Extinction Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

had to make sure you were clear of the virus first, and we weren’t allowed in
to talk to you.’
    Who are ‘they’?
I wondered. ‘Go on then.’
    ‘Everyone here works for an organization that calls itself the Authority. I’m in charge of something called a Pathfinder team. In order to explain who we are and what we do, we need
to go on that trip.’
    I nodded towards the window. ‘Where are we, exactly?’
    ‘Easter Island, a couple of thousand kilometres west of Chile. So if you were thinking of running away again, believe me – there is, quite literally, nowhere to run.’
    ‘So we’re still on Earth?’
    I saw a flicker of a smile. ‘You thought you were on some other planet, maybe, when you saw the moon’s face?’
    ‘It crossed my mind,’ I said, chewing my toast, ‘except it doesn’t make sense that some alien planet would have the exact – well,
almost
the same exact
moon as us.’
    Her mouth broadened into a grin. ‘It doesn’t, does it? But it would all make more sense if I just showed you, instead of telling you everything.’ She nodded at the remains of
my breakfast. ‘Just about done?’
    I took a last gulp of instant coffee before putting the tray down. ‘All done.’
    She handed me the plastic bag, and I found it contained a pair of black jeans, a grey T-shirt, leather boots, socks, and a pair of shrink-wrapped boxers. She stepped over to the corner of the
room and stared into space while I quickly got dressed.
    I was then led back outside, and into the beginnings of a sunny morning. A few soldiers strolled past the barracks from where I had stolen a jeep the previous evening, and I stiffened when they
glanced our way, but they merely bent their heads towards each other and muttered some exchange as they continued past us. Nadia meanwhile climbed in behind the wheel of one of the parked jeeps and
gestured at me to get in.
    ‘And that’s it?’ I asked, climbing in beside her. ‘Just like that, I’m a free man?’
    ‘When you see what I’m going to show you,’ she said, ‘you might understand us a little better. If we’d just told you everything at the start, before you saw that
moon, you’d have assumed we were lying, that we were really your Red Harvest cult, trying to twist your mind. But what you’re about to learn is still going to be a shock, Jerry. I want
you to be prepared for that.’
    I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘All right then. Where are we going, exactly?’
    ‘Not far,’ she replied. ‘In fact, we’ll be there in less than two minutes.’
    The engine throttled into life, and we drove deeper inside the fenced-off compound within which the hospital and barracks sat. The compound covered about a square mile, and also contained a
training ground, several warehouses, a couple of prefab one-storey buildings and the big hangar, outside which a number of trucks were parked. Next to these were two bulbous, silvery vehicles, like
props from a science fiction movie, which hadn’t been there the last time I had been outside.
    Nadia pulled up next to the doors of the hangar and we got out. I tensed as the same Asian man who had shot me twice emerged from just inside the entrance. He was clearly waiting for us. Nadia
jumped out and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You two met already, I think?’
    The Asian man chuckled and stepped towards me, one hand extended and a wary but friendly look on his face. ‘No hard feelings, right?’ he said. ‘It wasn’t personal or
anything. Just following orders. My name’s Yuichi.’ His accent sounded West Coast, possibly from California. ‘We just didn’t want you to hurt yourself, the way you were
charging around the place.’
    ‘When?’ I challenged him. ‘The first time you shot me, or the second?’
    ‘Whoa, there,’ he said, leaning back from me with a grin that was only slightly fixed in place. ‘Okay, sorry on both counts, then. I did try and tell you we were there to
rescue