Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps (24 page)

“I’m here,” he murmured.

“Oh, God. Thank God!” She buried herself against him, and he felt her concern and-love?-rush over him like a wave. He pushed her gently back.

“It’s okay. I’m okay, Ms. Alexander . Did you feel it?”

She mastered herself quickly.

“Feel what, sir? You just started staring into space, shaking. You were blaring static. I thought something was wrong with you.”

“It was like a death-trace, but—’ He couldn’t find it. “Is this where I was standing? The whole time?”

“Yes.”

“And when you came over to me, you felt nothing?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s okay. There’s nothing here, you say?”

“Radar and sonics show nothing. Very slight fingering background radiation. It’s an empty hole, sir.”

“It is,” he agreed. “It is now.”

None
*

CHAPTER I

Stephen jerked his head back from around the corner of the stable. Inside, a horse snorted uncertainly.

“Damn!” he snarled. “They’ve already got him. I count-holy Moses!-three Psi Cops and a goon squad of maybe ten. All of this for one kid?”

“Block!” Matthew hissed. “They’re sweeping!” Stephen snapped his guard up, felt his companion’s stronger power settle over both of them-not just blocking, but making them transparent to a searching scan-hopefully. He swallowed his resentment and checked the rounds in his clip. After a moment, Matthew relaxed.

“Okay,” he said. “That was tough.”

“Well, now what? Two against thirteen, three of them Psi Cops.”

Matthew sighed.

“I guess we can’t win them all. Better pull out before they do notice us.”

Stephen nodded affirmation and stood, slowly.

“Still…” he said. “Three Psi Cops. If this kid rates that much attention-” He scratched his head. “What did the report say again?”

“We didn’t get much of it, and parts of it were garbled. The Corps has a new code, and about twenty percent still comes through scrambled. A boy, age thirteen-Remy Ligeau. The usual stuff-freaked out in church, somebody passed it on.”

“I’m surprised,” Stephen remarked. “I’ve never seen a more closemouthed community.”

“Yes, but the reward for turning in a teep can be pretty steep.”

“I guess. There must be more. This just doesn’t smell right. Three Psi Cops in Wherethefrag, Canada, two hundred miles from anyplace with a population higher than a dachshund’s IQ? Uh-uh. Head for the woods. I’ll meet you in town, at the café, say about ten o’clock or not at all.”

“What? Stephen, wait-“

But he was already gone, sprinting along the edge of the trees. He waited a few moments, to give Matthew a head start, then began firing short, controlled bursts. The tableau seemed frozen for a moment the Psi Cops, two with their hands on the shoulders of a boy; a man and woman, presumably the boy’s parents, standing on the porch of a cabin, looking worried; a perimeter of guards, way too relaxed. His first three shots hit the wagon they had come in, and by the third he was sure he had taken out the power system. Then he started in on the guards. By that time it was self-defense, as bullets laced the air around him. He ducked back into the woods, dove behind a downed spruce. He popped back up and fired again, hitting a second man in the shoulder. At about the same time, the man on the porch-the father-was somehow holding a shotgun. It roared and belched a cloud of smoke, and one of the Psi Cops mindscreamed as he sprawled among the chickens pecking around the yard. Then both the father and mother went down as the remaining Psi Cops opened up. Stephen calmly shot another Psi Cop and the nearest guard, as an inch from his head the bole of a spruce tree opened a smoking eye. He ducked again, but not before he noticed the boy running into the woods. The remaining guards and cops seemed not to notice-they had sights only for him, now, and things became very violent around his log. The house sat at the top of a mountainous ridge that ran to his left and right. The road he and Matthew had come up on went right the boy was going left. He started wiggling backward, down the incline, raising his arm high for a shot now and then. When he thought he had enough of an angle, he jumped up and ran, paralleling the ridgetop. As he ran, he counted what he had last seen. One Psi Cop left and four grunts. Still not good odds-but he should have a little time now. Psi Cops weren’t usually wilderness types. His original plan had been to take out the car and then pick them off one by one as they headed to town on foot, but this was better, if he could catch up with the boy before they did. Reaction was setting in, and his legs felt a little quivery.

What the hell was he doing? Matthew had a way of bringing out the stupid in him, like no one else besides Fiona. But of course, the two were very much corollary. Puffing, he worked his way back to the top of the ridge, tearing through a stand of dense secondary growth, and then back into clearer woods. He did a quick pivot, but no one was following yet. He found the boy’s track easily enough, and took off after him. He found the boy huddled against a tree at the edge of a ravine, watching him approach with wild eyes. Easy, Remy. I’m here to help you. It’ll be okay. He glanced behind him again, feeling imaginary crosshaus on his back. Remy Ligeau inched closer to the abyss, whimpering. Stephen walked a few steps closer, hand outstretched. C’mon. We have to hurry. Bad bad. Run hide run hide papa says don’t don’t just, no not ever (lark angel touch me but still my boy love redeemer please just a little thing didn’t mean to papa papa … Stephen slapped his hands to his ears involuntarily, but of course it didn’t help, though his blocks did. He felt disoriented, not so much by the words as by the stream of images and feelings that bellowed from the boy’s mind like a bullhorn turned up to the point of distortion. “Good Lord…”

A bullet spanged from a nearby rock, and he dove forward, grabbing the boy and yanking him down. Remy thrashed like a wildcat, and for a moment, the two of them hung at the edge of the cliff before falling. Stephen’s gut floated empty for an instant, and then they hit a talus slope, rolling, skittering down about thirty feet before he caught hold of a scraggly cedar. A good thing, too, for another ten feet and the slope of loose stone spilled over the final lip of the crevasse. Swearing, he hung on to the boy with one hand and the shallow-rooted cedar with the other. The rifle lay perhaps five feet upslope.

“Grab a tree, boy,” be snapped Grab a tree! The boy looked at him, uncomprehending. Two, then three figures appeared at the top of the ridge.

“Bring us the boy,” one shouted down.

“Shoot me, and we both fall.”

“Bring us the boy!” It had the force of command, and Stephen had to fight the sudden instinct to do exactly what the Psi Cop demanded . But he couldn’t anyway. The Psi Cop seemed to dive off the edge, followed by the man next to him. The third turned, raised his rifle, and did a back flip. The first two bodies bumped down the slope and off into space, while the third fetched up against a large boulder. Matthew appeared, staring down at them, and then he, too, fell. The reports of rifles clapped in the chasm, loud, then faint, then loud again … Grab a tree! Stephen flung again, furiously. Papa says grab a tree!

Eyes still clouded, the boy finally did, and Stephen scrambled free. Matthew had fallen at a strange angle, and was out of sight. Stephen got the rifle and crawled upslope on his belly. Stones began dancing around him, and more applause rose from the ravine. Breathing slowly and evenly, he tuned that out as distraction, sighted the head he could just barely make out, focused on its barely discernible thoughts, fired, fired, fired as something hot scored his shoulder-He felt it, a rush of horror, surprise, resignation, nothing. The shooting from the top of the ridge stopped. There was one more out there. Or would they have sent one to get help? Matthew? Matthew, are you there? Nothing. He glanced back at the boy, who seemed to have finally grasped the notion that he would fall if he didn’t hold on to something. Five minutes crawled by, and he repeated his call to Matthew, with the same negative results. Ah, well. Good riddance. It would make all sorts of things easier. He was surprised to feel a bit of self-loathing at that thought. But self-loathing was a feeling he had come to terms with. Like every time he sent the director a memo.

He began inching toward where he had last seen Matthew. It paid to be sure. He found the other man scarcely a yard from the edge. His shoulder was bleeding and his eyes were closed, but this close Stephen could feel the life still in him. One little push could fix that. A very small push, indeed. He let himself down toward Matthew, cocking his leg back to kick him. The leg was shaking. He didn’t know how long he lay like that, but in the end he gave up, grabbed Matthew, and hauled him up the slope to safety. The wound was bad, but shouldn’t be fatal; the purpling spot on Matthew’s head was a better explanation for his little nap. He lifted the eyelids and found the pupils were the same size, so no concussion. He went back down and helped Remy up. The boy had gone silent—almost catatonic, in fact. When he returned, Matthew was raised up on one elbow.

“What happened?”

“You saved my life,” Stephen told him, brusquely. “Then one winged you from behind. It was pretty funny, really. Like you were all just walking up to the cliff’s edge and falling over. Like lemmings, or something.” When Matthew didn’t laugh, he continued , “I guess you had to be there.”

“Are they all dead?”

“There’s one more, I think.”

“I shot one back at the house,” Matthew said. “Oh. No, we’re jake then. But we should get out of here. We’ll go back up to the old farmstead, and then I’ll go down and get the car.” He found them in the barn, Matthew seeming woozy and the kid looking as crazy as ever.

“C’mon, Matthew, up and at ‘em. I don’t know what this kid did-swallow the president’s secret resume or what but there’s another squad of cops in town, gettin’ ready to come up as we speak. They akeady found our car.”

“Oh, no. “

“Oh, yes. I don’t know how long we have, but I’d say not too long. I’m going to grab some food and things from the house-do you know how to saddle a horse?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I like to saddle Jisabelle.” They both turned in astonishment to behold Remy, stroking one of the horses. “You get the food, Matthew. I’ll help Remy-I haven’t ridden in a while, but I think I can remember the basics.”

“There’s only two horses.”

“Remy can ride double with one of us.”

As it turned out, it was Matthew riding up behind Remy, because once on the horse, the boy suddenly seemed to come alive, the voices bubbling out of his head reduced to a sort of rhythm-mantra, wordless. Was he in the horse’s head? If he could do that, it certainly would make him valuable to Psi Corps. It felt good to ride again. He had spent considerable time galloping the plateau around Casper when he was a kid. Riding a horse wasn’t exactly like riding a bike, but it did come back to you. They found a back way down the mountain, went up a creek for a time, starting the occasional false trail. Sundown found them in an elevated pass, with a good view back toward where they had come from.

“They’ll bring helicopters soon, with microdoppler and infrared . Tomorrow, maybe, the next day at the latest.” Matthew sighed, leaning back against a stone.

“Better have a fire now, then, while we still can,” Stephen reasoned . He gathered the wood and soon had one going.

Remy had at first refused to dismount, but did so when he saw the fire, coming to watch the flames in fascination. Matthew broke out some food-homemade bread and goat cheese.

“What was with those folks, anyway?” Stephen asked, after swallowing a bite of his sandwich. “I mean, we liked things kind of old-fashioned back in Wyoming, but Remy’s people didn’t even have a refrigerator.” He hunched closer to the fine. “Not that they need one, I suppose.” A deep chill had fallen with the night, reminding him that October in these latitudes could be murderous.

“I think they were Pareilists,” Matthew said. “Sort of Re the Amish.”

“Huh. Weird that anyone would choose to live like that.”

“Weird to me that anyone gets to choose how they live. Have you ever tried to imagine it, Stephen? Being able to pick where you want to live, how you want to live, what you want to do?”

“I don’t have to imagine it,” Stephen remarked. “I didn’t get my stuff until I was twenty-two. For a while, the whole world was open to me.”

“Maybe that’s worse, then-to have freedom and then lose it.” Stephen laughed a little bitterly. “I was doing a damn good job of narrowing my choices before I went teep. No one has real freedom.”

“Being able to make your own mistakes is freedom. Freedom isn’t about making the right choices, or about everything working out fine. It’s about getting to decide for yourself and taking the blame yourself if you blow it.”

“That last is a right a lot of people don’t really want.” Matthew chuckled painfully. “Sometimes, Stephen, I wonder what keeps you with us. You don’t seem to really believe in what we’re doing.” Stephen stirred the fire with a stick, and a nebula of sparks lifted toward their stellar cousins.

“Believe? I just like a good fight. Have I ever given you cause to doubt my enthusiasm?”

“No. I just don’t understand you. You’re always closed to me.”

“I’m a private kind of guy.”

Matthew was silent for a moment.

“Do we know where we’re headed?”

Stephen nodded.

“Dena country isn’t far. The underground has a cell there.”

“Dena country? That’s more than a hundred miles.”

“You have a better idea?”

“No-Stephen, look at that!”

Something funny was happening with the fire. The sparks were forming odd patterns, clumping here and there. As Stephen watched, a small chunk of glowing wood joined its smaller, fiery brethren in a weird cyclonic dance.

“Holy Moses,” Stephen breathed.

Matthew nodded. “A telekinetic.”

“No wonder Psi Corps sent the A team.” Intent on the coal, Remy seemed not to notice them at all. “That means they won’t turn loose, either. Not that they would, anyway, after we killed those Psi Cops, but-Jesus. This is the first teek I’ve ever seen. Are they really all like this-a little soft in the heal? That’s what I’ve heard.”