Unity (14 page)

The pain pills Vegas gave me have their limits. By the time we leave the thick jungle behind and enter a clearing, a dull throb emanates from my side with every hurried step. Despite there being fewer trees here, the sun is still mostly blocked. I glance up and see palm leaves, bound together and suspended in the gaps between the trees. From above, this would look like just another patch of endless canopy. But from below...it’s an open space.

Well, not completely open. Ahead of us is a wooden wall that stretches from one side of the clearing to the other. The top of the wall is covered in wooden spikes. It ends, on both sides, at nearly vertical stone walls. They’ve built their fort, or whatever this is, in a bottleneck. I understand the strategy, it’s how the Spartans at Thermopylae held off the Persian Empire, but as we get closer and I see the wall of stone rising up behind the camp, it also looks like a dead end. The Spartans, along with the Thespians and Thebans, who pop culture likes to forget, held off the Persians for two days. But they all still died.

Vegas sees me eyeing the thirty-foot-long structure. “It’s mostly a visual deterrent.”

“I hope it has a back door,” I say.

“That might be up to your friends.”

Before I can ask what that means, a small wooden door swings open and Gwen bounds out with a hop in her step. “Doli!” She embraces the American Indian girl first. I’m glad to see her return the hug, lifting her arms. It’s the first sign of lucidity she’s shown, aside from putting one foot in front of the other. Freckles is next. Gwen claps him on the shoulders in a parental way. The embrace between Hutch and Gwen is much different. It’s casual. It lingers. Hutch’s back sags a bit, his tension easing. Then she moves on to Sig, picking up the skinny girl off the ground, swinging her from side to side and whispering in her ear. It’s nice to see Sig with other people. Then Sig is back on her feet and Gwen is smiling at me as she approaches.

Gwen gives Vegas a quick up and down glance—who wouldn’t?—and then she’s reaching for me, arms open for an embrace. “You look like crap.”

But before Gwen can hug me, she looks at Ghost as he enters the clearing behind us, and stops. She leans to the side, looking around me, the happy reunion melting away. “Where is Mandi?”

When she looks back at me, the answer to her question is found in my quivering lip. I try to control it, but lack the strength. “I’m sorry,” I say.

Her hand takes mine. Squeezes. She looks me over. “You fought back. You survived.” She’s trying to be strong for me. To ease my pain, by squelching her own.

“Hutch is here, now,” I say. “You don’t have to carry my burden.”

“We’re
friends,
” she tells me. “Burdens are shared.”

And then I’m in her arms, feeling loved, and then extreme pain.

She lets me go when I grunt, holding my arms. “You’re even worse than you look.”

“Shot,” I say through gritting teeth. “Twice. Once in my arm.”

Her hands snap away. “Sorry.” Her concern is short-lived, replaced by somber curiosity. “Does Hutch know?”

I nod, but my eyes remain locked on the ground.

“How did it happen?”

I wish I could tell her it was an accident. That it was another tsunami. Or a rockslide. Or something we could blame on a higher power. I would like to spare her the hate that I feel. But I can’t. “One of them. A Diablo.”

Her eyebrows rise and then pinch down, slipping quickly from surprise to anger. She turns to Vegas, who is watching the jungle leading into the valley, about to unleash her anger toward him.

“Gwen,” I say, before she can vent. “The man who killed Mandi is dead.”

Her mouth closes with the smooth pacing of an automatic car door. She turns back to me, looking me over, taking stock of my condition with new eyes. “You didn’t...”

I nod. “I killed him.”

She sucks in a tight breath and undergoes a series of rapid fire emotions that are hard to follow, but she stops with a raised chin and eyes locked on mine. “Good.”

“We need to go,” Ghost says. He’s like living camouflage, but I can see the fear in his eyes. “We don’t have much time.”

Confusion overrides Gwen’s pride, or whatever it is she was just feeling. “What’s happening?”

“Los Diablos are on their way here,” Vegas says.

“They know where this place is?” Gwen sounds astonished. She’s clearly comfortable around both Ghost and Vegas, but she’s still catching up. So am I.

“They helped build it.” Ghost points at the faux jungle canopy. “It’s how we hid from the satellites, where we would have stood our ground if Unity came for us. When we didn’t need it anymore, when we...split, Quinlan left with the others. They’re living on the mountain somewhere. We haven’t gone looking.”

A distant, but loud hooting, like a flock of agitated geese, rolls out of the jungle opposite the wooden barricade.

“We’re out of time,” Vegas says. He takes Gwen’s arm and hurries her toward the fort.

For a moment, I’m confused. They’ve known each other for what, a day? And he’s more concerned for her than he is for the person with a hole in her gut? Then I realize he’s using the logic of a Point. Ghost has been a part of this struggle all along. He can clearly take care of himself. And me? I’m a Point. Wounded or not, my job is to stand and fight.

Of course, it’s not the fighting I have a problem with, it’s the standing.

Vegas snaps his fingers at our group and points at the open gate. “Inside. All of you.” No one looks happy about being ordered around, but there is no denying the situation’s urgency. Gwen leads them inside, but Sig lingers by the entrance, watching me, fidgeting. After being captured, tied up and who knows what else, she can’t be feeling very comfortable.
I’m coming, Sig,
I think, trying to quicken my pace and ignore the pain fighting to usurp the meds.

Vegas stops me before I reach her, speaking low. “How many of your people can fight?”

“I just met most of them.”

“Guess,” he says.

“Hutch and Gwen will fight,” I say, “but I don’t know if either of them
can
fight.” There’s a big difference between the two, and he knows it. There are plenty of people willing to throw a punch, but most of them can’t land a punch, and even fewer can take a punch. I’ve done all three. “Freckles, I have no idea. Doli is in la-la land. Daniel, Gizmo and Sig? Not a chance.”

He nods at this. “Daniel and Gizmo are already working on the hatch.”

“The hatch?”

“The back door.”

I look up at him. There isn’t a trace of humor in his eyes. This isn’t two warriors joking around, laughing about the hopelessness of their situation and bonding before battle. “And what are they working on? Exactly?”

“There are four armored doors on the island, all of them leading into the mountain. Each has a keypad lock.”

“And they’re still working?”

“The keypad is still lit, so the system must be hardened against EMPs.” He looks to the jungle when the hooting gets louder. The sound is still distant, but they’re definitely heading this way, trying to rattle us with their noise. “We’ve been trying to open the hatches for eight months. Nothing has worked. Not even the ExoFrame can get through.”

“Which is why you want to get it open now,” I say. “If we can close that door behind us—”

“Quinlan can’t touch us,” he says.

I look to Sig, now just inside the gate, eyeing the trees. “Sig can help them. If it’s a numbers problem, she’ll figure it out.”

“Ghost!” Vegas says, and the young man, now dressed in just tattered shorts, appears in the doorway. His Support brand is visible on his hand, and there are streaks of white on his cheeks, like war paint. He’s armed with a long knife and a homemade spear. “Take Sig to the hatch.”

Sig holds on to the side of the gate. “Effie?”

I step up to her and lean down. “It’s okay, Sig. These guys are our friends. They want to keep us safe.” She nods, but hardly looks convinced. “There is a door that we need to get open. Gizmo and Daniel are—”

Her eyes brighten. “Daniel?”

A small part of my brain goes,
What the heck was that? Is Sig interested in Daniel?
But the rest of me stays on task. “He needs your help getting the door open.”

She thinks it over for just a moment and then nods. “’kay.”

I motion to Ghost, who is already backing away. “Go with him. We’ll catch up.” I’m not sure that’s true, but what else can I say? ‘Go with him. We’ll just be here being brutally murdered’?

When Sig disappears into the small camp, which looks like a collection of ramshackle huts built around tree trunks, Gwen and Hutch return. They’re armed with spears. Hutch lowers a large sheet of metal that looks like part of a robot’s torso, but has been turned into a kind of shield. He pulls the pistol from his waist and holds it out to Vegas. “Think you’ll do better with this.”

Vegas takes the weapon, pops the magazine out with one hand, checks to make sure it’s loaded, slaps it back in and chambers a round. The whole process takes him about two seconds. “Thanks.”

A crunch spins Vegas around, the weapon raised. He tracks a shadow slipping in and out of the trees, but lowers the weapon when the runner emerges. The scantily clad newcomer, who has gone full native, wearing something that looks like a loin cloth, is slender, wiry and unreal fast. Every subtle movement causes the muscles under his tan skin to twitch. With his blond hair and athletic abilities, he looks more like a stereotypical high school football star.

“What’s the score, Twig?” Vegas asks.

“Not good,” Twig says, as he gives our small band a glance. One quick breath and he’s fine. Speed and endurance. I note the Support brand and wish it were a Point. We could use more people like Vegas. It’s not that Twig and Ghost seem incapable, but being a Point, I know the rest of them will be looking at me to step up. To be like Vegas. I’m not sure that’s possible. Not only do I lack the years of training and physical prowess, but I’ve also got a hole in my gut.

Vegas herds us inside the gate, but doesn’t close it. “ETA?”

Twig doesn’t answer.

Doesn’t need to.

A war cry erupts from the jungle, growing louder and closer. I can see them winding through the trees.

Vegas and I take up positions on either side of the open gate. Hutch and Gwen are behind me. Twig lingers behind Vegas. I don’t see Freckles or Doli anywhere, so I assume they’re back at the door, trying to get it open.

“So,” I say to Vegas. “What’s the plan?”

He offers a smile that is both charming and unsettling. Part of him is looking forward to this fight, like some kind of ancient Viking, yearning for Valhalla. “What do you know about the Battle of Thermopylae?”

Ahh, crap.

“I thought you said there were eighteen?” I ask after counting the number of our enemy and coming up with ten. They’re hovering at the edge of the jungle, five of them hunkered down and waiting, the other fighters still hooting. Manic and eager. Those must be the hardliners Vegas told me about, the ones loyal to Quinlan and on board with the violence. The other five, who surprisingly include the Point, Berg, look like they would rather be someplace else.

And they’re not alone. I might be a Point, but that doesn’t mean I’m a violence-loving sociopath. I’m comfortable slugging someone, not fighting a battle, and certainly not being killed.

“You killed Mack,” he reminds me. “And Bear.”

I see Gwen out of the corner of my eye, looking at me with something like shock and pride. Am I becoming who she’d hoped I’d be? Did she
want
me to be a killer? Or is she just feeling hopeful about our dismal odds?

“You got Luiz,” I say, remembering the arrow and the flare that started this newest chapter of hell. “That leaves fifteen.”

“I’m not sure how doing basic math helps us,” Twig complains.

Vegas and I ignore him. We’re in some kind of simpatico zone.

“Quinlan isn’t with them,” Vegas says. “So that leaves four missing. They could be dead. Natural causes or infighting.”

“And none of them are the hardliners, right? They wouldn’t be the right choice for an ambush.”

His nod is so subtle I nearly miss it. He’s watching the jungle, trying to peer through its shadowy veil. “They’re waiting for Quinlan.”

Quinlan... The man with some kind of advanced military ExoFrame, who rules Los Diablos through fear and violence, bending even fellow Points to his will. But not Vegas. Not Ghost or Twig. I can’t imagine how hard it was to not fall in line. To watch all those people die and still resist. It’s a kind of strength and fortitude I doubt I have, but to which I can at least aspire.

“Is he normally late to the party?” I ask.

Vegas frowns. “No.”

“Which means?”

“We’re in tr—”

Branches crack above and behind us. It’s followed by a thud that shakes the ground beneath my feet. The bound palm ceiling crumbles and falls, a halo of dried leaves fluttering around a massive body, slowly standing upright after dropping down...
From how high?
I glance up and see a cliff, a hundred feet up.

The ExoFrame is lit by a beam of sunlight stabbing down through the hole in the faux canopy. Floating dust and debris give the light a solid looking form. The perfect circle surrounding Quinlan is like a stage spotlight. Very dramatic. Almost comical.

But the ExoFrame itself is a macabre technological wonder. I’ve seen normal ExoFrames, the kind used by outdoor adventure junkies looking to climb Everest in an afternoon, and the ones used by the military. But you can still see the people wearing them. The frames are just that—frames. They bear weight, add strength and make humans…well, superhuman.

This...is worse.

Quinlan, if it even is Quinlan, is hidden completely from view, contained inside a mechanized suit of armor that looks more like a full-on robot than a man. The armored plates look like they were once white. Now they are covered in dirt and what looks like blood stains, all hiding a pattern of small octagons covering every inch of the thing. It has powerful looking arms and legs, spiked at the elbows and knees. The barrel chest and thick, armored shoulders look like they could deflect missiles. And the head... It’s stylish and frightening, like a robot ninja, a glowing red slit where there should be eyes. I don’t see any weapons, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any—or even needs any.

“Aim for the eyes,” Vegas says, and starts firing.

The eyes?
I don’t think our bullets will get through, nor do I think Quinlan’s eyes are actually behind the red strip. But maybe if we break it, or score it, he won’t be able to see. And that would be something.

I’m far from a marksman, but I look over the barrel toward Quinlan’s robotic face and start squeezing the trigger.

Sparks fly from the unflinching metal head. If there is any legitimate fear that our attack could damage the ExoFrame, he’s not showing it.

The slide on Vegas’s gun snaps back, revealing he has spent his limited ammo. “Empty,” he says, dropping the weapon and drawing a machete.

A machete...against the equivalent of a humanoid tank.

I fire off one last shot and say, “I’m out!” I lower the weapon, but don’t drop it.

“The joints are the only weak points,” Vegas says to the group, who are armed with simple blades at best and wooden spears at worst. I saw a movie once, where these knights attacked a fire breathing dragon with swords. They all died. This seems even more hopeless.

The hooting from the jungle grows quiet. They can sense our doom, too. They want to enjoy the show. But Quinlan doesn’t attack. He looks us over, one by one, his mechanical head whirring as it rotates.

The front of his robot face pops out and lifts up, revealing the man beneath. He’s got a full, shaggy beard that’s so full of gunk and debris it looks like a bird has been nesting in it. His white skin is covered in dirt and flaking dried blood.

When was the last time this guy washed himself?
I wonder, and then I think maybe he never even takes the suit off. With friends like his, he must have trust issues. Probably has to run to the far side of the island to take a leak.

But what stands out most about him is his light blue eyes, like a wolf’s, gleaming with energy. With hunger.

“Momma hen laid some eggs,” Quinlan says, and he sounds just as crazy as Mack did, but his accent is Australian.

These guys were recruited from around the world. Unity has been a global force from the start, which makes me wonder about Vegas’s global defense theory. It’s ludicrous, but why else would a secret military be formed, recruiting from an array of nations, some of which are historically at odds?

Twig tenses, spear in hand, ready to throw it at Quinlan’s face, but even if his aim is good enough, he’ll never throw
fast
enough.

Quinlan’s eyes linger on me, and then turn to Gwen. “You won’t mind if I collect a few, right, mate?”

Vegas doesn’t take the bait, though I can’t really tell if Quinlan is trying to goad Vegas into attacking or if he’s being serious. And if he is, does Vegas’s silence mean he’s considering the offer?

“Your living conditions are bodgy, at best.” Quinlan motions toward the shabby looking huts with his big arms. I assume ‘bodgy’ isn’t a good thing. “Seriously, you live like a bunch of wombats. And you can keep living like wombats, if I leave with the sheila here.” He points at me. “And this chicky babe.” He points at Gwen. “And I heard you had an honest-to-goodness American Indian. Good onya, mate, but I’ll be needing her, too. You can keep the rest.”

When none of us move, he smiles. Then he’s ogling me again, looking at my hand. At the Point brand. “Found yourself a queen, Vegas? Bet he didn’t tell you about his colorful past, did he? We were tight. Like brothers, for a time. It’s why he’s still breathing. Why I’m trying to be polite.”

Vegas is unreadable. A statue. Everything Quinlan is saying could be true, or it could be a lie. And I’m not sure it matters either way—I have my own collection of skeleton-filled closets—as long as Vegas doesn’t agree.

“I’m a murderer,” Quinlan confesses, catching me off guard. “I kill people. Sometimes because they get in my way. Sometimes because they deserve it. Sometimes because I don’t like the way they look at me.”

I give him my best evil eye.

“But love,
you
have nothing to worry about. You’ll be safe with me. Protected.” He motions to Vegas with his head. “And that’s more than he can offer you.”

“You’ve been in that suit too long. I’m pretty sure you’re shriveled up like a sweaty raisin,” I tell him, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Vegas flinch.

I take a step toward Quinlan.

“Effie,” Hutch says, his whisper sounding desperate. After all, how can he support me if I’m acting suicidal?

Quinlan grins. “Oh,
you’re
going to be fun.” He looks past me, to Vegas, and points at me. I notice how similar the robotic hand looks to the thirty-foot version Hutch and I found buried in the mountainside. “For now, just her. Give me the sassy one, and we’ll walk. We can talk later about the others.”

When Vegas doesn’t tell his
mate
to screw off, I look back at him, taking stock of the man again. Did I misread his character? Did I trust the wrong person? How dark
is
his past?

“You know what,” I say. “How about I answer for myself?”

This is the point where the old me would have dropped an Eff-bomb, earning my nickname, flipped him the bird and tried to slug him. The new me just raises the handgun and pulls the trigger.

The single round fires with an explosive cough.

The report is followed by a shout of pain.

A spray of pink, lit by the spotlight.

Quinlan’s head jerks back, and like Goliath after receiving a stone to the head from David, the giant falls backward.