"No, it was Kristen. Because of her, Jason's finally got his secondary s.h.i.+elds and full access to his power. He-" Quinton broke off, voice cracking a bit.

Threnody didn't even know she was reaching for him until her hand was gripping his shoulder. "Quinton. What happened?"

"You were dying," he said, struggling to speak. "Jason's mind was opening up to all that power. He's a Cla.s.s 0 now, Thren. Lucas was right. Microtelekinesis all the f.u.c.king way, but it was too much. His mind needed more room, which he didn't have."

"The bond," Threnody guessed. "With Kerr."

"Kerr isn't a 'kinetic-oriented psion," Quinton said very, very softly. "He couldn't handle the overload. Their brain patterns wouldn't match."

She stared up into his face, a curious rus.h.i.+ng sound filling her ears. "No."

"Lucas made the connection. He took the bond out of Kerr and put it in my mind. It's permanent." Quinton gave her a careful, broken smile as he brushed his knuckles over her cheek. "You lived."

Threnody didn't know what to say. She opened her mouth; closed it again. Shaking her head, she finally found her voice. "I would never have asked that of you. Ever."

"You weren't in any condition to argue."

"Consider yourself lucky." Threnody took in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, hiding the pain with long practice. "Jason and I need to have a talk."

Quinton blinked at her, startled into laughter. "Even with Jason having all that power, I'd put my credit on you."

The hatch slid open and Matron stepped inside, the older woman eyeing Threnody. "So you're finally awake. You missed all the fun."

"I doubt that," Threnody said.

Matron jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Go strap in. We're launching in five and I don't need you underfoot."

Quinton put a hand on Threnody's shoulder and guided her out of the flight deck, back into the cold of the cargo bay.

TEN.

SEPTEMBER 2379.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM.

Dawn broke over London, late-summer sunlight piercing through a haze of thin, gray clouds. The air was hot and muggy, the breeze coming from the north only marginally cooler. The people who called the winding, ruined streets home were beginning to wake up and start another day while those who worked the night went to ground. People lived in cycles and this was only one of many.

Main city towers spanned both sides of the polluted deluge that was the Thames River, with others spread out around them. Cl.u.s.tered in the central zone, with foundations anch.o.r.ed deep into the ground, the city towers were covered in hologrids, with adverts that scrolled down their sides. The Serca Syndicate called a main city tower home, and Nathan Serca sat with his back to the view from his office. He'd seen it all before and was more interested in what his own CMO had to say.

Victoria Montoya, a Cla.s.s III telepath, hadn't slept much in the past few days and it showed in the stiff way she carried herself, the way stress lined her eyes and mouth.

"We lost forty-nine Warhounds in Buffalo," Victoria reported, studying her datapad. "Of the total, Jin Li Zhang was the most critical loss. Fifty-two other Warhounds are currently off the active-duty roster and under medical care ranging from a few days to a few weeks. Most won't be ready for immediate field missions. That's almost a sixth of our total ranks. We still don't know the location of your daughters."

Nathan's expression didn't change as Victoria tallied up their losses. He already knew the few major ones, the losses that involved his children; these numbers made it all worse. His fury at the betrayal of his children was difficult to hide, but he was adept at censoring himself. Nathan was supposed to be human, but as a Cla.s.s I triad psion, he had more than enough power at his disposal to change an adversary's mind. He rarely used his powers, choosing instead to act through subordinates in order to extend his life span. It was how he'd survived to reach fifty-one when most psions were lucky to reach thirty.

"And my son?" Nathan leaned back in his chair and curled his hands over the armrests. "What about Gideon?"

His youngest son was the only successor he had left. Lucas defected first. Now, with Samantha gone, her absence would cause problems Nathan had never thought he'd have to deal with. She'd been taking on public duties for two years, and her disappearance wouldn't go unnoticed. Kristen had been kept hidden away, never even put into the Registry. The continuing loss of his chosen successors would, however, be impossible to hide.

"Gideon is stable," Victoria said after a moment's hesitation. "Physically, he wasn't hurt that badly. Mentally? It's been rough."

Stable wasn't enough. Nathan required a functioning heir. "Fix his mind, Victoria. I need Gideon conscious for a mission while I attend a scheduled meeting with the Syndicate's subsidiaries."

Going into that meeting alone would raise questions, but it couldn't be helped. Nathan didn't have the time or the tools to cut his way past two dozen bioware nets in a day and alter minds, even with help. Psionic interference would tip too many people off, and at this juncture that was the very last thing he needed.

"When does the meeting take place?" Victoria asked.

"The end of next week unless circ.u.mstances dictate otherwise. I'm sending Gideon out before then."

Victoria managed to hide most of her wince, the only sign being a faint tic at the left side of her mouth. It was a difficult task, but she could accomplish it if she disregarded her own health in favor of Nathan's son's. She would, because she, like everyone else in the Warhound ranks, knew that the Serca family was the only thing standing between them and government enslavement.

"He'll be ready," Victoria said, staking her life on that promise.

"Excellent. Now, what of the Strykers that were seen with Lucas? Do we have any eyewitness reports?"

Victoria consulted her notes. "Gideon's memories are intact. He tortured a pyrokinetic Stryker inside the power plant. The electrokinetic partnered with that Stryker was seen entering the power plant, but her condition is unknown. We think she may have been involved with Jin Li's death and with what happened to the electrical grid. The telepath was merged with Lucas and no one saw the telekinetic."

"Do we have any information of what may have caused the near breaking of the mental grid?"

"No." Victoria glanced up. "Sir, do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

Nathan drummed his fingers once against the armrests of his chair, gazing past her. "During her fight in the Slums, Samantha discovered that a Stryker still had intact natal s.h.i.+elds, but could use his power."

Victoria's expression became incredulous. "That's impossible. Natal s.h.i.+elds always fall within the first two to three years after birth so we can access our powers. If they don't fall, we can't access our powers. That is a doc.u.mented fact, sir."

"Apparently not for this particular Stryker. Our records indicate that Jason Garret is a Cla.s.s V telekinetic who can teleport. We can add to them that he has intact natal s.h.i.+elds. The question we're left with is what would happen if those s.h.i.+elds fell? What are they holding back?"

"Do you think it was him, sir?"

Nathan had been thinking about the question endlessly since Buffalo started running at full power. "I think it's a possibility."

"Will we be looking into it?"

"I will be." Nathan dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "Go finish your work on Gideon."

Victoria left, the door sliding shut behind her. Nathan allowed himself a moment of personal, frustrated bitterness at the position his children had put him in. He hadn't wanted more than one child, but Marcheline had ordered him to create more. His mother died years ago, and Nathan felt he could blame her for this mess. Fighting his own family right now was a distraction he didn't need, not when the only thing that should be occupying his attention was the scheduled launch. Nathan refused to let his ancestors' plan wither and die all because of a few spoiled children who refused to learn their place.

Except their rebellion was undermining his control.

How had Lucas discovered and kept hidden a psion of such incredible strength? Nathan had been in and out of Lucas's mind for years. Lucas shouldn't have been capable of deceit. If the Warhound ranks had a traitor, however inconceivable the thought, then Nathan knew he would never find the person. Like Nathan and all Sercas before them both, Lucas would kill to keep his secrets. Nathan doubted he'd find even a memory of the traitor. Two years of searching had proven that conclusion as fact.

Nathan grimaced. Doubting his powers and his Syndicate right now would be disastrous. He needed Gideon in the field, searching out that new target. Being introduced as the new face of the Serca Syndicate would have to come later. Jin Li's death meant Nathan had a hole in the Warhound ranks that needed to be filled, and quickly. The world press kept demanding a statement from Nathan, not just his Syndicate's official publicist, on what had transpired in Buffalo. Nathan wasn't going to cave to their demands, not yet. There was a lot to do, with little time to do it in, and too few people he could trust to get it done right.

The mental grid dipped beyond his s.h.i.+elds, a psi signature sparking bright and high far away on the psychic plane. The presence of another mind brushed against his. Nathan recognized the orderly thoughts of a psion who lacked the impression of a static human mind, which told him it wasn't a Warhound asking for a link. Nearly all Warhounds were s.h.i.+elded as human to some degree in order to hide. Strykers didn't have that luxury.

Aidan, Nathan acknowledged, initiating a psi link between himself and the Strykers Syndicate's third-in-command. To what do I owe this lovely little chat?

You already know, Aidan said, voice empty of all emotion. Nathan could still feel the ripple of the other man's mind, how it strained against his own power. We require a meeting.

You require? I'd rather you beg.

Nathan. Aidan paused, the pull of his mind weakening slightly as he conversed on a separate psi link with someone else. Finally, the Stryker said, Please.

Any other time it would have amused Nathan. Today, it only irritated him, but he had appearances to keep up. Keiko knows what my office looks like.

She'd been in it before, ferrying Ciari from wherever the Stryker OIC might have been, on the pretense of negotiating a contract to hide their true reasons for meeting with him. Only in The Hague, when they were in the same city together, did Nathan purposefully keep a mental feeler out, waiting to hear from her. Ciari wasn't with Keiko this time; she had Aidan. It was a mistake on her part, even if she didn't know it. She should have brought an empath.

They arrived before his desk in a teleport, and a red alert popped up at the bottom of the vidscreen. Nathan disengaged it. Security still called in.

"Sir," someone said over the uplink. "Is everything all right?"

"Only some visitors. Nothing to be concerned about."

"Sir."

The connection cut off and Nathan took in the pair's tired appearance with a keen eye. "I expected you earlier than this."

"We're under stricter monitoring by the World Court," Keiko said.

"They're a little behind the mark, don't you think?" Nathan said. "If I'm dealing with you, I suspect Ciari's closer to dead after that little stunt Erik pulled. Such an entertaining show."

"She's alive."

"And yet, she isn't here." Nathan leaned forward and turned off the vidscreen. "I know what the World Court has planned for your people, Keiko. Their salvation has always been the duty of your OIC. Did the World Court change its mind, or are you still the Acting OIC?"

Keiko lifted her chin higher. "I am."

"Congratulations. I doubt you'll live as long as Ciari did in that post." Nathan's eyes flickered from one to the other. "If the World Court knew where your true loyalties lie, they would have terminated you all. I can't have that happen before the launch."

"Strykers are excellent liars, Nathan. We have to be." Keiko paused, weighing her next words. "Things have changed since our conversation weeks ago at The Hague. You know why we're here."

"You came here hoping to bleed off more of your people into the Warhound ranks."

"Yes."

"A wasted effort." Nathan lifted a hand to forestall any argument. "I don't have time to retrieve the amount of psions you want to rescue. What you're asking for would raise the World Court's suspicion in a way I refuse to accept before the launch. That action would get you all killed via ma.s.s termination and you know it."

The World Court was ignorant of the Silence Law that secretly tied the two Syndicates together. Only the highest-ranking Strykers Syndicate officers knew that the Serca family wasn't human. Their silence on the matter guaranteed the survival of certain rank-and-file Strykers. Suicide missions handed out by the World Court were altered into Warhound retrievals by the Strykers Syndicate OIC. Those saved Strykers were then reconditioned by the Warhounds for the Serca family's own use.

Those transfers were done with utmost care, the image of Strykers fighting for their lives against the enemy needing to be upheld until they were brought under Serca control. Freedom, of a sort. No neurotracker in their brain, but they were still required to obey strict rules if they wanted to survive under the government's radar. They lived longer in the Serca Syndicate-usually.

"You still need some of us," Keiko said. She took a half step forward, Aidan staying by her side. "You need a wider gene pool than you've got."

"You are less the conniving b.i.t.c.h than Ciari is, so don't think you can bargain where she failed. Our partners.h.i.+p will be terminated at the launch," Nathan said. "You have known that since you took the post of chief operating officer for your Syndicate, Keiko."

"We've kept your family in the clear," Aidan snapped. "You owe us."

Nathan got to his feet, letting his mind weigh heavily against theirs as he approached Keiko. He smiled down at her, his expression all teeth and utter contempt. "The same can be said of you. I am, however, not completely heartless."

Keiko snorted her opinion of that.

"You have people you still want to save. I can admire that, Keiko."

"You admire nothing that doesn't happen on your orders," she said.

"True, but I can make room on the last wave of shuttles if I want. I will give those seats up only to the Strykers that I find useful."

"And those would be?"

"Every kind of psion at a Cla.s.s III and higher-excluding you officers." Nathan's smile got fractionally wider. "I don't need a rebellion within my own company."

"The question is, will you keep your word?" Aidan said.

Nathan-three Cla.s.s levels higher and thirty times stronger than the other man-stabbed his telepathy outward and coiled it tight around Aidan's mental s.h.i.+elds. Aidan's defenses were good, but he couldn't prepare for Nathan's skill. Nathan might not have the years of use under his belt that other psions did, but his strength was something only Lucas could match.

"I don't like being questioned," Nathan said as he telekinetically forced Aidan to his knees, telepathy ripping through the other man's mind. "You don't rule here, Stryker."

"Let him go," Keiko demanded.

Nathan could feel her telekinesis slam against his own s.h.i.+elds, sc.r.a.ping over his defenses. He sharpened his power against her, holding her back. Sharpened his telepathy until it sheared off half of Aidan's mental s.h.i.+elds, causing the younger man to shudder, blood dripping from his nose.

"This is my only and final offer," Nathan said, twisting his power through Aidan's thoughts. "Whether or not you accept it, I still expect your silence on the matter of my family."

"So, you live and we die?" Aidan gasped out, s.h.i.+elds caving beneath the pressure of Nathan's telepathy. "Is that it?"

"That is how it has always been. Don't fool yourself into believing otherwise. You won't live to see Mars Colony, to take part in what my family has worked to build. Even Ciari accepted that."

"No matter the amount of unregistered humans that you subst.i.tute for those who should have a berth on the Ark, you won't have enough to breed psions out of them," Keiko said. "Let him go. Please."

"So little faith, Keiko. You're all about filling Ciari's shoes, aren't you?" Nathan wrenched his telepathy out of Aidan's mind, leaving behind raw mental wounds. "I'll have what I need."

Keiko's lips curled back from her teeth as she bent to help Aidan up. "f.u.c.k you, Nathan."

The smile on Nathan's face got fractionally wider as he felt her pull back her telekinesis. "Your jealousy is showing. Find yourself an empath instead of a telepath next time. I'd have thought you learned something from Ciari other than how to argue futilely. It seems I was wrong."