Instead, Connor dealt with the fallout from the second grain of truth. It seemed that Lena had been motivated by a childhood trauma that had been unearthed as soon as her name had been placed in the database. While Lena had been away at a boarding school, one of her family’s employees, a pyrokinetic designated Tinder, had set fire to the house, and her family and all the inhabitants, including Tinder, had been killed in the ensuing inferno. Lena had not been given more than a precursory interview to assess her threat to Blackout, and since she had not been present during the incident, she had been filed away and forgotten.
Connor and Orion returned to Plum Island so that the latter could experience processing from the other side since he would be working in the office environment rather than in the field. Unfortunately, this meant that Orion was present when Malmkvist cross-referenced “Code Name: Tinder” in the system. Owing to the name’s pyric connotation, the younger man became obsessed with the blonde and her childhood incident until Connor made the regrettable decision to allow him to access the file. Orion studied it, rereading it until he practically memorized it. His introverted nature notwithstanding, he became even quieter and more introspective, and he withdrew from his training. Connor’s frequent visits to Orion’s apartment no longer elicited a reaction, despite the agent’s best efforts at goading him into one, and he decided to confront the situation directly.
One night, after bringing a new offering of Chicago-style pizza, Connor took an aggressive stance. “So, that incident with Tinder was mighty unfortunate, yeah? Burned the whole family to bits, save for that one poor girl, and that was only ’cause she wasn’t present,” he scoffed, baiting Orion intentionally. Having endured countless years of absorbing his mother’s animosity, he’d learned how to get under someone’s skin; it was not a skill that he used often, as it pushed witnesses to be defiantly uncooperative, but it was nevertheless a valuable tool in his kit, and he wielded it now. “Thinking that could have been you, eh? Or maybe some of your sister’s friends?”
When he received no response, he leaned forward into Orion’s space, knowing how much he disliked it, and added icily, “Maybe this whole building with everyone in it, including your parents, though I suppose you’d be better off in the latter respect, eh?” The mention of the Starrs earned a fixed, angry stare, but still, no words came. Connor had been certain that this would have been the correct button to push to force a dialogue. “Ah, now there’s a response,” he taunted. “Maybe you’d like to elaborate?”
As Orion’s silence continued impressively, Connor leaned back in his chair, lifted its legs off the floor, and reclined in a cavalier fashion. “You don’t have to, of course,” he mocked. “I could just talk for hours and make wild assumptions and accusations to entertain myself, but I’m not going to leave until I get an answer.” As if to emphasize his point, he slammed the chair legs down, propped his arm on the table, and started drumming his fingers in a quick, irregular pattern. He could see Orion’s annoyance rising and his resolve cracking, but hesitance still sheltered behind the bulwark of his stubbornness. Connor decided to give him one last push and grinned sardonically as he badgered, “Come on, then! It’s only going to get worse from here.”
The younger man scowled. “This was a bad choice.”
“What was?”
“You,” he replied pointedly, adding, “them… whatever you want to call this.” As he averted his gaze to the table’s surface, his eyes lost their focus, and his mouth tightened angrily. Connor recognized bitterness when he saw it, but he wasn’t going to allow the conversation to fizzle there. “Don’t make me drag this out of you, mate,” he warned.
Orion tensed further, turning his mouth into a pale line and giving him the appearance of a brooding teenager. “You’re right,” he said angrily, his voice even and steady despite the cutting tone, and the self-control he demonstrated emphasized his forced maturity. “I was thinking that case could have been us, only not the way you think. Clara…” He used Tinder’s real name, possibly in an effort to humanize her; in contrast, Connor found it easier to perform his duties by referring to Others by their database designations if he knew them. “Clara lost control, but Cassie’s never been like that, even if she’s had an accident or two.”
Connor would hardly characterize Cassie’s track record as clean. She’d caused two deaths, earning a respite only because she had acted in self-defense, and he knew that she had caused as-yet-unidentified harm in the past. The BSI’s belief that she could become a threat to public safety wasn’t without merit, but making a verbal assertion in this regard wouldn’t facilitate continued discussion with her brother.
“Now if she has an accident, you’ll look at her just like Clara and…” The dam finally broke, and his emotions overtook him. The fear and love that he felt for his sister were enviable, but they were also a heavy burden. Self-consciously, he wiped away the few tears that had dared to manifest and continued as if nothing had happened, but his voice betrayed him and cracked as he spoke. “You’ll kill her. There aren’t any second chances. I never should have made this deal,” he lamented, rubbing the nape of his neck in tiny circles with his fingers as if doing so would somehow present him with a solution. “I should have just taken her and run.”
All the affected smugness and arrogance drained from Connor’s face as he adopted a solemn posture. He exhaled through his nose, folded his arms, and said gravely, “You couldn’t have done that, lad. You’d have been found, and Cassie would have been euthanized for sure.” The search wouldn’t have taken much time or effort either; with her parents wanted for murder, state and local law enforcement would want to locate the Starr siblings to determine whether they had been among the victim count, and their faces would have been plastered everywhere. Fugitives lost the chance for clemency, so by surrendering to Connor in their apartment, Orion had ensured Cassie’s continued survival.
Connor decided that Orion deserved to hear the full truth, no matter how brutal it was, because he’d proven that he could make difficult choices. “Look, it’s a raw deal, mate, but you made the right decision,” he continued grimly and maintained full eye contact so that Orion would pay attention to his message. “You didn’t fail your sister by coming to work for us. You gave her a chance, but now the onus is on her. She’s got to do well. She’s got to pass her training and maintain her control, or else she’ll be considered a danger just like Tinder. And there’s nothing you can do.”
Connor watched for his reaction, and Orion seemed to be absorbing the lesson as he sat motionless, except for an imperceptible nod. He clapped him on the shoulder supportively and attempted to reassure him as he closed the conversation. “There comes a time when a parent has to let their children make their own way, and that’s how it’s got to be with her.” He found it ironic that he was giving a lecture on parental concerns when neither of them had ever had stellar role models. Nevertheless, he knew that Orion needed to hear it, as he’d borne the responsibility of parenting for over a decade. “You can’t protect her any more than you already have, and you can’t influence the amount of control she has. Only she can do that, mate.” He squeezed Orion’s shoulder, hoping that if he’d heard only a portion of the conversation, he would remember that part. “The best thing you can do for her is keep doing your job. Doing your job well means she can live in anonymity because the government is reassured that Others don’t pose a danger to public safety.”
Orion didn’t like his answer, and it strained their nascent partnership. They didn’t discuss his sister, Tinder, or euthanasia any further, but Connor suspected that Orion would eventually accept and internalize the unforgiving reality that his family’s existence had created. The Starr siblings’ lives depended on it, and Orion was sensible enough to do what it took to protect his sister.
Mercifully, Orion was more willing to discuss the other matter that bothered him, even though it took several night
s of sitting in purposely uncomfortable silence for Connor to finally pry it out of him. “Are all of them like that?” Orion asked softly when he finally yielded. “Do you always have to draw your gun? You didn’t with us.”
Connor studied him, his eyes sliding over the slight, hunched body. Orion was lanky, but he knew how to make himself appear smaller, and he almost shrank into his baggy clothes. Even though he was twenty-two, he seemed at least a decade younger, as if the maturity that had been forced upon him in his early years had stunted the development of the other aspects of his personality. Connor had also had a difficult childhood, and he empathized, even though Orion’s suffering had occurred in plusher surroundings. “No, I didn’t need to with you, and I normally don’t have to,” he replied. “I’m an investigator. I just have the weapon in case something goes wrong.” Privately, he thought about the fact that it hadn’t assisted him much in his confrontation with Pierce Starr.
“You would have shot her if she hadn’t surrendered.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” he admitted, and he wouldn’t have hesitated. He hadn’t known that she was an Other, but she’d clearly murdered at least one person and had conceivably still posed a threat without her knife. The military had taught him to shoot to kill and the BSI advocated the same escalation of force in order to prevent unnecessary harm to its agents or nearby civilians. It was also fortunate that New York City vigorously enforced its anti-gun laws, which had discouraged Lena from carrying hers, or the night might have ended in another shootout instead of being resolving semi-peacefully.
Orion shook his head. “I don’t think I could do it.”
Connor frowned. “And you won’t,” he replied, trying to sound reassuring. “Confrontation isn’t our wheelhouse, mate. That’s for special teams. The closest you should be getting to a fight is the aftermath. Your ability is more valuable during the cleanup.” He clapped him on the back. “Just remember: I’m showing you the ropes so you understand what we go through, not because you’ll be doing it on a daily basis.” He considered the young man again. He was going through a confusing stage in his life; it was a time when he should have been in college and experimenting with the adult he wanted to be, not minding his sister or mourning estranged parents. It should have been his discovery phase, but that had been stolen from him and replaced with a set path from which he couldn’t deviate, and it was Connor’s solemn duty to help him realize this and guide him to make the right decisions.
Connor sighed deeply. “Look, mate. No one’s expecting you to accept this overnight. It will be difficult, but you’ll get through this. No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.” He knew that this was a lie when he said it, and it hurt; the program itself was something that Orion didn’t want to do, but he doubted the BSI would ever confront him with the ethical problems that Connor had to ponder, as they did not want to risk alienating Others in their service, especially when the numbers remained critically low. “I’ll be here to help you, so don’t worry about things you can’t change.”
The younger man shook his head, simultaneously rejecting and accepting the course of his life. In the end, he didn’t speak again and looked up at Connor with a ghost of understanding. Connor nodded in turn and left noiselessly. Orion had to make the right decisions.
Part VI
Code Name: Phobos
Lewis huffed, hands on his knees as he bent over, and then took his pulse as soon as he caught his breath. His speed was improving, though it was his heart rate and recovery time that he was really concerned with. He and his wife had made a New Year’s pact to drop their respective vices for the sake of their children. To hold up his end of the deal, he needed to stop smoking. He was down to a pack a month, which was better than the several he used to have per day, but since he couldn’t quite succeed at this endeavor, he’d compromised by attempting to improve other aspects of his lifestyle in keeping with the spirit of the agreement. This had led to a promise to run a marathon in October, and while he didn’t believe that he would be ready within the next month, he was determined to keep his word this time. He’d disappointed his family too often in the past, and redeeming himself was a private resolution.
After another moment of rest, he decided that he’d earned his cigarette for the day, and he took a seat on a nearby bench. As he lit up, he watched children across the way running around the playground under the watchful eyes of their mothers, and he thought about his own children, who were probably walking home from the bus stop now. He might return with the youngest one after dinner so she could release her excess energy before bath time and bed.
A woman entered his vision, but it was her bullmastiff that caught his eye, and he flinched instinctively when the dog glanced his way. His nerves unsteadied, he took a long drag of his cigarette and tried to relax into the bench. He closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, the landscape had changed so much that he immediately wondered whether he’d fallen asleep. The children were no longer playing and shouting; instead, their motionless bodies were scattered across the ground, bleeding from holes in their chests, heads, or limbs. The other patrons had disappeared, blanketing the sunny park in an eerie silence, and then his vision swam with ribbons of darkness that fled to the edges of his senses. He thought that he heard the children laughing again and that he saw their vague shapes dashing across the empty park toward him, but as the shadows grew nearer, he realized that they were actually large, prowling dogs. The ebony hellhounds’ muzzles were covered in foam, and they showed every inch of their sharp teeth. Lewis drew his legs up onto the bench slowly and stood on its surface in an attempt to put some distance between himself and the beasts as they continued to close in on him. He glanced at the nearest tree, which was more than a few paces away, and knew that he would never make it there and into the safety of its branches. His heart was pounding in his ears while he searched desperately for a solution, and finally, instinct took over. He leapt over the forming pack and fled toward his house, where he hoped to find shelter. He heard the hounds baying hatefully behind him and felt teeth nipping at his heels. He did not make it more than a few yards before the hell beasts overtook him. As he fell to the ground and felt their heavy bodies pinning him down, the pain he experienced as dagger-like teeth rent his flesh soon caused him to lose consciousness.
- - -
Connor thumped the front door energetically and was greeted less than enthusiastically by Orion, whose ambivalent expression was becoming increasingly familiar. “Good morning, lad! Sleep well?”
Orion grunted. In a sick way, he was beginning to miss his sister’s sullenness in the face of his partner’s capricious moods; he never knew whether he should expect mordant enthusiasm, pitiable instruction, or a graceless wellness check. He stepped away and shuffled toward the kitchen, trusting Connor to shut the door behind him. Despite knowing that very few items currently resided in his fridge, Orion checked it in an effort to give himself something to do aside from stare at his partner while he delivered his lesson brief for the day. Sustained eye contact bothered him, and in particular, Connor always seemed to be scrutinizing him. Accordingly, he looked away so that he wouldn’t be overly mindful of Connor’s assessment.
Since the refrigerator didn’t provide an adequate distraction, Orion turned to the countertops and started wiping down the surfaces with a spare cloth in an obvious effort to keep his hands busy. But because the kitchen already looked spotless, his attempts were evident to Connor, even though he often proved to be oblivious to Orion’s discomfort. While the police had been kind enough to refer Orion to a few crime scene cleaners, he had chosen to undertake the task himself as he’d felt responsible for the whole situation. He had failed to protect his sister from the government and from their father, so a part of his penance was to tidy up the mess that had been left behind. It had taken significant effort to scrub the bloodstains from the floor, which nonetheless retained
a faint umber hue, and it had been even more difficult to find and clean the stray spots of blood along the stairwell, steps, and landing. The place where his father’s body had lain remained a blemish, albeit a sanitized one; in his zeal to remove the charring, he’d scrubbed and bleached it so thoroughly that it was distinctly lighter in color than the surrounding area. Nevertheless, his effort had made it nearly impossible to tell that a death and two attempted murders had occurred in his kitchen, and his apartment now seemed emptier—almost uninhabited—thanks to the absence of his sister.
Connor entered the apartment, stopping to grin smugly in the foyer after he shut the front door. “Hope so, because you’re in for a treat,” he quipped. “We’ve got to head up to Scotts Ridge.”
Orion nodded absently, and then he paused when his mind caught up with the conversation. “Wait. That’s not within city limits,” he remarked, and Connor gave an indifferent shrug. Suddenly confused, he remarked, “I thought we were staying in the city for my training.”
“Things change,” he replied without concern. “There was an incident up north. HQ thinks it might have been a terrorist act, but it doesn’t match the MO of any known Other in the database,” he explained. “Since I’m so ‘lucky’ when it comes to finding Others, they want me on the job, so you’re along for the ride.”
Operation Blackout Page 19