“Who’s side are you on?” He gave Hatcher a hard stare.
“Neither.” He reached for his coffee and took another swallow. “I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate here.”
“You suck at it.” Roger stood and reached for his mug. “I have to oversee the shift change.”
“Don’t go away mad,” Hatcher chuckled. “But hey.” He caught Roger’s attention. “In all seriousness, tell the sentries to be ready for anything.”
Roger paused at the door and gave him a concerned look. “What are you expecting?”
Hatcher slowly shrugged. “I don’t know. But my gut is telling me that something is coming. Maybe it’s a cure that backfires, maybe it’s an attack by starving Zulus.” He shrugged again. “Just, be ready for anything.”
“Copy that.”
Carol paused as the sounds of helicopter blades slicing through the air froze her in place. She strained her ears to help locate the craft, but the sounds echoing off of the large brick buildings played with her sense of direction. She craned her neck to look around the bulky air conditioning condenser and peered over the rooftops of the other buildings. “Where are you?”
A disheveled Dr. Broussard appeared at the roof access door and waved at her. “Do you hear that?”
“Come on.” She darted from behind the condenser and ran for the open door. “We need to get out of sight.” She pushed past him and slid into the shadows of the stair well. “I didn’t see them, and I don’t want them seeing us.”
“Perhaps it’s merely a routine flyover of the city?” Broussard asked in whispered tones. “You know, checking the effectiveness on the cure?”
She gave him a droll stare. “There’s no need to whisper. Even if we were on the roof and shouting, they’d never hear us.”
The sound of the helicopter’s approach increased until the pressure of the rotors could nearly be felt inside the building. He turned and gave her a smirk. “They know we’re here.”
“How?” She turned and made her way down the stairs. “There’s no power; even if they could hack into the CCTV cameras, it would do them no good.”
“Maybe they have people on the ground who spotted us?” He huffed as he trudged down the stairs behind her. “Perhaps during one of our outings we were spotted and it was reported back to them?”
She pulled the door open to their shared lab and marched purposefully toward the windows. She peeled back the poster that covered the glass and felt her stomach drop. “They’ve landed in the square.”
“Damn it.” Broussard sat down heavily and held his head in his hands. “Perhaps we should just give up?”
“They have to find us first.” She turned back to the window and cringed. A man holding a device in his hands spun a slow circle before turning and pointing almost directly at her. “They’re tracking us…”
“What?” Broussard sat up, his face registering his disbelief. “How?”
She slumped against the counter next to him. “I have no idea, but some asshole out there was using a device to pinpoint our location.”
Broussard patted the pockets of his lab coat. “I didn’t even bring a pen from the ship. I don’t know how they could have.”
“Knowing the resources of the military, they could have sewn a tracker into the hem of your pants. Or slipped it inside the heel of your shoe.” She sighed heavily and pushed away from the counter. “We can run or we can give up.”
He raised a brow at her as booted feet echoed loudly in the hallway. “They have guns. And if they can track us…”
“Right.” She sighed again as she turned and began to gather her notebooks. “Surrender it is.”
“We’ll tell them that we had to observe from the field. We knew that they’d never allow it and…and…”
She turned and pressed a finger to his mouth. “Or we don’t tell them anything and let them assume what they will.” Her shoulders fell as a man began to beat on the laboratory door. “I guess it’s time.”
The door kicked open and uniformed men flowed into the room. “Dr. Broussard, you’re coming with us.”
Broussard’s face twisted. “Just me? What about Dr. Chaplain?”
“Our orders are to return you to the flotilla.” The man reached out roughly and grabbed the researcher by the arm. “Now.”
“But…wait. What of my partner?” Broussard stiffened as the men began to drag him out.
“She’s not our concern,” the lead man barked. “Take him to the transpo.”
“I’m not going anywhere without Dr. Chaplain!” Broussard tugged at the men, trying to plant his feet. One of the guards hit him squarely across the back of the neck and his legs folded under him. The two uniformed men adjusted their grip and dragged him from the room.
“Should…should I gather my things?” Carol asked quietly as the leader of the men stared her down.
“My orders were, and I quote: ‘Bring the damned Frenchman back. I don’t give two shits what happens to the woman.’ Unquote.” He raised a brow at her.
“So, if I tried to get on the chopper with you?” She swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly very dry. “Would you stop me?”
He crossed his arms and gave her a stony stare. “I can’t say that I’d stop you.” He glanced over his shoulder then lowered his voice. “But I also can’t guarantee that you’d make it back to the ship either.” A chilling smile crossed his features. “So many bad things can happen in the air, ya know.”
Simon watched as his Rager army practiced with the weapons in the shadows of the grocery store. He smiled to himself as they began to regain the dexterity of their fingers, their hand-eye coordination gradually returning as they shot arrow after arrow into the bags of dog food.
He paced behind the lines, watching as his hunters each practiced with different weapons. Bows, blades, spears and even rocks were being used as the Ragers all attacked static dummies.
“I hurt.”
Simon turned and looked down at the woman that he had claimed as his own. “What?”
She swallowed hard and
