My hand trembled. I felt like my eyes could shoot fire. The old Malcolm would’ve pulled the trigger and been done with it, but there were no credits on the line this time. It was in those brief seconds of hesitation that I realized killing him wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing. I’d only be helping him.
The Church of the Three Messiahs was a corporation in a sense, whether they admitted it or not. There was nothing better for business than publicity. That was why Jeremiah was so pleased to find out I wasn’t a collector. Somehow, he could tell I’d come to his convent to kill somebody, so he’d decided to tell the truth and sacrifice his life to me. And it wasn’t like months ago when the Ringer I’d hunted on Earth blew his brains out right in front of me to preserve secrets. It was a purely mathematical decision.
If I killed Herald Jeremiah like this, it would look like an unprovoked hate crime that would embolden others to his cause. If I didn’t, Venta Co. would find him, and he’d disappear. They’d lock him in a cell and listen to his yarn about the heartbroken apostle who blew himself up to destroy evil over and over, hoping there was something else to it when there wasn’t.
The Herald could die a martyr or slowly in a cage. Either way, he was damned. For all his high claims and pretentiousness, he made the choice any shrewd businessman would when those were the only two options—exposure.
“I’m not your judgment, you piece of shit,” I said. I released his throat and lowered my gun. He fell to his knees, gasping for air, but that wasn’t what I was focused on. All I cared about was the shimmer of disappointment in his eyes that proved I was right.
“Fine… I knew,” he squealed. “I knew what Apostle Grant was planning, and I let it happen. Is that what you want to hear?”
I kneeled beside him, keeping a watch out of the corner of my eye on the handful of apostles circling us. “I told you I can tell when a man’s telling the truth, and you already spilled it,” I said. “Now Venta’s going to hear it too. I may not be able to kill the man who murdered Wai, but he can look up from your hell as his Herald suffers for the rest of his life.”
“No!” He lunged forward and grabbed my hand. His finger tried to wriggle its way through the trigger of my pistol, and as I wrenched it away from him, my artificial leg shot forward into his arm. It was so strong that his forearm snapped in two before the bone was pulverized against the wall.
He howled in pain, his poised, assured expression completely shattering. I don’t know why I was surprised. People like him always begged for their lives before the end, and begging for death wasn’t much different when the alternative was so much worse.
I clutched his jaw and raised his face to mine. “When you do get to Heaven, Herald, tell God that Malcolm Graves says hello.” I punched him one more time across the face, and he sprawled out across the bloody floor. Everything else was for Wai, but that last punch was for me.
“Peace be with you,” I said to the young female apostle. Then I holstered my pistol and headed back toward the exit without another word. All his flock kept their distance. A few worshippers were on their hand terminals, finally deciding to ignore their Herald and call for security. Only as I left did his people run to him, cradling his head as he coughed up loose teeth.
I heaved open the convent’s heavy manual doors and stepped outside. Night had fallen upon Mars, but with all the Tongueway’s flashing signs, you wouldn’t know it. One illuminated a pair of familiar Venta Co. collectors threading the crowd in my direction. I ducked and crept off to the side before quickly realizing they weren’t coming for me. Between taking breaks to try and get even with me, they’d seemingly arrived at a possible answer about who was responsible for the bombing and were headed for the convent to question the Herald.
A chuckle escaped my lips. All those years racing Venta Co. for targets, and now I was letting them snag one free of charge.
What happened to me?
Shooting Zhaff to save my daughter. Quitting Pervenio Corp. I’d been so drunk since I got to New Beijing, it never really hit me until then that I really wasn’t a collector anymore, and not only by title. It was like that whole essence of me had evaporated. How easy it would’ve been for me to turn the Herald in to those two hothead collectors and demand a reward, yet I couldn’t care less.
It wouldn’t bring Wai back. Despite my mad spree to try and justify her death, in reality, she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d have to live with the fact that I was partially the reason she was there, but the Herald was right about one thing—we’re barely in control. She could’ve wound up in that plaza, at that moment, no matter what I’d said to her. The victim of a senseless act of violence from a broken man, thanks to the revolution of a beleaguered people.
I was so sick of hypocrites and radicals. So sick of everyone. All the riffraff surrounding me, out for a night on the town to pretend their lives were all right or forget that they weren’t. Happy to indulge in their vices until the sun illuminated the dome and they were part of the working class again. If I stayed on Mars, before long, I’d turn into one of them or maybe had been all along. The streetwalkers were the most honest people in the city. At least they didn’t lie to themselves about what they were.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t only feel lost because I had nothing to do. I didn’t even feel like drinking. I simply felt… empty.
“First line of Departure Lottery tickets here!” someone shouted from behind a storefront. The U and the S of the USF blinked over his head, the other letter lost behind a wall of steam from an exhaust vent. “Best chance at winning a spot on the next Ark!”
USF stands like this one were the only place to get departure tickets. You couldn’t do it over Solnet because they only wanted people winning who were willing to travel across the stars. Last year, Pervenio Corp sent forth the previous Departure Ark—a ship called the Hermes—and per the news feeds, Venta Co. was a lock to be selected in this year’s M-Day celebrations to build a new Departure Ark to be dispatched from Earth in a little more than four years. Talk of a prototype engine invented by the genius Basaam Venta had people excited, so the line at the stand wrapped around the corner.
I stopped and stared at the representative behind the counter, proudly decked out in his USF uniform. In his hands was a chance at one-way tickets to a world far away. Maybe Venta had figured out a way to freeze the passengers so I’d actually survive if I won. Something new to see for an old man who’d seen everything Sol had to offer. The good and the much worse. For once, I finally understood why anyone would even want to win a Departure Lottery slot, and it had nothing to do with a prospect of expanding the dominion of the human race like the ads promoted.
Before I could overthink it, I stepped onto the end of the line. Sirens blared as a Venta security hovercar tried to force its way down the narrow avenue toward the convent, so I didn’t have much of a choice anyway. Like it was meant to be.
I made it a few spots forward without running away, when from behind me, a familiar voice said a word I never thought I’d hear again.
“Dad?”
Thirteen
Kale
The great mahogany doors of the New Beijing USF Assembly Hall swung open. I offered Aria a nod before we entered, hoping she would return it. She wouldn’t even look at me. She hadn’t since we’d left our rooms. She was freshly showered, groomed, and wearing a loose, vibrant green dress reminiscent of a jungle. I hadn’t even bothered to wash my face. Powered armor cradled my weary limbs, still stained with blood and grime from the explosion… and from Trevor.
Together, even though we couldn’t be more different, we represented Titan. Rin and Gareth didn’t accompany us. They’d been in touch sparingly since they left to grab Basaam, and I had to relinquish my hand-terminal and ear com-link before entering the hall. The only outside tech they allowed us to enter with was my own suit so I’d be comfortable. Everything had to be USF approved. My men weren’t even permitted to wear theirs, but after the attack, my person
al safety was apparently of the utmost concern.
The last thing Rin told me before they went dark was that they had located Chief Engineer Basaam’s room and were preparing to take him. I would find the answer to whether they succeeded if I saw Basaam amongst the elite crowd invited to the hearing. Angry faces, teeming with such aversion that I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as their glares fell upon us.
When they saw four of my people following behind us, their disdain gave way to shock. Maybe it was the sight of Titanborn out of their armor, so tall and stringy that we barely resembled the same species as those in the crowd who were born on Earth. Or maybe it was the fact that my guards carried with them the corpse of my would-be Cogent assassin.
USF officers wrapped the edge of the yawning horseshoe-shaped space. Theirs were the only weapons present, per custom. Inside the horseshoe, two rows of seats ran the length of the hall filled with representatives of the most powerful organizations of Sol’s inner planets.
I recognized the major ones. A handful of Red Wing Company Board members and chairmen of other prominent corporations were at the front. Mining conglomerates, charities, environmental groups—anyone with a large enough stake in Sol to care about what happened around its furthest settled planet. I couldn’t even imagine the accumulated wealth and influence I was sharing a room with. One well-placed bomb and the foundation of Earther society would be shaken to its core. After the landing-platform attack, however, getting even a hand-terminal within one hundred meters of the hall was impossible.
It wasn’t enough to cut the heads off Earth’s credit-generating, expansionist machine anyway. New ones would grow to take their places, like Venta Co. had after I crippled Pervenio Corp. They needed to fear us more than how one might a vagrant in a dark alley. We needed to be like the quarantines were for us—that ever-looming presence of dread placing every step and action into question.
“Mr. Trass, it is my pleasure to welcome you to New Beijing,” said Talo Gavaren, the withered old man seated behind a tall wooden podium positioned in the center of the far end of the aisle. Talo was the appointed Voice of the Assembly—the elected governing body of the United Sol Federation that only citizens with home addresses on Earth could vote on. It didn’t mean he had any more sway than the other forty-nine members, just that he disseminated their majority agreements to their constituents. Of course, I knew firsthand that true Earther power lay in the hands of corporate men and women like Madame Venta.
Behind him stretched a curving wall of glass with a view of the nighttime New Beijing skyline, blinking with building-sized ads and colorful lights. A curtain of security airships and drones zipping around just outside obscured most of it. On either side of Talo’s podium, a lower desk curved away, with enough seats to fit all other forty-nine members of the USF Assembly. Most were occupied by delegates in green robes. The virtual presences of those who couldn’t be there in person were projected above every empty seat.
“You have my deepest apologies for what occurred at the spaceport,” Talo continued. “And we will do whatever it takes to make things…” He trailed off as he too noticed the body being carried behind me.
I stopped at the foot of the dais atop which his podium sat. The stage where powerless fools got to stake their claim for more to the powerless, while those truly in control watched from behind.
“Mr. Trass, what is the meaning of this?” Talo questioned. I didn’t utter a word. I met his gaze and held it there. He, the man who was supposed to broker peace between our peoples, was as uninspiring as any Earther I’d ever seen. His sagging face was ripe with creases that seemed to grow deeper the longer I stared, and his wispy hair was as gray as the surface of Luna.
“Kale, say something,” Aria whispered into my ear. “He has to invite you up.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. Madame Venta sat in the front row. Her sons Karl and Fern were on one side of her, and a gaggle of gorgeous young women was on the other. The closest held her hand and stroked her arm. Around them was a smattering of additional Venta directors and officials, but I didn’t spot Basaam among them. That, in addition to the scowl plastered on Madame Venta’s face, told me all I needed to know.
“Kale, don’t,” Aria warned.
I nodded to my people, and they presented the Cogent’s body to me. I grabbed him by his limp neck. Even with my powered armor on, I couldn’t bear the weight of a genuine Earther with one arm, so I dragged him out of their hands and rolled him onto the dais. Crusted dirt and blood stained the authentic wood floor as the body tumbled like a rag doll into the base of Talo’s podium.
The collective gasp of the Assembly and all the other pretentious sycophants cluttering the room made me want to grin. I fought the impulse, holding my lips straight and my glare firm upon Talo.
“Mr. Trass!” he exclaimed.
“This is an outrage!” another Assembly member protested.
“We came here, Mr. Gavaren, under the promise that we would be safe,” I said, mustering all the vim I could manage to project my voice through my sanitary mask.
“And we did everything we could to ensure that you were,” Talo said. “I assure you, those responsible for the bombing will be found, and those who allowed it to happen will be reprimanded accordingly.”
“If we weren’t saddled by Venta regulations, it would have never happened!” a Red Wing Company director blurted out, her voice surprisingly robust considering how petite she was.
“Please, Galora. You second-rate mercs couldn’t guard the ass end of Old Russia without help,” Madame Venta’s son Karl countered from across the aisle.
As the Red Wing woman cursed, Talo banged a gavel on the podium. “Order!” he bellowed. “We aren’t here to discuss the merits of Earth’s many conglomerates. As far as I’m concerned, both of you failed.” He leveled his stare at me, bushy eyebrows accentuating his already narrow eyes. “But that doesn’t excuse you for tossing a body at our feet, Mr. Trass. I know you aren’t from here, but that is not how we begin discussions. We have been more than accommodating since you arrived, conceding to all your demands. So, I ask you again, what is the meaning of this?”
“This assassin was sent to kill me upon my arrival at the spaceport,” I said. “Had it not been for a terrorist bombing, he would have succeeded. That is two attempts on my life already, and I’ve been here less than a day. As a practical man, I have to assume this entire hearing was contrived to draw me close enough to kill.”
“How dare you accuse us of that!” another Assembly member’s voice echoed from all the way from the end of their crescent-shaped desk.
Talo raised his hand in objection. “That is not how we operate, Mr. Trass. The USF’s sacred charge is ensuring the safety of all of humanity, not merely those remaining on Earth.”
I gestured to the Cogent body. “If this is your example of safety, then it’s no surprise your ancestors were almost wiped out.”
Murmurs of outrage bubbled up all around me. I think I even heard Aria stifle a yelp. Talo grimaced, but he drew a deep breath to help retain his composure. “We all came from the same place,” he said.
“Yet your ancestors weren’t chosen by Darien Trass.”
“We are not here to discuss the origins of our people.” He snapped his fingers toward a group of security officers behind the Assembly’s desk. They rushed down the stairs to remove the body. “Our best agents are busy searching for who this cowardly attacker was and how he was able to slip past our drones.”
“You know very well who it was.” I tore the Cogent’s cracked eye lens off his face and tossed it up to Talo. The USF banner draping down from the podium—bearing the USF emblem of eight small white dots along a line with a larger one in the center—rippled as it landed. “This isn’t the first Cogent to take a shot at me, and it won’t be the last.”
Talo spun the eye lens around in his hand. Then he sighed and passed it along to the elderly Assembly member next to him. “We are all well aware of the gri
evances your ambassador has filed regarding Luxarn Pervenio. However, there is no evidence of any ‘Cogent Initiative’ or whatever you’re calling these attackers. He has willingly disseminated all of his records.”
“And yet, he isn’t here. Not even a single representative.”
“I wonder why, murderer!” someone from the back of the crowd hollered.
“You Ringers killed them all!” shouted another.
“Order!” Talo said, slamming his gavel. “This Assembly will not tolerate any more speaking out of turn! Mr. Pervenio sent his apologies for not attending and explained that Pervenio Corp has been extremely preoccupied with the limited release of its commercial line of service bots. After… what happened, the reshuffling of his company has left little time or resources to expend on hearings.” He pointed to a floating spherical bot with a bulbous lens hovering in the back of the room. “Pervenio Corp is actively monitoring the contents of this summit and I’m sure will be happy to refute your claims afterward.”
“I hope you checked that thing for explosives,” I said. I recalled service bots from advertisements on Earther news feeds. The floating orbs and their many stringy appendages were a last-ditch effort for Luxarn Pervenio to recoup his losses after relinquishing his exclusive access to Saturn’s valuable gases. I would’ve hated them if they didn’t make it so obvious how much Luxarn was struggling. The releasing line could barely do more than respond to simple orders—"Get this. Move over there.” They were a fun distraction, rather than the game-changing personal helpers Luxarn intended them to be.
“Is that a threat?” Talo said.
“Only against myself.”
“Well, I can assure you that every inch of this hall has been swept, inside and out. You have never been safer.”
Titan's Rise: (Children of Titan Book 3) Page 18
