Shield

by Rachael Craw

  Taking in the rest of the group, I see Lane now holds a baton and Davis has collected two. He leans against the wall, balancing on his good leg. The opposing agents sport bloodied mouths and cradle their damaged limbs. Everyone pants and the Executive looks on darkly.

  “Guns, Robert?” Ethan growls. “I am not the only one who will answer to the World Council. Now, geh mir verdammt noch mal aus dem Weg.”

  It’s top-shelf swearing – I can tell – and my pulse races with adrenaline.

  Counsellor Allen sighs. “Ethan–”

  “We have the Stray because of Evangeline. Because of every decision Miriam and I have made since the day we discovered our children were coming into this world. We have him and everything will change. When the World Council sees that the cure works, the Affinity Project must change.”

  A charged pause.

  “I hope for your sake,” Counsellor Allen says, “the World Council agrees.”

  “I have tests to run.” He gestures at Knox seething in his blood against the wall. “If this arschloch comes anywhere near my child … ich bring ihn um.”

  We start rolling once more. Benjamin offers Davis a hand. Davis gives a grudging nod before hooking his arm over his old partner’s shoulder. I catch glimpses of the hateful glares of the newly injured agents. Stephanie’s eyes hit me with a loathing that steals my breath. I shudder on the gurney, relieved when Helena picks up her pace.

  My head rings with Ethan’s final warning. Ich bring ihn um. This time I don’t need a translation – Ethan’s signal, red with warning, burns through the bandwidth. He’ll kill Knox. Part of me relishes his raw parental rage unleashed on my behalf. I could almost let myself believe he can protect me, that he won’t be punished for trying, that everything will turn out right. The rational part of me knows it’s a terrible threat that only endangers Ethan, his work, his standing in the organisation, and I can’t bear to be the cause of his total downfall. Isn’t it bad enough, the risk to Miriam’s life because of me?

  Helena leans over me and touches my shoulder, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. A bright flash in the bandwidth. Her KMT. Miriam.

  CELL

  I shiver when Ethan binds my wrists, the leather cuffs cool and heavy. The length of chain crosses beneath a bolt in the middle of the floor, giving me freedom to stand up, walk around or lie down once I can move again. He’s laid me on the concrete step that forms the bed and I blink slowly against the blurry white of the cell walls.

  “Davis will bring you food. He and Lane have gone up to the infirmary; they won’t be long. The signal suppressant may make you nauseous but you must eat.”

  “Mmm.” Which means okay.

  “Jamie is in the cell to your right. You must not attempt any telepathic scan or kinetic memory activity with the drug in your system – it will cause you pain. Do you understand?”

  “Mmm.” Which means no.

  “Do not fight the suppressant. I do not know how long it will take to treat and test the Stray. You must be patient.” Ethan touches my face, the dark green glints in his irises catch light. His fingers are cold but the touch is gentle, the tenderness making my chest tight. I want to press my face into his palm.

  “Mmm?” This time I mean, Michael Jessop.

  “Juno says her team will deliver the Spark in an hour or so. He is safe.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed for one more, “Mmm.”

  “I have transferred Miriam to the last cell. The medic has checked her vitals. She is stable. Everything will be all right. You. Your mother. I will explain. The World Council will listen. They will see.”

  Steps in the corridor. Helena’s signal. “The Stray is prepped for pre-treatment.”

  Ethan nods then looks down at me. “We have to monitor your signals throughout the Deactivation. The readings must be unfiltered, which means we will have to lift the suppressant from your system. It will be very uncomfortable.”

  I close my eyes tight.

  “We will let you eat then bind your ribs. Helena has a compress for your bruises.”

  I hold my breath when he goes and Helena draws near. The frustration of not being able to speak burns in my chest. She bends and gently rests the cold compress on the side of my face. Her whisper, barely a thread of air. “I want to help you. I do. But we need another ally and our time is short. Think, Evie. Who can we ask? Davis? Lane?”

  No! I widen my eyes in alarm. There’s no way they’d agree to anything that defies Ethan.

  “Well, we need someone. I’ll check the security codes but the Actuation Vault is a big obstacle. I don’t think I can get clearance. Not on short notice.” She rubs her face. “I’ll come back soon. Your sedation will lift.”

  When she goes I expect to cry. I expect the swamp and crash of grief to take me, the sucking undertow of fear to pull me down, but I’m exhausted. Overwhelmed to the point of shutdown but urgency gnaws in my thoughts. Miriam. Michael Jessop. Miriam. I let the minutes slide over me, testing my muscles, trying my voice. Eventually I can moan and shift my legs.

  “Everton?” Jamie whispers. “Are you all right, love?”

  I try sitting up. Agony in my side as I lower my feet to the floor. I shuffle slowly to the end of the concrete step. My chains pull my wrists back but I manage to lean my foggy head on the bars. One of Jamie’s boots sticks out into the corridor. I finally unstick my tongue. “Not really.”

  His boot disappears. Chains rattle and I hear the slow shifting of his weight on the concrete step, then the side of his face appears through the bars. I wish I could touch him. I make do with gazing at his eye. He looks as exhausted as I feel, grazes healing on his cheek, stubble sprouting on the edge of his jaw. I feel his signal in me, so clear and strong even through the drug haze. It pulses in time with mine, a resonant note, a harmonic thrumming. I want to wallow in him. Then I remember Ethan’s warning.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to …” he says.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t trying–”

  “Hard to ignore.” His voice is as warm and deep as his signal – not at all helpful. “Before the Spark, I could always feel you when we were close. Now, it’s like you’re right in my bones – like my own signal.”

  “Jamie. I’m so sorry.”

  A sad smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “Don’t hog all the blame.”

  “If I’d left your signal alone you mightn’t be in a cell right now.”

  “You don’t know that. Besides, I was reaching for you just as much as – all right, so I don’t have your reach but when we connect like that it’s just as clear for me as if we were touching. I wanted you. I needed you. It’s not your fault.”

  “What if I’ve pushed your signal too far?”

  “Sparking won’t have helped but it’s not likely to have pushed me past the threshold. Technically, I still have another couple of years.”

  I hear the weight in technically. “You don’t want to live like this. I don’t want you to live like this – not when you have a way out …”

  A load-bearing sigh. “Can we not do this?”

  I consider pushing it but I don’t have the heart to argue. “How was it … when you touched Michael?”

  He shifts his chains and takes his time to answer. “You know.”

  I wait.

  “Scared him half to death, poor bastard. Nearly dislocated his shoulder – my muscles cramped, my hand crushed him. I think he thought I wanted to beat him up or something – he shouted, tried to throw me off. I went down on my knees, people were crying out for help – then they realised I was having a seizure. Ethan and Davis hauled me out. I emptied my stomach in the bushes and they took off after you. I think I passed out for a couple of minutes.”

  I nod against the bars. “Could you feel him when you came to? The Stray?”

  “I could feel Michael at the party and I could feel you out in the grounds, reacting to the Stray. It wasn’t until I tracked you to the building that I felt the Stray myself, but when I came in and found Da
vis … on you … everything went red.”

  I bite my lip. “Did you understand that Davis was … subduing me?”

  “Vaguely. I honestly don’t know who I wanted to kill more, Davis or the Stray. It was a bloody close call, I can tell you.”

  “The blocker didn’t work?”

  “I definitely felt weird but it didn’t stop me wanting to kill.” His chains clink.

  “How do you feel now – now that Ethan’s dosed me?”

  “I … can … feel him … in the surgery. I feel Michael’s absence. It’s not great but I’m not freaking out.”

  “Me neither,” I murmur, adjusting my chain to rub a hand over the nothingness behind my navel. “It freaks me out that I’m not freaking out.”

  “I wonder if we’d feel worse if the Stray were conscious.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  The effort of straining to see Jamie makes my head woozy. I look away, watching Helena and Ethan through the panelled windows of the laboratory. She helps tie Ethan’s face mask before pulling hers into place. Her black eye looks worse with half her face covered. I’m not able to peer through to the surgery from here. Jamie has a better vantage point. I picture the Stray on the operating table … No, I picture Aiden. Stop it. I tell myself, Aiden was cured. He wasn’t a monster. The kid in the surgery is no different from him. He can be cured too.

  “Benjamin protected you … when we were in the corridor. I don’t know if you could see but an agent was pointing a gun right at you and he–”

  “I saw.”

  A cautious silence.

  “I’m not saying it makes up for what happened.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you okay with him being down here?”

  I don’t know what to say, mostly because I’m not sure how I feel about it. I know Ethan needs the extra manpower but … it’s hard to look at him, hard to hear his voice. I guess that’s why he’s staying upstairs in the barracks – so I don’t have to look at him. “Knox will punish him for it – revoke his pardon.”

  Jamie doesn’t reply; he knows I’m dodging his question. “What do you think of Thurston?”

  It takes me a moment to process the change of tack. “You don’t trust her?”

  “I just wonder … what her deal is.”

  “She wants change.”

  “She wants your dad.”

  I’ve thought it too, but I don’t think her help has been all about scoring points. “Maybe? Maybe she wants the Chair. Knox is out. Counsellor Allen’s only interim – until the World Council makes a new appointment.”

  “Then she shouldn’t be violating protocol,” Jamie mutters.

  “She’s walking a dangerous line, helping us with one hand, keeping her place on the Executive with the other.”

  “She’s very interested in you, Everton.”

  “If she were going to hand me over–”

  “No. It’s this look that slips past her poker face whenever you bust out your party tricks, like she’s found the winning lottery ticket.”

  My skin prickles. Knox wants me for lab equipment, Proxy work or worse, an incubator for future Proxies. What could Juno want me for? Jamie’s right. I’ve seen her looks, caught the hint of eagerness in her voice. Her anger at the news of my exposure in the field takes new meaning. Perhaps it wasn’t the breach in protocol that upset her but the risk to her plans for me. A shiver runs through me, with it an idea fraught with potential disaster. Helena said we need an ally. If Juno thinks I could be of use to her maybe I could leverage her help. A trade. “Well,” I say, trying to sound dismissive, “if she’s planning on making a move she’d better get on with it. Knox won’t waste any time.”

  The hasty scaffolding of my new plan only increases my terror. Time is so short. If Knox decides to override the elevator, storm the barracks with a team of anti-Initiative agents, do we stand a chance – even with Benjamin on our side? We’re in no shape to hold off an assault. Knox must know that. He must love it.

  “Your dad won’t let them take you,” Jamie says. “He’ll fight. I’ll fight.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll stay out of it. If you got hurt – or worse – god, Jamie – you know what that would do to me.”

  “So, I’ll just skip off into the sunset with Helena while Knox does whatever the hell he wants to you?”

  “Please,” I choke at the bitterness in his voice. “Don’t start.”

  Steps echo from the gym and we stop arguing. I reach into the bandwidth, hoping to anticipate the signal but pain splits my skull and a wave of nausea hits. I clamp my hand over my mouth and pull back from the static. The suppressant. The heavy metal slider rolls back at the end of the corridor. The tread is light. Not Davis or Lane.

  “Speak of the devil,” Jamie murmurs.

  I lean to peer through the bars. Counsellor Thurston, her flawless face marble-hard. My insides perform acrobatic twists; everything is happening too fast. What the hell am I going to say?

  “Have they started?” She stops by Jamie’s cell, her gaze jumping from him to me to the surgery and back.

  “Preliminary assessment,” Jamie says.

  “I saw Benjamin in the barracks. The other two should be back from the infirmary by now.”

  “Don’t they have bones that need setting?” Jamie says.

  “Counsellor Knox is unlikely to delay his plans to wait for them.”

  “He’s coming?” I ask.

  “Not yet. Counsellor Allen is doing her best to keep him on the leash.”

  “You think he’ll come, all guns blazing?” Jamie asks, incredulous.

  “No,” Juno says. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Agent Nelson is a useful addition to the Initiative,” she says, an abrupt look at me. “He has taken a great risk, allying himself with your father. Courageous, given his pardon. I hope his presence won’t be a setback for you.”

  Say something. “How long till Michael gets here?”

  She cocks her head at my evasion. “An hour and a half.”

  “Think you could help me with my ribs?” I raise my eyebrows at her. “Just while you’re waiting for Ethan – they’re killing me.”

  She narrows her eyes then gives a curt nod before entering the lab. While she searches out medical supplies my brain spins like a hamster wheel and my heart fires scattershot in my chest. Juno has high-security clearance. She could get us into the ReProg room, the Actuation Vault, the tank. If Jamie’s right and Thurston has plans for me … if I’m her Golden Goose …

  More noise in the gym. For a moment I’m breathless – a clash of hope and terror that Juno’s agents have arrived early with the Spark – but it’s Davis’s voice I hear. I recognise the tone of sarcasm and Lane’s grumbling response, a tapping sound interspersed with heavy boot steps. I lean to see them and pull back, heart hammering for a new reason. Davis on crutches, Lane with his arm in a sling and Benjamin carrying heaped trays of food. The brief glimpse of his face tells me he’s uncomfortable, reluctant. I bet Davis played the handicap card and bullied him into coming down here just to break the ice. I can guess what it means to him to have his partner back onboard.

  They stop by Jamie’s cell.

  “Hey,” Lane says, “Boss said to bring food.”

  “How’s your arm?” Jamie asks.

  “Broken wrist. Torn tendons in my shoulder. Strapped it up pretty tight. Sling’s just for sympathy.”

  “Hmph.” A pause. “Benjamin.”

  Another pause.

  “Jamie.”

  Someone clears his throat.

  “Nice move by the lift earlier,” Jamie says.

  Yet another pause.

  “This is fun,” Davis mutters.

  A sound of heavy metallic gears and the locks give on the whole cell block.

  “Gimme one of those,” he says.

  “I can take it,” Lane offers.

  “Get off. I’ll manage.”

  “S
orry about your leg.” Jamie.

  “Whatever, man.”

  Davis appears before my cell on one crutch, his free arm balancing a tray of food. He uses his elbow to slide the door back and shuffle-hops in. I go to reach for the tray and hiss with pain.

  “Take it easy, Killer. I got it.” He deposits the tray next to me and lowers himself on the concrete step. “Chains, huh?”

  I shrug, gingerly.

  He smirks. “Suits you.”

  “Pervert.”

  Grinning, he shakes his head.

  “What she said,” Jamie calls from his cell.

  Davis makes an obscene gesture at the wall then winks at me. “Your dad says you gotta eat.”

  It jars me to hear him say it again, your dad. “I’m kind of nauseous.”

  “This will help.” Davis hands me a sandwich and widens his eyes at me till I take a bite.

  I chew and swallow. In Jamie’s cell the guys talk quietly. I look at Davis watching me, scowl set to lowest gear. He’s worried. I catalogue the cuts on his face, the bruises. A stupid rush of emotion hits me and my eyes well. He’s such a great guy, funny and sweet under all the snark and swagger. So easy to be with. He would have been a good choice. I reach to touch his face. He freezes – holds his breath, blue eyes locked on mine. I trace the marks I left on his skin, the split lip, brush my thumb gently over the cut. “I’m sorry.”

  He swallows.

  I lean in slowly, the barest graze of my lips on his cheek. I rest the side of my face against his and close my eyes. “For everything.”

  “It’s not over,” he whispers, fiercely. “Your dad won’t let Knox – I won’t let–”

  “Excuse me.”

  We spring apart. Juno stands in the entrance to my cell, a medical kit under her arm. “Some privacy, Mr Davis.”

  Davis is up on his crutch and out faster than I would have expected for a guy in a cast. Juno doesn’t comment. My heartbeat goes into helter-skelter mode again. The boys continue to talk in the next cell. Without asking, Juno helps me pull my shirt up. I grimace and hiss until it’s over my head and I can lower my arms, tangled in chains and sleeves. She’s quick and efficient, wrapping the wide bandage around me and the support brings immediate relief.