Fury of the Six (The Preston Six Book 5) (9 page)

Lucas nodded and climbed up a pile of concrete, finding a solid place to stand.

The cube moved. It sent out a sound pulse and Joey felt it move through him. It sent painful waves into his ears and throughout his body.

Evelyn cried again.

“Over here!” Joey screamed as he ran away from the group, waving his gun in the air. He fired several shots at the cube but it didn’t react. It maintained its course to his friends, his wife and daughter.

The rubble below the cube moved, and soon pieces were flying into the air and landing on parts of the city behind it like a snow blower.

Joey gave up on keeping the thing distracted and ran back to the group, firing into the cube. Sparks trailed off when he made contact.

“I got this,” Lucas said, pulling his arrow back.

They watched as it trailed across the sky and made impact. The explosion struck the flying object and it veered off momentarily. A small chunk of the cube fell to the rubble below.

“
No
,” Edith called out. “Not the Queen!” She ducked down, trying to hold onto Evelyn.

Joey felt the tug as well, and it gained in strength with each passing second. “Hit it again, Lucas!” he yelled above the sounds.

Lucas dove to the ground, grasping for a hand hold. “I can’t, it’s pulling me.”

Joey grasped Evelyn with Poly and Edith and they formed a tight circle, holding her in place, but Joey felt her body moving between them.

“It’s going to crush her!” Poly yelled.

The pulling got worse as Joey had trouble keeping both his feet on the ground. Hector sat, unfazed, looking at the ground with his blank stare. “It’s locked in on our thoughts. We have to blank out!”

“It’s taking our baby!” Poly screamed over the noise.

Joey knew, no matter what, he couldn’t do what Hector was doing. He couldn’t do anything else but put all his thoughts into saving his daughter.

The tug on Evelyn intensified and was more than any of them could bear. Joey felt his daughter’s body slipping from his grip and his fear reached new heights as she started to slip away. Poly and Edith jumped to grab at Evelyn, but Joey had the last fingers on her. He held tight to her onesie, but the bottom button unhooked and his fingers lost purchase. She floated in the sky above them.

Evelyn cried out and turned to the machine.

“No, you can’t have her,” Edith yelled at the cube as she ran toward Lucas. She jumped up next to him and pulled the two arrows from his hands and ran up the rubble pile, making great leaps as the cube pulled her along. It had her. She floated toward in the air with the arrow extending out.

“Edith has the bombs,” Lucas cried out while doing a handstand and hanging onto the edge of the concrete.

Joey held Poly as they slid along the ground toward the cube. Soon it would have them all, unless Edith was able to pull off a miracle. She threw the arrows out at the same moment a door on the cube opened and swallowed her up. A section of the cube broke off and shot off into the sky, toward the black building.

Evelyn floated far ahead of Joey. “No,” Joey said as he reached for her with one hand. He felt his and Poly’s body lift off the ground and pieces of concrete pelted his body as he floated. Lucas floated next to him and he looked back. Julie was much further away and had her face in her Panavice.

He hoped she could find another way to stop it. Joey thrust forward, trying to get closer to Evelyn.

“Get her, Joey. Use your power.
Do something!
” Poly screeched.

Joey wanted to save her, but he also didn’t want to go into slow motion and watch the last agonizing seconds before his baby girl was sucked into the machine. He cursed the world and all the things that led him to this moment. It already had Edith and soon it’d have them all.

“ALICE, OR SHOULD I CALL you Renee?” Gladius asked.

“Either is accurate,” Alice replied. “What are your objectives?”

“We came to kill Marcus. Do you know where he is?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell us?”

“No.”

Gladius sneered at the ceiling and searched for the speakers. She wanted to smash them in. “You told her.” She pointed at Gingy.

“No, I swear,” Gingy said and backed up against the wall holding her hands up.

Gladius half wanted to believe her. She didn’t really think they could fool an AI like Alice anyways. She must have sensed the body heat, the extra noise, or the peculiarities of Gingy’s actions. “So now what?” Gladius addressed Alice.

“We wait for Marcus to respond.”

“He said to let us go,” Minter chimed in.

“Negative,” Alice said. “He has responded and has one question. Is Julie with you?”

Gladius looked to Hank who shrugged. “Yeah, she’s here.”

“Your voice patterns are consistent with lying. You are not of any use for Marcus and he has given me permission to end you.”

“End us?” Hank asked, and the lights turned off.

Blackness filled the room and Gladius searched her pocket and pulled out the Panavice. She lit the room and saw Hank and Minter standing near the door.

“You hear that?” Minter asked.

“What?” Hank said.

“The air, it turned off as well.” He looked at the ceiling and around the room. “It’s only a matter of time now.”

“Emmett!” Gingy cried out, trying to open the machine. “He’s still in there.”

Gladius hadn’t realized Alice had probably just killed Emmett as well.
Whatever.
The guy had it coming to him in so many ways.

“Help me.” Gingy pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t open.

Hank rushed to her side and pushed the door until the lock broke and the door flung open. Emmett lay on the table and Gladius hesitated before shining her light on him. Blood smeared over much of his leg but no new blood was coming out of the hole in his thigh.

“He’s breathing,” Gingy said.

“Yeah, maybe we . . .” Hank started to say, but Emmett’s lightning quick hand grasped his neck. Hank choked and pulled on Emmett’s hand.

Gladius cleared the distance between them and had a knife in her hand, but Hank had it under control as he pushed Emmett’s arm back down. Then Emmett went limp as he slipped back into unconsciousness.

“You’re hurting him,” Gingy said and punched at Hank.

Gladius felt her blood raging as she saw her hitting her man. She jumped past Hank and punched Gingy in the throat. Her stunned face tried to understand what happened as she fell to the floor, gasping for air.

“Gladius, did you really need to hit her? She wasn’t hurting me.”

She ignored Hank. He didn’t understand the simple fact that some people just needed to be hit sometimes. Standing over Gingy, she raised her hand. Gingy cowered and covered her head. “Don’t you
ever
touch him again.”

Gingy coughed and nodded.

“Now, let’s tie up Emmett before his sorry ass wakes up again.” Gladius sighed, looking at Emmett’s stupid chest moving up and down. With each breath, he took another breath from her and Hank. She ran some quick numbers in her head, thinking of the cubic footage they had and the average person’s oxygen usage. If they got rid of Emmett and Gingy, it’d add days, easily. One glance at Hank’s sympathetic face and she knew he wouldn’t go for it.

Minter gathered some cord as Hank carried Emmett to a chair and they bound him to it. Gladius checked the knots and when she was satisfied, looked to Gingy. “You.” Gingy whimpered. “There has to be another way out.”

“There’s only the one door you came in.”

“No way. Marcus would have a back door somewhere in this place.” Gladius pictured the whole bunker in her mind and thought of the places she’d use for a hidden escape. He would’ve been stupid to let Alice in on all his escape routes, and he surely wasn’t dumb. As much as Marcus hated AI, he would never stay in a place where something or someone controlled his only exit. “Think, Gingy, where have you seen Marcus enter and exit?”

She looked at the floor, tears staining her ruddy cheeks. “I’ve only seen Marcus a couple times. He doesn’t like to be bothered.”

Gladius laughed. “You must have noticed his comings and goings.”

She shook her head.

Gladius looked to Emmett and thought about shaking him awake to get answers, but she knew of his reputation. Getting information from him would be as likely as dogs flying. “You know you’re going to die in here the same as us, right?”

Gingy looked up and nodded. “I don’t know a way out. If I did, I’d tell you and get the hell out of here.”

“In Marcus’s room, I think I saw something,” Hank said.

“Show the way.”

“What about Emmett?” Hank pointed to the man strapped to the machine and a conduit running into the floor.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Gladius said. “Now show me what you saw in Marcus’s room.”

Gingy shook her head. “We’re not allowed in there.”

“Come on, you’re coming with us.” Gladius followed behind Gingy as they made their way down the hall and into Marcus’s room.

“There’s nothing in here,” Gingy said.

“Then you won’t care if we look around.”

Gingy’s jaw clenched. Hank pushed on a dresser and slid it a few feet. There was nothing behind it but a color of paint slightly different than the rest of the room.

“Told you,” Gingy said with more sass in her tone.

“Shut it. Check the wall next to his bed.” Gladius really wanted to find something now just to shove it in the brat’s face.

“Nothing,” Hank said and moved to the bed.

“He doesn’t like people touching his bed.”

Hank lifted the mattress and revealed a sheet of plywood underneath. But that wasn’t what caught Gladius’s attention.

“What do we have here?” she asked, pointing to a small electrical panel at the far back edge.

Minter groaned and fell to the floor. Gladius jumped back, and turned in his direction, holding her Panavice up to light the area. He lay on the ground, not moving.

Gladius raised the light to Gingy’s fiery face. She raised her fists and glared at Gladius not more than a few feet away. “You were conning me the whole time?”

“I cannot allow you to leave.”

Gladius saw Minter moving from the corner of her eye. Good, he wasn’t dead, but how did this little woman take out such a man like Minter? “I guess we found that back door. Now, why don’t you just turn around and head down the hall. We’ll be gone and you can go back to your little terrible life in this hole.”

Gingy took a quick step forward and kicked Gladius in the stomach. Gladius cried out from the shock of her speed and the pain radiating through her midsection. She hunched down to the ground, it was the only thing her body would allow. Looking up, Gingy jumped and her foot came down near her face. Gladius took out her knife and stabbed her in the bottom of her foot. The knife stuck in place, hopefully into bone. Gingy cried out and moved back, hopping on one foot.

Hank moved toward them.

Gladius got to her feet in one jump and held her hand up. “No. She’s mine.”

Gingy pulled the knife from her foot and staggered in pain. “Okay, I’ll give you the code for the bed, as long as you as don’t kill me,” she pleaded.

Gladius saw red, getting up to attack the bitch. Gingy favored one foot but still managed to hold Gladius’s knife out and take a defensive stance, awaiting her move.

Knowing her enemy’s foot was injured and was holding the knife on the wrong side, Gladius kicked Gingy’s leg and sent her back to the floor.

Minter got to his feet, rubbing his head. He stood behind Gingy as she squirmed away to a corner of the room. “We should kill her.”

“What?” Hank looked shocked.

“She is dangerous,” Minter said, pointing his gun at her. “Look at how well she lied to us about her situation. A person like this shouldn’t be allowed to roam free. It’s only a matter of time before she’s trouble for us once again. Look at Emmett! We can end it now before it ever starts.”

“No, we aren’t like that,” Hank said.

“Thank you,” Gingy said. “I swear I won’t be any trouble.”

Minter fired a shot, striking Gingy in the head. Her body slumped to the ground and blood filled the exit wound, spreading onto the carpet below.

“What did you do?” Hank asked. “We don’t just kill people, Minter!”

“She would have killed us the first chance she got,” Minter said. “Now, please tell me you can open that bed?”

Gladius spent a while longer, staring at Minter. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t about to kill Gingy herself, but the man did it without a second thought. He was exactly as she thought he was, cold blooded.

Shaking her head clear, she jumped into action. “Julie gave me a few code breakers.” She scanned the pages on the Panavice and found the digital lock. Then she sent the code breakers to work.

The bed clicked. “Ha! Got it.” Ignoring Hank’s look of shock as he stared at the dead body on the ground, Gladius stuffed her Panavice in her pocket and pulled the handle on the bed. The bed lifted up and lights lit the way down a staircase, illuminating a man wearing a black suit.

“You guys didn’t waste any time, did you? Good for you. And Alice must be lying . . . she’s saying you killed Gingy?”

Gladius didn’t know what to say. The man standing in front of her shook her to the core. She fumbled with her knife and got it in her hands.

“Marcus?” Hank said, stepping next to Gladius to look down the stairs.