The Recusant

by Greg Hanks

  “Yes, my dear?” came a soft, almost timid elderly voice from behind the chair back.

  Farin squinted. “Food. I’ve brought it. What’s wrong?”

  Before she approached his side, he swiveled fast. Plumes of foggy white hair stood erect from his head. A misshapen face with a rosacea nose. Crystal blue eyes sharp as any youth, and silver stubble coming from every crevice. But once the smile crawled up his face, the curmudgeon turned sweet, and he bore big, yellowing teeth.

  “Distracted!” he yelped and reached for his plate. Farin saw a blackened pinky. “As always, thank you, my friend.” He crammed half the potato roll into his mouth.

  “What happened?” she asked, unable to mask her true concern.

  Ketterhagan sighed and gave Farin a stern look. “I know what you want to believe. This is nothing.”

  Instead of saying anything, Farin looked into the old man’s face, his eyes. She was looking for tells of untruth.

  “May I continue?” he asked.

  She didn’t smile, but her sobriety wasn’t bred in anger.

  “You sounded sad,” Farin said, leaning against a shelf. “When I greeted you.”

  “Sab?” he said, mashed roll clogging his mouth. “Nob sab. No, no.”

  She wandered the room while he chewed. A dozen hair-trigger parts, half-dome grenades, unfinished plate armor with circuitry sticking out of the cracks. Two metal baseball-sized devices at the base of his desk, sleek and nondescript. Posters of his drawings, blueprints of weapons, framed schematics of machinery with notes scribbled at every angle.

  “How’s Fernand?” she asked, plucking a gun stock from a shelf.

  “Fernand?” Ketterhagan said, sucking all the juice from the packet. “I’ve never known you to care about that man.”

  “Is he letting up?”

  “Farin, I told you—”

  “I haven’t seen you upstairs lately. I hope you at least use the bathroom.”

  “I have, I have. Indeed. Too busy these days. Much like you, I’m sure.” He tilted his head down so he could look at her over his glasses.

  “Why didn’t you shout at me when you heard me coming?”

  “Shout? Why would I shout?”

  She grimaced. “Because you always do.” She deepened her voice and attempted her best impression of him. “‘Farin, my dear, welcome to the seventh level of hell!’ It’s always that or some German song. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said, stitching his brow. “Nothing, my dear.” He gave her a crinkled, childish smile. “Did you finally read it?”

  “Ketterhagan,” she sighed, “we don’t have Dante’s Inferno here. Remember?”

  “Still?”

  “Beliveilles is the same it’s been for three months. No one’s restocking the city library, are they?”

  “They should be . . .”

  Farin was too distracted to acknowledge Ketterhagan’s jest.

  His face turned serious. “I think . . . the question today is: are you okay, my dear?”

  “V’delle’s leaving today.”

  “Ah. Yes. I have heard. Is that why you’re sad?”

  “I never said that,” she said, knowing her body language had already given her away.

  “I see, I see, so you’ve come for advice!”

  “No,” Farin groaned. “I came to feed you. Like a little pet. I don’t need advice, old man.”

  “But you are sad.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I give exceptional advice.”

  “Oh, I’m fully aware.”

  “Make way old man!” shouted a snide voice from the staircase. “I hope you’re ready. It’s nearly—” He stopped when he saw Farin. “Oh. It’s you.”

  “Fernand,” she said.

  Fernand Bonfils. A sweaty, stout man, and Ketterhagan’s old jailor. A veiny forehead that pulsed at the slightest shift in temper. Short, brown hair matted down and glistening with grease. Acute and proud, with a strut that demanded attention.

  “Your office stinks,” Fernand said.

  “What did you hope Ketterhagan was ready for?” Farin asked calmly, insinuating guilt with charm.

  “Oh, piss off, girl. Don’t you have a woman to follow?”

  “Just asking a question. Are you afraid to answer it?”

  Fernand shot a glance to Ketterhagan, then smiled. “Of course not. I was going to say it’s nearly time for another generator. We’re about to open up the next wing of rooms.”

  “Why do you come down here?” she asked. “You know you can’t touch him anymore. Why bother with someone you hate?”

  Fernand sneered and approached Farin. “What I do here is beyond the scope of your expertise, child.” He sized her up and down. “We all should be asking where you and your lawbreaker lover go, what you do. Breckenridge gives you too much reign for soldiers who’ve known the Calcitra less than the children here. I believe you’ve got a friend to bid farewell. Might as well get to it then, eh?”

  Farin scanned his squished face. It was too much effort to start something. She looked at Ketterhagan. “Come say goodbye, okay?”

  “Indeed,” Ketterhagan said. “Yes, yes. I shall.”

  Farin left with a feeling of awkward, unresolved hesitation. Breckenridge, Farin, and V’delle had struck a deal; Ketterhagan was not to be harmed any longer, and the Unborn would fight for Breckenridge. There were no signs of torture, save the blackened pinky finger. She trusted Ketterhagan, so she could rule that out. What was so bothersome then? There was no way Fernand would just let things go. Farin lingered in the stairwell for a few minutes, hoping to hear something incriminating, but Fernand merely divulged generator minutia.

  ——————

  The blood from Seen’ai’s throat covered her wrists. Warm, like melting dark chocolate. Gentle, dripping, falling into a wooden basin showing her face in its muffin-top reflection. Saturated in red. Her ribs popped like firecrackers. The back of her skull throbbed—coursing flames through two exhaust pipes at the base of her head. And his screams. Jet fuel burning past her ears.

  “V’delle, are you listening?” asked Bazek, annoyed.

  The first-floor conference room. Back in Beliveilles. In the mine. Her eyebrows had been clenched.

  “Yes, sorry,” V’delle said softly, blinking away what was left of her daydream. It was more of a daymare, though she chose to bury it, not identify it.

  “What was I saying?”

  “She heard you, Bazek,” Rosalie snapped.

  V’delle looked around. A claustrophobic room. Farin leaned against the wall next to Rain. Piers and Rosalie sat across the table, watching her with concern. Balien stood over Bazek’s shoulder at the end of the table, arms folded, as if behind a bush.

  Bazek sat back in his chair and sighed. He wasn’t a soldier; he didn’t get it, but he was trying to. “Might as well go over it again anyways.”

  V’delle stood up. “I’ve got the gist of it. Balien and I are going to Urholm disguised as a Preen’ch and a Khor’Zon Officer. We’ll take the rest from there. I’m better at improvising anyways.”

  “See, this is what I’m talking about,” Bazek said. “You might excel at brash decisions, but this isn’t your journey from Contra Mare to Beliveilles. This is about recruiting. You’re with the Calcitra now. We’ve got to be precise. And we need to know what you decide to do before you do it. That’s how a team works.”

  “Are you all right?” Balien asked V’delle, his deep voice soothing but too reminiscent of her daymare. She looked into his red pupils. A startling slam of piano keys. Not the face she wanted to see.

  She shook her head. “I just need some coffee.” She reached over the table to grab the half-empty glass pot and poured the rest into her mug.

  Balien lingered on her while Bazek revved up.

  “All right, back to the beginning,” he said, tapping on his laptop’s keyboard. A projector was set up on the table, spraying its screen upon the room’s largest whiteboard. Th
e image showed a personnel roster with two highlighted names. “V’delle, you are now Medrot Despain. You’ve been outside for two years. You were presumed dead on a raid three months ago, but your body was never recovered. You have black hair, blue eyes, and were part of the taking of a city called Burry last year. The rest of her history is included in her file.”

  V’delle looked at the hair dye package standing on the table. The woman advertised on the package smiled wide with vivid white teeth, her voluminous black hair in a flurry around her head, silken, unnatural. V’delle grimaced.

  “Medrot,” she repeated.

  “No, the T is silent,” Bazek said.

  “Fine, Medrohhhh.”

  “Now, about your Preen’ch ID.”

  “I heard this part,” she said, bored. “Just get it over with.”

  Bazek nodded to Rain, who wore latex gloves and a plastic device shaped like a gun.

  “Wait,” she said. “Not that I care or anything, but will my ID be gone forever?”

  Bazek glanced at the rest of the room. “Yes. I mean, we could re-implant it. If you want.”

  V’delle figured she had to give Farin a final look. The blonde shrugged.

  She slapped her arm onto the table. “Erase me.”

  Rain chuckled. “If only I could.”

  He pressed the nozzle to her forearm and pulled the trigger. A cold piercing sensation struck her skin. It felt like a tiny worm had plunged itself into her flesh and retracted just as fast. The device made a mechanical plunk noise, and Rain lifted it away.

  “And here’s Medrot’s,” Bazek said, pushing a clear plastic box toward Rain. “Don’t worry, it’s sterile.”

  Rain opened the box, loaded in the new pill-shaped ID capsule into the plastic gun, and placed the nozzle on V’delle’s forearm again. Another piercing sensation and a plunk. When he lifted the gun away, blood began trailing from the insertion point. Rain provided a cotton swab and some tape.

  “How did you get this all to work, Bazek?” Piers asked.

  Bazek paused before exhaling, like he was trying to figure out how to explain. “To put it simply, I’ve been leeching off their server network for the last few months now. I nabbed their software and downloaded it to one of our Khor’Zon tablets you two brought back last month from that Zealot raid. From there I just tweaked a few things and Ketterhagan created the capsule. It works the same as your implants.”

  V’delle looked at the package of hair dye again, feeling the alien body inside her forearm as it readjusted. When were they ever going to be themselves?

  “Farin, could you get the drone?” Bazek asked.

  Farin retreated into the hallway.

  V’delle looked at Bazek. Helping her meant being at odds with Breckenridge. And being the top computer whiz in Beliveilles meant Bazek was always meeting with Breckenridge. She could see Bazek’s restraint, his hesitation. She was grateful he was helping in some form, and not passive-aggressively watching from the sidelines like their supposed leader.

  Farin brought in a deactivated Khor’Zon drone and heaved it onto the table. Scathed white-blue metal polish. Glass aperture cracked.

  Bazek clicked away on his computer. The drone started glowing blue from within. The machine hummed as its propulsion engines activated. The thing started hovering low, twitched, then spun a complete 180 degrees before returning with grace. It locked on to V’delle, clicked its lens, and flashed her.

  “Data’s coming in,” Bazek announced.

  The projector showed the credentials of Medrot Despain, her Preen’ch number, her Birth year, her Departure year, her Trial times, among other measurements and specifics. The biggest wording was in the bottom right corner, which read “Possible Casualty/Deserter.”

  “Very nice,” Piers said, his spine twisted so he could see behind him. “I think you even look a little like her, too.” He winked at V’delle.

  “Why do you think I picked her?” Bazek said.

  “It works,” V’delle mouthed, reading the entire thing twice. She’d have more time to study it on the way to Urholm. After all, it was a seven-hundred-mile trip. She felt a distraction rise through her fingers, reaching her neck. The projector screen faded away. Usually she’d be soaking up this information. But she was feeling decentered, and it wasn’t because of her Seen’ai visitations earlier. Something else was bothering her about the entire operation. Perhaps it was the fact that she would be traveling more miles with a Khor’Zon than she’d traveled with Farin.

  “Now before we get any further,” Bazek said, switching the screen back to the roster. “Let’s take a look at whose identity Balien’s going to steal.”

  The roster changed. Khor’Zon names. Bazek highlighted one “Irrus Cayl.”

  Balien stepped forward. “Irrus? I know him. I know Irrus.”

  “Really?” Bazek said, unsure how to proceed. “How well?”

  “He is a friend. We escaped the Chalis together but separated later for a few years. I did not . . . I thought he was in Aeternis.”

  “My records say he was lost five years ago to a forest fire that started after a Calcitra attack on Baudenhof. Did you ever see him on your island?”

  Balien was processing a lot of thoughts. He returned to the group, shaking his head. “No, I was not that close with him. I just . . . it does not matter; it does not change anything.”

  “Okay, we know our identification works,” V’delle said. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “Eager to join the brunettes of the world?” Rain jeered.

  “It’ll be good to see the world through your eyes for once,” she jabbed back. “What it feels like to be lazy and irresponsible and, y’know, basically worthless.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s finally happened; my feelings are officially hurt.”

  “Okay,” Bazek said. “You’re both being transferred from another City called Nilles. It’s on the southern border of what used to be France. I’ve already forged the notice from the Warlord there. Your transfer won’t be disputed. I’m sure you’ll be assigned duties once you’re processed. V’delle, you know more about that whole world than I do.”

  “As long as you have that note from the Warlord, we’ll be fine. Unless someone recognizes that we’re not who we say we are.”

  “We already decided we are not going to be spending too much time there anyways, right?” Balien asked.

  V’delle shrugged. “Just saying.”

  “Rain, let’s get Balien’s ID secure while V’delle gets ready,” Bazek said, nodding to the package of hair dye.

  She held the square box in her hand like it was a contract that would seal away her life. But the job had to be done. They needed recruits. And she’d been the poster child for reuniting the Calcitra. This was the cost of her adamancy.

  “I’ll help you,” Rosalie said, getting up. “Farin, you too.”

  Farin pushed off the wall and silently obeyed. V’delle had noticed how unusually quiet Farin had been the entire meeting. V’delle kept thinking back to the previous night and how she wished they could put it on repeat.

  The women left the men, down the hallway to the nearest bathroom. They stood around the sink, waiting for V’delle to take the contents out of the box.

  “Having second thoughts?” Farin asked.

  “How long is this gonna last?” V’delle asked.

  “Not as long as that implant,” Rosalie said, a twitch in her mouth. “But seriously, it lasts two weeks or so. I can try to find another one if you think you’ll be there longer. Our stockpile isn’t the best when it comes to cosmetics.”

  “No. Let’s do it.” V’delle looked at her reflection, trying to imagine black hair in place of her white-pink. She spoke in a sarcastic tone. “Hell, what’s one more distortion of my self-image, right?”

  ——————

  Balien cinched his lumbar pouch to his back. He activated the pressure-locks on his Yex chestpiece, a slab of armor that formed a sharp peak in the
center of his chest. His shoulders and arms were exposed, filled of solid muscle. His pants were fitted, made from synthetic fiber that could bend but maintain a uniform stability. It formed bulkier pyramidal sections above the knee, ankle, and calf, molding seamlessly into the rest of the matte material, all the way to sock-like boots with corrugated soles and toe-shells.

  “Why did you decide to go?” Maora asked, sitting behind him, watching his reflection in the tall mirror.

  “I did not really have a say in the matter.”

  “This is such a mess. We should have knocked her out at least, at the cottage. It would have only hurt a little. She could have handled it. Now look at us. Even if we did find Zelyony Pech, we cannot do anything about it.”

  “Stay focused. This is a great advantage, and you know it.”

  “Easy for you to say; you are leaving.” Maora stood up and made sure Balien’s chestpiece was secure. “I am worried about staying here. Alone.” She realized she sounded weak. “I mean, not afraid. Just . . . worried.”

  “Do what V’delle said: stay with Piers and his family. Farin and Rain, too. The other people will not pay any attention to you if you lay low.”

  Maora nodded. “I will do what I can.”

  “I will not be gone for long, if all goes well. We have communicators. I will give you updates. This might be a good time to learn from these humans. Or show them what being a true Khor’Zon is like.”

  Maora reached up to embrace Balien. They hugged for a few minutes, before the door to the changing room opened.

  A black-haired V’delle stepped into the chamber. She wore a spiky ponytail and a thin braid that hung in a smile from the left temple to her hair-tie.

  “Time to go,” she said.

  Balien smiled. “I have to say, that is quite the change.”

  “Impressive,” Maora said.

  V’delle deliberately looked down at her new suit of Khor armor. “Yeah, it’s a great suit. C’mon.”

  Maora raised her eyebrows at Balien and they both chuckled.

  They followed V’delle out of the residential section and back through the mess hall. People looked up from their meals, from their card games, from their clipboards and notebooks. Under and through the tunnel to the donut chamber. V’delle glanced up to Breckenridge’s office. He stood by the windows, hands in his pockets, a thick silhouette. Always the observer and never the doer, she thought. She kept her head straight and excused herself through a group of people.