Genesis (Extinction Book 1) (12 page)

The first thing Mel became aware of was the burning pain in her chest. The second was the ache in her shoulders and knees. The third was unrelieved darkness.

Like an afterthought compared to the pain in her chest and arms, a hundred small scratches and cuts burned across her face and arms from the shrapnel that had flown through the cockpit when they crashed.

When she attempted to shift to a different position to alleviate the pull on her arms, she rolled over face first, on cold stone covered with a thin layer of water. Choking and sputtering on water that left a nasty taste in her mouth, she came fully awake.

Flailing to get rolled back over, she found herself trussed up like a pig with her hands and feet tied behind her back. Her flight suit had been stripped away, leaving her chilled in the cold water with nothing to protect her but her gym shorts and undershirt.

Rolling onto her side, she forced her bare feet up, putting enough slack in the line to grab the rough twine with her hands. Running her fingers over the knots and twists, it took only a few moments to figure out how to get her feet loose. Actually doing it was another matter altogether.

Exhausted, she let the line pull tight again to rest before setting to work on the knots. The pain in her shoulders reasserted itself like hot coals responding to a kiss of wind.

“Mel?” Eagle’s voice, barely a whisper in the dark, seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, kid. I’m here.”

A quiet rustling and the sloshing of water drifted to her, followed by a thump. “What happened? Where are we?”

A sleepover at Harry Houdini’s
, she thought. Reigning in her own fear and frustration, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The kid couldn’t help it and a smart remark from her wasn’t going to do either of them any good. “We were hit, kid. Remember, the helicopter going down? My guess is we’re in a Chinese hole.”

“Where’s Gunny?”

She hesitated. The boy deserved a glimmer of hope, but her gut said Gunny had been true to his hateful word. The
SOB
had bailed on them. If the intel they had collected over the last ten years was true, what were two dead Marines in the grand scheme of things?

“Dead,” she lied. “Tried to get out of the harness to get secured after we rolled. Went out the gunwale when I lost control.”

“Jesus.” In the darkness, his soft voice shook.

“Don’t do it, kid,” Mel snapped. “Don’t you dare start crying.”

A sniff. “It’s just—”

“It’s just nothing. You’re a Marine and we are not dead yet, so suck it up. Do you get me?”

“Yes.” The first word was weak, then his voice grew stronger. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Unless they could get free, this nightmare was only beginning. The slightest sign of weakness and the Chinese would zero in on him, make things worse. She knew it, and if he’d been paying attention in Basic, so did he. “What’s your status?”

“Trussed up like Christmas turkey. Wet, cold.” He hesitated, then added, “Head feels like my first week under Gunny’s command. Chest feels like it’s been used for target practice.”

“You took a beating in the crash. As for the chest, I don’t know what they used but it feels like a stun grenade went off in my bra.”

Mel smiled as Eagle choked back a donkey’s bray of laughter. That was more like it. Panic and fear would do nothing but clog up their thinking and feed their captors. They wouldn’t be able to block it out completely, but they had to try.

Working her feet closer to her hands, Mel gave the knot another try. Rustling in the dark told her Eagle was probably doing something similar. “Before the dance started upstairs, you said you had some signals. What did you see?”

“I’m not sure,” he grunted. His voice sounded strained and Mel hoped he was having better luck than she was. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Ultra high frequency, almost like natural radiation interference, only louder, higher. There was also some kind of digital signature.”

“That sounds a lot like gibberish to me.” She couldn’t tell if it was her imagination, or if the knot was starting to give way. She relaxed to take the pressure off her knees, hips and shoulders, but not enough to pull the knot tight again. “Dumb it down for the stick monkey.”

“There’s always background radiation. Always. Cosmic radiation from the sun, quasars, just crap floating through space. Our atmosphere filters out a lot of it, but it’s still there. This sounded a lot like the residual stuff we filter out, just more intense. Almost as if it wasn’t being filtered at all. As for the digital undersC.O.R.E, some kind of tech. A computer maybe. But not like anything I’ve ever heard before. Got it!”

The soft sounds of rustling grew louder and she doubled her efforts at her own knot, sure now that the knot was loose. “What’s your guess?”

The only sound that met her ears for a moment was a miserable groan, and then a sigh of relief followed by what might have been him falling back into the water. “Hands are in front. Shoulders need a minute to recover. If I had to guess, I’d say some kind of machine with a new power source. And it’s big. Huge. I was pulling that signal for almost a mile.”

The knot gave way and mimicking Eagle’s sound of relief, she fell back. Laying on her arms hurt like hell, but it was better than the constant pressure. By inches, she forced her knees and hips to straighten out. “There was nothing here. Nothing.”

“It has to be buried, or it would have been picked up by satellites. As for the noise, it’s just not possible that no one has heard it yet. I think I was getting bleed from it before we ever crossed over land. I just filtered it and kept going until it got too loud to doubt what I was hearing.”

Still pinned at the wrists and ankles, she worked her hands under her butt until she could get them in front of her. Sitting up, resting her head on her knees, she asked, “You’re positive it wasn’t natural?”

“I’m not positive of anything. I’d need to hear it again, run it through the systems, but I’d bet a paycheck on it.”

Freeing her feet went faster, but it took several tries before her legs held her weight. There was nothing she could do about her wrists, no way to bend them that would allow her access to the knot.

She trapped the end of the twine under her bare foot and worked her hand down the line, wrapping the length of it around one hand. She held it in her fist while she felt around in the darkness. It didn’t take long to run into what felt like bars. Continuing the search, she asked, “Are you up?”

“Working on it.”

“The cell feels small, no furniture, no plumbing. Nothing.”

After a moment, Eagle answered back. “Same here. 8 X 8, none of the amenities of home. I’m going to complain to the hotel manager.”

“Let me know how that works out for you.”

As they talked, Mel tried to follow the sound of his voice. When her fingers touched flesh, she jerked them back before her brain caught up. When she found Eagle’s hands again, she latched on. Marines or no, the comforting feel of living flesh in this dark nightmare was overwhelming.

Leaning her head against the bars, his forehead found hers and neither spoke for several long moments. For Mel, she was afraid her voice would betray her. Uttering a single word would bring tears that she could not afford. Maybe later, when the situation either improved… or got worse, she would remove the leash on her emotions. Until then, she refused to breakdown.

When they withdrew from each other, they took turns reaching through the bars to untie each other’s wrists. It was awkward and required several contortioned attempts. Except for still being locked in what amounted to a prison cell, they were finally free.

“They got us in here somehow,” Eagle said at last. “We need to find the doors.”

“All right. You look for the lock and I’ll see if I can find something useful on the floor.”

“It’s gross down there.” The laughter in his voice was well concealed, but she still heard it. “Want me to do the dirty work?”

“Please,” Mel laughed. “Remember the spider in the latrine on the Garrote? You’re too much of a girl.”

“I’ve got your
girl
right here,” he snorted. “But if you insist.”

“That’s what I thought.” Since her bare feet had touched nothing inside the cell, she moved to the next wall of bars and got down on her knees. Despite her taunt to Eagle, she had to screw up her courage to reach through the bars, much less to fish around in the two inches of stagnant water on the floor.

Her eyes searched the darkness around her as her hand felt for anything loose that they might use to jimmie the locks. Since regaining consciousness, there had been no other sound except for those they made. No light, no wind. For all intents and purposes, they were alone. “Let’s keep it that way,” she whispered.

“Found it. Facing your cell, it’s at my 8 o’clock. Just above waist high.”

Turning her body to mimic his direction, it put the lock right above her head. She slid her hands up the bars and felt the bars next to them until she found two joined by a metal box. On the outside, she found the large keyhole. “Please tell me you know how to pick locks.”

“Used to break into my neighbor’s house all the time, swap his whiskey with water. At least until he caught on. This is different though.”

Back on her knees, Mel resumed her search. “A lock is a lock, right? Same premise?”

“Lord, I hope—”

Light, blinding after being trapped in darkness for so long, filled the room. Mel dropped her head and turned away to protect her eyes but the damage was done. Even as she tried to adjust, dark circles swam in her field of vision.

Footsteps, slow and measured, slapped at the water covering the rock floor. Mel tried to work out how many, but the sound of their hard steps after the tomb-like stillness was daunting.

As the sound grew closer, someone began to clap, slowly, as if counting the measure for a piece of music. Mel thought it more likely the person was mocking their efforts at escape and forced her eyes towards the bright lights.

One man, American, stood amid a half circle of Chinese soldiers. His face was scarred on one side. Looked almost melted. Nevertheless, she recognized her childhood sweetheart turned tormentor. “Bishop.”

“That was quite entertaining, Melanie,” he smiled, but the scar twisted it, turning it into a rictus grin. “You look like shit.”

“Well.” She laughed despite the flood of fear-induced adrenaline brought on by Bishop’s presence. “At least I can take a shower. What the hell happened to your face?”

The smile vanished and Bishop turned to the officer next to him, nodding his head. As two soldiers stepped forward, the key flashing toward the lock, Mel backed up to the other side of the cell. Releasing one end of the twine, she let it hang limp behind her back, waiting.

The only chance she had of helping Eagle was to behave, acquiesce. To a point. There was no way she was going to willingly let Bishop put his hands on her.

When the soldiers were in her cell, they moved to either side in an attempt to force her between them. One lunged. She ducked and spun under his arms, bringing the twine up and wrapping it around his neck like a garrote.

As soon as it passed his chin she put her knee in the man’s back, crossed her hands behind his head and pulled it tight even as she backed into a corner to keep him between her and the other soldier.

A shot rang out, deafening in the rock chamber, followed by a scream. Surprised by the sudden sound, she turned to see Eagle doubled up on the floor, his hands working hard to staunch the flow of blood from his gut.

Screaming, she shoved the choking man out of her way and rushed for the door. Two steps in, hands grabbed at her clothes, skin, and hair, bearing her down to the floor. Knees in her back pinned her there while the hand gripping her hair shoved her face in the water.

Though shallow, the water was deep enough to cover her nose and mouth. Unprepared, she fought to get her face turned enough to get air and only succeeded in choking on the foul water as her arms were wrenched behind her back and cuffed.

Using her arms as handles, they yanked her up. A brief glimpse of Eagle as they began dragging her out of her cell was all it took to renew her efforts. His eyes, blazing with rage, were on her. One hand still tried to hold back the flow of his life’s blood while the other clawed at the rock floor. Dying, dragging himself across the floor, Eagle was still trying to help her.

Mel kicked out with her feet, shoving her body to the side to slam her captors into the bars, trying to break free. Just as their grip failed, another shot echoed through the chamber.

Mel froze. In the silence that followed, she knew the kid was dead.

Whether it was an attempt to remember how to breathe or an effort to scream, she didn’t know, but her mouth hung open, working to do something, anything. Closing her eyes tight, she turned her head toward Eagle’s body and had to force herself to open them, to bear witness.

Footsteps, moving to stand in front of her, pulled her attention forward. When she looked up at Bishop there was no fear, no rage. Ice cold hatred settled over her. If he had pulled a gun and aimed it at her forehead, it would not have raised her emotional temperature a single degree.