Omega The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,83

from Ariadne, to me and all of M-Squad:

Assemble at dormitory. Protect the students at all costs.

“We’re not going to attack the dormitory...yet,” Janus said, catching my eye as I jerked my head up. “I’m an empath, of sorts. I can’t read your mind, exactly, but I get the gist of your emotions, and I know where everyone is. They’re safe, for now.”

“For now?” I asked, and felt the gnawing sense of fear start to eat away at my confidence.

“Don’t worry,” he said, and I thought he might be trying to sound reassuring, “they’ll be given plenty of opportunity to get out before we destroy the building. If they choose to stay, well, that’s on them, not me, but...they’ll be warned. You can even tell them yourself, if you’d like, once we’re done talking.”

“You don’t think I’ll be going with you?” I looked at his face over the sights of my gun, wondering if I was doing myself any favors by not pulling the trigger.

“No, of course not,” he said with a shake of his head, as though it were the most obvious of truths. “Getting you to come with me today was never the purpose of Operation Stanchion.”

“That’s not what Bjorn said.”

“Bjorn is a young bull, charging into everything.” Janus bent his head low, as though miming the action of a bull, scuffing his shoe against the tile floor. “He was an excellent distraction for you.”

“And Madigan?” I asked, nodding to the room where I had last seen her, up to her ankles in a wading pool. “Was she a distraction, too?”

Janus chortled. “Well, let us put it this way...it would seem that you and your fellows have a taste for herring—in red, at least.”

“Wild goose chases?” I asked. “You’ve been sending me to...what, Iowa? To Bloomington to fight your people? Why? Because they needed their asses kicked and you’re too old to do it yourself?”

“Certainly a little humility is good for the soul,” he said, with a smile, “but no, I wasn’t trying to keep you off balance for that reason. It’s a much simpler one. While you were chasing the three metas I dangled in front of your nose to keep you busy, you weren’t noticing the fifty I snuck into the country through alternative means.” He waved a hand around him. “And now they are all here.”

The chill covered me from his words. Fifty metas could level the Directorate campus to the ground. What little army the Directorate had left had zero chance against fifty metas, even if their only power was their super strength, speed, reflexes... “And what are you going to do with your fifty metas?”

Janus smiled again, this one less patronizing, and it faded just as quickly as it came. “I’m going to do exactly what you think I’m going to do with them.

“I’m going to destroy the Directorate. Permanently.”

24.

“You said you weren’t going to kill anyone.” I felt a quiver run through me and down the gunbarrel. I looked over it at Janus, calm, cool, composed, and watched him smile again.

“I’m not going to kill anyone, nor allow anyone to intentionally come to harm, not today,” Janus said, cupping his hands one over the other. “I don’t need to. Destroying the Directorate isn’t a matter of killing someone, or everyone. I’m going to destroy your campus—just as I’m destroying every other Directorate campus in North America, even as we speak—and I’m going to leave your people with a warning that the next time you cross Omega, then,” he said, and the smile vanished, leaving me cold, “then I will begin the killing.”

“And you made such a point of differentiating yourself from the people who sent Wolfe, and Henderschott, and Fries,” I looked at him with a kind of feigned disappointment. “You’re not any different.”

“Oh, but I am,” he said, and the smile returned. “I don’t like killing. But that doesn’t mean I hesitate to employ it when necessary. The company you keep has thwarted us on several occasions—our Primus would, of course, like you to come with me, but he’s been convinced now of the importance of gaining your cooperation, making you understand your importance, your place in things to come. I’m not threatening you. I come to you openhanded—delivering a message by destroying your organization, true, but not out of malice for you, rather for what your organization has done.” His face darkened. “You have no idea what damage you’ve allowed by letting Andromeda escape, by getting her killed. The new guard