The Lethal Agent (The Extraction Files Book 2) (4 page)

CPI-700, NEW YORK

SEPTEMBER 2, 2232

Arrenstein commed her three times in a row, but she was busy. She didn’t want to answer or hear him gripe about hanging up on him last night. She and Theo had been up all night at work analyzing the bug dust, and they were finally getting some meaningful results.

“There’s a large quantity of iron with smaller amounts of manganese, lithium, and calcium. What the hell is this thing?” Theo asked no one in particular as the display filled with the bug’s metal composition test results.

Then an ecomm arrived, blocking the entire bottom half of the display. From Arrenstein, it had no text, just an image. Mable had to tap on it to see it.

A woman, early twenties maybe, lay on a bed with white sheets. The entire right half of her face was little more than a lumpy purple contusion, like she’d been struck dozens of times or involved in some sort of pod accident. Her left arm was bent at the wrong angle and wrapped with thick white fabric. Probably broken.

Mable couldn’t decide why he would send her such a thing. Then she saw the hair. The long blonde hair, perfectly platinum.

Hadley.

Mable gasped in shock. Tears shot into her eyes and blurred the image. She didn’t want to see it. She couldn’t look away.

Her Hadley.

What happened? How did she get hurt?

Mable realized the horrible truth of it in an instant. Someone had hurt Hadley to get to Mable. It impaled her like a spear through the chest.

She should never have left.

How long? She’d only been back at CPI a few days. When had it happened? Where was she?

Arrenstein knew. He had the picture.

“What the—?” Theo started before he realized who it was. “Shit. Come on.”

Theo’s hands wrapped around her shoulders pulled her from the chair. Once moving, her reflexes took over. She ran to the door and managed to get it open, though not gracefully. Waiting for the elevator was excruciating and torturous, but at last, the doors opened on the first floor.

The two ran, no-holds-barred, as fast as their feet would carry them to the pod garage. Arrenstein was already there. “If I’d known you wouldn’t answer—”

“Where is she?” Mable climbed into the front seat of the pod, one of the larger four-seat models.

He was going with them.

She didn’t have time to argue. She didn’t have time to be mad at him. That would be for later.

“Chicago Memorial.” Silas slid the travel badge beneath the pod’s nav scanner and put them into motion. Then, he handed both Theo and Mable the travel badge they would need for the shuttle.

“What happened?” Mable asked, though the answer was plain. Someone wanted Mable to kill them.

“I don’t know anything yet. I got a call that she was demanding to see me. They had to sedate her. I’m sorry, Maggie. I commed you as soon as I knew.”

Mable couldn’t hear him. Her pulse pounded in her ears so loud she couldn’t hear anything. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against her knees. She didn’t sit up until the pod stopped at the shuttle terminal.

The shuttle pushed into the air and carried them toward Chicago. Less than an hour of air time. It felt like an eternity.

Mable hated to feel this way, to feel like someone else had control over her, over the way she felt, even if they didn’t mean to. She worked hard to keep people at arm’s length, yet time and time again she failed. She’d pushed away Nolan first, with good reason, then Greg, and Rowen after that.

But how could she push away Hadley? Even Mable was powerless against her charm, her goodness.

And now she was suffering, alone. Mable couldn’t stand it. She wanted to punch someone, to kill them, to end any idea that Hadley would ever be treated that way again.

Another pod carried the silent trio from ground transport to the main entrance of Chicago Memorial Hospital. She waited nervously as Arrenstein found Hadley’s room and led them to the elevator.

Then, at last, there she was. Now she was awake, though otherwise she looked identical to the picture. Through the small viewing window on the door, Mable could see her free hand toying with the edge of the hospital blanket.

“Wallace family?” called a voice down the hall.

Mable choked back her tears and nodded. “I’m her sister.”

“She’s had quite an episode. Sorry, I’m Dr. Mason. She’s got considerable facial contusions, a broken radius and ulna on the right side. Three broken ribs, a spleen so badly bruised we thought it might have ruptured. There’s a hairline fracture in her skull but at this point it doesn’t warrant surgery. She’s lucky.”

Mable couldn’t hear any more of the long laundry list of ways Hadley had been brutalized in her absence. If Mable learned she’d been violated, she wasn’t sure she could handle it.

She pushed open the door and ran to her.

It was all she could do to throw her arms around Hadley and squeeze her as hard as she dared.

“Mable?” she heard Hadley gasp between violent sobs. Her free hand grasped at Mable’s arm and shoulder, like making sure she was real.

Mable refused to cry. She batted her eyes and looked away from Hadley’s battered features. She couldn’t look.

“I’m sorry, angel. I’m so sorry. I never should have left. This never would have happened.” Her words spilled out before she could pull them back.

Hadley only cried harder, her face pressed against Mable’s shoulder as hard as she dared.

“You know who did it?” Arrenstein asked from where he stood by the door.

Theo said something she didn’t hear, but she didn’t care. She was in no mood to discuss it with them. She came to see Hadley.

“I’m sorry,” Hadley said, her voice little more than a breath.

“No, you have nothing to be sorry for. This is my fault. I should have known. I thought—” As she remembered Rowen’s promise to keep Hadley safe, Mable’s heart broke. She realized now why Hadley was sorry.

“They killed him?” she asked, dreading the answer. The crack in her voice almost betrayed her agony.

Hadley’s renewed sobs were the only answer she needed.

LUNA COLONY

SEPTEMBER 2, 2232

Abraham didn’t like Siya from the moment he saw him. Something about the stranger, the look in his eye, the strange arrival, shook him to his core. It had only been two days, and Abraham already wished he’d never come. The sooner Siya was gone, the sooner things could go back to normal.

Charlene was not a person to be rushed. Abraham had a few things in mind, a few questions he’d like to ask, but he knew to let her have her time to think.

They kept Siya out of sight in Abraham’s room until they could get their instructions. But none had come. It was time to work it out for themselves.

At last, she called Abraham and Siya back to the kitchen. The children were safely tucked in their beds for naps. With crossed arms, she asked, “What makes you think this is Mars?”

Siya rolled his eyes, as if he was tired of the conversation as a whole.

Abraham moved closer and stood behind her. “She asked you a question.”

“Look outside. It’s red. You’re on the
red
planet. The moon is grey. You birds is colorblind.” Siya slammed his open palm against the metal table.

Abraham seethed in anger. He wished he had the tablet. He wanted to search for articles and files related to the Earth’s moon and Mars. So far, he’d found nothing that could determine if Siya was lying.

He had to be.

There was no way they had been on a planet instead of the moon. It wasn’t possible.

“Charlie?” called out a small voice.

They spun to see Ellicot in the corridor, staring at Siya. Abraham had no doubt the sudden outburst was an alarming sight for a child so secure in their home. There were only fourteen people in Luna. He had no reason to expect to see a stranger at the kitchen table.

It was why they chose to keep Siya hidden from the children, at least until they could figure out what to do.

Charlene kept her eyes on Siya as she asked, “Can you take him back, please?”

But Abraham didn’t want to leave her alone with Siya, if that was his real name.

They didn’t know anything about him. He could be dangerous.

“Go on back to bed, Ellicot. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

Charlene grumbled but didn’t say anything. Abraham knew she was displeased, but he refused to leave her with the stranger.

“You have anything to eat?” Siya asked.

“Yeah, we—” Charlene started.

“No,” Abraham insisted. “I gave you enough. You don’t get anything else until lunch. We don’t know you. We don’t have any reason to trust you. There’s no way for us to know if you are who you say you are.”

Siya dissolved into a string of complaints in a language Abraham didn’t recognize. He pulled at the Velcro around his neck and pulled the zipper from his chin down to his waist. When he pulled back the chest of his suit, it revealed the letters MMCSA across the image of a red planet. Around the rim, white letters on royal-blue stitching read,
Martian Mining Corporation South Africa.

Charlene gasped. Her face collapsed into her hands. Abraham wanted to scoop her up, to take her away from this stranger.

She pushed from her chair so fast he thought Siya had scared her somehow, but he sat in his chair with a satisfied smile.

He thought the whole situation was funny.

Charlene grabbed a container of berries from cold storage and set it on the table.

To Abraham’s horror, Siya tilted the container and drained it into his mouth. He gobbled up all the berries in a single mouthful.

Those berries were supposed to be for Charlene and the children.

Abraham doubted Siya even tasted them. So much work wasted.

“Can I talk to you?” Abraham asked her, ignoring the stranger for a moment.

Charlene nodded and stepped down the corridor. Abraham followed her until they were far enough away to have a private conversation. With a straight line of sight, they could see him the entire time.

“What do you think? Is it even possible?” he asked in a whisper.

Charlene crossed her arms and clutched them tight. She kept her eyes on the floor. Abraham knew her thoughts raced. If he’d learned nothing else over the last few months, he knew Charlene.

“I don’t know. I asked them about the red soil when we first got here. They said it was just an isolated area. That they picked this part of the moon because it the geology was ideal. I mean, what do I know about it?” Her jaw clenched tight. “Dammit, I knew better than to listen to that guy!”

“What guy?”

“Uh, Parker or something. The guy that set up the colony.”

“Do you know how to contact him directly?” They hadn’t been able to reach anyone else.

“We can only do emergency transmissions once a year, to swap someone out if they’re not suited, like we did with Gregor. That’s not for months, though.”

Abraham sighed. What kind of emergency could be addressed months after the fact? Why were they so damn isolated that they couldn’t even call for help?

“What can we do with him? Can we send him back?” Abraham’s heart thumped in his chest.

“We could send him back out the airlock, but I mean, where would he go? If he could walk back to his crew, he would have already, wouldn’t he?”

“He’s not our responsibility," Abraham realized then that he didn’t care about Siya’s life. He was prepared to sentence the stranger to the surface of the planet with no resources and no chance of survival.

Given the choice between Siya’s life or the safety of Charlene and the kids, he knew the choice he would make. At the same time, he knew that it was wrong, that he was a heartless bastard, a murderer.

Abraham didn’t care.

Maybe that’s how he got here.

“We can’t just let him die. I don’t think we really have a choice here. I think he has to stay until we rendezvous with Earth.” Her jaw was set. Her mind was made up.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Abraham could never live with himself if he didn’t protest the decision. He understood—he knew her gentle heart would never condemn a life, but he had to protest.

Charlene chewed on her lip. “I know, but there’s nothing else we can do. We’re just going to have to work it out in the meantime.”

Abraham sighed and hoped she was right.