Rising Son (Legends Live Book 1), page 18
With her head down, Tom couldn’t see Tiffany’s face under the flaming cascade of hair, but he heard the soft weeping.
He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her narrow shoulders. “You aren’t alone anymore.”
She sobbed against his chest, and he cried too—quietly, so she wouldn’t hear. He didn’t know what to say, so he just held her.
They sat like that for a long time, until she fell asleep in his arms. Then he lay beside her for a while, not thinking, just feeling the rhythm of her breathing, the feather-light touch of her hand on his chest, the warmth of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The medic pushed the new tracker into place with a small hand-held device that looked like a ratchet. He turned a dial on the tool’s backside—right three times, left five times, right twice—and locked the tracker into the implanted socket behind JJ’s left ear. The same tool had been used to remove the old one. The medic had pulled it from a drawer, where there were at least two more. They were kept right there in the examination room. JJ was paying attention to things, now.
“Now remember, don’t fiddle with it. Infection’s always a possibility.” said the scrub-clad young man. He placed the device on the counter top.
JJ rolled his eyes. “Mm-hmm. I hear that every week, dude.”
The medic grinned. “Sorry. Just doing my job, Mister Joyce.”
“I know, man. Just playing. But you know what I don’t get?”
“What’s that?”
“Why do you gotta change them out all the time? You’d think something like this would be good for a while.”
The young medic shot JJ a conspiratorial glance. “Want to know the truth?”
“Well, duh.”
“It’s because you guys might tamper with them. Keeping them fresh cuts down on the possibility that you’ll figure out a way to get around them. I know it’s a hassle, but we don’t make the rules.”
“That’s actually really smart.” JJ stood and stuck out a hand. The medic shook it, and they said goodbye.
The medic watched JJ leave and glanced at a clock on the wall. Then he left the room, too, walking down the hall toward the break room. He didn’t notice the tiny man on his sleeve.
Sol, only two millimeters tall, held on for dear life and slowly scaled the swaying mountain of cloth.
“Hear about Lieutenant Collins?” asked Private Geary, looking down at the city from the southeastern tower. He was only nineteen, little more than a year out of Basic and kind of regretted signing up for a spot at ABRA City. Being one of the lowest men on the totem pole meant that he spent most of his time up on the Wall, which had to be the dullest job in the known universe.
“Of course I heard about Collins,” replied Corporal Ortiz. He was only five years older than Geary, but he carried himself with the world-weary demeanor of a much older man. Unlike his younger colleague, he didn’t mind the lack of excitement. He’d been in Iraq and Afghanistan and preferred boredom to danger. “Ask me? He’s an idiot. He got off easy.”
“It’s gotta sting though, being pulled out of the APE squad. I heard all he tried to do was to keep the kid from bringing in contraband.”
“It was a picture of the kid’s mom, and the Doc was the one who gave it to him. Phipps was there, and he said Collins really pushed the kid’s buttons. You gotta admit that’s pretty fucking stupid, especially after what the kid did to the Behemoth.”
“Still, the guy trained for years to run a suit. I think the captain’s gone soft for the kid. It’s bullshit that he sided with one of them over one of—”
Ortiz interrupted, “Captain Holly didn’t have anything to do with it. He busted the lieutenant’s chops, but that’s as far as it went. The colonel’s the one who dropped the hammer, but it was the Doc who gave the order. He don’t want nobody messing with the kid.”
“Jeez, is this a prison or a country club? Sometimes I think Angus is on their side.”
“Trust me; the Doc’s no fan of the freaks. But he made Independence, so the kid’s different. Maybe he’s hung up on him, or maybe he’s got other plans. I haven’t heard anything official, but the word is that the brass wants another Independence real bad.”
“You mean they want to recruit the kid?” Geary was shocked; he had grown up in a world without heroes, and the idea of sanctioned ones seemed to counter everything he’d been taught.
“Yup. Don’t you say a word to anyone, especially not your buddy Lee. That fuck doesn’t know when to shut up. And you can’t be too careful. Never know when one of those freaks might be listening.”
The corporal’s words were wiser than he knew. Vanessa sat beside the window in her apartment and heard every word of the soldier’s conversation—from three hundred yards away.
Nobody noticed Anon, but then again, few people bother looking under furniture. A sleek, black rat with a tracking implant sticking up between the shoulder blades, it hid in the shadows and scurried through the maze of corridors within the Wall.
Its biggest worry was that Security would be able to track its movements with the implant, but so far, so good. Three hours into the reconnaissance and the guards showed no signs of noticing the enemy in their midst.
JJ had forbidden the shapeshifter from mimicking any of the guards or staff; it was too risky. They didn’t know what kind of checkpoints might be scattered around the business end of the city and, while Anon could simulate clothing, it couldn’t make an ID card or anything like that. Besides, Anon didn’t exactly know the way around, and a confused soldier would probably be noticed in minutes.
But turning into a rat worked very well, and the best part was that Uncle Sam had no idea Anon could even do that. They believed that it could only turn into humanoid forms. Angus may be smart, but he’d never figured out a way to really find the limits of Postie abilities, and Anon had never revealed the full extent of its power to anyone. Not until JJ risked everything and made the pitch that began their little rebellion.
Anon figured that if the young man could trust it enough to roll the dice, then it could do the same. It told JJ the gist of its capabilities—Anon could become nearly any vertebrate, but had to at least see an animal once.
“I need to get a read on it, learn how it’s put together,” Anon had explained. “So I can’t do dinosaurs or mammoths or anything like that. But I can do rhinos, polar bears and elephants, if I need to. Tigers, gorillas, you know, zoo animals.”
“How small can you get?”
“Pretty damn small,” it replied and changed, right there in front of JJ’s eyes, into a rat, identical to the form it used to infiltrate the Wall.
It peeked out from beneath a desk; the office was empty, but there’s no such thing as too much caution. There was a row of file cabinets on one wall, some books, manuals and folders on a shelf, and a stack of forms on the desk next to the computer monitor. There were apparently no cameras in the room, but that kind of made sense.
Watchers can only be watched so much, I guess, Anon thought.
Anon’s flesh flowed and deformed as it changed from a rodent to some kind of gibbon. It hopped up onto the desk and flipped through the papers. It saw nothing of interest, but the military-speak was practically a foreign language, so it couldn’t be sure. Nothing related to the gate, though, that was obvious. Then Anon looked at the monitor.
Now that’s interesting, it grinned. The glowing green text was a timetable, a schedule of arrivals and departures. A soldier by the name of Collins would be leaving today, and a new resident was set to arrive tomorrow but those openings were probably too soon to act on. But a supply convoy was due in another two days, and would leave later that same night. If they could reach Fuson by then, and timed the escape right, they’d have a clear shot out the door. Bingo.
After more than four hours, Sol had begun to think that sneaking into the hospital was a waste of time. He’d found an elevator that might go underground, but there was no way to open it—the cameras in the hall made getting bigger out of the question, and he was certain there would be surveillance in the elevator. So he crawled through the forest of carpet, trying to make a plan.
It had been his idea, sneaking inside. The way he saw it, no one else stood a chance. Anon had volunteered, but JJ wisely pointed out the flaws in that scheme. Of course, the kid objected to Sol’s plan, too, but someone had to find a way downstairs. The only way they’d ever escape would be with help from the son of Independence. That was kind of the whole point of the Resistance, after all.
Besides, Sol was the oldest member of the group (except maybe Anon, who could have been any age), and he didn’t mind taking the most dangerous job. He’d rather take the risk than let one of his friends do it. Sol figured it was his job to take care of the others. Especially JJ.
The boy had a rough life, that was for sure, and ending up here wasn’t even half of it, but JJ still had an optimistic core, something that no amount of betrayal or bullshit could break down. Sol had recognized it immediately after meeting the kid. JJ’s attitude—not movies or music or weed—was the reason they had grown so close, so fast.
The truth of it was, simply, that Sol loved the kid. JJ was like the little brother he’d never had. The kid gave Sol hope that life could be better. It began with hope that life could be better in here, with a good friend to help waste the days. But now, for the first time in years, Sol had hope that he would be free again. He believed in JJ and felt like he could do anything for the kid.
Now it was time to live up to the feeling.
Sol scratched his thick beard and looked around. His perceptions were very different at such small size. The hallway stretched on to infinity; the ceiling was so high that it barely registered in his vision. People were nearly unrecognizable. But there was a sweet spot—at about ten feet—where he could see them rather clearly, thanks to perspective. Much further away, and they’d be lost in the haze; much closer and they’d be too big to see. His ears seemed to work differently, too. Voices were felt more than they were heard, and it took a lot of concentration to separate the sounds out into words.
So it was dumb luck, as much as anything, that he noticed Doctor Angus coming down the hall with two men and a woman. They stopped in front of the elevator, talking; their voices were muted, distorted and barely understandable.
Sol didn’t think—he didn’t need to think—he grew to five-eighths of an inch and sprinted across the vast plain of carpet. He leaped, shrunk down to his minimum size in midair, and landed on the back of the old man’s wingtips. He climbed the ancient wall of leather, holding on with all his microscopic might. Wherever Angus went, Sol would go; he could think of no better way to learn the secrets of ABRA.
They entered the elevator, and the trip didn’t take long. It felt like four, maybe five stories to Sol. Or maybe the elevator was just fast, like in a skyscraper. In any case, a woman in a lab coat waited at the bottom, a tall brunette with stylishly horn-rimmed glasses. She was about forty, tall and thin. Sol thought she was kind of hot, in that librarian sort of way.
“Good evening, Doctor Angus,” she said, walking half a step behind as they entered a laboratory.
“Good evening, Doctor Mueller,” Angus replied, though he didn’t even look in her direction. His attention was focused on a rotating hologram hovering in the room’s center. Bizarre diagrams and columns of text flowed through the air, and Sol didn’t even try to understand any of it. A man’s got to know his limitations, after all.
He climbed to the tongue of Angus’s right shoe and lay down, nestled among the laces, kicked back with his hands behind his head, staring with stunned awe at the sci-fi surroundings. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the lab, but he had to admit that it was pretty damn cool.
Everything was shiny gold or white tile, and while Sol had the usual trouble with perspective, the simplicity of everything made the room easier to see. There were no screens or computers in sight, just the floating images and the equipment hanging on the walls. Every piece of technology looked like it had been ripped out of the Golden Home.
This stuff on the walls consisted mainly of oblong, glass tanks; each was about the size of a beach ball, cradled in elegantly arcing frames of gold. There were at least forty of them, maybe more in the vague distance of the lab. They were full of cloudy, amber fluid and thick, reddish sediment.
Sol had seen tanks like those before. He recognized them from a Nova documentary he’d seen about the creation of Independence.
Artificial wombs. Cloning tanks. They’d been taken from the Golden Home.
Sol instantly understood whom Angus was trying to clone; nobody ever called Gladys Beck’s boy stupid. The only question was why would Angus want doppelgangers of Tom Fuson? Why would the government make new pet superheroes?
“They’re dying, sir. We have already lost six.” Mueller abruptly stated, with agitation, frustration and shame boiling under her crisp enunciation.
“Yes, but eighteen remain viable. Your team has done well.”
“Thank you sir, but we have no understanding of the cause. They all appear healthy.”
“But, yet again, few survive beyond gastrulation,” said Angus. The tone of his voice made it apparent that he’d expected as much. “They will all likely be nonviable before long.”
“Yes, sir.”
The doctor made a steeple with his forefingers and raised them to his lips. “Continue monitoring them. Tomorrow, we will try something new.”
“Sir? The conceptuses are incredibly fragile,” Mueller began, and then noticed the old man’s expression. “Which you obviously know, sir.”
“Indeed, I do. We have nothing to lose, Doctor,” replied Angus. “We can always start anew, if this batch fails. But I do not believe that will happen. We will bring these clones to term. All we need is a sacrifice that will assuredly be missed by no one.”
“Sacrifice?”
Angus turned around—nearly causing Sol to roll from his perch—and began to walk from the lab. “Have Lieutenant Baker to leave a message for Captain Holly. I would like the Dark Room to be prepared for Mister Slater.”
Mueller remained silent for a moment. “Yes, Doctor.”
“Now, if you will excuse me, I have some calls to make.”
Sol held on as Angus carried him back to the surface.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tom leaned against the cafeteria wall and kept an eye on Tiffany. She stood on the other side of the room, in the middle of a ring of tense guards, listening and nodding. Her eyebrows rose up in surprise and then furrowed with concern. Tom watched her mouth move and tried to discern as much as possible, but he wasn’t good at lip reading. She noticed him, and they locked eyes. She gave him a little half smile; he tried to put on a brave face and remind her that she wasn’t alone.
She motioned toward him; the lead guard shrugged and said something. Tiffany walked over, looking a little pale.
Tom met her halfway and reached out for her hand. Her soft touch sent a tingle through his body. He looked in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
She hesitated, and then whispered, “Yeah. Um ... I have to go shut down, um, Joey Slater.”
“Joey the Exploder! He’s here? I thought he was dead.” The entire world thought Joey Slater had died with Daytona Beach.
“He’s been here since the beginning, but he doesn’t talk much. You’ve seen him. He’s the guy in the spacesuit. I guess he tried to kill himself about thirty minutes ago. They said he slit his wrists with some kinda shiv. It’s not the first time, either, but he hasn’t done it in like five years. I had no idea the guy was suicidal. I didn’t even know he could take off the spacesuit. Security wants me to make him weak so he doesn’t … you know.”
Tom nodded. “Go. You’ve got this. I’ll be here.”
“Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
They hugged, she walked back to the guards, and he watched them leave.
So Joey Slater’s alive. Tom had no idea that the guy in the spacesuit was the most infamous boy in America—the most infamous man, now. Joey the Exploder was almost thirty now, but it was hard to think of him as anything other than a thirteen-year-old boy. The skinny little kid was almost as famous as Independence, Aegis or Milk.
He’d killed more people than any single person—other than Bloodlust—in an act that changed the country as much as anything in history. Why did they tell everyone he died? Especially since they just ended up putting him here.
Tom was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the approaching group of prisoners. They walked up behind his back and were just a few feet away when one of them cleared his throat. Tom whirled around.
Five Posties stood in a loose semicircle. Tom had seen them all before, but none had ever really talked.
The bodybuilder-looking guy with metallic bronze skin was in the center of the group, in front of the rest, the apparent leader. To Tom’s left stood the mall-destroying Ashley Lang and her boyfriend, the eight-foot-tall sasquatch. The hairless woman with green skin stood on the other side, smiling prettily, aside from the tusks; her gleaming white eyes were the brightest things in the cafeteria. An old man with long gray hair and an even longer beard rounded out the group; Tom had only seen him in passing. He thought the old guy looked like Moses, if Moses had been a grungy hobo.
The metal man extended his right hand and bowed his head slightly. He seemed relaxed and friendly, but there was a gleam in his eyes that Tom couldn’t place and didn’t like.
“Excuse me, Tom—may I call you Tom? I was hoping we could talk.”
Tom’s eyebrows lowered incredulously. Something was up. The group had obviously waited until he was alone to approach. Why didn’t they say hi when Tiffany was around, if all they wanted was to talk?
