Last Guard by Nalini Singh
The Architect
While most patients with Scarab Syndrome show signs of confusion and memory loss, a small segment remain fully cognizant—and deeply damaged as a result. They are aware of their decline and unable to stop it.
The most dangerous group, however, are those with delusions of omnipotence—this pool is limited, but the delusion, when it takes hold, is all-consuming. Such patients want no assistance, refuse to believe that their brain is degrading, and consider health professionals enemies envious of their power.
—Report to the Psy Ruling Coalition from Dr. Maia Ndiaye, PsyMed SF Echo
THE ARCHITECT “WOKE”to the realization that her memory was an ominous blank.
Unalarmed, she accessed her telepathic recorder and played back the time.
Nothing of note. It appeared she’d simply been sitting at her desk, staring into nothingness. A dangerous sign, but not one that she couldn’t find a way to mitigate. Her deeper concern was what her children had done during her time of “sleep.”
She glanced at the chains that bound her children to her.
Three had snapped their leashes and gone rogue, and from the waves rolling through the PsyNet, they’d done what might be irreparable damage. Her children might be the next evolution of Psy, brilliant and too big for the current world, but nonetheless, she couldn’t permit such rebellion.
It would only foment more at a time when that could collapse all her plans for the future. Regrettable as it was, she had to do what she so rarely did and end their existence. The three believed they’d attained freedom by snapping the leash, but the Architect had been a power for many years. She understood never to rely only on a single factor.
Which was why she’d put ticking time bombs in their minds.
It took a single telepathic command to detonate those bombs: Sleep, my child. Your work is done.
Three huge minds fell under the weight of devastating aneurysms.
The Architect sighed and ran her hands down the front of her pristine black dress. An undesirable choice, but a necessary one. She’d made it clear to her children that they were to do no more damage to the PsyNet. Not until things had stabilized to the point that the threat of further damage could be used as a bargaining chip.
The Psy would give her anything once they understood she held the foundation of their lives in her hand. She intended to get to the point where her children could collapse specific parts of the Net, executing hundreds or thousands at a whim and as a reminder of her power.
Once she had the Psy, she would take the humans, and last, the changelings. They were the most dangerous, but they would not be able to stand against the combined power she intended to wield.
The world would belong to her, with her children her successors.
