The Hunt Read Free

seconds before disappearing.
    â€œThis is the covert symbol of the Fifth of Five. The first four points represent the current intelligent species: Kindred, Mosca, Axion, and Gatherers. The last one represents humanity. But we cannot raise humanity’s position without you. I am not the first leader of the Fifth of Five initiative. Nor are you the first human we have set our hopes upon. Hundreds of Kindred have been involved in the clandestine effort to declare humanity’s intelligence, spanning back generations. The irony is that you cannot even see that we are attempting to help you.”
    She paced tightly. “Helping us? If you want to help, why don’t you try finding out if Earth still exists.”
    â€œThe stock algorithm predicted POD98.6. That stands for Probability of Destruction ninety-eight point six percent—”
    â€œYeah, I know, chances are humans have destroyed Earth. But even if there’s a tiny chance it’s still there, it could mean everything to us. Our homes. Our families. Our entire world.”
    He looked at her with eyes that revealed no emotion. “ This is your world now.” He paused long enough to pick up the dress. “Take this. You will need it.”
    HE LED HER THROUGH the austere hallways that formed the public world of the Kindred’s station. They passed walls that glowed with starry light, and a few open nodes like the one they had once used to board a transport, and then there was a rush of air and chatter as the ceiling opened into a three-story-high marketplace. Cora’s feet slowed. She had been here before—to this very market, or one like it. It was mostly filled with Kindred vendors offering artifacts—human and otherwise—and a few hunchbacked Mosca traders with their eerie breathing masks and red jumpsuits. There was even a sole Gatherer, one of the willowy, monk-like eight-foot-tall creatures Cassian had once warned her never to look at directly.
    Her eyes settled on a raised platform. It was a stage of sorts, maybe for auctioneering, about four feet off the ground. If she could distract Cassian, she could climb up there and hold a demonstration of her psychic abilities. Books and utensils from the market stalls would levitate at her command. Kindred would gasp. Fingers would point at her. And then they would have to reluctantly admitthat she and all humans were just as capable as they were, and that they would never be able to cage her again—
    Cassian stopped.
    â€œYou forget that I can read what you are thinking,” he said. “A public demonstration of your telepathic abilities is not the way to achieve your goals.”
    He motioned toward Kindred guards posted on the upper level of the marketplace that she hadn’t noticed before. “If you were to claim that humans have evolved, no one would believe you. They would ask for proof that you could not reliably demonstrate. You have the potential, yes, but not the mastery. And when you were not able to prove it, those guards would declare you mentally unstable and lock you away. Do you not remember what happened to Anya?”
    Anya. The Icelandic girl Cora had seen trapped in the Temple, drugged and delirious.
    â€œOn a stage not unlike that one,” Cassian continued, “Anya once performed a fairy-tale play her private owner had written. She decided to alter the script. Instead of picking artificial flowers from a vase, she levitated them with her mind. I could not stop the Council when they came for her.” He lowered his voice even further. “Stubbornness can be an endearing trait, but it can also be your downfall. There is a way to get what we both want. Do not let your anger at me blind you to reason.”
    His words only stoked her anger more. She could feel it growing inside her, and yet a memory pushed forward. Her older brother, Charlie, shaking his head after she’d fallen out of the oak tree at the edge of their property