by K. M. Ruiz
The doctor glances up at her. “Will it change anything, these people you dream about?”
“They aren’t dreams,” Aisling says, scowling. “They’re real. And things will change if they listen.”
“What if they don’t?”
Aisling shrugs. “There are lots of ways this could end, but I chose to only see one.”
THIRTY-FIVE
SEPTEMBER 2379
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Did Gideon make it onto the space shuttle?
Nathan felt Dalia wince at his telepathic demand, the psi link in her mind an overused ache that she couldn’t block or ignore. Sharra’s space shuttle launched hours ago with all passengers accounted for, according to the manifest. By tomorrow morning, they’ll have reached the Ark.
You’re certain?
Yes. We’ve been launching space shuttles all day, but we only have one ramp and only so much space to house people, even if it is temporary. I’ve transferred all the Warhounds you’ve sent me into priority boarding, but that’s all I can do right now. How many more should I expect?
Half of my Warhounds haven’t even left their posts yet. There are supplies and other things that are important to gaining control of Mars Colony that we can’t leave without. By tomorrow, you should have close to a quarter of those left behind.
Are you sure that’s safe? Dalia’s thoughts shook with exhaustion and fear. Nathan clamped down tighter on her mind.
As you said, the government has only one launch ramp and little safe space in Paris for everyone. The launch is going to take days and it’s going to be messy. There will be space shuttles still available.
Of course, sir.
Nathan cut the connection, his attention refocusing on the half dozen uplinks spread across his work terminal’s vidscreen. Human field controllers loyal to the Serca Syndicate by deep mindwipes and Warhounds whose duties weren’t quite done yet waited patiently for his commands.
“Where were we?” he said, bringing the meeting back on track.
It didn’t take long. Twenty minutes later, he was cutting the uplinks, the vidscreen going blank. Nathan got to his feet and paced over to the window wall behind his desk, looking out at the dark London skyline. The view was familiar, committed to memory long ago. Back when he was a child, he thought London would remain his home. That he would die here, young and seemingly human, but that was no longer the case. London would only exist in his memories and Nathan found he wouldn’t mind forgetting it.
Rioters still fought on the streets surrounding the city towers. Their attacks against the government and registered humans hadn’t abated, were in fact becoming more violent with every hour that passed. Shuttle launches to Paris were scheduled to continue for the next few days. It was enough time for everyone not on the colony list to come together and fight for rights long denied them, but it was a fight they would lose.
The world population of highly educated people was dwindling at an alarming rate, with registered humans fleeing Earth for a tenuous promise in the stars. The remains of society would struggle to pick itself up, if anything was left after the first year of abandonment. The brain drain the World Court had engineered would cripple those left behind. Perhaps not into extinction, but close enough that the rot in the world would win. The rioters were protesting their oncoming deaths. Nathan thought it a futile action.
The computer chimed, alerting him to an incoming uplink. Nathan turned around to see that it was tagged with an emergency code. He went over to his desk to accept it. Erik’s face filled the vidscreen, pale and frantic.
“Nathan,” Erik said. “The neurotrackers failed.”
The words froze Nathan, disbelief twisting through his thoughts. It was swiftly followed by a rage that tunneled his vision, and Nathan had to work at showing fear instead of fury. That’s what Erik would expect from him, in the guise Nathan lived with. “Did you use the master override?”
“Do you think I don’t know how to put down a dog? We can still track some of their positions, but they aren’t all dead.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Ciari was here.” The woman’s name fell from Erik’s lips like a curse. “She had some asinine offer that they could save us if we stayed. She didn’t die when I issued the mass termination order and was teleported out before we could shoot her. We know that a few hundred Strykers died in the Americas and some here in The Hague, but all the rest were showing live signals on the security grid before we lost contact. I doubt any of those Strykers are dead.”
Nathan felt his fingernails bite into the palms of his hands. “I’m to assume your version of using a panic switch is to uplink with me? What do you think I can do about this problem?”
“Your family created this damn technology and sold it to the world when psions were first discovered. I’m hoping you have an override that can fix this problem. You Sercas don’t give up anything for free.”
It was a rather astute assumption, even if Nathan couldn’t outright acknowledge the underhanded way his family functioned. Moving to his seat, Nathan kept his attention on the uplink.
“What are your plans right now, Erik?”
“If you can’t give us a way to kill the Strykers, then the World Court is leaving tonight for Paris. We aren’t safe anymore if the Strykers decide to rebel and come after us.”
“Like the rest of the world?”
“Don’t act like you won’t be joining us on that shuttle, Nathan.” Erik frowned, weariness pulling at his mouth. “Why are you still in London anyway?”
“My Syndicate requires a firm hand to wind it down on such short notice. I’m waiting to hear from the Athes.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time,” Erik said flatly. “The city towers in Sapporo fell. Sydney is dead.”
Nathan tapped his fingers against his desk. He’d been so focused on transferring the contents of the seed bank and his Warhounds that he missed the news coming out of Japan. “When did this happen?”
“Within the last few hours.”
“I hadn’t heard. What about Elion?”
“He’s still in Paris. I don’t know if anyone’s informed him of his grandfather’s death. If they haven’t, Travis will when we arrive.”
“When do you expect to leave?”
“Right now, if you have nothing to give us.”
Nathan stared at Erik in silence for a long moment, weighing his options. “I may have something.”
Erik let out a deep breath, mouth twisting, despite the relief seeping into his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”
“My family guards its secrets the same way the World Court guards theirs. We’re just better at it. I’ll take a shuttle and be at The Hague soon to see what can be done.”
“We’ll await your arrival.”
The uplink cut off and Nathan leaned back in his seat, grinding his teeth, free now to let his true emotions show. He had no doubt that Lucas was behind the failure of the neurotrackers. His son knew the intricacies of the technology, both its strengths and carefully guarded weaknesses, just as well as he did. Releasing the Strykers from the chains that had bound them since their emergence after the Border Wars meant the Silence Law was void. His family’s genetic secret was fair game now, and if Ciari was in The Hague, Nathan only had one option left to him regarding the World Court.
He had no qualms about taking it.
Again, Nathan found that the hard decisions were left to him. He didn’t regret the decisions that had let him live this long, to see this happen. The only thing he regretted was his family and the way he couldn’t use his children to further his own life. Being born a Class I triad psion meant his body was just looking for a way to kill his mind. Dying was slower for him than for most psions because of his social status, but he could no longer expect that to hold true.
Gideon was on his way to the Ark, safe from Lucas’s machinations, but also out of reach of Nathan. Lucas, Samantha, and Kristen were hidden somewhere on Earth, fighting for a goal that Nathan didn�
�t understand. The one thing Nathan wanted, he could no longer bargain for, not with the neurotrackers disabled and the Silence Law broken. Jason Garret was out of reach now unless Nathan opened his own mind and used his powers to their absolute limits to find the Stryker. The effort would surely kill him.
Nathan wasn’t that desperate.
He reached for the controls on his desk, fingers skating over the touch panel. The uplink came through in an instant. “Ready my shuttle.”
THIRTY-SIX
SEPTEMBER 2379
THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
Erik stared at the security feed monitoring the defenses surrounding the Peace Palace. He couldn’t see the streets beyond the wall, they were so crowded with people. Quads on the perimeter were all that existed between them and the fury of a people that the government hadn’t deigned to save.
The Strykers were gone, the World Court’s dogs having fully slipped their collars for the first time in 250 years. The bitterness, the fear, was difficult to cope with. The only people left to protect them were human, and there was no guarantee how long the military would continue to believe the lie that they would have a place on the Ark to guard the new world on Mars Colony.
“I think it’s time we leave,” Travis said, eyeing the vidscreen from where he stood with a cluster of other judges. “Enough of those chosen have heeded the transfer orders. If any are left behind, then their failure to keep to the schedule is on them. We gave enough warning for people to muster out. It’s not in our best interest to remain any longer.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Nathan said. He stood beside Erik in the courtroom before the judicial bench, both men focused on the security feed. “There is nothing I can do about the neurotrackers, not after what fail-safes my Syndicate had didn’t work. The last of the inventory from the seed bank is being put on a shuttle right now for a launch. The entirety of the supplies left to us will be safely out of reach. The most essential part of this plan is safe.”
“They can’t be safe if we’re missing half of what we were charged with keeping track of,” Erik said. “It makes me wonder what happened to those missing supplies. It makes me wonder who betrayed us. The Strykers shouldn’t have been able to get free.”
“I did warn you, Erik. Our attempts at ownership weren’t enough over the years if this is the result,” Anchali said from where she sat on a chair, both hands resting on top of her cane. “They bypassed our control and this is the result of our failure to keep them leashed.”
“We had humans working all throughout the Strykers Syndicate. We had monitoring systems in place that infiltrated not only every psion office but their own bodies. This should have been impossible.”
“Impossible or not, why haven’t they tried to kill us?” Cherise Molyneux demanded. “Reports have come in from all over the world that Strykers left their posts guarding the city towers and retreated to the streets, taking half the military with them. They haven’t murdered the people who held their contracts.”
“Yet” was Anchali’s sharp retort. “Their timing, I must say, was perfect. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or the means to track them down and kill them, and thus our only option is retreat.”
“This is no retreat, this was planned,” Erik said, voice cold.
“Plans never go accordingly.” Anchali shook her head, gray hair swaying around her thin face. “We are done here, Erik. We are done. Let us go while there is a window of opportunity left and soldiers still loyal to the cause to fly us out of here.”
Erik pressed his thumb over the biometric key on the remote he held, dragging it down the sensor. No confirmation of termination came from the hub of soldiers charged with administering termination. Anchali was right. They had done their part, played their roles as saviors. If they stayed any longer, they would play a role of martyr that none of them desired.
Gripping the remote, Erik spun and threw the device with all the strength he had at the ancient, stained-glass windows that spanned the wall over the dais. It slammed through the fragile glass and shattered part of a pane. Tiny shards fell to the ground, thin cracks spiderwebbing across the rest of the picture.
“Does that make you feel better, Erik?” Nathan said.
Erik turned to give the other man a sharp look. “If anyone is to share blame, Nathan, it is you and your family.”
“I find that you have little ground on which to blame us for your mistakes.” Nathan gave him a cool look. “My family offered up the science to keep humans safe from psions. We offered a way to alter human DNA and clean it up. We lobbied for segregation with the World Court’s support for the greater good. You owe me your rank by virtue of the knowledge my ancestors shared.”
“Like hell.”
“I’m inclined to agree with Nathan,” Travis said, gesturing at the other man. “But it doesn’t matter anymore who’s to blame. Are the shuttles at the airfield ready for us to board?”
“Yes,” Anchali said. “Save your male posturing for when we arrive on the Ark. We have better things to do than argue which family is more human than the rest.”
“A difficult decision amongst you fifteen, perhaps,” a familiar voice announced. “Not, I think, for the Sercas.”
The door to the courtroom was pushed open, a slim figure stepping inside. Erik choked down his fear as he recognized the uniformed woman striding down the aisle between the rows of seats.
“Someone call the quads,” Anchali said, clutching at her cane.
“They are occupied elsewhere,” Ciari said calmly.
The last time the World Court had seen her, she’d been writhing in agony and bleeding on the carpeted floor of this courtroom. She had changed, the expression on her face remote. She no longer had a collar to hold her in check. Her gaze swept over the group, judging them as they once judged her.
“We offered you another way and you refused it,” Ciari said. “Abandoning this world isn’t the answer. Do you really think you’ll find a better life on Mars Colony?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erik spat out. He stepped backward, away from her.
Ciari touched her neck, fingers sliding over the circular bruise that stood out in stark relief against her pale skin. “I know what I’ve lost and what I’ve gained, Erik. Do you?”
“You have gained nothing,” Travis said as he pulled an antique gun from a shoulder holster beneath his robes. He aimed at Ciari’s head. “I made a mistake when I voted to spare your life if this is how you repay our generosity.”
He pulled the trigger, the crack of the gun loud in the courtroom. Travis’s aim was true and Ciari stared at the bullet as it spun in place directly in front of her nose. She carefully touched the bullet with one finger. It fell to the floor.
“There are more with her,” Anchali said in warning, her voice high with fear.
“Of Strykers, there’s just me,” Ciari corrected. “Rogue psions? You have only one other here.”
“Along with one lost cause at that,” a tenor voice said from up in the balcony. “Though, really, you lot are worse off than I could ever hope to be even if I tried.”
Everyone’s attention was drawn upward, Nathan’s head immediately snapping up at the familiar voice that greeted everyone. Lucas stood above them, arms braced against the wooden railing of the balcony. Wearing a black-on-black Strykers BDU and carrying no weapons, he only had eyes for one person in the room.
“Hello, Nathan,” Lucas said. “Do you like what I’ve done with the world?”
It had been two years since father and son last stood face-to-face. Two years of sabotage, of hunting and being hunted. The lies and deceit the two men shared were family secrets that should never have seen the light of day. Yet here they were, stripping themselves bare as they clawed their way to a future that each saw differently, that each believed in differently.
“Lucas,” Nathan said, the name falling from his lips in a sharp hiss. “And so the prodigal son returns. What—inconvenient timing.�
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Lucas offered up a thin-lipped smile. “Am I disappointing you again? I’m not really sorry about that.”
“What is going on here?” Erik demanded, staring in pale-faced shock up at Lucas. “Nathan, why is your son wearing a Stryker uniform?”
“We haven’t seen your son in two years, Nathan,” Anchali said, rising to her feet shakily. “You will tell us what is going on.”
“It’s family business that doesn’t concern you,” Nathan said.
Erik turned angrily to face Nathan. “You don’t give the orders here. Tell us what the hell—”
The garbled scream that came out of Erik’s mouth was issued around a broken jaw, the sound of bone cracking loud enough to startle everyone. Cupping his face in both hands, Erik screamed and gasped for breath through a mouth that wouldn’t close, his lower jaw hanging at an awkward angle from his skull.
“Shut your mouth” came Nathan’s icy order. He hadn’t moved.
“Mon Dieu,” Cherise yelled at Ciari. “What have you done?”
“Nothing. I’m an empath,” Ciari said.
“Don’t you hate it when they give credit for your work to someone else, Nathan?” Lucas asked, voice calculatingly cheerful. “The seed bank, the space shuttles, the program to bring the colony ship back online. Everything our family has ever done for the humans and they pass most of it off as their own.”
“Do you really want to do this now?” Nathan said flatly, refusing to look away from his son.
“When will we have the chance if I don’t?”
In the blink of an eye, Lucas teleported down to the courtroom floor. The judges collectively stepped back, fear replacing shock on their faces, none of them capable of speech.
Nathan faced his son, cold anger filling his dark blue eyes. “I will kill you.”
“You’ll certainly try,” Lucas said.
Travis, like most of the rest of the judges, looked from Lucas to Nathan with a growing sense of horror. He was the first to speak. “Did the Strykers buy you off, Nathan? Is that why the neurotrackers don’t work?”