Genesis (Extinction Book 1)
Read Genesis (Extinction Book 1) Online
Authors: Miranda Nading
Genesis
The
Extinction
Series: Book One
By
Miranda Nading
Copyright © August 2015 by Miranda Nading
All Rights Reserved
The characters, places and events in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
In this dark chrysalis we await the hammering of the heart, the tearing of the bonds, the death throes that lead to rebirth.
—Miranda Nading
To Jacki and Suki. For their endless efforts to engage the heart and challenge the mind.
Keep Reaching!
A special thanks to my husband, Lance Nading, for his unending support, the Pedantic Punctuator for her support and encouragement, and Reggie Williams for being the final grade.
Awakening
Max Dumerick felt naked. A .9 mil sat snug in the back of his waistband on a barrel clip. It was hard to see under his sweat-soaked t-shirt, easy to reach. Still, it wasn’t Betty. The long gun would have been impossible to hide and the new black duffle bag he’d bought to carry her in would have stood out like a swan at a swine festival in this gritty Mexican town.
Nor could he risk anyone catching him with the package. Not until he had some insurance that Grey wouldn’t end his miserable life as soon as it was in the old man’s hands. For the hundredth time, he second guessed his decision. Killing his partner had been easy, the man was a prick. Even by Max’s standards, which were pretty low.
The families, the lab – wiping them out bothered his conscience not a bit. What kept him awake at night was turning on Grey… that was like walking into a Republican convention and admitting you shot the president. Suicide.
He didn’t expect trouble. La Rosa’s Cantina, with its air of lost dreams and two-dollar whores, would be the last place he would expect to see Grey or his men. Obscurity wasn’t the only reason he’d chosen the Chihuahua Desert, or even the most important.
Technology, or rather the lack of it, had been first on his list. Despite the new Global Network installed by C.O.R.E., there were still holdouts, like this one, that rebelled against constant monitoring.
Not once over the past two weeks had he seen so much as a cellphone. As far as that went, he had only seen two trucks since he had been in town. Both were gas-fueled, carburetor antiques that should have been in a museum. Where there was no technology, there could be no GN surveillance. Satellites could still pinpoint a man on the ground well enough to see a pimple on his ass, but it took time. More time than he intended to give them.
Still.
He felt naked.
Vulnerable.
Up until three days ago, he had felt safe, secure. Now, as he huddled in the gloom of a back corner at La Rosa’s, watching the heat of the sun bake off of the saloon doors, the hair on the nape of his neck danced.
A plump waitress, wearing a dingy yellow peasant blouse that framed her ample cleavage, slid up next to him. She sat a tumbler down on the table and the amber liquid it contained threatened to spill over the brim. One thing about Mexico, they weren’t stingy with their hooch. “Uno mas Jim Beam, Senor?”
“Si.” Before he could grab a handful of her backside to show his appreciation – a man has to blend in, after all – she sashayed away. He watched her hips roll back and forth as she walked, admiring the view as the colorful cotton fabric danced, before he tossed the whiskey back.
He closed his eyes, relishing the burn as liquid fire warmed first his throat, then his belly. When he opened them, two men stood in front of his table, blocking the glare of the sun around the doors. With the sun at their backs, he could see nothing of their faces. Two mountains made of shadow.
The bigger of the two slumped, looking a little disappointed. “You’re just a punk kid.”
Max raised his hand to the bartender, signaling for another drink. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
The mountain’s smaller shadow snorted. “Thought he’d be bigger, tougher.”
“Well, he’s as ugly as Dietrich said he would be. He got that much right, at least.”
The waitress brought three tumblers and sat them on the table. Max reached back for his wallet and the other two men moved to draw down on him. “Easy fellas. Don’t want to leave owing nothing.”
Slipping his wallet free with his fingers, he continued up until he had the butt of his subcompact handgun in the cusp of his palm. He slid it off the barrel clip and rotated his hand, putting the wallet on top. “How is old Dietrich?” As he brought his hand around to the front, he dropped the gun into his lap and flipped the wallet open. “Oh, wait. He’s dead. Now I remember. Must have been Mr. Grey that sent you.”
“Dietrich was a good man,” the shorter guy growled.
The mountain shushed him. “I don’t know how you got one over on Dietrich, but that little scene in Washington has people asking questions. The wrong kind of people. You’ve got something that belongs to Grey and we’re here to get it back.”
Max threw a handful of pesos on the table and started to put his wallet away.
“Leave it on the table,” the big mountain ordered and drew his gun to make his point. Behind them, chairs scraped away from tables and the few men who had been sipping beer beat a hasty retreat. The waitress joined them.
When the batwing doors finished slapping in the wake of the mass exit, Max dropped his wallet on the table and put his hands in his lap. “You plan on taking me back?”
“Don’t be stupid,” the little one laughed.
The mountain stepped forward. “Dietrich was a good friend of mine. I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
“Now that’s not very damned friendly.” Max laughed. “Doesn’t really make me want to give you what I’ve got either.”
“How do you know we don’t already have it?” the little one asked.
“I don’t think we’d be having this little chat if you did. I figure you’ve already searched my hotel room and came up empty. Now you’re here to sweet talk me into telling you were it is.”
“There ain’t gonna be nothing sweet about the chat we’re gonna have with you, Dumerick.”
The little one stepped to the side and waved his pistol toward the door. “We’re done talking. Come on.”
Max fired blind as he pushed his chair back. The little one stumbled back and Max dove for the floor. Half a heartbeat after he left his seat, several bullets punched through the wooden back.
Without waiting to see if he had hit his first target, Max brought his gun around to fire on the other. Too late, he turned in time to see the man throw a table on its side to use for cover. Twelve shots left, he began firing as he stood up, walking closer to the table and counting each shot. He fired with every exhale, making sure the man didn’t have a window to get up and return fire.
The hollow-points made easy work of the table. Each shot spaced to increase his chances of hitting the coward behind it left a hole the size of his fist in the wood. Yet there was no screaming, no yelling. No indication that he’d hit the man even once.
Max had three shots left when he kicked the table out of the way and found the big man bleeding on the floor. Bleeding, but still alive enough to glare at Max as he stood over him.
“You’ll have to give my regards to Mr. Grey,” Max smiled. “Oh wait, you’re dead. Guess I’ll have to do it myself.”
Max put a bullet between the man’s eyes and turned in search of his partner. A blood trail led away from the table, toward the counter. Bringing up the gun, he kept it in a loose one-handed grip ready to react to whatever moved, and stepped around to the other side of the bar.
The little mountain was in the fetal position, his hands pressed to his throat. Dead. Max rolled him over to get a look at the wound. It was no more than a nick, but it must have gotten the artery. The man had bled out.
Undisturbed by the gun fight, the tumbler of whiskey still sat on the table. Max threw it back, relished the burn left in the wake of its passage and stepped outside.
Six beaten-down trucks filled the street, noses pointed toward La Rosa’s. Men hunkered down behind the open doors, holding rifles pointed at Max’s head.
“Damn,” Max breathed. “Where’d you guys come from?”
Old, desert-warped floorboards creaked behind him. Before he could turn to see who was sneaking up on him, pain flared through the back of his skull and the lights went out.
Mittie Kate McMinn thumbed the remote to shut the TV off and moved to stand at the window. Over Washington D.C., the skies were a crystalline blue, calm. Making it hard to grasp the devastation being caused by tornados in the southern states.
Ling sat a tray of tea on the table and took a seat across the room to wait. He knew what was weighing on her, knew she needed to talk. It had been almost twenty years since the bloodbath in Tibet. He had been by her side since, just as his father had stood with her father. In that time, he’d learned to judge her moods. More than that, he’d grown to know her as the second half of his soul.
“It’s getting worse every year,” she sighed. “We’ve reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly seventy-five percent, and still it’s getting worse.”
Sipping from his own cup, Ling asked, “What did the President’s advisors say?”
Mittie Kate snorted a laugh. “They said it takes time. The recovery time for the atmosphere will take decades to adjust, to find a new balance.”
“Perhaps they are right,” Ling smiled as Mittie Kate rolled her eyes.
She picked up her tea and sat on the couch across from Ling. “There’s a reason they say doctors
practice
medicine. Scientists are no different. I think they make shit up as they go along. When it comes out wrong, they blame it on the data or unseen variables. We’ve lost another 2,500 in the Middle East to the heat wave. 600 more to the floods here in the States. At least New Orleans has finally agreed to relocate. Not that they had much choice left.” She sipped from her cup and added, “Anything new on the South China Sea?”
“All of the stake holders have increased production of reclaimed land. The speed with which China is increasing land mass is disturbing. Tensions are starting to rise among the smaller nations, as well as the major powers. The Spratly and Paracel islands are now functioning military bases, but they do not appear to be slowing down. The Subiaco and the Hunt are joining the American patrols.”
“It just keeps getting better,” she sighed. “Where are we on Cecil Grey?”
“We still have no solid evidence that his organization was behind the attack. He appears to be well covered, yet just after the attack here he retreated to a bunker in Montana. No one has seen or heard from him since.”
“Sneaky little bastard.” Mittie Kate’s brow furrowed. “What about the men who actually pulled the trigger? Have we confirmed whether or not they got to the device?”
“One of the suspects was found dead two week ago. Shot in the head, execution style. I believe the man he was with terminated the partnership, for one reason or another. Sources have confirmed the device is missing. They will keep it from going public as long as they can, but you know how these things get out.”
“Yeah, it’s like a bunch of high school girls trying to keep a secret. Why bother trying?”
Ling smiled. “I think the general public will take as much issue with learning of the device’s existence, as with the fact that it was stolen.”
“That thing has to be destroyed.”
“The scientists involved have already been eliminated. Everything related to its invention has been destroyed. Grey did that much for us at least. Before Dr. Marlo died, he swore the technology was kept in-house. No one else can replicate it.”
“As long as they don’t get their hands on the prototype.”
“True.”
Mittie Kate leaned forward, a hard look pinching her blue eyes, her grip on her cup threatened the fragile china. “Here’s the million dollar question; who hemorrhaged the kind of money needed for the research and development of that beast?”
“You suspect someone.” It wasn’t a question. He had seen that look in her eyes before.
“Not one that makes any sense—”
The red phone on her desk rang before she could voice her suspicions. The antique dial up line only rang for one person, the President.
“Good evening, Henry.” Mittie Kate fell silent, her eyes widening in surprise as she turned to look at Ling. “What a pleasant surprise. Sure, we’ll take care of that for you.”
When Mittie Kate hung up the phone and turned her full attention back to Ling, the wry grin she wore was tainted with a little suspicion. “It looks like we’re going to Mexico. The second gunman is waiting for us.”
“It is never this easy.”
“I don’t expect they’ll take
all
the fun out of it for us.”
“You’re idea of fun has always concerned me.”
Mittie Kate laughed. “If I made protecting me easy, I wouldn’t need such a talented bodyguard.”