Hunger (28 page)

It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over.

“Actually, I could use your help,” Zil said to Lisa. “I have plans.”

“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked eagerly.

“I’m going to put real humans back in charge. Get rid of the chuds. Run things for us, not for them.”

“Yeah!” Turk said.

“The six of us, here? We’re just the start,” Zil said.

“Absolutely,” Hank agreed.

“Zil’s crew,” Turk said.

Zil waved that off modestly. “I think maybe we should call ourselves the Human Crew.”

13
HOURS
, 38
MINUTES

CAINE HAD FALLEN
asleep, exhausted, on the plant manager’s couch. He woke slowly. Disoriented. Not sure where he was. He opened his eyes and everything around him, the dusty furnishings of the office, seemed to vibrate.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up.

Someone was sitting in the plant manager’s chair. A green man. Green from some inner light, like chemicals were burning inside him putting off a sickly glow.

The man had no face. His shape was rough, like a clay model only half completed. When Caine looked closer he could see millions of tiny crystals, some no larger than a period, some almost as big as a sugar cube. The mass of crystals was constantly in motion, like frenzied ants crawling over each other.

Caine closed his eyes. When he opened them again the apparition was gone.

A hallucination. Caine had gotten used to hallucinations.

He got to his feet, but he was shaky. He felt sick, like he had the flu or something. His face was beaded with sweat. His shirt was sticky on his skin.

He needed to throw up, but there was nothing in his stomach.

Through the glass he could see the control room. Diana, asleep or dozing in her chair, her feet up on the table. She looked strange without her hair. Caine loved Diana’s hair.

Jack had his head down on the same table, his face puffy, lips babylike as he snored.

The two hostages leaned into each other, asleep.

The dead girl, Brittney, lay on the floor in a heap. Someone had moved her. It looked like someone had tried to push her under the counter, out of the way. The pool of her blood was now a smear.

The only one awake was Drake. He leaned against a wall, unblinking, whip arm coiled around his waist, a machine gun in his other hand.

Caine staggered. He righted himself, squared his shoulders, wiped the drool from his mouth. He had to look strong. Drake looked strong, like he was the one in charge.

Caine wondered how long it would take for Drake to finally decide to come after him. He hadn’t done so during Caine’s long months incapacitated. But now that Caine was giving the orders again, he knew Drake was chafing.

Caine steadied himself and started toward the control room. He got as far as the office door when the memory storm swept over him, almost knocked him to his knees. He
grabbed the door and held on to it, shaking.

It came to him as hunger. Hunger deeper than anything he had ever felt himself. As if he had nothing inside his skin but a roaring, starving tiger.

Hungry in the dark.

Caine whimpered. He caught himself before he did it again, but the desperate sound was out of his mouth. Had Drake heard?

Leave me alone, Caine pleaded silently with the voice in his head. I’m doing what you want, but leave me alone.

Caine, looking down at the floor, saw Drake’s feet. Drake had arrived soundlessly. Or maybe Caine had been beyond hearing anything.

“You okay?” Drake asked.

“I’m fine,” Caine snapped.

Drake said, “Good. I’m real glad about that.”

Caine pushed past him, making sure to dig a hard shoulder into Drake.

“What are you all doing asleep?” Caine demanded in a loud voice. “Sam could be outside right now, waiting for a chance to come back after us.”

“We won’t have to worry about Sam for long,” Drake said. “Not once
he’s
fed.”

Caine kicked Jack’s chair. He kicked the nearest of the hostages. “Wake up. All of you. It’s almost daylight outside. Sam may be planning something.”

“What is your problem?” Diana demanded. “Did your monster overlord wake you up? Did he crack his crazy-brain
whip and make you jump?”

“Shut up!” Caine said savagely. “I don’t need this from you. Has anyone searched for food?”

“You don’t think in the last three months Sam’s people have searched this place for food?” Diana said, but with less overt hostility than usual.

“That’s not what I asked,” Caine yelled. “I asked whether any of you stupid, lazy idiots bothered to look for something to eat. It’s a yes-or-no answer.”

“No,” Diana answered for all of them.

“Then get off your butts and go look,” Caine said.

Diana sighed and got to her feet. “I wouldn’t mind a little walk.”

Jack got up as well. So did Drake’s two gunmen. The four of them disappeared down various hallways.

“Just don’t go outside the building,” Caine yelled after them.

Caine pulled Drake aside. “Has Jack got it worked out yet?”

“I think so. He was looking smug right before he fell asleep.”

Caine nodded. “We should move out as soon as we can.”

“Shouldn’t we try to take Sam out first?” Drake asked.

Caine snorted a laugh. “You say that like it’s easy. If we could start by taking Sam down, we’d have an easy time of it.” He shook his head. “No. That’s not how we do this. If they catch us, we use the uranium to make them back off.”

Despite himself, Drake grinned. “Threaten to drop it on them?”

“Threaten to smash it open,” Caine said. “Threaten to launch it into the air and smash it open.”

“And everyone will glow in the dark,” Drake said, as if that was a happy thought.

“I’ll only have one hand free,” Caine said. “So you may finally get a chance to use that gun you love so much.”

“Should we send Bug to Coates?” Drake asked. “Bring more of our people?”

“They wouldn’t come,” Caine said flatly.

There was a commotion and Caine glanced aside to see Computer Jack storming down the hallway trailed by Diana, who tried unsuccessfully to hold him back. Like a two-year-old trying to hold a bull.

“You!” Jack bellowed.

He waved his fist in the air and Caine could see naked wires, like hair-thin snakes in his fingers.

“You said you took these down!” Jack cried accusingly.

“Oh, gee, I must have missed some,” Drake said. “Hey, did you find your girlfriend while you were looking around?”

Jack froze. “What?”

Drake had his arm uncoiled, ready to use. “She must have been doing pretty good speed when she hit the wire. Breezed right through them. Oh wait, I said that wrong. The wire breezed right through the Breeze.”

“She…what…” Jack gasped.

“Cut her right in half,” Drake said, laughing with sheer glee. “It was kind of neat to see. You’d have found it interesting, all her insides, sliced right in half. Like a meat
cleaver went through her.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jack whispered.

“You don’t have the—”

But Jack had tossed Diana aside and was running straight at Drake.

Drake managed to lash him once with his whip hand, but only once. Jack hit him like a linebacker. Drake went flying across the room, flying like he’d stepped out in front of a bus.

Drake landed hard, but rolled to his feet. He lashed again. There was a loud crack, and a tear appeared in Jack’s shirt.

Jack never slowed down but went straight for Drake. But then, suddenly, he couldn’t move. He motored his legs, but could not advance.

Caine with one raised hand held him with an irresistible force.

“Let me go, Caine,” Jack yelled.

“He’s yanking your chain, you idiot,” Caine yelled. The temptation to let Jack kill Drake was strong. It would solve a major problem—sooner or later Drake was going to challenge Caine. But for now, Drake was still necessary in a battle.

Drake slashed at Jack with his whip, but the whip stopped in midair, hitting an invisible barrier.

“Both of you knock it off,” Caine yelled.

“You touch me, I’ll kill you!” Drake shrieked at Jack.

“I said shut up, both of you!” Caine bellowed. He pushed both palms out, one aimed at Jack, the other at Drake. Both boys went flying backward. Jack landed hard on his back. Drake, lighter and without Jack’s superhuman strength, hit
the wall and crumpled at its base.

Caine caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the backs of the two hostages as they bolted from the room.

Caine twisted to aim for them, but they were out of his line of sight. He heard footsteps pelting away. “Get them!” he yelled.

But Drake was slow getting up and Jack would be no help. Drake’s two thugs stood stock still, paralyzed. Caine realized that they were loyal to Drake, awaiting
his
orders and not Caine’s.

He spun, raised his hands, lifted both the punks off the floor, and hurled them bodily down the hallway after the hostages.

“Bring them back!” Caine bellowed.

“Look out!” Diana cried.

Gunfire erupted. Insanely loud. Caine heard bullets fly past his ear like buzzing dragonflies.

Brittney!

Not dead. Just playing dead and slowly, slowly working her way toward a gun she must have known was stashed under the counter.

She was still in a heap on the floor, unable to stand, unable even to sit up, lying on her side firing.

Caine leaped aside as bullets flew.

He slammed heavily into the table, rebounded, and fell to his knees. He brought his palms up, but the barrel of the gun moved faster.

But faster still, was Drake’s whip hand. It snapped and wrapped around Brittney’s wrist. The gun fired, but the bullets hit wall and ceiling.

Caine, enraged, aimed his full power at the girl. She skidded across the floor and hit the wall, so quickly that Drake was still attached and was drawn along with her.

Caine jumped to his feet, holding his focus on Brittney, raised her from the ground, suspended in midair.

“You piece of—” Brittney said, and then she was a bullet herself, rocketing through the air.

She flew through the hole Sam had burned earlier.

That had not been Caine’s intention. The girl was lucky.

Or someone was looking out for her.

Outside, standing faithful guard, Dekka heard the eruption of gunfire from the control room.

She leaped toward the wall just as something flew through the burned-out hole. It landed with the unmistakable sound of a human body hitting the ground.

Dekka stared, too stunned to react.

Then, off to her right, gunfire from inside the turbine building. Bright yellow flashes outlined the doorway.

She broke her trance and ran toward the door. Edilio’s soldiers jumped up off the ground and fell in behind her.

“Orc! Orc!” Dekka shouted.

She heard rather than saw the monster stir. He’d been asleep in the back of the SUV. The springs squeaked as he clambered out.

Two of Caine’s gunmen appeared as shadows in the doorway. Their guns aimed at the fleeing forms.

Gunfire and one of the shapes fell without even crying out. Collapsed onto his face and did not move. The other ran, ran, ran.

“I got him! I got him!” someone cried, more terror than pride in his voice.

“Taylor!” Dekka yelled. “Distract them!”

“Bouncing!” Taylor yelled back and disappeared.

“Oh, my God, I think I killed him,” the voice moaned.

Dekka raised her hands and both gunmen floated up off the ground. One smacked the top of the doorway. The other slid back inside, out of Dekka’s reach. The firing stopped. The running hostage collapsed, gasping, behind a vehicle.

One second Taylor was running beside Dekka.

A split second later she was staggering, still half running, across the control room of the power plant.

“You stupid psycho!” Caine screamed at Drake.

Drake had gone bone white, all but his cold gray eyes. “I just saved your life!”

“You were being an idiot! You pushed Jack just to watch him squirm,” Caine yelled. “And look what happened. I’m busy keeping you two apart and look what happened, you stupid thug!”

“Hey!” Diana yelled.

It took Taylor a moment to recognize her. Her head was practically shaved.

“Hey!” Diana yelled again, pointing at Taylor. “We have company!”

Caine whirled and swung his deadly hands up, but Taylor bounced across the room to appear in a far corner, behind him.

“Jack, you traitor!” Taylor yelled, and bounced out of the room.

Taylor popped back, right in Dekka’s face. “They’re freaking out in there. We should hit them now!”

Dekka came to a stop. She added quickly in her mind. She had Orc and Taylor and herself. She had three of Edilio’s guys. The hostages were no longer an issue.

But Caine and Drake were still alive. Still very, very dangerous. Plus at least two gunmen, maybe more.

“No,” she said, feeling deflated. “Not without Sam.”

“We should go now, right now!” Taylor yelled. She pointed at the bloody mess on the ground. “Look what they did. Look what they did! Look at what those animals did!”

Dekka put a calming hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We go in now, we’ll lose,” she said. And even if Sam were there…She’d never seen Sam acting the way he had earlier. Like the fire had gone out in him.

“You’re just scared,” Taylor said.

“Don’t be up in my face, Taylor,” Dekka warned. “We don’t have the power. Simple as that. We attack now, we’ll lose. Sam will have more bodies for Edilio to bury. I don’t know if Sam can…” She stopped herself. Too late.

“What about Sam?” Taylor demanded.

Dekka shrugged. “Nothing. Boy’s just tired, is all. I think maybe he doesn’t need another fight tonight.”

Taylor looked like she might argue some more. Then her shoulders sagged. “Yeah. Whatever.”

“You head back to town. Tell Sam what went down. Tell him what you saw inside there.”

“It’ll take me a few minutes. I can’t do it all in one bounce,” Taylor said.

“Then get going.”

Taylor disappeared and Dekka kicked furiously at the dirt. It had all happened too fast for her to do much more than watch.

Mike Farmer was creeping from behind the truck where he’d hidden. Mickey was facedown and terribly still. The remains of Brittney were a nightmare.

Dekka felt a flash of anger at Sam. He had run off and left her in charge. Well, she didn’t want to be in charge. Sam wasn’t the only one who was hanging on by his fingernails.

Brianna…The thought was like a knife to the stomach, twisting, twisting.

She had never even told Brianna how she felt. And now it was too late.