The Abyss (The Island Book 3) Read online

  Copyright 2017 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle edition

  First published: July 2017

  “Wherever you go, war will follow. War and pain and death, for everyone around you.”

  When a boat comes ashore on the island, Iris discovers that its occupant is an important figure from the mainland. But why would anyone risk such a dangerous journey, and what does the mysterious stranger want with Asher?

  Soon, more new arrivals reach the island. Two opposing armies, each determined to get the upper hand, stake their positions on the beach. Before long, the future of the island itself is in doubt, as fighting breaks out and as the town of Steadfall is attacked. The armies are looking for Asher, but Asher has been dead for a decade. Or at least, that's what everybody is supposed to believe.

  Including her young daughter Nissa.

  The Abyss is the third book in the Island series, set in a dystopian future. The book ends on a cliffhanger, to be resolved in the fourth and final part of the series.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  The Abyss

  (The Island book 3)

  Chapter One

  Iris

  “There's a boat! There's a boat caught on the cable!”

  Opening my eyes, I sit up suddenly as I realize I can hear voices outside my hut. People are running, too, and a moment later a figure appears in the open doorway.

  “Iris!” Ripley says breathlessly. “I know this is gonna sound crazy, but people are saying there's a boat caught on the cable down by the beach!”

  Clambering out of bed, I make my way over to the doorway. Up until about five seconds ago, I was fast asleep, having finally managed to nod off after a restless night. Now it's dawn, but whereas usually everyone would be starting their tasks for the day, right now the whole settlement is a scene of chaos.

  “There's a boat!”

  Turning, I find that Carmichael has come over to me.

  “Iris, there's a boat at the beach, barely five miles from here. I saw it with my own eyes, it's caught on the cable. I don't know if anyone's onboard, but it's snagged somehow! What are we going to do?”

  “What do we do, Iris?” another voice asks.

  And then another.

  And another.

  Raising a hand for a moment, I set out across the clearing. There's chatter all around, and I know that right now people are going to be expecting me to make a decision. Even now, up ahead there's a small gaggle of residents gathering near the meeting point. I have ten, maybe fifteen steps to go before I reach them, and by that point they're going to expect me to come up with an answer. The problem is, so many of them interpret my constant silence for some kind of wisdom or thoughtfulness. Sometimes I just want to grab them and shake them, and remind them that I'm only silent because my tongue was cut out. I don't actually have any answers.

  “Iris?” another voice says suddenly. “What are we going to do?”

  Stopping, I realize that she's right behind me.

  “Iris? People are saying there's a boat. Is it true?”

  I hesitate for a moment, before turning and finding that Nissa is just a few feet away. She's wearing the new dress I sewed together for her just a couple of months ago, and her bare arms are covered as usual in stings from bushes she encountered during one of her hunting trips. She's only nine years old, but she already has lines under her eyes.

  Suddenly she holds her hands up and puts them together, before spreading them apart again.

  That's her way of asking what's going on, in the special language we developed a while ago.

  I shake my head.

  That's my way of telling her that I don't know.

  “It can't really be a boat, though, can it?” she continues. “A boat wouldn't be allowed this close to the island.”

  Again, I shake my head.

  “So we have to go and look, don't we?” she adds. “We can't just sit around here. We have to go to the beach and look at this boat and figure out what it's doing here.”

  I pause, before nodding.

  “I'll get some things,” she says, turning and hurrying to one of the other huts. “We'll need weapons!”

  Nine years old, and she's already so much better than anyone else when it comes to taking charge. I guess she had to grow up fast, but still, she must have some extra resolve in her heart, something that gives her strength. She's not even ten and already she'd make a better leader than I could ever be. I just wish I could persuade the others that I'm right, but without a tongue I'm not exactly in a position to make grand, eloquent speeches.

  Nissa reminds me so much of her mother.

  “Iris?”

  Feeling someone nudge my arm, I turn and find that Olivia has come over to me. There's a small crowd gathering behind her already, and I know exactly what's going on. Olivia tends to serve as an intermediary, since she's pretty much the only person – apart from Nissa – who's capable of properly interpreting my home-brewed attempts at sign language.

  The problem is, I don't really have anything to say.

  “Who's going to go and check this boat out?” Olivia asks.

  I pause, before tapping my own chest.

  “And who are you taking with you?”

  “I'll come!” Carmichael calls out.

  I nod.

  “And me!” Ripley adds.

  I nod again.

  “And me!”

  Turning, I see that Nissa has already returned with several home-made weapons. She's carrying hal
f a dozen spears that are easily double her height, along with some of those little wooden contraptions that I don't even understand. She looks ready and eager, and I already know that there's no point telling her to stay behind. Even if I could persuade her to agree, she'd soon come sneaking after us.

  So I nod again, and then I hold my right hand up high.

  “That's enough,” Olivia says, interpreting for me as she turns to the crowd. “It'll be a small group that goes.”

  “What if there are people on the boat?” someone calls out. “What if they're hostile?”

  Nissa turns and holds up her spears, but nobody pays her any attention.

  “If they're hostile, we'll fight them,” she says, but still she's ignored. When she turns to me, I see a hint of indecision in her eyes, as if she's scared.

  Of course she's scared.

  This is the first time we've had visitors to the island since she was born.

  Holding my hands up, I make a circle with one and a vertical line with the other. That's my attempt to tell her that everything will be okay.

  “I know,” she replies defiantly, even though I can hear the fear in her voice. “It sounds like this boat's just drifted. Maybe it got into trouble and ended up floating here for miles and miles. There's probably no-one onboard.”

  I nod.

  “Then again,” she adds, “it could be a trap.”

  I tilt my head slightly, to show her that I'm not sure what she means.

  “We'll have to be very careful,” she continues. “We'll have to watch out in case...”

  Her voice trails off for a moment, and then she holds her home-made spears toward me.

  “We have these,” she adds finally. “They might be useful, right?”

  I pause, before nodding.

  “So we'll show them that we're not a bunch of savages,” she continues. “Even if they've got guns and things, we can still beat them in a fight.”

  Nissa has never seen a gun in her life. She's heard about them, but she can't possibly imagine how badly we'll be overpowered if this boat does turn out to be some kind of trap. Still, I know that if I tell her to stay behind at Steadfall, she'll just creep after us anyway. At least if I take her as part of the team, I can keep a proper eye on her, and I'll just have to make sure that I keep her out of danger.

  “Let's get moving!” Carmichael calls out, gathering some supplies from next to one of the huts. “It's going to take us a couple of hours to get there, and I want to be back before dark!”

  “I hope it is a trap,” Nissa says firmly. “I hope they try to fight us, so we can beat their asses and teach them a lesson! Then we'll make them regret the day they ever sailed here and tried to do anything to us!”

  If I could speak, I'd tell her how wrong she is. I'd tell her that even now, ten years after we last had any contact with the outside world, we have every reason to be terrified of someone new coming to the island. Because the truth is, ever since I heard Harold's radio message all that time ago, I've been scared that one day we'll be attacked. The others seem to have put that fear out of their minds, but I've lived with it constantly, and now suddenly this boat has arrived and I can't shake the feeling that it's bringing something bad in its wake. Even if it's not a direct attack, it's a reminder that the rest of the world exists. And that is more than enough to terrify me.

  That, and the fact that as she gathers more weapons and tries to look tough, Nissa reminds me so much of her mother. Of Asher.

  Chapter Two

  Asher

  Many years ago

  “Get down!” I scream. “Get -”

  Suddenly the ground explodes beneath my feet, sending me slamming through the air in a shower of dirt and shattered roots. I slam into a nearby tree, with enough force that I instantly hear my armored suit absorbing as much of the impact as it can manage, and then I slump down to the ground as more soil comes raining down all around.

  Damn.

  I didn't even hear that strike coming, not until it was too late.

  Struggling to my feet, I dust myself down and look around. It's too dark to see much with the naked eye, so I lower my helmet's visor and tap the button on the side of activate enhanced vision. When that doesn't work, I try several more times, but I can already tell that the mounting is slightly broken. Finally I raise the visor again and turn to look back toward the east, and that's when I see the huge, slowly rotating ring of light advancing this way through the forest.

  Already, trees are shattering at their bases and falling. The ring of light doesn't even need to fire at the trees, which instead seem to surrender and fall without any attack. It's almost as if they know there's no way to fight back.

  “Asher!”

  Startled, I turn just as another heavily-armored figure stumbles toward me, holding a Mag-Gun. She raises her visor slightly, and I see that it's Mads.

  “Now what?” she asks breathlessly.

  “That thing isn't stopping any time soon,” I point out, watching as the circle of lights starts slowly turning this way. “It can't be any more than half a mile away.”

  “Point four, to be precise,” Mads replies. “What's wrong? Is your unit glitching?”

  “Just the overlay.”

  “Good job we've got mine, then,” she mutters, lowering her visor and looking all around. “I don't see the others. Do you think Harold and Collins went back to the insertion point?”

  “They wouldn't do that unless they thought we were dead,” I point out.

  “Wouldn't be the first time they've thought that.” She looks toward the circle of lights, as the distant hum gets louder and louder. “It'll be in range any time now. That last shot must have been a stray, aimed at something else, but soon it'll start noticing us and then -”

  “Then we're really dead,” I add, interrupting her. “Unless...”

  “Unless what?”

  “I heard some theories back at the base,” I continue, keeping my eyes fixed on the lights as they burn through the night air. “The only thing that can confuse their targeting system is the blasts from their own weapons. Get them to fire at enough random stuff, and the blasts will light up their scanners so much, they won't be able to see what they're really supposed to be aiming at.”

  “I fail to see,” Mads replies darkly, “how that helps us right now.”

  I open my mouth to reply, but at that moment I see a flicker of light briefly threading beneath the skin on her cheek, running all the way behind her ear. I'm still not quite used to the fact that she has a skeletal enhancement system beneath her skin, but I guess there'll be time to worry about that later. Like, after the war is over and we've all gone home and the world is peachy perfect.

  “How long do you think we've got,” I ask, “before it's close enough to spot us?”

  “I'm kinda surprised it hasn't already.”

  “And what does that fancy internal processor tell you about our chances?”

  “What's wrong?” she replies, as one side of her face lights up with criss-crossing lines of light just below the skin. “Jealous?”

  “Of you having a robot attached to your bones? Not a chance. You wouldn't catch me dead with one of those.”

  She smiles, but the threads of light are still showing through her skin, and I know what that means: the skeletal implant is running simulations, trying to determine our best shot at getting out of this mess. Billions of calculations are taking place every second in binary converters that snake around and through her bones, not just in her face but all through the rest of her body. And at the same time, she's got the smuggest grin on her lips.

  “Impressed?” she asks.

  “I didn't say that.”

  “It's worth a billion, at least.”

  I can't help shaking my head. I know Mads grew up poor, but it still seems crazy for her to be so proud of the government-owned computers system that she agreed to have grafted to her bones. I guess she just feels like she's finally worth something.

  “Oh
dear,” she says suddenly, as the threads start to fade and the lights die down beneath her skin. “The system has an idea, but -”

  “Let me guess. Our odds aren't great.”

  “Not really. It thinks we should carry out a suicide mission.”

  “Like I said,” I mutter, peering past her and seeing that the lights are coming closer and closer through the dark forest.

  “We're alone out here in the theater of war,” Mads continues, “with no back-up and apparently no support. I'm starting to think that maybe everyone else in our unit is dead, including Harold and Collins and Sumita and all the others. I think the computer might have a point, Asher. We're cannon fodder one way or the others.” She starts tapping at the side of her Mag-Gun, changing the settings. “If we're gonna die, I'd rather kill as many of those bastards as possible on my way out the door.”

  “There has to be another way,” I reply, still watching the lights.

  “The computer says -”

  “I don't care what the computer says!” I hiss, lowering my visor and trying again to get the display to work, only to raise the visor again after a moment as I realize that the damn thing is blown. “I didn't come out here just to die in the mud.”

  “Most people die in the mud out here,” she points out helpfully.

  Before I can reply, I realize I can feel the ground starting to shudder beneath our feet. I turn to Mads and see from the look in her eyes that she feels it too, and a moment later I spot movement nearby. Turning again, I feel a sinking feeling in my chest as I realize that the lights are now coming straight for us, which means -

  Suddenly several red laser blasts rip through the air, hitting trees all around us.

  “Down!” Mads yells, throwing herself at me and shoving me to the ground, landing hard on top of me and then rolling off.

  I fumble for my gun, by which point Mads is already returning fire, aiming at the ground troops that are accompanying the main weapon. I can smell each laser blast she lets off; these guns have a distinctive scorched aroma, caused by the sheer force with which they burn through the air.

  “I guess they spotted us, then!” I shout, trying to aim before realizing that without my visor, I'm just going to be blasting into the dark.