Royce had already started night patrol back up. I could only hope this was the only man on duty.
“Let’s go,” I said when he was out of view. Once again, Avian and I rolled quietly down the hall toward the back entrance.
The automatic doors opened with a whoosh of cold air. The faintest hint of light was phasing into the eastern horizon as we rolled across the sidewalk and down to the side of the solar tank. I opened the doors as wide as they would go and adjusted the pillows and blankets we’d stashed in the back row of seats earlier that day.
Avian, in the meantime, had unhooked the IV bag from the tower and laid it in her lap. Shouldering the oxygen unit, he took the sheet at her feet, I grabbed it by her shoulders. Together, as carefully as we could manage, we lifted her into the van and onto the back seat.
“I guess it’s a good thing she’s unconscious,” I said as Avian adjusted her, placing a pillow under her knees. “This isn’t going to be a comfortable eight hundred mile ride.”
Avian didn’t respond as he hooked her IV bag over a catch on the side of the vehicle. He double checked everything, setting the oxygen unit on the floor next to a box full of batteries and full oxygen tanks.
“Think she’ll be warm enough?” Avian fretted as he laid another blanket over her.
“We’ll be back and on the road in an hour,” I said, glancing back toward the hospital. As I did, a light on the second floor flickered on. People were starting to rise. “She’ll be okay.”
He helped me shift bags of bedding around so both Morgan and the IV bag weren’t so visible. We just had to hope Bill, West, and Dr. Evans didn’t notice until we were too far away from New Eden to turn back.
“Come on,” I said, pulling on the back of Avian’s shirt. “We’d better get back or they’re going to know we’re missing.”
“Okay,” he said, looking her over one more time before he closed the doors and ran hand in hand with me back into the hospital.
I had just slipped into my room and set to gathering the last few things I needed into my pack when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Bill.
“Time to get rolling,” he said. Just then, West stepped out of his room from behind Bill.
“Okay, one second,” I said. I ducked back into my room, shouldering my pack and placing my Desert Eagle into its holster. Avian stepped out of his room the same time I did.
We were just walking past Lin’s room when she stepped out. Her hair was sticking in every which direction and she was wearing bright pink pajama pants. She looked very Lin.
“You weren’t going to sneak out without saying goodbye, were you?” she said, giving me the look of death.
I chuckled and crossed to give her a hug. “Of course not,” I said, giving her a tight squeeze. “I know the penalty for such would be a public stoning.”
“That’s right,” she said, patting my back before releasing me. “You be careful out there. You’re not immortal, you know.”
“I know,” I said, smiling back at her. “Take care of Tristan for me, will you?”
She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “You know I will.”
She quickly said goodbye to the crew and we made our way downstairs.
There was a small crowd waiting for us when we got to the kitchens. Royce, Gabriel, Dr. Beeson, Graye, and Tristan were all there, finishing up breakfast.
“There they are,” Tristan said with a wide grin when we stepped into view. “The reclamation team.”
I just shook my head and smiled.
The kitchen had already made us breakfast sandwiches with eggs and ham on them. We each grabbed one and headed for the back entrance. The others talked softly, going over details and plans and things I should probably be listening to. But my mind was on the back seat of the van.
My hands started sweating as we stepped outside the doors. My eyes darted to Avian’s. He looked as nervous as I felt.
I spotted a soldier across the street, escorting Dr. Evans to the solar tank. No one said a word as he climbed into the glass box in the front. Closing the door, he rolled down the window.
“This feels like watching you leave Eden all over again,” Gabriel said as he observed the van. “Not knowing if I’ll ever see you all again.”
“You saw what she did on the way back from the Redwoods,” Bill said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”
“I know,” Gabriel said, but his eyes said he didn’t.
“Get that kill code and get back as soon as you can,” Royce said. He shifted from one foot to the other. It was hard for him to let go of control over something so important. “Dr. Evans knows the stuff he needs for the transmitter at NovaTor. Get ‘em back as quick as you can so we can end all this madness.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I was and wasn’t surprised when he wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace. He pressed a quick kiss to my temple before letting me go. I considered briefly making some speech about how I didn’t need to know who my real father was or if he was still alive. Royce was all I could ask for, even if I was all grown up now.
But all I did was say a quiet “see you later.”
“You have no idea how bad I wish I could go on this mission,” Tristan said as I turned to him. He had a crooked smile on his face. “To see this freaky place where you were cooked up.”
“I wasn’t ‘cooked up’,” I said in mock offense. He just shook his head and pulled me into a quick hug. “Besides, you’ve got Lin here.”
“True,” he said, backing away and shaking Avian’s hand. “Fair trade I guess.”
“Bring them all back in one piece,” Royce said to Avian, shaking his hand next. “And you two,” he said, pointing at Bill and West. “I expect you to take the bullets for her, got it?”
The two of them both laughed, but I knew that they would, in fact, do it. I hated that I was so important that I would have to let them do it if it came down to that.
And that was all the goodbyes we could say.
Avian turned and opened the side doors and strategically placed himself in the third row of seats to block everyone’s view of Morgan. Bill climbed into the driver’s seat. I sat behind him and West sat at my side.
No one looked in that fourth row.
I turned and watched everyone else wave goodbye as we rolled out of the parking lot and into the street.
“You all ready for this kamikaze mission?” West bellowed, pounding against the glass that surrounded his grandfather.
Bill nodded, Dr. Evans didn’t respond at all.
“Yep,” I said, looking back at Avian. Both our eyes darted to Morgan’s still form.
I was ready for not just one impossible, crazy mission, but two.
NINE
“So, how much do you think will go wrong on this trip?” West said as he looked away from the side window.
“Given the last three months, I’m assuming everything is going to go wrong,” I said as I shook my head. We were headed northeast and were just outside our one hundred mile cleared circle. But there were no Bane around in these smaller towns, none of them rushing at us from the off ramps or chasing after us with helicopters.
Maybe the ones we’d seen just a few days prior were an isolated case.
Somehow I doubted that. Their absence out here made me uneasy.
“Yeah,” West said, looking out his window. “I think that’s probably a pretty safe assumption.”
“Things will go a lot smoother if you two would give up the ridiculous idea that we might find Eve One,” Dr. Evans said. He didn’t bother to turn and look at us. He simply stared out that front window.
“I have to try,” I said, my throat turning dry. I knew our odds of finding my sister. They were close friends with the number zero. But we had no idea if she would be shorted out the instant the transmitter went off. If we could, in fact, build the thing and set it off. I didn’t want to risk it. “She’s my sister.”