Apex

by Mercedes Lackey

  So…maybe Drift isn’t killing Psimons anymore, but they aren’t in real good shape when they’re finished with a fight…. Despite how much I disliked Drift—or actually maybe because I hated Drift—I felt a huge surge of sympathy for the exhausted person in there, too weak to move on his own.

  Cielle had come up beside me and watched as the crew loaded five more Psimons into the eight-man chopper that way. “Looks like they aren’t leaving under their own power,” she observed with a sideways glance at me.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I agreed. And as the chopper took off, I added, “Let’s go find out if they’re all that way.”

  We managed to catch three more choppers loading before they were all gone. Some of the Psimons were getting in on their own, but most weren’t. Looked as if Josh might have been right.

  And that would be an interesting observation to make to Kent.

  “DID ANY OF YOU see cams that weren’t ours out there?” Kent demanded as we all stared at the newsfeed in the armory. He was looking at me as he said that, and I shook my head. The rest of the Elite and partners on the day shift crowded around, and no one looked happy about what we were watching.

  “I didn’t see anything like a strange cam. But I wasn’t looking for cams, either,” I admitted. “Because…well, we were busy.”

  Kent snorted—a You’d better have been busy snort—and we all turned our attention back to the newsfeed.

  Which was basically a nonstop paean of praise for PsiCorps. As we stood there staring, I wondered if the Cits of Apex thought their newspeople had gone mad, because PsiCorps usually went out of their way to stay out of the newsfeeds.

  This was the second time we’d all watched it; the first time it had begun on the monitors in the mess, and we hadn’t much paid attention to it since it focused on the raid we’d managed to avert with the assistance of the Psimons. But then…things had gone sideways, and someone had shouted an indignant “Hey!” and pointed, and we’d all turned our focus on the monitors in what quickly became dead silence.

  Because unless you paid close attention to the action, it looked as if PsiCorps had obliterated the Othersiders almost single-handedly. There were a few shots of Hunters, but they concentrated on us doing decidedly non-magical things, like mowing the Manticores down with AR fire. The excited commentary on the raid—focusing on how the Psimons were making the Othersiders fight each other—was followed by an interview with…of course…Abigail Drift.

  The interviewer (one I didn’t recognize) was practically fawning and bowing at the feet of the head of PsiCorps. For her part, Drift looked as sleek and self-satisfied as a well-fed cat. Someone had gone to great lengths to polish her up for the cams, too, since she didn’t look nearly as much like a weasel as she usually did.

  “Senior Psimon…” the interviewer began.

  “You may call me Psimon Drift, Perry,” she said in honeyed tones.

  “Psimon Drift, then,” said “Perry,” and then he actually simpered. “The footage of PsiCorps in action in their new role is nothing short of amazing! Why did you keep these new developments in PsiCorps under wraps for so long?”

  “Well, Perry, we at PsiCorps have a policy that we don’t reveal anything to the public unless we know it’s proven and battle-ready,” Drift replied. “What’s the point in promising something, making the Cits feel safe, then having those promises come to nothing?”

  “She means us, of course,” Steel growled. “She doesn’t dare say it, because we’d be able to prove a direct lie like that, but that’s what she’s implying.”

  “She might be talking about the techs,” Mei pointed out, but she sounded doubtful. “There are rumors that the Barriers are failing.”

  “If that was what she meant, that would be what she said,” Kent countered, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “She knows what she’s doing.”

  “And how long have you been working on this project?” the interviewer asked, looking as if he was hanging on her every word.

  “Several years, Perry. Psi-powers aren’t magic, after all. They are scientific, measurable, and reliable, and you always know what you are going to get and what any given rated Psimon is capable of. So we had to approach the problem of boosting psionic powers just as scientifically.” She smiled into the camera. “Our biggest mistake at the Barrier Battle was not having armor, of course. Without armor, a Psimon who is concentrating with all his mind on controlling a dozen or so monsters is terribly vulnerable. Because we deployed before our armor was ready, we lost far too many valuable Psimons.”

  “That’s probably true,” Kent said thoughtfully, “but not for the reason she’s implying. I have information that most of the inside of that armor is life support. They lost Psimons because the Psimons exhausted themselves into cardiac arrest. The life support of the armor is keeping that from happening.”

  I wondered about that. Because I distinctly remembered normal Psimons in their mid-twenties or early thirties lying dead, looking like eighty-year-olds. I was sure cardiac arrest had something to do with their deaths…but what had aged them like that?

  “But, of course,” Drift continued, looking sincerely into the cam, “every Psimon is absolutely dedicated to the welfare of Apex. It is an honor to be able to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the city.”

  “Funny, Drift, we didn’t see you out there on the Barriers,” muttered Mark.

  Someone else made a gagging sound.

  “Now, with the delivery of the armor, we can take up the task of providing the first line of defense for Apex. And you saw how effective we are.” She smiled as the sycophant nodded eagerly. “No citizen of Apex need ever be worried about the Barriers again. Nothing can pass us to get to them. And, of course,” she added magnanimously, “that will leave the Hunters free to deal with Othersiders far from the city where they can’t do any damage.”

  “But—we don’t do any—” Cielle spluttered, turning bright red with anger, which clashed terribly with her pink hair. “We never—we haven’t—oh!”

  Kent turned the monitor off, which was just as well because I think if he’d left it on with Drift’s self-satisfied face on it, someone might have thrown something at it. Possibly Cielle. “That’s a masterful speech,” he said with no hint of irony. “She doesn’t say anything that anyone can contradict—and Cielle, you can’t deny that the Elite have done damage to towns out there past the Barriers. It was by accident, collateral, but we have, and I bet she has footage of it. She implies plenty of negative things about the Hunters, but since she doesn’t name us, we can’t confront her.” He shook his head. “Perfectly scripted and perfectly delivered, and clearly a prelude to getting rid of us.”

  I know I’d been thinking that. I probably wasn’t the only one. But when Kent brought it out into the open, the silence was so frozen you could have cracked it with a hammer.

  “Well, we should talk to someone from the newsfeeds too!” Cielle blurted when nobody else spoke up.

  Kent looked as if he was about to reply, but Scarlet beat him to it. “The problem is that she hasn’t actually made direct accusations,” Scarlet said, somehow managing to sound both worried about what Drift had said and reasoned in her own response to it. “If we go on record directly countering what she said, the impression that will be left in people’s minds is that we are being overly defensive, even paranoid, when Drift didn’t say anything about us. Which Drift will point out, then wonder aloud—‘just putting it out there’—why we’re being so defensive if there is nothing to defend. And that will cement her lies and implications as the truth, and nothing we’ll be able to do will shake that.” Scarlet shook her head, just as Kent had. “I can only think of one possible approach, which leaves us in the unfortunate position of reacting rather than acting.”

  “What is it?” Kent prompted.

  “Wait until someone asks us the question directly, and you or the Prefect will respond with ‘But Senior Psimon Drift didn’t say anything of the kind.’ The
n she will find herself in the position of having to actually accuse us, or do some fancy verbal dancing to get out of the situation. It’s far from ideal, but it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “I thought about pointing out that the Psimons at the Barrier Battle didn’t last all that long, but reminding the newsfeeds of all those collapsed and dead Psimons will just make them into what Drift wants: martyrs in the service of Apex.” Kent chewed his lip. “All right, then this is what you’ll do. In case you get ambushed, your replies will all be the same: you didn’t hear the feed because you were too busy patrolling the city, defending the outlying areas, and keeping the city safe, so you can’t comment on something you’re unaware of. If they persist, say something totally unrelated in the way of fan service and leave.”

  “Like ‘You know, every waking moment of our time is spent in keeping the City safe. And thanks to all of you who support us!’” Tober rumbled.

  “Exactly—that’s excellent, Tober.” Kent gave him a thumbs-up.

  “I think we ought to go a step further and say good things about this,” Scarlet put in. “About the Psimons, I mean.”

  But Kent shook his head. “Not yet. Honestly, I don’t know if I could persuade anyone to—”

  “I would,” I said, bringing all eyes to me. I flushed. “I’d say lots of good things. The Psimon who turned up behind me did a fantastic job; with him keeping the Othersiders busy, all the Hounds and I needed to do was round them up away from the buildings and hose them down. And I don’t have any quarrel with PsiCorps, just with Drift.” I rubbed my temple as I thought. “Maybe we should say something about how it’s good to be working together the way we all did before the Barriers were built?”

  “I like that,” Kent replied. “But not coming from you. I don’t want you and PsiCorps to be in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence. Someone will remember about your PsiCorps boyfriend and how he’s gone missing, and start asking questions you can’t answer.”

  I felt the color draining from my cheeks. Kent was right. I did not dare remind Drift of my existence, nor give her a reason to have me questioned by her people.

  “I’ll do it,” Scarlet replied, tossing her hair. “All I have to do is remember the Gog that was about to squash me like a bug until one of the Psimons took it over, and I can be really genuinely grateful.”

  “Good. This is forcing us to be on the defensive without looking like we’re on the defensive, but that’s all we can do right now.” Kent ran his hand through his hair. He hadn’t dyed it lately, and the dark roots were showing at the bottom of the red and yellow.

  “Why are you so worried about this, Kent?” Archer asked. He was the only one of us who looked at all relaxed, leaning against the wall casually. “What’s the worst Drift can do? Get us all assigned outside the city? Being sent out to the hinterlands and maybe ending the competition and ranking system might be a bit hard on the other Hunters, but that’s all we Elite do, so what would be the big difference? It’s not like we still wouldn’t be here in HQ, and if something went horribly wrong, we’re a comm call from taking care of it.”

  “I—don’t know what she can do,” Kent admitted, sitting down as if he was suddenly weary. “And that’s the problem. Drift has never, ever done anything without an agenda. For all I know, she’s setting us all up for something. Something big, something that would end up with the Hunters here reassigned all over the territories, leaving PsiCorps the only protection Apex has. And I don’t think PsiCorps can handle it. She overreached at the Barrier Battle and lost her strongest Psimons, and she’ll overreach again.”

  “But it’s not as if she can get us all killed,” Hammer told him, with a grim chuckle. “Assuming everything goes to hell and she actually gets us sent out of Apex, we’ll be ready to come back with a roar when PsiCorps collapses.”

  “And how would you propose to do that if we end up getting split up over all the regional areas?” Kent demanded.

  Hammer ran a hand over his head. “Well, I haven’t figured that part out yet….”

  “Let me know when you do.” Kent looked around at the rest of us. “In the meantime, stay sharp, stay focused. There is way more to this than meets the eye.”

  I spent a restless night. On the one hand…if Drift did end up sending us all over the Allied Territories, I would be able to petition to go home to Safehaven and the Mountain, as would Mark. Drift would probably be so happy to see me going back to “Turnipland” that she’d sign the order herself. And all I would have to do would be to get ahold of some real money or barter goods—easy enough since I could probably requisition anything I wanted out of the armory—get those to Josh, and leave Dusana with him. Dusana could get him as far as the first train station on the way back home, and he could join us from there.

  I had been feeling more or less at home here—but now, with this as a possibility, a jolt of homesickness hit me as soon as I went to bed, and I found myself crying into my pillow. I was so tired of all of this other crap going on when all I wanted to do was kill monsters and save people. Why did people like Abigail Drift keep making it so hard to do that? I wanted to go home, where it actually was that simple.

  But I was torn, horribly torn, because if that happened, and if I ran or got pushed out of Apex—who would protect all the Cits here? All those children that Lord Laur-whatsis had figured out how to use? How would I save my sheep? Because the Cits of Apex were my sheep; every Hunter was the shepherd to every Cit, everywhere, but never more so than here, where no one had been taught how to protect themselves.

  I could just see it in my imagination—the Psimons failing at the Barrier, the Gogs and Magogs bringing the Barrier down, Portals popping up, sending hordes of Othersiders pouring into the city…

  It would be the Diseray all over again.

  For the Cits of Apex, it would be the end.

  So how could I possibly abandon the city and the Cits and go home?

  The alarm in the morning came as a distinct relief. I reminded myself as I got dressed that this wasn’t a decision I had to make right now. In fact, we might all be far too paranoid about this; perhaps it wasn’t a decision I would have to make, ever.

  I forced myself to eat breakfast. I couldn’t help but notice that no one else seemed to have suffered a restless night the way I had. So surely I was fretting over something that would never happen.

  Then the callout came, my nerves went all jangling again, and I realized as I threw myself into the chopper that my hands were shaking and my insides were a mass of knots. My nerves were shot. I needed to get myself under control or I’d be utterly worthless.

  The choppers took us far, far past the Barriers, to a small city called Greniston, walled and fortified. So far that I was able to get my jangling nerves under control and my head more or less on straight, but I was afraid that by the time we actually arrived, we might be too late and would find a wrecked and empty settlement. We were in the air for a solid hour at least, and when we bailed out, the raid was well under way.

  The good news was that this was a walled and well-defended town, and since we had been in the air for so long, we had maps and plans of the city loaded into our Perscoms, and army and air support already in place.

  The bad news was that despite army opposition, the Othersiders had broken down the walls before we got there, and were already inside the city.

  We came in hot and bailed, hurling ourselves out of the choppers while they hovered a couple feet above the ground. I hit the grass in a roll, came up on my feet, and summoned, quick and dirty, knowing before more than a few minutes went by I would get all that magic back and more.

  “Form up a wedge on me, big Hounds in the lead, the rest flanking and trailing!” Kent ordered. We formed up into a big wedge-shaped team and headed for the breach in the walls, with the biggest, strongest Hounds in the lead, including Dusana on the point.

  No Drakken this time—maybe the Othersiders had run out of them?—but there were three sets of Go
gs and Magogs between us and the city, as well as a line of Minotaurs, and although the guns on the walls had wounded the monsters, their wounds were not enough to stop them. Within a minute, Kent called over the channel, “Heads up! There’s a Folk Lord in command! Cielle, Scarlet, hunt for him.”

  Of course there was a Folk Lord out there—the giants were moving with far more intelligence than they normally showed. That might well account for why they were ignoring their wounds, too.

  Bya, Myrrdhin, Gwalchmai, when we get inside the city peel off and look for the Folk Lord on the ground, I instructed, as Cielle’s and Scarlet’s winged Hounds separated from the group protecting us overhead and streaked in opposite directions to run a perimeter search and check outside the walls.

  Guys, can you feed Cielle and me with magic? I asked the rest, hopefully, because Cielle’s Hounds were not going to be sucking up much manna, hunting for the Folk Lord from the air, and we could really use her big blast.

  No, Shinje said with regret. But a moment later he said, Oh! We can feed her Hounds with manna!

  That’ll do! And that was all I had time for as we hit the line of Minotaurs in front of the Gog and Magog pairs.

  “Joy and Dazzle, light those nearest two giants up!” Kent ordered, as the Gog and Magog raised enormous hammers and Hammer, Steel, and Knight put up the strongest Shields they had. I waited a heartbeat to see which of the two Dazzle took, and then planted a light show on the end of the other one’s nose. The bellows of outrage and confusion were music to my ears.

  The other Gog and Magog pairs started lumbering toward us, but our artillery support got clear shots at all four of them. A moment after that, we were all gasping, and those of us who had gas masks were reaching for them as the stench of giant insides avalanched over us. That disrupted the light show Dazzle and I were putting on, but the Gog and Magog were pretty effectively blinded at that point. We rushed past them, and as we got inside the walls, the artillery fired the terminal clean shots at the last two, and we heard the shells whistle in and explode behind us.