The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Standoff

Immediately every eye swung over onto the tense knot of new arrivals.

"Hold your fire, Bea," Raven quickly said, both hands raised. "We're not your enemies."

"No?" she quickly countered as she and her comrades swung their weapons to make sure the four intruders were covered. "You penetrated our security perimeter and walked into the heart of our base without saying a word and we're supposed to consider you friends?"

"She does have a point, you know," Duffy leaned over to Dee to say, earning himself a hard look from the tall redhead. 

Without warning Alex took a couple steps forward.

"Mordecai?" she breathed in astonishment and disbelief. "Is it really you??"

Mordecai?? Eyes flying wide, Melanie leaned forward to stare at the big man standing beside Raven.

"We ... we thought you were killed in that plane over Saskatchewan," the Spaniard went on to say, her emotions hardening her accent to the point that she was almost unintelligible.

The man in black favored Alex with a long, thoughtful look before smiling faintly.

"My death was faked to enable me to continue my efforts against the Brotherhood beneath the radar, Alex," he explained.

"So the plane didn't explode?" she asked.

"No, it exploded alright. Just not with me on board. I've been working ever since with a number of allies to try and prevent the Armageddon Project from happening."

That was the point that Melanie and Justine both exploded into the conference room.

"Mordecai!" the British Avalonian cried. "Why didn't you tell us you were still alive?"

Again the man in black let his eyes swing onto the senior member of the Avalon nation, pausing for a thoughtful moment before replying.

"Two reasons, Melanie," he said. "First, I was offline with micro-fissures in my psionic cortex. So I couldn't help you defend Avalon against the Brotherhood's onslaught. Nor did I want you spending Avalonian resources trying to keep me safe against further assassination attempts by Brotherhood assets. You had to keep focused on the fight here, in Calgary."

Mordecai paused to look over at the still astonished Alex and a stunned Justine.

"Second I needed to be off the Brotherhood's radar so I could prepare to hurt them more than I've ever done in the past. So ..."

"So you died." Melanie found herself nodding at the logic even as she tried sorting out the storm of emotions that tumbled unrestrained through her. A storm that not only she, Justine and Alex were feeling, but every Avalonian in the room as well.

"So I died," Mordecai repeated. "But now I'm back. And the lone gunmen want everybody off the streets before their hunting parties become active."

"Hunting ... parties?" Hin stammered, a look of confusion replacing the determined expression on his face. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Like we said, Hin, there are going to be teams on the ground looking to suppress any psionic they don't have friend or foe recognition on," Raven stepped in to say. "Your people need to be off the streets in the next six hours or a great many of them will be hurt by our hunting parties, maybe even outright killed." She let her look sweep over the table. "As people with a vested interest in the health of the independent nations here, in Calgary, we don't want to see that happen."

"A vested interest only when the Brotherhood has been finally brought to its knees," another one of the leaders retorted. "Where were the lone gunmen when the revolt against the Brotherhood overlords began? Why didn't they help us then? Why did they send Katengaur and her gaggle of loose cannons instead?"