Chapter 11
“I’m not going to lie to you, not like everyone else,” he said. “You can remove the weapon.”
Emerson was completely still, making no move to touch or lower the blade. His eyes were locked on Audrey’s face, only shifting slightly as he visibly calculated how candid he should be with her.
Audrey shook her head, deliberately pressing it just a bit deeper into the thin skin beneath Emerson’s jaw.
Her fingers wrapped around the handle. She did not intend to hurt him but kept looking for any twitch of fear, defiance, or a physical attempt to escape.
Would he protect himself or something else? She was about to find out.
A second tablet on the nightstand chimed. Red numbers shone in the corner of the screen.
12:28:37.
With the knife held firm in one hand, Audrey reached out and dragged the tablet closer across the nightstand with her free hand, careful not to shift her weight or relax her guard on Emerson.
“Don’t,” Emerson said through clenched teeth, but he couldn’t stop her. Not with the knife still digging into his flesh.
She angled the screen toward herself and read the notifications. The countdown wasn’t the only thing running. A second panel had opened beneath it, displaying live data and one line in red: IDENTITY VERIFICATION: COMPROMISED.
She held the device up to his face. “Start talking,” she said.
He glanced at the tablet, then back at her.
“I've tracked the Voírían Separatists for years, especially your mother.
I want her brought in to face what she's done.” His back stiffened.
“Sophia is why my adoptive family is gone. After Nomac, I made it my purpose to find her—not simply as an agent, but for the people I lost. This is all I have left.”
His words left her insides knotted and her hands clammy. She did not dare loosen her hold. “Which actions are you referring to?” she asked desperately, caught between dreading and needing the truth.
The tablet on the nightstand dinged again. Emerson didn’t look at it, but Audrey did. The timer was still counting down from just over twelve hours. Before she could study it further, Emerson interrupted. “I was talking about the Nomac terrorism incident, specifically,” he said.
She remembered something about that place on his tablet, but gave him a questioning look.
He continued. “I was a junior systems analyst with the Aggregate Oversight Council when it happened. I watched the casualty projections rise. Entire regions went dark. Multiple moons in the system lost contact with each other for four hours.”
His throat moved under the sharp metal, voice nearly a mumble. “My adoptive family was inside one of the buildings,” he managed, his walls noticeably fracturing. “They burned before anyone could get to them. Just one piece of your mother’s and Ryker’s plan.”
At the mention of Sophia, a memory rose in Audrey. Her mother’s bare feet on the cold kitchen tile, her hands firm and voice stern as she corrected Cary’s grip on the knife. Control the blade, she’d said, guiding Cary’s trembling wrist. Never let it control you.
“Tell me what you want with me,” Audrey repeated, trying to get her thoughts under control.
The tablet chimed. Emerson glanced at it again.
Audrey frowned. “What?”
“Movement in Tolusa,” he said.
“My mother?”
He paused, “Before I say more, understand—the stakes are high. I’ve waited five years for this. If you cross me, I won’t just turn you in for the murder. I’ll kill you.”
His certainty was a cold, immovable thing.
“I understand,” Audrey said.
“Your mother is my goal. The Aggregate cares about what you know, but you’re not the main objective.”
“Stop reducing me to a category,” Audrey snapped. “You’ve watched me for years. I saw your files—you tracked my mother across planets, but I’m just incidental?”
“You were until you weren’t,” he said.
Her hold on the knife tightened. “When did that change?” she demanded. “When I got out?”
Emerson didn’t falter this time. “When Sophia deemed you important enough to come out of hiding.”
The room seemed to contract around Audrey as realization closed in on her. A prickle ran along her arms. “What does she want with me?”
“I don’t know. Your mother resurfaced recently. No one believed the lead, but when I saw you were being released, it was the only new variable.”
“Seems like a stretch.”
Emerson shrugged. “Most of my superiors think I’m crazy. But I know more about these fugitives than anyone.”
“Tell me about the Aggregate,” she said. “I saw that word all over your files.”
“If your lawyer boyfriend hasn’t told you the truth about all this, don’t trust him.”
Still gripping the knife, Audrey dragged him down. “He’s not my boyfriend…and Alex knows more than he’s said. Is he like them—a terrorist?”
“If he’s lied to you before, I’d assume he’s still doing it.” He watched the glowing countdown in the corner of the screen from his peripheral vision. “But we don’t have time for your emotional audit. Sophia is tapping into the unsanctioned Ezebethian network here on Earth.”
At that, she eased the pressure of the blade, though her stare was assessing and her arm taut.
Warning bells went off in her head as she gauged Emerson’s response—not from concession, but in a bid to reassert control over the situation while she weighed her next move.
She growled and pushed the knife back in.
“Tell me what the Aggregate is first, then we’re going to talk about my mother. ”
“It’s the galaxy’s governing body,” he said.
“What do these Separatists want exactly?”
“Citizenship.”
Audrey stared at him in disbelief. “Citizenship,” she repeated, as if testing the word for its true meaning.
“Equal movement rights,” Emerson said. “Across the Aggregate. Freedom to move through the galaxy whenever they please.”
Audrey’s brows drew together. “They just want to go wherever they want? Travel like anybody else?”
He nodded. “That’s part of it, but the fear is real. A few years ago, a Voírían child lost control in a Silo. Every electronic system in the bay shorted out, and the other people barely made it out alive.”
She shifted, unsettled. “Accident, or intentional?”
“Accident. Those situations are rare, but their consequences are massive.” Emerson searched her face before adding, “We’re talking about people with powers we don’t fully understand.
Some of them can’t control what they can do, and when they move through other societies, it doesn’t exactly scream safety. ”
“So, your government said no.”
Emerson didn’t deny it. “The Aggregate confined the Voíríans to their moon, Nepra, a thousand years ago.”
“You put a species on a moon and called it containment? And they stayed?”
“Not quietly.”
“For people locked on a moon for a thousand years, wanting citizenship sounds reasonable.”
“Civilizations earn that privilege when they prove they can survive themselves,” Emerson said without emotion. “The Ezebethians did. They became one of the Aggregate’s ruling civilizations.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Yes. Earth is moving toward full citizenship. The Voíríans aren’t even close.”
A flash of anger crossed Audrey’s face. The Ezebethians—bullies, the galaxy’s most powerful society—finally made sense. Maybe the Voíríans were held back. Audrey glared at him, outraged. “You treat them as less than dirt and force them to live under a totalitarian system. Why?”
“They’re not like most people in most civilizations. We haven’t seen anything like them anywhere else. Their abilities make them too dangerous to release and too valuable to eliminate.”
She didn’t need her abilities to taste the bitter contempt curdling inside him. Anger twined like a monster inside her. It wasn’t just from the accusation but also from a deep, incredulous hurt. “You talk about them like they’re weapons.”
“That’s what Voíríans become when no one controls them,” Emerson said. “Weapons. Some can ignite fire. Others can move objects with thought alone.”
He didn’t mention telepathy. What else could Voíríans do? She’d shown only mental abilities—sometimes terrifying and volatile—but never anything like fire control.
Audrey sucked in a deep breath. Her mother’s words all those years ago didn’t feel abstract anymore.
Control the blade. Never let it control you.
At the time, it seemed like a metaphor. Now, it was an instruction for something else, not from here. Her eyes lowered to her own hands. These hands. The same ones that had just—
Audrey’s thoughts were a storm of shame and racing adrenaline. The fact of her identity crashed into her, mixing hope with a searing sense of loss and isolation.
“If I’m not human,” she said slowly, “then am I part of what your government locked away on that moon?”
Emerson didn’t soften. “You are. Voíríans have powers that could rewrite the balance of the systems built by the Aggregate. The Separatists see suppression as violence, and they respond accordingly. They believe that if the Aggregate fears telepathy and other Voírían abilities, then eventually it will have to acknowledge them.”
A lifetime spent being wrong about herself—all rewritten in a single breath.
The revelation twisted inside her gut; vindication mixed with incredulity, and her fists clenched as she fought for control.
She wasn’t broken; she was completely different.
The new truth charged her with an uneasy energy rather than calm.
“And what do you think?”
“I believe aggression without infrastructure behind it is suicide. Power without the support of a technologically advanced civilization becomes ripe for infighting. And the Voíríans barely have a functioning civilization. They’re savages,” he said.
A flash of uncertainty passed over his face before he forced it away, his attention flinging back to the tablet.
“Are you sure you believe that?” Audrey pushed him.