Shepherd (6 page)

The smile disappeared. “No.”

Determined not to let fear win, she continued, “The cylinders inside conduct hot and cold?”

He nodded.

Scrutinizing the interior of the main chamber housing the pod, she reviewed the construction from ceiling to floor. He waited, seemingly testing her observation. “The cables don’t conduct your scan.” She waved a hand toward the rectangular crystal implants along the pod’s exterior. “These crystal panels initiate a frequency, simulate the internal image, and store the vibration. The cables don’t look like they house circuits or wiring either, but they have the flexibility to expand and contract because they adjusted to our shifting weight.” She glanced around behind them. “My guess is the size of the holding chamber originally accommodated for dispersal of energy released from this tube.” She tapped the exterior of the scanner. “Intended to contain explosive or unstable materials? Given the pristine condition, I’d guess it was never used.”

He cocked his head. “Excellent assessment. There’s no way you could have known this, Sugar. This facility was buried a hundred years ago, after the epidemic hit.”

“I told you. I’m good.”

“Remember that when you’re inside. Once you’ve gone through the process, you can tell me how you think I rewired the connectivity.” He was keeping her busy, prodding her analytical skills to distract her. She would take any help she could get. “Okay, we’re ready for simulation.”

He didn’t wait for her concurrence and shut the pod’s door, then tapped at his earlobe. “Conductivity test one for sound within the vibration chamber. Resolution five, proximity floor level.”

A light pulse initiated from the first crystal on the pod’s panel. A subsequent response emanated in series through every crystal embedded at one-foot intervals along the outside of the tube—every crystal except one. Esme’s stomach flipped. “It failed.”

Clay frowned as he listened to a relay in his ear-device. He shifted a look toward her as he took in her comment and glanced up toward the crystal she indicated with her nod. “Yes.”

She focused on the holograph of schematics produced on the control panel. “The crystal is functional, charged, and some signal is proceeding forward, just not all the way.”

“Yes.” His frown deepened to a scowl, and he looked up.

Turning again, she canvassed the large chamber, the rounded outer walls and tapered ceiling. “What was this room?”

“The fermenting tank for a small brewery. Some kegs are still in an older section of the building. Later someone converted the site for testing the infected plant sources.” He glanced back when she didn’t respond. “It’s clean. I eradicated all the toxins via ion pulse and laser sweep.”

“Through the circuits embedded up there?” She pointed to a series of small protrusions along the wall, five feet above their heads and in line with the nonfunctioning crystal.

“Hmm, good catch. I didn’t disconnect the main circuits for that process in case I needed them later. They’re inactive, but the residue would be enough to scramble the voice feed and break the relay. Disrupting the circuits’ line of sight should be enough to reestablish the transmission.” He opened a small panel on the pod’s surface and shuffled through what appeared to be an assortment of spare parts.

“That one.” She motioned him back to a thick cylindrical handle and gestured for him to give it to her. Pursing her lips, she pressed her thumbs along the base of the magnetic wrench and shoved. The cover for the power module popped free. Curved like a small tunnel, the cover could fit over the crystal, allowing the directional pulse to flow uninterrupted from crystal to crystal without additional modification to Clay’s circuits on the chamber wall. She held it out to him with a smile.

He shook his head, but one side of his mouth curved upward. “You get more dangerous by the minute, Sugar.”

A few minutes later, with the adjustment in place, he initiated the test again. “Conductivity test two for sound within the vibration chamber. Resolution seven, proximity floor level.”

Each crystal activated, and the screen on the panel reflected circular waves of green, rippling in correspondence with Clay’s words.

“You increased the volume.”

He nodded. “I promised you would hear me loud and clear.”

Chapter 4

The image on the plasma screen distorted into an outline of a dandelion stalk instead of the hourglass curves of the woman in the tube. She was holding his damn shirt to her face.

“Esme, I need your hands by your side to complete the image. Or we’re going to be here all day.”

The platform shifted slightly, and the image shifted as well. Like reflections on water, her shape elongated and widened. Then slowly it reformed into the sensuous curves of breast and indent of waist he was becoming all too familiar with. The extra haze at the top of the image carved a painful edge of desire in Clay’s loins. She had tied his shirt to her head, imprinting him on her, imposing his presence over her fear. Her actions resonated as a heavy pressure inside his chest.

The blindfold usually instigated her visceral reaction of shivers and shallow breathing, but his scent—somehow she’d conditioned herself to accept it as a haven.

He fought back his reaction when she balked at the closing door and asked for his shirt. He’d hidden the hot wash of Neanderthal pride at her need to take him with her into the dark. Alone, without her able to witness his reaction, he shifted his erection to lessen the discomfort and let out a frustrated breath.

“Head high, Esme. You can tell me how I know what you’re doing when you come out.”

Her image shifted, her hands now loose, her fingers wiggling by her side. Yet he knew she was terrified. A truly incredible, if dangerous, woman.

“If you can hear me, raise one hand.”

Her fingers lifted to her shoulder and waved, then returned to her side.

“Good. When the scan starts, you’ll hear a high-pitched whir. It won’t be loud, and I’ll talk over it.” He keyed in the sequence for the scan’s intensity, the duration, and the three-dimensional slices he required. “I’m not from this city. I used to lead a border patrol unit in the northern sector, along the western coasts.”

Her image shifted. Damn it, he should have worked in that detail of his Regent duty before he put her in the tube. “Long time ago, Sugar. Bad time, one I’ve left behind. You could say I was sort of born again here. At any rate, the trek from one end of the country to this one took a long time. I had to recover from some physical issues. My companion, the man who saved me, had enormous amounts of data on each of the sectors we passed through. Frankly, I never would have taken the time to enjoy the trip if every step we took wasn’t so excruciatingly slow.” Due to his pain and recovery, but there was no need to embellish the tale for her.

The scan line had passed below her breasts, heading for her hips. No devices registered so far.

“I was familiar with forests. I get that New Delphi’s grid is surrounded by
woods
. This east coast vegetation looks more like overgrown brush compared to my old home. There we had trees, huge pines that brushed the clouds and covered whole segments of land for miles. The tart smell of the woods lingered in your nostrils for weeks. I can still smell it if I close my eyes.” He didn’t mention the miles he’d canvassed in search of infected survivors or the hundreds of people the Regents had sacrificed in the name of containing the risk of a new virus outbreak.

“I have never seen anything to rival the size and depth of those colors until we passed over the continental divide. Radar picked the easiest routes because of my injuries. Even so, we had to climb, sometimes hand over hand in fifty-foot crevices to pass through those mountains. Because there were fewer populations in those areas, we were able to skirt civilization for hundreds of miles, but it took months.”

The scan was reversing, mid-calf now, and moving back toward her head. With a frown, he paused the process, reversed it, and then reengaged the scan for a second pass. Her fingers moved an inch on the screen, not enough to disrupt the scan. Enough to signal he’d been silent too long.

“The view from the summits of those mountains, the deep maroon and purple of sunrise, the fiery orange of sunset—they surpass even my memories of the forests. God-awful beautiful and huge. The image smacked me in the face with proof of how infinitesimally small we are in the grand scheme of creation. I know Radar picked the route to give my mind time to catch up with my body, to give me back perspective.”

A pulse of white flickered, and movement ceased on the screen. Ignoring the output, he typed two commands, sending the results to his main consoles upstairs. “You can move, Esme. Count to ten, and I’ll be there to open the door.”

It took him only to the count of five. He didn’t give her a chance to muster her courage as the door swung open. Instead, he pulled her against his chest, his shirt wadded in her fists between them. “You did great, Sugar.”

“What did it show?”

Her voice, muffled with her head still buried against him, reflected her focus. He held her tight, reluctant to let her go until the tiny shivers ceased. “We’ll go upstairs and look at it together.”

She forced her way free and stared at him, her eyes probing for answers she seemed certain he was withholding.

Two minutes later, they sat together, reviewing the silver images. Each twist and turn of the dissected segments confirmed his suspicion. A small transponder, active technology, glowed in red halfway between her right anklebone and her knee.

“Mark image for overlay.” With his focus concentrated on the exact location, he almost missed her lunge for the welding laser.

Surprised by her action and the resistance she put up against him, he lost balance, landing them both on the floor. He gripped her wrist over her head until she dropped the laser. Her wince and look of betrayal, mixed with a glistening pool of tears in her golden eyes, struck him hard.

“It has to come out,” she yelled. “If you don’t let me get it out, I’ll just claw with my fingernails until I find it.”

Beneath him, her body, tense and rigid, left no doubt of her determination. “Sugar, there are easier and less painful ways to get it out.”

“Quick is all that matters. They could—”

He held her, waiting for the recognition to hit. As it did, she crumpled, tension and fight replaced by agony. “It’s been in there for weeks, and they haven’t come. Are they just waiting to torment me?”

She’d released the laser and now lay pliant, if despondent, beneath him. He rolled off her and scooped her up in his arms. “Perhaps they don’t have what they want yet. There’s always the chance something is blocking the transmission, like with the crystal in the scanning chamber.”

He hoped she would work on the puzzled and stay distracted as he shoved tools aside and set her on the table at the edge of the console room. From the abuse her lower lip was taking between her teeth, he figured he had several minutes before she resumed her attempt on the transponder with a vengeance.

The minutes bought him time to roll up her pant leg and grab the med kit. The antiseptic was on top; the topical anesthetic he had to dig for. Swabbing her leg reinvigorated her focus. With a scowl, she picked up the topical and tried to fling it across the room.

“Esme, if you don’t behave, I will tie you up—”

“I don’t want to be numb. I want to dig the thing out—and I want to see it.”

“And gag you,” he continued and pinned her palm to the table with one hand. He gripped her throat, his thumb forcing her chin up until they were eye to eye. “Is this the help you offered, to fight me at every turn? I don’t blame you for being upset, but either shut up, calm down, and help, or I’ll find another way to finish what I need to do.”

She swallowed hard beneath his hold. He didn’t let go, adding a harmless amount of pressure until she blinked her acceptance. “Better.”

He extracted the topical ointment from her fist, pried the top off with his teeth, and squeezed a dollop on her calf as he glared at her. His fingers worked the solution over her caramel-colored skin, expanding until he’d covered a three-inch-diameter section.

“Lean back on your elbows.”

“I’m fine.”

He pushed his palm against her solar plexus, forcing her back. “I don’t have time to protect your stubborn head if you pass out
and
keep you from bleeding. Help me, remember?”

She scowled but remained where he’d positioned her.

“Now spray my hands. Then go through that pouch and find me a suture capsule, gauze, and the suturing gun.” He held out his palms and waited while she sprayed the protective vapor barrier over his hands. With a grunt, he gestured for her to do more on the second hand. Just because she was carrying a Regent device in her body, didn’t mean he would allow her die from infection.

“Be ready with the gauze.” He followed with a stern look. However, she had most of the supplies he’d asked for lined up on her flat belly, an image that hardly steadied his nerves.

Laser scalpel palmed, he braced a hand against her shin. “Image render overlay.”

A grid of white lines illuminated the bronze of Esme’s skin with a three-dimensional wrap around her leg. The pinpoint of red at the top indicated his point of incision, the red line circling around her leg, the depth.
Shit, this was going to hurt.
The topical wouldn’t handle the nerves near her bone. The fucking bastards must have shot the tracker into her, no mere hypo insertion under the skin. No doubt they didn’t want her finding it by accident and digging it out as she had threatened.