by K. M. Ruiz
Nothing’s inevitable, you know that. Samantha skidded to a halt, breathing heavily, feeling the telekinesis forced away.
The alarm was still sounding in Bunker East, the lights still dim along the walls and ceiling and floor. The hologrids were dark, any and all extra energy diverted to the maglev tracks, which were beginning to hum. This far underground, the storm couldn’t reach them, but they were building their own where the humans had lived for generations.
What if it is?
Samantha felt the mental grid stretch itself thin and tight against her mind, Lucas’s power reaching for something inside her that she never knew she carried. Consciousness. Awareness.
Memories.
Hers and not hers.
No. She threw up more and more mental shields, but he tore them all down.
I can’t do this alone, Lucas told her, sounding tired. Old. As if he’d lived too long and hadn’t died young enough before the bitterness overtook his life when he was only twenty years old.
She didn’t feel herself hit the ground, just knew that her skull hit first, then her shoulders. The world spun in a sickening lurch that she felt in her gut, and Samantha choked on her breath the way people choked on water when they drowned. Warm hands pressed the side of her face against the stained metal of the platform that too many feet had walked over, dragging the dirt of the world down to a place where people bled out hope.
“You know what they said when the bombs fell?” Lucas pinned Samantha down against the maglev platform with his physical strength alone, his mind busy tearing hers apart. “Don’t fear the end of the world. Fear what comes next.”
She fought him with everything she had, but it wasn’t enough. It had never been enough. As the maglev train roared into Bunker East, sliding with a hard, telekinetically anchored stop against the platform, Lucas leaned down and whispered into his sister’s ear, “We are what came next, Sam. And I am so much better than what you could ever hope to be.”
“I’m not—scared of you,” Samantha gasped out as his telepathy curled through her mind and ruined what Nathan had built her into.
She broke; pieces of who she was shearing off, all the scar tissue that she had accumulated over the years just—ripped away.
Breathe. I still need you.
“You should be.” Lucas rested his forehead against hers for a moment, just a moment, before he got to his feet and walked onto that train, leaving her a panting, bleeding wreck on the platform. “You really should be.”
Panicked humans were struggling to get off the train, those that weren’t already dead or dying, brains fried by the telepathic attack that the altered Stryker had aimed in their direction mere moments ago. Just bodies lying one on top of the other, on the floor, on the benches, the stink of bodily fluids filling the air. Death, when it came, always smelled human.
Lucas lifted himself above the mess with his telekinesis as the doors slid shut, looking through the clear plasglass at Samantha as she picked herself up off the ground with shaky effort.
Come after me, he said into her fractured mind. I’ll be waiting.
Footsteps raced over the platform as the maglev train lurched forward with a hum of power. The lights all through Bunker East flickered dangerously low as the train drew nearly all of the remaining electricity out of the generators that kept everyone breathing down below.
Jin Li reached Samantha’s side, dragged her all the way to a standing position, then got her the hell out of there. “That train’s going to Bunker North,” he said. “By the city towers. We’ll get another telekinetic to ’port us there.”
“Everyone else?” Samantha asked in a ragged breath as he pulled her into a waiting area on the platform with an overhang, where Kristen had her hand against the temple of the telekinetic that had survived Lucas’s show of power. Blood was pouring out of the man’s ears, pumping through her fingers. His partner had a halo of red around her head on the floor beside him, life already gone from her body.
The Sercas were the best assassins the Warhounds had. They needed to remember that.
“Dead and dying,” Kristen reported cheerfully.
Samantha leaned down, letting Jin Li support her as she pressed her hand over the telekinetic’s forehead.
Get us out of here, she said into the Warhound’s mind, holding on to his thoughts and power, cognizant that she could barely hold herself together.
She kept him alive long enough for him to teleport them all to the surface.
Kristen devoured his mind as he died, smearing her fingers through the blood and acid rain that greeted them when they arrived in the middle of the storm that had been centuries in the making.
[TWENTY-SIX]
AUGUST 2379
BUFFALO, USA
The lights in the tunnels, already a dim emergency blue, flickered ominously. Some went out, others came back on a little brighter than before. No one still making their way toward Bunker West from Bunker South thought that was a good thing.
They’d made it into Buffalo from the outskirts, then been forced belowground, just as Matron had said. It was a good thing none of them were claustrophobic. Threnody slowed to a stop, pressing up against the curve of the tunnel as a straggling group of humans passed them by. Quinton was right beside her, cradling his rifle, watching their back. Kerr was barely an arm’s length away on point, his telepathic shields wrapped tight around their minds, projecting them as human on the mental grid with an ease that he’d never before had. Even Threnody, who was not a ’path-oriented psion, could feel the difference against her own shields.
She peered past the brim of her stolen cap, pulled low over her eyes to shadow her face, as the humans continued straight ahead to the cross-tunnel intersection fifteen meters from where they stood.
“Quinton?” she asked softly.
He checked the datapad in his hand, thumb swiping over the screen to get a new readout. “If we follow them, there’s no quick way out of the tunnels for another three, four kilometers. We’ve got to go aboveground if we’re going to reach our target. No way around that now.”
“Right or left?”
“Right. That tunnel will spit us out northeast of where we need to be, but closer than the last one.”
“And with more problems.” Kerr was squinting up at the ceiling. “The lights? That was Lucas being our distraction. He’s on a maglev train heading to Bunker North.”
“Why?” Threnody asked as they started forward again.
“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask. The good thing is that the Strykers are beginning to focus their attention on him instead of us.”
“Were they getting close?”
“Close enough.”
It took less than a minute to reach the latest intersection in the maze of tunnels. They turned right, carefully averting their faces from the security feed that they couldn’t completely hide from. The tunnels weren’t lined with hologrids, not as the bunkers were. Instead, at intervals every quarter of a kilometer or so the gray metal gave way to an opaque hologrid that could become anything it was programmed to be.
Crimson lines sparked across the hologrid, projecting outward to form a mirror image of themselves. Three dark figures running where they shouldn’t, the bioware on their faces and in their eyes difficult for the computer to work around. It still got something, coming up not with their false identities, nor their real ones. Just trouble.
“You are in a restricted area,” an automated voice said as they stared at themselves reflected in the hologrid stretched between the walls, facial-recognition software still looking for points to build off of. “All citizens are to obey curfew and return to their domicile in bunkers, tenements aboveground, or city towers. You are in a restricted area.”
Threnody reached out with her hand, fingers sliding through the holo, until her skin touched the smoothness of the grid. Electricity danced around her wrist, curling from red into electric blue as she tapped into her power and burnt out the hologrid with a controlled s
hock. Electricity crawled over it, arcing high around her to the other side with a single thought as she fried the localized system that the hologrid ran on.
“You know that whoever is monitoring the security feeds probably got that on record,” Kerr said. “Strykers will start coming down into the tunnels where we are instead of where we aren’t.”
“We won’t be in the tunnels long enough for them to find us.” Threnody clenched her hands into fists, the electric spark of her power fading away. She took off her stolen cap and tossed it to the floor. “Let’s move.”
They ran for it, gear and guns secured tight to their bodies. The tunnels were getting darker the farther away from the bunker they ran, the air hotter. A constant clicking sound that they couldn’t locate echoed in the guts of the tunnels.
“We’re losing oxygen,” Quinton said as they turned at another cross-tunnel intersection. “CO2 scrubbers aren’t working right. That’s what we’re hearing, according to the computer. I’ve got a warning feed on the bottom of my screen.”
“No shit?” Kerr shook his head as they ran. “I couldn’t tell at all, the way my lungs are burning.”
“The government is taking a risk,” Threnody panted out.
Kerr snorted his opinion on that. “The government enforces policy. Everyone else takes risks.”
They kept running, the tunnel snaking out in front of them and on the screen of the datapad in Quinton’s hand. They made it to the exit point ten minutes later, breathing harshly as they slowed to a stop.
Strykers aboveground, Kerr said through the psi link.
Do they know we’re down here? Threnody said.
We’re human on the mental grid, but I’ve had us blocked completely since you slagged the computer back there.
Threnody looked up at the dark ceiling, dim blue light creating long shadows over her features from the emergency shine a ways behind them. So they’re waiting for us.
This was the most logical exit route for us to take. Yeah, I’d say they’re waiting for us.
Can you tell what we’re dealing with? Quinton asked.
Kerr closed his eyes, brow furrowing in the darkness. Two telepaths, one telekinetic, two pyrokinetics.
Class?
Class IV and lower.
All less powerful than they were. Threnody shared a look with Quinton. I’ve got the pyrokinetics, Quinton said, pocketing the datapad.
I’ll deal with the telekinetic and telepaths, Kerr said. Threnody, you’ve got to knock them all out. I don’t trust myself not to kill them. My control isn’t good enough yet.
The government had a kill order out on them, they knew that. Defection resulted only in a grave if the escaped Stryker was caught. That was never going to change, but they weren’t here to kill their fellow Strykers. That wasn’t their goal. Their objective was the electrical grid, the power plants it ran off of, and whatever else Lucas needed.
Threnody snapped her fingers together, creating bright electric sparks that lined her nails. You sure about this, Kerr? Your head’s only just been worked on.
Lucas does excellent work. Grudging respect was in Kerr’s mental voice. I trust what he rebuilt. I kind of have to because I’ve got to live with it.
Good enough for me.
They didn’t have a telekinetic for offense; Jason was back at Matron’s base, frantically working to get the shuttles online. Lucas was elsewhere, pulling Warhounds and Strykers alike to him. That didn’t mean they were at a disadvantage.
They took the stairs up to the surface two at a time, minds sharpening into battle focus as the roar of the storm filtered slowly down to their ears. The closer they got to the top, the slicker the steps became, acid water flowing where gravity led. The air became thick and warm and hideously saturated. Side by side, the three reached the surface, coming up into a small storage warehouse, all the windows broken and the blast doors wrenched wide apart.
They stood there for a moment, listening to the wind howling outside the building, catching flashes of lightning sparking through the sky, feeling thunder rattling the ground.
Now, Threnody thought over the psi link even as she raced out of the building, Kerr’s mind a heavy presence in her own.
Quinton stayed by Kerr’s side, gas and fire lighting up the air around him as he focused his power, draining a tube in each arm to get the fire big enough, hot enough, to burn through the storm that raged beyond the four fragile walls. Pressure existed beyond his mental shields, the unmistakable biting strength of telepaths going to war on the mental grid. Then his attention was divided, the fire he had built suddenly being carved into pieces by other pyrokinetics hoping to steal what he controlled.
Quinton’s dark eyes narrowed. Over his dead fucking body. He grabbed Kerr by the arm and dragged them out of the burning building, through the smoke and fire, into the storm.
Acid rain soaked them in seconds, wind whistling in their ears. Quinton blinked the stinging wet out of his eyes, desperately looking for his partner. He gave up after a few seconds, needing to save his own skin, knowing Threnody could survive on her own. He got off a few shots with his rifle before the weapon was telekinetically torn out of his hands and tossed away. Quinton didn’t bother running after it.
He thrust out an arm toward the pair of Stryker pyrokinetics, twisting the fire bigger, hotter, forcing it to burn when the storm wanted to put it out. Fuel came from nearby buildings, the flames crawling up their sides with a furious roar. Quinton struggled to maintain control of the inferno and keep the other pyrokinetics at bay.
Silhouetted against that bright orange glow was Threnody, her lean form moving with lethal intent as she fought to get within touching range of her target. The telepaths were between her and the telekinetic, whom Kerr had brought to his knees, but not before taking his gun. Landing a solid punch to a telepath whose mind was mostly tied up in defending against Kerr’s powerful attack, Threnody held on to the Stryker as she bore the other woman’s body to the ground. Pressing one hand to the telepath’s face, she shocked the Stryker’s nervous system as hard as she could.
Electricity crawled over the telepath, the woman seizing for a few long seconds before she went limp on the ground. She was still breathing, but was totally and completely out as Threnody moved on to her next target. With one less mind to deal with, Kerr was able to sharpen his focus on the remaining four Strykers.
Two, Threnody thought with hard satisfaction as she brought down the second telepath with a punch to the solar plexus and her hand around his throat.
It was easier because Kerr was in his mind, tearing through it with a telepathic strike that the Stryker couldn’t counter, not against a Class II. Threnody’s power burned into him with instant, shocking results. He screamed, his voice drowned out beneath the sound of the storm as he fell to the ground.
The telekinetic was still in the game. Threnody discovered that the hard way when she was picked up and tossed across the street to land on the crumbling sidewalk there. Landing hard on her side, Threnody rolled with a pained yell, coming to a stop up against a building that wasn’t burning. She spat out a mouthful of mud and blood—she’d bitten through her lip—before shoving herself back to her feet. The world spun sickeningly for a few seconds before her inner ear found balance again.
Blinking burning water out of her eyes, Threnody unclipped her gun and took aim at the approaching telekinetic. Before she could fire her gun, it was wrenched out of her hands. Her body slammed back against the building, invisible pressure nearly crushing her.
Kerr, Threnody said. I need you to take care of this one.
On it, Kerr said.
It was simpler, now that the telepaths were out of the fight. Threnody didn’t know what Kerr did, but the telekinetic fell to the ground between one step and the next, out cold. The pyrokinetics were next, the fire that all three of them had been fighting over expanding dangerously for a few seconds before Quinton got control over the flame. It was easy to let the fire die, to let the rain wash
through it and extinguish the inferno.
The street was suddenly dark, but not silent. Thunder still pounded through the sky above them, but a secondary roar was filling the air now. Like the sound of a steam-engine train, in ancient movies saved to vids long after the fact, the increasing rumble couldn’t be ignored.
They couldn’t see the derecho hit, but they heard it. They felt it.
There on the street, the three Strykers felt the spine of that long windstorm slam into them, through them, knocking them to the ground with sideway winds and stabbing acid rain. It screamed over Buffalo, a heavy wall of nature come out of the west; power that humans couldn’t fully predict, that psions couldn’t control.
Threnody pushed herself up against the weight of the storm, arms shaking and barely able to hold steady in the face of the wind.
The tunnels? Kerr sent into their minds.
No. Threnody stumbled toward where she’d last seen Quinton, the lightning up above not nearly enough to show where her partner was. We’ve got to stay aboveground.
There’s a car near my position, Quinton informed them. It functions, according to the computer.
Driving through this storm is liable to get us killed.
So’s walking. At least this way we’ll be a little drier.
Good point.
Kerr showed Threnody where Quinton was on the mental grid. She worked her way to where Quinton had broken into the vehicle and overrode the controls, headlights barely distinguishable in the heavy storm. She pried open the door and fell into the backseat.
Kerr was struggling to get into the front passenger seat, Quinton already behind the wheel. Kerr was barely able to pull the door shut behind him against the strength of the wind. For a moment, the three sat there in the car, the engine running, and the storm the only sound as the wind battered the vehicle.
“Lucas is crazy if he thinks we can fly out through this,” Threnody finally said, surprised at how dry her throat was, how rough her voice came out.