Chapter 14
GENERAL TAYLOR STOOD at the front of the Caf. She’d called a meeting with my whole task force. Well, everyone except Xona. When I’d come down the hallway earlier Xona had been arguing with Tyryn about why she should be able to go with us. But only Tyryn was in the room now, so I guess she’d lost the fight.
The General paced the front of the room until everyone had gathered and was seated. “I’ve called you all here to discuss an important mission. One that only this particular task force can perform, now that all of your members are ready.” She glanced over at me, and I felt my face redden. Had she been waiting for me to get control of my powers before she okayed the mission?
City’s eyes lit up and she grinned at Rand.
“Bright travels all over the Sector as Underchancellor of Defense,” Taylor continued. “We’ve been able to map each place she goes, thanks to Ginni.”
Ginni blushed at the acknowledgment and looked down.
“For the most part we can correlate each location to her official activities and duties. However, there is one building that remains unaccounted for, one that doesn’t officially exist on the Uppers’ property registration database. I believe it is Bright’s version of our Foundation. We know of ten individuals staying regularly at the facility, and several of them had been on our glitcher watch lists. We were planning on sending Rez units into the Community to collect them, but Bright got to them first.”
I shivered, imagining how different my life would have been if the Chancellor had gotten to me in the Community before Adrien had.
“Bright has been tracking our spies and using her compulsion on them to make them double agents, cracking at least half a dozen other Rez cells the agents were in contact with. In short,” she put her hands down on the nearest table and leaned in, “Bright is winning. This is our first opportunity in a long time to deal her a huge blow.”
Rand grinned and turned to high-five Eli, the ex-Reg sitting next to him. Eli didn’t budge or react at all. Taylor paused, narrowing her eyes at Rand until he lowered his hand and sank back into his seat.
“But wait,” City interrupted. “If Ginni can locate Bright wherever she goes, then why don’t we just bomb her in the air or something? We’ve got the weapons tech, right?”
Taylor shook her head. “We’ve tried that already, twice. Both times, the missiles were shot out of the air in spite of Henk’s cloaking tech. We don’t know why. The larger transport vehicles utilizing the cloaking mechanisms are never detected. We suspect that a glitcher Gift is involved somehow. That is why we must choose stealth and strike while the Chancellor is absent. Our task is twofold on this mission: infiltrate and retrieve. There will be glitchers under the Chancellor’s command, and there will be Regulators on guard.”
Her eagle eyes locked on mine. “Zoel, you will first disable any Regulators on-site. Then Adrien will hack the system to get past their security and get us in.”
“Excuse me, General Taylor,” I broke in. “When you say disable, do you mean—”
Taylor stared at me a moment as if she was unused to interruptions. “You need to neutralize the threat. Deactivate them.”
“But,” I sputtered, almost standing up. “I can’t just kill them.” I thought about the ex-Regs on our own team and how easily they could have been the ones guarding the Chancellor. They wouldn’t have had a choice.
Taylor’s face was hard. “Believe me, I would love to send my Rez fighters to do the job. But you are the one with the invisible powers that can reach through walls and snap necks. Not to mention we don’t have solid intelligence on the nature of the glitcher powers we’re up against once we’re inside. It’s one of the reasons I put off this mission until you were ready.”
Well that answered that question. “But I—”
Taylor’s nostrils flared. “We are fighting a war here. We all must play our part.” She swept her arm. “Look around you. This is the Rez’s finest, most expensive facility, and even here you can see we’ve had to fight for every inch we have. In war, it’s either them or us. It’s as simple as that.”
I felt all the eyes in the room on me.
“Rose, they’re just children,” the Professor spoke up.
“They are soldiers,” Taylor said sharply. She took a breath and calmed herself, though it looked like it took some effort.
“Now as for the rest of you,” she pulled back and gestured to the Professor. His brow was still furrowed, but he came forward and clicked on a projection cube in the center of our table. A squat building rotated in the illuminated space. We all pushed closer as the Professor touched the apex to expand and enlarge the image.
“We enter here.” Taylor pointed to one side of the floating image and spun it so we had a clear view of the back loading dock.
“Rand, City, and a detachment of Rez fighters will retrieve the glitchers who are held in locked cells here.” She touched the 3-D image again to show the hallway that split like a T from the dock. She pointed down the hallway that led to the left. The model animated, moving like a camera on a trolley down several long hallways until it opened to a larger circular room at the end.
“The cell doors are here. Rand can melt through the doors to get to the glitchers.”
Rand grinned again and rubbed his hands together.
“The team of Rez fighters will tranq each glitcher as soon as Rand gets a hole opened. The Chancellor won’t be there to use her compulsion power, but there’s always a chance some of them may be working for her voluntarily. That’s where you come in, Filicity.”
City sat up straighter in her seat while Taylor continued, an excited flicker of blue electric current shooting across her palm.
“We don’t know what we could be facing, so we want to knock them out before there’s even a chance for them to start using their powers against us. Filicity is the backup in case something goes wrong with the tranqs. Sophia informs me you’ve recently been able to manipulate your electricity to an amperage that will only stun, not kill, is that correct?”
City nodded. “No problem.”
“Good. We want, if possible, to take all the glitchers alive. Then we not only deprive the Chancellor of her weapons but gain more for ourselves.”
I frowned at glitchers being referred to as weapons. Was that really how General Taylor thought of us?
She clicked the image again so that it zoomed back out. “There is a secondary objective. Adrien, Zoel, and I will head this direction to retrieve an object located on-site.” The camera started again, this time following the hallway leading right and then dropping five stories down an elevator shaft.
“At the bottom of the elevator, there are three barrier doors that not even our best tech hackers would be able to crack in a timely manner. Zoel, this is your second task. I’ll need you to open them with your power. Disrupting the first door will signal a breech,” Taylor continued, “but the Regs on-site will be deactivated. The response time for an external security team is sixteen minutes. We should have plenty of time to complete the mission and be out before their reinforcements arrive. This mission hinges on it being a quick surgical strike. We hit fast, get what we need, and are out of there in fifteen minutes flat. Understand?”
We all nodded, our group uncharacteristically silent.
“The mission has been planned down to the smallest detail, and you will be well prepared. You have your schematics and detailed instructions downloading onto your arm panels as we speak. Memorize them as we prepare. Ginni,” she looked at the frizzy-haired girl, “you are to keep constant watch on the Chancellor’s location. After I feel everyone is ready and able to accomplish their personal mission objectives, we’ll wait until the Chancellor leaves the site again, and then we’ll strike.”
All we did was train, eat, and sleep for the next two weeks. As the days passed, my power buzzed to life faster and faster, and the more practiced I became, the further my control seemed to expand. The looks that came my way in the halls and cafeteria now had a hint of respect, or at least were no longer openly hostile. A new energy of anticipation filled the halls.
“Now find the four ex-Regs,” Jilia instructed.
I closed my eyes and let the buzzing expand inside me for a moment before sending it outward. I could
