“How did they react?”
“None of them struggled against their bonds. The men never said a word. The woman finally broke enough under Zahra’s questioning to call her a stupid bitch then informed us that they weren't the only ones after Zahra, merely the first to get to her. She looked pretty damn smug when she added that once the next stage of her plan took effect, everyone else could kiss her ass because she’d have the ultimate bargaining chip.”
“Did you see when she injected Zahra?”
“No. I don’t think Zahra even knew it happened. She was rubbing her hand and staring into the distance just after the Wardens transported the three attackers. When I asked if everything was all right, she mentioned that she’d picked something up from the woman and wasn't sure what it meant but didn't indicate that anything else was amiss. It was soon after that, while we were en route to the Wardens’ office to make our reports, when she suddenly grew so dizzy that she had to get off her hoverboard. She managed to tell me that everything was spinning, and to get her to that particular house of healing and ask for Healer Mithrae before she fell unconscious.”
“At which point you acted, of course. How long were you there before you contacted me?”
“Not long. Just enough time for the healer to scan her then tell me he couldn’t ID the Zytoclastine, and that he needed her armor off.”
She nodded as she processed that. “Did you pick up anything else from the attackers?”
“Only that she was the target. I was an inconvenience. Although I believe they intended to make sure I wouldn’t bother them again if they did manage to subdue me.”
A twist of her shoulder indicated Sari’s agreement as we approached the back entrance to the Wardens’ offices. She stopped and pivoted to face me. “Draft your written report and submit it. Then we’ll listen to what our prisoners have to say. I think it’ll prove interesting.” Her predatory smile indicated that she looked forward to it.
SHE DROPPED THE SHIELD, and we walked inside, down the straight hallway and deeper into the facility. Once we reached an empty room where we could write our reports, we dropped into chairs on opposite ends of a long table and pulled up the holoscreens. Silence reigned as we worked.
About a half hour later, I hit ‘Submit’ and dismissed my screen. Sari dismissed hers a minute later, then stood and stretched. I saw her slight wince just before her arms reached full extension.
“Knots in your neck again?”
She slowly rolled her head from side to side as she stretched her neck. “Yes.” She chuckled mid-roll. “This one is Zahra’s doing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
“Our last fitting turned into a full-on training session rather than moderate sparring. She pulled off some good moves.”
“That sounds like something I’d like to see.” My roguish grin drew a chuckle from her while I moved to her end of the table. I dug my thumbs into the knot at the base of her neck. “Damn. Must’ve been good moves. This thing’s tight as hell.”
She hung her head as I dug in. “They were. I didn’t power up on her, but I had to work once she settled into going all-out. We both broke a sweat.”
“I’m impressed—also surprised you let it go that far. You’re usually pretty careful to adhere to your 'light sparring only' rule during fittings.”
She angled her head to the left and used her left hand to apply light traction as I worked along the bottom edge of the knot. “I didn’t intend to go all-out like that, but we also used her fitting to test a few things.” She snorted a laugh. “They worked.”
I eased up on the pressure and rubbed her neck and shoulders a few times before I dropped my hands and stepped back. “Why do I have the feeling there’s more you aren’t telling me?”
She let go of her head and slowly rolled it back upright. “Because there is. And right now, it’s not mine to tell.” A quick twist of her head from side to side resulted in a soft pop as her spine shifted back into place. “Ahh, much better. Thank you, Gavin.” She gestured to the door. “Shall we go see what songs our jailbirds are singing?”
“Lead the way.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Gavin
WE HEADED DOWN A DIFFERENT corridor toward the isolation cells. Roughly ten minutes and a few flights of stairs down to the lower levels, we reached the security checkpoint. A disembodied voice challenged us as we drew closer to a softly-glowing arch that provided access to the handful of cells in the hallway beyond.
“Sari and Gavin. We’re expected in the interrogation room’s remote viewing chamber. Protocol Zed-one-five-nine-seven-Echo-Sierra.” Sari’s crisp reply triggered an instant response as she headed straight toward the arch without slowing her pace.
Lights ringing the arch flashed to brilliant white then held steady. When Sari walked through, each went green in a cascading flow from the center top to the floor. A quiet chime sounded as she cleared them, and the lights reset to white. I passed through with the same results.
Once beyond the arch, a door on our left glowed green. The voice directed us to it. The door slid aside with a quiet hiss as we approached, then closed behind us. My ears popped, and my senses felt somehow deadened as soon as it sealed shut. I looked around and noted the two chairs with padded seats in front of a dimly-lit wall-to-wall screen that stretched from floor to ceiling, and the strings of tiny lights embedded in the walls at baseboard and ceiling heights on the other three walls. Between the lights and the screen, there was enough light to see but not enough to make out fine details.
Sari took the seat on the right and gestured me to the other. As soon as I sat, the screen brightened, and the volume came up on the audio feed. The scene playing out in front of us wasn’t quite what I’d expected.
Zahra’s attacker knelt on the floor, fully clothed, arms wrapped around her interrogator’s legs and body shaking as she sobbed.
“There, my pet. See what happens when you do as asked instead of resisting?” The masked person—I couldn’t tell if it was a male or female from either its voice or physical form, even though the mask was open around its mouth—dropped a hand to the woman’s head and gently stroked her hair.
“What the fuck?”
“Shh.” Sari gestured peremptorily toward the screen. “Watch and listen.”
The interrogator waited a few moments longer, still stroking the woman’s hair. “Are you ready to continue, Gratayana?”
The woman lifted her head. I was stunned to see that her face was now gaunt, tear-soaked, and marked with deep lines of pain, although she didn’t appear to have any injuries. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy with tears. When I looked closer, I noticed that she was sweat-sodden as well. What in the chaos-driven hells had brought her to that point in the relatively short amount of time since the attack?
“I d-don’t kn-know what else I c-can tell you.” Hiccupping sobs broke her answer.
“You can tell me why you attacked the woman—what did you say her name was? Zahra?—and whether it was your idea or someone else’s.”
The interrogator’s voice never changed from its calm, even tone but the woman answered as quickly as if it had been a whip-crack command.
“Word reached me through sources that someone named Wyvern wanted her and was willing to pay well after she killed Pyrras. It seems she fucked up more than one ongoing plan and he wanted revenge. Or easy money. Maybe both. I agreed to go after her. It was a contract, nothing more.”
“Go on.”
“There’s nothing more—” her back arched and she screamed as her hands flew to her head.
“Don’t lie, my pet.”
“Okay! Okay! I was going to grab her and turn her over but learned a few more things while planning that sounded like a better deal for me. At that point, I decided against handing her over to Wyvern if I could subvert her instead. Then I’d have the ultimate bargaining tool, which means I’d have the power and leverage to get what I want once the Tetrarchy falls.” She relaxed and
dropped her hands after she provided that information.
“What did you learn, and how did you learn about it?”
“There was some information about her powers and what she needs to unlock them posted on a cloned database I hacked into.”
“What else?” A warning tone entered the interrogator’s voice when the woman—she’d been addressed as Gratayana, I recalled—didn’t immediately answer. “Are you asking for more pain, my pet?”
“No! Please, no.” Gratayana shuddered. “I discovered some interesting theories on the darknet about her possible heritage. While I didn’t put a lot of stock in them, the one about her possibly being an empath seems to be at least semi-accurate. If she is, she might have esper DNA. And if that’s the case, the Zytoclastine injection should’ve given me a mental path to subvert her.”
“And if she isn’t, or it didn’t work? What then?”
Gratayana shrugged. “If she recovered from the Zytoclastine with her senses intact, I’d have either tried to subvert her a different way or turned her over to Wyvern.”
“How and where did you get your hands on Zytoclastine?”
“How—through the darknet. Whoever had the information for sale used multiple cutouts I haven’t been able to unravel. They know tradecraft and have a serious amount of ‘cover your ass’ in place. Where—I can’t tell you that.” Tears streamed down Gratayana’s cheeks as she clutched her head again and her body shook under the effects of whatever her interrogator was doing. “I swear it’s the truth! I can’t tell you because I don’t know exactly where I was when the exchange took place! All I know is that I flew to Aristanian space, met someone at the coordinates given, then had to wear a kind of forcefield that obscured all the details around me while we traveled elsewhere. The two people I met wore robes, masks, and hoods, and used voice distorters. There’s no possible way for me to recognize them or the location.”
Just then a different speaker in our room came to life as the interrogator’s voice issued from it. “She knows more, but it will take some time yet to extract it. I will contact you when I have the rest.”
Although my eyes never left the screen, I didn't see the interrogator’s lips move when he or she spoke.
Sari stood and obeyed the implicit dismissal without hesitation or verbal acknowledgment. I followed suit. We walked out through the security checkpoint and headed upstairs without speaking. One flight before the main floor where we’d come in, Sari pulled me to a stop as she laid her hand on the wall, fingers splayed, and leaned toward it as though looking at something. A moment later a section of the wall sank into itself then silently slid to the side, revealing a dimly-lit narrow corridor. Sari angled her body and stepped through the opening. I had to turn sideways to follow her or risk jamming both shoulders on the doorframe.
Once the door sealed shut behind us, Sari motioned me into a small room some five paces ahead of us on the right. I noticed it had the same deadening effects as the room we’d just left. Sari took no chances with being overheard, however, since she activated the privacy shield she’d used at the Fête as soon as the door closed and got straight to the point.
“What’s your take on what we’ve learned so far?”
“You mean other than the target on Zahra is even bigger than we knew?” I shook my head. “We’ve got a shitstorm about to land on us. The more I hear about the plan to overthrow the Tetrarchy, the more it seems as though outside influences are driving it more than internal.”
“Agreed. What are your impressions and reactions to the information and suppositions about Zahra?”
My head tilted to the side as I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted my weight to one leg while I studied Sari and considered her question. “Based on what little I know from direct experience, she’s going to be one hell of a strong empath. Whether she has other talents more commonly found in the race of espers living on Aristan, I don’t know. Does having those talents mean she has their DNA? Not necessarily, although again, I don’t know. Mental abilities like that exist in many races and beings.”
She gazed at me steadily as she leaned against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, and one leg bent with the sole of her shoe flat against its matte gray surface. “Do you think that might be why the two of you can use telepathy with each other?”
I shook my head. “No. Not unless sin’yai are limited to those with esper heritage. Since as far as I know that kind of heritage doesn’t exist in the last dozen or so generations of my bloodline, it would seem to rule it out.”
Subtle hints of a smile appeared. “That took fewer prompts than I expected.”
I thought back over her question and my reply, then mock-glared at her. “I’d already admitted it to you if you recall.”
Her amused look deepened. “You had. But to hear you acknowledge it so naturally was enlightening.” She sobered. “Much needs to be discussed. Unfortunately, we need Zahra to be part of that conversation. Which means we need her to recover as quickly as possible.” She swore softly but stopped at the arrested look on my face.
“Wait a minute. Zahra heard me speak to her telepathically before we left the house of healing. Maybe we can use that. At least to convey some of the information to her.”
“Hmm. That might be a possibility. We’ll need to check with Healer Mithrae first, though.”
“Of course. Zahra's health and wellbeing come first.” I pinned Sari with stern eyes. “That’s not negotiable. Ever.”
“Of course it’s not, Gavin.” Her tone was slightly offended. “I care for her too, you know.”
My eyebrows shot up as several ways to construe that comment raced across my mind. “You mean...”
“I mean that I care for her. Now, we should probably check with the healer then get some rest ourselves. It may be some time yet before we hear anything more from Gratayana’s interrogator. Once we do, we’ll need to plan our next actions and strategy carefully. I don’t think we have much more time before this shitstorm, as you so accurately called it, hits the high-speed fan.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Zahra
I SLOWLY CAME TO MY senses as the fog in my brain reluctantly gave way to clear thought. The clean scent in the air and the soothing atmosphere immediately informed me that I was in a house of healing. The lack of equipment around me and the familiar walls when I opened my eyes indicated it was the “no technology” area in the Vine Street house. I knew it well since I often volunteered there in addition to preferring the healers as my primary caregivers.
Healer Mithrae and I had something of a rapport—we’d worked together several times to treat women who’d come in after they'd received some of Pyrras’ and his cronies less-than-charming attentions. While the women were sometimes hesitant to speak to the healers at first, they’d often talk to me. Between us, we’d collected evidence and testimonials about a suspected cabal of misogynistic assholes who attempted to live out their sick and twisted fantasies of subjugating every woman they got their hands on.
A polite throat-clearing from the doorway announced the healer’s arrival before he walked in. I winced as he came closer. While I knew he'd shielded, my empathic senses were raw and sensitive. Much more so than I remembered.
“Ground and center, Zahra. Then spin up a shield to filter everything out, but don't lose the sense of it completely.”
Oddly enough, I knew what he meant for me to do even though he’d never taught me anything like that before. It was uncanny, as though he'd followed my thoughts. He added, “It’s not your thoughts I followed. It’s your emotions and your physical tells. I’m trained to look for them, as you well know.”
I absently nodded as I built my shields and spun them to encompass me from head to toe, then thickened them until everything was bearable. The relief once I’d done so was profound. Muscles I hadn’t even known I'd tensed relaxed, and my thoughts became less clouded.
“I expect you have questions now that you’re awake. I’m afraid you’ll need to wai
t for answers, though. Sari and Gavin asked me to wait for them so we can pool information and best guesses. For now, do you recall what happened to bring you here as a patient?”
“Yes. Gavin and I were attacked in Sohto Park earlier today. Wait, it is still today, right?”
“It’s the day after, although less than twenty-four hours from when it happened.”
“I need to write and submit my report for the Wardens. When can I do that?”
“You've recovered much faster than I originally anticipated, so as soon as you can make it to one of the outer offices and a secured holoscreen. But not,” Healer Mithrae added as I sat up, “until I’ve checked you over and you’ve demonstrated that you can stay upright and walk with no ill effects.”
I laid back on the bed as he held his hand over me and slowly scanned me from head to toe using his power. While some swore by technology for full-body scans that determined one’s health and well-being, I preferred natural healers. They often picked up on nuances that even the most advanced scan systems either missed or misinterpreted.
Like now, as he demonstrated when he laid his hands on my temples. “Excellent job with the shields. May I ask how you knew to build them this way, and did it so quickly? I didn’t give you any instruction beyond telling you to ground and center, then spin them up.”
“I just knew. It was a little odd, but I assumed it was something I picked up from you when you said it. It made sense, so I tried it.”
He lifted his hands then settled a hip onto the edge of my bed, near my legs. “Interesting. What kinds of activities and emotions can you pick up within the building?”
I thinned my shields until I perceived everyone around me. “Rasana is upset and feels worthless. Tourmion is trying to comfort her but can barely hold himself together in the face of so much pain and self-doubt. Neetra wonders if she should intervene.” I looked at him briefly. “It might be best if she did. There is more going on with Rasana than Tourmion can handle at this stage of his training.”
Zahra Unveiled Page 18
