Peterson Air Force Base’s medical center had lost power along with the majority of the installation’s facilities. The few emergency lights that had survived the EMP granted a dull glow to the otherwise darkened corridors. The NEA had evacuated the medical center’s patients to the airfield. Alex thought this odd but supposed it made sense; the NEA wanted everyone in one place to make it easier to watch for troublemakers. Now, only a single patient remained in the building.
Alex followed Webb through the empty lobby. He held a flashlight and kept the beam low toward the floor. His tense frown and furrowed brow revealed his aggravation. The shadows exaggerated the expression, darkness blending into the membranes over his eyes and skull. He hadn’t spoken since their departure from the command area, barely looking at Alex and refusing to acknowledge any of her questions. While Resnick’s decision had clearly upset Webb, Alex felt pleased. She had taken a risk by setting conditions on her cooperation but it had paid off. As she glanced at the bandage on the side of Webb’s head, she only hoped things wouldn’t backfire.
They soon encountered three NEA soldiers in the hallway. The men wore ballistic plate carriers and helmets and held shotguns and submachine guns at the ready. The leader of the group nodded to Webb and said, “This way, sir.”
A dozen more soldiers occupied the corridors. About half of the men remained in place while the others fell in behind Alex and Webb. All of them looked nervous. They aren’t taking any chances, Alex thought. After Fort Riley, she couldn’t blame them.
A final pair of soldiers waited at the open door into Nicole’s room. Industrial light stands illuminated the stretch of hallway. Extension cables snaked from the lights off into the darkness toward a humming generator. Additional cables led into the room. Alex and Webb went inside while the soldiers spread out down the corridor.
The room was small. Two men stood in opposite corners. One held a shotgun at the ready but the second was unarmed. Alex noted his name and rank: Major Freeman.
Nicole lay on a hospital bed beneath thick sheets except for her right arm and face. The color had returned to her skin. She looked peaceful as if sleeping normally instead of under sedation. An IV line protruded from her arm while several leads ran from beneath the covers into a beeping EKG. Alex went to the bedside, took Nicole’s right hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Is everything ready?” Webb said.
“Her condition is stable,” Freeman said. “She should wake up a few minutes after I administer the injection.”
“My men will shoot her if she tries to escape,” Webb said to Alex. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Alex said.
“I expect you to explain the situation once she wakes up. Make sure nothing… unfortunate happens.”
Alex didn’t reply. Webb held her gaze for a long moment before turning to Freeman. “Do it.”
Freeman raised a hypodermic needle from a tray beside the bed and inserted it into Nicole’s IV. He injected the contents and then retreated to watch the EKG. Alex continued to hold Nicole’s hand. After a few minutes, Alex noticed a subtle furrowing of Nicole’s brow. Then it went away.
“Nicki,” Alex said. “It’s me. Alex. Wake up. Everything’s okay.”
No response.
“What’s going on? Why isn’t she waking up?”
Webb approached and studied Nicole. The soldier with the shotgun moved closer as well.
Webb looked to Major Freeman, “Well?”
“I don’t know, sir, it’s …”
Freeman’s voice faded into a background echo. Alex felt that the room had tipped backward. Her vision wavered and blurred as if frost had formed on her corneas. She tried to rub her eyes but her arm wouldn’t move. Slowly, robotically, her head turned as if something were taking control and surveying the room. As her gaze passed each of the men, their figures resolved before returning to a hazy blur as her eyes moved on. Webb was first, standing at the bedside and peering at Nicole’s face. The soldier with the shotgun stood across from him. Major Freeman remained nearby. He had placed the empty hypodermic needle on the bedside tray. Alex’s right hand touched her upper thigh and mechanically patted her jeans. That’s where my holster usually sits, she thought distantly but nothing was there. Her vision cleared.
What…? What just— She had no time to complete the thought.
She was at first only aware that Nicole’s hand had vanished from her grip. Then a concussive blast drove spikes into her ears and set tuning forks ringing inside her skull. She stumbled backward and fell, looking up in time to see a tiny silhouette in a blue hospital gown half-suspended above the bed. Nicole’s feet struck the face of the soldier with the shotgun. The blast had obliterated several tiles on the ceiling.
Nicole planted one of her arms into the mattress and spun on her elbow as she kicked away from the soldier, using her momentum to propel herself off the bed. She landed in a crouch beside Alex and sprung forward, slamming into Webb and knocking him into the corner of the room. Panicked shouts competed with the ringing in her ears. The soldiers outside rushed into the room with their weapons raised. Four of them managed to get inside before the rest jammed the doorway. Across the room, Nicole sat behind Webb with her arm locked around his neck. She held the empty syringe from the bedside against his carotid artery.
“Put it down!” one of the men screamed.
“Shoot her!” Webb shouted. “Take the shot!”
Nicole tightened her hold around his neck and pressed the needle into his skin. A drop of blood leaked from Webb’s neck and trickled to his collar. “Back off! Get the hell away or this freak is dead!”
“It’s empty!” Webb said. “Just shoot—”
Nicole clamped down on Webb’s airway.
“Wait!” Major Freeman said. “If she injects that air, it will kill him!”
“Damn right! Now back off!”
Alex pushed herself up from the floor but one of the soldiers whirled and aimed his weapon at her face. “Stay down!”
Alex ignored him. “Everyone stop!”
Her words seemed to freeze the room. The soldier aiming at Alex looked nervously at one of his companions, then at Major Freeman. No one offered any advice.
“Nicki,” Alex said. “It’s me. Everything’s okay. Let him talk.”
“Bullshit everything is okay. The hell is going on here?”
Webb’s face had begun to turn purple. One of the soldiers near the room was aligning the sights of his submachine gun at Nicole’s head. Nicole was fast but not fast enough to slam her thumb down on the plunger before a bullet tore into her skull.
“Just trust me,” Alex said. “Please.”
Nicole hesitated and then let up the pressure against Webb’s airway. She kept the needle against his neck.
“Colonel, tell them to let me through!” Alex said.
Webb croaked, “Do it.”
The men parted to allow Alex to approach. An animal glint shone in Nicole’s multicolored eyes. Yet even more off-putting was her friend’s sadistic smile. “This is the freak that shot your dad,” Nicole said. “He got me good, too. I can end him for you right here. We’ll take out the rest of them easy.”
Blood had begun to spread through Nicole’s hospital gown. The stain centered on the knife wound to her stomach. Nicole’s stitches must have torn during her leap from the bed.
“Listen to me,” Alex said. “The war is over. The NEA won. But I need your help. I’ll explain everything. I promise. You don’t need to hurt him. Just let him go and everything will be okay. Right, Colonel?”
Webb looked up at the soldier who held the submachine gun aimed at Nicole’s head. Then he grunted and said, “Fine.”
“Tell them not to shoot,” Alex insisted.
Webb glared at her and then said slowly, “No one is to fire.”
“See, Nicki? You heard him.”
“You expect me to trust this freak?
“Trust me.”
Nicole sighed and muttered, “I’m going to regret this.” She winced, glanced at the expanding bloodstain on her gown, and then released her grip and gave Webb a hard shove. He tumbled face-first onto the floor with the needle still in his neck. The soldiers began to move forward but Webb got up to one knee and waved them off before ripping the needle free.
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Alex rushed to Nicole’s side and knelt. Major Freeman approached with a gauze bandage. He started to unwrap it but Nicole held out her hand. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Ma’am, the bleeding could be –”
Nicole snatched the bandage from Freeman. “Then I guess it sucks to be me, doesn’t it?”
Webb stood and growled, “Everyone out. Now.” He pointed to the nearest soldier’s sidearm. “Give that to me.” The man handed over the Beretta and then followed the rest of the guards. Webb went to the door and shut it once the men were outside. He wiped the blood from his neck and then drew back on the handgun’s slide to inspect the chamber.
“Going to shoot me?” Nicole said casually as she unrolled the bandage and lifted her hospital gown. “Looks like I got you pretty good.” She grinned and tapped the side of her head close to where she had shot Webb. He didn’t reply.
Nicole wrapped the bandage around her stomach. She looked up at Webb, who watched her carefully and held the Beretta in both hands. “Enjoying the view?” Nicole said.
Webb diverted his gaze to look at Alex. His expression seemed to say, Deal with this.
Nicole finished securing the bandage and stood, keeping one hand against her wound. She approached Webb. “You’re the first person that’s ever taken me down. You know that?”
“Get back,” Webb said.
Nicole continued forward, looking him over, studying his face and the black membrane. When she was within arm’s length, Webb raised the handgun. “I said get back.”
Nicole regarded the handgun with an amused smile. “You know, I could grab that and shoot you before you could blink an eye. Action is faster than reaction. Probably wasn’t such a good idea to send your men outside.”
“Try it,” Webb said.
Nicole retreated to the bed, hopped onto the mattress, and sat with her feet dangling over the side. “Maybe some other time,” she said before turning to Alex. “Mind telling me what the hell is going on here?”
Alex went to Nicole and studied the red stain on her friend’s hospital gown. The blood was no longer expanding but she remembered what Major Freeman had said, Ma’am, the bleeding could be – Alex thought she knew what his next word would have been: Internal.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Trust me,” Nicole said. “So what about it? Why are you and this freak suddenly all buddy-buddy? And what the hell do you mean we lost the war?”
“It’s… a long story. A lot’s happened.”
“No shit.”
Alex sat beside Nicole. She wanted to explain everything that had happened since the escape from Fort Riley. But there was so much and now it all seemed jumbled into a chaotic mess impossible to untangle. Then as if her body were acting with a will of its own, she turned and hugged her friend. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was so worried. I thought… I thought you wouldn’t make it.” She tried to blink away the sudden wetness in her eyes, but the tears instead escaped and trickled down her cheeks.
The memories came back: the flight from Fort Riley in the Black Hawk’s chilly cabin, the blood covering her face and hair and clothes, the shower in the tiny stall at Salina, and watching the red water swirl down the drain.
Nicole put an arm around Alex. “Jesus, girl,” Nicole said. “Calm down.” But Alex could not. The tears persisted even as she tried to tell herself that Webb was only a few feet away, that she didn’t want to appear weak, and that she hated being a tearful, emotional woman. She wished she were alone in her room where she could curl up in her bed and cry alone into her pillow instead of Nicole’s shoulder.
“I can help,” Nicole said with surprising care and then moved her hand to Alex’s forehead. “You don’t have to explain anything. Just let me see.”
Alex nodded.
The room lost focus.
---
This is not what Alex has experienced before. In the past, when Nicole has initiated the strange link, the memories have come through Alex’s eyes. Now, she is, sitting alone on a folding chair. Everything around her is darkness, an empty voice. No walls and no ceiling. Only a small, circular portion of the floor within a halo of light with no discernible source. Alex begins to stand but then—
Wait.
The voice speaks directly into her mind. Is it Nicole or…?
The scenes appear one-by-one like a giant wall of television screens. The displays blink to life, moving left to right and then down to the next row. A giant timeline showing the past two days. Her memories. Some of the scenes are blurry, missing details here and there, but others are clear and bright.
The timeline starts with Alex and Nicole breaking out from Cheyenne Mountain and moves to Fort Riley and Washington DC and back to Colorado. There is sound, too: gunfire, voices, and explosions. The noises fade in and out.
Martin speaks to her in the church, You look so much like her, Alexandra. His voice is a hoarse whisper. This is one of the clearest memories. For an instant, it takes over the wall as all of the monitors join into one. Martin’s face is there, larger than life, his mask, and his watery steel-blue eyes. Then the image recedes and the timeline reestablishes itself.
A green sun transforms the night into day above the Rocky Mountains. The room shakes as if about to tear apart. Alex smells smoke. They are outside the crashed C-130. A thunderous, booming roar passes overhead. The Valkyrie speeds toward Cheyenne Mountain before banked toward the east and disappearing into the darkness.
She is inside the trench on the ridgeline. The screen turns pure white as artillery rounds smash into the ground and detonate. The floor quakes with each explosion. Then everything goes quiets as the screens fade into black.
She has closed her eyes. She is concentrating. Her awareness expands over the battlefield. The screens encompass the war zone; they have grown larger, curved to envelop her beneath a giant dome. The tanks, the soldiers, the weapons. Everything appears around her. Then that monotone, disembodied voice.
Stop.
The screens turn red.
She is looking at Shepherd while holding the gun against the base of her neck. But the images are no longer on the screens. Everything has collapsed inward. She is in the trench. She is in her own head, seeing through her own eyes. She feels herself losing control, feels the strange alien darkness moving through her veins and arteries. The darkness wants to take over. She tries to fight it. She needs to give Shepherd time to save himself.
“Do it. Stop me. Now.”
Shepherd tries to protest. “Alex—”
“Do it! There’s no time. I don’t know how long—”
Searing pain erupts across the entirety of her body as if she has fallen into a vat of boiling grease. The heat is cooking her alive. She grits her teeth and continues to fight, to concentrate, to maintain control. The world is turning dark. The red curtain over her vision fades to black. She keeps her eyes locked with Shepherd and whispers, “Please.”
The world goes dark. The last thing she sees is Shepherd’s intense brown eyes, conflicted, worried, and scared. It is not a pleasant image.
She expects the vision to end but the darkness persists.
Rain patters from above. Droplets against the shelter of an umbrella. Wet grass appears beneath her feet. Old trees rise throughout the grounds. Their leaves have vanished, turning them into great arrangements of branching veins and capillaries bursting through the earth. Marble headstones stretch as far as she can see.
She is holding her father’s hand. Other people are here, too. Most of the attendees are wearing black dresses and suits, but her father and another man beside him have on formal military uniforms. She is small, much shorter than her father. The top of her head barely reaches his waist.
The casket rests a few feet away. A man stands next to it, reading out of a Bible. A woman holds an umbrella over his head. Alex cannot hear his words. His face is blurry. Almost all of the men and women appear this way. They are ghosts. She looks up at her father. His hand is trembling. The uniformed man next to them is crying as well. She would think that raindrops were pouring down his cheeks if not for the umbrella above his head. His eyes are steel-blue. The epaulets of his uniform display polished silver eagles. The nameplate on his uniform reads Martin. He looks down and tries to smile, to offer some comfort, but even at her young age, she knows that the expression is hollow, forced. Yet, there is something behind those eyes, something that has appeared only now, a look that tells her she could trust this man with her life. He loves her just as much as her father loves her.
The images blur and reorganize themselves. They are still in the cemetery but now she is in the backseat of a car. Martin and her father stand outside. They embrace. Her father speaks in a low, throaty tone, “I’ll get her back, John. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll get her back.”
Martin says nothing. They draw apart and her father gets into the car. Soon, they are away. Alex turns in her seat and looks out the back window. Martin stands alone as the rain drowns the cemetery, and for a moment, Alex thinks, he catches her eyes. Then the scene becomes the same grey as the overcast sky before dissolving into black.
---
Nicole’s amber and emerald eyes are bright nebulas surrounding shrinking black holes. Alex sat frozen, unable and perhaps unwilling to look away. Nicole blinked and shook her head. It broke the spell.
“Damn, you’ve had a busy day,” Nicole said.
Alex couldn’t help but smile. Tears clung to her cheeks and gathered near her chin but the crying had stopped.
Webb began to ask, “What did the two of you just—”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Nicole said and then patted Alex on the shoulder. She stood from the bed and approached Webb. Nicole’s movements were slow and deliberate but somehow fluid like a cobra swaying back-and-forth trying to hypnotize its prey. The effect seemed to work. Webb kept his handgun lowered, allowing Nicole to come almost face-to-face with him.
“I’ve always been curious about you, Colonel,” Nicole said in a sly voice. “You’ve been on my target of opportunity list as long as I can remember. It’s so nice knowing a little bit more about you – living on your own for so long, having to take care of yourself, no parents. We’re a bit alike, you and I.”
So she got that, too, Alex thought. The memories I got from Webb. Strangely, she felt upset, as if Nicole had stolen something, a precious object that Alex had not wanted to give up. The feeling passed quickly.
Nicole raised a hand toward the membrane covering Webb’s eyes. Alex thought for a moment that he would let her touch it, perhaps even peel it away to reveal what was hidden beneath. Then Webb grabbed Nicole’s wrist and pushed her away.
“I’m not interested in your games. I’m nothing like you.”
Nicole smiled. “Come on. We just met. I know we had a bit of a… shall we say… altercation. But I’m willing to forgive and forget.” She glanced back at Alex and said innocently, “You didn’t say anything bad about me, did you?”
“She didn’t have to say anything. I know exactly who you are.” He addressed Alex, “Do you know how many people your friend has murdered? How many people she’s assassinated?”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “Of course she knows. We’re good friends. Best friends, in fact. We tell each other everything. I don’t see why you’re so bothered about it. It’s not like I killed your people. At least not until you started the war. And after that, well… all’s fair, isn’t it?”
“General Park gave us your files. You targeted unarmed civilians. You were tasked with killing anyone who spoke out against the Directorate, anyone in the territories who even hinted they might be interested in joining the NEA.”
“Well… that’s speculation,” Nicole said.
Alex hoped Webb was wrong. It was true Nicole killed people for the Directorate, but the stories her friend told were of missions against their enemies: armed rebels targeting friendly outposts, anarchists raiding supply convoys bound for the outer settlements, thieves, murderers – never unarmed civilians. But Nicole’s casual response and the lack of even a solid denial was troubling. And there was something else, a smile that crossed Nicole’s lips as if she were reliving a pleasant memory. She went on offhandedly, “I’d be more willing to discuss it but we are enemies after all. I don’t think you have the proper clearances.”
“The war’s over,” Alex said weakly.
Nicole shrugged. “What was it your dad said in that broadcast? ‘Do not stand down. Do not disarm.’ Inspiring, really. Don’t know about you but I’m inclined to listen.”
“You can easily be put back under sedation,” Webb said.
“No, I don’t think so. I know all about Alex’s little deal with President Resnick. Thanks, by the way. Much appreciated. So, Colonel, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.” She approached him again and put her hand on his arm before leaning in close. “So why don’t we make the best of it?”
Before Webb could react, Nicole returned to the bed and sat beside Alex. She crossed her legs, planted her elbows into her thighs, and rested her chin on both her hands, cocking her head slightly as she gave Webb a pleasant grin.
“And, by the way,” Nicole said, looking down at her bloody hospital gown, “how about some clothes?”