Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (33 page)

Adam scowled. "What you
did
is almost get yourself caught. And all of us along with you."
 

Her grin slipped a bit, but she didn't back down. "I don't think we could have tracked them all the way there without the beacon. Following them in a car would have been dangerous, too. They're probably trained to look for a tail. Besides, I couldn't just let this chance go. Who knows when we'd get another? And every day we waste, Chanelle's still in there. Who knows how much time she has?"

Adam pressed his lips together, but pushed the hair back from his face with a sigh and ruffled her hair. "Well, you didn't get caught. You're okay, and that's the most important thing. But don't do something so stupid again, okay?"

She grinned and nodded, but there was an obvious lack of remorse on her face.
 

I couldn't help but laugh, and it felt good. It had been a long time since I last laughed for real, and the relief of our small victory made me feel lighter inside than I had since before I was a Player.
 

* * *

That night, we sat around the tables in Blaine’s lab.
 

“Don’t be such a lily, Sam.” Jacky shook her head. “What did you think we were tracking NIX for, if not to actually
find
them?” Jacky was more on edge than usual, because of what had happened with the warden, I assumed. The fire and his death had been on the news. All the residents of the juvenile center had escaped unscathed, except for the warden, and it was reported as a strange drunken accident. Whether the enforcers were investigating despite that, I didn’t know. Time would settle both Jacky’s mood and any suspicions, I hoped. If my claw marks in the side of the building had been noticed, I laughed a little at the enforcers’ inevitable confusion.
 

“My sister is in there,” China said simply, steel in her voice.
 

“Adam rubbed his fingers together, sparks jumping over his knuckles. “I want to go. But Sam’s not wrong. It’s dangerous to jump into this. You guys do remember that we all have a GPS chip embedded in our necks, right? They could have alarms set to go off if Players get too close.”
 

“They might not,” I speculated aloud. “They keep some Players who failed Trials there to research on. And if anyone but Bunny were actually monitoring us, they’d notice that we’re in the house of one of their contractors-slash-blackmail-victims.”
 

“Unless they know and don’t care. Or they’re keeping an eye on us secretly.” Adam shot one of his sparks into China’s side, making her jump, then grinned mischievously when she smacked the top of his head.
 

I rolled my eyes at them. “We need more information. That always seems to be the problem…” I rubbed the back of my neck, and sat up straight. “But we do have a resource on the inside, which we’ve forgotten about.”
 

“You want to ask B—
him
?” Adam asked.
 

“Not overtly, of course. But if we could tease some information out of him, think how useful that would be.”
 

Sam’s eyes widened. “What if he realizes what we’re doing?”

I leaned forward, my mind racing. “That’s why we’ll have to be careful. We’ll slip the information-gathering into conversation secretly, and each of us will try for different pieces of the puzzle so he doesn’t even realize everything he’s told us.”

* * *

China was the one to end up getting most of the information we gathered out of Bunny. She learned more about NIX’s physical and organizational structure, as well as some hints about security, all the while bonding with Bunny and subtly planting seeds of empathy toward our little team. She was amazing. When I told her so, she just shook her head sadly. “I just want us all to be safe.”
 

From what we gathered of Bunny’s knowledge, NIX wouldn’t know if we snuck up on them, unless someone checked in on us specifically and noticed our location. This was least likely to happen late at night, because while Bunny had constant access to all the Players he moderated, he did need to sleep. And he did it on a fairly regular schedule.
 

So, late at night a few days later, after driving to a spot Adam had deemed suitably removed from NIX, our actual target, the team got out of the pod and spent hours in the government-property forest, circling in around the tracking beacon. We moved cautiously, and scanned for any electronic security devices hidden among the trees. When we found them, we marked a way around in their blind spots, and continued on.
 

Finally, we got close enough to see what we'd been working for so long to find. It seemed to be a huge compound, cut from the inside of the mountain cliff. The front side had windows and air vents cut into the stone face, little bright points of light or deeper dark in the night.
 

The back side was a bowl depression into the mountain, with a huge metal ball on a concrete tower shooting out of the middle, surrounded by mostly open courtyard and some smaller individual buildings. The walls were made of glass in places on the inside, and we could see people moving along the curved hallways. We had no way of knowing how far the underground construction went, but I had no doubt it was extensive. The inside had stairs running up the wall for convenience, while the other side plunged to rock, river, and trees far below. Because of the way the compound had been built, it almost seemed as if the ball tower was surrounded by huge stone walls made of mountain, like a king's castle or city of olden days.
 

Guards walked around atop the outside of the walls, on constant patrol. They carried large guns strapped to their bodies, as well as handheld radios and binoculars. The whole place was well secured, and easily defensible on all sides.
 

My team crouched at the top of a hill, hidden among the trees and underbrush at the base of a nearby mountain.
 

"This place isn't on any official map," Adam murmured. "We've definitely found NIX." He pointed to the river. “That runs through the bottom of the mountain they’ve built into. They must be using it as an energy source to keep this place running.”
 

“What’s that?” I jerked my head toward the huge ball elevated above the courtyard. Bands of different colored metals spun around it, in all directions, as if in moving orbit.
 

“No idea.” He shrugged.
 

"I didn't expect NIX to be quite so…big," China said in a small voice. "How are we supposed to…?" she trailed off.
 

"Yeah. I hate to say it, Eve, but how does this help?" Sam asked. "Now we know more about them, but that only makes us more of a threat to them, and gives them a reason to kill us."

"They already try to kill us every ten days in the Trials, so not much has changed, then, huh?" Adam said.
 

"Sam, do you know what the casualty rate is for Players?" I said.
 

They were all silent for a few moments as the weight of my words settled on them.
 

"High. Over fifty percent. But once you've survived a few times, the survival rate goes up," he whispered.

"Does it? What about our last Trial? Even if every one of those Players had been able to solve the puzzle,
half
would still have died. Because that's what NIX wanted. They don't want us all to survive.” I placed emphasis on every word. Otherwise they wouldn't put us into the Trials. How long till one of us slips up and dies, or we’re sent to a Trial where we're forced to work against each other? We can't keep this up forever.”
 

He was silent, so I continued. "So, like I've said from the beginning, we need to escape. As soon as possible. And I've got an idea. I had an interesting conversation with you-know-who." I lifted my eyes skyward to indicate Bunny, without saying his name and drawing attention to our current situation. "He told me that when Players commit suicide, NIX takes them off the list of active Players—the ones that enter Trials."

Adam twisted onto his side to face me, the weaving tattoos on his arms making him blend into the darkness like camouflage. "I know you're not going to have us kill ourselves. So what's the plan?"

I grinned. "That's where you come in." I could feel the weight of everyone's anticipation for my next words. "It's only logical that they keep records of all their past Players, right?"

"Right."

"And as you-know-who's the only one that watches us enough to know who we are, if suddenly we disappeared, no one would notice as long as nothing drew their attention to our absence?"

"Probably not...but—"

"So, if suddenly Adam Coyle's status changed to ‘dead for the last six months,’ and somehow also happened to be the exact same information as Joe Schmoe, some random guy that actually did die, and already had the cleaners erase suspicion on him..."

"Whoa. That might actually work. Of course, they probably have tracking and audit programs in place to find discrepancies, at least they do if they're smart. And I'm sure they've got a backup, too. But they’ll likely be digital, for security purposes, and even if not, I’d bet there’s a self-destruct protocol for invasion or takeover scenarios. But if I could write a program designed to spread like the zombie apocalypse and wipe out our real information and any traces that it had been changed…plus set off the backup self-destruct…" he trailed off, and lay in silence for a few minutes. "I'm going to need to level up some more to be able to create something that robust. And I’ll need a direct linkup. But I can do it. If I can get in there," he jerked his head toward the compound, "for long enough for the program to work undetected."

"I've got some ideas for that, too," I said.

Chapter 23

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

— Kurt Vonnegut

My mom called us into the kitchen, and sat us down for a particularly fancy breakfast. She rubbed her manicured hands together with a mixture of excitement and nerves. “I’ve got something to tell you,” she announced.
 

I bit back my smile.
 

“I’ve received a job offer from the marketing department of one of our sister companies. They’re expanding into some products with high profit potential, and they want me to lead the team. They’re willing to compensate for our relocation, and the pay is high enough—”

“Relocation?” Zed interrupted. “What are you saying?”

“The decision is already made, children.” She met moth our eyes challengingly. “It would mean a higher standard of living, less hours of work for me after the initial push, it’s got a significantly better enforcer presence, and the school is top notch.”

Zed looked to me for help.
 

Sorry, brother. I won’t be giving a hand with this one. I shrugged. “I’m out of school anyway, so it doesn’t matter to me.”
 

My mother smiled and subtly relaxed. “There are some wonderful opportunities for secondary education, Eve, as well as job opportunities if you can’t pass the entrance exams…”

Zed glared between the both of us and stalked out of the room, leaving the elaborate meal untouched.
 

My mother sighed.
 

“He’ll come around,” I said to her, piling my plate with his abandoned food. Wouldn’t want any to go to waste, now. I snickered to myself.
 

“At least I have one reasonable child,” she sighed.
 

I smiled at her around a mouthful of melon. If only she knew. If all went well, the others in my team with families to protect would all be having similar discussions. Blaine’s wealth could create connections and opportunities seemingly out of thin air.

* * *

Three days later, the power went off as I was lying on the floor in the living room with Zed. I sat up in vague curiosity, and let the indirect sunlight through the window wash over my body in the now-darkened room.
 

"Power's off," Zed stated the obvious, putting down his school pad.
 

"I'm sure it'll be back on soon," I frowned down at the small chain I’d been fiddling with while quizzing him for his year-end test. I couldn’t see well enough without the light, and obviously couldn’t activate my Huntress Skill to improve my night vision while in a civilian’s presence. “Probably just a rolling blackout.”

But then I heard faint musical tones, and my insides started to vibrate harmony. "Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit," I muttered, launching myself off the floor and sprinting to my room.
 

“What’s wrong, Eve?”

“Uh, nothing!” I called back distractedly. “I just forgot I was going to go to a friend’s house tonight. I’m late!” I grabbed the pack that I kept always prepared and nearby from my closet. I lifted the edge of my mattress and fumbled for the Seeds hidden within, tossing them into my pack. I barely remembered to strip off my link and toss it on the bed so it didn’t get scrambled. "This shouldn't be happening. It's only been nine days, not ten. It's not time yet!" I hissed. Were the others going to Trial, too? Or was NIX singling me out, sending me off-schedule to see if I would die by myself? Before I had time to even put on shoes, my bones shivered me into my fifth Trial. I was understandably distracted, and didn't feel the eyes watching me in secret through the crack in my doorway. If I had, maybe things would have been different. But I didn't notice.
 

I found myself transported into mid-air and falling fast, and any thoughts beyond the moment quickly blew their way out of my head. I landed hard on a knobby brown tree limb, bruising my knees, scraping my hands, and half knocking the air out of my lungs.
 

I was sucking at the shockingly warm air, disoriented by the huge, huge distance between myself on the limb and the tawny ground far below, when a warning shout from above caused me to rear back, just soon enough to have my face smashed into the branch as something large landed on me from above.