Shards of Hope

by Nalini Singh

  "Nil." The drug had done too much damage to Alejandro's brain. "But if he stays on this trajectory, he could eventually have a life that requires very little supervision." The latter would take longer to achieve with Alejandro than it would with a civilian because of the male's deadly training. "For now, he appears content living in the cabin next to ours, and doing tasks within the compound. Nerida has him on the security detail to protect the children and it's an assignment that suits him."

  In the clearing under the sunlight, an Arrow teen leaned forward, face more animated than Aden had ever seen it. It bolstered Aden's view that this had been the right decision, the time he'd carved from his schedule to arrange it more than worthwhile. Even though she was now twenty, Sienna Lauren could reach these teenagers in a way he and other adult Arrows couldn't. "Did you talk to Judd?" he asked, thinking of another member of the Lauren family.

  Vasic nodded. "SnowDancer's had three more reports of dissension-causing events." He telepathed the details to Aden. "Hawke and Lucas are handling it, keeping the changeling groups calm."

  "Bo is doing the same with the Alliance." Krychek, meanwhile, was speaking to the heads of powerful Psy family groups in order to alert them to the situation.

  All of them were aware that the very people they were warning might be involved in the conspiracy.

  There was no help for that, not at this stage. They had to work on the theory that most people weren't involved--not a theory without cause, given how well the people behind the conspiracy had managed to contain all data. That simply wasn't possible with a larger group. It had to be a small, intelligent cohort.

  "It's piecemeal, though," Aden continued, thinking about his and their allies' efforts to foster calm. "Things will fall through the cracks." Creating conflict that caused bitter divisions. "We need a better system to communicate data between all three races, as well as mediate disputes."

  "Silver Mercant's network?"

  "A good start, but it's targeted at first responders rather than the leadership." And the agreed-upon operating protocols applied only to emergency situations. "We need a system in place that equals day-to-day communication so even an organized enemy can't pit us against one another with a little fancy maneuvering."

  Vasic bent down to pick up a pinecone, rising with it in his hand. "Set it up."

  It was exactly what Zaira had said when he'd mentioned the topic a while back, but Aden wasn't ready to change his focus from the squad to the world. But even as he thought that, part of him knew that if the squad was to become an integrated piece of the fabric of the world, it couldn't remain separate.

  *

  POLITICS reared its head two hours later, Nikita Duncan adamant that the members of the Ruling Coalition have a very public meeting. She'd discharged herself from the hospital against medical advice because it was her belief that people--and not just Psy alone--needed to see them alive and well and handling their responsibilities. It would put paid to the surge of rumors that called the Coalition's unity and strength into question and nip any others in the bud.

  Rather than making a formal appearance, Nikita had suggested they do a walk-through of one of the New York neighborhoods that had suffered the worst casualties when the infection in the Net went viral. She was certain that she could maintain the facade of health for that long.

  "You'll be asking us to kiss babies next."

  Aden agreed with Krychek's cool comment. "Such a walk-through will appear false when it comes to those of us who aren't politicians," he pointed out. "Better if we advise the residents we're coming in and will be available to answer questions in a central location."

  Krychek's eyes met his, the two of them standing side by side in the valley because Krychek had come to help teleport in materials for more homes. "Are you actually planning to allow the populace to question you?"

  "No. And neither should you." The Ruling Coalition didn't need to become a regular political body, not yet. The PsyNet was too fragile at present; people needed to believe that its leadership was unassailable. "Our simple presence will be enough." A sign of the power that backed the Coalition. "Ivy, Nikita, and Anthony are seen as more approachable--Ivy, in particular--and can be the ones who speak, unless they have objections."

  "Yes, fine, but your option leaves us wide open to threats," Nikita said via the mobile comm in Aden's hand, her face thinner than it should be and dark shadows under her eyes.

  "Hiding allows the enemy to win." Anthony Kyriakus's tone was resolute, and though he was disagreeing with Nikita, he was also currently standing right by her chair, in what appeared to be a study in her private apartments. "We must show our enemies--and our people--that we aren't afraid and can't be intimidated."

  "I agree with Anthony," Ivy said from one side of the split screen. "My Es tell me people are edgy, scared. I can feel it, too." She rubbed a fist over her heart. "Seeing us all out in force, unafraid, will go a long way toward easing the fears fostered by the spate of rumors and speculation."

  Kaleb glanced at Aden, the sunlight making the white sparks in his cardinal eyes appear golden. "Can you set up security measures? This could be our chance to catch the people targeting members of the Coalition."

  "I'll take care of it." Aden had already discussed such a move with the cardinal Tk and knew Krychek was right; this would be the perfect opportunity to put it in play. "If you second a small squad of your people to me, I can make sure our security strategy is fully integrated."

  PSYNET BEACON

  Rumors continue to swirl in the Net about the efficacy of the Ruling Coalition. Nikita Duncan is no longer in the hospital, but she has not been seen in public since the shooting.

  Aden Kai, too, has disappeared from public view, perhaps as a result of questions about his capabilities--or lack of them--to lead the squad. However, it is possible that he is simply involved in covert work, as per the Arrow mandate. Regardless of his location, he must understand that the squad is under fire and he has to respond.

  The Beacon has contacted the squad and is currently awaiting their answer.

  PSYNET BEACON: LIVE NETSTREAM

  Quite frankly, I'd lose respect for the squad if they did make a public statement. Even so, it's worrying to realize that the people we rely on to protect us might be just as weak as any other man or woman in the street.

  Anonymous

  (Tauranga)

  Are we sure Nikita Duncan is even still alive?

  H. Dwyer

  (Dublin)

  Kaleb Krychek should simply take over and execute anyone who doesn't want to follow the rules.

  C. Tsang

  (N'Djamena)

  It feels as if we're going backward instead of forward. With the fall of Silence came hope for a better world, but now chaos lives on the doorstep.

  V. T. Jose

  (Ushuaia)

  Chapter 71

  LESS THAN TWO hours after the meeting with the other members of the Ruling Coalition, and well before the planned announcement of the Coalition's availability to the public, Aden and Zaira went into the proposed neighborhood. It was just past five in New York, the sunlight warm. Sixty minutes after their arrival and initial reconnaissance, they mapped out the security strategy from their concealed position on a rooftop.

  "Any security will have to be subtle," he said to Zaira. "The whole point of this exercise is to calm the populace, not put them on edge."

  "We should check out the parameters of the park the Coalition intends to use, see if there are any areas we need to sweep for hidden devices beforehand." A pause. "It would be much safer if the meeting was indoors."

  "And much less effective."

  "Don't get dead."

  "I wouldn't dare."

  Feeling her mind curl around him, Aden made his way down to the small neighborhood park with her. The two of them were dressed in civilian clothing--jeans and a white shirt for him, over which he'd thrown on the leather jacket Zaira had lent back to him. She wore a soft pink V-neck sweater b
orrowed from Ivy over her own black pants. It made them appear the couple they were, and meant they blended in with the people around them, though Aden could tell he was being recognized.

  Three or four people nodded at him, but didn't interrupt. An elderly man, however, came over. "You're the Arrow," he said, leaning heavily on a cane. "I heard you were captured, dead, or in hiding."

  "As you can see," Aden replied, "I'm alive and well." He also planned on a small demonstration of his power later that night in order to quash the claims of him being too weak to lead the squad.

  The time for secrets was over.

  Now his men and women needed him to be a bogeyman bigger than any other.

  "Stupid rumors." A huffed-out breath from the elderly man. "Can't afford to have you die--the whole thing would collapse."

  Leaving the man sitting on a wooden bench, he and Zaira did a sweep of the park while appearing to do nothing but stroll, his left hand loosely linked with her right. It was why she'd accompanied him rather than any of the other members of the squad--the tabloids were already starting to hint at a relationship between them, so her presence wouldn't be remarked upon except in that context.

  They kept their senses on alert the entire forty minutes it took them to map out the park. It was highly likely the enemy had some kind of base in New York. It explained how they'd been able to organize the previous attempt on Aden's life so soon after his arrival in Manhattan. If they were so bold as to make a second attempt, Aden and Zaira would be ready.

  At present, though, the only people nearby were families taking advantage of the gentle early evening sunlight, and other people out for a stroll. When a small girl accidentally kicked her ball over to Aden, he kicked it back to her. She waved at him in thanks and kicked it on to her father.

  A ray of sunlight hit her tight bronze curls just as Aden felt his senses prickle. Zaira.

  I feel it.

  They turned as one to look behind them, but there was no assassin, nothing but ordinary people involved in their own affairs. Aden scanned visually and telepathically, picked up a faint hint of deadly intent, but it wasn't close. Then his eye caught a glint high up on a building. Even as he processed that information, his visual cortex was cataloguing other glints.

  And he realized the enemy had mobilized the heavy artillery this time.

  A target with big impact and with a low threat ratio away from other, stronger members of the squad: that was likely to have been the calculation when Aden was chosen to die.

  Killing him would destroy the Arrows and strike a blow to the Ruling Coalition at the same time. As a bonus, it would rip away the shield of fear and mystique that protected the most vulnerable members of the squad. After all, shooting Aden in full view of so many witnesses would prove his lack of strength. Not only that, but if some of the witnesses were also murdered, it would indict the squad as being ineffective protectors against the monsters.

  Aden had made it his mission in life to appear weak. It was what had allowed him to rise to a position of leadership within the squad right under Ming LeBon's nose. But at that instant, as he prepared for countless sniper rifles to fire, all directed at him and Zaira and the innocent people around them, he knew the time had come for him to show his true colors. No small demonstration as he'd planned to orchestrate later tonight.

  This was going to be a big one.

  "Get down!" he called out in a voice that was calm but brooked no disobedience . . . then he reached for power as he'd never before reached. Always prior to this, he'd asked only a little, been given it with no questions asked from the five men and women who knew what and who he was.

  Today, he squeezed Zaira's hand and he took everything.

  She went to her knees beside him as he channeled her ability through himself, but no matter that he'd stripped her of her psychic weapons, she made no effort to close that channel, to block him. Neither did Vasic, Axl, Amin, or Cris. Their power blasted through his psychic veins in a single split second. In the next, it became far greater than the sum of its parts.

  Because Aden wasn't a simple telepath. He was a mirror.

  Hidden deep in his mind, behind the shields Walker Lauren had taught him to build, was a lens that reflected and multiplied the power he could channel from others. At that instant, he was stronger than a cardinal, the strength of five powerful Arrows merged by his mind into a roar of pure energy.

  His telepathy expanded exponentially, until he could scan the entire city, but he didn't seek to target the minds of the shooters. They were too distant and he couldn't guarantee he'd locate each and every one. There were too many innocent lives at stake to chance a mistake. Shoving out his right hand, his left still locked with Zaira's, he thrust out his power just as the bullets began to hit.

  *

  ZAIRA sucked in a breath as she saw a bullet heading directly toward them, readying her weakened body to push Aden out of the way. But the bullet seemed to slam into something before she could move and it just fell to the ground like a bird stunned by flying into an unexpected obstacle. Blinking, she stared as it happened again and again . . . and finally she caught a glimpse of the barrier. It was like an oil shimmer on a wet road, visible only in patches of light and color.

  A soap bubble as strong as titanium. Stronger.

  Looking up at the man who was holding that shield unlike any she'd ever seen, she sucked in another breath. Aden's hair was blowing back in a breeze that existed only around him, his eyes an impossible reflective silver and his right hand held palm out as he stopped those bullets dead. She was weak because he was pulling power from her, but in the shadow of his power, she felt no sense of weakness, of being in a situation she couldn't escape.

  A second later, she watched in astonishment as he flicked his hand and the bullets stopped hitting the ground. Instead, the soap bubble became a mirror that echoed his eyes and the bullets pinged back along the direct flight paths on which they'd arrived.

  Around her, the people who'd hit the ground at Aden's order gasped and stared as bullet after bullet reversed trajectory, heading straight back toward the shooters at a speed that only the fittest and fastest would survive. Many wouldn't--eyes to the scopes where they were set up at apartment windows, they wouldn't be able to imagine a bullet reversing course. And so they would die.

  The bullets stopped coming moments later. Some of the snipers had to be dead. Others had likely missed death by a heartbeat and would be racing to get away. Her telepathic strength was faint with Aden having locked her into his personal network, but it was enough to reach the high-rises and the cardinal mind she needed.

  The rats are running, she said to Kaleb Krychek, having snapped out a warning to him the instant before Aden initiated the highest level of the psychic protocol the six of them had agreed to when Aden was only twenty-one and Zaira twenty. She'd known Vasic wouldn't be able to respond as fast as usual, not with the teleporter forming one point of the five-pointed star that was the engine for Aden's extraordinary ability, but Krychek was as swift a teleporter.

  All she'd said was, New York! It had been enough.

  I have two dead, two contained, Krychek responded. One more in progress.

  Leaving him to the hunt, she got to her feet and placed her free hand on Aden's jaw. The situation is under control, she said mind to mind. You can drop the shield.

  It took him a minute, the tension leaving his body muscle by muscle until the breeze stopped, the mirror sliding down to fade into the ground. His eyes, however, remained that eerie reflective shade she'd never before seen. "Casualties?"

  "None here." She gasped as her own power returned to her in a storm surge. Her hand clenched on his, her breath hitched. When it was over, she found she had more power than she'd possessed before Aden initiated the transfer. It filled her to the brim, until it felt as if her fingertips were overflowing with it.

  The mirror, she thought, looking into silver eyes that still surged with echoes of power. The mirror had made her power more,
made it brutal. She'd known the mirror's effect since the day Aden first told her about it, but never had she experienced it to this degree. Power that strained at her skin, her eyes flowing obsidian from the force of it. Aden could literally protect the entire valley, even if he had access to only midlevel Psy. Give him a full squad of lethally powerful Arrows . . . The idea of it was breathtaking.

  Not only because of what he, himself, could do, but what he could create in the Arrows themselves. He gave back more than he took, and in so doing, he could create a turbocharged army. He'd be an unstoppable force if not for one simple and inevitable side effect, and even that wasn't enough to negate the fury of his gift.

  "Krychek just told me that he's found two dead shooters so far," she said, stifling her fascination with the true depth of his ability for now. "He also has two others contained."

  There was no more time to speak after that. People swarmed Aden, wanting to say thank you, to state their astonishment over his display of power, and to tell him that they'd never had any doubts about the Arrows.

  PSYNET BEACON: BREAKING NEWS

  Many in the Net have recently questioned the abilities and qualifications of the enigmatic man who leads the Arrow Squad. Rumors reported in the Beacon itself stated that Aden Kai was nothing but a figurehead, a field medic who played the leader so as to protect the squad's true leadership.

  Today's display has put those rumors and speculations to rest in an incontrovertible fashion: Aden Kai isn't only powerful, he is a power. There is no longer any doubt as to why he is the leader of the squad, and why he has a seat on the Ruling Coalition.

  PSYNET BEACON: LIVE NETSTREAM

  I've watched the footage captured by nearby security cameras and civilian phones multiple times, and I still can't believe what I'm watching. Aden Kai's abilities are unparalleled. Does anyone have a label for his designation?

  B. Baker

  (New Orleans)

  Spectacular!

  V. Ting

  (Cape Town)

  Aden Kai today proved that not only is the squad made up of the elite, it is made up of men and women with designations unknown to the general population, as it should be for a covert squad.