by Alex Leopold
However, it was still a new muscle they’d only just begun to develop, and after only a few hours, the twins were so drained they collapsed on the ground. At that point their father brought them to the fire.
“Eat. It’ll help restore your strength.” He told them. “Your powers aren't limitless, the more you use them, the faster you’ll burn through your body’s energy.
“If you have to use them, do so in small amounts.” He added. “Teleport over short distances, shift small items, use the spark sparingly. And whatever you do, don’t use the rush too much, it’s the fastest way of draining you.”
Sitting hunched over, Cooper had to force each bite into her mouth while watching beads of sweat roll down her nose and drop to the ground as she chewed.
“How much more is there to learn?” Riley asked as she eased the stiffness out of her legs.
“You could spend a lifetime trying to understand your abilities and I’m not sure that’d be enough.” He shrugged. “Your powers aren’t just about the spark and switching. In time, you'll see they can serve every part of your lives. If you want them to, they can expand your thoughts, heighten your senses, even amplify your emotions."
“You’re saying our abilities can help us feel things more deeply? Like love?”
He smiled warmly. “Love, compassion, happiness; your capacity to experience such things is limitless.”
Then he fixed them with a grave gaze. “As is your capacity for hatred. If you let them, your abilities can magnify your rage till it drives you mad.
“That’s almost what happened to me when your mother died.” He added. “I was so lost that I️ let my abilities dictate my emotions, and it almost consumed me.”
“How did you find your way back?” Cooper asked.
He smiled. “You two brought me back. After that I️ made sure I️ knew where the normal part of me finished and my abilities began. That way I️ could always turn them off if I️ had to.”
“Are we as powerful as the Archon?” Cooper asked, her mind always fixated on the man she wanted to kill.
“No, but one day you might be.”
“Will you teach us how to beat him?”
Some of the dark obsession her father had just warned her about was starting to happen to her. Rather than reject it, Cooper welcomed it. If it would help her destroy the man who killed her mother, she’d gladly let it write itself into every cell of her body.
Before her father could say anything, Acadia returned from the mouth of the mountain where he’d been keeping watch with Redtail.
“The accumulator has started to glow.” The ursinian’s deep voice rumbled as it echoed off the walls of the cave. “Something is happening back at the ranch.”
47
Just inside the tree line that marked the edge of the forest, the ten hooded figures watched the house through faceless silver masks that reflected back the moonlight.
And waited, as they searched for their quarry.
“A broadcast from the Watcher warned us that one of your kind is prowling the grounds of the Great Inventor’s home.” Control had told Khnum an hour before when they’d closed to within a mile of the ranch. “She was picked up in a predictor’s vision.”
The Sekhem male had barely reacted to the news.
“Could be a traitor called, Mayat.” He’d said blankly. “We’ve been searching for her for five years.”
“Is she anything we should worry about?”
“She was one of our best.” He remarked.
“Well, she’s taken up a shooting position somewhere in the forest. We have to eliminate her before we can access the Great Inventor’s home.”
“I will take the shot.” Khnum announced.
“That’s what the future already showed us.” Control agreed.
Making the future the present was not progressing quickly enough to Control’s frustration. They’d been searching for Mayat for almost an hour without success.
“Anything?” He snapped at his snooper.
“Not yet.” Worm replied. Sekhem were notoriously good at hiding their thoughts from those who might listen in. “If she’s close by, I can’t sense her.”
“I see her.” Hangman whispered excitedly and pointed a gloved hand to a tree three hundred feet away. “I saw a reflection of moonlight on metal.”
The crack of rifle fire disturbed the night and as the forest became animated with hundreds of startled birds fleeing their nests, Control saw a body fall from its perch and drop to the ground. A rifle followed her down and when it landed it fired accidentally into the air.
“She’s dead. You can go.” Khnum informed Control as he lowered his weapon.
The Myrmidon didn’t wait. He leapt into the air, his cloak flapping around his body like a cape as he flew to the Great Inventor’s house. When he was close enough he switched into the largest room.
Careful not to move, he used his telepathy to scan every room for the stream of conscious thoughts that revealed a person’s presence. He had a good ear for even the smallest whisper of a mind at work and rarely failed when one was close. However, as he’d already been told to suspect, the house was empty.
But not empty of surprises.
A dozen small wooden casks filled with gun-powder surrounded him, hidden under blankets or tucked away out of sight behind chairs and tables. Running along the ground at ankle level was a spider’s web of wires that connected them all together. If one had been tripped, a dozen oil lamps would’ve fallen from the ceiling, igniting the gunpowder in the barrels below.
“Boom!” Control whispered and plucked one like a guitar string. Then he cut the master-wire and watched as the spider’s web collapsed.
He went immediately to a high-backed reading chair positioned in front of the fire. Pushing the chair aside, he placed the palms of his bare hands against a tall, rainwater collection barrel in front of him. Inside he detected what his snooper had sensed moments before. Some kind of device, and it was creating an energy ripple.
“Astonishing.” He said. In his life Control had never known anything but anomalies to be able to create ripples.
Unfortunately, whatever the device was it wouldn’t be easy to examine. After prizing open the barrel’s lid by no more than the width of his finger, Control found it filled with a mixture of gun-powder and sting.
Closing the lid, he communicated to the others the house no longer presented a threat. It would take them less than half a minute to cross the lawn; he’d have to be quick.
Removing his mask, so he could see where she lived with his own eyes, he went room-to-room. Scoring each surface he looked for anything that might once have belonged to the girl named Riley, the girl from his dreams. But found nothing.
“They should’ve known we’d be warned.” A smug Hangman commented after switching into the house.
He was referring to the broadcast they’d received from the Watcher an hour before. As well as seeing them kill the Sekhem woman, her predictor had also seen the Great Inventor’s house exploding in a massive fireball not soon after their arrival. It hadn’t taken a great stretch of the imagination to guess why.
“Perhaps they confused us for amateurs.” Hangman added as he tapped a finger lightly against one of the hanging oil lamps.
“The Watcher didn’t know about this.” Control replied tapping his hand on the barrel that contained the device.
“What do you think it is?” He asked his snooper. She’d also removed her mask and had an ear pressed up against the barrel.
“Electrical, but not mechanical.” Worm slowly slid her head around the barrel. “I️ sense an enormous amount of energy inside."
“How much?”
Before answering, the snooper closed her eyes and nuzzled her head against the barrel as if it were a pillow.
“If it had been released during an explosion it would’ve easily flattened this house.”
From the kitchen, Drill, the skin-reader, kicked a large birdcage to where Hangman was sta
nding.
“The source of the voices I detected.”
It was an old resistance trick. Parrots were trained to mimic human voices to confuse any skin-reader tracking them. In a discarded piece of metal it was almost impossible to distinguish a bird’s voice from the real thing. Almost.
Hangman gave an amused snort. “I expected more from the Great Inventor. Using the bird was a novice move.”
“It looks hurried.” Drill agreed.
“It’s been over seventeen years since the Great Inventor encountered any Myrmidons, perhaps he doesn’t know how sophisticated we’ve become?” Another Myrimdon suggested.
“Where do you think they ran too?” Worm asked.
“Khnum believes they went east. He already has the trail they followed when they left this morning.”
“East is right into Directory territory.” A suspicious Hangman argued. “Sounds like a false trail.”
“Then where are they?”
“They can’t have gone far.” Worm said. “Remember, a predictor already has seen a vision of us riding into Harvardtown with them. And she can only see forward by no more than a day or two.”
Even though the predictor hadn’t seen the vision clearly, she was able to tell the Myrmidons were returning with four prisoners. One was a man and one was a woman. And the man was dead.
“We’ll know more once we let this device do the job it was intended for.” Control responded.
His decision surprised everyone in the room.
“If this is unknown technology, then don’t you think the Archon would want us to take possession of it, rather than destroy it.” The Hangman objected.
“What the Archon wants is for us to find and kill the Great Inventor.” Control told him. “In order for that to happen we need the Great Inventor to think his plan is working.”
“What do you propose?”
“Make the broadcast to Sancisco. Inform them of the device and its power. Tell them, in ten minutes we plan on detonating it because that is what the Great Inventor’s plan requires.
“I expect he’ll be monitoring for the energy ripple created from the blast. When he senses the explosion, he’ll believe his plan has been successful, and will complete his escape with Nakano.”
“Why is he waiting for the explosion?”
“My guess, he needs to use his abilities to get away. He probably thinks the ripple this device will make will mask his own. So tell the Watcher, her men must be thorough when they’re scanning the area.”
The Hangman nodded and left.
Control turned to another one of his men. “Have Khnum confirm which direction our party went in. I don’t want any uncertainty when we detonate the device.”
Control marched upstairs. With what little time remained, he wanted to learn as much as he could about Riley before he destroyed the place where she’d grown up.
48
Khnum found his sister’s crumpled body lying face down by the stump of the tree she’d fallen from. Knowing that even in death Mayat could be dangerous he fired three arrows into her body before moving closer.
When he was no more than ten feet from her, he squatted down onto his heels in preparation to offer a prayer for her passing, as was tradition. Except, before he began, he realized he did not want to, not for this traitor. So instead of saying the words that would help Mayat find the next world, he told the nearby Myrmidon to stop trying to shadow himself in his mind.
“Just like a cat to be hiding up a tree.” The Myrmidon called Ravage snickered as he stepped forward.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Khnum asked reaching for Mayat’s rifle. He’d given it to her on the day she became a Sekhem.
“Control wants to know the direction our runaways went?”
“I already told you, east.”
Ravage scoffed. “There is nothing for them east. That must be a false trail.”
“I can tell the difference, Ravage. The trail is real.”
“If they head east, they ride straight into Directory territory. Are you telling me the Great Inventor is stupid?”
“You don’t buy my services to tell you how a man thinks.” Khnum replied. “You buy them to tell you where a man is. And this man has gone…”
He’d used the toe of his boot to kick Mayat’s body over. At that instant he’d realized what he’d disturbed was not human and it caused him to pause mid-sentence.
“What is that?” Turning serious, Ravage bent down to see what Khnum already knew. That hidden within a Sekhem’s warrior robes and cloak was nothing more than dried cattle meat disguised as a body.
The broadcaster removed the tips of her fingers from the temples of her head having finished the transmission to Sancisco.
“It's done.” She told him as she slipped her mask back over her face.
That was when Hangman’s abilities sensed a bullet slicing through the air toward him. Dropping to the ground, he rolled out of its way and was up into a crouching position before the bullet had even reached him.
Stretching out his hand to use the rush to deflect a second shot, he heard a feint cracking sound. He turned to see his broadcaster slump backward, a small round hole punctured through the plate of her mask.
Tapping to the others that they were under attack, he scanned the woods in the direction of the first shot. When he saw the muzzle flare again, he threw a spark in its direction and began running toward it.
Upstairs, Control stood in Riley’s room. As he looked upon the space where she’d been hiding from him all this time, he found himself unable to move, barely able to breath.
“I don't care what you are or what you did, I love you.” He heard her whisper to him.
As he dared to let himself remember the way she looked at him in that moment he felt the future pulling his body to her. Pulling him east.
She wasn’t far he sensed. It almost felt like if he were to reach out his hand he’d touch her face.
“Their Sekhem is still alive!” Skin-Reader Drill exclaimed from downstairs, snapping him out of his reverie.
“What happened?” He asked switching down into the large living area, his thoughts still a jumble in his mind.
“Spear’s dead.” His snooper said referring to their broadcaster. Then a window shattered and Control had the sense of a bullet slicing through the air, its path coming so close to his snooper it almost grazed her cheek.
“That was close.” Worm said relieved.
Except, the bullet had not been intended for her. Its target was an oil lamp hanging above the water barrel, the one filled with gunpowder, sting and the device. Control saw the bullet slice through the tether hanging the lamp from the ceiling and only had enough time to create the switch around himself before it crashed down onto the barrel.
He exited the teleport forty yards from the house as the explosion tore it to pieces. The shockwave hammered against his body and tossed him across the lawn.
He struck the ground hard. The wind was knocked out of him and he was left dazed, his vision swimming.
For a moment he couldn’t move as he tried to regain his breath.
“You were supposed to find me, Varick?” Riley’s voice penetrated the loud ringing in his head, and for the first time in his life, she sounded different. She was demeaning, teasing him even, as if his pain amused her.
“Did you fail or did you just give up?” She chuckled as Control watched one of his men, engulfed by fire, stagger passed him then collapse to the ground.
“This is going to hurt, I’m afraid.” She laughed and he recalled there’d been sting in the barrel holding the device. The air would be thick with it by now. It would be in his lungs, in his eyes.
“But the pain won’t be anything like what you made me go through.”
Control gritted his teeth as a spasm racked his whole body.
Riley continued to laugh as he started to shake uncontrollably. He wanted it to stop, wanted to get her out of his head, but there was nothing he co
uld do.
He’d been stung.
49
Exposed to the wind’s chill as it scraped the mountain’s back, their father stood just outside the tunnel’s entrance with his coat collar buttoned tightly against his neck and his hat pulled low. His eyes had remained fixated on the accumulator ever since he’d arrived and his focus didn’t waver until the fire died within the metallic football’s center and it became lifeless again. Then without a word he placed it in a lead-lined box, and buckled it back into its satchel.
“Now, are you starting to believe?” Nakano asked him, her body supported between the twins.
He did not look at her as he walked back into the cave.
Instead he replied. “Ask me again at the end of tomorrow.”
“What do you think happened to Mayat?” Acadia asked in a soft whisper when their father was by his side.
He stopped and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, having to reach up in order to do it.
“I don’t know.” He replied earnestly. Then slapped his hand against the breast plate of Acadia’s armor. “Either way she just gave us our only chance at freedom and we’ll let her down if we don’t seize it.”
Nodding his agreement, Acadia got to his feet.
“You have a plan?”
He nodded. “And it’s time I shared it.”
Control knew what the Great Inventor’s plan was. It had come to him while he’d been examining his dead broadcaster. His heavily doped mind still struggling to focus.
“They killed her to stop us from communicating with Harvardtown and Sancisco. Question is why?” He asked as he continued to spit the taste of sting from his mouth.
“They want to stop us from sending for more men.” The Hangman said as he rubbed the feverish sweat from his brow.