Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Zadie heard the humming of the chopper before she saw it. A low, rhythmic thud that didn't belong to the wind or the trees or anything else out here. She slowed the SxS and glanced toward the sky.
"What?" Gideon asked.
"We need to take cover." She turned the SxS into the tree line, punched the gas, and dodged around a couple of trees. Her gaze swept over the undergrowth, locating a place sufficiently dense to conceal the vehicle. She killed the engine and grabbed Gideon's arm. "We should get out."
He grabbed his backpack, slung it over one shoulder, and his boots hit the ground. He glanced toward the clouds. The helicopter’s engine grew louder.
She snagged the rifle and followed him into the tree line, crouching behind a cluster of Douglas fir thick enough to swallow them both. "This should be enough coverage to keep us from being detected by thermal imaging."
"Can you tell if it’s the same one as yesterday?" Gideon pinned his shoulders against the trunk, eyes on the sky through the canopy.
"No." She steadied her breathing. "But it doesn't matter. We're not moving until it's gone."
"We checked everything for tracking devices, and I’m completely powered down. Would they know where the bunker is?"
"Doubtful, but they know how we’re traveling. It makes sense to cover this ground in all directions. We just need to wait it out for now."
The chopper passed south, low enough that the trees shuddered. Then it banked, circled wide, and came back along the same line. They were definitely searching, but if they had coordinates, they’d already be dropping from the sky, or coming at them on foot.
Zadie flattened herself against the ground. Gideon did the same, his shoulder touching hers. They stayed like that, silent, for three full passes.
On the fourth, the chopper drifted further south, and the sound thinned.
"Give it five minutes," she whispered.
"I was going to say ten," Gideon said. "I served one tour but never saw combat. However, I’ve done enough training exercises to know that doubling back is a thing."
"More than thing." She shifted her gaze. "You’ve been out how many years?"
"A little over eight," he said. "Four years at the Royal Military College and served five years after that. But most of it was in a fancy computer lab doing research and development. I know my way around a weapon. I’m a decent shot, but my warfare has always been done behind a keyboard."
"I’m not judging." And she wasn’t. Certain aspects of the military weren’t for everyone. She’d had her doubts about herself when she’d first joined, but that lasted two days into bootcamp. It was then she realized she’d found home.
The forest settled around them, filling the space the helicopter had carved out of the silence.
Birds first, then wind, then the small sounds of things moving in the underbrush that had nothing to do with people.
She’d spent an entire childhood listening to those sounds. It was a little piece of heaven.
"I’ve been meaning to ask you something." Zadie shifted, catching Gideon’s gaze. "The man from the truck. The one who worked under you. You said demolitions and comms, which is an interesting combination. But did you know him from the military as well?"
"No. Didn’t meet him until I was handed the keys to my department and he was standing in my office like he owned it." Gideon turned his attention to the sky. "Have to admit, that was quite the uncomfortable first meeting."
"Why and who is he?"
"Isaac Young," Gideon said. "Senior security analyst. He’d applied for the director position before Finch gave it to me. I didn’t know that, at first. When I asked him why he was in my office, he told me he was to report there.
It was the first day for both of us, and he said he was just surprised his new boss was younger and he believed, less experienced.
He tried to make a joke of it. We mostly got a long. "
"How did you find out he wanted your job? And what did he have to say about it?"
"Darwin told me," Gideon said. "Isaac never really said much about it.
But he always had a sideways attitude. He wanted to be everywhere and thought he deserved to be in every conversation and involved in all the decisions.
He had the experience. Years of military service.
He understood the systems." Gideon shifted, pulling a blade of grass from the ground and running it between his fingers. "But Darwin recruited me specifically for the director position. I wasn’t even looking for a job. I’d left the military and was working for a different company.
But Darwin and Finch had a vision for what ETHER could be, and Finch needed someone who could build it from the ground up.
Darwin knew my work and knew that I wanted to do something that would help save lives. "
"Did Isaac take that personally."
"I didn’t think so until I saw him get out of that truck yesterday.
But he was always so exhausting. Like a child who constantly needed to be told he was good enough.
I had to toss him bones all the time. I thought it was just the age thing.
He sometimes called me kid." Gideon tossed the grass.
"We managed, but now, I wonder. Of course, I wonder about a lot of things and people since I left Hyperion. "
"Did his demeanor toward you ever change?"
"Not really. But the last year I worked there, he was more persistent, especially with wanting to know about ETHER. However, he wasn’t the only one. It was an enormous project."
Zadie listened for the sound of an engine, but it appeared the chopper was gone.
"Can I ask you something?" Gideon said.
"You're going to regardless."
He chuckled. "The legend thing. Were you serious about that?"
She kept her eyes on the canopy. It was easier to talk about this when she wasn't looking at him. He was cuter in person than in his pictures. His hair was longer, and he had more facial hair. She liked that.
He was also taller than she’d expected. At least six three. His eyes were a soft blue, and if she looked into them too long, she’d get lost. It had been a long time since she’d been attracted to anyone, and he was the complete package.
Although, she hadn't quite expected him to be so awkward around a rifle. He'd served in the military, and nothing in his bio mentioned he might not be capable. Maybe he was just rusty. It had been a few years.
"You were the standard. In Electronic Warfare, your name came up constantly. Not just your work—your story."
"My story?"
"Kid loses both parents at sixteen. No money.
No connections. Gets himself into the Royal Military College on nothing but grades and grit.
Builds systems that change how the military handles encrypted data.
Leaves after nine years and walks into a corporate career most people spend a lifetime chasing.
" She turned and stared at him. "That story. "
"You make it sound like I’m special or something. I’m not. I’m just a man who had challenges to overcome. Everyone has a story."
"Not everyone can come from living on the streets and do what you did," she whispered.
He reached out and ran his finger along her chin. "Tell me your story."
"Not that big of a deal."
"You know mine. It’s only fair that I know yours."
"I guess I walked into that one." She pulled at a thread on her jacket sleeve. She didn’t like to share hers, and she suspected Gideon didn’t like his to be whispered about in hallways where he couldn’t control the narrative.
That hadn’t been very nice of her. But maybe he’d appreciate the why.
"I went to a two-year college. That was all we could afford.
My dad was a pipe fitter. Small town outside of Winnipeg.
The kind of place where the biggest employer is the plant, and the second biggest is the bar people go to after the plant.
" She smiled at the memory. She was proud of her dad. Proud of the man he was and how he’d raised her. No shame in where she'd come from.
"He worked doubles most of my life. Came home smelling like rust and grease, and he'd sit at the kitchen table and ask me what I’d learned. Didn’t matter if it was after a night shift. A day shift. Didn't matter how tired he was. He wanted to know what his little girl was learning at school."
"Sounds like a good man."
"He was the best." She swallowed hard. No one asked about her dad much these days. And she didn’t offer. Sometimes, it hurt too much, and Zadie preferred to be the girl who walked around with her chin up and a smile. To be her father’s Zadie-girl.
"He died during my second year in college. An accident at the plant—a mechanical failure on a press line. They said it was instant, but they always say that. But I want to believe it. I wouldn’t have wanted him to have suffered. "
Gideon was quiet. Not the uncomfortable kind of quiet of a person who didn't know what to say. The kind that said he knew exactly what losing a parent was like and respected the silence too much to fill it with words. Or at least that was what she was going with.
"After that, I almost quit college," she said.
"Almost walked away from all of it. But he'd never gone to college.
Never had the chance. And when I started my first year at college, he told me…
" She pressed her lips together. "He said, 'You're going to do the things I only got to dream about.
' So, I didn't quit. I got my grades up.
Got a scholarship into a university transfer program. Financial aid covered the rest."
"I’m sure your dad would be proud."
She nodded.
"I went military because it was the only way I was getting an education. You already had one, so why enlist?"