Olympus Drive Book 2: Nothing to See Here

Prologue

1

War

"You eating alone?"

"We're in a dining hall, Rhea," Anna Charles is prettiest woman anybody has ever met ever. She has big eyes, a small nose, perfect lips that make you want to kiss them except you can't be looking at them when you're kissing them. She's also married. That's okay. Looking at her and the way our stiff uniforms hang off her pretty shoulders is more than enough.

"So that's a yes, cool," I say, sitting down next to her. I've taken my blouse off it's so hot and I can see sweat already soaking my chest. There's something deeply untamed, and lazily violent about the desert. I like it here. Very much.

"Nothing is cool today. God I think I'll just die of heatstroke," she says, poking at her food. It's not great but I'm starving and will willingly take hers if she doesn't want it.

"Gotta be where the action is," I say, not at all complaining I don't tend to. I'm happy here. But somebody else isn't. I frown, wincing a little. No that is way too damn close.

"What's wrong?" Anna asks, noticing my change in demeanor.

"Get down," I say, standing up and pulling a knife from my pocket.

"What?"

"Everybody down," I hop onto the table just as the four armed gun men enter the dining hall. All with automatic weapons. A challenge.

They turn on each other instantly, as the rest of the soldiers are paralyzed with surprise. I leap across the table to hit the fire alarm to get everyone moving, that works. By that point my unsettled shooters are trying to remember who they wanted to fight. I'm the easiest target so they fire.

I leap into the air, flipping over the spray of bullets to hit the ground and roll. They don't remember why they're after me now and that doesn't much matter. I'd like a challenge. I hop up to throw my knife at the one while another shoots at me. I run and he hits the other gun man. My knife finds its home in the face of the first shooter. And it's just me and the last shooter. He shoots again and I dodge, hitting the ground just where the other shooter fell. I recover his gun. Nice he left me ammo.

We fire at each other in unison but I use the body of the one I took the gun from as a shield, and dispatch the last one of them.

I pant, looking around at the bloodstained floor, my head delightfully racing. That was good. They're going to want to question me for hours though and I hadn't started lunch. I don't dare go out or Security Forces will think I'm a shooter or something rotten. I go back over to my plate. If I'm going to spend the rest of the day answering questions and not getting to shoot at anything I want to do it on a full stomach.

2

Life

"There's something wrong," I say, kneeling down next to the small eel like animal, as it pants, trying to breath as black blood dribbles from its mouth. It's dark down here, always dark. I don't much mind usually, but right now I want to be able to see what's wrong with the little thing.

"Is it sick do you think?" Hector asks, kneeling next to me, adjusting the folds of his stiff black suit.

"No, someone hurt him, that's all he knows," I say, picking him up carefully.

"Who? None of them come to the surface anymore, by my command," Hector says.

"Just because you're their King doesn't mean they'll all listen," I point out.

"King's a bit strong, they don't all even respect me, but I thought I had pretty good control of this section," Hector says, shrugging and straightening back up. "Nobody's said anything about any night-creatures. And they typically complain I'm just saying."