his left eye.
“Tell me this is a joke,” he said with a slight southern twang, though it was hard to pinpoint which state the accent was from.
“This is it,” O’Keefe said in a way that made it sound like he was just as disappointed.
“Were we ever that young?” Rhane asked.
“Afraid so.”
Pierce raised his hand, but he didn’t wait for anyone to call on him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you.” It was an accusation, not a question.
“What makes you say that, Cadet . . . ?”
“Bowen,” Pierce said.
“So he’s the one?” Rhane asked as he glanced over at Agent O’Keefe.
“That’s him, all right.”
“Go on,” Rhane said, turning his attention back to Pierce.
“If you really did come from Gathmara,” Pierce said, “how do we know that you didn’t kill the real Agent Rhane, shape-shift to look just like him, and infiltrate our campus?”
“You don’t, so I suggest you sleep lightly tonight,” Agent Rhane said with a smile that made the hair on the back of Colt’s neck stand on end. “And for the record, I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to teach you how to survive on Gathmara so you have a snowball’s chance of accomplishing your mission.”
: :
CHAPTER 11 : :
What do you say we start with Goliath?” Agent Rhane said.
O’Keefe nodded and entered a series of commands in his handheld device. The air shimmered, and moments later a thirty-foot robot appeared in the middle of the floor, its head nearly touching the top of the domed ceiling. Covered in thick iron plating that looked like scraps from old tanks, it had gun turrets on its shoulders, cannons welded to its forearms, and rocket boosters embedded in its heels.
“Now Goliath here is a Tracker, which for all intents and purposes is a walking tank with limited artificial intelligence,” Rhane said. “Any idea how you take one down?”
“Nukes,” Ethan said.
“Fair enough, but what about civilians within the blast radius?”
“Hit the knee joints with rocket-propelled grenades,” Colt said.
“Now we’re talking,” Rhane said. “You the squad leader, then?”
“Yes, sir,” Colt said.
Rhane stared at him with narrowed eyes, and again Colt felt the telltale hair on the back of his neck stand on end once more. “Then you’re the one . . . the Betrayer?”
Colt tried to hold Rhane’s gaze, but it was so intense that he had to look away.
“That ‘aw shucks’ humility won’t get you far, cadet. Not on the other side of the portal. Once you enter the jungles of Gathmara, you can bet that just about everything that moves will be looking to kill you—and I’m not just talking about the Thule. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what do you say we visit Dresh and see if we can’t survive long enough to reach the facility where they’re storing the engine that will open the gateway?”
O’Keefe activated the hologram chamber, and the sterile room became a lush jungle where vines covered in bright red and yellow blooms coiled around trees that rose high overhead. Pools of stagnant water dotted the ground, and even though it was an artificial environment, the air was suddenly hot and humid.
“Believe it or not, this halogram used to be a suburb not far from the capital,” Rhane said. “Koenig found out that someone had been harboring the son of a rival warlord, so he destroyed the entire town—women, children, and all.”
Colt started to notice the broken remains of buildings that were buried under the vines. Trees grew from the windows, and crumbled streets were overrun by vegetation that sprouted from the cracks. There were rusted vehicles, including what looked like a military transport with eight wheels and something that looked like a car with wings, which Rhane explained was a hovercraft.
He led them through the jungle, pointing out a variety of plant life. Some were edible. Some poisonous. All were stunningly beautiful. “Whatever you do, don’t drink any water that you haven’t put through your purifier,” he explained. “The parasites will eat through the wall of your stomach and you’ll bleed to death.”
“Lovely,” Danielle said as she sidestepped a puddle.
Eventually they came to the outskirts of a massive city that rose before them like a forest of concrete and glass. “Welcome to Dresh, the city of wonder,” Rhane said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. “In case you weren’t yet convinced that Koenig is a monster, he wiped out half the population with a strain of virus that was created inside the halls of Trident Biotech.”
“Why?” Pierce asked.
“To scare the other warlords,” Rhane said. “After all,