Emergence (Eden's Root Trilogy) (21 page)

“Um…
yeah.”

“
So how many is it? How many steps has Carter wrenched from us on this quest?”

Sara cringed.
“1,706,496.”

“Wow.”
Fi slumped against her. She had kind of been teasing, but hearing the words “one million” did have a way of putting it all into perspective.

Luke snuffled and Sara
reached over and adjusted the fleece wrapped around him. She bent her forehead and touched her nose to his softly. “Is that better, little guy?”

Fi’s eyes pricked.
“Hey, Sara.”

“Hmm?”
Sara’s eyes were still locked on Luke.

“It just occurred to me that I’
m a complete jerk.”

“What?
What are you talking about?”

“I mean, Luke, Sar
. I never really thanked you for helping me…and for saving us.”

“Aw, Fi, you didn’t get a chance.
Who the heck worries about thanks in the middle of…” her voice trailed off.

The breeze gusted.
“…War?” Fi finished, shivering.

“Man, if it’s too weird to even say it, then how are we going to do it?” Sara scuffed her foot across an icy stone, breaking the veneer away in clinking sheets.

“We’re already doing it, Sar
a. It’s already underway,” Fi said, sighing. “Although I guess I didn’t expect ‘war’ to have so much other stuff like all the planning and sneaking. In the movies it’s all about the fight.”

“It’
ll be all about the fight soon.” Sara’s voice was quiet. She fingered the scar on her cheek.

Fi paused.
“Are you scared?”

“Honestly?
I’m more scared for Lily and my parents. I mean, I’m scared for me too, but if anything happens to my little sister…”

She didn’t finish.
She didn’t have to. “I know what you mean.” Fi took Sara’s hand and squeezed it. “I just want to hold her.”

Sara put her arm around her and Fi rested her
head on her friend’s shoulder. “Kiara’s ok, you know, Fi. She’s a tough little bird.”

“I know.”
They were silent for a time, leaned together like two saplings. “It doesn’t make it any better though, does it, Sar?”

“No.
But you know what does make it better?”

“
What?”

Sara’s dark eyes burned
as she nodded toward the horizon. “Knowing that they’re never going to see us coming.”

Fi considered her words.
They did have the advantage. They had surprise. They had each other. They had an Army. It had morphed over the weeks and miles and Fi was buoyed by its growing strength. From the first of their runners to the last of Diaspora, it now stretched over the land like an enormous snake. And if the runners were the snake’s eyes and ears, then she was its head.

Like Nagaina
, she thought, recalling her favorite Kipling villain. She’d never thought of it from the mother cobra’s perspective before, but Nagaina would do anything for her young.
It was what made her dangerous.

What price for a cobra’s egg?
The mongoose had taunted Nagaina, her last uncrushed egg held between his paws. Only one could be saved: a desperate mother’s last hope. So desperate that she’d follow her egg and her torturer down into the Earth, to her most certain doom. Fi followed Sara’s gaze to the horizon.
What price for a young cobra?

“We’re
next!” Asher’s voice broke her reverie as he hiked up the ridge toward them, with Sean just behind. His blond braid gleamed in the hazy sun, a bright spot against the gloom.

“You girls ready?”
Sean added.

“Yup!”
Fi jumped up and handed Luke over so Asher could nestle him into her pack.

“Let’
s hope that rain holds off,” Sara said, nodding at the growing pileup of charcoal in the western sky.

“I guess we should hustle then,” Fi said, taking off.
“Don’t let this old mama beat you, Sar!”

They
set out, racing down the ridge ahead of the others, Fi loving the coil and spring in her muscles. Only 9,504 more steps, she thought, and Dr. Carter Lawson would be within striking distance.

###################################################

That evening, she thanked God for Asher for the millionth time as he rubbed her now aching feet. “I’ll do you next, I promise,” she murmured. His thumb slid down her arch and she moaned.

“The runners are back!” someone called.

A few minutes later, Zykeem strolled into their circle with Titan and a chagrined looking young girl on his heels, her hat, quite literally in her hands. Her white-blonde hair burned crimson in the flickering light. Fi recognized the medic she’d met the first day. Jonas’ charge. What was her name again?
Hannah.

“Commander Jul
ius,” Zykeem said gruffly, “we have a problem.” He pushed Hannah forward gently. “You can explain, Hannah.”

Julius
raised an eyebrow, but Hannah couldn’t have seen it, her head was so far down already. “What happened, Hannah?” he prompted.

“I…I followed Zykeem and Titan out
on the run today.”

There was a collective gasp.

“You did what?”
Jonas strode into the circle and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “I’ve been looking for you all day! Jesus, I was freaking out.”

“Hannah, why would you follow the runners out?”
Julius was stern. “You know we have rules here. This isn’t playtime. Do you want us to send you home like the little ones?”

“No.”
Hannah’s voice was quiet. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Her head hung lower and she seemed to shrink.
It reminded Fi of the time her family had saved a baby sparrow that had fallen from its nest.
Actually
, her heart squeezed,
it was Kiara who saved the little bird
. When Kiara picked it up with the towel, it squeezed itself into the tiniest ball of fluff ever…just like Hannah.

Julius turned to Zykeem.
“Everything turn out ok?”

Zykeem saluted.
“Yes sir, Commander. We recovered a great cache of SWAT gear with the help of the Cincinnati Nets.” His face softened. “And I’d like to add that Hannah did make herself useful, sir, carrying back rations and gear.”

“That doesn’t make it acceptable
,” Julius said. “Do you understand, young lady?”

“I just wanted…” she
began, and then stopped.

“You wanted what, Hannah?”
Fi asked, curious.

“I
only wanted to help! I’m young and fast, and I can run forever.”

“But you knew better, Hannah,” Julius said.
“You know that you’re here only to help Jonas, and are NOT to be involved in any high-risk duties.”

“Yes
, I know. I’m sorry, Commander.”

Fi’s heart twisted
at the gravity in the girl’s voice.

“A
ll right, Hannah, Jonas,” Julius said. “Go get something to eat, ok? That’s an order. You too, Zykeem.” Titan whimpered and Julius softened, rubbing the big dog between the ears. “You too, Titan.”

As they left the circle, Julius sat back and whistled.
“I swear; I don’t know what gets into that girl.”

Fi watched Hannah
’s back as she melted into the forest with Jonas. She might be foolish, she thought, but she was certainly a brave little thing.

After their meal, they continued their discussions. The SWAT gear stolen from Cincinnati’s police station would come in handy, especially given their devotion to reducing the bloodshed of innocents.

“So what was the final tally?” Sean asked Julius, as they settled by the fire.

“Ten smoke bombs, five canisters of tear gas, a ton of rubber bullets and fifteen SWAT shields and helmets.”

“Good.” Julius’ head bobbed with each item. “That’s good.”

“So we should be able to surround the settlers without killing them then, right?”
Fi asked, relieved.

Despite the fury everyone felt toward the Truthers, they knew that many of them were just women and children
, not soldiers. It didn’t seem fair to attack them, and it wouldn’t help their cause to kill them. For that reason, they’d decided that the main siege force would bisect the colony, separating the cabins from the perimeter. The Army of Eden volunteers would surround and hold the Truthers non-violently, while the siege team took on the Lobo “Angels.”
God willing, anyway
, Fi thought.

“It’s not great, but it’s the best we can do, given the circumstances,” Sean said.
“It would be a lot easier if we were willing to just blow them all to heck. I’m sure the General could come up with some kind of weapon to help us do that.”

“Yeah,” Fi said, “but we can’t.
We can’t kill people that are just caught in the cross-fire between us and this lunatic.”

“True,” Julius sighed.
“But being right is always harder than being wrong.”

---------- Carter
----------

Carter rushed toward the
camp bathrooms, his fury blazing higher with each new howl emanating from inside. Hadn’t he told Silas to keep it quiet? He rounded the end of the concrete building and almost careened into a flushed Silas coming from the other direction. “What the hell is going on, Silas?” he growled, ripping open the door.

It swung wide and he
gasped. The emaciated hostiles sat in shivering bundles on the floor, too weak to stand, but that wasn’t what drew his attention. His eyes flew to the man strapped to a chair positioned over the central drain in the room. A single bulb swung above him, strobing across the purple landscape of bruises and lacerations that was his face. The two Lobo guards looked up in shock.

Carter closed the door behind him with care.
“What is this?” He spoke very slowly, unsure what would come out of his mouth if he didn’t take his time. For a moment there was silence, a dripping sink the only sound as the room held its collective breath.

“What do you mean?” Silas asked.
“You told me to question them.”

“I said question them, Silas, not torture them!
Jesus!” Carter’s eyes darted frantically to the now upturned faces of the others. Their eyes were hollow and most were covered in a kaleidoscope of bruises and lacerations. The only one who’s face was untouched was the woman’s. For a moment Carter felt relief, until he saw the bruises on her neck. “Mother of God, not the woman too!”

He wanted to scream, but that would only make it worse.
He swallowed his rage and pressed his hands together, as if in prayer. “Silas, we can’t do this. For one thing, their screams are too loud. I could hear you from the Main Cabin, for Christ’s Sakes.”

“Why do you think I was rushing here, Father?
I told them,” he glared at the guards, “to press them. I didn’t tell them to beat them to the point of screaming. Idiots.” He backhanded the guard closest to him.

Carter rolled his eyes.
He was surrounded by fools.
His eyes darted to the woman, her thin neck mottled with a kaleidoscope of fingerprints. His stomach turned when he saw the bandages binding both of her hands.
And monsters.
“Enough! Silas, all I said was to find out what they knew about Diaspora.”

“No, you said, ‘Find Diaspora, Silas!
We have to take it down, Silas!’ And we really tried, boss, but ‘pretty please’ just wasn’t doing it.”

“
That’s because we don’t know anything!” The man in the chair spoke, his fat lip garbling the words.

“It’s true.”
A thin man with a long beard murmured from the corner. “We told you what we know. North Dakota. That’s it. Please. Stop hitting him.” A stick for an arm extended, pointing to the stick sitting in the chair.

One guard wound up to punch the bearded man and Silas grabbed his arm.
“Don’t!” He turned to Carter. “What’s the move, Father?”

Carter hesitated.
He was backed into a corner. These people sickened him, but so did their obvious wounds. The strongest of them appeared to have taken serious beatings. What if they really didn’t know and he was having these people beaten for nothing? A wave of nausea rolled through him.

But then
the fury followed on the heels of his sickness like its shadow, as it always did when the memory came rushing back. The head of Diaspora I. His dour face. His condescending pat on the back on the way out. And a voice, Carter’s own voice rising to an agonized shriek as he fell to his knees and begged him…begged that horrifying excuse for a human being. To no avail.

“
No, Dr. Lawson,”
he’d said, his fake expression of concern making Carter want to strangle him with this bare hands.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. You should know that better than anyone… Now get up, please! You’re making a scene.”