Incubation (The Incubation Trilogy Book 1) (24 page)

“Halla.” Rushing to the bed, I shake her shoulder.

“Huh?” She blinks groggily.

“We’ve got to go
now
.” I yank back the blanket.
Oh, my God
. My breath hisses out like I’ve been punched.

Halla’s belly has deflated. She’s not pregnant anymore.

Chapter Twenty Five

They did the extraction early. That fact ricochets in my head. They could have done it while I was subduing the technician and searching Dr. Malabar’s office. Hers was the extraction the cleaners were talking about.
If I’d come straight here
. . . I can’t think about it now. Halla’s still woozy from the surgery, in no condition to run. I spare only a brief sad thought for Little Loudon. He’s locked in the nursery, imprinted with a tattoo that will lock the building down if I try to get him out. There is no way to get him now. None. My priority has to be getting Halla to the rendezvous spot. The bed’s on wheels.

“Hold on.”

Releasing the wheel lock, I grab the bedrail and back toward the door. Halla’s sitting up, looking confused and nervous, as we trundle into the hall and I swing the bed so I can push it from behind. “Lie down,” I suggest.

She reclines and I sprint down the hall. The bed is lighter than I expect and it almost pulls me off my feet once we build up some momentum. I can’t stop it in time to keep it from bashing into the wall near the exit. Halla lets out an exclamation as I hurry to open the door. Wedging a corner of the bed through, I use its weight to hold the door open as I push the bed all the way outside. Fresh air!

A klaxon erupts behind me and I bite my tongue. As blood fills my mouth, I point the bed toward the rendezvous and shove. It takes more effort on the dirt path than in the polished corridor.
Whee-oo, whee-oo
pounds my ears, dizzying me.

“Everly. Four o’clock. Leave.”

Halla sounds more alert and I’m grateful. “Are you okay?” The words come out in single syllable gasps. My thighs are burning as I use them to power forward. There’s the lightning-split tree that signals the meeting spot, and the fence beyond it. “We need to climb a rope ladder to get out. Can you do it?”

“I think so. Where—” She makes an anguished sound. The moment I’ve been dreading has arrived. “Little Loudon,” she keens. “My baby. We’ve got to go back for him.”

“We can’t.”

Barked orders and running footsteps tell me the chase is on. I can only hope Alexander managed to blind the drones as he said he would. We must be getting close to the electrified border. I slow and Halla starts to slide off the bed.

“I’m not going without my baby.”

“You’re going to get us all killed.” I push her back on the bed. She’s weak and falls against the pillow.

Have they cut the power as promised? Grabbing the pillow, I fling it as far as I can. It’s a white blur arcing toward the fence. Then, it lands and explodes in a poof of flame and charred fluff. The stench makes me gag. That would have been me and Halla if I’d gone another step.

A curse sounds from near the fence. “Got it,” Saben’s voice says. “Now.”

A rock clatters to the ground, reassuring me that it’s safe. I grab for the bed and realize Halla has wriggled off it.

“Over here!” It’s a soldier’s voice. It’s close. Searchlights stab the darkness.

We’re going to die
. Halla’s leaning against the bed, gathering the strength to run back to Loudon.
We’re going to die
. I punch her in the temple. She falls back onto the bed, stunned, and I grab her legs and swing them up. Then, we’re bumping over the no man’s land to the fence. The bed crunches into the stone as a rope ladder slithers down beside us.
Clink
. Grappling hooks have snagged against the glass.

“Hurry,” Saben calls.

A blast whistles past and a chunk jumps out of the wall, stinging my cheek. “Halla’s unconscious,” I shout. “I can’t get her up.”

Seconds later, booted feet appear on the ladder. Wyck jumps from half-way down and lands in a crouch. Then Idris appears. “Where?”

I indicate Halla. “She just had surgery,” I caution them. A waste of breath. They need to get her over the fence any way they can; otherwise, she’s dead. Another blast singes past.

They wheel the bed up against the fence. Wyck climbs onto it, and with Idris's help, gets Halla up and draped over his shoulder so her head hangs down his back. The pressure on her incision must be horrible. Alexander will know how to repair it.

“You first.” Wyck’s face is white with strain. “I can’t get her over the top. We’re going to need everyone possible on the other side to pull us over.”

Idris nods and scrambles up the ladder, disappearing over the fence.

Wyck’s got a beamer strapped to his back. I free it and motion for him to grab the ladder. He hesitates, then steps off the bed to put both feet on a rung half-way up, gripping a higher rung with one hand, while securing Halla with the other arm clamped across the back of her thighs. Halla dangles like a rag doll. “Pull,” he yells.

The ladder starts to inch up. There’s a blur of movement to my left. A soldier. Caught off-guard, I level the beamer and hesitate. The soldier falls and I look up at the wall, startled. Idris gives me a mock salute from where he’s straddling the wall, beamer cradled in one arm. Wyck and Halla are almost to the top now. More yelling, sounding confused, drifts our way. One word stands out: “Fire.”

I scan the compound, still dark, but with a lightening that says dawn is around the corner. An orangey glow flickers on the far side, past the lake. It’s a fire. I’m as confused as the soldiers, but then I realize it’s a distraction. Since it’s inside the RESCO, I suspect Jariah is responsible. Booted feet pound toward the fire and someone issues orders for using lake water to douse it. Saben and a man I don’t know have appeared at the top of the fence, smashing the glass insets with their weapons’ stocks, then reaching over to grab Halla from Wyck. They balance her on her bottom atop the fence, facing into the compound. Then they maneuver her legs around until they’re draping down the outside wall. Gripping her upper arms, they lower her, every tendon in their necks and jaws standing out. She scrapes along the wall and then she’s out of sight.

The unknown man jumps down and then Saben helps an exhausted Wyck over with an approving thump on his back. He holds down a hand to me. “Everly. Hurry!” Slinging the beamer over my shoulder, I run for the ladder and grasp a rigid rung. The ladder sways as I step onto it.

A hand clamps around my ankle. I look down to see a helmeted IPF soldier. He’s bleeding. He might be the one Idris shot. Balancing on one leg, I use the other to kick at his head. Saben, above me, has no clear shot. The risk of hitting me is too great. The man staggers, then renews his grip. My too-big pants start to slide down. I kick harder and the man’s grip loosens. The scrub pants are at my knees. Something flutters. The DNA report! I grab for it. The soldier reaches up and snags my wrist.

Then, a hole opens on his right shoulder and blood appears. He falls backwards. There’s a tearing sound and he’s gone, half the report still locked in his grip. I look up and over my shoulder to where Saben shifted along the wall to get a shot at the soldier.

“
Everly
.”

I can’t ignore the anguish and command in his voice. Made awkward by the sagging pants, I scramble the rest of the way up the ladder.

Saben claps me on the shoulder when I reach the top. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Ladies first,” I say, flashing a grin. Despite the fact that we’re still in horrible danger, everything feels like it will be okay now that I’m with Saben. Lowering myself to my stomach, I swing my legs over. The remnants of the glass cut through my top and grind against my abdomen. Someone on the other side braces my legs and helps me down. When I hit the ground, he takes off running, hops onto a scooter and zips north. There’s no sign of Halla or the other rescuers who must have been here; they’re all headed for safety, I hope. The headlights of IPF ACVs, at least three of them, streak toward us.

Saben grabs my hand. “Come
on
.”

We jump into a two-seater and Saben ignites it. I can tell immediately that it’s been modified for turbo speed. That makes it faster, but also less stable. I grab the seat edge as we blast away. A round sizzles past us and smashes into a tree trunk. It topples as we slide beneath it.

“Too close,” I breathe.

Saben doesn’t reply, too intent on evading the IPF to talk. We’re in a copse, weaving so quickly through the tree trunks that I hardly dare breathe for fear of unbalancing us. Skimming over a large rock, we roll, the instability almost capsizing us. Saben rights the ACV and, if possible, goes even faster. One of the ACVs on our tail fires again. The beam goes wide, but close enough to make us pitch. I bang my forehead on the dash. The beamer strapped to my back knocks my shoulders and I grab it, cursing for not having thought of it before.

A round explodes through the rear window, raining shards of polyglass on us. I swivel in the seat so I’m on my knees facing backwards. Two IPF ACVs are behind us, riding side by side as much as the forested terrain allows. I can see the helmeted heads behind the windshields.

“Hold this thing steady,” I say, leveling the beamer. My index finger puts pressure on the touch pad to let off a blast. The pursuing ACV swerves and I miss by a mile. I wish I’d spent more time with Idris in the attic weapons range. The stock vibrates against my palms to let me know the weapon’s charge has fallen to twenty-five percent. I only have a couple of shots left. I’ve got to make them count.

With the image of the falling tree that almost crushed us in mind, I aim for a magnolia’s overhanging bough. Timing it carefully, I put two fast shots into the rotten wood seconds before the closest IPF skimmer surges beneath it. The heavy limb separates from the trunk with a loud
crr-rack
and smashes onto the ACV’s roof. It spins out of control and we’re pulling farther away as it skids toward its partner. The two vehicles collide and explode in a ball of flame and spinning metal parts. I turn my head away to protect my eyes from the glare.

“Nice shooting.”

I nod, looking back to see if the third ACV is still pursing us. Not. He is slowing, intending to help his wounded comrades, I assume. I slide down into my seat, suddenly trembling.

“You okay?” Saben can’t spare a look, not at the speed we’re traveling.

“Uh-huh.”

Saben takes a circuitous route back to Bulrush’s headquarters, to guarantee we’re not followed, and it’s two hours before we dive into a tunnel entrance that’s new to me and approach the brothel from the north.

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” I say as we emerge from under a tile-coated trapdoor in a utility room. It smells like wet metal from the old furnace and air conditioning units rusting there. The idea that Alexander and Saben are trusting me with more of Bulrush’s secrets pleases me, even though I’m almost too tired to experience any emotion. In the hall, Saben catches me by my upper arms. His grip is firm, his expression serious as he gazes into my eyes.

“If you’d been killed—”

Wyck charges around the corner, saying, “Halla’s going to be—” He stops dead when he catches sight of me and Saben, his gaze going from one of us to the other.

Saben releases me. “You did great back there,” he tells Wyck. “Halla wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

A tic jumps below Wyck’s left eye.

“Is she okay?” I ask, trying not to think about how badly I wanted Saben to kiss me. “Where is she?”

“Upstairs. Sedated. She was hysterical about the baby.”

We hurry upstairs to the room where Alexander operated on Fiere. She’s guarding the door and stops us before we can enter. Her dark hair is all which-way, as if she’s been raking her fingers through it, but her face is composed.

“Alexander’s still repairing the incision,” she says, holding a hand to her own abdomen, as if in sympathy. “He says she’ll be fine, though.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I say. “The extraction wasn’t scheduled until morning, but when I got to her room, they’d already delivered the baby.”

“She probably went into labor,” Fiere says. “They’d move up the extraction, if that happened.”

“I couldn’t get the baby. There was no way.”

“I know,” Fiere says, in a voice that says she really does. “You did great getting yourself and Halla out of there.”

“These guys did the hard part,” I say, motioning to Wyck and Saben. “Especially Wyck, carrying Halla up the ladder.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you pushing a bed across the courtyard,” Wyck says.

“A bed?” Fiere asks.

Taking turns and talking over each other, Saben, Wyck and I tell Fiere about the rescue. They talk about rounding up ten Bulrush agents for the mission and about contacting Pharaoh’s Daughter to plan a diversion. I explain how I fooled the technician and stole her clothes and badge. I leave out my detour to Dr. Malabar’s office, but become ultra-sensitive to the rasp of the paper against my stomach. Suddenly, all I want is some privacy so I can read the report . . . what’s left of it. Fiere, though, insists on examining and disinfecting the gouges I made on my thighs to bloody my sheets. Shooing Wyck and Saben away, she takes me into a small bedroom and swabs the fork punctures and scrapes with alcohol.

“Nasty,” she observes, “but clever.” She lowers her voice. “You took the pill, right?” When I don’t answer, she says, “They give you hormones, and something else, I think, some kind of mood elevator, during the implantation. You know that right?” Her tone is urgent. “What you’re feeling, whatever urge you have to actually bear the fetus they implanted in you, it’s chemically induced. You’re a bio-chemist for heaven’s sake—you understand that.”