Ravagers [03.00] Deviate

by Alex Albrinck

  Deirdre risked a glance at Jeffrey, who’d likewise been relieved of his armor. He looked no less perplexed at the order.

  “Clothes off, now, or we’ll remove them for you.”

  She hesitated until she heard the audible click as weapons primed for firing. Motivated by survival over modesty, she removed what little clothing remained as the next step in her “welcome” became apparent. Moments later, she stood naked before the soldiers. And Jeffrey. He, too, was naked, and looked no less pleased about the humiliation. She avoided the temptation to glance in his direction; she’d had every opportunity during his bathing days, but had resisted then. She’d not change her behavior now.

  The soldiers left the room without them. Deirdre was prepared for the next blast of water. It was warm and soapy and smelled of antiseptic, and after some unknown number of days in the same clothes, cooped up in the armor, with no bathing beyond what they accomplished with their brief swims in the water, it felt heavenly. She ran her fingers through her long hair, working loose the ratty knots she’d started to think permanent outside a significant loss of hair. After several moments, the cleansing spray turned to pure water, rinsing free the soap and antiseptic and all the grime loosened by the initial water blasts. Warm jets of air pummeled her body, drying her skin.

  It felt wonderful. The public humiliation, the demand to strip naked in front of the potentially leering eyes hiding inside the brightly colored suits, did detract from the experience. But Deirdre decided she’d happily bathe this way—in private—on a regular basis.

  The jets of air stopped and a soldier opened one of the doors. He tossed something at her. Her fingers brushed the soft white fabric of the single piece uniform. She unfolded the bundle, donned the undergarments, pulled on the bodysuit, and buttoned everything up. She risked a glance at Jeffrey—just to ensure he was okay, she told herself—and found he’d just finished fastening the buttons in the front. His uniform was a dark green, and she decided that was a flattering color for him.

  They moved to the door where the soldier remained standing and exited the room. She had little chance to glance around. The hallway was a sterile white color, the concrete flooring cool against her bare feet. The soldiers motioned with their weaponry, and she and Jeffrey moved in the indicated direction. After several minutes of walking, they were ushered through a door into a large room and motioned to take a seat. Deirdre sat in the plush chair next to Jeffrey and glanced his way. She could see tension and nervous anticipation in his face. He didn’t know what would happen next, and it surely terrified him.

  It was a feeling she knew all too well.

  The door opened behind her and then slammed shut. Shoes, not boots, clattered against the wooden floor. The figure swept past Deirdre, brushing the chair lightly, and Deirdre twisted, trying to catch a glimpse of the new arrival. She saw dark hair drawn into a tight bun above the tops of the chairs, but little else. She followed the bobbing bun until the woman rounded the corner and took the seat opposite them. She wore a stern expression, and her body language made clear that she wasn’t someone accustomed to letting others get their way.

  The woman’s dark eyes bored into Deirdre, and she felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Name?”

  Deirdre blinked.

  “Name? I won’t ask again.”

  “Deirdre. Deirdre Silver.” She paused. “Deirdre Silver-Light.”

  “You seem uncertain of your own name. Which of those is correct? Or are you making one up?”

  “The… the last one is mine. I was born Deirdre Silver and married a man named Light.”

  “Mm hmm.” She paused. “Silver, did you say?”

  And so it begins, Deirdre thought. “Yes.”

  “As in, related to one Oswald Silver?”

  It was perhaps the first time in her life she wished the answer was different. “Yes. He’s my father.”

  She saw the woman’s eyes glint as if in triumph. The woman turned to face Jeffrey, and Deirdre saw a hint of recognition. “Name?”

  “Jeffrey.”

  The stern woman smirked. “Did your parents forget to give you a last name, Jeffrey? No games.”

  “Wiley. My name is Jeffrey Wiley.”

  Deirdre paused. Wiley? That name seemed oddly familiar. She’d heard it before. But where?

  The woman snorted. “Yes, I thought you looked familiar, Mr. Wiley, especially now that we’ve cleaned two weeks’ worth of grime from your worthless body. Are you perhaps under the mistaken impression that we’ve reversed your permanent ban from this facility?”

  “I’m under no such impression, Desdemona.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I got tired of the immense freedom outside, and the Ravagers aren’t much for conversation.”

  “Witty as you ever were, aren’t you?” The woman tasked her tongue. “I’ll deal with you later.” She returned her attention to Deirdre. “My reports state that you were to be aboard the space station. Why are you in New Venice?”

  “I missed my flight.”

  Desdemona snorted. “Daddy kicked you out as well, did he?”

  “No!” Deirdre surprised herself with the intensity of her denial. “I went back for… something. He didn’t know. He left thinking I was aboard the ship.”

  “I rather doubt that, my dear.” Desdemona’s tone suggested sympathy, but her eyes lit with a cruel fire. “Oswald Silver misses nothing. He knew he’d left you behind, knew you’d be left to face the Ravagers alone. Face it, Ms. Silver, or Mrs. Light, or whatever you call yourself these days. He abandoned you, and left you to die with all the other riffraff in the little catastrophe you envisioned.”

  She wanted to argue, but the woman’s words triggered doubt. Her father ordered permanent terminations of even his closest advisors should they fail him. She’d blatantly disobeyed his orders to move to the ship, trusting that his paternal instincts would force him to welcome her aboard at the last moment with her salvage project, Stephen, in tow.

  But he hadn’t done so. Instead, he’d left.

  Had he abandoned her?

  Desdemona laughed, a piercing, shrieking sound that made the hairs on the back of Deirdre’s neck stand. “Don’t worry about it, Deirdre. It’s not like he hasn’t ordered the mass extermination of much of the human race. You’re in good company.” She nodded in Jeffrey’s direction. “For example, your daddy disqualified Mr. Wiley here, condemned him to death, even though he’d been on the Select list since the first tabulation. He called me personally and ordered me to put a bullet between Wiley’s eyes.” She turned and frowned at Jeffrey. “I opted for lenience instead, turning you loose into a world primed for destruction. But you came back, you fool.” She shook her head. “By all rights and common sense I ought to finish what I started.” She drew her gun and had it aimed at Jeffrey’s temple faster than Deirdre could blink, and she couldn’t help but suck in a breath. She couldn’t watch him die. Not now.

  Desdemona heard her inhalation of breath. She lowered the gun and set it upon the table. “I have a better idea, though.”

  She stood and began pacing. “You see, Deirdre, your dearest daddy has visions of controlling our planet once the full purge completes and the repopulation of the surface commences. He’s built his future kingdom based upon promises, upon the words of those swearing allegiance in return for inclusion in the Select list.” At Deirdre’s look of surprise, Desdemona laughed again, her tone mocking. “Come now, my dear. You didn’t really think the Select list came about solely by genetic pattern matching for desired characteristics, did you? Yes, yes, many of the people on the list meet the desired profile. But there are more on the list than just those perfect specimens. Oswald forced his friends through if they failed the initial selection process, using all manner of excuses, threats, and intimidation to get his way. Your handsome husband was one of those people, but you knew that, right? But understand what your initial plan evolved into, Deirdre. Your father spearheaded an effort to effec
t mass genocide upon the planet to ensure total control and power over the survivors, using the exclusivity of that Select list to collect those promises of fealty.”

  Deirdre felt faint. Was that all this was to her father? A chance to enhance his power beyond the near monarchical status he’d enjoyed in the world now in ruins?

  Desdemona seemed to enjoy her discomfort. The stern woman leaned forward, her dark eyes boring into Deirdre’s once more. “But we swear no fealty to Oswald Silver around here. We recognize him as a political adversary in the new world order, and we take any opportunities that come to our attention as a means of enhancing our own position in that future world. When we learned about your adorable project to force your little boy toy off the planet in the wake of the initial Ravager purge, we recognized the opportunity you’d provided us. And now we’ve seized control of the queen on the chessboard.” Desdemona began walking around the perimeter of the table, moving in Deirdre’s direction.

  Deirdre didn’t know what a chessboard was, but it was clear just who Desdemona considered the captured queen. “But… how? How did you know? How did you find out?” Deirdre felt a profound sense of panic. She’d not made her relationship public, and few outside her father knew. Even Roddy hadn’t found out until quite recently.

  “We had our spy on the inside.” Desdemona reached Jeffrey’s chair, paused, and stroked his cheek. “Didn’t we?” To her surprise and horror, he smiled at the gesture, and Desdemona’s eyes softened briefly. Jeffrey’s eyes, so full of concern for so long, flashed a look of triumph not unlike the one she’d seen from Desdemona earlier.

  A new wave of fear coursed through her. Jeffrey had spied on her? But how? He’d never been inside Diasteel Headquarters, had never seen her with Stephen. How…?

  The name finally linked in her brain, and she knew.

  Wiley. Jeffrey Wiley. He’d never told her his surname before, because he knew she’d recognize the other person she knew with that name.

  Audrey.

  Her father’s lover. A woman with whom he’d undoubtedly shared secrets as he shared his bed, a woman who’d be quite familiar with what her father had learned about his daughter’s indiscretions. And when she left Oswald’s bed, possessing secrets no one else knew, she’d make a call.

  To her brother. To Jeffrey.

  The gleam in Desdemona’s eyes brightened as she saw the recognition in Deirdre’s face. “Yes, my dear, we knew all about little what’s-his-name? Oh, I can’t remember, and it doesn’t much matter as he’s nothing more than a few quadrillion Ravagers at this point. But we knew you’d have to do something to force him aboard Oswald’s ship for the trip to the space station, and that probably meant you’d have to make Oswald fear you were lost. You’d have to leave Diasteel Headquarters. You’d have to make Oswald worry that he’d leave without you. And so you plotted it all out, planned to arrive at the ship at the last possible second. You planned to bind yourself and your suit to Stephen, to push him aboard ahead of you, so that Oswald had no chance to separate the two of you. He’d have to take both of you, or neither.” She sighed. “It was a brilliant plan, a bit dramatic of course, and it would have worked but for the variable you’d not accounted for.”

  “Roddy,” she whispered. “It failed the instant Roddy learned about Stephen. Roddy left me behind. If he’d not learned the truth, he would have held the ship until I got back.”

  Desdemona moved toward her, patted her atop the head. “Excellent. Even the most perfect plan is subject to variances and deviations we can’t predict. Your father might have made the call to leave you behind, even if your husband did not. We’ll never know who made that choice, will we? And it doesn’t much matter who made that decision. Either way, you were rejected by at least one of the men who claimed to love you, little Deirdre.” She laughed. “I’m inclined to believe it was your husband. In fact, our efforts here depend upon the correctness of that assumption.”

  Before Deirdre realized what was happening, Desdemona had snapped a pair of metal cuffs around her wrists. Deirdre, still reeling with the realization that someone she’d trusted had left her behind—though in Roddy’s case, he’d not known what his decision meant—looked up, confused.

  Desdemona patted her on the head again, and Deirdre’s skin crawled. “As I mentioned, Deirdre, your father has collected many promises of loyalty, using various forms of extortion, threats of death, threats of being left behind, anything he thought would glean that oath from someone. But those oaths are… transferable. Oswald can order those who’ve sworn him loyalty to swear that allegiance to another. One must provide Oswald Silver with the necessary motivation to force that act, though. We intend to do just that. Because there’s one thing he values more than power. Do you know what that is, Deirdre?”

  Deirdre couldn’t speak. Jeffrey answered for her. “It’s you, Deirdre. He’d give it all up for your safe return.” His face rounded into the cruel sneer she’d not seen since their first few days together, when he’d told her he’d wanted her dead. “And that’s exactly what we’ll offer in trade.”

  Deirdre faced him. “We? Who’s we?”

  Desdemona moved back to Jeffrey, sliding her hands down his chest as she bent down to kiss the top of his head, before she produced a key and removed his cuffs. She looked at Deirdre, sneering. Deirdre felt her insides chill.

  Jeffrey chortled at her reaction. He pulled his hands in front of him and rubbed his wrists. “I told you there was someone else, Deirdre. But that was the only part of the story that was true. Your father never asked me to marry you. He never actually removed me from the Select list, because I was never on it to begin with.” He took one of Desdemona’s hands in his own. “But I knew your ego couldn’t stand the idea that someone might reject you, and that you’d work hard to gain my approval and, dare I say it, my love, if you thought I’d turned down the chance to have you.” He snorted. “Desdemona’s plan worked perfectly.”

  “It did. And now you’re here.” The glee in Desdemona’s tone, coupled with her gleeful clapping of hands, shattered Deirdre. “And here you’ll stay, until Oswald Silver agrees to our demands, until he transfers that allegiance to us, until he and his minions recognize us as the rightful rulers of the new world. That will get us the largest minority share of control in the world reborn in the aftermath of Phoenix.”

  “And if he doesn’t agree?” Jeffrey shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t lying when I told you I wanted you dead. If we can’t use you as a bargaining chip, there’s no reason to keep you around.”

  Desdemona laughed. Deirdre felt a lump in her throat.

  But something didn’t add up. “You said that if you got my father’s share of loyalty you’d have the largest minority share. But my father’s share of control… wouldn’t that be the majority?”

  They both roared with laughter, and Deirdre felt a searing anger.

  “No, my dear, Oswald Silver does not control our world, and he never did.” Desdemona’s eyes glinted. “His illusion of power came from his relationship with the one who does have that control. It’s possible that his share would have allowed for an alliance with our true ruler, as has happened in the past. But with nothing to offer, I suspect Oswald’s in deep, deep trouble. And he knows it.”

  “But who?” Deirdre asked. “Who is it that has more power over the world than my father?” It seemed incomprehensible. She’d grown up knowing nothing but her father’s total control over the economy and government in the Western Alliance, and doubted that anyone in the East had amassed a greater share in that part of the world. And even if he did, it wouldn’t be materially greater than Oswald’s.

  Would it?

  “It’s quite simple, my dear,” Desdemona replied. She leaned down to look Deirdre in the eye, as if wanting to ensure she missed none of the shock her next words would elicit in Deirdre. “Your father is a pawn in the world, a strong one, admittedly, but a pawn nonetheless. The true ruler, the one he answers to, is a woman named Delilah. It’s someone you kn
ow, but you knew her by a different name.” Desdemona grabbed Deirdre’s face and held it still so Deirdre couldn’t look away.

  “You knew her as… Mom.”

  Deirdre felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She barely took notice as Desdemona opened the door and ordered the guards to haul her away, as Desdemona reminded her that she was now their hostage, held until they’d gotten what they wanted from her father. She only partially heard Jeffrey’s singsong sneer, his wish that Oswald would refuse so he could kill her after seeing the defeat of rejection swarm over Deirdre’s face. She didn’t wonder why it was, if the story of his refusal of the arranged marriage proposed by Oswald wasn’t true, that Jeffrey still wanted her dead.

  She focused on only one thing.

  Her mother was still alive.

  —22—

  MICAH JAMISON

  THE FLYING SPHERE surged into the air, piercing the low hanging clouds and emerging into bright sunlight. Micah’s sensors recognized the change in brightness levels, engaged the ship, and increased the opacity of the sphere’s outer shell.

  With the airship’s “sunglasses” engaged, Micah’s eyes were better able to recognize the data displayed on the screen. There was little of interest there; a rising altitude, a countdown timer estimating just how long it would take him to reach the space station. It had been quite some time since he’d been there. He’d managed to release quite a few prisoners the last time and smuggle them out aboard a more conventional ship. Curiously, he’d not been invited back since. Did it mean they’d figured it out? He didn’t know or care.

  Ashley’s greatest accomplishment was developing a brain that had little initial knowledge built in; he’d learned and observed and adapted through every experience, whether learning to interpret human language, non-verbal cues and dialects, or how to move the limbs she’d eventually attached to that brain, giving him the eventual power of mobility. She’d also given him a challenge, from the earliest days: figure out the computational equivalent of human consciousness and build that ability within his mind.