Authors: K.M. Ruiz
Lucas let her live for that compliment.
“They have two days,” Lucas said, searching her brown eyes with his own dark blue as he implanted the challenge and memory straight into her mind. She doubled over in pain from the transfer. “They won't pass it up.”
The electrokinetic nodded, wiping at the blood that was leaking from her nose. “I'll report,” she gasped out. “Sir.”
Lucas let her go. “You do that.”
He teleported out, arriving back in the place he'd left barely twenty minutes ago. It was a small, one-room building thirty kilometers outside Buffalo, built right up against a tall, derelict signal tower. The government had abandoned it years ago; scavengers took the leftovers.
Matron was sitting in front of the building's only control terminal, feet propped on the console, a knife in her hand carefully cutting a small green apple into pieces. She didn't look up at his arrival. “You finish whatever you needed to get done?”
“I wouldn't be here if I hadn't.”
“Good. I'd hate to think you failed. I like your bribes too much.” Matron popped a section of the expensive fruit into her mouth. The look of bliss that settled over her face stemmed from genuine pleasure. “This is why I believe in God. Or what passes for that negligent asshole.”
Lucas huffed out a small laugh as he sprawled in the only other chair in the small control room of what Matron considered to be her property. She had built it up five years ago on Lucas's orders, piggy-backing off the government's official signals to retrieve weather data. It was rarely used by her scavengers, so its sporadic resurgence was never picked up by anyone in Buffalo. The government had other things to worry about than a broken weather station.
Lucas rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. A headache was creeping across the breadth of his skull, a warning he acknowledged, but couldn't heed. Finishing the mission came before his own health.
“Two days,” he said. “If that.”
Matron continued to eat her apple. “You're taking a risk, running everything up against that acid storm. Its spine is a derecho. It's gonna be the worst weather Buffalo has seen in a decade. Maybe two.”
“This is how it goes.”
Matron hummed her agreement; maybe her dissatisfaction. It was impossible to tell. “I have been all things unholy,” she whispered as she licked the bright green peel and tasted the sweet tartness of dreams. “âAnd yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.'”
“Why is it you humans always look outside yourselves for answers?”
“Why is it you psions can't believe in anything but yourselves?”
Lucas stretched out his fingers, filled the space between them with his power until it was difficult for the both of them to breathe. Matron didn't flinch.
“We are your gods,” Lucas reminded her. “You made us to save you.”
“I didn't make shit.” Matron looked up at the faint warning beep coming from the computer as the weather Doppler-radar grid shifted, moving from green to red somewhere over the Midwest. The projections that the computer spit out weren't pretty, bow echos and rain across the vidscreen, across the country; a radar line of storm clouds. “Do I call you Noah now?”
Lucas turned his head and opened his eyes to look at her, this woman he had saved years ago. “Two by fucking two, Matron. Two by fucking two.”
Matron bit down on the core of her apple and chewed slowly. She spit the seeds out into her hand and tucked them into her pocket for safekeeping. Things like that should never be wasted.
Somewhere in the far distance, several states to the west, a storm was brewing, moving quickly in their direction. They watched it fill the screen, the only sound in the small weather station their quiet breathing and the crunch of an apple between Matron's metal teeth.
[
NINETEEN
]
AUGUST 2379
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Nathan was in the Netherlands, securing his political relationships over the latest Act he had pushed through the World Court. Which meant it fell to Samantha to extract the memory from the electrokinetic who had been stationed in Buffalo.
Lucas never failed to piss her off.
Standing in her office, arms crossed over her chest, she glared furiously at the electrokinetic crouched at her feet, letting her older brother's challenge tumble over and over through her mind.
“We shouldn't give him what he wants,” Gideon said from where he sat behind Samantha's desk.
“Of course not,” Samantha spat out. “The only question is what the fuck does he
really
want? Us there or not there? It's a fifty-fifty chance, and no matter what we choose, you can fucking
bet
Lucas will compensate for it.”
“He always asks for you.” Gideon gestured at the Warhound on the floor, teleporting her out with the casual use of power that came as naturally as breathing. “Perhaps you should stay behind.”
“You wouldn't be able to find him.” Samantha shook her head. “I want him
dead,
Gideon.”
“So does Nathan.” Her twin shrugged. “Unless Nathan goes after Lucas, we'll never be able to bring him back. You know that, every Warhound knows that. It's death to believe otherwise. Nathan doesn't because he
can't
. Not and risk everything we're working toward.”
“Then what the bloody hell are we
doing
?”
Gideon gave her a level look. “Obeying.”
Samantha ground her teeth, tongue pressed hard against the roof of her mouth. Bending her head, she closed her eyes and easily drew her brother into a psi link that she sent skimming over a sea and a continent to where their father was.
Sir,
they said together on the outskirts of Nathan's mind.
After a moment, Nathan dropped his shields and allowed them into his mind. His attention, while solid, was focused elsewhere. That didn't mean his power couldn't hurt them. Samantha steeled herself and dropped the report directly into Nathan's mind. His anger seeped through their thoughts.
An ultimatum?
Nathan asked slowly.
Does he never learn?
It's a trap,
Gideon said.
He wants us there.
Nathan's disgust was thick enough that it translated into an actual taste on Samantha's tongue.
Of course he does. Lucas can't bargain without witnesses.
Your orders?
Nathan was silent for a long moment.
We're too close to the launch date. We can't afford any interference.
Sir?
Samantha this time; alone. Gideon was a silent presence in her mind that she resented with everything she had.
I want him dead,
Nathan said, echoing his daughter's desire.
I don't care about the cost. Our mission is Mars Colony. Lucas is a distraction that needs to be stopped. Do what needs to be done, Samantha. I'll leave the decision of how to go about killing him in your hands. I trust I won't have to tell you what will happen if you fail.
Samantha buried her anger deep, because it wouldn't help her hereâonly obedience would. Gideon was right.
Sir.
Nathan pulled away, cutting the connection, needing all his attention on manipulating the humans. Samantha opened her eyes, raised her head, and found herself staring into her twin's face. Gideon's expression was calm, almost triumphant, as if this were all he'd ever been waiting for, this chance to prove himself to the few who mattered. Samantha was pretty damn certain that she didn't matter, not for this.
“I'll go,” Gideon said. “You should stay here.”
“No,” Samantha said as she clenched her hands into fists.
“You failed to stop Lucas when he left London.” Gideon reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist, the look in his eyes disapproving. “You've failed all the times since when ordered after him.”
She tried to twist out of his grip, but she couldn't break free of his telekinesis. “So did you, Gideon.”
“I'm not the one who consistently comes up short. That's you.” He gave her a little shake, some shred of emotion filtering across his face. It wasn't real, even if he believed it was. “Let me do this for you. For us. You know I can do this for us.”
They were twins, born mere minutes apart, she with telepathy and he with telekinesis that was strong enough to incorporate teleportation. Neither of them were a triad psion that Nathan had hoped to control. Hell, they weren't even close to being what he really wanted. They were simply and only functional mistakes that he pitted against each other again and again because it
amused
him. Samantha didn't want the post that Nathan was making them fight for now that Lucas was gone. She didn't want what Gideon would bleed and scream and kill for, though neither her twin nor her father would ever truly believe her, even with her thoughts as proof, not after Lucas's escape.
She didn't want the Serca Syndicate.
She wanted Lucas.
Dead or alive, she wanted her older brother to pay.
“No,” Samantha said, backing up her words with her telepathic strength. “Kristen and I will go. You're a telekinetic, Gideon. You'd need a dozen telepaths to help you find Lucas. I can find him by myself.”
“Only if he lets you, which is something you can't count on,” Gideon said. “When you find him, what will you do? How will you save yourself?”
“Kristen.”
Gideon's contempt filtered through to her as he let her go. It was his arrogance, however, that annoyed her. Samantha peeled apart her shields, let her telepathy drag him into the psi link they'd shared since they were born.
You want what Nathan promised Lucas,
she said, her mental tone dripping with false comfort.
I don't.
She let him see how much she simply
did not care
for what Nathan had to offer. Oh, she was a Serca to her core and always would be. She had never understood how Lucas managed to walk away from everything he knew, as if he'd had the opportunity in his restricted existence to learn something different. Samantha's loyalty was carved with blood into her father's Syndicate and it always would be. This was her life, this dual existence of psion and human that she led. She understood that. She knew she had been born to serve, like all Warhounds.
You want it more than I do,
Samantha said.
You always have. Lucas would have killed you the second he took that post and you know it. I will always be loyal.
Her twin's thoughts were bright and hot in her mind, the psi link like scar tissue somewhere deep inside her. Gideon let who he was twist into what Samantha knew she only pretended to be. They were twins. They would always be bound to each other by genetics and Syndicate loyalty, but she was losing faith in that connection. She was losing faith in him.
If you ever betray me, I will kill you,
Gideon promised her.
Samantha never doubted it. Just as she had never doubted Lucas when he said,
I will be waiting for you,
two years ago as he left the Serca Syndicate and the Warhound ranks.
She had never told anyone about his promise and forgot it more often than she remembered it. Samantha didn't know where that rebellion stemmed from, where it went when Nathan was searching for betrayal, just that it was a part of her for that one instant. Gideon missed it, because he wasn't a 'path-oriented psi. Samantha broke their merge with a gasp, panting heavily against the back of her hand as she tried not to be sick.
“Nathan doesn't believe you are completely loyal,” Gideon said after a long moment as he looked at her. “I know differently. I've
fought
for you, Samantha. Doesn't that count for something, anything at all?”
No. No, it didn't. His subconscious spoke to her more clearly than he did. She knew the truth.
“I need to do this,” she said, not answering his question.
“If you fail this time, you'll die. There is no coming back here without Lucas's body. That is the only result Nathan will accept.”
“Then I won't fail.” Samantha flashed him a wicked, proud smile as she pulled away. It felt like a lie.
Their bond was something that could be broken, but Nathan had never severed it. He called their psi link useful. Samantha thought it was limiting.
Maybe that's why Lucas always worked through Kristen.
The empath understood all the pieces of the puzzle that made up her older sister's carefully broken and reassembled mind better than Samantha herself. Hours later, when Samantha opened up the door to her medical cell, Kristen just
grinned
at her with that same vicious smile she gave everyone.
“Feeling all right, Sammy-girl?” Kristen asked as she pushed herself to her feet. She used the walls to steady herself in the corner she had been curled up against, the skinsuit she wore lining the bones of her body.
Samantha stared at her crazy, empathic little sister and said, “You will follow my orders, Kristen.”
“Last chance for you, eh? Always wanted to see what was on the other side,” Kristen drawled as she skipped out of her cell, tripped over her own feet, and crashed into the human nurse standing next to Samantha.
When Kristen's power started to eat through the human's mind, Samantha didn't try to stop her. She simply waited while the woman screamed and doctors walked by with hurried steps, pretending not to see the woman dying on the floor.
The mental grid dipped beneath the ferocious strength of Kristen's damaged empathic power, pulling clarity out of the dying woman's mind for Kristen to use. It tasted like memories, like life, a breath that Kristen held in her lungs until her vision grew dark with bright black spots.
Sanity was such a delicate, tentative state of being.