“Everything has come together exactly as I planned it all those years ago,” he responded. Everyone but me probably missed the way the veins in his eye grew fractionally, even as he spoke. “There are just a few more minor details to attend to and check. We are on schedule to set it off in four days.”
“Four days,” I breathed. That should have felt like no time at all. We’d survived over two-thousand of them since the Evolution happened. But that was four entire days we had to hold our breath. We just had to hope a Bane sweep didn’t fall upon us before those four days were over with.
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWO DAYS UNTIL SET OFF
“I think we’ve missed one important detail.”
Royce jerked awake, his arms twitching where they had lain over his eyes. He rolled over onto his stomach and glared at me with groggy eyes.
I’d actually never been in Royce’s room before. It was on the sixth floor, just down from his office. He had a real bed, a big one. Heavy drapes were drawn over the windows. The only light in the room spilled in from the hallway behind me.
“I should have you detained for waking me at this hour,” he growled, his eyes fluttering back closed.
“It is nine in the morning, sir,” I said simply.
Royce gave a heavy sigh, the sigh of knowing the weight that was upon his shoulders, the work that was required of him, and the consequences of what would happen if he couldn’t meet the high expectations.
He rolled into a sitting position and sat on the edge of his bed. I looked away when I realized he was only in his underwear.
“And what is this detail we’ve overlooked?” he said as he started pulling on a pair of jeans. I could finally look at him again.
I had never seen Royce with his shirt off, and I was impressed with how fit he was. Royce was closing in on fifty, but he was just as muscled as Avian, perhaps even a bit more. He had a heavy scar on the lower left side of his abdomen and I wondered where he’d gotten it.
“We are going to want to know quickly if the transmitter works,” I said, meeting his steel gray eyes. I wondered if my father’s eyes had been the same color. My own eyes were blue-gray. “I think we ought to have two test subjects close at hand when this device goes off; otherwise we’re going to have to drive who knows how long to look for fresh bodies, or Bane who still try and attack us.”
“You’re doubt is a bit insulting,” he said, giving me one of his steely looks he was so practiced in. “But you are right. It’s a smart idea. Our scientists are getting rusty in that they didn’t think of this themselves.”
“I’d like to take a vehicle and go out and catch two subjects,” I said. I placed my arms behind my back, holding my left wrist with my right hand. “Can you quickly create a holding cell of some sort for them?”
I was somewhat annoyed when Royce delayed in responding. I could see the thoughts turning behind his eyes, debating whether or not to let me do this. He knew the stakes if anything went wrong as I attempted capture—but he also trusted me.
“We can get something together,” Royce said. “And it shouldn’t pull away any of our scientists. We’ve got an old prison transport vehicle you can take. The Bane will probably beat the tar out of it, but it should be able to hold up long enough for you to get back here.”
“I’m going to try and find some Sleepers,” I said. “Seems a little less…dangerous than trying to tackle a Hunter or two. I have less chance of having to kill a Sleeper.”
“Makes sense,” Royce said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a well-worn long sleeved t-shirt. He pulled it over his head and next set to lacing his boots up. Suddenly, his brows furrowed and his hands hesitated. He looked over at me. “Remember when you asked me about my brother the other day?”
Everything in me froze at that, except for my heart. It broke out into a sprint.
“How did you know his name?”
I swallowed hard. My palms started sweating. “It’s not important right now, sir. We can talk about it later.”
He looked at me for another moment, and then turned back to his shoes.
I was a coward, that was the honest truth of it. I was too scared to delve into something this personal. It was easier to focus on the end of the world for the time being.
That didn’t mean my hands weren’t shaking when I shoved them into my pockets.
Thirty seconds later, Royce and I were walking to the stairs and up to the blue floor. He unlocked a door I had never been behind. He opened it up to what was little more than a closet. Inside, there were shelves lined with all kinds of menacing looking devices. Royce grabbed one and closed the door once more.
“You really meant it when you told one of the Undergrounders those months ago that he didn’t want you digging into your closet,” I said, smiling.
“I don’t often kid,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. A smile curled on his own lips. “Now this is a cybernetic diffusion unit,” he continued. It was different than the others that I’d seen. It was smaller, small enough to be easily held in one hand. A digital keypad lit up when Royce turned it on. It instantly hummed, a quiet yet high-pitched sound. “But this one is adjustable. You can crank it all the way up, enough to short even the most advanced Bane out. Or you can dial it back so you’ll just give them a nice jolt that will basically put them into shock.”
“When have you ever used this, Royce?” I asked, looking up into his eyes.
Something in his demeanor changed and there was regret and pain in it. “In the beginning, six months or so after we settled the hospital, I wanted to study the Bane, to see if there was a way of reversing what TorBane did. I made this to try and capture them. I would have gone out and used it myself, but something came up. My then right-hand man took it out instead. As you can guess, something went wrong. We started development on the Extractor the next day.”
He didn’t need to explain further.
He quickly showed me how to adjust it, all without me touching it. We found a thick pair of rubber palmed work gloves, which I was to wear at all times when handling the device.
“Where’s Avian?” Royce asked as we walked down into the garage. He walked me up to a large, boxy vehicle and handed over a set of keys.
“He’s out with security detail,” I responded as I pulled the driver’s door open.
“He doesn’t know about this mission of yours, does he?”
I hesitated. “I didn’t think of it until after he’d left this morning.”
“No complaint here,” Royce said, a hint of a smile pulling on his lips. “That boy tends to do stupid things when it comes to your safety. I think that means he loves you.”
“Something like that,” I said, smiling back.
“This thing isn’t too difficult to drive,” Royce said, turning his attention to the vehicle’s interior. “That’s the gas pedal, that one is the brake. Shift it into gear here. The back transport box locks from the outside with this key. Other than that, pretty simple.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the keys from him. “I think I can handle it.”
I climbed into the massive vehicle and started the engine. I waved to Royce as I pulled out of the garage. I was just about to turn left to head south when I spotted Vee heading back into the hospital. I slowed and rolled down the window.
“Feel like trapping some Bane with me?” I asked, squinting against the bright morning light.
Vee didn’t hesitate as she walked around the vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat. She didn’t ask for an explanation as we headed southwest.
It took us twenty minutes to get to where the ocean was directly to our right. It was a sunny but gray colored day. The ocean waves crashed to the shore softly, with only the two of us to notice. It was hard to imagine that at one time, these beaches had been packed with thousands of people.
Eventually the silence grew heavy in the air and I had that urge to fill it.
“For five years I didn’t know that I couldn’t be infected by the B
ane,” I said, grasping at anything to fill the quiet. We had the windows rolled down, despite the cold. It blew our hair around but it made me feel alive, alert.
“It probably would have made your life a lot easier if you’d realized sooner,” she said, looking out toward the ocean. She hadn’t looked away from it since we got on the road. I realized this was the first time she had seen it.
The first time I saw the ocean was the first time I’d ever cried.
“Yeah,” I said. “It would have.”
We were quiet again and I felt that human pressure to fill the dead air with something. But I didn’t have anything to say.
“I really don’t know what to say to you,” I said. “I feel like we’re supposed to do all this catching up or talk about…things. But I don’t really know what to say.”
She looked over at me. “Why do you have to say anything?” she asked. “What is there to say? I remember your childhood. They never allowed us to be close. You were supposedly dead. And then I find out that you aren’t and we’re all grown up. You have your duty and your man and I am fine with simply existing. I’ll be here for you when you need me, and I’m pretty sure you’ll do the same. What else is there?”
I couldn’t have said it any more perfectly myself.
Our past had made it so we would always be slightly distant to each other. The bond of sisterhood that those who were not TorBane-infused knew would always be just out of our reach.
But she was here now, helping me with what was required, and that was more than enough.
We were seventy miles from ground zero of the hospital when I pulled off the main highway and into smaller streets.
“Keep an eye on the buildings,” I said. “We might get lucky and find some Sleepers instead of Hunters.”
I drove slowly, inspecting the buildings and shops on the left side of the street while Vee inspected the ones on the right. But everywhere we looked there were just dead, destroyed bodies.
We continued south.
We had driven another ten miles when something slammed into the back of the prison vehicle.
“I got it,” Vee said. To my surprise, she pulled a hefty handgun from a holster at her hip. She hauled the upper half of her body through the window and aimed at the back of the vehicle. She fired four shots and I heard something scraping the pavement behind us.
“Guess that means we’re getting closer,” I said as I turned right down a shop-lined street. Vee dropped back into her seat.
“Why don’t you just call them out and tell them to get into the back of the vehicle?” Vee asked as we slowly rolled forward.
Honestly, the idea hadn’t even occurred to me. “Where’s the fun in that?” I said. Just then, I saw two figures standing motionless inside an old ice cream shop. They stared blankly out at the world. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to physically kick some Bane ass.”
When I glanced at Vee as I put the vehicle into park, I had hoped to see the hints of a smile on her face. But she just looked calm and collected.
We climbed out of the vehicle and I unlocked the back doors. Inside there were benches lining either side of the vehicle. Other than a reinforced vent at the back, it was a steel box.
I just had to hope it was enough to keep the Bane contained until we could get back to the hospital.
“How do you want to do this?” Vee asked. Her fingers twitched at her side, hovering over her firearm. A screech from the sky drew my eyes upward. Bird was once again circling us.
“I honestly hadn’t thought about it all that much,” I said. “I take one, I guess, you take the other. Blunt force sound okay?”
Vee shrugged her left shoulder and cocked her head to that side slightly. I supposed that was a yes.
“Don’t kill them,” I said. “We need them good and alive. If they get to be too much, Royce gave me this nice little toy.” I held up his modified CDU. “Let’s go.”
Maybe it was that twin bond I’d heard about, or just adrenaline surging through both our systems, but we both broke out into a sprint at the same time. I kicked the door open, shattering it into a thousand splinters.
One of the two Sleepers twitched, its head jerking up slightly. I went directly for that one, wrapping my arms tightly around its chest. Not hesitating a moment, I swung us back in the direction of the door.
I was half way to the vehicle, dragging the struggling body behind me, Vee just about out the door, when the body I grabbed twisted, yanking from my hold. It swung, its fist barely missing the side of my head as I ducked. I spun low, kicking my foot out and knocking it from its feet.
I threw myself on top of it, but in that instant, its eyes opened, staring at me with its metallic and too sharp surfaces. Its hands wrapped around my throat and rolled, pinning me to the ground.
Despite my position and the air being choked off, I felt more alive in that moment than I had in months. I was back in Eden, conducting a raid and fighting to protect a small colony of thirty people.
A smile actually spread on my face as I curled one leg up, hooking it around the male figures neck, and throwing it back onto the pavement. I sprang to my feet before the uncoordinated machine could recover. Pinning both its hands behind its back, I threw it into the back of the vehicle.
Vee and her Bane were in a similar scuffle and I turned to see her grab it by the throat, lift it, and throw it into the back as well. We slammed the doors closed and I locked it behind us.
The metal siding suddenly dented out toward us, followed by another dent, and then another.
A laugh suddenly broke from my chest as I looked at Vee. She just stared at me emptily.
“That felt really good,” I said, placing my hands on my hips.
“Yeah,” she said. She tried smiling, but I could tell it was forced. “I suppose.”
“Let’s hurry and get these two back to Royce before they break free,” I said. We both climbed back into our seats and I started the vehicle. I had just pointed us back in the direction of the highway when Vee looked out her side view mirror.
“Looks like we drew some company,” she said. This time she pulled out her assault rifle. She positioned herself so she was sitting in the window. I looked out my side mirror just as she started firing. There were three Bane sprinting down the road after us.
When I looked back in the direction I was driving, there was a Bane standing right in the middle of the road. I drew my Desert Eagle and put my hand out the window.
I only had time to fire two shots, but it wasn’t enough to take it down. The transport vehicle was, however. Metal crunched against metal and there was a slight bump as we drove over the body.
Vee fired five more shots before we turned a corner and she slipped back inside.
“Four Hunters,” I said. “At least two Sleepers. All within the circle of the Pulse. How many others are there that we haven’t seen?”
“We’ve shot and killed at least a dozen others, that I know of, on security detail,” Vee said.
I nodded. Avian had been bringing home similar reports. They were closing back in on us.
Vee looked back in the side view mirror. Her expression was serious, her eyes distant.
“You don’t hate the Bane, do you?” I said, glancing over at her. “Not like the rest of us do. You don’t necessarily fear them.”
“It was different for you,” she said, looking forward again. There was another heavy bang, just behind us. The metal divider between us and them dented inward. “You were raised as a normal human. You were taught to fear them. You didn’t know you were like them.”
She absentmindedly rubbed her chin, before resting it in her hand, her elbow propped up by the window. “But I always knew I was close cousin to them. The Bane at NovaTor, they were all I had for company. They weren’t the best company, but they probably kept me from going completely insane. I never feared them because I knew I couldn’t become like one of them and I knew they wouldn’t try and kill me.”
“Do
you pity them?” I asked, looking over at her again for a moment.
She hesitated, evaluating feelings she wasn’t sure how to feel. “I don’t think I really feel anything toward them. Does that make sense?”
I looked forward down the road again. “Yeah,” I said. “I think it does.”
TWENTY-NINE
TWO DAYS UNTIL SET OFF
We had only been gone for three hours when we rolled back in front of the hospital. Yet Royce had already gotten a holding cell ready for the Bane we had captured.
A glass one. Right in front of the hospital. Where everyone could see them.
The two Bane had calmed some when we got back, but considering the higher risk now that we were back among humans, Vee and I used the modified CDU to knock them out and then move them into the cell.
They lay slouched on the concrete sidewalk. The entire framework of the cell was solid steel and ran right into the ground. The walls were glass and allowed you to see everything going on inside the cell very clearly.
How Royce managed to pull it together so quickly was beyond me. But this was Royce.
“Well,” Avian said as he walked up from the trucks that transported security detail to and from our borders. “If you had to go catch a Bane, I’m glad you had help.” Avian smiled at Vee as he stopped at our sides.
“My sister is a very effective Bane hunter,” I said, nudging her with my elbow.
She gave an uncomfortable smile and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“She just barely gets the chance to get away from the Bane and you already have her tracking them down.” West walked up from the truck as well, an assault rifle lazily lying across his shoulders, his wrists hanging over the sides of it.
“I was happy to be useful,” she said, giving him a genuine smile. One spread on West’s face as well, lighting his entire face up.
I glanced over at Avian and the look he gave me said he saw it all there too.
“This is the most bizarre experience,” West said, walking to the prison box. He stood in front of it, just looking at the two of them unconscious on the ground. “Seeing them this close without the threat of getting infected. Again.”