Will McIntosh - Defenders

The Luyten made a draining sound, like water being flushed down a toilet. Maybe to them it was a sound of regret, or apology. Everything bad, all of the suffering in her life, could be reduced to this Luyten.

“I don’t need your apology, if that’s what you’re offering.”

No. But believe me, you need what I’m offering. The Luyten raised two of its appendages, as if waving goodbye. The defenders will go on killing until there’s no life left.

“No one’s going to trust you.”

Maybe not. But you’re right: We have nothing to lose by trying.

Lila turned to go back inside, saw there was no knob on the outside of the door. “Great.” She headed around the back of the strip of stores at a brisk jog. Kai would be worried.

She spotted him in the parking lot, heading back toward Office Depot after stashing their purchases in the car. When he saw Lila jogging toward him, he stopped.

“Where’d you go? I was worried.”

Lila slid her hand under Kai’s bicep, then turned him toward the car. “I just spoke to my father’s killer.”

They inched along toward the exit.

“Do you think it’s telling the truth?” Kai asked.

“I don’t know. It can’t be.” She looked at Kai. “It can’t be, can it?”

“I don’t know. I could see the defenders doing that. Let’s assume for a minute it is true. What do we do?”

Lila curled into the corner of her seat, pressed her temple against the cold window. “If it has to be done—and I’m not saying I’m convinced it does—I’m not the only one who could do it. The Hong Kong facility is still operating. We could pass along the Luyten’s message to someone involved in the rebellion. One of your poker friends, maybe. Let them decide if it’s a good idea, and if they do, they can contact Kim Han, the head genetic engineer at the Hong Kong facility.”

Kai shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. If we decided this had to be done, I don’t think we can risk telling anyone—no one at all—until the altered defenders are in place. There are bound to be people dead set against allying with the Luyten—people who’ll give us up to the defenders in a heartbeat to stop us from exposing our throats to the Luyten.”

The weight of Kai’s words felt like a rope around her neck. “Kai, we can’t possibly make this decision by ourselves. If we went ahead with this, we’d be putting everyone’s life at risk—”

“If the Luyten is telling the truth, everyone’s life is already at risk. Four out of five, Lila. I don’t like those odds, not for us, not for Errol, not for anyone.”

Lila was about to scream at Kai to let her finish, but she caught herself. She wondered if it had been a mistake to tell him at all. She hated herself for wondering that. “This is all moot, because I’m one of those people who are dead set against allying with the Luyten. I don’t trust them. No way. If I discovered someone was doing what we’re talking about doing, I’d squeal to the defenders, too.”

Kai pulled out of their lane, cut in front of a car doing its best not to let them out. The driver leaned on his horn. Lila gave him the finger and glared until he looked away.

Tell me what we can do to prove we can be trusted , the Luyten said in Lila’s head.

“It just said, ‘Tell me what—’”

“I heard it,” Kai said. He shuddered. “I forgot just how bad that feels.”

“There’s nothing they could do that would make me trust them.”

“They have no pinkies, so I guess a pinkie-swear is out.”

Lila burst out laughing. Maybe it was knowing the Luyten had heard Kai’s ridiculous remark that made it funny. Maybe she just needed an excuse to laugh, to release some of the tension building up inside her as it sank in that the Luyten might back her into a corner so she has no choice but to do this. If she could do it. She wasn’t even sure she could. It would be an incredible feat. “We don’t have the right to make this decision, either way.”

Kai chuckled humorlessly.

“What?” Lila asked.

“I’m the Boy Who Betrayed the World.” He waved a hand in the air. “This is what I do.”

Sometimes Lila forgot how heavily that weighed on Kai.

“What if we talk to my dad? We could get his opinion, at least,” Kai suggested.

“That sounds like a plan.” Anything to take the weight of this decision off Lila’s shoulders sounded good to her.

October 18, 2047. Over Alaska.

“Here they come,” Smythe said. The TV screen in front of Dominique’s seat sprang to life, giving her an aerial view of the compound that had been her home for the past eighteen months. The deep rumble of defender bombers dominated the audio feed.

Bright flashes lit the compound as the defenders’ bombs hit their targets. It reminded her of a Fourth of July finale—there was a cascade of intense explosions, followed by silence. She’d had no doubts the defenders would find their hiding place, but it was shocking to see it destroyed, unnerving that they’d located it so quickly.

“As soon as they discover there are no bodies in that rubble, they’ll be after us,” Forrest said.

“They’re already after us,” Dominique said. Forrest gave her a questioning look. “They’re thorough bastards. They’ll have launched two forces—one to bomb us, the other to hunt us down in case we run.”

Forrest only nodded.

Dominique appreciated that in all these months, no one had ever likened her to Dr. Frankenstein. It would be such an obvious connection to make. In fact, in all the time she’d been at CFS—and before that Colorado Springs—no one had ever made a snide comment about her role in creating the defenders.

“Do people ever say things behind my back, about my role in all this?” she asked Forrest in a whisper.

He leaned in close, whispered in her ear. “The president said if anyone ever criticized you, he’d have their head on a stick. They wouldn’t dare.”

That explained it.

Moments later, the little town of Gakona, Alaska, came into view a thousand feet below. After eighteen months at CFS Alert, Gakona seemed like a thriving metropolis. It consisted of maybe fifty buildings surrounded by nothing but wilderness. Not that they were going to be spending any time in Gakona. Their C-295 banked right, heading toward an airstrip at an air force atmospheric research compound six miles outside the town.

They descended quickly to minimize the risk of being spotted by a patrol, although they’d chosen the location because there seemed little reason for defenders to be in the area. The landing strip was set amid thousands of what looked to be windmills with rotors pointing skyward. Someone on board probably knew what they were, but at the moment Dominique wasn’t the least bit interested in them. They were in defender-controlled territory, and would only be going deeper in. They were the enemy, and if they were caught, they’d be killed.

When the plane came to rest, Dominique hustled outside with the rest and helped unload their supplies as Blake, Sheena, and a few others ran off to locate the BvS10 arctic transport vehicles they’d found in the base’s online inventory.

Before long, the vehicles rolled out from behind a lime-green aluminum building. They looked like oversized SUVs on tracks. As they pulled up, Dominique hefted a box of MREs to load into the flip-up storage compartment.

Two hours later, Blake’s portable radar picked up a squadron of defender fighters heading in their direction. They took the vehicles off-road, bouncing and jarring, weaving through the forest until, they hoped, they were hidden from view. They killed their lights and sat in the dark for twenty minutes before continuing.