Chapter 28
They made good time on the highway once night fell, speeding over long empty roads. Zade took over the wheel after a few hours. The darkness enfolded them, and both were silent. They barely stopped, just for the occasional cup of coffee.
They hit the Wyoming state line the following afternoon. Simone’s RFID coordinates glowed intensely on Zade’s inner field of vision, as did the snaking GPS route of Mark’s truck. He couldn’t voluntarily dismiss the data from his field of vision as he usually did. As the hours crawled by, the inner visual stimuli started glowing brighter and brighter, until it became more visible than what his actual eyes took in from the outside.
After an hour or so of that, he got Simone to drive again.
It was close to sunset when they left the main highway for a narrow road winding up into a mountain canyon. A spell of warm weather had melted much of the high snow, judging by the gullies and creeks they drove past. They were swollen with rushing brown water and choked with debris. Zade gave terse directions. Simone followed them without comment.
“We’re about fifteen minutes out,” he told her finally. “Promise you’ll stick close to me when we’re there. Follow my lead. No heroics.”
She shot him a swift, sidewise look. “I already promised that,” she said. “You’re the supersoldier. It’s obvious.”
He grunted. “Right. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The final stretch was partly washed out by recent rainstorms and a bitch to drive over. The SUV rocked and bounced in the deep ruts but hauled its own ass out.
His guts tightened as the final turn on the road revealed the house. The approach was long and slow, flanking a creek that had turned into a dangerously swift river barely contained by eroded banks. Mark’s house was a concrete cube with big picture windows. One was boarded up with plywood. The house’s crude angles were jarringly ugly against its wild surroundings.
It stuck out like a turd on a rug.
A wooden footbridge connected the road to the property, damaged now and partially overwhelmed by the rushing current. Several inches of muddy water swirled over the sagging middle section.
They parked at a distance from the river and glanced around, looking for signs of life or movement. With that boarded-up window, the house looked abandoned. No cars. No lights. He heard nothing but the roar of the water.
Zade got out and went around to the back, where he dragged out a hard-shell case he’d taken from Asa’s weapons room. He beckoned Simone over. “We’re wearing comm gear. I want to be able to talk to you and hear you if we have to separate. And here’s a button cam. Mine will transmit images to your phone.”
“What phone?”
He pulled out a phone and handed it to her. “This one. Your button cam feed goes directly to my implants. I’ll see it inside my head.”
“Okay. But why use comm gear? I thought I was sticking to you.”
“Just in case,” he muttered.
He rigged her up fast. His neck crawled as if hidden killers lay in wait, but his hyper-charged senses still gave him nothing, even when he sound-sifted the hell out of the feed.
As far as he could tell, they were alone. The place seemed deserted.
He chalked his uneasiness up to paranoia. Fear, sleep deprivation, and true love: a lethal combo that was fucking with his head. He couldn’t trust his own brain anymore.
“Switch that on,” he told her, pointing at the phone. “And wait here.”
He activated his comm set. The footbridge seemed strongly anchored on both sides, but he was careful as he stepped out onto it.
The bridge shuddered at the force of the water beating against it. In the middle section, brown water swirled and foamed over his boots up to his ankles.
Eventually the pounding water would win. How long that would take, he didn’t know. All he needed was to get across and back.
He called to her from the other side. “Can you hear me?”
“Just fine.” Her reply vibrated in the implant inside his ear. “Aren’t your feet cold?”
He smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. Resistance to cold and heat: basic mods that always came in handy. “Stay there. Wait for me while I check the place out.”
She walked out onto the bridge in response, the water splashing her jeans halfway up to her knees as she went through the flooded section. She hiked up the bank toward him, eyes wide and innocent. “Sorry? You were saying?”
He sighed and deactivated the comm gear again. Whatever.
The ugly house loomed over them, gray and malevolent. Metal, concrete, and glass against the cold white sky. They climbed the steps and Simone’s hand slid into his, squeezing briefly as he turned the knob.
The knob turned. The door opened. They looked at each other, startled.
“No fucking way,” he murmured.
“How could it be a trap?” she asked. “He’s dead, right? You saw him die.”
“He wasn’t dead when he left this place,” Zade said. “Mark would never leave one of his properties unlocked.”
Simone’s brow was creased. “I assume you could tell if someone was here.”
“To a point,” he said. They stared at the door, the house, the surrounding landscape. Just trees, angry wind, wild water. An occasional stray snowflake. He listened deeper and harder than he ever had in his life, maxing out his ASP capacity.
Nothing.
He pushed the door open and they eased slowly inside. He held the gun ready, keeping Simone behind him. The power hadn’t been turned off. He could sense an electrical charge. The heat was another story. The house was like a freezer.
They moved into a large living room with two picture windows. The intact one showed the flooding and their car on the far side. The other was boarded up with plywood. Broken glass glittered everywhere, on the wood floors, embedded in the carpets. A wide deck outside the smashed sliding glass door overlooked the river. The deck’s handrail was broken.
Black leather furniture. Plain lamps. No artwork on the stark white walls. No clutter, no signs of a life. Just shattered glass everywhere he looked, and their muddy footprints.
They continued through the house into a rigidly clean kitchen, then a dining room. A table for eight had undisturbed dust on its glossy surface.
A spiral staircase led to the floor above, where they saw a pristine white bathroom with one white towel hanging up at perfect right angles. A master bedroom held a large bed with a white duvet cover, neatly straightened, and a chest of drawers. No pictures, no clothes.
The other upstairs rooms were empty and stank of fresh paint.
They went back downstairs, footsteps hushed and careful, and found a home office on the other side of the foyer. A desk held a big desktop computer and a cardboard storage box with a lid.
Zade lifted the lid off the box, hesitating as if he might find something grisly.
Two of Simone’s yellow-striped prototypes were inside. One was the neuroscanner that Mark had put onto Luke in the video.
Their eyes met. “All that’s missing is the gift bow,” he said.
The room had a bookcase filled with recent bestsellers, travel guides, reference volumes. Zade scanned some titles. “The books are bogus,” he said.
“How so?”
“Mark didn’t read fiction. He didn’t get it, not on any level. And he didn’t need a dictionary or a travel guide. He had all those databases in his head.” He pulled out a larger book. “Landscape photography, my ass. This is a prop. All of them are.”
He seized the bookcase frame and gave it a hard, rattling shake.
It swung open with a soft click, revealing a narrow staircase leading down into the dark. Wide enough for only a single person.
“Fuck,” Zade whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“It wasn’t up to you, so skip the guilt,” Simone said. “We can leave if you don’t like the vibe.”
He shook his head. “I have to know what’s down there. I’ve waited too goddamn long. But you should leave. Be careful getting across the river. Take these. Go now.” He pulled out the car keys and held them out to her. “And don’t argue.”
She just folded her arms, tight-lipped. So goddamn stubborn.
“Look, I can do this if I know the keys are in the ignition and you’re ready to roll,” he said. “Monitor me through the button cam if you have to watch. Please, Simone.”
She still hesitated. “I can’t just drive away,” she said. “We’re together now. We face this together, no matter what’s waiting for you down there.”
“Listen to me,” he said. “If you’re outside with a phone and a car and it’s a trap, you could get help. If you’re with me, we both die. Or maybe it’s a cage with Luke’s body in it. That could happen. You don’t need to see it.”
Her face tightened. “You were there for me. And I want to be there for you.”
He shook his head. “I have to go down there alone,” he said. “If a trap springs, I want you to jump clear.”
She looked like she was on the edge of tears. “Then I’ll wait for you right here,” she conceded. “I’ll just take a look at Mark’s computer in the meantime.”
“Good luck with that. He believed in encryption.”
“So it’ll keep me out of trouble. Who knows, he might even have your control codes in there somewhere.” She turned it on. It hummed to life and images began flashing by on the screen. Mostly nature photographs, cycling at about three per second. Then a prompt invited the user to enter a password.
“There you go. See what you can do.” He handed her the car keys. “And keep these.”
She tucked them into her jacket pocket, refusing to meet his eyes, but he pulled her close and gave her a swift, forceful kiss. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” she said. “But I’m pissed. And I’m going to make you pay.”
“Looking forward to it. See you around.”
He activated the comm again with his implant and stepped into the coffin-like narrowness of the hidden stairwell. A crushing feeling of suffocation overcame him.
The ceiling was so low he had to crouch and keep his shoulders hunched. His gun was useless. He couldn’t see well enough down here for a kill shot. His night vision was good, but he wished he had Noah’s eye mods. The Ratcatcher hadn’t gotten around to their eyes by Rebellion day.
There was a light on somewhere down there. Mark’s words from the video echoed in his head.
… but you won’t be sitting on a beach. You’ll be in my secret place, six levels down … being my bitch.
The door at the first level down opened into a big storage space with an elevator in the back. Shelves packed with food, cans and boxes and bottles, freeze-dried, vacuum packed. Paper goods, light bulbs, a gas generator, all kinds of equipment. Nothing alive. He shut the door and moved on.
The next level was a workshop. Fluorescent lights hung over long tables. Jumbled equipment and electronics. Same elevator shaft in the same place at the back. He shut the door.
The third level was a weapons stash. Major firepower everywhere he looked. Guns, rifles, ammo, missiles, sniper sights, tripods, everything. He moved on.
The fourth level was for slave soldier transport pods. He had ugly, visceral memories of being entombed in those in his Midlands days. Arms and legs restrained, a mask over his nose and mouth for oxygen, sensors stuck all over him that recorded every blip of his half-alive body.
“Can you still hear me?” he murmured into the mic.
“Loud and clear,” she replied. “I saw all the rooms you opened.”
He pushed open the fifth door as she spoke and struggled to make sense of what he saw. A huge, clear-sided box, sides sunk deep in a mechanism in the floor.
A cage of some kind. But nothing and no one was in it.
“Do you see that?” he murmured. “What do you make of it?”
“No idea.” Simone’s voice was fuzzed by static. “I’m just glad that it’s empty.”
The last flight of stairs was much brighter because the door at the bottom was slightly open. A bar of brilliant white light streamed out of it.
“Be careful,” Simone said.
He pushed the door wider, enhanced senses at full bore, wide open and straining in every direction. All he heard was a flat, deathly hush.
The space was like a Midlands lab in every detail, but cluttered and filthy. The wall near the door was heaped with dusty construction materials no one had bothered to haul away. Chunks of wood and plasterboard, lengths of rebar.
A reinforced metal cot with heavily padded wrist and ankle restraints was set up in the center on top of a recessed rectangle in the floor. A helmet was bolted to the cot. A metal toilet with no seat stuck out of the floor beside it. There were no doors besides the one he stood in. Just the elevator in the back.
No one here. But his modified senses screamed a warning only he could hear.
He ignored it and stepped out into the room. He scanned the whole place. That rectangular shape in the floor was echoed in the ceiling.
Then something else transfixed him. A flash of silver, dangling in mid-air from a near-invisible thread, not far from the door.
Luke’s dose of poison.
A few steps brought him right under it. The open door was moving the air in the room and the pendant spun slowly, making a disc of reflected light circle the walls.
He reached up. Yanked the pendant off the hanging thread, and looked at it for a moment. He wondered if Mark had hung it there to taunt Luke.
He slid the pendant into his inside jacket pocket and approached the cot. The mattress padding was filthy. Spotted with old bloodstains.
He put his hand on it. Luke had lain there. But where the fuck was he now?
Whoosh. A rush of air. Crack.
He shouted as he slammed up against a clear, hard barrier that suddenly surrounded him on all four sides.
Huge metal bolts sank deep into the floor, grinding and thudding as they fixed the cage in place. The barrier went all the way up to the ceiling, positioned in the rectangle he’d seen before. He hadn’t made the mental leap that connected it to the cage in the floor above.
“Simone! It’s a trap!” he hissed. “Get out of here! Run!”
A seam appeared in the wall panel. A heavy door swung open, revealing a room beyond, its walls covered with multiple security monitors.
“Zade? Talk to me! What’s going on?” Simone’s anxious voice buzzed in his ear but he couldn’t risk drawing attention to her now.
A tall, shambling figure stepped out of the monitor room.
Zade recoiled. The guy looked like a walking corpse. Bloated, greasy gray skin, hair falling out in patches, yellowed bloodshot eyes set deep in bruised sockets. His exposed skin was pitted with weeping sores, his hands wrapped like a mummy’s. Thick, empurpled fingertips poked out of the ends.
He grinned at Zade, displaying bloody gums and a few teeth, black and decaying, as he pushed a wall button to activate an intercom.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” His hoarse, scratchy voice was distorted by the speaker. “Welcome back, D-13.”