The Last Mission of the Living (The Last Bastion #2)(104)

Settling his hands on her waist, Torran bent down to press his forehead against hers. “Eat, sleep, and worry about it later.”

“That easy?” she asked.

“Yeah. That easy.”

As always, her kiss was sweet, and her trust in him sweeter. “Okay.”



*



The bunk beds weren’t very comfortable with two people squeezed onto one, but neither one of them wanted to be alone. Lindsey managed to sleep for a few hours, but was roused by the many questions floating through her mind.

After showering and eating, they’d had a long discussion about their knowledge about the supposed SWD mission to bring back Dwayne and Maria, but it had created more questions than she liked. Lindsey was still a little peeved that Torran had admitted he had been dedicated to the mission in order to save her and the rest of humanity, but at the same time she couldn’t blame his reasoning. The idea of being able to walk among the Scrags without fear was very tempting.

Dressed in her dark gray undershirt and panties, she slid onto the chair at the console and started perusing the files she’d found on the hard drive cache. It was mostly security reports from the Rescue Hub command center, but there were also other tidbits of information from various news sources. There had to be a way out of the Rescue Hub other than an airlift. Dragging Franklin’s helmet onto her lap, she connected it to the console and started searching through the hidden program. She hoped to duplicate it and download it to her wristlet so she could contact the aerial drone and keep tabs of the Scrags around the location. Maybe she could even find a way to drag the active Scrags around the Rescue Hub away from their location.

Though Lindsey had initially riled up the Scrags by jumping off the bench, she now wondered if Franklin had deliberately roused the rest by firing her weapon so the three of them would be trapped. Torran had said that the plan had been to force Lindsey to contact Maria once a rescue team didn’t arrive. Lindsey hated to admit that it may have worked if the situation had been dire enough and she believed they were the only hope of rescue. She would’ve sent word to Maria and Dwayne that she was stranded using the floating cloud she’d constructed to keep them updated.

With a frown, Lindsey pulled up the copy of the program that had attempted to hack into Maria and Dwayne’s wristlets during the pulses to Beta City. It had forced the couple to go offline completely. She’d never been able to trace it back to its point of origin, and had set it aside. Now, she compared it to the one imbedded in Franklin’s helmet. Examining both programs, she saw similar patterns.

“Same programmer,” she whispered.

The Gaia Cult had been searching for her friend from the beginning. Dr. Curran had urged Lindsey to seek answers, but now that they were right in front of her, Lindsey was cut off from sharing what she’d uncovered. Without a pulse to connect The Bastion grid, there wasn’t a way for her to transmit the information.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Torran asked, pulling a chair out from beneath the console. The back flipped up and he sat down next to her.

“I figured a few things out.” She reached up to tug on her braid and realized it wasn’t there. Instead, she tucked her shorter hair behind her ears. It was time for new habits, she supposed. “Gaia Cult is working within both the SWD and Constabulary. You said that you and Dr. Curran were supposed to find Maria and Dwayne, but nothing really came about after that meeting.”

“Nah. Not at all. I thought it was weird,” Torran confessed.

“I think it was bait.”

“Eh?”

“Well, Dr. Curran worked with Commandant Pierce and Dwayne to bring down Admiral Kirkpatrick. So I think the Gaia Cult thought maybe she was in contact with Dwayne and Maria.”

“Okay, I can see that reasoning, but why me?”

“We’d already been seen together,” Lindsey said, shrugging.

“Oh.”

“We weren’t all that careful before the mission. If the Gaia Cult was watching me because I’m Maria’s best friend, then they would have seen that you were spending the night with me.”

“So, they call me into a meeting, tell me about the mission, and I tell you—”

“But you didn’t tell me.” She stuck out her tongue.

“Eh, I’m loyal. To a fault. I admit it.” He winced and had the decency to look chagrined.

“So when I don’t reach out to Dwayne and Maria in a way they can trace—”

“They decide on another tactic. It makes sense.” Torran scrubbed his hand over his hair and sighed. “Okay, so Commandant Pierce wanted you to thwart the SWD plans. So she’s not a part of it. But Trevino and Martel are behind my assignment and Dr. Curran’s. They clearly want Maria.”

“One or both of them are Gaia Cult. Also, Solomon picked the Beta City depot for a reason. Dr. Curran couldn’t figure out why, or maybe she was just trying to get me to come to a conclusion. Who knows with her?”

“So what is your conclusion?”

“Solomon knew the Beta City depot was sabotaged by Gaia Cult because she’s one of them. She knew we’d run into some trouble. And because we did have problems, she received a much bigger squad, more equipment, more aircraft, more drones...”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. In other words, she probably got more Cultists on the squad and basically was given the equipment she needed to find Dwayne and Maria.”