Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) (2 page)

“But not your body, huh?” She smiled now, and Foster wasn’t sure if he
should like it or fear it. “Too bad. I’m not sure what your brain looks like,
but your body’s definitely…” Her voice trailed off and her dark brows lowered.

“Definitely… what?”

She blinked and cleared her throat. “Definitely not disgusting.” She
pulled at a chain around her neck and presented a triangular metal tag. “Back
to business. I’m Officer Darina Lazitter. This is my badge. I’m supposed to
escort you to Emerge Tech safely. Your employer felt you were taking too long
out here on your unauthorized visit.”

Foster took the tag from her, tugging lightly on the chain so she had to
take a step forward. Sure enough, it said the name she’d given him and her
badge number along with the letters BPD for Boston Police Department.

He let the tag drop, and the chain landed between her breasts. Breast
that were also definitely not disgusting, not that he was paying attention to
those sorts of things. He had more important shit on his mind.

“I suppose we should stop beating each other up then,” he said. “We’re on
the same team.”

“I’m my own team,” she said. “Always. I’ll do the job and be on my way.”
She turned on her heel before he could reply. “C’mon.”

Foster fell in step behind her. He’d follow her to Emerge Tech. Perhaps
she knew an easier way to get there. One that wouldn’t involve him getting
blasted to pieces by Warres’s associates. Thirty-six years old and he already
had some artificial parts. He didn’t need anymore.

And he certainly didn’t need to be dead.

****

Darina knew she should keep a closer eye on her charge, but Dr. Foster
Ashby was over six feet of solid, attractive man. The less she looked at him,
the better. She didn’t need to analyze how those gray cargo pants molded to his
fine ass and long, toned legs. She didn’t need to study how his black T-shirt
emphasized a muscular chest and strong biceps. That interesting ink crawling up
his neck to his ear definitely did not need her close inspection, and she was
absolutely
not
wondering how the dark stubble surrounding his full lips
would feel scraping along her bare skin.

Nope. She was focused on her mission of getting this guy to the safety of
his employer, the wealthy Emerge Tech. Normally she didn’t accept jobs like
this, but times were tough, and she had Ezekiel to support. Sure, he wasn’t her
biological son, but that sixteen-year old meant as much to her as flesh and
blood. He’d been with her since he was six and had been found living under a
pier jutting out into Boston Harbor. She’d coaxed him to her with a chocolate
bar, and the two of them had been together ever since. If getting Dr. Rich
Scientist to Richer Emerge Tech beyond Richest Steel Walls would bring in some
extra cash, then she was going to do it.

For Zeke.

“You know this city well.” Foster’s voice made the image of Zeke in the
camouflage shorts and printed T-shirt he probably absconded from her best
friend and neighbor, Ghared Timms, disappear.

“Lived here my entire life. All thirty-four years.” Twenty-something of
those years had been amazingly wonderful. She’d had her parents who loved her
abundantly, her brothers Deo and Dixon with whom she was a triplet, and Ghared
who was like another brother. Then she’d become a cop like her father and had
enjoyed every day at work. Her colleagues were wonderful to be with, whether
catching criminals or downing beers. It was as if she’d had
two
families.
When she’d found Zeke, her happiness climbed to a new level because she now had
someone to take care of, someone who depended on her.

Things had been fabulous in the city she loved.

Then the Anarch—a secret group of techhead terrorists—fucked everything
up.

Grinding her teeth now, she led Foster down a set of narrow stone steps
to the underground railway, inoperable since the Anarch unplugged the entire
globe. What she remembered most about that night was how dark and quiet it had
been. Not a single light anywhere. Not a single mechanical noise of any kind.
Just complete blackness and absolute silence, both so intense it hurt.

With so much of the world dependent on electronic devices and the internet,
the phrase
third world country
became
third world globe.
Hospitals couldn’t run. Their generators only lasted a few days. Existing patients
died and new ones couldn’t get the care they needed. NASA satellites dropped
out of space, crashing to Earth and crushing anything they landed on. Those
satellites still remained where they’d fallen, looking very much like tragic
monuments memorializing the Anarch attack.

Businesses tanked with no technology to keep them operational and no
patrons to keep commerce going. Money simply stopped flowing just as
electricity and water had. Prosperous cities around the globe instantly became
cement jungles where people did their best to survive to see the next sunrise.
Without modern inventions, people had gone insane pretty quickly. They’d
forgotten how to be self-sufficient.

They didn’t know how to live unplugged.

Savage behavior clawed at humanity’s hold on civilization. A new way of
living emerged.

It was called survival.

Darina could admit to missing the conveniences, but she’d managed. Even
after the Anarch had been caught, no one knew how to turn everything back on
properly. The techheads had left a nasty virus in the system, and geeks were
still trying to sort it all out. If you knew the right people, you could get
access to working technology today, but that was all underground stuff. Maybe
someday the world would be up and running at full power again, but Darina had
her doubts she’d live to see it.

She hoped Zeke got to, though.

After several miles of scurrying in the shadows like feral cats, Darina
ascended a set of stairs, motioning for Foster to stay below until she signaled
to him. He nodded, surprising her.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I just expected you to be more
trouble than you’ve been.”

“Punching you in the face wasn’t enough trouble for you?” He smiled, all
perfect white teeth, and she wished he wouldn’t do that. That was a dangerous
smile right there. One that made her forget she didn’t allow herself to have
feelings for attractive men. Especially rich ones. Not anymore.

She’d had a few relationships in the past, but nothing that stuck. She
didn’t need one that stuck. She had Ghared and Zeke for company. After the
Anarch attack, pockets of fighting broke out; she’d lost her brothers who were
soldiers and had joined the battle without hesitation. They’d fought bravely,
as did Ghared, but only Ghared returned home. Returned to what was left of home
anyway. He’d been taking care of Darina and Zeke ever since, and they took care
of him. She only had room for two men in her life, and Ghared and Zeke were the
chosen two.

She’d let another man get close to her once. At least she’d thought she
had. A stupid move. One she wouldn’t be repeating.  

This Dr. Foster Ashby was a job. A paycheck. Nothing more.

She climbed the last few steps slowly, scanning the open area at the top
and holding out her weapon. Deeming it free of bad guys, she signaled Foster to
join her. She watched all that black hair atop his head as he traveled up the
steps. Her fingers got this wild notion to bury themselves in it, and she
silently scolded those fingers.

Traitors.

She needed all her focus to finish this job and get back home to Zeke.
The kid had endured one of his violent seizures right before she’d had to
leave. Ghared had said he’d take care of it, but she’d hated leaving Zeke in
that exhausted, confused, post-seizure haze. Every time he had one, she feared
it would take him from her. Though he wasn’t technically hers to begin with,
after ten years of acting as if he was hers, she couldn’t deny she loved him
more than anyone on this screwed up planet.

After finding him under that pier and taking him home with her, the boy
had obeyed her every word and clung to her like a magnet. Even now at sixteen,
he preferred hanging out with her and Ghared rather than anyone his own age. He
spent time with Ghared’s niece, Mareea, whenever she visited Ghared, which was
often, but he was still mostly Darina’s boy, and she was totally okay with that.

She supposed he felt lucky to have been found by her and owed her
something. Most genetically engineered castoffs—GECs—were imprisoned and scrapped
for parts. Zeke had received the failed rating because of his seizures. Not his
fault the DNA they combined wasn’t a good cocktail, but the companies working
in genetic engineering took their failures seriously. They weren’t going to be
responsible for putting substandard humans in the battlefield. Only the best
test tube-grown soldiers were allowed to suit up and fight alongside enlisted
men and women.

Zeke had not been considered the best so he’d been labeled a GEC as soon
as he had his first seizure, but he’d escaped from the company that had made
him to a life of living on the streets or under harbor piers. That had been
better than being ripped apart for pieces to be used in other experiments. Dismantlement.
If Darina wasn’t so busy trying to keep herself, Zeke, and Ghared alive in the
city, she would have lobbied against dismantlement. What a horrible notion.

Thinking of it now sent a shudder rippling through Darina. She couldn’t
imagine her life without Zeke. He was her reason for living.

Zeke was also her reason for traipsing around the city with a man who had
a target on his back. And not just any target. Dr. Mikale Warres, famous
chemist and current World’s Most Wanted, was after Foster Ashby. Darina had to
be out of her mind accepting this job. She didn’t want to get tangled up with
Warres.

But the money will keep us in the clear for a while.

Besides, getting behind the walls of Emerge Tech might get her some help.
Help with Zeke’s seizures. She’d heard word of a medicine that eased conditions
like Zeke’s. If she could get some of that medicine, maybe she could spare her
boy the debilitating after-effects. He always said he felt nothing during a
seizure, but when it was over and he wanted to do nothing but sleep, she knew
the toll it took on his body.

Foster stood beside her now—a little too close for comfort, but she was
supposed to be guarding him after all. Couldn’t do that if he was far away.

“See that busted up subway car over there?” She pointed across the street
to the charred car tipped on its side. It had probably been in motion when the Unplug
happened and vaulted off its tracks up to street level. Dead passengers were
most likely rotting inside if the stench riding the warm, summer breeze was any
indication.

“Yes.” Foster’s breath skated across the back of her neck as he replied.

She ignored the sensations whispering throughout her body. “Let’s make a
run for that and reassess there.”

“Okay.” He took a stance, ready to run, and matched her pace perfectly
when they took off.

Darina rather liked having someone beside her as they picked their way
closer to Emerge Tech’s walls. Nowadays, she was on the job by herself, seeking
out low-life scum or, more recently, overseeing the removal of dead bodies from
the streets. Unfortunately, the number of dead bodies had become too many to
count.

Ever since Mikale Warres had unleashed his lethal plague while the world
was still trying to recover from the Anarch attack.

A disease that devoured people from the inside out, this bit of fatal
chemistry was worming through the globe’s population. If it wasn’t stopped soon,
the pandemic would succeed in wiping out the human race, which was exactly what
Warres wanted. He was obsessed with cleansing the planet and starting a new
breed of humankind. Reports called him a “madman pursuing madmen,” which wasn’t
altogether false. Lunatics wandered the wrecked streets of Boston every day.
Some of them probably shouldn’t be allowed to run about, but that wasn’t for Warres
to decide. He didn’t have the right to end their lives, and so painfully, no
matter how crazy they’d become. The police were working on containing those
people and getting them help. Eventually the technology would be back full
strength—Darina had to believe that—and the world would need as many people as
possible to rebuild. That was the correct strategy.

Not repopulation, but reconstruction.  

Certainly people like Ghared, Zeke, and herself hadn’t lost their minds
despite the lifestyle they were forced to endure. They were trying to help the
cause. Ghared was a tech geek, working on rebooting, while she was policing the
streets. Zeke often helped Ghared, and someday, she hoped he’d get the chance
to contribute to society in whatever way he decided. They all deserved to live.
And in a world where they didn’t have to worry about contracting Warres’s
plague.

She shot a look over her shoulder at Foster. He was waiting for her next command.
Ready to listen. Perhaps he deserved to live too. After all, the man was
dedicating his life to finding a cure to the pandemic, but what were his
motives? Fame? Fortune? The rich always wanted to be richer. Most likely he
wanted to be the hero of the day.

Self-absorbed prick.
  

Huddling beside him behind the subway car, she said, “Emerge Tech is
about three miles west of here. If we stay low and move fast, we can make it.”

“Low, fast. Got it.”

His eyes were an odd shade of pale green that reminded Darina of the
plants her mother used to grow in her greenhouse before the Anarch attack.
Before her mother, a robotics engineer, and her father, a cop, joined the
search for the techheads and had lost their lives as her brothers had. Darina
would have been there hunting or fighting at their sides, but she’d been
injured in a hovercopter accident only a week before the world went dark.