Heart of Annihilation (4 page)

I swung the plunger and it splintered against Luginbeel’s face. He went down with a howl. The rubber end of the plunger flew in the opposite direction. I pushed to my feet, clutching the small ragged end as another figure rose to my left. The other private leapt back, barely avoiding being impaled by my plunger stick. I chucked the stick after him. A solid clunk and a surprised “Gah!” told me I’d hit my target.

Luginbeel clamored to his feet. I smashed my fist into his nose. Cartilage crushed under my knuckles. My already mangled hand seared with pain. Luginbeel squealed and collapsed on his side.

Arms wrapped me from behind, pinning my arms to my side. I kicked into open air, bashing back my head at the same time. The back of my skull connected with a face, and the arms released me. I shoved Sanderford away. He stumbled against the sink, hand at his cheek.

“Rose, stop!”

I whirled to face Justet, my fists raised.

He pointed the pistol at my face. “I said, stop.”

I opened my hands slowly.

“She hit me!” Luginbeel got to his feet, his voice nasal. One hand covered his nose.

Justet coughed. “Yeah, she does that.”

“Not quite like killing someone,” I said, searching for another avenue of escape, “but, yeah, it
does
sorta feel good.” The taunt surprised me with how true it was. “Hey, Private, have fun telling your pals how your nose got busted.”

Luginbeel pulled his hand from his mangled nose and looked at the blood on his fingers.

“I’ll kill her!” He sprang at me.

Justet caught Luginbeel by the arm and forced him back. The pistol was now pointed in the general direction of Sanderford. I raced for the door.

I didn’t make it two steps before pain shattered through the back of my skull in a flash of blue light. The floor rose before me. My knees hit the tile with twin thuds, and my hands felt weighted. My cheekbone smashed against the floor. A vapor of darkness congested the single clear bulb of light shining in my eyes.

“Hand me that pistol, sir,” the hollow voice bounced an echo into the distance. “No loose ends.”

My fingers curled, trying to drag me somewhere—anywhere but the painful now as a “loose end.” A foot jammed under my stomach and heaved me onto my back. Sanderford leaned over me, his face fading with the dimming light. He reached for me.

“What’s this?”

I felt a tug and the chain of my dog tags chafed my neck. The vapor solidified into blessed nonexistence.

Caz
Retha
20 years pre-RAGE

Lightning pulsed deep within the threatening electrical storm, brightening the elegant arches of Vislane Academy. The trees of the rare and protected envirophylum cast a sharp relief around the tall building. Smaller buildings bowed to the left of the academy, low and squat as though cowed by the magnificence above them. Lightning shattered the sky again, bringing deep rolling thunder. The metallic surfaces mirrored back the lightning, striking light across the collection of children.

Caz’s breath misted before her. A cold, dry breeze lifted the silvery curls of her hair, bringing with it the strange, earthen scents of the phylum. She stood apart from the group, with her back to the academy and her feet planted wide on the slick, coppery ground. Her hands clenched near her sides. The clouds rolling overhead mimicked the darkness welling in her chest. Using her shoulder, she rubbed an ache above her left ear.

A handsome boy, standing head and shoulders above the group, held her attention. Vin. His white teeth gleamed in the failing light as he laughed at the words of a smaller friend. A chorus of laughter from the group warmed the air about them, leaving Caz alone in the cold outskirts. She narrowed her eyes to slits of silver and ground her teeth.

She was going to kill him this time, no question.

Caz shoved children aside and lunged. Her shoulder buried in the softness of Vin’s solar plexus. The air went out of him in a
humph.
His head made a ringing sound as it struck the copper surface of the ground. Caz sat on his stomach, managing to pin his arms to his sides with her knees. His eyes crossed, his perfect lips parted in surprise.

Three times Caz’s fist rose and fell: to his cheek, his ear, and his neck. A silvery curl of immaculate hair bounced on his forehead with each strike. Her pulse pounded loud and angry in her ears.

“You never . . . ! Don’t ever . . . ! How dare you, Vin! How dare you!” The words came out as gasps, catching against the fury constricting her throat.

“Get off me, Caz! Get off!” Vin sounded whiney and winded. Gone was his self-assurance. His insane composure. This was a boy scared for his life.

A shiver of voltage raised the hair on her arms. Hands circled her waist and pulled her away. She shoved at them but they clenched into her stomach, yanking her up. She stumbled for footing and came around, fists raised.

Xander stood before her, his hands up to ward off the strike. His face held a mixture of concern and frustration. Simple signs of growing weakness.

“Don’t do it, sis.” His voice had deepened in the last couple of months, making the two years separating them seem like decades. “Vin’s not worth it.”

Vin, not worth it? Caz opened her mouth to respond, then settled for cutting him a look of utter disbelief. She let that marinate for a moment, relishing the droop of his head, and then widened her eyes and tossed her head so he knew she was in control.

Of course Vin was worth it. Vin, her best friend since she could remember, was the most infuriating person on the planet—and worth every minute of her time. It was Vin’s room she snuck into almost every night so she wouldn’t have to listen to her parents bicker in their mind-numbing, passive aggressive way. She even forgave him over and over when he flirted with the other girls at the academy.

But this? This was totally different.

The very fact that Vin even nodded in agreement while Zak Faras slandered her family name turned Vin into Ben Attikin, Retha’s most infamous traitor. She really was going to kill him this time.

“He said . . . they said . . . They called Mom and Dad m-mutineers.” Caz wiped her mouth to dispel the filth of the word. She jabbed a finger at Vin, letting the slur turn to power. “Mutineers!”

Shocked giggling from the crowd.

“It’s not mutineers!” Xander turned on Vin and Zak. He never could refrain from correcting this very personal offense. “Munitioners. As in munitions artisan.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Vin rubbed his jaw. The skin was red, definitely bruised. He turned his large, pretty eyes on Caz. His shoulder sloped in her direction. “I never called them that, Caz.”

“You nodded. I saw it!” Caz said.

Vin fell back a step and looked around at the crowd. His face went from apologetic to a steely expression.

“So what?” Vin hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “My dad says they make weapons. What’s that sound like to you?”

“It sounds like they’re doing what your dad told them to do,” Caz snarled. “Not that you would know a picoamp about it!” Who was he, besides the spoiled kid of the dimensional congressional commandant himself? “You or ol’ Zak Flak.”

Zak Faras’s pale face glowed scarlet, but he took courage from Vin.

“Doesn’t matter what you call them,” he said. “They’re still the ones making weapons. And weapons are for . . . killing.” Zak whispered the last word. He scooted next to Vin, drowning in his tall shadow. “What’s that sound like to you?”

“It sounds like you need to shut up!” Caz took an aggressive step. Xander wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her back.

With a sudden scuttling movement, the circle of children broke ranks. Caz noticed the startled face of Vin’s shabby little brother, Ricks, among them. The headmistress of the academy, Madame Vislane, strode calmly toward them amidst a swirl of metallic fabrics and striking blue voltage. Her silver eyes caught the light, her eyebrows held aloft in condescending composure.

Caz released a hiss. The Queen Drone herself, here to put them in their places. She wouldn’t shout, she wouldn’t scold. She wouldn’t even punish them—at least not in her mind. That would go against the rules of etiquette and serenity. That would put her on the same level as a mutineer—a
munitioner
. As Caz’s parents.

All the children wandered purposefully away, pretending they’d taken no part in the moment of hostility. They were innocent bystanders who found it all so very beneath them. Ricks buried himself in the crowd. Caz was surprised he’d been watching at all, the coward.

“Cazandra. Xander,” Madame Vislane addressed them in a soft voice with a gentle bob of her head.

She touched their hair with small, elegant hands. A mild crackle of voltage traveled down Caz’s scalp and entered her mind. Unnatural peacefulness enveloped Caz’s wild emotions, molding them and softening them into the Rethan standard.

Caz closed her eyes. This was where she had to comply. This was where she forced herself to allow the manipulation—to become a drone. This was what it meant to be Rethan. It was not only expected, it was required.

Required. Caz opened her eyes, finding the headmistress’s face inches from her own. The headmistress seemed to sense her gaze and her eyes fluttered open as well. They stared at each other.

Queen Drone wouldn’t sway her today. Better a
mutineer
than a drone. Caz shoved the hand away.

The headmistress curled her poor, wrongly-abused hand and placed it under her chin. Her eyes settled on Caz.

“I can’t say that I’m surprised at you. The both of you.” She included Xander in her look. Xander dropped his head in shame. “You are, after all, Fisk children.” And with a wave of her hand, she dismissed them as hopeless cases. Not that that would stop her from zapping the abnormality out of their brains whenever she felt the need. She smiled. “Come and see me in my office after classes today, Cazandra.”

Xander wasn’t looking at the headmistress but at Caz. His lips pressed together. She was going to get it when they got home, that was for sure. Not that it mattered. Xander would forgive her. He had to.

Madame Vislane turned disappointed eyes on Vin. “Vincent, I expect better of you.”

Vin’s head dipped. Every student cowered under this gaze, distressed at falling from the headmistress’s good graces, forlorn at the thought of ever failing her again. Drones.

With that, the headmistress glided away. Caz glared at her back, remembering the stupid, smug look on her face. Her work was done, her students pacified. All was right in her precious academy. Caz shoved her hands into her pockets to keep them from doing something she was sure to regret.

Vin looked apologetically at Caz. She narrowed her eyes. She should make him suffer for this. In fact, anyone else but Vin would suffer for the rest of their lives for making her undergo a serenity lobotomy. She already had something special planned for Zak Faras.

But Vin was, well, he was Vin.

Caz swiped at her mouth and dropped her eyes. A small, gray spider scurried across her shoe, a deserter from the envirophylum. Anger and resentment welled inside her. Spiders didn’t inhabit Retha naturally. They were protected, along with the other lower-dimensional elements residing in the nearby envirophylum. In fact, the spider was a trespasser in her world, every bit as much as Madame Vislane had been by entering her mind. Caz allowed the depths of her emotions to rise to her eyes, and trained them on Madame Vislane’s retreating figure.

Caz stomped her foot once. The spider flipped off her foot. She crouched and snatched it from the ground by one leg before it could scurry away. Xander and Vin argued quietly above her, their words lost behind the angry swish of blood in her ears.

She couldn’t allow her emotions to override her good sense. There was no place on Retha for those who couldn’t conform to the rules of etiquette and serenity. The spider turned and curled, trying to escape. One of the spindly legs gripped her finger. Caz delicately plucked the leg from its body, rolled it between finger and thumb, and then cast it to the ground.

A person who couldn’t conform was exiled to a lower dimension, their bodies scoured of the metals that allowed them to wield electrical currents. Like former commandant Ben Attikin. Caz shuddered. How could a person live without metals—without voltage? The very thought must be what kept the drones in their places. Caz released a frustrated breath.

She pulled the remaining legs from the spider and dropped the body near the legs. Caz stood and was met by a revolted look from Xander. The corner of Vin’s mouth twitched upward in a furtive smile.

That was all that it took. She gave Vin a cool smirk. She could fake things a little longer. For Vin. Better a fake than a drone, anyway. She crushed the still-wriggling body of the spider with her heel.

Take that, conformity. Long live the mutineers.

My body lay heavy against a rocky surface. I was fairly certain I had arms, legs, and a torso, but that was the extent of my knowledge. There was a nudge against my foot. Then another. I blinked. The bright sunlight made my head cry for mercy, and I squeezed my eyes shut again.

Nudge, nudge.
Harder this time. Something in my mind warned me against opening my eyes. I pried them open anyway and grunted in pain. My hand went to the base of my skull, and I tested a tender, grenade-sized lump. The muscles in my face worked into a grimace, informing me that my cheek was terribly bruised.

Something bright flashed in my eyes. My vision went in and out of focus before solidifying on a set of swinging dog tags. A small, half circle pendant about the size of my thumb shone against the duller metal of the tags. My hand went to my throat, touching the naked skin. My tags. My dad’s pendant. I grabbed for them.

“Wakey, wakey, Kris.” Justet pulled the tags out of my reach.

Memories of the night before crowded my brain. I groaned and rolled myself into a sitting position. Dry dust stirred in the air. I coughed, but stopped immediately when it sent my head throbbing in mighty pain. I held perfectly still, willing the feeling to subside before my stomach emptied its contents all over my uniform.

“Kris?” Justet persisted, making me want to punch him in the face. “Kris. Rose. Rose!”

“Shut up a minute. Sheesh!” I held my breath, and then let it out slowly. I pressed my head between my hands, clenched my eyes shut, and then winked them open. My pounding head pulsed its way to a dull ache. I brushed at the dirt covering my uniform. One of my pant legs pulled out of my boot, and the laces curled in the dirt. I glanced around to get my bearings.

The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun not too high but already blistering hot. Dry dirt and scrubby junipers created the majority of the landscape. along with the occasional spike of desert grass. We could only be in the hills to the west of the base, the home of the rappelling tower and an uncounted number of firing ranges, land nav ranges, war games ranges, leadership training ranges. The gas chamber.

The heavily populated Salt Lake Valley sloped away to my left, meaning we were somewhere in the north ranges. The outskirts of the city of Herriman were much closer than the base. These ranges were usually used as a last resort, for the sake of the homeowners. No one would find me all the way out here. There were a thousand foxholes to choose from for a burial site, and a single brass casing wouldn’t be thought of as amiss. So why had they let me wake up? Why wasn’t I already dead and buried somewhere?

Justet backed up a few paces. Only Justet? Where was everyone else? Sometime during my forced night sleep, he’d taken the time to change out his pistol for an M-16, which he held under his arm. His face was splotchy and red in the midmorning heat and his usually immaculate uniform was rumpled, his cap was crooked.

“You hit me.” I squinted up at him.

“I guess that makes us even.” His tongue flickered out to taste his split lip.

“No it doesn’t. Not even close.” I tested the contusion on the back of my head. Yep, still there. Still hurt.

“Sanderford clocked you. Not me.” Justet scuffed his toe in the dirt and put his hand in his pocket. The rifle hung lazily under his arm. “He was all for finishing you off too. I stopped him.”

“My hero.” I curdled the words with sarcasm so they couldn’t be misconstrued. Justet smirked.

“Actually, Kris—”

“Rose. My name is Rose,” I snapped. I rubbed my eyes and forced myself to take a calming breath. If I was going to make it out of here alive, I was going to have to use my brain rather than my temper. “What do you want, sir?”

“On your feet, Kr—Rose.” Justet motioned with the rifle.

I groaned my way onto my knees and then my feet. I braced my hands against my knees. Blood rushed away from my brain and the world fuzzed, but I was still standing. First good thing that had happened to me today.

“Rose! Rose!”

He was back to shouting. My poor head. At least he’d stopped calling me Kris. I pressed my lips together and gestured with a hand to shut him up. I stood with a deep inhalation to help the oxygen circulate but held my head between my hands to keep it from falling off.

“What do you want, Lieutenant?” I repeated, keeping my eyes on him. Well, one eye. I couldn’t get both eyes to stay open at the same time without seeing double. One Justet was more than enough. Justet raised his eyebrows but let me go on without interrupting. “Because after being assaulted last night, you can imagine how anxious I am to return to the base and get you and your poor-excuse-for-army-dropouts court martialed.”

Justet laughed, brushing at the corners of his mouth. I glanced over my shoulder. The shrubs scattered across the terrain provided only the bare minimum of cover. There were no boulders big enough to shield me from bullets, although an outcropping of rock down the hill might be of some use, if I could get there without being shot first. Add on the heavy slope and I was left at a clear disadvantage. Running was a really bad idea.

“I just want to ask you some questions,” Justet said. I forced my attention back to him.

“And then shoot me?” I retreated a couple of steps. Justet adjusted his rifle.

“Stop right there.”

I lifted my foot to take another step. Justet brought the rifle to his shoulder.

“I said stop!” Justet sighted along the barrel of his rifle, cheek resting against the stock.

Energy jolted down my leg. I took an unbalanced step to the side.

The sun beat on the back of my neck. Sweat erupted from my pores and dripped between my shoulder blades. I raised my hands.

“That’s better.” He lifted his cheek from the stock and pulled the rifle tight against his shoulder so that he could release the hand-guard with his other hand, and put his free hand in his pocket. “Now tell me, Rose, what is this?” He held my dog tags and pendant out as though offering them to me.

An unusual emptiness hollowed out my brain, sending the extreme emotions of the past twelve hours dispersing into the atmosphere. Gone in the wink of silver catching the sun.

Then rage drove needles into my nerves.

“That’s mine! Give it back!”

The ache above my left ear exploded with pain, washing out every other discomfort. My breath quickened, and my vision tunneled onto the single glimmer of silver light that was my pendant. I took an aggressive step with the intention of snatching the tags from his hands.

“Nuh-uh, Rose,” Justet said. My view widened to include him. His other hand went back to steady the rifle. The tags clinked against the hand-guard. “Not another step.”

I found that I was on the balls of my feet, fingers curled into claws. My heart raced, and it was all I could do to not launch myself at him and tear out his eyes.

“What do you want with my tags?” My voice was sharp with a serrated edge.

“Tags? Why would I want your tags?” Justet maintained his smirk but the lines around his eyes tightened. He flicked his little finger at my pendant, making it dance in the sunlight.

The thundering pain above my ear shivered tension through my limbs. Energy raced into my extremities until my fingers prickled. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the bright curve of silver against the black of the rifle.

Justet went on, “See, I thought when you asked about Retha, it was just some squint question, ya know? Something you read about in the message traffic. But it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it?”

I shook my head and pressed my lips together. All thought of flight was gone. He had my pendant. He was talking about Retha. And one little rifle was not going to stop me.

“Retha?” I asked. There it was again. That strange feeling as I said the word, like I’d said it a million times before and loathed it.

“Right, Rose. Retha,” Justet said patiently. “The boss recognized this little charm thing.” He nodded toward my tags. “Said it was a key used by Rethans to activate their weaponry, so that they can invade Earth. And lookie here, you’ve been carrying it around on your tags since I’ve known ya.”

Alien invasion again? Oh please.

“I don’t know anything,” I blurted.

The smile dropped and Justet’s face seemed to flatten. He had a stake in finding out whatever his “boss” thought I knew about my pendant. Whether out of fear or for a pat on the head, I couldn’t tell. A jolt of energy ripped down my spine. I backed up a few steps. Justet followed.

“We’ve looked in your wall locker, Rose.”

“You what?” I whispered. I was beyond screwed. I felt violated.

“Yeah. That’s quite an obsession you have. I even learned a few things. But it’s more than just an obsession with Retha, isn’t it?”

“I swear, Lieutenant, I don’t know anything,” I persisted, only partially truthful. “You’ve been in my wall locker. You know as much as I do.”

“You zapped the hell out of me last night.” Justet moved closer. His lips pulled against his teeth. “You nearly took out my entire team with that damn plunger. You! You have a shitload of information about Retha and you’re carrying around a key to one of their weapons. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m just Rose. Specialist Rose.” I couldn’t believe I had resorted to pleading.

Attikin’s ass!
A voice snarled with venom.
Just Specialist Rose? Stupid child.

I jerked around, searching for the voice. It was almost like it had come from inside my head. My jacket caught on a shrub, and I stumbled on a rock, going to one knee. I breathed in and out through my nose, only partially aware that Justet had followed. I wanted to yell back at the voice, tell it to help instead of offering a lot of worthless advice. I squinted up at Justet.

He looked confused. Like I was the crazy one. And yet I wasn’t the one training a weapon on an unarmed comrade.

There was something about staring into the muzzle of a loaded rifle, with a killer at the other end, which obliterated my fear reflex. Anger reared inside my chest. Determination. Cold logic. Energy raced through my body. I felt a nod of approval from the location of the voice. I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. Justet’s rifle followed.

“You know me, sir. You think I haven’t noticed you, watching me day in and day out? Think I haven’t seen you creeping around behind my back, checking my files, studying me for who knows what? You know me better than anyone. So tell me, Lieutenant, do I look like a threat to national security?”

Justet’s face contorted in thought. He adjusted his finger on the trigger and licked his lips. “So where’d you get this little key thing?”

My chest tightened at the thought of Dad pressing the small, poorly wrapped box into my hands. He said it came from my previous home, probably from my birth parents. There was solemnity in his eyes as I opened it. I remember touching it for the first time, letting the slick curve fit perfectly to my thumb. I’d felt an instant attachment, all the more meaningful these days because of Dad’s absence.

“It was just a gift,” I whispered, glancing to the left. The heels of my boots hung over the slope. My fingers found a spiky branch of the shrub and I clung tight. “From my dad.”

“From your dad?” Justet seemed to miss the gravity in my tone. “Where’d he get it?”

“If you can find him, you’re welcome to ask him,” I said bitterly. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“That it? That all you know?”

“Yes, sir.”

Justet paused and then nodded. He dropped the rifle to his side and stepped back. With one hand he shoved my tags back into his pocket, then pulled out an old flip phone.

He pressed one button with his thumb and lifted it to his ear, his eyes on me. At that moment, I realized just how off-book these people were. No military walkies. It was hard enough believing that these men I’d worked with for years were willing to break the military code of conduct. It was even worse realizing they were operating under no code of conduct whatsoever.

“Hello?” Justet spoke into the phone. “Yeah, it’s me . . . No she doesn’t know anything, just said she got it from her dad . . . No, well she seems sincere. I scared the hell out of her so . . . Okay then . . . Yes, of course . . . No. I can handle it.”

Who was he talking to? Sanderford? Someone else I hadn’t identified?

Justet shifted uncomfortably, his eyes flicking from me to the rifle and back. The implication didn’t look very promising. “So you want me to . . . Of course . . . No, I don’t need Sanderford . . . Yes, ma’am . . . yes, ma’am. Of course. Will do.”

Justet took the phone from his ear and stared at it, his mouth partially open. Ma’am? That could only be . . . I cleared my throat, more from the sudden dryness than from an attempt to get his attention. Justet snapped the phone shut and shoved it in his pocket.

He licked his lips and adjusted his rifle. “I’m supposed to bring you back with me.”

“To the base?”

“Hell, no.” He shook his head. “I hate to say it, but things don’t sound good for you.”

“What doesn’t?” My breath caught.

“The boss wants to take care of you personally.”

“Take care, as in . . . ?” He was right. It didn’t sound good. “Oh, come on, sir!”

I couldn’t seem to react properly. I should be pleading for my life, or running headlong into the bushes, or even just feeling incapacitating fear and wetting myself. Instead, I saw myself from his perspective. My small head framed in the center of the rear sighting circle, the barrel sight stabbing upward into my throat. Hair fraying from my braid. One cheek bruised, eyes narrowed against the pulsing throb above my ear.

My face burned. I raised my hands. A shiver of energy raced up and down my spine. My hands hovered in front of me, trembling slightly. The open wound on my knuckle from punching Justet gaped a bright, dirt-coated red.

So volt him.
The voice in my head instructed.
Volt him, volt him, volt him.

Volt? The thought drew me upright. Could I do it? Conjure the electricity from last night? A slight tingling moved from my fingertips to the open skin.

Awesome. I could static shock him into submission.

“Who was on the phone?” I snapped, delaying the inevitable. “You called her ‘ma’am.’ Are you talking about the commander?”