“Cassidy,” Aaron said, exasperated, “do you have any idea how Holland is doing this? How she’s disrupting our IACs and the trackers? If we can’t stop her from doing that… this is going to be that much harder.”
Cassidy cleared her throat and stared at the table again. “I know it’s her telepathy, that she can mimic, that she can tap into our systems. She can send messages to one person from another without the other person or anyone else on the team even knowing it. She sent that message allegedly from Paul earlier, the one you forwarded to me,” she looked at Cadence then, “but she only sent it to the two of you and Becky. She can basically do whatever she wants to in order to disrupt our communication.”
“You say she used the alarm system in the tracking center for this, right?” Aurora asked.
“Yes, so I think, in order to communicate with so many people at such a great distance, she must be tapped into something else, but I don’t know what it might be. I honestly think we’d be smarter turning our IACs off completely when we are combating them because she can mess with it. Either that or come up with some sort of code system. But she’d probably decipher that pretty quickly.”
“Do you think she can do that with cell phones, too?” Brandon asked. It was the first time he’d spoken, and Cadence was surprised he had been able to bite his tongue earlier when she could tell by his expression he was ready to punch Christian in the face, but then, they all knew Cassidy didn’t need anyone to fight her battles for her, especially not the verbal kind.
“I do think she can disrupt cell phone calls,” she nodded. “Her telepathy is extremely powerful. I think it was before, wasn’t it?” She looked at Aaron, and he nodded, “But… it’s like, a hundred times stronger now.”
“So no IACs and no cell phones. That’ll make this easy.” Elliott shook his head
“Cell phones,” Aaron muttered, looking down at the table. “No cell phones….”
She knew this look. He was on to something. Cadence met Elliott’s eyes, and the expression on his face said, “Wait for it.”
“That’s it.”
“What’s it?” Cadence asked Aaron, relieved that he’d finally gotten to the bottom of something, anything. She had no doubt he was right. If he exclaimed that Holland was able to control the other Vampires by spelling out messages in their Alpha-Bits, she’d believe him.
“The cell towers. She’s using cell towers. That’s the reason the trackers aren’t working once the Vampires close in on their locations. Remember the tower at the RV park?”
“I do,” Cassidy replied, and Cadence thought about how Aaron’s offer to take her up there with him had stopped her in her tracks.
“So… changing the frequency of the trackers has only made it worse,” Christian said, clearly beginning to put the pieces together himself. “I need to go back to the original frequency and find a way to block Holland’s signal. Somehow.”
“But then, why did she need the alarm system if she can use cell towers?” Aurora asked. Cadence couldn’t blame her for being confused. She was still slightly lost herself.
“The alarm system was used to jam our IACs,” Cassidy explained. “Not to communicate with the Vampires. I think… the bigger the job, the more juice she needs.”
“So she can send a message easily via her telepathy to a couple of us,” Aaron continued.
“But in order to do something large scale, like coordinate thousands of Vampire movements from such a great distance…” Jamie jumped in.
“She needs something more powerful.” Cadence was happy with herself for being able to finish the thought for the team.
They were all silent for a moment, shifting their gazes around the table, contemplating exactly what that meant.
Elliott broke the silence. “Terrific. So what the hell do we do about it?”
Everyone turned to face Christian who looked bewildered. “I don’t know. I’ll have to go back and see if I can….”
“Go. Change the frequency. Do it now.” Cassidy’s voice was insistent, like inspiration had struck. “Put it back to what it’s supposed to be.”
It looked like Christian wanted to argue with her, but something about the commanding tone of her voice had him looking at Aaron for permission. With a nod from his boss, the Guardian shot out the door.
“Cassidy, are you okay?” Brandon asked.
She nodded, but her eyes were closed, and it was clear she was deep in concentration.
Cadence looked at Aaron who was watching Cassidy with interest.
“Can… we go ahead with…” Cadence began.
“Yes.” Cassidy didn’t open her eyes, and if anything, her forehead furrowed deeper.
In an even quieter voice than normal, as if he was afraid he might disturb the teenager, Aaron said, “Cadence and I have talked about sending a team to help out in Melbourne, but it will be a small one at this point. We don’t know for sure if Holland is there or not. Right now, we need to find Paul, get him to safety, and then we can determine how best to locate and destroy her.”
“If she’s really controlling all of these other Vampires through telepathy, though, we’ll have to kill her to stop the imminent attacks on the headquarters we’re sure she has planned,” Elliott pointed out. “I don’t think Cass can do everything else we’re asking her to do and still interfere with Holland’s signal. Even though she is….” He hesitated, as if he couldn’t quite come up with the compliment to describe the young lady sitting across from him.
“Bitchin’,” Cassidy offered, not even opening her eyes.
“Bitchin’,” Elliott concurred.
Aaron even snickered at Cassidy’s description of herself. “I agree. We will need to do that, but the thing is, as soon as we have Paul, if we are close to Holland’s location, she will send in troops here in order to get us away from her, assuming whatever she has planned isn’t ready yet. Or, she’s using this as an opportunity to catch us in a position where we’re not ready to fend her off.”