Last Guard by Nalini Singh

Chapter 17

If you control the anchors, you control the Net.

—Bjorn Thorsen (2081)

PAYAL FOUGHT HERneed to look at Canto; the gravitational pull of him acted as a tide on her senses. To feel such a visceral compulsion toward anyone, it was a new thing, a craving unknown. She never took her attention off Lalit or her father, but that wasn’t the same. She didn’t want to look at them. She had to look at them. With Canto Mercant, want was very much a component of her response.

Want. Desire. Hunger.

All words for a single potent emotion. For Payal, such violence of need equaled a chaos of the mind that could leave her vulnerable to her father’s or brother’s machinations. Even knowing this, every part of her wanted to reach out to Canto, a painful ache deep within her that only he could assuage.

Her eyes wanted to go to the gift he’d given her.

Food.

Again.

Not just food, a thing she’d asked for as a child.

He hadn’t forgotten.

All these years and he hadn’t forgotten.

That awareness had threatened to break all the restraints on that screaming, obsessive girl in her mind. Panic had set in. It still fluttered in the back of her throat, a small trapped creature that wanted to show itself in fluctuations in her breath, splotches of blood on her face.

Payal kept it in check with teeth-gritted will—and by refusing to make eye contact with Canto. Those galaxies made her want too much, made her dream. She wasn’t in a position to dream, would never be in a position to dream even if her father and Lalit were both gone.

Because the meds only stabilized the imbalance in her brain—and what was wrong with her wasn’t only organic. She was quite certain a strong component of it came from the PsyNet.

And the neosentience of the Net was now quite fragmented and mad.

“Tell us about the Ruling Coalition plan you mentioned.” Ager’s voice broke the silence, shattering the ice that crawled over her inner landscape as she tried to reinitialize the defenses that kept her robotic and uninvolved with the world.

“It’s called Project Sentinel.” The black strands of Canto’s hair glinted in the sun now just angling into the shelter, catching her eye despite her every attempt to maintain visual detachment. “The Ruling Coalition wants to break off a test section of the PsyNet. It’s an experiment to see if the smaller section will be more stable and less prone to fractures.”

Payal thought of another deal she’d just made. “Did they get the idea from the Forgotten?” When Arran and Suriana looked blank, she said, “Not all our ancestors agreed with Silence. The ones that didn’t left the PsyNet, and as their descendants are still alive, they must have their own network.” Psy brains needed the biofeedback generated by a psychic network. Cut that off and those brains died—an established biological fact.

“I’ve never heard of them,” Suriana said softly.

Ager coughed. “The Council liked to pretend they didn’t exist. But back when I was a young’un, a few of the old-timers used to keep in sporadic contact with Forgotten relatives. Wasn’t allowed, but people are people.”

Canto’s constellation eyes met hers, and those dreams, they threatened to awaken all over again. “How do you know about them?”

“I’ve done a number of deals with Devraj Santos.” The leader of the Forgotten and a man whose gold- and bronze-flecked brown eyes appeared to be undergoing a transformation that made her wonder if enough Psy genes had coalesced in him to create a cardinal. “Rao also keeps excellent histories.”

It had turned out that she and Santos were—very—distant cousins, linking up at an ancestor who’d left the PsyNet with the defectors. “The Forgotten also don’t hide their heritage as they once did,” she added. “I’ve heard that the Council used to hunt them.” Likely because anyone with psychic power outside the Net was a threat.

“Now the Council’s defunct and we have bigger problems.” Canto leaned forward, his forearms braced on his thighs and his gaze direct. “I think you’re right that the Ruling Coalition looked to the Forgotten, but it won’t have been the only factor.”

He paused to take a drink before continuing. “Per Sentinel, Kaleb Krychek would shift his mind into the initial experimental section and go with the broken piece—the island, so to speak. We all know he’s powerful enough to hold the piece together if it’s about to go into cataclysmic failure—but he’s not an anchor. He can only hold back a collapse, not create a foundation.”

“They taking an anchor with the island?” Arms folded, Arran leaned against one side of the open end of the shelter.

“That’s the plan, but there’s a problem that seems to have escaped everyone’s notice, probably because anchors just keep on with the job.”

He showed the others the graphic representation of Designation A in the Substrate that he’d already shown Payal—the lack of overlaps between anchor zones, the sheer thinness of the coverage. As Suriana, Arran, Ager, and Bjorn asked their questions, Payal sat back and distracted herself from obsessing over Canto by processing what she thought of the others.

Each had an element to them that could be dangerous if used against the group, but it was inescapable that the most dangerous person in the group was Canto, who held all their attention even now. He had that unknown quality that turned people into followers. It was a rare thing, but she’d seen it in both Devraj Santos and Ivy Jane Zen, the high-Gradient empath who was the president of the Empathic Collective.

She’d also seen it in a local human guru who used his charisma to leech money from his followers.

The difference between a user and a leader was what they did with the adulation.

Mercants had never had a reputation for selflessness.

Yes, Silver Mercant was head of EmNet, the largest humanitarian network in the world, but Silver Mercant was also mated to a changeling bear. She couldn’t be taken as an exemplar of the proto-Mercant.

He’d given her food. He’d remembered her.

Her fingers curled into her palms, her nails digging into her flesh.

“That isolated hub will crash and burn in weeks if not days.” Hands shoved into his pockets, Arran glared at no one and everyone. “How can they not know that we zone shift? It’s been getting harder and harder, but we can still do it.”

Payal had realized the latter, too. While the zones no longer overlapped in the vast majority of the world, one A could extend while another shrank back for a few days, and vice versa. Taking the pressure off in turns, to give all of them a chance to rest and recharge.

Canto’s scowl was dark enough that Arran focused all his attention on him, belatedly realizing what Payal already had: that Canto Mercant was the apex predator in this space. “They don’t know because there’s no A on the Ruling Coalition—and nobody on the Coalition is old enough to remember how As worked before Silence.”

“Probably didn’t even know back then,” Ager croaked out, waving a hand. “I don’t know if any political leadership has ever understood the mechanics of the A network, probably because our predecessors were less than generous with the information. A bit of mystery intended to protect us—no one can chain us if they don’t know how we work.”

“I can see the sense in that,” Bjorn muttered. “We all saw what Pure Psy did with the limited knowledge that is available.”

“Be that as it may,” Payal said, conscious her voice sounded flat and hard, “staying enigmatic is no longer viable or wise. Canto is correct: we need a voice on the Ruling Coalition.”

“What makes you the best choice?” Arran’s “smile” was nothing like Lalit’s, but neither was it anything akin to warmth. No, it was a thing of razors.

“You can volunteer, but your anger issues would cause you to strike out at the first meeting. As Kaleb Krychek is stronger and deadlier than you, you’d then be dead and we’d have one less anchor.”

Suriana sucked in a breath, Bjorn winced, Ager cackled.

Arran stared at her before inclining his head. “Point.”

“Canto is the only other viable candidate,” she added. “It’s not only about brute power, but associated power.” Because no matter if Psy thought themselves more advanced than changelings, they weren’t; power mattered, the sense of authority mattered. “I have the Rao group; he has his family.”

Canto’s eyes seemed to burn when he looked at her. “I’m not much better than Arran when it comes to patience,” he said, and she knew he was repeating the point for the benefit of the others. “I’ll be far better as your backup.”

“As long as you remember you’re backup,” she said, driven by her weakness where he was concerned. “Don’t attempt to manipulate me.”

Everyone else went quiet, while darkness eclipsed the stars in his eyes. She knew he understood what she was saying, understood what she was asking of him. Their past could not color this interaction, not if they were going to do this right.

“IFI’d wanted a doll to manipulate,” Canto all but growled, furious with her for taking one step into trust, then two steps back, “I’d have picked anyone but you. I picked a gladiator for a reason. Anchors need a leader who’ll stand and fight against the biggest predators in the Net.” The Ruling Coalition might not think of themselves that way, but they were all—each and every one—huge powers.

Kaleb was a rumored dual cardinal with fingers in every pie in the Net. Payal and Canto might hold two cardinal designations, but they weren’t dual cardinals. The term was one of art and did not include anchors—because a cardinal A could only access and use their anchor powers within the Substrate.

Outside that, they were reliant on their secondary abilities. The same applied in reverse—their secondary powers were effectively useless to them when they acted as anchors. The two different abilities simply did not interact. There was also the fact that many, many As were so mentally wiped by their anchor duties that they barely utilized their secondary abilities.

During his research into the designation, Canto had run across a very old—and cruel—joke made at the expense of Designation A: What do you call a group of anchors? A waste of cardinals. If he had to guess, he’d say it was an A behind the joke, a person who understood the price they paid to stand as the iron foundation of the Net.

Kaleb, however, if the rumors were true, had no restrictions on his abilities. He could access both cardinal-level telekinetic and telepathic powers at the same time—and at any point he wanted. The man could level cities and erase minds with the ease of a wave crashing to shore and wiping the sand clean.

Aden Kai was a huge psychic power in his own right, but he also had the might of the entire Arrow Squad behind him. The specialist black-ops squad was composed of soldiers deadly and relentless.

Ivy Jane Zen was the softest of the group, but she brought with her the Empathic Collective—who were backed by the Arrow Squad.

Nikita Duncan was a former Councilor with knowledge of more secrets than almost anyone else in the Net; she was also a massive financial powerhouse.

Anthony Kyriakus hadn’t been a Councilor for long prior to the Council’s collapse, but his power came from another source altogether—he headed the strongest clan of foreseers in the world. PsyClan NightStar knew more about the future than was wise or sane.

Canto’s anchors needed a person of equal weight and steel to stand against that wall of power. To be a fighter who would not flinch, would not back away, would not stop until they listened to her.

Payal gave him a measuring glance that betrayed nothing of what they were to each other before she looked around at the group. “You all feel emotion.”

“So do you,” Suriana whispered back, this anchor who’d been terrified of Canto’s approach yet had stepped up. “You’re an anchor. You can’t be immune to everything that’s happened, all the emotions the Es are pumping into the Net. It was powerful even when they were in a forced sleep. Now that they’re awake, there’s no way to avoid their colors in the river that is the Net.”

Suriana had spoken in a rapid burst, as if she’d had to psych herself up to get out the words. She collapsed in the aftermath, her shoulders hunching inward.

Someone hurt her.Cold, crisp Payal in his mind.

His parched cells drank in the psychic touch. Yes. I haven’t figured out who yet, but I will.

Payal gave him the slightest nod. Because she’d committed, and when Payal committed, she gave it her all. Suriana was one of hers now.

“I always felt something.” Ager’s voice was a bit croaky but not tired—as if this gathering had given them a new lease on life. “I don’t know if it was because I was raised around people who were alive prior to Silence, but I’ve felt tendrils of emotion in the PsyNet all my life.”

“I’m the same,” Bjorn admitted. “It wasn’t difficult to throw off the shackles of Silence. They never fit well, though I’m of the generation that had the dissonance embedded in our minds—for you young ones, dissonance is a pain loop designed to punish Psy for feeling emotion.”

He winced, as if being hit by that programming for daring to speak of it. “But it’s been fading in strength for a long time under the weight of what I do as an anchor. I don’t think the Councils bothered to program dissonance into As after us. Our shields are impregnable—even were we to cry and laugh, nothing would leak into the Net.”

Arran had gone motionless as Bjorn spoke, a whiteness to his jawline. Canto was certain Arran had been so programmed. He hadn’t been pulled out of martial training until he was eleven and someone finally realized he was an A.

For an initialized anchor to be punished for emotion when droplets of emotion had leaked into and run through the pathways of the Net even during Silence? They were fucking lucky Arran and Bjorn were sane.

He made it a priority to find out how to disable that programming. Because these people were his now, too. Payal and he, they had this in common: they were possessive about those they claimed.

He wanted to throw back his head and yell his fury up at the sky. Because the first person he’d ever claimed was her. And she was the one person he could never have. Not if he was to keep his promise. Not if he was to be the knight on whom she could depend to defend her against all threats—including the one in her mind.