Psion Delta (41 page)

* * *
* *

In
the nearly pitch-black bottom level of the garage, Jeffie and the rest of the
Betas on Li’s team hunkered down behind the overturned SUV. She tried not to
think about the fact that her life was on the line and that even the tiniest of
mistakes could mean everything. Because each time she did, it scared her close
to tears. She knew that Brickert, Natalia, Kawai, and others were experiencing
the same type of fear as her, but that didn’t help. Despite her extensive
training for combat, she felt another three or four years would’ve served her
well.

Far
down the garage, the gunshots had ceased, and the Aegis communicated to each
other with shrieks. The sounds pierced Jeffie’s brain and sent chills through
her. Li was determined to keep everyone calm and focused, but someone was
sobbing, and the pitiful sounds weren’t soothing anyone.

“Who
is that?” Li asked. “Natalia, is that you crying?”

It
couldn’t have been Natalia because she was crouched next to Jeffie.

“Whoever
that is, shut up!” Kobe hissed.

The
sobbing only got worse. Jeffie heard Brickert crawl over to the source of the
sound. The moaning became muffled. “Antonio,” Brickert said much more gently
than Jeffie could have done, “you’ve got to get a grip on yourself. You’re
going to get us all killed if you don’t stop.”

As
Antonio’s cries lessened, Li spoke to everyone in a whisper. “I counted
twenty-two Aegis. There may be more, but we can use the dark to our advantage
as long as we move slowly and don’t fire our weapons. I want the guns to go to
me, Kobe, Kaden, Jeffie, and Levu. If you don’t have a gun, stay with someone
who does. You can shield for them. Don’t shoot unless it’s absolutely
necessary. We’re going to move back around the way we came, counterclockwise
along the back wall, and then the east wall. No large groups. Two to three
people at most. Go silently from cover to cover.”

“Guys,
we can all make it out of here alive,” Kaden spoke in a hush, “if we keep our
heads cool and work like a team. All Aegis out there . . . this isn’t nearly as
bad as Rio.”

“You
okay, Antonio?” Kobe asked. “We need you buddy. I’m sorry I got angry. We’re
depending on you like you’re depending on us.”

Jeffie
put a hand on Antonio and felt him tremble as he took a calming breath.
“Y—yeah—yeah. I’ll be o—okay.”

“I’ll
go out first,” Li said. “Who wants to come with me?”

Parley
volunteered. Together they moved catlike from behind the SUV to a nearby pillar
of cement painted with a large N. Beyond that point, Jeffie couldn’t see them
through the darkness.

“I’ll
go next,” Kobe said. Rosa and Miguel went with him.

After
waiting a couple minutes, Levu went with Kawai and Natalia.

Kaden
and Jeffie were left with Antonio, and Brickert. “Jeffie,” Kaden said, “you go
ahead next with Brickert. I’ll follow you with Antonio.”

Jeffie
gave him a thumbs up. “You ready, Brick?”

Brickert
was pale, but his eyes were steady. “Born ready,” he croaked. “Lead the way.”

If
she hadn’t been so terrified, she might have snickered at his bravado. They walked
quickly to the same pillar where Li had hidden a few minutes earlier. They
crouched the whole way and stayed low when they reached cover. Levu was still
there with Kawai and Natalia. “Let’s go, ladies,” Levu said to her team.

Jeffie
and Brickert watched closely so they’d know where to go next. About forty
meters away, an Aegis fired four shots. Another Aegis fired two more, but
Jeffie was pretty sure they were firing at ghosts. A small whimper came from
behind the SUV.

Shut
it, Antonio.

The
ramp to the second level was almost a hundred and fifty meters away from their
side of the garage. Three Aegis stood nearby, guarding it. Jeffie guessed other
Aegis were at the stairs and elevators.

“Levu’s
moving,” Brickert whispered. “Let’s go.”

Jeffie
and Brickert hustled to take the next cover spot. Behind them, Kaden and
Antonio filled the vacancy. A couple minutes later, the cycle repeated itself.
Jeffie turned to watch Kaden and Antonio move. Not far from the cover spot,
Antonio tripped and landed on his stomach. In the darkened silence, it was like
a gong.

Guns
fired, missing in the dark, but sending bright ricochets off the cement.
Antonio cursed and curled up into a fetal position. Kaden reached cover and
urged his partner on as quietly as he could. “Get up and shield!” he said.
“You’re fine, just shield.” But the Aegis seemed to know where he was now, and
one of the bullets hit home. Antonio grabbed his thigh as a bullet ripped into
him. His terror-filled scream echoed all around the garage.

Get
up, Antonio!
GET UP!

Amazingly,
he seemed to get a grip and started shielding as boots ran toward him. Kaden
seemed torn as to what he should do. Brickert was breathing a steady stream of
encouraging words so softly that it sounded like a gas leak.

“Get
away!” Antonio shrieked, and threw his arms around as if he were warding off
evil spirits. “GET AWAY FROM ME!”

More
boots tapped across the floor in his direction. Five Aegis drew near, guns
raised.

Antonio
was shielding with feet and hands, laying on his back, blood soaking his pants.
“I won’t die! You can’t make me die!”

Kaden
raised his weapon and took aim.

“No
no no no,” Jeffie whispered. “Kaden, don’t give yourself away.”

But
it was too late. She could see on his face that he wouldn’t let a fellow Psion
die without a fight. He opened fire.

* * *
* *

“How
did you do that?” Sammy asked. “How did you split up the CAG from the NWG? Did
you rig the vote?”

“No.”
The fox paused before answering further. Then he captured Sammy’s bishop with a
pleasant smile. “Well, actually, I’ve never thought about it that way, but
perhaps I did. Think about information, Sammy. Most people associate the word
information
with
truth
, if there even is such a thing. In my mind, information can
be boiled down to one person’s thoughts communicated to another person. If you
can spread out information to several people—millions of people—you can, in a
way, control their thoughts.”

Sammy
moved his queen and took the fox’s knight. “You controlled the media.”

The
fox made a strange face and bobbed his head. Sammy wasn’t sure if the fox was
agreeing with him or not. The fox surveyed the board for his next move while
pouring himself another glass of water.

“You
really should sample this water. Delicious.” He took a sip and smacked his
lips. “I don’t like the word you used:
controlled
. I didn’t control the
media. That’s the kind of talk you hear from conspiracy theorists. Wackos.” He
raised his eyebrows mirthfully at his own comment. “The people I associate
with, we decided that it was in our best interest if America seceded from the
NWG. We came up with certain conditions under which this event would occur, and
we set about making those conditions a reality. News companies, film companies,
holo-vision networks . . . these aren’t some unquantifiable entities, you know.
They’re businesses. If you give a business more money than someone else, then
they are more likely to listen to you than that other person.

“The
NWG was new enough and aloof enough that we knew we could convince the American
territories of their need for independence. It only took seven years of very
hard work, and we knew our goals were achievable. Rather than trying to shroud
our important genetic work from the government and risking sanctions, fines,
and other setbacks, we now have full capacity to do whatever we want.”

“You
control the CAG?” Sammy didn’t try to mask his skepticism.

The
fox took another sip of water as he nodded as casually as if he were agreeing
to order a pizza. Then he took one of Sammy’s pawns with a bishop. He seemed
deeply satisfied with his move. “You find it hard to believe?” He did not wait
for Sammy to answer. “I’m not president. No. I have far more important things
to do than that. I merely help influence the policies of the CAG by making sure
the people I like or need get elected to such and such offices. It’s much
easier when you have a group of people who dedicate themselves to making
society better and are uniquely placed to do so.”

“So
you got what you wanted. Genetic research. DNA splicing and cloning. So what?
What about me?”

The
fox looked at Sammy with a puzzled expression. “What about you? Check.”

Sammy’s
king was in the way of the fox’s rook. He moved his remaining bishop into
position to cover it. “Why did you want to kill me? And now meet me?”

“Aren’t
you enjoying the game of chess and the story?” the fox asked, watching Sammy
for a reaction. Sammy did not answer, and the fox began to laugh. “I’m only
joking. You’ll understand more later. For now, focus on the game. Can we assume
for the moment that I run the country or do you want to hear more evidence?”

“I’m
playing the game because you promised me answers. What does any of this have to
do with me and my parents?”

“Your
parents?” the fox repeated. His hand hovered over the board as though he was trying
to move all the pieces mentally. Sammy watched him carefully. “Your parents
were lucky, I think. Nothing more.”

“Lucky
people don’t get killed the way they did.”

“No,
that’s true. Please forgive that careless comment.”

“So
they are dead,” Sammy said.

The
fox took his eyes off the chessboard—an act which seemed to require great
effort—and made eye contact with Sammy. “You knew that all along. You didn’t
come for your parents. You came for Katie and the man you call Stripe. I could
have had any Anomaly Thirteen in that holo-film pointing a gun at a hologram of
your parents. I chose Katie and . . . Stripe for specific reasons.”

Sammy
closed his eyes and remembered his thought process when the fox had called him
at Beta headquarters.
I was played like a puppet.
“How did you get that
information? Their voices? Their mannerisms? How did you—?”

The
fox waved his hand as though the question wasn’t worth his time. “Once the CAG
was formed to our liking, we formed our own constitution to allow more
progressive views on genetics research, but,” he raised his finger
dramatically, “to prevent any backlash from the Scourge, we did not change the
laws on abortion. At that point, my work was on track.”

“What
work?”

“I’m
getting to that. Our big breakthrough was finally solving the Scourge vaccine
code and figuring out which type of people it affected and why. By doing so, we
were able to start cross-referencing our work with the Human Genome Project.”

“So
you wanted to accurately predict whether or not a couple’s offspring would have
an anomaly based on their genes?”

The
fox’s eyes narrowed and a tiny grin slipped onto his face. For an instant, he
looked like the most dangerous person Sammy had ever seen. It was the
combination of power and intellect shining through his everyman appearance.
If
this man is really so smart, he must know I’m a trained soldier. How is he so
confident that I won’t do something to him right now?

“No.
We could never predict an anomaly with that much certainty. There are far too
many variables in genetic recombination when couples mate. However, in DNA
recombination, in a laboratory. . . . ” He moved his piece. “Check.”

“Clones.
You wanted to make clones of anomalies.” Sammy noted that the fox was steadily
becoming more aggressive in his tactics on the chessboard. He moved his queen
to protect the king.

The
fox’s eyes brightened at Sammy’s move. “Sort of. We certainly wanted to combine
the cloning process with the research into the anomalies, but the trick was to
take it a step further. We soon found that we could duplicate the effects of
some of the more basic anomalies. The ones that are far more common: webbed
feet and hands, larger craniums, early onset rheumatism—those anomalies that
were first discovered. In recent years, as our work has progressed, we’ve found
success in creating clones with Anomaly Fourteen, Katie’s anomaly, and my
anomaly.”

“Your
anomaly?”

“That’s
what I said.”

Sammy
had no trouble guessing what it was.

“We’ve
been collecting anomalies to extract their DNA and study patterns. You
experienced one of my extraction facilities in Rio de Janeiro.”

Sammy’s
eyes narrowed.

“We
don’t kill them, Sammy. We imprison them . . . unless they don’t cooperate with
the interrogation process, as you nearly discovered.”

“Why
not train your own army of Anomaly Fourteens like the NWG?”

“Because
the Thirteens hate them, and the Thirteens are much simpler beings, much easier
to control.”

“So
you collect anomalies, study them, and clone them. Now you’ve got your own army
of clone babies?”