Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

one has seen him all day or night. Not that that’s unusual, given the circumstances, but when I phoned him to report what happened, there wasn’t any answer. I went to his house and he was gone.”
    “And surveillance?”
    “You know he disabled his surveillance a while ago.”
    “Oh yeah,” Ed said.
    Teagan wanted to lean forward and ask what was happening, but figured it would be better to keep quiet, concentrate on making sure Becca stayed in her silence as she tried piecing the puzzle together from the relative safety of the back seat. Plus, Ed seemed visibly shaken by what Sullivan was saying. Asking him questions he probably wasn’t prepared to answer was sure to only make things worse.
    They passed another road where a second row of houses was being shuttered. From what Teagan could tell, nobody else was being brought to the Facility, which meant the others were expected to ride out the mystery threat from inside their shuttered houses.
    “Where’s the sphere?” Ed said.
    Sullivan reached into the glove compartment, keeping one hand on the wheel as he navigated the quiet dark dirt road, and retrieved a dark glass orb, about half the size of a tennis ball. The sphere glowed with a red luminescence as it passed from one man’s hand to the next, sending an unexplainable shiver down Teagan’s spine.
    “What’s that?” she asked as Ed slipped the sphere inside his jacket pocket, as if to shield it from her view immediately.
    “Nothing to worry about,” he said, then turned to Sullivan. “I want you to bring them to my room, and station two guards outside until I return. Make sure you’re underground in case I have to use this.”
    “OK,” Sullivan said.
    “Use what?” Teagan asked again, not liking the finality in Ed’s “in case I have to use this,” as though it were the sort of last resort that meant he wouldn’t be coming home.
    Teagan met Ed’s eyes, and was about to insist he tell her what the sphere was, but something in his stare begged her not to ask — she wouldn’t like the answer, and he didn’t want to lie.
    Ed said to Sullivan, “I’m going to go find Will.”
    “What about the doc? What do we do?”
    “Shoot him on sight.”
    They pulled up to the Facility’s hangar and stopped the truck just past two Guardsmen. Sullivan got out first, then opened Teagan’s door. She climbed from the truck with Becca, who had stopped crying on the ride.
    Ed kissed Becca on the head and Teagan on the mouth.
    “Don’t worry,” he promised, “everything will be fine.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes,” Ed nodded, giving them each one more kiss. “I love you both.”
    He climbed back inside the truck, then left Teagan standing beside Sullivan in the hangar’s interior. She couldn’t move as tears began to flood her eyes.
    “What’s wrong?” Sullivan asked, leading Teagan toward the doors and into the Facility.
    “He’s never told me he loved me before,” she said.
    Teagan couldn’t finish the second half of her thought — the part that was tearing through her heart.
    He’s never coming back.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Boricio Bishop Part 2

    Black Island Research Facility
    Black Island, New York
    Other Earth
    August 22
    TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT…

    Boricio sat at Rose’s bedside, hating the guard standing on the other side of the door. Not that it was the guard’s fault for being there; he wasn’t the one who had restricted Boricio’s access to Level Seven. But still, it was a special sort of bullshit that Boricio was only allowed to hear the breath that kept his heart beating with an armed guard on the other side of the door.
    Boricio stared at Rose sleeping, her chest rising and falling like a flatline with rhythm. He pulled her hands into his and squeezed, biting his bottom lip hard to keep from crying.
    Boricio remembered the time they’d spent an entire rainy Saturday afternoon cozied up on a comfy sofa in a trendy bookstore a month after they started dating.

    Rose’s friend Annabel had warned her against spending too much time with Boricio, who Annabel had not yet met. “That man clearly has an agenda,” she said.
    Boricio laughed. “Of course I have an agenda!” he had said. “What sort of fool flies through the forest without a map? That’s called wandering, Rose. And I don’t like to wander. You can’t get to your best life when you spend your time wandering. Know what you want, then know what you’re willing to give up to get it. That’s