Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Verdigris paused the footage and zoomed in on the image of Detective Ferrari. He snaked out an arm to pull Khanjar into his lap, motioning to the screen. “You’re losing your touch, my dear. I think we have a ‘no fat nosy detective rule’ in place, don’t we?”

  Khanjar waited for Dominic’s hand to rest securely on her hip before speaking. “Keeping her out was not advised. As a non-meta, she presents a lower threat, and she was not armed. Consider this a means to test a hypothesis.”

  “Oh, I love it when you talk scientific method.” He sped up the footage, playing through the speech and watching the detective’s reaction. At one point, she extracted a small tablet from her pocket and began typing furiously. After a few minutes, Verdigris watched in slight shock as she pulled up an invitation list for the event and began checking off those metas who had accepted and would be arriving at the airport. He straightened up, pushed Khanjar from his lap, and increased the resolution.

  “That’s my database! That’s my one-thousand-twenty-four bit encryption algorithm, and that woman is in my database! Reading my invitation list! During my press conference!” With the grace of a spoiled child, Verdigris pounded the keyboard and pointed an accusing finger at Khanjar. “This is your fault! How could you let this happen?”

  The meta smoothed her pristine white jumpsuit and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. She had endured many of Dominic’s tantrums, and this would pass like all the others. “As you claim, I ‘let’ this happen to prove a hypothesis. Regardless of what you wish to think, that fat nosy detective is your mole.”

  Verdigris snorted. “Impossible. She’s a civilian detective, no abilities, certainly average intelligence. I don’t believe you.” He crossed his arms and slumped in his chair, pouting.

  Khanjar offered a small sigh of exasperation as she leaned over Dominic to bring up another series of protocols and video feeds. The images did not have the crispness of the ECHO camera, but she could still easily point out the figures of Ramona Ferrari and Yankee Pride leaving the building that was occupied by members of the CCCP. Another series of photographs showed the detective and Yankee Pride in civilian clothing, standing closer than one might have thought appropriate for just coworkers. Finally, a classified report from the investigator he had bribed, with a footnote that Khanjar highlighted to show the suspected ties between Ferrari and Pride, as well as…

  “Ferrari and Tesla? Alex Tesla?” Verdigris’ forehead creased, the thought so absurd yet so utterly plausible that he nearly fell out of his chair. Khanjar continued to show photographs, including one showing them sharing breakfast in a diner away from the ECHO campus. “That…that is…”

  “Your problem,” she finished in a crisp tone. She straightened up, noting that his eyes followed the scoop neckline of her jumpsuit. “Not everyone has the same motivations as you do, Dominic. The little people are not always insignificant.”

  “Just easier to squash. Like an annoying mosquito,” he quipped. He drummed his fingers against his desk, biting his tongue as he considered his options. Verdigris flipped through the photos a second time, lingering on the one that showed Ferrari and Tesla outside the trailer that had served as the director’s office. His scowl deepened, but quickly turned into a hard grin as he spun in his chair.

  “Call the boys downtown, Khanjar. I think it’s time to retire the detective, before she can do any more damage to our memorial ceremony.” Fingers danced over the keyboard as he pulled up schematics, maps, and several video feeds from the transportation surveillance. “I didn’t want to invite her, anyway.”

  * * *

  Ramona made it to the MARTA station with less than a minute to spare, the last train of the night giving the alert for the closing doors. She shifted against her seat and tucked up her leg, resting her cheek against the cool metal wall. The thrum of the train made for a steady and soothing vibration as the announcements began and the doors closed. As she was one of the last to leave the ECHO campus for the night, Ramona had no company save Vickie’s equally tired voice in her ear. The dim car clicked through the outer areas of the city faster than rush hour traffic, but the winking lights let Ramona know that there weren’t many people out on the streets past midnight in the middle of the week.

  “I’m checking on the intel regarding a memorial at Stone Mountain, but I’m not getting anything. He might have been bluffing, detective.” The words were calm and hopeful, yet Vickie sounded as tired as Ramona felt. “He likes to talk, and he likes to see what people do while he talks. I think you can stop worrying about him doing anything for Bill.”

  “Thanks, Overwatch.” Ramona stifled a yawn, her eyes closed as they continued north into the city. There was some bit of comfort in knowing that Verdigris wasn’t trying to use the memory of the Mountain for his personal gain. “And thanks for the link to the database. Were you able to contact most of the retired metas to tell them about the charter?”

  “Affirmative. Pride went to talk to the locals face to face, but it looks like everyone’s on board.”

  “He’s a good man,” she murmured. Exhausted, she fought to stay awake against the gentle rocking of the train. “Pride’s one of the good guys, yeah. Shame he’s married to the job, though. Maybe if he was younger…nah, too serious. But he’s good-looking in a suit.”

  A tired laugh came through. “Don’t tell me you’re going to give up on Mercurye, detective. You know when he gets back, you’ll be the first person he’ll want to see.”

  In the dark of the car, a sleepy smile spread across the detective’s face. She thought of the grinning speedster, the awkward science-fiction fanboy transformed into a living hero, still stuck in Metis with a few blue wireframes to keep him company. “Yeah, I know. He’s pretty cute, huh?”

  “If you go for shirtless and blond.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of blue eyes and Trek-obsessed.” Ramona gave a soft sigh of contentment as she let her mind wander back to the image of Rick Poitier sitting in front of her, eagerly discussing the news from ECHO, smiling at her with that beautiful…

  “FERRARI, GET DOWN!” The voice screeched in her ear, jolting her up from the light sleep. In the light of the coming station, Ramona could see the first set of charges detonate against the concrete supports. The metal supports groaned and snapped, sliding forward to push the train sideways off of the track. “ACTIVATE THE DISPLAY!”

  Ramona blinked, the display from the implant coming into view. Her vision blurred briefly, too much information about the car, the charges, and the crumbling concrete that pressed against the windows. More information flashed to the right and left, telling her that the first set of charges had triggered a rush of neurotoxins into the forward area of the car. “Overwatch, I’ve got chemical contamination! You’re going to need to prep an evac, this isn’t going to be—”

  A second set of charges exploded ahead, tearing through the metal train like tissue paper. The force of the blast threw Ramona to the floor, the momentum of the car sending her sliding to the side of the car. Her head hit the side of the bench with a loud crack, and the detective flopped like a ragdoll as blood poured from her face. Glass shattered, concrete and rebar coming through the window. Ramona tried to throw an arm over her face, but her shoulder hung limply and she couldn’t feel her fingers on her left hand. She struggled to lift her head, blinking to refresh the view. A small oblong icon showed at the rear of the car, a few feet from where she had been sitting. The tiny timer displayed a very brief countdown to ignition. “Overwatch? Can-cancel evac. There’s no-”

  The final charge under the back of the last car peeled the metal forward and forced it from the track. Ramona felt the shockwave push her away from the car, the bottom giving way as the car bowed out and tumbled to its side. A rush of heat burned over her, her face raw and wet for an excruciatingly long moment. The heavy night air replaced the heat, and Ramona found herself face-up in the twisted metal, unable to comprehend the flurry of voices in her ear. Something like sle
ep pulled her away from Vickie’s frantic voice, and Ramona slipped beneath the rush to a place absent of noise and pain.

  * * *

  The Seraphym alerted, like a dog catching a scent. Ramona Ferrari. Not once, but now twice she had Seen this woman in the futures. She paused in her conversation with John Murdock, her eyes far away and distant as she felt the ripple in the fabric of the futures. She bowed her head and left the rooftop in a surge of light and fire, with the barest of apologies on her lips.

  In the end, they would all need this woman. She had to bring her to them, in the dead of night, in order for the futures to take hold. The Seraphym touched the broken earth, scorched and torn around the broken body. The briefest bit of life remained; she held onto that life and cradled the woman in her arms. Another step, and she stood once again on the rooftop, eyes full of tears as she gave the woman to John. He held back as many questions as he could, the now-frantic voices of Vickie and Bella filling the Overwatch channels.

  The Seraphym nodded her thanks and waited, John’s sure steps down the stairwell soon ECHOed by the frantic footfalls of the CCCP medical team. A high-pitched voice gave orders and demanded answers, and the Seraphym knew she would be needed again to assist the young medic.

  Thankfully, this was permitted.

  * * *

  Soviette hooked the ECHO detective up to life-support, and began her own frantic efforts to keep the woman alive psychically. In the end, she was quickly exhausted and barely holding Ramona Ferrari in a precarious state of stasis when Bella shoved in the door of the medbay.

  The blue medic swore steadily under her breath as, with practiced motions, she plugged herself into a repurposed hemapheresis machine, and placed her hands on the blackened flesh. And then paused with shock.

  “Sovie. Vic. We have…shit…”

  “What?” Vickie all but shouted, as Soviette blinked and ECHOed “Shto?”

  “She’s meta.”

  “Say what?” Vickie blurted. “She can’t be! She’s never triggered, not even during the Invasion, she’s a norm!”

  “I’m telling you, I read it. Whatever she was before this, she’s meta now. She’s got the healing factor, it’s partly triggered and it’s the only reason she’s still alive now, and…something else, tied to the healing factor.” Bella kept both hands on the unconscious woman, but she was fighting a losing battle and she knew it. There was only one way she could save Ramona Ferrari.

  Trigger her completely.

  And she knew very well what had happened the last time she’d done that, to Bulwark. She’d almost killed him…

  Sovie knew, too, and showed it with a swift intake of breath. “Sestra—leave alone the ethics of doing a trigger without consent—”

  “If I don’t she dies,” Bella said harshly. “If I do, maybe she lives, but if I don’t, she dies. We can’t hold her much longer.”

  There was a moment of silence among the three of them, Soviette, Bella, and Vickie still listening on Overwatch. It was Vickie who finally spoke.

  “In the absence of patient preference, what is the primary duty of a physician? Screw that you aren’t a doctor, Bells, you might as well be. So what’s your duty?”

  Sovie’s eyes cleared, and she nodded. “Vedma is givink correct thinking, sestra. I am physician, and I say that.”

  “Make every effort to preserve life,” Bella said, through gritted teeth and anxiety so high it made her voice go up half an octave. “All right then, stand by, Sovie. God and Marx only know what’s going to happen.”

  She plunged deeply into the healing gestalt, and “spoke” to Ramona’s cells, fully triggering the metahuman healing factor, and “watching” in a state of near panic as the unknown “other” triggered after it in a cascade.

  Then she was too busy trying to keep control of the situation as Ramona began pulling energy out of her, rather than passively receiving it. Somewhere in the back of her awareness, she heard Soviette call urgently for Upyr, and felt a pair of cool hands going to her temple, infusing her with somewhat musty-”flavored” power.

  Nat must have some thugs in the CCCP brig…who are going to wake up with a helluva hangover…

  Three times more this happened, and then—

  I am here, little sister.

  And the flow of slightly-tainted power was replaced by that impossible geyser of pure, sweet energy that she could only, barely, sip at without being overwhelmed. Once again, Sera had come to the rescue.

  And finally, the demand on her shut off. With a feeling of relief—at least Ramona hadn’t died of whatever she’d triggered—she opened her eyes, and took away her hands.

  “Well,” she observed wearily. “At least I didn’t kill her. And she only looks half-cooked now.”

  The blackened skin was flaking away as Soviette cut off what was left of the detective’s clothing, leaving behind something that looked like second-degree burns, rather than third- and fourth-degree. But Soviette was frowning.

  “What?” Bella asked.

  The physician pointed with her chin. “There was being a cart with tray with surgical instruments there,” she said. Bella blinked, and craned her neck a little. There was nothing there now next to the surgical table but four rubber wheels. “Am thinkink it was good thing table is beink plastic.”

  But—there hadn’t been any of the cellular changes there had been to Bulwark! In fact, Bella hadn’t noticed anything other than the incredible draw on her own powers and energy. “Where’d it go?” she asked, feeling stupid. “I mean, what’d she do with it?”

  “I do not know,” Jadwiga replied, with a touch of irritation. “But scissors are all I was beink to save, and I am nyet pleased about losink equipment!”

  “Fret not, ECHO Med will provide,” Vickie’s voice answered, before Bella could. “Or better still, I’m diverting a nice package on its way back from autoclaving and sterilization that’s coming from Greenboy’s private Blacksnake clinic.”

  “Horosho,” Jadwiga said, mollified. “Spasibo, Overwatch.”

  “Think nothing of it. I got visual feed from Sovie if you want to see what happened, Bella, but basically near as I can describe, it was like some sort of movie SFX, the stuff just started sucking into her, with no obvious changes in her other than the healing.”

  Bella pulled the feeds to the pheresis machine out of the plugs in her arms. “Sweet mother of pearl,” she said, suddenly feeling every bit of what she’d just gone through. “Did you do that pain-sharing thing? Because that’s the only part I don’t think I did.”

  Soviette nodded. “Was not beink pleasant, let me tell you. Would not have wished to be you when doing similar healink on Djinni.” She hung an IV bag on a stand, and prepared to insert the needle in Ramona’s arm. Thankfully, the detective had not woken up yet. She was still going to be in a fair amount of pain when she did, until they got some painkillers into her. “If it were not for—borzhe moi!”

  “What?” Vickie and Bella said, simultaneously. But Bella had already spotted what had made Soviette exclaim and drop the IV needle.

  The back of Ramona’s hand—where Soviette had been trying to insert the IV needle—now sported a shiny metal shell.

  * * *

  Ramona blinked open one eye, the effort Herculean as her eyelids felt like lead weights. She immediately regretted the motion, light streaming from the overhead igniting a headache. Soft whirring preceded a trio of gentle beeps from the corner of the room. A soft voice spoke in Russian, followed by a higher-pitched response that started in Russian and ended in English.

  Both sounded exhausted.

  “Is good to see you awake, detective.” The gentle face of the CCCP’s lead medic came into Ramona’s field of vision. She laid a hand against her forearm and studied Ramona’s face, as if the simple gesture could tell her more than the nearby machines. “Do you know where you are?”

  Ramona worked to open her mouth, but her jaw felt incredibly heavy. She struggled to move her tongue and her words slurred, the
taste of copper and aluminum foil filling her mouth. Her face screwed up and she tried to form the words again. “CCCP HQ,” she managed. “I was on my way home, it was the last train of the night, and the explosion…”

  “The explosion ripped four cars from the track and rendered the southwest routes completely useless. Due to the time of the explosion, no civilians were present. As far as the public knows…” Bella moved next to Soviette, her face twisted in a half-smile. “Detective Ramona Ferrari is dead. Congratulations, you’re a ghost. Feel free to pull the bedsheets over your head and make scary noises.”

  “But I’m not dead.”

  “Nyet.” Soviette and Bella exchanged nervous frowns as Ramona shifted and struggled to sit up. “You are beingk very much alive, and remarkably so. Would not have expected you to survive.”

  Even her fingers felt heavy. Ramona gripped at the sheets and tried to sit up. She expected wires and tubes to stop her movement, but as she pushed herself up against the pillows, she found nothing. An unfamiliar queasiness rumbled in her stomach. Given what they had said, Ramona expected a spiderweb of medical connections. “How…how long have I been asleep?”

  “Nine hours. Is quarter past eleven.” Soviette pulled up a stool, Bella following suit and resting her hands against the bedsheets. Ramona thought the blue girl looked too pale and exhausted to be awake.

  “The…next day?”

  “Yeah, the next day.” Bella exhaled slowly, gathering the little strength that she had. “Like Sovie said, we didn’t expect you to survive. We worked on you, but we had to take some extreme measures.”

  “Extreme measures?” She could still taste tinfoil on her tongue. Ramona quickly checked to make sure that she still had both legs, both arms, and the ability to wiggle fingers and toes. Her entire body ached and her lower abdomen felt as if someone had wrapped her in flaming barbed wire from the inside out, but she seemed to be whole. Memories of her leaving the ECHO campus progressed to boarding the train, a quick debrief with Victrix via Overwatch, and then…