Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (20 page)

Jane hid a smile behind her napkin, which she used
to dab her lips. Again the thought struck Sammy how maturely she behaved.
“Don’t be nervous. Tonight will be enjoyable for both of us.”

“I hope so.” Sammy knew in an instant he’d answered
too quickly. “I just didn’t want to make you uncom—”

“First time with someone you just met?”

Sammy tried to pretend he was someone else, someone
charming and witty. What would such a person say?
No … Anna told you not to do that
.

“First time with someone so beautiful,” he finally
decided, and found the response surprisingly satisfactory.

Jane’s eyes flashed at the compliment. “How old are
you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“And how are you such a well-placed person at such a
young age?”

It intrigued Sammy how quickly she’d taken control
over the conversation, or at least thought she had. “I studied hard. Did well
on tests.”

“And you?” he asked. “Did you join Ultra Dark
voluntarily or otherwise?”

For a sliver of a moment, Jane’s demeanor slipped.
The muscles around her mouth and eyes relaxed, the sultry shine in her eyes
dulled, and Sammy saw her plainly: scared and small. But it was gone so quickly,
he wondered if she even knew it had happened. It was as though some tiny bit of
her had broken through the brainwashing, the hardened exterior, only to be
immediately extinguished.

“Voluntarily.”

“Why is that? You wanted a life of adventure, not a life
of boredom?”

Jane took a sip of her water. “Exactly. And what
foolhardy girl wouldn’t choose the first?”

“That’s what I would choose, too.”

“I love my powers.”

Sammy chuckled at her comment. “And what exactly are
they? I mean, I’ve read the reports. Watched you practice. But what’s it like?”

Jane picked up a knife and held it vertically. Then
she balanced it on her finger. Unlike Sammy, who would’ve had to keep moving
his hand to stay under the swaying knife, she held very still and the knife
never wavered. “Give me a target.”

“What’s that?” Sammy asked.

“A target. Something you want to see me hit.”

Sammy looked around the room and chose the ugly
canvas painting on his wall of two dogs sniffing at a patch of grass. “The
Chihuahua. Between its eyes.”

Jane bounced her hand, flipping the knife into the
air. She caught it, flicked it, and struck the dog exactly where Sammy had told
her.

“A well-executed assassination,” Sammy declared.
“That poor dog.”

“You asked me what it’s like … ” Jane said. “And
that’s the best I can describe it. As an Ultra you feel powerful. And deadly.”

“What does your family think of your abilities? Are
they frightened by them?”

Jane glanced at her salad and sniffed. It was a tiny
thing, a sound that lasted less than a second. But it was enough. Her eyes. Her
voice. Her age. Sammy knew her now. How many times had he heard her name spoken
on the way to Wichita while his friend moaned in his sleep? How many times had
he heard that sniff?

Jane was Vitoria. Vitoria Prado.

Toad’s little sister.

Monday, July 28, 2087

SAMMY WANTED TO say Jane’s real name, but couldn’t. Not yet. They
planned to capture her, but not until after they knew what secrets might be
concealed on or in her body. The scanner in the chandelier would reveal them
all. And once they were certain she was safe, they would give her the
anti-solution and take her.

Despite the mission, the plan, the set up, all Sammy
could think of was Toad. For several weeks Toad had been his best friend and
companion. Toad had saved Sammy’s life when Katie Carpenter had beaten him in
battle. All it had cost Toad was everything. With his perfect memory, Sammy saw
Toad’s shrapnel-riddled body and the pools of blood that flowed across the
floor of the air hangar in Omaha.

“So … your parents?” Sammy repeated.

“Thrilled about my powers,” Vitoria answered. “My
biggest supporters. I can’t imagine them being frightened.”

“And—and brothers?” Sammy’s voice caught just
before he added the
s
on brothers.
“Sis—sisters?”

“I am an only child.”

Tongue-tied at the memory of his friend, Sammy could
only nod.

“Did I say something wrong?” Vitoria asked.

Sammy shook his head and forced a pleasant
expression back on his face. “Nothing. In fact, I have to tell you that I find
you not only beautiful, but charming.”

And I will get
you out of this mess if it kills me. I owe Toad at least that much.

He served the pasta to allow another lull in
conversation. His thoughts were so occupied with things besides food that he
might as well have been chewing rubber. What had been an important mission was
now a personal vendetta. He glanced at the chandelier above where a scanner was
hiding, taped in such a manner that only Sammy could see it from his angle.
Layer by layer, it would scan Vitoria’s body for any hidden device—other
than the solution—that would allow the CAG to track her back to
resistance headquarters in Glasgow.

Conversation continued throughout the meal. Sammy
peppered her with questions about the S.H.I.E.L.D. program, and Vitoria
answered them as though she was having the time of her life each day. Near the
end of dinner a knock came at the door. Sammy feigned surprise at the
intrusion, but made a joke out of it. “Not expecting more guests, are we?”

Jeffie was at the door. “Hi … Sorry to trouble you,
but I’ve lost my room key and the thumb plate isn’t working. Can you call down
to the front desk and have them send someone up to Room 274?”

“Sure. 274.”

Sammy shut the door as Jeffie apologized and thanked
him again. Giving Vitoria an apologetic smirk of his own because of the
interruption, Sammy told his com to call the front desk, which he had
programmed as Anna’s number. After explaining about Jeffie’s predicament, Anna
responded in a low, rushed voice, “She’s clean except for the earring on her
left ear. Proceed to the next phase. We’ll get the earring off her before we
haul outta here.”

“Okay,” Sammy said. “Thank you very much.” He took
the com from his ear and returned to the table with Vitoria. As he did so, he
activated the gas canister under the table to release the sleeping gas. “Who
forgets their room key? Anyway … what were we talking about?”

Vitoria grabbed Sammy’s jacket in two hands and
pulled him toward her. “We don’t need to talk anymore.”

Before Sammy could protest, Vitoria kissed him. She
was the second person he had ever kissed, and he immediately noted the
differences between Vitoria’s lips and Jeffie’s. As his heart thundered inside
his chest, Sammy pushed Vitoria backward so that she faced him while laying on
the bed. The soft hiss of the gas permeating the air was not perceptible above
the sound of music pulsing from the stereo next to the hotel room’s
holo-screen.

Any second now
she’ll be out and this will be over.

They continued to kiss as Sammy waited for the gas
to take effect. After several seconds her lips traveled to his cheek, neck, and
ear. The longer they went at it, the more nervous Sammy became that something
had gone wrong. A fire lit in her eyes as she reached for the strap of her
glittering gold gown.

Screw this. I
can’t wait any longer
.

Sammy’s left hand went under a pillow and found the
first of two syringes that, when combined, created the anti-solution. As
Vitoria’s head turned to face him, he grabbed her left hand with his own right
and prepared to grab her left earring as soon as he injected her. They kissed
again. Vitoria moaned into the kiss as her free hand snaked up Sammy’s shirt.
At that moment Sammy jammed the needle into her left thigh and emptied its
contents into her leg.

Vitoria shrieked and jerked while Sammy snatched at
her earring, but missed. She bucked him up into a sitting position and
immediately her right foot connected with his temple. Sammy slammed into the
headboard, his vision fuzzy. One hand went up as a shield blast, the other
slowly crept and searched for the second syringe. According to the instructions
from Trapper’s data cube, Sammy had thirty minutes to inject Vitoria with the
second liquid to render the solution inert.

“What did you stick in me?” Vitoria asked as she
touched her earring.

“Don’t—” he cried, but too late. “Listen, I’m
here to help you!”

 
Vitoria
ripped the bed sheets out from under him with a strength he hadn’t anticipated.
Then she whipped them up and let them billow in the pulsings of Sammy’s blasts.

“Put the sheet down and let me explain,” Sammy said,
turning up the strength of his blast to ward her away and give himself more
space to work. “I won’t hurt you.”

The sheet fluttered to the carpet, but Vitoria had
already moved. She stepped on the bed, bounced toward the wall, and then kicked
off the wall at Sammy.

“Vit—” He tried to catch her or shoot her out
of the air, but she was fast—faster than a Thirteen. Her knee collided
with his skull. As he rolled backward Sammy shot a powerful blast, stronger
than he’d intended, and sent Vitoria flying toward the window.

Rather than crashing through the glass, she grabbed
the curtain rod and swung herself sideways, then hit the floor. Sammy protected
himself with two blast shields, but he had a feeling that Vitoria could get
around them with ease. Rather than attacking again, he reached for the second
syringe, but it was not under the pillow.

“What did you stick in me?” Vitoria yelled.

Sammy’s hands darted around the bed, but the syringe
was gone.
It must have dropped under the
bed
. “You have to trust me! I know you’re really Vitoria Prado. I was a
friend of your brother. I’m going to get you out of here!”

He knew it sounded absurd, even creepy, to ask a
girl to trust him after he’d arranged to have her come to his hotel room and
then stuck her with a needle, but he didn’t know what else to say. A fork flew
at his head. Sammy blasted it away, gripped the bed with his free hand, and
jerked up the mattress. There, on the bed frame, was the syringe.

As Sammy ducked behind the mattress and grabbed the
second syringe, the mattress collapsed under Vitoria’s weight. The blade of a
knife ripped through the material as Vitoria tried to stab him through the bed.
Sammy put the syringe in his teeth and blasted the mattress away with both
hands. Vitoria and the mattress flew across the room. He heard her hit the wall
with a loud
THUMP
and slide to the
floor.

She went limp, her right arm and shoulder twitching
once, twice, and then she became deathly still. Sammy’s breath caught in his
lungs.
No. I didn’t mean…

He spat the syringe from his mouth and stuffed it into
his pocket. “Vitoria?” he asked, rushing to help her.

When he knelt beside her she swung at his throat
with a second knife, one he hadn’t even known she had. Vitoria missed by
millimeters, but made up for it by kicking him in the back of the head and throwing
herself into him. Sammy caught her, wrapped her up with his arms, and blasted
backward, flipping them over in the air, and landing on the table with her
underneath, wood, glass and metal shattering and screeching.

Someone in the room above stomped on the floor,
telling them to keep down the racket. Vitoria stuck her fingers in Sammy’s
face, trying to gouge his eyes. “What did you inject me with?”

“Nothing …” Sammy grunted as he released her and
tried to pull her hands away from his face, “that … will harm you!”

Vitoria punched him viciously seven or eight times
in the chest and neck, then kneed him in the face. The amount of time in
between each jab was so short that Sammy lost count. Finally he blasted himself
off of her, but she was on her feet and tackled him on the bed.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Someone who wants to help you! I knew Toad! Sapo!
Your brother!”

Vitoria threw another fork at him.
Where does she keep getting the utensils?
Raising one arm to shield his eyes, and using his other hand to blast at her,
the fork stuck him on the underside of his forearm while Vitoria slammed into
the headboard of the bed. Before she could get off him, Sammy uncapped the
second syringe and jammed it into her buttock. It sank deep, and he emptied its
contents.

Vitoria screamed what he guessed were Portuguese
swear words because Toad had shouted similar things when he’d been angry. Rage
filled her eyes as she ran at him. Sammy fired blast after blast at her, but
she twisted and bent her body to avoid the energy bursts. Sammy backed away the
closer she came, but she was too fast. Her foot connected with his face in a
burst of pain.

“Stop kicking me in the head!” he shouted, but she
countered with an elbow that sent him to the ground, stunned.

In his groggy state he saw three Vitorias, each
walking toward him. She grabbed him by the jacket and dragged him toward the
painting of the dogs that still bore the knife she’d thrown.

“Vitoria, please,” he mumbled as the three Vitorias
finally melted back into one. “I was Toad’s friend. Your brother. Toad. Rulé
Prado.”

Vitoria ripped the knife out of the painting and
brought it down at Sammy’s neck. But before she could connect, she doubled
over, clutching her stomach. A deep moan came from her gut as she crumpled to
the floor, rolling over onto her back. “What did you do to me?”

“I saved your life—” Sammy started to say when
his com beeped. It took him a moment to locate it in all the wreckage of the
room. But when he found it, he hurried and stuffed it back in his ear. “I
delivered the anti-solu—”

“Dark agents are coming up the stairs and
elevators,” Anna reported. “We’re calling in the stealth cruiser for an air
extraction. Keep them busy, and we’ll come up behind them.”

“Got it.”

“Try not to die.”

Vitoria rolled on the floor, groaning, face twisted
in agony. Sammy stepped over her and scooted the bed frame closer to the window
so he could use the headboard as cover. Then he dragged Vitoria between the
window and bed, and taped her hands and feet together. About five seconds
later, the door crashed to the floor.

“Uh … ” Sammy said into his com, “I don’t have a
gun.”

“Why do you think Commander Byron taught you to
fight without a gun in Beta headquarters?” was Anna’s response.

Sammy blasted the bed at the Dark agents as they
came through the door, sending it soaring across the room. A moment later, the
bed shot back at him. Sammy dove to his left. The bed crashed through the
window and sailed down to the street below.

Glass rained on Sammy. Four Psion Dark agents
entered the room: two males, two females, all armed with assault rifles. When
he saw them, Sammy swore in Portuguese because he thought it sounded better.
They wore armored cloth, similar to what Alphas wore during missions, perhaps a
bit heavier.

They opened fire on Sammy who could do nothing but
shield and keep moving to present a more difficult target. He also needed to
make sure Vitoria stayed out of the line of fire. Bullets ripped the air,
peppering the walls and ceiling, spraying debris and glass like confetti.
Screams came from the rooms above, followed by heavy footsteps. As Sammy
defended himself, he searched the room, the space, and his brain for some way
to win—to live. He waited to
see
the answer.

It intrigued him that the Psion Dark agents did not
fight like Thirteens. They stayed together as a unit, cohesive and fluid,
attacking from positions of safety to prevent any opening for Sammy to
retaliate.

Before he came up with a plan, five more people
arrived: Jeffie, Li, Kawai, Commander Byron, and Anna. Commander Byron opened
fire first. The Dark agents turned quickly. One took a bullet to the back, but
her armor absorbed the worst of the shot. She fell down, but quickly recovered.
Sammy’s team fanned out and took cover around the room. This allowed Sammy to
move in and use hand to hand combat. He picked the smallest of the four: a
short girl with hair dyed half green and half pink.