Psion Delta (32 page)

She
flipped the switch, and the light on the box turned red. “Hello?” Her voice
came across the speakers as nervous and weak. “I need—” She flipped the switch
off and tapped the microphone against her forehead.
That won’t work
.
They
have to want to come to me
. She flipped the switch a third time. “This is
the Queen. Everyone who can hear me, come to the main floor near the front
entrance. I can get you out of here . . . if you want out.”

Slowly
they came, bit by bit, mostly in small groups. She waited until there was a
large crowd because she had to convince them all. And she had to control them.
The suited man had informed her nearly four hundred inmates lived within these
walls. At least a third of them shared her anomaly. When she could no longer
keep count of all the heads in the room, she started speaking again. Only a few
words into her speech, she was interrupted.

“That
ain’t the Queen!” another man with red eyes shouted. “That’s some actress they
threw in here to convince us. Queen’s got red eyes like mine.”

“I
seen the Queen! She does
got red eyes.”

“I
am the Queen!” she yelled back, but several more voices joined the fray,
opposing her. A few them rushed at the desk she was standing on, throwing her
backwards to the ground, then jumping on her, pawing at her, choking her.

It
did not matter that it had been years since she had last fought. Her body was
still lithe and deadly. She did her work with the knives. Any man who dared
violate her screamed and died while the rest of the throng watched, judging.
When she had killed nearly a handful, she climbed out from under the bodies and
stood again before the crowd. The blood of several dead men covered her skin
and clothes like a warrior’s paint. The inmates loved the spectacle. Another
man tried to challenge her. She let him climb up on the desk with her so
everyone would have a good view of her beating him without weapons.

They
must know. They must learn. They must respect
.

She
defeated her challenger without mercy and restraint, pounding on him until he
wished he’d never stepped up to her. Then she lifted him up above her and threw
his body into the crowd. She imagined his life-power flowing into her, feeding
her spirit a feast unlike anything she’d had in years. She wanted to kill more,
but the man in the suit had urged her to hurry. The inmates now watched her
with more than awe.

“I
am the Queen!” she shouted to them.

They
roared back at her.

“I
AM THE QUEEN!”

“Queen!”
they shouted. “QUEEN!”

Then
she began to talk. And they listened and obeyed.

* * *
* *

In
her hotel suite, the Queen impatiently waited for the Hall of Records official
to call and confirm her access to the Berhane belongings. Three tedious days
later, the call finally came. In the sitting room of her suite, she had three
coms on a coffee table all hooked up to a voice transformer and microphone. The
Queen answered the one that rang, speaking into the microphone, transformer
dial set to elderly female, South African accent.

“Hello,
Mokobeng Juvenile Detention Facility, how may I help you?”

“Hi.
This is Tabatha from Johannesburg Hall of Records calling. We’re reviewing
paperwork submitted for Samuel Berhane. We need to confirm his presence in your
facility and also confirm that his power of attorney is being held by one Mrs.
Kathy Treze. Can you connect me to someone who can help me please?”

“One
moment, please,” the Queen answered as she transferred the call to a second com
and changed the voice to a middle-aged male dialect. “Good afternoon, this is
Mahonri Kaiser, Superintendent.”

The
Queen happily confirmed all the queries that Tabatha asked, then hung up. An
hour later, the third com rang, granting her access to the belongings of Samuel
Berhane, Jr. The time and effort spent had paid off. She hurried downstairs to
the hotel garage, jumped on her bike, and sped through the city until she
reached the Hall. After checking in at the front desk, she was led by a guard
into the archives where an employee met her among stacks and stacks of shelves.
Her nametag read: Assistant Archivist.

“Mrs.
Treze, you got here quickly!” Tabatha, the archivist, said as she shook hands
with the Queen.

“I
don’t waste time,” the Queen answered politely. “Please show me the way.”

The
archivist smiled. “We don’t store the belongings here. We have a contract with
several storage facilities in the city. The belongings you’re looking for are
in one of them.”

The
Queen checked her temper. “I’ll be grateful for the information.”

Another
hour later, the Queen stopped at a row of storage units. Using the key given to
her by the office, she opened Sammy’s storage unit. A musty smell greeted her.
The unit hadn’t been opened in over two years. Whoever had done the boxing and
organizing had done a meticulous job. Placing her large, empty duffel bag on
the ground, the Queen began opening boxes. She had specific items to look for:
pictures, videos, and other records. When she found them, she placed them in
the bag and searched on. After an hour’s work, she looked into the bag,
satisfied with her haul.

Carefully,
s
he cleaned her mess, restoring items back to their
original boxes. She picked up a t-shirt. It had a cartoon character on the
front, but she had no clue which one.
Sammy’s shirt.
She put the cloth
to her nose and inhaled deeply. His scent was faint, but there. She sniffed it
again, cradling the cloth. Then she twisted the cloth in her hands, imagining
that it was dripping with his blood.

Things
will be much different when we meet next time, Sammy.

20. Hunt

Friday August 2, 2086

Sammy
awoke on
the floor of Charlie Squadron’s cruiser caked in mud. The
taste of dirt and algae and something else—something terribly bitter—was strong
in his mouth.

“He’s
awake,” Dinsmore reported.

“Thank
goodness,” Anna said. “Turn this thing around and go back to the penthouse.”

“What
about the hospital?” Al asked.

“The
penthouse,” Anna repeated. “I’m not risking our squadron being reassigned.”

Sammy
coughed thickly and spat out whatever muck was still caking his tongue. “What
happened?” he asked as he sat up.

“You
were about two seconds from death,” Anna told him, “that’s what. We had to suck
mud out of your windpipe and do a lung flush. You’re lucky Kolomiyets and
Garrett know how to act fast. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Sammy
felt like his head was still full of mud. “Can I take a shower?”

Half
of the squadron was in the cruiser with him, gathered around watching. All of
them laughed at his response. Anna silenced them with a withering glance.

Minutes
later, Sammy was back in the bayside penthouse suite while the rest of the
squadron met up at the restaurant on the bottom floor of the hotel. As the team
left Sammy, Juraschek made a wisecrack about how Sammy had already eaten a big
dinner in the cave. Sammy smiled playfully, but he didn’t really find the joke
funny.

Once
alone, he went into the bathroom, stripped off his crusty clothes, and sat on
the floor of the shower. As the water turned the dried dirt on his skin back
into mud, he relived those horrific minutes in the cave.
I thought I was
going to die
. He soaked in the running water and tried to count how many
times in the last couple years he’d been certain his death was imminent.
How
many more times can I cheat death?
he wondered. When he finally felt clean,
he exited the bathroom wrapped in his towel, naked from the waist up. His
clothing was in his bag, which he’d forgotten to take into the bathroom with
him.

“Aren’t
you supposed to be a genius, Berhane?” Anna asked him when he stepped out.

Her
unannounced presence startled him enough that he scrambled to keep the towel
clutched over his private parts. He stood in the doorframe clutching the cloth,
wondering if his honcho’s question had been rhetorical. She sat across the room
in one of the large leather chairs, powering off her holo-tab as if she’d been
working on it while waiting for him to come out. No other sounds came from the
suite, which led Sammy to believe the others were still eating downstairs.

“Because
I’ve been told you are a genius. I was told you have the anomalies of both a
Tensai and a Psion. But I find it difficult to see why somebody with Anomaly
Eleven would choose to take pictures of a dead family during a mudslide!”

“I
was—!”

Her
stare burned into him, shutting him up. “If you’d died, I would have lost this
mission and probably my job. I can’t even think of an adjective negative enough
to describe the quality of your decision! Maybe all the crap you went through
in CAG territory has given you some kind of delusion that you think you’re
immune to—”

“I
don’t think—”

“SHUT
UP when I’m chewing you out. If you ever do something like that again, I will
have you transferred off my squad and pull every favor I have to get you sent
to the most horrific outpost on the planet. I don’t care if you’re a rising
star in our ranks. I don’t care that Commander Byron personally recommended you
to Charlie. I care about my team’s safety first and my job performance second.
I wasn’t born with gifts like yours. I earned what I have through busting my
non-existent balls. I will not tolerate idiocy. Are we clear?”

Sammy
lowered his eyes. “Yes.”

“Yes
what?”

“Yes
. . . honcho?”

Anna
glowered at him. “Yes. Ma’am.”

“Er,
yes, ma’am.”

“Good,”
she finished. She looked him up and down, as if she finally noticed he was
nearly naked. “Glad you’re alive and thank you for the pictures. Now work with
Juraschek and Wang to figure out the family’s identity.”

Not
long after Anna left, Wang and Juraschek returned. “How bad was it?” Juraschek
asked. “Did she threaten to cut off your manhood and mail it to an all-female
nudist colony of cannibals?”

“She
threatened to kick me off the team.”

“Oh,
psh
! She must not have been that mad if that’s all she threatened. Don’t
get too down. You did get the pictures. That’s why we sometimes call her the
Wicked Witch of the North.”

“Right,”
Sammy agreed, “but I think I pronounce ‘witch’ a little differently than you.”

Nikotai
launched the computer and showed Sammy how to work the software.

“The
program’s going to take longer than usual,” he explained. “Eyes are closed.
Discoloration creates color mismatches. Length of time they’ve been dead can
cause bloating. We may have to do manual comparisons. Too bad you couldn’t get
a fingerprint or DNA sample.” Despite Nikotai’s straight face, Sammy knew he
was joking.

“How
many Ultras are there?” Sammy asked. “Counting both the Alpha and Beta
programs.”

“About
ninety or a hundred. What makes you ask?”

Sammy
shrugged. “Curious.”

“We
have almost a hundred and twenty Tensais,” Juraschek added. “Of course, we’re
easier to spot. Excellent performances on standardized exams and aptitude tests
make it so. Psions and Ultras pose bigger problems. Not in your case. Police
report a strange event; Byron’s tracking programs pick up on it almost
immediately. Easy-peasy. But lots of Psions may never display their ability.
And since the Constitution forbids DNA mapping until the age of eighteen and
only by consent, we can’t screen people at birth. It’s the same thing with
Ultras. There are probably many more Ultras out there who are too lazy to ever
find out, wasting their lives away in gaming or couch-potatoeing or whatever.
Add that to all those people who turn the NWG down. . . . ”

Sammy
turned away from the screen to look at Justice. “People don’t turn the NWG
down.”

“Sure
they do.”

“When
I was recruited, Commander Byron told me that no one has ever turned him down.
He said they’d have to take a pill. Who’d want to do that?”

Justice
and Nikotai exchanged a look of mirth. “Of course he told you that. The truth
is that many people turn him down for the pill. More than you’d think. Lots of
Tensais turn down the government, too. The jobs out there for academics,
private researchers, and think-tankers pay more—a lot more—than what we get.”

“Ultras
turn it down, too,” Wang added, “but we have to sign a contract that forbids us
from competing in sports after age fifteen.”

“Byron
wouldn’t lie to me,” Sammy said.

“He’s
not perfect,” Justice said. “And that’s okay. You aren’t, either, so don’t
impose that standard on him. His job was to convince you to join. He said what
he needed to say in order to do that. You don’t really believe that in the
twenty or thirty years he’s been recruiting no one has turned him down, do
you?”

It
made Sammy feel foolish, but the answer in his head was
yes.
He believed
Byron. Justice seemed to know Sammy’s thoughts.

“Sammy,
my cousin, Loyal, has Anomaly Fourteen. He turned Byron down and he takes the
pill. He was almost fourteen when it happened—about six or seven years ago. His
parents don’t believe in war and violence. They basically told Byron to get
lost.”

Sammy
saw the truth in Justice’s eyes. “Whatever,” was all he could think of to say.

The
computer beeped.

“Matches!”
Wang announced.

“That’s
over a thousand people,” Sammy said as he stared at the lists on screen.

“Not
done yet.” Nikotai typed with uncanny efficiency. “Now we’ll see if any of
these John and Jane Does are married. And between those couples, which has kids
that match the ages of ours?”

“Twenty-three
for Mr. Doe,” Juraschek read off the screen. “Nineteen for Mrs. Doe. That’s not
too bad.”

For
thirty minutes Sammy, Nikotai, and Justice examined the holo-screens projected
into the air in front of them.

“This
has got to be them,” Juraschek announced. “Magnus and Annya Petursson. The
computer also lists an address, make and model of the family vehicle, and—”

“They
own a boat,” Nikotai announced. “Holy crud.”

“Anna,
come in,” Justice said.

Anna’s
voice cut over the radio. “What’s up?”

“We
have a possible I.D. on that family. They own a boat.”

“Contact
the Coast Guard. Tell them to start aerial and water searches for anything
close to that boat’s description, but not to approach it. Dinsmore and Garrett,
start picking everyone up so we can meet at the penthouse.”

In
under an hour, Charlie Squadron convened in the posh apartment. Anna didn’t
waste time getting to business. “Right now we’re operating under the assumption
that our targets have commandeered the Petursson vehicle and driven it into
Akureyri. If that’s the case, they are most likely either on the family boat or
at the house. Dinsmore estimates the bodies had been dead for about fifty
hours, so there’s a good chance our targets are in place to make their attempt
at getting off this rock. Until further notice, we will separate into three
teams.

“Team
one stays on patrol around the outside of the city, just in case we’re wrong
about the Petursson family. Team two patrols the skies over the water with
Dinsmore and Garrett. Team three will converge on the residence and secure it.
Keep in mind the possibility that the victims are one piece of the puzzle, and
that the targets may have splintered off into groups.

“Kolomiyets
will honcho the first team. With him are Brizendine and Hyävrinen to circle the
city. I’ll be flying in team two with Dinsmore and Garrett. Yazzie, Cheng, and
Avery will go with us. We’ll be watching the water. Juraschek is the third team
honcho with Berhane, Byron, Maru, and Wang. Justice, don’t be stupid about
securing the Petursson residence. Get it done, do it safe. Any questions or
comments?”

The
squadron split up. Justice went into the bedroom of the suite with his
holo-tablet so he could analyze the residential layout and house blueprints.
The other four, Al, Sammy, Nikotai, and Avni, sat in the main room chatting and
playing cards while they waited. Most of the discussion revolved around Sammy
and the mudslide. He wasn’t eager to talk about what had happened, but felt
forced to. These were his new comrades, his new friends. He feared that by not sharing
the intimate information they asked he might ruin his chances of fitting in
with them. A twinge of guilt hit him when he realized that a part of him wished
he were back at headquarters hanging out with his friends rather than with his
new team. He looked to Al as his role model. If Al could fit in with Charlie
Squadron after only a few months, Sammy knew he could do it, too.

But
he’s four years older than me
, he reminded himself.
What
if graduating is the wrong choice?

He
tried to stay involved in his squadron’s conversation, but kept slipping back
to second-guessing himself. After an hour of playing poker and spades, Justice
returned and saved Sammy from any more chatting by asking him to have a word
alone. Sammy excused himself and followed his pseudo-honcho to the back room.

“One
Tensai to another, I wanted to get your thoughts on this plan. I hope to be a
honcho of my own squadron someday, so I have to make the most of these
opportunities.” His holo-tablet projected a three-dimensional image of a section
of a neighborhood in Akureyri. “You’re looking at Urðargil.”