The Exodus Towers #1

Gangster, or cop? Maybe both. Skyler wondered if the man had worked undercover. That might explain the bag of narcotics, and the money. Strange things to pack in the face of an apocalypse, but Skyler had seen plenty of odd choices in the belongings people tried to bring on their flight from the disease.

An undercover role also explained Gabriel’s ability to draw others to him. He would have the acting skills needed to lure people in. The ability to make up lies on the spot.

Skyler slipped the passport and wallet into his bag, and left.

Exhausted and hungry, he hiked along the ridgeline above the lodge. Dusk fell, and with it came a wild symphony from the rainforest that ringed the valley. Birds sang a countless variety of songs that all blended into one constant chatter.

The group of immunes sat around a small campfire nestled within a copse of trees, a few hundred meters past the ridge. They ate noodles in a spicy chicken broth and raw vegetables plucked from the garden behind the house. Skyler sat near the edge of the ring, and stuck to the noodles, in hopes of settling his stomach.

Between swatting insects from his neck and slurping broth, he stole glances at the prisoners they’d freed.

Aside from the child, the others were all adults and in relatively good health. The oldest, a woman with tired eyes and a quiet manner, was perhaps fifty. Skyler doubted she could help in retaking the colony, nor the young girl, but the other ten looked every bit the hardened survivors that he would have expected, five years on since SUBS scoured Earth.

At the end of the meal a bottle of rum was passed around; it had been found behind the driver’s seat in one of the armored trucks. By the second time the bottle reached Skyler, much of the somber mood had lifted. Davi laughed freely at a comment from one of the other men, while Ana played an improvised game with the young girl, using rocks and a stick.

Skyler wanted to talk of the next step in the plan, but Davi had been right. There was no harm in letting the freed immunes have a quiet evening before the storm that would follow.

The insects grew increasingly worse as the evening turned to night, and no one wanted to sleep outside. So they divided up into two equal groups and slept inside the armored trucks. Skyler took a driver’s seat that, though cushioned, did not recline, and his legs were pressed painfully against the dash. Eventually he gave up and climbed to the roof of the truck.

For a while he kept watch, but when an hour passed with only the constant din of birdsong wafting down from the tree line, he nestled himself amid the frayed backpacks and ragged canvas bags the group had cobbled together. Skyler pulled his jacket up around his head and lay down with his rifle cradled across his chest.

The smell of toast and strawberries greeted him when he woke.

Dawn had long passed, and the sun hung above the eastern horizon in a crisp, clear blue sky.

Half the group huddled about a cook fire, warming toaster pastries on a slab of charred wood. The sweet, buttery smell made Skyler’s stomach growl loud enough for others to hear and turn their heads.

A blue box lay near them, its edges charred. The lid had been torn open, and Skyler could see more of the breakfast pastries within, still wrapped in Preservall bags.

“Found it near the ridge,” someone said, munching on one of the golden squares. “Must have been blown a hundred meters by that explosion.”

Skyler set himself down beside one of the men and smiled. They offered him two of the pastries straight from the fire.

“One second,” Skyler said. He unzipped his backpack and rummaged through it until he found what he wanted. Straightening his face, Skyler produced a handful of instant-coffee packets. A cheer went up around the circle, and Skyler traded with the man offering him the pastries. Two of the treats for a dozen silver-foil packets of powdered coffee.

Within ten minutes, the others came to join them, called by the irresistible smells. Ana and Davi arrived in unison. They were dressed, armed, and breathing hard. Patrol duty, Skyler recognized. He smiled at them. Ana smiled back, Davi did not.

Tomatoes from the garden were roasted on the same wood plank, and Skyler felt like a magician when he produced a fistful of white packets from his bag—salt and pepper. The red fruits were sour and not quite ripe, but with the seasoning they made a perfect counter to the sickly sweet pastries.

Now or never, Skyler decided.

“My name is Skyler,” he announced. They all knew this by now; he’d made his introductions to each, and promptly forgotten most of their names. “I came here from Australia, and the Netherlands before that.”

All eyes were on him.

“I’ve spent my years since the disease came traveling all over the globe. Half of it, anyway. Japan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, Russia, Hawaii. Everywhere, really.”

For ten minutes he recounted the events that had transpired on the other side of the planet. The Elevator they knew of, but the aura had only been rumor, discounted by everyone gathered. Skyler explained what led to his flight from Darwin to Belém, taking care to point out the sacrifices and heroics of all the others who’d come with them. He also told them of his old crew, and the sacrifice they’d made. “Immunes, like you,” he told them. “A voluntary band, six strong at our peak. We had an aircraft and went around looking for, well, whatever those trapped in Darwin needed. There’s a million people living there, by some counts, and just like you were trapped in that house, they are trapped in Darwin. Only they can’t ever leave. Not really.”

Skyler downed the last of his coffee and set the mug at his side. “Some made their way here when the new alien vessel arrived, and they found something remarkable.” He told them of the aura towers, and how pockets of safety were now possible for those without the immunity. He explained the lofty goals that Tania, Zane, and the others had set for themselves.

“The future,” he said in conclusion, “remains a mystery. If the Builders keep their schedule, according to the scientists they’ll be back in twenty months or so. What they bring, or do, this time is anyone’s guess. All we know is, we need to get this new colony established, defended, and prosperous before that time arrives.”

Everyone stared at him. Total silence, save for a meager cough from the child.

“That’s all in jeopardy now. Gabriel, and his … people … have overrun the camp. They’re preventing supplies from being shipped up to orbit, and the people up there will be forced to return to Darwin soon if the siege is not broken.”

He left out his larger concern, that of the strange black-clad subhuman he’d seen inside that cave. Routing Gabriel, he knew, would just be the start.

“I need your help,” he said. He made sure to look at each of them, and let his gaze linger on Davi. “You know firsthand what this Gabriel character is capable of. I plan to put an end to his group, but I can’t do it alone. Will you help me?”

One of the women cleared her throat. Skyler nodded at her.

“I’ve been held here, or places like this, for over a year,” she said, her voice even and thickly accented. “Raped almost weekly.” She paused to let those words settle, as if now was the first time she’d admitted it even to herself. “Made pregnant twice, both ending in miscarriage. Held in solitude with no one to talk to except those who came to attack me: Gabriel, and many of his circle.”

Skyler felt his hands ball into fists, his jagged fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. This woman would help—

“I cannot assist you,” she said, and Skyler’s heart clenched. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just want to go, to flee and find somewhere quiet to live.”

Others were nodding, but some were not.

“What you’ve been through,” Skyler said, “was horrible beyond comprehension. I cannot even begin to imagine the terrible things that have befallen you. But if you walk away now, Gabriel will just continue to do the same to others. He had a dozen of you here, but there are hundreds in Belém and a thousand more in orbit. This is the best chance to stop him before he hurts anyone else.”

“I’ll come,” Ana said. “I’ll fight that bastard.”

“Me, too,” said one of the men in the circle, a short, gaunt man with pale skin and distant blue eyes. He looked at the woman who’d spoken first. “I understand how you feel. I’ll fight for you, so that you can have peace.”

In the end, four others agreed to join Skyler and Ana. Davi was the last to speak.

He stared for a long time at his twin sister. For her part she alternated glances at Skyler and the ground in front of her, withering under her brother’s gaze. Skyler wondered if they’d agreed to leave now that they’d freed their friends, despite the deal they’d made.

Finally Davi shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Ana closed her eyes, and the hint of a proud smile formed on her lips.

“What’s the plan?” Davi asked.

“No plan yet,” Skyler admitted. That drew some concerned stares. “I’ve done enough missions in my day to know that plans are worthless if made too early. We go back to Belém, we scout, and once we have information we choose a tactic and act, immediately.”

Whether that assuaged their fears or not, he couldn’t say. But within an hour the goodbyes had been said. The two groups, those coming and those not, divided between the two armored trucks and went their separate ways.

Despite initial protest from Davi, Skyler first drove back to the lodge. While his volunteers watched from the humming vehicle, he built a small fire in the dirt just outside the door. When the flames took, he poked a long stick in until the end of it burned, then walked to the house.

Skyler stepped into the building one last time and threw the flaming log onto an old couch pressed against the wall.

By the time they drove from the valley, the entire building was engulfed in flames. A plume of ugly black smoke rose high above the rainforest, marring an otherwise perfect sky.
Melville Station

6.MAY.2283

TANIA COULD NOT sleep. The semblance of peace that her shared meal with Tim and Zane conjured had already vanished like the bittersweet departure of a good sunset.

The sound of waves, lapping gently on a beach, failed to help, and she’d stopped the sound effect almost as soon as she’d started it.

Eight laps around the central ring hadn’t helped, either. She’d run hard, treated the people she passed like an obstacle course, ignoring their concerned stares. If they were concerned for her sanity, or the air she churned through exerting herself, she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. The only certainty was the question that waited on their lips: What’s your plan? What are we going to do?

Greg and Marcus called, at Tim’s urging no doubt, and offered to host her on Black Level for a few days. They ran the now-fledgling research station, flush with scientific equipment but lacking in computational power to handle analysis as Green Level was left behind above Darwin. They’d turned to old-fashioned methods—pen and paper, long nights in front of a whiteboard—and seemed wholly reinvigorated by the change in pace. To escape there tempted her more than she cared to admit, even to herself. It still constituted escape, a flight from her responsibilities.

Next Tim offered to find her sleeping tablets from the station’s supply rooms. When she declined, he offered to bring her a bottle of wine, an upgrade from chai, apparently. Drowning her failures seemed like a feeble move, though, and so she’d declined that, too.

Sleep lay beyond a barrier of horrors. Every time she closed her eyes, Tania saw an imagined version of the carnage that had befallen her so-called rescue team. She’d sat in bleak silence with Zane, Tim, and a few others, listening in total shock as the team was systematically butchered.

There’d been too much noise on the comm to know for sure what happened. Screams and gunfire and shouts of alarm. A horde of subhumans must have swarmed them the moment they stepped out of the aircraft. An aircraft that had cost her an entire farm platform, and now sat abandoned on Water Road northeast of camp.

A soft knock at her door broke the monotony.

“Go away,” she groaned. She knew who it was and found herself in even less of a mood to entertain him.

“It’s me: Tim.”

Tania sighed, stood, and crossed to the door. She opened it a crack, as if she weren’t presentable. Maybe she could pretend to have slept; if anything it would make them worry less about her.

“You look terrible,” he muttered. “Um, I didn’t mean … still can’t sleep, eh?”

“Nice to see you, too.” His concerned expression remained. He seemed to be staring through her. She had not noticed before, but he showed all the symptoms of sleep deprivation, too. Bloodshot eyes set behind dark rings. “What is it, Tim? Has something happened?”

“Would you come with me?” he asked. “I want to show you something.”

“I really should …” Her voice trailed off. His tone suggested the visit had nothing to do with their present predicament, but at this point she’d take any distraction over the war for sleep. “Sure, why not?”

He led her in silence to a section of the station called the quad—a large common room that ran the length of four of the station’s rings. The wide, open space had deep blue carpet contrasted by walls the color of desert sand, its floor dotted with groups of couches facing in on one another, tables for taking meals, an improvised bar, and two low-quality sensory chambers. Two crewmen sat on as many couches, both quietly reading from well-worn paper books. They barely looked up when Tania and Tim entered. A group of six crowded the small bar, sharing a box of white wine. They motioned for the newcomers to join them, but Tim begged off and continued to the back of the room.

Tucked into one corner was some sporting equipment, all folded up and stowed. Tim rolled out one wheeled piece. It looked like a folding conference table. He fiddled with some latches on it and gave it a shove near the center. The object transformed into a hard green table with perfect white lines and a net dividing the playing surface that dominated the space.

Tim grabbed two paddles and a ball from a small brown bag someone had tacked to the wall, and took the side of the table that faced in on the room, leaving Tania only a view of the walls and Tim himself. He threw one paddle to her.

Tania snatched it out of the air. “I haven’t played in—”

“Good,” he said in a comically shrill voice. “For I shall destroy you.”

She hefted her paddle and took a wide stance at her end of the table, bouncing from foot to foot in what she hoped was a taunting fashion. “Bring it on, tough guy.”

“One rule,” Tim said. “No talking about air, or water, or the colony.”

Tania grinned. “You read me like a book, Tim.”

He responded by striking an exaggerated server’s pose that looked halfway to something out of an old kung fu movie. He gripped his red paddle upside down in his left hand and glared at her. When Tania chuckled he served, bouncing the white ball past her.

The game was on.

By the third point Tania abandoned a sense of guilt for enjoying herself in such a dire situation. The repetition of the game, at once exhilarating and monotonous, cleared her mind of all other thought.

By the tenth point, she’d worked up a sheen of sweat and found herself wholly engrossed in the friendly battle. It was Tim who halted the game, as he nodded past her shoulder.

Tania turned to see Zane approaching. He looked haggard, as if he’d aged ten years since their meal the previous evening.

His lips formed a thin, grim frown. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come to the terminal room. Karl is on the line.”

“Karl?” Tania blurted, setting her paddle down.

Zane held up a hand. “It’s not good news, from the way he sounds. The way he looks.”

She nurtured a flicker of hope anyway. The game forgotten, they jogged together to the junction hallway and then toward the room two levels away where the ground-linked comm had been set up. Zane struggled to keep her pace, stopping at one point to steady himself against a wall, his breaths coming in gasps. She slowed for his benefit. “What did he say?”

“Just that he needed to speak with you, alone. He wouldn’t say anything else.”

“Should we wait outside?” Tim asked.

Tania glanced over her shoulder at him. “Why?”

Tim spread his hands. “Karl said ‘alone.’ ”

“So stay quiet and off camera,” Tania said, too terse. “I want you both there.”

Zane cleared his throat. “Er, he reiterated the ‘alone’ request a number of times, Tania. I suggest we honor it.”

“Fine,” Tania said. “But I’ll record the conversation so you can review it afterward.”

The two men exchanged a glance and kept to her pace.

At the door Tim and Zane stopped and took places on either side, like guards. Tania gave each of them a reassuring pat on the arm and warmed slightly at the smile this earned from Tim. Then she entered the comm room. She sat in the center chair at the desk and held a finger above the hold icon on the screen. After three long breaths to calm herself, she swept her hair back behind her ears with her left hand.

“Relax,” she whispered. Then she tapped the button.

Karl’s face did not greet her. Someone else stared back, someone she didn’t know. A man, his skin deeply tanned and smooth. Thick black hair parted to one side and closely shaved around the ears, as if he’d just visited a salon. His eyes caught her attention more than anything; brown flecked with yellow, and bright with cunning and vigor.

The man wore a smile so vulpine and false it made her squirm.

“You must be Tania,” he said, his voice thickly accented.

“Where’s Karl?” she asked. Inwardly she cursed the weakness and confusion in her voice. Tania willed herself to be strong.

“Sent him back to his tent,” the man said. “I’m Gabriel.”

“Are you in charge there?”

Gabriel’s smile broadened, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth. “I suppose so, yeah. Time we talked, I think.”

Tania steadied herself. “I’m listening.”

“Karl tells me you’ve got a lot of people up there. People who are in need of supplies?”

Gabriel had an easy manner about him. His voice and body language all said “Trust me” in a way that made her skin crawl. She hadn’t felt that since last speaking with Russell Blackfield, though for different reasons. Russell’s eyes undressed, but Gabriel’s disarmed. She held his gaze and nodded.

“Let me tell you,” Gabriel said, “how this is going to play out. I’m what you people call an immune, as are the rest of my family. Though we just think of ourselves as human beings.”

Tania couldn’t mask her surprise. “Your whole family is immune?”

It seemed impossible, and in answer his smile broadened. “They’re not blood, just people I’ve met over the last five years. Survivors who have joined me, who follow me.”

“I see.”

“You call us immune, Tania, but our perspective is different. We call you incerto, untested. I understand that no one but Karl has taken a breath of air down here, air that hasn’t been … what’s the word you use? Scrubbed? Scrubbed by these alien towers.”

He practically spat the word alien.

Tania’s mind raced. What have they done with Skyler? Do they not know of his immunity? Maybe no one had given up that detail. “What are you asking, Gabriel? You are asking me something, correct?”

Gabriel spread his hands before the camera. Long fingers bearing gold rings, a flashy watch on his wrist. “Not asking, Tania. I’m telling you how this’ll play. Two things are going to happen. First, you and all your friends up there are going to come down here, in groups, and take our test.”

“Test?” she asked. “You mean to force us outside the aura.”

“Karl did that, and he seems okay other than a bad headache. But there’s another option if people fear to breathe the air.”

“Oh?”

Gabriel clasped his hands together. “We have kits, found them in a government laboratory outside Rio. They can test for the immunity from a simple blood sample.”

Nonsense, Tania thought, but she held her tongue. Anchor Station scientists as well as doctors on the ground sought just such a solution for years after the disease spread, hoping to discover a way to inoculate people, but no such test was ever devised. The engineered disease was simply too alien.

“For those who don’t want to step outside the ‘aura,’ the blood test is their alternative. We’ll take them in groups to a ranch near here, with one of your remarkable towers in tow for their safety, test them, and return them.”

“Return them?” Tania asked. “What happens if someone is found to be immune?” Skyler.

“The ‘immunes’ will join my family and help find others like us until we’re all together as one people.”

“You realize there’s a million so-called incerto in Darwin? Do you plan to go there next?”

Gabriel’s eyes glimmered at the prospect. “Someday, maybe. It is our goal to bring everyone immune to the disease together. Earth is ours now, and we must work together to begin again.”

He sounded as if he believed it. Tania wondered if what he really craved was the role of hero in such a scenario. Attention, glory, and all the other perks.

Tania said, “What happens when the tests are done?” What happens to those of us who don’t fit into your plan?

“When everyone has been tested,” he said, “you can continue as you have been. However, you will confine yourself to the city of Belém. If we find any of your alien towers beyond the city’s edge, we will shoot on sight and keep the towers for ourselves.”

“And anyone found to be immune goes with you, whether they wish to or not?”

“Yes. Exactly right.”

Tania knew that the odds of immunity were fantastically low. She’d be surprised if anyone was found to have the trait. Anyone except Skyler, of course.

Assuming Gabriel could enforce a blockade on the entire city of Belém, which she highly doubted, the city represented years of supplies and plenty of land to expand to. It would be a long, long time before the fledgling colony would have to test the threat.

But time was not a luxury humanity had. If her calculations were correct, and the Builders stuck to the predicted timeline, they would be back in less than two years. What they sent this time was anyone’s guess. “Let’s be ready,” Neil would have said.

We don’t have time for this kind of infighting, Tania thought. Why did no one else seem to realize that?

Perhaps they could test Gabriel’s threat much sooner. Get it over with, and then move on.

Unless, she realized, he had a lot of immunes with him. She tried to picture this man, wandering the South American continent for five years, fighting off subhumans and wooing every immune he came across. How many could there have been? Darwin had fewer than a dozen. Of course, the city was full of people who had never set foot beyond the aura. It stood to reason there might be a few dozen more hidden within the population, unaware of their special trait. If Gabriel really did have a way to test …

The situation might never get that far, she realized. Gabriel offered a chance to bring people to the ground. She had no idea how big his group was, but it seemed unlikely there were enough immunes on his side to stop a full-blown uprising by her colonists. The prospect of violence chilled her, but not as much as it once had. Submission was worse.

“You said there were two things,” she said, while her mind worked through all the ramifications.

“Yes,” he said, lingering on the s. “I know of one immune among you already. Skyler, I believe he’s called.”

A knot twisted in Tania’s stomach.

“He’s been harassing my people, even murdered a few in cold blood, people who sought only to make contact with him. He must be delivered into my custody and face his crimes. Once he’s paid his dues, he will join us.”

The way he spoke reminded Tania of the stereotypical tough-cop characters in old films. Perhaps this man had been an actor himself, before the fall. “Skyler’s not in the camp?”

She regretted her response as soon she’d voiced the words. From the look on Gabriel’s face, she’d just confirmed something he’d only suspected.

“No,” Gabriel said. “But I’m told you have a strong relationship with him. You will convince him to come back, unarmed. Promise him all is forgiven if he just returns.”

“Except that all is not forgiven, right?”

“He doesn’t need to know that.”

“Skyler will know I’m lying,” she said, unsure if the words themselves were true.

“He’d better not, for your sake. From now on, for every one of my people he so much as wounds, I will take ten of yours and tie them up outside the aura until they go mad or the afflicted come for them. Starting with Karl.”

“I don’t have a way to contact Skyler,” Tania said. “How am I supposed to convince him to come in?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t care if you stand at the edge of your aura and shout his name all day and night: Just make him listen.”

Tania glanced down at the table in front of her and hugged herself below it. “I need some time to think about this,” she said.

“No, no,” Gabriel replied. “Sorry. I said before, these are not requests. I’ve set some of your people down here to work clearing the cable so that you can begin shuttling people down here. Start immediately, and you’d better be among the first arrivals. I want this Skyler fellow in my custody before he can do any more damage to our important work.”

“I understand. It’s just … There’s logistics to—”

“See you in fifteen hours, Tania.”

The screen went blank.

Tania slumped back in her chair and exhaled. An intense pain began to form behind her eyes, and she rubbed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. “Guys,” she called out, “come in here.”

“This guy sounds mental,” Tim said. “Completely mental.”

Zane shook his head. “Be that as it may, we’re stuck between him or a return to Darwin. Abandon our people on the ground, or bring everyone down there to face this test.”

“The test,” Tania said, “and to hand over Skyler. Don’t forget that.”

“A world of immunes,” Tim muttered, not listening to either of them. “Nice vision, I guess, if you ignore the million or so other people living in the aura’s shadow.”

“Tim,” Tania said.

“I mean it,” he said. “What a bloody prick! He means to turn Belém into a concentration camp and control the rest of the planet with a superior breed of human. Sound familiar to anyone?”

The comment brought silence to the small room, save for the whir of a fan somewhere behind the wall panels.

“Do we all agree,” Tania asked after a moment, “that returning to Darwin is not an option?”

“It’s an option,” Zane said. “Just not the preferable one.”

He and Tania both looked at Tim.

“This Gabriel fellow sounds worse than Blackfield,” the young man said.

“So you’d rather go back?” Tania asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “They both need to be stopped.”

“Suppose we just give him what he wants?” Zane said, his voice not much more than a whisper.

Tania glared at him. “Skyler, you mean. Say his name, Zane.”

Zane spread his hands. “One man, for the safety of the colony.”

“None of us would even be here if not for him.”

“Granted. Don’t get me wrong, I like the man. He’s resourceful, smart. A fighter, and clever as anyone. This Gabriel means to mete out some kind of justice and then have Skyler join his group. If anyone could escape, Skyler could.”

“I can’t just … hand him over. I won’t. What if that justice is something like losing a limb?” she asked. Zane’s mouth clapped shut and he looked away, contemplating her question. She couldn’t believe that he would advocate in favor of going along with Gabriel’s demands. Yet the very fact that he was somehow sobered her. She’d come to trust Zane’s matter-of-fact opinion on things, his ability to divorce emotion from facts. As a scientist she’d prided herself on being able to do just that, too, all her life.

“Tania,” Zane said, an echo of his brother’s tone in his voice. “For all we know, Skyler is in the wrong here. Maybe it was a mistake, or an overreaction. We may never know. But what if he really did kill some of these immunes without cause?”

She started to protest but Zane held up his hand. “Just … listen. Regardless of how things ultimately end up, Gabriel stated plainly that he will punish innocent colonists if Skyler continues to assault these immunes, correct?”

Tania nodded.

“Then realistically we have no choice,” Zane said. “We have to at least go down there and try to defuse this situation. Talk to Skyler, if we can. Come to some kind of agreement. Perhaps if we give Gabriel surplus food or supplies he will let us handle Skyler’s punishment. Confine him to orbit, for example, until things return to normal.”

“You don’t actually believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Zane said quietly. “All I know is, if we just turn around and go back to Darwin, we’ve given up this chap Skyler and everyone else down there. But if we go, and talk, and cooperate if it makes sense, we may find a solution that benefits everyone. Including, dare I say it, a solution that includes these immunes working with us. Certainly a large group of them would be extraordinarily useful in the coming months.”

Tim, Tania realized, had been shaking his head the entire time Zane spoke. She looked at him, beckoned for him to speak.

“This guy is mental,” he said again, as if that negated everything Zane had said. It well might, Tania thought.

Zane sighed. “That guy has been scrounging out a living for the last five years in this hellish world with no knowledge of the aura in Darwin, no idea that a city full of people still survived. Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. At first he probably thought he was the last man alive. Everyone he knew died or went primal, insane, and psychotic all at once. Five years, surviving, and ultimately finding others like him. Of course they would band together, thinking they’re special. They are special, for God’s sake. I can’t begrudge the man the loss of a few marbles. Not after all that.”

No one spoke, and Zane went on.

“And then to look up in the sky one day, and see a string of dark shapes moving down from space. He probably thought we were aliens. Still might, quite frankly. The idea of other survivors, large numbers of us, shattered his worldview. It needs time to register. If we talk to him, he’ll come around. I’m sure of it.”

Put that way, Tania found it hard to argue. But Zane’s eagerness to give up Skyler made her see the younger Platz brother in a new light. Neil would never have done that, she thought.

No? Are you sure about that? Neil, at his core, was a businessman. Granted, he protected those he loved, but Skyler? Skyler was a smuggler he’d hired. An asset. Perhaps Neil would have found the terms Gabriel offered acceptable. After all, with the aura towers, Skyler’s immunity was not so valuable—

Stop! Tania screamed inside. She shut her eyes tight and fought to banish such thoughts. No price could be affixed to Skyler, or any person.

Yet Zane was at least half-right; she couldn’t deny that. Without information, without a chance to talk to Gabriel and evaluate his ability to follow through on what he intended to do, she was helpless. She had to go, had to cooperate. Buy time.

“Tim,” she said as she stood. “Get a climber prepped.”
Belém, Brazil

6.MAY.2283

SKYLER TURNED OFF the handheld radio and stared at it.

He wanted to crush it, or dash it against the wall. Both. But all he could do was stare in disbelief. “I understand,” she’d said. “It’s just … There’s logistics—”

Logistics? She understands?

Her situation must be dire if she’d agree to such demands. Of course she hadn’t expressly agreed, but Skyler saw little point in picking apart the semantics. What she had not done was tell Gabriel to rot in hell, that she’d be damned before she subjected her people to his “test,” or give him one of her …

What? What am I?

A tool, Skyler realized. In Darwin, he could walk beyond the aura and few could follow. But now, in Belém, he was a colonist who happened not to need an aura tower in tow when he bumbled around.

“Knock that off,” he hissed to himself.

Tania’s only knowledge of Gabriel came from the silver-tongued words he gave her. She had no idea what lay behind the mask. The prison he’d set up for his unwilling immunes, the forced breeding.

And that nonsense about a test for immunity. If it existed, which he wholly doubted, it went up in the fire, or vanished when the barn exploded. Either way, no such test existed, and so Gabriel’s promise of a civil option was, in reality, utter bollocks.

But at least he offered to let them live on in Belém after his group moved on with their prize immunes in tow. Skyler had needed all his self-control not to laugh at that part.

None of this matters, he decided. Tania had agreed to hand him over, or else she’d lied. She really believed Gabriel’s offer to play nice with those who didn’t pass his test, or she suspected treachery but saw no alternative other than a retreat. The only truth in all of it was that Gabriel needed to be stopped, now.

Skyler stuffed the radio in his pocket, stood, and stretched. His ankles and knees cracked with the effort.

He slung his rifle and climbed down the maintenance ladder that provided roof access to the top of the building. A department store, once. Looted and vandalized almost beyond recognition, but the roof was all that mattered. Two kilometers southeast, the colony was just visible between trees and half-collapsed houses.

Out of habit, Skyler paused when his feet met asphalt. He studied the deserted street for a few seconds, but saw nothing, of course. The subhumans, he knew, were all gathered in the rainforest to the east, around that small Builder ship. He’d said nothing of its existence to anyone yet, despite the burning desire to share the discovery. Such revelations would only confuse the immediate goal.

Across the road Skyler jogged down a steep concrete embankment to a man-made river. With the wet season having passed—which in Belém meant it rained only half as often—the basin was mostly hard-packed mud, with a trickle that ran down the center, looking more like chocolate milk than water.

The others were camped beneath a bridge, their tents just silhouettes in the shadows below the overpass.

Ana and two others were awake. Once closer, Skyler recognized them as Elias and Pablo. The three were huddled together over cups of Skyler’s instant coffee, heated on a small cap-powered stove as a cook fire might draw attention.

Elias was a soft man. Greasy strands of gray-brown hair were drawn across his nearly bald scalp. He’d probably once been as large as Prumble. Skyler guessed the man had lost half his weight or more in the years since SUBS swept across the world, from the slack skin on his upper arms. Months in captivity under Gabriel had taken a toll as well. He talked with nervous anxiety, and Skyler wondered how useful the man would be in a fight.

Pablo, on the other hand, stood tall and lean, corded with muscle. A curly mess of black hair spilled from the top of his head to his shoulders, over skin so tan and rugged it looked like he’d never spent a day indoors in his life, which was true enough. He’d been a farmer in Colombia and continued in that role for years after the disease took his family and everyone else he knew. His land was isolated, and so he had little trouble from subhumans. Then Gabriel’s caravan had come through. Pablo had thanked them for the offer to join up, and asked them to move on. They had, until two men entered his meager home the next night, hog-tied him, and stuffed him into a truck.

Pablo spoke little and seemed perpetually in a dark mood. Skyler had seen him smile only once, a grin that revealed brown, crooked teeth.

“Fifteen hours,” Skyler said as he approached.

Ana raised an eyebrow at him. “Until?”

“Until we raise hell,” Skyler said. “I don’t think they know about the ranch, about all of you. We need to use that to our advantage while we can.”

Davi emerged from his tent at the sound of voices. A moment later, the final two members of the motley group appeared as well. Skyler nodded at both of them.

One was Wilson, a Canadian student who had found himself stranded in Brazil at the peak of the disease. He was gawky and socially inept, spoke too loud, and smiled at everything. Skyler had accepted his offer to come along despite a lengthy diatribe about his lack of skill with a weapon. All he could offer, he said, was a hatred of Gabriel and his inner circle. “What were you studying in Brazil? Medicine? Engineering?” Skyler had asked. Wilson had frowned. “Indigenous tribes of the upper Amazon. Useless, I know.”

Last was Vanessa, a woman in her early thirties. She might have been a model or actress from her startlingly voluptuous body, but she had an imperfect face—a wide mouth that filled with teeth on the rare occasions that she smiled. In reality she’d been a lawyer, and the daughter of a Brazilian senator. She’d been practicing law when SUBS arrived. Her husband died early on, as did one of her children. The other child had survived the infection to become a subhuman, and she’d been forced to kill the girl, a story she’d told in a quiet voice long drained of any emotion. Skyler suspected she’d suffered more than the others while a captive of Gabriel’s. She’d been beautiful once, and though battered and broken from her ordeal she still held an undeniable appeal. Skyler felt like a monster for even harboring such a thought. He could not imagine the horror she’d been through, and she never spoke of it. Her eyes told the story well enough.

“Fifteen hours?” she asked, tying her hair into a bun as Tania often had. Unlike the scientist, Vanessa’s beauty seemed to melt away with the change, as if her chocolate hair somehow hid the worry lines, the bruises, the cracked lips and wide mouth. Give her a Dutch accent, Skyler thought, and a bit of gray in that hair, and she could be my twin sister.

“Yes,” he said to all of them. They gathered about, some standing, some sitting. Skyler gestured toward the Elevator camp. “At that time, some of those stranded in orbit, the leadership I suspect, will be coming down the cord to meet with Gabriel. He means to test each of them for the immunity.”

“How do you know this?” Davi asked.

Skyler tapped the handheld. “Overheard them.”

Ana raised a hand and Skyler nodded to her. “What’s this test? And what happens after?”

He sat on an overturned plastic box they’d salvaged as a chair. “Gabriel means to march each of them beyond the aura, see who is affected, and who isn’t.”

A bleak silence settled on the group. Wilson spoke up. “Won’t most of them get infected that way?”

Skyler nodded. “Not as bad as it sounds, though. The initial infection brings on a devastating headache, but if they can get back inside the aura quick enough, the virus goes into stasis, and the headache along with it. They’ll still carry that initial infection, yes, but as long as they remain in the aura, they’ll be fine.”

Davi’s brow wrinkled. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Maybe not,” Skyler said. “We’re assuming Gabriel and his people will let them back inside fast enough. They might suspect a true immune is faking the headache. It wouldn’t be that hard. And some are so overcome by the pain that they collapse, unable to return to safety. Will someone be allowed to help them?”

“Knowing Gabriel,” Pablo muttered, “no.”

This earned frowns from the group.

“I thought not,” Skyler said. “He offered an interesting alternative. Gabriel claims there’s a medical test for the immunity, and that the kits to perform it are at ‘a nearby ranch.’ I assume he means where you all were staying.”

“I never saw anything like that,” Wilson said. The others nodded.

“So I guessed,” Skyler said. “Gabriel probably intends to hold them there, as he held you. I don’t think he knows what happened, that you’re free. That’s good news.”

“Why wait?” Ana asked. “Why not attack now, before the people come down?”

Skyler made a point to wait a few seconds before answering. The eagerness in Ana’s voice, and her brash actions during the assault on the ranch house, spelled trouble, he thought. If even a brief pause took some of the push out of her, he’d count it as progress.

“When the Orbitals arrive,” Skyler said, feeling a twinge of bitter nostalgia at the slang term. “When their climber reaches the ground, Gabriel’s people will have their hands full. Lots of colonists to watch, and that moment of heightened alert when the climber doors open. All eyes will be on it. We’ll use this to our advantage.”

“You have a plan, then, Skyler?” Davi asked.

He nodded, and told them.

Wilson and Vanessa had the least experience in handling firearms. The group balked when Skyler announced he would pair the two, but when he explained their role in the attack the murmuring stopped. This was not the time, Skyler argued, for weapons training, and he felt it best that the group’s strengths be used to full effect.

For his part, Wilson didn’t seem to mind at all. He had a pacifist’s demeanor, and from the way he stole glances at Vanessa, Skyler guessed the kid was already romanticizing the mission to come.

Vanessa just shrugged. “Twenty years of jujitsu,” she said with a laugh. “A lot of good that’s done me.”

He gave the two of them their marching orders and turned to the rest of the group.

Davi, Elias, and Pablo would team together, he explained.

“What about Ana?” Davi asked.

“She’s with me,” Skyler said. He fixed Davi with a hard stare that he hoped conveyed the reason. Davi would be too distracted with protecting his reckless sister, and Skyler wanted none of that. Young as he was, Davi had proved himself in combat, and all of that skill would be needed.

Whether the young man understood or not, Skyler couldn’t tell. Davi looked to Ana, studied her, then turned back to Skyler and gave a grudging nod.

“You three,” Skyler said, “will come in from the west. Ana and I, from the east. We move when Wilson and Vanessa’s distraction is in full swing.”

“And when do we start?” Wilson asked.

Skyler glanced upward. “When you see the first vehicle from space about to reach the bottom. Say, twenty meters from the ground. We’ll give Gabriel and his people as many problems to juggle as possible, and use their confusion to our advantage.”

The finer points of the plan were laid out, debated, refined. Elias commented twice that it would be better if everyone stayed together, but the rest of the group liked Skyler’s plan. Come from every side, split up and confuse the enemy, get the colonists to join the fight from within.

An hour later, Skyler and Ana set out. Their trek was the longest, and Skyler had a few things he wanted to scavenge along the way. No goodbyes were said when they left, just some quiet well-wishes. Ana gave her brother a peck on each cheek, and tousled his hair when his frown didn’t vanish.

“Be safe,” Davi said to her, but his eyes were on Skyler.