"Yes." The boy's eyes sparkled, suddenly more blue than gray. "She's making me cookies for kindergarten."
Dev couldn't quite reconcile the idea of Psy scientist Ashaya Aleine as a mother who made her little boy cookies at six fifteen in the morning. "Shouldn't you still be asleep?"
Before the boy could reply, a frowning female face filled the screen. "Who are you talking - " Her gaze fell on him. "Yes?"
"My name is Devraj Santos."
Picking up her son, Ashaya hitched him over her hip. The boy immediately snuggled his head onto her shoulder, one little hand spread on the pale blue of her shirt. Intelligent eyes watched Dev with undisguised interest.
"The Shine Foundation," Ashaya said, adjusting the collar of her son's pajama top with the absent movements of a mother used to doing such things.
"Yes."
"Talin's spoken about you." She tucked back a strand of curly black hair that had escaped her braid. "What can I do for you?"
Dev's eyes flicked to her son. Taking the hint, Ashaya kissed the boy on the cheek and smiled. "Keenan, you want to cut out some cookies while I talk to Mr. Santos?"
An enthusiastic nod. Mother and child disappeared from the screen for a minute, and as he waited, Dev found himself wondering if he'd ever hold a child of his own in his arms. The likelihood was very low - even had he trusted his genetic inheritance, he'd done too much, seen too much. There was no softness left in him.
Ashaya's face returned to the screen, her eyes filled with the remnants of laughter. "We'll have to be quick - Keenan's very good, but he's still a four-year-old alone with cookie dough."
Knowing he was about to wipe that shimmering joy from her eyes, he didn't try to soften the blow, didn't try to sugar-coat the implications. "I need you to see if you can identify someone." Then he told her about the woman he'd found dumped outside his apartment door.
Ashaya's face went pale under that dusky skin. "Do you think - "
"It could be nothing," he interrupted. "But it's a possibility I have to check out."
"Of course." Her throat moved as she swallowed. "If the Council knows about the unique abilities being manifested in the children of the Forgotten, there's a chance they'll begin to try to experiment on those children once again." A pause. "I think Ming would kill them if he couldn't use them."
Dev's jaw tightened. That was exactly what worried him - the Council would never countenance the idea of another group with access to psychic powers - much less the increasingly strong ones being manifested in some of his people. "Is this line secure?"
"Yes."
He sent through a photograph. "She may not look like she used to."
Nodding, Ashaya took a deep breath and opened the attachment. He knew the instant she recognized the woman in the photo. Crushing relief, anger, and pain - it all swept over her face in a violent wave. "Dear God." Her fingers covered her mouth. "Ekaterina. It's Ekaterina."
Chapter 3
The Psy Council met in their usual location - a mental vault deep within the PsyNet, the psychic network that connected every Psy on the planet but for the renegades. An endless vista of black, each Psy mind represented by a single white star, the Net had a stark kind of beauty. But of course, those within the Net no longer understood beauty.
Like their Council, they understood only logic, practicality, economics.
Shut inside the solid black walls of the vault, Nikita looked to Ming. "You had something to discuss?"
"Yes." The other Councilor's mind was a blade, precise, ice-cold. "I've been able to retrieve some of the data Ashaya Aleine obfuscated before her defection."
"Excellent." Shoshanna Scott's mental voice was as coolly elegant as she was in person. That was why she was one of the two public faces of the Council. Her "husband," Henry, their relationship a front to pacify the human and changeling media, was the other half. Though, Nikita thought, the two hadn't been working as a cohesive unit these past months.
"Anything we can use?" Shoshanna again.
"Possibly." Ming paused. "I'm uploading it now."
Streams of data scrolled down the black walls, a silver waterfall comprehensible to only the most powerful Psy minds. Nikita absorbed the information, scanned through the salient points. "This concerns the Forgotten."
"It appears," Ming said, "that their most recent descendants are being born with abilities unseen in the Net."
"That's hardly surprising." Kaleb's smooth voice.