Break of the Six (The Preston Six Book 4) (15 page)

“How much do you guys really know about Zach?” Lisa asked.

Anger quickly filled Samantha, she was sick of the question and she scowled.

Lisa rolled her eyes at the look and went to the next computer. “If you think you know who Zach is, I think you should look at this,
Miss
Samantha.” Lisa’s voice changed to one full of contempt and arrogance.

Samantha walked toward this different Lisa, stopping short to glance at the ceiling. A hissing sound, like air escaping from a tire, came from above. A cloud of white mist shot out of pipes across the whole ceiling. The mist flowed around her and she felt a stiff hand grabbing her arm.

Derek pulled her toward the door, but she knew it was too late. She felt the mist entering with each breath. His grip lessened as he fell to his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he said before he collapsed.

There had to be an error. This couldn’t be happening to her. Not in her own house. Samantha lost control of her muscles and collapsed to the floor.

POLY FIDGETED WITH THE THROWING knife at her hip. They were finally at the stone in Watchers Woods and she was filled with trepidation. Looking to Lucas, who knelt next to the stone with a stoic expression, she saw he felt the same way. She trusted him to get them to the right destination, but she couldn’t shake the feeling they would end up somewhere horrible every time they used a stone.

Just get on with it,
Poly wanted to say, but kept back and stopped her pacing. If by chance they were sent to Ryjack or some other horrible world, she’d be ready. Joey took her hand and held it. She liked the contact, even though it might slow her reaction time down by a split second. She wanted more contact from him.

Ever since they’d found out who Samantha was involved with, he felt distant. She saw the strain on his face growing with each discovery of how deep into it she was. Poly loved Samantha and she was sure he loved her as well, as a friend. She tamped down her insecurities. Joey loved her the way a man loves a woman. They were more than friends. They shared a connection she didn’t plan on sharing with another person for the rest of her life.

A twitch resonated from his hand. She firmed up her grip and gave him a smile. He’d saved them all with the sacrifice of his own body. She hated when he did it—he could have died—but she loved how he’d risked everything to save his friends, to save her. He was the true definition of a hero. However, she made him promise to never do it again. She preferred to have her hero by her side, not six feet under.

“Here we go.” Lucas typed in the code.

The humming started and she sucked in a breath, grasping a throwing knife with her free hand. Harris’s house flipped into existence. The succulent forest air changed to crisp, recycled air. Guns pointed in their direction until the guards saw who they were.

Jack ran up to them. “Hey, Julie, guys, so glad to see you.”

“Hey, Jack. Is Harris here?” Julie asked.

Jack frowned. “He’s not with you? He left with Hank a couple days ago. Trip’s still recovering in the medical wing.”

“What happened to Trip?” Lucas rushed to Jack.

“He was shot and in pretty bad shape. Hank brought him here for medical attention. Good thing he did too, because the doctors said they had a tough time saving his life. You all aren’t as genetically strong as—”

“Jack,” Joey interrupted. “What were Harris and Hank doing? Where are they?”

“They went to stop Marcus.”

Poly breathed deep and squeezed Joey’s hand. She hadn’t wanted to leave Hank behind when he was sick. She’d wanted to take him with them. They should have found a van or something; they could have found a bed for him to recover in.

“On
Earth
?” Julie asked, shaking her head. “No, that’s not possible, I would have known. His Pana would have shown up.” She wiggled her Panavice in the air.

“He left all that stuff behind, said Marcus could track him if he brought it. You know Marcus can track yours, right?”

“I’d like to see him try. I rewrote the whole tracker code on mine and I doubt he’d be able to see me.”

“Really? I’d love to see what code you—”

“Guys,” Lucas butted in, “sorry to interrupt the nerd convention here, but we came for a reason.”

Julie cleared her throat and glanced at Lucas with a hint of annoyance. “Marcus or Zach or ZRB, whoever they are, created a new cure for the Cough.” She held the vial with a yellow tint to it. “The one we collected from you guys is this one.” She held up a vial of clear liquid.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, we don’t have the analysis equipment here to verify the contents.”

Julie sighed. “Who does?”

Jack rubbed his chin. “The only person who’d have access to that type of machinery would be President Denail.”

“Travis?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Jack. Lucas can you get us to Travis’s stone?”

“Yep, I don’t know why we don’t just start going straight to Travis.”

“Before you guys go,” Jack held up a hand, “I wanted to let you know how much Vanar appreciates your involvement in our revolution and recovery. We are a long way from a fully functioning society, but we’d be nothing without you guys.”

Poly had heard a variation of this same speech from many citizens of Vanar over the past few months. The Six were looked upon as the heroes who’d brought them back from the brink of disaster. She wasn’t sure she agreed with their assessment, but always nodded and smiled, saying thank you. She felt like a liar. “Thanks, Jack.”

After a round of goodbyes, Lucas knelt next to the stone and Poly braced for another jump. “Here we go.”

The room flipped and they were in Travis’s underground dome. They made their way down the hallway to the elevator, when a green light lit up and the doors slid open.

Travis appeared, with a big smile and arms spread out. Rushing over to them, he zeroed in on Poly first and wrapped her in a big, lingering hug. Then he shook hands with the boys and side-hugged Julie. His bright smile was infectious and Poly already felt brighter being around him. “So good to see you guys. You are like the light at the end of a dark tunnel.”

“Good to be back,” Poly said.

“Travis, we have something we were hoping you could look at.” Julie held the two vials up.

Travis frowned and plucked the vials from Julie’s hand. “The cures are different, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Julie confirmed.

“Come on, we can take them to the lab and see what he’s doing.” Travis took Julie by the arm and led her toward the elevator.

Lucas adjusted his bow and followed. Poly stuck back with Joey and they filled the elevator.

Heading past the receptionist desk, Poly felt excited to see Gladius again; but when they arrived, a young man in a red suit looked up at them. She recognized the man instantly, it was Douglas.

“Douglas, can you make sure to cancel all my meetings for the day?” Travis asked.

“
All
of them?” he whined and rolled his eyes. “Fine, but if they get bitchy with me, I’m hanging up on them. I don’t care if they’re the mayor of whatever town.”

“Thanks, Douglas.”

Travis turned to the elevator, but Poly stepped toward Douglas. “Where’s Gladius?”

“She’s out on vacation or something,” Douglas said.

She had come to know Gladius fairly well and while her initial impression of her was a shallow, selfish, rich girl, she’d changed her mind over time and found her to be a workaholic, and dedicated to her father like no one else. There was no way she’d be taking a vacation.

Douglas typed into his Panavice, not looking up.

Poly turned her attention to Travis. “She wouldn’t take a vacation, where is she? Is she okay?”

Travis sighed and some of the early glow he held left his face. “Come on, we can talk more in the elevator.” They crowded into the regular elevator and Travis typed into the panel. He leaned against the mirrored wall.

“Well?” Poly prompted.

“She thought she owed it to you guys to help in any way she could—we all feel that way—but she wanted to help in a more direct way.”

“What does that mean?”

“She went to Earth and as far as I know, she’s infiltrated ZRB’s headquarters and is working to dismantle them from the inside.”

Julie gasped.

Lucas smiled. “Hell yeah, that’s awesome.”

“No it’s not,” Poly said. “She could be killed, or who knows what.”

Travis flinched at her words. “She knew the risks, and as much as I wanted her to stay here with me, I couldn’t deny her sense of duty.”

“No, tell her to come back, tell her to leave. Call her right now.”

“I can’t. I have no way to contact her.”

Poly fumed and paced in the available space of the cramped elevator.

“We’ll do everything we can to make sure she is safe when we get back to Earth,” Joey said.

“Thank you.”

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Poly looked around the room for any threats, a habit she had developed after being surprised one too many times. Joey did the same and covered the area where she wasn’t looking. It made her smile when they instinctively worked so well together. The deep connection felt powerful, like they could overcome anything.

“Gary,” Travis held out the two vials, “I want you to run a full analysis on these.”

Gary wore a white coat with two beakers embroidered on his front pocket. He looked at the vials. “No problem, when do you need this done?”

“Now.”

“But we are running a few tests on the air quality around Capital.”

“Shut them down, this is more important.”

Gary lowered his head. “Yes, Mr. President.”

Poly couldn’t get used to thinking of Travis as the president, let alone people calling him that. She hoped he never expected
her
to call him by his title. He was the same person as before, but she was lying to herself a bit in thinking that way. He seemed aged somehow. It was impossible, but he seemed to have a crease near his eyes, and his eyes now carried a certain weight to them. She wondered how the rebuilding of Vanar was really going.

Gary opened one of the vials and pulled some of the liquid out with a syringe and injected it into a square metal box. He twisted the lid shut and pushed a button. His computer screen danced with information. Julie leaned in close, but it might as well have been a foreign language to Poly.

She gazed around the room and the people occupying it. Many had stopped what they were doing and talked in small clusters, looking at them. She sighed and knew they recognized her. They probably wanted selfies to put on their walls and build up their social points. She didn’t mind interacting, she enjoyed that part, but it wasn’t her planet. Each time she interacted with someone here, she left a larger and larger footprint. She felt dirty, as if she was polluting their world with lies. Back on Earth, she could simply be Poly.

“Okay, all done,” Gary said. “This is the cure to the cough, but they used a different protein, a more primitive type, like we would have used a few hundred years ago. It will still work but takes on a different color.”

“So it’s exactly the same?” Julie clarified.

“I didn’t say that. There is also something registering on the biomechanical spectrum.” Gary pushed his chair back and spun around. He took another syringe full of the vial and dropped it in a larger metal box. He sealed the top with a twist cap and pushed a button.

“You think there’s a nanobot in it?” Travis said, looking at the machine humming.

“I don’t know, we will find out in a minute. Why are you looking at this old stuff anyway? Is there another cough developing?”

“No,” Travis stomped on the comment.

Gary shrugged and watched the computer screen blaze with numbers and letters. It stopped and he typed into it and then touched the screen, scrolling through different windows until an insect looking cylinder with spikes wrapping around its body appeared.

“There’s your nanobot—tough to spot.”

“Nanobot?” Julie leaned closer to the screen.

Poly frowned at the image. It freaked her out, thinking of some little thing like that roaming around in her body. Elation washed over her as she realized all of them had taken the clean cure from Vanar. They didn’t have whatever it was in them, but the rest of world did, or was about to.

“What does it do?” Travis asked as he rubbed his eye in frustration.

“I don’t know.” Gary shrugged.

“Can you take a guess? It appears to have the structure of a neuron bot.”

“I would agree, it does something in the brain, but unless it’s activated, well . . . we won’t know.”

“Can you activate it?” Travis asked and Gary shook his head. He sighed.

“But if I had to guess, I’d say this is something nasty. The spikes on the side could be used for cutting, while the almost imperceptible tails have a fibrous surface, ideal for attaching inconspicuously to neurons. They could even control thoughts or at the least, give nudges. Or they could kill you.”