The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon (22 page)

Gabriel shook his head. “I wish people would stop calling me that, everyone is acting so surprised that I managed to not get killed on my first mission out. Do your new guys make a habit of getting killed on their first time out?”

“Not usually,” Elise said. “But you didn’t have nearly the amount of training that they did. Ryan and Tony really talked you up to the rest of Phoenix.”

Ethan, on the other hand, had been silent ever since they returned from Vertias. He didn’t say a word once they arrived back at Aegis, though given what Gabriel now knew about Ethan’s and Dominic’s past, he could understand why.

“The slayer returns.”

Gabriel turned to see Cody jogging up behind them. “Get any sleep last night?”

Cody draped his arm over Gabriel’s shoulder as they continued down the hall.

“Some,” Gabriel sighed, apparently no one was going to let the killer thing drop. “How about you?”

“Slept like a babe,” Cody smiled. “You think they pulled anything out of all that information that we got from Daniel?”

“Who knows.”

“I hope they did,” Cody sighed. “If not we’re going to be buggered for sure.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Gabriel nodded, as Cody punched in the code for the command center. “Do you think that Ethan will agree to it? After hearing about what was said, it sounded more like an order than a request.”

“Not really,” Cody said, with a shrug. “Ethan’s stubborn and even though the council suggested it highly, they really don’t have a way to enforce it. I mean they could pull him off the team but everyone knows that rarely happens. Maybe Elise manage to talk some sense into him, she does know him pretty well.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Elise responded, as she came around the corner. “I just pointed out the obvious, hopefully he sees that.”

The trio continued toward the command center, Marissa and Everett were already inside, surrounded by a night’s worth of fast food wrappers and coffee cups. Both looked like they could use some serious sleep, which they probably weren’t going to get until they made it all the way through the information that had been on Daniel’s computer.

“You two look like hell,” Cody frowned.

“Thank you captain obvious,” Everett snapped. “We’ve been up all night while the rest of you got to go off and have a nice nap.”

“Your fault for being the tech savvy one,” Cody responded.

“We got through everything he had on there,” Marissa explained. “And he had a lot of nasty things on here...”

“We need stuff to tie him to Sainte-Pierre I mean we already know that this guys a bastard...”

“If you would just me finish,” Marissa went on. “We found a series of emails that he sent to Sainte-Pierre.”

“Any mention on where he was hiding?” Gabriel asked. “Or can you know, track the IP address or something.”

“First off, do you even know what that is?” Everett said, making a face. “Second off, Sainte-Pierre is way too smart leave behind a simple clue like that. Mostly likely he would have bounced his address off servers all over the world.”

The door to the command center opened again and Ryan, Tony, and Ethan walked in. Ethan looked like he hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest either, though after what happened last night at castle Vertias, Gabriel wasn’t stupid enough to ask.

“Tell me you found something,” Ethan demanded.

“We found many things,” Everett admitted. “But as to the actual location of Sainte-Pierre, no, we haven’t found anything concrete. We’re still looking through it though. The FBI is going to have a field day when we turn over the information to them.”

“What we did find, well it wasn’t good,” Marissa stated, typing a few keys. The screens in the command centered shifted to show what appeared to be an inventory list. “Daniel got a lot of stuff from Sainte-Pierre, including RPGs, AK-47’s, materials for IED’s, and whole laundry list of more conventional weapons.”

“I thought we made all of those go boom?” Ryan asked.

“We did,” Marissa confirmed. “What is more distressing so some of the stuff that he promised to Daniel but hadn’t yet delivered.”

“Such as?” Tony asked.

“You aren’t going to like this,” Everett warned.

“Just spill it.”

Marissa shrugged and entered a few more commands. “Along with the conventional weaponry, Sainte-Pierre also promised Immortal Blades, Greek fire grenades, armor with glyphs, and well, here is the scary part. He sent schematics of biotech implants, Pulse Plasma Rifles, and even Sonic Shock Cannons...”

“That’s all Aegis tech!” Tony exclaimed.

Everett nodded. “Yeah, that’s what we figured too.”

“We already checked with research and development,” Marissa said. “They aren’t missing any prototypes or any materials that would be used in making those prototypes.”

“Wait a minute,” Gabriel asked. “What are those things?”

“The biotech implants are devices which release a series of nanites,” Everett explained. “They work on reconfiguring the body, giving a person the same abilities that we have without having to go through the Rite. It’s still a work in progress, though; nowhere near ready for actual testing.”

“We were working on a way to use the implants to harness the latent bioelectric field that your body creates,” Marissa added. “But Everett is right; none of this stuff is even close to ready for actual application.”

“And the Plasma Pulse Rifle?” Gabriel asked.

“Directed energy weapon,” Tony explained. “The Sonic Shock Cannon uses focused sound waves to smash through pretty much anything...at least that’s the theory; they are still working on practical application.”

“So, some seriously dangerous stuff,” Gabriel nodded. “Well, that’s just great.”

“It’s not just the tech that’s disturbing,” Everett went on. “We couldn’t find any of the armor, the blades, or the grenades, which means that they are still out there and that someone has their hands on them.”

“I take it that you haven’t found any of those missing from our own armories?” Ethan asked.

“Not according to the computer systems, though it stands to reason that if someone could find a way to send out the schematics then they could also erase all traces of them removing items from the armory,” Marissa added.

“Who could do that?” Tony asked.

“Not many.”

“Could someone make those things?” Gabriel asked. “I mean the rifles or the implants?”

“No,” Marissa shook her head. “All of the really important materials have to be created here; there isn’t another place that we know of on the planet that could manufacture some of those parts. The lens for the pulse rifles alone would take weeks to create.”

“That we know of,” Gabriel reminded her. “If he got the specs out to Daniel, who’s to say that he didn’t give it out to someone else as well.”

“The only other organization that could come close to working with this tech is the Illuminati and they tend to steer clear of things like this,” Ryan frowned. “They know better than to get into a turf war over technology with us.”

“That’s not the most disturbing part about this,” Cody grunted. “It means someone inside Aegis is working with Sainte-Pierre.”

“A traitor?” Ethan asked, rising his brows. “Not possible.”

“What do you mean not possible?” Gabriel asked, making a face.

That kind of thinking seemed just plain stupid, at least to Gabriel. He didn’t care how well you checked out your people, there was always a chance that someone with less than stellar morals slipped through the cracks.

“There hasn’t been a traitor in the Guardians...ever,” Elise said. “At least not that we know of.”

“All evidence would suggest otherwise,” Everett sighed. “I hate to think of it but Cody does have a point, we have a leak in Aegis...a really big leak.”

That thought did not sit well with anyone in the room. Most of the researchers, scientists, and engineers were former Guardians. The thought of one of them selling out to someone like Sainte-Pierre was disturbing and unsettling to say the least. What was even more disconcerting was the fact that the weapons schematics that Sainte-Pierre had been giving out where for weapons that could pose a serious threat to any country and government in the world.

“Not everyone has access to that kind of material thought, right?” Gabriel asked. He had been spending a lot of time in the biotech lab himself and knew from experience that you needed clearance to access pretty much every part of the Aegis systems.

“Also true,” Everett nodded. “We’ve already informed Jonathan that he’ll need to look at everyone that has access to those projects. Elise is helping him start that process right now.”

“Well, as much as this sucks...any information on where Sainte-Pierre is holding up?” Ethan prodded again.

“No,” Everett said, slightly annoyed. “But this is good information; the council will want to know about this.”

“So, you’re telling me that you haven’t found anything at all that we could use to find him?”

“Not so far,” Marissa said, shaking her head. “We have found some other important information though; we back tracked a lot of the emails and found that most were sent from around the New York City area.”

“That’s a big area,” Cody grunted. “You know what that means, right?”

“No,” Ethan snapped. “Keep looking for something.”

And with that said he turned and stormed from the room.

“You still think that we can get him to change his mind?” Everett asked.

“We may not have a choice,” Ryan sighed. “I hate to go behind his back seeing as how technically he is the team leader but we need to find Saint-Pierre and fast. We might not have a choice but to talk to Valentine without him.”

“He won’t like that,” Tony pointed out.

“Then he better change his mind.”

“So, what’s our next move?” Gabriel asked.

“Wait and see if Ethan comes to his senses,” Everett said, his shoulders sagging even more. “In the mean time we’ll keep looking through the data and see what else we can come up with. I’ll let you guys know if we come across anything.”

“Maybe you should get some sleep,” Gabriel offered. “The mind works best went fully recharged. I could explain the whole neurochemistry thing if you want me too.”

“Good looking, a demon killer, and smart,” Marissa said, with a thin smile. “Too bad you play for the other team. He’s right; we should try and get some sleep. We could come back and tackle this again in a few hours.”

“Let’s just get through this last file cluster,” Everett suggested.

“This still doesn’t make any sense,” Gabriel mused, shaking his head. “I mean what would Sainte-Pierre gain by attacking us and stealing our secrets? As far as he knows you guys want to keep him out there doing what he was doing, not behind bars.”

“Again, he does have a point,” Cody conceded. “Why this sudden homicidal turn toward us?”

“Maybe he was going after Daniel and we just got in the way,” Ryan offered. “That’s plausible.”

“And cut off his source of money,” Cody frowned. “Plausible yeah but not very smart. Gabriel’s right something about this seems bloody peculiar.”

“You mean other than the part about Guardians selling secrets?” Tony grumbled.

Tony did have a point. Though he didn’t have extensive firsthand knowledge of Sainte-Pierre he did do his reading on the demon. He was mostly motivated by profit not the murder of other living things…at least not the direct murder.

“And what do we do?” Gabriel asked.

“I’d say we celebrate, bonfire at my house, later tonight. And that includes you two,” Ryan said, looking at Elise and Marissa.

“We’ll be there,” Marissa smiled.

“Sweet.”

The rest of the day was pretty much the same as usual. They trained; first some cardio, then weight lifting, and finally martial arts and ranged weapons practice. Gabriel was getting better with both the Enforcer and the Hammer, although he still was best with his blade. After they showered and changed, they headed off to Ryan’s house.

When they arrived, they found Tony already there, polishing up his bike. Apparently everyone made themselves at home at Ryan’s. He was starting to wonder how much longer it would be before he felt comfortable enough just to waltz through the front door.

“Took you guys long enough,” Tony huffed. “You want to use the pit down by the lake?”

“Sure,” Ryan nodded. “You guys want to go down there and get things started?”

“No problem,” Tony shrugged. “Do you know how to light a fire?”

“With a match,” Gabriel offered. “Do you know how to build a fire?”

“Do I know how to build a fire,” Tony snorted. “Pft, clearly you haven’t been around for my Fourth of July spectacle.”

“We really should not let him play with explosives,” Ryan sighed. “Try and not burn down the forest.”

“Well I can’t make any promises,” Tony shrugged again.

They took off around the house and down the same path that Ryan took Gabriel down almost four months ago. Then, he had been completely unprepared for the world that he was about to enter. He hadn’t known anything about magic, demons, or the advanced technology that Aegis used.