No.Elevator.Have him take the elevator.A plan began to form, loose and haphazard as all Rowan’s plans tended to be.She frequently ran on intuition instead of logic, which caused Henderson a bit of worry.
Then again, trained intuition was as good as magic sometimes.Sweat trickled down her back again, even though the air conditioning was icy.
Yoshi didn’t argue, even though it was against a primary rule—never take an elevator if you can help it.Just too easy to get caught.
Elevator it is.On my mark, one… two… oh, goddammit, Rowan, get the hell out of there.Tightly-controlled panic, tasting like smoke, colored his mental voice.They have a net going, they’re all over.They’re serious this time.
What, like they ever play games?I’m not leaving without our precog.Steel in her mental voice, the bleak taste of determination.Her eyes moved over the crowd again, marking, evaluating as she leaned against the wall.Where is he, Yoshi?
Ro, Henderson says to get out.That’s an order.Yoshi didn’t sound happy.As a matter of fact, his wash of purple-red panic was distracting.She was too sensitive, and his fear scraped raw against her brain.Rowan’s heart leapt, she took a deep breath.It was almost second nature to blur the perceptions of the people around her.
They wouldn’t see the woman with the long ash-blonde braid and the gun under her coat.Electromagnetic resonance meant camera footage would be blurred and useless too.
Another trick Justin had taught her.
She’d managed a whole thirty seconds without thinking of him.It was a new world record.
Rowan eased the gun free of its holster.There was a time she would have been too afraid to hold a heavy, lethal piece of metal capable of killing someone.That time, that woman, had died on the floor of her father’s kitchen as she heard the chilling little gurgle of Dad’s last breath.She’d died there, hadn’t known it—and been reborn months later, sitting on the bed in Justin’s room when the fierce determination to make Sigmapayhad surfaced, giving her a reason for living.
Yoshi?You’re in the building’s intranet?
Henderson says?—
I don’t give a good goddamn what Henderson says.Trigger the fire alarms.Now.
Mercifully, he didn’t argue.Instead, there was a sense of frantic action from him as Rowan eased forward, cutting across the line of people heading for the escalators—businessmen, secretaries, flickers of almost-psions.Her palms felt slippery even though she knew they weren’t.A fresh trickle of sweat eased down the shallow channel of her spine, tickling like a sharp knife tip brushing her skin.
A down-coming elevator dinged; Rowan felt a familiar bright, clean mind inside.Lewis Emberson stepped out, his beaky face pale and dewed with perspiration, just as the fire alarms began to bray.
Rowan moved forward smoothly, took Lew’s arm.He was thin, with black-rimmed retro glasses and an indifferent haircut.A pair of khakis and a blue T-shirt—today was casual day at work, and Rowan had counseled him to wear something he could move in.A pair of high-end, obviously new Nikes decorated his feet.He was a precognitive, and if Sigma got their hands on him he’d be full of Zed and working for the black sector of the government in no time.
Not while I’m around,Rowan thought fiercely.
Watery brown eyes blinked behind his glasses.“Rowan,” he said under the sudden chaos of alarms and people starting to move for the exits.“Something’s wrong.”
Gee, you think so?“I know,” she soothed, as his gaze found the gun in her hand.“You’re with me, Lew.It’s gonna be okay.Come on.”
I wonder if Justin ever felt this frightened while he was moving me around.
They joined the mass of deadheads crowding for the exits.Give me a mark on where they are, Yosh.Her stomach gurgled with bile.Brass spikes jabbed at her temples, driving into her brain.She took a deep breath, bringing her heartbeat down.She didn’t need to start exhausting herself with terror.
Moving in.But the deadheads…Sudden sharp jolt, like a fist slamming into her solar plexus.She almost doubled over, the shock was so intense—Yoshi’s fear becoming hers through the mental link for a dizzying moment before she could block it out.Goddammit, Rowan, they’ve locked on you.They’ve got a visual!Move!
A visual meant they were in the building.And then, to cap off the entire damn situation, gunfire popped and zinged.Rowan lunged, dragging Lew with her as glass shattered.The Sigs were aiming high to spook the crowd instead of kill.If Lew hadn’t been right next to her they might have been able to scoop him up separately in the confusion.Where are they?Give me some help here, dammit!
A flood of information in reply.It was too late, because she felt the glow of other psions and saw the long flapping tan trenchcoats.So they’d changed it up—the other Sigs she’d seen had worn black.Maybe it’s Sig summer wear.She squashed the lunatic urge to laugh.The hot new fashion in government weirdoes.
They were coming down the escalators and stairs, shoving through the crowd, firing from the mezzanine to drive the mass of frightened humanity out through the doors plus spill enough terror into the air to slow her down.Rowan could either stay and be caught, or get to the street and run straight into the Sig search net.
Lew made a high whining sound.She didn’t blame him—getting shot at had that effect on a person.
“Come on!”she yelled, shoving aside a blonde with a briefcase and clacking high heels.Lew mercifully obeyed, running with her.They bowled through the crowd at an angle, heading for the other exit.She was going to have to get creative really soon.
Rowanreached, blurring the other psions’ perceptions.The number of hands she had free to juggle mental eggs was rapidly decreasing.She didn’t have any energy left over to regulate her pulse.Her body knew she was being shot at, and her mind couldn’t convince her body that it wasn’t an emergencydeservinga racing pulse.
The other stream of people heading for the secondary exit—exiting onto the other side of the block—swallowed them.Rowan deliberately didn’t return fire, though she ached to pick off a few Sigs.Her primary objective was to get Lew out, not work a little hurt on them.More gunfire, more glass shattering, they were going to start aiming for real soon.
They must be desperate to risk this kind of open attack.Generally Sigs didn’t like public shootouts in which the cops could get involved.They could cover up just about anything, but that took time and resources, and the less government agencies involved the more chance everyone could keep their mouth shut.
