Sunset: Pact Arcanum: Book One by Arshad Ahsanuddin Read Free Book Online

representative. Even if you get close enough to the stage to speak to her, she won’t believe your credentials.”
    “She might,” Takeshi spoke up reluctantly, “if he teleported directly onto the stage.” He pushed himself away from the window, walked back toward the center of the room, and stood next to the other members of the Triumvirate. Ignoring the disbelieving gazes of his fellow Speakers, Takeshi pressed on. “Yes, it’s a restricted disclosure, but Nick is right, we have an invitation. An unprovoked assault on a declared Triumvirate representative who is acting in the line of duty is a class-two Armistice breach, which strips the perpetrator of any treaty protections. We never specified that such an offense didn’t apply to humans when we wrote the treaty, because it never came up before.
    “As the law stands, if he goes in as our agent and gets her to attack him, we will be within our rights to intervene directly.” Takeshi fixed Nick with a stern glance. “That holds true only if you maintain the terms of the Armistice Declaration. You can’t kill any of them or initiate an attack on your own, or you become a criminal yourself. As soon as you open the door to a diplomatic incident, back off and let Scott and Anaba handle it. They’re Armistice Security, so they can legitimately intervene on our behalf under the terms of the treaty.”
    “Scott’s in Australia, Take,” Nick said. “I was only supposed to be here in Anchorpoint for a couple of hours before jumping back there for our concert tonight.”
    “Well, get him here, fast.” Rory turned to Takeshi. “Take, you get Ana over here from New York, and they’ll infiltrate the building ahead of Nick and triangulate his final jump onto the stage.”
    Takeshi closed his eyes and communicated with Ana over their psychic link.
    Rory growled at Nick. “As soon as you’re in, declare yourself and try to push Medusa’s buttons. When she attacks you, hang back and call in the cavalry. I’m trusting you here, Nicholas. Don’t screw this up.”
    Moving away from the Triumvirate, Nick contacted Scott over their own link. In a matter of moments, the two Sentinels joined them in the Council Chamber.
    “Are you sure this is the way you want things to play out?” asked Scott, incredulous.
    Anaba nodded vigorously. “No matter what happens, we’ll be putting a lot of dangerous information out there.”
    “This is Nick’s game to play,” said Layla, as she washed her hands of the whole enterprise. “It will be up to him to minimize the damage.” She sat at the conference table with practiced grace. “Creator save us all.”
     
    * * *
     
    “Can you get inside?” Takeshi asked once their AIs had opened up a communications link.
    “The entrances are heavily guarded, so we’ll wait until the government representative arrives,” Ana subvocalized to her AI implants. “We’ll jump inside by line of sight as soon as they open the doors.”
    Takeshi faced the virtual screen, which showed the terrorist leader standing on the stage next to the podium. “Shuriken,” he told his AI, “stand by to jump Special Agents Phillips and Nizhoni back to Anchorpoint on my command.” He turned to Nick. “At the first sign that this is going bad, I’m going to pull them out. You might have a slight chance of protecting yourself from a blast of that magnitude; they don’t.”
    “Agreed.”
    A few minutes later, Ana’s voice came again. “We’re inside. It will take us a few minutes to reach the main theater.”
    They watched tensely as the minutes ticked by and Medusa presented her terms to the FBI agent. Layla’s eyes narrowed as she listened. “She is just playing games. She never intended to negotiate and will detonate the device no matter what.”
    “We have coordinates,” subvocalized Scott. “Nick is clear to jump whenever he wants.”
    “Go now, if you must,” Layla told Nick. “There is no more time.”
    With a deep breath, Nick jumped