"Fuck me!" Mordecai snarled as he flung his bag onto the bed of a newly rented hotel room, his third. It was a much smaller room than the other two, with just a bed and a closet sized bathroom. But, then again, he didn't plan on staying long.
The Alliance's plea had introduced an element of uncertainty that the man in black hadn't accounted for. He scrubbed his hand ferociously through his close-cropped hair as he paced tightly in the little space the room afforded movement.
No less than fifteen psionic nations were in rebellion here, with news that more were out there under threat by the Brotherhood. And that didn't count those that were already subsumed, to use the term Samson had used. 'Shit! With one swipe of psyken, I find an entire world of chaos right under my nose. What the hell is going on in this city?' he wondered tightly. 'Just when I thought I, . . .'
Before he could finish the thought, a pulse of psychic shock washed through the room. In a heartbeat Mordecai found himself sprinting to the room's only window. Clawing aside the heavy drapery, he stared outside.
At first the view of downtown Calgary that greeted his eyes showed nothing out of the ordinary. But, as his enhanced vision came on line, he saw it: a bright yellow mushroom of distant light marking an explosion of psionic energy. According to his internal map of Calgary, it was climbing skyward from where Samson's house was located.
The man in black's face tightened at that realization. Either Samson had a meltdown of massive proportions or the Brotherhood had just finally caught up with the Alliance's invisible man! And he had just missed getting caught in it by mere moments.
A strange feeling washed through the big psionic as he stared at the growing mushroom of energy and light as he couldn't help but think it was his fault that they got caught, regardless of the rebellion supposedly raging in the streets. Somehow the Brotherhood had followed him to Samson's house and launched their attack. The Alliance had died in a firestorm of psionic rage, which could have been prevented if the man in black had agreed to the partnership Samson had proposed.
Mordecai's jaw muscle tightened painfully as he ground his teeth with frustration. Either way, their deaths were now on his head. And his honor wouldn't let him forget that!
By the time the man in black reached the Alliance safe house, Normal emergency vehicles were already there, thick as ticks on a boar. Frowning, Mordecai surveyed the swarms of city police and RCMP special crimes constables that were working side by side with firemen to sift through the still smoking rubble that was all that was left of the interior of the once majestic two story house. All that was left now was a smoldering shell.
Unfortunately there was so much psionic turmoil still floating around, fallout from the explosion that had gutted the house, the man in black couldn't penetrate into the building with any of his probes. That meant, if he wanted to find out what had happened, or if there were any survivors, that he would have to go inside.
Sighing, he shifted his jacket around on his shoulders then stepped forward towards the yellow police tape that now surrounded the burnt-out building. Sometimes the best way in, was the direct approach. He noted the tape as he strode towards it; apparently the police thought there was something amiss here as well. 'Wouldn't they have a field day if I told them it was an ESET demolition squad's handiwork!' he darkly mused.
As Mordecai approached the line, he was immediately stopped by a dark uniformed city police officer.
"I'm sorry, sir, but this is an official crime scene," the officer indicated, holding up a forestalling hand in front of the man in black. "I'm afraid I can't let you get any closer!" Feigning innocence, Mordecai looked wide-eyed at the officer.
"Holy cow!" he exclaimed in a slightly higher voice than normal, his telekinetic abilities altering his face in an instant to make it less threatening. "What happened? Like a gas leak or something??"
"No, not quite," the officer replied with a slight smile, seeing a rather pudgy faced, middle-aged man standing in front of him, eyes wide with a perverse curiosity. A typical rubber-necker; the constable had seen hundreds like him already today!
"Now, could you please step back?" he asked politely.
Nodding, Mordecai stepped back away from the line and the officer, pretending to be content to watch the firefighters work their way through the second story, just visible from the ground. And, as soon as the officer turned his back on him, content that the pudgy-faced spectator wasn't going to give him any trouble, Mordecai dropped the telekinetically enhanced mask and snapped open a portal. In the wink of an eye, he was stepping into Samson's drawing room, where the invisible Alliance chief had brought him before.
As soon as the big man was through, he diffused his molecules enough to let light pass through. With a subtle shifting of shadows, he faded into physical invisibility. And thus he escaped the notice of the handful of arson investigators, from both the police department and the fire department, that were working in the room's charred shell. Satisfied that he had escaped detection, Mordecai began a careful telepathic scan of the room, avoiding sweeping over the men in case one of them was a Brotherhood plant, looking for clues that would tell him what had happened.
Almost immediately he picked up the psyken signatures of the movers that had done the damage. 'Arrogant bastards didn't even bother to hide themselves,' he thought darkly as he continued his scan. 'Almost as bad as those pricks I caught at the airport. Either that, or they want me to know that they were here. Whatever the case, the trail is good enough that I can track these bozos half way across the planet, if I have to.'
Narrowing his scan, Mordecai began searching for any trace of Samson and his two children. It didn't take him long to find it: the movers had managed to scatter most of what had been Samson and Thomas all through the ether, shattering their very molecular structures and breaking them down into their elemental parts. Only their psionic signatures still clung to the individual molecules, badly weakened by the psionic fog that clung to the house's interior like smog to a city's skyline.
Samson's signature, of course, was that oddly altered pattern that enabled him to remain psionically invisible, though it didn't help him in the end. Only the shear force with which he had been torn apart let Mordecai see how the strange signature had rendered the Alliance leader invisible to telepathy, twisting the pattern just enough for Mordecai to find it, albeit only with his most powerful scan.
Quickly Mordecai noted how the pattern was assembled. That information might come in handy in the future. Storing the strange pattern in his memory, he continued his scan. And he quickly found something else of interest.
While Thomas's signature was thickly scattered about, the boy having the same telepathic ability as his sister, the man in black couldn't find anything that he could identify as Tabitha. 'They must've grabbed her and taken her somewhere,' he quickly concluded, making one last scan to make sure he had found everything he had come looking for. Then, in the wink of an eye, he was gone.
As he reappeared in his hotel room, Mordecai slipped Paladin from his breast pocket.
"Paladin, direct link."
"Link established, Mordecai," the A.I. reported as the man in black felt a light telepathic probe brush against his core shields.
"Very good. Download the scan data I collated in the last fifteen minutes and analyze."
"Analysis parameters?" Paladin asked softly.
"Isolate any identifiable psionic signatures from the scan data and compare with signatures in the updated database, including known Brotherhood psionics," he directed as he established a link to his hidden brains of organic diamond their protective pocket of subspace.
"Parameters acknowledged, Mordecai. I've initiated the analysis," Paladin confirmed and, with a nod of satisfaction, the man in black reached out with his mind.
- Lisa, I need your assistance with something. -
Almost immediately the husky voice that belonged to the blonde wet bank gatekeeper replied inside his mind.
- Anything I can help with, Mordecai, it'll be my pleasure! - she replied softly and, with a small smile playing on his lips, Mordecai began to establish the interface.
Lisa was already waiting for him when the man in black appeared inside the interface chamber after the now familiar perceptual whirlpool that dragged him into the wet bank. As he settled into place, she began to float towards him, a mischievous smile playing on her beautiful face.
"You've been a busy man since we last talked," she noted, coming close to sweep around behind the big hardwire, her fingers playing with his hair. "The destruction of the Brotherhood's local network, fending off an attack by an ESET and visiting with the Alliance's Samson, mainly. How can I thank you for taking care of Ethan?" The smile became even more sensual. "Oh, never mind, . . . I know how. Prepare to interface, Mordecai."
Laughing softly, Mordecai captured Lisa's hands before they could touch the side of his head and initiate the heavily sexual primary interface protocol.
"While I'm glad I've done you a favor, you're going to have to wait to show your appreciation," he indicated as Lisa drifted back a foot or two, her eyebrow arched with curiosity. He quickly grew serious as he looked up at the gatekeeper. "I need whatever data you have on the term ESET, or Emergency Suppression and Elimination Team. By the sounds of it, you already know what they are."
"I do." Lisa frowned. "But I don't need to scan my database to tell you that I only have three entries in my files mentioning ESETs. They're reports detailing the dispatching of Emergency Suppression and Elimination Teams to various locations within Ethan's jurisdiction and their progress updates and final summations. But no background information on either ESETs in general or any team in specific. Sorry, darling, but I carry a lot of day to day information in my database. Perhaps you should check with Samantha; she carries a larger number of metafiles in her database."
Mordecai nodded.
"Thanks, Lisa. Talk to you in a bit!" With a thought, he was back in Reality and already reaching with his mind for the second wet bank.
- Samantha, I need to check on something that may be within your database. Can I access? -
- Of course, my Mordecai! - Samantha's honey-covered voice replied. – Meet me in the interface chamber. -
When Mordecai resurfaced to Reality ten minutes later, he wore a thoughtful frown. Lisa had been right: Samantha had contained information about ESETs and which ones were currently assigned. There were five of them, assigned to eliminate various independent nations here, in North America. Two of them had been given the additional assignment of subsuming the Alliance: a team that went by the name of Quick Poison, the other, the Elementals. Samantha's database gave physical descriptions of each along with the psionic signatures of each member.
"Paladin, establish link."
"Link established, Mordecai," the silvery box sitting on the coffee table replied.
"Update your analysis parameters with these psionic signatures to be used in comparison with the signatures gathered at the incident site." He mentally downloaded the signatures pulled from Samantha's database into the small A.I.
"Update received, Mordecai," Paladin indicated. "Applying new parameters to analysis."
It didn't take Paladin long to match the signatures Mordecai had found at Samson's blown-out house to members of the Quick Poison ESET team. The man in black heaved an unconscious sigh of relief. At least he hadn't lead Mindfire to the Alliance leader's house, as he first had suspected. It had been the Brotherhood, working to restore their dominance over the city.
"Analysis completed, Mordecai," Paladin informed the big man. Already scanning over the signature matches via Paladin's holographic display, Mordecai nodded.
"Channel all your results to visual display, Paladin."
Immediately the display shifted to show Paladin's complete analysis of the scans Mordecai made at Samson's house. According to the stress signatures, the wireheads that had hit the Alliance safe house were at least hard softwires, if not expanded movers, and counted possibly one or two hardwires amongst their members.
The man in black frowned. While he hadn't faced hardwires other than Duchesne in the destruction of the Calgary network, these ESETs already had four in his face. It appeared that the Brotherhood was making it a habit to concentrate their hardwires in the ESETs. Which translated directly into a bigger challenge for Mordecai to take them on. Hardwires meant greater firepower, and that was always trouble.
But if the man in black thought he would quickly find Mindfire, Quick Poison and the Elementals ganging up on him, a quick scan through the ESET information files Samantha had provided quickly informed him otherwise. According to the file, ESET teams did not communicate with each other, unless working directly in conjunction on a single project.
That ruled out the possibility that Mindfire had communicated his existence to Quick Poison, who had struck the Alliance safe house. And he could extrapolate that into a strong ruling against Poison leaving a trail for the purpose of trapping him. 'That's good to know,' he thought, sitting back while keeping his eye on the display of information. 'Now I can track them without having to deal with Mindfire breathing down my neck.'
A thought made him return his attention to Paladin.
"Paladin, establish an uplink to the probes. We need another update of the map. And, including in your uplink instructions additional information for the probes to scan for, with narrow resolution.
"The signatures of the individuals involved in the attack on the house?" Paladin asked, anticipating Mordecai's instruction. The big psionic grinned. The A.I. had been programmed well.
"Affirmative. Have the probes make a tight sequence of sweeps, using the signatures as trace information then update the map. As soon as the update is complete, inform me."
"Confirmed, Mordecai. Establishing uplink," Paladin reported and Mordecai folded his arms to wait. It shouldn't be long.
However, Mordecai's wait was even shorter than he anticipated. As he settled back into the couch to await Paladin's update, a soft knock sounded at the door.
Immediately the big psionic went to no brain activity status, locking his core shields down tight. For the moment he kept his main body shield down, trusting that his neuron armor would protect him, to minimize his psionic signature. And he didn't create a probe to see who was standing behind the door for the same reason. Instead, he used the old fashioned way.
"Who is it?" he called out cautiously.
"A friend," a muffled female voice replied. 'Tabitha?' Mordecai wondered as he stood to carefully walk towards the door. If the young telepath had managed to elude Quick Poison's devastating attack, it would be a bonus. Because then he could pick her brains to find out exactly what had happened.
But it wasn't Samson's oldest that Mordecai found standing in front of his door when he peered through the peep hole. Instead, it was a heavily cloaked woman, a thick, dark purple hood draped over her head, an equally dark cloth wrapped around her face, hiding her features. Only her eyes peered out, hooded in shadow, to gaze unwaveringly back at him through the peephole.
Stepping back, Mordecai's brain worked hard. While a psionic would wear heavy clothing on a day as hot as this one, just to increase ambient energy, they certainly wouldn't hide their features like that. And that hood and cloak seemed a little eccentric, even for a psionic. Besides, there was something familiar about that cool, purple gaze, staring out at him from big, almost glowing eyes, ...
"The Lilith!" he breathed, almost not willing to believe it. But, . . . how? His internal chronometer told him that it was only two in the afternoon, well within the crispy period for vampires with their intolerance of UV radiation. Never mind how a vampire had managed to survive the day's highest point for UV, how the hell did she find him??
Of course, he wasn't going to get either question answered if he didn't ask. So, ...
"You took a big risk coming here," he said a little louder, pitched for the sharp vampiric hearing.
"With Brotherhood psionics combing the city for their rebellious slaves, I think not," the Lilith immediately replied, her voice still muffled. But Mordecai easily detected the note of relief in her voice that she had been recognized.
"It is more dangerous for my kind out on the streets of the city." Mordecai watched as she looked from side to side, as if mentioning danger would bring Brotherhood movers out of the shadows to cut her down.
"I can understand that," he said, his thoughts churning. "But what brings you to my door? I'm just as hunted."
"As you sought refuge in our midst, I now seek refuge with you," the Lilith said in a hoarse voice, tinted with just a whisper of desperation. "You, at least, have a measure of defense against this enemy which would see me and mine slaughtered, without mercy."
"If I had compassion for the Normals of this city, I would turn you away to be destroyed by the Brotherhood. Your presence here means many of their deaths," he pointed out in a low, intense voice. "Still, a vow is a vow." He jerked the door open with a surge of strength.