Cloud Rebel (R-D #3)(74)

"Do we have any images of this guy?" I asked.

"Probably from somewhere," Matt nodded.

"Good. You get them and I'll ask Cori to take a look—the next time we see her."

"I will transport the images to her," Val offered. He'd been so quiet, I'd almost forgotten he was with us, still.

"Give me a few minutes," Matt said and loped out of the room.

*

Corinne

"Dearest, I hate to disturb you," Val appeared at my side. I stood on a porch designed after a Greek temple, which was connected to an outside display at the Archives.

"You're not disturbing me," I said, turning toward him.

"I have this," he handed a photograph to me. "Colonel Hunter says this is the man who betrayed Ilya. He calls himself Milton Smith—Lead Agent Milton Smith."

I went still for a moment, before reaching for the photograph with shaking fingers. My gaze raked across Smith's features many times, as if willing them to change. When I handed the picture back to Val, I understood much more than I had earlier.

"Tell Auggie that he won't be able to stop this one," I said. "No human can."

I knew Val wanted more information, but I couldn't give it to him. I wiped tears away and struggled to keep my sobs under control. How had I not suspected this? I'd read so many things in the Archives.

"What shall I tell Colonel Hunter to do, then?" Val asked gently. He attempted to place his arms around me, but I moved away from him.

I'd never felt so empty, before. Even when Ilya's obsession was to kill me, at least I knew he lived.

What he was now—Ilya was gone. An automaton had taken his place—one who would murder anyone on command. I considered bending time, but there were so many things to correct, so many things I wanted to do—or that needed doing, that the sheer magnitude of it was overwhelming.

I understood, somehow, that Val or Kalenegar or the Larentii as a whole would find a way to stop me before I was even halfway done. Perhaps some things I could get away with, but it wouldn't bring me any closer to righting the whole of the wrong.

As for destroying Agent Smith, well, I doubted any Larentii could do it.

Smith was a rogue god, after all, in a time before all the rogues had been destroyed.

Yes, I knew his name.

I also knew he had a weakness.

I saw it in his face. I wondered at the fact that I could read him, but then I'd always been able to read Opal and Matt, too. Perhaps it was a side effect of the drug.

Perhaps it was something else—whether blessing or curse, I couldn't say. Hugging myself, I turned back to the view off the porch. Did Phillips even know what he'd recruited to his cause?

I doubted that. Phillips, even as a clone, imagined himself to be in charge.

He wasn't.

Liron, the rogue god, was.

"Dearest, I know you are in pain. Allow me to help," Val spoke softly.

"I need to be alone for a while longer," I said. "I'm sorry. I just—have to work through this on my own."

"Call if you need me," he said. "Never forget that I love you."

"I won't forget," I whispered. "For as long as I live."

*

Notes—Colonel Hunter

"Val says we can't destroy this one—that no human can, according to Corinne," I handed the photograph back to Matt.

He and I sat in a small meeting room at the White House, fidgeting and waiting for another appearance from the President.

At times, I wondered if I shouldn't just go to the most respected journalist I knew and tell him everything, so the world would know that we were being led by someone in serious need of psychological help.

That would not only brand me as a fellow lunatic, but a treasonous one, too.

"We have intel," the President swept into the room, poor Laura Quimby almost running to keep up with him. "Those f*ckers are in New York," he said. "They want to kill the entire city."

*

"Does he expect us to believe this?" I fumed.

We'd driven to Matt's office—it was closer to the White House—to discuss the evidence the President had given us for the insurgency's presence in New York.

Since Matt and I knew the sarin attacks weren't initiated by the insurgents, we doubted they'd have the gas or the drones necessary to launch an assault.

Yes, we had photographs, but those could be faked easily enough. I was just about to say that when Opal magically appeared in Matt's office.

I stopped breathing for a moment.

"It's time you knew," Matt sighed. "This has gone beyond what we signed up for."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, once I got my breath back.

"He's saying the insurgents aren't in New York—well, there may be a few, but they're still in hiding, too afraid to peek out of their shells," Opal huffed. "If anybody is in New York to kill people, it'll be the Lyristolyi—who, unwittingly, may be playing into another's hands for the worst end-game imaginable."

"Whose hands?"

"Agent Smith's, or so he calls himself. Corinne didn't identify him and we don't know his real name; he's relatively new in this part of the equation."