Chapter 470
Chapter 470
Jake trotted through Dead City, headed for the nearest subway station. High overhead, he could sense one of his wyrmcallers circling above the area, but he chose not to summon it. The subway entrance was close enough that there was no point in merging with the wyrmcaller just to get there. He could reach his destination on foot within minutes.
He moved steadily through the contaminated city, drawing closer and closer to the station. Bulbous growths bulged from the organic layer around him, but he ignored them and kept going without slowing. As he reached a four-way intersection and eased into a turn, his Feral Instincts suddenly warned him of danger.
He immediately recognized this particular signal.
He had been getting such signals from his ability several times over the past several days while scouring Dead City for various types of ravagespawn to break down into useful genetic materials. It was the signal he got whenever D was nearby, watching him. But D had only watched him from a distance, never making an attempt to approach. And when Jake stopped, he would wheel and dart away.
And right now, Jake was getting the same kind of signal from his Feral Instincts.
He stopped in the middle of the intersection and glanced around. It took him just a second to spot his counterpart. He was positioned in a side street, standing as motionlessly as a statue and staring at him.
Jake met his gaze.
Unlike the previous times, D didn’t immediately bolt away when Jake noticed him. He remained where he was, and for a moment, they just stared at each other. Then Jake lifted a hand and waved at D as if saying hi. He didn’t expect to elicit any kind of reaction from his counterpart, though.
And sure enough, D remained still. However, a second later, to Jake’s great surprise, D slowly raised a hand and waved back.
That was new.
For a moment, Jake wasn’t sure what to do next. Should he try to approach D? Clearly, Owen was in charge of his own body at the moment. But for how long? That was the real issue.
One thing was for sure: Owen didn’t want to be enemies. He wanted to get along with Jake instead of fighting him. But of course, his monster side could re-emerge at any moment, and once it happened, Owen would lose control over his body once again.
Jake had long since started thinking of his counterpart’s human side as Owen and his mutant side as D. Most of the time, he mentally referred to him simply as D, though.
They just kept staring at each other for another second. Then Jake decided to take the risk and took a small step forward.
D didn’t move.
Encouraged by this, Jake took another step, this one bolder and wider. But when he was about to continue moving toward his counterpart, D suddenly wheeled and darted away.
Jake let him go. Chasing him would have been a mistake. He simply stood there and watched until D disappeared from sight.
He wished he knew how to help Owen keep his monster side under control, but he had no idea where to begin. Jake had managed to find a balance between his own two sides, but how was he supposed to help Owen do the same? Was it even possible? Or was it already too late?
But on the other hand, Owen’s human side clearly wasn’t completely gone yet, so perhaps there was still a chance to make his human side the dominant one, or at least find a compromise between the two sides, the way Jake had.
How to help D achieve that, though, Jake still didn’t know.
He turned and resumed heading for his destination.
A few minutes later, he finally reached the subway entrance and took the stairs down. For the next several minutes, he navigated the underground tunnels until he finally made it to the Spartans’ base.
They did their best to guard all the entries to their hideout, but since it was located underground, there were lots of small points of entry they weren’t even aware of, making it easy for him to slip in unnoticed by the posted guards.
However, he wasn’t really trying to avoid detection. He didn’t want them to think he was spying on them, so he made sure to be seen as he made his way across the cavern.
The Spartans tensed when they spotted him and stopped doing whatever they had been doing before he appeared. He took up a position at the center of the cavern, where he could be clearly seen from every corner. If they knew exactly where he was, maybe they would relax a little and realize he wasn’t trying to sneak up on anyone.
The Spartans were clearly uneasy. Ignoring their stares, he looked around but couldn’t find Catalina anywhere at first glance. It had been about fifteen minutes since they had spoken over video call, and he remembered she hadn’t been in the main chamber then. The communication system was clearly set up in a smaller chamber elsewhere, so perhaps she was still there, talking with Thomas or maybe Melissa.
As he kept looking around, one of the Spartans suddenly darted across the chamber and slipped into one of the tents lined up along one side of the cavern. A moment later, the flap was pulled open, and the Commander stepped out. He glanced around, spotted Jake, and headed straight toward him. Judging by the expression on his face, he was in a foul mood.
“Where the hell have you been?” he barked before he even reached Jake. “You were supposed to be here days ago! I’ve been waiting for you!”
“Where’s Catalina?” Jake asked, ignoring the Commander’s question.
“Answer my question, dammit!” the Commander snapped, his face red with anger. “When you say you’re going to do something, you do it. I expect obedience from everyone under my command. If you can’t follow orders, you…”
Jake cut him off. “What are you even talking about? I’m not under your command. Never was, and never will be. I do as I please. I came back to your base when I felt like it. If you don’t like my way of doing things, you can go to hell.”
“You seem to be forgetting something,” the Commander said.
Jake didn’t bite. He just kept staring at him in silence. Sure enough, a moment later, the Commander finished his thought, “We had an agreement. You help us get rid of the Ravage Contamination in our city, and in return, I teach people from your city how to make the energy-based weapons we use.”
“So?”
“So if you agree to help us, then you’re supposed to keep your word,” the Commander said. “And you do what I say. You follow my orders without question.”
“The hell I do. I’m not one of your soldiers, so you can shove your orders up your ass.”
“You still don’t understand,” the Commander said. “If you don’t play by my rules, I won’t teach anyone from your city how to make our weapons. And like I told you last time, you can’t just take our guns and use them. They simply won’t work.”
Jake didn’t even bother answering. The Commander waited, expecting some kind of response. When none came, he frowned. “Does your silence mean you accept my terms?”
“No.”
His reply took the Commander by surprise. “What do you mean, ‘no’? Were you even listening? If you refuse to obey me, the people in your city won’t get the weapons needed to clear out the Ravage Contamination.”
“And?”
“They’ll die, dammit! Most of them! And those few ones lucky enough to survive will end up like us, living like rats in underground tunnels.”
“What makes you think I care what happens to the humans in my city?” Jake asked.
The Commander stared at him. “You don’t?”
“Why would I?”
“Then why did you promise to help us in the first place?”
“I had my reasons.”
“But… your city will be completely consumed by the Ravage! Monsters will be everywhere. The whole place will be buried under that disgusting organic matter!”
“So? You humans can’t survive in that kind of environment, sure. But for me, it doesn’t matter. I know that now. I survived in your city for days, and I learned I can even benefit from the Ravage. So whether it’s there or not makes no difference to me. I can survive in any kind of environment.”
The Commander didn’t know what to say to that. It was not the kind of answer he had expected to hear.
Then Jake spoke again.
“Now that we’ve put it behind us, tell me where Catalina is.”
The Commander was silent for a moment before saying hesitantly, “She’s not here.”
Jake didn’t like his reply. He didn’t like it one bit. He immediately remembered how Catalina had told him that she didn’t like the stares the Spartans had been giving her over the past several days. “Where the fuck is she? If you did anything to her, you’ll regret it. I’ll kill you and everyone else under your command.”
The Commander instinctively took a step back. He had never seen what Jake could do, but his experience with D had taught him exactly what creatures like them were capable of. Jake was completely alone, surrounded by a squad of heavily armed soldiers, but the Commander knew that it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.
“She’s fine,” he said quickly. “Why would I do anything to her? She’s fine, so don’t get worked up over nothing.”
“Then where is she?”
“She’s… not here.”
“Where. Is. She?”
“I sent her on a mission, alright? She’s outside.”
“What?”
“What did you expect? There’s no room for freeloaders in my base. Everyone has to do their part around here. We barely have enough to survive as it is. Unlike you, we don’t feel perfectly at home in the middle of the Ravage Contamination, y’know. So over the past several days, I’ve been sending her out on missions with some of my people. But I never forced her to go, mind you. She was glad to help. She told me sitting around doing nothing was driving her crazy. Every time I sent her out, she was eager to go. And everything’s been fine so far. She was never alone, always with people who know how to survive out there. I’ve just sent her out again with Silvia’s team. They should be back soon.”
“What kind of mission?”
“Just a simple recon run. Nothing special. We always need to keep track of what’s happening outside.”
“Call her and tell her to come back.”
“What? I can’t do that. They left only a few minutes ago, just before you arrived. They need to complete their objectives.”
Jake stared at him in silence. He had a bad feeling. He had never trusted the Commander, had always suspected the man was hiding something, and now that distrust only deepened.
He knew Catalina had wanted to tell him something. Perhaps she had learned something about the Commander and the Spartans.
But more than anything else, Jake just needed to know she was alright. She was the only human he truly cared about.
And was the Commander even telling the truth about sending her on missions these past few days? After all, Catalina hadn’t mentioned any of it during their recent video call.
One thing, however, was certain: the Commander was shady as hell.
“When will they be back?” he asked.
“I just sent them out. But as I told you before, we never venture outside for long. So they should return in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Contact Silvia. Ask where they are.”
“I prefer not to distract my people when they’re outside. They’ll be back when they’re back.”
“Contact Silvia, or I will rip your limbs off, and none of your people will be able to stop me.”
The Commander obviously wasn’t used to being ordered around, but he took Jake’s threat very seriously. Grumbling something incomprehensibly to himself, he touched his earpiece. “Silvia, status report.”
He waited a few seconds. “Silvia, do you copy?” Another pause. “Silvia, do you copy?”
Avoiding Jake’s gaze, he tried again. “Silvia, where are you?”
There was no answer.
Still refusing to look at Jake, the Commander said, “She’s not responding, but I’m sure they’re fine. She probably just can’t answer right now. That’s exactly why I don’t like contacting my people when they’re outside. You have to stay alert every second out there.”
Jake barely even listened to him. Mentally, he instructed all his wyrmcallers to descend from the skies, move closer to the city, and start searching for Catalina.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” the Commander said, though there was little conviction in his voice.
“You’d better pray she is,” Jake said. “Because if she’s not, I’ll kill everyone in this base.”
The Commander tried to maintain a confident expression, but the beads of sweat on his forehead betrayed his true feelings.