“Looks like you have yourself a nemesis.”

  The blond woman squeezed back and leaned in a bit, so that not everyone would hear her.

  “I rather noticed that. Amazing that she’d pick me instead of you. Why is that, do you think?”

  It was a good point and after a while Gwen started nodding, a sense of excitement running through her spine.

  “Because… You’re in charge of the investigation into the bombings and attacks, and she has something to do with it?” She didn’t have any proof, but it made some sense didn’t it? “I mean, possibly at least, we should ask about her at the different scenes and see if there’s a thread there. It could just be that she hates you for being so good looking, or having good table manners, but crazy or not, she doesn’t seem the kind to hold on to a grudge. Not if it didn’t serve her at the moment. So, it could be something else. Billy, can you find her, now that you know who she is?”

  Leaning in himself he nodded, it was hard to see his face, but the movement showed clearly enough.

  “Yeah, now that I realize who she is I don’t think she’ll be able to hide from me. I can do that as soon as we get back. It might take a while, but if it’s pressing I can do it before I sleep.”

  “Nope. You can do that after I check out your story and have Beth read your mind while I see if you’re lying to me or just delusional. Then we can do the rest of this.” Her words sounded accusing, rather than just suspicious, but the man spread his hands and sighed.

  “Fair enough. After that then.”

  The ride took half of forever, it felt like, but they were all back home before midnight and back in her room ten minutes after that. If anyone had a problem with her having a man in her room, they didn’t mention it. Then, technically, his own sisters were there with them. The Westmorlands pretty much counted as a single family, even though they were never related by blood. Almost never at least. That was good, because Gwen thought they might actually sleep with each other a lot. It was just a feeling though, none of them had ever said anything about it directly.

  They weren’t back for three minutes, not even all the way into the mansion at all when a servant that Gwen recognized, but didn’t know personally, one of the girls that cleaned rooms she thought, ran to the front door, hands held in front of her, wringing them nervously. She spoke to Mr. Vernor, but everyone else paid attention anyway.

  “More attacks sir…” She paused and then kept going, slightly breathless.

  Gwen could see that as soon as the woman explained. There were a lot of them. Five, all over the Kingdom. This time taking out private homes. The death toll wasn’t high, except that one of the locations was an apartment building. In that case a lot of people were missing, since part of the building was just gone. From the description it literally didn’t have one stone standing on top of another in places.

  Gwen waved to Beth and then closed her eyes.

  “What are the odds of us seeing Debussey, having a close call with her, and then this happening less than two hours later?” It was just a question, but Beth dropped into her analytical state anyway, which was strange, since she normally tired to avoid doing that when she could.

  “There is a likelihood of a strong correlation, given all known factors. The number is around a forty-six percent chance that the two things are directly related. There is an additional ten percent chance that they are indirectly related.” The Westmorland Detective went silent then. She couldn’t get herself out of that state alone, it wasn’t the way it worked. It was pretty much why she needed an assistant.

  Gwen touched her arm gently and squeezed.

  “Please return to your normal state now Beth.”

  That her friend had sent herself into that state based just on a question was a sign that she was freaked. Gwen had only seen her do something like that once before, with her precognitive state, in order to save hundreds of lives. Otherwise it was supposed to be impossible for a Westmorland to go into working states without being told to. They could get stuck that way, or possibly harm someone. Since about two thousand of them could literally pretend to be nuclear bombs, and do a credible job of it, that wasn’t something that anyone would want to hear about happening by accident. The two things weren’t related, Beth’s work states had nothing to do with ripping space after all, so they probably weren’t treated the same way as far as training went at all, but it would freak some people the heck out if they learned of it happening anyway.

  “OK people. Battle stations. We need to start an information center and collect data, Beth, get with… Darren here and find Debussey. Everyone else, we need to assemble search teams and get aid into place. Move. We don’t have time to play around here. This was done just to frighten the average person, nothing more and nothing less. I’ll…” She didn’t know what she was supposed to do, other than sit around and worry, which wouldn’t help anything at all.

  “I’ll go and check out the apartment complex with a team. Let’s get people in armor for this. We need to assume these aren’t the last attacks for the day.”

  Everyone looked at her strangely for a while, but finally the King clapped his hands and looked around the room.

  “You heard her, get moving. We need to show that we’re on top of this. Miss Vernor, we need you to stand by to speak with reporters. Do you wish to visit the scenes first?”

  It was a good enough idea, even though she suddenly didn’t want to see them at all, but it would work better if she knew what she was talking about, wouldn’t it?

  She nodded and went to her room with Heather, who showed her where the armor had been stored. There were three sets of it, but Beth shouldn’t need hers that night. She had real work to do. Gwen was just going to have to make it seem like she was useful herself, so that in the morning it would look right to everyone sitting at home, hoping the government was on top of things. It was a stupid way to run the situation, but if there was a better plan, she didn’t know about it yet.

  The next hours were grim and dismal. The houses that had been destroyed had killed everyone inside, whole families at once, with no survivors. A few had lived through the apartment blast, but it was just luck that did it in those cases. Some people had been far enough from the explosion, which had taken out the front half of the building completely. If they didn’t die in the smoke and fire after that, if they weren’t trapped by rubble, then they managed to escape. There were a lot of injured.

  More than the local emergency teams could handle.

  Gwen took about ten minutes to figure out what was needed, which had to do with Teletransporting healers in as fast as possible, from all around the Kingdom. That was harder than it sounded like, since the only group with a large enough set of spheres for the job were the Westmorlands and those were mainly earmarked for the Special Service. Gwen could use some, but they had to be recharged as fast as possible each time, which meant getting only one healer each trip, if she was going to do it all herself. She would have to charge two spheres on each round, meaning she could move about six people in ten hours.

  that was too slow, but to use them all at once meant possibly keeping the next wave of responders from not being able to get to an emergency, if something new happened. It was bad enough they already had bomb search teams out in five locations… Finally Gwen just shrugged. She was working for the King, right? That seemed to mean something here. It was time to try some name dropping.

  She made a single call to someone she hadn’t thought about in months. It took a bit of focus to remember the name and asking Mr. Vernor for help before she could do anything. He had to dig himself, but finally came up with the right name and contact information. Barbara Kensing. The new local representative for the Chargers Union. The one time they’d met she’d be far more tractable and willing to help than Frank Britain had been. A whole lot more, truth be told. Hadn’t attempted to kill her at all. Gwen had the operator put in an emergency call for her, which got the woman to the Telestator a short fifteen minutes later. She didn’t have her own, which meant a neighbor had to go and fetch her, even though it was two in the morning. That was awkward, but what could they do? It’s when the emergencies happened.

  “Barbara? This is Katherine Vernor. We met once?” The woman might not recognize her voice, but that didn’t matter, did it? Not now. “There have been five more terrorist attacks tonight. We need chargers to keep some Teletransport spheres up and ready. It’s not glamorous, but lives might depend on it, can you help? I know it isn’t in the Union rules, but this is for the Kingdom, and technically the King has given me the right to conscript anyone needed for the duration. I’d prefer volunteers if possible.” That wasn’t true really, but hey, if he wanted to call her on it in the morning, Ferdinand was welcome too.

  “I…” The voice sounded sleepy and unsure of itself, but rallied by the time the next few words were uttered.

  “Yes. Where are we needed? I’ll get volunteers like you said. I don’t know who I can get this time of night, but I’ll… We’ll have people right there.”

  They agreed to set up at Park Street, since Gwen didn’t have any place better for them to meet. A few calls had more of the public lorries coming, along with drivers for the purpose. Gwen realized that she needed to get on the ball, if she had to pay for all this stuff out of pocket. It was a great idea, but that didn’t mean it was free. She’d need more money soon. That or she really needed to get the government to start paying for some of this stuff. That was a good idea too, but she was too wrung out to fill out the needed paperwork in triplicate or whatever they did for that kind of thing here.

  It took hours to get it all around, but they had personnel moving pretty quickly by five, just as the sun was starting to come up. She ended up all over the place multiple times and arranging transportation for people who otherwise would have died, being too far from good medical help in any kind of normal situation. They lost about half of them regardless. It was sad, looking at the bodies, since a lot of them were kids. The living ones were just as bad, since they cried and screamed. That sound would haunt her for a long time, she figured.

  As she walked into Park Street again, handing off the spheres she’d drained to the charging crew Barbara had gotten into place. Only eight of them, but the men and women worked hard and with a minimum of breaks. It was important work. Gwen made sure they had coffee and food coming in regularly, and would get rides to where they needed to be as soon as they were done. It was the least she could do after all.

  She grabbed a warm cup of the bitter dark roast that the Vernor’s liked, and sipped at it as fast as she could manage without burning her mouth, figuring it would have to replace sleep for the day. It was going to suck, but she was supposed to talk to the press about what had happened the night before, which would probably take most of the morning. Then she had to figure out what to say later in the day and give her little class to however many people wanted to listen to her yammering on. It could be a few thousand, she figured. Maybe a few more. It was a start at least. They needed to do it fast to reassure the public they weren’t helpless, so TS class day it was. Unless she could put it off. Thinking about it, Gwen made a point to get her pad out and start writing notes, sitting at the dining room table, waiting for the next thing to happen. Nothing new did, except the ever growing list of dead people’s names coming in. That part sucked.

  Finally, near eight-thirty in the morning Billy came to sit by her, a cup in his own hand, but one that had chocolate in it, not coffee. He hadn’t slept either, but really seemed to like sweets. That or he didn’t like coffee. After sipping for a while, not speaking to her at all, the thin man made a sound that was half grunt, half sigh.

  “So, what do you want to know?” The words were quiet, holding an odd still quality to them. His gaze was steady though, eyes only a bit bloodshot and red rimmed.

  “OK… First, um, can we get Beth in and… Maybe if we did this somewhere else? A little less public? I’m Katherine Vernor here for a reason. That may be falling apart, but I still need to try for as long as possible.”

  He stood and walked out of the room before she could close her pad and start to follow, by the time she got to the foot of the stairs that would lead them all up to her room, Beth had joined them, being pulled along by Billy, who held her sleeve tightly. It really looked like he almost expected her to run away or something, though she just followed along, a curious look on her face. She was good at that, looking politely interested. Gwen kind of admired that about Beth. The best she ever really managed was probably closer to slightly deranged. She tried for happy, but the proper reflexes weren’t built in for her. She’d learned not to try and smile as a child, because the look didn’t work on her old face. It did on Katherine’s, but it wasn’t her way. She had to make it happen each time still, which probably had people thinking she was mean.

  Beth settled on her bed, a large thing that was big enough for two people easily, and three if they were willing to be cozy. Billy pulled over a chair that was at a desk against the far wall. It wasn’t new, but she’d rarely sat there to work, not having had a lot of paperwork before the last week or so. It was all wood, highly polished and in a single dark tone. Handmade stuff, she thought. That or made with tools she wasn’t used to. Quality stuff. Heavy too, but that just meant it would last. Everything was built like that here. Nothing was disposable.

  Beth asked to be placed in her interrogation mode, so she could read Billy, then Gwen just had to ask questions and she’d call out any lies told, if they came. Billy shrugged and said he was sure there would be some, but didn’t elaborate as to what he meant at all. Then, once Beth was under and looking directly at Billy, hardly blinking, he started speaking, not waiting for a questions.

  “We were all born, or at least conceived, as about the same time, a little over forty years ago now. Mom, well, she was a psychopathic monster, possibly the worst person I’ve ever known, but there was no doubt she was brilliant. Decades ahead of the competition in her chosen areas. Unfortunately for us, it was illegal for her to do the kind of genetic tampering she wanted to start her work. So, to get materials she took fertility drugs and started on a litter of kids, to get around the legislation. There were originally seven of us, then mom had us all frozen until she needed us for experimentation. The first four didn’t make it out of the Petri dish. From the records I read on the subject before I burned it all, she was being too ambitious. It was some messed up stuff. Human animal hybrids and things like that, trying to make supermen. Then she decided to pull back a little and not be quite as over the top and came up with the first successful one of her children. He didn’t live up to expectations and died when he was about four. He couldn’t quite hack breathing underwater for long periods of time.” Billy stared at her, but gave no indication he was trying to be sarcastic. “Yes, it’s as messed up as it sounds like. She basically strapped him down in a tub of water for longer and longer periods, until he drowned so badly he couldn’t recover from it. That was Andy. So she pushed it again experimentally speaking, trying to improve on what she’d already managed, and had you, but, well, you know what happened there. Brilliant mind, solid nerves and tough as nails mentally, but not all that on the physical level. She went to a much more subdued model with me. Most of how I got screwed up had nothing to do with genetics. Mainly just how I was trained. It was… severe to say the least. The scars are from that.” He waved at his face, but had them on the backs and palms of his hands too, she noticed. Possibly other places, she didn’t ask about it.

  She let him keep talking, not sure what to ask first, or if she really should. Beth hadn’t called out any lies yet, which meant that her early history was a heck of a lot different than she’d ever even thought. She would have picked being normal if she could, or even the tale she’d been told, where her being messed up was just happenstance.

  “The rest of it, well, that’s not that important. You lived your life, I lived mine and things happened. I ended up here and the Westmorlands found a use for me that didn’t have anything to do with torture at all, or even fighting, and pretty much they just otherwise let me do my own thing. I figured out who you were pretty fast, since there aren’t a lot of Gwen Farris’s around here. There might be somewhere a real version of you here, but you look too much like Ethyl Vernor to not be her kid. Your body I mean. So it’s a little messed up there, but we may have a sister around other than you. I haven’t checked, since it didn’t occur to me to until now. Maybe not. The population is a lot different here than back home. Smaller for one thing. But… Mom exists in this world and that means there might be a version of you too. That’s about what I have for you right now, unless you have questions? Otherwise you should probably go and reassure the masses that everything is alright.”

  She nodded, not knowing what would come out until she spoke, her own words coming as a bit of a surprise.

  “So, I was so broken she just abandoned me? Mom I mean? I… guess that makes sense. It was a lot of work raising me… and my parents… I guess they really weren’t that, if what you said is true, they didn’t get a lot out of it. The hospital bills alone…”

  Billy shrugged.

  “Those were handled by mom. She was a psycho for sure and deserved what she ended up getting, but she did want you to have as good a life as possible I think. I don’t know if she could see other people as actual beings, as valid and real as she was, but she did a lot more than you might figure to try and protect you. It was why I was pulled out of school you know. Not the fight, though that too, but because I knew you were my sister, even when we were little. I just did, it was what got them to try psychic training with me, I think. She didn’t know why, but got excited when I mentioned it. Like she was scared of you for some reason. I didn’t know that I’d been right for years after that. I mean, I knew it inside, but I hadn’t seen the paperwork on it. She was dead by then. Her death wasn’t easy. I made sure of that.” He looked at her and shook his head.

 

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