The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

Was he paralyzed? He couldn’t move anything. Nothing was responding. He tried his toes, his arms, his eyes again—yes! He couldn’t open his eyes, but he was moving his eyeballs, tracking the flickering light. Wasn’t he? Or was that a trick of the light? He couldn’t be sure.

“We need to get some water into him soon,” the young voice said.

“Not yet. I want to know that he can process it. It won’t do him any good if his stomach isn’t ready.”

Was he thirsty? He wasn’t sure of anything right now. But that one seemed clear. He was terribly thirsty. He tried to speak again, but nothing came out. He tried his eyes again.

“I think he just fluttered his eyelids!”

“Wonderful. He can flutter his way out of here like a butterfly.”

Shaw tried again.

“Yes, he definitely fluttered them. He’s awake. Can you hear me, Byron?”

Flutter. It took everything he had.

“Just take your time. Keep trying your eyes and your fingers. And don’t try to talk, try to sing. The rhythm will help you.”

Sing? Really? Shaw decided to put that off. He focused on his hands, trying to make them into a ball. When that didn’t work he aimed to just curl one of his index fingers.

“Good, Byron. I saw it twitch. Can you do the other hand?”

Twitch, that was it? He thought he’d curled it as far as it could go. He tried the other finger.

“Much better. Let’s try singing. Give me a nursery rhyme.”

Shaw tried forming words, but his mouth barely moved.

“Sing it in your head, over and over. Get the rhythm going first.”

He did, over and over, he sang, until he was shocked to hear his own slurred voice, “… what you are.”

“That’s right! Keep it going!”

“Up above the world so high.”

“Yes!”

“Like a diamond in the sky,” Shaw sang, his own voice joined by the young one. “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.”

“This is fucking embarrassing,” the older voice said.

“Give me the alphabet now,” said the younger voice.

Shaw sang the alphabet. It was still slurred, but intelligible.

“Do you know your name?”

“Byron … Shaw,” he answered.

“What do you remember last, before you woke up?”

“The sphere … hotel room … the … shock.”

“That was almost three days ago. In Geneva. You’re back in the U.S. again.”

“Hospital?”

“No. A cemetery. You died. In Geneva. They brought you home to bury you.”

“Died?”

“Yes. But you’re alive again,” the young voice said. “We brought you back.”

“And we killed you too.”

“Shut up, Tranq.”

“He’ll figure it out eventually,” Tranq—the older voice—answered.

“Raiders?” Shaw asked. “You?”

“Yes. We were the raiders who attacked the Lattice.”

“… tried to kill me.”

“No, we tried to save you.”

“… used the … nanoshock on me.”

The older voice cut in. “In case you haven’t noticed, Shaw, the nanoshock didn’t kill you.”

“Well, not permanently,” the young voice finished. He laughed. “From the start, we planned to bring you back.”

“What we didn’t count on was you turning it around on Ono.”

“One small second, and the world would be a very different place, Byron,” the young voice said, almost whispering. “But that doesn’t mean we’re angry at you.”

“Don’t speak for everyone, Erling. I’m still pretty fucking angry,” Tranq said.

“We brought you back, Byron,” Erling said. “We’re giving you a chance to redeem yourself.”

And suddenly, his eyes were open. As if opening them hadn’t been an impossible chore just a few seconds ago.

It was dark. A young man—Erling—who couldn’t be older than eighteen, was wearing a headlamp and looking across the room. On the edge of the beam was the other man, Tranq. Thirty-five? Forty-five? Shaw instantly recognized him as a fellow soldier. He was wearing a t-shirt that was plastered to a sculpted body. Above the t-shirt, where the neck should be, was more muscle. Shaw had never had a neck like that, had never wanted a neck like that.

Beyond the man, the beam illuminated a fragment of a wall. It was dark, reflective, and Shaw suddenly realized—slightly concave. He felt underneath him. The same, wasn’t it? He suddenly understood. The wall was part of—

“A sphere,” Shaw mumbled.

Erling’s headlamp swung around when he heard the voice, and the light blinded Shaw. He pressed his eyes closed against the light.

“Oh, sorry, Byron. There. It’s out of your eyes now. You’re doing great. Get to work on those fingers again.”

Shaw opened his eyes carefully again and looked around.

“Yes, it’s a sphere,” Tranq confirmed.

“Hollow, of course,” Erling said, stating the obvious. “Unlike the one we sent you. We have other uses for the spheres than just communicating. We can create simple shapes with them. Spheres, solid or hollow. Cylinders, solid or hollow. Discs too.”

As he explained, Erling looked around the interior of the sphere, letting his headlamp shine on the edges. Shaw couldn’t see all of it—his neck still wouldn’t move. But he judged the top of the sphere to be about ten feet above his head. He followed Erling’s advice and started working on his fingers.

Erling shook his head. “As Ada Dillon figured out, we only transport the starting molecule. A molecular machine, that’s what Taveena and Wulf call it. Like a catalyst.”

“Let Wulf explain everything to him later,” Tranq said. “We need him up and walking if we’re going to make our window. Otherwise, we’ll have much bigger problems.”

Shaw focused on his neck, and was able to move it, raising his chin and looking behind him. He couldn’t see an exit, or a vent for that matter.

“Air,” he said.

“It’s already too damned hot in here. We have a CO
2
converter, but it won’t last forever. If we miss our exit window, we’re going to have to switch to respirators. And if we miss the one after that … well, Arlington will have another three long-term residents.”

“Two. Shaw was already supposed to be here, remember?” Erling said, smiling.

“Arlington?” Shaw asked. “We’re in the National Cemetery?” He felt like his mouth was slowly coming back under his control.

“You’re a hero,” Erling said.

“Didn’t you know?” Tranq asked dryly.

Erling ignored him. “The top of the sphere is about four feet under your grave.”

“We’re underground?”

Erling nodded.

“Rocket scientist, this one.”

“Give it a rest, Tranq,” Erling said.

“How do we get out?” Shaw asked.

“There’s a pipe on the other side of this thing.” Tranq patted a piece of the sphere next to him. It looked flatter than the rest of the curved sphere. “We plugged it with a disc, just in case your screaming made too much noise.”

“Then what?”

“The pipe leads to the
USS
Maine
memorial. From there it’s all invisibility cloaks.”

“The Lattice can see through cloaks.”

“Of course. If you try to hide something under one, all someone has to do is see where it was beforehand, tag it, and then follow it. But if you never know to look for something in the first place … then they still have their uses.”

“Where will you take me?”

“Up.”

“
Way
up,” Erling added, smiling.

“Ever been in micro-gravity?” Tranq asked.

Something inside Shaw shifted. Not a
thing
, really, since most of his body still couldn’t move. But he felt it. A wave of anger surging up from somewhere inside of him.

“I know I might be lying here helpless right now. But you should know, as soon as I can move, you’d better be prepared for a fight.” Shaw started playing with his fingers faster now. They
felt
like they were moving. But were they really? He hated that he couldn’t be sure. And if his fingers could move, how about his arm? He flexed his bicep, hoping Erling or Tranq wouldn’t notice.

“Two against one, Shaw?” Tranq asked. “I’m being generous counting Erling here as part of my two, but still. You don’t have a chance.”

“If I can force you to miss your escape window, at least I can take you with me. We can all suffocate to death for all I care.”

Erling looked up at Tranq. Shaw couldn’t see Erling’s expression, but Tranq definitely seemed to be considering what he’d said. He rolled his shoulder while neither of them were looking. That
definitely
moved. He felt his body shift under him.

“Then maybe we should just kill you while you still can’t move and be done with it,” Tranq said casually. “It’s not like you have much of a chance of surviving the vote when this is all over anyway.”

Vote?

“This isn’t a boxing ring, Byron,” Erling said. “You don’t have to fight everyone.”

“It’s his nature, Erling. He’s not so different from me, we’re grunts. And grunts don’t know any other way. But there’s one big difference between the two of us.” Tranq knelt next to Shaw, looking down at him with a malevolent smile.

“The big difference is you love this life too much to give it up. Don’t you, Shaw? I listened to your thoughts as you died. You weren’t brave. You were terrified, and you couldn’t believe that your life had been cut so short. You were practically screaming for your mama.”

“I died once already and didn’t expect to come back. I’ve got nothing to lose,” Shaw said, flexing. It was now or never.

As fast as Shaw could manage—and it was terribly slow—he reached up for Tranq’s mammoth neck. It might look like it was all muscle, but if he had enough force, Shaw thought he could crush his windpipe. Tranq saw it coming, but Shaw had surprise on his side. Tranq leaned back, but Shaw was still able to connect.

Too weak.
He’d thrown enough punches to know when one hadn’t connected.

Shaw tried to expand his fist to grab Tranq’s throat, but it was already too late. His neck was too wide to choke with just one hand, and his fingers still weren’t reacting fast enough. Tranq batted away his arm and reached in, his own incredible arm coming to rest on Shaw’s throat.

“Wulf might want you alive, but I wouldn’t mind crushing your voice box right now.”

Tranq’s hand was constricting his throat. Shaw could breathe, but just barely. He felt his pulse beating fast against Tranq’s hand. More than anything, he suddenly felt exhausted—just the energy he’d used to reach out had drained him. He remembered what Erling had said just a few minutes before. He hadn’t had food or water in more than fifty hours.

“You got any more fight left in you?” Tranq asked. “Tell me now.”

Shaw was having a hard time getting his breath under control. He finally shook his head, and Tranq released his neck. Shaw gasped for air, his chest heaving.

“Nothing to lose, huh?” Tranq spat. He stood up and went to the far side of the sphere, although it was only a few feet away. “You’re full of shit, Shaw. How about that wife of yours? Don’t you want to see her again? And what about that new daughter she’s carrying around? That’s who you were thinking about as you died. You might have some fight in you. But fight too much and you’ll never see them again.”

Shaw’s breath was coming back to normal. He took a few more deep breaths, his mind reeling. “We’re having … a girl?”

Erling smiled. “Is that what you wanted?”

Shaw hadn’t had a chance to think about it, but he realized it was. He nodded. There definitely was something he had to lose.

“Of course it’s what he wanted,” Tranq said. “No one wants to raise a grunt anymore.”

“Water?” Shaw asked.

Erling didn’t waste any time. He put a water bottle to Shaw’s lips. “Just take a few small sips. Not too much yet.”

Shaw drank as greedily from the water bottle as Erling would let him. Over several minutes, he started to feel a little life come back to him.

Erling pulled out what looked like another water bottle, but when he held it up, he said, “Let’s try the protein pack. You’re going to need your strength soon.”

Shaw sipped on the straw cautiously, and eventually he tasted some sort of soy and strawberry sludge.

“How long?” Erling asked over his shoulder.

“Less than two hours now. He might be able to throw a punch, but we need a lot more from him than that, and for longer. This next part won’t be easy.”

Shaw was crammed in a narrow pipe, crawling up its gentle slope. He wasn’t naturally claustrophobic, but he had only a few feet to play with, and he could feel his heart racing. In front of him, his headlamp illuminated only Tranq’s ass and the soles of his boots. Somewhere just behind him was Erling.

It was just them … and the pipe.

Every part of his body seemed to take a half-second longer to respond than he expected. The first time his elbow gave out, Shaw bit his tongue. He spat blood. The next few times he fell forward he was able to twist to the side and his shoulders took the brunt of it.

The crawling was tiring work. Short movements, repeated. Interrupted by falls, tense as he waited for Tranq to move forward so he could keep going. His whole body was wet from sweat. It seemed as if he hadn’t worked this hard since basic training. But then again, he hadn’t been dead for more than fifty hours before. He didn’t know how long it would take to recover.

And as bad as this crawling business was, there was at least one comfort to be had: He didn’t have to try to stand.

The first time Tranq and Erling held him up between their shoulders and tried to let him stand on his own two feet, he had collapsed. His knees buckled, his arms swung wildly, and he fell into Tranq’s chest and started sliding toward the ground before they caught him.

“It’s the sphere,” Shaw said as they got their arms under his shoulders. “I can’t stand on an uneven surface.”

“Don’t make excuses. It’s your nervous system. It’s not fully functioning yet. Your brain isn’t talking to your legs,” Tranq said. “Again.”

Shaw tried to stand on his own, and held it for a few seconds before the world started spinning and he lost his balance.

“Again.”

And again he fell. It wasn’t just the fall. It was the humiliation in front of Tranq, the inability to do the most basic thing: standing still. He was helpless, and he hated it.