War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5), Aaron Ritchey [read my book TXT] 📗

what to do with me, but she had bigger fish to fry. They’d evacuated the entire hotel and conference center, so in short order, I was marched outside into the snowstorm in only my sweaty, stained New Morality dress. I stood there in crowds of frightened people as frictionless fire engines and ambulances came whooshing up. Hays policewomen stood around to keep the crowd under control. One saw me and gave me a blanket but didn’t look at my face twice.

And that was fame. One minute everyone wanted to know what you had breakfast and the next you’re just a cold girl standing in falling snow in a chilly wind.

One person recognized me, though.

A dark-skinned, dark-haired woman approached me. Her New Morality dress was more of a sari than the traditional sleeved gown that had become fashionable. She seemed familiar, but I wasn’t feeling chatty.

“You’re Cavatica Weller, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s me. Saved the clone of Tibbs Hoyt, you’d know him by Micah, and all for nothing. Micah had the cure to the Sterility Epidemic, but the ARK doesn’t want anyone to know.” Each word I said sounded more and more crazy. I chuckled at first until I burst out in straight-up laughter. “Also, the Juniper has mutant women three meters tall and impervious to most weapons. And June Mai Angel was stuck out there because President Swain didn’t want to deal with Sino vets. I’ll tell you more, but first we both need aluminum foil hats to keep the aliens from listening in.”

The Indian woman leaned forward. “I’m Angela Chiddaram, with CNN. I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

“Well, you found me,” I said, eyes half-closed and a smirk on my face. “You want to listen to more of the crazy? I got plenty more where that came from.”

“And I believe every word of it,” Chiddaram said. “I’ve tried to run stories like it, but they don’t get past my producer, because she can’t get them past the higher ups. The few news sources that do run them are either vilified or the IRs are so low, there’s no money for it.”

“IRs?” I asked, mildly interested, but not very.

“Internet rankings—the buzz that news stories generate. What Sally Brown Burke says about Kip Parson? Those rank high. Any sort of scandal over the ARK is ignored. However, the Weller family stories are trending now. You’re quite the outlaws.”

I gave her a long, exhausted look. “Do I look like a killer?”

She smiled kindly. “No.”

Then I realized the truth of it. “Ha. Looks can be deceiving.”

The crowd had moved away from us. They’d started taking Regio bodies out of the hotel to load them up in ambulances.

“Come with me,” Chiddaram murmured. She escorted me to a two-seater frictionless Tesla Model T. We slid in and she cranked on the heat. Snowflakes plinked off the windshield.

I closed my eyes. I’d talk with the reporter, but I had to get going. I had to find Pilate and my sisters.

“We need proof,” Chiddaram said. “If we had physical proof that the ARK had a cure, that they were doing illegal genetic experiments, we couldn’t be ignored. Hearsay and rumor have gotten us nowhere. And no one from the ARK will defect.”

“’Cause Hoyt would kill them. A few lives don’t matter when you’re trying to change the world.” I swallowed. I was thirsty, but I didn’t care.

“So, can you get me proof?” Chiddaram asked.

I turned to her. She was an older woman. Deep crow’s-feet wrinkles carved up her eyes while laugh lines etched valleys around her mouth.

“I can’t.” The Hayao slate felt so heavy on my lap. Little did I know, it would only get heavier. Getting her proof meant finding the secret ARK research facility. That meant going back into the Juniper which I couldn’t do. “I can’t help you.”

“Why not?”

And then I felt Hoyt’s cage for the first time. If I said anything about the deal, he’d kill everyone I loved. I remembered Alice’s hair, matted with blood, and those eyes, unseeing, all life gone. A fear took me. What if he was listening even right then?

He wouldn’t care I was spouting off a bunch of stuff about mutants and cures and what-not. But our deal? No. I had to keep my mouth shut. Otherwise, what had happened to Alice would happen to Anju and Billy.

After a long beat, I whispered, “I just can’t.”

She frowned. “Well, if things change, contact me.” She gave me her card. On it was the usual phone number and virtual contacts, but I saw she had an upload link.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s my online storage. I check it daily.”

“How much data do you get?” I asked. A little hope tickled my soul, but it was easy to ignore.

“A thousand ultrabytes, but if you load something bigger, I purchased a growth plan. Whatever you have, I can store.”

My mouth felt so dry, but I didn’t ask for water. “I had the research database to the ARK. I could’ve given you that, but the encryption would’ve been tough to break.”

“If you can get me that, I can find a way to break it.” Chiddaram’s eyes gleamed. I’d seen that same look in Petal’s eyes when she was going to get her medicine, Skye6, to feed her addiction. But Petal was long dead, like so many.

Suddenly, I didn’t much like Angela Chiddaram. I was only a fix for her addiction. “I have to go.”

The door wheezed open, so smooth and so fancy.

She leaned over. “Call me, Cavatica. I can help.”

“No, you can’t.”

From out of the snow, Pilate jogged up, sweaty, but not bleeding. “Cavvy. Your sister and June Mai escaped to the Juniper. We have to get to them.”

I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I only wanted him to hold me. I fell into his arms, into his great big black duster, and into his smell.

My father held me while more sirens cut through the snow swirling down from the dark heavens.

(vi)

The snow had stopped but the