Page 32 of Anarchy Chained: Alpha Thomas

“Settle down,” he says, still working with the maps. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m just trying to make you think about things. You can’t kill me, Sadie. So let’s just get that out in the open right now. If you try, you’ll die. I don’t want to hurt you, so I’d prefer that you don’t try.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Which part don’t I know? Because I’m the one with all the memories, Sadie. I’m the one with perfect recall of what they did to me. What they made me. What I’m capable of. And you saw it back there at the hospital. You saw what I can do.”

“It had no effect on me.” I shrug.

“No effect?” He laughs. “I knocked your fucking programming right out of your mind. Wiped it away. You’re a shell right now. I did that to you.”

I look up at him. He’s staring at me with an intensity I haven’t seen before. Granted, I’ve known him like one day. But so far he’s been calm, collected, and completely in control. This new look says he might not stay that way. “It’s only temporary.”

“My point is,” he growls, “you don’t stand a chance against me one on one. That’s all. I’m not worried about you killing me. But I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I don’t need his protection, I decide. I have nothing to back up this feeling, but I know it. I’m surer about this guess than anything else.

I am something unique. Special. Capable, and strong, and… deadly.

I don’t need his protection.

“I thought we were talking about maps,” I say in a cool, calm voice. “You had something to tell me.”

He lets out a long, frustrated exhale. “OK, so you know this is City Park in Cathedral City and these are the City Towers. But do you know what they do?”

I shrug. “Broadcast,” I say. “Some kind of wave. Obviously. That’s why one builds towers.”

“Yes,” Thomas says, his eyes brightening at my deduction. “Yes. My towers broadcast signals.”

“What kind of signals?” I ask.

He doesn’t look at me, but I can see the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile. “Dangerous things.”

“Like radiation?”

“No,” he says, turning his head slightly so I can see him in profile. “Like… well, it’s complicated. Sound and light are strange things, Sadie. Powerful things. We’re just at the very early stages of understanding them. But they are weak in some respects. You need a receiving device. Like a phone. And…” He turns his head to hide his smile. “A tablet, in our situation.”

“Whose situation?” I ask.

“My friends and me. Do you remember—” Then he stops. “No, you wouldn’t. Several months ago, terrorists blew up all the cell phone towers around Cathedral City. But lucky for the citizens of this great city, I had others in place. What I didn’t have was a cell phone company. I deal in satellite phones, you see. So in order to restore wireless phones to the area, I gave everyone in the city one of my sat phones and put them on my network.”

“Sounds pretty ominous, Thomas.”

“Oh”—he laughs—“it gets much better than this. You see, in order for a phone to be useful you have to have access to the satellite and you have to have a way to communicate with the satellite. Which is why I gave everyone in the city a free terminal.”

“You’re going to hurt these people?” I ask. He hesitates, and in those few seconds I realize—even if he says yes, I won’t be bothered by this admission.

Why do I feel this way?

“Not really,” he says. A noncommittal answer if ever there was one. “I am trying to hurt certain people. But not all people.”

“Which people?” I ask.

“Who do you think?”

“Prodigy people,” I say.

“Yes.” He turns to fully face me and the smile is back. “I’m going to hurt them, Sadie. And I’d like your help.”

I sigh. “I’m not much use like this. I know I have certain capabilities. But I get the feeling I have certain parameters that contain me as well.”