Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter Seven

The guard on my left cuffs me and activates the maglock before strapping me into a restraint harness attached to the roof and floor of the ACV. The guard across from me keeps his weapon trained on me until I’m secured. Then, he taps on the divider separating our compartment from the driver’s cockpit and the air cushion engages. We pull away, hard rain pinging off the armored hull. I’m on my way back to the RESCO, to a life sentence as a surrogate. I’ll be impregnated with zygotes carefully engineered to be of use to the nation, they’ll be extracted at term, and the process will start over. I’ll be kept in a drugged state that makes me not mind that I’m nothing more than a flesh and blood incubator. I shiver, and not from the damp.

“I knew him,” the soldier across from me says, lifting the visor of his helmet. He’s got broad cheekbones, a flat nose and almond-shaped eyes that stare unblinkingly into mine. “Private Dunn. Venka Dunn. The man you killed. We went through basic together.”

Without warning, he slams his gloved fist toward my face. It smashes into my cheekbone. My head snaps to the side and the glove’s rough fabric tears away the skin. Pain explodes in my head. I let out an
oof
.

“You should be going to the scaffold, not a cushy RESCO,” he says, landing another punch on my jaw. My teeth crunch together and blood blooms in my mouth.

The taste jolts me back to the interrogation room. Strobing lights blind me so I can’t make out the interrogator’s features as he looms over me. I’m crumpled on the floor, naked. My tongue is cut and swollen and my own blood gags me.

“What is the connection between Bulrush and the Defiance?”

“Dere idn’t any.”

“Liar! Who is Idris? What is his relationship to Alexander? Where do you take the women and children you abduct? What is Fiere’s last name? How large is your network? There’s a geneborn working with Bulrush—what’s his name? Where did you get your weapons? Who supplied your dome rations?”

The questions battered me, blending together. The strobes disoriented me. The heavy boots and fists landed on my breasts, my kidneys, my stomach. Five ribs cracked like fireworks going off inside me. Jagged bursts of pain that made me see red and yellow sparkles.  “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” How many times did I say it? It was true, but the truth didn’t protect me.

“Hey, Sergeant, that’s enough,” the other guard says, bringing me back to the present.

With a growl, my attacker settles back in his seat. “It’s no more than she deserves.”

I right myself and shrug my shoulder up to wipe a trickle of blood off my chin. At least there are no drugs here to magnify the pain, no electricity to sear my every nerve ending.

“I’m sorry your friend died,” I whisper. I am. I'm not sorry Idris shot him—it was him or me and Halla. But I’m sorry he had to die.

“Shut up.”

I look out the window, but the rain acts like a curtain, obscuring everything. We’re sealed in a gray cocoon. My tongue probes a loose tooth and I ponder Vestor’s last words. What did he mean by “I believe in your friends?" He doesn’t know my friends, does he? If he does . . . The implications help me straighten and ignore my throbbing cheek. Suddenly I remember Jariah, the Bulrush agent who works at the RESCO. She helped me escape the first time.  Vestor might have met Jariah, had contact with her when he was prepping Dr. Malabar as a witness. A tiny thread of hope tingles through me. Maybe she’ll help me again. Maybe she’s in touch with Bulrush agents I don’t know, or maybe Alexander or Idris survived when the IPF raided our headquarters.

It’s the first time I’ve used “our” when thinking about myself and Bulrush.

The journey seems to go on forever. I’m in no hurry to get to the RESCO, but it seems to be farther from the city center than I remember. The rain is probably slowing us down. The guards don’t look worried. They're relaxed against their seats, exchanging a few words now and then. I’m wondering how Jariah will make contact with me, how long I will be at the RESCO before she can arrange my escape. I resign myself to the fact that it might not be immediately; I might be in the RESCO for a few weeks. Still, that’s better than a life sentence, better than bearing—

The ACV begins to slow. The rain has tapered off and I lean sideways to peer out my window. A row of unfamiliar buildings meets my eye, made ghostly by encroaching dusk. They’re several stories tall, of brown and tan brick, but seem deserted. Glassless window openings gape at us. There’s rubble and detritus in the streets and chartreuse kudzu spewing from cracks in sidewalks, manhole covers, and other crevices. Runoff from the rain sluices down the street and the ACV glides over temporary streams. I don’t understand.

“Almost there,” the sergeant says.

“Where are we?” I ask.

He looks at me like I’m a moron. “The RESCO.”

“I mean what city?”

“Used to be called Auburn,” the younger guard says when the first one ignores me. “It’s been deserted since the third wave of the flu. Nothing here now but the RESCO.”

We veer into open space, a giant quadrangle that undoubtedly used to be a swathe of green before the locusts. Stately old buildings are spaced at gracious intervals.  Light glows from the windows of the farthest building. We’re not at the Atlanta RESCO, the one where Jariah is a medical technician. We’re somewhere else entirely, at a RESCO where I know no one, where there’s no hope of help or escape. The realization crushes me, like a buttress breaking loose from the building in front of us and falling onto my chest.

The ACV rocks. For a moment, I think a chunk of masonry did fall off the building and land on us, but then the ACV rocks again. Thin armor like fish scales ripple down over the windows. I can’t see a thing.

“What the—” the senior guard says. He taps the comms panel to talk to the driver. “Heller, Erhardt, what’s going on?”

“Not sure, Sergeant. Can’t see—”

“Get us the hell out of here.”

We zoom forward a short distance but then there’s a crackling sound and sparks dance around the ACV’s metal alloy frame. The vehicle drops to the ground. We land with a teeth-jarring
ka-thunk
.

“EMP,” the sergeant says grimly. “Chavez, watch the prisoner. If it looks like we’re being overrun, kill her.” He slides open a small port and aims his blaster through it.

A shockwave undulates through the ACV as one of the soldiers in the front fires a bow-mounted blaster. I think I hear a thin scream from outside. Looking to my left, I see that Chavez has risen and is peering out a stern aiming port, paying me no attention. If only I could get these cuffs off.  It wouldn’t matter; I’d still be locked into the harness. I strain against it to no avail.

The sergeant is talking non-stop, communicating with the soldiers in the front compartment and, apparently, with an IPF base. “ . . . under attack . . . multiple . . . orders regarding prisoner?”

I don’t hear what response he gets, if any.

Suddenly, an armor-piercing round barrels through our compartment and the sergeant falls, mid-word. He lands facing me, the right side of his face sheared off, remaining eye open and blank. Blood and brains spatter the wall and the odors of smoke and burning chemicals clot the air. Chavez stands immobilized, staring down at his sergeant. Confused shouts and blasts sound from outside.  A thin rivulet of flame licks the partition between our compartment and the cockpit.

“We need to get out of here.”

Chavez doesn’t respond; he continues to stare, wide-eyed, at his fallen leader.  The flames spread, whooshing across the partition and dancing their way up to the ceiling. Heat pushes at me.

“Chavez!”

The panic in my voice reaches him and he swings around, beamer leveled.

“No, don’t!” I hold my cuffed hands in front of me. “The fire. We need to get out.”

Chavez looks from me to the corpse, as if expecting it to issue orders.

I cough. Smoke is filling the enclosed space and the flames are greedily sucking the oxygen from the air. Chavez punches a code into the door release but nothing happens. He rattles the handle, and then throws his whole weight against the door.

“Won’t open!” He can’t get to the other door because the fire is eating at it.

A curl of smoke wisps from the seat beside me. I don’t want to burn to death. Of all the horrible ways to go—

“—back!”

The voice comes from outside.

“Help! Help us!” I scream.

Chavez pounds on the door just as a laser blade cuts through it, scoring a dark line. Chavez backs away.

“Hurry! Chavez, cut me loose.”

To my relief, he hesitates only a second before slicing through the restraints with a tool he pulls from his belt. I stand, hands still cuffed, and join him by the door where another dark stripe intersects the first. Chavez is doubled over now, overcome by smoke and I put my mouth to the small weapons port, trying to drink in fresh air. Taking a deep breath and holding it, I aim a foot at the door and wham my heel toward it, near where the lines of night meet.  It buckles and so do I. My knees hit the floor. Can’t breathe. Heat presses on me from all sides. Going to die . . . hope smoke gets me before . . .

The door peels open with a screech of outraged metal. Hands are reaching in, pulling me out. As I drag in great coughing breaths, I clamp my hand around Chavez’s wrist.

“Leave him,” a male voice says.

“No,” I cough, tightening my grip.

With a muttered curse, someone reaches around me, grabs Chavez by the shoulders, and hauls us both out onto the damp earth. Fed by the new intake of oxygen, the fire crackles behind us, consuming the ACV.

“Gotta get out of here
now
,” the same voice says.

I scramble up, looking around me in a daze. By the fire’s light, I make out a cluster of ACVs.  Two- and four-seaters mounted with weapons hover in a semi-circle around the burning IPF vehicle. Two of them take off as I watch. Beyond them, I see activity around the entrance to the RESCO, drawn by the commotion, I assume.  Finally, I spot a familiar figure running toward me, beamer pointing toward the ground. He seems a shade taller, more filled out, and his curly brown hair definitely longer. Has it only been four months since I last saw him, since I lost him in another scene filled with blasts and shouting and chaos?

“Wyck! Oh, Wyck.” I fall into his arms and he hugs me so tightly my partially healed ribs make me gasp.

With an arm around my waist, he half-drags me to a four-seat ACV hovering twenty yards away. A jumpsuited figure leaps out and helps him bundle me into the vehicle. We’re off before I’ve had time to catch my breath.

“Good to see you, Ev,” Wyck says with a brash grin. His green eyes say more.

“Good to be seen,” I manage. “What took you so long?”

Chapter Eight

The figure who helped me into the ACV turns out to be a red-haired woman.

“Rhedyn,” she introduces herself, spelling it out when I doubtfully repeat, “Reh-deen?” She swipes bangs off her forehead. “Most folks call me Red.”

Her voice is rich and mellow, and heavy lids over pale green eyes add to the languorous effect. She moves sharply, though, her movements concise. Full breasts and hips swell her short jacket and leggings. I guess she’s twenty.

“Glad we finally caught up with you.”

“Me, too.”

Wyck explains that they were supposed to intercept us earlier, but that we took a different route than anticipated. “It was a risk, attacking right in front of the RESCO like that, but we had surprise on our side.”

“Who’s ‘we?’” I ask.

“The Defiance.” Rhedyn says it like it should be obvious.

“How did you know they were bringing me here—to the RESCO, I mean?”

“Intelligence.” Rhedyn shuts her lips over the single word.

“Vestor?” I recall what he told me as I got into the prison transport. Maybe he hadn’t betrayed me after all by condemning me to the RESCO. Maybe he’d known all along that I would be rescued.

Rhedyn gives me a close-lipped smile and leans over to say something to the driver who she calls Luz.

Wyck reaches across the space between us and takes my hand. His is warm, callused, and infinitely comforting. I hold on like I’ll never let go.

“Your face—” he says, reaching one finger to gently touch my split lip.

“The soldier I was convicted of killing was the guard’s buddy.” I shrug away his concern. “They told me you were dead. How did you end up with—?”

The ACV speeds along, bucking occasionally when it skims over rough terrain, as he starts his story. He fiddles with my handcuffs as he talks. “When the IPF attacked Bulrush, I tried to get to you, but I couldn’t find you. I had to trust you’d be okay. I spotted Idris with Alexander, and just as I saw them, a beamer blast caught Alexander in the shoulder. It took both of us to get him into the tunnels. Ta-da.” He slips my cuffs off triumphantly.

I rub my wrists. “So they’re alive, too?  Idris and Alexander?” Relief washes over me like pure water.

Wyck nods. “Alexander was in a bad way, though, for a couple of months. We got separated from Idris in the tunnels when another wave of IPF came through that way, but Alexander was conscious enough to tell me how to get to one of the northern way stations. He even told me what to do for his shoulder. We didn’t have any sealant or anesthesia. These hands”—he wiggles his fingers—“were not meant for sewing. Alexander is one tough hombre.

“Anyway, it took a couple weeks, because we had to travel slowly and at night, but we got to the station outside of Chattanooga and the station master took us in, got meds for Alexander—who had a raging infection by then—and kept us hidden. When Alexander was more himself, he told me to come back, to find out what had happened to the rest of you, to hook up with the Defiance, if I could find them. He gave me a few ideas of where to look, plus a password he said would keep me from getting killed.  It was a close-run thing, though, wasn’t it, Red?”

The woman turns around and meets his grin with a grim smile. “You were never closer to death, Wyck. You stood there, hands in the air, chirping, ‘Arabesque, arabesque, arabesque’ like it was some kind of damned magical incantation. You were just too cute to kill.”

Wyck shifts uncomfortably.

“Then what?” I ask.

“Idris was already there. Apparently, he’d been working with the Defiance for at least a year before the attack.”

That doesn’t surprise me too much. He’d been urging Alexander to align with the Defiance, undertake insurgent missions, the whole time we were with Bulrush.

With a wry twist of his lips, Wyck adds, “He’s actually a pretty damn effective rebel leader. He planned this rescue.”

“It was Idris's idea?” I wouldn’t have thought he’d walk a block out of his way to save me.

Wyck shakes his head. “No, the order came down from higher up, the Defiance High Command. The plan was Idris's though.” He looks into his lap and says, “Halla’s dead. They broadcast photos of her body at an Assembly. Hers and Gunther’s.” He swallows so his Adam’s apple works. “Cas, too.”

I’m not sure exactly what Cas meant to him, but I know they were close. I grip his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.” He pulls his hand away.

I don’t want to hear him add Fiere’s name, so I say. “It was Saben, you know.”

His brows twitch together.

“Who betrayed us. Saben’s the one who gave the IPF our location. He’s one of them.” I explain about seeing him in uniform during my trial. The hurt of it returns and I examine a burn on the back of my hand so he won’t see.

“Effing geneborn,” Rhedyn spits, sounding a lot like Idris. “Thinking they rule the world. Well, the Defiance may have something to say about that!” With a triumphant smirk she turns around.

Exhaustion descends on me suddenly. The tension of the past two days—the trial, the verdict, thinking I would spend years in a RESCO—has eaten through my reserves and I slump in my seat, half-dozing as the ACV continues through the night. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t want to know; I’ve proven I can’t be trusted. Moisture leaks around my closed eyelids and then I’m asleep.

By the height of the moon, I reckon it’s after eleven o’clock by the time we stop. The ACV settles, Luz exchanges a quiet word or two with a shadowy figure who must be a sentry, and we glide another half-mile before stopping.

“End of the line,” Luz says. The doors swing up and I get out, walking stiffly. My burned hand throbs and I’m afraid I’ve reinjured a couple of my ribs. Still, I breathe deeply and give thanks for my freedom. I inhale a whiff of creosote and river water, so I’m not as surprised as I might have been when Wyck says, “Get on board.”

Why does it have to be a boat? Boats mean water—deep water—and having nearly drowned twice (once in a bathtub and once when I dove into what might be this same river trying to escape a fiery death), I’m not fond of large bodies of water. Anything deeper than a soup bowl puts me on edge. I grit my teeth and move forward.

Wyck’s hand at my elbow guides me down a gentle slope and onto a dock that sinks and rolls beneath us. By the light of the crescent moon, I see a boat moored at the dock’s end, a large vessel with a . . . I peer toward the stern. Yes, it’s a paddle wheel. The whole ship is draped in netting of some kind. I suspect it’s a camouflage net. Two more sentries rise up from a litter of flotsam on the bank to challenge us, beamers held ready, and Rhedyn placates them with a murmured password.

“Welcome to the
Chattahoochee Belle
,” Rhedyn says with a broad sweep of her hand. Now that I see her standing, I realize she must be six feet tall.

I can just make out the letters “
att  chee Bel
” on the prow. This ship has seen better days. I walk up the gangplank and step aboard gingerly, almost expecting my foot to go through rotted wood into the hold below.

“She’s not really from river boat days,” Wyck says, sensing my hesitation. “She was a reproduction, a party boat. Weddings, birthdays, office celebrations—I found a brochure. I’ve been working on the engine.”

I hear the old enthusiasm for gadgets in his voice and smile. “You don’t mean to tell me this tub actually sails?”

“Not yet,” he says, “but we’ve got electricity now, via the engine.”

“A huge improvement,” Rhedyn says. “Let’s find you a bunk. You can meet everyone tomorrow.”

With a last glance at Wyck, I follow the redhead down a flight of stairs to a dimly lit room with four rickety tables around a square of parquet laid out in the middle.

“For dancing,” Rhedyn says, “at least that’s what the brochures say.”

A narrow hall with a fire hose coiled on one wall leads off the main room and Rhedyn opens the first door we come to. The moon’s feeble light glimmering through a porthole shows hammocks strung along the long walls, one above another on either side for a total of four. “Grab a hammock and make yourself comfortable. Head’s that way.” She points further down the hall. “We’ll debrief you in the morning.”

She’s gone on the words, closing the door as she leaves, and my many questions will have to wait. My tummy gurgles as I flop onto the lower hammock on the right, but I ignore it. I’m not going to traipse around this old boat looking for food in the dark. As security conscious as the Defiance seems to be, I’d probably get myself shot. I tuck my hands beneath my cheek, wishing I had my
Little House
book. I’ll probably never see it again. My last link with my parents is gone. Tears wet my face and dampen the flat pillow. Part of me hopes that Wyck will join me, spoon up against me like he did when we were traveling to Atlanta, but the door stays shut and I remain alone.