3

Harper pulled the curling iron from her long dark hair and turned it off before placing it on her bathroom counter. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, trying to decide if she was satisfied with her look for the night. It had taken over an hour to curl her long thick, raven hair and another half hour before that to fix her makeup so that her dark eyes popped. She had just bought a new foundation that blended into her ivory complexion far more naturally than the last one.

Harper had chosen to wear her favourite dress, a short sleeveless number with countless horizontal pinstripes in various shades of blue. It made her short, slender form look curvier than she was. She slipped on her heels and heard her phone ring. She turned her hand over her palm up and pressed the pad of her thumb against her palm to access her holographic screen and frowned upon seeing Ivan’s caller ID. He had been calling all day, but she was not going to answer. She refused to give him the opportunity to lie to her again. She answered the call and immediately ended it without a word spoken from either side. She then tucked her lipstick into her purse and heard the doorbell. Her ride was here.

Harper left the house and locked the door on her way out. She walked over to the black luxury car with the tinted windows. The driver held open the rear door, and Harper got into the back seat. The driver closed the door, and that was when Harper realized she was not alone. She looked over questioningly at the young dark-haired beauty in the red dress seated next to her.

“Who are you?” Harper demanded. Suddenly the woman reached into her purse and took out a needle, and drove it into Harper’s neck. She pushed the plunger and then returned the used needle into her purse. “What the f-” the world got hazy, and Harper’s body went limp as she slumped back against the seat. She stared at the woman, unable to speak, and then the world faded away.

***

Phebe returned the used needle to her handbag and watched as the woman next to her succumbed to the effects of the sedative she had just injected her with. Dallas twisted in the driver’s seat and passed back the EMP device. It was a small handheld EMP charge that scrambled and wiped the information from the I-Chip clean. Phebe took the woman’s hand and ran the EMP over her palm, then pressed the button, erasing her I-Chip. She then handed the EMP back to Dallas, who handed her the programmer. Phebe held it over the woman’s palm and, in a second, had reprogramed the I-Chip with one of the many aliases that RHM had programmed.

While Phebe rewrote this woman’s history, Dallas drove them to a deserted area and then carried the woman from the backseat and on to one of the slave transports leaving the city. He carried her to the back of the bus and put her down, then leaned her against the window to make it look like she had fallen asleep. Phebe sat down with her, and Dallas took the seat behind them.

The other slaves on the bus were looking at them, confused by Dallas having carried an unconscious woman in a club dress onto the bus. They were all staring at him, and then Dallas lifted his hand and made a gesture to the other passengers that silently identified him as a member of the RHM. Everyone picked up on it quickly, but no one said anything. Dallas placed his finger to his lips, silently swearing the other passengers to secrecy. While the citizens of the new world considered the RHM a band of bloodthirsty criminals to the slave population, they were heroes. Defenders of the lower class and no one would say a word.

The bus drove to the gate as they waited to be waved through the bus stopped, and three soldiers in full tactical gear got on the bus. They walked down the aisle of the bus, scanning palms to account for every individual on the bus. On the outside, Phebe and Dallas were calm, but inside they were anxious. One soldier stopped and looked at the uncurious woman next to Phebe. “What is her problem?” He demanded.

Phebe smiled sweetly. “You know how it is. When you are an escort, you literally run yourself ragged. When you are finally off the clock, it would take a miracle some night to keep you awake,” she took the woman’s hand and lifted it, letting it drop, and Phebe giggled. “See dead to the world, a bomb could go off, and it would not wake her,” she then lifted the woman’s hand, and the soldier scanned her reprogrammed I-Chip and then moved on buying their lie.

Fifteen minutes later, the bus passed through the gates, and they were in the wasteland. They would take the bus to the nearest slave village, where a truck was waiting for them. Then they would drive to the bunker. In an hour, they would have her in front of Dimitri, and then they would put their plans in motion.