Authors: K.M. Ruiz
I don't put much faith in what you say.
That would be hysterical if you hadn't already done exactly that.
I followed Threnody here, not you.
Lucas's laughter was low and tired-sounding in Quinton's head.
You'll have to come to terms with what's going on someday. Might as well be today.
Let us access our powers and maybe I'll start listening. You're as bad as the collars we used to wear.
Really?
Pain spiked heavy and sharp through Quinton's brain, causing him to miss a step and stumble a little. Threnody glanced at him worriedly, but he didn't acknowledge her.
If it comes down to me killing you, at least you'll know why. That's more than the government ever gave you.
Lucas pulled out of Quinton's mind, the psi link cutting off. Quinton doubted that he had been left completely alone. Lucas had a way with mental monitoring that not even the best Stryker psi surgeons were capable of matching. Quinton chewed on the inside of his lip, keeping the flashlight in his hand trained on the ground. Even with a kind of freedom, it was proving difficult to give up the culture he had come from. His hatred for the Warhounds, even for one who had saved them, hadn't abated.
It was a full kilometer to Matron's destination, a metal tunnel set with half a dozen blast doors between their destination and the questionable sanctuary behind them. Walking through the last set of blast doors, they came into an underground hangar, lights snapping on as the control panel embedded in the wall read Matron's biometrics.
“You're early,” a rough voice said. A figure stood up from a work terminal a few meters away. “Next check-in was supposed to be three days from now.”
“Novak,” Matron said by way of introduction. “He's the best hacker we've got.”
“I'm the only hacker left that ain't had his brain fried yet, is what you mean.”
Novak was stocky and scarred, body carrying illegal cybernetics like the rest of Matron's scavenger group. He was dark-skinned, with inspecs in his eyes and wires cutting through his temples. His head was shaved, revealing black lines of tattoos inked over his skull. All around the neuroports in his wrists were burns, stretching over his knuckles and palms. He was as makeshift as they came, but makeshift had gotten Matron's scavengers pretty damn far.
How far they'd come was sitting on the launchpad, systems off and metal cold.
“This isn't a shuttle class I've ever seen before,” Threnody said as she walked closer to the first of three large shuttles that the hangar housed, each shuttle modified for stealth.
“Course not,” Matron said as Novak handed over a datapad. “These were salvaged from deadzones.”
Threnody came to a hard halt. “Have they been sterilized?”
“Had to be. Lucas here wants these babies for a specific flight. There's no trace of radiation in those shuttles or this space.”
“Did you lose your skin in deadzones?” Jason asked, eyeing the trio from where he stood by Kerr.
Matron raised one hand to show him her middle finger, metal gleaming through the synthskin. “I don't question your physiology and disease, psion. Don't fucking question mine.”
“Like father, like son,” Threnody said as Lucas walked over to her. “Not willing to do all the dirty work yourself? You just had to get other people to do it for you, didn't you?”
“The people who make up scavenger groups in any settlement were never going to have clean enough DNA when the fifth generation finally came upon us.” Lucas slanted her a look. “Just because they're unregistered doesn't mean they're useless. They're good at what they do, even if it kills them quicker than most.”
“Are they the only ones you've saved?”
“I save who Aisling wants me to save.”
“And how many do you have left before she's satisfied?”
His answer was for her alone when he said,
Everyone.
Lucas approached the nearest shuttle where it was propped up on its landing gear, walking a wide berth around the wings and attached thrusters.
“The shuttles are in better condition than the last time I saw them,” Lucas said, raising his voice.
“Yeah, because they're not all in
pieces,
” Matron retorted. “I told you it was going to take time.”
Lucas ignored her as he walked around the shuttle to check out the other side. “How are the cold-storage units holding up?”
“They're holding. There's more space for cargo than there is for crew.”
“Cold-storage units?” Kerr asked. “What are you guys hoping to transport?”
“We,” Lucas corrected as he stepped back into view. “What are
we
going to transport. This is a heavy pickup mission when we finally go wheels up. We're dealing in tonnage, not kilos.”
“Just what the hell are we transporting?”
Lucas didn't answer, either vocally or telepathically, as he walked back to the group. His attention was on Jason, who watched his approach warily.
“You were one of the best hackers in the Stryker ranks,” Lucas said. “Which means you're the best hacker we've got now. I'm going to need you to get familiar with the hive connection that we've installed in the shuttles.”
“Thought you had everything all set up.”
“Novak is the only hacker who survived the job. He helped start the process, but his code is lacking. We need something less fragile, and you know how to write government code quicker and better than he does. Your shift starts now.”
“And everyone else?”
Lucas let his dark blue eyes slide sideways, his gaze catching Kerr's. “Your partner and I have some reconstructive psi surgery to begin.”
“Hell no,” Jason said, stepping into Lucas's personal space. Lucas was taller than he was, but that didn't matter. “Whatever you're going to do to him, I want to know.”
“You're a telekinetic, Jason. You can't do shit for him.”
“I'm his
partner
.”
“Yes, and I can't help but wonder if that permanent link has caused more damage than benefit. Hiding behind your shields, strong as they are, hasn't helped his mind deal with the problem of his shields collapsing. You're his crutch.”
As Jason opened his mouth to argue, a heavy telekinetic hold picked him up and slammed him to the floor. Gasping for breath, Jason stared up at Lucas with anger and not a little bit of fear. Lucas knelt down and grabbed a fistful of Jason's hair, jerking him to a semi-sitting position.
“You're forgetting your place, psion,” Lucas said, annoyance twisting lightly through the tone of his voice. “Aisling needs you alive, but there are many definitions of
alive
. We need the power locked up inside your head. That doesn't necessarily mean we need
you
.”
Jason felt his heartbeat kick up, but he chose to ignore the adrenaline pumping into his veins. “We'd all be useless to you if you mindwiped us.”
“Your idea of a mindwipe is so limited. I'm used to dealing with insanity. We need your power, not your personality.”
Lucas let Jason go, and the telekinetic fell back to the floor with a hard thump. Lucas straightened up and looked over at the other Strykers and scavengers. “Anyone else want to argue?”
No one said a word.
Lucas curled his fingers at Kerr as he walked toward the doors they'd come through. “We're going.”
Kerr helped Jason to his feet first, giving his partner's shoulder a brief squeeze. “Keep your mouth shut,” Kerr said quietly. “I still need you.”
“Yeah,” Jason muttered as Kerr turned to follow Lucas out of the hangar.
“You really are stupid, aren't you, boy?” Matron said, looking and sounding unimpressed. “If me and mine can trust Lucas with certain things, you Strykers can as well.”
“He's a Warhound,” Threnody said. “Why do you trust him when it's his family that's helped segregate the world's population? And don't give me that crap about how he saved your lives. He saved ours as well, but it hasn't helped us any.”
“See, now, that's where you're wrong.” Matron dug into her back pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She stuck one in her mouth and lit it up. “What Lucas has planned? It's gonna save everyone.”
“I find it hard to believe he's shared his plans with a mere human.”
“And I find it hard to believe he brought you narrow-minded Strykers into the mix.” Matron spat between them. “If
we
believe in what he's trying to do, then you people can.”
“Why should we?”
Matron blew smoke out of her nose and smiled, showing her metal teeth. “Other than the fact that he's got his power so far deep in your brains that you can't piss without his say-so? Tell me, what do you know about the arctic Svalbard archipelago?”
“The what?”
“Exactly.”
[
SIXTEEN
]
AUGUST 2379
BUFFALO, USA
“Can you be,” Kerr asked, struggling for politeness, “a little more careful with him?”
Lucas didn't open his eyes from where he lay on the other bed. “You actually sound like you care.”
“He's my partner.”
“Shut up and lie down, or you're going to hit the floor with your face when I break open your mind.”
Kerr stared at the other man for a few more seconds before carefully lying down on the bed that had been assigned to him. Stretching out, he put an arm over his eyes to block out the room, even if he couldn't block out the relentless presence of Lucas in his mind.
I'm touched you think so highly of me,
Lucas said.
Drop your shields.
Kerr went against everything inside him that was saying no and did as he was ordered. Lucas's power filtered down through the layers of Kerr's mind, his own shields wrapping around the both of them on the mental grid with such strength that they burned like beacons in Kerr's thoughts.
Just like you Strykers to make a mess of things.
I've survived.
I'm still not sure
how.
That was the last thing Kerr remembered. The mental grid dipped under the sudden disappearance of Kerr's presence, Lucas holding the other man's mind in his power.
Sometimes I wonder about what you ask of me, Aisling,
Lucas thought to himself as he decided where to begin.
The first thing Lucas needed to do was permanently destroy Kerr's shields. The Class II telepath had gone twenty-five years without acknowledging the empathy he carried in his mind. All of Kerr's deeply ingrained thought processes weren't going to be reversed in a single night, but they had to be factored in for this psi surgery.
There was no point in trying to keep up a shield geared solely toward telepathy when empathy kept undermining the process. There had to be acknowledgment of that secondary power, and Kerr had to weave both into the framework of his shielding. There was no getting around that, unless he wanted his shields to continue falling apart.
What had been clear-cut and obvious to Lucas upon a single dip into that mind had apparently been unintelligible to the Stryker psi surgeons. Even a lower-Classed psion had ways to diagnose problems in the minds of those ranked higher. This whole mess could possibly have been avoided, except this was what Aisling wanted. Collusion between previous Stryker OICs and Serca CEOs had only helped along the inevitable.
Digging his telepathy deep into the crevices and canyons of Kerr's mind, Lucas let himself be lost in the problem, allowing his power to bleed carefully into Kerr's. Lucas hadn't been lying, back in London. Scientists could reverse engineer pretty much any technological equipment on the planet with government permission. Lucas could reverse engineer the processes of the human mind only because he'd had his own torn to pieces over and over since his birth by Nathan.
Lucas didn't want anyone else to have that skill. Not that he wouldn't wish that pain on anyoneâbecause there were many people that he
would
âbut he wasn't willing to let anyone else have the knowledge that came with it. Marcheline, under orders from Aisling, had helped him gain control, but he'd been the one to build his mind into the weapon that Nathan had thought was his. Lucas hoped it had come as a shock to his father when he walked away from the Serca Syndicate two years ago.
This was the purpose Lucas had worked toward for all of his life: all the different people, all the different pieces, all the various powers that could come out of human DNA. It was hope for a different world that Aisling had instilled in him for the two decades she had seen him grow up. It was the belief in her promise that he was meant for so much more than the prison of his life, for however long he had left.
Ambition was what drove members of the Serca family to attempt the impossible, among other things.
Lucas let himself be lost in the processes of the human mind and felt, vaguely, at ease. When he opened his eyes hours later, he wasn't at all surprised to find Threnody sitting on the floor between the two beds.
“How is he?” Threnody asked, her face turned toward Kerr's unconscious body.
“He's not your partner,” Lucas said.
“He's a Stryker.”
“We've gone over this, Threnody.”
“Getting the collar taken off me doesn't make me any less a Stryker. It never will.” She turned her head to look at Lucas. “What have you done to us?”
He sat up slowly. His senses shifted with the migraine-strength headache he was suffering from after performing a long and complicated psi surgery on Kerr, not to mention everything else he'd been orchestrating to get to this point. The physical and mental toll on his body wasn't something he could escape. Growing old wasn't in his genes.