Dream Sky (24 page)

“Is that a code?” Ash asked.

“A key. I think.” He patted the air above the pad with both hands. “It’s here somewhere. I’m just not seeing it.”

“May I?” Chloe asked.

Pax passed her the pad. “Have at it.”

While she examined it, Ash asked, “How do you know it’s a code?”

“Matt kept things with his Project Eden contacts to himself most of the time. I think he was afraid one of us might get captured with the info. Felt the best way to protect those inside was to share only when absolutely necessary. I can probably count on one hand the number of times he showed me a communication he received.”

“You said you knew how to get ahold of them, though.”

“No. I said I knew where the information was that would tell us how. Unfortunately, it’s at the Ranch, in the Bunker. I’m the only one who knows the combination to the safe, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to you over the radio.”

Ash couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Retrieving the information would mean a trip back to Montana, something none of them could afford to do right now.

“Tell me about the messages you did see,” he said.

Pax closed his eyes for a second. “On the surface, each seemed like a note or letter you might receive from an old aunt or someone like that. Nothing really there. But every single one of them would begin with a nine-letter word, a decoder. Once you figured it out, you could use the result to pull the real message from the note.”

“So how do you decode the word?”

Pax looked pained. “That’s the problem. I saw Matt do this once, and that was years ago. I’m not the dumbest guy around by any means, but when it comes to this kind of thing, I just might be. I remember the squares. I remember him putting the letters in. I don’t remember how he figured it out, though. Or how the code then unlocks the message. I missed something.”

“But if we do figure it out, this…key will show us what dream sky really means, right?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Chloe looked up from the pad, frowning. “I got nothing.”

Ash took the pad and gave it a quick examination. He didn’t expect anything to jump out at him, and he was right.

“Is there anyone here who might be good at this kind of thing?” he asked.

Chloe said, “Yeah. There is.”

__________

C
ALEB FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGED
that he and his team were not superhuman and could not stay awake indefinitely. So a shift system was put in place that would allow each of them a generous six hours of sleep in the sectioned-off portion at the front of the trailer, always leaving three of them awake and working.

Caleb was about as deep into the unconscious world as one could get when Mya shook his shoulder.

“Hey, Caleb. Wake up.”

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. “What?”

“Get up. We’ve got company.”

He looked at his watch and realized it hadn’t been six hours yet. It had barely been two and a half.

“Why did you wake me up?”

“I told you. We’ve got company.”

He angrily pushed himself up on an elbow. “What company?”

“Higher-up type of company. They want to talk to you.”

“Did you tell them I was
asleep
?”

“I sure did.”

He started to throw off his blanket, but halted and looked at Mya. “A little privacy?”

She rolled her eyes as she walked back around the partition.

Alone now, he hopped out of bed and pulled on his
CAL TECH
sweat pants and
HAN SHOT FIRST
T-shirt. He then headed into the main area like a bull entering the ring,, intending to give these higher-ups a piece of his mind. He figured it was probably someone from communications, or, more likely, the engineering department. The latter was ticked off at him for all the resources he’d been using since the India project had begun.

“Whatever the hell it is you want, it could have—”

His guests were not from engineering.

“Sorry to get you up so early, Caleb,” Pax said. “I understand you’ve been working very hard.”

Pax wasn’t the only one who was there. Chloe and Captain Ash were with him.

“Mr. Paxton, Captain Ash, Ms. White, I’m, uh, sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.” Caleb shot a quick glare at Mya.

She gave him an exaggerated shrug, like she had no idea why he’d be upset.

Forcing a smile, he said, “What can I do for you?”

“We have a puzzle we were hoping you and your team could solve for us.”

“What kind of puzzle?”

Chloe set a pad of paper she’d brought with her on a desk. “Easier if we show you.”

21

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

5:51 AM PST

“G
ABRIEL, ARE YOU
up?”

As he always did before he went to sleep, Gabriel had turned the volume down on his radio and tucked it in next to the pillow. He was not asleep, however, when Nyla’s voice trickled out of the earpiece. He was simply lying there, eyes closed, performing his morning meditation.

“Gabriel?”

With a sigh, he grabbed the radio, stuck the receiver in his ear, and clicked on the mic. “Morning, L-One.”

“Time to get up, big boy. L-Seven spotted someone heading down Sunset Boulevard but lost them in Silver Lake.”

“Copy, L-One. Should be able to get to the Alvarado intersection in five.”

“Copy that.”

So much for a shower
, Gabriel thought as he rolled out bed and pulled on his clothes.

He’d stayed at the same house on Scott Street for the last three days. It was near the middle of his assigned area and met his basic requirement of being dead-body free. The bonus was the bed. It had one of those mattresses made out of a material that conformed to his body. The damn things were so expensive, he’d wondered why anyone would spend money on them, but not anymore. He was sold. Good thing the prices had dropped.

He grabbed a couple energy bars from his pack before he slung it on and headed out the door into the still-dark morning.

Jogging most of the way, he reached the corner of Alvarado Street and Sunset Boulevard ahead of his promised time, and moved over to a small building housing a takeout place called Burrito King on the northwest corner. Standing at the front edge, he stopped and listened for footsteps.

All was quiet.

He thought about radioing Nyla and asking how long ago L-Seven had spotted the survivor, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If the person was heading toward Dodger Stadium, Sunset Boulevard would be the logical route from Silver Lake. All Gabriel needed to do was wait.

He was starting in on his second energy bar when he heard the faint echo of a step. He put the bar away and leaned around the building to look west on Sunset. No one there, but the road bent to the right about seventy-five yards away so he couldn’t see that far. He could hear more steps, though—rhythmic, unhurried, and definitely heading his way.

He considered moving down the road so he could get a better look, but his encounter with the runner the day before was still fresh in his mind, so he didn’t want to be seen until he was ready to be. Besides, his position at Burrito King was about as good as he could get. It would hide him from the approaching person, even as the person passed by.

He stared down the road, his mind registering all the unmoving shapes, waiting to see one in motion. When the human silhouette finally moved into view, he ever so slowly eased his head back around the corner of the restaurant.

There was no change in the sound of the steps, only the continuous
thud-thud-thud
of rubber meeting asphalt.

As the person came abreast of Burrito King, Gabriel tensed, his eyes on the road. The moon had already dipped below the horizon, so the stars provided the only light. That was more than enough for him to get a good sense of the walker.

It was a guy, medium height, wearing a light jacket and baseball cap. No backpack, though, which was kind of odd. Most of the people Gabriel and the rest of the team had come across had been carrying things.

He was concerned that maybe this wasn’t a regular survivor, but one of Project Eden’s people on patrol. But the unease lasted only a second because he had never seen one of them out alone, and he’d certainly never seen any of them unarmed, like this guy appeared to be.

So how are we going to handle this
?

Get over to the guy before he realized what was going on?

Call out to him?

Or follow him for a bit and make sure he wasn’t Project Eden?

The last seemed the most prudent. The guy was heading toward Nyla’s position anyway. Worst case, she and Gabriel could close in together.

He let the survivor cross the Alvarado intersection, then he followed.

A block down, Sunset took a slight southeast turn, so Gabriel cut the gap between them to prevent losing sight of the guy. As he started to slow back down, the toe of his shoe tapped a discarded screw and sent it skittering across the road.

The man whipped around. “Who’s there?”

Dammit!

“Sorry,” Gabriel said, holding his hands out to show they were empty. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Wh…why are you here? Are you following me?” the guy was clearly scared, his voice raised.

“Yes, I mean, it’s not what you think. I’m here to help.”

The guy started to back away from him. “I don’t need your help. Thank you. Now leave me alone. Please.”

There was a click over the receiver in Gabriel’s ear. His eyes flicked past the man, down the street. Though he saw no one there, he knew the click meant Nyla was somewhere nearby.

He took a step forward. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Good!” The man started to turn away.

“But if you’re headed for the survival station, the people there will.”

As the man looked back, Gabriel realized the survivor wasn’t a man at all, but a young woman.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“They aren’t who they claim to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The UN doesn’t exist anymore. The people at the stadium are only taking in survivors so they can get rid of them.”

“Get rid of them?” A look of total disbelief flooded her face. “You mean kill?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re…you’re just saying that because…because…”

She turned and began running down Sunset.

“I’m not lying,” Gabriel said as he took off after her. “I just want to talk to you.”

His thighs ached, still remembering the chase from the day before. The runner had gotten away then, but Gabriel had no intention of letting it happen two days in a row. It wasn’t easy, but he was starting to gain on the woman.

As the road took another bend to the right, Nyla rushed out from behind a car, reaching the middle of the road moments before the survivor got there.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said, holding out her arms.

The woman tried to alter her course to go around Nyla, but she reacted too late and Nyla was able to grab her waist and hold on tight.

“Let me go!” the woman yelled, squirming.

She almost broke free, but Gabriel arrived in time to grab one of her arms.

“Calm down,” he said. “I told you, we’re not going to hurt you.”

The woman continued to struggle.

“Relax,” Gabriel said.

“We’re trying to save your life,” Nyla told her.

Whether it was Nyla’s words or because the woman was losing strength, she finally stopped struggling. Eyes narrowing, she said, “I don’t believe you.”

“We’re telling the truth,” Gabriel said. “The survival stations are really death traps. If you go in, you don’t come out again.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because the people who are running them are the same ones who planted the shipping containers full of Sage Flu around the world. This is their way to finish what they started.”

The woman looked stunned. “How can you know this?”

“We’ve been trying to stop them for a long time,” Nyla said.

“You didn’t do a very good job, then.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“You want me to believe you,” the survivor said, “prove it.”

This was not the first time someone had said this, so Gabriel and Nyla were prepared.

“I’m going to pull my phone out of my pocket,” Nyla said. “Okay?”

The woman nodded.

Nyla retrieved her phone, pulled up the video shot a few days before on a scouting trip to the stadium, and turned the screen so the man could see. On the trip, the closest she and Gabriel had been able to get was a hill right beyond the parking area, straight out from the back end of the stadium. This was the only part of the structure where there was no double-deck seating, just two sets of much smaller bleachers, one behind left field and one behind right.

Though the angle of the video was a bit acute, it clearly showed two large fenced-in areas on the playing field, with several people in each.

Nyla said, “We know from information gained about other survival stations that those are detention areas. They place people who are obviously sick in one, and those who are not in the other.”

“But isn’t that what they should do?” the survivor asked.

“Hold on.” Nyla sped up the image until it zoomed in on a portion of the grandstands, and then she let the video play again. The picture moved around some because the zoom was so extreme, but there was no mistaking the man holding the rifle, facing the field. “Separating the ill and the non-ill does make sense, but putting them behind locked fences with razor wire on top and surrounding them with well-armed guards doesn’t. The survivors go to these stations of their own free will. They
want
the help. They’re not going to put up a fight, so why treat them like they would?”

“I…I don’t know. But they must have their reasons.”

“Then how about this? No survivors have left the stadium, and yet the amount of people in each detention area has dropped dramatically.”

“That’s not proof,” the woman said. “You could be making that up.”