Fury of the Six (The Preston Six Book 5) (10 page)

JOEY FELT PARALYZED, LIVING A nightmare in real time as Evelyn floated toward the cube. He didn’t even have time to mourn Edith, as he watched his daughter look back over her shoulder and close her eyes tight, as if preparing for something.

The cube exploded and mushroomed out before falling into the mall below.

Poly yelped as they fell. It wasn’t that far, but landing on a hill of rubble made the impact more painful than necessary.

“Evelyn!” Joey screamed as he saw her plummeting to a nasty looking pile of debris, a chill running down his spine.

A silver streak rushed across the landscape and jumped into the air, catching Evelyn and landing safely on top of the rubble.

“Sharati,” Poly said.

Joey relaxed, letting the feeling of going slow leave his body. All he wanted to do was get to his daughter, to hold her. He scrambled over the rubble and got to her just ahead of Poly.

He pulled Evelyn from Sharati and pressed her against his chest. She was okay.

“You are all stupid,” Sharati said. “I told you to stay away from the green light.”

“You saved her,” Poly said holding a knife in her hand.

Sharati shifted her right foot back and put a hand on her dagger. “She is special, no?”

“Yes,” Joey said at the same time as Poly said, “No.”

They looked at each other and then Poly touched Evelyn on the back of her head. Evelyn kept her attention on Sharati. “She’s special to us is what Joey meant.”

“Yeah, our little girl.”

Hector stuttered out in shock, “Wh—what is that?” He pointed at Sharati. “Are you from the sky?”

“She’s not from here, pal.” Lucas said dusting himself off. “You okay, Julie?”

“I think so.” She rubbed her stomach.

“Who are you people?” Hector asked.

“We’re from Preston. North of here,” Julie said and looked up to Lucas. “We need to get moving. I’m picking up two faint signals. I bet you it’s those two birds.”

“You destroyed it?” Hector said in amazement, looking at the destroyed cube.

“Edith?” Evelyn said, pointing at the pile with tendrils of smoke rising from the top.

Joey then realized how well Evelyn said her name, and he felt her pain. His daughter had just lost a great friend. They all had. He hated how Eve, not even one-year old, already had a death to deal with.

“She saved us,” Poly said, tears dripping.

Joey turned around and walked to the bottom of the rubble and onto the parking lot to find Lucas and Julie consoling each other. Poly walked up behind him and hugged him, he felt her body quiver against his, but he kept his attention on Evelyn. She looked up at him and he searched for the sorrow, the pain, yet she looked normal—a sweet mixture of curiosity and joy. It seemed ridiculous to expect a seven-month-old to understand death but Joey had.

“She’s gone, Evelyn.”

Evelyn made eye contact with him. Some of the joy left her face, but the curiosity held.

“No,” Evelyn said, again clearer than she’d ever spoken.

“She’s right, they don’t kill you, they take you. They ship your body to their tower,” Hector said still giving strange looks to Sharati.

Joey turned toward the large building he saw a piece of the cube flying toward. Did that piece hold Edith?

“She’s long gone,” Hector said.

“Okay, so we stick to the plan,” Julie said.

“What plan?” Poly asked. “We don’t even know where we are or what’s happening in this world and we just lost Edith to a floating cube that tried to suck us up like the Air Bud of Roomba’s.”

Julie looked at her Panavice. “Moments before the explosion, a section was expelled from the cube, heading toward that building. My guess is she was on it.”

“I saw it as well,” Joey said.

Poly looked hopeful. “What do they do with them?” she asked, stepping close to Hector.

“I don’t know, I swear, but no one ever comes back.”

Poly sighed and gritted her teeth. “Who did this to this planet? What happened?”

Hector looked confused and shook his head in small motions. “They came and started taking us, destroying large swathes of land, taking everything. Then they were gone, but they left their snatchers and watchers, looking for the last few resources.”

Julie pointed to the black and green building sticking out of the rubble like a reminder of what might have been. “She’s in there.”

“You can’t go there. They have defense set up all around it. We get too close and
bam
, gone.”

“People run it?” Julie asked.

“No, just the machines.”

“Machines I can control, maybe. I’ll know if we get close.” She looked confident.

Joey looked to Poly. She had the look of we-better-go-get-her and that is exactly the way Joey felt. Edith had become a second mom to Evelyn and a great part of the family since the day Evelyn was born.

“We should find a way in,” Joey said.

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed. “Just get me close and either Julie will shut them down or I can stuff another arrow into their holes. I mean, did you guys see the explosion the arrows made? Can we watch the video again, Julie? In slow motion this time?”

Julie rolled her eyes and turned toward the building. “We could be there in thirty minutes.”

“We shouldn’t go there. It’s just death. No one returns. My parents . . .” Hector turned and looked at the tower.

“If we get there and we can’t get in, we leave,” Julie said. “But we need your help. You know the route there. Will you help us?”

Hector kicked the ground and rubbed the stubble on his face. “Yes. But you have to take me with you. Wherever it is you are going.”

They nodded in agreement.

“I’ll keep ahead of you all and make sure there are no surprises,” Sharati said. She ran up the rubble pile and disappeared down the backside.

Walking behind Hector, Joey kept an eye on the sky, searching for metal birds or a giant cube trying to suck them to oblivion. His finger tapped his gun.

“This place is a bigger dump than Ryjack,” Lucas said. “Why do you think these machines are attacking people?”

“They must be using us for something,” Hector said. “When I was just a boy, no taller than my dad’s hip, they came. A woman, who I thought was pretty at the time, announced our end on every TV, radio, and internet page. She told us they had great need of us, and that we should know we were but a moment in time; but not to worry because they would put us to use. My dad mumbled that statement for a long time after mom died. He was never the same.”

“We’re so sorry, Hector,” Poly said.

Joey felt bad for him and wondered about this woman taking over the planet with such ease. Did this invasion come through the stones? It must have. They sent waves of these things through the stones to strip this world and leave little behind. But why? Was she the one who created stones?

They passed a fire station, a red fire emblem sat as the last reminder of the station and the color stood out from the rest of the grays and browns.

“What happened to the cars?”

“El Cubo’s, as you call them, there were many more in the beginning. They pulled the cars away, stripping them to nothingness in mid-air, taking the people from them as they did. The buildings were much the same, stripped out in the search for people. Very few things survived those first few weeks.”

“No one fought back?” Lucas asked.

“We did, they all did. But it didn’t amount to anything.”

Joey shook his head and kept glancing at the sky. As if he didn’t have enough to think about, he now had something else to add to the list. With an infinity of earths out there, what were the chances his would get picked by this purge woman?

As they approached the tower, Hector stopped. A green line had been painted in the middle of the street. Pits and chunks littered the road past the line.

“We cannot pass,” Hector said firmly.

Sharati stood at the top of what looked like a bookstore. A corner of it hadn’t collapsed and through the cracks, piles of books held up like last vestiges of the written world. What treasures those books could hold if this world ever got back on its feet. Knowledge of how to grow crops, or turn the electricity on, or recipes for concrete and steel . . . in a world where the digital had disappeared, books would be as valuable as gold.

Lucas got close to the books and laughed. “Porn! I can see different positions in each page.” He reached in to grab one.

“Lucas, leave it,” Julie said.

“These could have undiscovered truths. How dare we disregard another culture’s gift to the world? Julie, you of all people should be supportive of any and all knowledge.”

Julie sighed as she ran her fingers around her Panavice glancing from the tower to the green line. “Their programs here are much less sophisticated. This isn’t going to be a problem.” She worked in silence for a couple of minutes.              

Joey used the time to inspect Evelyn in Poly’s arms. He hated bringing her around the different worlds. He wished he could have stuffed her away somewhere safe and protect her. But unfortunately he knew there were greater goals than just saving his daughter from Marcus. He needed to end it all, end his plans for Earth. His heart pounded thinking about the next stages of the plan and what they involved, what he would potentially have to give up.

No. It wouldn’t come to that. He’d do what it took to make sure Marcus would die at the end of his gun or with his own hands if need be. One way or another, he didn’t want phase five of the plan to ever happen.

“Done,” Julie said.

“How do you know?” Hector asked, taking a step back from the line and looking at the tower. “You cross that line and you’ll be shot dead.”

“We cross the line. It’s the only way to know for sure,” Julie said and took a step forward.

“No,” Lucas said.

But Julie had already crossed over the green line, standing on divots of asphalt and glaring at the tower to defy her hacking skills. “See?” She turned around. “All good.”

Lucas seemed skeptical and walked past the green line to join his wife.

Hector crossed last and about a hundred feet toward the building he seemed more confident in the idea. “How did you do that?” he asked.

“I turned off the sensors.” Julie strutted toward the building.

Joey jogged ahead, keeping his gun hand outstretched. He searched for a front door in all the glass on the first floor and spotted a handle. Getting close to the door, he slowed down and waved for them to stop while he checked it out.

The sun reflected off the green tinted glass and he couldn’t make out anything behind the door. He took a deep breath and pulled on the handle. With nothing on the other side of the door, he flung it open and took a quick step into a lobby. A vacant desk and blank concrete walls stared back at him, as if trying to tell him,
Hey, this is just a regular building, come on in
. Another metal door stood at the far end of the lobby and had a staircase drawn on it.

Joey went back to the front door and waved his group to come in. “You narrow down where she could be?” he asked Julie as they joined him inside.

She nodded her head. “The tracker is still working. Floor sixteen. It appears to be the only floor with activity.”

“Sixteen flights, you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She put her hand on her stomach.

Joey knew she’d never complain, but he saw the strain in her face when they pushed too far for too long. He’d have to watch her and keep an even pace. “Lucas, watch our backs.”

“Gotcha.”

Joey opened the staircase door and flashbacks of the casino hotel on Ryjack shot to him. He had been running across a mall to get to that staircase. He gazed at Poly while putting his foot on the bottom step, thinking of the dress she wore that day. He never saw her in it again and hadn’t had the nerve to ask her about it. She hated everything to do with Ryjack. How could he blame her?

He counted the unmarked doors as they passed each one, taking it at a slow pace and even then, he saw the strain on Julie’s face. Lucas seemed oblivious to it and walked mostly backward up the stairs, pointing his arrow at each door as they passed. Joey hoped he didn’t have an explosive tip attached; they’d all be dead if one of those went off in a confined space.