Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC Read online

  “As certain as Heisenberg will let me be,” Vickie told him. “Remember, that this is largely governed by will. You really have to want this. Truly, and without reservation. Can you do that?” She patted the quantator reassuringly. “Remember also, once this works, I’ve got you set up to transfer to any other chosen vessel and back. That might turn out useful, or just entertaining.”

  Tesla paused for a very long moment, then his expression firmed. “You have all risked your lives over and over in this endeavor, Miss Nagy. I can do no less. Yes. I want this.”

  “All right then.” Vickie stepped out of the quantator circle. “Then here we go.”

  Her hands moved in tai-chi-like patterns, sketching things in the air, things that sometimes looked like arcane symbols and sometimes like equations. They made Ramona feel a little dizzy, so she shut her eyes and concentrated on feeling—like a hostess, waiting for a welcome guest. But she could also feel the hair on the back of her neck rising involuntarily, and something like a charge building in the air, just before a lightning strike. The tension began to ratchet up, and just when she wanted to scream at Vickie to get it over with already, the mage finally barked the word “Fiat!” and—

  And suddenly there was someone else in her head.

  This wasn’t like being with a telempath like Bella, or a telepath like Jamaican Blaze. This was…it felt as if there was someone behind her, except when she turned, there wasn’t.

  It is very disconcerting for me, too, Miss Ferrari, said an apologetic voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. At least it seems to have worked.

  Vickie peered at them, and seemed to intuit that Tesla had made it in, since she nodded in satisfaction. “OK, let’s try the control thing for just a second. Ramona, relax, and think about anything pleasant. Especially relax your jaw. Mr. Tesla, please try saying something.”

  Ramona’s thoughts immediately went to Rick, and she was so busy blushing she didn’t even notice when Tesla started to speak. He pitched her voice oddly, and it had his own distinct accent. “Testing. Well, it appears we have a success.” Disconcerting did not begin to describe how she felt when her mouth produced words that she had no control over.

  “Good.” Vickie nodded. “Let her have control back for a moment, you haven’t piloted a body in a long time, and you probably won’t remember how. Ramona, here—” Vickie handed her the sample of Alex Tesla Senior’s blood that Bella had found in cold storage. “Take the circle opposite Pride, please.” She placed the second lock of hair, this time from Yankee Doodle, on top of the quantator, put the charter on the floor in the center of the main circle, and stepped back to the last empty small circle as Ramona took her place. “Now the real show begins. From now on, nobody move. I don’t care if there’s a fire, a flood, an earthquake or an ECHO full-scramble. Until I tell you, no moving. I’m playing with space-time here, and bad things happen when you cross space-time boundaries.”

  Once again, she bowed her head and held her arms out to her sides. Again, her hands were palm-up. This time, however, her hands made identical, rotating, gathering gestures, before she opened her palms and suddenly brought them up, like a conductor calling for the opening chord from an orchestra.

  Ramona nearly leapt out of her skin as she was answered, both by a sound, like the ringing of an enormous bell, and by an uprush of blazing green light that abruptly filled all the channels that had been cut in the floor. The light in the outermost circle streamed upwards in a curve and met to form a half-dome over them. Vickie made a second gesture like the first; more light blazed up and another booming note answered her—this time the light was gold. She did this twice more, with red and blue light answering, all the colors finally mingling to form a steady white blaze that reminded Ramona, somehow, of starlight.

  Vickie raised her head, dropped her left arm, and made a lifting gesture with her right hand, and the charter levitated upward to about waist-height on a pillar of white light.

  “We stand in the place outside of space, and the time outside of time, where only truth can be spoken, and only truth can be revealed,” Vickie said, her voice having a curious, ECHOing tone to it. “Yankee Pride, for that is the name that is truer than the one you were born with—do you speak as the heir to Alexander Tesla?”

  “I do,” Yank said, steadily, though he was looking a little pale.

  “And do you bear the token, freely given, of your mother, Dixie Belle?”

  “I do.”

  “And is it your will that this charter be unlocked, laid bare, and revealed for any to read?” There was something oddly ominous about the way Vickie said those words.

  “It is.”

  “And will you lend your strength to this task?”

  “I wi—” Yank said, and then he could say nothing more as the blue light erupted from him, and a beam as thick as his arm streamed out of him and into the pillar in the center. It was hard for Ramona to tell for sure, but he looked like someone who had grabbed a pair of “hot” wires and was frozen in place. She licked her lips nervously, and sensed Tesla inside her, shivering.

  I do not care for magic. When Jeremiah Stone performed this the first time, I did not like it, and I like it even less now.

  Wait—who? Jeremiah Stone?

  But Vickie was asking the same questions of the quantator, and Marconi was answering them, steadily, the same way. This time the beam of light was red. Then it was Ramona’s turn. Or rather—Tesla’s…

  If you don’t do this, she thought fiercely at him, we might as well all take out big life insurance policies, because our heirs are going to need them.

  She waited apprehensively as Vickie asked the questions, and…

  Her mouth opened, and Tesla answered them. And the beam of green light erupted out of her, and it was exactly like grabbing a couple of “hot” wires. She was barely conscious of the fact that Vickie was speaking again, barely registered the words.

  “The words have been spoken. Consent has been given. Strength has been lent. Now I, Officiant, give consent and lend my strength to the support of all. Let the Charter be unlocked, the words laid bare for any man to see. Fiat!”

  The word ended in a high-pitched keening of pain as the final beam of yellow light erupted from Vickie’s chest and hit the pillar. The light in the center of the room went from brilliant to blinding. Ramona closed her eyes, and she could still see it burning through her lids as her body was held rigid in the magic’s thrall.

  Then, abruptly and with no warning, the light blinked out, and whatever held her in its grip let her go. She slumped, but mindful of Vickie’s warning, she teetered and held herself as still as she could as she opened her eyes.

  Still in there, Mr. Tesla? she thought.

  Yes, Miss Ferrari, came the weary-feeling answer. That…was no easier the second time.

  “Stay put a little longer folks,” Vickie said. She sounded as if she had just done three rounds of the parkour course. With a hundred-pound backpack. Backwards.

  The light still shone around them but depleted and dull, and the Charter was lying on the floor again. Vickie made the reverse of the gestures she had before, and the dome of light faded, the colors shining up from the channels in the floor faded, and finally, there was nothing but the room with its single electric bulb, the quantator, and the paper on the floor.

  “Now you can move,” Vickie said, and flexed her fingers. “And now, Mr. Tesla, we can send you back home again.”

  * * *

  “Now the sixty four thousand dollar question,” Ramona said, when Tesla was safely back in cyber-space, or whatever electronic afterlife it was he inhabited. “What is it that is in this charter that is going to…”

  All three of them were scanning it, but Vickie was evidently the speed-reader among them, because she let out a whistle and planted her finger on a paragraph in the middle of the last page. “This,” she said. “Holy Cauldron, this changes everything.”

  Quickly Ramona skipped to that paragraph.

&
nbsp; This clause is to establish the leadership and fundamental rule, in perpetuity, of the organization to be known as ECHO. As with all organizations, shareholders and stockholders will be established. All metahuman members of ECHO, from this day forward, are shareholders of one and only one share each. Only shareholders may vote on matters pertaining to the leadership and their own welfare. For the purposes of establishing and continuing the leadership of ECHO, and ensuring the welfare of the metahumans of ECHO, stockholders in ECHO are not voting shareholders. The Chief Executive Officer of ECHO will be, in perpetuity, absent the failure of the bloodline, the direct heir in the bloodline of Nicola Tesla. The Chief Executive Officer cannot be replaced, neither by vote, nor by dismissal. He can only step down of his own will. In the event that there is to be no direct heir in the bloodline of Nicola Tesla, only the previous CEO can designate an heir, that heir must be a metahuman of ECHO, and only the shareholders of full voting shares can ratify that heir. In the event no heir was ratified, a new Chief Executive can only be elected by the shareholders of full voting shares. Only metahumans of ECHO, past and present, will hold full voting shares. Voting shares may not pass to heirs, in order to ensure the welfare of the metahumans of ECHO. In wartime, should the CEO not feel capable of fully directing ECHO, the CEO may designate an additional, temporary position, Acting Executive Director, with whom he, or she, may share leadership and executive decisions. The Acting Executive Director must also be a metahuman of ECHO, and the position is not heritable nor transferable. This clause cannot be changed, nullified, nor revoked, either by the stockholders or the shareholders. Should this clause be changed, nullified, or revoked, the Charter will be deemed null and void, ECHO will be dissolved as an organization, and the resources therein will be divided among the voting shareholders. Stockholders will derive no benefit from the dissolution of ECHO.

  “You guys realize what this means, don’t you?” Vickie said. “Verd’s toast. If he tries to get a stockholder vote to kill the Charter leadership clause, he loses ECHO. If you think the rumblings of revolt are bad here, you should catch the scuttlebutt from some of the other ECHO chapters. He made a big mistake in exiling folks he didn’t like elsewhere—all he did was spread dissent around. The second we get all the metas together to vote, he’s out, and Pride’s in. And—” she added gleefully “—he just set that meeting up himself.”

  “The Memorial—” Pride said, stunned.

  “For which Verd is providing all-expenses-paid tickets to all the retirees, and any other metas who want to come, yeah.” Vickie’s head bobbed. “I can make sure the lines are clear for phone-in votes too, once we start the meeting.”

  “What about the charter itself? Where do we keep it now?” Ramona looked to Pride apologetically. “I know this is your mother’s only copy, but I can’t say that I feel good about it leaving here now that it’s unlocked.”

  Pride shrugged. “Then it doesn’t leave here. I don’t know of any place in Atlanta that’s more secure than this building, save for Ms. Vickie’s apartment. Do you think that the Commissar would mind keeping this for a while?”

  “I wasn’t about to let it leave, actually.” Vickie made another gesture toward the desk. The top drawer opened obediently, and she slid the pages inside. She etched a small inscription against the lock, effectively sealing it beneath the quantator. “Now, all we need to do is pretend that we don’t know anything about this.”

  Enemy Mine

  Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

  Sometimes it felt as if for every single thing we learned, we uncovered three more mysteries.

  One of those mysteries was why the Thulians never seemed to fully commit to anything. Another was why some of their people seemed to have agendas of their own…agendas that came at us out of nowhere.

  Commercial airline travel sucked. It had all the discomfort of those jump-seats on the ECHO cargo jobs, with none of the leg-room. At least on ECHO standby” flights, you got something to eat. And you didn’t have a kid kicking the back of your seat the whole time. And a screaming baby three rows up.

  But John Murdock wasn’t with ECHO, so although CCCP was technically “allied” with them, anything that wasn’t a screaming emergency or a stealth mission meant…commercial air. Currently, he was flying back to Atlanta after checking on a weapons shipment that had gone over its allotted timetable. It wasn’t too much to worry about, and he’d set everything to rights; the people involved with the container ship were all Russian, and having the CCCP badge did wonders for making sure everything went smoothly. The thing that bugged him the most was that he felt that being sent on this errand was, for starters, boring, but more importantly a waste of his time and skillsets. But, perhaps fortunately, it was up to his betters to decide where his time working ought to be spent.

  He was doing his best to sleep fitfully through as much of the flight as possible, despite the cramped conditions and droning noises of screaming babies and over-talkative businesspersons. Right when he was finally about to nod off, a voice chirped in his ear.

  “Got bad and good news for you, comrade.”

  “Is the good news that you’re a dream, and I can keep on sleeping?” He scrunched up his face, readjusting himself in the seat and sitting up straight. “Lay it out for me. What’s up?”

  “The good news is that you get to jump off the cattle car at the next stop, the better news is that I have a car with a meal in it picking you up. The bad news is that you have a job.”

  “I thought that developing an exquisite contempt for commercial travel was my new job.”

  “Naw, that’s for standup comedians.”

  “Bella said I oughta pick up a hobby.”

  “Here’s the skinny. Seems the Rebs have been doing out-of-town recruiting since you ran them out of Atlanta. We think there’s a base. I’ve already sent Zhar-ptica out with a vehicle. He’ll meet you at the airport and he’s got all the briefing materials with him.” There was a dry laugh. “If you turn on your comm to double check me with Gamayun, the stewardess will have a coronary, and you’ll end up getting arrested by the Sky Marshal, so it’ll have to wait.”

  “Okay. So, remind me, where am I getting off again? An’ who’s this Zhar person?”

  “Brand new with the advantage of having a genuine USA education. Minor fire power, too minor to interest the home team. Speaks good English, as opposed to Pavel English and knows how to read a US road map. By the time he gets there with the miserable excuse for a vehicle that Nat authorized, you’ll be at the curb.”

  He mulled over the information for a moment. “So, the new guy is my sidekick and support. I do a snoop and scoot on this base, report back, and wait for more instructions. Right?”

  “Pretty much. It’s halfway between Savannah and Atlanta.”

  “Anythin’ more of import ’bout this mission that y’need to tell me?”

  “The important stuff is in the briefing you can download when you hit dirt.”

  “Good. Then quit yer yapping. I’m gonna pass out. Y’might want to call the cops, though; I’m gonna kill the rug rat that’s kicking my seat. Slowly.”

  * * *

  If John hated the actual process of commercial flying, he utterly despised what it took to get out of an airline terminal. Jostling and bumping through thousands of other tired, cranky, and over-caffeinated travelers did nothing to improve his mood. When he had finished collecting his single bag, he wanted nothing more than a hot shower, some strong liquor, and a bed. A soft rock would’ve sufficed, but a bed would be better. It was while he was waiting at the curb for his comrade to meet him when he noticed something from the corner of his eye.

  It was a woman approaching him; everything about her posture said that she was nervous. She looked like someone’s secretary, dishwater blonde, a little dumpy, getting wide in the hips from sitting at a desk all day. What was out of place about her was that she had a bodyguard with her. He was easy to spot for what he was when you knew what to look for; part of it was
the fact that although you couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses, there were tiny tell-tale motions of his head as he scanned the crowd like a pre-programmed machine.

  Shades at night? What a putz. John turned to face them, setting down his bag and shrugging off his backpack. “Somethin’ I can help you with, ma’am?”

  The woman, despite looking like she was about to come apart at the seams, managed to sound very bored. “Look at this, Mr. Murdock.” She handed him a PDA. On it was a picture of a young man, probably in his early 20’s. He was bound and gagged, tied to a chair, and looked like he had been beaten up pretty thoroughly. That day’s newspaper was being held under his chin. “If you don’t come with us, we will kill this individual. Make your decision.” John groaned internally. These goons weren’t Blacksnake; Blacksnake, thankfully, wasn’t this cheesy. And while this woman could conceivably be connected with someone or some organization that he knew nothing about, he got the sense immediately that this was Thulian.

  “Firming up the visual.” The familiar voice was very quiet in his ear. He was awfully glad there was nothing for these bastards to see that would let them know he was wired.

  “Whaddya think I’m gonna do?” Let’s see how this plays out.

  “Positive on the hostage; Reb bagboy, minor police record. Negative ID on the contacts.” A car pulled into the curb with a screech of brakes. “Nat says your call, go or no-go.”

  They could’ve killed me with a car bomb or a drive-by or any other number of methods; if they wanna risk talking to me like this, there’s a reason.

  John stooped as he bent down to get into the car, looking at the bodyguard. “Get my bags, Fritz.”

  * * *

  The car ride took close to an hour and a half. John was fairly good at keeping time internally, but the bag they had put over his head had made it difficult. The entire ride was silent, without so much as a sniffle or throat clearing from the other three in the car. This was all very cliché, but he didn’t allow that to lull him into any false sense of security. These people were all enemies, and he could end up very dead very quickly; it didn’t matter if it was by the hand of an amateur or someone with experience and brains.