Mortal Brother

  This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, certain characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Mortal Brother (An Unbounded Novella)

  Smashwords Edition

  Published by White Star Press

  P.O. Box 353

  American Fork, Utah 84003

  Copyright © 2015 by Teyla Branton

  Cover design copyright © 2015 by White Star Press

  Cover and ebook design by ePubMasters

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

  ISBN: 978-1-939203-57-1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Year of first printing: 2015

  Love and Duty—Both Can Get You Killed

  PILOT CHRIS RADKEY’S ONLY JOB in the Mexican jungle is to look after the plane while his Unbounded siblings retrieve a desperately needed cure. It was supposed to be easy. Much easier than seeing his wife murdered by an Emporium hit team, leaving behind two motherless children.

  Chris soon finds himself using every ounce of his Renegade training in a desperate struggle to secure dangerous Emporium captives and to save the life of a friend. His “easy” job has become a nightmare, one he may not survive. But the woman he cares about needs him, and he won’t allow anything to stand in his way.

  Please note: Mortal Brother is not as long as the books from Erin’s viewpoint. This tie-in to the series can be enjoyed at any time. However, the events take place in the Unbounded timeline simultaneously with The Cure (Unbounded Book 2) and extend several days past that novel, so readers may better appreciate Mortal Brother after reading The Cure.

  To all my mortal readers, who wish secretly to be Unbounded. We can still be Renegades!

  THE ARMED MEN CRAWLING ALL over my plane were the first indication that something wasn’t right. Well, it wasn’t exactly my plane, but I was a Renegade, and it belonged to our group, even if I was mortal and wouldn’t live two thousand years like my Unbounded comrades. Besides, I was the only one who could fly the plane, so I considered it mine.

  I’d thought taking care of the plane in this little out-of-the-way airstrip in the Mexican jungle while my friends looked into an attack on the medical lab we funded here was little more than babysitting duty, something to keep me away from the real action. Safe. More than a bit irritating, but if staying behind meant staying alive, I’d deal with the irritation for my two children, who had been through more than any children should since their mother’s murder two months earlier. I’d nearly lost them, too, yesterday when the Emporium had attacked our stronghold in Oregon. One of our men had died, so being safe wasn’t all that bad.

  Except now I’d bet the men trying to get inside that plane weren’t doing it for my welfare.

  “More coffee?” asked Diego Molina, the young Mexican who, along with his father, ran the airstrip. He put his hand on the pot of bad coffee sitting on the small table between us—the third pot since my arrival several hours ago. The coffee and the stale biscuits made me wonder if they were trying to poison me or simply weren’t used to entertaining. If it hadn’t been for the delicious smells coming from the attached kitchen and a promised dinner, I would have already retreated to the privacy—and comfort—of the plane.

  “He is probably sick of that swill,” a young woman said, appearing from the kitchen for the first time. She set a sweating can of beer in front of me and smiled. It was the first I’d seen of anyone besides the two men since my arrival. She wore tight, American-style jeans and a light blue tank top that hugged her small curves. She looked barely out of her teens and pretty in a dark, exotic way, with long black hair and eyes that were almost too large in her narrow face.

  Ignoring the can, I jumped to my feet and strode to the small open window, stopping to draw out a pair of binoculars from my backpack of survival gear so I could see better. Across the wide expanse of dirt that separated this small building from where my plane sat, the strangers were inspecting the underbelly of the plane, presumably trying to find another way inside besides the locked door. That wasn’t happening any time soon. Only our Renegades knew the combination to the hatches, and there was a handprint reader for added security. While they could eventually break the codes or drill through the mechanism, it would take time.

  “What are they doing to my plane?” My hand went to my pistol, which suddenly seemed inadequate protection against the half dozen men. Rough men, who looked prepared to do whatever it took to achieve their goal, if the rifles slung over their shoulders were any indication.

  Diego followed me to the window, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed nervously. “I don’t know,” he said, his accent thicker than ever. Turning, he rattled off something in quick Spanish to his father, César, who still sat at the table.

  The two men exchanged more rapid conversation, and then the older man stood and clumped to the outer door, pulling it open. A short time later, he was in the sedan he’d picked me up in and was speeding toward the plane. The men stopped banging on the lower hatch when they saw him coming. They clustered as they waited, and I thought it a promising sign when none of them attacked him as he climbed from the car.

  The goodwill didn’t last. We were too far away to hear anything said, but the violent gesturing told me the newcomers were angry. The pistol one of them waved around also spoke loudly of their intentions. Diego’s father nodded and lifted his hands in an obvious plea for them to wait. Then he returned to his car and drove back across the dirt.

  When César arrived, his wide, sun-darkened face was even darker with anger as he exchanged more words with his son. Diego looked the picture of a wounded child who had done something he knew he shouldn’t have.

  The girl’s head yanked back and forth between them as she followed the conversation, the flush rising on her face making her more compelling. She spoke to the men, and Diego answered her sharply. I was beginning to regret that I hadn’t paid more attention to learning real world Spanish. I just hadn’t needed it in my hometown of Kansas City.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  César pointed at his son. “Diego mahk dee deal wid bandeets. Day loose men. Day are wanting plane or keel us.” His disgust was obvious, but his English was even more heavily accented than his son’s, and I had no idea what he was saying.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Bandits want your plane,” the girl said. “Diego made a deal with them, and they want it because the deal didn’t work out. They will kill us if we don’t give it to them.”

  “No way.” I slid my pistol from its holster, glad my Renegade training meant I carried extra magazines and more target practice in a month than most mortals had in an entire lifetime. “They are not taking my plane.”

  Cost aside, the plane was our way of rushing back a cure we desperately needed for the husband of Stella Davis, one of our Unbounded Renegades. Bronson was dying of a rare autoimmune disease, and our lab here in the Mexican jungle had reported a breakthrough with a cure. But two days ago, the lab had been razed to the ground, and my team was tracking our scientists that we believed had escaped with the research. I wasn’t about to let my people down, especially after what had happened at our stronghold yesterday. It was more than just the life we’d lost. Far more.

  “You no understand,” Diego shouted, punching his fist in the air. “Your friends keel their m
en. They no leave. They will keel you.”

  I pointed my gun at him. “What deal did you make?”

  No one answered for a long moment. Then the girl said, “They were supposed to rob your friends.”

  That almost made me laugh. Against my younger siblings, Erin and Jace, and the experienced Renegades with them, an entire army of mortal bandits wouldn’t have stood a chance. Unbounded can’t be killed, not in the normal way. Head and heart and reproductive organs had to be completely separated. No two sections could remain attached or they would fully regenerate. Unique abilities made Unbounded even more powerful, but of course, these people knew nothing of Unbounded.

  “You sold us out?” I spat at Diego. I was going to kill him! We’d paid them a small fortune to land here and to park the plane while we finished our business. The weaponry alone that we carried would have been attractive to any militant group, but I’d expected some honor in dealing with César, who I understood had worked with our Renegades in the past. Apparently, his son was greedy.

  The girl was still studying me. “All the men who attacked your friends in that big vehicle died, except two who were tied up.”

  Big surprise there. “Just give them back their money,” I said to Diego.

  He shook his head violently. “No. They want more. They want the plane.”

  “Geeve me key,” César ordered, holding out his big hand, palm up.

  I backed away. “There is no key. It’s numbers, and I won’t give them to you.”

  “Then you die!” Diego growled. “One man against all them. You no succeed.”

  “You have guns,” I jerked my head at the two rifles standing against the wall. “We can take them together. Or drive them away.”

  “No! No!” César shouted. He glanced out the window where the bandits were still gathered in a clump near a blue truck. “Day keel you! We no help or day keel us too.”

  As if they could hear us, the bandits began piling into their truck.

  Above all, I had to hold the plane. Not just for Stella’s husband, but for our team. The Renegades were all that stood between humanity and enslavement by the Emporium Unbounded, who considered themselves gods to the expendable mortals. The Emporium had murdered my wife and tried to kill the rest of my family to further their agenda. They’d tried to abduct my children for their breeding experiments. Now they were here in Mexico and were most certainly behind the attack on our labs.

  The plane was our way to safety. There was only one choice.

  I lunged for the girl, grabbing her and pulling her against me, my gun pressed into her side. “You will help me fight. You made a deal with us, and you won’t break it. Now pick up those guns, or I’ll kill her.”

  I must have sounded convincing because both men, nodding energetically, started for their guns. Suddenly, it didn’t seem wise to be in the same room with them. “I’ll watch the back door. When they come, I’d better hear shooting.”

  With that, I dragged the girl into the kitchen. It was a small place with only one narrow window opposite a black potbellied stove that looked like something from a frontier movie. Shutting the door to the other room, I shoved her into a chair. “Don’t move.”

  She watched me, seemingly more curious than afraid. “You a good shot?”

  “I guess we’ll see.” I wished I were wearing my body armor.

  I slipped a picture from the pocket of my white T-shirt. My young children stared up at me, Spencer’s thin face covered in freckles and Kathy’s blue eyes looking so much like her mother’s. They were in hiding with the rest of our Renegades until we regrouped after the Emporium attack. Safe for now, but as long as the Emporium existed, they would always be in danger. I slipped the photograph back into place.

  My watch said that only two minutes had passed when the shooting began. I stepped to the back door, almost expecting the girl to bolt, but she remained sitting. As I opened the door a crack, a man came around the edge of the house. I fired, and he crumpled.

  I felt sick. All the practice in the world hadn’t prepared me for actually taking a man’s life. I was a pilot by profession, not a killer. Not Unbounded. Just a regular guy, who chose to work with the Renegades in order to protect my children, to make the world a safer place. That might sound noble, but I’d seen what the Emporium had to offer, and there was nothing noble about fighting them. I fought simply because it was the only way humanity would survive.

  Except these men weren’t semi-immortal Emporium agents. They were mortal.

  A movement inside had me turning my gun back toward the girl, but she already had a pistol in her hand. For a several seconds, we stared at each other while the boom of rifles came from the next room and from outside. I couldn’t shoot her. She was innocent.

  She whirled from me abruptly, breaking the window with her gun and firing at someone outside. I blinked, almost surprised to still be alive. More men were coming around the house, and I fired again and again. So did the girl. The faces ducked out of sight.

  “Is there a way onto the roof?” I asked.

  She started to shake her head, but then nodded. “You can use the window and climb. You will have to do it from outside. I will cover you.”

  If we made it out alive I’d have to ask her where she learned to speak such great English. Her words were accented, attractively so, but completely understandable.

  Should I trust her? She could just let them kill me.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked.

  Her chin lifted and for a moment she was fiercely beautiful. “Because those men killed my husband.”

  It was good enough for me.

  “TAKE THIS.” WITH ONE HAND, she pushed a high-backed chair at me. “To help you climb.”

  Letting off a few shots, I sprinted outside to the window and threw down the chair. I vaulted onto the windowsill and from there onto the low roof. Much easier than I’d thought, thanks to our grueling training sessions with Ritter, our combat Unbounded, who was like Rambo times thirty. He and my sister Erin made a perfect couple, though she didn’t know it yet.

  Shots followed my progress, telling me the girl had fulfilled her promise. I squat-walked across the roof, shoving in a new magazine. Two men were dead out front and, with the one I’d shot, that meant only three more left.

  Close to the edge, I got down on my stomach and pulled myself along with my elbows. I picked off two men hiding behind their blue truck before they realized I was above them. The remaining man scrambled for cover, but a shot rang out and he fell before moving two feet.

  The girl walked into view below me, still holding her pistol. I wondered if she was happy with her revenge, or if it made her feel as empty as I was feeling. I moved to the edge of the roof and lowered myself down, jumping the last few feet as Diego and César burst from the house. I tensed, but neither tried to shoot me. They were talking a mile a minute again in Spanish. After the words slowed, together they began carrying bodies and tossing them into the back of the battered truck.

  I lifted my brow and looked at the girl.

  “They want to move them and the truck away from here,” she said, “and then they want to hide. They are afraid the rest will come.”

  I groaned. “There’s more?”

  A hint of a smile touched her lips. “Not too many. We are lucky they hijacked the van that was here before they sent their men after your friends. Some of the bandits drove it to their hideout. That was why only six came for the plane.”

  In a rush, the dread was back. “They hijacked the van?” This was bad news. Very bad news.

  Two of our allies, Tenika Vasco and Irwin Stafford, also Renegade Unbounded, had met the plane to take into custody the eleven Emporium agents we’d captured yesterday during the attack in Oregon. Each of our captives was Unbounded and, though temporarily dead or heavily sedated, would heal sooner or later. They were being transported to our prison compound here in Mexico where they would be reformed or stand trial for their crimes against humanity.

>   Or at least that had been the plan before the van had been hijacked.

  The girl frowned as her brother and father passed us carrying another dead bandit. “I’m sorry, but they are saying that the bandits were bragging about killing the driver.”

  I clenched my fists, my mind searching for options. I hadn’t been at the plane when Tenika and Irwin had arrived in the gray van and loaded the Emporium agents, but I’d watched them through my binoculars while Diego was arranging his “vedy good coffee,” and Jace had filled me in by sat phone on the details before they’d left. He’d been excited because Irwin had been famous in Australia for wrestling alligators before he’d faked his death to hide that he wasn’t aging. He had been assigned to Mexico until his face was forgotten by the rest of the world.

  Tenika, on the other hand, was here from New York City, delivering her own Emporium prisoners. She had agreed to help Irwin, who was shorthanded at the prison, transport our captives because she knew we were pressed to find our scientists. I’d met the Angolan woman several times and had a great respect for her.

  The bandits wouldn’t know how to permanently kill Tenika and Irwin, but they could put them out long enough to allow the Emporium captives to regenerate, and the Emporium definitely would kill or capture my allies.

  I had to do something.

  If I were Unbounded and had an ability, I might be able to track them myself, but as it was I would have to depend on technology. All Renegades had embedded nanochips in their bodies, programmed to prevent their immune system from rejecting them. The chips emitted a constantly changing pattern, traceable only by someone using the same set of algorithms that would take even a technopath months to decode—and by then the algorithms would have changed yet again. If Tenika and Irwin weren’t already too deep in the jungle, I should be able to track them. The captives had also been injected with tracking devices.

  Still gripping my gun, I strode away from the building, heading across the wide expanse of dirt for the plane. Reaching into my pocket for my sat phone, I put in the password and made the call to Ava O’Hare, our cell leader. She was also my fourth great-grandmother, and three hundred years old, though physically she was thirty-seven, a year younger than I was.