by Hanna, K. T.
She clears her throat, the steel back in her voice. “Let’s call it an afternoon. Brainstorm, think, and come up with anything that might help us solve this. Because right now it seems like we’re running headlong into a revolution.”
An entire evening with his own thoughts under the supervision of Mr. No Personality Because I’m Not Human, his Damascus lieutenant. What more could a stunning single bachelor want on a Friday night? Although—Bastian glances in a mirror as he passes it—perhaps he’s more rugged than stunning now, considering that nice abrasion scar on his cheek. It’s barely noticeable, but noticeable nonetheless. Gives his body that lived-in look.
He pulls off his suffocating jacket and falls back into his chair. His fingers tingle with warmth, but picking off the gloves is a little too much effort right now.
He closes his eyes and runs his hands through his hair. There’s nothing to tell them yet, no news to pass on. Nothing they won’t already know, even if reaching through with the core sounds so tempting. That feeling of power suffusing him is oddly addictive. Very dangerous.
How the hell did Dom and Sai manage to cut through fifty people and a Damascus? It’s impossible. Unless…
Bastian sits bolt upright, his eyes snapping open. “Damn,” he curses softly
There’s no way Dom could have given way to it, is there? Wasn’t that the problem with some of the domino prototypes before him? The human/parasite balance was off and made them violent, vicious, and unstable. It’s how Mathur lost his leg. Is there anyway desperation could do that?
With so many questions floating around in Bastian’s head, he doesn’t hear his visitor until she’s in the room with him. Startled, he stumbles right back into the chair, mentally checking for his alarms to see they did go off, but only briefly.
“Damn it, Deign.” Trying to think fast on his feet, he still can’t recall if she’d said she was coming to see him.
“What were you thinking, Bastian?” she asks him in that silky voice she only ever uses if she wants something. It’s a deftly woven command, with a hint of suggestion to coax her prey into doing what she wants.
“Trying to figure out how the hell fifty of our troops got downed.” It’s so easy to not lie and yet not tell the truth. Bastian isn’t sure if he should be proud of that or not.
“Ah…” She traces a finger across the scar on his face and lets herself drop down into the seat opposite him. “Such a shame. but we all have to pay the price for not listening sometime, don’t we?”
It’s a rhetorical question he still wants to answer. To scream at her to not be so unreasonable, not to be such a bitch. Instead, he nods and holds her gaze.
“You always were strong. So strong. You stood up to Zach when he got in his moods, you protected your domino—you always protected the underdog. Out of everyone in that room this evening, the only person you’ve never protected, the only person who owes you nothing at all, is Owen. You even protected Zach and myself at one stage.”
She moves to get a drink out of his fridge and leans against the desk, sipping the cup. “You’ve always been too good for this world. Always so righteous. Tell me, did you ever think your father was right? Did you ever think we should have let the people fend for themselves?”
It’s dangerous ground with too many dangerous questions. Bastian shrugs. “I’m not entirely sure. I’m quite certain many people wouldn’t have made better or worse decisions than they have with our help—so what’s the harm in letting them think for themselves? But honestly, it’s not my place to say now, is it?”
She laughs softly. “No, I suppose it isn’t, is it—oh, Diplomatic One.” She reaches forward and tugs at a fingertip. “You left your gloves on, Bastian. You’re really no fun sometimes.”
“I like to keep my personal thoughts to myself, if not my business ones. Some things are meant to be private.” He allows himself a grin in return, wondering how someone so beautiful on the outside can be so blindingly hideous on the inside. Then again, if he’d had her parents, he’d probably have turned out the same way: twisted.
Suddenly she’s closer to him, hand entwined with one of his. “Why won’t you ever let me in that goddamned head of yours, Bastian?” It’s not really a question. It’s Deign being her demanding self. Alarm bells ring in his mind.
He pushes up from his chair so suddenly he topples it over and grips her wrist, stepping completely away from all other the contact. “Deign. You don’t want to be doing this.”
And she shouldn’t, because she won’t like what’s in his head and she won’t like finding out his true strength this way either.
She glares at him and twists her hand out of his loose grasp. “I could force your walls. I could make you beg to take them down for me.”
But the sibilance in her tone has no effect on him. He cocks his head to the side and blinks at her. “Could you, really?” He can hear the dare, the challenge, the sheer audacity in his own voice—and he regrets nothing.
Suddenly there’s a pressure surrounding his head, trying to push in, to break down, to coerce his emotional status. And they’re so close, so close to everything that he doesn’t even care. With a slight puff of power, he banishes her effort.
Deign reels back as if slapped, eyes startled. “What the…?”
“An old trick my father taught me,” he half-lies.
He can see the anger boiling just under the surface, the half-sneer that starts to cross her expression. “I know you can’t move much further or your guard will be triggered. Don’t make me hurt you, Bastian.”
Something snaps inside him. He’s sick of playing weak, sick of hiding his powers and trying to manipulate everything toward one, hopefully close end goal. He takes a step closer, loosely grasping his core, just in case. “The walls have ears, Deign. You should know—you put them there.”
As he moves forward, she takes a step back, her eyes suddenly confused. “What will they hear? Me taking you down a peg?”
He laughs and moves closer, close enough that she’ll hear the soft words he speaks, but not close enough to touch. “You can’t get inside my head. You’ll never get inside my head. Not one of your little tricks will ever work on me, Deign.”
She casts her gaze down for a moment as he continues.
“I’ve always had your back, Deign.” And it’s not a lie because she’s always been the lesser evil in his eyes. An indoctrinated one. “Don’t make me change my mind now.”
Deign laughs and looks back up at him, their eyes almost on the same level. “You have, in your own way, I guess. Fine.” She slips away and smooths down her skirt before fixing him once more with wistful eyes. “You have no idea how lonely it can get up here, Bastian.”
It’s the first time she’s ever spoken so openly to him, the first time he can almost see himself forgetting the things she’s done—not only to him but to others he’s known and cared about. If he shut his eyes and blocked out his memories, she’d be perfectly attractive. This isn’t the time for those thoughts, though.
There’s a bad seed in her, something not quite right, a sliver of cruelty passed down from her mother. It nags at everything she does.
“It’s lonely in a lot of places, Deign. Remember? I’ve killed for you.”
She smiles sadly, a lopsided smile. “How could I forget? A family of assassins,” she murmurs, and there’s a hitch in her voice and a finality about her words that he can’t quite place. Deign has something on her mind, but she’s not telling just yet.
With a shake of her head and a peal of her golden laugh, she smiles at him, the trace of sadness and regret a distant memory. She walks past him and pauses, drawing a fingernail up his chest to his chin. He can feel the hum of psionics under her skin. “It’s okay. There’ll come a day when I can pursue whatever I want to.”
He watches her leave the room without a comeback, unsure of what to do that won’t get him in trouble.
The following day dawns with a summons to meet Owen in the laboratory at daybrea
k. As far as Bastian knows, they didn’t want him down in the bowels of the facility, just in case he tried to have the Damascus rendered inoperable again.
Shower, food, and clothes take a minimal amount of time. He motions to his lieutenant as he walks toward the doors. The quicker he gets down there, the more time he’ll have and the sooner he might be able to discover something he can share with Sai. Anything he can show them that might just mean a slight advantage when they finally go head to head.
It’s getting so close now, he can taste it, just like the power at his core. Close and ever more delicious.
He knows the way down to the laboratories like the back of his hand. So well, in fact, that he feels restricted by the pace the Damascus set.
Finally downstairs, he has to blink to adjust his vision. The lighting is far dimmer than he remembers it. But it doesn’t seem to faze Owen, who is bent over one of the benches on the far side of the vast room.
They used to keep the people down here that they’d drained so much they were used up. He had no idea where those people were now. Even Bastian can feel the lingering psychic echoes of pain, and he’s no empath. He keeps his expression completely neutral as he approaches Owen. The younger man waves at the lieutenants to move away. “I can’t think with so much metal hovering over me. Give me a bit of space.”
They move, eerily in sync, and Owen watches them until satisfied with where they’re standing.
“Sorry about that,” he mutters under his breath, barely audible. “Look over these plans with me and make appropriate noises.”
“Excuse me?” Bastian is immediately on his guard, even though he keeps his voice low. His gaze darts around to see who else is watching them, trying to find a two-way mirror.
“Don’t be so obvious. Bend over, pick at this and that, and just listen.” Owen is different in here than he is in the meeting room. Confident and authoritative. Bastian is intrigued despite himself, and so he obliges. Maybe that direct glance at the meeting yesterday was a signal of some sort.
“Thank you.” The young man takes a few breathes as he fiddles with the parts in front of him. He slowly reaches forward and very deliberately flips a switch on a tiny device. Nothing happens, but he smiles at Bastian and begins to speak freely.
“Interference. They won’t be able to hear what we say now, as long as it’s soft. Look.”
Bastian finds himself nodding as if in agreement with whatever the hell it is the man is saying, fascinated by the fact it appears he apparently has an ally where he never knew there was one. “I’m all ears.”
“No, your ears are…oh, yes. Sorry. Sometimes I’m a bit too literal.”
“Your nervousness isn’t fake, is it?”
Owen fails to suppress a smile, giving him an oddly childlike appearance. “No, they scare the crap out of me. Basically, here’s the deal. There was no way I could work on a pulse device or any type of disabling machine. So I’ve sort of enhanced what one will do when a pulse device is created and enabled.”
“Wait—did Mathur send you?”
Owen blinks. “The creator of the dominos? Isn’t he dead?”
Bastian shifts his weight, trying to grasp at the motivation. “Then why…?”
“Those monsters killed my entire family. I watched my mother, my father, and my twin sisters get mauled, torn apart by one of their rampages through Central. I ran and hid, and they almost got me, too. There is no way I will let that ever happen to anyone else.” Owen’s eyes are hard, determined, and full of bitterness. “I do this for my own selfish needs, but most of all to avoid history repeating itself.” He turns pointedly to Bastian. “They should never have been reawakened.”
“I know,” Bastian answers, still trying to get a grip on this. Still wary of the young man in front of him, of this perceived good fortune. What if it’s a trap?
“Because of last night’s meeting, I could get you down here and explain this to you under the pretense that I needed you to help me figure out how these Damascus died and if psionics had anything to do with it.”
“This is all for appearance’s sake then?”
Owen frowns. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Bastian smiles, running through potential responses in his head before carefully choosing one. “You could be trying to see if I really just wanted to stop history’s repetition before it starts. Or you could be trying to lay blame on me.”
Owen raises an eyebrow. “Then I wouldn’t tell you that the new lieutenants have an inbuilt pulse amplifier. In several days, I will have enough of them that one will be sent with each set of patrols. When the pulse is finally set off, they will amplify the signal. They won’t be permanently disabled—they will be permanently destroyed.”
“You’re serious?”
“Completely.” His eyes are hard, angry behind his lenses. There’s nothing duplicitous in his aura, and Bastian nods, but wants to try just one more thing.
“Why tell me this? You didn’t have to, you know. I could have been a plant by Deign.”
“I know.” Owen shrugs slightly. “But you’re not. Everything you say is chosen carefully. You never lie, but you’re never fully telling the truth. You know what’s going on and how it’s being done, but you’ve figured out a way to hide things even from her. You’re an ally, even if you don’t know it.”
“You realize you’re helping the Exiled, right?”
“The Exiled didn’t create an army of Damascus they couldn’t control and kill my family. The Exiled haven’t tried to repeat the situation either.” He locks his gaze on Bastian’s, as if trying to will him to read between the lines. “Just let them know that all they need to do is recreate the pulse device.”
“Got it.”
“Good.” Owen smiles and straightens. “Thank you. I think that’s all,” he says a little louder as he switches off the interference device and shoves a smaller one into Bastian’s palm as he shakes his hand. “Thanks for your help. I’ll see what I can do with this. But I’m going to need to interrupt your schedule again, I fear.”
Bastian watches the man as he begins to go about his tasks and nods at his back before returning to the custody of his babysitter patrol. Odd things seemed to be coming together. Odd, but good. Finally he has something solid to report to Sai. Finally he can test his limits with the core again.
Sai wakes up to a commotion outside her door. Someone is trying to get in and not being too subtle about it. She frowns as she pushes herself out of bed and stumbles to her feet. Her dream still echoes through her mind, causing disorientation. Bastian was the guest star again. Still trying to make sense of the conversation, she sneaks over to the door.
Cursing, she swings it open to see Kayde’s worried face.
Any contemplations about her dream fly out of her head immediately. Her first thought is something’s happened to Dom—that he’s taken a turn for the worse and isn’t going to recover after all. In a way, she’s been preparing for it for days, but what she isn’t prepared for are the words that come out of Kayde’s mouth.
“Aishke is hurt. They’re a couple of hours out. Something backfired with her core when they melded.”
“What?” Her voice sounds distant even to herself, and her vision swims. She lifts a hand and feels wetness on her fingertips. Perhaps it’s the tears making her vision swim.
Kayde lays a hand gently on her shoulder. “Sai. We need you in the loading bay when they get in. Get ready.”
“Of course,” she answers and steps back into the apartment. Kayde follows. “Aishke’s been through so much. She doesn’t need this.”
“I know.” Kayde hovers just at the edge, as if afraid to get too close.
Sai shakes her head, trying to keep herself grounded. The communication link with Bastian, while almost over, was interrupted and her vision is doubling, casting back and forth from subliminal to reality. “Sorry. I need… Aishke hurt. Need to shower and report to the loading bay. Check. Got it.” She gathers her willpower up and stand
s straighter.
Kayde smiles and fetches a change of body armor for her. Sai eyes it, suddenly woefully aware that all she seems to wear anymore is the adaptive armor that hugs her like a second skin. “Thanks.”
“I’ll wait for you out here,” Kayde says, grabbing a ration bar from the kitchen bench and sitting on the couch.
As Sai nods, her gaze rakes over her kitchen. It looks older now, even though it’s not even a year since she moved in. There are scuff marks across the bench where one of Aishke’s episodes sent something flying. A dullness hangs over it, making it appear more grey than white.
“Sai?”
Kayde’s eyes reflect concern and Sai forces a smile. “It’s okay. I’m just thinking too much.”
The steam is hot and helps wake her up. She’s pulling the sleeves of her body armor down as she walks back out, stretching her neck, morphing her legs, getting ready for the worst. She feels much better than when she first woke up. “That’s it. Head in the right place.”
“Where do you usually have it? Under your arm?”
“Dom.” She smiles despite the current situation and takes three long strides to fling her arms around him. He’s not as stable as usual, and they stagger for a couple of steps. She laughs, feeling so much more at ease. “Sorry.”
“I was worried.” He frowns. “You’ve been there every day when my stasis pauses.”
“Sorry. Bastian visited. Aishke is injured…” She shrugs, and suddenly all the worry comes flooding back. She looks around for a moment. “Where did Kayde go?”
Sai is quite certain what flickers through Dom’s expression is irritation, but he answers anyway. “Said I should wait for you to finish your shower, she had somewhere else to be. What’s wrong with Aishke?”
“I don’t know. She’s injured. They’ll be here shortly.”
“And Bastian?” he prods her, and she glowers at him a little.
“We need Mathur to hear this, too, and I don’t feel like repeating myself. Are you up to coming with me?” She glances at his leg as he falls into stride with her. There’s something off about his usual seamless cadence.