Clarity's Edge: Technopaladin, #1

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Technopaladin: Clarity’s Edge

  Copyright © 2021 by Elizabeth Corrigan All rights reserved.

  First Edition: 2021

  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  For Ethel Corrigan

  and

  In Loving Memory

  Thomas Corrigan, Lucille Cheney, & Jack Schwarz

  Chapter 1

  “Come on, Clarity!” Hope grabbed Clarity’s hand and dragged her down Londigium’s main thoroughfare. The bright glare of the morning sun glinted off the silver skyscrapers and made some of the light-up signs in the storefronts difficult to read. Nonetheless, Clarity could make out the image of a dress on the digital placard of Hope’s destination.

  Clarity dodged to avoid running into some people going in the opposite direction from her. She tried to wrench her hand free of Hope’s grasp to give herself better maneuverability, figuring she could follow her friend’s gleaming, red-gold hair through the crowd, but Hope held tight. “Remind me again why we’re doing this? I don’t care about going to the gala, and I don’t see why I can’t just wear my official paladin armor.”

  “I swear, for someone so invested in her career, you can be dense about the things you need to do to advance it.” Clarity’s other friend Zeal tossed her black braids over her shoulder as she gave Clarity a scathing glance. “You have two weeks left until the gala, and Hope has convinced Steady Threads to make an exception to their usual deadlines and take an order for your dress. Try to be a little grateful.”

  “I’m a warrior.” Clarity cringed at the petulant tone in her voice but continued her line of argument anyway. “My job at the moment is just conducting training for the non-warrior paladins, but if and when I get promoted, I’m going to be a Citadel guard or a peacekeeper in the city. None of this has anything to do with looking pretty at a gala.”

  “Do I have to remind you why you put that ‘if’ in there?” Zeal asked. “You beat out the Grand Conductor’s son during graduation trials for a position at the Citadel.” Zeal was right. Steadfastness Hughes ran the Order of the Amethyst Star, and he hated Clarity. “You need to go to the gala and do some networking among the other warriors to make yourself popular in other circles. Or at least look appropriate so as not give him an excuse to send you off to the boondocks and install his son in your place.”

  “I know, I know. You’re right.” Clarity stumbled as Hope came to a sudden stop in front of the tailor’s shop. “I just feel more comfortable in my armor. The paladins already spent a lot of money getting us high-tech, retractable armor. I don’t see why they’re bothering to pay for dresses and tuxedos as well.”

  “Because it would be ridiculous to try dancing at a ball with your armor clanking everywhere, and the purple microfiber bodysuits underneath are not nearly as flattering as you all think they are,” Hope said, her voice containing an uncharacteristic tartness. “Besides, don’t you want to look amazing enough that Valor regrets breaking up with you just because you beat him in that silly contest?”

  “Don’t say that so loud.” Clarity glanced up and down the street, but no one she knew was nearby. “You guys are the only ones who know we broke up. Besides, I don’t think---”

  Before Clarity could finish her sentence, a man ran into her, practically shoving her into the store’s forcefield window. She and her friends turned in sync to watch a man in a fine suit run past them, knocking the crowd aside to get through. Behind him came a pair of men in armor as shiny as Clarity’s own, sufficiently far behind that the recovering throng on the street would be an impediment. By the time the paladin peacekeeper she recognized as Diligence noticed her and called, “Stop that man!” Clarity was already racing after him as best she could.

  The pursuant looked behind him and noticed a much closer paladin. With a curse, he tried to pick up speed, and when that failed, he turned a corner into what looked like a small alley. He must not know the city very well, Clarity thought. There’s an open air market on the other side of that building. He’s going to be easy to spot there.

  Indeed, as she chased him between the skyscrapers, she could easily see his head bobbing amid the stalls. Realizing his mistake, he pushed over a table full of crates of apples, sending the green fruit rolling across the ground. Clarity didn’t miss a beat, leaping into the air above the overturned boxes and landing on her quarry in a tackle.

  The crowd had erupted into shocked gasps at the chase, but as Clarity pulled the man to his feet and twisted his arms behind his back, the crowd burst into applause. She heard the word “Azurite” murmured a few times, so she glanced down at his chest and saw that he in fact wore the telltale diamond-shaped, blue patch that marked him as a resident of the city’s Azure District. Everyone knew the Azurites hated paladins and the order they represented so much that they refused paladin technology rather than follow paladin laws. Clarity had heard rumors that people in the walled-off part of the city lived in abject poverty, but the man standing in front of her looked well-fed and clothed.

  Diligence and his partner jogged up behind Clarity. “Thanks for the assist,” Diligence said as he handcuffed the criminal. “We caught him trying to buy a slew of weapons on the black market. The dealer was smart enough to try to make a deal, but this idiot ran.”

  Wow. Clarity had known she was chasing down a criminal, but she’d had no idea he was such a dangerous one.

  “If you want paladin tech, all you have to do is submit to the laws of the city,” Diligence said to his prisoner. Then he turned to the farmer whose apple crates remained upside down on the ground. “If you file a report with the Citadel, the order will reimburse you for your damaged merchandise. We apologize for interfering with your business.”

  Diligence led the Azurite out of the market. Clarity started to head back to Hope and Zeal, who were presumably still waiting outside the tailor’s shop, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Hold up there, little miss,” Diligence’s partner said. “I’m going to need your statement about what you saw.”

  Unfortunately for Clarity’s appointment at the clothier, the paladin peacekeeper---who turned out to be named Justice---decided to interview her last of all the bystanders. Clarity knew from her internship with the peacekeepers this was standard procedure---better to inconvenience a paladin who knew her duty than the citizens of Londigium they protected and served---bu
t Hope and Zeal were less understanding when they finally found her.

  “You were just trying to get out of dress shopping,” Zeal said when Justice released Clarity.

  “I wasn’t! That guy I chased down was---”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Hope linked her arm with Clarity’s. “We’re late for your appointment, but I’m sure they’ll still see you.”

  Clarity glanced at the time on her ocular implant and cringed. “I can’t. I have to get back to the Citadel. I’ll have to come back and get a dress tomorrow or something.”

  “What could you possibly need to do at the Citadel?” Zeal asked. “All your work tasks are in the morning. I swear, if this is part of your ridiculous exercise regimen---”

  “You’re a medic. Aren’t you supposed to encourage exercise?” Before Zeal could respond, Clarity continued. “And no, it’s not. At least, not exactly. Determination reamed me a new one this morning for not getting more of the non-warriors to come to their morning training. I need to convince them to go. I figure I’ll start with the most recalcitrant and work my way down. But this is going to take awhile, and I need to start today.”

  “Most recalcitrant?” Hope wrinkled her nose. “Who’s that? I can think of a bunch of people I haven’t seen at training in the three months I’ve gone.”

  Clarity closed her eyes. “Perspicacity Hughes.”

  “Cass Hughes?” Zeal asked. “As in Valor’s brother? Doesn’t he hate you?”

  “He doesn’t hate me…” Clarity trailed off. She was lying, and since she was such a terrible liar, probably even the random passersby noticed.

  No one hated Clarity more than Perspicacity Hughes.

  “Cass?” A small robotic owl with circular blue eyes that ate up half his head swooped into Perspicacity Hughes’s office. You can always tell Cass’s robots, his boss Tenacity said. Eyes as big as the moon in the night sky.

  Cass barely glanced up from the code he was working on. He was on a tight deadline to work out the bugs in the latest motorcycle AI. “What’s up, Al?”

  The little owl landed and fluffed out his metallic, bronze feathers. “There’s a warrior girl here to see you.”

  A warrior girl? What does some warrior girl want with me? He pulled up the calendar on his ocular implant and swore under his breath. Once a year, graduates from the Academy got their new positions, and once a year, about three months later, like clockwork, the latest warrior tried to convince him he needed to go to physical training. He couldn’t believe he’d let the date sneak up on him like this. Not that it’s a big deal. Most of the time he could ignore the new recruits, and they’d go away. The rest of the time, they gave up after a few weeks. No warrior was as stubborn as Cass.

  The smooth, silver mechanical cat in Cass’s lap stirred. “Does this mean I have to get up?” Cass had spent months tinkering with the fan on Meg’s system to get it to sound right, but afterward she always had a purr in her voice when she spoke.

  “Nope.” Cass ran his fingers along Meg’s smooth back with his good hand. “The warrior girl can wait all day for all I care. I have nothing to say to her.”

  Al took off and flew around the room. “Tenacity said you’d say that. She said you had to at least talk to the warrior. Something about getting rid of them faster.”

  Cass groaned. “Does Tenacity want me to shake off the latest warrior dog, or does she want me to finish this program by the end of the day?”

  “Probably both,” said Al. Apparently Cass needed to upgrade his programming to understand rhetorical questions.

  Meg stretched, making Cass grateful he had built his mechanical cat without claws, then jumped off his lap. “There. I’m up. No excuses now.”

  “I have a lot of excuses,” said Cass under his breath, though there was no point in changing his timbre. His AIs had acute hearing. He stood up and followed Al out the door.

  “---very important you all come to training,” a gentle voice was saying as Cass approached the desk that served as the tech department’s public face. For the most part, the techs hated support duty, so Tenacity had decided the fairest way to handle the situation was to have everyone, even her, spend an hour per day managing the help desk. Cass wished anyone other than Tenacity had been on duty when the warrior came by, because any other tech would have laughed her off.

  I know that voice, Cass thought to himself. Which is ridiculous. I don’t know any new girl warriors. Well, except---

  “Clarity? That’s your name, right?” Tenacity asked.

  Cass imagined the girl nodding as the voice connected with the face in his mind. Clarity was his brother’s girlfriend and the epitome of everything he couldn’t stand about warrior paladins. The only things she cared about were her ambition and getting to the top of the paladin pyramid. Warriors would be nowhere without the things medics and techs could supply for them. Besides, Clarity was dating Valor, and anyone who got along with Cass’s brother as long as she had must know about and accept his dark side.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what, Clarity,” Tenacity said. “If you can convince Cass to go to training, I’ll do my best to get the rest of the tech team to go as well.”

  Cass snorted at the unexpected deceit. His boss knew quite well Clarity would never get him to go to training. I’d better go in there before Tenacity starts promising anything else.

  He stepped around the corner into the open help desk room. Clarity stood on the petitioner side of the table and looked far too calm and confident for a woman on a doomed mission. Her light brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, and her dark brown eyes stood out in contrast to her pale skin. She wore the silver full plate with purple accents that Cass knew for a fact she could collapse into the circle at the center of her bodysuit. Most warriors wore their bodysuits under their clothes when they didn’t need the armor, but not Clarity. Being part of the warrior ruling class wasn’t enough for her. She had to shove it in everyone’s face all the time. Cass didn’t think he’d seen her wear anything else, though he had to admit he avoided her when he could.

  “Clarity.” Cass greeted her with a nod.

  “Cass.” She offered him a tentative smile he didn’t bother to return. She’d always tried to be nice to him, though he didn’t really understand why. He’d never returned the kindness, and she had to know he saw through the facade. Besides, she was here to ask him for something unreasonable.

  Tenacity raised a perfectly tweezed black eyebrow. “You two know each other?”

  “Clarity’s dating my brother,” said Cass. Tenacity’s eyebrows went up higher. She knew Valor and Cass didn’t get along.

  Clarity looked about to say something, then shut her mouth. When she opened it again, she got down to business. “I’m here about your physical training requirement. According to our records, you haven’t attended in some time. The sessions are---”

  “Sorry. Can’t. Legally disabled.” Cass waved his mechanical left arm in all its black steel glory. People asked him all the time why he didn’t use a more realistic-looking prosthetic, and all he said was he didn’t feel the need. If they couldn’t handle the fact that he only had one “real” arm, then they couldn’t handle him.

  If Cass expected Clarity to cringe, though, he was disappointed. “That arm is capable of lifting ten times what the strongest bodybuilders can lift,” she said. “And it can withstand more pressure than any human bone. I fail to see how it prevents you from training.”

  Cass was impressed she knew the stats of the arm, but he didn’t let it show. “I am twenty-one years old and not in school anymore. Which means you can’t make me go to your little gym class.”

  Clarity’s nostrils flared, and Cass felt a surge of satisfaction that he’d gotten to her. “Physical training is not ‘gym class,’” she said, complete with air quotes. “As paladins, we are responsible for the protection of everyone in Corinthium, which means staying in suf
ficient physical shape to act in the event of an emergency.”

  “That’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard.” Great, now she’s getting to me. “You think I need to be prepared to run or fight to protect the people? What I need to do in the event of an emergency is make sure everyone’s tech is up and running.”

  “And if you need to run or fight to get to the site of the tech?” asked Clarity.

  “There are no enemies worth fighting anymore,” said Cass, realizing as he said it that changing the subject did not negate her argument. “The paladins have made Londigium the most peaceful city on the planet. No one attacks us, and your tech fails all the time. I have to train for the event of an attack, and you don’t have to learn how to fix your own stuff? Yeah, that makes sense.”

  Clarity stared at him for a long moment, long enough that Cass almost looked away from the intensity in her eyes. “You’re right,” she said.

  Well that was easy, he thought. Usually it takes at least three visits for them to give up.

  “We should do more cross-training in the order.” Clarity shifted her feet, as if she wanted to start moving but didn’t. “I would like to know more about how my tech works. I’ll tell you what. If you come for your hour of training every day, I’ll come down for an hour of tech work.”

  Cass blanched. “Wait, what?”

  The corners of Tenacity’s lips turned up the slightest bit, and though Clarity probably couldn’t tell, Cass knew his boss was holding back gales of laughter.

  “Well, I can’t change the policy to make every warrior train with the techs.” Clarity looked apologetic as she glanced around the small workstation. “And I’m not sure you’d want all of them down here, for a variety of reasons. I control my schedule, though, and I’d be happy to come learn more about what you do.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” Tenacity said.

  Cass balked at his boss. She could not be serious. His goal, as Tenacity well knew, was to get rid of the warrior girl, not spend more time with her.