Play of Passion

CHAPTER 10

Councilor Nikita Duncan met Councilor Anthony Kyriakus outside a small house situated on the heavily forested edges of Tahoe, having driven herself there in a bland gray sedan with tinted windows. “Was this where your daughter lived while she was in the Net?” she asked Anthony when he pushed open the door.

Anthony’s black hair, silvered at the temples, lifted a fraction in the forest breeze as he answered. “Yes.” He nodded at the door. “Please.”

“Thank you.” As she entered, she took in everything about the place. The room immediately to her right may once have functioned as a living area, but was now an office/meeting room with a small table featuring a built-in computer panel and four chairs. “Does the F ability make an appearance every generation?” The NightStar Group’s grip on the market for foreseers was all but airtight.

“There are sporadic skips, but overall, yes,” he said, as they took their seats opposite each other. “It is the same in your family, is it not?”

Nikita answered because it was no secret—the “flawed” E designation was the Duncan family’s genetic millstone. “It tends to skip a generation.” Not quite the truth, but close enough that it would pass. “You know why I contacted you.” And why she’d done it away from the dark skies of the PsyNet.

Anthony’s eyes were penetrating as they met hers across the table. “Something is happening with the Arrow Squad.”

“Yes.” Ming was the official leader of the assassins who were the Council’s most lethal army, but Nikita’s spies had caught ripples that said things might well be changing. “If the leadership shifts, there are only two possible successors.”

“Kaleb and Vasic,” Anthony said. “But while Vasic is an Arrow and the single true teleporter in the Net, my information is that he doesn’t consider himself a candidate for the position.”

“However, with his support, someone else could take the leadership.” The squad was incredibly secretive, but Nikita wasn’t a Councilor because she gave up at the first hurdle. She’d unearthed enough data that she felt confident in saying, “There are rumors of another Arrow the squad may accept as a leader.”

Anthony took a moment to reply. “His name is Aden. I’m keeping an eye on affairs as they develop.”

It was, Nikita understood, a very deliberate sharing of information. “Good. But that situation, while important, isn’t the critical one as far as we are concerned.” Neither of them was in the fight to lead the Arrows.

Anthony made no pretense of not understanding her meaning. “Henry and Shoshanna,” he said. “They support the idea of Purity to the exclusion of all else, though it is clear that Silence is failing.”

“Divided, we have a high chance of falling to their stratagems,” she said, having made her decision the first time she called Anthony, “but together, we are a force to be reckoned with.” Then she asked the most important question. “Where do you stand, Anthony?”

Anthony took a drink from the glass of water at his elbow, answering only after almost ten seconds of thought. “I do not support any group or system that would erase my individuality, and the Scotts are determined to create a true hive mind in one form or another.” He put the glass on the table. “More importantly, they have interfered once too often in this territory—and in my business interests.”

Nikita wondered if the Scotts had attempted to meddle in Anthony’s subcontracting agreement with his daughter. Not that the details mattered; whatever they had done, it was to Nikita’s benefit. “If we are to work effectively together,” she said, “there is something else we need to discuss.” And then she spoke of death.