Elite: A Hunter novel (6 page)

Ivor and Rhiannon weren’t saying that
they
thought I had a big ego. In fact, they said it was a good thing that I was Elite now because there wasn’t as much coming back via burst-cast to give people gossip fodder, and when there was something, I was always part of a bigger team. But they did warn me that some folks I’d thought were friends were…turning out to be…not. That those people were spreading all kinds of gossip about how I was getting above myself.

Honestly, it gave me a real sick feeling in my stomach to read that and the names of people I thought I trusted, because how could I ever counter that? It wasn’t as if I could go home and show them that I hadn’t changed, that I wasn’t wallowing in all that luxury and fame they were seeing, and thinking I was better than them. My eyes stung, thinking about it, and for a minute, I forgot about the storm.

That was when the storm reminded me—all of us in HQ—that the bad old days of the Diseray were not entirely gone.

The entire building shook, rattling everything in my room, and the lights flickered and went out in the middle of the shaking.

I stayed put even though my heart was racing like there was a Drakken after me. The worst thing you can do in a situation like this is move, especially move when your gut wants to panic. The shaking stopped; the lights stayed out. I made a mental map of the room I was in, making sure that if the lights stayed out, I knew how many steps it was to the door to the bedroom, and from there, how many to the closet where my pack from home was. I had a flashlight in there and some chem-lights. And then my Perscom lit up, reminding me that in a pinch I could use
it
as a flashlight.

“Stay calm and stay put, everyone. We got a series of direct lightning hits on and around HQ, and the local grid is down. We’ll have stand-alone, emergency power up shortly.”

So I stayed where I was, with my ears ringing a little from how
quiet
it was in this room, although the thunder was still a distant presence. Back home, of course, it’s always very quiet because we don’t have a lot of things running all the time. But here, there was always the hum from electronics and lights, a faint but ubiquitous sound that I had stopped noticing consciously after a while. And there was the sound of the air moving in the ventilation ducts, a different hum from the cool-box when it turned on, a lot of things I had gotten used to, and now were just gone, leaving silence. But not a complete silence—there was still the faint and muted rumbling of the thunder beyond the thick walls, and the distant whine from the wind as well. It made me conscious all over again how the whole building was vibrating from something that was just not adequately described by the word “storm.”

I felt the air moving first, then heard the hum as my cool-box came up. Then some of the lights, which were dimmer than usual. My Perscom lit up again.
“Limited electric for now. No vid. Try an old-fashioned book,”
someone announced, dryly. That surprised a laugh out of me. Well, I was certainly well supplied with those.
“Or you can use your Perscoms; wireless is still up.”

I felt Bya tickling the back of my head, not like he was alarmed, but more like,
Would you like me there?
As it happened, between the unhappy-making letters and the threat of being thrown into the dark again, I did. I cast the Glyphs and opened the Way, and he came through in greyhound shape.

I turned off all the lights I didn’t need and moved into the bedroom with Bya and my letters. He laid himself alongside me while I read; not only was it very comforting to have him there, but it was very comforting knowing that if some monstrous tornado hit HQ, between his Shields and mine we would survive the second or two it would take him to
bamph
us both out together.

The last ones were a stack from Kei, my best friend from back home. She was absolutely full of cheerful news, ordinary stuff from all the villages on the Mountain and in the valleys, things the Hunters had left out. Like who was paired up, who had broken up, who was doing what new projects. She was now an item with Dutch down in Silverspring—I giggled and hugged Bya over that; it was about time she noticed how crazy he was for her! She described three new outfits she’d made for herself. She’d been watching my vids. She loved what I was wearing as a Hunter, and went into verbal spasms over the dresses I’d worn on my dates with Josh. She thought Josh was adorable. She’d been down with some of the others to meet Mark Knight’s people when they arrived to join up with Brother Vincent’s “flock.”
“Stiff,”
was her estimation.
“But I think they’re all right. They seem grateful to be here, and gratitude will take them a long way. They don’t know about everything yet”
—by which she meant the Monastery—
“but we figure that’ll come when we know how far we can trust them.”
I already knew the Masters were thinking of letting them in on the secret soon. Her letters were almost as good as being with her…and she had all sorts of advice about how I should act around Josh, which I was
really
happy to read. In fact, I read those parts of her letters over a couple of times to cement them into my brain.

There was still no sign of the electrics coming back to normal, so I padded around the rooms making sure everything was turned off that could be turned off, went back to bed, and cuddled Bya. I had a reader from home with a lot of books on it. I chose one at random and started reading. They were mostly pre-Diseray fantasy because we’ve found we can glean a lot of things about how to use magic from them. This one was written in very florid language, and it made me nod off.

The alarm from the vid-screen in the bedroom woke me up. Bya was still there and the building was still vibrating, but all the electrics were back. I could tell from the hum and the brightness of the reading lamp above my head. “Schedule,” I said aloud, and the vid-screen lit up with
Canceled
showing for the whole day. “Weather,” I ordered, and studied the screen. That was an ugly storm, and it was
huge
. It seemed to be circling around a center, like a hurricane, but without an actual eye. Was this normal? Up in the mountains, blizzards could last for days, and I
had
seen storms that circled like this, so I didn’t know.

Well, no point in lolling around in bed. If I wasn’t going Hunting—and now I was very glad I’d put myself back in rotation after the Drakken, so my Hounds didn’t need manna—then I should work out, maybe get some target practice in. I got cleaned up and dressed, sent Bya back, and headed for the mess.

It was pretty full, what with everyone having gone to bed early last night and all three shifts canceled. I grabbed food, found some space at a table with Dazzle, Hammer, and a couple people I didn’t know, and sat down to eat and listen.

From the chatter, I gathered that the storm parking over us
was
unusual but not unheard of. Hammer at our table and a couple other Hunters within earshot had stories of monster storms that lasted two or more days. “The good news is that there’s not one Othersider that will move during a storm like this, not even the Thunderbirds. It’s too much even for them. Should finally move off us by nightfall,” Hammer finished. “Enjoy the rest while you’re getting it.”

That sent people off on their plans for the unexpected free day. I stopped listening. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do; I just knew I wasn’t going to lie around and watch vids all day, or join the people who were planning on marathoning a game they all liked, something where your game avatar wore power armor and was shooting at an invasion of sentient robots. I never could see the point of vid-games, but I guess that might be because I grew up shooting at monsters for real and was not kept safe from them as an Apex Cit.

I thought maybe I’d try to call Josh—not that we were going to be able to meet up or anything, but a nice long call when we were just able to chat about nothing without cameras around would be fun. That was all that was on my mind as I made my way through hallways that actually had people in them for a change.

Well, my day got decided for me as it turned out; when I got back to my room, my vid-screen was flashing with a
Report to armory
on it. “Acknowledged,” I said. It went out and I turned right back around, wondering what Kent wanted with me in the middle of a storm.

BY THIS TIME, I had figured out that Armorer Kent was the unofficial leader of the Elite. Everyone deferred to him, and although Dispatch in HQ sent the Elite out, he was
certainly
the one in charge of assigning Hunters who weren’t Elite to their patrols. And he decided who trained, with whom, and with what. He also chewed us out when we messed up. I was pretty sure I’d done well yesterday, so I was not expecting any kind of rebuke. More like bracing for a very challenging workout or some other sort of session with him.

When I arrived at the armory and opened the door, Kent was waiting for me, wearing his usual asymmetric scarlet-and-yellow Hunt gear. He was the brightest thing in the room, which was filled with every sort of instrument of mayhem I could imagine, and a lot I had no notion how to use. He quirked a finger at me, silently telling me to follow him. Now I was really puzzled, and did so. He led me to his little office, opened the door, and waved me inside, closing the door behind me, with himself outside.

Kent’s office was as Spartan as his signature gear was flamboyant: brown carpet, brownish-gray walls, with a couple of beautiful landscape pictures that were clearly taken before the Diseray. There was someone sitting in the high-backed leather chair behind Kent’s utilitarian gray metal desk, with the back of the chair facing me. That person spun the chair around as I entered, and—

—it was my uncle! He was in his prefect uniform, which meant he considered himself on duty, regardless of the storm; I’ve seen him in ordinary civilian clothing, but not often. As always, I was glad to see him. As always, I was very happy to see no hint of being worn down by the threat that I now knew hung over him. Still as erect, fit, and calm as ever. He might be going bald and getting gray, but that’s the only sign of age on him.

He chuckled at the dumbfounded look on my face. “How did you get here?” I blurted.

“Armored pod,” he replied, waving at a chair. I plopped down into it. “I was going to talk to you soon anyway, but with this storm”—he waved his hand at the ceiling—“nothing is going on; at least, nothing that the police and rescue services can’t handle without me, and Kent’s office is more secure than mine.”

I didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. Uncle might be the prefect of police and, on top of that, in charge of all the Hunters that aren’t in the army, but he had political enemies, and one of them was probably behind the attempt to murder me. “What can I do for you, Uncle?” I asked immediately.

“I’ve discussed this with Kent,” he said, leaning forward, which made me lean forward too. “I want someone absolutely trustworthy to run the patrols in the storm sewers under the Hub…the City Center. It’s getting too dangerous for my police units.”

I nodded. This was something the Cits couldn’t
ever
know, or it would send them into a panic. Nasty, dangerous Othersiders
are
getting in past the Barriers, and it’s getting worse. If the Cits knew that what they thought were special effects to sex up the Hunts were in fact real, the city might shut down. People would be afraid to go to their jobs, afraid to walk on the streets. They’d know what we Hunters know and what some of the police and Psimons know: that they are
not
safe, and that only the Hunters’ vigilance keeps the horrors off their throats.

What Uncle had just told me confirmed what I had suspected. The police couldn’t handle what was penetrating into the very heart of the city anymore. That was also probably why he elected to come here to talk with me about it and not risk that his enemies would discover this and use it against him.

“Kent thinks you can do it solo because of the size of your pack,” Uncle continued. “The sewers aren’t big enough to send down more than a pair of Hunters at a time, at any event.”

I thought about that. “I’ve got a pack big enough for three,” I admitted. “If Armorer Kent thinks I can do this, then, yes, Uncle, I will.”

There was more than a touch of relief in Uncle’s expression. And then he leaned over the desk to speak very softly. “I can’t go into details, Joy, but there’s something very wrong down there. Something more than Othersiders getting into the sewers, and something I don’t want to trust to anyone else. I want you to be extra careful, but also keep your head on a swivel for anything that doesn’t look right to you. I’m asking Kent to put you down there as soon as it’s feasible. And if you find something you can’t put into a report, then exercise your privilege as my niece and ask for a face-to-face with your good old uncle.”

I nodded, and he sat back in the chair as if he had never said anything at all.

We chatted for a while about inconsequential things after that. He relaxed, and so did I. I asked him more things about my dad and mom, and whether or not he knew any of my Masters himself. It was
such
a relief to actually be able to talk about home without censoring every word that came out of my mouth!