“We’re up against people who don’t realize their emails are being read?” Reed asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “How tuned out do you have to be to not notice basic bits of news like that?”
“The world changed slowly up until recently,” Janus said, entering the conversation from where he’d been standing in the shadows. I hadn’t even noticed him, sitting in a chair next to Kat and Li in the corner. “You could go away for a hundred years, come back and things were more or less the same. Technology such as this has only been around for a flicker of a candle’s flame to our kind. Be amazed that they even know how to use a cellular telephone.”
“Could this be a trap?” I asked.
“Anything could be a trap,” Janus said, a little wary. “But I doubt it.”
“Remember,” Zollers said, “they weren’t expecting your move in Vegas, either. They think they have the initiative, and they’re still moving as though they’re the aggressor and they have nothing to defend against. They’re failing to react to the fact that you have additional resources moving into position. Possibly because they don’t know it, or possibly because they just don’t have the strategic thinking necessary to operate in a world of high-tech warfare.”
“They’re like Khan,” Reed said, “thinking in two dimensions while we hit them from above.”
I pondered that for a moment. “Well,” I said, noticing that it seemed like everyone was waiting for me to finish my thought after I spoke, “we can’t hit them from above,” and I let the smile take over my face, “but we can sure as hell watch them from above …”
Chapter 43
It was a three-hour drive to the town of Gables, into what Minnesotans called “the northwoods.” Outside Minneapolis the forests grew heavy, broken by fields for farms and the occasional lake. It wasn’t like southern Minnesota with its flat lands and forever corn fields. It got hilly in places, and the highway rolled along.
We followed the interstate for a while, north out of the cities, and when we left it, we got on a state highway that had probably seen better days. It was the middle of the week, thankfully, and whatever traffic there might have been up here in cabin country was clearly not out in force, though we did see quite a few more cars than I would have expected in a county of only twenty thousand people.
I rode in an SUV with Scott, Reed and Zollers. Janus, Kat, Foreman and two agents were in the van behind us. I’d considered bringing more of our security, but frankly, this wasn’t their fight. So instead they were all standing around in the lobby of the Agency, behind barricades, guns pointed at the door in case this was an elaborate bait set up for my benefit.
I doubted it was, but I lost zero points for being too cautious.
Besides, I had an ace in the hole in the van behind us.
“Approaches to the resort are clear,” Harper said in my ear. I could hear her as if she were speaking right to me, though I knew everyone was hearing what I was.
“I’ve got the schematics pulled up,” Rocha said.
“Hacking,” Reed muttered.
“I’ve overlaid them with what Harper has on the infrared,” Rocha said, either not hearing or ignoring Reed’s comment. “Looks like there’s a big meeting going on in a conference room.”
“Hard to tell,” Harper said, “but I’d guess seventy or so people in attendance there.”
“The rest of Century, I presume.” I muttered, and sighed. The SUV’s air conditioner blew cold air into my face.
“We’ve got guards on perimeter duty sporting assault rifles and submachine guns,” Harper went on. “Probably twenty or so hanging around the grounds, another cluster in the main lobby.”
“Any civilians?” Scott asked. I looked over at him in the driver’s seat and he blushed. “I know, I shouldn’t be so soft—”
“No, it’s fine,” I said under my breath. I raised my voice and said, “We get the civilians out first. We’ll assault the main building and do everything we can to ensure that employees of the resort don’t get caught in the crossfire.”
“Hey guys,” J.J. rang in. “I’ve hacked the payroll system and found the resort work schedule for today. Looks like one person on duty in the front desk, fifteen in the kitchen, and eight maids to clean the rooms.”
“Century needs its hot, catered meals, you know,” I said. “Harper, we need likely positions on those people.”
“I’ve got about twenty-five in the kitchen,” Harper said tonelessly. “Some gun carriers among them, so they must be keeping watch on the exit there. I’ve also got eyes on the maids, they’re spread throughout the building.”
“Guys, I just sent the blueprints to your phones, and I have the most recent positions of enemies marked on the map,” J.J. said.
I heard a sequence of dings from everyone in the car, and then one instance of someone’s phone going off and playing Pharell’s “Happy,” as a ringtone. I glanced back at Reed in the backseat and he muted it. “What?” he asked me accusingly. “It’s a great song.”
I looked down at my phone. The blueprints showed a building that looked like half a jack—three long wings jutting out from a central building where I assumed the lobby was. Guards were stationed at the end point of each wing—two per door, by the count of them, and I saw markings to indicate approximately where the maids were.
There was also a big, hand-drawn arrow that led to lettering indicating, “KITCHEN” and “AUDITORIUM.” I figured out the lobby all on my own.
“Yikes,” Reed muttered. “This looks like a hostage crisis.”
“Then we brought the right backup,” I said.
We rolled up to the entry to the resort’s driveway. I knew from the preliminary briefing that we had two miles to the main buildings, and Harper’s eye in the sky told us the nearest sentries were no more than two hundred yards from the resort. So it was clear sailing up until that last bit.
Woods shrouded the entry, flanking the driveway on either side. I slammed the door to my car, cringing and wishing I’d done it more gently. “Let’s look the blueprints over one more time together and prep the assault.” There was the soft sound of crickets from all around us, and then I heard doors start to close more quietly on the other vehicles in our little procession.
I glanced back at Reed as he stepped out of the back seat of the SUV. He had a slightly low look as he met my gaze, one that evaporated as Scott joined us.
“What did I miss?” Scott asked.
“A meaningful look,” I said, not bothering to lie.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, glancing between the two of us. “What was the meaning behind it?”
Reed shrugged and kept his stoic silence. Then he feigned a smile and shuffled away, back toward the chase car that held Janus and the others.
Scott and I watched him go. “No, seriously,” Scott said, “what was that about?”
“We’re about to go into the last battle,” I said, tightly, as I watched my brother slouch up to Janus and say something. Janus turned in slight surprise and nodded then the two of them shook hands. “I think it meant that whatever happens … not all of us may be coming back alive.”
Chapter 44
I crept through the woods, Reed, Kat and Scott at my back. Janus was a hundred feet away with Foreman, Zollers and one of our two agents. Stevens, I think I’d heard him called. He was carrying a European-style bullpup assault rifle. Though it would hardly be silent if shots were fired, the suppressor would hopefully limit the sound carry.
Awww, who was I kidding? If there was even one meta in the group of guards—and there should be, if anyone in Century had any damned sense at all—the moment we opened fire, it was game on.
My job was to make sure that we didn’t open fire until absolutely necessary. If at all.
“Van, report,” I said in a whisper. I had eyes on the nearest guard patrol, three guys in black tactical gear loitering near a sand volleyball court in a really shitty guard formation. Two of them were smoking, which told me that their level of p
reparedness was lower than low.
Either this was a heavily baited trap, or they weren’t expecting us. I leaned toward the former in my planning but hoped for the latter. Better prepared than not, right?
“Janus,” I whispered. I heard his group coming up behind me.
“I can distract them whenever you are ready,” he said, “but if anyone is paying the slightest bit of telepathic attention, it will be obvious quickly.”
“Those two over there,” Zollers said, nodding toward a pair of guards patrolling closer to the building. They were clearly visible against the grey concrete surfaces of the resort. Actually, the resort looked like a seventies-era fallout shelter or something, it was so drab. Three levels of concrete edifices separated by a series of glass windows on each floor. There was wood to dress the whole thing out, a dark cedar color so blah that I looked away quickly. “They have an ongoing bit of tension. I think they’ve fought recently. Should be easy to start that fire again.”
“Interesting,” Janus said.
“Want some help?” Foreman asked. He wasn’t wearing his usual suit and tie; he was in jeans and tactical vest and had a pistol hanging from his belt. It looked natural on him, and I had a feeling he hadn’t just carried a gun to photo ops with the sportsmen in his state; he knew how to use it.
“The less of a signature we leave,” Janus said, shaking his head, “the harder it will be for someone like Claire to detect us right now.” He sniffed, rubbing hands over his smooth, bald head. He looked funny with all his hair burned off. “I can do this easily.”
I waited and kept an eye on the two guys sauntering near the wall. It didn’t take long for whatever Janus did to have an effect. One of them halted in his tracks and then jerked his head around to look at the other. He reached out, pulling a hand off his rifle and gave the guy a quick shove. The recipient of the push staggered back a step, then leaned into returning the shove himself. A loud exclamation reached our ears like a gunshot, and the two guys were all over each other, pushing, then throwing punches, rolling around in the grass like schoolboys, but more vicious.
The smokers near the volleyball court saw it happening and broke formation. They ran for the guys who were fighting, just tossed their cigarettes aside and kicked it into a run. They had a half a football field to go to reach them, but I estimated it wouldn’t take long.
“What have we got, Harper?”
“No other patrols on that side of the building,” Harper replied. “You have a spotter on the third floor balcony on overwatch. He’s looking in the other direction at the moment, though.”
“FOX ONE,” I muttered, “take the shooter.”
I heard the faint noise of a suppressed rifle go off somewhere to my left. It was a bark that echoed only a second, and then I saw movement on a third floor balcony as one of Century’s mercs dropped behind the solid balcony rail.
“Tango down,” came the reply through my earpiece.
“Game on,” I said and leapt into the air. I felt in my mind for Gavrikov and switched off the gravity as I did. My leap became an upward jump of superhuman proportions that carried me skyward three hundred yards. I let myself reach an apex and paused there, for just a second, while I checked my targets.
All five of the mercs in my sight were right there, huddled together, two of them holding back their fellows. The other looked like he was playing mediator, and it was as good a point to interrupt them as I’d get.
I shot down out of the sky at top speed, banking hard and feeling the grass blades run across my face as I almost blew the turn. I made it, though, and spun around to come at them in a blur of speed, inches off the ground.
I hit one of the guys holding back a fighter first, and my kick landed on the back of his knee. He lost his footing in a big way, and my momentum carried me through the next guy, the one he was holding back from fighting. He got his legs kicked out from under him, too.
I was going so fast I wasn’t sure if I was even visible to the guys I was attacking; I hoped not, for my sake. I swept past the mediator and swung an arm out to knock him over. I could hear the cartilage in his knee rip as I took him down.
I crashed feet-first into the last two. They were in a similar posture to the first two, with one of them holding the other back from fighting, except this time they were facing me. I went for knees, but by this point I was out of control. I’d already slammed into two guys, but only the first was a well-placed kick. The second was just collateral damage from my impact into the first.
I spun and slammed into the last two, only one foot making contact with one of them, solidly in his femur. It broke, which was something I’d never pulled off before (the femur is a damned strong bone) and he started to scream. I tumbled into him, knocking him and the other guy backward in a jumble from which I was the first to recover. I realized I was lying atop them both and quickly jabbed out with a hand that crushed the windpipe of the guy on top.
He made a choked noise, and then I pushed his head to the side and delivered another blow just like it to the second guy. I knew I’d hit him right when I crushed his throat. There was not much chance of mistaking that sickening sound.
I rolled to the side to disentangle myself from those two and saw the mediator going for the walkie-talkie at his hip. He had gotten to all fours, so I rolled toward him, coming to my knees and planting an elbow right in the back of his neck. It snapped, and he dropped. Three down.
Of the last two, I saw movement, one trying to shove the other off of him. One had managed to get a scream out, and it was loud enough that I was sorry I hadn’t cruised into his neck first. I’d never make that mistake again. I sprang up and leapt in a giant, belly-flop style move like something out of pro wrestling and came down on the back of the top guy. I heard his spine snap near the waist, heard him issue a muffled cry of pain.
That was all the time I could spare for him, though, and I threw his body to the side in order to deal with the last of them.
I needn’t have bothered.
This guy was already near death, panicked out of his mind. Looking down, I saw the answer in a half-second. When I’d smashed into him, I’d hit him so hard that his tibia and fibula (never can remember which is which) had shredded his calves. That had opened up both arteries in his legs, and he was bleeding to death, flailing around in a hot panic, but his breath was already going shallow as his mind caught up to what his body was telling it and started to put him into shock.
I wasn’t much for slow death, so I just reached down and broke his neck in one motion. I felt bad for it in that space of a second.
“Clear,” I uttered as I pulled back from the corpse I had just made. I stared down at the man, his eyes glassy, looking into my face.
“No, you’re not, Sienna!” Reed’s voice came back. “Get the guy with—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Another voice broke in, strong, scared, near panicked, and I turned to see the guy whose back I had just broken lying flat on the grass, his walkie-talkie in his hand. “Perimeter breach!” he shouted. “We’re—”
I kicked him in the head so hard it killed him, but it was too late. I could hear movement in the distance, the sound of men springing into action. The guard force preparing for our arrival.
And somewhere behind them, I knew, were the remnants of a group of one hundred metahumans who wanted me dead.
Chapter 45
Rome
281 A.D.
It was a hell of a throne room for not being a throne room. They may have been far from Palatine Hill, but this place was palatial nonetheless, all the glory of a winter or summer palace for the Emperor, all the splendor. Grandiosity was on full display and in full measure.
And even the dramatic fight taking place in the middle of it all could not take away from the glory of it.
“Go!” Janus shouted at Marius, who had heard and was already in motion. It had not been difficult to convince his body to move, averse as he was by instinct to the lightning th
at was being hurled between the columns at the moment.
They were columns of marble. Just as Marius dodged behind one, it exploded with the force of a blast above his head, showering him with dust and fragments. He ran on, seeking cover behind the next column, only to have it explode above him as well.
Marius hesitated as chunks of marble rained down on him. The fine dust of caused him to cough. It settled in grains in his mouth and he nearly choked on it. His eyes were squinted tight, and a thick white powder hung all around him in the air. This is not exactly how we planned it.
They had planned the attack to be a surprise. To be a subtle assault on Jupiter, one in which he would not realize the peril he was in until Marius had him firmly by the hand and Janus had his guards lulled into a sense of absolute security.
That plan had ended before they had even finished walking through the door. It had ended on the tip of the spear that the phalanx of soldiers lying in ambush had applied to Janus’s servant Tullius, who had led the way into the room.
And now we fight against innumerable odds, all pointed against us.
Marius ran for the next column, sticking his head out only briefly to catch a glimpse of the center of the room beyond the column he was skirting. There was another series of columns holding up the other side of the room, and both helped support the massive center of the building, which rose up higher than either side. He caught a glimpse of the figure before the throne, but only a glimpse before a shock of blue lightning flew at him and he ducked back behind the ruined marble.
The impact of the bolt roared in his ears and another cloud of dust exploded around him. Marius kept his head down, eyes nearly closed, waiting only a second before jumping out and sprinting to his left. He crouched behind the next column, the blood rushing in his ears helping to lessen the sound of a full-fledged battle raging at the rear of the room.
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