Genesis (The Evolutioneers Book 1), page 12
He was dressed as if he had stepped out of a LL Bean catalog and carried that air of thinking he was better than everyone else. Whenever he spotted them at the mission base, his lip curled as if he were smelling shit. The feeling was mutual.
Boudreaux set the tip of his teak walking stick with the ebony handle into the dirt near his shiny black boots. “This area was given to us to search. Quit poaching.”
Max’s dark brows arched over the top of his glasses. “I thought the goal was for the kid to be found, didn’t matter by whom. We have a lead that brought us here.”
“Tell me what the lead is. Lancaster gave us this area to search, not you.”
“Like I care.”
“Just who do you weirdos think you are, anyway?” Boudreaux sneered like a child who realized he wasn’t the coolest kid in school anymore. “Wearing those ninja outfits like a bunch of freaks. We’re going to find this kid first and prove that you’re nothing but a group of whack-jobs who got lucky a few times.”
Crystal and her team froze. The forest stilled as if it sensed that a beast was being provoked. Even Ripley pulled his nose from the dirt to stare the pitiful man down.
“I don’t consider a search where a man’s life is at stake a game, Boudreaux,” Max replied in a tone encased with ice. A slow smile curled one corner of his lips in a way that shot shivers down Crystal’s spine. He was planning something. “But since you do, I’d like to propose a wager. First team that finds Monroe wins a thousand bucks.”
“A grand?” Boudreaux sank back on his heels and shot assessing glances at his cohorts. “Make it two, and a date with the busty one.” He nodded at Crystal.
Eww. “Right,” she barked in laughter. “The busty one has taste, and a brain. I’m not a prize, asshole.”
“Done.”
“Hey!” She whirled on Max. “What the hell?”
He winked at her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We can’t lose.” Ripley barked twice and took off into the forest. “See. We’re already in the lead.”
She saw Max’s fingers twirl as he turned to follow.
A crack from above brought their attention up as a barrage of tree branches snapped from their trunks. With shouts of surprise, Boudreaux’s men dove to the ground, scattering to escape the heavy, prickly pile that crashed to the ground in a cloud of pines needles. The impromptu blockade effectively blocked their path.
“I will so kill you,” she muttered to Max’s retreating back.
His sly chuckle went straight into her earpiece and pooled into her center, warming her from within.
“Intrepid, keep pace with Therian,” Max instructed, using Chase’s code name.
“On it. You know, I kinda liked that ninja comment. How about I change my name to ‘Ninja of Death’?”
“No,” came the quick, definitive response from Crystal, Max, and Doc Kelly.
“Fine,” the young decathlete sulked, then took off at a brisk jog, easily keeping pace with Ripley’s long graceful strides.
The other three followed at a slower but still-rapid pace. Thick leafy ferns and twisting vine maple reached out to pull on their legs as they moved deeper into the forest and farther away from the trail.
The crisp mountain air burned Crystal’s lungs and cleared her sinuses while the pungent aroma of vegetation and wet earth made the waffles she had for breakfast roll in her stomach. She was a city girl at heart, and all the nature she’d been exposed to recently was new and not altogether pleasant. At least she no longer flinched at every spider and bug that crossed her path.
“Network, bring up Therian’s camera to our monitors,” Max directed as they fell further behind the much faster pair.
“Image up now.”
“Ooof.” Crystal tripped over a root protruding from the ground and regained her footing. “Hey, can you move the image to the top left corner?”
“Oops, sorry, Prism.”
The image of blurry forest floor zipped from the bottom of the lens up and away from her view of the ground. “Thanks.”
The shot from Ripley’s camera showed a rapid stream of green and brown as he raced through the hemlocks. His paws were silent on the forest floor as Chase ran beside him just as soundlessly.
Half an hour passed as they climbed to higher ground, crossing the snow line. The temperature dropped, which worried Crystal. If it was this cold in the middle of the afternoon, how had Monroe fared during the black of night?
Chase’s voice came across the line. “We’re coming up on something.”
In her glasses, Crystal saw Ripley slowing to a stop in a field of asters dotted with patches of snow. The sea of green and purple waved in the breeze and rolled to the edge of a steep drop. As Ripley leaned over the side, they saw down to the rocky bottom where a creek cut through the mountain. Brush, bramble, and piles of snow broke up the forbidding brown and white landscape that painted a stark contrast to the peaceful meadow of flowers. According to the map on the glasses, Chase and Ripley were a quarter mile ahead of them.
“To your left,” Crystal said and picked up her pace. “I see a patch of red and blue off to the left.”
“I see it, too,” Chase said. “I’m heading down.”
Max used his powers to flatten the foliage in front of them like a rolled-out carpet to speed their progress.
Crystal’s legs ached as she ran toward the drop-off point, her pack bouncing wildly against her back.
“Hey. Hey, man. Monroe. Can you hear me?” Chase was picking his way down the rocks to the lump of clothing that didn’t stir, careful not to scatter rocks onto the pile. He reached out and joggled the down-filled coat. After a few tries, he looked up at them with a grim shake of his head. “It’s him. Oh man. This isn’t good.”
The image in their lens switched from Ripley’s camera to the one from Chase’s glasses. Monroe lay still, his leg twisted at a horrible angle at the knee. Blood crusted in his hair where his head rested against the rocks.
“Network, patch me to the sheriff,” Max directed.
“Patching now,” Addison replied.
“Lancaster,” came the gruff reply over their earpieces a few seconds later.
“Sheriff, it’s Garan. We’ve found your hiker. We are about a mile and a half northwest of the campsite, near the ravine. He’s down and out near the bottom.”
“How is he? Do you need an extraction?”
“I’m sending a team down to him. Stand by for more information.”
“Will do. Out.”
“Don’t move him,” Doc instructed. “Is he breathing?”
“No.” Chase knelt and pulled off his gloves to lay his fingers alongside Monroe’s neck. “No pulse either, and he’s as cold as ice.”
“Fuck,” Max grunted and raced ahead to where Ripley barked and turned in circles, waiting their arrival.
Crystal skidded to a stop at the edge of the cliff, sending a shower of rocks skipping down the hillside. The steep drop appeared even more daunting in person. Doc immediately set off down the side, heedless of the danger. Her boots slid in the gravel, forcing her to reach out to grab at a group of vines to slow her fall.
“Doc, brace yourself,” Max warned.
“For what? Ahh!” she squeaked as Max telekinetically lifted her into the air and deposited her to where Chase and Ripley waited with the boy.
She looked up at him with her mouth wide open. “Thanks?”
Max nodded and crouched low to better observe the scene below.
Doc shook off the surprise of her brief flying excursion and knelt by the body. “Shit. Both the tibia and fibula of his right leg are broken.” She pushed her glasses to perch on top of her head as she narrowed her eyes, sweeping her hand from the top of his head to his toes. “This isn’t right. I thought he might have fallen down the cliff, but his injuries aren’t consistent with a fall. His wrists and arms are fine, not even swollen, which means he didn’t try to stop his fall. And look at his cheek. The bone is shattered, but this bruise is wide and has a definite shape. If he was injured in the fall, it wouldn’t have such a crisp pattern.”
“How did he die?” Max asked.
“Broken neck, but I don’t think it was from a fall.”
Max hummed low in his throat as he stroked his chin before turning to Crystal. “Prism, do you think you could still see his memories?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t been around a lot of people who’ve died. But I can try.”
He shot her an encouraging smile. “I’m going to float you down. Ready?”
She braced herself and nodded, gasping as her feet left the ground. How was one supposed to hold their body while floating in the air? She bent her knees and tightened her core as if she were snowboarding. But since she had never boarded before, she felt as if she were a cartoon character, wildly waving her arms as she pitched forward and back.
“Relax, Prism,” Max’s soothing baritone cooed in her earpiece. “I won’t let you fall.” True to his word, he set her gently down on the sharp slope.
“Thanks,” she said with a sigh and turned her attention to the task.
Tears blurred her vision as she dropped to her knees next to the lifeless body of Jeremy Monroe. No matter how the young man died, it was a crime that his life ended so abruptly.
The memory of the hope in his parents’ eyes as she promised to find their son struck her like an iron fist, knocking the air from her lungs. If only they had been faster. If only her powers had warned her of the tragedy that was to be, the boy would still be alive.
Doc settled a hand on her shoulder and murmured, “We can still do right by him, sweetie. I believe in you.”
Crystal jerked and met Doc’s dark, knowing gaze. She was right. They hadn’t been able to save him, but they could still right the wrong and bring closure to his family.
She swallowed her guilt and removed the glove off her left hand and lay her palm against Jeremy’s dirty, blood-streaked forehead. Diving into his memories was as if she were swimming through dark molasses. Images faded the moment she touched upon them, swirling, shifting, never quite forming a solid shape until she came upon the last moments of his life.
“Anything?” Max called down to her.
She drew away with a curse and slid her glove back on. “Most of it was too murky to make out. Except his last memory. Two men, armed and dressed in black military gear. One of them swung and hit him across the face with the stock of his rifle. He blacked out after that.”
Doc nodded. “Explains the damage to his cheek.”
“What are two military guys doing out here?” Chase asked. “And why did they knock him out and dump him over a cliff?”
“Excellent questions, Intrepid,” Max replied. “And we’re going to find out.”
“Maestro,” Addison broke in. “The sheriff wants an update.”
Max bit back an impatient curse. “Put him on.”
“Garan, tell me something good.”
His lips tightened before he answered, “I’m sorry, Sheriff. Monroe’s dead. It appears he passed a while ago.”
From her earpiece, the heavy rise and fall of Lancaster’s breathing kept time with the beating of Crystal’s heart. It grew deeper and slower, as if he were processing the information and dealing with it in a way so as not to draw attention from others who might have been nearby.
“All right,” he finally responded in a low, hushed tone. “We’ll get a chopper ready to go. They should be there in about twenty minutes. Can you hang tight till they arrive?”
“Twenty minutes? Yeah, we’ll be here,” Max answered.
“Good. Good.” He signed off.
“Prism, where was Monroe when he was hit?”
Crystal blinked up at Max in confusion over the quick change in topics. “What?”
“Did you see where on the mountain Monroe was standing when he was hit?”
She pointed over their heads. “High up, in deeper snow.” When Max disappeared from their sight she shouted, “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Going after the attackers,” came the reply over her earpiece.
“What? Are you insane?” She grabbed hold of vines and branches and scrambled up the hill. “You can’t just go charging around the mountain. You have no idea what you’re looking for.”
Max chuckled. “I might not, but Therian does. He’s caught a scent.”
“You motherfucker,” she grunted as her boot slipped off a foothold and she dangled from the foliage.
“Hang on, girlie,” was all the warning she received before Chase scooped her in his arms and charged up the hill.
Crystal let loose with a startled squeak and threw her arms around his neck in a chokehold.
“Gotta breathe, baby girl,” he wheezed.
“Sorry.” She barely loosened her grip. “We have to stop Maestro. He can’t just go rushing into danger. You are not Rambo!” she shouted at where he disappeared into the tree line.
“You and I both know that ain’t going to happen,” Chase chuckled, not even breathing hard with the effort of carrying her and keeping up with the dimwits ahead.
“Hey, what about me?” Doc called out.
“Stay with Monroe and tell us when you see the chopper,” Max instructed. “You heard the sheriff, we have twenty minutes.”
A frustrated cry worked up Crystal’s throat and burst from between clenched teeth. “Maestro, stop right now. You don’t know who or what you’re looking for. You don’t even have a plan.”
“Actually, sweetheart, I do.” The smugness in his reply made her want to slap him silly. “We’re on Madden property now. Monroe stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have. The plan is to find out what or who that was.”
“Great. That’s a shitty plan,” she muttered.
Ripley led them higher into deeper snow. It grated on her pride that Chase carried her as if she were a child, but she knew the boys wouldn’t hesitate to leave her in a snow drift if she was on her own power. Did she want to nail the men who brutally ended Jeremy Monroe’s life? Hell yeah, but not at the expense of her teammates’ safety.
Without warning, Ripley pulled up short. He barked and ran back and forth in front of a fine wire fence, preventing them from going forward.
Crystal jumped out of Chase’s arms before they came to a full stop. “Where are we?”
Trees and bushes, heavy with snow, surrounded them in typical forest fashion. Nothing signified that anything was out of the ordinary until she peered closer at the base of the fence and noticed the snow was darker in places where it had been tamped down in a line edging the fence. Footprints.
Max studied the fence as if it were a puzzle. “There’s more than meets the eye here.”
“Are we being watched?” Crystal scanned the trees overhead in search of cameras.
“Possibly.” He held his palm out. “Let’s get some molecules moving.”
Before them, the air seemed to vibrate and grow thick. A wall appeared, shimmering as if it were made from a million fireflies. It stretched twenty feet high and ran in both directions as far as she could see.
Max chuckled and shook his head. “This is not your common electric fence, my friends. A normal fence pulses the energy, to give whatever latched onto it a chance to get away once they’ve realized their mistake. This is five thousand volts of constant electric current. Whoever is on the other side is not messing with the deterrents.”
Chase rolled his head to the left and right. “I think I can make that.”
He jogged back several yards and warmed up with a few deep squats.
Crystal stared at him, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Please tell me you are not planning on jumping over a wall of electricity.”
With a wide grin, he set his feet then exploded into action. He leapt over the towering height as if he were Tigger, landing on the other side in a fine cloud of snow.
“Therian, watch over Prism.” Max spread his hands out, palms down. He levitated off the ground, his boots barely clearing the top of the fence as he soared over to land next to Chase. He swayed for a moment on his feet then caught his bearing. “Stay hidden and let us know if anyone comes this way.”
Without a look back, he turned and led Chase behind a series of boulders before disappearing through a fissure in the hillside.
Her throat closed in outrage, leaving her only able to emit a few grunts and peeps as if she were a choking bird as she stared with disbelief to where Max and Chase disappeared.
Was he fucking kidding? At the first good whiff of Madden, Max was off like a snot-nosed kid, thinking he could run with big boys. What about waiting until they were ready? What about working as a team? This was exactly the type of behavior she warned him about that was going to get him killed. They weren’t ready for this kind of mission.
A wet nose nudged her hand and she turned on Ripley with a snarl. “Are you ditching me too?”
He barked once, then nudged her into a tight cluster of trees.
“What, are you my babysitter now?” He sat on her feet in response. “Thanks for nothing. Network, tell me—”
“Already on it, girlfriend. Jackass one is on your left, jackass two on the right.”
Dual images of rock tunnels streamed in across the lenses of her glasses, leaving her dizzy.
“If either of you get hurt or maimed, I’m kicking your asses,” she threatened.
Max’s answering chuckle did nothing to ease her worry.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Max drew small, shallow breaths, straining to hear every sound over his pounding heart as he followed Chase down the narrow tunnel deep into the side of the cliff. The infrared function on his glasses automatically came on the moment they stepped into the darkness.
“I’m going to race ahead and see what’s shaking,” Chase whispered before his green image blurred and stretched into a streak of lime-colored light that reminded Max of a tail of a comet.
