Cloud Rebel: R-D 3 (27 page)

Farrell-also dead. Norian Keef and Lendill Schaff, both dead. Hundreds of thousands dead across the globe, thanks to some interfering Lyristolyi.

Fuck Earth
.

"I need some time," I said, fighting panic yet again. "In the Archives. Will your father mind?" I turned to Val.

"He will not mind, dearest," Val said gently.

"Good." I bent time and folded space, traveling to the Archives of the future without waiting for Val.

* * *

In the Archives is a section that only a few have ever visited. Most don't realize it exists.

I'd found it during my yearlong stay, waiting for Kalenegar of the Larentii to decide my fate.

Perhaps my fate had already been decided, I just didn't realize it at the time.

I studied the bodies-three of them-that lay on stone slabs in this hidden portion of the Archives.

These weren't real-doppelgangers, perhaps, but certainly not the originals.

These replicas of the Three-Strength, Wisdom and Love, lay as if ready to awaken at any moment. They'd served a purpose once, and like all things in the Archives, they'd been kept, pristine and without decay, in these positions.

Strength was quite tall, with light-brown hair and a beautiful, ageless face. Wisdom was slightly shorter, with dark hair and more than handsome features.

Love was the only female, with dark hair and a pale, lovely complexion. This was how they'd look if they were to appear-those who'd defeated the enemy during the God Wars, in order to save the universes from chaos and death.

With the events happening on Earth in the past, that victory was threatened. For a moment, my vision wavered and I witnessed a change-as if the Three in reality lay before me instead of their replicas.

I had to think on this.

Ilya was gone.

Fuck Earth
.

* * *

Captain Brett Walker

As long as I remained wolf, they couldn't work their mojo on me. I'd attacked them twice, and managed to rip an arm off one of them.

It didn't matter-they'd ordered Rafe to kill Jen and I wasn't going to let them get away with that. They'd have to kill me first.

They'd already shot me twice. I howled at them in return. They learned not to come into the room where I was; I finally killed one of the fuckers.

Instead, they had something new up their sleeves. If I wasn't going to behave and do as they ordered, they'd just send me elsewhere.

I yelped when I hit the floor inside the Oval Office. If one of the Secret Service agents hadn't stopped his buddies from firing, I'd have died immediately.

My consciousness fled before I could consider turning human.

* * *

Notes-Colonel Hunter

"So we're depending on a veterinarian to save his life?" Opal and Matt had shown up unannounced at my office to let me know that Brett had been dumped-in werewolf form-in the oval office.

Not only had he been shot twice, but there was evidence that he'd attacked some of his attackers.

I was grateful he was still alive, wolf or not. The President had called Matt, shouting gibberish after Brett's sudden appearance. Matt had gone to the White House immediately.

I still hadn't figured out how he'd gotten Brett out of there so fast.

We needed Farrell, but he was just as dead that afternoon as he'd been that morning.

"Screw that, we need Cori," I muttered.

"Corinne is unavailable," Valegar appeared inside my office. "I will heal Captain Walker for you, in her stead."

"Where is she?" I asked.

"She is thinking and cannot be disturbed. We should have considered her role as Vhanaraszh all along, instead of keeping her away from those things." Val's eyes carried sadness, and I couldn't say particularly why that was.

"What's that?" I said.

"We must tend to Captain Walker," Val brushed away my question and transported us to the animal hospital where Brett's wolf was being tended.

* * *

"Do you know where you were?" Matt asked when Brett woke. He lay on a hospital bed inside the ugly building in Arlington. Val had effected the change from wolf to human before healing Brett of his wounds.

"Hmmph," Brett snorted and named an Asian country I'd suspected all along. "I guess they think I don't recognize it when somebody speaks the language."

"Phillips is calling in his favors," Opal muttered from her seat nearby. "Toss a few crown jewels in somebody's direction and Bob's your uncle."

I'd forgotten about those, to be honest. Somebody hadn't forgotten, though.

"Tell me what happened with Rafe," Matt said.

"Agent Smith," Brett growled. "He was leading us in, his rifle in his hand, when he turned back. I thought he was going to tell us something. Instead, he knocks Rafe out with the butt of his rifle and his agents have their guns trained on Jen and me immediately. They forced us into Phillips' house, two of Smith's agents dragging Rafe between them. Phillips and several others were there waiting for us. They knew we were coming."

"Fuck," I wiped a hand across my face. Rafe had gone to protect Jen and Brett. Instead, he'd ended up killing Jen.

"The minute Rafe woke, Phillips was there, telling him he'd only do what he said from now on. It was uncanny how fast it happened. His eyes just went dead-as if he wasn't who he was anymore. When he killed-Jen, I knew it for certain."

"Did you see the other one-Rafe's doppelganger?" Opal asked.

"Dead-at least two days, if my nose was correct. Shot multiple times, as near as I could tell. Looked like he'd gone nuts and tried to destroy everything around him before it happened," Brett shook his head.

"So they were desperate to get their hands on Rafe," Matt sighed. "As a replacement. The other one went animal on them and they couldn't control him any longer."

"Has anyone told Katya-about her father?" Opal asked.

"I don't think so," I said. "This will kill her."

"Maybe she shouldn't know-it's not his fault. It isn't him anymore," Brett said and stared at his hands. "It happened so fast-nobody expected Smith to turn on us like that."

"Who is this Smith guy?" I asked. "Matt, do you know?"

"Not one of mine," Matt said. "If the President had any sense left, I'd ask him. As it is," he shrugged. "Smith could be anybody."

"Do we have any images of this guy?" I asked.

"Probably from somewhere," Matt nodded.

"Good. You get them and I'll ask Cori to take a look-the next time we see her."

"I will transport the images to her," Val offered. He'd been so quiet, I'd almost forgotten he was with us, still.

"Give me a few minutes," Matt said and loped out of the room.

* * *

Corinne

"Dearest, I hate to disturb you," Val appeared at my side. I stood on a porch designed after a Greek temple, which was connected to an outside display at the Archives.

"You're not disturbing me," I said, turning toward him.

"I have this," he handed a photograph to me. "Colonel Hunter says this is the man who betrayed Ilya. He calls himself Milton Smith-Lead Agent Milton Smith."

I went still for a moment, before reaching for the photograph with shaking fingers. My gaze raked across Smith's features many times, as if willing them to change. When I handed the picture back to Val, I understood much more than I had earlier.

"Tell Auggie that he won't be able to stop this one," I said. "No human can."

I knew Val wanted more information, but I couldn't give it to him. I wiped tears away and struggled to keep my sobs under control. How had I not suspected this? I'd read so many things in the Archives.

"What shall I tell Colonel Hunter to do, then?" Val asked gently. He attempted to place his arms around me, but I moved away from him.

I'd never felt so empty, before. Even when Ilya's obsession was to kill me, at least I knew he lived.

What he was now-Ilya was gone. An automaton had taken his place-one who would murder anyone on command. I considered bending time, but there were so many things to correct, so many things I wanted to do-or that needed doing, that the sheer magnitude of it was overwhelming.

I understood, somehow, that Val or Kalenegar or the Larentii as a whole would find a way to stop me before I was even halfway done. Perhaps some things I could get away with, but it wouldn't bring me any closer to righting the whole of the wrong.

As for destroying Agent Smith, well, I doubted any Larentii could do it.

Smith was a rogue god, after all, in a time before all the rogues had been destroyed.

Yes, I knew his name.

I also knew he had a weakness.

I saw it in his face. I wondered at the fact that I could read him, but then I'd always been able to read Opal and Matt, too. Perhaps it was a side effect of the drug.

Perhaps it was something else-whether blessing or curse, I couldn't say. Hugging myself, I turned back to the view off the porch. Did Phillips even know what he'd recruited to his cause?

I doubted that. Phillips, even as a clone, imagined himself to be in charge.

He wasn't.

Liron, the rogue god, was.

"Dearest, I know you are in pain. Allow me to help," Val spoke softly.

"I need to be alone for a while longer," I said. "I'm sorry. I just-have to work through this on my own."

"Call if you need me," he said. "Never forget that I love you."

"I won't forget," I whispered. "For as long as I live."

* * *

Notes-Colonel Hunter

"Val says we can't destroy this one-that no human can, according to Corinne," I handed the photograph back to Matt.

He and I sat in a small meeting room at the White House, fidgeting and waiting for another appearance from the President.

At times, I wondered if I shouldn't just go to the most respected journalist I knew and tell him everything, so the world would know that we were being led by someone in serious need of psychological help.

That would not only brand me as a fellow lunatic, but a treasonous one, too.

"We have intel," the President swept into the room, poor Laura Quimby almost running to keep up with him. "Those fuckers are in New York," he said. "They want to kill the entire city."

* * *

"Does he expect us to believe this?" I fumed.

We'd driven to Matt's office-it was closer to the White House-to discuss the evidence the President had given us for the insurgency's presence in New York.

Since Matt and I knew the sarin attacks weren't initiated by the insurgents, we doubted they'd have the gas or the drones necessary to launch an assault.

Yes, we had photographs, but those could be faked easily enough. I was just about to say that when Opal magically appeared in Matt's office.

I stopped breathing for a moment.

"It's time you knew," Matt sighed. "This has gone beyond what we signed up for."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, once I got my breath back.

"He's saying the insurgents aren't in New York-well, there may be a few, but they're still in hiding, too afraid to peek out of their shells," Opal huffed. "If anybody is in New York to kill people, it'll be the Lyristolyi-who, unwittingly, may be playing into another's hands for the worst end-game imaginable."

"Whose hands?"

"Agent Smith's, or so he calls himself. Corinne didn't identify him and we don't know his real name; he's relatively new in this part of the equation."

* * *

James

We knew something was wrong. Katya was on edge all the time, which unsettled Sergei. Dr. Shaw did his best to calm both down, but he felt it, too.

Nathan said everything was under pressure-as if we were locked inside an airless space in which the breaths we drew felt like our last.

I couldn't disagree with him-I wanted to talk in whispers, like someone was listening that shouldn't be.

We hadn't seen Cori or Val for more than two days. I didn't know what to make of that, either, and wished for the trick she had of speaking mind-to-mind.

Bekzi-normally he and Gerrett were smiling or cheering up the rest of us. Both had succumbed to whatever this was. Neither could explain it, either. Whatever conversation they had, it was done mentally and the rest of us weren't included.

* * *

Corinne

As a Larentii, I had a talent for making lists in my head-I could even visualize each list and add to or subtract from it. The lists I worked on now-were morbid in nature.

They held the names of the dead.

One list held the names of those who'd have died, regardless. Some of those names shocked and saddened me-to the point of depression.

The other held the list of names that shouldn't be dead. Their continued existence would have held the future together and helped keep chaos from becoming triumphant.