“We’ve got an emergency,” Kahlee said as she burst into the guard station closest to the security clearance room, slightly out of breath from running the entire way.
“Three of you come with me. The other two go alert the other guard stations and put the whole Academy on stage-four lockdown.”
Hendel Mitra, the former security chief at the Grissom Academy, had been a close personal friend of Kahlee’s. His successor, Captain Ellen Jimenez, was a capable replacement, but Kahlee and she had never formed the same close, personal bond. Fortunately, she still respected Kahlee enough not to question her when she burst into the guard station and started barking out orders to the staff.
“Jackson and M’gabi,” the new security chief said, nodding at two of her people, “go warn the others. Seal off this wing—nobody gets in or out.”
Turning to Kahlee she said, “Lead the way.”
The fact that Jimenez had been on duty was pure coincidence. Racing down the hall toward the Ascension wing, Kahlee couldn’t help but wonder if the other security personnel would have been as quick to listen to her if they hadn’t seen their supervisor so easily falling into step.
We’re going to need a few more lucky breaks if we want to get out of this alive, Kahlee thought.
“What’s going on?” Jimenez asked as she ran beside her.
Not wanting to go into the whole story, Kahlee decided to stick to the details that mattered. “Someone infiltrated the station. We have to evacuate the Ascension Project dorms. Get the children somewhere safe.”
“The cafeteria,” Jimenez suggested. “Get everyone inside, and reinforce the room with as many security personnel as we can spare.”
“Good idea,” Kahlee replied.
When they reached the dorms, they had to split up. There were three separate student halls, plus a fourth for the faculty. Jimenez dispatched her people with the calm, cool efficiency of a true leader.
“Giller, take the far hall. Malkin, the one next to it.”
“Don’t let anyone out of your sight,” Kahlee warned them. “Not even the staff. We’ve already had two casualties.”
She didn’t offer the names, uncertain what effect it might have. To the credit of Jimenez and her staff, they didn’t ask.
“Rendezvous back at the cafeteria,” Jimenez called after the others as they ran off. “The same goes for you,” she said, turning to Kahlee. “Are you armed?”
“Got a knife in my boot.”
Jimenez glanced down at the splints on her fingers.
“Can you fire a pistol with those things?” she asked.
“I doubt it,” Kahlee replied.
Jimenez unclipped the gun from her side and offered it to Kahlee anyway.
“Just in case,” she said before rushing off to start rousing the children from their beds.
Kahlee awkwardly tucked the pistol into her belt, then hurried over to the closest room. She opened the door and flicked on the light to find Nick asleep in his bed. The teenager rolled over and looked at her with the confusion of someone still half asleep.
“Get up, Nick,” she said. “Right now. Hurry.”
“What’s going on?” he mumbled.
“Please, Nick. Just get up and meet me in the hall right away.”
Not waiting for a response, she went to the next door and repeated the process.
Within five minutes she had all sixteen students following her to the cafeteria.
“Miss Sanders,” Nick said, falling into step beside her. “What’s going on?”
He’d pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt after she’d woken him up, but his dark hair was still a tangled, uncombed mess.
“Not in front of the children,” she replied, knowing he’d be less likely to argue if he felt like she was treating him like an adult.
“Gotcha,” he replied, his chest puffing out just a little.
Even in these dire circumstances, Kahlee couldn’t help but let a quick smile slip at his reaction.
They were the third group to arrive in the cafeteria. Jimenez showed up with the fourth a few seconds later.
Everyone was milling about, confused and a little alarmed. Being roused from slumber by armed guards—even guards meant to protect you—was more than a little frightening.
“What do we tell them?” Jimenez wanted to know.
“Listen up!” Kahlee called out, projecting her voice so everyone could hear. “Nobody is allowed to leave this room without permission from me or Captain Jimenez.”
She paused, and there was an instant onslaught of questions, mostly from the other members of the staff. “What’s going on?” … “How long do we have to stay here?” … “Are we in danger?”
Kahlee wasn’t about to tell them the whole story. It would take too long, and they probably wouldn’t believe her anyway. And if they did believe her, it might cause panic.
“It’s possible we have an abduction scenario in progress,” she continued, shouting to be heard above everyone else. “We haven’t confirmed that yet, but we’re not taking any chances.”
The threat of a student being kidnapped was something everyone in the room could easily accept and understand. Every child at the Grissom Academy was special in some way. In addition to the biotics of the Ascension Project, the school had a high proportion of academic geniuses and artistic prodigies, as well as a large number of children with parents rich and influential enough to get their offspring onto the enrollment list of the best school in Alliance space.
“We have security forces clearing this wing, but until they’re done you all have to stay here where it’s safe,” Kahlee continued. “You might be here all night, so try to get comfortable.”
As she spoke, Jimenez glanced over at her with a curious look. The security captain wasn’t buying the story, not completely. She knew her people weren’t scouring the halls looking for an unauthorized intruder.
Kahlee considered pulling her aside and asking for her help in tracking down Grayson. But more armed guards in the cafeteria meant a better chance of keeping the children safe. And she was still clinging to the hope there might be some way to end this without further bloodshed. She was convinced some part of Grayson was still alive inside him; if she could get through to him, she could get him to surrender so they could try to help him. If Jimenez joined the hunt for Grayson, however, it would almost certainly end with either Jimenez’s death or his.
“I have to go,” Kahlee told her. “Make sure nobody leaves until I give you the all-clear.”
It was obvious Jimenez wanted to say something, but she just bit her lip and nodded in acknowledgment.
“I better go with you,” a voice behind her said, the manly timbre cracking on the last word.
Kahlee turned to find Nick standing there.
“I’m the strongest biotic at the school,” he reminded her. “I can help you stop these kidnappers.”
“I need you to stay here with Captain Jimenez,” Kahlee told him. “Keeping the children safe is the most important thing.”
“I’m not stupid,” Nick told her. “You’re just saying that so I won’t feel bad you’re leaving me behind.”
“She’s leaving me behind, too,” Jimenez reminded him.
“Whatever,” Nick replied, turning away from them and trudging off to disappear into the crowd.
“He has a point,” Jimenez noted once he was gone. “Whatever’s going on, you shouldn’t be heading out there without backup.”
“I’ll manage,” Kahlee assured her, slipping out the cafeteria door to avoid further argument.
A second later she heard Jimenez barking out orders.
“Come on, everyone. Don’t all crowd around the doors. Find somewhere to sit and we’ll bring drinks around to the tables.”
Satisfied the cafeteria was in good hands, Kahlee set off at a brisk jog, heading in the direction of the data archives.
The station was on an Earth-standard day/night cycle, meaning the offices that Anderson passed were al
l dark. The overhead illumination in the halls had been dimmed to conserve energy while most of the people on board were sleeping.
On reaching the entrance to the Ascension wing, he’d studied the map long enough to commit it to memory. Then he began to make a slow, cautious trek toward the data archives.
Time was of the essence, but he knew carelessness and impatience had killed more soldiers than any other enemy. Even though his enviro-suit was equipped with kinetic barriers, he had no intention of walking into an ambush. He hugged the walls as he went, hiding in the shadows. He poked his head around every corner, warily scanning the halls for signs of the man he was hunting.
At one point he heard the sound of distant gunfire—three quick shots from a pistol—and he froze. It was impossible to tell exactly, but the sound seemed to have come from the direction he was heading. There were no further shots, so Anderson continued his methodical progress. Whatever encounter had triggered the shots was obviously over; there was no sense recklessly charging in now and possibly getting himself killed.
After several minutes he finally reached the hall leading to the main research lab where the data archives were stored. As he peeked around the corner, he saw something lying on the floor right in front of the lab’s sealed door.
He ducked back quickly on instinct, then paused while his mind processed the memory of the image. It looked like a bundle of clothes, or maybe a blanket. He couldn’t imagine how it had come to be there, but it didn’t seem to pose any threat.
Creeping into the hall, he approached the lab’s door with his shotgun at the ready. As he drew nearer he was able to confirm it was a blanket on the floor; he could see that it was stained with blood. An image of a child getting up in the night to wander the halls and stumbling across Grayson forced its way into his consciousness, and he struggled to push it aside.
He hit the panel on the wall and the door slid open with a soft whoosh. Anderson wheeled into the doorway, ready to fire. But what he saw in the lab didn’t prompt him to pull the trigger. Three bodies lay on the floor, each shot once between the eyes—a clear explanation for the pistol fire he’d heard earlier.
The adrenaline was pumping through his system; his senses were hyperalert, and he could hear the sound of his own breath inside his helmet. Grayson had to be close. If he wasn’t in the lab, there was only one other place he could be.
With the shotgun pressed tight against his shoulder, Anderson carefully approached the door at the back of the lab. It was closed, but the green light glowing on the nearby wall panel indicated it was unlocked. He pressed himself against the wall just beside the door, took a deep breath to steel himself, then hit the panel.
Grayson was standing inside the room only a few meters away from Anderson, intently focused on the display screens of the room’s lone terminal. He was so absorbed in whatever he was looking at that he didn’t even seem to notice the man now standing in the doorway with a shotgun aimed directly at him.
Up close, Anderson was shocked to see how invasive the Reaper cybernetics had become. Even through his visor it was clear the thing before him could no longer be considered a fellow human being. Despite this, Kahlee probably would have given him a chance to surrender. Anderson felt no such compulsion.
All this flashed through his head in the fraction of a second that it took for him to squeeze the trigger. He aimed at his target’s center of mass to inflict maximum damage. At point-blank range the projectiles mushrooming out from the shotgun’s barrel maintained a tight dispersal pattern; the blast took Grayson square in the side of his torso. The impact spun him around and sent him sprawling face-first onto the floor.
Without a combat suit or kinetic barriers to protect him, the damage to Grayson’s internal organs was almost sure to be instantly lethal, but Anderson wasn’t taking any chances. He stepped forward as he prepared to fire again, only to be suddenly lifted off his feet and tossed back through the open door to crash against the computer terminals in the lab. He fell in a crumpled heap to the floor, stunned but not seriously injured.
It took him a second to recover from the biotic attack, enough time for Grayson to rise to his feet. His right side had been reduced to hamburger; blood was oozing from a hundred tiny holes in his torn flesh. But somehow he was still going.
From his prone position Anderson fired again, taking aim at his enemy’s head. Grayson dodged out of the way by throwing himself awkwardly to the floor. Then he scrambled back to his feet, yanking a pair of pistols from his belt.
He was still quick, but he didn’t have the unfathomable speed Anderson had witnessed during the ambush at the warehouse on Omega. In the time it took him to get up and draw his weapons, Anderson was able to roll into cover behind the edge of the lab’s massive computer console.
Grayson fired the pistols several times, keeping Anderson pinned down. And then Anderson was rocked again by another biotic attack. This time instead of a simple push to send him reeling, his enemy created a series of microscopic, rapidly shifting mass effect fields that completely surrounded him. They flickered in and out of existence, subtly warping the very fabric of the space-time continuum. The powerful push and pull of the opposing forces tore at his flesh, causing him to scream in pain.
It felt like he was being ripped apart at the subatomic level. Anderson knew if he didn’t get out of the shifting fields, they’d cause all the cells in his body to hemorrhage and rupture.
Ignoring the pain, he popped up from behind cover and fired off several rounds with the shotgun. Grayson fired back with the pistols as he dove for cover. The kinetic barriers in Anderson’s enviro-suit shielded him from the opposing fire, allowing him to fall back into the hall.
He backpedaled quickly, putting some space between himself and the door, then dropped to one knee and took aim at the opening, waiting for the enemy to emerge once more.
Grayson could feel his heart fluttering erratically. His lungs were drowning in blood from his wounds. He knew the only things keeping him alive were the cybernetic implants and the irresistible will of the Reapers.
He thought the wounds might cause their hold on him to slip, but if anything they were holding on even tighter. Try as he might, he could find no purchase in his efforts to wrest back control of his body. It was like grasping at thin air; there was nothing left for him to seize onto.
The Reapers knew their enemy was lurking just outside the door. Another well-placed hit from the shotgun and even the synthetic elements of their avatar might begin to fail. So rather than step out into the hall, they waited, gathering their strength for one last attack.
TWENTY-FIVE
Nick couldn’t get comfortable in his seat. He kept casting glances over at the cafeteria door, where Captain Jimenez stood watch.
He’d seen the gun in Miss Sanders’s belt, but her fingers were all bandaged up. There was no way she’d be able to use it. What was she going to do if she ran into the kidnappers? She wasn’t even biotic.
Focusing on the glass on the table in front of him, Nick briefly gathered his strength, then caused the glass to slide across the surface toward him. He caught it with his hand just as it was about to topple off the table’s edge.
I could yank the guns right out of the kidnapper’s hands. Send them flying back to smash against the wall. But they want me to sit here like I’m some kind of kid!
He glanced over at Yando, who was sitting beside him. The younger boy was staring at him with wide eyes.
“You’re not supposed to do that,” he whispered.
Nick knew he was referring to the trick with the glass. The instructors would have called it a “gratuitous display” of biotic ability, something that was frowned on in the Ascension Project. They didn’t want kids to push themselves too far by experimenting on their own. But for Nick, moving a glass was easy. He’d been using biotics for years. He knew what he was capable of, even if nobody else believed in him.
“Hey, Yando,” he said, getting a sudden flash of inspiration. “I n
eed your help.”
“With what?” The younger boy was suspicious. He was always worried about getting in trouble, but in the end Nick knew Yando would do whatever he told him to.
“I need you to go up to Captain Jimenez and tell her you’ve gotta use the bathroom.”
“The bathroom’s right over there,” Yando said, pointing to the rear of the cafeteria.
“I know. Just tell her you gotta go, but you’re scared. Tell her she has to come with you.”
“She’s a girl! She can’t come into the boys’ washroom!”
Nick gave an exasperated sigh.
“She’s a security guard. She can go wherever she wants. Let me finish.”
“Sorry,” Yando muttered.
“Go inside the bathroom and count to ten. Then start crying and screaming like you’re freaking out.”
“What? No way! Everyone will make fun of me for being a baby!”
“I won’t let them,” Nick assured him. “You know I’ve got your back.”
It was true; Nick had been watching out for Yando ever since he got here. But the younger boy still wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Come on, buddy. I need you to do this. It’s important.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“I can’t tell you,” Nick said. “That way, if I get caught you won’t get in trouble.”
Yando thought about it, shaking his head slowly back and forth. But when he spoke, he didn’t say no.
“Okay. I’ll go tell her.”
“Attaboy,” Nick told him. “I knew I could count on you.”
Nick turned in his seat to watch the action as Yando got up and crossed the cafeteria to speak with Captain Jimenez.
He was too far away to hear them talking, but he could see Yando shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, just like he had to pee and was fighting to hold it in.
For a minute he thought Captain Jimenez was going to refuse or maybe send him with someone else. Then she took a quick glance around and took Yando’s hand, leading him off to the restroom.