Freaks of Nature (The Psion Chronicles)

by Wendy Brotherlin

  While my heart thumps, the guards walk past us, oblivious to our position only a few feet away. We remain where we are for a half a minute longer before the major general motions that we’re moving out.

  I lose count of all the quick turns we take as the major general navigates the maze of corridors and back stairways. After ten minutes of brisk walking, we come to a catwalk that crosses high above what looks to have been an old cargo bay, and he signals me to hold up.

  He points across the catwalk to a rusty loading bay door. We’ve made it. That has to be the back gate! I’m about to say something when I hear the soft scuff of a footfall behind me.

  “You fellas lost?” says a man.

  I turn to find the two guards from earlier standing behind us. The guard who spoke has his faceshield up and I can see he sports a mustache, but what worries me most is his holstered gun. The second guard keeps his faceshield down, but his right hand doesn’t stray from the butt of the service revolver at his hip.

  I’m not thrilled to see that both of them have guns. That first shot rarely gives me enough time to power up an effective shield. I draw on my power thread until my skin tingles, ready to throw up a protective shield big enough for both of us.

  “We’re not lost,” the major general says. “We know exactly where we are. You may carry on.”

  The fellow with the mustache chuckles unpleasantly as he uses his thumb to pop open the safety snap on his piece. “You must not be from around here, because down here, when people address me, they tend to call me sir.”

  “Sir,” replies the major general stepping up beside me. “That’s interesting. Now, why would anyone call a homicidal piece of trash like yourself sir?”

  The man’s eyes narrow to murderous slits. “No one calls me a piece of trash!”

  The man draws his gun, but I’m ready for him. I raise as powerful a shield as I can muster, just in time for the first shot to ring out.

  “They’re ex-military. Watch yourself,” the major general tells me as I deflect yet another bullet.

  “Damn it, Junior! He’s a psi-blade!” cries the mustached guard to his partner. And that’s when I see the second guard reach between his shoulderblades and unsheathe a neuro-stunner.

  The mustached guard shoots two more rounds at me while his partner charges me with his neuro-stunner. I can’t allow him to hit my force field with that weapon, so I conjure a longsword and charge the guy shooting at me.

  My change of tactics throws off the mustached fellow just enough to cause his aim to go wide. I swing. The flat of my projected blade catches him hard across the face and sends him crashing to the ground. His gun goes flying over the side of the catwalk, but there is no time to rejoice. I turn back around to find the major general locked in hand-to-hand combat with Junior, the second guard, who has retracted his faceshield and revealed his ugly, hateful mug. The major general holds his own until Junior tags him with a vicious uppercut with the neuro-stunner, which sends his helmet flying off his head.

  I close in, but Junior’s too fast. He grabs the major general and puts him in a choke hold. Junior now has the upper hand, and he knows it. He crushes the end of his revolver to the major general’s temple. “Well, if it isn’t Major General Allen come for a visit,” he snarls through a jumble of crooked teeth.

  “Let him go,” I growl.

  “No can do, little man. When the Administration hears what this one’s been up to—stealing government property, transporting underage goodies like yourself—well, let’s just say that I’d probably be doing your friend here a favor if I just up and blew his brains out right now.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

  Junior flashes me a sadistic grin. “You’d better power down, sonny, if you want your sugar daddy here to live.”

  The idea that my relationship with the major general is somehow perverted makes my blood boil. I want to rip Junior’s face off. But the reality is, I’m powerless to act at the moment. I’m going to have to be patient and wait for an opportunity to present itself. Very slowly, I rein in my power, all the while holding Junior’s gaze. “Don’t do it!” shouts the major general, but Junior silences him by tightening his hold around his neck.

  When the last bit of my armor vanishes from sight, the mustached guard grabs me roughly from behind. “Gotcha!” he snarls in my ear, his face so close to mine that I can smell his putrid breath. Despite the pain resonating from my shoulder, the moment I hear the hum of his activated neuro-stunner, I throw everything I have into conjuring the largest, sharpest weapon possible from between my shoulder blades.

  I feel it form instantly and expand it with a thought. I waste no time launching the blade with all of my mental might through the guard’s riot armor, straight through his chest and out the other side. It all happens so fast that Junior’s not even aware of his partner’s demise until the moment I dismiss the force-field blade and the body drops to the floor behind me.

  “What the hell—” Junior starts to say, and that’s when the major general twists into him and punches him viciously in the guts.

  I power up into my full armor and join in the attack. There is no going back for me now. I have already killed one baseline today; two won’t make my sentencing any less severe.

  Rushing in, I manage to land a gauntleted uppercut with my good arm; it rips the helmet off Junior’s head and sends him reeling backwards and straight through the catwalk’s flimsy chain railing. I watch impassively as the man falls. He hits the cement floor with a sickening wet crack. Moments later, blood begins to pool beneath his head.

  “I’m as good as dead now, aren’t I?” I hear myself say as I power down. I’m unable to rip my gaze from the sight below me.

  “Aren’t we all?” the major general replies. He clasps me on the shoulder and gently guides me away from the edge.

  Before I know it, we’re both walking toward the back gate. My thoughts jumble as I struggle to understand what I have just done. I was never trained to kill, only protect and defend. How has all that incessant instruction come to this?

  I am now a killer. Some might even say…a murderer.

  “May I have the key, son?” the major general asks me.

  I blink several times before the question registers. “Oh, yeah—yes, sir.” Unstrapping my left gauntlet, I push up my sleeve. I retrieve the key from a small forearm pocket in my battle suit. It’s a flat plastic card with the interface sequence prongs evident on the back. I hand it to the major general.

  Without a word, he takes it from me and inserts it into a control panel in the wall. A moment later, the old cargo bay doors slowly slide open. Arctic air blasts through the opening, and the chill rouses me from my troubled thoughts. I glance over at the major general and find that he is studying me. “You okay?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yes, sir.” There’s no need to mention the dull ache in my shoulder, nor my arm’s limited movement. That’s pain I’ve trained my entire life to manage. It’s the deep ache I feel inside my chest that I’m less confident about, but I’m the one with blood on my hands. It’s up to me to deal with the repercussions, not the major general.

  He points toward the open doorway. “Your helmet is equipped with a headlamp. Activate it once you’re outside. You’re going to jog due south for half a mile until you come to a pond. There’ll be a boat waiting for you there. The captain’s name is Josiah Johnson. He’ll have a warm coat for you and necessities for your journey.”

  “B-but, sir,” I interrupt. “Aren’t you coming?”

  My heart sinks when I see him shake his head. “I can’t, son. I have to go back for the others.”

  “You mean you’re going back to free the rest of my squad?”

  “Soon, but not yet. You’ll be the only one who escapes tonight.” He holds my gaze, and it is then that I see the truth of his intentions.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “Not by this exit. I have work yet to do.” He glances around the
storage bay, and then points to something behind my left shoulder. “Look up there.”

  My eyes travel to where he is pointing, and I understand immediately what he has planned when I see the string of plastic explosives barely visible along a ceiling support beam. “Oh, sir…you’re going to blow up the Imperium.”

  “For the last year, I’ve been planting explosives around the stadium. One hour after you head out that door, the whole place goes up in flames.”

  I want to argue with him, to beg him to come with me, but I can’t find the words…mostly because I realize that this is the only way to ensure that those dissection rooms are never used.

  “You remember the name of your contact in Vancouver?” he asks.

  I nod in reply, because I fear that my voice will fail me if I try to speak. And right now, I don’t want to appear weak before the major general.

  “Good,” he says with a confident smile. “Now, get out of here. Go find that pretty little gal of yours.”

  “Yes, sir,” I manage to say. “I will, sir.”

  “John.”

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s John. John Allen.” He extends his hand to me. I hesitate a moment before I take his hand, because I’m so used to saluting him. As we shake hands, he says, “Good luck out there, son.”

  “Thank you, si—John.”

  Releasing his hand, I walk to the door. But before I go, I turn back to the man who has risked everything to free me. A man I have killed for. A man I would have gladly died defending.

  “I promise I’ll find her,” I say. “After everything…I will find her.”

  He gives me a reassuring smile. “I know.”

  I give my liberator one last nod, and then I race into the arctic night. The headlamp in my helmet clicks on, and my training takes over. My body finds its rhythm as I run across the snow-covered ground.

  These are my first steps as a free man.

  Emily, I’m coming for you.

  Chapter Ten

  IN a dizzying, vomit-inducing whirlwind of motion, Devon McWilliams was suddenly himself once more. As he blinked his eyes and felt the grass that wasn’t truly grass beneath his derriere, the extreme letdown of no longer inhabiting the memories of a noble, ass-kicking, modern-day paladin-in-training came crashing over him in waves. It left him feeling deflated and…ordinary. Much like leaping off a skyscraper and, mid-jump, realizing that he was no longer Superman.

  Damn, that was a long, hard way to fall!

  The only good thing about coming back to his own lame senses was the lovely Alya snuggled against him, her head resting on his chest. He could feel her every breath through his sweater. His arms were still wrapped around her, but he didn’t dare move. Sitting here with Alya made Bai Lee’s mental paradise complete. He had no intention of messing this up—not right away, anyway. In the back of his mind, however, he knew that he would have to tell the truth about himself when his turn came.

  Until then, he would simply enjoy his time holding Alya.

  “Oh, man, Vahn. That was, like…awesome!” Nevada cried. She sat beside Devon, shaking her head in disbelief. “You are so kick-ass! And I just want to say that you look a hell of a lot hotter as a blond. Black is sooo not your color.”

  “Somehow, my dear, I think you missed the point,” said Alek in that condescending tone of his. “Major General Allen made it quite clear that the government is making preparations to eradicate us from the face of the planet. Doesn’t that alarm you just a little bit?”

  “As opposed to what?” Nevada asked with a scowl. “Drugging us out of our minds? Messing with our DNA? Turning some of us into psionic vampires so we’ll cannibalize our own kind?” She looked pointedly at Alek. “What fairy tale have you been living in? Life already sucks for us.”

  “Wow…the American princess speaks,” Alek said mockingly. “I guess being killed in a death match on live TV as entertainment for the baseline masses is something you’d be partial to?”

  Nevada’s glare turned ice-cold as she met Alek’s heated gaze. “It’s better than slowly being poisoned to death as some lab experiment.”

  The tension was once again rocketing toward the stratosphere. Before he fully realized what he was doing, words were tumbling from Devon’s mouth. “You know, I remember reading something online about an explosion in Alaska this past January, but I don’t think I heard that it was a stadium.” Devon looked over at Vahn, who was slowly getting over the effects of Bai Lee’s memory replay. “Do you know anything about that, Vahn?”

  As Vahn struggled to get his bearings, Devon was pleased to see that Nevada was no longer looking in Alek’s direction. The tension had subsided. All eyes were turned to the wooden lounge, awaiting the official word from the noble psi-blade himself.

  “The press referred to it as a chemical plant explosion,” Vahn said groggily. “Then they buried it.”

  “Did Major General Allen get out of there in time?” Alya asked, and Devon was thrilled to hear her voice. He wanted to squeeze her—something!—to show her how much he cared, but he didn’t want to appear like he was coming on too strong, so he held back.

  Vahn lay silently before them, gazing upwards. He looked reluctant to answer Alya’s question. Then again, perhaps he had not heard her.

  “Vahn?” Alya asked.

  “I don’t know, Alya,” he said softly. “No one could tell me anything for sure about the major general. Not even my Network contacts.”

  “How about what Alek just said… Is that true?” Miguel asked. “Does the American government really have plans to kill us?”

  Vahn struggled to sit up, and the tree’s branches tenderly unfurled from around his body. “Unfortunately, yes, Miguel. My contacts in Vancouver pretty much confirmed everything. It’s like the major general said. Smaller numbers are easier to control.”

  Miguel nervously ran his fingers through his hair. “When my family told the Guatemalan general that I was dead, he had his army destroy my village. When they still wouldn’t tell him my whereabouts, he murdered my mother in cold blood.” He shook his head as if trying to clear the memory from his mind. “I thought I was leaving all that behind when I came here.”

  Gripping an overhead tree branch, Vahn managed to sit up and plant his feet firmly on the ground. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Miguel,” he said wearily. “The grass just isn’t any greener on this side of the Rio Grande.”

  “But what about life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?” Miguel asked in earnest. “Your Constitution protects you, does it not?”

  “Not.” Nevada chimed in. “Because ten years ago, my father pushed through an emergency law that deemed all psions a domestic threat. Like all baselines, he believes that we have to remain locked away in order to assure life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for the ordinary citizens of the United States of America.” Nevada dramatically rolled her eyes. “My old man is such an ass.”

  “Oh, but he’s a powerful ass,” Alek smirked. “Senator Wingate is running for President. Isn’t that right, Alison?”

  “Up yours, Alek,” Nevada sneered. “You have no idea what hell that man has put me through.”

  “Then why don’t you enlighten us?” Alek’s grin reminded Devon of a hungry jackal. “Bai Lee’s couch is now vacant.”

  Nevada glared outright at him but didn’t say anything more. She hesitated a moment before slowly getting to her knees and then turned to Miguel. “I’m really sorry about your mother,” she said, and Devon could hear the sincerity in her voice.

  “Thank you,” Miguel whispered. He flashed her a shy, grateful smile.

  Rising to her feet, Nevada looked over at Bai Lee. “I guess I might as well be your next victim.” She pointed at Vahn, a playful smile on her lips. “Though I have to say, good-lookin’, you’re going to be one tough act to follow.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Vahn replied, as he rose from the wooden lounge. “I’m sure your story is going to be just as harrowing.”
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  “Yeah, right,” Nevada flashed him a salacious grin. “You’re just saying that because you can’t wait to inhabit this body.” She laughed when she saw Vahn blush. “Wow! For a guy who bashes heads in for a living, you sure are a prude.”

  “He’s not a prude,” Bai Lee corrected. “He’s a gentleman. Now quit messing with him. You’re starting to piss me off.”

  Nevada rolled her eyes. “Says the woman wearing the yellow pajamas.”

  Devon wanted to chuckle at Nevada’s joke, but he didn’t dare when Bai Lee’s piercing gaze swept over him. No sense getting into the middle of a catfight when he had a lovely lady of his own to take care of.

  “So, where do you want me?” Nevada asked Bai Lee as she stood beside the wooden lounge.

  “Lie down on your back, please. It’s a position I’m sure you’re all too familiar with.”

  “Oh, I know lots of positions, girlfriend. You want me to demonstrate?”

  Bai Lee shook her head in disgust. “That won’t be necessary. As it is, I’m probably going to have to cleanse my aura after linking with your filthy mind.”

  Nevada threw her head back and barked out a fake laugh. “Hey—good one! I bet that one took all day to cook up! But seriously, if you’d prefer not to touch my ‘filthy mind,’ I’d be more than happy to sit back down.”

  Bai Lee looked angry enough to rip Nevada’s face off. “Lay the hell down or I’m leaving you behind.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Nevada lunged at Bai Lee, and Vahn caught her around the waist just in time to prevent the windwalker’s right fist from connecting with the telepath’s chin. “Hey, hey! Calm down, Nevada!” Vahn said, turning her to face him. “I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding.”

  “I assure you, Vahn,” Nevada growled through clenched teeth, “this is no misunderstanding!”

  Devon felt Alya shift her weight as she struggled to sit up. Instinctively, he held her tighter to his chest and gently used his weight to push against her back to help her sit upright. “Thank you,” she whispered to Devon, her warm breath caressing his cheek. Devon’s heart fluttered with excitement when Alya held tight to his arm and would not let go as she turned to the two girls before her.