Page 172 of Silver Elite

I lean back on the headboard, scrolling through my source. “He’s so attractive.”

“Who?”

I touch the screen to project the image of Jasper Reed’s rugged face.

“He’s all right,” Kaine says.

“But you’re better, right?”

“Of course.”

I’m reading through Reed’s dossier. He’s an interesting guy. Doesn’t seem to have loyalty to anyone but the person who’s paying him the most credits in the moment. There’s nothing more dangerous than a person whose loyalties shift like the wind. It’s also interesting that his network is smuggling supplies into the lawless lands. Most citizens don’t care one way or the other whether the Faithful survive.

I flip through pictures of the Faithful camp that Silver Block destroyed six months ago. They’d been found living in a cave system in Ward G.

“Do you ever feel bad for them?” I can’t stop the question from slipping out. “The Faithful?”

“What do you mean?”

I tap the screen to project the photograph. “These people…Theyjust want to be left alone. Sometimes I wonder if it’s fair for us to impose the General’s idea of society on them.”

Kaine frowns, considering my words. “That’s not for us to decide. Our duty is to follow orders.”

“They’re just trying to live free.”

“They’re stealing from the Company.”

I can’t push him any further without casting suspicion on myself, so, with a shrug, I swipe at the air and the projection disappears.

Fortunately, Xavier’s voice over my earpiece saves me from having to explain why I’m suddenly feeling sympathy for the Faithful.

“Intel came through,” he says. “Let’s go.”

—

The hospital is a small nondescript building. A sad-looking place compared with the one in Sanctum Point with its gleaming windows and high-tech wings. The Point hospital has two regeneration chambers. Here, it’s like they’re using barbaric Old Era medicine. Offering rudimentary heart transplants when they could be growing a new heart in a lab. But to the Company, these people aren’t worth it, I suppose. Save the perfect new hearts for the elites. Let these ones take their chances with a harvested organ that their bodies may or may not reject.

Xavier’s informant said Reed is moving his contraband through this hospital with the help of workers who stash supplies in the basement. Kaine and I access that basement from one side of the building, while Xavier enters solo from the other. We creep down a long hallway, where the tubes of fluorescent lighting crackle too loud for my comfort. Sounds like they’re going to burst into flames at any second and set the entire hospital on fire.

Our quiet footsteps echo off the concrete walls, muffled by the worn linoleum floor. The informant said there’s nobody down here during the day, that the supplies are moved out at night, but I still tighten my grip on my weapon, my senses heightened as we approach a fork in the corridor. Kaine and I exchange a silent glance. Without a word, we split up, each taking a different path.

I move cautiously, scanning every shadow for any sign of movement. The smell of disinfectant hangs in the air.

Suddenly, a faint sound catches my attention—a low murmur emanating from behind a closed door up ahead.

I touch my ear. “Condor, I have signs of life.”

There’s a window in the door. I peek through it and frown. There are people inside.

“Broken Dove,” Ford says in my ear, and I curse the stupid call sign for following me from training to real life. “Report.”

“There’s people here, LT.”

“We’re not looking for people. We’re looking for supplies.”

“I know, but…This is…”

I can’t quite fathom what I’m seeing. These people…Some of them are strapped to hospital beds, restrained by leather cuffs around their wrists. They appear to be not in pain but in a state of agitation. A patient in a gray hospital gown wanders past the window.

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