15.
MADDIE
Maddie watched Redek leave with her best attempt at a stoic expression.
Inside she was falling apart. The moment he’d told her they were going to leave the compound together, she’d almost convinced herself that they were never going to be apart.
And this wasn’t like he was just going to the shop or on vacation—this was him possibly going to his death because of her.
Because he’d wanted to help her.
She watched him disappear and struggled to breathe.
And then, when the room was empty and it was just her and Tisya—who was helping to coordinate ship and troop movements from this HQ—she finally found her resolve.
She’d had her night with Redek where she forgot about anything except the feel of him under her fingers, but now there wasn’t that distraction.
There had to be some way to help.
Wiping her eyes, she finally got a proper look at the room she was in. It was full of tech. The teleporter in the middle was obviously the main attraction, but a huge computer with multiple screens was in the back corner, behind which Tisya sat, speaking rapidly into his earpiece. She didn’t want to distract him, and walked over to another, smaller computer. “Can I use this?” she asked.
Tisya nodded without speaking, and she sat down. It was unlocked.
She stretched her fingers and started playing around with the computer. It was different than anything she’d ever used before in terms of the interface, but the fundamentals were the same. Before long she’d found a back channel into Tisya’s computer to see what he was watching. On his screens he had thermal maps of the city to track movement and a map of the sky where different colored dots represented both sides of the conflict.
Now that it had started, it was less quiet in the tunnels.
Explosions sounded from above, and the tables in the room rattled with the impact.
Judging by the heat sensors, the battle on the surface was raging. It was far bigger than she’d expected. There were armies up there.
And Maddie was below ground hiding from it all.
Now more familiar with the computer, she tried seeing if there was a similar back channel to anyone in the fleet. They would be using the IU’s official connection provider even out here, she was sure, and she’d spent years and years working with that.
Before long, she was into the cameras aboard some of the bigger ships in the fleet. She moved around, looking for action. She flinched when she found one that was capturing one of Tisya’s assassination squads in action.
It looked like they were being successful. Bodies were on the floor, but more were wearing IU uniforms than not.
She moved on the moment she confirmed Redek wasn’t one of them.
She’d been immediately diverted from trying to help to trying to find him. It was like déjà vu from when she’d been watching him fight the intruders downstairs on her laptop, and she just needed to be able to see that he was okay. She just needed to know.
And if something was going to go wrong, she felt morbidly compelled to see that, too.
As she cycled through cameras, though, it wasn’t Redek that she found.
It was Damien.
He was striding around what looked like an office, and there was no one else in the room.
It was so different than the demeanor she was used to him that she paused to just watch him for a moment. The easygoing man she was used to was pacing with hunched shoulders, his hands running over his face and through his hair every five seconds. His face was scrunched into a ball.
And then he lashed out. His mouth was open so she knew he must be shouting as he kicked and punched a couch in the room. He threw his phone at the wall, smashing it.
Maddie wanted to be satisfied, but as she watched Damien, she could only think one thing.
Damien knew.
Damien knew what had happened to her parents, about who she really was.
He was the only person who could tell her.
She was acting before she could stop herself. She tracked the ship and grabbed the coordinates, then stood up and walked over to the teleporter’s tablet and began inputting the coordinates from the computer.
“What are you doing?” Tisya snapped. She’d been blocking his words out as white noise until he addressed her directly.
“I found the man who is in charge of this whole thing,” she said, still tapping in the coordinates. “Do you have a gun?”
“I was told you had no training,” he said, one hand to his earpiece as she interrupted probably vital information getting through to him.
“It was a lie,” she lied. “Redek wanted to keep me safe. Give me a gun. Something.”
Tisya curled his lip at her, though she wasn’t sure he entirely believed her.
Either way, he pulled one of the pistols from his own belt and handed it to her. “You’re sure you know how to use this?” he asked.
She dithered. It looked a bit different from Redek’s. “Remind me,” she said with a small smile.
He put the gun in her hand. “It’s simple. The trigger fires the laser shot. This bar is your charge. There’s no safety, so be careful”
It functioned the same way, then. It was easy enough. “Got it. Thanks, Tisya.”
He shook his head. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
She fastened the teleportation bracelet around her wrist, and fired a grin over her shoulder. “Better something stupid than nothing at all.”
Then she pressed the button on the teleporter and stepped into it, the pistol a dead weight in her hand.