Reborn (Alpha's Claim 3)

She wanted out, but the only way out was up. Even with a COMscreen projecting the data cube’s maps, often she’d have to guess when she found a newly carved out juncture. The ant farm Shepherd’s men had carved was a maddening circle designed to trap the unwelcome. The paths made no sense; every direction led her back to the same place.

That had to be why so many were screaming; they were lost.

Behind the heavily barred door she’d strained to force open, Brigadier Dane saw the first one. A man little more than bones, his body covered in the repulsive, telling marks of Da’rin. He rushed at her from the dark. Reaching for her weapon, she’d fired without thinking. It was not until after he’d collapse, she realized her hand was shaking.

The Undercroft was getting to her.

The corpse lay crumpled, gripping a shiv, hardly a rag covering his body.

There were more of his kind, she found them around almost every turn. Most shrank from her, from the light of her screen. They cowered against the walls and wept, as if she had come only to cause them pain. Some tried to stalk her through the twists and turns. Fortunately for Dane, she had more bullets than they had life to spend.

These men were never supposed to be set free. Shepherd had left them here for a reason.

Saturated in the stink of human waste, of things far more rotten than any corpse aboveground, Dane plodded forward. She went North, always North. It took an hour to reach the gate she assumed must block this sector from the city center.

All that metal, all those gears and locks, someone had thrown them open.

Sniffing the air, Brigadier Dane hesitated. Something was not right. The citadel was on the other side of that door, of that she was certain, but the smell of Omega was here.

The sound of screams, the very horrible music she had been subjected to. Dane began to listen.

She heard a sobbed name buried in the noise. Someone was screaming for Shepherd.Corday could hardly believe what he was a party to. The rebels had done enough damage that outcome of the battle aside, millions would die from exposure. Subsequently, just by coming to this place, he had betrayed the resistance. Everyone was doing harm to everyone else.

There was no right path. Not in Thólos.

It was so cold his fingers were losing feeling, the rebels around him buried under layers for warmth—because, unlike him, they had known what to prepare for.

It was as Brigadier Dane had said: Leslie had purposefully concealed the details of her battle plans from the pair of puppets she used to distract Shepherd’s men.

What else had she hidden? Was it as Shepherd’s second-in-command claimed? Was she Svana?

Had she been the one who’d assaulted Claire all those months ago?

The seed of doubt had burst and blossomed. It was hard to admit, but Corday believed the Beta who’d invaded his house, and he hated himself for it.

He had helped the woman seize power. He had helped her plan, gathered items used to craft the very bombs that had shattered two segments of the Dome. She had used him, and he had come to where the rebels mustered, knowing Shepherd’s second-in-command was still out there somewhere, watching him.

“Where is Leslie?” The words came in a rush, Corday pulling his body up the last segment of the ladder. The roof before them held ten men, Leslie’s men, all standing atop their perch, watching the city devour itself.

“We were told to hold position.” A man grizzled in appearance and unruffled by the situation said, “Lady Kantor will arrive once her mission is complete.”

“What mission?”

Jaw covered with a red, bristled beard, the man turned his eyes to Corday, and said nothing.

His reply, it was something Dane would have barked. Mouth in a firm line, Corday chastised a man who’d only recently been recruited, “I will remind you of your rank in our forces. While you were warm and fed, protected in the Premier’s Sector, I was running missions, risking my life so this day might come.”

There was a brief instant the man’s composure slipped. He stood abashed. “Her mission was classified. We don’t know where she is. All communications went down twenty minutes ago, so we wait. Chances are, she moved to another position.”

As if it were his place to command, Corday pointed to the youngest in the group. “You, climb down and run to the team at sector G. If she is there, update us immediately.”

“I am afraid that man already has his orders, Corday.”

Corday rounded, looking for the source of Leslie Kantor’s voice. She had snuck up right in the midst of their collective, not one of them having heard her crest the roof. “Leslie?”

She smiled to see him, remaining at a distance. “Our plan is advancing exactly as expected. Every rebel was prepped and knows their duty. The disruption of the communications network changes nothing.”