by Rick Partlow
“I’m sorry, Munroe,” she rasped through swollen lips.
“Go,” was all I said. I wanted to tell her to go to Demeter and tell Sophia that I loved her, but that was stupid. She already knew that. Just like she’d known I didn’t have any choice but to go on this mission.
Then she was gone. I wanted to run after her, to take my chances, but I knew that was suicide. They were watching; they’d shoot me before I got a meter. And even if Constantine needed me alive, that would stop them from putting a few rounds into my legs and taking the chance they could get the bleeding stopped in time.
“That’s long enough, Munroe.” It was Constantine. He was outside the armory, I could tell from the sound.
I looked Gramps in the eye, reading nothing in that dark gaze, then I put my hands behind my head and did something I’d sworn I never would. I surrendered.
***
“Get on your knees.”
I apparently didn’t do it fast enough because hands forced me down and only the pads built into the knees of my fatigue pants kept me from cracking my kneecaps on the hardwood floor. The muzzle of a rifle hovered centimeters from my face as my hands were pulled roughly behind me and my wrists were flex-cuffed together tight enough to pinch into my flesh. Then I was patted down, my jacket lifted up and spare magazines pulled from my thigh pockets.
They even took the knife, I lamented as they yanked me up to my feet. I wasn’t sure how big of a difference that switchblade would have made, but I was sad about it anyway.
As I was yanked to my feet, I saw others in Constantine’s group of loyalists binding Gramps’ hands behind him, and I noted that they found the compact pistol he’d had concealed somewhere under his loose, grey shirt.
Knew the old bastard had a gun, I thought with a quiet snort.
Then Constantine was in front of me, looking very satisfied with himself, like a man who’d bartered a good trade and knew it.
“What do you want from me?” Gramps demanded.
Constantine smiled, then he punched the older man in the face. Gramps went down, unable to balance himself with his hands bound, and fell heavily on his shoulder, blood pouring out of his nose. The enforcer had used his flesh-and-blood hand, I noted with a sigh of relief. Otherwise, Gramps wouldn’t have gotten back up.
“That’s the first thing I wanted,” Constantine said genially. “And by God, I’ve wanted to do that from the very first day you took over, you imperious, overbearing, old piece of shit. Do you really think any of us gives a shit about your fucking United States Marine Corps or fighting the fucking Chinese in Taiwan? I wish your damned family wasn’t so rich, then you’d have died a hundred years ago, and I wouldn’t have to put up with your bullshit.”
Gramps got his feet beneath him and struggled back up to stand in front of Constantine, his look defiant and somehow dismissive.
“Got that out of your system, have you?” He asked, spitting blood on the floor.
“Watch your mouth, old man,” Constantine warned him, “or you’ll find out how hard I can hit you with my other hand.” He raised his gloved right fist in front of Gramps’ face. Then he turned to one of the goons guarding us, a short, broad-shouldered woman with a keloid scar down the side of her face. “Take them out to the barn.”
It was raining lightly and I felt the wind-driven droplets slap at my face as we walked out the front door of the ranch house and into the night.
“Why the hell would anyone want this place?” I muttered. I was talking to myself, but Constantine heard me, and looked at me sharply.
I thought for a second he was going to hit me, but instead he chuckled quietly.
“You ever hear of Milton, Mr. Munroe?” He asked me. “Paradise Lost?”
In fact, I had. I hadn’t gone to the Corporate Management University the way Mom had wanted, but I’d still kept trying to learn, even when I was in the Corps. And Sophia insisted I read the classics, which I sometimes appreciated and sometimes didn’t.
“Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, Constantine?” I looked at him sidelong. “Are those the only choices?”
“For a man like me,” he allowed. Then he smiled, a twisted, brutal smile. “And men like your great-grandfather here, I think.”
“I never had a choice,” Gramps declared, and I looked at him with a sudden shock of guilt as I heard the bitterness in those words.
Then we were in the barn, and the guards in the lead hit the control to switch on the lights.
“Far-sighted of you installing independent power out here,” Constantine said to Gramps, waving at the lights. “It would have been inconvenient if I’d switched off our own juice when I had my people shut down the fusion reactor.”
The horses reacted to Gramps’ presence, sticking their heads over the tops of their stalls, looking for a slap on the neck or a treat, if they were anything like the ones he’d kept in Utah. He stared at them as he passed, and I could read the thought in his eyes: who was going to take care of them now?
Then we were at the doors to the lift, sullenly promising and darkly threatening.
“Open them,” Constantine told Gramps.
“You want to give what’s down there to the bratva?” Gramps demanded. “What do you think they’ll do with it?”
“What the hell do I care?”
Constantine slid his pistol out of its thigh holster and I got a good look at it for the first time. It wasn’t anything as prosaic as the locally fabricated stamped metal slug guns the others carried, or even the variable ammo pistol I’d brought with me. It was a pulse pistol, a laser weapon that you didn’t see outside Space Fleet very much. Ammo for it would be expensive as hell out here, but I guessed it was more of a status symbol for him than anything else.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” Gramps said, ignoring the threat.
“Yes, I certainly am,” Constantine agreed genially. “And even if I weren’t, Popov and the bratva would soon enough, though probably not as gently. But I don’t have to kill him.”
He raised the pistol and leveled the emitter crystal at my head. It was odd, like having someone point a holographic camera at me instead of a weapon, but I knew that one shot could blow my head apart like an overheated egg, turning my blood and cerebral fluid to superheated vapor.
“I most certainly can kill him,” Constantine amended, “but I don’t especially want to, not the least because, unlike you, old man, he actually did something in the war that made a difference, and I respect that. And unlike you, he doesn’t have to be here. The choice is yours. Open the damn door, disarm whatever bloody-minded traps you have set and tell your pet scientists down there to keep doing what they’re doing but do it for me and Popov.”
Gramps said nothing, looking away sullenly, almost petulantly, his incipient growth of beard stained with his blood. Was it really that he’d changed so much, I wondered, or had I built him up too much in my memory because he was all I’d had?
I was looking at Gramps when the gun went off with a thundercrack and a blinding flash of ionized air heated to plasma by the laser pulse. I felt a searing spear of pain in my side and I spun to the ground, crying out involuntarily. Loose strands of hay were burning on the floor behind me, and a haze of smoke drifted up towards the roof of the barn. Teeth clenched against the pain, I forced myself to look down and saw that my armored jacket had taken the brunt of the shot. It was scorched and blackened and cracked, but the pain on my side was mostly from the flash burn; the shot had been aimed to graze and it hadn’t penetrated.
“Did I mention there was a time limit on this offer?” Constantine asked, his voice still pleasant and casual, in stark counterpoint to the glowing emitter of his pistol, still radiating heat that I could feel a meter away.
Gramps was looking down at me, his face drained of color, sweat dripping down his forehead, his shoulders held by two of the guards; I had the sense he’d instinctively tried to run when the laser discharged. Constantine grabbed him across the cheeks with
the splayed fingers of his bionic hand and gently turned his face to make him meet his eyes.
“Popov and his ships will be landing within the hour, you see,” the enforcer went on, and the look on his face changed from his forced cheerfulness to something closer to the rage I knew he was actually feeling. “And as a demonstration of my competency and usefulness, I fully intend to have your little mad scientist lair open and ready for Mr. Popov to inspect. If I don’t, I won’t be happy. And if I’m not happy, then I will dutifully step aside and let Mr. Popov’s very well-trained and experienced interrogators go to work on both of you.”
I watched my great-grandfather’s eyes, wondering if he was so attached to his dream of revenge that he was going to let both of us die before he gave it up. I didn’t get the chance to find out. The scream of turbojets rolled across the floor of the canyon, shaking the aluminum walls and sending the horses into a frenzy of stamping and bucking.
Constantine sighed as he let loose of Gramps’ face and shoved his laser back into its holster. He glanced back over his shoulder at the unmistakable sound of landing jets coming from the fields in front of the ranch house.
“Too late,” he said, his tone light but the frustration evident in the set of his face. He motioned towards me. “Get him up and bring both of them along. Time to meet the new boss.”
Two of his people grabbed me under the arms and yanked me up to my feet and I gasped as pain flared anew in my side. I tried to push it down, knowing that much worse was coming. I had no choice now; I had to try to fight and run because getting shot trying to escape was the better option. At least I’d got the others away from here; I was counting on Kane to find them and get them out of here, because he definitely wouldn’t be in time to save me.
I knew something was off when we emerged from the barn. I could see the ships from there, three bulbous, lifting body shapes matte black and sucking up the light from the house, steam billowing off their metal hulls. Those weren’t some up-armored cargo shuttles slapped together by the Russian mob out in the Pirate Worlds, they were military assault shuttles.
“…the fuck?” I could hear Constantine muttering, and I knew he was having the same thought I was, and I could feel our pace begin to slow as we reached the courtyard between the house and the outbuildings.
Dark shapes moved through the night around the ranch house in tactical formations, faceless in visored helmets, wicked-looking pulse carbines carried at the low ready position. They flowed like a swarm of deadly, black-armored insects, some of them splitting off to enter the ranch house and the rest spreading out to surround us,
At least two laser emitter cones targeted each of us, and the four guards Constantine had brought with him were glancing back and forth nervously, not dropping their guns yet but taking care not to move the muzzles upward. The armored figures parted and a woman in a tailored uniform stepped through, her brown hair pulled into a bun, her face knife-edged and severe. She had a pistol holstered at her waist but she didn’t bother to draw it; she didn’t need to.
“You’re Constantine Terranova,” she said to the enforcer, looking him up and down.
“You work for Popov?” The man seemed lost, and didn’t look happy about the unfamiliar feeling.
The woman laughed sharply. “I’m afraid not. Mr. Popov received a better offer. My name is Trina Wellesley and I work for the Corporate Security Force.”
I grunted deep in my throat, feeling like I’d been kicked in the balls. She looked at Gramps and I with a glint of curiosity in her eye before turning back purposefully to Constantine.
“We’re here to take possession of the artifact.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What about my deal?” Constantine demanded, greed and anger warring visibly with fear and uncertainty in his tone and his face. I stared at him in disbelief. He’d been DSI, he should know who these people were and what he was dealing with.
“Your deal is quite clear-cut, Mr. Terranova,” she said, sounding almost surprised at the question. “You give us the artifact, we leave, and you get to stay alive.” She arched an eyebrow. “Towards keeping that latter part of the deal, perhaps you and your friends should disarm before my people start getting nervous.”
Constantine mulled that suggestion over for the space of two or three uncomfortable seconds, then he nodded to the guards. They seemed almost grateful at the chance to drop the rifles, but Constantine himself was slow and reluctant to unfasten his gun belt and hand over his weapon. The CSF mercenaries took charge of the guns quickly and efficiently, and the laser emitters moved from targeting our heads to a general port arms.
Wellesley smiled thinly. “The artifact, Mr. Terranova,” she reminded him. “I’ll need you to take us to it.”
“It’s under the barn,” he said, motioning behind us. “But the entrance is sealed with a biometric lock. To get inside, you’re going to need him.” He indicated Gramps, who looked very much like an elk calf who’d just noticed the wolves.
“Well, by all means,” she said, stepping forward and laying a hand possessively on Gramps’ shoulder, “let’s get started.”
I think he was too stunned to resist as she led the two of us back inside, trailing a half dozen of her CSF troops. The others stayed with Constantine and his guards. As we walked, I heard the distant sound of pulse carbines firing, probably from in the house. That roused Gramps from his stupor and he turned on the woman.
“Who are they shooting?” He demanded inanely, as if she’d know.
“Why, anyone stupid enough to make themselves a threat to us,” Wellesley answered readily, and I could tell she felt not the least bit of guilt. “Don’t you be that stupid, Mr. Torres. I know Ms. Damiani would prefer I bring you back alive, but it’s not a requirement.”
“You…” Gramps licked his lips as if they’d gone dry and tried again. “You work for Patrice?”
“I work for the Corporate Council, Mr. Torres,” she corrected him. “Please keep moving.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. She worked for Mom. Now, for the first time in this whole business, I felt truly afraid. Dying didn’t scare me, not after Demeter. Mom scared the hell out of me.
The elevator seemed less intimidating now, perhaps because everything else seemed even worse. Wellesley pushed Gramps towards the ID plate and then motioned to one of her troopers to come forward.
“Have a look at this lock for me, Captain Petrelli,” she said.
The armored figure could have been a slender man or a burly woman, and it was impossible to tell with the featureless helmet and bulky body armor, but I went ahead and labelled the Captain a man in my head for convenience. Petrelli slung his pulse carbine and pulled a small computer module from a pouch at his belt, holding it against the ID plate for a moment before turning back to Wellesley.
“It’ll take some time, ma’am.” The voice coming over the helmet’s external speakers was deep and I thought I’d been right. “We have the right equipment in the shuttle, though. Maybe an hour.”
“There you go, Mr. Torres.” Wellesley turned back to Gramps, lip curling in something more a snarl than a smile. “I’ll get in one way or another. If you save me an hour, I guarantee you that I won’t have my troops execute the team of scientists you have down there.”
Gramps didn’t look at her and he sure as hell didn’t look at me. He just held out his hands. Wellesley nodded to Captain Petrelli and the man produced a small utility knife from a pocket and sliced through the flex cuffs. Gramps shook feeling back into his hands for a moment, then walked over, and slapped his palm against the ID plate, then typed in the code.
“There, that wasn’t so hard.” God, she was a talkative bitch. She reminded me of Mom.
It felt like the lift took forever to reach the bottom this time, as if the machinery knew why we were there and was dreading it as much as I was. When the doors swung open, the entire staff was lined up waiting, all six of them, and at the sight of the CSF mercenaries most of them raised
their hands hesitantly.
“I see word of our arrival has preceded us.” Wellesley’s voice was droll, but it trailed off as her eyes went to the pod. Even she was struck dumb for a moment by the sheer alien strangeness of it. “Holy shit,” she mumbled, walking slowly and deliberately towards it.
Gramps walked over to Dr. Erenreich and I started to follow him, but then turned back to Captain Petrelli.
“Is there any chance I could get these cuffs off?” I asked him.
The officer regarded me silently from behind the darkened, featureless visor for a long moment, and I thought he was going to ignore the question. But then he turned to where Wellesley was still walking towards the thing.
“Ma’am.” His voice was tinny and scratchy over the helmet speaker.
“What?” She didn’t turn around; she couldn’t take her eyes off the artifact.
“Do you want Mr. Callas’ hands freed?”
Shit. They knew exactly who I was. I’d been afraid of that, too.
“Go ahead,” she waved a hand dismissively. “Do keep an eye on him, though. I’m told he can be quite resourceful.”
Petrelli motioned for me to turn around and I felt a tug on the cuffs as he cut through them. I felt the pins and needles in my hands as blood flow returned and I rubbed and shook them, wincing.
“Thank you,” I told Petrelli. He didn’t respond, but I hadn’t really expected him to.
I shrugged and followed Gramps over to where Erenreich was standing, next to the other researchers. She didn’t have her hands up, but she was keeping them out in the open and not making any sudden moves. In her shapeless, brown tunic and loose-legged slacks, she looked as if she’d been woken from a sound sleep. She might have been; I saw curtained off sections at the other end of the chamber that were partially open to reveal folding cots. All of them probably slept and ate down here most of the time.
“It’s…moving somehow,” Wellesley said from over at the pod, her palm resting on its curved surface, touching it like an expectant mother might touch her stomach. She looked back at Erenreich. “It feels like it’s pulsing. How long has it been doing that?”
