Cherry Bomb (Bubbles in Space Book 5) by S.C. Jensen

Author:S.C. Jensen [Jensen, S.C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Northern Edge Publishing
Published: 2021-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

I used the tattler Rae had installed in the latest iteration of my upgrade to contact the Ridge. Keenan picked up, and a hologram of his face flickered out of the tiny projector in my wrist. His bright green eyes blazed with panic, but when he saw my face, his shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back with a sigh. He said, “You’re okay? What’s going on down there?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “We all are, but we aren’t in the city anymore.”

His skin went pale and sallow around the mouth. “What’s going on?”

“Get Marion and Tom,” I said. “If you hurry I’ll have time to explain.”

I peered through the hologram at the silhouette of Rae and Zimon Ohls on their smooth glide around the perimeter of the archaeological site. They looked tiny already, and they weren’t even halfway around the first side. Maybe Zimon was keeping an eye on Johanna from up there, but I wanted to get into the dig site as soon as I could.

Keenan disappeared. After a few moments, the hologram flickered again and reappeared with Marion and Tom flanking him. All three wore matching expressions of concern.

“For gritssake, Bubbles,” Tom said, blowing air out through puffed cheeks. “What the hell happened to you guys? We sent in an extraction team but—”

“You didn’t need to do that,” I said. “It was a misunderstanding. At least, that’s what we’re pretending for now. Look, I can’t go into a lot of detail, but I can say that we are safe. We have the codebreaker, and we are supposedly at the site of the artifact Price uncovered.”

“Where are you?” Marion jumped in. The lines around her face were taut with strain. She said, “We can come immediately. Can you describe the device?”

“Zimon Ohls confirms it’s some kind of energy core,” I said. “But I haven’t seen it myself yet. Once I get down there, I’ll try to send more details. I . . . uh—” My saliva had thickened into a gluey paste in the back of my throat. I stared at Rae and Zimon again, where they were now rounding the corner so that they were directly across the pit from me. “Things are kind of tense here. Ohls seems to have split from WhiteTech and is using his position of power to keep some of the more aggressive cyber witches at bay. Johanna and her people are here, though. It’s like a standoff. Us and Ohls and his people on one side, and Johanna and hers on the other. I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone else to come. Not right now.”

Tom’s face flushed a livid red and his grey eyes burned into mine through the holoscreen. “Do not do this to me, Bubbles. This is exactly what we were afraid would happen. We can send the Enforcers, get you and the device and Yi—”

“The codebreaker,” Marion said loudly overtop of him and her gaze shot to Tom like a slap across the face. “Should be enough.

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