“We will pass all the relevant data we can harvest over to you,” he said. “In the meantime, we kept your progeny safe from harm, and are returning her to you as a gesture of goodwill. You may have her to train, but you will continue to act in accordance to your plan, with absolutely zero delays. If your daughter starts to interfere with that…”
He trailed off, and Devon scowled at both of them. “Are you threatening me?”
“Yes,” replied the one with his back to us. “Emphatically so. You screwed up when you let your wife get too close, and that screw-up almost cost us five years of hard work. If we hadn’t caught that letter she sent before it reached the council—”
“It was twenty years ago,” Devon grated out. “And thanks to you stopping it, she figured out that I wasn’t alone in this, and ran. Taking my unborn child with her… Not that I knew that at the time, of course.”
“If we hadn’t stopped it, you’d be locked within the depths of the Citadel for committing a terrorist-level offense.”
“And without the program my forbearers spent lifetimes on, you wouldn’t have been able to enact this plan at all! I am the last of my line, and it is my plan that we are enacting to—”
They were from different legacy families, I realized, my eyes widening. And they had somehow come together to form an alliance to achieve their mutual goal. I could only assume that the plan they were referring to was the source of all the problems within 2.0, and that they had come up with the plan together.
It was also clear that Devon was somewhat under their thumb, given how he kept trying to defend his actions. Maybe I could use that against them, find a way to create mistrust between them or something… Perhaps if I could get them to think Devon was betraying them, they could kill him for me.
“We were within two generations of figuring it out,” Baldly said blandly, stroking his goatee. “Yes, you provided us with an accelerated timeline, but now that it is in play, I need to tell him that things will continue to proceed as agreed upon, even with the added complication of your progeny.” The way he stressed the word him told me that whomever they were referring to was probably the most powerful of all of them, and clearly not with them. He certainly expected Devon to know whom he meant, and it was clear that Devon did.
Devon pursed his lips and looked over at Maddox. “Things will proceed,” he said after a moment. “But I would have your family’s word that no one will harm a hair on her head. And that you’ll give me time. I have years of Cali to undo in her, and that will take time.”
I bit my lip. While I had no idea how Maddox would react to finding out Devon was her father, I did know that no matter what her reaction, Devon was not going to get a compliant daughter. Not even in the slightest. If anything, Maddox would probably try to kill him.
“If you keep her as far away from this as possible, until it is done,” the man standing with his back to us said. “We cannot afford any potential threats at such a critical time. Do you understand?”
Devon nodded stiffly.
“Turn off the sound,” I said, and it abruptly cut off. Truthfully, I could listen to them talk for much longer, but we were on a tight schedule, and I had wasted too much time eavesdropping. We really needed to come up with a plan. “How long do we have, Leo?” I asked.
“Three minutes,” Leo cautioned. “Do you have any idea what you want to do?”
I bit my lip, a dozen hare-brained ideas popping into my head. “I suppose we could split up, try to enter from three different sides of the room. We catch them by surprise from all different angles, and hit them with our batons while they’re still trying to figure out who to come after.” I turned to Grey to find him looking thoughtfully through the still-clear wall. “What is it?”
“Well, I’m just wondering… Are these rooms completely sealed?”
“Completely sealed?” I repeated dumbly, trying to understand what he was getting at.
“They are!” Quess said excitedly, a wide grin splitting his face. “For quarantine procedures!”
“So?” I asked.
“They want me to lower the oxygen in the room,” Leo informed me before either of them could explain. “It will knock them unconscious, allowing you to slip in, grab Maddox, and get back out.”
“That’s… genius,” I said, giving Grey an appreciative smile. “Is there a catch?”
“They’ll be unconscious for only a short time,” Quess said. “Under a minute. And Maddox will be nothing but dead weight.”
“Can you carry her?” Grey asked Quess, and I shared his question. Maddox was solidly built, just as tall as Grey, but much more muscular. Being forced to carry her would slow us down, and we needed speed now more than ever. “Liana and I will need our hands free in case they wake up early.”
Quess looked past us toward Maddox, his face thoughtful. Then he nodded. “Yes, but it would be even better if Leo could give us the drug we need to counter whatever they gave her.”
There was a pause as we all looked expectantly toward Leo. The lights maintained a constant glow, showing that he wasn’t in thought.
“I’ve spent most of my time cracking the controls,” Leo said, “but I’ll get into the patient records. Once you retrieve Maddox, I can give you a path to a clear room near the closest exit and bridge, and by then, I’ll know what to give her to wake her up. Then I can download into the net there. We’ll only have a window of forty-five seconds to a minute to get out of there, once I’m out of the system, before their security systems reset. An alarm will go off shortly afterwards, when it realizes that something went wrong. Don’t worry—there won’t be any trace of me in the system to find, as long as you don’t forget me.”
I nodded, licking my lips. “How much time do we have?”
“Just over two minutes,” he said. “I’ve already started lowering the oxygen. I’ll open the door in thirty seconds.”
Turning, I watched through the clear glass as inside the room, Baldy and Devon were already beginning to sway, their eyes growing heavy, their chests heaving. Suddenly all three men dropped to their knees, their mouths open and gasping for air.
My mind flashed back to the woman being gassed in the Citadel, to her panicked breathing and bulging eyes, and I looked away, unable to watch without feeling a nervous panic come over me that I should do something, say something.
“I won’t kill them,” Leo reassured me, and from behind, I felt Grey’s hand on my arm, sliding down to my hand and squeezing it gently.
I nodded and sucked in a deep, calming breath, forcing myself to look up. All three men were lying on the floor, still, and thankfully, my anxiety subsided.
“I’m pumping oxygen back in right now so you won’t be affected,” Leo said. “As soon as I open the doors, you need to move.”
“Count us down,” Quess suggested.
There was a pause, and then: “Five… four… three… two… one… Go!”
31
The door slid open and I slipped in, my baton ready. I stepped over the downed body of the man who’d had his back to us the entire time, and took the chance to get a look at his face as I went by. Everything about him screamed “normal,” but in such a way that it was eerie. His face was neither too round, nor too angular, nor even too narrow, making it hard to really ascribe a shape. His nose was neither big nor small, and sat perfectly straight. His eyes were closed, so their color remained a mystery, but they were set well, proportioned evenly. His eyebrows weren’t too thin or thick, his hair pretty much the same, though it was dark brown or black, and graying slightly.
He was the very definition of nondescript. Ultimately forgettable in a way that would make him impossible to discern from a throng of people. His was a face for forgetting, which made it a face that people ignored. A man like that was dangerous, because it meant he could get within arm’s length, and chances were nobody would notice him.
I continued deeper into the room, stepping to one side to give Quess room to get to Maddox.
“Hurry up,” I whispered, reaching Baldy first and bending over to remove the pulse shield from his fingers, disarming him. I tucked it into my pocket and then stood, moving over to Devon. Grey crossed the distance to the other Inquisitor to follow my lead, while Quess stalked forward, heading directly for Maddox.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Doxy,” he muttered as I carefully stepped over Baldy to get closer to Devon’s still form. “But I hope they didn’t feed you.”
I looked back to see him sliding his arms under Maddox’s legs, then turned back to Devon, feeling the itch of urgency between my shoulder blades.
He had managed to pull his baton out from under him before he fell, and it now lay clutched in his fist on the floor. The tip was dull, but if he woke up before I got a chance to get it out of his hands, then we were in deep trouble.
I stepped closer to Devon, eyeing the baton. Quess grunted loudly as he picked up Maddox’s muscular form. After a moment of agonizing debate, I reached out and put my boot on the baton, dragging it back with my foot.
To my relief, Devon’s hand was still relaxed, and the baton slid away effortlessly. I continued to pull it back and then bent over to pick it up. My fingers were brushing the edges of it when Devon suddenly gave a sharp gasp, his head snapping up and around.
He blinked, his eyes narrowing in confusion, but before he could react I lashed out with my baton, my finger pressing down on the button to start a charge. The angle was sloppy, but I connected with his shoulder, and there was a sharp zzt as I held it for a second or two, then released the button, letting him drop back to the floor.
I grabbed his baton and jumped back, my hand shaking violently in the wake of such a close and personal confrontation with Devon Alexander, and I had to lower my arm to keep it from showing.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“On it,” Quess grunted, and I turned to see him stepping over the man by the door, Maddox draped over his shoulder. “What’s our time?” he asked Leo.
“A minute,” he replied, sounding nervous. “I may have overestimated my abilities—something is starting to catch on to the fact that I’m here.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, nodding for Grey to go before me. The man by the door was still, but Baldy was already beginning to show signs of life—not as abruptly as Devon had, thankfully, but it was still alarming.
“I am, but we need to move.”
I waited for Grey to get clear and then rose, turning around and making a beeline for the door. I was stepping over the downed figure of the man, feet from the door, when my stationary foot was suddenly jerked out from under me and I fell forward.
Grey reached for me as I fell, but it was too late; I barely got a chance to put my hands up before I struck. My chin impacted the floor with a violent crack, and my jaws clamped together so tight that I thought my teeth were going to shatter. Immediately, I felt a burning line of pain emanating from my chin—a raw burn that told me I was bleeding. I somehow managed to sit up, my hand going to my chin and coming away red with blood.
I stared at it, momentarily confused as to why I was bleeding, when something dark shot by too fast to make out. I pressed a hand to my chin to try to stop the blood and swiveled my head around, following the movement. I was surprised to see Grey struggling with Plain Face, whose eyes were now open, revealing murky brown irises. Grey must have leapt past me to come to my defense. That had been the thing that moved past me just moments ago.
Plain Face had tripped me. He must’ve woken up and realized what was going on.
I pulled my hand away from my chin and wiped it on my thigh, leaving a bloody red smear over the white uniform. I was bleeding, but not gushing, and Grey needed my help. Baldy seemed to be recovering more slowly than Plain Face and was clutching his head, as if it ached fiercely, while squinting around.
“Leo, get Quess and Maddox out of here,” I said, making sure to grab both batons before picking myself up off the floor. “We’ll have to catch up.”
“No, wait! I—” Quess said, but whatever else he was going to say was lost behind the pneumatic hiss of the door shutting, sealing him in the hall and cutting him off.
Baldy eyed me, his hands lowering from his head to his sides, waiting to see what I would do. Grey and Plain Face continued their wrestling match, and I stepped around it, drawing closer to Baldy. I waited until I was just a few feet away before I suddenly spun around, hoping to catch him by surprise after walking toward him instead of running. It didn’t work—he saw it coming and sidestepped—but he still seemed groggy from the oxygen deprivation, because he stumbled a few feet, trying to catch his balance.
I pressed the advantage, swinging at him again and pushing him back a few more feet. If I could knock him into a corner, then I could land a direct strike and then move to help Grey. Devon was already down. If I could just get these two down as well…
I renewed my efforts, thrusting and aggressively pushing him back. He seemed to catch his balance after a few feet or so, though, and planted his feet. I was ducking forward, my hand extending one baton forward as I tried to take advantage of his still-weakened state, when he suddenly spun around it, moving almost like liquid. I felt the hard strike of his elbow on my shoulder, pushing me off balance.
Planting my foot down quickly, I recovered and spun, flinching back a few inches to avoid the hard line of his knuckles as they swept across where my jaw had just been. I brought my arm around, catching his follow-up swing with the baton. Baldy caught it—too low on the baton for me to use the electrical charge—and before he could use it to yank me off balance, I pulled a knee to my chest and kicked out, pushing him back.
He hit the wall hard, and I drove the baton into his stomach before he could stop me, hitting him with the full charge. His body convulsed violently, and then I released him and turned to let him drop to the ground, my eyes already turning to assess Grey’s situation.
He was still engaged in the wrestling match with Plain Face, his baton on the floor. He was holding the other man at bay, but both of them had their hands latched to the other’s biceps, and were trying to shove each other over, trying to gain momentum while tripping the other.
Grey shoved Plain Face back a few feet, toward the wall, his muscles and legs straining. I drew close, my batons at the ready, but I couldn’t use them on the man while they were touching—the charge would be conducted from one to the other. I had to wait for my moment.
Suddenly Grey did something clever with his feet, shifting his balance slightly while pivoting at the waist, and Plain Face pitched forward, over Grey’s hip and shoulder and onto the floor. Grey reached out and snapped quick punches with his hand—once, twice, and then a third time—and after the third, Plain Face went slack, blood dripping from his nose.
Grey stood up, panting heavily and shaking his hand out, and turned to see me looking at him. He looked down at the man lying unconscious on the floor next to him and back up to me.
“Maddox gave me some lessons,” he said, and I smiled, impressed at how much he had picked up.
“We need to go,” I said. “Leo?”
“Yes. Quess has Maddox in the room now and is changing out her net so Devon won’t be able to ping it. Do you want to go there or leave a different way?”
I looked at Grey. They were safer if we split up. Undoubtedly, Devon would direct the search for Grey and me, so splitting up was the best way to ensure both of their escapes.
“Different way,” he answered for me, and I nodded my agreement as I bent over to pick up his baton. I handed it to him just as he said, “Tell Quess we’ll download you on the way out. But we’re going to need you in there for a little bit longer.”
“Liana?”
“He’s right, except doesn’t Quess have Leo’s net?”
“Nope, I do, actually,” Grey said with a smirk, reaching for his shirt pocket.
I watched, pleased that something was at least going our way for once.
Then somet
hing wrapped around my chest, and suddenly up became down, left became right, and the world felt as it had disappeared beneath my feet. It took me a second to realize that I was falling, and then another second to realize that I wasn’t falling—I was being thrown.
My hand went to the arm around my chest, the vice-like iron band of it encircling me, and then I hit the ground shoulders, neck, and head first. The air slammed out of my lungs with a sharp huff, and I lay stunned, staring up at the brilliant whiteness overhead.
There was a sharp ringing in my ears. I blinked, trying to clear my thoughts from the cobwebs that seemed to have amassed, while pain radiated from my back and skull. I dimly heard Grey shout, and then the muffled sound of something happening overhead, but I couldn’t make my muscles move right. My hands felt along the floor, but I couldn’t press them against it. My legs were heavy, weighing me down, holding me in place.
I fought through it, first by sucking air into my stunned diaphragm. My chest was tight, my breath coming out in a sharp gasp, but I exhaled and sucked in more, forcing it in. My eyes watered, but I blinked the tears away, managing to roll over onto my side.
The move cost me, and I panted, closing my eyes against the searing pain in my head. Air helped, though, and I breathed through my mouth, trying to keep the nausea down.
Grey’s sudden cry of pain made my eyes snap open, and I blearily looked around to see a crimson-clad figure standing over a white-clad one. The one in white was already trying to push up off the ground, while the one in crimson put his foot on the other’s back in a solid blow, forcing him back down.
Grey fell hard, and my eyes bulged when I realized that Devon was already back up. My charge hadn’t had enough of an effect on him. I looked around dimly, searching for something that I could use as a weapon—my batons were here somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out where they had fallen.
Movement from Devon distracted me, and I looked up from my searching to see him bending over at the waist and grabbing Grey by the hair. A baton was in his other hand, and as I watched, Devon met my eyes with an angry sneer.