Mine to Possess

CHAPTER 26

The first day Ashaya came up from the underground lab and into the light, she was stopped as she exited the elevator hidden within the old farmhouse.

“Ma’am, you don’t have the authorization to be outside.” The security officer wore the standard black uniform of Security but with Ming’s emblem on one shoulder—two snakes locked in combat.

“No,” she agreed. “But, on the other hand, unless I attempt an escape, you have no authority to take any action against my person. I need to think and I do it better outside.”

“Surveillance—”

“—has been blocked from the sky, all but our own satellites nudged in other directions. And there is no one out here to see me.” Just corn, endless rows of spring-green corn. “You can accompany me.”

A military nod. “After you.”

She was under no illusion that she’d won the battle. He was simply buying time while telepathing Ming for further instructions. The expected mental touch came mere seconds after she stepped onto the deceptively decrepit-looking porch.

Councilor, she said.

Ashaya, you’re disobeying a direct order. Ming’s mental voice came through with crystal clarity. Either he was still in the country or his telepathic powers were stronger than she’d previously believed.

You should have known the rules would never hold. She walked down the steps and into the rows of corn, conscious of the guard shadowing her every move. I have a psychological flaw that has never been subject to rehabilitation. Because she was too valuable an asset to chance to the sometimes fatal side effects. However, that shield wouldn’t last forever.

Your tendency toward claustrophobia was taken into account when designing the lab. It’s wide open.

And underground. She had been buried underground once. It had left a permanent mark. The flaw is not debilitating in any sense, she said, knowing she had to be careful, but it does make clear thinking difficult after an extended period of time below.

Then it’s our design that is flawed, he accepted with cool Psy logic. The psych consult was of the opinion that your abilities would remain unaffected by the location given the layout and your mental strength.

The consult was correct—my abilities have not been adversely affected. Conceding weakness would get her killed. It’s more a case of efficiency. All I need is an hour or two upside on a regular basis to maintain peak productivity.

Ming paused as if thinking. There’s no security risk. I’ll allow it.

Thank you. I would also prefer that the guard not follow me. His presence is distracting. I do a considerable amount of my work in my head. That much was true and would be borne out by the records Ming was undoubtedly accessing as they talked.

Another small pause. Agreed. We have the whole area secured.

The most subtle of threats. Excellent.

Be careful, Ashaya. So much hinges on your work.

It was a hidden reference to Keenan. But it wasn’t an emotional threat—nothing so easy as that. Maternal love was for humans and changelings. Other things drove Ashaya. Ming knew that far too well.

But she was outside now. One minute step at a time. She was an M-Psy with the capacity to sequence DNA inside her mind. Patience was her strong suit.

Deep in the PsyNet, the psychic network that connected millions of Psy across the globe, the Ghost came across a piece of information that made little sense—whispers about the kidnapping of human children. Nothing said in the PsyNet ever left it, but the fact that this whisper hadn’t yet fragmented and begun to be absorbed into the fabric of the Net meant it was recent. That knowledge gave him pause.

He was a renegade, determined to oust the Psy Council from power and free his people from a Silence that was false. He had killed in the name of that freedom, would do so many more times before this was all over. But he was still Psy. He felt nothing, not love, not care, not hate. Nothing.

So when he considered this unexpected speck of data, it was with the ice-cold mind of a man reared on logic and reason alone. Touch was something he barely understood, affection nothing he had ever known. In the end, it was the very lack of reason in what he’d found that decided him.

He filed away the discovery, to be passed on to the sole human he trusted. Father Xavier Perez might be a man of God, but he was also a soldier. And for reasons of his own, he was the Ghost’s ally in the fight to stop Ashaya Aleine and the Council from bringing Protocol I into force.

Decision made, the Ghost banished the kidnappings from his mind, his focus on something far bigger, something that had the potential to disrupt the entire PsyNet—the assassination of a Councilor.