by Lori Bond
I crawled out from under the table. “Come on,” I said to him. “I Saw a better plan.”
Will frowned. “You had a vision while we kissed?”
I ran for the front of the room and flattened myself against the wall by the door. “It will probably save our lives. You got a problem with it?”
When he went to stand next to me, I waved him to the other side of the door. “Evie and two Dreki troops will come in through here. We need to take out the troops.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “You Saw that while we kissed,” he said again, as if he was having trouble believing what I’d just said.
“Again, problem?” I asked.
Will shook his head. “It’s just LANCE trained me to be a better kisser than that. You’re not supposed to get distracted.”
Now I was the one getting annoyed. “Visions aren’t exactly distractions. It’s not like I was looking over your shoulder to watch TV. And what do you mean trained?”
Will didn’t answer. Evie and the two Dreki soldiers ran into the room. They were looking straight ahead, so they were a few feet ahead of us before Will and I attacked. Using one of the moves, Will had taught me, I scissor kicked my guard. He fell to the ground, and I wrenched his arm behind him, incapacitating him. If he moved more than an inch in any direction, his shoulder would dislocate.
Will though, had not only knocked his target unconscious, he had grabbed the Dreki’s weapon. He and Evie were standing, pointing their guns at each other in a true standoff.
“Now what?” Will asked me.
25
WHERE I FINALLY UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF A SUPERPOWER
“YEAH, WILL. NOW WHAT?” EVIE ECHOED. HER HAND WAS STEADY, and like Will she didn’t waver. Even though I knew from experience that those pistols got heavy after more than a few seconds, neither of them dropped their weapon even a millimeter.
“You know, I can’t just let you go.” Evie’s eyes flicked to a point just over my head. It seemed like a deliberate gesture, a signal to Will. I glanced just long enough to confirm what I suspected I’d find in the upper corner of the room. Sure enough, a camera with a red recording light stared down at all of us.
Evie might have helped Will before by slipping him a razor blade, but she wouldn’t help us now with Dreki personnel watching. I managed to not shudder as a worse thought hit me. Even if she was on our side, she couldn’t help if her father was watching. I hoped with every molecule of my being that Arthur had Vortigern busy deflecting the all out attack happening outside. I hated the idea we might have Vortigern’s personal attention.
Will nodded like he understood although his eyes never left Evie’s face. “You realize I can’t let you have Elaine.” He shifted until he was now aiming his weapon at my head.
“Are you kidding me?” Normally, a gun pointed at my head would have freaked me out, but for some reason, Will pointing a gun at me made me livid. “Arthur will love this. Are you telling me you also have a shoot to kill order on me?”
Will looked physically ill for a moment before giving me a curt nod. “In a situation like this? Controller Stormfield was explicit.”
“He would be,” Evie and I both muttered at the same time. I raised my eyebrows at her for a moment, and she gave me a small half-grin. “I take it you aren’t a fan of LANCE’s fearless leader?” Evie asked.
“Elaine,” Will said. “Believe me. If we’re getting captured again by the Dreki, it would be a favor.”
I glared at him. “Mercy killing me without my express permission is not a favor. It’s murder.” The man beneath me moved again, and I wrenched his arm even tighter. “When I have finished rescuing you, we will sit down and have a very long talk about this topic. I am not at all comfortable with the idea you think you can decide for me when life is no longer worth living. That’s a big assumption.”
Will nodded, and I could almost see the LANCE training warring with his inherent good qualities. It was almost like he was battling the instincts of a decent human being with the ethics of LANCE. I was having a hard time distinguishing LANCE from the Dreki. Both seemed committed to vague causes with a shocking disregard for whatever body count might accrue. It was like they were the same beast coming at each other from different sides.
“What makes you think you’ll rescue him, little girl?” Evie asked with a sneer.
At that I snapped. There was no other word for it. One minute I was hunched down with a knee in some random Dreki dude’s back, and the next I had launched myself in the air at Evie. It was like whatever little self-control I’d kept despite all the stress of the day had been tested beyond my endurance by Will’s clear intention to execute a kill order on me if things didn’t go our way. If even my protectors proved to be a danger? It was like the little stable world I’d been trying to build since Arthur scooped me out of the firefight in my school’s parking lot had begun to crumble away.
True, Evie’s snide little comment didn’t warrant a fist to the jaw, but her dad was the whole reason I was in this mess, and she wasn’t the one pointing a gun at me.
I caught Evie completely off guard. It was the only way I landed that first punch on her. Despite my presence, her focus had been entirely on Will. That had made sense. After all, he was the trained agent holding a weapon. I was the weird Seer pinning a man down.
But I was the weird psychic—one who worked best if she touched someone she wanted to See. And although punching Evie wasn’t the normal way to spark a vision, it proved to be just as effective.
My vision of Evie was super short, only about the length of time my knuckles were in contact with her jaw. It was enough. Even as I watched the shock register on real-time Evie’s face, I also Saw her try to counter with a left hook to my jaw. I ducked and landed another uppercut. This allowed me to See her attempt at a spin kick. I caught her leg mid-air, destabilizing her balance and knocking her to the floor. Evie wasn’t down by any stretch. She popped back up, and the two of us went at it in a bare-knuckles, no holds barred, no trick too dirty match.
Evie didn’t land a single punch or kick. She never even came close even though she was a much better fighter. She might have even been better than Will. With every punch I blocked, with every kick of mine that connected, I Saw the next few seconds. Evie never pulled ahead in the fight. For the first time, I had full control of the visions. I wasn’t just along for the ride. I could overlay them on the world around me and keep them from skipping ahead where they wouldn’t be as useful. I now understood what it felt like to have a true superpower.
With a perfectly timed chop, thanks to knowing where Evie would be at that moment, I struck Evie’s neck. She slumped to the floor, unconscious.
“Elaine, how did you?” Will started to ask. He grabbed my hand. I turned to him, but with his hand on mine, I Saw the next few seconds coming.
“Duck,” I yelled at Will, and I tackled him to the ground. Less than a second later, a pair of backup Dreki goons entered the room spraying gunfire at chest level. My continuing vision showed me we only had seconds before they looked down and spotted us. Rolling across the floor, I kicked at the back of their knees. Neither went down, but it distracted them enough that both men stumbled and the spray of bullets stopped. This gave Will enough time to incapacitate them both.
Meanwhile, the man I had pinned down earlier decided to rejoin the fight. For some reason, he hadn’t moved when I’d attacked Evie. Maybe he had been just as shocked as the rest of us when I had leapt up. Or perhaps, Will had been pointing a gun at him until the moment I knocked Will to the floor. Either way, the Dreki got up and assumed a fighter stance. However, I grabbed at Will connecting my hand with his neck. I Saw where the Dreki would punch and when. I kept him distracted long enough by dodging his feints until Will knocked him in the back of the head with the barrel of his riffle.
“Let’s get out of here,” Will said, grabbing my hand again. He seemed to have figured out what was going on.
I held up my free hand to block him fr
om running out the door. “Wait,” I said. I Saw Galahad followed by a small horde of Dreki soldiers chasing and firing weapons at him running past our doorway. Two seconds later it happened in real time.
“Now,” I said. We bolted into the corridor, running after the Dreki troops. We were far enough back, they didn’t hear us following them. A few seconds later, the whole group turned down a corridor, but we kept running straight ahead. “Percy,” I panted into my comms, “we saw Galahad. Does that mean the armor is back together? I want our knights right now.”
“Yours is already on her way,” Percy said, “but I don’t think Percival’s going to get Galahad free soon. And can I say that was some kick-ass moves back there? Percival and I were watching from the room’s camera.”
I smiled, but I didn’t take the compliment. “Rescue now, congratulate later.”
“On it,” Percy said. “I have a little weapon destroying detour first. They are never disintegrating a knight I’m in again.”
We got to the end of the hallway. There was no sign of a way out.
“You missed your turn.” Percy sounded like he was trying to be helpful, so I tried not to snap at him even though my self-control was in danger of breaking again.
“Yeah, it was the next-to-last left, wasn’t it? So, now second right?”
“You got it, babe.”
I had never been a fan of Percival’s “my lady,” but “babe” would definitely have to go.
We turned and headed back. By this point, I’d lost my grip on Will’s hand, and my visions had faded. I needed to recharge my sight somehow. I reached over and grabbed Will’s hand.
“Jump,” I yelled, and we avoided a Dreki drudge that came sliding out an open doorway on her back. She wasn’t trying to attack us. Instead, she seemed to be trying to recover from being tossed out the room. A moment later my armor came striding out the door.
“Surprise,” Percy said. “I brought you a present, and the demagnetizing weapon is now toast. No more worries there.”
“Follow us,” I told him.
We kept down the hall and turned right at the next corner.
We had already turned and started down the hall before my vision showed me what we would find there. I tried to stop, to pull us back, but all I managed was to slip on the floor and fall, pulling Will down with me.
The hallway wasn’t a long one, so when a mutant dragon man stepped out of the room at the end, he wasn’t far from us. He was also cutting us off from the exterior wall we needed to use to escape.
The man who stepped out wore the standard Dreki SWAT style uniform, complete with dragon patches on the shoulder, but it was like the person inside had swollen to twice the normal size—or wore augmented body armor. Instead of a commando-style helmet and goggles, a huge helmet in the shape of a dragon’s head covered his entire face. Even though I had no proof, I knew Vortigern was in there. Who else would wear something like that? And the helmet somehow replicated his cold, dead eyes.
“How kind of you to join me,” the figure said, confirming my guess. Vortigern didn’t have the kind of voice you forgot.
“Percy,” I whispered at my headset.
“On it,” he murmured back. My armor started to break apart behind me.
“No,” Vortigern said, the mouth on his helmet moved when he spoke giving the weird impression that Vortigern had transformed into an actual dragon. He raised one of his arms, and it sprouted a rocket just like one of Arthur’s knights might do. “If a single atom of that armor touches either of you, Redding loses his head.”
Will and I froze. I was still on the ground where I had slid to a stop. Will hovered mid-crouch, but he did nothing to inflame the situation.
The dead eyes of the dragon fixed on me. “I have wanted Redding for too long now. If I’m forced to sacrifice him, you will not enjoy the result.”
I didn’t have to say anything. Behind me Morgause reformed, but she made no other move.
“Well, this sucks,” Percy said.
I didn’t answer.
“It was nice of Pendragon to deliver you both,” Vortigern continued. He didn’t lower the weapon on his armor, but he seemed to relax a bit. “Although, I would have preferred it if he hadn’t destroyed my favorite home in the process.”
“Consider it payback for destroying one of his,” I said. My voice came out strong and sure, to my surprise. My voice had a bravery I didn’t possess. It didn’t help I was still Seeing into the future, and the future wasn’t looking good. We had about three minutes before Vortigern summoned reinforcements. They would destroy Morgause and cuff Will and I without any of us being able to do a thing about it.
I realized we had to delay Vortigern’s call for backup. It was our only chance. Hopefully, Percy had called Arthur, or perhaps Percival was monitoring a security camera somewhere. If nothing else, stalling might give Will or me time to come up with an escape.
“Why Will?” I asked. “Do you normally capture LANCE agents, or is Will special?”
Vortigern laughed, and I flinched. The sound echoed through the hallway becoming less human by the second as if Vortigern was morphing into the dragons he admired so much.
Will didn’t so much as wince, but he tilted his head on one side as if considering Vortigern. “Sometimes the Dreki capture LANCE agents for interrogation, but I don’t think this was one of those times. I got the impression in the helicopter that this was a retrieval. Vortigern wanted both of us brought back.”
Vortigern gave a slight shrug. I tensed, hoping to make a move, but Vortigern still didn’t lower his weapon. “You both have skills that would enhance the Dreki cause.”
Will’s eyebrows lifted, and I stared at Vortigern, appalled. “Your recruitment method leaves a lot to be desired,” I said.
Vortigern laughed again, unaware or not caring that the sound shocked us back into silence. “The future of this world is the future of the Dreki,” he said. “With the two of you, we could stop this useless warring with LANCE and misguided people like your father, Elaine. With your visions and Will’s powers, we would rule before the so-called leaders mounted a response. Finally, the illuminated way will spark the world. After all, the Illuminati have always wanted to enlighten, to do what’s best for people.”
“The Illuminati and the Dreki want to do what’s best for the Illuminati,” Will spat back. He dropped my hand and stood. I stayed on the floor for another minute, trying to keep the vision of the immediate future. I Saw a few more seconds ahead, but it only showed Vortigern talking, and then the vision faded away. Standing and brushing the back of my hand against Will’s, I pushed hard, but no vision appeared. The future had returned to an impenetrable haze.
“Spoken like a true brat of LANCE.” Vortigern’s dragon face sneered. “Tell me, what has LANCE done to end poverty in this or any other nation? Have they shared any of the life-saving technologies they develop in that Institute where they’ve hoarded the world’s greatest minds? Do they do anything other than fight philanthropists like me and violate the human rights of people with unlikely powers like you and Elaine? Do they?”
I wouldn’t call Vortigern a philanthropist, but I couldn’t argue his points about LANCE. Will didn’t even try. “What do you mean, like me?” he asked. He tensed next to me, but I didn’t think he was about to spring at Vortigern or lunge himself back into my armor. Not that he would fit into it. He was too tall for Morgause.
“Still trying to keep it a secret?” Vortigern laughed again, and this time Will winced along with me. There was something about the laugh, like it was modified as it filtered through the dragon helmet. It seemed to suck a little more life out of me with each chuckle. “But unlike LANCE there are no secrets in the Dreki.” Vortigern turned his dragon eyes on me, and I wanted to shrink inside myself, hide in my armor, or duck behind Will—anything to avoid the dragon’s gaze. “Will isn’t a typical LANCE agent. He’s not an agent at all, just a well-guarded asset. No, he has powers beyond what he even knows. Don’t you
, little giant?”
“I’m not a giant.” Will seemed confused. I certainly was. Will wasn’t short, but he wasn’t even as tall as Arthur. Still, Will’s eyes darted around, searching for an escape. His hand next to mine shook as if afraid of what Vortigern would say next.
Vortigern’s dragon helmet smiled, and I was grateful Arthur’s knights had blank visages instead of creepy pseudo-expressions that made my skin crawl. “I know more about you than you will ever find in a LANCE archive. Wilma Redding stole you from us all those years ago, and Stormfield didn’t even bother to give you an original name when he tried to hide you away.”
Will’s shaking had gotten worse, and he looked ill. He reached for the wall as if half supporting himself with it.
“You were meant to be our weapon,” Vortigern said, “not some plaything for LANCE. We have the means to control you, to hone you, to bring peace to this world. Enough of this. Come here, son.”
Will swayed on his feet, and I realized that it wasn’t my imagination. There was something off with Vortigern’s helmet. It was doing something to his voice, modulating it. It was like Will’s persuasive power, but a pale imitation. But, even a pale imitation was compelling when it was focused directly on you, like it was on Will.
Will took a step forward. “I’m not your son,” he ground out between his clenched teeth. He seemed to be trying to fight back, but his left foot lifted to take another step. “I will never be your son.”
“Nope, I claimed Will,” Arthur said over our headset. “Finders keepers. Princess, Will, you’ve done a magnificent job keeping that idiot distracted, but I’m here now. Brace yourself.”
Before I could even blink, the exterior wall behind Vortigern blew up.
26
WHERE I REFUSE TO BE SIDELINED NO MATTER THE COST
WHEN THE WALL BEHIND HIM BLEW UP, THE SUDDEN CHANGE IN AIR pressure sucked Vortigern out through the hole. Will and I both flew forward too, but Morgause’s arms shot out grabbing us. My armor tucked each of us under one arm, almost like she’d turned us into human footballs. She kept running straight forward and launched into the air.