SLAVE TO SENSATION

Ming LeBon was another cardinal. Though less experienced than Marshall, he, too, had had almost thirty years over Sascha to hone his skills. It was rumored that Ming’s particular specialty was mental combat.

Shoshanna and Henry Scott were both around 9.5 on the Gradient. The elegant and graceful Shoshanna was the public face of the Council, the one who appeared on broadcasts to the media and in newspaper articles. She looked fragile and harmless but could be as lethal as a viper.

Henry was her husband. They’d decided on a human-style marriage rather than a Psy reproduction contract in order to make themselves seem more sympathetic to the non-Psy news media. This wasn’t common knowledge. Nikita had told Sascha back when she’d still been grooming her child for a position in the Council networks, before they’d both accepted that Sascha’s flaw was never going to fix itself.

Henry was her target. Though extremely powerful in his own right, he was clearly the beta member of the Shoshanna-Henry pairing. As such, he was the only Councilor who showed any submissive qualities. He was also easy to find on the Net, even if you’d never come into contact with him and had no idea of his mental signature.

It was part of the Councilors’ jobs to be accessible to the populace they represented. In truth, the path to them was a minefield of assistants and guards. This would take work. Sascha began step-shadowing.





CHAPTER 16





She waited for a mind heading in the right direction to pass by—she couldn’t move out herself or the NetMind would detect the anomaly of her presence in two places at once. When someone came close enough, she quickly took care of their simple alarms and merged into the edges of their consciousness, a shadow so fine, no one had ever detected her. She broke no moral law, exerted no mental influence. Her host was merely a vehicle to get her where she needed to go. From there, it was a game of luck and logic.

She shadowed one mind until it reached another that had permission to go further. It took her almost two hours to make it to Henry. Sticking to the consciousness of the assistant who’d brought her into the office, she began to gently circle around the edges of Henry’s firewall, looking for traps and alarms.

Within two minutes she’d found three, all of which she could neutralize while ghosting. A double check confirmed her initial findings. Henry was one of the oldest members of the Council and his firewall reflected his complacency.

Sliding from the assistant when the man’s consciousness passed close to Henry’s, she merged into the Councilor’s light, a speck of dirt so minute, it was impossible to see. It was fortunate for her that unlike most Psy, a portion of a Councilor’s consciousness was always active on the Net, because of their need to keep up with the massive inflow of data.

From now on, she would go everywhere Henry ventured. If she was unlucky, he wouldn’t leave his mental office. But he could just as well lead her into the sealed records of the Council chambers. The chambers existed solely on the PsyNet because the Council was scattered around the world. Enrique, Nikita, and Tatiana being in such close proximity had been sheer chance.

Henry suddenly moved. The acrid taste of fear bloomed on her tongue but it passed when he spent the next two hours sweeping through the part of the PsyNet that stored their race’s history. She had no idea what he was looking for. This should’ve been a job for his assistants. Just as she was getting completely frustrated, she found him at the entrance to a vault she’d never known existed.

Inside were millions of memories and thoughts. Henry headed for his family’s section of the vault. Temptation beckoned. Sascha knew it was a risk but this was a chance she couldn’t miss—she’d always been told that her family’s history had been corrupted by a rogue energy surge.

What if that, too, had been a lie?

Thankful that Henry had allowed his consciousness to spread in the vault, she drifted along the waves of his mind, riding swells until she reached the part that screamed with the Psy signature of her family.

Since she didn’t know how long she’d be in here, she simply streamed through, siphoning data into her shadow-mind. She’d release and examine it once she was back behind the privacy of her own firewalls.

Unexpected movement.

Henry was leaving. She’d taken advantage of his absorption in his task to venture to the furthest edge of his consciousness. Now it was snapping back into a tight coil and if she didn’t keep up, she’d be trapped here. Cut off from her mind for too long, her body would go into a coma from which she’d never recover.

Fear gnawed at the stomach of the woman on the bed but in the PsyNet, there was only a mind as calm as a pond. She barely managed to make it back before Henry went through the doors. After exiting, he charted a clear path to the darkest section of the Net, access to which was highly restricted. What she’d never expected as they cleared that section was the even darker core that lay within.