Gears of War: The Slab (Gears of War 5)

by Karen Traviss

  “Broken ribs,” Prescott said, handing him a crystal tumbler of water. “And a concussion. You’re lucky to be alive. Can you manage to hold this?”

  Adam wasn’t sure, but he was damned if he was going to let anyone feed him like a child. He gripped the glass as hard as he could. The water was icy, the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, and he gulped it down despite the pain at every swallow. Prescott waited patiently and took the empty tumbler from him.

  “Marcus,” Adam said. “Marcus was with me when the house was hit. Where is he?”

  “He was discharged a while ago. He’s fit.”

  Discharged. A while. How long? “Can I see him?”

  “No. I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “Where is he?” I should have asked about Dom. “Are we still fighting?”

  Prescott tilted his head slightly to one side and just stared down his nose as if he felt sorry for Adam, but that wasn’t Prescott at all.

  “The Locust took Chancery Bridge and overran most of Ephyra,” he said quietly. “We’ve pulled everyone back to Jacinto.”

  “God …”

  “God, indeed. We lost a lot of Gears. Anyway, let’s talk about you, shall we?”

  So Marcus was all right. Adam would get a call to him somehow, but his next thought was his research. How did he ask about it? The problem hadn’t gone away. “Did anyone recover my briefcase?”

  “Oh, yes.” Prescott had adopted that deceptively mild tone that he usually reserved for staff too junior and insignificant to be worth dressing down. “Captain Dury recovered your effects.”

  Adam had no idea who Dury was. He was more concerned about where that case was and getting it back. He wasn’t thinking as fast as he usually did, but even in this state he knew that someone might have opened it and wondered what the hell was in those jars. He hoped they understood what a biohazard sticker meant and hadn’t tried to open them.

  “I need to get back to work. When are they going to discharge me?” I can explain this. I have to. Damn, he needed more water. “Look, I generally try to avoid clichés, but where am I? This isn’t JMC.”

  “No, it’s Azura. Some considerable distance south of Jacinto.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I should hope not. Although your research did enable us to keep it that way. We drown in irony, don’t we, Adam?”

  The other shoe was slowly dropping, although Adam wasn’t sure quite where. “Is this some kind of game?”

  “You tell me, Adam. I’m the man who’s been kept in the dark, after all.” Prescott opened a vent at the top of the window. The air that swept in was the kind that Adam hadn’t smelled in many years: warm, clean, oceanic, laden with wet green scents and tropical flowers. He couldn’t think of anywhere on the south Tyran coast that was either that warm or that had escaped the worst of the Locust onslaught. “But tell me. How’s Myrrah? That is how one pronounces it, yes?”

  Her name was like a punch in the mouth. It had to be said sooner or later, but no matter how many times he’d imagined this moment, Adam wasn’t ready for his stomach to knot so hard that he felt sick. It might have been the medication, but he doubted it. Guilt was a powerful emetic. Did I write the name down? Have they been tapping my phone? But at least he didn’t have to work out how he was going to break the sordid, shameful truth to Prescott now. He just had to answer the question.

  I kept it to myself for a day. Then a week: a month: a year. Then it was too hard to ever share it at all. Why? How did it all get to be so difficult?

  Marcus was going to have to live with the shame of having a traitor for a father.

  “I’m waiting, Adam,” said Prescott.

  “Yes. Myrrah. Meer-ah.” Adam wondered if he should explain who she was. “For want of a better word, the Locust Queen.”

  “We’re being very civilized, aren’t we? No insults, no threats, no outrage. I imagine you thought I’d be asking Dury to increase the voltage to your more sensitive areas by now.”

  So Dury was a security agent of some kind. “That should tell me something, shouldn’t it?”

  “I had you down for a security risk, but only because I thought you’d be too outspoken and want to blurt out everything in public. I pride myself on being a good judge of liability. But I was completely wrong about you.”

  Adam wanted to explain that he’d done it out of a mistaken confidence in his own ability, that he wasn’t a collaborator, but it was a very technical distinction right now. “I genuinely thought I could avert a war.”

  “Oh, I do believe you. What was it? Let’s not start a panic? Let’s study this? Let’s not overreact? I can understand. Academic arrogance, a sense of entitlement, doing what’s best for the little people—I come from the same class as you, Adam. I know how privilege can distort our sense of reality. But omitting to mention it after it all goes wrong and for so long—very plebeian. Very ordinary. Very criminal.”

  “I didn’t sell out my species to save my own skin, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “The end result was the same.”

  “The difference matters to me, though.”

  “The Locust could have killed you. What did you offer them?”

  “Help.”

  “Help?”

  “If I’d thought preparedness would have saved us, I would have warned Dalyell before they emerged. If we’d attacked them in the tunnels, we would have been cut to pieces, and any chance of negotiation would have been lost.”

  “You were banking on cutting a deal right up to the last minute.”

  “Like Dalyell did in the Pendulum Wars.”

  “Don’t even start on that line of argument,” Prescott said, shaking his head slowly. It was more a show of disdain than anger. He was an actor. He didn’t so much as twitch or blink without planning the ideal moment to do it. “That’s disingenuous, Adam. Intellectually unworthy. That was never your decision to take, even as a scientist. You’re not a biologist. This isn’t some kind of eccentric gentleman’s hobby. You were dealing with an obvious global threat.” He paused. “Two, in fact. You knew about Lambency.”

  “You’ve read my notes, then.”

  “Dr. Estrom’s assessing them now with the life sciences team, but I’ve had a summary so far. And they’ve quarantined the samples. I only hope that your sloppy methodology hasn’t spread the contamination further.”

  Nevil Estrom. Life sciences team. Azura. What in the name of God was going on?

  Adam’s clarity was returning, painkillers or not. “If I’d been able to develop a countermeasure for Lambency before Myrrah’s patience ran out, the Locust would have been a scientific curiosity, nothing more.”

  For some reason that seemed to irritate Prescott, or at least he made a show of it. “And we’d all live happily ever after. When will you people ever grow up? I can factor in greed or malice, but not naivety.”

  “You have a lot to learn about the Locust.”

  “Not as much as you might think.”

  Prescott didn’t elaborate. If there was such a thing as spontaneous reaction from him, that was a rare example. He was an icon of self-control. Adam had rarely been able to read him, and he knew that the only times that he had were when Prescott had allowed him to. There was now a faint smile playing on Prescott’s lips, but it wasn’t amused or kind or sympathetic. It was reluctant tolerance. He walked slowly across the room to the window blinds, one hand in his pocket, and took the cord in the other hand as if he was about to unveil a dedication plaque.

  He didn’t say a word. He just pulled the cord.

  Light flooded the room, ferocious sunlight, as hot and intense on Adam’s face as a day on the beach. He had to shut his eyes for a moment. It took him a few seconds to adjust and start to make sense of the view from the window.

  Palm trees rustled in a light breeze. The sky was a searing turquoise but he could also see black cloud creeping into the postcard scene from the far left.

  He wasn’t in Jaci
nto, but then he already knew that.

  “There.” Prescott’s voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. “We both kept our secrets, but mine were constructive. I’ll take you on a tour of the island, when the doctor lets you out. Meet your staff. Get to know your facilities.”

  Island? For a moment he wondered if this was the biological and chemical research base on Vectes, but the scenery was all wrong and that place had been shut down years ago. “What facilities?”

  Adam struggled with the welter of information and tried to fit it into the strange landscape outside his window. He’d been concussed. Prescott had said so. He’d been medicated. Perhaps this was all part of a richly detailed hallucination. Prescott, still looking out of the window, put his finger up to the glass. On the other side, a brilliant magenta gem of a hummingbird hovered there for a moment before darting away.

  “You’re a traitor, Adam,” Prescott said quietly. He ambled back to the bedside and reached into his jacket to take out a small notebook, then tossed it into Adam’s lap. “And your wife was a traitor, too.”

  It was one of Elain’s field notebooks. You bastard. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare insult her memory. Prescott knew how to goad him. The son of a bitch was damn lucky that Adam was too weak to land a punch and too much of a gentleman to use the rich list of obscenities he’d picked up from his Gears in his army days.

  “My wife,” Adam growled, “was a scientist and a patriot. She gave her damn life to get that information. Those goddamn notes may be all we have to save us.”

  Prescott didn’t blink. The hummingbird was back again, zipping back and forth in front of the window. Adam tried to ignore it. His brain struggled to focus, torn between worry for Marcus, anger about Elain, and complete helpless disorientation.

  “That luminous substance in the jars,” Prescott said. “Is all imulsion some form of Lambency, then?”

  “I think so. It seems to have a long and complex life cycle.”

  “So how much time do we have to beat this thing?”

  “I only know that it’s spreading,” Adam said. “So let’s assume we don’t have long.”

  “Then you’d better get some rest so that we can put you to work as soon as possible.”

  Prescott looked at Adam for a few moments as if he’d never seen him before and was wondering why his face seemed familiar. Adam was beginning to realize he was a prisoner.

  “I’m ready now.”

  “I don’t want you dying on me, Adam. And that’s not sympathy, by the way.”

  “Does Marcus know I’m here? Wherever here is.”

  “No. He thinks you’re dead.”

  Adam’s gut knotted. He didn’t know his son half as well as he wanted to, but he knew this: Marcus would be devastated, and he would blame himself. Adam struggled to sit up and swing his legs out of bed. He was going to punch Prescott into the middle of next week.

  “You sadistic bastard.” He managed to get his feet on the floor. Pushing up with his arms was another matter. The pain brought tears to his eyes. “Why? What the hell are you getting out of that? Are you wiping me off the map? Fine, damn well do whatever you want to me, and God knows I deserve it, but don’t make Marcus suffer. Try me for treason, whatever you like, but don’t take it out on him.”

  Adam managed to stand up, unable to preserve any dignity in a hospital gown flapping open at the back, but his temper had taken over and he was damned if he’d just lie there and take this. Prescott looked at him, expression hardening.

  “Would you rather we get this over with in one fell swoop, Adam?” Prescott watched him totter to the end of the bed, hand over hand on the metal rail. “Because I would. Marcus is in custody awaiting court-martial because he refused an order and assaulted the Chief of the Defense Staff. We lost Chancery Bridge as a result. He cost us Ephyra and a great many lives. Do you understand, Adam? He neglected his duty in the middle of a battle to try to rescue you. Your son. The COG’s Embry Star hero. You know the penalty for that.”

  Adam did. It was a mandatory death sentence: a firing squad.

  “Marcus would never do that.” Adam fought down a rising tide of nausea. “You know he wouldn’t.”

  “He did, and he’s pleading guilty.”

  Adam refused to believe it. It had to be a mistake. The anguish and frustration almost knocked him flat. “And you’re telling me this because you’re going to use it as a bargaining chip, aren’t you?” he said. “Or is this just the only punishment open to you because you need me too badly to put a round through my head, however much you want to?”

  “I don’t think you need motivation to work on a counter-measure for Lambency.” Prescott glanced out of the window. “But I don’t want you distracted by anything else, so I’m offering to intervene and have the sentence commuted to life. I want you to focus.”

  “I want him freed.”

  “Sorry. It’s too late for that. I can’t.”

  “You’re the Chairman and we’re under martial law. You can do anything you want.”

  “No, even I have limits. I can’t let men be seen to get away with disobedience on that scale. It’s bad for morale, bad for discipline, and it undermines my commanders. He punched Hoffman to the ground when he gave him the order, for God’s sake. I can’t make that go away. I have to back my officers.”

  Adam was wary of Hoffman, but Marcus always seemed to like and respect him. It seemed utterly out of character. There had to be more to it than that. But perhaps he’d lost touch with the real Marcus so long ago that this was what his boy had become.

  “Hoffman’s insisting on this, I suppose.”

  “Actually, Hoffman’s mortified. He likes Marcus. He certainly admires him. But there are some things that just can’t be brushed under the carpet.”

  “Then let me speak to him. At least let him know I’m alive.”

  “And how will I explain your absence?”

  “He understands opsec better than anyone.”

  Prescott did a little contemptuous snort. “This isn’t petty spite on my part. This is about Azura. This facility has to remain secret from everyone, even Hoffman. I regret what’s going to happen to your son, but he’s collateral damage in the scheme of things.”

  “He’s my son. Can you understand that? No, of course not, you son of a bitch. You don’t have a family.”

  Prescott blinked, nothing more. “Neither does most of Sera. That’s partly my doing, but now we know it’s also yours.”

  The bastard never missed a chance. The fact that he was right made each twist of the knife even more painful. Adam was still hanging on to the end of the bed, unable to move forward. If he let go and tried to stand unsupported, he knew he’d collapse.

  “Bring him here, then. Use a cover story. I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Justice has to be seen to be done, Adam.”

  “Prison will kill him.”

  “And what do you think the shame of having traitors for parents is going to do?”

  “Come on, Richard, look at his service record. Hasn’t he earned some latitude?”

  “Damn it, he lost us Ephyra. Why shouldn’t he pay the price for all those men’s lives? Because he’s a Fenix and not just any old riffraff? What would we have done to Private J. Working-Class Oaf if he’d run out on a battle like that?”

  Prescott opened the door for a moment and beckoned to someone. Adam heard the soft tread of shoes on tiles and a distant voice announcing something over a PA system, but he couldn’t make out the words. He dithered for a moment, wondering if he might make it across the room after all, but Prescott walked over to him and caught his arm. It was a disturbingly helpful gesture under the circumstances.

  “We have lineage, Adam.” Prescott looked him in the eye. His lips compressed into a thin line at the end of each sentence, as if he was slamming a door to stop real, ugly fury from escaping. He’d obviously been raised as Adam had, in that upper-class way that forbade a gentleman to raise his voice anywhere but the
battlefield. “We have a duty born of privilege and ancestry. We do not have the right to choose to do otherwise.”

  Adam could hear the purr of rubber tires and a faint metallic noise outside, and then a nurse in a white tunic pushed a wheelchair into the room.

  “Come along, Professor.” She was about thirty, well fed and tanned, nothing like the hard-pressed, threadbare medical staff in Jacinto. She held out a dark gray plaid garment. “We’ve got a nice bathrobe for you, too. Can’t have you wandering around like that and scandalizing the ladies, can we?”

  Adam submitted to the indignity of being helped into the bathrobe and struggled into the chair, ribs screaming. They hurt so much he couldn’t even wheel himself along. Prescott took the handles and pushed the chair out into a corridor unlike anything Adam could remember seeing in Jacinto.

  This was a state-of-the-art hospital, and relaxed staff in pristine white walked calmly back and forth as if they’d never had to sweat in a blood-soaked ER to save Gears and civilians torn and shredded by the fighting that had been part of Adam’s life ever since he was old enough to notice, first the Pendulum Wars, and now something far, far worse.

  Prescott pushed him through double doors into a sun lounge tastefully decorated with potted plants and lush upholstered chairs. This was too menial a task for the leader of the last government on Sera. It was also not the gesture of a kind friend. Adam was sure that Prescott was making the point that he was now totally under his control, and that he would go only where Prescott pleased. On the public address system, Adam could hear a soothing voice he thought he recognized, but it was the content rather than the familiarity that shocked him.

  “… and don’t forget that there’ll be a guided walk around the forest this weekend in search of our rarer orchid species, as well as a healthy eating seminar at …”

  He didn’t catch the end of the sentence. Another set of doors opened and he found himself on a balcony overlooking exquisite landscaped gardens, a mass of fountains and flower beds bathed in full sun. Beyond the gardens, a complex of honey-gold towers and ornate buildings overlooked a beach, and men and women in civilian clothes or lab coats walked around as if they had nothing much on their agenda. It might as well have been another world, because it certainly wasn’t the Sera he knew.