Dream Sky (29 page)

He fell to his knees, his hand covering his face, and sobbed.

There was nothing he could do to make up for what had happened.

Nothing.

He had killed them.

Killed them all.

Even after his tears ran out, he knelt there, staring at the ground.

His soul was not lost. He knew exactly where it was—in the lowest pit of hell, irredeemable.

When he rose to his feet, he was no longer shaking. Since leaving Texas, he had feared what might happen to him on the mission he was undertaking, but no more.

The damned have nothing to fear
, he realized.

He took the Allegheny Boulevard exit in Brookville ten minutes later, and soon was turning off Jenks Street onto Cemetery Road. He slowed as he passed between the two columns that had flanked the entrance since long before he was born. Carved in relief in the capstone on the left was
BROOKVILLE
and the one on the right
CEMETERY
. No fancy names here, just telling it like it was.

He had no problem finding the headstone he was looking for. It wasn’t ornate or as high as many of the others, but even if a hundred years had passed, he would have found it just the same. It was his grandfather’s, a humble monument Wicks had helped his mother pick out.

The gravestone was a five-inch-thick slab of granite that rose a foot into the air from a wide base flush to the ground. He squatted next to it and brushed away a crusty chunk of snow from the bottom.

He’d always loved his family’s trips here to visit his grandfather, had loved playing in the sweet old man’s barn, and walking with him through the fields. Wicks had been fourteen when his grandfather died, and—until he’d come back seven years earlier for a short, purposeful visit—the man’s funeral had been the last time Wicks was there.

He ran his palm across the front of the stone, outlining his grandfather’s name before moving his hand to the very top of the monument. As much as he would have liked to spend hours cloaked in the good memories, that was time he did not have.

He gripped the stone with the other hand and yanked it forward. The first jerk barely moved it, but with each back and forth motion, the marker tilted more and more until finally it tipped over onto the grass and snow.

Moving around behind it, he reached into the hole where the base had been. After clearing away some clumps of dirt, he found the box and pulled it up. The container was made from a hard, durable polymer that was guaranteed to last a hundred years. It probably did not gain the favor of the ecologically minded but was exactly what Wicks had wanted. With the exception of being a little dirty, the box looked like new.

He twisted the top counterclockwise and looked inside. It was still there, like he knew it would be. He closed the top, set the box to the side, and tilted the marker back into place.

“Thank you,” he said, looking down at the grave.

His grandfather would be shocked at what Wicks had been a part of, but he hoped the old man would at least be supportive of what he was trying to do now.

He picked up the box as he stood. The container felt so light for something so important.

Please still work
, he thought.
Dear God. Please.

27

WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA

1:44 PM PST

“H
ERE,” CRYSTAL SAID,
handing a headset to Ash. She then donned the second set and clicked
CONNECT
.

The line rang only once before it was answered. “Nyla.”

“It’s Crystal. I have Captain Ash here.”

“Afternoon, Nyla.” Ash had met her in passing, but had never really talked to her.

“Hello, Captain,” she said. “We have a situation here we need some guidance on.”

On the way to the communications room, Crystal had briefed Ash on Nyla’s assignment in Los Angeles, but had no details on why the woman wanted to talk to him.

“All right. I’ll do what I can,” he said.

“I think it’s probable we have a unique group of survivors here.”

“Unique in what way?”

“Sir, we believe they are immune.”

“You mean they’ve been vaccinated?” It had happened in India, so it wouldn’t be completely surprising if the same situation had occurred here.

“No. Not vaccinated. Immune.”

Ash knew a few people with a natural immunity were to be expected. He and his kids were examples of that. “How many are we talking? Two? Three?”

“At least twenty. And, if I’m right, there’s probably many times more than that.”

“Start at the beginning,” he said.

She had barely begun when Pax entered the room.

“Nyla, hold for a moment,” Ash said. He motioned for Pax to join them and then touched Crystal on the shoulder. “Put her on speaker.”

“What’s going on?” Pax asked.

Instead of answering, Ash said, “Nyla, Rich Paxton is here with me now. Do you mind starting over?”

“No problem.”

She told them about Martina Gable and her friends, all of whom were survivors, and all of whom had been stricken with the flu the previous spring. She described the special holding area at the Los Angeles survival station, and that a head count of the people inside was larger than the group Martina had been with.

“The other holding areas have been pretty much emptied out,” she said. Though the pattern was sporadic at the moment, teams had reported similar purges at other stations. They all knew this meant Project Eden had begun eliminating the survivors they’d collected. “Thankfully, we’ve had a drastic reduction in the number of new arrivals here since Tamara’s message started playing, and out of those, we’ve been able to get to most before they reached the station. What I’m concerned about is what the Project’s going to do about this immune group.” She paused. “Sir, I’m tired of watching people die. We need to get them out.”

“How large is your team?” he asked.

“Eight.”

There was a voice in the background. Ash couldn’t understand what was being said, but it was clearly defiant.

Nyla said into the phone, “Nine, if we count Martina.”

“And how many people does the Project have there?”

“Rough estimate, twenty-five to thirty guards and a couple dozen ancillary personnel.”

“Give us a moment here, okay?” Ash said.

“Sure,” Nyla replied.

Crystal muted the call.

“Do we have anyone we can send out there to help them?” Ash asked.

As Crystal thought about it, her face was already projecting the answer. “We’re stretched thin. We’ve got teams at only ten percent of the survival stations as it is. We could maybe break one of them free, but that would compromise the location where they’re working.”

“No. I don’t want to do that. What about here at the base?”

“We’re already operating at bare bones,” she said. “I’m sorry. We don’t have anyone left.”

“Actually, we do,” Pax said.

They both looked at him.

“We have a hundred twenty-nine people just sitting around over in Ely.”

“The Isabella Island group? But they’re just…tourists,” Ash said. “They’re not trained to do anything like this.”

“None of us are really trained for this,” Pax said.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, but what choice do we have? Besides, they might have been tourists when they went to the island, but they had lives before that. Who knows? Some might even have a military background.” He shrugged. “It’s the end of the world, Captain. All hands on deck.”

Ash considered it for a moment and then nodded. “All right. We can at least ask them.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“Put her back on,” Ash said to Crystal. He glanced at Pax and grinned. “If you recall, I was army, not navy. So next time I’d prefer a more appropriate metaphor.”

__________

C
ALEB STARED AT
the pad of paper.

“I got it. I…got it!” He looked up. “I got…”

His words cut out as he realized he was alone in Matt’s room. Last he remembered, Chloe had been there, too. He had no idea if that had been ten minutes ago or two hours.

He looked down at the pad again and rechecked his final bit of decryption. Those extra numbers in several of the sets had been the biggest trouble, but everything had finally clicked, making him feel like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. Of course, he still needed to check it on a computer, but as far as he was concerned, that was only a formality.

He grinned at his handiwork. Breaking into Project Eden’s communications network by night, solving encrypted messages by day. Damn, he was good.

Chloe. I need to find Chloe
.

As he shot off the bed, several of Matt’s journals and dozens of pieces of paper tumbled to the floor. Ignoring them, he crossed the room and yanked the door open.

“Chloe!” he yelled as he entered the hallway. “Chloe!”

He heard a door behind him open. He swung around.

“What’s going on?” Not Chloe, Rachel.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, ma’am,” Caleb said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m, uh, looking for Chloe.”

Rachel stepped into the hall. “Why would Chloe be—” She stopped as her gaze fell on the open door to her brother’s suite. “Were you in Matt’s room?” She walked quickly to the doorway.

“I was just…I…I gotta find Chloe.” He whipped back around and started jogging down the hall.

“Caleb! I want to talk to you!” Rachel called after him.

He kept going, not allowing himself to breathe until he turned down the hallway to the main portion of the base.

He found three people in the cafeteria.

“I’m looking for Chloe. Have you seen her?”

Head shakes.

He was about to ask the same question when he reached the comm room, but a quick look through the door told him everyone was busy.

He almost ran past the gym without stopping, but the rhythmic bass throbbing from inside made him stutter step and return to the door. As he opened it, he winced at the music blasting from inside. Chloe was the only one there, keeping pace with the drumbeat on a stair-step machine in the corner.

Afraid his eardrums would burst if he took a step inside, he yelled her name. He might as well have been running around naked in a pitch-black room for all the good it did. Bracing himself, he took a step over the threshold and yelled again, this time waving the pad of paper in the air. That did the trick.

She hopped off the machine, picked a remote off the ground, and hit a button. The music cut out.

“Are you done?” she asked, using a towel to wipe the sweat off her face as she walked over.

“Uh-huh.”

She motioned at the pad of paper. “That it?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Holding out a hand, she said, “Let me see it.”

“There’s, um, something you might want to deal with first.”

__________

T
HEY FOUND RACHEL
kneeling on the floor of Matt’s room, picking up the journals. All the wads of paper had already been tossed in the trash.

“Rachel?” Chloe said.

Rachel turned. “What the hell is going on here? These are Matt’s personal journals. Who gave you permission to go through them?”

Chloe stepped toward her. “Rachel, it’s okay.”

“It’s
not
okay,” Rachel said, slamming the journal she’d been holding onto the bed. “These are my brother’s things! This is his room! You have no right to be in here!”

It took all of Chloe’s will to maintain her cool. These were not the kind of situations she’d ever been very good at. “We had no choice. We had to come—”

Pushing herself to her feet, Rachel said, “You
what
? Coming in here was
not
a choice! You didn’t even think to ask me?”

“You needed your rest.”

Rachel looked between the two of them. “I want you and Caleb to confine yourselves to your quarters. You will—”

“Caleb had nothing to do with this. He was doing what Ash and I asked him to.”

“Captain Ash is in on this, too? What has happened to all of you?”

 
“What has
happened
,” Chloe said, her jaw tensing, “is that Matt left us a message and we’ve been trying to figure out what it means. I realize that his death has been very difficult for you, but we couldn’t just stop doing anything until you were ready. We are in the middle of a war we are losing badly. We need every advantage we can get, and if your brother’s message points us toward something that will help, then we need to know what he meant.” A brief pause. “I’m sorry we did not ask your permission, but we didn’t do anything wrong. Matt is dead. There is nothing that will change that. But there are people out there who need our help to stay alive. So, no, we will not detain ourselves in our rooms. And, no, we will not stop looking at your brother’s journals.”

Rachel stared at Chloe, stunned.

“Actually,” Caleb said, “I don’t think we need the journals anymore. I’ve figure out the—”

“Shut up,” Chloe said, her words meant for Caleb but her gaze still on Rachel.

Rachel’s lips parted. After a few false starts, she said, “What message?”

ELY, NEVADA

P
AX HAD CALLED
ahead, so when he and Ash arrived at the hotel, Robert had already gathered everyone in the largest meeting room available. There were some handshakes, a lot of hellos, and a few inevitable grumbles of dissatisfaction with the living arrangements. As the others took their seats, Pax and Ash moved to the front of the room.

“Well, as I warned you on the plane, the weather here’s only slightly cooler than what you’d been experiencing back on the island,” Pax said.

A smattering of laughter.

“Can’t say it’ll be getting much warmer anytime soon,” he said. “But the good news is, you are all safe.”

A few people clapped.

“How long are we going to have to stay here?” someone shouted.

Several others said, “Shhh.”

“It’s all right,” Pax said. “A natural question. First off, you can leave anytime you want. There are cars on every street. All you have to do is get in one and drive away. No one will stop you, but if something happens to you, no one will be around to help you, either. For those who choose to stay, I’m not going to lie to you and give you any kind of time frame. Truth is, we have no idea when you’ll be able to get out of here. We do plan on finding someplace more permanent, but other matters are taking precedence right now.”