Legacy: The Girl in the Box #8

by Crane, Robert J.

  Have to lose him. Have to hide. I will not let that ... man ... ever meet my child. Not ever.

  Chapter 39

  Sienna Nealon

  Now

  I read three FBI criminal activity reports after I got my wits back about me. That took me until well after midnight, at which point I sat back in my chair, leaning at a forty-five degree angle, pondering just giving up and going to sleep right there. I heard the creak of the chair again, wondered if it was saying something about my weight and my sedentary lifestyle, and shrugged it off. I let my head loll to the right and looked out the window.

  I blinked as I stared out, something catching my attention. There was movement in the construction site of the new science building. I turned the chair around and leaned closer to the glass. A light was bobbing around in the unfinished windows of the first floor, where they were still doing the basic framing. I stood and moved closer to the window, peering out, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was, but it was far, far too dark of a night and the view was partially obscured by the dormitory building. I frowned as my mind raced, wondering at the possibilities, from the mundane (a construction worker doing some unscheduled overtime, a thief using our building site to improve his home at a rock bottom discount) to the fearsome (the entirety of Century hiding in the site, preparing to stage an assault on us.

  I crossed my office and flung open the door. “Who’s still here?” I called out, and waited a beat for an answer.

  “Me,” Ariadne’s voice came from the office next door.

  “I am.” I saw Scott appear toward the end of a cube row, peeking his head out into the main aisle.

  “We’ve got something going on,” I said.

  “Hooboy,” Scott said and pounded his way down the aisle at a fast jog. I moved aside and led him over to the window. Ariadne followed behind a moment later.

  “See that light?” I pointed out the window. “In the construction site?”

  “No,” Ariadne said, and I watched her squint into the darkness.

  “Yes,” Scott answered immediately.

  “I’m thinking ...” I looked again. “I’m thinking it’s probably not a construction worker or someone doing some thieving.”

  “The odds are definitely a little too coincidental for that,” Scott agreed.

  I flashed a look at Ariadne. “Can you take care of Li? I don’t want things to get fouled here.”

  “Yep,” she said and disappeared back into her office.

  “I’m gonna go scout,” I said, opening the cabinet behind my desk and pulling out a submachine gun, pulling the strap over my shoulders.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Scott asked, looking at me in disbelief. “That is not in the plan.”

  “The plan is for an attack,” I said. “This could just be a prowler, in which case I need to scare the bejeezus out of him.”

  “Umm, or it could be a Century ambush, designed to lure one of our best people out by themselves so they can sucker punch them,” he said. “Walking into a dark construction site in the middle of the night? Not your smartest move ever.”

  I hesitated. “You have a point.”

  “Thank you,” he said graciously. “I may not present a compelling argument very often, but when I do, boy, is it a doozy.”

  I started to answer back when my phone started ringing, making both of us jump a little. I started to reach for it, and Scott slapped my hand away. I looked at him with irritation, a What was that for? kind of look. “I’ve seen this movie,” he said. “Do not answer that phone.”

  “This isn’t a horror movie,” I said, “and I’m not played by Neve Campbell.” I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Sienna Nealon?” The woman’s voice was a little out of breath but recognizable.

  “Katheryn Hildegarde?” I asked, though I was sure it was her.

  “One and the same,” she replied, still trying to catch her breath. “We’re, uh ... out on the construction site on your campus. Me and my crew. We, uh ... ran across something. If the rumors are true, you can even call it a gift for you.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked, and shared a look with Scott, who was giving me the Don’t be an idiot look. I knew it because I’d sent it his way enough times while working with him.

  “Yeah,” she replied, sounding pretty matter of fact. “Caught someone snooping while we were making our way to your front door. I think you know him.” I heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh, a dull thud, and then Hildegarde spoke again. “Say hello, asshole.”

  The voice that followed was deep, pronounced, a familiar one that would be burned into my memory until my dying day.

  “Hello, Sienna,” Erich Winter said. “I believe you are sitting in my chair.”

  Chapter 40

  I crossed the campus, the combination of minimal light sources and my meta eyes keeping my feet on the straight and narrow, avoiding the subtle dips in the lawn where I might twist an ankle. It was a warm night but not hot, still being early summer, and I drew a deep breath as I went along toward the building site.

  Scott had argued, had tried to dig in his heels, had fussed, but ultimately conceded that he’d stay back. Which was fortunate, because I wasn’t looking to spook Katheryn Hildegarde. I needed to keep things on a cool level. I needed to assess the situation. I tried not to think about the other thing—the other person—who was with her.

  Him.

  I made it past the dormitory at a steady walk, not running. I didn’t want to raise my heart rate any more than I had to. I needed to keep calm heading into this situation. I ducked under a low hanging wooden beam that hadn’t been properly placed yet and looked into the dark. “Katheryn?” I asked cautiously, looking down what appeared to be a long hallway to my right. The science building was different than the one that had been here before, something new because the old one’s design was a remnant of the time before the Directorate when the campus had been a failed junior college.

  “Over here,” came a voice from the corner of the building. I saw stacks of rebar and concrete blocks crowding one of the walls of the hall where were they were building it in, making it as strong as possible, and I picked my way around and cut through the open center of the building. Looking up, I saw the latticed rebar where they were starting to construct the floor, like a net of metal that hung over a large, open, square space. I came out in the middle of the building and found them there. Katheryn Hildegarde, one of her cronies ... and Erich Winter.

  He stood nearly seven feet tall, head slightly bowed, and he was wrapped tightly in a light mesh around his chest and shoulders. It took me a minute to realize that it trailed off to Hildegarde, and she smiled as she gestured to her ponytail, which connected to the mesh via a snaking segment on the ground. “Medusa type,” I said, and she nodded. “That hair is really quite something.”

  “Thank you,” she said, a little brusquely. “You didn’t bring any of your other people with you?”

  “We’re running a little low on staff at the moment,” I said, smiling tightly. “Figured I’d make it a little easier on you, not coming at you with overwhelming numbers.” I shrugged. “I wanted to keep things polite and on the level.”

  She flattened her lips like she was giving it all due contemplation. “That’s ... very considerate of you. Really courteous and thoughtful.” She turned her neck to try and look past the incomplete walls. “And did you station snipers at the corners of the building to keep overwatch?”

  “Wouldn’t matter if I did,” I said with a shrug, “since they can’t see into the building.” I gestured at the unfinished walls. “This would be a sniper’s nightmare, trying to find a way to manage a shot through this, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” she said, like she was surveying it all over, giving it thought. “So, we’re here. What’s on your mind? What are you thinking?” She glanced down at her wrist, then put her hand down to her leg and tapped her fingers against her jeans. She really was an elegant woman but severe.
<
br />   “The end of our world,” I said. “It’s all I think about. What’s on your mind?”

  She looked around again, as if looking for something unexpected. “We’re free to talk here? The FBI isn’t listening in on us?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I’m trying to keep my FBI liaison out of the loop at present since you killed a bunch of his fellow agents.”

  “Nice,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do that. When they’re coming at you with guns, things tend to get out of control pretty quickly. Anyway, yeah. Century. The greatest threat of our time. Probably the greatest since ... I dunno, I wasn’t around for it, but I heard the Hades situation was pretty bad. World War One still gets mentioned quite a bit among the older crowd. Anyway, yeah, it’s bad.”

  “What do you know about Century?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Standard line. Sovereign, the most powerful meta in the world, a man capable of things that don’t really seem possible given normal meta abilities, has joined up with a hundred of the world’s mightiest. Together, they’ve successfully wiped out around twenty-five hundred people so far, with about another five or six hundred to follow.” She smiled thinly. “Including anyone who’s not in that Top 100.”

  “You make it sound a little like a Who’s Who list.”

  “Maybe it is,” she said. “Anyone who doesn’t make the list is definitely not getting an invite to the world’s most exclusive party, where the door prize is survival.”

  “What are they going to do after that?” I asked, watching her carefully.

  She walked to a nearby wall and leaned against the corner, her hair still stringing behind her, binding Old Man Winter, who stood, stoic and silent, watching us talk. “Take over the world? Give each other facials and perms?” She gestured to her long knot of hair. “Which, in my case, would be an expensive proposition. Hell if I know.” She looked to Winter. “What about you? Do you know?”

  “I know it is nothing good,” Winter said in his low, slow timbre. “One does not start a plan by wiping out all of metakind and end with something benevolent, such as a benefit to raise money for the American Red Cross.”

  Hildegarde looked at him before giving him a concessionary nod. “The old man’s got a point. For those who aren’t on the bus for the select few, it’s not looking so grand.”

  I looked over at her. “You keep mentioning the select few. Any idea how they were chosen?”

  She tapped her fingers against her leg. “No idea.”

  I watched her, sussing it out. She set her jaw, and I looked over at her compatriot. He was big, almost swollen. “You must be a Hercules,” I said, and he nodded. “My grandfather was one.”

  “Interesting bit of family history,” Hildegarde said. “He still alive?”

  “No,” I said with a slight smile. “Omega killed him.”

  “Oh,” she said, and things just felt awkward. “Uh, gosh. That’s, uh ...”

  I shrugged lightly. “It was a long time ago and across an ocean, plus I didn’t know him, so ...” I looked at Hildegarde again. “So how do you want to do this?”

  She froze, and I got the sense that her head was spinning as she was looking for a response. “Do what?” The pitch of her voice was off, was wrong somehow, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on how.

  I didn’t get a chance to ask my next question, either, because a hand reached out from behind the wall and grabbed her head, slamming it into the concrete block. Hildegarde dropped to the ground as someone stepped out from behind the wall, a shadowy figure that glared coldly down at her before looking up at me and giving me a slight nod.

  I recognized him even though it had been months since I’d last seen him; his short brown hair framing his young features. He was missing his glasses, though. When last I’d seen him he was wearing ridiculously oversized glasses, like the biggest nerd on the planet. They were gone now, and he looked young, handsome. He took a deep breath as he watched me through his brown eyes and then sighed. “Hey, Sienna. Did you know that she was betraying you to Century?”

  “I was starting to get that feeling, yes,” I said, letting my eyes scan between him, Winter, and Hildegarde’s goon, who was standing almost stunned, unsure of what to do. “I’d ask what you’re doing here, but I think I already know.”

  “You always were a clever one,” he replied. “And, hey, I told you last time we met I’d see you again.”

  “I vaguely recall that,” I said to Joshua Harding, “but I kind of figured that Century killing you would have put the kibosh on that.”

  “Century didn’t kill me,” Joshua replied, that enigmatic little smile on his face. “Do you know why?”

  “Of course,” I said tightly, feeling every muscle in my body tense as I looked at him. “Because you’re Sovereign.”

  Chapter 41

  “The kids—your friends—were sure you were dead,” I said, looking uneasily at him. Winter was to my right, still tangled in the solid weave of Hildegarde’s hair, though he looked like he was very nearly shivering, as though the warm summer air was chilling him. Hildegarde’s last remaining flunky was just past him, still looking stunned.

  “I let ’em think it,” he said. I looked at him very carefully. He was the same kid, but now I was seeing him differently. Suddenly his boundless confidence didn’t seem so out of place, and he didn’t really look fifteen or twelve or whatever anymore. He didn’t look old, but there was wisdom in his eyes that I could discern even in the dark. “Hey, I saved their lives from the squad Century sent out. Does that earn me any points in your book?”

  “Very few,” I said, letting my weight shift back and forth between my legs, ready to spring. “Since you’re also in charge of the organization that’s killing all of our kind.”

  “That wasn’t really my idea,” he said, and I caught a hint of mortification from him. “But I guess I can’t really dodge the responsibility for it, can I?”

  “Not really.”

  “Would it help if I told you it was for a good cause?” He gave me a sly smile. “Because at the end of it all, it really is.”

  “It might help if you told me what the real cause was,” I said. I didn’t know if I should spring or not, find out if he was really as badass as everyone seemed to think he was. I looked to Winter and Hildegarde’s flunky; part of me was hoping they’d test the theory for me.

  “Winter’s not going to come at me,” Sovereign said with that same smile. “He’s a broken man, still scared of me since I burned and crippled him after he tried to shake me down outside Peshtigo a hundred years ago. Neither is that nameless Omega red shirt, either, because I’m mentally paralyzing him right now.”

  You’re a telepath? I asked in my head.

  “Yes,” he said. “But it’d be rude to have this conversation in our heads. Also, probably a little too forward for me. I don’t want to be too presumptuous; I know you’ve got enough business going on in that head of yours to keep it spinning. I don’t want to add to your problems.”

  “Bub,” I said, “you are my problems, every last one of them.”

  “Now, now,” he said, and took a couple steps along the wall, keeping his distance from me, “don’t exaggerate. Weissman is at least ... like 95% of your problems. I may be the big gun backing everything up, but I did not put this in motion.”

  “You know, let’s just cut the shit,” I said, keeping a wary eye on him. “What do you want?”

  His face creased a little as he smiled, tightly. “That’s a funny question to ask. Do you know why it’s funny?”

  “Because you’re not a guy known for wanting things.”

  “Mm, sorry, you didn’t phrase your answer in the form of a question,” he said with that same smile. “Kidding. It’s a Jeopardy joke. You didn’t watch that, I guess.”

  “I only got an hour of TV a day, so no, a quiz show wasn’t high on my list of teenage priorities.”

  “Aww, Jeopardy is more than a quiz show,” he said with good humor. I got the feeling he was t
rying to out-irony me, to let me know he was in on my sarcastic little view of the world, that he wanted to share my wavelength. It was the same thing he tried when I thought he was a fifteen-year old boy who was trying to hit on me, and it wasn’t any more effective. “Listen, I have walked the world. For ... a long time,” he said, stopping before telling me his actual age, probably concerned it would affect my opinion of him. “I’ve seen horror and wonder, sometimes within a breath of each other. I’ve seen humans at their best, and their worst. I’ve seen a lot, and the one constant is that there are terrible things happening out there.” He kept a sense of quiet sadness about him for his soliloquy, and I wondered if he was using his power to influence me. “It could be a better world, if we troubled ourselves to act, to make it one.”

  “And here comes you,” I said, “ready to take that first step. Of course, it involves completely destroying anyone who might oppose your plans first, so naturally it has to be the bestest plan ever. Because we base our designs for a better world on ... what? Body count?” I saw him recoil only slightly. He was keeping his cool. “Hey, the good news is you’re not Hitler, Mao or Stalin, yet, though since I don’t know how phase two is going to end, you’re still in the running.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “And no, that’s not an invitation to ask me more about the plan. You’ll see what we do. You’ll be around to realize the rewards of what we’re going to accomplish. Eventually you’ll discover that we were right, that the world could be a better, safer place—”

  “For those who survive,” I said, winning the award for most irony. “Go ahead, pick your broken egg/omelet rebuttal metaphor of choice, and let me know why people have to die in order to make your better world.”

  “People are dying anyway,” he said, and I caught a hint of sadness in how he said it. “People die every day, and for a lot less purpose than making the world a better place.”