Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

If the world destroyed itself in the next few weeks, would it be her fault for not doing more? And if it destroyed itself gradually over the next fifty years, would that be her fault, too?

Soter appeared behind Noah, hobbling toward them as fast as he could manage. Jenna saw the look of relief mixed with wonderment in the old man’s eyes turn to hurt as he glimpsed Jarrod’s body and the state of the dish around her. Then he, too, was kneeling beside her.

Cort, on his crutches, was just a few seconds behind. “Did you do it? Did you stop him?” His eyes flicked back and forth between Jenna and the destroyed dish.

“Damn it, Cort,” Noah rasped. “Give her a minute.”

Jenna shrugged away from Noah, stood and got in Cort’s face. “You didn’t need to send in an airstrike! The signal was already sent! It was too late, you son of a bitch.”

Cort squinted at her. “Did you get there before or after the signal was sent?”

Noah stepped between them. “You almost killed her. She has a right to be pissed. Back off. Now.”

Jenna was angry, but she hadn’t forgotten the stakes. “I took his computer before he could e-mail the others.”

“Where is it?” Cort asked.

“It’s in the—” She trailed off when she realized that the truck and everything in it had been pulverized beneath the collapsing antenna. She turned toward the mass of destruction. “You destroyed it.”

Cort sagged against his crutches. “Well, there’s going to be hell to pay, but at least we can scratch that one off the list.” He jerked a thumb in Jarrod’s direction. “Hopefully this will mean the end of the cyber-terror attacks.”

Despite his coarse manner, Jenna found his statement strangely comforting. Something good had come out of it after all. Jarrod, and Sophia too, might have been only small parts in a grand design, but without them, the whole would be that much less effective.

Jarrod had warned her that the plan would go ahead, even if he was unable to contact the others, but maybe that wouldn’t happen right away. Maybe there was still time to stop the others—her brothers and sisters—from throwing the world into chaos.

And if she could accomplish that, maybe there would be time to save the world from itself.

Noah stood and held her. She savored Noah’s embrace a moment, then turned and faced Cort again.

“I got a look at his contact list. It’s not much, but it’s a place to start. We can find the others. Stop them.” Her eyes were drawn to Jarrod’s corpse. “Maybe even save them from themselves.”

Cort regarded her with an almost predatory curiosity. “We? There is no ‘we.’”

Noah stepped between them again, hands on hips in a fatherly posture. “Jenna, your part in this is done.”

She shook her head. “I know them. I know how they think, and I know why they’re doing it. I’m the only one who can stop them.”

Cort laughed. “How are you going to stop them?”

Jenna looked up at the bent dish above them. She could do more than even she knew. It filled her with confidence. “Try to stop me.”

Cort was more than willing. He reached for his pistol, drew it and pointed it toward Jenna. But instead of shooting the weapon, he tossed it—or at least, that’s what it looked like. Jenna caught the weapon and turned it around on Cort. “I promised that I would give myself up when this was finished. I’ve changed my mind. So we can either do this together—on my terms—or we can do it at odds. The choice is yours.”

Cort rocked back and forth on his crutches for a moment. He was doing a decent job of hiding his surprise, and his fear. “What are these terms of yours...exactly?”

“First, back off. This is going to be a partnership. I’m working with you, not for you. Get that straight.”

Cort shrugged, refusing to agree, but Jenna kept going.

“Second, I want Mercy released, right now. Make a call, put her on a plane back to Key West or wherever she wants to go.”

This request got a response from Cort. His brows furrowed. “Who is Mercy?”

“What?” Jenna looked around for the woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. She turned to Noah, who looked as confused as Cort. The world, and the events that had brought her to the Very Large Array had changed. Not only was Mercy not present, but she was also not a part of her life, or Noah’s. It felt like a death. It stung. But she hid it. “She’s a clone. Like me. One of the first. We need to find her. She’ll help.”

Cort shrugged again, indifferent, but not opposed.

Jenna turned to Soter. “We’re going to need your help, too.”

Soter’s face creased in alarm. “They’re my children. You can’t make me hunt them down.”

“Yes, they are your children, and you’re responsible for what they’re doing. If you really care about them, you’ll help stop them before they do something terrible.”

He leaned against his cane, as unwilling to make a commitment as Cort.

“There’s something else,” she continued. “The transmission didn’t come from extraterrestrials.”

That got Soter’s attention. “No? Then who?”