“Youth is a brief and temporary condition, Nathan. Have patience.”
***
She deliberated between the station in downtown Central and the one in the basement beneath the Science Building at the Academy while she waited in the apport station line. Knowing what probably awaited her on the anticipated route, she elected to go downtown, though it meant taking a bus to the Academy. Her stomach was upset from the apport, and she nearly missed the bus in the station bathroom, clambering aboard the antique diesel bus just before the door snapped shut.
The driver accepted her old Academy pass at a glance, to her relief.
The bus was nearly empty, and she took a seat near the front. The route from the recovering core of downtown had changed due to damaged streets and ongoing reconstruction. Some avenues were blocked with concrete and rebar barricades and checkpoints, while others were choked off by toppled buildings, or divided by craters in the roadway.
There were little memorials everywhere, painted on the sides of ruined buildings or arranged at corners and porches. Eerie did her best not to look at the miniature shrines and their collections of candles, liquor bottles, stuffed animals, and moisture-warped photographs, but there was little else to distract her as they made their way slowly through Central, frequently halted by flagmen and heavy equipment crossing the road.
She was unable to relax until they left the city behind, reaching the open land that separated the Academy from the rest of Central. The rural checkpoints were largely demolished, only piles of rubble and an occasional torched car on the side of the road reminding her of the conflict. As they rolled slowly across blackened pastureland, Eerie sank back into her seat and closed her eyes.
There were only three stops along the route to the Academy, and she dozed off before they reached the first.
She was always looking for extra chances to sleep these days.
Every minute mattered.
Eerie was uncertain whether it was the second or third stop when she woke, the hydraulic hiss of the door mechanism jarring her from sleep.
She blinked her eyes and stared out the window, overcome by a powerful wave of nostalgia at the familiar view of planted woodland.
She had to check her tears, puzzled by the wildness of her emotions.
The bench shifted beneath her as someone took the seat beside her. Eerie snuck a glance at the new arrival out of the corner of her eye, and then she yelped.
Gerald Windsor sat next to her, wearing a bow tie and an ear-to-ear grin.
Eerie flung herself at him.
“Hello, Eerie,” Windsor said, patting her back. “It is very good to see you.”
“It’s been so long!” Eerie sniffled into his lapel. “I’m sorry!”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he assured her. “I’m very proud of the life you’ve made for yourself at the Far Shores. I have every intention of visiting you and seeing it for myself, just as soon as things settle down enough for me to take a weekend away.” He sighed theatrically, then winked at her. “It has been a hectic time of late.”
“I’ve been busy, too,” Eerie said shyly. “But I didn’t forget about you.”
“Nor have I forgotten you. What have you been doing with your time?”
“Sleeping, mostly.”
“Aha.”
“I’ve been studying, when I’m awake, and doing some programming,” Eerie added, feeling a little self-conscious. “Emily wants to build a decentralized iteration of the Network, and we’ve already started prototyping.” She turned her attention to the basket on her lap to hide her anxiety. “I might still want to be a network admin, one day, maybe.”
“I’m sure you’d be the best in the business, should you decide to do that. Administrators are in short supply these days. Adel still consults with our IT team from time to time, and he never fails to sing your praises.”
Eerie’s smile was entirely false, but if he noticed, then Gerald was kind enough not to say it.
“What have you been doing, Mr. Windsor?”
“I am still teaching the Advanced Studies class, as well as the final-year students. I’ve also been assisting Michael with the overall administration of the Academy, until he can find more qualified help.”
“No one is more qualified than you,” Eerie said earnestly. “I miss your class.”
“I miss chatting with you. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, Eerie, but you seem to have matured a great deal, in my view.”
“I feel that way, sometimes.” Eerie toyed with the frayed end of a loose strand of yarn that extended from her basket. “How did you know I would take the bus, Mr. Windsor?”
“Such are the times we live in, aren’t they? I’m pleased that you are careful enough to notice,” he said, laughing. “I knew where and when to meet you because there are no less than three promising precognitives in my current Advanced Studies class, and I offered them extra credit for making that determination.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “Why?”
“I wanted to talk with you privately, and I suspected that you might have obligations for the remainder of your time in Central. Also…”
“Yes?”
“I know that your relationship with Rebecca is strained at present. I was concerned that you might decide to avoid speaking to the faculty entirely, to avoid a difficult conversation, or that you might be afraid to seek me out at the Academy for fear of encountering her.”
Eerie considered it while the bus rattled along the final curves on the approach to the Academy. The damage here was relatively slight, though fire had consumed much of the grassland on one side of the road, and a few blackened cars still awaited removal in gravel turnouts beside the road.
“That could have happened,” Eerie said, as the Academy gate came into view, prompting another wave of nostalgia and heart-flutters. “I’m glad you met me instead.”
“My pleasure. I would also be happy to accompany you to your meeting with Rebecca, if it would help to calm the waters between the two of you. I have to admit that it pains me to see you at odds.”
“I appreciate it, but I have to do these things myself, I think.”
“That seems appropriate to me,” Gerald said, gathering his things as the bus rolled to a stop in the Academy parking lot. “Do you have plans for lunch?”
“I’m sorry. The Sewing Circle is doing a thing,” Eerie said. “I don’t really want to, but I have to go.”
“Ah! No choice, then. Too bad. I was hoping to introduce you to the Advanced Studies class. We’ve been doing something of an informal lecture series. I’d love to have you speak to my students, if you have the time at some point, about your experiences, or the Network, or whatever you like. Would you consider making another visit?”
“I never should had stayed away so long,” Eerie said. “I promise to come back soon.”
***
The port at Guangzhou squatted on the mouth of the Pearl river and looked out on the South China Sea, kilometers of chain-link separating it from the enormous city behind it. The nearby coast and the river delta were perpetually crowded with container ships, and the docks were surrounded by asphalt lots filled with regular stacks of steel containers in endless blocks of red and blue and grey. The roadways between the containers were littered with cigarette butts and paint chips, and the air smelled of coal smoke and spilled diesel. The rumble of the cranes and the cries of disturbed gulls that circled overhead were a perpetual din, and the line of idling trucks waiting entry into the port stretched back a kilometer and more in the afternoon heat.
She walked openly between the containers, the sticky ground trying to steal her sandals from her feet, her sunglasses insufficient for the equatorial sun. There was no reason to worry about being spotted.
The stealthy portion of the Operation came to an end the moment that the Chief Auditor decided to put Mitsuru into the field.
Her talents were not wasted on waiting and watching.
Mitsuru was a destroyer. That
was her job, and she embraced it.
Mitsuru had, without noticing, assumed Alice Gallow’s former role with the Auditors. People started to flinch at the mention of her name and flee the room when she arrived.
That sort of treatment did not make her happy, but it did not feel wrong, either.
No one enjoys the company of monsters.
An alarm sounded in the near distance, a claxon that repeated in three-second loops.
Two rows further, Ms. Aoki, Brandon Cree informed her politely. They don’t look particularly surprised.
Noted, Mitsuru thought, picking up her pace just slightly. Is that alarm for me?
They found the guard you bumped into on the way in. We blanked the cameras, so they don’t where or who, but they know someone is inside the perimeter.
Great. How many?
Ten or so, but Ms. Levy has it tasked. She’s just waiting on you to start.
Ninety seconds.
Got it. Good luck, Ms. Aoki.
She did not respond, but she left the channel open.
Brandon was a talented telepath and remote viewer, even if he had primarily worked for Anastasia Martynova until just recently. His support would be valuable if things went wrong.
Given the nature of working in the field, things would likely go wrong.
Since the destruction of the Source Well was confirmed, Becca had kept the Auditors tasked with finding a new source of nanites. They had assigned researchers and hackers to focus on the synthetic nanite project the Black Sun operated in the Gobi Desert, sifted the ruins of the Thule manor in Iceland, and even rehearsed a potential nocturnal raid on the Far Shores, but this was the first real lead Analytics had been able to offer.
Mitsuru reviewed the meager data package from the telepathic briefing as she walked, trying to make sense of the shipping certificates and capital transfers that connected a shipment in this port to the now extinct Anathema. John Parson was known to have secured his own supply of nanites during the Anathema incursion in Central, so the shipping containers that had been left waiting in the stacks for weeks seemed as good a place to start looking as any.
Mitsuru picked up her pace as she neared the indicated row, the stacks of rusting containers forming a crude replica of a city grid, the distance between the rows the exact amount needed for the dollies and loaders to do their work. She was moving at a brisk pace when she rounded the flagged corner and her welcoming committee came into view.
The tactical overlay kicked in as her protocol activated, adding highlights and analysis to her field of view. A pair of snipers with hunting rifles placed on two of the container stacks were silhouetted with yellow, while red outlines identified the guards arrayed nearby, carrying assault rifles and shotguns, creating a perimeter for a welding crew that was already most of the way into the bottom container of one of the stacks.
Mitsuru broke into a run, hoping that the welding crew had finished the required cuts. The last thing she wanted to do was operate welding gear in the sweltering late afternoon sun.
Mitsuru could feel the heat of the scorching asphalt through the thick soles of her sandals. She connected to the Network and accessed a protocol she had downloaded before leaving Central.
The guards were professional enough to wait until they were certain of their shot, which gave her the time she needed to close.
Mitsuru activated her downloaded protocol and allowed a telekinetic barrier to deal with the bullets. The barrier stretched across her skin and clung like plastic wrap, invisible until it was struck, each bullet causing a brief white flare and a shower of blue sparks.
She felt not even a hint of an impact and did not so much as break stride when a round caught her in the chest. Eschewing cover in favor of speed, Mitsuru charged the gunmen.
I’m about to make contact, she advised Brandon. Tell them to be ready.
Ready and waiting, the telepath replied. Waiting on your signal.
The visual overlays shifted to accommodate her desires, shifting to target acquisition. Every living and breathing thing for a hundred-meter radius was outlined and tagged, turning her vision into a bewildering confusion of silhouettes. She fine-tuned the perimeters until only her targets remained, highlighted in an ugly shade of bright yellow.
Analytics read out behind her eyelids, feeding hypnagogic briefings to her each time she blinked, enumerating her opposition.
There were twenty-three likely targets in her immediate area.
Six were Operators, D-Class or lower.
Four were Weir, a rarity since the extinction of the Anathema.
She drew one of the guns strapped to the holsters she wore on her lower back, the contoured grip of the Kimber .45 fitting comfortably in her hand.
A pair of guards were concealed at the first junction, behind a stack of containers, shotguns at the ready. Mitsuru switched protocols, coiling her legs and launching herself to the top of the stack of containers with a telekinetic assist. She took careful aim at the would-be ambushers, who did little more than stare in shock as she gunned them down.
An early warning icon popped up as soon as she returned to her native protocol. Mitsuru dropped flat on top of the container.
Bullets whizzed overhead and ricocheted off the metal around her.
Her tactical overlay helpfully isolated the gunman who had her pinned down.
She switched protocols and activated a downloaded apport routine.
Activating it filled her mouth with the taste of lemons.
Mitsuru appeared behind the guard as he hunted for her with his scoped rifle. She drew her knife from its holster at her back with her other hand – she only carried one, these days, having put aside the need for a sterile blade – and advanced on him, sandals whispering across the asphalt.
The man startled when she slipped the blade beneath his chin, but he did not cry out until after she had slit his throat.
She activated the apport protocol again and was gone before the body hit the ground.
Mitsuru appeared among the welding crew, behind the guards and their close perimeter. The welding technician cut off the torch and flipped back her mask, crying out in alarm, while her assistant started to run away.
Mitsuru shifted protocols, feeling the strain as her implant heated, cooking her brain inside her skull like a poached crab in the shell.
Deploy, but stay in concealment. Wait for my command. We want prisoners, Mitsuru thought. I’ll handle the target.
One of the guards tossed his rifle aside, his oxford button-down tearing down the seams as his torso expanded and warped, great tufts of black and brown fur obscuring his features.
Another Weir burst from one of the alleys between the containers, towering over the guards in his bipedal wolfen form, misshapen teeth jutting from his slobbering jaws.
The other two Weir Brandon had warned her about were already completely transformed, a pair of great grey dogs with wet muzzles and immensely broad chests. One charged directly at Mitsuru, while the other trotted off to the side, looking to flank.
On my mark, Mitsuru thought. Go.
The aura of psychic invisibility that concealed the Auditors fell away, and they engaged immediately, already carefully positioned among their unsuspecting enemies.
Collette Higgins met a charging Weir with her knee, smashing the beast’s head against the side of the container.
Xia stepped in front of the bipedal Weir and the creature lit up like a bonfire, blue flames burning away fur and cooking the flesh beneath.
Maxim Pashkevich knocked a surprised Weir to its side, pinning its neck to the ground with his boot before emptying his pistol into its heaving chest, puncturing the lungs and splintering ribs.
Ksenia Medved closed her eyes, and a telekinetic whirlwind whipped up about her, turning every piece of debris into a potentially lethal projectile. The partially transformed Weir was beaten to the ground by waves of bricks, glass, and chunks of concrete. The second barrage broke bones, while the third reduced the We
ir to a moaning, crumpled heap on the ground.
The nearby guards were even less fortunate.
Some of them would probably survive the battering.
“Good enough,” Mitsuru said, turning her attention to the technician highlighted by her overlay. She had been directing the welding crew until the Auditors attacked, standing apart from the guards with thick braids, bifocals, and a tablet that she clutched to her chest. “You are Talia Canton. You are wanted by the Director for questioning.”
“That’s not happening,” Talia said, taking a step back. “You don’t understand what this is.”
“This is over,” Mitsuru said, gesturing at the conflict behind them, as the Auditors quickly mopped up the remaining gunmen and corralled the battered Weir. “You are coming with me to Central.”
“Like I said, you don’t understand,” Talia said, touching her tablet. “This is a trap.”
The plastic explosive was expertly placed and shaped. An enormous explosion hit the Auditors from beneath, followed a microsecond later by the simultaneous detonation of paired charges mounted to the containers on either side, each propelling a payload of flechettes and metal bits. The concussive waves collided, opening an enormous crater in the road, and sending up a geyser of dirt and debris.
Talia watched this impassively, her fingers resting on the tablet.
The Auditors stood in the cloud of dust, Maxim’s barrier flickering brilliantly around them. Mitsuru stepped forward and put her pistol to Talia’s head.
“Please do not do anything that we will both regret,” Mitsuru said. “You are coming with us.”
Talia froze in place, saying nothing.
Are you okay, Maxim?
He nodded and brushed aside Ksenia’s offer of support.
I’m fine.
Chike, are you online?
I am, Chike confirmed. Waiting in the secure floor, as you requested.
Tell them to expect only one prisoner. Assume full Anathema and take every precaution. Talia Canton, technician for Alistair. Brandon has the relevant file on her presumed capabilities.
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 88
