Peacekeepers: Denver - Part Three
Combat Information Center
XSE Headquarters
New York
2:20 PM
He was bleeding. Pete was clear-headed enough to know that this was a bad thing, something to be looked after sooner rather than later, but, common sense or not, it wasn't his first priority at the moment. Crises didn't wait for you to go get patched up; you had to deal with them right the hell now, one way or the other. Wiping his forehead, he ignored the fact that his hand came away bloody and blinked rapidly at the screen in front of him, willing his vision to focus.
There was someone on it, speaking rather urgently to judge by their expression, but he couldn't hear them over the noise. The face, though; he knew the face. If he could just focus, think past the noise--
It clicked. Bloody hell--security chief on this watch, that's who he is--where's my sodding mind gone? Pete thought, and turned away from the console to bark something at the people who were making all the noise. Bad move, he realized as the room spun crazily around him and he staggered, already anticipating the impact with the floor, only there was a wall there suddenly, holding him up--
--no, not a wall. Bishop. Pete peered blearily up at him, and then gave an irritable curse as a woman in a blue Medical uniform jabbed something into his arm. His head cleared almost immediately, but he flinched away as she tried to tend the gash along his hairline.
"Sod off," he muttered at her, jerking his arm out of Bishop's grasp. "Got work to do."
Bishop was scowling at him. "You're going to the infirmary, Wisdom."
"Later. Busy now." He turned back to the console, realizing that he could hear the security chief talking now. That was interesting. "You're all locked down, then?" he asked roughly, interrupting the man before he could finish his report. He really didn't care about the nitty-gritty details. Just results, that was all that mattered.
"Completely. No one's getting in or out of here, sir."
"You make bloody sure that's the case. And get your teams out and checking clearances--I want to make sure no one's in here who shouldn't be," Pete snapped, and looked up at Bishop. "Where've you been?" he demanded, glancing instinctively at the clock.
"In the infirmary." Bishop's expression grew, if possible, even more grim. "Pete, how did the duty telepaths react before the explosion? I need details."
Something in Pete's chest clenched as he thought of Sylvie and Meg. "Meg--"
"Lieutenant McAllister?"
"She screamed," Pete said, his voice sounding hollow even to him. "Started to fall--I didn't see what Sylvie was doing before the explosion." He looked over to the charred remains of the Cerebro unit. "The other wounded--?"
"Dead," Bishop said harshly, and looked up at the Threat Board, frowning. Pete shook his head slowly, hating himself and Bishop both for how little reaction they could afford right at this moment. More names for the memorial wall, he thought dully. "Why do we not have full power?" Bishop went on, his voice less rough around the edges, more professional.
"Generator took a hit," Pete said, swaying a little as he tried to make it to his chair. If he fell on his face, Bishop was sure to insist he go off-duty, and that simply wasn't acceptable. "Feedback of some sort from the explosion, maybe." He scowled suddenly at Bishop, finally processing what the other man had said a minute ago. "The infirmary? Why were you in the infirmary?" He didn't look hurt--
Bishop looked away from the darkened Threat Board and straight at him. "Every telepath in the building is unconscious," he said crisply.
Pete stared at him for a moment, wondering how badly concussed he really was. That--didn't seem to make sense.
But--Meg had screamed, just before the explosion. Before, not after. He'd mixed that up, somehow. Trying to break the console with your head will do that, a sarcastic little voice inside his mind pointed out. He ignored it. Meg had reacted BEFORE the explosion. All the telepaths in the building were unconscious. What did that mean?
"Damn," he muttered, sinking into the chair as more of the potential implications started to hit. "All of them?" They needed communications restored, so they could figure out if this had been a localized event, or something widespread. "Kitty," he muttered, looking back up at Bishop. "Any non-psi teleporters around? We need to get her in here, she designed half these bloody control systems, remember?"
Bishop nodded, glancing at one of the aides that perpetually followed him around these days. Pete could never keep their names straight, and to be honest, he'd stopped bothering. The man nodded and hurried off, presumably to look for a teleporter. "Good idea," Bishop said, turning back to him. "If the Tower itself is secure, information has to be our priority. We need to find out how widespread this is, whether it was an attack--"
"I'd say that was pretty bloody obvious!" Pete snapped, then grabbed his temper with both hands and held on tight, telling himself to calm down. The noise wasn't as bad, which helped. There was still urgency, an edge of panic even, but people were doing a whole lot less running around and shouting. Bishop's presence tended to have a steadying effect in situations like these, thankfully. "If it wasn't an attack," he said, more calmly, "what the hell could it be? Nothing else makes sense."
"True," Bishop said with a heavy sigh, "but let's not rule anything out, yet. We don't know anything for certain yet." His eyes strayed to the Threat Board again. "Information," he repeated. "That has to be our priority."
He looked ten years older, suddenly. "Where's Gina?" Pete asked very quietly, knowing what Bishop had to be thinking, and just beginning to realize that he had a cause for worry, as well. Harry wasn't a telepath, but empaths shared some of the same sensitivities.
"As far as I know, still at Frost Enterprises," Bishop said just as quietly. "I don't--as you said, there's work to be done."
"No one's going to begrudge you a bloody phone call--"
"There's work to be done," Bishop repeated more harshly, and then looked down at the screen again, frowning.
Following his gaze, Pete saw that the security chief was back on the screen, looking even more agitated. "Sir? Sir, I know we're in lockdown, but we're getting a message from Captain Bridge. She's en route from the UN and wants to bring Ambassador Summers into the infirmary."
"Approved," Bishop said curtly before Pete could answer. "Give them an escort to Medical when they get in here." The screen flickered and went blank again. Bishop looked up at Pete with a speculative look. "Nathan would probably be better able to tell us what happened than anyone else."
"If he's in any shape to talk," Pete pointed out hoarsely, wondering bleakly how whatever the hell this was might have affected Nathan. Strength in a telepath meant sensitivity. Nathan was in a class of his own, these days, but under circumstances like this, that might be a curse rather than an advantage.
"Let's think positively, shall we?" Bishop murmured, eyeing the officers still working to bring the CIC's systems back on line.
"Optimism from you? Don't make me laugh. You were the one who was ready to evacuate the Tower when that last wave of Sentinels was on its way to New York--" Pete blinked as the lights on the Threat Board came back up. "That's more like it!" he said loudly, managing a grin at the officers who'd managed it. If the tactical net was back up, the coms couldn't be far behind--
His stomach descended to somewhere in the vicinity of his toes.
"Oh, bloody hell," he breathed, barely registering the similar reactions throughout the CIC as people saw what he was seeing.
When the Threat Board was operating, there was one little dot of light for every XSE station on the planet, registering the status of each on the tactical net. The color-coding was really very simple. Green meant 'on standby', gold meant 'operational standing', blue meant 'lockdown'--
But every single light in the Western Hemisphere was blinking a dark, baleful red.
***
Eastport, Maine
2:45
PM
"Ma'am? Commander Cavanaugh?"
She didn't know the voice. It was young and unsure; very worried, but completely unfamiliar to her. Still, there was enough urgency there that she couldn't help but respond to it. Forcing her eyes open, Domino blinked blearily at the young man in an XSE uniform who leaned over her, his expression tense with concern. Okay, yes, she definitely didn't know this kid--
It dawned on her that she was lying on the kitchen floor - definitely not right - and that there were other people in the room, not just the one hovering over her. Grimacing at the pain in her head, Domino levered herself up to a sitting position. The world didn't spin too badly. She took a couple of deep, steadying breaths, and focused on the situation at hand. Four uniformed junior officers. In her kitchen.
Something was wrong. "Fill me in," she muttered, drawing the back of her hand across her eyes and willing her vision to clear. Her memory seemed hazy. She'd been getting a late lunch, and--and--
There WAS something wrong. Very wrong. Domino stiffened, the beginnings of real panic stirring inside her. There was places in her mind--all too familiar places in her mind that didn't feel right.
Nathan? Clare? Ignoring whatever the young officer was saying, she reached out down the psi-links she shared with her husband and daughter, fear clenching around her heart like a vice.
The two links were very different. The one with Nathan was older, deeper and complex and far more intimate, but the one she shared with Clare was just as intense, if much more 'narrow'. She could always communicate with either of them easily, no matter how far away they were.
But neither of them were answering her now. She could feel them, but they weren't responding, even wordlessly. Nathan's presence was faint--so terribly weak, as if he were clinging to the other end of the link with the last of his strength. He was still there, the link was still intact, but something was very wrong.
And Clare--
The link was burning; there was no other way to put it. She'd felt something like this from Nathan before; after Akkaba, when his mind had been scorched right down to the subconscious level by the energy of the Merge. It had taken him months to heal to the point where he wasn't in constant psychic pain--and now something had hurt their daughter in the same sort of way--
Clare! Answer me, please!
Nothing. Choking back something perilously close to a sob, she looked back up at the officer, focusing on him again. "I didn't hear what you--repeat what you just said," she all but croaked.
"We don't know what happened, Commander," he said, his voice soft but urgent as he helped her up off the floor. "We're from the Portland station. Whatever happened knocked out our two telepaths, and created some sort of feedback loop that blew up our Cerebro unit. We're getting an automatic message that there's trouble at the Tower, but we can't get through."
Unconscious telepaths--trouble at the Tower. She wasn't sure how the equation fit together, but she sure as hell didn't like any of the possibilities. Domino closed her eyes for a minute, struggling to control the terror that only continued to grow as she sensed nothing but silence and pain in the places where she should be hearing the thoughts of the two people dearest to her in this life. She had to THINK, damn it.
"All right," she said, forcing more strength into her voice. The youngsters were rattled, she could tell, and they needed a pat on the head and some firm direction. "You did the right thing, coming to get me. We need to get in touch with some of the other East Coast stations, consolidate our efforts."
They were looking a little steadier already. She wished she could reassure herself so easily, but the best thing she could do was to take control of the situation. If the Tower was out of contact, it was up to her as the highest-ranking XSE officer outside New York to take command and figure out what the hell was going on. It was probably the best way to help Nate and Clare, too--to find out what had hurt them--
But shit, it was hard. She could hardly concentrate--
She forced herself to continue. "One of you teleports, I'm assuming?" The young blonde woman standing to her left nodded, and Domino returned the gesture. "Okay. Let's get back to Portland. We'll take things from there."
It was the right thing to do. Her instincts and her logic both told her so. But as the kitchen dissolved into light around her, Domino could almost hear her heart crying out to protest the decision.
***
Combat Information Center
XSE Headquarters
New York
4:04 PM
"You're sure you're all right?"
Hearing Kitty's murmured question, Pete looked up from his console, away from the tactical updates he'd been reading. None of the short, coded messages were saying anything really illuminating, although he was beginning to see a pattern. If the update came from a station in North America, it reported unconscious telepaths, destroyed Cerebro units and injuries. From farther away, it was damaged Cerebro units and telepaths having such hysterics that they'd had to be sedated.
"Fine," he muttered, meeting her concerned brown gaze and managing a faint smile. It was the truth, which helped. The medic had come back and forced him to sit still while she saw to him. All that was left was a lingering headache, and that was probably tension as much as anything else. "Just tried to break the console with my head when the Cerebro unit blew."
Kitty's eyes lingered on him for a moment, measuring, but eventually she nodded and turned back to what she was doing. "I've got pretty much everything reinitialized, here," she said, her fingers flying over the keypad. "I still don't know what caused all these primary systems to go down. They're supposed to be shielded against power surges, which is my best guess as to what happened. The symptoms fit, at least."
"You're a miracle-worker, Kit," Pete said, trying to sound more cheerful than he really felt. Someone had to do something to lighten the atmosphere a little. It had been over two hours since the explosion, and they still didn't have a clue as to what precisely had happened.
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, managing a half-hearted smile. "Save it for when everything reboots properly--IF it does."
"Being a little pessimistic, aren't you?"
"Just cautious, since we don't know what we're dealing with."
Kitty worked for perhaps fifteen minutes more before her efforts had visible results. The emergency lights flickered, replaced by full lighting and active screens across the CIC. Pete ignored the expressions of relief around him and kept sorting through the tactical updates. Someone else could take care of dealing with the flood of incoming com traffic that was undoubtedly on its way. He needed to know if there were any stations that were off-line completely, any that hadn't answered back. Until some of the telepaths woke up here, or settled down and started making sense elsewhere in the world, it seemed to be their best way of finding out what was going on, what this bloody pattern meant--
Afterwards, he was never quite sure what had made him check. He'd been doing well up until that point, focusing on the job that had to be done rather than worrying about his powerfully empathic son, out there somewhere in this mess. It was a momentary break in his concentration, if that. But SOMETHING made him stop correlating the tactical bursts with the list of active bases, and scroll down the list to Lowry Base in Denver, to see what damage they'd reported.
And they hadn't.
His heartrate jumped. Pete stopped, squeezing his hands into fists for a moment before he sent a request to the tactical net for the update for Lowry. It was just in the wrong place in the queue, that was all. That was all--
/No update available./
The single line of text appeared on his screen, and Pete leaned back in his chair, aware he'd broken out in a cold sweat, that his hands were still trying to shake, despite his best efforts to keep them steady.
He looked up at the Threat Board, seeking out the single light in Colorado. It was red, which meant that Lowry was online, connected to the tactical net. So there was no message. That didn't mean anything. Maybe there'd been severe damage to their systems, and they weren't able to send the update to the net just yet. It might be just that. A perfectly logical explanation.
Pete forced himself to look back down at his screen, and tapped out, very carefully, a request for the names of the bases which hadn't yet sent their tactical updates. Even taking care, typing slowly, he still made several spelling mistakes along the way. It seemed like forever before he got it right and could hit enter.
/Lowry Base, Denver, Colorado, USA/ the screen read.
And nothing more.
All right. Pete closed his eyes for a moment, willing his expression to stay neutral, and then got up and went over to where Inez, who'd given him a cup of coffee what seemed like an eternity ago, was still at work. "Coms back up?" he asked in as calm a voice as he could manage, willing Kitty not to look this way quite yet.
Inez nodded. Pete swallowed, a distant part of his mind trying to figure out why his throat was so dry. "Try and contact Lowry Base, in Denver," he said, lowering his voice. "They--haven't sent in their tactical update yet."
"Could be just a delay," Inez said in a normal tone that made Pete wish for something to gag her with. "Or Lowry's com-systems could be damaged like ours were."
"Just--check it for me, will you?" Pete grated, hearing movement behind him - light, familiar footsteps - even over the noise in the CIC.
"Is the base in Denver out of contact?" Kitty's voice asked from behind him, her tone calm on the surface but anything but, beneath.
Pete managed a chuckle that sounded utterly humorless, even to him. "Hell, we were out of contact for long enough, Kit--"
"Pete."
He turned slowly to face her. "We don't have their tactical update," he said softly, reaching out for her hand. She squeezed back with a sudden forcefulness that didn't match the set, bleak expression on her face. "That's all, love."
"Commander," Inez said, sounding perplexed. "As far as I can tell, they're receiving, but I'm not getting an answer."
Kitty took a deep, ragged breath, and let go of his hand to go sit next to Inez. "If they're on the tactical net, we should be able to get into their system from here," she said, her hands dancing over the keypad again as she entered a rapid series of commands. "So long as the base is--still there, we should be able to get some sense of what's going on."
"Sir," Inez said suddenly, looking to Pete as one hand flew to her earpiece. "I've got Commander Cavanaugh in Portland. She's--"
"Tell Dom to grab the nearest teleporter and get her ass in here," Pete said roughly, his eyes moving back to watch Kitty as she worked.
"But sir, the lockdown--"
"Lieutenant," he snapped, directing a brief glare in her direction, "we need our operations chief in here to help us work the bloody problem. If Bishop doesn't like it, he can--"
"Bishop has no problem with it," came the deep voice from over his shoulder. Pete was too busy watching Kitty's progress to jump out of his skin, but did snort semi-derisively as Bishop came up beside him.
"I should bloody well hope not. Only makes sense," he observed in as acid a voice as he could manage. It didn't sound particularly convincing.
"What do we have?" Bishop asked, letting the comment slide.
"A base that's not answering back, sir," Inez said.
Bishop's expression went speculative. "Which?"
"Lowry," Kitty murmured, never looking up from what she was doing.
Bishop paused for a moment, and Pete could feel that speculative look directed at him and Kitty in turn. "Problems with their coms?"
"Not as far as we can tell," Pete said roughly, and started to explain about the lack of a tactical update when he heard Kitty take a sudden, indrawn breath as the screen in front of them lit up with the image of what looked very much like a standard-layout commsuite. To judge by the angle, the view had to be coming from a surveillance camera.
There were two figures visible in the room. One was slumped in the chair, the other sprawled on the floor. The picture was in color, and Pete stared in shock at the sight of the distinctly blood-colored puddle beneath the head of the woman on the floor. Was that blood on the face of the one in the chair, too--yes, it was. There was no visible damage to the room, nothing to explain any injury.
"What the bloody hell--?" Pete whispered, leaning in to get a closer look. The image changed suddenly, showing an empty hallway. Again, to a conference room, where there were four uniformed officers slumped over the table as if they'd fallen asleep in mid-briefing.
But none of them were moving, and there was the same blood-colored pool beneath each head. The face of one young woman was turned towards the surveillance camera, and the look on her face was--just blank, somehow. Eyes wide open, staring at nothing.
Flicker. The hangar, and even more unmoving bodies. Flicker. Another hallway with one person sprawled on the floor. Flicker. A Danger Room. More bodies. Flicker. The firing range, and the same damned thing--
Shot after shot after shot of the interior of Lowry Base, and there was no movement, no sign of life. The internal security systems Kitty was tapping into were good enough to give very clear pictures, and the only thing Pete could think about as he watched was that he hadn't seen Harry, hadn't recognized their son in any of the pictures--
"Kitty." It was Bishop's voice, and very soft. Kitty jumped as if he'd hit her. "Can you get the base computer to strip their personal beacons?"
Every XSE officer was equipped with a beacon that could be activated to let the local base know where all of their personnel were at any given time. Most often it was used in combat situations, to tell field commanders what troops were where. But it was also tied to its bearer's biosigns, and triggered an automatic emergency signal when its bearer was wounded--
Or dead.
"Flatlined," Kitty said in a choked voice, after another few minutes. "They've all flatlined, according to the beacons--" She trailed off with a gasp as Pete stepped forward and laid his hands on her shoulders.
"Peter--was that the only base not answering back?" Bishop asked, again in that incongruously gentle voice. Pete nodded jerkily, not trusting himself to speak.
This wasn't--it couldn't be--no. Nothing was sure yet. He didn't--he wouldn't let himself say it, not even in the privacy of his own mind. Not until he was sure.
"Lieutenant," Bishop said, turning to Inez. "I want you to try and get in touch with any municipal authority you can reach in Denver. Local police, city government, anyone who can tell us what's going on in that city."
"Yes, sir."
Part of Pete's mind pointed out that taking Kitty out of the room might be a very good idea. He could feel her trembling, beneath his hands, and it didn't take telepathy to know what she was thinking. He was thinking the same thing, the same thing--
Before he could do, or say anything, she had leaned over her console again and started to work once more, even more feverishly. "Missing," she muttered. "I'm not getting a signal from Harry's beacon. Or Clare's. There are at least five other officers missing as well, according to what the station's complement should be--"
"They may have been outside the base whenever whatever this was happened," Bishop pointed out. "If this was an attack on the base itself, some sort of terrorist act--"
If. Bloody 'if'. Pete closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to calm down. They didn't know anything for sure, not yet. "You think this is the--epicenter?" he asked hoarsely. His voice sounded bad, even to himself.
Bishop's expression tightened. "We can't know for certain. But if we have no other bases in this condition, no other similar evidence--"
"Evidence?" Kitty asked, her voice high and think. She stopped, swallowing hard, and Pete squeezed her shoulders as gently as he could. "We've got officers down. That's all the evidence we have. Everything else is just speculation."
"Katherine," Bishop said, still gently. "Perhaps you should--"
"I am NOT leaving, Bishop," she said, stiffening in her chair, her eyes blazing at him. "You need me. And I'm perfectly in control, thank you very much, so don't give me that look--"
"Sir," Inez said, breaking into sounding utterly bewildered. "I can't get through to anyone in Denver."
Bishop's eyebrows shot towards his hairline. "Surely someone must be answering," he snapped, sounding rattled. "Local emergency services?"
Inez shook her head, her eyes wide and helpless. "Nothing, sir. I'm using all available channels, and no one's answering. I'm even trying private numbers--I don't understand. The lines aren't overloaded, or dead, there's just no answer at all."
Bishop growled something under his breath and glanced up at the Threat Board. "What's the status of Fenelon Base in Omaha?" he barked, focusing on the nearest base to Denver.
Pete moved swiftly back to his terminal, checking for that particular tactical update. "Minor damage," he said, the words coming out a little raggedly, if more steady than the last time he'd opened his mouth. "Their Cerebro unit wasn't active. Their telepaths are down, but the rest of their complement is standing by."
"Tell them to get an investigative team there ASAP," Bishop ordered Inez. "They're to teleport in, but remind them to exercise extreme caution." He looked up at Pete, his expression somber. "I don't like to send more personnel in there, not knowing what happened--"
"We don't have much choice, do we?" Pete asked roughly.
Bishop shook his head. "We need to know what's going on in that city," he murmured.
***
Fenelon XSE Base
Omaha, Nebraska
1:32 PM
The basketball court next to Fenelon Base was a popular one among the local children. In relation to the neighbourhood school and the shopping mall, it was somewhat out of the way, but it was scrupulously maintained - part of the XSE's community outreach programs - and it offered the chance, every so often, to see something exciting.
The latest game forgotten, Paul Nelson stared in fascination at the sudden beehive of activity the base had become. Even from here, on the other side of the perimeter fence, he could see everything. Lots of people in XSE battle armor, rushing around in the hangar and getting personnel carriers ready to fly.
"Whoa," his friend Peter said from beside him, sounding impressed. "Looks like they're getting ready for a fight or something!"
"Should we go home?" Kevin asked worriedly from behind him.
"Nah," Paul said, watching the carriers power up and taxi out onto the runway. "They're going somewhere else, I think--" They lifted off right away, and he shielded his eyes as they suddenly vanished into big blue balls of fire. "Cool! Did you see that?"
"I wonder where they're going," Peter said, dribbling the basketball absently.
***
Infirmary
XSE Headquarters
4:51 PM
He was so pale. That was the first thing Domino noticed as she sat down at his bedside and tried to tune out the soft but frenetic activity in the rest of the infirmary. So pale. Almost as insubstantial as his presence on their link. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it tightly, as much to reassure herself that he was there as to try and get a reaction from him.
"Nathan," she said softly, her eyes burning with unshed tears as she got no reaction at all, not even a flicker across the link. "Damn, babe, I wish you'd wake up," she went on, her voice cracking. "You pick the damnedest times to check out on me, did I ever tell you that? Clare--"
The words froze in her throat and she swallowed, leaning over and kissing him gently before straightening, wiping her eyes, and laying his hand back down carefully. "You need to wake up, Nate," she managed. "That child of ours got herself into some sort of trouble--you know how she is--" Nothing. His chest rose and fell, his breathing so shallow that it terrified her.
Seeing him like this was hard. Combined with the fiery pain and blank unconsciousness she sensed from Clare's end of their link, this whole situation was shredding her self-control into tiny little pieces. She didn't know which way to turn, what to feel--
But they were both alive. Nathan was here, being looked after as best as the infirmary staff could manage, given that they still didn't know what was going on with him and the other telepaths. Clare, on the other hand, was somewhere in Denver, hurt--
She supposed her choice was simple enough, put that way. "I've got to go, Nathan," she whispered. "I'll be back."
Turning, she strode out of the cubicle, her jaw tightening as she took in her surroundings. She hadn't really been paying attention, on the way down here. "They're packed in here like sardines," she said hoarsely to the lieutenant shadowing her.
"We'll figure it out, ma'am," Sophia Cruz said with a confidence that Domino envied. "We'll find whoever's responsible and devote some time to teaching them that it's much less painful to be good global citizens."
Domino cast the slender, dark-haired young woman a suspicious look as they left the infirmary, but finally relented with a grudging half-smile. "You're so much like your mother it frightens me sometimes, Sophia." Remembering that long-ago trip to London when Gwen Samuels-Cruz had had the singular bad fortune to be the pilot flying them across the Atlantic was almost heartening. Nathan had been in such bad shape back then, she reminded herself.
This couldn't be as bad as that, let alone anything approaching how severely he'd been hurt at Akkaba. His vitals were stable, Cecilia had said. As far as they could tell, he seemed to be in more or less the same shock-state as the rest of the XSE telepaths here. Whatever the consequences, they could deal with it.
It was the not knowing that was killing her, when it came to her daughter. Sophia following her closely, Domino stepped into the elevator and focused on gathering her composure as the lift moved smoothly downwards towards sub-level six and the CIC.
"Quite the atmosphere we've got in here today," she murmured, knowing Sophia would realize she was referring to the Tower at large. She didn't think she'd ever seen quite this sort of helpless, frustrated tension here in the Tower. Even during the conflict with the Prime Sentinels, it hadn't been that bad. There'd been tension, yes, but it had been purposeful, focused--
"It's the not knowing," Sophia said, echoing her thought so exactly that Domino twitched in surprise. "It would be so much easier if the solution was as simple as the one I suggested." Her smile was faint and sad, her dark eyes compassionate as she looked at Domino.
Domino grimaced and looked away. "It will be that simple," she muttered, letting anger drive out the pain and worry for a moment. "We'll MAKE it that simple."
The situation in the CIC when they got there was, if anything, worse than in the rest of the Tower. Striding forward to join the others at the main holo-tank, Domino stopped and laid a hand on Kitty's shoulder for a moment. Their eyes connected, no need for telepathy between them to convey the message. Pete, standing on Kitty's other side, directed a questioning look at her, and she knew what he was asking her, even though the fear for his son was all too visible behind the precarious walls in his eyes.
"Nothing yet," Domino said. Bishop looked up from the holo-tank, and she shook her head. "None of them. They're all still out--not just Nate. Aren't any of the telepaths in the rest of the world making sense yet?"
"Some of them are apparently babbling about something wrong on the astral plane," Bishop said.
Domino shook her head, an aggravated sigh slipping out before she could help it. "Isn't that just a bit fucking obvious, here?" she asked, with more heat than she'd intended. "What the hell else could take out so many telepaths, all at the same time?"
"True," Bishop said, accepting with equanimity the rebuke he really didn't deserve. Domino scowled at him, knowing he was cutting her more slack than he should and perversely resenting him for it. "The question is what this all has to do with Denver."
"The other bases in the Midwest have all reported back?" Domino asked, rubbing at the spot between her eyes for a moment. Maybe she should have asked Cecilia for something to take the edge off the headache.
"We've been in visual contact with someone at every base in North America, except Lowry," Pete muttered.
"Where are they?" she finally asked, meaning the investigative team.
"Landing," the answer came from the lieutenant manning the communications station. "They exited the last leg of their teleportation two minutes ago." She hesitated for a moment. "All right, I'm getting their report. Patching it through--"
"Corben to Tower," the amplified voice said from every speaker in the room. "This is Commander Trevor Corben, Denver investigative team, calling the Tower. Are you reading, Tower?"
"Affirmative," Bishop said, not bothering to identify himself. "This is the Tower. Report."
A hesitation, and then Corben continued. "I've split my team. Lieutenant Rioux is taking her group into the base to verify what Lowry's internal security and the personal beacons are telling us. The rest of us are checking the local neighbourhood. Sir--" His voice cracked. "Sir, there's no sign of movement anywhere. There are a few bodies, in the street--they're all dead."
Bishop's face was impassive. "I'm assuming you have recording equipment."
"Yes, sir."
"Tie it into the tactical net. I want to see this."
"Yes, sir."
The holo-map flickered and was replaced by a somewhat shaky view of what seemed like an ordinary residential street. Despite the wobbliness of the picture, the quiet of the street was obvious. Given the time of day and the fact that it was a residential area, maybe that wasn't unsurprising.
But as the camera panned around, it showed cars stopped in the middle of the street, people slumped over the steering wheels. On the sidewalk nearby, there were bodies--children, Domino realized sickly.
"We'll continue, see how far this--goes," Corben said, sounding helpless.
A paralysed silence descended over the CIC as Corben's team moved on, and found nothing but the dead and the same eerie silence. The second team reported in to verify that everyone in the base was dead, and that several officers were missing. Domino barely registered it--they'd known that, after all, because of the beacons.
It was the horror unfolding before them that was occupying her attention at the moment. "Bishop," she said roughly. "We need more teams in there--Corben can't do it all himself."
Bishop nodded. "Get back in touch with the bases in Laramie, Santa Fe and Wichita," he ordered the lieutenant, not looking away from the holo-tank. "Tell them to get teams in there to check out the rest of the city--"
He trailed off as Corben's team reached an intersection. Two cars had collided, and Domino watched helplessly as a couple of the team members went over to check out the people in the cars. Her heart lurched horribly as one woman lifted out a child's safety seat and set it on the ground, leaning over it for a moment. Looking upwards, the officer shook her head, and the expression of distress on her face as she looked at the camera had something of the same helplessness they were all feeling, watching this--
"We're getting signals from more XSE beacons in the area," Corben's voice said. "Should we proceed there?"
"Affirmative," Bishop said, his voice sounding not quite as firm as before.
The camera kept 'rolling'. The image in the tank kept changing as the team progressed, but what they found didn't.
Dead. They were all dead.
The city was dead.
"What could do this?" Kitty murmured faintly, her words echoing in the stunned silence of the CIC.
***
Denver
2:12 PM
He couldn't get away from it--the screaming, the burning. It was all there was. The rest of what he knew, what he had been was gone. There was no room for anything else except the pain.
If there had only been somewhere to hide, some shelter--but there wasn't. The silver-blue protecting wings that had shielded him from the first explosion of pain and fear were gone, scorched from existence by the shockwave so that not even their shadow remained. Until not even the illusion of comfort was left.
He couldn't feel her anymore. She was lost in the fire somewhere. If there'd been any part of him capable of it, he would have wept and cursed and run through the fire until he found her, until he could touch her, could feel her in his mind again in the place where she belonged, the place she'd always been.
But he couldn't. The fire was trapping him, crushing him even as it turned him into ash. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide--
Harry Wisdom stood at the edge of death, unaware that all that held him back from the abyss was a single, silver-blue thread tangled around his soul, holding fast and strong with a light that even the fires of death couldn't overcome.
to be continued...
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