Chasing Fate (Sentinel & Guide)

Chapter 65

[[Unedited]]

Jack screamed for a while, raged around the room until he found himself gasping for air in a pile of his torn clothes. The interview CD continued playing blithely from his laptop as he wept for the second time that day. 

"We're getting nowhere with this," Fate's voice was even, calm and collected, "I'll make a deal" 

There was a rustling of papers. The young woman, her assigned doctor looked haggard. Her usually neat bun falling haphazardly, her clothes dishelved. 

"What do you have that could possibly convince us to make a deal?" 

"You don't want to keep losing assets. I can tell you're running out. You'll have to tap into the school again. People are going to start asking questions. People are going to start looking into things. Just like with me." 

The young woman was visibly shaking, her reflection in the mirror was one of shock.

"Oh, you didn't know about that, did you? I guess they didn't want that to accidentally slip out. It would be a hell of a time if the public knew anything about where Blair Ellison grads really end up. About what NOGS sentinels are really used for." 

Jack was suddenly alert. He rushed over to the laptop screen. What did she mean NOGS sentinels? It was a federal organization primarily staffed by guides and nulls. It was a primarily relational group. They did not have their own sentinels like the FBI or the CIA. They were supposed to be a branch of public health, like the FDA. What the hell would they have a sentinel force for?

"You can't kill me on your own, but I'm not dumb enough to go against the entire damn government when i'm sitting in their holding cell. So we make a deal." 

"We have no reason to negotiate-"

"By the time you figure out how to kill me, I'll turn every single one of your operatives rogue. I'll send their guides running to every news station until this place is blown wide open. Do you think the President would be interested in knowing about-" 

The door to the gallery room burst open, startling the young doctor. An orderly came and led her out while a man in a suit that Jack hadn't seen before stomped in, rushing over to the intercom, his crisp voice not wavering though Jack could see the whites of his knuckles around the mic "What are your demands?" 

The second orderly searched around the console to cut the feed, but not before Fate could speak once more. 

"We're going to make it like none of this ever happened, Director." 
------------------------------------

Jack felt like he'd just woken up from a KO. The world was spinning. What the hell did she mean "operatives"?? The President? What was going on?! He'd expected the absue. He couldn't stomach it but he'd known since he'd met her that Fate had been abused by a rogue sentinel. But this? 

If even a fraction of what she was alluding to was true, this was a conspiracy that could topple a century of friendly clan-null relationships and shotgun them back to the times of living at the edge of society.  

Many cultures had revered sentinels for centuries, but the government here was only interested in their power, or their potential as a militia to challenge them. The current peace was only in place because of decades worth of treaties that separated sentinel jurisdiction into their clans. 

They made a pact to never centralize as a government entity, the exact thing that having secret operatives working under a federal organization would violate. 

This could topple every clan in America. Jack scurried over to the laptop, where the interview CD had been pushed out. It was done playing. He franticalyl searched through his piles for the other one. There had to be more.