by K. T. Hanna
“I’ve heard it’s not decent to walk around like that.”
Sai stops in her tracks. “Dom?” she whispers, an odd surge of happiness making the smile easy on her lips.
“In the...adrium, as it were.” He winks and falls into step with her.
“You know I’m headed to the shower, right?”
He nods, a slight smirk gracing his lips.
“Did you want something?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. Just...” He pauses and is silent until they make it to the infirmary. “I’ll wait here. You’ll be more comfortable afterward, yes?”
The shower, as usual, takes all of four minutes. But they’re four minutes spent with Sai wondering what Dom could want to talk to her about. She glances down at her legs. His comment made her a little self-conscious, even though she’s fairly sure he didn’t mean to. Anyone seeing them for the first time would assume they’re real now. Until they touched them, anyway. Adrium can only mimic the appearance, not the texture.
She washes them routinely, even though she’s fully aware they don’t require it. So strange to feel the joint where her real leg starts blending into adrium. Strange to feel the smooth cool metal underneath her fingertips with the warm pulse reverberating through it every now and again.
It makes her wonder how Dom works. Does he have a heart, a brain? Her fingers itch to see if all of him is as smooth as her own legs. She misses their hugs. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have this experience, this extra strength. Whenever she feels like she’s going to pass out or give up, there’s a force from somewhere inside her. Sometimes she wonders if it’s the legs or just her imagination. Whatever it is, he’s her reason.
Dom was right, though. Once fully dressed in every day clothes, she tiptoes past the occupied beds, and emerges feeling one hundred percent like her usual self.
“So,” she nudges him with her arm, lingering maybe a touch longer than usual. He doesn’t shy away. “What were you saying?”
“Are we good now?” He turns to face her, his arm brushing hers, and he tugs at her hand. “I feel it’s almost better than before. I...” He glances at her legs and then away, confusion on his face, but there’s a sense of relaxation about him again that hasn’t been there in months.
Sai stares at him to reaffirm what she’s already quite certain of. After a few moments, she smiles and feels the truth of the words on the tip of her tongue all through her body. “Yes, we’re more than fine, Dom.” His skin has a faint sparkle in it, and on impulse she reaches up on tiptoes and kisses his cheek, lips lingering longer than she intended. “See? Better than fine.”
He looks at her as his eyes flash through a dozen colors at once, and he pulls her into a tight hug. “Sometimes you’re confusing, Sai.” But there’s a hint of wistfulness in his voice, and it feels so right to be held against him in that protective embrace. It’s warm in its own way and more comforting than she realized.
She pulls back and holds both his hands, watching his expression. “I know.” They fall in step, hands intertwined. His fingers have this smooth quality, and when they squeeze, it’s a gentle, almost liquid hug of her hand.
“Anything else?” She sort of hopes he says yes.
“Not really. I have about ten minutes before I have to meet Mathur and spend the day on the dominos. I have to leave tonight around midnight. Bastian will probably need me shortly.” His grip tightens slightly, and he keeps his eyes on the floor ahead of them
Sai ponders the words for a few moments. “You said he’d shut them down in seven days, correct?”
“He said around seven, but I believe it may be eight or nine.”
“I’m going to hope for seven. I like the sound of it better.” She pauses, trying to get the vision of injured people, of the torn-up bodies who didn’t survive the transit out of her head.
“You don’t deal well with the death, do you, Sai?” Dom’s voice is soft.
“I don’t. I want it to stop. I want everything to just stop.” And she stops walking, tugging him with her to lean against a wall. “But if we stop, everyone will end up dead, so we have to do something, right?”
“Right.”
“And if I didn’t want it to stop, there’d be something wrong with me.” She doesn’t voice that she’d have given in to the parasite, to the darkness that has the potential to do things she doesn’t understand.
“There’s nothing amiss with you.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Suddenly he’s in front of her, leaning in with the other hand on the wall, face inches from her own. His eyes glow silver-white, and the wave of auburn hair tickles her forehead as it hangs down. “It is easy for me to say. Don’t overdo things while I’m gone?”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Don’t just try—please?” There’s a note of concern to his voice she’s never heard before, an intensity to his eyes that seems so sad. “I can’t lose you again. You don’t...” His eyes flash red briefly, but the silver chases it off. He looks away from her, down at the floor, scuffing a dent into it with his foot.
“I don’t?” Sai asks, her voice soft, and reaches out to lift his chin back up. It brings his face so close to hers.
But Dom flinches away from the touch, bringing his eyes up to meet her reproachful gaze. “You don’t understand what I am. I need you to be careful, because I don’t function well without you anymore.”
He brushes his hands on either side of her face, gently cradling it, and kisses her forehead. His lips are warmer than she thought they’d be, and Sai closes her eyes. A tiny bubble of peace, of things how they should be, surrounds them, just for a moment.
And when she opens them, Dom is gone.
“How many units did you deploy, Owen?” Deign doesn’t even glance up or give the man the respect eye contact would demonstrate. As the Damascus are unleashed and wreak havoc, her position becomes more assured. It shows.
“Forty-nine.” Owen’s owl-like eyes flutter their lashes in the light, like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web.
Now she looks up. “Forty-nine and twenty-seven units left here, then?” She purses her lips. “Well done, but we may be able to spare a few more units for other city’s protection. Remember Central is not our only base.”
“Understood.”
“And the experiments?”
“Underway. We should have our first operational unit by tonight.” There’s a faint smile to Owen’s lips this time, demonstrating his pride in accomplishing more than his predecessors.
Bastian listens more intently than at previous meetings. So much hinges on his navigation of their plans. He can’t help wondering what Dom would do with this information. Would he perhaps eliminate Owen as well? The young man seems bright, but solely devoted to his work—which in this case is the Damascus. Not the safest hobby for him to have around Dom. Though the heightened security around the scientist is nothing to laugh at.
Deign’s face is frozen in a perpetual frown, and only minor fluctuations in her expression give away that she’s alert and aware. She’d be interesting to watch, if she wasn’t partially insane.
“And your lists, Bastian?” Her question is sharp, like she could hear some of his thoughts, even though he realizes it’s impossible.
“Should be on everyone’s device. I transmitted them early this morning.”
She glances down and taps the screen a couple of times before smiling tightly. “So you did. Pardon my lack of organization. I didn’t check back that late. Are these assignments awaiting approval, or did you hand them out already?”
Maybe Bastian is the only one who can hear the weariness in her voice, but it’s definitely there—in the way she doesn’t round out her words with the usual finesse. “Already assigned and executed. There should be little to no reactionaries left. Excluding, of course, the dormant carriers.”
“Dormant carriers.” She spits the words like there’s a bad taste to them.
Bastian has to choke
down a sudden laugh threatening to overwhelm him. He’s never understood the rampant dislike of potential psionics who have no control or of those who might not agree with the way the governing body does things. After all, some of their parents were dormant carriers of the psionic gene. But then, as it negates a lot of psionic effect on the person, perhaps it’s a threat. Just like a clear and free mind.
Deign glances over to where Zach usually sits and frowns. “Does anyone know why he’s late today?” Somehow she manages to keep the exasperation on her face from leaking into her voice.
Owen clears his throat and nervously pushes those glasses up. “He was down in the lab with a contingent of lieutenants the last I saw.”
“What time was this?”
“About an hour before the meeting. He may have lost track of time down there.” Owen huddles into his lab jacket like it’s a protective cloak and looks down at his feet beneath the table.
Deign closes her eyes briefly and takes in a deep breath before tapping her screen once more, and continuing as if she hadn’t had that little interlude. “Housing situation?”
“We’ve moved many of the families residing in the outskirts a little closer to the main hub. It’s easier for the Damascus to control and allows less of a standby base for the Exiled should they succeed in breaking through.” Harlow recites it as if she’s reading the back of a box. The boredom in her tone is almost obnoxious.
Deign laughs. “You really think they’ll break through?”
Harlow shrugs. “Perhaps not, but all things considered, they have before. While I’ve done everything and more, I’d done that last time, too.”
“Point.” Deign leans back in her chair as the door opens and Zach pops his head around it. “You’re late.”
“I apologize.” It’s the first time in his life Bastian’s ever heard his childhood friend sound even partially meek. But, then again, it’s also one of the first times there’s no one else he can blame his tardiness on.
“Report.”
“Units are ready and deployed. We should have communication from them within the next few hours.” Zach’s habitual smirk works its way back onto his face as he lowers himself into his seat.
“Is it safe for them to be traveling in sunlight?” Jamieson sounds dubious.
Harlow raises an eyebrow. “Owen had me adjust the frequency on the vehicle’s plating to help compensate. It’ll get warm in there, but that doesn’t matter. Some will still travel by foot overnight, but there are several patrols who can use a vehicle during the day.”
“Harlow.” Deign smiles for the first time that morning. It’s not a nice expression. “Sometimes I forget you’re there.” Her sarcasm hangs in the air for a moment before she continues. “Please tell me you have vehicles ready as backups and replacements. We better not have sent out the only ones we have.”
“No, we have three spares and two currently being worked on.” Bastian can almost hear the you know me better than that added onto the end. But Harlow is smart enough not to push her childhood friend.
“Excellent. Everything seems to be going to plan.” Deign plants her reader on the table in front of her and is silent for a few moments before looking at each of them in turn.
“Zach, share the intel. Do we know where Sai is?” She practically spits the name out, a nasty scowl etching itself briefly on her face. “And are we close to implementing your plan?”
Bastian is grateful he’s not the only one who sits up at the question. Plan? Intel? And what the hell do they want to do to Sai?
Zach grins, that know-it-all grin Bastian grew up hating. Largely because Zach was full of crap. Usually.
“We believe she’s with the main command center and part of a special tactical force.” He stops and looks directly at Bastian. “You sure as hell trained her well. Good pick.”
Bastian shrugs as nonchalantly as he can manage, trying to sort through a brain that’s far too sluggish on the Shine he keeps downing to find an appropriate response. “It’s my job, though sadly, telling the future isn’t one of my talents.”
Zach laughs before continuing. “We also believe they’ve developed some kind of scouting party, using psionics in ways we...haven’t done ourselves yet.”
Bastian takes care not to let even one muscle twitch on his face at the mention of experimenting with psionics. He knows he’s being watched, even if it’s through surveillance. If anything gives away that he cares in even the slightest amount for the Exiled, they’ll have all sorts of things to hold against him.
“We know the story, Zach.” Deign is impatient now. “Cut to the chase.”
“Fine.” He glances at his own reader. “The plan is to lure them out, find out what sort of tactical teams they have, set a trap, and wait. If we can lure them into a false sense of security and make them think the force we’re sending is something they can deal with, we should be able to flush them out and take care of their meager defense.”
“That’s the great plan?” Harlow asks, eyebrow raised in disbelief.
“It’s a tried and true plan.” Zach shrugs. “You didn’t come up with any better ideas, did you?”
She shrugs. “No, I was just expecting it to be...well, a bit bigger and perhaps more original.”
“Originality doesn’t matter as long as it works.” Deign stands up and stretches her arms high. “As long as we can flush them out and take out some of their leaders and teachers, we weaken the core. If we weaken the core, we may have a chance to get back what was stolen from us. That, along with wiping out these moronic rebels for good, is really the aim in the end.” She stands tall, her lips curled in a predatory smile.
“Bastian, Owen, I need you to stay behind, but the rest of you, get back to working on what you’re working on. We need this to go off without a hitch.” Deign aims a meaningful glance at Zach, who pales just a little before letting himself out of the room.
She doesn’t look at the two men until everyone else has left, and when she turns around to face them, Bastian is sure he can see some nervousness there. For a woman who’s known what she wanted since she was nine, he finds it rather unsettling.
“Between the three of us, I’m worried about the Damascus experiment.”
Owen blinks. “Why on earth would you be worried?”
“Because they’re unpredictable. They’ve always had that fault—a fault that once their original objective is fulfilled we can’t exert any type of control over them unless it’s in form of the device.”
Owen smiles, large teeth surprisingly white. “I’ve readjusted that in the experiment. These are not the same models and will listen as they should have when they were first built. You really don’t need to worry, you know.”
“Are you sure?” Deign’s voice is a whisper, deadly serious.
“I’m very sure.” Owen’s voice is steady, proud of his work.
“Fine, then.” She turns to Bastian. “You have the failsafes. If everything goes wrong in the end, you know what to do, right?”
Bastian nods and sees the flood of relief on her face. It seems the last thing Deign wants to do is condemn her people to lives ended by rampaging Damascus. Sometimes it almost feels like her heart is in the right place.
Sometimes.
“It’s a good thing we built the Mobiles with forethought toward growth or we’d never be able to house these casualties.” Mason flicks through the reports in his hands and covers his eyes for a moment. If possible, he’s thinner than Sai remembers.
“It’s not all dire news.” James stands looking over Mason’s shoulder. “We’ve had several very successful skirmishes and neutralized several patrols.”
“Several?” Mason counters. “Several from seventy-odd? We’ve barely put a dent in their attacks. We’ve got four groups of psionics who can direct this new ability. That’s it. On a good day, we could take out four or five patrols, if they were all single patrols, which they’re not. We’re lucky to get one in. This isn’t working.”
�
�It has been too long, anyway,” Mathur says, motioning both men to sit down. “Dom left this morning to retrieve Bastian safely.”
Sai notices the definite tone of his speech. Bastian will be saved; Dom will succeed. Simply because, if they start thinking negatively, reality will beat their door down.
“I’ll take my team out tonight.” Sai twists an escaped strand of hair, frustrated with their lack of choices. “We can do one run per day at least. I could probably do one more, but I can’t take on a patrol by myself.”
“Not and leave you functional.” Kayde smiles, trying to calm the tension. Her blonde hair is limp, like she hasn’t tended it in the longest time, cast back in a half-hearted bun. “If anyone is interested, I sent the first batch of Ebony with Dom today. It should work. I think. I didn’t really have time to test it.” She runs a hand through her hair and grimaces as her fingers catch in it before she continues. “With any luck, the GNW might actually find some resistance from the population it purports to protect.”
Mason nods with a frown, still swiping through his lists. “Are you sure we should have sent untested Ebony?”
Kayde shrugs. “It’s the best I could do. I haven’t had the time to test it as thoroughly as I’d like. Dominos took precedence.”
Bastian’s brother smiles tightly, but his skin sags when the expression fades. A nasty cough escapes him, but he seems unfazed by it. “We’ve lost communication with numerous Mobiles. Not everyone is staying within range. The Damascus courses of attack aren’t predictable, and I do believe they’ve been successful in recreating the experiment. A few of the patrols we’ve encountered are...well, less old.”
James shakes his head. “Just what we need, more contingents to fight off. Still, the dominos are almost done, yes, old man?” The term would be insulting from anyone else, but from James it’s filled with a fondness for Mathur Sai knows everyone has.
Mathur shrugs. “Almost. Dom helped with a few of the last touches, but there are still a couple of adjustments I need to make—easy but time-consuming. It is not the same as creating them from scratch. Dom is... Dom is still different and very special.”