“What the hell?” Scott asked, and everything about the way he said it told me he was utterly disgusted. “We’ve done what you asked. Century has taken some hard knocks, one of their leaders is dead and the other just surrendered. Now you want to prepare Sienna a place under the bus if anything goes wrong?” He made a pfffffft-ing noise.
“I knew what I was getting into when I took the deal,” I said. I was near toneless, because ever since he’d told me that word was going to get out, I knew that bad things were unavoidably washing toward me on the tide. “I’ve still got a job to do.”
“Do you realize what’s going to happen if you fail now?” Reed asked, spinning toward me. He was sitting next to Ariadne, and she had her head down, looking at the table. I made note of that for later. “You’re gonna get run through by the press.”
“Full well aware of it,” I said. “But we’ve still got to survive whatever else Century is coming up with. Because they’ve still got a meeting in two days, and it sounds like it’s going to be a doozy.”
“What are the odds it’s a referendum on packing up and calling it quits?” Scott asked.
“I wouldn’t lay Vegas odds on it,” Zollers said, finally weighing in. “I’ve met with very few Century operatives, but they seem to fall into two camps—deathly scared and carrying out their instructions from on high, or true believers who have bought Weissman’s vision, hook, line, and … whatever.” He waved a hand. “I would suggest that the ratio of true believers to non is 3 to 1.”
“The house always wins,” Reed said.
“We need to find this meeting,” I said.
“And what?” Reed asked. “Crash it? All ten of us against the … I’ve lost count. Eighty of them left now? What are we down to?”
“Does it matter?” Kat tossed in. “Seven-to-one and one to nine are just as bad as each other when you’re up against this many metas.” She looked at me then hesitated. “Is there a chance Sovereign is sincere, that he’d be willing to help us take them down?”
“No way,” Reed said.
“Maybe,” Scott said. “If he thinks it’ll give him a chance to impress Sienna.” I didn’t look at him, but I felt every head at the table swivel to Scott. He shrugged. “He’s not exactly being coy about his intentions. He figures that we won’t execute him and that it’ll fall to Sienna to guard him because she’s the only one who could. He’s playing us for that. Give him a chance to impress her and maybe he’ll jump at it.”
Now everyone looked at me, except for Zollers, who quietly cleared his throat and kept his gaze averted.
“Could you play him?” Ariadne said quietly.
“He’s a telepath,” I said. “Even assuming I could, he’d figure out what was going on because he’d be able to read it on one of you.”
“Besides,” Reed said, shaking his head, “he’s too smart to fall for it. She goes in there and starts talking in a throaty, come-hither sort of way, he’s going to know she’s playing him for a sucker, big time. She’s not exactly subtle when she turns on the charm.”
I gave him the daggers. “How would you know?”
“It’s true, you’re kind of obvious,” Kat said, drawing my look of ire. “Because you’re nice to a guy when you like him.”
“Hey!” I blushed. “I’m … nice.” I paused, considering that. “Okay, you got me. But Reed’s right, a dramatic change in personality now and he’ll know for a fact I’m jerking him along. There’s no chance of it working.”
Reed settled an inscrutable gaze on me then nodded once. “Which is why I say we call his bluff and kill him.”
“Maybe you should ask him about this Century meeting first,” Kat suggested.
“He didn’t know anything about it,” I said. “Or so he claims. He says Claire is now blocking his efforts to try and track Century’s movements.”
“Do you believe him?” Foreman asked in that deep, compelling voice of his.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s a dead end either way.”
He nodded once. “I may have a way to track down this meeting for you. Let me rattle some cages.”
“He probably means literal cages,” Reed said snottily, “where they keep the meta captives.”
“What can I say?” Foreman asked coolly, “the U.S. Government hasn’t quite embraced the ‘kill them all!’ philosophy you’ve suddenly attached your wagon to. At least not yet.” He stood, drawing his powerfully built frame all the way up. “Let me make some calls.” He departed without another word.