by Hondo Jinx
Xander sat up a little straighter.
This was Xander’s weakness. Not just his love for Nina but his frustration over not being able to help her. That’s why the man was drinking so hard and avoiding Janusian’s broadcast so pointedly.
If Nina died, Xander wouldn’t just lose the person he loved most in the world. He would also lose himself. Because if his daughter died, it would signal his utter failure as a human being.
And this, Jamaal realized in a rush of intuition, was a fear against which the handsome, rakish, boy-man Bender struggled every day of his life.
Recognizing this weakness, Jamaal reacted in the manner of any self-respecting truth mage.
He lied.
“Nina needs you.”
Xander squinted at him, dubious.
“She begged me to get you out of here.” Jamaal lied, but he didn’t give the fabrication any juice.
After all, dread clouded the air as thick and noxious as smoke from a burning tire.
The shit was about to hit the fan.
Epically.
Jamaal’s intuition echoed its dire warning with every beat of his racing heart: Stay cloaked, stay cool, keep your foot off the juice pedal.
Every move he made tonight would fall under scrutiny.
Eventually.
The key was avoiding immediate detection. If the Order didn’t call his actions into question for a few days, he might be okay.
The safeguards he’d already taken, like leaving a doppelganger in the car with Krupski and rigging a good cover story in his young partner’s mind, would hide his tracks and help him make a clean escape.
But if he started using juice and the Order came back here and sniffed around for anomalies, his whole alibi would unravel, putting everyone at risk.
Not just Jamaal and Xander. Beverly and David. Brawley and Nina and everyone at the ranch. Krupski and Shawna and even the dog.
And that was totally unac-fucking-ceptable.
“Just listen to the TV, and you’ll understand,” Jamaal said.
“…an exciting new dawn for our community and, by extension, the world at large,” Janusian said. “This is the dawn of a new era. You will finally be safe from the Tiger Mage, Clarissa Lemay, the new power mage, and others who—”
Xander slipped then, letting a scowl come onto his face. “Fuck you, and fuck Janusian.”
Xander glanced toward the bar.
The bartender stopped in mid-pour, picked up the remote, and lowered the volume on the TV, no doubt oblivious that a Bender was messing with her head.
“Have the bartender turn it up again,” Jamaal said, frustration coming to a boil within him. “You really need to hear this.”
Xander leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Or what? Are you going to arrest me again?”
“I didn’t arrest you last time,” Jamaal said. “I only took you in for questioning.”
“You fucking Seekers,” Xander said. “Order of Truth my ass. More like the Order of Bullshitters.”
“Bold words for a Bender.”
Xander uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “And so we find ourselves at an impasse. I don’t know what you want from me, man, but whatever it is, do me a favor and get to the fucking point.”
“I told you what I want. I want you to get out of here.”
“And go where?”
“I need you to help me round up your son, for starters,” Jamaal said.
Which was the truth, despite Xander’s suspicious expression. Jamaal hoped to rescue Xander, too. The guy was an asshole, but that didn’t warrant the death penalty. Which is exactly what Xander would get if he didn’t leave… now.
“My son is missing,” Xander said, and Jamaal could feel love and concern coming off the man.
Xander knocked back the last of his beer and stared into the empty glass. “I haven’t seen David in a month. Not since everything blew up with Nina. His mother probably has him up in the swamps, hiding with that gator-skinning, redneck family of hers.”
Jamaal shook his head. “David and Beverly are in Marathon.”
Xander turned his head, curiosity visibly warring with suspicion. “Marathon?”
Jamaal nodded.
“How do you know?”
“Because I put them there. Protective custody.”
Something in Xander relaxed. But then anger rushed into the void. “What the fuck, man? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been worried sick.”
Jamaal spread his hands. “That’s not the way protective custody works. I couldn’t tell you.”
“You’re telling me now.”
“Things have changed. That’s what I’m trying to explain.”
Jamaal nodded toward the oblivious bartender, who went about her business beneath the TV screen where Arch Mage Payter Janusian droned silently on. “Have the bartender turn up the volume.”
Xander looked at him for a second, everything hanging in the balance.
Again, Jamaal was tempted to Seeker the guy. Again, he resisted temptation. He couldn’t risk it. His gut was emphatic on that point.
“All right,” Xander started, but then one of the pretty blondes barged in, handing Xander a new beer and stood between the two men with one hip cocked and her tiny miniskirt half an inch shy of committing a citable crime.
“Thanks, doll,” Xander said, and blasted the girl, who was half his age, with his trademark charm, turning on his bright smile and knocking her over the head with a mallet of telekinetic appeal.
The girl twitched her tight little ass back and forth as if trying to squirm out of her panties.
Jamaal growled with annoyance and glanced outside.
At the curb, rain pattered down on Krupski’s sedan. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth, and Jamaal could see Krupski in the driver’s seat, tapping his fingers on the wheel and singing along to the music, the guy not even mildly annoyed at getting hauled out into a rainy night by his partner, who had refused to even divulge exactly what they were doing.
Thing was, Krupski trusted him. Because Jamaal represented everything he valued: experience, dedication, integrity.
Self-loathing washed over Jamaal, but he refused to grab hold.
He was doing what he had to do. And it wasn’t like he had ever pretended to be a hero. It was Krupski’s fault for mistaking him as one.
His eyes slid from his partner’s singing face to his own doppelganger sitting in the passenger seat, looking old and tired and generally miserable.
Was that really what he looked like these days? Sure, that’s how he felt much of the time, but feeling something and showing it were two different things. How long had he been wearing that ancient, tired-ass face?
He sat up a little straighter and returned his attention to Xander, who was holding the girl’s hand now and looking up at her, the scammed beer pressed to one corner of his rakish smile.
Jamaal hadn’t heard their conversation, but the girl laughed and twitched her tight butt faster than ever. “Oh, you’re bad!”
“What?” Xander said, feigning shock. “I’m a choir boy. Must be you just bring out the devil in me. All three of you.”
The other two blondes were swaying seductively at the edge of the neighboring section, drawing the eyes of the singer and every other male in attendance.
It wasn’t that the women were extraordinarily beautiful. It was that their sultry dancing and the sense that they weren’t just pretty but on the prowl.
What those men apparently failed to notice was that all three blondes were completely focused on Xander.
That makes four of us, Jamaal thought. I gotta get this asshole out of here before these three drag his manipulative ass back to their room, ravage him, and help him sign his death warrant.
And not just his death warrant. Without Xander’s help, Jamaal doubted he could convince Beverly and David to leave Florida with him. Not without foolishly using his juice.
And they had to leave. Because even though their saf
e house had so far lived up to its name, Jamaal figured Janusian’s New Dawn Initiative would change that.
That and everything else.
No more anonymity. No more doppelganger mode. Everyone plugged into the Latticework 24/7/365.
Not just Seekers.
Everyone.
That was Janusian’s master plan. Somehow, he’d found a way to jack every psi mage on the planet into his web.
A convenience today. A requirement tomorrow.
And with that density of information and degree of pixilation, Janusian’s battery of computers, analysts, and precogs would soon know everything about everyone, everywhere, ever.
The Arch Mage smiled convincingly on the screen, his prerecorded message drawing to a close once again.
The loop had been playing over and over, interrupted only by brief “updates” from talking heads who told the psionic community what to think.
The next morning, they would flip the switch and change the message.
Report to your local Order office today to take advantage of this exciting opportunity.
Soon, the talking heads would shift from celebrating the New Dawn Initiative and the amazing ways it empowered the public to focus on the worrisome threat of those who weren’t plugging in.
Then they would change the message once again, tacking on two little words.
Report to your local Order office today to take advantage of this exciting opportunity… or else.
Any psi mage who did not voluntarily register for the Latticework by a specific date and time would be apprehended and evaluated.
For the good of the community, of course.
Shortly thereafter, the Order would use their census, the Latticework, and psionic detectors to ferret out unregistered psi mages.
A new dawn indeed.
Xander twiddled his fingers, waving to the other two blondes, who burst out laughing and beckoned for him to join them.
Jamaal shot him daggers.
Xander rolled his eyes but smiled up at the twitching girl again. “I’ll be over in a minute, doll.”
She pushed out her lip in a pouty puppy dog face.
“Go on, now,” Xander said, shooing her toward her friends, “and you’d better have another beer waiting for me.” He gave her ass a playful little slap.
She grinned back over her shoulder. “You are so bad!”
Jamaal shook his head, not bothering to mask his disgust. “Same old Xander, living day to day, scamming beers and hustling girls. Doesn’t that shit get old?”
“No,” Xander said, taking a sip from his beer. “Pussy never gets old. You, on the other hand, are seeming old as fuck these days. So why don’t you go back to your rocking chair and prune juice and let me have some fun?”
Jamaal leaned across the table, leveling a bony finger at Xander’s face. “You listen to me, you self-centered son of a bitch. If you love your daughter, turn up the volume now.”
Xander hesitated for a second, paralyzed not by stubbornness, Jamaal realized, but by fear of what Janusian might say about Nina.
Good. Fear was good. He could work with fear.
Jamaal slapped his hand down on the table, nearly toppling Xander’s Corona Light. “If you don’t tune in, Nina is going to die… tonight.”
Xander whipped his head toward the bar, and a second later, the bartender raised the volume, cranking it so that Janusian’s voice rang out loud and clear, drowning out the complaining patrons and the Buffet imitator next door.
“All psi mages, not only Seekers, will now have free access to the Latticework,” Janusian said, allowing a smile to warm his countenance. “We are incredibly excited to be improving your day-to-day lives so vastly. The New Dawn Initiative will level the playing field, providing up-to-the-minute information to everyone. Never again will you be surprised by incorrect weather forecasts, automotive problems, or stock market fluctuations.”
Xander’s jaw dropped. “They want all of us to plug in? They’re going to track everybody?”
Jamaal nodded. Xander might be a stubborn asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot.
“But that means…” Xander trailed off, his eyes losing focus.
Jamaal grabbed Xander’s forearm and nodded toward the door. “Come on, man. Let’s get the hell out of here before it’s too late. Do you want to help Nina or not?”
Xander nodded.
And then everyone was screaming.
Outside, darkness vanished, the world suddenly brighter than high noon. A raw, white light flashed like an overloaded electrical transformer.
Only this light wasn’t pure white. It was shot through with purple.
Oh shit…
Out on the street, Krupski leapt from the car, shielding his eyes and lifting his sidearm toward the sky.
Jamaal’s doppelganger sat in the car, his slack face staring uselessly at the glove box.
“Krupski, look out!” the real Jamaal shouted.
But his voice was lost even to his own ears beneath the thunderous boom of a deep voice that roared, “Traitor!”
A massive bolt of white and purple lightning slammed down on the car.
Jamaal screamed, temporarily blinded by the explosion.
A second later, Jamaal hit the floor, bowled over by a stampede of terrified bar patrons screaming as they fled the scene.
Sharp pain stabbed his lower back. A line of fire zipped across his ass and down his left leg, locking it tight as the sciatic nerve screamed in agony.
Someone stepped on his shin. Someone else barely jumped over him.
Between the forest of scurrying legs, Jamaal saw the burning sedan—and the burning corpse on the ground beside it.
“Krupski,” Jamaal gasped, tears welling in his eyes.
Another bolt struck the car, pitching it into the air and wringing fresh screams from the stampeding fuggles.
Then Jamaal was moving. Not on his own volition. He was too stunned, and his back was too fucked up, to retreat. He was sliding backward across the floor away from the street.
Xander had him by the shoulders and was dragging him as fast as he could. “Cloak us, fucker! Cloak us now!”
Jamaal did it. He threw his juice at it and cloaked hard. Sure, this might later provide a lead for some psionic forensics team, but that no longer mattered.
This was do or die.
The Tiger Mage slammed down out of the sky, crouched in the middle of the street, and released a terrible roar that shook the world.
Cars veered, crashing into storefronts. Up and down the crowded street, tourists screamed.
The Tiger Mage whipped his huge head around, peering into the bar and panting with bloodlust.
Lightning leapt from his outstretched hand, frying drunken stragglers in the adjacent section.
The Tiger Mage turned in Jamaal’s direction and swaggered forward, gripping the awning and dipping his head low to scan the bar. His nostrils flared, sniffing the smoky, scream-filled air. His massive jaws opened wide and bellowed another terrifying roar.
Then Xander dragged Jamaal behind the bar, blocking his view of the Tiger Mage.
A second later, everything was bright light and crackling electricity as the Tiger Mage filled the place with lightning.
30
The elevator neared the surface.
A powerful sense of dread had been brewing in Brawley’s gut. Now, hearing gunshots and shouting above, he understood.
“The guards’ distress call got through,” Brawley told the murmuring inmates. “We’re going to have to fight our way out of here.”
Callie tensed beside him. She half-crouched, pistol at her waist, and her upper lip peeled back, revealing bright white fangs.
“Out of my way!” Remi shouted, fighting her way through the tightly packed car to Brawley’s side. Her parents remained at the back of the pack, shielding Winnie.
“Unlock our collars,” someone blurted.
Brawley waved them off.
The elevator lurched to a stop.
Gunfire was loud and close, just beyond the doors. He brought his telekinetic shield up again.
The silver doors opened onto a nightmarish scene.
Smoke and screaming and gunfire filled the lobby, which looked like it had been struck by a bomb. Charred corpses lay among rubble and shattered glass, everything lit by the crazy, funhouse strobe of open flames.
Brawley switched out the shotgun for the MDR then told Remi and Callie to clear the car and send it back down.
His wives nodded and turned to the terrified inmates. “Move!” Remi shouted. “Get your asses off the car.”
Callie pointed toward a darkened hallway half-blocked by fallen chunks of masonry. “Get back there out of the way.”
Moving forward, Brawley heard Remi behind him calling to her parents, telling them to get Winnie under cover.
At the front of the building, Scars crouched behind what remained of the wall. They leaned into gaping holes in the masonry and fired into the parking lot, where everything was fire and corpses and drifting smoke spangled with muzzle flashes.
A steady hail of bullets pounded the lobby.
That wasn’t the local fuggle fuzz out there.
And it sure as hell didn’t seem like Order agents from Gatlinburg’s rag-tag office.
Something had gone wrong. They were up against one of the Order’s crack units.
Several agents were firing from behind an overturned dump truck that had spilled a heap of filing cabinets and computers.
Nearby crackled a shimmering portal. Agents in black jumpsuits and helmets crouched behind a telekinetic shield at the mouth of the portal, firing into the Chop Shop lobby.
A squad of agents leapt from the bright gateway and spread out with Carnal speed, diving for cover behind the overturned truck and the scorched hulls of numerous vehicles.
Carnals in Kevlar helmets? Those sons of bitches were going to be hard to kill.
The RV was jackknifed halfway across the parking lot. One of the miniguns on that side was twisted into a smoldering ruin. The other swiveled back and forth, blasting the enemy positions, pinning down the agents, who returned fire.
Hundreds of rounds per second sparked off the RV’s bio-plate.
Reaching out, Brawley found the RV’s comm system. “Frankie, get out of here. We’ll call you back when it’s over.”