Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Instantly, she throttled her reaction down. She was an instrument of the Infinite, here for a specific purpose, and revenge in this case was not a part of that purpose. But the anger…the rage…

  She cooled herself. She was a Seraphym and this was not her purpose. But she wondered if he had felt it.

  And after the rage had cooled…came the grief. She mourned for him, for what he had lost. And mourned that he, himself, could not yet grieve. She wept, that he could not weep, and begin to heal.

  * * *

  When John opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the Seraphym’s tears. He opened his mouth, and closed it just as quickly.

  What can I say? What can I tell her after she’s seen, been through that? Seen who I really am, and what I’ve done?

  “Sera? Are you alright?” He had very carefully withdrawn his hand from hers, keeping it in his lap.

  She looked up at him and made a little motion with her hand, as if to try and take his back, then stopped. “I…grieve,” she said, after a long silence. She made no move to wipe her tears away; another moment of un-humanity.

  John couldn’t look at her anymore. “I’ll understand if you don’t wanna come around anymore. I wouldn’t.” He sighed, taking a noncommittal sip from his beer. “Knowin’ what I’ve done.”

  “What?” She sounded startled. “But—I grieve for what was done to you. That you have not healed. That you have not found forgiveness.” She actually took a deep breath. “John Murdock, forgiveness is always possible, but you must forgive yourself first. This changes nothing for the worse between us. You are my friend, my true friend, I only have one other. I would not lose either of you, for…for any cause.”

  And she was right, at least about them being friends. That bothered John, a little. He had been so caught up in everything, that making friends…it sort of just crept up on him. Unter and Old Man Bear weren’t quite like his old drinking buddies, or his friends in the service…but that bond was still there. And Jonas, who was more like an uncle than anything. Then there was Sera, which still confused him to an extent. But it was happening, no denying it; he was making friends. He would’ve judged allowing something like that to happen to be too dangerous, before the Invasion; for himself and said friends. Things had changed in the world since the Thulians decided to try their hand at genocide and conquest. Things had changed in John. “The only other person that really knows, or at least knows part of it, is Bella. She knows I was in some black-budget deal, and turned out bad, which was why I was on the run. The Commissar has the general idea. But that’s it.” The fear was still there; the memories he had from the Program were carried with him, deep down, while still being ever-present in his mind. A background of regret. A barricade of guilt.

  “This was very hard for you. Showing me.” Her eyes were dry again, and again unreadable behind the blaze of gold. “Perhaps, for now, we should say goodnight.”

  He nodded, gathering up the take-out containers and cushions. He was uncomfortable, and tried to break the tension. “Sorry for bein’ a buzz-kill tonight. Same time, tomorrow? I cook a mean steak, if Jonas has any in the store. I don’t even need a grill.” He flashed a smile; it wasn’t as confident as before.

  She looked as if she might say more, then simply took the trash from him, and incinerated it, the residue falling in a snowfall of ash from her hands. “Neither do I. Goodnight, John Murdock. We will meet tomorrow.”

  “G’night, Angel.”

  But then, she stopped. She turned and reached out to him; the gesture compounded part of compassion, part of entreaty. “I do not wish to part like this. There is too much that is not right. Koyaanisqatsi.”

  He cocked his head to the side, taking her arm. “I know that word. ‘Life out of balance,’ right?” A fair descriptor of things, if there ever were.

  “Yes.” There was a ghost of a smile. “The Hopi have many simple words for profound and complex things.” She took another step back towards him. “I only have two friends, you and Bella. Bella is my…protégé. I do not have a word for what you are, not even one in Hopi.”

  It was John’s turn to take a step forward. “What would y’like me to be, angel?”

  Her brows furrowed again. This was the blank place, the heart of the blank in the futures. She couldn’t see, nor anticipate anything. And that left her floundering, trying to sort things that did not want to sort into neat paths. “I…” she said, thinking out loud. “What would I like? No one asks me what I would—”

  “Hmm.” John waited half a beat, then leaned in to kiss Sera. He did it almost without thinking, and realized fully what he was doing only after he was already committed. This is the part where I’m struck by a lightning bolt for my transgression.

  Sera froze. Not out of fear or anger, not even out of shock. She froze because in that moment, another new thing had occurred in a day of new things. She had never touched, nor been touched by, another physical being in this way before.

  Of course she knew what a kiss was, and she knew all the possible nuances of the gesture, but again, they were all abstract. This was anything but abstract. He had wanted to do this; now he was a little afraid, perhaps, that she would not like it, but he still wanted this. He had let down barriers to her that he had never let down to anyone else. She hadn’t regarded him as a monster.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on the experience. It was…warm. Exciting. Strangely comforting, and she had not thought herself in need of comfort. And pleasurable, more deeply pleasurable than she would have thought. Why am I allowing this? she wondered. But…of course, I am allowing this, because…because I like this. I like him. Human emotions. Will this affect him? Affect his judgement? Affect my judgement about affecting him? Her mind spun for a moment, then settled on one thing. One Law that was always true. That which makes us care unselfishly for another is always permitted.

  Why the hell did I do that? I’m still alive, and I have not been transfigured into anything like a newt or a rock. God…have I ruined this? He decided that he not only needed to kiss her, but he wanted to. It had been a long, long time since he had allowed himself any desires, other than surviving. But, with the Invasion…everything had changed. He had friends now, he had a purpose, heaven help him, a Cause to fight for. And now he had…whatever this was becoming, with an Angel. With Sera.

  John was the first to pull back, slowly. His hand didn’t leave her arm, nor did he step away. His eyes studied her, waiting and expectant.

  She opened her eyes, faintly disappointed that the sensation had ended, and smiled up at him. He was taller than she. How had she never noticed that before?

  “I do not think there will be lightning to strike you, John Murdock,” she said, softly, and felt another new thing, a kind of impish amusement.

  “Well, shucks. An’ here I thought I was gonna be famous; ‘First and Last Man to Kiss an Angel.’”

  She laughed aloud. “But who would know but me?” She raised her hand, and gently touched his cheek. “New things, John Murdock. So many new things tonight. For both of us, I think.”

  He let go of her arm, with a nod. Instead of flashing away as she usually did, she walked, slowly and deliberately, to the roof edge, then lifted off as softly as a moth into the night. Huh. John bent over to retrieve his forgotten drink. “I think I ought to try that more often.”

  Obsessions

  Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

  “What do you mean, she’s dead?” Dominick Verdigris looked up from his desk display, sweeping his hand to hide the windows. This was annoying, more than anything. He had completely lost his train of thought on a personnel selection; he hated to be interrupted when he was working, even on trivial things such as this. “Well?”

  Khanjar pursed her lips. “She was alive, and now she’s dead. I thought that that much would have been obvious, Dom.”

  * * *

  Verdigris had first found her by chance, years ago, and had tagged the file on her in case he ever needed som
eone like her. Rachel Hillier was a Las Vegas native who had never held a “real” job in her life. It had occurred to Verd that one day he might need a precog, but genuine precogs were hard to find and generally flaky. It wasn’t a talent that was at all reliable, and those who had it were prone to mental instability. Mathew March had just been the most extreme example of the type. Verd treasured efficiency, and precogs were inefficient in the amount of resources you needed to devote to them relative to payoff.

  He needed reliability. The sort of reliability that allowed someone to live off their talent and never actually work. So he wrote a series of algorithms and statistics-tests, looking for people who held no jobs, cross-correlated with people with a very comfortable income, those that were always in the right place and time during disasters, people who consistently won lotteries, won enough at casino-gambling to bring in substantial money without triggering the “cheating” safeguards, and people who never lost in the stock market.

  Finally after a lot of number-crunching, one name fell out. Rachel Hillier. In her late twenties, she brought in about forty thousand a month in a combination of lottery wins, scratch-card wins, and casino wins. She had never had an accident, had a perfect driving record, on the day of the Invasion had been in Pahrump Nevada rather than Las Vegas (allegedly looking at a used car).

  She was very careful. She made sure never to strike it rich in the same place twice, and never got too much; she wasn’t too greedy. It helped her to stay off of the radar of the nice men in tailored suits that were behind the management of the casinos. If there ever was attention drawn to her, she was always able to slip away at the last moment, knowing exactly what to do and where to go. There were some very close calls, however. Unexpected changes, wild cards thrown in, new variables at the last possible moment; they seemed to trip her up. And that’s how Verdigris figured her out.

  Failing being able to convince or coerce that “angel,” he needed someone who could do what she could do. And it wouldn’t hurt to have both. So his first job was to acquire Hillier, his second to figure out how to boost her abilities, and his third…the “angel project.”

  The acquisition part was easy. She’d skated close enough to the surface of getting caught that all he had to do was wait until she walked into a casino he owned. He only owned a few, bought on a lark a few years ago. Using some more number-crunching, Verdigris figured out the three most likely casinos that Rachel was going to visit next…and bought all three of them, quietly. It was the easiest solution, considering everything, especially when you left the existing management structure intact.

  She struck on a Friday at the second casino; it was called the Golden-something-or-other. He had thought about renaming to something ironic, but that would have signaled a change in management and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to scare her away. This should all be part of her comfort-zone, places she knew, places she thought she knew well enough not to have to think twice about. Once he had his agents confirm that she was inside and following her usual routine, he waited. Verdigris had gone to lengths to make sure that everything inside of the casino was business as usual. The slightest change might throw a wrench into his plans, and send Rachel running. She went about the casino floor, seemingly stopping at random among the slot machines. There was no pattern to where she stopped, varying from quarter to dollar machines, and her payouts never went high enough to trigger the “jackpot.” She took her pay-slips to a different cashier each time. He had to admire her cleverness. All it took was five coins, she’d get an instant payout, she’d cash out and move on, and by keeping her wins modest, never triggering the automatic IRS agent who was always waiting in the casino to claim the government share, within a couple hours she probably had five thousand dollars. Do that eight nights in a month and you had a very nice income.

  Springing the trap he had set for her was no small task; all of the security staff had to be briefed at the very last moment, without giving away exactly who the target was. But as soon as she entered the casino, he made sure that everything was quietly locked down. Verdigris had kept all of the security personnel and pit bosses on their usual rotations on the floor; nothing could seem out of place. He waited until she had passed close to several of them. No one knew when they’d be looking for someone or who that someone would be. After the fifth one, he radioed the next person she would pass by; the radio message instructed him to grab the nearest person. That just so happened to be Rachel. No warning, no premeditation, no pattern to be followed. Verdigris watched through the security monitors with a quiet satisfaction.

  “Miss,” the security guard said, the standard speech when a cheater had been caught. “I am afraid you are going to have to come with me.”

  Rachel knew better than to object or argue. Casino security’s word was law in Vegas. Making a fuss was guaranteed to get you thrown out and banned for life. If she went quietly, there was a chance she could wiggle out of it. Or at least, only end up getting banned from this casino, and not every casino in Vegas.

  Now Verd spoke into the radio. “Take her to the special office.”

  The way this was supposed to go was that the suspected cheater would be taken to the security area, questioned, and perhaps if they denied everything, video footage would be shown to them. Most times, unless they made a big deal out of it, any money they had won would be confiscated and they would be told not to come back. If they raised a fuss, well…that was when the Vegas cops got called, unless there was no way of actually proving that cheating had taken place. Most casinos didn’t care if a cheater went to another casino so long as it wasn’t one in their franchise. But the penalty for denying everything if nothing could be proved was generally getting your face sent to every casino in town. Facial recognition software then ensured that you could never work your scheme again.

  Of course, Rachel was going to get a very different sort of treatment.

  * * *

  They left her in a chair in the center of the office, completely alone for about thirty minutes. This was to allow her time to wonder in how deep a vat of shit she really was. When Verd saw her start to sweat, he sent the manager in.

  “You’ve been really careful, Miss Hiller. But you finally waltzed into the wrong dance floor.”

  “How do you know my—”

  “We’ve had suspicions,” he interrupted, “about your little scam. You’ve made quite a living for yourself these past few years, for hardly any effort. Isn’t that right?” He paced in front of her, making a show of inspecting his fingernails. “But, no one is lucky forever. The house always wins, one way or another.”

  “What do you—”

  “Your cheat, Miss Hiller. It took us quite a while and a lot of analysis, but the numbers don’t lie. Your mistake was that you never, ever lost. You’re a metahuman.” He smirked. Rachel started to look alarmed. “You’re using telekinesis to trip the relays. We can probably prove it, but we don’t have to. First, we are going to teach you a little lesson. Then we are going to send your videos and pictures to every other casino in Las Vegas, and in Reno, just so you don’t think you can move down the road a couple of hours.”

  “You can’t do this!” She was panicking now. “I-it’s illegal!”

  “Illegal? Everything was illegal at one point or another. That’s never stopped the house from making money on it, Ms. Hiller.” He took off his jacket, setting it on a nearby table. “So, the question is; how many fingers do you want to walk out of here with? I’m an accommodating man.” He took a step towards her, a grin creeping across his face.

  When the manager was less than a stride away from her, his radio squelched. He plucked it from his belt in annoyance. “Yes? I’m in the middle of something.” Something unintelligible to Rachel came through the speaker, but she could see that the manager’s demeanor had changed drastically. He shifted uneasily, looking back to her. “Wait here.” Replacing the radio on his belt, he scooped up his jacket and hurried out the door, slamming it behind him.

/>   After what seemed like an eternity to Rachel, but was in fact only two minutes, the door opened again. She was terrified, shaking like a frightened rabbit, choking back pitiful sobs. She didn’t dare look at who had walked in. A handkerchief suddenly dangled in front of her face; she was startled into silence for a few moments. Warily, she looked up. A man in a very expensive looking suit stood in front of her, smiling; not the same shark smile that the manager had, but one with genuine warmth and compassion.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am. My name is Dominick Verdigris III. I noticed you out on the floor; I have a keen eye for talent, you see. Once I saw your predicament, I decided to step in.” He chuckled, mostly to himself. “You could say I have a certain…pull with the management here. Anyways, I think I might have a proposition for you that would be mutually beneficial for both of us; you get to keep all of your fingers, and both of us get rich. Does that sound good to you?”

  At this point, anything that didn’t involve a beating and being forced to move across the country sounded appealing. But as with all things—there would be strings attached, and she’d only get thrown to the wolves again if this man thought she was something she wasn’t. “I’m not a telekineticist,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  He chuckled again. “Of course you aren’t. Remember, I said I had an eye for talent. And I have a specific need of someone like you.” He extended his hand to her. “So, are you in, Rachel? May I call you Rachel?”

  Well, what choice did she have? She’d figured she was safe, and yet she’d been caught. She could move across the country and this might happen again, but without the White Knight showing up at the last minute. “All right,” she said, shaking his hand. After all, how bad could it be?

  * * *

  “Well, that certainly puts a kink in things, and not the fun kind.” Verd scowled. “Was there any damage to the device? What was done with the body?”