“Why can’t you just leave us alone? Why can’t you just let us live our lives in peace?”

  “We are the keepers of the cycle. The creators and the destroyers. Your existence is a flicker, a spark. We can extinguish it—or we can preserve it. Submit to us and we can make you immortal.”

  “I don’t want to be immortal,” she said. “I just want to be me.”

  They were barely moving at all now. Grayson had managed to bring their hurried escape from the Academy down to a crawl.

  “Organic life lives, dies, and is forgotten. You cannot fully comprehend anything beyond this. Yet there is a realm of existence beyond your understanding.”

  There was something odd about the things Grayson was saying. She knew he was speaking on behalf of the Reapers, but it seemed like he—or they—actually wanted her to understand their position. It was like they were trying to persuade her to agree with them, but they didn’t know how to frame their arguments in a way she could relate to. Or maybe there simply was no way for organic beings to relate to hyperintelligent machines.

  “We are the pinnacle of evolution,” they continued. “Yet we see potential in your species. You can be elevated. The weakness of organic flesh can be cast aside. You can transcend yourselves.”

  The words didn’t really make any kind of compelling argument, but she felt as if there was some deeper meaning to them.

  “Your understanding is limited by genetics. You cannot see beyond the brief instant of your own existence. Yet our knowledge is infinite, as are we.”

  The more Grayson spoke, the more his words seemed to make sense on a deep, almost subconscious level.

  “The laws of this universe are inviolate. Immutable. Your resistance will only lead to your extinction. What are—what we do—is inevitable.”

  Kahlee was so far under the Reapers’s spell, she wasn’t even aware she was nodding along in agreement.

  Kai Leng heard the voices coming from down the hall. They were faint, still too distant to decipher what was being said, but he recognized the tone of Grayson’s voice.

  He reached out and put a hand on Nick’s shoulder, signaling him to stop. The boy hadn’t noticed the voices, and he turned and looked back up at Kai Leng with an inquiring stare. To his credit, he knew enough to keep quiet.

  The assassin continued to listen, focusing on the distant voices until he was certain they were drawing closer. Then he pointed in the direction of a nearby dark office with an open door. The two went inside, and Kai Leng promptly closed the door and flicked on the light.

  In a careful whisper he said, “I heard something down the hall. The kidnappers are coming this way.”

  “What are we going to do?” Nick asked, his adolescent voice cracking with a mixture of fear and excitement.

  “I think they’re heading back to the docking bays. They’re going to go right past us.”

  Nick nodded to show he was following along so far.

  “I don’t have a weapon, but you do,” Kai Leng continued. “If we wait here for them to pass by, will that let you build up enough energy to hit them with a blast powerful enough to take them out?”

  “You mean kill them?” Nick asked in wonder.

  “These are dangerous men,” Kai Leng warned him. “If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us.”

  “I’ve … I’ve never killed anybody before.”

  Kai Leng nodded sympathetically. “That’s okay. I understand. It’s a lot to ask from someone your age. Maybe we should just hide and let them go by.”

  “No,” Nick answered hastily. “I don’t want to hide. I can do this.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to it? It’s not going to be easy.”

  “I can do it,” Nick swore.

  “Good. Here’s the plan. We wait in here with the door closed and the lights off until they pass by. Then I hit the panel and you jump out into the hall and hit them with everything you’ve got before they can turn around.”

  “Isn’t that like stabbing them in the back or something?”

  “This isn’t a game, Nick. There’s no such thing as playing fair.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Right.”

  “I’m going to turn out the light now. You ready for this?”

  Nick nodded, and Kai Leng cast the room into darkness. At first it seemed there was no light at all, but after a few seconds their eyes began to pick up on the subtle illuminations from various sources around the room: the blinking message light on the office’s extranet terminal; illuminated power buttons on the computer console and video display screen; the ghostly green glow of the wall panel that indicated the door was unlocked. It wasn’t much, but it gave them just enough light to make out their own silhouettes in the gloom.

  Kai Leng pressed his ear to the door and listened carefully. He could hear Grayson speaking; occasionally Kahlee’s voice would interject. He wouldn’t tell Nick about Kahlee—it might make him reluctant to launch his attack, and Kai Leng was more than willing to sacrifice her if it meant they had a chance to eliminate Grayson.

  He looked over at Nick, and was surprised to see a tiny spark run the length of the young man’s neck. As he watched the teenager gather his power, the sparks became more plentiful as his body began to discharge the dark energy in tiny bursts.

  It took them a long time to finally reach the door; they were moving far slower than Kai Leng would have imagined. Once they were past, he waited a few more seconds to let them get a few meters down the hall, then he hit the panel and jumped back out of the way.

  Nick sprang into action, rushing out into the hall with a shrill scream of youthful rage.

  The buildup of stored biotic charge was causing Nick actual physical discomfort. His teeth felt like they were chewing on tinfoil, his eyes itched, and he could hear a high-pitched hum in his ears. But it was worth it if it meant he had a chance to help stop the kidnappers and impress Miss Sanders.

  When the door to the office opened, he charged through, unleashing all his pent-up energy against his enemies. Too late he realized that Kahlee was one of the two people he was about to crush with the most powerful biotic display of his young life.

  The barely contained power was already pouring out of him in an uncontrollable flood, and he didn’t have the mental discipline or control to simply shut it off. The best he could manage was to try to refocus it. Instead of a concentrated beam of deadly force, he pushed out with his mind, distorting it into a swooping wave so the impact would be dispersed across a much wider area.

  His yell had caused both Kahlee and the man beside her to turn in his direction. He saw their faces clearly, their eyes going wide in surprise as they were lifted from their feet and thrown sideways against opposite walls before falling hard to the floor.

  “Hit them again!” the tattooed man who called himself Steve shouted from inside the office door. “Finish them!”

  Confused and overwhelmed, Nick could only stand there, staring in horror at the bizarre-looking half-man/half-machine rising to its feet and turning toward him.

  Nick’s scream had given Kahlee just enough time to realize what was happening and brace herself for the impact. Nevertheless, the biotic wave hit her so hard, the pistol in her belt was jarred loose and sent skittering across the floor.

  Fortunately, she hit the wall with her shoulder rather than her head, and she managed to keep her senses about her. She didn’t know how Nick had found them; she knew only that by attacking Grayson he had marked himself as a threat in the Reapers’s eyes.

  Reacting rather than thinking, she got off the floor and threw herself across the hall toward Grayson, slamming into him as he raised his pistol and fired at his young assailant. She was able to knock him off balance, but as the pair tumbled to the ground, she heard the explosion of the gun and the sharp grunt of surprise from Nick.

  Grayson sprang to his feet and grasped the back of her belt with his free hand. He hauled her up by the belt, holding her suspended horizontally like a sack of flour before heaving her aside.

  The throw sent her helicoptering through the air, her arms and legs flailing wildly. Caught off guard by the sudden move, she didn’t have time to brace herself for impact this time, and slammed face-first into the floor.

  The blow left her seeing stars. Dazed and stunned, she couldn’t even roll over to see what was happening behind her.

  From inside the office Kai Leng saw Nick get shot, the bullet catching him in the stomach. As the young man gasped in pain and fell to his knees, Kai Leng was already in motion.

  He’d seen the pistol fall from Kahlee’s belt; he knew he had to get to it if he had any hope of surviving the confrontation. Grayson tossed Sanders aside, his distraction buying Kai Leng a few precious fractions of a second. He slid across the floor and wrapped his hand around the pistol, rolling over onto his back so he could fire at Grayson.

  But the Reapers were too quick. In the time it had taken him to secure the weapon, they’d crossed the hall to where he was lying on the floor. Grayson’s foot kicked the gun from his hand, striking with such force it shattered Kai Leng’s wrist.

  The assassin knew it was over. He stared up at the monster looming over him, prepared to meet his end. He flinched at the thunderous echo of a shotgun, his mind taking a second to realize he had not been shot.

  Grayson staggered away from him, revealing the source of the blast. Anderson stood halfway down the hall, the stock of his weapon wedged firmly into his stomach as he held it with one hand. His right arm hung limp and useless at his side.

  He fired a second time, and Grayson’s body shuddered and collapsed to the floor.

  As Grayson lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and gasping for air, he felt the Reapers abandoning his body. Their vessel broken, they directed their consciousness back into the void of dark space, leaving Grayson alone as the last sparks of life flickered away.

  Finally free of their control, he turned his head as the world began to grow dim. He saw Kahlee gamely hauling herself back to her feet, and he smiled.

  His head lolled back to its original position, leaving him staring up at the ceiling once again. The head and shoulders of a dark-haired man of Asian descent appeared in his field of view; it took Grayson a moment to recognize him as the one who had attacked him in the Cerberus holding cell.

  Life seemed to slow down, and he heard the familiar pop-pop of a pistol, the standard double-tap taught to all Cerberus assassins. As the pair of bullets entered his skull, everything went dark for the last time.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  To aim the shotgun, Anderson had to brace the butt against his stomach. When he fired, he had to hold his breath and keep his abs tight to try and absorb the kickback so he wouldn’t pass out from the pain. Despite these precautions, it took him a few moments to recover each time he pulled the trigger.

  He managed to score a hit on Grayson with his first attempt; fortunately, with shotguns it wasn’t necessary to be particularly accurate at short range. Grayson was staggered by the first shot, but didn’t go down. Between this blast and the one Anderson had delivered when he caught him in the data archives, however, he had sustained such grievous injuries that it was all the Reapers could do to keep him on his feet.

  That gave Anderson time to gather himself and fire again, finally dropping Grayson to the floor. In the time it took Anderson to recover from the kickback of the second blast, Kai Leng had scooped up a pistol from the ground and finished Grayson off with two point-blank shots to the head.

  Before the assassin could turn his attention toward another target, Anderson said, “Drop the gun and don’t move!”

  He didn’t shout or yell; despite his being dosed with medi-gel, his collapsed lung and broken ribs were too painful for him to take a deep breath. But he knew that Kai Leng had heard him clearly.

  The assassin stood frozen, his weapon still pointed at Grayson’s corpse on the floor. Anderson knew what was running through his mind. Could he bring his pistol up and get off a shot before Anderson could squeeze the shotgun’s trigger? He was quick, but was he quick enough?

  “Don’t do it,” Anderson warned. “I’ve got you dead in my sights. At this range even I can’t miss.”

  To his relief, Kai Leng let the gun slip from his hands.

  Anderson had seen the unconscious teenager lying on the floor bleeding from his gut when he’d arrived on the scene, and in his peripheral vision he could see Kahlee trying to shake off the cobwebs and regain her senses after being thrown by the Reapers. But he couldn’t offer help to either one. Not yet. Kai Leng was too dangerous to take any chances with; until he was neutralized Anderson had to push everything else aside and focus on this true threat.

  “I want you to take it slow and easy,” Anderson told him. “Gently—very gently—use your foot to slide that pistol over to me.”

  He kept his trigger finger ready as Kai Leng complied, ready to fire at any sudden movement; God help the man if Anderson sneezed. The gun skittered across the floor and stopped a few inches from Anderson’s feet.

  “Now put your hands behind your head, turn around to face the wall, and get down on your knees.”

  The assassin complied, and Anderson finally felt like he had the situation under control. From that position even Kai Leng wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to avoid a shotgun at point-blank range.

  “What do we do now?” the assassin asked.

  “All this gunfire is sure to attract someone’s attention. I figure the security patrols will be showing up in a couple of minutes. We’ll just wait for them to arrive.”

  He glanced over at Kahlee and saw she was on her feet, bracing herself against the wall and trying to get her bearings. She glanced down at Grayson’s body lying just across from her, and then her eyes fell on the boy farther up the hall.

  “Nick!” she shouted, racing over to him and crouching down to inspect his wounds.

  Anderson kept his shotgun trained on Kai Leng, wary in case he used the distraction to try to escape. He didn’t move, but he did speak.

  “I could have killed you, you know,” Kai Leng said, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the wall. “But I didn’t. I have no reason to harm you.”

  “David,” Kahlee said, looking up from the body of the unconscious boy. “He’s losing too much blood. I need a med-kit.”

  “All I wanted was to stop Grayson,” Kai Leng continued on as if he hadn’t heard her. “My job is done. Just let me go.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Anderson snapped at him. “This is all your fault. Grayson. This kid. Their blood is on your hands!”

  “David!” Kahlee barked out. “I can still save him. But I need that med-kit!”

  “Go,” Anderson told her, not taking his eyes off Kai Leng. “I don’t know where they are. Grab one and bring it back.”

  “We need to keep pressure on the wound,” Kahlee protested. “He’ll bleed out before I get back.”

  “I can’t take my eyes off this guy,” Anderson told her with a shake of his head. “We’ll just have to wait for security to show up. Shouldn’t be long now.”

  “There isn’t time,” Kahlee insisted.

  “You,” Anderson said to Kai Leng, coming to a decision. “On your feet. Nice and slow. Come over and put pressure on this kid’s wound. Hold it until Kahlee gets back.”

  “No,” Kai Leng replied without moving, his voice completely devoid of emotion.

  “No?” Anderson repeated incredulously.

  “You have a choice,” the assassin calmly told him. “You stanch the flow of blood while Kahlee retrieves the med-kit, and I disappear. Or you keep that gun pointed at me until security shows up and we all watch as the boy dies.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Kahlee screamed. “He’s just a boy!”

  “It’s Anderson’s choice,” Kai Leng told them. “All he has to do is let me go.”

  Kai Leng was still facing the wall. Anderson took the opportunity to set the shotgun down and gingerly pick up the pistol. Moving carefully, never taking his eyes off Kai Leng, he made his way over to where Kahlee was sitting beside Nick. She had her injured hands stuffed up inside the wound in the boy’s stomach, her arms trembling from exertion as she pressed with all her might.

  “I’ve only got one hand,” Anderson warned her.

  “You’ve got more good fingers than I do,” Kahlee reminded him. “Reach inside and press as hard as you can.”

  “I assume this means I’m free to go,” Kai Leng said confidently.

  He was still facing the wall, but he became bold enough to get to his feet. Anderson took careful aim with the pistol and fired. The bullet lodged itself in the thick muscles at the back of the assassin’s right thigh, causing him to cry out and drop back down to the floor.

  Writhing on the ground, he reached his hands down to awkwardly try to clutch at the wound. Anderson fired the trigger again, this time catching him in the calf of his other leg.

  Kai Leng roared in pain and anger, then rolled onto his stomach and looked up at Anderson with death in his eyes.

  “Security’s on its way,” Anderson noted. “If you want to get out of here you better hurry.”

  Kai Leng flashed him a hateful grin, then turned and started crawling on his belly in the opposite direction in a desperate attempt to escape before reinforcements arrived.

  Finally able to turn his full attention to Kahlee and her patient, Anderson let the pistol fall to the floor.

  “Show me what to do,” he said.

  “Reach into the wound and follow along my fingers,” Kahlee told him.

  Anderson followed her instructions, carefully pressing his hand up and into the warm, sticky hole in Nick’s abdomen.

  “Feel that tube my fingers are pressing against?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “When I pull my hands out, you press down on it as hard as you can. Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

  “Got it.”

  “On three. Ready? One … two … three!”