ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) (21 page)

Ellison
stood, clearing his throat to address the room. “At precisely 1200 hours we
will launch Operation Wind Gust and begin our assault on the Sears Tower. Blue
Team, led by Captain Sawyer, will breach the tower on the ground floor through
the Wacker Drive and Franklin Street entrances. They will overwhelm and
suppress the hostiles there in a matter of seconds.

“At
the same time, Red Team, led by myself, along with Talon, Gauntlet, and
G-Force, will insert from a Blackhawk by fast-roping onto the roof of the
tower. We will take the service stairs down five floors of empty space to the
Skydeck located on floor 103. Once there, Gauntlet and G-Force will neutralize
the terrorists while Red Team secures the hostages and evacuates to the roof.
Talon will then engage and neutralize the target designated as Titan.”

“And
where am I in all this?” Nyx rolled her eyes. “Playing cheerleader down on the
street?”

Ellison’s
shoulders tensed, but before he could speak, Colonel McCann fielded the
question. “Not even close, Nyx. You’re actually the lynchpin to this whole
operation. Go ahead and tell her, Major.”

“At
1200 hours, as we breach the tower, Nyx will teleport herself and an explosive
ordnance disposal team directly to the 68th floor. Once there, she will
neutralize any hostiles while EOD disposes of the bombs.”

Jeremy’s
head reeled. Using words like “engage” and “neutralize” made everything sound
so clean—but Jeremy knew the truth, and the truth was far from clean. The truth
was ugly. They were being asked to fight and kill fifty heavily armed, highly
trained men. The truth was that one of those men was an indestructible giant
monster, and at any time the terrorists could detonate the tower and kill them
all. So even if it looked like the good guys were winning, they were still
going to lose. The truth was, the whole idea was insane.

“This
is crazy.” Nyx laughed—hard. “You said those bombs were on remote, right? EOD
isn’t going to get close to them. The first sign of trouble and we’re already
dead.”

Colonel
McCann rose to his feet. “We believe that EOD has a reasonable chance for
success, otherwise we wouldn’t send them in. Under the circumstances, a
reasonable chance sounds pretty good to me. Now this is the best plan we’ve got
in the time we have left. If there are any other questions, let’s clear them up
now.”

Agent
Hayden slowly raised his hand. “Just the same question I’ve had since this
whole mess started.”

McCann
looked down at the man, and his jaw tightened. “We know your reservations,
Agent Hayden—”

“Then
maybe you can tell me why you’re rushing them into something they’re clearly
not ready for? You’re going to cost us everything.”

Ellison
answered before McCann could open his mouth, as if he was waiting for the
chance to speak. “Agent Hayden, we have our orders. Why don’t you show some
faith in the team you’ve assembled?”

Hayden
smirked. “Oh, I have faith, Major. I know exactly how this is going to play
out.”

And
then it was all too much for Jeremy. He stood up, pushing his chair back from
the table, and there was silence.

Jeremy
shook his head. “I’m not doing this.”

“What’s
that?” Colonel McCann barked across the table.

Jeremy
looked down at his feet. He could feel the eyes staring at him and the anger
seething in the room; he repeated. “I’m not doing this. It’s a suicide mission,
and I’m not going. I’m out. I’m done.”

Jeremy
turned his back on the table and walked toward his room.

McCann’s
voice shouted after him. “G-Force, get back here!”

Ellison
answered, just as loud, “Let him go! We don’t need him, Colonel.”

Then
McCann roared again from the table, “G-Force!”

Jeremy’s
door slid shut behind him, and the voices were gone, lost in the other room. He
sat down on his bed, and lowered his head into his hands. He knew before he
ever spoke what their reactions were going to be—he knew there would be
anger—and he tried to brace himself against it—to convince himself it didn’t
matter. But it didn’t work. Even so, he had given them his answer. He was done
now—almost.

Jeremy
heard his door slide open. He heard the tap of high-heeled footsteps in his
room, and then he heard the door slide closed again. He was ready for this too.

He
spoke without looking up. “I told you I was done. I meant it.”

There
was no answer. Jeremy looked up. Just as he expected, Lara stood in his room.
Whether she was sent in or if she came on her own accord, it didn’t matter.
Jeremy knew she would be standing here eventually, telling him why he couldn’t
leave. He tried to brace himself again, but as he looked up at Lara, there was
no anger in her face—nothing like he felt from the others. No disappointment.
In Lara it was something else—a sadness. She still didn’t speak.

Jeremy
stood up from the bed. “I know I can’t stay here. I get that. I can go back to
Philly—take my chances there.”

Lara
stepped forward, her eyes wandering over the room. “Their plan can’t work
without you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,
well, it can’t work
with
me either. The whole thing’s a suicide, and I
don’t want to die in Chicago.”

Lara
stepped behind the desk chair and reached for the Penn State hoodie draped over
the back of it. She picked it up, unfolded the sweatshirt to see the logo, and
then she wrapped it in half again. She lifted it up to her face to smell the
cotton, the same way Jeremy had done a thousand times before. He wanted to say
something—wanted to explain…

“Lara,
listen—”

“You’re
afraid.” Lara lowered the sweatshirt from her face, but she still held it tight
in both of her hands.

Jeremy
realized what she was doing. “That doesn’t work on me, remember? I’m spiked.”

“It’ll
work for this.”

“Then
you’re wrong.” Jeremy shook his head. “I’m not scared.”

“No.
You’re right, it’s…it’s not fear.” Lara looked down at the sweatshirt again;
she was concentrating. “It’s something else. It feels like fear, but it’s closer
to guilt…guilt and your father.”

“You
need to go.”

“Oh
my god, that’s it.” Lara laughed silently to herself. “You’re scared you’re
going to disappoint your dad. You’re going to walk away from all of this—from
all of us—”

“You
don’t know me, Lara. I don’t care what feelings you pull out of a sweatshirt.
And you sure as hell don’t know my dad.”

“I
know he’s dead!”

The
words filled the empty space, soaking up the air between them until there was
nothing left to breathe. Jeremy sat back down on the bed and folded his hands.

 Lara
tried to answer, “Jeremy, I—”

“No.”
Jeremy’s voice was halting. “You’re right. He’s gone. And everything he was as
a person—that’s gone too. All except me. I’m all of my dad that’s left in this
world, and I’m all my mom has left, and you’re asking me to throw that away on
strangers. And I can’t. I’m not that selfish.”

Lara
smiled, but it was hollow and sad; she laid the sweatshirt down over the back
of his chair and ran her hands across the top, smoothing out the creases. “You
keep risking your life to help other people. You did it with the bus, and then
again in the mall, and even standing up for Nyx with Ellison. It’s called
compassion, Jeremy, and it’s pure. Most people don’t come close to feeling
something like that their whole lives, but it’s in you. It’s who you are.”

Lara
looked away. For a second she seemed lost, searching to find the right words.
“If you want to bottle up what you’re feeling and hide who you are for the sake
of your parents, I can’t stop you, but risking your life to save some
stranger—that’s not selfish.”

Jeremy
didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Lara turned away and walked out of the room, and he
still sat on the bed, frozen.

She
was right. He knew she was right. He’d spent his whole life trying to meet the
standards set by his parents, hiding his thoughts and feelings—hiding himself
away under a thousand layers of their expectations. And now—now when it finally
mattered—Jeremy knew there might not be enough of him left underneath. He kept
that person bottled up for too long, and he suffocated—there was no room to
breathe.

The
door opened, and Jeremy stepped out into the Rec Room. Everyone else was still
gathered around the conference table. They had been talking, five or six voices
all going at once, but when his door opened, the whole room fell silent. They
were all watching him now—waiting.

Jeremy
walked to the table, and when he spoke, his voice sounded thin. “When a bomb
explodes, it’s really just expanding. Am I right?”

Silence.

“So
what if we put the bomb in a bottle? What if we stop it from expanding?”

Across
the table, John Langer clapped his hands together and then started wagging his
finger at Jeremy, laughing. “Yes! Absolutely! I mean, it would have to be one
hell of bottle. We’re talking upwards of plus twenty—easy. And it would have to
be big too—probably cover the whole floor of the building—but yeah… I mean, if
you could actually do something like that, I think it could work.”

Then,
suddenly, Langer remembered where he was and whom he was talking to, and the
excitement in his voice fell away. “I mean, I think that plan could possibly
work, sir. I guess.”

Colonel
McCann glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Langer before glaring back
at Jeremy. “I thought you quit. You want to explain what the hell you’re
talking about?”

“Yes,
sir.” Jeremy stood rigid, facing the colonel. “I’m talking about giving us a
chance.”

The
Blackhawk helicopter flew low over Lake Michigan, its rotors beating air down
on the water sending waves and whitecaps off in choppy circles. Jeremy stared
out the open cargo door, watching the broken water race away under the
Blackhawk’s shadow. The roar of the engine filled the empty space in the
helicopter’s cabin, making it hard to think. Jeremy’s leg bounced up and down.
He still couldn’t believe he was here—that he had allowed Lara to maneuver him
here. Then again, he hadn’t put up much of a fight.

Jeremy
closed his eyes and tried again to focus. It didn’t work. The pounding of the
rotor blades beat inside his head. He told himself that he knew what he had to
do. They had gone over the new plan a dozen times back at Fort Blaney, Ellison
talking them through each step along the way. They reviewed it again in the
convoy from Blaney to the airfield, and then twice more on the flight to
Chicago. Still, Jeremy tried to repeat it again in his head.

Step
one, travel by Blackhawk helicopter to the insertion point. Check.

Step
two—and then it was all gone. He couldn’t remember—couldn’t concentrate—not
with the incessant noise flooding his senses. Jeremy opened his eyes.

He
sat on the right side of the Blackhawk next to the door. Two soldiers in gray
camouflage, each one armed with an M-4, sat beside him. Across the cabin,
facing him, there were two more soldiers and Major Ellison. Ellison wore the
same gray camo as the other soldiers, his M-4 rifle pointed down between his
knees, and he was staring back at Jeremy.

A
voice crackled over the receiver in Jeremy’s ear. “Major, we’re approaching the
last waypoint now. Are we green?”

Ellison
touched the contact mic on his throat. “Roger that. We are green. I repeat, we
are green.”

Ellison
raised his rifle to his chest, pulled back the charging handle, and let go,
letting the bolt snap shut. He pushed the contact mic back against his throat.
“All teams, weapons check.”

Jeremy
remembered this part from Ellison’s briefing. Weapons check meant they were one
minute out. He looked down at his empty hands and shook his head. Jeremy had
wanted a gun too. He asked Ellison before they left for a handgun, or a knife,
or anything. Ellison said he wasn’t trained for those weapons and walked away.
He didn’t even look Jeremy in the eye when he said it—it was like he wanted him
to fail.

Jeremy
closed his fists. He wondered what his dad would say about jumping into a
building filled with terrorists and explosives. The word “stupid” suddenly came
to mind.

The
Blackhawk banked hard to the right, and Jeremy looked out the open door. Lake
Michigan was gone now. Instead, he could see the white sides of buildings whip
by as the helicopter traced over the Chicago River.

Ellison
pressed the contact mic against his throat. “G-Force, your altimeter alert is
set for the seventieth floor. You need to stop at the sixty-eighth. We only
have one shot at this.”

Jeremy
forced a smile. “Too easy, Major.”

“We’ll
see about that.”

The
Blackhawk turned suddenly back to the left, following the bend in the river,
and then it started to climb, fast. Jeremy felt his stomach fall away at the
sudden change in altitude.

Ellison
leaned forward again. “You look scared, G-Force.”

This
time Jeremy didn’t answer.

The
Blackhawk leveled out, and Jeremy’s stomach settled back in its proper place.
He looked down through the open door. They were hovering in place 100 feet
above the Sears Tower.

The
pilot’s voice broke loud over the radio, “Go, go, go! Now, now, now!

Jeremy
turned to the open door and stepped out, falling in a wash of air.

Then,
for a second, there was real fear—a genuine panic as the roof of the tower
rushed up to meet him—but Jeremy was only afraid for the second. Then the
feeling turned to anticipation and adrenaline. He wanted this. He chose this.
He hit the center of the tower feet first, and the roof gave way like eggshells
under a hammer. He kept falling. He crashed against the floor below and broke
through again. Then again. And again.

Jeremy
was in free-fall now through the middle of the tower. He didn’t feel anything
underneath of him, and he didn’t slow down. If the roof was like eggshell, the
floors underneath were something even less—more like tissue paper.

A
siren blast sounded in Jeremy’s ear. He was two floors away from his target.
Another crash. Now only one. Jeremy reached up over his head, grabbing at the
air above him. He needed to slow down—more than that, he needed to stop. Now!
Another crash. Jeremy strained his fingers out—reaching—and then it all
changed. Suddenly, he was floating—hanging in mid-air like a day old balloon.
There was no weight. No speed. Then Jeremy took a breath, and the moment
passed. He fell again, but this time he landed on the floor and stayed.

It
all happened so fast—the falling and the adrenaline—that it was hard for Jeremy
to focus. He looked down at his feet. He was standing on a pile of shattered
debris, the remains of the floors he’d fallen through to get here. He looked
up. A cloud of fine white dust still wafted down through the gaping hole above
him, coating his shoulders and his hair. Jeremy coughed and blinked his eyes
against the cloud. Was he even on the right floor?

“Don’t
move!” a voice suddenly screamed behind him.

Jeremy
turned, slowly, raising his hands. The man standing in front of him was dressed
all in black, with a heavy black beard. He held an AK-47 tucked against his
shoulder, and a sheen of sweat was on his face.

“Don’t
move,” the man repeated, his voice lower now, but still like iron.

Jeremy
looked past him. A red, blinking light from over the man’s shoulder caught his
attention. Jeremy leaned his head to the side for a better look. The flashing
light was some kind of indicator. It was coming from the front of a black box
bolted onto the drywall. Jeremy could also see a strand of red wire snaking out
of the side of the box and connected to a small antenna fixed to the top. Then
he knew exactly what it was, and what it was for.

Jeremy
lowered his hands.

The
man screamed again, “Don’t move!”

And
then Jeremy was out of time.

*****

Nyx
flashed into the tower, and for a second, she felt sick. It was like her
stomach had twisted over and all her blood had rushed into her head. She hated
the feeling after a jump, but this time it was more intense than usual. It had
to be the distance. Long distance jumps were always the worst.

She
cursed under her breath. She should have been ready for the nausea, but she
wasn't. She could feel herself sway, unsteady as her stomach flipped again. She
tightened her grip on Gauntlet's forearm, holding herself up—trying not to
retch.

She had
jumped Gauntlet into the tower too, but if he was suffering from nausea like
she was, Nyx couldn't tell. He stood beside her in his crimson armor like a
rock—unmoving, unshaken. Nyx tried to take a deep breath and settle herself.
After all, if Gauntlet could do it, so could she.

The
scene unfolding before them was one of pure chaos. A dozen men dressed in
black, each armed with a rifle or submachine gun, were shouting to one another,
pointing, and then shouting again. They were shuffling around a gaping hole
left in the floor and staring up at another hole torn through the ceiling.

The
terrorists weren't alone. Nyx could see another group of people huddled to her
left, kneeling on the floor with their hands folded behind their heads and
their feet crossed at the ankles. They all had their heads bowed, looking down
at the floor. She could see that some of them were shaking—most were crying.

Nyx
looked back across the observation deck. There was only one other man in the
room, if she could even call him that. He looked more like a monster than a
man. He stood half a foot taller than everyone else, and he was broader
too—massive. His face was shapeless, and from head to toe his skin was covered
in polished bronze. Nyx knew who it was; she was expecting him: the Anom from
Caine’s video. It was Titan.

The
metal giant saw Nyx at almost the same time. He squared up his shoulders,
raised his arms, and clapped his hands—once. A single, dull-metallic clang
echoed in the room, and all at once, the terrorists stopped in place, looking
back at their leader. There was silence—waiting. Titan pointed across the room,
his bronze finger aimed directly at Nyx. His army turned.

Then,
for a second, Nyx was frozen. She wasn’t afraid—the opposite, actually—she was
possessed by an eerie sense of calm. She saw the army of men turn and raise
their rifles. She knew exactly what she needed to do—what she was trained to
do—but in that moment, her body couldn’t catch up to her brain. She couldn’t
move fast enough.

But
Gauntlet had no such problem. He was quicker than all of them. He punched out
with his right arm, and from the armor on his wrist, a mini-crossbow snapped
into place. The bolt fired, and one of the terrorists fell. Gauntlet spun to
his right, pulling a dagger from a hidden sheath at his waist. He threw the
blade as he finished his spin. The dagger turned once in the air and found its
mark. Then Gauntlet reached over his shoulder for his broadsword, drawing the
weapon and swinging it down through the closest man’s shoulder in a single wide
arc.

He
did it all before the first shot was fired, killing all three, but then the
machine guns on the far side of the room roared to life as the terrorists fired
back. Gauntlet raised his left arm as his round shield snapped into place, deflecting
the first barrage of gunfire.

Nyx
was moving now too. She dropped to one knee and punched out with both hands.
Two bolts of energy shot across the room. She stood up and punched again, this
time to her left. She stepped back and shot another bolt off to the right. It
was impossible to tell if they were hits. She was already ducking, spinning,
and punching again.

The
terrorists across the room had scattered, looking for cover, and the gunfire
had become erratic, popping in bursts instead of a steady hail. Nyx dove
forward, rolling behind an overturned table, looking for cover of her own.

A
blur of red off to her right caught her attention. It was Gauntlet. He was
still on his feet, moving around the right side of the observation deck,
working his way in closer. She had to keep moving too.

Nyx
punched twice over the top of the table, sending two random bolts of energy
across the room, and then she lifted her head.

Titan
still stood at the center of the room, his arms outstretched to either side,
daring them on. Nyx punched again. The energy bolt landed square against the
Anom’s bronze chest, but he didn’t move—he didn’t even stagger. Nyx ducked
again.

One
of the hostages screamed from her left—a shrill, curdling cry of terror—and
then Nyx didn’t have a choice. In a brilliant flash of purple light, she was
gone.

She
was in the air now, maybe only four feet off the ground, but she was falling,
and she was directly behind one of the terrorists. He never saw her. Nyx
punched out her hand as she dropped, and an energy bolt slammed against the
back of the man’s skull. He pitched forward, unconscious before he fell.

Someone
yelled to her right. Nyx stepped back and punched across her body. The energy
bolt hit the second terrorist in the face, knocking him back in a spray of
blood. More screams, this time all around her, but Nyx was exactly where she
intended, standing over the hostages. If nothing else, she could keep them
safe—maybe.

Nyx
pressed the contact mic against her throat. “Red team, what’s your status?”

Ellison’s
voice crackled back over the receiver. “We’ve deployed to the roof, but the
door is rigged with explosives. We need to wait for EOD. Hold position and
stand by.”

Nyx
cursed under her breath. None of this was going right. In the plan, Red Team
should have secured the south stairwell for egress. That was their way out.
Instead they were stuck on the roof. In the plan, all Nyx had to do was jump
the hostages to the stairwell, and then Red Team would evacuate to the roof. It
was simple and precise. Gauntlet would stay behind to neutralize any remaining
terrorists, and Talon would engage the hostile Anom.

That
was the plan. Not this. Not Nyx and Gauntlet trapped in a firefight with Red
Team still on the roof and Talon nowhere to be seen. This was a deathtrap.

Nyx
pressed her contact mic again. “Where’s Talon? He—”

Her
voice was lost in the sound of shattering glass to her left. The hostages
screamed again, and Nyx wheeled around just in time to see a ball of black and
green energy somersault across the floor and spring up to his feet. It was
Talon, standing in the room with his crystalline wings and tail unfurled behind
him—better late than never.

“I
got your back, Nyx,” Talon’s voice yelled over her receiver.

In
the next breath, Talon was running—sprinting for the center of the room. Two
terrorists stepped into his path to stop him, their rifles raised. Talon ducked
and spun around, his wingtip slicing across one man’s chest and his tail
catching the other under his ribs. Both men sprawled back, orange flames
flickering on their clothes where they were hit, but Talon never lost a step.
He still ran forward.