Hybrid (25 page)

“I didn’t miss you.” Aishke smiles faintly. “I haven’t missed anything. It feels like I’ve been floating. I do have good news, though.”

“Good news?” Sai is somewhat confused.

“Yeah.” Aishke chuckles, and it turns into a cough that brings Marlena running.

She glares briefly at Sai while checking all of Ash’s vitals and giving her a tiny sip of water. “Seriously. With the two of you, I’m going to grow old before my time.”

“Sorry.” Aishke at least has the decency to appear contrite, her eyes cast downward. It’d probably be more effective if she also wasn’t biting her lip to keep from laughing.

Marlena sighs and crosses her arms. “What will I do with you two? Stop getting hurt. Be more like Iria and be invincible!” She smiles to take the sting out of the words. “Rest up and take it easy. I’ll send for Jeffries. He needs to look you over.”

And with that, Marlena leaves them both alone again. Sai blinks, watching as the door closes. “The good news?” she gently reminds her friend.

“I know what I did wrong and how not to repeat it.” The tone to Ash’s voice is flat, and her eyes are closed again. The weariness practically drips off her words.

“I’m really not sure you’re going to be doing anything anytime soon.” Sai admits reluctantly. “You’re weak at the moment. They’ve only fed you intravenously for days. You need to get up your strength before you can help.”

“Help?” The word is faint, but definitely asked.

“We’re closer to confrontation than we thought. We’ll be at war in a few days.” Sai feels a tear slip down her cheek and rests her head on Ash’s hand. “I don’t know what to do, Ash. I can’t figure out how to help us win.”

She sits there for a few moments in silence, knowing her friend understands the situation. Sai didn’t really need advice or reassurance, just someone who understands why she is so down, why it feels like the world is about to drop out from under her feet.

Despite the fact that most Exiled were born to this or escaped to it of their own volition, very few of them were ever a student of the facilities, and even fewer were subject to the true lifestyle evident under GNW control. What the Exiled have is luxury of choice and living. To have that taken away...

“It won’t be taken away, Sai.” Ash’s voice is stronger now. “We’re not going to let them take it away. It might not be easy, but I know we can do this. You’ve given me so much hope and shown me so much. We aren’t giving up now.”

Sai laughs and reinforces her shields. After sharing so much time in psionic training together, sometimes they creep into each other’s thoughts. “I know. I need to stop overanalyzing things. We’ll do this like we do everything else.”

“With brute force!” Aishke’s shaky laugh almost turns into a cough again, and Sai can’t help her own chuckle. Tension leaks out with the sound, dissipating through the room. She squeezes Aishke’s hand again.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll rest up for a day and join you, but if I’m not mistaken, you have better things to be doing than sitting in here wasting time wallowing with me.”

“Ouch, don’t pull any punches.” The words sting a little, but Sai knows she’s right. “Okay, okay. You get better fast, and I’ll do what I can for now.”

Jeffries walks into the room and frowns at Sai. “You shouldn’t be wearing her out. You can come back this evening.”

Sai winks at Aishke and mock-salutes the doctor. “I’ll do that, then. Take care of her.” She saunters out of the room, aware for the second time that day that maybe they do have a chance. Snowballs can withstand heat for a moment, right?

“Have a chance,” she mutters to herself as she pushes sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. “Sure, sure, be optimistic.” Domino Thirty-Five charges her again, and she only narrowly misses his quick grab at her. Instinctively she juts her hip out and catches him off-guard, sending him careening. It’s not as easy as it was in her test. Probably something to do with Mathur having tweaked them so they’re not constantly off-balance.

“Time.” Mathur frowns and jots something down on his clipboard. Iria crosses her arms and comes to stand next to Sai.

“You know,” she says and pauses to pant for some air. “Aren’t we supposed to not be able to fight these? If we can fight them, doesn’t that mean the Damascus will rip them apart?”

Sai shrugs. “The dominos are just scaling their reactions. They’re not actually trying to hurt us. Like I don’t try to hurt you when we spar.” Because this is nothing like the test she barely survived in the training facility. Iria doesn’t need to know that, though. It’s in the past, and if everything goes right, Sai will see to it that no one ever has to go through them again.

Mathur turns to the girls. “I need to make a few adjustments. Can you wait?”

Sai nods and wipes the back of her hand over her perspiring forehead. “Sure, Mathur, we’ll just keep warm.” She turns to Iria.

Her friend looks at her incredulously. “What now?”

“He’ll be done tweaking in about ten minutes, or he wouldn’t have asked us to wait. I, for one, would prefer to be ready when he is and not to be cooled off and stiff.”

Iria grunts and brings up her fists. She’s not the sparring partner Bastian was, not even as good as Aishke, but she’s solid and quick. Sometimes she can land a surprising hook, but generally, Sai wins. It’s all character-building, but Sai can’t deny feeling stronger than someone feels good.

Light on her feet, bouncing on her toes has a whole new meaning since she got her new legs. As long as she keeps that strange shadow to the edge of her vision, she doesn’t have any weird urges. Well, not very often, anyway. Sometimes, when no one is around in the middle of the night, she gets the sudden desire to make it all stop. But it never lasts for long and always leaves her with little explanation.

Iria has improved as a sparring partner over the months. She has a way of throwing a hit that moves through the elbow at the same instant. It’s very difficult to judge where her punch will be thrown before it is. Ducking, Sai grins and sweeps her leg out in a quick movement that takes Iria by surprise. But as their limbs contact, Sai pulls back a bit on the power to avoid hurting her friend. Iria lies panting on the mat with a big smile.

“Looks like those grafts are finally synched right,” she says, sitting up and wiping sweat off her brow.

Sai laughs. “Yeah, right? It’s been almost three months.”

“Since you woke up,” Iria adds.

Sai blinks at that. “Since I woke up. Is there such a huge difference?” She really hadn’t thought there would be.

Iria smiles brightly. “Oh, nothing, just another few weeks you’re missing.”

“As in, another month?” She knew she’d been out, just never realized quite how long and never thought to ask.

Iria grins. “About that, but you’re here now, and that’s what counts.”

Mathur walks back in with Thirty-Five. Its moves are stronger, less clunky. Sai finds it difficult to focus her mind again, though. So many weeks she could have trained people that she instead spent in a hospital bed. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts when she realizes Mathur is speaking.

“Just an adjustment in their visual acuity cortex. Her reactions were slightly off, as if there was a delay from you to her. Should be more of a challenge for you this time, Sai.” Mathur grins like it’s a contest, and she takes it as such.

Sai glances and realizes the domino is indeed a female. Or more so than Dom, anyway. Her it is, then.

It’s a good workout this time. Dodging punches from something that can easily kill a Damascus with its fists makes her adrenaline rush. If she concentrates just a sliver of her psionic powers to strengthen her muscles and speed, to preempt the attacks aimed at her, she can stay ahead of its movement and avoid a direct hit—barely. She’s under no illusion about the benefit her legs give her now.

The blood coursing through her veins heightens her senses and brings her back to the day she passed her test. Closing in on a year ago now—eight or nine months depending on how long she was out after her accident. Reinforcing the surface of her skin and tendons so they absorb impact and stave off injury. Heightening her senses so she can preempt the movement an instant before it actually happens. Dodging out of the way and sending her own sweat flying in her wake.

For the first time in months, she can feel the life coursing through her veins—able-bodied and capable of holding her own. Nothing like her fight with the Hound, which was nasty but quick, or the fear and panic that caused her to decimate that Damascus lieutenant. This is control; this is what it’s like to be psionic, to push yourself. Even if the strength of a domino is different, honing her skills can only be to her advantage. It has to be. She can’t afford to think it means nothing.

Sai stops, ducks a punch, and throws her heel into the back of the domino’s knee, sending it to the ground. It rolls and jumps back up to the balls of its feet as the answer hits her like a jolt.

“No time now, Mathur. They’re good. I have to go.”

Mathur looks at her, one eyebrow raised in question. “You have to go? Are you injured?” He glances down at his notes with a frown, as if sure there’s no way she could be.

“Not at all. I’m energized. So energized, in fact, I have to go try something out before I either lose the nerve or forget the idea.”

“Try what out?” Iria has stopped her sparring match now and is curious as well.

“I’ll let you know if I’m successful, but if I am...I think I’ll have figured out a way to use that technique as the weapon we need it to be.”

The arrow of light flies through the air so fast her eyes can barely track it, only to land smack in the middle of her makeshift target. Inside a split second, the dummy she’s using disintegrates, a halo of power radiating out several feet. Sai looks down and blinks at her hands, glad she chose to position it in the middle of the room. “It works...” she murmurs, surprising herself with the realization. “Wow! It works!” She feels like jumping up and down, the same way she did as a small child when her parents had bought her a cheap teddy bear on the one birthday they’d remembered.

“What works?”

Sai turns around and cringes at the expressions on Mason’s and Dom’s faces. Maybe she should have waited for them to catch up to her.

“Sai...” Dom’s voice is full of concern, lower pitched than usual, as if he’s encouraging her to tell him a secret. “Mathur was worried.”

Sai mentally kicks herself. The old man has enough to worry about without her dashing out of the training room after she’d promised to help him. “Well, you see...we were sparring and I was using the method Bastian taught me to reinforce my abilities and I started adapting it and then I realized I could adapt the coating—that’s what he used to call it—in a way which would actually make handling that much power so much easier and safer and probably focus it more definitively, and I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up but it worked...” She shrugs helplessly, not sure how much sense she just made, and gestures to the obliterated target. “See?”

Sai really hopes they see, because damned, if it wasn’t draining.

“How many shots?”

“Just one.” She lets herself slump to the floor and stretches out her calves, which are whining like a teething baby.

“And you’re still standing.” Mason looks down at her, his brows pinched. “Or, at least, you’re still awake and
were
standing.”

Sai nods and smiles. “Yep. I’m still coherent, too.”

Dom is over at the target, a frown on his face as he fingers the crumbling composite base. “It’s not as powerful as what you obliterated that patrol with. But if it leaves you conscious so that you can recoup some energy and keep fighting? It’s worth it.”

Sai nods and grins. “Exactly what I was thinking. See, when I reinforce my epidermal layers, just put a little steel and a bit of protection behind them, I create a stronger outer shell. It’s harder to damage. Not impossible, mind you, although perhaps I could adapt some of the adrium in my system...” She absentmindedly rubs at her legs.

“Not now, Sai.” Dom shakes his head, and dons that odd excuse for a smile lingering on his lips. “Don’t even think about that yet. Maybe when you have time to not kill yourself with a mistake, okay?”

She laughs at the irony. “I promise. I won’t fiddle with that quite yet. But still, basically I adapted my psionic energy to the...I guess you might call it the frequency of the core inside me? Does that make sense?” She waits for Dom’s nod before continuing. “I was building up to help me contain the power, and then I tapped into it. That way the ball or sphere or whatever you want to call it was solid and stable. I could extract and focus the energy and
voila
! I’m still conscious, right?” Sai pinches her arm. and rubs the spot ruefully. “Sorry for that. Sometimes I dream vividly.

“So you can harness this now?”

She nods at Mason, who’s looking at her intently. His overcoat, so similar to the one Bastian wears, hangs limply on his frame, and she frowns at the sight.

“Not only can I harness it, but I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Aishke and Iria—not to mention James and you—will be able to grasp this so quickly that you’ll think you were born doing it.”

“Aishke’s awake?” Dom glances over from his inspection with mild surprise.

“She woke up earlier. I’m going to see her tonight. This will thrill her.” Sai hits herself in the head and falls back onto the mats. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”

If she had, their location might not be pinpointed. If she had, their current situation might not be so dire. If she...

“Stop that, Sai.” Mason’s words whoosh out softly, tiredness in each syllable.

“I’m not doing anything,” she pouts.

“Yes, you are. Like teacher, like student. My brother plays the exact same what-if game with himself all the time. You need to cut that out. We can’t change anything, and even if we could, maybe it wouldn’t have been what we needed right then. There could have been other consequences we’re unaware of. So cut it out and be happy you’ve figured this out now.”

“You’re right.” She shakes her head and picks herself up off the floor. The wooziness is gone and her energy is returning. “I need to refine it, though. If I spend the next few hours on it and get a good night’s sleep, I’ll be ready to instruct others in the morning.”

Mason looks at her. “Done. Can I watch?”

She pauses for a second and whispers, knowing Dom can probably hear them anyway. “If you tell me what’s wrong with you when we have a spare moment?”

The lines on his face grow hard. Annoyance flickers through his eyes, or perhaps it’s resignation because he sighs softly. “Deal.”

“Also as long as you don’t attempt it without making me aware first. I can correct you if I’m watching. I can’t if I’m not. I don’t want another Aishke.” Her tone falls quiet at the end, and a moment of silence follows.

“We don’t need to give them any more help finding us than we already have, right?”

Sai laughs, feeling better than she has since before Aishke’s accident, and focuses her sight inward.

The morning after Dom’s arrival, the first communication hits. Sai wakes up as Aishke walks through her door, face paler than usual but eyes bright in intensity. “Sai, Iria’s come for you. You’re needed in the navigation room.”

Immediately awake, Sai jumps out of bed and drags her body armor on. She buckles the boots she favors over the typical runners and nods to Aishke as she heads out of the door. “You take it easy. You’re supposed to be recovering.”

She falls into an easy jog with Iria a moment later, to get them there that whole minute faster. “What is it?”

“They hit their first target a day sooner than anticipated. Sai...it sounds bad, and we have no one we can send fast enough.”

Sai nods and steps into the room, heart pounding in her ears. “How far away is it?”

“Three quarters of a day.” Mason’s tone is grim as his hands fly frantically over the control panel in front of him.

“That far?” She controls her temper and resists smashing her fist into a nearby desk. Maybe they played into the GNW’s plans by scattering so widely. “Is there no way to make it in time?” It’s more of a statement than a question, and no one answers her except Dom.

“Not even in
Mele
.” It’s all she needs to gain perspective.

She closes her eyes and reaches, feeling the darkness rear its head. She pushes down on it, sapping only a minimal amount of its strength to boost her sensory vision. It’s there, just on the edges—nothing exact, nothing visible, just out of her reach. She frowns and snaps a surge of power at the sulking shadows trying to leak from the adrium in her system. They back away, a slight hesitance to them, wariness.

“Is there any good news?”

“Some.” Mathur sounds grim and bags hang under his eyes.

She knows he had to have had a sleepless night since Dom got there with the kernel. Not only is he in the middle of reconfiguring the dominos, but now he’s also working on the pulse machine that will theoretically save them all. “And it is?”

“They started the attack too close to sunrise.” Dom moves away from the viewing window. “Gamma sustained some damage, but while it can move during the day, not even the Damascus can accompany it. Their distress call came via their communication chip, because their normal transmission beacon was damaged. We could only send brief coordinates to them. If we leave now, we could maybe save what’s left.” He glances at the sun. “
Mele
can’t carry more than eight or nine people. I’m not sure what use that’d be.”

It’s there, in the middle of the room as big as an ox. Eight or nine people will ensure death for them if the Damascus contingent is anywhere near big enough to be effective. Yet to stand back and do nothing is to condemn a whole Mobile to death.

Mason stands up, suddenly looking weary and far too old for his age. Sai fights the urge to hug him and tell him everything will be okay.

“We have four vehicles capable of traveling at maximum speed during the day. It will take them about eighteen hours to reach the site. They know as well as we do how far away help is. We can’t risk leading the Damascus back to our other forces. As cold-hearted as it sounds, the best we can probably do for anyone until the dominos are up and running is make our way to pick up any survivors.”

Silence falls over the room. As true as his words might be, part of Sai rebels against it, wants to help and save the people she’s never met. Realistically, they all know Mason is right.

“We’re running out of time, though.” Dom breaks the silence. “I can go with you this round, but I need to leave in a few days. Unless Mathur can finish the device beforehand, I have to make sure Bastian is safe.”

Mathur shakes his head. “I am pushing it as it is to finish. It took us two months to do it originally; there is only so much time I can shave off it now.” His skin hangs, like he’s lost weight, and for a moment Sai wants to tell him to stop, to find someone else to take the stress off his shoulders. But ultimately he created the only two chances they have for survival now, and like it or not, they need him.

“We’ll take three teams and make sure they understand we cannot intervene. We won’t have the people or firepower. Gamma is executing evasive maneuvers. We have to hope they can hold it off and that the Damascus can’t somehow tap into our communications. Maybe we’ll make it in time to help in some way.” But Mason doesn’t sound very convinced or very convincing.

Sai nods and starts to leave, but Mason grabs her arm gently, stopping her. “Not you, Sai. You’re staying here. I need you to train a few of James’ people whose talents are exhibiting signs of good psionic strength. Cadets Darrien, Michael, and Argyle. They’re fresh recruits, and they need to be trained yesterday. Crash course the hell out of them. Understood?”

It’s an effort to keep the glare off her face, but she understands his reasoning. Sai nods. “Understood.” But the word comes out snappier than she intended. “I’m sorry. I just...”

“You want to test out that bolt, don’t you?” Mason looks away and doesn’t wait for an answer. “I know how you feel. Do you think it’s easy to tell our people not to interfere in a losing situation like this? There are a lot of ifs and buts, but overall? If it means I might preserve more people by giving that order, I’ll give it.”

The message hits her consciousness like a sledgehammer, tossing her to the ground. Sai rolls and groans, and then all the images pour into her mind at once. Dismembered body parts scattered across the desert, baking in the sun. Limbs and dangling intestines wedged in the shutting mechanisms of the loading bays, causing the ramps to open and close in a strange parody of a laugh.