“Another good idea,” Murphy said. “I say go for it.” Then she looked over at Tasha and lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Are you reading me?”

  “Just your face. I’m good at that.”

  “She is,” Brodie agreed dryly.

  “So I know something’s bugging you. What is it, Tasha?”

  TEN

  “It’s just . . . a worry, I guess. The thing is, for me to feel that connection with those poor unborn babies now, today, has to mean that whatever . . . biological manipulation was needed to produce babies with stronger psychic abilities is something they’ve had to be working on for a long time. Maybe they hadn’t perfected it early on, but it must have been a part of Duran’s eugenics program more than thirty years ago.”

  “Not necessarily,” Murphy said immediately. “Or at least, not knowingly. According to our information, they tried different methods, a lot of them. For years, maybe decades. We don’t know if they knew what worked and what didn’t, not at first. Maybe not for a long time. Maybe they didn’t have either the tech or the psychics decades ago who could scan unborn babies. Maybe those early unborn babies didn’t read as psychic until they were older. That’s more typical—isn’t it, Bishop?”

  He nodded. “Most tend to be born latent, and are triggered when they’re older. Some are triggered at various ages due to trauma. Though some psychics, especially when the abilities run in their family, can remember psychic experiences when they were very, very young.”

  Miranda added, “Sometimes imaginary playmates are spirits. Night terrors are visions. That sort of thing. Considered by the nonpsychic to be fairly ordinary parts of childhood. Though most very young psychics learn to hide what they can do when they’re still young, just like Tasha did. A defense mechanism.”

  Murphy said, “There’s no way for us to know for sure when Duran knew you were a success.”

  “I was watched from childhood,” she reminded them, her voice very steady.

  “And maybe that was simply their standard operating procedure. Maybe all the babies born healthy and with psychic potential were watched from childhood, especially if they showed any signs at all of possessing abilities. In fact, I’d be surprised if they weren’t.”

  “That’s at least potentially a lot of resources.”

  “Well, if he’s proven anything at all, Duran has proven the stakes in this are very high. For him, at least.”

  Quietly, Bishop said, “Tasha, most of your test results are in. And there is absolutely nothing abnormal in you. From the DNA out. The only thing that separates you from a nonpsychic person is just that. You read as psychic. We tend to have a higher-than-normal amount of electrical activity in our brains, often in areas that appear to be unused in nonpsychics, and we just as often carry a stronger . . . static charge . . . in our bodies than other people. So we’re more likely to screw up ATMs, and other simple kinds of computers, and we have trouble with magnetized keycards and credit cards. Cell phones tend to die on us a lot faster than on nonpsychics. But as far as our DNA goes, our brain cells, the cells of our bodies, all that is perfectly normal, just like any nonpsychic. And that’s all.”

  “You mean that’s all we know right now. All we can know.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Annabel half woke up, conscious of dim, almost inaudible voices on the other side of the condo from her bedroom. Even half asleep, part of her wanted to probe, to make sure those visitors were unthreatening. Because she was still wary.

  Don’t worry.

  Are you sure?

  Yes. Friends. People who care about you.

  Annabel was faintly surprised, and not at all sure she believed him. She’d never had even two people to care about her, really care about her, and was still a bit wary of reaching out to Sarah and Tucker even though they’d been so kind to her.

  Annabel, you’re safe. And you need to rest.

  I think I’ve been sleeping a long time. Mostly. Mostly all night, I think.

  Yes. But you’re still very tired, and you still need to rest. Sleep. I promise I’ll keep watch. Always. Keep you safe always. Go back to sleep.

  Relaxing, smiling, Annabel rubbed her face on her sweet-smelling pillow, and drifted back to sleep.

  * * *

  • • •

  Brodie looked at Tasha, beside him on a large sectional in the room, not needing their connection to know she was still thinking about being among the first successful generation of Duran’s eugenics program. The shock of that was still with her, and all his strength or comfort could not change that.

  Still, his fingers tightened slightly around hers, because other kinds of connections mattered too, and she sent him a quick smile before going on steadily to the others. “I assume every other psychic’s background has been checked out, on our side, I mean?”

  “Checked and triple-checked,” Murphy said dryly. “Duran got cute and put the idea into Brodie’s head that we might have a traitor among us, so that last check was only a few months before you joined us.”

  Brodie didn’t waste a glare.

  “Then I’m the only one on our side,” Tasha said. “All of you said that Duran really, really wanted me on their side until John and I connected. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I doubt I was the only one who survived the program back then and grew up being watched. There must have been others. Are we looking for others?”

  Tucker nodded. “One of the things the crackerjack researchers on this side are working on now. Some are mapping the current houses, but quite a few are searching out any that existed over the last thirty-five years and digging into their history. We’re also trying to find other babies that might have been adopted from the house where you were born, Tasha. It wasn’t in operation very long so there aren’t that many names—but since they apparently favor using as their phony names some of the most common, we’re hitting a lot of dead ends. We’ll keep at it, though.”

  Tasha didn’t know whether to be relieved or more anxious. “I’m glad. I think.”

  Tucker shook his head. “I have to say, I thought the other ways Duran and his goons were getting psychics were pretty damned elaborate, what with all the fake disappearances and real dead bodies replacing those of kidnapped psychics, but this eugenics program is something else.”

  “And we don’t know how successful they’ve been at it,” Murphy said. “Or how long. How many . . . mistakes . . . were made along the way.”

  “Not a good idea to mess with Mother Nature,” Tucker agreed. “We have way too many examples in history to prove that. I hope they’re aware of some of those. I mean what not to do.”

  Murphy, slumped down in the chair that enabled her to see everyone in the room easily, muttered several curses almost under her breath.

  She could have been any age, Tasha thought, studying the other woman really for the first time, but she looked younger than anyone else in the room, so much so that she likely got carded at any bar or club. Her oddly youthful punk look of camo army jacket and army boots, plus at least two colorful tattoos partially visible on her neck above her black tee-shirt and on one wrist just peeking from the cuff of her jacket marked her as someone who wore her individuality like a shield.

  The overlarge and very worn leather bag she carried with the wide strap slung across her body, never mind her extremely short, very spiky, and usually blond but occasionally multi-colored hair also gave her appearance a youthful slant.

  The scowl marked her as somebody who was visibly furious, an occasion as rare as hen’s teeth.

  “Don’t lose it,” Brodie warned her, a warning about her very rare but scary temper.

  He had known her the longest, but Murphy had never been known to take comments like his in an accepting spirit.

  “Don’t lose it? Do you know what the list of current shadow houses and clinics is up to now, Brodie? Tucker told us before you two got here. He and our other crackerjack researchers have been busy these last few weeks. They’ve found over a hundred. So far.”

  Tucker murmured, “And those are mostly in the southeast. We’re spreading out from here, cautiously.”

  Brodie’s was a face that rarely showed emotion, but shock crossed his hard features briefly. “I knew there were a lot of them, but—”

  Tasha spoke up then, her voice unsteady. “Whoever burned the Charlotte house . . . they won’t burn others, destroy others. Nobody on Duran’s side would do that, would they? It represents at least decades of work for them, we know that, and if even half of what we think we know is right, then they’ve finally figured out whatever it was they needed to—to breed true and get the results they want. To breed psychics a high percentage of the time. At least . . . we know they did at that house. So why would anyone on Duran’s side destroy it?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Sebring moved almost carelessly through the almost weirdly deserted industrial jungle of broken pavement, rusting fences, and abandoned buildings with broken or boarded-up windows. She wasn’t worried about being seen in any sense of the word.

  She had long ago found herself a couple of psychics who kept her shielded whenever she was on the move or involved in an operation.

  Something Duran should have thought of.

  It was only a glancing scorn, easily set aside. He had his own methods, and they apparently served his masters well. And if Sebring took care to stay out of his way just as he took care to stay out of hers, it was simply because their objectives were as different as their methods.

  Sebring served her own masters well.

  So when one of her contacts reported that a very strong psychic mind had been sensed probing near a certain very important building in Chicago, it was her responsibility to check it out. Her responsibility to track down that mind, that psychic, and determine the level of threat.

  To destroy that threat.

  She reached the meeting place just then, coming upon him suddenly as she turned a corner and entered what had once been the service area of an old gas station. It wasn’t a particularly secure location in the sense of hiding either one of them from any potentially watching eyes, but she knew herself to be hidden and didn’t really care if he was.

  “Good morning,” she said, intentionally making him jump.

  “Jesus. Where did you come from? I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “You weren’t supposed to,” she reminded him with a wholly deceptive pleasantness.

  “Right. Right.” He was very nervous, and it showed. “So, you got my message?”

  Sebring didn’t bother with an impatient sigh. “The psychic you sensed in Chicago. Who is it?”

  “Shit, I don’t know that. Just—strong. And she was looking for something or someone, I got that.”

  “You’re certain it was a woman?”

  “Well—yeah. Sometimes I don’t get that much, but I did this time. A woman, powerful telepath, maybe more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I was surprised when I looked down at my arm not to see her hand on it. It was like she was touching, not just sensing.” He struggled visibly for words. “Reaching out with more than her mind. It was weird. Different.”

  “So she’s a threat.”

  “I gotta say yes. I didn’t get anger from her, and I’m not sure who or what she was looking for, but she was really strong. Really strong.”

  “Did she find who or what she was looking for?”

  “I think so,” he said cautiously. “Because right after I sensed her, she was . . . gone. Just shut it down, that’s how it felt. I roamed around the area for a couple hours after that, but never picked up anything else. I don’t think she stuck around.”

  “Would you recognize her if you felt her sensing again?”

  “Oh, hell, yeah.”

  Sebring considered for a moment in silence, aware that it was making him even more nervous and not caring.

  “All right,” she said at last. “I’m going to send you down to Charleston. I want you to cover that area for at least twenty-four hours. See if you can pick up that same psychic’s touch.”

  He half nodded, but said, “I heard Duran was in Charleston.”

  “So?”

  “Well . . . he has Astrid.”

  She waited, brows raised.

  “It’s just . . . Some of us have run into her before, been in the same area. She’s mean. Tries to get in your mind just for the hell of it, and that is not something you want. It’s like she thinks of you as a fly, and wants to pull your wings off.”

  “So it wasn’t her mind you sensed in Chicago.”

  “No, definitely not. But if Duran is in Charleston, then so is she. And none of us can really shield against her. I reach out to probe, she’s gonna know I’m there. Know I’m looking for somebody. Maybe even know why.”

  “And she’ll report that to Duran.”

  He looked uncertain. “Hard to say, with Astrid. Way I hear it, she likes knowing things Duran doesn’t know. Things she doesn’t report to him, I mean. So maybe she wouldn’t tell him. But she’d know. Do you want her to know?”

  “I don’t think I care either way,” Sebring said reflectively.

  He looked miserable. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Go to Charleston,” she told him. “Do your job. And report back to me any psychic contact, whether with the target, Astrid, or anyone else. Understand?”

  “Right. Got it.”

  “Good,” Sebring said.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I don’t know why someone on his side would have burned that house.” Murphy’s voice was hard. “If I had to guess—and wanted a hopeful guess of sorts—it would be that, sanctioned or not, destroying that particular house was a warning.”

  “A warning to us?” Tasha asked.

  “Because the Bishops were close?” Brodie said.

  “Because we were close. Because we knew too much about that part of their master plan, and they wanted to make sure we also knew how . . . ruthless . . . they could be if they had to. Ruthless and efficient. An army burning its munitions before the enemy could get their hands on them.”

  “Living munitions,” Tasha murmured.

  “Yes,” Murphy said. “To us. But maybe not to them. Maybe it was meant as a warning to us. Or maybe somebody’s stepped up their timetable, and they can’t afford the time for the babies to be born and grow, even if they are psychic. Hell, maybe somebody’s just cut their fucking budget.”

  She sounded vicious.

  And looked it.

  “They have too much invested in this already,” Tasha insisted. “More than thirty years of working at this? Houses like the one I was born in gone now, who knows how many others came and went since then, how many babies were adopted out, now toddlers and school kids and teenagers and adults? And what if there are survivors of the program like me, but who’ve already married and started families? Maybe that’s part of the program too.”

  “Maybe it is,” Bishop agreed. “I’d assume it was. They’d need to know if the psychics they produced could pass on the abilities to the next generation. In fact, it almost has to be a multi-generational plan.”

  Tasha said, “Something that vast, that established, has to represent billions of dollars over the years. Would they just throw away all the potential in the Charlotte house?”

  “As a warning?” Bishop shook his head slightly. “Costly gesture, as Tasha said.”

  Brodie half nodded, but said, “Cost aside, I would have expected something less destructive from Duran. Besides that, for it to be a warning . . . Why? We haven’t gone out of our way to show too much of our hand. We haven’t made a move against any of those places yet, haven’t made any attempt at all to get the women and babies away from him. In fact, we’ve been as careful as we know how to be to make certain Duran doesn’t know we’re onto them.”

  Murphy’s smile was thin. “We’ve also been very, very careful to hide those of our assets and allies who’ve been waiting secretly on the sidelines to do something, anything, to help. Our active cells, those Duran knows exist, may not have the resources to take care of countless young Stepford mothers and their offspring, but I doubt he realizes we have enough allies who do. And will. Our best use of those still undercover assets and allies may well be to protect those women and their children.”

  “We need a few more days if we agree we can stick to the plan,” Bishop said. “By Sunday at the latest, we’ll have enough people and equipment in position to very quietly raid at least half those places on the same day or night, as closely as possible at the same time, as per the plan. Not just a dozen, but closer to fifty. And we’ll have the safe houses to take the women and babies to, with caretakers already waiting. I know we don’t have a long-term plan yet, but crippling that breeding operation has to be a win for our side.”

  “But,” Miranda said, “once we make that big move, then Duran knows without doubt that we’re aware of the program and are determined to stop it.”

  Brodie half shook his head. “Granted. But how much could he assume we know now? It’s new intel, and we’ve protected it. Tucker, the other researchers, everyone in this room has been as careful as we know how to be. Every psychic mind is as protected as we’re capable of making them with all the different ways we’ve learned to shield, psychic and nonpsychic.”

  Bishop said, “Only a handful of us had any knowledge of the eugenics program. And we’ve been keeping our distance, even when using surveillance. We’ve used people we’re sure Duran wouldn’t recognize as our soldiers, and in every team waiting to move we’ve got at least one psychic with a strong shield.”