Callsign: King (Jack Sigler) (Chesspocalypse #1)

She looked up at him, her eyes wild in the grip of an adrenaline fugue, but after a moment she began looking around to verify what he was telling her.

“You’re safe now,” he repeated. The sound of footsteps scrabbling on the hard lava rock signaled that his actions had not gone unnoticed. “No one is going to hurt you. But you need to call them off.”

“Call them…?”

“The zombies.” He winced at his use of the term, but didn’t know what else to call them. “Tell them to stop. Send them back to the cave.”

Comprehension dawned. She glanced over his shoulder at the approaching horde and raised a hand.

The crunch of footsteps stopped immediately and an eerie silence descended over the plain. King looked back cautiously and saw the group arrayed around him, only a few feet away. He breathed a tentative sigh of relief, but when he looked back at Felice, all he saw was horror. Her eyes were riveted on the form of the man who had, only a few moments earlier, been trying to rape her.

“What have I done?” she whispered, hoarsely. “I did that to him. I made him that way.”

“You protected yourself.”

She shook her head, and then hugged her arms around her torso as if fighting back a wave of nausea. “I thought that it was something that happened to all of us when we found the remains in the cave…that we were all changed by what we had discovered…but that’s not…it was me. I did this to them. I destroyed their minds.” She looked into King’s eyes again. “I can’t control this.”

“Yes you can.” He put every ounce of certainty he could muster into his tone, but deep down he wasn’t sure at all. “You didn’t change me. You were being hurt and you fought back. That’s all. You have to believe that.”

He could tell that his words failed to convince her, but it was a start.

“We should get out of here,” he said, rising to his feet. “You have some answers now; you know what happened. There’s nothing more for you here.”

She considered this for a moment, her eyes still fixed on the semi-circle of motionless zombies, then gave a weak nod. As if responding to the gesture, the group abruptly turned and filed back into the cave.

Relieved, King finally turned his attention to the ropes that bound his wrists. The knots were pulled tight, but appeared to be fairly simple. He tugged them loose with his teeth, and in a matter of seconds, was able to wriggle free. He then helped Felice to her feet and together they moved toward the parked vehicles.

Moses was waiting for them, his hands spread in a gesture of contrition. “Please,” he said, as if to forestall an act of retribution. “I never meant for that to happen. You were not to be harmed.”

King wasn’t sure how to respond, but to his surprise, Felice spoke first. “I believe you. And I understand why you felt you had to do this. I wish you had told us what you wanted in the first place. It would have prevented all of this from happening.”

Moses was as speechless as King.

“The cave is dangerous,” Felice continued. “I know you believe that it represents a source of wealth for the future of Africa, but it’s not safe. You must see that.”

He nodded dumbly.

She held out a hand to him. “I haven’t forgotten that you rescued me once. I remember it all now. Let me return the favor.”

Almost tentatively, the young Ethiopian took the proffered hand. King kept his expression neutral, doing his best to hide his reservations. He doubted that they had anything more to worry about from Moses, but a betrayal was nonetheless a betrayal. And there was no telling how far the ripples of that action would spread.

As if to underscore what he was thinking, the unmistakable sound of helicopter turbines—distant but nevertheless growing closer—became audible. King scanned the horizon in all directions and quickly located two sets of green and red aircraft lights approaching from the east.

It was of course highly unlikely that the helicopters belonged to the Pan African Army of Freedom, or any other ragtag rebel group, but that was of little comfort to King. As far as he knew, there was only one other group that knew the location of the cavern: Felice’s former employers at Nexus/Manifold.

For the first time since getting free of his bonds, it occurred to King that he had not armed himself. He had no idea what had become of his MP5. The bodies of the three rebel fighters, and the AK-47s they had wielded, lay some fifty meters away. The Dragunov rifle was presumably still in its case in the SUV, but there almost certainly wasn’t enough time to break it out and assemble it before the helicopters arrived. Even the attempt might provoke a hostile response; it was a sure bet that they were already under scrutiny from observers in the aircraft.

“Change of plans,” King declared. “Back to the cave.”

Felice was visibly shocked at the suggestion. “What?”