Chapter 3
Rowan’s head began to throb as soon as they got within ten miles of the office building, navigating the van with no trouble through midmorning traffic. Skyscrapers rose, downtown beating around her like a heart.
She waited as Henderson drove, closing her eyes, reaching for that place of quiet calm that grew deeper each time she used it. It was the tranquility which allowed her to do some of her more showy tricks, like quick-healing a cut or a scrape.
Training by Miss Kate and Henderson—not to mention Justin—had triggered a deepening of her talents, and it was like a muscle.
The more you used, the better you got and the bigger the talent got.
She’d reach her limit soon, probably; there was a ceiling to every psion’s gifts.
After that, you courted backlash, the body protesting once the mind was pushed past endurance.
Rowan hadn’t found hers yet. The massive effort during the attack on Headquarters—shunting aside the collective force of massed Sigma psions and also striking at the pilot of a helicopter firing at Henderson’s Brigade—seemed to have torn something inside.
A thin protective barrier that had kept her from going all wacky with the woo-woo.
You could incite riots, Justin had told her. You could start revolutions. He’d been utterly serious. She didn’t think she was quite that powerful, but there were certain things she could do that seemed far above the norm.
Norm. As if that word applied to any of this.
Rowan had never been normal, really. Finding lost articles, hearing people’s most intimate thoughts shouted into her head, calming her ward of mental patients, sensing the moods of those around her—no, normal was not the word.
The massed attack, several Sig psions in a circle around a target site or funneling their talent through a single point, was an evolution in their tactics according to Henderson. Just like Rowan was an evolution in psionics, he averred.
And so, she had learned to trust her instincts. Especially when they were so painfully, exquisitely loud.
Is this just pre-job nerves, or is there a good reason for me being so edgy?
The deep calm returned an answer Rowan didn’t much like.
“Sigma’s already here,” she heard herself say in that queer, floaty voice. “I think they’re planning on getting him early.”
“Good,” Cath said from the back seat. “I want a little payback.”
“Bloodthirsty’s not the way to go.” Henderson, severely, as he said every time.
Boomer, sitting next to Cath, made a rude snorting noise. Yoshi laughed. Rowan felt their jagged nerves and reached to soothe, stroking away the rough edges of pre-operation jitters.
“Yeah, right.” Boomer’s sideburns would be wagging side-to-side in disbelief. “When was the last time you let a Sig get away alive?”
“Focus, people,” Rowan said softly, returning to herself. “We aren’t them.”
Silence filled the car, a quiet that almost turned into words.
Delgado was. Even Cath wouldn’t say it to her, but she was suddenly sure they had said it to each other.
Sometimes being a psion was a bitch. Rowan continued breathing.
It had been cold the night Justin came over for dinner and ended up carrying her to his car because Sigma burst in, shooting her father and best friend.
Afterward, he’d always been there. They’d taken to calling him Rowan’s shadow; wherever she was you could find Justin Delgado—leaning against a wall and watching, drifting behind her, or buried in the shadows, the most defensible corner, his gaze fixed on her.
Now he was gone, and Rowan didn’t even know herself anymore. The mental hospital seemed a million miles away; so did her own house with its green kitchen, her yellow bedroom, Dad’s painting of Mom in the front hall. The person she had been was equally gone.
The funny thing was she still felt like herself. Except for one thing—the empty, nagging, raw place inside her head.
Where Justin should be. That, and the aching grief of her father’s death, turned into a cold, clear anger that scared her while it gave her the strength to go on.
Anger should not feel this good.
The black van braked to a smooth stop; Rowan’s hands moved efficiently, checking her gear. She glanced over her shoulder at Yoshi, in the middle seat with laptop balanced on his knees.
He smiled. “You ready?”
She nodded, reached back with her left hand.
Yoshi’s fingers met hers—but another meeting took place, a mental handholding. Rowan wasn’t quite used to the ease with which she seeped into the borders of his mind, but she let the connection sink below conscious control. You can hear me. It wasn’t a question.
Loud and clear. Yoshi’s mental voice tasted, as always, of circuits, wires, and the jittery dance of electricity, black coffee and a strange bittersweet incense that made Rowan think of offerings in clean, pure, pagoda-roofed temples. His calm steadied her. “Good luck, Ro.”
“If all goes well I won’t need it.” Her head prickled with pain, and her stomach felt sour.
“Ro?” Henderson in the driver’s seat, looking out the windshield. “Be careful. Don’t take any chances.”
She felt her lips stretch in what she supposed was a grin. “Don’t worry, old man.” She reached for the doorhandle. “I’m a professional.”
It was just the sort of thing Justin might have said.
The building was tall and glittering, a spike of iron and glass throwing back morning sun.
Heat simmered up from the pavement. Rowan’s lower back was soaked by the time she reached the glass door and swung in, gaze moving in an arc over the lobby to take everything in, just as Justin had taught her.
Exits—two. Elevators, a bank of six. Escalators, four.
Fire escape stairs, there and there, mezzanine level above.
Christ, what a security nightmare. The escalators flanked a wide central staircase of faux white marble.
The plants were all fake, and the people all in end-of-week business chic.
Lewis worked as an accountant for a huge company; the dress code was only relaxed on Fridays.
People, then. An espresso stand tucked into one corner of the lobby. A tide of business-suited or khaki-and-short-sleeves deadhead people. The elevators dinged frequently, releasing more of them at regular intervals.
“Deadhead,” the term for those without psychic powers.
Slightly disparaging, but she’d fallen into the habit of using it was well.
It was apt; they noticed nothing. Then again, they were living normal lives without having to worry about guns, knives, targets, critical zones, and casualty percentages.
Lucky them.
Sunlight speared the glass, robbed of its power by air conditioning but still somehow reassuring.
There were two bored security guards near the elevators, one with his hand resting on a holstered gun.
They were both too pudgy to be of any real use.
Even an idiot with a piecce can be dangerous, Justin’s voice reminded her, floating up from memory.
So many things to do—juggle the confusing wash of sensation from ordinary folks, sharp pinpricks of guilt or fear in the sea of boredom and frustration.
Scan for any whisper, any breath out of the normal.
She had barely sensed a Sig coming the first time; now it was like an aching tooth or a fresh bruise each time they got close.
She was hunting for a particular mind, one she’d brushed before. She drifted with the crowd, peeling off to walk toward the doors that most likely led to the fire stairs.
I’m in. The channel to Yoshi was wide and smooth with the ease of long communication.
They sometimes meditated together, sitting face-to-face in the comm room, strengthening the bond so Rowan didn’t have to use a commlink to talk to him.
Of all of them, Yoshi was the one who… well, maybe understood what she was feeling. Where the hell is our precog, Yosh?
Twenty-fifth floor. Clipped, he was typing, the feel of the keys against his fingers. Acrid undertone of worry—something else was going on.
Get him down here. Rowan’s mental voice was equally brusque. Her stomach flipped. Sigma was very close.
Too close. Her stomach flipped again. They’re onto us, Yoshi. Get moving.
Leave no man behind. Furious concentration. Rowan, they’re closing in. I’ve got him on his cell. He’s coming down the fire stairs.
No. Elevator. Have him take the elevator. A plan began to form, loose and haphazard as all Rowan’s plans tended to be. She frequently ran on intuition instead of logic, which caused Henderson a bit of worry.
Then again, trained intuition was as good as magic sometimes. Sweat trickled down her back again, even though the air conditioning was icy.
Yoshi didn’t argue, even though it was against a primary rule—never take an elevator if you can help it. Just too easy to get caught.
Elevator it is. On my mark, one… two… oh, goddammit, Rowan, get the hell out of there. Tightly-controlled panic, tasting like smoke, colored his mental voice. They have a net going, they’re all over. They’re serious this time.
What, like they ever play games? I’m not leaving without our precog. Steel in her mental voice, the bleak taste of determination. Her eyes moved over the crowd again, marking, evaluating as she leaned against the wall. Where is he, Yoshi?
Ro, Henderson says to get out. That’s an order.
Yoshi didn’t sound happy. As a matter of fact, his wash of purple-red panic was distracting.
She was too sensitive, and his fear scraped raw against her brain.
Rowan’s heart leapt, she took a deep breath.
It was almost second nature to blur the perceptions of the people around her.
They wouldn’t see the woman with the long ash-blonde braid and the gun under her coat. Electromagnetic resonance meant camera footage would be blurred and useless too.
Another trick Justin had taught her.
She’d managed a whole thirty seconds without thinking of him. It was a new world record.