much to enter their network.
The current forecast was Net failure in twelve months, max.
Kaleb would survive. So would Sahara. He was strong enough to slice them out of the PsyNet with enough other minds to create a stable standalone network held together by his sheer power. The only reason he hadn’t already done so was that Sahara expected him to be a good man and fight to save the rest of their people.
So he would. For her. Only for her.
If the world dared take her from him again, he’d annihilate it without hesitation.
Today, however, he had to deal with a different issue. “I’m getting the sense of another significant power in the PsyNet.” His mind had brushed up against the wake left by that power at least twice now. “The problem is that both the DarkMind and NetMind are losing coherence.” The twin neosentience was the “brain” of the Net, and as the PsyNet failed, so did it. “It’s why I don’t already have more information on this individual.”
Sahara reached up to straighten his shirt collar, which he knew was perfectly straight. But he bent his neck so she could reach. “When you say significant power, do you mean an emergent Psy? A child who was stifled by Silence?”
“No, the energy I’ve detected is adult. Strong and aggressive, not an awakening empath or a gifted child.” What Kaleb needed to know was if they were friend or foe and if they had the power under control. “The PsyNet can’t handle rogue power. Not now.” It could collapse in critical sections, cutting the biofeedback link to tens of thousands of minds.
Those Psy would crumple where they stood, death smashing into them in a wave of agony as their minds gasped for a link that simply wasn’t there anymore.
Chapter 6
SnowDancer Wolves: Tough, territorial, and perennial favorites for our “Scary but Sexy” column. DO NOT ENTER THEIR TERRITORY WITHOUT INVITATION OR YOU WILL END UP FERTILIZER. Ahem, where were we?
—From the “Pack Cheat Guide” in the March 2082 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”
THE BIG GOLDEN wolf who kept growling at Memory while pushing food in her direction was a young god, his bone structure clean and symmetrical, his skin holding that sunshine color that said he was a creature of the light. Though his hair was damp right now, she knew it would shine like strands of pure gold when dry.
He was beautiful.
That didn’t mean much to Memory. The man who’d clawed into her mind and kept her prisoner for fifteen years was beautiful, too. In the times when he took her outside and into the world, she’d met others like him—people with symmetrical faces and pristine skin, their clothes without a wrinkle and their hair flawless.
She’d learned long ago that beautiful people could be evil as easily as anyone else. She’d felt the cold wind of their presence in her bones, her stomach revolting against the nightmares they carried within. Nightmares meant for others. Blood and death meant for others.
Beauty meant nothing to Memory.
She’d followed the bad-tempered wolf with powerful shoulders not because he was beautiful but because he didn’t have the voracious black hole of nothingness inside him. No cold wind chilled her in his presence. No abyss howled open at her feet at his touch.
The wolf carried with him an essence far more primal.
She’d run across other changelings during her time as a prisoner who couldn’t scream for help, and caught a hint of the wildness under the skin that meant she’d never mistake a changeling for human, as her captor often did—but never had she sensed anything this potent. An untamed energy barely contained, a presence that filled the room and was a pulse against her skin.
Her rescuer was no ordinary wolf.
When he rose from the table to grab them bottles of water, it was with a prowling confidence—as if he was a wolf in human form. She’d known what he was before he told her. She’d watched shows about the outside world during the times her captor had buried her underground, and one of her favorites had been the channel that broadcast documentaries about nature.
After her captor let it drop that her prison was in the Sierra Nevada mountains, she’d watched and rewatched the episode about the wild wolves who lived in this region. She’d dreamed of being that strong, that ruthless. But mostly, she’d dreamed about being part of a pack that would fight for her as she’d fight for them.