Mind Storm (14 page)

“Apologies,” said Sydney Athe, the venerable old man rising to his feet with the use of a heavy, ornate cane. “This room is set automatically for recording every time it's in use. I did not think to check that it had been deactivated.”

Nathan offered the head of the Athe Syndicate a polite smile as the man's grandson and successor, Elion Athe, stood to help his grandfather sit back down.

The Athe Syndicate was much like the Serca Syndicate in its survival of the Border Wars to become what it was today. The family had been trapped in Sapporo on a business trip during that horrific time, and of all the islands that belonged to Japan, only Hokkaidˉo had managed to survive partly intact. The Athe family had made themselves indispensable to the survivors of the country and learned to thrive. Elion's father, Travis, was a member of the World Court, and for that alone they would have been allowed into the Registry. Additionally, their genetics were clean, which was a bonus, and their success in aeronautics and space science was worth the delicate dance the Serca family had done with the Athe Syndicate for the past four generations.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” Nathan began as he took his seat at the head of the conference table. “Mistakes happen. Just be aware that I do not tolerate them more than once. Our business tonight is far too important to allow our final decisions to fall into outside hands. None of us desires the spotlight for this little addendum of our merger.”

Sydney nodded agreement. “The announcement is set to hit the news in the morning. The Athe Syndicate will become a subsidiary of the Serca Syndicate, but I will retain the position as CEO with the understanding that all final decisions will be left up to you, as we agreed.”

“As it should be, for what we've offered you,” Nathan said. “The additional berths on the Ark we've agreed to sell you means that when the time comes, you will support us on Mars.”

“Of course,” Sydney said, looking Nathan straight in the eye when no one else would. It wasn't the Japanese way to get straight to the point, but Sydney still retained some of the mannerisms of his Western ancestors. “A deal is a deal, Nathan. My family will be whatever you need us to be, so long as you take us with you.”

It was funny how desperation could make anyone willing to sell his soul. Nathan spread his hands over the datapad he had brought with him, keying in his biometrics to open it. Files appeared beneath his fingertips and he tapped at the only one he needed. The executed merger agreement filled his screen, and Nathan perused all the signatures that had brought him here.

“There will be a meeting for all the subsidiaries of the Serca Syndicate at the beginning of September. Keep your calendars clear. I will send you the confirmed date once I've met again with the World Court.” Nathan looked up, his gaze sweeping across the table, capturing everyone's eyes. “I expect the transfer to run smoothly.”

“Do you anticipate any difficulties?” Elion asked, his green eyes startlingly odd in a face whose features were predominantly Japanese.

“I plan for all possible avenues, which means you will be ready. If you are not, you forfeit the seats you asked for and I will sell them to someone else. Whoever you hope to bring with you will be left behind. As you know, there are only so many seats available, and my Syndicate is in control of at least half. Not every registered human is going to be on those ships.”

“But enough will,” Sydney said. “And you are more than capable of keeping everyone in line.”

Nathan's smile was indulgent. “Always.”

Sydney banged his cane down once on the floor, nodding at those who worked for him. “Leave us. You have your assurances.”

All the men and women around the table except Elion got to their feet and bowed, first to Sydney, then to Nathan, before filing out past Jin Li. None of them bothered to hide their disgust for Nathan's bodyguard, and it had little to do with his slouching against the wall.

During the Border Wars, China had fared worse than most countries outside of Africa and the Middle East. Already saddled with a near impossible population density living off hugely strained natural resources and with a toxicity level that was already dangerous before the first bomb fell, China spiraled into devastation faster than most other countries. Like the rest of the world, it wasn't the radiation poisoning that killed off most of the population. That would be the starvation, the disease, and the mass deaths in the countryside that surrounded the craters most major cities had become.

The survivors had no choice but to relocate, and the Chinese numbered more than their neighbors, even after the last bomb fell. Southeastern Asia still had pockets of ethnic minorities from the countries they had once been, but they were ruled by the Chinese now. Japan had patrolled the East China Sea for over 150 years, refusing any and all refugees looking for port that came out of what China had become. No love was lost between the two countries and Jin Li knew it.

Jin Li smiled at every person who walked out the door, then spat on the floor behind the heels of the last woman out. The door slid shut before any of them could voice their anger.

“Your children have better manners than your guard,” Elion said coolly as he eyed Jin Li from where he sat.

“Jin Li has his uses, or don't you remember the last time we came calling?” Nathan arched one pale eyebrow. Elion swallowed his anger with appropriate swiftness as he recalled the businessman whom Jin Li had summarily executed after Nathan discovered his treachery. Corporate spies were annoying, and that one hadn't been worth the effort of reprogramming.

“I see that you do,” Nathan said. “It's always refreshing to deal with people who know when to keep their mouths shut.”

“What more do you require from us?” Sydney said slowly.

Nathan leaned back in his chair and touched the screen of his datapad with one finger. Another list, this one detailing every known city and company Lucas had hit in the past two years. The Athe Syndicate numbered high on that list, beneath all the Serca-owned branches his son had gone to.

“Your Syndicate built the satellites that the World Court sent out fifty years ago to Mars,” Nathan said. “I want you to go through your security records for the past two years and do a facial recognition search. You will be looking for Lucas.”

Sydney frowned. “For what reason?”

“Because we psions cannot hide from machines and I want to know what he was searching for.”

“Why would your son have broken into our Syndicate?” Elion asked.

“Lucas is no longer my son.”

This telling response caused Elion and Sydney to share a brief, sharp glance. Nathan knew what they were thinking, and he allowed them to think it. This was a calculated dispersal of information, seeds that needed to be sown. Nathan's own mother had disclosed the Serca family's true nature to the heads of the Athe family years and years ago to make them think that the Sercas needed them. Sometimes secrets were the best bargaining chips when used appropriately.

“Two years of security feed,” Sydney said. “Give us a week to do a thorough review of all our holdings. I will send Elion in person to London with the results once we have them.”

“That is acceptable.” Nathan pushed himself to his feet. “The launch date may be moved up, depending on certain timetables that the World Court is relying on. If it does, you and your family will personally be brought to London. I can promise you that.”

“I thank you.”

“I don't do it out of need or some sense of generosity.” Nathan offered Sydney a mocking smile. “I do it because I can. Your family is useful. Continue to be useful and maybe you will survive another generation.”

The men Nathan left behind were smart enough to heed this warning. Their ability to bend was part of the reason why Nathan had chosen to bring them under Serca control through this merger and why Nathan kept them there. The Athes had always been useful to someone.

Jin Li followed Nathan out of the conference room and down the ornately decorated hallway of the Athe Syndicate's executive suite. A security guard bowed as they stepped into a lift that went to the roof, where their shuttle sat on the landing platform, engines on standby and guarded by Gideon.

“You're not supposed to be here,” Nathan said pointedly to his son after Nathan and Jin Li climbed into the shuttle beneath the morning sunlight.

“No one saw me arrive when I teleported into your shuttle,” Gideon assured him. “And this needed to be reported in person.”

“I take it you finally have what I told you to find?” Nathan shook his head as he sat down in his seat and buckled on the harness. “Three days late.”

“I wanted to be sure.” Gideon took a seat opposite Nathan and hooked himself into the harness there. “I found something of interest.”

Nathan narrowed his eyes. “Get to the point.”

“You asked about the Strykers that Lucas picked up out of the Slums.” Gideon pulled a data chip from his shirt pocket and passed it over to Nathan telekinetically. “Jin Li fought two of them in Johannesburg thirty-four days prior to the skirmish in the Slums. Threnody Corwin is a Class III electrokinetic. Her partner, Quinton Martinez, is a Class III pyrokinetic.”

“That's not unusual.”

“She ordered her partner and the teams she commanded in Johannesburg not to pursue Jin Li when he escaped with the children we had targeted at the school there.”

“Occasionally Strykers
do
think, Gideon,” Nathan said as he uploaded the data chip on his datapad. “They were outmatched in that venture and they knew it.”

“Maybe. Those two joined up with a second team for the mission in the Slums. You'll see on that data chip that our records for the Strykers Syndicate's only Class II telepath, Kerr MacDougal, aren't very informative.”

“He's dysfunctional. We discovered that when he was first put in the field.”

“His partner, Jason Garret, is an anomaly.”

“A Class V telekinetic is nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Samantha fought him, sir. It was the first time she's faced off against those two. She said the telekinetic had mental shields that were impervious to her strongest telepathic strike.”

Nathan looked up from the information on his screen. “Samantha is capable of getting through most shielding. I taught her myself. A Class V of any kind of psion should have been relatively easy.”

Gideon shrugged, having to raise his voice over the sound of the engines starting up in order to be heard. “I asked her about it. She said his shields wouldn't even crack. She bruised his mind, but she couldn't break his defenses. And there was something else. The shields? They weren't like any that Samantha's ever felt before.”

Nathan scrolled through the brief file they had on Jason Garret before casting his telepathy outward across the world for his daughter's mind. Her psi signature sparked brightly above all the rest of the humans on the mental grid, and he sank into her thoughts with ease.

This telekinetic you fought in the Slums,
he said.
What was so different about his shields?

Samantha didn't hesitate in answering.
They were anchored in a way I've never seen before. They went deeper than I thought shields could ever go.

Show me.

Samantha opened up her memories to his perusal, letting him dig again through those moments in the Slums where she had attempted to break into the telekinetic's mind. This time he took more than just her memories, he took her thoughts, her reasoning at the time of the fight. Nathan drew back after a few seconds, faint surprise coloring his thoughts.

Nathan's reaction was enough for Samantha to say,
Sir?

That doesn't make any sense.

What doesn't?

Those shields you tried to break. They're natal shields.

Samantha's confusion matched his own, but Nathan didn't let her sense it.
That's impossible. How can he access his power if his natal shields are still standing?

How indeed?

Nathan dropped the psi link, pulling back into his own mind. He opened his eyes, meeting his son's gaze. Gideon was waiting patiently for whatever order would come his way. Gideon waited, when Lucas would already have been suggesting action. Nathan wished Gideon's ability to know and obey his betters had bred true in Lucas.

Nathan had raised his children under the personal bylaws that governed the Serca family, following a long tradition of grooming the next generation for the fight for power. Psions never lived all that long, and the Serca Syndicate's goals needed to be maintained over generations. Nathan had survived longer than most psions only because he'd never used his power enough for it to kill him—yet. Nathan's decision to use his children first before he used his own powers had come at the direct order of his mother, Marcheline, when she had ordered him to risk the next generation for a reason she had never explained. His mother had been a singularly manipulative woman who died in her forties. No love had been lost between Nathan and his mother. Only hate was left between himself and his children.

“I want Lucas found,” Nathan said. “I want him brought back to me before autumn, as well as the Strykers he took, if they're still with him and alive.”

“Why the Strykers?”

“Lucas wanted them. I want whatever Lucas has.”

The shuttle had reached that high cruising altitude where the sky was dark with the edge of space above and the clouds were ugly wisps below them. Nathan undid the straps of his harness and got to his feet.

“Return to London without me,” he said, before teleporting away.

[
ELEVEN
]

AUGUST 2379
THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS

“You're late.”

The aggravated tone of Sharra Gervais's voice floated down the hallway of their bunker suite. Erik looked up from where he stood in the foyer, shrugging out of his robes of office. His wife walked toward him with a glass of expensive wine in her hand, the stiletto heels of her shoes sinking into the plush carpeting that lay atop the hard metal floor of their home. Sharra was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, a Nordic beauty with her name in the Registry and a ring on her finger given to her by one of the most powerful men in the world. Any man in his right mind would have loved her.