“Good. You’re a natural. The suit also has bladed weapons in the arms. Good luck.”

  Ley nodded, and pivoted to face Eli as Jade repeated the instructions with him. He gave her a thumbs-up, and his voice came over the private comms.

  “You all good?”

  “Ready.”

  “Quite the philosophy discussion you two had.”

  “You heard that?”

  “Kind of hard not to. I enjoyed it.”

  “It won’t be for anything if we don’t stop Zapata.”

  Eli gripped her hand and squeezed. “Let’s do this.”

  He switched to the open channel. “Everyone, listen up. Ley and I will take out as many mercs as possible. Our main goal is to lead them, and any others we can, to ore-crushing plant Alpha. Understood?”

  He was met with nods from Colter, Pelle and Jade. Nox rubbed against Eli’s leg until Colter whistled for him to heel.

  Ley saluted and, with Eli, moved so that they were positioned in front of the door. Colter flashed the okay signal and gestured to Pelle. The Cabal leader slid back the bolt.

  “For Lincoln!” Ley shouted as she kicked the door open and raised her stolen rifle.

  CHAPTER 15

  One hour earlier.

  The darkness enveloped Zapata as he switched off the lights to Mayor Sousa’s chambers. Carrying the bag in one hand, he navigated down several flights of stairs to Level Five. Coming up on a squad of The Nine’s soldiers, he gestured to his second in command, Quinn. “Sitrep. Now.”

  “Fusion plant team has stalled. They’re getting close. Climate control team have been wiped out by Sixth Battalion. I’ve sent three squads to take it. We have the last remnants of the defenders on the run in the city centre. It won’t be long now.”

  “Good. And our three fugitives?”

  Quinn jutted his chin out.

  The tic annoyed Zapata. No matter how much he trained these Gnats, they still had too many emotions and allowed them to surface regularly. “Spit it out.”

  “We lost them, sir. It’s like they vanished into thin air.”

  “They have to be here somewhere. What was their last location?”

  “Sector Six. I have footage.” Quinn passed Zapata his large commpad, showing an image of Miller and Haru. They were running from one house to another as smoke poured from the top windows. The fire sprinklers came on a few seconds later and extinguished the flames. Zapata watched for another few seconds. “And?”

  “They never come out.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  Zapata slammed his fist into Quinn’s gut, earning a pained grunt of surprise before the soldier regained his composure.

  “What do you think that means then, Gnat?”

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  “We have every exit in Lincoln under surveillance or guarded, don’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  Moving his hands in circles, Zapata tried to coax the answer from Quinn.

  “They have a hidden way,” Quinn said.

  “Find it. Now.”

  “Sir.” Quinn pivoted with a snap of his well-polished boots and walked briskly away. Once he had left, Zapata exited down a back alley and headed onto the main entertainment street.

  The relative silence in Lincoln pleased him. Quinn’s report was accurate. The pathetic attempt by the citizens to resist his attack was nearly over. Soon, the pitiful city would be nothing but a memory.

  He was joined by his security detail, who surrounded him in a tight diamond formation and escorted him to his favourite place in Lincoln. For twenty miserable years, he had lived down here, overseeing the stupid and lazy Gnats. His only amusement had been executing criminals. On the last Friday of the month, at the end of second shift, Zapata had given a little speech, then indicated to the hangman. The snivelling Gnats would fall though the trapdoor and their necks would snap. He had taken bets with his inner circle on which prisoner would jerk and twitch, which would die instantly. The Spandau Ballet Pools, they had called it.

  Central Bridge was the unofficial centre of town. At the ends of the span were North Square and South Square, used for large gatherings such as Foundation Day and the Census Gala. His soldiers and the mercs had corralled the beaten defenders so that the captured leaders were on the bridge, the citizens crowded into the open spaces. Zapata looked over them, searching for familiar faces. He was disappointed not to see either Chief Furillo or Noah Miller. He would have taken great pleasure in seeing the latter dance at the end of a rope. Noah was probably hiding in a cellar like a rat and would be found soon enough. Without a word, Zapata stood on one of the support arch footings and removed the contents of the bag. He held it aloft. A unified gasp chorused out. Zapata stayed silent as he displayed Sousa’s head to the crowd, then impaled it on the bridge ironwork. He grinned at Sousa’s pathetic expression as he jumped off the footing and headed towards South Square.

  “Monster!” someone shouted.

  “Kint!”

  “Echo scum!”

  The taunts meant nothing to Zapata. He simply didn’t care enough about these people to let their words bother him. Once he reached the edge of South Square, he flicked his wrist — the signal for his soldiers to open fire. He turned, hands clasped behind his back, as the high-velocity rounds tore into the prisoners’ flesh. It was all over in less than a minute, and the sharp scent of gunpowder hung in the air with the iron tang of freshly spilled blood. Both squares and Central Bridge had been turned into a carpet of bodies. Most lay still. Dead. A few writhed or tried to crawl over the fallen. Taking a rifle from one of his security guards, Zapata stepped among the dead and shot a woman who looked at him, pleading, begging to be allowed to live. Her body collapsed onto that of an old man, half her skull missing from his point-blank shot. Zapata flicked his wrist again and his soldiers moved through the prisoners, finishing off any that still moved.

  Quinn waited for him at the edge of North Square. He fell into step with Zapata, following as he took the nearest stairs. “Out with it, then.”

  “I sent a search party into the house. It was in a bad way because of the fire, but they think tunnels join all the houses. More teams are reporting in with similar finds. Sneaky kints are like rats.”

  “You didn’t know about this, Quinn?”

  “No, sir. I lived in the Uppers all my life.” Quinn spat on the metal stairway, stained by millions of feet tramping on them. “Sometimes we would slum it, come to the Lowers and give the women a good time.”

  “Maybe I should have recruited more Lowers. This way.”

  Zapata took another set of stairs, ignoring The Nine’s soldiers and mercs saluting, until he reached the walkway that led to the fusion core plant. Ten minutes later, he reached the second set of blast doors, which were still locked. Stone worm holes on either side had bypassed the locking mechanisms. Four soldiers next to a drilling machine snapped to attention as he approached.

  “Why the holdup, soldier? How hard can it be to break though?”

  “We met stiff resistance, sir.”

  “So? Kill them and open the doors.”

  “Sir. They destroyed the control panel.”

  “Then override it!” Zapata screamed in the soldier’s face, making sure the young Gnat understood his displeasure at the delay. Getting into the fusion core and setting the bombs was critical. Destroying everything was key. There could be nothing to trace his or CEO Young’s involvement.

  “They’re using guerilla tactics. It shouldn’t be long now — this boring machine will get through. We sent an advance team.”

  “Hurry up the…”

  Rifle fire sounded out, echoing down the storm-dug tunnels. The four soldiers raced to their entrances and threw themselves through. Zapata snatched a rifle from one of his security guards and followed. He had meant it earlier. He was sick of playing games. It was time to be direct.

  The mercs milling around in front of the hastily welded control room doors looked up as one. Eli, encased in his EV suit, waved and strode purposefully towards them like he belonged.

  Are they going to buy it? He hoped they would. Eli kept his stolen rifle pointed at the ground and gestured wildly with his free hand at the thermal charges attached to the doors, then he tapped his finger to his helmet, trusting the mercs would assume he had radio problems. Jade had told him and Ley that she blocked their frequency, only allowing communication between his and Ley’s suits, for safety. It was the best way.

  Eli tapped his helmet and gestured at the charges again. Merc 1 nodded and turned his back. Okay. Good start. The other three still stood front-on to him. Eli wished he could see their pale, sexless faces to gauge some kind of expression. How did these people live?

  “On your back,” Ley said.

  “Copy.”

  Eli didn’t want to turn around to see if Ley was going slightly to the right, even though he was desperate to. He just had to trust her. He reached the control room door and traced the wires back to what Colter called the master charge. That was where the radio signal was relayed from, simultaneously sending the message to the other charges so they exploded in the correctly programmed sequence, making controlled explosions precise and accurate. Eli pulled the tiny aerial and relay unit from it and tossed it away. He produced a larger one from his combat pack — one Colter had programmed — and jammed it in before giving the thumbs-up. Merc 1 raised his commpad as Eli took three steps back.

  “Now,” Ley said.

  Snapping up his rifle, Eli fired a three-round burst directly at Merc 1’s helmet, hoping that Jade was right. At such close range and the fact that he had a Thule tech rifle, it would actually do something to the weaker faceplate. The first bullet chipped the face plate, but the next two punched through, turning the Echo’s head to mush. Ley’s rifle barked beside him. Another merc fell and Eli killed a third as rounds slammed into his armoured torso. He tried aiming at the fourth merc, but he was off balance. Ley did the job for him, blasting the merc in the face. Colter and Pelle raced from the room and ripped the charges free, throwing them to the floor in front of the worm tunnels. Colter pried open the master charge and fiddled with something. He flashed a thumbs-up and retreated.

  “Hostiles!” Ley warned.

  Nox growled and let out a long, angry series of barks. Mercs burst out of both worm tunnels, weapons hot. Eli dropped to one knee and met the charging mercs with a burst of his own. One round hit the first merc in the side and knocked him off balance. Pelle, standing to one side, drove the stock of his crossbow into the merc’s knee, sending him sprawling on the ground. Eli switched focus and noticed the other mercs spreading out. He dived right and shoved Jade back through the staff room door. They fell heavily, and Jade grunted in pain. Eli didn’t have time to see if she was okay. He rolled and laid down covering fire as Ley, Pelle and a barking Nox retreated. Slamming the door, Colter immediately pressed the trigger switch. A cacophony of noise boomed out, blowing the door off its hinges and sending Colter flying. Colter hit Ley, and she managed to wrap her arms around him, cradling him as she fell.

  Eli searched his suit’s arm for a control panel, then remembered he had to think the commands for the suit. Bringing the thought clearly to mind, he switched the suit’s vision to thermal and scanned the space in front of the control room. Nothing glowed orange — or yellow, for that matter. He saw the outlines of three prone mercs, standing out as a cold blue colour.

  “Hostiles down,” he said.

  Something clipped his helmet, and Eli turned towards the worm tunnel as another something clipped him. Eli stood rigid as the head of a large drilling machine broke through the blast doors, sending more chunks of concrete and reinforced steel whizzing past him. A figure charged out of the left stone worm tunnel. Unlike the mercs, this one had no EV suit. Eli spotted the soulless black eyes, and his blood turned to ice in his veins. He had wondered how they were going to get Zapata to follow them. Sometimes fate, destiny, or whatever it was called, was in one’s favour. Bonus: Zapata was fooled by the disguise.

  “Behind you, you mindless idiot!”

  Eli wanted to shoot the Thule, but he was too close to raise his rifle, so he calmly dropped to one knee and sucker-punched Zapata under the chin, stunning the former commander of Lincoln. Eli stepped back and brought up his rifle. More mercs scrambled through the tunnels. Two charged Eli, knocking him to the ground. Ley grabbed him from behind and yanked him into the staff room as Pelle, Jade and Colter used the door like a shield to push back the merc who tried to follow. Grunting with the effort, Pelle and Jade held it in place while Colter spot-welded the hinges and corners.

  “Move out,” Ley said.

  “That was my chance,” Eli said.

  Ley touched her helmet to his. “I know you’re angry. Hell, I am too, but we’ll have another, bigger chance, remember. To kill them all.”

  Squeezing her arm in answer, Eli rushed through the rear exit and assisted Pelle and Colter in hastily welding steel plates over that door.

  The group had done everything they could to prevent The Nine and the mercs from using the fusion core plant as an incendiary bomb. The access panel down to the sewer was a tight squeeze in the EV suit. Nox barked and growled at the door until Colter called him back. He went first with the Alsatian, quickly followed by everyone else. In less than two minutes, they were back under the sewers, running through the Mocker route. Eli wasn’t sure if Zapata had taken the bait, but, from the stomping sounds, the mercs had.

  Ley, on point, halted the group. A large portion of the tunnel had collapsed. They backtracked and climbed the first ladder. It took all their efforts to shift rubble from the tunnel exit. Eli gazed around the ruined street, jaw clenched at the destruction. They were south of Central Canal. Houses he had walked past hundreds of times over the years were now in ruins. Concrete, bricks, glass and timber lay in haphazard piles where mercs’ shells had taken out huge chunks of walls. Roof trusses sat exposed and twisted. Stepping over the legs of the corpse of an old woman, Eli gripped his rifle tighter. So much senseless violence. For what? To what end?

  To take his mind off the death, he thumbed his comms. “Watcher Team Six, coming in hot with hostiles on our tail.”

  “Glad to hear you guys.”

  “Jess?”

  “The one and only. Everything is ready.”

  “Pipes open?”

  “Copy that.”

  “On our way.”

  Ley nudged him and pointed to the next street over. A mirror glinted in the low light from the top of one ruined building, then another and another. Snipers were ready, and the way was lit.

  “Ley, take Nox and Colter. Pelle and Jade, with me,” Eli said.

  Without a word, Ley moved out from the debris-littered street. Colter whistled for Nox, and the dog immediately put his nose to the ground, sniffing out the clearest route.

  Eli, Jade and Pelle didn’t have to wait long for the mercs to emerge from the Mocker route. They came out guns blazing and grenades bouncing. Eli ducked down behind a slab of concrete. Orange flames from the small explosion singed an advertising flag hanging above his head, and thousands of tiny fragments blasted holes in the concrete and any exposed surface. Once the initial boom had faded, Eli popped up and searched for a target. He needn’t have worried. There were dozens, mercs and The Nine’s soldiers, striding down the street. Accompanying the squadron were three small tanks. Eli fired three bursts, then dropped as the Lincoln snipers fired down. Jade scrambled over, gesturing wildly towards a nearby staircase. “On our six.”

  Eli rolled and aimed. A soldier of The Nine appeared. He shot the soldier in the chest, then rolled back.

  Pelle sprinted from the right and tackled the next soldier to appear on the staircase, sending them both crashing down and out of sight. “Go, Watchers. I’ll hold them back.”

  “We’ll cover you.”

  “Go, you fucking idiot. Me and the boys will show these kints whose city this is.” Pelle’s radio went silent, and either he wouldn’t answer or was too busy fighting. Eli grimaced. He might not have liked the Cabal leader, but he still hated to see him die. But if he did, Pelle had chosen to die with honour, fighting until his last breath.

  “Eli?” Jade shouted.

  “Next position. Go!”

  This was all part of his plan. He needed the attacking force to follow them, and was banking on Zapata’s anger to cloud his judgement. As far as traps went, it was pretty basic. But, as Old Patty liked to say, do the unexpected. The former commander of Lincoln would be used to fighting Echoes and well-trained Legion forces, not Gnat rabble with nothing to lose. That was why Eli hoped it would work. Simple.

  Jade didn’t hesitate. She tore off, running five metres, then diving behind another pile of rubble. Eli followed her as the lead tank fired one of its rounds, blowing the already half-destroyed house into kindling. Centuries-old steel beams spun through the air and embedded into the cavern’s roof high above. The explosion knocked out the lights in the immediate area, and Eli’s oxygen warning system beeped in alarm. He switched to the suit’s supply and activated his radio.

  “Eli for Ley.”

  “Copy. We got them on our asses.”

  “Any sign of Zapata?”

  “Nope.”

  “Neither. See you at the crusher.”

  “Copy that.”

  For the next twenty minutes, Eli and Jade dodged barrage after barrage of rifle fire, grenades and the occasional tank shell. Despite wearing the suit, Eli felt like his nerves were on fire, screaming in his mind at every near miss. How they were still alive surprised him. Surely the Thule had trained these sexless idiots to shoot?

  Another block closer to the crushing plant, and another series of near misses. The Lincoln snipers were getting picked off with incredible ease, which sickened Eli. At the next intersection, Jess had gathered all the drilling machines and cargo buggies, wedging them among the debris. He nodded at Jade and slapped Eli on the shoulder.