“I can probably get you much of that by this evening,” Victoria answered, already tapping rapidly on her communicator.
Hesitating, I debated voicing the thought that kept echoing through my mind. After a long pause, I decided that it was time to be a team player.
“You do know I’m not the best person for this job, right?” I asked quietly. “I mean, I want the opportunity to prove myself to the council, and I really appreciate you giving me that chance. It’s just, there are countless people within UNITED who would be more capable of figuring this all out. One of your brains is definitely better suited.”
Victoria averted her gaze, waging an internal debate.
“This is strictly need-to-know,” she finally said. “We have leaks within UNITED. A lot of them, it seems. Classified internal information has been appearing online, and we have no idea how it’s getting out.” Though Victoria started to say something else, she must have thought better of it at the last instant, and clamped her lips shut.
Curious, I thought, probing Victoria’s mind to test her resistance. Apparently she’d been expecting the attempt, because her mental barriers were firmly in place. Naturally, this only made me more interested in finding out what she was holding back.
“Spies?” I suggested.
“Oh, we definitely have spies. But we know who most of them are.”
“And you let them stay?” I asked, confused.
“Keep your enemies close,” Victoria replied, with the faintest trace of a smile. “We just don’t let them anywhere near the truly confidential data. Those that we’ve tagged as spies don’t have access to the files that have been disseminated online. One item in particular that showed up isn’t even available to all of the councilmembers.”
“So if it’s not someone on the inside, maybe hackers are getting in to the UNITED data system? Someone did breach my communicator during the auction,” I reminded her. In London, when my team and I infiltrated the Poachers’ auction to rescue Kenly, someone had been sending creepy messages to my UNITED-issued communicator.
The source had been listed as “Unknown”—something that shouldn’t have been possible on the UNITED comm system—but I was pretty sure I knew who’d messaged me: Ernest Tate, a former acquaintance of mine from the McDonough School. What I didn’t know was why, much less how he’d been able to access the UNITED frequencies. The last time I’d seen Ernest before the auction, he was a drooling mess that needed help sitting up. The man at the auction house had been walking, talking, and bidding on Created. That whole situation was a mystery I very much wanted to solve.
“Yes, but the person who messaged you during the auction left a digital footprint,” Victoria reasoned. “It merely lead to a comm line that was only used during the auction, but the cryptos were able to locate the source. With these data leaks, we cannot find any trace of someone infiltrating the UNITED networks.”
“You mean Ernest,” I interjected. “Henri saw him there. I saw him there. It was Ernest Tate. He was the one sending me messages at the auction.”
Victoria sighed. This was not the first time I’d pushed the subject, and she was clearly wary to start back down this particular path.
“Talia, I looked into it after the auction. UNITED’s cryptos recovered TOXIC’s records of your psychic interrogation session with Mr. Tate; his mind was blank when you were finished. He is literally comatose, lacking all brain functions.” Victoria put her hand up to halt my forthcoming protests. “I do not know where Mr. Tate ended up, or if he is even still alive, but, by your own account, the man you knew as Ernest Tate no longer exists.”
I looked down at my hands, feeling immensely guilty. Everything she’d said was true, and it was all my fault. While searching through his head for information about a spy within TOXIC, I had inadvertently wiped Ernest’s mind, stolen his memories, and left him a vegetable.
“Memory re-implantation is possible,” I said quietly.
“Possible,” Victoria agreed with a nod. “But unless there is something you’re not telling me, it is highly unlikely in this case. Re-implantation has only been successful when the person who originally wiped the memories restores them. Even then, I’ve only heard of a single case in which it worked, back in the alpha generation. Did you happen to do that?”
“No,” I confirmed.
“I thought as much.” Victoria clasped her hands in her lap. “I have considered that the man you saw in London—someone who looks like Ernest Tate—is the source of our current leaks, since he was able to infiltrate UNITED’s comm system. However, our cryptos have found no breaches to the data system. Very few hackers in the world are proficient enough to access it at all, let alone do so without leaving any evidence of the intrusion.”
“Aliens,” I decided. “Alien technology far surpasses our own. Those big-headed green guys could definitely get in and out without leaving a trace.”
Victoria sighed impatiently. “We were not hacked by aliens, Talia. Aliens did not abduct the French farmer. No government on this planet has evidence to prove that aliens even exist. And before you suggest it, an alien did not attack Erik.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, I had to stifle a giggle at her exasperation. Though I considered pushing the subject, again purely for my own amusement, Yocum caught my eye and gave a discreet shake of his head, as if to say “Stop antagonizing the woman who holds the keys to your freedom.”
He knew me so well.
“The fact is, we do not know how the information is getting out,” Victoria continued. “Therefore, until we discover the source of the leaks, only trusted, vetted individuals are being given access to classified intel. That is why I have brought this to you, instead of handing it off to the cryptos.”
“You think a bovine theft warrants top-level security?” Yocum interjected, raising his brows. My guard had been silent up to this point, but seemed unable to contain the comment any longer. Realizing he’d stepped out of line, Yocum quickly added, “Ma’am.”
“More importantly,” I said, dismissing his question with a wave of my hand, “the council considers me a trusted individual? If so, it’s high time they let me out of this cell.”
“I consider you a trusted individual. The council considers you to be disobedient, impulsive, and impossible to control,” Victoria stated flatly.
“That’s so sweet. I knew you liked me, I just knew it,” I quipped.
“Nonetheless, you have been incarcerated for the past month with no access to the comm system, data systems, or the web,” Victoria replied, pointedly ignoring my comment. “It is simply impossible for you to be the source of our leaks.”
I glanced guiltily at Yocum’s communicator hidden beneath my thigh.
Victoria paused before continuing, drawing in her breath for so long that it felt as though she’d swallowed all of the oxygen in the room.
“I will be honest with you, Talia,” she said finally. “The other council members need to see you as more than a liability. Not at some point in the future, but right now. With everything going on, it is absolutely imperative for you to show them that UNITED needs you. Solving this problem for us will ensure your….” Victoria hesitated, as though searching for the right word. “Freedom,” she finally finished.
Goosebumps peppered my skin as I considered the other ways Victoria might have finished that sentence. Because there was no doubt in my mind that “freedom” wasn’t what she’d been thinking.
A knock on the cell door abruptly cut off our conversation, just as my mind filled with questions for Victoria. Something was up. I didn’t know what, but there was definitely something.
The door slid open and a painfully thin woman, just slightly older than me, entered my cell. Her emerald eyes had lost some of their luster over the past month, and her jet-black hair grew duller by the day. Still, Anya Pritcher was beautiful by anyone’s standards.
“Councilwoman Walburton, I apologize—I didn’t know you’d be here. I can come back la
ter, if you like,” Anya offered.
“No need, Dr. Pritcher, I was just leaving,” Victoria replied easily. “It is important for the prisoners to receive their injections as scheduled.”
Anya nodded, then walked over to the meal table and placed a compact metal case on the small surface. She pressed a finger to the keypad, waited a beat for her identity to be verified, and began removing vials of clear liquid.
UNITED gave all of the prisoners on Vault a daily dose of the suppression drug—a chemical cocktail meant to subdue our talents, making us prisoners less dangerous and easier to control. Along with my lunch each day, I received an injection, sort of like the worst side dish ever.
In my case, the injection was all for show, since I still had access to my abilities. But only three people were aware of this: Victoria, Anya, and Yocum. Despite the fact it was against every rule UNITED had for Vault, they were all complacent in allowing me to keep my talents, since none of them reported the issue.
Victoria was under the impression that I was somehow immune to the suppression drug. The reason she’d kept mum, and ordered Yocum’s silence, was because she liked being able to pass mental messages to me. It was the only way for her to keep me apprised of what was going on in the outside world, and the only way for us to communicate without being watched or overheard.
Anya, however, knew for a fact that I was not immune to the drug.
Like me, Anya was a former TOXIC operative. She’d worked in their medical research department, and had been the one to discover that TOXIC’s doctors were injecting me with the exact same suppression drug used on Vault. Anya had also been the one to uncover the reason behind those injections—Danbury McDonough, former TOXIC Director, had not wanted me to know that I’d been infected with the creation drug through a blood transfusion. No one even knew about the creation drug at that point; it was still a clandestine experiment that was being carried out in top-secret research facilities, using orphans and runaways as test subjects. Because of this, Mac had ordered my created abilities suppressed to keep the secret.
Since we were both fully aware that I wasn’t immune to the suppression drug, it was a safe bet that she’d been swapping the real deal for sugar water or something equally benign.
Ever since we’d rescued Anya from the Poachers, she’d been incredibly nice to me, even requesting placement on Vault, which was not a place most doctors wanted to work. All of the prisoners were assigned a doctor, who was in charge of administering injections and overseeing the health of the incarcerated. As luck would have it, I’d been assigned to Anya.
This, of course, was not a fact I’d shared with Victoria. Anya didn’t deserve sanctions on my account, especially not when she was trying to show me kindness in the only manner at her disposal.
“Talia, I will see you tomorrow morning,” Victoria continued, standing from her seat on my bed. She stretched her back discreetly, giving my thin mattress an annoyed look. Then, glancing at the papers I was gathering up, she added, “I will have the cryptos see about obtaining those police interviews and reports for you.”
Placing two fingers above my brow, I saluted the councilwoman. Returning my attention to stacking the scattered papers of the file, a note I’d made on one of the pages caught my eye.
“Oh, Victoria? There is something I wanted to ask you about,” I called after her.
Pausing in front of the door, Victoria glanced over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“I meant to mention it earlier, but the stuff about Erik’s attack has me all distracted. Selby Masterson—does that name mean anything to you?”
Glass vials clattered and broke over in the corner of the room. My gaze shot towards Anya. Hands trembling, she fumbled to right the bottles. Several had cracked, and one was oozing its magenta contents all over my meal table.
“I am so clumsy,” Anya mumbled, hurrying to clean the mess with a sterile towel from her case.
I eyed the doctor sympathetically, not fooled by her claims of clumsiness; my mention of Erik and the attack had clearly rattled her.
Before me, Anya had been Erik’s girlfriend. While their relationship was never all that serious, they had once cared for each other. They still did, just not in quite the same way.
“Erik’s going to be fine, Anya,” I reassured her kindly.
She turned, the wet towel in one hand. “Hmmm?”
“I was just briefing Talia on Agent Kelley’s condition,” Victoria spoke up. “It appears his injuries are very minor, and the doctors anticipate a quick recovery.”
Anya paled, a feat I’d have thought impossible given her already milky complexion. “I am so glad to hear it. I saw the urgent update on my comm earlier, and I was so worried.” She hesitated, casting her uncertain gaze towards the floor before meeting Victoria’s eyes. “If I may ask, have there been any new developments on the identity of the attacker? Or information about the group they work for?”
Victoria’s golden stare raked Anya from head to toe, slight annoyance showing in her pursed lips. “Not at this time,” she replied brusquely. The councilwoman turned back to me. “Selby Masterson, did you say? The name is not familiar. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “It’s just, I swear I’ve read the name before. Just thought you might know who she is, or maybe where I would’ve heard of her.”
“As far as I’m aware, Ms. Masterson is not currently affiliated with UNITED,” Victoria said, taking her communicator from her pocket. “I do not have our employee roster memorized, but I do recognize most of our operative names.”
Her thumbs tapped rapidly on the screen for several moments, then Victoria shook her head resolutely.
“Selby Masterson is not in our operative database,” she confirmed. A thoughtful expression overtook her patrician features. “Since she is not UNITED, perhaps you saw the name, or maybe heard it, during your time with the Hunters?”
I shrugged. “Not that I can recall.”
“I will have someone run a search through TOXIC’s records, or what few of them we have been able to recover.” Victoria returned her gaze to Anya. “Dr. Pritcher? Do you recognize the name Selby Masterson?”
Anya was still cleaning the spilled chemicals and broken glass, but stiffened at Victoria’s question. With trembling fingers, she folded the last shards of glass in the towel and smiled nervously over her shoulder at the councilwoman.
Funny, I thought, Anya works with dangerous prisoners all day, every day, yet little old Victoria makes her nervous.
“No, ma’am, I do not,” she replied. “I am sorry I cannot be of help.”
The words were spoken in a controlled tone I was familiar with, one that was usually accompanied by an underlying deception. But a quick scan of Anya’s emotions detected nothing of the sort. Victoria hesitated, gaze darting between Anya and me, her expression suggesting that she also thought the doctor might be lying. Still, the councilwoman didn’t press the issue.
“Well, no matter,” Victoria replied simply. “I am sure our people will solve the puzzle in no time. Talia, please finish going through the file I gave you. I would like to report your findings to the council straightaway.”
With those parting words, Victoria slid through the cell door, the airlock whooshing closed behind her.
Erik
UNITED Medical Facility
New York, New York
Four Days Before the Vote
“I’m fine, Miles,” I snapped for the tenth time in as many minutes. “Stop hovering over my bed, it makes me feel like an invalid.”
Miles was a good guy, but his mother hen tendencies were super irritating.
“You’re wounded, Erik,” Penny reminded me from her perch in the corner of my hospital room.
“Ten stitches, Penny—that’s nothing,” I retorted. “I won’t even have a cool scar to show Tals when we get back.”
Not that she’d think that morning’s incident was amusing. Knowing Tals, she’d swear vengeance on the
little girl, along with everyone the girl had ever encountered in her short lifetime. Not for the first time, I was glad my girlfriend wouldn’t have heard about the attack and my injuries. I hated when she worried, which she always did.
My own memories of the attack were a little hazy. I recalled the little girl with the shifting appearance. I recalled asking her if she was Talented. Then, I woke up in a damned hospital bed.
Which I was still in two hours later, with wireless electrodes attached to my temples and peppered across my chest. Even though I was anxious to get out of there, I was still being monitored on two side-by-side wallscreens mounted beside the uncomfortable hospital bed. One showed images of my brain, with certain sections lighting up periodically. The other displayed views of my insides, both the organs and the bones.
Between Penny and Miles, they’d filled in the missing chunk of time. Apparently, the girl had been a suicide bomber. She’d waited for me to get within range, and then detonated the explosive. Thanks to Miles’s quick reflexes, I was yanked far enough out of harm’s way to avoid the worst of the blast.
Which was ironic, because a buckle on Miles’s boot, which I’d landed on during his rescue, caused the now stitched-up gash on my shoulder. Somehow, the fact that my most serious injury was more the result of bad luck rather than the attack itself made this stint in the hospital feel even more ridiculous than it normally would have.
I was totally fine. I just wanted to put my charred clothes back on, and get the hell out of there. Not one of my injuries was life-threatening, or even remotely worrisome, a fact I’d been shouting at every doctor who’d entered my room thus far.