Free A Question of Will by Alex Albrinck Page A

suggesting?”
    “I’m wondering if this could be a trap set by the Alliance,” Porthos said, frowning. “They know we’re desperate to capture Will Stark. They erase or hide his memories and plant him here. Or they just find someone with a similar likeness. Then they sneak into this back yard, and shoot off Energy like fireworks. We show up, and while we’re sitting here trying to figure out why Will Stark seems so, well, so human ...”
    “...the Alliance swoops in and captures us,” Athos said. He glanced around. “I don’t think that’s true, but...any Energy readings now?”
    Porthos closed his eyes, deep in concentration. When he opened them, he frowned. “You mean, outside of the three of us? There is one person.” He turned toward the woods. “You can come out now, sir.”
    The Leader of the Aliomenti, a short man with thinning blond hair brushed straight back, emerged from the woods and walked toward the three Hunters and Will Stark. Will noted an odd symbol of gold stitched on the lapel of his expensive suit. The symbol seemed to show a dashed circle inside a solid one, with an upside-down V overshadowing both. There were other symbols, but Will’s eyes weren’t functioning well enough between the beating and his lost glasses to make them out. “What, precisely, is the delay here?” he demanded. “Why are we not leaving with Stark immediately? Eventually, the human police and fire professionals will get through The Assassin’s mess out there and come this way. We cannot risk exposure.” He glared at the Hunters. “Well?”
    “Sir, we have reason to believe that this may not be the true Will Stark,” Athos admitted. “Porthos detected strong Energy here consistent with our favorite fugitive, but he has no memory of anything related to the Aliomenti...and no discernible Energy readings at this range either. Aramis’ Damper shouldn’t completely eradicate any semblance of Energy from Will Stark, but it has.” He took a deep breath. “I’m concerned that this man may be part of a trap set by the Alliance.”
    The Leader frowned, and turned to the man wearing the cloak. “I thought you could distinguish between Energy given off by different people, and thereby know who you were Tracking? Why did you not sense something different here?”
    Porthos shrugged. “There are remnants of Stark’s Energy here, and quite a bit of it. Perhaps he simply emptied himself of it, leaving himself without Energy or memories. But there is no Energy coming from him now, and I don’t know for sure that that’s not because of what he demonstrated in our last encounter.” He glanced at Aramis and Athos. “He could hide his Energy then, and he could be doing the same thing here. I fully believe this is our man; whether he’s faking humanness, or had his memory erased, or is employing some other deception, I can’t say. But the readings I picked up from far away? Nobody else can crank out that much. This is our guy.” He hesitated. “It has to be.” His face betrayed his doubt, though.
    Will’s face seared with anger at this. Now, after they’d murdered his family and beaten him and burned down his house...now they think they might have the wrong person? “You murderers ,” he snarled, as best he could in his battered condition. “You killed them and beat me up because you thought I was somebody else ?”
    “Shut up, Stark,” Athos said, kicking him in the ribs. He didn’t put as much into it as before, but Will’s body had suffered so much abuse that it was agony. “Nobody’s going to lose sleep over a handful of human deaths.”
    “If you were concerned, you shouldn’t have broken the rules and Oaths,” Aramis said, as if this resolved all concerns. “You have only yourself to blame.”
    “I have you to blame!” Will said, raising his voice as much as he could. “You think I’m somebody that your group says broke some rules, and for that you beat me up, kill two good men, and murder