The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 18: The Table Round

"They're moving again,"  she turned to report over her shoulder to Justine de Lustra, a raven-haired survivor of the Italian nation of Nostra Kelanos, originally located in Venice. One of Italy's famed beauties, Justine turned flashing brown eyes away from the screen she'd been watching towards her fellow Avalonian. The Italian psionic was one of Avalon's most powerful softwires, with Telepathy, burner and limited Mover abilities counted as her talents.

"Can you tell where, Melanie?"  she asked in a husky voice, touched with a soft Italian accent. Melanie turned back to the screen with a frown.

"Not yet, but it looks like they're leaving their safe house in the South East and are heading north! They may have picked up Nora's trail; she was supposed to be scouting out what's left of Preacher's contacts in that area."

"This could be significant," Justine indicated softly with a thoughtful frown. Melanie turned to look at the woman who had become her good friend in the last couple of months of Avalon's existence.

"And I've always said that, when dealing with a significant situation containing hardwires, you need a hardwire yourself. Has Mordecai returned from Alaska yet?" Like most of the women he had rescued from the Brotherhood breeding facility, the Italian psionic had fallen hard for the dark knight. With the briefest flash of jealously, Melanie could hear it in her friend's voice when she spoke his name.

"Or, are any of his lone gunmen comrades in Camelot right now?"

Pushing the thoughts of jealousy from her mind, Melanie opened up to the standard channel Mordecai had shown them all for Avalon's com traffic.

"I'll check," she said softly. – Mordecai. –

- Melanie. - the man in black instantly answered, his masculine voice filling her mind with its power and her body with longing. – What's up? -

- Have you returned to Camelot? We've picked up something suspicious on the monitors that you might want to take a look at. -

- Yeah, I'm just upstairs getting a bite to eat to replenish some neurotransmitters. I'll be right down to look at your blip. -

- Roger that, - she replied and broke the connection to turn back to Justine. "Looks like he just arrived. He said he'd be ..."

"Right down!" Mordecai finished for her, winking into existence almost right at her shoulder. Melanie half closed her eyes in animal pleasure as he put a free hand on the back of her neck to lightly rub the tired muscles there, the warmth of his body close enough to feel through her clothing. His masculine scent, clean and powerful, filled her nostrils as he bent to look over her shoulder. A sandwich, with a bite taken out of it, was clutched in his left hand.

"What do we have here?" he asked in curiosity and Melanie had to shake herself to get her attention back to the screen in front of her. She pointed at the pulsing red mark that was moving across a holographic grid of the city, marked with significant landmarks and distance points.

"Mindfire," she reported. "They've left the shelter of their last safe house and are making their way north with some speed towards the section of town where ..."

"Nora is making her survey!" the big psionic completed for her again, this time somewhat grimly. He came erect, his brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Has she detected them yet?"

"Not as far as we can tell," Melanie quickly indicated. "She just linked in about five minutes ago and psyked that everything was going smoothly."

"Shit!" Mordecai bit out, the sandwich abruptly forgotten. "They may have used her signal to trace back to her position. Especially if they were monitoring our com lines! She could be in trouble!"