by Britt Ringel
Once the door fully closed, Kat turned to Parker. “We clearly aren’t going to kill her.” She looked at each of the suited executives around the table in turn. Every expression returned to her was stone. “She’s an operative,” Kat added, as if stating the obvious.
Parker shifted his gaze away from Kat to a frail woman seated two chairs to his right. His voice was low, almost inaudible. “Dani, what’s her latest assessment and who’s coming down the pipeline behind her?”
The head of Talent Management considered the director’s question carefully. “Teki possesses considerable telekinetic capability. She can manipulate significant force but, as of yet, lacks the ability to refine her talent downward. This lack of fine, delicate control limits her to more overt and explicit operations, at which she excels.” A liver-spotted hand gestured toward Kat before returning to the table. “Unlike Pre-Cat or Sam, who thrive in any environment, Teki is a valuable asset but with a narrow spectrum of function.
“Currently, we have only one student on the campus presenting telekinetic potential. Tess has confirmed the preliminary assessment. The boy’s specific abilities have not yet manifested however, making it impossible to compare his value with Teki’s substantial power. It will be many years before he finishes puberty.”
Parker absorbed the analysis and Kat searched his grey eyes for any hints of his decision. Not liking what she saw, she stated, “We don’t kill our own, Mr. Parker. Lolz is… off the mark with her proposal.” It was insanity that he might be considering the telepath’s recommendation. “We protect each other and those who provide for us.”
Parker leaned back into his chair and rested his chin on his hand. He stared into Kat’s dark eyes with a sad compassion that brought her comfort. He looked truly miserable. Finally, he rocked forward. “Pre-Cat, you know better than any operative that, sometimes, protecting each other means acting when the lights go out.” Her comfort evaporated with his use of her formal moniker. His eyes lowered briefly before meeting hers again and he gestured around the table. “We are the guardians of an ordered society. We stand watch on the wall and keep the wolves at bay.” His mouth formed a thin line as he fell into silent contemplation. All emotion had left his expression.
Revulsion drowned Kat’s earlier affinity. She’d seen this look before, far too frequently. She now understood why she had been summoned to this meeting.
“This is the most difficult call I’ve ever had to make but we must protect the Society even if that means sacrificing one of our own,” Parker pronounced. “Especially if it means sacrificing one of our own.”
“What if she’s loyal?” Kat demanded. She’d failed to keep the contempt from her tone.
“What if she’s not?” he rumbled coolly.
Kat slammed her fist to the table. “Don’t ask me to do this. I’m an infiltration expert, dammit. I’ve already made sacrifices for the Society. I’m not your assassin.” She frowned and her brow knitted together. “You promised me!” she pleaded.
He looked at her as if she were breaking his heart. His new expression bit deeply into Kat. Somehow, she still didn’t want to disappoint the man.
“You’re more than just an infiltration expert, Cat. You’re a critical asset to this organization and to our entire society,” Parker soothed. “And, with the newest methodology Doctor Wagner is employing to decipher your visions, we’ll unlock the mysteries of your precognition. You will safeguard the future of Sunthetic and its citizens for a very long time.”
Kat felt her heart race and Parker’s handheld began to beep. He ignored it and continued to stare at her. The beeping persisted, growing in volume.
Why isn’t he answering that? It grew louder still. He was asking her to kill. Again. And this time, one of their own. The beeping transformed into the wail of an infant. The cries of the dead joined in chorus with the wail. The noise became deafening yet no one at the table reacted to it. Wincing, Kat brought her hands over her ears...
The unrelenting noise roused Kat from her slumber. She’d fallen asleep in Reneta’s home despite her fears about Sadler’s fate. She silenced her wristwatch and turned onto her side. Her red pendant twisted and tumbled across her cheek. The finely crafted necklace still rested securely around her neck. The presence of the small stone comforted her despite the aches and pains running through the rest of her body. Her fingers and toes still vaguely felt as if they were on fire. Would the burning ever go away? Tears had nearly killed her in the tenement. Tess had called her powers insidious. A random question occurred to her.
“Teki?” she whispered. With no response, Kat reached out from her covers and shook the blonde woman lightly.
“I’m awake. What time is it?”
“Three in the morning,” she answered as she sat up from the lumpy bedroll. Along with her extremities, her right shoulder ached deeply, a nagging reminder not to crash through boarded windows again. She was still naked and looked to her Porter uniform, hanging with Teki’s garments over a cord strung near the fire barrel. The flames had long ago died and only the faintest glow of embers remained. “Why did they call her Tears?”
“Cryokinetics. C, R, Y… K, dash two.”
Kat pushed herself off the bedroll with a groan. Every muscle in her body protested the simple movement. She walked stiffly to her clothes and began to dress. “We need to go.”
Teki kicked her covers off and joined Kat in the darkness. Her sturdier garments were still slightly damp.
“How are you feeling?” Kat whispered in the dark.
“A lot better. Recharged.”
“Well, so is the other team.”
“Kat?” Reneta’s voice came from a corner of the room.
“Thanks for letting us stay, Ren.” Kat pulled her shirt over her head gingerly, gritting at the discomfort in her shoulder. Yet, it was nothing compared to putting her shoes on, a feat that caused her considerable pain. She grunted at the jolts shooting through her toes. When she heard Reneta approach, she said, “It’s probably a good idea not to say anything about us being here last night.”
“Will I see you Saturday night?”
Kat smiled into the gloom. “I think I’m going to be busy but I promise I’ll be back to visit, okay? I’ll bring you a FLAT.”
“Are you kidding? That’d be awesome! Are you going to Northport? What about your job?”
“I guess I’m handing in my resignation. I’ve got to take care of a few family matters first.” Kat saw Reneta shuffling forward from the darkness.
Reneta took her hand. “Well, please don’t forget about me, okay? You’re the coolest friend I’ve got.”
Teki chuckled behind Kat and mumbled, “If you only knew, kid.”
Kat pulled Reneta into an embrace. “I won’t and thanks again for the bed. Be sure to keep quiet about it. I don’t want you to get into trouble.” She released Reneta and stepped toward the tent’s red flap. “Time to go.”
Chapter 28
Kat and Teki stepped into the night. A chilly breeze blew from the east, chasing yesterday’s storm. The air stank of trash and rot.
Teki hugged herself as the wind swirled around her. “And to think that I left my jacket at the convention center because I didn’t want to get it wet.”
Kat began the march back to Waytown. The empty streets in the small hours of the morning echoed with her footfalls as she thought about her dream. She’d been ordered to kill Teki. Oddly enough, that was a point in her companion’s favor when it came to Kat’s trust. Yet, if Parker didn’t believe in Teki’s loyalty, why had she been part of the operation to hunt Pre-Cat down? Instinct told her Parker was a keen strategist but also practical. Perhaps he had thought Kat would end up killing Teki anyway, just under different circumstances. Or maybe he’d sent Teki for a more clever reason. With a quick look at her companion, Kat pulled out Tabitha’s handheld.
“What are you looking up?” Teki asked.
“The Waytown police station.” She powered up the device and stumbled to a st
op. “Oh, shit.” She spun the screen to face Teki. Kat’s picture splashed across the display under a headline: “Fugitive Wanted.”
“Not exactly subtle, is it?” Teki noted with a frown.
Kat resumed walking and a smile played over her face. “It’s not only that. They used my Porter Mining employee picture and I look awful in it,” she quipped. “Plus, the reward is only five thousand credits. We took more than that from the Society last night. It’s insulting.”
“Why isn’t this scaring you as much as it is me? And why isn’t my picture plastered up there with yours?” Teki wondered.
Kat stared at her image on the handheld. “The publicity is meant to keep me from going to ground.” She tapped the screen. “Their biggest concern is that I’ll simply slip away like the first time and then they’ll have to hunt me down all over again. It’s a desperate move and I bet Bowen made it lacking the guidance of a field supervisor. It’s also a telling mistake. Why aren’t you posted right along with me?” She arched an eyebrow. “Maybe they’re not certain you’ve defected. Bowen can’t be sure you saved me in the collapse and the fact that you reported back to Em probably confuses them, at least for now. Although, every hour you fail to report in again makes your allegiance more suspect.”
Kat swiped her hand across the screen to brush the alert aside and linked to the Waytown Police homepage. The picture at the top revealed the station to be a one-story building located near the town’s center. Gleaming double doors made for a welcoming main entrance. Kat noticed security cameras flanking either side. There would be more cameras positioned at each corner of the building. Her finger tapped the directory link and the public floorplan appeared, her eyes drawn to a covered driveway leading to the motor pool at the back of the building. The garage consumed close to a quarter of the station’s footprint. It shared its walls with various unlabeled offices and meeting rooms. Kat browsed for pictures of the lobby before passing the handheld to Teki. “Assume that the jail is in the center of the station. Where would you put the gun range?”
Teki scanned the layout as she considered her answer. “I’d put it near the motor pool because of the noise but there’s obviously not enough room in that half of the building.” She pointed to the building’s south and east sides. “It has to be here or here, unless there’s a basement.”
“There isn’t a basement,” Kat dismissed. “Look at the picture on the homepage. There’s no elevator equipment on the roof. The same picture shows windows running down most of the building’s south side.”
“Can’t have a gun range with exterior windows,” Teki agreed. “It has to run down the back of the building along the eastern side to the southern corner. Is that where we’re breaking in?”
Kat collected the handheld and began a new search. “We aren’t but I am.” She tapped rapidly on the screen. “After we get into Waytown, you’re going here to rent a VTOL cargo hauler. I assume you can use the credentials on your FLAT to do that.”
“Yeah,” Teki answered warily. “Assuming the Society hasn’t pulled them.”
“Oh, they won’t do that even if they think you’re a traitor,” Kat insisted. “The Society is scared to death of losing us. It wants you to use your credentials. It needs you to use them. Especially if you’re a traitor. That’s the only way they can track us now.”
“A rented aircar won’t get us to Northport or Coldbarrow, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Kat powered off the handheld and shoved it back into her pocket. “I know that but we’re going to need one to rescue Sadler.”
Teki stopped in her tracks. “Wait. Rescue Sadler Wess? Aren’t you breaking into the police station to prevent his interrogation?”
“I can’t,” Kat answered through a tortured expression. “If I break Sadler out of jail, he’ll be a wanted man for the rest of his life. We’re going to have to wait until the Society wipes his arrest records in order to take custody of him. That’s when we can free him without ruining his future.”
“Is that our chief concern? You won’t get within twenty meters of him once the Society takes him to the TriLink Center, Kat. The place is a fortress now. I’ve been there. After the massacre you left us in the other convention hall, they’re not taking any chances.”
“Then we’ll have to get him before he reaches TriLink.”
“So… in transit? In midair?” Teki grabbed Kat by the arm and stared at her, dumbfounded. “You’re going to take this man in midair?”
Kat grinned maniacally. “No, we’re going to rescue Sadler in midair. Hence, the cargo hauler.”
An hour later, they turned onto the Strip and walked toward Eastpoint. Trodden were stirring in the alleys now, preparing for another day’s survival. Despite the time it took to walk as far as the Beggar’s Market, the sky remained a curtain of shimmering black. Kat checked her watch: 4:15am. Plenty of time, she thought. She diverted down a side street one block before the Beggar’s Market entrance. She’d stumbled down this same street, half-frozen and dying, the day before.
The side street led to a narrow backstreet running west. Kat took a moment to gain her bearings and found the alley that had saved her life. “Wait here,” she told Teki as she stepped ahead.
Kat took two strides into the mouth of the gloomy alley and called in a hushed voice, “Hello?” The cramped alley was an impenetrable void of black. Even with her vision adjusted to the night, she could see no farther than a couple meters into the dark. She called again, this time a little louder.
“You can’t stay here.” The sentence was little more than a growl and was much closer to Kat than she would have thought possible.
She raised her hands knowing that the man could probably make her out. “I’m here to thank you. Yesterday you let me rest here. Let me stand by your fire.” Kat waited for an answer but only silence came from the depths of the alley. “Your daughter, Ivy, helped you make the fire.”
“I remember you,” the man replied. “You’re welcome for yesterday. You can’t stay here today.”
Kat slowly reached into her back pocket and fished out her last credit stick. “I’m going. I just wanted to give you this.” She bent low and placed the stick on the ground, face up. Its faint illumination burned like a beacon in the darkness. “And please, thank Ivy for me. Buy her some shoes.” She waited for a response but once again, none returned. Finally, she backed from the alley. “Well, okay then. Goodbye and thank you.”
Kat rejoined Teki and they continued their trek west.
“What was that about?” Teki asked.
“Being human.”
The pair moved cautiously around the blocks closest to Kat’s old tenement. Despite both women keeping keen eyes out for agents, neither saw signs of surveillance. They ducked into a back alley that ran against the high wall dividing citizens from Trodden. Two blocks behind them, Eastpoint’s gate reached even higher into the onyx sky.
Kat swept her eyes down the lane as they strolled casually. Unlike all the other alleys in Shantytown, no squatters camped here. She assumed that corp-sec routinely cleared the alleys along the town’s perimeter as a matter of security. In the predawn, there were no guards present in the immediate area but cameras monitored Waytown’s border at regular intervals. She and Teki walked until they came even with such a camera before exploiting every camera’s weakness, the area directly beneath it. Sidestepping into the blind spot, Kat pressed her hands to the wall and began to wind up for a push.
Teki shifted her weight nervously, occasionally glancing up and down the alley for witnesses. The odd Trodden passed by the mouth of the alley but paid them no special attention. Moments later, a two-meter gap appeared in the formerly impenetrable wall. The pair ducked through it and into Waytown.
Once through the breach, Teki spun and watched the wall blink back into integrity. She remembered to breathe again shortly afterward. “That’s really bizarre to see. It’s actually only the second time I’ve seen you do it. They said you can apportate the ch
ip out of someone’s wrist. Is that true?”
Kat rubbed annoyingly at her right ear. “My control is coming back but it’s all a bit hazy right now, like my memories. Frankly, the things I’m beginning to remember are events I’d be happier forgetting.” She trotted away from the wall and to the sidewalk. Unsurprisingly, the perimeter street held little traffic in the early morning hour. To the east, cracks in the ebony sky previewed the coming day.
They turned onto a larger street where a few pedestrians shared the sidewalk. Wearing laundered and professionally made clothes helped Kat and Teki fit in with the early risers of Waytown. Kat noticed that, for the first time, citizens didn’t regard her with profound suspicion. She thought it ironic given her Wanted status.
As they moved toward the town’s center, Kat summarized her plan before quizzing her companion. “You know where to park once you get the flatbed, right?”
Teki nodded at her partner.
“And you’ll be there, right? I won’t be able to disappear without you.”
“I’ll be there, Kat,” Teki promised. “Probably before you.”
“Then wait for me as long as you can. If I can’t get to your position, I’ll try to reach you through our FLATs.” Kat tapped her cargo pocket holding Tabitha’s handheld before shooting Teki a thoughtful look. “Any special requests?”
Teki wiggled her left hand as she spoke. “Well, I’m a lefty so something with the magazine release on the right side is always a plus.” She pursed her lips briefly. “Are you sure you want to do this? Even if they don’t catch you on camera, corp-sec will put two and two together.”
Kat waved away the concern. “I couldn’t care less about corp-sec. They’re nothing. I’m sending a message to the Society. If they want to play this game in front of an audience, I’m more than happy to show every citizen what’s hiding under their beds.”