I feel safe in the Net and in our future.
L. Layton
(Cambridge)
I am breaking squad protocol in stating this, but it needs stating: Aden is not our leader because of his abilities.
He is our leader because he understands each and every member of his squad and pushes us to our very best.
He is our leader because he goes first against every threat, no matter the risk.
He is our leader because we know that should we fall in battle, he will not leave us behind. He understands the code of soldiers as the Council never did.
He is our leader because he has never forgotten that he is an Arrow. He may sit on the Ruling Coalition, but he is no politician and he is no Councilor. He is an Arrow and he will always be an Arrow.
A member of the Arrow Squad
(Location Error: Unable to Be Determined)
Chapter 72
KRYCHEK HAD TELEPORTED the captured snipers into a solid concrete bunker for which he'd sent Vasic the teleport visual. Aden's best friend telepathed him from the valley, a location so distant that Vasic normally wouldn't have the range. Those experiments we did didn't prepare me for this.
I only really needed you and Zaira, Aden said, having realized that after the fact. The mirror has matured, needs less fuel.
I don't think the others will complain. Vasic appeared beside him in a quiet corner of the park, Aden and Zaira having finally extricated themselves from the astonished and grateful civilians. "Cris's and Axl's telepathic ranges have also expanded significantly, while Amin just teleported home."
That was a surprise. Amin's Tk was a bare 3 on the Gradient--his primary ability was a variant form of telepathy. "Make sure they all monitor their energy levels. I don't think the rebound effect will be simple tiredness this time." Always before, anyone he'd drawn from had experienced tiredness after the boost faded, but he'd never drawn this much power or fed such a tremendous amount back.
"No," Vasic agreed. "We're all going to crash, but judging from past experiments, we should have three or four hours at least."
That risk was why Aden was so careful about when and how he used the mirror. He always had to consider the future effect--the squad couldn't afford to have six of its senior Arrows out of commission or dangerously tired at the same time. "See if you can do some quiet shuffling of duties so that when the crash hits, people are less likely to notice."
"Amin's due for a break anyway," Vasic said, already making notes on an organizer. "I'll roster him and Cris off, since she's been going nonstop for the past month. Everyone expects you and Zaira to rest together now, so that only leaves Axl and me, and Axl has a habit of disappearing into the Net. No one will comment if he does it again, and I can just say I'm going to be with Samuel Rain for the duration and out of touch while he tries an experimental prosthetic."
"Good." Turning to Zaira, her hand still locked in his and her eyes ink black, Aden ignored any watchers and drew her into a kiss, needing her on a level he'd never needed anyone else. "You're okay?"
"Deliciously power drunk but my mind is clear." She rubbed her cheek against his, his private and deadly commander who'd just allowed him to make a public claim that allowed no room for interpretation. "We'll talk more later. Go do what you need to do. I'll take care of things here."
Leaving her to head the team sweeping through the high-rises used by the snipers in search of dead or injured shooters Kaleb may have missed in his initial search, Aden went with Vasic. Once at the bunker, he found two of the snipers were uninjured except for a scratch on one, while a third had a tourniquet around his upper arm that had been inexpertly tied.
A body lay in the corner.
When Aden looked at Krychek, the cardinal Tk said, "He suicided rather than cooperate. His brethren are far more pragmatic."
One of the snipers snorted, his white skin bearing a raw red scrape on one cheek, possibly from when he'd jerked out of the way to avoid a bullet. "It was a contract job. No way I'm going down for it. Ask me what you want to know."
The two other snipers weren't as chatty, but seemed cooperative enough.
"When were you told to move?" Aden asked.
All three stated they'd been contracted two days earlier and instructed to wait in Manhattan for further directions. The men had initially been told the hit would likely take place near the Shine building, and as a result, all three had spent the time scoping out the best lines of sight toward Shine.
"Then the order comes that we have to hit you in the park," stated the sniper who had a spiderweb tattoo on his left hand, the blue-black ink dark against his light brown skin. "I had to haul ass, get myself in position. Ended up having to incapacitate a tenant, when I prefer to find sites without witnesses."
His own telepathic reach enormous right now, Aden let Zaira know to search for bound or injured inhabitants of the buildings the snipers had used. "Were you told to work together?"
"No," said the man with the tourniquet around his upper arm, his features echoing Aden's own ethnic makeup. "At least I wasn't--but today, when I got the order to move, it said others would also be gunning for you and I was to ignore it and follow the mission parameters."
The other two snipers confirmed his story.
Despite the fact that the shooters had initially been directed at Shine, Aden was certain Devraj Santos had no involvement in the assassination attempts. The more likely scenario was that someone had been watching Aden, keeping track of his movements. While he'd been careful, he'd never hidden his visits to talk to Santos and it was the one location where the enemy could be certain to locate him.
It meant the enemy might not in fact have a base in New York.
"Who hired you?" Krychek asked as Aden processed both the patient nature of the setup, and the implications in terms of the money involved. Keeping so many snipers on the payroll and idle for two days wouldn't have been cheap.
Whoever this was--individual or group--they had significant cash flow.
"All anonymous, via wire transfers," said the most talkative assassin. "Same as usual. Only difference is I had to wait for their signal and be in Manhattan." Another shrug. "Got paid to wait so why the fuck not?"
"Was I the only target or were there others?" Aden asked.
Counting the dead and the badly injured one Zaira had just located, the count was at seven snipers overall so far. Too many even for an Arrow.
"I was paid for you," said the tattooed sniper, "but they paid extra if I'd agree to do as much collateral damage as possible."
The other two said the same, admitted they'd been told to aim specifically for families and children. It confirmed Aden's suspicions on the motive behind the public attacks: to create panic and fear when the world had just barely begun to recover from the horrors of the infection, as well as the civil war in the Net.
"You are threats." The chill in Kaleb's eyes communicated itself to the snipers, who all went deathly still. "You also have no viable data. We have no reason to keep you alive."
The three men were silent for a moment, no doubt calculating odds and percentages, as snipers were trained to do.
One or more of these men could be part of the larger organization, Aden said to both Vasic and Kaleb. The only way to know for certain will be to tear through their minds.
Two are Psy, Krychek responded. I've tested their shields and they're solid--I can break them, of course, but there's a high chance I'll kill them in the process. The one so eager to speak is a changeling, with their impressive natural shielding.
Which meant that breaking his shields would most probably cause brain damage or death. Aden had no compunction meting out harsh treatment to men who made their living killing others, especially ones who'd admitted they would've murdered children, but smashing shields often produced only limited data. Better to see if they could break them down first.
"You can have the numbers of my bank accounts," one of the snipers said into the silence. "Trace the money back to where i
t came from."
Which would very likely be an anonymous account, Aden thought. However, it provided another avenue of investigation. He took the information the men rattled off, passed it on to Tamar.
Further questioning revealed nothing, and, as expected, the Psy snipers balked at being asked to voluntarily lower their shields.
At which point, Kaleb teleported out, as did Aden and Vasic, leaving the three men in a featureless underground bunker none could escape. The two Psy weren't telekinetics--while Kaleb and Aden questioned the snipers, Vasic had traced their identities using DNA scans, found one was a low-level telepath, the other a midlevel psychometric.
So far below the earth, their basic telepathy wouldn't work, but Aden had deliberately left their minds unfettered on the PsyNet in an apparent oversight, though in truth, he'd already assigned two Arrows to monitor any PsyNet activity. It was also why he and Kaleb hadn't revisited the idea of smashing their shields. He wanted to see who the men would attempt to reach and whether they had direct access to those behind the conspiracy.
His gut told him the chance of that was low; these men would now be discarded as Hashri Smith had been. Pawns, all of them. "Whoever is running this conspiracy is cold-blooded but it appears they have nothing against using fanatics," he said to Krychek as he, the cardinal, and Vasic stood on the cliff overlooking the valley.
The sniper who had suicided had traced back to Pure Psy. Not such a huge surprise. Because while the squad and Krychek's forces had picked up or eliminated all the major players, there were a scattering of minor ones floating around.
Kaleb looked down at the valley. "The dregs of Pure Psy are just fodder. They're rootless, looking for someone to tell them what to do. Easy pickings."
Vasic stepped right to the cliff edge. "I think it's now undeniable that we're not looking for an individual but a group. There's too much coordination, too many worldwide events, and their data spans all three races."
Which meant that to cut this off at the root, they'd first have to find all the branches.
*
KALEB had known for some time that Aden was no medic. Or not just a medic--because the Arrow was fully trained and capable as a field medic. But what he'd seen today was incomprehensible. "According to the data I hacked, all his tests come back to a 4.3 telepath and 3.2 M," he said to Sahara when he returned to Moscow.
"I can't work out how he created that reflective shield." Kaleb could deflect bullets and missiles, but not return them to their locations with the precision Aden had displayed unless he was focusing specifically on a particular shot.
"It really looked like a mirror in the recordings." Sahara smoothed his iron gray tie, Kaleb having been in a meeting with Jen Liu when Zaira Neve contacted him. He'd teleported out without explanation, conscious Zaira would never telepath him unless it was a major emergency. Factoring in the possibility the Arrows might be under attack and he could end up being unable to avoid a bullet if he teleported in too close, he hadn't locked in on their faces but made the call to come in near the park around which he knew the two were running a security check.
As it was, he hadn't needed to speak to them to figure out what was going on. "How did he do it?" he said. Moving back from Sahara, he tossed her several small items from his desk, including a piece of lapis lazuli she must've been playing with absently as she worked on a report requested by the Es. "Throw them at me at the same time."
She rolled her eyes but did as asked. Kaleb had no problem freezing the objects in the air, but he couldn't reverse their trajectories all at once on their original flight paths--the objects all arrowed toward a central point. "He must be a telekinetic of some kind." Except Tks could never keep their abilities under wraps--telekinesis had a way of making itself felt, especially telekinesis that vicious.
Plucking the items from the air, her bracelet making a gentle sound as the charms swung against one another, Sahara put them back on the desk. "Does it matter if you know the details?"
When he just looked at her, she laughed. "Right, of course it matters. You like to know everything."
"I like to know the variables in play--and all possible threats." He'd never disregarded Aden as others had; instead of basing his calculations about Aden's level of power only on the Arrow's official strength, Kaleb had considered the deep loyalty Aden seemed to engender in his men and women. The events today made it clear even that might have been an underestimation. "Aden could be a significant problem."
"He's focused on his own people," Sahara reminded him, tugging him into the kitchen. "I have a feeling even if you handed him control of the PsyNet on a silver platter, he wouldn't take it."
"The irony is that if I had to hand off power for whatever reason, he's the only one of the Ruling Coalition I'd trust to take the Net in the right direction." Like the empaths, Aden had a core of honor that Kaleb had never developed.
Making a nutrient drink, Sahara passed it to him. "I would've thought you'd say Ivy."
"Ivy Jane is an empath," he said after drinking down half a glass. "She skews too much toward emotion." Whereas Aden understood that the Net couldn't totally discard the emotional discipline that had held it together for more than a hundred years.
Sahara nodded slowly. "Anthony?"
"He's connected to Nikita." While Kaleb could work with Nikita, he'd never trust her. "I can't predict how that connection will alter his viewpoints."
"I don't know." Sahara leaned with her elbows on the counter. "I have a feeling if change is to happen, it'll occur in the other direction--Anthony Kyriakus does not budge from where he stands."
"Neither," Kaleb pointed out, "does Nikita Duncan."
"Immovable force meets irresistible object?" Her eyes sparkled. "I wish I could be a fly on that wall."
"Perhaps I'll 'port us there in the depths of the night." Finishing off the drink as Sahara laughed, he put down the glass and decided that he didn't need to eliminate Aden from the equation. Sahara was right--the Arrow didn't want to rule the world. He wanted only to make it safer for those under his command.
That was a goal Kaleb could understand and appreciate. Walking around the counter, he drew Sahara into his arms and took her laughing mouth with his own in a kiss that held his devotion. The drive to protect that which mattered was the core of everything--without it, he would be a nightmare and the Arrows pure darkness.
Chapter 73
THE CONSCIOUSLY DRAMATIC and bloody massacre had been meant to be a public declaration of the squad's weakness, one that would spread fear throughout the world, for if the bogeymen of the Net weren't safe, who was? But it had ended up a confirmation of Aden's--thus the squad's--power.
The catastrophic failure eliminated the group's success with the Nikita Duncan strike. The world had already forgotten that in the face of Aden Kai's impossible display. The only way to salvage anything from the situation was to kill him once and for all. No theatrics, no public spectacle, just a simple hit that proved the squad's mortality.
If he'd been a valuable target before, he was even more so now: take down a man of such immense power and the shock wave would shatter the foundations of the world. And in the meantime, they'd go after his people. Not as much impact to kill an unknown Arrow, but kill two or three, and suddenly, the world would take notice.
Chapter 74
THE CRASH HAPPENED exactly five hours after Aden had used the mirror. Because of Vasic's groundwork, it went like clockwork. For Aden and Zaira the crash coincided with the time of their normal sleep shift, so they just locked the cabin door and, stripping off, fell into bed, their minds and abilities shutting down.
Nerida and Yuri, who Aden trusted deeply and who he'd intended to tell about the mirror in any case, knew what was up and to cover for the six who were down. As it was, all was calm until seven hours later, by which time he and Zaira had come naturally awake.
"Six-and-a-half-hour recovery period," Zaira said on waking, her eyes still drowsy. "Makes you a lethal threat, Aden Kai."
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Stretching out his arm, he placed his palm on her abdomen as she stretched. "Your telepathy?"
A disappointed look. "Back to normal. So if you ever turbocharged an army, you'd have supersoldiers for five hours. Hmm . . . that's still not bad. Especially if you only turboed half, leaving the other half to cover for the six and a half hours until you woke back up and could restart the cycle."
Aden raised an eyebrow as he stroked his hand up to her rib cage. "Who are we invading?"
"I like to plan ahead." Zaira was raising her hand to his cheek when her phone went off. Answering it, she jerked up into a sitting position. "Persephone is alive," she said after a short, intense conversation. "Miane says another e-mail just downloaded into Olivia's account."
A psychic knock came on Aden's mind right then, the squad's tech surveillance team having seen the same message.
Having sat up, he curled his arm around Zaira as she brought up that message. It was another image of the forlorn and scared little girl; once again she held a printout of the latest Beacon update to verify time and date--and once again, her face was obscured enough to make it impossible to 'port directly to her.
The message below was cold: Do not attempt to track the child. Do it and we will cut her into small pieces which we will send to you by mail. Any rescue attempt or perceived attempt by BlackSea will equal her death.
Jawbones grinding against one another, he put Zaira's phone on the small table she'd brought from her Venice room and that now sat to one side of their bed. "They don't know we're working with BlackSea."
"Exactly." Rage vibrated in her own voice, but it was frigid. "Miane's people can't risk being caught--they'll continue to work behind the scenes in the search to find Persephone and the other missing members of their pack, but they need our help for live actions." She turned to face him. "I don't have any other pressing mission briefs. I want to focus on this."
Aden didn't even have to think about it. "Do it," he said, not only because no child should have to suffer such hell, but because Zaira needed to save this one child as she hadn't been able to save herself. "Use whatever resources you need."
Hands fisted, Zaira gave a small, frustrated scream. "The thing is--I don't know where to go," she said, her voice taut. "None of my search bots on the PsyNet or Internet have turned up anything."