Apparent Catastrophe

by Michael Stackpole

  Accusation crept into the voice. “You are not Felicia Fisher. There is no Felicia Fisher. Do not lie to us.”

  Sophia lifted her chin. “I am not lying.”

  The reply came after a tiny delay. “Felicia Fisher is a fiction.”

  “But I am here.” She sighed. “I am Felicia Fisher.”

  “Things will go better for you if you do not persist in denying reality.”

  The hint of a threat in the reply caused Sophia’s stomach to clench. She’d seen the Collective murder people. They’d even coined a new word for it: disassociation. She’d seen the Rangers murder people, and fighting back using the same methods did nothing to elevate the Rangers above the Collective. As philosophers had long opined, “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, just results in a world of blind and toothless people.”

  Sophia held her right hand up, palm open. “You got my palm print. You held that thing up to my eye. You have your holographic scan of me. Who do your records say I am?”

  “You are not Felicia Fisher.”

  Sophia remained quiet for a moment. The Collective had not identified her as Sophia Litzau because, when she’d been processed, swelling in her cheek had prevented facial recognition software from recognizing her. She also suspected, at that time, that the Collective had not gained access to the full state databases. In giving her a new identity it appeared Ivan had been able to destroy her old records. However, he’d done the work so recently that the replacement identity had not yet propagated far enough to reach whatever access system the Rangers were using. So I am a blank as far as they are concerned, and that makes them suspicious.

  “I am.”

  “Do you persist in lying because you are sympathetic to the Collective? Are you a Collective agent placed in the work detail to spy on others?”

  “No.” Sophia again shook her head. “I’m just one of their prisoners.”

  The echo of her words died beneath the dripping water’s onslaught. She strained to hear anything, but couldn’t discern even the slightest bit of electronic hum. The microphone or the speakers had been shut off. Then again, I’d not have trusted anything I “overheard” anyway.

  Sophia sat in the darkness and reviewed her rather bleak options. On the day of the revolt, she’d been scheduled to join her mother and older sister at Litzau Enterprises headquarters to celebrate her brother’s Final Vetting. She had chosen, instead, to monitor his progress from the Litzau Lancers’ headquarters. Because the Collective had destroyed Litzau Enterprises’ headquarters with an air strike and an attack by ground forces, Sophia was believed to be as dead as the rest of her family.

  To make matters worse, the Rivergaard Rangers—or ’Mechs painted with their distinctive regimental coloring—had appeared in holovid broadcasts patrolling the capital in support of the Collective. Either that had been some sort of elaborate deception by the Collective, or the Rangers had subsequently split from the Collective. Regardless, reality tainted the Rangers; and as a Litzau, Sophia could be used as a symbol to justify fighting on. And some of the Rangers don’t appear to be squeamish about what tactics they employ.

  Sticking with her new identity as Felicia Fisher might save her from politics, but the Rangers likely would never trust her. She’d become a captive until hostilities ended. In the worst case, the Collective might liberate her just to return her to a reeducation camp, or execute her as a counterrevolutionary. Even worse would be the Collective’s learning who she really was.

  There’s no one I can trust. Her heart sank, then a thought did spark a smile. Except Ivan. And Walter. Walter still owes me a rescue, and I’m going to hold him to that.

  Walter crouched in the corner of the large room, hands on knees, with just enough slack in the chain binding his wrists together to let a link scrape the ferrocrete flooring. He and Ivan had been loaded into a hovertruck and, over the course of a couple of hours, had been processed without incident. The Rangers had bound up the hands of any man who even vaguely looked as if he’d had combat experience. Ivan had been exempted, and the blood on Walter made his confinement inevitable.

  The room they’d been ushered into had previously been a hangar or garage. Large doors on one side, small loading dock on the other, hard ferrocrete in the middle and cranes fitted amid the girders above. Any signs painted on the walls that might have helped locate the facility had either been painted over or burned off. Walter got the impression it was part of a mining complex, but didn’t know enough about Maldives to even guess at what they’d mine or where it might be located—beyond being within an hour’s journey of Swindon.

  Ivan wandered over and listlessly slid down the wall to sit beside Walter. It didn’t seem like much of it was an act. “Something isn’t right here.”

  Walter looked sidelong at him. “I wish I was out poaching, too.”

  “What do you think happened to Felicia?”

  “Can’t hazard a guess.”

  At the far end of the room a door up on the loading dock opened. Lieutenant Galarza entered, followed by four armed men in uniform and eight civilians. The Rangers officer walked down to the floor and began pointing people out. Aides moved those without restraints toward the loading dock. A few who were bound had their chains removed and were sent to join the first group. The rest of the men—a dozen or so—got shunted toward the large doors.

  Walter stood as Galarza approached. “Picking sides for a game, Lieutenant?”

  Galarza pointed at Ivan. “Spurling, go with the others to the loading dock.”

  Walter stepped forward. “My nephew stays with me.”

  “Your nephew goes where I tell him to go.” Galarza’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a smart man. And a dangerous one. I have a use for men like you. Him, he’s for other duty.”

  “I killed a man. Two-three.” Ivan shrugged, but kept his gaze on the floor. “Shot ’em dead.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  Walter nodded. “Down south. The preserve. Collective team surprised me, pinned me down. Spurs flanked ’em. Shot ’em dead.”

  Ivan repeated the line. “Shot ’em dead.” He even managed to add a little giggle and a twisted smile.

  A chill ran down Walter’s spine. That laugh had just enough insanity in it that he hoped Ivan was acting. “What use you got for us?”

  “Eyes and ears for now, patrolling the perimeter.” Galarza produced a key and unfastened the padlock on Walter’s chains. “Follow me.”

  Walter and Ivan fell into step with the Rangers officer. They headed back up through the building and into a tight stairwell which took them to the building roof. It had a watchtower built on top of the flat roof, but Galarza didn’t head toward it. Instead he led them to the brick building’s edge, which featured a 1.15-meter-high parapet. The building sat in the middle of a valley that ran north and south, nestled against tall, stony mountains to the west. What should have been a river ran through the middle of the valley, but ended at a retention dam. Pipes sucked water from the basin and pumped it into the mining facility.

  Despite it being hours before dawn, Walter catalogued more than enough data to cause alarm. Actually, it’s the lack of things. From a military perspective, being at the bottom of a valley had never been part of a winning strategy. An air strike of the sort that nailed the Litzau Enterprises headquarters would be even deadlier here. Unless anti-aerospace batteries lurked hidden in the surrounding mountains, the camp had no defenses against such a strike.

  Equally disturbing, there didn’t seem to be any sign of ’Mechs. That made sense in that keeping them under cover would make them harder to discover. Still, Walter couldn’t pick out anything indicative of the casual damage ’Mechs tend to do—including industrial ’Mechs that a mine was certain to employ. There’s always a place where a ’Mech got too close to a building and chipped stone, or stepped too heavily on a bit of r
oadway, requiring a rather visible patch on the ground.

  Assuming that the Rangers kept their ’Mech assets elsewhere meant they weren’t utterly out of touch with reality. Still, processing the rescued people in this facility suggested that the Rangers expected the Collective to have spies that would reveal their location. Walter wasn’t certain exactly how a spy would do that—paranoia seldom surrendered to logic and truth—but the Rangers clearly were entertaining that possibility. Are we bait in a trap designed to hurt the Collective?

  Walter sucked at his teeth. “So, what is it you want me looking at?”

  “It doesn’t matter, really.” Galarza drew his needle pistol and pointed it at Walter’s head. “The fact is, you’ve already seen far too much.”

  The metal door rattled open behind Sophia. She refused to turn around and just stared into the darkness ahead of her.

  Two sets of footfalls, but only one voice. “You may wish to shade your eyes.” The voice, male and not entirely devoid of sympathy, sounded better now that electronics no longer mangled it.

  Sophia sat up just a bit straighter and raised her left hand to cover her eyes. The light’s golden glow began softly and built slowly. She’d known from the echoes that the room had been emptied of everything save for her chair. The rising lights revealed walls where green paint predominated, save where missing lockers and other furnishings had prevented painting over the original ivory. Dark gray paint covered the floor thickly enough that cracks in the slab appeared as muted, shadowy scars.

  The speaker, wearing a Rivergaard Rangers uniform, bearing the rank insignia of a lieutenant, stood before her, clasping his hands at the small of his back. “I regret the inconvenience to which you have been subjected. You must understand that the Collective would stop at nothing to glean even the smallest mote of intelligence about us and our operations. Having been their prisoner, you’re aware of this.”

  Sophia frowned. “I am Felicia Fisher. I live in Swindon. I do gardening and got pulled into their work party.”

  “Your adherence to your story is admirable.” The man allowed himself a bit of a smile. “Given the rudimentary screening services we have available to us, you might well have been believed, but Felicia Fisher is a fiction. You need not persist in trying to convince us you are she. You are actually among friends here.”

  “You’re too fancy to be a friend of mine.” And your fellow officer is far too fast with a trigger to make me feel at all at ease.

  The man’s hands appeared from behind his back, palms open and facing her. “Let me restart. I am Lieutenant Aaron Doukas, of the Rivergaard Rangers. We’ve not met before . . .”

  “First truthful thing you’ve said, sir . . .”

  “. . . but I do recognize you.” He nodded to the person standing behind her. “Release her, please.”

  The other person crouched and released the cuff attached to the chair.

  Sophia let the dangling cuff ding against the chair. “Thank you. Now what?”

  The man canted his head. “That would be up to you. Research. Director. Sophia. Litzau.”

  Sophia tried not to react, but she clutched at the arms of the chair without thought. “What would you have me do, Lieutenant?”

  “That is out of my hands.”

  “I have a suggestion,” said the woman sliding from behind her into view. “Why don’t you hug your sister, and we can share stories of how we both escaped certain death.”

  Chapter Three

  Processing Center, Prism Energy Solutions

  Maldives

  16 November 3000

  Walter measured the distance between him and Galarza with his eyes. Half a step too far. Can’t get there fast enough . . .

  “If you pull that trigger you will be making the most profound mistake of your life.” Ivan’s chin came up, his posture straightened, and his tone of voice shifted sharply. “Consider carefully what you are doing.”

  The needle pistol’s muzzle remained steady. “I’m shooting two Collective spies who I caught up here doing a survey of our location.”

  Ivan’s eyes tightened. “No, Lieutenant Galarza, you will be shooting the Chairman Presumptive’s Companion.”

  Galarza looked harder at Walter. “No, can’t be. You’re dead.”

  “I only look dead.” Walter opened his hands, spreading them wide to either side. “Walter de Mesnil, at your service.”

  The pistol’s muzzle wavered slightly as Galarza glanced at Ivan. “Then you’re . . .”

  “Ivan Litzau, also not dead.”

  The Ranger took another quick look at Walter and started to turn toward Ivan. The pistol dipped all of four centimeters and Walter lunged. Galarza reversed himself, bringing the muzzle back up. Walter reached beneath the gun with his left hand, forcing it higher. The pistol flashed. Flechettes shot into the sky, then Walter dropped a heavy right fist into the side of Galarza’s head.

  The Ranger reeled and pulled back, but Walter came right with him. The MechWarrior shifted his grip on the pistol, twisting it away and down. That locked Galarza’s wrist. Walter continued to twist. Galarza bent forward to ease the pressure on his arm. Walter drove his right elbow into the man’s kidney, then followed with a knee to his gut.

  The Ranger collapsed, curling up around his stomach.

  Walter shifted the stolen pistol from right hand to left, then charged it and pointed it at Galarza.

  Ivan held his hands out. “Don’t shoot him. He can’t hurt us.”

  “He knows who we are. Reason enough for him to die.” The mercenary’s nostrils flared for a second. “You know he was going to murder both of us, right? Especially after you told him who we are.”

  “But that’s what saved us.”

  “For about as long as it took him to figure out the trouble he was in.” Walter shook his head. “He brought us up here to kill us because we were outsiders who saw him execute Collective agents. His men weren’t going to report his actions. The people who’d been on that gravedigging detail, they are so much in shock that they’re not sure what they saw or really wouldn’t have objected to their tormentors dying. And even if all those Collective agents were mass murderers, killing them like that—martial law not withstanding—isn’t something you do to captives. And when you told him who we were, you established that we were witnesses who would be believed when we denounced him.”

  Ivan frowned. “But if he killed us, he’d be tried for killing the Chairman Presumptive.”

  “No, because he’d claim you were a collaborator. The Collective proclaimed your death so you could lead the revolution in secret. That’s the only logical explanation for your having survived. The fact that you live—me, too, for that matter—makes both of us suspect.”

  “That is paranoid nonsense.”

  “It’s the sort of paranoia that will keep you alive.” Walter held up a finger. “You tell no one where we have been, or what we have seen. No. One. The only people we know to trust are each other. Everyone else is suspect.”

  “My sister?”

  “Even her.” Walter shifted the set of his shoulders. “I’m your Companion. This is your Vetting, and it is far from over.”

  “What do we do now?”

  The MechWarrior sighed. “I guess we figure a way to get down off this roof, find your sister, and get as far away from here as we can.”

  “I believe I can help you with some of that.” The crunch of footfalls on gravel accompanied the appearance of a small squad of men led by another officer in a Rivergaard Rangers uniform. The lieutenant glanced at Galarza, then bowed his head to the both of them. “Gentlemen, please come with me. The colonel would like to speak with you.”

  “Abigail?” It can’t be. Sophia stared at her sister. Last she had known, Abigail had died beside their mother, buried beneath tons of rubble. Yet there sh
e stood, healthy and unharmed, even smiling more brightly than she had in years. “Abigail?”

  Abigail Litzau, taller than her sister and with flowing black hair, gathered the smaller woman in a tight hug. Sophia wrapped her arms around her sister, more by reflex than anything else. The woman felt like Abby, at least as best Sophia could remember. Probably would have smelled like her, too, were Sophia not still filthy from her time with the gravediggers.

  Abigail broke the embrace and held her sister at arm’s length. “It is me, Phee. It really is.”

  “But you were never much of a hugger.”

  Abigail laughed, and that was enough to convince Sophia. She’d not heard that laugh in a long time, but she couldn’t fail to recognize it. “It is you.”

  “Yes, little sister.”

  Sophia opened her arms. “And you recognized me, but you had Lieutenant Doukas here interrogate me? Why?”

  “You survived when you were supposed to have died with Mother.”

  Sophia arched an eyebrow. “You would have known I wasn’t there, had you been there. How do I know you weren’t part of the Collective, looking to replace Ivan?”

  “I can confirm for you, Research Director, that your sister was not in league with the Collective.” Doukas brought his hands together at his waist. “I was present, with her, when the Collective struck.”

  “I don’t understand, Abby.” Sophia looked from the Ranger to her sister. “Why weren’t you with Mother?”

  Another male voice echoed through the chamber. “Perhaps I should explain.”

  Sophia spun as the new man entered the room. “Richard?”

  Colonel Richard Oglethorpe smiled easily as he approached. “I’m very glad to see you alive. Your sister has . . . reports of your death hurt her mightily.”

  “When did her feelings matter . . .” Sophia fell silent. The two of them, Richard and Abigail, had never been anything but cordially distant to each other—except, perhaps, when they danced together at receptions and balls. They are excellent dancers, and very good together. Their distance had remained of late, but the cordiality had strained to the point of threadbare civility as the Final Vetting had approached. No. “Someone better explain this.”