The Far Shores (The Central Series) (19 page)

“Come on out, Alex,”
Timor called. Alex heard the sounds of a discarded magazine clattering against
the concrete and knew that Timor was reloading. “That was a good trick, but not
quite good enough.”

“Thanks, but no,” Alex yelled,
reloading his own mostly useless firearm. “Think I’ll stay right here.”

Timor laughed and fired
a burst from his submachine gun, the impact of the shells against the dumpster
louder than the actual shots. Alex was so startled that the gun nearly fell from
his hands, and he cursed his own nerves. Then he stuck his gun over the top of
the dumpster and fired rapidly and blindly, burning through the eighteen-round
magazine.

“Very well, Alex. I will
simply be forced to flush you...”

Timor didn’t finish the
sentence. Well, he did in a sense – but not with words. Instead, there was a
surprised, inquisitive noise, followed by the sound of the liquid in his body
flash-freezing, which reminded Alex of popcorn popping.

Precognition isn’t the
same as omniscience, after all.

Alex scrambled around
the dumpster in a crouch, one hand on the ground for balance, the other wrapped
around the grip of his pistol.

Katya, of course, had
been the source of this particular revelation. Timor, like all other
precognitives, had a blind spot – he could only anticipate the futures on which
he focused his attention. Anticipating all future possibilities was an
overwhelming task, the sheer scope of which would cripple any precognitive
advantage. Instead, combat precognitives focused on obvious concerns and imminent
threats. The greatest source of danger, the most immediate threat.

The bullets from Alex’s
gun, for example. Timor’s protocol was focused on the firearm. Alex could have
fired a hundred rounds, and he never would have hit him. So he didn’t try. Alex
fired blindly, his intent limited to distracting Timor from the small area of
immense cold that he had created with his protocol before he threw the grenade.

Alex was typically
reluctant to use his protocol on this scale, for fear of causing himself a
protracted period of dreamless, unavoidable sleep. Within the telepathic
training sessions, however, Alex could use his protocol without restraint,
because the consequences of a Black Protocol were beyond the scope of Gustav’s
simulation. Alex had therefore chilled a wide swath of empty space to near-zero
temperatures, situated between him and the combatants, before he tossed the
grenade. When Timor came into contact with the super-cooled air and breathed it
in, the consequences were devastating.

Alex rounded the
dumpster cautiously. Timor was on his hands and knees, blue in the face, and
gurgling through his damaged trachea. Alex put his 9mm at the base of Timor’s
neck, the only distance at which Alex was certain that he would not miss.

“Nothing personal,” Alex
said, closing his eyes and pulling the trigger, wincing when something viscous
splattered across his face.

It never is, Alex. We
are all professionals. Even our enemies.

Alex wiped whatever – he
didn’t want to know what – from his face with his sleeve, and ducked into the
next alley, identical to the one he had just left, save for the mess. He had
just forced his gun back inside the always stubborn holster when he heard heavy
footsteps behind him, from someone who wasn’t bothering to hide.

“You surprise me,
Warner. You are more capable than your foolish appearance suggests.”

Cursing, Alex took a
defensive stance in the narrow confines of the reproduction alley, preparing
himself as best he could while Grigori powered up his own protocol, raw
telekinetic power whipping the wind into a frenzy around him, his whole body
enclosed in a vivid blue field that snapped as it discharged excess energy.

“Uh, Grigori?”

“Yes?”

Grigori cracked his
massive knuckles and grinned in anticipation.

“Interested in a
temporary alliance?”

Grigori halted at the
mouth of the alley, the edges of his telekinetic field splintering the faux brick.
His expression was a mixture of frustration and contempt.

“You must be joking.
Need I remind you that I hold you solely responsible for the fate of the Muir
family?”

That stung, but Alex
stuck with his plan. He needed more time, even if it meant absorbing the
Hegemony member’s insults. Which, even Alex had to admit, had more than just a
kernel of truth to them.

“No,” Alex said sadly. “You
don’t.”

“Then, why, of all
people...”

“Because there are two
more people left out there, and one of them is Katya. How many times have you
beaten her so far?”

Grigori grimaced but
said nothing. It was a rhetorical question. Katya dominated the Program exercises
with gleeful tyranny, often acting as a teacher’s assistant rather than a
pupil. Only Renton stood a chance against her, and even then, not a
particularly good one.

This made a certain
amount of sense, as she was an almost fully trained Black Sun assassin,
expelled from murder school for some vaguely defined scandal. Her sewing
needles had put an end to more than a few simulations for all of them.

Briefly, Grigori
hesitated, clearly torn. Then his protocol expanded, shredding the structure of
the buildings around him with unbridled force.

“I guess that’s a ‘no,’
huh?”

Grigori charged, the pavement
shattering beneath his feet as he came. The alley bowed and fractured as he
focused his protocol, creating a telekinetic battering ram that obliterated
whatever it touched.

Alex’s hands shook when
he put them out in front of him, as if he were planning on directing traffic,
but held his ground. There was no point in trying to run.

In a perfect circle
around where Alex stood, every surface sparkled with a generous coating of
frost, the air so cold that it stung his throat. He pushed the field outward to
the very edge of where he could operate his protocol. Three meters was hardly
enough space to comfortably face off against an angry Russian telekinetic, but
it was the best he could manage. And it would have to be good enough, because
Alex had no faith in the idea of trying to freeze the blood in Grigori’s brain
before Grigori busted his skull.

The walls surrounding
the collision of the perimeters of their protocols were destroyed instantly. The
telekinetic battering ram fractured, resulting in wild bolts of uncontrolled
kinetic energy that devastated the generic buildings around them, chips of
shattered brickwork flying in all directions. Grigori yelled in pain or
surprise as his blue aura was torn away by the collision of forces, but kept on
coming, fists still sheathed in glimmering blue fields.

Telekinetic energy, Alex
already knew, was the most difficult form of energy for him to work with. He
didn’t know why, though Vivik had devoted several hours trying to explain. Alex
was familiar with the end result, though – if he Grigori hit him, even with his
protocol diminished, Alex would be little more than a red splotch on the
featureless asphalt.

Grigori liked to throw
big punches, extending his arms recklessly, knowing full well that even a jab
would be enough to end the fight. Michael had taught Alex enough boxing to
avoid the first few strikes, though his inability to block limited his options
rather severely. He bobbed and weaved as best he could, trying to stay one step
ahead of the massive gloved fists that flew in his direction, the air warping around
them as if they radiated extreme heat.

While Grigori never
tired of making it clear that he had absolutely no respect for Alex, he
apparently had enough respect for his protocol to keep pressing forward,
denying Alex the opportunity to concentrate and use it. Despite an entire summer
of drills, Alex’s protocol was slow to activate, and required total
concentration to maintain.

Alex caught his heel on unseen
debris and fell over backward, Grigori’s fist passing so close to his head that
he could see the fraying edges at the wrists of his fatigues. Alex didn’t get
his hands out in time, and instead the back of his head cracked against the sidewalk,
bringing tears to his eyes. He braced for the impact, knowing there was no
chance to get back to his feet before Grigori smashed him.

The blow never came.

Alex risked opening his
eyes, and found that Grigori was lodged, elbow deep, in a crater he had created
in the building behind them. It appeared that the brickwork had collapsed with
the impact of the missed punch, collapsing on his extended arm. Deprived of the
protection his telekinetic aura would have normally provided, Grigori’s arm was
turned at a strange angle and clearly badly broken. His eyes were wide with pain
as he tried to pull his arm free, one foot braced against the wall, tugging at
his elbow with his other arm.

Grigori’s misfortune,
his panicked and furious expression, made Alex want to laugh. Instead, he
reached for the pistol, hoping that there was still a bullet or two left,
cursing himself for not having bothered to switch out the clip.

Grigori saw Alex move
and remembered the gun at his own hip, but it was too late. Alex didn’t feel
bad for him. Grigori had enough combat experience to know better.

The first round caught
Grigori in the belly and sprayed hot blood across Alex. Alex rapidly fired off
his two remaining shots, and one of them must have struck his head, because
Grigori toppled over, one arm lodged firmly in the brick wall.

Lucky boy! This could
be your day, Alex!

He didn’t need Miss
Gallow to encourage him. Alex hadn’t survived a single group combat simulation
since he joined the Program. This was, by far, the closest he had come to
taking out all of his opponents in a skirmish.

He did well enough
against simulated Weir, compiled from hundreds of actual encounters, or fighting
humans with conventional arms, as long as he wasn’t required to shoot back. But
defeating Operators – and thereby Anathema, a new and pressing concern in
Alex’s world – was an entirely different matter.

Now there were four down
– with Katya somewhere out there, stalking him. Alex didn’t think that Min-jun
could have defeated her while he fought Grigori. Even worse, most of the tricks
that Alex knew, Katya had taught him. So he didn’t have many surprises for her.
Still...

Alex closed his eyes and
searched for her Etheric Signature.

Then he was knocked over
by something heavy that fell on him from above, hitting him in the chest and
slamming him back to the pavement. Alex was dazed and winded by the impact, and
it took a moment for his vision to clear. Not that he needed to see to know who
was sitting on his chest.

“Tag,” Katya said
cheerfully, poking him delicately in the forehead with the business end of one
of her feared sewing needles. “I win again! Unless you wanna fight it out...”

“No way,” Alex said,
muffled by her sitting on his chest. “You totally win.”

“Alright!” Katya stood
carefully, slotting the needle back in the cloth band she wore around her wrist.
“This is so much fun.”

Alex rubbed the back of
his head, sore from where it hit the concrete.

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah,” Katya said
seriously, helping him to his feet. “You think this sucks, try assassination
school.”

Alex could see where she
might have a point.

That’s it, kids. Game
over for this week. Make it what, Mitzi – seven? Yeah. Seven in a row for Katya.
The rest of the class are barely even showing up, though I guess Alex deserves
a few points for improvement. Or maybe the rest of you are actually unlearning
to fight.

The end of the
simulation was always jarring, but at least it didn’t make him sick any more. There
was no perceivable transition. One moment he was standing next to Katya in an
anonymous alley, wearing a full combat kit, then the next he was seated on the
floor wearing a tracksuit in empty classroom, all of the desks piled in one
corner. For reasons he never understood, only Gustav, Miss Gallow, and Miss
Aoki were allowed to use chairs.

Of course, not
everything was simulated. Alex had a bruise and knot on the back of his head, along
with a number of cuts and scrapes from flying brickwork. Then he noticed blood
trickling from the back of his thigh.

“Man,” Alex complained,
holding his red hand up to Timor. “You shot me.”

“Of course I shot you,”
Timor muttered, cradling his aching head. “Then you shot me in the head, you
imbecile.”

“Now, now,” Katya said
cheerfully, trotting over to pat her brother’s head. “Give Alex his moment of
triumph. You should have seen that trap coming.”

“I don’t care,” Timor
grumbled, leaning his head against Katya’s shoulder. Alex felt genuinely bad
for him. He had no idea why it was necessary, but dying in the simulation felt
awful, and he knew from experience that Timor wouldn’t feel right until he
slept. “Would you please stop talking about it?”

“Any experience you
survive is valuable,” Miss Aoki said gravely, her brilliant red eyes as cold as
her voice. “I suggest that you both learn from it.”