The Terminals (27 page)

Zara's face was hard, the way she steeled it when she felt vulnerable. “This isn't new info, Cam. It's the TS or the glio. If you're trying to make yourself feel better because you're struggling along unenhanced, fine. But don't expect us to cheer just because your tumor took a month off from killing you. We'd rather go out rock stars.”

“I don't feel like a rock star,” Tegan said. His eyes were mashed shut, wincing against pain, and Cam realized he was having one of his TS headaches.

“Maybe you're not sick either. At least maybe you weren't until they gave you the TS. Maybe they're lying.”

Zara screwed up her face. Wally shook his head. Donnie stood up and pointed right at Cam's chest.

“Listen, we've got an entire team of doctors with their own private lab—not to mention helicopters and million-dollar yachts—giving us complex medical diagnoses on a biweekly basis. While, on the other hand, we've got one desperate former athlete in denial feeding us a wild-ass conspiracy theory. You'll pardon us if we don't believe you.”

A figure threw open the entrance to the shelter, and morning light streamed in. They all turned, surprised.

“Believe me then,” Siena said.

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

30. 'SPLOSIONS
  

by WTF

31. NO WAY!

by Go Fish

32. TREADING WATER

by The Blind Leading the Blind

“
Boom-boom
goes the drum.”

Donnie looked as though he'd seen a ghost.

“You know me,” Siena said. It was more statement than question. She watched Donnie, Owen, and Tegan carefully, with her hand on the machete, poised to flee or defend herself.

Still holding his head, Tegan said nothing, while Owen grimaced like he'd just swallowed a spider. But Cam had to give Donnie credit. He suppressed his shock enough to at least respond.

“You're the runner who went over the bluff with Peter,” he said carefully.

She nodded.

“But you're alive.”

“The fact that I survived the fall isn't what's important,” she said. “I survived their diagnosis.”

“Who are you?” It was Zara.

“She's from last year's class,” Cam said.

“Last year's class?”

“TS-8.”

Cam hurriedly explained, cobbling together Siena's information with his own and some from Ari's notebook. It was difficult. Much of what he said was speculation, and some of it didn't fit when he tried to put it into words. But they all listened—a girl appearing out of the Amazon jungle like magic had earned their attention. However, they began to look confused as Cam rushed and stumbled through his theory.

Tegan looked more ill than before, while Donnie and Owen gritted their teeth. They'd hunted her—their first test when they arrived—and Siena kept a wary eye on them, honoring Cam's plea that she give them a chance, but clearly not trusting them.

Finally, Zara interrupted. “If they're experimenting on us, why aren't you on TS?”

Cam was surprised when Siena answered for him.

“He's the rat they don't inject. Every experiment has one. We had someone like that. He escaped with me, only he didn't get away. I was enhanced. He wasn't.” Her eyes flitted elsewhere, blinking against tears, and Cam could see that she'd been friends with him, whoever he was. Maybe more than friends.

“We don't have all of the answers,” Cam said. “But I know they're lying to us.”

“Maybe for our own good,” Donnie argued. “You ever think of that?”

Siena fidgeted. “Cam, we don't have time for this. I'm leaving. Ask them the question.”

Cam drew himself up. He'd made his best case. He'd summoned all of the authority he possessed and spent the entirety of his credibility appealing to the team with which he'd sweated and bled for months. It had to count for something.

“Will you go with us?” he said.

No one moved.

“Step forward now if you will,” he added.

Donnie didn't budge. Taking his cue from Donnie, Owen didn't either. Wally and Zara looked at each other and shook their heads. Tegan just hugged his knees, nonresponsive as well.

“None of you is concerned about what we've discovered?”

“Concern isn't enough, Cam,” Zara said. She sounded torn, but not ready to commit.

Donnie crossed his arms. “I'm not going to throw away the opportunity to be a superhero for the last year of my life just because some freaked-out girl isolated herself in the woods for a few months and thinks the organization is out to get her. Ward told us she was trying to compromise the mission when he sent us to find her. And from what I'm hearing now, he's right.”

Cam groaned. “I know something's wrong. Come on, we're in this together. We're teammates. We're friends.”

“Last I checked, you were fresh out of friends.”

Cam looked around. Donnie was right. Ari was gone. Calliope, gone. Jules, gone. He was isolated, unenhanced, the weak link at best. There was an uncomfortable silence.

It was Owen who finally spoke. “I think Cam's got a point,” he said tentatively.

Cam was shocked. So was Donnie, who glared at his minion for breaking solidarity, as though Owen had betrayed him by speaking at all.

“Some of this stuff
doesn't
make sense,” Owen continued.

Donnie interrupted. “Dude, we're supposed to be a united front. You spend one night with this guy and now you're in bed with him, or what?”

“I just have concerns too. And as soon as Ward gets back I'm going to ask him a few choice questions.” Owen glanced at Cam for support.

But talking to Ward wasn't what Cam had in mind, and it was Cam's turn to fail to respond. His own silence hung in the air as heavily as the group's had when he'd asked for their allegiance.

“We're done here, Cam,” Siena whispered.

She was right, he saw. He backed out of the shelter beside her, leaving Owen with a hurt look, and they dove into the thick foliage, headed for the southern rope.

Siena reached the cliff edge first and urged Cam to hurry so that they could climb down and slip into her hiding place before the others came. But they were too late.

“Boat!” She pointed to a Zodiac skipping across the waves, toward the beach. Two occupants. Ward and Pilot, no doubt. “We're too late. Let's go back and…”

“Oh no…” Cam directed her attention to the bluff's short rope on the north side of the compound. Donnie and Owen were already descending to meet Ward.

Siena stared. “They'll tell him about you. And about me.”

Cam could see Siena recalculating, her expression slumping as she realized that her escape was ruined.

“I'm sorry,” Cam said. It sounded lame—mere words were such an insignificant gesture in the face of shattered hope.

“I could have done this without you,” she said, as much to herself as to Cam. “The supplies were unguarded. You were all up on the bluff. Ward and Pilot would have left the boat on the beach to come up and find you. I'm so stupid.”

“You're not stupid. You care.”

“About you? I don't even know you.”

“You believed I was a good person. And I believe my teammates are. They joined because they wanted to do good. We all did.”

“I just want to go home now. If I'm not dying, I want to live.”

“Maybe they'll let us go, give us a new home and fake identity.”

Siena gave him a sharp look that accused him of naïveté. “You really believe that?”

“My teammates who died took the risks voluntarily. I've never seen them kill anyone.”

Donnie and Owen were on the beach. Cam marveled at how quickly they'd shimmied down the rope. Their strides were long and powerful. The extra TS was pumping through their veins, amplifying their systems beyond what nature intended. He imagined it blowing their brains like cheap speakers.

They met Ward at the surf as he and Pilot pulled the Zodiac ashore. They yelled over the crash of the waves, and Cam found himself leaning out over the precipice, straining to hear. Their voices were maddeningly near audible.

If Ward and Pilot were surprised when they saw the storm's devastation, they didn't show it. They afforded the condos no more than a glance.
They consider them replaceable
, he thought. The bunker was intact, an ugly square brick dropped in the sand against the otherwise beautiful russet and green bluff. Cam watched carefully as Ward addressed Donnie, the presumptive spokesman of the two recruits, asking him quick questions. He saw Donnie point at the south rope. They were discussing him, and probably Siena too. Cam ducked, crouching in the brush. Finally, Ward turned to Owen.

Owen spoke, and Cam could see Ward's expression grow sad and resigned, even from a distance. Owen was asking questions, the difficult ones, Cam's questions, accusing questions—not at all in line with the team philosophy. Pilot looked on, grim-faced. Finally, he motioned Ward aside. Ward hesitated, and then debated with him for a moment, but, in the end, he stepped out of the way.

Cam heard a muffled pop, and Owen's questions ended abruptly. Owen looked down, confused, and then collapsed.

With impressive and unexpected quickness, Donnie caught Owen before he fell.
Enhanced reaction time
, Cam thought. From the distance, he couldn't tell exactly what had happened, but when Pilot turned to Donnie, Owen's limp form hung between them like a five-foot shield. In the moment that Pilot hesitated, Donnie threw Owen at him, his augmented strength allowing him to fling the heavy body as though it was no more than an inflatable dummy. Pilot lurched backward, his heel striking the Zodiac's pontoon. Owen's body hit him in the chest. Pilot tilted, overbalanced. His arms pinwheeled for a moment, and then he flopped back into the boat.

Owen wasn't moving. He lay in the surf, flopping over as a wave pushed him up onto the sand.

“They darted him!” Cam exclaimed.

Donnie was running. Ward ran after him, but Donnie flew across the sand at inhuman speed.
Enhanced speed
, Cam thought. Ward broke off the pursuit, while Pilot clambered out of the boat and pulled out his hand radio.

“South rope!” Cam yelled to Donnie. “Here! Up here!”

“More boats,” Siena said.

A chill ran through Cam as two more Zodiacs whipped around the southern point. They bore men in dark clothing. Pilot had radioed them, clearly. For an instant, Cam wondered if they'd been lurking on the other side of the point throughout the training, waiting every day to be called in case of emergency, in case of too many questions.

“Run, Donnie!” Cam yelled from the top of the rope. He found himself cheering for the boy he'd thought he hated.

Donnie raced past the empty site of Cam's old condo, well ahead of Pilot, who had taken up the pursuit. Donnie leaped for the rope and caught it on the fly ten or twelve feet off the ground. He was climbing hand-over-hand while Pilot was still stumbling up the beach through the heavy sand. Pilot stopped and scanned the bluff.
He's looking for the rest of the team
, Cam thought.
He wonders if we're all watching this.
Cam wondered too.

Donnie ascended so fast that it looked like he was jogging up the side of the cliff. Cam reached out to him, and, when he arrived, took his hand and helped him up.

“What happened?” Cam asked.

Donnie didn't answer, but simply stood staring down at the beach, wide-eyed as the other two boats pulled up.

Cam was suddenly angry. He got in his teammate's face, despite that Donnie was bigger and enhanced. “Why'd they dart Owen? Why'd you throw him in the water and leave him?”

Finally, Donnie turned toward him, and Cam saw that his lip was quivering. “They didn't dart him,” Donnie stammered. “They shot him. He's dead.”

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

31. NO WAY!