World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey; Steve Libby; Cody Martin

  “We?” Alex asked, surprised.

  “Yes, ‘we’!” Jack barked, ignoring the synchronized hum as the guards ramped up their guns. “You think Echo’s the only meta group out there? Forget the company profiles, the publicity stunts, it’s all a cover-up! Blacksnake was hit hard that day. We’re in no position to take any of those big-ass contracts we’ve got lined up! Hell, we didn’t even set those up! It was…” Jack paused, and retreated into his seat. Silently, he berated himself for a moment’s weakness. He wasn’t ready to give up Verdigris. Not just yet. It was the last card to play, when he knew he had Tesla half-convinced.

  “Yes? Who?” Alex urged him. His eyes narrowed, puzzled by Jack’s sudden outburst.

  It makes no sense. Why tell me this? Why tell me the recent surge in Blacksnake options is all based on deception? Why give up your hand so early?

  “I told you,” Jack said finally, reading the thoughts play themselves out on Alex’s face. “It’s about trust. I need you to trust me or we’re not gonna get a single thing done.”

  “How am I supposed to trust you?” Alex asked, finally.

  “We gotta start small,” Jack admitted. “We don’t have time for it, but I don’t see we got much of a choice. So we share some secrets, even small ones, and that’ll get things moving. Here, I’ll start. I’m sure you have an agent or two planted in Blacksnake.”

  Tesla gave him a puzzled look.

  “Save it,” Jack said. “You’d be an idiot not to. Our plant here is Emily Schoedel…”

  “I’m not familiar with…” Alex began, but Bulwark was already drawing his guns.

  “…callsign: Harmony.”

  “Hands where I can see them, Harmony!” Bulwark barked, as his pistols hummed to life.

  Harmony froze and dropped her scanner, her arms rising in the air. She looked at Jack with a rueful expression.

  “Two years, Jack!” Harmony moaned. “Two years I’ve been in the deep, in the deep with Bulwark and now the Djinni, and they never made me! I could’ve gone the stretch, why would you…?”

  “Don’t worry, kiddo,” Jack grunted. “You’ll still get your comp for the full five. This is important. Game’s changing. It’s time to start working with Echo.”

  Harmony bit her lip and glanced at Bulwark. Bull’s expression remained cold, but his eyes burned with fury. He kept his guns trained on her.

  “Guard,” Bulwark said. “Relieve Operative Harmony of her firearms.”

  “Bulwark,” Alex said, “shouldn’t you be the one who…?”

  “It’s fine, sir,” Bulwark answered. “Her ability is to ramp up meta abilities. She has nothing offensive on her own.”

  Harmony rolled her eyes as a guard removed the pistols from her holsters and motioned her to take a seat next to Jack. She gave Jack a withering look as she collapsed into the chair and folded her arms, defeated.

  Jack ignored her, and gestured to Alex.

  “What?” Alex asked, confused.

  “Your turn,” Jack said as he leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the conference table and brought his hands together, his fingertips pressed together as if in prayer.

  Alex gave him a weary look. “Do I have to remind you that you’re not the one here that needs convincing.”

  Jack looked disappointed. “Trust has to start somewhere, don`t it? And trust is a two-way street; you gotta give a little to get a little. Fine, since I’m the one at gunpoint here…” He shrugged and reached into his mouth. With a loud crack, he snapped out a tooth.

  “Christ!” Alex yelped, scrambling to his feet.

  “No, no,” Jack said, his tone soothing. He wiped the tooth on his vest, leaving a smear of blood, and laid it gently on the table. “Nothing so big as that—far from it. Just a bug, really. You see, Alex, the reason I was sent here was to drop this in your office.”

  “Your…tooth?” Alex asked, puzzled, as he sank slowly back into his chair.

  “Not mine,” Jack said. “Just a filler, a falsey, engineered to bypass detection. Once activated, it`ll stick to any surface, pick up conversation and transmit out undetected on the back of your own broadcast energy signals.”

  “You were sent here to bug my office?” Alex asked. “By who…?”

  “Not yet,” Jack said. “We’re not quite there yet.”

  “All right,” Alex said. “Can you tell me why then?”

  Jack nodded. “Immortality, Alex. You are the gateway, the key to the one place on Earth where the secrets of immortality are kept.”

  Alex stared at Jack, his bewilderment giving way to dawning comprehension.

  “You…you want…”

  “Metis,” Jack answered. “I was sent here to find out the location of Metis.”

  Alex fell back in his chair while a myriad of emotions played across his face. Jack had hit him hard with blunt truth.

  He’s starting to believe, Jack thought. Or at least he’s considering the possibility that I’m on the level.

  “That’s not something I can possibly tell you—” Alex began.

  “And I’m not asking,” Jack said. “I told you, that’s the reason I was sent here, but I`m not sticking to the plan. Proposing an alliance between Echo and Blacksnake was a cover, but I`m making it the mission. We’ve got some common problems, Alex. I think it’s time we dealt with them. Immortality can wait.”

  Alex shook his head. “I don’t think it’s what you had in mind, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack said.

  “I mean, you probably think it’s something you drink,” Alex said, shrugging. “Some magical elixir that will keep you young and strong forever. Or some operation, radiation bombardment, something out of the realms of science fiction. You’d be sort of right, I suppose.”

  “How’s that?” Jack asked. He was beginning to feel alarmed.

  “The science fiction part,” Alex said. “I can tell you this—it’s not what you think. You wouldn’t have a body. You would be conscious, caught in an electrical matrix that would sustain your brain patterns, and you could conceivably live forever, but not as you are now. You could communicate with the physical world, but that’s about it. You would essentially be a ghost.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Jack mused. “He would have known that…”

  “Who?” Alex asked. “Who sent you?”

  Jack ignored him; it was his turn to be puzzled. This wasn’t the sort of eternity Jack and Verd had ever pursued, not together at any rate. As far as Jack knew, Verdigris had already determined the logistics involved with housing one’s brain in an artificial system. So why was he here? There was no reason to plant a bug to get something you already had. What other information was Verdigris so desperate to overhear?

  “Jack,” Alex said. “You said it yourself, Jack. We have things to do, and we need to start trusting each other. From the look on your face, I’d guess we just uncovered another enemy we have in common. So who is it, Jack? You want my trust? Start with this. Who sent you?”

  Their eyes met, and Jack relived his last conversation with Verd, struggling to make the connections amongst the scattered bits of truth Verd had peppered throughout his animated pitch for everlasting life. Like the Djinni, Jack had a talent for reading people, and Verdigris knew it. Verd hadn’t lied, but had artfully concealed the truth. It was the curse of an eidetic memory. Jack could only recollect the conversation in a linear fashion. He was missing something…something…

  “Jack?” Alex said. Tesla’s tone betrayed his impatience. It occurred to Jack how much he needed this man’s trust, now more than ever.

  “It was…” Jack began, then stopped.

  He had just figured it out.

  I did not buy Blacksnake to make a profit…I want Echo…to get Echo, I need Blacksnake…you become head of Blacksnake…if you can’t overlook a small matter of betrayal…proximity, my dear Jack, proximity…I need you to get into Tesla’s office…very little package I want planted…

  Jack turned to Harm
ony, who favored him with a pitying look. She leaned forward with a sympathetic smile and laid a hand softly on his shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Jack,” she said sweetly. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Jack stared at her, then shuddered as his eyes rolled back into head. He slumped forward on the table like a poleaxed cow.

  Harmony gasped, her hand still on Jack’s shoulder, and let out a long wavering sigh.

  “Jack!” Harmony squealed. “Oh Jack! You never told me you were a meta too…”

  “What is this?” Alex cried, rising from his seat. “What did you do to him?”

  Harmony glanced at Alex in contempt. She released Jack and was on her feet in an instant. As one, the guards opened fire, but Harmony was already on the move. She reached out, snatched up Jack’s false tooth and dove beneath the conference table. The guards began to yell at each other to surround her, and stopped, confused, as their guns powered down. Harmony emerged from concealment, smirking as she held up Jack’s tooth, which was now blinking.

  “Not a bug, gentlemen,” she told them with a grave expression. “Localized inhibitor, keyed to Echo’s broadcast energy frequencies. Your guns are cut off from their power source. Now then, let’s see how you fare without your toys…”

  They didn’t have time to answer. Harmony darted towards the nearest guard and jabbed at his eyes. The guard howled and staggered back as she slammed her palm against his face. Like Jack, he fell, his body limp and lifeless as Harmony bounded to her next target. The guards flailed about, helpless against her frenzied assault as she ran amongst them, dodging slow and clumsy blows and felling the guards with just a touch. Her body seemed to hum and vibrate with excess energy. Bulwark blinked, unable to focus on her. She had never been this fast, this strong. She was a blur, like a ghost skirting the edge of reality, her skill and speed abruptly off the charts. Somehow, the real Harmony had been hidden all this time—from the recruiters, from the lab techs, from him. He cursed as he stepped in front of Alex and summoned his shield to surround them both.

  “That’s enough!” Bull shouted.

  Harmony came to a full halt, absolutely still, having pounced on the last guard, and at rest her resonating limbs seemed to snap back into focus. Her hand at the guard’s neck, her thin frame draped across his fallen form, she raised her head slowly to meet Bulwark’s stare.

  “I’m sorry about this, Bull, really,” she said. She rose and strolled over to him, laying her hands gently on his shield, pressing herself to it, as if she meant to embrace him. “I’d ask you to say goodbye to Scope and Bruno for me, but this didn’t go down as I’d planned it, and I can’t have you telling people what happened here. Not everything, anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bull demanded. He stared at her through the distorted field of his force bubble. She seemed genuinely sad, and more. She looked older, lacking the soft innocence and impish naivete she normally carried. Even the color of her skin seemed muted, though it may have been a trick of the light softly reflecting off his shield. Still, her face seemed wiser, grayer, as if the unblemished shine of youth had simply been a false image maintained by sheer force of will. For all he knew, it had been. Sheer will, for two years…

  There was steel there, somewhere within the raw talent and uncertainty when she first came to us, I could feel it. She used it and made us think we could hone her skills when she was already at the top of her game. She can act with the best of them, she played all of us, no one ever could have suspected. How long has she been at this? Who are you, Harmony?

  Harmony shook her head in wonder. “You see it, don’t you? Yes, I can tell. You do have a way of sizing a person up, Bull. I had to be extra careful around you. I had to learn everything about you, just to be safe. Yes, I’ve been around for a long, long while. Longer than any of you could have dreamed. You have no idea what I’ve seen. And yes, I’m a Blacksnake agent. I was to be rewarded handsomely for infiltrating Echo. Well, Blacksnake’s under new management and the plan’s changed, and the terms of my contract with it.”

  “A change of plans…” Bulwark said, his eyes narrowing. “You’re here to end it, aren’t you? You’re here to end Echo.”

  “No,” Harmony said, and looked at Alex. “I’m here to open the door for the new boss.”

  “This is as close as you’re going to get,” Bull said, defiantly. “You can’t get past me, and sooner or later this room will be buzzing with metas. It’s over, Harmony.”

  “Oh, Bull,” Harmony sighed, disappointed. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I don’t just ramp people up…”

  She slid her hands over the shield, caressing it, and dug her fingers in, piercing the bubble.

  “I break them apart too.”

  Bull gasped as Harmony clenched her hands into fists, and he felt his shield dissipating in her grip. Instinctively, he doubled his efforts to sustain it. Too late, he realized all he was doing was feeding her his energy. With an awful sound, like sheet metal being ripped apart, Harmony tore the shield wide open, drawing Bull’s energy into her. She lunged forward, clutched Bull and Alex by their necks and drove them down to the ground. Alex grappled with her hand, an immovable vise around his throat, but his efforts grew feeble as she siphoned away his strength and used it against him. Bulwark, already spent, lay motionless. He couldn’t speak, much less move, and only his eyes betrayed his fury. They were fixed on Harmony, who could only offer a tender look in return.

  “I wish it could be different, Bull,” she said softly. “I almost wish things could have stayed the same, for at least a while longer. I think I loved you, as much as I could anyone. It’s so rare that I meet a good man, a truly good man.…”

  She paused and turned to Alex, who was still struggling weakly beneath her grip. She gave his throat a sharp squeeze, jerked her thumb against his jaw, and snapped his neck.

  “…But I couldn’t pass this up,” she continued. “Got offered something I’ve been looking for, for a long, long time. I’m going to have to leave you now, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again.”

  “No…” Bull coughed, fighting to speak. Harmony laughed in pleasant surprise.

  “Goodness, Bull, you are a marvel! Just when I think I’ve taken it all, you show me up by giving me more!”

  She released Alex and gripped Bulwark’s neck with both hands as she continued to siphon away his energy. Bull moaned and glared at her. His lips trembling, teeth clenched, he continued to struggle and even managed to lift his head closer to hers.

  “No…” he vowed. “I’ll see you…again…”

  “No, love,” she disagreed, and brought his head even closer. “This time, you won’t be getting back up. I need to leave you with just enough; just enough to tell my story, but you won’t ever rise up again. You see, Bull…”

  Harmony leaned in, and brushed her lips against his.

  “This is the part where I break your spirit.”

  She kissed him, delving into the whole of him, sifting through recent memories and neatly excising the truth. She was careful. To even a trained telepath, the loss of short term memory would seem the result of trauma. She left him one mental image—her and Jack, seated together, being interrogated together, the new Blacksnake chief and his double-agent flunky. She continued to drain him, leaving just enough to keep him breathing, a fragile tether to life.

  She rose, touched his face once more and closed his eyes. Moving quickly, she doubled back to the fallen guards and snapped their necks. With ease, she picked up Jack’s still form, threw him over her shoulder and carried him from the room.

  It was time to see Verdigris and collect her payment.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Boulevard of Broken Dreams

  Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

  We never saw it coming. Harmony had been so meticulous about never allowing a psion near enough to read her.

  Well, we never saw it coming. Matthew March had, but we knew that only in retrospect, a passage that
no one had been able to interpret until after the fact.

  “Double agent, double-named Balance and Betrayal, Light and Pain. The end of the heir, the end of the era. The echo dies. And the wild card wins.”

  That was the problem, you see. March didn’t know the callsigns or the names of the people in question. Harmony—Balance and Light; Harm—Betrayal and Pain. And Jack, of course, though usually it’s the Joker that’s wild. And with the death of Alex Tesla, the end of the line, and the end of Echo as we all knew it.

  Of course, the office alarms went off when the guns went offline and the inhibitor field went up. And the whole complex lit up when Tesla’s heartbeat stopped. Einhorn was the first in, and since Bulwark was the only one still alive, he was the one she went to. She tried to stabilize him, and pulled back, damn near passing out. But she got the slideshow of images—Harmony and Jack, together, Jack pulling out his tooth, Harmony triggering it, Harmony killing Tesla. She gasped out what she saw, for once her inability to put a governor on her mouth doing us a favor. Bull was medevaced to the new sickbay and the best state-of-the-art bed Echo had.

  Acrobat and Scope were in the mob that followed her, and when the milling around stopped, they were AWOL. Some people thought they had been part of the plot—but not me, and not Bella.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. One story at a time.

  Bella was in the shower, when she heard someone rattling keys in her locks. Since there was only one person who had keys to her locks—Vickie—she didn’t think anything of it until she heard the door literally slam open.

  And then the bathroom door slam open. “Bell, hose off, now,” Vickie ordered from the other side of the shower curtain, her voice tight and frightened. “We have to get out of here. Tesla’s been murdered.”

  At first, the words didn’t make any sense. But Vickie was radiating and close enough for Bella to get images along with the fear. Images of the Echo campus in chaos, of Bull on the floor surrounded by bodies, of Einhorn babbling something out, framed in—a monitor? She must have somehow gotten her link to Tesla’s desk working within moments of the disaster.