“You didn’t see your face when Rohan was stopping you go after the king. Even I was worried.”
I was about to reply to that, but the elevator doors slid shut, and the meaning of the lord’s quip about security became clear. Rohan, Tens, and Case disappeared from my head with the sound of the door seals closing. I raised my head, and Mack turned me in towards his chest.
“Easy, Cutter.”
And I swore if he said that, one more time, I was going to slug him—and, this time, Rohan wasn’t going to be there to stop me. Mack’s arms tightened across my back, but Barangail was speaking, and Mack didn’t say a word.
“What’s wrong with her, this time? It can’t be heights.”
Which gave me an idea of just how closely we’d been monitored on the trip down to his estate. I wondered whose technology he’d been using. Did he have the place wired up himself, or had he used his new friends to get the kind of access that would allow him to tap into the surveillance systems on a public structure? Or maybe he just had a hacking team, like Odyssey’s Delight.
Of all of those possibilities, only the second idea bothered me, because that suggested the arach weren’t all that new on the friendship scale of things—and, if they weren’t new, then just how far along had their plans for Alpha Nine progressed?
“Not heights,” Mack agreed, and left it at that, making it hard for Barangail to pry without being obvious.
Right now, I wished I could see his lordship’s face, because I was willing to bet just how curious he felt would be written all over it. It was hard to do that with my head buried against Mack’s chest. By the same token, not being able to see the elevator walls around me meant I wasn’t reminded of a... other things.
It also meant I wasn’t able to watch the floor counter as we descended, and that made the journey to the mansion proper seem interminably long.
“Hang in there.”
It was an improvement on being soothed like some fractious beast. That startled an abrupt laugh out of Mack, and I felt him looking down at me.
“If the boot fits.”
I rolled my eyes.
Sure. Whatever, Mack, but I kept that reply firmly behind my lips, even without Rohan’s help, and waited for the elevator to stop.
“How far down are we going?” Mack asked, and it was Barangail’s turn to be evasive.
“Deep enough to avoid the passive scans.”
I wondered how that worked for him, given he’d placed a really big marker right above it. Mack’s arms tightened, and it wasn’t for comfort. I did my best to pretend I hadn’t noticed. Barangail wasn’t so polite.
“Is she okay?” he asked, and the elevator car shuddered.
Mack’s grip around my shoulders became like iron.
“She’s fine,” Mack said, and I didn’t move.
Again, without Rohan’s help. Maybe the stims were starting to wear off.
“I hope not,” sounded in my head, but it was only Mack; the other three didn’t say a word, their connections hanging strangely loose.
The elevator stopped, and Mack held me tight and still, the resistance of his arms as I tried to turn, reminding me that I couldn’t go bolting out of the large, dangling box, and into the comparative safety of the Barangail’s halls. Mack’s next words showed that illusion for what it was.
“We don’t how infested this place is. Stick with me.”
Good point. Pity he was such a smart ass.
“Hey!”
Yeah. Whatever, big man.
“You have no idea.”
And I blushed like a school girl, forcing myself to focus on what I could hear happening around me. I wondered if Case had managed to hack her way into the security system, yet, because a set of eyes on the rooms around us, would be really nice, about now. Hell, a view of the rooms around us, would have been good to have to study on the trip down, because I was pretty sure things had changed since my last visit.
“You bet they have,” came through the implant in a voice I didn’t want to hear, and I wondered when Tens was going to install security measures that worked against arach.
“I doubt there is a security measure in all the worlds that can protect your head from a psi.”
Well, fuck me, but the eight-legged bastard might just have a point.
“Stop teasing the wildlife,” Mack said, and I didn’t know whether to laugh, or tell him to go fuck himself.
I also didn’t point out that ‘wildlife’ wasn’t the best way for him to win friends and influence people. Maybe the stim pack wasn’t wearing off, after all.
“Give it time,” and, with that parting remark, the arach king was gone, letting me feel the absence of his presence in my mind.
It made me wonder how I’d missed him arriving. It also made me look for any more, and it was no surprise to find the arach team leader crouching quietly in a corner of my conscience.
“Hi there!” I said, highlighting its presence for Mack.
The damn thing hissed at me, but it didn’t leave.
“We’re really gonna have to find a way to fix that,” Mack said.
Yeah, good luck with that.
I figured if we hadn’t found a cure since the last time we’d encountered the arach, it might be a flaw in human design, rather than anything we could mend. We just hadn’t run into these bastards enough for the naturally resistant to survive and procreate.
“And those who are, we weed out first,” was not a response I wanted to hear, as the king slid back into my head.
I guess he figured that, since I’d rumbled his assistant, he might as well come back, and stay. No flies on his little black butt.
“No flies, anywhere,” he quipped back, and shot me a memory of him tearing the wings of a wasp, the man-sized creature screaming
