Page 38 of Silver Elite

“I ’m going to my first briefing.”

I check in with Declan the following day on my way to the war room. Apparently, Silver Elite has an entire block of rooms on the base.

“Report when you’re done,” Declan says. “We need to know what their current objectives are.”

“Copy that.”

The Elite war room is dimly lit, of course, since windows play no role on this base. A long table takes up most of the room, surrounded by black padded chairs, and there’s a holoscreen against the wall. I was excited to finally see who else makes up this mysterious unit, so I can’t hide my disappointment when I walk in to find only Ford, Struck, and the other five new additions.

I take a seat next to Kaine and scroll through the new source I received last night. Which was another disappointing discovery—I don’t have the kind of clearance I thought I would. When I searched “Julian Ash” last night, I received the same Access Denied alert. When I searched for myself, however, I discovered that my name is no longer in the system. Same for Kaine and the other Elite recruits. We’ve been wiped from the database. It’s like we don’t exist anymore.

Cross enters a moment later. Rather than sit, he stands at the wall by the holoscreen.

Kess glances around, her black hair swinging around her chin. “Is this the whole unit?” She also seems confused.

“No. I run a team of sixteen,” Cross tells her. “Our fellows are currently in the field.”

When his eyes land on me, I remember him moving inside me and have to tear my gaze away. I swear I hear him chuckle, but when I look back, his face is stoic.

I keep waiting for someone to confront me about Cross. Lyddie, maybe. Or Kaine, although I don’t know how much contact he has with Ivy now that we’re not all training together.

So far, nobody’s come out and asked if I’m sleeping with the captain of Silver Block. Which tells me either Ivy has kept her mouth shut about what she saw, or people know and for some reason have decided to mind their own business.

“This,” Cross says, activating the holoscreen, “is Jasper Reed. You’ll find dossiers for him on your sources.”

The photograph on the holo shows a man in his late twenties. A very handsome man, I can’t help but notice. Reed has dark hair and an endearing dimple in his chin.

Ara Zebb, the Red Cell recruit who also made the unit, starts skimming through the file on her source. “He runs the black market?”

Cross nods. “Reed is a smuggler with fingers in every criminal pie in the Point. The bulk of his operation involves drug running. Used to bring opiates in from Tierra Fe, but we crushed that avenue last year. Yet the drugs keep flowing. We suspect they’ve set up a lab somewhere in the wards.”

He swipes the holo, and a map appears in the ether, a close-up of the wards east of Sanctum Point.

“Farren. Zebb,” he says to the two women, “you’re going with Tyler to do some digging. Try to figure out where those drugs are being produced.”

He replaces the map with a photo of what appears to be crates of medical supplies.

“Reed’s other favorite pastime is smuggling supplies out of the Point and trading with the Faithful.”

“Trading what?” I ask. “What could the Faithful have that’s of value to Reed? It’s not like they’re drowning in credits.”

Ford fields that one. “Favors. Escape routes. Places to hide if his people need them.”

“We dismantled a Faithful camp last month and found a trove of medical supplies that could’ve only come from Company hospitals,” Cross explains. “And the General doesn’t enjoy having his resources stolen from right under his nose.”

“Why can’t we just eliminate this Reed guy?” Anson asks, sporting a creepy grin that tells me he’d love nothing more than to kill Jasper Reed with his bare hands. “Cut off the head of the snake.”

“Killing him might seem like the easy solution, but it’s not the right one. He’s the head of the snake, yes,” Cross agrees, “but cutting off one head won’t kill the beast. There are others waiting in the wings, ready to step up and take Reed’s place.”

Ara Zebb hesitantly speaks up. “But if we take out the head, won’t it at least disrupt their operations?”

“Maybe temporarily. But sooner or later, someone else will fill the void. We need to dismantle Reed’s operation piece by piece, from the ground up. Cut off their resources, disrupt their supply chains, take down their lieutenants.” He shrugs. “The head can wait while we chop up the body.”

“Darlington, Sutler, you’re with me,” Ford says, glancing in our direction. “We leave for Ward C in the morning. One of our informants says he might know where they’re storing the med supplies.”

Cross nods at Anson and Jones. “You two will be with me.”

“Doing what?” asks Jones.

When Cross sends a quick glance my way, apprehension knots my stomach. I get the feeling I’m about to be tested.

Sure enough, he swipes his finger through the holo ether. The Jasper Reed intel disappears, replaced by a photograph of Hamlett.

“That’s my village,” I blurt out. “What does Silver Block want with Hamlett?”

“Z is the suspected location of an Uprising cell. We were already keeping an eye on the ward, but after we learned Julian Ash had surfaced in Hamlett, we redirected most of our surveillance there.”

I try to maintain a neutral face, despite his gaze boring into me. “I’d like to be assigned to this op instead.”

“No.”

I can’t stop the protest. “But it’s my ward.”

“Exactly. That’s why it’s a no. You and Sutler are going to C with Xavier.” His hard tone brooks no argument.

“What are Anson and Noah going to be doing in Hamlett?” I push.

Cross folds his arms to his chest and gives everyone in the room a stern appraisal.

“Here’s the deal. You guys might belong to the same unit, but this isn’t a team effort. Everyone here is still on need-to-know. You don’t concern yourselves with what your fellows are doing, keen? The specifics of their ops make no difference to you or your mission.”

My stomach sinks like a stone when I realize he’s really not going to tell me what he plans to do in Hamlett.

After the briefing ends, I linger in the war room, waiting for Ford and Struck to leave before I stomp over to Cross.

“It’s my home,” I snap at him. “I have friends there.”

He lifts a brow. “If your friends aren’t part of an Uprising cell, then they should have nothing to worry about.”

“You’re the one who said my uncle wasn’t working for the Uprising anymore. You said he was dormant.”

“This has nothing to do with your uncle. We’ve been watching Hamlett for six months.”

Six months?

My mind starts racing. That’s long before Jim was executed. Long before I killed a white coyote with a shot that caught the Command’s attention…Suddenly it dawns on me. That’s why Cross was there that night. He wasn’t celebrating Liberty Day. He was on Elite business.

The knowledge that there’d been eyes on us for six months makes me sick to my stomach. Griff uses the tunnels to smuggle Mods out of the labor camps. Tana works at the inn and provides intel to the network. They’re both in deep with the Uprising.

“Your helo leaves in an hour. You should go now.”

I glare at him.

“What?” he says.

“I prefer you when you’re making me come.”

His lips twitch. “Dismissed, Darlington.”

I’m turning to the door when someone raps on it. A man in his mid-twenties and bearing a strong resemblance to Cross enters the room.

Travis Redden. The colonel.

“Am I interrupting?” Travis asks.

He’s not in uniform but wears a gray shirt and black trousers. His hair is a few shades lighter than Cross’s, but his eyes are darker, an intense midnight blue. Although he’s not as tall and muscular, he is just as handsome as his younger brother.

“Soldier, this is Colonel Redden,” Cross tells me.

When I start to salute, Travis grins and says, “Don’t bother. I’m not about the formalities.” He studies me for a moment before addressing his brother. “New member of Elite?”

Cross nods. “We filled six slots from the summer session. Darlington is one of our best.”

I remain on guard, scrutinizing Travis the way he did me. I remember Roe calling him practical, Cross saying he’s driven. I note the sharp intelligence of his eyes. This is a man who takes everything in. Doesn’t overlook a single detail.

“But not Roe,” Travis murmurs with a knowing smirk.

“No. He’ll find a good post in Silver Block.”

That makes the colonel chuckle. “You’re cold as ice, brother.”

They seem unbothered that I’m standing there, but I still begin to edge away. “May I be dismissed, sir?” When Cross nods, I direct a polite smile at Travis. “Nice to meet you, Colonel.”

“Likewise, soldier.”

The first thing I do when I return to my quarters to pack is report to Declan.

“They’ve assigned me to a smuggler named Jasper Reed. I’m supposed to go to Ward C and track down where Reed stashes the stolen medical supplies he gives to the Faithful.”

“Have fun. Reed is a pain in the ass.”

“You guys don’t like him, either?” Look at that, the Uprising and the Command have something in common.

“We would like nothing more than to tie him to a rocket ship and launch him into the sun. Or recruit him. But he’s not amenable to the latter.”

“Elite is also running another mission in Hamlett. You need to warn Griff and Tana.”

“They’re already aware.”

As disconnected as I’ve been from Tana lately, I’m fairly certain my friend isn’t aware of this new threat. Yes, she’s noticed the increased soldier presence and senses she’s being watched, but I don’t think either she or Griff recognize the extent of the Command’s efforts.

“This is more than extra surveillance. Cross has people—”

“Cross?”

“Captain Redden,” I make the hasty correction. “He just assigned two Elites to join him on a mission there. He wouldn’t give me the details.”

“Do you know when it’s happening?”

“No. I’m assuming sometime soon. Please, just tell Griff to be on guard. I’ll warn Tana myself.”

“No. You will not.”

Indignation rises inside me. “She’s my best friend.”

“You no longer owe loyalty to anyone but the Uprising.”

I bristle.

“You answer to Adrienne,” Declan continues. “You answer to the network. Everything you learn in Elite is relayed to us, and if we decide the information needs to go elsewhere, then we will be the ones to provide it. You keep everything to yourself, understood?”

I bite my lip. “Understood.”

But when he severs the link, I decide I don’t understand. What would it hurt to warn Tana and Griff to be more careful? To alert them that Silver Block is running an op in Hamlett?

I’d never forgive myself if something happened to them and I could’ve prevented it.

It’s not even a question in my mind as I open another path.

—

“This assignment blows,” Kaine says a few days later.

I glance at him, grinning at his glum expression. We’re in our lodgings in C, sharing a room with two single beds. We’ve been here for three days already, and I can’t disagree with Kaine’s assessment: This blows.

So far, Silver Elite is a massive letdown.

All we’ve done since we arrived in this ward is visit seedy establishments to dig for intel or wait around while Ford speaks to his various informants. Or rather, Xavier. We’re allowed to call our former instructors by their first names now, which I’m still not used to.

I lean back on the headboard, scrolling through my source. “He’s so attractive.”

“Who?”

I touch the screen to project the image of Jasper Reed’s rugged face.

“He’s all right,” Kaine says.

“But you’re better, right?”

“Of course.”

I’m reading through Reed’s dossier. He’s an interesting guy. Doesn’t seem to have loyalty to anyone but the person who’s paying him the most credits in the moment. There’s nothing more dangerous than a person whose loyalties shift like the wind. It’s also interesting that his network is smuggling supplies into the lawless lands. Most citizens don’t care one way or the other whether the Faithful survive.

I flip through pictures of the Faithful camp that Silver Block destroyed six months ago. They’d been found living in a cave system in Ward G.

“Do you ever feel bad for them?” I can’t stop the question from slipping out. “The Faithful?”

“What do you mean?”

I tap the screen to project the photograph. “These people…They just want to be left alone. Sometimes I wonder if it’s fair for us to impose the General’s idea of society on them.”

Kaine frowns, considering my words. “That’s not for us to decide. Our duty is to follow orders.”

“They’re just trying to live free.”

“They’re stealing from the Company.”

I can’t push him any further without casting suspicion on myself, so, with a shrug, I swipe at the air and the projection disappears.

Fortunately, Xavier’s voice over my earpiece saves me from having to explain why I’m suddenly feeling sympathy for the Faithful.

“Intel came through,” he says. “Let’s go.”

—

The hospital is a small nondescript building. A sad-looking place compared with the one in Sanctum Point with its gleaming windows and high-tech wings. The Point hospital has two regeneration chambers. Here, it’s like they’re using barbaric Old Era medicine. Offering rudimentary heart transplants when they could be growing a new heart in a lab. But to the Company, these people aren’t worth it, I suppose. Save the perfect new hearts for the elites. Let these ones take their chances with a harvested organ that their bodies may or may not reject.

Xavier’s informant said Reed is moving his contraband through this hospital with the help of workers who stash supplies in the basement. Kaine and I access that basement from one side of the building, while Xavier enters solo from the other. We creep down a long hallway, where the tubes of fluorescent lighting crackle too loud for my comfort. Sounds like they’re going to burst into flames at any second and set the entire hospital on fire.

Our quiet footsteps echo off the concrete walls, muffled by the worn linoleum floor. The informant said there’s nobody down here during the day, that the supplies are moved out at night, but I still tighten my grip on my weapon, my senses heightened as we approach a fork in the corridor. Kaine and I exchange a silent glance. Without a word, we split up, each taking a different path.

I move cautiously, scanning every shadow for any sign of movement. The smell of disinfectant hangs in the air.

Suddenly, a faint sound catches my attention—a low murmur emanating from behind a closed door up ahead.

I touch my ear. “Condor, I have signs of life.”

There’s a window in the door. I peek through it and frown. There are people inside.

“Broken Dove,” Ford says in my ear, and I curse the stupid call sign for following me from training to real life. “Report.”

“There’s people here, LT.”

“We’re not looking for people. We’re looking for supplies.”

“I know, but…This is…”

I can’t quite fathom what I’m seeing. These people…Some of them are strapped to hospital beds, restrained by leather cuffs around their wrists. They appear to be not in pain but in a state of agitation. A patient in a gray hospital gown wanders past the window.

Despite my better judgment, I pull on the door handle. It moves, the door inching open. I half expect an alarm to blare, but nothing happens.

I forget my objective. The mission. I enter the large room, which seems to be an entire ward of gray-gowned people. Around twenty of them. The ones walking around are completely oblivious to my presence. Across the room is a wall of cabinets and what appears to be a freezer. Through the glass I can make out tubes of blood and vials of clear liquid.

Drawing a breath, I approach the bed of a brunette with bony shoulders and long fingers she twists together in her lap. Her eyes widen at the sight of me, but I don’t think she’s truly seeing me. She senses my presence, though. Her dazed demeanor shifts into one of distress.

She starts speaking. No, mumbling. Repeating the same phrase.

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. ”

Whimpering, she covers her ears with her palms and rocks cross-legged on the bed.

My heart stops when I notice her arms. The veins.

She’s Modified.

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up. ”

Her veins are glowing and moving, undulating as if thin eels are slithering beneath her skin, but it’s not consistent. The silver flickers in and out. Stops and starts. Her body, her mind, is shorting out like an appliance.

The woman at the next bed is silently clawing at her own temples. Unlike her neighbor, she has a black band tattooed around her wrist to confirm she’s a Mod. No red band, though.

My gaze travels down the row of beds, the ones that are occupied. I can’t find a red band among any of the tattooed patients. These aren’t slaves.

But they’re Mods. Most of them, anyway. Not everyone’s veins are rippling, but I can’t be sure if that’s because they’re not using their gifts. The veins that are visible seem to be in a constant stop-and-start motion. Like flickering lights.

“Wren?” Kaine’s puzzled voice comes from the door.

I ignore him. I approach the next bed, where a young man with dark hair lies flat, staring at the ceiling with vacant eyes. It’s so eerie and unnerving that I hurry past him. The next patient is restrained. She’s incoherent, rambling under her breath.

“In the garden with the windows, but I saw—when he saw—sometimes in the mountains—Henry, but then no one. When she died—and then together, water for Keren…”

Literal nonsense.

Each patient seems more dazed and disjointed than the last.

“Darlington.” Ford’s voice now.

I spin toward the doorway. “What is this?” I ask the lieutenant.

I’m surprised to see sadness flicker in his eyes.

“What is this?” I repeat. “Why are they here?”

“They’re fragmented.”

Understanding dawns. I remember sitting with Jim a long time ago in the Blacklands while he tried to explain what happens when a mind isn’t strong enough to withstand our gifts. It didn’t quite sink in back then, that opening paths and linking to other minds could overwhelm anyone, could break them. That some mind readers were unable to filter or link willingly, that their shields weren’t good enough to dam the barrage of voices from foreign minds.

Now I’m surrounded by an entire room full of people with fragmented minds, and the fear that weakens my knees is impossible to ignore. What if my brain hadn’t been strong enough? What if I’d ended up in a place like this?

Why are they in a place like this?

The question gives me pause. Yes. Why? Mental illness isn’t well tolerated on the Continent; the General considers treating it a waste of resources. Schizophrenia is probably the closest thing to what the fragmented experience, yet it’s rare to encounter a schizophrenic. If the General doesn’t tolerate mental illness in Primes, why would he keep Mods, of all people, alive in a hospital ward?

“Why don’t you just kill them?” I ask Xavier, but I’m able to answer my own question when my gaze returns to the wall across the room.

The freezer.

The blood vials.

A tsunami of horror slams into me. “They’re experimenting on them?”

“I have no idea what goes on in here,” he replies. “And it’s none of my godfucking business. We’re here on an op. Let’s go, Darlington.”

Reluctant, I turn away from the fragmented Mods. I’ve taken three steps to the door when one of the unrestrained patients snaps out her hand and grabs my arm. She starts screaming. A bloodcurdling, earsplitting, never-ending scream. When I try to escape her grip, she starts clawing at me, jagged fingernails scratching down my arm, breaking the skin.

There’s a commotion from the doorway as a trio of orderlies in white scramble inside to pull her off me.

“It’s all right, Eleanor. It’s fine. You’re fine.”

Two men lead her to a bed while the third orderly, a large woman with beefy shoulders, turns to glare at us.

“Get out of here!” she barks. “I don’t care what block you’re in. You don’t belong here.”

I suck in a breath, my heart in danger of bursting out of my chest, because no, I don’t belong here. I don’t. As I race to the door, I pray to a god I’m not allowed to believe in that this never happens to me. That there’ll never come a day when I can’t close a path or shut out the voices.

The words Jim spoke in the clearing that day travel through my mind. Our gifts aren’t always a gift, little bird. Sometimes they’re a curse.

—

We find the supply room. Xavier calls in a unit from Gold Block to dismantle it, cordon it off. After what I saw in the hospital basement, everything else seems pointless. I check in with Adrienne in plain sight of Xavier and Kaine as we drive to the airfield. I tell her about the fragmented ward, and while she sounds disgusted, she surprises me by not being at all surprised.

“I know.”

“What do you mean, you know?”

“There are places like that all over the Continent. This isn’t anything new. Not everyone can cope with the gifts we’ve been given.”

“So that gives the General the right to experiment on them?”

“Of course not.”

“I want to kill that man,” I growl to Adrienne.

“Control yourself. You are not there to be the fire that burns down the world, Wren. You’re just a piece of kindling.”

Kaine glances at me as we strap into the helo. “You good, cowgirl?”

“I didn’t enjoy that op,” I say flatly.

“I don’t think anyone did.”

“On a related note,” Adrienne is saying, “we do need you to keep an eye out when you’re in the wards. Our investigation into Julian’s execution has officially stalled.”

“What’s there to investigate? They fucking killed him. The end.” I can’t stop the bitterness from seeping out.

“We heard rumors there was an inciter in the crowd that day.”

My lungs seize, making it impossible to draw oxygen into them.

“We’ve been trying to verify the claim, but it’s basically one dead end after another. You were there that day—did you see it happen?”

“No. Like I told Tana, I noticed the firing squad was experiencing some weird moment of confusion, but it didn’t look like someone was controlling them.”

Somehow a sliver of oxygen makes its way in. My desperate inhalation sounds more like a wheeze, causing Kaine to reach over and take my hand.

“Darlington. Look. I know it was…well, sort of horrifying. But you need to put it out of your mind,” he says in a gentle tone.

“I’ll try,” I say out loud.

Silently, I say, “If an inciter was there that day, all I can be certain of is that it wasn’t me. If that’s where this conversation is headed.”

“No. We already know that.”

They do?

“The network keeps records of all known inciters. Every operative is required to disclose their abilities and those of their family, especially if it’s one of the rarer abilities. Julian reported your gifts when you manifested at age twelve.”

I don’t know how I manage to stay upright when there’s a wave of emotion threatening to knock me to my knees.

Julian Ash.

Uncle Jim.

I don’t know what I did to deserve that man, but it never fails to amaze me how much he’d looked out for me over the years. How far he’d gone to protect me. Even behind the scenes, the man was trying to keep me safe.

I’ve never missed anyone the way I miss him.

We’re only a few minutes into takeoff when Xavier gets an alert. He touches his earpiece, then unbuckles himself and marches toward the cockpit.

“Change of plans,” I hear him tell our pilot. “We’re going to Z.”

My spine snaps into a rigid line. “Z?” I echo when he retakes his seat.

“Cross requested backup.” He smirks at me. “Looks like you’re going home.”