by Natalie Grey
Of course, while he started with boxing, he had long since outgrown the strict rules of that form of fighting. In fighting, Gerard believed there were no rules.
He deflected another attack with a knee to Marcelo’s thigh and the two men broke apart to circle again.
His mind was racing. He was convinced that at least one of the women they had brought with them was a problem.
He had studied everything he could on Hsu, but there were no records at all of Irina Yordan. The only references he could find online showed a woman who was not the same at all. There had been a prisoner named Irina, but this was clearly not the same person.
What was the key? How could he find out? Gerard absorbed a hit from Marcelo and hissed in pain, lashing out with his elbow reflexively.
With no solution in sight, his fighting skills were suffering. And then it came to him. Without a conscious thought, his fist lashed out to catch Marcelo on the cheek, and his foot followed with a push kick to drive the man back.
If either Hsu or Irina was the double agent, they would be weak.
Gerard had learned that only the strongest could do what it took to serve Hugo—that was why Gerard remained one of the man’s only confidants. He advanced on Marcelo, unmercifully raining blows down on the man’s back as the guard captain raised his hands feebly to protect his head. Only when the man was out cold, did Gerard stop.
He was breathing heavily, but he was smiling.
He would play the two women off one another. One of them was sure to break—and then he would know who was trying to infiltrate Hugo’s operation.
CHAPTER THREE
QBS Archangel
“You may begin speaking,” a calm voice told Irina in Bulgarian.
“Where should I look?” She craned to look around herself. Nothing in this conference room looked like speakers, and she was nervous about speaking to ADAM. She had been introduced, of course—if one could call it that, when there was no one to see or shake hands with—but something about the lack of inflection made her nervous. It was a computer.
Was it really alive?
“It doesn’t matter where you look. I have no location,” ADAM informed her.
“Great,” Irina muttered. “That makes me feel better.”
“If you would like to speak to someone else, you are welcome to do so.” The words would have been sarcastic in a human, but she sensed that the AI meant them literally. “I offered to speak to you because it might be easier for you to tell your story without observing a listener’s reactions.”
It made her look like a crazy person talking to no one, but Irina supposed the AI wouldn’t care. “Thank you, ADAM,” she said politely.
The AI admitted, “It was not my idea. I was surprised to learn that this would be a consideration.”
Were all AIs so scrupulously honest? Irina found herself smiling, against all odds. ADAM was beginning to grow on her. “Well, then, thank you for taking the advice. Um. Where do you want me to start? I just want to get this over with.”
She didn’t want to do it at all, really, but she knew she had to. The information she had might help them figure out what Hugo was trying to do—and reverse it. No one ever said that, and in fact, they went out of their way to avoid saying it. She knew they were trying to keep from giving her false hope.
But Irina hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the mind-controlled Wechselbalg in the Velingrad facility. She wasn’t sure she could bear to fight any more of them. If they could only undo what had been done…
“Tell us what you can remember about how you were captured,” ADAM suggested, breaking her reverie. “And go from there.”
“Okay.” She cleared her throat nervously. “I had gone to Sofia to track down a family member from our pack who went missing while on vacation there. I had told my pack leader I was going and he…” Her throat closed. “He threw me out of the pack. I knew he was going to do that, though. Out of respect for pack rules, when I found a lead on the family, I didn’t contact anyone. I had met a man who said he might know where they had gone. He wanted to meet me somewhere public, so I didn’t think I would be in danger. But after he told me about the facility in the mountains, he had me followed and they captured me in the forest. They shot me with a silver-tipped arrow with some sort of poison on it.”
She shuddered at the memory of the pain. She had been writhing on the ground, the pain consuming her… And then the poison began to work. Her eyes drooped. She barely saw the figures that came to carry her away, and though she managed to get a good hit in, she was no match for them in her poisoned condition.
When she woke, she was in a cage.
“When they brought you to the facility, what was the first thing they did?” ADAM’s voice was impersonal. That actually helped, Irina decided. She couldn’t imagine telling Stoyan this. He would be in pain and she wouldn’t know what to say to comfort him.
“They put a tracking chip in me, in my upper arm.” Irina pointed to the place. She healed well enough that there was no sign of where Hsu had cut it out of her, but she still remembered it.
“They did not put in any other chips?”
“No. Why?”
There was a pause.
“ADAM?”
“I am not certain if I am supposed to share this with you now or not. If you become distressed, you may not remember things as clearly.”
“Yes, but now I know you’re hiding something.”
“Humans are impossible,” ADAM said.
Irina managed a smile. “Please tell me why you asked.”
“The wolves we brought back from Velingrad had chips implanted at the base of the skull. I can see that you do not have such a chip now, but I was not sure if you had removed it yourself.”
“No.” Irina shook her head in confusion. “I didn’t… I didn’t know.”
“That was either a later stage of the experiment, or something that was particular to the Velingrad facility,” ADAM said. “Please, go on.”
Irina shook as she kept talking. She told ADAM everything, pressing on when her voice broke and refusing to answer his questions about if she was well. She recounted every detail she could remember. She was now driven by one urge only.
Make sure that what had happened to her would never happen to anyone else.
Ever.
—
Outside the room, Stoyan bowed his head against the wall.
“Stoyan.” Arisha wavered. She knew that in some ways, it wasn’t her place to take him away from here, but she could also see more clearly than he could on one issue in particular: “Irina is telling her story to ADAM because she doesn’t want you to feel hurt by knowing what happened to her.”
“But it did happen!” Stoyan went to slam his fist against the wall and caught himself. His hiss just above a whisper. “Hiding from it does nothing,” he told Arisha carefully.
“And listening to the story doesn’t change it,” Arisha said fiercely. “She’s here. She’s safe. You heard her say that she knew what she was doing when she went to Sofia. Why do you need to hear this? Is it just to punish yourself for not being there? Because if so, you’re not doing anybody any good.”
Stoyan turned to look at her. He did not know what to say to this fierce diatribe. Part of him wanted to tell Arisha to leave him alone. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t understand what was going on, or how this felt. But he also knew the truth: that whether or not she understood, she was right.
All he was doing was looking to the past, punishing himself by listening to a story he could not change anymore.
“What should I…” He broke off. He had to stop asking that question. He was not an Alpha yet—perhaps he never would be—but he knew that he might need to lead a group again, and he had to learn to make his own decisions. He tried to smile and gestured to Arisha to walk away from the room. “You’re right. Let’s walk. I am feeling a bit stir crazy in here.”
“But it’s so big!” Arisha looked around herself
with a laugh. “It’s just like being in a building, isn’t it?”
“A building with no windows,” Stoyan grumbled. “No live air. No trees. When you’re a Wechselbalg, you see the world by smell as well as with your eyes. This place smells unnatural to me. I can smell living things, but also so much metal. It makes my nose itch.”
Arisha laughed. “Well, maybe we’ll go back to Earth soon. In fact, I was thinking I might go to Spain.”
Stoyan looked at her sharply. “On your own?”
“Why not?” The look she gave him was full of challenge.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He looked up at the ceiling in mock ignorance as they strolled. “I’m not sure I can think of any reasons, beyond, you know, the fact that our enemy is there. With all his bodyguards. And that bastard who likes to torture people.”
“Gerard is why I’m going, actually.” Arisha twisted her hands.
“You’re kidding me.”
“No. No, I’m serious. He’s still the weak link. I’m not sure if he’s more insane than Hugo is, but he goes out more than Hugo does, and it’s easy to tempt him.”
“And you think you can take this guy on, on your own?”
“It’s not like I’m going to challenge him to a duel.”
“I wasn’t worried about you two dueling, I was worried about him torturing you to death.” Stoyan sighed. “Look. You’re not my pack, I don’t have any authority over you.”
“I thought you weren’t the Alpha.” Arisha frowned.
“A pack doesn’t run entirely on an Alpha’s orders,” Stoyan said, amused. “There are certain rules of behavior. Basically, you don’t put yourself in danger needlessly because if you die, the pack is weaker.”
She paused a moment. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Seriously, how do humans survive?” Stoyan shook his head. “It’s a complete mystery to me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Arisha paused. “Wait. You don’t want me to put myself in danger because you do think of me as part of your pack. Kind of. Right?”
Stoyan looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. He was suddenly far too hot, and far too aware of the woman standing there, looking at him. He was worried that he might be blushing. Warriors, he thought desperately, did not blush.
He was definitely blushing.
“I think of you as part of my pack,” Arisha offered. Her voice sounded unusually high. “I mean, as much as I understand those things. I know that I don’t really get it, but I still want to help. Stoyan, I’m not thinking of going to Spain because I have a death wish or I want to be brave. I’m going because I might be able to help us stop what Hugo is doing. I’m not a scientist, so I can’t undo what his scientists did. I’m not a warrior, so I can’t assault the bases like you all can. But I’m really good at getting people to slip up and tell me things. I know pack members aren’t supposed to endanger themselves needlessly, but aren’t they supposed to be willing to accept danger in order to help each other?”
Stoyan looked over at her. His chest felt very warm at the look on her face. He’d never met a woman like this. “Yeah.” He knew he was smiling, and he couldn’t stop. “Yeah, that’s right.” He took a deep breath. He was more nervous than he could recall feeling before. “Uh, Arisha…”
Her eyes were very wide. “Yes?”
“You’re like no one I’ve ever met before. That is to say, uh… well… I’m really no good at this. What I mean is…”
—
A few hundred yards away, Lance’s earpiece buzzed.
>>Lance?<<
“Yes?”
>>They just kissed. I win the bet.<<
“Goddammit.” Lance let out a sigh. Was it just his imagination, or had ADAM figured out how to sound smug?
—
“What’s your plan?” Peter dropped into a chair and looked over at Nathan, who was bouncing his baby daughter in his arms.
Peter’s rooms were normally very Spartan. He didn’t own much beyond his military gear, and he liked it that way. He’d found a purpose, serving Bethany Anne, that he’d never had before.
His old life—cluttered with possessions like expensive jackets and motorcycles—no longer really appealed to him.
At present, however, it had been entirely taken over by Christina Bethany Anne Lowell. Bethany Anne had brought not only Peter with her for this trip, but also Ecaterina and Christina. Even though she weighed mere pounds, and was just visiting, the diaper bag, blankets, and toys had somehow spread everywhere.
Nathan was walking up and down, bouncing her gently.
“I think I’m going to pay a visit to Bulgaria,” Nathan told him. “I want…” He lost his train of thought, smiling down at the baby in his arms. He cooed at her when she started to fuss.
Peter waited patiently. He’d seen a few new parents over the years, and he knew it was useless to try to get their attention back at this stage in the game. Infants had a primal hold over their parents. It was one of the few things that matched pack loyalty in terms of instinct and strength.
“Ah.” Nathan remembered himself and cleared his throat hastily. “Sorry. Right. I want to pay a visit to Stoyan and Irina’s Alpha. Well, former Alpha. I want to try to make him understand.”
Peter frowned in confusion. “Understand what?”
“Times are changing.” Nathan sat carefully, his daughter now fast asleep with her head on his shoulder. “The things that used to keep us safe, the ways we used to escape notice—well, they don’t work anymore. The world is more interconnected, too. All these people are coming to join Bethany Anne because they understand that the old, petty infighting isn’t helping us. The leaders don’t see it, though, and unfortunately, that goes for Wechselbalg, too. Stoyan’s Alpha is thinking of the short term, of keeping his pack members out of Hugo’s research facilities. He isn’t thinking of the long term. He doesn’t get that Hugo’s just the first person to try to do this.”
Peter nodded, sinking his chin into one hand as he thought. One of the things that made Nathan a great adviser, first to his Alpha back on Earth, and now to Bethany Anne, was his ability to see past the issue at hand and into the heart of the matter—the issues that rippled out to the wider world.
He saw nothing in isolation.
“I feel bad for him,” Nathan admitted.
“The Alpha?”
Nathan nodded. “Yes. In a way. He made a foolish choice because he didn’t go looking for allies—he knew they couldn’t assault the facility on their own and win, and so he just forbade his pack to have anything to do with it. It was a bad decision. He should have known they wouldn’t just accept it when it meant that their own family and friends were going to be left behind. But I understand what it is to realize that the world is different than you thought, and not know how to deal with that.” Nathan shook his head slightly. His eyes were focused on the middle distance and he rested a hand lovingly on his daughter’s back. “He has to be reminded that we can’t keep doing things the old way. It won’t work.”
“And you think you can convince him of that?” Peter wasn’t so sure it could be done. He’d seen a lot of Wechselbalg turn up their noses at that kind of thinking.
“Worked for you, didn’t it?” Nathan flashed him a grin.
“Now, that’s not entirely accurate,” Peter pointed out. “I was also a whiny bastard. Everyone knew it. Even me.”
Nathan choked on a laugh, trying to stay silent so as not to wake his daughter.
Peter continued. “I’m just saying, it’s going to be harder to convince an Alpha who has successfully—I know, not really successfully, but just go with it—led his pack for years than it was to convince a whiny little bitch that he needed to man up.”
“I know.” Nathan sobered a little. He was rocking back and forth as his daughter stirred, trying to get her back to sleep. “But I have to try. You know that’s how Bethany Anne does things—people have to be given a chance to do the right thing.”
“If we try to give ever
yone an individual chance, we’re going to talk ourselves hoarse,” Peter said. “And, we don’t have the time.”
“Okay, true. And if he won’t listen, that’s on him. But I want to give him a chance.” Nathan shook his head. “I hate the idea that we’re leaving Wechselbalg behind on this world. What happens when we’re not here anymore to break into facilities and free the experiments? They have to start thinking differently, or everyone we leave behind is going to suffer.”
—
>>Lance, there’s a news report you should see.<<
“What is it?” Lance pushed himself up from his couch and turned to view the video ADAM put up on the wall. “Show me.” He frowned at the images. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t much to see. A few police chiefs across Europe had been killed, mostly in Eastern bloc countries. He imagined that sort of thing wasn’t all that uncommon.
“What am I looking at, ADAM?”
>>All six of these men were killed in the same way, within hours of one another, and all of them are in towns that have rented land or a derelict factory for scientific research.<<
Lance gave a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be. Do we know anything more?”
>>It’s not clear right now who did it. Perhaps we should send someone to ask around. It’s possible that the police chiefs were trafficking Wechselbalg and the local packs had them assassinated, or that they were thinking of enforcing some laws, and Hugo had them assassinated. Either way, it may provide us with the rest of the locations where Hugo has facilities.<<
“No luck on finding that out through the computer systems?”
>>Not yet.<<
“If we just cut the head off the snake…” Lance mused.
>>If I understand your analogy correctly, you mean to eliminate Hugo as a first step, yes?<<
“Yes.”
>>I am not certain that this tactic would be effective in our present situation. Hugo’s facilities operate with a high degree of autonomy. The chances are too high either that their research would continue or that they would kill the experiments and flee.<<
“This is a mess.” Lance rubbed at his forehead. “Nathan is going to be going back to Bulgaria to speak to Stoyan’s pack. I think we should have him look into this. I’m going to go talk to Bethany Anne. The media doesn’t love us right now, but what if we could get them evidence of what Hugo is doing?”
