He could feel his mother’s smile of pride at his generosity in helping his enemy.
Arthur still took no notice of his long-time servant. He advanced on Fil, avoiding any eye contact with Hope. “You!” he hissed. “Where are they? Tell me!”
“Where… are… who?” Fil asked.
“Who? The humans! The ones who were just in this room! Humans don’t just vanish from sight on their own. This is your doing, isn’t it, Stark?”
“Acknowledging my… parentage… Grandfather?” Fil gasped. Even in his deep fatigue, he forced a smirk to his face, mocking the man before him.
Arthur seemed not to notice, instead wheeling on Hope. “Tell me! Where are they?”
“They… are beyond… your ability to… hurt. Daddy.” She took two deep breaths. “Now… you’ll only be able… to fight… those who… can fight back.” Another breath. “Like me… and my… son.”
Arthur stared at her before bursting into laughter. “Fight back?” he sneered. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re trapped in my nets, I’ve got your Energy disappearing into an abyss you’ll never be able to reach, and I’ve yet to see any of your so-called friends—or that wonderful husband of yours—show up.” His face purpled, and spittle accompanied his last words. He knelt down and looked her in the eye, the disgust evident upon his face. “Pardon my laughter and skepticism, but I fail to see how you’re able to fight back.”
He stood up, began to pace, and nearly tripped over Porthos. “Dear God, man, get off the floor and stop crying like some human woman!” He kicked the Hunter before stepping over the man and moving toward his desk.
Porthos, his face pale, looked up at Arthur with new eyes, eyes that saw the man for what he was for the first time. His eyes narrowed, more deeply notable due to the pallor evident upon his face.
Arthur turned. “I’ve made a decision,” he announced. “You see, we’ve allowed the Alliance free reign for too long.”
Fil tilted his head at his mother and she met his eyes. They both mouthed Hunts at the same time, both wondering how Arthur considered the search and capture missions free reign.
“They don’t fear us any longer,” Arthur continued, “because we’ve only worked to capture the treasonous fools, despite my now longstanding orders allowing executions of those known to be traitors by anyone, not just Assassins and Hunters.” He smiled as Abaddon, who’d stood quietly, waiting for an opportunity and order to strike, puffed out his chest. The original Assassin, once known as William, looked somewhat taken aback. “We’ve not enforced death penalties on traitorous Energy users for quite some time. I think it’s time we resume that and set the proper precedent for the future.”
He glanced at Abaddon and the Assassin. “Gentlemen, before you are two who have violated our Oaths. The woman is an Energy user, one who has confessed to giving birth to at least one child. One of those children is the man at her side. Both are therefore in violation of our Oaths and are hereby sentenced to death.”
He looked back at Fil and leered at him. “Kill them, my Assassins.”
Abaddon’s eyes lit up. “With pleasure, sir.” He pulled a second blade from a sheath on his back and began to advance. Fil knew Abaddon would come at him. He knew the deranged man would see Fil’s death as the completion and fulfillment of the work he’d started decades earlier.
Two down. One to go.
Abaddon took three long strides toward Fil before he paused. He turned and looked at the original Assassin, frowning.
The scarred Assassin hadn’t taken a step away from Eva toward the victims sentenced by the Leader.
Arthur noticed as well and scowled. “I gave you an order, Assassin. Finish what you started two centuries ago.”
The Assassin remained rooted to the spot, his face contorted, as if pulled powerfully in opposite directions with equal force.
“Going soft in your old age?” Abaddon sneered.
The old Assassin’s scarred face seemed smoother, clearer, and the scars seemed to fade. The agony and the conflict inside him were apparent in the eyes which no longer burned a deep blood red color. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “I… desire their blood.” He tried to move, but his feet seemed nailed to the spot. “But… I… I cannot take my blade to them. I am unable to slay either of them.”
He stood with his head held high, staring without remorse or defiance at Arthur.
The Leader of the Aliomenti stood transfixed, and Porthos, suffering through his own mental crisis, gazed upon his old colleague with something approaching respect. Arthur finally spoke. “An Assassin who refuses to kill? What nonsense is this? You are not permitted to think and choose what you’ll do. Your life is to execute traitors at my command, not to defy me!” His face, contorted still in the rage of the day, took on a brief hint of confusion at his own words.
“So he… can’t decide… on… his own… can he… Daddy?” Hope gritted her teeth as she spoke, the energy requirement immense.
Fil glanced at his mother, trying to communicate with his eyes. She looked at him, and her eyes made it clear that her sole concern was his survival. She cared nothing for her own life, but that she could give it to save his. He understood; he’d wished every day he could trade his life for those of his daughter or wife.
He refocused, squinting at her, and mouthed the word nano in her direction, his facial expression indicating it was a question.
She shook her head.
Fil felt his spirit sink. The nets had the obvious effect of draining Energy. They’d also managed to sever their ability to communicate with their nanos. Fil had hoped the glitch only affected his batch. But his mother’s nanos were no longer operational either.
Without Energy or nanos, they were helpless. As powerless as he’d been when Abaddon had murdered Sarah and Anna so many years before. Back then, he’d possessed the power to protect them, but he’d not been able to find them. Now, he knew what to do—save his mother, stop the Assassins and Arthur—but for the first time in his life, he lacked the power to carry out those tasks.
Arthur looked at the Assassin and shook his head in disgust. “An Assassin who fails to kill upon my command is of no use to me.” He turned to Abaddon. “Terminate him.”
Abaddon’s eyes lit up, greedy at the idea of a battle. He’d long felt overshadowed by his predecessor, the man who was known as the Assassin. In Abaddon’s mind, defeating this man in battle would serve notice as to the identity of the greatest Assassin. He held his sword out and struck a defensive stance, prepared to fight.
But William bent to the ground to place his sword on the floor. When he stood and looked at Abaddon, unarmed, his eyes were a deep brown, filled with remorse rather than rage. He left his hands at his side, and looked the killer in the eye.
Abaddon wasted no time with sympathy. He sprang forward, swinging the sword with both hands, and sliced through William’s neck.
Body and head hit the ground with separate thumps. William’s eyes, gentle and brown, stared at them, lifeless, and finally at peace. Hope wept, and Fil knew why. He knew that she wept for a man who’d reformed, who’d been denied his chance to live out his new ideals. He wept as well, for he knew why William hadn’t been able to attack. Will had placed into the former Assassin nanos that altered his personality, and made it physically impossible for him to attack anyone, whether human or Aliomenti.
Arthur glanced at the severed head and body and shrugged, as if decapitations of his closest servants were a normal occurrence. He then turned back to Abaddon. “Assassin, I order you to carry out my orders. Execute the Oath Breakers.”
“Never could… do it… yourself… could you?” Hope whispered, and Arthur flinched.
Fil knew it was over, and he knew he’d be the first to go. He knew the remaining Assassin understood that the parental bond announced here was no joke. He’d go for the cruelest sequence, executing Fil first and forcing his mother to watch her son die, knowing she could do nothing at all to stop it.
/> They shared one last glance, mouthing the words I love you to each other. He was glad he’d gotten to see her once more at her best and fullest health. He wished Angel had gotten this reunion. But it wasn’t meant to be.
He heard the heavy boots approach, squishing the fibers of the thick carpeting. Fil refused to die a coward. He looked up into the eyes of the madman, and watched as Abaddon raised his sword high above his head for the plunge that would mercifully end his life.
XXIII
HE FOUND HIMSELF IN A void of his own creation, one that blocked out the sounds of clanging steel and the screaming wounded, one that didn’t notice the sensations of fear roiling his highly developed empathic sense, one that didn’t sense the smell of fear or the coppery scent of blood.
He only saw Gena crumbled upon the ground, bleeding, at the feet of a man he’d trusted to bring the Aliomenti invasion fleet to them and lead them straight into a secured prison. Adam realized he’d been tricked—he’d try to understand the how and why later—and because of that error, Gena was facing death like she’d not since the aftermath of the Cataclysm.
Nothing else mattered now. Gena was near death, and she already knew everything. He had nothing to hide now and no reason to hide it anymore.
He threw off his restraints and felt the heat surge within as his Energy mounted to its true heights. The effect on the air around him was so noticeable, so dramatic, that both Alliance and Aliomenti nearby paused in their fighting, trying to understand the new sensation and identify the source.
He ran unblinking through the mass of fighters, his Energy impenetrable by steel or Energy, the sheer intensity of it knocking aside all he passed by. He noticed none of them, seeing only the triumphant sneer upon Scott’s face, the face of a man whose treachery had been fulfilled by the blood on his sword.
Scott’s look turned to confusion, and then terror, as Adam approached.
“I trusted you,” Adam whispered. Quiet though his voice was, it echoed throughout the Cavern.
“That was a mistake,” Scott snapped, staring down his former friend. “You knew I had Energy when I got here.”
“We’d understood it was a natural occurrence, as you’d been in constant contact with the excessive Energy in the air after the Cataclysm,” Adam snapped. He knew he was trying to justify his failure, to explain how he’d been duped, and was failing miserably.
Scott sneered at him. “Oops.” He glanced down at Gena. “I told Athos I wanted to take her down myself, and I did just—”
He never finished the sentence.
The Energy blast from Adam hit him with such force that he was vaporized on the spot.
The sword clattered to the ground, rattling several times before settling. Gena’s blood dripped off the sharp surface to the ground.
In the background, Adam heard the sounds of the fighting start to diminish. In the recesses of his mind, he knew that the brain-altering medicine in the food they’d fed the invaders was taking effect. He knew they’d hoped that the reversal of Arthur Lowell’s brainwashing effects would complete while the Aliomenti remained in the prison room, that they’d lose their programmed desire to kill before getting a chance to act on that desire.
They’d never considered the possibility that Athos would carry with him a technology that disabled nanos. They’d never considered what they’d do if the Aliomenti left the prison walls before being deemed safe. That failure was upon him, and his failure to consider that contingency had led to many deaths. It was the price one paid in a time of war, that the unexpected happened and innocents were lost. In time, he’d allow himself to experience the guilt that came from the costs of his failure. For now, he accepted those deaths as if they’d been experienced by someone else.
But he’d not accept her death, no more now than he had in the past.
His nanos hadn’t been hit by Athos’ disabling technology, and he used them to cover her wounds and stop the external bleeding. He then ordered the healing nanos in his body to move to Gena, to aid the devices already there in the healing process. That doubled the quantity of tiny robots already at work inside her, joining those already at work repairing the internal organs damaged by the thrust of Scott’s sword. With his Energy unfettered, he was able to surround her in a thick, protective cocoon, just as he’d done two centuries earlier. Then, as now, she struggled to retain her grip on life. He would use every bit of power at his disposal—all of it this time—to ensure she remained among the living.
Her eyes fluttered open briefly as the cocoon settled around her, and she turned her head toward him. The motion was slow, mechanical, and seemed to take every bit of strength she possessed. She saw him there and saw the deep concern on his face. She smiled faintly as her eyes closed once more.
“Going to save me again, Adam?” Her voice was a whisper, one he could barely detect. But her thought, put to audible words, reached him without issue.
“I’ve never stopped trying.” He reached his hand toward her, hesitated for a moment, and then brushed his hand across her cheek. “And I never will.”
“I know why you did it,” she whispered.
He paused, glancing at the crowd around him. A handful of sword battles continued, but most of the Aliomenti had stopped fighting. Those Alliance still standing were talking to their cousins, putting hands of comfort on backs bowed with the strain of trying to make sense of where they were, why they were there, and why so many of their friends lay dead or unconscious on the ground.
“Why did I do it?” He didn’t bother to ask for clarification. She would only be talking about one topic at this time. He knew she wasn’t referring to his efforts to save her life.
“You didn’t want me to get hurt,” she replied. “And that’s why… why you couldn’t say anything. Until now.”
And that was it. The news he’d told her would rock their organization and the people in it, and he didn’t know how they’d react. He didn’t know what they’d think of him once they realized the truth, and realized what he’d hidden from everyone for so long. He didn’t want her to get hit with any backlash of negativity because she’d be associated with him in the minds of those who lived here. No, he’d bear that burden, whatever it might be, alone.
He glanced down at her. If everything worked out and he could spend the rest of his life with her, it would have all been worth it. “I couldn’t. Not without… jeopardizing far too much.”
“I think you underestimate all of them, Adam.” Her voice was quiet.
He considered that as he moved his hand to her side, the entry point of the wound, to focus his Energy there for accelerated healing. Had he underestimated them all?
“I don’t know if that’s true,” he admitted, watching as the wound began to stitch itself closed. “Will’s hidden many things from people as well, and whether he thought it best because he didn’t want them burdened, or didn’t want to take the risk of exposing things best left hidden… he did what he thought was right. Perhaps if he’d been more open, we’d have no war today. Or perhaps it would have come too soon, before we were prepared. I don’t know if we’ll ever know what might have happened if I’d spoken up sooner. But I don’t get to do it all over again.” He paused. “But when this ends… because you think they’ll take it better than I’ve always thought… I’ll tell them everything as well. But not now. Not while there’s fighting going on.”
She didn’t respond for a long time.
Finally, she spoke. “I can never ask anything of you other than to act as you think best.”
He nodded, a gesture she could feel more than she could see. “I’m glad I came to you rather than fighting. I think I would have taken far too many lives, especially after seeing what he did to you.”
“You’ve made my life worth living, Adam,” she whispered. “And if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had a life. Literally.”
She stilled, and her breathing slowed.
He bent down to her, the tears flowing freely. “You make
my life worth living as well.”
He brushed his lips across hers as sleep claimed her.
XXIV
WILL HEARD THE CHIME FROM the tablet computer in his pocket. The sound brought a temporary sense of relief. The humans were safely on Eden, moved there by the mammoth remote teleportation device they’d embedded in the soil of Headquarters Island earlier, linking this Island with the other island.
He checked the settings on the application and made an adjustment.
Source: Eden. Target: Headquarters Island.
The reversal would link a tent on Eden with Headquarters Plaza, just inside the perimeter they’d built, and send the Alliance fighting squad here en masse without the use of detectable Energy. They’d sent the scout team earlier to prep everything, smaller numbers minimizing the chance of premature exposure. But now?
The only risk now was slow execution on his part.
He triple-checked the settings once more, ensured the required thirty seconds had passed to allow the devices here to recharge, and slapped the Transport button on his tablet. With no further purpose to invisibility, he and the others waiting outside the Plaza dropped their nano shields.
He pocketed the device and tried once more, without success, to forget what he’d heard over the speaker stationed inside Arthur Lowell’s office, wishing he’d not drawn this role.
Fil, the most powerful, was the obvious choice to make the first public landfall. They wanted as much disruption and distraction as possible, and his son was the man for the job. A member of the scout team would be standing by to teleport to Arthur’s office if, by some chance, Fil encountered trouble. Hope, who’d wanted to face her father again for centuries, had won that role without much of a fight. Will, because of his age and experience, then became the obvious choice to monitor the situation and activate the transporter to whisk the humans to safety once Arthur seized upon the inevitable hostage plan. With the humans safely on Eden, he’d bring the fighting force here and coordinate with Ian, the leader of the assault.
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