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THE GIVERS WERE A NIGHTMARE unlike anything Amos could have imagined. The crude drawing Megan provided—so many months earlier—only told part of the story. Amos fought the onslaught of vertigo as he tried to focus on the aliens.
That’s just the problem. A pounding headache erupted just behind his eyes. It’s impossible to get a good look at them.
The Givers—are there three, or just two? —entered the room in perfect formation, their every movement mirrored in precise, flowing fluidity with their counterparts.
The creatures appeared solid at times, and then partially translucent, flowing back and forth into each other. Or was that an optical illusion? The flickering green light from their inner sanctum only made things worse.
The Council members, rising to greet the aliens, seemed to be experiencing the same queasiness. Several collapsed into their chairs, hands clamped over their mouths.
“I can’t even look at them,” Jane whispered, lowering her arms. Logan didn’t seem to notice, and Amos dropped his as well, rubbing his hands to restore circulation.
Garr was righter than he knew. Everything about the Givers is totally . . . alien.
The Councilor, flanked by his assistant and Mateo, stood before the Givers without flinching. There was no sound Amos could make out, but Sterne smiled and nodded his head as if the aliens were communicating with him.
Sterne placed a hand on Mateo’s shoulder, giving every appearance of introducing him.
Mateo ducked his head in a slight bow, and glanced over his shoulder in the Runners’ direction. The greenish light gave his face an inhuman tinge, offset by the unexpected activation of his scanning eye.
He cocked his head, his expression indecipherable, and then nodded to Logan. “Proceed.”
Amos whipped his head around to stare at the other Tracker. Logan pulled a small device from inside his jacket, his thumb depressing a short plunger on one end.
The floor shook violently in response, as the muffled roar of a devastating explosion—or explosions—rumbled beneath their feet. Red-tinged smoke roiled up the outside walls of the Citadel, obscuring the windows.
Pandemonium broke loose before the shock waves had a chance to die down.
The overhead lights flickered, and Logan began firing his weapon. The Council members dove to the floor, screaming in mindless terror. Mateo whirled around, his weapon held ready as he shielded the Givers with his body. He gestured for the Councilor and his aide to take cover behind him.
The Givers shrieked, the piercing sound echoing painfully in the confined space. In perfect synchronicity, they whirled about and fled inside their inner sanctum in a nausea-inducing swirl of color and liquefied motion.
The guttural hissing was constant. Mateo fired his weapon around the conference room, covering the aliens’ retreat. The cathedral windows fractured and collapsed in the crossfire, and the howling storm drove clouds of noxious smoke inside. The air reeked of scorched metal and something unidentifiable.
In the explosion’s aftermath, the Citadel was burning.
The remaining Council members rushed to the nearest exit—leading into the medical facility—only to find Darcy had locked the door from the other side.
Panic drove them over the edge. They pivoted en masse and charged in a frantic stampede for the opposite end of the room, almost trampling the Runners in their crazed exit.
Amos heard Jane cough convulsively beside him as acrid smoke filled the room. He pawed at his watering eyes as a howling wind gusted through the shattered windows, driving the rain before it.
The swirling smoke cleared for an instant, and he saw Councilor Sterne stagger into the Givers’ inner sanctum, his assistant clinging to his arm in desperation.
Weapon held ready, Mateo stood in a defensive posture, his back to the green-lit portal. His face was made grotesque by the blood-red glow surrounding his left eye.
The black walls began to close, and the conference room grew darker as the green light from the inner sanctum was cut off. Mateo held his position, his weapon trained outward, although he had ceased firing.
Logan stepped forward, his weapon pointed at the floor. He halted a few paces from Mateo. The Trackers eyed each other in silence, as if sharing some form of unspoken connection.
Mateo came out of his defensive crouch. He cradled his weapon in both hands for a moment before tossing it on the floor at his feet. His red-rimmed gaze shifted from Logan to include the Runners.
“This is where it began.” His voice was barely audible over the storm. “This is where it ends.”
He pivoted and, without warning, flung himself into the maw of the inner sanctum. He cleared the opening just before the walls snapped shut. The green light was extinguished, plunging the conference room into a murky twilight.
The door to the medical facility burst open, and the rest of the Runners scrambled into the smoky dusk. Don kicked aside one of the heavy chairs, his wary eyes alert as he tried to make sense of what he saw.
The rest of his team crowded in behind him, fanning out on either side. They looked relieved and perplexed to find no trace of the Givers.
Amos scrambled over the up-ended chairs to seize Mateo’s discarded weapon. He trained the rifle on the featureless wall, searching in vain for any sign of the vertical seam.
He screamed at the utter futility of it all, aiming a frustrated kick at the unyielding barrier. The dull black surface mocked him in silent defiance, solid and unmoving.
Amos raised his weapon again, ready to fire, but knew it was pointless. He lowered the rifle, pivoting to face Garr.
“Our mission was to stop the Givers.” His voice cracked with emotion. He pointed helplessly at the impenetrable wall, the bitterness of their defeat gnawing at him. “But they’re out of reach and under Mateo’s protection.”
Some sixth sense warned him of Logan’s approach. Amos whirled to face him, weapon poised to fire. Logan froze for a moment and then, comprehension dawning, laid his weapon on the table with exaggerated care.
He turned to confront Amos, empty hands raised in a gesture of surrender.
“Didn’t you hear what Mateo said?” Logan raised his voice over the storm, keeping a respectful distance. “He’s not protecting the Givers, he’s preventing their escape. There’s no time to argue. We need to abandon the Citadel. Now.”
Garr laid a hand on the barrel of Amos’s weapon, forcing it down. “What are you saying, Logan?”
Sheila and Jane clustered around them. Don’s team moved to join them, and the Runners presented a united front to the young Tracker.
Garr jerked a thumb at the black wall behind him. “Mateo surrendered his weapon. He’s no threat to anyone in there.”
Logan shook his head. “He’s also a Dissident.” Lightning flared outside, accented by a thunderous boom a split-second later, as if to underscore his words. “The Givers can’t control him. He—we—are in full command of our enhancements.”
He stepped closer, clearly frustrated by their inability to connect the dots. Amos raised his weapon a fraction higher, but Logan ignored him.
“All of our enhancements,” he said, his eyes fixed on Garr. “Including the self-destruct.”
The Colonel’s eyes widened. “He’s going to self-detonate.”
Logan nodded, a look of pain flitting across his face. “We need to get out of the Citadel while we still can.”
Amos lowered his weapon, stunned. Jane shoved past Logan, scooping up his discarded rifle from the table.
“There’s still at least twenty Trackers between us and the exits.” She hefted the weapon, defying anyone to take it away.
Logan dug into his pocket, extracting the small device he’d activated earlier. He held it up in one hand, about to explain, but never got the chance. The building shook again, more violently than before.
The black wall bulged outward, as if something heavy had struck it from the inside with great force. Cracks appeared in its surface, and pinpoints of the sickly greenish light pierced the smoky gloom.
A hideous wail erupted—shrill and outraged—assaulting their ears.
Logan dashed to the open door and the stairwell beyond. His frantic departure goaded the Runners into action, and they pelted down the stairs in his wake. The acrid smoke stung their eyes and lungs, but urgency drove them to increase their descent.
The unearthly wail echoed down the stairwell, lashing out as if infuriated by their escape.