Omega(10)

                “Assault is putting it mildly,” I said. “They drew out and killed ninety percent of our human agents. They engaged M-Squad in a battle in Kansas that the news called an apocalyptic firestorm coupled with tornadoes.”

                Old Man Winter snorted. “The press is very easily led, in most cases. Especially when telepaths become involved.”

                I felt my jaw tense at the mention of the term telepath. I’d had my own encounter with a telepath only a few months earlier, and the memory was still with me. “Fries,” I said, trying to bring the discussion back to center. “How do you want to handle this?”



                             “If you’re up for it,” Ariadne said, “I’d like you in there with Parks when he conducts the interrogation. You can play bad cop to his good cop. Just try not to go over the top with your performance.”

                “Fries is slick,” I said. “He may see this coming.”

                “If it gets ugly,” she said, “excuse yourself from the room. We’ll figure out where to take it from there.”

                “All right,” I said. “How far are we going to take this?”

                I saw Ariadne’s gaze flit to Old Man Winter, and his stone-faced response. He waited before answering, as though he were milking the moment of all the august pause he could put into it. “As far as it needs to go,” he said. “Omega has you as their target, and they have intended to lay their hands upon you since day one. I will not let them have you.” He let out a slow breath that fogged the air with frigid mist in front of his blue lips. “And I mean to know why they want you.”





3.



                I walked back across the campus after my meeting with Ariadne and Old Man Winter, his words echoing in my ears. Why did Omega want me? I wondered, too, and had since they’d first sent Wolfe after me almost a year ago. The leaves blew around my ankles as an eddy of wind formed, causing them to drift up in a whirlwind around me. I blinked and took my hands out of my pockets as two of them, maple leaves, ran across my face and tickled my nose. I saw Reed, his fingers extended to the glass from the lobby, a smile on his face. When he saw he’d caught my attention, he dropped his hand and the wind around me faded, the leaves drifting away.

                He held the door for me as I walked up, my hands again snugged in the pockets of my coat. “Heya, brother,” I said in as casual a tone as I could as I walked past.

                “Heya, sis,” he said, and let the door swing shut after I passed then opened the next for me. “How was your meeting? Or should I call it an ass-chewing?”

                “Hardly.” I walked into the lobby of the dormitory. It was a wide area, oblong and directed down two hallways to the left and right, the two respective wings of the dormitory. Directly in front of us was the entrance to the cafeteria. People were already lined up out the door for dinner; it was close to time. I was hungry, but I wouldn’t be eating there tonight. “They just wanted to be sure I didn’t hesitate to kill next time rather than let myself go into danger.”

                “I was wondering about that myself,” Reed said, and I stopped, feeling my brow crumple as I gave him a look. The aromas of food came from within the cafeteria—meatloaf, I thought with a cringe. I could hear the chatter, some hushed whispers of a few newer metas talking about me in quiet undertones from near where the line formed for the cafeteria.



                             “Oh?” I let my head swivel; in a normal situation I’d have been looking for a threat. In this case, I was withering a nearby teenage boy with a glare for staring at me. He had brown hair and glasses, and he didn’t look away from me, didn’t turn red, didn’t break eye contact. Annoying. “Why’s that?”