Mind Storm (27 page)

“How do you hope to explain this to the World Court?”

“That's not for you to worry about.”

Hearing the dismissal in Ciari's words, Jael left.

“Computer, initiate lockdown,” Ciari said as she sat in her chair, hearing the chime signaling that her verbal order had been obeyed. Sighing, Ciari reached for the data chip that Aidan had delivered, unsurprised to find a second one resting beside it, clear, with no markings whatsoever to show whom it had come from or even where it had been manufactured.

Ciari scooped them both up, holding the tiny squares in the palm of her hand, trying not to think about everything else that she couldn't hold on to.

[
TWENTY-FOUR
]

AUGUST 2379
BUFFALO, USA

The hypospray hissed softly against his throat as Jason jammed his thumb against the release button. Adrenaline shot through his veins, sharpening his senses to an almost dangerous degree. He pulled the thin cylinder away from his body with a ragged gasp.

“That's your sixth injection in the past twenty-one hours,” Quinton said from the hatch behind him, almost sounding worried. “You're going to burst your heart if you use any more.”

“Can't be helped,” Jason rasped as he tossed the empty hypospray onto the floor of the flight deck. “I have to be able to think.”

“Why not get one of the telepaths to keep you awake? Turn your mind permanently on for a few hours, or however much longer this will take.”

“Doesn't work on me.” Jason craned his head around to give Quinton a strained smile. “My shields don't allow for very much psionic interference. Always wondered why, before Lucas said I'm supposed to be something other than a regular old Class V telekinetic. Anyway, I burn through this stuff so quick that I have to keep it in my veins with continuous injections. You know how it is.”

Quinton stepped into the flight deck and watched as the younger man sat himself down in the pilot's seat. Jason's hands skimmed over the control terminal, prying hardwires out of the console and connecting them to the neuroports in his arms. Hologrids sparked into existence all around him, the light turning his skin a sickly gray.

“Kerr can't do anything for you?”

“Kerr can only go so deep in my head, even with the bond,” Jason explained as he dragged his fingers through the readout, most of his attention on the program. “He needs to focus on his own mind right now. I'll be fine. Something tells me Lucas won't let me die before I finish this hive connection. The hackers they used didn't know government code as well as I do.”

Quinton grunted soft agreement.

“Why are you still here, Quinton?”

“Threnody was worried about your limits. I'll tell her you've got none.”

It drew a strained laugh out of Jason, making him glance over his shoulder at Quinton. The inspecs in his eyes were bright spots in his pupils. “Oh, I've got limits, but Lucas doesn't care about them. I'm all out of hyposprays. Bring me another one in three hours. I'm going to need it.”

Quinton shook his head as he turned to leave. “Just don't get dead, Jason. We still need you.”

Quinton walked through the cargo bay and down the open ramp of the cargo door to the launchpad. The area, which had been empty when he'd gone into the shuttle, was now filled with large metal supply trunks, courtesy of Lucas, who was looking a lot worse for wear. After ten straight hours of constant teleportation between underground hangars, ferrying supplies, Quinton figured anyone would.

“What's in these?” Quinton asked.

“Insulated skinsuits,” Lucas said as he kicked one of the trunks with his boot. “We're going to need them when we hit the Arctic. It might be summer, but it's still cold as fuck.”

“Where do you want them?”

“Cargo hold. Three in each. I'll leave you to it.”

He teleported out and Quinton swore tiredly. Just a fucking stevedore, that's all he was right now. Quinton retrieved the hoverlift that was sitting idle past the launchpad and dragged the trunks one at a time into the shuttles, because more than just skinsuits were in those huge containers. The weight had carefully been calculated by Matron, things that they would need for and after the Arctic. Lucas hadn't said as much, but everyone knew they weren't going to stay on Spitsbergen. They couldn't. The World Court would wage a quick and dirty war with them if they tried to, and the psions would lose.

The thing was, Quinton thought as he guided the second set of trunks into the next shuttle, Lucas was damned good at keeping them all in the dark. Whether it was psionic interference or just a slick mindwipe, Lucas only gave out enough details to get the results he wanted. Didn't matter how many lives he took or ruined, the only thing that he cared about was a final goal he shared with no one.

“Where's Jason?”

Quinton glanced up as he finished anchoring the latest supply trunk beside one of the massive cold storage units bolted to the deck of the shuttle. Threnody stood at the bottom of the open cargo ramp, a tense expression on her face.

“In the other shuttle,” he said.

“Kerr just informed me that he picked up Warhound and Stryker psi signatures on the mental grid.”

Quinton grimaced. “They're early.”

“Or they're right on time.” Threnody climbed up into the shuttle, peeling open a ration bar. She had two in her hands and offered the unopened one to Quinton. “Depends which schedule we're running on. That's not all of it. Matron said the acid storm out west caught the polar jet stream. It's going to hit here sooner rather than later. We don't have much time left.”

“How soon?”

Threnody chewed hard on the bite of ration bar she'd taken before saying, “Three, maybe four hours. We can predict the weather, but we can't control it.”

Quinton took in a careful breath. “Guess that's why Lucas just teleported out.”

“We've got sixteen underground hangars to prep for launch in less time than we thought we'd get. That's what I need to tell Jason. He needs to get these shuttles online
now
.”

Quinton finished securing the last trunk before following Threnody to the shuttle Jason was working in. The telekinetic was hunched over the console, wires streaming out of both arms and inspecs running at high capacity as they parsed out the downloads that were coming through the bioware in his brain.

“Jason,” Threnody said.

“Busy” was his absent-sounding answer.

“Not as much as you're going to be.” Threnody leaned over his chair and put a hand over his eyes, forcing a physical connection he had to deal with instead of the hologrids in the air around him and the data being downloaded into his brain. “That storm is going to hit within the next few hours. We've got Strykers and Warhounds on the ground in Buffalo. We need these shuttles flight-worthy.”

Jason swore, finished what he was working on with a few quick commands, and started the compiler. Then he pulled her hand off his face and twisted his head to stare at her.

“Are you
kidding
?” Jason asked, voice dry. “How long?”

“You've got two hours to finish this, Jason. That's it.”

“Or we're all dead, I
know
. You're lucky I've already installed all the firmware on the rest of the shuttles.” He refocused his attention on the data before him. “You did your duty by me, now start warning everyone else.”

Quinton and Threnody left the shuttle side by side, hurrying back to the tenement where Matron had kicked her scavengers into high gear hours ago. There were fewer scavengers than when they'd first arrived in Buffalo. Matron had been sending them out in small groups to the other hangars over the last few days.

“This is it people, we're at the endgame,” Matron shouted over the buzz of conversation as a multitude of bodies worked around her. “You know your places. I want you all there before that acid storm hits. Keep your head down, stay off the grid, and stay the hell away from the quads.”

Matron saw the Strykers approaching and nodded in their direction. When they got close enough, Threnody said, “Jason knows. He's going to have the hive connection fully up and running in two hours.”

“You sure about that?”

“He was one of the best hackers the Strykers Syndicate had. He'll get it done.”

Matron grunted as she continued to separate out weapons on the table she was standing at. “Novak's at his assigned hangar with Everett. I've got reports in from half my crew, the ones that are already at the other hangars or on their way. They're worried about being discovered by you psions.”

“Lucas and I have their minds shielded,” Kerr announced as he slipped through the crowd to plant himself next to Matron. “Don't worry about them.”

“Yeah, the last time Lucas said that, I ended up with a third of my crew dead.” Matron scowled, lips pulled back over her metal teeth. “How many is he going to let die this time?”

“You'll survive.” Kerr shrugged as he reached for a gun and hooked the weapon to his belt. “Isn't that the only thing you're worried about?”

“Stay the fuck out of my head.”

“I'm not in your mind.”

Kerr nodded at Threnody and Quinton before disappearing back into the crowd with his own set of orders to follow.

“Fucking psions,” Matron muttered as she loaded yet another gun and set it aside for someone else to claim.

Quinton joined her at the table, sorting through the stash of weapons with familiar ease. Threnody positioned herself on the other side of the room, helping a trio of scavengers destroy the accumulated data the tenement held, which meant burning out everything electrical they handed her until it was just slag.

Based on Matron's orders and the way she was giving them, Threnody knew that Matron wasn't going to return to Buffalo anytime soon, if ever again. She was covering her tracks in a methodical, almost brutal, way, stripping the tenement down to its bones. Threnody had a feeling that the other sites around Buffalo the scavengers owned were going through the same strip-and-burn scenario.

“What about the hangars?” Threnody asked as she placed her hand on yet another hard drive and sent her power through it. “You're not going to leave them for the government to dig through, right?”

“That's why we've got the C-4,” Matron said. “Don't worry your pretty little head, girl. I've been doing this for longer than you've been alive.”

The tenements that Matron's scavengers used as their base of operations were off the electrical grid most of the time, but not for this mission. Matron was savvy, in the way most survivalists were. She didn't have a permanent hard connection to the rest of Buffalo, but her restricted system could still uplink through a secondary one. It ran under the connections that the government used, but Matron considered information and secrecy more important than credit and following the law. Always had; it's what enabled her to survive. Right now, they needed to be connected to the government's grid.

The vidscreens in the building switched on all at once, the emergency stream that appeared flickering red around the edges. A reporter for Buffalo, a pretty brunette press anchor set up high somewhere in the city towers, smiled at the masses.

“People of New York. Please do not be alarmed. Curfew has been enacted for your personal safety. It has come to the government's attention that rogue psions have infiltrated Buffalo. The government advises everyone to remain in their towers or in their bunkers. Strykers are on the ground for your protection against the rogue psions. Adhere to the curfew or face a heavy fine.”

The average citizen didn't know that rogue psions were a well- organized group, just that they were a dangerous enough threat to make people think twice about venturing outside the bunkers and the sealed city towers. The government didn't want their problem spun any which way but dead, which was why they mentioned the Strykers.

The broadcast repeated itself a second time before the stream went to standby mode. Like all emergency streams, it would be repeated every few minutes. Matron turned her head to look at Threnody.

“How's that notoriety feel?” the woman asked.

Threnody clenched her hand around the latest hard drive she was holding, electric lines of power crackling from her fingers to the small machine in her hand as it became nothing more than slag.

“They aren't revealing our identities,” Threnody said. “Which means the government doesn't want the world to know that Strykers have gone rogue.”

“Most rogue psions are Strykers who defect.”

“That's not common knowledge outside of highly classified reports.” Something Threnody had only recently learned. “And
most
is a little too high a count.”

Matron's mouth curled up in disgust. “Fucking sheep.”

Threnody chose not to feel insulted. Matron's disgust only lasted for a few seconds, or as long it took for the lights in the tenement to flicker and die out, only some coming back online with the whine of generators a few seconds later when they were
supposed
to be tapped into the main electrical grid.

Matron's teeth clacked together loudly in the sudden silence. “That ain't good.”

Threnody followed her gaze to the nearest dark tracts of lighting. “I thought we were already running off the generators?”

“We normally are, but how do you think we're going to open fifteen launch silos?” Matron shook her head. “One would drain all my generators. Fifteen isn't possible. We've been tied into the government's electrical grid since Jason started his hack.”

“And now?”

“Now we're fucking
not
.” Matron spun around. “Someone get me an uplink! I want to know what the fuck just happened here!”

She rushed off, barking out orders as she went. Threnody was still needed for a few more minutes of disposal work, so she jerked her head at Quinton in a silent order. Weaving his way through the crowd of scavengers who were busy gathering up what they would need to get them to the other launch sites, Quinton kept doggedly on Matron's heels.