"I needed you sane and I need you to be on my side. I saved your mind over the years because I can't do what needs to be done alone."

"What if I refuse?"

"We've gone down that road many times before. It never ends well when you choose Nathan over me." Lucas's gaze was steady. "There's too much at stake, Sam. We both know that. Surviving this fight starts here."

She looked away, seeing their reflections in the mirror. They were both a mess, but still alike in their resolve.

"What's in it for me?" Samantha said.

"Your life and the ability to live it in a changed world."

"Never knew you were such a humanitarian."

"We aren't human, Sam." Lucas pa.s.sed his hand over the control panel to open the door at his back. The sound of everyone else's conversation filtered inside. "I won't be anything less than what Aisling promised."

"And that would be?"

Lucas didn't answer as he stepped out, but she didn't need him to. If the Sercas had one thing in common, it was their belief in themselves and what they could accomplish. Samantha lifted a hand to scratch off a tiny flake of dried blood she had missed in her was.h.i.+ng. She flicked it off her finger, wondering how much blood she would end up losing to reach her brother's goal.

THREE.

AUGUST 2379.

LONGYEARBYEN, NORWAY.

Longyearbyen lay north of the arctic circle, a frozen graveyard of a time when almost every last coastline in the world had communities thriving with people, even a tiny, wintery archipelago. Currently, the town center was surrounded by buildings eaten away by the cold and disuse, time having made inroads on a place only twenty people inhabited on any given day. Richard Cuellas had spent the past five years on sentry duty in the far north, drinking his way through gallons of coffee and whiskey. It was a lucrative, if boring, post.

Richard was one of those who didn't mind the isolation, along with the rest of the people a.s.signed with him in the north. Up here at the top of the world, there was s.p.a.ce to stretch out, land that wouldn't kill you if you stayed too long in one place, and air that smelled better than in any other place on earth. Their mission was to monitor bioscanners and a security grid that encompa.s.sed a quarter of the island. The computers could do this well enough on their own, but the government still required a human mind to interpret the data that ran across the vidscreens.

Sipping at steaming black coffee, Richard tilted his chair back on two legs, balancing there as he called up the log for the past ten hours. It was s.h.i.+ft change, and despite its being a post where nothing ever happened, they stuck to protocol. The government expected full protection of what was buried in the ice and volcanic rock of Plataberget. Neither he nor his compatriots knew what was so important up here, and they weren't stupid enough to ask. Their mission was to guard Spitsbergen. In the entire time that the government had manned the island-250 years and counting-no unauthorized person had ever set foot on it.

That morning, the long-standing record was broken when Richard saw the image of a civilian girl on one of the security feeds in a place she shouldn't be.

Choking on his coffee, he let his chair fall back to the floor and swore as some of the hot liquid splashed over his bare fingers. He set the cup aside and reached for the controls to magnify the security feed, but the girl had disappeared. Richard swore again, wondering if the madness that came from being cut off from society was finally getting to him after five years of duty. He commed the rest of his quad.

"Graham, get your a.s.s up here, I need a second sign-off," Richard said as he leaned forward and squinted at all the various angles he could call up on the security feed.

He found no sign of the girl, and replays of the feed didn't show him a d.a.m.n thing. It was as if she'd never been there. Five seconds was a long time for it to be a glitch, and he knew for a fact that the last s.h.i.+pment of entertainment bodies had all been dumped in the water a month ago. It wasn't some government-supplied wh.o.r.e.

The door behind him slid open a few minutes later. Richard looked over his shoulder at the man who came into the control room, his second-in-command, bundled up against the cold. The environmental system kept the place warm, but heat could stand up against the elements for only so long before the arctic chill seeped into everything.

"I'm on break," Graham said irritably.

"Yeah, and I don't care." Richard stabbed a finger at the vidscreens. "Got a glitch. Security feed showed some blond-haired girl outside."

Graham frowned and leaned over the console to bring the feed up in a quick loop, showing him every angle of their tiny settlement. All he saw was barren land and decrepit houses that were once part of the ancient town. The airfield a kilometer away was empty and the waters of Isfjorden were placid against the icy sh.o.r.e.

"You drink too much at last night's poker game, Rick?" Graham asked as he let the security feed revert to its default circulation mode.

Richard scowled at him. "Do I f.u.c.king look hungover? Do a recon of the area with the others. I want it cleared by a live report."

"You're kidding, right?" Graham laughed. "h.e.l.l, there's no one up here but us."

"If there's no one here, it shouldn't take you long to confirm that fact, right? Now get out there."

"a.s.shole."

Graham left the control room. Richard didn't doubt that the other man would follow orders, but Graham was a lazy son of a b.i.t.c.h who'd been packing on weight over the past two years. He'd take his sweet time getting it done.

Sometime later, Richard could see Graham and some of the other soldiers posted up here wandering around outside on the security feed-along with a shuttle that dropped down out of vertical, coming within camera range nearly on top of the small outpost. Richard didn't recognize the make, and it was completely off schedule. He flipped open the plastic cover that protected the emergency b.u.t.ton and slammed his hand down on it to trigger the alarm. The piercing sound nearly ruptured his eardrum, catching everyone's attention in the connected buildings.

"We've got a breach!" Richard yelled into the system's local comm frequency before moving to switch it into an outgoing uplink.

The press of a gun barrel to the back of his head made him freeze.

"No bioware net." The voice sounded young, her words riding on a soft laugh. "They should have given you one. Hands up. Turn around."

Richard complied. He came face-to-face with a tall, thin teenage girl who smiled wide enough to show all her teeth. Her bony face was dominated by gleaming dark blue eyes, and her smile made Richard's skin crawl. The girl stared at Richard over the barrel of her gun, and Richard thought about reaching for his own weapon, but he couldn't remember why he needed it. Standing there, breath coming in rapid bursts, he tried to remember his duty, but it was difficult to think around the fear flooding his body.

"Who-," Richard choked out, one hand clutching at his chest. His heart was beating so fast it felt as if it were going to beat right out of his body.

She lowered the gun, smile still in place. "What."

Scared to death wasn't how Richard wanted to die, but Kristen didn't give him a choice. She dug her power into his emotions, twisting them beyond anything he'd felt before. Fear, yes, but also pain, both of which incited panic. The body could be made to feel anything, and what Kristen made Richard feel stripped him of all control. His heart burst seconds later, the sound a m.u.f.fled pop in his chest.

Kristen pulled the body off the chair. Taking the dead man's place, she spun around a few times in the chair before finally settling down to face the monitors. The security feed was framed in every vidscreen, showing her the entire outpost. Empathically, she could sense everyone's position, and she put faces to psi signatures using the security system.

Outside in the cold morning air, Threnody's body was already regretting this plan of action. Breathing heavily, she took shelter behind a crumbling foundation wall slick with moss, teeth clenched against the pain she was feeling.

Stay low, Quinton said through the psi link. It was a tenuous connection, all that Lucas could provide. I've got your back.

He lay on top of the shuttle, teleported there by Jason and spared the heat from the fuselage by a thin telekinetic s.h.i.+eld. Rifle in hand, aiming through the sight scope, Quinton shot once to get a read on the air current, purposefully missing his oncoming target, watching where the bullet hit to check wind speed and distance. He adjusted the angle of his rifle slightly, curled his finger over the trigger, and pulled it between one breath and the next.

The soldier was thrown backward to the ground, blood spraying out of his chest as the bullet hit home.

Go, Quinton told Threnody. I don't see anyone in that hallway.

She scrambled to her feet, throwing herself forward, eyes on the door the soldier had come out of. Threnody skidded inside, glancing up at the security feed embedded in the wall.

I'm your eye in the sky, Kristen said cheerfully into her mind on the psi link. Two soldiers coming your way at fifty meters and closing, second intersection down the hall. One is a Warhound.

Cla.s.s? Threnody said.

That would be telling.

Lucas, your sister is a rude little s.h.i.+t.

That Warhound is a Cla.s.s VI telekinetic, Lucas said. You'll have to handle what she throws at you, Threnody. I can't get to you yet. And, Kris?

Yes? Kristen said.

Don't p.i.s.s me off.

All that filtered down the psi link from the girl was a sense of sullen discontent. Threnody kept running, using her teeth to pull the glove off one hand. The buildings here were old and patched, metal threaded through the structures everywhere. Threnody took a chance and fell to her knees as the footsteps got louder. She slammed one hand against the metal wall, looking for a conduit, and brought her gun up to bear right as two people came hurtling around the corner.

Bullets cut through the air over her head. She felt telekinetic pressure on her bruised ribs, but her power was already arcing up into their bodies. Threnody's vision tunneled out, a roaring sound filling her ears. For one long moment, she didn't know if she was even breathing, then a sharp pain spiked through one side of her face. Spiked harder on the other. She blinked, vision coming back to her in time to see Jason's hand descending for another slap. She made a wordless noise and he stopped in midmotion.

Threnody was lying on her back, staring up into Jason's face, his hazel eyes wide and worried. He let out a harsh breath. "s.h.i.+t, Thren, don't go undoing all my hard work."

It was strange hearing the familial diminutive of her name come out of his mouth. Threnody struggled to sit up. Jason helped her out, bracing her with one arm behind her back as she caught her breath. "My hand."

Jason looked down at the limb in question, finding red lines spanning across her skin like circuit wires. "Nerve damage. Guess you aren't as healed as I thought you were. I think you might have fried the nanites in your veins, too."

"Wonderful." Threnody grimaced. "Help me up."

Jason got Threnody to her feet. She checked her gun and they got moving again. The faint mutter in the back of their minds was everyone else's conversation on the psi link as they cut through the outpost section by section. Overlaid across that was Kristen's heavy, intense presence that was blocking the Warhounds' ability to teleport away or telepathically get a warning out. Her psionic interference scratched against their s.h.i.+elds. Kristen didn't care about harming the Strykers if it meant the humans died, and Lucas was too busy right now to make her see reason. Kristen's help was needed but it was difficult on their end to deal with it.

The sound of an explosion nearby pulled them up short. "That came from outside," Threnody said.

Was that us or them? Jason sent out along the psi link.

Us, Quinton answered. Samantha just blew up part of a building. We've got fire.

Joining the fray?

No. I'm staying put.

"We need to get to the control room," Jason said as they started moving again. Kerr, sitrep.

You aren't feeling the headache I am, came Kerr's pained reply. Remaining Warhounds are in merge. Lucas and I are picking their minds apart, but I'd rather put a bullet in their brains.

And the quads? Threnody asked.

None in your section. Go knock some sense into Kristen and tell her to stop biting at my s.h.i.+elds.

Kerr's mental voice faded. Threnody and Jason were still methodically careful on their way to the control room, but Kerr was right. They didn't find any more quads on their way to Kristen's position, and she greeted their arrival with a soft and raspy "All clear."

Jason hauled Kristen out of the chair and took her place. She immediately draped herself over the back of it. Threnody eyed the girl, keeping a finger on the trigger guard of her gun.

"Maybe you should go find your brother," Jason said as he yanked connecting wires from the console and plugged them into the neuroports in his arms and wrists. "I don't like having you at my back."

"I know," Kristen said. "It's why I'm staying."

"I'm not leaving," Threnody said evenly.

Jason switched on his inspecs, data rolling across his vision, merging with the hologrids that snapped into the air. "I remember your psi signature from a few years ago, Kristen. Every Stryker died trying to get close to you. No one managed a solid ident."

"You wouldn't have," Kristen said. "We Sercas are supposed to be human, remember?"

Jason shrugged his opinion of that. "You've fooled the world. Don't expect anyone to be happy about that."

"You Strykers never are. You should see the faces of the ones we keep when they meet with old teammates. So many tears. So sad."

"What are you talking about?"

"We retrieve select Strykers for our own purposes and make them loyal to us. We can make them forget where they came from, but we can't make those they left behind forget who they lost." Kristen stood up on her tiptoes to peer over the seat at Jason. "Your rank and file keep secrets better when dead."

Her empathy rolled through them, brus.h.i.+ng up against their s.h.i.+elds, but went no further than that. Lucas's previous warning was enough to make Kristen stay her hand this time, just not her mouth. Pointedly, neither Threnody nor Jason engaged her in that conversation.

Jason set to work breaking through encrypted software, inspecs streaming data over his sight. Lucas arrived several minutes later, looking tired and tense. He pried Kristen off the chair and pitched her toward the hallway.

"Go back to the shuttle, Kris," Lucas said, not watching to see if she left.

"Maybe you should go with her," Threnody said. "Make sure she doesn't try to kill everyone else."

"Kris knows what will happen if she tries."

"You're in no condition to stop her."

"Doesn't mean I won't." Lucas gave Threnody a hard smile before addressing Jason. "Give me an update."

"That d.a.m.n mountain is surrounded by artillery," Jason said as he moved his hands through the hologrid, searching out leads for the hack. "Most of it is still active."

"I want you to keep anything from coming online when we get up there," Lucas said. "That's all we need."

"It's going to take a while. The security up there runs on a different system than the one we hacked flying in."

"You've got two hours."

Jason grimaced. "I doubt I can do it in two. It already took us a day to fly to this island and hack the outer security. This is going to take longer."

"We have less than twenty-four hours to finish this. I'm moving everyone to the airfield that services Longyearbyen. I want you to set up five days' worth of future communications to be sent out during the required status check-in time. The quads up here had a standard security code. I'm sure you can falsify it."

Lucas left and Threnody followed after him. Jason started hacking into everything the government had built up in Longyearbyen. Novak couldn't help him with this, the scavenger having burned through most of the wiring in his brain and body already. Jason knew the feeling, knew the heat of burned wires before they cooled, the tiny surges making sections of his body go numb. He wasn't looking forward to going through that again.