Legacy (Alliance Book 3) (4 page)

“I am pretty sure Brody is in charge of this whole thing, Drake, not you. Now, if you are done with your lecture, I’d like to get some sleep,” and he stepped away from him, walking to the door, not looking at anybody.

Brody ran after him and grabbed his shoulder, turning him around, “Apologize, Riley, or you can’t come. I am in charge, and I won’t let you in the flier with us if you don’t make this right by my crew.” He said it quietly, softly.

He could see Riley breathing hard, and then he ran over to where Trelix and Loren were, and they both stood up, keeping their heads down, faces serious. Riley dropped to his knees in front of them, put his head to the floor as if he were praying to them, and said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Forgive me, oh lords of the pure skin and blond hair. I shall never again make you uncomfortable for seeing me and my kind as little better than insects. It is only due to my defective genetic makeup that I am too blind to see how superior you are in every way. I beg your forgiveness for....”

He didn’t seem done, but Brody pulled him up roughly by the shirt, and he shut up. The boys didn’t move, and he could see them blushing even from where he was. Brody dragged Riley to the other side of the room, turned him around and punched him hard in the jaw, knocking him out, and without saying a word to anybody left the room. He made everyone else leave then, even Ams and Ella. He knew the kid was just knocked out, and he wouldn’t need her. He crouched next to him for a long time, trying to think through this, trying to figure out what to do with this kid now. It didn’t make any sense for him to lash out like this at these boys, of all people. They’ve been good to him this whole time, respectful good, almost too respectful.

Riley grunted and sat up on the floor and then got to his feet, shaky. He reached out to hold him, but the kid swatted his hand away, and made for the door. He walked around him and leaned against it, blocking it, staring at the face he’s known his whole life and seeing nothing but anger in it.

“Spit it out, Riley. You know you can’t fight me and I am not moving until I know what the hell this was. Talk.”

Riley, shook his head, staring him down, not moving. He let him, knowing that he had a lot more patience for this than Riley did. Knowing the kid desperately needed to get out of here and go blow off steam shooting at targets, or punching trees, or whatever it was he did when he got like that. He saw his face relax a little bit after a while, and he finally talked.

He told him how Trelix came at him with the gun, calling him a darky at first, when they got to the Trina clearing, and told him about Brax, and what Brody did to him, and how nobody looked at him that way after that, and what Hassinger said to Brody, before she shot Trina the way she did. And how she was laughing the whole time she was shooting at her, as if she really saw her a rabid dog or a bug. And that he didn’t trust any of them not to see him that way now, or Drake for that matter. He just never put it all together like that before, and that it finally made sense how someone could kill all the people in that field.

How he didn’t trust that Ams and Laurel didn’t see him the way all those people in the holo did, because of how they were raised, how they lived with it their whole lives. He told him how Ams looked at him, when she first met him, with so much fear in her eyes, and then Laurel staring at him like that, too, only he didn’t think about it then, but now he knew where it came from... and that maybe, the only reason Brody was ever decent to him at all is that he didn’t know any better, living with them the whole time, as one of them, but that was Brody, not the rest of them.  

He put his arm around him, not quite knowing what to say now. He walked him over to the couch and had him sit, crouching in front of him so he could see his face, “I can’t tell you how to feel, Riley, so I won’t try. All I know is you are as wrong as I’ve ever seen you be about all of these people here, Trelix and Loren and the girls. But I have a feeling this isn’t about them at all, Riley, and I don’t know where that comes from in you. It’s like you don’t think yourself good enough for anyone to care for you. I don’t know if it’s easier for you that way, given all the people you’ve lost. Maybe you think that it is, but it’s not right, Riley. You can’t do this to them, to Ams and Laurel, and your best friend. You just can’t. It’s unfair to all of you.... You are free to go,” and he got up and turned away from him, hearing the door open and close softly after a while, hoping the kid didn’t do any more damage to anybody or himself tonight.

Brody, May 31, 2236, Reston.

H
e planned on avoiding him, didn’t want to see him, didn’t know what to say to him if he did, and thankfully, Riley made it easy for him. He was never at their target ranges or any of the rooms they camped in. He hadn’t seen him at meals for two days now either, and he was good with it, until Ams walked up to him first thing in the morning looking frantic, telling him that nobody had seen him for two days. That he’s just gone, and nobody went out looking for him either, and no matter how bad what he did was, somebody had to at least want to find him again. She had tears in her liquid grays when she said it, and she was right, of course. He didn’t realize Riley wasn’t just hiding from him.

He grabbed a light go bag, just in case, and went to the edge of the city, to the bloody field of charred bones. It was the first place he thought of. He could almost picture him sitting there, in the one place that would make him feel the worst, because that’s how Riley was. He saw his small form from the road and stopped, watching him. Riley was kneeling in the grass at the side of the field, not moving, head down, eyes closed.

He was still angry at him for what he did to his boys, too angry to want to comfort him, so he walked over and told him in his soldier voice to get up. He didn’t move. “Riley, bloody get up!”

He stood up shakily after a while and faced him.

“They did this, Brody. They made all these people come out to the fire and just walk in, kids and all. They did this because they felt about them the way Brax did about me, the way I think Ams and Laurel did, too, at first. I don’t know how to wrap my head around it right, Brody. I don’t know how to trust that your boys aren’t looking at me like I am some sort of an ape now because they watched you put a bullet in Brax’s head. Or that Ams actually loves me, and I am not some kind of an experiment to her, something for her to laugh over supper with her friends when she is older, like what those rich girls did to the warehouse kids in Waller.... There are bones here that were too little to walk on their own. They couldn’t have done it if they thought of them as human, Brody, nobody could have, not to tiny kids... and I don’t know how to be okay with it,” and he put his head down, not saying anything anymore.

He put his arm around him and started walking him back to Reston, slowly, not wanting to rush him, and suddenly he felt Riley go limp on him, as if he was going to black out, so he grabbed him by the shoulders, looking at his face, and he could see him sweating.

“Riley, when did you eat last?” He shook his head, not looking at him.

Not since that night then, almost three days ago. He pulled a thermos of tea out of his bag and made him drink that, and then handed him a protein bar, but Riley wouldn’t even look at it. He had to get him back. He clicked in his comm and told Loren to bring the flier, soon as he could make it, and put a thermos of broth in it.

He sat Riley down on the road, kneeling next to him, looking at him, “You stupid, stupid son of a bitch. Things you do to yourself. You are the smartest person I know, and this, all of it, is pretty much the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do. That’s supposed to be my job. Irresponsible, rash, impulsive Brody. Not you. Come here,” and he pulled him onto his lap, wiping the sweat from his face with his shirt, hoping Loren didn’t take too much longer, “Ams loves you, and I know you know that, although I am starting to question her judgement. Everybody bloody loves you, Riley, everybody but you, it seems, and I don’t have the slightest idea how to help you with that.”

He saw the flier land by the shimmer of the shield around it, Loren running to them with the thermos and a med kit. Smart kid, for not bringing anyone else. He made Riley drink, and after a little while Loren leaned over him and checked his vitals, shaking his head at him when he was done. Not okay yet. They waited, nobody saying anything, Loren looking concerned. Not angry anymore then. Riley’s eyes were closed, and he suddenly realized he was out, asleep out. He likely didn’t sleep for two days either. They carried him to the flier, flew back to their clearing and waited for Riley to wake up. Loren watched Riley so he could get some work done.

He went to the med bay, catching them in the middle of a conversation, only nobody noticed him, so he waited, listening. Loren was telling Riley that he wasn’t angry, and that Trelix likely wasn’t angry at him either, so he should probably stop beating himself up. Telling him too that he gets why he did what he did, even if he isn’t like him. That he grew up in a place where he wasn’t like everybody else, and remembers how it was for him, and how he didn’t want to trust anybody after that either, so he couldn’t blame Riley for lashing out like that.

He saw Riley look at him, and ran over, as if he’d just walked in, “Can you walk?”

A nod. He watched him get up, and he was shaky at first, but then seemed okay, only he looked apprehensive, afraid maybe when they got in the elevator.

“You don’t need to do this now, Riley. Go get some sleep,” he said softly, but Riley just shook his head, and walked to the big room.

He watched him walk over to Trelix and apologize, and by the looks of it, he meant whatever he whispered to him, shaking his hand, face serious, and then Riley turned around and faced the rest of the group, his voice calm, even when he spoke.

“I don’t know if I can explain it yet or ever, but I know I screwed up pretty badly a few days ago, and I am really sorry for that. I couldn’t process all those things Drake was showing us without attaching everything else I’ve seen and heard over the years to it. I was pissed off at what I was hearing, because parts of it that I lived through didn’t come together for me in that way before, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Anyway, I am going to try to talk to you guys instead of doing what I did to Trelix and Loren and running off next time, I promise. Here is the important part, something that occurred to me when I was sitting there, staring at those bones. I don’t think the Alliance did this. I think it was a single person or maybe a very small group of people who did this, because nothing else makes sense. If the Alliance had the ability to make the whole city of people go into the fire, they wouldn’t be stealing kids from their families. They wouldn’t need to kill anybody or do what they did to Trina, they’d just be able to make any of us do whatever they wanted us to. Like Hassinger did with Brody’s crew. Loren says he doesn’t even remember it, like it wasn’t him doing it.”

He got up and walked over to him then, “I was thinking the same thing, Riley. We don’t know how but it’s like what Hassinger did, only these people didn’t have implants in them. Stan says none of them did. But that’s the only difference.” Drake turned on the holo and was skimming through images on it, and then he stopped on one of the screens, and they were all staring at a room with NeuroTechX on the door, men wearing uniforms hunched over large screens, pressing buttons, typing. Definitely military. The holo panned to the window, and Stan was staring at it intently now, “I know that place. I thought it looked familiar, just didn’t click until now. It’s the Dorington Tower, five minute walk from here, only it’s been empty for years. It used to have a chem lab on the top floors. They made drugs or something, but they closed it down years ago. I haven’t seen anyone go in or out of that place long before...” and he pointed with his head at the wall with the drawing on it.

He sent Loren back to the flier to scan the building for heat signatures and any transmissions coming out of there. They were all waiting for him to get back when Ams stood up, looking a little embarrassed, “We need a hostage, Brody. Just one. We need to take one of those men and he’ll tell us who did all of this, who killed all these people. It just has to be the right one,” and she dropped down in her chair again.

“How do we know which one is the right one, Ams?”

She looked at him, thinking for a beat, “It can’t be the strongest or the weakest, so not the one in charge, and not the first one to flinch when you guys barge in. Any of the other ones should work.”

He was impressed by this girl. It didn’t make sense for her to have just come up with it, not without military training, but her instincts were good, dead on good.

He nodded to her, and went back to the holo, trying to read the men in it. The one in command was a stocky gray-eyed man with a permanent scowl on his face. He seemed too pissed off at the world to care about anyone in it. The other ones didn’t face him for the duration of the footage they had, except for just once. There must have been a knock on the door or some other sound that surprised them, and two of the men jumped. He memorized their faces. Any of the other four would work.

Loren rushed into the room, surprisingly out of breath, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath enough to speak. Drake handed him some water, and he took a small sip, and spat out, still panting, “Building is live. Definite heat sigs, but everything else going in or out is blocked, the kind of blocked I can’t crack, which usually means top level secret fac, sorry, facility, something nobody is supposed to know about, not even us. It doesn’t make sense that we’d have captured the holo of that room somehow. I counted six distinct ones, but it’s not a hundred percent. It could be seven. He might have been behind something that blocked the signal when I scanned. But it’s at least six live ones.” He sat, still breathing hard, for some reason looking at Riley, and Riley nodding back to him.

Riley was staring directly at him now, and speaking in his calm way, “We can’t barge into a secure facility without a legitimate reason to be there, not without all sorts of alarms going off. We need a reason to be there, and I can’t think of one, except to let them take one of us, and then it’s a rescue op. I’ll go, and then you can all come in to get me back. Your prisoner or whatever trying to escape and ending up on that building. They likely have cameras all over the place, so all I have to do is make it to the roof, and they’ll grab me.”