“It’s something,” I said. “Just say it.”
He tensed up. “All right, fine. About … Sovereign … and what he wants. Have you thought about …” He stopped, as if he couldn’t even complete the sentence.
“Giving him what he wants?” I spread my arms wide. “Offering myself or pretending to do so in order to get him to stop?” I shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it.”
Scott made a face, and not a sexy one. “I should have guessed that you’d have considered all options.”
“It wouldn’t work,” I said. “He is a telepath, after all, and while Zollers can block him to some extent, I can pretty well guarantee that the old ‘Surrender while you pull a fast one on the enemy’ trick won’t work with him. He’s not much of an evil overlord, but he’s not a total idiot. Anything I do that sends me lovingly in his direction without real sincerity will provoke enough of his suspicion that he’ll use his powers to sniff out my intentions.” I clapped my hands together lightly and Scott jumped as though I’d fired a shot at him. “Game over. Because I’ll always think of him as a mass murderer first.”
Scott nodded slowly. “Nice to know I don’t have any competition from him, at least.”
I smiled, but weakly. “That’s safe to say.”
Scott lapsed into thought. “But if he doesn’t have any hope of ever winning you over—”
I was fortunate because my phone rang at that exact moment, sparing me from having to go down the path that question would inevitably lead me to. “Yes?” I asked, grateful for the interruption.
“Heyyyyy,” J.J. said from the other end. “I think I’ve got something here.”
“As long as it’s not a rash, I’m interested,” I said, and shrugged at Scott when he gave me a WTF look.
“Well, it looks like our old friends at the Wise Men’s Consortium have just made an investment in real estate in the Minneapolis area,” J.J. said, ignoring my wisecrack.
I stood there, looking blankly ahead. “I don’t … have any friends at that corporation. I don’t even know who they are—”
“Sure you do,” J.J. said. “They’re the ones who rented the Century safe houses around the country. They’re the ones who chartered that cargo plane that was taking you out of the city.”
Right. I let out a sharp gasp. “And they bought something here?”
“Money transfer just showed up, but it probably happened a few days ago,” J.J. said. “I’m kind of a little behind in what I can do, you know, working with a staff of one—”
“You can have whatever staff you want,” I said then realized the awkward entendre I’d inadvertently just handed him. “Uhm, or hire people, I mean, if you think it will help you. But about this purchase—”
“Righto,” he said. “It’s a warehouse in St. Louis Park, about half an hour away—”
“I know where St. Louis Park is,” I said, hiding my impatience.
“—just outside Minneapolis, first ring suburb, brushing up against Eden Prairie—”
I rolled my eyes. “Address?”
“Sure, sure,” he said, and I scrambled for a pen as he gave it to me. “Now, about this staff thing … who do I talk to about—”
“You can talk to Ariadne about your staf—” I cut myself off again and just hung up the phone instead of bothering to try and dig myself out of that verbal mess. “We’ve got something,” I said to Scott, holding up the piece of paper with the address scrawled on it.
“What are we going to do?” he asked, and I thought I caught a little excitement in his gaze. “Go in, shotguns-a-blazin’?”
I only had to think about it for a second. “Not quite,” I said, and felt myself smile again. “Not this time.”
Chapter 27
I stood over a computer console a few hours later, with Foreman next to me, Reed and Scott lurking behind us. Ariadne hovered near the door mostly, I think, because she wanted to observe without getting in the way. I was okay with that.
I was standing over the shoulder of a woman named Harper, who was as serious as anyone I’d ever met. When she’d offered me her hand, she didn’t give me the dead fish handshake, she pumped with some strength. Not trying to crush my hand or anything, but enough that I knew she’d shook hands with me. She’d not indicated whether Harper was a first or last name, but I suspected it was last because of her ex-military bearing.
“Man,” Scott said from behind me. “That is so cool. You can see everything.”
We were all staring at a flatscreen perched in front of Harper. It was big enough to give us a fairly panoramic view. She had two smaller screens on either side, computer monitors we’d had on hand. She was fiddling with the complicated briefcase-based computer she’d brought along, handing us HDMI cables and asking us to sort out where to place them while she set up. I admired her brass; not many people tell the head of a government agency what they need in such brisk terms.
Being a fan of the no-bullshit approach myself, I liked it.
We were staring at the screens, which displayed a top-down view of a building. A warehouse. One of the smaller monitors had a clear-as-day picture, but the one on the main screen was on infrared. We could see five bodies moving around inside the warehouse through the walls, orange masses with human appendages and heads. Harper fiddled with her interface and the picture zoomed closer, focusing on where three of the people stood talking in an office in the corner of the warehouse.
Like Scott said, it was cool.
“How high up is the drone?” I asked Harper.
“That’s classified,” Harper said neutrally, as if she were telling me the sky was blue.
Reed was standing next to him, just shaking his head. “Like I said, totalitarian surveillance state.”
I just shook my head at him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m not arguing with you. But since we live here anyway, I might as well use it to my advantage.” Reed rolled his eyes, but I saw the hint of concession within them. What else can you do to keep surveillance on your enemies when they’ve got a telepath that can pick you up a mile off?
Well, actually, I had an idea for that, too, but it didn’t come with real-time, down-looking infrared imagery of the Century facility.
“We’ve got movement in the southwest quadrant,” Harper said flatly. “Town car. MARS ONE is rolling up.”
I looked at the left-hand screen and saw what she was talking about after a moment of searching. There were actually a lot of cars moving on that screen, given that there were a few major thoroughfares among the surrounding streets. Once I saw the town car, I figured out how she’d picked it out. It was the only vehicle for about six blocks on that particular street. Sharp eyed, this Harper.
“Comms?” I asked, and Harper nodded once before flicking a button on her console. A speaker came on, presumably filtered out of what was going to her headset a moment earlier. Then I realized: she was listening to the car’s chatter the whole time, and presumably had been in communication with them. I hadn’t even realized it.
“Can they hear me right now?” I asked. Harper gave me a sharp nod. “Janus, are you there?”
Harper gave me an “Are you stupid?” kind of look. “MARS ONE, this is MARS SIX. What is your status, over?” she asked, making me feel like an utter and complete amateur.
“What?” Janus’s voice came over the speaker. “Oh, is that us? Oh. MARS SIX, this is … uhm … MARS ONE. We are settling into position and attempting to place the laser on the target.” He paused for a good five seconds. “Oh, uhm, over.”
“Understood, MARS ONE,” Harper said and flipped a switch on her console. I could still hear the fuzzing and fritzing of the speakers, so I assumed she had turned off the microphone on our side.
“Nifty little thing,” Scott said. “What’s with the speakerphone on the drone controls?”
“We sometimes have to operate in unusual locations,” Harper said, not taking her eyes off the screens in front of her. “The communications capability in the system is designed so we
can receive orders from units in the field or a commanding officer who’s offsite.” She shook her head. “This is a new application, I have to admit.”
I stared down at her. “Do you have any idea what you’re into here, Harper?”
She shook her head, expression moving not a whit. “No, ma’am, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
I exchanged a look with Scott, who shrugged. “Fair enough,” I said.
“Laser is in place,” Janus said over the speaker. “Err … oh … I mean, the target is painted. Is that the code phrase? Gods, but I’m rubbish at these communications protocols. Can we not speak plainly?”
Harper sighed audibly and flipped the switch. “Negative, MARS ONE. While the presumption is that these channels are secure, adding an additional layer of communication security is—”
“Pipe down, MARS ONE,” I cut her off. “Just do your job.”
“Job done,” Janus said sourly, and then his voice switched to a stiffer-sounding octave. “Will await further instructions. Over.”
“Now that they’ve painted that warehouse window with the laser,” I said, “does that mean we can—”
“Yeah,” Harper said, cutting me off again. She flipped another switch on her console and another series of voices came on. They sounded a little farther away, a little tinny, but I could understand every word they were saying.
“—two days,” came a female voice with an Asian accent. I couldn’t quite place it, but she was speaking English. “We just need to wait until then.”
There was a pause, and I spoke. “So this is what’s being said right now in that room?” I gestured to the infrared display where the three people were talking in the warehouse room.
“Correct,” Harper said, precise. “The laser your people are shining onto that window from a few blocks away is picking up the vibrations of their speech on the glass pane of the window and transmitting them to us via a transceiver in the unit—”
“Nifty,” Reed said, again with the sour. “You’re just finding more ways to illustrate my point about—”
“Can it,” I said, waving a hand at him without looking up from the display.
“How many of them are coming?” a man asked. His voice sounded vaguely European.
“All of them,” came the Asian woman’s voice again.
“Here?” the guy asked.
“Not here, exactly,” she said. “A little further out. Somewhere more isolated, secluded. I—” She paused, and I didn’t like the sound of it for some reason.
“Can they detect the laser?” I asked. “Could you see it, a little red beam dancing over the walls?”
“No.” Harper shook her head. “It’s outside the visual spectrum.”
“It’s a laser,” came the woman’s voice, cold and clear.
“What the hell?” Scott asked.
“Shit,” Harper said, more than a little chastened. “I have no idea how they would have picked that up.” There was a rustling in the room and the sound of a door opening, followed by shouts of alarm in an echoing room I took to be the warehouse proper.
“Janus, get out of there,” I said, then looked at Harper. “Can he hear me?”
“Negative,” she said, and flipped a switch again. “MARS ONE, are you receiving?”
“—coming right for us!” Janus’s voice came through the speaker, more than a little panic edging out of it.
“Whoa,” Scott said, and he took a step forward. “They’re fast if they got there in seconds—”
“The audio from the warehouse was on a delay while I answered your questions,” Harper said, looking pained. She was punching buttons and pulling up visual imagery. I saw the infrared catching five human figures moving swiftly toward the town car, and then a flare of white in the shape of a ball that flew from one of the people at the fore and—
The town car glowed as it hit, and the screen went white.
Chapter 28
North of Rome
280 A.D.
Marius could hear the legions in the distance. He stood upon the hill, Janus at his side with others, watching the coming of Proculus the Usurper’s army. They were so very, very many, and it made Marius wonder. The fires of war burned around them, thick and smoky. He could almost taste the meat he had become accustomed to in the last months, could nearly taste the flavor of roasted flesh on his tongue from the fires. It was an ill omen in these environs, he reckoned. Even in the summer heat, it sent a chill over his flesh.
“Be not afraid,” Janus said quietly from next to him.
“Do you see how many of them there are?” Marius whispered back. “I cannot even count them, they number so many.”
This was true. The legions of Proculus outnumbered the Roman ones by factors of ten. Though he had only recently learned about gods and powers, Marius had not been so impressed by the gods Diana and Janus had introduced him to that he could see this sight and remain unconcerned.
“Numbers are not everything,” Janus said calmly. “Not when gods are involved.” His face darkened. “Though this usurper should not have come anywhere this close to the center of the Empire. It is a dark day, one that shall not be spoken of save for in whispers henceforth.”
Marius shut his mouth, holding back his fear. His horse whickered softly beneath him, and Marius responded to it. He brushed a gloved hand against the ear of the creature, letting the dried cow hide that enveloped his fingers run down the back of the horse’s neck. He meant to reassure his animal, but he found a strange amount of solace in the gesture for himself. He glanced at Janus and wondered if the man was soothing his emotions. Janus turned to look at him and shook his head.
War horns blew in the distance, filling the valley below. They were outside Rome, Hadrian’s Tomb at their backs. An impressive structure, Marius thought, and all the better to try and defend the city from within, at least to his mind. But instead they were out here, in the wide-open spaces beyond the city wall, with a small legion in front of them and a greater legion aligned against them.
The smell of the horse overcame the smell of the fires as the wind shifted directions and came from the west. There were others with them on the hill. Marius knew Diana, of course, who was wearing a white cloak to keep the hot midday sun off her skin. He knew Venus on sight as well, her skin covered but her comely face somewhat visible over the lacy shawl that was pulled up to cover her mouth. He had seen her a few times, and on every one of them had trouble remembering his own name while fighting an impossible battle to keep his eyes off of her. This time seemed easier, though her attentions were on the battle, her eyes not roaming as they had been in every other instance he’d seen her.
He knew one of the others as well. Jupiter.
Colossally built, his broad chest partially exposed, Jupiter sat upon a warhorse that dwarfed Marius’s. His long hair was platinum, not white, and his beard matched. His bronzed skin was still youthful, and Marius felt a quiver of fear just being in his presence. Jupiter watched the movement of the armies impassively, but his dark eyes danced about the place that was soon to be a battlefield, and Marius thought they looked hungry for blood and spectacle and were irritable in their absence.
“You see what I see,” Janus said with quiet assurance as he looked over. Marius nodded. Jupiter’s cruelty was close to the surface, obvious even to his eyes.
Jupiter’s wife was at his side, her gaze cooler than her husband’s in the way that winter was cooler than summer. She caught Marius’s eyes and held them for a moment, watching him. She nodded once then turned away to speak to the man next to her, a physically imposing fellow whom Marius recognized as Neptune. He carried a long spear with three points, and Marius wondered if anyone who saw him riding the streets of Rome would recognize it as the trident.
“So it begins,” Janus murmured, and a low hum fell over the gods on the hilltop. Marius paused his examination of their numbers and looked out to the battlefield again. The battle had indeed begun, and he co
uld see the front ranks of the legions engaged with each other, falling blades catching the light of the midday sun, glaring. The Roman Legion was outmatched—it was evident even to Marius’s untrained eye. The usurper’s forces were pouring into the middle of their lines like a wedge pushing itself into a stump before splitting it.
So it ends, Marius thought, but he held his peace. He caught a glimmer of amusement from Janus and followed his mentor’s gaze just past him as a man on a horse clip-clopped up to come to a halt just beside him.
The man was large, like Jupiter. He had flaming red hair that flowed down his shoulders and a flat face with an unyielding nose that barely protruded from it. It looked as though it had been carved out of clay by a lazy sculptor who had cared little for giving the face depth. The eyes were shallow as well, and dark, and they rolled over Marius quickly and on to Janus.
“Janus,” the man said in acknowledgment.
“Ares,” Janus replied with a courteous nod.
The man called Ares sighed. “I do prefer that name, but all the same, perhaps it is best if you call me Mars now.”
Janus chuckled. “Have you met my ward? This is Marius. He is newly in my service.”
Mars with the flat face gave Marius another look. “He has little stomach for battle, Janus.”
Janus smiled. “Then he should be safe from any accidents should you find yourself slipping in your old age.”
Mars let a deep belly laugh out with such force it nearly made Marius jump. “I miss your company since you have become a hermit, Janus. We should sup again soon. It has been so long since the last time.”
“You are welcome in my home on any occasion,” Janus said solicitously.
“And you in mine,” Mars said with a nod of courtesy. He sighed. “I suppose I should get to work.”
“It would be greatly appreciated if you could spare Rome from the incompetence of her generals and the far-flung crusades of her emperor,” Janus said with a smile that Marius did not quite understand. He glanced back to the battle, which seemed to be going very poorly in his eyes. The usurper’s men were now through the Roman legion, had neatly divided it in half. They were swarming back and enveloping them with superior numbers. It was not what Marius thought a victory should look like.
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