by K. M. Ruiz
SEPTEMBER 2379
KRASNOYARSK, KRASNOYARSK KRAI, RUSSIA
Threnody’s fingers were cold, even through her heavily shielded and insulated skinsuit, but they still found a handhold along the rock face. She hauled herself up, feet scraping against the rough stone, breathing quickly through her nose. One wrong move, one wrong grip, would mean her death. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but this place could make her learn to be.
“You know what? Screw Lucas. He couldn’t spare us a damn telekinetic from the rank and file once the Strykers were dosed?” She gasped as she pulled herself over onto the flat ledge of rock. “Or do this himself?”
Kerr, already crouched on the ledge, shook his head and helped her the rest of the way up. “He has other things to worry about.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” Threnody moved until she had her back pressed against the rock, careful of her oxygen tank. She was on her second set and they didn’t have a third. “He could have at least teleported us up here. I realize he couldn’t get us into the holding site, but damn it, we’ve been trekking through this area for hours.”
“Have you seen the security around this place?” Novak said from where he sat nearby. “Even with the codes Lucas gave me, it’s difficult as hell to hack. If he dropped us on their doorstep, we’d have been shot before we took a single step. Trying to hack it from anywhere but the system’s perimeter would have triggered an alert, no matter how good my skills are. Maybe Jason could have done it, but he ain’t available.”
Threnody felt sweat slide down the back of her neck and face, but she couldn’t wipe it away. Squinting up the last curve of the path before them, she sighed heavily. “We’re almost to the top. The sooner we leave, the sooner I’ll feel like we’re not walking over bones anymore.”
“Not like we haven’t been doing that since we got dropped off,” Kerr pointed out.
Stretched before them lay a vast, empty vista. Not even nature had fully reclaimed the shattered remains of the ruined city they could see, but the glistening ribbon of the Yenisei River still flowed across the land. Krasnoyarsk was an abandoned city, capital to a deadzone, and a place few in their right mind would venture. Radiation still tainted everything, and while no bones or bodies were left, everywhere they walked seemed to have the black, ashy imprint of the dead.
Mountains rose into the sky in the northwest, ruins to the northeast. No sound but the wind existed as it blew across barren plains and the steep mountainsides. It whistled through the countless fingers of rock that surrounded them, the stone thrust up from the ground like ancient pillars. They had pushed through this forgotten reserve for over half a day already, and the bleakness of the scenery wasn’t changing.
Threnody got to her feet, brushing off dirt and tiny bits of rock. “Are we still off the security grid, Novak?”
The hacker glanced down at the tiny datapad hooked into the neuroport on his left wrist. “So far. The loop must be holding because I haven’t gotten a blip.”
“Then let’s finish this.”
Her sense of time was off and hadn’t resettled through four teleports and as many continents. Threnody understood Lucas was delegating more than he liked, that he needed to save his strength for the final push, but she knew he was uneasy giving up control. Regardless, she could have used more people for this mission. Shaking her head, Threnody led the way down a rocky patch to a tiny, lead-lined bunker half-built into rock. They had to pass through a cleared landing area that looked just big enough for a small shuttle to land in.
This was government-owned property, built in the middle of a deadzone to keep watch over a weapon everyone in his or her right mind feared. Novak kept his attention on his hack and the security loop, walking steadily toward the heavy door bolted into rock and metal.
I’m sensing four people inside, Kerr said into Threnody’s mind. Three are human. One is a Warhound.
Class?
He’s a dual psion. Class IV telekinetic and Class VII telepath.
Threnody frowned as she approached the control panel, pulling out the gun on her hip. Lucas did say that Nathan always had some of his people on duty here along with the government’s. We were hoping they’d all be recalled for the launch, but maybe not. It’s possible this one has orders like ours. Can you keep him from teleporting out?
Kerr nodded. Yes, but I’ll have to stay behind you. I’ll block whatever psi link he has in his mind so he can’t get a warning out and then immobilize him. I don’t want to make myself a target any more than I need to.
Understood.
Threnody entered code after access code, each one accepted as she went through the entire list Lucas had given her. Since few people knew about this outpost, the codes didn’t change that often. He’d stolen this set last spring, and she breathed more easily after the last code processed and the thick, heavy doors slid open.
She went in shooting, feeling the recoil in her wrist as she picked out her targets and kept her finger on the trigger. The first room in the bunker seemed to be the common area, and two men were sitting at a table playing cards. Both were halfway out of their seats when they each took a bullet to the chest, blood spraying out over the scattered cards and credit chips. They fell to the floor, twitching and gasping for breath as they drowned in their own blood. Threnody stepped closer and put a bullet in each of their heads.
She chanced a look through the inner door that led to a short hallway, not seeing anyone. Behind her Kerr came inside the bunker. The heavily shielded door slid closed on his heels. He nodded at her, gaze distant, and she trusted in Kerr to handle the Warhound, which meant the only one left to deal with was human. Moving down the hallway, Threnody reached another door, this one closed and locked. She took up position beside it.
“Here,” Novak said as he edged around her, carrying his own gun. “Took a security card from one of the others.”
The security card was bloody, but the lock scanned it just fine. The door slid open and Threnody immediately went to her knees as shots were fired chaotically through the open doorway. Novak hit the ground at the same time she did.
“Amateurs,” he muttered. “I hate them more than crack shots.”
Threnody nodded, shifting her weight and angling her body so she could shoot into the room when the bullets stopped. It was a risk to put herself out in the open like that, but necessary. She saw a woman frantically trying to reload her gun, shaking hands making it impossible to slide the magazine home. A man was sprawled at her feet, blood leaking from his nose and the corners of his half-opened eyes. He wasn’t breathing.
Threnody aimed, fired again, and put a bullet into the woman’s chest, straight through the lungs. Her second shot missed, but the third clipped the woman in the arm. Threnody took in a steadying breath, aimed one more time, and hit the woman’s gut. She collapsed to the floor and didn’t move. Threnody got to her feet, approached the bodies, and put a bullet through their brains just to be sure.
Clear, Threnody said through the psi link to Kerr.
He met them at the far end of the main hallway, at a door that looked stronger and heavier than all the rest. “Door is sealed up front,” Kerr said as he undid the hard helmet locked around his throat. He pulled it free of his skinsuit. “Air’s clean. The environmental system here is built along the lines of a city tower. Place is tightly sealed, filters are working, and my tank is running low.”
“Mine, too,” Threnody admitted, unlocking her own helmet and pulling it off.
Novak removed his as well. With Lucas’s codes having reached their limit of usefulness, Novak began a hack on the door. An hour later found them walking into a high-tech laboratory built around a single object. Sitting behind a thick partition of lead, metal walls, and specially treated plasglass, and perched on top of a work terminal whose base was drilled into rock, was a single weapon. When Novak finally got a good look at it, all the blood drained out of his face. The tattoos inked into the skin of his skull stood out sharply.
�
��That’s—,” he choked out hoarsely.
“Yes,” Threnody said as she approached the secured casement of something that could, and had, caused so much destruction. “Lucas said Nathan probably wouldn’t have removed it yet, or even planned to. What use would he have for something like this on Mars Colony?”
“This is crazy.”
Threnody shrugged. “This is our mission. The access codes change every week and Lucas said he was months behind the cycles.”
Novak’s hands shook as he smoothed them over his face and the curve of his sweaty, tattooed head. “You couldn’t just pull the codes out of their minds before you killed them?”
“The scientists didn’t know the removal codes,” Kerr said. “I pulled that from the Warhound’s mind. Only high-ranking government officials have the ability to unlock this system.”
“Novak.” Threnody tilted her head in the direction of the intricate terminal with its complicated-looking control panel. “You need to get us in.”
“What? No. This is anathema to the very way we live,” Novak said, eyes wide and frantic in his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“This made the way we live,” Threnody said fiercely, glaring at him. “And we suffer for it endlessly. I may not like it or agree with Lucas’s methods, but this is the only way we’re going to secure our safety.”
“Are you even listening to yourself?” Novak pointed at the terminal, eyes wide with terror. “That’s a nuclear bomb in there.”
“Novak,” Kerr said, his telepathy pressing down hard on the other man’s static human mind. “You don’t have a choice. Neither do we. Now get started.”
Novak swallowed thickly, shoulders slumping. “This system is going to be difficult to hack.”
“Remember what Lucas said? You’ll hack it or die trying.” Kerr grimaced, not liking the order at all. “You better hope you die after, because right now you’re the only one who can do this.”
“Why didn’t Lucas just get a damn telekinetic to teleport the thing out of here?”
“Pressure plates,” Threnody said, pointing at the platform through the view window. “If they’re removed without the codes being entered, an alarm is triggered. Lucas said there’s always a team of Warhounds on standby ready to teleport in. Considering the state of the world right now, we don’t know if they actually would, but we can’t risk it. Nathan can’t know we’re stealing the bomb.”
“Great.” Novak unsealed his gloves and freed his hands. “Never thought we’d be repeating history.”
“For a hacker, you lack imagination,” Kerr said. “Lucas is making history, not repeating it.”
“Says you.” Novak stared bleakly at his task. “This ain’t right.”
“Stop arguing and get to work. We don’t have much time left. We aren’t teleporting out and we need to be finished before our pickup arrives.”
Novak reached for the controls attached to the work terminal. He pulled out a hard wire and attached it to the neuroport in his left wrist. Taking a deep breath, he opened himself up to the inevitable, inspecs flickering in the back of his eyes as code flowed through his brain.
PART SEVEN
TEMPORAL
SESSION DATE: 2128.07.10
LOCATION: Institute of Psionics Research
CLEARANCE ID: Dr. Amy Bennett
SUBJECT: 2581
FILE NUMBER: 627
When the doctor enters, Aisling is standing in front of the machines, staring at the monitors and the data that moves across them in sharp lines; high peaks and deep valleys dictate who she is. She has one hand pressed against a vidscreen that shows her baseline, the graph far more skewed than a human’s.
“Aisling, please step away from there,” the doctor says.
“Don’t worry. My power isn’t the kind that affects machines.” Aisling slides her fingers over the baseline reading. “That one isn’t born yet.”
The doctor takes her seat at the table, and Aisling calmly returns to her own. The wires trail behind her and brush along the ground. She climbs onto her chair and looks at the camera instead of the doctor.
“You know I’m right, Ciari.”
“Please focus, Aisling,” the doctor says. “Let’s stick to what’s important.”
“She is important. They all are down the years, so long as they listen.”
The doctor glances up at her. “Will it change anything, these people you dream about?”
“They aren’t dreams,” Aisling says, scowling. “They’re real. And things will change if they listen.”
“What if they don’t?”
Aisling shrugs. “There are lots of ways this could end, but I chose to only see one.”
[THIRTY-FIVE]
SEPTEMBER 2379
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Did Gideon make it onto the space shuttle?
Nathan felt Dalia wince at his telepathic demand, the psi link in her mind an overused ache that she couldn’t block or ignore. Sharra’s space shuttle launched hours ago with all passengers accounted for, according to the manifest. By tomorrow morning, they’ll have reached the Ark.
You’re certain?
Yes. We’ve been launching space shuttles all day, but we only have one ramp and only so much space to house people, even if it is temporary. I’ve transferred all the Warhounds you’ve sent me into priority boarding, but that’s all I can do right now. How many more should I expect?
Half of my Warhounds haven’t even left their posts yet. There are supplies and other things that are important to gaining control of Mars Colony that we can’t leave without. By tomorrow, you should have close to a quarter of those left behind.
Are you sure that’s safe? Dalia’s thoughts shook with exhaustion and fear. Nathan clamped down tighter on her mind.
As you said, the government has only one launch ramp and little safe space in Paris for everyone. The launch is going to take days and it’s going to be messy. There will be space shuttles still available.
Of course, sir.
Nathan cut the connection, his attention refocusing on the half dozen uplinks spread across his work terminal’s vidscreen. Human field controllers loyal to the Serca Syndicate by deep mindwipes and Warhounds whose duties weren’t quite done yet waited patiently for his commands.
“Where were we?” he said, bringing the meeting back on track.
It didn’t take long. Twenty minutes later, he was cutting the uplinks, the vidscreen going blank. Nathan got to his feet and paced over to the window wall behind his desk, looking out at the dark London skyline. The view was familiar, committed to memory long ago. Back when he was a child, he thought London would remain his home. That he would die here, young and seemingly human, but that was no longer the case. London would only exist in his memories and Nathan found he wouldn’t mind forgetting it.
Rioters still fought on the streets surrounding the city towers. Their attacks against the government and registered humans hadn’t abated, were in fact becoming more violent with every hour that passed. Shuttle launches to Paris were scheduled to continue for the next few days. It was enough time for everyone not on the colony list to come together and fight for rights long denied them, but it was a fight they would lose.
The world population of highly educated people was dwindling at an alarming rate, with registered humans fleeing Earth for a tenuous promise in the stars. The remains of society would struggle to pick itself up, if anything was left after the first year of abandonment. The brain drain the World Court had engineered would cripple those left behind. Perhaps not into extinction, but close enough that the rot in the world would win. The rioters were protesting their oncoming deaths. Nathan thought it a futile action.
The computer chimed, alerting him to an incoming uplink. Nathan turned around to see that it was tagged with an emergency code. He went over to his desk to accept it. Erik’s face filled the vidscreen, pale and frantic.
“Nathan,” Erik said. “The neurotrackers failed.”
The w
ords froze Nathan, disbelief twisting through his thoughts. It was swiftly followed by a rage that tunneled his vision, and Nathan had to work at showing fear instead of fury. That’s what Erik would expect from him, in the guise Nathan lived with. “Did you use the master override?”
“Do you think I don’t know how to put down a dog? We can still track some of their positions, but they aren’t all dead.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Ciari was here.” The woman’s name fell from Erik’s lips like a curse. “She had some asinine offer that they could save us if we stayed. She didn’t die when I issued the mass termination order and was teleported out before we could shoot her. We know that a few hundred Strykers died in the Americas and some here in The Hague, but all the rest were showing live signals on the security grid before we lost contact. I doubt any of those Strykers are dead.”
Nathan felt his fingernails bite into the palms of his hands. “I’m to assume your version of using a panic switch is to uplink with me? What do you think I can do about this problem?”
“Your family created this damn technology and sold it to the world when psions were first discovered. I’m hoping you have an override that can fix this problem. You Sercas don’t give up anything for free.”
It was a rather astute assumption, even if Nathan couldn’t outright acknowledge the underhanded way his family functioned. Moving to his seat, Nathan kept his attention on the uplink.
“What are your plans right now, Erik?”
“If you can’t give us a way to kill the Strykers, then the World Court is leaving tonight for Paris. We aren’t safe anymore if the Strykers decide to rebel and come after us.”
“Like the rest of the world?”
“Don’t act like you won’t be joining us on that shuttle, Nathan.” Erik frowned, weariness pulling at his mouth. “Why are you still in London anyway?”
“My Syndicate requires a firm hand to wind it down on such short notice. I’m waiting to hear from the Athes.”