Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Read online

  It was a message from Millicent Foster. It had to be. She’d always sent little taunting notes within Danissa’s favorite image of a cresting wave. Her daughter was clearly with her.

  Or was it a trick of Toton? They were known for hacking into systems and creating a very similar display. The message was a first, but she wouldn’t put it past them.

  The light from the screens illuminated the shadowy places. Danissa sucked in a breath. Robot bodies were crowded in all the corners. Movement flickered across the floor. The robots had found her.

  Chapter 5

  Trent clutched his gun in a shaking hand and tore his mind away from the danger Marie was in somewhere else in this Holy-forsaken city. He was used to looking after her. Even on Paradise, when a rampaging bull got out or something, he watched the kids while Ryker and Millicent baited the animal back into its pen. That’s what he excelled at—nurturing. Educating. Patience. He wasn’t a psycho like the other two.

  He shouldn’t be heading up an extraction, as they called it. With his lack of experience, his mission was doomed for failure.

  “Okay, sir, we’re ready.” Rhett, one of the troopers who had been chosen to go with him, stood beside an open door in one of the many nondescript buildings in this part of the city. The upper levels had been blasted away, but this middle section was mostly untouched except for a few scars.

  Trent looked back at the craft waiting in the sheltered bay, alone. No vessels drifted by within the travel way. The area looked deserted, more so than the rest of the city.

  “We’re sure they’re in here?” Trent adjusted his fingers on the gun.

  “Yes, sir. We got this information from a Gregon staffer.”

  “And Toton doesn’t know about it?”

  “No, sir. The information is behind an ironclad cyber barrier of some sort set up by the Foster sister.”

  “Danissa.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Danissa is her name. And stop calling me sir.” Trent took a deep breath and looked at the open door. Then back to the craft. “You should move that thing, right? So no one wonders why it’s parked there?”

  “Who is around to notice, sir?”

  He had a point.

  With the other members of the extraction team waiting for him, he turned sideways for reasons he couldn’t explain and tried to drift through the open door as he’d seen Ryker do so many times before. An empty reception desk stood in the middle of the wide aisle, all the screens dark. Faint light from two rows of emergency strips glowed from the somewhat grungy floor, casting a horribly brownish-yellow glow. Corridors branched out to the sides, as empty as the space that lay before him.

  Trent checked the coordinates that had been sent to his wrist screen. Millicent had rigged his implant to receive messages on a certain frequency. Or something. Truth be told, he wasn’t really sure how it worked. “What this says is go straight . . .”

  “Yes, sir. Follow the map.”

  Trent scowled in confusion. He didn’t have a map. Just step-by-step directions. Millicent clearly didn’t trust him.

  Eerie silence preceded them down the desolate corridor. Occasionally, a scuff of one of their shoes echoed off the walls.

  “Someone is here to monitor the children, right?” Trent asked despite the desire to remain as silent as possible. He flashed his light upward, looking for security cameras. They were there, staring down with their black eyes. No glowing lights on top of the units, though. Turned off. Much like the overhead lights.

  “As far as I understand,” Rhett said quietly. “It’s like a bunker. Just the bare minimum.”

  Trent read his screen and turned right at the next corridor. “This is a maze. Ours was never this confusing.”

  “They moved the kids here specifically because it was a maze.”

  A heavy hand fell on Trent’s shoulder, stopping him. Rhett put his finger to his lips and motioned for Trent to stay put. Trent wasn’t going to argue.

  Trying not to wring his hands, Trent watched as Rhett practically melted against the wall by the corner. He motioned to another trooper, who then flattened against the opposite wall.

  Rhett nodded to the other trooper, who peered out into the corridor. A loud pop made Trent jump. Red fluid sprayed the dirty cream wall. The trooper slid to the ground. His head slapped off the floor.

  “We’ve got fire,” Rhett yelled.

  “Obviously.” Trent quickly dropped to the ground. Low was a good place to be. Enemies didn’t expect people to attack on their bellies.

  “Mirror.” Rhett reached an open hand toward the other troopers. He was given a small mirror attached to an extendable pole. Body plastered to the side of the hallway, Rhett eased the mirror into the open space.

  Another gun blast exploded the mirror into fragments.

  “Sharpshooter,” Rhett whispered.

  “Another fairly obvious statement . . . ,” Trent muttered.

  Rhett looked at his wrist screen. Another trooper took out a small mobile screen, which meant she didn’t have a working implant.

  “We can try to go around,” the mobile-screen gal said. “But I bet they’ll have the hideout covered on all sides. I would.”

  “Do they have the manpower to keep everyone out?” Rhett asked.

  “For Toton? Probably not. For us? I would imagine so.”

  Everyone looked down at Trent. He rolled to his side. “What?”

  “You’re in charge of this op. What’s our next step?” Rhett asked impatiently.

  Clearly Ryker hadn’t relayed some very important information regarding Trent’s skill set.

  He sat up, since the situation seemed to demand it. “Well . . . Gregon and Moxidone are in cahoots now, right?”

  “Sir?” Rhett’s brow furrowed.

  “Well, only Toton is the enemy, right? And the other two conglomerates, for now, are friends?”

  “I’m not sure I follow—”

  “Yes, sir,” the female trooper said, lowering her mobile screen. “For the most part, they have banded together.”

  “Well, if Toton is their common enemy, then all we have to do is say that we’re not Toton, right?”

  Rhett shifted, his face still screwed up in confusion.

  This must be how Millicent always feels, Trent thought, when no one understands a word that comes out of her mouth.

  “Okay, well . . .” Not trusting his solution enough to actually stand and carry it out, he crawled toward the corner. He shook off the hammy hand of Rhett on his back, which slipped uncomfortably to his butt when he kept going forward.

  “Get off—” Trent twisted enough to slap the hand away, and then got to his knees as he reached the corner. He edged his mouth closer to the corridor, though it probably wasn’t necessary, and said, “We’re human. I’m with Millicent Foster’s crew. Ms. Foster and Mr. Gunner are back from Paradise. We’re here to help. We want to get these kids to safety.”

  As his words died, silence floated down like ash.

  “They don’t trust us,” Trent mumbled. Not that he blamed them.

  Something nudged him. A thin extendable rod was placed into his hand, another mirror attached to the end.

  Grimacing, he said, “I’m going to put a mirror into the corridor, just to see if you . . . are there.” He steadied himself and made ready to stick the mirror out. A gunshot sounded and something knocked his boot. He jerked back. A chunk was taken out of the sole.

  “What the hell?” he screamed, struggling away. “I’m friendly, damn it! I want to save the fucking children! If they are even half as gifted as Marie, like I’ve heard, and you’ve spent time teaching them a little something, they could help you out of this mess. But no, you go around shooting at the nice guys, for fuck’s sake.”

  He threw down the mirror and fingered the chunk taken out of his boot. Another inch and it would’ve taken off his pinky toe. He tried very hard not to glance over at the limp body oozing blood, and failed. His stomach started to churn. />
  “How did you know Marie’s name?” someone called from beyond the corner.

  After clearing his throat in sudden, unexplained nervousness, Trent said, “Because I named her. Well . . . I didn’t name her, but I went along with the name Millicent chose. It seemed fitting, if a bit unorthodox. It really is next to impossible to say no to Millicent. She’s a bit . . . intense.”

  “There’s no need to be so chatty about unimportant things, sir,” Rhett whispered.

  “You do you,” Trent said as he wiped his forehead, then wiped his newly moist fingers across his suit. “Let me do me.”

  “What do you know about that girl-child Marie?” came a woman’s voice.

  Rhett rolled his hand in a circular motion, indicating that Trent should keep talking with them. Trent rolled his eyes. Clearly these people thought he was an idiot.

  “I know everything about Marie. It was my concoction that made her extraordinary abilities possible. I have seen her every day of her life, both on this planet and on Paradise. I did the research that led to her parents’ pairing. And I know that the woman who made this hiding place possible is a blood relation to Ms. Foster. As in, they had the same two parents. Very intelligent young ladies, to be sure. I thought Millicent was the more advanced of the two, but I actually think she’s just the most diversely trained. I wonder if—”

  Trent shook off Rhett’s heavy hand, but didn’t resume speaking.

  “All right, then,” a man said. “Send out a robot first.”

  All the troopers stared at Trent. He stared back. No one had said they were supposed to bring a robot!

  “Do the rebels even have a robot?” Trent whispered.

  “A few of Toton’s, but we only use those to study.” Rhett licked his thin lips. “Bluff.”

  “How? By walking out stiff-backed? They’ll blow my head off!” Trent huffed before raising his voice to the others. “We don’t have robots. Just people. As you saw a moment ago when you killed one of them.”

  Silence descended. Time stretched. Trent earned some pretty annoyed and menacing stares, but realistically, why not just tell the truth? It’s not like they could conjure up a robot, and a lie would only result in more bodies. Those people had itchy and expert trigger fingers; they had the upper hand. In Trent’s experience, that demanded respect. At the very least, wariness.

  “Fine. Come out one at a time with your hands up.”

  Trent’s eyes popped. They were letting them in!

  “I don’t want to go first,” he said a moment later. He couldn’t help it—he wasn’t cut out for extreme situations.

  “I’ll go first,” the female trooper said before tucking her mobile screen into a pocket and then patting the pocket closed. The defiant and annoyed look she shot at Trent fell on an indifferent attitude. He wasn’t trying to be a hero. Smart people died less often for a reason.

  She jammed the gun into her utility belt and raised her hands as she walked beyond the corner. Facing in the direction of the previous gunshots, she planted her feet and stared forward with a blank face.

  “You reach for any of those weapons, and we’ll shoot you,” the male voice called.

  “Big barricade blocking off the whole floor,” the woman trooper murmured.

  A gunshot blasted. A divot in the floor opened up right next to her boot. She didn’t so much as flinch.

  “She’s tough,” Trent said, waiting with a pounding heart.

  “That’ll be enough talking,” the male voice called. “Bring out the rest. Let’s see all of you.”

  One by one, the troopers walked beyond the corner and faced their attackers. Trent waited until the very end, really wanting to crawl out on his belly. He doubted it would help, though.

  “Which one of you is the doctor?” the raised male voice said.

  Not one of the troopers looked Trent’s way, but they all waited, probably wondering if he would show at all.

  “Here,” Trent said, shaking all over. “Just back here.”

  “Come out.”

  “I don’t really want to, in all honesty. How do I know you won’t shoot me?”

  “’Cause I said I wouldn’t.”

  “No, you didn’t . . .” Trent edged to the corner. He breathed deeply for a moment, squeezed his eyes shut, and then hopped out into the open. Whole body tense, fists balled, he stood his ground, waiting for the worst. A gun cocked.

  Chapter 6

  “That all of you?” the voice asked.

  Trent peeled an eye open. As the woman trooper had said, a giant barricade hulked in the corridor, made up of everything one might find in a lab or office. Chair legs stuck out at odd angles; shards of screens littered the ground; sections of desks and work pods were piled up. It reached nearly to the ceiling.

  A flicker of movement drew Trent’s gaze to the upper left where a small cutout revealed a long black barrel. Beyond was a head and face mostly obscured by a woolly hat. A flicker on the other side told him there was at least one more person looking down on them.

  Trent let his other eye drift open, though his body didn’t quite relax as a result.

  “You must be Trent McAllister.” The head on the left shifted, indicating he was the speaker.

  Not able to help it, Trent’s back straightened in pride. “Why, yes I am! How wonderful that you’ve heard of me.”

  “Of course I’ve heard of you. You started the disgusting mutant human experimentation.”

  One of the troopers snickered.

  “There is nothing mutant about what I did,” Trent said in indignation. “All of the children were born naturally. The mothers were given a perfectly safe biological concoction with very mild side effects. Just a little extra queasiness. Certain food pouches could have had the same effect—”

  “You may have started that way, but when you took the girl, they went in a different direction. They killed more kids than I’ve ever seen. Disgusting. You lab rats are always trying to see if you can do something, instead of asking if you really should.”

  Trent’s heart twisted. He scrubbed his palm against his pant leg. “There is nothing wrong with Marie. Nothing at all. She’s not a mutant. She’s like any other kid, except extremely intelligent and—”

  “Yeah, whatever. I should kill you right now.”

  “Please don’t.” Trent braced, about to jump back beyond the corner, but what he’d just heard about the kids kept him rooted to the spot. If there was a chance he could help them, he had to take it.

  “We can’t stay here now, anyhow,” the woman’s voice said from the other side of the barricade. “If they found us, it’s only a matter of time before Toton does.”

  “We got the information from someone who recently left the conglomerate,” Rhett said. “Toton won’t get through the firewall.”

  “You really don’t get it, do you?” the man behind the barricade said. “They surely know you’re here right now. Your craft is probably bugged. Or maybe they’ll capture someone who’ll squeal. Maybe they’ll be patrolling and see your vehicle in a place where no vehicles ever stop. Whatever it is, they’ll know. Now or later, they’ll figure it out. Ms. Lance hid this place from them, but that’s no good if she didn’t manage to hide it from all of you, hip to that? We’re trekked. Now we gotta move a bunch of kids. In fact, I really should just shoot you. One less person to—”

  “If you leave, you will get caught,” Trent said in a rush. “But we can help. We’re here to help. Millicent and Ryker got Marie off the planet. They are a deadly team. The rebels have a whole underground system set up on this planet, with safe houses and defense . . . I mean, Millicent designed a crap load of weapons to fortify it. She’s the leading weapons designer in the world. They’re going to rescue Ms. Lance right now. Literally, as I speak, they are rescuing her. We can keep you safe until we get the children off-planet and away from the conglomerates and Toton. I’m sure you can come, too, but you’ll probably have to be a little nicer. And put the gun down . . .”

&n
bsp; Trent’s words drifted away. The tension pressed on him. If the surly guy opened fire, they’d have to dart back for cover, but one or two troopers would get picked off. Trent would be the first, of course. He’d serve as the indication things had gone sideways.

  “What’ve we got to lose?” the woman said, standing up. A skinny thing with a gaunt face, she looked like she’d missed dozens of meals.

  With a sigh, the man stood up as well, his appearance much the same. These people didn’t have much in the way of supplies, that was obvious. They wouldn’t have been able to hold out much longer.

  “Can I see the children now?” Trent asked tentatively.

  “Yeah. You got to climb over this wall, though. The easier ways in are on the other side of the floor, and you’d probably get shot because we can’t leave our posts to walk all the way over there.”

  “Right . . .” Trent glanced behind him at Rhett before he started forward. “You guys don’t have communication devices?”

  “Got no implants.” The man tapped his head. “Had to dismantle them to keep Toton from frying our brains. We weren’t high up enough to get our implants fixed like our superiors.”

  “But . . . you still have—” Trent cut off because there was no point in reasoning with the man. While they did have the tech and sufficient power in the building to rig up something, they didn’t have Millicent to do it, or even Ryker to guide them in a work-around. Trent had forgotten what it was like to live without top one-percenters around to make life easier.

  “Hurry up,” the woman said, watching Trent’s arduous progress.

  “Can’t you lower a rope or something?” he asked in a collection of grunts. A chair leg stuck him in the side. He grimaced and then slipped on a loose flank of metal. Something sharp cut his arm. “This is ridiculous! It only keeps out humans. Robots could probably get right up this.”

  “Why’d you ask us to send out a robot?” asked Rhett, right below Trent.

  “Stop it.” Trent wiggled to dislodge the large hand that had covered his butt cheek. Rhett was trying to push him upward. “I don’t need you touching that.”