Children of the Plague

Chapter Thirteen: Intervention

Chapter Thirteen: Intervention

Hurry!

Lanni awoke with the word echoing through her mind and a sick, anxious feeling in her gut. The feeling that always accompanied the dream where she had overslept, and had only minutes to prepare for an important exam. She grumbled at herself for foolishly forgetting to set her alarm, and swung her legs out of bed.

Except she wasn't in bed. She was sitting. She was sitting on something hard with a keen edge that dug into the back of her thigh, and she couldn't move.

What is this?

The reality of her world flooded back into her brain. She was in the room she shared with Alex.

Alex!

He was gone. He had tied her to an ancient office chair inside her own ring of nanite-killing electrical tape, and left. He was now loose among the people they worked so hard and for so long to protect. Without her help, he would soon succumb to the powerful urges to feed on their emotions and drain their memories. He would turn them into husks, and himself into a full-blown host.

She looked down at the ring of black electrical tape surrounding her. He must have made her put it there and then wiped her memory of it. Her arms and legs were bound to the chair's armrests and legs with black Velcro straps.

He had to have known Velcro wouldn't keep her here. Maybe he strapped her in to keep her from falling through the tape barrier while she slept.

Sure. Maybe he'll be back in a few minutes with ice cream and popcorn.

She still felt the sense of urgency. If anything, it was getting stronger. She suppressed her aura and used her power to sever her bonds. Free to move, she pushed her aura out like an inflated balloon, neutralizing the nanites in the electrical tape.

"Alex?"

No response. It was worth a try.

She tried to recall what happened before she woke up in the chair. She and Alex were in a made-up re-creation of their South Carolina home. They were planning their next moves, and joking about the awful Mutant Ninja Assassin film. That was where it stopped. Whatever else he might have shown or done to her, he'd made her forget.

Hurry!

A sense of impending doom descended upon her. What did it mean?

"What am I supposed to do Alex? How am I supposed to figure it out when you hide everything from me?" She didn't bother masking her frustration. She knew he wouldn't answer.

This mysterious sense of urgency tipped her body into combat mode. With no opponent or even anything that moved within sight, she didn't get the slow motion effect, but it helped her focus. It helped her think. She raced through the events of the last few hours like a video on high speed.

Her exploration of the Red Point warehouse and docks had gone spectacularly wrong. A host had not only seen her, but was curious enough about her to follow her home. It had found the MPC, and would return soon with a mutant army to take it.

Alex had dropped his barriers, destroying the protections of the safe zone. He couldn't hide her from the colonists anymore, and now, thanks to her indecision, he was among them—the proverbial fox in the hen house. She had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and it was shaping up into a heck of a day.

She stripped out of her gore and human waste-soaked clothes, wishing she had time for a bath. And a bathtub. She settled for a bottle of water and the least disgusting bath towel she could find.