Forever Until Tomorrow (War Eternal Book 5) (31 page)

She clenched her teeth and hit the button.

The answer didn't matter. This was bigger than her. She was a piece of the puzzle. Nothing more.
 

"Katherine," someone said behind her. "Kathy. Kate. Kitty Kat."

She turned around. A man she didn't recognize was standing there, his hand holding tight to Coate's slender wrist. He was large and fat, with a mop of wild brown hair that clung to his face in a sheen of sweat. He was wearing a buttoned lab coat. She wasn't sure if he had anything on underneath.

Coates looked terrified. His face was red, and he had tears in his eyes. His arms were bruised. Not a slave, then. A prisoner.

"I've dreamed of this moment," the man said. "Or, I'm sure I would have if I were capable of dreaming. I have thought about it, though. You're the real prize in all of this. Mitchell? He's like a worker bee. Single-minded. Kill everything. You? You have the potential to be a queen." He waggled his finger at her. "Not yet. You're still a princess right now."

She raised her gun at him. "Are you trying to stall me?"

He smiled. "Stall? No. You're waiting for the elevator. I'm waiting with you. I want you to know, he didn't break easily." He shook Coates like he was a rag doll. "It took an hour or two to get him on his knees. But watch this. Get on your knees."

Coates fell to his knees.
 

"See. I don't need technology to make them do what I want. People are fun that way. Take the spirit, own the person. So much more entertaining than sticking a receiver under the skin, but also so inefficient."

He reached into a pocket of the coat, taking out a knife.

"Don't," Katherine said. "I'll kill you."

"Go ahead. There's more of me where I came from." He smiled, dropping the knife on the floor. "Your ride will be here in a second. I want to leave you with something to think about."

"What?"

"Why am I letting you go?"

The elevator reached her. The doors slid open. She could smell Trevor standing behind her. She could feel his presence.
 

"Kill yourself," Watson said. Then he spread his arms wide.

Coates reached for the knife.

"No," Trevor shouted.
 

Katherine fired, hitting the configuration in the chest. Once. Twice. Three times.
 

Trevor pushed past her. Coates had the knife. He brought it up to his throat.

"Jason," Trevor shouted.
 

He slid it across his own neck without hesitation, as if it were the only release from a nightmare he would never escape any other way. And maybe it was. Trevor reached him as he toppled forward onto his face.

Katherine stood frozen a second time, the nausea almost too much to control. Big, strong Trevor knelt next to the wiry lab tech, holding his body across his lap, looking first at Watson, and then at her.
 

Why was he letting her go?

"Trevor," she said. "I told you to go up."

The words were cold and callous. She didn't care. She was angry. At herself. At everything.

He looked back at her, his eyes ferocious.
 

"Katherine," Origin said. "Where are you?"

"I'm coming."

"It's too late."

"What? No. I'll be there."

"I can't let him take me. Meet Mitchell at the source. Don't let Watson find it."

"The source? Find what? You said we had to do this together."

"We will. Do it."

"What about the Dove?"

"I didn't get everything. Beware of Cap-"

Origin's voice cut off.
 

"Origin?"

Nothing. Katherine shook from a sudden chill. She looked over at Trevor. It was his fault. If he had gone to Origin instead of her...

She suddenly felt completely alone.

Why was he letting her go?

She wished she could ask Origin. Now she wouldn't have a chance.

She stumbled into the elevator, her entire body numb. Did humankind have a chance? Two people against an intellect thousands of years ahead of their own? It didn't matter if Watson were deranged. He was also plotting at least two steps ahead of them, and any action she took could be playing right into his hands.

Origin told her to meet Mitchell at the source, and not to let Watson find something. Since Watson was letting her go, wasn't it obvious that it was so she would lead him right to it?
 

And again, what choice did she have? They had come to Nova Taurus knowing that Watson might have been onto them the entire time, and now she knew for certain that he had. Everything was a trap. Every possibility was considered and planned for in a network of branching logic she could barely keep up with, never mind anticipate.
 

How were they supposed to beat that?

She almost laughed when she remembered that they never had.

Meet Mitchell at the source. Those were her marching orders. She assumed that by the source, Origin had meant the XENO-1. At least the part of the ship that was deeply embedded in the ice and too massive to move. But Nova Taurus had been granted access to the site almost ten years ago. How was it possible that there was anything on the starship that the Tetron had yet to discover?

Because Origin had hidden it, and hidden it well.

Watson wanted to capture Origin for something, and that was it. Except Origin would never allow herself to be captured, and the other Tetron had to have known it. He had forced her to pass the torch instead, to someone who was inferior and who was sure to screw up somewhere down the road and give him the opening he was waiting for.
 

Someone like her.

What if she didn't go? What if she remained here, refusing to be part of this war? What if she shot herself in the head right now?

Plan B. That was what. Or C. Or D. Or E. Watson had surely considered every alternate scenario and had a play for each. The only difference would be that she would have taken herself out of the equation.

Origin was a Tetron. No. Origin was the Tetron. The first. She knew how Watson would think. Did she know this whole thing was a ruse? Had she sacrificed herself to get Katherine here?
 

Katherine couldn't rule it out. Besides, wasn't the shit she knew she was stepping in better than the stuff she couldn't see?

She decided that it was. Let Watson follow her to the source. Let him confront both her and Mitchell there. From what Origin had said, the Colonel was a survivor. He wouldn't go down easy.

And if he wouldn't, then neither would she.

She tapped the controls for the elevator. The doors started to close.

A hand stopped them, and they slid back once more.

Trevor stood in front of her. His shirt and pants were soaked through with blood. So were his hands. She had seen the expression he was making before. She knew what it meant.

"You aren't doing this without me," Trevor said. "You can't fight him alone."

"Okay," Katherine replied. "You should have gone up."

"I couldn't." He glanced back at Coates' body. "I couldn't."

"You aren't the man I thought you were, Trev."

He looked at her.

"You're better than that."

"What's the status?" Mitchell asked as Daisy returned to their stolen car.

"They're in," Daisy said with a smile, slipping into the passenger seat of the vehicle and closing the door.

"We're best to ditch this ride before the police, Watson or otherwise, catch on," Max said.

Mitchell leaned forward and put his hand on Michael's shoulder. He had been impressed with how quickly the man had overcome the car's security systems with little more than his portable tablet and AR glasses. Then again, Michael had confided that he had worked on the code for this particular model, which was why he had chosen it from the parking garage of the apartment building.

"How are you doing, Michael?" he asked.

"I'm hanging in there. Where are we headed?"

"Colorado Springs," Daisy said.
 

"You didn't mention our particular situation, did you, sweetheart?" Max asked.

Daisy leaned back over the seat. "One, don't call me sweetheart. I didn't like it when we were sleeping together, I don't like it now. Two, I do this for a living, jackass."

Max laughed. "Mmm, I love it when you call me names."

"You heard the lady, Michael," Mitchell said. "Colorado Springs it is."

"Colorado Springs," Michael repeated. "That's near Fort Carson, right?"

"Yup," Daisy said. "That's where my boys are stationed."

"You're sure we can trust them?" Mitchell asked.

"If Watson knows about this crew, you've already lost the war, Colonel," Daisy said.
 

Mitchell had explained the situation to her and Michael as they had put together their plan. Getting them to believe in the story had been an easy sell after what they had already experienced.
 

"Who are they?" Michael asked, getting the car moving.

"The Flying Fifteenth," Daisy said. "Paratrooper special ops."

"You never told me you knew the Fifteenth," Max said.

"Nobody is supposed to know the Fifteenth exists," Daisy replied. "How do you know them?"

"I know everybody, babe."

She raised her eyebrow at him. Max laughed in response.

"I know a guy who knows a guy whose brother is supposed to be in the Fifteenth. I got him a Kalashnikov 210."

"From where?" Daisy asked, intrigued. Mitchell knew they were talking about guns, but he had never heard of the model.

"Yeah, from where?" Lyle said.
 

Max kept laughing. "I found a dealer in Siberia who got one from a soldier, who picked it up during the war. I bet it cost him two years' pay to get his hands on that rifle."

"You're so full of shit," Lyle said.

"No way, bro. I don't lie. Sergeant Damon. I think that was his name. Ring a bell, sweetie?"

Daisy was straight-faced. "No."

"I can see that it does. You see that, Colonel?" Max said, pointing. "You can always tell when a woman's lying by the way their lips make that shape. You see it? Up at the corner there?"

Daisy turned away. "You're such an asshole."

"I speak the truth."

"That doesn't mean you aren't an asshole."

Max didn't stop laughing. Mitchell was able to smile for a few seconds before the weight of what his was doing drove the lightness away.
 

Go to Antarctica, to the wreckage of the Goliath. The place where his friends and comrades had died. Where Kathy had died.
 

He remembered his daughter. She had told him she was born from his and Katherine's DNA, mingled with something of Origin's. The first true Tetron-human hybrid. She had sacrificed herself to get the Goliath here with Watson trapped within. He knew now that Watson was intended to have remained trapped, but the intelligence had found a loophole to at least partially escape to an earlier time. It was the reason his and Origin's plan was in disarray - the Tetron had gotten a head start, and had been ready when the XENO-1 crashed.
 

Kathy had promised she would see him again. It was a promise he was going to make her keep. He had to survive to do that.

Return to the source. His first thought had been that Watson had planted the message, that the intelligence had outwitted both Origin and him. He didn't think that anymore. It didn't make sense that Watson would try so hard to kill him if he still needed him. It did make sense that Origin would want to know when he had unlocked the message, and when he would be en route.

The question was, why?

There was a larger plan in effect, one that they had made him forget. Was it as simple as heading to Antarctica, or was it bigger and more complex than that? He didn't know what he was going to the crash site for, only that he was supposed to go.

Would Origin be there, waiting for him?

Would Kathy?

Would Watson?

"Are you okay, Colonel?" Lyle said.

Mitchell pulled himself from his thoughts. He had lost track of time while he had been lost in them, noticing now that the landscape had changed, the outskirts of Denver traded for hills and trees.
 

 
Whatever was waiting in Antarctica, their survival depended on their success there. They had to be ready.

He glanced over at Lyle, nodding a few seconds later. Whether meeting the Detective had been serendipity or by Origin's design, it had been essential to getting him this far.

"Where are we?" he asked.
 

"About ten miles outside of Colorado Springs," Michael said.
 

"We've been making fun of you the whole time," Max said. "You said you're a Space Marine, so it makes sense that you were spaced out."

He laughed at the bad joke. Mitchell didn't join him. His attention was stolen by a light in the sky, getting bigger in a hurry.

"Has the car been reported missing?" Mitchell asked.
 

"No," Michael replied. "I've been keeping tabs on law enforcement and military channels for mention of it. Everything's been quiet so far. Why?"