Ex-Isle by Peter Clines (electronic reader TXT) 📕

without looking up from the weapon. She’d pulled the housing off and was tightening one of the springs.

He leaned back and looked around the workshop space. “I mean, I’ve slept in a barracks and you reek.”

“I changed my shirt, okay? I don’t have much up here for clothes.”

“Forgive me for being blunt,” Gibbs said with a smirk, “but I think you need a couple buckets of water and some soap.”

“Look, will you just say ‘I told you so’ and get it over with? We’ve got work to do.”

He nodded once. “Considering all the other work the Mark Two needs, it’s going to be a miracle if we can get range and accuracy out of this thing in less than a month.” He rapped the hybrid crossbow with his knuckles. “I think three months is more likely, and even that’s a minimum.”

Danielle looked at the weapon, then glanced out at the battlesuit. It stood in the courtyard where Cesar had left it, sucking up electricity.

She sighed and turned her attention back to the crossbow. Gibbs was right. Bringing the weapon up to Eden for a week of work had been a waste of space. “Yeah, I know getting it to work perfectly is a long…” She smiled. “It’s a long shot.”

“I said that, more or less.”

“No.” She set her hand on the housing. “This. It’s a Longshot. That’s what we’re calling it.”

His brow furrowed. Then he smirked. “Nice. I like it.”

“One thing done, then.”

“We should still prioritize a bit.” He looked out at the battlesuit. “You want to get back in it, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I do. I think it’d be good for me.”

“So weapons should drop down the list. Armor’s the priority.”

“Right.” She tapped the blueprints spread out between them. “This might seem backward, but I think we should do the arms and legs first.”

Hector de la Vega came in through the courtyard door. His scavenger chain mail hung over his shoulders. A black grocery bag hung from his hand, stretched tight with weight. He stood and waited.

“Can we help you with something?” asked Gibbs.

He looked at the lieutenant, then Danielle. “Got these for you while we were out.” He held out the bag. “What you were looking for?”

She took the bag and pulled out a laptop. Then another. Then a third and fourth. “Oh, these look great.” she said. “Do they work?”

Hector shrugged. “Beats me. Were all just sitting out on desks and tables and stuff.”

Danielle flipped the first one over and took a screwdriver to its case. A minute later she was studying the insides. “This is great,” she said. “Yeah, I can use this. Thank you.”

“Welcome.”

Hector stood there while she opened the second one. And the third.

She looked up from the laptops. “There something else?”

“Yeah,” said Hector.

Another long minute stretched out between them.

“Any day now,” she said.

He looked over at the lieutenant again, then back to Danielle. “Can we talk? Like, in private?”

Danielle glanced at Gibbs. He shrugged. “I’ll go see what Cesar’s up to.”

Hector gestured at the far wall. “He was talking with Desi outside the pantry when I walked in.”

Gibbs nodded, looked at Danielle again, and left. Hector turned to watch him leave, then waited until he heard the steel toes scraping in the gravel outside. He turned back to Danielle.

“You have a problem with Gibbs?” asked Danielle.

“Maybe,” said Hector. “You’re still, like, a hero, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Superhero, fighting for the good guys, all that shit.”

She smirked at him. “You saying you’re one of the good guys now?”

Hector didn’t smile back. “Soldiers are up to something,” he said.

Her lips flattened out. “What do you mean?”

He looked out the side door Gibbs had exited, then back toward the one he’d entered through. The sounds and voices of soldiers on the weight bench echoed in through the courtyard. “Couple of ’em went out scavenging with us,” Hector said. “Pierce. Taylor. Hancock.”

“And?”

“They took a bunch of stuff for themselves.”

“How so?”

“Third house we hit had this big mother lode of stuff. Was like some health nut lived there. Big jars of protein powder, vitamins, shake mixes—all that shit. The stuff we love to find on scavenging runs. All just sitting there with no bodies or exes or nothing.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“We bring the first load out, and Pierce starts downplaying it. Tells Al there’s not much there. When I point out there’s a whole closet of it, fucker talks over me, and then Taylor joins in.”

Danielle set one hand down by the Longshot. “Just to be clear,” she said, “are you sure there really was a lot.”

“Fuck yeah,” he said. “Next trip it was pretty much all they brought out. Six bags of it. Got stuck with two flats of bottled water. And I handed my stuff off to Al. They gave all theirs straight to Hancock, so Al never saw any of it.” Hector set his own hands on the worktable and leaned forward. “So I’ve been over in the pantry since we got back, helping Al sort stuff. Guess what?”

“What?”

“Almost none of it’s there. They turned in one jar of the powder, two cans of shake mix. Nothing else.”

“You’re sure?”

Hector raised an eyebrow at her.

“Hey, I’ve got to ask.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Been in there with Al for an hour, and the damned pantry’s not that big. Even went out to the Hot Zone and double-checked Mean Green. Went through the cab, the jockey boxes, everything. Guys kept a ton of stuff for themselves. Six or seven bags worth.”

She glanced past him toward the courtyard. The clang of barbells echoed in from the canopy area. She heard a few voices and picked out Wilson. And Taylor. And Kennedy.

“Somethin’ else, too.”

She looked at him again.

“You heard about the other day, the gate popping open?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes dropped to his bare arms. Hector never had a problem with showing off his gang tattoos, even years after leaving the Seventeens. “You weren’t hurt, right?”

“No,” he said, “no thanks to them. They were screwing off and just watched those