Burning Bridges

—S.

He hit Send, and waited.

Across and far uptown, there was considerably less humor. The building could have been deserted, for all the noise that filtered down into the lower levels, where a coded key was needed to call the elevator, and a simultaneous retinal scan and biometric scan were needed to choose a floor destination. The technology used was on par, or in some cases excelled anything the government had, mainly because this organization could afford to pay for it—and had no need to justify to anyone where the money went.

Two figures emerged from the elevator doors, walking with an unconscious unison of movement down the hallway, so much so that it was difficult to see who was mirroring whom. Both wore wool slacks, button-down shirts of lightly starched white cotton, and expensive shoes. An educated consumer might note that the younger man was more fashionably dressed, but the older man’s shoes were the more expensive, and better maintained.

A female figure with a dark blue lab coat over her street clothes moved past them in the other direction, barely acknowledging them with a preoccupied nod.

“Denise Vargha. One of our better people. She’s in charge of the seventh team.” The speaker—the younger man—was clearly aware that he wasn’t telling his companion anything that his superior didn’t already know, but felt the need to say something to fill the space.

“Indeed.” The older man’s voice was modulated for extreme politeness, bordering on boredom, with just a hint of “don’t annoy me.” As director, he signed off on all of the forms for R&D; he knew all the players, down to the laboratory’s off-hour sanitation crew.

The subordinate took the hint, and went back to silence for the rest of their walk, until they came to the end of the hallway and went through another set of security measures to gain entrance to the rooms beyond that doorway.

“Director.” The human element of the security partition didn’t quite salute, but his spine did straighten noticeably. The guard nodded to the other man. “Doctor Hackins.”

“You’ve made some improvements since I was here last,” the older man said, looking around at the cold-tiled walls and cement floor with drains set at two-foot intervals. This time, a hint of approval colored his words; a carefully calculated effect, negated by his adding, “No more fire starters?”

“No, sir.” The reprimand stung, but Hackins—as manager of the project—had already taken responsibility for that incident; it was over and there was no need to apologize. Apologies were a weakness worse than the original mistake.

The two men were passed through the security buffer and into the main lab, the reason for the entire building. Two more doors, each one a simple steel slab which could be opened only by a triple-checked thumbprint of a verified team member, or the director’s personal override.

The room they were in now, after the second door, was capital-C clean; white walls, tiled floor, and stainless fixtures. A man in a white lab coat over his shirtsleeves was seated in front of a glass window, while the subject he was working with rested in an elongated, dentist-type chair on the other side. The chair might have been comfortable if it weren’t for the leads affixed to her scalp and pulse points, and the leather restraints around her ankles, wrists, and neck. She was a slender, freckle-faced blonde, who looked as though she should have been running through a meadow with Disney-style animals leaping at her heels, not tied down inside an underground laboratory.

“Bethany. One of our more valued resources. I will admit to resisting putting her to this use; however, it does seem—”

“Gareth. To the point.”

“Ah. Yes.” Gareth Hackins didn’t do anything as clichéd as tug nervously at his collar, but had he been less well trained he would have wanted to. “This is the third team’s pet project, as was detailed in the yearly report.”

He paused, and when there was no response, he continued as though given an enthusiastic go-ahead.

“It is a variant of conditioning response we have been working on for the past few years. Ideally, we will create a reaction against using magic except under direct command. Specifically, our command. Past attempts to accomplish this have used more traditional brainwashing procedures, with variable results. The effects would not last long enough for the subject to remain useful, and most of the projects, as you saw in the report, had to be terminated. A waste, really. With this approach, we are using their own abilities to create a loop, so that the more they use their magic, the more they tie themselves to the structure we create, emotionally.”

“And how is that coming along?”

Hackins gave a faint, almost unobservable shrug. “Putting their magic under restraint is simple enough. They are already predisposed to take orders from the basic training all of our operatives go through. However, the next step has proven to be slightly more…problematic. Seven of the subjects have responded by shutting down all access to what is commonly referred to as ‘current,’ in effect lobotomizing themselves. One other—subject nine—accepts commands, but only of the most passive sort. Bethany, subject eight, seems to have the most potential to work on an active level. However, she has been resisting the final breakdown.”

The director leaned in to look at the subject. “Touch her again.”

The technician tapped a key, and the girl in the padded chair convulsed once, and then lay still. Her brown eyes were open wide, staring at the pale cream-tiled ceiling, and sweat trickled down the side of her face, dripping into her tangled hair and onto the padding of the couch.

“Response?”

“None.”

“Move it up.”

The tech used his thumb to slide the lever up, and then went to tap the key again. A slight hesitation, a glimpse backward at his boss, and he touched the key.

“Fffffuck you,” the girl managed around her clenched jaw. Her gaze flickered off to the side, taking in the two newcomers, then went back to her direct tormenter.

“Interesting,” Hackins said. “Most of them have broken by now. She’s, yes, most interesting. The higher level of Talent seems to indicate a higher level of stubbornness, as well.” He turned to the tech and checked the readouts the man was monitoring. “There’s been no push back along the leads?”

“We had to replace the first two sets,” the tech replied, “but once she realized that we’d insulated the main boards, she stopped wasting her time. Bethy’s a smart one, she is.”

“Yes. Very smart.” Hackins looked through the glass at the subject, thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

“This insulation allows you to stop their magic?” the director asked the technician.

“Sir. Not exactly, sir. It merely routes it through several layers, slowing it down with each turn. If she really wanted to do damage, she could, but we suspect that it would burn her out to generate that much energy.”

“You suspect?” The man’s face went still, and the tech and Dr. Hackins both felt the temperature of the room drop significantly with his disapproval.

“Despite our resources, there is still a great deal about these Talent that we do not understand,” Hackins said. “That is why the work is progressing more slowly than anticipated. A wrong step, a push too hard, and we burn them out before the desired result is accomplished. But if this new procedure works, we should be ready for the next level quite quickly.”

“She will not balk at commands?”

“She would be incapable of distinguishing between our wishes and her own,” Hackins assured him.

“Excellent. On with your work, then. Gareth, you said that you had the remains of the other subjects on storage? I would like to see the results of the autopsies.”

“Of course. This way, please.”

The two men exited out the door at the other end of the control room, abandoning tech and subject without a backward glance.

Left alone with his work, the tech’s shoulders sagged slightly in relief. He was very good at his job, but the ratio of failures in this project had been higher than anticipated, and the Boss was not a man you wanted to disappoint. Ever. Especially not when you were in his direct line of sight. The head of R&D was a fair man, nobody ever said he wasn’t, and a good man to work for, if you pleased him, but he had no tolerance for anything he considered sub-par effort.

A tapping noise drew his attention to the other side of the glass. “Loosah,” the girl managed, her face stretching into something that might have been a snicker, as though she had read his mind. “Sssssuckbutt.”

Snarling in response, the tech tapped the button again, and electricity surged through the electrodes attached to her skin, rocketing through the nerve endings—and the extra channels that made her a Talent, overloading her core into painful quivers that wasn’t quite what her kind called overrush, when the core exploded into the rest of the body, but close enough to give her a taste of what it might feel like.

Her body arched off the padded chair, her upper torso shaking in a scream that didn’t escape her throat. Muscles in her arms corded against the restraints, trying to break free, and the monitors in front of him red-flagged as her current reached out, trying to find him, destroy him.

“Don’t struggle so much, Bethy,” the tech advised in a mock-sympathetic voice, watching as the monitors subsided out of red into yellow. “Like we’ve been telling you all along, it doesn’t hurt if you don’t resist it.” He paused, then pushed a lever up a notch. “Unless of course I make it hurt.”

The girl shuddered again, but the monitors stayed within the yellow range. Her lips pulled back again, this time clearly in a grimace, but she refused to give him the satisfaction he craved. She could clearly feel the things they were doing to her brain, was aware of the insinuations, the subtle suggestions they were whispering to her, feeding into her through every pulse of current around her. But Bethany was more than stubborn. She might have taken employment, against her mentor’s advice, with the men who had betrayed her, strapped her into this chair and tried to use her for their own purposes. But she was Talent. She was Cosa. She would not break.

She would not betray her family.

four

Wren stared up at the ceiling and wondered what idiot had first decided that sheep were a soothing image. Sheep did not, in her mind, equal sleep.

The dark paint on the walls and the heavy curtains on the window were usually comforting, making her bedroom a restful hideaway, conducive to sleep, sleep, and more sleep. Tonight, the combination made the room feel like a coffin. Wren stared at the ceiling where dark shadows rested and tried to understand why.

It was too quiet, she finally concluded. That sounded like a cliché but it was true: Wren was so used to the constant rumble of traffic coming down the avenues, the hum of news copters and Coasties off the river, the thud-boom of construction, and the ever-present counterpoint of horns…even at night, there was enough motion to justify the city’s claim to never sleep. But the recent snowfall was also muffling the usual nighttime sounds. And without it, she couldn’t sleep.

Unfortunately, her other option: wake Sergei up and make him suffer with her, would require actually waking him up. And that, she was discovering, had been easier when it involved a phone call rather than rolling over and poking him. Not because he would be annoyed with her, but because he was just so damn cute when he slept. The stern features that worked so well in his Business-guy persona relaxed and softened, and his ruthlessly groomed hair fell into his face, rising and falling with the exhalation of his breath.

She watched him for a few moments, as best she could in the dim light. It was rare to see him this relaxed: the past few months had both of them all tied up in knots, between the Council’s power games, the vigilantes, and the threat of some shadowy power behind that bigoted organization, directing and arming them….

And now, the added stress of the three-way negotiation between lonejacks, fatae, and Council was making her stomach ache, and putting new lines between Sergei’s eyes.

The next round of that particular joyride was this afternoon, and she needed to be well rested, on the top of her game, not exhausted and fretful. And staring at the ceiling, listening to Sergei snore, wasn’t going to get her there.

Wren slid out of bed, shivering as her feet hit the carpeting, and grabbed her robe, wrapping it around herself before turning back to tuck the quilt around her partner’s still-sleeping form.

When in doubt, act. When outnumbered, run. When insomniac, obsess. It was a simple creed, but one that worked for her. Without turning on any lights despite the 2 a.m. darkness, she padded down the hallway to the kitchen, pulled out a can of diet Sprite and a half-eaten package of Oreos cookies, and padded back down the hallway to her office. Once the door was closed behind her, she flicked the overhead light on, blinking at the sudden illumination. “Ow.” Another flick, and the hum of her computer started up. Sitting in the chair, the soda placed carefully away from the mess of wires and electronics, she reached in and grabbed a cookie, crunching down with gastronomic satisfaction. There was nothing better than the gritty-and-creamy combination of crisp cookie and sludge filling.

Her computer came alive, running through screens until the familiar icons appeared. She pulled up the tabbed files for Old Sally, and started reading through the last known sightings, both verified and alleged, for the bad-news-bearing bansidhe. There hadn’t been anything to add to the file in almost three months, but it was entirely possible that her sleep-deprived state would see something, or make some connection she hadn’t before.

It would be nice if her job was all adrenaline and action, but, regrettably, more and more it seemed to be all about the paperwork. Wren didn’t know if it was because Sergei was giving her more to do on that side, or she was just getting jobs that required more than a blueprint and a prayer—or if it was the fact that she was so frustrated all the time that was making her feel like the job wasn’t fun anymore.

“Probably the last,” she said out loud. There had always been workups and research. She just used to enjoy it more.

“Oh, screw this.” She closed the file, and stared at the screen, then reached over and made a few keystrokes. It had been a while since she’d had the time or energy to just sit and chat. The moment she logged into her IM account, however, she was pounced on—

Hey figgie!

Figgie, short for ‘figment of your imagination.’ Wren found herself smiling as she typed a response.

hey. de-figged.

Been worried. How goes?

Wren had no idea who was behind the screen name, other than the fact that she was a member of the Cosa, female, and lived in the Southern hemisphere. And, based on their last conversation, was a member of the Council down there. Wren had asked her—delicately, as it wasn’t really a topic for casual conversation—about Wren’s then-fear that the Council had been involved in the attacks on the fatae, as well as trying to intimidate the lonejacks into coming under their protection. The Australian Talent had denied the possibility of both actions—denied it so strongly that she had fried the system with her current-powered outrage.

I owe you an apology.

s’okay, my system was fine.

*whew* But no, not that, well, yes that but I meant, about how I reacted, not just how I reacted. Or, why I reacted…

Wren waited. The other Talent wasn’t normally a ditherer, but the situation had been, well, embarrassing. Losing control of your current and frying electronics happened on a regular basis, even with the best control, but you always felt like an idiot, after.

I asked around. Listened. Gossip’s the only thing faster than current and the minute I put an ear to the ground I heard more than I wanted to. Blessed Goddess, woman!

um…

She honestly didn’t know how to react. It was bad enough to find that her reputation had spread via gossip to Italy, but to literally go halfway around the globe…

Don’t assume, Valere. You don’t know what she heard. You don’t even now that she knows who you are, just a New York-area lonejack….

so…. what’re They saying?

Council’s gone wrong up there. Bad-wrong.

Oh. Not anything about her, then. That was good. Except Wren would rather it had been about her; her own behavior she could get some control over. If the situation within the New York Council was so bad even Council members in another continent were talking about it…

They’re a disgrace.

Wren couldn’t imagine what it had taken the other Talent to type those words; the first rule of Council membership was unity, the second rule was line up neat and narrow behind your local Council, and the third rule was don’t screw with the first two rules. To gossip inside was one thing, and nobody doubted there was a lot of that. But to admit it to not only an outsider, but lonejack and a doubter?

I’m sorry.

She risked the electronics to send a pulse of regret along the connection, to give her words more weight.

Oh for fuck’s sake…don’t apologize! You guys have your hands full and then again, even if half of what we’re hearing is true.

A pulse back, of gentle exasperation and a hint of concern.

Are you okay?

Wren blinked, then smiled a little, and typed back:

yeah. mostly. it’s…complicated up here, but we’re managing. you?

There was a question in that one word that Wren wasn’t able to elaborate on. The one thing she and the rest of the Quad were afraid of—so afraid that they hadn’t been able to do more than dance around the possibility out loud—was the threat of KimAnn’s attitude spreading; of Council turning against lonejacks, trying to force them into lockstep, across the country and elsewhere.

Yeah. We’re okay. And…we’re watching.

Words hidden inside words. No promises, but a promise, nonetheless. Whatever was going on here, it would not be allowed to take root down under, not while this woman and her friends were on guard.

good.

So why did she have the feeling that neither of them actually felt so good?

Time for me to log off. Take care, downtown.

you too.

Wren stared at the screen for a few minutes after the other account signed off.

It’s not growing. But people are paying attention. Whatever we do, people are going to notice. We’re setting precedent. And if we lose…

Her stomach ache suddenly got worse, and the Oreo cookies weren’t so appealing any more.

“I need coffee.”

Three hours later Wren blew on her fingers, trying to keep them warm enough to stay nimble, even as her ass threatened to turn into paired ice cubes through the heavy denim and silk underwear. The small storefront she was studying across the street was dark and closed, the iron grating pulled down over the windows. She could feel the electrical shimmer of the alarm system running through the store. Door and windows, plus a motion detector.

As pawnshops went it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but there was an object there she intended to Retrieve before the night was over. Nothing special: a gold locket that had been pawned a week before. A small locket with nothing but emotional significance. Nothing inside except one faded picture of a man long-gone.

“Why couldn’t we stay inside, where it was warm?”

“You could have stayed there.”

The demon huffed in response. His mistake, showing up at dawn looking for breakfast and companionship. He had been twiddling his claws as even more snow fell for the umpteenth storm of the winter, and he had known, somehow, that Wren would be awake. And she was right, he could have stayed in with Sergei, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, or gone home to stare at the TV, instead. He had, in fact, just decided to do the latter when Wren announced that she wanted to “take a walk.” Wren never just took a walk.

He and the sleepy-eyed human male had exchanged glances, doing a quick mental paper-rock-scissors. P.B. still wasn’t sure if he’d won or lost.

“Stay here. Hold this.”

She handed him a plastic stopwatch, and took the small black bag he was holding from him, closing it up. When he would have asked another question, she stood up, stretching her legs out as she did so. The snow coating the sidewalk was soft and slippery, and her boots made a faint crunching noise as she strode forward.

“Valere…”

“Stay there. Run the clock.”

He stayed, looking more like his nick-namesake, the polar bear, than he ever had before, surrounded by snowdrifts taller than he was.

“Piece of cake,” she muttered, stepping through the slush of the street and up onto the curb on the other side. She was the best Retriever in the area, probably the best Retriever on the entire damned continent. This was easy. This was almost too easy.

The electrical current of the burglar alarm was thicker than an ordinary alarm; the strands were woven with magical current, as well. The owner was a member of the Cosa Nostradamus, the magical community, just as she and P.B. were. He knew all the ways that a fellow Talent could break in, and protected against them.

She was the best. She could do this in her sleep.

Closing her eyes, Wren let the cold night air seep into her skin, feeling the contrast between the cold and the warmth of current inside her. A deep well, where neon-flashed snakes slithered and coiled around each other, sparking in anticipation as she slid into a light fugue state.

“Easy. Easy…”

She wasn’t sure who she was talking to: the live current within her, the alarm in front of her, or herself. Maybe all three. They all listened; her breathing slowed, her hand steadied, the current inside her slipped along the pattern she created, and the two types of current touched, her own magic slipping into the shopkeeper’s system and convincing it that she was an extension of the system, an accepted guest, not an intruder.

It was simple, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. Even in the cold air, Wren felt sweat drip under the wool cap, down the side of her face. Using current burned a huge amount of calories.

In contrast, the door really was easy: a turn and a bump, and the lock gave way.

Inside the store, the air was thick and dark. A few faint red lights indicated emergency exits, while a white glow illuminated the glass cases behind the wooden counter. The locket was in one of those cases.

Wren was a Retriever; she was hired to take items belonging to her client, and nothing more. Even on a training run like this, you kept discipline. But there were so many pretties sparkling there, abandoned by their owners, just waiting to find new homes….

Watch it, she thought sternly. That’s how people end up with Bad Things following them home.

Selecting one thin thread of current, she shaped it with a picture of the locket, and released it like a butterfly into the store.

The current was blue and yellow, like a butterfly itself, and the strength of her visual made it move like one as well, flittering from one glass case to another before finally alighting on one in the far corner.

“Gotcha” she whispered. The butterfly broke into tiny sparkles, fading into the air as Wren approached the case. Keeping her tool bag balanced on her leg—you never, ever put your kit down on the floor, for fear of leaving a trace—she withdrew the thin pick P.B. had been looking at earlier and made short work of the sliding lock.