Revenant (Shadow of War Book 1), page 27
Through the grating, Jace could make out four men. The first couple started to creep around the corner toward Caera. The other two remained just behind them, ready to provide backup.
Jace surged up from the water and wrapped a hand around the ankle of one Enforcer. He yanked the guy’s leg hard, sending the man falling backward. The Enforcer’s helmet hit the walkway with a resounding thud, and Jace pulled the guy right into the water.
He tried the same maneuver on the man’s buddy, but this one was prepared, stomping down hard on Jace’s wrist. Pain flickered through his forearm, but Jace managed to aim his other hand up with the pistol. Concerted blasts flared into the man’s chest and face. He teetered backward into one of his compatriots.
While the confused Enforcers leading the pack tried to turn, ready to face their unexpected foe, Jace dragged himself up onto the walkway. He used the body of the Enforcer he’d just killed to shield himself as he fired nearly point-blank at another man.
The last Enforcer took a few steps back, putting distance between himself and Jace. His shots plunked right into the body Jace was still holding up. Every impact shuddered through the corpse.
Jace threw the body forward, forcing the other Enforcer to dodge backward. The brief distraction provided Jace with the second he needed to squeeze off another burst. Each searing blast ripped into the enemy until the guy fell backward, the top of his body hanging off the walkway. Jace shoved him the rest of the way over. The man splashed into the fetid water.
“Jace, look out!” Caera called, peeking out from her hiding spot.
Jace spun to see the first Enforcer recovering and starting to pull himself up from the nasty liquid. Two shots ended the guy’s attempt.
For a few seconds, Jace backpedaled slowly toward the ladder. He listened for other footsteps or voices, but the tunnels were quiet again except for the splash of water and scritch-scratch of smaller creatures skulking through the refuse.
“Any luck with the hatch?” Jace asked.
“Hold on.” She lowered herself a couple of rungs then fired at the locking mechanism. Molten alloy flecked away from the hit. Shadow let out another hiss, pressing himself closer to her head. “You want to try?”
She dropped the rest of the way down the ladder. When he passed, she gave him a wide berth.
“We better find you a place to clean up, because even if they don’t see us, they’re going to smell you,” she said.
“Not helpful right now.”
He hauled himself up to the top of the ladder. Then, he braced his boots against the rung and shoved upward. The hatch barely moved. He settled his back against the hatch then used his legs. His wound protested the movement, but he ignored the pain. The last thing he wanted was to go for a swim down here again because more Enforcers had found them. He doubted it would be long before backup tracked them down, and he wanted to be long gone.
“Come on,” he grunted.
His muscles felt like they were tearing from the bone. Clenching his jaw, he fought against whatever was on the other side of the hatch. He heard a scratching sound then a low groan. The hatch opened a little more.
It was working.
One more hard shove and—
He heard a loud crash, and then the hatch flipped open. Scrambling up into this new space, he signaled for Caera to follow. As soon as he helped her through, he blinked, taking in his new surroundings. This time, they found themselves in a cleaner, sterile white space. Next to them was a steel shelving unit that had fallen, spilling gauze and syringes and various polyglass vials across the floor.
“Is this the bottom floor of a clinic?” Caera asked.
Then Jace saw something on another wall that he recognized: multiple steel hatches. Three rows of four, to be exact. Each was the perfect size to slide a body into.
“We’re in a morgue,” he said.
He started to step forward to find the best way out. But before he could make it even that single step, all the lights flicked off, leaving them in darkness. Footsteps clamored in every direction, and a sudden flurry of stark-white gun-mounted flashlights beamed in their direction. Jace spun, trying to take in the enemy forces.
But he didn’t need to see each individual to know they were horribly outnumbered. They’d escaped the sewers only to be captured in the morgue.
Jace figured there was something poetic about this. Maybe ironic. Whatever hidden meaning lay in their current situation hardly mattered. He just knew that this was the end of the line.
THIRTY-FOUR
Jace held up a hand to shield his eyes from the light. He calmed his mind and body, focusing on counting the footsteps and breaths he heard from the people around him. If he was quick, maybe he could take them. Maybe he could still turn this around.
“The wolf howls at the noonday sun,” Caera said.
The room went deadly silent. He assumed that this was a countersign to a challenge that they hadn’t asked.
Was this Rising Dawn?
Even that thought didn’t calm his nerves. His long-ingrained instincts dictated action. Not contemplation.
He thought he heard muffled voices.
“That’s not it,” a woman bathed in darkness finally said.
“If there’s been an update, I don’t know it,” Caera said. “I came here with the microbes, though.”
“Who sent you?” the same woman said.
Jace tried to make out her face through his fingers. His eyes couldn’t handle the intense light piercing his retinas. All he could see was a slender silhouette, partially illuminated from the flashlights of the others.
“I don’t know that either,” Caera said. “Look, I was with Eren and Xavier. They didn’t make it.”
“If you’re with the Dawn,” Jace growled, “we need to get moving. The Enforcers are hunting us right now.”
“Who’s this?” the woman demanded.
Jace could practically feel the heat of her stare, though he couldn’t see it.
“He’s an old friend,” Caera said. “He got us here.”
“No strangers. No outsiders. That’s the deal, Caera Frost.”
The buzz of primed plasma rifles filled the morgue.
“Don’t!” Caera said. “You can’t kill him. He helped me get here.”
“He cannot know anything,” the woman said.
“Little too late for that,” Jace said.
Then, he heard people stomping toward him. The heat of their plasma rifles charging washed over him. He could already feel the bolts lancing through his chest.
“You aren’t with Dawn,” the woman said. It was an accusation as much as a question.
“I’m not,” Jace said. “But I can help you.”
The woman laughed. “I’ve heard it before. Terrence, Emma, take him—”
“No, wait!” Jace stepped forward.
He could hear the others hold their breath. Knew their fingers were right up against their triggers. One wrong move, one twitch, and Jace would be barbecued. “You want those microbes? I’ve got them.” He paused, hoping that those words would sink in. “I’m not talking about in my pocket either. I’ve got them in me. My body. You kill me, they’re gone. That’s it. No more Eldra’kaarn weapon, okay?”
More murmurs.
Jace waited, hoping his gamble paid off.
“Caera, is this true?” the woman asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Caera replied. “Eren gave them to him. He had no choice.”
There was a distant bang. It had come through the hatch to the subterranean labyrinth they’d escaped.
“You want me to help or not?” Jace asked.
The woman hesitated. More distant booms reverberated through the open hatch.
“Get him to Hannigan,” she replied. “But tie him up first.”
In seconds, rough hands pressed Jace to the ground. Polycuffs were secured around his wrists and ankles. A blindfold was wrapped around his eyes. Muffs were placed over his ears. All he could hear was his own pulse. They paid no heed to his wounded leg as they hoisted him up onto what he assumed was a gurney.
There was no way to tell if Caera was still with him or if he was now on his own. From the vibrations and movement, he figured he’d been loaded up in a vehicle. It seemed to be a relatively smooth ride. Maybe a hovercar. Hell, good chance it was an ambulance given where they’d just come from. That might be a great way to smuggle a body around.
Jace tried to keep track of the time, estimating he was in the vehicle for a good hour or so by the time his exhaustion and injuries got the better of him. Sleep wrapped its inescapable tentacles around him and dragged him into the depths of unconsciousness. He woke up several times, feeling the vehicle jostling around.
In those moments when he was awake, he worried what the Dawn’s research team might do with him. Initially, he hoped they could simply extract the microbes from his body somehow. They could get what they needed, and he would be free of any involvement with this alleged Eldra’kaarn weapon.
Now, he feared if they took those microbes from him, that was it. He was just the vessel those microbes were being stored in. Totally discardable.
Shoot, he hadn’t really thought this through. He told Eren to focus on living to the next second. Now, living to the next second might just mean he was about to turn himself into a human experiment. Given the lengths these people had gone through to obtain the microbes, he doubted they really cared about things like research ethics. To them, his life didn’t mean all that much.
Nah, he was just an obstacle. A challenge for them to overcome. If they were ready to kill him before just because they didn’t know him, then they almost certainly wouldn’t care about making things comfortable for him as they worked on removing the microbes from his body.
He could still feel the slight weight of the holoarcade token on his chest, tucked away on the necklace beneath his shirt. Hopefully, Caera was still out there. She might be his only lifeline. The only person willing to champion his cause to the rest of the Rising Dawn.
Eventually, the vehicle stopped. Jace was taken out, still strapped to a gurney. There was a crispness in the air. The smell of trees and flowers. Everything was much colder than before. He imagined himself in some mountainous forest. Eventually, those smells were replaced by a sterile, cleaning-chemical odor. He sensed the presence of other people milling around him. For a long while, nothing happened. He just felt the vibration of footsteps through the legs of the gurney along with the distant rumble of voices.
Then, the muffs and blindfold were taken off. The gurney was adjusted to a seated position. Jace found himself in a white room filled with all kinds of glass scientific apparatuses and computers. He didn’t recognize most of the equipment, but it was clear he was in some kind of lab.
A couple of people with guns lurked near an entrance. Neither were pointing their weapons at Jace, but the threat was clear. Standing before Jace were two people in gray spacesuits. One, a man, had a small circular eyeglass device pushed up onto the wisps of white hair hanging from his otherwise bald head. He wore a white lab coat. A comm pad peeked out of its pocket. The dark-haired woman next to him didn’t wear a lab coat, but she had a comm pad in hand, taking notes on it with a diligent flurry of taps. Her eyes zipped back and forth across the pad’s screen as she hemmed and hawed.
“You’re Jace Hawthorne. Son of Marcus Hawthorne, huh?” the man in the white coat said.
“That’s right,” the woman said. “We verified his identity based on Caera’s claims. Everything she said checks out.”
“You should be on our side,” the man said, his voice betraying no emotion.
“Who said…” Jace cleared his throat. “Who said I wasn’t?”
“You’re not in Rising Dawn. It sounds like you’ve been resistant to the idea.” The man lowered the eyeglasses contraption over his eyes and leaned in. The lenses changed colors. He tapped on the side of the glasses, and various smaller lenses telescoped over one of his eyes. “Caera said Eren injected the microbes into you.”
“He didn’t inject them. More like smashed them over my face, and then they just kind of found their way in, I guess.”
“Hmm.” The man examined Jace’s face, grabbing his chin and moving his head from side to side.
“Hey!” Jace said.
The man ignored him. “I don’t see any evidence of microbial residue on your skin. Either it’s all been cleaned, or—”
The woman interrupted him. “Is your nose working? Because it smells like he hasn’t showered in a decade. Nothing’s been cleaned, that’s for sure.”
“I had to escape the Enforcers through the sewers,” Jace said.
The man in the white coat continued examining Jace. “Even so, I see no sign of residue. Either you’re right, the microbes all made it inside your body—or you’re wrong, and you never actually encountered the microbes.”
“I definitely encountered them.”
“You may have thought you did, but we’ve discovered counterfeit temporal microbes as well. The black market is rife with unscrupulous individuals desperate to make a profit, even at the expense of humanity.” He shook his head. “Sad state of affairs, isn’t it, Viv?”
The woman nodded. “Very.”
The man continued probing at Jace’s skin. This time, he snatched up a couple of metal instruments. Each time he poked and prodded Jace’s face, reports glowed over Viv’s comm pad.
“I’m still not seeing any sign of the microbes externally,” she reported. “Really. Not one bit of residue.”
“Very strange,” the man said.
“I would really like a better explanation,” Jace said. “If I’m going to be your human guinea pig, the least you could do is tell me why.”
The man dropped onto a nearby stool and rolled it closer to Jace by pushing off the floor with his feet. He continued his examination. His hot breath washed over Jace, smelling of stale coffee.
“Most of my research is theoretical because Eldra’kaarn temporal microbes are exceedingly rare,” the man explained. “What I do know is that generally, they leave some residue behind that is visible in infrared light. They run quite hot.”
“When they infected me or whatever, my insides started burning,” Jace said.
The man paused and shared a knowing look with Viv. “See?”
She pursed her lips. “So maybe you’re right. Maybe they did integrate within him. That isn’t good.”
“You think you can extract them?” Jace asked. “While keeping me alive, of course.”
The man laughed. “If I extracted the microbes, some of the people outside this door would immediately imprison or kill you in the name of security.”
“Trust me, I’m not going to run off and tell the Enforcers about this anytime soon.”
“No, but they might come to you,” Viv said. “They’re very good at getting people to talk. We’ve unfortunately been victims to that more times than we can count. Hence the paranoid security.”
The man shrank back. “Jace, before we continue, maybe it would make you more comfortable if you knew my name.”
“After all this talk about security?” Jace asked, skeptical.
The man smiled. “I’m Dr. Hannigan. One thing I’m certain of is that you will not be leaving this place. So I’m not worried about telling you my name.”
This guy was honest. Brutally so. Jace really didn’t like that, and it certainly didn’t make him any more comfortable to know Hannigan’s name.
“So that’s it. You all really are going to throw me in some cell or put a plasma bolt through my brain, all because I tried to help you.”
As he spoke, Viv waved some kind of imaging device over Jace’s body.
“You are more important than you realize,” Hannigan said.
The scientist took a small device from the tray of surgical tools beside the gurney. Without warning, a needle projected out of it, and Hannigan stuck it into Jace’s arm. Electricity flowed from the injection site, and Jace’s heart rate accelerated. Numbers glowed on the device’s screen, along with some kind of ghostly images that looked to Jace like his nervous system.
After finishing her examination, Viv gave Hannigan a peek at her screen.
“From everything I’m seeing,” Hannigan said, “you are far more important than you realize. Unfortunately for all of us—you included—the microbes have completely integrated with your nervous system. Once they integrate, they become a part of your body. The microbial cells literally conjoin with your own nervous system cells. The only way to isolate them would be to extract your nervous system and pluck them apart, isolating the integrated cells.”
Jace let out an involuntary shudder.
“I truly wish we could do that,” Hannigan said, “because then, we’d be able to implant these cells into the individuals who were pre-selected for the temporal microbial integration procedure. You are most definitely not one of those individuals.”
“No crap,” Jace muttered.
Hannigan sighed. “I also am not confident that I’d be able to isolate those microbe-integrated nervous cells without killing them.”
“And without killing me,” Jace said.
“Oh, that part I’m less concerned about.”
“So, wait, you can keep me alive?”
“No, definitely not.” Hannigan’s brow furrowed. “I just meant I wouldn’t be concerned about keeping you alive if I could extract the integrated cells. Your life, in relation to the microbes, isn’t important to our cause.”
“Is he always like this?” Jace asked Viv.
She smirked. “Pretty much, yes. You get used to it.”
“Sounds like I might not get the chance to.”
“On the contrary,” Hannigan corrected, “you’re not going anywhere, and I will be making sure you stay alive. Because as it stands, you are quite literally our only hope of unlocking the Eldra’kaarn weapon and resurrecting the fight against the Overlords.”
