Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Page 14

  “Whatever.” Millicent motioned for him to get going. “I’ll need a tranquilizer. My brain just kicked into overdrive, but I’m at red. I need to sleep to be at my best, so I’ll need chemicals to get me there.”

  “I’m going to put in a few hours of work now, princess,” Ryker said, not following behind her, “to make sure they don’t kill us in our sleep.”

  Millicent nodded as she picked up her heavy daughter and followed Dagger. All the things she had to do rolled through her head, and one thing crystalized—she needed to figure out where Toton rooted their network, and blow it to hell. This wasn’t a hacking job, this was a physically destructive job. From there, they could take over and bring it all down.

  The memory of that smart door resurfaced. She knew from experience that Toton viciously protected what they valued. Millicent bet that there was nothing they valued more than their network root.

  Chapter 13

  All Trent could hear was breathing. He lay on his side with his face pressed against the cool tile of the corridor. Something large and jagged sat ten centimeters from his nose, give or take. A small hand slapped his head.

  “Billy! Don’t do that!”

  A little girl’s voice. Suzi?

  Trent brought his hand up to move the thing in front of his face and groaned as pain flared through his back and side.

  “Are you okay, Trent?” Suzi asked.

  Blood was smeared across his hand. He pushed what felt like part of the wall away and then struggled into a seated position. He groaned again.

  “You’d think he was dying, from all the sounds.” Terik stood off to the side holding Mira. Small cuts and scrapes marred his face and neck, and a flap of skin was sticking out from the side of his hand.

  “How are we alive?” Trent asked with a strangely constricted throat as he surveyed the crater in the wall and the rubble spewed all around them.

  “Suzi kept the big pieces from hitting us,” Terik said, stepping forward to kick another piece of wall down the corridor. It didn’t make it far with all the debris in the way. “And Zanda made the pieces softer. They crumbled easily. Kinda.”

  “Are you okay, Trent?” Suzi asked again.

  “I’m fine, Suzi,” Trent lied. He fingered his head and winced when he hit a sensitive spot. His fingers came away glistening with blood.

  “I misjudged the size of our bubble,” Suzi said in a gush of words. “I thought I had it, but it happened really quickly, and there were a lot of pieces, and they were flying really fast, and—”

  “We got it, Suzi.” Terik kicked another piece of wall. Holding Toad Man by the foot, Billy joined in with a lot more gusto.

  Blinking a few times to clear the sandy quality from his eyes, Trent looked toward the front of the building and stared. Huge amounts of debris were piled in the corridors. The walls appeared to have been blown in, and the ceiling had rained down. Light blared from high in the front, indicating a chunk of the building was blown off and now letting in the daylight. It was safe to assume the bay landing had suffered and their craft was destroyed.

  The strips of lighting along the sides of the floor ran to the devastation and then faltered, flickering yellow across the jagged rocks littering the ground. That was the only movement. No sound greeted them from within the ruin.

  “Did anyone else make it?” Trent asked in a daze. Panic fizzled through him. “The children. Did all of the children make it?” He did a quick count of the bodies clustered around him, sitting up or standing, all alive. “Why aren’t they crying?”

  “They’ve seen this before. They’re desensitized.” Terik looked down at the youngest’s face. “Even Mira. She was born into it.”

  It was a horrible reality, but it helped them in the current situation. Maybe it would keep them alive. Maybe it already had.

  “Okay. Well.” Trent struggled to his feet and then patted himself down. A few places were definitely bleeding, but his injuries didn’t seem life threatening. Walking would hurt, but he had very little in the way of medical supplies on his utility belt—best to save those. “Anyone hurt?”

  “I checked them all while you were unconscious.” Terik traced the jagged edges of the crater with his fingertips. “I’m the worst off, but I’m okay. Billy has a couple bruises from when you fell and basically tossed him, but he doesn’t seem worried about it. We’re all okay.” Terik cut off like he was waiting for something.

  “I couldn’t help dropping him, in case your stare is accusatory.” Trent looked down the way, collecting his thoughts.

  “You saved Suzi and Billy,” Terik said. “Instead of just running, you grabbed them. Why?”

  “Don’t ask stupid questions.” Trent really should’ve been trying for gentle and soft, but he wasn’t thinking all that clearly. He’d thought he was going to die. Would’ve, if not for Suzi. “They saved me, actually. Did you look for survivors?”

  “If you didn’t grab them, they wouldn’t have made it. You run really fast.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice. Survivors?”

  “We didn’t look. We waited here for you.” Terik put down the two-year-old, who immediately started to cry. He picked her back up. “Do we need to bother?”

  “Well . . . we can’t just leave them.”

  “Why not?”

  Trent stared off into the distance, struggling for an answer. His thoughts were languid and distorted, slow to form. He exhaled into the silent corridor. “We need to check for survivors. It’s the right thing to do. Lord help me if Gertie is trapped under a beam.”

  “Why is that?” Terik started forward.

  Trent dug into his utility belt, looking for a light orb. “Because I’ll have to make the choice to either save her or put her out of her misery, and I’m not sure I can remain unbiased.”

  Terik sniffed in what sounded like a laugh. Trent didn’t bother to mention that he was serious.

  “Dang it.” Trent gave up the search. “I can’t find a light.”

  “We don’t need one.”

  “Why?”

  A moment later, blue flames licked up the wall and raced toward the debris. It crawled over the piles and illuminated the uneven pieces crowding the corridor. “And if that’s not enough, I can see in the dark.”

  “You can manipulate fire out of thin air, and you can see in the darkness?” Trent asked, shocked. “That is some advancement in evolution. I had no idea humans were capable of that.”

  “Neither did anyone else. All of us are kind of a shock. With each new kid they made, it was always a waiting game to see if they were . . . different in any way. Not just smart, but altered. I mean, besides the obvious deformities, which were then killed right away. There were a lot of those.”

  “You were born, not made. And you aren’t different and altered, you are enhanced and advanced. Start using the proper terminology about yourself, and hopefully others will use it, too.” Trent moved forward slowly. He didn’t plan to mention it out loud, but he was worried about what they’d find. The only reason they were alive was because of Suzi and Zanda, so Trent didn’t have high hopes for the others, especially given the amount of rubble back the way they’d come. Which meant there would probably be blood and twisted bodies.

  Trent hated seeing blood and twisted bodies.

  Terik must’ve thought the same thing, because he said, “Suzi, you stay back with the rest. I’ll call if I need you, and holler if Billy comes out with something.”

  “Okay, Terik.” Suzi took the baby and then stared after them with big eyes. Billy kicked another piece of wall.

  “Were any children born the natural way in the genetics projects?” Trent asked as they stepped carefully among the rocks. He looked up. Gaping holes where the tile had fallen away showed beams in the ceiling.

  “A couple, but they didn’t have the . . . advancements we did, so the conglomerates stopped natural births and just focused on lab births.”

  Trent shook his head. His toe kicked something soft. He
grimaced and pointed downward, not wanting to look.

  “Head’s smashed in,” Terik said, devoid of inflection.

  “Let’s talk about why you aren’t worried about death when we get out of all this, shall we?” Trent swallowed down bile.

  “I’ve seen a lot of death. They aren’t my family, so I don’t care.”

  “You get placed with families now?”

  “We got put with other kids and sneering adults. I chose my family, and they chose me.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Trent saw a leg sticking out at an unnatural angle. Another limb was severed altogether, and still smoking. “This might be a futile effort.”

  “Suzi put a lot of effort in, and she wouldn’t have been enough without Zanda. The two of them work well together.”

  “Can you see down there?” Trent pointed farther ahead.

  “Blood. Parts of building and people both—they didn’t run as fast as you did. You didn’t even weigh the option of fighting back, you just took off.”

  “Yeah. I value my life.”

  “Me, too. I was right behind you. The others were idiots.”

  “Don’t talk about the dead that way. That is, if you’re sure they’re all . . .”

  “Sure? No. But if they aren’t dead, they are dying. We have limited medical supplies, and we can’t sit here and wait for rescue. Toton will send in the spiders next. They always send in spiders. So unless you have superhuman strength and want to carry a few people, what good can we do?”

  Trent shook his head, hating that he was basically being led by a ten-year-old. But everything Terik said was spot-on.

  He bowed in defeat before switching gears. If he had learned anything from getting off Earth, it was to always have a plan, and to always be willing to improvise if that plan was blown to hell. “We need to come up with a plan.”

  “We?”

  “You think I’m going to leave it up to a ten-year-old? You’re out of your mind. I’m the adult here, I get a say.”

  They walked back to the others. “I meant, you’re allowing me to have a voice?”

  “Oh.” Trent shrugged and picked up Mira. “I’d rather you not kill me in my sleep. I’m also hoping you know your way around this floor if not this building. We need to find another way out so we can get picked up. Preferably, we need to skirt their eyes and ears.”

  “You’re in luck, Trent. I do know my way around this floor, and partially around this building. But I’ve never gone anywhere I could be seen.”

  “First, we’ll grab all the food pouches we can carry, sour or not, plus any other supplies you guys had that we might need. While you compile everything, I’ll send a message to Ryker about what happened. After that, we need to hurry up off this floor. If Toton sends robots to make sure there aren’t survivors, I want to be long gone.”

  As they set out, Terik said, “I wouldn’t have killed you in your sleep.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring at least.”

  “If you’d endangered my family, I would’ve done it face-to-face.”

  Roe stepped out of the craft and heaved a sigh. In all the years he’d served as the leader of the rebel group, he’d never gotten into his headquarters via what felt like attempted suicide by the pilot.

  The rain hammered the cover over the walkway as he caught sight of the broken front door. “What happened here?” he asked the chirpy trooper who would not leave his side.

  “No idea, sir.”

  “How about you go get me an answer rather than celebrating your ignorance?”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” He jogged forward.

  Once Roe was inside, he paused, no idea where to go. Passersby walked around him without a word. The kid at the front desk stared, waiting for him to approach.

  The door had been kicked in and unfamiliar faces were in their midst, yet no one appeared to be paying attention. They were as bad as the clones. These people were just asking to be killed.

  Roe took out his gun and fired three shots, directed outside. Someone screamed, hands covered heads, and everyone bent to the ground.

  “Now I’ve got your attention, huh?” He zeroed in on a lady with a tight bun. “Do you know who I am?”

  She straightened up slowly and put her hands out to show she wasn’t armed. “No.”

  “What do you think this is, a robbery?” Roe stalked toward the desk as more of those chirpy troopers caught up to him.

  “What happened?” one of them asked.

  “This place is waiting to be taken over, that’s what.” Roe stopped in front of the desk as a large presence seething with danger arrived on scene. Before he turned around to meet it, he stared down the nitwit at the desk. “You are very lucky he showed up.”

  The kid gulped.

  “Roe,” Ryker said as Roe turned around. Ryker stood there with weariness dragging down his features, blood spattering one of his legs, and a charred suit curling around the sides of his torso.

  “Had a bad day?” Roe asked.

  “Walk with me.” Ryker motioned him on.

  Roe matched his speed as they took a thruway deeper into the building. Walls had been freshly painted cream, they even held artwork, and lights were bright. “This place looks like a damn corporation.”

  “A corporation with terrible security,” Ryker growled. They turned left and stepped into a room alive with flashing screens and whirling tech. People worked on code or programs. Maps covered an entire wall.

  “Latest tech?” Roe asked, sizing up this room and comparing it with the one he’d created in the old headquarters. It was much more state-of-the-art, not to mention way cleaner. Still smelled like shit, though.

  “I wouldn’t know. Listen, this place is a defensive nightmare. There is very little security, as you saw. They are mostly relying on those EMPs a handful of levels up. I think you know how easy it would be to circumvent that. Ground security is a joke. I’m not staying here longer than a couple days. If we don’t have a plan by then, I’m changing locations with my family.”

  “Well, shit, I don’t want to stay behind and die. I’ll go, too. Do you think it’ll come to that, though? You can’t bring it around?”

  Roe listened while Ryker told him of his suspicions regarding why Toton hadn’t attacked thus far, and why they had left the rockets alone. Cold dripped down Roe’s middle, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Roe’s gut said Ryker was right on.

  “So what’s our next step?” Roe asked.

  “Millie is sleeping. I’m giving her another couple hours. When she wakes up, she’ll hit this room hard. We need the best and the brightest in here with her, helping. Hopefully her sister will be firing on all cylinders by then—”

  “You got her?”

  “Yeah, but she lost someone she cared about and shut down.”

  “She’ll be back up.” Roe eyed someone hurrying by. Anxiety lined the man’s face. “She was trained like we were. She’ll push it all down and do her job.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on. So as soon as Millie is awake, we’re going to . . .” Ryker’s brow furrowed as he studied his wrist.

  Then he was all action.

  “Pull up the last location of Trent McAllister’s craft,” he barked, walking up to a middle-aged man standing in front of a console.

  The man looked over his shoulder and flinched. Apparently Ryker had already made his mark on the people in this room. “Y-yes, sir.”

  “What’s happening?” Roe asked.

  “Trent’s team was taken out. He and the children are alive. Everyone else is toast.”

  “What’s toast?” a seated girl asked.

  “What happened?” Roe pushed a young guy out of the way and took over his console, ignoring the “Hey!”

  “Toton. The kids are all gifted, like Marie, and they took down a few of Toton’s crafts, or so I gather.” Ryker looked down at his wrist screen. “He’s half babbling, or else the program isn’t catching his words properly, but it sounds like a craft ca
me out of nowhere and opened fire. He’s only alive because he ran first and fast, and because of the kids. Or a kid, I can’t tell. Doesn’t say how. He’s holed up in the middle of the building. They are looking to move as soon as they get supplies. He’s going to try to get somewhere safe so we can pick them up.”

  “Out of that whole crew, a lab rat and a bunch of kids survived.” Roe shook his head as he pulled up images from a couple of their positioned cameras. “I can barely make out this one. Looks like the whole face of that floor took heavy firepower.”

  Ryker looked over with tight eyes. “Is Toton threatened by those kids, or is this their classic defense strategy? We don’t know enough about the sit—”

  The screens flickered. Two people pulled their hands away from consoles or screens and looked around. The screens flickered again before dimming. This time they went black.

  “What is this?” Ryker asked.

  “What’s happening?” a man exclaimed.

  “Not again.” A woman pushed away from the screens.

  White code rolled through the black screens.

  “We saw this when Toton first made their presence known,” another woman murmured, continuing to work the console despite the fact that nothing was happening. “They’ve hacked into our systems. This is the beginning.”

  “The beginning of what? We need details,” Roe yelled.

  “Someone wake up Ms. Lance and Ms. Foster,” Ryker barked. “And get some grade-one, quality uppers. They’re going to need them.”

  Chapter 14

  Millicent clawed to consciousness as a hand shook her body. Blinking her eyes open, she saw the hazy form of a woman by her bed. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. “I think I need a few more hours.”

  It was then she noticed the blinking purple on her wrist screen, her warning that her firewall had been breached. “Shit! What’s happening?”

  “Gunner said to wake you. It’s Toton,” the woman said in panic-stricken tones. “It’s like when they took over the conglomerates’ information. They’re doing it here.”

  “Get Marie. Get Danissa. Where is a console?”