by Doug Felton
Josh nodded. He seemed disappointed by Raisa’s revelation, but said, “Is your staff going?”
“No. Just one lieutenant and me.”
“So why can’t the others do the job?”
“Because everyone knows they’re with me. They couldn’t be a fly on the wall. I need you to do this for me.”
“Of course. I’ll do whatever you ask, but I don’t have a lot of experience gathering intel. I mostly analyze data.”
“You’ll be fine. Just keep your eyes open and tell me what you think.”
“About what?”
“About anything you think is important.”
After Raisa answered a few more of Josh’s questions, she gave him Penly’s encrypted comm with instructions on how and when she’d contact him. Without a microchip implant, which only wealthy people and government officials had, Josh needed to use his own device to sync with the earpiece.
“It should work,” Penly said. “It doesn’t matter who’s using it, it can only connect with the other earpieces we’ve linked it to. So, we’re good.
After he left, she and Penly prepared to leave. Raisa planned to take a circuitous route through the main section of the facility, making herself as visible to the residents one more time, before doubling back to the blast doors. Besides being massive, the doors were secured with a locking mechanism that Raisa hadn’t taken the time to understand. All she needed to know was the procedure to disengage it. Or, more accurately, that’s what Penly needed to know. She was the tech wizard, so Raisa let her handle those details.
Having made an appearance among the Ten Thousand, Raisa and Penly headed out of the main complex toward the tunnel leading to Camp David. She wondered where Zeke was. She hadn’t seen him since their conversation the night before, and that worried her. He’d been different, not just his ideas, but his demeanor. It wasn’t drastic enough to be a bipolar swing, but it was a side of him she hadn’t seen. She hoped he would abandon his vision for the immortals once this was over. Raisa didn’t look forward to endless conversations about what she should have done. Dealing with Elliot was an even less appealing thought, but she’d crossed a line, and Raisa would have to handle it. Up to that point, Raisa had treated the five immortal women on her staff differently than others who worked for her. They had a deeper connection, so she gave them extra leeway. Before that morning, none of them had taken advantage of it.
Raisa and Penly approached the opening to the tunnel leading to Camp David. It was on their right and large enough for a company of soldiers to march through. Heading into the tunnel, both women stopped dead in their tracks. A hundred yards ahead, they could see the blast door, its steel exterior reflecting the overhead lights. In front of the door stood Zeke and Lieutenant Elliot, and at least two hundred immortals. They were deadly silent and perfectly still. Raisa looked back to see another fifty people blocking the tunnel’s exit. Mr. Crossed Arms was among them.
Zeke called to Raisa, “You’ve come this far, Your Majesty, you might as well come the rest of the way.”
Raisa and Penly closed the distance as the group behind them followed. “Are you here to stop me?” she asked Zeke, refusing to look at Elliot.
“Stop you? No. We want to go with you.”
That made little sense. Why would Zeke want to go with her? What did he have to gain by leaving the Ten Thousand behind? For that matter, what would he gain by stopping her? “What do you mean?” she asked.
“We want to go with you,” he repeated.
“Aren’t you concerned that Tom Cruise might find out that hundreds of immortals have left Raven Rock? Don’t you think that might upset him?”
“No, I won’t be upset,” Zeke said, winking at her the way Cruise had done so many times. “So why don’t you open the doors for us.”
Chapter Seventeen
Raisa felt the air being sucked out of her. “You? You’re Tom Cruise? I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple, really. I needed the Ten Thousand together in one place, and I needed them to feel threatened. So I created an enemy who could help me check off both items from my to-do list. But to be fair, people out there really are afraid of them. It would have been only a matter of time before the threats became real. I just moved the timeline up a little.”
Raisa clenched her fists so that her nails dug into her palms. She considered the pain it caused as just recompense for her failed judgment. Alexander had been spot on in his assessment of Zeke, and she had ignored him. How could I have been so blind? Now that she could see with clarity, his features seemed to have transformed, taking on harsher angles.
Raisa didn’t move to accommodate his request. She wasn’t about to open the door. Instead, she said, “What’s your connection to Council member Barrymore?”
“You mean, President of the Council Barrymore?”
“What?” Raisa said with more desperation than she wanted to display.
“Well, not officially, but soon. It seems President Tate had a massive stroke last night and is unresponsive. Things don’t look good for him,” he said with feigned concern.
“So you wanted Barrymore to be President of the Council. Why?”
“Because he’s my father,” Zeke said. “My real father.”
“Micah Wellington is not your father?” Penly asked.
At the mention of Micha’s name, Zeke lost whatever pretense of joviality he might have been displaying. “No,” he said in a slow drawl. “I think if I had that man’s blood flowing in my veins, I would’ve killed myself long ago.”
In all of her reading about Zeke Wellington when she was a teen, Raisa had never come across any hint of problems between him and his father. She couldn’t imagine what he had done to Zeke to cause him to hate him so much. And why this elaborate scheme? Why did he need the Ten Thousand together? What benefit did it offer? Then it hit her, like running into a glass wall. He had said it himself the night before; he wanted them to rule the continent. Ten thousand immortal people, transformed with superhuman abilities. Is that what Zeke was after all along?
Raisa eyed the group surrounding them. It was impossible to tell if he had transformed all of them as he had done with Elliot. There must have been at least three hundred. Could he have convinced that many to take his drug in such a short time? She hurled the flashlight she was holding toward a wall of people to her right. A woman reached out and grabbed it without flinching. It happened so fast Raisa hardly saw her arm move. Amazing.
“Faster than a speeding bullet and all that,” Zeke said as if he were reading her mind.
“How many of them have you changed?” she asked. “Are these all of them?”
“There will be time for questions later,” Zeke said as if he were guiding a tour. “Right now, I need you to open these doors.”
She had a thousand more questions, but more importantly, she didn’t want to help Zeke carry out whatever scheme he had come up with, so she just stared back at him.
When she didn’t move, he hung his head in an exaggerated expression of impatience. “Have it your way.” Zeke took two steps closer and grabbed Penly by the neck. Her hands went at once to his. When he lifted her, her whole body convulsed as she kicked her legs.
“Put her down,” Raisa demanded.
“Uh uh.”
Penly’s face started turning red.
“We can work something out. What is it you want? I want to hear what you have to say.”
“What I want is for you to open the doors.”
Penly’s face was turning a deeper red, almost purple, and her flailing grew weaker.
“Alright! Alright!” Raisa yelled.
Zeke dropped Penly, who crumpled on the floor, not moving. Raisa knelt next to her and put her hands on her face. “Penly,” she cried.
“Open it,” Zeke said.
“She’s the one who knows how you idiot,” Raisa said, fury in her voice. Raisa knew how to open the doors, but she wasn’t about to admit that.
Zeke looked fru
strated as he whispered something to Elliot. She promptly left the group. “Thankfully, Lieutenant Penly is immortal, or mostly immortal. She’ll heal eventually, but we don’t have the time to wait. If I’m not mistaken, they will expect you soon on the other side. Which reminds me, I’ll be needing your encrypted earpiece. And hers,” he pointed to Penly. “Oh, and why don’t you pull out those contact lenses while you’re at it.”
Raisa pulled the tiny device out of her ear and then the lens she wore in her right eye. Pointing to Penly, she said, “She doesn’t have an earpiece.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe what you want. She doesn’t have one, it malfunctioned.” Raisa was sure that Zeke’s people had detained the other women on her staff by then and taken their comms. She was grateful now that she’d given one to Josh.
Elliott returned with a small grey handheld case. She opened it, revealing two vials, one filled with an amber-colored liquid, and the other with a clear liquid. “Should we give her both of them?”
“No,” Zeke said, “just the first one, right now.”
Before Raisa could react, someone behind her grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Elliot knelt and injected the amber-colored drug into Penly’s arm.
At first, nothing happened, then Penly sucked in a deep breath, and her hands flew to her neck. The purple bruises that had formed there began to recede. She lay on her side for several more minutes before sitting up. Her face was a mixture of discomfort and concentration, like someone trying not to throw up their lunch. “What’s happening to me,” she said in a hoarse voice.
“Feels like you’re on fire, doesn’t it?” Zeke said. “That will pass. But, in the meantime, I need you to open this door.”
Penly was still struggling as she tried to stand. She got to a crouch before falling on her side. Raisa pulled free of the person holding her and helped her up. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Penly looked at her, eyes wide with fear. She shook her head as she put a hand out to steady herself. “Something’s happening to me.”
“The door, Lieutenant,” Zeke said.
Penly looked at Raisa for direction. Raisa’s heart battered her chest in a panicky rhythm. She couldn’t give in to Zeke without putting everyone on the other side, waiting for them in danger. But what would he do if she didn’t? Raisa held her hands to keep them from trembling. She shook her head, telling Penly not to open the door.
“How noble,” Zeke said. “My guess is that you wouldn’t budge even if I kill every one of the beautiful ladies you brought with you. They knew what they signed up for and all that. But what if I pick off the Ten Thousand, one by one?”
Raisa let out an involuntary gasp of fear.
“Ah, now that’s it,” he said with satisfaction. “Go get one. The girl she’s been talking to. Jolene, is it?”
Elliot turned to leave again as Raisa called to her. “Sandra. You don’t have to do this. This isn’t who you are.”
She stopped for a moment without turning around. Raisa thought maybe she’d gotten through to her, but that hope died as Elliot continued down the tunnel and out of sight.
Despite her best effort, Raisa’s lip quivered on the edge of a sob. Her vision blurred as tears pooled that she refused to blink away. For the thousandth time, Raisa cursed herself for so recklessly announcing her condition to the world. It had started a chain of events that led to that very moment. The one thing she wanted most was to protect the Ten Thousand from those who would destroy them or try to use them. Now, because of her, all of them were at risk.
When Elliot returned, Jolene walked beside her. They looked like two friends out for a stroll, no sign of trouble.
“Your Majesty,” Jolene said, surprised, “what’s going on?”
Zeke said, “I need the Queen to open this door for me, and she’s a bit reluctant. I thought maybe if you asked her, she might accommodate.”
“I don’t understand,” Jolene said. “Why don’t you want to open the door?”
Raisa didn’t answer. She refused to play games with this woman’s life.
“You see?” Zeke said, “She’s just not being cooperative.”
Jolene was about to say something when Zeke seized her with both hands around the neck. Instead of lifting her off the ground, he closed the vice grip of his interlocked fingers, fury flashing across his face. Bones in her neck and throat cracked and snapped under his devastating clutch. It couldn’t have taken more than twenty seconds to end her life, but Raisa felt as if she had witnessed a lifetime of horror. Jolene’s lifeless body slumped to the floor where Zeke dropped her.
The fury faded from Zeke’s face as fast as it had come, a shadow disappearing to a hidden lair. He dabbed beads of sweat from his forehead and said, “Lieutenant, please open the door.”
Through soul-crushing tears, Raisa nodded her permission to Penly. As Penly moved toward the control panel next to the door, Raisa couldn’t take her eyes off of the lifeless body of a woman she’d just met yesterday. Anger that Raisa thought she’d exhausted two years earlier welled up inside of her. In that moment, she determined that she would kill Zeke Wellington if it were the last thing she ever did.
Chapter Eighteen
The tunnel to Camp David was six miles long, give or take. They had planned to rendezvous with Alexander at the halfway point where he’d meet them with transportation. Zeke reasoned, if they acted like business as usual, Alexander would have no cause to be suspicious.
“I have others at Raven Rock,” he told Raisa. “If you make this difficult for me, I’ll have more of your friends killed.”
Raisa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could so many people who were, until a week ago, normal citizens go along with this? How many he’d convinced to join him so far? It was clear Jolene had no idea what was going on, and Raisa was certain Josh didn’t either. At least she hoped he didn’t. He was her connection to what was happening at Raven Rock. With any luck, there were more of the Ten Thousand who hadn’t joined forces with Zeke than had. But who knew?
When dark figures came into view in the distance of the dimly lit tunnel, Zeke said, “Remember, we’re one big happy family.”
Three figures stood in front of a transport, each one armed. They were still too far away to see facial features, but Raisa could tell which one was Alexander from his stance. She wished he weren’t there. Zeke had proven what he was capable of, and she didn’t want Alexander to die trying to be the hero.
As they got closer, Raisa noticed the lights on the far side of the tunnel were out, shrouding everything behind the three men in darkness.
Zeke must have noticed too because he swore under his breath before waving and calling out, “Boy, am I glad to see you.”
When they were a hundred feet away, Alexander and the other two raised their weapons. The tunnel behind them was suddenly awash in light, revealing dozens of vehicles and a company of soldiers in combat gear.
How did he know?
“That’s far enough,” Alexander said. “I need Raisa, Penly, and Elliot to come here. The rest of you need to stay where you are.”
Zeke positioned himself behind Raisa, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I remember one of my early concerts in Austin, Texas,” he said. “That was back when we were still one country under God, and I could still go to Austin. I was barely seventeen, still scared to death of performing in front of so many people. As usual, my parents weren’t there, so I had to figure it out on my own.”
“This is a delightful story,” Alexander said, “maybe we can hear the rest of it sometime. Right now, I need you to release the Queen and allow her and her staff to come to me.”
Zeke continued as if Alexander hadn’t spoken. “What I discovered that night was that I could look at the audience as an enemy or an ally. I could imagine they were there to judge me and would be critical if I didn’t please them, or I could assume they’d have a great time and invite them to become part of the
show. I treated them as allies. Twenty thousand of my closest friends, hanging out and singing with me. It was a great show.”
Alexander was getting impatient with Zeke’s soliloquy, and the soldiers behind him were getting antsy, but Zeke didn’t pause long enough for Alexander to issue another ultimatum.
“I don’t want to treat you as an enemy, Alexander. I would much rather treat you as an ally. But it’s hard for me to do that when you’re pointing guns at us. So here’s what I propose; put your guns down, and me help the Ten Thousand take their rightful place in history.”
Alexander shook his head. “I know who your father is, your real father, Council member Barrymore, and I’m guessing you’re the one behind Tom Cruise.”
“Excellent. You ran our DNA, didn’t you? That’s some good detective work right there, but it changes nothing. Either you are with me, or you are against me. And you don’t want to be against me.”
“This is your last opportunity,” Alexander said. “If you don’t release them now, I will have to take action.”
Zeke said in an exasperated tone, “I tried.”
With that, the augmented immortals behind Raisa and Zeke moved with sudden and explosive speed charging Alexander and the New World soldiers. Some ran ahead with the speed of lightning, and others leaped hundreds of feet, landing amid the soldiers farther back. What had been a quiet tension exploded into close-quarter combat. The sound of fists striking flesh and gunfire echoed off the tunnel walls.
Raisa started toward the fight, but a soldier caught her and Penly from behind and held them in place. She watched as immortals struck by bullets fell, only to rise again, their wounds closing as they pressed on. Only a few shot in the head didn’t get up, but that wasn’t many.
New World Soldiers fell as Zeke’s makeshift army attacked with relentless speed and strength. Two minutes. That’s all it took before the tunnel grew quiet again, the smell of discharged weapons and blood in the air.
