Good. Be afraid, little human.
Ling crawled, centimeter by centimeter, away from him, and towards the injector. When she had it, she came back to him. She crawled, and then she grabbed the bed and used it to pull herself up, up so she was above her seated father. He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes wide with fear, his mind a riot of dread and horror. He tried to struggle, to control his body, and she pushed against his mind, holding him in place.
“No,” he said, struggling still to get control of his body. “Please.” Tears fell from his eyes. She was huge in his mind, a monster, an alien thing, a posthuman looming over him, a creature that had surpassed him. Doom permeated his thoughts where Ling could see them.
“Please,” he said again. “Daughter…”
Ling Shu pressed the injector against the side of her father’s neck, and fired the rest of its contents into him.
84
ALL TOGETHER NOW
Saturday November 3rd
Breece watched as the Mayor of Houston took the stage, began to praise Daniel Chandler.
Less than fifteen minutes to go. Josiah Shepherd would take the stage next. He’d warm up the crowd for a while, lead them in prayer, then invite Daniel Chandler to the podium. As Shepherd finished and Chandler stepped forward, the two men would shake hands. For the last time ever.
Kade fell, tumbling. Someone gripped him, a guard, as they spun through the air. There was no sound, no sensation beyond a burning heat, a chaos of images flipping around him too fast to track. He closed his eyes to stop the chaos, held them shut tight.
Then they crashed to a stop and his body exploded in pain.
There were flames around him. Smoke. Dust.
Minds! Minds! He could feel minds!
Terror. Fear. Chaos. The children.
Kade opened his eyes.
He was in the courtyard, atop something soft and angular and broken. A body. The dark-skinned security guard. The man’s neck was broken at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wide open, staring. Half of the dead man was burned to a crisp.
Kade rolled, and on the other side was the other guard, face down, his back a blackened mass. The explosion had killed them both, even as their bodies had shielded him from the worst.
He turned and looked up. He was in the courtyard. The wall above him was gone. A jagged hole was all that remained of the apartment he’d been housed in. Something had blown it to bits, thrown him and the guards out. The dead man he’d fallen atop of and the one to his other side were all that had saved his life.
He tried to move, tried to sit up, felt excruciating pain in his abdomen. His ears were ringing so loudly he couldn’t hear anything around him.
Then he felt something close around his upper arm. He looked up, and there was another guard there, a Nexus jammer around his throat, a large gun slung around his shoulder. The man’s lips were moving furiously. He was screaming at Kade, but whatever he was saying was drowned out by the fearsome ringing.
And then the guard was yanking, frantically hauling on Kade. Pain exploded in Kade’s guts, but the man was dragging him, dragging him away.
Kade pushed at the man’s mind but there was only static. The shielding was too strong. The man half-pulled half-dragged Kade over a pile of rubble. Ahead he could see more security men, see them herding groups of children. A group in front disappeared into a doorway, dropping down. Then a second group. The last group of kids…
One of them turned to look at him, a girl. He could feel her in his mind. Older than the rest. Different. The one who’d waved to him. And with her, more children, special children, but terrified, confused, unable to think or act.
He reached out to the oldest in desperation.
You have to stop them! he sent her.
She responded with recognition. She did know him. She’d seen him in memories. In Sam’s memories.
You can do it! he sent her. With your mind!
No… she replied. They’re too strong!
Work together! he told her. All of you!
Sarai sobbed in horror as the guard dragged her away. Explosions boomed around her. The courtyard was full of rubble. The other children were terrified. And Sam… they’d felt Shiva invade her, felt what he’d made her do…
Then she felt a mind reach out to her. A mind she’d seen in Sam’s thoughts. Kade.
You have to stop them! he told her. Work together!
But it was so hard. There was so much chaos and the little ones were screaming and crying and so afraid and the guards were pulling at them. There was no way. No way at all.
But Sam! Sam had come for them! She had to do it!
Sarai closed her eyes, let the guard drag her, ceased her resistance. She took a long slow breath, felt every little bit of it fill up her lungs, beamed that sensation out to her brothers and sisters, begged them to respond.
She breathed it out like Sam had shown her and let the others feel her need, the need they all shared, underneath that breath, intertwined with that breath.
Her feet moved of their own accord as the guard dragged her and she took another breath and she felt Mali there with her, breathing, their minds falling in together.
She exhaled and Kit was with them now.
Sarai stumbled over something and fell to her knees in pain. Tears came to her eyes and she feared she’d lost it, but Kit and Mali were holding them together. And then Ying and Tada were with them. And then Sunisa and Kwan. They breathed as one and they were one. The walls of their minds dropped and they enmeshed one another and everything became so very clear. The guards. Five of them. Balls of static. Sam, taken by Shiva.
Kade. Kade who wasn’t like them but who understood, who’d built the Nexus that was in Sam’s mind, in Jake’s.
Kade was the answer.
They reached out to him and then he was with them, enmeshed with them.
He showed them what to do and their minds reached out to the soldiers herding them.
The static repelled them, pushed their minds away. Then they thought of Sam and they breathed in, breathed out, and focused their thoughts – and they cut through that static all around them, and sent the back door, the passcode, and the sleep center stimulus – and the men were falling, falling, until all of them were still.
Shiva reached out to his men as soon as the American started firing on her compatriots.
Secure the children and Lane, he sent them. There are only three intruders. All on the western side of the house. The woman is mine now.
Then he lifted his wrist microphone to his mouth, repeated the instructions for those who’d activated their Nexus jammers.
He felt his men jump to do his bidding. Soldiers reversed course, turned from the marina and other sites back towards the house, headed towards the true invaders.
Feng rolled forward at Sam’s feet as she turned the gun on him. Time slowed to a crawl as he touched the stone path with one shoulder, his back, and then his feet. The muffled staccato of a silenced burst of three boomed in his ears as she pulled the trigger and shots ripped through the air above him.
He came up inside her reach, his hands on her gun, one squeezing the latch to disconnect it from the strap around her shoulders, even as he spun hard, ripping it out of her hands as he whirled away.
“What you doing?” he yelled.
She was drawing her pistol already. She was blazing fast but he was faster. He swung the rifle he’d taken from her at her hand like a bat, made contact, sent the pistol sailing out into the night after Nakamura.