Oliver Invictus (Annals of Altair Book 3) Page 8

  “What kind of a bomb did they use?” Oliver asked.

  Jenifer said, “The most rudimentary kind that they could get: fertilizer and gasoline. Half the transports they had carried the stuff there for them. We got lucky we weren’t crammed into one of those on the way back.”

  Oliver gave silent thanks for that mercy. The residual fumes probably would have killed him in his sleep.

  “How are they saying I got enough fuel to make that kind of a bomb?” he asked.

  “They’re not. They’re implying that you had outside help instead.”

  “What’ll they do to the Brotherhood cell on the mountain if they find them?”

  “When they find them,” Smith said. “Unless the cell cleared out right after we did, they’ll find them, and it’ll get messy.”

  A chill swept through Oliver. “But some of the other Prometheus kids were there. They’re not just going to attack the place, are they?”

  “They’ve already declared all of your classmates dead on national TV, with a scapegoat killer to boot. They can do as they please now without any lasting consequences for the GCA.”

  Estranged as he was from his peers, he couldn’t stop the sick feeling that crept up from his stomach to his throat.

  “Attacking them might bring unwanted consequences, though,” Jenifer said. “Brotherhood cells can hold their own in a fight. Chances are they’ll have at least one projector in that Prometheus crowd, too, and Oliver’s not there to block anything.”

  “I wonder if they took that into account,” Smith mused.

  “Let’s hope not,” said the B&B wife. “It makes life so much more interesting when opponents are evenly matched.”

  They passed the morning playing cards, and obvious ploy to keep Oliver distracted. The B&B husband taught him the rules for poker, only to get beaten three hands in a row.

  “You countin’ cards, kid?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Am I not supposed to?” Oliver replied, confused.

  “We need to get this boy to a reservation,” the man said to Smith, who was reading a book by the window.

  “He’s underage, and the casinos would ban you both for life if you tried anything funny.”

  Jenifer joined the pair at the table. “Deal me in.”

  The B&B wife appeared from the kitchen, a tray fresh from the oven in her mitted hands. “Betting chips, anyone?” She distributed a stack of hot chocolate-chip cookies to each player.

  “It’s no good when you can eat the money,” said her husband. He fit a whole cookie into his mouth and chewed.

  Oliver wondered if he had crossed through the looking glass to an alternate world. This almost felt like a family, like the leisurely days he had only ever read about in stories. And homemade chocolate-chip cookies were a thousand times better than the mass-produced version the Prometheus cafeterias sometimes provided.

  He’d been cheated his whole life up until now.

  The tranquility cracked with a resounding boom. The walls of the house shuddered, china clinking together as the pendulum light fixtures wobbled back and forth. Everyone scrambled to the window. A column of black smoke plumed from a far-off mountainside.

  “Those fools are going to trigger an avalanche,” the B&B husband said.

  “It won’t come all the way here, will it?” his wife asked.

  Oliver was less concerned about avalanches than he was the wellbeing of his classmates and the renegades who had rescued them. A second explosion flashed on the mountain, followed by a second shock wave. The smoke thickened.

  “You two should probably go downstairs,” Smith said. “If they’ve destroyed the mine, they’ll come back through town on their way out.”

  Jenifer followed the command without question. Oliver, more reluctant to leave, finally tore his eyes away from the column of smoke. As he headed for the stairs, the B&B wife intercepted him to press something into his hands.

  “To tide you over until lunch,” she said with a kind smile.

  It was a paper napkin and four cookies wrapped within.

  “Thank you.” How could the woman exhibit such good cheer in the face of impending calamity? And how could she extend hospitality to the likes of him, who would only bring her misfortune if he was discovered there? He would probably never understand.

  The military convoy didn’t return. In fact, aside from the two blasts, nothing that day seemed out of the ordinary. As the afternoon waxed old and night descended, Oliver and Jenifer ventured back up from their basement hideout. Smith had drawn the curtains to block out the coming night.

  “They’ll probably go back under cover of darkness,” he said of the soldiers who had passed through that morning.

  “That’s not the chatter on the ham network.” The B&B husband descended from the second story, his expression guarded.

  Smith scowled. “What’s the rumor?”

  “They’re saying the soldiers starting firing on their own ranks when they got too near the mine. Those blasts we heard came from a drone strike to sanitize the area.”

  Sanitize. The word sounded too clean for something so dirty.

  “So there was at least one projector in that group,” Jenifer said, an odd catch in her voice.

  Oliver caught her use of the past tense. An explosion like that would have collapsed the entrance to the mine. The chances of anyone making it out alive were slim.

  Dinner was a quiet affair. The TV remained on, but with its sound muted. The B&B wife thoughtfully sat Oliver facing the opposite direction. Occasionally the others allowed their attention to stray up to the screen, but he focused firmly on his plate.

  Would the government blame today’s mountainside explosion on him? Would it even make the night’s report?

  It did, as it turned out. “They’re saying it was a methane buildup?” Jenifer blurted out of the blue, her eyes glued to the screen. “Was that even a coal mine?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Smith. “Most viewers won’t question the narrative. Most viewers won’t even think to question the narrative.”

  Oliver twisted around to view the report. Slow-motion video showed a close-up of the smoking mountainside, conveniently edited to omit sight of any drones or other external causes. The subtitles beneath ran the narrative of the methane buildup and listed the death toll as zero, with authorities “unsure what ignited the spark.”

  He harrumphed and turned back to his meal. “At least they didn’t claim I did it.”

  “That’s a silver lining, to be sure,” said the B&B wife.

  He retired to bed soon afterward, leaving the rest of the group behind. It was a meager pleasure, deciding when he would come and go from their midst, but after a lifetime of someone else dictating his movements, he relished it.

  An insistent thud-thud-thud awoke him several hours later. A nightlight on the stairs provided little resistance against the heavy darkness.

  “What was that?” he asked. Jenifer shushed him. She sat up on her bunk, both feet on the floor as though ready to bolt should the need arise. Tense, Oliver listened. The thud-thud-thud repeated upstairs.

  Steps creaked down from the second story. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” said the B&B husband. “Who is it?”

  Intermediate walls and doors muffled the visitor’s response. Jenifer crept across the room to the stairwell to listen. Oliver caught the mechanical sounds of locks tumbling in succession. The back door of the house opened on telltale squeaking hinges.

  “Where’s your Smith?” asked the visitor without preamble.

  “This is a house, not a forge, young man,” said the husband.

  “Come off it. I’m an asset. Has he already left? Does he still have that kid with him, or did he ship him off with someone else?”

  Oliver was out of bed now, padding across the room to join Jenifer at the base of the stairs.

  “You’re still not making any sense. Are you drunk? Do you need me to call someone to come pick you up?”

  “Smith! Are yo
u still here? Smith!” The visitor swore.

  The husband tried to calm him. Another set of footsteps sounded on the stairs above.

  “What’s all this racket?” Smith’s voice cut through the darkness.

  “You’re still here! Hallelujah! You still have that kid? We might need him something fierce.”

  Jenifer caught Oliver’s eye. “That sounds like Hancock,” she muttered, unimpressed.

  Oliver had recognized the voice. “What’s he doing here? Aside from looking for me.”

  “He survived this morning’s raid. Either he’s extremely lucky, or he’s a double agent.”

  Hancock, as it turned out, was not the only survivor. The back door squealed again and a new voice entered the conversation. “Smith, I’m sorry for the unorthodox intrusion.”

  “I told you this was the place, commander,” Hancock said.

  “I thought your people were blasted off the mountain today,” Smith interjected.

  “The military was blasted off the mountain today,” the cell commander said. “We all took our departure through the back exit. Only a fool chooses headquarters with just one way in or out. You still have that kid, the null-projector?”

  “Why do you want him?”

  “Damage control. One of our cells has gone rogue. We were on our way to our backup base when we got word.”

  “Gone rogue?” Smith repeated.

  “They’ve headed off to blow up another school,” Hancock blurted. “Only this time, there’s no reason to save the students beforehand.”

  “They’ve declared war on the GCA,” the commander added. “The Prometheus complexes are as logical a place as any to start.”

  Oliver was halfway up the stairs before he even realized his legs were moving that direction. On the steps behind him, Jenifer hissed for him to stop, but he disregarded her warning. In a panic he burst through the doorway and into the room.

  Hancock and his commander both drew their weapons so fast that Oliver barely saw them move. He halted in his tracks, staring wild-eyed at them, hardly breathing from the combined shock of their news and having two guns leveled at him.

  Smith, in a bathrobe over his pajamas, gestured toward him with a dry expression. “As you can see, he’s still around.”

  “Is it Prom-B or Prom-C they’re targeting?” Oliver asked. Prom-B was more likely. It was closer, near Seattle, but Prom-C in California would be higher profile. The students at both schools relished their prestige. Oliver’s ten-year-old self would have fit in well with them.

  And just like him, they deserved a chance to wise up. He didn’t want any additions to his reputed body count.

  The two Brotherhood soldiers re-holstered their weapons. The commander reached for Oliver’s arm. “We’ll take the kid with us.”

  Smith intervened. “No, you certainly will not. You have the resources to stop your own people.”

  “There’s a projector behind the attack, isn’t there,” Oliver said. “Kennedy Ross? I didn’t think she was that twisted, to go after another campus just for spite.”

  “Kennedy Ross isn’t the problem,” said the Brotherhood commander. “It’s her father, Abel. He’s the one leading the rogue attack. He’s the one who enlisted us for the first job.”

  “But Kennedy’s the projector, a Level 4 or 5, they said. Is her father one too?”

  “No,” said the commander. “Abel’s a null, a minor one. He’s not acting on anyone’s whims but his own.”

  Oliver reeled at this information. “If he’s a null, why do you need me? I’m only useful against projectors.”

  “Abel’s a null, and Kennedy’s his daughter, and she’ll do whatever he says. He’s not stopping her projections for anyone but himself. He’s encouraging them, and if we don’t want to get caught up in the grand, frenzied movement, we need a null of our own.”

  “You’re not taking him,” Smith said again. Even as he pulled Oliver back, though, the commander drew his gun from his holster and leveled it at his face.

  “It wasn’t a request.”

  Tension swelled. Oliver, horrified at the deadly battle of wills before him, shrugged away from Smith’s grasp.

  “I’ll go with you. Just let me get my shoes first.” He glanced apologetically to Smith, to the B&B husband, and to Jenifer on the stairs. They had sheltered him, had treated him like a normal person for a whole day.

  None of them deserved a bullet for trying to keep him safe, though. His life wasn’t worth that much.

  Chapter 12

  Rabble-rouser

  Sunday, February 24, 12:48 AM MST, Idaho

  Smith provided Oliver with a coat, a scarf, a hat, some gloves, and a pair of goggles before he left. Jenifer looked almost ready to join him on this new adventure, but she restrained herself.

  Instead, she settled for towing him aside and giving him a tight hug. “For Emily,” she whispered.

  Then she pulled back with a narrow expression. “Just remember: they’re only using you. You need to watch out for your own safety, all right? Don’t do anything risky or stupid.”

  “This whole venture is risky and stupid,” he said.

  “You’re right about that.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “You should’ve stayed in the basement instead of bolting up the stairs.”

  Much as he wanted to agree, the image of a burned out Prom-F kept playing across his mind. None of the students had died there. They had escaped with their liberators willingly. Prom-B students would not be so lucky because they didn’t see their school as oppressive. They would fight against their supposed liberators and pay a terrible price.

  Under cover of darkness, he left with Hancock and the Brotherhood cell commander. He was a tool once more, a mechanism for interfering with others’ plans.

  They traveled via snowmobile. The biting wind numbed his cheeks. Their track through the woods twisted and turned, leaving him almost dizzy. He clutched the railing by his seat and tried not to focus on anything beyond his own breathing.

  Every exhale fogged up his goggles.

  The snowmobile cleared the trees and jetted across an open expanse. Above, the stars shone bright and clear in the sky. Oliver looked up at them in wonder. He picked out Ursa Major and Minor in the north and Orion low on the western horizon.

  What was he doing out here, so far from a Prometheus dorm room and everything he had ever known?

  They arrived at a ranch. Hancock, the driver, sidled the snowmobile alongside a large shed away from the main house. He and the commander ushered Oliver inside, where one of the Brotherhood transport vehicles waited. Half a dozen of their fighters waited there too.

  Wordlessly, they loaded into the transport and set off again. What the vehicle lacked in comfort it made up in warmth. Oliver was grateful not to be out in biting wind anymore.

  Hancock remained next to him for the journey, as his personal guard. Oliver glumly noted the pattern of passing from one handler to another, lax though Jenifer had been in keeping tabs on him.

  The more things changed, the more they remained the same, as the old proverb went.

  “What do you know about Abel Ross?” he asked.

  Hancock shrugged, close-mouthed. One of the other fighters leaned forward, more willing to answer.

  “Best sharp-shooter in the Delta cell. Abel’s always been a revolutionary, but he came to the Brotherhood a few years ago, after the feds took his kids away from him.”

  “Kids?” Oliver caught the plural on that word. “He had more than just Kennedy?”

  “Two girls,” the soldier confirmed. “Kennedy’s the older one. Liberty’s the younger. The government swept into the Ross home and took them both away, claimed that Abel and his wife were unfit parents. There wasn’t even a court hearing. When he tried to protest, they relocated him and his wife to one of their watch-camps.”

  “They’re ‘government-planned communities,’ Bart,” one of his fellows interrupted, a sarcastic glint in his eyes.

  Oliver’s heart quic
kened in his chest. His parents lived in one of those communities, or so he had once been told.

  “My mistake,” Bart drawled. “He and his wife were carted off to an internment camp for reeducation. Abel escaped and found refuge with the Brotherhood.”

  “What about his wife?” Oliver asked.

  The fighter shrugged. “Dunno. All I know is that he hasn’t seen or heard from his kids since the government took them away.

  “Until Kennedy sent him a message from Prom-F,” Oliver said.

  A grin broke out across Bart’s face. “You gotta give Abel props for his paranoia. He drummed into his girls from the day they were born not to trust the government. He said if anything ever happened to them, if they were ever in a position to contact him, to use this dark internet email address he’d set up. Paranoia paid off in the end.”

  “It’s not paranoia, Bart,” said a fighter from across the transport. “It’s preparedness.”

  Bart conceded that point with a tip of his head.

  “So Liberty’s at Prom-B?” Oliver asked, drawing a hopeful conclusion. Maybe the rogue Brotherhood cell wasn’t setting out to destroy the place. Maybe they only planned to use Kennedy to lure Liberty away from the Prom-B handlers and administrators.

  The fighters exchanged a glance and shrugged.

  Useless.

  As the hours passed with nothing more than the monotonous hum of the transport’s engine to stimulate his senses, his eyelids drooped. He lost consciousness at some point, only to be jarred awake when the transport lumbered to a halt and the engine died.

  Fighters started out the back door into frigid air. The dove gray of pre-dawn colored the sky as Oliver stepped out behind them. Snow crunched beneath his boots.

  They’d arrived at another mine shaft.