Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Page 27

  “They should’ve done this and also sprinkled mines along the walkway.” Ryker surveyed the makeshift wall.

  “All their top security abandoned ship,” Dagger said. “When the shit hit the fan, and our superiors were sending us to basically die, we gave them a one-finger salute and joined the rebel ranks. I wasn’t interested in protecting them any longer. Not when I had a choice to get out. Without anyone intelligent in security, you get these shoddy defenses.”

  “I say thank Holy,” Danissa said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t still be alive.”

  “This is . . . interesting.” Ryker started forward, watching the ground. They all climbed up and over. Another barricade waited down the hall.

  “Where is everyone?” Dagger asked.

  “In the center of the floor. Conference rooms.” Millicent and Ryker led the way, climbing over barricades and pushing through the makeshift defenses until they came to a heavy door. Once there, Ryker put his ear to the wood while looking at his wrist screen. He knocked.

  “How many of them are immobilized by your program?” Danissa asked.

  “Half, at least. All upper-level staffers who aren’t security.”

  “Who is it?” someone yelled through the door.

  “Gunner. I was once a director of security for Moxidone. I also have Ms. Foster, Ms. Lance, and Mr. Dagger with me. I assume you recognize many of those names.”

  There was silence from the other side. Green dots moved toward the door, clustering together.

  “How do we know it’s you?” the voice called.

  Ryker shot Dagger a flat stare that conveyed his irritation. “Check your security logs.”

  “What’s the difference?” Millicent said through the door. “We’re human, not robots, we found you, and we knocked politely instead of blowing the door down. Toton is gone. We are the survivors. Open up, you fools!”

  “Goodnight.” Dagger grinned. “That is exactly the Ms. Foster I’ve heard so much about. What about you, pretty lady?” He turned his smile to Danissa. “Do you get sassy and commanding?”

  “Of course she does. She was excellent at her job—no sense to let that go because her job is gone.” Millicent readied her charges. She would force her way in if need be. After this she could go home. Impatient was a small word for her need to get going.

  Before she committed herself, the lock disengaged and the door swung open. Tired and gaunt faces full of worry stared out at her before turning toward Ryker. One of them said, “It is you!”

  “Out of the way,” Ryker said, stepping forward. As one, they nearly fell over themselves to skitter backward and to the side. “Where are the superiors?”

  “In the back, sir. But . . . something is wrong with them. They are lying there, like they’s dead, but they ain’t dead . . .”

  “We know. We’re here to collect them. Lead the way.”

  Two men jogged to the front of the party, and then wound them through an empty corridor and into a stuffy room. The man on the bed looked like he was in his sixties except for his gnarled hands. He was probably closer to a hundred and fifty, and had obviously made use of his clones. “This is the VP of the industrial supply department.”

  “And the rest?” Ryker asked. “Are Gregon officials here as well?”

  “We got both Gregon and Moxidone, yeah. Top-level. Three are in their rooms, kind of collapsed like this one here, and eight others are in their various living spaces. They all kinda . . . stopped moving. I don’t know what happened . . .”

  “I put them under arrest,” Millicent said, stepping out of the room and looking down the corridor. “Things are changing. Public officials will be elected to rebuild your society. Once the survivors come out of hiding, a general election will be organized and a new leadership chosen. Two of you can take him to the front of the building. Just put him down near the front doors before you come back for the others.”

  She walked away down the hall, wanting to check on the others. “They’ll need to be fed intravenously,” she said to the remaining trailing security man. “We’ll be moving them to a prison until officials are elected.”

  “Like . . . the government?” the security man asked.

  Millicent bent over a man lying on his face, stiff as a board. She checked his pulse. “You didn’t think to move him to his back?”

  “Ah . . . no, miss. It hadn’t occurred to me—us.” The security man wrung his hands.

  She shook her head and glanced at Ryker. “He suffocated.” She straightened and moved on. “Maybe I should’ve waited a bit longer before I applied the program.”

  “You couldn’t have known they were guarded by Curve huggers,” Ryker said. “If you’d waited, I’m sure we would’ve had to deal with people at the barricades.”

  “True. Changing how these people live, especially since only one city has been affected this badly, will be a huge undertaking. Are you sure it’s even possible?”

  “The other cities might be intact,” Danissa said, “but their systems and hierarchies aren’t. They abandoned their positions to hide. They wanted to save themselves. They were of no help to us—not even when we requested aid. Their finances are down the drainpipe. There is so much they’ll have to rebuild, that they are vulnerable. This is the time. It can happen. With new blood will come change.”

  As Millicent checked the others, she knew Danissa was right. But despite her desire to stay longer and help see the transition through, she wanted to get back to her other children. To her home. They’d defeated two tyrants—Toton and the suffocating hierarchy of conglomerates who had way too much power. It was more than anyone else had done.

  “Let’s organize the others to be collected and let’s go home,” Millicent said, entwining her fingers in Ryker’s as they headed back to the craft.

  A few hours later, Millicent stood with Danissa in front of the pods in the Moxidone rocket. They had both checked over the computer systems and agreed it was rock solid. The children had already been nestled in, the youngest going with Dagger. Millicent had every belief it would result in him adopting her eventually, but Terik would never let that happen until the rest of the children were settled with other families.

  The only thing left to do was actually get into the pods and go.

  “So,” Danissa said as she stared down at the pod. It was clear something was on her mind, and had been since all the danger had ceased. She’d attempted to start a conversation like this a great many times but never went through with it.

  “Yes?” Millicent asked, checking her screen. They had fifteen minutes to be safely stored inside. They were cutting it close.

  “We’re really blood, huh?” Danissa’s face turned red. She wouldn’t look Millicent in the eye.

  “Is that a surprise? We look similar; we act similar; we have similar abilities . . .”

  “You are better in battle.”

  “You’ll be better at something else, we just don’t know what yet. Maybe gardening. I truly hate gardening.”

  Danissa’s brow furrowed and she shook her head.

  “Never mind,” Millicent said, checking her screen again.

  “So . . . we’re sisters,” Danissa said softly.

  “Both our parents are the same, so yes, we are sisters. We’re family, and on Paradise, you’ll get a better sense of what that really means. You have nieces and a nephew. You have a sort of brother in Ryker. And if you are able to have your own kids, they will be cousins to my kids. It’s really a remarkable feeling. Belonging. You have no idea.”

  “I want that,” Danissa said softly. “I want all of that.”

  “Great. So get in the pod and let’s get going.”

  Danissa exhaled audibly. “I’d hate to have gone this far only to die on the journey.”

  “I hear you, trust me. But otherwise you have to stay here in a ruined world.”

  “Okay, okay.” Danissa gingerly stepped into the pod and slowly lay down. It was clear this was taking all her willpower.

 
“Afraid of small dark spaces?” Millicent asked with a grin.

  “A little. More afraid of not having control to get out.”

  “Yeah. That’s a bitch. Too bad. See ya.”

  “Wait!”

  Millicent clicked on the pod, waited for it to seal, making sure Danissa went into the life-stalling sleep before she hurried to her own pod.

  “Are you ready, Ms. Foster?” the controller said over the loudspeaker.

  “Ready and eager, zip me up.” Millicent settled in and closed her eyes. As the oxygen-rich fluid washed over her, she envisioned her family in her mind’s eye, Danissa included, and held the image. She couldn’t wait to get home.

  Epilogue

  The whole community stood before the open hole in the ground and looked down on the body of Roe, wrapped in a white sheet painted with flowers. Millicent allowed the tears to flow down her cheeks, unabashed, already missing this man who had given her a new life.

  They’d been back on Paradise for a month, getting everyone settled who’d made the journey. The new rocket had flown fast and true. The old rocket had left at about the same time, taking those who wished to go. It still wasn’t due to arrive for some time.

  Millicent’s children pushed in close, sandwiched between Ryker and her. She’d been away from them for a little over two years, and in that time, they had grown out of babyhood. They blessedly slept through the night. But still, she’d missed so many milestones with them. Going to Earth to defeat Toton had been necessary, but she loathed the time she’d lost with her children.

  “Good-bye, brave Roe,” the speaker said as she took a shovel. She threw a ceremonial pile of dirt down on him, something Millicent had always thought was crude, but at least it added a sense of occasion.

  “Now what happens?” Dagger asked from beside them, more relaxed on Paradise than he’d ever been on Earth, even after the fighting stopped. His broad shoulders held no visible sign of tension, and his eyes gleamed.

  Danissa, standing with them, ran her fingers through her loose brown hair, an action Dagger followed with his eyes before looking at the ground between his feet. Clearly he was infatuated, but she was still getting over her loss. If they ever did get together, Danissa would have to make the first move, Millicent was sure. If there was something Dagger wasn’t, it was pushy. He was the opposite of Ryker in that way.

  That hadn’t prevented them from attempting to conceive, however, something Trent was eagerly helping them do. Dagger had offered his sperm, no strings attached, but Danissa had asked that he play his role as a father if it ever came to pass, something that had earned her a beaming smile.

  “We go for a celebration of his life,” Millicent said, motioning for everyone to follow the horde of people down the small hillside marked with gravestones.

  “I can’t get over the beauty of this place,” Danissa said, looking out over the green hills. “The animals, the sky.”

  “Wait until you see your waves.” Millicent smiled. “Good thing there isn’t anything set up out that way, or you’d force us all to move with you to the beach.”

  “It has to be set up sometime.” Danissa laughed.

  “I solved the riddle,” Trent said as he jogged over. “Hi, Danissa. Hi, Dagger.” He looked directly at Ryker before glancing at Terik, who was walking a ways in front of them, arguing with Marie. “He was lab born, all right.” Trent waved his wrist with the screen. He didn’t have access to the files on Earth, but he did have five huge backup drives of information about all the lab activity since he’d left. He’d been poring over it since their return to Paradise, acting like a man on a mission.

  “We knew that, Trent,” Danissa said dryly. “All of them were. But good work finding the obvious.”

  Trent wiped his forehead, then wiped his glistening fingers on his pants. “Yes, yes. But even though he—they—were lab born, they weren’t made like a lot of lab borns were in my time. Terik had one mother and two fathers. Gene splicing did occur, but only to weed out the more unfortunate characteristics of one of the fathers, replacing them with more agreeable ones. He seems to have been bred for upper-level security, much like Ryker or Dagger—may I call you Kace?”

  “Still no,” Dagger said.

  “Yes, okay. Fine. I keep hoping. Anyway, he was bred to fall into their role. Billy, too, it looks like. He had different parents, one mother and one father. Still lab born. Very violent, that little boy. We really need to work on that. I am pretty sure he’ll come around.”

  “Is there a point to this that we’ll care about?” Ryker asked.

  “Yes. You especially, Ryker, regarding one of those fathers.” Trent swallowed. “It was Mr. Hunt.”

  Millicent staggered. She grabbed Ryker for no reason. “But . . . how? Hadn’t he been sterilized? And we killed him! I thought these experiments didn’t happen until we were gone?”

  Trent wiped his hand through the air. “You’re correct on both counts, yes. But as a natural born, he was given the benefit of the doubt for many years. He did not get sterilized until a few breeding failures and his own personal issues could no longer be ignored. At that point, any sperm in the vault was supposed to be discarded. Clearly that didn’t happen.”

  “Is he a danger to my daughter?” Ryker asked in a rough voice.

  “Mr. Hunt . . .” Dagger looked ahead at Terik. “Wasn’t that the insane security director that you took down, Gunner?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t right in the head.”

  “But”—Trent held up a hand—“I’ve pored over Terik’s records and, most especially, his evaluation reports. We’ve all seen firsthand how he acts with the other children. Always loving. Always protective of them. He is balanced, more so than Marie. When she throws things at his head, or tries to beat him with blunt objects, he acts in defense only. He has never struck out against her. He has never initiated an attack. He has never lost his temper. I think they created something excellent in him.”

  Millicent had watched her daughter argue with Terik. He had always seemed level. He verbally sparred, but Trent was right, he never engaged physically. “Why did you tell us, then?”

  “Oh.” Trent dropped his hands. “Should I not have? The thought didn’t occur to me.”

  “At least I know he won’t keep secrets when we try for a baby,” Dagger said.

  “No. He’ll blabber about everything, no matter how trivial.” Ryker was still looking at the son of his old nemesis.

  “Like all the children, we’ll watch him.” Millicent wiped the hair out of her eyes. The cool breeze felt good on her face. “As a community, we’ll give him, all of them, a loving home. If his behavior changes for the worst, we’ll figure out a solution.” Millicent shook her head. “I will not condemn him for his heritage. That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t think we should let Marie be around him so much,” Ryker said. “If he snaps, she’ll be the first in the line of fire.”

  “She’ll be fine, Ryker.” Millicent slipped her hand into his. “Stop being overprotective. She’s smart and she knows how to defend herself. She’ll cut him down, no problem.”

  He didn’t respond, which meant he’d go with it, but grudgingly so.

  “I keep forgetting to ask,” Trent said as he went back to his screen. It was almost like he was determined to read all of the research overnight. “What does hometown mean?”

  “The town you call home . . .” Millicent stared at him in confusion.

  “No, I mean, as a nickname.”

  A smile curled Dagger’s lips. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s nothing. Just that someone kept calling me hometown when I went to get Terik and the children.”

  Laughter burst out of Dagger. He grabbed his stomach and shook with it. “They were calling you stupid. Extremely stupid, actually. Too stupid to function.”

  Trent’s face reddened and his brow pinched together. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from them!”

  Dagger laughed harder, followed by Ryker. Millicent had
no doubt that Trent had just acquired a new nickname.

  They walked down to the community garden as the sun worked its way toward the distant horizon. Standing together, they watched the children play and the adults chatter, safe on Paradise.

  About the Author

  Photo © 2014 Penni Gladstone

  K.F. Breene is the USA Today bestselling author of many fantasy and paranormal romance novels, including the Darkness and Warrior Chronicles series.