A Question of Will (37 page)

He glanced at the man wearing the cloak. “Porthos, you must begin traveling again. Interact with and travel around in the human communities as you have in the past. We must find the Starks. If you find the boy, the parents are sure to make an appearance, but be warned, the boy will be quite powerful. Should the boy become fearful, he may unleash enough Energy to kill you and destroy a human city block. Do not treat him lightly because he is a boy; he will be just as difficult to capture as his father, if not more so. Focus on him.”

He turned to Athos and Aramis. “The two of you will travel as well, but stay separated from Porthos. They will be able to sense three of you coming far more readily than one or two. In fact, I recommend that the three of you stay separated from each other to the greatest degree possible.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “It seems impossible that anything other than technology or newly-discovered Energy skills by the Alliance was responsible for the escape of Will Stark. Thus, he may be with them on at least a periodic basis. The two of you are to spend your time solely focused on finding the hidden Alliance base of operations. We seem unlikely to find them with traditional methods of Energy tracing; thus, use alternative means.”

Athos nodded, and Aramis raised his hand. “Sir, what do you mean by ‘alternative’?”

“It seems to me that, given the Alliance love of humans, we must look there. They wish to edge humans forward in terms of technological development, and as such I suggest that you look for reports of unique advances and search for Alliance influence there.”

Aramis nodded. “Understood, sir. I’ll begin immediately.”

The other Hunters affirmed this statement, and left the conference room.

Alone, the Leader reached into his pocket and pulled out the photo he’d picked up at Will Stark’s home, during the time when the Hunters had gone to check for Stark inside the burning house. He looked at the picture there, the picture of a woman known as Hope Stark.

The eyes told him that she had once been known by another name, in the far distant past. And that was the second thing that had him so distressed after the events at Stark’s home.

That woman had died young, or so he’d long believed, the victim of horrific abuse that others had performed and that he had allowed. Her death had shattered him, and the guilt at failing to stand up for the young woman was a feeling he’d never forgotten.

He had failed as her father.

Now, though, he was looking at a current photograph. This woman was alive and vibrant. She looked older than he remembered, of course; she’d been only a teenager when she died, and Hope Stark was in her late twenties. But there was no denying it was the same woman.

That meant that the man who had pronounced her dead so long ago had lied to him.

It was yet another reason to hate Will Stark.

He wouldn’t believe it until there was strong evidence to support it, stronger than a mere photograph. He must go to the source and verify. The Leader rose from his chair, entered the elevator, and rode down to the ground level where the flying craft were kept. The guard on duty saw that it was him, and waved to him to take his choice of vehicle. The craft was a long-range variety and completely fueled. He’d need the entire capacity of the tanks to make it to his locale and back. He was powerful, to be sure, but he had never taken to teleportation, living in fear that he’d somehow miss his target and stay in the realm between locations forever. So he used the crude, almost human-like private personal aircraft on his journey instead.

He kept his mind blank during the hours-long trip; such mental quietude was beneficial, and the craft would handle navigational matters better without his interference. He eventually descended into a thick forest, well away from the large cities dotting England, and the craft came to rest in a small clearing.

The Leader emerged from the craft, and memories flooded over him. He remembered the somber procession as he and the others had come to bury his daughter. Ironically, if they had held a trial for her murder there, everyone present at the grave weeping her demise would have been guilty, save for one. The box had been lowered and covered with dirt, and a small wooden cross served as the only marker and reminder that she’d ever existed.

The Leader opened the rear compartment of the craft, where various tools were stored, and located a sturdy shovel. He could generate sufficient Energy to simply blast the dirt away, but he felt it appropriate to handle the excavation with a simple tool, a testament to where they’d been when the fledgling Aliomenti group had formed. And so he spent the better part of an hour, pushing the blade through the coarse soil, his arms and back aching from the unfamiliar form of exercise.

At last, the shovel struck something solid. It was the wooden box, still there after so many years. He moved with great purpose and precision, clearing the dirt completely off the box, then used Energy to raise the coffin from the hole in the ground to rest on the grass near his craft.

He raised the lid.

He knew it would be empty, of course, but the shock was still powerful. There was no sign that any person, alive or dead, had ever spent time in this box stored in the ground.

He spotted a pouch, however, and lifted it. Reaching inside, he removed a short handwritten note.

If you are reading this note, you have finally come to the conclusion that Elizabeth did not die of the trauma she received at the hands of those she considered her extended family.

Know this: I will never allow you to hurt her again, no matter how long either of us walk this earth. If I so much as sense that you are looking for her, your walk will come to a swift and certain end.

Men such as you should never be permitted the title of father. May your guilt and suffering be eternal.

WS

The Leader crumpled the note, a surge of Energy and anger turning the ancient paper to dust.

Will Stark had issued him a warning and a declaration of war from the distant past.

He would get his wish. The Hunters would no longer be out to simply capture Will Stark for a formal sentence of death. They would be under orders to kill the man on sight.

2219 A.D.

The Leader sat in his office at Aliomenti Headquarters, remembering his discovery about Hope Stark, reminded of his journey to her grave site in the aftermath of the failed attempt to capture Will Stark at his home. They’d never managed to trace Will after that day, and had not seen him again until he suddenly reappeared in what must have been the Alliance camp, surging massive amounts of Energy. He smiled at the memory of the stunned look on Porthos’ face when the man had rushed in to report that he’d just detected Will Stark for the first time in nearly two centuries, despite the searches his best Hunters had carried on during the interim.

They’d bungled the operation, however. So fearful that the man would harm them, they’d tried to subdue him first, rather than simply kill him as they’d been ordered, and they’d failed. Stark had escaped them yet again. Then he’d given himself up, and Porthos, displaying what later turned out to be foolish thinking, had thought to bring the man in to see him before the execution. Porthos knew the Leader had many questions about Will Stark from years ago, not the least of which was why Stark had never bothered to tell the man his own daughter was still alive. And he had definitely wanted to know. But it became quite clear, only a few moments into the questioning, that the man would answer nothing, and so they’d gone ahead with the execution order.

He should have gone with Aramis to Will’s execution, not because the man needed help, or even in hindsight so that he could have stopped Will from overpowering The Assassin and escaping. No, he should have gone because he’d personally vowed to see Will Stark dead, and he should have been there to witness the event.

Nothing could be done about it now, though. You couldn’t change the past.

He was tired, though. He was tired of the waiting, tired of the failure and the excuses, tired of being outsmarted and outfought. This battle with the Alliance, with Will Stark, was distracting them from their mission. Humans throve like never before, a mere century or so after the Cataclysm, and their numbers were growing. Commerce was growing. Prosperity and advancement were accelerating at a rate never before seen in human society.

That could not continue. Not if the Aliomenti were going to continue to be the dominant force on the planet, as they had been for over a thousand years.

They’d done everything they could to keep humans docile and subservient, all in a subtle fashion. The Alliance opposed them. He remembered a human discovery or two that were supposed to lead humans to infinite life spans a few centuries ago. They’d threatened the companies working on those technologies with loss of funding, threatened the researchers making breakthroughs. They’d even managed to sabotage one experiment in which they ensured that every person in the group receiving the treatments had died within six months. That scared people away to the degree that they gave up on their own; nobody wanted to die
sooner
, after all. Those days were gone; they’d wasted time on Stark and his family that would have been better served keeping their boot on the neck of humanity. It was time to reassert Aliomenti supremacy, and that meant there would be no more subtle, hidden tactics.

The Leader sent a communication out to every one of the Aliomenti throughout the world. They were all Hunters now, he said. They were all Assassins. They were to find anyone who was part of the Alliance. They could be brought to Headquarters for re-education if the capturing parties thought it best; if not, they were to be executed. On the spot. Without questioning.

He added an addendum, however. If anyone found a woman who looked like Hope Stark, famous for marrying the notorious outlaw years ago, she was to be brought to Headquarters unharmed.

It was what any father would do, of course.

XXVII

Embezzled

2030 A.D.

It had been about three weeks since Adam had created the website for requests, and Baker and Howe found that their time had been greatly freed up. The site did exactly as requested, centralizing all requests and eliminating piles of mail and teeming masses of email and phone calls. They’d put out a press release stating that they were recycling any requests not already processed, and if people hadn’t heard back yet, they needed to resubmit on the website. New requests received in any other manner would simply be discarded.

The website pruned down about 90% of requests immediately. The percentage of discards dropped slightly each week, meaning they had to fully review a greater percentage of requests as time went on. Baker wondered if the miscreants trying to scam the system had gotten better at giving the answers they wanted — rather than the truth — after getting immediate rejections, or if they’d simply stopped trying. Howe did a bit of searching and actually found two web sites where people shared strategies for gaming the site and getting money. One of those sites even charged a membership fee. Both Baker and Howe found that to be quite entertaining.

Howe put one of his paralegals to work scanning both sites to identify the techniques used, and the three of them discussed the techniques the sites recommended. Were there signals that could be found to determine if these “loopholes” were being used? In other words, could they figure out a way to make the system know if the user was gaming it?

The paralegal suggested mapping the IP addresses used by people posting on those sites, and then blocking them from entering requests. While it was easy to defeat and would certainly miss some people trying to game the system and likely find a lot of “false positives,” it was another step to let the public know that they took their roles as caretakers seriously. The paralegal wrote up a document explaining the concept for Adam, and they planned to batch it up with other such enhancement requests and send everything to Adam at once.

The two men also loved the ability to send payments via electronic transfers to those whose requests had been approved. Though it seemed this should have been done before, given the advanced stages of currency technology, neither man had any idea how to actually implement it, and both were loath to bring in an outsider to get into the accounts. Since Adam knew what he was doing and was an insider, they resolved both issues. The men approved requests now and simply got reports the next morning regarding the funds that had been disbursed the previous day.

The first sign of trouble came when the email sent to Adam with the requested enhancements bounced.

Baker stared at it. How could the email address not exist? He’d been using it to communicate with Adam, several times a day, for the past three weeks, and had gotten responses from the address. He rechecked the address, and it looked correct. He sent the list again, copying the address from a reply he’d gotten from Adam. And once again he got a reply indicating an invalid email address.

He called Adam’s mobile phone. It was out of service.

Now quite anxious, he called Howe, and the attorney met him in the office a short while later.

It was Howe who answered the phone call from the reporter. “Sir, can you comment on the rumor that started circulating overnight regarding the Trust?”