Trance. Part 21

Everyone, with the notable exception of the pair of federal agents, was stuck between confused and mystified.

"You're having visions?" Seward asked, perplexed.

"Apparently so, yes."

"Have you ever had them before?"

"Never. Not even when I was a kid."

"Utterly fascinating," McNally said.

"Fascinating, huh?" I said. "So MHC had no knowledge of these two people who burned to death in a fire last Thursday at one fifteen in the morning? Two people who, for the last fifteen years, have been living in Fairview Center, a chronic care facility in Santa Barbara? A facility that also happens to receive a healthy, monthly government stipend?"

Grayson's skin went the color of paste. He looked petrified, while McNally hadn't lost her cool or her posture. Neither of them spoke. They didn't even look at each other. I thought back to my earlier conversation with Seward. These were supposedly people who'd fought for us? Bull. s.h.i.t.

"T, what's going on?" Renee asked.

I ignored her. Gage handed me printouts of newspaper articles and financial reports. I waved them at the agents. "You want to see the hard copies so you know I'm not bluffing?" A lump of emotion-anger, confusion, betrayal, and fear all rolled up into something impossible to swallow-clogged my throat. "Were you ever going to tell us the truth?"

Grayson's head snapped toward McNally. She held my gaze a moment longer, then met his. Her resignation collided with his trepidation, and a silent argument was held. When she once again met my accusing stare, her steely eyes were rimmed with ... regret?

"Does knowing the truth change those years we stole from you?" she asked.

The tension level in the room quadrupled as my fellow Metas clued in to the enormity of our conversation. Tears stung my eyes as the last hope I'd had of being wrong about this shattered. "You took our powers away," I said.

"Not directly, but we were responsible for hiding the truth from the world," she replied with a hitch in her voice. "You have to understand, Trance, what was happening back then. The country was falling apart around us. People were terrified of Metas, and the Rangers were losing the War. Dying one after another in horrible ways. The fighting had localized to the Northeastern states. The president's advisors were urging him to consider extreme measures, including blanket bombings of New York and New Jersey, and when some of us at the MHC heard that-" She swallowed. "It would have been genocide. The casualties were unthinkable."

"Bombing two states," Seward said. He seemed on the verge of vomiting.

McNally nodded. "Yes."

"Who were those people?" I asked. "The man and woman who died?"

"Your investigative reporting didn't give you their names?" Grayson asked. His first contribution to the conversation and it was sarcasm. Nice.

I lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Your people weren't a hundred percent incompetent. We couldn't find any records, other than John and Jane Doe. Very original."

"Because they don't exist," McNally said.

"On paper?"

"Technically, at all. No identification, no fingerprints. They were both Metas of a power level we'd never seen before. Their minds had been joined together by a machine designed by scientists who'd spent years studying them. Together they created what was called an energy sink. They were able to collect MetaHuman abilities and store them away."

"Where the h.e.l.l do you find people who can do something like that?" William asked, his deep voice barely above a low growl. "Who studied them?"

McNally took a few breaths, gearing up for some sort of confession. Her facade of cool collectedness was cracking, and a tiny part of me wished I hadn't done this so publicly. The majority of me enjoyed her discomfort. "About a week before that day in Central Park," she said, "a man came to the MHC office in Burbank. He gave us the name O'Bannen and claimed to work for a specialized research and development firm based in Virginia. They had a branch in Los Angeles, and he told us about a project he'd been developing for his firm involving a pair of Metas whose extreme psychic abilities ran toward the telekinetic end of the spectrum. He'd helped them develop a machine they called a Warden-a way to harness their abilities and remove them from other Metas. O'Bannen offered them as a solution to the War."

"And you took them," I said, disgusted by the idea of bartering with human life.

"Not right away. To do so enslaved them both, you understand, even though O'Bannen a.s.sured me they were willing. The cost benefit was difficult to justify."

"Cost benefit?" William said. His hands were clenched tight. "Did you ever talk to them? To the Metas? To see that what you were doing was strapping two people to a machine and letting them rot?"

McNally flinched. "Yes, we met with them. And whether or not you believe me, the truth is they wanted this. They believed, and made us believe, that this energy sink was the only way to stop the Banes and end the War. No one knew how long it would last, only that it was a temporary solution. It was the only one we had. We debated it for days. It wasn't until they sent you children to New York that we accepted the offer. O'Bannen a.s.sured us it would only affect the Banes, but he was wrong. The Wardens were unable to differentiate between the adult Banes and you children. Even then, I didn't honestly believe it would work, but it did."

She glanced at Grayson. He continued staring at his feet, an expression on his face I could only describe as constipated.

"As per our agreement with O'Bannen," McNally continued, "we took over the Warden's care. We transferred their equipment to Fairview. I did a little private digging afterward with my partner, Agent Anders, but O'Bannen was, as expected, an alias. No R&D firm in the country would claim him, especially not the two with branches here in Los Angeles. For a long time, I waited for him to show up and demand recompense for his generosity. He never has."

For several minutes, the steady beep of Ethan's pulse monitor was the only sound in the room. It was almost too much to process. The answers I'd wanted for more than half my life had just been handed to me, and I couldn't seem to collect my thoughts.

"Why did you hide it from us?" William asked.

"As I said before, we thought it was the best way to protect you children." McNally seemed on the verge of bursting into tears. Or punching Grayson in the eye for staying so silent. "We thought your powers would be left intact, but they weren't. I can't say I would change the decision given the chance, because I'm not certain we were wrong. But for what little it's worth, I am sorry."

Renee snorted.

"What about the fire?" Gage asked. "Did Specter kill the Wardens to release our powers?"

"It's a possibility," McNally said. "However, their existence was a closely guarded secret. Seven people in the world, including the former president and his chairman of the Joint Chiefs, knew about the Warden and the Metas who powered it. Only three of us in the MHC knew its location in Fairview."

"Who are the three?" I asked.

"Myself, Alexander, and Agent Anders. He died almost three years ago."

"From?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Agent Anders was my partner for nine years, Trance. He had cancer, and he was two years retired from the ATF when he pa.s.sed away. And now you know the truth. I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

"Like this or at all?" Renee snapped. Her cherry-red lips were pursed so tightly they almost disappeared, and deep frown lines marred her smooth blue forehead. Strangely, she seemed the angriest person in the room.

"Like this. Our investigation into the fire points to arson, but there are no witnesses, and the security cameras were compromised."

"Convenient."

"More likely on purpose. If I knew anything else I would tell you."

"Such as why I'm dreaming about this Warden?" I asked. "And why I got back some b.a.s.t.a.r.dized version of my grandmother's powers?"

"Yes."

"What if I asked you to give me a theory?"

She considered the question. "Then, my theory would be linked to your visions. You say the female Warden understood they were being murdered. Without knowing just how her energy-sinking ability worked, I'd postulate she sent the strongest telekinetic power she had out to the body most able to host it. This new power is very similar to your grandmother's, Trance, and powers often run in families. The Warden sent the signal and you received it. In theory."

d.a.m.n her, the theory made sense. A lot of sense, especially the family angle. My dad's father had had powers almost identical to my original Trance ability. Janel's mother had also been an ice manipulator. And the whole thing worked with Seward's theory about my body's inability to properly channel the energy.

Another uncomfortable silence filled the ICU as we each sat with our thoughts. Good intentions didn't excuse what the MHC had done to us. And it certainly didn't save us from what was happening now.

"O'Bannen knew about the Warden," Gage said. "Even if he didn't know about Fairview, it's a fair bet he had some way of tracking down the machine he helped build. No one's that generous without an ulterior motive."

"You're right," McNally said. "However unlikely a scenario, it's unwise at this point to disregard anyone as a potential suspect."

"Including yourself?" I asked.

She looked startled for a moment, then nodded. "Myself included. As difficult as it is for all of you to hear, the only person any of you can possibly know for certain is innocent is you yourself."

Once again, I found myself hating her for being right. I knew I hadn't set the fire, but I couldn't know for absolutely certain that Gage hadn't done it-Santa Barbara and Bakersfield were only a couple of hours apart.

No. Timing aside, I knew in my gut that Gage hadn't done this. No matter the secrets he had bottled up inside, being a killer and conspiring to give all our powers back just wasn't in him.

It wasn't.

I batted away the tiny niggle of doubt that McNally had suddenly planted, frustrated I'd even let myself go there. We needed to get back on track.

"What's your plan, Trance?" Seward asked, as though he could read my mind.

"Nothing's really changed," I said, even though a lot of things had, indeed, changed dramatically in the last ten minutes. "We'll still do the interview, and we're still going to find Specter. Any new thoughts on locating him?"

Ethan raised his hand. "Bait," he said.

"What kind of bait?"

"Me."

Twenty-three.

Missteps You want to be bait?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Forget it." I held up my hand before Ethan could argue. "Even if you could bait him, we have no way of trapping him once he's inside you."

"Maybe we do," William said. He stood just behind Renee and kept curling the ends of her long hair around one finger-a gesture both nervous and possessive. "His powers are telekinetic in nature, and what's that except electric brain signals? Could your force field keep his mind trapped here and leave his body vulnerable?"

It was certainly an out-of-the-box suggestion. We were all starting to look at the limits of each others' powers and consider how to best use them to our advantage. "I don't know, William," I said. "I've never tried it before, and I don't know how long I can maintain a force field. It might not be long enough to find his body, and who knows what he'd do to Ethan in the meantime? It's too big a risk."

"So's doing nothing," Ethan said.

"You are six hours out of major surgery, buster, you are in no shape to act as bait. Given your physical condition, Specter might not even come for you. He wouldn't be able to get you out of bed."

"He got Janel up."

"True, but still, no."

"You got a better idea, T?" Renee asked.

"At present? No, but I am not putting Ethan or anyone else in a position to die, because that's what will happen. Everyone Specter has inhabited and we've fought has died. It isn't brave, it's suicide."

"I don't think he'll attack you here again," Seward said. "He has to know you'll be planning for it. He may wait until you're off-site. He's got time on his side, as well as the element of surprise. He can wait while we sit and squirm."

"What if you're wrong?" Renee asked.

Seward shrugged. "Then, I'm wrong. This isn't an exact science, Flex. We can't predict the future."

"I agree with Dr. Seward," Gage said. "Specter knows he hurt us and must realize we've kicked up security measures. He'll wait."

"Agreed," I said. "And it's another good reason to keep this interview location and time as guarded as possible. A studio full of innocent people is no place for a brawl."

"I have a short list of locations," McNally said. She sounded startled, as if she hadn't expected me to still do the interview. "Six networks on standby until tomorrow evening. No one knows what's going on until half an hour before we show up with you and Ms. Perkins."

"Good." I gave her a cold look. "Until then, any suggestions on tracking Specter will be greatly appreciated. As long as they don't involve self-sacrifice."

Ethan ignored me. No one had suggestions.

The meeting adjourned.

At lunch, we learned that the interview was planned for early the next morning. Five o'clock was torture, but secrecy came with minor sacrifices, and sleep was one of them. Gage and William volunteered to go with me. Renee mumbled something about beauty sleep, so I let her off the hook. I just wanted it over.

Gage had suggested he drive up to Fairview and do some sniffing around. It seemed like a good idea, until McNally informed him that the site of the fire had already been cleaned out, postapolice investigation. Nothing was left. So the day pa.s.sed uneventfully. No more shocking revelations. No attacks. No great epiphanies about Specter, either. We were in a frustrating holding pattern.

With nothing else to do, Renee, William and I decided to spend the early evening in the gym. Keeping fit wasn't difficult, given the vast array of exercise equipment available in the Base.

I decided to start simple and set myself up on a stationary bike. Working three jobs and eating when I could afford it meant I looked good in tight leather, but it didn't mean much for proper muscle tone and endurance.

Renee and William attacked a bizarre-looking resistance machine called a Flexmaster 5000. It had rows of bowed metal rods that looked like mechanical tentacles, and it took them a while to figure out how they attached to the weight bars. I observed from my bike as they joked and teased with the ease of a couple who'd known each other for years, instead of days, picking up a fifteen-year-old flirtation as if no time had pa.s.sed. Just like me, Renee had faced her fear, and I was glad for them. After thirty minutes, I switched to a stair climber, and they moved to the free weights.

Marco and Gage wandered in a while later. In sweatpants and a loose shirt, Gage was obviously there for a workout, and my irritation level soared. He'd been slammed in the chest with a block of ice the day before and he had a bruise the size of a small child to prove it.

"Hey, guys!" Renee said, waving.

Marco waved back, then stepped to the side. He leaned against the wall to watch-which I appreciated, since his arm was still in a sling and three fingers still broken. Apparently Gage had less sense, because he headed straight for one of the weight benches.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" I asked, stepping off the stair climber.

Gage froze mid-stride, every muscle going rigid. Okay, maybe I could have phrased my question more diplomatically and used a gentler tone. He turned his head and gave me a funny look I couldn't decipher.

"Working out with everyone else," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Which it was, and that was the problem. "No, you're not."