Code, p.14
Code, page 14
“I hear you.”
“We assassinated a lot of women and men. Do you ever think about them? Most of them were probably innocent.”
The self-loathing in his voice awakened something inside Mitch he didn’t want to revisit.
“We didn’t know,” Mitch said softly and looked out the window. The view of the oppressive destruction made his mood worse. “I’m not trying to justify what we did, but we were given misinformation. I won’t think about the people I’ve killed. I thought I was doing the right thing. And you should do the same. After I found out the truth about ISAN, I regretted ever being part of it. The only reason I kept going was to find my father. I convinced Rhett to do the same.”
Mitch had to see his plan through. Only he hadn’t expected to care for even more people, like this good guy next to him. He wanted to bring all his friends with him when he escaped ISAN.
“Looks like we’re here.” Russ swiped across the hologram screen, getting ready to land. “I suggest you think of a plan because I’ve got nothing.”
“Why me?” Mitch frowned.
Russ offered a sly grin. “You’re good at scheming and deceiving. That’s what you do well.”
Mitch chuckled. “Did you just give me a compliment? Are we getting along?”
Russ cackled and tapped the screen to close. “I think it’s a start of a beautiful friendship. But seriously, we’re here so think fast.”
Mitch guided the teams out when they landed and fanned out behind the closest crumbled building. Two ISAN-East teams and guards were in his hands. He pointed at the ruined building across the street—their destination.
“Ready?” Mitch said, and gave Russ a hard look, and then to Bethany and Stella, who used to be on Justine’s team.
Mitch held up a fist, a sign to get moving. Stealthily, they sped down the street with Tasers aimed, weaving around potholes, fallen rusted street signs, and abandoned cars. They hid behind the side of the designated structure.
“Team B, Stella’s team, follow Russ,” Mitch said through his chip and pointed at Russ. “Team A, follow me.”
Mitch took Bethany’s team to the left front of the building, while Russ took Stella’s team around the back to the right front. Chang’s guards were deployed at the entrance, casual in their stance. They looked half asleep. Most were sitting on the ground chatting like it was more of a hangout.
“On my mark, everyone,” Mitch said through his chip.
The plan was to tase Chang’s guards, then Russ and Mitch would tase their team members. Mitch had no idea if the ridiculous plan would work, but he had nothing else.
After Mitch found Chang, he would have to explain why he was there. Obviously, he wouldn’t kidnap her, but he had to come up with details to make it seem like Chang had left before they arrived.
Just as Mitch was about to give the order, several aircraft landed. He recognized the ISAN aircraft to his right, but not the ones on the left. They certainly weren’t the rebels. Rhett wouldn’t have parked so close.
Chang’s guards startled and engaged closer, treading carefully toward both gliders. When ISAN’s glider door opened, all hell broke loose. Bullets rained over the entire area. Mitch signed his team to back away. The transporters to his left opened fire at ISAN.
“Go around to Russ’s team,” Mitch said to Bethany. “I’ll meet you there.”
Mitch dashed to a flipped-over car, and then ran to a beat-up wooden desk for protection.
“This is ANS. Stand down. You’re surrounded.” Their speaker boomed through the dusty clouds.
One ISAN assassin came closer. The soldier was clad in the newest ISAN suit, thicker and more formfitting. When the soldier revealed the face under the hooded mask, Mitch swore.
A kid. About thirteen. They were the army from the south. Perhaps the same group he’d seen at Pearl Valley. What were they doing here? Had they been told to get rid of Chang, too? It was the only explanation.
Why would Novak send both teams? And somehow ANS knew and they were here to stop them.
Mitch ran to Russ.
“We can’t go through with our plan,” Russ said, taking a peek by the beat-up billboard. “I just checked my messages. Team South got the message we would be their backup.”
Mitch’s pride deflated. “Why are we their backups? They’re just kids.”
“I don’t know, but what are we going to do?” Russ said over the exchange of bullets resonating. “Make the call or I am.”
Mitch gave his team directions and guided them to Team South. A girl with long, braided dark hair came forward.
“My name is Davina. What took you so long?” she snapped.
Mitch didn’t like taking orders from a little girl, but he bit his tongue from saying something he would regret. “What’s the status?”
“I’m going in with my Team B,” Davina said. “There are twelve in each team. Team A will stay behind. I have no idea how many guards are inside.”
Mitch told Russ to stay behind with Stella’s and Bethany’s teams and went around the side of the building with Davin’s team, while heavy artillery fire was exchanged. Davina gestured at one of her soldiers, and the girl punched through wood and cement with her fist.
She was like Justine, but stronger.
Davina led them down a long, dank hallway, their boots pounding along the dusty tile floor. Lights from the hallway flickered as they weaved around uplifted tiles and concrete. They passed a couple of office rooms but no sign of Chang. Mitch had a bad feeling about this.
Davina halted at a dead end. “She’s not in here,” Davina spoke through her chip. “I repeat. Chang is not here. Do we abort?”
“Who are you speaking to?” Mitch tried not to inhale the scent of old socks.
She looked at Mitch as if he’d grown a second head. “Mr. Novak. Who else?”
Novak had never been available during their missions, nor had he ever supervised one. Why now? These must be his special soldiers. Novak was taking a personal interest in them. He trusted this group to fight but perhaps he thought they still needed backup. Some with more experience. The reason Novak had sent him and Russ.
Davina shifted her attention back to her chip, but one of the girls who had been sniffing around like a hound dog pointed to a wall.
“She’s in there,” she said.
“That’s a wall,” Mitch snapped.
Davina shoved Mitch with a finger. A finger. Just one. Mitch slammed against the opposite wall. She had pushed Mitch aside like he was some kind of a pest. Her strength was remarkable. Mitch stood back and decided it was best not to argue.
Davina narrowed her cold, dark eyes. “Bring it down.”
Five girls effortlessly socked their fists over and over into the wall, making dozens of dents, but not punching through.
One of the girls stopped, her eyes wide in terror, and yelled, “Put up your shields.”
In ISAN, “Put up your shield” meant a bomb would detonate. Mitch threw himself behind Davina and ducked low as the walls exploded outward. Closing his eyes, he prayed to stay alive.
Scorching heat rolled over Mitch. He clenched his teeth as he trembled, bearing the pain and hot air searing over his combat suit so that it burned against his skin. Without a warning, he was violently tossed in the air.
He should have landed hard, hard enough to break a few bones, but instead thumped on the wreckage. It happened so fast he needed a moment to register where he was when he snapped out of his daze.
Not wreckage. About half a dozen ISAN soldiers lay face down and Mitch was on top of them. The wall they tried to break through, untouched. Someone was surely on the other side and had caused the explosion.
Mitch rolled over and thudded on the debris, coughing. Smoke clouded around him. He throbbed with pain, his muscles weak. Fire lingered in pockets on the tile. A pair of black boots appeared in his downward position. He peered up to see Davina.
“Next time, stand behind someone your own height. Look what happened to me when I had to save your ass. We failed the mission to assassinate Councilor Chang. Novak is going to be pissed.” Davina patted at flames on her arms and walked to the other half of her team with a swagger that reminded him of Ava.
Mitch rose, stumbling. My God. The surrounding walls had blown up. Patches of fire still lingered, but the room with steel walls remained intact. Even more surprising, the six assassins standing beside Davina had scorch marks on their faces and elsewhere, but didn’t appear fazed by their wounds.
Helix could suppress the pain of a bullet wound, but not burns to this degree. Still, they had survived the blast and Mitch along with them, thanks to Davina. But the other girls on the ground didn’t get up.
Dead, Mitch supposed.
“Hey!” Mitch ran after Davina.
They had taken off without him. When he caught up, he squinted from the sunlight, and ran toward the ISAN glider.
Russ’s eyes were wide when he spotted Mitch in the sunlight. “Mitch! You’re okay. Thank God. What happened in there?”
“I’ll explain it later. What happened out here?”
Flames danced in pockets all around them. ANS’s ship was gone. ISAN gliders were the only ones left.
Russ dusted some white powder off Mitch’s shoulder. “Just before the blast, ANS took off. I didn’t see Chang come out. Is she—”
“No,” Mitch whispered so only Russ could hear. “I think they either took her out or ... there’s a room inside the kids couldn’t get to. This place must be built by ANS.”
Russ eased his furrowed brow when footsteps approached and placed a light hand on his weapon.
“Mitch. Russ. We’re told to head back,” Davina said.
“Where are you going?” Mitch asked. “And thanks for saving my ass back there.”
She crossed her arms and leaned into a hip. “I wasn’t trying to. You got lucky. You picked the right person to hide behind.”
Mitch arched an eyebrow. Her heartless choice of words blew his mind. “What happened to teamwork? I’ll watch your back and you’ll watch mine.”
“Teamwork only applies to my team.”
“I see,” Mitch said and hiked a thumb to the crumbled building. “Are you going back for your injured? They could still be alive.”
“They’re dead. If you don’t have any questions for me, I’ll be on my way.”
Unbelievable. Mitch used to be like her—cold and uncaring. But on a soft-faced child, her bluntness was unnerving.
“Where are you going again?” Mitch asked.
Davina rolled her eyes. “If you don’t know then you weren’t meant to know.” She sized him up. “You’re cute, but not as cute as the other girls say.”
She swaggered away. Her loud whistle to get her team’s attention would have scared the birds had any remained in the pathetic-looking trees nearby their gliders.
Mitch groaned.
“I know. I know,” Russ said. “They’re heartless. Novak’s dream assassins. I wonder what lies he feeds them.”
Russ’s sympathetic tone calmed Mitch’s nerves.
“Or rather what kind of serum he poisoned them with.” Mitch clenched his jaw. “Of the assassins we trained, Roxy came close to being like Davina, only caring about getting the mission accomplished, but she at least cared about her team. This batch of kids, they aren’t human. After I find my father, I’m out of there with Lydia. You can come with me or stay. It’s up to you.”
Russ peered up at the dark clouds, watching the ISAN glider soar away. “I’ll help you find your father. I’m with you all the way, until the very end.”
Something in Mitch’s core softened. He hadn’t liked Russ until recently. Mitch had thought Russ too uptight and too fond of Novak. Now he realized he’d had a friend all this time.
“Until the end,” Mitch said, his gaze meeting Russ’s with a newfound respect.
Chapter Twenty-Three — Prisoners
Ava
After dinner, Novak came to my room and told me to follow him. He took me to a chamber opposite from the lab—the layout was the same except there was no fancy equipment, only a TAB on a table in the center of the room. Nothing tangible. Nothing I could use as weapon.
An unbreakable see-through barrier kept the prisoners in. I went to the first cell. A girl sat on the cot with her face down.
“Naomi. Is that you?” I lightly rapped on the glass.
The girl turned. When recognition kicked in, she rushed toward me.
Naomi still had on the jeans and sweater she had worn coming here. Though her eyes were red from crying and her dark hair a mess, she looked unharmed. No bloodstains on her clothes or her face.
“Ava. You’re alive. I thought you were...” Though tears were pooling, she smiled. “It’s so good to see you.”
With Novak in the same room, I kept my emotions at bay. “What happened?”
“You didn’t come back.”
My heart sank to my stomach. This was all my fault. I took a quick glance at Novak, who was scanning something on the TAB. Novak concentrating on a task gave me an opportunity to speak a little freely.
“I’m sorry.” I tried to whisper but the quiet room projected my voice. “I’m going to get you out. I promise. Tell me what happened?”
Naomi looked past me to Novak then back to me. “Janine came to me. She told me what you told her to tell me, and then she went back to her post. A while later, a few guards came out.” She pointed at Novak. “That crazy man told me you were dead. He put me on this machine. Some contraption went on my head. And ...” She froze.
The clicking of Novak’s heels made me turn as I imagined him pointing a Taser at me. But after a few steps, he stopped, and he held no weapon.
“Allow me finish,” Novak said. “Naomi’s mind is a bit fuzzy from all that tampering I did.”
“What did you do to her?” I snarled.
Please, not the lobotomy. But she seemed fine. Alert. Emotion seemed intact.
“I asked her if she knew where the rebels were hiding, but she refused to tell me. So I tried to pry it out of her memory.”
“She doesn’t know and neither do I.” I had to lie or he would do the same to me. “We came here together. I don’t know if anyone survived. So you’re getting nothing. Where’s Janine?”
Novak released a sharp, humorless laugh. “You’re truly remarkable, Ava. I’m very impressed with your boldness, your demands.”
My pulse raced. Calm down. Don’t give him ammunition. “You lied to me, didn’t you? You told me Janine betrayed me.”
Novak’s gray eyes gleamed, like he had some secret to reveal. “Did I say that? You must have heard me wrong. If what I said were true, then Janine wouldn’t be in here.”
I went to the next cell.
Janine came rushing, trembling, her voice frantic. “Ava. I’m so sorry. I was careful. I swear it. I—”
“It’s okay.” I patted the barrier as if somehow that would calm her down. “It’s not your fault.”
She wiped her tears, then her eyes homed in on Novak. Her glare alone could have killed him.
“You have to get out,” she said. “You have to warn your friends. He knows things I didn’t tell him. He did things to my brain, my memory. He’s going to do it to you. He’ll find out everything.”
“Don’t talk, Janine.”
I needed to calm her down. Novak didn’t like to be provoked. He didn’t tolerate any kind of rebellion, especially when he looked bad in front of an audience, even if it was just me. It was enough for him.
“He’s not only experimenting on children, but adults too. Our parents. Many have died. Their bodies can’t handle the serum. They were here, but they’re gone now.”
“I know, Janine. Please, stop talking. Look at me.”
No matter how hard I pounded the glass and tried to get her attention, I had lost her. Her attention was fixed on Novak.
Her fists rounded by her side, trembling. “He’s already killed many. He’s building an army.”
“Janine. Stop. I know.”
I hit the barrier again and looked over my shoulder. Novak stood in the same position. His wicked smirk told me he planned to do something.
“You have to get out,” she said. “You have to tell the world. There are ISAN soldiers in different countries. My time expired the day I chickened out. I should have killed as many guards as I could, but I ran away. I’m not running anymore.”
A door cranked open inside Janine’s cell, and a metal rod poked out from the back wall. Janine looked over her shoulder and then back to me with a small, defeated smile.
“Go to hell, Novak,” she said. “Always having other people do the dirty work for you.”
Another sound cranked.
Janine’s eyes widened with desperation. “Ava, I have something to tell you. Save the ba—”
Bang!
My heart jumped to my throat as I jerked back. Janine’s blood smeared on the glass. Fast as a snap of fingers, she had been hit by a bullet.
I tried to process what had happened, and endlessly asking what I could have done to stop her from talking. But save who? I didn’t know anyone whose name started with the letter B.
“Well, that was inconvenient.” Novak closed the hologram monitor. “I really didn’t want to kill her. So ungrateful for pardoning her the first time. Disregard her rambling. I suggest you listen or Naomi will be next. Now, let me take you to my next guest.”
Shaken to my core, I couldn’t wipe away the image of Janine’s brain splattered on the glass in front of me. Not wanting the same fate for Naomi, I behaved and kept my mouth shut.
Novak took me to the last cell. Nothing could have prepared me for who I saw next.
“Zen?” I covered my mouth with a hand, suppressing a scream, standing inches away from the barrier.
Calm down, Ava. Calm down. It doesn’t mean everyone else is here.
Zen’s usual sleek hair looked disheveled and he had bags underneath his eyes. He wore a similar gray, loose outfit like mine. He looked happy to see me and terrified at the same time as he rushed to meet me at the glass.
“Rhett is on his way,” he whispered. “You have to do something. He’s determined to find you. We were shot down. Frank is ... dead.”
