Evolution (30 page)

With a
click,
the speaker shuts off.

“What is she saying?” Jehara says, her eyes narrowing.

My heart's pounding in my chest, sending spikes of pain through my rib cage. “They finished building the bomb. They're going to set it off.”

Jehara sends a stream of vulyn into her helmet comm, probably reiterating what I just said.

“What do we do?” Skylar asks.

“We keep going,” Beechy says, his jaw hard. “We find them and we stop them.”

“We're winning upstairs,” Jehara says in a rush of air. “Almost all the upper levels have fallen. I've told the kaarns to send more warriors to this division to help us.”

“Good. Tell them to hurry. Let's take the Developers and finish this.”

We keep moving down the corridor, a new energy in everyone's step. We've almost taken over the Core; just a little bit farther.

But I'm worried a threat of force isn't going to make the Developers call off using the bomb. We could manage to take the Core from them, but they could still destroy the outer sectors if we don't reach them in time.

Thirty minutes from now, Lower, Mantle, Crust, and the Surface will be nothing but bits of dust floating in space. All the battle stations will be debris, and the people aboard—Sandy and Nellie and all the others—will be ghosts. Unless we can do something that will take away the bomb's power, make it useless, they're all going to die. And the rest of us will remain slaves to the Developers.

Suddenly it hits me. The Developers want to set off their bomb so the Core can operate as a battle station. But what if the Core couldn't fly?

We're not far from the engine room. I could wreck the hyper-drive systems and blow up the engine. Surely that would make the Developers give up the fight, if nothing else does. If I can't stop them from blowing up the rest of Kiel, at least I can keep them from having everything they wanted.

I need to go now, while the others keep trying to get to Commander Charlie. Telling them what I'm doing will only slow them down.

I wait until I'm sure they're all distracted, focused on the corridor ahead of us, and then I slip away. I keep a slow, steady pace, pausing at every corner to make sure I'm not about to run into any soldiers. These hallways look familiar; I'm close to where I need to be.

When I pass a door marked
HALL OF COMMANDERS,
I know I'm almost there. The engine room is only a few doors away.

The distant sound of footsteps slows my feet. Someone is nearby, but I can't tell whether they're coming in this direction. There's nowhere I can hide until I reach the engine room, anyway. So I keep moving.

There's no handle on the engine room door; it needs another passcode to open. I curse under my breath. Of course I'm the person who doesn't know any of the codes. Maybe I should've asked someone else to help me do this, after all.

There's nothing I can do but try combinations of numbers until they work. The footsteps are definitely growing louder. I don't have much time.

6-4-9-7

7-9-6-4

4-7-9-6

On my twentieth or so attempt, there's a
beep
and a soft
click,
and the door slides open. I laugh aloud and race into the room. There are panels all over the walls, too many buttons and screens for me to count. An enormous cylindrical object that must be the engine sits on the left side of the room, behind a railing. I'm not sure it would be smart to blow it up while I'm in the room; I'd need explosives and a detonator. I'll dismantle the hyper-drive system first, and then I'll see what sort of damage I can do to the rest of the engine system.

There's an immediate, obvious problem: I have no idea what the hyper-drive system looks like. I assume it's close to the engine and all I'll need to do is destroy some wires, but there are all sorts of metal parts that could be the hyper-drive. I don't have time to dismantle all of them.

I'm going to have to hope my luck holds out again. I move toward a wide, rectangular object made of some sort of discolored metal, positioned to the right of the engine. Crouching, I set my gun on the floor. I'm prying open the object's cover with my fingertips when I hear footsteps behind me.

“Halt right there,” a voice says.

Sam.

I freeze with my hands hovering over the hyper-drive system. He must've recovered from the control serum overdose. That's the only reason he would've been released from the health ward.

He has a gun pointed at my head.

Rage thrums through every part of my body. I reach for my weapon, but Sam snaps, “Don't touch it, or I'll shoot.”

I grind my teeth together, but I don't have any choice. He'll shoot me before I've raised my gun. I let the weapon slide from my fingertips. I raise my hands over my head and turn slowly to face him.

Sam raises a hand to switch on his ear-comm. “I have her, Commander. She's in the engine room.”

I hear a muffled voice—Commander Charlie—say something in response.

Sam lowers his hand and smiles at me, a cruel smile. “He's on his way.”

“You know, I could've killed you on the Surface,” I say, scowling at him. “I had another syringe of serum I could've given you. A quick pinch, and you would've been dead.”

Sam laughs. “But you didn't because you were weak. I'm sorry, but you won't be getting another opportunity.”

“No, I didn't kill you because I felt sorry for you.”

The slightest crease crinkles Sam's forehead.

“Commander Charlie has controlled you all your life,” I say. “I realize that now. It wasn't your fault you trusted him. Did he ever tell you why he cared about saving me so much? It was because he made me special, Sam. I'm Mod Subject 7, genetically modified to be the perfect soldier. Has he told you about the Mod Project, or did he keep that a secret from you too?”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Sam snaps. But the look in his eyes, that slight confusion again, tells me I was right; he knows nothing about the Mod Project.

There are footsteps behind him.

Commander Charlie walks into the room with three guards. He must've been close by to get here so quickly. Instead of his usual slick blue suit, he's wearing the full body armor of his army generals, minus the helmet. He smiles at me, his lips stretching wide and showing me his wrinkles. He is an old man, and he won't get much older if I can help it.

He signals to his guards, and they come toward me and force my arms behind my back. “Let go of me,” I say, struggling against them.

“I'm glad you came back,” Commander Charlie says, almost kindly. “I heard you brought some special friends with you. I can't imagine what went through your head when you decided to strike a deal with them. But I hope it has paid off.”

“It will,” I say forcefully. “The Mardenites are taking over the Core as we speak. They're on their way here, to find you and the other Developers.”

“They may find us,” Charlie says. “But it will be too late.”

He is acting far too calm about this. Worry churns in the pit of my stomach. “Even if you set off the bomb, there are enough vul in the Core to overpower you. Your soldiers are losing; they've taken the upper levels. This will all be over soon, and you'll have lost.”

“That is where you are mistaken. You see, we can easily take care of the upper levels.”

My heartbeat stutters. “What do you mean?”

Charlie walks slowly past me, farther into the room. He clasps his hands behind his back as if he's going for an afternoon stroll. “May I ask what you were planning on doing in this particular room?”

There's no point in keeping it a secret; I failed anyway. “Destroying the engine and the hyper-drive systems so you wouldn't be able to fly the Core away even if you wanted to.”

“You didn't really believe we'd make the mistake of having only one engine, did you?” Charlie says with a chuckle. “Even if you'd destroyed this one, the ship still would've been able to function. And our engineers could've easily built another.”

“It doesn't matter,” I say. “The Mardenites are taking the Core. You've lost, Charlie.”

“Unfortunately for you and your friends, you are incorrect.”

Charlie pulls something out of his pocket, a small device that looks like a clicker. His thumb hovers over the plunger.

“What is that?”

“A Stryker detonator,” he says.

I'm frowning again, trying to figure out how the detonator's going to help him. All the child workers aboard the battle stations still have Strykers inside their bodies, but they no longer work, thanks to the pulse bomb the Mardenites dropped on the Surface.

“You already tried to detonate the Strykers,” I remind him. “They didn't go off. They were damaged by the electric pulse bomb.”

“We lied.” When he smiles this time, it's a wicked one. “We never tried to detonate the Strykers. We always intended for them to end up aboard the battle stations, so we could set them off at the proper moment.”

A few feet to the right of Charlie, Sam is smirking at me, still aiming his gun at my head.

My heartbeat has stalled. This is why he changed his mind about detonating the Strykers when I put forth another plan.

“You wanted the child workers to be captured and taken aboard the battle stations. That's why you put them in the Surface city.”

“That is correct.”

Anger sets my body trembling. “So agreeing to send more squadrons to the Surface, making the resistance serum with my blood, giving Logan freedom … all of those things were lies?”

“Not all of them,” Commander Charlie says. “If you'd continued to cooperate with me, you would've been saved, along with your friend, Logan. But you made the mistake of fighting me again.” He shakes his head, disappointed.

He's a liar if he says he believed I wouldn't fight him once I found out he planned on destroying the battle stations with my friends aboard. No, all of his promises were false, meant to keep me from getting in the way so I wouldn't screw up his plans. He's been planning this all along—to lower my defenses and make me think I'd won, only to strike from a different angle.

“Oh, and there's one more thing you should know,” Charlie says, a spark of cruel amusement in his eyes. “I didn't just implant Strykers in the child workers in the camps. Fifty young citizens here in the Core were specially handpicked to receive the implant too. I've made sure they're all in the upper levels of the Core, where most of the vul—and your friends in the Alliance—have been fighting my men.”

Fear slices through my chest. Uma, Paley, and Jensen are all upstairs. What if Logan is up there? Knowing him, he wouldn't have stayed put once he found out what was going on. If the Developers hadn't locked him up again because of the escape I pulled, he would've gone upstairs and tried to help us. I should've done something more to ensure he'd stay out of danger.

“You would damage the Core and kill its citizens to destroy the vul?” I ask, a tremor in my voice. I can't let Charlie go through with this.

“The most important weapons, machinery, and citizens remain here in Restricted Division, and they will not be harmed,” Charlie says. “The rest of the Core can be fixed. It would be a setback, yes, but this is war. I will do everything necessary to win, to save the human race.”

“You won't be saving humanity,” I spit. “You'll be killing thousands of people. You'll be decimating more than half of our race.”

“Those who will die are not of our race, not anymore. They don't have as many modifications. They are lesser beings, the dredges of humanity.
We
, you and I and all the others who've been transferred to the Core before you, are the new, evolved race. The superior humans our ancestors always wanted to create. It's time for the future to begin.” His thumb moves over the clicker.

“No!” I cry, wrenching against the guards holding me back.

But it's too late. Charlie has pressed the detonator.

 

31

I don't hear any of the explosions, but a ripple of energy permeates through the walls, making the whole room tremble like there's been an earthquake. The battle stations are far, far away, but I can picture their hulls being ripped apart, the child workers inside screaming as the Strykers buried in their digestive tracts split their chests open and silence them forever.

Four of the battle stations had prisoners in their holds. It's likely everyone aboard—Sandy, her baby, Hashima, Nellie … they're all dead.

My heart thuds in my chest like a sledgehammer. There's a loud beeping sound on the wall behind me. Turning my head, I see warnings flashing on several of the screens. Dots on a cross-sectional map of the Core show there's been serious damage to the five uppermost levels. Who knows how many citizens and soldiers—both vul and human—were up there when it happened.

Logan could be dead.

Commander Charlie speaks a command into his ear-comm: “I need a disaster squad sent to the upper decks immediately.”

I can't believe he did it. He really killed them.

Charlie smiles as he slips the detonator back into his pocket. “Now that that's done,” he says calmly, “we'd best get back to everyone. Colonel Fred's contraption is on its way to the detonation site as we speak. The Core will soon be a fully functional battle station, free from the restrictions of the rest of Kiel. You wouldn't want to miss such an important event in history.”

My whole body is trembling with fury. I can't comprehend how he could care so little about human lives. How does he live with himself?

“It might interest you to know your daughter didn't come here with us,” I say. “She stayed aboard one of the battle stations. But you just killed her. Her and her baby, Grace.”