by Nalini Singh
“Tavish? Rabbit?”
Scrabbling claws on the floor as a small white bullet shot out of Tavish’s room to come over to her, tail wagging. She knelt down and petted the dog who’d been with her since before she’d found her strength, who had, in fact, helped her find her strength with his own brave fight to survive. The act of stroking his fur comforted her as it had always done.
“What have you two been up to?” she asked Tavish when the seven-year-old came to the doorway.
“The schoolwork the teacher sent,” he answered, a faltering smile on his face. “Is Vasic gone?”
“Yes, we’re all getting back to work.” Giving Rabbit one final pat, she moved over to hug Tavish.
Rabbit had padded alongside her and now leaned his body against Tavish’s.
“I have to go to school tomorrow?” A quiet question with a tremor behind it.
Tavish had been abandoned by his family when he was signed over to the squad, at which point, he hadn’t been encouraged to form any bonds at all. Then had come this new family and a wary dawning of hope.
Zie Zen’s death had struck a harsh blow to that hope, but Vasic and Ivy were helping the boy work through it by always reiterating that unlike the members of his biological family, Zie Zen hadn’t chosen to leave him behind, that it had simply been time for the older man to travel on to the next stage of existence, whatever that might be.
Going down on her knees in front of the boy, Ivy took his hands in her own. “What did Grandfather always say?”
“That education is important, and that the man who has the most information is the man who can change the tides of the world itself,” Tavish repeated almost word for word.
It was clear he didn’t understand it all, but he understood enough. “So,” Ivy said, “school tomorrow.” She smiled. “Your friends are missing you, you know. The teacher told me.”
A whisper of a smile warmed Tavish’s eyes. “School tomorrow,” he agreed, then bent down to pet Rabbit. “Can you play with Rabbit and me today?”
“Not just yet.” Ivy kissed him on the cheek before rising back up. “I have a comm conference, then some other work to complete. But my mother would like your help in her garden. You can finish your schoolwork later.”
Tavish’s face lit up. Ducking inside his room, he came back out having changed into his designated gardening clothes and with a hat on his head. They picked up his child-sized gloves and tools from the outdoor shed before Ivy walked him over to her parents’ home. Her mother was already outside in the vegetable garden.
Thank you, she telepathed to the woman with the strong, rangy body who’d given birth to her.
Gwen Jane would never be the warm and cuddly epitome of the maternal instinct, but she’d fought for her child’s right to live and to be happy. As had Ivy’s father. She loved them with every beat of her heart.
It’s not an issue, her mother telepathed back. The child has a green thumb and a willingness to learn. And it’s useful to have a telekinetic around when I need a spade or forget my gloves in the house.
Ivy’s lips twitched. She was certain her mother was developing a sense of humor, but she was never quite sure. “Have fun,” she said to Tavish, who was already pulling on his gloves and getting ready to weed.
She’d asked her mother to watch him until noon because the comm conference she was about to have was nothing a child should accidentally overhear. Especially not a child whose mind was anchored in the PsyNet.
She initiated the conference as soon as she arrived back home.
After clearing some minor operational details, she and her team moved on to the real reason for this meeting. The weakness, the fracture lines, the disintegration that threatened to collapse the Net. A number of the team had received reports of unstable areas from empaths in the zone for which they were responsible. When they put all the pieces together, it made for an upsetting picture.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Ivy said, dismayed. “Sahara, has Kaleb been able to dig up any further data on this?” The powerful Tk knew the DarkMind best of all and the neosentience had an affinity for the rot that overlay this disintegration. And though its twin, the NetMind, loved empaths, it had known Kaleb longer; he seemed to be able to talk to it in a way even Es couldn’t.
“No, I’m sorry, Ivy.” Sahara’s dark blue eyes were solemn. “I asked him to make contact before this meeting and he says he’s getting the same images he did before—of bodies having their organs forcibly torn out, a calendar that stops at the dawn of Silence.”
The hairs rose on Ivy’s arms as they’d done the first time Kaleb shared the information with her. “What the hell are we missing?”
No one had any answers, not even Alice Eldridge, who’d completed a groundbreaking and in-depth study of empaths. “Regardless of my spotty memory,” the other woman said, rubbing at her forehead, “I’m not sure I could help here. I don’t have any proof but I don’t think this is an empathic issue. There’s another problem, one we’re blind to for some reason.”
Slowly, faces drawn and worry a heavy weight on their shoulders, the team began to sign off, until only Sascha and Sahara were left. Ivy had been disappointed by Sascha’s lack of participation in the meeting—the cardinal was the most senior E in the world. She’d been “awake” the longest, had run countless tests on her abilities while the rest of them were still mired in Silence.
Yes, Ivy and the others had made certain breakthroughs, but Sascha’s years of intensive study and experimentation gave her a depth of knowledge nothing could beat. Especially with the Es in the Net strained to their limit handling not just the Honeycomb but the confusion and need of a population staggering awake from a long, Silent sleep.
No one had time to do anything but react.
A dedicated E designation research team was a pipe dream.
As a result, Sascha had unofficially taken up the research baton, and Ivy had been hopeful of her contribution. Assuming the cardinal empath’s reticence had to do with the fact that, having defected from the PsyNet, Sascha no longer had real-time data, Ivy went to reiterate the Collective’s need for Sascha’s advice.
But the other woman spoke before she could and it immediately became crystal clear that Sascha had been engaged in the meeting. She’d simply been absorbing all available data and putting the pieces together. “Sophie,” the cardinal said with a frown. “Have you checked her section of the Net?”
Ivy nodded. She didn’t know Sophia Russo well, but every E in Sophia’s part of the world was aware that the section of the PsyNet immediately around Sophia’s mind was different. Stable. Deeply peaceful.
So much so that tired Es strained to the limit had been known to deliberately linger in that section to catch their breath.
What nobody but a rare few knew, however, was that the difference had to do with how Sophia Russo was anchored into the Net—the mind of Nikita Duncan’s senior aide was woven into the PsyNet by millions of fine connections, rather than being linked to it by a single biofeedback link.
In essence, Sophia Russo wasn’t jacked into the Net, she was part of the fabric of the Net itself. And in her mind, the mind of a J-Psy who had always accepted darkness as well as light, the NetMind and DarkMind were one. No division, no fractures, no damage, that joyous wholeness reflected in the cool clear pond that was Sophia’s anchor point.
“Sophia’s area is as stable and peaceful as always,” she told Sascha, the fact one that gave her hope.
“Totally stable?” Sascha pressed. “No shrinkage of her zone of influence?”
Ivy frowned. “I checked after Kaleb first showed me the disintegration, but I wasn’t looking for that in particular.” Dread coalescing in her veins, she said, “Give me three minutes. I’m going to make a more detailed assessment.”
What she found was extraordinary.
Dropping out of the Net, Ivy sta
red at Sascha. “How did you know?” It came out a husky whisper.
“What did you see?” the cardinal Psy asked.
“Sophia’s zone of influence has grown, Sascha. Not enough to be noticed on a casual pass, but look again and it’s obvious.” Where once, two or three empaths could’ve lingered in that area at any one time, it could now accommodate four, maybe even five.
Sascha blew out a breath. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I was hoping, because so long as Sophia is holding steady, there’s a chance to save the Net before it collapses. We just have to figure out what makes her unique.”
Frowning, Sahara said, “It can’t just be that she accepts both sides of her nature, allowing the NetMind and DarkMind to be one at that point, because if that was true—”
“—then the Net should be healing, even if at a glacial pace,” Ivy completed, because with the fall of Silence had come a tumultuous surge of emotion into the Net. “Is it because of how Sophia’s mind is woven into the Net?”
Tucking back a strand of hair that had escaped her braid, Sascha said, “It’s possible. Sophie is more deeply integrated into the PsyNet than anyone else on the planet.”
“How could we ever duplicate that?” Sahara’s question was stark. “It might help if we knew how and why Sophia Russo’s mind anchored that way.”
Sascha gave a gentle shake of her head. “Sophie’s story is hers to tell, but I asked her once what I could share should the question of the genesis of her anchor point ever come up, and she gave me leave to tell you that it was an instinctive survival act. I don’t think even she could provide us with instructions.”
Head beginning to pound as if it were being struck repeatedly by a hammer, Ivy looked down at a small bark to see that Rabbit had run back from her mother’s home to pay her a visit. He always did that, happily running back and forth when his people were in two separate locations in a single area. “Let me get Rabbit some water,” she said to the other women and went to refill his bowl.
As he began to lap it up, his tail wagging, she found herself thinking of the community her parents had helped build in this corner of North Dakota, how it was a living organism of a kind. Each individual unique and separate, but together forming a cohesive—
Her eyes widened.
All but running back to the comm, she interrupted Sahara midword. “Can you ask Kaleb to help rope in the NetMind to search for any other healthy sections? Areas like Sophia Russo’s?”
“That’s brilliant, Ivy.” Sascha’s eyes bled to pure black. “With Sophia alone, we have only guesswork, but if we can find a second mind that’s helping the Net to heal, we can compare similarities and differences.”
“But wouldn’t your Es have already spotted such sections?” Sahara pressed her fingers against her temples, as if she’d caught Ivy’s headache. “I first heard about Sophia from one of them.”
“I’m going to alert the entire Collective to be on the lookout,” Ivy said, already drafting that message in her head. “That might be enough to jar loose important memories—because if the area is small, an E might not have noticed except to think he or she felt good when passing by.”
Ivy hoped that was the case, because the other scenario was bleak: that Sophia’s was the solitary healthy area.
Chapter 32
VASIC ARRIVED AT the coordinates he’d been given by Miane Levèque to find himself on one of their floating cities. The BlackSea alpha was dressed in camouflage gear, her face painted with stripes of black and her above-shoulder-length hair scraped back into a small tail. There were five others with her, including a large male Vasic recognized as Malachai Rhys.
“Vasic.” Eyes softening, Miane touched her fingers lightly to his forearm. “Thank you for coming.”
He accepted the tactile gesture of sympathy with a quiet nod. “Where do you need to go?”
Miane held out her hand. On it was a small disk that she pressed down on to bring up a detailed hologram of an old pier. The battered sign at the end identified it as Edward’s Pier.
Vasic looked at the image, tried for a teleport lock, achieved it. “This is perfect. How did you get the original image?”
Miane and Malachai exchanged a look before seeming to decide to trust him. “We sent in a packmate who can shift into a snake—freshwater,” Miane said. “He’s unusual in that his snake form is relatively small. We took the risk that it wouldn’t set off any sensors calibrated for changeling water creatures.”
Vasic nodded, realizing they’d asked for a ’port because a bigger team couldn’t replicate that stealth sweep. “Let’s go.”
“It’s not dark there,” Miane said. “Your uniform—”
Vasic had touched a control on his shoulder as she spoke. It was usually located on the left wrist, but had been moved to the left shoulder for him. One touch and his uniform morphed into a camouflage pattern.
“Handy.” Malachai took in the change with interested eyes. “Want to share that tech?”
Vasic took the grease pot Miane held out, striped his face. “Talk to Aden.” He knew it was unlikely his friend and the leader of the squad would agree to it. Arrows still needed certain advantages and this technology was cutting edge, created by scientists the squad had saved from death and who now worked for the squad—not under duress, but because the squad gave them the funds and the freedom to explore their ideas.
Throwing the grease pot to one of Miane’s people who was dressed in civilian clothing and who had just finished checking the earpieces to be used by the incursion team, he said, “Move into a tight formation around me.” He could teleport the six-strong BlackSea team at one time, but only if they minimized the distances between their bodies. “I’m going to ’port us into the area between the trees to the left of the shot.”
It took three seconds for them to organize as he’d requested and then he was making the ’port. The team melted against the trees and into the long grasses the instant after arrival, and so did Vasic. They were good, Miane’s people. If he hadn’t known they were there, he might not have seen them immediately.
On his first visual scan, he saw nothing except the pier, along with scattered trees. The knee-high grasses waved in the breeze. There were no indications that their slender forms had been pressed down by the passage of even a single pair of feet. That didn’t rule out teleporters, but given that there were a limited number of teleport-capable Tks in the world, the possibility was low. Not negligible, however.
It was on his second visual sweep that he spotted something on the other side of the most open patch of grass directly beyond the pier. Making a sign for Miane to wait, he teleported to the site. It was what he’d suspected—a surveillance unit. A closer look showed it to be dead.
Taking it back to BlackSea, he pointed out the water damage and ingrained dirt. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s bothered to maintain it.” As if this location had been abandoned.
Miane’s jaw tensed. “We still stay low, stay quiet, on alert.”
“Agreed.” He let the BlackSea team take the lead because he needed to be able to see everyone so he could pull them out if there was a problem. With them now spread out, he’d have to do it in bursts.
Two seconds after they began, the entire team froze at a gust of sound, but it was only waterfowl taking flight from the waterway beyond the old wooden pier.
It took an hour for them to move from their start position not far from the water’s edge and up along a line following the open strip on which there were no trees, only what appeared to be the kind of grasses and weeds that grew quickly on land that had been cleared by outside forces.
Miane clearly believed this had once been a dirt track. She was proven right when a couple of minutes after the hour mark, they turned a slight corner and came within visual sight of a squat man-made structure.
Vasic hadn’t asked for an earpiece to match those worn by the
BlackSea team, now realized that had been a mistake. If he had one, he could’ve spoken to Miane, who was in the lead, told her it made the most sense for him to teleport there. Even as the thought passed through his head, the BlackSea alpha turned to look at him. She made a motion toward the structure.
He teleported, taking care to ensure he didn’t end up right next to the building but nearby. Then he made his way closer with painstaking focus, crawling there on his front. Having only one upper limb made the task a little more difficult, even given his Tk—this was a situation where one of Samuel’s prosthetics might’ve come in useful.
He knew they were too late the instant he saw the slightly open door, spotted the browned leaves piled in that narrow gap. Still, he took no risks. Retrieving a low-tech tool from a thigh pocket, a tool that was basically a slender piece of metal with a small angled mirror at the end, he used it to look inside the building.
All he saw were signs of neglect.
Including thick cobwebs that crisscrossed the space and couldn’t have been spun had anyone been moving in the area even a week earlier. He was too much an Arrow, however, to take it as a given that one empty room meant the entire structure was empty. Sliding away the mirror, he made his way around the side of the building and to the back. There was a small hole at the bottom that looked like damage caused by wear and tear.
Again, he used his tool to look inside.
More cobwebs.
The structure had no other rooms from what he could tell.
Lifting his hand, he waved Miane’s people over. They came in quiet as ghosts, but one look inside the structure and it was confirmed they were weeks, more likely months, too late.
“She was here,” Miane said, striding to a dusty corner and pointing to a green bracelet that appeared to have been forgotten there. “I saw her wearing this at our last Conclave.”
Vasic glanced at her. “Why aren’t you picking it up?” It should’ve been an instinctive act for a woman born in a tactile, emotional race.
“Because I’m hoping we can get a psychometric in here.” She looked at her people. “Everyone out. Let’s leave this place as clean as possible for the Ps-Psy, if we can get him.” Miane turned to Vasic. “Can you ’port me back to Lantia? I need to make some calls. The others will stay here and we can move them out on water transport now that we know this location is abandoned.”