Outliers: 'Your Next Dystopian Addiction' (The Transient Series Book 2) Read online

  OUTLIERS

  Book Two: Episodes 1 - 4

  K.M. Hill

  Copyright © K & M Hill, 2017.

  The right of K.M. Hill to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  TRANSIENT SERIES

  BOOK ONE - TRANSIENT

  #1 THE CRYPTOGRAPH

  #2 TRANSIENT

  #3 TETRAD

  #4 THE CELL

  BOOK TWO - OUTLIERS

  #1 FLIGHT

  #2 LIFELONG

  #3 REPENTANCE

  #4 OUTLIERS

  BOOK THREE - SOURCE

  #1 DOOMSDAY

  #2 FALLOUT

  #3 CONUNDRUM

  #4 SOURCE

  Contents

  NOTE

  FLIGHT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  LIFELONG

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  REPENTANCE

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  OUTLIERS

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Also by K.M. Hill

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  NOTE

  This book was written, produced and edited in the UK, where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.

  FLIGHT

  One

  Rae could hear pounding footsteps echoing behind her. With every step she took, she was certain she could hear booted feet behind her own, drawing closer with every passing second.

  Please no, not when we're this close…

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when Drew grabbed her arm.

  “This way,” he said breathlessly, pulling her through an alley.

  She followed close on his heels, twisting through a maze of back streets. They ducked behind dumpsters and hid around corners whenever the distant sound of an engine filtered down the street.

  Rae's heart was pounding with adrenaline and panic; she had a dull ache in her side, and she was sure her feet were a mess of blisters and blood.

  It felt like they'd been running for hours, first to escape the grounds where the OBK lab stood in San Francisco, and then through the city streets, and across the Golden Bridge, ducking and hiding and trying desperately to make it to safety before dawn.

  Running, running, running…

  She had no idea what time it was, though judging by the sky overhead there were still a few hours to go until dawn broke.

  Her wristwatch was gone, along with her clothes and all other personal effects she'd had when she'd been captured: wallet, photos of her family, phone, a bracelet Jenny had given her in seventh grade.

  They were all in a plastic bag or an evidence file somewhere in the OBK lab. She had only the clothes and sneakers they'd given her to wear during her time in captivity.

  Drew was wearing the same thing.

  There was no way they could hide once daytime broke and people started filling the streets; they had to get into hiding before then.

  If no one recognized them from their pictures on the news, then they would surely know something was wrong when they saw the prison-style clothing.

  Drew knew a safe house where they could hide while they figured out their next move; Rae hoped there were clothes there.

  He was leading her through the twisting streets, past businesses with metal bars over the windows, and flickering signs advertising pawn shops and hotels that let you pay by the hour.

  Finally he stopped, looking around quickly to see if anyone noticed them. They were in a deserted alley; a short flight of stairs behind a railing led down to a low door, set below street level.

  It led into the basement of what appeared to be an abandoned building. He jogged down the steps and punched a code into the keypad on the door. It opened with a harsh metallic click.

  He waved Rae down the stairs, and she followed quickly, ducking into the gloom of the basement and shutting the door on the outside world.

  Inside it was pitch dark, and Rae could hear Drew rummaging around. There was a low “ow” as he bumped into something, and then the sound of a match striking and fizzling on a wick.

  Then he held up a large candle, now lit, and slowly Rae could see their surroundings take shape.

  The basement was small, and at first glance appeared to be full of random junk: metal signs, old television sets, racks of vintage-type clothes wreathed in plastic, boxes and boxes full of video tapes and old vinyl records.

  There was furniture too, draped in sheets and piled in places rather haphazardly.

  Rae picked her way cautiously through the mess.

  “Where are we?” she asked, inching closer to Drew.

  “We're safe,” he replied, shielding the candle flame with one hand. “C'mon, this is just the storage space for the pawn shop upstairs. There's another room down here. We can hide there.”

  They slipped past the dusty items in the storage room and Drew set the flickering candle down on a table.

  He slid a couple of the rolling racks of plastic-wrapped clothes out of the way to reveal a door in the wall. Picking up the candle again he led Rae into what appeared to be a small apartment.

  It didn't take long to explore. There was a tiny room with a couch, a couple of chairs, and a low table with a small TV on it; along one wall was a long narrow table with several laptops and spare computer parts.

  Along the other wall was a table with a small microwave, some plastic dishes, and a few foodstuffs like ramen noodles, granola bars and bottled water. A door led off into another room with several cots, clearly ready for people who needed a place to sleep.

  There was a tiny bathroom as well. All of the windows h
ad heavy fabric draped across them, blocking out any view of the street and concealing any light from inside.

  Now off the streets of the city and in relative safety for the time being, Rae was beginning to realize that she was freezing.

  I’m going to escape OBK just to die of hypothermia.

  Drew noticed her shaking and said, “You should take a hot shower to warm up. There's a wardrobe in the other room with some clothes in it; there should be something that fits.”

  “O-okay.” Rae’s teeth were chattering. She moved away from him and into the room with the cots.

  An old wardrobe was tucked into one corner; inside she found jeans that were close enough to fitting, a long-sleeved shirt and a hoodie, clean socks, and a pair of boots.

  She pulled soap and a towel from the top shelf of the wardrobe and went into the tiny bathroom, flicking on the light and turning the shower onto the hottest setting she could stand.

  She stood in the hot stream of water until her skin was pink and she'd stopped shivering, then toweled off and dressed. The jeans were a little too long and she had to roll up the cuffs to keep from stepping on them as she walked.

  In the main room of their tiny underground safe house she found Drew busily pecking away at one of the laptops. He looked up at her as she came in.

  “Feel better?”

  “Much better.” She ran a hand over the back of one of the chairs, looking around the room. It wasn't much bigger than her bedroom at her house.

  She thought with a pang of Mom, Dad and Carl, sitting at home and wondering what had happened to their daughter.

  What would she tell them when she went back?

  What if I never go back?

  Drew seemed to be reading her thoughts, or else he was thinking something similar, because he closed the laptop and cleared his throat.

  “We'll have to lie low for a while. Try to figure out what to do next. We can't risk contacting anyone and alerting OBK or the government to our location.”

  Rae nodded mutely. He stood up, stepped closer and raised a hand, as though wanting to brush the hair back from her face, then dropped it awkwardly.

  The silence between them was strained.

  “I'm, uh, I'm going to shower and change. You should eat something.”

  He brushed past her, and Rae sank slowly down onto the sofa. Another time she would have told ‘Apollo’ to quit giving her so many orders; maybe she would have teased him a little even, saying You're not the boss of me...but right now she didn't feel like joking.

  She felt like she had a rock in her stomach, the byproduct of months' worth of tension and several weeks’ worth of poking and prodding in the OBK labs.

  She lay back on the sofa and listened to the shower running. She wondered about Danielle, Halldor and Benny, if they were dead or alive.

  The adrenaline rush from their escape efforts was draining away now, and Rae was starting to feel heavy, pulled down with the weight of fear, panic and fatigue.

  She thought that she should get up and find something to eat, but even the thought of doing so made her more tired, and she slowly slipped off to sleep.

  Two

  Rae woke with a start. For a disoriented moment she wasn't sure where she was or what was going on.

  Then she remembered the labs, the frantic flight through the city, and slipping into the seemingly abandoned basement of the pawn shop on the other side of the Bay.

  All of these memories and more slammed into her brain in an instant, and she sat up like a jack-in-the-box, grabbing the back of the couch for support.

  Drew was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear the gentle sound of snoring coming from the other room. Getting up, she padded quietly to the doorway to peek in to the bedroom. He was sprawled on one of the cots, half covered by a blanket, one arm thrown over his face. He seemed to be sleeping soundly, and Rae turned away, unsure of what to do with herself.

  She decided to start by making a meager meal out of ramen noodles and some Pop-Tarts, washing it down with bottled water. She washed her dishes carefully in the bathroom sink, patting them dry with a clean towel and returning them to the table in the main room.

  After that she tidied up a bit, washing her face and combing the knots out of her hair. Next she folded up the OBK stuff and stowed the clothes in a plastic garbage bag along with their lab-issued sneakers; these would have to be disposed of sometime soon, though she wasn't sure how.

  All of this took her far less time than she'd hoped, and she returned to the sofa to sit and wait.

  Wait for what? she thought. She'd never been the planner, the organizer, the leader; that was Apollo.

  While he was sleeping, she had nothing else to do but wait and hope that he had a plan.

  There was nothing to read and nothing on TV, and after a while Rae found herself nodding off again. When she woke up she heard the quiet tapping of a keyboard, and sat up to see Drew at the row of laptops.

  He heard her stirring and turned with a small smile as she sat up.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.”

  “Hey, yourself.” Rae stood and stretched. She was conscious of Drew's gaze on her and flushed a little, zipping up her hoodie and tucking her hair behind her ears.

  The mood in the room was still tense, and to distract herself she stepped over to the computer table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just checking up on the outside world,” he said, indicating the open laptops in front of him. He was looking over several different websites, checking news reports for any announcement on their escape. So far there was nothing.

  “Is that safe?” Rae wondered, and he nodded.

  “I'm running everything heavily encrypted and pulled through an onion—er, that means it's bouncing through several different server points around the world--”

  Rae nodded, pretending she understood, while he continued explaining. In truth she partially understood his hacker-speak from the last few months as Apollo, but somehow she didn't really care right now.

  It all seemed pointless until they knew how their escape had impacted OBK.

  She dragged a second chair over to the computer table and sat nearer to him.

  “Do you think OBK will release a news story about it?” she asked, not bothering to say “about our escape”. They both knew exactly what she was talking about.

  Drew looked uncertain. Most of the time he was so confident and self-assured, that it made Rae a little frightened to see him at a loss now.

  “I don't know. On the one hand, they could ask for the public's help in recapturing us. On the other hand, they might not want to admit that we got away. It could look really bad for them.”

  “So what do we do for now?”

  “I guess we just have to lie low and ride it out. Wait until we hear something, and try to come up with a plan.”

  “That's it?” Rae felt disappointed, and a little angry. “We're just supposed to sit here, doing what? Waiting to die?”

  “Not waiting to die,” Drew said firmly. “We'll think of something, you and I together. Okay? We just have to put our heads together. And we have to be patient.”

  Three

  They didn't have to wait for long to find out how OBK would handle a news broadcast of their escape.

  That evening at five o'clock, every news channel in the city carried a feature story of ‘breaking news’ about the escape from OBK headquarters of a small group of suspected suicide terrorists.

  “What?!” Rae exclaimed in horror, as the feature headline rolled across the TV screen. She and Drew sat crowded together on the sofa, watching the screen as the news anchor very seriously read out the story. She felt sick to her stomach.

  The camera cut away from the news desk to a press conference held earlier that day at the OBK lab. Doctor Lakeb and Doctor Oberkampf were there, along with several members of the FBI and other government branches, to give the announcement.

  An OBK spokesperson whose name Rae didn't catch was speaking to the c
rowd of reporters, all of whom were straining to get their cameras and microphones closer to the stage.

  “Last night members of a terrorist cell known as the Tetrad escaped from custody at the OBK lab. They were being held there under the joint supervision of the federal government and OBK for purposes of monitoring leading up to their projected Date of Death. It came to our attention some time ago that this group of individuals shared a unique DOD and in conjunction with anti-terrorism experts at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, we came to the conclusion that it was in the best interests of national security to apprehend these individuals and isolate them for further study.

  “As I'm sure you're all aware, since our ground-breaking research on telomeres it's become possible to isolate potential acts of terrorism, natural disasters, disease outbreaks or other major incidents based on clusters of corresponding Date of Death readings from a given group of individuals. After learning that this group of young people known now as 'the Tetrad' had corresponding DODs, we realized that we were potentially looking at a suicide terrorist cell.”