as soon as he comes back.”

  “I could send someone to bring him back.”

  “No!” he said quickly. “You shouldn’t send anyone else to the city. It’s too dangerous. The most important thing you can do right now is to stay alive, and that means you and your people should stay where you are. Do you understand?”

  “Of course. Staying alive is what we are doing already.”

  “We’re happy to count you among our new friends, Jabala. We can definitely help each other.” Leon gave her a number that would connect her directly to the comm center. “Call that number anytime you want to talk to us. Someone will always be here to answer. And I’ll definitely check back with you later.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Leon. It is good to have you as a new friend, too. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Jabala.”

  Leon disconnected the call. After staring at his keyboard for a second, he looked over at Crystal, eyes wide.

  “What?” she asked.

  STATE OF MAHARASHTRA, INDIA

  9:51 PM IST

  JEEVAL WHIMPERED, WANTING to be lifted up, as Jabala set down the satellite phone.

  “You are fine where you are,” Jabala said. She wasn’t as fond of the dog as her sister was, but while Kusum was away, Jeeval had become her responsibility.

  “Well?” Naresh asked. He had been the one who’d figured out how to work the shortwave radio, and had taken to broadcasting a few times a day the number of the satellite phone Sanjay had found in a building the next town over.

  “The man said the same thing Sanjay told us, that the UN is not the UN,” she said.

  “Sanjay did not tell us that. He said maybe not.”

  “Well, the man on the phone did not say maybe, so I think Sanjay’s instincts were correct.”

  “Based on a conversation with someone you have never met,” Naresh pointed out.

  “I feel that he spoke the truth. You do not believe him?”

  “I could not hear what he said, but if this is what he told you…” Naresh paused, and shrugged. “I believe him, too.”

  “Then why did you fight me?”

  “I did not fight you. I merely pointed out something that needed to be taken into consideration.”

  Grunting in annoyance, Jabala looked away.

  While she had been concerned when Kusum, Sanjay, and the others had left, she was extremely worried now. What if they ran into trouble with these people claiming to be with the UN? What if they needed help?

  What if they needed help right now?

  Ap, ap, ap, Jeeval barked, pawing at Jabala’s leg.

  “Jeeval, not now!”

  She pushed the dog away harder than she meant to, sending Jeeval tumbling backward into Naresh’s chair. Jeeval yelped as she scrambled back to her feet.

  Jabala immediately knelt down and stroked the dog’s head. “I am sorry. Are you okay?”

  A whimper, followed by ap, ap.

  She picked up the dog. “Good dog,” she said. With her free hand, she picked up the satellite phone and looked at Naresh. “How does this work?”

  “A signal comes down, and—”

  “No. That is not what I meant. Does this have to stay in one place, or can it move around like a mobile phone?”

  “Of course it can move around. Do you see any wires?”

  “Why are you being difficult? Does it have other equipment that needs to travel with it, or is this it?”

  “What other equipment would it need?”

  She bit back her frustration. “I will assume that the answer is no.”

  “Well, it does have a charger,” he said. “The battery does not last forever.”

  “And where is that?”

  Thirteen

  SHERIDAN, WYOMING

  8:33 AM MST

  “MY DAD WAS right,” Rick said, his eyes narrowed to slits. “All you want to do is take what’s ours.”

  The teenager was sitting on the bed of the motel room he and Ginny had been put in after the previous evening’s events. Matt was surprised they hadn’t tried to get away. Of course, if they had, they would have found one of Matt’s men stationed outside.

  “All we want to do,” Matt said, “is get out of town. But the only way that’s going to happen is if we clear the roads.”

  “So you’re going to just take one of our snowplows.” It was amazing how little the kid’s lips moved as he spoke.

  “Two of your plows,” Matt corrected him. “And one of your cargo trucks to haul gas in.”

  Rick’s uninjured hand unconsciously rolled into a fist. “They don’t belong to you.”

  “That’s why I’m asking.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “That would be disappointing.”

  “You’ll still take them, won’t you?”

  Matt stared at him, his expression neutral. “Rick, do you realize what’s going on?”

  “I know you’re going to steal our stuff.”

  “I mean, the bigger picture?”

  Rick glared at Matt for a moment before looking ove
r at his cousin by the window.

  “I asked a question,” Matt said.

  “Lot of crazy things going on.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” Matt adjusted his position on the end of the bed. “The human race is dying. There’s not a lot of people left. If we’re all going to survive, we’re going to need to work together. So, yes, we will take those vehicles, but they will still technically be yours because the two of you are coming with us.”

  “Like hell we are,” Rick said.

  Matt leaned back. “So you’d rather stay here? What happens when you run out of food? Or don’t have anything left to burn to stay warm? Maybe you make it through this winter, but what about the next? Any prepackaged food you’ll find will have gone bad by then. You’ll have to spend your entire summer growing food for when things get cold again. Do you know how to farm? Do you know how to store food so it will last the winter? Do you really want to bet your cousin’s life on that?”

  “We can take care of ourselves!”

  “Can you?” Matt looked down at Rick’s bandaged hand. “You’re lucky we have medical personnel with us to take care of that. What happens when you’re out in the field, using a piece of equipment you’ve never used before, and you slice open your leg? Or what if you get sick? I’m not talking Sage Flu. Out here, by yourself, pretty much anything could kill you.”

  Silence.

  “Rick,” Ginny said. “I think we should go with them.”

  “Shut up,” Rick told her.

  “I don’t want to die,” she went on. “He’s right. We will if we stay.”

  “I said, be quiet!”

  She took a couple steps toward the bed. “What if no one else comes by? This might be our only chance to get away.”

  “We’ll be fine on our own!”

  Ginny bit her lip, clearly not agreeing with him, but Matt could see the will to argue with her cousin—someone she’d been putting all her faith in up to this point—draining away.

  “You won’t be fine,” Matt said. “Ginny knows it, and you do, too.” He stood up. “But I’ll tell you what. If you want to stay, you can stay.”

  “What about our vehicles?” Rick asked.

  “Two plows, one cargo truck go with us. But we’ll pay for them.”

  “With what?” Mick scoffed.