Robison Wells - Blackout

Finally, Aubrey sighed and looked over at Jack. “You’ll have my back?”

“I’ll follow every step you take. And if you get caught, I’m coming in there with you. I’m not going to let them split us up.”

“But you’re not going to get caught,” Laura said.

“What are the names of the people you want me to find?” Aubrey asked.

“Alec Moore and Dan Allen. They’re both from Denver, like me. I’ll write it down for you.”

JUST AS LAURA HAD PREDICTED,the main benefit of having a makeshift army command center set up in a hotel was that a hotel wasn’t designed to be an army base. It was close to other buildings, and there were a lot of entrances to guard. In the case of the Marriott, it was on the waterfront, so that vantage was blocked, but it wasn’t hard to move from building to building, climbing over barricades, slipping around vehicles, moving from bush to bush, column to column.

The place was prepared for World War III. Aubrey hadn’t realized that the first time they’d arrived. In addition to the jeeps and armored vehicles there were trucks loaded with surface-to-air missiles. Aubrey had no idea what they’d be needed for—she’d only seen the one Lambda who could fly—and could a missile really track a flying person?

The entire street, Alaskan Way, was blocked off, and the marina in front of it was emptied. It took Aubrey a long time to get all the way from the first roadblock to the hotel. She’d hoped to find some kind of large fern or patch of trees to hide in and reappear—to give her a chance to get her energy back—but the only trees in front of the hotel were planted into the sidewalk.

So instead, she waited at the front entrance for someone to open the door, and then slipped inside.

The entrance was beehive of activity, and Aubrey didn’t know where to look first. But she knew she needed to keep moving—the lobby had to have security cameras.

She hurried toward the back of the hotel, following signs that directed her to the ballrooms. She didn’t have a lot of experience in big hotels—the biggest place in Mount Pleasant probably had twenty rooms, and she’d never stayed there. But, she figured that the best place to not be seen was the kitchen. Their room service hadn’t been cooked, which meant most of the staff was gone. There’d be no reason to set up much of a military kitchen if everyone was still eating MREs.

Her eyesight was getting worse as she entered the main ballroom, but she kept going, tripping over a cord and stumbling to stay on her feet. The ballroom appeared to be the central hub. A dozen long tables were set up, and cords were strewn everywhere to support the computers, laptops, servers, and who-knew-what-else that the army had arranged. There was a PC open and available right in front of her, but she could hardly make out the words on the screen. She headed toward the back of the room and through a door to the kitchen.

It was empty.

She breathed a sigh of relief and moved from cupboard to cupboard, trying to find one big enough to fit her inside. Finally, she came across a walk-in pantry with a heavy door. She made sure she could get out—there was a lever inside, too—and then pulled it closed. She sat in the corner, tucked between an enormous sack of potatoes and a crate of old oranges.

Aubrey smiled, smelling the old produce around her, and wondered what Jack would have thought of it. She’d noticed he was losing weight. The plainest of foods—bread or rice or even water—were so overpowering to him that he rarely ate as much as he should anymore.

She also wondered what he was thinking of her now. He knew that she was going to look for a place to hide, but the scent of Flowerbomb almost certainly couldn’t make it out this heavy door, and she’d seem to have disappeared completely. If he could track her at all. He swore he could, but he and Laura hadn’t been able to get very close. They were in an apartment nearly half a mile up the road.

So far, things had gone well. But all she’d done was get inside. She hadn’t tried to access a computer yet, or navigate the army’s systems. For now, she needed to rest. She took a drink from her water bottle and leaned back.

Aubrey didn’t know how much time had passed, but she felt stronger now. Her eyes were refocused—she was practicing reading the box labels across the pantry, and everything seemed to be clear. She had more energy and was ready to disappear again.

She reached in her fleece pocket and felt for the paper Laura had given her. There was also the little bottle of perfume, and she sprayed herself again before leaving. She was starting to love the smell.

She eased the pantry door open. The kitchen was still empty, the fluorescent lights only half-lit.

Aubrey hurried back to the ballroom. If possible, the room was even busier than before, with more soldiers at computer terminals and officers marching around giving angry commands.

Aubrey waited in a corner, away from the action for several minutes, watching for a computer to open up.

An officer walked nearby, talking on a cell phone and jamming a finger in his other ear so he could hear over the din of the room.

“Just get the message to him,” he said.

Aubrey moved a little closer to eavesdrop.

“I don’t give a damn about the Space Needle,” the officer said. “It’s a stupid tourist trap, and it was evacuated anyway. This is Boeing I’m talking about.”

There was a pause. Aubrey thought she knew what Boeing was, but couldn’t put her finger on it.

“You let him know,” the officer continued, “that we’re being destroyed out here. We can’t guard every business. Hell—we were guarding Boeing and it didn’t do any good. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we could be facing another Chicago up here.”

Boeing. They’d flown in a Boeing airliner. Was Boeing in Seattle?

A man stood and left his computer. Aubrey was tempted to stay and listen in on the conversation, but she didn’t dare.

She took his chair, sitting on the edge of it, exactly the way that he’d left it. He was still logged in.

The system wasn’t what she was expecting. It was older, less intuitive. She looked through the files on the screen, but didn’t see anything about the Lambdas.

She found a search bar and typed her name.

Aubrey Parsons Lambda

A picture of her appeared—a photo taken all the way back when they’d first been tested.

Aubrey Parsons

Lambda 4T: Limited form of invisibility (click here for medical report)

Special Forces 19th Battalion, ODA 9117

Currently stationed: Seattle, WA

The text continued, outlining her background and her eyesight problems, but there was nothing interesting there. It was all basic information—information she already knew and obviously not updated to reflect anything that had happened today.

Toward the bottom—she almost missed it—was the line “ Ankle Band Detonation Code: 431-866795 .” She deleted the number, and then searched to see if there was some kind of edit history where it could be retrieved, but the program looked old and all she could do was hope.

Next she searched for Jack.

Jack Cooper

Lambda 4T: Hypersensitivity (click here for medical report)

Special Forces 19th Battalion, ODA 9117

Currently stationed: Seattle, WA

She deleted his detonation code and then searched for “Laura Hansen Lambda.”

It was more of the same. Old information, probably not updated since they left Dugway a few days before. She deleted Laura’s detonation code.

She pulled the paper from her pocket.

Alec Moore Lambda

His picture popped up.

Alec Moore