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  DANGER’S

  RACE

  A HOLLY DANGER NOVEL:

  BOOK THREE

  AMANDA CARLSON

  Time is running out…

  After defeating the uprising, and becoming infected with a dose of Plush, Holly is in a race to help a seeker before it’s too late. Going South is the only option. But getting there is going to prove difficult, which is why Lockland has entrusted Daze with a secret weapon.

  A pulse storm, overzealous militia, and uncooperative siblings are only a few of the obstacles standing in their way. Once they arrive on the coast, the prospect of finding the supplies they need dwindles. But what they uncover may be far richer. A way to move the remaining survivors forward.

  But the people of the town don’t see it that way. They want to protect what’s theirs. With the militia closing in, they do the only thing they have left to do, fight.

  Danger’s Race

  A HOLLY DANGER NOVEL: BOOK THREE

  Copyright © 2017 Amanda Carlson, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-944431-04-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  DANGER’S RACE

  About the Book

  Copyright

  Other Books by Amanda Carlson

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Sneak Peek of DANGER’S CURE

  About the Author

  Many Thanks

  Other Books by Amanda Carlson

  Find all of Amanda’s books on her website.

  Jessica McClain Series:

  Urban Fantasy

  BLOODED

  FULL BLOODED

  HOT BLOODED

  COLD BLOODED

  RED BLOODED

  PURE BLOODED

  BLUE BLOODED

  Sin City Collectors:

  Paranormal Romance

  ACES WILD

  ANTE UP

  ALL IN

  Phoebe Meadows:

  Contemporary Fantasy

  STRUCK

  FREED

  EXILED

  Holly Danger:

  Futuristic Dystopian

  DANGER’S HALO

  DANGER’S VICE

  DANGER’S RACE

  DANGER’S CURE

  DANGER’S HUNT

  For Paige. May every adventure be just as exciting as the last.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Can we trust this Ned guy?” Bender asked, his voice expressing more than a little grumble. It was just after dawn, and an early riser he wasn’t. But the timing couldn’t be helped. We were gathered in his shop, the communal place for most of our meetings, to discuss our new mission. We were each taking off in separate directions to find key ingredients Darby needed to concoct a cure for Plush, the pharma-psychotic drug that permanently altered the DNA of users, turning them into mindless pleasure seekers. We would be venturing to places we’d never been, as what Darby needed wasn’t available in the city. It was daunting, but we were up for it.

  Success was the best—and likely only—chance we had to help Mary, an innocent woman who’d been caught up in the dangerous games of zealots and outskirts in this dark city.

  Mary was only one among thousands of seekers who needed our help. But starting with her made sense, as she’d been recently infected and had a high chance of pulling through with no lasting effects.

  I stood with my back against the wall, arms crossed. Daze sat in a chair, fiddling with a gadget he’d found on one of the worktables. Lockland had his shoulder braced against the cooling unit, and Bender was situated on his regular stool, a jug of aminos gripped in his fist.

  Case stood off to the side, near the hallway we’d just come through. It was strange to have him here, but since he was my partner on this journey, it was necessary.

  Darby was back at the Emporium with Ned, the person we were currently discussing, trying to finalize everything so when we arrived back with all the necessary ingredients—hopefully within a few days—he could put the cure together.

  “All I can go by is our history together,” I told the group. “When I first met Ned, he wanted to make a deal. He wasn’t in Hutch’s group by choice. Then, two days ago, the day we sent Cozzi off, he took me to Dill’s residence and we scoured the place. It was a dump. I’m pretty sure the cockroaches still scurrying around the city have better accommodations. Dill, it seems, was a fairly new recruit to the group and not in the know. Ned was friends with Mary before she was infected and wants to help.” I shrugged. “He’s agreed to protect Darby and take care of Mary while we’re gone. Claire can’t get away, and the rest of us are taking off to places unknown. He’s trustworthy enough, but I’ll go with whatever we decide. He’ll walk without issue if we tell him to.”

  “Ned can stay,” Lockland said, shoving off from the cooling unit as he reached into his pocket, withdrawing a small box. “Having somebody look after Mary sounds like a good idea to me.” He walked over and placed the item into my now outstretched hand.

  “What’s this?” I asked as I popped the top off, leaning over to examine it, not believing my eyes. Inside the box, nestled in a piece of soft cloth, sat a very rare status reader. “No way,” I exclaimed. “Where did you find this?”

  I knew what it was by its shape and color alone. A small white oval made of semigloss polymer. These had been fairly common before the dark days. It had a flat section on the bottom so it could rest on a counter or desktop, which had been the preferred location. They were purported to relay time, temperature, atmospheric readings, and could even detect human matter, all upon request.

  People called them “status eggs” for short. I had only a picture to go on, but it did look remarkably like an egg.

  Daze hustled to my side, intrigued by what I held in my hand. He made a move to touch it, but I shook my head. “There’s a reason it’s in this box with the cloth,” I told him. “The organic matter on your fingers could contaminate the sensors. It uses NeuDAR technology to take readings.” NueDAR was short for neutrino detection and ranging. According to the historical data, the egg sent out neutrinos to do all its detecting. Neutrinos could pass through metal, rock, human bodies, anything. The detector was capable of reading individual atoms when they were struck by a neutrino. “When they were first made, they had some sort of coating on them, but who knows if it’s worn off or not? Let’s not take any chances.” I glanced at Lockland. “Does the voice activation work, or is this one manual only?” It had a switch tucked inside the flat bottom that would display the basic settings on the top of the shell.

  Voice act
ivation, as a whole, hadn’t held up over the years. The software used to be linked to the central All Voice Database, which was lost, and very few gadgets had their own onboard voice-data systems.

  Lockland arched a cagey eyebrow at me. “Give it a try. To power it up, say, ‘Reader on.’”

  I’d lowered the box in front of Daze. “Go ahead, you try first.”

  “What should I ask it to do?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Ask it what the temperature is or how many of us are in the room.”

  “Okay.” Daze licked his lips like he was readying for a long, important oration. I grinned as he cleared his throat and, in a voice several decibels lower than his natural speaking voice, commanded, “Reader on.”

  Amazingly, the thing popped to life.

  An array of colored lights dotted the surface, tiny pinpricks of multicolored brightness blinking faster than I could track.

  Everybody gathered around to see this rare piece of technology actually work, including Case.

  “Who needs to know the temperature?” Bender grumbled. “It’s always cold and rainy. End of story.” His attitude belied the fact that his eyes were riveted on the thing, just like everybody else’s.

  Several low beeps issued out as the lights jumped around on the surface before solidifying into two glowing green numerals. The number fifteen flashed twice, followed by a soft, fluid female voice. “The temperature is fifteen degrees Celsius. The barometer is dropping rapidly. Expect rain.”

  She’d answered Bender’s question—which hadn’t really been a question—with a real answer. It was nothing short of amazing, and we all gaped.

  “Expect?” Bender snorted. “How about it’s raining now?”

  “Stop spoiling the fun, fun-spoiler,” I told him as I nudged Daze. “Go ahead, ask her something else.”

  “Um,” Daze hedged. Then, in the same low, comical baritone, he asked, his lips only centimeters from the thing, “How many people are in the room?”

  The egg’s lights zoomed around on the surface, shooting off a kaleidoscope of lasers. Several beeps sounded, and the number five flashed. After a second, the woman’s voice, which was extremely polished and perfect, which itself was slightly unsettling, flowed out. “I detect five humans within two meters, nine humans within twenty meters, and thirty-four humans, and several invertebrates, within one hundred meters.”

  Holy shit.

  This was by far the most technically advanced gadget I’d ever been in contact with in my life. This egg was top-of-the-line NewGen stuff—the kind of thing that had been extremely common in a world clogged with technology and innovation, but hadn’t survived the chaos of the last sixty years because it was too fragile, the systems too intricate, the tech too advanced.

  My eyes sought Lockland’s. “Did you know it could do that?” My tone was hushed, because hell, this deserved a little reverence. “Is one hundred meters the max it can go?”

  “I’ve played around with it a bit,” he said, his tone matching mine, the ode to technology noted. “It seems one hundred meters is as far as it can detect. But this is a military-grade status reader, which means it contains tons of memory and was made to last. From what I’ve researched, it might have the ability to learn and adapt, as some of these readers had artificial intelligence installed, along with their massive internal database. Civilian status readers accessed the full Interwebs wirelessly, constantly combing for current data. The military needed everything on hand and adaptable in nonaccess events, so they came stocked.” He shrugged. “But I’m not sure. Like I said, I haven’t had much time to invest in it.”

  I stared at the thing in my palm.

  It was hard to believe something that small and innocuous could manage to contain information like that, but then again, the quantum drive was extremely tiny and held vast amounts of data. Technology before the dark days had been incredible. “Why are you bringing this out now?” I asked. “This is an unbelievable prize. Why give it up?”

  Lockland shrugged. “My destination is fairly close. I’m looking for a refinery that used to make clay. Darby is pretty sure it exists within two hundred kilometers of here. Your mission is much harder. We don’t even know if kelp grows in the sea anymore. Plus”—his gaze landed on Daze—“the kid grew up with a pico. I thought he might be able figure out what this thing is truly capable of, even better than I could.”

  I nudged Daze as I lowered the box into his hand. “What do you say? That’s pretty high praise. I agree with Lockland. You’re definitely smart enough to figure it out.”

  Daze took the egg from me like it was made of the rarest material on Earth, which it pretty much was. He glanced up, wide-eyed, and addressed Lockland. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to it, I promise.” He bowed his head to examine his new prize. “I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. I’ve heard of these before. My dad’s pico had lots of information. He was really smart.” His chest puffed out, as it always did when he spoke of his father. “I know some stuff.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” Lockland said. “We’re all going to be out of bandwidth frequency, so there’ll be no way to get a hold of each other. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. The status reader will help in your search and keep you safe.”

  “I’m sure it will,” I said, my heart doing one of those still-new-to-me clench-unclench thingies.

  The feeling was getting more familiar, but it was still strange. Lockland had given us this gift because he wanted to do everything in his power to ensure we survived. It was a sacrifice, since it would have helped him to stay safe as well.

  Bender strode over to a large duffel by the door and hefted it up over his shoulder. “If Darby is wrong about my destination, I’ll be back sooner than later. I’m on the hunt for zinc, and he’s pretty sure there’s some located not too far away. He seems to think he can find everything else he needs in the city. Once I get back, I’ll help him gather up the stuff.” Bender opened the door. That was our cue to leave. We followed him out into the hallway.

  Our crafts were parked on the roof, including Luce, which I was going to keep here for the time being. Nobody messed with Bender or his stuff, so she would be safe.

  Once on the roof, we made our way to our respective transports. “After we get back, dealing with Port Station will be our first priority,” I told the group. “I don’t know how many of Tandor’s or Hutch’s guys are left over—if any—but if they’re still in charge over there, we’re going to have to remedy that problem.” Dealing with Port Station at a later date wasn’t ideal, but Mary needed our help immediately. That came first.

  Lockland stood in front of his craft, a decent-looking M5 he called Rose, named for a flower none of us had ever seen bloom. Also, because she’d been red years ago, but had faded to a chalky pink. He kept threatening to recoat her, since we’d amassed cans of colored polycover over the years, but he never followed through. “I have a few contacts looking into the issue in Port Station,” Lockland said as he lofted his pilot door. “And Claire’s going to send some government people over to investigate under the pretense of making some kind of food trade to see what they can find.” Port Station’s protein-cake production was a step below ours, if that was even possible. I’d never tasted a single morsel and planned to keep it that way. “I’m optimistic it will be dealt with by the time we get back. According to what Ned said, since Hutch was terminated, any opposition should melt away.”

  “Fat chance,” Bender said, opening the door of his craft, which he’d named Sue, after his mother. Bender never talked about his family, so I had no details other than her first name. “That kinda shit never settles itself. We’re going to have to go in with guns blazing to set it to rights, like always.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “With no one in charge of Tandor’s original group, it might take care of itself. Those guys weren’t exactly smart, and if there are no clear leaders to step up, there’s a possibility the problem might go away
on its own.” I watched Case make his way over to Seven’s pilot-side door. “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, hurrying to catch up. “I’m flying.”

  He shook his head, peering at me from over the top of his craft. “Nope. I am.”

  “We agreed that this was my mission,” I argued. “Get it? My. Mission. And because I’m in charge, I fly.” I mean, it only made sense.

  “You two have fun working that out,” Bender called as he slammed his door. Lockland already had his props winding up.

  Case gave me another look over the roof. It was a mixture of exasperation and irritation. Get used to it, buddy. “We have a minimum of a six-and-a-half-hour flight before we reach my hometown,” he said. “I know exactly how to get there.”

  “And so does your craft,” I said, crossing my arms. “All I have to do is punch in the destination, and your data-recorded flight path takes us there.”

  “I have an idea,” Daze quipped from behind me, the status reader clutched protectively against his chest. “How about Case flies for the first three hours, and you fly for the next three hours? That way you can both avoid flight fatigue.”