VECTOR (The Weaver Series Book 3)

by Vaun Murphrey

  Silver gave me no physical control of any kind and I had to wait for her to turn her head before I saw we were on a flat square roof. The edges had a lip that was taller toward what I assumed might be the front of the building. A single upright rectangle with a metal door was the only other structure besides a couple of industrial-sized air conditioning units humming away. Cars drove by below, the sound their tires made had a funny vibrating noise like they were all traversing a giant washboard.

  Silver thought in a rush, “Cobblestone streets, we’re downtown on top of the building where the FBI field office is.” Then as if that little tidbit had encouraged her to finally share her plan, she said, “I knew you wouldn’t want to do this solo but I had one of those gut feelings you can’t ignore. Somehow we need to soften the blow with Chavarria but still keep him leery of Weavers.”

  I felt my sister release her tight control of our body and something inside me loosened. Corinne’s shield was gone. We had successfully found the limit one of its filaments would reach or she’d just pulled it back when we started to teleport. Either way it was gone.

  A violent retching alerted us to the agent’s sickly state.

  Silver groaned out loud. “Ugh, I forgot you might puke ‘porting the old way.”

  All we could see was the top of his head as he leaned forward, hands braced on his knees. His hair was cut so short you could see his scalp between each hair follicle. Absently, I wondered if his barber measured the top to make sure it was level before he let him leave the chair.

  This high up the wind blew aggressively, whipping our ponytail horizontally behind our head. At Silver’s comment, and right after taking a long gulp of air Chavarria tried to straighten. That set off another round of gagging as he leaned forward once more, this time holding his middle.

  Since Silver wasn’t that great at being comforting I added to her earlier comment. “It’ll pass in a minute. This happens to Weavers, too, the first few times until the body adjusts. Just take deep breaths. Imagine you just got tossed off the fastest merry-go-round ride you’ve ever been on. Right now you’re waiting for your inner ear and brain to catch up with the idea that you’re standing still.”

  To keep our mind away from the fluids at the man’s feet we continued our observation of his attire. He wasn’t wearing a suit coat, but that probably had to do with the Texas heat. We could tell his blue button up dress shirt had started out starched this morning. Wrinkles and dirt graced the tightly woven cotton. The thick black leather belt around his waist matched his dress shoes and was heavy duty enough to hold up his holster on the left side. His gray pants were standard issue men’s dress slacks that were starting to look worn at the crease from too much ironing or dry cleaning.

  I thought at Silver, “Perhaps we should start off by apologizing for crushing his gun?”

  She paused and then responded thoughtfully, “Just make it vague since Gerome was supposed to have done that.”

  I cleared our throat and started talking to our captive audience of one. “Will you get in much trouble about your gun from your superiors? I can ask Gerome to put up the money for a new one.”

  Chavarria made headway with the nausea as he cautiously rose to stare at the sky. He placed both hands on his hips, one rested on the mangled butt of his gun. His voice started raw and breathy but as he closed his eyes it firmed. “It’s proof of what you folks can do so I don’t sound insane. They’ll probably have footage from the drone but it won’t show much besides me dangling in the air for a minute if the angle was good. Plus, you and I disappearing into thin air.”

  With his lids down his long black eyelashes cast a shadow on his light brown skin and he looked almost pretty.

  Silver snapped internally, “Here’s a little tip for you…don’t tell him he’s pretty. I’ve heard men hate that.”

  I ignored my twin to respond to Chavarria. “We wanted to talk to you in private because we think you may have the wrong idea already about Weavers and maybe the whole universe.” We’d see if he caught the plural pronoun.

  He took another deep cleansing breath to squint his barely open eyes against the loose gravel and grit swirling up from the roof in the wind. “So what…you’re the sweet, and they were the sour?”

  Silver’s mirth welled up at Chavarria’s assumption and I pushed back at her with a wave of seriousness before I responded to his sarcasm out loud. “Could be.”

  Straightening his shoulders made his back arch and his chest pop forward like a rooster preening in a hen house but at least his sickness had passed. He waved one hand silently in our direction for me to continue.

  I paused to consult my sister mentally. “You’re the genius that had the urge to bring us here! What is it exactly I’m supposed to say? Did you get any guidance with your ‘hunch’?”

  Silver thought back a grim, “Nope.”

  Cora’s comment about evolution popped to the forefront of my mind and I parted our lips to speak inspired with a direction. “What Cora Harris said about humanity’s evolution is only partly correct. Outsiders—that’s what we call straight vanilla humans like you—have spontaneously occurring Weavers in the population. Genetically, you and I aren’t that different. It used to be common for Weavers and Outsiders to live intermingled until the war. Now we all hide. I’m done hiding whether the rest of them are or not.”

  “So why are you telling me? You’re just a kid, what can you possibly do?” His tone was derisive and doubtful.

  If words could literally be sharp his would have cut mine from the air. Anger bloomed from my twin and her first instinct was to show Chavarria just how much of a ‘kid’ we weren’t, but I blocked her access to our body and forged ahead. “Perhaps I should be clear. My people are guided by a Council. The goals of the Council and mine aren’t in alignment right now. I’ve got a broader plan in mind. Whereas, they might be shooting for the survival of all Weavers, I’m aiming for the protection of Earth as a whole.”

  Chavarria stared back at us, just barely peeking out from his lowered lashes, as he ran a palm across his face to settle on his chin. “Why are you here? Spit out what you want, then let’s get off the damn roof.” A car horn blared from below with the squeal of brakes shortly after causing my attention to stray for just a second. It was all my twin needed.

  Silver growled, “Oh I’ll get him off the roof alright.”

  Our body sped forward to grab the much taller man by his throat. My sister lifted him almost gently to walk calmly to the edge of the roof. Strong forearms tried to break our hold with a hit to the bend of our elbow to no effect. Next he tried a flurry of kicks, one of which nearly tripped us. Silver paused to shake Chavarria before swinging his body to the side and swatting his flailing feet over the lip with our free hand to dangle several stories above the ground. Once it was clear our grip was all that kept his body from ending up a jigsaw puzzle inside a bag of skin, his struggles ceased.

  In a deep voice that betrayed no strain, Silver gritted out, “You want off the roof…here you go, baby! My sister was trying to have a civilized conversation and you just had to screw it all up being an asshole. You want the skinny? You want to know why I stepped in and brought you here, shithead?”

  Even with the enhanced strength it wouldn’t be a good idea to hold our stiff-armed position for long. The sleeve of our duster creaked where the agent’s sweaty fingers tried to grip it.

  “Here’s the message: we have to stop fighting between ourselves. Earth is a tiny speck of nothing in the universe and unless we take steps it won’t last long. This whole planet is going to end up a casualty of a war you don’t even know is going on. Now, behave!”

  With a final shake Silver gave a tug toward our body to pivot and throw Chavarria at the roof access door where he bounced off the thick metal with a boom to land on all fours. Disgusted, my sister released control of our body and muttered out loud, “He’s all yours, Cass.”

  Once again in the driver’s seat, I started to tug our gloves back in pl
ace only to recall we weren’t wearing them so I yanked down the cuff of each coat sleeve instead. I could feel the bulky tread on the bottom of our boots picking up rocks as I approached the downed agent. We had no clue if our ‘Vectorness’ would affect the man in any way, but if it did, hopefully it’d be beneficial. He’d had a rough day. A tiny amount of sympathy reared its head and I felt guilty until I remembered his threats to the compound. Maybe the agent was due a bad day.

  Chavarria’s head was hanging down as he gasped for oxygen and rubbed his throat with one hand. I walked close enough for him to see the scuffed up toes of our shoes out of the corner of his eye. With a flick of our wrists I flared our coat out of the way like a cape as I bent our legs to rest our butt on our heels.

  “You really shouldn’t piss my sister off. Silver’s bullshit tolerance is lower than mine. Not only did you threaten to wipe out a whole community of human beings today without a second thought, you insulted and underestimated us.”

  I tapped our fingertips in an impatient tattoo on the dirty cotton of our Wranglers. We needed a dang shower. The breakfast with Maggie and Gerome this morning had gone a long way but I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get to catch our breath.

  With the one arm holding his upper body parallel from the tar-smeared gravel-sprinkled roof, Chavarria sat back to get a little further away. A fine, furious trembling shook across his flesh making his flushed face and white-edged nostrils stand out. He looked like a man about to explode as his arm inched toward the ruined firearm in his holster out of habit.

  I concentrated and bent a light field across our face, removing the fake pupils overlaid on our iris and distorting our features in a wave before settling them back into place. Raising a hand from a knee I lifted an index finger to wave it lazily side to side. “Tsk, tsk. No going for your gun, darling. It’s a good thing Gerome broke it, huh?” The grown man flinched in terror and suddenly this wasn’t satisfying in the least. What good would I or Silver do anyone if we turned into the monsters we were trying to defeat?

  Chavarria regained his voice enough to say, “What are you?”

  Sensing my change in mood Silver answered this time. “We are what we are until we aren’t and then we’re something else. Mainly, we’re human.”

  A sickening waft of fear and anger crept up to our nostrils on the next gust of wind and I made sure to keep our gaze averted from the agent’s groin area. The sharp tang of urine gave us a hint as to how effective Silver’s loss of temper had been as a scare tactic.

  Masculine voice reduced from forceful to defeated, Chavarria whispered musically in Spanish, “Estas loca.”

  Silver ducked our chin. “We might be crazy but then again how would we know? Think about this little conversation. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

  Knees feeling stiff as we stood, I stretched our arms over our head reveling in the warm burn of our muscles flexing along our spine. It was time to go. Someone pulled our chain in the Web and Silver said, “I’ve got it.”

  My twin was back in seconds to inform me Gerome had everyone loaded in the van and they’d been waiting on us long enough. I sighed and solidified the memory of the no longer uniformly tilled field in our head and began our ‘port.

  As the edges of our vision unraveled Silver remarked, “That went well!”

  Chapter Fourteen: Memory Lane

  The first clue our teleportation was successful was the lack of city sounds. Civilization is noisy. At least the only things vibrating our eardrum here were natural. Wind picked up in a sudden gust to fling a tiny whirlwind of loose dirt into our slightly parted mouth. I spit automatically before rubbing our lips clear with a coat sleeve.

  I could see the van about twenty yards from our position. A tingling sensation started at our toes and then leveled into a smooth flowing veneer as Corinne’s shield realigned itself around our body. The blonde girl’s pale face was among the others staring out of the long rectangular windows of the white conversion van. We’d have to ask her if she was reasserting the shield or if it was involuntary since we’d been under its influence before our earlier hasty teleportation.

  Gerome pushed away from the driver’s side door to walk our way. His demeanor was hard to read but my guess was we were about to get our butt chewed. Silver straightened and I raised our arms to smooth the baby fine hairs at our temple the wind had disturbed, then stopped mid-motion when I remembered our shield was up. A deep cleansing breath was all the preparation we got before my uncle drew even with us.

  In a move we couldn’t have anticipated Gerome hooked a hand on our exposed neck and yanked us forward into a tight side arm hug. With the shield in place I had a millisecond to decide whether to comply or not. I chose to let him guide us. The unexpected outward show of affection put our back to the van and our contained audience. He leaned down to put his mouth close to our ear.

  In a low growl that caused shivers and goose bumps along our skin, he said, “What the hell were you thinking, Silver? You’re both too damn important to go off half-cocked. You should’ve had backup.” With a final gentle squeeze through the barrier of energy, Gerome released his grip and pivoted.

  Silver leapt to her own defense. “Sure, blame me. Cass would never do anything impulsive!”

  Oh, geeze, were we really going to revert to our thirteen-year-old mentality? Something about our uncle always got both our backs up and threw us off emotionally. Not his fault, granted, but it was going to have to stop. Mentally I put the brakes on our escalating insecurities and firmed our resolve. We were grownups and we’d act like it.

  Gerome’s voice softened but still held an edge of exasperation. “It’s not about blame. I care what happens to you. How am I supposed to protect you if you run off without telling anybody where you’re going or what you’re doing?” His arms arched out from his sides in a helpless gesture.

  The wind whipped up again, blowing dirt in both of our faces and putting an all-natural mute button on our argument as we both flinched needlessly in reflex. The shield kept any debris at bay. We both realized at the same time and grinned.

  Silver’s voice was filled with an amused hopefulness. “That’s useful.”

  Gerome pulled his lips back over his teeth in a straight line. “Indubitably.”

  A long honk made us both jump and I turned to see Maggie leaning around the driver’s seat with an impatient let’s-get-a-move-on expression plastered across her face. As we watched, Malcolm pushed her into the first row of passenger bench seats by her forehead. Much arm waving ensued between the two and Cora ended up getting involved. We could almost make out the yelling match, as far out as we were.

  Gerome canted his eyes to the side. “You ready to head back?”

  I shrugged our shoulders. “About as ready as we’ll ever be.”

  Gerome took a deep breath through his nose and the air inflated his chest like a billows. His next words were muttered in an aside as he walked forward on the uneven ground. “How’d your private meeting go?”

  Silver aped his tone. “Not too great. I lost my temper and made a grown-assed man pee-pee his pants. As for level of success, I’d have to rate it somewhere between a snafu and a disaster. Cass tried to pull it out but there’s only so nice you can be while making it clear we’re prepared to defend ourselves.”

  Gerome nodded, oddly sympathetic, before saying, “What was all that you were doing with Corinne’s shield? I could feel it pull away from my chest but obviously nobody could see it.”

  I answered in the same muted tone like we were sharing a secret we didn’t want anyone to hear. Perhaps we were. It finally dawned as we drew even with the driver’s side door that Gerome had been angling his face down so that anyone from above, recording our conversation from an aerial spy craft or satellite, might not get the best shot to read our lips. We’d simply followed our uncle’s lead assuming he had a reason. Crafty…and paranoid of him, true…but justifiably so. “We improvised and it worked. It’s a little scary how fast we’re
mutating. Maggie may need to run some tests. I’m sure Silver will gripe that she’s got it on lock but a second opinion never hurt.”

  Silver chimed in mentally this time as Gerome opened the van door and motioned for us to go around the hood to the other side.

  “I don’t gripe. I simply object to your continued doubting Thomas stance of my abilities as far as maintaining our structural integrity. There isn’t any destabilization of our cells from mutation and our system isn’t going haywire. We are what we are, Cass—a Vector, or as Sil would say, a Singularity.”

  The surface of the dirt road the van sat on was harder and easier to walk on though still uneven. I thought back determinedly as we rounded the far side of the bumper, “It’s not doubt Silver, it’s worry. Worry has never been, nor will it ever be, rational. Sometimes, however, it can be well founded.”

  The sliding side door popped out and rolled back on its track and the muted argument inside the van that had paused when Gerome opened his door was back in full force. Maggie’s voice rang out to override Cora’s in a no nonsense just-you-try-me tone as James leaned out awkwardly from the second row of passenger seats to offer a hand up.

  Maggie’s cheeks were flushed and the hair at the side of her neck was damp making it hard to determine if anger or heat was causing the redness. “Cora Harris if I say you’re going to let me examine you in the Web for damage then by God you’re going to let me. Who knows what harm that nut job caused while you were infected? You might need a full physical workup, too. If David’s willing to let me check him out why aren’t you? I’m not trying to discredit you with the damn Council—I’m trying to do my job!”

  My aunt was half turned in her seat, talking across the second passenger seat, as I climbed past James to sit next to Kara. Unfortunately—or fortunately depending on who you asked—my head blocked Maggie’s line of sight to Cora, who sat primly with her daughter in the third row of passenger seats. David sat next to Corinne, looking as if he wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground. The beleaguered night nurse lowered his lids and rubbed a hand tiredly down his face before letting his arm flop bonelessly into his lap.