Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

location. Right now, we have to move." The morning sun shines from her pale scalp. She keeps a hand on the grip of her gun, holstered for the moment. With the other, she reaches for me again. "Please, Chancellor."

I step away from them both and glance back at the stairwell door. A woman my age wouldn't be able to evade these two and make it very far downstairs. It would be undignified. I must maintain my composure and whatever control of the situation I still possess.

Chin raised, I look down my nose at Mara. "How did you know to come here?"

Her stoic disposition falters a moment as she glances at her brother. "One of our analysts monitors your building at all times, Chancellor. If anything out of the ordinary happens, I am immediately notified."

"So when you saw we had lost power, you decided to show up and shoot my security? To make me even more vulnerable?"

"Right now, I trust only the three people on this rooftop." Mara advances a step. I hold my ground. "The localized EMP used on this building is unlike anything we've ever seen. It took out the tech on every floor, organic and inorganic alike. Yet it didn't affect any building nearby, not even foot traffic passing along the sidewalk outside. This means one thing: inside job. So we're getting in this vehicle, and we're getting you out of here. Is that understood?"

I refrain from blinking, instead holding her severe gaze. With a short nod, I walk past her and climb into the car's rear passenger compartment. Without a word to Emmanuel, she returns to the cockpit while he takes the seat beside me. The doors drift downward and lock themselves automatically. As we lift off, I'm unable to turn my gaze away from the two clones lying on the rooftop.

"They were only doing their job," I murmur.

"I suppose they...could have been hacked," Emmanuel offers. Covering for his sister?

"They're clones. They can't be hacked." The disdain in my tone is thick. "That's why we use them for security. Unlike bots, clones are impervious to EMP attacks. They do what they're trained to do after rigorous psychological conditioning."

Mara glances at me. "Once a brain has been programmed, it is susceptible to further indoctrination. Human brain, clone brain, doesn't matter. Either one of those things down there could have been triggered to turn on you without warning."

I shake my head. "It's never happened before."

"Terrorists have never hit Hawthorne Tower with EMPs before." She shrugs. "It's a whole new world now, Chancellor."

"Do you think this has something to do with what happened last night? With Sera Chen?"

Mara clenches her jaw. Have I struck a nerve? "Enforcer Chen's encounter was not an isolated incident. Over the past twenty-four hours, our analysts have recorded electromagnetic events across the Ten Domes. Hitting your tower was the culmination of their efforts, we believe."

"To what end?"

She doesn't reply. Instead, she swipes the display on the vehicle console, tapping in our destination. The gridlines and 3D infrared imaging on that screen are too confusing for me to comprehend. I look away and find Emmanuel staring at me. I give him a questioning frown.

"I don't know how they did it...whoever they are." He blinks, scratching absently at his temple. Unaccustomed to his augments being offline. "I should have known. I should have been more observant—"

"Perhaps." In all my dust-induced aural experiences, I never heard an inkling of anything being planned against my building. "We all should have been more observant."

I watch the streets below. The morning plays out like any other in Dome 1. Orderly. Immaculate. Neither the street traffic nor the air variety shows any awareness of disturbances occurring elsewhere. Everything is proceeding as usual, with no repercussions whatsoever following the recent terrorist attack. No riots in the street, no illegal protesting. Not yet.

It's uncanny.

Mara sets us down on the well-manicured roof lawn of a cube complex thirty kilometers away from my building. A man I don't recognize stands outside waiting for us, holding up a hand to block the gusts of wind stirred up by our landing. When my door drifts upward, I see that he is close to my age but without the genetic modifications that would make him look much younger. White hair combed back, piercing blue eyes. Scarred fingers he extends as if to help me down from a Victorian-era carriage.

"Chancellor Hawthorne," he says with a warm, genuine smile. "I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time. My name is Luther."

4 Samson5 Years After All-Clear

The tractor-trailer tears across an endless stretch of cracked hardpan heading west, sending up dust that billows in its wake. I grip the door's lock-bar on the back of the shipping container with one mechanical hand and wipe my goggles with the other. Glancing back over my shoulder as I sway and shake with the trailer's rumbling movement, I check Shechara's position. She's got her jeep running at full power, following close enough but not too close, keeping ten meters between her grill and my dangling metal feet.

The rig's engine roars as the driver shifts gears, and the gap between me and Shechara widens.

I dip my chin toward the radio clipped to my shoulder. "They've spotted us, Sweetness."

"So now the fun starts," she replies, her voice tinny on the small speaker. She sounds like she might be enjoying herself this time.

I'm a bad influence.

As Shechara's jeep gradually closes the gap, I rip the lock-bar off the adjacent door and pull it open. Immediately, I'm blasted by automatic weapons fire from the guards inside, most of the rounds pinging against my metal arm holding the bar. The rest would have hit the jeep if Shechara hadn't veered to the right in the nick of time. She knew what to expect.

A quick peek into the dark interior is all my enhanced vision needs to count how many raiders I'm up against. Only two. These people are getting cocky.

Think I'll knock 'em down a few pegs.

I