“And you?” I asked the gaucho.
“I feel … sick,” he answered. “But … better?”
“Just hang on until that statement no longer ends with a question mark.” I eased over to Cassidy. “It doesn’t seem to have killed them.” She watched them warily. “That’s a good sign, right?”
“It’s unlocking components of their DNA right now,” she said. “I suppose it’s not a painless process.”
“Judging by the amount of pain they seem to have experienced, I should say not.” I looked at Augustus, Reed and Friday, who had yet to take any of my new miracle serum. “Well, the others are pulling through. Might as well get started on you gentlemen.”
“Yes, sir,” Reed and Augustus chorused, as they should have.
“Uhhh … I’d rather not,” Friday said, eyes moving around quickly through the slits in his mask.
“Please, I insist,” I said, brushing against his mind. He was fearful, of course, his thoughts whirling.
I caught a whiff of what he was going to do a moment before he did it. “PASS!” he yelled, swelling to the size of a truck and smashing through the wall of the Oval Office so quickly I barely had time to cover my eyes, let alone grab control of his spinning, whirling mind. I could feel him, his thoughts tightly packed like a slippery ball. He was surprisingly disciplined in his thinking. He broke into a run across the White House lawn and then leapt into the air, sailing over the fence and out of sight.
I was left staring out across the south lawn, Friday’s mind retreating from my easy grasp, a massive hole in the wall of the White House. Dust from the demolition work just performed in the office filled the air with a white tinge. Cassidy rose to her feet next to me, staring out the hole after him, her mouth hanging open. “Close that before you attract flies,” I said, catching her gently under the chin and shutting her trap. It would keep her from saying something stupid, as well.
“Isn’t the Secret Service going to freak out about this?” she asked.
I was already shutting them down, though, and it was once again straining the hell out of me to do so. I sighed as I tweaked about twenty minds in a row. Fortunately it was only a mildly blustery day in Washington, nothing I couldn’t handle, or I might have felt compelled to leave the West Wing immediately. “Hopefully no one got cell phone footage of that,” I said. “At least it’s not tourist season.”
“You think they missed a giant meta bursting out of the wall of the West Wing and leaping over the White House fence into DC?” Cassidy had clearly lost any objectivity; she looked like she was ready to cry.
“It’s entirely possible someone saw it,” I said, “but we’re not visible from behind the fence here, which means … no one can see the hole in the wall and the Secret Service is quieted for the moment. I’ll deal with this later.” I eyed the box in her hands, with its remaining needles. “Give them the serum,” I nodded to Reed and Augustus. That would leave two hypodermic needles of the serum remaining. I saw her glance at them as well, and it didn’t take someone of Cassidy’s intelligence to deduce what she was thinking. I mentally slapped the thought out of her head, and she jerked slightly. This serum might have only been the boost power, but I didn’t need her getting any smarter. Besides, it wasn’t exactly tested, and the results had been skewed. Unlocking powers and boosts seemed indelibly tied together, which meant that once the dust settled on our test subjects, it was entirely possible they could experience both a boost of existing powers as well as the unlocking of new ones tangential to their current abilities.
The last thing I needed was Cassidy Ellis—the foremost mind on the planet—accidentally developing telepathy or omnipathy as a secondary power while her intellect was enhanced by the boost.
“Okay,” Cassidy said, a little unevenly. I had avoided reading or interfering in her mind as much as possible, preferring to leave her intact to do her work with only occasional spot-checks to make certain of her loyalty. This slap I needed to do, though, because the idea of her developing powers was not a threat I wanted to deal with at the moment.
I watched her inject Reed and Augustus one by one, and swept my gaze over the suddenly windy, dust-filled room. Scott Byerly was still curled up in a ball in the middle of the room, apparently so out of it that he hadn’t even noticed the giant bastard smash his way through the wall. I could feel his mind, but it was near unconscious, and folded in on itself. I prodded it slightly, and he stirred, a stray thought floating to the top of his mind.
“Interesting,” I murmured, for it was.
“What’s that?” Cassidy asked, shutting the box with the needles in it. I caught sight of the two remaining ones before she did so. Augustus and Reed were both standing tall, owing more to my control of them than a lack of effect on their bodies. If Scott hadn’t been such a mess mentally, he would have still been on his feet as well.
“Mr. Byerly took some initiative and commissioned a look at White House security from a metahuman threat such as Sienna Nealon,” I said, prodding through the idea. “Not a bad thought, though I doubt his motives were pure.” I looked at Cassidy and smiled. “I don’t think he much cares for me interfering in his thoughts.”
Cassidy swallowed heavily, and I sensed the rebuttal before she made it. She almost didn’t, but she had to know I read it by the narrowing of my eyes, so she put it out there. “Most people won’t … when the time comes.”
“That’s why it has to be permanent, you see,” I said. Of course she knew, but I needed to reaffirm the reasoning. Cassidy had a powerful mind; it was only natural she would consider all the possibilities. She’d seen that this was the ultimate, best scenario for the world. “Finally, everyone will think the way I think and see things the way I see them. No more war, no more internecine squabbles.” I clutched my fingers into a fist. “This world has been divided, angry, one part in conflict with another, confused, drifting in seven billion individual directions … Lincoln said that a house divided against itself could not stand, and he was right. We’ve been divided against ourselves by nature for our entire existence. How can we possibly expect to conquer the challenges facing mankind—poverty, war, environmental calamity—when we don’t even all acknowledge the same problems?” I took a breath of cool, autumnal air. “I can see it all, you know. Just like you do. And the solutions, they’re out there … but not everyone sees the problems. If they saw it as I do—as we do,” I remembered to include her, “we could finally put aside these squabbles and grievances and unite … and make real progress. All the ills of humanity could be eliminated in a year. We would finally have … unity.”
Her mind was the only one really moving in the room other than mine, and it was whirling swiftly, as it always did, so swiftly that I could almost not keep up. I did catch a stray thought, like a child thrown off the merry-go-round by its momentum, and Cassidy knew I’d caught it, for she gave it voice a moment later.
“Are you sure you should …” She coughed quietly. “People … they want to do things themselves—”
“Come on, Cassidy,” I said, spinning on her, my exasperation showing. She knew better. “Do people—the majority of people—do things that are healthy for them, if given the option? They still smoke even though they know it causes cancer. They use fossil fuels at a rate that will render our world uninhabitable. The sick go untreated, the poor go hungry. People make terrible choices every day, ones that make them more miserable, they even put themselves at the mercy of drugs that control their thoughts. Even the ones who are supposedly clear-headed high achievers—they pursue money and victory, often in the absence of compassion and care. People are foolish and short-sighted, selfish and self-deluded. They cut off their noses, vainly thinking it will make their face more attractive, or simply not caring about the long-term repercussions. People are fools, unable to manage their own lives. And I will fix it—all of it—for them.” I swelled at the thought.
“Yes, sir,” she wilted, as she should have.
The superiority of my a
rgument was as obvious as the paleness of her face. I looked over at Byerly, who had yet to stir. “And then there’s him,” I muttered. I would have to assume full control of him once more in order to insure that he did what was necessary—once he woke up, of course.
“How long do you want to wait before you … try this yourself?” she asked. Her voice was still, quiet—she’d gotten hold of herself, finally.
“Not long,” I said, straightening up. I could scarcely contain myself. It was finally here, after all—the solution to all the world’s problems.
I just needed to make sure it wouldn’t kill me and leave the world in an even worse state.
The phone on my desk beeped. “Sir, Director Phillips wishes to speak with you. He’s received an emergency—”
“Sir,” Phillips cut in, “I just got FLASH traffic from Agent Rocha at the NSA.” I rolled my eyes, but he kept speaking, unaware that he was stepping all over my moment in here. “He’s picked up an intercept, a call that’s now gone encrypted but started out in the open—voice recognition identified one of the speakers as Sienna Nealon, sir.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You have her?”
“We do, sir,” Phillips said. “She’s in Montana.”
80.
Sienna
Meet me in DC, I thought hard, hoping that my message would get through to its intended target. My eyes were closed, the fireplace in the corner of the rented lodge crackling where someone had flipped the switch to light it up. I’d called for everyone to assemble, figuring it was time to get this show underway, because the way I figured it—given what I thought Harmon was up to—there wasn’t a moment to waste.
“So he’s going to … take over the world with his brain?” Abigail asked, distilling the craziness down into the most concise explanation.
“That’s my best guess,” I said, opening my eyes and looking at the girl with the black and pink hair. She looked about as uncertain as I felt, maybe a little sick, too, because the thought of someone taking over our brains? Not a happy one.
“Wow,” Colin said, leaning against the fridge, twitching slightly, so quickly I couldn’t see his fingers move when he did so. “That’s some serious fascist stuff right there, mind control.”
“That is not even fascism,” Dr. Perugini said. “It goes beyond.”
“She’s right,” I said. “It’s past being even an authoritarian who wants to rule the world with their own iron fist. An authoritarian will leave you alone if you stay within their lines—”
“Small consolation, that,” Steven Clayton muttered.
“—Harmon’s a totalitarian,” I said. “He wants total control of our every thought and action, to be the god of the mind who rules the world from on high. Every action, every motion, every single person will be under his thumb if I’m right about this. There will be no dissent because no one will be strong enough to dissent.” I had a sudden, vague idea, and wondered if empaths might be immune to omnipathic control as they were from telepaths.
“Being controlled by a god-king is not my idea of a cool time,” Veronika said, looking at her immaculate nails.
“Nope,” Harry said, peering straight ahead. “Huh.”
“Huh what?” Phinneus Chalke asked, his wrinkled lips pursed as he stared at Harry.
“Well, I see a bit of zombie-ism in our futures now that I’m looking ahead,” Harry said, head bobbing as he thought it over. “Plus or minus three days, it’s happening. People’ll just stop talking and start moving, like one of those, uh—well, like an old movie. Probabilities are climbing as we stand here.”
“And you didn’t notice this before?” Kat asked, her eyes wide with fear. Personally, I thought Kat had the least to lose from being mind-controlled.
Be nice to my sister, who has believed in you through everything, Gavrikov warned me.
Yeah, yeah. Except for that time she let me spill my guts then betrayed me to the press.
“I don’t walk around with my head in the far future,” Harry said, shrugging.
“So it’s actually happening,” I said, dragging my gaze away from Harry.
“Do you think he’ll implement like, a full, nationwide recycling and composting program?” Colin asked, like he was actually considering this as some kind of good thing. “Because, I mean, trying to see the bright side here—”
“The bright side here is that you’ll no longer have a mind of your own,” I said, “not that you ever did.” I covered my eyes. “We need to get on the jet and head for Washington.”
“Whoa,” Abigail said, standing up abruptly. “And do what?”
“Overthrow the lawfully elected government of the United States, obviously,” Dr. Perugini snarked. She leaned her head back on the couch in a way that would have given even me a crick in the neck.
“Oh, wow,” Colin said, his mouth hanging open.
“Sienna …” Kat had paled noticeably, “… this is really it, isn’t it? She’s not wrong about what we have to do.”
I looked at Harry once more for confirmation, and he nodded. “She’s not wrong,” I agreed, and the meeting descended into about five different kinds of groans.
“Man, I didn’t know when I came along on this that I was signing up to be some kind of revolutionary nutbag—” Colin said.
“‘The tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,’” Steven said, almost whispering.
“Okay, well, I’m in,” Kat said quietly but firmly.
“Insurrection,” Veronika said, looking at the ceiling. “I’m not sure I can be paid enough for this.”
“I quite fond of my mind, so … I reckon I’m in,” Harry said.
“You’re all out of your minds,” Phinneus said, and he clacked his rifle butt against the ground, silencing us. He was looking at me with quiet intensity. “You’re going head-on with the government of the United States?”
“It’s what I’ve been doing the last few days,” I said.
“No, you haven’t,” Phinneus said. “You’ve been running, and that’s a smart move. You’re not ready for the head-on. I saw the Civil War, sweetheart—”
“We’ve all seen Civil War,” Abigail muttered, “that’s why it made a billion dollars at the box office.”
“The actual one,” Phinneus said, “North versus South.”
“Oh,” Abigail said.
“Phinneus,” Veronika said, shaking her head, eyes closed. “You’re being patronizing with the ‘sweetheart’ thing. Don’t be a fossil.”
“I saw the full fury of the government of the United States come crashing down,” Phinneus went on, undeterred by Veronika’s chiding. “I saw two armies fight each other, and I picked the side I was on—the one that said we were going to free men and women and children from bondage. I saw everything we brought to bear against the men in grey, and let me tell you something—it’s only going to be worse, now. They lost a generation and so did we—”
“Yeah, this fight’s not going to be that big,” Veronika said.
“It’s going to be bigger, don’t you see?” Phinneus asked. “They’ve got missiles and planes and nuclear bombs now—”
“They’ve turned several of those loose against me the last few days,” I said. “Trust, I’m aware of what they’re going to throw at us.”
“I don’t think you are,” Phinneus said, giving me a hot look. “I ain’t impugning the rightness of your cause, but they’re coming down on you with everything now, if Harmon’s what you say he is. Everything. Because war has changed—”
“War never changes,” Abigail said, stock serious, then looked around, as if for approval. “Fallout 4.” She looked questioningly. “Anyone? Seriously?”
“We have got to get you your boyfriend back,” I muttered, and turned my attention back to Phinneus.
“I got it,” Colin said, and Abigail put out a fist for him to bump, which he did so speedily that Abigail cringed and pulled back, her hand shaking.
“Phinneus,” I said, “I’ve been shot out of the sky by F-22s, blasted by drone strikes, and had the FBI’s meta task force plus a foreign spec-ops group turned loose on me. You think I don’t know that war has changed, or that Harmon is going to throw everything at us to keep us off him long enough to—well, to take over the world?” I frowned. “God, that sounds cheesy. But he’s going to do it. He has the means.”
“Who even wants to dive that deep into the heads of everyone in the world?” Perugini wondered. “What kind of a sick mind would delight in the idea of controlling everyone like—like puppets?”
“Isn’t that kind of the idea of laws in the first place?” Abigail asked. “Government, I mean? To, y’know, put the kibosh on the bad things people do so we can get on with the good?”
“If we’re all going full zombie, I don’t see us getting on with the good,” I said, getting a nod from Harry. “We all get put to whatever glorious purpose our fearless leader decides is best for us.” That chafed more than a little, honestly.
“I know what help I’d be in this situation,” Phinneus said, shaking his head. “None.”
“Phinneus, you’re a crack shot,” I said. “You could—”
“Blow the president’s brains out at a distance of a thousand yards?” He caught my look, and I saw the disgust in his own. “I’ve been an assassin for a lot of years. I’ve killed a lot of people that way.” And almost me, I was thinking. “I don’t think you want the optics of me doing that to the president.” He shook his head, looking at the ground. “I know I don’t.”
“I’d like it better than being mind-controlled and having my will stripped away,” I said. “Loads better.”
“I ain’t doing it,” Phinneus shook his head. I got the feeling he had a personal objection to this. “You kids will do fine without me.”
Unyielding (Out of the Box Book 11) Page 25