Shadow Soldier (The Shadow Saga)

by J. L. Lyon

  301 turned his attention back to Sir Collins and holstered his sidearm. Then he pulled the Gladius prototype from his side and activated it. Collins jumped back in fear as the blade shot out from the end of the hilt and ignited with a fiery white flame.

  “I didn’t call for them,” 301’s tone darkened. “But seeing as they’re here, you understand that circumstances have changed. I need the name of that technician. Now.”

  -X-

  Derek Blaine stared down the guards barring the doorway to where the old man had taken 301, pacing back and forth as though trying to build up enough courage to rush them. He reminded Liz of a wolf circling its prey, and the tension in the room increased with every step he took.

  “Will you cut it out?” she whispered to him after 301 had been gone about five minutes. “Are you trying to provoke them to attack?”

  “That would be better than just waiting here for the Specter Captain’s next order,” he whispered back. “What good are these prototypes if we don’t get the chance to use them?”

  “What good is a fight if you’re not alive at the end of it?” she retorted. “Just chill out for a few more minutes, okay?”

  He stopped pacing and crossed his arms obstinately, but he didn’t stop staring down the guards. Every now and then over the next couple of minutes he gave Liz an exasperated look.

  Liz was so focused on keeping Derek under control that she didn’t notice the sound at first: a gentle whirring, like a muffled helicopter blade. By the time she realized what it was, and what it meant for their present situation, Derek had already acted.

  The guards drew their assault rifles as one and leveled them in the two Specters’ direction, but Derek had already drawn his sidearm. He squeezed off several rounds before rolling out of the way of the rest of the bullets.

  Derek’s swift thinking gave Liz the time she needed to get out of the way as well, but she wasn’t content to just evade the guards. She took the Gladius prototype from her side and rushed those that remained. Her weapon came to life just as she fell upon them, and with a violent flash of white light she cut two of them down. A third hit her in the mouth, and she responded with a retaliatory punch to the face. Then she plunged her blade straight through his heart.

  Liz raised her weapon to take care of the rest, but stopped the blade in midair. They were already dead, a calm and collected Derek Blaine standing over them with his Gladius humming softly in his hand.

  “Well,” Liz said breathlessly. “I guess that means we’re out of time.”

  At that moment the front door to the estate burst open and a team of green-clad Great Army soldiers entered the foyer. Derek and Liz turned to face them as their commanding officer barked out his orders, “Secure the perimeter! Collins has at least fifty men on guard within this mansion, and fifty more guarding the outer defenses of the estate. Hunt them down and kill all—” The officer—a major general—stopped short when his eyes fell on Derek and Liz standing in the center of the foyer, blades still active at their sides.

  “Afternoon, Specters,” he smiled. “I see you beat us here.”

  Gunfire erupted from several directions outside, which could only mean that the Great Army had engaged the estate’s security detail. In a few moments it would be all but over, and their only chance of finding out what Collins was really up to would slip away.

  “I hope you have an explanation for this, General,” Liz challenged. “Because you are interfering with an extremely sensitive investigation into the—”

  “Can it, Blondie,” the major general held up a hand to silence her. “Surely you don’t think some second-rate officer down at the command center gave the go-ahead to take down an Alexandrian noble? Our orders come straight from the MWR. You have a problem, take it up with him.” He turned and growled at his men, “Secure the building! Find Collins, bring him to me alive.”

  -X-

  “I need a name, Sir Collins,” 301 took a step closer to the desk, brandishing the Gladius threateningly as he did so. “Give me the name.”

  “You’ll never get me to talk, Shadow Soldier,” Collins said with a sneer. “There’s no longer any chance of making it out of the city alive, and my family is safe. What motivation do I have for helping you?”

  “Don’t do it for me, then,” 301 urged. “Do it for her. She is the one who stands to lose the most here. Please, help me! Give me the name!”

  301 knew he was short on time. Gunfire sounded from multiple directions outside, and a firefight had broken out in one of the adjacent rooms. Assuming they had come in overwhelming force, the Great Army would be there to take Collins within a couple of minutes. If he didn’t get his information now, he never would.

  There was only one option left to him, and he took it without pause. Though the noble’s desk was made of heavy rosewood, 301 grabbed the edge and flung it to the side of the office as though it were nothing but paper, then rushed forward before Collins had time to retreat. The noble’s chair rolled away as the Specter Captain grabbed him by the collar, yanked him to his feet, and shoved him up against the back wall.

  301 plunged his blade straight through the noble’s shoulder into the wall, and left the blade in position while holding Collins still with his other arm. The noble cried out in pain, but at that point 301 didn’t care. Grace’s face flashed briefly in his mind, almost like a warning against what he was about to do, but he pushed it away. If he was to save her, this was the only way. He screamed inches from the noble’s face, “Who is the technician? Give me the name!”

  Collins spoke through teeth gritted with pain, “If you really want to save her, Shadow Soldier, you’ll let her go. No matter how much and how long you pay this man, someone else will still discover the imprint match. So let’s be honest, shall we? This isn’t about her at all. This is about you and your need for her, because she is the one thing in your life that ties you back to your humanity…your one guiding light. She’s the closest to heaven you will ever get, so you hold onto her for dear life for fear of falling back into the hell that is your reality. I know, because I was just like you—until the MWR took that heaven from me.”

  301 applied more pressure to the blade in the noble’s shoulder, and he cringed and cried out yet again. “You think you know me, Sir Collins?” he growled. “You know nothing about me! Don’t presume you’re anything like me, you who have spent a lifetime living off the misfortune of others!”

  “No one is beyond redemption,” he said the words aloud, but 301 got the impression that he said them more for his own sake. Collins groaned again from the pain, and 301 felt his skin crawl. He had been wounded by a Gladius blade two months before—only a surface scratch, but still incredibly painful. He could only imagine the torment of having the blade inserted beneath his skin. There also seemed to be some deeper agony in the noble’s eyes: regret, perhaps—301 couldn’t quite say.

  After a brief silence Collins whispered, “This is really the end for me, isn’t it?”

  Despite being the one administering his pain, 301 felt a strange pity for the man. “Yes. This is the end. The Great Army found out about your treason at the same time we did. They will execute you here to avoid offending the nobles publicly, but not before they torture you for every ounce of information they can get.”

  301 wasn’t leveling threats, just stating the truth. Whatever Collins chose to tell him in this moment, the Great Army would ensure he did not meet a peaceful end.

  “The technician’s name is Emerson,” Collins said through strained breaths, “Security Officer Nathan Emerson. He works on the third floor of the Alexandrian Authorizations office. But you think about what I said, Specter Captain, if you really want to save her.”

  301 withdrew the Gladius from the noble’s shoulder and released him, stepping back toward the doorway with the intent to merely wait for the Great Army’s arrival. Collins slumped to the floor and used his hand to push against the wound. There would be very little blood due to the
nature of diamond armor, but the action no doubt made him feel more secure.

  “I would ask a favor of you, Specter Captain,” Collins said. “Though I don’t have enough information to help the System bring down the benefactor network, I do know enough to cause harm to several men and their families—men to whom I owe much. I would like to think I am strong enough to endure whatever your friends have in store for me, but there is only one way to be sure.” He winced for a moment and struggled to finish. “Perhaps you could do it. Now, before they arrive.”

  301’s heart pounded, “You want me to kill you.”

  “It’s not what I want,” he replied. “But it is what has to happen here. You have no choice. If I fall into the hands of the Great Army interrogators, I’m just as likely to tell them about Sawyer as I am to give them information about the benefactors. The only way to protect her now is to end this, and unfortunately you’re the only person in a position to do it.”

  He wanted to object, but even before Collins finished talking 301 knew he spoke the truth. Perhaps Collins was also right about him needing to free her, but even doing that would take time that only the noble’s death would buy.

  Collins must have seen the acceptance on 301’s face, for he nodded and stood to his feet, not wishing to meet his end slumped on the floor. The strength of his voice grew as he mustered his courage, “Listen to me closely, Specter Captain, for I will not be able to say this twice. There is a man—an Undocumented—who lives in Lower West Sub Quadrant 12. His name is Ellis. Go to the Sub Quadrant and ask for him. With any luck, he will see you. He can tell you many things that I have no time to share here, and will help you get Sawyer to safety should you decide to take my advice. Once I am dead, you must contact the technician by the end of the week. If something happens to him, you will have less than twenty-four hours until his caseload is passed to another officer and the imprint is discovered. Good luck.”

  301 heard hurried footsteps coming down the hall. He sheathed his Gladius and drew his sidearm. He raised it, pointing the weapon straight at the noble’s heart. He hesitated for only a moment, and then squeezed the trigger, sending two bullets into Sir Collins’ chest. The noble’s body slumped back down to the floor just as the Great Army soldiers entered the room.

  301 regarded their entry with indifference, and did not speak as he holstered his weapon and pushed past them to return calmly to the foyer.

  24

  301 STEPPED OVER THE DEAD bodies and made his way to the center of the foyer, seeing with immense relief that both Liz and Derek were alive and apparently unharmed. Specter Tyrell stood some distance away, conversing with an army lieutenant.

  Major General Wilde, the man who had sent 301 to his death six weeks ago, stood in the doorway, apparently in the midst of an emotional conflict. 301 understood why. On the one hand, he wanted to lash out at the Specter Captain for executing his mark before the interrogation. But on the other, 301 was now his superior, and he didn’t want to aggravate an already awkward situation.

  “Specter Captain,” he said with an odd mixture of cordiality and disdain. “Care to explain your reasoning in executing my prisoner before his apprehension?”

  “Honestly, General, not really,” 301 replied. “But seeing as we’re old friends, I’ll tell you: you trespassed onto an active Specter investigation and ruined our negotiating power, which prevented us from accomplishing our mission. So when the noble was no longer any use to us, I disposed of him.”

  “Our orders were to interrogate him for the location of his family!” Wilde’s voice rose. “Orders that came directly from the MWR himself!”

  “I never received notification of those orders,” 301 smiled, genuinely amused to see his former commander sweat. “And out of all the things Collins knew, you only wanted to learn his family’s whereabouts? No wonder the rebellion is still at large.” He turned his gaze toward Liz and Derek, who watched the exchange with their mouths open. “Let’s move out, Specters. We’ll let the major general and his men clean up this mess.”

  Wilde scowled as the four of them exited the mansion and walked back up the driveway to leave the estate. When they were out of earshot, Liz started in on him, “What happened in there, Captain? Did you really shoot Collins in cold blood?”

  “He wasn’t going to give us anything,” 301 said defensively. “What use was it to torture the man to death?” He felt a pang of regret as he spoke the words, knowing he had been prepared to do just that if it meant saving Grace. “And what good is his family to us anyway?”

  “None,” Derek replied. “At least not in the way you mean. I’m sure the MWR wanted them for only one reason: to send a message.”

  301 nodded, “Scare the other benefactors into abandoning the rebellion to protect themselves and their families from a similar fate. Well, I don’t have the stomach for those kinds of tactics, Blaine. Collins was guilty, and he is dead. There’s no sense in punishing his children for his crimes.”

  “But orders are orders,” Tyrell said quietly. “Aren’t we bound to obey them, no matter what?”

  “Are we?” 301 stopped walking and stared incredulously at the other three. “If I asked you to draw your sidearm and shoot yourself in the head, Specter Tyrell, would you do it?”

  Tyrell’s hand drifted toward his gun for a brief moment before he realized the question was only theoretical. “Um…I suppose…I don’t know.”

  “What if I told you to shoot Specter Blaine?” He went on, noting how tense Derek suddenly became. “No explanation, just wanted him dead because I don’t like him?”

  “301!” Liz broke in. “Stop this! You’re being ridiculous!”

  “Of course you wouldn’t follow that order!” 301 yelled, “Because it’s absurd! But how is the order to exterminate that man’s family any different?”

  “Because that order came from the MWR,” Tyrell replied.

  301 shook his head, “The MWR is a man, Specter—just like me, and just like you.” He turned and continued onward to the outer gate, too frustrated and emotional to say any more. He knew he had probably stepped over the line, but something inside him was stirring—a rage against the injustices of the World System and the folly of carrying out orders no matter how dark or murderous they were. Was that his destiny? To be Napoleon Alexander’s executioner?

  A Halo-4 shot over them as they left the estate, probably Major General Wilde on his way to report on the failure of his mission. 301 felt a small sense of satisfaction at the thought. Wilde had placed blame for the ambush in the ruins squarely on 301’s shoulders and nearly cost him his life. Maybe his selfish action was finally coming back around.

  Eager to leave this entire mess behind and find Security Officer Emerson, 301 climbed into the driver’s side of the military Jeep he and Derek had arrived in. Through the open window he said to the others, “Specter Aurora, you’re with me. Blaine, you can head back to the palace with Tyrell. I have something I want to check out.”

  “All due respect, Captain, we’re on this mission together,” Derek objected. “And the admiral hasn’t cleared Specter Aurora to participate in the investigation.”

  “This has nothing to do with the benefactors,” 301 answered. “It’s a personal errand. And it’s not a request, it’s an order. Go back to the palace. We’ll file our report when I return.”

  Derek did not look pleased by the turn of events, but he must have known arguing was pointless. He got in Specter Tyrell’s Jeep and shut the door a little harder than necessary.

  Liz sat next to 301 on the passenger side as the other Jeep turned around and sped away. Then she also slammed her door and demanded, “Okay, now tell me what really happened in there.”

  301 pushed his thumb onto the ignition and the Jeep roared to life, “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Don’t,” She interrupted. “Stop treating me like just another one of your subordinates. We’ve known each other for a long time, 301, and I think I can tell
when something is up with you. Since you were fine when you left with that caretaker, it must have happened in your meeting with Collins. So what is it?”

  301 let out a long breath, “I killed him. Collins.”

  Liz waited a moment for more, but when he didn’t go on she continued to push, “He was a traitor, 301. I mean he wasn’t cooperating, right?”

  “Not exactly,” 301 averted his gaze. “I killed him because I couldn’t let him tell the Great Army what he knew.”

  Silence stretched between them as Liz let his confession sink in. Then she went on, “What are you saying? That you knowingly subverted a mission ordered by the MWR?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “But that’s treason!” her voice was frantic. “Why would you do something so stupid?”

  At first 301 said nothing, wondering whether Liz could really be trusted with the information he had learned from Collins. But then he realized that the only reason he asked her to stay was that she was the one person in the World System he did trust. But to involve her in this…

  “I’m going to the Alexandrian Authorizations office,” he said. “Once we’ve arrived I want you to return the Jeep to the palace. I’ll find my own way back from there.”

  “Authorizations? This wouldn’t have anything to do with the security officer linked to Collins, would it?”

  301’s eyes widened, “It does. Why?”

  “He’s dead, 301. He committed suicide before the Great Army could apprehend him. The only reason they got clearance to go into the estate was because they connected Collins to the illegal payments, just as we did.”

  In an instant 301 felt the world crashing down on him, and something inside him seemed to break. The words Sir Collins had spoken to him earlier flashed back through his mind: Grace was the only thing that linked him to his humanity, that made him feel like more than just another cog in the World System’s machine. The past weeks with her had been like a glimpse into someone else’s life, but it was a life he coveted, and one he would do almost anything to preserve.