“Well,” she said, “you are like a painkiller.”
I didn’t like what was going on with my heart. It was in obvious conflict with my professional interests.
I noticed that she was very pale.
“Lita, what about your food?”
She looked at the cold coagulated substance on her plate and winced.
“I can give you my meal substitute if you’d like. Better than this anyway.”
I handed her my nutrition bar, and she ate it without a comment. In the twilight, I noticed deep shadows under her eyes and realized how many hours she must have been awake.
“Do you know how he is doing? Can you check on him?” she asked.
“Kir is monitoring him all the time. He is getting better. He is asleep. Lita, you need to sleep too. Nothing will change until tomorrow.”
Apparently, she was almost too weak to hold a conversation, so she just nodded in response. Fortunately, the hotel was just across the street, and we were back in the lobby in a few minutes.
“Would you like me to help you relax?” I said when we stopped in front of her door.
“You can do that?” she asked, and there was a note of awe in her voice again.
“Kir can,” I answered honestly.
She leaned against the wall.
“Sure, let’s make use of your superior technology.”
Kir could have beamed the relaxation package remotely, but I put my hand on her forehand. It felt cool and smooth, and I had to resist the desire to gently stroke her face.
“Kir, go ahead with a basic sedative,” I said softly. She sighed, and anxiety and tension disappeared from her eyes. I removed my hand and felt that she instinctively followed my hand as if trying to extend my touch.
“This was great. But …” a shadow passed across her face. “It’s scary. Nick, can you promise that you won’t ever use your magic on me without asking me first?”
I nodded even though I wasn’t sure that I could keep my promise. It was work, I reminded myself again.
“You’ll sleep as long as your body needs. See you in the morning,” I said and went to my room.
I slumped on the bed, threw uncomfortably hard pillows on the floor and decided that I didn’t want to think about anything else today. Unfortunately, I couldn’t order Kir to make me fall asleep – by design implants couldn’t alter the psychological state of their hosts. It was annoying and unreasonable, but I dozed off before I could dwell on this for very long.
When I opened my eyes, it didn’t feel as if any time had passed at all, but it was already the next morning. For a moment I stared at the wavy surface of the ceiling, trying to recall why I was here. And then I remembered everything, and the thought that Lita was nearby, only a few rooms away filled me with such a sharp sense of happiness that there was no way to deny the fact that I liked her. I liked her very much.
Hold on, I said to myself. This was really messing things up. It was Remir that I was after. I had to do whatever I could to get him to leave with me, and that included not hitting on his lover. Tomorrow he would wake up, and hence it was time to start working on the next steps of my detailed plan steps. More so, I reminded myself, was JJ’s ominous warning, which meant that I needed to get off this planet as quickly as possible. I was trying to decide the best way to approach my upcoming conversation with Remir, when Kir sent an emergency signal.
“Nick, a change in the global Beta Blue situation affects your safety.”
I moaned and shook my head.
“What now?” I sat up on the bed, focusing on the internal displays. A satellite feed showed a plume of smoke over the presidential grounds. “Kir, connect to cameras inside the palace,” I said, applying considerable effort to snap out of shock.
“Nick, there are no cameras – as of one minute ago.”
“Search for the closest feeds in the vicinity.”
Kir was now showing me several screens, but I couldn’t see anything except for white wisps of smoke. I thought that my Beta Blue operation had lost its original smoothness.
“Kir, what happened?”
“Remote demolition was triggered at 6:03 this morning.”
“Trace it. Anything you can find.”
The redundancy of the last sentence indicated my state of mind.
“Here is the most relevant recording, Nick. Time stamped just before the explosion.”
According to their bios, which Kir pinned in the background of my vision, most people in a large boardroom belonged to the top military echelon, and the rest represented some high-ranking government officials. They were looking at a screen that showed the intact presidential building, its smooth curved surfaces glistening peacefully in the pink morning light. I thought that they were insane to allow surveillance in this room. But then again, they might not have been aware of the camera’s existence. The Homeland Security minister who was at the head of the table picked up a small device from a tray in front of him and held it in the air.
“As you all know, the explosion will start only if everybody here activates this launch pad,” he said in an understated commanding tone.
One after the other, they each touched the remote control as they passed it around the table. The room was very quiet. Suddenly, the building on the hilltop jolted and folded in on itself. In a moment, there was nothing where the structure had been except for a billow of smoke, which immediately started losing its shape in what appeared to be a strong breeze.
“Now, gentlemen, let’s get to work,” the Homeland Security chief got up from his seat. At that position the camera happened to point squarely at his long impenetrable face. “Follow your protocols and notify me in case of any issues. I am calling the media now.”
“Kir, enough,” I was whispering for some reason. “Tag this recording and show me the news.”
Various channels were going through their usual routines, providing updates on weather and road conditions in cheerful morning voices. Abruptly, all screens simultaneously switched to an image of the burning remains of the presidential building.
“We are interrupting this program to bring you an emergency announcement,” the news anchor spoke in a professionally calm, but slightly unsteady voice. “In an unprecedented act of violence by covert Earth agents, the president and his family were killed this morning in a targeted explosion. The total number of casualties remains unknown …”
“Nick, check this out,” said Kir, turning on video feeds from the city center. Sleek military assault helicopters were landing in the middle of the streets.
“A security breach was detected in the vicinity of the government district, and a temporary emergency executive council has been assembled to take all necessary actions to guarantee public safety,” continued the commentator. “Citizens should remain calm and stay in their homes until special units perform an extended search for possible enemy infiltrators inside the city perimeter.”
Kir’s analysis indicated that my safety hadn’t been directly affected yet. He warned, however, that the situation was too fluid to make a reliable prediction beyond the nearest future. Just as I was resetting the security parameters to compensate for any increased exposure risk, I was interrupted by a communication request.
“Nick … it was Lita, and I remembered that I’d told her to use my mask to get in touch. Nick, can you hear me? What was that? It can’t be … your people?”
I didn’t even reply, I just sent her the clip of the secret meeting tagged by Kir a moment ago and the live feed from the empty city streets where silver wasp-shaped vehicles were now positioned at regular intervals from one another.
“Nick…” When her voice came back after a short break it was so quiet that Kir had to activate amplification. “Nick, please come.”
Her door was ajar, and I went in. She stood in the middle of the room with the mask on, but I could sti
ll see the expression of complete dread on her face.
“Nick,” she said, “do you understand what this means?”
It meant a serious headache for me, but only after looking at her face did I realize what it meant for the people on Beta Blue.
She took a step forward, then another, and then she put her arms around me in a tight embrace as if looking for protection. Her face pressed against my chest, and I froze, the room and the voice of the news anchor from the video screen on the wall quickly fading into the background. Her grip relaxed slightly, but she didn’t step back. She slowly tilted her head, raising her face until she was looking into my eyes. I removed her mask and dropped it to the floor.
I couldn’t say that I didn’t understand the ramifications of what I was about to do. It just no longer seemed important. Time slowed down and then sped up uncontrollably when my lips found hers, and she responded, stretching up. With quick jerk I pulled her even closer, causing her to lose her balance, and lowered her onto the floor. I took off my shirt, threw it aside, and in a moment was next to her, searching for her mouth again, tracing the curve of her throat with my lips. Her dress was in the way, and I had to let go of her for a moment, stripping off her clothes and getting rid of the rest of mine. There was nothing between us anymore, and that was a new level of raw intimacy, in which she was still a stranger to me. I covered her skin with rough brief kisses, slowing down only over her nipples until she moaned, and then I reached for her mouth again. She pulled herself towards me as if she wanted to fuse her body into mine, and I completed her motion with one impatient thrust, making our touch absolute, leaving nothing that could make us closer. Then everything went out of focus, except for her face, its perspective changing in rhythm with the movements of my body. It was getting harder and harder to fight growing swells of desire, but then she gasped, arching her back, and I convulsed in almost painful spasms.
“A fairy tale prince,” she whispered and let go.
I rolled onto my back and for several moments lay still, as my heartbeat returned to normal. Then, thinking that she might be cold, I picked her up, carried her to the bed, and kneeled down on the floor next to her. She wrapped herself in the blanket and stroked my face.
“Nick, what are we going to do now?”
“It’ll be fine.” At that point I still believed that the situation would somehow untangle itself.
She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at the video screen on the wall. The same commentator was now reading a list of emergency rules and regulations.
She listened with painful concentration, and her face started to contort into the same expression of dread as before.
“Lita, you’ll be safe,” I said, trying to distract her. I was fully aware that my priorities on Beta Blue had changed.
“… during the times when the deadly fight is directly upon us, any participation in scientific or cultural activities without explicit government approval will be considered a punishable offense effective immediately.” By now the news commentator had collected himself; his voice sounded firm, with a carefully measured note of scorn.
“They will kill him,” she said flatly, “or he will kill himself.”
Until now, I had been carefully avoiding any thoughts of Remir.
“He does have an option. He can go with me. He will be fine.” It was true, but I stumbled over my words.
“Right,” she nodded, “he has an option.”
I got up, threw on my clothes, and sat in the chair.
“Kir, summarize the security situation.”
“Nick, your personal safety is not a concern,” he replied. “There are no special forces in Oren. The local police department hasn’t received orders to search private residences or hotels. There’s a planet-wide ban on being outside today, however. Citizens with valid reasons will be allowed on the streets starting tomorrow morning.”
Lita was now leaning forward and looking at me with worried impatience and I remembered that she couldn’t hear Kir.
“Kir, connect your audio to the TV speakers in Lita’s room. Provide Lita and Remir’s security status.”
“Lita’s safety is not a concern. Remir’s safety is not an immediate concern,” now Kir’s voice accompanied images from the news translation.
Lita sat up, her face instantly paling.
“What does that mean – not an immediate concern?” she whispered.
“Kir, provide the details. Quantify timing,” I asked.
“Remir’s name is on the list of people to be detained. He is classified as category B. The arrests in this group are scheduled to start five days from now.”
Lita tried to smile, but her lips couldn’t quite take the proper shape. “He lucked out that you’re here for him,” she said finally.
I thought that she was most definitely right, but she rubbed her forehead with a pained expression, still looking distraught. The ambiguity of my presence in their lives was now part of the landscape. The good news was that the immediate plan seemed very straightforward.
“Lita, you will go to the hospital when he wakes up, but until then there’s nothing for us to do but wait.”
“How long will that be?”
I checked Kir’s estimate.
“Twenty-three hours give or take,” I said.
“Can’t you wake him up earlier?” she asked anxiously, “With him being on that list …”
“That would interfere with his recovery. We’ll need to move fast once we leave the hospital, and his condition could slow us down.” I anticipated her next question from the expression of increased worry on her face. “Kir is monitoring Remir’s security situation. He will alert me if he detects any change in the arrest schedule, and I’ll intervene if necessary. It’s safer to wait.”
She reached down, picked up the hotel robe and put it on. It was too big for her, the flaps hanging below her knees, the sleeves sliding down her arms. She started pacing around the room, her eyes glued to the floor.
“Fine,” she said, “it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that my life will never be the same in any possible way …” she paused for a moment. “I’m not surprised that they will be going after him. Even the previous regime …” she looked at the screen where images of the burning presidential palace taken from different perspectives replaced each other, “… even they never liked him. They didn’t understand his music. It was too different. And it had an air of … disobedience. He never received the stamp of official approval – no membership in the Composers Union. Can you imagine, they even threatened to charge him with a parasitic lifestyle?”
I knew that willfully unemployed citizens could be given prison time in accordance with the local constitution. The former authorities preferred to hold onto this card against Remir for a rainy day, however. He was too popular. Holding this axe over his head was a better tactic. All these shenanigans nicely fit the standard pattern of outlier-totalitarian dynamics, but I immediately realized that she was a real person involved in this mess.
“But they worked it out, made some trade-offs. Remir never made any political statements, and for the most part they let him be,” her face had an expression of chronic worry now. “He knew that he was constantly walking on the edge, of course.”
She looked at the screen where the Homeland Security minister was currently addressing the nation and muted it.
“No balance for him anymore. Terminal stop. What a striking finish,” her voice didn’t go up at the end of the sentence.
I stepped in front of her, stopped her pacing, and put my hands on her shoulders. “Lita,” I waited until she raised her head and looked into my eyes. “There’s nothing we can do now. Tomorrow you’ll tell him about the offer, when he wakes up from the coma. Lita, we have almost twenty-four hours.”
She stood still for a second and then pressed her forehand against my chest.
°°°
I checked on Remir just before he was supposed to regain full consciousness. As expected, he had completely recovered from his overdose.
“Time is up, Lita,” I said, and she looked at me with an almost frightened expression.
When she was ready to go, I handed her a palm-sized piece of blue plastic.
“It’s a copy of the recording from the boardroom, the same one that I sent you yesterday. You can decide if it will be helpful for him to see it. Don’t worry; I’ll erase it from the hospital camera. And it’ll only work when you’re holding it with your fingers this way,” I showed her how to grip the plastic. “There’s no danger of anyone knowing what it is even if you are searched.”
She nodded and put the card in her bag.
“Nick, I have to ask you something,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “Please don’t monitor the room when I talk to him. I don’t want you to … watch us.”
“Of course,” I was sure that I wouldn’t keep my promise. The stakes were too high, and after all I was still a professional. I gently squeezed her shoulders, pressing a microscopic surveillance chip into the fabric of her dress, “Go. It will be fine.”
She went out, and I lay on the bed, putting my arm on my forehead.
“Kir, follow her,” I said as soon as the door behind her clicked shut.
She was hurriedly walking along empty streets until a burly man in a local police uniform blocked her way. She told him about Remir, and he picked up his communication device. Kir intercepted the signal, and I heard the man’s conversation with the hospital. Then he nodded and stepped aside, letting her go.
Fire of the Dark Triad Page 9
