I stood, listening over the sound of the crackling fire, my eyes searching the campus for movement and finding none. I flinched as another explosion echoed across the grounds, and realized that this time it was the gymnasium, the brick building consumed in another blast of flame and wreckage. Pieces of brick and flecks of glass and paper rained down around me and I covered my head to shield myself from the falling detritus. A moment later, another explosion came and I watched the training center, the place where I had spent so many hours honing my skills, vanish in an orange-red conflagration that streaked up into the sky under a billowing black cloud.
I stood there, the night air eating at me under my jacket, feeling my hands sweat and chill in my gloves. I tried to gather my thoughts. I had no idea what was causing the explosions, whether it was a meta or some sort of bomb, but so far they seemed to be hitting the most abandoned areas of the campus. Since I hadn’t seen motion between the buildings, it seemed most likely that a bomb was responsible, rather than a meta like Gavrikov. I ran a hand through my hair and thought about the quietest buildings on the campus, thought about Zack, and the cold consumed me. I ran for the headquarters building, my feet pounding underneath me as I ran faster than I thought I ever had.
I hit the lobby, throwing open the glass door and dashing into the foyer. The place was quiet, but a single door was open in the distance, emergency lighting washing out of it—the stairs. I cursed and drew my pistol. I ducked into the back stairwell, using my gun to cover the angles as I descended. There was no noise from above me, but below I could hear something, motion, voices. I came down, the eerie floodlights giving me enough light to see by. I pointed my weapon down the long hall as I came to the bottom of the stairs. I could see movement down there, and the conversation was clear now.
“Come down, Sienna Nealon,” came the voice of a shadow, standing in the middle of the hallway. “Yes, I know it’s you, I can see you in the light. Like a little angel, really.”
“So...” I said, and cleared the corners as I entered the hall, waiting to see if someone was going to attack me. I couldn’t see ahead very well, and it looked almost like there was only the one figure waiting for me, a man, older, but still just one man. “Are you Janus?”
“Ah, she already knows my name!” He sounded insufferably pleased. “No need for introductions, then, straight to the point. They told me you were clever, and I believed them, but this...this is exceptional, really.” His accent was European, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“It’s still considered polite to introduce yourself.”
“Ah, so right,” he said, as I closed in on him, stopping about fifteen feet away. “Where are my manners? My name is Janus, and I am here...to help you with a very difficult transition. Now, you need not be afraid, because I’m not here to hurt you, or threaten you or...any of that useless piffle you’ve experienced from Omega in the past.” He waved a hand, as if dismissing those thoughts. “I am merely here to have a conversation with you.”
“And then you’ll take my gun?” I asked, letting the itch on my trigger finger hold off.
“No one is taking your gun away,” Janus said, waving me off again. “At least, no one with me. You keep it, this is only...a conversation. A chance for us to talk, to clear the air.”
“And will it be a truthful conversation, Janus of the two faces?”
He smiled, that much I could see in the stark dim light of the hallway. “On my side it will be. On your side...well, that’s really up to you. Now, you needn’t tell me the truth, because I know it, for that’s my gift...my power. But if you feel the need to lie, well, then, that’s entirely on you, and keep in mind that you’ll be the only one in this hallway that you’ll really be lying to.” He seemed to take a breath. “And may I point out, that nickname, the one you’ve heard, about me being two-faced—it’s really not accurate. I always tell the truth, to whomever I’m speaking to. The problem is, sometimes I tell them things they don’t want to hear. Sometimes I stick to the truths that I know they want. Does that make me two-faced, do you think? Sometimes callous and blunt, others light and dancing around the edges of everything they believe?”
“I guess it kinda makes you selective,” I said, not wavering with the gun. “Why don’t you stick with the ‘whole, unvarnished’ version of the truth for me?”
“That’s a special kind of truth,” he said. “But if you think you can handle it...sure, why not?”
“I’ve been able to handle everything you’ve thrown at me so far,” I said. “Why should this be any different?”
“Ah, yes, well, let’s start with that, the beginning, shall we?” He stretched as though he were looking for a comfortable place to sit, and instead ended up leaning against the wall. “You’ll forgive me for leaning, but I am of an...advanced age, for even my type of meta, and it brings with it...certain...unpleasant side effects. I grow weary, especially in moments such as this.” The ground shook as something exploded in the distance and I turned to look, then darted my eyes back to him as I realized I didn’t want to turn my back on him. “Not to worry, that was just the car garage. We’re trying very hard not to kill anyone.”
“You’re failing,” I said, teeth clenched. “I just came from the body of Dr. Ronald Sessions. You blew him up with the science lab.”
“Ah,” Janus said, and it sounded genuinely pained. “That is a shame. You know, let me get this explanation out before we get any farther, because I feel...truly, bad about it. You see, I’m part of the ‘old guard,’ you might call it, of Omega. I detest killing, even when necessary. It’s such...an...unpleasant expression of powers that most men would crave. We’re better people, we should uphold the sanctity of life, even for humans. Now, I explain this because...frankly...you haven’t been dealt with in the fashion that I would have chosen had I been in charge of your case this entire time.”
“My ‘case’?” I almost scoffed.
“Yes,” he said. “You see, the...individual who...runs Omega, had gotten some very bad advice from the ‘new guard’ about how to conduct things. The old ways are fading away, and older metas like me, well, we’re not as influential as we used to be. There was a time when I held the ear of the Primus of Omega, when I was first advisor. Now, a chain of failures has elevated me once more, but for a time, I was...persona non grata. And I tell you this because it’s so important that you understand that none of what you’ve seen from Omega came from me. Not Wolfe, not Henderschott, certainly not Fries...none of it.”
“Because you wouldn’t have unleashed those maniacs, those twits, those sidewinders?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” he said with an assured shake of the head. “Because you...you are too important to chance to such...creatures, shall we say.”
“But you did send Bjorn,” I ticked them off in my head, “and Madigan.”
“Of course I did,” he said. “Naturally.”
“Um...they failed just as miserably as the ones you didn’t send.”
“Not at all,” Janus said with a smile, and there was a beep from the phone in my pocket. “Do you need to get that?”
“It’s a...” I frowned and kept one hand covering him with the gun while I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket and thumbed the text message feature. I had three messages and a missed call from Zack. I clicked the messages first, my eyes darting from the phone to Janus. “I have messages.”
“I understand,” he said. “I’ll wait. Personally, I hate those smart phones. Don’t get along with them.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be open to change?”
He sighed, deeply. “There is a difference between helping others with change and embracing it for oneself. Technology may be my bane, but no matter. Read your messages, and then we shall talk.”
I flipped through the first, the newest, from Ariadne, to me and all of M-Squad:
Assemble at dormitory. Protect the students at all costs.
“We’re not going to attack the dormitory...yet,” Janus said, catching my eye as I jerked my head up. “I’m an empath, of sorts. I can’t read your mind, exactly, but I get the gist of your emotions, and I know where everyone is. They’re safe, for now.”
“For now?” I asked, and felt the gnawing sense of fear start to eat away at my confidence.
“Don’t worry,” he said, and I thought he might be trying to sound reassuring, “they’ll be given plenty of opportunity to get out before we destroy the building. If they choose to stay, well, that’s on them, not me, but...they’ll be warned. You can even tell them yourself, if you’d like, once we’re done talking.”
“You don’t think I’ll be going with you?” I looked at his face over the sights of my gun, wondering if I was doing myself any favors by not pulling the trigger.
“No, of course not,” he said with a shake of his head, as though it were the most obvious of truths. “Getting you to come with me today was never the purpose of Operation Stanchion.”
“That’s not what Bjorn said.”
“Bjorn is a young bull, charging into everything.” Janus bent his head low, as though miming the action of a bull, scuffing his shoe against the tile floor. “He was an excellent distraction for you.”
“And Madigan?” I asked, nodding to the room where I had last seen her, up to her ankles in a wading pool. “Was she a distraction, too?”
Janus chortled. “Well, let us put it this way...it would seem that you and your fellows have a taste for herring—in red, at least.”
“Wild goose chases?” I asked. “You’ve been sending me to...what, Iowa? To Bloomington to fight your people? Why? Because they needed their asses kicked and you’re too old to do it yourself?”
“Certainly a little humility is good for the soul,” he said, with a smile, “but no, I wasn’t trying to keep you off balance for that reason. It’s a much simpler one. While you were chasing the three metas I dangled in front of your nose to keep you busy, you weren’t noticing the fifty I snuck into the country through alternative means.” He waved a hand around him. “And now they are all here.”
The chill covered me from his words. Fifty metas could level the Directorate campus to the ground. What little army the Directorate had left had zero chance against fifty metas, even if their only power was their super strength, speed, reflexes... “And what are you going to do with your fifty metas?”
Janus smiled again, this one less patronizing, and it faded just as quickly as it came. “I’m going to do exactly what you think I’m going to do with them.
“I’m going to destroy the Directorate. Permanently.”
24.
“You said you weren’t going to kill anyone.” I felt a quiver run through me and down the gunbarrel. I looked over it at Janus, calm, cool, composed, and watched him smile again.
“I’m not going to kill anyone, nor allow anyone to intentionally come to harm, not today,” Janus said, cupping his hands one over the other. “I don’t need to. Destroying the Directorate isn’t a matter of killing someone, or everyone. I’m going to destroy your campus—just as I’m destroying every other Directorate campus in North America, even as we speak—and I’m going to leave your people with a warning that the next time you cross Omega, then,” he said, and the smile vanished, leaving me cold, “then I will begin the killing.”
“And you made such a point of differentiating yourself from the people who sent Wolfe, and Henderschott, and Fries,” I looked at him with a kind of feigned disappointment. “You’re not any different.”
“Oh, but I am,” he said, and the smile returned. “I don’t like killing. But that doesn’t mean I hesitate to employ it when necessary. The company you keep has thwarted us on several occasions—our Primus would, of course, like you to come with me, but he’s been convinced now of the importance of gaining your cooperation, making you understand your importance, your place in things to come. I’m not threatening you. I come to you openhanded—delivering a message by destroying your organization, true, but not out of malice for you, rather for what your organization has done.” His face darkened. “You have no idea what damage you’ve allowed by letting Andromeda escape, by getting her killed. The new guard was content to give your Directorate a slap on the wrist by wiping your agents out until you did that. Once Andromeda went loose,” he said with a quiet shake of his head, “it was...how do you say it? All bets were off.”
“What is it about that girl?” I asked. “What is it about her that has you so...has everybody so...edgy?”
“Andromeda was the future,” Janus said. “That project was our hope, our weapon, our chance to defeat an enemy monstrous in their application of force. I know you’ve heard it said that there is a storm coming, that you’ve heard others tell you of the threat to us, to all of us, and I am here to tell you that it’s only partially true. Humans are safe; they have little to fear from what comes. For now, at least. The Directorate is not our enemy, you see, they were but a buzzing fly. And you know what you do to a fly, yes?”
“Please say catch them with honey,” I said. “Because I’m getting tired of this manure.”
“This is more like vinegar,” he said. “The truth always is. I laid the trail for you myself, so you could see I went to Shenzen after the murder of the Chinese metas. They were wiped out, to the last. The government soldiers guarding them were all killed, or rendered so useless of mind and body as to be unwhole human beings for the rest of their lives. India was no different, and even now, across Africa, and the rest of Asia, it continues, the extermination, the destruction of our race—on a smaller scale, one at a time, because there are no cloisters there.” He looked grim now, deadly serious, “and it will spread, and grow, across all the continents, until the last of us are dead and in our graves. They who perpetrate this? They...are our enemy. Your Directorate is nothing more than a fly that I have had to take a month out of my schedule to swat. After tomorrow, I won’t think of your Directorate again. I will only think of you, and I will be waiting for the day when you join us, as surely you must.”
I laughed, at his face, from fifteen feet away. “You think I’ll join you? You’re talking about destroying my home, threatening my friends with death if we don’t disband, and you think I’ll...what? Come find you in six months asking if I can join your special club?”
He gave me a noncommittal shrug. “I’d be surprised if it’s more than a month. But then, I know things that you don’t.”
“I.Will. Never. Join. You.” I let each word come out with emphasis, and I re-centered my pistol on him, cocking it. “But I’m going to put you in a cell now, then I’m going to get to work checking out how many metas you actually brought with you—”
“Check your phone,” he said, with that little bit of a smile, and I forgot I was still holding it. “No tricks, I’m not compelling you to do anything, just suggesting that there might be information that you don’t yet have.” He smiled enigmatically.
I pulled the phone up after a moment of wrestling with my mind over whether I should. I thumbed the messages and the next came up, this one from J.J.:
Over fifty, REPEAT, over fifty enemy metas presently in continental United States based on analysis of passport batches.
I looked up and saw that smile, and I didn’t know whether to scream or put a bullet in him. “The case for letting you live while I’ve got fifty other metas to deal with is not one based on logic.” I faltered. “How did you know about the message?”
“Mmm,” Janus said, cringing, “now, you see, this is where the truth is really going to hurt.” He held up a hand and slowly put it in his pocket, bringing it out with a cell phone identical to mine.
“Looks like a Directorate phone,” I said. “What, did you hack it? Wouldn’t be the first time.�
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“No,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. “I’m nowhere near clever enough to manage that. No, it was given to me by one of your own.” He flipped it over, and the sight of the pink otter box case gave me a shudder. “Come out,” he called, “she knows it’s you, now.”
The door to his left slid open, the one to the room we had all stood in while watching Clary and Old Man Winter interrogate Madigan. Other doors slid open, too, the one to Bjorn’s cell, and Madigan’s, and behind Janus, so did Fries’. My eyes weren’t on any of them.
My eyes were on Kat Forrest, who strode out of the watchroom in a dark blue jumpsuit, her hair pulled back, and wearing an impish smile that didn’t fit the demure, quiet girl I had known for almost the entire time I’d been at the Directorate. “You?” I asked. “You betrayed us, Kat?”
“I’m not Kat,” she said with a sour smile, one that truly reminded me of a cheerleader, all sneer and no sweetness. “I’m Klementina—or as near to it as you’ll get.”
I felt the stir of Aleksandr Gavrikov in the back of my head and ignored him. “You still had a human personality when I saw you a couple days ago,” I said, drawing a bead on her as she took position at Janus’s side.
“Oh, Sienna,” she said with a slight laugh, “don’t act so wounded. I don’t remember you coming to visit me in the medical unit after you brought me in; unless I missed it, being absent as I was the last day or so. I still remember the things Kat remembered, the things that weren’t lost while I was trying to save your life, Reed’s life...” she let her voice drop precipitously, “...Scott’s life.”
I felt a sour taste in my mouth, a bitterness. “We were friends.”
Omega: The Girl in the Box, Book 5 Page 20