Unity by Carl Stubblefield (epub read online books TXT) 📕

and I doubt it’s making it to where you want it to go. Not to mention possible messages that haven’t reached us.”

“Any other good news?” Aurora asked, folding her arms.

“What else? Oh yeah, the orderlies. There are new enforcers now within the Faction. They look like simple strength-based supers, but they are armed with gloves that contain some kind of power-negating technology. I didn’t get the gist of how they work, but for those who resisted orientation, they can force you into it. They refer to them as compliance officers in the memos and—”

“That’s what they did to Rory! It does something so you can’t speak against the Faction. I’m not sure what else it does, but Rory freaked out trying to let me know what was up,” Aurora piped in.

Everyone looked to Rory, who had become stiff again, his mouth pursed like he had been sucking on a lemon.

“Relax, Rory, don’t try to speak.” She patted his back and turned back to the others. “See? We might even have to carry him out of here when we’re ready to leave. If he reacts that strongly to merely speaking against the Faction, he might totally lock up if we try to move him out of the Faction.”

“He’s big as a barn, Aurora! How do you suggest we do tha—”

“We’ll add it to the list, Darik,” Yuki broke in. “They are processing Grimdark and Harmony, right now, so we have to come up with a plan to save them, get the hell out of here, and hopefully find the others when we get out.”

“Do we even know where they are?” Anastasia asked.

“The coliseum…”

“They’re goners for sure, then. I’m sorry, Yuki,” Darik said grimly.

“I don’t accept that.”

“That has to be the most secure part of the facility. And if everyone is there, willing to fight against us, those aren’t odds I want to take, lass. It might be wise to make a tactical retreat.”

“No way. It may come to that, but we should at least try. We would do it for you, Darik. We’ll need all the help we can get on the outside.”

“Aye.”

“If we could get enough outside, I could distract them for a bit while we get the others,” Aurora offered.

“I could try setting off some perimeter alarms to pull some away…”

The lights dimmed and clicked off for a second before returning to normal.

“What was that?” Anastasia asked.

“Let me check.” Yuki extended some filaments from her right hand and her eyes rolled back in her head. She blinked back to normal after a brief pause. “Fire detector went off in the coliseum,” she reported.

“Isn’t that where Grimdark and Harmony are?” Anastasia perked up.

“Let’s use the distraction to pull them out.”

“Are we ready?” Darik sighed.

“Are we ever?” Yuki shot back.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Closing Time

“This had better work,” Harmony said as she flicked the powder off the makeup brush and fanned it up to the alarm. She cringed a bit at wasting the high-end makeup, already having emptied half the tray. She tried fanning it upward but was not having much success. She remembered that just last month they had to reinstall a lot of detectors because they were getting set off by fawns vaping in the bathrooms. An angry memo went out that any particulate was not recommended in the restrooms until they replaced the dated detectors with new ones.

The problem was that the ceiling was just too damn far away. She threw the compact at the alarm and finally got a satisfying poof of dust, but it didn’t seem to activate the sensor. She had to duck as it fell and shattered on the ground.

“We’re coming in, decent or not,” one of the men yelled through the door.

Harmony opened her mouth and screamed, but she couldn’t hear her own voice. At that moment, a piercing wail echoed against the tile, making her ears ring.

The frame near the door bucked and then the door exploded into splinters. One of the orderlies stuck his head in the doorway, his bald pate bright red and the veins prominent and throbbing. He was shouting, but Harmony couldn’t make out anything over the din. He stomped over toward her and she stepped backward and slipped on one of the chunks of broken door, falling unceremoniously on her butt. She crab-walked backward, retreating from his approach.

He balled his fists and an eldritch green energy arced between the metal disks on the knuckles of his black gloves. She tried to retreat more but felt the cold tile press against her back. There was mayhem outside as people rushed to get out but this man was not to be deterred. Spittle flew from his mouth as he continued to yell, but it was caught up in the piercing alarm. She tried to flinch inward, scrunching up like a turtle and closed her eyes tight. After five seconds of nothing, she cracked an eye open. Eyes growing wide at what she saw.

The janitor dragged the mop across the already spotless floor. As he had done for years now. He looked into the display case of the trophy section of the coliseum and saw it lying there. The fools didn’t even know what they had taken so long ago. They had no idea of the potential of the item, it was merely a memento of a victory that most had never taken part in.

Once it had belonged to him. In a past life, where he actually had been on a trajectory for greatness. It was only one of the three, but it had called to him. He somehow knew that if he could regain possession of it, that it would lead him to the others. But attempting to steal it would no doubt set off some alarms and then he would lose his only chance.

He tried to convince himself that merely being near the object was enough. It wasn’t. But he had no plan for how he could possibly get it out of the heart of Purple Faction.