Twenty-Nine

  The briefing room was on a higher floor and didn’t resemble either our barracks level or the med wing. This floor was black marble. The meeting room was long with an oval table and high-backed black chairs. On the far side of the room rested three blank screens.

  My jaw twinged as I remembered the three screens in Echo’s memory. This was where the Founders of Immortal Corp would appear to speak with us.

  So close yet so far, I thought to myself. Patience, their time will come.

  In the room, Jax and Cage already waited. Cage puffed a cigar, going over a datapad in his hands. Jax lounged deep in his chair.

  “Glad you two could make it.” Jax looked over at me. “You good?”

  “Never better,” I lied.

  There was no point in keeping my interaction with Captain Valentine and the GG a secret. As I saw it, we needed all the help we could get and I doubted Immortal Corp would say no to the aid of the Galactic Government.

  “I have a meeting with the GG tomorrow night,” I told Cage. “They need proof. They want to see an alien body.”

  “I suspected as much,” Cage said, looking up from the printouts scrolling across his screen. “I’m good with that. You going to be okay talking to the Founders?”

  I knew exactly what he meant and everything he wasn’t saying.

  Well, are you? I asked myself. Are you going to lose your crip as soon as their shadowed faces appear on the screens or can you hold it together long enough to find out who and where they are?

  I guessed time would tell. I didn’t have a clear answer.

  “Yeah, we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” I told Cage.

  “Good.” Cage gave me a measured stare then went back to his datapad. “You know, it would help if we had Echo back. We’re down a man with Preacher out for the count.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” I said, choosing a chair across from Jax.

  The three screens flickered, then were brought to life. In each image, a dark table with the silhouette of a person sitting at it appeared. Behind them, a dark green glow prevented us from seeing anything else.

  I had seen the Founders before in Echo’s memory. They looked the same. I guess that wasn’t saying much, since I could only see their silhouettes. A bulkier man on the right I remembered as having a deep voice. A slender woman who acted as the leader in the middle and a silent man on the left.

  “Daniel,” the woman spoke with something like sincere joy in her voice. “It’s so good to see you.”

  It took everything in me to nod and smile. I hoped they couldn’t see through the charade.

  “It’s good to be back,” I lied.

  The woman seemed content with that. Neither of the men said anything.

  “We’ve read the reports and we are aware of the situation,” the man with the deep voice began. “Seven days isn’t a whole lot. It’s going to take everything Immortal Corp has built over the years to hold this invasion back, but we’ll hold them.”

  I felt my heart rate quicken. Anger was boiling over as they began talking about the alien invasion and how best to combat it.

  There was no mention of Amber, what happened to me over the years, or why they had to kill her.

  Did they think I didn’t know? Did they think I was some puppet who was just going to fall in line again?

  “Daniel,” X said in my head. “Your heart rate is spiking. You know I’m with you no matter what. But you have the best chance of getting to the Founders if you play it cool here. An outburst is only going to set them on edge.”

  I knew X was right. I knew I should listen, but I just couldn’t help myself.

  “Daniel has an in with the Galactic Government that should prove useful,” Cage was saying when I checked back into the conversation. “We need all the help we can get.”

  “That will be useful,” the woman on the screen said. “We also have our inside people in the GG. We can ensure that the meeting will go our way and solidify their support. Daniel can be the mouthpiece for Immortal Corp.”

  “We’d have even more help than we needed if you didn’t kill off our own,” I said, hating the fact that I couldn’t hold my tongue. At the same time, it felt great to identify the elephant in the room. “Maybe if you had listened to Amber, we could have the Order fighting alongside us as well.”

  The room went quiet. I could hear my heart drum in my ears.

  Out of my peripheral vision, I could see Jax and Angel looking at me with wide eyes. Cage just took another puff of his cigar like he had expected this to happen the entire time.

  “The Order has been our enemy since our inception,” the woman said, never letting her voice rise or fall showing any kind of emotion. “I know you were close to her, but it was necessary.”

  “Can we count on you going forward?” the man with the deep voice asked, leaning into the screen. “Or do you need time to get over this?”

  I didn’t know what he meant about time, but I could guess he was hinting at killing me as well. The moment was charged for violence. I could feel it. We were a few exchanges from having the Founders order me taken in or killed.

  I’d like to think that everyone in the room would have my back, but what about the other Immortal Corp soldiers in the building? What about them? I could fight my way out of here, but then what?

  “Tell him,” the silent man on the left said. It was the first time I had heard his voice in Echo’s memory or this conversation.

  The other two Founders went silent. It was as if they respected this man. They had acted as the mouthpieces, but this man, this man was the true leader behind the Founders.

  “Are you sure?” the woman asked. “Things are complicated enough.”

  “Tell him,” the man said again.

  “Amber—Amber isn’t dead,” the woman in the screen told me.

  My lower jaw fell open. Synapses fired in my brain, trying to make sense of the words coming out of her mouth. Was she lying? I had seen Amber die. At least I had seen it in Echo’s memory.

  “You’re lying,” I said, rising from my seat. I didn’t know how that was going to help the situation, but it felt like the right thing to do. “I saw it.”

  “Then you saw wrong.” The man with the deep voice actually sounded like he was enjoying the moment. “Echo did his best to kill Amber, but against all odds, she was taken.”

  “Taken?” Jax asked, just as confused as I was.

  “What happened to her?” Angel asked. “Where is she?”

  Cage didn’t say anything, but I noticed he put his cigar down in an ashtray.

  “How!” I slammed my fist down on the table.

  I wasn’t sure if it was all the shouting or if somehow one of the Founders had triggered a warning, but four Immortal Corp guards rushed into the room.

  They wore matching black uniforms. No face protection, which was a huge mistake if they were going to try anything. In their hands, they carried batons that sparked with some kind of electric current.

  “Calm yourself,” the woman said.

  “Or we’ll calm you,” the man with the deep voice followed.

  I was actually happy to see the four guards rush into the room. I needed somewhere to vent my anger. I felt a twinge of guilt as I threw myself on top of them.

  The first guard I took head on, cracking his jaw with a right cross that I threw everything behind. He crumpled to the floor with a whimper.

  One of the three guards left felt lucky and swung at my head. I caught the shaft of his baton below the sparking end. I jerked him in close, lowering my head and slamming it into his nose.

  He fell under a shower of blood.

  The remaining two guards were less eager to rush in. They circled me, lowering their stances and choosing their attacks.

  “Jax, Angel,” the man with the deep voice ordered.

  “No,” Jax said, leaning back in his chair. “No, I’m not fighting my own family.”

  Angel actually stood up and walked over to me.

  I felt confident I could take her in a one-on-one fight, but if she went invisible on me, it would make it that much harder. I wasn’t sure how to fight something I couldn’t see.

  Fists clenched, I followed her movements, ready for anything.

  Instead of going invisible or even swinging at me, she leaned down, picking up the two electric batons on the ground and handed them to me.

  “Here, it’s more of a fair fight now,” Angel said, scrunching her brow. “Actually, this was never a fair fight at all. Just finish them and get this over with.”

  “Insubordination!” the deep-voiced man in the monitor yelled.

  “Wesley?” the female founder asked. “You’re not going to do anything?”

  “I told you after what you did to Amber that I was done if you ever hurt one of them again,” Cage said, taking his cigar from the tray and putting it in the corner of his mouth. “You told me if I stayed on, nothing would happen to them. I’m content to let things play out.”

  The deep-voiced man let out a string of curse words that sounded like poetry. I was actually impressed.

  The last two Immortal Corp guards hedged their bets and moved in on me at once.

  I ignored the one behind me altogether. I took a giant step toward the man rushing me and lifted my other foot from the ground. My boot made contact with his sternum, cracking it in half as I slammed into him.

  He fell to the ground, gasping.

  I knew this was going to offer the guard behind me a free shot, but I didn’t really care. I needed to feel some pain right now. Maybe it would clear my head. The guard behind me rammed his electric baton into my back.

  A hot, sharp stinging sensation sent me stumbling forward.

  I fell to the floor in a roll and came up on a single knee. The guard pressed his attack, not anticipating that I would turn my fall into a roll. He thought I was going down.

  He rushed me with a baton over his head. I caught him with both of my own batons in his gut. The guy shook and spasmed on his feet as the electric current ran through him. His hair actually stood on end.

  After a few seconds, I removed the batons and let him fall to the ground, smoking.

  “Order more guards into the room,” the man with the deep voice bellowed. “Bring in Number Eight. She’ll teach him a lesson.”

  “Enough,” the silent man spoke again. He actually rose from his seat. He was still in shadow, but I could guess he wore some kind of suit jacket. He was tall.

  “We’re fighting and arguing like a dysfunctional family when the real threat lies six days from now,” the silent man said. “If it helps mend wounds and sets your mind on the aliens where it should be, then we’ll tell you what we know about Amber. Echo did try to kill her. He would have, but she was rescued by who we believe was the Order.”

  I dropped my batons on the floor. It had felt great to set some of my aggression loose.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “How can I?”

  “Then don’t,” the man said. “Go and see for yourself. There’s no body in her grave. The burial was an act. We never found a body.”

  “Amber’s out there, somewhere, alive?” Angel voiced.

  “We have to find her,” Jax said. “We will find her.”

  Hope sparked in my heart for the first time since I could remember. A dozen questions had to be pushed back at the same time. Had the Order really saved her? Where was she now? Was she okay? Was she a prisoner of theirs now? That was five years ago. Was she still alive today?

  I didn’t say another word and instead made my way out of the room.

  “There are still important matters to discuss about the invasion,” the woman said to my back. “Daniel, you need to—”

  “Let him go,” the silent man who wasn’t so silent anymore stated. “Let him go.”

  Epilogue

  With X’s directions, I made my way to Elysium. Stealing a vehicle probably wasn’t the nicest option, but I needed to quickly get to the cemetery where Amber was buried.

  X brought up all the information she could surrounding the events on the bridge the day Echo had tried to kill Amber. Images, news articles, GG reports all of it said a body was found and buried, but there were no images of the body itself.

  “She was trying to contact the Order, when Immortal Corp decided to kill her,” I said out loud, sifting through the information I did know. “Maybe the Order knew she was a target for her own company and sent someone to look out for her? Maybe that person fished her out of the lake?”

  “Maybe,” X said. “The changes made to you and the rest of the Pack Protocol could have altered her lung capacity. Perhaps she was able to breathe underwater, or hold her breath longer than normal. Daniel, I don’t want you to set yourself up for more heartache if we do in fact find a body in that coffin.”

  “I know,” I said, staring out the window of the stolen vehicle. The sun was just setting as we entered the city of Elysium. It had been a whole lot of nothing between the two cities, but the roadway was new and traffic minimal.

  “Where do we draw the line between hope and foolishness?” I asked out loud. I didn’t really expect X to have an answer to that one. I was just thinking out loud.

  “I think humans need to hope,” X said. “Hope is what keeps them alive. Hope for a better tomorrow, for a brighter future.”

  “You’re making too much sense,” I said, leaning back in the driver side seat while the self-driving feature took us to our destination. “You would have made a great philosopher.”

  “Naw,” X said, teasing me. “I’d leave that to you. I’m happy with being support.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence.

  We snaked our way through the streets of Elysium as night took over. I watched the holo display on the front windshield of the vehicle we stole count down the kilometers to the cemetery.

  There was no turning back now. One way or the other, we were going to get some answers. Either Immortal Corp was full of crip and I was going to dig up Amber’s dead body or the coffin was empty and there was a possibility she was still out there.

  We pulled up to the cemetery grounds an hour later. Full darkness covered the night sky.

  Like most people, I wasn’t big on cemeteries, especially at night. But unlike most people, I had a grave to rob. I parked the vehicle on the side of the curb. Wrought-iron black gates to the grounds stopped my progress for a moment.

  On the front sign of the cemetery was their operating hours as well as their name, “Saint Michelson Cemetery.”

  “I’m not familiar with that saint,” I thought out loud. “Guess it’s better that way.”

  I looked around, making sure we were alone before hopping the fence. There wasn’t anyone within eye distance. In a city like this with everything so wide and open the cemetery took up a city block by itself.

  I guess I wasn’t the only one that didn’t want to be in a cemetery at night. Only gentle rolling dirt hills opened up in front of me. Decorative headstones etched from expensive-looking stone lined the pathways.

  A single-story building I guessed was the office was located in the middle of the grounds. A shed sat next to it. The light was on in the shed. Probably the maintenance man.

  At least that was what I told myself to hinder any macabre thoughts of ghosts conjured in my mind.

  “She should be in the upper right hand corner,” X told me. “At least that’s what I’m getting from how this place is set up.”

  X gave me directions as I followed the path she set out. There were hundreds of gravestones , all with names I didn’t recognize. They all had stories, loved ones probably, and definitely came from money.

  Each marker was more prestigious than the next. It was almost as if the dead occupants were competing with one another from beyond the next world.

  I followed the path over to the rear right hand side where a series of much smaller headstones were placed. These looked like the classic tombstones I was used to seeing. They were short and stubby, shaped like an arch. I found the alias Amber had been buried under, Jasmine Adams. It was the name X had found for her in the records.

  There was no quote or special marker for her, just a name and a date.

  I fell to my knees, running my hand over the name as memories flooded my mind.

  “I guess I really didn’t think this through,” I said, looking at the hard ground underneath me. “I should have brought a shovel.”

  “The shed,” X said.

  I nodded, getting to my feet and going over. As I approached, I could hear someone shuffling inside. I was pretty sure it was just a single person muttering under his breath.

  I peeked my head into the barn-style doors. A middle-aged man in overalls was puttering around his workshop. An assortment of tools hung on the walls, all clean and shining.

  “Now where did I put that?” the man asked himself, running a handkerchief over his wet forehead. He wore a hat and short-sleeve shirt.

  He turned and looked at me sideways. He blinked a few times, startled.

  “Is it really a person I’m seeing now or another spirit?” he asked, trying to get a better look at me in the dull overhead light of his shed. “I told you spirits I have no quarrel with you.”

  “I’m not a spirit,” I said, walking into the room. “I just need to borrow a shovel.”

  The man’s eyes went wide when he saw the MK II at my hip, the axe and knife on my belt.

  “You’re him then, I guess.” The man rubbed his hands together, half in nervousness, half in excitement. “She said you’d be the hard type.”

  “Who said?” I asked, peering into the darker corners of the shed. “Who told you I was coming?”

  “No need to worry. I’m alone.” The man walked to a wall of the shed and picked up a wide shovel. He handed it to me. “This one should do the job. The tall woman in my dream said to wait here for you tonight. That you’d need a shovel.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. I accepted the shovel, thinking of my own dream of the woman that looked human enough but had to be an alien.

  “She told me to tell you to stay the course,” the grounds man said. “She said you’d know what that means. Do you?”

 

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