Rebel's Consort - Phoenix Book 1 Page 3

  At his gurgle of noise, she pressed a hand to the back of his head. “I’m not leaving you. I promise. It’ll be one minute. Hold my other hand.”

  After a quick snuffle, his hand unclenched from the back of her shirt and clutched her fingers. She settled the boy beside her, keeping a hold of him. One quick hop and she turned back to the chest-high slab of stone to scoop him back into her arms.

  With any of the other extractions, she’d light the strip on her belt for the child. The green neon lent a freaky view of the tunnels, but visibility comforted the children after the darkness.

  This boy wouldn’t know the difference. She opted for another plan.

  “Can you tell how quiet it is?”

  He nodded against her shoulder as she lengthened her strides.

  “We’re about fifty feet below the surface.”

  The hands clenched again.

  “They can’t hear us down here, or find us. There are channels of water that run through these caves. You’ll hear one as we get closer.”

  He shifted again.

  “The streams lead to the sea.”

  That elicited a rumble of his stomach. As disgusting as the seaweed plankton wafers that fueled much of the adult population were, it was still food. She slipped one out of her pocket and raised it to his mouth. He turned his head away.

  Yeah, disgusting.

  The kid probably hadn’t eaten in a day or two. With his surgical nightmare still fresh, the doctors had probably held off on food to keep him properly sedated for his ordeal. Or worse, they hadn’t bothered to feed him.

  “We’ve got food and water.”

  Tension again, followed by small shivers. No doubt, he been tempted him with drugged food or water. A popular ploy used on several of the others, none of them with parents alive to know or care where they’d gone. “It’s clean. You may find it tastes sweet, though the other kids kind of like it.”

  She ignored the noise in his throat. “Bits will probably jabber too much. Please forgive her, she’s only five years old and gets carried away. You’ll like Hena. She’s everybody’s big sister and a wonderful storyteller.”

  Analena continued with the anecdotes, one for each of the eleven children sequestered in her home. With so many people, there were plenty of stories to keep the boy calm. His grip loosened the deeper they proceeded beneath the earth.

  Chapter 3

  A wisp of fabric fell to the ground at Trace’s feet. He followed the trajectory back to the young man standing before him.

  “You’re to wear the blindfold.”

  “I’m not wearing anything to impede my vision. If you don’t trust me, then take the AG to Piper and leave me. I can try to walk her through surgery if need be, but I can’t produce blood out of thin air.”

  He watched the young man’s hands clench and unclench and realized that perhaps the effort to integrate into Piper’s team was futile. He’d tried too hard to be a part of something good. His punishment for his transgression didn’t allow a place for him fighting beside those with purer objectives.

  “You think I don’t know you’ve spent years working me just to get to Piper? You’ve been a help but that’s between us, you helping me out of jams.” Wolf’s jaw worked as if debating whether to say more. “I owe you, not Piper. You’ve never bothered to explain your obsession and I’m not putting—the team at risk.”

  Good points, but Trace could hardly explain betrayal and life choices to the young man or his fixation on the woman behind the missions. Not when he’d finally made headway with a request for face-to-face help. He needed this chance, knowing he’d never have another. Warranted or not, he refused to give up. If what he suspected of the operation proved true, then she offered the only path for him to right old wrongs. Buckling under to Wolf’s scrutiny wouldn’t work for that objective.

  “I promised I’d come and I don’t want to renege, but you can’t expect anyone would allow themselves to be led around blind.” Trace moved the case several feet before him and turned to leave.

  “Fine.” A harsh breath followed a discernable swallow. “You do what I say. No argument. And if you betray us, I’ll kill you myself.”

  Trace nodded slowly, not certain how far he’d already pushed Wolf and whether the laser canon up the man’s sleeve was set to stun or kill. At least, according to the readings on his vid mask, Wolf’s respiration and heartbeat were within acceptable levels, if elevated from their confrontation. He gave the young man points for standing up to him and equal intelligence points for not giving into ego and letting him walk away. “The more time we waste here, the less time I have to help the child.”

  “Follow me,” Wolf started to turn and then glanced over his shoulder with a sneer. “And try to keep up.”

  Stifling a snort, Trace picked up the case of AG and maneuvered from shadow to shadow behind Wolf’s fleet form. They circled back around the market place, then headed due west toward the grid’s far edge, only to zigzag several times. Evidently, he hadn’t established trust over the years, as he’d hoped.

  At least, he’d assumed as much until Wolf waved him behind a corroded pile of steel sheeting. Flickers of white and red flashed through the layers of metal, reconnaissance lights and laser sights from the cannon barrels of a Regent guard squad.

  Wolf nudged his arm and offered a square packet. “Can you make your way to the western edge? Past the forest line?”

  Puzzled at leaving the city, Trace nodded anyway.

  “Put that on and meet me there in twenty.” Wolf opened his packet, flipped a thin membrane over his head, and disappeared behind Trace.

  Piles of scrap metal and rubble hid the boy, his image no longer illuminated on Trace’s mask. The packet in his hand contained another membrane, a heat shield to erase their presence from the guards’ scanners. Unfortunately, he needed to keep Wolf in his sights. In spite of the young man’s request, the best option Trace had was still to follow in his footsteps.

  Without knowledge of Piper’s location, he’d be stranded in the overgrown forest region beyond the western grid if something happened to his guide. Each minute, the clock ticked on the child’s condition, which added to the risk. And Wolf, while surviving these past few years in underground teams, wasn’t prepared for the pulverizing piece of hardware slowly making its way across rubble toward their position, leaving only dust in its wake.

  Trace would bet any odds Wolf hadn’t seen the new search and destroy device. He’d never seen one until now, though Shepherd had warned him several weeks ago of their presence.

  He flipped the membrane over his head and stalked into the darkness behind his rubble, following Wolf’s last location. Out of sight of the guards’ surveillance lights and their machine, he tapped the side of his face shield and turned in a slow 180° scan. A green line jumped and dipped with his inspection, peaking higher as he faced the Down Below market and its influx of people. Two more taps, and he readjusted his signal variance to correlate with Wolf’s readings. A second line in red tracked the guards’ destruction machine, Crusher.

  A second scan revealed a faint pulse of the green line in a northwest direction.

  “Intersect calculation and lock,” he whispered. Five minutes started counting down in the far right of his screen. Damn, the boy was heading right into them. And, consistent with Radar’s prediction of the Regents’ new strategy, the guards were taking no prisoners. No rebels to stand trial for breaking into the detention centers, no time wasted on interrogation or torture. The Crusher would eradicate every target it found, guilty or not.

  “Layer line to westernmost grid point.” A faint yellow line appeared, spanning from Trace’s position to the final meet point. Yellow crossed Wolf’s green path and Crusher’s red with an intersection at one of the major girders supporting the grid platform. If he ran hard, he could plant the AG box near the girder, safe from the machine’s path, and connect with Wolf before the guards did.

  Four minutes later, what had seemed like a simpl
e plan left Trace sucking in breath and canvassing in vain for some sign of Wolf’s pulse-line on his screen. Where had the boy gone?

  Lights flickered at head height with the guards’ approach. A tremor beneath his boots signaled the machine’s advance with forty-two seconds left before it carved a new path of dust through this sector. Dead ahead rose a small tower of century-old crushed vehicles. To the left lay a small makeshift shack of stacked concrete with a polyfiber roof, likely stolen from construction above grid. The shack posed too obvious a choice, but what remained of the vehicles constituted skeletons of metal, offering no cover. All the reusable piece parts long since stripped and salvaged left only an airy steel monolith.

  There wasn’t—

  The green line jumped as he stared at the far bottom corner of the pile and a visible bit of leather where none should exist. Damn.

  Radar?

  Shepherd?

  Radar: confirm

  Need one minute delay for crusher—target distraction due east my position

  Radar: copy

  A high-pitched siren split the silence. The number of lights doubled, flashing over every crevice within twenty yards of Trace, but with the Regent general alarm the squad swung to retreat and cover ground they’d already inspected. The opening gave him just enough time to scuttle a few feet to the remainder of a collapsed wall and crawl behind the crush of metal that provided Wolf’s cover.

  The alarm had circumvented the guards. Unfortunately, Crusher was still on the move and feet away from compressing Wolf into dust.

  Trace guessed at the location of Wolf’s shoulder and gripped tight on the flesh he encountered. He yanked them both backward. The Crusher missed Wolf’s boot by a hair, but a scrap of flying metal sliced his arm as Trace pulled him behind the wall.

  “Don’t—” Trace didn’t bother to finish his statement. More would have provided the guards’ sensors with their location. Wolf heard and recognized his voice, enough that he froze.

  Flickers of red painted Wolf’s image on Trace’s vid shield. The blood would target them more easily than if they’d removed their membranes. He dug in his pocket and extracted his latest creation. Shoving the membrane high enough to reach Wolf’s arm, he ripped a larger hole in the man’s sleeve and pressed a ball of molecular silly putty against the skin.

  A gasp hissed from Wolf before the putty doubled and tripled in size, expanding to cover the wound and arm in a rubberized band. The effort would only hold for an hour or so, but the band camouflaged the wound from sensor detection, stemmed the bleeding, and added a layer of disinfectant. Not bad for a quick design on a night when Trace had too much time and too little synthesized whiskey to ward off his memories.

  Membrane back in place and sanity restored, Wolf scrambled to a crouch and then gestured toward a new direction. The Crusher and guard squad had passed with no more incidents, but there were no assurances that Regent security cameras might not expand searches in their sector.

  Trace held up a hand. Quickly working his way back to the girder, he retrieved the AG box and activated a small mobile transmitter on the ground. Programmed to travel twenty yards, the device would emit a frequency signal that would scramble Regent scanners, diverting the guards away from Trace and Wolf’s escape.

  He picked up his pace in time to follow Wolf’s boot heels toward the grid’s edge.

  ***

  A light streamed around the next turn, and Analena squinted to adjust. She freed one hand to give a quick wave to the half dozen or so children collected at the entrance of the wide cavern. Her motion, an acknowledgement and warning in one. Charged with excitement, but with memories of their own entrance to this conclave still fresh, they hung back and waited. Analena offered them a thankful smile.

  Synthetic crystals, strung overhead, lit the circumference of the rock hall. The rechargeable energy crystals lent a comfortable atmosphere to the shared living space, but the boy didn’t gain security from the light. And the din, with anticipation of too many hands and voices, only agitated him further.

  “Aaron?” Sixteen-year-old Hena had picked up Bits, resting her on her hip to keep the younger child from launching at Analena’s legs.

  “Should be here in the next few minutes. He signaled they’d made it to the lower level.”

  The boy’s head shifted slightly at the girl’s voice, and his shivering stopped. Though his grasp remained tight around Analena’s hand, he seemed to wait.

  Halfway to a seven-foot slab of stone that functioned as a table, Analena froze.

  From another tunnel, Aaron preceded a man a good head taller and broader in the shoulders. Granted, Aaron’s six-foot stature exaggerated his lean and lanky frame, but at nineteen, he still had time to fill in muscle. If Onyx was who followed him, then the medic needed to fill in nothing. For a second she doubted her decision to allow him into her private domain.

  Even with the shimmer of a visual mask projected around his face to camouflage his features, the man’s posture and gait projected strength and confidence. The blindfold she’d requested was absent.

  Analena gave him a complete once over, from mask to thick, black boots, drawing out her assessment to underline her authority. She’d asked him for help and he’d arrived, she didn’t want to challenge him. But she would if he stepped out of line. If he didn’t help the boy, or did something unexpectedly dangerous, he wouldn’t get any reimbursement. That was the least of her promise.

  He made no overt gestures, letting her appraisal take place calmly as if awaiting a final pronouncement. Analena sucked back her concerns and finished the short trip to the rock slab that too often posed as her operating table and suture station. The small cry from within the collective group of children as they got a good look at Onyx delivered an additional concerned consensus.

  Aaron flipped a light, woven blanket over the stone before she set the boy down. She gave the child a quick shush of confirmation that she wouldn’t leave him and glanced up.

  “Onyx.”

  He nodded. “Piper.”

  She motioned to his face. “Your shield is scaring the children.”

  For a tense second, she glared at him over the head of the boy. She didn’t want to require that he out himself in front of her group, but her face was now recognizable. She wasn’t asking anything she hadn’t offered. Her features and those of everyone in the room were available to his sight and memory. The children were backing up, definitely uncomfortable with his size and hidden identity, the correlation to a surgical mask, too keen and frightening.

  At his hesitation, she spoke over her shoulder. “Hena, take the others to the sleep chambers.”

  Hena glanced between them and started to move when Onyx held up a hand. With an exhale, he tapped at the side of his head. The shimmer disappeared. Familiar rich brown eyes topped strong cheekbones, a square jaw, and lips narrowed in impatience. “Don’t send them off on my account.”

  Stifling her initial shock, Analena forced herself to remain still as he moved to her side, shrugged his shoulder, and lowered his duffel to the floor. His long, black jacket followed before he reached for the child’s head.

  She shifted her body between Onyx and the boy, cradling her hands around the boy’s chin. She warned Onyx away with her eyes. “I have someone here to help you. He needs to touch you. Remember, I’m right here with you.”

  The boy’s head dove into her chest with an animal sound.

  Onyx’s hand brushed down the back of the boy’s head before she could move to calm him. “Does he have a name?”

  Analena gave a shake. “He hasn’t spoken.”

  Onyx’s eyes closed for a second, and his lips pressed tighter together. “They’ve probably inserted a restraining device.” His hand kept up a slow pet of the boy’s head as the child let out another sound. “I can get the device out without causing you any pain, son.”

  Onyx glanced at her. Whatever his plan, his gaze evaluated her as if he expected problems with her compliance, but he turned ba
ck to the boy without comment.

  “Here’s the deal. I’ll tell you everything I’m going to do, and you get to decide, okay?”

  Well that explained his look. Analena raised a brow. The boy was scared, perhaps too scared to be making decisions for what he needed. Onyx remained unaffected by her silent disapproval.

  Fine. She tilted her head slightly, still holding the ruling vote.

  “If I take it out, we can discuss your situation. I need to check your neck—if you’d back away from the pretty lady for a minute. Nothing more.”

  The child swallowed but moved back. Only his mouth and chin showed beneath the scarf, both trembling.

  Onyx drew his hand from the back of the boy’s head to his jaw line in a slow, smooth motion that surprised Analena with its gentleness.

  Fingers splayed and palm open, his hand skated across the child’s skin, down his neck, and then back up to the connection of jawbone and ear. Two fingers circled in a final test.

  “Give me your hand.” He dropped a hand to the boy’s arm, providing direction for the child to grasp him. “I want you to feel the injection site.”

  The boy unclasped his grip on her sleeve and held out his hand. Slowly, Onyx pressed the child’s fingers to the point he’d located. “I have a tool.” He grappled with the top of his duffel and dug inside, withdrawing a two-inch metallic cube. He placed the cube on the table behind the boy and with a pinch of his fingers, the cube split once. It split again and doubled, continuing until it flipped open a final seam, producing a one by three foot rectangle. The corners and sides took form and depth, evolving into a three-dimensional collection of tools and instruments.

  She gave him another pointed look. He shrugged with no smile on his lips, but the tense lines around his eyes eased.

  “Give me your hand again.” He selected a four-inch cylinder and placed it in the boy’s hand, curling the fingers around the object. “Small. When I place it against your skin, it’ll move and make a high-pitched noise. You’ll feel the vibration, but there won’t be any pain.”