Authors Note:
Welcome, everyone, to the third and final book of the NewU saga. Don't worry yet, there is still plenty more to get through, but yes, the end is in sight. I made a promise many moons ago that I would not keep the story running for the sake of it, and it would eventually come to an end. Although I am not ruling out spin-offs at a later date, the world of Pete will - over the next however many chapters - reach its long-awaited conclusion, and new stories will rise to take its place.
I cannot possibly go any further without expressing my heartfelt gratitude to you, the reader, for the support my work has received. The community on Discord has grown beyond my wildest expectations and has become a constant and consistent source of joy for me since its creation. More than that, I must offer my deepest thanks and express my profound admiration to my editors, all of whom have taken time from their lives to correct my staggering level of typos and grammar mistakes and have made this story what it is today.
With that out of the way. Let's get on with the story.
Stay Awesome
Nova
********
"Alright, recap time," I said with a sigh and pulled myself up off the bench. The rain pouring from the sky seemed to ease up almost instantly, and within a few minutes, it had stopped completely. There were so many red flags going up just at that. I knew the last few months had taken a massive toll on me, enough of one to convince one of my closest friends that I was something to be feared, and what I had just done was to essentially bottle it all up, swallow it all down, and get on with things as if nothing had happened. Faye, Uri, and Jeeves all shimmered into being around me, looking first at me, then sadly at the rainwater still wetting the ground, before back to me again. They knew in an instant what it meant. Faye made to speak, but I cut her off. "Save it," I said, perhaps a little more sharply than I intended. "It is what it is. I can't make someone trust me, believe me, or love me. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to. Talking about it changes nothing, at least not right now. If all my efforts are worthy of her trusting me, she will let me know; if not..."
The words were right there, ones I had said hundreds of times in my life... "
If not, then fuck her."
... But they wouldn't come out. I knew I didn't mean them, but it was a coping mechanism I had been forced to use more times than I could count. It is how I survived my childhood: the ability to drop an attachment to a person like a hot rock, to cut them out of my life with surgical precision and indifference. It was how I had kept myself safe and people at arms-length in a world where the vast majority of people were only out for themselves. And yet, the words wouldn't come.
I would have given Charlotte every part of me, but she didn't want it. So be it; it could be dealt with later.
"First things first, how do we find Marco?" I asked, looking from one of my live-in companions to the next. "I imagine he's gone to ground by now."
There was a long pause, but it was Uri who spoke first. "I'm not sure that should be our first port of call," he said slowly. I arched an eyebrow at him to continue. "The conclave is home to more traitors than just Marco, and it would be in the best interest of all of them to try and hide Marco from us or at least help him keep a low profile. It may be time to clean house, the same with the Sect."
"Okay, I can get behind that idea," I nodded after giving it a little thought. "But how do we do that?"
"Honestly, it isn't going to be pretty," Faye answered this time, seeming to be of one mind with Uri. "Yeh may have to root out the traitors by force."
"How the fuck am I going to do that?" I asked, even the notion of that sending chills down my spine. "Thirteen Evos was hard enough; there would be... what?... hundreds of them in the Conclave? At least?"
Uri shook his head. "No, the Conclave and the Sect would be different; the people in there would already have their minds connected. You wouldn't have to break into them individually. It's... hard to explain, but you will know what to do when you get there."
I arched an eyebrow at him. Knowing what to do when the moment arose was not only poor preparatory advice, but it seemed to be the exact tactic that had gotten me into so much trouble already. "Fuck it, whatever," I huffed. "So we find anyone in the Conclave associated with the Praetorians and wring them dry of any information they have about Marco. What happens if none of them have any?"
"That seems unlikely," Uri pondered after taking a moment to consider the question. "Although, I concede that there is a chance that the people who
do
know may not all be there when you bring judgment."
"Hmm, bring judgment," I repeated back to him, letting the words roll around my mouth a little, "I kinda like that. But back to the point. We need to get as many people into the Conclave cathedral as possible and attack them. Are there, I dunno, any Evo holidays or anything?"
"There will be a service in my memory," Uri offered.
I held his eye for a moment. "That seems... a little in bad taste."
"Why? They're the ones who killed me. They hardly have the right to complain about their cover being blown at my funeral."
"What about the people who are innocent?"
"If I know Marco, he would have corrupted as many people as possible in the Conclave, and seeing as how he was responsible for awakening people in this part of the world, I'd imagine he has infected a huge number of them. As soon as those innocent people see what is happening, I think you'll be given quite a lot of leeway."
"And the people who aren't so innocent, well, they're the ones we're lookin' for anyway," Faye added with a nod.
"Alright, so we make arrangements for a service to be held in your honor," I looked at Uri, "And then hit it when it's at its fullest, banish the corruption from anyone who has it, finding out whose guilty and whose innocent in the process. Then we... interrogate the bad guys. Sound about right?"
"Yup," Faye folded her arms with a firm nod. Uri nodded, too, and so did the still-quiet Jeeves.
"Fair enough. What about this Judge character?"
"I'd imagine we will get some information about him during the process," Uri answered. "If you remember the party, Marco and I were talking about a Rogue and how unlikely it would be for someone to realize they were an Evo, awaken and train themselves, and become powerful enough to challenge a standard Evo."
"I remember."
"At the time, we were talking about the attacks on other Evos, but the sentiment still holds. Those Evos were attacked by Sterling, a normal Evo who had mastered the art of disguise to a staggeringly advanced level. If there was one good thing to come out of your encounter with Sterling, it has shown us that Evos are able to hide a lot more from each other than we had previously thought. The same, I believe, applies to the Judge. Realistically, we know nothing about him, only that he was at your parent's house when they were killed, that he was at Evie's apartment the night she was taken, and that he is an Evo. We don't even know his real name. But the chances of him having become as powerful as he has without any input from the Conclave or the Sect are nil."
"If you are going to say that
someone
will know who he is," I interrupted, "then I will remind you that nobody had a clue about Sterling."
"But Sterling was workin' alone," Faye mused as if she was thinking out loud. "The Judge would have had to work with the people in the Conclave or the Sect--the ones who are loyal to the Praetorians."
"So you think that we may get some information on him when we interrogate the bad guys?" I asked. Faye and Uri both nodded. "Actually, now that I think about it, how are we going to get everyone together in the Sect? They wouldn't come to your funeral."
"I was going to suggest asking Charlotte for help on that one, but..." Jeeves answered with a pained look.
"I think we're gonna have to do things on our own from now on," I sighed. "But I am sick of going off half-cocked; I want to know everything we possibly can before we go..." I froze and frowned as something suddenly occurred to me.
"What is it?" Faye asked with a tilt of her head.
"Marco wrote an email to me when we were on our way to Horlivka," I said slowly. "He said that if anything happened to him, I should go to the Archon."
"Oh, shit, he did, aye." Faye gasped.
Uri frowned. "This was before my time here, but..." his eyes flicked off the middle distance as he accessed my memories and read through the email in question. "Hmm, that is... concerning." He finally said. "Thomas has always been an effective leader and has always seemed loyal, but he's also perfectly placed to cause a lot of harm to the Conclave. At the same time, this could be a very effective piece of misdirection by Marco. This was sent before Marco and I got separated."
I nodded; he was right. It was a little vague. "How
did
you and Marco get separated? You never told me."
Uri flashed his eyebrows in acknowledgment and nodded. "There isn't much to tell. We were about ten miles outside Horlivka. We couldn't get into the city by car to meet Olena, so we dumped it and approached on foot. There were soldiers everywhere; we were hiding in a burned-out building, waiting for a patrol to pass. I crossed the street to the next building when it was safe, and when I turned back to signal for him to cross, he was gone. I searched for as long as I could, but I couldn't miss the rendezvous. He was gone."
I snorted, "And he'd sent me that email beforehand, so if you'd discovered he was the traitor when he rejoined his friends and killed him, I would have been suspicious, and if he got away, making you arrive at the rendezvous alone... or anywhere else after that, for that matter... I would have still suspected you. Fuck, you have to almost admire that level of manipulation."
"He played it perfectly." Uri nodded. "That email, coupled with his corruption of you and your justifiable pre-existing suspicions of me..."
"Yeah." I sighed, looking around the plaza surrounding us. "Sorry about that," I added with a sheepish smile. "So, how do we deal with the Archon?"
"Carefully," he answered after a bit of a pause. "Marco designed that email to get you to kill me. I ended up dead even though it wasn't by your hand. But if his plans went wrong and I'd killed him - which I absolutely would have done if I had worked it out sooner - then directing you to the Archon makes no sense unless he was involved. But at the same time..."
"A man with a penchant for manipulation could have considered that and used it as a way to destabilize the whole Conclave if he was found out and killed." Faye finished with a frown.
"Well, there's nothing like dedication to a cause," I huffed. "Alright, I think we have a good way forward. I'll contact Jerry and tell him to pass on news of your death to the Conclave," I looked at Uri, "Then we will go from there."
A series of nods rippled through my companions before all but one of them faded away. "Pete, Darlin'," Faye whispered as she tucked her hand into mine. "What're yeh gonna do about Charlotte?"
"Nothing," I sighed and squeezed her hand. "I can't spend my life chasing something I'm never going to find. I need to face reality. I'm not the happily-ever-after kinda guy."
Faye frowned but didn't comment. "Can I make a suggestion?" she asked.
"Go for it."
"Yeh need some pussy."
I choked on my own saliva for a moment. I had honestly expected some sort of advice about making things good with Charlotte or even something about not feeling sorry for myself, but I must have forgotten who I was talking to. "I'm bein' serious!" she laughed.
"Is that an offer?" I chuckled back
She shook her head. "No, babe, not from me, not from someone yeh care about. Yeh need someone who yeh can fuck all yer frustrations into. A stress toy. Yeh need to go to a bar, find the sexiest piece of ass in the place, take her home, and fuck the shit outta 'er."
