'What were they testing for?' Cara asked.
'They were trying to find something that could be used to neutralize the growth of the mutant genome,' Jack said. 'Eventually wanting to find something that could return mutants back to human form.' The tests were standard but they were harder on Evie,' he said.
Evie sat down in one of the seats and rested her head in her hand. She looked up and through the glass to Kingsley. 'How can a Death Mark help us?' She asked.
'He knows Valletta, if we can get to the Stacks she might be able to help you,' Jack said.
Evie looked at him when she realized what he was proposing. 'You want us to defect?' She asked him in a whisper and Cara looked at him stunned.
'I want us to be safe,' Jack said. 'I can't protect you here but maybe Valletta can.'
Evie scoffed. 'And why would a woman like Valletta protect someone like me?' She asked him.
'Because she's preparing a war against Galen and you're the one who can help her win it, Jack said quietly.
Evie and Cara stared at him, not quite sure what to say. 'I want to talk to him,' Evie said.
'No,' Jack said sternly. 'He's dangerous, I don't want you near him.'
Evie's brow furrowed and Cara knew he had said the wrong thing. 'You want me to seek protection from one of the most powerful mutants but you don't want me to have a conversation with a simple Death Mark?' She asked.
'You should never try and stop her,' Cara said to Jack quietly.
'He tried to kill you earlier today,' Jack reminded Evie.
'And he failed,' Evie retorted and went to the door as Jack quickly took hold of her wrist. 'Let go,' Evie said quietly and Jack feared her tone enough to let go of her.
'You really shouldn't try and stop her,' Cara said again as Evie stalked through the door.
She walked around the corner to the door of the interrogation room before she stopped to take a deep breath. She could feel energy surging inside her and had to try and stop it before it spun out of control. With the energy dancing under her skin she did what she could to ignore it and opened the door. Kingsley looked at her as she sat down opposite him and she was surprised to see him smiling.
'Enjoying yourself?' She asked him.
'I always like to try and find the positive in a situation,' Kingsley said.
'You think there's something positive about being chained up and about to face the firing squad?' Evie asked.
'I know that's not going to happen,' Kingsley told her.
'Really?' Evie asked. 'How do you know that?'
'Because I have something that both you and your brother want,' he said. 'Access to Valletta; who would also be incredibly interested in having you as part of her army if she met you.'
Evie narrowed her eyes at him. 'You think I'm going to join her army?' She asked.
Kingsley shrugged. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But you strike me as someone who's used to playing by the rules, so I don't expect you to want to turn your back on your own leader so easily.'
Evie narrowed her eyes at him, feeling a desperate need to hurt him. 'You like to make presumptions,' she said.
'But it's accurate though, isn't it?' Kingsley asked him. He lent forward and lowered his voice. 'Okay, games aside I'm going to be straight up with you because I have a feeling you don't get that too often,' he said and Evie didn't reply. 'There's a war forming against Galen and Hawk but it will fail, they stronger than Kit realizes and she's going to need all the help she can get if she wants to win.'
'What makes you think that I want to help her go against the President?' Evie asked.
'Because if Galen finds out that you've been lying to her, you'll learn what it's like to be a mutant in this world,' Kingsley said.
Evie felt the sense of foreboding in her stomach as she thought of Lux and the knowledge that there were still people in Volt who were keeping her secret and she didn't want to be at their mercy. 'I can't leave here without someone noticing,' she said and saw Kingsley smile.
'But if we make it so you can, would you really leave?' He asked her.
Evie considered the question she had been thinking of in secret for years but never believed she would get the opportunity. 'If there's the chance of freedom at the end of all this, then yes, I would,' she said.
Behind the glass Cara looked at Jack and saw his face drop. 'Did you think she would do that?' She asked him.
'I always had the feeling she would be the one to break free,' he told her. 'We have to do what we can to make it happen, and keep her safe, she needs to get to Valletta.'
'And what if Valletta doesn't want to help her?' Cara asked.
Jack was quiet as he considered that possibility. 'We just have to convince her,' he said.
***
Adam didn't look happy with the idea of Kit going back to the Shard when Lil came round the corner. 'There you are!' She said. 'Did you see the broadcast?'
'I wish I hadn't,' Kit replied.
'Do you have a response?' Lil asked.
'We have to try and get Kingsley out,' Kit said. 'Even though he went on his own mission, we still have a duty to our friend.'
'But if you go back Hawk and Galen will arrest you and you can't give them that advantage after all these years,' Lil said. 'Kingsley kept you safe from them, he wouldn't want you to give yourself up so easily for him.'
Kit thought of Kingsley when they were younger and were back in the barracks. He was sat on her bunk, in the middle of them he was swirling a strand of what she could only describe as magic that came out from his fingers. Kit remembered watching with fascination and Kingsley had held out her hand and taught her the beauty in her powers for the first time. Over the course of their friendship he would teach her how to control it and see feel the power of it.
'King left to find help,' Kit said. 'He went to Alto on his own, and managed to survive until he was captured. He gathered an army, he could be our biggest hope against Hawk's army.'
'He might not even be in Shard or Volt,' Lil said.
'We need to find a way to contact him,' she said.
'If he's been arrested they're not going let him have a phone call,' Adam said.
Kit looked at him. 'You underestimate what Rook can do,' she said.
They had headed back to the barracks and when Kit walked inside, she saw Rook and Caanan sparring with a couple of swords they had found and she looked at them curiously.
'What?' Caanan asked. 'We might not always be able to use our abilities, we have to be able to fight in other ways,' he said.
Kit nodded in approval. 'We need you to try and find where Kingsley is,' Kit said to Rook who hung up the sword.
'He got arrested, didn't he?' She asked.
'And we're not going to leave him to them,' Kit said.
'I can try and get into the grid and see what records there are,' Rook said. 'We might be able to remote access him if he's still got any comms devices on him.'
Kit smiled. 'Thanks,' she said.
She saw Caanan look over her shoulder and straighten slightly. When Kit turned around she saw Rosemary Cerkis with two other council members at her side stood in the threshold. The dark-skinned woman stood with a sense of power Kit rarely saw on women who lived in the Stacks, she was dressed in her red cloak that was held together with the broach that bore the official seal of the Stacks. Kit looked at the phoenix and felt a sense of strength rise in her, a feeling that always came to her when she saw Cerkis and the bird.
'Katarina,' Cerkis said.
'Princeps Cerkis,' Kit replied and bowed slightly. 'It's been a long time since you've visited the barracks,' she said.
'Yes,' Cerkis said. 'But after the latest broadcast I felt a visit was necessary,' she told Kit. 'Can we step into your office?'
Kit nodded and led her away from the main training room looking over to Rook who gave a slight nod and went to her computers.
Kit let Cerkis up the flight of stairs to the rooms that were on the second floor. She opened her office door and sho
wed them inside the small room. Cerkis looked round and saw a battered old computer on a wooden desk. Paper was strewn across it and various articles and notices were pinned on the wall. 'Sorry,' Kit said when she saw Cerkis' expression.
'It's quite alright,' Cerkis said kindly. 'It rather reminds me of when I was in university. What is all of this? If you don't mind me asking,' she said.
Kit cleared away some of the papers as she answered. 'Research mostly,' she said. 'We've been trying to track down the origin of our genome to understand it better.'
Cerkis looked at her curiously. 'For the purpose of?' She asked.
'Controlling it better,' Kit said. 'Volt's administration have been calling it a virus since humans were first infected and have been trying to find a 'cure', we believe the bees that carried the original virus were genetically altered with something that we were intended to have.'
Cerkis narrowed her eyes. 'Whom would have intended this to happen?' She asked.
'That I don't yet know,' Kit said. 'But if it were a virus, and germ warfare then it would have been stopped decades ago.'
Cerkis nodded in agreement. 'That is true,' she said. 'And given mutants are evolving constantly and experiencing symptoms that would defy any common virus, I would say I agree with you.'
Kit smiled. 'I take it you came to see me about Kingsley?' She asked.
'It's an unfortunate situation,' Cerkis said. 'A Death Mark should be in our army, not in the hands of our enemy.'
'Kingsley left on his own accord,' Kit reminded her. 'I did what I could to make him stay, but ultimately it was his decision.'
'And he did make some progress with Alto sector,' Cerkis said. 'This is something we should continue to keep using if we can.'
'Do you think they'll help get him out of Volt?' Kit asked.
'They would want one of their men back,' Cerkis said. 'Which is why you need to get to him first,' she told her.
'Rook's trying to locate him,' Kit said. 'And we have a crew ready to go.'
'My intelligence tells me that he will be coming here,' Cerkis told her. 'He will be making a bargain with the guards who hold him to exchange his life for yours.'
Kit narrowed her eyes. 'He wouldn't do that to me,' he said.
'People will do anything when their lives are in danger,' Cerkis said. 'And he will be executed unless he can convince them to a deal,' she said. 'Which is why you need to get to him first, so that whichever guards he has with him don't reach here first.'
Kit suddenly understood the danger of the situation. Since the armistice had been granted there had been a strained peace treaty with Volt's guards. They patrolled a border that lay a mile beyond the outer suburbs of the Stacks and Cerkis and her administration had been able to create a veil that hid the Stacks from anyone who wasn't mutant born. Volt's guards didn't know where they were beyond the mile border and Cerkis' mission was to keep it that way.
'We will try and intercept him,' Kit said. 'And bring him back to our army.'
'The guards with him are of interest to us,' Cerkis told her. 'There are some who work within Volt who are hiding as humans, we believe that there are people who would be of benefit to our cause if we were able to find them,' she said.
'And you think Kingsley will be able to help identify who these people are?' Kit asked.
'If he does you should listen him,' Cerkis said. 'He will have had chance to gain information that could be of use to us.'
Kit wasn't sure she understood what Cerkis meant but knew it would become apparent when it was meant to. 'We should see if Rook has made any progress,' she said.
Cerkis nodded and they headed back down to the training area. 'Have you been in contact with Gia lately?' Kit asked before she realized she had asked the question.
'She's doing well,' Cerkis said cautiously. 'You've not seen her recently?'
'I've been trying to keep my distance,' Kit said.
Cerkis gave her a warm smile. 'Yes,' she said. 'I understand matters of the heart can be complicated. Gia however, is still helping people escape from Volt and providing them a safe passage to us.'
Kit smiled. 'That's good,' she said. 'As long as she's not putting herself at any unnecessary risk.'
'There is always risk in the war that we're in,' Cerkis said ominously.
They walked over to the computer station where Rook was buried deep in the screens in front of her. 'How's it going?' Kit asked her.
'Volt's grid is complex,' Rook told her, not taking her eyes from the screen. 'The data here has grown since I last saw it.'
Cerkis walked round to her and saw one screen was black and had blue code scrolling up it, the screen in the middle was a surveillance map of Volt and the third was scanning through mug shots. 'They'll be landing in the Spire and traveling on foot,' she said.
'How do you know that?' Rook asked.
'I wouldn't be a good Princeps if I didn't know,' Cerkis said. 'Search for Fox in the code,' she said.
Rook did as she was asked and the code narrowed and fixated on the information that was in the system. 'There's two entries,' she said. 'Male and female.'
'Brother and sister,' Cerkis said. 'The brother will be the one who is with Kingsley.'
'How do you know that?' Rook asked again. 'How does she know this?' She asked Kit, unnerved by the woman's intuition.
'Because as much as they try and track us, we track them,' Cerkis told her. 'The Fox siblings could be a good asset to us.'
Rook punched in some new commands into the computers and Kit saw coordinates appear on the map before they circulated in on a location. 'They've left the Shard,' she said. 'You're right, they're entering the vicinity of the Spire.'
'What's your plan?' Cerkis asked Kit as Lil and Caanan walked over to them.
Kit thought for a moment. 'I need to go and see what we're dealing with,' she said. 'I'll go into the city and report back.'
'You'll need backup,' Caanan said instantly.
'I need information first,' Kit said. 'I'll have you on standby if it's needed.' She went over to her locker and began to gather supplies she would need.
'I don't like this,' Lil said.
'That's because there's nothing to like,' Kit told her. 'But sometimes we have to do things for the greater good,' she said.
'And what's the greater good in this situation?' Adam asked, coming over to them.
'We rescue a friend and maybe find out new information we can use against Galen and Hawk,' Kit told him.
'And you risk your life in the process,' Adam said. 'No, I can't let you do that.'
Kit scowled at him. 'What I choose to do is not something that you get to agree or disagree with,' she told him. 'I am the leader of this army, which you're not a part of, you do not have the right to give me orders.'
Adam looked hurt and there was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Kit knew she should say something, apologize, but she couldn't keep playing this game with him. 'I have a right to care about what happens to you,' he said and walked away.
Kit felt horrid, like her stomach was going to cave in on itself. Lil walked over to her and was about to offer comfort when she stopped him. 'I'm heading out,' she said. 'I'll check in regularly and report back here within 24 hours,' she told Lil. 'Can you make sure he's okay for me?' She asked quietly.
'Certainly Chief,' Lil said.
They watched as Kit shouldered her pack and headed out of the barracks for the Spire, hoping that she wouldn't be arrested and captured by Galen's men.
Chapter Five
EVIE FELT EXHAUSTED by the time they were done with Kingsley. She walked out of the building and felt relief when she felt the cold wisp of air brush against her face. Cara followed her and slipped her arm round hers and they stood quietly for a moment. 'He'll be okay,' Cara told her.
'He's going to the Stacks, with a Death Mark to find one of Volt's most notorious mutants,' Evie told her dryly.
'And he's one of Volt's most capable soldiers,' Cara reminded her. 'He's top of his lea
gue in combat and has skills not seen by any other soldier, he's powerful Evie, you can't forget that.'
'Even against a Death Mark?' Evie asked and Cara knew she couldn't change her friend’s mind, no matter how much she tried.
Jack came over to join them a few moments later and looked as crestfallen as Evie felt. 'How did it get to this?' She asked. 'To you agreeing to go to the Stacks with him of all people?'
'We need to be smart,' Jack told her. 'I need to keep you safe, and if he can help me do that then I'm going to take him up on it.'
'I don't need you to keep me safe,' Evie argued with him. 'And if we're going to defect to the Stacks then you need to let me start defending myself,' she said in a whisper.
'You shouldn't have to defend yourself,' Jack retorted.
'Neither should any other mutant,' Evie said and Jack didn't reply.
Cara shifted in the uncomfortable silence, but knew how the sibling's arguments could erupt if there wasn't a mediator. 'When do you have to leave?' She asked Jack.
'We’re going to leave shortly,' Jack told her. 'We don't want to let any lead we have go cold.'
'And Hawk has authorized this trip?' Evie asked surprised.
'She believes we're going after Valletta to capture her,' Jack said. 'Part of me wishes that were true, it'd be a lot easier.'
Evie didn't say anything as she thought of Jack going into a known danger zone. 'Stay safe,' she said and hugged him, the tension suddenly replaced with sibling concern.
'Always,' Jack said. 'You should go back to the Spire and carry on like normal, I'll keep in touch and call for you when it's safe for you to leave,' he said.
Evie nodded, she had questions rushing through her mind but couldn't bring herself to ask Jack for answers. She saw two guards walking over to them with Kingsley in shackles between them. They gave each other knowing looks before Kingsley was loaded into the back of a truck.
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