The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 16
Eden looked away as someone brushed past her.
It was the man of the hour.
In real life, Manuel Van Cooper was short in stature, with a thin nose and a neatly trimmed mustache. His friends called him Manny. Here in The Cage, Manuel Van Cooper was a green alien with an eyepatch and a goofy propeller hat. Fellow gamblers called him Void.
He made a beeline for Big Betty while Eden made herself comfortable at a beginner’s table. She calculated probabilities with ease at every stage of the game. She studied the dilation of her opponent’s eyes as they looked at their cards, as they looked at the board. She knew exactly when to fold, when to call, when to raise.
When her pot doubled, she moved to the next table.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Until she drew the attention of the pit boss—who wasn’t just a vampire, but Count Dracula. With his eyes upon hers, he stepped onto the dais and unclipped one of the red velvet ropes. Eden had officially been invited in.
By then, the pirate was gone.
He’d been replaced by an avatar with beefy shoulders, a thick neck, a black tie, a black fedora, and black sunglasses. He was sandwiched between King George and the green alien named Void.
Eden took a seat at the end of the table.
The blood-sucking dealer gave her an impassive nod and slid King George the dealer chip. “Welcome to the table, Madame Curie. May Lady Luck be on your side.”
“She sure hasn’t been on mine,” Agent 007 muttered.
Eden threw in the small blind.
Big Betty required a minimum bet of one thousand. Eden put down half. To her left, Void doubled, according to the rules of the game. And they were off. Eden sat back—calling but not folding—getting a handle on the flow, searching for Void’s tell, studying the correlation between the dilation of his eyes to the cards in his hand. Three hands later, her pot and the King’s were roughly the same. Void’s was bigger. The agent’s, considerably smaller.
He cashed out.
The dealer wished him a happy Halloween. “Play some tricks. Or snag some treats.”
With a vulgar reply, Agent 007 stalked away. Now it was just the three of them—Eden, Asher, and Manuel Van Cooper hiding behind their avatars.
“Maybe now the tide will change.” King George dropped his chips through his fingers. “Luck can’t last all night.”
He directed the comment at Void.
He ignored Madame Currie like she posed no threat at all.
Eden flew under the radar, carefully observing as Void and King George passed chips across the table—a back-and-forth dance neither looked ready to quit. Especially not Void, who came out the victor more times than not. Asher was playing the part well, goading Void with a theatrical performance, one marked with a convincing combination of frustration and moxie.
The dealer slid the button to Eden and shuffled the deck.
Void tossed in the small blind.
King George doubled with the big.
The dealer dealt the hole—two cards to each of them. Before Eden looked at her own, she made a point of studying her target. The eye not hidden beneath an eye patch definitely dilated. She looked down at her cards and saw the ten of hearts and the ace of diamonds.
Eden called.
Void pursed his lips, then said with a shrug, “Let’s make this interesting.” He doubled the big blind, folded his arms, and leaned back in his chair in a clear, almost obnoxious nonverbal dare.
King George studied his opponent for a long moment, then threw in his chips.
Eden did the same.
The dealer burned a card, then placed three face-up.
The king of diamonds.
The eight of spades.
The ace of clubs.
Void called.
King George raised.
Eden matched, carefully maintaining a casual grip on her cards.
Void slid his chips into the pot.
The dealer burned another card and flipped over the fourth on the board. The ace of hearts. Her heart raced. Her palms grew sweaty. She exhibited none of these signs, however, as all three of them checked.
Another card burned.
The fifth and final card flipped.
The ten of diamonds.
Eden studied Void. The twitch of his upper lip, the noticeable dilation of his unpatched eye. He had something good. But in this game of probabilities, she had something better.
It was time to send her message.
She brought her fingers to her stack of chips and moved the one on top back and forth ever so slightly. King George was primed, waiting for the signal.
Void started with a raise.
The King countered with a raise of his own.
Eden called.
All eyes went to the alien.
His long, ET-like pointer finger tapped the table, then he raised again.
King George studied Void from beneath his crown. He scratched his earlobe in a mindless manner that wasn’t actually mindless at all, but a tell Manny should have picked up on. The King was about to bluff. He let go of his ear, then scooted the rest of his chips into the pot.
The Royal Brute of Great Britain was all in.
His chips had dwindled significantly, but he still had more than Eden and Manny. He was King George, after all—notoriously rich with money to burn. And this was The Amber Highway—unregulated, illegal. Which meant the old-fashioned rules of all-in didn’t apply. If they were going to remain in this hand, they would have to match the King. Neither of them had the chips to do it.
King George leaned back in his seat, his attention turning to Eden.
She got more chips from the dealer and went in.
Manny was up.
If he folded, he would be out a lot of money.
Was it enough to secure his help?
Void tap, tap, tapped the table.
With a rub of his chin, he got more chips. He went all in, too.
Void showed his cards.
Two pair—aces and kings.
With a curse, the King showed his.
Another two pair—aces and eights.
The alien grinned like the Cheshire Cat, his unpatched eye brimming with triumph. Until Madame Curie showed her hand.
Two tens and three aces.
A Full House.
His face fell—fast and hard—as her overhead score went through the roof. King George burst into hearty laughter, then asked the dealer for more chips. Void stood from his chair like his soul had been sucked from his body.
Guilt twisted Eden’s gut.
She didn’t enjoy hustling this man, but Cassian needed all the help he could get. Manny could help them. Before he could get far, she cashed out and followed him past the Blackjack tables, past the roulette and the slot machines.
“You can get your money back,” she whispered in his ear.
He stopped.
She handed him the third coin from her pocket with a code to a private, encrypted chat room. Then she pulled off her specialized headset. Across the table, Asher was pulling off his.
“Did it work?” Francesca asked.
With a wicked grin, Asher launched into the tale. He gave them all a detailed rundown as Eden clutched the matching coin—a real, live coin—in her palm. Like Asher’s chess piece, it would light up as soon as Manny made the call. She unclenched her hand, willing the coin to blink.
Jericho lifted his water glass in cheers when two things happened simultaneously.
The coin flashed.
And a loud klaxon alarm wailed.
26
The power went out. Darkness filled the boardroom as the loud, haunting siren wailed like the world was coming to an end.
A thundering boom rattled the walls.
Eden lurched to her feet.
So did everyone else.
“Basement,” Jericho commanded, snatching the container of headsets.
Eden pocketed the coin—the blinking coin—and joined the others in the hallway, where emergency lights flashed and the siren keened.
Cleo hobbled on her crutches.
Eden stepped toward her, prepared to carry her still-injured friend to the basement like she’d carried her to the White House Bunker, suspicion be damned. Asher beat her to it. He shoved his laptop against Eden’s chest and swept Cleo into his arms like she weighed nothing at all.
Together, they burst into the stairwell and hurled themselves downward.
Eden imagined the commotion in the west tower. Dayne Johnson shouting in the newsroom, ordering his late-night staff to save as much as possible before evacuating to safety. She imagined the panic in The Landing as the siren’s blare yanked Alexandrians from their beds. Eden took up the rear, right on Asher’s heels, ready to use her body as a shield to protect Cleo should a bomb detonate on top of them.
In front, Jericho opened a hatch in the floor. He lowered a ladder into the rudimentary bomb shelter below. They climbed down, one by one, and when Eden reached the cement floor, her jaw unhinged. They weren’t alone. A familiar young man with blonde hair lay unconscious in the far corner, his ankles and wrists bound.
The asset!
Jericho came down last, shutting the hatch over his head.
Asher set Cleo on her feet with surprising gentleness. He grabbed his laptop from Eden, who continued to stare—open-mouthed—at the asset. He strode to a desk on one side of the room and opened the computer.
“We need eyes on the sky,” Lark said.
Asher seemed two steps ahead of her, his fingers dancing in that choreographed way they did whenever he was working with technology.
The desk had its own intercom. Beside it, there were pallets of water and boxes of protein bars, along with a few bedrolls, blankets, and pillows.
The room was long and rectangular, made of concrete. Hairline fractures ran up the walls. The steady plink-plink of a leaking pipe sounded somewhere nearby. The bunker didn’t look like it would hold up against a direct hit. If a bomb fell on the IDA, everyone would die.
Except Eden.
And the asset in the far corner.
She thought he was in a refrigerator. Apparently, he’d been moved. And now, he wasn’t moving at all. If not for his shallow breathing, Eden might think him already dead.
Another blast resounded—so loud, Eden’s shoulders scrunched toward her ears. She expected the ceiling to rattle. Bits of debris to fall. She expected the others to duck and shout.
But Cleo only cocked her head. “It sounds far away.”
“They have to be missing us,” Lark agreed.
Asher’s laptop brightened with a green radar on which several dots blinked.
“They hit the Westin,” he said. “And the Wyndham.”
Jericho pointed at the screen. “And the Masonic Temple.”
Francesca exhaled. Loudly.
Cleo limped closer.
The radar flashed and a moment later, the bunker filled with another loud blast, like the delay of thunder after a lightning strike. Eden heard this blast at a volume nobody else could hear. That much had become clear, and she had poised herself to calculate the distance. Indeed, the explosions weren’t nearby. They were two and a half miles south.
“Why are they dropping bombs there?” Cleo asked.
“It’s our dummy location,” Jericho answered. “Given the nature of our work, we didn’t think it wise to divulge our true coordinates. Nobody knows our exact location except for the people here. If someone wants to join us, I meet them at the airport.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Somehow, the government got wind of our false coordinates.”
“Someone sold us out.” Francesca whipped around, her face a picture of mutiny aimed directly at Eden and Cleo.
“Give it a rest.” Cleo stood with her hand propped against the wall. Her crutches had been abandoned in the boardroom. “What happened in DC was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” Francesca snarled.
“We thought you were Interitus. You thought we were Swarm. We didn’t purposefully sabotage you then, and we certainly didn’t do it now.”
“Well, someone did!” Francesca shot back.
“Or,” Jericho said—his deep voice measured and calm as he stepped in between them. “The government confiscated a map when they cleared out the community in Minneapolis.”
At this, Francesca looked slightly mollified.
But not Eden.
A slow dawning horror had crept through her body. It started in her toes and crawled up her legs. Mona knew they had gone to Bethesda. Suddenly, the government was in Bethesda. And now, thanks to Eden and Cleo, Mona knew they were in Alexandria. Suddenly, the government was in Alexandria. The horror seeped into her abdomen. Was Mona the sell out? Was Francesca right? Were they responsible for this?
She looked at Cleo, trying to read her thoughts. Was she drawing the same conclusion? But Cleo wasn’t looking back. Her eyes were on the screen of Asher’s laptop, where a legion of blips smaller than the jets circled on the radar. “Are those—?”
“Thermal drones,” Asher said.
Thermal drones.
Eden’s throat closed.
“We should be fine,” he continued.
“How?” Eden choked. The thought of surviving another raid—of standing amongst more death and destruction—made her blood run cold. “Thermal drones won’t fall for a dummy location.”
On a map, such a location might provide a convenient decoy. But nobody was actually in that location. The drones wouldn’t register any warmth. Any body heat. That was all here, in their actual location. She imagined the drones reaching the IDA. She imagined their radars lighting up with red.
“We set up clusters of mock heat in each of the hotels that were just bombed,” Jericho said. “And these buildings are cloaked.”
At the confused look on Eden’s face, he elaborated. “High density black silicon. It traps the light and makes any warm object beneath invisible to infrared detectors. We have it covering The Landing, Kaiser, and both IDA towers.”
“Stealth mode,” Cleo whispered.
Relief came like a broom. It swept away Eden’s horror. She wouldn’t be standing amongst the dead again. She wouldn’t be responsible for more catastrophe. Not today. Even so, she stood there feeling immensely sobered. She and Cleo never should have contacted Mona. Asher told them not to; they should have listened. Suddenly and belatedly, it occurred to her they were in the middle of a war, and she was letting emotion and sentiment cloud her judgment. Not anymore. Doing so put innocent lives in jeopardy. Doing so also hindered their progress. She couldn’t work on breaking Cass out of prison when they were stuck down here.
She reached inside her pocket and pulled out the coin.
The blinking had stopped.
She’d missed Manny’s call, and she couldn’t call him back. Manny didn’t have a physical coin; he had a virtual coin—one he could only access when he was in the metaverse. Which meant the ball was in Manny’s court. They would have to wait for him to try again. But what if Manny didn’t try again?
She glared at the radar, cursing the jets. The bombs. The drones. The timing. Mona. Had this air raid not happened, she’d be in the metaverse right now. Instead, she was in this dank, depressing bunker with an unblinking coin and the unconscious asset. She could feel Cassian slipping through her fingers.
Jericho bent over the intercom and pressed a white button on the panel. “Citizens of Alexandria,” he announced, “our city is being attacked two miles south. Everyone is to remain in their respective bunkers until further notice. Try to get some sleep. This is going to be a long night.”
He let go of the button and flipped a heavy-duty switch set against the concrete wall in front of him.
The wail of the alarm overhead went quiet.
In the eerie silence that followed, another bomb exploded.
27
It was a long night, indeed. In close quarters, away from Cleo’s antibiotics and her pain medicine. Eden helped her get situated on a bedroll. Her restlessness was just beginning to ease—a blessed sleep creeping closer and closer—when the asset needed another dose.
The survivors from Bunker Three had taken over this duty, administering the poison in four-hour intervals—a fact Eden had pushed out of her mind. But she couldn’t push it out of her mind now. Not as Asher left to retrieve a vial from a portable deep freeze in the basement overhead.
When he returned, her heart was galloping beneath her sternum. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to see this. She certainly didn’t want to hear it. She squeezed her eyes and looked away. But nothing could block out the young man’s screams. Cleo grabbed her hand and held on tight. It was horrific. Worse than she remembered. A gut-wrenching, blood-curdling wail as everyone in the bunker turned away, as if doing so would negate their own culpability. They were treating this young man like he wasn’t human, and in so doing, they were dehumanizing themselves. The whole affair seemed to damage the soul of everyone involved. Even Asher. She could see it in the grimace he tried to hide and the small twitch in his left eyelid.
When the worst was over, Cleo let go of Eden’s hand. But sleep refused to come. They lay on their bedrolls, listening as Asher fiddled on his laptop, examining what he could of the asset’s network. But there were only so many times a person could circle a fortress from the outside. Asher wanted in, but he couldn’t get in. He failed over and over again until frustration won and he slammed his computer shut.
Beside her, Cleo’s pulse quickened.
Eden could practically hear her thoughts.
Jack Forrester knew how to get in, so why couldn’t Asher?
Eden rubbed her temple, where mysterious bouts of pain came and went for no rhyme or reason. Sometimes, once a day. Sometimes, twice. Sometimes, if she was lucky, not at all. Her system needed updates. With those updates, perhaps her system wouldn’t have been so easy to breach.
At seven the next morning, the trucks came. Soldiers combed the area, searching through the rubble—for survivors, for human remains. Would they widen their search when they found neither? Despite all the meticulous planning—decoy heat sensors and black silicon cloaks—would they still be found?
