The Chosen (A Talents novel)

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

At dinner that night, Jack was lounging on one of benches, entertaining everyone with a story about how he’d ditched a couple of Watchers in Pierre, when Gregori came in through the wide front door.

This was apparently a bit of a surprise, because everyone jumped to their feet, looking shocked. It had been a weird night already. The Lifers had been gone all day—hadn’t even shown up for meals—and the Teens were noticeably subdued, presumably in reaction to Gregori’s return. Izzy had assured me that we wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day—apparently he never ate with the troops—but here he was, striding in like he enjoyed terrifying everyone in his path.

He walked over to where Jack was sitting and dropped a stack of paper on the table in front of him. “They hit four cells this evening. People are just…gone. Disappeared.”

“Who?” Jack demanded. “Why?

“We’re still collecting names and establishing contact,” Gregori said. “And we don’t know. I assume it has something to do with her.” He glared at me and I shivered under the weight of his stare. “We haven’t gotten any direct reports, but I assume they’re blaming it on us.”

If they were collecting Irin, would it be long before they were collecting people from the Program, too?

“But this isn’t just about Reva and Thad anymore,” Gregori continued. “If she’s telling us the truth,” he gestured toward me, “they’re going to be taking them all to this prison. Which means I need to know everything about it. I want location, weaknesses, every bit of intelligence I can get. You three go in. I don’t care what you have to do. I’m not losing this many people.” Then he turned to me. “You better not be lying to me. I will find out if you are. And you won’t like the consequences.”

###

We spent the next few hours planning. The three of us went down to the basement of Gregori’s building, where I’d seen the Lifers working on computers. They had a secure Internet connection down there, which allowed us to study maps of the Delhart school and surrounding area. Delhart was similar to Delcroix in that the school was made up of a collection of buildings surrounded by landscaped grounds, with fields for sports and a large forested area on one side.

The entire area was at least a mile across, with an uneven outline protected by a wall. However, unlike Delcroix, which was within the Danville city limits, Delhart was about twenty miles from Rapid City, in the small mountain range called the Black Hills. It also had a small covered stadium, which Mrs. Callias had told us was where the Watcher training and the Annual meeting would be happening. We suspected that the General Council would meet in one of the smaller school buildings, as they had when they’d held a meeting at Delcroix in the spring.  

We already knew from Cam that the prison was underground, and that there were tunnels leading to it from the school. So our goal to be to get into the school, find the prison, and get back out.

Without being discovered.

Or caught.

Cue the hysterical laughter.

The Lifers gave us a pair of glasses that had video camera and live Internet connection, so, if we were able to get into the prison we could send back videos of the set up and email with the guys at camp if we needed something. They also gave us an encrypted phone—“Like the president has,” a guy named Lou told me—earrings embedded with tiny cameras, and a watch that had all sorts of crazy tools in it, like an old-fashioned Swiss Army knife, but on your wrist, with a built-in GPS and the ability to scramble wireless signals.