The Deadliest Earthling Page 5

  “How’s that?” from Edwards. “You’ll execute them all?”

  “Funny thing about that bomb under the high school. I was on the team that dismantled it. That made it pretty easy to recycle the important parts. One wrong move and all the survivors in the tunnel over there go kaboom.”

  Chapter 14

  Johnny’s head spun at Harrison’s threat. Ahead, a tunnel crossed theirs. If he squinted, he could see the outlines of his fellow New Bagramites huddled along the floor and sitting against the walls in silence. The tunnel was large enough to house a couple helicopters, so he assumed there were a lot of refugees.

  “We tell you where the Eagle is, and you give us what? The detonator? The code to defuse it?” Juan asked skeptically.

  “You get her to come to me, and we talk. I know she’s not far. It’s Orun that’s our problem.”

  Our problem. Him and the Anunnaki soldiers. Either Harrison didn’t know Orun couldn’t use his powers for violence or he figured he would break that rule to protect the Eagle.

  “The Conifer sent out its own signal. So why did you add that broadcasting chip to mine?” Johnny added. If they drew this out, maybe someone could conjure up a plan.

  “To show the Anunnaki that I wanted to help them,” Harrison grinned. “I needed to prove I was on their side. And what better way than revealing the location of your Conifer? So which of you is going to convince the Eagle to come over here? Or do I have to start executing you?”

  Without warning a staccato of gunfire roared through the tunnels. For a split-second, Johnny assumed Harrison was unloading on them. But the blasts came further down. At once the Anunnaki charged in.

  “Good thing you didn’t know about the other evacuation group. Maybe if you’d stayed as an operational adviser,” Edwards quipped.

  Harrison’s face contorted in rage as he vanished completely.

  Johnny snatched his handgun from the cement and tried to pinpoint his location. Of course, invisibility made that impossible.

  “Find Harrison,” Edwards shouted as they charged forward. “If he leaves with the Conifer we’re screwed.”

  “Good thing you’ve got an Anunnaki on your side,” Orun said, striding past them. “He’s up ahead.”

  Johnny stared hard for any signs of him as a flurry of pulse surge whines, gunfire, and screams filled his ears. Beside him, Edwards unleashed a three-round burst at an Anunnaki soldier.

  As they barreled into the intersecting chamber, an Anunnaki sprang out from behind a support column, its hand flicking out at Johnny. His blood froze, knowing he was dead.

  And then the Anunnaki’s orange eyes glazed over, and it fell forward.

  “I told you I’d catch up,” Laura shouted, jogging over to him as New Bagramites scrambled to the edges of the tunnel and behind cover.

  Johnny paused. All the Anunnaki soldiers lay sprawled along the cement, their armor soiled in red. People were still hollering and shifting where they stood or crouched, but the battle was over.

  Beside him, Laura’s eyes brightened. “Mom, are you okay?” At once, she embraced the Eagle with a hug.

  “That you, Aldrin?”

  Johnny snapped to alertness as his combat instructor, Sergeant Sledge, marched up to him. Sledge was a monumental, balding man with specks of white hair, who had earned his stripes on missions with the Eagle back in the Shroud War.

  Johnny saluted. Sledge returned it. “Good to see you. With the casualties we took, we worried you guys might be…”

  “What casualties?” Johnny asked, dreading the answer.

  Sledge exchanged an uncertain glance with Laura as she pulled away from her mother.

  “What casualties?” the Eagle reiterated.

  Chapter 15

  Sledge cleared his throat.

  “We estimate as many as a thousand civilian losses ma’am. Militarily, the bastards crippled us. Except for Aldrin, we lost our entire graduating platoon.”

  The words sank inside Johnny like an anchor into the sea. He felt nauseous. Even though the tunnel hadn’t changed, it seemed different, almost fake. He slogged off, leaving the others to confer with the Eagle, and threw his fist flat against the cement wall.

  He lost himself in that moment. His friends were really gone. What was there to say or do to bring them back? Nothing. The same as his parents. But even his parents had died fighting.

  Ibdan had always said death as a Watcher was glorious. But Hamiad, Krem, Skunk, and the others were only cadets. They hadn’t even been able to defend the city. So it was not an honorable loss. It was a massacre.

  Approaching footsteps alerted him to the Eagle’s bodyguard.

  “Here,” Juan said, Johnny’s Conifer necklace in his hand.

  Johnny slipped it over his neck. “Where’s Officer Harrison?”

  The Eagle’s bodyguard pointed, and he turned to see him lying motionless on the cement. “The Anunnaki must’ve thought he was trying to escape. The good news is that his bomb requires a detonator.” He revealed the device in his hand. “As long as we’ve got this, we’re safe.”

  A frail cough from the fallen officer cut Johnny’s relief short. “You’re not safe,” his pained voice managed. Johnny found himself strolling over. “It was your fault,” he spat.

  Officer Harrison rolled his head so his cheek lay against the cement. Blood stained his temple and the chest area of his white undershirt. Staring into the tunnel’s abyss, he looked utterly emotionless. “My fault?” he wheezed. “When your parents destroyed their legacy, they destroyed mine, too. If the mission succeeded and we crippled the Anunnaki, I would have been highly rewarded. I could have installed myself as the leader of a new government.” His words became strained and he shut his eyes. “As you grew up, I thought maybe you could be my chance for redemption. Instead, you threw away the opportunity. So I had to make other arrangements for my future.”

  The officer went still, yet his words lingered in Johnny’s mind. How a man could try to pin New Bagram’s destruction on him was unthinkable. Yet, for as crazy as the reason sounded, Harrison had just laid it all out.

  “Don’t try to make sense of his ramblings,” Juan said. “I doubt anyone could.”

  Squinting away the defeat on his face, Johnny nodded and wandered over to the pack of refugees in the larger chamber. Thousands of them littered the space, huddled against each other, glued to the walls. Mothers cradled young children in their laps, and couples huddled together. Their faces were sunken and eyes bloodshot. He couldn’t escape the smell of urine and smoke and sweat that bloated the air.

  A part of his mind clung to the idea that Sarah might’ve survived.

  “Sarah?” Johnny called out.

  No one reacted. A commotion was coming from the far end of the line. He brightened the tunnel with a flash of his Conifer and saw twenty men and women cornering someone against the wall. He craned his neck and studied the heads. A familiar face captured his gaze.

  “Morris?” Johnny pushed his way through.

  The brown hair and white deacon robes confirmed it was his seventeen-year-old cousin, his hands up apologetically.

  “Everyone, I’m just saying God has a plan. I didn’t mean that we deserved it like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  “Morris,” Johnny repeated, glad to see someone he knew.

  His sudden appearance acted like a suppressant to the people at his cousin’s throat. The crowd parted to let Johnny and Morris talk.

  “Johnny? Are you okay?”

  “Me? What about you?” Johnny said, leading him away. His cousin’s face was masked in terror. Not that he blamed him. “I’m looking for Sarah. Have you seen her?”

  “No. I—Well, I did see her before the attack. She was walking toward the obstacle course,” Morris said somberly. “Listen, I could pray for her if you want.”

  “You’ve probably got more important work,” Johnny said, noting a woman trying to wake her unmoving husband.

  Morris’s grim expression suggested that the
man was already dead.

  Johnny let his eyes wander once more around the pack of survivors before the truth grabbed hold of him. Not even Sarah had survived the firestorm. He would never get a chance to apologize to her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Morris said encouragingly. “Come on, have a little faith.”

  Johnny answered with silence.

  “Just one small prayer, I’m sure—”

  “Don’t say it, all right?” Johnny snapped.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “My problem is that faith hasn’t done a lot for these people,” Johnny growled, not wanting to linger on thoughts of the dead.

  “Hey, are you trying to get yourself mobbed? They don’t want to hear that.”

  Venturing off, Johnny stumbled upon the Eagle, Laura, Sledge, and Orun locked in a tight circle. He caught a whiff of their conversation right as it ended.

  “Promise we’ll get the ole shuttle up and running,” Sledge said with a mocking hand raised as if to give an oath. Johnny squinted in confusion. What shuttle?

  Orun’s eyes darted to him. “We’re moving on. And you’re coming with us.”

  Johnny wanted to refuse, but he was the Keeper. He had duties to live up to. If the Anunnaki wanted his Conifer, he wasn’t leaving the possibility of them finding it to someone else. Still, spending the rest of who knew how long with Orun would get old fast.

  He noticed a pair of tough-looking men badgering his cousin.

  “One condition,” Johnny said.

  A couple of minutes later, Johnny, Orun, and Morris joined up with Dagos and Juan.

  The Eagle gave Morris the once-over. “Guess it can’t hurt to have God on our side.”

  Other than himself and Juan, Johnny realized they were a pretty vulnerable group combat-wise given Orun’s pacifism. At least they were small enough to avoid standing out.

  “So where are we going?” he asked.

  “We need to get the Conifer and ourselves to a safe house,” the Eagle said. “And then we can try to sort out this mess.”

  They didn’t reach the top of the exit stairwell until the end of the day. Johnny fought back a laugh as Juan strained to turn the opening lever of the ten-foot bank-vault-style door.

  “When was the last time someone used this?”

  “Let me,” Orun said, his thobe lining and earrings silver now instead of gold. He must’ve changed the color to attract a little less attention. Namely because Anunnaki were not keen on humans owning gold. Likewise, the Eagle slipped on a black burka to conceal her highly sought-after identity.

  Orun twisted the lever effortlessly and pulled the metal slab open.

  Stepping out, a sea of fire and ash greeted them.

  Chapter 16

  Black, scorched earth stretched for miles, little fires biting at the landscape. Johnny couldn’t believe the firestorm blast extended this far. Everything smelled charred. A wooden shack roasted a few feet away, the glow dancing on their skin in the dimming sunlight.

  They traced the coolest path through the dead landscape. It was slow going, and abrupt dog snarls in the distance tested Johnny’s nerves. Night fell within the hour, and the charred earth began fazing out.

  When they reached unburnt land, they propped up their tents. As soon as his tent stood steady, Johnny dropped onto the blanket inside and dozed off.

  Hushed voices from outside woke him. He tensed up, thinking they belonged to an Anunnaki patrol. But they weren’t Naga.

  “I’ll stay at the safe house for a week or two,” Dagos said.

  “Anunnaki will be looking for you,” Orun said.

  He could see their shadows, cast against a distant glow that had to be New Bagram and the surrounding area.

  “Don’t remind me,” she said with disdain. “I’ve got enough nightmares from the Shroud War.”

  “Yes, but they have a greater incentive this time around.”

  What did she have now that she didn’t have in the War? The answer became obvious as soon as she said it.

  “So do we. Protecting the Conifers.”

  Johnny raised an eyebrow. Did Dagos say Conifer or Conifers? As in more than one? He was half-asleep, so he couldn’t be sure.

  “Even if it means putting Johnny’s at risk?”

  “Unless you’re willing to break the rules, we need a field asset who can take down targets.”

  Johnny realized she was referring to him. Of course this was why they’d brought him along. They needed him for his abilities.

  A minute later Orun swept open the tent’s flap.

  They packed up as the sun rose the next morning and got moving by the time it lifted over the horizon. Johnny couldn’t help thinking about the Conifers. His parents told him about them when he was five. Their idea of a bedtime story. There were four, each granting its wielder a special power. During the Shroud War, the human forces managed to steal them from the Anunnaki. But they weren’t enough to beat them. When the peace treaties were signed, the Conifers were hidden away to prevent the Anunnaki from ever regaining the advantage they provided.

  Because if they ever acquired all four, they could use them to “awaken a great power.”

  He hadn’t heard the story in ages, but he knew it contained some truth at least. Enough that the Anunnaki might be up to more than simply trying to capture his Conifer. Ever since they showed up in 2012, guerilla fighters had resisted the Naga. That was before the Shroud War even officially started. It was 2060 now, and reports suggested that the shadow resistance had taken a toll on their energy grid after almost fifty years. That was bound to put pressure on the Naga.

  Maybe the rumored doomsday weapon the Naga could activate thanks to Mars’s passing near Earth was the “great power” his parents mentioned.

  Up ahead, the road led into a city. Yellowing grass and trash framed them as they came upon a length of mud-brick and wooden shacks that lined the road. Johnny noticed one with a tattered red, white, and blue flag hanging from the roof.

  “Is this the safe house?” Johnny asked.

  “Not quite,” the Eagle said, still wearing a burka. “We need to collect the key here first.”

  They approached and saw a face peeking through the window curtains. Before they could knock, the door opened to reveal a man in a white mask, black shirt, and beige pants.

  “Hurry.”

  Even with his eyes obscured, he was looking past them, Johnny could tell, as if worried about trackers. Inside, he motioned to two sofas. Everyone but Juan sat.

  “Why don’t you sit? I’m sure you had a long walk,” he said mockingly.

  Two masked militiamen along the wall grunted and made pretend shooting gestures. Johnny was glad this wasn’t the safe house because he felt anything but safe.

  “Relax, Erich, we’re only here to get what you promised us,” Juan said.

  “Then that’s a problem,” he said. “Because we hear you aren’t keeping your promises.”

  “What?” the Eagle snapped.

  Erich folded his arms. “Word is Claire Stevens never checked in.”

  Claire Stevens. Sarah’s mom. He must’ve been referring to a check-in she was supposed to make along the way to her meeting with New Bagram’s funders.

  “Something could have delayed her. It happens,” the Eagle protested.

  “Claire Stevens is off schedule, and New Bagram gets blown up. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence.”

  The Eagle pursed her lips. “I need to borrow your radio.”

  Erich led her, Juan, and Orun into another room. Johnny folded his arms and studied the cracks in the walls. Their conversation was no doubt above his Watcher clearance level.

  “Nice, um, place you got here,” Morris said, clearly trying to be courteous.

  One of the masked guards grunted. “Yeah, Old Bagram’s not a bad city, aside from the recent kidnappings.”

  Morris screwed up his face.

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Guess every city is going to
shit around here,” the guard said.

  They lapsed into an uneasy silence, Johnny willing his cousin to stay quiet as he shut his eyes. He didn’t see Claire Stevens’s delay and the firestorm as pure coincidence either. She’d been a careful woman, well aware of the lands around New Bagram and beyond. The Anunnaki were upping their game if they’d managed to capture her.

  A distant staccato of gunfire jolted Johnny from his thoughts. He sat up straight.

  “What was that?” he asked on impulse.

  “Must be the Anunnaki,” the guard said with a shrug.

  “The Anunnaki don’t use guns,” Johnny said.

  “No, I mean some locals must be fighting them.”

  “They’re here?”

  “A few Naga scouts came this morning. Probably building up a small patrol force.”

  Johnny shook his head. This was the sort of thing you warned someone about ASAP.

  If they left the city soon, they would be okay. But the longer they waited, the more the Anunnaki patrol could organize surveillance. Including house-to-house sweeps.

  A couple of minutes later, the Eagle, Juan, and Orun rejoined them.

  “If I’m going to be traveling with you, it might help to keep me informed,” Johnny said.

  “I’ve always thought bad news was overrated,” the Eagle said, interlocking her hands. “But if you must know, we better get comfortable here.”

  Johnny raised his hand, classroom-style.

  “I thought we needed to get to a safe house.”

  “I don’t give them out for free,” Erich said.

  Still not clear, Johnny turned to the Eagle in puzzlement.

  She reclined on the sofa. “Our benefactors won’t provide funding to New Bagram’s refugees now that most of its graduating platoon is gone. Part of that funding pays for Erich’s services.”

  He doubted the Eagle would outright reveal the loss of this year’s fighting force. More likely, their funders heard through a third party. Namely, the Anunnaki. They must’ve broadcast their successful elimination of New Bagram and its graduating cadets.