Silver Silence
Page 36
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Switching off the feed, the Architect turned their mind to their own business interests. The Consortium had nothing to do with the badly planned Moscow attack and, as such, the bombing needed none of the Architect’s attention.
As for Silver Mercant . . . perhaps it was time to get an update on that operation. A shame to eliminate someone of her abilities, but she’d chosen her fate when she accepted the directorship of EmNet.
If the Architect had believed she could be turned, an approach would’ve been made. However, while the Architect had rethought the invitation to Ena Mercant after deciding the woman was too intelligent and might prove a threat to the Architect’s role as the puppet master of this operation, the reason for not approaching her granddaughter was far different: Silver Mercant appeared to be taking the “equal treatment of all parties” aspect of her job seriously.
Unfortunate.
Chapter 18
Trust to a Mercant is a complicated thing. It usually requires years of acquaintance, several background checks, and a probationary period.
—Ena Mercant (circa 2074)
DAWN WAS A bare two hours distant when Silver made the call no one in her position ever wanted to make: The rescue effort was now a recovery operation. No survivors had been discovered over the past two hours, and the rescuers all agreed on a lack of signs of life: Psy with their telepathic scans, changelings with their peerless sense of smell and acute hearing, and humans with a high-tech imaging scanner that had been brought to the site by a local geology professor.
“No heat signatures,” the black-haired woman with dark brown skin and softly uptilted eyes had said to Silver, lines of exhaustion bracketing her mouth as she stood with her back to the wreckage of the bar.
Valentin, his body and hair covered with dust and his mouth set in a grimmer line than she’d ever seen it, had just shaken his head. He’d found the final survivor, a young man he’d carried out of the rubble in his own arms after the teleporters had been called away to take three severely wounded survivors directly to the trauma ward. The doctors had asked them to stay and lift the wounded using telekinesis so that the victims’ crushed bodies could be examined without causing those bodies any further harm.
No one had found anything since then.
Bathed in the hard white glow of the powerful lights Silver had organized early into the rescue effort, the ruins of the bar appeared a spotlit tomb.
While Valentin and the others began to do what they could to help retrieve the bodies, Silver sat and collated the numbers. She already knew them, of course. “Seventy-five-percent fatality rate,” she said to the head of the on-site medical team, the man who’d triaged the victims. “Another ten percent are so badly injured that their chances of survival are low to negligible.”
The doctor, his face stark, sat on the tailgate of an ambulance and stared out at the destruction. “I guess we got lucky there wasn’t a secondary explosive.”
“Yes.” The changelings had reported no signs of any suspicious scents, and the Arrows had done a sweep for covert devices and unearthed nothing. “You should stand down your team.”
The doctor glanced toward the exhausted group. They sat in silence in the cordoned-off part of the dusty street, their heads hanging. “It’s hard, being a healer and not being able to do anything.” With those quiet words, the human male left to pick up the pieces of his devastated team.
Silver, her own legs shaky from fatigue, nonetheless made time to personally speak to all the other team leaders, bar one. Valentin, she saved for last. As the most senior changeling, he’d taken charge of the other changeling responders—no one had disagreed with his leadership, partisan lines laid aside in this time of emergency.
She found him with Kaleb.
He greeted her with a scowl. “You planning to face-plant?” he asked in a low rumbling tone, his eyes suddenly ringed with amber.
“I wasn’t planning to, no,” Silver said coolly, though her entire body was warning her it had reached critical. “The recovery teams are en route, will be here in three minutes.” She’d put them on standby an hour earlier. “I’ve cut all the rescuers loose—the retrieval teams have the right equipment to safely clear the debris and recover the bodies and body parts still trapped in the blast zone.”
Valentin’s expression didn’t ice over at her cold recitation as changeling and human eyes so often did when she spoke. They thought that because she could be so calm, the loss of life meant nothing to her. Silver had never bothered to tell people that just because she didn’t feel didn’t mean that blood and death skated past her without impact.
So much potential had been lost this night, the vast majority of those inside the bar, people just starting out in their adult lives. That most of them had been human didn’t change anything . . . or perhaps that made it even more of a tragedy. Statistically, humans tended to be at the forefront of cutting-edge technological and artistic advances—though under Silence, the Psy Council had often stolen their tech work.
The human ability to think outside the box was why the business arm of Mercant Corp. employed a significant number in its science and tech enterprises. Hiring good people and paying them well—and also protecting their minds with their own telepathic shields—was far more efficient than forcibly stealing ideas.
“Silver,” Kaleb said, his tone as impossible to read as always. “Valentin is right. You’ll set back your recovery by days if you keep pushing yourself.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“You’re finished here then?” Valentin angled his body slightly toward her, as if to break a fall he saw coming.
“Almost. I need to complete the handover to the recovery commander when he arrives. The Arrows have agreed to provide security during the recovery process, in conjunction with a team of BlackEdge soldiers Alpha Durev is sending in.”
Valentin’s face held the harsh echo of sadness, his alpha heart feeling too much, but his lips kicked up a fraction. “So we two idioti should shut the hell up and stop telling you what to do?”
“I knew the dust hadn’t fogged up your brain.” Silver walked away to the sight of his eyes burning a wild changeling amber.
• • •
VALENTIN opened the passenger door to his vehicle, having driven it closer now that the area was horrifically quiet, somber with resignation and the shadow of death. Silver got in, would’ve slipped if he hadn’t caught her arm, given her a boost. She didn’t say anything until after he’d gotten into the driver’s seat and begun to back the vehicle in preparation for a turn.
“Spasibo.”
Valentin wanted to grumble at her for letting herself get to this state, but Starlight had made her point earlier—Valentin wasn’t about to lose her by being a rampaging bear, all wild emotion and no sense. Even if he wanted to yell at her, then cuddle her close, hold her safe.
Gritting his teeth, he found some human words. “What do you need once we’re home? I’ll tag Nova, have her on standby.”
“I just need to rest. No medications, no other treatments.”
“You eat at the site?”
“No, but I’m not sure I have the strength to chew right now.”
Bear half-mad by now, Valentin made a call, asked Chaos to prepare a nutritious soup. “No need to chew,” he said to Silver afterward.
As for Silver Mercant . . . perhaps it was time to get an update on that operation. A shame to eliminate someone of her abilities, but she’d chosen her fate when she accepted the directorship of EmNet.
If the Architect had believed she could be turned, an approach would’ve been made. However, while the Architect had rethought the invitation to Ena Mercant after deciding the woman was too intelligent and might prove a threat to the Architect’s role as the puppet master of this operation, the reason for not approaching her granddaughter was far different: Silver Mercant appeared to be taking the “equal treatment of all parties” aspect of her job seriously.
Unfortunate.
Chapter 18
Trust to a Mercant is a complicated thing. It usually requires years of acquaintance, several background checks, and a probationary period.
—Ena Mercant (circa 2074)
DAWN WAS A bare two hours distant when Silver made the call no one in her position ever wanted to make: The rescue effort was now a recovery operation. No survivors had been discovered over the past two hours, and the rescuers all agreed on a lack of signs of life: Psy with their telepathic scans, changelings with their peerless sense of smell and acute hearing, and humans with a high-tech imaging scanner that had been brought to the site by a local geology professor.
“No heat signatures,” the black-haired woman with dark brown skin and softly uptilted eyes had said to Silver, lines of exhaustion bracketing her mouth as she stood with her back to the wreckage of the bar.
Valentin, his body and hair covered with dust and his mouth set in a grimmer line than she’d ever seen it, had just shaken his head. He’d found the final survivor, a young man he’d carried out of the rubble in his own arms after the teleporters had been called away to take three severely wounded survivors directly to the trauma ward. The doctors had asked them to stay and lift the wounded using telekinesis so that the victims’ crushed bodies could be examined without causing those bodies any further harm.
No one had found anything since then.
Bathed in the hard white glow of the powerful lights Silver had organized early into the rescue effort, the ruins of the bar appeared a spotlit tomb.
While Valentin and the others began to do what they could to help retrieve the bodies, Silver sat and collated the numbers. She already knew them, of course. “Seventy-five-percent fatality rate,” she said to the head of the on-site medical team, the man who’d triaged the victims. “Another ten percent are so badly injured that their chances of survival are low to negligible.”
The doctor, his face stark, sat on the tailgate of an ambulance and stared out at the destruction. “I guess we got lucky there wasn’t a secondary explosive.”
“Yes.” The changelings had reported no signs of any suspicious scents, and the Arrows had done a sweep for covert devices and unearthed nothing. “You should stand down your team.”
The doctor glanced toward the exhausted group. They sat in silence in the cordoned-off part of the dusty street, their heads hanging. “It’s hard, being a healer and not being able to do anything.” With those quiet words, the human male left to pick up the pieces of his devastated team.
Silver, her own legs shaky from fatigue, nonetheless made time to personally speak to all the other team leaders, bar one. Valentin, she saved for last. As the most senior changeling, he’d taken charge of the other changeling responders—no one had disagreed with his leadership, partisan lines laid aside in this time of emergency.
She found him with Kaleb.
He greeted her with a scowl. “You planning to face-plant?” he asked in a low rumbling tone, his eyes suddenly ringed with amber.
“I wasn’t planning to, no,” Silver said coolly, though her entire body was warning her it had reached critical. “The recovery teams are en route, will be here in three minutes.” She’d put them on standby an hour earlier. “I’ve cut all the rescuers loose—the retrieval teams have the right equipment to safely clear the debris and recover the bodies and body parts still trapped in the blast zone.”
Valentin’s expression didn’t ice over at her cold recitation as changeling and human eyes so often did when she spoke. They thought that because she could be so calm, the loss of life meant nothing to her. Silver had never bothered to tell people that just because she didn’t feel didn’t mean that blood and death skated past her without impact.
So much potential had been lost this night, the vast majority of those inside the bar, people just starting out in their adult lives. That most of them had been human didn’t change anything . . . or perhaps that made it even more of a tragedy. Statistically, humans tended to be at the forefront of cutting-edge technological and artistic advances—though under Silence, the Psy Council had often stolen their tech work.
The human ability to think outside the box was why the business arm of Mercant Corp. employed a significant number in its science and tech enterprises. Hiring good people and paying them well—and also protecting their minds with their own telepathic shields—was far more efficient than forcibly stealing ideas.
“Silver,” Kaleb said, his tone as impossible to read as always. “Valentin is right. You’ll set back your recovery by days if you keep pushing yourself.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“You’re finished here then?” Valentin angled his body slightly toward her, as if to break a fall he saw coming.
“Almost. I need to complete the handover to the recovery commander when he arrives. The Arrows have agreed to provide security during the recovery process, in conjunction with a team of BlackEdge soldiers Alpha Durev is sending in.”
Valentin’s face held the harsh echo of sadness, his alpha heart feeling too much, but his lips kicked up a fraction. “So we two idioti should shut the hell up and stop telling you what to do?”
“I knew the dust hadn’t fogged up your brain.” Silver walked away to the sight of his eyes burning a wild changeling amber.
• • •
VALENTIN opened the passenger door to his vehicle, having driven it closer now that the area was horrifically quiet, somber with resignation and the shadow of death. Silver got in, would’ve slipped if he hadn’t caught her arm, given her a boost. She didn’t say anything until after he’d gotten into the driver’s seat and begun to back the vehicle in preparation for a turn.
“Spasibo.”
Valentin wanted to grumble at her for letting herself get to this state, but Starlight had made her point earlier—Valentin wasn’t about to lose her by being a rampaging bear, all wild emotion and no sense. Even if he wanted to yell at her, then cuddle her close, hold her safe.
Gritting his teeth, he found some human words. “What do you need once we’re home? I’ll tag Nova, have her on standby.”
“I just need to rest. No medications, no other treatments.”
“You eat at the site?”
“No, but I’m not sure I have the strength to chew right now.”
Bear half-mad by now, Valentin made a call, asked Chaos to prepare a nutritious soup. “No need to chew,” he said to Silver afterward.
