“You have gone soft.” I laughed to myself. I rolled off him and barely had a chance to crawl for his weapon before more guards arrived at my cell in a hurry, holding me at gunpoint. I planned to take him out quietly since I knew his masters wanted me alive, but I’d pushed too far.
“Hands where we can see them, Earther!” they barked.
I reached for Desmond’s rifle, fighting the unimaginable pain tearing at my hip. My fingers only brushed the trigger before I collapsed.
My arms were promptly wrenched back. I howled in pain. Then the batons came. One blow after the other against my back and already tender ribs. All the while, Desmond remained cowering on the floor, whispering madly to be left alone. Broken, like everything else left in Kale Trass’s wake.
“Stop!” a strong, feminine voice bellowed. One last blow hit me square in the back before the guards listened.
“Lady Rylah,” one of them said. “He attacked Desmond. We—”
“Desmond was warned to keep away from him. Get him out of my sight and return to monitoring Mr. Venta’s work immediately.”
Two of them grabbed Desmond, then they all scurried out of the cell without another word. I rolled over and coughed up a spot of blood.
“You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you, Mal?” Rylah said. She knelt by my side, and I caught an eyeful of the most beautiful woman in Sol, my daughter excluded. She tried to lift me. I moaned. I’m not sure which part of my body hurt most, but I’d put a handful of credits on the bullet wound. Eventually, she gave up and sat me upright.
“Funny running into you like this again, Ry,” I grated.
“I think I recall that last time I was the one who’d been shot,” she said. “By your partner.”
“He was impulsive.”
“Until you shot him too.”
My throat went dry. Of course she knew about that—Rylah knew about everything. That was her greatest talent. A whiz with tech for sure, and as lovely as an aged scotch, but she had a knack for knowing. I think that was why I fell hard for her all those years ago.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You know who he was too?”
“Aria told me.”
“Of course.”
“She also told me what you did for her outside the Quarantine.”
I shrugged. “I had no choice.”
“You did. Now get up.”
“What—does your king have another mission for me? If you haven’t realized yet, that lunatic shot me. I won’t be much use with a gun.”
“Good thing your daughter was a doctor, then,” she said.
Hearing that was enough to get my old ass up to my feet. Blood trickled down my artificial leg, and putting pressure on the wound with my hand hurt worse than anything yet.
“Rylah, is she okay?” I groaned.
“She’s fine, Malcolm. For now. We’re going to see her.” She wrapped her arm around my back and guided me toward the exit. I stopped.
“In exchange for what?” I knew Rylah well enough to know that dealing with her never came cheaply. And especially not free. Another thing that drew me to her back in the day.
“I can’t explain here. Just trust me.”
“Now you want me to trust you?”
“If you didn’t, Aria said to give you this.” She dropped the tiny Ark-ship figurine I’d given Aria in my hand. I stared at it and let it roll over. The thin crack from where I’d fused it back together after she broke it was still visible.
I stuffed it into my pocket then glanced back up at Rylah. Pain had me seeing two of her, but that didn’t change how she looked. My offworld darling. Last time I trusted her, we ended up in a gun-toting standoff. Ours was never a simple relationship. The closer we got, the harder I pushed away. She did the same. So it was with collectors and queens of the information underworld. We were two people destined to be alone that the universe kept smashing into each other for a cosmic laugh. Yet there I was falling into the trap again.
“All right,” I said. “But I’ll have both eyes on you.”
“You always do,” she said before leading me out of the cell.
Trusting her again was probably another on my long list of mistakes, but as much as our relationship went off the rails, I could never forget those days with her. Shirking our responsibilities as we hid in her Lowers hollow. Meals with her and Aria sitting around a table like we were some sort of old-fashioned Ringer family.
“Mr. Venta,” Rylah addressed Basaam. He glanced up from a control pad being built into what looked like an engine stalk. I’d been monitoring them for a long time now. Occasionally, they tested fusion reactions in the spherical chamber he’d had built. There was only a single, highly insulated porthole on the side facing away from my cell, and still, it was always bright enough to make my eyes tear.
“Yes?” he stammered. His glasses were so grimy, I wasn’t sure how he saw a thing.
“Do you have any congealing spray? For accidents. Our prisoner is injured.”
“I… uh.”
“Answer her!” one of the guards watching him barked, smacking a part made of cold-formed alloy with a baton.
Basaam winced and ran in front of the part. “Don’t do that!” he yelped. “It’s in my workstation. Medical kit. Where are you taking him?”
“Lord Trass wants to see him,” Rylah replied. She left me leaning against the fusion core containment sphere and then hurried to his desk. She pushed a member of Basaam’s work crew aside and rifled through the drawers until she came up with the spray. Basaam impeded her on her way back to me.
“Please, I have to speak with him too,” he said. “Helena has been locked in that cell this entire time. She needs fresh air. To stretch. A break from the darkness down here. I’m begging you.”
“We lived in tunnels like this our whole lives, Earther!” a guard snapped.
“Please! I’ve done everything you’ve asked,” Basaam said. “Work is ahead of schedule. I just need to be with her for a minute.”
Rylah regarded the cell adjacent to mine, and from outside, I could finally see inside it as well. Basaam’s clan-sister was huddled against the back corner, a barely touched bowl of food beside her. The sounds of her weeping were common in the early days of our imprisonment, but she hadn’t made a peep in a long time. She looked emaciated.
“Give them a moment together,” Rylah said.
“Lord Trass said not to interrupt production,” the guard replied.
“And he isn’t here right now. I am. They’re human beings, for Trass’s sake.”
“Barely,” the guard snickered.
Rylah drew herself up in front of him and stood tall. Heels had her towering over him, and if there’s one thing I know about beautiful women, it’s that their scowls cut even deeper. None knew how to wield one better than her.
“He put me in charge of overseeing Basaam’s production,” she said. “Question my orders again, and I’ll reserve a cell for you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he conceded. “Break time, everyone; get some chow!” The Ringer workers sighed in relief. Basaam had them working to the bone, day and night, creating his game-changing engine.
The guard then shoved Basaam along. “You get one minute, Earther.”
“Hold still,” Rylah said to me. I bit my lip as she sprayed the gel and sealed my wound. I’d had my share of scrapes mended before, but I could never get used to the stuff. It was too cold, like someone was shoving an icicle into me. “There,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Look at you,” I said. “In charge. How is it you always manage that?”
“I learned from the best.”
“I’m flattered. I was always the one taking orders, though.”
She grinned. “I wasn’t talking about you.”
Rylah, she didn’t take shit, and she never lowered her price. Even for me after that first job when I needed some intel. That’s a rare thing, when somebody knows what they’re worth and won’t bend an inch. I like to think I negotiated my
Pervenio contracts with the same rigor.
She led me deeper into the hollow. My hip was a scrambled mess, and my artificial leg was still stiff from the electromag dampener. The only good thing was that now every time the limb swung, I actually felt it.
“We’re not really going to see Kale, are we?” I asked, stopping.
“You always were perceptive,” she said.
I glanced back into the hollow. It was empty when I’d arrived, and now the center looked like a true pop-up laboratory. From hosting the sick and dying to the construction of Kale’s ultimate weapon against Earther wallets. Everyone lined up to get their meal, Ringers and Earthers forced to help them, everyone except Basaam, who stared at us.
“I promised I’d get him and his clan-sister out,” I said.
“And you promised to visit me again,” she said. “Some things aren’t meant to happen.”
“They’re right there.”
“Make no mistake, Mal, I believe in what we’re fighting for, just not how they’re doing it. My people still need Basaam, but they don’t need you.”
I watched Basaam a few seconds later, then sighed and continued on.
We reached a familiar portion of the caverns that looked like an old cafeteria that hadn’t been used in a decade. When Zhaff and I found this hideout, those very tables were covered with the bodies of sick Ringers my daughter was using stolen medicine to treat. Now it was as empty as an Earth crypt, minus any cobwebs.
Rylah groaned once we were out of view of the lab and leaned me against a wall to rest. Half-lugging an Earther body like mine was more than any offworlder could handle.
“I could move better if you took this thing off me.” I tapped the dampener wrapping my artificial leg.
“You like my invention?” she remarked.
“When I spotted you, I had a feeling this was your work.”
“You promise not to run?”
“Where the hell would I go?” I asked. “And with a bullet wound? Even I’m not that good.”
She knelt in front of me with her hand terminal out. Half a minute of flurrying fingers later, the dampener powered down and fell from me. I was too damn tired to run, my body too battered. Instead, I collapsed onto one of the lunch table’s benches to take a breather.
I yanked at my sanitary mask to try and get it off until Rylah drew a small knife and sliced the fabric. I’d never realized how hard the things made breathing until air freely flowed down my throat.
“There’s no time to rest, Mal,” she said, a hint of urgency finally creeping into her previously calm demeanor.
“Not until you tell me exactly what’s going on,” I replied. “Last time Kale let me out, I found myself gunning down an innocent old man.”
“I know.”
“So you know that when I hear you’re in charge of what’s going on back there, I’m hesitant to trust you. Given our history.”
She groaned in frustration. “Do you want to know why I’m in charge? His aunt, Rin, is my half-sister.”
“The one with the…” I ran my fingers over half of my face.
“Can’t miss her.”
“Are you—”
“A Trass?” she finished before I could. “No. I just get all the baggage without any of the name.”
“If she tells you I flirted with her, I was just trying to piss her off.”
She rolled her eyes. “They wanted my help back before this movement was anything. The pay was good, so I figured why not? I threw her a bone here and there using my broker network, and the next thing I know, Pervenio is gone. Credits worthless. So she sold me on a vision for a new Titan for all of us, but this? Killing protestors to save a minute? This isn’t it. It’s the same as it was under Pervenio, only with different people spreading the lies.”
“I told Kale something like that.” She wasn’t amused. “You really were with them the whole time? Was I always just a mark then? Even back when we met?”
“You were after my information. I was after yours.”
“C’mon, Ry. It seemed like you were after more than that.”
“It was always Aria, Malcolm. The moment you introduced me to that girl in your hotel room, it was like looking in a mirror. I cared for you, I swear I did, but I loved her. I love her now. The only reason I attacked you that day in the Foundry was to protect her because I knew what happened between you two. Twice after that, I nearly had you taken out, but you and your damn Cogent partner were too stubborn, and reached her until she found out it was you and decided to give her bastard father a chance.”
My heart stopped. I’d spent a lot of time wondering how my daughter could wind up working with rebels and terrorists. “It was you who brought her here, wasn’t it?”
“Rin—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She swallowed hard. “The Children of Titan needed somebody inside of Venta Co. with the connections to steal medicine on Earth because there weren’t enough credits in producing it here. We kept in contact after you and I…” Her words trailed off.
“Stopped,” I finished for her.
“She hated working for Madame Venta. I thought I was helping her.”
“By getting her wrapped up with terrorists?” I said. “That wasn’t your damn place. You’re not her mother!”
“And you were any better?” She grabbed my face and leaned in close. Her breath was intoxicating. Her eyes dreamy. Hazel, but with so many shades of yellow sprinkled in, it was like watching the sunrise over Earth’s ocean. It was enough to startle me into silence.
“We both failed her, Mal,” she whispered. “We drove her into the grasp of a monster, but it’s not too late to help her.”
“So that’s what this is? We’re breaking her out?” I transferred all my weight to my artificial leg and pushed off to get to my feet. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I don’t know why you keep thinking she needs your help. She’s already out, Malcolm. Waiting in Kale’s ship to run, but she wouldn’t leave without you. Trass knows why.”
“Did you tell her I was a waste of time?”
“Too many times.” Rylah flashed a grin.
I don’t care what she said, what we had was real. The way we felt about Aria only made it more so.
“Where do we go?” I asked.
She directed me toward a narrow tunnel with two empty suits of winged Ringer armor lying on tables outside. My chest tightened at the sight of them, and I got dizzy. Rylah didn’t notice.
“We fly,” she said. “Put it on. I tried to find the shortest Titanborn I could, but it’ll still barely fit you.” She glanced back and saw me leaning on a column, struggling for air. “Oh, c’mon, Malcolm. It’s easy.”
I grunted an incomprehensible response. It wasn’t the Ringer suits or the idea of flying through Titan’s atmosphere like a bird. It was the tunnel we were about to exit. At the end of it, on the surface, was where I’d gunned down Zhaff.
Rylah must have noticed that I looked like I saw a ghost because she rushed back to my side and lent her support.
“Mal, I know what happened here, but you need to be strong,” she said. “Aria needs us now one last time. Kale is… broken. He’s allowed my sister to twist his view of the world so far, there’s no turning back for them now. Aria still has time to get out before her hands are too bloody to lift.”
I stared down the tunnel, which seemed to grow longer and longer. I could remember running down it to save Aria as clear as day. Me thinking we were smooth sailing until Zhaff found me forsaking our Pervenio contract to bring the Children of Titan doctor to justice.
“Malcolm.” Rylah gave my cheek a light slap. “You have to focus.”
I shook my head out. “All right,” I said. “For Aria.”
Thirteen
Kale
“Why did you bring me here?” Rin asked as she approached. We were half-exposed to Titan’s surface, so she was fully armored and wearing her helmet.
We stood within the entry
lobby of what remained of the Darien Quarantine I’d destroyed, where Ringers used to wait for hours under constant watch before visiting with their sick relatives. Toppled columns filled the hall, walls blasted open. Pervenio logos all over were scratched away and vandalized.
“They say the fallout cleared,” I said. “That it’s safe to be here now.”
“You’re not thinking of rebuilding it?”
“Never.” I knelt and scraped away a bit of dust over the shadow of a man that permanently stained the floor after nuclear fire bleached everything around him. “There aren’t even ashes.”
“It serves them right, storming in here like animals.”
I walked through what little was left of a large decontamination chamber. A web of pink lasers and warm air would have once brushed across my body after I’d been forced to strip down. The tingle that model had given my skin became second nature. I’d spent most of my life passing through the things. Between the Earther-run Uppers and the Lowers, at every dock, every time I visited a Q-zone—eventually, Pervenio Corp had them everywhere to try and keep the number of quarantined Ringers at an affordable minimum. Before we took over, the medicine we needed was produced only on Earth. I knew only a handful of Titanborn who could pay for the stuff until Aria, my father, and the Children of Titan stole their formulas and vials from a hospital on Earth.
I stopped as we entered the visiting area, deeper within the complex. Here, the top of the plateau within which the quarantine was carved had been completely blown open. Wind howled as it raced through, blowing grains of sand that would have been like tiny knives without our suits on. Thunder boomed overhead from a gathering storm, and out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the guards escorting us flinch.
“I still don’t understand why you wanted to come here,” Rin said.
“Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded where we came from,” I replied.
“You’re in good spirits,” she said. “How’s the baby? I apologize, I haven’t been around in some time.”
“Healthy. Aria thinks he may be born a few days after M-day if everything goes right. That means he’ll only ever know the new world we make.”
Titan's Fury: A Science Fiction Thriller (Children of Titan Book 4) Page 17
