Children of Genesis (The Gateway Series Book 1) Read online

  “She has to be OK,” Michael said, sounding more like he was talking to himself than Gideon. He took the gauze Mos handed him and gently pressed it to the back of Kate’s head. It soaked through almost instantly.

  “Mos,” Gideon said, rising. He stepped away from Michael and lowered his voice. “Go help the others. We’ll need that evac as soon as possible.”

  Mos nodded once and unstrapped the open first aid kit from his hip. As he handed it to Gideon he cut his eyes toward Kate, the question obvious. Gideon responded with the slightest shake of his head. The flash of anger and pain in Mos’s eyes before he turned for the door fed the cold pit in Gideon’s chest.

  Mos loved Kate. They all did, in their own ways. To the team she was a little sister, a confidante, a daughter, a granddaughter. And to Michael…

  Gideon steeled himself. When he turned back, Michael was cradling Kate’s head in his lap. He wasn’t telling himself that she’d make it anymore. He wasn’t saying anything at all, just holding her. The tears falling onto her hair told Gideon Michael was no longer trying to see what he wanted. The boy had his gaze fixed firmly on reality, as usual.

  Not for the first time, Gideon felt respect for the boy. Michael was the more rational twin, the more grounded. He had an agile mind and an unflagging desire to exercise it. In a different world, he might one day have created a name for himself in whatever field he chose to explore, most likely in the realms of engineering or science. But we don’t have a different world. We have the one we made, and the choices we continue to make to protect it.

  “Heal her.” The pain was evident in Michael’s voice, but so was the strength backing it. There was no mistaking his command for anything else.

  When Gideon met Michael’s gaze, he saw only the strength.

  “You know I cannot,” he replied. “I need genesis energy for that.”

  “I’m filled with it. Take it. Heal her from me the way you healed Impact.”

  Gideon dropped his eyes to Kate and shook his head. Michael was saying exactly what the logical part of him needed to hear, but he couldn’t give in yet. He had to be sure. The boy had to choose this on his own. “No. I told you when Ace was injured, Michael, healing someone untouched by genesis is dangerous at best. In a body untouched by it, there is no way to know what genesis will do. The risk is simply too great, especially with damage to the brain.”

  “Take the risk,” Michael snapped back. “You can't just let her die. You won't. You won't let that happen.”

  Even through the alien's emotional barrier, the words stung. That's exactly what he'd done. He'd known this would happen. He'd had warning. Yet he'd watched events unfold that he could have prevented.

  “You don't know what you’re asking.” He searched Michael's eyes for any sign of the slightest chink in the boy's determination. Once he set Michael on this path, he needed to know the boy would stay the course, regardless of the cost. “If I take that much energy from you, you won't be strong enough to save your sister.”

  The fierce look in Michael's eyes faded. As he stared back at Gideon, Michael's expression softened to one of acceptance more than anger, a knowing acceptance that threatened to topple the emotional barrier to which Gideon clung. A sad smile barely touched the boy's lips as he shook his head. “You're wrong. I can always save my sister.”

  The words could have meant a number of things, but the calm strength behind the boy's eyes as he said them told Gideon exactly what he needed to know.

  “So be it.” Forgive me.

  He didn't hesitate. He grasped Michael's arm with his taloned hand, laid his other on Kate's unmoving chest, and channeled the blazing energy into her.

  Impact

  Impact came to in a tangle of thin metal rods and wire mesh that had been a storage rack of some kind before his arrival, judging from the metal cylinders scattered around and on him. He sat up slowly, wincing at the stab of pain from his shoulder and back where he'd hit the rack, and took in the rest of his handiwork.

  He was in the back of a long storage room, or what was left of it. Between him and the gaping hole in the far wall was a sea of crumpled racks and jumbled equipment under a low drifting haze of settling concrete dust. Most of the wreckage was pushed deeper into the room closer to him, leaving a clear arc around the hole he'd made. It looked like a bomb had gone off.

  As he stood, he saw the other racks beside him along the back wall, the ones he hadn't slammed into, hadn't fared much better. The shockwave from his entrance had caved in the front struts of every rack at the same level, making most of them add their contents to the chaos on the floor.

  He scanned that chaos and spotted more than one motionless form he couldn't mistake for equipment. Elias had made a point to warn him that there'd most likely be people where he hit, and that those people might not survive. Impact had brushed his concern aside. He was a soldier now, and this wasn't his first battle. He wasn't a kid, not anymore. He'd told Elias as much. But seeing the still forms of people who'd no doubt been walking and talking just moments before...He swallowed hard and pulled his gaze away.

  Shouts and echoes of gunfire drifted in, drawing his gaze back to the gaping hole he'd made. The real battle had started out there. It was time for him to head back outside where he had room to build up speed, where he could charge up and then draw fire, where he might draw his father's attention as well.

  Only, he was inside the base, and somewhere in here Nikki was being held. Padre was the backup rescuer, he knew. If for some reason Nikki couldn't get herself out or Michael couldn't get in, Padre would go in while everyone else kept Savior's forces busy outside. Everyone including Impact.

  But here he was, already inside, and for some reason he couldn't make his feet start moving to leave. Why should I? I'm here already, while Michael and Padre are outside. With my powers, I have a better chance of getting her out than anyone else. The rationalization was thin, not nearly strong enough to cover his guilt over disobeying his orders, but deep down Impact knew he'd made the decision to do so already.

  Metal squealed and groaned off to his right, and Impact instinctively dropped to a crouch. Farther down the back wall, between two of the dented racks, a buckled set of double doors ground open slowly, the metal doors digging gouges in the concrete floor as someone forced them open from the other side.

  He ducked back into the cover of the rack he'd destroyed and watched as four men entered the room. They were fully decked out in fire gear, complete with hoods and masks, and aside from the axes in the hands of the first two, they were unarmed. Even so, Impact stayed down. He could take them, he knew, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself, not now that he'd decided to change the plan.

  He waited until the men made their way deeper into the wreckage before he broke cover. He eased up and carefully stepped around the scattered cylinders, trying to move as quietly as possible toward the doors.

  The second time he set a canister to rolling and froze in a crouch, Impact cursed himself and changed tactics. He wasn't a sneaker. He was a runner. If he was going to get to Nikki, he'd do it with speed, not stealth. Besides, if he didn't get a charge going and keep it up, he wouldn't be much good to her when he found her.

  Impact took one last look at the backs of the firefighters who had yet to turn toward him, then he bolted for the door. He was only a dozen meters from the doors, but he was going fast enough by the time he reached them to spin out at the sudden change of direction to turn through them. He hit the left door and shoved off into the hall beyond, losing some of his energy with the impact.

  The hall beyond the doors was darker than he'd expected, and it had several crossing corridors leading off it, which played havoc with maintaining a charge. He had to stop and start every few steps, and he got turned around more than once. The maze of short halls and rooms was perfect for building frustration, but not so great for building up any kind of speed. Luckily, most of this lower level was deserted, so he didn't run into any trouble while he was st
umbling around all but defenseless.

  Impact finally gave up trying to figure out the never-ending halls and rooms and stuck to the reassuringly straight main corridor. He ran down the hall, feeling his confidence return with each stride, racing toward the yellowish light of what looked like a much more open space at the far end. Straighter was always better, as his rapidly increasing speed and energy attested.

  Impact shot into the room at the end of the hall and noticed several things at once. First, the room was immense. Three stories high and a good hundred meters long and wide with thick concrete columns in rows to support whatever was above. Second, it was lit only by yellow emergency lights and what little daylight made it through the narrow windows high on the wall to his left. His initial impact must have somehow knocked out the main power to the whole structure. And third, he wasn't alone. Walking casually toward the center of the room from a closing elevator in the far corner was the one man he'd been both hoping and dreading to meet—Savior.

  Chapter 39

  Michael

  Michael saw an eye flutter, and his heart leapt. It was such a small thing, a nothing sign, really, a weak impulse that even a dying brain could send out. But to him it meant everything. It meant Kate was coming back.

  He'd watched her lying there still as death for far too long while Gideon drew the strength out of him. With every second that had passed with no sign of improvement, he'd felt his hope draining away with the precious energy Nikki had suffered to give him.

  He should have stopped it, he knew. There was more at stake here than one life. If Savior activated the Gateway and things went wrong again, millions could suffer. Michael had to keep that from happening. He had a job to do here, a chance to use his strength for something besides his own gain. He had a chance to make a real difference. No, not a chance, a responsibility. A responsibility to protect far more than just this one life. But this one life was Kate's.

  So even though he knew he should have stopped Gideon before, that he never should have begged Gideon to start taking the energy he continued to siphon off—he couldn't. This was Kate. He couldn't make himself let her go. He wouldn't let her go. Not while there was even the slightest chance he could help her.

  But it had been so long. When Gideon had done this to heal Impact, it had been fast. As soon as the energy had gone into him, he'd bucked up off the makeshift bed and the genesis energy had worked its magic. It had ended almost as soon as it started. But not this time. Minutes had passed. Gideon had pulled so much energy out of him to no apparent affect.

  Kate's eye flutter, insignificant as it was, reignited Michael's hope. A second later, she gasped and arched up off the floor under Gideon's hand, her eyes opening wide. Before Michael could move to catch her, she collapsed back to the concrete, and Gideon pulled his hand away.

  “Did it work? Is she...” Michael trailed off as he saw Kate's chest move. She was breathing. She was alive. He lifted his gaze to her face, let it caress the sharp curve of her cheekbone, the gentle slope of her nose, her softly moving lips that even now looked to be on the verge of smiling or teasing him. He felt like his chest was trying to drink in the sight of her, to fill the void left by Nikki's strength. He wanted to memorize every tiny detail.

  She was going to live. Whatever else happened, Kate was going to live.

  He closed his eyes and stood. When he opened them, Gideon was staring at him, his stony expression devoid of emotion save for the slightest trace of doubt. Michael had none. Kate was alive, and Nikki was waiting for him. He knew what he had to do, and he had no doubt he could do it. His path was clear, and all the worry, doubt, and niggling concerns he'd been wrestling over this mission had been scoured out of him.

  “Keep her safe.” Michael held Gideon's gaze until he got a small nod in reply, then he turned to the security monitors, to one in particular. SETI VII, the Hunter, was still crouched in front of the south entrance. It sat there, waiting. Good. Nikki needed strength, a lot of it, and the Hunter was where Michael would get it.

  He left the monitor room and mounted the steps to the east door without looking back at Kate. He couldn't. He'd done what he could for her. She was safe now, or as close to it as possible, so he had to put her out of his mind. He had to put everything out of his mind. The Hunter was a killing machine, one he and Nikki had barely survived each time they'd faced it. And this time he had to face it alone.

  He stepped through the door into the dry wind and bright morning light and walked toward the south entrance of the main building with no thought for stealth. That game was done. The land between the security bunker and the main building was a broad, flat expanse of nothing anyway. He couldn't have hidden his approach if he'd wanted to.

  The Hunter spotted him as soon as he started across the hard plain, but it did nothing more than turn its head toward him and wait.

  Michael flexed his hands as he walked and tried to get a measure of the strength he had left. It wasn't enough to take down the Hunter, that much he knew. He and Nikki had both been as charged as ever the last time they'd faced it, and the two of them together hadn't been able to take it down. On his own, he didn't stand a chance of overpowering it.

  Good thing that's not the plan, he thought. This fight wouldn't be about strength, at least not on his end. For him it would be about speed, training, no small amount of luck, and most of all willpower.

  At one hundred meters, he focused on slowing his breathing and calming his mind. He needed clarity, peace, nothing in his mind except himself, the Hunter, and the space between them.

  At fifty meters, he studied the Hunter, looking for some sign of weakness he could exploit. Its joints moved differently from a man's, but they were still joints, weaker than the metal struts between them and limited by their designed range of motion. If he could identify those limits, he could use them to his advantage. To do so, he'd need time to watch how it moved, and how it couldn't.

  At thirty meters, the Hunter uncoiled and launched toward him, and the time for thinking was over.

  Michael lunged forward, closing the distance before the Hunter could land. He dropped and rolled at the last second and the Hunter slammed down behind him, its clawed hands and feet gouging the hard-packed earth.

  Michael rolled to his feet, already circling out of reach, but the Hunter spun at the waist, one arm shooting out. Michael rolled with the hit, pushing off the arm as it struck his side, but even so it took his breath and left a lance of pain in its place. He landed five meters away and slid on the dry ground, just managing to keep his feet.

  The Hunter was on him again before he could catch his breath, and it was all Michael could do to hold his own as they battled back and forth in front of the doors. His one consoling thought as he struggled to avoid the deadlier blows was that he wouldn't have to remember to power Nikki up. That task was proving all too easy. Lasting long enough for her to come save him was going to be the hard part.

  Impact

  He hadn't seen his father, not face to face, in over ten years. Not since the day Savior had made his feelings for him, or lack thereof, brutally clear. Impact jogged to a stop a dozen paces from the center of the room, too distracted by his own suddenly roiling emotions to focus on maintaining his charge. Thinking about that day, about the cold emptiness in Savior's eyes as he ordered his men to open fire on his eleven-year-old son, filled Impact's mouth with the bitter taste of an anger that was never far from the surface. But seeing his father's crystal blue eyes again in person muddled what should have been a clearcut reaction. Despite everything he was, everything he'd done, Savior was his still his father. Seeing him approach dredged up all the emotions Impact thought he'd buried years ago: the hurt, the abandonment, the ache of his futile desire to please a man who demanded perfection from everyone around him, especially his son. The warring feelings made Impact hesitate when he wanted to act, which only redirected his anger inward.

  “Jon,” Savior said with a slight tilt of his head as he stopped twenty paces awa
y.

  “Savior,” Impact replied. As quickly as that, his anger won the emotional power struggle. He didn't know whether it was his father's smug tone that had done the trick, or his use of the name Impact had rejected the day he'd left with Elias, and he didn't care. As he gritted his teeth and embraced the sneer that came to his lips, his focus returned, and with it his awareness of what was going on around him. Namely, the two soldiers trying to use the deeper shadows beyond the columns to slip around behind him.

  “I assume by your dramatic entrance you're not here to return to where you belong,” Savior said, but Impact was in motion by the second word.

  He darted to his right, accelerating away from his father's voice toward the nearest columns. He welcomed the rush of energy swelling up inside him as a he ran. It pushed aside the confusion he'd felt under Savior's gaze and replaced it with the confidence he'd wanted from the start. He actually felt a smile replace the sneer as he hit the wall and spun off it to change direction.

  “Why are you here, Jon?” His father's self-assured voice, though coming from farther away now, reached his ears as clearly as before through some quirk of acoustics in the concrete and tile room. Impact ignored it as he accelerated through the shadows along the wall.

  The first soldier spotted him as he streaked under a security light, but Impact ran through him before he could raise his weapon. He barely felt the collision and didn't break stride, even though he hit with enough force send the soldier flying through the air to hit a column more than ten paces away.

  Impact raced on toward the next corner, only this time he didn't intend to hit the wall and lose energy. He focused on the envelope surrounding him, on the friction lessoning with each stride. He narrowed his focus to to a small spot in front of him, just to the right of center, and at the last second he held his breath and—