Abameta, though, knew who she was, because she was in the files that Folami had provided: Akanke, one of the Ori-Inu who'd gone missing, and whose disappearances that Orisha had been investigating when the refinery blew up.
What is she doing here?
Akanke's voice sounded in his head. Killing you.
She aimed her wrist cannon right at Abameta's chest, but Abameta was able to dive behind the bar.
Mogbe, those are rifle rounds, Abameta thought as he looked quickly around, sighting a whiskey bottle in the grip of the dead bartender's hand. He could hear the reports of Akin's Bayo and Akanke's wrist rifle across the restaurant, and Abameta had a feeling that his fellow Ori-Inu was going to come out on the wrong end of that one.
Sure enough, Akin screamed a moment later.
Akanke then stuck her head over the bar. "It's all over, old man." She aimed her wrist cannon at Abameta.
Abameta said, "I've heard that before."
He grabbed the bottle from the bartender's hand and shoved it, bottom-first, into the barrel of the wrist cannon, then ducked under the bartender's corpse.
The rifle round smashed into the glass of the bottle, igniting the alcohol inside, and retarding the round's momentum before it could clear the barrel. Akanke screamed in agony as her forearm was shredded by the blast.
Shrapnel flew through the air, much of it slicing into the bartender—who was beyond feeling it—and into Abameta's left leg—which wasn't. But he ignored the pain, wishing he had his body armor with its supply of painkillers.
It would only take Akanke a few seconds to recover, and Abameta needed to use those seconds to report this in. As he pulled out his comm unit, he sensed other attacks happening elsewhere in Kaduna. This is really really bad.
Once he activated the unit, he barked, "This is an emergency. We need backup immediately to assist against hostiles."
"Repeat, Abameta, you're breaking up."
Abameta snarled. "We need backup—we're under attack."
"By who?"
"The missing Ori-Inu. Aaaaarrrrrrrrrhhhhhhh!"
Akanke was now trying to fry his brain. But Abameta had known Akanke back in the day, and he knew that she was only a fifth-level—the minimum required for being a proper telepath.
So Abameta struck back.
Or tried to. As a sixth-level, Abameta should have had the upper hand, but instead he was barely able to hold his own. They were locked together.
Nice try, but I'm much stronger than your old ass now.
Abameta grimaced. Stronger than you were, maybe. You used to use your brains to compensate. You never would've fallen for that trick with the whiskey bottle in the old days, Akanke. What happened?
You want to know what happened? Shango-oti freed me, old man, that's what happened!
Suddenly, Abameta realized that this wasn't just a hit on Ori-Inu. Shango-oti was what Ojiji was developing. Apparently, it was already in use supercharging Ori-Inu.
Abameta's first thoughts were to his duty as an Ori-Inu. I have to live long enough to report this.
That is not happening, old man! You're already dead, you just haven't stopped breathing yet.
Abameta knew better. Normally, he'd be right, but Akanke's injuries were starting to get the better of her. Her right arm was a useless stump, and her attention was split between shutting off her pain receptors and fighting Abameta.
Even so, it took everything Abameta had to try to push through Akanke's shields, even temporarily, trying to sense what Akanke was trying to hide...
...returning from a mission, the ship coming under attack...
...being boarded by Ori-Inu in strange white armor...
...meeting Oranmiyan and being given a chance for freedom...
...fighting Oranmiyan and losing...
...waking up with her neural implant gone and her telepathy increased...
...becoming a Nide.
It's over, Akanke, Abameta said. I'm going to beat you.
No chance. Akanke's smile widened.
Abameta felt his own shields start to crumble. This makes no sense, she's just a fifth-level—
And then he realized what it was he'd read in her thoughts. She wasn't fifth-level, not anymore.
Abameta tried to call for help, but all his focus had to be on maintaining his own psychic shields against Akanke's increasingly nasty onslaught until someone—anyone—could come to his aid.
His last thoughts before Akanke's mindblasted him were regret that he wouldn't be able to give a final report.
SEVEN
Oshun
By the time Folami landed on Oshun, all the other Ori-Inu were dead. She'd felt them die in her mind.
Just all those people in Nupe...
Mogbe!
It was another memory, clear as a holograph, fleeting as a breath. Folami was used to feeling people die—it was part of life as a tenth-level—but these were her comrades. What was worse was that most of them were killed without all that much of a fight.
Two of them didn't even have the chance to try to fight—the pair she'd sent to the orbital station were destroyed when a ship came out of nowhere and blew the station to atoms. Tobi had tried to retaliate, but L'owuro's scanners couldn't get a fix on the ship that did the deed.
She was going down to the surface now with a contingent from Rufiji Company, originally with the notion of backing up the Ori-Inu, but by the time the dropship landed, it had become revenge.
So be it. I beat the Eso, I'll beat these people. She tried not to think about how, precisely, she was supposed to beat an unknown number of ex-Ori-Inu, who apparently had been hyped up on this Shango-oti stuff, based on how easily they took out their former comrades.
Updates were coming in from L'owuro. "The refinery's been completely leveled. Whatever was left intact after the explosion is gone now. Reports are coming in of strange people in white armor appearing out of nowhere."
Folami turned to Cavalry Master Apara, who'd been promoted to replace Fasina, something that Cavalry Master Morayo resented. "Abameta said that these were the missing Ori-Inu. They must have some of the same stealth tech."
Apara just shrugged. She wasn't one to speak overmuch, which Folami suspected was why Tobi had promoted her over the more outspoken Morayo. The war chief generally preferred to be the only outspoken person in the room.
The dropship put down smoothly just outside where the refinery used to be.
When Folami stepped out, the stench nearly made her fall over. The stink of burning metal mixed with the overwhelming odor of spilled blood.
Dead bodies were strewn amid the rubble. A quick glance was enough to make Folami realize why there was so much blood: it was oozing out of their eyes and noses and ears.
Which meant that they were mindblasted.
A sufficiently powerful psi could simply fry someone's brain, and this was the result. But Folami had never seen anything on this scale before.
Yes, you have! In Nupe.
Another recollection, this of a stadium full of people, hundreds of them...
Killed by me. For Olorun's sport.
Then, just as quickly, the memory was gone.
Fighting down the nausea, both at the stench here on Oshun and the awful realization that she'd been responsible for something similar in the past, Folami managed to move out and allow the rest of Rufiji Company to fall in.
Whoever did this, Folami decided, is going to pay.
Then she felt it.
"We're not alone," she told Apara. "There's a telepath heading right for us."
Apara checked the scanner in her helmet. "I'm not picking anything up."
"Oh, she's good," Folami said, a frown forming on her face. "But she's here." She closed her eyes a moment, and concentrated, showing Apara what she sensed.
"Whoa!" Apara stumbled for a second, her armor keeping her upright.
This telepath had placed a psionic perceptual filter in the heads of Apara and the other members of Rufiji. No wonder
the other Ori-Inu didn't stand a chance, Folami thought.
All of a sudden, the woman became visible. Folami could sense some of her surface thoughts. She called herself "Nide," the next generation of Ori-Inu.
More to the point, this was Foluke, one of the Ori-Inu that had been reported missing.
But there was more—her thoughts were hyped up, random, more active.
Stronger.
And she had committed murder a dozen times over. Tasked with destroying all evidence of Ojiji, she had gone further and casually killed anyone who happened to be in the area: relief workers trying to retrieve the bodies of those killed in the explosion, doctors and medics and nurses tending to the injured, engineers and construction workers trying to determine how the place could be rebuilt.
All dead at the hands of this so-called Nide.
Ori-Inu existed to protect the Hegemony and its citizenry. Nide perverted all of that. Folami's nausea now was even worse—and so was her anger.
Conveniently, she even had a target for it.
Foluke spoke. "It's over, Folami. We already took care of the others. We don't want to have to take care of you, as well."
Folami smiled. "Oh, you won't be."
Clenching her fists, Folami reached out with her mind and tore through Foluke's armor, ripping through its circuitry.
Even as her armor sparked and burned and shorted out, Folami aimed her Bayo and blasted a hole in her chest.
Rufiji Company hadn't even had a chance to react before Folami killed the Nide. Apara slowly said, "Uh, that—that was—well, impressive. Woulda been nice to have one to question, though."
"They're called Nide. They're what Ojiji appears to be about. They've all been exposed to the same Shango-oti gas that was released by the refinery explosion."
"Very good, Folami. You're still the best."
Folami whirled around toward the source of the voice. Somehow, one of the Nide had managed to sneak up on all of them without her sensing it.
Prepared for another fight, she felt her stomach flutter when she realized that she recognized the person who had spoke.
"Oranmiyan? But—but you're dead!"
"Interesting." Oranmiyan seemed surprised. "You remember me?"
Memories leapt to the fore, then disappeared. Training missions, meals shared, classes… "I— Yes, we—didn't we train together?"
"That's right, Folami."
She forcefully tamped down the memories. "You're responsible for this massacre, aren't you?"
"There's a lot more going on here, Folami. Why don't you come back with me to Olokun Station? Abeje'll be there, too."
More memories—no, the same ones. Abeje and Oranmiyan and Folami, all training with Hembadoon.
"You took Abeje?" Folami raised her Bayo. "What is going on here, Oranmiyan? I want answers, now!"
But Oranmiyan just smiled and turned and ran into the streets of Kaduna Township. Folami—who was used to using her telepathy to aid in targeting—was frustrated by her inability to get a fix on Oranmiyan.
Another memory: Oranmiyan mindlinking with an Oyo super-soldier, and unable to be read by any telepaths after that, not even Folami.
But the clearest memory she had of Oranmiyan was his dying. She even remembered his memorial.
Snarling, she chased after him, ignoring the pleas of Cavalry Master Apara.
The streets of Kaduna Township were covered in corpses and damaged buildings, whether by the Eso, the explosion, or the Nide. Seeing the carnage, the destruction, only lent urgency to Folami's task as she ran through the streets.
But she didn't see the bodies of the citizens of Kaduna. No, she saw Olorun, the self-styled God of the Oyo Empire, who had groomed Folami as his greatest weapon. She saw the prisoners of the state arrayed in the soccer stadium, lined up for Folami to mindblast at his command. She saw Olorun's chamberlain try to recruit her to his coup, instead dying at her hands for his treason. She saw a mineshaft destroyed by her telekinesis, supposedly the secret headquarters of the chamberlain's allies, but only filled with innocent miners, dead at her hands.
She saw Hembadoon, who risked his life to infiltrate enemy territory and rescue her from Yemoja.
Her one condition on accepting the Orisha's offer to become an Ori-Inu for the Hegemony—the Oyo Empire's blood enemy—was a guarantee that she'd be mindwiped at the end of it so she'd never have to remember the deaths.
And now she was remembering them all over again.
There was something else, something she couldn't quite grasp, something that happened at the end of her training, but it stayed just out of her mental reach. She wasn't even sure she wanted to know what it was, given what else she remembered.
I'm going to catch up to you, Oranmiyan.
Gotta find me first, sweets.
Folami snarled again. Now he was simply taunting her by projecting his thoughts.
And she was sick of it.
She reached out with her mind and ripped apart the building nearest to her. If Oranmiyan was running along the rooftop, or using it to hide behind, she would expose him.
Brick, mortar, adobe, and metal shattered and twisted, screaming into the night as Folami's mind ripped the structures to pieces, hoping to expose Oranmiyan.
But he wasn't there.
At least, not physically. She couldn't find him with her eyes or her mind, but he was still continuing to taunt her telepathically. You don't understand, sweets, Shango-oti will free you.
Screaming, she tore another building to rubble. Free me to do what? she thought back at him. To remember? I already remember more than I ever wanted to thanks to just a little bit of Shango-oti. Or maybe you mean I'll be free to commit mass murder?
Means to an end, sweets.
I'm taking you down, you filthy buruku!
She pumped her legs through the devastated streets, tossing ground vehicles aside, blowing out windows and searching desperately for some kind of sign of Oranmiyan.
Then she cursed herself for forgetting her training—
…the training I did with Oranmiyan…
—and she activated the HUD in her suit. She and Oranmiyan had to be the only two people running through the city streets right now, beyond official vehicles like ambulances and enforcement—the few she hadn't destroyed, anyhow—and she could screen those from the search.
That scan revealed that Oranmiyan was right over her head.
Stopping, she looked up to see Oranmiyan crouching on the roof of one of the few buildings left intact. "About time you noticed, sweets."
"Don't call me that! Do you know what you've done?"
"We've been doing a lot more than that, Folami. And you can be part of it. Come with me—be free!"
"Free? You can't be serious," she said, keeping her weapon lowered. Oranmiyan was too fast for her to get a bead on him, and the roof had a cornice that ran deep and out of her line of fire.
"I'm completely serious, sweets. It's true—and I'll prove it to you! Now or later, it's your choice."
"Try never."
Then she concentrated and shattered the cornice. Hoping it would startle Oranmiyan, instead, he leapt backward just as it happened, doing a perfect backflip. His dreadlocks flipping behind him, he landed neatly on his feet, aiming his Ayoka at her face.
"Nice try, sweets, but we trained together, remember? Your nose always wrinkles when you're about to use the telekinesis."
He fired the weapon.
Folami was able to dodge the round by diving to the side, telekinetically moving herself and the bullet both. The round shattered a piece of rubble that was right behind her.
By the time she got to her feet, only a second later, Oranmiyan was gone.
This time, the HUD was useless. All she was able to read was herself, and the official vehicles. Oranmiyan might have been in one of those, but she had no way to know. She could have torn apart more buildings, but he'd revealed her tell. All she'd accomplish was to add to the considerable property damage in Kaduna Town
ship.
Folami's brain was on automatic, her training making her act. She put a bulletin out on the Oshun Enforcement Net and to L'owuro to seek and locate Oranmiyan.
But even as she did that, she knew it was a lost cause.
She leaned her head back and yelled to the heavens at the top of her lungs, her mind tearing apart all the buildings nearby, shattering with cracks of destroyed matter that matched her primal scream.
EIGHT
L'owuro
The first thing Hembadoon did after he regained consciousness was sit up and stare at the scraggly faced young man in scrubs who entered the room. Based on the look of the place, the lack of windows, and his mild case of nausea, he figured he was in the infirmary of a spaceship, probably cavalry.
He asked the scraggly young man, "Where am I?"
The doctor stared at him in confusion. "I'm sorry?"
"It's a simple question, Doctor—you are a doctor, right?"
"Uh, yes—yes, I'm still Doctor Modupe, like I was when you woke up before. Orisha, I need you to lie back down and—"
Hembadoon did not lie back down. "Where am I?"
"You're still on the Hegemony Cavalry ship L'owuro. Now, p-please lie back down?"
The Orisha did so. L'owuro was War Chief Tobi's ship. Hembadoon had never liked Tobi, but he was grateful that Isembi had, at least, sent someone in after him when his mission went south.
Modupe then ran a slew of tests on Hembadoon, which the Orisha took in stride. When they were done, the doctor released him with the proviso that he check in every morning and that the medical scanner in his robes be tied into the infirmary, both of which were conditions Hembadoon was more than happy to abide by.
As soon as he left, he had his robe's computer bring him up to speed.
He wasn't sure what stunned him more, that the Eso had come and gone while he was out, that there was a top-secret project that even Isembi didn't know about on Oshun, or that Folami was here and in charge of the investigation.
She was also the last Ori-Inu standing, which somehow didn't surprise him. Hembadoon had been following Folami's career after her last mission as a trainee—that horrible, horrible day—and it had been an impressive string of successes, including several missions where she had been the only Ori-Inu to survive.
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