First Contact by Joshua James & Daniel Young

Author:Joshua James & Daniel Young [James, Joshua & Young, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

“That can’t be.” Ada sat up in the apartment bed, which she shared with Francesca as they watched bad reality TV. Like everyone else in their shelter, the sound of Saito’s voice definitely caught their attention.

“What? Who is that?” asked Francesca.

Ada jumped out of the bed and hurried into the apartment’s shared space. Rollins, Tanisha, and Tomas all stood in the middle of the room, listening in various states of shock.

“I come to you on behalf of your Mayor Washburn, who is indisposed at the moment,” Saito continued. “Now, I know you all must be scared, and probably hesitant to trust me or anyone else at this moment. It’s understandable. But I assure you that everything is fine…” Saito droned on.

“How did he survive?” asked Tanisha. “I mean, he was, we all saw it, he walked out there, unarmed. There’s no way.”

“I don’t know. The old man’s one tough son of a bitch. Did you see him on the Atlas? He did go toe-to-toe with those things.” Tomas, like Tanisha, had never talked to Saito; but unlike her, he’d fought alongside him.

“So did Ada and Jake,” Tanisha said.

“Ada? You okay?” asked Rollins.

Everything from the tone of Saito’s voice to his cadence was completely off. It was obviously one of them.

Ada shook with fury. It was bad enough when it was the men and women of the Atlas. Then, she’d watched them do it to some poor little girl; now, they’d done it to Saito. He’d had his faults, but she and the captain had stood side-by-side while they’d fought the damn things off. Maybe something had gone wrong with him in the end, but he still deserved better than this.

“I’m fine,” answered Ada.

“You know that’s not him, right?”

Ada realized she was crying. She wiped away the tears. “I’m not crying because I’m sad. I’m crying because I’m so goddamned angry,” she seethed. Ada’s fists were clenched so hard they drew blood from her palms.

Over the speakers, the droning voice of imposter Saito seemed to be drawing to a conclusion. “… Finally, if you try and hide, we will find you, and you don’t want that. So if you would all be so kind as to meet me and my friends in the cafeteria, we’ll make your transition easy. Try and remember, death is nothing to be scared of. Just the opposite, in fact. Death is the beginning of something better: it’s freedom, it’s acceptance, it’s unity, it is happiness.”

The station’s intercom went silent.

Rollins placed a friendly hand on Ada’s back and rubbed it in an attempt to calm her down. It didn’t work.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“There’s nothing we can do, right?” Francesca said from the hallway. “We just got to wait here and pray for rescue, right? All we have to do is stay alive.”

“Oh, there’s plenty we can do,” Tomas said.

Ada glanced over at him and saw the same fury in his eyes that she felt. Her training told her to channel that anger. To be smart.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.