by Gwynn White
"Sprinkles." Emmit approached, looking the wolverine over for other wounds. Only minor scrapes that were difficult to see under the fur. He wondered how many battles the wolverine had been in since he saw him last; he moved with the fatigue of ten or twenty. Emmit petted his head and rubbed behind an ear. The fierceness of the animal's teeth and size still put Emmit in awe that such a beast would allow him this close without chomping his hand off. He sensed respect and companionship that reminded him of Adi. That it came from something as powerful as a wolverine inspired awe and confidence. No offense, Dy.
Water splashed behind him. He glanced back to see Sara washing her hands and forearms, her downward gaze lost in brewing anger. Then she noticed Emmit watching her, and her face lit like a light, without a trace of deceit.
He tightened his mental web to himself and Sprinkles. How come I can't read what she's thinking? As he stretched his mind back out, Sara cocked her head, a playful smile on her lips.
"Are you reading me? Why not just ask?"
Emmit blushed and looked back at Sprinkles, petting his mane. He didn't want to suspect Sara. It was probably a moment of mental block, or maybe she just wasn't thinking anything.
"Emmit?" She was playing with him. Her footsteps squished the bark of a soggy, fallen tree apart.
He turned to see her a few steps away, looking at him more like an older sister than his developing crush wanted. Sure, she was out of his age range, but that didn't mean he didn't want the respect a man would command. How could he change that? Would showing his strength make a difference? Even after having just cried—but she cried too.
"What's going on in that head of yours, young man?" She reached out and ruffled his wet hair, reinforcing the older sister vibe.
"You can't hear my thoughts?"
She wrinkled her brows. "No... not recently. Have you been trying?"
"Well, no, not really." Again, he broke eye contact, pretending to search the jungle behind her and to his left. The man she'd need wouldn't let his guard down like this to talk about feelings. He checked her hands, which were clean enough, then her face. "We should keep moving. Are you ready?"
She smiled and let out an adorable laugh, as though he'd just invented a game to amuse her. "I guess so." And just as quickly, her countenance fell, and she glanced behind her. He read her concern this time. She was lost and didn't want to tell him. Something had jammed their communication and thrown off their compasses, leaving their whole group to search for Fel Or'an by, what, pure luck? "Schaefer, what's happened?" she thought.
Emmit reached out for his mom, taking in the sweet rhythm of bird calls, ticking of insects and the deep thrum of frogs as the forest lived around him. Somewhere, nowhere close, was his mom... and his dead friend's final resting place.
"Okay then," Sara said, and ducked inside a sideways Y formed by a fallen tree's trunk and branch.
Emmit rubbed Sprinkles's neck and stepped after her, sensing his wolverine following behind. His mom remained nonexistent in the Jehu Jungle, a name Sara revealed in her thoughts. She was afraid Emmit would die in her care, but there was more to that thought. There was another reason that he couldn't quite read from her.
25
The Star General's son arrives." Willo's voice cast from the other end of the cafeteria.
The rejects between her and Cullen sank onto their benches, clearing a path to a petite blonde leaning against a door frame on the other side of the room. She tucked a tablet under an arm, smiling as a doctor would to welcome a familiar patient. The look unnerved him. Adding to that discomfort was the facial tics exhibited by the rejects he walked by. He hadn't noticed this in Scanis, but most of them struggled to keep their eyes still. The longer he watched, the less he could, reminding him of the failed experiment label.
Willo shrugged as he walked up to her. "I'll take winning a war over a bit of social awkwardness." The way she confidently looked at him as she spoke, lips tight as she smiled, she struck him as a woman well beyond the stage he'd yet to discover. "But it's not awkward once you're welcomed to the fold. I told you all to vocalize until we return to the field," she said to the silent group. "They don't like to talk out loud, but telepathy uses strength we ought to be conserving."
She extended a hand to shake with Cullen.
He accepted with less enthusiasm, and jolted at the shock that passed through her touch.
"Sorry," she said, almost blushing as she looked down—possibly hiding a few eye twitches too late—and turned to signal they walk. "It's a small side effect of our treatments."
"Did you bring me here to make me a telepath?" The idea didn't sound right, but then again, he didn't understand how else he could become one of them. He scanned the group of rejects watching him until he found Scanis, seated at a far table. She nodded in a way that said to go on.
"Not in the ultra sense," Willo said, stepping away slowly until he followed. As they left the cafeteria, the scent of sweaty bodies diminished, and he noticed that her hair and skin were recently washed. Her blue lab coat was also clean, though spotted with old blood stains. "We've all learned from the mistake of rushing that process," she continued. "No. Not an ultra," she said with a smile that made him feel like a child for asking, "just someone who can more easily communicate when surrounded by those with the ultra-ability."
"I've been able to communicate with you, and with Scanis, and..." he didn't know where to begin to summarize his experiences of the last half hour. He took a deep breath as Willo patiently let him gather his thoughts, an eager grin waiting for his conclusion. "I already feel like we're... family." Well, maybe awkward cousins, but still family. "I've seen their time in cells, the experiments, how Scanis's ship was destroyed, pieces of her journey here."
"And Torek's betrayal."
"Yes."
"Good."
Cullen didn't associate good with that information. They took a left turn as he picked up a scent of blood and the odor of a sterilizing liquid.
"I am sorry I had to give you that news," she said. "But better that you know and not let those who'd deceive you have the upper hand."
"Right. And I do thank you for that, if it's true. How do I know that memory isn't just something you imagined?"
Willo stopped. She looked displeased, as though his questions were only slowing down their progress. Then she nodded a gesture of respect. "Of course. As you should," she said, half extending a pointed finger at his face. "Your father taught you well. Come. I have a couple other pieces of evidence I can show you."
"Where is Torek? Ehli, Emmit... Adi? Are they okay?"
"Torek and Emmit, and Adi—I don't know. Ehli, as I had Scanis relay, is fine. She's also seen our plight and embraced the chance to help. We have an escort bringing her in."
Ehli?
Willo gave him a pitying look. "Remember, you're not a telepath. Unless she's trying to find you or speak to you, your thoughts are yours and mine, or whomever is within reach and curious." She backhanded his arm playfully. "Don't worry. You'll see her soon enough."
Willo took another turn and motioned ahead to a door. She typed a code into the keypad, opened the door, and led the way into a room with monitors and computers on the far wall. Four neuronet chairs were lined up to his right, and shelves and cabinets stood against the left and right-hand walls of the twenty by thirty-meter room. Willo stepped up to the first chair and tapped a button to power it on.
Cullen had used net chairs when his chip was installed, and a few times when contacts for their jobs required manual installation of temporary mission packets—their contents included both instructions and blind access to key points of space stations so that he never knew the codes that let him enter restricted areas. The chairs provided optical or hardline entry, depending on the size of the data packet being transferred.
He waited beside Willo as she typed commands into the holographic keyboard that lit up from an eye in the chair's side. The angled screen above the keyboard showed streams of Versteg, the la
nguage of the Osuna High Order. He'd tried to learn it once, but so much of what he needed was translated to the much easier-to-learn Esune, Kistrian language that he assumed 98 percent of what she looked at would be indecipherable for him.
"Don't worry." Willo paused from her typing to share a gentle smile. "I'm not trying to hide anything from you. These machines don't work without Versteg commands and programming. They're some of the newer models bartered from vagrant Osuna."
"And what exactly is that supposed to do to convince me you're not lying about Torek?"
"The files you need are only accessible through the net. You know how to control your own session?"
"I've run plenty of sessions." He and Torek didn't have one on their ship—that was illegal for non-Osuna chartered ships—but they had connections at space ports, and these were how they kept up to date on new programs, access to systems, and clearance to continue taking jobs.
"Good." Willo tapped a few boxes on the holo screen and looked over to see if he was watching. "Does that number look familiar?"
His ship's merchant ID was highlighted on one of the boxes. "Yeah. That's Talis's marker."
She pointed at the second set of numbers tied to his marker by a "+" sign, indicating the folder contained communications between the two markers. The second merchant ID looked familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint where from. "Who's ID is that?"
"Ocia's."
Why would that be familiar?
"You seen it before?" She swept a finger down, opening the folder to show a long list of files with timestamps and options for video or audio download.
"Maybe. Not sure where."
"This wasn't the first time they spoke. You can pick any you'd like to listen to, then lock it to watch, or have it play the audio." She pointed at one near the bottom. "The memory I shared with you is that one."
Cullen looked at the date and time. It was six months ago. The date was familiar, because it was the day before Torek cancelled their mission to Oruth at the last minute. He'd claimed that a better-paying gig had opened up on U-17. That had turned out to not be true, with Torek acting strangely when they got to port, setting Cullen up with that nice girl—Melaya —while he met with a contact he said didn't know Cullen and didn't like meeting with people she didn't know. Melaya had been sweet, but he'd never shaken the sense that she'd been obligated to spend the day with him. He and Torek had left U-17 with a decent surplus, but Torek had shut him out when he asked about what his contact had asked for in return.
"Would you like to see or listen?" she asked, then shrugged. "Or pick a different file. Whatever you want—I just point to that one to help save time. We're in the final hours of our own mission, though you're such a vital piece, I want to make sure you're comfortable with us and what we want to do."
Cullen had heard fake recordings before, but knew how to separate those from genuine conversations. One with Torek's mannerisms and vocabulary wouldn't be difficult. The memory Willo had given him felt as genuine as could be, but how much of that could have been achieved through applying pieces of his own memories of Torek? "We can play that one." He didn't need to see the video. He had the memory fresh in his mind.
She pressed play on the audio file. It cycled for a short buffer, then began, and played out just as the memory had.
Even though he'd already heard those backstabbing words, having them play out again reinforced that Torek had said them.
"I've shown you how the whole basis for your arrival on Kaimerus was a lie with little interest in how you come out the other side. We can get you home, or you can stay and help us rebuild. You're not Captain here, but you're still valuable."
"Willo," an unfamiliar male voice spoke in Cullen's head, "Ehli's here. We're coming in entrance two."
Willo waited a moment, watching Cullen. "Get her some food or refreshments. I'm not done with the captain."
Ehli?
Willo shook her head. "Sorry. I let you hear that announcement of Ehli's arrival, but otherwise it's just you and I in here."
"She isn't as strong as she thinks."
Cullen's heart nearly stopped at the sound of Ehli's voice. Somehow, Willo didn't react. She merely walked over to the counter behind him and opened a drawer.
Can you hear me?
Willo took out a white case and set it on the counter. The plastic lid clicked as she opened it and took out a syringe.
"I can," Ehli responded.
Willo didn't react. Only brought the needle closer. "This will also help us use less exertion when we 'path you, so we can maintain our stamina against the real enemy."
"Don't worry about it," Ehli said. "I'll protect you."
At the mercy of telepaths. Cullen meant it with a hint of humor, which he felt was reciprocated by Ehli.
"Yeah, so you better behave. Go ahead and let her inject you. I'll need you free and on the front line with me, so fighting back isn't in our best interests. Yet."
Fighting back? Cullen rolled up his sleeve. Willo didn't react to his treasonous thought. They said you're coming willingly. These are my people. I don't want to hurt them. "Okay," he told Willo, fearing a delayed response could alert her to his connection with Ehli. "I'm here to help, so please don't take my questions in the wrong way."
"There's something about the memories I read in one of the rejects," Ehli said as Willo tied the strap around his arm. "It felt… off. I'm not sure where the lie is, but it's somewhere."
"I understand," Willo said, halting the needle over his vein. She looked him in the eye. "Just know I'm dead serious about the success of this mission, with or without you."
She inserted the needle into his vein. As the warm fluid rushed up his arm, a realization dawned. He might have just consented to their taking his only real leverage. If this opened his mind to telepaths further, would it enable them to steal enough of his memories to fly to Vijil without him? Ever since he'd met Justin and Scanis, it had been as though nothing could go wrong, following them. Was Ehli's mental protection finally allowed him to consider the disadvantages?
Ehli, are you sure about taking this injection?
"Don't worry, I'll be there soon, and then we'll leave."
26
Ehli never had been able to reconnect with her son, and now that she was inside the tunnel leading to Willo's hideout, she couldn't block the whispers in her mind, taunting her that she'd gone too far—it's too late to rescue your son.
She had successfully blocked Willo from her conversation with Cullen, but in that success was the possibility that Willo could do the same to her. She felt strong, as evidenced by her leverage over Haritz as he led her here, but if that was what Willo wanted anyway—and it seemed so—then she hadn't really tested Willo's strength yet.
"There's someone who wants to see you," Haritz said, taking her down a dim hall that smelled of wet tree roots and vegetation. The walls were hardened dirt; Haritz's memory assured her it would hold, due to a compound they'd spread over its surface.
He opened a door to a brighter room, where Nassib lay on a hospital bed, sleeping. Machines clicked and beeped behind him. His ribs and bare chest were almost covered in a large bandage wrapped from side to shoulder. A full cast held his left arm down to his thumb. An IV drip was attached to the other arm.
"Nassib!" Ehli ran inside and stopped at his bed. His face was bruised, and one eye was swollen shut. Clear salve glistened in the gashes that spread from one cheek, down across his lips and over his chin, as though from claws.
His eyes fluttered and his head lolled to her side of the bed. "Ehl?"
"Yeah. What happened?"
"A mara caught him," Haritz answered. "We've stitched him up and set his arm, which was broken in four places, but he won't be coming with us."
"Coming..." Nassib's voice slurred. His eyes half-opened, but his gaze failed to land on anything. "Where?"
Haritz tapped a button on a cord hanging off the edge of Nassib's bed. "Don't you worry about that. You're safe here, but you nee
d to rest. The cut across your chest was deep."
Nassib's eyes closed as his head rested on the pillow, and a smile lit his face.
Ehli didn't know if this was what was best, or if they were trying to silence him. The way Haritz took charge of the interaction made Ehli feel like a child with an adult hiding her eyes from the part of the room she wasn't supposed to see. She probed into Haritz's mind, but found only concern for Nassib's recovery, and a desire to escort Ehli to Willo, per Willo's request.
"He'll be fine." Haritz motioned to the IV bag. Got water and nutrients to keep him hydrated while he sleeps. He started back toward the door. "Willo's waiting. We have to discuss our mission."
Ehli slowly followed. "Do you know what's happening to my son? Why I can't find him?"
"Willo said she'd take care of it."
"How?"
"I'm sure that's part of what she'll discuss with you. We're in the last few hours before execution, so we're conserving our energy, including telepathy." He walked through the doorway watching her. "So, if you'll please."
That's fine. I also want to talk face to face.
As she walked into the hall, she reached out for Cullen, and found him eager and impatient. Are you okay?
He wasn't. Strong fear emanated from him. "More or less."
What happened?
"Injection side effects." He was shivering. Was he in the same tunnel? It wasn't cold where she and Haritz were.
"Are we going to see Cullen too, when we meet Willo?"
Haritz took a left at the next hall extension. "Don't know. Up to Willo. We're almost there. You can ask her."