Dark Matters - Michelle Diener Page 0,82

was silence and an icy hand of fear gripped the back of Lucy's neck because although she couldn't see his face, she recognized the voice. Silius. The Tecran officer Bane had shown her and Dray footage of, inciting the riots. Her old guard from the facility.

“You think it's definitely the thinking system?” One of the men asked.

“The United Council only just arrived. Who else knows our systems and can surf the handheld lenses like that?” Silius shifted. “We know it traveled with them. And whatever it fooled the politicians into thinking, it's not outside the solar system. We know how we used it in the past. It knows all the tricks because we taught it.”

“You're right.” Fai blew out a breath. “What do we do?”

“They better start praying to Karn,” Bane said in her ear, tone grim. “Because they'll wish they'd never taught me anything when I'm done with them.”

His words centered her. Calmed her.

“Can you twist your body to give the lens a different angle? I might be able to work out where you are.” Bane whispered in Lucy's ear. “I wasn't able to follow you much after the other two joined the group.”

She slowly lowered herself down even further on her elbows, then tipped back, trying to get a sense of the height of the room, and anything over the heads and shoulders of the soldiers who surrounded her.

“It's too dark.” Bane's voice was tight. “But I'm projecting this in the square, mainly for the audio. So everyone understands there are bad actors among them.”

Lucy wondered if one of the soldiers would say where they were. That would cause a stampede of people to haul them out.

“How did you find her?” Silius asked the team.

“It was chance. We were assigned to the street into the square from the south, and we saw the Grih. We guessed she was the person with him, even though she was in a cloak. We followed them in and Gitma attacked the Grih to distract him, and we got her.”

“Good work.”

“Dray is searching for you, but the crowd is impossible to get through,” Bane whispered. “I've persuaded him to go into military headquarters and get some help from Ambassador Dimitara and his other colleagues. It will be easier to search for you as a coordinated effort. He was wasting time trying on his own.”

She wanted to ask him if Dray was all right. If the attacker had harmed him, but Bane was talking as if he was fine, and she had to hope that was true.

Leaving the square without her would have been hard for Dray. It would have killed her if the situation had been reversed. But Bane was right. The only way he'd find her was with help.

And she had Bane looking for her right now. She would find a way out of this.

“Lucy?” Dray's voice sounded as if it came from right beside her, and she flinched, frightened for a moment they had him, too.

Then she realized Bane must have patched him through.

“Bane says you can't answer. If you can move your hands, block the lens with your finger to let me know you can hear us.”

She looked up. Silius was talking to the others about operations, and she should be listening to them, but she couldn't concentrate on what they were saying with Dray in her ear. She lifted her hand and tapped the tiny lens embedded between her breasts.

She heard Dray breathe out in relief.

“Are you near the square?” he asked.

She pretended to rub her temples with her hands, and then, when she lowered them, slid a finger over the lens again.

“Why're you so compliant?” Silius suddenly crouched beside her, his face suspicious. Of course, she'd never been compliant for him in the facility. “Have you checked her for trackers or an earpiece?”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“When would we have had time?” Fai asked, outraged. “Have you checked her?”

“That answers the question, anyway. We can't stay here. They probably know exactly where we are.” Silius dug out a slim flashlight and pointed it in her ear. “Oh, yes. That thinking system is behind this. I've seen earpieces like this before.”

Lucy gritted her teeth as he dug the earpiece out, dropped it on the ground and crushed it with the butt of his shockgun.

“She'll have a lens, as well. So smile everyone. He's probably projecting this right now.”

They all lifted their face coverings back over their mouths and noses, but they must have known they were too