The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (41 page)

In Shaw’s peripheral vision, and now that he was closer, he saw that Yang was backed up by only three other armed men, not the twenty he’d claimed. Yang’s laser was pressed against Shaw’s back—he hadn’t holstered it before their hug and it was still in his right hand.

Shaw waited a few more seconds longer, until it felt natural to pat Yang’s back gently, the embrace over. He released his hold slightly and felt Yang step backwards. The laser slid up Shaw’s back toward his shoulder as they parted. Shaw let Yang continue to move back, waiting for the laser to slide around to his arm.

When he felt it on his bicep, he straightened, and squeezed Yang’s other arm, stopping them both.

“It’s good to see you again, Tim.”

“You too, sir.”

Shaw pulled him in for a hug again, but this time Yang’s hand and the laser it held were not behind him, but inside his bear hug.

“And I’m sorry,” Shaw whispered.

He didn’t give Yang time to react. Shaw’s hand was already coming up to the laser in Yang’s hand while he simultaneously kneed Yang in the crotch.

Yang folded in the middle, his breath going out of him, his eyes on Shaw, open wide with disbelief, betrayal. Shaw did everything he could to ignore it, focusing on wrestling the gun out of Yang’s clasp.

From over his shoulder, he saw a burst of red lasers in the air coming from the prone figures on the ground. Return fire came back from Yang’s men—aimed at the edges of the tunnel right now, and away from Shaw and Yang. There was little cover, but the dimness made it hard for anyone to find a target.

Shaw had just grappled the laser out of Yang’s hands when Yang seemed to snap out of his surprise. Yang landed a fierce kick to Shaw’s instep, followed by what could only have been a martial-arts trained jab to his solar plexus.

Shaw had taken many punches in the ring, and knew how to let the momentum of the jab carry him backward into a balanced stance.

His feet were firmly under him—even if his right one was throbbing with pain—but Yang was already on him again with another kick, aimed at the laser in Shaw’s left hand.

Shaw moved faster, bringing the laser above the plane of his kick and trying to push Yang’s sweeping foot past him and knock him off balance. It worked, and Yang’s weight was carrying him past Shaw. Yang adjusted in mid-air, swiping at the laser with his hand and knocking it loose from Shaw’s grasp.

Shaw bobbled the laser, fingers feeling like they were just millimeters from where they needed to be, but it wasn’t enough. A body brushed by him—Annalise, running at one of the guards—and the bump was enough to throw the laser out of his reach.

He let it clatter to the ground, turning his attention toward Yang, who was now beside him. Shaw swiveled and punched—with the laser now on the ground his mind and body could forget trying to use the weapon, and Shaw was back in the ring.

Yang blocked it with his arm, his other fist simultaneously coming in under Shaw’s frame, landing a partial blow on Shaw’s stomach.

Shaw exhaled, focusing on controlling his breathing and regaining his stance, but Yang was no novice. He kept advancing, his next punch striking hard against Shaw’s ear. Shaw staggered back, his hands up over his face for protection against Yang’s next attempt.

With a cry of fear and adrenaline, Erling leapt onto Yang’s back and wrapped his elbow’s around Yang’s neck. Yang hadn’t been prepared for it, and he struggled for several seconds against his new assailant.

Shaw looked quickly for help, but Annalise and Taveena were together fighting a guard and even Wulf had pinned another man to the ground. Where was the third—? Shaw had pegged three out of his peripheral vision. Had he missed one?

Shaw saw Erling suddenly flailing into the air. He turned his attention back. Yang had crouched and leaned forward, pulling Erling off of his feet. Erling might still have his arms around Yang’s neck, but without his feet on the ground, he was at Yang’s mercy. Yang twisted his body and then whipped around, Erling flying off of him and away from Shaw like a slingshot.

Shaw saw his chance and rushed Yang, aiming his shoulder at his stomach and tackling him like an old school football player. He pushed him up against the wall, trying to keep Yang’s limbs pinned. Shaw almost had Yang contained when he felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him off. Shaw knew instantly who it must be—the third guard.

Ripped backward from Yang, Shaw struggled against the guard’s grip. His feet finally out from under him, Shaw’s heels were dragging on the floor. The guard changed his grip and threw him onto the ground.

Yang was standing by Shaw’s legs, towering over him, and Shaw felt that same sense of déjà vu—the false face of Yang standing over him on the morning of the raid, his true face in the hotel room in Geneva. The first time it was curiosity in the eyes of Ono, then loss and grief in Yang’s eyes the second time. Now it was malice.

“You let them warp you,” Yang spat. “They’re selling myths and fantasies and you just lapped it up, didn’t you?” As he finished, Yang stomped.

Hard.

He brought everything he had down onto Shaw’s knee, which sounded like it both popped and shattered. To Shaw, it felt like it had exploded under Yang’s boot. Like his knee was backwards, his bones in pieces, his ligaments snipped. He screamed out, his cry filling the tunnel.

Shaw’s eyes were clenched, his teeth grinding. There was nothing but the pain. He felt his mind wobble, close to passing out. He pushed back against the feeling. It’s just your knee, Byron, it’s nothing like the nanoshock. And it wasn’t. Putting it in comparison, he was able to cope with it, and then contain it.

He opened his eyes, fighting to see through the watery film over them. The battle had continued. Erling was fighting Yang—Erling once again had him in a stranglehold, the only fighting move he seemed to know. Yang’s face was squeezed red, his eyes bulging.

Shaw searched for the third guard who had been above him, but he had gone somewhere else. He rolled onto his side and looked down the tunnel. At least one body was on the ground—the guard Taveena and Annalise had taken on jointly, he thought.

Annalise was on the ground, too—she wasn’t moving.

The remaining two guards were propping up Wulf, using his wounded body as a shield against Taveena’s laser. She was stalking them slowly down the tunnel.

One of them put a laser to Wulf’s head. “Tell that kid to release Captain Yang now!” he shouted.

Taveena didn’t even glance behind her. “Don’t listen to them, Erling! If they shoot Wulf they’ll have nothing to hide behind.”

Yang was trying to maneuver Erling off of his feet, but Erling had learned his lesson the first time. He kept his center of gravity low, and didn’t let the elbows Yang was jabbing into his stomach cause him to release his grip. He was winning, but only just.

“Can you move, Shaw?” Taveena called over her shoulder.

Shaw was already experimenting with that himself. He was up on his palms and one leg, and gingerly set down his right leg. The nerves from his knee exploded, and he swayed under the pain.

He pushed it back again, and was able to get up on one leg.

“I’m up,” he coughed, and then called it again, louder so she would hear.

“There’s more of them coming. You know what to do.”

Shaw saw the pouch he’d been carrying had slipped off during his fight with Yang. He hopped twice and, using a hand to steady himself, he bent down to pick it up. He pulled the small metal explosive out of the pouch and held it. It had survived without a scratch. All it needed now was for somebody to arm it and carry it into the cold vault surrounding the Lattice.

Shaw looked up at the airlock door, and into the impossible cold beyond it. He began making his way there, as fast he could.

His mind flashed to a world without the Lattice. Ellie and a young girl in Tower Grove Park. No helmets, their hair free in the autumn breeze. No rings on their fingers connecting them to the Lattice.

Shaw spun the wheel of the airlock.

No rings of any kind. Ellie’s left ring finger was unencumbered by her thin wedding band or her engagement ring.

He threw open the door, and looked at the small room in front of him. This would be the last room he ever saw.

“Do it, Shaw!” Taveena called. “What are you waiting for?”

He stepped inside. There was a wheel ahead of him. All he had to do was close the door, arm the explosive, and open the second door. And then it would all be over.

In his mind, the young girl skipped forward ahead of her mother along the path.

Looking for her father.

Thinking of that young girl, Shaw’s balance gave out, and he fell against the wall.

Was it his balance? Or was he acknowledging that this was as far as he was willing to go.

Erling was suddenly at his side. “C’mon, Byron. Stand up.”

“Is Yang alive?” asked Shaw, as Erling pulled him back onto his single good foot.

“He’s alive. I think I just knocked him out.”

“Thank you. Thank you for not killing him,” Shaw whispered.

“We agreed. No bloodshed if we could help it.”

Shaw nodded. “Are you all right, Erling?”

Erling gave him a lopsided grin. “About as well as can be expected.”

Shaw smiled back.

“There’s just one last thing I have to do.”

“What’s that?” Shaw asked, but by the time he’d finished asking he knew. Erling grabbed the sulfuric acid explosive out of Shaw’s hand and pushed Shaw out of the airlock.

“Erling, no!” Shaw shouted, reaching for the body that had just been next to him, and only encountering empty air.

Shaw was slumping over, his voice a howl of pain as his leg hit the ground. “You can’t do this, Erling! It’s not worth your life!”

“It’s the only thing worth my life, Byron. After what I did to Jpeg? I can’t do that and not be willing to do this.”

Shaw was struggling to get himself righted. “You’ve got your whole future ahead of you!”

“It’s not a future I want if the Lattice still exists.” Erling was pulling the door closed fast behind him. Shaw got himself onto his good knee, but he knew he couldn’t make it in time.

“Please don’t, Erling!”

Erling stopped the door from closing. “This is my decision, Byron. You get to see your family again, and I get to save the world. That’s not such a bad way to go out, is it?”

From his one good foot, Shaw leapt forward, hoping to get his hand inside the door, but he fell short. Above him, a red laser cut through the air, hitting just to the right of the open door. One of the guards holding Wulf? Shaw didn’t have time to wonder. He heard a slow hiss from where the laser had hit. He suddenly felt a coolness on his face. It must have been a microscopic puncture, but it was enough.

So much for not firing at the containment wall.

Another red laser, this time on the door, just a few inches from Erling’s head.

“Erling!”

“Good luck, Byron.”

And with that the door was closed.

Shaw made it to the wheel, but Erling was spinning it tight from the other side. With only one leg to balance on, Shaw got little traction, and the wheel barely budged.

He looked through the narrow window in the door. Erling’s neck was bent forward, and he was looking at the explosive in his hands. He was arming it. A short timer, most likely. Enough that it would still go off, even when the cold hit him.

Shaw banged on the window, shouting Erling’s name. Erling looked up and gave a friendly wave. He mouthed the word “Go” and turned his back on Shaw to face the second airlock door.

Erling’s shoulders went up and down in a sigh, and he stepped forward.

Shaw staggered back, unable to watch any more.

Shaw owed him so much, and when it was his turn to act, to take one for the team, he had flinched. And let this
boy
do the work for him. How could he look Ellie in the face now, or hold his new daughter, knowing that he had let someone walk to his death for him?

He hadn’t meant for it to be like this. It was supposed to be clinical—with drones and spheres doing the hard work, he and the rest of the team safe in the command room of the
Walden
.

He had grown comfortable giving orders, surrounded by screens and not enemies. It was where he was accustomed to be while defending the Lattice, and it was where he expected to be while destroying it. Not like this, in the bowels of the tunnels. Bodies on the floor.

The Lattice had been disabled for less than thirty minutes, and look what had happened. Who else was taking advantage of the blind eye? Who else thought they could get away with something while the world wasn’t looking?

There was a muffled burst of sound, as quiet and insignificant as a balloon popping in the other room. He clenched his eyes closed.

A tiny pop for such an immense moment.

Erling was gone.

And the Lattice—both of them now—had been destroyed.

“Byron!”

Shaw looked up, and Annalise was hurrying toward him. Her shoulder was wrapped in some piece of fabric, and her shirt was dark with blood.

“He’s in there, Annalise. Erling sacrificed himself. Because I was too much of a coward to do it myself.”

Tears were in her eyes. “He died a hero, Byron.”

“He shouldn’t have died at all.”

“He died for what he believed, Byron. You didn’t believe, and no one can willingly die for something they don’t believe in. You can’t hold onto that guilt.”

“He’s just a boy.”

“He’s a young man. And if it was me in there, you’d say it shouldn’t be a woman. But we were all prepared if we needed to be.”

“I’m sorry if I let you down, Annalise.”

“You got us far enough.”

“Annalise—”

“Can we do this later, Byron? We need your help. I’d like to get out of here before it gets any colder.”

Shaw suddenly realized that the chill had definitely worsened. He hadn’t noticed, but he saw Annalise’s breath as she spoke.

“Where’s Taveena and Wulf?”

“They have Wulf—pulled him down the tunnel. Taveena wasn’t willing to fire and risk hitting him since he’s already injured. She’s looking for another exit right now.”