"Still think you need a biotank."

"Won't find one here. Can't go to where we know they are." She sighed softly. "It'll keep."

Quinton wrapped his hand around hers where it was tucked beneath her chin. She was lying on her side, curled up around whatever pain she was feeling, but she still gave his hand a squeeze back.

"You're not allowed to die on me, Thren. I can deal with Jason's attitude, but I don't want to deal with Kerr's breakdowns. I don't have the patience for that shit."

"They're all we've got to rely on. Them and Lucas."

"Yeah, about that." Quinton leaned his head back until it hit the wall. He closed his eyes. "What were you and Lucas talking about on the drive here?"

"What makes you think we were having a conversation?"

"Don't pull that shit with me," Quinton growled. "I'm your partner. Family, Thren. I deserve better than that."

"You do," Threnody said after a brief pause. "I'm sorry. That was wrong of me. I don't even know why I said it."

"Yeah, you do."

"Can you fault me for wanting to protect you?"

They'd been partnered when he was nine and she was eight, almost two decades' worth of training and fighting, bleeding and surviving together on the field. So many years where he followed where she led, building up a reputation that kept them both safe from the threat of termination, only to see them lose that safety in the face of someone else's interference. Quinton knew that survival now meant hiding from Warhounds and Strykers as much as it meant relying on Nathan Serca's oldest son.

"Shut up and get some rest, Thren. I've got this watch."

She didn't argue, just settled into a restless doze beside him. Quinton wasn't sure how many hours passed before the door to the room was opened, but he knew it wasn't long enough to make a difference to their exhaustion.

"If you want to eat, better get down to the cafeteria," Lucas said as he leaned into the room. "Meals are offered only twice a day in this place."

"Are they that short on supplies?" Threnody asked as she rolled onto her back and stretched out her legs, hissing as blood rushed back into stiff muscles.

"They're unregistered and they're scavengers. They're always short on everything." Lucas disappeared, but they could still hear him talking. "I did a brief run into the city while you slept. I brought back enough supplies for us that we won't eat too badly into their allotment. Matron wouldn't appreciate that."

"Help me up, Quin," Threnody said, reaching for him.

It took both of them to get her to her feet. She leaned heavily on him for a moment, hands clenched tightly on his shoulders, breath coming raggedly. Her nerves burned off and on, hot and cold, numb and full of feeling as her system struggled to readjust through the damage she'd inflicted on it. She sighed, momentarily resting her head on his shoulder.

Quinton gave her a brief hug. "How long do you think until you're fully stabilized?"

"Maybe another day or two. Possibly longer," she said. "I wouldn't mind a painkiller right now, though. One that actually works."

"Come on," Quinton said, helping her out of the room. "I don't know about medication, but let's get some calories into you."

Psions had a higher metabolism and burned through energy faster than a normal human ever would. The government was the only one who employed psions because only the government could afford their upkeep.

The tenement the scavengers occupied was three levels tall, practically ancient, with few upgrades and only those that would keep the building standing. The cafeteria and kitchens took up half the second floor, one long, open room full of tables and chairs. Quinton and Threnody queued up with the others waiting for their dinner, and neither complained when the cooks filled their plates with GMO rice, strips of dried vegetable substitution, and cubes of protein. The last serving cook in the line deposited two ration bars on their trays when no one else got extra. Threnody and Quinton didn't question being singled out; they just took a beer from the drink area and joined the long table where Lucas, Kerr, Jason, and Matron were already sitting.

"My second," Matron said, jerking her head at the blond man beside her. "Everett."

He had as much illegal cybernetics as Matron did in his hands and arms, with a glitter in the back of both brown eyes that weren't inspecs, but cybernetic ocular nerves. The wiring done to his eyes was top-notch, none of it showing outside his body. Threnody wondered how he'd been able to afford it.

"Psions," Everett said, his tone revealing that he knew what they really were outside of the obvious.

"Got a problem?" Kerr asked, voice cool.

"Nah. Lucas always pulls through when it matters, even if it does take months." Everett shoveled a bite of food into his mouth. "In this case, years."

"Years," Jason echoed, looking down the table at Lucas.

Lucas methodically demolished a plate holding twice the food of anyone else's. "You don't really think I was in the Slums by chance, do you?"

"Lucas has a way of getting people to do what he wants," Matron said, sounding only vaguely bitter.

"Willingly?" Quinton wanted to know.

"Most of the time." Matron's dark eyes were focused on Lucas. "He means well."

"Choke on your words, Matron," Lucas said. "Finish up. We've got places to be."

It was telling, Threnody decided, that Matron did as Lucas ordered without argument. So did Everett. Threnody took another bite of food, forcing herself to finish what she had been served, even as her stomach kept twisting into knots.

They finished their food before anyone else. Matron got to her feet and left her tray on the table. Lucas followed her lead, but he was the first one out of the room. They took the stairs at the end of the hallway down one floor. Matron led them to a back room, the only place in the tenement with modern security. It was locked, but Matron's biometrics opened it. The entrance that room protected was also locked and physically guarded.

The second door was set in the middle of the floor, braced by steel and concrete, anchored into the very foundation of the building. It was an old design, a holdover from when the threat of nuclear attack was always imminent and people had needed a place to go to ground.

Two scavengers sat at a single terminal, monitoring a dozen different security feeds. Threnody spared them a glance only when Matron pointed at her and said warningly, "You don't touch shit in this place without my say-so."

Threnody shrugged minutely, unapologetic for the ability she had been born with.

"Open her up," Matron ordered.

The scavengers entered a set of codes into the computer, unlocking the blast doors in the floor. The doors opened smoothly, almost silently, revealing sturdy-looking stairs that led into pitch-blackness.

"What, no lights down there?" Jason asked as Matron and Everett handed out flashlights.

"We're off the electrical grid on the best of days," Matron explained. "We've got generators we use on a strictly rationed basis. When the time comes, we'll have to hack into the government's electrical grid."

Kerr knelt by the entrance, letting his hand rest against the side of one of the blast doors. "How'd you find this place?"

"You really think we're going to tell you everything?" Everett said.

"We always have this argument, Everett," Lucas said as he spared the scavenger a brief, annoyed look. "You always lose."

Everett spat between them as he tossed Lucas a flashlight. "I don't like giving up our secrets to people like you."

"It's the people like me who made sure you and yours didn't die from radiation poisoning." Lucas pressed his thumb over the sensor on the slim metal flashlight, activating it. The light coming from the tip was sharp and painfully bright. "Or don't you remember that I was the one who 'ported you to a doctor that replaced your arms?"

"Don't ask me to thank you."

"I could just force it out of you. Now shut up and let's go."

The seven of them descended two flights of stairs into cool darkness. Their footsteps echoed against metal.

"Smells like clean air," Jason said as they walked through a tunnel that could fit three people across.

"First thing we did when my ma claimed this territory as hers," Matron said without looking back at them. "Fixed up the environmental system in this place. Cost a fortune on the black market for the material and even more for government agents to look the other way."

"How long did they stay off your back?"

"Until we killed them."

"Typical."

"You say that like someone who's always had access to the best that the government offers."

"You think walking around with a death switch in our heads is fun?" Threnody asked sharply.

"It ain't there anymore." Matron glanced over her shoulder, the shadows cast by their light source unable to hide the contempt in her eyes. "Quit your bitching, girl."

Threnody clenched her hands into fists, telling herself it wasn't anger, but to prevent the next little wave of tremors that rolled through her arms.

"Here," Quinton said as he passed over a ration bar to her. "Eat this. It should help."

"I'm fine," Threnody said, but she took the little packet anyway, tearing it open with her teeth. She was still hungry, even after the previous meal.

Quinton tucked one hand beneath her elbow, letting her lean on him just enough to give her support. Jason and Kerr were between them and the other three, so no one else saw that brief moment of weakness. Threnody's body wasn't fully healed yet, wouldn't be for a while, not unless Lucas could pull a high-tech biotank and medical support system out of his pocket somehow.

She'll live, Lucas said into Quinton's mind. I need her alive.

I don't put much faith in what you say.

That would be hysterical if you hadn't already done exactly that.

I followed Threnody here, not you.

Lucas's laughter was low and tired-sounding in Quinton's head. You'll have to come to terms with what's going on someday. Might as well be today.

Let us access our powers and maybe I'll start listening. You're as bad as the collars we used to wear.

Really? Pain spiked heavy and sharp through Quinton's brain, causing him to miss a step and stumble a little. Threnody glanced at him worriedly, but he didn't acknowledge her. If it comes down to me killing you, at least you'll know why. That's more than the government ever gave you.

Lucas pulled out of Quinton's mind, the psi link cutting off. Quinton doubted that he had been left completely alone. Lucas had a way with mental monitoring that not even the best Stryker psi surgeons were capable of matching. Quinton chewed on the inside of his lip, keeping the flashlight in his hand trained on the ground. Even with a kind of freedom, it was proving difficult to give up the culture he had come from. His hatred for the Warhounds, even for one who had saved them, hadn't abated.

It was a full kilometer to Matron's destination, a metal tunnel set with half a dozen blast doors between their destination and the questionable sanctuary behind them. Walking through the last set of blast doors, they came into an underground hangar, lights snapping on as the control panel embedded in the wall read Matron's biometrics.

"You're early," a rough voice said. A figure stood up from a work terminal a few meters away. "Next check-in was supposed to be three days from now."

"Novak," Matron said by way of introduction. "He's the best hacker we've got."

"I'm the only hacker left that ain't had his brain fried yet, is what you mean."

Novak was stocky and scarred, body carrying illegal cybernetics like the rest of Matron's scavenger group. He was dark-skinned, with inspecs in his eyes and wires cutting through his temples. His head was shaved, revealing black lines of tattoos inked over his skull. All around the neuroports in his wrists were burns, stretching over his knuckles and palms. He was as makeshift as they came, but makeshift had gotten Matron's scavengers pretty damn far.

How far they'd come was sitting on the launchpad, systems off and metal cold.

"This isn't a shuttle class I've ever seen before," Threnody said as she walked closer to the first of three large shuttles that the hangar housed, each shuttle modified for stealth.

"Course not," Matron said as Novak handed over a datapad. "These were salvaged from deadzones."

Threnody came to a hard halt. "Have they been sterilized?"

"Had to be. Lucas here wants these babies for a specific flight. There's no trace of radiation in those shuttles or this space."

"Did you lose your skin in deadzones?" Jason asked, eyeing the trio from where he stood by Kerr.

Matron raised one hand to show him her middle finger, metal gleaming through the synthskin. "I don't question your physiology and disease, psion. Don't fucking question mine."

"Like father, like son," Threnody said as Lucas walked over to her. "Not willing to do all the dirty work yourself? You just had to get other people to do it for you, didn't you?"

"The people who make up scavenger groups in any settlement were never going to have clean enough DNA when the fifth generation finally came upon us." Lucas slanted her a look. "Just because they're unregistered doesn't mean they're useless. They're good at what they do, even if it kills them quicker than most."

"Are they the only ones you've saved?"

"I save who Aisling wants me to save."

"And how many do you have left before she's satisfied?"

His answer was for her alone when he said, Everyone.

Lucas approached the nearest shuttle where it was propped up on its landing gear, walking a wide berth around the wings and attached thrusters.

"The shuttles are in better condition than the last time I saw them," Lucas said, raising his voice.

"Yeah, because they're not all in pieces," Matron retorted. "I told you it was going to take time."

Lucas ignored her as he walked around the shuttle to check out the other side. "How are the cold-storage units holding up?"

"They're holding. There's more space for cargo than there is for crew."

"Cold-storage units?" Kerr asked. "What are you guys hoping to transport?"

"We," Lucas corrected as he stepped back into view. "What are we going to transport. This is a heavy pickup mission when we finally go wheels up. We're dealing in tonnage, not kilos."

"Just what the hell are we transporting?"

Lucas didn't answer, either vocally or telepathically, as he walked back to the group. His attention was on Jason, who watched his approach warily.

"You were one of the best hackers in the Stryker ranks," Lucas said. "Which means you're the best hacker we've got now. I'm going to need you to get familiar with the hive connection that we've installed in the shuttles."