Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“What’s your current view of the situation?” he asked Payal.
“Complex. We’ve assigned a team of As to study the input and output of anchor energy from the island. At this point, the island is drawing more energy per capita than the rest of the PsyNet.”
Kaleb stared out at the gorge beyond his home on the physical plane, the drop sheer. Terrifying for most. But not a teleport-capable telekinetic. He’d added a safety railing nonetheless. Because this was Sahara’s home, a place of utmost safety. “The Scarabs?”
“Yes. In terms of percentages, the island houses significantly more Scarabs than the rest of the PsyNet. That volume of chaotic Scarab energy would equal an inherently unstable network without conscious remediation by my As.”
“Even with Ivan Mercant’s containment fields?”
“He can contain them on the Net level, but the Scarabs are jacked directly into the Substrate, just like you are. No way to stop their energy from feeding into the rivers of the Substrate. My As must clean it up before it takes deeper hold and frays another part of the network. It’s an exhausting process.”
Kaleb considered the gleaming perfection of a drop of water that hung from the railing . . . before falling to the deck to vanish into the thin film of water already present on the boards.
Gravity was a law of nature.
As was a Psy’s internal link to the psychic space that sustained the members of their race. To cut it would be to pass a sentence of death.
And the Scarabs are still us, Kaleb, said the echo of Sahara’s voice, the words ones she’d spoken to him as they lay in bed one night, her head on his bare shoulder and his hand fisted in the softness of her hair. We can’t just eject our broken. That would make us no better than the Council we replaced. Monsters on a quest for genetic perfection.
Kaleb had few scruples, his psyche damaged and brutalized too young. But Sahara was his world—and she had conscience enough for both of them. So he didn’t postulate a solution that would mean the hunting and erasure of all adult Scarabs in the network. It would take time, but it could be done. A silent and sweeping genocide. But it wasn’t going to be done, not under Kaleb’s watch.
Not under Sahara’s sky.
“Ivan Mercant is also unusual,” Payal added. “His psychic ability functions in a way none of us have ever before seen.”
“Most of us haven’t seen it now, either,” Kaleb muttered, bracing his hands on the wet railing on the physical plane.
“Ah, the man who knows everything doesn’t know this. It must be most aggravating.”
Had anyone told him a year ago that he’d one day be a source of amusement for the Rao Conglomerate’s grim-faced and robotic CEO, Kaleb would’ve ordered that individual to have a drug test. “Do the anchors see it then? Ivan’s power?”
“Not in the sense you mean. We are, however, aware of it in a visceral way impossible to explain to anyone but another anchor. He is exactly how his mate puts it: the heart of a system.”
Kaleb didn’t bother to ask for more personal information about Ivan that she might know as a result of her marriage into the Mercant family. One, Payal wouldn’t tell him. And two, he could speak to Ivan himself. Kaleb would never be one of Ena’s flock, but she’d accepted him into the inner circle of the family.
“What happens if the heart dies?” he asked, even as part of him grew dark at the thought of the devastation that would cause in Ena’s family. The Mercants weren’t like so many other families twisted by Silence. The Mercants would cut the throat of anyone who dared harm their own.
Their grief would be infinite.
“We don’t know,” Payal answered, “and Ivan is in the prime of his life. Let’s not borrow trouble when we already have so much.”
Kaleb saw the wisdom in that. “I haven’t found a way to cross to the island, and now that Ivan is anchored there, he can only cross back for short periods. His network reach is effectively limited to the island.”
“Yet, despite its overload of Scarabs, Ivan’s island is more stable than any other section of the PsyNet.”
“Yes.”
“Power versus stable ground,” murmured the woman who’d been raised by a man who valued power and had wielded it with an iron hand. “We need to do further research on the effect on Psy brains of a limited psychic ecosystem versus a wider one.”
“A sensible precaution, but we’re running out of time.” The Net was unraveling around them, an increasing number of sections too threadbare to navigate. “I do know of a very tight network—less than ten individuals—that survived for a solid period.” A familial network of defectors that happened to include one of Kaleb’s few friends in the world. “Even if all we gain is a year, it’ll be more time than we have now.”