“It’s Loosum we both owe.”
“Yes. And if Lassard can get contact, this whole world will owe her.”
“Still nothing, Captain. I’m connecting with the Capital computer okay-they haven’t found the drive and yanked it. That’s good. But-damn-it hasn’t let me in to send the signal.”
“What’s the problem?” Raine said.
“We’re running out of time,” Marshall said. “Lassard’s program should let us use the Capital’s satellite link to reach all the Arks… and send the message.”
“To emerge? To come out of the earth?”
“Yes. We already have alerted our cells all over the territories. When the Arks rise, they will be there. Today could be the tipping point. To get all that tech, the caches buried with them, the people…”
Portman walked over, his arms filled with guns. “I’m gonna load up, Captain. We got to get going.”
“The Authority will track us here that quickly?” Raine asked.
“After what we did?” Marshall laughed. “There will be no price on our heads that will be too high. This is about to be as unsafe a place as can be.”
Elizabeth walked over. “Got my equipment packed. The essentials.” She looked over at Raine, and he realized they were three survivors, standing together.
Three people who had been entrusted with rebuilding a future.
About to go on the run.
“What about the computers?” he asked.
“In our other bases we have more. If the Arks were to come up, having computers would be the least of our problems. The important thing is that we have all the data.”
“And you’ll leave? Without reaching the Arks.”
Marshall looked over to the I.T. guy. “No. I imagine Lassard will stay. Until he hears the Authority is at the door.”
Raine looked at Lassard, too. Staying with the ship.
This world isn’t just about deals.
There was something else, besides the death, the brutality, the fear. There were people willing to sacrifice.
Marshall caught his look. Neither had to say what it meant if Lassard stayed.
Then the captain spoke.
Asking what probably seemed a redundant question.
“You’ll come with us?”
Raine stood there. Then, shaking his head. “No…”
He saw that Marshall didn’t believe what he was hearing.
Then he explained.
“There’s something I got to do first,” he said, the anger in his voice rising. This wasn’t just about Marshall and his Resistance anymore. This wasn’t just about the settlements and those who struggled to survive in the shadow of the Authority. This wasn’t just about orders anymore, about a mission.
Not after what had happened only hours ago.
“I will go to the Hagars. If Dan is to learn what happened to his daughter, he will learn it from me.”
The ancient, time-honored military tradition.
The lone knock at the door. The officer in a uniform standing there.
The message conveyed before that door is even open.
Marshall put his hand on Raine.
“Yes. That makes sense.”
“And then, Captain, I’m with you. To bring these bastards down. To try and save something out of this… very fucked-up world.”
Marshall smiled. “Don’t think I could do it without you. Elizabeth can show you where we will be headed. Pretty far away. But we will wait for you.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get there.”
Is anger useful in combat? Raine wondered… even as he felt it building inside him.
The death of innocent people who just wanted freedom, who wanted a life. The mindless and brutal slaying of Kvasir. The creation of an army dedicated to just one thing… killing. The fact that Loosum had to sacrifice herself.
Yes, rage might be exactly the emotion needed.
At that moment Raine also realized… he was no longer a stranger here.
This was his world, as much as anyone else here.
Marshall nodded his head at the big man packing things up. “Make sure Portman gives you any weapons you need. We also have a vehicle for you. Fast, even has some armor. But you know what it’s like out there.”
“Yes, I do.”
Nothing else left to say.
When finally-a whoop from behind them, from Lassard.
“I got it!” Lassard turned around in his chair. Everyone in the room stopped, all eyes on him.
“Must have been as they got all their systems on line, full power, and it let the drive with the program connect and execute.” Lassard was indulging in some analysis, an I.T. guy to the core. “But-”
He grinned. “We can use their system to reach the Arks.”
And if what Marshall told him was true, if Lassard was really as good as they thought he was, the program he had inserted would override the Arks’ systems.
Resistance cells waiting, spread out over a hundred miles.
Would the Authority be able to pounce on some of the Arks?
Undoubtedly.
But they couldn’t be everywhere. Lives would be lost, but now lives from the past would be saved. As well as information, learning, technology.
Marshall spoke.
“Okay, Mark. What are you waiting for?”
Lassard held the gaze of the captain.
“You mean… now?”
“Hit the button. Get them up. And then we got to get out of here, blow this place up.”
As though intimidated by the implication of what he was about to do, Lassard hesitated before turning back to his terminal.
Had one key stroke ever had more importance?
They all walked closer to him for the fateful moment.
The I.T. expert took a breath.
Raine sensed that Portman, standing next to him, was about to gruffly bark, Just fucking do it.
It seemed to take that long.
“Okay,” Lassard said. “Still… all good. And-”
His fingers hit the keyboard.
Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.
Then the monitor started to send a wave of information flying across the screen.
A last act for these computers before they were blown into more useless junk for locals to scavenge.
“That’s it,” Lassard said, his eyes moving left and right as he looked at the screens. “It’s happening. Sweet God, it’s happening. ”
Marshall looked at Raine, then over at Portman and Elizabeth.
“Time for us to go.”
They started moving as fast as they could out of the hideout.
Lassard lagged behind, as if his eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing, the result of his handiwork.
“Lassard! Move it!” Marshall yelled.
And finally Lassard backed away, stood up. He threw the switch on the timed explosive off to the side of his desk.
He turned and picked up a pack that seemed empty.
Hard for him to leave, Raine thought.
Then the four of them started out, into the underground tunnels and warren of Subway Town.
It wasn’t long-minutes, actually, after they heard the thunderous explosion behind them-that they came to the place where they were to split up. Marshall and the others one way, Raine off to a tunnel that led to where they had left a car for him.
“Captain-”
“Just remember we’ll be waiting for you, Raine. Don’t let us down.”
Raine smiled. Elizabeth came up to him. “And when you come back, we’ll have to get the nanotrites out. For now, though, be glad you have them.”
Portman stuck out his arm, a chunky finger jabbing the air. “And I want every piece of ordnance returned, Lieutenant. Resistance property.” Then Portman grinned-as close to a good-bye as he could get.
Raine nodded.
Without a word he turned and started running down the tunnel, one last mission before he could return to the three of them again.
Before he could return to the battle, to this war that was now as much his as theirs.
FORTY-FOUR
In each Ark-their computers never fully powered down-something registered.
Each Ark had remained in communication with the others throughout the century. They even could take note when disaster befell an Ark somewhere, crushed by the shifting of a tectonic plate, or desperately struggling to emerge to the surface before being trapped by bedrock.