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“Your men don’t know you’re not human, do they?” Matthias asked as they waited for Claire to arrive with the reporters.

Peter shook his head. “No one outside my family knows that. It would be a bit much for them, I think. A few of my closest staff know I have powers though. Including Jean – the one who just brought me the message about withdrawing. He wanted to know what I was going to do here because he was sure we’d be sent again and he doesn’t like the idea. He suspected I’d insisted on coming so I could talk to you as well.” He looked over his shoulder just as Sonia stiffened and looked in the same direction.

“Here they are,” he said. “And it looks like Jean is with them. It seems he had the same idea.”

A few moments later, a young private who must be Jean appeared through the bushes with Claire and two scared-looking people – a man and a woman – who must be the reporters. Indeed Lydia vaguely remembered seeing the woman reporting from various protests in the last few years. The man was carrying a camera and began speaking with preamble.

“If we try to broadcast this on the TV we’ll be cutoff before we can get anywhere. The army are all over the place tonight. I think this is supposed to be the start of something. So this is useless.” He slung the camera away and pulled out a smartphone. “So we’ll use this. I have a VPN set up and we’re going to livestream it.”

“We’ve already contacted some people we trust to help spread the word once we’re live,” the woman added. “But if this doesn’t work they’ll probably kill us. And I’m not convinced they won’t be able to shut us off anyway.”

“Yes,” Matthias said. “We need to think about that.”

“We need Ian,” Lydia said. “He can keep us online and everyone else if they try and shut us down.”

“How would he–” The female reporter stopped as she spotted Procella lurking in the shadows. “Is that a unicorn? What the hell?”

“She is a unicorn,” Matthias said. “She’s here to help us, but let’s not startle people any more than we are already going to by telling them mythical creatures exist as well.”

“Scare them, you mean?” the woman said. “I agree. Though not forever. Only until things calm down a bit. People have to know the truth.”

“Eventually yes,” Matthias agreed. “But it’s something to build up to. Anyway, we should go back to the school. Alexandra is waiting for us and she’s the one who is going to speak on our behalf. Plus we can easily send for Ian there.”

“Ah! That’s what I was about to ask,” the reporter said. “How would he stop them cutting us off?”

“Ian?” Matthias said. “He’s technokinetic, that’s his power.” He looked over at Jean who was standing Peter. “Are you coming too?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m not going to cause any trouble, I promise. I agree with what you’re doing. I joined the army to protect freedom, not help a scared government steal it away.”

“All true,” Procella said before anyone could ask her.

“Good then,” Matthias said. “Let’s go.”

—

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