Shield of Winter (Nalini Singh) (57 page)

Jaya’s network held a surprise: another E. Perhaps a family member. That E was linked only to a tiny number of others, no secondary layer. Ivy woke Jaya up with a telepathic hail, though she knew her friend needed the rest. This was too important.
Jaya, do you have another empath in your family? What Gradient?

Jaya’s sleep-hazy voice mumbled,
Yes, a child. Untested for E abilities, but I think he’s probably around 3 or 4 on the Gradient. Why?

Go back to sleep. I’ll tell you later.

Okay.

“We’re the Band-Aids,” she whispered, sitting up to face her Arrow. “I get it now. I understand how we can save the Net, why there are so many of us.”

Vasic spread the fingers of one hand on her lower back. “Tell me.”

“The Es need to find ways to connect with a circle of people. Jaya and I are both on the high end of the Gradient, can share our immunity with a secondary layer, but others will only be able to shield those with whom they’re directly bonded.”

She knew she wasn’t explaining it properly, told herself to slow down.

Then Vasic spoke. “You have a direct bond with Aden, but you can also protect those with whom he has a bond. A weaker E would only have been able to protect Aden.”

“Yes!” Ivy shoved both hands through her hair, trying to contain the beautiful audacity of the image in her mind. It would mean restructuring the entire PsyNet, but it could work. It
would
work! “One E, I think, can only protect a finite number of people. That’s why I can only see some of the Arrows.”

“How many will depend on the E’s psychic strength.”

“I’m guessing, yes.” Spreading out her hands, she drew a diagram of her vision in the air. “But isolated clusters aren’t enough—it’s no use shielding individuals if the Net crumbles around them.” The psychic fabric was too riddled by infection, too damaged to sustain itself. “To hold the PsyNet together, we need to create a massive honeycomb pattern of interlinked clusters across the world.”

“Stitch the Net back together using the Es as the glue?”

Ivy grabbed his face, kissed him. “Exactly!” Tumbling onto his chest when he nudged at her back, she wriggled up to straddle him. “I saw serious damage directly outside the area Jaya and I cover with our clusters, but inside? Vasic, it’s strong as steel.”

“If you’re right,” he said, sliding his hands up her rib cage, “the only stumbling block remains the issue of emotional connections and how to create them.”

Ivy blew out a breath and fell forward onto his chest on crossed arms, but she wasn’t about to give up. “Are there any Arrows who aren’t already paired with an empath? Ones who aren’t linked to me through Aden, either.”

“Yes, a number couldn’t be pulled off core tasks.”

Core tasks.
Hunting the serial killers who continued to prowl the Net. “Would they talk to me?” she asked, not voicing the dark truth.

Vasic paused. “Yes, two of them are at Central Command and available to talk.” He sat up. “We’ll have to go now to catch them.”

Dressing quickly, Ivy cuddled Rabbit when he bounded over, ready for an adventure. “Can he come?” The Arrows had cared for their pet more than once already, but Ivy didn’t assume welcome.

“Rabbit is now an accepted fixture,” Vasic said, and teleported them into a lush green space she’d never have known was underground if he hadn’t already told her of it. The kiss of moonlight on the trees was a muted silver, the starlit sky above a perfect illusion.

“Amin is here.”

Following Vasic’s gaze, Ivy saw a uniform-clad Arrow emerge from the moonlit shadows, his skin the darkest brown Ivy had ever seen. He ignored Rabbit’s curious presence to walk over to Vasic and Ivy. “What do you need?” he asked Vasic.

“Ivy will explain.”

“An experiment.” She smiled, though she could feel nothing from this man, as she’d once been unable to from Vasic. “Would you mind spending some time with me?”

Amin’s eyes met Vasic’s in a silent question before he said, “All right.”

“Thank you.” Inviting him to walk with her, Vasic on her other side, she’d only gone a few steps when Rabbit scampered over, tail wagging triple time. “You like this place, huh?”

“Woof!”

Then he was off again, zipping around the corner. From the bark Vasic heard, their pet had located Ella. Sure enough, he led the lithely muscled brunette to them ten seconds later. Ella, too, agreed with Ivy’s request to spend time with her, and the four of them walked along the pathways of the otherwise empty green area.

Catching his eye almost ten minutes of stilted conversation later, Ivy telepathed,
A little help?

I don’t know how to chat,
he reminded her, because it was the truth.
They may well consider me deranged if I begin now.

Ivy’s lips twitched.
Stop making jokes,
she said, though Vasic wasn’t aware he’d done so.
Amin and Ella know you, trust you. Please, try?

I can’t promise success, Ivy. You must remember who I was before you. That is where they are now.
In the cold numbness that permitted them to do what needed to be done.

I understand
.

Vasic didn’t bother to engage the other two Arrows in conversation; he went right to the heart of the matter. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” It was impossible to separate the two voices that answered.

“Then you need to trust Ivy.”

It shattered an unknown wall in him when they didn’t hesitate. Turning to Ivy, Ella said, “If you have Vasic’s trust, you have ours. What do you need from us?”

Ivy blinked. “It’s done.” Laughing, she jumped into Vasic’s arms.

Amin’s mind touched his.
She truly is yours.

Yes.
He looked into two pairs of dark eyes.
Life isn’t only for other people.
It was a reality it had taken him a long time to accept.
We’re permitted to exist, too.

Neither Amin’s nor Ella’s expression altered, but he could read them as only a fellow squad member could, and he knew both were shaken. Releasing Ivy after drawing the scent of her into his lungs, he listened as she turned and laid out the facts for his fellow Arrows.

“The connection,” she said, “is through Vasic, which makes complete sense.”
I’ve also lost two others that I was linked to through Aden, so I must be maxed out on the number of people I can protect.

That won’t matter once the entire empathic network is in place,
Vasic pointed out.
There will be multiple failsafes.

“Does this connection equate to a security vulnerability?” Ella asked.

“I can’t access your minds or your emotions if that’s what you mean,” Ivy said, “but I’ll be honest—I have no idea how it may affect you. If this is meant to cure the Net, the connection to me could equal a change in your emotional equilibrium.”

“Understood.” Amin was the one who spoke. “We’re aware of what’s been happening to Arrows linked to empaths. It’s an acceptable risk.”

Ivy’s face was suddenly stricken.
You don’t think I influenced you to be with me somehow?
she asked Vasic.
I swear I didn’t do it consciously if I did.

Vasic closed his hand over her nape, her curls warm against the back of his hand.
All you did was haul me into the light. I could’ve walked away at any point. I chose to stay. I will always choose to stay.

The knot in Ivy’s throat was a huge, wet thing. Unable to speak, she just listened as he thanked the two Arrows for their patience. They turned to walk away, and as they did so, Rabbit raced up to them, tail wagging. The Arrows glanced down, then the male angled his head at Ivy. “What does he want?”

“To play,” she said. “You could throw a stick.” She looked around, but Vasic had already found one in the undergrowth. “He likes chasing it.”

The Arrow took the stick from Vasic and threw it. The two began walking again, were soon out of sight, but from Rabbit’s happy “woofs” for several minutes afterward, he’d found some new stick-throwing minions.

“The connection’s already having a subtle impact,” Ivy whispered, thinking of how both Arrows had ignored Rabbit earlier.

Vasic leaned down to tug the stick from Rabbit when he decided to come back to them, play fighting with the dog until Rabbit let go and raced off in preparation to catch it. “Our minds link to the PsyNet because we need the biofeedback to survive,” he said. “Yet the biofeedback has undeniably been damaged in a subtle but fundamental way for an unknown period of time.”

Ivy’s eyes grew wide. “The link to an empath might be acting as a filter to clean up the biofeedback.” She thought again of the two Arrows who were now connected to her. “They trusted me because of you, but others will put their faith in an E out of desperation.” It wasn’t clean or tidy, but it might just work.

Eyes of winter frost met hers. “We need more data, and we need it as fast as possible.”

Neither one of them slept for the next seventy-two hours, and neither did seven of the other empaths who’d been part of the original group at the compound. Isaiah was still in hospital and needed more rest, but he was alert when awake—and irritable. Ivy was delighted to see him on the road back to his normal self.

The group ran multiple experiments—with complete strangers, with men and women who lived deep in zones of infection, with those who’d already begun to exhibit the erratic behavior that had come to be known as a precursor to an outbreak.

Kaleb and Aden sealed up two severe Net breaches in the interim, while Sahara took the myriad reports that came in, crunched the data, and broke it down into bite-sized pieces that sleep-deprived Es and their Arrow partners could understand.

What they discovered was extraordinary.

Chapter 57

And these are the men, women, and children Silent Voices and their like would have us erase from the gene pool.Editorial,
PsyNet Beacon
IT WOULD BECOME
known as the Honeycomb Protocol.

Rolled out across the entire PsyNet in the space of a single month, the fear that gripped the populace helping to spread the effect faster than initially predicted, its success was soon a matter of unimpeachable fact. Outbreaks dropped apace with the spread of the honeycomb, and people in comas began to wake up.

None were yet who they’d once been, but the medical empaths were hopeful.

Ivy Jane, Kaleb thought where he stood behind his desk at home, had been correct: desperation was a great motivator of trust.

Of course, not everyone was happy with the situation.

Kaleb looked down at the lists his people were sending in from around the world. “These individuals refuse to join in.”

Sitting curled up in the chair on the other side of his desk, Sahara frowned at a datapad of her own. She was keeping track of how many connections an E at a particular Gradient could make before maxing out, as well as any other factor that altered the reach of a cluster. It wasn’t simple data collection and collation, but a record meant to ensure no E was placed under unnecessary stress, as well as a way to monitor the health of a very fluid network. The honeycomb altered constantly as new connections were made and others dropped.

The fact Sahara was fluent in every language under the sun meant there was no chance an E’s report would be mangled in translation. Her own lack of E abilities was considered an asset not a handicap.

“We’re too close to it,” Ivy Jane had said when she asked Sahara to take up the task. “The torrent of emotion in the Net is consuming our attention—we need someone who can see patterns, and you saw this pattern before anyone else. Plus, you might not be an empath, but you’re very empathic and able to handle dealing with us.”

Sahara had fallen to the task with relish. When Kaleb pointed out she was technically doing a type of math, she’d gasped and said he’d stabbed her through the heart. Then she’d hauled him down by his tie and made him apologize. Now, she chewed on the end of her laser pen and answered absently. “Forcing the holdouts into the honeycomb defeats the purpose. Coercion is what got the Net into this in the first place.”

“By staying unconnected,” Kaleb said, “they give the infection room to thrive.” An unacceptable risk.

Sahara looked up, the charms on her bracelet making tiny sounds as they clinked against one another. “That’d be true if they were concentrated in one area—and if they were, we both know their chances of survival would be minimal at best.” Sadness in her gaze, she rubbed at her forehead. “But I’m guessing they’re scattered throughout the Net.”

Scanning the data, Kaleb nodded. “At this point at least.”

“So I’d say they’re being balanced out by the connections around them.” She bit at her pen again.

Teleporting it out of her hand, he replaced it with a cookie. Her shoulders shook. “Funny.” But she bit into the snack. “Anyway,” she said after swallowing, “if they do start to congregate, then we can tell them the risks and ask the NetMind to quarantine their section.” Her lips turned downward. “It’s not the best option, but we can’t justify allowing them to create a hothouse for the infection.”

“If it comes to that, I have a feeling the objectors will defect to create their own network.” He met the eyes of the woman who knew every scarred, twisted corner of his soul and loved him anyway. “Since this dictatorship appears to be oddly lenient about rebellion, I won’t stand in the way of their plan.”