Shards of Hope

Chapter 79

THE ARCHITECT OF the Consortium, the brain that had seen the direction of the world and laid a plan B in place just in case, looked at the images flowing across the comm screen and knew the group had failed in its first major action.

Abducting and controlling the water-based changelings had been easy because of the creatures’ habit of roaming far distances alone or in pairs. The Consortium had also made certain not to target the strong—they had needed malleable puppets, not those who might break free of the drugs and other methods of control.

They still had a number in reserve, so that had been a success at least.

However, the water changelings had been but a single small stone on the Consortium’s path to unrivaled power. They had created myriad small networks, situated pawns they could move about as they wished, held their hand until the fall of Silence sent a shock wave across the world.

A year of hard work while the architect of it all played both sides of the line, building the Consortium on one side while maintaining an “ordinary” life on the other. Unlike the others in the Consortium, the architect hadn’t decided which side to support until the final instant. As it was, plan B was now plan A.

From the first recruit, the architect had researched and targeted pragmatic and cold-blooded businesspeople across the racial spectrum. Everyone in the group had learned from watching the rise and fall of Pure Psy. There was no room for fanaticism in business or in power. Only the strongest and the smartest survived. Ego had to be left at the door, all of them meeting on a level playing field.

The architect didn’t actually believe the founding partners were all equal, but that ideology served the purpose of the Consortium at this time.

Each had supported the business interests of the other partners. Of course, the architect acted as the intermediary who made certain nothing revealed the identity of any one party to another, all the while ensuring money flowed in the right direction. Where possible, the Consortium had created problems for those who were financial or business threats, or had nudged bad feelings to grow between normally friendly competitors.

But money, while enough to satisfy those on the lower rungs of the Consortium, wasn’t enough for the upper. Their aim was to build a new world order, one in which the most ruthless and intelligent of all three races would wield power behind the scenes, working as one, while below them, the triumvirate remained splintered.

Stability might be good for the world, but it wasn’t good for their interests.

Kaleb Krychek and the Arrows were two of the most solid beams holding that shaky stability in place and giving it time to become stronger. Krychek was a difficult target and one the Consortium had set aside in favor of focusing on the squad. To have excised the Arrows from the equation, whether through an assassination or by making the squad appear weak, had been their first major goal.

The result was a resounding failure that had turned Aden Kai into a demigod and elevated the near-mythic status of the squad. The news channels were currently obsessively playing the images filmed by eyewitnesses who’d seen the female Arrow take down the Consortium shooter.

What made the news media voracious in their interest, an interest shared by the public at large, Psy and non-Psy alike, was that the Arrow was petite by the standards of any of the three races. That petite woman had decisively beaten a man twice her size without sustaining a single injury. She’d also been pitiless in her treatment of the male, who had unfortunately known enough to have revealed the Consortium’s existence and pointed the squad to one of the founders.

The image of Zaira Neve, her face cool, holding the tip of the blade to the shooter’s eyeball, was being shown over and over. No one was horrified by her actions. Or if they were, the horror was mingled with equal amounts of awe. The Arrows hadn’t only retained their position as the bogeymen you never wanted on your trail, they had become heroes who protected innocent bystanders.

“We have to pull the plug,” the architect said to the Consortium’s top tier. “We overreached by attempting to take out the Arrow leader.” They should’ve focused on Nikita Duncan. Now even she was forewarned. “You’ll notice one less member at this meeting. He was captured by the squad last night.”

A murmur of consternation. “He won’t be able to identify us?” one of the others asked.

“No. It’s why we’ve always taken precautions veiling our identities from one another.”

“Except you,” another member pointed out. “If you get captured, we’re all dead.”

“I won’t be taken. I haven’t survived as long as I have by being unintelligent. We’re all safe.”

Regardless of the assurance, every individual at the meeting knew that in going after the squad, they had painted targets on their backs.

It was a risk the twelve people in attendance—and the missing member—had recognized right at the start, but back then, the Consortium had believed they had the pieces in place to initiate a total shadow coup. Aden Kai was meant to have died on that mountain after he was interrogated, his body to be dumped in a public location that made it clear the Arrows couldn’t even protect their own, much less anyone else.

No one had expected the “field medic” to be a power, or for his female partner to survive her wounds. Now . . . “We need to go under for a small period as far as the wider world is concerned,” the architect reiterated, careful not to couch it as an order. The perception of equality was what held the Consortium together.

Agreement from all sides.

“The Consortium will rise again,” the architect said. “While the three races live in their separate worlds, we have created a group that takes advantage of all our different strengths and weaknesses. We will own the world.”

“We will own the world!” repeated the others, the sound thundering around the room.