Rage (34 page)

So close.

“Get in!” Elizabeth said.

The craft hovered, rocking back and forth, actually banging into the rocks, as Raine dragged Marshall closer. Had Loosum bought them enough time?

The mutants weren’t firing—which meant that he and Marshall were hidden by the rocks here. But they had to be only seconds behind.

Portman had left his weapon to help haul Marshall in. Raine leaped without help, freed of the captain’s dead weight.

Portman’s two strong arms grabbed him at his forearms, pulling him into the ship.

Raine was surprised, then, to find that instead of rising, instead of flying up as he expected, the airship dropped down.

He thought:
Are we too heavy? Is the thing sinking?

But as he saw Marshall sprawled on the desk, he caught Elizabeth talking to Portman. Saw that she was in control. And Raine could put together what was happening. They were dropping as far down as they could, to get lost in the jutting rocks of the gorge, to where they could level out … and follow the gorge basin away.

A plan. A goddamned plan.

But then Raine heard the familiar sound of bullets, now ripping into the deck. A few shots into the balloon of the ship and they would simply crash to that basin floor, and wait for the Enforcers to come down—if it even mattered at that point.

Raine looked up to see where the shots came from.

Something in the sky.

“Goddamned
hovercraft!
” Portman said. “Shit.”

“Got to make us weave,” Elizabeth said. “Hold on.”

Raine looked over to Marshall, who really only had one hand to hold on. He saw that the captain had locked that hand onto one of the mastlike pieces of wood at the ship’s center.

Raine held on to the ship’s edge as it began to veer right and left.

He heard more bullets, landing dangerously close.

We’re sitting ducks here.

But when he looked forward, he saw Portman at the weapon at the ship’s prow, both the cannon and its user dark shapes. The
bore of the small cannon now pointed up at a sixty-degree angle.

And finally Portman started firing.

The cannon produced shakes in the ship, a recoil that sent the airship knocking against the gorge’s side. Portman kept firing, shot after shot.

Raine saw a bullet tear into the balloon; had to be a few there already. Was there enough lift in the balloon to keep this thing in the air, this flying technology ancient and absurd?

Like a rejoinder to his disparaging thoughts, an explosion from above them produced a brilliant fireworks display as the Authority hovercraft exploded.

While the balloon craft kept moving forward.

And for the first time in a long time, Raine didn’t hear any gunfire.

They weaved their way along the gorge bottom, the only sounds the wind and the ship’s boiler.

Portman had moved over to the wheel while Elizabeth crouched beside Marshall, tending to his wound. With the amount of blood he’d lost, there was no telling if he’d survive … even after all they’d gone through.

Raine thought of Loosum.

The feelings … overwhelming. Confusing.

He saw a bit of color in the east.

The dark night finally giving way to the first hint of the sun about to rise.

And finally he let himself close his eyes.

F
rom the moment they reached the Resistance base, Elizabeth and Portman raced around, grabbing things, rushing.

Marshall, bandaged, sat in a chair to the side.

“What about the file cabinets?” Elizabeth asked the rebel leader, now back in charge.

Lassard turned away from his terminal. “Don’t worry, Elizabeth. Got them all backed up.”

“Then just blow that stuff,” Marshall said. “Leave them
nothing.
”

Marshall looked over at Raine.

“You all right, Raine? I owe you a big debt of gratitude.”

“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.

I
n 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.

But though linked, each Ark was its own entity.

Each had dominion over its own planned time for emergence, its own response system to emergencies.

That had been core to the Ark Project.

No longer.

Something new registered as each Ark continued to get signals from the other Arks.

And the code being executed carried with it all the information needed for each Ark to act in self-preservation.

A false reading of danger. Mimicked in each Ark’s computer, simultaneous, and not recognized as false. Danger—to which there could only be one instantaneous response.

To rise …

To begin what could be a perilous journey to an unknown surface.

And all the Arks of what had been the government of the United States—the ones still intact, those not already surfaced, not destroyed or hopelessly damaged—sent a signal to the great bore machines that sat at each nose, rock-chewing machines that could screw the Ark through any rock … to whatever world awaited.

The Arks began to dig their way out.

Some journeyed in a straight path, easily grinding through loose rock and debris.

Others faced mammoth chunks of bedrock that required a steady, endless digging that to a human would have seemed hopeless, but to the lifesaving brain of the computer was merely what it had to do.

Others became damaged during their emergence, crushed as rock shifted, quickly killing the still-sleeping survivors.

But whether successful or not, all the Arks struggled to be born into this world.

And as they came closer to the surface, as a reading signaled that the new world and the surface was only minutes away, revival systems began their process, readying the Ark passengers for what might have to be a quick exit.

And outside, for these Arks, people waited.

The Arks rose.

Bringing with them to the surface something the people outside had thought an impossibility: a chance to fight back.