by T. G. Ayer
I raced into my room and shoved my closet door wide open. Although my clothing had been torn off the hangers, and the shelves rifled through, the back wall appeared to be intact. The hidden space containing our weapons was still secure.
I returned to the living room grateful we were at least still armed.
“Why the hell don’t I smell them?” I mumbled. Then I let out a sharp laugh. “Hazmat suits.”
“What?” asked Logan as he checked the windows.
“Never mind,” I mumbled, heading to look through the rest of the apartment. It was a mess. When I got back to the living room Logan was busy straightening furniture and putting the totally ruined stuff in a pile beside the kitchen counter.
“Whoever they were, they were looking for something,” Grams said. I turned around to find her leaning against the front door jamb looking slightly sick.
“At least they didn’t get into the safe,” I said.
Grams nodded, and some of the sick look faded.
“What do you think they wanted?” I asked softly. Was it my fault?
“Could be my fault,” she said, watching Logan answer his buzzing phone. “Maybe digging around in top secret files wasn’t a good idea.” Her gaze returned to me and grinned. “More likely your fault. What have you been up to?”
Little did she know.
So I brought her up to speed; Lily’s disappearance, visiting the Graylands, ripping up cheeks that now showed no sign of damage. I skimmed lightly over the fact that I’d joined Omega and took her raised eyebrow and lack of comment to mean she’d deal with me later.
So I went on the offensive first.
“What happened to you today?” I asked. “Why didn’t you come to Dad’s? And where’s Mom?”
Grams shrugged. “I don’t know about Celeste. She said she had something to look after. And nothing happened to me. I went in to clear the air. I said I used to have full security clearance, and if that had been changed it was certainly done without notifying me. I told them that now I know the new protocols, I’d keep my nose out of things that my security status didn’t allow. And I didn’t pretend I wasn’t pissed off either. They seemed to believe me.”
She sighed, then gestured to the ruined room. “This, however, might indicate both of us were lying.”
“It could.” Logan pocketed his phone and wove his way through the mess toward us. “And then it could just as easily be something else. Maybe Omega got suspicious of Kai. Maybe Nevins alerted the mastermind and he wants to know what you know.”
I nodded. They were good points.
Grams raised her eyebrow again and walked over to the television as Logan joined me.
“Jess is collecting Baz for you,” he said, and the air in the middle of the living room began to shimmer. Jess materialized with a stricken Baz in tow.
“What the hell happened here?” he asked, his eyes widening as Grams straightened from her failed attempt at setting the television right. “Oh, I do apologize for my language, ma’am.” His skin flushed a darker shade of chocolate, and I hid a grin.
Grams, on the other hand, smiled brightly. “Young man, you should teach that particular brand of manners to a few people I know.”
I laughed. “Sorry, Grams. Only the Brits can do manners that well.”
She made a face then moved away to talk to Jess.
“Right, Baz,” I said. “Let’s get to it. What do you need?”
“A terminal to access the Omega servers,” he said.
Okay.
“Just a moment.” Grams abandoned Jess and hurried to my bedroom. “You can use my laptop. I think someone took it when they trashed my apartment.”
“Very sad,” I said.
Jess came to stand beside me, giving a soft huff in agreement to Grams’ idea.
Grams returned with the laptop and handed it to Baz. “You have one hour, and then I’ll report it stolen. Off you go.”
“Let me deal with the GPS first.” He sank to the floor. Opened the laptop and tapped away. Then he looked up with a grin. “I wonder when your burglary happened. The tracking system was activated two hours ago. I’ve disconnected it. We can go.”
“Give us half an hour,” I told Grams. “Then report it. That way it’ll look like the place was trashed, the GPS disabled and the laptop taken, then you arrived after they left.”
“If it wasn’t Sentinel.” Grams’ mouth tightened and she glanced at Jess then me. “You kids better go somewhere far away. And fast.” Then she met Baz’s eyes. “And you, young man, had better work faster than you’ve ever done in your life. All our lives are depending on it.”
Baz nodded, looking like he was about to choke. Grams did have that kind of effect on people.
I waved at Logan and grabbed hold of Jess’s arm as Baz did the same. Seconds later we materialized on the rooftop of a high-rise. I blinked and—doing a complete circle—scanned the horizon.
West of us a gleaming pyramid rose out of the desert, and with the conflagration of city lights I knew where we were. Las Vegas.
Baz had already made himself comfortable on the tile of the roof patio, crossing his legs to lay the laptop on his lap. He pulled on a pair of gloves, then shook out his hands in preparation. Soon, he was tapping away at the keys so fast I could hardly see his fingers move.
“Making good use of the vamp virus, I see,” I said.
“I do believe it does have its advantages.”
“Just don’t fry the keyboard, okay.”
He didn’t even look up.
Jess and I waited a few feet from the vamp, watching the twinkling lights that surrounded us like a sea of glowing bugs.
Baz had been working for only a few minutes, yet I felt like hours had passed. I began to tap my foot. “Baz. How’s it going?”
“I’ve written a program that’ll search the Omega system for files containing certain keywords. Termination, ammunition, certain locations, Section Seven—anything that could be considered a connection.”
I nodded. “Sounds good. So now we wait?”
He grunted, and began to type again.
“Something happening?”
“I’m refining the search fields.”
As he worked I moved over to Jess. The look she gave me made my stomach drop.
“What did your High Council say?”
“They want him brought back to our headquarters in Italy,” she murmured. “He will stand trial there. And they want it kept secret.”
“I understand why, but keeping it a secret won’t be easy.” I gestured to Baz. “We’re all involved. What will you do? Wipe out all our memories?”
Jess shook her head. “The High Council understands certain key people will remember. We will just have to trust you will honor your word.”
I hadn’t yet given any such word—but I didn’t think that fact worth mentioning.
Chapter 49
THE LAPTOP PINGED AND I flew to Baz’s side. “What is it?”
He pointed at the screen. “Here. A file belonging to a Colonel Gunther. It’s a confirmation that Agent Nevins’s services will be on loan to Division Seven for an unspecified time, on a top-secret mission. The name of the requester has been redacted, even from the Omega top secret files. Which is weird. I’m four levels deep so this far down nothing should be hidden.”
I frowned. Could those redacted portions be reference to Storm? I glanced up at Jess and saw the hardening of her jaw. She was thinking the very same thing.
Then he tapped again, and leaned closer to the screen. “And here, a list of orders for items from another facility called Area X.” He laughed. “Yeah, it’s really called Area X. The files are marked Top Secret too, and it looks like someone has tried to wipe them.”
I nodded, my gut tightening. Those would be products made as a result of experimentation done on paranormals like Mom.
“This is proof that Omega is guilty of experimentation.”
I sounded dead. I felt the same. All along I’d wanted t
o find the proof that Omega was dirty and now that I had, my emotions were all twisted. Was it Logan’s connection with Omega that made me feel this way?
“I can see a solid paper trail from Omega HQ to this facility,” Baz continued, unaware of the hurricane that was my emotions. “They were commissioned to create something—what it is and what it does has also been redacted.”
“As they were experimenting on paranormals,” I said, “I’d bet they’re working on a weapon designed to kill or weaken us.”
Jess merely nodded. Baz continued, muttering things like ‘confirm design and makeup’, ‘design and construction of paranormal energy detector’, production quantities, and shipment destinations.
He let out a dissatisfied grunt. “Destination: classified.”
“Check if the code has military prefixes,” suggested Jess.
Baz gave her an odd look, then continued tapping. Good thing he’d been turned or this business would have taken much longer. As it was, we were running out of time.
“Can you copy the files?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not to this laptop. But I can reroute the files to a secure online server I use. I can reroute and cloak the destination enough times to stay ahead of them long enough to download the files before they discover they’ve been taken.”
He focused for a few moments, and suddenly a low buzzing started.
“Bloody hell,” he snarled, resuming his frantic typing. Seconds later, he dropped the laptop on the ground in front of him and spun away. The device began to smoke, then spark, and emit a metallic burning smell.
“Self-destruct?” I asked.
Baz shook his head. “No. It’s a program written into the Omega server. It found us and followed us back to the laptop.”
“Did you get the files copied in time,” I asked. He nodded. “Right, then let’s get the hell outta here.”
I turned to Jess. “Could you take us to my Dad’s. We need to keep Baz safe.”
We both knew I meant safe from Storm.
We left the laptop on the roof of the building in Las Vegas and were inside my Dad’s front hall within seconds.
“What do we have here?” asked Mom as she walked out of the kitchen, a steaming mug in her hand.
“Mom, where have you been?” I asked, giving her a hug.
She laughed. “In hiding. There’s been a bunch of strange things going on with the High Council, so Dad figured it was best for me to lie low.”
“So the best place is with Dad?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Seems ironic eh?” she laughed. “What’s happening?’
I introduced her to Baz, and gave a brief rundown telling her we had to keep him safe.
She nodded and crooked her finger at him. “Come get something to eat and then I’ll show you a room. You’ll have to put up with a rowdy pair of goblin twins, though.”
Baz’s eyes widened. “I appreciate any help, ma’am.”
I touched Baz on the shoulder. “I have something for you to do as well.” I pulled Grams’ chip from my pocket and handed it to him. “Can you find out what’s on that drive that could be dangerous or liable to get someone killed for knowing it?”
He grinned. “It will be my pleasure. And how convenient that I wouldn’t need to be killed for it?”
I shook my head as Mom laughed softly, giving the flash drive a glance. “Something of yours?”
“It’s Grams’,” I told her. “Maybe you could lend Baz a few gray cells?”
Mom nodded and headed into the kitchen. “Do you girls need food?” she called over her shoulder as she went.
“No, thanks Mom.” The thought of food made me want to hurl. I looked at Jess. “You?”
Jess shook her head. “Thank you, Celeste but I have to leave soon. I will return Kailin to her apartment. I will be back to see you as soon as I can. It is past time we caught up.”
More secret relationships between Jess and my family. I was no longer surprised.
I called out a quick goodbye to Mom as Jess took my arm. Mom’s farewell echoed around me as we disappeared and materialized in my apartment.
Sounds from Grams’ shower confirmed she was home.
We had scarcely solidified before Jess spoke. “There is much that I have to tell you, but perhaps I will begin with Logan’s past.”
That took the wind from my sails.
“Logan’s memories,” she said, “the ones that are returning, pertain to something crucially important from his past.”
“He thinks he’s remembering a girl, around his own age.” I told her, hoping to open her up more.
Jess nodded. “She is very important to him, to his past, and—quite honestly—to who he is. As I have told you before, there is much about Logan that nobody is yet aware of. I must stress again that Logan is far more important than he realizes.”
All good to know, but she still wasn’t giving me anything concrete.
“I know this may seem like I am telling you very little but I am not yet allowed to provide you with direct information.”
I thought I knew what she was saying. She couldn’t feed me direct information but she could point me to what lay between the lines.
There was still one more thing. She had promised me more information about the Ni’amh. Before I could form the question, she held out a hand. A white envelope shimmered into solidity on her open palm.
She held it there, saying not a word. I took it and pocketed it in silence. I didn’t even say ‘thank you’ but she seemed happy that I hadn’t.
“If you want to help him,” she said, “you must ensure he pushes himself harder to break the wall between him and the truth of his memories. The secret is there, locked deep within his mind, and only he is able to break through. No matter how painful it is, he must keep trying.”
“Why?” I whispered. “Can you at least tell me why?”
“Because if he stops trying, he will be lost.”
Chapter 50
WE’D COMMANDEERED MY FATHER’S DINING room and split the files among Logan, Mom, Baz and me, working late into the night.
Mom had confirmed that the Walker High Council had requested she be brought in for questioning and so she’d spent a lot of time inside Dad’s safe-room.
The High Council wasn’t aware of the safe-room so they hadn’t checked there, and the people they’d posted to watch the house had had to remain outside to do their watching. According to Dad, they’d need an official warrant to search the property. So Mom was safe for now.
She was certainly safer there than our apartment building with all the attacks and home invasions.
I’d tried to contact Anjelo repeatedly over the last few hours and I didn’t intend to stop trying. I wished he wasn’t the type of person who would close himself off when he was hurting.
We’d scoured the files which we’d downloaded from the server, and they managed to fill in a number of gaps in our knowledge.
A secondary layer of protected files confirmed communication between the US military and Omega’s munitions design division. The reports had been lightly coded—easy enough for Baz to break—and revealed that Omega had been experimenting on a wide range of paranormals, extracting DNA, and redeveloping it in order to enhance the government’s human soldiers.
More importantly, the humans had had their memories of the enhancement removed, leaving them with psychologically planted triggers that would engage those enhanced powers on demand.
One entire file contained details of Brett Nevins’ recruitment dating from two years previously. He’d been convinced by his handler that something called inferior paranormals existed, and then empowered with the task of eradicating those paranormals, and named Omega Liaison.
Logan closed the file and then sat back, rubbing his eyes. The endless pots of darkly brewed coffee had helped, but fatigue was starting to take its toll on all of us. I felt it particularly hard since this would be the second night of no sleep.
“I’m still
trying to figure out why Omega would get in bed with the US government,” he said. “If the aim was for humans to benefit from paranormal enhancement then it would make a sort of sense. But the order to eliminate paranormals doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Still thinking of Storm, I said, “Maybe there is someone else orchestrating all of it. Someone outside both Omega and Sentinel, someone outside the government hierarchy, too. Getting the US government on board would help to maintain secrecy. Nobody wants to piss them off, or endanger their organization’s relationship with the military. Sentinel and Omega both respect the governments of countries around the world. Nobody wants to get on the wrong side of either agency. Creating official, if top secret, associations with them would ensure any nefarious activity would remain secret, by order of both organizations.”
“And maybe this same mastermind has more to his plans than he’s shared with either the military or Omega. He’s using both of them.” Logan gave a nod of begrudging admiration.
“And he pulls the puppet strings as and when he wishes,” Baz said.
“Which explains why there’s nothing in the files about killing or massacres.” I twisted to ease the tightness in my back.
“Do you think the government is unaware of the murders?” asked Mom.
“Who knows?”
“I have to speak to Nevins,” said Logan. “For all we know, he’s been lied to or even brainwashed into this.”
He had to be joking. “Are you insane?”
Baz glanced up. “He’s probably right. If he speaks to Nevins directly, Logan can figure out if the guy’s mind’s been effed with.”
“It makes sense,” Mom said, although she didn’t look happy. “I don’t like it. You’ll be putting yourself in too much danger. But it makes the best sense.”
She gave me a ‘sorry for agreeing with the guys’ look, but I’d already realized they were right. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
Logan got to his feet and looked at me. “And as much as I don’t like the idea, you should come too.”
“I’m flattered,” I said as I got to my feet. “And I’ll agree on one condition.”
