“What I want to know,” came Ben’s voice, “is why you shot at him.”
For a moment Nevaeh thought he’d slipped into an invisibility suit, but then the fighting chair rotated and there he sat, glaring at her.
“None of us is a prisoner. We are all free to come and go. That’s the way it’s always been.”
“Not when he’s talking about stopping us,” Nevaeh said. “Not when he knows our plans. Anyway, I didn’t shoot until I saw Sebastian on the floor. Stop grilling me.” She glanced around at the Tribe-the eight of them remaining, she thought achingly. Their faces reflected both sadness and anger-at Creed, not her, she hoped.
Ben stood and leaned against the edge of the shark-fishing workbench, turning a reel in his hand, pretending to examine it. He said, “It would be nice to know that you aren’t going to shoot me someday when I step out for air.”
“Don’t knock anybody out on your way, and I won’t.”
Ben headed toward the cot, passing Sebastian’s computer-laden workbench. Nevaeh’s heart skipped a beat at what she saw there. She strode to the bench and picked up the black soda can with the glass dome. The dome was shattered, and the chip it had displayed was gone. She waved it at Ben, scattering bits of glass across the floor.
“Creed took the chip.”
Ben instantly looked sick, which told her more than words could.
She said, “He can convince authorities of our intentions with it, can’t he?” She went to Sebastian and leaned over him. “Sebastian!” She slapped him.
Jordan grabbed her arm, and Alexa said, “Don’t! He’s hurt!”
Nevaeh shook her arm free and slapped him again. Sebastian moaned. His eyelids rose a bit.
“Sebastian!” She held the top of the can toward him. “Creed took the chip!”
His lids fluttered and stayed open. He put his hand to his forehead and pulled off the cloth. “What happened?”
“Creed clobbered you,” she said. “He took the chip and left. How bad is it?”
He moaned again. “I woke up, and he was at the workbench. I said something and he rushed me. That’s all I remember. Headache, but I’m okay.”
“Not you,” Nevaeh said. “How bad is his taking the chip? What does it mean to us?” She snapped her head around to address Ben. “Even if he doesn’t use it to alert the authorities, we’re down one drone. Sebastian’s simulation says we need them all.”
“No,” Sebastian said, his voice barely audible. “Without even a single chip, we’re dead in the water. They talk to each other, like a net over the entire fleet. It’s a safeguard to prevent hijacking one. Nobody has the resources to grab the whole lot… that’s the thinking, anyway.”
“So it’s either all or none?” Ben said.
Sebastian nodded.
Nevaeh leaned a knee against the edge of the cot and hung her head. “Does Creed know that?” she said.
“He was in here yesterday, asking about how it all works.”
“And you told him?”
He stared at her as though a third eye had just appeared in her forehead. He said, “We’re… family.”
She straightened and turned to Ben. “I’m not letting go,” she said. “It’s our only chance to do this. We were made to do this. What if this is it? Our ticket home? We have to go after him.” She looked at the others.
Phin and Toby nodded. Elias was Elias: leaning back against a wall, one leg cocked up and his foot on the wall. He was rolling a cigarette, licking the paper and pushing it down. He stuck it in his mouth and lit it, then squinted at her through a cloud of smoke and nodded. All eyes turned to Ben.
Ben looked at each of them in turn, then at the floor for a long time. Finally he nodded. “Creed wants to stop us. Not once, but forever. It’s not just this project…”
“Not-” Nevaeh started, intending to reiterate the importance of this one strike and how long they’d been planning.
But Ben held up a hand to stop her. “With that chip, he can raise an army-quite literally, an army-to stop us, to find us. It’ll be the end, and not the way we had hoped.” He turned away and seemed to speak to himself. “Hoped… for so long, so long.”
“Okay, then,” Nevaeh said. “Where’s he heading? How do we find him?”
Ben paced back past the workbench, running his hand over its surface. “He’ll seek help,” he said. “Sean, maybe.”
At the name, Nevaeh’s stomach cramped. She’d spent years forgetting him, and now she wanted to deny Ben’s logic. But she couldn’t; he was right.
“Sean?” Phin said. “Why?”
“They’re allies now,” Nevaeh said. “On the same side. Sean will know how to best use the chip and Creed’s knowledge against us.”
“But how can Creed reach him?” Toby said. “ We don’t know how.”
“One of the Keepers,” Ben said. “They’d know. Plus, they’d give him shelter.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Phin said, pointing at Ben. “A Haven.”
Set up millennia ago, Havens were safe houses designed to give them shelter from anyone wishing them harm. Anyone, including their own kind. Originally, they were established as part of a truce between the Tribe and a group of former Tribe members-a group their leader, once called Gehazi but now known as Bale, half jokingly called the Clan. Bale disagreed with the Tribe’s targeting of only “sinners,” people who abused the privilege of life by hurting others; he was bent on causing destruction, of taking his pain and anguish out on everyone.
For hundreds of years, Bale had been content to let the Tribe go about its own business. Then, as some members of the Tribe began embracing the teachings of Christ, Bale’s hatred for them grew. In the fourth century he declared an all-out war on them, leading to bloody attacks that caused more pain than death on both sides. Neither Tribe nor Clan had been able to pursue its own mission, outside of planning against and attacking one another, and recovering from their wounds to start it all over again. They’d finally called a truce. The Tribe kept clear of the Clan, but witnessed their existence in random murders, hospital fires, school shootings… Ben was convinced that Bale and his Clan were instrumental in sowing the seeds of malice and insanity in many mass murderers.
Keepers were mortals entrusted with their secret. Most were the monks and priests who maintained the Havens. Once the elders of their orders believed in the stability and faithfulness of younger acolytes, they’d pass the secret on to them… and so it went, in perpetuity. At any given time, a handful of other people around the world knew immortal beings walked the earth: some had been doctors who’d witnessed their miraculous healing, others had been spouses-the Immortals were not prohibited from marrying, but all of them had tried to abstain from falling in love; watching their loved ones age and die was simply too painful.
That Creed would head to a Haven was all but assured.
“But which one?” Phin said.
“Want to make a wager over it?” Nevaeh asked.
“I told you,” Phin said, “I’m done betting with you.” He rubbed his left pinky finger, which bent unnaturally at the first knuckle-the result of losing his last bet.
Ignoring their banter, Ben said, “We’ll have to surveil all three.”
“I’ll take Trongsa,” Nevaeh said. It was a town in the center of Bhutan. Getting there was time-consuming and treacherous, which made it perfect for Immortals who needed to lie low. A small Christian monastery had operated there, in the shadow of a monstrous Buddhist temple, for nearly a millennium. She headed for the door to get her ready-pack.
“No,” Ben said. “I want you here. You need to be on the recovery team-you, me, and Phin.”
She nodded. She and Phin were the most aggressive. They worked together well and got the job done. Elias was equally effective, but too laid back for a shock-and-awe raid on a monastery.
Ben continued. “Sebastian, you stay here and make the arrangements for the others. We’ll need three charters. We’ll keep our own jet here so the rest of us can go as soon as Creed surfaces.”
“I can watch for him,” Jordan said.
Ben appeared uncertain.
