A Child Of Our Time (The Veil Book 2) (10 page)

Justice Garr watches on with wide-eyed astonishment, the projection system doing its best to show them the events as they unfold.
She seems…she just seems so…so—real.
Boyce and Moule are equally transfixed, while Landelle remains gripped by a terrible guilt, her eyes red with tears.

Lucy sets the VTOL down on the Pan Am helideck, its engines dying away. A final, purposeful shutdown of the craft’s systems releases her, hands shaking, to collapse into an uncontrolled sob. Lucius comforts her with a gentle arm about her shoulders.

“It’s okay. Let it all out.”

“They took you away from me!” Lucy sobs. “I just wanted to get to you, but they chased me! And they tried to hurt me! And they killed Alice! I saw!”

She turns into him, wrapping her arms about him, burying her head into his chest, heaving great sobs. A terrible angst washes over Lucius as feels the embrace. The Tap makes it real. But the Tap is just a slave to the simulation—Lucy’s simulation—and when she squeezes him just that little bit harder, and burrows her head in just that little bit more, it cuts deeper into Lucius’s heart.

“It’s over now. I am here.”

They part from the embrace, Lucy drying her eyes with her little balled-up hands.

“All better?” smiles Lucius.

“A little.”

“Alright then.” Lucius manages as beaming a smile as he can for her.

And then he vanishes.

A startled Lucy stares agape at the empty space with despair. Her eyes betray an inner search for information, followed by a surfacing realization. Her face twists to pure anger, a rage engulfing her.

“No! No, no, no!”

* * *

Lucius all but collapses from the strain, peeling the Tap from his head, intent on an angry confrontation with his nurse for ending the session—only to find her held back by men in military uniforms.

General Korin completes the disconnection of the Tap feed, tossing the cable to one side.

Lucius and Korin just stare at each other, Lucius wracked with despair.

Korin barks out his orders. “I want him secured at the facility inside of fifteen minutes.”

A stretcher is wheeled alongside Lucius’s bed, as Jenner appears with a medication gun, administering an injection without pause. Lucius groans.

“What are you doing?” the nurse bleats.

“Resuming Dr. Gray’s treatment,” Korin’s demeanor detached and cold.

“Should be enough to stabilize him,” Jenner says. “There will be a lot of pain.”

“Sedate him. Pain management when we get there.”

“You can’t do this,” shouts the nurse. “Dr. Gray has an advance directive.”

“This is in the interests of national security and is for his own protection.” Korin sweeps out of the apartment as his men lift Lucius onto the stretcher.

* * *

Garr is incandescent with anger. The projection has gone, but not before they witnessed Korin’s treachery. Still, she has assets of her own.

“Commander Torrence. Have Lieutenant Reese watch Lucy. He is not to let her out of his sight. I suggest he keeps his distance.”

A now composed Torrence replies over the speakers. “Understood.”

Landelle, too, has gathered herself.

“We need to get down there,” Garr says to her.

“This area is still gridlocked,” Landelle says. “It’s this building—trouble here has the whole city spooked. There’s widespread panic and the National Guard are evacuating Manhattan from the south.”

A frustrated Garr is momentarily at a loss. Then an idea.

“Dr. Boyce, Dr. Moule—”

REVENGE

Eyes narrowed, brow furrowed with anger, Lucy monitors police radio bands and city-wide information channels. She manifests a map—no markers. She looks darkly out of the VTOL’s forward windows. The cityscape reappears one chunk at a time.

With the simulation fully re-established, she scours it—every surveillance camera, media channel, weather station she can find—only this time far more than she managed before. A multitude of images flash before, all different angles and viewpoints.

A marker appears on her map, an image next to it. Reese’s VTOL perched on a rooftop not far away.

Lucy’s mood darkens even deeper, and she puts her childish ways behind her.

From his vantage point, a block or so away, Reese sees Lucy lift off.

“She’s on the move.”

He brings his own engines up to speed, gives Lucy a moment, and then lifts off himself. Ahead, Lucy descends back into the forest of buildings and out of sight.

“Christ, now what?”

He follows her down. Cautiously he takes his VTOL between the buildings to search for her. This area of the city has all but emptied, the panic further north having spread quickly. It should be easier to spot her VTOL. But Reese hasn’t thought for a moment that the hunter might become the hunted and right behind him Lucy’s VTOL rises stealthily from below.

A marker blinks on Reese’s map display. Realization dawns.

“Shit!”

He punches his thrusters to push forward, Lucy’s VTOL immediately surging after him. Now it’s Reese who weaves among the skyscrapers, skirting perilously close to one, a tight turn around another, Lucy hot on his tail, impossible to shake.

There’s a reason she needs to get close.

Alarms sound on his flight console. The autopilot has activated. It’s flicking through a series of options.

“What the hell? God, she’s in the flight systems.”

“Attention,” announces the autopilot. “Attention. Autopilot engaging. Emergency controlled descent.”

A shrill alarm accompanies said descent. Ahead is an open area—a plaza. The ground is coming up fast, the engines whining with the strain. The autopilot issues one last warning.

“
Brace! Brace! Brace!
”

The VTOL hits hard, plowing into the plaza, jolting Reese into his harness as it comes to an abrupt halt, a spray of debris chucked forward.

Lucy’s VTOL roars past overhead.

Reese slams the flight console with his fists.

* * *

A military convoy arrives Manhattan dockside, outside the warehouse requisitioned by General Korin. His men unload Lucius’s stretcher, wheeling him inside, the purpose-built enclosure awaiting him; not its original purpose, but then, plans change.

Lieutenant Jenner remains outside, surveying the docks and open water beyond.

Korin steps to his side to nonchalantly survey the scene for himself.

“You have a daughter, don’t you, Lieutenant? About seven?”

Jenner is somewhat bemused by the question. “Nine, sir.”

“Nine,” Korin nods. “And what is she like when she is angry?”

“Sir?”

“And how terrifying would it be if she was holding a loaded gun?”

Jenner looks to the general for an explanation of what on Earth he is talking about. Nothing.
What’s he missing?
The lieutenant puts two and two together to come up with five.

“The gunship’s weapon systems are fully locked down, Sir. High-end encryption. Even a third-generation Emby would need a week to crack the codes.”

Korin allows himself the tiniest of wry smiles.

“She will have cracked the codes the moment she needed them. It will have taken her less than a second.”

It’s all Jenner can do to just stare back at Korin for something, anything. The general shrugs his shoulders.

“She’s…complicated.”

The roar of thrusters reverberating around the docks heralds the arrival of Lucy’s VTOL, sliding into view, its engines whining up and down as it menacingly takes up station before them. It bristles with activated weapons.

Jenner staggers back a few steps, mouth agape. Korin, for his part, is unable to hide a nervous intake of breath.

TIME

The VTOL has landed, the flight deck empty. Screens show a bewildering array of activated weapons trained on Korin’s center of operations. Jenner scrambles in with a military technician.

“Jesus…”

“Get this lot deactivated,” Jenner says.

The technician taps one of the screens—it responds with a terse indication of its locked status. He clearly has no idea where to start.

Inside the warehouse Korin’s men have entered the enclosure, carrying Lucy’s MBI unit. The enclosure had been set up as a series of laboratories, one of which now serves as an emergency room for a sedated Lucius. He has been transferred to a bed, surrounded by medical monitors and automated medication. A space-frame cradle, originally intended for the receipt of Lucy under different circumstances, sits at the foot of his bed. The soldiers haul the MBI unit in, mounting it atop the cradle.

General Korin follows them in. With the unit secure, the men withdraw, leaving a mesmerized Korin looking over the MBI unit, an array of patterns floating over its surface. From within Lucy addresses Korin tersely with her pretend voice—that of a young woman.

“Leave us.”

Korin sizes the scene up, before striding away.

In her simulation Lucy shakes with fear and anxiety at the foot of Lucius’s bed. She sees the medication system hooked up to him. Calming a little she approaches—it is fully stocked with an array of drugs. A moment and its screen shows it disengaging from its current protocol, before administering a jolt of adrenaline.

Lucius stirs. Groggy eyes open to find the ghostly projection of a forlorn Lucy standing next to the bed, looking right at him. He manages a weak smile, but as the fuzziness melts away, so the smile fades. Lucy looks down at her hands, fumbling her fingers.

“Have you…hurt anyone?” Lucius croaks.

She confronts him with her eyes.

“No! I would never!” It’s her little-girl voice.

Lucy reverts to shy and sorrowful. “I’ve done some bad things.”

As the fog clears from Lucius’s mind, so his throat clears also. He can feel the pain surfacing, but for now the balance is tolerable.

“But you knew that they were bad things,” he says. “That’s all that matters when you have no choice. Lucy. I want you to promise me something.”

“What am I to promise?”

“Be yourself. Always. If you stand by your principles they will never be able to touch you.”

Lucy remains shy and sorrowful.

“General Korin is going to keep you alive for me, isn’t he.”

Lucius turns away from her to hide the expression on his face. He can’t bear for her to see his feelings. But she is right there, on the other side of the bed, closer still. He has another weak smile for her and she brightens a little.

“Heard you were in the Library of Congress. Making a nuisance of yourself.”

She shyly avoids his eyes. “I was looking for a way to make you better.”

“And what did you find?”

Lucy hangs her head sorrowfully for the longest moment, before bringing her eyes up to meet his, her gaze unwavering.

“If you want it to be, it can be time.”

Lucius is lost for words. All he can do is swallow hard, searching her eyes for any sign that she understands what she is suggesting. They betray nothing.

He affirms that he has understood, and that he accepts, with a simple nod and blink of his eyes.

“Will I die one day, Lucius?”

“Yes.”

Lucy brightens just the tiniest bit more.

“Then we shall be together,” she says. “In heaven. With angels.”

Lucius cannot hold the tears back.

She looks to the medication system, his eyes tracking hers as they return to him.

“I am ready, Lucy.”

* * *

Technician slices through a thick cable loom with a large pair of bolt cutters. All the VTOL’s weapon systems go off line.

“We are in the clear.”

But Korin and Jenner are listening in on some unheard conversation. They exchange a look of grave concern.

“Has she just…?” Jenner can’t bring himself to complete the sentence. He has heard Lucy’s true voice for the first time. But Korin’s face burns red with anger.

“Go get her.”

* * *

An endless field of tall-stemmed white daisies surround Lucius’s bed, under a piercing blue sky. Lucy kneels on the bed next to his still body, looking down at him all forlorn, her little hand resting on his.

From nowhere two of Korin’s men come up behind her, crashing through the daisies, grabbing her around the torso and dragging her backward off the bed. She reaches out to clutch at Lucius, but recedes too quickly to get a handhold.

In the real world the soldiers exit the warehouse manhandling the MBI unit, Korin and Jenner joining them to make double time dockside toward a mooring point some distance away. Out on the water a vessel is speeding toward them.

Lucy’s MBI unit flickers white shapes all over its surface, the strobe effect all but concealing the obsidian slab.

They are halfway there.

The reverberation of thrusters as a VTOL cuts across their path—a Cantor Satori freight shuttle, Landelle standing at the open hatch as it comes into land, her voice booming over the public address system.

“YOU WILL CEASE AND DESIST.”

Landelle is out the moment the VTOL touches down, unholstering a sidearm, armed beat cops leaping out after her.

Moule remains aboard the VTOL next to MBI #1—JoJo. Upfront the flight deck is empty.

Landelle and the police point their weapons at Korin and his men. Those soldiers not carrying Lucy instinctively draw their own, a stand-off ensuing.

A second VTOL rounds on the scene. Aboard, standing at the hatch, are Justice Garr and Boyce, behind them MBI #2—Eleanor, piloting the VTOL to land nearby.

Garr alights as quickly as her age allows, marching straight for Korin.

“You will put that child
down!
”

* * *

JoJo and Eleanor freeze time, so that they may act quicker in their joint simulation, leaping from the VTOLs to weave between the statuesque figures, and make for Lucy. She is scrunched up into a ball on the ground, shaking with absolute terror, clutching the daisy flower Lucius gave to her.