The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 41: Retribution

Katengaur smiled coldly as she noted the flight numbers of domestic flights coming in from Toronto. It wouldn't be long now. Soon that arrogant prick Mordecai would be within her grasp and without his monstrous powers to save him! Soon she'd have her revenge on the ultra-powerful hardwire that had stifled her every opportunity to move up through the lone gunmen ranks because he thought she was a loose cannon. Soon enough the so-called man in black would be dead at her hands!

The short, slender and intense German hardwire, sheathed as always in head to toe black, crossed her arms beneath her smallish breasts, her green eyes hard. With a shift of her head she swung them away from the big bank of monitors attached to the ceiling in the disembarkment lounge to point them out the window. There, taxiing in was the 727 that had carried Mordecai back from Toronto, just now approaching the terminal. It would be docked in a matter of minutes.

While Katengaur didn't know for sure if this was the plane that carried her nemesis, she had her small band of followers check each flight inbound for the man in black's characteristic aura. Hopefully either Sonja or Brillman would be returning shortly with the scan information she had requested, and the results she was anxious to hear.

As if summoned, the willowy Danish lone gunman stepped out of a short-range translocation portal almost right beside the boyish Katengaur, also sheathed in black. Her honey gold hair was twisted into a functional braid.

"Looks like we may have success on this one, Katengaur," Sonja reported softly, ignoring the curious looks of a number of Normals that had looked back to the monitors only to find the blonde hardwire standing where nothing had been standing before.

"While our scans didn't reveal Mordecai directly, we identified the two human police officers that he's been consorting with for the last few months being onboard. It stands a good chance that our missing man is with them, psionically invisible or not."

"I would agree." Katengaur smiled tightly. "Have Brillman and Coyote meet us at the arrival gate Mordecai's plane will be docking at. I want to make sure our elusive quarry has absolutely no where to go when we finally face him!"

Mordecai frowned as he stepped out of the loading ramp and into the space of the arrival lounge beyond, Dee and Duffy nearly right on his heels, Jeriko just behind them. It didn't take a hardwire to sense the charged atmosphere that was greeting them upon their arrival. Nor did it take a genius to realize who was charging that atmosphere.

All things considered, it was almost anticlimactic to spot the boyish figure of Katengaur, flanked as always by the Danish hardwire, Sonja, both dressed for battle in lone gunmen black. For her part, the German hardwire wore a smirk on her face, twisting her already hardened features even further with thinly disguised hatred. Hatred that would shortly be aimed in the man in black's direction!

"Well." Mordecai smiled thinly as he continued to step towards the pair of hardwires. "A welcoming committee! How thoughtful of you, Katengaur. Good to see you, of course. And you as well, Sonja. How's your brother?"

"Well enough, Mordecai," the blonde hardwire replied evenly, trying hard to sound as nonchalant as the big psionic walking towards them sounded. But, despite her best efforts Mordecai watched a ghost of doubt abruptly flicker across the Danish lone gunman's face. She had not expected Mordecai to even be on the flight that had just landed, little yet exuding the same confidence the man in black had been cloaked in when he had left Jamaica, bound for Calgary back in August. From all their reports, he had lost every gram of his ability in the firefight with Mindfire and Ravage.

But if that was supposed to be how a defeated hardwire looked, they should all be so lucky when they lose their powers! There was nothing defeated looking about the big man, not in his step or stance, nor the expression on his face. If anything, he seemed even more powerful than before. With his intense blue eyes literally boring into the two renegade lone gunman he slowed to a halt a couple of metres in front of them to slowly fold his arms over his powerful chest, an equally slow smile dancing at the corners of his mouth.