The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (36 page)

Wulf took a step back and gestured to Taveena. She looked unsure of herself, and shifted back and forth on her feet a few times. “Everything that Wulf said is exactly right. But we all remember he made a similar speech a month ago. And here we are again. We’re not done yet. We’re putting ourselves on the line this time, so we won’t get another shot. If I need to lay everything on the line to destroy the Lattice, I’m willing. If I must give my life, I’m willing. If today is my last day, I’m willing. Are you?”

“I’m willing,” Annalise said.

“I’m willing,” Erling said.

“I’m willing,” Tranq and Kuhn said together.

“I’m willing,” Wulf said.

“I’m willing,” Helix said.

Now that he was on the spot, Shaw was not sure he was willing.

His thoughts were of Ellie. Of his not-yet-born daughter. What if it came to a choice? He could choose to never see them, or he could choose to give them a world without the Lattice. What would he choose?

He couldn’t linger now. “I’m willing,” he said.

Taveena nodded. “Make the next twenty-four hours count, everyone.”

As the rest of the crew continued their goodbyes, Shaw naturally fell to the side and he watched Helix leave before anyone could reach her. He watched the others hug and plan to rendezvous on the anniversary of the Lattice’s destruction next year. This wasn’t for him, but he didn’t feel like he could leave like Helix did. They might cut her some slack, but they would be suspicious of him.

He waited until people started leaving, and then quietly followed them out. He went below decks, using the ladder and missing the easy gliding to and fro he’d experienced in orbit. Outside the sphere room, he stumbled on Taveena and Tranq in the hallway, heads close in conversation. They looked up at him and let their conversation stop. He paused, but they stared him down. “Just saying our goodbyes,” Tranq said.

Shaw nodded and went past them to the command room. He began looking over the screens, confirming that nothing had changed. He heard the door behind him slide open and turned to see Taveena enter.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, wondering if she would explain her huddle with Tranq.

Taveena didn’t answer. She waited for the door to close before she spoke. “I know you lied in there. You’re not ready to die for this cause.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to make that choice.”

“Your plan is good, but it’s not foolproof.”

“I’m committed, Taveena. I truly am. I hope that in every way since the vote I’ve been able to show that to you. But you ask me to choose between seeing my wife and destroying the Lattice, and the decision gets a little harder.”

“It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“I’m in, Taveena. I want this to work. And when we’re done, and we’ve been successful, I want to go home.”

“All right,” she finally said. “I won’t ask for more than that. I sincerely hope, for your sake, that the fate of this won’t come to rest on your shoulders, Shaw. Because no matter what you choose, I’m not sure you’ll be able to live with the consequences.”

The
Walden
slowly began its descent into a short range of hills a few miles away from the Lattice Installation. Like the raider vessel that had come out of the desert to attack the Lattice, the
Walden’s
surface was matching the external temperature of the desert around it. But at night the desert was cool, and any excess heat from the Walden had to go somewhere. The interior of the Walden began to roast with the stored heat.

Kuhn and Tranq stepped out of the Walden and into the empty hills. They waved to the faces inside. The door closed and the Walden lifted off, its short interlude complete.

The spheres would start growing inside the dome at eight o’clock that night, local time, so the pair would have most of the day to make their way through the hills into a position to observe the dome and the tunnel outlet.

When the Installation was fully destroyed, which they expected to happen within forty-five minutes or an hour, it would be early morning in Geneva. And the
Walden’s
phase of the mission would begin.

The remaining crew crowded into the command room to watch the feed from Nevada over the Lattice. No one jumped individually, but instead they chose to watch it as a group. Tranq and Kuhn’s reports over an old-fashioned encrypted wireless were loud enough that everyone could listen as they watched the screen.

They were now holding steady at sixty thousand feet above Geneva, where the crew couldn’t do anything but watch, listen, and wait.

“How many people are inside right now?” Shaw asked Erling, who had done a full survey during their high-altitude trip to Geneva.

“Two hundred eighty-three,” he said.

“I thought there would be less by now,” Annalise said.

“On a normal day it’s at least six hundred,” Shaw answered.

“And there were more than four hundred inside the dome when I started,” Erling added. “Here—I tagged everyone, so I can put a secondary map up.” A second screen illuminated and a bird’s eye view of the Lattice, with small green dots indicating every person inside the Installation.

“Two fewer now,” Erling said. “There’s someone taking the tunnel out every couple of minutes.”

“Anyone I know still there?” Shaw asked.

“Sure … you knew a lot of people.”

“General Braybrook?”

Erling nodded.

“Iverson?”

Erling nodded again. “Promoted, by the looks of it.”

“What about Yang?”

This time Erling shook his head. “Nope. Never saw him.”

Shaw wondered where the young man was. Was he on leave? It was clear from his jumps back that Shaw’s death had rattled Yang badly. He wished he’d investigated where he was now.

“You want to call it off because your buddies are inside, Shaw?” Tranq asked over the wireless.

“Helpful to know who my opponents are, that’s all,” Shaw answered. “And keep all your comm traffic to the essentials only, please.”

“Yes,
sir
,” Tranq said.

“Why do you need to know who’s running the Installation right now?” Erling asked. He checked the timer on the wall. “In less than three minutes those spheres are going to start growing and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.”

“In the academy, they taught us a mantra by one of the greatest military strategists of all time. ‘No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.’ Something’s going to go wrong. I don’t know if it will be in Nevada or in Geneva, but someone is going to throw us a curveball we didn’t expect. You see what I mean?”

Erling nodded. “If we’re waiting for a pitch, it’s helpful to know who the pitcher is.”

Shaw nodded. “Exactly.”

“Two minutes,” Taveena called out. All eyes went to the digital countdown to confirm what she’d just said.

“How many inside now, Erling?” Shaw asked.

“Two seventy-nine.”

“Tranq, what’s your visual?”

“Getting dark, but the exterior lights by the tunnel exit are bright as day. No activity anywhere else yet.”

Shaw heard Kuhn’s voice, “I can confirm the four people exiting since Erling’s count of two eighty-three.”

“Keep your eyes on that exit, Kuhn. We’ll be using your count when the Lattice goes down.”

Shaw looked at Annalise next to him. “Is the
Walden
ready for her dive?”

“As ready as she’ll ever be,” she answered, running her hand over her head.

There was something resigned about her tone that caught Shaw’s attention. “What?”

Annalise rolled her head to the side, weighing whether to answer.

“One minute,” Taveena called out.

“What?” Shaw repeated more forcefully. “Can she do this or not, Annalise?”

“She can do it. I stand by that. But afterwards … I don’t know that she’ll be in any shape to fly again. It’s hard to predict.”

“She won’t need to,” Shaw said. “After this, her mission will be done.”

“I’d dreamed of taking her out on my own after we were done. I just … she’s still my baby, you know?”

“Fifteen seconds,” Taveena said.

Shaw’s attention turned to the screens in the front of the room. He saw Erling’s overview map with the green dots. The main screen was black, although it was putting out light, so it was clearly on.

“Where’s the dome interior I asked for?” Shaw asked.

“That’s it,” Helix answered. “The main screen.”

Shaw stared into its darkness as Taveena began counting.

“Five, four, three, two, one. The molecular machines are now active.”

“Shit,” Shaw cursed. “How many are inside right now, Erling?”

“Still two seventy-nine.”

“I confirm,” Kuhn said over the wireless.

“What’s the problem, Byron?” Wulf asked.

Shaw’s mind was racing. “It’s too dark. The lights of the Installation used to be visible for hundreds of miles. It was as bright as old Las Vegas. And they went on at sunset every night. That was three minutes ago. They should have been on by now.”

Shaw couldn’t believe they’d overlooked something so simple.
But why bother illuminating the inside of the dome? There was nothing to see.

“So what if it’s dark?” Wulf asked.

Shaw’s face was grim. “Such a small thing … Without the lights, they won’t see the spheres in time to react. They’re not going to have enough time to evacuate if they don’t know what’s coming.”

Turning to Taveena, Shaw asked, “How big have the spheres grown?”

“Two inches in diameter.”

“We thought they’d notice them when they were three feet across,” Shaw said to the room.

Everyone waited.

“Six people just exited,” Erling announced.

“Confirmed,” said Kuhn.

They kept waiting.

“One foot in diameter,” Taveena eventually said.

“Get me a third screen. I want to see the interior of the Lattice’s command room.”

Wulf worked on it, and suddenly a familiar sight was in front of Shaw. His old “office,” if you could call it that. He’d probably spent more hours there than he did at home. The charcoal-colored walls, barely illuminated by the ugly lights. The glow from the ring of screens. The central table.

And at the central table, in Shaw’s old place, was Iverson.

“I’m about to ruin your night, Johan,” Shaw murmured. Iverson seemed to be practically alone in the room. “They really are on a skeleton crew, aren’t they?”

“Eighteen inches in diameter,” Taveena intoned.

“Are we hitting the rate you expected?”

“Right on target. It’s only after they’re a hundred feet in diameter where I’m less certain.”

“We’re at two seventy. That’s another three gone.”

“Confirmed.”

“Just give me updates on the tens from now on, guys,” Shaw said.

“Yes, sir,” Erling said. Unlike with Tranq, his “sir” didn’t appear to be ironic.

“And there’s two feet,” Taveena said.

Iverson continued to go about his business, no hurry anywhere on his face.

“Are the spheres registering anywhere on their sensors?” Shaw called. “Heat? Noise? Anything? Is he just missing something?”

Wulf put a ring to his temple and jumped to investigate.

Shaw shook his head while he waited. “Five thousand spheres are filling the inside of that dome. They should be scared to death after what they’ve seen those things can do, except no one’s turned on the fucking lights!” He didn’t realize he was shouting until he was already hoarse.

“Two sixty,” Erling said quietly, followed by Kuhn’s confirmation over the wireless. No one was willing to look him in the eye.

Wulf was back from his jump. “Nothing. They don’t have a clue.”

“We need to warn them what’s coming.”

“Not on your fucking life!” Tranq shouted over the wireless.

“Hundreds of people are going to die, Tranq!” Shaw shouted back. “I’m not going to have another exploding hotel on my conscience!”

“Three feet,” Taveena said, quieting everyone. They watched the screens, where nothing had changed.

“I need ideas, people,” Shaw called out.

Erling said, “We could just call them outright. A declaration of war.”

“No!” Tranq shouted again.

“Someone in the network then,” Shaw said. “Someone who would call and—”

“The network’s gone,” Taveena said. “I pulled in all the molecular machines for this. I didn’t think we’d need them again. We’d have to send someone a whole new sphere. There’s not enough time.”

Shaw didn’t linger. “Wulf?”

Wulf seemed to be in shock. “I don’t know, Byron. I don’t know how to warn them.”

Shaw looked at the wireless. “Tranq, is there anything you can do to warn them that won’t give away your position?”

“They find us hiding under their noses, Shaw, and they’ll start getting curious where we came from,” Tranq said. “They’ll trace us to the
Walden
, and then they’ll find you.”

“Four feet! They’re going to start touching the inside walls of the dome soon and then pushing each other toward the Installation perimeter,” Taveena called.

“Christ, Taveena, are they going faster?”

“More surface area means more contact with nitrogen atoms. So yes: they’re growing faster. Same principle as your plan for Geneva. The rushing air molecules—”

“That’s it! Geneva. We start now,” Shaw suddenly exclaimed. “A raid on Geneva’s going to put both installations on high alert. The lights will come on, they’ll see the spheres, and nonessential personnel will start evacuating.”

“We can’t start our raid on Geneva until we know the first Lattice is destroyed,” Taveena argued. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“At this point, the risk isn’t that it’s going to fail, it’s taking hundreds of innocent lives at the same time. Annalise, start our descent to ten thousand feet. As fast as you can.”

“Hold, Annalise! This isn’t your decision alone, Shaw,” Taveena said.

“You’ve put me in charge of this assault, Taveena. It
is
my decision. Either live with it, or find someone else.”

Taveena’s eyes shot daggers at Shaw.

“Let him do it, Taveena. Can’t run an army with two generals,” Tranq said from the wireless, surprising everyone.

Taveena looked to Wulf, who nodded. She turned away.