Enders by Lissa Price Read Free Book Online Page B

and pressed a button. After talking into the speaker, he came back.
    “Okay,” Hyden said. “You can get out now.”
    He watched over me as I exited the SUV, then led me to a thick metal door and pressed some numbers on a pad on the wall. An elevator door slid open with a heavy grinding sound, like a sliding stone revealing a portal to a magic lair.
    As we rode down, the air grew colder, making me more alert. I wasn’t particularly claustrophobic, but the idea of going so far below ground level seemed wrong. Unnatural.
    Hyden must have read my face, because he gave me a small reassuring smile.
    The elevator door opened up to a corridor. From there, Hyden opened a metal door that led to a large, darkened tech lab. Small lights illuminated various spots, giving the space the effect of a museum exhibit. Airscreens dominated every corner, and strange components filled the room, some hanging from the ceiling—twisted bits of metal, thin, glistening strands of poly-tubing with colored specks moving through them. When I examined them more closely, I saw that the specks were tiny geometric shapes with moving parts. It was geek heaven.
    Across the room, hunched over a desk, a man with long, wild white hair kept his back to us as we approached. Could it …? Could it be him?
    “I brought someone,” Hyden said to him.
    The Ender turned around. Even in the darkened space, I recognized him.
    “Redmond!” I shouted.
    I rushed up and hugged him. No sooner had I done it than I felt the awkwardness of it. He was an Ender who wasn’t even related to me, and I felt more for him than I was sure he felt for me. Embracing him just made me ache for my father. I pulled away.
    “Callie,” he said with his clipped British accent. “That’s a much better greeting than the last time, when you held a gun to my head.”
    I felt my cheeks redden.
    “No hard feelings,” he said.
    “I thought the Old Man had you captive,” I said.
    Redmond looked at Hyden. “Hyden came to me, explained what he was doing, and I signed up. The paycheck is rather good, and I can’t say I mind working for a genius.”
    Hyden shrugged in a halfhearted attempt at humility.
    “But if the Old Man didn’t take you, who burned down your lab?” I asked Redmond.
    “I did,” Redmond said. “We didn’t want to leave anything behind.”
    I thought about the safe where he had indeed left something for me—the special key drive that detailed how he had adapted my chip. I didn’t know if he’d ever told Hyden about it, but there was no reason to bring it up. It was more of a backup in case anything happened to Redmond. And he was fine.
    “So you’ve been working together. What can you do now?” I asked. “You can’t remove the chip?” Even though Hyden had already told me, I had to ask.
    He shook his head. “No. I haven’t made much progress there.”
    I knew he was going to say that. But the chance that we could get it out of me and Michael and my brother …
    Suddenly I remembered Hyden saying something about the chip and my brother before I fell asleep. I turned to face him.
    “What was that you said about everyone going to the cabin? My brother, Michael, Eugenia?”
    “Ernie, my bodyguard, made sure they got there safely,” Hyden said.
    “They’re safer there, at that altitude,” Redmond said. “He can’t access a chip there that he can’t identify.”
    Redmond’s level of comfort with this plan reassured me … somewhat.
    “Like the way they say phone reception used to be?” I asked.
    “Very much so,” Redmond said.
    “There was no time to discuss it with you,” Hyden said. “Once I saw that my father could blow up the chips, I had to move to protect your family.”
    My brother. So far away in the mountains. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
    “I know. I’m really sorry about that. But I’ve rigged up something for you.” Hyden brought me over to an airscreen. “We can’t risk this again—the fewer signal links, the