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Immediately after the interview had finished, Matthias waved Alexandra, Philip and the reporters over and told them what Lydia had seen.

“Oh God,” the female reporter exclaimed. “How deep does this rabbit hole go? A coup…” She narrowed her eyes speculatively and looked over at Peter. “This is why they sent you here, isn’t it? They know you wouldn’t go along with this and are popular enough to lead a mutiny.”

“Maybe,” Peter said seriously. “We need to stop them but we also need to expose them.” He looked over at Ian, who had sagged into a chair almost as soon as the interview was over. “You did a great job there. Are you up to doing it again?”
“No,” Ian said. “But I’ll do it anyway. There isn’t anyone else is there?”

“Unfortunately not,” he said. “But I don’t want to overstress you.”

“Did the message get out?” Matthias asked. “Will we need to make sure they don’t get the video taken down before people had a chance to see it?”

“The message got out,” Ian said. “We ended up with several hundred people watching the stream and many of them were capturing it. I also dropped copies into the emails of various activists and similar who would have an interest in it. So even if they do take it down it won’t stay down for long.” He gave a lopsided grin. “So do you think these people understand the Streisand Effect? Because at this point we really want them to take it down. That will just prove they have something to hide.” He rubbed his temples. “I can probably stop this drone if you want but if you want me to broadcast to the world again, I’ll need a bit of a boost. That was exhausting.”

“I’d imagine,” Matthias said. “Let me see what I can arrange.”

“He’s the only technokinetic you have?” Peter asked.

“Not exactly,” Matthias said. “It’s a rather new synthesis but there’s Jasmine Merryweather as well. But we really don’t want to involve the Merryweathers in this. We didn’t invite them to the meeting for a reason.”

“Hmm?” Peter asked. “Why?”

“My former family believe they are superior to nulls and embers in the worst possible way.” It was Anthony who replied. He was clenching and unclenching his fists convulsively. “They killed my wife because she was an ember and they’d quite happily kill everyone else if they could.”

“Well strictly speaking Jasmine wouldn’t,” Sarah said. “Or wouldn’t want to anyway. The girl’s a vegan, won’t even swat a fly and she’s no hypocrite – but she does share her family’s view otherwise. And she does what her father tells her, even when it goes against her morals. She’s terrified of him.” She sighed heavily. “She’s also only twelve so even if she were on our side, I’d be loathe to use her in this situation.”

“Okay, so just Ian,” Peter said. “Let’s see if we can get him a boost because we need to both stop these people and show the world what they are doing.” He looked over at Lydia and Sonia. “Are you still monitoring them?”

“We are,” Sonia said. “They’ve just found out about our broadcast and are discussing if whether to go ahead with the plan in the circumstances but it looks like they will.” She paused. “Ah yes, they’ve gone back to prepping the drone. I don’t know how long it takes to make a drone ready so I don’t know how long we have.”

“Not long,” Peter said. “We’d best give Ian his boost and get in position as soon as possible.”

—

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