CICADA: A Stone Age World Novel (21 page)

Mel

Lunder scrunched the note up in his hand, angry that he couldn’t figure out where this traitor was. He thought he might get lucky and that she would meet Carrington here, but she’d been and gone. Then he thought she might try to take out their power, but now he realized where she was going. He tossed the crumpled note and darted out the door.

“Operations, this is Lunder Gufstafson. Dispatch security to Westerling and the Observation Tower immediately. I will meet them on the ground floor. Apprehend Dr. Melanie Reid. Consider her armed and dangerous.”

“Mr. Gufstafson, I read you—”

A piercing squeal bellowed out of the radio. Lunder yanked it away from his ear and turned the volume down to minimize the hit to his already painful headache. He dashed down the stairs and out the doors into the morning sunlight. There were already a few guards in front of the tower’s entrance; at least that part of his message had gone out before the loud noise. He turned up the volume, and the squeal still blared. Angrily, he turned it off.

“How the hell did you disrupt our radios too?” he said as he jogged. They had all underestimated Melanie Reid.

Carrington had been listening to the broadcast and knew he had to think quickly, before Lunder could give more instructions. He had been waiting for the right moment to carry out his plan, his resolve fading, when he heard the transmission and knew the window had opened but could slam shut without warning. Hiding behind a desk, he grabbed some tape from a drawer. Then taking two radios he had collected from two guards he had disarmed earlier, he taped them together and slid both mic buttons into the “On” position. With both transmitting at the same time, he whistled. The sound picked up and transmitted, resulting in both radios echoing a loud high-pitched feedback. That would take out all the radios on that frequency.

Now he had to wait for the time to spring.

He wished he could have told Melanie why he was going to do this. Of course she wouldn’t understand, and she would have talked him out of it if he told her. He wished their lives could have gone in a different direction. He wished they had more time.

The elevator door opened up and he shrank further behind the desk, gun ready.

“I wanna see Crapaw,” cried a little girl. It was Westerling’s granddaughter.

“We’re going to see him now,” said Deanna.

“I wanna show him my new necklace Mrs. Reid gave me.”

“You will. Here we are.”

There was a knock on the door and the sound of it opening.

“Crapaw… Crapaw. Look at my new necklace.”

Carrington peered over the desk and saw a woman and beyond the doorway, a little girl hugging Westerling.

“Dammit,” he breathed. He would have to wait longer.

The elevator door opened again.

Melanie slid out of the elevator and peered into the reception room. There was no one there and Westerling’s office door was open. He could hear voices inside. She slipped into the waiting room, and then slinked into the conference room, crawling underneath the long table, until she reached the end.

Lying sideways and boosting her head out, she scanned his office, clutching her gun.

He was standing right there and looking away from her, talking to someone out of her view. He was less than fifteen feet away from her: easy shot.

She slid the gun along the floor and brought it up slightly, acquiring a perfect sight picture. She aimed right at his head.
Apply pressure to the trigger. Wait for the shot
.

She took a breath and unwrapped her finger from the trigger.

Westerling held up little Leanne, his granddaughter, and spun her around. She was joyfully showing off the necklace Mel had given her. She couldn’t shoot and risk hitting the child. And even if she had a clean shot, could she shoot the child’s grandfather right in front of her?

She sighed, at a loss.

There was a commotion coming from the elevator. The waiting room door burst open and so must have Westerling’s office as he looked in that direction and let go of Leanne, who ran to her mother’s arms.

It was now or never. She fired.

“I’m sure glad I followed your recommendation and had the window walls hardened to withstand a bullet.”

“Well, as you can see, even these pacifist scientists can commit violence,” Lunder said proudly.

“Speaking of which, can you get my daughter and granddaughter down below and out of harm’s way?”

“Yes, of course.” Lunder turned to the guards and said, “Take them to their residence and post one guard there until I tell you otherwise. And leave me with Mr. Westerling.”

“Yes sir,” they announced and left, ushering Leanne and her mom out of the office and closing the door.

“What are we going to do with her?” Westerling motioned toward the conference room, where an unconscious Melanie lay on the floor, her hands and feet zip-tied.

“Until we find her husband, I’m going to do nothing. I’ll take her to my office and hold her there.”

Flying a hovercraft was completely different from flying an airplane. Its inventor, Dr. Cockerell, said it would be the same, but he was wrong. Bill had had a few hours’ flying experience, courtesy of a close friend of Max’s who owned a private plane in Mexico and was certified to give flight lessons. Flying his Cessna was easy; this was not. All the controls in a Cessna were intuitive, designed by many engineers over a hundred years of trial and error; but the hovercraft’s controls, designed by a generous mad scientist and with no trial and error, took practice. Unfortunately, that was a luxury Bill didn’t have. With an airplane, there was an element of “feeling” the controls when you maneuvered. The hovercraft, shaped like a toaster, took lots of thought, which was not good for split-second decisions. He prayed that he wouldn’t make the wrong ones and burn himself to a crisp, as he often did with toast.

It would have seemed to the casual observer—who would supposedly think a flying blue toaster was normal—that he was on some suicidal quest during the toaster’s inaugural flight. Twice he almost crashed into the forest’s canopy below. He had brought the hovercraft so perilously close to the treetops that a couple of them slapped the craft’s underside.

Bill found that when he wanted to bring the hovercraft lower, a very light touch with one thumb on the stick caused it to descend very rapidly. But when he wanted to ascend, he had to pull. Side to side was easy, although he had to be careful not to toss himself off the damn thing. After getting the hang of the controls, maybe halfway to Bios-2, his next worry was being seen by the troops he was attempting to scout.

The oversized toaster was painted blue, not as some ode to a giant Smurf, but because Cockerell thought it would blend into the sky. He forgot that people on the ground would be looking up at its bottom, which was black. However, when he was closer to the ground, the blue made him very visible against the brown trees and gray-brown mountains. Fixing that was for another day, if he made it to another day.

Yet, in spite of the significant learning curve, the hovercraft was an amazing vehicle from its quiet hum during operations to its propulsion method, which Bill still didn’t even comprehend after several attempts by Cockerell to explain it to him. He was pretty sure if this machine had been constructed before the Event, this scientist would have been a billionaire because everyone would have wanted one. Or, he would have been bankrupt after the first crash and subsequent class-action lawsuit.

He could see a few specks on the roadway ahead of him. He decided if they were the invaders he was trying to gather intel on, he was too visible flying over the road. He pulled up on the stick and took her up above the treetops and then maneuvered to the left, about twenty meters in from the tree line, hoping that would be enough cover. He was getting the hang of this now.

Within a few minutes he slid—completely unobserved—past hordes of men and women in red robes. There were hundreds of them, marching like fire ants heading to their next leafy conquest. Except these red ants had automatic rifles and a few carried larger-caliber weapons.

“Shit, the threat was real,” he said to the wind, which instantly puffed up his cheeks with warm dryness. He knew he should turn back and report this to Preston, as it was his sole purpose for being out here, but when he looked up, in the distance he could see the oval walls on top of a mesa that he guessed was Bios-2. He needed to check this out too while he was here. Then he would zip back hours before the marauders arrived at Cicada.

With his friend Max… missing… He had difficulty even considering this, and forced himself into not accepting the story of his death. Either the story was false, which would make sense, or somehow Max would survive, as he always seemed to do. And maybe, he would find Max and help him, return a favor that had run its course way too long. Regardless of whether he found Max or not, he
knew
he was alive. And, Cicada (and Max, when he returned) would need Bill’s intel. His efforts were much more important now. Everything pointed to his checking out Bios-2.

He pointed the toaster-craft directly at the mesa-top complex shimmering on the horizon.

“I want to speak to Francis alone,” the Teacher told the six apostles who accompanied him on this journey to Cicada. The other four remained with John at their camp outside of Bios-2.

“But Teacher, you haven’t yet chosen a replacement for Stephen and we wanted to give you some options,” whined Stanley.

“That can wait. We must now prepare our minds and bodies for the battle that may come at Cicada. Sometime after I have taken Cicada and I’ve had a chance to discuss it with Brother John, I will announce my decision. Now, tell Francis I wish to speak to him alone.”

Stanley said nothing more and rushed forward to get Francis, who was leading them toward Cicada. The other six slowed their pace from the Teacher’s, to give him privacy with the soldier.

While the Teacher waited for him, so that they could discuss strategy, he thought about their march so far. They had been walking in the brutal midday sunlight for a couple hours now, right down the middle of the road, where no shade existed as the tree line’s cover was too far off on each side. Walking closer to the tree line was not an option since each side was littered with abandoned cars and nature’s own detritus, all of which would only slow their progression, and only for the benefit of a few moments of shade. But they would have to stop shortly to give everyone a rest so they would be stronger when they arrived.