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Stop! Tania screaht to banish such thoughts No price could be affixed to Skyler, or any person

Yet Zane was at least half-right; she couldn’t deny that Without information, without a chance to talk to Gabriel and evaluate his ability to follow through on what he intended to do, she was helpless She had to go, had to cooperate Buy time

"Tim," she said as she stood "Get a climber prepped"

Chapter 21

Belém, Brazil

6MAY2283

SKYLER TURNED OFF the handheld radio and stared at it

He wanted to crush it, or dash it against the wall Both But all he could do was stare in disbelief "I understand," she’d said "It’s just … There’s logistics--"

Logistics? She understands?

Her situation ree to such dereed, but Skyler saw little point in picking apart the semantics What she had not done was tell Gabriel to rot in hell, that she’d be daive him one of her …

What? What am I?

A tool, Skyler realized In Darwin, he could walk beyond the aura and few could follow But now, in Belém, he was a colonist who happened not to need an aura tower in tohen he bumbled around

"Knock that off," he hissed to hie of Gabriel caave her She had no idea what lay behind thei

And that nonsense about a test for immunity If it existed, which he wholly doubted, it went up in the fire, or vanished when the barn exploded Either way, no such test existed, and so Gabriel’s promise of a civil option was, in reality, utter bollocks

But at least he offered to let theroup moved on with their prize immunes in tow Skyler had needed all his self-control not to laugh at that part

None of this reed to hand him over, or else she’d lied She really believed Gabriel’s offer to play nice with those who didn’t pass his test, or she suspected treachery but saw no alternative other than a retreat The only truth in all of it was that Gabriel needed to be stopped, now

Skyler stuffed the radio in his pocket, stood, and stretched His ankles and knees cracked with the effort

He slung his rifle and climbed down the maintenance ladder that provided roof access to the top of the building A departnition, but the roof was all that mattered Two kilometers southeast, the colony was just visible between trees and half-collapsed houses

Out of habit, Skyler paused when his feet met asphalt He studied the deserted street for a few seconds, but saw nothing, of course The subhuathered in the rainforest to the east, around that s of its existence to anyone yet, despite the burning desire to share the discovery Such revelations would only confuse the ied down a steep concrete e passed--which in Belém meant it rained only half as often--the basin was mostly hard-packedmore like chocolate e, their tents just silhouettes in the shadows below the overpass

Ana and two others were awake Once closer, Skyler recognized theether over cups of Skyler’s instant coffee, heated on a sht draw attention

Elias was a soft ray-brown hair were drawn across his nearly bald scalp He’d probably once been as large as Pruht or more in the years since SUBS swept across the world, from the slack skin on his upper arms Months in captivity under Gabriel had taken a toll as well He talked with nervous anxiety, and Skyler wondered how useful the ht

Pablo, on the other hand, stood tall and lean, corded with muscle A curly mess of black hair spilled from the top of his head to his shoulders, over skin so tan and rugged it looked like he’d never spent a day indoors in his life, which was true enough He’d been a farmer in Colombia and continued in that role for years after the disease took his family and everyone else he knew His land was isolated, and so he had little trouble froh Pablo had thanked them for the offer to join up, and asked theer ho-tied him, and stuffed him into a truck

Pablo spoke little and seemed perpetually in a dark rin that revealed brown, crooked teeth

"Fifteen hours," Skyler said as he approached

Ana raised an eyebrow at him "Until?"

"Until we raise hell," Skyler said "I don’t think they know about the ranch, about all of you We need to use that to our advantage while we can"

Davi eed from his tent at the sound of voices A roup appeared as well Skyler nodded at both of them

One was Wilson, a Canadian student who had found hiawky and socially inept, spoke too loud, and s Skyler had accepted his offer to cothy diatribe about his lack of skill with a weapon All he could offer, he said, was a hatred of Gabriel and his inner circle "What were you studying in Brazil? Medicine? Engineering?" Skyler had asked Wilson had frowned "Indigenous tribes of the upper Amazon Useless, I know"

Last was Vanessa, a woht have been a ly voluptuous body, but she had an imperfect face--a wide mouth that filled with teeth on the rare occasions that she shter of a Brazilian senator She’d been practicing lahen SUBS arrived Her husband died early on, as did one of her children The other child had survived the infection to becoirl, a story she’d told in a quiet voice long drained of any emotion Skyler suspected she’d suffered more than the others while a captive of Gabriel’s She’d been beautiful once, and though battered and broken from her ordeal she still held an undeniable appeal Skyler felt like a ine the horror she’d been through, and she never spoke of it Her eyes told the story well enough

"Fifteen hours?" she asked, tying her hair into a bun as Tania often had Unlike the scientist, Vanessa’s beauty seee, as if her chocolate hair somehow hid the worry lines, the bruises, the cracked lips and wide ray in that hair, and she could be athered about, soestured toward the Elevator camp "At that time, some of those stranded in orbit, the leadership I suspect, will be co down the cord to meet with Gabriel He means to test each of them for the immunity"

"How do you know this?" Davi asked