“We need to clear out all the underground caches,” Wyatt says.
Nova nods. “Good call. Wyatt, Chance, Niran, Amira, and Adele, get on that. Split up and move as fast as you can. Bring everything back here.”
“I can help,” Olin offers.
“Okay,” Nova says. “Do you have a radio and call sign yet?”
“No.”
“I’ll get him a radio,” Adele offers.
“Your call sign is Hermes,” Nova says.
Niran barks out a note of laughter. “Herpes? That’s gotta sting. Literally.”
“Hermes,” Nova overenunciates it, annoyed. “He’s the god of messengers, you complete dipshit.”
Laughter rolls through the group, and Niran scowls.
“Sorry I wasn’t a mythology nerd in high school,” he grumbles. “Guess I was too busy getting laid.”
“That explains the herpes thing,” Amira quips.
“Get moving, all of you,” Nova says. “And shut the fuck up while you’re doing it. The Tiders could be out there.”
She shakes her head as they walk away, then looks between me and Stella. “What else?”
“We need to pack the most essential supplies,” I say. “Medicine, food, seeds. When we find the safest place to be if the volcano blows, we can start moving stuff there.”
“Okay,” Nova says. “Let’s wake up Command Team Two and both security teams.”
“I need to get my lab stuff packed up,” I say.
There’s not much point. If the volcano destroys our camp and I have no good place to work, the chances I’ll be able to make a stabilizer will be even slimmer than they are now. Without electricity, refrigeration, a climate-controlled environment, and test subject enclosures, there’s just no way.
I’m not going there, though. The volcano might not even erupt. Hopefully, our preparations are just for the worst-case scenario, and everything will be just fine.
19
“Everything is going as planned. I need to go silent for my own safety. Don’t reach out to me. I’ll send you a message when the time is right.” -Decoded message from ILF undercover operative Flint to ILF handler Hiro Tanaka
Marcus
“Approaching destination. Would you like to relieve yourself?”
I scowl at the electronic voice coming from the sub’s control panel. “No.”
It asks me that every thirty minutes. I said yes a couple hours ago, just to see what would happen, and the middle of my seat slid back, creating an opening like toilet seats have. I’m glad I didn’t have to use it.
“Ascending,” the voice announces.
It’s been almost five hours of very limited visibility. At a depth of thirty-five feet for most of the trip, I couldn’t see much other than murky gray water surrounding me. The sub sensesanything it could run into and diverts itself. I’ve had nothing to do but rehearse the story I’m planning to feed to these people.
Natural light starts to make everything brighter. The sub breaks through the ocean’s surface, water sluicing off the windshield.
I don’t know if there’s surveillance in this thing, so I don’t say what I’m thinking, which iswhat the fuck. Island Three has modern, two-story buildings and pristine landscaping. There are roads with vehicles. Walkways. There’s afountainin front of the big building closest to me. The flag waving from a pole is Whitman’s New America flag—red and blue vertical stripes with a single white star in the middle.
The vehicle maneuvers itself over the top of the water and into a nondescript building on the shoreline. There are dozens of boats inside, some of them like the sub I’m in, but larger. Big enough for more like four people.
