Ro, Ro, come on.The net’s almost at the building.You don’t have a lot of lag.Move out of there, can you?Yoshi’s voice held the deep purple shade of tightly controlled excitement, shot through with brittle crystal lattices of professionalism.
Rowan pushed Lew before her and did the single riskiest thing she could—pointed her gun straight up, and fired twice.The crowd exploded away, people diving for cover or panicking.The swirling flood of emotional energy acted as “static,” blurring her even further to the other psions’ perceptions and granting her a short-term boost of energy.
One she’d pay for later, but nothing was perfect.She tapped in, triggered the mood of the crowd, directing the frightened people with deft mental pressure.Some found themselves blindly pelting for the stairs, keeping the Sigs back with a crush of bodies; others spilled out irresistibly onto the street, providing her and Lew with cover.
And for my next trick,she thought with grim amusement,I’m going to disappear.Watch this.
The sudden crush pushed Lew and Rowan through the door, the heat like oil bursting against her skin.She shoved Lew in one direction—up the block, where Henderson would be waiting until it got too hot to stay around here with a van full of comm equipment and psions, no matter if they were shielded.
“Run!”she yelled.
Lew took off, not waiting to argue.
Thank God.At least he has some sense.
Then Rowan dropped a few layers of mental defenses, sending out a very public wave of fear and pain.To the Sigs, it would feel like she’d gotten shot and made her first mistake.
Crystal cold clarity fell over her, the adrenaline freeze Justin had told her about.Everything etched bright and sharp, every fleck of glittering mica in the pavement and the sound of the sirens approaching, the screams and horrified yells of the people behind her, whooping fire alarms and braying sirens.Her own breathing, harsh and desperate as she flashed along the sidewalk.
I’m drawing them off.She broke the link with Yoshi.She would need all her strength for eluding the net that now turned on itself, pivoting as the Sigma-trained psions moved their flank.Now Henderson had a clear field to extricate himself from the critical zone and swing around to pick her up—once she got through the goddamn net, that was.
Pounding feet on pavement, her boots flying.She had their locations now—the net was thick and tight, three deep.Rowan strained her memory for the layout of the city block Lew’s office building was on.There was an alley—but that was a dead end.
It was punch through the net or nothing.
Rowan dashed into the middle of the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a silver BMW.Horns blared.She was deliberately making a lot of goddamn psychic noise.
Then…contact,another mind sliding against hers, through every lock and defense.Brushing past all the walls Rowan had painstakingly built to keep herself sane, keep everyone elseout.There was no denying this touch.She catalogued it out of habit, though her entire bodyknew,a wave of new strength flooding her bones.She grabbed for him the way a drowning woman would for floating debris.
Who the hell are you?The voice was clear, familiar.Male, with a touch of bitterness over a deep well of reined fury.Rowan gasped and kept pelting up the yellow line, relief giving her feet fresh speed.The bafflement in the voice was a little worrying, but she didn’t have time to think about that right now.
It’s me!She sent a wordless flood of gratitude as she saw two Sigs on the sidewalk.Cars were honking, and the two women in tan trenchcoats—one with close-cropped stubble, and the other with longer, jet-black hair framing a dead-eyed face—stared at her.Then the dead-eyed one jostled the shaved, whose gaze swung down Rowan’s body.
Rowan felt the psychic attack like thunderstorm prickles along her upper arms, shunted it aside.She didn’t even break stride—but the new voice inside her head suddenlyreached, full of furious, frustrated pain.He flooded her like the sea inside a channel, using her as the equivalent of a booster station to increase his range, actually forcing his own psionic talentthroughher.
She had only intended to knock the Sigma psion’s attack away, spending its energy uselessly.Instead, the girl with the shaved head stiffened, her head thrown back.Blood burst from her nose as she howled, the sound cutting through crowd noise, screams, sirens, and the horns of traffic now snarling from the mess down the block at Lew’s building.
What are you doing?Rowan’s mental voice hit a pitch of anguish, driving steel-tipped spikes through her brain.Justin, no!
If you’re going to get out of there,was his imperturbable reply,you’d better move.Who the hell are you, and why are you in my head?
She didn’t have time to answer, having run out of mental hands to juggle with.The collective psionic pressure increased, seeking to snag her, slow her down.Every step was a physical battle no less than a mental one.Gasping, her side on fire, Rowan ran.Everything now depended on speed.
She used to love running.Still did, even though she had to on a treadmill instead of a track.
It’s me, she thought, desperately reaching for understanding, for the reassurance he had never denied her before.Don’t you remember?
I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.Get off the goddamn street.Justin’s voice was cold as a gun barrel pressed against her temple.She smelled the acridity of gunfire, bullets zinged past.Cut left at the next intersection.Do it!
She saw the intersection ahead.Almost lost the battle, keeping the collective pressure of Sigma away.Pain exploded in her chest, in her side.How many other psions was she fighting?Ten?Fifteen?Where did they house them, how did they feed them?
It doesn’t matter.Move.He sounded utterly calm, but there was an undercurrent of something else—what?
The voice was familiar, but he sounded like a complete stranger.As if he didn’t know her.A complex stew of bafflement, rage, and incomprehension tinted his mental voice, added to a deep wash of disbelief.
Rowan bolted through cars brought to a standstill by the chaos.She zigged left at the intersection, gasping for breath, car exhaust burning her eyes.The smell of fried food from the teriyaki joint with its doors propped open hit the back of her throat, she bowled into a man in a business suit and sent him flying.More zinging sounds—snipers.
Great.Her breath tore in her throat, a sudden stitch grabbing her side.
