Elite: A Hunter novel Read Free Page B

station crew.
    But that was part of the mythos we were trying to project, I guess. We can never do anything that might make the Cits lose confidence in us or think they were anything less than completely safe.
    But although I’d done some to help, I was still at about 90 percent charge. I keyed my Perscom and called up HQ.
    “Hunter Joy,” I said when I got the handshake.
    “Go, Hunter Joy.”
    “Put me back in rotation. I hardly did anything this run,” I said. Because I hadn’t, and if we got another callout, it could be that one more Hunter would make the difference between handling it ourselves, and having to call in the army. One thing I’d learned, the Elite hate having to call in the army. Calling in an artillery barrage or some of the attack choppers is one thing, but having to call in troops or army Mages or army Hunters makes everyone feel like they fell down on the job somehow. Right now, I was pretty sure most of us didn’t want to get within a mile of an army group that had a Mage with it, because that Mage might be Ace. The army took him, and the army tends to want to use what it takes. So Ace was probably out there somewhere—supervised, sure, but not in a prison cell as long as he was “working.”
    It would be even worse if we had to call in Psimons from PsiCorps, the people with Powers that worked on the mind like telepathy, psychokinesis, mind-control, and that sort of thing. But they never worked outside the Barriers unless they were working with the army. Hunters don’t much like Psimons, but then, no one really does. How can you like someone who can rummage around inside your head anytime he pleases? Psimons, though, they have this cold arrogance every time they look at Hunters, like they’re thinking, I can do more than you can, and I don’t need Hounds to do it.
    “Roger, Hunter Joy. Noted back in rotation.” That was another change from being a plain old Hunter and being Elite. HQ assumed you knew your own strength, and if you figured you were good to go back on call, they didn’t argue with you. Only the medics could override that, and the medics would know from my vitals that I was just fine.
    So I watched the fields roll by about six feet below the skids of the chopper and change from blueberries to tomatoes, to corn, to things I didn’t recognize. I thought about Hammer and Steel and their call signs; there was something about that combination of Hammer and Steel that was hitting a note of familiarity, but not strongly enough that I was getting the connection.
    Oh, well. I’ll just tuck it in my subconscious, and it’ll wake me up in the middle of the night, probably.
    We raced toward the huge, conical silver towers that created the Barrier; if I craned my neck, I could see them through the pilot’s windshield. The helichoppers, like the trains, have a field around them that cancels out some of the Barrier effects, but I braced myself anyway. Hitting the Barrier feels for a human a lot like breaking the surface of water, except you feel it all through you instead of just at your skin. Of course, most Othersiders would be disintegrated if they tried to pass it.
    But now that I knew what I did…I had to wonder just how many Othersiders had managed to learn how to pass Barriers somehow. Because an awful lot of them were getting on the city side these days. More than Apex admitted, except to the Hunters, from whom it could not be hidden.
    As if in answer to my thoughts, my Perscom beeped. “Hunter Joy, do you copy?”
    “I copy, HQ,” I said instantly.
    “You’re to bounce when you hit the landing pad. Your old friend White Knight’s turned up another Gazer nest. You and Archer are to rendezvous with him.”
    “Copy that, HQ,” I replied. “Out.”
    I was already so focused on the Gazer nest that the jolts when we passed through the Secondary and Prime Barriers barely registered. I had one hand on my harness release as we came in hot to the landing pad, and the skids