Fate of Order

by Julian North

  Harren was inside the second cell. The image on the screen showed him sitting on a narrow bed dressed in a ripped business suit that was similar to what he had worn at a dinner many nights ago. I used the viser again—the door opened. A haggard face stared at me in confusion.

  “Mr. Stein, it’s good to see you again. Your daughter is very worried about you. People are coming to get us, but we need to get out of here—now.”

  “D-Daniela? How did you—”

  “I don’t have time to explain. You need to come, now. I’m going to get you to California, but you’re going to tell me everything you did on the RockeyDyn drone project.”

  “How do you—”

  “I spoke to Alissa.” Harren’s eyes grew wide with concern. “Like I said, there’s no time to explain. Let’s go.”

  He got to his feet, but too slowly for my liking. I grabbed his arm, pulling him along. I had six minutes to meet the rest of the team, although I suspected Rhett wouldn’t let them leave without me. Besides my own value, I had Katrina’s viser and Harren—key information that Jalen would need.

  I had just pushed Harren toward the open security door when an image on one of the security screens caught my eye. I took another step as the image seeped deeper into my mind. A wave of dizziness hit me. I forced myself to suck in a slow, deep breath. Could it be? It made sense. Based on what I knew, he could definitely be here. Oh, there was a bit of justice left in this forsaken world after all. I turned back to the cells.

  “Where are you going?” Harren asked.

  The world stopped. My blood surged and my hands trembled as I stared at the internal feed from the last cell. It was Havelock.

  Chapter 13

  I drew my force pistol, the weapon unsteady in my hand. I flicked my fingers to order Havelock’s cell door to open. A sour odor assaulted me as the portal obeyed my command. I stepped inside to face the man who had dragged me into all this, who had found me, lied to me, and tried to use me to commit genocide. Then he had done even worse.

  Havelock sat on a plastika chair, his back rod-straight, staring at the blank wall next to the door. He wore the ugly green uniform of a Fishkill prisoner, except it was torn in several places. A bandage with fresh blood covered a portion of his forehead, and his left eye was badly swollen; overall, he looked like hell, yet inexplicably, he still wore a sparkling golden viser on his right arm, although I presumed it no longer functioned. I had no doubt that he had been tortured.

  If ever a man deserved an ill fate, Havelock did. Cold anger surged through me as the sins of this man ran through my head. Oh, how he deserved to pay. This creature had gloated over me as I fell unconscious in that room on the platform. He had revealed my secret to Virginia Timber-Night; he had tried to make me a slave. He was responsible for chipping Alexander, and for whatever fate had befallen Nythan. Some part of me knew the information he possessed was valuable, but I still doubted he would survive beyond the next few minutes. I intended to rip whatever I wanted from his mind, then find a way to make the private hell he now inhabited even worse.

  “It seems you are now the one being tortured in a cell.” My voice trembled with barely controlled rage.

  Havelock continued to stare at the wall.

  “Havelock!” I shouted.

  He blinked. His head inched in my direction with agonizing apathy. His stare was vacant. Saliva oozed from his mouth.

  I stormed toward him, put my foot on his chest, and shoved. The chair and Havelock toppled backward. He twisted enough to shield his head from the fall—something was working, since he had the instinct to protect himself. I pointed my force pistol at him as he lay on the hard floor.

  “Get up. What the hell are you doing here?” He didn’t move; he didn’t speak. “Why did you go from being Virginia Timber-Night’s partner to being her prisoner?”

  The same vacant eyes stared back at me. With seeming reluctance, Havelock picked himself up off the floor. He straightened his back, standing with the same quiet dignity he had always possessed. Whatever had been done to him, his mannerisms were intact—there was still a piece of the old Havelock in there.

  “If you won’t speak, then I’ve got no more time for talking.”

  I drew the cold and attacked. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to bend his will, to make him suffer as I took whatever I wanted from him. Instead, I found only void. It was the same emptiness as the chipped assassins—a pit of nothingness when there should have been a pulsing energy of life.

  I drew back and studied the man. Havelock stood, he stared, he breathed, yet I didn’t need any trilling power to be certain this man had been altered despite the lack of any chip on his skull. I gritted my teeth in frustration, hate poured from my nostrils, but I could do nothing to the enemy standing helpless before me. I heard alarms, I heard Harren talking, maybe shouting, but I didn’t care. I was not going to let the void stop me. It seemed there was nothing there, but I couldn’t accept that. Somewhere inside that mind was information I needed, and I was going to get it. This man would not escape me. He would not survive my vengeance.

  I plunged into the darkness. My will was a silver arrow, a speeding edge of light that plunged into that dreadful pool of nothingness. Every fiber of my being cried out that I should stop, but I didn’t. I sank deeper into the inky darkness. It was infinite; there was no conventional will to find or bend here. His mind was a pit that I could easily become lost within. Fear restored my reason. I realized too late that I had made a critical mistake. The unnatural blankness that had spread through Havelock’s mind flowed into my own. I had linked with a mind that no longer possessed its own will, a being who had been irreparably damaged by some external technology. And the contamination was contagious to any other mind. I had created a bridge that placed my own will in danger, just as Kristolan had when she attempted to take over my mind.

  I struggled to sever the link. It was like swimming in quicksand—the harder I struggled, the less progress I made. The darkness that controlled Havelock stalked me, clawing at the edge of my consciousness. I ran within the mental void, lost. From somewhere, I heard the tortured voice of Havelock.

  “This is never what I wanted,” he whispered. “It must end. Oh, please let it end.”

  Something jolted my mind—the last vestiges of Havelock, I think. It was like a mental shove, and somehow it was enough to guide me toward an escape. There was light again. I grasped for the refuge of my own consciousness. I sensed my own body again, my own will. I had survived.

  My vision returned as the creature that was Havelock charged at me. There was madness in his eyes. He shouted noises that were more animal than human. I heard Harren shout. He ran toward me to help, but it was too late for that. Havelock had his hands on the force pistol. I swung my free hand in an arcing fist at his face. Too late. I struck him just as he yanked the barrel to his chin and pulled the trigger. A force blast ripped through the top of Havelock’s skull. He slumped back, dead. At peace.

  I shouted at the corpse, a sound of guttural frustration and rage. Virginia had taken my friends, and now she had stolen my vengeance.

  Harren’s hand was on my shoulder, tugging. “Daniela, I heard explosions, weapon fire.”

  I looked at the time display on my viser. “We’re late.” I imagined what was happening elsewhere—the rest of Katrina’s team would be deciding if I was worth the risk to wait for. Rhett would not want to leave without me. I had put him in danger again.

  I grabbed the golden device from Havelock’s wrist in case it had some clues within its data memory, then ran with Harren for the elevators. It was the longest twenty-second wait of my life. On the ground floor, there was chaos—just as we planned. Smoke filled the corridors. I knew the source was the harmless smoke grenades that the other members of Katrina’s team had planted, but the prison employees didn’t. Believing they were caught in a burning building, and not having any idea where that fire was, would cause panic in anyone. I led Harren by the hand through the din. His outf
it attracted several stares, but most personnel were concerned with their own fate. Only one guard tried to stop us, and I sent him on his way with a quick trill. We passed back into the eastern part of the detention facility, then found the stairwell that would lead us to the roof.

  “Where are we going?” Harren asked.

  “Trust me—we’re almost there. Let’s just hope they decided to wait.”

  A biting wind, fresh air, and the rest of Katrina’s team greeted me on the prison roof. Rhett hobbled over, but Jose was quicker. “About frakkin’ time. They’re going to figure out what’s happening pretty soon—and those surveyor drones are going to realize that we aren’t a bunch of guards trying to escape some fake fire.”

  “How’s the leg?” I asked Rhett.

  “Fine—I’m glad you made it. You shouldn’t have gone off by yourself.”

  I spotted Mateo lying on the ground, gaunt and something worse than pale. Kortilla’s dad was sitting next to him, a medical compress held to his forehead. He had lost so much weight I barely recognized him. I knelt between the pair. I held Mateo’s hand in my own. His eyes were shut, his breathing shallow, but he was alive.

  “We had to carry him here,” Jose said, as if it was a horrible inconvenience they had endured for me, rather than aiding a fellow human.

  “We’ll get him a doctor,” Rhett assured me.

  Indigo Gonzales reached out from the ground with a calloused hand and squeezed my knee.

  “Thank you for coming,” he rasped, barely able to speak. Blood had dripped down his forehead. His eyes were anguished. “Matias?”

  I shook my head to tell him that I had failed to find his son, my jaw clenched with pain. The edges of Indigo Gonzales’s eyes shook, but that was the only outward sign of his anguish. He was a tough man who had survived the streets and seen his blood die before, but as I saw him now, he was nearly broken.

  Jose stood over me. “Extraction team is coming back for us—two more minutes and we’re out of here.”

  “Lots of drones around,” I said, getting back to my feet, steeling myself for what had to come next.

  Jose held up a finger. “No worries. We’ve got a fancy scrambler. We’ll get you out. I just hope it’s all worth it. Katrina was the best, hard-core. Rhett said you’ve got her viser.”

  I pulled the device out of my pocket, but kept the viser I had taken from Havelock concealed. They didn’t know about him, and that was the way I intended to keep it. I ignored Jose’s outstretched hand and gave Katrina’s viser to Rhett. “Keep this. Get Mateo help, make sure Jalen keeps to our agreement about Harren and Alissa, and that Kortilla’s dad gets back to BC, somehow. Most importantly—take care of Alexander.”

  Rhett’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  I stepped closer to him, wrapping a hand around his neck. I pulled him toward me. He was surprised, I think, but he let me. I drew his ear to my mouth so only he could hear my whisper.

  “We didn’t get all the answers Jalen needs. If I return, they will seek to use me. They are desperate.”

  I released him. Rhett understood, but there was indecision in his eyes. Still, he knew I was right. Even if Jalen was a person of honor, he was one voice in a chorus of ruthlessness and desperation. The Southern government didn’t know what was causing their defections, and they didn’t know how to stop them. Maybe the data we gathered here would help, but I wasn’t going to take that risk. Anyway, my fight was here, in the barrio. I wasn’t ready to just run.

  I caught sight of a razorFish coming in fast. My eyes pleaded with Rhett for his help. Reluctantly, he nodded. I waited until our extraction aircraft was close enough that we could feel the wind from its engines, until every eye was on the approaching craft. Then I bolted for the stairwell. I was halfway there before someone noticed. It was Jose who spotted me.

  “Hey—stop. Daniela, are you crazy? Stop!”

  I kept running.

  “Carlo, go after her.”

  I turned to see Carlo sprint after me. Haley aimed her gun at my back. They’d rather shoot me than let me go? I never got the chance to find out. Rhett tackled Carlo before he got five steps, shoving the unsuspecting man into Haley. I heard the curses, and by the time they untangled themselves, their escape aircraft was waiting and I was running down the stairs, on my way to unleash hell upon this place.

  Chapter 14

  I ran to the prisoner cell blocks. A trio of prison employees blocked my way through a smoke-clogged hallway—two were maintenance staff, but the third was a guard. They were running toward me, perhaps to an exit based on their panicked expressions.

  “I need your help,” I yelled to the closest guard. His face was flushed, the collar of his black uniform torn open.

  “Everyone needs to get to the yard,” he shouted back. “Get out of the building.”

  I trilled him. His mind was panicked and vulnerable; I crushed the chain-link fence of his mental defenses. “You will come with me.” His companions left him with me.

  The prisoners were kept in cramped concrete cubes seven stories high, with the four cell blocks facing one another in a square configuration. A central security station, constructed of hardened duraglass, was positioned at the heart of the arrangement; it was accessible via two retractable bridges. During lockdown, the front of the prisoners’ cells—the only area where light could enter—was blacked out, denying them sight of the outside world. The bridges were pulled in for added security. The Authority considered death by potential fire a far better outcome than permitting their detainees to escape.

  My puppet guard dutifully entered the security code to extend the bridge to the security station. There was no one inside, its occupants having fled once the prisoners were safely trapped.

  I issued my instructions. “Open the cells.”

  The guard fought me. The strain of trying to fight my directives showed on his hollow face, in the pulsing of his jaw. I’d commanded the one thing he had been told all his life never to do. But I was stronger, and I had no pity. The guard's fingers flicked, and the tinting on the cell doors turned translucent. A thousand men and women were pressed against the duraglass, pounding and pleading. There was a collective shock when the doors swung open; no one had expected any mercy from the Authority.

  “Thank you,” I said. Then I shot him in the leg, leaving the guard in agony as I stepped out on the footbridge between the security stations and the cell blocks.

  “Venganza!” I shouted to my brothers and sisters in the cells, my force pistol held over my head. Vengeance.

  After a moment of shock, they answered as a single voice, “Venganza!”

  I ran across the bridge, onto the walkway in front of the cells themselves, hollering as I went. I galloped up a flight of stairs to another cell block. I flew past dozens more prisoners, never stopping, but shouting my fury as I went. Others took up the cry as they poured from the concrete cubes. The shouts of the newly liberated echoed off the ceiling, enveloping me in a cocoon of furious euphoria. When I had done a complete circuit and my throat was raw, I headed for the western portion of the prison, my blood surging. Many followed me. I didn’t know their precise numbers, but it was enough that the corridors trembled in my wake.

  The mob and I took the western cell blocks next. There were more guards there—better-trained Authority troops assigned to the higher security area of the prison. Those who tried to stand their ground were overwhelmed by the mob—several were torn apart by enraged prisoners, but not before a dozen of the newly freed lost their lives to force weapon fire. The blasts screamed their deadly song, yet each shot by the black boots only served to feed the riot. I trilled as many of the guards as I could, but there were highborn among them. That made the fight messier.

  Six black boot officers managed to retreat into the security station at the heart of the western cell block, its reinforced shielding impenetrable to the crude weapons being used by the escaped prisoners; even the force pistols they had taken from t
he overwhelmed guards couldn’t penetrate the armored shell. Four of those inside were highborn, but two were not. A frenzied mass encircled the translucent sanctuary, pounding, hollering, firing. It was futile against duraglass. Worse, the occupants realized the worst was upon them. I had little doubt that the prison had emergency protective measures installed—perhaps poison gas, perhaps something worse. I didn’t know, and I didn’t intend to find out. I ran to join the mob at the guards’ last redoubt. There, I prepared to trill. I found a vulnerable mind inside the bubble, a non-highborn. He was a tough sort, a career officer. He’d killed thirty-two men and women according to his own count, and he was anxious to add to that total as he watched the unthinkable unfold outside his protective cocoon. I commanded him onto a different path. Sergeant Major Jackson grabbed a force grenade from his unsuspecting commander and armed it. The highborn were quick—they discovered what he had done immediately, but there was nothing they could do about it within the confines of their security box. The grenade detonated and ended any further resistance within the prison.

  “Outside!” I yelled, my voice straining to be heard over the crazy shouts of the mob. “Everyone needs to get out of here. Scale the walls, go into the streets. Hide, fight another day.”

  Enough people heard me to lead the rest. I joined the flow of the mob, running through the prison. A shout of “Nui Cohete” rang out among the crowd. It was a mix of Barriola and Spanish I hadn’t heard before, but every child of the barrio understood the meaning: Our Rocket. It took several moments to realize what they were saying, that Nui Cohete wasn’t some call to action—it was me. Men shouted it as they ran beside me in the prison. They didn’t even know who I was, but they took up the cry anyway. It gave me chills.