The crèche security went down screaming; even so the plan never would have worked if the crèches had been like a normal school. However, these children had literally been raised to be in military units, and knew that procedures were in place for good reasons. The older kids, ranging from fourteen to seventeen, ran interface for the caretakers, spreading out among the younger kids to keep the evacuation tight and quick. Rei was surprised to see one group of teens break off and head down the eastern corridor. “I have a group going the wrong way!” He reported over his comm.

  Noriko stopped for a second and listened. “No they’re the senior class. It’s their job to get the infants out in case of an emergency. They’ll meet us at the front doors.”

  Rei heard the sound of sonic pistols echo down the hall, and he wondered how many of the teens would die saving the infants. Then he realized, as he saw one of the kids running with a pistol in his hand, that the teens were executing the administrators who got between them and their goal.

  They ran through the halls, Rei scooping up a three year old who had tripped and dropped her red bag. She screamed and tried to struggle out of his arms as he ran past the bag.

  “Kid we got no time for toys!” Another child, around seven holding a blue bag grabbed up the red one and handed it the girl.

  “It’s not toys, sir.” The child said. “They’re escape bags. They have clothes, food and a few cans of water in them. We are required to take them with us during Evac.”

  Rei appreciated how smooth the evacuation was going, but not so sure how he felt about a bunch of kids having a better evacuation protocol than the Deeps. At the same time part of him was pissed, he realized now that none of these kids had grabbed toys. He wasn’t sure they had toys.

  As they came out he saw a bunch of teens with infants strapped to their bellies and huge awkward looking backpacks strapped to their backs. “This way!” shouted Rei, waving the teens towards the transport tunnel that would lead them to Diana.

  “Rei! We’ve got black ops and infantry units coming up the road!” Noriko called over the radio, from near the back of the line. Rei cursed, as he considered the tunnel in front of him. He considered falling back, but the tunnels were too complex to just tell one of the teenagers how to get to the breaching hole and the Diana. “Contact the gestalt and tell them to get their pale asses on it. We’ve got to get these kids out of here! I’ll lead them, everyone else with a gun, get to the back of the line, and lay down some covering fire.”

  Rei was privately proud of himself for remembering the phrase Saki kept using during her training sessions with the bigger guns.

  “Takada! Things are hot! The Gestalt had a read on the black ops guys and had everyone ready to bug out, but there are more soldiers here than we had reason to anticipate. It looks like they’ve re-enforced the garrison!” Noriko shouted to him with her mind. He felt her as she threw herself over a straggling seven-year-old as a blast went over their heads"

  “I hear you Noriko. We just got word from Talia and are spinning the gestalt up now.”

  “Is your backup in place?” Noriko asked

  “Yes.”

  Takada looked at the group of Siren, the Deep albinos all had the paper white skin and silver white hair common to their race, and only Alexander had the mutation that made his eyes pink instead of ice blue. Takada’s hair was still a soft blond. His last dye job hadn’t washed out yet.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “They’ve re-enforced the garrison, Rei and Noriko’s teams are taking fire, and black ops doesn’t care if they hit the kids.”

  “Alright everyone let’s save their hides.” Said Alexander

  Takada glanced at Saki, who sat on the ground polishing her rifle. She gave him the barest of nods before Takada slid into the gestalt.

  His breath was taken away at how much power was available by combining their minds. We could reach all the way to the tower! To all the Sirens in Australasia! He felt another mind brush his, lost in the gestalt. The others don’t have the training to retain their minds in this? It’s not that different from psy-linking for the team. He mentally walked to the front of the gestalt where all the power was funneled through Alexander’s will. He watched as soldiers dropped, screaming and grabbing their heads, as the ice-cold Siren battered at them with raw psionic force.

  That’s the difference in our training, he is a hammer. I am a scalpel. Takeda thought to himself before projecting his thoughts to the Gestalt as a whole. Alexander. With all this power, why don’t we inform the Sirens at the tower and throughout the city of what’s going on? They will inform the Kitsune, and InSec and the military will have to deal with a whole branch of their top people, and a quarter the Cities population, revolting all at once. It should help keep the heat off of us and tell everyone the truth.

  No. Takada winced as Alexander’s words burned through the Gestalt. The more people we involve the more chance we will be betrayed.

  Betrayed? We’re abandoning Earth, what is there to betray?

  We must think of our people first. Once we are safe then we will look at bringing in a few other people

  Takada heard some of the other minds arguing in the gestalt, before Alexander quieted them with a harsh burst of psi-strength. I know what I am doing. I know what is best for us.

  It took all his strength to resist Alexander’s mental command to be silent and obey. He made one tiny gesture with his real hand.

  Saki saw Takada’s hand twitch, per the plan that had been psionically buried almost too deep for her to remember, and stood, raising her rifle to her shoulder. She lined the sites up on the back of Alexander’s pale head. “Goodbye Asshole.” She muttered to the psionically deafened albino an instant before she pulled the trigger. His head exploded in a rain of blood and brain. She touched her comm.

  “Natalia, this is Saki reporting in. Alexander has been eliminated. Takada is taking charge of the Sirens Gestalt.”

  Takada felt no guilt for ordering Alexander’s death, Noriko had reported to both him and Natalia the amount of tampering he had done to the minds of the people living in the Deep. He had been a good man and a good leader, unfortunately he had also been a megalomaniacal bastard, he didn’t want to share power, not with Kay, not with Takada, and certainly not with the hundreds of other Kitsune and Sirens that were living in the Tower.

  With a ruthlessness born of years of training in psionic combat he grabbed the gestalt before it could disperse and reached out to InSec Central and beyond, he felt hundreds, thousands of Sirens minds, some of them blinking in surprise as they recognized his mental signature.

  For those of you who know me, and thought I had died… I am alive! For those of you who don’t know me, I am a former InSec agent who, when my team discovered a dark truth about the society we served, our superiors tried to kill us. They managed to kill most of my team, and they also killed Cassidy, the woman I loved, who had been sent to breed on Osaka. Takada let them feel his pain, sending them the images he had pulled, out of Shido’s mind, of his mate lying dead on a gurney her arms covered in needle marks.

  How many of our mates and children have ‘died of a fatal miscarriage? He felt the sirens begin to growl as they thought of the many women who had died of that very cause over the years. Today I and a group of people who have survived this betrayal make a stand! Tell the Kitsune how we have been betrayed, only by working together will we survive to build a new future where our families will be safe! Today we make our own fate!

  Takada heard the mental battle cry of the Sirens, which was shortly followed by the enraged hissing of the Kitsune, as a not so tiny war broke out at the tower.

  He dropped the gestalt. He grimaced at the bits of Alexander’s head on his shirt, and he ignored the Deep Dwellers screams of surprise and terror at finding their leader dead, as he hit his comm. “Natalia, the Garrison at the crèches is down. I also made a command decision. The gestalt was powerful enough to reach the Central. Now everyone knows the truth.”