The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

plays,” Pilgrim said. “But it’s my game.”
    Travis studied his expression when he said it. There was no bluff in his eyes. The man really believed what he’d just said. Believed the Whisper was serving his interests, and not the other way around.
    “But who are you to talk about puppets?” Pilgrim said. By his tone, he seemed to think Travis should understand that statement in some deeper way. Then he smiled. “Right, right. You wouldn’t remember meeting me, would you?”
    Travis only stared. If that was a joke, he didn’t get it. Wasn’t sure he cared to, either.
    “Whatever,” Pilgrim said. “You’re supposed to be here, so I guess everything’s right on track. Good enough for me.”
    Pilgrim’s cell rang. He answered. In the stretched silence of the room, Travis could make out the voice on the other end clearly.
    “Everything we want is shut behind the blast doors,” the caller said. “The locking computers are smashed. Can’t override the codes.”
    “I know,” Pilgrim said.
    “Gonna take at least an hour to drill through those heavy doors into the Primary Lab.”
    “An hour and fifteen,” Pilgrim said, not guessing. His eyes went calmly to the Whisper’s box on the table. “Just get them working on it. Are the techs started on getting the defenses back up?”
    “They’re on it. Lotta problems. Blast took out a bunch of critical shit. They’re re-threading the array by hand, so, half an hour, give or take.”
    Pilgrim ended the call and put the phone away.
    “Good enough,” he said again. He nodded to two of his four men and said, “Stay and watch them.” Then he strode from the room without even a glance at the executed bodies. The other two gunmen followed close behind him. One, a guy built like a bouncer, six-three and probably three hundred pounds, hefted the Whisper’s box and carried it along.
    Paige grew silent. Just breathing shallowly now, but no longer crying.
    It’d been only a minute since Pilgrim had left. The bodies were still bleeding. Paige’s backpack rested against one of the conference table’s legs, where someone had thrown it. They hadn’t opened it. Hadn’t cared. It occurred to Travis that the Doubler was still inside it. So was the Medic—not that it mattered. The bodies along the wall were far beyond that entity’s capacity to help.
    Still, staring at the backpack, he saw a move he could make, if the opportunity came.
    Travis watched the two guards without looking directly at them. They were overconfident. Not taking their job seriously. Ten prisoners, bound in a cluster in the middle of a wide-open floor. These men weren’t even weighing the possibility of a captive doing anything stupid.
    Only their wrists were restrained. The bonds were zip ties made of some type of metal. Aluminum or steel, probably. They wouldn’t break—that much was certain.
    But they would cut skin.
    Travis needed both guards looking away. One already was; he was standing in the doorway, staring off down the hall. Maybe the smell of the blood had gotten to him. The other wandered the room, his gaze going everywhere, and nowhere in particular. He was never quite looking away long enough for Travis to do what he needed to do.
    Another minute passed. Travis thought about what Pilgrim had said.
    You’re supposed to be here.
    The Whisper wanted him here. Had always wanted him here. Had arranged for it. And what else had the guy said? That they’d met before? Given the Whisper’s amnesia effect, that was plausible. It could’ve happened anytime. Any random day in Fairbanks. Or in prison.
    He was part of the Whisper’s plan, somehow. And Pilgrim knew that. That was why he’d included him among the survivors. Why he needed any survivors, who knew? Maybe Pilgrim didn’t even know. Maybe that was just another play he’d let the Whisper dictate.
    But Travis’s importance to the plan was something he could use against these guards.
    He’d lost sight of the wanderer. He turned his head slightly, and saw that the man had settled into place at a dry-erase board that took up most of the wall beside the door. It was covered with random scribbles of information, no doubt most or all of it concerning Breach entities. The guy seemed pretty absorbed by it. He’d probably been with Pilgrim for years, hearing all about Border Town and the Breach, and waiting for today. Well, tough shit for him if it all ended badly in the next sixty seconds.
    Travis took a hard, silent breath.