Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps (29 page)

Her musings were interrupted by a soft knock on the door. She found her jeans and pulled them on, tugged the sweatshirt over her head, and went to the peephole. It was D’Aguila. What could he want? She opened the door a crack.

“Ms. Dexter?”

“That’s me.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you, but a matter of some importance has come up, and we rather hoped we could request your services.”

“You need a scan done? Now?”

“Please.,, She considered.

This was one of the prices they paid, when they got corporate help. Rentech probably had a hundred teeps in their employ, but they were all Psi Corps, which meant they wouldn’t do illegal scans. Already feeling dirty, she nodded. Matthew was still asleep, and she didn’t wake him.

The “matter of some importance” was a young man-perhaps twenty-five-with curly blond hair and a pleasant, round face. It would have been even more pleasant, she imagined, without the split lip and bleeding nose. She regarded him through a one-way mirror, beyond which he sat in a grey room with a small table and two chairs.

“He’s a teep,” she told D’ Aguila. “A strong one.”

“Strong enough to be a Psi Cop?”

“Yes.” D’Aguila made a sort of grating noise. “He started working in our technical support department about a year ago. We caught him trying to send files out to somewhere, but he was able to erase both the files and the intended destination before we caught him.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I want you to tell me what he’s doing here-whether he knows about our arrangements with the underground, and so on.”

“It won’t be easy. He’ll block.”

“Do what is necessary.”

“He may be stronger than I am.”

“We can only ask you to try.”

She nodded, feeling sick to her stomach. But she went inside. She felt his touch leap to her immediately.

“You’re one of us,” he said, softly.

“I doubt that very much,” she replied. “I make you for a Psi Cop. What about it?”

Yes, I’m Corps. I’m proud of it. What I meant was, you’re one of us, a teep. In or out of the Corps, we are the same. Kith.

“Speak aloud,” she said.

You don’t want me to speak what I know aloud. You’re with the underground, I guess. Good guess, she replied. You do a lot of business with these people. They’re just using you, you know. And we use them. To fight you jackboots. What’s the difference? That’s what I’m wondering. (pause) They’re going to kill me. That’s not my concern, Fiona said. You dug your own grave. But if you cooperate, let me scan you, I might be able to get you out of here in one piece. I don’t know what I’ll do with you then, but I won’t kill you. (laugh) If you find out what I know and tell them, they will most certainly kill me. And you, too.

“Let me scan you.”

You want it? You got it. Her mind filled with images. How long, she could not say, but at the end of it she was trembling. Stay quiet, she told him, when it was done. I’m going to tell them I couldn’t scan you. He nodded, and she left the room.

“Well?” D’Aguila asked.

“Too tough. For now. Keep him in there and don’t let him sleep. I can get it in the morning.”

D’Aguila shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m supposed to have the results by ten o’clock.”

“You will. I promise you. Matthew can help me.”

“Very well.”

She felt a touch of suspicion. Not, she hoped, too much.

“I’ll find my way back, if you don’t mind. Having someone near me right now is-uncomfortable.” She tapped her head.

“I understand.”

On the way back to her room, she stopped and knocked on Stephen’s door. After a few moments-and some muffled curses-he peered blearily out.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Come over to the room for some coffee.” It’s important. Bring your stuff.

“Early day, eh?

Okay. Be there momentarily.”

They paced on the balcony, waiting for Stephen to finish.

“Nothin’ out here,” he finally said, stashing the bug sweeper back in his bag. “I think we can talk.”

“Good. I’ve already told Matthew that they asked me to do an illegal scan on a Psi Cop.”

“Son of a bitch. Did you?”

“Yep. Didn’t have to try hard, though, he gave it up. I pretended I couldn’t nail him, told ‘em we’d all come back for another try in the morning.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. Why the Japanese opera?”

“Because the Psi Cop wasn’t here to investigate the underground . He was here to investigate a slavery racket.”

“What?” She abruptly swung her fist into the wall, almost taking pleasure in the sudden sharp pain in her knuckles. “Jeez, Fee-“

“For every three teeps Rentech moves for us, one vanishes. We thought Psi Corps was doing it. They weren’t. We’ve been helping these bastards enslave telepaths.”

“Holy Joe.”

“You’re certain about this?” Matthew asked. “You scan him.”

“No, no, of course I believe-damn. What now?”

“This cop has all of the major locations for the trade in his head. We can track them down, one by one, get ‘em back. But first we need the cop. I’m not leaving him here for these monsters.”

“He’s a Psi Cop,” Stephen rumbled. “He’ll betray us first chance he gets.”

“I’m not going to adopt him,” Fiona said, “just get him out of here.”

Matthew was nodding.

“Fiona’s right. This is our fault we sent those people to Rentech, and now they’re slaves. Our problem . We get the cop.”

“I’m not arguing this one,” Stephen said. “But we can get what the cop knows and then-“

“Then what?” Matthew demanded. “Kill him in cold blood? I’ve killed Psi Cops when they were shooting at me, sure, but this? No.”

“Okay, okay. We get the cop.”

They took the guards with Fiona’s flechettes. They never knew what hit them. D’Aguila-and the burly man standing beside him wielding a street sweeper-proved to be bigger problems. Opening the door must have triggered some sort of alarm; the big man already had the shotgun raised as they entered, and D’Aguila was pulling a Browning. Fiona hit the bodyguard with everything she had, fugueing him even as his finger tightened on the trigger. D’ Aguila got a shot off, which hit Stephen square in the chest. Though the impact must have hurt considerably, even through his body armor, Stephen’s charge did not slow. He slammed D’Aguila into the wall so hard that cracks spidered in the plaster. Matthew, meanwhile, calmly shot the frozen guard with the flechette. The Psi Cop was right where she had left him, though he had been beaten some more.

“Knew you’d come around,” he said, lisping on a freshly broken tooth.

“Shut up. How well do you know this building?”

“Well enough to get us out. But they have four teeps here, in the building, ready to transport.”

“And you know where.”

“Yeah, sort of. What we have to do is get to a link, call Psi Corps-“

“No,” Stephen grated, cocking D’ Aguila’s confiscated Browning. “No, you show us where they are. Letting Psi Corps have them is no better than leaving them here.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Shut up and do it.”

“Okay. You’re the ones with guns.”

“Damn straight.”

“Wake D’Aguila up.”

That took a little doing. They finally had to reach into his mind and pull him out of it.

“Wha … T’ he said groggily.

“Here’s what,” Matthew said. “You have four teeps held in this building. You’ll take us to them and then get us all out of here.”

“Impossible. The whole complex must be on alert by now.”

Stephen jerked him by the collar.

“You’d better hope that isn’t true, or if it is, that you can do something about it. Because if you are right, you’re a dead man. And don’t try to lie to us, either, or walk us into a trap, because you know you can’t. Now be a good boy, okay?”

D’Aguila’s eyes flicked from one to the other, perhaps searching for some sign of mercy. If so, he found none.

“There is a way, maybe,” he allowed. “The esps are on D level. We might be able to get from there to the helipad by using the executive elevator. Might.”

“Might makes right,” Stephen replied. “Can you access the system to set off some false alarms in another part of the building?”

“Yes.”

“Do it.”

They avoided the guards in the halls by sensing them ahead of time, but motion detectors were harder to fool. By the time they reached D level, Fiona had a definite sense that the noose was tightening. As the elevator opened, her suspicions were confirmed by the bright, metallic smacking of bullets near her head. Stephen bellowed and opened up with the street sweeper, spraying lead pellets as if with a hose. Two men screamed and crumpled in bloody ruin.

“End of the hall,” D’Aguila said, staring and obviously trying not to vomit.

“Fine. Matthew and I will go. Stephen, watch the elevator.”

“Roger.”

“You could give me a gun,” the Psi Cop said. “I could help.”

“Very fat chance,” Stephen replied.

The doors were locked, of course, but D’Aguiia’s card opened them. Two African-looking girls-twins, maybe twelve years old-a red-haired boy who might have been five, and a thin young woman in her early twenties turned listless eyes up at Fiona as the door slid open. She could feel their numbed minds and it almost made her retch. “Sleepers. Damn them to hell.”

“Come on. Come on all of you. We’re getting out of here,” Matthew said. More gunfire sounded from down the hall.

“Damndamndamn,” Stephen swore, as they approached. He was bleeding from a score on his arm. “Children?”

“We have to get out. You, D’Aguila. Which way?”

“The rest of this level is storage. The elevator is across the warehouses.”

“Lead.”

Suddenly the doors to the stairs banged open, and two egg-shaped objects bounced through, spinning near Matthew’s feet.

“Matthew!” Fiona shrieked as Stephen yanked her down to cover. But there was no explosion. An instant later, Matthew came hurtling by.

“Gas! Go!”

They wove in and out of what seemed a rabbit warren of small workstations and storage areas, Matthew running point with D’ Aguila, Stephen bringing up the rear, she and the Psi Cop in between , encouraging the fleeing teeps to run faster. Stephen was fighting a rearguard action as they moved through a large warehouse area and at last reached a small elevator. D’Aguila’s card and bioident got them in, and they had perhaps twenty seconds of breathing time before the doors opened again.

Unbelievably, the rooftop was empty when they exited. A chopper stood empty on a large pad, but they had crossed only half the distance to it when bullets cracked the concrete around their feet. With no cover, Stephen threw himself flat and unloaded the street sweeper again. Matthew was right beside him, firing six shots and then changing clips. Three guards in heavy body armor were crouched behind a large antenna, firing Naga nine-millimeter submachine guns in controlled, professional bursts. They had a clear view of the fugitives all the way to the helicopter.

Fiona made her decision. She knelt and took careful aim at the guard she could see best, squeezed off a round.

Get ‘em in the copter, Psi Cop. We’ll be there when we can. You won’t make it. None of us will make it without cover fire. Go!

She fired again and didn’t watch the Psi Cop and his charges as they broke for the flier. She was too busy. She counted slowly, estimating how long it would take them to make it. After thirty seconds, the guards found some nerve. Two started forward from cover, as the other two stood and fired almost nonstop. Matthew had to roll to avoid being cut in half, and sparks struck inches from Fiona’s face. Desperately, she reached for their minds, but they were too far away to get a decent lock on amid all the commotion.

Stephen roared, bounced up, and charged toward the nearest man. He’d dropped the empty street sweeper and was snapping off fast rounds from a pistol he’d picked up, probably back on D level. One guard pitched back, his teeth blown down into his neck.

The elevator door opened. Fiona spun desperately, firing between her knees. She hit two of the five newcomers, but the bullets spanged from body armor. She pulled the trigger again, and the piston cracked on an empty chamber. She kicked back from the return fire, knowing as she did so that it was over. Then the elevator and everything near it ceased to exist. It was replaced by a flare of painfully white light and as quickly by an ugly black cloud. She had no idea what had happened, but she leapt up anyway , spinning just in time to see the Psi Cop turn the grenade launcher-sling mounted in the chopper-on the men at the antenna array. He grinned at her as she leapt aboard, followed closely by Stephen and Matthew.

They ditched the chopper in the Atchafalaya basin, stole a battered Volkswagen truck from a used car lot, and drove west toward Mexico. Stephen and Matthew took the cab, while Fiona, the Psi Cop, and the rescued teeps piled into the back. Fiona checked them all for wounds. They seemed okay, but Fiona was by now certain that they had been given more than sleepers. They probably weren’t even aware yet of what had happened.

The Psi Cop grinned around broken teeth at her.

“We make a good team,” he said. “I make you to be a P12. You’d be a hell of a Psi Cop.”

“Say that again, and I’ll open you another set of eyes,” Fiona replied pleasantly.

He shrugged resignedly.

“What now, then?”

“First, I thank you for saving our lives back there. After that, you tell us which other Rentech installations have teeps.”

“Most of them aren’t at Rentech sites. They’re rented out, sold to private citizens, to criminal syndicates, kula rings, you name it.”

“But you know how to get the records of those sales.”

“Yes I do.”

“I want them.”

“Why? So you can fight a war on two fronts? One against Psi Corps, the other against Rentech? 1 doubt you have the resources for that.”

“You have no idea what we have. We’ll do it.”

“Worse, Rentech is one of your allies. Will you examine all of the `friends’ of the underground more carefully now? Once you start turning over these rocks, you never know what you’ll find. If you get too picky, the underground won’t have any allies left at all.”