Convergence (25 page)

Angel rolled her eyes. “Who’s going to stop me, Charlie? And how did you know that’s what I was thinking about?

“Well, I
am
a telepath. You’ve been shouting thoughts about sneaking away for the past fifteen minutes.” He shrugged. “So… lucky guess?”

She’d been taught since birth to avoid any excessive use of traceable Energy, and that included thought Energy. Her father explained that excessive uses of Energy—telekinesis for fetching objects, teleportation to move even short distances, telepathy for all communication—would lead them to thoughts of the inferiority of the human equivalents, and gradually strip them of their humanity, human though they remained. She walked, she carried things, she talked aloud. And she avoided unshielded mental thrashings and tirades.

Usually. “Sorry.” She picked up a rock and threw it out into the water. “I should go because I’m worried about them. All of them. And I can help.”

Charlie wasn’t moved. “That’s understandable, Angel. But don’t add to
their
worry by leaving Eden. The last thing they need, as they undertake their own battles, is concern that you’ve left the safety of Eden for the uncertainty at Headquarters.”

She caught the hint in his words, a confirmation of what she’d suspected all along. “So I
was
placed here to protect me, then?” She shook her head and threw her hands in the air. “This is completely unfair and unbelievable. I am
not
a child, Charlie!”

He stepped forward and moved his hand to her belly. “It’s not just you that we’re trying to protect, Angel.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t known for long. Most human tests wouldn’t register the pregnancy yet. But she wasn’t quite human. Like her mother before her, Angel had known her condition immediately. “How did you know?”

“I listen. I’ve known for a few days. So have your father and your brother. And yes, to answer the question you’re going to ask, they either have or will tell your mother when they see her.”

She glared at him. “You snitched on me.”

He didn’t deny it. “Your parents labored a thousand years against incredible odds to protect the lives of their children. Do you
really
think they’d do anything but the same to protect the life of our first child? Of their grandchild?”

Angel scrunched up her face. “I won’t have my child knowing that I sat around and let Grandma and Grandpa die rather than take action.”

He shook his head. “Angel, it’s
not
a good idea.”

“I’m going, Charlie. I have to know what’s happening.”

“Then I’ll go instead. I’ll check the Energy there to see what’s happening and then I’ll come right back.”

“Liar.” The intensity of the comment spoke less to his lack of trustworthiness, and more to her frustration that he’d try to convince her he’d do anything different than she’d do if she went. “You know quite well if you go, you’ll join whatever fighting’s going on. I’ve known you for a long time.”

He shrugged. “And you wouldn’t do the same thing?”

She sighed. “This isn’t going to end well, is it? Fine. We’ll both go. We’ll each restrain the other from any foolish actions. And then we’ll come back, with everyone else. Deal?”

“I don’t know, Angel…”

“Or I can just leave now.” Her message, she hoped, was clear. He could go with her. Or she’d go alone.

He sighed, glanced at her face, and read the message quite clearly, one that needed no shouted telepathic messages to come through. “You’re really not going to let me talk you out of it, are you?”

“No. And you’re not going to stop me, either.” She wouldn’t hurt him, of course. They both knew that. They also both knew that he couldn’t slow her down even if he’d wanted to do so.

He offered a long-suffering sigh. “Then let’s go and get this over with.”

They moved into the now-empty smaller tent, one configured to move those inside from Eden to Headquarters Plaza. Charlie scanned the wall and found the hidden panel permitting the localized activation of the transporter. They’d hidden it to prevent one of their guests from accidentally shipping themselves back to the war zone at Headquarters. He held his hand over the activation switch. “Ready?”

She nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

He flipped the switch and let the panel slide closed. He moved to her side and held out his hand. She took it and offered him a grateful smile as the transporter activated.

The sensation resembled teleportation, a brief feeling of physical displacement in which all sensory input ceased for a fractional second. When sensory input resumed, the air tasted different, the breeze was stronger, and the sun looked to be slightly higher in the sky. Instead of large tents on an otherwise-undisturbed Eden, they gazed up at the monolithic black marble Aliomenti Headquarters building, spotting the golden Aliomenti name and symbol gleaming in the bright sunshine.

Angel closed her eyes, letting her mind assess the information floating in the air in the form of invisible Energy tendrils, reading those tiny wisps of thought and emotion and action. She shuddered and opened her eyes to find Charlie watching her, his face tight with concern. “There’s so much pain and…” She swallowed and looked at the ground. “There are a lot of people dying in there, Charlie.”

His face twitched. “I feel it too. Your face told me all I needed to know.” He hesitated. “Look, we said we just needed to know. I can feel all of them, and—”

“
I’m
still struggling to feel Mom, Charlie. Are you saying that you can sense her?”

He looked like he’d considered lying to her, but instead said nothing.

“Then let’s go.”

Though both of them knew teleportation Energy would mean nothing in the current environment, they still jogged toward the entrance of the building. Angel still couldn’t sense Hope’s life signal, and thought she might get a better reading inside the building. With better information, she’d know teleporting to Arthur Lowell’s quarters on the top floor would benefit or harm her family.

The mammoth openings marking the front of the building revealed the size of the doors that once guarded the building lobby. They trotted inside to find the lobby deserted, with papers floating around as if the building had stood abandoned for decades. They could feel the floor vibrating beneath their feet, and shared a look of concern. The fighting below must be truly horrific if they could feel the floor shaking.

The doors of one of the faded brass elevator cars hung askew, and a muffled series of screams of pain echoed up the shaft. Angel shuddered. She wanted to help, but glanced up. Her parents, her brother, Sarah and Anna… they’d all be up on the top floor. That’s where she’d go. She needed to know that her mother survived, needed to see her rejuvenated face.

She turned to look at Charlie, ready to tell him where she’d be, when the klaxon sounded, the piercing noise rattling her sensitive ears. She wrapped her arms around her ears to protect them from the decibel level, and held that pose when gravity reversed and she found herself falling at an accelerated pace toward the ceiling high above.

Will cursed himself for reacting
too slowly once more.

His mind scattered as the gravity reversed, trying to account for every variable and identify the optimal activity. He surrounded himself with Energy and slowed his fall as he tried to understand what had happened, tried to tune out several loud cracking sounds, and recognized the genius of the move by the Aliomenti. In the brief second of zero gravity, the nanos ceased working, which would free any entrapped Aliomenti. The nanos would fall to the ground, preventing them from re-establishing any trapping formations when gravity resumed. Such a massive countermeasure meant the Aliomenti—or Arthur, at least—had known of the nanos and the affiliated power source for quite some time. That meant Eva had volunteered the information—or had it forced from her.

When they’d restored gravity, however, they’d flipped it, pulling from the ceilings rather than the floors at a greater-than-Earth level. That would send distracted Alliance members plummeting up toward the ceiling, likely injuring, maiming, or killing many in the process.

His eyes flicked around, trying to understand why they’d do that. Wouldn’t it prove just as problematic for the Aliomenti as the Alliance? Wouldn’t a trapped Aliomenti be just as likely to suffer injury from such a “fall”?

He spotted a pair of boots still anchored to the floor. All other loose items—along with all of the people—were rushing toward the ceiling.

He realized the simplicity of it. They’d magnetized the flooring and the boots worn as standard issue by the Aliomenti. The magnets seemed based in the center of the sole, so any Aliomenti standing upright would remain. But none of them had been. The two Assassins were dead on the ground, boot soles away from the floor. Arthur’s body had rested atop Hope when gravity flipped. Porthos’ boots, discarded in his efforts to silence his escape attempt, were upright and on the ground.

He scanned the ceiling to survey the damage.

Hope’s eyes were still distant from whatever Arthur had told her in his final breath. His body had acted as a sort of shock absorber, and the angle at which they’d hit the ceiling had bent the sword sideways, preventing it from pushing through him and into her. The combined force of his body hitting the ceiling at high speed, followed by the impact of Hope smashing into him, seemed to crush the body even further. Hope’s eyes focused just slightly, dazed at the mysterious comment and the recent activity, but they conveyed a basic message. She wasn’t badly hurt.

He hoped she’d forgive him for not reacting more quickly.

Will turned his head and found that Fil hadn’t inherited the slow-reaction genes of his father. He’d realized in an instant that Sarah’s continued refusal of zirple and morange meant she’d have no Energy to use to halt her “fall,” though she’d not been trapped. Fil had teleported to his resurrected wife and halted her fall, and he continued to hold her even now. He couldn’t blame his son. Given the circumstances, it would be quite some time before he’d willingly move from her side again. Anna’s inherited Energy power from her father meant she’d had little difficulty halting her fall; like Will, she’d slowed her descent and was now prone against the ceiling, looking around to see how the others had fared. She smiled in relief as she spotted her parents looking none the worse for wear, and smiled as she made eye contact with her grandfather.

His eyes moved to the remaining three people in the room and a lump caught in his throat.

Eva had smothered Porthos with her body to prevent any further efforts at escape. But she remained trapped by her own netting, and likely had been for quite some time, leaving her Energy stores depleted. She’d also been lying face down. Adam had been working to free the tangled netting from her, though he’d made no effort to rush. Until the gravity reversed, there had been little indication that he’d need to hurry his efforts.

When the gravity reversed, Adam, like Will, had been stunned and reacted slowly. In Adam’s case, the reversal had ripped the sword from his hand as he’d been hurled toward the ceiling, and he’d lost time looking for the weapon even as he realized instinctively he needed to protect himself from the fall.

Adam had halted his ascent with Energy and was unharmed.

Eva was not. Unable to move, unable to brace herself from the impact, unable to untangle herself from Porthos, Eva had hit the ceiling at full speed. Her skull cracked open and several vertebrae in her back snapped with the double impact. Porthos squirmed and tried to release himself from the entanglement, staring at the lifeless eyes gazing back at him.

Will felt himself sag as the truth hit him hard.

Eva had been the first person he’d trusted and confided in back in the distant past. Even without the intervening centuries of experience, she’d exuded an eternal nature and wisdom long before they’d happened upon Ambrose’s forest and consumed the sweet, succulent fruit with all the inherent gifts and challenges. Even then, she’d seemed larger than life, a woman leading women and men in a time and place that disregarded her intellect and downplayed her skill. She’d been the only threat to Arthur’s North Village dominance before Will’s arrival. She was someone strongly associated with life and vitality and even invincibility.

Yet there was no denying she was gone.

Adam had finally collected himself enough to begin checking on the others, and turned first to Eva. It took him mere seconds to equate the loud cracking sounds he’d heard and Eva’s glassy eyes with the horrific truth. “No,” he whispered. “No!”

Will felt a surge of Energy, a signal he recognized as Adam’s, at an intensity level he’d never before sensed from the man. The sheer power emanating from the man was rivaled, in Will’s experience, only by Fil’s. Even in his shock and grief, Will marveled and wondered how it was Adam’s power had grown to such a degree, and even more so how he’d hidden it from all of them.

Adam’s Energy engulfed him, and the startled reactions from the others told Will they’d felt it as well. The gentle, buzzing Energy pulled them each back to the ground, setting them gently upon the original surface. Hope and Eva were extracted from their respective piles of bodies. Adam’s face clenched and Will felt another surge of raw power that astonished him, and he watched as the netting around Hope dissolved. She looked at Adam in shock, wondering how he’d managed to destroy the netting when the others hadn’t been able to cut through the tough, thick cords. Adam didn’t seem to notice her. He threw his hands at the netting around Eva, splitting it down the middle and moving it atop a protesting Porthos. He moved the Hunter back to the ceiling, taking little care to provide a gentle landing. Porthos collided with the ceiling, offering an audible grunt, and managed to flip himself onto his back to watch the proceedings below.

He pulled Eva gently toward him through the air, eyes misting over as her head lolled about on muscles no longer able to support the weight. He took her into his arms as the tears flowed freely, and his sobs shattered the otherwise still silence of the room.