Winter's Legacy: Future Days (Winter's Saga Book 6) (23 page)

4
8  Hello?

Margo’s brow furrowed in confusion.  “Who would be calling me on your phone?”

“I uh
—you’re not going to believe this, but I called her.”

“Her?”

“Your daughter.  I saw ten digits in my head and felt compelled to dial the number.”

He motioned to the phone still hanging in the air between them.

Margo’s brown eyes softened, tears instantly threatening to spill.  She reached out and took the phone.

“Meg?” she asked tentatively.

“Hi Mom,” by the sound of her voice, Meg was smiling.

“Oh dear God!  Where are you?  Are you okay?  Has the battle begun?”  she blurt
ed.

“I’m at home, in the lab to be specific, and I’m okay.  The battle hasn’t begun yet, but it’s imminent and complicated.”

“Meggie, do you really have your memory back?”  Margo’s voice cracked.

“Yes, thank God.  I do.  I remember everything—and I’m so thankful for it.”

“What a blessing,” Margo breathed, nearly bursting with things she needed to say and ask, but taking a breath to silence herself and thank God for this moment with her daughter.

“And you, Mom!  You can walk again!”

“It’s a miracle.  Danny prayed over us in the Fayed Oasis, and wow—yeah, I still haven’t had time to wrap my head around it!”

“I’m so thankful you’re healed, Mom.” Meg swallowed hard at the lump in her throat.  “I feel
as if we could spend two weeks straight, talking and catching up, but we just don’t have the luxury of time right now.”

“I know, Meggie.”

“So,” she cleared her throat, “back to business.  Would you please put me on speakerphone so I can talk with everyone?”

“Of course. One moment.”  She looked down at the screen and tapped the image of a speaker.  “Can you hear me?” She asked, raising her voice over the jet’s engine.

“I can.  Hello everybody!” The family had been staring, slack-jawed at Margo since the moment Jacobi stepped out of his cockpit.  Now their faces burst into wide smiles.  The collective relief at the sound of Meg’s voice was palpable.

The family broke into a chorus of greetings.

“I love you all,” Meg spoke above the voices, “and I know we have a lot of catching up to do, but it’s going to have to wait.”

“Of course
Meg,” Alik responded immediately to his sister’s take-charge tone.

“I need to tell you what I know of the forces amassing and what I’ve done so far to fortify the house.  And by the way Alik, excellent idea.”

“What?”

“Parachuting in—excellent plan,” Meg praised.

“Thanks,” Alik beamed at Farrow as if to say,
isn’t she awesome?

“Evan, you need to talk to everybody about your plan in just a moment,” Meg began.  “It’s a brilliant idea, little brother,” she reassured.

“I’m glad you think so,” Evan blushed and glanced toward Kylie—the only other person in the world to have an idea that he’d been working on a secret project back in Cairo.  Kylie smiled and nodded encouragingly.

“Okay, listen up.”  Meg began telling the family about the leader of Company 17.

“Do you really trust him, Meg?” Theo asked point-blank.

“Yes, sir.  I do.”  Meg’s voice was steady, absolute.

“Well, you can read people better than anyone.  If you’re confident in the Company Leader’s loyalty, then so are we.”  Theo and Margo exchanged expressions of conviction.

“There’s more,” Meg sighed before she continued. 

“What is it, Meg?” Creed asked.  His tone was serious.

“Williams and Arkdone have formed an alliance for just this one purpose.  They are joining forces, in the effort to finish this, once and for all.  Having Company 17 on our side helps tremendously, but you have to understand
...Arkdone has assembled all his metamonarchs and Williams is bringing all the metasoldiers who attacked you in Cairo.  We have to assume the enemy will number anywhere from eighty to one hundred, all of whom will be heavily armed and highly trained.”  Meg’s words hung like weights around her family’s necks.

“The odds aren’t looking good,” Cole voiced what everybody was thinking.

“I know, but we have some advantages they don’t, Cole.”

“Please remind me because right now I feel
as if I just tried to swallow a bag of cotton balls.”

“They have weapons.  We have weapons and our gifts.  They think they have the element of surprise.  We know they’re coming.  They are banking on overwhelming us with their numbers, we have three dozen soldiers secretly on our side.  They think they’re holding all the cards.  They aren’t.  We know this area, the house, the barn, the land.   They will underestimate us at every turn.”

“Um, yeah.  Inspiring speech.  So why do I still feel like I’m going to hurl on my boots?” Cole moaned.

“You’d be crazy not to be scared.” Creed offered a tight
-lipped smile.

“Evan, you’re up.” Meg’s words had everybody turn to look at Evan
with curiosity.

“Right, okay.  Well, while we were in Cairo
, I spent a lot of time at the University’s Student Lab secretly working on two projects.  With Kylie’s help, I finished them hours before the attack on the yellow house.”

“What projects?” Alik asked, his blue eyes searching.

“Remember when Arkdone planted nanoweapons into our bodies designed as triggers and explosives to keep us from being in close proximity to one another?”

“I’m sure
everybody remembers that,” Meg’s voice took on a hateful edge as she recalled clearly the day she was subjected to the device that gave her “The Perfect Concussion.”

“Right,” Evan continued.  “Well, that gave me the idea.  I created my own nanoweapons.”

“You did what?”  Margo squeaked.

“Well, to be fair, I didn’t start from scratch.  To construct a
nanoid from the start would have been exceedingly tedious requiring access to high-tech materials, laboratory equipment and time I just didn’t have.  So I extracted the deactivated nanoparticles that had been implanted into my chest by Arkdone.”  Evan ran his hands through his hair, deep in thought before continuing.  Had he taken a moment to look up, he would have seen the entire family staring at him, bug-eyed and jaws agape.

“I only needed one, you see.  After some trial and error, I finally succeeded in reanimating and reprogramming one.  The trials I conducted on Moe and Curly confirmed my work.”

“Moe and Curly?” Cole interrupted.

“His lab rats,”
Kylie offered with a smile.  She had known Evan was working on something complex and suspected it had something to do with the creation of an offensive strategy, but this—nanoweaponry—blew her mind.

Evan looked up and blinked as though waking from a foggy nap.

“Evan, keep talking,” Meg’s tone was both encouraging and anxious.

“Right,” Evan nodded, as though his sister were there to see him.  “So, once I had the first
nanoid functioning properly, I set it to self-replicate using the other hundred nanoparticles I harvested from myself as spare parts.  Seventy-two hours later, I had amassed a microscopic army.  I designed them to target the Circle of Willis where they remain in a sleeper-state until activated.”

Cole raised his hand.  “I am so lost.  Who the heck is Willis?”

Those with medical backgrounds found it hard not to smile at Cole’s perplexed expression.  “The Circle of Willis is a ring of arteries found at the base of the brain that provides all the blood that comes and goes to the brain.  It is essential for life,” Theo explained.

Cole reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Got it.  Sorry, keep going Ev.”

Evan pulled the black, hard-shelled sunglasses case from his pocket and waited impatiently to continue.  Cole was like a brother to him, but it was difficult to discuss his research and developments in a way that everybody could understand.  “No worries, Cole.”  He forced himself to smile, though inside he was chomping at the bit to finally explain what had been a guarded secret for months. 

“The
nanoids will remain in their sleeper-state indefinitely, unless triggered.”  He opened the black case and held it out for everyone to see.  “Meg, I have in my hand two vials and six keychain-sized cylinders.”  He explained aloud so she could visualize what he was holding.  “In the vials are the nanoweapons—one for Arkdone, the other for Williams.  The Chapstick-sized devices are remote detonators.  When any one of the detonators is triggered, the nanoids in both Arkdone’s and Williams’ brains will cause a rapid annihilation of those vital arteries.  Death will be painful but complete in fifteen minutes.”

“So,” Theo’s eyes were alight with excitement.  “Why would we bother with the remote detonators?  I mean, if we’ve managed to inject them with the
nanoids, why not kill them right then?”

Meg’s voice sounded distant, as though she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth.  “
We don’t want to kill them unless we have to.  They’re powerful men who could be forced to use their positions for good.”

“My thoughts exactly, Meg,” Evan was grinning as he stared at the cell
phone still in his mother’s hand.  

“That’s why you made so many detonators?”  Theo asked.

“So the ability to activate the nanoweapons was spread out.  If either of them tries to kill any one or more of us, the survivors would still be able to retaliate.”

“But what if one
acts out and the other doesn’t?”  Farrow had been concentrating hard on the conversation, doing her best to keep up.  She got lost in the medical and technical jargon that may as well have been a different language to her. 

“That’s just another safeguard,” Alik explained.  “Right Evan?”

“Precisely.  I propose we explain the intricacies of our ‘checkmate’ like this:  We allow them to live if Arkdone steps down from his political posts and closes his asylum completely—including the release of all metamonarchs currently ‘in training’.  Williams must forfeit all associations with metahumans as well, disband the Facility and relocate to Arkdone’s asylum.  Neither will be allowed to further experiment with human subjects of any age: zygote to cadaver.  We tell them they can live out their days in this peaceful but forced exile, if they adhere to these rules.  If one or both are ever discovered to have broken any part of these imposed rules of peace, they die.”

The plane was silent for a moment before Cole spoke up.  “Or we just kill ’
em.  I vote for kill ’em.”
 

4
9 Winter’s Revenge

“Wait, you said ‘projects’—as in more than one,” Sloan pushed.  She’d had no problem keeping up with the conversation and was anxious to hear the whole story.

“Yeah, I did.”  Evan began with a deep breath.  “The nanoweapon is in the blue vial.  The other project is the golden one.”

“What is it?” Margo asked her son.

“Payback.” Evan’s face hardened.  Evan stared at the gold liquid before continuing.  “I used my blood as the base.”

“You recreated the original serum?  But I thought you already did that?” Theo asked.

“I did.  This time, I didn’t want to replicate the Infinite Serum.  I wanted to
dismantle
it.”

“You created a neutralizer.” Alik’s face paled.

“Oh, it doesn’t just neutralize.  It leaves the subject in a weakened, susceptible state.”  Evan nodded solemnly, “In my mind, I’ve called it Winter’s Revenge.  Creating it was far easier than the nanoweapons and was actually done as an afterthought.  I really didn’t have time to thoroughly test it, but preliminary tests on Groucho and Harpo—more lab rats—proved promising. 

“I just knew the nanoweapons weren’t going to be enough.  I wanted a way to strike fear in them—in a demoralizing and life-threatening way.  They have more than earned this.”  He glanced at his mother’s facial expression.  She looked deep in thought, an internal struggle clear on her face. 

“Mom, any
one
of the things these devils have done, not just to us, but to other innocent souls, warrants this.  This is poetic justice.” Evan nodded at the gold vial in his hand.

“How likely is death?” Margo asked, her voice level.

“Groucho and Harpo both lived, but they were on death’s door for five days.  To be honest, I don’t know how miraculous their survival was.  But during those five days, the exaggerated strength and intelligence they had gained from becoming meta-rats three weeks before, was stripped away.”

The family exchanged glances.

“Can both the nanoweapon and Winter’s Revenge be used simultaneously?” Theo asked.

“In theory, yes.  Each will target different parts of the body.  The
nanoids simply travel to their predetermined location and lie in wait.  The Revenge attacks on a cellular level—stripping the DNA strand of its metahuman mutation.  Again, I didn’t have enough time to test as thoroughly as I would have liked, but the science is solid.  I poured all my knowledge into these projects.   It’s all I did the entire time we lived in Cairo.”

“How would they be administered?”

“I fill one syringe with half of each.  We inject Arkdone and Williams.  The hard part is going to be getting near enough to them to dose them.”

“Well, I lik
e this idea!” Cole blurted.  “Winter’s Revenge sounds wicked cool!”

“We need to make sure it never falls into the wrong hands,” Meg’s voice sounded haunted through the cellphone speaker.

“Agreed,” Evan carefully placed the vial full of golden liquid back into its case and closed the lid carefully.  “You can imagine how careful I’ve had to be during its creation.”

Everybody stayed quiet, waiting for Margo to weigh in.  She held still as stone for a moment then began slowly shaking her head.

Evan’s heart sunk.  He had spent so much effort trying to find a way to control and punish the men who hurt his family—hurt thousands for that matter—that he hadn’t given much thought beyond creating the weapons.  His mother’s disapproval smacked bitterly.

“Mom, c’mon.  Be
reas—”  Alik started in his brother’s defense.

Margo held up her hand, silencing him.  “Alik, please,” she gently chided her oldest son. 

“Evan, these ‘projects’ of yours.  They’re brilliant—absolutely brilliant.”  She reached out to hold Evan’s clammy hand. 

“While I was wheelchair-bound, I had a lot of time to think.  I saw you all struggle and fight.  Sometimes your struggles were against the enemy but more times than I’d like to remember, it was with one another or even yourselves.  I felt helpless.  I couldn’t help you the way I knew how.  I couldn’t take
-up weapons and command a strike against those who dared harm my babies and it infuriated me!  I am as much a fighter as I am a woman of faith.  Having a huge part of what makes me feel like a good mother taken away from me, left me more than just physically crippled.  I was emotionally crippled, too.

“Your work in the lab, that’s your way of fighting, Evan.  Using your brilliant mind, solving problems with complex science, that’s how you show your love.  It’s the most powerful ‘gift’ you have.  If this is what you designed to help your family overcome these monsters, who am I to deny you?  I will not cripple you the way I was crippled,” Margo shook her head emphatically.

“I think your forethought and planning was genius.  We have tried to handle matters peaceably and neither Arkdone nor Williams will allow it.  Evan, you were right to see the need for weapons.”

As Margo spoke, Evan’s smile grew until it was wide enough
for his honey eyes to crinkle adorably at the corners.