Rook

more fluids. And the brains are hooked up!” Motha sounded entirely too enthusiastic, thought Myfanwy. “Well, actually, there’re only parts of the brains; it looks as if some slicing and dicing has been done.”
    Who
is
this woman?
    “Anyway, they’re surrounding a central brain, which has had considerable modifications as well. And there’s some metal and ceramic stuff in there—appliances, I’m thinking.” Myfanwy remembered the satellite phone they’d found in Van Syoc’s brain and spine. Odds were that skinless bastard from the limousine was listening in on the police station.
    “Eyes?” asked Myfanwy as she washed her hands.
    “I’m not seeing any,” said Motha. “Carmine?”
    “Nothing on the surface” came the contribution. “Nor ears. Nor hair. Not even body hair, so far as I can see.” Myfanwy came out of the lavatory and accepted a bottle of water from Ingrid. One of the large bodyguards was waiting outside the bathroom, while the other lurked about at the end of the hall. The entourage walked back to the command center, and Myfanwy looked around for Li’l Pawn Alan, her eyes finally settling on the corner of the room where he seemed to be hiding, far out of everyone’s way. Myfanwy nodded to him absently and retook her seat.
    “The press has begun asking questions,” said Watson, the Scottish woman. “Do we have anything planned out? Any instructions from the Rookery communications section?”
    “They’re still working on it,” said an Indian woman at a monitor. “Because of the gunshots, they can’t use a nonviolent excuse like they did in Bath. And since we’re not allowed to mention ter—”
    “Don’t say it!” exclaimed Myfanwy, Cyrus, Ingrid, the two large bodyguards, and Li’l Pawn Alan. The Indian woman blinked under the onslaught, and shrugged.
    “In any case, reports are beginning to pop up on the Web, though thankfully not from any reputable sources,” she finished before turning back to her monitors.
    “Rook Thomas, I don’t think there’s a way we can retrieve those people,” said Cyrus to her seriously. “The ones in the cube.”
    “I concur,” she said gravely. “The only thing we can get out of this situation is the end of it. And that must be done as quickly as possible.” The thought of the civilians who had been plugged into the Grafter war machine turned her stomach. And she seriously doubted that the human block had been placed there simply to fill up space in a Reading police station. “I want to see the cube obliterated as soon as possible. In fact, I think the entire site needs to be cauterized. What are our options?”
    “Well, ordinarily, Rook Thomas, I would think about standard demolitions or some sort of fire agent. However, taking into account the, uh, information you shared in the car, I’m not sure how successful those would be.”
    Man, the stories of the Grafters really took hold here, didn’t they?
thought Myfanwy, eyeing Cyrus. He was a decorated Checquy operative of high rank, but now he was sweating and red-faced.
    “In these circumstances,” continued Cyrus, “I’d think it would be best if we combined explosives, napalm, and the abilities of Harper Callahan. Do I have your authorization to summon him?”
    “If I recall correctly, Harp Callahan is nine years old and is still at the Estate. He has not yet risen to the rank of Pawn, right?” asked Myfanwy, already knowing the answer. The purple binder had taken care to lay out the details of the Checquy’s deadliest weapons in its early pages.
    “Nonetheless, his abilities have been presented as effective and discrete obliteration options since he was six,” said Cyrus.
    “But young Harp’s powers will leave nothing but a crater. Covering that up would be rather difficult,” Myfanwy said. Who was she kidding? Covering this up was going to be a nightmare regardless.
    Cyrus’s eyes bored into her. “Rook Thomas, I think that this situation may warrant extraordinary measures.”
    “Very well then. We will summon Harp.”
    “I think it’s wise,” said Cyrus. “And look, there’s an even chance that Callahan will survive.” Myfanwy’s stomach clenched. It hadn’t occurred to her that using the little boy’s powers might kill him. From what she could recall, his file tended to emphasize the amount of real estate that could be disposed of without any troubling side effects such as radiation, pollution of nearby ley lines, or inconvenient paperwork to