Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Release Date: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Science Fiction
Cat is desperate to find a way to stop Cartaxus and the plague in this gripping finale to a series New York Times bestselling author Amie Kaufman says “redefines ‘unputdownable!’”
Cat’s hacking skills weren’t enough to keep her from losing everything—her identity, her past, and now her freedom. She’s trapped and alone, but she’s survived this long, and she’s not giving up without a fight.
Though the outbreak has been contained, a new threat has emerged—one that’s taken the world to the brink of a devastating war. With genetic technology that promises not just a cure for the plague, but a way to prevent death itself, both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity’s future.
Facing her smartest, most devastating enemy yet, Cat must race against the clock to protect her friends and save the lives of millions on the planet’s surface. No matter the outcome, humanity will never be the same.
And this time, Cat can’t afford to let anything, or anyone, stand in her way.
This Vicious Cure is the third and final installment in author Emily Suvada's Mortal Coil trilogy. What you should know: A virus nearly brought humanity to the very brink of the apocalypse. Hydra was a virus that caused spontaneous combustion in humans called a Hydra cloud. There was a cure found, but things aren't as peaceful as one might think. For this final installment, the author actually alternates chapters between two main characters. One is a power hungry
young woman (Jun Bei) who wants to fix what she's broken even if it means controlling others to do so.
The other (Catarina Lachlan) is no longer
in control of her body and therefore must use virtual reality in
order to get around. This is a series that that explores gene-hacking, change of DNA and global pandemics. Kind of timely, yeah? Catarina, who was created by Dr. Lachlan to stabilize Jun, lost her battle to Jun Bei a month ago. She now has 1/2 of her brain trapped inside a body she doesn't control. Thanks to Dax and Leoben and Veritas, Cat is able to travel outside as long as there are cameras around to guide her to where she is going.
It may sound a bit far fetched, but you really need to suspend a bit of reality in order to understand Cat's struggles. Unfortunately for Cat, people she once called friends were faradayed at the end of the previous book and pretty much only a few people remember who she is. Including Cole, the boy she fell in love with. Cat receives a message from Ziana telling her to meet her as she knows what is going on. Cat needs to somehow put the original (5) Jun, Leoben, Ziana, Cole, and Anna together in one place in order to fix Jun's virus.
On the brightside, Dax offers Cat her own cloned body if she can find a way to get Jun to listen to reason. On the scary side, someone is creating pigeons in order to infect people on purpose. These same pigeons might be used to actually carry the cure if and when one is found. Catarina
spends most of the book helping her friends try to find leverage to
stop a war and the loss of human life that seems to be spiraling out of
control.
After the stunning cliffhanger ending of This Cruel Design, Jun is in Entropia attempting to fix something (Panacea) that she created. Panacea was designed to alter the human mind; which is never a good thing. What's even more devastating is that people are losing their minds to the wrath and Jun hasn't a clue what is missing. She's also trying to burn away any remaining DNA from Cat who was altered by Dr. Lachlan in order to hide who she was and losing.
Jun receives a message from Dax, who now heads Cartaxus, asking for help in removing Panacea. Everyone but Jun understands that her coding is glitching and no matter what she tries, it seems to get worse instead of better. Jun tries almost everything, including killing her once friend Leoben from Zarathustra who she believes holds the final key to solving the glitch. Jun
Bei spends most of her time trying to finish her code while also debating
whether anyone should have the power to such a powerful change to
humanity and also piecing together her lost time.
In the meantime, Cartaxus civilians are arming themselves to the teeth for war against those on the surface as well as the hackers in Entropia. They are tired of being stuck in underground cities which were closed off to prevent the mass extinction of humanity. It also appears as though someone is intentionally trying to incite panic. That someone may be someone Cat knows really well, or it could be Lachlan who can't be trusted as he has shown time and time again. When the final resolution is found, Cat and Jun find curious common ground and a revelation that makes more sense than you would think. One could say that the resolution was weak kneed, but I think it was the perfect way for the series to come to an end.
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Chapter 1: Jun Bei
IT’S MIDDAY, AND THE DESERT air is shimmering with heat, the streets painted black with the bodies of dead passenger pigeons. A week ago these birds flew thick enough to block out the sun, but now only a few remain, circling over Entropia’s mountain city. Their mournful cries echo in the air, a carpet of fallen feathers whipping into twisting clouds when the wind whistles through the hills. This city once glowed with life, dreams, and possibilities, but now it’s an empty, desolate monument to the dead.
I step away from the window and pace across the cluttered floor of the shared laboratory I’m staying in. Coders are sprawled on couches and armchairs all around me, working silently. You’d think that after Cartaxus attacked Entropia, its people would be focused on revenge, but most of the conversations I’ve overheard have been about plants, algae, and ways to turn dead pigeons into fertilizer.
Sometimes I love this city, and sometimes I want to burn it down.
“Are you sure you’re ready, Jun Bei?” Rhine asks. The sunlight catches the glossy plates of her armored skin. She has a tablet in her hands that’s linked up to my panel. There aren’t many people I’d let access my tech, but I trust Rhine. She’s been helping me ever since she heard about the Origin code. Anyone who chooses to cover their skin with razor-resistant armor is clearly interested in immortality.
“We’ll try for the whole thing,” I say, touching my cheek, tilting my head back and forth.
Rhine taps the tablet’s screen. “Do you want to sit down? We could use the back room.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. Hopefully, the code is right this time.”
I pace back to the window, chewing my thumbnail. We’re in the penthouse of an apartment building on the slopes of the mountain. A wall of windows lets in a view of the city’s ruined buildings and the farmlands at the mountain’s base. The circle of Entropia’s razorgrass border glimmers in the distance, surrounded by the shadow of feather-strewn desert plains stretching out for miles.
I stare through the window’s dust-coated glass, locking eyes with my own reflection. It’s taken weeks, but the face staring back finally looks like me. My eyes, my nose, the tilt of my lips. Even my hair is the right shade and texture, regrown over the last few days down to the middle of my back. Everything finally looks right, except for a patch of skin covering my left cheek, another on my arm, and one on my right ankle.
The skin there hasn’t changed, even though I’ve tried everything. It’s Catarina’s skin, with her DNA still living inside its cells. The rest of me was altered easily, but these patches refuse to conform.
The one on my cheek will be mine by the end of the day if I can finally get this right.
“Okay, I’m running the code now,” Rhine says, joining me at the window. A tingle starts up in my cheek, rising to a prickle. The code I’ve been using to try to alter these patches has been more painful each time I’ve attempted it, and now my cheek is starting to burn. I watch in the window as scarlet streaks race across my skin. The capillaries are bursting.
I clench my teeth as the skin starts bubbling.
The pain slams against the fractured wall inside me—the fragile barrier separating me from Catarina. There’s nothing on the other side of the wall, though. When Catarina electrocuted the implant to stop me finishing the wipe, she fell silent, and I haven’t been able to feel her presence since. From what I can tell, she’s in a dormant state, and I’m clinging to the hope that I’ll be able to revive her one day. She’s lived through enough pain and horror already, though.
If there’s a way to wake her, I’m not going to do it until this world has healed again.
Trickles of blood run down my face from the pulsing, swelling wound. “Th-this is another fail,” I manage to choke out.
“I’ve already killed the code,” Rhine says.
I double over, bracing my hands on the window. The pain is blurring my vision, threatening to send me to my knees. The urge to scrape at my face is overwhelming, but I know that if I touch it in this state, the skin will just slough off and fall away.
“Okay, it’s done,” Rhine says. The pain levels off but doesn’t drop. I straighten, sucking in a breath through gritted teeth, and slide a gel bandage from a pack strapped to my thigh. The bandage is nanite laced, doped with anesthetic and healing tech. I strip off the clear backing and press it carefully to my cheek. The pain spikes, making spots swim in my vision until the anesthetic kicks in.
“That looked painful,” Rhine says.
All I can do is nod my head. That’s the sixth time I’ve tried this, and the sixth failure. Lachlan used to change my DNA in the Zarathustra lab all the time, and it never hurt me like this. He managed to transform my body completely when he turned me into Catarina, and she didn’t have patches of mismatched skin covering her body. I don’t know why these cells won’t cooperate. It doesn’t make any sense.
What kind of a coder am I if I can’t even understand my own DNA?
“Ruse is coming back,” Rhine mutters under her breath.
I glance over my shoulder as the door to the lab swings open. “Doesn’t he have more important things to do than check on me?”
Rhine slides the tablet into her pocket. “Apparently not.”
“Your face again, Jun Bei?” Ruse asks, striding into the lab. He’s a few years older than me, with silver circuits printed on every inch of his skin. His eyes are cybernetic, built to replace the ones that he lost as a child. He’s the new leader of Entropia now that Regina is dead, and I have no idea why the people chose him.
I flew into the city hoping its citizens would join me, but they don’t follow the same power structures I was used to at Cartaxus. I came bearing my Origin code and promising immortality, but Ruse has lived here for years. He convinced the genehackers they needed to work on their physical defenses—borders, checkpoints, patrols—instead of an untested piece of code. I tried to explain that the only way to defeat Cartaxus is with something new—and powerful.
When I created it, I called it the Origin code, but it’s more than that. It’s a Panacea—a piece of code that lets us alter our minds the same way we can alter our DNA. It should be the most important piece of code in existence, but it’s still missing one final, crucial piece. And nobody here seems interested in helping me finish it.
“I thought you were checking the city’s perimeter,” I say to Ruse. There’ve been reports of raids on genehacker camps nearby. Tensions are running high after Cartaxus attacked the surface and then everyone lost months of their memories.
Nobody knows I’m the one who ran the wipe, and I need to keep it that way.
“The patrol was clear,” Ruse says, “and I thought I told you that I need you to focus on designing defenses for the city.”
I roll my eyes. “The only people who might attack are Cartaxus, and even I can’t design something that will keep them away.”
I’ve barely finished talking when a shot rings out in the distance, followed by a boom.
Ruse frowns, crossing the room to look out the window with me.
“That sounded like a bomb,” I say. I search the streets around us, trying to spot movement through the carpet of black feathers.
“Maybe,” Ruse says. “It could just be people messing around—”
He’s cut off as another round of gunfire rings out, and feathers float up like a plume near one of the entrances to the tunnels. A woman runs into the street, screaming, her clothes soaked with blood. Ruse stares at her, stiffening.
“You were right about needing better defenses,” I say. “This looks like an attack. Let’s go.”
I run for the door. I don’t know who hurt that woman, but this might be the first sign of a Cartaxus invasion. I don’t see any trucks or Comoxes, but they could have sent a stealth team to find us. They already have hundreds of Entropia’s hackers that they kidnapped during flood protocol locked up in cells. I’ve been waiting for them to come for me.
I grab my holster from a rack by the door, slinging it on as I push into the hallway and run down the stairs. They’re oak, the wood grown directly from buds in the concrete walls, the occasional branch or leaf bursting from their ends. It’s only four stories down to the street, but my tech strains with the effort, a warning popping into my vision. The damage to my cheek has stolen most of my remaining calories, and I’m a few days behind on sleep. Now isn’t a good time to be getting into a fight.
“Head for the eastern tunnel entrance,” Ruse says, running beside me. His eyes are half-glazed. “I see intruders there. I think some of our people are hurt.”
“Got it,” I say, bolting down the last flight of stairs, then through the front door and out onto the street.
The air is stifling, thick with the scent of dead pigeons. Their feathers crunch under my boots as we race for the tunnel’s entrance. The gunfire is louder down here, mixed with the sound of screams. I quicken my pace, shooting a look back at Ruse and the others, and slide my gun from its holster.
“The feed cut out,” Ruse shouts. “At least one of our people is down.”
“We’re definitely being attacked, but this doesn’t seem like Cartaxus,” Rhine yells. “They’d be quieter than this.”
“I agree,” Ruse says, “but I don’t know who else it could be.”
We race into the tunnel, gunfire echoing off the rocky walls. Ruse runs beside me, following the sounds of fighting, then grabs my sleeve to jerk me to a stop.
I sway to catch my balance, staring in horror at the scene in front of me. There are bodies on the ground—hackers I recognize from the agricultural levels. Some are clearly dead, and others are badly wounded. There are people standing over them, wearing filthy, bloodstained clothes. They’re definitely not Cartaxus soldiers.
They’re snarling like animals.
“Lurkers,” Ruse growls. These are people who lost their minds to the Wrath. Catarina faced them during the outbreak, but I’ve never seen them before. I look around, disgusted. The body of a woman near me has been torn open, and two Lurkers are kneeling over her with their hands inside her stomach.
I was prepared for a Cartaxus attack—for troops and drones and explosives. I wasn’t prepared for this.
Ruse lifts his rifle, shooting one Lurker, but the shot sends the others scattering. Some of them head along a path that leads to the bunker, and Rhine’s eyes widen.
“We can’t let them get inside!” she yells, bolting after them, leaving Ruse and me with the survivors of the fight.
Not that there are many people left alive. There must be a dozen bodies here. The scent of blood is strong enough to make my stomach turn. I don’t know how the Lurkers got into the city or into this tunnel, but Rhine is right to keep them out of the bunker. We can’t risk them killing more of Entropia’s people.
“Can anyone here walk?” I call out, looking around at the wounded. A blood-streaked woman moans faintly, kneeling beside the woman with her abdomen torn open. I squint at her, and a jolt of horror hits me. I know the crying woman. Matrix. She’s one of the hackers who believed in the Panacea, and that’s her wife lying on the ground. She’s an agricultural worker. The Lurkers tore her open—they had their hands in her stomach.
Footsteps echo through the tunnel. “The Lurkers are coming back,” Ruse says. “We should get the wounded out of here.”
“There’s no time,” I say. “We’re going to have to fight.”
Ruse curses. “We have to secure the tunnel to the bunker. The people in there will be defenseless. They’ll be slaughtered if those monsters get inside.”
“I can use the scythe,” I say. The tiny, lethal script designed to kill anyone with a panel. “The code is ready in my cuff.”
“No,” Ruse says. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not? There are too many to shoot. We’re going to kill them anyway.”
“It’s not about killing them,” Ruse hisses. “If Cartaxus has access to any of their panels, they might record the code. They’ll use it against us—they could kill everyone on the surface in one fell swoop.”
The thought makes me freeze. He’s right. The last time Catarina used the scythe, Cartaxus stole the code. We deleted it from their databases during flood protocol, but the next time I use it might be my last. Either Cartaxus will be waiting to steal it for themselves, or they’ll develop a block that will make it useless. Then they could turn it against us, like Ruse said.
I hadn’t even considered that. Ruse might be sharper than I thought.
I glance at the tunnel leading into the bunker—the one Ruse and I have to protect. The footsteps of the Lurkers are getting louder. The only way to make sure none of them get into the bunker is to block this entrance. I look up at the rocky ceiling. “We need to blow the cave.”
Ruse nods. “Good thinking.” He slings his rifle over one shoulder, sliding a matchbox-size metal case from his pocket. He flicks it open and pulls out two small black discs the size of a fingertip. They’re caked in yellow gel. Flash buttons. They’re tiny, but each carries enough explosive power to blow up a house. Ruse throws them up to the junction’s ceiling, then lifts his rifle. “Get into cover!” he shouts.
But there’s no time. The footsteps are growing closer, the group of Lurkers turning the corner, snarling and filthy. They’re racing for the tunnel that leads into the bunker.
“Shoot it!” I shout.
Ruse aims his rifle at the flash buttons. He fires, and the blast knocks me off my feet.
IT’S MIDDAY, AND THE DESERT air is shimmering with heat, the streets painted black with the bodies of dead passenger pigeons. A week ago these birds flew thick enough to block out the sun, but now only a few remain, circling over Entropia’s mountain city. Their mournful cries echo in the air, a carpet of fallen feathers whipping into twisting clouds when the wind whistles through the hills. This city once glowed with life, dreams, and possibilities, but now it’s an empty, desolate monument to the dead.
I step away from the window and pace across the cluttered floor of the shared laboratory I’m staying in. Coders are sprawled on couches and armchairs all around me, working silently. You’d think that after Cartaxus attacked Entropia, its people would be focused on revenge, but most of the conversations I’ve overheard have been about plants, algae, and ways to turn dead pigeons into fertilizer.
Sometimes I love this city, and sometimes I want to burn it down.
“Are you sure you’re ready, Jun Bei?” Rhine asks. The sunlight catches the glossy plates of her armored skin. She has a tablet in her hands that’s linked up to my panel. There aren’t many people I’d let access my tech, but I trust Rhine. She’s been helping me ever since she heard about the Origin code. Anyone who chooses to cover their skin with razor-resistant armor is clearly interested in immortality.
“We’ll try for the whole thing,” I say, touching my cheek, tilting my head back and forth.
Rhine taps the tablet’s screen. “Do you want to sit down? We could use the back room.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. Hopefully, the code is right this time.”
I pace back to the window, chewing my thumbnail. We’re in the penthouse of an apartment building on the slopes of the mountain. A wall of windows lets in a view of the city’s ruined buildings and the farmlands at the mountain’s base. The circle of Entropia’s razorgrass border glimmers in the distance, surrounded by the shadow of feather-strewn desert plains stretching out for miles.
I stare through the window’s dust-coated glass, locking eyes with my own reflection. It’s taken weeks, but the face staring back finally looks like me. My eyes, my nose, the tilt of my lips. Even my hair is the right shade and texture, regrown over the last few days down to the middle of my back. Everything finally looks right, except for a patch of skin covering my left cheek, another on my arm, and one on my right ankle.
The skin there hasn’t changed, even though I’ve tried everything. It’s Catarina’s skin, with her DNA still living inside its cells. The rest of me was altered easily, but these patches refuse to conform.
The one on my cheek will be mine by the end of the day if I can finally get this right.
“Okay, I’m running the code now,” Rhine says, joining me at the window. A tingle starts up in my cheek, rising to a prickle. The code I’ve been using to try to alter these patches has been more painful each time I’ve attempted it, and now my cheek is starting to burn. I watch in the window as scarlet streaks race across my skin. The capillaries are bursting.
I clench my teeth as the skin starts bubbling.
The pain slams against the fractured wall inside me—the fragile barrier separating me from Catarina. There’s nothing on the other side of the wall, though. When Catarina electrocuted the implant to stop me finishing the wipe, she fell silent, and I haven’t been able to feel her presence since. From what I can tell, she’s in a dormant state, and I’m clinging to the hope that I’ll be able to revive her one day. She’s lived through enough pain and horror already, though.
If there’s a way to wake her, I’m not going to do it until this world has healed again.
Trickles of blood run down my face from the pulsing, swelling wound. “Th-this is another fail,” I manage to choke out.
“I’ve already killed the code,” Rhine says.
I double over, bracing my hands on the window. The pain is blurring my vision, threatening to send me to my knees. The urge to scrape at my face is overwhelming, but I know that if I touch it in this state, the skin will just slough off and fall away.
“Okay, it’s done,” Rhine says. The pain levels off but doesn’t drop. I straighten, sucking in a breath through gritted teeth, and slide a gel bandage from a pack strapped to my thigh. The bandage is nanite laced, doped with anesthetic and healing tech. I strip off the clear backing and press it carefully to my cheek. The pain spikes, making spots swim in my vision until the anesthetic kicks in.
“That looked painful,” Rhine says.
All I can do is nod my head. That’s the sixth time I’ve tried this, and the sixth failure. Lachlan used to change my DNA in the Zarathustra lab all the time, and it never hurt me like this. He managed to transform my body completely when he turned me into Catarina, and she didn’t have patches of mismatched skin covering her body. I don’t know why these cells won’t cooperate. It doesn’t make any sense.
What kind of a coder am I if I can’t even understand my own DNA?
“Ruse is coming back,” Rhine mutters under her breath.
I glance over my shoulder as the door to the lab swings open. “Doesn’t he have more important things to do than check on me?”
Rhine slides the tablet into her pocket. “Apparently not.”
“Your face again, Jun Bei?” Ruse asks, striding into the lab. He’s a few years older than me, with silver circuits printed on every inch of his skin. His eyes are cybernetic, built to replace the ones that he lost as a child. He’s the new leader of Entropia now that Regina is dead, and I have no idea why the people chose him.
I flew into the city hoping its citizens would join me, but they don’t follow the same power structures I was used to at Cartaxus. I came bearing my Origin code and promising immortality, but Ruse has lived here for years. He convinced the genehackers they needed to work on their physical defenses—borders, checkpoints, patrols—instead of an untested piece of code. I tried to explain that the only way to defeat Cartaxus is with something new—and powerful.
When I created it, I called it the Origin code, but it’s more than that. It’s a Panacea—a piece of code that lets us alter our minds the same way we can alter our DNA. It should be the most important piece of code in existence, but it’s still missing one final, crucial piece. And nobody here seems interested in helping me finish it.
“I thought you were checking the city’s perimeter,” I say to Ruse. There’ve been reports of raids on genehacker camps nearby. Tensions are running high after Cartaxus attacked the surface and then everyone lost months of their memories.
Nobody knows I’m the one who ran the wipe, and I need to keep it that way.
“The patrol was clear,” Ruse says, “and I thought I told you that I need you to focus on designing defenses for the city.”
I roll my eyes. “The only people who might attack are Cartaxus, and even I can’t design something that will keep them away.”
I’ve barely finished talking when a shot rings out in the distance, followed by a boom.
Ruse frowns, crossing the room to look out the window with me.
“That sounded like a bomb,” I say. I search the streets around us, trying to spot movement through the carpet of black feathers.
“Maybe,” Ruse says. “It could just be people messing around—”
He’s cut off as another round of gunfire rings out, and feathers float up like a plume near one of the entrances to the tunnels. A woman runs into the street, screaming, her clothes soaked with blood. Ruse stares at her, stiffening.
“You were right about needing better defenses,” I say. “This looks like an attack. Let’s go.”
I run for the door. I don’t know who hurt that woman, but this might be the first sign of a Cartaxus invasion. I don’t see any trucks or Comoxes, but they could have sent a stealth team to find us. They already have hundreds of Entropia’s hackers that they kidnapped during flood protocol locked up in cells. I’ve been waiting for them to come for me.
I grab my holster from a rack by the door, slinging it on as I push into the hallway and run down the stairs. They’re oak, the wood grown directly from buds in the concrete walls, the occasional branch or leaf bursting from their ends. It’s only four stories down to the street, but my tech strains with the effort, a warning popping into my vision. The damage to my cheek has stolen most of my remaining calories, and I’m a few days behind on sleep. Now isn’t a good time to be getting into a fight.
“Head for the eastern tunnel entrance,” Ruse says, running beside me. His eyes are half-glazed. “I see intruders there. I think some of our people are hurt.”
“Got it,” I say, bolting down the last flight of stairs, then through the front door and out onto the street.
The air is stifling, thick with the scent of dead pigeons. Their feathers crunch under my boots as we race for the tunnel’s entrance. The gunfire is louder down here, mixed with the sound of screams. I quicken my pace, shooting a look back at Ruse and the others, and slide my gun from its holster.
“The feed cut out,” Ruse shouts. “At least one of our people is down.”
“We’re definitely being attacked, but this doesn’t seem like Cartaxus,” Rhine yells. “They’d be quieter than this.”
“I agree,” Ruse says, “but I don’t know who else it could be.”
We race into the tunnel, gunfire echoing off the rocky walls. Ruse runs beside me, following the sounds of fighting, then grabs my sleeve to jerk me to a stop.
I sway to catch my balance, staring in horror at the scene in front of me. There are bodies on the ground—hackers I recognize from the agricultural levels. Some are clearly dead, and others are badly wounded. There are people standing over them, wearing filthy, bloodstained clothes. They’re definitely not Cartaxus soldiers.
They’re snarling like animals.
“Lurkers,” Ruse growls. These are people who lost their minds to the Wrath. Catarina faced them during the outbreak, but I’ve never seen them before. I look around, disgusted. The body of a woman near me has been torn open, and two Lurkers are kneeling over her with their hands inside her stomach.
I was prepared for a Cartaxus attack—for troops and drones and explosives. I wasn’t prepared for this.
Ruse lifts his rifle, shooting one Lurker, but the shot sends the others scattering. Some of them head along a path that leads to the bunker, and Rhine’s eyes widen.
“We can’t let them get inside!” she yells, bolting after them, leaving Ruse and me with the survivors of the fight.
Not that there are many people left alive. There must be a dozen bodies here. The scent of blood is strong enough to make my stomach turn. I don’t know how the Lurkers got into the city or into this tunnel, but Rhine is right to keep them out of the bunker. We can’t risk them killing more of Entropia’s people.
“Can anyone here walk?” I call out, looking around at the wounded. A blood-streaked woman moans faintly, kneeling beside the woman with her abdomen torn open. I squint at her, and a jolt of horror hits me. I know the crying woman. Matrix. She’s one of the hackers who believed in the Panacea, and that’s her wife lying on the ground. She’s an agricultural worker. The Lurkers tore her open—they had their hands in her stomach.
Footsteps echo through the tunnel. “The Lurkers are coming back,” Ruse says. “We should get the wounded out of here.”
“There’s no time,” I say. “We’re going to have to fight.”
Ruse curses. “We have to secure the tunnel to the bunker. The people in there will be defenseless. They’ll be slaughtered if those monsters get inside.”
“I can use the scythe,” I say. The tiny, lethal script designed to kill anyone with a panel. “The code is ready in my cuff.”
“No,” Ruse says. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not? There are too many to shoot. We’re going to kill them anyway.”
“It’s not about killing them,” Ruse hisses. “If Cartaxus has access to any of their panels, they might record the code. They’ll use it against us—they could kill everyone on the surface in one fell swoop.”
The thought makes me freeze. He’s right. The last time Catarina used the scythe, Cartaxus stole the code. We deleted it from their databases during flood protocol, but the next time I use it might be my last. Either Cartaxus will be waiting to steal it for themselves, or they’ll develop a block that will make it useless. Then they could turn it against us, like Ruse said.
I hadn’t even considered that. Ruse might be sharper than I thought.
I glance at the tunnel leading into the bunker—the one Ruse and I have to protect. The footsteps of the Lurkers are getting louder. The only way to make sure none of them get into the bunker is to block this entrance. I look up at the rocky ceiling. “We need to blow the cave.”
Ruse nods. “Good thinking.” He slings his rifle over one shoulder, sliding a matchbox-size metal case from his pocket. He flicks it open and pulls out two small black discs the size of a fingertip. They’re caked in yellow gel. Flash buttons. They’re tiny, but each carries enough explosive power to blow up a house. Ruse throws them up to the junction’s ceiling, then lifts his rifle. “Get into cover!” he shouts.
But there’s no time. The footsteps are growing closer, the group of Lurkers turning the corner, snarling and filthy. They’re racing for the tunnel that leads into the bunker.
“Shoot it!” I shout.
Ruse aims his rifle at the flash buttons. He fires, and the blast knocks me off my feet.
