Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) (29 page)

Derek pulled two light rods from his weapons belt and tossed him one, “ You never come prepared for anything, do you?”

“Don’t have to,” 301 replied, switching on the light rod and casting its eerie white glow down into the tunnel below. “Not when I have a partner who is prepared for
everything
. Face it, Derek: you’re an overachiever.”

Derek shrugged, “When everyone around you just watches continually for your next mistake, you learn quickly to never fail. That’s what it means to be a Blaine.” He spoke the last statement with a mixture of pride and regret, taking 301 back to their conversation about his mother. Knowing about the Blaines’ darkest secret helped him understand his partner better, but it was proof that Derek would never understand the doubts creeping into his mind about the World System. “Let’s get this over with. I don’t want to spend a moment longer than necessary in this tomb.”

301 nodded and descended the ladder into the underground, the shifting light of the rod in his hand unveiling an Old World marvel by the time his feet met solid stone. The tunnel was wider in the section he descended into, and he saw the remains of a staircase off to the right, sealed off from the surface at some point during the wars. Where he stood looked to have been a platform of sorts, and there was a drop-off to reach the tunnel itself. Darkness spread in both directions, making it impossible to estimate the tunnel’s span. Miles, at least. He looked over the edge of the platform to see metal tracks, rusted to uselessness with age and disuse. But the tunnels themselves were sturdy enough. 301 doubted anything short of a bomb or an earthquake could shake the stone.

He heard Derek’s boots hit the ground and turned to see him examining the sight, no less amazed, “You can say one thing about the people of the Old World: they knew how to build things to make their lives easier. Too bad they didn’t spend a bit more time building a peaceful civilization.” He lifted the light rod over his head to get a look at the high ceiling, “We should split up and cover more ground. If there’s a landline it will be visible someplace close.”

“I’ll take this side,” 301 said. “You take the other.”

They parted ways, and the pools of light made by their rods each seemed weaker without the other. 301 lifted his high above his head, stretching toward the curved stone top of the tunnel where be believed he would have installed the line had it been him in that compound. But there was nothing. Not even a shadow moved across the stone, as it surely would have if a communications cable were present. He turned his attention to the columns, watching for anything unusual on their worn faces. Still nothing. He was beginning to consider the worth of Marcus’s Quantum Comm theory when something at the top of the sealed stairwell caught his eye.

Not a shadow—for it didn’t move with the shifting light—but not a solid object either, something black ran down in a perfect line from the ceiling all the way to the floor beside the stairwell. He moved in close and touched it with his fingers. The tips came away black, and he smelled them.

Ash.

And then he understood. The rebels who made their last stand were not trying to send a message, but to safeguard their comrades by destroying the line to their primary base. The line of ash was too perfect to have ended up there by chance. A small cable had once been attached there, and he suspected the black line would lead him right to the rebellion’s largest force.
Lucky I found it,
he thought.
In this darkness it will be difficult to follow even now that I know it’s there.

A vision of the bodies upstairs, and of Grace among them, again flashed through his mind. If he revealed what he had found, many more would die—and regardless of whether it was his blade that slew them, every single life would be his responsibility. His was the mistake that led to all that death above, though he had to admit he was given little choice in the matter. But this time it was different. This time he could stop it.

“I’ve got nothing!” Derek called from the other side of the platform. “What about you? See anything?”

301 stared straight at the line of ash, knowing full well the cost if he was caught in a lie. Derek had left little to interpretation in that regard. But when he weighed the options in his mind and thought of living in a world without Grace, the choice was simple.

“No!” He called, already returning to the ladder. “Nothing here, either!”

He heard a curse echo through the tunnel, and as Derek came back into sight he shook his head, “I was sure there’d be—” His eyes widened suddenly, visible to 301 even though he was still several feet away, “Captain, behind you!”

But 301 had already detected the movement, a sense of change in the air that came with another’s presence. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dart of shadow and a flash of steel, and he dropped the light rod and came round just in time to meet his attacker, stopping the hand that sought to plunge a knife into his neck. In an instinctual battle rage, he bent his assailant’s elbow and shoved the knife into the rebel’s chest instead.

It all happened in a split second, not long enough for 301 to register the stature of his opponent, the softness of the skin at both wrist and elbow, or the ease with which he made the final stab. By the time he did, it was already too late.

He stared with terror into the bright blue eyes of a girl no older than sixteen, who gazed back with a look of shock and pain. He withdrew the knife from her and threw it away from them, then knelt with her in his arms as she struggled to catch her breath. Her lungs were punctured, and she didn’t have much time.

As he watched her die, helpless to save her and wishing with all his being for the ability to turn back time, he suddenly became aware of someone else beside him. Eli sat to his right, watching the girl with intense sorrow. But then he reached out for her, brushing strands of platinum blonde hair out of her face. 301’s eyes widened as the girl seemed to respond to Eli, who had never before been able to impact the corporeal world.

“I’m sorry,” Eli said desperately. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know...” he paused, on the verge of tears. “What’s your name?”

The girl answered in a rasping whisper, “Kacie. My name is Kacie...Jordan.”

Eli reached forward and touched his finger to her forehead, then ran it softly down the bridge of her nose to the tip. It was a familiar gesture to 301, somehow, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Everything is going to be okay, Kacie,” Eli said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

She smiled briefly, but then her expression turned grave. “Please don’t tell. Please don’t...” She had no breath left to finish her plea, and within a few seconds that bright light in her eyes went out.

23

301
FELT HIMSELF TEETERING
on the edge of panic. During his time as a soldier he had killed many men, and their faces still haunted him years after the fact. But all those men would gladly have killed him had he not done them in first. Never had a woman died by his hand...never a child. The seriousness of what he had done pressed down upon him until he felt he might be crushed by it. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. All he could do was look upon that vacant stare and despair.

Eli reached forward and closed her eyes, then turned his attention to 301, “You will carry her with you for the rest of your life.”

301 realized that Derek stood a few feet away, watching him with a wary eye. “She must have come through the hatch when the attack began, hoping to escape.”

301 nodded slowly, “Yeah...she must have.” But he knew the truth. She hadn’t been trying to escape at all. She had been guarding the evidence of that burned out landline with the intent to kill anyone who found it. She had given her life to protect the rest of Silent Thunder.

No
, he thought with great regret,
I took her life. I stole it from her. I could have disarmed her, captured her, anything but what I did.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Derek said. “She may be a young girl, but she would have killed you.”

Maybe. But maybe that’s what should have happened...maybe I’m the one who deserved to die.

“What was that...thing you did?” Derek asked.

301 looked up at his partner in confusion, “What thing?”

“You touched her forehead,” Derek demonstrated on his own, running his finger down to the tip of his nose. “Then you told her everything was going to be okay.”

Blood pounded in 301’s ears. He looked over to where Eli had been and saw nothing, but when he gazed upon Kacie’s lifeless face he saw something he had not marked before: a thin line of blood ran down from the center of her forehead to the tip of her nose. He raised his hand and saw it was covered in red—the hand that dealt her the final blow. But it hadn’t been him who made that gesture. It wasn’t him who told her everything would be okay. It was Eli, wasn’t it?

“I…” he stammered, taking a breath and wetting his dry throat. “I don’t know. I just thought she needed…comfort.” 301 stood to his feet, finally forcing himself to walk away from her body, “Come on. It’s a dead end down here. Maybe Marcus found something up there we can use.”

Derek continued to watch him suspiciously, but 301 didn’t care. All he wanted to do was get as far away from that girl as he could, wash his hands of her blood, and be done with it.

But every step he took to escape brought him that much more into captivity. Her face loomed before him, the pleading eyes of a girl on the cusp of life extinguished in a cruel final breath.

You will carry her with you for the rest of your life
, Eli had said.

And in that moment, he knew that he would.

-X-

Admiral McCall stepped inside his office and shut the door behind him, sliding the lock into place as he pulled a small communications device from his pocket and placed it in his ear. It was similar in appearance to the standard-issue earphones used by all military personnel in the World System, but it was not the same. Once it was in place, he spoke, “Everything is prepared. I just need—” McCall went silent as he turned to face the interior of his office, where a man emerged from the shadows with a gun pointed straight at his forehead. “I’m going to have to call you back.”

Slowly, he reached up and switched off the device, leaving both hands in the air after he did so.

“Not a sound,” the figure warned, reaching forward to take the admiral’s Gladius, “Are you expecting anyone?”

McCall shook his head.

“Good,” the man said. “Because we’re going to have a conversation, you and I. If at any time you try to signal or cry out for help, I
will
kill you. Do you understand?”

“I do,” McCall answered. “What is it that you want?”

“We’ll get to that,” the intruder motioned to the chair behind the admiral’s desk with his gun. “Please, sit.”

McCall complied and sat down in his chair while the man moved in front of him, his back to the door. “How did you get in here?” McCall asked. “This is one of the most secure buildings in the world, within the palace defense ring, no less.”

“If you think members of Silent Thunder and your precious Specters are the only ones left in the world who possess such skills, you are gravely mistaken,” the man replied. “They are all amateurs next to a man like me.”

“In keeping to the shadows, perhaps,” McCall smiled. “But Specters can defend themselves when they are caught. I wonder if you can do the same?”

“I don’t get caught.” The man’s eyes shifted briefly to the device in the admiral’s ear, “And you should be more careful. Anyone could have been waiting for you in here, and I doubt you want them to see you with that rather fine piece of technology. A Quantum Comm, I believe they are called? Gives you the ability to speak with someone anywhere in the world, so long as they have a similar device, without the need for a satellite signal. Very rare, though, Quantum Comms…and illegal. I would love to know who was on the other end of that conversation.”

“I’m sure you would,” McCall said with a grin. “But something tells me that’s not why you came.”

“What makes you say that? You know nothing about me, and so cannot know anything about my motives.”

“On the contrary,” McCall folded his hands in his lap and sat back calmly. “I know exactly who you are, and why you’re here. But unfortunately I cannot help you.”

The man’s grip on his weapon tightened, “That would be most unwise.”

“Perhaps you should put the weapon away and make your request as a normal person would,” McCall said. “I can understand why you don’t want to go through normal channels, but I don’t find guns to be constructive in an honest conversation. Lower your weapon and let us speak as equals.”

The man hesitated for a moment, but then let his arm fall to his side. He spoke with a sigh, “I am—was—the Discipliner of the Capital Orphanage of Alexandria, and I have a message from a dying woman. By the time I got clearance to deliver it, she would already be dead.”

“Yes,” McCall nodded thoughtfully. “I had heard that the Capital Orphanage was shut down. Word is that Matron Young fell ill, and no one wanted to take her place. I assume she is the dying woman you speak of, but I actually had two former residents of your program. Which one is the message for?”