by Julian North
“What about the blood?” Nythan asked.
“I’ll wipe it up with his shirt,” Alexander said.
We cleaned the floor as best we could and stowed the body, minus his weapon, between the strange monoliths.
“What are these machines, Nythan?” I asked.
He rubbed his jaw. “I’m not completely sure. They have no displays or other controls. They don’t appear networked to anything. See how they go directly to the ceiling?” Nythan pointed upward. “I think they are part of a larger machine. The controls may be upstairs. Let’s go find out.”
We crept up the stairs, listening for signs of others within the complex. There had to be other people here somewhere—guards, scientists, people to run this platform, even if they were still sleeping. But the only noise was the hum of machines and the hiss of the environmental systems. The stairs led us to a durasteel door with no obvious access pad.
Nythan was already flicking his viser. “It’s keyed to a rotating wireless code. Pretty basic. I guess they figure this place is its own security.” In less than a minute, the door clicked open.
Inside was a different world. We entered a state-of-the-art laboratory and research facility. Four great machines that resembled giant furnaces dominated the center portion of the floor, each surrounded by circular barriers of duraglass. They were perfect black. Terminal stations and empty chairs sat beside each installation. Durasteel doorways leading into what I presumed were offices or labs ringed the interior research area. Only a few terminal lights had been on when we entered, but the full lighting clicked on as the motion detectors sensed our presence. Nythan walked over to the nearest of the furnace-like machines, anxiety in his steps.
“Fabricators,” he pronounced. “Customized ones. The most advanced I’ve ever seen.” He proceeded to the next machine, then the others, glancing and flicking at his viser as he walked the circuit. “Three of these have been engineered to each make a single type of material. The final machine forges the different components together. Whatever they are making is so complex and energy intensive that no single fabricator can handle the process. It’s a fabricator assembly line.”
“What are they making?” I asked.
“Chips of some kind. Very special ones.”
“The juche chips?”
Nythan shook his head. “This is something else. Something we have never seen before.”
Something worse. He didn’t say it, but I knew.
“We haven’t got much time, Nythan. Just tell us.”
He looked at his viser instead of me, his fingers busy. “I need to access some of these systems. I need a bit of time. And we need the schematics and raw data to really know what they are doing.” His head shook as he spoke, his eyes fixed on his viser. “There is cloned human genetic material in here as well. These chips—they are partly organic. They can mimic the electric signals a human brain uses to send and receive information.”
“What does that mean, Nythan?”
He just kept flicking, staring, working.
“Nythan, a guess please. Please.”
“If they can really trick the human brain into believing anything—make a person see and hear only what the chip commands… If they’ve mastered it…”
“Jack me,” I swore.
“That’s supposed to be impossible,” Alexander said. “And it’s illegal to even research. Not just here, but everywhere. No wonder they need to be at sea. But this is what we need to crush Virginia.” He looked at me, scared but also hopeful. I was just scared.
Nythan spoke without looking at us. “I’ve never seen designs like this. No one has. There is a lot of encryption in the files. And there is much in Korean. But I think I’ll be able to gather enough to turn the world against Virginia. We need to make sure everyone believes this. I think posting some design specifications on the web will be the proof the world needs.”
“You’ll be giving the technology to every tyrant on earth,” Alexander pointed out.
I wasn’t sure if Nythan even heard him. He seated himself in one of the chairs in front of a terminal, which switched on as Nythan’s finger danced. “I’ll redact enough of the really difficult parts so it can’t be utilized. Just keep an eye out. I need a few minutes to bypass their higher security areas and get all the data. There is something else going on here.”
I scanned the rest of the floor. The machines occupied the bulk of the floor space, but there were at least six metal doors leading somewhere. A wave of unease swept through me. I walked to the nearest of the portals. It wasn’t locked, at least not from the outside. I waved my hand over the access pad and the door silently slid open. Inside was black. I forced myself to take a step, bumps rising on my skin as I crossed the threshold. The room was cold—at least ten degrees colder than the lab area. The lights clicked on, momentarily dazzling in their intensity. My arm shot up to shield my eyes from the glare. When my vision returned, I stood inside a surgical theater. Two operating tables stood in the middle of the room, the heavy latches of head and body restraints unmistakable. Spider-like metallic arms tipped with devious-looking instrumentation hovered above each table, awaiting subjects. I clenched my jaw. The floor was too clean. And I knew this wasn’t the worst of it. There was something else. Something tugged at the edge of my consciousness, alien yet familiar. I took a last, lingering look at the room of horrors and stepped back into the corridor. The next door was a few feet to my left, but that wasn’t where I went. That wasn’t where the sensation came from.
“Daniela, what are you doing?” Alexander asked me.
I kept walking. My hands were tingling, my head throbbing with each thunderous beat of my heart. I came to the door and waved a trembling hand to open it. Again there was darkness, except for a circular pattern of tiny white lights and the bouncing red line of a heart monitor. I stepped inside, the lights clicking on as I entered. The room was smaller than the operating chamber. The walls were filled with terminals, screens, and other equipment, but I barely noticed them. I was fixed on the hospital-style bed in front of it. It had been fitted inside a glass shield, but I had no trouble seeing the person lying on the mattress. My knees buckled as I came closer. When I finally reached it, I placed both hands on the glass and stared at the sole occupant.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice was hardly more than a whisper.
It was Alexander’s sister, Kristolan.
Chapter 34
Alexander stood over my shoulder. I wasn’t quite aware of when he came into the room. I’d been staring at Kristolan, trying to reach out to the mind that had been tickling at the edge of my consciousness. I had maimed her—Alexander and I together. She had given us no choice. Yet this was even worse.
“She’s been chipped,” Alexander whispered. His eyes were haggard with a guilty weariness that had no place on his features.
“Part of her mind is awake, somehow. I can sense it. But it’s a bare whisper. The rest is the same dull void I experienced when I tried to trill those men in Central Park.”
I wasn’t sure if he heard me. “That thing is huge, like a tarantula on the back of her neck.”
I placed my hand around his. “I’m sorry, Alexander. We’ll put a stop to this. All of it.”
Nythan walked up beside us. “Lords of Kobol, is that…” He gaped at Kris’s inert form.
“Why is my sister here, Nythan?” Alexander’s voice was tinged with anger.
“I don’t…” Nythan shook his head, then froze. He looked at me, then back at Kris. Panic dawned in his widening eyes. “What if Virginia… what if she knows about what Kris… is?”
His words were like a hand on my throat. “But Kristolan’s mind was destroyed.”
“The cells, the genetic information, it’s still inside her. We destroyed everything at Rose-Hart, but if you had a test subject, a living test subject, even if she was in a coma, the research could be replicated. And worse.”
The fire inside me demanded justice. “The data, Nythan. Do you
have it? Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes, they are building a new kind of control chip. Ingenious and horrific. It’s organic—made from the genetic material of the… subject. They must be using the trilling gene to make these chips work, I think. That’s how they solved problems no one else could solve. These chips allow for a far greater level of sophistication and control than was thought possible with the standard obedience chips, without the same level of damaging precursor chemical treatment. These people lose their will but keep their higher functions. It’s total mind control, and it can be used on adults, unlike the juche chips, where the subject needs to be implanted at infancy. But there is a high failure rate, it seems. That’s what they are using an incinerator for.”
“And people from Bronx City are the test subjects.”
Nythan looked at the floor. “Refugees were used in the initial trials. Migrants picked up by the Coast Guard in the Caribbean fleeing the ganglands in Nicaragua and El Salvador. But… they plan to roll out their technology on ‘rightless’ people from America as well. And that’s not all. I found additional data files, but they have an even higher encryption sophistication. I’ve downloaded the raw data to decode later.”
“Is that enough?” I squeezed Alexander’s arm to pull his attention away from his sister. “Is this horror enough to get the highborn to turn on Virginia?”
Alexander’s eyes were glassy for a moment, but they quickly hardened with concentration. “I think so. Enough people will believe it. Enough to give us a chance. As long as Hoven is standing with some semblance of support when it comes out.”
“You got the data out, Nythan? You’re sure?” I demanded.
“I hacked it clean. It will get uplinked to the satellite via the Gaia. And I’m going to release a virus into their systems. We’ll trash it, like we did in the Rose-Hart Ziggurat.”
I released an anxious breath. Perhaps this would all be worth it. Perhaps we weren’t too late. That was my last thought before the men in black body armor stormed into the room. I spun, reaching for the cold, for my power. They wore dark blast shield helmets and their guns were strange, stub-nosed things. There were many. Only four fit into the room, but there were more outside. A lot more.
I slashed into the mind of the man in the vanguard. His will was protected by a castle of tightly fitted stone, the walls brimming with defenses. I came at him, a cannon shot of anger and desperation. My will moved faster than it ever had before, a forceful velocity that I knew would penetrate his defensive wall—any wall. I was confident in my power. I braced myself for the force of impact. There would be only a moment of pain, then he would be mine to command. But the inevitable clash of wills never came. The cold that was my power, my force of will, somehow slipped away. Like the treasure found in a dream, one moment it was there, the next it was gone, the illusion revealed. I opened my eyes. The men in black were in front of me with their guns. My chest ached. A dart protruded from a spot just above my heart. Deuces.
Dizziness enveloped me. I stumbled forward. I reached for Alexander, but he was no longer there. Men had him in their grasp. Nythan as well. I sucked for air. I searched desperately for the cold, my power. I remembered my brother. And my mother. In a flash of delirious clairvoyance, I envisioned what this world would become if I faltered. In that moment, the chill came again. I managed to keep my feet. I looked again at my reflection in the shining darkness of the shielded eyes of the men before me. They were many, and I was alone, but I was still standing. I would fight. That’s when he appeared. I blinked, trying to banish the hallucination emerging from the cluster of dark-suited soldiers. But he was no apparition. It was Havelock.
“You!” Venom was thick in my voice. “That’s how they knew… about Kris.”
Havelock came to stand before me at the same languid pace I remembered. “Yes, it is I who made all this possible. I arranged for her removal and the destruction of the medical center. This is my facility. All of this was made possible by me—with some help from Doctor Willis, of course. Virginia just writes the checks.”
I stumbled but managed not to fall. “But you hate highborn. Why would you help them? Why help Virginia Timber-Night?”
“Alliances are about mutual needs. We each got something we wanted. And I need to make sure nothing happens to you.” He leaned in close to me, his voice a whisper. “That’s why I saved your friends when I discovered that Virginia intended to kill Jalen—I couldn’t risk you. Virginia knows less than she thinks. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” He pulled back and smiled a humorless smile.
I tried to spit in his face, but ended up on a knee, staring at the floor. It was a struggle to raise my head to meet his eyes, but I did it. “The secrets of this place are out. Virginia’s finished. This place is finished. And you as well.”
Havelock's head shook in a deliberate, professorial way that made despair well up inside me. “I know the drug is having its way with you. I’m amazed you are still conscious. But use the precious seconds of consciousness you have left to contemplate how I knew you were here.”
I was falling down a dark well, nothing but air beneath me, nothing to stop my fall.
“Anise.”
Havelock nodded. “Yes. Jeffery Titan-Wind is a merchant of many things. He brokered the sale of juche workers to Rose-Hart. And the assassins to Virginia Timber-Night. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Silly to ask a girl to go against her family. Especially if she feels jilted. The data Nythan transmitted to the Gaia isn’t going anywhere.”
My head flailed as I tried to shake the dizziness and horror from my mind. Kris’s memories of Jeffery Titan-Wind flooded back. She had known what he was. I should’ve paid more attention to what was inside me. Damn Havelock. But Kris also had power. She was the most powerful human being this world had ever known. The hate and madness helped drive her, and her secrets were mine. I embraced that part of me. I searched desperately for the cold. I would make Havelock pay. Better to be dead or insane than what he intended for me.
Havelock came at me with a syringe in his hand. I went to strike, but nothing worked. My arms were limp. My mind numb, no matter how hard I tried.
“You are such a fighter, but now it is time to rest. You’ll feel differently about things when you awake. And I must tell you that we know about your companion that you left behind in the equipment sublevel—Rudolph Banks’s nephew. He’s an unexpected prize to make use of. We’ve been watching you all since Anise signaled us. There isn’t going to be any escape this time.”
The needle plunged into my arm. My blood burned. I gasped for air.
The darkness swallowed me.
Afterword
I will begin with an apology: sorry, sorry, sorry! I did not want State of Order to end this way, and I struggled to find another way to make the story work, including putting the first chapter of Fate of Order (Book 3) in this book. It simply did not fit. This is where this part of the story ends. The next chapter and the next book begin a different act.
I have tried to make the amends that I can. I have held off on publishing State of Order until the next book was complete. For those of you who still consider my sins unforgivable, but would like to read on a bit more, I have attached the first chapter of FATE OF ORDER after this message. Finally, I assure you that FATE OF ORDER does not end on another cliffhanger. Ultimately, this was the story that I had to tell. I think you will understand if and when you read FATE OF ORDER.
To each of you, I would like to once again extend my most sincere thanks. I grew up watching and reading sci-fi and fantasy adventures. I wrote stories the way kids do, but, as life progressed, I did not really expect to ever publish a novel. Here’s the second one! The response to Age of Order has been tremendous, wonderful, and humbling. It is my belief and hope that the best is yet to come.
FATE OF ORDER is available on Amazon.
Join my mailing list at www.juliannorth.com and get updates and a free short story set in the Age of Order universe.
Oh, and I give away free stuff sometimes too.
SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM FATE OF ORDER
FATE OF ORDER
I awoke to a world different from the one I had known.
It was a place of shadow, devoid of color or brightness. And it was savagely cold. My mouth was frozen, my fingers numb, my body too stiff to move. Yet power surged through my veins, the icy flow of my will. It screamed to be unleashed, a bottled genie desperate to escape. I surrendered to its desire.
Raw power poured from me, seeking victims. This was trilling in its most primal sense—a blunt instrument to dominate, to inflict pain. This was the place that Kristolan Foster-Rose-Hart had discovered and passed on unwillingly to me. This was the place that had driven her toward madness.
In the fog of the reality surrounding me, the cries of my victims echoed like waves striking a distant shore. Their pain brought me comfort. They deserve it, whispered the voice that sounded like Kristolan. The world went dark again. I didn’t know for how long. A voice brought me back.
“Daniela!”
My mind left the void reluctantly, summoned by the name I belatedly recognized as my own.
“Dammit, Daniela, wake up!”
I opened my eyes to find a round face, simple and earnest. Polished eyes stared down at me. He glowed in the darkness surrounding him.
“Can you get up?” he asked.
I was lying on a bed of some kind. It had duraflex restraints, which had been cut with a blade. Shattered glass was all around me—the remains of the cage that had recently held me. I tried to talk, but my throat was too dry to make intelligible sounds. My jaw throbbed with pain.
“I’m going to help you sit up. We don’t have much time.”
A gloved hand slid behind my back. My cold will surged through my body. I didn’t recognize the voice, although the speaker seemed to know me. They are all dangerous, advised the voice in my head.
