Revolution World (19 page)

Seth laughed and gave her a lopsided smile. "What? No. That's SCA or Amtgard. They are 'live action' role-playing games. Dorks like us play those too. But this is traditional 'pen and paper' role-playing. No hitting each other with sticks or dressing up. The most exercise we get is rolling the dice. Although we have been known to talk in funny accents."

Clio desperately wanted to make fun of him right now, but realized this would not be the politic thing to do. She swallowed half a dozen jokes at his expense.

"Tell me more," she said with a smile, leaning over to look at the board. Any hint of mockery there might have been in her voice went unnoticed as Seth got an eyeful of what her shirt wasn't covering. Clio saw the odd expression on his face and quickly stood up. She only just managed to keep herself from tugging the top up.

The guys insisted on working the girls into their D&D game. After explaining a few basics they gave Clio and Kalliope pencils and paper. Then they told them to pick a character out of a book called "The Big Book of Monsters." After flipping through the book for a few minutes, the girls started giggling uncontrollably.

"What?" Seth asked, changing the music to a slow Brazilian tango with his handheld. Clio and Kalliope only giggled louder. Max and Harmony looked up from the couch in the corner where they had curled up.

"Oh come on! We are sitting in one of the most technologically advanced facilities in the world." Kalliope held up the book in disbelief. "You people have hologram projectors in your lunchroom and probably virtual reality plug-ins on your kitchen sink. And you are playing a game that involves pencils and paper? This is an actual book you just handed me. I thought Clio here was the only person left on the planet to use paper and even she uses a ballpoint pen."

From across the room, Max laughed. "We like to kick it old school," he called.

Seth couldn't tell if they were making fun of them or not. "It's a time-honored tradition of our people," he said stiffly.

"What people is that?" Clio asked.

"Nerds."

"Oh."

Clio felt a change in subject was in order. She looked down at the book and pointed. "I'd like to play this character," she said.

Kalliope looked over her shoulder and read the description. "You want to be a vampire?"

"What? Isn't that what you are doing? Playing vampires?" she asked.

Seth and the other Omerta guys stared at her for a long minute before they started laughing so hard that one choked on a potato chip and had to be given the Heimlich maneuver. It was Clio and Kalliope's turned to look confused.

"What?" Clio asked, looking around blankly.

"We, uh, have a joke about vampires," Seth chuckled.

"Let's hear it," Clio said. Maybe she'd figure out why vampires kept coming up. She really didn't understand. She hated all that vampire and werewolf stuff. As a geneticist, she knew these things were all silly stories. Real monsters were much easier to make.

"No, it's stupid. Look here, why don't you play this character here?" Seth took the book from her and flipped to a different page. He sat close to her, discussing the game in a soft voice to show they had not been making a joke at her expense.

"Why don't we have some more drinks?" Harmony suggested to unanimous approval. "And Clio, I know you haven't eaten much today. Put something in your stomach before you have another drink, please."

Seth leapt to get her a drink and a plate piled high with food. "If I had known you were coming, we would have arranged for something better," he said, apologizing for the potato chips and other junk food lining the buffet.

"Don't worry about it," she said with a smile. She couldn't help the warm glow of joy she got just being around him. Then she realized she was starving.

As the guys resumed their game, Kalliope dove in while Clio was content to watch and eat. Seth explained what was going on until she had a fairly good idea of how the game worked. She had to admit it was quite interesting and she was looking forward to getting into the next part of the game.

Seth sat close to her and she could tell that he wasn't angry any more by the looks he was giving her. She took his hand under the table and they sat together, enjoying the moment.

Unfortunately, that's when the ceiling fell in. One minute they had been commiserating with Seth over getting maimed by a troll, the next minute the lights flicked to red and a loud siren began. Before she could react, there was the loudest BOOM! that Clio had ever heard. Then they were sprawled on the floor under a large chunk of rubble.

The world spun sideways for Clio as she choked on dust and pushed her way out from under the debris. She saw her mother climb out from behind a couch where Max had thrown her. Clio registered that her mother was coughing up dust, but seemed unharmed.

"The wall!" Max cried, pointing behind them. She turned around, trying to figure out what happened when Seth grabbed her and bolted for the door. She looked back to see the outer wall collapse. Fortunately, it fell outward so no one was beneath it.

She heard Gloria's voice floating through the terrible sounds of destruction. "We are under attack. Repeat. We are under attack. One incoming threat was neutralized before impact but resulting concussion has damaged a wall on ground level, northeast corner."

Seth swore angrily. "I programmed the defense missiles to launch too close to the building. I'll set them to go off much farther away next time."

Clio thought it was very cool and very scary that Omerta had defensive missiles.

Gloria's voice continued calmly, "One new threat approaching rapidly to the northwest. Repeat. Single external threat incoming. Everyone get to the lower levels and away from the northeast walls until we have assessed the damage."

"Seth, wait." Clio cried. "I have to make sure my sister and my mom are alright."

When he didn't stop, she began to struggle in his arms. She thought that, in a while, she would marvel at his strength and speed, but right now she had other problems.

"Seth, come on. We need to go back."

"No," he said grimly, without breaking stride. "I need to make sure you are safe." After racing down at least two flights of stairs and through a hallway with numbered doors, he shouted something she didn't understand that triggered one of the doors. When it didn't open fast enough, he kicked it, cursing loudly.

He gently put her on a soft couch and hovered over her with a worried look. She looked around at the room. Monitor screens lined the walls. Some of them displayed a jungle at sunrise. One screen was set up like a large white board with equations scribbled on it and a list of things to do: "Laundry, Lift weights, Call Clio." Another cycled through still shots from what looked like a family vacation with a smiling Seth in most of them. There were couches, random piles of computer equipment and a stack of dirty dishes on a table.

"Is this your room?" she asked, pushing away his hand after he'd poked her for the fourth time on what would definitely be a bruise later.

"I sleep back there," he replied, jerking his head to another doorway.

Clio wanted to explore, but she wanted to know her family was safe first. "We have to go back," she insisted.

"You stay here. I'll go back," Seth replied.

"No."

"I can lock you in," he threatened.

"Another explosion and we'll all be smashed to bits down here. We need to get out," she countered.

Seth shook his head. "It would take multiple direct hits by a Cold War Era nuke to affect us down here. Snipers could pick us off if we all trooped outside. Omerta protocol says to stay inside and get down low." Clio's eyebrows shot up. These Omerta guys took their security very seriously. Part of her mind wondered if the Co-op had ever even thought about any kind of attack like this.

Before she could protest, he was out the door. She got up to follow him and realized that she must have twisted her ankle. Wincing in pain, she limped to the door and looked out. He was nowhere in sight.

She'd been in such a daze that she really had no idea where they had come from and the hallway stretched out like a funhouse maze. She looked back into Seth's room, wondering if she should just stay put. A cracking sound and dust falling from the ceiling decided for her.

Clio limped along the hallway, wishing the doors had windows so she could see inside. When she got to the end, she decided this was the most likely spot for a stairwell and opened the door. What she found inside was straight out of a horror movie. She stuffed a fist in her mouth to keep from screaming.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
halia was spending more time in Ambrosia Springs lately and not loving that at all. She had stayed late after the meeting with Malsanto to work up some projections. While they had no plans to turn over a powerful splicing technique to their biggest competitor, she had an idea about how to satisfy their requests without giving them anything too dangerous. It was uphill work though and usually her sisters would stay to help instead of flitting off to go flirt with those geeks over at Omerta.

When handhelds started twittering emergency alerts all over the Floracopia, she viewed it as a welcome change of pace. But when she saw that unknown forces had attacked Omerta, she started to panic.

Bolting out the door, she used her handheld to shoot off messages on the town alert system that her mother and sisters were in the building. When she got to the roadblock, she would have raced through it if she thought her scooter could do it. The sheriff walked up and gripped her handlebars as if he knew what she was thinking.

"The Omerta people asked us to set up this roadblock. You can't go in. They say they'll shoot down anything that approaches their building until they are sure they won't be attacked again," he said quickly. He switched his grip to her arm, anxious to get her feet on the ground. "You can't go in yet. They will shoot you," he repeated firmly.

Several more cars and trucks screeched to a stop behind her. "My sisters are in there. My Mom is in there," Thalia said desperately.

"I know," he replied. "And the calmer we can keep things out here, the sooner we'll be able to go in and find them. So help me keep these people calm." She looked at him and realized he didn't know if they were safe or not.

Terpsi and her husband strode past them with huge guns, but were stopped by the policemen. She saw Jason blaze through the field next to the road in his truck. A police motorcycle raced after him. Making him see reason took four more officers.

"This is going to get out of hand," Thalia said to herself as she sat down in the dirt to watch the mayhem. Then she heard a muted explosion.

*****

Inside the building, Clio heard the explosion too. The building shook slightly, it didn't seem like it had been hit. Although it could be that this explosion seemed milder because she was down in the basement and not sitting right next to it. She would much rather be sitting next to a bomb than down in this basement filled with blood. Clio really couldn't believe the room she was in. She had walked around twice looking for some indication that this was an elaborate hoax.

Blood banks lined two of the walls, motors whirring gently to keep a vast amount of blood preserved. Medical equipment lined another wall, along with several cots. The cots were set up just like they are at blood drives, except these had thick leather straps along the armrests. She really didn't want to know what that was about. One of the cots had equipment strewn about and a thin line of fresh blood across the headrest. Clio looked around. Someone had rapidly left this room recently.

Try as she might, Clio could not think of a rational explanation for a room full of blood like this. She could understand having a sick bay in Omerta's embassy compound with some blood on hand for emergencies, but this was way beyond that. She remembered Seth joking about a medical condition. Even if everyone at Omerta needed daily transfusions, it wouldn't account for this much blood.

Further ponderings were thrown from her head when a macabre figure appeared from behind one of the blood banks. She wasn't really sure she was looking at a human. Two dark eyes peered out of an impossibly scarred and wizened face. It looked as though someone set an old man on fire, let him partially heal and then did it again. Like a train wreck, the figure was terrible and fascinating.

"Are you alright?" she asked, watching him stagger towards her, clutching his stomach. It was a fantastically stupid question. There's no way this person was even remotely all right. He looked disoriented, but seemed keenly interested in her. Clio reached out to help steady him. He turned to her and groaned loudly. She saw blood dried around his mouth.

Clio decided the best course of action was to get the hell out of there. As she slammed the door shut behind her, Seth appeared at the end of the hall.

"There you are," he cried with relief. He flashed a quick smile that melted off his face when he realized what room she was just in. Clio turned and ran.

She knew her ankle was sprained but that wasn't going to slow her down. Her only thought was to get far away from that room right now. She'd had too many surprises for one day and none of them had been the good kind.

"Clio, wait!" he cried. She could hear him chasing after her, so she ran faster. She wished now that she'd attended a few of those martial arts classes everyone had been going to lately. She resolved to start doing some kind of self-defense training first thing tomorrow if a horde of zombies in Seth's basement didn't eat her today.

The Omerta complex was a maze. She gasped for breath and sprinted towards a doorway, Seth still calling for her to stop. Something tackled her and she let loose a bloodcurdling scream. She kept on screaming as Max elbowed her a few times, but then she realized he was just trying to roll off her. Clio ran out of air and paused to suck in a breath. Her mother shook her hard before she could start screaming again.

"Pull it together," Harmony said sharply. She looked disappointed in her daughter. Clio looked around and saw Kalliope right behind them. She was so glad they were alive and uninjured that she almost forgot the importance of leaving immediately.