by Alex Kirko
“Look, Lyndon,” she said. “We caught three spies only this past week. You yourself have told me that there is at least a dozen more in the city. I just want to find Tara. She is the only one who escaped, and that makes her more dangerous than others.”
Lyndon blinked, and his brown eyes changed to gold with vertical slits. He turned his head, listening for something. “Alright. You’re the boss.”
Familiar footfalls sounded in the hallway outside. The door opened, and Kyle walked in. A lump of lead dropped into her chest. She wanted to stand up and bow to Kyle even as she wanted to run out of the room. Laura, who sat near her, laid a hand on Moira’s knee and leaned next to her ear. “Breathe, Moira,” she said. “Kyle didn’t buy you from your family. He would never hurt you.”
She swallowed, inhaled, and looked down. Kyle was wearing black derbies, lacquered and polished so much that overhead lights created a glare on them. These shoes meant all business and no pleasure. Moira straightened her back and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her right ear. She saw Laura lick her lips.
Kyle walked up to the table and sat down at the head. He planted his elbows wide on the wooden surface and looked at each of them in turn. He gave a brief smile to Laura, a nod to Lyndon, and a wry shake of his head to Moira. A mosaic of purple veins was visible on his face, and Moira wondered when he had last fed.
“Seind is coming along,” said Kyle. “The people are happy with us, and there is little tension with the Ascended who didn’t flee the city. From the point of view of your average Joe, everything looks great.”
He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the table continuing to look at Moira. Soft rolls of four thuds followed each other, and she could feel blood rush to her face. She didn’t lower her head or look away.
She said, “If you’d like something handled differently, give different orders.”
“You know I’m working with each of you for a reason. You, Moira, I value for your initiative and ability to make the right decisions without the need for me to walk in and micro-manage everything.”
“Some more direction would be appreciated, Kyle. You barely contacted us these past two weeks.”
“I’ve been busy setting up the Ascended training programs back in Lankershire and making sure we have the equipment to work here on the newly acquired regeneration chamber.”
Laura reached for her belt, unclipped a small flask from it, and tossed it to Kyle. “Have a drink, boss. You look like you last ate a century ago.”
He stared at the bottle for a second as if he couldn’t remember what it was. His expression cleared, and Kyle took a swig. “Thank you, Laura. War doesn’t leave much room for sleep or food or a life. And this is my problem with Seind. The city is focusing too much on rebuilding malls and pleasure houses. Our coverage on social media is also good, even if people still seem to be wary of Moira.” He looked her over and raised an eyebrow. “Though if you keep progressing like this, it isn’t going to be a problem for long. You look almost like your old self.”
“I thought my goal here was to keep people happy after our takeover.”
“Your goal is to make sure there are no mass riots. They cannot have both the quality of life the Council provides and the freedom we offer.” He leaned forward, focusing on her. “What is this I hear about new movies being made? Adventure games? A guild of writers springing up?” When she stayed silent, he sighed. “Moira, letting people stick their heads back in the sand hurts recruitment. We need to take good enough care of them that they won’t rebel against us, but keeping everyone numb is how Terra Nox got into this mess in the first place.”
Lyndon nodded and said, “The industry district will switch to weapon and mech production in ten days, and we need to convince people to start training to protect their homes. A bit of fear and desperation would benefit us.”
Moira shook her head. “Training a mech pilot takes years. If you stick civilians into suits or give them weapons to protect themselves, this will only make them a target for any Council forces they might meet. Unless this is what you are planning, Kyle.”
Kyle looked at her and then glanced to Lyndon who shrugged. The Count said, “I can’t help but think your mind is elsewhere these days, Moira. If you applied the same intuition to governing the city . . . Could this be about Tara?”
“Why don’t you ask Blake Drummond?” she asked. “Jim came upon his name in the visitor’s log I asked him to monitor just in case. When were you going to tell me?”
“Enough,” said Kyle. “Drummond is working with us for now. The man is too good with suit technology not to take advantage—I gave the people working with him strict instructions to keep confidential information to themselves. And one woman is of little concern, especially if your sister is as much of an airhead as I heard—we’ll search for her when we don’t have an administrative crisis on our hands and a Council army gathering at our border. Anyway, we have a net over the city that makes it impossible for any enemy spy to do much damage. It is not like she can blow up City Hall.” Kyle stood from the table. “We need to give the people tools to protect themselves and the motivation to do so. Focus on that, Moira, and let Lyndon deal with any potential spies. Between setting up the research of the regeneration chamber and managing the morale you two will have your hands full. I’ll be staying in the city for a while, so don’t hesitate to get me involved.”
“What about me, Kyle?” asked Laura. “Oh, do I get some a task so secret you can’t talk about it in this meeting?”
He looked at the diminutive blond just long enough for the silence to become uncomfortable. “There is something only you can do,” he said. “Please come with me.”
Everyone filed out of the room, but Moira stayed for a minute, thinking. She didn’t trust people she had tried to kill. It was time to put Lyndon’s powers of observation to use, so she went to her second-in-command's office.
“Moira,” he said looking up from a pile of documents. “Hope you don’t take what happened there personally. I just want to make sure the Federation wins this war, and you’ve been—”
“What can you tell me about Drummond?”
Lyndon scratched behind his left ear, reached under the table, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.
“Isn’t it a bit too early?” asked Moira.
“It’s never too early to drink when you need only an hour of sleep and you can’t get drunk on normal alcohol. Besides, it’s 4 p.m.” He poured two fingers of amber liquid for himself and her and slid her glass across the table. “The man seems legit, but the way he turned to our side doesn’t inspire me with confidence that he won’t go back as soon as there is an advantage in doing so. He has a couple friends in town, but so far they haven’t done anything suspicious. There is a former comrade, a bartender called Will, but he pretty much only works and sleeps. A couple more drinking buddies, a shopkeeper who sold him spare parts for the suit—they all check out. There is also Mary Dorheftung, a clerk here at City Hall, but surveillance didn’t catch anything strange, and the DNA analysis is conclusive—she isn’t your sister. The story of her and Drummond being sex buddies also seems to be true.”
Moira said, “I remember the Dorheftungs—a minor noble house back in Delmor.”
“Broke off from her nearly bankrupt family to find better fortune here, had most of her friends killed during the invasion—nothing extraordinary.” He showed her the dossier. “Katherine Lind offered her a position with the City Hall because of how understaffed we were. The girl works, drinks, and occasionally picks somebody up at a bar. I’ve had her under surveillance for a week, but it seems like there is nothing to investigate.”
“Keep our people on her just in case.”
12
Grabbing the Dream
Aileen tells me I almost lost a kidney, but I don’t mind.
Thank you for not eating me.
You should get out of the city, maybe take a vacation somewhere far away from all this bullshit. Everything is
coming together in Seind, and the Republic is bringing their fire and knives and men hungry for blood. I don’t want you to be in danger because of something I’m taking a part in.
Yours for two nights,
Blake Drummond
He switched off the lights and doused the note in a photosensitive chemical that would give Tara about thirty seconds to read it. He folded it, so it wouldn’t combust before she opened it. He left it between the shower and the wall in her room where no one would check. Home wasn’t a place for keeping secrets—net nodes and portable drives were. She’d find it when she came back from work.
Satisfied, Blake left the key on the small table near the door, walked out, and let the locks click shut behind him.
“Tara has a point,” said Aileen. “Now that the Federation woke up the Council, we could go back. Get the girl, deliver them someone like the new mayor of Seind, maybe assassinate Kyle Heatsworth himself, earn the right to use the capsule—no compromises.”
It sounded possible, but making up stories had always been a talent of Aileen's.
“I’ve seen what the Republic is like,” he answered. “The Council built it on taking away choice, and they have just sacrificed two hundred thousand people to get intel.” He shook his head. “And they don’t even need to justify it. I’m a murderous traitor, remember? No, the Republic would get what they need, and throw me into the incinerator. And it would be a PR boon for them too.” Blake hesitated, thinking. “Besides, looks like Heatsworth is setting up Terra Nox to be the start of galaxy-wide reforms or something equally insane. The Council is only creating enough forces to shut him down. I like our chances more with somebody crazy ambitious.”
“You know I hate it when you are the reasonable one, Blake,” said Aileen. “In any case, we should hurry. I’m happy that you got laid, but, you know, there are safer ways.”
“It’s not like I’ve been celibate since I came to Terra Nox.”
“Maybe not physically. Your pancreas will shut off in a week. I guess Kitsune was too optimistic.”
Now that he had been promised the use of the regeneration chamber, death became a gamble. A lifetime of military service had taught him that humanitarians’ prattle about the value of life was bullshit—it was a commodity with a price tag, not some priceless treasure.
It was early in the morning, and Seind’s nightlife hadn’t recovered yet. He sped along the streets at sixty miles per hour taking care to avoid cars. He passed sleek two-manned police vehicles crawling along their patrol routes. White-and-red cylindrical ambulances flew by him, moving thrice faster than him. An Ascended car peeked out from a side street, jumped onto the highway for a few miles and darted off. People would have stayed away from it before, but now nobody even twitched at the appearance of the black monstrosity gilded with gold.
He got out of the center and ran through the pleasure district and to the edge of the rectangular city. Brothels and their ruins hugged his exit route on both sides. While Seind slept, the construction teams didn’t work either. He wondered if they were trying to prolong the rebuilding or give everyone time to get used to the Lankershire pleasure arts guild moving in.
“Two miles to the exit,” said Aileen. “And stop ogling the brothels. Men. Even the best of you—”
He said, “When I get out of this suit, I’m taking a walk. Then I’m drowning myself in alcohol to forget enough of my bender not to feel ashamed later.”
“What’s the point of getting trashed if you won’t remember anything afterwards?” A blue circle flashed half a mile ahead of him. “Stop here.”
The highway split into two five-lane twins veering off right and left to circle the city. In front of him, there was a two-lane artificial stone road that headed out of Seind. Before it started, a bald spot a hundred feet in diameter waited for those leaving the city.
He stopped in the center, allowing the city computers to take images of the inside of his suit. Panels opened on four sides, and emitter heads slid out of them. Each one was two-foot metal sphere. The equipment was gargantuan and extremely expensive, so it was deployed only along the perimeter, but fooling it was almost impossible, which was why Tara thought she was trapped. Blake shook his head. If she had asked him for help, he might have given it—the fool that he was—and risked everything. How convenient that people never trusted him quite enough.
The soft buzzing of scanners stopped, and a green light appeared above the exit. He settled into a comfortable jog at thirty miles per hour. The artificial muscles contracted and stretched in a rhythm that he had gotten used to, and the jungle wall crept closer revealing the tangle of emerald branches clawing at each other for every ray of sunlight.
“Last chance to walk away, Blake,” said Aileen. “We can just keep running. Dodge the artillery and outrun their mechs.”
“And what next, flee the planet?” Blake stopped and craned his neck up to look at the throngs of small feather-like clouds drifting across the cobalt sky. “Things were simpler back home,” he said. “The top brass were bastards, but I still felt like I was fighting for the good guys. I never had that feeling of righteousness with the Republic. I have it with the Federation. They will become dangerous if they survive for a couple more months. Maybe dangerous enough.”
“Still a romantic, I see.”
Her synthesized chuckle sounded almost like the real thing, but it was too perfect.
It took him five minutes of crossing open land to get to the rendezvous point. Nat was waiting there with Ryan, Irene, Mel, and three soldiers he didn’t recognize.
“I was beginning to doubt you’d show up,” she said. “Drummond, these are my old friends: Steph, Kia, and Roy. They specialize in stealth and takedowns.”
The trio of compact high-speed assassin mechs huddled close together, their coolant pipes of blue, green, and red making the same diamond symbol on the chest of each suit. When one of them moved, the other two would adjust their position slightly, maintaining a defensive formation.
Steph looked to the side. “Our team got hit during the assault on Seind. Heard you could have used more combat specialists when you went into Mortenton.” Her voice was like a golden bell. “Ballsy plan, by the way. Kia is a fan.” She nudged the smaller mech of the three. “Not that she’d say anything. Awfully shy.”
“Shut up,” Kia socked Steph in the shoulder with a heavy clunk.
“They volunteered,” said Nat.
Blake walked up to the trio and shook their hands. Roy clasped his shoulder. “You have done the Federation a great service, man,” he said. “Hope you don’t plan to throw away what you’ve earned.”
Blake patted Ray’s hand, took it off his shoulder, and shook his head. “Meeting right before the mission? Sloppy. Just remember we’ve never worked together before, and I don’t know your tactics.” He turned to Nat. “What’s the plan?”
She motioned them to walk with her. “The Council is pulling forces to Seind. This isn’t like Mortenton where they could converge on one obvious target like the Archives, so they’ll need a lot of people.”
Blake said, “They might anticipate that we’ll need more scientists now that we have a regeneration chamber.”
She shook her head. “They should expect us to gather intelligence on the army at our borders. I don’t think they are protecting the researchers more than normal.”
“So we will also be doing reconnaissance,” Blake guessed.
“Count Heatsworth is sure we can defend Seind, but we need to see what kind of troops the Council has brought. Just in case.”
Blake looked up at the walls of the basin that Seind stood in and felt something jagged churn in his chest. It was like walking into a village with his gun only to find nothing but empty houses. He was missing something. He said, “We don’t know if the Republic will follow the roads. If they attack from multiple directions during the day . . . most of our forces are Crawlers.”
Nat said, “And that’s why we are getting more information.”
The road was an endless stretch of white polymer without any breaks or seams. The land around it was caked brown, vegetation kept at bay by daily maintenance. They turned right and began walking to the road shields.
He kicked a small stone and saw it explode in crimson against the purple wall of energy fifty feet ahead. He asked, “Who is taking care of the roads now? You’d think something from the jungle would find its way across the barriers by now.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Mel.
“I told you this before, Mel,” said Nat. “The land along the roads is poisoned forty feet down to stop the jungle vegetation from getting in from below. The shielding can go only so deep. Halt.”
They approached the barrier. A black spire rose fifty feet up, pairs of bulbous field emitters jutting out along its length every five feet. Every emitter was a flower bud and the white-hot diffusor panels were its petals. Buzzing filled the air, and he felt a wave of oppressing heat buffeting him. It was like the hottest sauna in the world, not that it mattered to his suit in the slightest. He looked down. The energy field was ten feet thick, and it went into the trench dug between the spires that were placed every five hundred feet. He couldn’t see the top of the barrier above him, but knew that it started to disperse a mile up. Blake couldn’t help but appreciate the engineering genius that the colonists had put into these things more than a thousand years ago. The spires themselves weren’t that tall, yet the shield was immense, and it reacted to wind, temperature, dumb animals throwing themselves against it—everything.
