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

business, boys!” Darik cheered, dropping down to the floor. “How’re our power levels, Yuki?”

She gave a thumbs up and kept typing on her laptop, periodically unjacking and moving to another cluster of electronics.

“We are linked,” Grimdark responded over the ship’s comms.

“That was a right bit of fun.” Darik clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “And I think I’ve earned myself a reward.” He made his way behind the bar and took stock of the bottles, ooh-ing and aah-ing with pleasure as he saw what was available.

Aurora also finished whatever she was working on and waved Gus over.

“If you’ve never seen Hinansho, I’d check it out as we approach. It’s pretty impressive.”

“You’ve been there?” Gus said, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course not. The Academy has a whole rotation where they show you the sanctuary cities. Then warns you that if some rebellious young super wants to go exploring—you are on your own. No one from the Faction will come rescue you. Then they show what happened to the four or five students who did just that.”

“Pretty bad?”

“You would think gruesome, but that wasn’t what made it disturbing. From what the intelligence shows, they’re still there. Being tortured or experimented on, who knows what. Those who were directly involved in the Rockland conflict have long memories, and I’ll just say their ethics are a bit more flexible than most people.”

“And we’re waltzing in with a jury-rigged cloaking device and some dated shrouds. Awesome. Good times.”

“We should be fine. But listen and follow orders implicitly. It’s no joke if one of us is detained for any reason.”

“No problems here, I don’t mind if I just stay aboard. I don’t even know what the plan is.”

“We’re meeting Leto’s courier outside of Hinansho and delivering this encrypted data cube to a group inside. We then collect their payment and return it to the same courier. He’ll have the shrouds and codes we need to get in. Problem is this group moves their headquarters around a lot. I guess among hybrids there are a lot of attempts at demonstrating who is the alpha and attempting to climb up their caste system. It’s complicated and I don’t know much about it, but step one is finding out where they even are.”

“Then all we have to do is beat the other teams trying to do the same job, avoiding detection the entire time, and trusting that Leto won’t just turn us in anyways at any point along the way.”

“Yep. Pretty standard,” Aurora quipped. “Oh look—you can see it from here.” She pointed out one window.

They were flying above the clouds, and despite the height there was a large, dark cylinder in front of them. Upon closer inspection it looked like a dark storm, grayish-black clouds roiling around and around.

“That’s wild. How does it stay there like that?” Gus squinted and used his perception boosts to zoom in and see the spectacle with more clarity.

“Some type of containment field. Keeps out deep scans and prying eyes from any satellites and such. Trade off is that it’s perpetually night and always rainy. Or at least damp.”

“Small price to pay for freedom, I guess.”

“Hinansho is the biggest of the sanctuary cities; there are thirteen around the world. Hinansho isn’t only big, it’s tall. To take advantage of the field, they grew upwards, buildings upon buildings. They were lucky they had tons of engineers among the augments. The higher up you are, the better things are there.”

“What’s on the lower levels?”

“You don’t want to know.” Aurora hugged herself, feeling a sudden chill.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Devil You Know

“What was this place called before it was transformed? Correia?” Darik asked no one in particular as he joined the group staring out the window.

“Something like that. It’s been so long and who knows what really happened there. The fact that the existence of sanctuary cities is not taught in schools should tell you something,” Harmony said bitterly. “If you all don’t mind, I’d rather stay on the ship while we’re there. This place gives me the creeps.”

The ship banked to the left and the column veered away. Everyone had to grab something to hold on to while they dropped into the clouds and their speed slowed.

“Sorry for that,” Seneschal apologized over the comm, “just got the rendezvous coordinates. Good news, we’ll be the first team to arrive. ETA fifteen minutes. No need to strap in, we’re making the transfer while airborne and then heading to Hinansho. Remote city scans are about fifty miles from here, so we should be fine. Darik and Yuki will have to integrate everything, but it’s plug and play. Should only take a couple of minutes if everything is set up. Seneschal out.”

There was an irregular shuddering as the ship slowed, pulses and halting jerks as they stopped in the air. Through the window, Gus could only see the haze of inter-cloud ‘fog.’

Tempest came out of the pilot’s cabin and nodded to Yuki. She grabbed her laptop and followed Tempest as they went down the gangway. Gus could feel the vibration of the cargo hatch opening on the back of the ship.

Less than five minutes later the same vibration occurred as Yuki came up the stairs. She handed Darik a handful of modules and disappeared into a panel, contorting with more agility than Gus had ever seen her exhibit.

“I’m reading everything connected up here. You need to make any more adjustments before we head for Hinansho?” Yuki called out from the panel.

“Nah, we’re good to go here, lassie,” Darik countered. “We’re ready when you are!”

“Brace yourselves, this is going to be a bit annoying,” Seneschal warned. A shriek like a banshee knocked the supers who weren’t seated to their knees. Slowly the high-pitched tone slowed and everyone recovered as it faded into a pulse that diminished in intensity until it became white noise in the background.

Gus thought it wasn’t even an audible sound, but something that their Nth could perceive by signal overlay. Once they regained their composure, the ship