SLAM (14 page)

The boy’s head is shaved, and
marked with distinctive triangular tattoos that cause bile to rise
up in Serena’s throat.
Institute.
Reader.

Slamming their powers down with the speed of
terror, the girls dive into the shadow of an alleyway and press
themselves against the wall, breathing harshly through their noses
and not daring to move. Serena relaxes slightly after a few moments
pass with no alert from the patrol, and slides a wet and chilled
hand toward Abial, who takes it. It’s not for comfort. Now they can
communicate mind to mind while remaining shielded from the
Institute Reader, by connecting their powers directly, skin to
skin, shield to shield.

Nuke.

Serena’s mental curse is so
vehement that Abial flinches before responding.
Plan? Do you think the target’s here? Should we check the
other buildings, just in case?

Serena’s answer is full of
growling rage.
What if whoever they’re
looking for gets caught and dies while we’re off somewhere else? We
gotta go in. We can’t scan, the slave’ll catch us. Do you think
...
She tries not to scrunch her face in
distress, to avoid tugging painfully at the five-inch gash marring
her cheek.

Abial knows exactly what she’s
thinking, and responds immediately.
We
can’t break the boy out. We’re stealth, remember? We get our target
and we’re outta here. How long do we have?
She’s matter-of-fact. To her, the Reader is just another
enemy.

To Serena, though, he’s Damon.
They’re
all
Damon, every single kid taken and used for their skills. This
skinny teenager is someone’s son, someone’s brother. She feels
wrung out, exhausted after too much, too soon. The tears are
stinging her eyes and she lets them fall, knowing they’ll get lost
in the rain. Through the blur, she notices Abial tapping
frantically on her datapad. The screen is dark, she realizes, just
as Abial confirms with a thought-form.

Nuke, my tech’s down.
You?

Distracted, Serena frowns and taps
on her wrist unit, then groans internally.
Yep, me too. They must have thrown a pulse at the place.
We’ve got, what, about three hours to get to the Wall? If we can’t
comm Leaf, we have
to be there in time,
and pray that he remembers. We don’t have any time to
waste.

They both lean for a moment, minds
racing, and then Abial groans internally.
We need a plan! Come on, ‘Tactics’! This is your thing,
right?

Serena shakes herself and nods
grimly. This is what she’s here for. Plans on the fly. Creative
thinking.
Well, a distraction to move them
away from here would be good. How far’s the next building? I wish
we could raise Leaf and ask him to lob a grenade through the window
or something. A decent boom at one of the suspected locations
should move them along; they’d have to assume something big was
happening and head that way, leaving this place unmanned, at least
for a few minutes.

Abial snorts silently and purses
her lips in thought.
They’re getting ready
to go in. One of us should do it. The next building’s only a few
blocks away.
She clenches her jaw, flaring
her nostrils and meeting Serena’s eyes with a serious expression as
she lays the offer out.
Give me a grenade,
I’ll go. All I’ve got to do is get there, throw it in, and get out
of the area. If I sprint, I can be there in a minute. Hurry. I’ll
head back here to meet you as soon as I can. If I’m not back in
fifteen minutes, head for the Wall.

The thing about mind-to-mind communication is
that emotion and feeling are layered through the words. Serena
feels Abial’s urgency and determination, calculates the odds of
them getting to the building with a Reader on site – nil – and
growls under her breath. She can’t see a way around it; they need
to get attention away from the place. She hauls her flat pack to
the front and digs through it, then hands Abial two egg-sized
grenades and an extra power pack for her zap.

Good luck.

If Abial doesn’t get back, doesn’t meet up
with Serena, there’s no way she can lift someone over the Wall by
herself. If she’s unfathomably lucky, the target might have enough
telekinesis to help, but even then, without practice and training
... the odds aren’t good. More likely, she’ll have to terminate the
target, hide out in the City. Hope that Leaf finds her, or that she
can get through the Wall into the slums on her fake ID. Not great
options, but it’s all they have unless they abort the mission
now.

Which they won’t. Neither of them has that in
them.

All of this, Abial knows. They’re linked
together. She knows exactly how Serena feels just as Serena knows
how Abial feels. There’s no need or time to say anything else.
Abial pockets the weapons, grins almost invisibly in the darkness,
and is gone. A nauseous feeling has settled in Serena’s stomach,
and she can’t shake the thought that she’s sending Abial off to
die.

Biting the inside of her uninjured cheek, she
reminds herself why they’re here, then edges to the end of the wall
and peeks out, relying on the gloom to hide her. The soldiers are
slowly getting into a skirmish line, obviously ready to bust
through the doors. She braces, wondering whether Abial has found
trouble, or if she’s on her way to the other building.

If she’s already dead. Or captured.

And then suddenly, a muffled boom breaks
through the heavy sound of rain.

The soldiers immediately start backing away
from the building and forming a cordon around their treasured cargo
– the boy in the car. Orders are hand-signed from soldier to
soldier as the unit reorganizes itself and bolts at a fast clip
towards the explosion, ElecCar whirring around and keeping pace
easily.

Alright! Something finally goes
our way. Now stay out of sight, Abial. Don’t die. Don’t you dare
leave me on my own.
Abial’s too far away
to actually receive the message, but it makes Serena feel better to
wish the thought into the ether anyway.

She waits until she can’t make out the
soldiers anymore, and then slinks over to the building they were
watching. This is it – they must think their quarry is here, or
they wouldn’t have been preparing the way they were. The Reader
would have told them for certain that someone was in this building,
and that’s all she really needs to know. Now she has to get in
there. She’s too scared of the Reader to use her powers, so she
huddles in the doorway and tries to open the electronic lock with
her wrist unit. Suddenly it clicks open and she blinks, confused
and unnerved, because it definitely wasn’t her hacking skills that
unlocked it. She enters anyway, pulling out her zap. It’s likely
that the sound will be heard through the rain, but using her powers
is too risky right now. If the Reader catches wind of them, it’s
game over. The best way to avoid him is not to leave a trail, and
at least with a zap report, it won’t be easy to figure out where it
came from. Or who used it.

She tries to sneak through the room but runs
into several items in the dark, sending them crashing to the ground
with far more noise than she would have liked. If someone’s in
here, they know exactly where she is, now. She’s irritated with her
clumsiness, her heart pounding brutally, when it gets worse and a
throat clears behind her.

She nearly leaps out of her skin, whirling
round with her zap up and pointed in the direction of the sound,
using a single-handed grip and keeping her other hand free for her
more unusual weaponry.

“I’m warning you, I’ve got a zap pointed right
at you,” she hisses, grateful when her nerves don’t show in her
voice. “I’m not with the Watch.” Seconds drag out until she’s
vibrating with tension, desperately trying to figure out what to
do.

“How about the people who want to open up my
skull and play pat-a-cake with my brain? You with them?” The
robotic computer voice crackles out of some speakers above her
head, shocking her enough to make her spin around again, aiming at
the new source of sound. It’s pitch black in the room, and her
breathing sounds incredibly loud to her own ears.

“No, not with them either. Not really into
unrequited brain surgery.” She risks allowing a little of her
Talent to seep into her words, projecting all the truths of her
hatred for the Institute, and desire to hurt them in any way
possible.

A faint glow abruptly lights the other side of
the room, and she whirls toward that, blinking. A slight figure is
standing against the wall, though it’s impossible to make out any
features. Then the light rises, and she sees a young man holding a
comm unit in his hands, the screen illuminating a little of the
space around it.

“Unrequited brain surgery is the worst kind of
surgery. I should know. Hi, I’m Sam. Who’re you? What happened to
your face?”

His own face is wan, with huge
hollows under his eyes, and he looks exhausted, though it might be
exaggerated by the fluorescents. She edges toward the table and
lays her zap down deliberately, so he can see. She’s thrumming with
tension, but this kid doesn’t look like the sort of threat you have
to shoot, and she’s overly aware of how scary it is to have weapons
pointed at you. She doesn’t want to alarm him any further.
Right, Negotiations 101. Calm, collected, in
control.

“My name’s Serena. I’m here to get you out.
Are you hurt?” Her voice is low and reassuring, the immediate fear
gone now that she can see the owner of the voice. He looks younger
than her, maybe fourteen or so, and scared.

He sits down in a tumble, like he can’t
support his own weight, sliding down and leaning against the wall,
and her heart clenches with sympathy. She starts toward him
automatically.

“Not really. I’m pretty hungry, though. I
haven’t really eaten in two days.” His voice is dazed and
dreamlike. The unit in his hand takes his attention suddenly and
his eyebrows shoot together as he holds it up to his face and
glares at it like a recalcitrant child. She moves closer, hands
clearly visible and non-threatening. She hopes. She keeps her arms
behind her, palms angled away from him and facing down – the normal
way for a Psionic to show that they’re not going to attack. Until
she knows what he knows, she has to assume he’s a Psi like her, and
act accordingly. Besides, if he’s not, he won’t think anything of
the gesture.

“You need help with that?”

He jerks like he forgot she was there, and
shakes his head as if to dismiss whatever had been distracting him.
Turning the small screen so she can see it, he holds it out for her
attention.

Her mouth falls open as she takes
in what’s happening on there.
Holy nuke.
Everything. Everything is happening.
The
screen is buzzing with information, folders jumping and text
scrolling to grab her attention. A black background is running code
behind files popping up one after another. Operative files, Slave
files, medical information on Institute soldiers and workers. Down
one side of the screen, there’s an open folder labelled ‘Mission
Status,’ promising a wealth of information with the multitude of
links within.

It looks like he’s downloading the entire
Institute database, most of it flickering at high speed, as though
it’s popping up as he acquires it, then storing itself elsewhere.
But even the little she’s able to process and interpret is more
information about the Institute than she’s ever seen
before.

He’s hacking the Institute, right
in front of her eyes.
Holy.
Shit.

“Nuke, you’re in their systems! Comms, maps,
protocol … How in the name of freedom did you get this?” Her shock
is clearly evident in her voice, because the boy’s tense face
softens for a moment.

“Well, I guess you really
aren’t
with them, then.
I should probably disable the bombs.” His tone is thoughtful, and
it takes her a second to process what he’s said.

Shit. Didn’t even check for booby
traps. Rookie.
She’s disgusted with
herself.

“What bombs? Nuke, who
are
you?” Looking round
the room, she blanches as she makes out flat sheets of explosives
the size of her palm pressed onto the walls. Pinpricks of light are
flashing on them in a way that looks a lot like they might be
enabled. And then, without the boy touching anything, they go dark
and dormant.

Psionic.
That should be impossible. It’s like he has the control to
simultaneously press every button on every device around the room.
The telekinetic equivalent of playing a quintet by yourself. With
your toes. No wonder the Institute wants him back so
badly.

“I told you, I’m Sam. Can you get me out of
the City? I can pay. Whatever you want. A million credits.” He gets
to his feet, exhaustion clear in his tone and the way he’s swaying
slightly.

“Uh ... peh … buh. A
million credits
?” she
hisses. “Nuke me now. You’re rad touched. Mad.”
A million credits would buy you a City.

He grins wanly and lifts a shoulder. “Nep,
just good with computers. Steal a bit here, steal a bit there ...
If you steal half a credit from everyone in the system, the
computers just round up and no one’s the wiser. S’pretty useful. Do
you have any food?”