Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps (31 page)

CHAPTER 5

Fiona padded to the crib, unsure what had awakened her. Little Stee was asleep-miraculously. By this time of the morning he was usually either bawling or sandwiched between Matthew and her. She knelt, gazing at him in renewed wonder, feeling his small dreams of color and smell. She did not even have to reach to find them; he was broadcasting already. Not for him the sudden, jarring transformation of later life.

“Everything okay?” Matthew asked.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I was awake when you got up.” He swung his feet over the bed and came to join her. “He is beautiful, isn’t he?”

“When he isn’t crying, you mean?”

“Even when he is crying. When he chooses to cry, my son is the best damn crier in the world.” He yawned. “Doesn’t really do it that much, though.”

She kissed him, a quick peck, and thinking better of that gave him a firmer buss on the lips. He returned it. I love you, as the kiss lingered. Sometime afterward, when they were back on the bed, Stee began to snuffle a little, and Fiona went and got him.

“Vacation’s over,” Matthew said, tickling her belly.

“Vacation? I don’t remember a vacation. I remember weighing a standard metric ton and-“

“I stand corrected. I meant-I wonder if we made a mistake, dropping out of sight like that. Things are pretty shaky around here.”

“We had to do it,” Fiona said. “We needed it. Our son needed it. We took a little breather, and now we’re ready to start again.” She paused for a moment. “I’m worried about Jenny. Did you see her? She’s drinking again.”

“I -“

“What?”

“I was waiting for the right time to tell you. This isn’t it, but=’

“It’s about Jenny?”

“Yes. She’s missing-apparently about three days now. Not Psi Corps; the local sheriff picked her up for shoplifting.”

“And you didn’t tell me this?”

“I only found out a few hours before bed. I was going to tell you in the morning, after you got some sleep. Fiona, I set some of our best people on it. We’ll get her back.”

“Three days? What about bail? Why didn’t I notice?”

“You’re a little busy now,” he said, tapping Stee on his soft head. “And the problem with bail is finding her. She went into the juvie system, and that gets confusing. We have to play someone as a relative, and for that we have to wait on documents.”

“We should have taken Jenny into hiding with us. I knew better than to leave her here.”

“If we’d followed that logic, we would have had everyone with us,” he murmured.

“I know. I know. Poor Jenny.”

“We’ll find her. Stephen’s going out tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

But she lay on her back, worrying, and could not sleep again. And then, suddenly, Stee gave a weird little cry. It did not sound like any noise he had ever made before, not like a baby at all. It sounded like an adult, somehow-not the quality of the sound, which, after all, came from immature vocal cords-but something about the tone and inflection. It was a cry of terror and despair, and it sent up all of the hairs on the back of her neck. He did it again, and now she felt his mindcry behind it.

“Matthew? Matthew.” He came awake just as Stee screamed like a torture victim. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s feeling something. Hearing something and-” She sprang out of bed and ran to the wall com, snapped it on, thumbed the number one switch. A primitive system, built of spare parts, with no Al, but it worked and the parts weren’t traceable. They had had trouble with AIs having hidden instructions, betraying them when linked to nets. The panel lit to clean static. She thumbed number two. More of the same. Number three flickered on, and there was Chin Hsung and Ned Kowalewski, chatting. They looked at her in surprise.

“Hey, little mama,” Kowalewski said. “What’s up?”

“Ned, One and Two perimeters aren’t responding. What’s going on up there?”

“What?” He began punching at his control panel. “Ah, shit. You’re right. Might be a malfunction”

“No. Ned, Hsung, fall back, get out of there!”

Hsung was lifting his rifle when the door behind them suddenly crumpled inward. The first instant of the explosion must have overloaded the audio sensor, because after a quick crack it was soundless. From the smoke, two black-clad Psi Cops emerged, weapons spitting flame. Hsung never got off a shot; Ned got off two, but didn’t seem to hit anyone. Then one of the Psi Cops took aim at the camera and the screen went solid.

“Oh, my God.” She hit the alarm, and then the fifth switch. Behind her, she heard Matthew swearing and jerking his clothes on.

The screen lit again, this time to Terrence Enoch’s square, serious face.

“Yes?”

“Terr, it’s a raid. They’ve taken out One, Two, and Three perimeters already-at least. I’m on my way. Blow the Neck and start the evacuation.” She reached for her clothes.

No revolution could be entirely mobile. There had to be bases of operation, nodes, vaults, resting places. The underground railroad circulated people from house to house, from country to country , and for the most part, that was the underground. But they had a couple of fortresses that shifted only every few years, nerve centers that no one should be able to find-not without their knowing they were found. This was one of them—a series of caverns beneath Tennessee. A hundred and thirty years ago it had been a hotel, a tourist attraction , but had gone broke. It had been quietly purchased by a mining company, but if one followed the maze of paper to the actual source of the money, it led to one Josiah Tozer, a very wealthy man who had lost his only son to Psi Corps. This was his memorial to his lost son, his revenge against Psi Corps, his gift to those still free. Periodically abandoned and reoccupied , it had been one of their best centers of organization. Tozer had been dead for ten years. He would never know that his legacy had finally failed.

When Fiona and Matthew reached the ops room, it was a strange combination of bedlam and grim efficiency.

“They’re hitting everywhere,” Enoch told them.

“Andorra, Singapore , Salt Lake City-every major house, node, fortress. We’ve lost all of them.”

“Couldn’t they just be jamming us?”

“Oh, they are. But we have antennas twenty miles from here and cables snaked through solid bedrock they don’t know about. You want to watch the Colin Bateman show, you can. You want to raise the safe house in Norway-no.”

“How? How?”

“It’s been coming for a long time,” said a voice behind them. They turned to find Stephen Walters. “That bastard, Vacit. I thought I had him figured out, thought I had cut him off cold when I came clean with you guys. But he’s been playing with us all along. He could have done this anytime. Back when I was his man, he had all of the information he needed to shut the whole thing down-I know, ‘cause I gave it to him.”

“Why now, then?”

“Something’s changed. I don’t know. Back then, it almost seemed like he wanted the underground to survive.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Vacit’s a strange old man.”

“It doesn’t matter now. What matters is getting out of here and salvaging what we can of the situation.”

“We have to get Stee out,” Fiona hissed fiercely, hugging the infant to her chest. “My son won’t grow up in Psi Corps. He won’t.”

“Okay, folks!” Matthew raised his voice. “It’s the scatter! It looks like they only know about the front way in, so we need to start bleeding people out through the back doors. They’ve probably got satellites lookin’ for that, so the first out will have the best chance. Run like hell-don’t go anywhere right away, just travel. We’ll set back up somewhere and let you know what and where is still safe.” He paused for a moment. “I love all of you,” he said. “You’ve been champions. Just hang on, wherever you go. They can pound us but they can’t keep us down. Now go, get safe!” He turned back to Enoch at ops. “Are you tracking them?”

“Yes. They overrode the AI somehow, but I’ve got them with the motion detectors. They’re still consolidating Vestibule section.”

“That mean they aren’t past the Neck yet.”

“That’s right.”

“Why haven’t you blown it, then’?”

“Two reasons, related. The motion detectors are hardwired here, but everything else goes through the AI. They’ve crashed that.”

“Monkey’s number one rule,” Fiona said. “Always hardwire the explosives. Why didn’t we?”

“I think Kim did that. She wanted the Al to be able to do it while we ran.”

“Stupid. Or maybe she was a Psi Corps sleeper. Damn it.”

“Another thing-for the same reason, we haven’t been able to alert the people staying in the Ballroom.”

“How many?

“About twenty.”

“No!” Stephen roared. “That tears it! The hardwiring goes as far as the relay, right? So I can set off the charges from the Grand Ballroom and get them out at the same time.”

“Except that you aren’t going to,” Fiona said.

“What? Fee-“

“No. I’m making this quick, Stephen. You have to get out, now. Because you’re taking your godson.”

“No, see, that’s what you should be doing.

“Can’t. Look at them, Stephen, they’re falling apart. We have to pull them together, or Psi Corps will get them all. And we have to do it here, now. We’ll go to the Neck, blow it, get those people out. That’ll give us lots of time.”

“Great. Plenty of time. Then you wait here, with Stee, and-“

“Stephen!” Fiona’s voice rose to its loudest. “For the love of God, get my son out of here! Can you really think of anyone here he would be safer with?”

Stephen opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“It’s true,” Matthew said, lower. “You’re the only one we really trust, Stephen. And you’re the only one who can keep the underground going if something happens to Fiona and me.”

He grasped Stephen’s hand and dropped subvocal.

If Fiona and I cut and run now, it’s all over. You called it, ten years ago. I didn’t believe-didn’t want to believe it-but since we’ve been gone, I can see it. Too many people trust us. Too many people depend on us. This is bigger than our lives, Stephen, but I’m selfish enough to want you and my son safe. That’s the most important thing, period. Fiona joined them. Please, Stephen, don’t drag this out. You know we love you. Now go-we’ll see you in a few days. We’ll meet at the place in Missouri. She reached to embrace him, kissed him on the cheek, and then, very carefully, handed him the sling carrier and Stee.

“And I’ll see you soon, too.” She kissed her son, and then quickly turned away.

“Okay!” she shouted. “I need ten volunteers! We’re going to blow those Psi Cops back to Geneva!” A ragged chorus of cheers went up, and a good deal more than ten stepped forward.

For a moment, Stephen stood paralyzed, but then he dropped his gaze down to his godson, and he suddenly understood. Enough of this-he had orders. Time to be the soldier, no matter how wrong it felt.

Once, the two main galleries of the cave had been connected only by a crawl space a foot or so high. The entrepreneurs who had decided to create the Styx Hotel had enhanced that to create a grand hallway reminiscent of Gothic arches. The “rooms” of the hotel varied, one side to the other. The Vestibule chambers, accessible to the outside for centuries, had been something of a mess. Stalagmites and stalactites had been broken off or blown from the ceiling by centuries of teens with shotguns. As a result, the outer sections were made up of small rooms and old administrative offices. Now they served as perimeter guard posts, with a maze of small mines and coded gates that it would take the Psi Cops a while to work through. The inner gallery was the Grand Ballroom, a glittering cyst of mineral wonders. Far beyond that, in the maze of smaller, water-carved passages that snaked down below, were the nerve centers of the resistance. But transients stayed in the comfortable rooms-cabins, really, carved into the living rock, tier upon tier of them stacked up around the ballroom. Some called it the Kobold Condominiums. The Psi Cops were still working their way through the outer rooms, the staccato bursts of their weapons drifting far ahead of them.

Fiona ran into the Grand Ballroom. It was full of people, the residents of the Kobold Condominiums, wondering what was going on.

“All of you!” she shouted. “We’re under attack by Psi Corps. I need you to clear the gallery, head back toward the dispersal stations . We’ll give you the time you need, but you have to go now. Leave your things.”

She left Jean and Wen to organize that, and then quick-timed the rest to the AI terminal node. She put two from her team to the task of finding the hardwiring for the charges, and took her remaining six up the grandiose Neck. There they fanned out, took positions, and waited. They did not have to wait as long as she had hoped. The invaders weren’t all Psi Cops-most were probably Hounds and special ops, probably with a few EarthForce normals thrown in to fill out the cannon fodder. Matthew came up beside her and took her hand.

“Ready?”

“Let’s go.”

Their minds came together almost seamlessly, organizing and focusing the lesser talents of the others who accompanied them, painting the picture they wanted those who were approaching to see. The invaders arrived in her mind’s eye, and she felt their confusion at what they saw. The image she and Matthew projected was reflected back from their minds, and she enhanced it, added it to the original illusion, created a loop. The Hounds stopped, staring . They saw the Neck already shattered and collapsed, water cascading down the debris, filling the chamber they stood in. In point of fact, there was a river above them. Part of it had once flowed through the caves, but its bed had shifted, leaving the caverns dry. The charges had been laid to open a long seam to it, however . Once Psi Corps found a fortress, it could never be used again. Monkey, who originally set the caves up, had been a firm believer in scorched-or in this case drowned-earth.

The illusion held for a minute, as the Psi Corps troops doubled in number. Among them she now felt very powerful minds, the Psi Cops themselves. Their doubt slammed against her will like a sledgehammer, pounding almost physically in her skull. She gritted her teeth, gripped Matthew’s hand more tightly. If they could hold it long enough, even the Psi Cops might begin to believe it. Once belief was firm, they could keep the illusion up for hours.