Flip (The Slip Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

The president’s staring at him with disgust when Michael finally opens his eyes and looks up. “So you’re going to stop Janice tonight?”

“Yes, no, doesn’t matter. Just for the fun of it, maybe I’ll let her succeed. The citizens will be terrified. They’ll look to me for strength and comfort.”

Michael pretends to look out the window. Really he’s checking for cameras. He wonders how long it will take for the guards to enter the room after he makes his move.

“You know, you’re not even the only one trying to blow up Pop Con tonight,” Jeremy says.

He doesn’t flinch, just keeps looking at his battered reflection in the dark glass. “The Lifers,” Michael says.

“I got wind of something they have planned. They cut the power at Pop Con. Something is about to go down. I guess one way or another a bunch of people are going to die. Hopefully they find enough of your wife’s body to bury her. Not that you’ll be around to do it.”

Michael springs to his feet. He forces a look of complete rage to his face, even though he’s as calm as he’s ever felt below the surface. “I’ll kill you if you say one more word about her!” he yells. It’s a very real threat disguised as an empty one, and President Ford Jr. laughs loudly.

He jabs his gun at Michael with each word. “Please. Try. Make this more interesting.”

Michael lets the false rage melt away and he covers his face with his hands. He thinks about Benson’s and Harrison’s childhoods. Equally terrible, in completely different ways. He thinks about Janice strapped to her bed, spitting at him, screaming at him, writhing and twisting and biting at her restraints until they pumped her full of sedatives. He thinks of the children murdered under his watch.

He cries. He cries very real tears into his hands, choking out sobs of self-loathing and pain and regret.

At the same time, in the deep, dark recesses of his mind, he waits…

Sensing the exact moment when Jeremy Ford Jr, the leader of the Reorganized United States of America, lets his guard down…

And that’s when he attacks.

T
he rear entrance to Pop Con is dark. In fact, all of Pop Con is dark, as if someone decided to conserve energy tonight. Still, Check and Rod approach the gate warily, their eyes scanning the area beyond the metal bars.

“Hola!” Rod yells, making Check practically jump out of his own skin.

“Holy bots, dude,” Check hisses.

Rod shrugs in the dark. No one responds.

“Weird,” Check says. “Give me a boost.”

Rod helps him clamber over the gate, and then Check finds the button to open it from the inside. The small form of a guard hut looms on their right. A mound sits just in front of it. The mound is moving. “Uhhh,” the mound groans.

Check presses a finger to his lips and grabs Rod’s arm, yanking him toward the door. He hopes that with the power out, the door will be unlocked. Instead, they find it ajar. “Double weird,” Check says, but he’s not about to stop now. Not when Geoffrey might be moments away from doing what he thinks he’s going to do.

They steal through a large dark space and through another set of doors, also standing open. A long corridor stretches out like a dark, inky line in front of them. They throw themselves against the wall when they hear footsteps slapping the floor somewhere in the distance.

The echoes fade and Check does his best to take deep breaths and slow his heart rate. It won’t do anyone any good if he has a heart attack. They tiptoe down the hall, ready to duck into one of the many doors lining the sides if they sense danger.

Check knows they don’t have time to check every room, but he does pause to listen for sounds. Each time, silence greets him. Until it doesn’t.

More than halfway to the end of the hall, he hears a muffled voice through a door. He raises a hand and Rod stops. They press their ears to the door and, sure enough, the distinct timbre of what sounds like a single voice pushes through the cracks.

Check holds up one hand, and Rod nods. One voice. He knows that doesn’t mean there isn’t more than one person, however. In fact, if someone is speaking at all, it implies there’s someone else listening. He squints, scanning the area around the door and the door itself for something to identify what’s on the other side. Nothing. It’s unmarked.

With no other excuse to delay, Check holds up three fingers.
On three
. He counts down by removing fingers, one at a time.
Three, two, one…

He turns the handle and bashes inside, hurling himself forward with Rod right behind him.

~~~

When the door bursts inward, Geoffrey isn’t ready at all. With ten minutes to go before the appointed time, he hasn’t connected the detonator or flicked on the strange wireless switch that Jarrod instructed him, at the last minute, to use for this particular mission. He was staring at the bathroom mirror, talking to himself. Well, technically he was talking to his sister, although he’s not sure if she can even hear him anymore.

Startled, he falls back, dropping the detonator, the wire curling around his hand. As his butt smacks off the hard ground and two dark forms charge toward him, he knows he’s failed. He’s failed Jarrod, whose trust means the world to him; he’s failed Luce and Gonzo, who deserve to be avenged; and he’s failed himself.

But then, just as the shadowy hands are reaching toward him, something explodes inside him, a curling fiery plume of anger and fear and adrenaline. “NO!” he shouts at the top of his lungs, throwing himself forward, lunging for the detonator, simultaneously pulling it toward him by the wires dangling from his wrist.

The hands are on him, but he’s got the detonator, and they’re trying to rip it from his grasp—and why haven’t they shot him? he wonders—and he manages to flick on the wireless switch, which maybe, maybe, maybe was a backup plan—yeah—a backup plan in case he’s not able to connect the wires to the nest of explosives strapped to his vest.

And his finger is on the button, just like he practiced, and there are four sets of white eyes over him, wide and scared and staring at his hand. Familiar eyes, two narrower than the others. He knows them, he knows them, he knows them and no, no, no he can’t do it. Not them. Please not them.

Can’t do it.

But he has to.

Blinded by tears and sorrow, feeling more exhausted than he’s ever been before, Geoffrey slowly lowers his finger.

He does it.

He presses the button.

~~~

The ground shakes, the low rumble sounding like the earth has a bad case of indigestion.

Benson grabs his mom with one hand and finds the supply closet shelving with the other, hanging on as the ground seems to buck and try to throw him to the floor. There are distant booms, almost like a massive fireworks display, and the lights flicker. Unidentified items vibrate on the shelves, falling off one by one around their feet. Minda is crouched low, her arms out and to the side like a hoverboarder, the glow of the flashlight bouncing up and down.

Benson’s first thought is that the Lifers are here, that they managed to detonate a bomb in the concert hall, or in Pop Con headquarters itself. But no, the impact would be far greater, the very ceiling and walls crumbling and raining down upon them. Not this constant shaking. An earthquake perhaps? It wouldn’t be the first time, although the timing couldn’t be any worse. Then again, another distraction might only work to their advantage, giving them the confusion they need to complete their mission and get out.

When the shaking continues for four, five, six minutes, they eventually drag themselves to the ground and huddle together, riding it out, covering their heads as more stuff—some of it rather hard—falls from the shelving.

After more than ten minutes, the rumbling finally, mercifully, stops. “What
the hell
was that?” Minda says.

“Bad,” Janice says, probably the most accurate answer.

“Earthquake?” Benson guesses.

“No,” Minda says. “Something worse.”

The thought of something worse than the earth itself trying to shake humanity from its flanks makes Benson shiver in the dark. “Whatever it was, it seems to have stopped for now,” he says. “We should go.”

Minda and Benson get up together and then help Janice. “Okay,” Minda says. “Stick to the plan. I go first, Janice in the middle, and Benson guarding the rear. Whatever happens, we protect the key.”

To the death
, Benson adds in his head, which is how Minda said it a week ago when she first took him through the plan. He agreed then and he agrees now. Protecting his mother is the priority now for so many reasons.

They dodge and slalom around the various objects scattered on the floor, trying not to trip. Janice kicks something, and when Minda trains her flashlight on it, a roll of toilet paper rolls away, unraveling a white carpet behind it.

Reaching the door, Minda waits a moment as thunderous footfalls stomp past. There are shouts and cries of “Full evac!” and other indistinguishable orders. “No matter what, we don’t stop,” Minda says. “Everyone will be on the move and we’ll blend in if we keep moving.”

Benson nods and looks at his mother to confirm her understanding. “Move out,” Janice says. And then she starts reciting a series of seemingly random letters and numbers.
The key
, he realizes. It’s an incredibly long and convoluted password, and he can’t help but be impressed by her ability to remember it. Despite the stress and strain her brain has been subject to in the last ten years, his mother is still in there somewhere, still the intelligent, funny, somewhat quirky woman who raised him.

Minda eases the door open and peeks out, motioning for them to follow her. She starts at a brisk walk, but quickly speeds to a trot. Both he and Minda know the diagram of the building by heart, and he thinks Janice does too. Two of them can fall, but not the third. Not his mother.

A stampede of heavily armed Hunters storm from a hallway to the right, but turn away from them, running in the other direction. They don’t look back. From their perspective, the threat is an outward one.

Minda turns right, down the passage from which the agents emerged. Her flashlight dances along the floor, bouncing with each step. They’re close now. They make a left and a short corridor ends at a final door marked
Control Room. Authorized Personnel Only.

As expected, the door is locked. Benson’s father had informed them it would be, no matter what. It runs on independent power, separate from the rest of the network. He also instructed them on how to override the mechanism. But it’s his father’s last warning that worries him now. “The Control Room will be protected. Even if the building itself is collapsing, someone will be inside, fully prepared to die guarding it.” Originally the plan had been for Michael Kelly to use his authority as Head of Pop Con to breach the room and use the key to take down the system. They’ll have to use a less subtle approach.

Minda punches in the overrides and the lock clicks open. She looks at Benson and he’s glad to see the familiar steel in her eyes. Even if he shouldn’t, he feels safe with her on his side. If anyone can help his mother survive this, it’s her. She offers him a small, knowing smile and then pushes inside.

~~~

Michael Kelly hurtles over the president’s desk with reckless abandon. President Ford Jr isn’t ready for the sudden attack, but he recovers quickly, diving to the left as Michael’s fist glances off his jaw. His gun goes off, ripping through the ceiling and raining plaster around them.

As he lands hard on the leader of the free world, Michael’s body is screaming in pain, but he doesn’t care, raining blows into the midsection with one fist while grappling with the president’s wrist with the other hand, trying to wrench the gun away. Another wild shot rings out as the heavy beat of distant thunder rolls across the sky.

Michael barely registers either sound, so intense is his focus. He knows he’s running out of time. Whoever’s watching this room will be here any second.

As if in response to his thoughts, he hears a door open. Although he’s surprised not to hear a shout or the patter of frantic footsteps across the office’s hardwood floor, he doesn’t take the time to think about it, using his tongue to work the dispersal device past his teeth and between his lips while continuing to pin the president’s gun hand to the floor.

He lands two more punches and then reaches for the pin-like device, risking some of the poison on his lips when he removes the cap while still holding it in his mouth.

“That’s enough, Michael,” a familiar, but impossible, voice says.

The cap slips from Michael’s fingers as both he and the president cease their struggle to look at the owner of the voice.

Michael frowns when he sees the man holding the gun. He’s never met him, and yet…
that voice
…

“You—you—impossible,” President Ford says, awe in his tone.

“Then you know who I am?” the man says.

Michael frowns, searching the man’s age-worn face for some hint of his identity. Nothing. He’s a stranger with the voice of a dead man.

“My brother,” the president says. “Terrence. You’re alive. But how?”

Michael’s heart skips a beat. This can’t possibly be Terrence Ford. He doesn’t look anything like the man, despite the fact that his voice is like a ghost from the past.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” the man says. “You two certainly tried your best to kill me after my wife’s unauthorized birth. Of course, the fact that I fooled you didn’t save the lives of my daughter or wife.”

Michael can hardly believe it, and yet he knows it’s true. This man is the Destroyer’s father, the president’s brother, the father of the one and only Slip that he was ever involved in killing during his tenure at Pop Con. The man who changed his face to protect his brother’s reputation and then died on a rooftop protecting his illegal daughter.

Or at least that’s what Michael thought.

“Mr. Michael Kelly. You look surprised. The man you killed was a friend of mine. He would watch my daughter from time to time, so I could scrounge around for food. I would’ve expected a little more compassion out of you, considering our shared situations, but all you seem to care about is your own illegal child.”

“Benson,” Michael breathes.

“Yeah, I’ve met him. We never got along that well, perhaps because I knew he was yours the whole time.”

“You met Benson? How?”

The man laughs. “I’m no longer scrounging for food. I have resources. I have men and women at my disposal, willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause. Giving their lives to give the great gift of Life to others. Can you guess now or do you need some more obvious hints?”

Although Michael has the answer, it’s President Ford who speaks it first. “Jarrod,” he says. “You’re the Lifer leader? But we already caught him. We killed him.”

“It was all a ploy. We had to give you someone so you’d relax a bit. We needed that concert to move forward as scheduled. And don’t sound so surprised. It was the pair of you that made me who I am. If not for your sins, I might’ve taken my own life all those years ago. But instead, my hate for you was stronger than my grief for my family and gave me something to live for. And something to fight for.”