The Beyond: Dystopian Survival Fiction (The Breeder Files Book 4) Eliza Green (fantasy novels to read TXT) 📖

the load. Despite the blaze in his muscles, Dom continued to add his effort to it. With one last heave, the door creaked open.

On the other side was the Inventor. His white hair was dishevelled and he had a wild look in his eyes. He held Carissa in his arms.

‘How did you get the door open?’ Jacob said.

Dom stared at an unconscious Carissa. ‘What the hell happened?’

‘She sacrificed herself to save us.’

Agatha blocked the new gap, which was getting wider.

Dom said, ‘He can help you.’

‘But he’s holding a Copy.’

Dom readied to shove her back if necessary. ‘If you want to solve your problem, this Copy and this man are the answer. But first, we need to help her.’

Agatha stepped back with a huff.

Jacob rushed forward through the gap and into the Beyond. Charlie followed. Vanessa and Thomas carried a medic Dom hadn’t seen before. Last, Rover poked his nose in.

‘No, absolutely not!’ said Agatha.

Dom said, ‘It’s all of them or none.’

She pursed her lips, then waved her team back. Rover pushed his shoulder against the door to widen it. The soldiers in the corridor cringed back from the beast that squeezed into the corridor. Rover growled and assessed the strangers. Jacob said something to him and he whined.

Agatha blinked in surprise.

‘He controls the beast,’ said Anya.

‘How?’

‘He built him.’

All eyes were on Jacob and Carissa.

The Inventor looked like he was losing his grip on her. ‘I need to get her help.’

Agatha resumed command. ‘Dom tells me you’re the only one who can help us with our problem.’

‘What problem?’

‘Quintus is here.’

Jacob looked down at the limp body in his arms. ‘She can speak to him.’

Agatha ordered her soldiers to alert the doctors. ‘In that case, follow me.’

The wire for the hook slackened. Dom heard the door suck shut behind him.

Jacob carried Carissa while Thomas and Vanessa followed with the second Copy. Dom took her from them and slung her over his shoulder.

Anya gasped. ‘It’s my medic. The one who helped us to escape.’

‘She helped us to kill the Copies,’ said Vanessa. ‘We owe her and Carissa our lives.’

‘All of them?’ he asked, wondering about his former Copy guard.

‘As good as dead,’ said Vanessa.

Dom carried the female medic down a corridor and into a room that Agatha gestured to, setting her down on a bed. It was the same room he’d been in for his examination with the doctor. Men and women in lab coats watched nervously as the new group took over.

Agatha clicked her fingers at the doctors, pointing to Jacob. ‘Give this man what he needs.’

The people in lab coats rushed over to the table with Carissa on it. ‘What can we do?’

Jacob looked frazzled, as though he didn’t know where to start. ‘Get me a diagnostic machine. I need to see what’s going on in her brain.’

‘Does she have an NMC?’

He nodded. ‘It’s been disabled. But it could still be working.’

One of the men pulled a machine over. Dom stood back, not wanting to get in the way.

Anya slipped her hand into his. ‘It’s going to be okay. They’ll get her working and she’ll help to fight Quintus.’

Dom shook his head. ‘I should have picked up on what Alex had planned.’

‘I spent a week with him. I knew him better than most. The second I picked up on his odd behaviour, I should have said something.’

Dom didn’t want to think about Anya’s week with the Breeder. It had been an intimate one. But he understood they had both been under the influence of Rapture, a powerful attraction drug. And none of that mattered now.

He turned his attention to the table, stepping closer. A new machine was beside the bed. Wires from it had been connected to Carissa’s discs. He released Anya’s hand. ‘Will she be okay?’

Thomas stood by Jacob’s shoulder. ‘Anything I can do...?’

Jacob didn’t answer either of them. He squinted at the data on the machine’s screen, one fist on his hip, the other on the table.

‘Her NMC is fried and it’s interfering with her circuitry.’ He backed away from the table. ‘I don’t know how to reactivate her.’

One of the lab people stepped forward. ‘We can replace it.’

Jacob looked up sharply. ‘With what?’

‘A new NMC.’

Jacob blinked. ‘How? You don’t even know what you’re dealing with.’

Agatha said, ‘We do. The NMCs came from here. As did Quintus.’

Vanessa pressed a hand to her mouth.

Charlie gasped. ‘How is that possible?’

Dom looked at the pair. ‘I’ll explain later. Right now we have a serious problem and Carissa might be the only one who can help.’

But as the team worked on Carissa, he couldn’t be sure she’d ever wake up.

29

Carissa

Warmth spread through her head. Her ocular implants began to water. A deep surge of pain hit her NMC and she screamed, but no sound came. Carissa had never experienced death before, but at least it contained familiar sounds and feelings.

She thought she heard the Inventor say, ‘We need you, miss,’ but it must have been a residual memory.

It surprised her that death hurt so much.

She fluttered her eyes open, seeing a brightness that instantly reduced them to two slits. This must be Copy heaven; it reminded her of Praesidium. A low hum of voices reached her ears. Just mumbles with no clarity.

Carissa blinked away the confusion. A group of people dressed in white stood in a huddle next to her. Copies. They had to be. But a familiar, old man was with them with his back to her.

A residual memory. That’s all it was

‘Inv—’ She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘Inventor.’

The vision of her friend turned and pushed the people in white away. He was grinning. The pleasant