Eko (NINE Series, #1)

by Loren Walker

  * * *

  True to Anandi’s word, within the hour the building filled with people. Standing on a platform, overlooking the hanger, Renzo stared at the swarm of faces: young and old, punk and professor, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

  Anandi nudged him forward. “Go on. You know you want to.”

  “I don’t even - how did you do this, Ani?” he murmured, paralyzed with surprise. “They’re here to build? Really? For me?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Anandi said with a half-smile. “These are people who were fired for not following industry protocol. Scientists who lost funding. Engineers looking for work. They need something to do. So they came running.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “At the beginning,” said Emir. “One step at a time. You have a captive audience. And a substantial bank account, so the rumor goes.”

  Renzo looked at Emir sharply, but the older man was gazing across the hanger.

  So Renzo turned his glare to Anandi. She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s old, I don’t know.”

  Then she jerked her chin towards the buzzing crowd. “Go play. We’ll be back to check on you.”

  “You’re leaving?” Renzo asked, panicked.

  “Just for an hour,” Emir said. “Don’t worry, son, you know what you’re doing.”

  Anandi took her father’s arm, and the two walked into the corridor, heading for the back of the factory.

  Watching them leave, the word son hovered in Renzo’s mind.

  He set it aside, and surveyed the mass of people before him. Faces turned in his direction, some smiling, some wary.

  Renzo pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat. “Okay, everyone,” he called. His voice rang through the hanger. “Let’s get started.”

  IV.

  The first day, the crowd divided into groups: designers, engineers, experts in small-scale mechanics and engine construction. They all contributed to the planning phase, a huge roundtable of ideas and arguments, raucous at times, with only Renzo’s authority to calm the voices.

  Finally, the group was ready to start renovating and updating the old freighter. The group divided into work shifts, with a collaborative ease that shocked Renzo.

  Soon, days bled into nights. Overseeing all departments, Renzo saw people find their niches and burrow themselves into the work. A constant cloud of energy buzzed in the hanger. Renzo wandered from group to group, learning, teaching, and focused on nothing else for the first time in his life. It was heaven.

  For all the parts that couldn’t be borrowed, found or stolen, Renzo used the blood money from the Macatias. At first he struggled with the guilt of using the money at all, something he had battled time and again on the crumbling Volante: using that old lie of contract repair work, withdrawing what he needed and moving the remainder to yet another secure location. At least eight times, Renzo moved that incredible amount of rana with an anxious grip. Who could say if the Macatias might swoop in and take it all back?

  But creating the Arazura was a blessing, he soon realized. The project consumed vast numbers of rana, disposing of it in a tangible, beneficial way. Something positive out of something horrifying. It seemed right.

  One night, Renzo and Anandi retreated from the sounds of construction to the other side of the factory, holing up in one of the old accounting offices. They sat in dusty executive chairs, their feet on the desk, their hands around hot cups of tea.

  Anandi nudged Renzo with her foot. “Be honest.” Her hair was in several short braids that night, a pink scarf wrapped around them.

  “About?” Renzo asked, pushing his glasses onto the top of his head and blowing into the steaming cup.

  “I think you’re faking.” Anandi tilted her head. “I don’t think you’re as damaged as you want people to think. And I’m not talking about your leg.”

  Renzo paused in mid-blow.

  “I don’t know why you don’t go back to the university. Or any mathematical department.” Anandi’s tone was serious, for once in their friendship. “Lots of respect, acclaim, fancy awards, government salaries. Doesn’t sound too bad.”

  Renzo shrugged to delay his response. He wondered if anyone else had noticed. A week before his hospital discharge, he woke in his bed, and suddenly his mind felt clearer. He could recognize the code patterns in his medical chart. He was able to break into his bedside medicine cart in ten seconds.

  His brain had healed. But he didn’t want it.

  The excuse of his brain injury was so easy to maintain. To turn his back on mathematical code breaking, what he was best at, it sounded selfish and arrogant. And maybe he was those things, but he wasn’t about to admit to it.

  “I like where I am now,” he came up with, finally.

  Anandi nodded, taking a sip. It occurred to Renzo that she knew what he was thinking. It was no different for her: she could easily take her brilliant skills to some high-paying position in the government. Instead, she chose to live on scraps, sleep in a different place every night, infiltrate top-secret networks and exist only in the underground.

  “Now that we’re alone,” she said suddenly, “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I got a hit on Huma.”

  Hot tea spilled down Renzo’s chest. He swore, swiping at the burn with his free hand. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? What did you find out? Was there any sign of Sydel?

  “No,” Anandi said thoughtfully. “But the hit I found was in error; someone made a mistake and let the name slip out, just once. It’s already gone, no trace left behind. Any information on Huma, for whatever reason, is buried under walls and walls of firewall. It’s professional, no doubt. Possibly government level.”

  So Huma had a connection to some higher authority. Or someone with enough money to buy that authority. Evil woman. Though he would never tell a soul about it, Renzo hadn’t forgotten the look on Phaira’s face, wrenched with pain from that shot of Zephyr.

  And what did Huma want with Sydel? That girl was some kind of dangerous, powerful creature, that was clear from the way she fixed Cohen’s burns. But on the other end, she had healed both his brother and sister when he was helpless to do anything. For that, regardless of his trepidation, he owed her a debt.

  “Do you think you can get past all the securities?” he asked Anandi.

  “I don’t know!” Anandi said, laughing. “And that’s funny for me to say. But this is pretty extreme. It’s going to take a lot of work, especially since I have to cover my path as I break in.”

  “I don’t want to put you in danger,” Renzo said. “You’ve already been targeted. And you’ve done so much, put all this time and effort into making the Arazura happen.”

  “Hey, listen,” Anandi interrupted, her tone serious again. “It’s a belated thank-you. You were nice to me in the West. I was a scared kid when they brought me into that wartime work.”

  “Are you kidding? You, scared?”

  “Besides, don’t worry so much, Renzo,” she ignored his outburst, the teasing note back in her voice. “This kind of challenge is delicious.”