Heart of Obsidian

Kaleb, it had found acceptance, a darkness that welcomed the malignant violence and anger at the core of its being.
    And you?
he asked that dark twin.
    It slid sinuously into the blackness, rolling in it like a cat.
    Initiate a barricade,
he ordered the NetMind as the DarkMind slid back to twine affectionately around him, its touch cold as the death Kaleb had meted out more than once.
Ensure a wide buffer zone. I don’t want anyone coming in contact with this.
    Images of building blocks cascaded into his mind and he realized the NetMind was already working on the barricade.
Good,
he said, giving it the praise it needed.
    Shifting position once the twin neosentience turned toward its task, the DarkMind choosing to assist the NetMind for reasons of its own, Kaleb located the mind of Subject 8-91. The male was infected with the same disease that had just devoured a chunk of the Net and, thus, was meant to act as Kaleb’s control as to the progression of that disease, his “canary in a coal mine.”
    Some would term that a cruelty, but 8-91 was too far gone to be helped—and he was expendable, his contribution to the world negligible. He was contributing far more, helping his fellow citizens, by acting as a barometer for this disease without a name.
    Subject 8-91, however, remained alive, functional, and with no awareness of the disease that had eaten into his frontal cortex. Clearly, the infection advanced at a different rate in an individual than it did in the psychic fabric that connected ninety-nine-point-nine percent of Psy on the planet.
    Kaleb’s cell phone rang.
    He’d been expecting the call. “Nikita
,
” he said, dropping out of the Net to speak to the woman who had been a Councilor before the Council imploded, and who now held power in a region that had become a focal point for those whose Silence was fractured.
    “I assume,” she said, “you’re aware of the shock wave that just rolled through the Net?”
    “I’ve seen the cause. One minute.” Hanging up, he stepped out to check on Sahara, saw that she’d fallen asleep, her hair a silken pool of black as she lay curled on her side. It wasn’t as vivid and as glossy as it should be, but he saw the promise. Yet she was nowhere near to the Sahara she was meant to be—tiny, her skin too pale, she looked as if she’d disappear any second.
    Reaching out, he lifted a single strand of hair, rubbed it between his fingertips. Real, very much so. And safe in the home he’d turned into an impregnable vault.
    Resetting the perimeter alarms to remote alert, and changing the angle of the sun umbrella so that she was fully protected, he pulled on his suit jacket, thought of Nikita Duncan’s high-rise office in San Francisco, and was there, his mind making the transition with a speed and an accuracy that the dead Councilor Santano Enrique had once considered a tool for his exclusive use.
    “No one has any explanations,” Nikita said to him the second he appeared, her voice as businesslike as the skirt-suit she wore, the lights of San Francisco bright in the midnight darkness behind her. “Yet you said you’ve seen the cause.”
    He saw no reason not to share the truth—it was one that would become apparent soon enough if his theory about what was happening proved correct. “Part of the Net has ceased to exist.”
    “Another anchor attack?” The blunt edge of Nikita’s hair swept over her jaw as she leaned on her desk, hands flat on the glass and almond-shaped eyes steady with an icy intelligence that had led to her position as one of the wealthiest women in the world. “I’ve heard no reports—”
    “No. The Net itself has disintegrated.”
    Nikita stared at him, barely containing a jerk when the comm panel on the wall chimed an incoming call. “It’s Anthony,” she said, touching the discreet pad built into her desk to accept the call and bring the other man into their conversation.
    Kaleb considered what Anthony Kyriakus would do if he knew that his niece was currently in Kaleb’s care. Likely unleash the full force of NightStar’s power in an attempt to retrieve her—Sahara’s clan had been searching for her with quiet, relentless persistence since her disappearance. Kaleb knew that because he’d had to take care to skirt their trackers more than once, and because he’d hacked into their files. Had they pinpointed her location before he did, he would’ve appropriated and used that information without compunction—Sahara