Stolen Flyght – Chapter 18

I hold Jinzo back from the group as everyone gathers to have a conversation at the end of the hall. This is my last chance to step away, my last chance to say no and choose a different path. But it’s not like I have much of a choice, as always. Every road ahead is laid with minefields, and death waits around the corner.

“We can’t trust her to do this. Gus said that the military was her family. That she betrayed us because the military would always be more important to her.”

He hums and shakes his head. “People change. Circumstances change. I know that better than anyone… and so do you.”

I bite my lip as I look down the hall at Nina giving directions to this small army of men she brought with her. They nod and follow her every movement without questions.

“What if this backup plan you have doesn’t come through for us?”

“It’ll come through.” He’s sure. Confident.

“I —”

“Hey, uh, Vivian?” Eamon is in front of me.

“Yeah?” I try to hide my annoyance, but it’s impossible. Too many things are going wrong for me to think Eamon is delivering any kind of good news.

“Something’s not right here.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“No, I mean, with these guys. They’re too strong, too compliant.”

Down the hall, Nina speaks to each of the men, and they nod at whatever she’s saying. Well, maybe this is what Athens has been looking for? Renata suspected that the military has been breeding some kind of super-soldier. Maybe these men are the secrets they’ve been hiding. Maybe this power source is nothing but a giant ruse to keep us from noticing what’s right in front of us.

Now that Eamon has called my attention to them, I can’t tear my eyes from every blink, gesture, and tick these men display. And it’s not a lot of them. They are remarkably self-controlled. They nearly burst with contained power, on the brink of exploding but just shy of it happening. Plus, something about their appearance is just not right. I can’t put my finger on what, though.

“What do you think?” I ask Eamon.

“I have no fucking idea. They’re too perfect. Perhaps the military has come up with some way to program people now, not just androids.” He shivers, and the hairs on my arms stand up. “Whatever it is, we need to monitor it.”

“They look… different,” I whisper. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes, but different how?”

I’m not sure.

“Vivian,” Nina calls, waving us to her. I try to remain out of arm’s reach of her men when we draw near. They could grab me quicker than I could blink, but why tempt fate? “To show you what I want to, we have to descend to sublevel six. We can only access sublevel six through one highly secured hallway.”

I jerk my thumb back at the room we came from. “So, we need more androids?”

Nina glances at her men. “No. No more of those androids from here. I have put them in maintenance mode using my security clearance.”

Something I’m already familiar with.

“We have access to six,” she says, indicating her crew. “You do not. So we’ll have to break you in. Trust my men to take care of it. Whatever you do, don’t panic.”

I don’t like the sound of this. We have to put our lives in this woman’s hands, someone I already don’t trust. But then, what other choice do I have?

None.

I have no choice. My fate is entirely out of my hands now, as it always has been. Mat likes to talk of fate like it is some benevolent force that brings people together. But it’s also a destructive force that tears people apart. It’s not as romantic as one would like to believe.

“Okay, we’ll follow along. You just tell us what to do.”

Gloria grasps my arm as we follow behind Nina and her team. “Renata wouldn’t like this. Remember how I said I was the foremost expert on this base, and what goes on here? That I have actual experience in this?”

“Uh-huh.” How could I forget the chewing out I got in the conference room? Gloria wanted me off the ground team, and it appears her skepticism was warranted.

“I know every corridor, every office, every fucking air duct in this whole place. It was my job to memorize it from top to bottom so that if the androids tried to trick or ambush us, I would know ahead of time.” She grabs my arm. “There is no sublevel six, Vivian,” she hisses. “Either we’re walking into a trap, or this shit just got super top-secret.”

Great.

Super top-secret is what we need.

We take an elevator to sublevel five, and my stomach churns on the ride down. Gloria is right. There is no sublevel six listed on the elevator directory. Nina’s men hover over us, and a chilly wind seems to blow down my back every time they shift or breathe or even exist. These super-soldiers scare the crap out of me. Were they born and bred for this task? Or were they also Vir boys, sold by their family into a ‘better life?’

I should feel okay about this. After all, this is what Athens Industries is doing with Vir boys. The human trafficking made me sick, but then I allied myself with one side. Is the military doing the same thing as Athens? Or are they doing something different?

Doubt scratches at the back of my head. All the pieces of the puzzle are right in front of me, but I can’t fit them together into one picture. I was always crap at puzzles as a kid. Too impatient to sit and figure it out.

The elevator opens on sublevel five, and the hallway is quiet up to the security door.

“This is where things get a little dicey,” Nina says, leading us up to the door.

Perhaps if our crew were smaller, we’d go unnoticed, but as it is, we’re a crowd of people. I’ve got seven of us, and Nina has six of them. Thirteen people traveling in a group is suspicious, no matter where you are.

Carlos clears his throat. “Uh, I gave everyone in this group top-secret clearance on every level of the base. Is there another level above that that I didn’t know about?”

Nina turns slowly, her eyebrows raised. “You did what?”

Skylar shrugs. “There’s a reason why I pay him a big salary.”

“I could use a raise.” Carlos’s eyes light up.

“Sounds like it. How did you…?” Nina waves. “Never mind. Okay, so your clearance will get us into level five, but we’ll need to break into an office and modify the list to access level six. Can you do that?”

Carlos shrugs. “Sure. Accessing the network from the inside is a lot easier than doing it from the outside.”

I squeeze his arm. “I will give you a raise and a bonus when we get out of here, I promise.”

“A bonus sounds excellent to me.” Carlos will not say no to extra money for this adventure. I just hope we’re all alive to give it to him.

“And a week on Laguna,” Jinzo throws in.

“I’ll take a week on Laguna, too,” Gloria says, raising her hand, “because I know the perfect place for us to access the network.”

We each scan through the double security door and don’t trip any alarms. Thank you, Carlos, for doing your job so well. I’m surprised he gave Skylar, Eamon, and himself secure top-secret access too, but then again, I’m not sure what he needed in order to access the off-site data center.

Gloria leads us all down the hall past multiple offices, murmuring while pointing at each door. She passes a door like all the others, stops, and I bump into her.

“Sorry. This is the one we want. It belongs to a scientist who is currently off-world.”

A door down the hall clicks, and we all freeze, eyes wide.

“In,” I urge everyone.

Gloria opens the door with her handprint and eye scan, and we all tumble in before anyone down the hall can see us. The office is cold and dark.

“Ow! Move your elbow.”

“That’s not my elbow.”

“Do these guys even talk?”

“I have plenty to say when my foot is being trampled on.”

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my office? Room controls, lights up, fifty percent.”

The lights blink on, and my heart leaps into my throat. A woman is sitting up on her office’s couch, blinking away the remnants of sleep and clutching a blanket to her chest.

“Oh! Dr. Suniere, what are you doing here?” Gloria asks. Her face has turned an ashen white. “I thought you were on assignment on Rio.”

The doctor rubs at her eyes. “I was, but I came back early. Who…” She smacks her lips together. “Who are you?”

Her eyes widen as she sees Nina. “Commander Correa, uh…” She jumps to her feet and smoothes out her rumpled shirt and slacks. “This is unexpected. I didn’t think you’d be checking in for another few weeks.”

The room descends into an eery quiet. Shit. We all need to think on our toes now. This woman thinks one thing is happening when something else entirely is going on. I’m not sure why we’re in this office instead of the countless others on the floor. Gloria had a purpose for bringing us here, right? This doctor must have access to the systems we need… and she was supposed to be gone.

I need to fix this. Gloria is on my team, and I’m supposed to be the leader here.

I step forward. “Dr. Suniere, I’m Terri Parsons. It’s so good to meet you.” I thrust out my hand, and the woman takes it, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “We didn’t expect to actually find you here today! Wow. I’m just…” I press my hands to my chest and fake admiration like I’m finally face-to-face with someone I’ve longed to meet all my life. “I’m so honored.”

Oh, my God. Someone help me, please!

Nina rests her hand on my upper arms. “Please excuse Ms. Parsons. I told her we’d stop into your office while I gave her a tour and see if you were here. We didn’t mean to intrude. She’s a huge fan of your work on meteorology and weather control.”

Oh fuck. I know so little about weather control. This is all going to fall to pieces in less than five minutes. I can’t even remember what I learned in school! My brain is suddenly wiped blank. I look to my team for help, hoping to find something, anything to use in this moment.

Lia’s face brightens, and her eyes widen like she just figured out the secret to the universe.

“But she’s not as much of a fan as I am,” Lia says, bumping her hips against mine. She touches her chest. “I’ve been her lab mate for three years on Ossun, and we’ve studied your weather control models inside and out. That paper you published on ocean currents and how they affect high and low pressure systems gave us the information we needed to tweak the Ossun satellites. We were able to provide a more stable spring weather forecast with your help.”

I want to turn around and high-five Lia. I have no idea where she pulled that information from, but I’m obviously not paying her enough.

Dr. Suniere blushes. “I heard they used that paper to adjust the oceanic heating and cooling stations.”

Lia pokes me in the arm. “We were on the ground for that.”

I nod like my head is stuck on a spring.

“That’s great! I’m glad they’ve already used my work for the greater good.” She yawns and covers her mouth. “So sorry. I got a flight back here from Rio yesterday, but I was assigned a bunk with a woman who just could not sleep, and then I couldn’t sleep, and my apartment here has a busted heater for at least another day.”

“Would you like to get coffee?” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “Maybe talk a little shop? Commander Correa was going to take her team around the floor on a tour, so it’s not like we’ll miss anything.”

I smile at Skylar, and she smiles back. She’s much smoother at lying than I am.

“We have a lot to see,” Skylar says, turning to Nina. “Any chance those rooms have opened up for us?”

Nina tips over her wristlet. “Ah, no. Maybe another five minutes, and we’ll be able to access the labs without disturbing anyone.”

Dr. Suniere takes the bait. “Oh! If you’re waiting to get into a lab, you all are welcome to wait here.”

“Really?” Gloria brings her hands together at her heart. “That would be fabulous. We tried standing around in the hall, but we got in the way.”

“Please stay.” Dr. Suniere grabs her lab coat and gestures to Lia and me. “I’ll take these two to get coffee in the canteen, and you can pick them up there on your way to the lab.”

With her hand on our backs, she ushers us out the door, and we wave to everyone as the door closes behind us.

What the hell just happened?

I don’t know, but I’m about to fake my way through small talk about weather control over cups of coffee. It’s time to break out what my mom calls ‘the fine art of pretending.’ I hope my bullshitting skills are still up to snuff.