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Red Awakening
by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

Copyright © 2019 by Janet Elizabeth Henderson. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

The mission was simple.

All Mace Armstrong had to do was get into a press conference being held in one of the most secure research facilities in the world, bug the scientist in charge of their bioengineering team, and then walk out the door.

As an ex-Army Ranger, he could do it with his eyes closed—once he’d managed to get into the building in the first place, that is.

He just didn’t want to do it.

“Tell me again why this is our problem?” he grumbled into the mic hidden in the lapel of his bespoke suit.

“Because of it bein’ the right thing to do, mon ami,” his team leader’s Cajun drawl sounded in Mace’s ear. As usual, Luke “Striker” Boudreaux was laid-back and unbothered by Mace’s complaints. It’s what made him a great leader and a pain in the ass as a best friend.

“Why is this our problem?” An outraged voice filled his ear as Striker’s wife, Friday Boudreaux, added her unwelcome ten cents to the conversation. “People will die if that microchip is implanted in their heads. We can’t let CommTECH release a faulty chip. No decent person could.”

“Who said I was decent?” Mace asked.

“He is so infuriating,” Friday huffed to her husband.

“It’s his main skill.”

Mace snorted as he walked up the front steps of one of Houston’s premier nightclubs. The club where his target was currently located—the woman who could get him into CommTECH’s research facility so he could get this job over with and get on with his weird, displaced life.

But first, he couldn’t resist another poke at Friday. She was just too damn easy to wind up, and if he was going to suffer through this job, so was she. After all, it’d been her idea.

“This isn’t our world,” Mace said, “and this datachip isn’t our problem. To everyone outside of our team, we died a hundred years ago protecting a country that no longer exists. We don’t owe our allegiance to anyone. It’s time we focused on protecting ourselves, not a territory that couldn’t care less about who it kills. If CommTECH gets their hands on us, it’s game over. They’ll slice and dice us and sell what they find to the highest bidder. That’s a big risk to take to stop a bunch of people from dying because they’ve got to have the latest gadget installed in their brains.”

“It’s everyone’s responsibility to stand up for what’s right,” Friday said. “If we don’t do something, the loss of life will be as much on us as it is on CommTECH.”

Mace snorted. “Or maybe that’s just guilt talking. You were one of CommTECH’s pet scientists up until a couple of months ago. Who knows what the company did with your work when you weren’t looking? Maybe you’re just trying to make amends for past ignorance and dragging us all along with you?”

“How can you be so hard-hearted?” Friday demanded.

Striker answered before Mace could wind her up further. “He’s messin’ with you. Don’t pay him no nevermind. He gets off on it.”

“Asshole,” Mace grumbled.

“You’re welcome,” Striker said, sounding amused as usual. “Just do your job and find the press secretary. If she doesn’t add you to the list of reporters, this mission won’t happen anyway, and your whining will be wasted.”

Which was all right with Mace.

“And people will die,” Friday just had to add. “Millions of people.”

She was like a bug in his ear. Stuck there, buzzing away, irritating the hell out of him.

“I don’t like blackmailing innocent women.”

And there was the crux of the matter. He was the first to admit he was a bastard, but even he had lines he didn’t like to cross.

“Keiko Sato isn’t innocent,” Friday said. “She runs CommTECH’s publicity machine, which means she must know there are problems with their latest tech.”

Mace wasn’t so sure about that. CommTECH’s CEO was pretty good about keeping things to herself. Otherwise, half the world would know she was screwing them for power and profit. He didn’t see why her press secretary should be any different.

He shook his head. So many things had changed while he and the team had been asleep…or whatever you want to call passing out for a century.

After years of big business influencing governments from behind the scenes, they decided to get rid of the middleman. Now, instead of elected officials, CommTECH, the most successful company to emerge from the chaos, ruled the former U.S. and Canada. The Northern Territory, it was called, a nation of people obsessed with getting the latest tech implanted in their bodies.

Mace didn’t understand those people at all.

He’d heard the arguments for implants at the start of the Technology War, a hundred years earlier. Imagine a world where you can send an email or a text with nothing more than a thought? Restock your fridge with a blink of your eye? You’ll never miss out on the latest news because it will be streamed straight into your head!

Yeah, it’d sounded like hell to him then, and it still did. And just like then, he was fighting for a cause he didn’t support. Then, it had been the U.S. government and their desire to see everyone implanted. Now, it was his team wanting to make sure that the fools who implanted the tech were safe when they did it.

“I miss being an American,” Mace grumbled as he held up his hand to the scanner at the entrance to the nightclub.

“What is he talking about now?” Friday said to Striker.

“Just go with the flow, bébé, just go with the flow,” Striker advised.

The datachip hidden in the sleeve of Mace’s suit was his ticket into the nightclub. Thankfully, the machine wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t under his skin where it should have been.

Unlike everyone else in the Northern Territory, no one on Red Team had tech implanted in their bodies. Which meant they couldn’t communicate with the computers around them with just a thought, couldn’t read the data on everyone in the building on a contact lens inserted in their eye, and couldn’t wave their hand to enter buildings or pay for things.

But for this mission, Mace had datachips stashed in his clothing in order to fool people into thinking he had implants. A lack of tech would have set off all sorts of alarm bells, which would make going undercover pretty damn hard.

The green light flashed, allowing Mace into the building, uploading his cover story to the nightclub’s database as he passed through the door. The club now knew him to be an entrepreneur in town for the night and out for some fun. They also knew his marital status, his drink preference, and any criminal history he might have. Which he didn’t, because the Red Team tech guy knew how to build a cover.

“The target’s on the fourth floor,” Striker said in his ear, reminding Mace that they’d already hacked into the club’s information system, which meant they could keep track of everyone inside.

“Copy that,” he muttered before following the gently sloping ramp that wound around the central atrium up into the heart of the building.

According to the nightclub’s promo, its design was based on the Guggenheim Museum in New York. People could stand on the ramp, lean over the railing, and watch everything happening on the floors beneath them. It was nirvana for voyeurs and exhibitionists alike.

“This would make the perfect sex club,” he said.

“Mace!” Friday reprimanded, making him swallow a grin.

Lights flashed in the darkness, mirroring the rhythm of the beat. On the walls, a never-ending cycle of images played—photos taken by people in the club, shown in real time as they appeared on the web, interspersed with footage of the long-dead artists whose music played throughout the building. Mace shook his head at the sight of a holographic Elvis gyrating in midair. Above him, in the apex of the atrium, silver fireworks detonated, and a shower of sparkles floated down to the ground floor, fading to nothing before they hit the dancers. The place was bursting with bored, plastic people, looking to lose themselves in the latest high or riskiest assignation.

He was an alien among them.

As he prowled up the ramp leading to the floors above, a path cleared for him. As it usually did. At six and a half feet tall, with a face that’d seen battle, he found most people swallowed hard and got out of his way.

With a casual wave of his hand, he dismissed any servers brave enough to approach him. Each one was dressed head to toe in their standard, fiber-optic-infused white uniforms, with ever-changing messages flashing over body parts, enticing patrons to try new drinks or take advantage of special offers. They were walking billboards for the club, background noise in a place packed with wealthy businesspeople and celebrities.

The crowd thrummed. Bodies rubbed against each other in time to the eighties synthetic pop that permeated one of the floors he passed through. The noise, passing as music, reminded Mace he was glad he’d been born late enough to miss the eighties the first time around.

As he hit the fourth floor, Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” began to play, and a transparent image of the singer danced above the crowd.

“I love this song,” a woman beside him squealed.

“I don’t understand why you like this old music,” her friend complained but let herself get dragged onto the dance floor.

“This place makes me feel ancient,” he said to his team leader.

“We are ancient, mon ami,” Striker said.

“You aren’t old,” Friday said. “You’re just…displaced.”

Mace hated to agree with his nemesis, but that about summed it up. “I’m wishing the target hadn’t picked a nightclub that markets nostalgia. Some of these music styles should have stayed dead.”

“Tell me about it,” Striker agreed.

“The target is coming out of the restrooms,” Friday informed them, obviously eager to get everyone back on track. “She’s with one of the CommTECH scientists. It looks like they’re having a girls’ night out. I’ve never had one of those.” She sounded almost wistful.

“One day, bébé.” Striker purred the words, making Mace roll his eyes.

“If I hear you two making out, I’m gonna vomit,” he said.

“Just locate our target and let’s get this over with,” Striker said. “She’s wearing red. And she’s shorter than you, so don’t forget to look down.”

“Everybody’s shorter than Mace.” Friday sounded confused.

“That’s the joke,” Striker said.

“And, no matter how many times I hear it, it still isn’t funny,” Mace grumbled.

“Remember, she has a thing for Vikings,” Friday needlessly added. “Play up the fact you look the part.”

Unlike her, he wasn’t new to this game. “I know,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was there when we went over this.”

“And you have to smile so you don’t scare her off,” Friday carried on, oblivious to the fact she was pissing him off—as usual. “Or maybe it’s better if you don’t smile. That can be scary, too. Just focus on trying not to say anything stupid.” She paused. “Maybe he shouldn’t talk at all,” she said to her husband.

Mace growled as his team leader laughed. He’d deal with them later. Right now, he had an innocent woman to entrap. One who’d spent her whole life in the sheltered corporate world. He’d seen videos of her talking to the press. She was tiny, delicate, fragile. The kind of woman who’d burst into tears at the sight of him and make him feel like a monster.

But then, that’s exactly what he was now—a genetic freak. A monster.

When a flash of red caught his eye, he turned his head to follow it. And everything within him stood to attention. Keiko Sato was even more alluring than the video images had conveyed. From her hip-skimming, cherry-black hair to her petite curves, she oozed sensuality.

But as she turned her oval face toward him and her large, dark eyes crinkled with laughter at something her friend said, it wasn’t her beauty that made him stumble and his palms begin to sweat. It was the voice that whispered in his mind at the sight of her. A voice he hadn’t heard before that moment.

A voice that wasn’t his but belonged to the other half of his mutated DNA.

The animal that lived within him.

And it said, Mine.