Chapter 3 #2
Rowan eased the gun free of its holster.
There was a time she would have been too afraid to hold a heavy, lethal piece of metal capable of killing someone.
That time, that woman, had died on the floor of her father’s kitchen as she heard the chilling little gurgle of Dad’s last breath.
She’d died there, hadn’t known it—and been reborn months later, sitting on the bed in Justin’s room when the fierce determination to make Sigma pay had surfaced, giving her a reason for living.
Yoshi? You’re in the building’s intranet?
Henderson says—
I don’t give a good goddamn what Henderson says. Trigger the fire alarms. Now.
Mercifully, he didn’t argue. Instead, there was a sense of frantic action from him as Rowan eased forward, cutting across the line of people heading for the escalators—businessmen, secretaries, flickers of almost-psions.
Her palms felt slippery even though she knew they weren’t.
A fresh trickle of sweat eased down the shallow channel of her spine, tickling like a sharp knife tip brushing her skin.
A down-coming elevator dinged; Rowan felt a familiar bright, clean mind inside. Lewis Emberson stepped out, his beaky face pale and dewed with perspiration, just as the fire alarms began to bray.
Rowan moved forward smoothly, took Lew’s arm.
He was thin, with black-rimmed retro glasses and an indifferent haircut.
A pair of khakis and a blue T-shirt—today was casual day at work, and Rowan had counseled him to wear something he could move in.
A pair of high-end, obviously new Nikes decorated his feet.
He was a precognitive, and if Sigma got their hands on him he’d be full of Zed and working for the black sector of the government in no time.
Not while I’m around, Rowan thought fiercely.
Watery brown eyes blinked behind his glasses. “Rowan,” he said under the sudden chaos of alarms and people starting to move for the exits. “Something’s wrong.”
Gee, you think so? “I know,” she soothed, as his gaze found the gun in her hand. “You’re with me, Lew. It’s gonna be okay. Come on.”
I wonder if Justin ever felt this frightened while he was moving me around.
They joined the mass of deadheads crowding for the exits. Give me a mark on where they are, Yosh. Her stomach gurgled with bile. Brass spikes jabbed at her temples, driving into her brain. She took a deep breath, bringing her heartbeat down. She didn’t need to start exhausting herself with terror.
Moving in. But the deadheads… Sudden sharp jolt, like a fist slamming into her solar plexus.
She almost doubled over, the shock was so intense—Yoshi’s fear becoming hers through the mental link for a dizzying moment before she could block it out.
Goddammit, Rowan, they’ve locked on you. They’ve got a visual! Move!
A visual meant they were in the building.
And then, to cap off the entire damn situation, gunfire popped and zinged.
Rowan lunged, dragging Lew with her as glass shattered.
The Sigs were aiming high to spook the crowd instead of kill.
If Lew hadn’t been right next to her they might have been able to scoop him up separately in the confusion.
Where are they? Give me some help here, dammit!
A flood of information in reply. It was too late, because she felt the glow of other psions and saw the long flapping tan trenchcoats.
So they’d changed it up—the other Sigs she’d seen had worn black.
Maybe it’s Sig summer wear. She squashed the lunatic urge to laugh.
The hot new fashion in government weirdoes.
They were coming down the escalators and stairs, shoving through the crowd, firing from the mezzanine to drive the mass of frightened humanity out through the doors plus spill enough terror into the air to slow her down.
Rowan could either stay and be caught, or get to the street and run straight into the Sig search net.
Lew made a high whining sound. She didn’t blame him—getting shot at had that effect on a person.
“Come on!” she yelled, shoving aside a blonde with a briefcase and clacking high heels. Lew mercifully obeyed, running with her. They bowled through the crowd at an angle, heading for the other exit. She was going to have to get creative really soon.
Rowan reached, blurring the other psions’ perceptions.
The number of hands she had free to juggle mental eggs was rapidly decreasing.
She didn’t have any energy left over to regulate her pulse.
Her body knew she was being shot at, and her mind couldn’t convince her body that it wasn’t an emergency deserving a racing pulse.
The other stream of people heading for the secondary exit—exiting onto the other side of the block—swallowed them.
Rowan deliberately didn’t return fire, though she ached to pick off a few Sigs.
Her primary objective was to get Lew out, not work a little hurt on them.
More gunfire, more glass shattering, they were going to start aiming for real soon.
They must be desperate to risk this kind of open attack.
Generally Sigs didn’t like public shootouts in which the cops could get involved.
They could cover up just about anything, but that took time and resources, and the less government agencies involved the more chance everyone could keep their mouth shut.
Ro, Ro, come on. The net’s almost at the building. You don’t have a lot of lag. Move out of there, can you? Yoshi’s voice held the deep purple shade of tightly controlled excitement, shot through with brittle crystal lattices of professionalism.
Rowan pushed Lew before her and did the single riskiest thing she could—pointed her gun straight up, and fired twice.
The crowd exploded away, people diving for cover or panicking.
The swirling flood of emotional energy acted as “static,” blurring her even further to the other psions’ perceptions and granting her a short-term boost of energy.
One she’d pay for later, but nothing was perfect.
She tapped in, triggered the mood of the crowd, directing the frightened people with deft mental pressure.
Some found themselves blindly pelting for the stairs, keeping the Sigs back with a crush of bodies; others spilled out irresistibly onto the street, providing her and Lew with cover.
And for my next trick, she thought with grim amusement, I’m going to disappear. Watch this.
The sudden crush pushed Lew and Rowan through the door, the heat like oil bursting against her skin. She shoved Lew in one direction—up the block, where Henderson would be waiting until it got too hot to stay around here with a van full of comm equipment and psions, no matter if they were shielded.
“Run!” she yelled.
Lew took off, not waiting to argue.
Thank God. At least he has some sense.
Then Rowan dropped a few layers of mental defenses, sending out a very public wave of fear and pain. To the Sigs, it would feel like she’d gotten shot and made her first mistake.
Crystal cold clarity fell over her, the adrenaline freeze Justin had told her about.
Everything etched bright and sharp, every fleck of glittering mica in the pavement and the sound of the sirens approaching, the screams and horrified yells of the people behind her, whooping fire alarms and braying sirens.
Her own breathing, harsh and desperate as she flashed along the sidewalk.
I’m drawing them off. She broke the link with Yoshi.
She would need all her strength for eluding the net that now turned on itself, pivoting as the Sigma-trained psions moved their flank.
Now Henderson had a clear field to extricate himself from the critical zone and swing around to pick her up—once she got through the goddamn net, that was.
Pounding feet on pavement, her boots flying. She had their locations now—the net was thick and tight, three deep. Rowan strained her memory for the layout of the city block Lew’s office building was on. There was an alley—but that was a dead end.
It was punch through the net or nothing.
Rowan dashed into the middle of the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a silver BMW. Horns blared. She was deliberately making a lot of goddamn psychic noise.
Then… contact, another mind sliding against hers, through every lock and defense.
Brushing past all the walls Rowan had painstakingly built to keep herself sane, keep everyone else out.
There was no denying this touch. She catalogued it out of habit, though her entire body knew, a wave of new strength flooding her bones.
She grabbed for him the way a drowning woman would for floating debris.
Who the hell are you? The voice was clear, familiar.
Male, with a touch of bitterness over a deep well of reined fury.
Rowan gasped and kept pelting up the yellow line, relief giving her feet fresh speed.
The bafflement in the voice was a little worrying, but she didn’t have time to think about that right now.
It’s me! She sent a wordless flood of gratitude as she saw two Sigs on the sidewalk.
Cars were honking, and the two women in tan trenchcoats—one with close-cropped stubble, and the other with longer, jet-black hair framing a dead-eyed face—stared at her.
Then the dead-eyed one jostled the shaved, whose gaze swung down Rowan’s body.
Rowan felt the psychic attack like thunderstorm prickles along her upper arms, shunted it aside.
She didn’t even break stride—but the new voice inside her head suddenly reached, full of furious, frustrated pain.
He flooded her like the sea inside a channel, using her as the equivalent of a booster station to increase his range, actually forcing his own psionic talent through her.
She had only intended to knock the Sigma psion’s attack away, spending its energy uselessly.
Instead, the girl with the shaved head stiffened, her head thrown back.
Blood burst from her nose as she howled, the sound cutting through crowd noise, screams, sirens, and the horns of traffic now snarling from the mess down the block at Lew’s building.
What are you doing? Rowan’s mental voice hit a pitch of anguish, driving steel-tipped spikes through her brain. Justin, no!
If you’re going to get out of there, was his imperturbable reply, you’d better move. Who the hell are you, and why are you in my head?
She didn’t have time to answer, having run out of mental hands to juggle with. The collective psionic pressure increased, seeking to snag her, slow her down. Every step was a physical battle no less than a mental one. Gasping, her side on fire, Rowan ran. Everything now depended on speed.
She used to love running. Still did, even though she had to on a treadmill instead of a track.
It’s me, she thought, desperately reaching for understanding, for the reassurance he had never denied her before. Don’t you remember?
I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Get off the goddamn street. Justin’s voice was cold as a gun barrel pressed against her temple. She smelled the acridity of gunfire, bullets zinged past. Cut left at the next intersection. Do it!
She saw the intersection ahead. Almost lost the battle, keeping the collective pressure of Sigma away. Pain exploded in her chest, in her side. How many other psions was she fighting? Ten? Fifteen? Where did they house them, how did they feed them?
It doesn’t matter. Move. He sounded utterly calm, but there was an undercurrent of something else—what?
The voice was familiar, but he sounded like a complete stranger. As if he didn’t know her. A complex stew of bafflement, rage, and incomprehension tinted his mental voice, added to a deep wash of disbelief.
Rowan bolted through cars brought to a standstill by the chaos.
She zigged left at the intersection, gasping for breath, car exhaust burning her eyes.
The smell of fried food from the teriyaki joint with its doors propped open hit the back of her throat, she bowled into a man in a business suit and sent him flying. More zinging sounds—snipers.
Great. Her breath tore in her throat, a sudden stitch grabbing her side.
They were trying to shoot her for real now, probably hoping to wing, slow her down. A sweet tinkling of shattered glass, a bright note in the song of exhaustion her body had become. The stitch bloomed in her side, gripping along ribs almost all the way up to her armpit.
It didn’t matter.
Justin! Where are you? She’d heard him, and she knew he was here. Heat simmered up from the pavement, and she was sweating, but goose bumps thrilled across her skin as if she was cold.
Bam!
A hammer smashed her right shoulder, drilling fiery pain.
Rowan stumbled, saw spatters of bright blood bloom on pavement.
She kept going, but tripped over her own feet and almost fell headlong.
Heavy warmth flowed down her right arm, slipping against the inside of her coat sleeve, the lining now slicked with blood, heavy drips off her fingertips.
The leaden weight fighting every step eased.
She had made it through the concentric rings of psychic pressure.
The black van appeared like a gift, its side door open.
Boomer leaned out, face contorted with effort as his limited telepathic ability reached, a fine, thin thread of help Rowan grabbed at, and she fell gratefully into his arms. He yanked her inside; Henderson jammed the accelerator down as Cath dragged the door shut.
But Rowan didn’t care. She closed her eyes, leftover pressure of Sigma psions snapping the moment she was fully in the van’s shielded interior.
The vehicle swayed as Henderson took a corner, rocketing toward the freeway on-ramp, zigging at the last second to plunge the van into the shadow of a tree-lined lane.
The Sig net was left behind, and there was no pursuit.
The cops were too busy trying to sort out the mess at Lew’s office building.
“Lew?” she whispered in a cracked voice.
Nine-tenths of her didn’t care, was hunting frantically for the contact. It had been familiar, as her own breath. It was him, and she’d felt the dizzying electrical crackling over her skin that told her he was close. Very close.
“She’s bleeding pretty bad,” Boomer said. “Winged her, went right through the meat in the upper arm. Damn lucky there’s no bone.”
“We got him, Ro,” Cath said.
More pain grated in Rowan’s shoulder as someone’s hand clamped over the bloody wound. There was the rip of a pack of sterile gauze and the hiss of an antiseptic pack. “Just relax. Lew’s safe.”
“Justin,” Rowan whispered, and passed out.