Paired Pursuit (14 page)

“Someone to distract me with, you mean. I know what you're doing, Finn, and I appreciate it, but this guy's a damn Shadow Fed. What the fuck does he want with Mari?”

“I don't know, but killing him isn't going to provide an answer.”

“You're right.”
Gareth took his foot away and there was a corresponding wheeze as the man got his breath.

“His name is Josh Hobart. He says he's a reporter from New York,” Mari supplied in a low voice.

“He's not. He's a Shadow Fed, one of the power-hungry assholes trying to topple the current government.” Finn spoke absently, still observing Hobart's every move.

“Dad says—said the current government only rules because everyone pretends they do.”

“Yeah, these guys don't want to pretend anymore. What did he want with you, Mari?”

“He said he had information about my father.” She peered ruefully up at him. “He did, but it wasn't anything I didn't know—and then he tried to strong-arm me into telling him anything I knew about the device Dad discovered.”

The flicker of worry in her brown eyes made him think that the bastard Shadow Fed was actually onto something. “Okay, Mari. Did you tell him anything?”

“No, but I need to talk to you and Gareth.” She lowered her voice to the point where a human wouldn't be able to hear her, but Finn had no problem. He inclined his head, acknowledging her silently.

“Gonna take him to the human jail,”
Gareth sent.
“That guy I dealt with yesterday should have something to keep him on his toes. Too much solar-powered solitaire might warp his brain.”

“Sure.”
Finn kept a lid on his surprise. The old Gareth would have required a bit more cajoling to back off.
“I'll take Mari inside, get her a drink and calm her down a bit. She's trembling.”

It wasn't long before Patrice and Mari were settled back inside, with a smug Rottweiler at their feet. Finn sensed that Mari didn't want to share the information before Gareth was back, so he busied himself making drinks, keeping a mental ear out in case Gareth needed anything.

But his Twin returned without incident, taking the seat next to Mari and tucking her under one muscular arm as he gave her a critical once-over. “You okay?”

Her dark head dipped in a nod. “Physically, yes. Mentally… Well, maybe with a good night's sleep. I read my father's diary. That man—Hobart—is right. Dad did discover a device, a communication device.”

Gareth nodded. “A couple of the scientists have a theory that the aliens might be able to call up some buddies. After the first ships invaded, there was a second wave about a month later. They studied the radar readings and found that a large concentration of them landed in the Arctic or Antarctic. That environment would aid cryogenic sleep.”

“Oh great,” Patrice interjected. “More Barks. Just what the world needs.”

“So the device my dad stole…” Mari trailed off, going a bit white.

“Wakey-wakey,” Finn said, disguising his worry in wryness.

“Surely those aliens would be more organized than that.” Patrice's words were laced with disgust. “Wouldn't there be more of those devices?”

“Maybe that's where the second half fits in,” Mari said. She glanced at the other side of the room as if she were frightened. “Patrice's daughter might have found another one.”

Finn nodded. “Makes sense there would be more than one. Think about it—we put up way more resistance than the Barks expected. We shot down one of their motherships just a few miles away from here, and our missiles obliterated a decent chunk of their fighting force midair. For all we know, they were used to prey that rolled over and died, so the fact that we fought back damaged their usual strategy.”

Finn wasn't merely parroting the scientists' favorite theory, he fully believed it. He'd also spent numerous hours in their file system, browsing information he probably wasn't supposed to see. He strongly suspected there was more to the Barks than met the eye, that they were a piece in a puzzle nobody had figured out yet.

“So…you do something with these devices, and they call up the sleeping Barks?” Patrice fixed him with a skeptical look. “That's a big range on these things. My late husband would've been in seventh heaven with a remote like that.”

“Given that they probably piloted that second wave of ships through space via remote control, that's very probable.” But Gareth cracked a smile at her phrasing.

“Okay. If these devices are remote controls,” Mari said, her voice wavering a little, “you should know that they're also being tracked by the Barks. My dad stole his out of an intact ship near Oregon. After that, every City we went to was attacked by increasing waves of aliens. When we went to Arizona, he left it here. From what I gather, the attacks here kept intensifying.”

“Ah, that explains a lot,”
Gareth sent.
“Makes sense that they'd have trackers attached.”

“We think one of them might be on that table over there,” Patrice said, gesturing to the other side of the room. We haven't been able to bring ourselves to look through it yet—I'm too damn sentimental, and Mari's scared.”

“I'm not scared,” Mari protested. “I'd rather not…touch it, though. The idea of being tracked gives me the creeps.”

“We'll deal with it,” Finn soothed. “Can I read Dr. Aquino's diary, Mari? I need to know what I'm looking for.”

Mari nodded. “Of course. Dad drew a few detailed diagrams.”

“Why are the Barks so bound and determined to get to these particular devices?”
Finn asked his brother while Mari went to fetch the diary.

“Could be that the others went down with their ships. Maybe these are the only ones left. Maybe Dr. Aquino was right, and they're two halves of a whole. Question is why the aliens are so determined to get at them.”

“Some of the researchers believe the aliens kept their females on the second wave ships.”

“Then they aren't going to give up looking. Let's find the things and get out of here.”

“I'm with you on that. Let's handle it carefully, though. Mari's pretty sensitive.”

“You think she feels guilty?”
Gareth would have been impatient with anyone other than Mari, but Finn sensed nothing but consideration from his brother.
“She was an adolescent when her parents took her from here.”

“I think she feels bad that her father inadvertently brought this upon Scar City
.
She feels guilty on his behalf.”

When Mari returned with the diary, Finn took her hand and squeezed it gently. “Look, there's a lot we don't know about the aliens. Your father couldn't have realized it was being tracked until too late—and what was he going to do about it? Turn around and give it to the Barks?”

“Maybe that would have saved this City.” Mari's hand remained limp in his.

“Hey now, this City hasn't fallen yet.” Patrice thumped her cane on the floor and rose, laboriously, to go into the kitchen. “For that matter, we haven't eaten yet either. You boys bring anything?”

“Got some bread in my pack,” Gareth offered.

“Good. I have jam. And I got canned peaches, which we might as well eat up if they're still good.”

Finn watched Mari perk up a little at that last. “Peaches?”

“In
syrup
.” With a flourish, Patrice produced a large can from her cupboard. “I've been saving this damn thing for nearly a decade, but…well, with the state of things, I don't want my granddaughter coming back to Scar City.”

“Have you thought of leaving yourself?” Finn didn't miss the way the elderly woman's shoulders tensed, the slightly too long pause before she answered. She was thinking about it.

“I've lived here for thirty years. I don't see myself upping sticks at this point.”

“Well, we're taking Mari to Chicago.” Gareth took the can opener from her shaky hand and earned a grateful look from Patrice. “You ought to come along.”

“I'm too old. I'd be a burden.”

“Nope. And you know that Tank would pine for you.” Gareth dipped a slim stick into the can of peaches, testing for botulism before he began doling out peach slices. The aroma was heaven to Finn's nose. The overly controlling scientists had frowned upon Twins eating anything outside of the officially sanctioned cafeteria, but they'd sometimes eaten at Hailey's house. And Hailey hadn't been much of a cook, so they'd eaten plenty out of cans.

“He would,” Patrice murmured. “Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, though.”

The food didn't last long, and Gareth rose to do the dishes.
“Now's the time to go root through all that junk on the table and see if there really is some kind of alien device hidden in there. I think we really need to find it and get the hell out of here.”

“Agreed,”
Finn replied, already cracking open the diary.

“When I was dropping the idiot Shadow Fed off at what passes as a government office, they were already drawing up battle plans for tonight. I promised them I'd drop by after dark and see if I could be of any help.”

“Good. They could probably use you.”

Mari snuggled up next to him on the couch, seeming all too happy to hand over some of the responsibility. There was a slightly glazed look in her brown eyes that spoke of stress and information overload. So he tucked her under his arm and began to read.

An hour later, he set the diary down, having read it from front to back. Mari was asleep on him and Patrice dozed in her armchair. Gareth sat nearby, idly stroking Tank while watching an action movie on his tablet. Finn was vaguely aware of the tinny sounds of explosions through Gareth's headphones.

“Anything interesting?”

“Yeah, there are two devices. Dr. Aquino stole one directly out of a spaceship, hid the thing somewhere in Scar City, and then felt guilty as hell afterward when he heard of increased alien attacks. But with his wife dead and him suddenly in sole charge of a young teenager, I don't blame him for not going back.”

“Hid the thing
somewhere
in Scar City? That's not exactly helpful.”

“He mentioned the south wall a few times, and that's where the attacks have been heaviest.”
Finn gently lowered Mari's head onto a pillow. “We have bigger fish to fry, though.”

“What?”

Finn strode over to the table in the corner, looking in mild dismay at the huge pile of random items. Several minutes later, he'd shoved aside everything obvious and stared down at a tangle of wires. Computer parts? Patrice had obviously made an attempt at keeping things tidy, placing the electronics inside a shallow cardboard box.

He almost missed the gray corner jutting from underneath a motherboard. Carefully, using his index finger and thumb, he pulled the thing free from the wires that had hidden it for so many years. Strange that a seemingly simple-minded alien race possessed such a sophisticated device, but he'd learned not to underestimate the Barks.

Gareth whistled as Finn held up the thin metal triangle, seemingly made out of the same gray material as the alien spaceships. Mari had been right—Patrice's daughter
had
managed to dig up a goddamn alien device.

“Dr. Aquino theorized he possessed one half of a whole. Here's the other half. Except…this is different from the diagrams in his notes.”
Finn sent.

“What's different about it?”

“It has extra…control parts—their equivalent of buttons that they can suck or whatever with their tentacles. This isn't the exact one that Dr. Aquino diagrammed.”

Gareth shook his head slowly.
“Yeah, it's different. So there are two of them in this City. This one, and the one Dr. Aquino hid.”

“Two? No wonder the aliens are going bonkers. Shit, with the state of those walls, we need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.”

Chapter Seven

Mari drifted into consciousness, sensing the tension in the room. She'd been propped against a pillow, but her feet were atop one of the men's legs. For a minute she let herself lie still, taking every scrap of comfort she could get, as if wrapping her hands around the lingering warmth of a just-emptied coffee cup on a winter's morning. Her only regret was that both Twins weren't there.

Reluctantly, she pulled away, sitting up and stretching. The sun was beginning to fade, late afternoon rays glinting in Finn's dark green eyes as he looked down at her. “Hey, beautiful.”

She couldn't resist a smile. When had she last felt so loved, so safe? It was strange to feel safe in a besieged City, but Finn's presence bolstered her confidence like nothing else. “Hi. Sorry for conking out on you.”

“Not a big deal. I think you needed the extra rest. Even Patrice went to her bedroom to lie down.”

“Where's Gareth?” Mari scanned the room, anxious to see the other Twin.

Finn didn't answer for a long moment. She glanced at his profile, trying to gauge what was wrong.

“Did you find it?” she whispered.

Finn nodded. “It's in my jacket pocket.”

She resisted the urge to lean away from him. Those stupid, stupid devices. He probably thought her father had been a total idiot to have kept the one he'd found, and even more of an idiot to hide it somewhere in the City.

Mari swallowed. “Where's Gareth?”

“Gareth went to the walls. He's concerned about them holding up. We've contacted the Complex and asked for rapid transport out of here, but it will still take at least twenty-four hours to arrange pickup.”

“You…plan to leave in the next day, then.” What happened to a week?

“Yeah.” He pulled a thin triangle out of his jacket and held it up. “Look at this.”

The world seemed to ice over. “Oh my God.” The words were a strangled murmur, barely forced out through a thick throat. “So Dad was right—Patrice's daughter did have one of the devices.”

“Yes, although this one looks different from the one Dr. Aquino sketched in his diary. Gareth briefed the Complex, and their theory is that they have something to do with each other. They also agree that the aliens can track these things—so Scar City has two things the Barks desperately want.”

“Or two halves, like my dad theorized.”

“Or that,” Finn agreed. “Kind of hard to know for certain.”

The air seemed lighter, easier to breathe. So her father
hadn't
singlehandedly brought down the alien's wrath upon this City. The aliens had been tracking Patrice's device as well. She only wished she could have told him before he'd passed away. Maybe then he'd have died feeling less guilty.

“So what happens now?” she asked.

“We defend the walls. Preferably while you sleep.” Gareth strode in, his normally serious face even grimmer. “And the powers that be want a closer look at what's causing all this ruckus.”

Mari watched as he turned the triangular apparatus this way and that. When he flipped it downward to carefully examine the outermost edge, she gasped. “That's what he meant by
failsafe
! The device he found is one half, just like he theorized. Look, if you turn it that way, you can see it isn't designed to be used on its own. It's designed to slot into—into another one, just like the strange door hinges on the spaceship I accidentally opened.”

The Twins digested that in silence. Then Gareth flicked a gaze her way. “Nice thinking.”

It wasn't lavish praise, but she glowed all the same. “It was my father who thought of it. He probably experimented with the one he had until he figured it out. He must have been really disappointed when he couldn't get hold of the other half—and then terrified when he realized the aliens must be tracking them.”

Jorge Aquino had been a peaceable, intelligent man who'd enjoyed building and inventing as a hobby. That was actually one of her earliest memories—him bent over the kitchen table, wiring some crazy contraption together. He'd been at it until after her bedtime with single-minded focus, to her mother's gentle exasperation.

“Good design, actually,” Finn was saying. “Halving the device means the aliens can't set it off by accident, and it forces their leaders to work together, spreading the power out.”

“I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when the bastards found out Mari's dad stole the other half.” Gareth held the device up to his commtablet until it emitted a faint beep. “There, pictures taken. Let them chew on that for the night.”

“While arranging transport, I hope.” Finn's voice was mild, but Mari felt that edge of tension.

“Either way, we've gotta hold out another night. No way around it. It's just a shame we can't find Dr. Aquino's half. Wait, what the hell? The thing beeped.”

“It did?” Mari blurted. She hadn't heard a thing, but apparently the Twins had.

“Really faint.” Gareth picked it up again. “Hey, maybe
it
can track the other half.”

“It's probably calling to its alien masters.” Finn's voice held a warning. “Mari, do you want to come with us or stay here?”

“Come with,” she said at the same time Gareth said, “Stay here.” They glared at each other briefly.

“She'll be safer with us.” Finn settled the argument in an uncharacteristically brusque manner. “Let's leave a note for Patrice and get this done with.”

The last of her sleep-induced bleariness wore off the instant she stepped into the street. Dusk was beginning to fall, and even the most hardcore junkies had found a nook to retire to, leaving the streets deserted. A stiff breeze roiled up a layer of old garbage, blowing faded plastic bags past their boots as they walked.

“Beeping's increased,” Gareth said.

“What did Command say about us finding this stupid thing?” Finn tucked Mari under his arm, keeping her between the two men, much to her pleasure.

“The leaders are very eager. They want us to report any results immediately, make this mission priority.” Gareth shrugged. “I think Dr. Felton has a hand in it. He's fascinated with anything alienkind.”

“And doesn't mind risking humankind to satisfy his curiosity,” Finn said dryly. “Fine. Let's assume if the frequency of beeps increases, we're either getting closer to the aliens—or its other half. Mari, any ideas where your father might have left his device?”

She mulled the question over as they turned the corner. “He spent a lot of time at the walls. I'd say he either buried it there or at our old place near the middle of the town. He wrote that he couldn't bear letting the aliens have it back, so probably he's left it near the wall in the hopes that if the aliens did breach the City, they'd grab it and not go rampaging through the middle. At least, not on the device's account.”

A pang of grief caught her unexpectedly, making her throat tight. Her father hadn't been perfect, but she'd always admired his thoughtfulness and thoroughness. His death was forcing her to come to terms with her mother's passing as well. At least she'd been able to scatter their ashes together. Cremation had been something they'd both insisted upon, since Barks dug up corpses and ate them, regardless of formaldehyde. So they were together again, their ashes eddying across Arizona.

Regrettably, Mari hadn't had the courage to construct a memorial outside the City walls. Born partly of necessity, partly of defiance, City denizens had replaced graveyards with memorial gardens, where hand-carved plaques and statues immortalized lost loved ones. Mari had commissioned a plaque for her father, but her terror of being outside the walls had stopped her from placing it personally in Flagstaff's memorial garden.

Someday
, she promised her parents, and held tight to Finn and Gareth.

“Where did you used to live, Mari?” Gareth asked. “We ought to swing by, see if the beeping changes.”

“Okay. I recognize this area. If we keep going this way, I can lead us there.”

They walked past a burned-out supermarket. Everything here was looted within an inch of its life, but Mari remembered scavenging a candy bar wedged between the top shelves of a nearby store. She and her parents had shared it that evening. Letting memory guide her, she led the Twins onward.

“Here.” She almost didn't recognize it, but that was definitely her apartment building, with its scarred door and small windows. What would her life have been like if her parents had stayed in this place?

A man shouted nearby, and a rat scuttled across old broken glass, its bare tail flicking as it disappeared down a grate. A pair of junkies stared sullenly from the stairwell, their pale eyes and shaky hands marking them as frequent users of Turquoise.

“It's not located around here.” Gareth broke the silence. “The beeping is slower, if anything.”

“Back toward the walls, then. You okay, Mari?”

She managed a weak smile for Finn. “I'm remembering, is all. Wondering what I might be like if we had stayed here.”

“Worse off,” was Gareth's fierce opinion. His green eyes raked her with that typical possessiveness of his, his grip on her arm tightening. “Let's get you out of here.”

Their first clue that something was really wrong was the increased activity at the wall. The place swarmed with soldiers and armed civilians. Technicians threw wires around, working to stow away the solar panels and set up UV lights…but even to Mari, they looked woefully underprepared.

One of the soldiers strode toward them, his sharp gaze assessing. “Only the one pair of you? It might be enough to hold the walls tonight, but we need a long-term solution.”

“We weren't sent to hold the walls—we're on a priority mission. And a good evening to you too.” Finn glanced over at his brother with what seemed to Mari to be a quelling gaze.

The soldier scrubbed at his face. “Sorry, my manners are a little short. We're in trouble. We flew a glider reconnaissance mission near dusk, and our pilot spotted a huge goddamn mass of Barks assembling in the shadow of the hills. So forgive me for saying this straight, but your priority mission ought to come second to staying alive.”

Some of the tension left Gareth's arm, and both men nodded. “Okay, fair enough,” Finn said.

“I'm Ramsey, by the way. Sergeant John Ramsey. You the ones who put in that evacuation request?”

“We are.”

“I did too, about an hour behind you. Crazy how it seems to deteriorate so quickly. Couple of weeks ago, I figured this place had another six months in her. Now…well.” Ramsey scrubbed at his face again. “I was there when Detroit fell. Got out by the skin of my teeth.”

“Lot of survivors got out of Detroit,” Gareth observed. “Your doing?”

Ramsey only shrugged. “Maybe in part. We had some luck on our side—and heavier equipment than we have here. I'd be obliged if you would take a look at our current setup, maybe help us get a battle plan going.”

The sergeant led them up several flights of concrete stairs, pausing occasionally to advise another soldier or lend a hand with a stray solar panel or cord. Two people winched up a large concrete block, wedging it into a gap near the middle of the wall.

“Thank God for small mercies,” Ramsey said, nodding toward the repairs going on. “We've got plenty of concrete and other building materials available. Those sons of bitches—pardon my language—do a real number on our walls. Those sucker legs
look
soft, but they can whip a man's head off. You can imagine what six of them, times several hundred, do to concrete over nine plus hours of darkness.”

“We've seen a few up close,” Gareth replied dryly.

“Yeah.” Ramsey shook his head as if waking up from a dream. “Of course you have. I've been dealing with rookies for months…lots of new recruits. Happy to have them, obviously, but I've been in the habit of explaining the nuts and bolts of everything for months now.”

“Don't worry about it,” Finn said, but the concern in his eyes belied his easygoing words. “We'll help as much as possible. Can you give us a list of soldiers? And maybe some extra UV lasers?”

“You got it. I'll give you a private room and maybe you can jerry-rig us up something. There's a lot of half-working parts that we haven't had the time to fix up. This location means we have plenty of juiced-up batteries, so there's that at least.”

Ramsey pulled out a set of keys and unlocked a badly fitted iron door, leading them into a kind of turret room. It held a table, chairs and piles of parts. Mari blinked at the jumble, wondering how on earth the Twins would be able to do anything with all those wires, cracked bulbs, metal rods and other things. But the men seemed confident, striding in and pulling out chairs.

“Here's the list,” Ramsey said, pulling out several folded pieces of paper. “And the key to the room. Feel free to lock yourselves in and get to work—but remember to get the key back to me. If we live through the night.”

The sergeant let out a harsh chuckle at his own grim joke, peeling the key off the ring and dropping it on the table. Mari nearly winced at the loud clang the metal made against the wood. Was the situation really that dire?

“Evacuation in less than twenty-four.” Gareth's voice was calm, soothing the edgy mood in the room. “We concentrate on getting through the night, then we can refocus on the bigger picture.”

“I'm on it. See you on the wall.” Ramsey snapped a crisp salute and turned on his heel, closing the door behind him.

“You're more diplomatic than I am sometimes, you know,” Finn said to his brother.

“He was recently promoted. Leadership is stressing him out.”

“How do you know that?” Finn asked.

Mari listened to them chat, trying to quell the fear she felt at the idea of the walls falling. She twisted a wire in her hand, wishing she could turn it into a weapon, yet the thought of actually using it on the aliens made her skin crawl. She had her gun tucked into the waistband of her skirt, but that was small comfort.