Declan snatched it and handed it to security. "Don’t drop that or press any buttons. Now, let him go, Ryelle."
His mother appeared at his elbow, giving him her sternest look. Through stiff lips, she said, "You kill him or bloody him and that makes you no better, Declan McCrae. Justice will serve it up to him in due time. You just do your job and make sure we got everything we need to put his ass away."
Declan scowled at her while Ryelle laughed softly in his ear. The sound eased him as nothing else could, sliding over raw nerve endings like a cool river.
"Somebody’s in trouble," she snickered. "Best listen to her before she kicks your behind, big boy. Besides," she added in a lower, silkier tone, "if you tried to injure our suspect, I’d have to hold you back."
Declan knew what that would entail and sucked in a sharp breath, memories of her telenetic touch sending wildfire through his veins. Then he let the breath out in a harsh sigh. "Damn women," he groused, giving his mother a sour look. "Always ruining a guy’s fun. Turn him loose, Ryelle."
Ventura gasped, tumbling forward to his hands and knees. Declan grabbed him by his shirt front, dragging him to his feet and slamming him against the wall with a surge of controlled anger. His mother made a disapproving sound behind him but didn’t try to interfere.
"Now," he growled into the man’s sweating, bony face, "give me a reason not to rip you to pieces."
"Sh-she’s alive," Ventura whimpered, eyes wild as he stared into Declan’s face and gripped his arms with frantic strength. "H-how can she still b-be alive?"
Declan felt the tremors running through the man and realized the source of his terror. He thought he’d blown Ryelle up, yet she’d held him immobile for capture. It must seem as though she was haunting him from the next life. "Know what the GenTec call her, you little nutty bastard? The Death Dealer. Start talking or I’ll turn her loose on you."
Ventura began gibbering, tears leaking from the corners of his bloodshot eyes. Declan sighed, lifted a fist, and punched him in the face.
"Declan," his mother admonished when the man yelped with pain and clutched at his nose.
"You’re supposed to hit hysterical people. Shock ‘em out of their fear," Declan answered without a smidge of remorse.
"Slap them lightly, not break their nose."
"Huh. Learn something new everyday," he drawled, shoving Ventura straight when he tried to curl forward and sag to the floor. "Where’d you get the explosives?"
"Made ‘em," Ventura panted, sounding muffled and liquid. "Didn’t think I’d have to use ‘em. But she showed up. How can she be alive?" he finished in a horrified whisper, not meeting Declan’s gaze.
"Why, Ventura?"
"Just tryin’ to help the cause," he said then giggled thickly, wiping blood from his face with a shaking hand.
Declan gave him a sharp shake. "Talk sense, Ventura. Start at the beginning. Is somebody recording this?"
"Yes, sir," someone said from the group behind him.
Ventura shifted his eyes past Declan’s shoulder, his expression turning sullen. "I got an offer. Everything I ever wanted. Power, riches, a better body. They were gonna turn me into a sarkin’ superman." His eyes narrowed on Declan, flicking over his long form with hard resentment. "All I had to do was give ‘em the signal to come harass the supply line. They told me they were callin’ in a netter. That’s all they wanted. If the netter gave ‘em more trouble than they figured when they showed up, I was supposed to do a distraction to keep the bitch busy, so I made the boomers. Nobody said the netter’d be that Mirabella freak."
Ryelle snorted in his ear. "He says the sweetest things."
"I’d hold the insults if I were you. She can hear every word you say," Declan growled with as much menace as he could muster.
Ventura cowered, eyes darting into shadows and corners, while his skinny body quaked and billowed an acrid, humid scent. "Why isn’t she dead?" he keened.
Declan hissed an impatient breath through his teeth. "How many bombs did you plant, Ventura? Give me their locations and I’ll keep her away from you."
"P-promise?" the man whispered shakily, looking at the air around them as if he expected it to grow claws and teeth.
"Talk."
Ventura didn’t talk so much as babble, but his words were mostly coherent, so Declan didn’t quibble about it. He confessed to planting six bombs in random locations, and admitted to having a seventh partially made bomb hidden away in storage. He’d had no real strategy to the location and timing of the bombs, except to keep everyone busy and terrorized, in the hopes of giving the GenTec the time and opportunity to complete their mission. The only bomb he’d planted with a specific purpose was the one outside Ryelle’s quarters, which he’d moved from a different location after watching Declan speak to her on the com in medical.
Desperation and fear had driven him to make the attempt. No matter how often he tried, he couldn’t reach the GenTec, and the other explosions didn’t seem to be having the effect he was looking for. Ryelle was too strong—he’d seen firsthand how she could control the amount of damage he tried to cause with that first explosion. It had been a fluke. The security guard had seen him, started asking questions about why he wasn’t in containment, and he’d blown it early, almost taking himself out in the attempt to silence the guard.
It had all gone so wrong. The GenTec hadn’t told him how they would subdue the telenetic that they lured to the station. He panicked when their attack seemed to stall, when he was unable to reach them. They’d promised him a better life, a plethora of riches that he hadn’t been able to resist, that made him burn with avarice and need. One telenetic seemed a small price to pay for a new start, a new life.
Right about that point in the man’s rationalizing confession, Declan decided he’d had enough and thrust him into the arms of security before his rising fury made him do something vengeful. "You’re a bloody moron, Ventura," he rasped. "You weren’t helping them kidnap a telenetic. You were helping them start another goddamned war. They were going to blast this entire station and everyone on it to bits. You really think they were gonna give you everything you ever wanted?"
With a snarl of disgust and a sick ache in his middle, Declan stalked away. His mother shadowed him at his elbow, quiet while they strode quickly along the corridor. After a moment, she murmured, "I am proud of you, son," and some of the sickness eased from his belly.
Declan found Ryelle in the converted storage unit with the three telenetic children. He was disconcerted to find her watching over them as they slept. He understood being vigilant, watching them for any sign of danger, but her delicate features were much too tender for a jail warden when she gazed at them.
Stepping over to the side of the bed, he could almost see why she looked that way. Rose slept on her side, one arm wrapped over Jake, whose face was snuggled into her throat. Daniel sat in a chair beside the bed, head craned at an awkward angle and arm stretched across the bed toward his companions as he slept. His jaw was slack and a soft snore slipped from his open mouth. All three looked so vulnerable and…normal. He could almost believe they were human children.
They had been provided with three beds. It spoke volumes that they needed to huddle together on one.
Declan’s brow came together in a frown.
"Poor things," Ryelle murmured from her perch at the end of the bed. "So exhausted, they were falling asleep sitting up. I had to carry them down here."
"Ryelle." Declan ran his knuckles along the curve of her cheek, loving the feel of her soft skin. When she looked up at him, he caught her chin in a gentle hold. "Don’t forget they’re dangerous."
The faint, warm smile on her lips faded and her eyes cooled enough to cause him pain. "No more than I can forget I’m dangerous," she responded, pulling her chin from his hold. Her tone was even, but her body language radiated warning. "I’m not blind, Declan. I see what they are and I know we know very little about them. But they are untrained telenetics and therefore my responsibi
lity as Advocate for Telenetic Rights. And their responses speak to me on a much more basic level. They are frightened and alone and cut off from what they consider safety. Children shouldn’t fear, Declan. Even children created for destruction."
He stared at her for a long moment, absorbing her words and battling with himself. Part of him agreed with her and was gratified by her defense of these children, warmed by her compassion. But another part of him whispered GenTec are the enemy, and he couldn’t keep the suspicions from running amok in his mind. Was it some kind of ruse? Were they just playing on her sympathies to get her to let down her guard? Most children their age weren’t so cunning, but these weren’t normal kids—they’d been created in some creepy GenTec lab, designed for war and programmed to hate the enemy. Programmed to defend themselves.
"Responsibility?" he said cautiously, still struggling to reconcile the combination of sympathy and suspicion.
"They are telenetic," she said with a finality that sent a shaft of alarm through him. "No matter their origin. It’s my responsibility to see that they receive the same care and treatment as the rest of us."
"Oh, shit," he muttered, as sudden understanding burst over him in a scalding wave. "You’re going to take them to the Institute."
Her eyes narrowed, brows pulling together to form an ominous crease in her forehead. "What else did you expect? Did you think I would turn them over to Fleet? No one can hold them but me. Or maybe you thought we’d just kill them off like vermin—"
"Of course I didn’t—" he protested with a guilty inner wince. He had thought that, before he’d met them.
"Well, we can’t exactly put them back where we found them, can we?" she snapped, though she kept her voice low. Rising, she moved past him toward the kitchenette.
He followed her, folding his arms over his chest while he watched her pace restlessly. "They were raised to think of us as the enemy," Declan said. "No matter how innocent they look, you can’t trust them to be anything but GenTec."
"That’s the kind of thinking that got us in this mess in the first place," she said without looking at him or slowing her pace. "Even if I could allow them to be put down like rabid dogs—"
"I never said—"
"—the GenTec would only make more. I could demolish them again. But they’d keep coming back. Do you want to resort to genocide? Because that’s what it would take to stop them. I’ve done enough murder, Declan."
"Honey—" he started, her words nailing him through the chest like a pike.
But she was still moving, dark eyes intent and sober as she headed for the com unit. "Let’s contact the GenTec. We need to have a little chat before Fleet gets here."
Her little chat made his stomach muscles tighten with dread, but something else occurred to him. "How do you expect to do that? Didn’t you destroy all their communications?"
"I’m holding one sort of…open." As she spoke, her fingers moved over the controls and he felt a surge in the tingling of her power.
"What does sort of open mean?" he asked suspiciously, but she didn’t respond.
A moment later, a very alien visage appeared on the viewer and Declan couldn’t control a small flinch. The creature looked like something out of a horror vid or a nightmare. Scaled and nobbly, with some sort of ooze glistening on its surface, it stared at them with eyes so deeply embedded in its flesh that they were mere slits. There was no apparent nose and Declan couldn’t tell where the mouth was until part of its lower face split to speak. He also couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
"Prime, thank you for answering so promptly," Ryelle began, not looking the least bit horrified. Maybe she’d seen it before.
"Release us," it said in a deep, cavernous voice.
"I can’t do that just yet. Not until we come to an agreement."
It was still for a moment. Declan guessed it was surprised by her comment. He sure as hell was. Agreement?
"Agreement?" the thing rumbled.
"I want to discuss a truce."
It made a sound like a rock-fall. "A truce can only be reached with your surrender."
"You’re not in any position to be demanding surrender," Ryelle told the creature gently. "I have a proposal I’d like you to consider. You know that I can’t return the children. I can’t allow you to use them against my people and they deserve more respect than to be treated like weapons. I propose that you think of them as your ambassadors into our space. I plan to take them to our training facility and give them every advantage a telenetic has the right to, including telenetic training. That is what you were after, isn’t it?"
"You are foolish to believe they will become your puppets. They are GenTec and you cannot remake them."
"That’s my point—I don’t want to try. I want them to be an extension of you and your culture. I want them to be your hand, reaching into the heart of our society in an act of cooperation. Think of it—the Institute has enormous influence on all aspects of our civilization. Telenetics wield great power in our society. You know this to be true or you wouldn’t have created them."
"What trickery is this? Or have you become defective?"
"You won’t be the last person to accuse me of going crazy," Ryelle said with a fleeting smirk. "But I think the insanity between our people has gone on long enough, don’t you? I performed half a genocide on your people at Mirabella. That nearly cost me my mind. How many times do you propose we do that? I won’t live forever, but I sure as hell don’t want to be killing you people off for the next sixty years or so. Given the choice between endless war and genocide, which would you decide?"
"You threaten extinction?" the thing asked in a tone that suggested endless depths of fury.
She sighed, clasping her hands together as if grasping for escaping patience. "Your ancestors were brilliant people. I assume intelligence still runs high in your genetic lines. Please listen and think about what I say. We tried war. That obviously failed. Let’s try diplomacy this time."
"Your citizens will continue to refuse The Change."
"Of course they will. Why would you even require it?"
It jerked as if to reject her question. "You are inferior. You are weak in mind and body. You should not refuse evolution and enhancement."
"I’m so weak in mind and body that I wiped out half your race. Bad news, Prime. I’ve gotten even stronger since then. Your telenetics look much like us. Do you consider them defective?"
"Looks do not matter. It is strength that matters. It is survival that matters. I am able to walk on planets that have acid in the air and gravity that would crush you."
"And I can take that planet and turn it into space dust in a heartbeat." She paused to let that sink in, her lips in a grim line. Declan stared at her, aghast. She wasn’t kidding or exaggerating. She really had grown stronger. "Prime, consider this. You have created a whole host of amazingly adaptable people, but I doubt all of them have the same talents. What one individual can survive might kill another and vice versa. You created strong telenetics who wouldn’t be able to walk on that planet you described. Do you consider them defective? Or…are they just weapons to you? Useful tools to wield in this war of yours?"
The creature didn’t answer, its form motionless. Ryelle unclasped her hands and folded her arms over her chest, expression cool. She also said nothing, staring at the GenTec. Waiting.
"They had to use earlier DNA to make us," said a voice behind them.
Declan twitched, turning to see Daniel a few paces away, his thin face grim, odd black eyes fixed on the creature on the com. Ryelle turned as well, but she didn’t look surprised. Declan wondered if she’d known he was there, if she’d asked her questions because he was there.
"There is no genetic marker for telekinesis in the current genome." The boy said the words as if they were memorized, with an edge of bitterness to his tone. "They chose the DNA of one of our founding ancestors, honored, respected, but still mostly human. Mostly…defective. They enhanced us as much as they could without
destroying that marker. Our skin, our eyes—we can stand lots of radiation." Daniel shrugged, a quick, sharp movement of his narrow shoulders. "Didn’t make much difference. Whatever we did, however hard we tried, we weren’t what they wanted us to be. Not strong enough. Not good enough. Too…defective."
His midnight eyes glistened as if with tears, but his chin remained raised, thin body rigid, eyes steady on the GenTec.
"You are not defective," the scaled creature rumbled.
"Prove it," Daniel said, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Let us be what she wants us to be. Let us go to this Institute, learn and train to be better. We can show them what it means to be GenTec."
Ryelle’s eyes swam with tears, but her smile was warm as she watched the boy. "You would make a magnificent ambassador," she murmured, before turning back to the com. "I’m not suggesting that we steal them away from you forever. In fact, I think it’s important for them to have regular contact. They can return to you as often as you or they feel necessary, reconnect, exchange information, ideas. In short, provide them with the security and comfort of their people while allowing you a direct line into the center of our society."
She didn’t say it, but Declan could see it and nearly choked on his protest. He could see the implication she was trying to make. The bribe. You will have influence. You will have power. You can come home.
Ryelle turned her head and met his gaze, her dark, unfathomable eyes steady. She mouthed one word and sent a shudder down his spine. Genocide. It was either embrace the enemy or destroy them utterly. Before he’d met the children, Declan would have had no difficulty with that choice. His only reservation would have been how Ryelle would handle such a gruesome assignment. But the children reminded him that the GenTec had once been human. Their culture was much different—did test tube kids have mothers and fathers?—but they still had innocents among them.
"I will consider your proposal," the Prime said in a voice as slow and rough as a cooling lava flow. "I must speak with our governing bodies. You make—an interesting argument."
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