The truck continued to get closer. It was moving fast.
“Shit,” he said under his breath. Louder, to the camera team, he added, “I’ll be right back.”
He sprinted across the six-lane street, pointing behind Emily to get her to turn around. “Look!”
Ted’s warning instinct kicked in. The loose material on the incoming truck wasn’t what he thought. They were flags secured on poles next to his exhaust stacks. Giant, oversized, red-white-and-blue American flags.
Emily figured out to turn around. As soon as she did, he swept her into a run. “This way!”
Ted had the presence of mind to know which way was safest. They ran toward the approaching truck, putting as much distance between themselves and the head of the convoy, where the runaway driver seemed to be heading.
He figured they had a good ten seconds to run before the hell-for-leather tanker rammed the convoy. The guy in the cab wore a white cowboy hat, suggesting he was a good old boy who drove trucks for a living. A guy Ted would have been honored to drink a beer with.
Today, the man shifted in his chair as he approached, seemingly interested in watching him and Emily run for their lives. The guy might have been suicidal, but he kept his wits and gave them both the finger while flashing a huge grin.
The giant flags cracked the wind as the truck barreled by at seventy miles an hour. For the last few seconds, the air horn sounded, making Ted think of a dive bomber coming in for the kill…
“For the love of God, don’t stop!” he yelled to Emily.
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
A pair of guards brought Tabby back to the auditorium with the white cube, but there were no spectators around. They made her stand by the device, which hummed with energy despite appearing to be turned off. They refused to tell her how long she would have to wait, and she didn’t have her phone to check the passage of time, but it seemed like hours. By the time someone showed up, she’d been sitting on the floor for a while.
“Oh no,” she said under her breath.
“Hello, my dear.” It was the woman who called herself a handmaiden, Charity. She continued to wear the white skin-tracing spacesuit, though her fiery red hair was gathered up in a bun.
Tabby climbed to her feet. “Hello,” she said glumly.
“David said he was terribly sorry he couldn’t be here for this, but he’s had to deal with a counterattack against the Legion which took place in Fort Collins. He said I would be more than capable of conveying his displeasure at what you’ve done by trying to escape.”
She glanced over to the two guards, who showed no discomfort at having been made to watch her relax next to the cube. Their black jumpsuits and black rifles were properly intimidating. However, the redhead was just as threatening, even as she spoke in a pleasant voice.
Tabby tried to jump ahead. “I wasn’t really going to leave. I only wanted to get a breath of fresh air.”
“I’m sure,” the redhead replied, obviously not fooled.
Charity looked to the dark alcove to the side of the stage area. “Bring them in!”
The stern woman had already threatened to harm Audrey and Peter when they all came in the first time, but now it struck her how selfish she’d been. “Please don’t hurt them. Put me in the box. I was the one who tried to leave.”
The woman crossed her arms. “So you admit it?”
She nodded wildly. “Yeah. I did it! Me!”
Two people walked out from the darkness. The first man looked like he’d been left out in the sun for about a week straight. His skin, where it was exposed, was bumpy and red. He walked hunched over, as if wearing a backpack full of lead. His grunts made his short walk seem a monumental challenge. The guy looked a bit like the man who’d been tossed inside the white light earlier in the day, but she couldn’t be sure.
The girl behind him was Audrey. There was no question about it. She was dressed in the same white-and-orange clothes she’d been wearing earlier. When she saw her, the girl’s face burst with recognition and happiness. “Tabby!”
No one stopped them from meeting, so she embraced Audrey in a long hug. She pretended to be overly dramatic, though she was holding the other girl to whisper to her. “Are you okay? Where’s Peter?”
“I’m fine. Peter was taken to another cell. I could talk to him, but I haven’t seen him. I’m not sure where he is…”
“I miss you guys.”
The girl hugged her even tighter. “I miss you, too. You’re rocking this uniform, but why are you dressed like them?”
“It’s a long story. I—”
Charity coughed to get their attention. “That’ll do. I don’t want you to miss this.”
She and Audrey ended the hug, though she gripped the girl’s hand and held it, practically daring the female boss lady to break them up further.
Charity didn’t care. She motioned to the guards. “Push him into the box.”
The men pulled out gloves, then roughly shoved the male prisoner into the clear framework of the cube. After shutting the door, they took off their gloves and stepped back. Charity had the floor.
“This man is responsible for betraying the Legion. He’s killed members of our family. You saw part one of his punishment earlier today. He was placed inside the David Cube to receive justice. As you can see by the boils and lesions on his skin, justice was served.”
Tabby’s stomach curled up in a ball.
Looking at him anew, she recoiled at the realization that his skin wasn’t sunburned. It was, as she said, covered in sores. The man wasn’t old enough to walk around hunched over and in pain. Something had indeed changed between the time he’d gone into the cube and now. The sight was terrifying.
Her heart could have been outside her body. The
