The Black Tide (Outcast 3)

The guard pointed with his chin at the tunnels behind me. “Martin is over in supplies, not here.”

“And they told me I’d find him in research three.”

My gaze swept the shadows hugging the other side of the entrance. There was a second guard standing watch, but the fierceness of the lights made it impossible to see what other security measures might be here. Which meant I could risk wrapping myself in light to sneak past them, but if there were bioscanners set into the walls of this entrance, I’d be in all sorts of trouble.

“If they said that, they’re fucking idiots,” he said.

“So, he really hasn’t come through here?”

“No, but it wouldn't matter if he had, because your ass can go no further.” The guard’s tone was impatient. “So leave, before I decide to report you.”

I didn't argue. I just spun on my heel and walked back to the tunnel that led to the supplies area, but stopped the minute the shadows wrapped around me again.

What in Rhea was I going to do now?

I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, studying the loading bay and the movements of the various forklifts. Rather interestingly, none of them went into the larger tunnel. In fact, right now they seemed to be doing nothing more than shifting the various pallets and boxes into a stack on one side of it. Given the tunnel was obviously designed to allow trucks passage, perhaps the intention was to transport it all at once rather than piecemeal.

But what was in those boxes, and where exactly were they being taken?

There was only one way to find the answer to either question. I pushed away from the wall and sucked in the energy of the shadows, just as I had the light earlier. It filtered swiftly through every inch of me until my whole body vibrated with the weight and power of it. The vampire within my DNA swiftly embraced that darkness, becoming one with it, until it stained my whole being and took over. It ripped away flesh, muscle, and bone, until I was nothing more than a cluster of matter. Even my clothes and the backpack became part of that energy.

Now that I was hidden from ordinary sight, I swept out of the tunnel but kept close to the wall and the shadows that hugged it. Light was the enemy of this form—while it would never harm me as it did the vampires, it could certainly tear away the shadows and revert me back to flesh and blood.

I slowed as I neared the stack of boxes. It wasn’t exactly surprising to discover that most of them bore government and military IDs. Both Cohen and Dream had inherited the ability to body shift from Sal when the three of them and a wraith had been caught in a rift. While Cohen had taken over the identity of the man who’d owned and run Winter Halo, Dream had usurped the position of someone in Central’s governing body. Unfortunately, we currently had no idea whether she merely worked in Government House, or if she was on the ruling council itself. I rather suspected the latter, if only be

cause an audit would have surely picked up the amount of missing equipment and who knew what else lying in both these boxes and the ones I’d discovered at the other old military bases.

I detoured around a puddle of light to inspect the half dozen pallets stacked at the end of the boxes, and discovered the one thing I'd been hoping not to. Intrauterine pods. Six of them, in fact.

A deep sense of horror stirred. While I’d discovered similar pods in other bases, I'd thought—perhaps foolishly—that with the deaths of both Sal and Cohen, Dream would put aside that part of their plan and just concentrate on the immunity portion. But the transfer stamps on these pods held yesterday's date, which was two days after I'd exposed their machinations at Winter Halo.

Rhea help me, there could be babies in this place. Youngsters. Just as there’d been in my bunker when the shifters had unleashed the gas that had killed them all.

I took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to ignore the painful rush that always rose when I thought about that dreadful day. But the memories would not be ignored, and once again I witnessed the disintegrating features of the little ones who’d been in my charge, heard their screams as the Draccid gas that had been fed into our air systems ate at their tiny bodies. Could feel the weight of them in my arms as Cat, Bear, and I tried—and failed—to get them out of the nursery and save as many as we could.

We hadn’t known it was useless, that there was no safety to be found anywhere in the bunker. Not until the Draccid began eating at me, anyway, and Cat and Bear had crawled into my arms to die. I was the sole survivor that day, and only because lures had been designed to be immune to all known toxins and poisons. We had to be, because that’s how we usually killed our targets once we’d bled them of information.

Tears stung my eyes, but it wasn’t just the memories. It was the knowledge that if the déchet children who were being created in this place in any way contained wraith blood, then I would be forced to commit an act as unthinkable as what the shifters had done to the children in my bunker. It didn’t matter if that death came to them now, while I was here, or later. Didn’t matter if it was far kinder than the death the shifters had given to my little ones—the fact was, I’d be killing children when I’d sworn on that day so long ago to never, ever let harm befall a child if I could at all stop it.

I drew in another shuddering breath, then resolutely turned away from the pods and went back to the crates. To know for sure what I might be dealing with, I first had to get into the research area. My best chance of that was hitching a lift. While all the crates were well battened down, my energy form didn’t actually need anything more than a small hole to squeeze through. After a quick search through the various stacks, I found a crate with a small knothole and slipped inside. It was jammed with smaller boxes, most of them seeming to contain various chemicals, none of which I was familiar with.

There was no room to regain flesh form, so I hovered in the small, dark space and hoped I didn’t have to wait too long before the crates were moved.

Eventually, the growing splutter of an old engine indicated a vehicle was finally approaching. Light speared through the small knothole and sent me scrambling backward, but it disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. Headlights, I realized. The truck must have been turning around. After another moment, gears ground and brakes squealed as the truck came to a halt. A door opened, and then a second engine started up, this one more a whine that spoke of an electrically powered vehicle.

One by one, the crates were loaded up, mine included. A quick check via the knothole revealed the pallets holding the pods were being placed into the truck. With that done, the tailgate was lifted into position, and a canvas curtain dropped back down, though not secured. I slipped out of the crate but didn’t immediately regain flesh form, still worried about the possibility of biosensors hidden within the walls. There were some parts of my bunker—parts that had once only been accessible to our creators—that had certainly had them, as had the labs in the other old bunkers that Dream and her cohorts had been using.

The driver climbed back into the truck, and with the gears grinding in protest, the vehicle was soon rolling forward again. As we drove under the arch and into the tunnel, I peered past the curtain again. I’d guessed right—there were sensors. Given they hadn’t gone off, they must have been tuned to flesh intrusion rather than matter.

The tunnel swept around to the right and darkness dominated for some time. I couldn’t see any guards but I had no doubt there were. And if this tunnel did lead to the laboratories, there’d surely be other measures, too.

Gradually other sounds intruded over the rumble of the truck’s engine, all of which suggested we were nearing a secondary loading dock.

Time to risk leaving the truck.

I slipped past the heavy canvas and moved to the thick shadows that lined the left wall. Up ahead, the tunnel gave way to a brightly lit circular receiving bay—although, just like the first one, there were still spots of darkness hugging the outer walls and the various exits. There were also people and forklifts everywhere, and plenty of visible guards. I stopped at the tunnel’s mouth to get my bearings as the truck swung toward a small loading dock on the right. The information I’d taken from the guard’s mind had been rather sketchy when it came to this area, but it didn’t really matter. These tunnels were all signposted. The one I wanted—nursery and development—was the second tunnel on my left.

I flexed fingers that held no flesh and pushed away the trepidation that rose within me. It was no use fearing what I might yet have to do without first knowing if there was any reason for that fear.