She Who Sees Through Darkness

Part Twenty-Four

The next morning at breakfast, Katrina walked past Vasilyev's table. She greeted him, passed him a note, and asked if she could schedule an appointment later. The note ordered him to use his credentials to log into Wyvernhall's computer network and deactivate the radio chips located in her and Payaa. The note also ordered him to go to her suite at midnight, where he'd find the flash drive and, with it, access to Shawn's explanation. Neither she nor Shawn had wanted to risk blowing her cover by explaining the truth before she left. Extractions could be the most dangerous part of any field operation.

The scientists spent the early morning watching her and Kyle exercise. After a round of weights and running on the track, Dr. Harper escorted them both to one of the engineering labs, buried deep in the mountain. There, they watched as an eager young man held up fabric as grey as a wyvern, embroidered in a pattern of scales.

"It's thermalnealing fabric, like the rest of us wear around here. Nano-engineered not to let any heat escape your body. The pores are like tiny mirrors that reflect energy back on your skin."

"I've used it," Katrina said. "The black cloth. It's amazing. Why change it?"

"Everyone here has the black version. Dr. Harper thought you might like to have a uniform."

Katrina met her eyes. Dr. Harper shrugged. "I've already begun looking for the next recruits. Payaa's oldest are mature enough to be bound. We can expand quickly, now that we know the procedure works."

Both Katrina and Payaa heard her, but Katrina was more disturbed. Payaa had always expected this. The wyverns been made with a purpose in mind, and fighting Dr. Harper's will never did one any good. At least my children have fifty percent odds of having a decent pilot, Payaa thought.

"They're three years old," Katrina said, using information gleamed from Payaa's mind. "They're teenagers, mentally. Forcing this kind of thing onto a teenager—"

"Would you rather I do it in infancy? So they know no other life? So their pilot can tell them 'this is the way things are supposed to be' and they know no different? Unpleasant it may be, but we need pilots. In my experience, the most unpleasant things in life are foisted on the young."

"Your only experience is being young," Katrina pointed out. Dr. Harper was four years her junior.

Her eyes seethed. "You're very good at talking when nothing's at stake, Ms. Harris." That look promised storms. Again, Katrina ran through her memory, asking herself what had passed between them the first time they'd met. It could be a bluff. She could be toying with me. Maybe that was what you were supposed to expect from a genius. But for all the intelligence Dr. Harper certainly possessed, Katrina didn't think she had the subtlety to weave an act like that. No. I hurt this person, somehow, and now I'm in her power.

Quickfingers must have caught the tension between them. "Hey, look! They've got the weapons out!"

The young engineer opened a case. "We're calling this the butterfly spike."

"That's a spear," Katrina said. A black metal shaft five foot long lay inside, topped with a dull-pointed head and two pairs of sharpened curved guards jutting out from the sides just beneath the head. "Not even a fairly sharp spear. The tip's supposed to be pointed."

"We based them off whaling harpoons. Meant to bring down something much bigger than a person." The engineer lifted it. "We developed a new alloy two years ago that changes temperature very rapidly. Stand back, please." He flipped the switch on the base. The dull tip glowed red-hot. Katrina stepped backwards. Quickfingers muttered in appreciation. "Eight hundred degrees Celsius. Passes through flesh, wood, plastic, some metals . . ." He flipped the switch again. The glowing stopped. "Cools rapidly as well. The batteries are in the shaft. An hour's charge gets you about fifteen seconds of heat, and you can keep them on for almost a minute total before they shut down. We're constructing a projectile version that can be used as part of an anti-aircraft system, but thought you might like to have a few of these around . . ."