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

The tall, almost too-thin woman sat beside Lindsey at a workstation, monitoring transmissions on the battlefield while also typing away on a secured pad. The tension in Petra’s jaw and shoulders revealed her anger at Dwayne for leaving without telling her. Lindsey wasn’t too sure why Petra was so upset. Dwayne would be returning with Maria shortly. Of course, it was highly irregular for the castellan, one of the highest-ranking officers of the Constabulary and the person charged with the city’s security, to be out on the field. It was even more irregular for him to be alone on a mission.

The feed from the cameras was on a loop to The Bastion City Control Center, but Lindsey watched the live footage nervously. It was in night vision, since all the lights were off in the tunnel system below the city to conserve energy.

Beside Lindsey, Petra scowled, then tapped her headset to kill the sound. “They’re dispatching a squad near the station Dwayne is exiting,” Petra said in a low voice.

“How close?” Lindsey asked, alarmed.

“Within a kilometer. It’s the mining facility.”

Lindsey pulled up a schematic of the valley resources and several maps. Layering them swiftly on her vid screens, her pulse accelerated. The armor Dwayne was wearing would keep him invisible to the scanners. “They’ll have to be right on top of him for visual detection, so he should be fine. The castellan will know to take cover if the tiltrotors get too close.”

Petra’s thin lips set into a fine line, then she shook her head. “I hate him being out there. He should have taken someone else with him.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Of course! And...” Petra waved her long, gaunt hand irritably. “He wouldn’t listen. Which makes me very nervous.”

“Well, he is a commanding officer.”

“Yes, but he always listens to my advice. I think something more is going on.” Petra gave the two arguing women on the far side of the room a wary look.

A beep indicated a message coming in from the castellan. Lindsey switched over to his comm feed.

“Lindsey, open the door to the subway.”

Struggling to decide if she should tell him about the SWD squad being deployed near him or not, Lindsey obeyed but didn’t say anything.

Petra leaned toward her, observing Lindsey’s fingers moving over the panels on the workstation. “Is he coming back in?”

Lindsey shrugged, uncertain.

The vid screens revealed the opening subway doors in an eerie inverted image. A man’s form stepped through the opening, then abruptly slumped.

Lindsey and Petra exchanged frightened looks.

Another figure pushed the body into the tunnel just before the doors shut again.

“Lindsey,” came the castellan’s voice.

Lindsey was both relieved and unnerved. “Yes?”

“Denman was an Anomaly. Dr. Curran must tell Commandant Pierce what she told me about the virus she gave everyone, but Maria. His body must be destroyed immediately.”

Lindsey stared at the corpse in the tunnel. The blood in her veins was thick with ice. Glancing at Petra, she saw the other woman was waiting nervously, her bony fingers clenched into a fist. “Understood.” Lindsey muted her headset. “Denman was an Anomaly. The castellan killed him.”

Petra’s eyes flared with fear. “He’s not coming back! Shit! I knew something felt wrong! He’s going to go out and deal with Maria personally and then…”

With a sinking heart, Lindsey realized Petra was right, and feared what that might mean. She reopened the comm link. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” The castellan’s voice was firm.

Lindsey shut her eyes, her heart breaking. If Denman turned into an Anomaly, was Maria turning too? What did he mean about a different virus? “What are you going to do?”

“What I have to do.”

The feed went dead.

“Oh, shit,” Lindsey whispered. “Shit.”

“Tell him about the squad,” Petra said urgently.

“I can’t. He killed the feed.” Lindsey took off her headset.

“What are you going to do?” Petra asked, darting a worried look at Dr. Curran.

“I need to talk to Commandant Pierce.” Lindsey had no idea what she should do about Dwayne. If Maria was infected and going to turn, then it was a kindness to kill her, but she hated to think of him taking his own life out there. Yet, it was his choice. The city was teetering on the edge of chaos. Life was difficult. Maybe Dwayne didn’t want to continue without the woman he loved.

Motioning to Vaja, her tech wizard boyfriend, Lindsey grabbed her cane and slid to her feet.

Vaja hurried over in a cloud of nervous energy. Tall, slender, and sporting a head of dark mussed hair, Vaja was good-looking. It helped that he was brilliant and loved prowling around the hidden depths of The Bastion’s computer grid. He was not a soldier, but she’d asked him to assist the Constabulary fight off the SWD coup d’état.

“The worm that will deliver the information we gathered is ready to download to all the wristlets,” he said, clearly thinking she wanted an update. Tapping his own wristlet proudly, he waited for her to shower him with praise.

“I need you to help Petra monitor what’s going on. I need to take care of something,” Lindsey said.