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There were three weeks after the attack where I had little memory, except that I’d been bed-ridden, delirious from the burns, and dreaming of beastie tanks or the strange man and his dice. Gwen was still weak from her temporary loss of powers, and though she’d been able to offer some assistance in healing us after the attack, she wasn’t yet strong enough to remove Lady Winters’ memory seed from my mind.
We hadn’t heard anything from Tim or Val either.
I dropped my bowl into the sink. I’d promised Jack I would check on Gwen after breakfast and then I planned to continue my usual routine of power practice, video games, and self-imposed homework.
“We have a lead!” Inese stepped into the cafeteria, grinning. She clapped a hand on Crush’s back. “The car is at the Cuban Camaraderie base. Looks like we’re going on your joyride after all.”
“Not the whirligig?” Crush smirked, earning a glare from her. He still had a few red pockmarks from the bee stings, but the greenish bruises had cleared.
“That thing isn’t a joyride,” she muttered.
I pushed my waffle aside. If the car was in Cuba, then... “Any word on Tim?”
Inese shook her head. “No, sorry. Anyway, Pops is taking us down for a briefing with the Cuban Resistance so we’ll know how to coordinate.”
Crush blinked. “We’re coordinating?”
She plopped into the seat next to him. “I’m guessing their spies accidentally stumbled onto the car. Contacting us just gives them the extra firepower for whatever they’ve got planned.” She didn’t sound terribly fond of the idea, but as much as I wanted to question them why, I needed to check on Gwen.
I lingered a moment longer, then excused myself and found Gwen in her room, propped against a number of pillows with a thick, yellow paperback in her hands. She still had a rasping cough, and I doubted that healing us had helped.
“Feeling any better?” I asked.
Gwen glanced at me over her glasses and sat the book in her lap. “A bit. Jack sent you?”
I nodded, feeling bad that I hadn’t come of my own accord.
She smiled wryly. “You can tell him I’m feeling better—and that he might let the soup warm for another minute before serving it. I’m not that old.”
I chuckled. At least she wasn’t offended. “Of course. I’ll do that. Are your powers returning?”
She nodded. To an extent.
“That’s good.” I smiled.
During the times she was awake, she had told the others she couldn’t feel her powers—no sense of life, no stray thoughts. It was a week after the attack before they returned.
“By the way, Inese said that the Cuban Resistance found the car. We’re supposed to coordinate to get it back.”
“The Cuban Resistance,” she murmured. “I’m not surprised. Be careful, Jenna. We have few enough friends as it is.”
I doubted Gwen realized it, but I had a momentary feeling of a ship crowded with energetic people. The picture on the wall, the one with Jim and Gwen, reminded me of how few remained.
The next day we gathered anything we might need—body armor, for those who had it, along with weapons—then met in the hangar. I brought my electric spear and vines.
“We need everyone on this mission,” Pops told us, “though Gwen and Jim will stay. I’ll come with you to the briefing, but then I must return.”
“So—I’m actually going on a mission?” Crush asked, preemptively dressed in a dark gray and blue jumpsuit. “Stretch my legs, remember what the ground feels like, and fresh air...”
Inese chuckled, but Pops shook his head in resignation. “Yes, you can go. Jim will manage the ship. We need all the help we can get, especially since you know how to hack security systems. “
Crush cracked his knuckles and flexed his fingers. “Not a problem.”
“Are you set?” The pilot’s voice was thick with a Spanish accent. Jack agreed, and the pilot led us into a sleek, silver jet. We fastened our seat belts in seated rows with no windows. The jet’s chilly air made me glad to have my jacket.
After the engines warmed, rumbling and shaking the whole contraption, the jet took off faster than the car. I enjoyed the rushing feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I soon realized we wouldn’t be going invisible. Invisibility would’ve been nice. I could’ve ignored the talk about Val and Tim’s betrayal and the speculation on how we’d get the car back.
Several hours later, we landed. A few clouds obscured the stars in the dark purple sky above us, and a wave of moist heat smashed into me.
“Come on.” Our pilot ducked into a path hidden by guava, eucalyptus, allspice trees... and so many more I couldn’t name. Another plane’s blue and red lights blinked far overhead. Once we were hidden, the pilot motioned for us to stay put.
“I must hide the jet before it is spotted,” he told us. “A woman will come and take you the rest of the way.”
“We could guide ourselves,” Jack muttered, earning a jab from Inese’s elbow. The pilot disappeared. The forest came alive with chirruping and croaking that started slowly at first, then abruptly reached a crescendo.
It was loud enough to conceal the sound of our next guide, a woman with dark curls bouncing around her face. She wore a green uniform that looked stifling in this heat. I considered stripping off my own jacket, but I didn’t want to bother removing my vines. Not when I was already trying to maneuver the spear through our clustered group.
The woman said something I couldn’t understand, then added, “Come on! Go!” when only Inese and Jack followed.
Compared to the rest of the team, I had the most luck taking the hidden trail. I urged the vines to either side of the path, making it easier for everyone else, and soon found myself pushed to the front.
Shortly into the trek, our guide raised her fist and Inese halted. Lance nearly toppled into me. Meanwhile, our guide knelt to the jungle floor and brushed away dead leaves that concealed a concrete slab. She held her tablet next to it, typed in a code, and the concrete rose with a creak.
“Underground bunker,” she explained.
She scooted her legs into the hole, then descended. Rusted metal rungs led into darkness, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go into a hole where I didn’t sense much in the way of plant life. It felt like a trap, especially after the “abandoned” warehouse didn’t turn out so abandoned.
I climbed down and the muggy air closed in around me. It was slow going. I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t want to step on Pops’ hands or miss a rung. My foot slipped and I yipped, quickly snatching the upper bar. I narrowly missed Pops’ head.
Lance looked down. “You okay?”
My foot touched solid metal. “I’m fine,” I said, though I tightened my hands around the rungs to keep them from trembling. The top of Pops’ salt and pepper hair, nearly white, was barely visible, while Lance’s silhouette loomed above me.
I released my breath when my feet touched the floor, but the floor was slick and the room smelled damp, like a fish tank needing to be cleaned. A hand on my shoulder led me around the corner. Two streams of light flared on us, but Pops ushered me forward, past the blinding lights of the uniformed guards pointing assault rifles our direction. My fingers twitched from anxiety, but the guards probably felt safe.
Lucky them.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Where are we going?”
“The Cuban underground,” Pops said. “It is quite literally beneath the surface. You’ll see in a moment.”
Our guide led us through a bulkhead door into a large cavern—a huge room filled with stalactites and stalagmites, pools of silently moving water, and the hum of dozens of computers. Everywhere the blue and white glow of computer screens cast heavy shadows. Men and women, some in uniform while others wore a t-shirt and camo pants, typed at the computers or delivered tablets between the stations. At the center of the spotlighted cave was a large oval console with a ring of screens glowing above, and data and schematics flowing down each. Every screen was different, and I suspected the security camera feeds were tapped from the Camaraderie’s base. Most of the halls were identified, though there were entire sections of the map left blank.
“Wow,” I whispered. Tim would have loved this. But he was probably dead, or worse, turned into a beast. I fingered Lady Winters’ identity charm. We’d find Tim, and eventually, we’d find Lady Winters, too. And when we did, we wouldn’t let her escape. She’d answer for her crimes against the Community, and we’d find some way to stop beast creation.
“Don’t worry,” Jack said, shoving me and Lance forward. After he got feeling better, he’d thrown us through more training to ensure we could each use our powers as effectively as possible. “You two have plenty of time to look around. Pops has some persuasion to do if we want to know what the Cubans got planned for us.”
Pops set off behind a wall of natural stone, walking next to a broad-chested man with gold cords draped over each shoulder, while I spent the next half hour trailing Inese and Crush.
Once Pops returned, the resistance leader, a general, called out his people. Fifteen men and women took their places around the console and were joined by the Coalition. Most of the rebels looked fairly young—in their early twenties and thirties—compared to the general.
Half of the conversation was Spanish. The gist of it, when they spoke English, was that they would supply “guards” to act as distractions so we could get in and find the car. It was parked in one of the outdoor landing bays, so we would need to get past the real Special Forces agents.
The rebels had their own agenda, though, which sounded a lot like it involved explosives. Our job was to get where we needed before anyone was discovered.
“We infiltrate the base at ten hundred hours,” the general said. “We should be able to slip in unnoticed while the COE works on this secret project of theirs.” He turned to Jack. “You will need to be out before our people finish.”
Pops raised his chin, and I wondered if it was the same project he’d been concerned about three weeks ago. Jack crossed his arms, examining the schematics of the base. “How long will we have?”
“Not sure,” the general admitted. “That’s the tricky part. All we know is that they’re creating something secret enough that their own officers don’t know the details.”
“Your spies indicated an increase in the number of beasties present. Will we have to worry about them?” Inese asked.
One of the younger women spoke up. “That’s the odd thing.” Her English was a bit better than the others, so I understood what she said. “They’ve brought in more beasties, but they aren’t roaming the facility or acting as guards. They’ve been put in a high clearance room. None of our operatives have been able to get past.”
“Needless to say, you will need to be careful.” The general touched his fingers to the console. An image of the car, partially obscured by an airship, popped onto the screen.
Crush rubbed his chin. “What type of beasties are they? At least we can know what we’re up against.”
“It varies,” a different spy said. “Several of them have laser eyes, judging by the state of the COE’s trucks. Others don’t have any obvious traits, except shapeshifting and armored skin.”
My imagination went to work picturing what a beastie that had lasers for eyes would look like, or one that could turn into other beasties, or was covered in metal plates like a knight from Jim’s history book.
“Anything else? The more we know, the better off we’ll be,” Crush urged.
“Agreed,” the general said. “So you should also know that once the all clear is given, we’ll take out the facility—even if you’re inside.”
“Even if we’re inside?” I protested. “What if there are other civilians or prisoners? They might not have a chance to escape.”
I had no problems with destroying the beastie plants or even the base, but there had to be a way to protect the innocent.
The general shook his head. “We have a limited amount of time. There are rarely no casualties in war.”
I started to protest, but both Pops and Jack shook their heads. I crossed my arms and scowled. If they were agreeing on something, they must have some reason.
“So we’ll get out before the bombs start smoking,” Jack said. He glanced at me, but I couldn’t read his expression.
“Why is it important to blow up the base so quickly?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we be trying to rescue any prisoners?”
The general raised his chin and tucked his hands behind his back, giving him an air of solemn importance. “This is our one chance to knock out the Camaraderie’s entire council.”
Pops stared at him. “The entirety of the Camaraderie’s leadership is at this base?”
The general grinned. “Sí.”
