Free Preda's Voice (Guardians of Vaka Book 1) by Carolyn Gross Page A

electrical field installed around the warehouse’s roof. It was a risk allowing that piece of technology in, but Tamron had deemed it necessary.
    Jim got the bracelets at a “steal,” according to the street vendor. Will personally considered it robbery, but money wasn’t his main concern at the moment. Jim laughed as he stuffed them into his pocket. Then they walked toward the end of the alley.
    “Who’d you buy those for?” asked Will. “You know we’re never going to see those high-school girls again.”
    “Shows how much you know,” he responded. “I got them for myself. They’re green. See? It’s a masculine color here…in case you hadn’t noticed.”
    As Jim was slipping the bracelets on, Will saw a refraction of light out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough to make him glance briefly at the warehouse’s roof. He saw a small spark as the box generating the electrical field was crushed, and a person standing on the roof quickly jumped back out of sight.
    Will cursed as he considered the implications of what he had just seen. Either this was a person discovering the technology and inadvertently destroying it, or it was one of them. If so it was now obvious this was a place of importance, and Tamron Fox had just given them away.
    Jim stopped walking next to Will. “Everything all right?”
    Will shook his head almost imperceptibly and gave the hand signal for silence. Jim immediately fell in step with him, and both men crept along the warehouse’s wall until they reached the side door. The trinket salesperson behind them in the alley was looking at them as if they were crazy, but neither said anything.
    They reached the coded doorway, and Jim punched in the seventeen-number combination. It was one of many possible codes they would need that Will’s friend had been forced to memorize for this mission. Will breathed a sigh of relief when the code worked and the lock clicked open. He entered the building first, and Jim stepped back to cover him.
    Will felt his heart hammer against his sternum. He could easily be killed in this warehouse if he wasn’t careful. After stepping into the building, he took a cursory glance around the room and found the stairwell in the back corner. He didn’t hesitate.

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    J im slowly followed Will and quietly allowed the door to shut behind him. There was very little light, but he could see the hand signal Will was giving him well enough. It felt wrong. They should call General Fox and tell him the rendezvous was compromised. Jim indicated as much with an intricate and emphatic reply. It was as forceful as he could be with a hand signal. Will just shook his head and indicated they should move forward.
    Jim was helpless. Will outranked him. He hadn’t seen what was on the roof, but Will had a way of sensing the Soundless better than anyone in their class. As far as Jim was concerned, if it involved the Soundless, this was better left to the adults. Will led the way up the stairs, and Jim dutifully followed without further argument. The Landi told himself they would have a conversation about this later.
    The two men were not without weapons. They had been briefed relentlessly about the use of technology, but Will reasoned the enemy was not similarly briefed. He had insisted on taking small electrical impulse guns with them and cited that Tamron himself had violated the technology ban. Jim had initially protested, but he was grateful for the small weapon in his right hand now. The gun was approximately the size of a cell phone and could almost pass for one on brief inspection. If people looked more closely, however, they would note the deep trigger on the side of the device and the visible circuitry on top.
    Jim had programmed these particular guns to fire only in response to his and Will’s unique fingerprints on the triggers. He was very proud of himself after accomplishing that particularly ingenious modification. These weapons were not meant