Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Read online

“This way, Ms. Foster. Someone is waking Ms. Lance. I can have someone wake up Marie, as well.”

  “Do it. We’ll need them all. Are we in danger physically?”

  “Not yet, ma’am, but Gunner said he isn’t confident in the security here.”

  “Why would he be? It’s a mess.” Millicent hastened into her suit and thought about waking Marie, who was in the adjacent room, herself. She quickly discounted the idea. She’d just scare her daughter, and that would hinder Marie’s ability. “Have the person who wakes Marie do it slowly. Easy-like. Treat all of this like a game.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll do it after I drop you off.”

  They only made it a few feet down the corridor before the sound of hurried steps behind them made Millicent glance back. Danissa, with a pale face and wide eyes, was rushing through the corridor. She saw Millicent and a wash of relief crossed her face. It hardened up immediately. Thank Holy.

  “I’ve been through this a few times,” Danissa said as she caught up. “Enough to know that you aren’t going fast enough. Hurry!”

  “What are they doing?” Millicent ran behind her sister. “And where are we going?”

  “Hang left,” the rebel woman yelled, now trailing them.

  “They hack into the system, run through the files, lock everyone out, and download whatever they need. Then they screw up the system as best they can. At first that was it. Radio silence for a year or more. But in the last few years, they did all that, left, and you thought you had a second to breathe. That’s when their spiders would roll through.”

  “Hang right, just through there!” the woman instructed. “I’ll go get Marie.”

  “How do they lock everyone out?” Millicent jogged into the control room.

  “Trent’s team was taken out and he’s been marooned with some gifted children,” Ryker said as she shoved her way in front of a console. Danissa did the same. Neither of them noticed the infuriated squawks from the misplaced persons.

  “What?” Millicent asked, turning away from the console.

  “Focus!” Danissa snapped. “We don’t have time.”

  “I’ll work on him. You work on this.” Ryker pointed to a flickering screen.

  “I can go for him as soon as you get his location.” Roe’s voice drifted over the din.

  “The lock they place is easy to get around,” Danissa said in a loud, clear voice, cutting through all other noise. “Ms. Foster, follow along. You’ll pick it up quickly. Unless you’re off your game.”

  “I’m not off anything.” Millicent felt the fire of competition roar through her blood. She watched her sister’s keystrokes, processing how her code interacted with the locking program. Just when Danissa was about to break out of it, though, Millicent barked, “Stop!”

  Danissa paused with a scoff. “You have two seconds.”

  “I wonder if we can follow this back . . .” Millicent traced the origin of the hack and met a ramshackle firewall. Within moments, she had made her way through and was rummaging around in their cupboards. “What are you after?” she asked softly.

  “I can work around you,” Danissa said. “Burrow in and I’ll crack off this lock and disable their attempts to copy our information. We don’t have much time.”

  “What are they copying?” Millicent asked, but nodded when Danissa looked over for her assent.

  “Holy shit,” someone gasped as the sisters worked. “Who are these women?”

  “The stupid of that question literally smells bad,” Roe growled. “Who do you think they are?” He huffed in annoyance. “Ryker, you got some information or what? I need to go blow something up. I’m still not right from that rocket ride.”

  “People. They’re after people,” Danissa said, shaking her head. “They’re trying to download our records about them. They did this with Gregon and Moxidone.”

  “I’d heard that. Let them. They’ll get a nasty surprise.”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  “One that disables their systems. What else are they after? They’re hunting for our access keys. I don’t even know what that is. But they’re searching for it.”

  “My superiors implanted the use of access keys.” From Danissa’s tone, it was clear she was rolling her eyes. “It was an extra step for added security, or so Gregon thought. Waste of time. It took me longer to set up the whole thing than it did for them to break through.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, let them keep searching.” Millicent shook her head and backed away from the console for a second. “Stop.” She said it loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “What?” Danissa asked, still plugging away. The whole room had gone still around them. Everyone stared at their screens with wide, disbelieving eyes.

  “Stop.”

  Danissa looked over, confusion evident.

  “What are we doing?” Millicent asked, gesturing at the screen.

  Danissa’s brow lowered even more. “It sounds like you’re requesting a very obvious answer, which means I am missing your real meaning . . .”

  “How nice that someone realizes that.” Millicent couldn’t hold back a smile, and then a bigger smile when Danissa’s lips twitched in response. It was nice to speak to someone on the exact same level, with very similar training.

  “They’re trying to get in.” Millicent motioned at the screens. “So what?”

  “All your files can be accessed through here . . . right?” Danissa asked.

  “This is a pirate network. Things are bought and sold by dubious characters with fake identities. The rebels have collected their defense information on it, but any idiot can get around that.” Millicent ignored a scoff. “If they try to shut down our communications, we’ll just override. So rather than waste time preventing them from chasing shadows, let’s find their ground wires and figure out how to snip them.”

  “What’s a ground wire?” Roe asked.

  “It’s a hard port.” Danissa lowered her hands. “The foundation of their network. They’ll have the backup server on it, but it’ll be nearly impossible to get to it. We’d have to travel all over the world to destroy them all.”

  “Wrong again.” Millicent laughed. “Look.” She cleared a screen and pulled up a world map. She added blue dots that identified the active Toton presence. “They are all over the world, yes, but their communication directives seem to stem mostly from Los Angeles. Their hub is here, I’m sure of it—the supercomputer that controls their overall efforts. They keep updating their tech, so they must have a concentrated area to design and test it, and considering everything we’ve seen, I bet this is it. In the future, who knows, but for right now, they have yet to truly expand their headquarters. I really think cutting out the hub will cripple them globally. At least for a time. Hopefully long enough for our forces to strike and do lasting damage.”

  Danissa blew out a breath. “It’s the best plan I’ve heard thus far. But given the people I have been working with, that isn’t saying much. So what do you think?”

  Marie walked in rubbing her eyes. She sidled over to Ryker and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m tired.”

  “I know, pumpkin.” Ryker bent to rub her back.

  “Do you want to play a game, Marie?” Millicent asked.

  “No.”

  Millicent thinned her lips. That wasn’t the response she’d hoped for.

  “I will,” Danissa said.

  “Okay. Then the first one that breaks through Toton’s various walls, locks them out, and exposes all their secrets, wins!”

  “Oh! That is a real game. You’re on!” Danissa leaned over her console.

  Another flash of excitement rolled through Millicent. She’d only said that to get her daughter going, but Danissa was already working. Millicent bent to her own console as she heard, “I want to play!”

  “Here, baby. Sit here and see if you can beat Mommy and Aunt Danissa.”

  “Aunt?” Danissa said in a vague voice. It was clear she was focused elsewhere, and didn’t register t
he real meaning. She had no idea they were blood relatives. Millicent was a little hesitant to explain it, for reasons she couldn’t understand.

  “I need the coordinates of whatever place we will need to break into,” Ryker said.

  Millicent took a quick break to pull them up and flick them to another screen. “That’s my best guess so far.”

  “I second that assumption,” Danissa said.

  “But that’s . . .” Roe’s comment drifted away.

  “Right next to Trent’s location,” Ryker said. “Those kids were in Toton’s backyard the whole time. Now we know why Toton opened fire. This just got a lot more interesting.”

  “Obviously I’m going to try not to be seen,” Trent muttered at his wrist. It flickered and went out before coming on again a moment later.

  “That’s Toton.” Terik pointed at Trent’s wrist before handing over a canvas sack filled with medical supplies. “I remember that happened to the screens in the lab right before everyone lost their minds.”

  “What lab? Oh, where you were born?”

  “Raised. I was never given over to the Milestone department. They kept me in the lab. They constantly did tests as soon as I showed what I could do.” He hefted his own sack before wheeling over a sort of cart. “We can take this for Mira. I made it a while ago. We’ll have to haul it up the barricades, but it’ll be worth it. She gets heavy.”

  Trent stared incredulously at the boy for a moment. He could not believe Terik was only ten years old. They’d been back at the children’s former living space for about an hour, and while Trent had impressed upon them that they’d be picked up soon, despite telling them to grab all the food, Terik had insisted they take enough supplies for a few days, if not longer. More clothing, additional blankets, and small comfort items for the children. “Planning ahead,” he kept saying. “Just in case.”

  He’d collected all the right medical supplies without supervision, and knew which food pouches to take and which were rancid. Clothes were packed, the kids were fed—he was like their parent. He looked after them just like they were his own. Despite being an adult who’d looked after little ones all his life, Trent would be hard pressed to outdo this boy.

  It blew his mind.

  “Why didn’t you pack anything when we were leaving for the craft?” Trent asked as they got under way.

  “Didn’t have time, did I? That lead trooper had a short fuse and he wasn’t too keen on you. What little power you had was about to be stripped away.”

  “He was fine with me.” Trent scowled, but then he found himself studying the boy’s face again. “You remind me of someone. Do you know your parentage?”

  “I’m a bunch of genes mixed together with a squirt of chemicals. I don’t have parentage.”

  “You most certainly do. That particular mix of genes came from somewhere.”

  “My mommy was a unicorn,” Zanda said.

  “She’s fascinated with animals from prehistoric Earth,” Terik said.

  “A unicorn wasn’t . . .” Trent let it drop. There was nearly no point in killing the girl’s dreams. “Where are we headed?”

  “I know a lookout. It’ll give you an idea of where you are so you can tell your friends how to find us.”

  “They can track my coordinates.”

  “Not for long. Toton will tear down their communications. We’ll be on our own.”

  “You think you know everything, but trust me, you have no idea. When you meet my friends, you’ll no longer be the smartest person in the room. Nor the most stubborn. Nor the most insanely protective. Billy won’t even be the most violent, and that is saying something, let me tell you. You’re a big fish in a little pond right now, but soon, you’ll be scrambling to learn what goes on around you.”

  “What does ‘big fish in a little pond’ mean?”

  “Never mind. How far?”

  It turned out to be quite far. They heaved the rolling cart over the barricade Trent hadn’t used before, then had to take trips to bring the kids over, since most of the little ones couldn’t make it on their own. After that, they climbed another barricade and then squeezed through a charred kid-sized hole in a door that had been welded shut. Trent nearly didn’t fit. It took Terik pulling and the two older girls pushing to get his middle through.

  Once that was done, they had to carry the cart up five flights before they emerged through an open door to total ruin.

  Breathing heavily, Trent forgot to be dismayed that Terik and the kids had all made this journey on several occasions, somehow getting past their caretakers to do so. Eyes wide and out of words, he looked at the devastation. The work pods and screens had been reduced to piles of debris spread across the floor. Most of the ceiling tiles were missing, leaving gaping black holes. To top it off, it looked like someone had come through and set off small explosives. The light from the windows fell across patches of char along the walls. Metal was twisted and bent, crusted black in many places.

  “Did you do this?” Trent asked, breaking the hush that had fallen over the group.

  “Of course not,” Terik said, lifting Mira out of the cart. “We would have been noticed if I’d set fire to this place.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The other floors are like this, too. The ones above us. These buildings used to be Moxidone offices, I think. Toton did this to force them out.”

  “Robots, or . . .”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t here. I just heard some of the adults talking about it. Staffers were in here working. Toton fried their systems, and a few days later they came through and blasted them out. It was one of the first acts of war, I hear.”

  “Holy shit—excuse my language. Why didn’t the lower floors get this treatment? Why didn’t they burn you guys out?”

  “We were moved in after the whole place was vacated.”

  Terik led them as Trent felt a little hand curl into his. Zanda looked up at him with big brown eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded solemnly.

  Not sure what that interaction meant, he followed the others around the corner and then into a corridor. “Will we get there anytime today?”

  “Almost there,” Terik answered from a ways in front.

  “And what did you mean, you’d be noticed? Does Toton still come around?”

  “You’ll see.” The words floated down the empty hallway, almost like a taunt.

  A few minutes later, Trent did see. His stomach twisted and somersaulted at the same time. He turned to the side and retched. Thankfully, his stomach was empty.

  “I thought you guys knew when you first showed up. Yeah. It’s something.” Terik settled into an alcove that was mostly protected, though the windows were obscured from the harsh environment blasting through the openings along the destroyed side of the building.

  Across a huge but dead travel way, the top half of the closest building was lined with bays on each floor. Within each bay was one or more of the black crafts that had opened fire on them earlier. Lining walkways and skittering up and down the outsides of the building were moving objects that looked like insects. The place was teeming with them, almost like a hive. And not just the spiders Trent had seen in pictures. Strange creatures with bulbous middles and long legs, large and small, moved in dizzying ways. Some staggered or wavered like drunks. A couple of the creatures crawling up the reflective windows randomly fell off, hit the bay, and tumbled out into the open air. Occasionally, Trent saw a long thing with no arms or legs slide across the ground. There were metal spheres attached to its back.

  Spheres like the one Millicent had experimented with on Paradise.

  “What is that place?” Trent asked through a tight throat.

  “Toton,” Terik whispered. The hush seemed unnatural with so much movement happening across the chasm. “The only crafts that fly through there are Toton’s. The only ones I’ve ever seen, anyway.”

  “Are there always that many robots?”

  “There are more n
ow, but there have always been a lot. More of them used to fall off the side of the building. When they first started climbing like that, it looked like rain coming off. They had to erect a net to catch them all. It’s like they’re getting smarter.”

  “How long have you been coming up here?” Trent asked.

  “Almost since we were moved to this lab. I started exploring right away, and once I saw all that, I made sure to check in regularly. It’s close, so it wasn’t a big problem. Getting to the lower levels was a lot harder.”

  Trent shook his head as another wave of bile rose in his throat. All those robots . . .

  “There is no way we can be rescued from this side of the building.” Trent’s words felt hollow.

  “No, I don’t think so. And unless they are really quick, the other side won’t be great, either.”

  “This has turned into a really bad day.” Trent ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Welcome to my life. Here, let’s check out the other places I’ve found. You can see different parts of Toton.”

  It wasn’t an appealing offer, but Trent knew he should find out everything he could about the enemy. If he didn’t make it back from this venture, he could at least relay to Ryker what he’d found. Maybe it would help.

  “I will not end up in one of those robots,” Trent muttered to himself. They sounded like famous last words.

  Chapter 15

  “What do we have?” Millicent asked as she stalked into a large room filled with holograms of the building where Trent and the kids were holed up.

  “Trent has been sending us detailed descriptions.” Ryker didn’t look away from the hologram he was studying. “The upper levels are . . . not available to us.”

  “How are we going to get him out of there?”

  “We’re not. He’s going to meet us in the lower levels.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Millicent leaned against the table and shoved Ryker’s shoulder to get him to look at her. “He has a bunch of children.”

  “Five children. One who can see in the darkness and somehow create fire. One who—”

  “I don’t care what they can do. They are children. Some of them are young children, at that. We can’t take them into the battle zone.”