“Now that we know the material works and how best to deliver it,” Nageau said, “we need to work quickly. We have been afforded a very small window of opportunity wherein we have the element of surprise. It will be only a matter of time before the enemy becomes aware that their tools of destruction have been neutralized.”
“How much time do you reckon we have?” Tikina asked.
“Less than two days.”
“Can we rally the League in such a short time?”
“Yes, thanks to Tayoka. Things are already in motion. From what the Sentry and the five have gleaned, there are two sites involved in creating this scourge. One is in a place called Redding and the other in Boulder City, which is where Aari and Tegan are. They have now assumed the role of infiltrators rather than prisoners and have given the Sentry useful information about the site.
“In addition to the sites that produce these devices of destruction, there are six—well, five now—major locations that house them in their pods, a kind of nest. I have reached out to and carefully selected the Sentries for this mission. Marshall has also contacted them and they have been assigned to their respective targets. There will be two Sentries assigned to each pod and four to the site in Redding. Tegan, Aari and the Sentry will take care of the one in Boulder City.”
“Who do we have in the other areas?” Saiyu asked.
“There are two lads—twins—who traveled some distance to be at Redding with two other Sentries. Jag, Mariah and Kody will be heading to a place called Vernon in Texas where another pod is located, and couple of Sentries are now positioned in Montana.”
Tayoka raised his hand partway. “Is that not where the five are from?”
“It is,” Nageau answered. “More Sentries are on their way to the other three places in the states of California, Washington and North Dakota and will be in position shortly to strike on our signal.
“They have done the groundwork. All they are waiting for is the delivery of the material to destroy the pods and their orders.”
“With the hand of destiny guiding our attempt to stop this blight, this mission will be successful,” Ashack said, perking up slightly, “but what does this mean for the rest of the world? How do we put an end to the scourge elsewhere?”
“The Sentry’s friend can produce more of the material within a moon cycle.”
Ashack frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that the best he can do?”
“It is difficult to produce as it does not exist in nature. It must be created.”
Saiyu fiddled with the bracelets on her arm. “So much damage will be done by that time, Nageau.”
“It is all that can be done for now, my friend. Sentries in different parts of the world have searched for alternate means to produce this material. It seems Marshall’s contact is the only one right now with the capability to deliver the needed quantity in the shortest time.”
“By then,” Ashack added heatedly, “we will have lost our element of surprise. Knowing they are under attack, the enemy will increase their security measures, making it far more challenging to destroy the pods.”
Nageau placed a hand on the dark-haired man’s back. “Take heart, Ashack. The Sentries are keeping a very close eye and will be prepared.”
“I think we have momentarily forgotten an important question,” Tikina said. “Now that we know who the puppet master is, what do you suppose Reyor’s reaction will be?”
An uncomfortable chill came over the group. Nageau pulled a thread from his cloak. “I understand that the last thing we want to do is infuriate the person who is the living embodiment of what the ancient prophecy warns of, but this is something that can no longer be avoided. We must be prepared for Reyor’s retaliation. I will need to meet with Magèo to inform him about this and see what he can do to prepare to defend the village should the need arise.”
“If anyone, that batty inventor of ours should be able to devise some means of defense,” Tayoka chimed in.
“You really think Reyor would dare attack us?” Saiyu asked. “Here?”
“I doubt Reyor would bear any love for our home anymore, Saiyu. It is a worst-case scenario, but I suggest that we ought to be ready so we are not taken by surprise.”
The other Elders agreed, all of them quiet and somber. Nageau stood up and brushed his cloak. “Come, my friends!” he said, resonant. “Cast aside your masks of solemnity! We have received an encouraging sign this night. These are the times spoken of in the prophecy. This is when we must stand strong with the bearers of light against the dark storm. The five have arisen to fulfill their role as ordained, thus we must fulfill ours. The League stands ready. Let the incursion begin!”
T
his is serious
déjà vu
right here.
Hijacking the delivery truck as it headed to Quest Defense had proven easier than expected. The driver had stopped for a “stranded” motorist and seconds later found himself pulled from the cab and rendered unconscious. Now, wearing a black and red uniform jacket that was slightly too tight, Marshall felt the eerie familiarity of driving the medium-sized box vehicle. His cap had the shipping company’s name, ZappEx, stitched on the front. He’d assumed that Quest Defense would not have wanted just any courier company handling their cargo and had intercepted the vehicle he’d seen making other deliveries.
He’d spent the previous two nights observing the afterhours routine. The workers in the labs worked two shifts, the later one ending an hour before midnight. He planned to arrive at the complex between eleven-fifteen and eleven-thirty and park at the smaller shipping bay on the left side of the lab/R&D building. If Tegan’s late-night dragonfly snooping was right, batches of yet-to-be-activated nanomites in steel canisters and their empty pods would be ready for pick-up from this bay.
Tegan had been a great help. Using Jag as intermediary, she’d described the interior layout of the complex and the nanomite lab. She’d also taken note of the guard’s patrol schedules and provided Marshall with the keypad code he would need to enter the building. The girl was a natural when it came to covert reconnaissance.
Marshall made a right turn into the entry and stopped at the guard post as workers drove through the exit, their day’s work completed. His watch read eleven-twenty.
Good timing.
The guards were in some kind of heated argument. As he rolled down his window, Marshall caught the exchange, “Then you handle that! It’s none of my business!”
Marshall lowered the brim of his cap a second before the guard turned to him, face glossed in irritability. When he took stock of the Sentry, his petulance increased significantly. “Who are you? Where’s Charlie?”
Currently taking a snooze behind a bush in his Iron Man boxers
, Marshall thought. The words that actually left his mouth were, “He had a family emergency. Called in at the last minute.”
The guard was suspicious. As he began to ask another question, his partner yelled something inaudible to Marshall. The guard turned his head and barked crudely in response before waving Marshall through and continuing the squabble.
The Sentry wasted no time getting away from the guard post. As he drove to the back of the complex, he glanced at his bag that lay on the floor by the passenger’s seat. Proceeding past the main shipping bay and the submersion test pool, he quickly parked the truck at the smaller shipping bay. Grabbing his bag, he sprang out, unloaded a dolly from the back and wheeled it to a door. The keypad was just as Tegan had described it.
He punched in the required four digits. The door buzzed, accepting the code. Marshall straightened the dolly, opened the door, and walked through.
Near the main entrance to the complex, a man in a black uniform walked toward the security post. A long scar crossed from his left temple, over the bridge of his nose, and to his right cheek. He waited for the last few cars to file out of the facility, then walked to the door of the enclosure. The guards inside let him in.
“Who was driving that delivery truck?” he asked, his calculating eyes boring into the pair.
“Charlie called in sick,” one of the guards answered. “That was his replacement.”
“Did you get his I.D.?”
“Jeez! The guy’s from ZappEx. They wouldn’t send in just anyone, you know. Pretty sure he’s qualified for the job.”
“So you did
not
verify,” the man in black said frostily as he exited the post. “I’ll call the company to confirm this. If anything is amiss, you’ll be sorry.”
The drive to Vernon, Texas, was mostly silent as Jag seemed preoccupied during the entire ride. Kody sat quietly for once; Mariah figured he must have been too nervous to chatter away. She stretched out her legs, then glanced at Jag. “You’ve been awfully silent. What’s got your gears spinning?”
Jag looked as if he’d been startled out of a reverie. “What? Oh, umm . . . Nothing. Just feel bad for leaving my grandparents without telling them what’s going on.”
Mariah faltered, then said encouragingly, “We’ll be there and back before you know it, Jag.”
He nodded, though they shared no other words.
After a few hours of travel they arrived at Vernon. It wasn’t a big town but it was certainly more populous than Ransom. Most of the houses in town were single-story properties built on large plots of land. At its outskirts, the town rapidly gave way to farmland. Mariah thought the place seemed relatively lifeless considering its size. “Where is everyone?” she wondered. “It’s too early on a summer night for it to be this quiet.”
The answer manifested before them a few minutes later when the truck turned down a street and came upon a scene of colorful bright lights, blaring music and a large crowd of people enjoying themselves.
She gasped. “
A fair!
”
“This place is far from dead,” Kody noted. “Man, look at all the rides! Look at how
huge
that Ferris wheel is back there! I didn’t know they could have all this stuff for a county fair—I want in!”
“Sure does look inviting,” Jag said, driving past the festivities. “Duty calls, though. We’re here for a reason.”
“Ugh, I know.” Kody tapped the windshield; it was new, since the nanomite-pockmarked one had to be removed. “Good thing we got this replaced, huh?”
“Good thing the replacement was quick.”
They found the house they’d been assigned to. Marshall’s friend, one of the Welsh twins, had taken over Aari’s role in locating nanomite pod sites and had provided them with specific directions. The house lay at the edge of town and nearly every aspect of it mirrored the appearance of the one in Ransom. As the friends got out of the truck, Mariah asked, “Are all the locations like this? Tall gates and fences . . . Look! Even the garage looks exactly like the other one, with the chimney and everything.”
“Maybe they were looking for a certain type of design that met their requirements,” Jag supposed.
Mariah took a step forward but Jag held her and Kody back, then gathered them in a small huddle. As they rested their heads against each other’s, Mariah saw a gleam in Jag’s eyes.
“It goes down tonight,” he said. “All the nanomite pods across the country, and the manufacturing sites, will be taken out by the League, with the Elders at the helm. Tonight, we take a stand against an adversary bent on destroying life as we know it.” He breathed out slowly. “Tonight, we take the first step in fulfilling our roles in the prophecy . . . Fulfilling our roles in this world.”
The little impromptu speech reverberated through Mariah’s ears and fused into her blood, sending an invigorating rush through her entire being. “Let’s get started, then.”
It didn’t take long before the friends reached the back of the garage. After Kody assured them that he could hear no movement inside, Jag used the cordless saw to cut a hole in the wall. Once that was done, he said, “Assume the layout and security setup inside is the same as Ransom’s. ’Riah, you know the drill. Kode-man, you too.”
Mariah effortlessly covered the cameras and the motion detector inside the garage, then she and Jag made their way through the hole. She pointed her flashlight around, taking note of the setup. “Built exactly like the one in Ransom.”
Jag jogged to the steel pipe protruding up through the garage floor. “I ain’t complaining. Makes it easier for us.”
She tossed him the wire cutters. “Mmhm.”
As Jag went to work with the tool, she carefully took one of the anti-nanomite footballs out of her bag and cradled it. Jag cut through the wire without a problem and pried the cap on the pipe open. “Drop it.”
Mariah activated the device and slid it in; the teenagers heard it whistle down the chute, then a thud as it landed. Jag made to close the cap, but it wouldn’t budge. “Uh . . . ”
“Use your strength, Jag! Quickly!”
“I can’t use too much or I’ll—”
There was a loud scrape and a
clank
. The cap had been torn off and fell onto the floor.
Jag looked on in abject horror. “—break it.”
An all too familiar sound echoed up the pipe.
The football didn’t detonate
, Mariah realized, horrified. She fumbled getting the second device out. The metallic buzzing grew louder as it approached the mouth of the pipe.
Jag grabbed her arms and swung her toward the hole in the wall. “Get out! Get Kody and get to the truck!”
“But you—”
“
Now, Mariah!
”
Mariah spun around and dove through to the other side. Kody, who’d heard everything, pulled her up the moment she was out and the two took off. “We can’t leave Jag!” Mariah screamed.
“He said to get to the truck!” Kody yelled back as they raced out of the property. Just then, a muffled boom sounded.
“Oh, so
now
it goes off?” Mariah cried.
They scrambled into the vehicle, keeping the back door open and waiting for Jag to emerge from the house and jump in.
Mariah shook Kody’s arm hysterically. “Where is he?”
The electrified door next to the main garage entrance burst off its hinges and landed on the ground, emitting a corona of sparks. Jag rocketed from the exit and somersaulted over the ten-foot gate. Hot on his trail, the nanomite swarm glowed a threatening red. Jag stopped for a brief moment to look directly at the truck, then turned and bolted away from them toward an empty plot of land adjacent to the garage. The nanomites pursued him, ignoring Mariah and Kody.