The Exodus Towers #1

By the time the firm handshake ended, Russell found himself considering ways to root the ambitious prick from his inevitable hold on Darwin. Three months, he thought, should be enough for Grillo’s strategy to become a bullet train with no brakes, and then he could be tossed over Nightcliff’s north wall and no one need know any more about it.

Really, was it any different than allowing Kip Osmak to handle the day-to-day operations at the climber port? A good leader delegates. Russell had read that, somewhere. Maybe Neil Platz had said it, in one speech or another.

And in the meantime, Russell could get down to the business of finding Tania Sharma and her band of merry misfits.

Later that day, he called everyone of importance to his office in Nightcliff and introduced them to the new prefect. Their shocked expressions told him what they thought of the arrangement, but they weren’t people whose opinions mattered much.

By sunset Russell found himself on board a climber. He felt the weight of Darwin’s problems fade as his altitude increased, and understood then why all the world’s elite had fled the city as well, five years ago, rather than deal with the aftermath of SUBS. He’d stuck it out then, taken the reins and done what had to be done.

No matter what anyone said, Russell had earned his place at the top of the food chain, and it was high time he enjoyed the perks that came along with it.
Belém, Brazil

30.APR.2283

A SNAKE SLITHERED over his left leg, then under his right.

Skyler guessed from the weight that it must be as thick as his arm. Confirmation would require looking, and he had no intention of moving a muscle. The creature took so long to finish its languid journey that he imagined it being more than five meters in length.

Only when he felt the tail tickle his right ankle did he allow himself to breathe. He’d fallen asleep, stupidly, in the undergrowth east of the Elevator and base camp. The last two days had left him exhausted. The tenacious immunes were stubborn to the point of insanity and had chased him through the city for six hours. When they finally gave up, Skyler collapsed in the first place he found to sleep: on the couch inside a psychiatric office. Offices were less likely to be tombs for the first victims of SUBS as most people forgot about work when the end came, and that had proved true here. He’d dusted off the plush leather couch, lain down, and listened to the river through a broken window. A pack of dogs woke him three times, baying and snarling at one another as they roamed their masterless world.

In the morning he’d begun to walk, each step a conscious effort, his mind clouded with scenarios and theories as to what was going on inside Camp Exodus. An organized group of immunes had rolled in and taken charge; that much seemed obvious. Everything else amounted to so much speculation and only distracted him, but when he tried to put it out of mind his thoughts turned to that bizarre cave in the rainforest and the creature he’d spied within. Part of him wanted nothing more than to gather a posse and head back out there, a desire these immunes stood in the way of. But there was another part of him, a part he felt guilty about, that welcomed any task other than returning to the home of that nightmare. The thought crossed his mind, more than once, to forget all about the things he’d seen.

He’d walked all day. A long, circuitous route brought him around to the east side of camp, opposite of where he’d approached from before.

By the time he’d crawled through the foliage to study the scene, night had long fallen. His legs were rubber from the day of walking, his feet raw and aching.

He took a glance at his wristwatch. Three A.M. He’d slept for almost two hours. Eyes on the camp, Skyler reached down and grabbed his canteen. He swished the cool water through his teeth and then spit it out before taking a modest gulp. A growl from his stomach he ignored.

The invaders, as Skyler had come to call them, were organized and taking no chances. Their vehicles were parked in a semicircle around the north and west sides of the camp. One pointed outward, the next inward, in repeating fashion. Their bright headlights bathed the camp in pure white and complex shadows. Most were aimed dead center on the base of the Elevator, where the camp’s improvised headquarters sat. A few, though, cast their light on the parking lot of aura towers.

Those trucks pointing outward cast wan illumination on the surrounding trees and low buildings, giving swarms of moths a stage for their evening dance.

Skyler’s strategy to approach from the east proved wise. He’d walked well past the camp and followed the riverbank back, turning in at the tributary that roughly traced the camp’s eastern border. The invaders were paying little attention to this side.

From his position on the sloped bank of the tributary, Skyler saw no colonists abroad. They were either confined to their tents and mobile homes, or they’d been crammed into the bellies of the five armored personnel carriers he counted.

Or killed. There was always that possibility.

A climber rested at the base of the Elevator, loaded with cargo. The construction crane they’d rigged to lift the thing still had truss lines attached to the frame of the spiderlike vehicle. Yesterday should have been the first real shipment of water and air to the space stations above. Having checked constantly for signs of the crawler rising above the city, Skyler knew nothing had gone up. Tania and the others would be rationing now, and the farms would be even more at risk than before. He wondered how much they knew of the situation here. Whoever the intruders were, Tania would try to talk to them if the comm functioned. A climber stuck at the base meant that nothing, and no one, could come down.

Skyler needed hard information, and the longer he waited, the closer dawn would be, stealing any chance of a quiet foray into the camp.

He allowed a half hour to study the invaders’ movements. Sentries manned each vehicle, either atop a mounted gun turret if available, or just sitting on the roof with an assault rifle across their knees.

A few patrolled on foot, giving a cursory flashlight inspection of the waterway. Skyler took some heart at this. If he had it right, only a handful of the invaders had any formal training in such things. Despite their matching gear and professional attitude, they were not all experienced militants.

When the next patroller wandered out of earshot, Skyler made his move. Running low, he went to the nearest friendly tent and ducked behind it. He waited, ready to bolt toward the river if any alarm rose. Hearing nothing, he flicked the canvas side of the tent with his finger. He repeated this a dozen times before he heard a whisper.

“Who’s there?”

“Skyler,” he said, voice low.

“Thank God,” the person said. “We thought you were dead. Where have you—”

“No time for chat,” Skyler hissed. “How many are there, who are they, and what do they want?”

The person inside the tent swallowed audibly. “Thirty? Maybe forty? I don’t know what they want. We were shoved into random tents and told we’d be shot if we came out. I’ve heard three gunshots since then.”

Whatever their goal, the fact that they’d kill for it told Skyler everything he needed to hear about. “Where’s Karl?”

“I don’t know,” the colonist whispered. “I saw him talking to their leader, before they shoved me in here.”

Skyler glanced around himself. Another patrol would come by soon. “Which one is their leader? Can you describe him?”

“I … I’m not sure. Tall, your height I guess. Military hair, you know, close-cropped. Goatee and sunglasses. That’s all I saw.”

“You’re sure he was their leader?”

A pause. “I just assumed …”

Skyler heard footsteps to the south. “Okay, stay put. If violence is the only solution here, you’ll know when I’ve started it. Follow Karl’s lead if you can; otherwise just fight. There’s no place to run.”

“Take me with you?”

“Sorry,” Skyler said, and meant it. “When they find you’re missing, they’ll double their guard and make trouble for everyone else. Right now they think I’m hiding deep in the city, and the longer they believe that, the better.”

“Okay, okay. You’re right.”

The footsteps sounded closer. “Quiet now,” Skyler said. He feared that a return to his place on the riverbank would take too long. Instead he moved farther into the camp, making use of every shadow he could. He reached a parked truck, the flatbed he’d seen on Mercy Road the day before carrying bed frames, and rolled underneath it.

For a long time he lay still, inhaling the rich aroma of chipped wood. Mud and deep puddles had plagued the center of camp in the first days after arrival, so Skyler had led an expedition for decorative bark, of all things. Tania and the others had balked at first, claiming medical supplies and food were all that mattered. Once Skyler and a half-dozen volunteers blanketed the Elevator base in the ground cover, the complaints stopped. No mud in the tents, no bootfuls of cold rainwater to suffer. Tania even thanked him for being bullheaded about the idea, on one of her brief visits.

That the material suppressed sounds and held no footprints proved an unintended benefit. Satisfied no one had seen him dive under the truck, Skyler allowed himself to relax, and surveyed the center of camp from his fresh point of view.

One of the black-clad newcomers guarded the cargo container that served as the camp’s headquarters. Karl, Skyler knew, spent most of his time in there, carefully managing the logistics of the alien towers. Where they were, who had responsibility for them, and when they would return. He and Skyler spent many evenings huddled around the map of Belém taped to the wall within, plotting and strategizing.

The comm, their only link to Melville Station above, lay within as well.

Skyler crawled forward. He could see the sentry up to the knees. He or she stood beside the door, casually leaning against the wall of the container, one foot crossed over the other. As Skyler moved toward the front of the truck, he saw that the guard’s arms were folded, an assault rifle nestled within like a cradled newborn.

He hoped to find the person dozing, but when Skyler finally saw the face—a young man—the guard’s eyes were alert and actively studying his surroundings.

An approach from here would be suicidal, as no cover existed. That the guard hadn’t seen him dive below the truck was something of a miracle.

A rustling sound came from behind. Skyler shot a glance back over his shoulder and saw a colonist emerging from a tent, thirty or forty meters away.

“Hello?” the man said, voice raised. “I need to relieve myself.”

“Stay where you are,” the guard standing at the headquarters door shouted back. His voice carried a heavy accent. Brazilian, Skyler guessed. “I’ll get you an escort.”

“I’m just going to go behind the tent here,” the colonist said. He started to walk.

Skyler glanced forward and saw the guard standing alert. The man took a few steps forward, readying his gun.

“Remain still!” the guard yelled. Then he slipped two fingers into the corners of his mouth and whistled three times as he continued to march toward the noisy colonist. His path brought him right next to the truck Skyler lay beneath, and he stopped just centimeters away. “I mean it, a*shole, stop.”

The camp began to stir. Skyler heard voices and the zippers of tent flaps. Some invaders, across the camp and out of view, were shouting queries about the whistle.

“Stop, I’m serious,” the guard urged. Then he muttered, “Shit,” and started to run. Skyler glanced back again and caught a glimpse of the colonist racing off into the darkness, toward the river. The guard bolted toward him even as more of the invaders came from the other side of camp. Shouts went up and bleary colonists stumbled out of their tents.

On pure instinct, Skyler crawled from beneath the truck and sprinted to the improvised headquarters. In a former life, the structure had served as a shipping container. A doorway and window had been cut out of one side, and given the darkness within, Skyler assumed the place was empty.

As the commotion in the camp escalated, he ducked inside and closed the door.

“Who’s there?” someone called.

Skyler swung his gun around and flicked on the light. The bright beam lit up the face of a black-clad stranger, lying on the floor atop a sleeping bag. Halfway to a sitting position, the man froze at the sight of Skyler’s gun barrel just centimeters from his face. With the weapon so close, the beam from the mounted light only lit a circle around the man’s mouth.

“Not a bloody peep,” Skyler whispered. He moved the light to the man’s eyes, and the off-duty guard squinted and blinked, turning his face partly away.

“Okay, relax,” he said.

“I need answers. Who are you people?”

“Survivors,” the man said, his voice faltering. An American, judging by the accent.

“Do better than that. Quickly now. How’d you come to be here? Who’s your leader?”

Fear radiated from the poor man’s face. “Please. They’ll kill me.”

“I’ll kill you,” Skyler hissed. “They don’t need to know we ever met.”

Eyes closed, the man swallowed hard and managed a terse nod. “I ran a factory in S?o Paulo. Everyone started dying, or … worse. I hid for a while, and when things quieted down I decided to make my way back to Colorado.”

“Skip the life story, okay?”

The man went on. “Gabriel found me on the freeway, near Rio. I could barely walk I was so hungry.”

“Gabriel?”

“Our leader. He brought all us survivors together, ever since the … He’s building a new society from the ashes.”

Skyler took a second to digest the information. The man’s voice held a reverence that could mean nothing good. “Why did you attack our camp?”

The man opened one eye, trying to see Skyler and failing in the face of the flashlight. “What would you do, if you came across a scene like this?”

“I’d probably cheer at the sight of so many more survivors.”

“You spacemen are not true survivors.”

Skyler had opened his mouth to argue when the blade of a knife flashed inches from his face. He leapt backward as the man slashed again. Blinded by the bright flashlight, the invader misjudged the distance on both swings.

A gunshot here would have the whole lot of them bearing down on the room, so Skyler flipped his gun around and smacked the butt into the man’s face. He heard the sound of bone breaking as the weapon hit.

The man roared and fell back, clutching at his ruined nose. Skyler darted forward and lunged with his weapon again, then a third time, until the American fell silent.

He had no doubt the entire camp heard the man’s anguished shout. Skyler turned and fled, stopping just shy of the door. Linked pairs of handheld radios lay in a tray bolted to the wall. He grabbed a set and knelt, placing his gun on the floor so he could work with the light it provided.

A strap of Velcro held the two devices together. He ripped the material apart and set one device aside. Fingers dancing, he turned on the radio in his hands and then wrapped the Velcro strap around twice, pulling it tight so that the transmit button remained down.

He turned and scanned the room. Prompted by a nearby shout outside, Skyler knew he had to leave. He slid the modified radio across the floor and it vanished beneath the table where the comm terminal sat. He could only hope it would remain unfound.

Skyler snatched the other radio and ran from the room. He ignored a cry of warning from somewhere behind him, taking a zigzag pattern around the truck he’d hidden under before. A deafening report from an assault rifle made him duck and change directions again, as bullets thudded into the side of the truck.

He didn’t bother to turn and look. There were too many of them. Instead Skyler kept running, straight back the way he’d come, pumping his legs as hard as he could. He stuffed the radio into his pocket and flicked off the flashlight on his gun as he went.

When he passed the tent where he’d spoken to a colonist, the man was emerging from the flap, brandishing a folded umbrella.

“Not yet,” Skyler said as he raced by. The colonist, an older man, ducked back inside as more gunshots rang out. Skyler crouched and altered his angle twice more before finally reaching the sloped bank. He leapt into the tributary at a narrow point, hoisting his weapon above his head, landing in knee-high water with a huge splash.

Out the other side, he turned and knelt. When the first invader’s head appeared above the sloped bank, Skyler fired, killing the person instantly.

He spun and ran up the far bank, diving over the top and rolling in the tall grass beyond as more bullets traced paths through the vegetation around him.

In any other scenario he would have fired wildly in return, hoping to send the enemies diving for cover. But with the colony as a backdrop, the risk was too great. Instead he flipped the holo-sight on and took aim at the closest invader. Skyler squeezed the trigger and sent the person sprawling, clutching their leg.

The others took cover as their second comrade hit the ground.

Satisfied, Skyler began to crawl through the meter-high grass. He went east, or so he hoped, moving to a bent-over run as soon as he thought it safe to do so. Twice he tripped in the darkness. On the second fall his head smacked into a rock buried in the deep grass, cutting his forehead. He bit back a groan and ran on as blood began to trickle from the wound.

The immunes chased him through grass fields and rainforest for an hour before Skyler happened upon a flimsy boathouse.

Double images blurred before his eyes. He swayed on his feet and needed every ounce of concentration to keep his legs under him. Throwing caution to the wind, he kicked his way into the feeble structure and turned his flashlight on again, finding the single room empty. A concrete channel full of black water held a tiny, two-man fiberglass boat, tied down with a single nylon rope.

The water went out through the wide-open fourth wall, ten meters out through a mangrove cathedral to the swift Guamá. Whatever smugglers used this place in the past hid it well from above.

Blood still trickling from his forehead, Skyler lumbered forward and stepped into the boat, his foot splashing in stagnant water that had pooled in the hull. He ignored the foul smell and lay down on his back. After three tries to grab the yellow rope, which swam and blurred in front of him, he finally found it and undid the simple knot. Fighting the searing pain in his skull, he reached over the side of the boat and probed with his hand until he found concrete. Using just his fingertips, he pushed with all the strength he had left. After what felt like an eternity, he cracked his eyes open enough to see the roof of the hidden boathouse pass above him, giving way to tangled mangroves and dark sky beyond. The pain soon became unbearable and he let his eyes close.

Voices nearby. Shouting. The door of the feeble shack being kicked in again. Brittle wood shattering this time. Skyler lay still, aware his pursuers argued at the water’s edge, their words a meaningless jumble. They had not fired at him, not with intent to hit him, since leaving the auras behind. The thought flickered in a corner of his mind, then danced away, intangible.

Adrift, skull throbbing, Skyler felt rather than saw the transition into the swift and churning waters of the wide river. As the light of dawn began to touch the sky above, he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Darwin, Australia

1.MAY.2283

VAUGHN SHIFTED IN his sleep. He rolled away, his moist skin separating from hers in a sound that made her think of peeling a banana.

One sweaty arm still draped across Samantha’s stomach. She lay on her back, on the floor of her cell, naked and glistening from their roll in the hay. Despite his mirthless personality, Vaughn performed remarkably well for his first time with her. Fit, young, and otherwise bored proved a good mix, if enthusiasm counted for anything. He wouldn’t win any awards for originality, but she didn’t care. He slept now; that’s all that mattered.

She lay there in the humid air and musky smell until he did not stir when she lifted his wrist from her stomach. On the previous three tries, he’d resisted having his arm moved, despite his regular breathing and rapid eye movement. This time she lifted his arm and dropped it back to her stomach in a wet slap. Satisfied, Sam slid from under him, her skin breaking into goose bumps when his fingertips brushed across her waistline.

In any other circumstances, you’d make a decent sparring partner, Vaughn, my boy. He’d declined to tell her his first name when she’d finally asked after rolling off him. Something about how they shouldn’t get to know each other too well. “We just f*cked,” Sam had replied.

He’d grunted, considered for a moment, and said, “Fine, it’s Bruce.”

Sam had never met an actual Australian man named Bruce, but she didn’t press it.

The tiny window on her cell door cast a square of dim light onto the concrete floor. Sam pulled the guard’s clothing into the beam and went through his gear. A nightstick, Taser, and red utility knife she set by the exit, on top of her discarded clothing.

In one pocket she found a set of old-fashioned metal keys, the card-swipe system having apparently failed a year earlier, something Vaughn griped about every time he entered. Six silver and bronze keys dangled from the ring. She clasped her fist around them, pulled them from the pocket, and set them carefully next to the other gear, her ears tuned to the sound of his breathing.

The door squeaked when she slipped out. Not enough to stir the guard, but plenty to send her pulse racing. She left her clothing behind. If Vaughn stirred she thought she could return to his side and raise no suspicion. Now out of the cell, she figured her naked state would give her a brief advantage to anyone coming across her.

Samantha padded down the hall and poked her head into the office the guards used. In the middle of the night, Vaughn appeared to be the only person on duty.

She set the nightstick on the desk there and checked all the drawers for proper weapons, a futile effort. One of the keys she’d taken might open a weapons locker somewhere in the building, but a search could take awhile.

A clipboard on the wall caught her eye. A stack of stained papers was tucked under the metal fastener, rows of names written in one column and numbers in another. Using the weak light coming in from a curtained window, she scanned the names. On page two, she found it: Adelaide, cell listed as “Royal 004.” Samantha’s own name noted cell “Main 212.” The numbers were rooms, she guessed, but the words held no meaning for her.

“Royal 004,” she whispered to herself over and over. Near the door an idea struck her, and she snatched up a half-empty bottle of some alcohol or another. Fermented cider, Darwin’s poison, if the smell was any indicator.

Leaving the nightstick behind, she held the bottle loosely in one hand and clutched Vaughn’s keys in the other, and stumbled out the door in what she hoped looked like a drunken swagger.

Her bare feet splashed in puddles on the cracked sidewalk outside. A half second later a spray of warm rain dappled her bare skin. She paused a moment and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of freedom, both physical and metaphorical.

“We have a dress code within the walls,” someone said.

She whirled around, slipped, then righted herself. Liquid sloshed in the bottle, a splash of it clapping onto the ground. The clumsy move fed into her ploy. “Thass a new rule!” she barked.

The man stood between her and a yellow LED bulb mounted on the wall by the guard’s office. How he’d gotten behind her, she had no idea. He wore an overcoat, and had slick hair. Shadows hid his face.

“True,” he said. “However, a rule is a rule.”

“Can’t make an exception in my case, sweetheart?” she said, and tried to strike a flattering pose, deliberately off balance.

“You may be the worst actress I’ve ever seen, Samantha Rinn.”

She dropped the fa?ade and whipped the bottle around in her hand, holding it like a club. The alcohol poured down her leg in a noisy gurgle. “Who are you?” she asked. “How do you know me?”

As an answer, he sidestepped into the light.

“Grillo …,” she said.

He tilted his head to one side. “It’s been awhile since you declined my job offer.”

“The bennies were shit,” she said through a tight smile. He’d tried to hire everyone on Skyler’s crew, after Skyler declined to join his operation. He even tried to pay poor Jake to assassinate their leader, claiming an accident. Jake said no, of course, and told Sam about the offer only after a night of hard drinking at Woon’s.

Her hand tightened around the keys, and she set her feet wider, ready to pounce or run. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came looking for you,” he replied.

A pair of laughing Nightcliff regulars came around the corner. At the sight of Samantha they pulled up. One hooted at her nakedness; the other froze in wide-eyed recognition of a captive on the loose.

“Move along, gentlemen,” Grillo said to them without so much as a glance in their direction.

“Sir, she’s a prisoner,” the stunned guard said. “Dangerous. Russell said no one was to touch her.”

“I’m in charge now,” Grillo said. “You may have heard. Miss Rinn is an old friend and is going to accompany me to my office.”

“She is?”

“I am?” Samantha said. She draped an arm across her breasts and crossed her legs.

At some point Grillo had slipped a pistol from his coat pocket, and it now rested against his thigh. Samantha couldn’t decide whom he meant to threaten with it.

“You,” Grillo said to the guard who still gawked at her, “you’re almost tall enough. Give the young lady your jacket and pants.”

“Huh?” he managed.

“Please do not make me repeat myself,” Grillo said. His even voice intoned deadly threat.

Ten minutes later she found herself seated at Grillo’s desk, the stiff and smelly borrowed jacket itching her skin, too-tight black pants covering her legs.

She asked for scotch; he gave her water.

For a time they sat in uncomfortable silence, sipping their drinks. The office was cluttered with mismatched furniture and obnoxious decorations. Blackfield’s things, she surmised. Skimmed from years of impromptu searches of returning scavenger ships. Sam even recognized a painting on the wall as one she’d grabbed in haste in a mansion in China. Abstract and tacky, it nevertheless reminded her of entwined limbs, like some crazed orgy. The same impression hit her now, and the painting seemed even more out of place here than in that party official’s home. Nothing in the room matched Grillo’s personality.

Lightning flashed outside, followed a few seconds later by distant thunder, as wet season made its curtain call.

“So you’re running things now?” she said.

He considered his words. “Russell needed order in the city, and I’m the man for the job.”

“How come you were skulking about outside my cell in the middle of the night?”

“As I said,” Grillo replied, “I was looking for you. You seemed … busy, so I thought I’d wait.”

“Looking for me, why? The others either want to scrape a knuckle or get in my pants. Sometimes both.”

“I need your help.”

“Go f*ck yourself. I know how you work, crime lord, and it’s not my style.”

He frowned, if only for an instant. “I never understood that moniker. Crime, by definition, does not exist in an anarchy.”

“Slumlord, then.”

Grillo swirled the water in his cup and watched the vortex that formed for a moment. “It’s integral to my plan for Darwin that the scavenger crews return to full capacity, that they cooperate. My unfortunate rivalry with them over these last five years does not make me the best person to try to convince them of this fact.”

“But me …”

“You they love.”

Sam shook her head. “Forget it. Our independence is, was, the only reason we bother.”

“Not the greater good?”

Samantha chuckled. “The only people who ever ask that can’t afford to hire the crews. Look, forget it. I’d rather rot in this place than help you and Russell Dickfield.”

Grillo leaned to one side and looked toward the door they’d entered through. He raised his voice and said, “Bring her in.”

The doors opened a second later, and Samantha rose from her chair as two nurses wheeled a stretcher into the office.

“Kelly Adelaide,” Grillo said.

Samantha rushed across the room and took her friend’s hand. Kelly didn’t grip back, and Samantha eased, afraid she would crush bone.

Fighting tears, Sam whirled on Grillo, who now stood near the center of the large office. “What did you bastards do to her?”

Grillo took a step back, holding his hands up before him. “Let me explain.”

Without thinking, without a care in the world, Samantha balled her fists and stormed across the room. She threw the punch without a second thought, her calloused, meaty fist whooshing through the air.

Grillo dodged it. He sidestepped with uncanny agility, his calm expression never changing.

Momentum threw Samantha off balance and she stumbled forward. The failed attack only fueled her rage. Before she could stop herself, she swiped an arm across Grillo’s desk, scattering papers and sending a comm terminal crashing to the floor.

“She’s been sedated,” Grillo said.

Sam gripped the wooden desk, squeezing with all her might to release her anger. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes and she fought to keep them within. “Bollocks,” she managed. “Why?”

“Because the two of you together are a rather volatile combination,” Grillo said.

“You think this will convince me? I’ll tear your arms off and shove them up your bloody ass before I help you.”

Wisely, Grillo moved to stand on the opposite side of the stretcher. By the time Samantha crossed to face him, her sympathy for Kelly quieted the rage within.

“Here’s your choice, Samantha,” Grillo said, voice low. “Get the crews running, and Kelly lives. Refuse, and her next injection will be drain cleaner. You’ll remain in your cell until Russell finally gets tired of waiting for you to be a willing bedmate.”

When the white-hot rage faded, Sam saw only Kelly’s serene, vulnerable face. She knelt beside the bed and took her friend’s hand again, a light grip this time. Kelly’s eyes fluttered beneath the eyelids in reaction. “I won’t help you if she’s rotting in a cell alone.”

“I understand,” Grillo said. “But I can’t have the two of you together, at least until I know where your allegiance is. Sorry, but I know what you’re capable of.”

“Think of something.”

Grillo mulled it over for a moment. Then he turned to the two nurses. “Take her to my facility in Lyons, a guest room with a barred window. When she wakes, tell her that if she tries to leave Samantha will be shot.” They nodded and wheeled the woman away.

For a time Samantha just stared at the empty space where her friend lay. Grillo kept back, respectful of her turmoil.

“Let me get this straight,” she said when her grief and anger had faded. “I convince the scavenger crews to work for you, and you’ll let Kelly live in your mansion?”

“Not exactly. Tacit agreement from the airport crews does me little good, and I sense you want more for Kelly than just ‘house arrest’ status.”

Samantha turned to face him. She towered over the man but somehow felt his equal. The way he’d avoided her fist, the unnerving calm in the way he carried himself. This man demanded respect in a way Russell Blackfield could only dream of. “So,” she said, “what then? Stop being vague.”

His head tilted to one side as he spoke. “You’ll ask the scavengers to work for you, not me. You keep them flying, you supply their missions based on my needs, and you take responsibility for the success or failure.”

“What’s the big push? Russell asking for more guns, or does he want fine art and gold chains now that he’s the big boss?”

Grillo shook his head. “Soil,” he said. “Fertilizer. Shovels, hoes, and spades. Weed killer. Seeds.”

“I thought the ‘traitors’ took all the farms?”

A thin smile flashed on Grillo’s face. “I work for Darwin, first and foremost. I intend to change the face of this city.”

Sam blinked. “I’ll be damned. You’re full of surprises. It sounds like you actually give a shit.”

“Not the words I’d use, but yes. And thank you.”

Samantha crossed her arms. “So what about Kelly?”

“Work for me,” Grillo said, “and you’ll no longer be a prisoner. Kelly will remain under my care, house arrest, until I’m convinced you’re a believer, a partner in the metamorphosis. At that point, when I no longer fear you might flee, I’ll release Miss Adelaide to you.”

“And Blackfield is on board with all this?”

That flash of a grin again. “I have broad authority here.”

This time Samantha grinned. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

Grillo met her gaze, and allowed his smile to stay this time. “Mr. Blackfield doesn’t know a lot of things, Miss Rinn, and that’s the last we’ll talk about it.”
Belém, Brazil

1.MAY.2283

RADIANT AMOEBA-LIKE SHAPES swam in a sea of molten orange, and any attempt he made to focus on one served only to obscure it further.

A long time passed before Skyler realized he was looking at the inside of his eyelids.

A feeble attempt to open them resulted in stabbing pain, so he gave up and focused on the sounds around him: birds overhead, water lapping softly against wood and stone. A distant wind chime tapped out random harmonic chords.

His lips were dry and cracked. Throat and mouth so dry he couldn’t summon enough saliva to swallow.

The sun sat directly overhead, it seemed from the heat on his face. He hoisted one arm to block the painful light and felt the world sway. His head pounded, a steady drumbeat from the back of his skull.

After what felt like an hour, Skyler opened his eyes against the blackness of his arm. Moving one careful millimeter at a time, he lifted his wrist and let his eyes adjust to the blaze of daylight.

“Don’t move,” a voice said. A girl.

Skyler let his arm fall. He tried to say something but managed only a weak cough.

“Sit up.”

“Don’t move, or sit up?” Skyler croaked.

When no reply came, he grunted and propped himself on an elbow. A wet tearing sound signaled more pain when his hair, matted with dried blood, detached from the floor of the boat. The drum in his head turned to a marching band, and Skyler ceased moving to let the throbbing pain subside before finally pushing himself to a sitting position.

Blinding light forced him to squint. He turned away from it, only to find it in all directions. “F*ck. Enough with the flashlight, eh?”

No response. Gradually his eyes adjusted and Skyler saw white sand reflecting sunlight up from below. A beach, stretching twenty meters to a row of vacation cottages. Behind the homes he could see the vague forms of skyscrapers against the white sky. Downtown Belém, he hoped.

The girl stood between him and the cottages. She wore hiking boots and long, dark blue shorts. Tan, toned legs filled the space between. An oversized white T-shirt was stretched tight across her chest by the black straps of a backpack, accentuating small breasts.

“I know those legs,” Skyler found himself saying.

She shifted in the sand, and he realized she held a pistol pointed at him.

“I know that gun, too,” he added.

“Stand up,” she said.

He groaned. “Would if I could.”

“Are you drunk?”

In answer he turned so she could see the sticky blood coating the back of his head and neck. From her sharp intake of breath, he knew it looked as bad as it felt.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same,” Skyler replied. “Though I’d rather know why you were dancing the other day. Lovely as the performance was, it’s a damn dangerous place for a recital.”

He saw her face clearly then. Light brown eyes and a little bulb of a nose. Her cheeks were dappled with dark brown freckles that matched the color of her hair, which she’d tucked behind each ear. If not for the suspicious scowl on her face, the worried brow, she’d be rather cute.

The girl held her ground, shifting her weight again, adjusting her grip on the weapon. “You’re following us.”

Skyler rubbed his temples. “Us. You’re with this Gabriel character?”

The girl jumped forward, her gun filling Skyler’s field of view. A stream of curses in a language Skyler didn’t know flew from her lips. Spanish, he guessed, not Portuguese.

“Not with Gabriel then,” Skyler said, looking down and away. “We’ve got something in common.”

She flexed her fingers on the grip of the weapon and seemed to will herself to be calm. “If you’re not with Gabriel then what are you doing here?”

Skyler met her gaze and held it. A fleeting moment of clarity came to him, and he realized she’d shot at him in that courtyard because she thought he was one of Gabriel’s people, one of the invaders. He’d scared her much more than he’d realized. Skyler tried to swallow. “His people hold our camp, and I escaped in this boat. Hit my head in the process and … that’s the last I remember.”

She studied him for some time. “How far to your camp?”

“Depends on where I am.”

“Are they following you still?”

Skyler pinched the bridge of his nose as a wave of nausea crashed over him. When it passed, he said, “Probably. They seem hell-bent on finding me.”

The girl swore again, her eyes sweeping the horizon behind Skyler’s right shoulder. Upstream, he guessed. “Imbécil,” she muttered.

“That I understood.”

She renewed her aim, square on his chest, and narrowed her eyes. “Why are they chasing you?”

“Give me some water,” Skyler said, “and I’ll tell you.”

She led him at gunpoint to a cottage a full kilometer farther down the beach.

“Davi?!” she called out as they approached the stand-alone structure, part of what once must have been a luxury resort.

A young man poked his head up from a hammock on the patio. When he saw Skyler, the kid rolled out of the rope bed and emerged a second later with a rifle in hand. He called out in Spanish and the girl replied in turn.

She circled around Skyler, her aim never straying from his torso, and held up a hand for him to stop when they were ten meters from the tiny vacation home.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Skyler,” he said. “He’s Davi, I gather. Who are you?”

She studied him for a second before replying. “Ana.”

When the young man joined them on the beach, Skyler saw their resemblance. Other than gender differences, the two looked exactly the same.

“Immune twins,” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

“He’s the one I saw in the courtyard,” Ana said, ignoring Skyler but speaking English for his benefit.

“Are you with Gabriel?” Davi asked.

Skyler shook his head. “I’m with …” How to explain? “You’ve seen the thread going up into the sky?”

“The space elevator,” Ana said.

Skyler nodded.

“Like the one in Australia.”

He nodded again. “You’ve heard of it, good.”

“We had an education,” Davi said with pride. “Before …”

“I’m with the group that came down this one,” Skyler said, gesturing toward the sky. The motion made him dizzy. “From space. From Australia before that.”

Ana spoke rapidly to Davi in Spanish again. Soon the boy stood a few meters away from Skyler, a healthy dose of skepticism on his face.

The girl came to her brother’s shoulder, standing just behind him. “They’ll find his boat,” she said under her breath, but loud enough. “And search the beach.”

“I know, manita. Let’s move to the other place.”

The pungent aroma of grilled fish filled Skyler’s nose and he found himself salivating.

Gingerly, he turned his head to one side. He lay on a bedroll a few meters from a small cookstove painted in glossy red, the kind Skyler imagined rich adventurers would buy before a guided trip up the Amazon. Fortunes spent to see an actual rainforest, to set foot in wilderness, before it was too late. Who knew back then that it would be the humans that vanished. The forests had the better end of the Builders’ bargain.

On one burner, half a gutted fish lay in an oiled steel pan, sizzling. A pot of canned beans and rice steamed away on the second burner. Skyler licked his lips and found they had been coated with ointment.

A plate of food lay near his head, he realized, white picnic fork daring him to get up. He couldn’t resist, and struggled to one elbow, trying to remember exactly where they were and how they’d come here. He remembered the beach, and walking in silence through the twisted city streets. He’d been too tired, and still a bit dazed, to pay much attention. Now he cursed himself for it.

He had a forkful of fish in his mouth before he noticed Ana and Davi, sitting opposite the stove. They both sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor, a plate in the right hand, fork in the left. Ana had tied her hair back, and if the two of them had worn matching clothes Skyler might have failed to tell them apart.

Dim light came from an LED lantern set so low it barely chased the darkness from the otherwise empty, windowless room. Skyler shoveled a forkful of beans into his mouth and wondered if they’d set the lantern that low for safety, or out of sympathy for his head injury.

“Delicious,” he said after scraping half his plate clean. “I mean it. Best meal of my life, I think.” Even as he said the words he wanted to take them back. Prumble, and that bowl of ramen, still held the top spot. The memory made his eyes water.

“It’s time we talked,” Davi said. “Are you well enough?”

Skyler nodded, then hefted the last of his food from his plate. He chewed as long as he thought polite, savoring every last second of the flavor. Ana crossed the room and set a bottle of water in front of him, and he’d gulped half of it down before she even returned to her place on the floor.

He probed his head and found it had been wrapped in gauze. It still hurt to touch the gash, but not so much that he saw the heavens. Belatedly he noticed his gun, leaning against the wall behind his two hosts. “You start, or shall I?” he asked.

Davi nodded to him.

“Me first, then,” Skyler said. He sat, cross-legged as they were, and wrapped the blanket they’d given him around his shoulders. Part of him became aware of the foul stench his body and clothing emitted. Something to resolve tomorrow, he decided, and told his story.

He left out only the details of the shell ship he’d found, and the transforming subhuman he’d seen within. There might be a time for that, he thought, but right now it would only complicate matters. The twins hung on his every word when he explained what had happened in Darwin over the last five years. They’d heard nothing since the disease spread, save for a rumor or two that Darwin was safe, which they had assumed was just that … rumor. Ana asked far more questions than Davi, especially about the aura towers, and Skyler quickly assessed that she was the brains of this brother-sister team.

The idea that there could be survivors who still could catch the disease rattled their worldview in a way Skyler could only imagine. He guessed they must have been sixteen or seventeen when the disease struck, and within months must have found themselves alone, forced to survive while being attacked constantly by the subhumans that ran rampant in those first days. How these two kids managed to last he had no idea.

When he told them how he found Camp Exodus overrun by the militant immunes, they both leaned forward, eyes narrowed. He explained his attempt to enter the camp and recounted what little he’d learned from the immune he’d questioned. Davi nodded constantly, confirming the information whether he meant to or not.

“So who are these people?” Skyler asked. “What do they want, and how do you know them?”

Davi did most of the talking. While he spoke, Ana set a pot of water on the portable stove and removed a trio of instant coffee packets from her backpack.

They were twenty-two years old, the son and daughter of wealthy winemakers in Argentina. A world-renowned brand, Davi claimed, though Skyler had never heard of it. He said he was a “coffee man,” which earned a smile from Ana just as she handed him a steaming cup.

Their life had been one of large family gatherings, private tutors, and vacations to all corners of the world. Then the disease arrived. They were seventeen at the time.

For a year they’d stayed on their family land, defending it from subhumans and living off the garden and livestock there. Eventually they had to make forays into the nearby town. Davi spoke with pride about teaching Ana how to shoot a gun, and the day she made her first kill. Skyler gathered that the girl had been something of a princess before the disease came. Having seen her graceful dance in the flowing white dress, he had no problem picturing that. He wondered if Davi knew she still clung to that part of herself.

A fire ultimately drove them from their land. How it started they had no idea, but Skyler had seen enough of the world to know that failing electronics and other equipment often sparked such infernos. Entire neighborhoods, even towns, would be reduced to ash with no one to fight the flames.

They moved north after that, deciding it better to seek out other survivors, with all the risks that entailed, than to live in solitude.

Not long after entering Brazil, they came across Gabriel and his group, just eight strong then. Davi spoke at length about Gabriel’s charisma, his innate way of forging friendships and loyalty. Before the disease, he’d been an undercover police officer working the drug-ridden slums of Rio de Janeiro. He never spoke of himself as the leader of the group; everyone just knew he was and accepted it.

Davi and Ana had found a family again, and happiness.

A sense of purpose, too. They joined gladly.

Things changed, though. So slowly Davi and Ana didn’t notice at first. It wasn’t until the group met an immune who refused to join that Gabriel showed his true colors. The reluctant immune was held captive, and Gabriel spent hours every day talking to the man in hushed tones, usually alone but sometimes with his closest members present.

Eventually the man joined. Still in the group now, in fact, and one of Gabriel’s closest members.

“Brainwashed,” Skyler said.

The two nodded. Davi then explained what happened with the next immune who declined to take up with the group. She’d left in the night, Gabriel had explained, with his blessings. Anyone could leave provided they spoke with Gabriel first.

Davi saw the body by accident, later that morning while gathering firewood. Bound hands and feet, a dry trickle of blood running down the back of her neck. The poor young man spoke of it like any seasoned war veteran might.

“Why is he doing all this?” Skyler asked. “Banding all the immunes together, I mean.”

Davi spread his hands. “To start over. He thinks those of us who survived were meant to build a new world.”

“He thinks. But you disagree?”

Davi glanced at his sister. “Right or not, his methods are what we fled. He runs the group like a cult.”

“A religious nut, then?”

“No,” Ana said, before her brother could reply. “If Gabriel has a god it is himself.”

“Don’t get her wrong,” Davi added. “Gabriel has a calling; it just comes from his own warped head. He gives those who resist plenty of time to see things his way, but if they make a move against him, or fight him, they vanish.”

Skyler nodded, noting the intense hatred on both their faces. He sipped the rest of his coffee while Ana excused herself for a few minutes. Davi spent the time with his nose buried in the screen on a handheld electronic device. A book or video game, Skyler guessed.

The gadget reminded him of his paired radio. Skyler rummaged through his backpack and found the device. He turned it on, heard static, and turned it off again.

“What’s that?” Davi asked as his sister returned. She stood behind him, an eyebrow raised.

“I hid the other one in the main building of our camp. We can listen in on them, if we get closer.”

When Ana sat down again Skyler set his mug aside. “Tell me,” he said, “if you two escaped from this cult, why stay so close to them?”

Davi’s eyes became distant for a moment, and Ana just stared at her brother, waiting for him to decide what information they would share. Her constant deference to him made her dancing in the courtyard all the more curious. Sitting here, Skyler could not imagine her straying too far from her brother’s side.

“There are more like us,” Davi said after a time. “More who started to question, and more who never believed in the first place. Friends of ours, in other words. Gabriel holds them captive, eleven that we know of, and we intend to free them.”

“But we have to find them first,” Ana said.

Skyler found himself nodding. The pair may be young, but they spoke as if an extra decade had been dumped on their shoulders. Just like Samantha, he thought, who was barely a year older than these two. He’d forgotten all about her youth within a few weeks of meeting her. The death toll caused by the Builders and their vicious disease was so omnipresent that Skyler rarely thought about it, but this—stolen childhood. Kids who watched everyone they knew die or become wild, only to find themselves caught up in a murderous cult of personality.

With sudden clarity he understood why Ana danced. Why she’d set aside her gun and her clothing, her shoes, her very persona, and risked her life to spin and twirl in that square. Without moments of escape like that, her life was one of constant terror.

“Eleven, you say.” Skyler focused on Davi. “Gabriel now holds a few hundred of my people at our camp, and he’s effectively trapped a few thousand more up in space. They’ll die without air and water from down here.”

Davi’s mouth twisted with anger. He rose to his knees and pointed off to his right, presumably toward the space elevator. “You mean your people are more important than ours?”

“Hear me out,” Skyler said, motioning for the young man to sit back down. “We find and free your friends. With them on our side, we can retake my camp, and take down Gabriel in the process.”

Davi’s head shook before Skyler had even finished. “Your camp is your problem.”

“Oh, Dav,” Ana said.

“We’ll rescue our friends and get away from here, with or without your help.”

“You do that,” Skyler growled, “and all you’ve done is traded eleven lives for two thousand. And for the rest of your life you’ll know Gabriel is still out there, gathering others just like you. Can you live with that?”

“Davi,” Ana whispered, a hand on her brother’s shoulder.

He recoiled from her, muttered something in Spanish, and stormed from the room.

“What did he say?” Skyler asked.

The girl waited until her brother’s footsteps faded down the hallway beyond. “He just needs to think. You are right, and he knows that, but he doesn’t like it when his plans are changed.”

She set to work cleaning their cups, using leftover water from the pot on the stove. When Skyler offered to help she waved him off. “Rest, please.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” he said.

Ana looked at him, then toward the door her brother had exited through.

“You still don’t trust me,” Skyler said. “It’s okay. In your shoes, I’d be a skeptic, too.”

Her mouth turned down in silent apology.

“Here,” Skyler said, removing his boots. “I can’t get far without these, and my gun and pack are here. Fair?”

She nodded and pointed toward the hallway. “Take a flashlight. Down to the end, and I suggest you breathe through your mouth.”

Digesting the ominous warning, Skyler removed a small key-chain LED from a pocket in his vest and set off down the hall. Hardwood flooring creaked under his feet. He trailed one hand along the wall as a precaution against dizziness, feeling the ridges where bands of red and gold wallpaper met. Without working air-conditioning to chase away humidity, the glue that held the covering up had started to degrade, leaving edges peeled and folds where the heavy paper had gone slack.

Gold numbers on the doors implied the building was a hotel. An ancient low-budget one, if the communal toilet said anything. At the end of the hall, Skyler found the bathroom door open. He paused before entering when he noticed a stairwell directly across, leading up and down. Though he had no intention of fleeing, a quick jog up to the roof held a certain appeal. The sensation of not knowing exactly where he was grated on some corner of his mind, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. The hotel they’d brought him to could be a hundred meters or a hundred kilometers from the space elevator, for all he knew.

Nature called, though. Skyler slipped into the cramped bathroom and nudged the door closed with his toe. A janitor’s bucket served as toilet, the real item rendered useless by lack of running water. A faded wooden toilet seat lay propped against the wall, removed at some point for the screws that held it to the bowl. Moonlight from a small window on the back wall provided enough light, so he set his tiny flashlight on the porcelain counter and unzipped his pants. What felt like a minute passed as he relieved himself, and he had to prop his elbow against the wall to combat a mild wave of dizziness as the bucket filled. Finished, he hoisted the bucket out the tiny window and flipped it over. He shook it to make sure nothing remained inside.

Rapid footsteps came from outside the door. Davi, he thought, bounding up the stairs in a hurry. Skyler heard him turn the corner and race off down the hallway.

“Ana!” Davi shouted, muffled by the door and his distance down the hall.

Then Skyler heard others. Heavy footfalls now, in the stairwell. He stood frozen in place, holding the waste bucket out the window in the night air, unsure if he should move or keep silent.

The footsteps stopped right outside. Two or three people, and not subs, Skyler guessed by the fact that they had halted at the stairwell exit. He pulled the bucket back inside and set it carefully on the grimy tile floor.

Davi shouted something from the far end of the hall, but the words were too muffled for Skyler to understand. A pair of gunshots followed, though, providing all the translation he needed.

He knew Davi and Ana had chosen a room with only one exit. An amateur mistake he doubted they would make again, should they live. A quick search of the bathroom did not yield any obvious weapons. All Skyler had was his clothing, the key-chain flashlight, and the flimsy bucket, none of which would do much good.

Then Skyler eyed the wooden toilet seat; he hoped it wasn’t just painted plastic.

Gunfire just outside the room made him jump. More shouting followed, whether in Portuguese or Spanish he couldn’t be sure. It mattered little. Skyler used the commotion to grab the toilet seat. It had the satisfying heft of real wood.

Gripping the oval seat by its narrow side, Skyler crossed to the door and gripped the handle. He waited, his eyes beginning to water in the stale air of the old bathroom. A cough brewed in his chest, and he knew it would escape soon.