She skirted the stadium and the streets immediately surrounding where Jacobite street patrols swarmed like flies. Once in Lyons she relaxed. The streets were all but empty, the population sparse enough that she could leave the main roads anytime she saw someone coming from the other direction.

Grillo’s base of operations was a large campus of buildings that had once been Darwin’s hub for the medical profession, the crown jewel being an ultramodern hospital. How he’d managed to gain control over the area in the early days of SUBS Sam had no idea, but seeing him methodically dragging Darwin into line over the last several months made the conquest of a little office park like this seem entirely plausible.

The guards at the campus gate were seasoned, older. Three flashlights and a dot of red laser light all converged on her before she’d come within twenty meters of the entrance.

“Who goes?” one of them barked.

She held up a hand in a fruitless attempt to shield her eyes. “Sam Rinn. I run the old airport for Grillo.”

“And what are you doing all the way out here? He’s not expecting anyone.”

She held out the package under her arm, raising it up. “Package for him. He asked me to deliver it personally.” Not strictly true. Grillo had sent her on the personal errand two days ago. He’d said he wanted the book in his hands right away once she’d found it, and she figured this was a reasonable interpretation.

One of the four guards came forward and put out his hand. When Sam didn’t move he beckoned with his fingers.

“He said for me to deliver it to him personally.”

“I just want to make sure it’s not a bomb or something.”

Sam held it out so he could study the cover. He leaned in, read the handwritten words there, and glanced back up. “No shit?”

Sam shrugged. “The real deal.”

The sod actually licked his lips, and read the words again.

THE TESTAMENT OF THE LADDER

Being the word of God

Transcribed verbatim in faith and obedience

by Sister Annabelle Katherine Haley

Perth, Australia, 2268

The guard fingered a cross-and-ladder trinket that hung around his neck on a gaudy gold chain. “Blimey. Right, then. In you go.”

Sam tucked the book back under her arm and followed him to the gate. He twirled one finger in the air, a signal to open the gate, and then waved her through.

“Thanks,” Sam said.

“Uh, the gun stays here.” He nodded toward her rifle.

Sam slipped it off her shoulder and handed it to him, then turned and walked down the drive into the heart of the campus. She could hear the guards talking among themselves. From the sound of it, one of them spoke into a handheld. A response came back a few seconds later, too muffled for Sam to make out exactly. She walked faster.

“Oy!” the guard shouted.

Sam half-turned without breaking stride.

“Wait at the house. Surgery Center is off-limits.”

She waved. “Surgery Center. Got it.”

Once she was inside the compound, the presence of guards dropped to almost nothing. Sam walked past two brick buildings that once probably served some administrative purpose. Two nuns walked past her with their eyes downcast. She studied each of them, but neither was Kelly.

The road forked. To her right, at the end of a long drive, was a residential enclave of five or six impressive mansions, all tucked within a manicured forest of palm trees. Two of the homes were lit. Which one Grillo occupied she didn’t know or care. The fork of the road that went left led around a slow curve that passed in front of the hospital complex. Sam went that way, walking as fast as her legs would carry her, determined to reach the entrance before anyone could question her.

A tingle danced across her shoulder blades. The thrill of malfeasance mixed with the fear of being caught, the combination as welcome to her as cold water on a hot, dry day. She felt the craving deep within her begin to come alive at the prospect of being sated. The mission to fetch the book, which carried all the potential for danger, had been a dull letdown. She’d walked into the revered woman’s home, found the book in a desk drawer, nabbed it, and walked out. No subs, no action. Boring. Any jackass in an environment suit could have done it, but Grillo insisted she go. He wanted the best, and he wanted no mistakes.

Sam just wanted to shoot something.

There were no guards at the entrance to the hospital. The thought that this might be a bad sign flitted through her mind like a fly batted away. No guards meant she had options.

The lobby was dark and sparsely furnished. Some fading sunlight just managed to illuminate the first few meters of the space through floor-to-ceiling glass panels that fronted the building. The panels were caked with dust and grime, giving the light that made it through a greasy red hue. Sam guessed there had once been rows of seats here, to provide someplace to sit for the families of patients. None remained, though, giving the room an empty-dance-hall feel.

She tucked the supposed holy book into a large pocket inside her combat vest, then tugged a flashlight from a pocket on her pants and flipped it on. It was a tiny thing, Special Forces issue, with eight small LEDs driven to blinding intensity by a Zigg ultracap the size of a penny. The beam made a white cone of illuminated dust that spread from her to an even disk on the far wall. A hallway, wide enough to fit two buses side by side, left the back of the room and receded into darkness. To her left, a long reception counter ran the width of the room, save for a small gap to allow staff through. There were two doors on the wall behind the desk, both closed. Between these was a directory, too coated in dust to be read. Sam walked to it, her boots grinding noisily on the dirty tile floor.

Somewhere above her came a deep thud, then the distinct sound of people walking and muffled voices. One voice, above the others, caught her attention. Stifled screams, the shrieks of intense pain. The footfalls changed their cadence. On stairs now, and getting louder.

Sam acted on pure instinct. She leapt up onto the counter and swung her legs over to the other side in one smooth motion, landing behind the barrier in a coiled stance. She clicked the flashlight off and stuffed it back in its pocket with her right hand, simultaneously drawing a hidden knife with her left hand from a sheath tucked inside her boot. Gripping the hilt in both hands to stifle the sound, she thumbed the switch and felt a brief flicker of satisfaction as the blade sprang out and clicked into position. Only then did it occur to her how ridiculous it was to hide and draw a weapon inside her own employer’s facility.

Somewhere down that long dark hallway a door was flung open. The sound of it echoed through the lobby, followed instantly by those gagged, anguished cries. Sam guessed by the number of footfalls that there were eight to ten people in the party. Beneath those sounds she could hear the scrape of feet being dragged across the floor.

That dragging sound transformed into a flurry of noises that Sam pictured as wild flailing. A few different people cursed and a lot of commotion followed, including what sounded like a barrage of punches and kicks. The struggle ended as quickly as it had started.

“You disappoint me,” a voice said. Grillo, she recognized immediately. “Lift him up.”

More sounds of struggle, though the spirit had gone out of it.

Grillo spoke again, his voice quiet, almost tender. “Tsk, tsk. This is behavior most unbecoming for a man of your stature.”

Against her better judgment, Samantha turned and slowly raised her head enough to peer over the top of the counter.

In the center of the lobby, a squad of guards was crowded around two men. One was Grillo, and he knelt in front of the captive. The man being held was unrecognizable in the weak light. The guards had him by his arms, so that his torso was lifted from the floor enough that he was eye level with the kneeling Grillo. His legs were splayed out on the floor behind him, lifeless. One foot lay at an unnatural angle, turned opposite the way of the knee.

“Will you not even consider my—” Grillo’s words were cut off when the captive man spit in his face.

A guard slugged the man with one meaty fist, and was coiled to strike again when Grillo stopped him with a simple upheld hand.

The punch had been a solid blow. Sam knew that sound well enough, but the captive hardly reacted. He just slumped and hung his head low. Blood trickled from his mouth.

Grillo took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the spit from his face. In the process he paused and plucked something from his hair.

“A tooth?” Grillo asked. “That’s a nice touch. If you don’t want them we could remove the rest for you. Gratis, of course.”

A few of the guards chuckled. The captive groaned. A sick, wet sound that made Samantha’s stomach churn.

“I really don’t understand your resistance,” Grillo said then, his tone light and conversational. “But your tolerance for pain is impressive, I must say. Enviable, even. So what we’d like to do now, if you have no objections, is retire to my home. I have your family waiting there.”

This produced a feeble cry.

“Oh yes, that’s right, I forgot to tell you that I invited them for a visit. A meal, a prayer, perhaps a happy reunion with Papa. Would you like that? To see your family again with the one eye you have remaining?”

The broken man, to Sam’s amazement, tried again to lash out at Grillo. His arms were held fast by the guards, however.

Grillo leaned in close to the man, looked his face up and down. Sam recognized the point of decision before perhaps anyone else, and felt herself go cold. She held her breath as the knife emerged from Grillo’s pocket.

“Perhaps your ability to see is what clouds your mind,” Grillo said flatly. He took a handful of the man’s sweaty hair and jerked his head back so that they were staring at each other.

Sam lowered herself behind the counter and tried not to hear the sound of the blade puncturing flesh, or the guttural, inhuman cry of pain that followed. She heard liquid splash on the tile floor. Someone gagged. Sam wanted to, and fought to keep herself under control. She set her own knife on the floor and clasped both hands over her mouth, focused on keeping her breathing even and silent.

She heard the knife plunge again, then a third time, neither of which produced a reaction from the prisoner that she heard.

A vile silence descended over the lobby then. Sam closed her eyes and took a long breath through her nose.

“Well,” Grillo said. “Disappointing after all that work, gentlemen, but I’ve had another thought. A revelation, you might say.”

One of the guards chuckled.

“Toss him into the ocean,” Grillo said, his tone still light. “The knife, too. It’s soiled now.”

Sam heard the guards heave the body from the floor.

“Come up to the house after,” Grillo said. “Supper is on, and I do truly want his family to enjoy a fine meal when I break the news that beloved Papa has … well, I suppose we can say he’s ascended up the ladder for some important work above. That’s not too far from the truth, when you think about it.”

A few more stifled laughs. Then the party was on the move again. She heard the double doors at the lobby entrance open and close, and she was alone again.

Sam waited a full five minutes, partly to give Grillo and his entourage plenty of time to distance themselves from the hospital, and partly to allow the crippling tightness within her to unclench.

Sam had seen horrible things in her time as a scavenger. She’d done horrible things, never thinking twice. But that had been in battle, faced with subhuman foes that fought with relentless insanity fueled by the disease. She’d never seen or done anything like this. Even the fingers she’d once severed to fulfill a mission had been from a corpse, the corpse of what amounted to an animal.

Had she missed every hint of this side of him? She’d certainly ignored, willfully perhaps, every story and rumor of his ruthlessness in running the Maze. He’d tried to bribe her and the rest of the crew away from Skyler, years ago, too. Offered to pay Jake to let a little accident occur. Piety apparently only ran so deep, if it was even truly there at all.

If Grillo’s growing stance as some kind of spiritual leader was just a façade, what would happen to Darwin when it broke? Hell, what would happen to her? She was a critical part of this machine.

The sound of Grillo’s knife sliding into the captive’s … Sam shuddered. She felt sick, her skin clammy. I’ve got to get out of here.

All thought of trying to contact Kelly left her mind. Sam sheathed her knife and slipped back over the counter. She crept across the lobby floor, avoiding the smeared trail of blood that now marred the surface, and went through the doors. Nobody was about, and Sam took off at a run for the main gate, sucking in deep, rapid breaths of fresh air as she went. She slowed when the gate and its guards came into view, and forced herself to walk calmly toward them.

The guard who’d let her in raised an eyebrow when he saw her approach. “Well? What did he think?”

“About what?” Sam growled.

“The book, of course. He must be overjoyed to finally have it.”

She’d forgotten all about the damn thing. Sam fished it out of her inner pocket and held it out in front of her. She’d never seen Grillo so excited, or anxious, about a mission into the Clear. Sister Haley’s legendary notebook, the original handwritten version she’d been famously forced to leave behind in her own flight to Darwin, left to burn as her house crumbled in a vandal’s flames. Even those who didn’t follow the religion knew the story. Grillo had apparently learned a bit more, somehow. The house hadn’t burned. The book might still be sitting there. “Sam, you have to recover it.”

So he could bask in the glorious words, or so he could trap Sister Haley in her little fabrication? Seeing Grillo through this new lens, Sam could see the angle. One way or another, he would use this to continue his rise within the cult. And she’d stupidly shown it to this guard, who’d probably told everyone he’d seen since about it. Her chance to ditch the thing had long passed. She handed it to him. “He wasn’t available. You give it to him, with my, um, regards.”