INCEPTIO (Roma Nova)

by Alison Morton

A heavy minute passed. Frameless signalled the watcher and my wrists were free. My shoulders fell back, and the binding ache in them eased. Steven Smith turned to Mr Frameless and said in the same deadpan voice, ‘Thank you for your cooperation. Open the door, please.’

  Mr Frameless turned to me, breaking the unlit cigarette between his fingers. ‘Your round, Miss Brown.’

  Like it was some suburban tennis match.

  ‘But do not be under any illusion we have finished.’

  XVII

  Steven Smith guided me out to the unlit concrete yard where a sedan and two dark-coloured SUVs were waiting, the dazzling white headlight beams focused on the compound entrance. He opened the back door of the sedan and Conrad pulled me in. He was alive. Alive. He said nothing as we drove along, but his arms were stiff and tense around me.

  At my apartment building, two people spilled out of the front SUV, one of them punching in my access code. Steven Smith followed, briefcase still in hand. Upstairs, another two were guarding my door. Inside the apartment, Conrad sat me down on the couch and gripped my hands.

  ‘It’s all right, you’re safe. We’ll never let those people touch you again.’ He looked murderous as he scrutinised my bruised face.

  ‘God, Conrad, they were terrifying.’

  ‘Let’s get you cleaned up.’

  ‘Yes, but first…’ I turned to Steven Smith. ‘I don’t know who you are, but thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure, Miss Brown. I’ll call tomorrow at eleven to discuss our next step. I bid you good night.’

  I let Conrad lead me into the bathroom where he ran the shower. I peeled my sweaty, dirty clothes off and stepped into the warm flow which cleaned my skin and hair but not my hurt or anger. Afterward, Conrad applied arnica cream to my red wrists and bruised face. My neck hurt like hell.

  ‘Your face isn’t cut so it should heal without a mark,’ he said.

  Pain jagged through me as I nodded. ‘What about you? Are you okay?’

  He shrugged. ‘They didn’t detain me this time. They took you, the soft target – the bastards.’

  I smelled that delicious drink Conrad had given me as a hangover cure. A smile, and then a hand extending a steaming cup. I didn’t look up, but gulped it all down.

  Shortly after that, the only thing I remembered was my eyes becoming heavy and closing.

  A huge dark mass was swirling toward me, distended like some ugly growth from which amber eyes glowed at me through frameless glasses. It billowed and towered over me, sucking the air from me. Clawed hands reached out for me. My feet were glued to the ground. I twisted and pulled, but I couldn’t move. I fell, and the black engulfed me. I choked, suffocating.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re dreaming.’

  I opened my eyes. Sweat ran over me. I wasn’t trapped in a B movie, but safe in my own bedroom, soft green surrounding me. Conrad sat on the bed, his warm hand holding my cold one.

  ‘Hi.’ He kissed me lightly on my left cheek. ‘Are you very sore?’

  My wrists and arms ached, my face hurt, my neck was a nightmare.

  ‘Not so bad,’ I said. ‘What about you?’

  ‘A few bruises. I’ve had worse.’ A Band-Aid was taped across his forehead. Grazed skin on his nose and cheek overlay purple bruising. He handed me a glass of water, and I listened while I drank. He’d recovered consciousness, gotten to a phone and called Gianni, who had picked him up and organised people and cars. I’d been detained in a former station house, scheduled for demolition. He looked away when he explained the minuscule tracker he’d clipped into the lining of my purse.

  ‘I’m sorry if you think it over-protective,’ he said. ‘Jupiter, I’m a thousand times glad I put it there.’

  I let that pass. I was alive after all. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘The one who questioned you is that bastard Renschman, from the Economy Security Department. It’s not a group we thought we needed to monitor before, so our intel’s a bit sketchy.’

  ‘They were so casually brutal,’ I said, trying to sound more together than I was. ‘When that one smacked my face, he did it so deliberately. How can they be that cold?’

  ‘Agencies here don’t beat up their own unindicted nationals unless they have strong reasons. They can’t have much of a legal case. Probably why they tried the persuasive method.’

  I was shocked that he said that so calmly, but not as shocked as I would have been a few days before.

  ‘No point offering you money; you’ve potentially got too much to be bribed. You’re young and female, with no close relatives apart from the Browns to protect you. They’re unlikely to be of any help pressuring you either, so scaring you is the logical way.’

  ‘They were mean bastards,’ I said. ‘That son of a bitch called me unpatriotic. If he’s the real America, you can screw it!’ I hung my head. ‘I feel so stupid, lecturing you about how this didn’t happen here.’

  He tipped my head back up and looked me full in the eye. ‘But you knew that it did, after that business in the park with Hartenwyck.’

  That was cruel, but honest.

  ‘Anyway, Steven Smith has stopped them for the time being,’ he continued. ‘They won’t want their activities highlighted in open court – he thinks they’ll offer a compromise of some sort.’

  ‘Who is he? He was so composed in front of those creeps. He looked like a stationery salesman.’

  Conrad laughed. ‘He’s one of the sharpest lawyers in New York. He represents your grandmother personally as well as the Mitela family interests here. Aurelia Mitela doesn’t have anything cheap or shoddy, including advisors.’

  ‘I need to get up, I guess, if we’re expecting such illustrious company. What time is it?’

  ‘Just before nine.’

  ‘What? My boss. He’s expecting me to brief him this morning on your cousin’s project.’

  ‘No, he isn’t. I phoned and explained you’d had an accident and would be laid up for a while. He sent his good wishes for a speedy recovery, but asks if you would call him “at your earliest convenience”.’

  ‘I’ll call him back right now. You know something, Conrad, thanks, but I can call in sick myself.’

  ‘Not sure you could lie so well, though.’

  I shuffled out of my bedroom half an hour later, heading for the kitchen to fix myself some breakfast, and found my apartment full of people. Sleeping bags and backpacks were piled up in the corner, my furniture was all moved around. Conrad was sitting on the displaced couch, half an eye on the TV newscast, half-listening to a man next to him. A dark-haired woman perched on one of my dining chairs, her head forward, intent on the other man’s words. Both wore jeans and tees, the woman with a tan leather jacket.

  A man with a clean-shaven head and gold earring in his ear, and wearing a cook’s apron, pushed through the kitchen door and smiled at me.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Brown. Are you hungry? I have a selection for you, but I expect you’d like a cup of coffee first?’

  Who the hell was this? And in my kitchen?

  ‘I’m Marcus. I’m looking after your housekeeping so you can do the important stuff.’ He waved his hand toward Conrad and the others. He had a light, melodious accent as if he were speaking opera.

  The talking stopped and the others sprang to their feet. Conrad waved the other two back down. He came over and led me to my own thrift shop table, now impeccably polished and set.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ I whispered.

  ‘After yesterday’s débâcle, I’ve arranged some protection for you. There’ll be one guard inside, one on the door outside and one in the lobby downstairs. You can’t be expected to cater for them, so I’ve brought Marcus in.’

  ‘And asking me wasn’t an option?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re damned high-handed.’

  He did that annoying shrug thing. ‘I will not allow you to be hurt again or put in any kind of danger, ever. I wanted to come into that building and tear that man apart
last night. Steven Smith said it would have endangered everything. I respect his judgement. But if I ever meet Renschman again, I will kill him.’

  God, he was scary at that moment.

  Luckily, a plate of breakfast arrived.

  ‘I ate earlier,’ Conrad said when I looked at the gap in front of him, but he took a roll to eat with his coffee. It unnerved me, eating in front of these other people. Marcus seemed approachable. The woman and man nodded politely and kept their distance, but I could see the intense interest in their eyes as they glanced at me.

  ‘If for any reason I’m not here, if you have any questions or want anything, you ask them. They both speak good English. Their names are Galla and Maro,’ Conrad said. ‘Do you understand?’ He talked at me like some junior recruit. I almost saluted, but didn’t dare. I was only too glad he was on my side.

  XVIII

  Renschman scratched at the cloth on the back seat to counteract some of the urge. It would be so easy to stretch his hand out, tap the driver’s shoulder and get a cigarette. But he’d promised himself, so he didn’t. He looked up at the girl’s window. He’d seen one in the lobby as they drove past. There had to be at least three upstairs, including that bastard Tellus. He should have beaten the shit out of that pretty boy when he had him. Or waterboarded him. But O’Keefe had grabbed his wrist – no mean feat, for a skirt.

  ‘You can’t terminate him. He’s diplomatic.’

  ‘He’s a damned spook.’

  ‘He’s on a CD passport. Leave it.’

  But that lawyer. The girl’s lawyer. So smug, looking down his nose when he sprang her. Another privileged Harvard weenie. He considered rearranging his body like that Chicago termination four years ago. The patrolman had thrown up when he found that corpse. No, he needed to focus on the girl. Even his supervisor had upgraded the operation to ‘all necessary means’ to secure Brown Industries. It was past time for scaring.

  XIX

  Steven Smith arrived exactly on time, as unruffled and self-contained as in yesterday’s nightmare.

  ‘I hope you’ve recovered from your unhappy experience yesterday,’ he said. ‘I sent draft papers for proceedings for compensation to Mr Renschman’s agency this morning. Unless I have a satisfactory answer by midday, I intend to file them at the local courthouse later today.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Smith, but I don’t want the money. I just want them to leave me alone.’

  ‘You should never despise money, you know,’ he said. ‘The punitive damages claim is to make him back off, to show we’re serious. I really don’t see why we should be reasonable in these circumstances.’

  His matter-of-fact tone made it sound so much more ruthless. He looked at Conrad who nodded.

  ‘I discussed the situation before us last night with Conradus Tellus and your grandmother. I think it would be useful to outline your options for the future.’

  ‘My options?’

  ‘You turn twenty-five in August. Because you have two nationalities, this Economy Security Unit is concerned that you may take control of Brown Industries abroad with you should you ever decide to exercise your right to go and live in Roma Nova. As of now, they have not quite fifty days to get you to assign the company into their control.’

  ‘Wait a minute, what do you mean: “two nationalities”?’

  The lawyer frowned. ‘How long have you been in New York, Miss Brown?’

  ‘A little under seven years. Why?’

  ‘The Roma Nova legation in Washington will have sent you a letter when you were eighteen, inviting you to contact the legation to reconfirm your identity as a Roma Novan and discuss your automatic right of residence. It will have gone to your last known address, in Nebraska. Didn’t you receive it?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t.’

  ‘Or the reminders?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Did you maintain contact with your cousins after you came to New York?’

  After their refusal to let me go to college, I’d run off to New York on the interstate bus the day after I graduated from high school, paying the fare with money scrimped from carrying out other students’ homework assignments. I couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Not very often,’ I mumbled. ‘We…we fell out.’

  ‘Do they forward mail?’

  ‘One or two letters from school friends at first, but nothing for years.’

  I’d gone back once, three years ago; even had a cab drive me between the featureless stubbled fields, through clouds of dust to the farm front door. I’d gazed at the faded paint for five minutes, and then told him to take me back to the railroad station.

  ‘I see,’ Steven Smith said, and waited a few moments. ‘Well, I think we can conclude that, for whatever reason, these letters did not reach you. Your grandmother inferred that you didn’t want to make contact. She was concerned that you should receive your mother’s inheritance, even if you didn’t want anything to do with your Roma Novan family. Conradus Tellus was sent as a final attempt to find you.’

  Damn Aunt and Uncle Brown. No, it was probably him – I knew how much of a bigot he was; he hated ‘foreigners’. Could he have been envious, deep down?

  ‘How much do you know about the set-up in Roma Novan families?’ Steven Smith asked, interrupting my irritation.

  ‘I know my grandmother heads up the family – that’s about it.’

  ‘’Well, very simply, extended families form the basic social structure; property and family names descend through the female line. Aurelia Mitela would naturally wish to welcome home not only her granddaughter but also her direct heir.’

  ‘So you’re saying that I have a Roma Novan identity, and my grandmother would accept me into her family, even now?’

  ‘I think she would be ecstatic,’ he replied with a half-smile.

  ‘Okay, tell me about my options, Mr Smith.’

  ‘If you stay here, Renschman will pursue you by any means possible, including legal or administrative loopholes. A former classmate of mine in the External Affairs Department made some discreet enquiries. Mr Renschman is, let us say, very focused on achieving his goals, to the point of ignoring structures and frameworks. I would do my absolute utmost to protect you legally, but I can’t prevent your physical seizure.’

  He paused, looking at me, waiting for some reaction, I guessed. I couldn’t say anything, but nodded at him to continue.

  ‘Conradus Tellus and his people can’t stay and guard you indefinitely; their duties and the cost to the imperial public purse would rule it out. A private security firm is an option, but it could be easily infiltrated by Renschman’s people.’

  A wave of cold washed through me.

  ‘However, if you chose to make your home with your grandmother in Roma Nova, you would be out of their jurisdiction. No extradition treaty exists at present with the EUS. Apart from belonging to the European Economic Federation, Roma Nova has few treaties with anyone. All you need do is reconfirm your Roma Novan citizenship and renounce your American one.’

  What was he suggesting? That I emigrate to Roma Nova? Permanently? He couldn’t be serious. But there seemed to be no way out of this. He was convinced it would be unsafe for me to walk along the street. That I would be in danger of getting snatched again by a government spook agency and ‘disappearing’. I didn’t see a trace of humour in his face. A week ago, I would have thought he was insane. Now, he made a macabre kind of sense. The hell of a decision to make. Strange – my mother had made her choice the other way around. Out of love. She hadn’t been threatened by maniacs sponsored by her own government.

  ‘And Brown Industries?’

  ‘If you decided to emigrate, I would start filing protection procedures immediately. Ways exist for non-EUS overseas residents to do this which are not open to EUS residents. I’m sorry to be able to give you only one realistic option. But it’s your choice, of course.’

  ‘Okay, thanks. That gives me plenty to go on for the present.’ I caught myself picking at the fabric on the couch arm.
<
br />   He understood immediately and got up to leave. I stared at the wall, numb at the immensity of what he had said.

  XX

  I retreated to my bedroom. I needed to collect my thoughts somewhere away from all those people. Until an hour ago, having a nationality wasn’t something I’d given much thought to. I was Karen Brown who lived in the Eastern United States of America. Period. So giving up something so formless was weird. My father, but much more so the Browns, had drilled into me how lucky I was to be born in the greatest country in the world, where rights and freedoms were sacred. In the last week, I’d discovered nothing was sacred. I’d seen first-hand what a shovel-load of hypocrisy it was. I wanted to go shout in the street about how I’d been betrayed. I pulled up fistfuls of bedding and wanted to tear them away.

  I had an alternative. But, if I took that, there would be no return.

  Half an hour later, Conrad put his head around the door and came in with a tray of sandwiches. The warmth in his smile travelled up and filled his eyes. Sure, he’d been the one trying to protect me in all this danger, but what I felt for him wasn’t gratitude.

  ‘Not a great set of options, is it?’ he said.

  ‘Was this what you meant when we were talking by the pool?’

  He nodded.

  Disruptive didn’t begin to describe it. I would have a family there, I’d be comfortable materially, and I would be able to keep my father’s legacy. But every tiny thing would be different.

  I’d been forced, sobbing, from my East Coast home after Dad died, and dumped in the Midwest when I was twelve and survived. I’d escaped that bleakness and settled in New York, and adapted. Hell, given the choice between twenty years shut up in a miserable penitentiary and another move, I knew which I needed to pick. I could do this. I took the sandwiches and smiled back.

  After breakfast the next morning, Steven Smith called. I put it on loudspeaker.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Brown, Captain. I’m afraid I’m going to have to rearrange our next meeting to tomorrow morning at ten thirty instead of this afternoon. Something has come up which must be done today. I apologise for the inconvenience and trust you understand.’