Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (28 page)

I had him beaten. Now he is out there gathering strength. What
will his next move be?
Her retention and consolidation of
power depended on guessing correctly. In her mind was a list of names of people
she had compiled who were likely to aid the fox. He had no family and few
friends; the list wasn’t very long. Most of the candidates were from his time
at the Elite Training Center. Over the last several days she had observed each
of them closely, investigated them, and crossed names off the list one at a
time.

Her com rang. It
was one of the Tensais working in the N Corp’s data analysis department, one of
many departments the fox had created to balance the agendas of the Council
without government oversight. Using bloated grants and earmarks rather than
private funds, he had virtually unlimited resources to move the work forward
under a corporate umbrella, answering only to his peers on the Council who
helped pull the public opinion and government strings like a puppet master
hidden in the shadows.

Before answering, she
turned on her voice synthesizer so she would sound like the fox. “Yes?”

“Per your request,
we have compiled a new list of sites that are candidates for hosting a large
underground movement of rebels. I’m sending it to you now.”

A hologram popped
up from the Queen’s com with a list of five sites. “What makes this list better
than the last? All eight sites on your previous list were incorrect. If I find
that these ones are a waste of my time as well, you may find yourself looking
for a job at a university teaching math.”

The Queen ended the
call and scanned the names on the list.

K.I.
Sawyer, Great Lakes Territory

Rome,
Territory of Quebec

Blytheville,
Southeastern American Territory

Window Rock,
Territory of Mexico

Glasgow,
Mid-Western American Territory

Most of the new
proposals were former military bases, closed for decades and turned into
smaller communities. All of them had nearby airports and hangars. Three of
them—Blytheville, K.I. Sawyer, and Glasgow—had satellite
confirmation of people in or around the areas. Investigating the sites would
require teams to fly to each location and spend days observing, searching for
patterns, and evaluating data.

“The Hive,” she
told her com. A moment later Chad’s image appeared on her holo-screen. Chad was
an Aegis flunky who had nearly been killed after failing training, but the
Queen had swooped in and saved his life due to his abnormally high ranking on
the loyalty scores. She had used her charms to turn him into her own little
puppet, her own personal Diego. And as a bonus, his face bore no hideous scars
like the old Diego.

“Queen,” he said
with a hint of breathlessness. “How can I serve?”

“I need five teams
to investigate five locations for possible resistance headquarters. How soon
can you get me them?”

“How soon do you
want them?”

“How soon can you
get them?” she repeated.

“Got it.”

“Thank you, Chad,”
she said, smirking.

“You’re welcome. Do
you … still plan to stop by this weekend?”

“I think I will
have time.” She ended the call with a sour taste in her mouth. With one last
glance at the list of sites under investigation, she tapped her com and it went
away. She missed the days when she was the one out searching and hunting down
people. She had been good at that. Now she ran everything. She gave the orders.
Perhaps it was for the best, but she wasn’t sure.

This
had better not be another waste of time.

Monday, October 13, 2087

JEFFIE AND SAMMY sat outside the Pen,
a bag of supplies at Sammy’s feet. They sat in silence, something more common
since they’d volunteered for the mission to Rio. Jeffie’s hand rested on his,
but it was cold like the tunnel where they sat. Sammy had learned to appreciate
the quiet moments. Most of his days were now spent in training, poring over
blueprints and schematics of the Rio de Janeiro N Tower, devising their plot to
break in undetected so the kill order could be activated. He didn’t want to
think about how he was essentially planning his and Jeffie’s deaths.

Both were dressed
in combat suits, having come straight from another session of fighting
holo-cameras recording them from every angle. To prepare for the mission,
Thomas and his crew had built a replica of the white floor in Rio, where Jeffie
and Sammy sparred with Nikotai, Li, Albert, and a few other Ultras and Psions.
Sammy and Jeffie did this for at least an hour every day. But once work was
over, they didn’t think about it. They didn’t talk about it. And no one else
mentioned it either. Sammy found it eerie how well everyone skirted the
subject. But he preferred it that way.

“You sure you want
me to come in with you?” Jeffie finally asked.

“Vivi has to get
used to being around you. I don’t want to put it off. Just be your normal …
charming self.”

“I’ve been told by
certain people
that I’m not charming.
I’m energetic.”

“Actually, I think
the term was ‘high strung.’”

Jeffie aimed a half-hearted elbow to Sammy’s side,
which he dodged. “Will you please just tell me what’s in that stupid—”

Sammy scooted the
bag closer to him using his foot. “Nope. Secret.”

“All right, then.”
Jeffie stood and stretched. “Let’s do this.”

Today, rather than
reading, Vitoria was exercising. By the sheen of sweat covering her skin and matting
her hair, Sammy guessed she’d been at it a while.

“One-seventy-five,”
she said through clenched teeth as she pulled herself into a tight crunch.
“One-seventy-six.”

Her stomach, and
all her other muscles, were taut and strong. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes
blazed a manic fire. “One-seventy-seven.”

Despite knowing
that Jeffie and Sammy were in the room, she did not stop until she reached two
hundred. “What’s up, Sammy?” she asked as she transitioned into a new workout
of lunges and twists.

“Can we talk?” he
asked.

Vitoria glanced at
Jeffie. “Sure. Talk.”

“Right,” Jeffie
said. “Should we pull up a yoga mat?”

Sammy cleared his
throat pointedly at her. Then he turned back to Vitoria. “We were thinking more
like a chat.”

“Not in the mood,”
Vitoria grunted.

Nor had she been
for days. Sammy visited Vivi in the Pen regularly, mostly just sitting with
her. After the funerals of Anna and Croz, Sammy had gone to see her. He found
her huddled under her blankets stained from snot and tears. It had taken those
deaths, he realized, for her to understand that she was free from the
S.H.I.E.L.D. program. That she wasn’t being tested. For two days she wouldn’t
eat or drink. Sammy begged her to stop fasting, but nothing he said helped. It
wasn’t until he convinced Justice Juraschek to come as well that things finally
turned.

Justice knelt by
the bed, took Vitoria by the hand, and forgave her through his own tears. He
pleaded with Vitoria not to kill herself—that if she did so, Anna’s work
would mean nothing. “Please don’t dishonor her memory,” Justice told her. “She
wanted you to get better, not die.”

Finally Vitoria
began to take food and drink. Sammy visited almost daily. Occasionally she
spoke, always a request for Sammy to talk about Toad. Even after Sammy had
exhausted his brain of every memory he had, she asked him to repeat them. Sammy
gladly obliged. During the last few weeks her demeanor changed. She no longer
dressed or acted provocatively. She slowly stopped glaring at him with wary
eyes. And she occasionally even smiled at him.

But Vitoria wasn’t
smiling now. Her eyes flickered to Jeffie as her scowl deepened. “I brought
Jeffie so you could get to know her,” Sammy explained. “She’ll be accompanying
us on the mission.”

“You keep
mentioning the mission, but you never say what it is.” Vitoria raised an
eyebrow. “What if I don’t want to go?”

Sammy shrugged.
“We’re pinning our hopes on you not saying that.”

“Why me? I killed
three of your people.” Just like that, the light was gone from Vitoria’s eyes,
and she was the broken, lonely girl again. “Now you want to give me the
combination to the bank vault?”

Sammy shrugged.
“That’s the situation, Vivi. You’ve got four weeks to show us we can trust you.
If we can’t, you’re going anyway, but you’ll be cuffed, sedated, and a huge
drain on our time and resources.”

“But you still
won’t tell me what this mission is,” Vivi said as she got back down on the
floor to continue exercising.

“In time we will,”
Jeffie said. “Today I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions to get to
know you better.”

Vitoria resumed her
lunges back and forth across the room. “You can ask.”

“What kind of
movies do you like?”

“Is this supposed
to make us trust each other?”

Jeffie gave Sammy a
helpless look. “No. Depending on what movies you watch, I may trust you even
less.”

The joke caught
Vitoria off-guard. Sammy seized on the opportunity. “Toad said you liked pony
movies. What does that mean?”

Jeffie chuckled,
but quickly covered her nose. “Pony Town? Did you watch that? I loved that
show!”

Sammy made a face
of disgust. “What?” he asked Jeffie. “You watched a show about
ponies
?”

“Yes! When I was
seven and eight, I never missed it.”

“Well that’s one
thing
we
don’t have in common.”

“Tell me you’re
joking. You’ve really never heard of Pony Town?”

“Did you like that
show too?” Sammy asked Vitoria.

Vitoria shrugged.

“Every girl in
school loved it.” Jeffie snapped her fingers and started to sing. She did not
have the greatest singing voice, though she wasn’t terrible. “
Come on down to … Pony Town! No one frowns
in … Pony Town!
”

“
We’ll have some fun, you’ll meet someone
,”
Vitoria jumped in.

Then the girls
finished together, “
If you come to … Pony
Town!
”

“There’s two more
verses,” Jeffie said, grinning widely. “Do you want to hear them?”

Sammy cleared his
throat. “No, thanks. I get the gist of it.”

Jeffie turned back
to Vitoria. “So what kind of music do you listen to?”

“Tope de mesa,”
Vitoria answered.

“What’s that?”

Vitoria rolled her
eyes and stopped her lunges. “In the north they call it tabletop music, but it
started in Rio as
tope de mesa
.
Because the beat …” She swayed and gyrated her hips rapidly and provocatively
with her arms raised above her head. “It’s made for dancing on top of tables.”

Jeffie raised an
eyebrow at Sammy. “I guess I’ll have to look into that.”

“My mom used to
take me—” Vitoria paled and stopped speaking, her body no longer swaying,
her gaze stuck on the carpet. A fat tear rolled down one cheek, but she smacked
it off her face with a hard
SLAP
.

Jeffie put a hand
on her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Sammy
said in his gentlest tone. “You can tell us. What do you remember about your
mom?”

Vitoria shrugged
Jeffie’s hand off of her. “What do you remember about
your
parents?” she asked, now using a tough, sullen voice. “Them
hugging and kissing you goodbye before sending you off to Psion school?”

“That was my
parents,” Jeffie said. “Or at least, I wish it’d been. My mom said goodbye to
me three weeks before I left because she had a film to shoot. My dad didn’t hug
me, he gave me a fist bump when he dropped me off at the air rail hub. Told me
to stay awesome. Pretty cool, huh?”

“I wasn’t asking
you,” Vitoria sneered.

“My parents …”
Sammy said, a lump in his throat, “the last time I saw them they were being
wheeled away in body bags.”

“Thirteens?”
Vitoria asked.

“No.”

“Who did it then?”

Sammy shrugged. “I
don’t know. I don’t think about it much anymore.”

The haunted, vacant
look returned to Vitoria’s eyes. “I don’t see the point in this. You two should
go.”

“Vivi …” Sammy
sighed, “We just want to get to know you.”

“I genuinely want
to be your friend,” Jeffie said.

Vitoria snorted.
“And I genuinely want chlamydia.”

“Vivi …” Sammy
repeated.

“Give it a rest,
Sammy. No one wants to be my friend. You’ve all seen what I’m capable of.”

“We’re all capable
of horrible things.”

“But you haven’t
done them.” Tears welled up in Vitoria’s eyes, but she covered her face before
they fell.

“I have,” Sammy
admitted.

“So have I,” Jeffie
said. “But I haven’t been brainwashed. I don’t have an excuse for my actions.”

Vitoria let out a
mirthless, hollow laugh. “Brainwashed. If you believe I was brainwashed, then
how can you trust me? I’m a bomb. A bomb that you never know when it’s going to
blow.”

“I’m willing to
give you a second chance,” Sammy said. “If you can prove that you’re worthy of
it.”

“Should I sign my
name in blood?” A faint smile appeared on Vitoria’s lips.

Sammy delved into
his bag and removed a rope. “Jeffie, tie me to the chair. Tie me well enough
that I can’t get out.”

Jeffie took the
items hesitantly. “Okay.”

It took her about
five minutes to tie him. The ropes bit into his wrists and ankles. Vitoria
watched them skeptically.

“You can leave now,
Jeffie,” he said.

“No. I’m not
leaving you like this.”

Sammy looked at
her. “Please. Trust me.”

Jeffie’s eyes flashed
and he thought she was going to refuse. “Why is it always your way?” He heard
the hurt in her voice and wondered if he should have told her his plan after
all.

“Trouble in
paradise,” Vitoria muttered.

Jeffie shot Vitoria
a glare. “I’m standing right outside the door.”

“It’ll be locked.”

Jeffie swore at
him. “Why—”

“Can we discuss it
later?”

Without another
word, Jeffie left, shutting the door harder than needed. Vitoria gave a low
whistle. “You sure know how to charm the ladies, Sammy. So now what? You and I
explore the wonders of bondage together?”

“Take out the last
item, please, Vivi.”

Smirking sultrily,
Vitoria reached into the bag. “Let me guess, it’s a giant …” She removed the
item, frowning at it. “Knife. Good grief, you couldn’t find a bigger one?”

“It’s called a
bowie knife.”

“I know what it’s
called. My question is
why
?”

“You’re a smart
girl, Vivi. You figure it out.”

Vitoria handled the
weapon thoughtfully, hefting it and examining its edge. “Sharp.” She ran a
finger along the blade and drew blood. “Very.”

Before Sammy could
even react, she dashed at him and pressed the blade against his throat. Sammy
didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. “I trust you. There’s nothing to stop you from
killing me except yourself.”

Vitoria bared her
teeth, her eyes blazed. “You think I won’t?”

Sammy kept his face
neutral, but when he swallowed hard, he felt the blade sting his neck. “I hope
you won’t.”

“I’ve killed
before. What’s to stop me now?”

“I’m your brother.”

She gritted her
teeth and grabbed his hair, yanking his head back and exposing his neck. It
dawned on Sammy that he may have grossly miscalculated. “I had a brother. It
wasn’t you.”

“I know. I wish all
this crap had never happened to you. I wish you’d never had to meet me because
it’d mean you have a normal life. But I can’t do that, Vivi! I can’t change the
past. Neither can you. But we can change the now. That knife has two uses. It
can either cut my throat, or cut my ropes. If you want to cut my throat, go
ahead. But I think you’d rather use that knife to cut me free.”

Vitoria raised the
knife. He steeled himself for the end.
I
am an idiot.

“You’re wrong,
Sammy.” She swung it down with all the speed and strength her Anomaly Fifteen
gave her. Sammy heard a crack and fell to the floor, still bound to the chair
which now had one less leg. When his head smacked the carpet, his vision
blurred.