Above Geneva the air was fresh and clear, and a very early morn haze broiled across the lake in an eerie shroud. To the rest of the world it was a normal day of international relations. However, it served as the start of the end to Jayden Knox and his crew as they may have been the last people on earth.The Peace Conference of the United Nations was going on. The grand hall of the Palais des Nations was crowded with leaders, scientists, and diplomats as well as with press. There were security guards and their biometric scanners as well as drones flying round the periphery. However it would be of no consequence unless Lucien were successful.Jayden fussed with the cufflinked, and the miniature equipment within sent an unheard signal to Nova and Georgina. Caspian followed him, in uniform, with the impersonal bearing of any assistant. In over his jacket he had a counterfeit press badge, and then beneath that, a transmitter constructed by Georgina to interfere with the remote neural input

(THEN-FIVE YEARS BACK)It was still early in the morning, when the sun was just coming over Fort Langston, but Jayden just rolled up his sleeves, adjusted his uniform in the mirror and without telling us anything, left the barracks. Olivia followed in his footsteps placing her arms around his waist. She smiled a lot yet her smile never touched her eyes.I see you take off again, she said, and put her chin on his shoulder.I am supposed to. An ambush place on the border again. Command requires eyes to be on it.”She stroked the back of his neck, and spoke with a low voice. You are always running off to save the world Jay. You never pause do you ask me what I want.”Jayden turned round slowly and did not know how to explain her tone. What dost thou desire, Olivia?She gaped at him. Be more than the woman half on the sidelines. I do not need to make something to last. Something good.”Jayden gave a half smile. We are already there. We do. We have got each other.”And still she glimpsed b

Cold air settled on the neck of Nova Benoit who was seen crouching at the broken point of entry into the compound but finger-tips running over the surface of a rusted keycard reader. The ancient emblem of Bloom was charred, in long black stripes, but still present, on the metal face: one lone helical coil, broken:Said she into her comm: We are inside.Only Georgina, right behind her, slipped through the opening, her rifle hanging over her shoulder and a palm scanner apparatus in her hand. She looked at the end of the corridor a gloomy, tunnel-like walkway that was dusted in white layer and with very blurred lights over the dying infrastructure wavering.It has not been in use years," she said.What is the matter with new biometric locks on the door? Nova countered.They made it advance.The lab was entombed in a bluff, outside Rose City, a now closed secondary experimental branch of the Bloom Project, brought to an end when Lucien diverted funds away. Yet Olivia had taken it back by

[FLASHBACK Years back]It drove down on Fort Langston. With her arms crossed, Olivia was in the flap of a tent and gazing at Jayden, whom she could only identify by the silhouette. It rained and wetted his uniform, though he was working on official business because he continued talking in a normal tone to his team as the growling of thunder could be heard.With that she despised him.That seemed so good to him in the clarifying power of its uses in cases of stress, in its tantalizing drawing power, in the way its power radiated out of him not as an effect of the inspiration by him of the fear of power, but that he was a loyalist. He did not talk loudly. Nevertheless, faithful people existed.its wasting on you, she thought, as he went over to some new recruits and said, all would be alright.Later, when he went back to their temporary lodgings Olivia was waiting by the oil lamp, and her arms were doubled before her.smiled she. You were satisfied at the outside.Laying down his gears,

It was a sound proofed windowless room that was two stories below the NovaSys command core which was a highly classified floor that only a few knew about. The off-grid interrogation suite was constructed in the case of security breaches and emergency holds. There was nothing in this which was a breach. Not in the conventional meaning of the words. It was not that at all.The girl Ava was on the cushioned gurney in the dead center of the room, strapped, yet in a reasonable way, her wrists bound with silicone, not metal restraints though. Tranquilizer was dripped slowly into her vein, controlled so that she would not lose consciousness, but be softened on the edge of her being. Nova desired her in a half-asleep half-awake condition. Occasionally, it was better to bring memory fragments in that space. That now is what they wanted. Fragments.Nova was standing by the strengthened observation panel with arms folded and eyes watching. The girl appeared...young. Young enough to have no relat