23

DECONSTRUCTION

“WHAT ARE YOU doing to him?” I shout, dropping to my knees as Caden convulses helplessly. “Stop, or I will tear this place apart!”

“Among his other gifts, Sebba is a very gifted enhanced telepath. It’s only the power of suggestion; he’s not actually causing him any pain.” Cale studies us, gloating. “Sebba can only control those who are open to suggestion.”

“Caden,” I say. “Look at me.” I drag his face to mine, holding his cheeks between my palms. “You need to fight—it’s only in your head. There’s no pain. Do you hear me?” He nods, but I know he doesn’t believe me. I slap him hard. He blinks, his eyes dilating as he focuses on the real pain of my strike.

I turn to Cale and his abomination. “Do that again, and you’ll both regret it.”

Sebba tries pushing into my head, but it’s easy to block him out, like swatting at a bothersome gnat. For a moment, I wonder what enhanced telepathy actually means. Is Sebba’s brain function augmented by genetic manipulation? Telepathy is an odd talent, but certainly not outside the realm of possibility. In an effort to build the strongest human possible, our scientists engaged in all kinds of genetic experimentation, including the development of telepathic abilities. In the end, telepaths were classified as less useful—cerebral rather than built for survival. And since the androids weren’t susceptible to the power of suggestion, that area of genetic enhancement hadn’t been continued.

Why would Cale need a telepath?

The answer lies in Aenoh’s glazed eyes, and my breath hitches in my throat. Avaria’s exact location isn’t known except if you have the coordinates.

“Aenoh, don’t let him in,” I cry. “He’s trying to access your memories, to figure out Avaria’s location. You need to block him out. Focus on something trivial.”

“Very good, Riven.” Cale claps loudly. “I’ d forgotten how perceptive you are.”

Inka notches an arrow and steps forward. Our Reptile escorts point their weapons at her head, but she doesn’t flinch. Her voice is low and implacable. “Release him or I hit your clone right between the eyes. Even if your soldiers kill me, they will not stop this shot from meeting its mark.”

“I wouldn’t mess with her,” I say. “She’s a crack shot.” Inka’s fingers tremble; the telepath has a hold on her now. “Focus,” I whisper to her. “Focus on what you know to be true, and hold on to it.” With a deep, fortifying breath, her fingers flatten and pull tight and, just like that, Sebba releases his hold on both of them. Aenoh slumps to the floor, gasping.

“Enough play, Sebba,” Cale laughs. “We’ll have time later. Come, Riven, let’s put those new talents of yours to good use.” He pulls up something on a central screen—a grid of the entire Neospes network—and zooms in on my father’s laboratory. “Disable it, whatever he’s built to keep us out.”

“What makes you think I can do that?” I say evenly.

“Disable it, or I forget my promise and kill them one by one, starting with her.” He hooks a thumb to my mother.

“Threatening me isn’t going to make me comply. You should know that by now.”

He throws back his head and roars. “Don’t posture, Riven. It’s so beneath you. We both know how much you love these humans—how bound you are to them. Even when they abuse your abilities while claiming to love you back.”

“You don’t understand human relationships or what true love or empathy feel like. You never could because you don’t have a heart.”

Cale sneers and points at Aenoh. “Your new friends? This man wants to take you—in the most carnal sense. Sebba has seen his desires.” My stomach dips a little, hoping that Aenoh hadn’t also exposed the weapon hidden on board the ship, but I’m banking on the fact that telepaths can only access thoughts that are present at the forefront of the brain. Cale turns to Aenoh, eyes burning. “Don’t try to deny it. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Your army is never coming. Did you tell them that? You’re here to plunder a desperate city and kill a man or two”—Cale’s smile turns evil as he quirks an eyebrow to Caden—“and, perhaps, I should let you.”

Aenoh backs away, Matias at his side. Sauer and Bass watch, surprised.

“What’s he talking about?” Caden asks, his eyes narrowing.

I shake my head fiercely. “Not the time, Caden. I’ll explain later.”

Cale wants us to turn on each other. We can’t afford to start breaking apart, especially not with Sebba slinking around trying to access our secrets. I’ d guessed early on that Aenoh had come here to kill Danton—his control over the Vectors, and me, is too much of a threat. Once the Reptiles are contained with his weapon and his daughter comes into the Neospes crown, it makes sense that Aenoh would want to depose Caden, too. It’s a neatly packaged scheme.

Inka must have been aware of her father’s motives. She’ d tried to warn me in Avaria, and she’ d given me her word that she would defend Caden with her life, which had seemed counterintuitive. Or maybe she’s been playing us, too.

Right now, we have bigger things to worry about. I’ll deal with the Avarians later.

I turn back to Cale. “What’s your point?”

“None of them care about you, not even your king, or he’ d have chosen you.” Cale shrugs, and I can’t help sliding my gaze to Caden, whose face remains shadowed. “Hey, at least I’m upfront about why I want you.” His voice hardens. “Now get to work disabling that grid, or you’ll get a taste of just how heartless I can be.”

“Why do you want to get into Danton’s lab so badly?”

“He has something I want.”

I think back to the Reptile working in the medical facility. My eyes flit to Bass, and he nods. I study the flickering screens and frown. Cale sees my expression. “We control the entire Neospes network except for that lab.”

“What makes you think I can get in?”

Cale arches an eyebrow. “You have always been Danton’s Achilles’ heel. He sees you as his greatest strength when, in fact, you are his greatest weakness. If anyone can get into that facility, it’s you.” Cale flicks a wrist and the Reptiles surround Caden and the others. “No more delaying or I’ll start giving you an incentive to cooperate.”

Engaging my suit, I log into the computer. I feel Sebba’s ghostly telepathic presence hovering over me, making my blood crawl. Sebba is monitoring my every stroke. Cale’s right—Sebba is everywhere, in every pocket of the Neospes network but my father’s lab. My gaze slides to the pulsing exposed human brain behind me.

Wires weave in, out, and between the throbbing layers of spongy tissue. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not only is Sebba a telepath, he’s the mastermind behind this whole coup.

He is the true Reptile king.

“How come your mini-me super clone over there couldn’t hack the grid?” I ask, trying to bypass the wireless encryption by executing a packet sniffing application and analyzing the data. “The decoding process is simple enough.”

“You’ll see.”

Danton would have reprogrammed all the security protocols, particularly in Sector Two. It’ d take far too long for me to hack the network and bring down the grid. I make sure that the connection between my suit and me is secure before proceeding. Sebba will try to crack my security, but he won’t be able to.

Can you execute simultaneous secure network commands? I ask the suit.

Yes.

Without being detected by Mr. Super Brain over there?

Yes.

Bring the ship into the hangar on the West Quadrant, near Sector Two. Engage camouflage mode and make sure you bypass all systems upon entry. They are monitoring everything in every sector.

Confirm command—Execute?

Execute.

I take a breath and release a replay packet application, attempting to gather more data. I can feel Sebba scrutinizing my every move, so I have to make it appear that what I’m doing is accurate or he’ll see right through it. I blink, and suddenly I’m kicked out of the network. It must be a protocol designed to respond to replay attacks. I re-access the system and after completing a port scan, locate a foothold in a running application and try to use it as a backdoor to access the main database server.

Sebba’s robotic voice echoes through the microphone. “I tried that already.”

I nearly jump out of my seat. He hasn’t said anything since bidding me welcome. “Yes, but did you become an internal user and create a remote command shell for the server?”

“Yes.”

“And then what did you do?”

“Port redirection and a Trojan horse application.”

I almost laugh out loud at the Trojan horse metaphor. “Did the tool send you secure authentication data?”

Sebba’s tinny voice takes a moment before responding. “Yes. But it disappears. The entire security structure compresses and rebuilds from the ground up each time.”

“That must be frustrating.”

Cale interrupts. “Can you get past it or not?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Or I start killing your friends.”

I itch to get my hands on my ninjatas and get to work on Cale. “How is killing anyone going to get you what you want? You’re just going to piss me off, and then I’ll go berserker on you and your little mini-me bitch over there. And you’ll have nothing.”

Cale leers at me. “So much you don’t know… so much about those closest to—”

“Yes, yes. Danton has always been out for himself. Things will never change.”

T he ship is in the hangar as requested. The message from my suit couldn’t have come at a better time.

Instruct Danton to drop the grid. Tell him his daughter is here to rescue him from a slow death by starvation and dehydration.

My suit relays my father’s response. He says, “As opposed to a swift death?”

We all have to die. He can meet his end by actually doing something good for once… saving the remaining citizens of Neospes and the people we love. I glance at my mother, who is standing beside Caden, her face blank. If not me, then his wife.

I run another aggressive packet attack. Suddenly, a response comes up—a susceptible port via an unpoliced server. I run a few scripts, knowing that the information has to be from my father. This network is far too secure for a random, unrestricted port to just show up out of the blue. I wait for a few moments before accessing the system via the vulnerable port. “I’m in.”

I feel Sebba shadowing my every move as I enter each command, running script after script. I shake my head. “I can bring down the electromagnetic grid protecting the perimeter, but there’s another layer of security that’s on-site, which can only be accessed with a biometric scan.”

“Bring it down,” Cale says coldly.

“It’s down,” I say after a few intense minutes. “Let’s go. We don’t have much time before the system restores its default security settings once it finds the breach.” I nod to where my mother and Caden are standing. “Some of them should stay here.”

Cale sees right through my ploy. “Not a chance. See how well you got the job done with a bit of incentive? They come along for the ride.”

I keep my satisfaction under wraps—the last thing I want is for us to be separated. Bad things happen when we split up. But if Cale knew that’s what I truly wanted, he would have commanded them to remain here.

Outside the castle walls, Reptiles crowd the streets, vandalizing the places where we’ d had the Summer and Winter Solstice games. I force myself not to react. The last time I’ d seen this courtyard it’ d been filled with people dressed in their best, laughing and celebrating. Now, it’s like a graveyard, taken over by bloody bodies and scrap metal.

The trip to Sector Two is short. Cale doesn’t trust that I’ve actually bypassed the grid, even though Sebba has confirmed it, and he sends two Reptiles in first. They pass through the Sector line unscathed.

“Satisfied?” I ask.

“Get us through the next security checkpoint and I’ll let you know.”

I grin widely as we arrive at the elevator that leads to my father’s subterranean bunker. “You know it’s underground, right? I seem to recall you having a fear of spaces deep within the earth. Something to do with being buried alive? Does that idea still give you nightmares? Or does your new… form make you invincible?”

Cale had never passed his fear tests. As heir to the throne, he’ d been granted a pass after spending ten minutes hyperventilating in a shallow subterranean passage. He insisted the experience had allowed him to conquer his fear. And no one ever contradicted him, not even me.

I see the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “This elevator goes way, way down. Are you sure you’re ready?” I ask.

“Yes.” But the word is a half growl.

We crowd into the massive elevator, and I face the scanner, trying not to move while the biometric laser passes over my entire body. There’s a slight chance that my father could have taken away my clearance and the security breach lasers will chop us all into tiny little pieces. I hold my breath.

The elevator dips, making Cale’s skin go a little gray. I let myself enjoy a brief twinge of satisfaction at his distress before loudly announcing our arrival on floor seventeen—seventeen floors beneath surface level. If possible, Cale pales even more.

“We’re here, princess,” I tell him and he shoots me a dark look. “Maybe you should actually have taken the fear tests.”

“I did take them.”

“Then why are you shaking like a leaf? We both know you never passed. I was there, remember?”

“I passed them at a later date.”

Cale is deathly afraid, and even if I can’t be one hundred percent sure, my suit can. According to his biometric readings, his fear levels are off the charts. That makes him vulnerable.

Inside my father’s lab, a thin shimmering wall—cutting-edge laser technology—separates us from him. “Danton,” Cale salutes. “Good to see you again.”

My father finds my face, and then my mother’s before answering. Something like relief flashes across his eyes, unnerving me. “You, too.”

“Why don’t we drop the pretense and you give me what I want? The nanotech you’ve been secretly developing.”

Danton’s gaze slides to me before retraining on Cale. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The lights in the room flicker and then dim, all of the screens go blank, and the laser barrier fizzles and winks out. Cale smiles. “That’s Sebba. He’s in control of every sector now.”

“Sebba?” My father’s eyes widen in delayed, horrified understanding. He lurches toward us, his hand splayed wide. I can’t quite determine if it’s to protect or to harm, but I step in front of Aurela just in case.

“Riven, you have to get her to—”

He’s not able to finish the sentence before the entire lab is plunged into darkness.