Crux

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.

And then her foot collided with his midsection, knocking him painfully back. He took the blow, used its momentum to roll backwards, come back up to his feet, even as she threw the first knife at his throat. He got the rifle up barely in time to deflect the blade. Then she was on him, a knife in each hand, attacking recklessly, leaving him openings as she came at him at full assault.

He blocked, blocked, blocked, with the rifle, gave ground, opened his mind as he did.

SAM!

He felt her mind there but she didn’t respond, just kept on coming. His combat display showed him status updates from the drones. Red dots. Men headed this way. Shiva knew where they were now.

Fuck this.

He lashed back out at Sam, took advantage of her disregard for self-protection, slammed his foot into her midsection, let her slice him across the shoulder in exchange for a vicious slam of his rifle into her head. She stumbled back and Feng jumped up, got one foot on the top bar of the railing, and then kicked out against it, propelling himself up, towards the second-story window.

The sound of gunfire erupted just as Feng got his fingers onto the ledge. He hauled, flipped himself up and over, and into the hallway beyond in a shower of breaking glass.

Kade collapsed to his knees, his insides aching, his skin burning – his damaged hand in pain so bad he thought he would cry. All around him the security men were unconscious, knocked out by the back door command that the children had amplified for him. He reached out with his left hand, unclipped the unlocked Nexus jammer from the guard’s throat, tossed it to the side.

Then he opened the man’s mind, burrowed into it. He needed the passwords to the network.

There. He had them now. He could reach Houston, contact the police, the FBI, warn them about the bombing, evacuate the people.

Then someone was shaking him in the real world. He tried to break loose of them, to focus on the task at hand.

Kade! It was one of the children, the girl, Sarai.

Sam! she sent him. Shiva’s taken her! You have to help! Please!

He pulled himself back, his mind still reeling.

Sam? Here? And Shiva.

Gunfire burst out somewhere, barely audible over the ringing in his ears. Distantly he heard another explosion. Fighting was still going on. They were in danger here.

He tried to twist, to look around him, to see what was going on. Pain burst up from his midsection. He was so tired… And Houston…

Sam! the girl yelled into his mind. Help her!

Kade groaned. He had to help Sam, stop Shiva, stop the fighting, make them safe here on the island. Then he could tackle Houston.

Kade opened his senses wide. There, at the edge of his perception, he could feel that familiar mind. Fatigue and pain tried to pull him down. But she was here. She’d saved his life before. And now she’d come for him…

Kade forced himself to concentrate, pulled himself together. And then he reached out his mind to hers.

Sam’s world was horror. Pure horror. She wanted to go to that place she’d known so well on the ranch. The place she’d gone to when they’d hurt her, when she’d learned to stop fighting and just shut it out.

But Shiva wouldn’t let her.

Kill them.

She did her best to kill Feng. She wanted it. He had to die. She didn’t want to want it, but dear God she couldn’t help herself.

She tried to shoot Feng, to hit him, to cut him. Even as she did her mind replayed the horror she’d just been party to. The bullets striking Kevin. Her bullets striking Kevin. His body toppling backwards out into nothing…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

She screamed inside as Shiva’s compulsion drove her. This was rape. Worse than rape. His mind was inside hers and she had no choice. She wanted Feng dead. She knew it wasn’t true, but she had no choice. Shiva had turned her into a zombie, like her parents had become, worse, far worse, a tool for killing the man who’d saved her life, who she’d loved as a mentor and friend!

Aaaaaaah!

She wanted to stop, to turn a knife against herself, to stab herself in the throat to end this pain.

But she wanted to kill Feng more. And so she fought.

And then his rifle collided with her head, and in a split second, he was gone.

Shiva’s men raced past her, ignored her, leapt up, scrambled for holds, and followed Feng into the building.

She moved to follow. Catch him, Shiva commanded her. And she would.

And then Kade was there, in her mind as well, his thoughts wrestling Shiva’s, tearing her in two, and Sam screamed inside.