Dark Omega

CHAPTER 20 - WATCHERS

Marcus knew he was being watched before he stepped out onto the Plaza of Loremasters. He wasn't the galaxy's most talented tarot reader, that much was true, but he was highly skilled at immediate precognition.

He halted in the shadows of the Pentacle's gilded portal arch. High above the words Timendi Causa Est Nescire—'The cause of fear is ignorance' in Common Dominion—was carved. Marcus knew a thing or two that he'd rather never have known. Sometimes knowledge is far more frightening than ignorance.

He stood there for a little while, hidden from view. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Marcus closed his eyes and reached out with his legate-given faculties—senses ordinary people lacked—overlaying a clairvoyance probe with a precognitive map of the most likely immediate futures.

The vastness of the Plaza, the monumental buildings, the majestic statues, and the bustling activity rushed into Marcus's mind, merging with something more complex and sublime to form a view, not only of the now but of how the place would look a few minutes into the future. Not one possible future, but all of them, branching infinitely until they became too much even for a legate's mind to keep track of.

The first team of watchers was revealed in an instant: two men and a woman, all wearing psy-warding gear. Like Cerberus Kwame's helmet, it was enough to keep a legate from probing their minds. The warding would not, however, prevent Marcus from reading their futures. So they know I'm a legate for all the good that it will do them. Getting into their heads would be nice, but I can do without.

They were watching the plaza from the third floor of the nearby Temple of Horus-Who-Is-Ra, an edifice of metal and stone as tall as the Second Pentacle was deep. The team had taken up a concealed position on an exterior walkway, hidden by maintenance scaffolding and the holo-projectors that hid this ugly blemish upon the temple's skin.

Selecting a future to his liking, Marcus counted to thirteen before stepping out into the plaza proper, just as a matte-black macro-hauler with security police markings slowly rumbled past, on its way to pick up rioters. He ducked in between its mammoth wheels and broke into a jog, staying low and well clear of the grasping rubber tires. Soon he had slipped past the first team of watchers. What good are spotters if they see nothing?

The second team was more elusive but could not avoid his precognitive abilities altogether. Marcus looked deeper into the future, straining to make sense of what he saw. There. Along one potential branch, he saw himself leave the police vehicle behind only to be seen by the next team. Two operatives, heavily augmented, were posing as menials, escaping Marcus's attention in the present. That's a new one. Most people wouldn't even consider pretending to be a cyborg—there were too many taboos associated with mankind's half-human-half-machine servants. The first of the sweeper teams, also serving as backup spotters. Standard procedure for a surveillance job.

Marcus reached out with his telepathic powers, shifting through nearby minds, looking for an advantage. He found one in the overseer in charge of the plaza's maintenance. Martha Eisen's job was a simple one: escort the chimaeras to the square, watch them as they spent all day keeping the place tidy and in working order, then escort them back to maintenance-storage. It was an unimportant, mind-numbingly tedious job, but it was a job and a full-time one at that. She was better off than the majority of commoners—and knew it. She was desperately afraid to screw up and get fired.

Marcus planted an idea in the overseer's mind, underlining its importance with a jolt of panic. Martha suddenly realized—wrongly—she was missing two units now that the shift's end was approaching. Marcus let the panic drain away as soon as she spotted her wayward charges. The woman couldn't recall having ever seen these two units, and her mind balked, but Marcus crushed her objections with a mental thrust, compelling her to act. So weak. How do they make it through life?