“I hope you aren’t in trouble.”
Roman smirked. “I most definitely am.”
“I’ll see what they want for breakfast,” Celia said as she started to put her clothes on. “Maybe if I make them a nice breakfast, they’ll go easy on you.”
“I really wish it was that easy,” he told her as he started to open the bedroom door. He felt Coma’s hand squeeze his arm. He turned to her, the doll now in her mask again.
“Call for me if they try anything,” she said quietly enough that Celia could not hear her.
Roman nodded. As he stepped into the hallway, he turned left to see Ava leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest.
“My room, now,” she said.
Roman followed her down the hall to the room at the very end.
He stepped inside, noticing immediately that her space was about twice the size of his room. There was a relatively large workstation, a couch against the wall, and her own personal kitchenette.
Ava waited for him to shut the door, and once he did, a fire started to crackle up her arms.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, not yet ready to take control of her internal organs.
There was no way she was about to attack him, but even though he knew this, Roman couldn’t help but focus, knowing that she would hit him first but it wouldn’t end well for either of them.
The fire crackling off her hands subsided, Ava’s features now visible in the window’s reflection. Her eyes were molten, his former teacher breathing heavily, barely able to contain herself.
“You have humiliated me again,” she said, each word sharp, dagger-like.
“That wasn’t my intention…”
“Goddammit, Roman, every time—every fucking time I try to do something for you or I get closer to you, I end up getting burned in the end!”
Her hair flared up and settled again as if to make a point, Ava not yet able to turn to Roman and look him in the face.
“I had to help her,” Roman said. “She asked for my help, and I had to help her.”
“The Eastern Province spy?”
“Yes. She helped me before, and she helped me again, back at…”
“The fight against Margo,” Ava said, her voice still on edge, the fire user enunciating each word carefully.
“I wasn’t trying to…”
“You weren’t trying to what?” she asked, turning to him, her eyes igniting.
“I wasn’t trying to betray you or do anything that would put you in a situation. You have to understand that. I wouldn’t do anything to harm you, or humiliate you, or…”
“But you have, Roman. It’s like you don’t even understand the meaning of treason or the complications that could arise from a foreign government having access to your power, especially a foreign government that specializes in reverse engineering superpowers. You were an asset to us, your ability was given to you…”
“My power was random.”
“Have you not been paying attention this entire time?” she yelled at him. “Your power wasn’t random. My sister, my fucking dead sister, fucking Moira…”
“It was random,” Roman said, his voice rising. “And you know exactly what I mean. None of you knew this was the power that was going to come out of me. This is all random. Everything is random. I wouldn’t even have gone to the Council had it not been for Kevin attempting suicide, and the lottery ticket I found in his desk after I was attacked by Hazrat. It would have never even crossed my mind. I wasn’t a gambler. It was all random. All of this is random. You couldn’t have planned this. Not even the most cunning government ever in existence could have planned something like this.”
“But once your power…” Ava shook her head. “What you did is treason. Once you were given that power, you should have served the State. You…” Her fists tensed at her sides as a vein pulsed near her temple. “You are serving the State, but you should be doing so without all these preconditions we have now. And this? Now this? Now we find out you went to the Eastern Province and traded your power for the safe passage of a fucking spy? Now we find out that there is another healer, somebody our government was actually looking for, and you’ve known about it the entire time? And you brought him to our country illegally? Do you realize the situation you’ve put me in here?”
“I…”
“What do you have to say for yourself?” she practically barked.
“I don’t have shit to say! The details are murky, but I know that I wouldn’t do something like that if it wasn’t the right thing to do…”
“You have right and wrong all mixed up.”
Roman threw his hands into the air. “Says the woman leading a streamlined removal operation in another country. We are no better than assassins. We’re no better than the motherfuckers from the Southern Alliance and all the shady shit they do.”
“Don’t compare us to them!”
“We’re here to kill someone in another country. He’s not being given a trial; he’s not being judged by a jury of his peers. He is being murdered by our government, and we are the people who are supposed to kill him. Tell me that’s not all sorts of fucked up.”
Ava started to say something and just ended up shaking her head. She tried to calm her breathing, clearly unable to at the moment, her hair firing up every now and then. “There are more pieces to this puzzle than you know about,” she finally muttered.
“What about another option?” Roman asked.
“Another option for what?”
“Regarding what Casper revealed last night. There must be some way we can prevent the information from reaching…”
“I already told Rafner,” she said. “And I’ve been given my instructions.”
“I’m not having my power taken away from me again.”
Ava almost smiled at Roman. “No one can take your power away anymore. The only person who could was my sister, Moira. She was the only person able to activate someone’s power and take it away. At least…” His former teacher looked out the window for a moment. “Perhaps there is someone else out there that can do it. If there is, they aren’t in touch with the Centralian government. But the point is: no one can take away your power. Not now, thanks to your goddamn half-sister.”
Her last statement cut deep, and it was a good minute before Roman finally spoke again. “Then what?”
“It really is amazing how things have turned out for you,” she said, biting her lip. “And to be honest with you, I actually believe you.”
“Believe me about what?”
“I believe that you wouldn’t go to the East if not for a virtuous reason. Well, maybe virtuous isn’t the right word. Maybe you just wanted to get into Nadine’s pants and an option for you to do so presented itself.”
“I don’t think that was it.”
“Yet for some reason, I agree with you. I don’t think that was it either.” Ava started pacing. “But now, we have to resort to this.”
“Resort to what?” Roman asked.
“Just…” Ava sighed.
A vertical beam appeared in the center of the room, and as it started to swell, two forms took shape. One was a woman Roman had seen before, MindLenz, the telepath on Ava’s exemplar team who also happened to be part of an advertisement campaign back at the bodega Roman worked at. The other was a thin female teleporter wearing Centralian Intelligence Agency clothing.
MindLenz wore all black, and there was a white circle on the mask over her face. The pillar of energy started to form again, the female teleporter disappearing with it.
“What’s this about?” Roman asked, focusing now on his own skull, waiting to feel the creep of a telepath.
“Step aside, Roman,” Ava said.
He did as instructed, and MindLenz headed to the door.
Ava joined her. Once she opened it, she looked over her shoulder and motioned for Roman to follow. They came into the hallway to find Coma standing there, a pink and silver material swirling around her arms as she
reformed her hands.
Ava looked at her; Coma stared the fire user down.
“I wouldn’t go there,” Ava said curtly.
“I wouldn’t either,” Coma told her.
“Not now,” Roman said, stepping between the two.
Ava moved past him, MindLenz following close behind her as they made their way to the living room area.
Celia was the first to see the telepath in all black, and a concerned look came across her face.
But the look on Celia’s face was nothing like the look on Miranda’s face, the blue-haired telepath’s mouth agape as MindLenz came into focus.
“No…” she started to say.
And then she paused, as if frozen.
Jess, who had been sitting on the couch next to Miranda and eating a pastry, was also frozen, a bit of cherry filling dripping from her lip to her lap.
They will wake up in two minutes, a voice said at the back of Roman’s head.
Roman immediately assumed the voice belonged to MindLenz. He had met telepaths like this before, who’d simply quit speaking because it was easier for them to communicate mentally.
He’d always found it to be a little unnecessary.
“Thank you,” Ava said as she turned back to the bedroom.
“Wait, what did you do?” Roman asked.
“What do you think? I did what Rafner instructed me to do,” Ava told him.
“So you’re erasing their memories of what happened? Am I understanding this correctly?”
His former teacher nodded. “Do you have an objection to this?”
“But why? Am I…” Roman shook his head.
Yes, you are still in trouble, MindLenz thought aloud.
Ava exhaled audibly. “If you haven’t figured it out already, this isn’t over yet. But Rafner is not yet ready to turn you over to the proper authorities. That doesn’t mean he won’t; it’s just that he wants to see what you’re capable of.”
“Okay…”
Ava took a step closer to Roman, poking her finger against his chest. “And since I’m in charge, maybe I’ll make you look bad in all this—maybe I’ll make it so you fail epically. What then? What would Rafner think then?”
Roman looked from Ava to Coma, who was standing behind both the telepath and the fire user, her arm slowly starting to morph into a blade.
“I think a reset is what we need,” Roman said, looking away from his combat doll. “I would prefer that you don’t make me look worse than I already do, but if that is your prerogative, I really don’t have a lot of options.”
“Don’t forget that,” Ava told him sternly. “They will be awake soon, and once they are, I’m assuming you’ll act as if nothing has happened. It goes without saying that this isn’t over yet, but we have a mission to accomplish, and for the time being, I would like all of us to focus on that. I will go over our plans after breakfast, and then I want everyone to rest while I visit command. So yes, a reset. For now. Let’s not make this any worse than it already is. Let’s just focus on the mission.”
Roman nodded. “I intend to do just that.”
“I know you do. In the meantime, thank your lucky stars.”
Ava turned back to her bedroom, MindLenz joining her.
Once they were down the hall, Coma approached Roman, an intense look on her face. “Remember, just say the word. I’m ready.”
“Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that,” Roman finally told her.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Send in the Dolls
“I still don’t know why she put you out here with me,” Miranda said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Roman told the telepath.
It was evening now, and the two of them stood near a newsstand across the street from a nice restaurant in the Garden Edge District. It was a bit cool outside, but there was no wind like there was in Centralia.
The streets were crowded at the moment. There were still a few people out walking their dogs and couples going on evening strolls, which Miranda was tasked with clearing once the time came.
Roman could actually see Ava, Coma, and Jess crouched on top of the restaurant, Jess preparing to disguise them.
It seemed incredibly stupid to station him away from the action, but Ava had ordered it, and Roman knew better than to say anything about it.
It had also been strange interacting with Miranda and Jess, Roman constantly assuming they were going to say something about the information that had been revealed the previous night.
With their minds wiped, it was up to him now to pay attention to any telepathic creep at the back of his mind. Roman was certain Ava wasn’t going to give anything away.
That just wasn’t her style.
“It’s going to be a while,” Miranda said. “And we’re supposed to act as casual as possible while we wait.”
“Standing around a newsstand isn’t casual?”
The telepath looped her arm in his. “Play along,” she said as they made their way to a small café with outdoor seating.
They sat at a table, Miranda positioning herself so she had a perfect view of the restaurant in question. They were far enough away that anyone entering the place wouldn’t notice them. Be that as it may, Roman wore a hat, his white hair jutting out the back of it.
“Our first date,” Miranda said once the waiter came and told them he would be bringing waters. “How incredibly adorable.”
“Is that what this is?”
Roman semi-hated telepaths.
They were tricksters at heart even if they’d never admit it to your face, and aside from Emelia, there hadn’t been many he’d met that he liked. Roman had actively avoided dealing with immigration paperwork for telepaths. Even though they knew better, they had on numerous occasions tried to expedite the standard processing timeline using telepathic means.
This was one reason Roman and his coworkers had been trained to deal with telepaths, some of them, like Kevin, taking all the training modules multiple times. As Roman stared at the blue-haired woman, he began to notice a tingling sensation at the back of his skull.
“What have I told you about that…”
“Play along, dear. I just want to get to know you better.”
“Then ask me questions.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
Roman smirked. “Is that really a question you care to know the answer to?”
“It’s a conversation starter.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I don’t have time for a boyfriend,” Miranda said shortly. “I do have a few men I may call upon…”
Roman nodded, aware that many of the stronger telepaths found it difficult to have long-term relationships. From what he’d read, one of the trends was to find a person they were sexually attracted to, then just take over that person’s brain and have the person fuck them while under their control.
Otherwise known as fucking themselves.
“I can’t argue with you there,” Roman said as the waiter came back with their waters. Miranda ordered a pot of tea and some scones.
She made a face like she was about to say something snarky but then switched gears, placing her hand on Roman’s as a man and woman passed, both of them with huge frames and muscled shoulders.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said, blowing Roman a kiss, and for a moment it took him off guard until he realized she was acting, that there was something about the two passing by that had caught her attention.
“Are they going to the restaurant?” Roman whispered, Miranda’s hand still on his.
“They are, dear,” she said, offering him a toothy smile.
Roman shook his head. “I really wish we could’ve gotten more information on Kevin’s whereabouts and the pleasure house he took over.”
“If Chap had been to the place, we could have gotten the info from him. But from what I saw inside his head, Chap only came to this restaurant with Kevin to book the location for the ceremony. Either Kevin is covering his tracks, or all of this is cha
nce. Regardless, that will be one of the items we get tonight. No matter what, we need to keep someone alive who’s been to Kevin’s little whorehouse.”
“What about one of them?” Roman asked as a trio of women walked by, all of them wearing tight exemplar clothing. Two of them were shorter, with dark hair and long legs. The third was a bit frumpy but cute, with colorfully painted fingernails.
“That’s exactly what we need,” Miranda said, instantly checking their minds.
One of the women stopped to tell the others to go ahead, saying she’d seen an old friend at the café and she would catch up with them.
The other women didn’t even look back at her. They simply continued toward the restaurant, oblivious that their friend was no longer with them.
The frumpy prostitute approached the table. Roman animated a chair nearby and had it scuttle over to them.
“Do you work for Kevin?” Miranda asked, even though it was clear she already knew the answer to this question.
“Yes,” the woman said. “I’ve worked for him for almost a month now.”
The woman was around Roman’s age, but her makeup had been done in a way that made her look just a bit younger. Oddly enough, she wore a similar suit to the one Celia had worn when Roman had first purchased her, a tight exemplar-inspired piece that showed plenty of cleavage. Her hair was up and clipped at the side, and she had a tattoo of a heart on her collarbone.
“Where is the pleasure house?” Miranda asked.
Roman realized she was doing this solely for his understanding, that all of this could have happened mentally.
The woman slowly told Miranda the location of Kevin’s pleasure house. Roman didn’t know the address, but he recognized that it was in the Brownlock District.
Miranda nodded. “And do you know what is being planned for tonight?”
“Mr. Kevin has a new company, and he’s invited the top employees to this party to kick everything off,” she explained. “He will be coming with more of the serum, enough for everyone to have plenty. Our job is to provide our services for those who want it, free of charge.”
“Serum?” Roman asked.
He recalled Ava mentioning something about Kevin having some sort of narcotic with him, but she hadn’t gone into much detail about it. He also remembered her saying he had received the stuff from a Centralian man, a doctor of sorts.
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