After the Dark Read Free Page A

adversaries, none of whom had come after him with gun in hand. The Conclave clearly wanted him alive . . . and that was a good sign, wasn't it?
    Wasn't it?
    Answering himself with a shiver, White sprinted off in the direction he'd been going, then turned right at the next corner, his mind working on the next chess move, when another Familiar stepped from the recess of a darkened doorway, a Tazer in his right hand.
    Questions fell like snow—where had
this
masked figure come from? How had the man gotten in front of him while he was fleeing? These thoughts and a dozen others flashed through White's mind in the moment it took the two darts to erupt from the end of the Tazer and puncture White's parka.
    He felt two sharp pricks in his chest, then his limbs flapped uncontrollably, and his feet lost their purchase and he found himself on his back, looking up at the gunmetal-gray sky. All the antipain breeding of centuries could not stop the electrical storm in his body from having its way with him, his veins on fire as current circuited through him, the questions gone now as the sky turned charcoal and everything around him grew very quiet.
    After only a few seconds, White surrendered to the unfamiliar sensation of extreme pain, and then it faded and he felt himself dropping away from Meander River, Alberta, as if he'd stepped off the edge of a cliff, plunking into an abyss, a place much colder than his Indian reservation refuge, and darker even than his darkest thoughts.
             
    The first thing Ames White realized, even before he opened his eyes, was that his gun was gone. The cold steel, the almost happy discomfort of the pistol binding against his waistband, was absent—it was like realizing a pickpocket had taken your wallet. He reached back and confirmed the weapon's absence from his spine at the top of his slacks.
    Despite what he'd experienced, White did not feel the ache, the soreness a typical human would experience; but he did feel an uncomfortable weakness, a certain leadenness, and the area in his chest where the darts had penetrated tingled, in an annoying, tickling fashion. This sensation immediately gave clarity to his thoughts and memory, and he remembered being found by the Familiars.
    He was somewhat surprised to be alive, though the actions of the trackers had indicated the Familiars had ordered his capture, not liquidation. Whether or not this was a pleasant surprise remained to be seen . . .
    Opening his eyes to dim illumination, White surveyed his surroundings and his situation. He was in a sparse gray cell, asprawl on a cold stone floor, the cell barren but for bars inset in a small window of the door—no bunk, no toilet; the cell was clean, the stinging smell of antiseptic tweaking his nostrils. A small, naked lightbulb hung in the hall beyond the tiny window, providing the only light; somewhere, water dripped. He still had his clothes (another surprise), but his parka, belt, and boots had been removed.
    Looking into the hallway through the bars, he saw not a row of other cells, but a blank stone wall, where shadows danced and jumped. White knew that most ordinaries—the term both the Familiars and the transgenics used to refer to “normal” humans—would be paralyzed by fear to find themselves in such a dank, dark environment, and would constantly search the shadows for mice, rats, or something worse.
    White, on the other hand, found the cell comforting. These surroundings, in and of themselves, presented no problems. His only concern now was coming up with a plan that would get him the hell out of here. No matter how bleak his future might appear, one favorable fact remained: the Familiars hadn't killed him immediately when they found him.
    “You have failed repeatedly, Brother White.”
    The voice rattled the bars—a booming basso profundo, piped in from somewhere in the darkness of the cell ceiling.
    White was startled, but only momentarily. Despite the obvious attempt at