The Almost Girl – ebook edition (11 page)

Before I can move, the Vector’s spike swings toward my head, and I dive forward, my swords cleaving into its calves before rolling to its left. It barely deters the creature, and I fend off another attack, sparks flying as our weapons meet in midair. The vibration echoes painfully down my arm, and I can see a detached metal spike protruding from the flesh of my upper arm. My shirt is sticky with blood. I don’t want to bleed to death by trying to pull it out, so I grit my teeth and leave it, hefting my other arm high while protecting my body with my injured arm.

Scanning the room, I notice that the bed frame is blocking the bathroom door and the nearby window is locked, which means precious extra seconds lost trying to unlock it. The Vector’s bulk shields the bedroom door. The window is the only choice I’ve got, and if worse comes to worse, I can go through it headfirst and hope for the best. Either way, it seems that I’m facing the possibility of broken bones. I need to distract the creature to buy some time.

I lower myself into a crouch and sweep my leg out, but the Vector moves out of the way, fast for something of such size. I switch to words, hoping beyond hope that making it think will help slow it down.

“You know how I know you’re lying? About the king?” It watches me like a bird toying with a worm half-submerged in the dirt. “Because people, important people, know about Caden. Cale’s alive; otherwise, Murek would just forget about Caden and rule Neospes as he’s always wanted.”

I pause again, snaking my uninjured arm out to catch it across his left flank. Blue liquid seeps through its clothing and drips to the floor. Now we’re even.

“Did he teach you to lie?” I continue my one-sided conversation, gaining confidence with each breath. “My father? He’s very good at lying. After all, he convinced me to lead your kind. But he had a hidden agenda, didn’t he?”

I spin and jab at my opponent’s body, but it anticipates my movements this time and dodges, only to return a blow that stuns me senseless. Something wet and warm plasters my hair to my scalp, but I can barely feel it beneath the hot welt flowering against the side of my face. I spit a mouthful of blood to the floor and lean against the wall. My vision begins to blur as the Vector morphs into three separate beings, each wavering like smoke.

“That all you got?” I grit out, holding my sword across my body and praying that my shaking legs don’t give out. The Vector pauses with another grin, as if sensing impending victory. My only comforting thought is that Shae and Caden are safe. She’ll get what she wanted – Caden will never return to Neospes.

And I would have failed… in my promise to Cale. But if the Vector is right, then it won’t matter either way. I stare into its dead blue eyes, and smile. “We will never let you take him.”

“You have no choice, General,” the thing says finally, removing the pocket device from his vest. “The boy will go back, and so will you, dead or alive. Your father wants you alive, of course. But Lord Murek has no preference. Regardless, you cannot stop me.”

“But I can,” a voice says, just as the sound of a cannon tears through the room. The Vector pitches forward as gunfire rips through its bulk, June’s hollow-points doing what they’re designed to do. It’s a volley of bullets as Caden holds June’s semiautomatic gun with shaky calm.

“Aim for the head, Caden,” I try to shout, but my voice is barely a whisper as I feel myself sliding downward against the wall. “It’ll only regenerate anywhere else.”

But my words are lost beneath the sound of the exploding shells as the acrid smell of gunpowder fills my nose. I can feel my cells desperately trying to re-engage, when the incongruity of the situation hits me. Caden’s the one protecting me. I want to laugh, but only a choked gurgle takes shape in my mouth as Caden empties round after round into the monster.

After what seems like an eternity, Caden flings the spent gun to the floor and brandishes the sword I’d handed him earlier. My eyes are on fire, but I have to see if one of the bullets has miraculously hit the Vector in the head or in the spine. It’s the only way to stop them. But instead, I watch in horrified slow motion as the Vector pushes off the wall, provoked to the point of rage, and hurls its bullet-ridden body toward Caden.

“Caden, run!” It’s all I can manage as black stars cloud my vision, unconsciousness threatening to sweep me away. But Caden ignores my warning, darting to the left and sliding to his knees, before reaching upward and back to pierce the sword’s tip into the Vector’s exposed back. The thing stumbles forward toward me, gurgling, as the sword lodges in its spine. Game over.

For a second, our eyes meet, and before I can even blink, the air in the room shimmers for a second, and without warning, the Vector disappears. The only memory of it is the red-hot end of Caden’s sword, neatly lasered to half its size, and a blackened patch on the carpet. I’d forgotten about the eversion device.

The monster is gone. For now.

But it knows where we are, and it’s only a matter of time before it comes back with more. It’s my last thought before I slip into an unwelcome oblivion.

 

TRUTH BE TOLD

 

My vision is swimming when I awake. The room is dark, lit only by a single flickering candle. It hurts to focus, and I am confused because Cale and Caden are both in the room, staring at me with wide frightened eyes.

“You OK?” they ask me simultaneously. I lift my hand toward their faces.

“How is this possible?” I rasp. “Where… am I?”

“You’re safe, Riven,” they both say. “Drink this.”

A cold rim touches my lips and I sip the liquid gratefully. My throat feels like it is on fire when the liquid touches it, but I feel better and less woozy as it goes down. A small silver flask dances at the edge of my vision. “What is that?”

“Shae said to give it to you.”

“Shae’s here, too?” My head is ringing, and the feeling that something isn’t quite right slips around inside of it. “Cale?”

“No. Riven, it’s me. It’s Caden. Here, drink some more.”

I sip obediently, the liquid tearing a path again into my insides. It’s bitter but warming. I sit up, pushing my elbows back against the pillows. Surprisingly, it takes very little effort to move, despite the pain in my head that would suggest otherwise. The room starts to take shape, and as I grow more and more awake, I realize that nothing else hurts.

“Where am I?” I ask again after a couple minutes. “What happened?”

“Don’t you remember?” Caden says. “Those things that attacked us?”

And then it’s like a tidal wave as the events from earlier come rushing back. My fingers curl into the scratchy blankets on the sides of my legs.

“How long have I been out?”

“Only a couple hours.”

“Where are we?”

Caden comes closer, and the metal cot dips as he sits next to me. “We’re in the basement. It used to be a tornado shelter back in the early fifties. It’s why Shae picked this house out of all the others. She’s a bit of a Miss Doomsday, but I guess she was right.” He nods over to the far side of the room that’s still shrouded in darkness. “She’s pretty hurt, but I gave her some stuff that June uses for head injuries. It’s a mild sedative too, so she’s sleeping now. She didn’t want to call 911.”

No, Shae wouldn’t; too many questions. I hobble over to where she’s lying on a cot similar to mine and stare at her bloodied face. Caden has cleaned off some of the blood, but her injuries are starting to blacken and swell. She looks far worse for wear than I. My fingers drift to her neck, and I can feel a faint but steady pulse. Her breathing is shallow and wheezy. Caden has cut off the legs of her pants to bandage some of her wounds, but his efforts are amateur at best. It won’t be long before her cuts become infected. And the migraines… Those are the beginning of the end. The injector in my bag would help, but unless she gets real help from our doctors, it would only provide temporary relief at best.

“She doesn’t look so good,” I say.

“I used what we had.” Caden’s voice is apologetic. “Riven, we need to get her to a hospital.”

“No.” I shake my head emphatically. “No hospitals; too many questions that we can’t afford to answer. They wouldn’t be able to help her, anyway. I need to get my backpack. Does June have a medical kit upstairs?”

“Yes, but I don’t even know how to use half the stuff June has in there. It’s hospital-grade stuff.”

“Then we’re going to need to figure it out,” I say flatly, resting my hand against Shae’s hot forehead. “And fast.” Infection has already begun to set in. I walk back to my cot, where Caden is still sitting, and squat to retrieve my boots.

“Riven,” Caden asks quietly, “what were those things?”

I stare at him, wondering how after all these years Shae could have singlehandedly protected him from ever coming up against them. I don’t even know what she’s told him, if anything at all. My guess is nothing. She’s tried to protect him the only way she knew how – by keeping him in the dark, letting him have as normal a life as possible here with some kind of chance to be happy. Glancing over my shoulder at her sleeping form, I am unsure of what to say, but Caden is far from stupid, and he certainly isn’t blind. I settle for something near the truth.

“They’re called Vectors, a government experiment. Reanimated corpses.”

“Reanimated? Like zombies?”

I shake my head, a faint smile at his childlike response curling my lips. “Zombies are dead, period. And they aren’t real. Vectors are very real dead bodies, controlled by nanobes. Tiny little microscopic robots that operate inside the hosts.”

“Microscopic
robots
?” His expression is skeptical. “You’re kidding, right?” I shoot him a look and raise an eyebrow. “Is that even possible?” he asks.

A dozen mocking responses slip to my lips, but I stifle them. I lace up my left boot and start on my right. “Not everything’s impossible. Remember the blue fluid?” Caden nods. “That’s nanoplasm… the robots.”

“I don’t get it; why dead bodies?”

“Easier to control than live ones, I expect,” I say bluntly, and grab my weapons, walking over to the steel door. “How do you open this thing?”

Caden grabs my arm. “Where are you going? Those things, the Vectors could be up there. What do they want, anyway?”

I try to keep the fear slinking around deep inside my belly out of my eyes.

They want you
.

“I need to check the bodies to see if there’s anything we can use. And Shae needs something I have in my backpack. I’ll be back; just sit tight.” I watch as he unbolts the heavy door. “Lock it behind me. When I come back, ask me who our physics teacher is, OK?”

“OK,” he says, squeezing his fingers, his hand still on my shoulder. “Be safe, Riven.”

I climb the basement stairs carefully, hearing the heavy steel bolts fall into place behind me. The entire entrance has been reinforced with some kind of thick metal, and I trail my fingers across the shiny, cool surface. Shae has definitely made sure to be prepared for something. The door at the top leads into the kitchen. It’s a narrow trapdoor-like entrance that I’d never noticed before, not any of the previous times I’d been in their kitchen. It, too, is heavily reinforced, with special seals and gaskets. There are no visible handles for re-entry, so I stick a nearby cookbook in the gap. I have no idea if it will hold or not, but it’s the best I can come up with.

It’s quiet, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, so I’m cautious when I make my way back upstairs. The room is a shambles, furniture tossed and broken, blood and blue fluid spattered everywhere, with three dead creatures in various stages of decay gracing the floor. The smell is putrid, like a wall of rotting human compost curling against me, and I feel the answering bile rise in my throat. That’s the thing with Vectors – when the nanoplasm dies, the bodies decompose rapidly. My father had once said that it was a disgusting but necessary element of control. As a society, we’d learned that the hard way.

Trying not to breathe and careful not to touch any of the fluid, I methodically check each of the Vectors for weapons and anything else of use. I pocket an electro-gun, some rods, a couple metal golf balls that I’m sure are some kind of high-tech explosive devices, as well as any wireless communications headgear I can find. I’m onto the third in less than five minutes when I hear a faint sound. My weapons are at the ready before I’m even in a standing position. I tiptoe to the bedroom door, ears straining, but everything is quiet. I must have imagined the sound.

The low whine behind me catches me off guard and I swing around to an empty room until I realize that the sound is coming from the third Vector. It’s not dead! I pull what’s left of its head to face me, wincing at the stench of its wounds. If it’s not dead, it will be soon.

“Soldier,” I say urgently. “Can you hear me?” No response. I tug on its jacket and its head lolls forward. “Answer me. That’s a direct order.”

Its uninjured eye cracks open and the entire pupil is covered in pale bluish ooze. I doubt it can even see me, but somehow it’s registering my voice.

“Who sent you?”

The Vector’s eyes roll back in its head. “Is Cale dead?” There’s nothing, and I rephrase, desperate now. “Is the
Lord King
dead?”

The Vector’s head moves slightly from left to right. It’s a no! My relief is tangible, and I sink back onto my haunches. It’s more than I could have hoped for. “What does my father want?”

A single outstretched finger points to me. The Vector’s eye rolls back into its head, and its mouth opens and closes haphazardly, as if choking. The hand thumps to the floor. Within seconds, its head lolls to the side, and the pungent smell intensifies as its internal organs degrade and liquefy. Swallowing past the sourness in my mouth, I release the jacket and finish my search of its body, pocketing a pair of infrared glasses and a silver pearl-like earpiece communications device.