After a long moment, Angela flicked off the console. She hoped this would be her final assignment. For months now, she had overseen the collection of subjects for the new trials, and the task had not gotten any easier with time. The children she’d taken haunted her at night, their accusing stares waiting whenever she closed her eyes. Her only consolation was that without her, these children would have suffered the same fate as their parents. At least the research facility gave them a fighting chance.
And looking into the boy’s eyes, she knew he was a fighter.
Angela closed her eyes, and shoving aside her doubt, she pressed another button on the car’s console.
“Are you in position?” she spoke into the empty car.
“Ready when you are, Fallow,” a man replied.
Nodding to herself, Fallow reached beneath her seat and retrieved a steel briefcase. Unclipping its restraints, she lifted out a jet injector and held it up to the light. The stainless-steel instrument appeared more like a gun than a piece of medical equipment, but it served its purpose well. Once her team had Chris restrained, it would be a simple matter to use the jet injector to anesthetize the young man for transport.
Removing a vial of etorphine from the case, she screwed it into place and pressed a button on the side. A short hiss confirmed it was pressurized. She eyed the clear liquid, hoping the details in the boy’s file were correct. She had prepared the dosage of etorphine for Chris’s age and weight, but a miscalculation could prove fatal.
“Fallow, still waiting on your signal?” the voice came again.
Fallow bit her lip and closed her eyes. She shivered in the cold of the car.
If not you, then someone else.
She opened her eyes. “Go.”
Chapter 3
The screen of the old CRT television flickered to black as Chris’s mother switched it off. Her face was pale when she turned towards him, and a shiver ran through her.
“Your grandfather would be ashamed, Chris,” she said, shaking her head. “He went to war against the United States because he believed in this country, because thought we could be the light to the madness that had overcome the old union. He fought to keep us free, not to spend decades haunted by the ghosts of our past.”
Chris shuddered. He’d never met his grandfather, but his mother and grandmother talked of him enough that Chris felt he knew him. When the United States had refused to accept the independence of the Western Allied States, his grandfather had answered the call to defend their young nation. Enlisting with the WAS Marines, he’d marched off to a conflict that had quickly expanded to engulf the whole of North America. Only the aid of Canada and Mexico had given the WAS the strength to survive, and eventually prevail against the aggression of the United States. Unfortunately, Chris’s grandfather had not.
“Things will change soon,” Chris said. “Surely?”
His mother crinkled her nose. “I’ve been saying that for ten years,” she said as she moved towards the kitchen, ruffling Chris’s hair as she passed him, “but things only ever seem to get worse.”
Chris followed her and pulled out a chair at the wooden table. The kitchen was small, barely big enough for the two of them, but it was all they needed. His mother was already standing at the stove, stirring a pot of stew he recognized as leftovers from the beef shanks of the night before.
“Most don’t seem to care, as long as the attacks are confined to the countryside,” Chris commented.
“Exactly.” His mother turned, emphatically waving the wooden spoon. “They think it doesn’t matter, that their shining cities will protect them. Well, it won’t stay that way forever.”
“No.” Chris shook his head. “That one in Seattle…” He shuddered. Over fifty people had been killed when a Chead woke in a shopping mall. Police had arrived in less than ten minutes, but that was all the time it had needed.
Impulsively, he reached for the pocket watch he wore around his neck. His mother had given it to him ten years ago, at his father’s funeral. It held a picture of Chris’s parents, smiling on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle, where they’d first met. His heart gave a painful throb as he thought of the terror engulfing the city.
Noticing the gesture, his mother abandoned the pot and pulled him into a hug. “It’s okay, Chris. We’ll survive this. We’re a strong people. They’ll come up with a solution, even if we have to march up to the gates of congress and demand it.”
Chris nodded, and was about to speak when a crash came from somewhere in the house. They pushed apart and spun towards the kitchen doorway. Though they lived in the city, they barely had the money to survive week to week, and their house was not in the safest neighborhood.
It was well past the eight o’clock curfew now. Whoever—or whatever—had made the noise was not likely to be friendly.
Sucking in a breath, Chris moved into the doorway and risked a glance across the lounge. The single incandescent bulb cast shadows across the room, leaving dark patches behind the couch and television. He stared hard into the darkness, searching for signs of movement, and then retreated to the kitchen.
Silently, his mother handed him a kitchen knife. He took it after only a second’s hesitation. She held a second blade in a practiced grip. Looking at his mother's face, Chris swallowed. Her eyes were hard, her brow creased in a scowl, but he did not miss the fear there. Together they faced
