I Am the Storm by Tash McAdam

Author:Tash McAdam [McAdam, Tash]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NineStar Press, LGBT, espionage, spies, military
Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part Five

Sam

I HOLE UP in the loading dock of a food warehouse—one of those that distributes foodpacks to the local businesses and schools. There are people around, but I manage to slip past a truck and worm my way into a huge pile of storage pallets, trying not to touch anything with my bare skin. I’m buzzing with a powerful elation at having managed to pull off a move I’ve only seen in the movies.

My shoulder is killing me, but I’m so excited to see what I’ve managed to steal in the bag I barely notice it, my blood singing and hot in my veins. I hope whatever I’ve got is going to help me. Feeling as if I’m on overload, I force myself into a small space and unzip the bag, squinting to make out what’s inside in the darkness. I grope through, finding dozens of palm-sized pieces of squashy plastic secured in a rack and currently inert, with no electronics or machinery of any kind embedded in them.

I can’t figure out what the squashy plastic pieces are, so I move them to one side and grab the next item. As soon as my fingers close on it my stomach unknots. A datapad. Finally. An interface I can use to find out what the Institute knows so I can start to plan with real information, instead of relying on what’s flying around me in the air at any given time. I clutch it to my chest and realize I’m crying when a drop of water hits the back of my hand. Embarrassed, I sniff and wipe my face, looking around like there’s anyone in this tiny space to laugh at me.

The bag doesn’t yield any food or drink, sadly, but it does give me a padded box of what might be fuses with a pinlight on the top, a couple of power packs for a Zap gun—useless to me—and finally a spare T-shirt. I wish for a pair of pants, since I’m running around wearing what basically amounts to a paper skirt on my bottom half, but I’m out of luck there.

The datapad, however, could be the difference between life and death. But first things first. I have to find out where they’re holding my mother. I have to get her out. It’s laughable, acting as if I’m a one-man army, like I can walk in there, guns blazing, and rescue her. But I don’t know what else to do, and getting information is as good a place as any to start.

The datapad whirs to life with a sound like breathing, like a heartbeat. Like love. I’ve never been so disconnected for so long, and my skinny fingers cradle the precious machine as the screen flickers on. I disable the location lock with half a thoughtform, telling it to send out its last location on the opposite side of the City and then stop reporting. The screen is Institute issue, and all the apps appear to be fairly standard:

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