Adams pulled up to the curb and Laura got out.
An army officer walked over. She recognized his face but had never known his name. A patch reading Danbury marked the breast of his fatigues.
“Ms. Phillips.” He offered his hand.
She took it. “Have you swept the area?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Residents?”
“Evacuated.”
“Did you make sure you reported thegas leakto the local news?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Good.” She nodded at the flashlight he held in his other hand. This late in the year, the sun was still a streak of pink on the horizon until eight.
He gave it to her, and she headed toward the house.
Halfway across the yard, the puddle of light leading the way caught a red shoe print on the cobblestone. She followed others before pausing again where the grass bunched up in wads next to the path.
Deep gouges in the ground had shoveled out rocks and clumps of dirt. Laura knelt and shined the flashlight over the fuzzy patches of roots lining the ruts.
She plucked a single strand and held it up. Bits of root skin feathered the ends.
The Anubis did not tear the ground like an animal born of the earth. It moved through it.
While the Sarvari didn’t contain as much ichor as the Anubis and lacked its molecular precision, it had enough that its interaction with its environment would have created a cut cleaner than anything currently available to the military or private use.
Only one creature looked like Sarvari but was a part of the physical world.
Zvayatu; black dogs.
Curs.
Creatures born from the bite of a Sarvari and as mindless as a rabid animal. Controlled only by the Mah who made it.
Laura stood and headed to the house. More footprints led her to the shattered glass of Dr. Dante’s aquarium. Dead fish lay next to chunks of coral, and airflow from the heat vents churned the stench of dying sea creatures.
Splintered wood floors went from the living room to a hallway where a runner rug lay shredded in a pile. Black hairs stuck in the fibers coated in sheetrock. Broken two-by-four studs jutted from the crater in the wall. Deep cuts sliced through the corner to the doorway into the kitchen. There a fridge lay on the ground. The dent in the side curved the light beam from the flashlight, dusting the ceiling and walls in glowing patches.
The shards of tile didn’t crunch or shift under the toes of Laura’s high heels. Balance and stealth were the first lessons for any child picked to be a Warden. Most were born into a family of Wardens, trained every day of their life. Even normal needs like eating and sleeping led to a lesson in vigilance.
Laura had been lucky. Her parents had loved each other, and she’d always been their daughter, not a representation of their ego. After her mother died, her father pushed her to succeed because he’d cherished her, not because she’d otherwise have been a lost asset.
So she’d never experienced the fear of being thrown out or left to die if she failed, and her success was because her father gave her everything to make her strong.
Even when dying of ALS.
The Senate’s selection process for parents focused on longevity, health, and removing individuals if they, or their siblings, had genetic diseases.
Since ALS wasn’t normally genetic, it was perfectly logical not to question her father’s diagnosis, not even when a disease that took years to kill a person had taken him in months.
Yet Laura couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness she’d felt from the first time his hand trembled while they ate breakfast. It wasn’t just witnessing the involuntary movement but the knowledge in his eyes. As if he already knew the cause.
With every conversation, every expression exchanged, every look, it was like he’d been trying to tell her something without saying the words.