The Takeover (3 page)

“Well, it was a fruit stand for a while, but people stopped and tried to buy some.” He groaned. “I had to make the fruit appear moldy to get them to leave.”

I bit my lip “So put up a closed sign!”

“Right.”

Trust Oliver to take such pride in his illusions that his fake fruits looked and smelled great enough to make people stop to buy them even in this manufacturing area.

I caught a glimpse of irritation on Ritter’s face before he said to Oliver, “We may need a distraction at the front of the building. Something with a lot of fireworks. Be prepared. And have Stella extend her satellite surveillance to a radius of three streets in case the Emporium decides to join our party. I want to know if there’s anything unusual.”

“Will do,” Oliver said, sounding chastised. He didn’t have a lot of respect for the rest of us, but his admiration of Ritter was almost as irritating as his know-it-all attitude. “The satellite we tasked here did go down for a few minutes. Could have been someone hacking our feed, but it’s back up and running perfectly now, and we’ve detected no unusual activity so far.”

“No other fruit stands?” Dimitri asked, a hint of a smile in his voice.

Oliver took offense at his gentle jibe. “As a matter of fact, there is a defunct one. That’s what gave me the idea. There’s an orchard only two miles from here, so it’s completely logical for a fruit stand to be in this area.”

“I was sure you had a reason, but that’s good to know.” Dimitri had more patience with Oliver than the rest of us. Probably because he considered himself the father of our cell.

Biologically speaking, Dimitri
was
my father, but I’d only known him since my Change just over seven months ago. I’d come to terms with my uncertain beginning, and while I still considered the man who raised me to be my real father, Dimitri and I were closer in many ways.

Shadrach shifted nervously, his eyes going to the door. “So what now?”

Ritter’s eyes narrowed at the healer. “Now we try not to get killed.”

“DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE
other men are located?” Ritter strode to the computer and brought up a map of the facility.

“Yes.” Shadrach hurried over to Ritter, but his movements were regal, and I could easily imagine him in bright ceremonial robes, surrounded by women wearing burkas.

Shadrach showed us all the rooms where the other prisoners should be located. Two were in this corridor, but the third was apparently kept near the common rooms where they ate meals and conversed until the guards forced them back to their solitary quarters. That is, if the doctors’ experiments permitted them to leave their rooms at all.

“We haven’t seen one guy—Bedřich—for three days,” Shadrach said. “Usually, that’s as long as they keep us away.”

Dimitri nodded. “Most casual regenerations can be completed in that time. Are they using a form of curequick?” That was our name for a mixture containing a heavy amount of sugar and proteins reduced to their most usable form. This mixture gave our bodies enough nutrition to speed up recovery by as much as five times. It was also addictive to us.

“Oh, yeah. Someone spilled that little piece of information the first week in Morocco.” Shadrach made a face. “Can’t blame them, though. We thought we were helping ourselves recover. We had no idea the doctors there would use the information to increase the frequency of their experiments. The supervising doctor here is even worse.”

Dimitri stared at the screen, the tightening of his lips the only sign of his disapproval at the treatment. “We could stall until dinner and they’re all in the common room.”

“They have a guard there for each of us and a couple extra in the hall,” Shadrach said. “It’d be a mess.”

Ritter studied the map a few more seconds, committing it to memory. Combat Unbounded could remember plans and layouts and maps better than the average Unbounded. Unless I channeled his ability, I couldn’t begin to approach his accuracy.

Ritter began typing on the keys. “Stella can control the feed from the security cameras, and there’s only the one guard in this corridor, so getting to the first two prisoners without being seen won’t be a problem. Unfortunately, Stella just sent a message saying that the corridors near the commons room have at least a half dozen people wandering around.” He glanced at Dimitri. “You’ll have to get the first two Emporium agents and Shadrach into the ventilation shaft while Erin and I go after the third one.”

As Dimitri nodded, Ritter added, “We’ll try to join you, but we might have to find another way out. I’ll let you know if we need Oliver’s distraction. You may have to coordinate that.”

“He’ll be ready.” Dimitri sounded sure.

“Hey, guys, I’m still here,” came Oliver’s voice through the earbuds. “I can hear you. Of course I’ll be ready.” Everyone ignored him.

“Let’s go.” Ritter tapped a few more keys. “Once they come in here and someone presses a key on this computer, we’ll have only two minutes before it self-destructs. Then we’ll be live to the cameras again. It’ll send a beep to our earbuds if we’re in range when that happens.”

Dimitri took out what appeared to be two inhalers from his medical bag and started toward the door. Several long sprays from each covered the lock in frost. Ritter put a hand in his pocket, and a surprisingly loud explosion sent the pieces of the doorknob to the floor. The next instant, Ritter pulled the door open and dragged the guard into the room.

“W-wha—” The guard struggled to reach his gun, but Ritter held him too tightly. The guard’s confusion ended as Dimitri jabbed the end of a sleep dart into his neck. Ritter lowered the limp man to the carpet and then relieved him of his weapon and holster.

“All clear,” I said, peering into the hallway.

We hurried, sprinting to the next door where the first Emporium agent was being held. Ritter flattened the last of his explosive on the control pad, a thin wire sticking out of the gray material.

“Only one person inside?” Ritter asked me.

“Yes.” My ability to sense life forces wasn’t fettered by walls. I couldn’t tell if the person was Unbounded unless I could actually see him with my eyes, but the life force behind the door was blocking thoughts, which made the glow dimmer than the mortals we’d met here so far. Mortals could learn to block, but until they knew about our abilities, those here wouldn’t have reason to. I was almost certain the person behind the door was Unbounded.

Dimitri used the rest of the spray in the small bottles to aid the destruction, but even after the detonation, Ritter still had to slam his foot into the door to force it open.

Inside, the Emporium agent was standing in a room identical to Shadrach’s. He held a lamp in his hand, a frozen expression of dread etched on his face. Big as Ritter, but blond and pale, he looked vaguely familiar to me from Morocco, though far less imposing holding a lamp instead of a gun.

Shadrach pushed past us. “Come, Fenton,” he said. “Now is your chance. We’re leaving.”

“Wait.” I forced my mind against the Emporium agent’s shield. “You know what this means, leaving with us this way, don’t you?” Betraying the Emporium, I meant.

“Oh, I know.” The man’s jaw worked as he carefully set down the lamp.

Ah, there was the emotional crack I’d been waiting for. So much easier than breaking down a shield with no flaw. Gathering my energy, I forced my way inside his mind—just in time to see the hatred there. Not toward us but hatred of the Emporium who had ruled him for over a hundred years. Always promising advancements yet never quite delivering. Telling him he was a god to the lowly mortals, then treating him the same as the mortal guards.

His thoughts rushed at me, and I took them in as if they were my own. He didn’t love the Renegades or mortals, but he was tired of working for the Emporium, of being their pawn in a war he no longer believed in. He wanted to find his own path—away from the killing and the intrigue.

I didn’t blame him one bit. I longed for peace myself. For things to settle down. For Ritter and me to think about our future. Maybe even to consider that family he wanted so badly.

I nodded at Ritter, meeting his intent gaze, and the tension in his body eased. “Move,” he said to Fenton. “If you try anything, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Fenton sneered in response. “I would expect no less from
you.
”

Ritter smirked, apparently finding it amusing Fenton had seen through his disguise and that his reputation had preceded him. Of course, most Emporium agents we ran into knew exactly who our prominent Renegades were—they studied us every bit as much as we studied them, and there were far fewer of us.

“Nobody is going to kill anyone!” Shadrach insisted.

Ritter took the lead, and I kept close to him. Shadrach and Fenton were in the middle, with Dimitri bringing up the rear, presumably to watch out for guards but more to keep an eye on Fenton.

“One life force,” I confirmed for Ritter as we reached the next door. “How are we getting inside this one?”

His smile was almost tender. “Acid.”

Dimitri was already taking out two more bottles. He handed one to Ritter, and they began spraying. The plastic buttons melted instantly, the metal soon beginning to run. These weren’t ordinary acids, I knew, but something our scientist, Cort Bagley, had concocted.

Even after the bottles were emptied, it still wasn’t enough. “What now?” Shadrach asked.

Ritter’s hand went briefly to the guard’s gun, but it didn’t have a silencer, and we needed to save it as a last resort, especially since we had one more door to get through. “We do it the old-fashioned way.” Taking several steps back, he ran at the door, slamming his shoulder into it. The door buckled slightly, but it didn’t give. One more thrust and something in the weakened lock shattered. The door banged opened.

A woman jumped at us, a knife in her hand. Ritter sidestepped, his ability warning him of danger as the blade plunged toward him. He spun around, the guard’s pistol in his hand.

“Eden, stop!” Shadrach ordered. “They’re with me.”

Her hand was already in motion, almost a blur that told me her ability was combat like Ritter, like most Emporium agents, but she stopped every bit as fast. Her breath left in a
whoosh.
She looked at us with wild eyes, her many freckles standing out in her pale face.

I’d used her distraction to push past her shields—not that much effort was required in her case. Eden was a beaten woman, one who’d lost nearly everyone she’d ever loved, including the grown daughter who hadn’t Changed and who had been sent on a mission by the Emporium last year to seduce an intern at a hospital and steal their records. Her mission had supposedly ended in a shootout with police, but Eden learned her death had actually been caused by an Emporium sniper. She had another daughter growing up in an adoptive family where Eden had erroneously thought to place her out of Delia’s reach. Instead, the child had been threatened and her existence used to coerce Eden. Oh, yes, she had good reason to hate the Emporium. Now, with Delia no longer threatening the child’s safety, Eden wanted her freedom from all Unbounded. Her biggest hope was not that her daughter would Change, but that she would never know of her Unbounded connection.

The sadness in Eden’s heart ate at me. I’d known Unbounded who’d left families, often faking their own deaths in order to keep those they loved out of the ongoing struggle between the Emporium and Renegades over the future of humanity. I personally hadn’t made that choice, but it had cost my grandmother’s life and nearly my father’s. Now I had to go to great subterfuge each time I visited my parents. My mortal older brother and his two children, who lived with our Renegade cell, were in constant danger if they left our Fortress in San Diego. It was a tough balance, and I still wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice.

I met Ritter’s eyes, but he already knew I approved Eden. The emotional connection that some sensing Unbounded shared with their chosen mate often traveled beyond any mental barrier.

Ritter put out his hand for her knife, and Eden reluctantly gave it to him. I saw that she’d stolen the pocketknife from a guard when she’d pretended to come on to him. She’d been rebuffed—smart, since the cameras were always rolling—but no one had picked up on her sleight of hand.

Unlike most Unbounded I’d met, Eden was striking in a way that wasn’t typical. Her myriad freckles, upturned nose, and full head of brown hair would have made her cute as a mortal, rather than gorgeously sexy, but the confidence of the Unbounded gene increased her certain something to make the unusualness compelling. Cuteness times ten. Hard to believe that she’d probably killed dozens of people for the Emporium.

“Let’s go.” This time I was the one to make the call. I didn’t want to think about Eden or her daughters. The Emporium had caused so much heartache, but it didn’t seem to affect their overall plan. Rarely did agents rebel, and the few that changed sides were on a kill list. Eden might be choosing us now, but if we didn’t win this war, she’d become another victim.

At the end of the corridor, instead of splitting up, Ritter insisted on accompanying Dimitri and the others to the air shaft outside the kitchen. Two brightly glowing life forces called my attention, and I sent everyone back around the bend when two women approached from another direction.