Winds of Change

by Christine Pope

  “Most of us were pretty alone,” she said. “I was a foster kid — never knew who my parents were, never had much of a connection to anyone. It was hard to get close to people when I knew I could do this.”

  At once, her face and form seemed to shift, and for just a second, I stared at myself. It was far more unsettling than I’d imagined to be confronted by someone who appeared to be my identical twin, the experience utterly unlike looking at myself in a mirror. A second later, and it was Natalie standing in front of me again.

  I managed to find my voice. “Illusion, or do you really shapeshift?”

  She chuckled. “Just an illusion. But a pretty convincing one, don’t you think?”

  “Very.”

  Ethan squeezed her fingers gently and let go, then said, “I had some family, but I never felt like I fit in anywhere. No real attachments.”

  “Your talent?” I asked.

  In answer, he raised a hand, and on one of the iPads that had been sitting on the coffee table in the conversation pit rose into the air and dropped into his outstretched palm. “Nothing too big, or too heavy,” he said. “And I know it seems like a useful power, but I didn’t know how to control it until I got here. Things around me would move and shift, and I didn’t know why. It just seemed safer to stay away from people whenever I could.”

  Since I’d done pretty much the same thing myself while trying to pretend all those crazy storms were none of my doing, I could relate to Ethan’s avoidance of connections whenever possible. I wondered then whether Randall Lenz had purposely sought out gifted people who were mostly alone in the world. Not out of any particular altruism, but simply because there would be far fewer questions asked if individuals like that simply…disappeared.

  “But you can control it now because of the work you’ve done here?” I said, and Ethan nodded.

  “It wasn’t really that hard, once we had some guidance,” he said. “Sort of like a mental flick of the wrist, if you know what I mean.”

  Since Joanna Wilcox had helped me figure out how to perform that same sort of mental maneuver, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Still, I couldn’t help thinking that these people would all be so much better off if they could be with the witch clans they truly belonged to, rather than isolated here by an organization that valued them only for what their powers represented.

  “Once you start working with Dr. Richards, it’ll be a lot clearer,” Lorna put in.

  I looked over at the older woman. “So, you work with her most of the time?”

  “Her, or her assistants — Dr. Keegan and Dr. Woodrow. They share responsibilities, although Dr. Richards is the one in charge.”

  And where were those two assistants now? Working with the members of the group who weren’t present at our little gathering…or maybe watching the feed from the security cameras to see how their latest acquisition was faring?

  “You don’t work with Agent Lenz?” I asked next.

  “Not usually,” Natalie told me. “He’s mostly in charge of finding us.”

  “But he interviews us once a month for his reports,” Ethan said. “Otherwise, we don’t see him much.”

  In a way, that particular piece of information was a relief. The fewer interactions I had with Randall Lenz, the better. On the other hand, if he was stuck at the Alexandria facility talking to the inmates, so to speak, then he wouldn’t be out grabbing some other unlucky soul for his collection.

  “Got it,” I said, since I had the impression that none of my fellow test subjects appeared to share my antipathy for the man in question. Then again, I had a very real reason to hate him, while it didn’t seem as though any of the other “captures” — for lack of a better word — had been nearly as violent as mine.

  “You’ll probably start working with Dr. Richards tomorrow,” Natalie added. “We all got a day to sort of acclimate, and then she started measuring our talents, figuring out what we could and couldn’t do.”

  While I was glad to know that I wouldn’t have to start right away, I had to wonder exactly how Dr. Richards or her assistants planned to perform those particular measurements. It wasn’t as if they could put me in a lab and ask me to summon a hurricane or something.

  “But for now, you can just hang out,” Ethan said. “There’s a little kitchen area in the back, with a fridge and a microwave and snacks, drinks, that kind of thing.”

  “A six-pack of beer?” I asked, putting on a grin so he’d know I was joking.

  “I wish. We get to have one drink once a week, but otherwise, they don’t want alcohol messing with our abilities.”

  No, I supposed having a bunch of tipsy witches and warlocks wandering around and using their powers indiscriminately would play havoc with the facility’s testing regimens. And although one drink a week sounded pretty austere, it was better than none at all.

  Not that I planned to hang around for a week. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to manage it, but I knew I needed to get out of there.

  No matter what.

  7

  Michelle Richards entered Randall Lenz’s office, looking slightly irritated…probably because he’d called her in toward the end of the day as she’d been preparing to head home. Unlike him, she was married and had a child, and tried her best to ensure her work hours weren’t too irregular and didn’t interfere with her home life. Most of the time, Lenz didn’t get in her way, since her support staff was certainly adequate to handle any emergencies that might arise in her absence, but that evening he hadn’t wanted to wait until the following morning before he spoke with her.

  “Tell me about Adara Grant,” he said without bothering with a greeting, and the doctor raised an eyebrow.

  “There isn’t much to tell at this point,” Richards replied. “She met the other subjects and appeared to get along with them. She asked about their talents and there was some discussion of their various gifts, and afterward she remained with the group until it was time for all of them to return to their individual suites.”

  “Any signs of friction with the others?”

  “Not so far,” the doctor said. “She also asked about you.”

  “What did she ask?”

  “Whether any of the others worked with you on a regular basis here at the facility. She appeared somewhat relieved when they replied in the negative.”

  That particular revelation didn’t surprise him. While he hadn’t planned what had happened to Lyssa Grant, he knew Adara wouldn’t easily forgive him for her mother’s death, nor did he expect her to. He might not have been a psychiatrist, but even he could see the writing on the wall there.

  At the same time, he allowed himself a small inward smile at the irony of the situation. Although it wasn’t standard practice for him to be involved with the day-to-day routines of the test subjects, he’d already planned to make an exception in her case. Of those currently participating in Project Daedalus, her talent was by far the strongest and the most spectacular…and was also the only one that couldn’t be tested in a laboratory. Their earlier interaction had proved that she needed to be somewhere outside, or at least with easy access to the outdoors, in order for her to utilize her gift, and he’d decided that he needed to be present to oversee those particular experiments.

  “I hate to disappoint her,” he said easily, “but that isn’t exactly the truth. I’ll be working with you tomorrow when you start putting her through her paces.”

  His announcement didn’t provoke much of an outward response — Michelle Richards was too much of a professional for that sort of thing — but he could tell from the brief startled flicker of her eyes and the way her mouth tightened slightly that she wasn’t especially happy to hear of his proposed involvement in those tests.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary — ” she began, but he cut her off before she could continue.

  “I think it is. If nothing else, I’ve seen her powers in action and know what to expect. You’ll be starting at nine, correct?”

 
Just the barest hesitation before Dr. Richards replied, “Yes. I’d planned to have Dr. Woodrow observe as well, just because we were going to be working in the north field rather than the lab. But I can ask him to work with one of the others if you’d prefer.”

  “No, he can attend,” Lenz told her. Possibly having all of them present would be overkill — especially since he knew the doctor would also have an armed escort to ensure that Ms. Grant didn’t try to escape during the experiment — but he didn’t see any reason to keep Alec Woodrow away. “I’ll see you on the north field at 9 a.m. tomorrow.”

  “Very good, Agent Lenz,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s all. Enjoy your evening.”

  She didn’t bother to return the sentiment, only gave him the barest nod before she turned on her heel and left his office. The clack of those heels on the linoleum in the hallway outside came to his ears briefly before the door shut behind her.

  Clearly, Michelle Richards was less than happy with him. However, since he was the program director, he didn’t require her approval to attend Adara’s session the next morning. He’d suffered far too much in his pursuit of that troublesome young woman to step aside and let the scientists handle things. He wanted to see for himself exactly what she was capable of.

  After that…well, after that, he would make his own recommendations as to how best the government could utilize her extraordinary gifts.

  Jeremy showed no signs of emerging from the PC room, so at a little after six, Jake told Laurel to go home. “Just because he’s killing himself in there doesn’t mean you have to as well,” he said, and she frowned slightly.

  “I can hang if you want me to,” she replied. “I don’t have any plans for tonight.”

  Although he was touched by the worry he saw in her face, he didn’t see any reason for her to stick around Trident HQ. Probably in an hour or so, he’d order some pizza in the hope that the aroma of pepperoni would lure Jeremy out and convince him to take a break, but Laurel might as well try to go home and have a normal evening.

  “It’s fine,” Jake said. “Nothing is going to change until Jeremy gets into that security system, and I have no idea when that’s going to happen. If there’s an update, I’ll text you.”

  “Okay,” she replied, although the reluctance in her tone told him she still wasn’t happy about abandoning him to go back to her apartment and watch Netflix, or whatever it was she planned to do with the rest of her evening. To his surprise, she put her hand on his arm and gave it a quick, reassuring squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, Jake. Jeremy will figure it out.”

  “I know he will,” he responded. He couldn’t even say he was lying, because deep down, he knew his brother would get into the SED’s security system eventually. The real problem was how long it might take him to accomplish that goal…and what might be happening to Addie in the meantime. “Have a good night, Laurel.”

  His cousin sent him one more dubious glance, but she didn’t argue, only retrieved her purse from where she’d slung it over the back of a chair, gave him a quick “good night,” and went out the door. The sound of it closing was curiously final, even though he knew she’d be back at nine o’clock the next morning.

  Unless Jeremy cracked the system and things swung into high gear right away.

  Jake settled himself back down in his office chair and stared at the screen in front of him. There really wasn’t much for him to look at; a multitude of images, interspersed with streams of code, flowed across the large cinema display, but it wasn’t until one of the algorithms flagged a piece of anomalous data which needed to be analyzed that the flashing images and code would stop, would display the scrap of information that merited a closer look. In fact, the display was really mostly for show, since of course Jeremy’s formulas could have functioned quietly in the background. But he’d thought this setup might be a little more reassuring to Jake; at least that way, he’d have something to look at while the algorithms churned through those enormous piles of data.

  Of course, it would be just his luck to have something pop up while he was asleep, or far enough away that he couldn’t get back to HQ in a timely fashion.

  Luck….

  The word seemed to stick in Jake’s mind, and he frowned for a second, wondering why luck should seem so significant. Then it came to him, and he wanted to clap his hand against his forehead for not thinking of it sooner.

  His cousin Lucas’ gift was luck. Luck that applied to him particularly, but still. If — when — Jeremy broke into the system and discovered where Addie was being kept, then if Lucas came along on the rescue mission, his presence would guarantee a successful breakout, since his talent would make sure that nothing bad happened to him…and, by extension, anyone in his immediate vicinity.

  Almost without thinking, Jake reached into his pocket and got out his phone. A quick glance at the closed door to the PC room told him he should probably make the call someplace where he wouldn’t risk disturbing his brother’s work with a phone conversation.

  Well, the back porch seemed as good a place as any. The yard was big enough that there wasn’t much chance of any neighbors overhearing him, so Jake went out the French doors that opened on the porch and took a seat on one of the Adirondack chairs placed there. The outdoor furniture had been Laurel’s idea, and he hadn’t argued with the expenditure because he figured there would probably be times when they needed to take a break from crunching data and get some fresh air.

  It was almost six-thirty, and Jake hoped he wouldn’t be disturbing Connor just as he and his family were sitting down to dinner. Still, he didn’t want to wait; if Connor went along with his idea of having Lucas come along on the jailbreak, it would be up to him to reach out to their cousin and let him know what they were considering.

  The phone rang three times, and Jake feared it might go straight to voicemail. However, at the last minute, Connor picked up, sounding breathless.

  “Did Jeremy get in?” he asked.

  “No,” Jake replied, then added, “I didn’t catch you in the middle of something, did I?”

  “Just a game of tag with the kids. What’s up?”

  If they’d been playing in the yard, then they definitely weren’t having dinner yet. Most likely, they’d been eating later than usual because of the long, lazy summer days. “I had an idea,” Jake said. “What if we brought Lucas along as a sort of lucky charm?”

  Connor didn’t bother to ask where Jake wanted to take Lucas. Instead, he said, “That might work. I mean, as far as I’ve been able to tell, his gift protects him no matter what, so if he’s around, then it stands to reason nothing will go wrong. Only….”

  “Only what?”

  “Well, Angela and I can only take one person each when we’re teleporting. If we have Lucas with us and are going to bring Addie back at the same time, then you can’t come along. Even our powers have limits, you know.”

  Damn. Jake supposed he should have thought of that, but although he knew the primus and prima had used their gift of teleportation to bring some Castillo witches with them to help in the fight against Joaquin Escobar’s people, he hadn’t realized they’d only been able to bring one person each. He didn’t much like the thought of not being there to help Addie escape from Randall Lenz’s prison, but he told himself that it was far more important to guarantee the success of the jailbreak than to have him there when it happened. After all, Connor and Angela’s gift of teleportation was basically instantaneous. It wasn’t as though he’d have to spend hours and hours waiting for them to return to Flagstaff.

  “That’s all right,” Jake said, hoping he sounded casual and unconcerned, and guessing that instead his cousin could all too easily hear the tension in his voice. “The important thing is to get Addie out of there.”

  “True. Well, let me give Lucas a call and see if he’s game. Hang tight.”

  Connor ended the call there, and Jake set his iPhone down on his leg as he stared out into the backyard — green and m
anicured, with cheerful pansies and snapdragons and hollyhocks in the flowerbeds along the borders, thanks to a couple of weekends of hard work by the entire Trident HQ crew — and tried to reassure himself that of course Lucas would go along with their plan. The guy was generally up for anything that sounded remotely entertaining.

  No, the real problem would probably be Lucas’ wife Margot. She’d never been anything but friendly the few times her path had crossed Jake’s, but he knew that, thanks to her being a McAllister clan elder for years before she married Lucas, she was also used to getting her own way. There was a very strong possibility that she’d declare the entire scheme way too dangerous and put her foot down.

  Well, Lucas was his own man, and Jake had to hope that he’d put his own foot down and inform Margot that the safety of a fellow clan member — especially the daughter of a former primus — was more important than a few niggling concerns about his safety. Anyway, Connor and Angela weren’t exactly helpless, even if there were a few limits on their powers. If the worst happened and their intrusion was discovered, they could use their magic to drive off any civilian attackers and still be able to get Addie away.

  But as the minutes ticked past and his phone remained silent, Jake couldn’t help but experience a growing trickle of unease. Maybe Connor wasn’t getting back to him because simply making the request had been enough to instigate a confrontation between Lucas and his wife. They’d never seemed anything but crazy about each other when they were in public together, but people tended to present their best face to the public no matter what might be going on at home.

  Just as he was about to give up and go back inside, his phone rang. At once, he scooped it up without even looking at the screen. “Connor?”

  “Lucas is in,” the primus said. “I had to wait for him to call me back because he and Margot had gone out to dinner. Luckily, she went to the restroom, and he checked his phone while she was gone.”

  Random luck, or Lucas’ power exerting itself because it knew he needed to come along on the rescue mission? Jake honestly couldn’t begin to guess — all the ramifications of his cousin’s magical gift could get pretty crazy when you stopped to really puzzle them out — but right then, he didn’t care. The important thing was that Lucas had agreed to come along, and all of Jake’s worry that Margot might try to interfere had apparently been unfounded.