The Ashes of My Soul, page 38
“You’d be surprised.”
“I already suggested you take over.”
“I’m out of the picture too. Plan for the worst.”
Losing him had never crossed my mind. “I don’t know. What do you suggest?”
“You take command.”
“Me? Take command of the Establishment?”
“Yes.” His tone was firm. “You will take command. Announce it as soon as Alistair is out. You give orders and you enforce them. Your mother will support you. Austin Burke will support you. I’ll support you if I’m able. You’ll listen to us as a council, but you’ll be the one calling the shots in the end. Once the dust settles, we can talk about the future.”
“Disassemble the organization,” I said.
“That’ll take years,” he said. “You do it too fast, you create the same power vacuum. Someone’s going to take control of the area. Maybe you can hand it off peacefully. Who are you going to hand it to? What’s your end goal?”
I took a moment to think. I hadn’t considered my goals to that level of detail. Removing Alistair’s threat was my focus. “I want to make sure psions don’t try to control humanity,” I said. “I want to make sure we all die of old age instead of any alternative.”
Star made a face at me and Todd sighed. “Well, it’s better than not having any idea whatsoever.”
“All right. Here’s the plan, then.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a foundation. “When the Establishment falls, when Alistair is out of the picture, I take control. You turn the Resistance over to me.”
“What?” Star asked.
“In exchange, you become my second in command. You’re in charge of getting everyone working together and defending our territory while we integrate the two groups.”
“All right.” His tone was neutral, giving me no sign of approval or disapproval.
I looked over to Star. “Star, you’ll be next in line.”
“I quiver with joy,” she said.
“My mom will continue doing her diplomatic and administrative work. I’m thinking of asking Professor Burke to take over the training program.”
“You’re going to continue training?”
“Training, yes. Recruiting, no. I want everyone left to get damn good at their jobs. We’re going to have a lot of trouble coming our way and we need to beat them on quality. Once Absynthe is back in shape, I’ll have her work with the training program as well.”
“Not going to have her work with me?” Todd asked. I heard a bit of teasing in his voice.
I let myself smile. “I thought that was a given? I mean, you’re going to marry her, right?”
“What?”
“You know, marriage. Put a ring on her finger. Live together. Give me some cousins. Do you need me to explain the whole concept?”
“I think I can handle that part, thank you.”
“Good. Now, field commander grand high marshal Todd Green, in your opinion, when is the earliest we can make our move?”
He didn’t respond right away. I hoped he was taking it seriously. “Second full week of December,” he said.
“First day.”
“Are you insane?” Star hissed.
“We’ll have jammers spread throughout the Establishment offices by then, and we’ll be ready to remotely turn them on and wreck their network. Our people on the inside have instructions to go once we make our move. We have plenty of data, floor plans, schedules, personnel reports. Alistair might be a very smart man, but his network security sucks. He doesn’t know how extensive our intelligence is.”
“I can’t guarantee having enough people in place by then. Besides, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Travel is going to be a mess. Realistically, we have less than a week. Compared to the middle of December, we’ll get maybe ninety percent of our people in place, if we’re being optimistic. Eighty percent is more realistic. If you have access to their network and can see deployment data, you’ll need to judge whether they have eighty percent or less of what you think they’ll have in mid-December. If you guess wrong, we’ll be going in at an even worse disadvantage.”
I made a mental note to check with Jess. “I’ll double check that as soon as possible. In the meantime, get all the people you can here, as soon as possible. Unless I say otherwise, we’re going in next Saturday.”
Chapter Twenty Five
“Fifth squad is ready. Seventh squad is ready.”
Star leaned forward, over Andreas’s shoulder. “Anything from six?”
“Not yet.” Andreas had set his room up as a command center. His workplace had a bunch of monitors hanging out all over the place, on the desks, the table, even the floor. Kaitlyn sat at the table and Jess was sitting cross-legged on the floor. I could see camera feeds coming up on Jess’s screens while Kaitlyn was transcribing whatever Andreas was saying. I didn’t know why, but Andreas had told me he’d handle operations control. I trusted him to do whatever needed doing.
While I was reading over Kaitlyn’s shoulder, Andreas cleared his throat and a display perched precariously high on a stack of books switched three lines from red to green. “Squads six, eight, and nine are ready. That is everyone.”
“Todd, you ready to go?” I asked.
We’d created a conference call between the command center, all of the squad leaders, myself, and Todd. Unless the Establishment jammed it somehow, we’d be in constant contact. Each squad leader had a disruptor. My group had three, split between myself, Star, and Drew. He’d insisted on coming with us, arguing he’d be useful while the disruptors were on. I couldn’t challenge him and I didn’t want to.
Todd’s response to my question came late. “Squad zero is ready. Kevin, this is the last chance you’ll have to call it off.”
I looked over to where Jess was sitting. “Any updates on their patrol roster?”
“Two on, one off. Still fine.”
“All right,” I said. “Are we missing anything?”
“One thing,” Star said. She tapped Andreas on the shoulder, then pulled his headset off. “All squads, this is Star. If it’s safe to do so, put me on speaker.”
Andreas raised his eyebrows at me and I shook my head. She was doing this on the fly.
She settled the headset over her ears and adjusted the microphone. “All preparations are complete and all squads report ready. Phase one will begin soon. Before we move out, I want all of you to understand. This is what the Resistance was created for. It’s not for power or glory or revenge. We’re taking down a monster, one whose plans will see millions dead.
“I know what’s on your mind. Why come out of the shadows now? We don’t operate in the open, we don’t confront. Have we failed in our mission? No. We haven’t failed. Not yet. For years, we’ve watched the right hand of the Establishment, without realizing what the left was doing. Now we know this is our last, best chance to stop them.
“Tonight, under the cover of darkness, we’re attacking the bastion of the Establishment, to put an end to their plans. While we fight and die, millions will live. None of them will know what happens here tonight. They will never know who lives a hero and who dies a hero, who has given their life to protect theirs, their family, their children.
“I know you. I know each and every one of your names. No one who falls here tonight will be forgotten. I will not forget you. Even if every last one of us falls, I will remember you to the end. You are all heroes to me.
“Tonight, we step out of the shadows to face a monster. Tonight, we are going to make that monster fucking blink.”
She wiped her eyes. “I’m handing general comms to someone else. Her name is Kaitlyn.” Kaitlyn’s eyes went wide. “I trust her to be our guiding light.” She pulled the headset off and offered it to Kaitlyn.
The blonde girl took it with shaking hands and settled it over her ears. She looked to Star with wide eyes, and Star tapped her lips. “This is Kaitlyn,” she said with a slight stammer. “I’ll be the voice guiding you tonight. I don’t know what else to say, other than good luck and kick some ass. I’ll be waiting to welcome you all back. Phase one begins on my mark?” She looked to me and I nodded.
Part of me could imagine the Resistance fighters cheering. Part of me only saw grim determination. Fear. Anger. I knew which was more likely. “Good speech,” I said to Star.
“Thanks.” She took my hand and squeezed hard.
“Why hand it over to Kaitlyn and not Andreas?”
She smiled at me and tilted her chin toward Kait. “Little bit of psychology. They’re more likely to listen to a woman’s voice. Even better when they can tell she cares.”
“Do you think it helped?”
“I told them what we needed them to believe,” she said. “I told them we were going to win.”
“Are we going to win?” I asked her.
“I’m betting my life on it.”
My gaze dropped to her stomach. She wasn’t quite showing yet, but we both knew she was betting more than just her life. I squeezed her hand again and she squeezed back. When I looked back up, everyone else in the room was looking at me. Jess had her hands poised on her keyboard. Andreas had grabbed another headset and was pulling his long hair into place under it. Drew and Max stood together, both of them with canisters of pepper spray strapped to each wrist, stun guns in holsters on their hips. Kaitlyn stared at me with watery eyes, then stuck her fist out, thumb up.
“Phase one, go.”
“Phase one, go,” Kaitlyn repeated. “Two minutes until their network goes down.”
I headed for the door, my little team falling in step behind me. I looked over my shoulder as I opened the door, taking one last look at the command team. I wanted to imagine Lisa was there among them. I hoped she’d approve of what we were doing.
Once we were out of the dorm, we broke into a jog. Grace joined our formation. “Nice speech,” she said to Star. “How long did you practice?”
“Couple of times,” Star replied. “Think it did the job?”
“Inspired me enough,” she said.
Our group was going right for the throat. Multiple Resistance squads were going to be heading for the admin building, but they’d be splitting off as needed to handle Establishment agents. Any of our people on the inside would be taking the opportunity to disable whoever they could and get out.
Rachel and her trainees weren’t included in our main plans. I’d told her they’d be a liability in a real fight. Instead of fighting, they’d protect any innocent students or bystanders. Normal people would notice this fight. We’d have a lot of cleanup to do. The less people hurt in the process, the better.
We’d reached the edge of campus when Kaitlyn’s voice chirped from my cell phone. “Network hack successful? Yes. Establishment network is down. Phase two, go!” The second phase was the last phase. Just in case anyone was listening in, they might be expecting something more complicated. Phase two was the signal to attack.
Psionic power flared from points all around campus within seconds. Todd’s Resistance squads were taking down the Establishment perimeter. I could feel the power singing in the air around me. This was on a scale I’d never felt before. “Can you feel it?” I murmured to Star.
“Feel what?”
“All the power, all around us.”
She shook her head. “You’re more sensitive than the rest of us.”
I called up my Sight, being careful not to give it enough power to stand out. The white strands of power were tinted blue and green all around us. Something didn’t seem quite right. I concentrated my vision on the administrative building ahead of us. The web of power ahead was tinted green. That wasn’t what was bothering me. “Didn’t we get some disruptors in the admin building?”
“Yes,” Andreas’s voice came back. “Is there a problem?”
“The building looks completely intact, psionically speaking,” I said. “Can you confirm-”
I cut off and threw a shield out in front of the group. Psionic energy flared out of the ground floor windows of the admin building. Lightning crackled against my shield and I widened it to make sure nothing curled around. New shields sprang into place as Star, Grace, and even Max shored up the weaker spots. Drew crouched behind me. “Dude, this isn’t right, is it?”
“They reacted faster than I expected,” I said. I split my attention into separate threads and sent them out through the tiny seams between our overlapping shields. Four Establishment agents were firing on us. I didn’t recognize any of them and my heart sank. I had hoped some of Cory’s people were on duty tonight. “Going on the attack. Back me up.”
Star’s shield expanded behind mine. Hers wasn’t as strong, not by a long shot, but she’d hold up long enough. I dropped my shield as hers locked into place and lashed power at the admin building. Windows exploded inwards as I threw simple kinetic force, following up with an electric shock aimed at each of the attackers. None of them screamed, which was nice, and their attacks ceased. Two of them were down for the count and the other two were scrambling back to their feet.
“Drew, go,” I said. He sprinted forward toward the door as if our psionic shields weren’t even there. All of the attacks so far had been energy. Once he was at the door, I felt the jolt as he turned his disruptor on. A spherical section of my Sight ceased to exist, a cut of the real world without psionic traces running through it. He paused for a moment before crashing the door open. I couldn’t track him precisely, but I saw the bubble moving to encompass each one of the Establishment agents in turn. Once the bubble vanished, we headed for the door.
He opened it for us. “Got them all.” He lit up a stun gun with a crackle and a grin.
Grace and Star split up for a moment, their eyes lighting up. After a few seconds, they returned to the group. “Twisted them out for the evening,” Star said. “I don’t like what’s going on either. They seem a little too prepared.”
“Not enough,” I said, but my stomach twisted with doubt. “We’re going to take a detour to my mom’s office.”
“You sure?” Star asked.
“Might throw off the whole plan,” Max added.
“The whole plan might already be thrown off,” I said. “Mom can confirm.”
No one else argued and I led the way. Two roaming Establishment agents confronted us along the way, much to their regret. We left two twisted agents in our wake, one with a couple of broken ribs. My mom’s office door was closed and I signaled for everyone else to stay back while I approached. I knocked twice. “Mom, you in there?”
I heard footsteps from inside. She opened the door, saw me, and her eyes widened. They widened further as she stuck her head out and saw the rest of the team. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“Checking on just what the fuck went wrong,” I said. There really wasn’t any need to whisper. Her mouth compressed to a thin line and she backed away from the door. We piled into the office and quietly closed the door behind us. “Disruptors on.”
All of our psionic power cut off as the devices scrambled our brains. All of us except for Drew winced as the buzzing in the back of our mind began. My mom rubbed the back of her head and pointed at her computer. “The network is down, Kevin. What do you mean by something going wrong?”
“They had agents on the ground floor, like they were waiting for us. There weren’t any active disruptors in the building and there should have been at least two.”
“That’s not too far outside the standard patrol,” she pointed out. “The disruptors though, that worries me. Have you heard from Todd?”
I looked over my shoulder at Star. She was connected to the conference. “He’s reporting heavy fighting,” she said. “Now I’m uneasy, too.”
“It’s too late to turn back now,” I said. My mind raced for a possible way to compensate. It clicked moments later. Star had given a short speech to make sure the Resistance knew why we were fighting. I doubted Alistair had done the same thing. “Mom, do you have a way to connect to the broadcast speakers?”
“For the building?”
“For the campus.”
Her eyes widened and she stepped back to her desk. “I don’t know. I’ve never used it, at least.”
“I figured that,” I said. “Andreas, do you have any idea if there’s a way to tie me into the campus broadcast system?”
“Is there even a broadcast system?” Max asked. “I’ve never heard it.”
“It’d only be for emergencies, wouldn’t it? Calling out a campus lockdown. Remember when we got pulled into the public safety office?” I slapped my forehead. “The public safety office would have access to it. Too bad we’re not there.”
“There is an emergency code for the campus phone system,” Andreas’s voice made me jump. “I would presume it is available for professors and staff to use in case of immediate emergency. I am unsure if it ties into a broadcast system. Our emergency system calls or texts students most of the time.”
“I’d assume that’s computer based,” I said. “Let’s give it a shot. What’s the code?”
“Star, seven, seven, seven, one, one, star.” It was a memorable code, but too long to be entered by accident. I walked over to Mom’s desk, picked up her phone, and dialed the code. The phone rang twice, and then there was a click, as if someone had picked up.
“Does this work?” I asked. After a moment, my voice boomed from a speaker mounted outside, loud enough to make the window rattle. Grace crossed the room and put her hands on the window to stop the noise. Her ears would get blown out by this. I wished for earplugs, but settled for a mental apology for what she was about to go through.
I’d have to apologize to the student body, too. While most of the dorms were far enough away from the main campus to not hear this directly, it’d be loud enough to catch attention and wake people up. I hoped the trainees would realize the problem and dampen sound around the campus.
I shook myself out of my thoughts and started to talk. “I’d like your attention, please. This is Kevin Parker. All of you know me, or at least know of me. I’ve been a trainee in the Establishment for almost three years now, and I’ve made some discoveries I think all of you need to hear about.
