I gave the man sitting on the other side of the table a glare that plainly said my patience was close to being gone and my temper was frayed to the point of being dangerous.

Herschel Langston, former administrator of the horrendous facility we had recently taken down stared at me in uncaring bliss. To him I was a child, therefore one to be either talked down to, ignored, or both.

“Langston.” I sighed, letting the frayed edges of my temper show while I simply looked at him as he was some disgusting exhibit in a museum of the depraved. “I may be a snot nosed kid in your opinion, but the important point here is that I am in command of this facility that you are a prisoner in. Yes I’m the head honcho here.”

“I find that hard to believe.” He arrogantly responded.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you want to believe, Langston.” I answered softly. “But you are a prisoner in a facility I run. As such you are at MY mercy, and god knows I don’t have much of that left in your case.”

“I’m soo impressed.” He glared back and that broke what constraints I had been taking care to maintain. I gave a thought and slammed him against the ceiling, leaving him there while I idly checked my messages.

“Langston.” I conversationally told him as I was going through my messages. “I changed how gravity works, just for you. It was easy, and I could just as easily wipe your sorry ass out of existence with a thought. I wouldn’t even have to wave a hand to do it. Truthfully that would feel really good just now, by the way.”

He spluttered but couldn’t argue the fact that he was pressed tightly to the ceiling as if it was the floor in a high gravity environment.

“Now I could keep you up there indefinitely, all I’d have to do is leave you there and walk away.” I told him in the same tones. Then had the ceiling move to encase his body as if he had been laying there when concrete was poured and hadn’t gotten out of the way before it hardened. “Or I could just leave a man shaped lump in the ceiling. I’m what the boffins call a probability warper. You know what that is you arrogant ass?”

I could see he did and his already pasty face paled.

I gave him a thin smile and put him back in the chair across the table. “Parlor tricks, Langston. I could snuff you out of existence in less than a heartbeat and never worry about what I’d done for a second.

Now get one thing straight.” I calmly told him. “I personally don’t give a fuck if you live or die, though the second option is more to my liking. The only thing that is keeping you alive right now is that you’re potentially useful to me. Understand?”

He nodded, but I felt the need to drive the point home. “Like any tool, if you do what you’re supposed to do I’ll keep you around to make use of what you can do for me. If you stop being useful, your life doesn’t matter to me at all. I’ll just throw you away like any broken tool and forget about you.”

“You’re holding us illegally.” He countered, still not getting it.

“You have no legal rights, Langston.” I answered. “Unless I decide to let you have them. You and your people are here for your own protection if that hasn’t dawned on you.”

He gave me a look of incomprehension so I painted him the picture. “With the list of crimes lodged against you, going to any normal detention or correctional facility would be the same as a death sentence. Even the worst cons take a dim view of traitors and child molesters. And if you keep this moronic resistance going, I’ll send you to Leavenworth and let the inmates there take care of you. Think about that.”

He did and his face went another shade of white. “You can’t do that. It’s…”

“Inhuman?” I questioned quietly. “Why would that surprise you at all? You obviously didn’t think the poor kids you dissected while they were still alive were human, why would I be? I’m no different than they were, after all, so why would I feel things like pain, fear, and stupid human things like that?

To be perfectly honest here.” I grated out through clenched teeth. “I could kill you right now and not care one bit about the disciplinary actions that would bring down on me. And I’ll do it if you don’t get your shit together and start telling me and my people what we want to know.

And you know something?” I grinned at him. “I’d get the equivalent of a slap on the wrist if I did kill you here and now. So make your decision, big man. Answer our questions or die. That simple.”

I stood and moved towards the door leading out of the interrogation room and turned to regard him one more time. “I hope you don’t, actually — answer the questions I mean. Think about that while you’re alone here.”

Five minutes later he was singing like a canary that had seen the cat stalking him and noticed that his cage door was open.

“You know, there are times I really hate myself.” I spoke to the ceiling of my bedroom while Sean gently caressed my bare belly and nuzzled my throat with his warm, sweet lips.

“You do what you have to do, Luce.” He whispered, not at all afraid to speak his mind in private. “Just let go of it for awhile in here, please?”

“Oh, I think I can manage that.” I sighed as his hand moved from my belly to something infinitely more pleasurable that nestled south of that spot. “Show me how some things don’t change no matter how shitty the world seems to get. Please.”

And he did. Oh thank you God, he did. Then did he it again much to my delight.

I just laid on my back with my legs still wrapped possessively around his waist and sighed once he’d finished showing me for the fourth time that night. If someone had told me I’d be hugging tightly to some guy who had just screwed me silly several months ago there would have been a fight. If someone mentioned that now I’d just grin and tell them to mind their own business, I had needs like everyone else.

Even better, I had someone who could and did satisfy those needs that would have been so alien, so unspeakable for me six months earlier. And he satisfied them with an energy and sheer pleasure that caught me up in the whole thing no matter how bitchy I was when we started.

“I love you so much, Sean.” I whispered while holding him inside of me.

“I know.” He whispered and added. “I never thought I’d get used to being a guy, let alone find a girl I could say the same thing that you just did to me, but like you’re so fond of saying… Shit Happens. And every once in awhile it’s good shit. Really good.”

“Yeah, it is.” I answered dreamily then tightened my hold on a very important part of what he was now while giving him an impish grin. “Show me that again?”

He did, bless him.

“This is very disturbing information, Luce.” Kris told me over the phone. “We knew there were other organizations out there opposed to us, but this…”

“Tell me about it.” I grumbled. I’d seen the things she was only getting from vids and descriptions up close and way too personal for my liking. “But we are getting a wealth of information from the people we captured last week.”

“At least they’re cooperating.” Kris sounded a little relieved about that one. “I won’t ask to closely about how you managed to get that to happen.”

Well, let’s just say they all feel the nooses around their necks.” I actually chuckled over that, though it was kind of a mirthless sound. “While they know I have my hand on the lever that could drop the floor out from under them. Once they figured that out they caved in pretty fast. No one out here has much in the way of sympathy for any of them.”

“I can understand that.” She sounded grim, almost as grim as I felt when I really stopped to think about what our prisoners had been doing. “Just don’t let things get out of hand with it, okay?”

“Kris, I wouldn’t kill defenseless prisoners or allow them to be hurt, I hope you know that much about me by now.” I sighed while thinking of just how close I’d come to doing just that.

“Yeah, I know.” She said a little heavily from her end. “Colonel Harris sends his own well done on getting rid of that mole, by the way.”

“She did a lot of damage, but we’re recovering from it.” I answered tiredly. “Got the new codes, security protocols, and sequences in place already, but I really need at least one more telepath and healer out here. Jon-jon and Laramie are wearing themselves out checking and fixing what that bitch did to people before I killed her.”

“I’ll see what I can do for you on that, Luce.”

“All I can ask right now, I guess.” My response sounded tired and I knew it. I was tired, but also couldn’t take time to get a real rest given what had been happening lately.

“You are sounding better than last time we talked.” Kris encouraged. “You finally letting yourself relax off and on?”

“Let’s just say that I’m keeping Sean away from stairwells.” I actually laughed when I said that. “We’ve been doing a lot of that during my off duty time.”

“Good for you.” She laughed too. “For both of you.”

“Okay, back to work for me, I’m afraid.” I told her, as if most of our conversation hadn’t been related to business. “Tell Ariel I’ll call tonight after her study time, if you see her.”

“Will do. And Luce?”

“What?”

“I’ll send you what help I can. This Syndicate business has things pretty scrambled right now and we have rumblings that something is going on at one of their other major facilities but no real information right now. If you’re going to move against that one in Arizona and catch anyone at all, or get any more information, I’m afraid it’s going to have to be soon.”

“I have my planning team working up operational details right now.” I answered, knowing she was right and feeling a sense of urgency to get things finished even though I knew something like that shouldn’t be rushed any more than we doing so if it was going to work out the way we wanted. “We’ll do what we can.”

“That’s all we can ask.” She answered softly. “Call if anything else comes up before our next conference.”

“You know I will.”

Closing the connection I sat back in my chair for a minute and just let my mind go places that I needed but really didn’t have time to indulge in at the moment. Then sat up, called up battle plans, yes, actual battle plans that had been formulated to take that place in Arizona.

I knew that wasn’t going to be either pretty or easy. On anyone involved.

“Hey Auntie Luce!” Ariel’s voice sounded happy, with the underlying note that told me it wasn’t just because I’d called her, though that was a lot of it. “I have a roommate now!”

“Good.” I told her, and was glad. “Who is it?”

“A new girl named Athena.” The girl answered then her voice got quiet. “She’s really quiet and doesn’t talk much, but she’s nice. I think they put her with me because she needs someone close.”

“Really, and what do you think about that?” I asked trying to sound nonchalant about it but if she really was reaching out to help someone else it was a big step, a very big step, in her own recovery process.

“I think,” her voice grew thoughtful, “that I need to start helping instead of just being helped all the time.”

“That’s a good thing, Ariel, a really good thing.” My voice almost hesitated, almost choked up with the feelings that simple statement filled me with. I actually wanted to jump for joy and cheer till my throat wouldn’t be able to make another sound but just allowed my own happiness to get out. “Hearing you say that just makes my day, honey. I’m so proud of you.”

Ariel had been badly abused, mentally, physically, and emotionally for a long time before I’d found and rescued her. She’d been under the influence of what is called a damper — an emerged capable of shutting down people’s brains, completely if they wished. Douglas, the one who had done that to her was dead, another in the list of non-regrets I had since my own change, but he’d damaged her in ways that we still weren’t able to fix. The poor kid still didn’t remember who she’d been, where she was born, who her parents were, or even when she’d changed.

Then there had been Rossi. Slime, pure and simple, that one. He’d enjoyed ‘playing’ with little girls and hurting them physically in other ways. I’d taken care of that one, too. But by then it was nearly too late for poor Ariel.

That she was recovering was something that filled me with more joy than I can describe. Honey, I love you, and you’re doing really well, I’m so glad to hear that.”

“You’re going to be doing something dangerous again, aren’t you?” She questioned with the uncanny ability of a twelve year old to zero in on things they weren’t really supposed to know about.

“What makes you think that, sweetie?”

“I just know, is all.” Came the simple answer.

“All right, I suppose I am.” Letting out a sigh I went on. “But you know me and my job. Trouble just seems to find me, like a stray puppy I fed by accident one time that won’t go away. So yes, I’m going to be doing something dangerous pretty soon. I have to.”

“Just be careful, please?”

“I will, I always am.” I had tears in my eyes from the plaintive tone in her voice but shook that off because I didn’t wish to disturb her any more than she was. “So tell me some more about your new roomie…”

The conversation drifted into what she was doing in classes, the people she was friends with, and some funny little stories involving the inevitable accidents that happen around us emerged as a matter of course. By the time we stopped talking I felt a lot better and was in a better humor than I had been in for days.

“All right, what have we got people?” I questioned the group around the conference table I’d just seated myself at. Noting with a bit of sour amusement that none of them appeared any more rested than I felt.

Colonel Yancy Torrance, 101st Airborne gave me a quick, assessing glance, nodded and flicked a switch that brought up a contour map of our target area. The man had NOT been pleased to discover that he and the troops he’d brought to Colorado had been put under the command of a sixteen year old girl. Once he’d heard some things about me, and why he and his people were here, he’d lightened up. Especially when I specifically told him I wasn’t going to attempt planning something as complex as this kind of raid without a lot of help from those who knew what they were doing.

I watched his grey, crew cut head turn towards the map while he picked up a pointer. “As you’ve all been made aware, our target is just north of Nogales, which puts it very close to the Mexican border. We can be sure that the personnel there have bolt holes in Mexico just for an eventuality like we’re planning here. That complicates things a little, but not as much as they might like.”

I nodded, knowing that the president himself had contacted his Mexican counterpart regarding at least parts of this operation and had been assured that Mexican authorities, military and police, would lend any assistance needed before, during, and following our strike. Only they’d been given a cover story of a raid on a drug cartel in an unspecified area along the border. The way beta site had been penetrated left little doubt that the Mexicans had problems of their own, more so than usual, in that regard. So we were still playing things close to the vest, so to speak with that.

“After that arms and drugs fiasco in El Paso.” Torrance was referring to a huge shipment of mil spec weaponry and over a ton of cocaine that had been intercepted just at the border in Texas a few weeks earlier. One that had slipped past Mexican authorities and had been well on the way to some terrorist organizations within the United States. Being an important person in a section of Homeland Security did have its advantages at times, I admitted to myself while he went on. “Mexico is anxious to show us that they are not only cooperating to stop gun and drug running, but are actively working on their own to stop it from their side of the border. So far they believe the target is another terrorist site and given what is going on down there, I really can’t say that they’re far from wrong. So we can count on help from that side of the border if we need it though it would take some time for that to arrive given we’ve allowed them to believe this is a simple drug raid.”

I nodded and waved for him to go on.

“We have two basic plans formulated for this operation.” He told us and brought up another screen. “One we’re calling Rainfall, which involves air drops at all access points on this side of the border using helicopter borne troops. The advantage with this one is that it would seize all entry and exit points on this side of the border giving us the ability to attack from numerous points at once. The disadvantages are simply that the place is so large that serious opposition and at least some destruction of crucial materials, prisoners, and information would be a given factor.”

Everyone digested that information and its implications for a few seconds and I nodded for the man to continue.

“The second option we’re calling Wormhole.” He used the pointer to indicate discrete areas within the map we’d compiled of the base’s interior. “Simply put, we’d be sending dedicated special teams into specifically important targets inside to neutralize security protocols, protect surviving prisoners, and secure critical data and experiments. That would be followed up by an identical strike to what I outlined in option one.

The insertions would be done through a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) tandem jump consisting of the Commander’s teams and SOF (Special Operations Forces) designated to protect and support them once the insertions were made. Once that is done and the initial objectives are achieved, then first strike teams will hit the access points with support from EW and engineers. A follow on force consisting of APCs and heavy infantry will hit some minutes later to sweep up stragglers, while a cordon will be set up around the perimeter of the target to contain other problems that arise.”

ROE for this operation is the capture of personnel in the facility, we need live prisoners out of this. Anything else we manage would be gravy.” He finished.

“The major disadvantage in Wormhole is simply that we would be putting valuable assets at risk just to get our teams inside the facility and they would have to survive long enough for the major strike forces to relieve them.” He gave me a long, sorrowful look as he said that. Because those ‘valuable assets’ were myself and the emerged teams assembling to participate in the action. Along with the special forces people in there with us.

I interrupted the silence following that. “Colonel, if I may?”

He nodded, waiting to see what I had in mind.

“I do understand, and appreciate your concern for my own teams in all this. On one level that speaks well of you, very well. No soldier wants to see children involved in something of this nature, I understand that.” I took the time to give everyone present a searching look. “Some of you here have seen what my own team and I are capable of, some of you haven’t. But there is a glaring blind spot in your concerns.”

I let them think about that for a moment and Tecumseh quietly cursed. “They have emerged on their side, too.”

“That’s right, Captain.” I answered quietly. “This is a war, no doubts there, but unfortunately it’s a war of children for children and conventional weapons alone aren’t going to win it. You’ve all read the files and reports I’ve distributed and seen the security clearances required to even look at them. I had to up some of yours just so you would be allowed to read the information.”

They all nodded at that without taking their eyes off me. “So you know that the ‘kids’ I have assembled here have seen combat in one form or another, and most of us more than a few times. We’re young, yes, but unfortunately, the ‘children’ in this are going to have to fight the war, at least some of us are. And we know we don’t have any more choice in that than you do.”

“But the worst part of the whole thing is this.” I let my eyes bore into every one of them. “We stopped being kids some time ago. So I say let’s do this, get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, then maybe some of us can go back to at least pretending things are the way they used to be. But for now, we have a job to do. Let’s get it done.”

“One more thing before we close this meeting.” Colonel Torrance gave me a respectful nod. “Is that we can’t really trust that our own classified information regarding this operation will stay secure if too many are a party to it. So I’d like to implement non-foreign dissemination only of this material. We can set up a diversionary brou-ha for the south of the border types to play with, say a big drug bust gone crazy, people running all over the place, pulling attention away from what we’re really doing. That way the Federales will still be in place and likely to scoop up anyone we want along with the diverson.”

“Is it fair to exclude the Mexicans like this?” I questioned. “I mean, they have a few problems of their own with emerged, too.”

“Ma’am.” The man let out a sigh. “Though it is no reflection on you, or still on site personnel, this facility, a supposedly Secure one, was penetrated so badly that it’s taken weeks to just get things back into some semblance of secure operations. Given the propensity of criminals to buy off law enforcement down south, do you think our secret would remain one for long if we shared the actual information with Mexican authorities at this stage?”

“Well.” I gave him a long hard look and shook my head. “You’re the expert, that’s why you’re here. I don’t have to like the principle involved, but I do see the point. Any dissension to this?”

There wasn’t any.

“All right. Anything else someone needs to add right now?”

“We could just send a couple of B-2s in to bomb the shit out of the place then go in and pick up the pieces.” Tecumseh offered. “We could get the assets to spot for the bombers and save ourselves a lot of trouble.”

“Prisoners, Captain.” I reminded him. “As tempting as that plan is regarding costs in time and manpower what we want and need out of this are prisoners and information, not dead bodies and rubble. We want to take the place as intact as we possibly can.”

Just like everyone else at that table, I held no illusions about retrieving kidnapped emerged from the train wreck we were planning. I was afraid most of those were already dead, or had been suborned into helping the Syndicate. But we desperately needed to know, with a lot more certainty than we possessed through the satellite facility we’d taken down, just what exactly the Syndicate was up to and how far along they were with it.