Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps (16 page)

That was damn nice of you, Kid. The voice came from the darkness; Kevin couldn’t pinpoint quite where. If he concentrated he probably could locate the source, but it wasn’t worth the effort. He wiped his eyes. He deserved it, he sent back. Despite it all, he deserved that, at least, to see a Centauri. 1 don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry; Kid. I haven’t cried-1 haven’t cried since my mother died holding me. And now you get sentimental about some normal-not just any normal, but the bastard who was responsible for Psi Corps. Monkey, you don’t care about anything as long as you can blow things up. I didn’t see you objecting. You could have stopped me anytime. I’m strong, but there’s never been anybody like you, Kid. Even Blood never recognized you. I’m the only one who has ever known, and that’s only ‘cause I raised you. No, there was one other, Kevin sent. Which reminds me … (slight resignation) You gonna do me now, Kid? You probably could, but I wish you wouldn’t. No. This has all worked out pretty well. You have the underground , and now I have Psi Corps. No, 1 need a favor. He sent Monkey the images. A woman, an infant. Holy shit. When did you ever have time to get a baby on someone? Kevin smiled at the bittersweet memory of precious hours and days stolen here and there over the last ten years. Ninon had been required to marry a teep, of course, and Kevin had never been able to tell anyone but her his own true nature. He had worked too hard and too long to cover it. She had understood. Ninon had been the greatest risk of his life, but she had been worth it. And the miracle that she had had his child, so shortly before he lost her … There was time, was all Monkey got. You don’t want your kid in Psi Corps. No. Some unpleasant things are going to happen in Psi Corps in the next few years, and 1 won’t be able to protect her if she is there. But you can protect her. I’m gettin’ pretty old, Kid. Not too old. Her name is Fiona. She’s only two months old. Take good care of her. I’ll fight Psi Corps, Kid. (shrug) I don’t care. Just don’t get my daughter killed. What kind of game are you playing? 1 don’t understand this at all. Don’t worry about it. Just do what you do. Help the rogues all you want. I may even be able to help you from time to time. But if you get caught-if you get caught, 1 may not be able to help you. You were always a strange one, Kid. Good luck. Good luck to you, too, Monkey. And Monkey? Ook? Don’t tell her about me. She can’t know. And Monkey was gone. Kevin stayed with Lee until the police and the ambulances got there, and after. He touched the tears on his face and wondered at them.

“Goodbye, Lee,” he whispered. “You showed him. You showed the bastard.”

Then he straightened, and went out to do his job.

None
*

CHAPTER 1

The scream was her compass. Fiona kept it in her mind, as she had been taught, turning it around to see where it was clearest. That still gave her two corridors to choose from, so she took the left one. It was an old school: floor, wall, and ceiling tiled with ugly but nearly indestructible Vibralite-what Grandpa Monkey referred to as “tech-nouveau riche” architecture. It was the logic of a whole era-you come up with a cool new synthetic and you build everything out of it, no matter what the cost to the senses. Half the buildings in Malaysia were Vibralite. Architecture may have taken a more aesthetic turn, but Malaysians were pragmatic-if it was still in good shape, use it. It could have been the national motto. Vibralite would still be in good shape when the Sun went nova. The best thing about the stuff was that it was like paper to psi powers.

She whisked past roomfuls of normals and suppressed their uncontrolled babbling as background noise; the scream was still clear, the pain, the confusion. She had to hurry. If she had known more about schools, she would have found him more quickly, but she had never been in one before-her education had always been dealt with on the go, through netlinks, home schooling, tutors. But eventually, following the mental cry, she found the school nurse’s office-or so the label on the door proclaimed. An agitated man in the uniform of a guard and a frowning woman in a brightly colored Muslim head scarf turned to scrutinize her as she arrived.

“Is that where he is?” she asked. “Is my brother in there? Please, I have to see him.”

The look she got was rather peculiar, and a surface mindflash showed her why: the boy huddled inside, in tears, had features darkly Dravidian—an ethnic Indian. Her own skin was light, her hair auburn.

“He’s adopted!” she said, desperately. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We’ve called the doctor, young lady,” the woman said. “I really think it best you wait until they arrive.”

But Fiona knew that was a lie even without a surface scan. Grandpa Monkey’s com mole had picked up their call to Psi Corps. Which was why she was here.

“You have to let me see him,” she repeated.

“Young lady, do you have any identification?” the guard asked pointedly.

“Not with me.”

The administrative type frowned.

“Stay here with Mr. Bao,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

(suspicion) Right, Fiona thought. You’re going to call for more muscle. You know this kid doesn’t have a sister. She had only a few seconds then, so she did something she really hadn’t wanted to do. She walked toward the door, as if agitated , and then pretended to trip. The guard reached out to catch her-and she fugued him. His eyes went wide and blank, as whatever his last thought had been began suddenly repeating itself, freezing his mind in the moment. It wouldn’t last long. It also left her worn-out, and her blocks slipped, so when she opened the door the boy’s mental keening was almost too much for her. He was there, curled up on the floor, maybe twelve years old, just like the image she had read from the guard’s mind. Come on. Come with me if you want to be free! she sent, as strongly as she could.

“Make it stop!” he shrieked hysterically. “Make them all stop! It’s cutting me up!”

I’ll make it stop, I promise, but first you have to come with me.

“Please-” Come on! He responded to the order, coming jerkily and uncertainly to his feet. She grabbed his hand and practically dragged him through the doorway. By the time the guard started shouting, the boy finally got the idea. She put the thought in his mind that running would get him away from the voices in his head, and once he thought that, she had a hard time keeping up with him.

The front doors of the school had locked automatically by the time they reached them-except that she had propped one open, so the bolt poked impotently out into thin air. After that, fifty steps got them to the scooter, and she had the boy on it, and they were racing away from the school. There was no pursuit.

The boy started calming down. He was strong, but not so strong that the voices of other children could follow him this far up the little road. They rode into hills and palm plantations, where stray thoughts were few. But she needed to prepare him, for soon they would be among the sprawling factories and rise housing of Kuantan, where his newly opened and unprepared mind would be assaulted once again.

Look, she told him. You’re okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just special, that’s all. I’m a demon. Auntie Po said-You aren’t a demon. You’re just like me, a telepath. I’ll take care of you. Now the first thing. You have click-builders? That’s for little kids. But you had them? Yeah. Good. Pretend you have a whole pile of them. Pretend you’re building a wall around yourself, one clickbrick at a time. See? Here, I can help you …

By the time they got to Kuantan, he had a thin but adequate block up. She pulled into Lot 66 feeling triumphant. The restaurant was empty-they served only the evening meal, which gave them the daytime to transact their real business. Nearby, the South China Sea rolled crests of sunlight toward the shore. The scent of chili, ginger, and lemongrass mingled with salt wind. Grandpa Monkey stood in the kitchen, grinding the spices in a stone mortar.

What the holy hell did you do? Sounding just as pissed off as she thought he would. His ancient face looked like an apple shriveled around God’s own frown. You weren k here. We got the call If I had waited for you, Psi Corps might have gotten him. (defiance) Besides, I’m a big girl now. Hell, I’m nineteen! How long are you going to try to keep me from doing my part? You do your part, smartmouth, and don’t argue with me. Of all the stupid Oh, yeah, I get to do tactical. Build bombs, but never set them of. Look at maps, but never make the steal-and-run. You train me and train me for everything, but all I do is sit behind a com-link I’m-The training is for emergencies, not so you can run off and get yourself killed-or worse, caught.

“Well,” she said aloud, “I didn’t get caught, did I? I’m not stupid . I know the nearest Psi Corps precinct is in KU That’s half an hour even by-“

But she stopped abruptly, as both she and Monkey turned to stare at the boy. Her words had triggered a mindflash in him. All of their eyes went round as an image shouted itself, of a man in a black uniform, with a bronze and copper badge, bending over the child.

“Shit,” Monkey said. “Psi Corps has already been at him. That means-” He stopped, staring upward. “Choppers! Go, Fiona. Take the kid and go. Get to the old temple.” Your father is going to-Then the thought snapped off, as it always did, when it came to her father.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I led them right here. I led them-“

He grabbed her in a rough hug.

“Go. Now. You might make it. I have to crash the system, you get it? Go!” And he shoved her out the door and toward her parked scooter.

I can’t leave you! Damn straight you can.

What did I teach you? Jeez, Fee, I’m over ninety! How much longer did you think I was going to make it, anyway? I can’t run anymore, and I can’t fight. But you can. Next to me, no one knows as much about things as you. So they can’t have you. Too many people count on you. Go! But you … Not to worry. Love you, Kid. Now get the hell out of here.

She had been moving all along, almost propelled by his insistence . She mounted the scooter, got the boy up behind her, hit the switch, and whirred away.

Monkey sighed and looked about the restaurant. It was very old-once it had been open-air, but the heavy pollution and fires of the early twenty-first century had led the owners to close it in. He poured a glass of shaoxing, dropped in one of the little dried shrimp one drank with it, and raised the glass. ‘To you, Blood, whichever hell you’re in. Teal, Smoke, Mercy=’ He paused and shrugged. “-Kid.” He took a drink of the wine, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. The door burst inward, and four men in black, close-fitting armor jackets stepped in, eyes glittering with jubilant cruelty. Psi Corps Hounds, not exactly chosen for their table manners. Behind them followed two Psi Cops, pistols trained on his heart.

“Hello, folks,” he said, raising his glass. “What can an old man do for you?” The Hounds surged forward, but the lead Cop-a tough-looking black woman-restrained them.

“Jack O’Hannlon. I have many warrants for your arrest. And the confiscation of your property.”

Monkey laughed.

“Jack O’Hannlon. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a very, very long time. I don’t much think I care for it.”

“Please stand up. Slowly.”

“Sure thing, sweetie. But to be fair, I have to tell you that what you have here is your typical `beep-beep-zip-bang’ kind of situation.” The Psi Cop nodded to her men, who started forward cautiously . “I don’t follow you.”

“Not a fan of twentieth-century vids, eh?”

“Can’t say that I am.”

“Well, here, I’ll explain it. `Beep-beep,’ that’s the call of a certain flightless bird. `Zip’ is the sound of something moving very fast. And `bang,’ well, bang-” He grinned and raised the glass.

Even two hundred yards away, the shock of the explosion twisted the scooter off the road. Fiona managed to take it on her leg, shielding the boy with her body, but they ended fetched up against the embankment. She turned her eyes in horror to the mushroom of black smoke rising into the blue Malaysian sky. “Grandpa…” Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and she began trying to crawl from beneath the cycle. Then she was suddenly paralyzed by whole new kind of pain. In dull incomprehension she looked at her grotesquely twisted leg. Her head suddenly felt very large, as if it were a balloon expanding. The last thing she saw was a black Tawanaka sedan pulling up a few yards away, the Greek letter “psi” plainly emblazoned on its doors.

CHAPTER 2

Kevin Vacit sighed wearily as he settled behind his desk. At seventy, he had no right to feel and look as well as he did, but that didn’t stop him from wishing he felt better. He began going through the daily reports, and did feel better. Twenty new registered teeps, one a potential P12-and as good, some fourteen detected who had somehow slipped through the Corps’ fingers. Evolution. The somewhat rough birth of the Central African Block was finally smoothing out, and commercial teeps were once again profitable there. The rebuilding was going well on Mars, and EarthForce had requested five more telepaths to keep security tight on the Red Planet. His desk link burred.

“Sir?” his secretary asked.

“Yes?”

“One of the interns to see you.”

“An intern?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What does he want’? I don’t have any appointments, do I?”

“No, sir. But she says to tell you her name is Alexander. Natasha Alexander.”

“Oh. Send her in.”

A moment later the door cracked, and a young woman stepped through. He caught himself staring; the resemblance was striking. Oh, of course she was a woman-quite beautiful at that-but with that queue of flaming red hair and upturned nose, she so strongly resembled Monkey that he almost expected to hear his first mentor ‘s taunting voice in his mind. Then she turned, and he couldn’t see it anymore.

“Sir?”

“Sorry, Intern,” he said. “You reminded me of someone.”

“That would be my mother, Michelle Alexander. I understand that the two of you were friends-that you worked for Senator Crawford together.”

He nodded.

“Indeed. I was fond of your mother. I was sorry to hear about her death.”