Burn (18 page)

“Where does that hallway lead?” Congers asks.

“To some other offices, an emergency exit to the building, and another hallway leading to the main corridor,” says Graham. “After I checked to make sure the storage room door was still locked, I went back there. That's where I was when I heard the explosion. But the blond guy was long gone.”

Angus's brow furrows. “Brayton is very ill. The last thing he can do right now is sprint.”

“He looked pretty damn healthy at breakfast this morning,” Congers says in a hard voice. “And you did deny him access to anything but janitorial duty, I believe. Plenty of reason for him to be upset.”

“He was definitely out of breath before he went into the factory,” I add. “But . . . his hands and shoes were clean when Kellan scanned them after the fire. No fluorescence. And if the timing is as you describe, he would have run straight from the hallway into the atrium, because the alarms went off a minute or so later.”

“Not to mention that I saw him come out of the elevators when the alarm went off,” calls Rufus. “I hate the bastard, but I can tell you he didn't come out of this hallway.”

I rub at an aching spot on my temple. “We can't forget that both Brayton and Rufus were in the atrium when the actual theft occurred. Even if either of them was trying to take it before, neither could have shot the guards and stolen the device.”

“Which means we may be dealing with a conspiracy,” says Congers.

“I had nothing to do with this,” Graham says quietly. “You know I'd never do anything like this.” He starts to take a step toward Congers, but the Black Box guards grab his arms. Graham grimaces. “
Dad.
You know I wouldn't!”

Congers's gaze snaps to his son. “You didn't follow orders.” He looks away quickly, so he doesn't see Graham's shoulders hunch forward, like he's been punched in the stomach. “Do what you need to do,” Congers says to Kellan.

Kellan and his guards lead a shell-shocked Graham to a separate office to question him further while Angus returns his attention to the surveillance footage, which is full of gaps. His meaty fists are white-knuckled with bottled-up anger.

I take a step back, the same frustration and fatigue rolling over me. “I need to go find Christina,” I say. “I'll check back with you guys later.”

Congers barely acknowledges me because his cell phone is ringing, but Race makes as if he's going to follow me out. “They were going to try to salvage the combat vehicles, weren't they?” he asks me. “I was hoping we could take another look at the plans and the actual vehicles, in case your father used some of the same wreckage components.”

But as we reach the door, Congers calls out, lifting his chin away from the phone at his ear. “Lavin. Get back here.”

Race waves me on. I head down the hall and into the atrium, which is quiet now that all the patients have been moved. The acrid stench of burning still hangs heavy in the air, though, and the smoke outside lends a grayish cast to the dwindling daylight as I emerge into the open courtyard between the main building and the factory. A large squad of uninjured workers is busy clearing out debris from the factory floor. Then I hear a cheer from the parking lot, so at odds with the grim scene in front of me. I look out to the lot beyond the burned-out factory, and there's a crowd clustered around what is unmistakably a row of combat vehicles. Six of them. I jog over to see more workers tinkering with them, wiping their shiny exteriors, welding panels, oiling the rails of the autocannons. Arrayed in front of the vehicles, a few feet beyond their hoods, are weapons consoles much like the one I used to blast a hole in the factory wall this afternoon. They haven't been placed inside the vehicles yet and are hooked up to huge generators rumbling off to our right.

“Tate!” Christina's hoarse voice is like pure relief to me, and I turn to see her walking toward me. Her eyes are red and swollen, and she's rubbing at her throat, but still she looks happy. “Wait until you see this. Manuel is a genius.”

Standing head and shoulders taller than the cluster of folks near the consoles, Manuel blushes at her praise. “We were able to salvage these six from the factory floor, and we gassed them up and got them out here so we could complete assembly as quickly as possible. I've set up an interactive simulation using the available information about the Sicarii scout ships. It's based on witness reports from Mr. Congers, Dr. Shirazi, and some of the other agents, but it was the best I could do. So as my volunteers do the simulation, I'm going to gather data on the system capabilities so I can calibrate these babies before we install them.”

He gestures at Christina and Leo—and Daniel Sung, who is among a small group of Core agents who has joined the effort to salvage the combat vehicles. “Leo said you got some kind of satellite shield up to protect the planet,” Manuel says to me, lowering his voice. “I want to do my part to protect that shield. Which means protecting Black Box.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I had no idea you guys would get this far so soon.”

“We're not done yet,” Sung says as he flexes his fingers. His dark brown eyes shine with eagerness as he gazes at the weapons console in front of him. Right now he looks less like a disciplined young agent and more like a caffeine-fueled gamer about to try out the newest
Call of Duty.
“You want us to hop in and just start shooting, Manuel?”

Manuel chuckles. “You can try. It's harder than it looks.”

Leo, Sung, and Christina get into three of the four gunner pits, settling in on the swiveling seats. Leo's spinning like a top, but Christina sees me eyeing the fourth console. “Hey, Manuel, can Tate give it a try?”

He shrugs. “I don't see why not.”

Leo snorts. “He already knows how to use them, as evidenced by the massive hole in the factory wall.”

“What am I supposed to do with those?” I point to the two padded circles that look like automated blood-pressure cuffs positioned in front of the cannon control sticks. “Didn't exactly have time to figure it out during the fire.”

“They have these sensors in them that detect muscle contractions. Not exactly sure why.” Manuel's black hair falls over his brow as he bows his head. “We're following your dad's plans exactly. I'm still trying to figure out what those lenses do. He didn't leave a lot of explanations.”

That's true in so many ways, and once again, my chest aches. “I know. I'm sorry—”

“No, don't be. Your dad was a genius. I want to do justice to his designs, because, man, they are brilliant.” Manuel pats the hood of one of the vehicles. “I was thinking we should call them Archers. You think he would have liked that?”

The ache turns to a sharp pang.
Would
he have liked that? I return Manuel's smile. “Yeah,” I say, my voice catching. “I think he would have thought that was cool.”

“Archers it is,” says Manuel, grinning. “Let's see what they can do.”

With the Archers looming behind us, crawling with workers racing against the clock to get this tiny assault force battle-ready, I climb into the gunner pit. We all settle our arms in the cuffs and fiddle with the stick controls, which swivel along a circular track, too, that's set closer to the view screens. Once we're all in, Manuel fires up the consoles. On my viewing screen a shockingly familiar shape appears, one of the hovering obelisk ships of the Sicarii.

“If you see that round hole in the bottom half open up,” says Manuel, “watch out. We're hoping the armor can withstand a hit, but Dr. Shirazi said it turned her armored minivan into a crushed soda can with one shot.”

“Let's see if we can't take them out, then,” mutters Sung, his chair swiveling, his eyes riveted to the shimmering obelisk on the screen. He jams his thumb on a button. On our screens, we see a blast of light fly at the Sicarii ship, but it spins out of the way.

We all start shooting, but as it turns out, Manuel is extremely good at creating simulations. The alien ships move just like the ones I've seen, fluid and lethal. Our consoles bounce and jitter as the program moves us across all types of terrain. We can't control the exact direction or speed of the vehicle, because we're gunners—not drivers. It takes two to operate an Archer. And it's a good thing this is a simulation, because if this were real life, we'd be toast. Our shots fly wide, short, wild, high,
off.
Our consoles are rigged to shut down once we've taken three hits from a Sicarii ship, and I've taken two before I know what's happening. My arms are sweating inside the cuffs, and I'm fighting to get my seat to swivel.

“These things have eye tracking!” Sung calls out. “It brightens the part of the screen you're focusing on.”

Manuel scribbles something into a tablet, smiling. “Cool.”

I growl with frustration as I try to turn my seat. I'm a fairly accurate shot, but only when I can aim my guns. This console works as a three-hundred-sixty-degree display, and I can't get my freaking chair to spin. One of the Sicarii ships on my screen keeps flying to my starboard and firing from there. “You're going to have to oil these seats, Manuel,” I call out. “It's fighting me.”

“You're fighting
it,
” says Christina as hers turns smoothly. I glance over to see her eyes focused on the screen as she speaks, like she does this kind of thing every day. “I think the cuffs are connected to the seat swivel. Stop trying to control it yourself and let it do some of the work.”

Boom.
She hits a Sicarii ship right in its artillery hatch, and it explodes on my screen. Behind me, a handful of workers let out a cheer.

A few minutes later, I'm out of the simulation after taking the requisite number of hits. Leo, Sung, and Christina battle it out while other factory workers and Core agents gather around to watch. Sung's movements are a little jerky, and I think he's doing the same thing I was, trying to force the chair to swivel instead of letting the cuffs detect his movements before he consciously thinks about it. But he's a great shot, and he's the one who figures out that the eye tracker is how to achieve weapon lock on a target.

It doesn't save him, though. Soon he's out, too, and it's down to Christina and Leo. Both of them are grinning, swiveling and firing both of their guns at once while they taunt each other like brother and sister. Leo's faster, but Christina's more accurate. No matter where those ships move, she tracks them, and she gets more deadly the longer she works at it. The spectators start to make bets on whether Christina or Leo will stay in the simulation longer. It's a badly needed few minutes of lightness and even fun in what has been a day full of tragedy, and I think everybody needed a break from the tension. And as I watch Christina and Leo take on those silent, smooth scout ships, I find myself wondering if even six Archers might be enough to make a difference.

“This looks like fun,” says a soft voice just behind me.

I turn to see Ellie Alexander, her white-blond hair tucked behind her ears, watching the simulations. She's taken a shower and cleaned off all the soot, but it wasn't enough to wash away the heavy weight that seems to be pressing on her. Rufus gave her a pretty hard time earlier, but the worst thing she's done is to be loyal to her dad, and I can't blame her for that, even if I don't like him at all. “Hey,” I say. “How's Brayton? Still feverish?”

She gives me a pained look. “He's just worn out. These past few days have been awful for him.” She looks around, noting the hulk of the factory behind us, and hugs herself, rubbing her arms. “But I guess that's true for everyone here.”

I nod. “Just so you know, a Core agent is telling people he saw your dad in the administrative hallway just before the scanner was stolen. He said Brayton ran when he realized he was being watched.”

She scoffs. “Does my dad really look like he could run anywhere? He's completely drained.” Her fingers are bloodless as they clutch her biceps. She's so protective of him. “Don't tell me—they're going to search his quarters.” She rolls her eyes. “They won't find anything except painkillers. He's being blamed for everything, when all he wanted to do was regain everybody's trust.”

“That's going to take longer than a day, after what he did.” I say it gently, but I have to be honest with her.

She presses her lips together and stares at the blacktop. “Everything takes longer than it should,” she whispers.

I take a step back. As much as she needs it, I'm not the right person to stand here and sympathize with her over how her dad's been mistreated. He brought it on himself, and no matter how hard he might be trying to make things right, I still don't trust him. I believe Graham about seeing Brayton in Angus's office before the fire. I just have no idea what Brayton was up to—and I hope Angus is planning to bring him in for questioning.

“Look, Ellie, I need to help with getting these vehicles up and running. I hope Brayton feels better,” I say. When she gives me a nod, I retreat inside the back of one of the Archers as Ellie steps forward to watch Christina and Leo shooting down simulated spaceships.

The interior of the vehicle smells of oil and iron. There's a large open space where the weapons console will fit. Scraping above me draws my eyes upward in time to see two women lowering a giant lens over the hole cut in the roof between the rails of the autocannon. It fits into the opening with a muffled
thunk,
and their faces and bodies above the glass lens are instantly distorted, suddenly appearing miles away instead of only a few feet. I slide my finger along the curved underside. “What are these for, Dad?” I whisper.

“Tate!” My mother's voice is so sharp and urgent that I jump up and nearly crash my skull into the thick glass lens.

“Yeah?” I climb out of the Archer to see her jogging toward me.