The Last Bastion of the Living (The Last Bastion #1)(83)

The soldier at their feet screamed. “Hungry!”





Chapter 23


The door to the flat slid open and Lindsey stepped aside to let Dwayne in. Within an hour the city would be plunged into darkness as the mandatory nightly blackouts took effect. Only emergency services would retain power. That meant a curfew in all areas of the city. They didn’t have much time to speak. Dwayne had come as soon as Lindsey had contacted him.

Dwayne was surprised to see another person in Lindsey’s home. It was a lanky young man with wild dark hair falling over his brow. Slightly tilted eyes and strong cheekbones gave him a Slavic look. Dressed in jeans, a faded t-shirt, and flip-flops, the man regarded Dwayne with suspicion.

“Dwayne, this is my boyfriend, Vaja. Vaja, play nice.” Lindsey slid into her chair and focused on her screens.

“I don’t like you getting Linds involved with all this,” Vaja said in a slightly accented voice. His pale blue eyes were accusatory. “It’s not safe.”

“I can’t make Lindsey do anything she doesn’t want to. At least not when we’re off duty,” Dwayne answered, flashing his more charming and disarming smile. He extended his hand to Vaja. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Vaja reluctantly shook his hand and slumped against the ladder to Lindsey’s elevated bed.

“Vaja is a very suspicious person. But helpful. He assisted with some of the inscription problems I was having. He has a brain like a computer.”

“Which is why she likes me,” Vaja said with a shrug.

“I don’t have a lot of time before curfew.” Dwayne rested his hand on the rail of Lindsey’s bed and leaned over to peer at her screen.

“I love how no one is complaining about the mandatory blackout,” Lindsey groused, her fingers flying over the screens.

“They’re willing to sacrifice for the greater good now that they know the gate is closed and that they will soon be free of the Inferi Scourge,” Vaja said sarcastically. “Exchanging liberties for security. Wasn’t that what everyone did when the Inferi Scourge started to take over the world?”

“Didn’t do us much good, did it?” Lindsey grumbled.

Dwayne frowned as he started to understand what Lindsey was loading onto her screens. “Security feed from the subway?”

“And sewers.” Lindsey pointed at several vids as they played. “Remember that little incident you wanted me to look into?”

“When the SWD blocked off my neighborhood? Yeah, I remember.”

“It just took me awhile to find these. They were deleted as soon as they were reviewed by the SWD.”

“But nothing is really deleted if you know what you’re doing,” Vaja said with a grin.

“The night you saw that commotion outside the subway station in your neighborhood, there was a breach in the subway system. Not within the city, but outside.”

The furrows in Dwayne’s brow deepened. “Outside? The wall?”

“Yep. There was a breach in one of the old stations out in the valley. The one next to the hydroelectric plant.” Lindsey expanded one of the vid feeds. It revealed two shadowy figures huddled near the sealed door. It took Dwayne a second to realize they were trying to activate the panel and unlock the door.

“What’s that they have between them?”

“Not sure yet, but whatever it was it had enough juice in it to activate the panel and watch...” Lindsey pointed to a section of the vid. On screen the door yawned open. Both figures slipped in before the security programs overrode the breach and shut the door.

“Who the hell are they? How were they outside the wall and not attacked by Scrags?” Dwayne couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Just watch the vids. This is where it gets interesting,” Vaja said, his smile cold and a little cruel.

Dwayne watched as the two figures rushed through the subway station, running to each locked exit, desperate to get out into the city. “Constabulary armor,” Dwayne said, his fear growing.

“No insignias. No markings of any kind,” Lindsey agreed.

Since the cameras were recording with night vision it was impossible to truly make out the faces of the two people running unheeded through the subway system. Reaching another exit, one started to try to open the door using a manual override.

“Which station is that?” Dwayne asked, though he already knew.

“The one in your neighborhood.”

“They got that far into the city?” Dwayne checked the timestamp on all the vids. The two intruders were in the subway for close to two hours by the time they reached the station.

The figure on the screen worked feverishly on the manual override as the other person stalked back and forth. Their movements were somehow disconcerting, though Dwayne couldn’t quite determine why.

“So at this point, the one trying to unlock the door manages to actually do it. But the door doesn’t open. They’ve all been disabled so they don’t open automatically when unlocked.” Lindsey narrated as the rapidly—pacing one flung itself at the doors. Together, the intruders tried to pry it open. “They actually got the door to open six inches.”

“And then...” Vaja pointed at the screen just as a search and destroy squad arrived. The screen was illuminated with gunfire, the flares blinding the cameras.