Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(45)
My father’s face turns pale.
“The East Coast is rubble, and now we’re seeing new threats. Did you happen to notice the things with all the tentacles during your daring escape? There’s a spike under all those limbs. It leaps onto your head, jams it into your nervous system, and then drinks you like a milkshake. How do you think that’s affecting morale on the frontlines? Lyric, the prime is kicking our butts, and it’s not just a handful of cities with six feet of water, it’s farms and crops, industries, mining, oil production, and finance. Wall Street is in a no man’s land. Do you understand what that means? The financial center for the entire world is closed for business. There are food shortages, gasoline shortages, mobs, looting, and clashes between citizens and soldiers. This morning, West Virginia officially seceded from the rest of the country. They say Texas will be next. It’s my job to make sure it stops. You’re going to help me.”
“I am, am I?”
“Yes, because I am desperate.” Spangler’s eyes drill into my cranium. He’s not trying to charm me now. He’s done trying to manipulate me. He’s done torturing me. He’s a businessman, and none of this is good for business. “So if you’re not going to have lunch, perhaps you would like to go ahead and get started. David, why don’t you show Ms. Walker your park?”
“Where are you taking me?”
“It’s easier to show you than to tell you,” Doyle says.
Doyle has some of his soldiers take my father and Bex to the infirmary. They are both suffering from malnutrition, and my dad’s ribs are killing him. I could tell by the sweat on his face all during the meeting with Spangler. Doyle gives Amy a lecture on treating them well. She seems intimidated by him, but maybe it’s all an act. I can’t tell, and there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.
“This could have been so much easier,” he says as he leads me down a hall.
“No, it couldn’t,” I say defiantly. Soon we approach another elevator that requires his keycard. Once it’s activated, he pushes a button that says SB for subbasement.
The elevator stops, and we’re let out into a hallway with a concrete floor and cinder blocks for walls. Once again, I realize how practical things are here at Tempest. It’s not the evil fortress in a comic book. Everything except the device that jams my glove seems ordinary and familiar. Even the tanks look like something they bought at a hardware store.
“In the comic books, the bad guy’s secret lair is usually tricked out,” I say.
“You would be better off if you stopped thinking about all this as a war between the good guys and the bad guys,” Doyle says. “I’ve found that most people are a mixture of both.”
“That’s what the bad guy in comic books always says to the hero too. I’ll try to remember that the next time I walk by a tank full of human hands,” I hiss.
“Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet,” he says when we get to the end of the hall.
“And that’s your problem. You think your job is making omelets. Sorry, Doyle. Your job is making sure this madhouse works. If it weren’t for people like you, none of this evil could happen.”
He swipes his keycard again, and the door opens into something my mind is not prepared to understand. As we step out onto a catwalk, I see a massive green space as big as a soccer field. The grass is bright and lush. The trees have fat pears hanging from the limbs. There are rows and rows of blooming flowers—marigolds, lilacs, tulips—in whites and blues and yellows and oranges. Everything is manicured and tidy, with a stone pathway beckoning to a swing set and a carousel. I see basketball and tennis courts, a baseball diamond, and a running track. There’s a trampoline and archery targets and places to picnic.
“What is this?” I ask.
“It’s many things. A military facility, a training center, a place for the children to feel special,” he says.
“Children? You mean the Alpha kids?”
A loud buzz blasts the air.
“C’mon, I want to keep you out of sight for now,” he says. He walks me into a shadowy section, far from the lights, and he sits down on the edge of the catwalk, letting his boots hang over the side. He invites me to join him, but I refuse.
Below, two double doors open at the far end of the space. Dozens of kids run through it, grinning like it’s the last day of school, singing and dancing in their black jumpsuits with the White Tower logo on the back. They range in age, some as old as myself but others hovering around seven or eight. A couple could be as young as five. The little ones take to the monkey bars, swinging on swings, zipping down slides, riding teeter-totters, and laughing among themselves. The older kids ride skateboards on a professional fiberglass halfpipe. Others fall to the grass and braid one another’s hair. I peer down as best I can, recognizing a few faces. Angela Benningford’s eleven-year-old son, Cole, is shooting hoops on the basketball court.
“This is what I’ve been doing here, Lyric. White Tower was originally built to imprison these children and their Alpha parents. I believed the kids were special. When the first one morphed in the water, I realized they could be useful. I’ve battled a lot of CEOs—they come and go pretty fast around here—but I got my way. I built this park, and I’ve been training them ever since.”