I felt something unsaid, and it took me a moment to realize that the subtext was that I’d killed the four people who might have been able to bring as much to the party as my mother did.
“You’re in charge. Find a way to get this done.” With that, he stood without ceremony and headed for the door.
I felt my mouth dry. “Wait. That’s it?”
He looked back from where he stood at the doorframe. “That’s it. No fancy speeches, no last minute warnings. Your life is on the line. If you fail, we all die, and you get to live with that.” He smiled, but it was grim.
I looked at him with more certainty than I felt. “I’ve killed quite a few people now; how do you know that would even bother me?”
He looked at me through those smoky eyes. “Because I know.”
I almost fell out of my chair with shock. “You’re a telepath?”
He gave a light shrug. “An empath. Like your friend Janus. I can detect the emotions, even stir them when necessary. It comes in handy when you’re trying to get a read on people.”
I rapped my knuckles against the wooden table, felt the sting of the hard wood against my skin and bones. “What does your power tell you about me?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, looking down at the carpeting, then he sighed. “That you’re the only one that’s a hundred percent committed to stopping this calamity.” He waved out into the hallway. “I’ve visited cloisters, seen the people there who have gotten faint warnings from Europe about what’s coming; they don’t have a clue. Most of them aren’t taking it seriously yet; they think it’s an ‘old world’ thing.” He waved toward the wall behind me. “But they’re coming. This ... Sovereign ... his minions ... they’ll come for us.” He let a faint smile creep out, a worried one. “See, we know what happened now in the European union . How it happened. The authorities have found enough of the bodies, sniffed around the edges enough that it’s obvious that there’s been a genocide that almost no one has noticed. There were just too few of us, y’know? There are five hundred metahumans in North America by our guess, three hundred in South America, and once we’re gone, it’ll be down to ... dozens, maybe. Outside of what Century’s got, I mean. The very few who have managed to hide at the corners of the world. Three thousand people now down to nine hundred or less,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that. And no one else has the power to stop it.”
“What about the government agencies here?” I asked, feeling the creep of terror coming back, that same feeling that had been haunting me since England.
He shook his head. “Our people—metahumans, I mean—have done too good a job hiding themselves, finding ways to subvert the system and keep underground. We had all these secretive organizations to cover for us, to keep us out of the spotlight, but it turns out that when no one knows you exist, they don’t care when you’re being killed off.”
“But you know,” I said. “A sitting U.S. Senator, you’ve gotta have some high-powered friends—”
“I do,” he cut me off, “and I’m trying. My colleagues are not unsympathetic. But this secret is burying us. It may end up being the death of us. Think about it—even if we had the full support of the U.S. government, even if all this were out in the open, what do you think it would really lead to? It’s not like we can deploy the U.S. Army against Century.” He laughed mirthlessly. “It’s not as though I know where to send the Marines to give Sovereign a good ass-kicking. Assuming anyone could kick his ass.”
“Metas can be killed by armies, you know that,” I said, feeling the thoughts tumble through my head. “Based on what I’ve heard, Weissman has plans for the armies of the world. He’s just got it in his mind to deal with the metas first.”
Foreman nodded. “Like I said, it’s down to you. This whole thing is a lot to put on your shoulders, but there’s no one else clamoring for the responsibility. Your mom would run given half a chance. Your friend Scott is quite content to retire to the nearest bar and continue putting away rum and cokes until Century comes through the door to spill his drink. And your friend Ariadne—”
“I don’t think we could really be called friends at this point,” I said. “Since I killed her girlfriend.”
Foreman gave me a nod of concession. “Ariadne’s powerless on her own. But she could be of tremendous aid to you. Once you get past your ... personal problems,” he said it with an air of distaste, “she’ll probably turn out invaluable.”