Free Souls (Book Three of the Mindjack Trilogy)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  We would need a couple more before this was done.

  We were flying low, only a few hundred feet above the rooftops of the city. I linked in to the pilot’s mind, giving him just enough instruction to head him in the right direction: the water pumping station where I was sure Kestrel had gone when he slipped away.

  And where I might find Julian lying dead.

  My heart twisted, and I tried to focus my thoughts on our goal: stopping Kestrel. If there was anything Julian wouldn’t forgive me for, even in the afterlife, it was failing on this particular mission. The diamond of hate inside me, forged when Vellus had ordered the assault on the water station, had lost some of its bite. He hung on the edge of the faux leather seat next to me, looking down at the rooftops of Jackertown. Chicago’s winter sun had frosted them white, and they were almost too bright to look at. His grin was carefree and boyish, like this was his first hydrocopter ride. The Vellus I loathed had disappeared under Sasha’s touch. I thought it would be difficult to see, but the change was plain on his face and even more obvious in his thoughts. It was impossible to hate him like this, grinning like a fool, off to save the day with us. But if Julian had been hurt in the raid that Vellus ordered, I might end up putting a bullet in the senator anyway.

  I would cross that moral dilemma when I came to it.

  So, what exactly is Kestrel putting in the water? I asked Vellus. My dad stood near the pilot, watching the airspace in front of us, but he was linked in to Vellus’s head too. It wasn’t like he could keep us out, being just a linker, and my dad clearly didn’t trust him.

  Genetic inhibitors, Vellus answered, a scowl settling on his face. He’s been working on the serum for years. They will weaken anyone with the jacker gene, reversing the gene expression that was triggered by the hormone change that occurred at adolescence.

  So he’s flooding Jackertown with these genetic inhibitors to make jackers easier to control.

  Easier to control, yes, he thought. More importantly, they’ll be less likely to rebel against our plans to incarcerate them. We didn’t want them fighting back and end up with piles of bodies. If jackers believe their cause is hopeless, it will be easier to gain their compliance.

  So these inhibitors mess with their heads too? I asked, confirming my suspicions about my time in Kestrel’s cell. What is it, like some kind of depressant?

  No, although I did make a suggestion to mix in an anti-psychotic medication. Vellus’s face held no guilt or remorse, as if his prior self were some other person who he had no connection to. Kestrel wouldn’t agree to that; said he didn’t want that getting out into the general population. Then we found that depression was a side effect of the inhibitor anyway. Once the natural gene expressions were reversed, some patients had suicidal tendencies.

  Something nagged at me about Kestrel not agreeing, as if he was in charge, not Vellus. More pressing was what Vellus said about the inhibitors breaking loose. The general population? I asked. I thought you were targeting Jackertown.

  We are, Vellus thought, then shook his head as if that was an unpleasant thought he could swipe from his mind. Kestrel is. I’m trying to stop him. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or just reminding us. Sasha was right—Vellus’s head was a mess, even after Sasha cleaned it up. Kestrel is targeting Jackertown, but once the inhibitors are in the water, they won’t stop there.

  I leaned away from him. What do you mean?

  Well, where does the water go after you drink it, Kira? The patronizing drift of his thoughts rubbed me the wrong way, except I only vaguely knew the answer.

  In the sewer?

  And then?

  I don’t know—the lake? All of Chicago New Metro got its water from Lake Michigan, which seemed like a horrible idea, now that I thought about it.

  It goes to the treatment plants, my dad offered, and then gets dumped in the Chicago River. What are you getting at, Vellus?

  The treatment plants may remove the inhibitors, Vellus thought. Or they may not. If not, they will eventually end up in the Mississippi River. Pharmaceuticals in the water are notoriously difficult to control. He gave a wry grin, as if that was terribly ironic.

  The idea was giving me chills. So these inhibitors could spread beyond Chicago New Metro? Which had to be Kestrel’s intention all along. He wasn’t the kind to think small.

  Yes, Vellus thought. Which is why Kestrel made sure they were tailored to only affect jackers. And he developed an antidote as well.

  An antidote you were planning on keeping for yourself, my dad thought. Which was my thought, too, tasting bitter in my mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to shoot Vellus when we were done.

  And for Kestrel, Vellus thought simply. And the other jackers left in control, like you, Kira, and your dad, if you had joined us. That really was the plan, all along. I always believed you would understand everything in the end. That you would see we were doing the right thing for humanity. He frowned, looking like a young child baffled by a massive conundrum. At least, I thought it was the right thing for mankind before.

  I shook my head, suddenly sickened by the whole conversation. I ignored Vellus’s vortex of confusion as he tried to parse out why he was evil before, but not now. That was his problem.

  Then an image of a Senate chamber flashed through his mind, and his face lit up. He leaned closer. There’s something else you should know. This plan with the inhibitors in Jackertown—it’s just a trial run. Kestrel had to cut off his experiments earlier than he wanted to, and this was our final test to see if the inhibitors would work on a larger population. If the test worked, then we would expand it to other cities. And eventually the entire country.

  You mean all the water, everywhere? It was one thing to try to poison jackers or accidentally have the inhibitors leak out into the regular waterways, but to intentionally poison the water of the entire country? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

  That was the only way to make sure we reached all the hidden jackers as well. Vellus’s face was somber. We had to guarantee that every jacker would be contained.

  Guarantee? I asked. To who?

  To some very powerful people. For several months now, there have been high security meetings behind closed doors in the Senate about a “permanent solution” to the threat that jackers pose.

  Permanent? I asked, horrified. You mean they’re going to kill us. I had suspected it all along, but to hear Vellus say it sent chills skittering across my body.

  Yes. Vellus’s face paled, as he realized for the first time that he truly was part of “us.” I meant what I said about the bloodshed and trying to keep it to a minimum. The Defense Secretary has been pressuring the President for a while to consider military options. So far, the President has resisted, but as the JFA has grown stronger, the military option has gained support in the President’s Cabinet and the Senate. I’ve been trying to convince them of other options. Kestrel’s experiment is our last-ditch effort. If the inhibitors work, if the threat of jackers is contained, it would reassure the President and his supporters in the Senate that jackers can be dealt with using incarceration alone. If the experiment fails… the President will likely move forward with a preventative military strike against Jackertown before the JFA becomes too powerful. This is why the National Guard was on standby—not just to fence in Jackertown, but to coordinate the assault in the event the command is given.

  They’re simply going to attack us? I asked. How can they possibly justify that? People will be outraged.

  No, Kira. Vellus’s shoulders dragged down. They won’t. The public isn’t on the side of jackers, and you played right into the government’s hands by taking the water station.

  The truth of his words pulled me back into my seat, the faux-leather sucking me in like a malevolent flower trapping me in its hold. We were already water-terrorists. The Feds could justify any action they liked—it wouldn’t be hard to make up a pretext for how Jackertown was a threat to the surrounding suburbs. Any public outrage would
come after the fact, after the government had wiped out the JFA.

  I swallowed. All along, Julian’s talk of rebellion had been stoking fear in the highest levels of the government. So, if we stop Kestrel, if we keep the inhibitors out of the water, the government is just going to attack Jackertown anyway?

  Vellus frowned. I’m afraid so.

  My dad’s face was taut with the agony I was feeling. If the Feds attack Jackertown, I linked to him, they’ll be slaughtered. They won’t stand a chance.

  They’ll have a lot less chance with damaged brains, my dad thought.

  I gave my dad a small smile. Then we better make sure they’re fully armed. Maybe we couldn’t save the people in Jackertown from imprisonment or death, but we could at least give them a fighting chance by not letting Kestrel weaken them with drugs.

  There’s another possibility, Vellus thought. For now, we need to stop Kestrel, or at least get the antidote. Then, once I’m back in the Senate, I can try again to stall the military action. Find another solution besides the inhibitors. It will be difficult… His thoughts wandered to my announcement on the tru-cast about him being a jacker. That might complicate things.

  At the very least, they’ll know you’ve been jacked, Vellus.

  True, Vellus thought. But they won’t expect the jack to hold once I’m free. I truly have been working all along against the military option, Kira. That won’t be a radical change from my position before.

  I leaned forward, propping my elbows on my knees and scrubbing my face with my hands. Were we really doing the right thing, stopping Kestrel? Wouldn’t it be better to have everyone still alive, even if they were damaged by Kestrel’s drugs? Even if they couldn’t jack anymore? It was horrible, but it seemed better than ending up with a bullet to the head like Jameson. Then again, I couldn’t imagine standing by and letting Kestrel poison everyone I loved.

  Okay, I linked to my dad and Vellus. No matter what else happens, Vellus, you go back to the Senate and try to come up with another option than a military strike on Jackertown. If that doesn’t work, the JFA’s going to need every jacker in his right mind to have any hope of surviving. Even as I thought it, our chances appeared bleak at best.

  Vellus nodded. Which is why we need to stop Kestrel first.

  I agreed, and my dad glanced at the cockpit. The pilot’s thoughts showed we were approaching the water station, so I reached forward, trying to get a heads up about what was happening on the ground. We could land on the roof, avoiding the legions of National Guard that were milling around outside the pumping station, but getting to Kestrel would be tricky. Assuming he was actually inside.

  We were within my range, so I carefully skimmed the minds outside the station. They were all helmeted, so I couldn’t sense if they knew who we were or what had just gone down at the Detention Center. The key would be getting inside the water station quickly, before anyone realized we weren’t supposed to be there. Unfortunately, the shield was back up around the perimeter of the building. I had no idea what was waiting for us inside.

  We’ll need to move fast once we land, I linked the thought to Vellus and my dad.

  What are we going to do about Sasha? my dad asked.

  I bit my lip. I didn’t like leaving Sasha unprotected on the rooftop. He was defenseless until we could find Ava and hopefully fix whatever had gone wrong when he scribed the four SWAT members. But getting Ava up to the rooftop had to be second to stopping Kestrel.

  Once we disembark, jack the pilot to lock the hydrocopter, then knock him out. That way, only a jacker will be able to revive him and get to Sasha. Unless they break into the hydrocopter. That will at least slow them down, and we might need a way off the roof when we’re done.

  My dad nodded.

  We’ll use Vellus as a hostage again, I continued, to get us inside, then work our way to Kestrel.

  Maybe I can reason with him, Vellus thought. Convince him that we were wrong all along.

  Yeah, I linked, I wouldn’t count on that, but you can try. All you need to do is get us close to him. I didn’t plan on talking to Kestrel. I would prefer shooting him as long as he hadn’t already put the inhibitors in the water. If he had, we would need the antidote, and that might buy Kestrel a little more time to live. Of course, I couldn’t tell Vellus that—his mind was too wide open.

  As we hovered over the water station, a voice crackled over the hydrocopter com. “This is restricted airspace, order of the Governor.” They sounded very official. “State your intentions.”

  I linked to the pilot. Tell them we’re landing on the roof, and we have Senator Vellus on board.

  The pilot relayed my message in a shaky voice, to a noted silence on the other end. We were only fifty feet or so above the roof. It wouldn’t take much for them to bring us down in a fiery wreck, which might or might not damage the water station, but would definitely be the end of our plans.

  Finally, a flat voice came over the com. “You are cleared to land.”

  The roof seemed to rush up at us, stopping right before we touched down. My dad activated the hydrocopter hatch, and the beating sound of the blades swept in. We walked Vellus down the short steps to the roof, the artificial wind of the blades flapping our hair and clothes, and the sun making us squint. I held a gun to Vellus, and my dad was armed with the rifle he had lifted from the SWAT team back at the DC. Vellus put a good show on of being our hostage again, but there was no one on the roof to see it.

  My dad reached back to jack the pilot, who closed the hydrocopter hatch behind us.

  If I remembered the layout correctly from earlier in the day, the door standing in the middle of the roof led to the third floor of the water station. The roof was shielded, and the electrical buzz from it worked its way through my boots, a slithering itch that was crawling up my legs. Ava had once said that long term contact with the shield made her throw up, and now wasn’t the time for that. A quick scan of the surrounding buildings showed spots of anti-jacker helmets positioned in all the sniper points where I had placed our own people not long ago, an irony that left me wanting off the rooftop in a hurry.

  I held tight to Vellus, my gun clearly to his head, as we inched toward the door. The hydrocopter blades came to a rest with a decaying whine of the engine. A huff of wind curled up over the edges of the roof and buffeted us. No bullets or darts came whizzing from the sniper positions. In fact, the air settled into a dead silence.

  My dad yanked the rooftop door open and swept the inside with his rifle. There was no response. Again, complete quiet, which was now ramping up my nerves even more than the vibrations from the roof shielding. We crept across the threshold, barely squeezing through, Vellus in the lead. The disruptor shield buzz drained from my boots, then lifted the small hairs on my arms as we passed through the shielding across the doorway.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust from the blinding white of the roof to the too-dim third floor where shadowed railings overlooked the giant green pipes below. Now that we were inside the shield, I flung my mind out. Just as I felt, rather than saw, the anti-jacker helmets on the floor with us, a familiar rippling nausea surged through me. Vellus tipped sideways into me, all six foot plus weighing me down like an avalanche. He crushed me to the floor, and my dad thumped down heavily next to us.

  The nausea still gripped me as boots scuffed the floor. The helmeted Guardsmen skittered out of their hiding places. They had used a thought grenade—my hard head had protected me, but Vellus and my dad had just had their brains electronically scrambled. Of course the Guardsmen were readers, so they were unaffected even though the thought grenade could reach through their helmets. Vellus’s arm muffled my face, but my gun hand was free of his body. I fired blindly, guided only by my mental reach. A cry, a scrambling noise, and a thud that shook the floor told me I’d hit something. The anti-jacker helmets gave away their positions, so I fired again, the crack of my shot mixing with another cry as my aim went true. I shifted under Vellus’s weight, keeping him between me and
the Guardsmen. I counted three helmets. Vellus’s body was probably the only reason they hadn’t fired back.

  Peering over Vellus, I saw two of the Guardsmen on the floor, unmoving. I shouted to the third, “Unless you want a dead senator on your hands, you’ll let us pass!”

  The third Guardsman crouched behind a big metal tube that stuck out from the wall. He didn’t respond. Was he waiting for backup? They had lured us into this confined space, waiting for us with armed guards and a thought grenade. This must have been their rescue plan for the senator because they thought he was a reader and wouldn’t be affected by the thought grenade. Only it didn’t work the way they expected. That, plus my dead-on aim, was giving the third gunman some pause.

  We needed to move now, before he figured out what to try next or reinforcements showed up to help. With Vellus’s mind a scrambled electrical mess it would be near impossible to jack him up to consciousness. What I really needed was an adrenaline med patch. Unless… maybe I could jack deep enough into Vellus’s mind, plunge past those top levels where all the conscious thoughts were an electronic haze, and find a trigger for his own adrenaline to rouse him out of this induced coma.

  A scraping of boots sounded from the far side of the room near the door. Reinforcements had arrived. My reach told me there were two of them, on either side of the door, but my eyes had adjusted enough that I saw their rifles held ready and pointed at me.

  I heaved Vellus on top of me for protection and inched back toward the wall, dragging him with me, my gun still held to his head. “Don’t, or I’ll shoot the senator.” Hysteria was climbing up my throat, and sweat was trickling down my back with the effort of dragging Vellus’s two hundred pound body. The Guardsmen didn’t move, holding motionless, waiting. I took a breath, braced my back against the wall, and plunged fast and hard into Vellus’s mind.