Modified- The Complete Manipulated Series

by Harper North

  Elias and Emma appear from the front of the main transport. Cho’s not with them. Maybe he’s already boarded.

  “Reinhart must be saving Cho for himself,” Sky whispers in my ear.

  I jump. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. And how’d you know I was looking for Cho?”

  He grins. “Lucky guess.”

  Lacy and Talen haul a big crate of supplies into the transporter with ease. I walk their way and Lacy smiles at me. She’s eager.

  “We can’t take Cho with us,” Emma’s says behind me. “I had to send him down to the bottom level to detain him.”

  “What?” I turn but see Reinhart right on her tail. “But he knows how to get into the settlement!”

  Reinhart smiles. “I’ll get information from him and radio you.”

  Control freak. He wants Cho to stay so he can keep us all on a leash.

  Emma glares at Reinhart. “Next mission, I decide.”

  He raises his eyebrows at her. Fat chance, Emma.

  Elias emerges from the transporter and waves us inside. “No lagging. Get in.”

  Sky and I board. I pick a seat in the back, close to the divider that separates Emma’s portable lab from the rest of the cabin. Talen and Lacy step out of the back and take seats in front of us. Lacy grins at me again. She’s always bouncing off the walls, but she seems way too excited just to take a seat for a long trip.

  Once everyone’s inside, Elias closes the door and Emma starts the transporter. Sky puts his gun on his lap and swallows hard, squaring his shoulders, preparing himself to fight. He might hate this war, but his dreams of a better world are stronger.

  None of the EHC ops have taken this transporter with us. Only the main crew. Elias is in the front row, alone.

  A hanger-style door opens ahead of our transporter, revealing a dark, natural cave tunnel. Emma cranks a lever and we gain speed, rolling through the tunnel and over hills and valleys. Jagged rocks point at us as we pass.

  I close my eyes to block it all out, but instead my mind fills with worse things than heading into battle. Drape, still and not breathing. Then Sky, lying in rubble, gasping for air, bleeding, eyes rolling up into his head... he could have died, too.

  My eyelids shoot open and I stare at Sky, grabbing for his hand.

  “What?” he asks.

  “When we get there, stay in the transporter.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because,” I say. “Because you’re not Noble class or Aura. You’re not trained like the EHC ops. And we don’t have Cho to tell us what we’re facing.”

  “I can shoot a gun,” Sky says and releases my hand. “And I got modified to Century class. I’m just a strong as you.”

  “I can calculate things—chances of survival, all that stuff. You can’t.”

  Sky’s cheeks turn red. “I’m not useless, Fin. I’m coming with you. This is my fight, too.”

  Elias turns his head, watching us. I don’t look, but I’m pretty sure all eyes are on us.

  I stare straight ahead. The world outside opens and the sound of the transporter’s movement changes to that of wheels crunching over gravel. The setting sun leaves a fading haze on the flat horizon. What’s left of Ethos glows in the distance. People still live in the intact parts—until the SNA snatches them to use in their deadly slave labor.

  “Fin—” Emma starts, not turning to me.

  “We needed Cho! Why’d you let Reinhart keep him?”

  “Relax,” Lacy says.

  “Since when do you tell me to relax?” I snap. “It’s always the other way around.”

  Emma faces me as the headlights show the way. “Sky will be fine, Fin. But Reinhart should be sending us an angry radio message any time now.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, moving my attention between each of them.

  My distracted mind makes the connection at last. Lacy and Talen. The crate. Emma saying we couldn’t take Cho in front of Reinhart.

  Footsteps sound from the back section of the transporter.

  I whirl.

  General Cho stands in the doorway of the lab, standing at attention without a blindfold. He stretches, popping a joint that got stiff during his ride in the supply crate.

  Emma clears her throat as her radio crackles to life. “Guess I need to take this.”

  Sky pokes me in the ribs. “What was that part about not having Cho to tell us what we’re facing?”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Emma!” Reinhart’s furious voice crackles through the radio.

  She clicks it off with the press of a button. Silence falls.

  General Cho remains quiet as he takes a seat. He stares straight ahead, emotionless, though he sends me a glance from the corner of his eye and tilts his head. It could be a gesture of thanks, I guess.

  The transporter lurches over rough terrain, and I grab the armrest.

  “You had him in here the whole time?” Sky asks Emma.

  “Right under Reinhart’s nose,” she says. “The disadvantage was that we couldn’t bring as much food and water with him in the crate. We may have to find supplies when we reach the settlement.”

  “Gonglu,” Cho corrects.

  “Gonglu?” I echo.

  “The word means ‘power’ in one of the SNA’s languages,” he explains, maintaining his neutral expression and speaking in a flat tone. I wonder if Cho knows how to feel and show emotion. He must’ve had that chip his whole life and had to hide everything. “It’s the name of the temporary settlement near the Monster’s Nest.”

  “Fitting,” Elias says. “Power. This Savior of yours sure has a lot of creativity.”

  “Sure does,” I add.

  “He is not my Savior,” Cho says, features hardening. “He is no one’s Savior. Our current leader didn’t even invent the chips that shielded most of us from the radiation, but he invented the surveillance tech. Every newborn baby gets the injection that makes them a prisoner for life, and all without walls or bars.”

  “Doesn’t he have a name?” Elias asks.

  “Or is he too good for one?” I add.

  “We just know him as the Savior,” Cho replies, looking between me and Elias.

  Lacy looks my way, rolling her eyes. “Are we sure he’s not Reinhart in disguise?”

  The general ignores her, which makes Lacy bite her lip. She hates being ignored. Talen pats her on the back as if trying to calm her. He’s taking my place. Maybe Lacy will drift to him rather than me, and if I die during a fight, she can still hold her sanity together.

  “I thought Bellaton had problems,” Sky mutters, forcing himself back in on the conversation.

  “Tell us more about Gonglu,” I prompt Cho.

  Cho turns in his seat. He’s swapped his prison gear for black slacks and a plain gray T-shirt. He looks like any old Tenant class civilian who would appear on the streets of Ethos. “The Savior has set up a work camp. SNA scientists have found the center of the magma plume and they’re having the workers drill toward it day and night. The plume is only seven kilometers below the surface, and when the workers reach the magma, the pressure might release.”

  Sky leans forward. “So, the Savior is just going to let all these workers die in a volcanic eruption?”

  “Yes. The Savior says subversives, prisoners of war, and drafted unfortunates should sacrifice themselves for the Sovereign Nerics Alliance. My mother was a drafted worker. She and I could not speak ill of the regime or the SNA would have taken our entire family to a work camp.” Cho grips the back of the seat in front of him, digging his fingernails into the fabric.

  Silence falls except for the rattle of the air conditioner and the crunching of gravel.

  “They punish your whole family?” Lacy asks.

  “You saw what the EHC did to Cia,” Sky says, cheeks flushing. “And what they did to Elias’s uncle. The SNA are worse cockroaches than Bellaton.”

  “Since when do you call people cockroaches?” I ask him. But if anyone deserves the name, it’s the
Savior.

  Sky lifts his pistol. “Tell me who to shoot.”

  I place my hand over the top of it and push the weapon back to his lap. “Calm down. You can’t just jump into a fight when some of those bodies blow up.”

  My heart thuds. I have no good way to keep Sky from following me onto the battlefield.

  And, eventually, time will run out for one of us.

  Outside, the distant lights of Ethos vanish. We head into a world of pure darkness, except for the transporter headlights.

  “Most low-level foot soldiers and guards have internal explosives that detonate when they detect sudden death,” Cho says. The same is true at Gonglu. Only higher-level members of the military may have the devices removed. Few of the dead get sent home from battle intact to their families.”

  “What about the eruption?” Elias asks.

  The man pales and faces Elias. I remember the fear Cho had when he spoke to Ambassador Morris.

  “Even our scientists don’t know how intense it would be, but they suspect drilling a small hole will only release enough pressure to level the work camp and the surrounding guards. Once the eruption stops, the Savior can send in more workers from captured EHC cities to build a power plant over the site. But files in the EHC power distribution center show the plume may be unstable, so we can’t be sure what it’ll do.”

  “The SNA is making those workers dig for their death,” I say as Elias and I exchange a wide-eyed glance.

  “They’re sacrifices,” Cho agrees, looking at the floor of the transport. “For the SNA and the Savior. Even children of the slaves have gone to the work camp. The guards threaten to hurt the children if the unchipped adults don’t work.”

  “Then we need to hurry and get everyone out of there,” Sky says. He grips my lower arm. and his hand has gone clammy and damp.

  I pull away, leaving him to grasp at air. “How many guards?”

  “Three hundred soldiers run the camp,” Cho says. “All but a few have chips.”

  “All but a few?” Elias echoes. “Doesn’t everyone in SNA territory get chipped the second they come out of their mother?”

  “Yes,” Cho explains. “Everyone gets the injection, but the bodies of the naturally adapted reject the devices. They eliminate the chips before they can lodge in the arms, feet, and brain. And if caught, the naturals go straight to work camps, never to come out again.”

  Up ahead, Emma continues to drive, leading the way for the other three transporters. She flinches at Cho’s words. The SNA is just like the EHC when it comes to the naturally adapted.

  “Do you think these people could help us?” I ask.

  “None of them will trust me,” Cho says. “But I know who lacks chips. Not one op realizes I know their secret.”

  “If you know, why doesn’t the Savior?” I ask. “Can’t the chip read your thoughts?”

  “Only what I see, hear, and say. The SNA can’t filter or control thoughts. But if the Savior gets the plume, that won’t take long.”

  So he’s not quite what Talen was. “But if you saw the ops without chips, so did the Savior.”

  “You’re right. When the medical examiner gave me the report, I typed fake arrest orders to make the Savior believe my loyalty. Putting in a couple of errors stopped them from going through the system later.”

  “Smart,” I tell him.

  Cho grins for the first time. “When we get to the settlement, we’ll find our people. I call them the Naturals.”

  * * * * *

  After two hours of rolling through the dark, my eyelids turn to lead and lower. I shift in my seat, which I’ve reclined.

  Sky snores beside me. His lips curl into a peaceful grin. He’s somewhere else, maybe even with me in a world without the SNA or any war. Why can’t I have dreams like that? I used to, with me, Sky, Drape, and Lacy all together as a family. But that’s gone now, and if Sky goes into the work camp, it’ll keep getting smaller.

  Three hundred guards against two dozen EHC ops and a ragtag band of Impures. While Lacy and Talen have Aura abilities, and Elias and I have our brainpower, Sky only has strength and a gun. He’s no different than the ops, who have lost dozens.

  In front of me, Talen has his head on Lacy’s shoulder, but Lacy faces out the window, both asleep. Emma keeps driving, and now a second transporter, this one with tinted windows and full of EHC ops, rolls beside ours.

  Elias rests in the front row, silent, with his head rolled back.

  I rise, careful not to make the seat squeak and wake Sky.

  Sorry, I mouth.

  Inching past him, I step into the aisle and make my way to the seat beside Elias. Settling in, I recline, stare at the ceiling for a moment, and close my eyes.

  * * * * *

  “Everyone up. We can’t get any closer to Gonglu in the transporters or the troops could get a visual on us.”

  Emma’s words cut into the darkness surrounding me. I open my eyes to a window, a pink horizon, and a still landscape. The lack of gravel shifting under the tires jars me more than anything.

  We’ve stopped.

  Elias grunts where he lies, inches from me. Sky’s already awake, leaning on the wall by the lab divider. His questioning blue eyes lock on me.

  Pain grabs my heart, but I swallow it and get out of my chair before I have to answer. “How close are we to the work camp?” I ask Emma.

  She rises from the driver’s seat, stretching. While we slept, the other three transporters cut in front of us like they were expecting an ambush. The land outside is broken up by yellowing grass struggling out of cracks and dried mud. It’s flat. The landscape might have once had fields of waving grass, but now it’s all browns and yellows. Twisted trees jut from the ground like shadowy guards.

  “According to Cho,” Emma says, “we are five kilometers away from the camp entrance, which translates to—”

  “A little over three miles,” I say, calculating. “We should be able to see it from here, but… where is it?”

  I won’t think of Sky. Anything but Sky.

  Lacy pokes me in the back. “Cho told us something scary. The Monster’s Nest has sunk into the ground by hundreds of feet since the plume formed years ago, taking it out of view. The work camp’s down in a valley.”

  I face her. Even after sleeping all night, her eyes are bloodshot. “Lacy?” I ask. “You feeling okay?”

  “Yeah,” she says with a groan. “The magnetic field here is giving me a headache.”

  Behind her, Talen rubs his temples. “It’s like what we felt back at the power distribution place. I think the complex was pumping magma underneath Ethos to supply energy. Lacy and I are feeling the magnetic fields given off by all the molten rock.”

  “Explains all the heat in the pit,” I say. “And they didn’t even tap the main plume.”

  The ground rumbles. I grasp the seat beside Elias as the quake shudders the whole transporter. After a few seconds, the rumbling stops.

  “How can anyone work out here?” Sky asks, walking out of the lab.

  “We need to secure my equipment,” Emma says, “or something will fall and shatter. This area is seismically unstable.” She gestures for Elias to come help her.

  “No kidding,” I mutter.

  Elias obeys, leaving me with Cho, Lacy, Talen—and Sky.

  He glares at me with an obvious question.

  What are you doing?

  I ignore him. “Talen, Lacy, will you be able to take down any guards?”

  Lacy steps forward. “Maybe if I get close enough. Talen might have trouble if there’s too much of the magnetic noise around the work camp.”

  “Most of the troops have explosives installed,” Cho reminds us as another rumble shakes the transport around us.

  “Are we sure that hotspot or whatever it is isn’t about to blow already?” Lacy yells, grasping a seat until the shaking stops.

  “The last time I checked into the project, the drilling had gotten within three kilometers of the plume surface,�
�� Cho says. “That was three days ago, before Ambassador Morris came to check on the distribution facility. Earthquakes have been happening here since before even the EHC arrived.”

  “Do you head the drilling?” I ask, turning my body to take Sky from my sight.

  “No. I only have the job of supplying ops. Annalie Starsen, Head SNA Geothermal Scientist, heads the operation for the Savior. How loyal she is, I can’t tell you.”

  Emma and Elias climb back inside the transport. Sweat beads on Emma’s forehead from the heat outside.

  “We should reach this Starsen,” I say. “See if we can deactivate her chip and get her to stop the drilling. She must know how dangerous opening a magma plume is. If not, she’s stupid.”

  “Might be a good idea,” Elias agrees, slapping me on the shoulder. “Cho will get us to her.”

  Sky leans back into my vision and plucks his pistol off the seat. “We should go,” he says to everyone, pointing his gun at the sunrise. “Stake out the area. See the work camp.” He’s trying to talk like Elias and take charge. As if realizing it himself, Sky bites his lip.

  “Not everyone should go,” I say. “People will need to stay behind and guard the transporters.”

  Emma nods. “You’re right. I’m staying, and I’ll have three or four ops stay behind, too.”

  “Agreed.” Sky pushes open the door, which sucks in a blast of hot, early morning air. I let out a sharp exhale and join Sky while Elias gathers the EHC ops.

  “We can’t afford to sit and eat,” Elias says. “Pack energy bars and water bottles and make them last. Out, everyone!”

  Already, heat ripples above the ground, warping the horizon as we walk along a trail of faint tire tracks. The ground quakes over and over, sometimes just a few minutes apart, and sometimes longer. There’s no way to predict when they’ll start or end.

  I march in the lead, but Sky catches up with me. To avoid any conversation, I chew on my energy bar, but it doesn’t last nearly long enough and the silence just becomes awkward. Sweat breaks out over my skin and I tug at my long sleeves, meant to stop sunburn. Before us, the horizon stays flat, like we’re marching to nothing. A few times Sky tries to make a bit of small talk, but mostly the loudest sound is our boots scraping over dirt. Minutes turn into almost an hour. At last, as a glowing red eye peeks over the ground, Sky grabs my arm.