Villain (Gone 8)

“A queen, Dillon,” she said. “A queen.”

Interstice

DEKKA AND SHADE had agreed to communicate only through secure, encrypted WhatsApp.

Shade: D it’s Shade. Can you give me info on the ranch?

Dekka: Sending you some notes. If you’re going there be very careful. Dangerous place.

Shade: I have a new weapon.

Dekka: Why there and why now?

Shade: I don’t trust the government.

Dekka: Who does?

Shade: We

can’t just wait to be picked off. I have a camera. Going public.

Dekka: Need help?

Shade: No. Take care. SD

Dekka: OK. Sending notes. Good hunting. DT

ASO-6

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF US Coast Guard cutter Abbie Burgess mobilized faster ships than the undersea research flotilla. Other Coast Guard cutters steamed to the scene at top speed. They found less than the helicopter had, just a single identifiable piece of wreckage: a wooden box containing an ancient sextant that must have been someone’s prized collector’s item.

There was no sign of any hostile ship or creature that might have been responsible for the cutter’s destruction. But a French satellite captured a fuzzy picture of a creature that looked like some unholy blending of killer whale and crab. The French estimated the length at over two hundred feet, twice the length of a blue whale.

The name given to this creature was “chimera,” a mythological blending of different species.

The captain of the USS Nebraska, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine, was not warned about mutant sea creatures; his “enemy” was the Russian navy. The Nebraska was heading north to take up station in the Norwegian Sea, where it was to spend a month cruising submerged, ready should the need arise, to fire off its twenty-four Trident II missiles, each boasting eight nuclear warheads. In all, the Nebraska had the ability to create 192 Hiroshimas—every Russian city from Moscow down to Yeysk, a city smaller and even less significant than Jurupa Valley, California.

The chimera attacked the Nebraska, which was cruising at twenty-two knots at a depth of two hundred feet. The chimera’s tentacles fouled and froze the ship’s screws. It twisted the dive planes and crushed the superstructure and its periscopes and antennae.

The Nebraska sank to the ocean floor, but without hull integrity being breached. A hundred fifty-five officers and sailors rattled around like dice in a cup as the chimera, which could hear them, set about getting at them, tearing at the sub’s outer skin as if it was an oyster shell protecting juicy tidbits within.

CHAPTER 10

It Takes Six Seconds to Fall Five Hundred Feet

“I THINK SHADE Darby is going after the Ranch,” Dekka said, pocketing her phone. Like Shade, she’d been forced to steal phones and switch them out regularly. They were dangerous tracking devices, but on the other hand, they were vital to keeping up with the wider world. And to communicating with Shade.

Armo had taken it upon himself to handle the refilling of the Kawasaki’s fuel tank. He tapped off the last drops of gas and replaced the pump handle.

“Did she say why?”

Dekka, leaning back against the Chevron pump, shook her head. “Nope. But I can guess. She’s a smart girl. She realizes it’s hopeless the way it is, so she’s trying to change the game by attacking.”

Armo smiled. “Well, you have to kinda like a girl who thinks ‘hopeless’ means ‘attack.’”

Dekka wanted to agree, but it all sounded so much like Brianna, the Breeze. To hell with the odds—attack! But the bigger issue was what she, Dekka, was going to do. She and Armo. They had talked it over with Sam and Astrid and had reached the same conclusion: in the end, they could not survive unless they managed to cause total anarchy. And what kind of victory was that?

Nothing had depressed Dekka more than Sam failing to come up with a clever plan. The master of the last-minute save had nothing. But Astrid had suggested an answer that might be close to what Shade had in mind, in some ways.