Queen's Gambit (Lilith's Shadow Book 6)

by Benjamin Medrano

  “Well, as far as I can tell, you’ve never been the target of lasting psychic influence or mental magic,” Rachel told Claire, blinking as her eyes refocused, then smiled, patting her on the shoulder. “I didn’t detect anything out of place in your head except me, which is a good sign, I think.”

  “Thank God!” Gina exclaimed, almost visibly relaxing as she smiled. “If you’d been hit by her as well… damn, I don’t even want to think about that.”

  “Agreed. Though you can’t really say that I haven’t been hit mentally,” Claire replied, pausing for a moment before she stood up and turned to face Rachel, giving her a halfhearted smile. “Eve certainly was trying to break me. And got a good way through the process, I think.”

  “Maybe so, but I think that Lilith and Circe taught her a lesson for that one,” Rachel said, smirking. “I do remember Circe picking through what was left of Eve for useful components. Not much survived, as I recall.”

  “True,” Claire admitted, hesitating for a moment, then leaned forward and hugged Rachel, which surprised her. Rachel responded an instant later, hugging Claire back as she added. “Thank you for doing this. When Lilith pointed out that Shadowmind might have gotten into my head, I was really nervous. I don’t want to have to deal with that again.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Rachel said, smiling at Claire in return. “So, are you planning anything fun for the rest of your trip?”

  “Skiing tomorrow,” Claire said promptly, releasing Rachel at last as she pulled away. “I’ve heard there’s a nice layer of powder up in the mountains, and I’ve always enjoyed it as a pastime. That’s going to take pretty much all of tomorrow, though. Beyond that, I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure things out.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage!” Gina said, stretching as she asked. “That said, what do you think about dinner? I’d like to hear how you tracked down Doctor Johnson in the end.”

  “Sure!” Claire said, glancing at Circe as she added. “Though that part isn’t too impressive. We found a tracking beacon in one of his delivery crates, and Circe managed to triangulate his base using it. I’m not sure I’d have found the beacon without her help, and even if I had, finding someone who could do that would’ve been difficult, since it happened at about the same time all of you were trying to track down Omega Code to rescue Lilith.”

  “Ah, yeah, that’d do it,” Rachel said, thinking for a moment as she looked around the condo, then decided that they didn’t have much for a proper dinner, so she suggested, “What do you think about going out? I’m thinking that pasta place down the street.”

  Gina nodded in agreement, while Claire laughed.

  “Ah, you know me so well. I’m always up for pasta,” Claire said, smiling widely as she nodded. “Shall we, then?”

  “Let’s,” Rachel said, and snagged her coat with a spell. She wasn’t used to how cold it got here, not after living most of her life near the coast. Worse, the locals kept telling her that this wasn’t even that bad yet, which filled her with a sense of apprehension.

  It could be worse, though. They were safe enough, and next week was Thanksgiving with her family. Sure, Rachel expected that Halley was going to be a pain, much like she usually was, but she was looking forward to hearing about her time in college, and seeing her uncle and aunt, since they were coming to visit as well. Rachel did wish that Lilith would be coming, but… she’d already made plans with the Sentinels, and she couldn’t have everything.

  No matter how much Rachel wanted it.

  Chapter 10

  Thursday, November 20th, 2031

  Black Emerald Lair, Utah

  Adjusting her safety glasses, Black Emerald stared at the readouts on them critically, trying to decide both what to make of them as well as whether she liked the augmented reality. There was something about the text that annoyed her, and she couldn’t decide what it was. Maybe she needed to tweak the settings again, to make it focus properly.

  “Later,” Black Emerald muttered to herself, letting out a soft sigh as she focused instead on her data. The flow of mana through the spell she’d sketched wasn’t quite right, unfortunately. It was losing a good three percent of the mana she put into it, which was far higher than she could afford. Super-sorcerers could afford terrible efficiency, since they had power to burn, but Black Emerald was different.

  “Well, the answer is simple. I need to adjust the design,” she said at last, flicking a finger to banish the readouts and looked at the table carefully, examining the spell she’d inked onto a large sheet of paper earlier, looking at how the mana was flowing through it carefully. Then she murmured, “This is a bit dangerous, but… what isn’t?”

  Picking up her calligraphy pen, Black Emerald moved with confident precision. The tip of the pen landed exactly where she intended, and she could feel the mana crackle up the tip, almost reaching her hand but stopped by the insulating enchantments she’d placed on the nib, though they wouldn’t last forever. She had to move quickly, so she did, rapidly connecting the line to the another part of the diagram, then adding the supporting sigils to either side of the new arc. Then she moved to the next part, adjusting the spell on the fly, keeping just ahead of the mana so it didn’t destabilize and explode. Besides, if it did explode, it wouldn’t be too destructive. She didn’t have that much power.

  As Black Emerald finished, she pulled her hand away and clicked her tongue, then murmured, “Analyze mana dissipation.”

  There was a soft tone, and a light shone from the ceiling for a few seconds, then data appeared in her glasses again. That was it, she definitely needed to adjust the focus, or it would drive her nuts. More nuts. That, or have it display the information on the wall monitor.

  “Got it,” Black Emerald said, smiling in satisfaction as she saw that her modifications had dropped the mana loss to only a third of a percent. She might be able to improve on it further, but she wasn’t going to worry about it immediately. Not since she had a limited time frame to get it done in. Wren’s new coat wasn’t going to enchant itself, and Black Emerald wanted it done by Christmas. Sure, it wasn’t likely that Wren would need a coat that could keep her comfortable on Pluto any time soon, but Black Emerald refused to do things by halves.

  Pleased with herself, Black Emerald pulled away, then laced her fingers together and stretched them above her head, grunting as her back popped, informing her that she’d been hunched over the table for a little too long. Not that she cared that much. Even if she hurt herself, Black Emerald had plenty of ways to heal any damage.

  “Alright, with that done, I need to…” Black Emerald let her voice trail off as she saw a message indicator blinking, and she raised an eyebrow, accessing it with a coded blink of her eyes. Then her eyebrows rose a little more.

  The message came from Shadowmind’s contact node, one of the few that bypassed the outer defenses. Not that it wasn’t heavily scanned for attacks, in fact it was even more heavily defended than her external connections, and neither of those connected to her primary network. She knew too much about AIs to risk letting them get access to anything truly sensitive. That said, the strangest part about the message was that it wasn’t from Shadowmind at all, it was from her AI… and the AI appeared to be going behind Shadowmind’s back. That was dangerous. Mostly for the AI, not for Black Emerald.

  “Curious,” Black Emerald murmured, tapping her upper lip as she looked over the information. There were a lot of ships mentioned, she had to admit that much, and she wasn’t sure off the top of her head just what the numbers attached to their weaponry meant. So, she shrugged and continued. “I’ll have to run the numbers… maybe it’s time to update the outer ward again. I probably should anyway… Shade keeps sniffing around the edge of it.”

  Tapping the table, Black Emerald cleared her throat and spoke up. “Wren? Please run a full diagnostic on all lair defenses, with an eye toward orbital threats, please. I’d also like the outsider teleportation chamber looked over as well.”

  “Of cou
rse, I can do that!” Wren replied promptly, her voice containing only a hint of worry. “Is there a particular reason that you’re wanting me to look it over?”

  “I just got word that Shadowmind has completed construction on forty-eight spaceships that look particularly nasty, and while I’m confident that I’m not likely to be her target, I’d rather be safe than have you get blown to bits,” Black Emerald said dryly. “Orbital bombardments aren’t usually that precise.”

  “Ah. Well, thank you for the thought, even if I think you should be more concerned about yourself,” Wren scolded gently. “I worry about you, you know?”

  “We’ve had this discussion before, Wren. It just isn’t possible,” Black Emerald replied, shaking her head in amusement, then cut off the line before they got into a discussion that neither of them could win. It always turned into circular arguments, and Black Emerald could understand why Wren persisted, even if she hadn’t been successful so far.

  Letting out a soft breath, Black Emerald debated for a moment, then shrugged and turned to leave for the time being. The spell could wait until after she’d examined the wards and run her numbers. She wasn’t going to risk their lives just so she could finish Wren’s coat a few hours sooner.

  So, she shut off the lights as she left, wondering just what Shadowmind was up to, that she managed to turn her AI against her. That was a dangerous, dangerous thing to do.

  CirceNet, Location Variable

  Watching Black Emerald’s lair with every passive sensor she had available to her, Circe wished that she could tell more about what was going on inside it. Or that she could detect magic with her sensors… but she couldn’t. Amber had grumbled plenty of times that somehow Black Emerald could detect magic with her sensors, yet she refused to share the technology. Circe wished that she had that ability as well, though she was just as happy that Amber didn’t have it.

  The problem was that she had no way of knowing if her warning was being heeded or ignored. Given what she knew about Black Emerald, the chances of her ignoring the message were low, but not nonexistent. The villain was paranoid about her safety, just as most villains were, but she was also among the few that Circe felt she could trust as one of her backup plans. Black Emerald’s vendetta didn’t involve Lilith, Amber, or any of the heroines that Lilith interacted with the most, so she was comparatively safe. Not that Circe didn’t have other possible solutions, but this was one of the ones she was more confident would turn out well.

  “I hope it does,” Circe told herself, finally allowing herself to pull that fragment of her attention away from the lair she’d been staring at. It wouldn’t do any good to just watch it, after all. Her sensors would pick up any movement and alert her. No, now she needed to get to work on other parts of her plans.

  Chapter 11

  Friday, November 21st, 2031

  Guardian Compound, Paragon City

  “Alright, Lilith… this is a bit bigger of a meeting than we’ve hosted in a while, except maybe when Ivanova was coming to town. Mind telling us what it’s about?” Shade asked, looking around the table, and Lilith couldn’t help a smile as she looked back at him, appreciating the fact he hadn’t shown up in his full hero guise, though his voice modulator was hanging around his neck.

  The conference room wasn’t too crowded, mostly because both Lilith and Circe Beta were standing. Still, with Claire, Gina, Rachel, Emily, Archon, Decarin, and Shade all in the room as well, the table was pretty much at capacity. Greetings hadn’t taken too long, though Lilith’s annoyance had pretty much peaked when Emily had quite deliberately snubbed Gina and Rachel. She was going to have to do something about that and soon. Like after the main meeting she’d called.

  “Of course. Part of the reason I waited until now to mention it was because of who it regarded. I wanted to know for certain that Amber hadn’t been influencing Blooming Orchid or Circe Beta first,” Lilith said, carefully using Claire’s heroine name, and she smiled at the woman wryly as she gave a slight wave.

  “Yes, I have to say that I didn’t appreciate the thought of being a double-agent for Shadowmind,” Claire said dryly, to a chorus of nervous laughter. “It’s about her, though?”

  “It is. As she’s chosen to cut me off and do some rather terrible things, I thought I’d let you know about a few things that I’ve learned and kept to myself. I might have slipped a few times, but I’m not sure,” Lilith said, returning the smile as she looked around the table. “First, though… any questions?”

  “Sure. Do we know that you aren’t being manipulated by her? She did warn you when Sky Defender was about to shoot you, didn’t she?” Claire asked, prompting Lilith to wince at the memory. Unfortunately, that was an excellent point… but Shade cleared his throat.

  “While she certainly was able to, according to… oh, what was his name…” Shade paused, frowning, then snapped his fingers. “Mithtek! The alien. Anyway, trying to mentally attack Lilith once she decided she didn’t want someone in her head was like reaching into a plasma furnace, according to it. Unless Lilith has been letting her into her head…?”

  “Not a chance this side of Sekhet-Aaru,” Lilith said, shaking her head firmly. “She called me via the phone at one point, since I’d blocked her out. I’m pretty sure she found that insulting.”

  “Excellent, then I’m satisfied. I hadn’t heard about that,” Claire said, settling back with a smile.

  “Indeed, so with that out of the way…” Archon said, letting her voice trail off as she looked at Lilith curiously. Lilith cleared her throat, inhaling slightly, then spoke.

  “I didn’t have access to the entire network. I need to make that perfectly clear, that I wasn’t able to see everything. From what I learned via Circe, I suspect I had access to approximately one third of her network, and not the most sensitive installations,” Lilith said, and glanced at Circe Beta. “Do you concur, Circe?”

  “I was stripped of knowledge deemed to be sensitive, but based on my understanding of my originator and her creator, I believe that your assumptions are accurate,” Circe Beta agreed, inclining her head slightly. Her voice sent a pang of loss through Lilith, but she resisted the urge to say something more, not with how everyone was looking at her. Lilith inhaled slowly, then continued.

  “Now, then. I’ve made a list of every installation I can remember being on my list of options, as well as its location, if I could remember it. I’m going to hand that out to all of you, but please don’t put it where Circe Prime can find it, I don’t want Amber to know yet. Additionally, I have some information that…” Lilith paused, trying to figure out how to say it, then sighed and shrugged. “When I met Amber the last time, it was aboard a space station.”

  “You what?” Decarin yelped, sitting up straight. “You, she, uh—”

  “Dec, I think you slipped a gear. Calm down and get your thoughts in order before you make more of a fool of yourself,” Emily said, smirking as she caused lightning to arc between her fingers.

  Decarin inhaled, sitting up straight as he considered. Lilith gave him time to get himself in order. The others looked surprised, but none of them were anywhere near as concerned as he seemed to be.

  “Alright, first off, how certain are you? Second, how in the hell did she get space bases? I know that she has stealth satellites, or suspect strongly after the incident with Omega Code, but space stations are an entirely different story. There’s no way she could hide a space station in orbit, not even a small one,” Decarin said, his shock still coloring his voice. “This is… hell, I’d be more surprised if Omega Code turned himself in tomorrow!”

  Gina opened her mouth, but Rachel spoke softly. “We should wait before asking questions, Gina.”

  “Alright, sorry,” Gina said, giving Lilith an embarrassed smile, then settled back in her chair.

  “Very certain. I felt the slight imbalance between gravity plates, and first noticed it when I took Blooming Orchid to get her body back to normal,” Lilith said, nodding to Claire, whose eyebrows
rose suddenly. “Yes, it was aboard a space station. While Circe never outright confirmed it, she praised my intelligence when I asked about it, or ignored the comment. If she was truly trying to hide it, she could have adjusted the gravity plates to hide it. Now, I don’t know how Amber managed it, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that she did. And yes, I’m as sure as you are that the orbital strike on Code Black was Circe, Dec.”

  “Ff…” Decarin began, but cut off his curse as he rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I don’t suppose you have the location of these stations?”

  “I’m afraid not. And it gets worse,” Lilith said, her smile widening a little, as a tiny part of her was taking glee in dropping this on other people. “From some things that I heard from her, as well as what you’ve told me about Mithtek, I’m pretty sure that she’s the one who attacked the ship that Mithtek came from. If she was, she has had an alien vessel with incredibly advanced, psionics-based technology for months.”

  “Okay, that sounds bad. Really bad,” Emily said, her smile vanishing as she looked at the table in contemplation. “I remember what that thing could do while in its power armor, and what happened to the tanks… that wasn’t even a gunship or something.”

  “Exactly,” Lilith said, as Decarin groaned, dropping his face into his palms. Shade reached over and gently began patting him on the back.

  “So… why are you telling us?” Shade asked, looking at her thoughtfully.

  “Someone who isn’t me needs to know,” Lilith said simply, shrugging as she glanced upward. “Besides, you can’t exactly take measures against a threat that you don’t know is there. I wish I could give you solid information, but…”

  “I believe that I’m going to need an air mask at a minimum, as well as some sort of thruster system to go higher,” Archon said decisively, tapping her fingers together thoughtfully. “Possibly a pressure suit, but I have not tested how I deal with vacuum. I believe that I can tolerate it, but I am not certain.”