I’ve seen them.
Lucia looked from Emi to her brother, not sure what to do. How much did this girl know? This self-proclaimed Tech was trying to act casual, but it was obvious from how her eyes darted around and the way she was blustering that she was terrified.
Lucia looked at Vincent, and suppressed a sigh. Her brother was virtually incapable of reading people, so it never seemed to occur to him that others might be able to read him. His posture had changed, and not in a defensive way. He’d puffed out his chest a bit, and was trying to look casual at the same time, despite the fact that this girl was putting their lives at risk.
Vincent had a crush.
Danny, on the other hand, looked appropriately manic. He was rapidly looking back and forth between Emi and Vincent, waiting for someone to take the lead–as usual. The awkward silence had now stretched for a while, and Lucia was about to break it when Vincent finally seemed to decide how he planned to manipulate the situation.
“You sent the message, but you didn’t turn us in. You want to escape this place with us, don’t you?” Lucia’s eyes widened, she thought he’d at least start with a denial. Was he hoping Emi would say yes?
The Tech looked uncomfortable, as if wrestling with her feelings. “I want you to return to the Gamma, so the Psychics don’t come and find out about me. Your insane plan to escape is a waste–”
“You contacted me before the Gamma was taken. And you must have used your skills as a Tech to do it–which puts you at risk. You’re smart; you wouldn’t have done that without a better plan than screwing with us.” Lucia tried and failed to hide her shock. Vincent had complimented Emi. The poor girl didn’t realize it, but this was practically open flirting coming from her brother.
“Maybe…maybe I was curious,” the Tech said. “Everyone knows what you’re like, Villari. You don’t do anything that isn’t part of some scheme. When I noticed your KDs were scrubbed, I watched you. You’re all walking around like paranoid nutjobs. Looking over your shoulders, staring at every guard and camera, whispering in corners.”
The three exchanged embarrassed glances. They hadn’t been that obvious, had they? Vincent’s glances were accusatory, so as usual it was obvious where he put the blame. “Okay, so you figured us out,” Vincent said casually. “But if the Gamma goes back and the Psychics don’t come, then what? You go back to praying no one notices you’re a tech for another year, year and a half?”
Emi looked cornered, but Lucia was more interested in her brother. Why wasn’t he telling the girl that they had nothing to do with the Gamma? “I don’t know,” the tech finally admitted. “I’ve been looking for the right opportunity for a while…”
“To escape?” Danny prompted, looking a lot more comfortable now that Vincent had clearly taken control of the situation.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emi said. “Didn’t that girl getting killed teach you anything? They didn’t even set off her harness. We’re trapped in here.” Vincent’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“But you must have deactivated your own harness, what kind of Tech would choose to walk around with a bomb strapped to her spine?” Oh, Lucia thought, now it makes sense.
“You think I’m the first Tech with a rigged harness?” Emi asked sarcastically. “Techs built these things. You think they didn’t consider other people with the exact same skills as themselves?” Vincent didn’t respond. He just did that thing where he stared at someone with disappointment until they couldn’t help but defend themselves. Lucia hated that look.
Emi rolled her eyes after the pause became unbearable. “You need a key, alright? A Tech can deactivate the charge, but they can’t do it without a key.”
“Who has the key?” Vincent asked.
“Why are we even talking about this?” Emi said. “Just return the Gamma and we can go back to ignoring each other!”
“We didn’t take the Gamma. Who has the key?” her brother pressed, and Emi’s jaw fell open.
“Do you really expect me to believe that? You must have taken it for your stupid escape plan. Bribing guards, trying to push yourselves to Manifest, I don’t know, but obviously it was you!”
“It wasn’t. Who has the key?” her brother said again, seeming unbothered by Emi’s little tirade.
“Oh my God!” she said, throwing her arms up in frustration. “The Dean has it, okay? I tried to get it once but…never mind!” she turned and looked from Danny to Lucia, as if trying to find a sane person in the room. “Is he messing with me?”
“Not in the way you think he is,” Lucia answered with a sympathetic shrug. “We really didn’t take it, but we need to find out who did or…or our escape plan is doomed.” Talking about it with someone new seemed crazy, but…well Emi was already aware, and Vincent hadn’t bothered trying to hide it.
What was he thinking, anyway? Lucia’s face paled. Was he planning to get rid of the girl somehow? Was that why he seemed so unphased by her appearance?
Emi had looked from Lucia to Danny for confirmation, and the Villari’s tall, handsome friend’s smile seemed to have convinced the nervous Tech. “But if you didn’t take it, who did?” she asked, but seemed to be talking to herself. Vincent answered, however, while spinning toward the wall.
“Lucia will find out, don’t worry,” he said, while writing out the escape plan as he had the day before. “So, we need a distraction–I’m working on that. Lucia is dealing with the Gamma. We have our exit opportunity, that’s Danny’s focus–getting us all on the same truck hopefully won’t complicate things too much.” He wrote each challenge down as he had before, but this time assigning a name after.
“And now we have the harnesses taken care of,” he said while stepping back. “Finally the whole plan has taken shape,” he smiled, but Emi looked floored.
1. Distraction: Vincent
2. Gamma/Psychics: Lucia
3. Escape: Danny
4. Harnesses: Emi
“This wraps up everything nicely,” Vincent said, ignoring the three stunned faces in the room. “Obviously there’s still challenges associated with each phase, but we’ll lean on each other where we can,” he turned to Lucia, who was shaking her head.
“Lucia, spend tomorrow getting a more solid grasp of the Gamma situation. Find out what people know, what’s just a rumor, and exactly what happened to Gamma storage. Did they force their way in, how much did they take, etcetera, etcetera” He turned to Danny next.
“We know what we’re doing now, but we still need the how. Emi and I may simply be able to sign up, but there’s no guarantee we’d be on the same detail. Look into that,” finally he turned to Emi, who was looking at him like he’d declared war on the entire NGG. If she only knew…
“Emi, tell us about your attempt to steal the Key from the Dean. What went wrong?” the admittedly pretty girl–Vincent wasn’t the only boy Lucia knew with a crush–didn’t answer. She just looked from the board, to the door, and back again. Emi seemed to be struggling to decide what was the more dangerous choice.
“Why would you possibly think I’d join you?” she finally asked, and for some reason she seemed genuinely curious–it wasn’t sarcasm this time. Vincent looked bored by the question, as he so often did. Her brother was perpetually disappointed that the whole world didn’t automatically know what he was thinking. Ironic for someone so paranoid about Psychics.
“We discussed this. You were already planning to escape with us, you just got nervous when the Gamma went missing and things became serious too quickly,” Emi looked ready to object, but closed her mouth after a moment, and Vincent continued.
“Things are even simpler now. We’ll either find the Gamma and continue with our plan–which is far more likely to succeed with you on our side–or we don’t and we’re all either dead or shipped off to some black site. There’s only one smart choice,” he finished, as if the whole thing were painfully obvious.
Emi glared at him, then finally said what Lucia had hoped the girl would keep to herself. “There’s another option. I go right now and tell the Dean about your plan–I bet I can even convince him that stealing the Gamma was part of it. We’ll see if he is willing to believe it’s a coincidence.”
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This was it, Lucia thought. The truth was that she didn’t know how far her brother was willing to go, but she had suspicions. If it was just for this escape plan, maybe killing would be too much, but she knew that Vincent had far bigger plans than this. Their mother has selfishly made sure of that.
Vincent didn’t seem to be plotting murder, however, he still just looked bored. “At the minimum you’re still revealed as a tech. But if you need more incentive, the rest of the crew will also assure anyone who asks that you were in on the plan from the start. You’re the one who scrubbed our K-Devices, after all.”
Emi looked furious, “You know I had nothing to do with–”
“There’s at least a dozen other students who’ve seen you watching illegal broadcasts, long before the rest of us did anything suspicious. The faculty might even be convinced you were the one who planned all this.” Emi’s eyes were wide with desperation now.
“The Psychics will know that’s a lie!”
“It’s extremely unlikely they’d bring in NGG Psychics for a failed escape attempt. And you’d better hope they don’t, or they’ll figure out you already tried to rob the Dean what, months ago?” Danny was grinning now. He always loved Vincent’s party trick. Lucia had to admit, it was a lot more fun when she wasn’t the one being manipulated.
Emi didn’t look defeated though. Lucia didn’t know the girl particularly well, but you couldn’t even get the Tech Class without being highly intelligent, and Emi was well known for being tough as hell on top of that. Lucia knew of at least two male students who’d learned that the hard way. Still, the shorter girl did seem out of arguments, even if she wasn’t out of anger or determination.
Vincent just waited, ever the patient hunter. Finally he prompted her again, as if the entire exchange of threats hadn’t occurred. “You were telling us about your attempt to steal the Key?”
At last Emi let out a long sign, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Lucia was impressed to see a level of detached professionalism to rival her brother’s. “‘Key’ is a misnomer. It’s a chip that needs to be inserted into a harness. It deactivates the security countermeasures that prevent a Tech from manipulating the harness’s internal circuitry.”
Vincent was nodding, “And once that’s done, a Tech can just…?”
“There’s no ‘just’. You need the Technokinesis ability, and at a reasonable mastery level, as none of the mechanisms can be interacted with from the outside. Even then it’ll probably take at least an hour to do the first one.”
“And do you have Techno knees?” Danny asked with a serious expression, and Emi shook her head in disbelief, while Vincent seemed unsurprised. Lucia wondered if her brother had any idea how hard Danny worked to look dumber than he actually was around him.
“Yes; I can do it,” Emi said simply.
“So was getting the Key the problem?” Vincent asked. “Or was it the rest of the difficulties escaping the Farm.”
“Both,” Emi said, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms. “A student was dismissed two months ago. We were friends and I knew it was coming–he was never going to Manifest, and he was happy about it.” James Cooper, Lucia recalled. Emi hadn’t appeared to be such a loner until after he left.
“Because I knew he was leaving, I had time to hack his KD so its microphone would broadcast to me while his harness was being unlocked. They did it right in the Dean’s office, and I could hear something open and shut. Probably a safe.”
VIncent nodded, “Okay, so we need to get into the Dean’s office, open a safe, and take the Key somewhere quiet for a number of hours. Can you copy it, or something?”
“No. Higher level Techs might be able to, with the time, parts, and security clearance, but not me.” Vincent nodded.
“Then unless we find breaking in so easy we can do it twice, we’ll likely want to time it as close to our escape as possible,” he had a hand on his chin as he thought. “You were considering stealing it, Emi, I take it you examined the security in the Dean’s office?”
Emi let out another long sigh, as if she couldn’t believe she were having this conversation. “It’s not as bad as I was initially worried it would be. He hosts a lot of guests in the office and has a secretary going in and out, so it’s relatively lax. There are cameras though–enough that no one is getting to the office without being seen, and a single standing guard, but I think that the safe itself is the real challenge.”
“Did you try to get in?” Vincent asked.
“I found an excuse to be on that floor–it’s the top level of the main admin building. I ‘ran into’ his secretary Denise a couple of times. Enough that when I offered to help her carry up some bags she thought I was just being nice.
“But when I saw the inside I knew it was hopeless. I didn’t see the safe, but there was a biometric scanner on one wall. I can’t imagine what else it could possibly be for,” she finished, and everyone was quiet for a moment as they absorbed the information.
“Okay, then we have another challenge,” Vincent said simply, while making a note on the board. “I think this is enough for now, unless you have anything else to add, Emi?”
“You’re a complete lunatic,” she said without missing a beat. Vincent nodded with no expression.
“Very well, then I think this is where we should stop for tonight. We’ve made a lot of great strides today, excellent work everyone,” Vincent turned and erased the wall, but immediately started replacing it with his own notes. Emi looked at Lucia and Danny, who both shrugged and left the room.
Emi followed, leaving Vincent to…whatever the hell Vincent does. No one spoke until they’d left the dorm. “Is he always like that?” the new girl asked.
“Sometimes he’s terse and dismissive,” Danny replied with a grin.
“He’s just focused right now,” Lucia said, more than used to running damage control for her younger brother. “You represent a big change in his grand plans; he’ll need some time to work everything out.”
“He’s not normal, you know that, right?” Emi said, but Lucia sensed something else behind the words. Oh perfect, she thought.
“No one here is normal,” Lucia answered. “Just try to take the good with the bad when it comes to Vincent. He’s loyal, if…challenging.”
Emi shook her head, and looked up at the darkening sky for a moment. The Watcher should be visible tonight, Lucia thought, following the shorter girl’s gaze. The sky had the slightest hint of green on the horizon. “Well, I need some time to think about how my own grand plans have changed. I’m going to skip dinner.”
She turned and started walking away, then stopped and added awkwardly, “I guess I look forward to working with you?” She shook her head, then walked off toward the girls’ dorms.
Danny and Lucia watched her go for a minute, before he asked the obvious question. “Can we trust her?” his tone implied Lucia should actually know, and it took her a second to realize he was asking her…as a Psychic.
“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “Vincent was right that it’s a ‘mutually assured destruction’ situation, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Keep an eye on her.” Danny nodded, though he seemed disappointed. “You go ahead to dinner without me, I’m going to take a walk over to the South side of campus,” he looked at her, and nodded with understanding.
“Good luck. I’ll save you some food,” he said, then started walking off.
“Wait a sec,” Lucia called, and caught up to him. “I should have asked, how are you doing with harvester duty?” Danny’s face fell.
“It’s awful, Lucia. Every single part of it. It’s bad enough being in the storms. You can’t see more than ten feet in front of you; there could be a Beta addict standing right there and you wouldn’t know it,” he shivered visibly.
“But the guards and that God damned beeping…it’s so much worse. I just spent the entire day wishing I was anyone else in the world.”
“I understand that feeling,” Lucia said quietly, and Danny immediately looked crestfallen.
“I’m such an idiot, Lucia, I’m sorry. I know it’s much worse for you–”
“No, I’m sorry, Danny. I was asking about you, I didn’t mean to turn it around and make it about myself.” She put a hand on his arm in a way she hoped was comforting. “I’m really grateful that you’re doing this, it means more than I can say.”
Danny brightened, “We won’t let them take you, Lucia. I promise.” His customary grin returned, “I mean, as much of a nightmare as this is, I can’t imagine how bad Vincent’s plan to break you out of a Psychic containment facility would be. He’d probably have me seducing guards in a wig and a dress, and we both know I don’t have the hips for it.”
Lucia let out a small laugh at the image. “Don’t sell yourself short–at least you have the legs,” she gave him a small wink, then turned and started walking toward the South edge of campus, where the Gamma storage was.
As she walked, her smile faded, and reality set in. How was she possibly supposed to figure out who did this, with two hundred suspects and no idea what she was doing?
If it were just her and Vincent in the room tonight, maybe she would have had the nerve to tell him the truth. Or maybe not. Her brother would be the hardest one to confide in about this, and she’d considered not even telling him she was Psychic to begin with. She’d certainly never wanted to be.
Vincent may somehow have painted those years in the Cult as wonderful, but Lucia was old enough to see and understand things that he couldn’t even remember. She knew how obsessed everyone had been. She knew the things they did to people with their powers.
She knew what happened to their father.
She thought she did, at least. Vincent didn’t even seem to remember who their father was–or at least he refused to talk about it. But Lucia had years more memories of the man, even if he had been constantly coming and going, unlike their mother, who was an unfortunate constant.
Lucia hated feeling more connected to that woman. She remembered how their mother had treated their father, and the things she said to him. Now they shared a power that Lucia had grown up despising, and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to even tell her brother about it.
He thought her assignment was simple. Just walk around and listen to people’s thoughts like turning on an old radio. But that wasn’t possible, because Lucia’s first ability wasn’t telepathy. All Psychics were supposed to be able to catch a stray thought here and there–why was her brother always screaming about ‘mist’? But you needed the actual specialty to do it on purpose.
Lucia had wanted Vincent and Danny to believe that was the power she had Manifested, because no matter how invasive and disgusting it might be, it was better than the truth. She wasn’t ready for the two most important people left in her world to look at her like a monster.
She wasn’t ready for them to know that she was one of the bad Psychics. The ones the propaganda warned about. She didn’t want to be just like her mother. She didn’t want the power to tear apart a person’s mind.