Keary Taylor - The Human

“Because I need to know how far that thing you planted in my head is going to reach.”

Margaret didn’t answer for a moment and I saw her gaze shift to those around her. I noticed then that they were mostly women, children, and elderly.

“Not here,” she said in a hiss and stepped toward me. She held her hands up when I didn’t lower the weapon and stopped. Her eyes slipped down to the little girl on the floor just to the side of me who was crying and had her face buried in her mother’s shoulder.

“Out in the hall,” I said, waving her out with the gun.

The two of us stepped outside the door and I closed it behind us. We walked halfway down the hall for privacy.

“Why?” I asked simply.

“Do you not remember what things were like in Seattle?” Margaret asked with narrowed eyes. “We had to leave or we were all going to get infected. The Underground has been totally compromised. And soon it is going to be the entire world and we will be eradicated .”

Margaret actually had no idea how true her words were. She had no way of knowing the sweeps the Hunters were conducting.

“Just so you know,” I said, my tone turning icy. “You’ve condemned us all to infection.”

“I don’t understand your pride with this Pulse thing. You have to use it!”

“We would be happy to,” I said, my teeth clenched so tight they might have broken if I were fully human. “If it hadn’t been damaged in the earthquake.”

Margaret paused, her expression paling. “What earthquake?”

“The one we had just a few days ago. The one that dropped a concrete pillar on the Pulse, making it unusable. And our head scientist, the one who developed it, the only one who can fix it, is sick.”

“I didn’t know,” she said. She was trying to pitch her voice to be non-caring, but she was failing.

“We’re all dead now, thanks to you,” I said. I grabbed her wrist and started pulling her down the stairs.

Maybe it was shock or guilt or some other unknown conscious that I didn’t know she possessed, but Margaret let me drag her out of the building without a fight.

Shots rang out and shouts rose into the air. There were three bodies lying in front of the hospital now. I couldn’t look at their faces just then to see if it had been any of ours that had fallen.

West was nowhere to be seen.

“Call your men off,” I growled in Margaret’s ear. “Or I swear I will kill you right here.” I pressed the barrel of my handgun into her ribs.

Margaret shifted uncomfortably, her arm going nowhere under my steel grip. She cleared her throat.

“Cease fire!” Margaret yelled, her voice startlingly loud and filled with authority. “Members of the Underground will assemble. Now!”

Instantly the shots died out and slowly the soldiers, New Eden and foreign alike, gathered before the hospital.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Royce growled, pointing a finger at Margaret. He approached her, fast. For a moment I was afraid he was going to plow her right over, but he stopped just an inch from her face, his finger pressed to her chest. He was covered in blood and grime.

Avian suddenly came jogging through the crowd, followed by Raj. I resisted the urge to rush at him and pull him into my arms. But now wasn’t the time.

“I do believe we have some talking to do.” She couldn’t hide the quake in her voice or the fear in her eyes.

“I should just have Eve shoot you right now,” he seethed.

“Trust me,” I said, my jaw clenched tight. “It took everything I had in me not to.”

“Elijah,” Royce barked, turning. Elijah limped forward. There was a shirt tied tightly around his calf, no doubt stopping up a bullet wound. “Watch her people. I swear, if any of them makes a wrong move, shoot them.”

Protests were shouted and firearms were raised again.

“You will do as he says!” Margaret bellowed and instantly the contention died. “You will stand down until I come out. You will wait for my word.”

Eyes shifted and fingers remained poised on their triggers. But they did lower their weapons. Elijah and his team quickly surrounded the Undergrounders.

“Move,” Royce commanded.

Avian stepped forward as if to follow us and Royce immediately threw up a hand. “Now isn’t the time to be the protective boyfriend,” he said, his voice quiet so the entire crowd wouldn’t hear him. “I released you because you’re needed out here. This right now is between the three of us.”

Avian met my eyes and for a moment there was pain and panic there. I could only nod and try to assure him that somehow, everything was going to be okay.

There was a loud, large crowd just inside the hospital doors. Guards, including Tristan, stood armed and ready with the masses behind them.

“Move!” Royce bellowed as we made our way through the crowd toward the stairs. The tension inside of me built as we ascended.

How much time did we have before we were all dead?

As soon as Royce closed the door to his office he turned and shoved Margaret back into a chair. Her eyes grew wide with fear as she fell back.

Good.

“What have you done?” he growled. He placed his hands on each of the arm rests, his face again coming within an inch of hers.

“If you weren’t going to use that Pulse on your own, we thought we’d force you to see reason,” she started explaining in a shaky breath. “It was all too easy to plant false information and stage a supposed escape. We knew you’d listen to one of your own soldiers. You would never suspect she was in fact the beacon.”

Royce slapped Margaret across the face. The sound was sharp and startling. Margaret jerked to the side, her hair whipping across her face.

“How far is that beacon going to reach?” he demanded.

Margaret faced forward again, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes not quite meeting Royce’s. Her hand rose to her cheek gingerly. “We had no certain way to test it. But we estimated it would reach at least five-hundred-miles.”

Royce was silent for a moment. I had little doubt he was calculating the size of the cities within that five-hundred-mile radius.

“There is about to be over a million Bane flooding into this city. We were in the middle of an evacuation but there is no way we will get everyone out in time. And we have no way to defend ourselves,” Royce said. “What do you have to say about that?”

We heard a shot fired, followed by another.

Royce swore and we both sprinted for the stairwell.

“Do you have any idea how much time we have before they start arriving?” Royce asked as we ran.

I shook my head, tightening my grip on my handgun, wishing I had more firepower. “We were clear for at least seventy five miles. Three hours?”

Royce swore again as we sprinted through the lobby and back out the front doors. There was the faint sound of glass shattering.

The crowd had disbanded again and the fighting resumed.

Elijah lay on the ground, pressing fingers into a bleeding wound in his chest.

Avian had another man pinned beneath him and his fist connected with the man’s face. Even West was in the brawl at this point, scuffling in the dirt, his hands wrapped around a soldier’s throat.

Down the street another shot was fired.

A woman from the Underground tried rushing the entrance to the hospital. I threw myself at her, knocking her to the ground. We rolled to the ground and she hitched the barrel of her gun up into my stomach.

My breath caught in my throat and I froze on top of her.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, my voice breathy. “We are about to be invaded. We don’t have time for all this fighting.”

“You’re one to talk,” she spat. “After you just murdered Margaret?”