“Angry is an understatement,” Miles said. “Mary, stay with Jens and Zykov and search the southern third of this level. Marcic and Rosen, take the center portion. Dani and I will take the northern third. If you can’t quietly disable their secondary power, blow it.”
“How does this work?” Jens asked, holding his stolen jacket up.
“It’s a proximity thing,” Dani said. “Hold it close to an access panel, and it should let you through.”
“We’ll steal one to use,” Rosen said with the same grin Dani had seen her flash when breaking Warden necks.
The group split up, and Dani left with Miles.
“One of the Wardens I led out to the manhole said they had orders to kill everyone,” Dani said.
“I’m not surprised. I know better than to tell you why you need to stop taking so many risks.”
“Good. I don’t want the lecture.”
“You’re going to catch hell from Gavin later.”
“What else is new?”
A blast shook the lower level of the building. The dim lights flickered but remained on. Two more explosions erupted, and Dani winced as shouting voices filled her earpiece.
“Taking heavy fire! Rosen is wounded,” Marcic said.
Mary’s voice was next. “They know we’re inside!”
Dani’s eyes traveled the length of the ceiling. She spotted an irregularity in one of the corners of the corridor. She fired her pistol, and the upper corner exploded in sparks. “Cameras. Shit.”
“Abort,” Miles said into his comm. “They have surveillance on the lower levels. Everyone, fall back and get out or go underground.”
Blasts shook the compound, and parts of the structure collapsed around Dani and Miles.
“Gavin, stop firing on the fucking base,” Dani barked into her comm. “We’re still inside!”
“It’s not us. The Wardens are blowing all the entrances to keep us out,” Gavin said. “We got the jets out of the ice and in the air, but the Wardens are firing cluster grenades from the ground. We can only provide limited air support. Leave now!”
Miles spoke up. “Our team is split up and pinned. We need internal support. You can come in through the sewers. The Warden body armor jackets will get you through any interior doors.”
Dani tuned out of the chatter between Gavin and Miles and tried to think. Their well-planned battle had gone to shit. Marcic’s comm chatter had stopped altogether; Dani assumed he was dead.
“Mary, where are you?” she asked.
“Uh, trying to return to the stairs we came down,” she said. “We’re close, but the stairs are blown to hell. Can’t go out that way. Zykov is wounded. Jens is dead.”
“Miles and I aren’t far from you. Find a place to sit tight. We’ll find you.”
Miles touched Dani’s arm. “Houston has CNA pilots in the jets. She wants to bomb the shit out of the base. We have to leave.”
“After we find Mary, I’ll gladly leave.”
“Where is she?”
“Near the stairwell we came through, but it’s blocked.”
“Okay. We’ll figure out what to do about the stairwell when we get there.”
An explosion struck the upper portion of the base directly above them, and Dani dove away from the falling debris. More parts of the building came down, and she scrambled farther away from the wreckage. Something struck the side of her helmet with enough force to knock her down. When she stood, she realized that her helmet’s visual field now had multiple cracks, rendering it useless. She had to remove it and retreat farther from the smoke.
Miles’s voice sounded in her ear. “Dani!”
His voice sounded strong, so she assumed he wasn’t beneath the debris. “Yeah. Where are you?” The smoke burned her eyes and made them water. She wiped at the tears with her filthy gloves, smearing dirt on her cheeks.
“Other side of this heap. The ceiling is still crumbling, so I have to find another way to reach you. Any injuries?”
She coughed. “No.”
“I’m coming to you. Stay put.”
“I can’t with this smoke. I’ll meet you at the stairwell.”
“Dani …”
She stopped listening to him and started creeping through the corridors, shooting cameras out when she could. She ducked through a door when she heard the sound of approaching Warden boots. She didn’t dare take a shot at any of them; she wouldn’t stand a chance against multiple Wardens within a storage room with only one exit.
After they passed, she emerged from the room and followed them at a distance, hoping they didn’t turn and double back.
A blast hit the building, shaking it, and she heard a mix of screams and shouts. Wardens wouldn’t be screaming in fear. She left the main corridor to move toward the new sounds. She neared a set of double doors, and they swung open before her.
Stretchers, medical equipment, and shelves with a myriad of devices and stuff she didn’t recognize lined the sides of the medical bay. She continued toward the shouts, though they’d lessened between explosions. Dani passed through another set of doors and down a short hall lined with more doors on both sides. The building rocked, and the cries rose again. “We’re down here! Help!” They banged on the insides of the doors.
They sounded young. What, exactly, was she was walking into?
The proximity lock blinked green as she neared one of the doors. She readied her pistol and released the manual lock on the door. She pulled it open to find eight children on the other side. They backed away when they saw her pistol and huddled together in the dim room.
“What the hell are the Wardens doing with kids?” Dani asked.
A teenage girl stepped forward. “Who are you?”
“Not a Warden.”
“Clearly, or you would’ve shot us already. Who’s attacking the base?”
“The CNA and Brigands.”
“Bullshit.”
Dani blinked at the girl. “I know it sounds absurd, but it’s true. Christ, are you Echoes?”
Some of the kids flinched, and she realized she was waving her pistol at them when she addressed the group. She lowered the weapon.
“Yeah,” the girl said. “Don’t let our physical appearance make you think we’re helpless children.”
“Right. I’ll do my best. Why are the Wardens holding you down here?”
“They force us in the med room with the stretchers, kill us, and inject stuff into our veins to recondition us into Wardens. If it doesn’t work, they stick us down here to try again a few days later.”
“Fuck.” Dani had heard the rumors of reconditioning, but now she knew it was real. “How many of you are here?”
The girl shrugged.
She didn’t know any underground access points in this portion of the lower level. She’d gone to the wrong part of the floor for a quick escape. “Any chance you know a way out of here or know somewhere close where we can access the sewers?”
“The original holding area for us has a big drain in the floor that we used before they moved us here and installed toilets.”
“Perfect.”
“The Wardens sealed it when one of the smaller boys almost escaped that way,” the girl said.
“I have a grenade that can unseal it,” Dani said, hoping that was true. “I’ll open the rest of the doors, and you lead the way to this other holding area. Okay?”
The girl nodded.
Dani moved down the hall and opened the remaining doors, releasing more children. Some were younger than Oliver; others were approaching their late teens. There was an even mix of boys and girls, and they appeared more angry than terrified. Dani jogged behind the last group and reminded herself that their childlike appearance was external only. Most of the Echoes she’d just released were likely older than she was—and unlike her, they remembered their past lives.
The girl made two turns through the halls and pointed to a closed door. Dani approached, and the door unlocked. She peeked into the room of concrete walls a
nd floor. She spotted the indented area of the floor where the drain had been sealed. “Sure hope this works.” She activated the grenade, rolled the device along the floor toward the center of the room, and closed the door.
The building trembled with the force of the blast. Dani waited a second, then cracked the door open. The floor was damaged but intact, part of the ceiling had fallen in, and one wall was half gone. The scent of sewer mixed with the smoke.
As the smoke cleared, Dani spotted the sewer pipe that had ruptured open when the wall collapsed. It wasn’t the floor drain as planned, but this would do.
Dani held the door while the Echo children rushed into the room. She caught their de facto leader by the arm. “Move through the pipes and head in that direction.” Dani pointed. “You’ll need to make a few turns, because the pipes don’t go in straight lines, but keep trying to go that way.”
The girl nodded. “Can I have your pistol?”
“No. I’m not leaving yet.”
The children stayed close together, and the bigger ones helped the smaller ones into the pipe.
“Miles? Miles! Shit. Gavin, can you hear me?”
Static filled her comm.
Dani held the door open with one hand. She still held the pistol in her other hand, so she shifted her foot to prop open the door to free her hand. She used the body armor’s sleeve to wipe grime from her face. The last child moved past her and into the room.
“Gavin!”
“Dani, the Wardens are abandoning the base,” Gavin said. “There isn’t a need to go after their secondary power, but you still need to leave.”
“Can’t leave yet.”
“It’s over.”
“No, it’s not. Children are coming out through the sewers.”
“Children?”
“Yeah. The Wardens are—”
Her response was cut short when she was struck from behind, so hard that she was sent sprawling, face down, on the corridor floor. The door swung closed, and her pistol skidded away from her hand when she landed. For a moment she couldn’t breathe or move due to the pain in her back. She managed short, shallow breaths, and tried to move. A blurred image of black boots appeared near her head, and she winced when the Warden pressed his pistol’s muzzle against the side of her skull, pinning her to the floor.
“Echo or not, you can’t survive without your head. You’re here? Impossible.”
He lifted his pistol, grabbed her by the back of her collar, and rolled her over. As her blurred vision cleared, she was able read the name on the Warden’s uniform as he loomed over her. Rowan. Two other figures that Dani assumed were also Wardens stood with him in the hallway.
Rowan laughed. “I’ve searched for you for fifteen years, Dani, and today you walk through the goddamn front door.”
She didn’t know how he knew her name, since she’d traded her uniform for the Warden disguise. She reached for her knife, and he ripped it from her hand and tossed it aside. While he was leaning over her, she partially sat up, swung her fist, and clipped his chin. Unfortunately, her punch wasn’t hard enough to stagger him, and he responded by striking her in the side of the head with his pistol.
The blow rocked her; she collapsed back to the floor in a world of dizziness and pain.
“Still full of fight,” he said. “I like it.”
Voices filled her ear—Miles, Javi, and Gavin, all calling to her through the comm. Her mind was too fogged to respond to any of them.
Rowan dragged her through the hall by her collar, and the other two Wardens followed. They passed through double doors, and Dani realized she was back in the medical bay.
“Put her on a table and strap her down,” Rowan said.
The two Wardens picked her up and roughly deposited her on one of the stretchers. She tried to resist, but they restrained her. Her left arm was pulled straight and tied to a part of the stretcher to immobilize her arm. Her right arm was pinned against the side of her body by strapping.
A banging noise caught everyone’s attention. Dani looked up—and saw Miles. He fired shots at the long, glass-like window overlooking the medical bay, but the shots barely cracked the pane.
“Looks like someone wants to save you,” Rowan said to Dani. He turned his attention to the other Wardens. “Bring him alive if you can.”
Dani struggled against the straps. “Miles, run!”
He disappeared from the window, and Dani believed he’d listened to her—except he returned a moment later with a metal bar. He slammed it into the glass with wild, repeated swings.
Rowan grinned. “He’ll break his arms before he gets through that glass. Curtis,” he said into his comm, “meet me in Med Bay Three. I have the woman; she’s here.”
Rowan pulled his knife and cut through the uniform fabric and the layers of armor covering Dani’s left arm until her skin was exposed. He replaced the blade in its sheath, then rolled a cart closer to the stretcher. He pulled drawers open and removed a length of tubing, a bag containing a clear liquid, and an object that resembled a needle inside some packaging.
Miles’s attack on the window stopped, and he sprinted away from the glass. The two Wardens fired their weapons as they pursued him. Within seconds, they were all out of sight. Dani hoped he could find a way to escape them. She needed to find a means of doing that herself. She moved her right hand and discovered that the strap over her wrist wasn’t too tight. Her head pounded with pain, but she forced her mind into some sort of working order.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
Rowan abandoned the cart for a moment and stared at her. She froze her right hand.
“You haven’t aged since the day you killed me, so you must be an Echo. You don’t remember me?”
“No.”
“Oh well,” he said and returned his attention to the cart. “I remember you. The sneaky bitch that had the balls to come after me, twice. I thought it was impressive until you stabbed me with a knife and watched me bleed out. You didn’t finish the job, though, which was stupid for you; if you had, I wouldn’t be here to torture you now.”
Rowan turned around with a three-inch-long, catheter-covered needle in his hand. Dani tried to squirm away as he approached, but the straps held her. She winced when he pierced the skin in the bend of her arm and threaded the catheter into her vein. He left the catheter in her arm and tossed the needle to the floor. Rowan attached one end of the tubing, now full of the clear liquid, to the catheter. He applied tape over the contraption to hold everything in place. He picked up the bag of liquid and squeezed it.
“Normally we kill the kids before we start this part of the process. Killing them helps prime their brains for conditioning. This step is exceptionally painful, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy it more than you.” He smiled.
She thrashed against the straps as the cool fluid entered her bloodstream and quickly turned to a fiery sensation, like she was being burned from the inside. Pain flashed up her arm, and she screamed.
CHAPTER
47
Dani pushed with her feet and arched her back as far as she could move within the straps. The blinding pain that was steadily moving up her arm toward her shoulder threatened to make her pass out. She reached for the knife at the back of her belt. Upon removing it she slashed at the tubing first—and missed. But Rowan lunged away from the blade, and as he did he dropped the bag of liquid. As it fell, the weight of the bag tore the tape and intravenous catheter from Dani’s arm.
She cut the straps around her body and rolled off the stretcher. Her legs refused to hold her weight, so she scrambled across the floor and used one of the other carts to pull herself to her feet. Blood dripped down her arm from where the IV had been, and she held the knife out with a quivering hand.
Rowan, standing on the other side of the stretcher she’d abandoned, looked at her and smiled.
“Dani and whoever else is left, get the fuck out of there,” Gavin said into her earpiece. “We have the children, and Houston wants to pummel the base.
The jets are inbound.”
She couldn’t respond; she needed what wits she had left for dealing with the Warden focused on killing her. Blood matted her hair where he’d hit her with his pistol, and her entire left arm still burned from whatever it was he’d just given her.
Rowan lazily clapped his hands a few times. “Well done, Dani.”
She flinched when a loud bang echoed through the medical bay. Miles was back at the window with his pipe. He and Mary alternated turns striking the glass with their weapons. Part of her was glad to see her friends; the other part screamed that they were all in terrible danger. Even if she survived her encounter with Rowan, none of them would survive the CNA’s bombing of the base.
Dani kept her knife pointed at Rowan. Her hand continued to shake. Rowan placed his hands on the stretcher and grinned wider. He pushed it forward and charged toward her, clearly planning to pin her between the stretcher and cart she leaned against. Dani, too, grinned as he neared. His eyes widened when she leapt from the floor to land with her left hip on the stretcher. Before he could recoil, she kicked her right boot and struck his head. As he stumbled, she slid off the stretcher, swung her knife, and sliced his face with its tip.
He dropped, arced one leg out, and swept her off her feet. She landed on her already sore back with a grunt and automatically rolled into a crouched position. He pulled his pistol, and she charged before he could aim the weapon at her. They collided and tumbled to the floor. Rowan managed to knock the blade from her hand, but she pinned his pistol hand to the floor and drove her knee into his wrist.
As she pulled the pistol from his hand, his fist caught her in the ribs and unbalanced her. The weapon spun across the floor to the other side of the room.
“Shit,” she said. She separated from him and rolled to put a few feet between them before she stopped and crouched again. Her breaths were deep and ragged; her chest heaved to bring in more air. Miles’s and Mary’s voices filled her ear, and she removed her comm and tossed it aside to eliminate the distraction.
Echoes of War Page 29
