Chapter Four #3
“I’m skipping out on a board of directors meeting, it’s true, but I wanted to see you in person. You’re a particularly valuable
member of my team. I’m grateful you were canny enough to escape Polaris.”
In front of Nichols, Huang had taken his seat behind the wheel. The custom-designed divider between the front and back was
already shut, enclosing them in a soundproof bubble where even the wheels against the tarmac were barely audible as they got
underway. “The pilot who flew me to Vancouver Island had some opinions about our abrupt departure. Are we in danger of her
sharing her knowledge about me with others?”
“She’s been handled,” Charles said dismissively. He gestured to the small screen embedded in the seat in front of him. “You’re
just in time for kickoff. Cedrick loves football, you know. Our box at Lumen Field was his purchase.”
Nichols did not give one solitary fuck about football, and Cedrick was a juvenile idiot whose luxurious upbringing had made
him believe he was invincible. But he was hardly going to say any of that to Charles. “How is Cedrick?”
“Unchanged.” Charles’s tone was extra flat. “Truth be told, I find it galling that the empath who put him in that state is currently free.”
“You can thank the Dead Man for that,” Nichols said just as flatly. “Both for Davies’s freedom and for the destruction of
Polaris by the brother Grayson told us was dead.”
For years, Nichols had run the Polaris prison for corrupted empaths. Stone Solutions was the public face of empathy defense,
manufacturers of the anti-empathy gloves the pacifist empaths wore, but the public were naive and stupid fools without any
clue of the far greater danger corrupted empaths posed beyond the endlessly debated privacy concerns.
That was where Nichols had come in.
“Evan can be a challenge, it’s true,” Charles said. “But unique as he is, he has his uses. He’s certainly trying to stop the
empaths now. We simply need to be certain he sees the logic of continuing to work against the empaths. It’s not as if he can
be swayed by emotion.”
Nichols suppressed a noise of frustration. It had taken ages to get Director Holt Traynor of the Empath Initiative to agree
that Evan Grayson was too dangerous to live, that they needed to focus on creating emotionless soldiers without Grayson’s
lingering protective instinct toward empaths. But now Traynor was missing, and others simply didn’t understand. “I don’t believe
Grayson is unique,” Nichols said. “He’s an experiment. His immunity can be duplicated in someone without his complicated loyalties.”
Charles glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “You still think so?”
He said it simply, curiously. Not a challenge; a genuine question.
“Yes, I do,” Nichols said. “I was close, at Polaris. The irony that it was Evan Grayson’s brother who destroyed our facility
is not lost on me.”
Charles picked up one of the Maybach’s custom flutes from the console. “I have always appreciated your work with Polaris,” he said. “Most people wouldn’t have the stomach for what needs to be done to truly understand the corrupted empaths. Even a man like Holt doesn’t want the details.”
Nichols let his gaze rest disinterestedly on the back of Huang’s head on the other side of the divider. That was true. Traynor
of the Empath Initiative understood the danger normal humans faced from corrupted empaths—understood the vital role Polaris
had played in the empath ecosystem. But when it came to Nichols’s experiments, Traynor had always chosen plausible deniability.
Don’t tell me how the sausage is made, Traynor would say. Just tell me how much money you need and show me where to sign.
“It’s unacceptable to have Polaris inoperative,” Charles went on. “Knowing minds like yours are solving our biggest empathy
problems brings me quite a bit of peace.” He reached into the laptop bag at his feet and withdrew a large padded manila envelope,
which he held out to Nichols. “Here.”
“What’s this?” Nichols said, taking the envelope. He could feel the outline of two small vials inside, along with something
larger that gave beneath his fingers with the softness of fabric.
“The envelope contains a potentially useful item,” Charles said, “along with a sample of the laboratory materials that were
saved from Polaris.”
Nichols’s fingers tightened on the envelope. Some of his research had survived. Charles wouldn’t give this back to him freely,
though. “I take it you have a request of me.”
“I have been fighting empaths longer than the three children who broke into Stone Solutions last night have been alive.” Charles steepled his fingers.
“They were after delivery records; I protected those, but it seems plausible to think they may be after the contents of said deliveries, most likely the materials for the gloves that keep the rest of us safe. Those materials are also well-protected, but it seems prudent to take some extra steps to protect the access codes and prevent the empaths from interfering.”
Nichols tilted his head, waiting.
“I have a favor that needs to be entrusted to the right partner,” Charles said. “And as you know, I always repay my favors.”