Malkor lay on his belly on the rooftop of a building in Shimville. Across the distance of an alley sat the building Janeen was holed-up in. Even for Shimville, this wasn’t a good part of town. The buildings were more like two-story shanties than real warehouses, and bars on the windows was about as high-tech as it got.
Except for Janeen’s place, of course.
Rutcker hadn’t lied—she had some sweet gadgets installed. The data array on the roof could send and receive transmissions not only planet-wide, but galaxy-wide. The scanner tucked under the overhang on the front of the building was a PLuA-4100, capable of reading the credentials embedded in any lithodisc bracelet within fifty meters. Not only was it recording appearance and biomass data on everyone who walked by, it was IDing them as well. Definitely not standard IDC-issue.
Of more concern to him, though, was the automated perimeter defense system. It bore the mark of Hundin tech, which meant it had micrometer precision targeting capabilities. It could be programmed to trigger on any number of mechanics, such as movement, proximity, body heat and so on. The trick was finding the trip. Janeen wouldn’t want to shoot everyone who walked down the alley for a black-market deal. The bodies would stack up. Maybe a tight-range proximity? One or two smugglers get too close to the building and soon word gets around to avoid this section of Shimville. In any case, that beast would have to be disarmed before rescue could be attempted.
Initial thermal scans showed the presence of two adults on the first floor and one child-sized on the second. Had to be Corinth. He couldn’t guess who the second adult heat-signature belonged to. Who would a rogue IDC agent have over for dinner at her safehouse? A hired merc for security? Another rogue agent? Or someone higher up on the food chain?
The cynicism that had stalked Malkor for years over IDC’s misuse of power solidified. What kind of element within IDC would have recruited and trained Janeen for her position as a double agent—and how large was that element?
Malkor pushed the thoughts aside and focused on the mission.
He’d take out the data relay first, then the automated defenses. The scanner on the front of the building could stay. He readied a spider dart with an electromag tip and fitted it into the barrel of his backup weapon, a versatile hand-launcher that fired any number of projectiles. He had a few gems loaded into it already and a couple of special-occasion goodies in a pocket of his tac-suit. Nothing beat the spider dart for surveillance, though.
He fired the dart square into the center of the relay’s casing. Electric shocks shot from it and wrapped around the casing in all directions.
One data relay—fried.
Perimeter defenses next.
The weapon nodes for the defenses were affixed halfway up the exterior of the building, and the main control unit would be inside. He’d have to shut it down the hard way, node by node.
The nodes covered the building evenly front-to-back, making neither the front nor rear exit a more attractive option.
Rear exit it was, then.
He made his way across the roof until he was parallel with the back of Janeen’s building. He spotted a node on each corner and one directly above the door. The others wouldn’t wrap around the building so he had three nodes to disable.
Gee, was that all?
He pulled a datapad from his pack and set it to scan, angling it for the closest node on the corner. A close-up look with zoom lenses showed two points of weakness: the ratchet clip locking the node in place and the trinium sensor. Ideally disabling the sensor would prevent the node from going off, no matter what the trigger was. Assuming, of course, that disabling the sensor wouldn’t trigger it anyway.
What a pain in the ass.
Damn you, Janeen.
His scan showed what he already suspected: the node was hardwired to the mainframe, meaning a spider dart wouldn’t be able to short-circuit it. That would have been too easy.
He could target the ratchet clip. The acid in a widow dart could, if placed correctly, liquefy the component, dropping the node to the ground. Of course, that might also set the node off.
Trinium circuitry was notoriously delicate, and shooting out the sensor with a pellet projectile would be a lot quieter than sending a fist-sized node crashing to the ground from one and a half stories up.
Disabling the sensor it was.
Malkor spun the chamber on his hand-launcher to align with the pellet and aimed at the closest node. Praying that the node would go down without a fight, Malkor took a deep breath, let it out, and fired.
The node didn’t fire back.
Thank the void.
Another glance through the zoom lenses confirmed the hit. One trinium sensor—annihilated. He disabled the other two quickly.
At least, they had better be disabled. Either that or he was about to get shot.
His tac-suit would absorb two to three blasts from an ion pistol and had enough body armor to provide protection in a hand-to-hand combat situation, but who knows what punch those nodes packed. He was looking at a serious maiming if he’d been wrong about the sensors.
Malkor selected two web darts from his pocket and loaded them into the launcher. The dart, once fired, would blow its tip and shoot a plasma web at the target, big enough to wrap an adult from shoulder to hips. Once the center of it touched something, the web would spread and wrap around the object before adhering to itself at the edges into a nearly indestructible plasma cage. Handy for trapping prisoners you’d rather interrogate than kill. Or interrogate, then kill.
Downside? It launched at a low velocity, and a target with enough presence of mind to make a dive could dodge the web. Hence the backup.
He messaged Hekkar that he was breaching the perimeter, then climbed down to land boots-first in the alley behind Janeen’s place.
He grinned at the silent nodes. Take that, Janeen. Still not as slick as your octet leader, no matter who’s backing you.
He crossed the alley to the back door. No visible alarms from outside but there wasn’t a chance she’d left it unwired. She was too cautious to rely solely on the defense nodes, and, sadly, too clever to give him something to disable from this side. Ah well, he was tired of the stealth technique anyway.
He drew his ion pistol and hand-launcher and took the direct route—boot-heel to door. The thing burst inward and set off a pulsing alarm. He caught the backswing on his arm as he sprinted into the building. The short hallway had doors on either side, but scrambling came from straight ahead on the main warehouse floor. The speed of his steps brought him into the open area before Janeen and an IDC agent he recognized as Thack could respond.
They were about three meters apart and froze when Malkor came into view, a weapon trained on each of them. The warehouse had an open space in the center where Janeen had set up a command post. Stacks of crates took up the rest of the two-story space, and to his left a set of stairs led up to a loft.
Thack cut his gaze to Janeen, clearly looking to her for a sign of what to do. Malkor shot an ion blast at the floor beside his left foot. “Don’t move.”
“You can’t be serious,” Janeen said. She held her hand away from the weapon at her hip, but looked ready to draw. “You came alone to take the two of us on?”
“The rest of the octet’s here.”
“You wouldn’t be kicking in back doors if they were.” Still, she glanced over his shoulder to the hallway behind him, then at the window to her left.
He gestured with his gun. “Looks like I’m doing just fine.”
“What, with one pistol and a hand-launcher?”
“That’s more than you have in hand.”
“Where’s the princess?” Thack asked.
Janeen answered for him. “He didn’t come to trade. He thinks he’s here for a rescue.”
“Oh, I know I am,” Malkor said.
“Give us the girl. This doesn’t have to get messy.”
The slow boil of anger in his chest kicked up a notch. “Tell that to Vid. And Trinan.”
She frowned. “You know I didn’t want that. He should have just handed over the boy.”
“Where’s Corinth?”
She didn’t answer.
“You—”
She bolted toward the nearest stack of crates, drawing her weapon on the way.
“Frutt!” He got off a shot with the launcher but she dove to the floor and the plasma web sailed over her head. She scrambled for the crates while Thack darted in the opposite direction. Malkor nailed him in the back just as Thack made it to the cover of a cargo pile.
Malkor ran for cover himself when he heard Janeen’s ion pistol drawing charge.
The stairs. He had to get between her and the stairs. If she made it to Corinth first and used him as a hostage they were done. He was Corinth’s ro’haar now, he’d die before he let anything happen to him… and that might be exactly how it went down.
A blast splintered the crate near his head.
At least it was only one blast. Hopefully Thack had been too injured to do more than lie there and try not to die.
Malkor crept toward the stairs, keeping the containers at one shoulder while he rotated the cylinder on the launcher to dial up the next web dart. Another shot, from closer to the stairs this time. Damnit. He came to a break in the cargo and peeked through to see her desk area. Malkor took a second to shoot out the mainframe for the perimeter defenses. Who knew what exit he and Corinth would be leaving by in a hurry and he’d rather not get killed on the way out.
He hustled across the opening, taking fire as he crossed to the next stack of crates. He narrowed in on the stairs, but based on the direction of her shots she was getting there quicker. He couldn’t afford to fire back. No way he’d risk killing her when she had a billion pieces of information he needed. He needed to get her out in the open so he could use the plasma web on her.
Only one chance for that.
Malkor glanced at the rickety metal stairs leading to the loft. If he let her reach them first and she thought she could get to Corinth before him, she’d be channeled in a straight line while she climbed them. Nothing would impede a shot with the launcher from the base of the steps, assuming he could get there quickly enough. And assuming he hit her before she could shoot him from her higher ground.
Of course, if he missed, she’d have Corinth and he’d be dead.
She took the decision out of his hands when she hit the first stair and started to back her way up them, pistol trained on the spot she thought he’d emerge from. She’d underestimated him, though, and he was one stack of cargo boxes ahead. Not that it would help him much once she spotted him, which she would if she reached any higher.
Now or never.
He stepped from behind his cover and aimed the hand-launcher. He took a shot to the shoulder that his suit absorbed, then one to the chest that started to burn through the material. The dart launched with painful slowness and when the web sprang open Janeen grabbed the stair rail as if she meant to vault over it. The web hit her side on and she crashed to the metal steps as the plasma wound around her. The thunk of her head striking the edge of a stair was as satisfying as her grunt of pain.
Something punched into his shoulder blade and fire erupted across his back. The impact doubled him over and the next shot grazed his ear.
Thack. Apparently the frutter hadn’t died.
Malkor looked back and saw Thack standing across the open space, one hand wrapped to his ribs, the other aiming a pistol at Malkor’s head.
So much for Corinth’s rescue.
Malkor couldn’t even stand against the burning pain so he turned, still at a crouch, and faced the man down. At least he’d have to look in his eyes as he shot him.
Thack gasped, clutching at his ribs and taking several shallow breaths. Malkor smiled. That’s what you get, you double-agent bastard.
The spasm passed and Thack straightened, aiming his weapon again.
SSzzzt.
An ion blast seared the air and Thack’s head whipped forward. Blank eyes stared at Malkor as his dead body toppled face-first to the ground. Smoke rose in a crooked waft from the back of his head. Malkor raised his eyes to the man standing behind him, weapon still pointed in Malkor’s direction. Beyond that the front door of the building stood open to the night.
“Sir.”
Commander Parrel held the pistol trained on him.
“Are you going to shoot me as well?” Malkor asked.
Parrel chuckled. “Don’t be an idiot.” He holstered the pistol and came forward to help Malkor to his feet. “Who am I going to blame for Thack’s death, otherwise?”
Malkor gritted his teeth against the pain and straightened as best he could manage, uncertain if he should thank the man or shoot him.
“You can put the guns away, Agent Rua. I’m here to help.” Parrel held his gaze, waiting patiently for Malkor to decide which side he was on.
Malkor didn’t sheathe his weapons. “I’m here for the boy.”
Parrel nodded. “I know you are. You did excellent work tracking down Agent Nuagyn, we’ve been looking for her too. You’ve got your reasons for being here and I think we’re on the same side.”
Malkor fought against the pain in his shoulder. “Right now, I don’t give a damn why you’re here, as long as you don’t plan to shoot me in the back.”
Parrel shook his head.
“Good.” Malkor dropped the pistol from his near useless left hand and sheathed his launcher before making his grueling way up the stairs. “Corinth?” he called up into the loft. “Corinth?”
Janeen moaned as he passed.
The loft was sparsely furnished with a bed, dresser, table and a food synthesizer. Corinth lay on the bed, bound hand and foot by magcuffs. He looked pale as death in the weak light coming through the windows and didn’t twitch when Malkor touched his neck, but he had a pulse.
Malkor sighed out the tension that had been strangling him, and sank to the bed. He rested his hand on Corinth’s forehead. So small. Too small to have been through so much. Malkor felt a need rise up inside him, a need to keep Corinth not only safe, but sheltered. To provide him not only protection, but happiness.
Corinth’s eyes fluttered open, irises focusing on Malkor’s face. ::You came for me.::
“Of course,” Malkor said. “Can’t have anything happening to the junior member of my team.”
Corinth smiled, his lids drifting shut again.
* * *
Kayla’s throat clogged like a gummed-up pipe when she tried to swallow and she choked on her own saliva. That brought her sputtering awake. She coughed and spat, fighting to clear her throat and draw a full breath.
“Easy, Kayla, easy.” The soothing words, spoken in Dolan’s voice, had her coughing all the harder. She leaned her head forward, the only part of her she could move, and spat a clump of mucus on his shoes. She instantly felt better.
What had happened?
She had a debilitating pain in her skull and weakness in her limbs. She was strapped into a comfortable chair—chest, wrists, hips and ankles—and seemed to be a prisoner in his laboratory. The room was all smooth-paneled drawers, neatly organized work stations, foreign instrumentation and flashing digital consoles. Events of the last few hours cascaded through her mind.
The rescue.
Vayne.
She looked wildly about.
“Don’t worry, he’s here.”
Her heart broke to see her twin seated nearby, similarly restrained. He looked resigned, almost to the point of apathy.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wishing she could touch him, reassure herself that he was still alive—for the moment.
Vayne shook his head. “Not your fault.”
She spat again, and this time Dolan dodged. The bastard had anesthetized her, that’s how she’d ended up here, locked down, weaponless and pissed.
“How are you feeling?” Dolan appeared beside her chair, concerned. “I apologize for the rough treatment, but I couldn’t have you stabbing me.”
The haze fogging her brain made it tough to concentrate. She met Dolan’s stare, focusing on his good eye. “Release my brother. Whatever you want from me, you can have it.”
Dolan’s permanent half-smirk cocked up. “I know I can.” He touched her cheek and she forced herself not to recoil.
“If you release Vayne, I won’t fight you.” She swallowed hard against the words, squeezing them out. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Kayla—” Vayne started.
“Will you?” Dolan arched the brow ruined by the spider web of scars. He glanced over at Vayne. “He means that much to you?”
She nodded.
Dolan’s half-smirk turned into a smile. “Good. I had heard that on Ordoch, the bond between ro’haar and il’haar was much stronger than on Ilmena, and I have experienced Vayne’s memories of you. You do not disappoint.”
“If you don’t let him go, I will do much more than disappoint you, kin’shaa. You have my word on that.” She’d been stripped of her tac-suit and wore nothing more than a light gown, but she gave him the stare of the warrior she was.
Dolan walked behind her chair and out of sight. “You are lucky to have such a fierce champion, Vayne.”
Kayla twisted her wrists, testing the strength of her bonds. How long had she been unconscious? Had Rigger and the others made it to safety? Did they know what happened to her? Even if they did, what could they do?
Her bonds proved immovable. Organoplastic cuffs with an infused gel lining that conformed exactly to her wrists. She studied the room, trying to ignore the sound of Dolan working on something behind her. The one door she could see looked as sturdy as those on the prisoners’ ward, and there were no windows.
She jumped at a touch on her temple. Dolan affixed something there, then one on the opposite side. The things hummed to life and pressure built in her skull as they seemed to squeeze inward toward each other.
“Don’t do this,” Vayne said. “You still have me, that’s enough.”
“If you were enough, we would not be in this situation,” Dolan replied. “I need her.” He stroked the hair back from her forehead gently before affixing another device there. It was small, no bigger than a credit chip, and blinking with electrical impulses. He forced her head forward and attached one underneath her hair at the nape of her neck. The pressure intensified as those two devices started to pull on each other.
A console on the wall ahead of her lit up and revealed a neural scan of her brain. Dolan moved to study the screen. His lavender robes swirled around his ankles, giving him an oddly elegant appearance.
“As I suspected, your psi powers are intact. Look here.” He enlarged a section of the scan. “The cartaid arch is entirely undamaged. There’s no scar tissue or signs of past hemorrhage. You should have full access to your powers, but there’s no activity.” He tapped a finger against his lip. “I think it’s a mental block rather than physical.” Dolan turned to look at her. “You’re no good to me like this.”
Vayne sighed with such relief that her heart ached. Whatever being of use to Dolan meant, Vayne had clearly suffered the result of it many, many times.
“Let her go, Dolan. She’s useless for your plans.”
“I never said she was useless. She just needs to re-form the pathways between the cartaid arch and the rest of her brain.”
“How would that help you?” she asked. The constant squeezing on her head edged out the effects of the anesthesia.
He smiled. “I thought that was clear. I plan to control the Council of Seven.”
“With one vote on the Council?” That explained why he wanted Tia’tan to win the Game, if he thought her on his side, or why he might have helped Janeen in her attempt to fix it and put Divinya on the throne, if he could have used her as a pawn.
“Not one vote. All of them.”
Thoughts crawled over each other in her sluggish brain. Something about Dolan and mind control. On Ilmena. His experiments? The pieces clicked together haphazardly. An artificial intelligence, constructed to generate its own telepathic output. Something about keeping it constantly powered to maintain indefinite control over a group of people.
“You rebuilt your AI.” The only explanation. No Wyrd could achieve the level of sophisticated mind control on a consistent basis needed to control the Council otherwise.
“It took years,” Dolan said, “with only the empire’s rudimentary tech to work with. The invasion of Ordoch finally gave me access to the materials I needed.”
“How lucky for you,” she snapped. “So you’ve been, what, experimenting on my family these last five years?”
Dolan walked past her again, and when he returned to view he was affixing electrodes to Vayne’s head. He was less gentle about it and Vayne hissed when the last one locked into place.
“It was necessary to have test subjects while I refined the AI.”
“You did more than just test your AI on us,” Vayne said, his words echoing with contempt. “We’ve been your frutting playthings.” His aqua eyes blazed with hatred, and a betraying twitch in his hand showed how he struggled to sit still while the kin’shaa touched him.
Dolan lowered his voice. “Lie to her. Tell her you hated every second of it. Look her in the eye and tell her I never gave you joy, or happiness, or pleasure.”
“You took the choice from me.”
“I gave you so much more in return.” Dolan’s certainty made her shiver.
Kayla couldn’t bear the conflict of hatred and self-hatred on Vayne’s face. “Leave him alone.” His body might be stronger physically than she had ever seen, but looking at him now she knew he’d been destroyed on many levels.
She was going to tear the flesh from Dolan’s body while he still lived.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded.
Dolan looked over his shoulder at her, his ruined eye seeming to peer into her soul. “Many things, in time.” Again the certainty, and with it came a sick roll in her stomach. “First, though, I need your powers.”
“You just said I don’t have any.”
“You will. It takes only the right emotional trigger to convince your brain to re-form the connection to your cartaid arch. Vayne knows all about it.” Her twin wouldn’t look at her.
“What then? Once I have my powers—”
“He’ll harvest them,” Vayne said. “The AI doesn’t grow its own psi powers, they are grafted onto the neuroface. Once there, the machine can sustain the psi powers for a period of time, but eventually the grafted energies die, and,” he looked up at her, “more need to be harvested.”
“He’s been… farming you?”
“It’s slightly more complex than that,” Dolan said. A second screen lit up on the wall beside hers, showing Vayne’s neural scan. The area he’d indicated as the arch looked twisted and scarred. “As you can see, it’s not a forgiving process.”
Understanding clicked into place. “That’s how you got your powers back, after the Kalichma Ritual. You stole them from Vayne.”
“The ritual did much more damage to my brain than this—” he gestured to Vayne’s misshapen cartaid arch. “But yes, I was able to graft the energies from his psi powers onto my brain. He was the strongest of the Ordochians that I… acquired.”
Vayne cut in. “I told you—I am stronger than Kayla. If my powers are not enough to feed your AI then hers will be of even less use to you.”
“Alone, perhaps, but I did not capture Kayla to use her alone.”
Her head throbbed from the pressure on her skull and the anesthesia’s aftereffects. “What does that mean?”
“The energies of twins are complementary in a way that no two other psionics working together can be. I theorize that if I harvest the psionic energies from each twin, overlay them and splice them together before attempting to graft them on to the AI, I’ll be left with something greater than either of you could achieve on your own.” He frowned, looking grave. “I meant to try this with Erebus and Natali, but—”
“Erebus is dead.” Vayne’s words lanced into her. “And Shyla and Kuutu and Mother.” Each name was a blow to her heart. Erebus, her eldest brother, Shyla and Kuutu, her aunt and uncle, and… her mother…
“Enough. Now is not the time.” Dolan came to stand beside Kayla and she fought the urge to struggle against her restraints. “Are you ready to re-form the pathways to your psionic powers?”
“Only if you free Vayne.”
He sighed. “Kayla, this is going to happen either way. Even though I’ve recently harvested Vayne’s powers I might still need him. I’m afraid I can’t release him.” He lightly touched her shoulder, a caress through the thin fabric of the gown. “Maybe in time, if it means that much to you, I will consider it.”
She tried to shrug his hand off but only succeeded in shaking the chair that held her. His hand trailed down her bare arm before he stepped back. “We’ll need something to… expand your consciousness, before we get started.”
She felt the pinch of an injector in her neck. She saw in Vayne’s eyes the same frustration she felt. He couldn’t help her any more than she could help him. She held his gaze until the room started to slide.