The Keeper looked over at Marco. “Your commander didn’t tell you? It was part of his morning status report.”
“Tell me what?” he said, now alarmed.
“The Genjix attacked Jill’s base of operations two days ago. The entire operation went dark.”
Roen lost feeling in his fingers. “And you guys didn’t fucking tell me?”
“Look,” Marco said. “It’s too early to jump to conclusions. Command got in touch with Hite. He’ll grab a visual. It could be anything. Jill’s my friend too, but we have a mission to complete and I can’t have distracted -”
He never finished the sentence, because Roen clocked him in the face. “That’s my family, you bastard!”
Marco came back a second later with one of his own, followed by a Judo throw that put Roen on his back. Roen managed to get two quick kicks on Marco’s face as he got turned upside down. A few seconds later, the two had destroyed Helen’s bed and managed to punch several new holes in the drywall.
The Keeper, watching them roll around through the screen, yawned. “Goodnight, gentlemen.” Then she smiled, and the screen went black.
24 Show Must Go On
A dark time began for all Quasing as thousands of hosts on both sides were either rooted out and imprisoned, or were forced to flee. It was interesting that it took a massive alien conspiracy to unite the world against a common foe. The nations of the world banded together and created the Interpol Extraterrestrial Task Force.
A new player in our hundreds-year-long war emerged, and they were ruthless. The IXTF hunted us down, confiscated our assets, and destroyed networks that had taken hundreds of years to build.
Baji
As the submarine sliced just under the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the atmosphere was somber. The retreat through the tunnels from the farmhouse had been frantic. Jill’s group had barely gotten their supplies together and made it a hundred meters before the Genjix cut through the trap door.
Immediately, they heard sounds of fighting. She didn’t know if the other team got to safety or not. Jill knew that Harry and Garrett had decided to stay behind in order to distract the pursuers. They knew that Jill, with the older Rin and Ohr in her group, would need every small advantage she could get.
Even then, two of the Genjix had caught up with them halfway into the steep and uneven tunnels before they could escape into the submarine. Fortunately, Jill, Freeni, and Vladimir were able to lay a trap and take them out.
“Jill,” Freeni said, looking at the console. “We can’t squeeze anything more out of her. We need to break toward shore now.”
We are still far from the next station. You will have to finish the journey on land.
They would have to disembark and continue on foot. Jill glanced back at the sad-looking group sitting in the rear of the sub. “This bunch can’t handle a long trek.”
Then locate the nearest safe house, establish communications, and have Faust pick us up.
Jill steered the sub toward the coast. Their ride was an old commercial tourist sub Roen had won from a junkyard dealer playing darts. They had retrofitted the sub, removing all the benches and turning the vessel into a short-range transport for supply runs. Jill had conserved as much fuel as possible, but the submersible wasn’t built for long hauls and the fuel was almost exhausted.
She looked behind her at the small, quiet group. The Russian was a complete mess, face contorted with grief and eyes bloodshot. Jill didn’t blame him. The poor guy had lost his wife and child within a span of weeks. His entire life was in tatters. She felt his pain. At least she had gotten word that Roen was all right before the attack. Otherwise, she would be thinking that she had lost both her husband and child as well and would probably be in worse shape than Vladimir.
Ohr and Rin were in only slightly better shape mentally, though not physically. Neither of them had ever been players in this sort of game. Ohr was a political heavyweight, and Rin was a scientist. Neither had ever had to spend a night on the run before the past few weeks. This experience had to be quite a shock to them. They were learning the hard lesson of what their world was, now. Well, that was the life of a secret society operative. Inevitably, one’s hands had to get dirty.
When the sub couldn’t get any closer to shore, Jill stood up and motioned for everyone to follow. “Here’s where we get off, folks. We’re going to make landfall about three klicks north of Fort Bragg. From there, we go on foot. I have a safe house on the south end of Noyo Bay. We can rest there for the night.”
She swung the packs and gear that she was able to salvage – all of her worldly possessions – onto her back and picked up the bundled rifles stowed in a sleeping bag. Between the five of them, they would have to share two rifles and two pistols. She nudged Vladimir on the shoulder. “Come on. Get up.” He didn’t budge. Everyone else began climbing up the ladder to the hatch. Jill looked back at him still sitting in his seat. “Vladimir, get your ass up. Now.”
He just stayed there, staring at the floor, eyes glazed over. For a second, Jill wasn’t sure if he was going to get up. The guy had suffered a lot. Every person had his limit; maybe he had reached his. Maybe his soul couldn’t take any more grief, and there was nothing left for it to do but die. She had seen it happen on the battlefield before, to friends and enemies alike. Letting him end his pain could be the kindest thing she could do for him.
Jill gritted her teeth. Screw that. She stomped over to him, grabbed his elbows, and pulled. “We need to go, Vladimir.”
“I have nothing,” he said, the words barely audible. “Marta, Alex. Nothing. Just leave me.”
We do not have time for this.
“Alex is probably with Cameron. He knows what to do. They are probably heading toward us as we speak,” Jill said, pulling more insistently this time. “Get your ass up.”
“My daughter is probably dead. Your damn son killed her!” he snarled, pushing Jill away. “If it wasn’t for him, she would be here right now.”
Either snap him out of it or drown him.
“I am not leaving anyone behind, Baji.”
An imaged flashed into Jill’s head of an ancient fishing boat slowly sinking. She saw one of the sailors with his leg trapped underneath a wooden beam. As hard as she tried, she could not pull him free. The boat capsized, trapping Jill underneath it as it sunk. Everything became blinding white, and then she blinked and saw the world in an entirely new way through the eyes of a fish.
“Point taken.”
Jill gave Vladimir one measured look, swung her arm back with an open palm, then thought better of it. Instead, she closed her hand into a fist and clocked him across the jaw. Vladimir dropped onto his side like a sack of potatoes. He tried to retaliate, but Jill got past his weakly flailing arms easily. She pulled out her pistol and jammed it into his temple. “That’s my son, you shit. He’s out there, too, so don’t even start with me, because the only thing that’s keeping me going right now is the fact that I know he’s well-trained and competent. I know that if he is alive, he will find me, and if your daughter is alive, he will bring her to us.” She cocked the pistol. “Do you understand, or would you like me to end you right here?”
Vladimir nodded.
Slowly, Jill pulled back and holstered her pistol. She offered her hand, which he accepted, and hauled the guy to his feet. She tossed the heaviest pack at him. “You get to be the pack mule.”
Vladimir rubbed his already purplish cheek and wiggled his jaw left and right. Then, surprisingly, he grinned. “Marta would have liked you, Jill Tan. Even if you are a betrayer. Sometimes, Vladimir just needs a reminder.”
“Happy to oblige,” Jill said, returning the smile. “And don’t do that again.”