Free Mutant Legacy by Karen Haber Page B

degree of chagrin. Please, Julian, don’t start to tell me how good it is to see me after all these years. I’ll give you five minutes to tell me what’s on your mind. Get started.”
    “I don’t know where to begin—”
    She made a long-suffering sigh. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
    “Beg pardon?”
    “I can’t believe that I actually fell for your ploy.”
    “What do Kn>h="you mean?”
    “There’s no emergency, is there?” Her eyes flashed. “You just wanted to drag me out here. This is just one last power play to amuse yourself. You’ve resorted to false alarms in your dotage.” She began to rise out of her chair.
    “Sit down,” I said. “Oh, sit down, Alanna, for God’s sake. I’m sorry, all right? I’ll get to the point.”
    “Good.”
    “I’m afraid that I’m losing control of Better World.”
    She sat down with a thump that must have rattled even her well-preserved bones. “What makes you think that?”
    “It’s pretty obvious: a lot of decisions are made first and then I hear about them. Discussions around me. Meetings without me. I don’t like it, not at all.”
    “I can see why that would trouble you. But you shut me out so long ago,” she said, “why come to me now?”
    “I think the only way to beat this is a united effort by the two people who knew Rick best.”
    Alanna didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t give any sign that the mention of our brother’s name caused her the slightest bit of discomfort. The years seem to have worn her smooth as a river-washed stone. There was no flaw, no place on her for me to grab hold of and gain a footing. She merely sat there, staring at me.
    Her lack of reaction infuriated me. “Aren’t you concerned? Losing Better World will destroy everything we’ve worked for.”
    “Calm down, Julian, you’re getting hysterical.” Alanna was placid, almost amused. Her words were cool, her face composed. But plunging through her mind I spied the image of Better World burning like a comet, crashing, falling into a thousand pieces on the floor of some terrible canyon. What’s worse, I sensed her pleasure at the image. She wanted it to crash, crash and burn.
    Alanna selected an apple from the basket on the table and sat before me, calmly peeling it with her sharp telekinetic skills. The fruit bobbed between us in midair, shedding its red skin in lazy whorls to reveal crisp ivory flesh beneath. Alanna took a bite, chewed carefully. And as she chewed, a tiny smile curved her lips upward.
    I imagined the grinning skull beneath her skin. Grinning as it sat on a shelf in a museum. “A fine example of a late twenty-first-century carnivore,” the mechcurator would say. “The only type known to devour its own kind.” The skull smirked at me and I wanted to knock it from the shelf, to smash it into a thousand bone fragments.
    Delusional thinking, a quiet voice in my head informed me. A clear sign of stress.
    In real time an eternity of seconds ticked loudly in the silent room as I stared at Alanna.
    “So you’d murder the whole thing by neglect, wouldn’t you?”
    Alanna stopped smiling. “What did you say?”
    “I didn’t realize that murder was a trait that ran right through our family.”
    “Have you lost your mind?”
    “I’ve misjudged you completely.”
    She stood. “I’m going to call the medics and get you a sedative.”
    “And just maybe the dosage will be too strong?” I cast a mental image at her of vidnews headl Kvidbasket ines: “Desert Prophet’s Brother Dies. Foul Play Suspected.” “Is that really what you want?”
    “Stop it, Julian.”
    “I just want you to be honest with me.”
    My sister’s face was livid, her calm assured mask ripped to shreds. “How dare you probe me! Stay out of my head. This is the second time you’ve accused me of murder.”
    “Don’t you give a damn about Better World?”
    “It’s too late,” she said. “You should have come to me years ago. I don’t want to have anything