Chapman stared at his hand. Was it glowing, faintly?
Yes. Yes, it was. A red hue had appeared at his fingertips. Not fire, no, but some energy...
He aimed at the table in the corner and blasted it. It took the brunt and exploded from existence, leaving nothing but a couple sheared-off pieces of glass and metal behind.
“Yes!” he pumped his hand.
CHAPMAN: Do me a favor and tell her I'm waiting for her, Lethe.
Chapman finished typing that and didn't wait for a response before shutting down the Escapade app. There was no point in having it anymore, so he deleted it from his phone and stood, preparing himself for a little practice to get ready for the inevitable confrontation that was coming his way.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE
Chapman
He played with his powers for a couple hours. There were a few of them, which shouldn't have been a surprise given that he'd taken the serum to unlock multiples. Still, there was a certain childlike enjoyment he derived out of discovering them one by one, peals of his own laughter echoing in the dark, quiet office as he shot laser beams from his eyes, superheated paperclips into molten metal in his hand (then was forced to drop the steaming, stinking mess on the carpet, where he stomped out the fire it produced before it could activate the sprinklers), and others – all seemingly along the spectrum of projecting energy in various ways.
Really, he couldn't have been more pleased. If there was any way in which he wanted to engage with Sienna Nealon, this was it. At as great a distance as possible, with laser beams and energy blasts. Maybe he could even disintegrate her before she came for him.
The news played in the background, a constant stream of talk and speculation and BREAKING NEWS alerts that rehashed what he'd already heard and seen. It shone a whitish light over the whole office, and after a while Jaime's eyes were tired of staring at it and learning nothing new, so he turned it off.
They still hadn't said his name once, so at least the press didn't know he was in the Network. They had every other name, but not his.
That would change, maybe, after she came for him.
And she had to be coming for him by now. Probably in the morning she'd come at the head of a crew of FBI agents and come try to take him away, if she was feeling charitable. If not...
Well, he was counting on “if not.” She certainly didn't seem magnanimous in her dealings with the Network these last days, did she?
He settled into his desk chair sometime in the smallest hours of the morning, enjoying the darkness, and his newfound increase in visual acuity. He could hear certain parts of the conversations – muffled – through the door in his assistants' office outside. That was interesting, too, for a few minutes.
But eventually he rested his head against the back of his chair, his hair mussed against the cool leather, and the fatigue started to set in. How could he sleep, knowing she was coming for him?
How could he not, after getting so little the last few days, and knowing he needed to be at his best when she did get here?
Smooth lips kissed his, and Jaime opened his eyes to find a familiar, mischievous grin waiting for him.
Gwen.
He smiled in return before he realized–
“This place is on lockdown,” he said, sitting straight up in his chair. The lights were on in his office; had she turned them on? “I didn't leave those lights on...”
Gwen looked around, her raven hair flashing in the light, the stud in her left nostril glittering, then she met his eyes for a second before she shrugged those thin, willowy shoulders. “Whoops.”
Chapman stared, blinking, as cold chills ran down his scalp, his spine. “You...but...you helped me surveil her – you gave me ideas – you – you – you're–”
“String some words together there, big guy,” Gwen said. “Make a complete sentence. Take a sec, if you need to.”
Jaime sagged against the back of his chair. “You...you've been working for her all along?” It was like a pike had been driven into the center of his chest; all the air rushed out of him with it, all the hopes and dreams he felt like he'd been fostering for these last few months died in that instant.
Gwen shrugged broadly. “Working for her? No.” Her blue eyes sparkled, and she tossed back her jet black hair. “See...I don't know how you didn't realize it, but Jaime...I'm the woman of your dreams.” She smiled at him, and then it vanished–
Replaced by a pale, unsmiling face and dark hair a few shades lighter than Gwen's, but wild and mussed from a long day of warring with the people he'd sent after her and others. Her frame was significantly shorter and thicker than Gwen's. One thing hadn't changed, though – those cold blue eyes stared at him, pitilessly. “But I'm also the woman of your nightmares.”
He jerked in his chair, disbelieving–
Because she was here – somehow–
Sienna Nealon was Gwen.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR
He shot a blaze of red energy and it passed through her chest as easily as if she were insubstantial.
He stared at it, looking for injury. There was none.
She glanced down at it. “So...let me tell you what this is – this is called a dreamwalk. Though in your case, it's going to be more of a nightmarewalk going forward.”
“I heard about this,” he murmured. “I can't hurt you here. You can't hurt me.”
“Oh, Jaime,” she said, walking right up to him and putting a hand on his face. “You shouldn't believe everything you read in the press.”
The pain was excruciating, like white hot nails were being driven into his face and straight through into his brain and across his whole body and aughhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHH–!
It was gone in an instant, replaced by a soothing feeling that reminded him of the best times with Gwen.
No...there was no Gwen.
“It's been...you...all along?” he asked, turning his eyes to look up at her. She stood over him with those pitiless eyes, looking down at him like he was a lower form of life.
“Yes,” she said. “You thought all this time I was in the palm of your hand, didn't you? Well, I was playing my own game – against you.”
His voice cracked as he asked, “Why?”
She cocked her head at him, and gave him the strangest smile. “You've been trying to make me your willing servant for the better part of a year. Before that, you did everything you could to keep my innocence a secret. The world thought I was a mass murderer – not only because of you, but you had a big part of it through your efforts in the Network, in media, in government. You did everything you could to keep me out in the cold, on the run. For years.”
Jaime felt the cold, clammy chills running down his skin. She could hurt him here, but he couldn't hurt her. But...surely she couldn't kill him here, could she? He could survive pain. That gave him a little confidence. “If you knew about me all along...why wait until now?”
She nodded gently, almost theatrically. “That is a good question. And so is the answer: I don't kill people for no reason. And wrecking your social-lite club of dipshits just because you were trying to make me a pariah or frame me for things I didn't do? Well, you might think it's crazy, but I cannot find it in myself to kill people just for being huge dicks to me, even while using the law and press as weapons to destroy me. So I tried to prove your guilt. Tried to take the high road. Figured I'd let things play out and see if you gave me enough rope to hang you – but within the bounds of the law.”
Sienna made a clucking noise. “But you were too smart for that, Jaime, and our system of law is designed to give the benefit of the doubt to people. I mean, think about it – if I wanted to prove you were guilty of trying to assassinate the president, do you know what kind of case I'd have to assemble? I need at least some combination of motive, intent, means...and you've been very deft, using proxies and technology to cover your tracks. If I really struggled, I could probably put together enough of a case to get an indictment. I mean, I have the transcripts from th
e Network conversations the last few weeks, Veronika – she's been working for me all along– ”
Jaime gasped. Didn't mean to, but it came as a shock.
“What?” She smirked at him. “You never noticed her last name was a river in the domain of Hades? You think that was just a coincidence?”
Jaime searched his memory. He couldn't recall whether he ever even knew her last name, but it sent his mind to racing. He needed time. He needed to keep her talking. “How...how did you know about us at all? You...you had to have an entry point in order to even find us to begin with...?”
Here, she smiled broadly. “You're right. Because although I had my suspicions someone was messing with me – I'm a very paranoid person by nature, after all – I did need an initial clue in order to figure out what was going on. And see, this is where your plans start to unravel, because my friends? The ones you've seen me isolated from this last year? They found it, just before Revelen, along with the video evidence that exonerated me.”
Chapman's lips parted slightly, and he felt the flesh peel apart, sticky as he realized – “The Custis family.”
“Yes,” she said, “those IT specialist metas you had keeping your secrets for you.”
He shook his head. “Wasn't me. I'd have kept it in-house. It was Bilson who hired them. I just helped him cover his tracks.” A thought occurred to him: “Why did you kill Bilson? Hell, how did you kill Bilson?”
“Little secret I kept from you,” she said, “one of many – I can fly again. So all I had to do was go out my window, because you had no surveillance cameras on that. And of course I left my phone behind. Picked up the rifle left for me by a friend and flew to that building. Settled down on the top–”
“So no one saw you,” Chapman whispered, “no cameras caught you going in and out.”
She smiled wanly. “Bingo.”
“But...but why?” Chapman asked. “I...I thought you needed a reason to kill someone...?”
“I do,” she said, and here her eyes went slightly...sad? “And I got one.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE
Sienna
Three Days Ago
The car pulled up to the curb and stopped in front of me. This came as a small surprise, because I hadn't been expecting a car, and I hadn't had a phone to order one, and also I'd kinda been thinking I'd walk.
But of course, I had a secondary purpose in mind walking home from the White House press conference on the China situation, and it was this. Which was why the surprise was only small.
Ducking my head down and looking through the passenger window, I could see Harry's profile, so I slipped into the back seat and he goosed the gas, car jerking away from the curb.
“Is this a rental?” I asked, nose wrinkling. “Cuz it smells like...weed.”
“I stole it, of course,” he said. I liked that he didn't require formal greetings and salutations and whatnot, especially given that we hadn't seen each other in the flesh since...well, since I'd passed him on a freeway in Tennessee months before.
“Of course. I trust you're here now because I'm running out of time to find a peaceful way out of this?”
Harry turned completely around, taking his eyes fully off the road and leaving only one hand on the wheel. If anyone else had done it while I was in the car, I'd have freaked out. With him...well, habits are hard to break, so I definitely felt a rise in my alarm levels, but I kept a lid on it. Mostly. “Time's up,” he said. “Bodies are going to start hitting the floor in the next few days if you don't end this Network.”
I swore under my breath. “I need more time to make the case against them. I just flipped Bilson, and he's going to–”
Harry shook his head slowly, still not looking at the road. And by this point we were going thirty, forty miles an hour. We blazed through an intersection with a light as red as the Chinese flag, and though someone honked furiously at us, we made it through unscathed. “Bilson's change was temporary, only. He's going to make peace with the Network within three days.”
I sagged against the weed-stinking cloth seat. “Dammit. I thought...”
“Thought you changed him?” His smile was pure Harry; knowing. “Let me tell you a little secret about older men – they don't change unless they've got damned good reason to. Yeah, you bent him toward pity, toward feeling for the Chinese people. But Bilson's been in the orbit of power, craving and seeking it, all his adult life. He won't walk away from it forever. He'll cave – lightly – tomorrow. It'll come in the guise of 'being pragmatic' in his approach. And the rest of the Network will talk him back in by two days from now, and he'll push the president back on the path to conciliation. China will make a few appeasing steps, and they'll all come to an agreement soon enough.”
“Damn,” I whispered.
“It gets worse,” Harry said, “because nations and governments are just as intransigent as men like Bilson, probably because they're made up of men like Bilson. Without the sanctions and other moves the president's going to make, China is going to feel free to do whatever the hell they want, unhampered by someone rallying the international community to take a stand. Within one year China is going to roll through Hong Kong to pacify the city during another uprising. Then they're going to step up efforts in Xinjiang. And they'll be doing it all with a metahuman army they're growing even now.”
“That's...cheerfully concrete.”
Harry shrugged. “The probabilities are the probabilities, and these...they're 99% plus. If Bilson stays in his current position, he'll backslide on his change, and he's going to directly lead to this situation with China.”
I looked Harry right in the eye as he made the car corner, one-handed, without even looking. I needed to look him in the eye because if I watched the road I'd scream, loudly, like an idiot. “What about removing him peacefully?”
He shook his head slowly. “Won't happen. And when he's back with the Network...nothing will stay peaceful for long. You put your phone in the fridge and acted out against their wishes. You said their name in front of Bilson. He goes back to them? They'll know you know, and they will move. The war's here, whether you want it or not.”
I sighed. “I didn't want it to be a war. I wanted to see these people rot in prison cells.”
Harry smiled wanly, guiding the car to the curb in front of my apartment. “I know you did, and I like that optimism, which is why I've tried, for months now, to help you find a way to make it happen. But these people...they're not decent, and they're really good at covering their tracks. Try and assemble a case now, and here are the probabilities – Chapman: 2% chance of conviction. Chalke: 6%. Kory: 4%. Flanagan: 1%–”
“Why only one percent for Flanagan?”
“Your grandmother stole his memory, remember? With his phone? He doesn't know shit about the Network at this point, but he's still the most powerful lawyer in the land.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Byrd: 2%, because he's new and stupid. Johannsen: 5%. And Bilson gets a whopping 8% probability, but only because once you dig into him you have a chance of discovering enough other dirty, political shit to nail him on those crimes. But here's the kicker – you know what the longest sentence any of them will actually serve is, provided you do nail them to the wall? Two years.” His eyes glinted. “And they're about to step up their game and actually kill people. Even if you let that play out and nail them for it, the most any of them will get is two years.”
I bowed my head. “That's like not even catching them at all.”
He didn't say anything to that. He didn't have to.
“Fine,” I whispered at last. “You were right all along. There is no 'justice for all,' because some people are just too good at being slick to trip up. I wanted to believe in a system that I could work inside, that I could make work to stop the guilty without becoming guilty myself. I tried, I really – I stopped Brianna before she got Warrington because – dammit, part of me really wanted to believe. But I was fooling myself, even then. It doesn't wor
k like that at all.” My throat was hoarse, scratchy, from a day of talking, and all I wanted to do was go home to my shower and hide under the hot water with the curtain closed.
“Not for the powerful,” Harry said quietly. “Or those with powers. You knew that, in your gut, all along. Which is why you've always acted the way you did, even with Warrington. You work outside the system to stop the exceptions so that the rule of law can work for everyone else.”
I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. He was smiling sadly, and I could feel in every fiber of me that – yeah, he was sad that my ideals had taken the hit just now. “What do I have to do to stop this?” I asked.
“The Network needs to start running scared,” Harry said, “because then they're going to make the moves that allow you to justify to yourself what has to be done here. You're going to see with your own eyes that they need to be stopped. And it's going to start tonight, in just a few hours, if you're up for it.”
I closed my eyes. “I'm always up for it. You know this.”
“I do know this,” Harry said.
“So what do I do?” I opened my eyes.
Harry's smile got tight. “How do you feel about putting that Olympic shooter in your head to work in order to save the Chinese people that impending crackdown?”
I closed my eyes again, picturing Bilson through the scope of a rifle. Yeah, that was what he was saying, and I got it immediately. Kill one of their number, and the Network herd would get spooked and start making more obvious moves. Plus I'd get to stave off some ugliness in China down the road.
And all it'd take would be one shot.
You okay with that, Brianna? I asked the taciturn woman who lived in my head.
Yeah...I can live with that. Or...not live, but whatever.
“Okay.” I nodded slowly, and lifted my head to look at Harry. “Let's do it.” My voice hardened. “Let's kill Bilson.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX
Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38) Page 38
