Oliver Invictus (Annals of Altair Book 3)

by Kate Stradling

  And some had given up the possibility of physical escape and used their moments of freedom to collect as much information as they could from the Prometheus computer system.

  As for their handlers and administrators, the whole lot had gathered together in the cafeteria, where they single-mindedly emailed a cryptic message to the same recipient over and over and over again, for almost two solid hours.

  Button is here. Prometheus F.

  It was like an alien projection. No one knew from whom the message had originated, only that their need to send it overrode any other logical thought. The receiving email address was based overseas, an anonymous account out of Iceland, with no personal information attached to it and no way of tracking its owner.

  Most of the messages hadn’t even gotten past the computer system’s email filter, though. The sheer volume of mail had triggered a system-wide alarm that cut off electronic communications from the satellite campus. Only one administrator had a default override.

  “Gates!”

  The crush of bodies parted to make way for a broad-shouldered military man. Principal Gates settled back in his chair, bitterness in his eyes as he glared up at the newcomer. The buzz of voices died to a stricken hush.

  From behind, Oliver observed General Stone’s salt-and-pepper hair. The general hadn’t visited the F Campus in years, but his instinctive air of authority left no question that he was not a man to be crossed. Several of the administrators retreated out the office door as soon as they deemed it safe to slip away.

  “Report. Now. Who was responsible?”

  Principal Gates’s mouth pursed into a mulish line. “I told you not to take the null.”

  General Stone’s palms slammed upon the desk. “If you had any idea—” he started, incensed, but Principal Gates didn’t let him get any further.

  “Of course I had no idea! But I warned you. I told you Oliver has been here long enough that we might not know what some of the projectors were capable of.”

  “You had Cedric.”

  “Cedric is a Level 2 at best, and that’s being generous. A 10-foot-radius safe space won’t do much good against a Level 4 or 5 projector, especially when he’s in the midst of a bunch of malcontents who are more than happy to truss him up so the projection can run its course.”

  Oliver watched this shouting match with interest. He already knew his null-projection was a broad scale. He had suspected that Cedric’s was narrower, but the administrators didn’t exactly give them opportunities to test their limits. He’d never heard any of the adults assign projectors or null-projectors a level for their ability, though.

  “Who was the projector?” General Stone asked. “Which sniveling miscreant do I get to take back with me?”

  Principal Gates immediately clammed up. Without another word, he plopped down into his chair and glared.

  “You don’t know?” The general straightened, scorn thick on his voice.

  “It was a mental projection, not a verbal one. And it’s not as though whoever did it walked up to us and announced their presence.”

  General Stone turned his back on Principal Gates to face the two nulls. Oliver he ignored. “Who was it?” he demanded of Cedric.

  The boy shrank into his chair, mouth agape as he stared up at the menace that towered over him.

  General Stone grasped the chair’s armrests and leaned close, effectively blocking Cedric in. “Who was it?” he repeated, enunciating every word.

  “He doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” Oliver wasn’t entirely sure what made him speak up. He recognized his younger, more foolish self in the boy that sat next to him. Why he would take pity on that younger, more foolish self was a mystery.

  The general turned malevolent eyes upon him.

  “He doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” Oliver said again. “He’s probably never bothered to analyze how his null-projection works, and if he’s really only got a ten-foot range, the projection originated beyond his senses anyway. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Stone immediately shifted his stance to box in Oliver instead. “Am I barking up the right one now?” he asked, seething anger in his voice.

  Oliver, far from cowering, twisted his mouth into a sarcastic little sneer. “I wasn’t here, remember?”

  Of course General Stone would remember. He was the one who had given the orders for Oliver’s transfer in the first place.

  “General,” Principal Gates said before the man could vent his spleen on his recalcitrant victim, “we have only a handful of possible culprits. Twenty or thirty at most.”

  Oliver suppressed his instinctive shock that the number was so high. But it only made sense that Prom-F would have a higher share of projectors than the other campuses. Any who couldn’t be brainwashed into good little minions would need to be controlled somehow.

  “And what if your instigator isn’t among the notable suspects?” General Stone asked. “As you were so quick to point out, if a Level 5 null has been here this long, you can’t really predict the capability of any of your students. What if it was a late bloomer? What if I leave here with the null and your twenty suspects, only to have a repeat of this morning’s debacle occur?”

  The principal had nothing to say to this, so he glowered.

  Stone resumed his interrogation of Oliver. “Who was it?”

  “I wasn’t here,” Oliver reiterated. He fought not to let his smugness show on his face and didn’t quite succeed. But it really was too rich, them shipping him off to parts unknown and then expecting him to help sort out the mess that cropped up in his absence.

  It was gratifying, too. His presence alone kept the whole of the Prom-F student body in check—not that he wanted to keep them in check, but to know that his influence extended that far, that he was ranked a Level 5 null. Oliver had too few triumphs in life to relish, so he savored this one.

  General Stone’s upper lip curled in disdain. He leaned in close, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I know better than you how your fancy little powers work. You should have felt it the moment you came into range. You know what I’m talking about. You would’ve felt it like you smell a tantalizing meal. Each projector has a unique flavor, wouldn’t you say? And you, if you’re worth even half what you think you are, would have recognized that flavor. Or was it a medley? Hmm?”

  Oliver kept his expression flat. His heart beat erratically, his self-preservation instincts writhing in terror at the close proximity of someone who could probably snap his neck like a twig, but he would sooner die than let any such fear show on his face. It was irrational to fear General Stone.

  So, mustering every last ounce of self-control that he possessed, he raised steady, careless eyes to meet the man’s steely gaze. Oliver held that gaze and said absolutely nothing.

  Silence was such a delightful means for conveying complete and utter contempt.

  General Stone’s face reddened. A vein on his forehead pulsed an angry purple, and his fingers clenched the armrest as though they longed to clench Oliver’s throat instead.

  At long last, he jerked away. “We’re going to winnow down the candidates, Gates. Keep the nulls with you. We’ll parade the students past them one by one until Cedric figures out which projector was working against him.”

  “And what if he can’t determine who it was?” Principal Gates asked, his nerves manifesting in the fidgeting of his hands.

  General Stone leveled a menacing glare upon Oliver. “Then we’ll get cooperation from the Level 5. Or else.”

  That remark should have been a conversation killer, especially given the general’s threatening demeanor. General Stone had revealed his hand long before this game even started, though. Oliver knew the gist of every card he held.

  “Or else what?” the teen asked, scorn infusing his voice. “You’ll send me off to Prom-E?”

  General Stone actually gnashed his teeth. “You will be lucky if that’s all I do, you smug little pissant,” he snarled. Then he stormed from
the office, thumping the doorjamb with one fist as he passed.

  Oliver chalked this reaction up as yet another triumph to add to his tiny, growing hoard.

  Principal Gates had Oliver and Cedric transported to the cafeteria. Their handlers shambled alongside them, bewildered by the day’s events. All afternoon, the pair of nulls sat at a table as administrators paraded students past them one by one.

  Cedric paid close attention, concentrating as best he could, scrutinizing the hostile students each in turn. Oliver, in contrast, fixed his attention on the floor and largely ignored the procession. The students glared daggers at him, and he couldn’t blame them for their ire. His very presence had stripped their chance for freedom. A search party located the last three runners and brought them through, dirty and half-frozen, before marching them straight up to their dorm rooms, which would remain locked until further notice. One of the boys made a rude gesture as he passed.

  Oliver returned it with a shrug.

  “Anything yet?” Principal Gates appeared after a couple of girls had crossed through the room, a practiced interest upon his face.

  Prom-F was covered in security cameras. By them, he would already know that Cedric had garnered no results, and that Oliver wasn’t even trying. He had come for another reason, that meant.

  “No, nothing,” said the administrator who was overseeing the process. “We still have two grades to bring through, though.”

  Oliver was hard-pressed not to snicker. He had experienced some tenseness an hour ago, but he was confident now. Cedric wouldn’t identify the culprit. More specifically, as Oliver had guessed, Cedric couldn’t. He didn’t know what he was looking for, because no one had ever taught him to look.

  Projectors, by some genetic fluke, could propel their thoughts and desires upon those around them. In essence, they could control behavior. A select handful could only influence dogs or cats or birds. The majority could manipulate humans to some degree, but most human-projectors required verbal commands to carry out their whims. Those who could accomplish mental projections tended to be very rare and very powerful.

  And for the past twenty or thirty years, the United States government had singled out all possible projectors in their infancy or childhood and placed them into the custody of the Prometheus Institute.

  If projectors were rare, null-projectors were almost non-existent. Oliver had previously encountered one, but she had escaped with Altair back when his snot-nosed younger self had refused such freedom. Cedric was the only other null in the greater Prometheus population. Or, at least, if another had been identified at a different campus, no one had bothered to tell Oliver.

  But nulls tended to be known. Not only were they immune to human-projectors, but their presence nullified any projection cast within their range of influence. His unique ability wasn’t that he could accomplish anything great but that he prevented others from exercising their powers at will.

  And for a government whose main objective was control, any individual who could derail such a powerful mechanism would be an enemy. Plenty of projectors worked within the system to lull the population into a contrived pattern of complaisance. Nulls interfered, and interference wasn’t an option.

  Another pair of students entered the room. Oliver pinned his attention on the sound-absorbing ceiling tiles over his head. Garrett suddenly vacated the chair next to him, and Principal Gates took the handler’s place.

  Oliver steadfastly ignored him, even as the man leaned in close.

  He spoke in clandestine tones. “Oliver, if you cooperate, you may find it to your great advantage.”

  Oliver couldn’t stop the scoff that cut through his lips. Cynical amusement welled within him as he shifted his gaze to the man. “I’m not an idiotic ten-year-old anymore, Gates. You’ve played that card before, and you welched in the end.”

  Gates fidgeted uncomfortably. “What do you want?”

  “From you? Absolutely nothing.”

  “What do you want?” Gates asked again, a cunning gleam in his eyes. Oliver was almost tempted. Almost he would have believed that the principal was desperate enough to deliver on his unspoken promise. Promises from administrators were worthless, though, and unspoken ones tenfold.

  So, the teenager leaned in close as well. He lowered his voice to a whisper and spoke slow enough that Gates could hang on his every word.

  “I want mayhem.”

  Gates scowled. Oliver sat back up, a smile on his face as he surveyed the pair of juniors who were being escorted from the cafeteria.

  “I’m not getting anything from any of them,” Cedric whined. “I don’t know who it was! They all tried to escape, so shouldn’t they all be punished together?”

  Gates said nothing. The handlers and administrators said nothing. Their silence spoke volumes. The guilty culprit would be sent off to Prom-E with Oliver as punishment. Prom-E, apparently, could not handle an influx of two hundred new students at once.

  It received between fifteen and twenty graduates from Prom-F at the end of each school year, but those graduates were never heard from again. Oliver wondered anew what kind of facility it was.

  He didn’t return to his dorm room that night. His classmates knew that he was the cause of their failed escape attempts, and there was no telling whether his own roommate was desperate enough to end his interference permanently. With that possibility in mind, the administrators tossed him and Cedric together into a room in the handlers’ wing, with a night guard stationed outside the door.

  The lock slid into place the moment the door shut behind them, powered by Prom-F’s security network. Handlers’ rooms each had a small en suite, which meant that the administrators wouldn’t even need to let the two boys out for bathroom breaks. It might as well have been a jail cell.

  “You could at least try to help us find the projector,” Cedric said reproachfully.

  “I get no joy out of licking boots,” said Oliver, and he flopped onto the bed in one corner.

  Cedric perched on the edge of the other bed. “They were all monsters today. My whole class turned against me!”

  Oliver rolled over to face the wall. “Can you stop with the sniveling? I was pulled out of bed at five a.m. and I’m pretty much done.”

  Cedric’s mouth snapped shut, a satisfying noise. Sleep pushed against Oliver’s mind, crowding out thoughts of the day’s events. He knew by experience that a deep sleep would render his null-projection void. Did the enterprising projector know as much? Was that person waiting for him to fall asleep?

  The school in lockdown would present a new and difficult set of obstacles, but he rather hoped she would try it anyway. He was doomed, but that didn’t mean everyone else should fall with him.

  Chapter 3

  Hook and Bait

  Tuesday, February 19, 12:04 PM MST, Prom-F

  The lockdown remained in place. Oliver and Cedric spent the morning in their room. They ate breakfast from trays brought to their door. One of the teachers dropped off lesson assignments for Cedric, who attempted to tackle them with little effect. Oliver was, academically speaking, ignored. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t about to question it. If they thought to punish him with boredom, their tactics were sorely lacking. He discovered a set of playing cards in a drawer—left there by whichever handler had previously occupied this room—and amused himself with repeated games of solitaire.

  At noon, the door’s lock slid open. Both boys looked up as Maggie poked her head in. “Oliver, come along,” she said.

  “Special assignment?” he asked sarcastically.

  Maggie missed the reference to his outing the previous morning. “Principal Gates and General Stone want you.”

  He glanced toward Cedric, who waited expectantly for an invitation to follow. It didn’t come. They’d deemed the younger null a lost cause. In resignation, Oliver shoved the deck of cards into his pocket and trailed down the hall after Maggie.

  “How was Great Falls?” he asked her conversationally. He snorted wh
en she slid a sour glare in his direction. He had, about six months ago, shot up in height and was taller than her now. It was nice to look down on the beastly toadeater.

  “When did you get back?” he prodded.

  “They brought me back last night,” she said.

  “Did you get a slap on the wrist for ignoring official communications?”

  Again she glared, and the mean glint in her eyes warned him not to push his luck. He changed the subject. “Where’s Garrett?”

  Maggie cocked her head in confusion, so he clarified. “My handler? The guy that’s supposed to be with me every minute I’m outside my dorm room?”

  “They didn’t ask for him,” she muttered, though she seemed to consider whether she should fetch him as well.

  “Well then, they probably don’t want him,” said Oliver, who had no desire for such useless company.

  Suspicion flickered across Maggie’s squashed face, but she kept to her course. They crossed into the administrative area and entered Principal Gates’s office with a courtesy knock.

  He and General Stone looked up from a computer screen.

  “Did you want the null’s handler?” Maggie asked.

  “No,” said Gates. “You may go.”

  Oliver stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, one of them thumbing the deck of playing cards as he waited for someone to speak.

  “All right,” said General Stone at last. “We’re going to find this projector one way or another. It’s in your best interest to help.”

  “How is it in my best interest?” Oliver asked, curious about their thought process.

  “If you help us, we may be inclined to help you. If not…”

  He was so over the emotionally manipulative ploys. “You know I don’t trust a single word that comes out of your lying mouths. I mean, you do know that, right? Because I don’t. You’re all a pack of crooks and liars as far as I’m concerned.”

  “There could have been a lot of damage yesterday,” said Principal Gates. Apparently he thought appealing to Oliver’s sense of decency would have a better chance of success.