Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

Unease slithered through me, but be

fore I could say anything, Jonas said, “I’ve placed security on high alert. No one is getting in or out of Chaos without us knowing about it.”

“Knowing about it may not fucking help,” Nuri bit back, then sighed again and leaned forward. Her gaze was on me rather than him. “If you succeed in getting these children out of Winter Halo, you are to head back to the truck stop. Our people will meet you there and transfer them to a waiting vehicle.”

“Where are they taking them?”

“A military research center.” Her voice was flat, but the glance she threw at Jonas simmered with annoyance. “Until we know precisely what has been done to them, it’s our only option.”

“What about the other five we rescued? Cat and Bear implied there were problems with them, too.”

She nodded. “There are severe behavioral problems with all of them, which is unsurprising, given what they’ve gone through. I cannot sense darkness in them, but they have been injected with God knows what, and we have no idea yet what the result might be.”

“Sal said they were rejected because they’d outlived their usefulness—”

“For what his aims were, yes,” Nuri cut in. “But that does not mean we can simply release them. Both they and their families—if they have kin alive, and some don’t—have also been transferred to a military center.”

To keep Central safe more than monitor them, I suspected. It was a step that was totally logical, and one I was surprised Jonas was fighting. “How are we going to get to the refuel center?”

“Via the rail pods, of course.” Nuri handed me an image screen. On it was a somewhat blurred picture of a brown-haired, muscular-looking woman. “That’s who you’re replacing, Tiger. You’d better take her form before you leave here.”

I frowned. “Won’t that raise alarms, given we’re supposed to be driving a truck into Central rather than catching a train out of it?”

“Only if someone is paying attention, and really, why would they be?” She handed me a pair of coveralls and made a hurry-up motion with her hand. “And don’t give me that shy crap you gave to Jonas. We’ve both seen far worse than a déchet shifting.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it again at her steely look. I pulled the coveralls on over my clothes and then studied the image on the screen for a minute to fix it in my mind. Altering my body was a far quicker process this time—I guessed like any skill, it got easier with time and use, and I’d certainly done enough of it of late. But even so, my head swam and weakness stirred. I grabbed the green swill and quickly downed it. It might taste like a swamp, but I needed the boost.

“Your turn, Jonas.” Nuri handed him what looked like a random selection of strings platted together to form a bracelet and a small silver disk.

He immediately pocketed the disk, then slipped the bracelet over his wrist. Power surged, its caress sharp, biting; it shimmered up his arm and across his body, transferring his form to that of a blond-haired, craggy-faced, weedy-looking man in his mid-fifties.

“Now, that’s an attractive image,” I said, voice dry.

He raised an eyebrow, creating a myriad of wrinkles across his forehead. “So I shoulded wear it more often?”

“Yes, because it would definitely solve all sorts of dilemmas.” I reached out to test the strength of the transformation. The invisible net of power that surrounded him wavered and then retreated from my touch, and what met my fingertips were steely arm muscles rather than weedy ones. This was more a glamour than an actual transformation: one that could fool from either a distance or close up, but didn’t stand up to physical human contact. I glanced at Nuri. “Will the image hold when he’s in contact with inanimate objects? When we’re seated in the truck, for instance?”

She nodded. “It’s fed by the power of the earth, so it won’t falter unless contact with the ground is lost for more than half an hour.”

I frowned. “We’ll be in the truck longer than that.”

“And the truck tires provide enough of a connection to feed the spell. The freight elevator, however, does not have a direct link to the ground, so you cannot linger in Winter Halo.”

If everything went according to plan, we wouldn’t. And if everything didn’t? I shoved the thought from my mind and hastily finished the rest of my meal.

“We’d better get moving.” Jonas rose.

“If there’s too many people on the platforms,” Nuri said, “head into the park before you release the concealer shield.”

“I will.” He glanced at me. “You’d better disappear, too.”

As he spoke, he pressed the disk Nuri had given him. An almost static buzz caressed the air, and a heartbeat later he’d disappeared from sight. It seemed Nuri had more than magical tricks up her sleeve.

I pulled in the energy of the lights around me and headed for the door. Jonas gave Nuri a hand to close it—something I knew only by the location of his scent—then followed me across to the rail yards and into the fringes of the park opposite.

Once both shields had been dispensed with, we made our way onto the platform and joined the many others already waiting there. A string of pods soon slid silently into the station. The doors opened and its passengers exited—a mix of farm and factory workers, from the look of them. Jonas pressed his fingers against my spine and lightly guided me toward a pod near the front of the string.

I stepped inside and glanced around. There were only half a dozen people in this one, and all of them were clustered near the door. I walked past them and claimed the seats at the very front of the pod.