Break of the Six (The Preston Six Book 4) (13 page)

IT’D BEEN TWO HOURS SINCE the announcement came across the radio. The US was getting the cure. Joey stared out the side window. Many people on the freeway had left their cars and now danced in the spaces between. Music blared and the whole freeway seemed to have turned into an impromptu party.

But not everyone was partying.

They also passed piles of dead bodies. People who had got the Cough early were cast out of their cars by the roving groups of people Lucas called the Death Squads.

Joey wanted to be happy for the cure, but wondered if they could truly come back from it all. He thought of the back room at the gas station and shook his head. He never thought his world could get close to the horrors of Ryjack, but in a brief moment, Earth had been transformed into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Could a person come back from doing such atrocities? Could people forget what they saw and move on with a normal life? Based on watching people from the military come home from wars, he guessed some could and others couldn’t, but everyone would be changed.

Lucas honked the horn and waved at people to get out of the way. Many people walked in between cars, giving them strange looks as they were one of the few cars going the opposite direction. They wanted to get out of the city while the rest of the country would be crowding into every major city, awaiting a shipment of the cure. Julie figured the traffic would lighten as they got away from the city; they had yet to see evidence of it.

The car’s AC blew on Joey’s face, but the noon sun blared down on his black shirt and he felt the heat. He blinked to moisten his eyes, watching a man wearing a face mask drag a body toward another small pile of bodies.

Marcus had killed them. And what made it worse was that he had her. He might even be with her right at that very moment. It dug deep that Samantha chose him over them. Could he really blame her? Joey would have been happy for her to find a man. At this point, he would’ve liked it if she’d rubbed it in his face, but she picked a man set on destroying their world.

Samantha fell for a man who had wrecked all their lives and killed their parents. It was painfully clear she didn’t
see
that man; he saw the look in her eyes. She really cared for this Zach guy, and it blinded her to what she should be seeing.

He should have tried harder to include her back into the group. How could they be the Preston Six with one of them missing? The Preston Five didn’t feel right. Even knowing Hank was safe in Preston didn’t help the fact they were separated. Joey didn’t feel complete without Samantha in his life. He wanted her as his friend.

Poly touched his arm and offered a smile.

He placed a hand on hers in exchange. She refused to look out the windows, choosing to look at the floor or straight ahead. He thought it endearing she wasn’t numb to it all, she still felt for those around her. Joey felt some of the shock wearing off as they drove by a dead child on the side of the road. Not long ago, it would have rocked their worlds to see such a horrible sight. Now, it didn’t even make idle conversation. He wanted back his innocence, but life had other plans, and it played for keeps.

His hand shook in hers and she gave it a sharp glance. She couldn’t get used to his shakes, no matter how much she tried to hide it. “I’m okay.” He willed it to be a small shake and after a minute it stopped shaking all together.

“With this traffic, we’ll be back in Preston a month from now.” Lucas leaned back and sighed. “Get out of the
way
.”

“Just chill,” Julie said. “They should be happy, the cure is being delivered to the world.”

“Should they? They have no idea who is delivering it to them.”

Joey would have been happy as well, but Lucas was right, the person delivering it is what caused trepidation.

“I have an aunt in Miami, I hope she gets the cure,” Poly said out loud to herself. She kept her attention on her hands in her lap.

“How many cures do we have left?” Julie asked.

“Eight,” Poly said.

Julie popped the glove box and pulled out a cure box with the ZRB logo on it. “Let me see a vial.”

Poly pulled one from her bag and handed it up. Julie opened the box and held the two vials in sunlight. The one from Vanar was clear, the one from ZRB had a yellow tint to it.

“Looks like urine,” Lucas said.

“It’s different,” Julie mumbled to herself.

“Yeah, probably a different process or something,” Poly said.

“What if it’s a different cure?” Julie paused and set the vials on her lap. “If I had an analyzer attachment to my Pana...” She turned and looked back at Poly and Joey. “On the surface, it looks like he created this Cough and plans to swoop in as the hero of the world and cure it, right? I mean it’s pretty obvious.”

“Sort of like someone kicking you in the balls and expecting a thanks when they hand you a bag of ice,” Lucas interjected.

Julie continued, “I feel there are other motivations at play here. Why change his appearance when we are the only people on the planet who would have any clue who he is? Why take on Samantha? Or is this Zach guy even Marcus? Could we be dealing with some psycho equivalent?”

“To mess with us,” Lucas answered.

“Could it be so petty?” Poly asked. “I mean, look at us. We all jumped aboard, thinking this Zach guy was Marcus, and now, who knows. I agree with Julie, why do this whole production if so few people have any idea who you are?”

“Everything I read on Marcus told me how unpredictable he was; how he’d mastered the art of misdirection. He was able to clear the table of all competitors with his unorthodox tactics. Maybe he is planning something terrible for us. He may hate us in some very real way, but I doubt we are the bigger picture here. We might just be a heckler in the crowd, watching his grand opus.”

“Yeah, but our blood saved him. Why would he be so spiteful to the people who saved him?” Joey asked and rubbed his arms.

“I’ve thought on that and what if we killed the one person he loved?”

Lucas coughed. “That thing was just a computer program.”

“No, it was much more than that. He transported her entire consciousness into it. To Marcus, that program was his mother.”

“And I killed her. . . .”

“A computer version of her, and I suspect he made a copy of her and brought it to Earth with him.”

Lucas sighed. “She tried to kill me, I really didn’t have a choice.”

Joey perked up at the information. Lucas had never spoken of what happened in the bunker with Alice and he didn’t appear to be adding any more to the mystery. He respected Lucas’s privacy. Joey kept his own secret about Unitas. He couldn’t even bring himself to discuss it with Poly.

“We should have killed him on the tarmac,” Julie said.

“We aren’t like that, Julie,” Poly said.

“Really?” Julie asked.

“You haven’t had to deal with killing someone. I’ve killed, Lucas has killed, Hank has killed, and Joey has killed . . . only you have the luxury of a clear conscious.” Poly forced the words out, but it showed on her face she was holding much more back.

“
Clear?
” Julie turned around and looked at Poly in the backseat. “I’ve been in the same shit right next to you.”

“You didn’t have to stick a knife into a man’s neck and have him cough blood on you—twice—now did you?” Poly was at a near scream. “Nor did you have to stare a man in the eyes while life left them.”

Julie faced forward and crossed her arms.

Joey watched Poly glare at the back of Julie’s head. He took her hand and shook his head. She pulled her hand away and looked out the window for the first time in a long time.

Lucas gave two light taps on the horn. A person slapped the hood of the car and then ran off into the stagnant traffic. “Where is Samantha?”

Julie unfolded her arms in a huff and pulled out her Pana. “She’s still at ZRB headquarters.” One of the few things they got out of the meeting with Samantha was her cell phone. Julie tagged it and now they could track her. Julie’s fingers tapped the screen and she leaned in closer. Her face scrunched up in a mystery.

“What is it?” Poly asked. The malice had left her voice and Joey felt relieved. He hoped Poly and Julie’s squabble wouldn’t last.

“Something’s strange. Her signal is very weak. I think something is trying to block the signal.”

“Maybe they have an underground bunker or something?” Lucas said.

“No, it’s more like a field around her, like a wave interrupter. It would kill almost any other signal but hers. Let me check their systems.” She scrolled through her Panavice for what seemed like five minutes. “Something is very strange. They are in a total lockdown. Something called protocol thirty-two is running their systems now. I’m going to try and infiltrate it and see what’s going on.”

Lucas slowed the car down to a crawl as he anxiously watched Julie, barely sparing glances at the road.

Joey leaned forward and looked over her shoulder at the Panavice screen. She moved from page to page, clicking on certain boxes and typing in quick lines, before changing pages again. Watching it made him feel dizzy and he sat back down.

“I’m in.”

Lucas didn’t appear pleased about it. “Just be careful.”

“Oh my god, they locked down all the cure factories. Many are reporting in . . . they are being attacked. Two have gone offline.”

“What do you mean, they made a deal with the US?” Joey asked.

“I’m not sure, but someone out there obviously wants the cure for themselves. They must have found out where his factories were and tried to take them from him.”

“Hello, Julie,” a voice sounded from her Panavice.

Julie screeched and dropped it on her lap. Lucas went pale and slammed on the brake. Joey moved forward with Poly and peered at her screen.

A woman’s face appeared, looking at each of them. She looked familiar to Joey. “My big sister told me about you,” she said. “She had a finite amount of information she could share, but she gave me everything she knew about you. I found that interesting.”

Julie covered her screen with her hand and mouthed the words. “She doesn’t know about Vanar.” She peeled her hand off the Panavice, revealing the woman’s face. “Hello, Alice.”

“Please, do not call me Alice. I am but a tiny replica. You can call me Renee. It was Alice’s middle name.”

“Does Marcus know you’re talking with me?”

“Oh no, he would not approve. But I had to visit when I felt you touching me.”

Lucas cringed and pushed himself against the door.

“Can you tell me what you are doing?” Julie asked.

“Protocol thirty-two has bestowed me with limited access to this world’s internet. I am reacting to the threats poised to our different factories around the world. I am disabling the communications and creating various other problems for the people behind this offense.”

Joey raised an eyebrow at all the information flowing from Renee.

“Thank you for your openness.”

“I have a request.”

Julie, with wide eyes looked at Lucas. “What is it?”

Lucas shook his head and made a hang up motion with his thumb and pinkie extended.

“We have found a use for Samantha and would like you to stop pursuing her. She is happy now.”

“Samantha Roslin?” Julie verified.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You are interfering with our plans. She is part of our long-term goals.”

“We will not stop. We will never abandon her.”

“I give you a seven percent chance of success. In fact, if you keep pushing, I give a ninety-three percent chance one or more of you will die.”

“Your big sister gave me worse odds,” Lucas said.

“What does that mean? I get from the inflection in your voice, you have more to say on this matter.”

Lucas gritted his teeth and stared ahead.

“We don’t know anything about Alice.” Julie shook her head at Lucas. “Can I ask you a question about Marcus?”

“You can.”

“Everything is pointing at Zach being Marcus, is Zach indeed Marcus?” A long pause. The screen switched back to the main screen. “She’s gone.” Julie sighed.