Terminal Point (10 page)

“Antarctica, I know. Lucas told me we're still heading there.” She slid the IV out of her hand and reached for the skinsuit. “Thank you.”

Quinton moved to sit in the navigator's seat. It was habit to take care of each other, the only family they'd had for years. There had never been anything sexual between them, and privacy wasn't something they had ever received. They lost their right to it the moment the neurotrackers were grafted to their brains. When you fought in the crowded streets of dying cities and along the boundaries of deadzones, privacy was a luxury you weren't allowed.

When she finished dressing, Threnody carefully stood. Quinton knew better than to help her, but from the way he held himself, she knew he would catch her if she fell.

The biotank had regenerated her nervous system, fixing the massive, self-inflicted damage she'd caused while fighting Jin Li at the power plant, and the further damage from pushing herself in the Arctic. It couldn't do anything about exhaustion. She stared at her palms and fingers, at the healed flesh that felt too new. Taking a deep breath, Threnody accessed her power and tried not to flinch as it sizzled through her nerves with a new sharpness.

Blue electricity crawled across the skin of her hands, dancing over her fingernails. It sputtered and sparked, tiny lines of power that was all her. It made her a little dizzy, but she had no other way to discover if she could still function as a psion.

A warm hand curved over her elbow, holding her steady as she absorbed that power back into her body. Still a Class III electrokinetic. Still everything she was born to be. Jin Li tried, but he hadn't been able to take that from her.

“Everything working right?” Quinton asked.

“Yeah,” she said, even if it wasn't really true. Threnody felt his fingers tighten on her arm. She didn't fight when he pulled her into a hard hug.

“You pull that shit again, I'll kick your goddamn ass.”

Threnody let out a strangled little laugh, turning her face against his neck and giving herself a moment—one fucking moment—to be human.

It was a minute or two before they separated. Threnody ran both hands through her hair, irritated when her fingers caught on tangled knots. “Heard we got the seeds and everything else that was on Spitsbergen. Half of it, at least.”

Quinton nodded, rubbed at the back of his head, wincing. “Yeah. We got it. Jays did a lot of the heavy lifting both there and here. He's sleeping it off now.”

Threnody froze when she heard that familial diminutive come out of Quinton's mouth. Only Kerr had ever been allowed to use it. She thought back to the fight at the outpost in Longyearbyen, the name Jason had called her in that hallway. She and Quinton had spent too many years living in each other's personal space for her not to know when something was wrong.

“Quinton? You've never called Jason by that name before.”

He looked away from her, out the windshield over her left shoulder. His silence was unnerving. Threnody sighed and framed his face with hands that shook only slightly, forcing Quinton to look at her.

“Lucas wasn't very forthcoming with details,” she said. “Did something else happen in the seed bank? Tell me what I need to know.”

The Strykers mind-set would take years to break, years they didn't have. She was in charge, he would always see their partnership that way. When Threnody gave an order, she, like Lucas, expected to be obeyed.

“It didn't happen in the seed bank,” Quinton said.

Threnody steeled herself for his report, knowing she wasn't going to like it. “What didn't happen?”

“You were dying. I didn't want to lose you, so I made a deal with Lucas.” He pulled her hands away, putting distance between them. “Gideon Serca broke my arms at the power plant. Broke my face. I think he would have broken every last bone in my body if Samantha hadn't stopped him. I wasn't in any condition to save you back in Buffalo.”

Threnody's gaze dropped to his hands. She ran her fingers over his forearm, feeling only muscle and not the ridges of biotubes. “Lucas keeps saying that he needs me. He would have saved me anyway without you asking him to.”

“It's more than that. It has to do with Kristen.”

“I know she's dysfunctional,” Threnody said. “I don't know what she does in order to gain sanity. Quinton, what are you saying?”

“She broke Jason's shields. She was the only one who could. His natal shields are completely gone. That's why he was able to save you.”

“I assumed it was Lucas's doing, that he found some way to merge with Jason.”

“No, it was Kristen. Because of her, Jason's finally got his secondary shields and full access to his power. He—” Quinton broke off, voice cracking a bit.

Threnody didn't even know she was reaching for him until her hand was gripping his shoulder. “Quinton. What happened?”

“You were dying,” he said, struggling to speak. “Jason's mind was opening up to all that power. He's a Class 0 now, Thren. Lucas was right. Microtelekinesis all the fucking way, but it was too much. His mind needed more room, which he didn't have.”

“The bond,” Threnody guessed. “With Kerr.”

“Kerr isn't a 'kinetic-oriented psion,” Quinton said very, very softly. “He couldn't handle the overload. Their brain patterns wouldn't match.”

She stared up into his face, a curious rushing sound filling her ears. “No.”

“Lucas made the connection. He took the bond out of Kerr and put it in my mind. It's permanent.” Quinton gave her a careful, broken smile as he brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “You lived.”

Threnody didn't know what to say. She opened her mouth; closed it again. Shaking her head, she finally found her voice. “I would never have asked that of you. Ever.”

“You weren't in any condition to argue.”

“Consider yourself lucky.” Threnody took in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, hiding the pain with long practice. “Jason and I need to have a talk.”

Quinton blinked at her, startled into laughter. “Even with Jason having all that power, I'd put my credit on you.”

The hatch slid open and Matron stepped inside, the older woman eyeing Threnody. “So you're finally awake. You missed all the fun.”

“I doubt that,” Threnody said.

Matron jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Go strap in. We're launching in five and I don't need you underfoot.”

Quinton put a hand on Threnody's shoulder and guided her out of the flight deck, back into the cold of the cargo bay.

 

TEN

SEPTEMBER 2379
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Dawn broke over London, late-summer sunlight piercing through a haze of thin, gray clouds. The air was hot and muggy, the breeze coming from the north only marginally cooler. The people who called the winding, ruined streets home were beginning to wake up and start another day while those who worked the night went to ground. People lived in cycles and this was only one of many.

Main city towers spanned both sides of the polluted deluge that was the Thames River, with others spread out around them. Clustered in the central zone, with foundations anchored deep into the ground, the city towers were covered in hologrids, with adverts that scrolled down their sides. The Serca Syndicate called a main city tower home, and Nathan Serca sat with his back to the view from his office. He'd seen it all before and was more interested in what his own CMO had to say.

Victoria Montoya, a Class III telepath, hadn't slept much in the past few days and it showed in the stiff way she carried herself, the way stress lined her eyes and mouth.

“We lost forty-nine Warhounds in Buffalo,” Victoria reported, studying her datapad. “Of the total, Jin Li Zhang was the most critical loss. Fifty-two other Warhounds are currently off the active-duty roster and under medical care ranging from a few days to a few weeks. Most won't be ready for immediate field missions. That's almost a sixth of our total ranks. We still don't know the location of your daughters.”

Nathan's expression didn't change as Victoria tallied up their losses. He already knew the few major ones, the losses that involved his children; these numbers made it all worse. His fury at the betrayal of his children was difficult to hide, but he was adept at censoring himself. Nathan was supposed to be human, but as a Class I triad psion, he had more than enough power at his disposal to change an adversary's mind. He rarely used his powers, choosing instead to act through subordinates in order to extend his life span. It was how he'd survived to reach fifty-one when most psions were lucky to reach thirty.

“And my son?” Nathan leaned back in his chair and curled his hands over the armrests. “What about Gideon?”

His youngest son was the only successor he had left. Lucas defected first. Now, with Samantha gone, her absence would cause problems Nathan had never thought he'd have to deal with. She'd been taking on public duties for two years, and her disappearance wouldn't go unnoticed. Kristen had been kept hidden away, never even put into the Registry. The continuing loss of his chosen successors would, however, be impossible to hide.

“Gideon is stable,” Victoria said after a moment's hesitation. “Physically, he wasn't hurt that badly. Mentally? It's been rough.”

Stable wasn't enough. Nathan required a functioning heir. “Fix his mind, Victoria. I need Gideon conscious for a mission while I attend a scheduled meeting with the Syndicate's subsidiaries.”

Going into that meeting alone would raise questions, but it couldn't be helped. Nathan didn't have the time or the tools to cut his way past two dozen bioware nets in a day and alter minds, even with help. Psionic interference would tip too many people off, and at this juncture that was the very last thing he needed.

“When does the meeting take place?” Victoria asked.

“The end of next week unless circumstances dictate otherwise. I'm sending Gideon out before then.”

Victoria managed to hide most of her wince, the only sign being a faint tic at the left side of her mouth. It was a difficult task, but she could accomplish it if she disregarded her own health in favor of Nathan's son's. She would, because she, like everyone else in the Warhound ranks, knew that the Serca family was the only thing standing between them and government enslavement.

“He'll be ready,” Victoria said, staking her life on that promise.

“Excellent. Now, what of the Strykers that were seen with Lucas? Do we have any eyewitness reports?”

Victoria consulted her notes. “Gideon's memories are intact. He tortured a pyrokinetic Stryker inside the power plant. The electrokinetic partnered with that Stryker was seen entering the power plant, but her condition is unknown. We think she may have been involved with Jin Li's death and with what happened to the electrical grid. The telepath was merged with Lucas and no one saw the telekinetic.”

“Do we have any information of what may have caused the near breaking of the mental grid?”

“No.” Victoria glanced up. “Sir, do you have any thoughts on the matter?”

Nathan drummed his fingers once against the armrests of his chair, gazing past her. “During her fight in the Slums, Samantha discovered that a Stryker still had intact natal shields, but could use his power.”

Victoria's expression became incredulous. “That's impossible. Natal shields always fall within the first two to three years after birth so we can access our powers. If they don't fall, we can't access our powers. That is a documented fact, sir.”

“Apparently not for this particular Stryker. Our records indicate that Jason Garret is a Class V telekinetic who can teleport. We can add to them that he has intact natal shields. The question we're left with is what would happen if those shields fell? What are they holding back?”

“Do you think it was him, sir?”

Nathan had been thinking about the question endlessly since Buffalo started running at full power. “I think it's a possibility.”

“Will we be looking into it?”

“I will be.” Nathan dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Go finish your work on Gideon.”

Victoria left, the door sliding shut behind her. Nathan allowed himself a moment of personal, frustrated bitterness at the position his children had put him in. He hadn't wanted more than one child, but Marcheline had ordered him to create more. His mother died years ago, and Nathan felt he could blame her for this mess. Fighting his own family right now was a distraction he didn't need, not when the only thing that should be occupying his attention was the scheduled launch. Nathan refused to let his ancestors' plan wither and die all because of a few spoiled children who refused to learn their place.

Except their rebellion was undermining his control.

How had Lucas discovered and kept hidden a psion of such incredible strength? Nathan had been in and out of Lucas's mind for years. Lucas shouldn't have been capable of deceit. If the Warhound ranks had a traitor, however inconceivable the thought, then Nathan knew he would never find the person. Like Nathan and all Sercas before them both, Lucas would kill to keep his secrets. Nathan doubted he'd find even a memory of the traitor. Two years of searching had proven that conclusion as fact.

Nathan grimaced. Doubting his powers and his Syndicate right now would be disastrous. He needed Gideon in the field, searching out that new target. Being introduced as the new face of the Serca Syndicate would have to come later. Jin Li's death meant Nathan had a hole in the Warhound ranks that needed to be filled, and quickly. The world press kept demanding a statement from Nathan, not just his Syndicate's official publicist, on what had transpired in Buffalo. Nathan wasn't going to cave to their demands, not yet. There was a lot to do, with little time to do it in, and too few people he could trust to get it done right.