by M. Van
It seemed Saera hadn’t missed a beat and was well aware that Harp wasn’t telling us everything.
“And you still trust him even if he doesn’t tell you everything?” I asked.
A smile formed on Saera’s face as she said, “Of course.” As if she read the doubt on my face she added, “and you will too—again.”
I let out a long breath that caused Saera to eye me thoughtfully. All of this was a lot to take in, and it seemed more than my brain could handle now, but what was it I had to lose? My sanity might have been at risk, but I guessed that was overrated anyway. I grinned at the thought that I had probably lost it already and looked Saera in the eyes.
“All right,” I said as I nodded my head, and that brought a faint smile on Saera’s face.
“Yeah,” she said under her breath.
“Yeah,” I replied, mimicking her whispered voice. Saera seemed relieved and exhilarated at the same time, as if she couldn’t wait to get moving.
“The others?” I asked as an afterthought, hoping to catch her at an unguarded moment. I cocked my head and scrutinized her.
“Crap,” Saera muttered under her breath. “I thought I had explained about the questions.”
I shot her a look that more or less said, I can’t help myself, and shrugged. She narrowed her eyes at me and bit her lower lip. As she shook her head in mock disbelief, something I couldn’t quite read flashed across her eyes, but it brightened her face, and so I didn’t think it to be a bad thing.
Then she said, “That’s for you to find out.”
I groaned and this time I shook my head in disbelief; this was starting to get annoying.
The sound of a vehicle passing the alley at high speed pulled me away from her gaze. The noise made me aware of the city waking up around us. Of course, TED would be on full alert after our little visit, and I could imagine them informing ArtRep of an incident involving one of their so-called ARs. But would ArtRep prepare for a visit from us, or would they have every enforcer in the city looking for two criminals? Perhaps our little mishap at the old justice house might work to our advantage.
A plan started to form inside my head as I glanced around the buildings and saw an old, rusted ladder leading up to a walkway. Similar constructions led up all the way to the top of the building. The structure looked old, but it would do. With a smile on my face, I turned to Saera. She watched me with a thoughtful expression.
I grabbed the heads-up lying next to me on the ground and pursed my mouth to blow away some of the dust that had gathered on the darkened glass. Ignoring Saera’s gaze, I got to my feet and patted dirt from my suit. Then I held a hand out to her.
“Wouldn’t they keep more information on an ArtRep computer than they would on a TED computer?” I asked. Saera’s eyes widened as she looked up at me. Her gaze shifted to my outstretched hand before she took it with her own.
“Probably,” she said as I helped her get up.
Chapter fifteen
Reece
The tension in the room was palpable after Maece had interrupted the feed and left us staring at a blank screen. Her defiance brought a smile to my face, and I couldn’t stop grinning, not even as Harp shot me a disapproving glare.
“That’s my girl,” I said elatedly.
“You won’t be grinning like such an idiot after they get themselves killed,” Harp said sharply. He was right of course, but it didn’t wipe the smile completely off my face. I knew Maece and Saera had a knack for beating the odds. They had done it all their lives—surviving through the harshest conditions, taking care of not only themselves, but also the small band of misfits they had gathered around them over the years.
My eyes left Harp’s hard glare and fell on Riffy before they shifted to Kelle. We almost had our gang back together, and we wouldn’t let anyone come between that.
Kelle caught my gaze, and her dark eyes were telling, even with the lack of expression on her face. We had been at this long enough to know each other’s thoughts. I grinned and even showed some teeth as I noticed the tiniest of twitches of Kelle’s mouth.
“Riffy, my man,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder, “get our gear ready.” Seemingly without thinking about it, Riffy grabbed one of our bags off the floor when he caught Harp glaring at him. Riffy froze instantly. It wasn’t hard to see Harp could still get to him.
Kelle on the other hand crossed her arms over her chest, scrutinizing the scene and shooting Riffy a hard glare of her own. That didn’t go unnoticed either and it pulled Riffy out of Harp’s grip. He shrugged as he continued picking up our stuff and found his way to one of the empty tables standing of to a side of the platform.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Harp asked. I pushed out my lower lip in an exaggerated display of disbelief.
“Oh, c’mon, you didn’t have us make this trip to watch the show on the screens,” I replied. Behind Harp, I could see the shock on Kyran’s face as he fumbled for his HDA and stuck it between his teeth. Harp glanced over his shoulder, but Kyran had already busied himself by tapping his virtual keyboard. Seemingly satisfied that his subordinate wasn’t paying any attention, Harp took a step closer until his face was inches from mine.
“Suggesting bringing you in has created this mess in the first place,” he said in his calm voice. “It’s bad enough Saera makes her decisions based on emotions. I can’t have an entire team out there unable to act rationally.”
He turned his head and his gaze shifted to Kelle. It was a subtle hint, but I caught it. He felt we were too emotionally involved and he was right—we were. But then, so was he. His gaze shifted back to me, and I had known him long enough to recognize his this-is-for-the-greater-good speech was about to kick in, so I decided to intervene.
I stepped closer. If it had been anyone else, I would have grabbed his elbow and pulled him out of earshot, but that would never work with a man like Harp. As expected, he didn’t even flinch as I invaded his personal space and spoke close to his ears.
“Don’t forget I know you, Harp, and I know your objectives,” I said in a whisper and hoped Kelle or Riffy wouldn’t hear. “You never needed the information gathered at TED. You already knew all about those Subterrans, so you probably went in there for Kyran to find some code or door key that will get you into ArtRep. Am I getting close to the truth, Harp?” I waited a moment to see if he wanted to add something to what I had said, but then I continued. “This is exactly how you wanted it to turn out, so don’t give me that emotionally involved crap. Don’t pretend I don’t know why the council is pressuring you to get inside the ArtRep buildings.”
I backed off and wanted to step away from him, but in a quick move Harp grabbed my jacket and pulled me close again.
He let out a slow breath that tickled my ear before he said, “You and Maece knew when you signed up for this that Sulos was using Subterrans and that it’s probably part of a bigger plan. We needed to find out what Sulos was up to. Maece becoming an enforcer was the only way to get our hands on the technology that could make that happen. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Harp released his grip on my jacket, but before I stepped back, I said, “Except Maece doesn’t remember, and Saera doesn’t know any of that. Still, you had no problem sending them in blind, and now you want to pretend that you don’t want us to go after them.”
I lifted my chin as I held Harp’s stone-cold gaze. My attempt to stare him down failed as I caught Kelle eyeing the exchange with a frown on her face. I wasn’t sure she hadn’t heard anything, but I had a feeling she would have spoken up if she had. Kelle tended to be protective of the ones she loved, especially Saera, and would lash out at anyone who threatened their safety in any way—even Harp. Those specific character traits that I would usually connect with Maece had rubbed off on Kelle over the years.
“I need someone in there I can trust not to make this about anything else, but the information we need to appease the council so that they will take actions against ArtRep to save
our people,” Harp said as if our little exchange hadn’t happened. I noted that his words were carefully chosen and weren’t far from the truth.
The council was aware of the abuse of our people in the plants and how ArtRep used them as enforcers, but helping them wasn’t their primary agenda. They wanted to know what Sulos was up to, and I had a feeling that they wanted in on whatever he had planned. With the right intel, the council might even be able to force his hand.
“I know the stakes,” I said as I forced myself to keep to the script that Maece and I had agreed to years ago. “We all do—we’ve read the files and seen the images downloaded from TED.” I might not agree with everything Harp does, but that didn’t mean I’d betray the trust he held in us.
Harp raised his chin, but his eyes didn’t lose the suspicion in them, and he was right for it. Not telling my friends about Harp’s, but mostly the council’s, hidden agenda had been one of the hardest things I ever had to do—that and saying goodbye to Maece before ArtRep turned her into an enforcer.
“Then you understand.”
“I understand,” I replied, “and I know you understand that we work as a team and that whatever Saera has decided as to what we should or shouldn’t do—she knows we’ll be there to back her up.”
I straightened my shoulders to underline my resolve. “They have a kill switch that could kill many of our own, including Maece, and if Saera and she set their minds on fixing this problem, then we are going to back them up. So I suggest you start coordinating.”
Harp frowned before he started shaking his head.
“Don’t be an ass,” Kelle said, watching the exchange. “You know you won’t be able to stop them or us. Besides, you were the one who involved us in the first place.”
Harp turned to face her, surely with the intent to give a death ray glare, but as soon as his eyes caught hers, his expression softened.
Harp had always had a soft spot for the young woman. She had been the youngest back when he’d brought her to us, and as unimaginable as that might seem now, Kelle had always yearned for his affection.
We never were the typical loving family, but Harp had given us a roof over our heads and, with his limited abilities toward affection, tried to be a father figure. To his credit, he hadn’t started training any of us until we’d reached the age of fourteen.
Harp held Kelle’s gaze for a long moment before his eyes turned up toward the dome-shaped ceiling. He shook his head, and a hint of a smile graced his face. Then he turned to me and said, “Gear up. Then we’ll talk.”
With that, Harp turned and walked away from us. I flashed a wide grin at Kelle, who had molded her face back into her brooding glare. She might not have known she was arguing for something Harp had planned for us to do anyhow, but I appreciated her effort. I just wished I didn’t have to keep my friends in the dark, but at this point, it couldn’t be helped.
“Seeeee,” I said elongating the word, “I always knew you were his favorite.” Kelle’s mouth twitched, but feeling gracious with a hint of gratitude, I wanted to spare her the discomfort of having to forfeit a smile. So I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into a hug. I bent to kiss the top of her head, and then without giving it a second thought, I released her and made my way to Riffy. Imagining her cheeks going bright red put a smile on my face, but I refused the urge to look back.
Chapter sixteen
Maece
With Saera in tow, progress was a bit slower than it would have been on my own. Without an exoskeleton suit, she couldn’t jump from rooftop to rooftop—at least not the bigger gaps—and once we neared ArtRep Enterprises, the height of the buildings would have been nauseating to most people. Saera hadn’t seemed bothered by heights, though, which was a good thing.
I turned to look behind me and saw her glancing over the edge of the glass structure. She wobbled and threw out her arms to steady her balance.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to look down while you’re walking on a glass overpass between two skyscrapers?” I yelled at her. Her arms still waving like one of those flying animals that used to live on this planet, she glanced up to face me.
“No,” she said exasperated, “but then I’ve never done this before.”
I glanced down and scanned the street below. The people walking the streets looked no bigger than a pinprick. As I zoomed in with the heads-up, the picture cleared, and I started to recognize certain figures. Figures like the enforcers roaming the streets.
Instead of their usual pairings, I noticed they moved in groups of four and even six. Fortunately, we hadn’t encountered any of them up on the rooftops. We were pretty high up, and perhaps enforcers didn’t think it possible for us to travel along the roofs of the tall structures. It could also be that they had never considered it. I wouldn’t put it past Kyran to have placed the suggestion in my head. Either way, I was glad to see most of the enforcers heading for the outskirts of the city. It made me feel hopeful that there wouldn’t be many of them guarding the ArtRep building.
“Maybe we can use the front door next time,” Saera said as she drew closer, “instead of this insane excursion that is probably going to get me killed.”
The structure used as a bridge connecting two of what were three towers was wide enough to walk over comfortably, except someone had decided to use see-through glass in the construction of the overpass.
This had been a complaint of many of the people either living or working in the towers. One needed a strong stomach to walk over the glass to reach the other side. If you looked down to see where to place your feet, you would glance down a five-hundred-foot drop. Walking across the overpass’s roof didn’t prove to be a cakewalk either.
“You okay?” I asked and held out a hand for her to take. She ignored my question but took my hand greedily, and I guided her across the last few feet of the bridge.
“Although,” she said climbing over the railing to get to solid ground, “I do prefer this to swinging from a rooftop.”
The memory of Saera dangling off that rope brought a smile to my face.
“I thought you did rather well,” I said, managing to contain myself from blurting out into full-blown laughter.
“Oh, shut up,” she replied and started walking across the roof.
“Hey, you were the one that wanted to do this,” I shouted after her. Ignoring me, she pointed at the third building with a similar bridge connecting the two structures.
“That’s it, right?” I said. I already knew the answer, because the name and location of the building were something TED had decided I needed to know, but it seemed the question formed on its own accord, and it felt like a familiar thing to do.
“That’s it,” she said as I stopped by her side. “Actually, this is one big ArtRep building, but that is the one where Sulos’s office is located.”
We stood there staring at it for a while, and I wondered which one of us would be the one to bring it up first. It was one thing to break into a building, but something else to break into the files of a highly secured system. We needed Kyran, whether we liked it or not. I didn’t want to be the one who suggested that we needed to contact Harp, so I hoped Saera would come to her senses. As I waited for that to happen, I let my head fall back and stared up at the sky.
Somewhere buried inside my head sat memories of blue skies with white clouds. As part of the Tenebrae Enforcer Department, we were required to know the history of our planet, and those blue skies were part of that. These days we didn’t get blue skies anymore. These days we didn’t get to see any of the sky most of the time, except for that massive bright-and-orange disk hovering over us. It was as if peering into the flame of a candle so close that everything around it faded into nothingness.
“Do you think we should call Kyran?” Saera said. Her voice pulled me away from the sun, and I lowered my head to face her.
“That’s what you were waiting for me to say, right,” she said as she leaned against the fence that was meant to protect us from
a five-hundred-foot drop.
“I was thinking about it,” I replied, “but now that you mention it…”
Saera narrowed her eyes.
“Well, I guess we both were thinking the same thing,” she said. I shrugged.
“We could use the help getting in there.”
“Do it,” she said.
I used the heads-up to reestablish a connection before I said,
“Harp? Kyran? Anyone out there?”
“Hello.”
Surprised at the sound of the tiny voice, I glanced at Saera.
“Tyrel, is that you?” Saera replied.
“Hi, Miss Lux,” Tyrel said. The image of the shy young woman with the multicolored hair flashed into the forefront of my mind, and I wondered what she was doing on the line.
“Where are Harp and Kyran?” I asked.
“Oh…hi, eh…Miss Lux,” she said in her timid voice. “Shall I get them for you?”
“Yes, you do that,” I said, sounding more condescending than I had planned. Saera gave me a hard look and shook her head disapprovingly. “I mean, please, if you would,” I added quickly. “Thank you, Tyrel.” As soon as the connection ended, I said to Saera, “Better.”
“She’s a good kid, but insecure,” she said. “She just needs a little guidance.”
“I’d be insecure with that hair,” I said. Saera sighed and turned her head to face the building across from us. It stood at least three stories taller than this one, which meant the glass overpass didn’t connect with the roof.
“Saera, Maece, you there,” Harp’s voice spoke over the coms. Before he could say anything else, Saera spoke up.
“Colrin, if you start moping again, we’ll cut you off.” There wasn’t much threat in her voice, but it seemed to work.
