Ballistic: Icarus Series, Book Two (18 page)

I questioned Jafar as to how he and the Council could justify placing more value on legroom than on human life, his tone changed dramatically.

“It is not your place to question the motives of the Council, Captain James. Your job, no, your duty is to command the E99 in such a way that the Council’s directives are met. Our goal, and by extension, yours and that of your men, is to protect the greater good. Fewer substation inhabitants will mean less rationing of resources, a greater quality of life, and longevity for everyone. After all, when the worst happens, I would hate for you or that son of yours to be stuck on the outside looking in, all because we went soft.

I took that for exactly what it was. A threat. 

And he said
when
the worst happens.

Not if, but when.

“
Jesus
, dad,” Zander said dropping the book into his lap and scraping his hair out of his face. “He never did know when to back down.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Eli reached over, flipped the page and pointed to another section of the text. “Start there.”

The project has been completely corrupted. I had hoped Jafar’s influence was isolated to the station, but the Black Network is much more extensive than I ever thought possible. This thing has become a massive machine that operates on half-truths and misinformation.

The cogs are working together, but without any real information. Many of the units have no idea what or whom they are protecting, or why. They are little more than highly trained, deadly puppets and Jafar holds their strings.

According to the records GJ received from E today, we know…

“
E
.” Eli scoffed shaking his head. “He’s talking about
Elsa,
not some nameless soldier.”

He pushed his glasses farther up his nose, and then pulled the map out of the zippered pouch inside. He knelt to spread it out on the floor. Zander cleared his throat and continued reading from his father’s journal. The rest of us watched as Eli marked five points along the northern route Zander’s father had drawn on the canvas map.

We know of at least seven other units that have been assigned to Northern Spoke operations. Most are either Army, Navy, or Marine units, but some appear to have no military affiliation. It would seem that Jafar and his precious Council have contracted private mercenary squads to operate the smaller checkpoints along the route north.

Several larger stations have been outfitted in either side of the Mississippi, and throughout the Northern Spoke. It would appear that refugee and containment operations are to remain at the center of Five Points, which I am told is outside of E99 jurisdiction. We have not yet been able to determine which external organizations have infiltrated the project, but we have reason to believe these groups are not strictly domestic.

E suspects that the master checkpoint map is currently under guard within the records room of the research facility’s Northern Tower. E’s request was denied for further investigation. Operatives E and JL have been ordered to stand down until further notice. Any additional investigative efforts, at this point, would put them at risk of discovery.

Though I am told construction is set to begin in less than six months, we have yet to ascertain the coordinates of the other four compound sites. We do, however, have five confirmed checkpoint locations along the northern spoke between Central and Substation S: Madison, Minneapolis, St. Cloud, Devil’s Lake, and Regina.

“I’m still not sure what this is about,” Eli pointed to the large black star in the middle of the map then slid his finger along the line that led north, “but it can’t be a coincidence that all of these checkpoints fall on this route. See? Madison, St. Cloud, Devil’s Lake, and there’s Regina just across the Canadian border. Unfortunately, the closest checkpoint to us is still a good three hundred and fifty miles away.”

“You’re joking,” Christa said, her eyes wide as she stared at the map in front of us. “Are you seriously saying that we have to go three hundred fifty more miles just to get somewhere safe?”

“No one said anything about it being safe,” Eli said sitting back on his heels. “There is still a very pissed off group of soldiers out there that would love to get their hands on us. Of course, that’s assuming the leeches and scritters don’t get to us first. Safety is not going to be an option for us any time soon, I’m afraid.”

“Plus, we don’t have wheels anymore,” Falisha huffed.

“Awesome,” Christa said blowing her blond bangs away from her face. “This just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, my God. I’m such an idiot.” Zander said raking his hair back. “How the hell did I miss this? It was right there in front of me, this whole time.”

“What’s wrong, Zan?” I asked.

“You remember when I told you about that awesome road trip I went on with my dad after my mom left?” Zander raised a brow then leaned over the map and jabbed at it with his blackened hand. “I’m pretty sure t
his
is the route we took. We stopped at every one of those places.”

“Oh, man,” I said.

“That wasn’t a vacation, kid.” Eli shook his head. “Your father took you on a recon mission. When was this?”

“I was ten, so about nine years ago.” Zander’s brows furrowed and his nostrils flared. “I thought…I thought it was his way of letting me into his world. Like he was reaching out or something. I should have known better.”

“Maybe he was,” I said.

“No. Eli is right, Liv,” Zander shook his head. “Even then, my dad was obsessed. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but all of the bases and museums we visited—he must have been looking for something. Every single one of these U.S. checkpoints is on military soil. Truax is here in Madison, and there’s an Air Reserve Station in Minneapolis. In St. Cloud there’s this old armory and a huge training camp in Devil’s Lake.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Eli said, “and if your dad is still alive he is probably being held at one of them.”

“Son of a—” Zander growled shooting to his feet. “This is unbelievable.”

“We’ll find him, Zan,” I said grabbing his arm.

“Damn right,” he nodded then leaned in and kissed my forehead, “and your brother, too.”

Zander released me with an apologetic sigh and started pacing in front of the door. He and Bella crossed each other’s path repeatedly in their race to get nowhere fast. Every few minutes we’d hear a loud crack over our heads. The ground would shake and shudder, and everyone would flinch, but after a while, the mood went from fear to frustration.

Riley was miserable being crammed in a small space again. This time, we were all just as anxious to get out as she was. We did what we could to stay busy but once again, we were at the mercy of our indefinite weather-imposed imprisonment. We couldn’t leave until our captor saw fit to back down. At least it was Mother Nature this time, rather than a horde of hungry scritters.

Christa and Ty had resorted to thumb wrestling. Falisha watched from the sidelines. Jake rubbed absently at the back of his neck but sat quietly in the corner with his nose buried in Gunther’s Bible jotting down notes on a Wonder Woman notebook he had stolen from my brother’s desk. Riley sat cross-legged on my brother’s bed. She was rocking slightly and staring up at the posters that were plastered all over the wall behind his headboard.

Eli’s security blanket was made of ink and paper. He bounced from Gunther’s Bible to the map, to Harley’s journal and back. His nose stayed buried in the tangible. He tapped his pencil, jotted down notes, and talked to himself. Incidentally, watching him chase his tail was a good distraction for me, too.

“I knew it,” Eli muttered, shaking his head. “That crazy S.O.B took my inhibitor.”

“Inhibitor?” Jake scooted closer. “For the virus?”

“Yes,” Eli sighed. “Every one of the cataloged samples we stole from my old lab had a matching inhibitor. It was a failsafe measure, a simple protein compound that would slow, or in some cases completely stall, the mutative qualities of its counterpart. When Gunther bailed on me, he took the GRS inhibitor with him. I didn’t know it was missing until I stashed the sample in my bag.”

“Why would he do that?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” Eli’s brow furrowed, “but without it, finding a lasting cure will be next to impossible.”

“You have a GRS sample, though, right?” Jake asked him. “Couldn’t you reverse engineer it to reproduce the inhibitor?”

“No,” Eli huffed. “That sample is likely the only pure GRS specimen in existence. If we’re lucky, and that’s a big if, the sample will be large enough to synthesize a cure, but—.”

“But you can’t synthesize a cure without the inhibitor, can you?” Jake scowled. Eli shook his head back and forth. “And you’d need the GRS sample to do that.”

“Awesome,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Shocker.”

The room fell silent. The storm raged on. Hours passed, or maybe minutes. It was hard to gauge time inside a fish bowl sitting on a base drum. Thunder shook the ground. The walls rattled. Wind howled angrily above us. For the longest time, no one spoke.

What could we say?

Exhaustion weighed heavily at my lids. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and wake up in a different place. A different time. I closed my eyes and wished for peace that wouldn’t come.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Eli whispered, tapping me on the shoulder.

“About what?” It was more of a grunt than a question.

“Stuff,” Eli said shifting uncomfortably.

“Which stuff, Eli?” I turned and glared at him. “You mean the stuff where you implied that human life didn’t matter, or the stuff about my brother probably being dead?”

“Umm, both?” Eli shrugged, absently touching his bruised nose. I still didn’t feel bad about punching him. “I told you before; I’m not so good with people. Numbers and calculations, science and theory, sure. People? Not so much.”

“Clearly,” I said rolling my eyes. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say what I really thought.

“Look, I don’t expect for us to be best friends or anything,” Eli sighed. “I just…Christ, I know it doesn’t seem like it most of the time, but I am on your side. It’s just hard for me to be—”

“A human being?” I raised a brow at him.

“I suppose so,” Eli snorted back a laugh. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I was sorry for sounding so callous before. For what it’s worth, I really do hope your brother is okay.”

“Me, too,” I said dismissively. I didn’t want to talk to Eli about my brother, or anything else, really, so I turned away from him and focused on my best friend. “How you doing, Ry?”

“Huh,” she said clearly distracted.

“Ry?” I stepped closer.

She ignored me, cocked her head to one side then the other, then jumped up and stood on the mattress. She rested one hand against the wall and swiped at a poster with the other.

“Riley, what the hell are you doing?” I shrieked. She was really starting to freak me out. I reached for her arm, but she dodged my grasp and slapped her hand against the wall.

“Is it just me,” Riley said turning toward me with a smile on her face, “or does this one look really out of place?”

There, in the middle of a collection of sports junk, super heroes, monster trucks, and science fiction memorabilia hung a bright pink poster of a boy band. Riley tore it the rest of the way free and let the poster fall to the floor.

“Look,” she shouted. She jumped in place, pointing at the wall. “I knew it!”

I jumped up onto the bed with her, grabbed her into a tight hug, and jumped along with her. Everyone else was watching us like we had finally lost it but I didn’t care. There on the wall, in black marker, was my brother’s handwriting.

Chitauri came

need Courage

dibs on blue

Chapter 15

Rock and a Hard Place

“He knew I would come for him.” I ran my hand over the scribbles on the wall and smiled. After everything that had happened since our parents’ death, my little brother hadn’t given up on me.

“But what does it mean?” Ty asked wiping the sweat from his brow. “What is a Chit…chita—?”

“
Chitauri
.” I snickered smiling at his confusion. “It’s an Avengers thing. You know; superhero stuff. The Chitauri was a group of mega-bad guys in his favorite movie. They disguised themselves as soldiers and tried to wipe everyone out.”

“Soldiers?” Ty groaned, clenching his fists. “Aw, hell.”

“It was probably another one of those freaking
rescue-squads,
” I said.

“Right.” Falisha scowled. “We have all seen what their idea of rescue looks like. Rounding up refugees and promising help when all they want to do is eliminate everyone not in uniform. How are you not completely freaking out, Sarge?”

“Trust me, I am. It’s just—” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I sat down on the edge of my brother’s bed. I was mesmerized by the faint black smudge across my fingertips.

The ink was still wet. We must have just missed him.

“Liv?” Riley sat down next to me.

“My brother is alive, Ry.” My breath hitched as I wrapped my arms around my best friend’s shoulders. “He…he made it.”

“There was never a doubt in my mind that he would,” Riley said hugging me back.

There was no way to accurately describe the weight that had been lifted from my heart. My brother had not only survived the end of the world, but he had managed to hold on to the hope that I would come for him. He knew I would keep my promise, and that gave me hope. Zander smiled at me over Riley’s shoulder and stepped close to my side.

“Okay, I hate to interrupt this Hallmark moment, or whatever,” Christa said, “but knowing the kid is alive doesn’t put us any closer to finding him. We still don’t know where they took him, or
why,
for that matter.”