Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
NORTH
Of all the days to have Nox and Gryphon get drunk at some dive bar at the edge of town, tonight was possibly the worst choice.
After a day of dealing with Atlas Bassinger showing up at my Bond’s dorm room door declaring he’s attending Draven University, then threatening me with legal action—that will hold up if it ever made it in front of an unbiased council or judge, depending on how far he managed to take it—I almost dismiss Julian Benson’s urgent request to see me.
Three missed calls from the Gifted in under an hour was strange enough that I called him back, expecting something about funding or his work on my blood samples, only for him to completely derail my plans for a quiet evening of figuring out how to neutralize Bassinger’s threats.
“My son, Sawyer, has found something. I can’t speak about it over the phone, but I think you’ll want to see it for yourself. North, it’s… it’s urgent. I’m not being an alarmist when I’m saying it warrants your immediate action.”
Julian could be called a lot of things but an ‘alarmist’ wouldn’t be one.
Sawyer Benson is a Top Tier Gifted, extraordinarily powerful and intelligent, and a complete nightmare to work with.
Mouthy, irreverent, and utterly shameless, he’s also painfully aware that he’s one of only three Technokinetics in the country.
Given that one has just enough power to turn lights on and off, while the other is a Resistance grunt who is constantly chasing Sawyer’s digital trail because the kid has been running rings around him since grade school…
well, Julian’s son is in an entirely different ball field.
He has never let anyone forget it.
Not me, not the council, not even Nox when the two crossed paths last year in Gifted 101.
It was only after Sawyer saved Nox’s digital archives and then wrote an entirely new program for them that my brother called a truce with him.
Even now, Nox trusts him with any technological requests, and he even came to me to get Sawyer a security clearance level that would make him most useful to us all.
Despite being young, mouthy, and too arrogant to put into words, he’s as loyal as they come.
Even now that he’s sitting in his father’s labs, surrounded by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, blood samples from the country’s most elite Top Tier Gifted, and far too many empty energy drink cans, he’s waging his own war against the Resistance in a way that very few can.
He’s also winning it, which is more than what I can say about any other front.
Julian has spent the last five years quietly campaigning for me to allow Sawyer to run the data from my blood sample and Nox’s.
When he first called, I assumed that was what it was about.
Or gaining access to my Bond’s blood, which has been sitting at the back of my mind since Vivian first showed me that security footage.
I’m tempted to bring it up with her, but I’m also fairly certain there’s no real point.
She would never agree to it and I’d never force her to.
I’m busy weighing my options to broach the topic with my Bond when I arrive at Benson’s lab right after it closes, and he meets me at the front door to let me in.
He’s never been particularly chatty about anything other than his work, but the silence between us seems fraught.
It’s clearly not aimed at me, but by the time we’re stepping out of the elevator into his lab together, he’s practically twitching.
Sawyer is at his computer, hands working furiously across the keyboard, and when he doesn’t acknowledge our arrival, it’s clear he’s completely engrossed in his task.
Julian doesn’t interrupt him, either, which means it’s something related to his big discovery.
Within a minute of us arriving there, Julian’s phone rings.
When his son huffs at him, he makes his apologies and takes the call in his office, quietly shutting the door behind him.
Sawyer waits until his father is out of the room before he speaks to me, but I’m not sure if that’s intentional or just that he’s come out of his data mining enough to realize I’m standing near him.
“Have you met the Bassinger kid yet?”
Fuck. Me.
I take a deep breath and pray my voice is level enough not to betray my Bond Group by revealing my frustrations. “I have met him several times since his blood work was put through the wider database.”
Sawyer nods slowly before he gives me a careful look. “Are you worried he’s a spy? You know who his aunt is, right?”
My jaw clenches as I send him a dark look. “If he hadn’t passed all of our vetting—Gryphon’s vetting—he would’ve never made it to Draven. My Bond’s safety means more to me than anything else.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Just not her comfort? Noted. I’m glad I’m not your Central Bond…
or my sister. At least Sage could set your ass on fire if you tried to chip her, I guess.
Poor Fallows. Ending up with the strongest Bonds in history and having, like, zero chances of dealing with them if they turn out to be assholes. ”
My heart thumps in my chest like a sledgehammer, my bond expanding inside me until it feels as if my chest will explode with the pressure. God, my ribs practically crack and groan with every breath, and I get lightheaded.
“Jesus, Draven, take a seat! If you’re going to swoon with the tiniest bit of accountability then you’re done for.
Bassinger won’t let a fucking thing go. He’s already my second favorite out of Oli’s Bonds.
I’ve got too many baby photos with Gabe in them for him to lose, but the rest of you are rock bottom—wait, no, Shore was at least decent about getting Oli Midol.
Shit, I forgot about that. God knows how, he almost blew my head off just for knocking on her door—you know what?
I changed my mind, you and your brother are equal last. You’re a real piece of work, Draven! ”
Turning away from him, I lean against the desk next to his as I reclaim some control over myself and snap back at him, “Just tell me what the hell you called me over for so I can get out of here already.”
When he hesitates, I glance over to find him giving me a careful look.
“Bassinger was telling me about his classes at Basell. He was pretty up front with me about the bullshit propaganda they push and about how many of the students are aware of what they’re being taught.
I asked him about it and he said he figured shit out for himself when he found out about Oli.
He told me his mom was pissed about him leaving home, and even though he got a new number, the psycho just keeps tracking him down. ”
None of this information is groundbreaking for me.
I’m also absolutely aware that Erin Bassinger is relentless, cold-hearted, and obsessive about her son.
It’s been an absolute priority to keep her away from Nox because, despite the fact that she’s nothing like Emmaline was, her fixation on Atlas is definitely familiar.
Something about the way that she doesn’t even care about his opinions on the matter of his Bond marked her as ‘unsafe’ for him in my mind the moment I laid eyes on the woman.
Sawyer taps away on the screen for a little longer and then turns it for me to see.
“So, being the welcoming guy I am, I decided to help Bassinger get his mom off his back and the hell away from Draven—and your Bond Group. Turns out, with a little digging and a whole lot of luck, I found out she was using the shitty Techno to stalk her kid… and he still hasn’t figured out how to keep me out of his shit.
He’s smart enough to be paranoid, though, I’ll give him that.
He built a program that wipes his data every two hours, so he’s basically nothing but a processor.
He takes the data, encrypts it, sends it to where it needs to go. Fuck, I’d die of boredom.”
I rub at my brow. “How is this huge, Sawyer? I’m sure it is, but I really need you to get to the point.”
He grins at me. “Well, I set up camp on his computer. I built a—fuck, you know what, it doesn’t matter what I built, you insist on paper copies of everything like a heathen.
What I’m saying is, wiping everything only works if there isn’t an invisible data miner sending copies to my servers.
It’s only been a few hours but I’ve already gotten some big shit, and he still doesn’t know I’m in there. ”
“Big shit like what?”
The grin turns into a smirk, the shit-eating kind where he knows he’s unmatched.
“You ever heard of a Gifted called the Amplifier, codename ‘Amp’? Wait, didn’t Nox decide to call it a Magnifier?
Turns out, it’s gearing up to attack Gryphon again…
as in, on his next mission. Davies has it out for him because he’s a Neuro and that psychopath has an inferiority complex.
I mean, I’m sure of it. I’ve seen enough crap of his by now to know he doesn’t ever like Neuros out of his sorting camps alive.
He must be super small, if you get my drift. ”
Absolutely—horrifyingly—I do.
More importantly, he’s probably just saved Gryphon’s life, and that’s worth all the over-sharing in the world.
He prints me off a ream of data, GPS points, and a cypher that will have Nox giddy and busy for days before confirming he’s taking a leave of absence for the week to continue to monitor the data.
I reassure him that not only will I clear it with the Dean, but I’ll personally see to it that he’ll graduate no matter what classes I have to tutor him in so long as he keeps this work up.