Mind Storm (19 page)

The fire would burn itself out, just like all the ones before.

[
FIFTEEN
]

AUGUST 2379
BUFFALO, USA

The first thing Quinton did when they made it to the tenement that Matron's scavengers called home, past the outskirts of Buffalo, was to shave.

He stripped, disposing of the filthy clothing he'd been wearing since the Slums and used the tiny bit of grudgingly rationed water to clean up. They didn't have razors here, but he had a knife, and the sharp scrape of the blade over his face and jaw was comforting. He bled a little, and the water stung in the cuts, but he didn't care.

He would have given anything for a shower, but he wasn't going to get one. He wasn't a Stryker anymore, he didn't have the government picking up his bill. Staring at himself in the small cracked mirror of his borrowed room, Quinton wondered why he didn't look different, feel different, without the collar still wired to his brain.

“Well, this looks less rat-infested than the room Kerr got,” Jason said as he came inside without knocking and dropped his bag on the floor by the bed that had Quinton's gear spread out all over it. “Guess I'm taking the floor.”

Quinton turned around. “What do you think you're doing?”

“There's not enough space in this building for everyone. People were doubled up before we got here. Lucas said he needs to work on Kerr's mind, so they're sharing a room.” Jason's expression was viciously annoyed. “I didn't even get a say in that and Kerr's my partner. Fuck that shit. Matron gave Threnody a room to herself and told me to find you. We're sharing.”

“I'll bunk with Threnody.”

“Your partner has a room half this size. Two won't fit in that closet. Just don't step on me when you wake up.”

Quinton watched through narrowed eyes as Jason stretched out on the floor by the bed, using the thin blanket roll he'd been given as a pillow. The telekinetic was lying on his side, hazel eyes closed, pain lines drawn tight over the skin of his face.

“You need any medication?” Quinton asked after a moment.

Jason wriggled his fingers in Quinton's direction. He didn't open his eyes. “You're cute when you pretend to be worried.”

“Just about my own skin. I trust Strykers, not scavengers.”

“We're not Strykers anymore, Quinton.”

“I've been a Stryker for most of my life. That mentality isn't going to change just because we've gone rogue.”

“Something tells me Lucas expects it to.”

Quinton reached for his shirt and pulled it back on, not caring that it wasn't clean. He just wanted to get out of there. “I don't give a fuck what Lucas wants.”

Jason huffed out a tired little laugh that held no humor. “Now you're just lying to yourself.”

Quinton left the room without responding to that pointed remark. Letting the door close behind him, he went in search of Threnody. A scavenger sent him in the right direction and he knocked on the door to her room, waiting for her okay to enter.

“It's open.”

The doors in this place were old, manual, with knobs that needed to be turned. Jason had been right, Quinton decided. The room Matron had given Threnody wasn't even big enough for the door to open all the way. He slid inside carefully, eyes focused on where Threnody lay on the small bed that was more a pallet than anything else. She didn't seem to care. He noticed, almost immediately, the way her arms and legs twitched, little spasms that rolled through the lines of the muscles he could see.

“Is it getting any better?” Quinton asked as he settled on the floor beside her. Reaching out with one hand, he smoothed her hair off her forehead, tucking it behind one ear.

Threnody barely stirred. “Getting there. Lucas was right. That doctor did enough that the rest of my system is building off of the surgery. The reboot kind of sucks, to be honest.”

“Still think you need a biotank.”

“Won't find one here. Can't go to where we know they are.” She sighed softly. “It'll keep.”

Quinton wrapped his hand around hers where it was tucked beneath her chin. She was lying on her side, curled up around whatever pain she was feeling, but she still gave his hand a squeeze back.

“You're not allowed to die on me, Thren. I can deal with Jason's attitude, but I don't want to deal with Kerr's breakdowns. I don't have the patience for that shit.”

“They're all we've got to rely on. Them and Lucas.”

“Yeah, about that.” Quinton leaned his head back until it hit the wall. He closed his eyes. “What were you and Lucas talking about on the drive here?”

“What makes you think we were having a conversation?”

“Don't pull that shit with me,” Quinton growled. “I'm your partner.
Family,
Thren. I deserve better than that.”

“You do,” Threnody said after a brief pause. “I'm sorry. That was wrong of me. I don't even know why I said it.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Can you fault me for wanting to protect you?”

They'd been partnered when he was nine and she was eight, almost two decades' worth of training and fighting, bleeding and surviving together on the field. So many years where he followed where she led, building up a reputation that kept them both safe from the threat of termination, only to see them lose that safety in the face of someone else's interference. Quinton knew that survival now meant hiding from Warhounds
and
Strykers as much as it meant relying on Nathan Serca's oldest son.

“Shut up and get some rest, Thren. I've got this watch.”

She didn't argue, just settled into a restless doze beside him. Quinton wasn't sure how many hours passed before the door to the room was opened, but he knew it wasn't long enough to make a difference to their exhaustion.

“If you want to eat, better get down to the cafeteria,” Lucas said as he leaned into the room. “Meals are offered only twice a day in this place.”

“Are they that short on supplies?” Threnody asked as she rolled onto her back and stretched out her legs, hissing as blood rushed back into stiff muscles.

“They're unregistered and they're scavengers. They're always short on everything.” Lucas disappeared, but they could still hear him talking. “I did a brief run into the city while you slept. I brought back enough supplies for us that we won't eat too badly into their allotment. Matron wouldn't appreciate that.”

“Help me up, Quin,” Threnody said, reaching for him.

It took both of them to get her to her feet. She leaned heavily on him for a moment, hands clenched tightly on his shoulders, breath coming raggedly. Her nerves burned off and on, hot and cold, numb and full of feeling as her system struggled to readjust through the damage she'd inflicted on it. She sighed, momentarily resting her head on his shoulder.

Quinton gave her a brief hug. “How long do you think until you're fully stabilized?”

“Maybe another day or two. Possibly longer,” she said. “I wouldn't mind a painkiller right now, though. One that actually
works
.”

“Come on,” Quinton said, helping her out of the room. “I don't know about medication, but let's get some calories into you.”

Psions had a higher metabolism and burned through energy faster than a normal human ever would. The government was the only one who employed psions because only the government could afford their upkeep.

The tenement the scavengers occupied was three levels tall, practically ancient, with few upgrades and only those that would keep the building standing. The cafeteria and kitchens took up half the second floor, one long, open room full of tables and chairs. Quinton and Threnody queued up with the others waiting for their dinner, and neither complained when the cooks filled their plates with GMO rice, strips of dried vegetable substitution, and cubes of protein. The last serving cook in the line deposited two ration bars on their trays when no one else got extra. Threnody and Quinton didn't question being singled out; they just took a beer from the drink area and joined the long table where Lucas, Kerr, Jason, and Matron were already sitting.

“My second,” Matron said, jerking her head at the blond man beside her. “Everett.”

He had as much illegal cybernetics as Matron did in his hands and arms, with a glitter in the back of both brown eyes that weren't inspecs, but cybernetic ocular nerves. The wiring done to his eyes was top-notch, none of it showing outside his body. Threnody wondered how he'd been able to afford it.

“Psions,” Everett said, his tone revealing that he knew what they really were outside of the obvious.

“Got a problem?” Kerr asked, voice cool.

“Nah. Lucas always pulls through when it matters, even if it does take months.” Everett shoveled a bite of food into his mouth. “In this case, years.”

“Years,” Jason echoed, looking down the table at Lucas.

Lucas methodically demolished a plate holding twice the food of anyone else's. “You don't really think I was in the Slums by chance, do you?”

“Lucas has a way of getting people to do what he wants,” Matron said, sounding only vaguely bitter.

“Willingly?” Quinton wanted to know.

“Most of the time.” Matron's dark eyes were focused on Lucas. “He means well.”

“Choke on your words, Matron,” Lucas said. “Finish up. We've got places to be.”

It was telling, Threnody decided, that Matron did as Lucas ordered without argument. So did Everett. Threnody took another bite of food, forcing herself to finish what she had been served, even as her stomach kept twisting into knots.

They finished their food before anyone else. Matron got to her feet and left her tray on the table. Lucas followed her lead, but he was the first one out of the room. They took the stairs at the end of the hallway down one floor. Matron led them to a back room, the only place in the tenement with modern security. It was locked, but Matron's biometrics opened it. The entrance that room protected was also locked and physically guarded.

The second door was set in the middle of the floor, braced by steel and concrete, anchored into the very foundation of the building. It was an old design, a holdover from when the threat of nuclear attack was always imminent and people had needed a place to go to ground.

Two scavengers sat at a single terminal, monitoring a dozen different security feeds. Threnody spared them a glance only when Matron pointed at her and said warningly, “You don't touch shit in this place without my say-so.”

Threnody shrugged minutely, unapologetic for the ability she had been born with.

“Open her up,” Matron ordered.

The scavengers entered a set of codes into the computer, unlocking the blast doors in the floor. The doors opened smoothly, almost silently, revealing sturdy-looking stairs that led into pitch-blackness.

“What, no lights down there?” Jason asked as Matron and Everett handed out flashlights.

“We're off the electrical grid on the best of days,” Matron explained. “We've got generators we use on a strictly rationed basis. When the time comes, we'll have to hack into the government's electrical grid.”

Kerr knelt by the entrance, letting his hand rest against the side of one of the blast doors. “How'd you find this place?”

“You really think we're going to tell you everything?” Everett said.

“We always have this argument, Everett,” Lucas said as he spared the scavenger a brief, annoyed look. “You always lose.”

Everett spat between them as he tossed Lucas a flashlight. “I don't like giving up our secrets to people like you.”

“It's the people like me who made sure you and yours didn't die from radiation poisoning.” Lucas pressed his thumb over the sensor on the slim metal flashlight, activating it. The light coming from the tip was sharp and painfully bright. “Or don't you remember that I was the one who 'ported you to a doctor that replaced your arms?”

“Don't ask me to thank you.”

“I could just force it out of you. Now shut up and let's go.”

The seven of them descended two flights of stairs into cool darkness. Their footsteps echoed against metal.

“Smells like clean air,” Jason said as they walked through a tunnel that could fit three people across.

“First thing we did when my ma claimed this territory as hers,” Matron said without looking back at them. “Fixed up the environmental system in this place. Cost a fortune on the black market for the material and even more for government agents to look the other way.”

“How long did they stay off your back?”

“Until we killed them.”

“Typical.”

“You say that like someone who's always had access to the best that the government offers.”

“You think walking around with a death switch in our heads is fun?” Threnody asked sharply.

“It ain't there anymore.” Matron glanced over her shoulder, the shadows cast by their light source unable to hide the contempt in her eyes. “Quit your bitching, girl.”

Threnody clenched her hands into fists, telling herself it wasn't anger, but to prevent the next little wave of tremors that rolled through her arms.

“Here,” Quinton said as he passed over a ration bar to her. “Eat this. It should help.”

“I'm fine,” Threnody said, but she took the little packet anyway, tearing it open with her teeth. She was still hungry, even after the previous meal.

Quinton tucked one hand beneath her elbow, letting her lean on him just enough to give her support. Jason and Kerr were between them and the other three, so no one else saw that brief moment of weakness. Threnody's body wasn't fully healed yet, wouldn't be for a while, not unless Lucas could pull a high-tech biotank and medical support system out of his pocket somehow.

She'll live,
Lucas said into Quinton's mind.
I need her alive.