Page 20 of The Last Ultimatum: Part 2

Satisfied with my morning pep talk, I walked over to the bed and picked up Taylor’s phone, knowing exactly what I needed to do first.

I knew his name would be programmed in, but it took me a while to find it. She had creative names for just about everyone.

Clicking on ‘Pretty Nerd Boy’ I had a good feeling this was exactly the call I needed to make to start my day off right.

“Hey Tay. What’s up?”

“Elliot, it’s Lachlan. I need a favor.”

“For you, anything. What’s up? But why are you calling from Taylor’s phone?”

“Someone’s broken into my secure cell. Archie confirmed it. It’s putting everyone I care about at risk. So I’m using hers until he sends a replacement. A part of me is a little worried though because I have no idea how or when mine was hacked.”

“Say no more, my friend. We all heard about what happened with your mate. I’m so sorry, man. I’m not sure if taken alive is better or worse than what we’ve been experiencingout here in the field. I tell you, once upon a time all I wanted to do was field work, but I also love my toys and New Mexico is looking pretty sweet right now. It’s awful.”

“Fill me in on what you’re really seeing out there. We’ve heard you’ve found a few Tribes just missing.”

“I wish. That was Charlie team. It’s like they vanished in thin air. No one can figure out what happened. And the one we stumbled into yesterday was even more disturbing. They were all slaughtered. Some of my guys stayed back to assist with clean. Patrick called in a whole crew. What the hell does it say about me that I couldn’t stomach sticking around? I’m supposed to be the one in charge and leading these guys. Echo would probably be better off without me.”

“We talked about this in our session, remember? That’s just fear talking. You can’t listen to your inner imposter. I’d be willing to bet few people could stomach such a thing.”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask him which of the Tribes we were talking about. I couldn’t handle it if it was my family Tribe or maybe even worse if it was Tilly’s. Something like that would kill her.

I knew what she’d been willing to sacrifice for them. The guilt of knowing she wasn’t around when something horrific like this occurred would be too much for a person like that. And I couldn’t stand to think of her carrying the weight of that sort of grief and pain.

“I sure hope you’re right,” Elliot said, interrupting my thoughts. “Hold on.”

I hated those two little words. Hold on to what? Hope? I didn’t need hope, I needed to take action. Hold on and wait? I was sick of waiting. Tilly didn’t have time to wait. If the Collectors were expediting things and taking out entire Tribes, then her time was limited. I had work to do to ensure she got back to me safe and sound.

“Okay, I have an extra secured phone heading your way. Looks like yours was one of the older models. You really need to hit me up at least once a year for the latest and greatest.”

“It takes me a year or more just to settle into a new phone,” I grumbled.

“It’s important, Lachie. No more than a year. Put it on your calendar.”

I groaned. “Fine.”

“I had them put extra security on this one. I’d almost stake my firstborn child on the security of this thing.”

“You don’t have a child.”

“Well not yet, but probably one day.”

I chuckled. “Hey, they did warn you guys about the fire, right?”

“What fire?”

“Patrick called in yesterday with an update. Ravenden was attacked and they are using fires with some sort of paralytic agent that’s incapacitating everyone. Then they just came in with trucks and loaded up the bodies to remove.”

“Dead or alive?” he asked, solemnly.

“Alive.”

“Well, that’s a relief. We have a morning report with Patrick in an hour. I’m sure he’ll be filling us all in on that. Completely random thought, but do we know if your hacked phone was sending out signals from within that penthouse?”

“It was. I was here when Archie ran some tests on it while I was on a call,” I confirmed.

“Damn. So it wasn’t a bug or tracker, it had to be something installed on your phone.”

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