by T. C. Edge
Adryan shakes his head firmly.
“Oh, that’s not possible, Brie. Anything like that could be tagged and tracked. We need him to create an electronic file with the information we need, and then give it to us. It has to be a hard copy, and it’s absolutely essential that he doesn’t remember doing it.”
“Well, I seem to at least have that down,” I say. “No one seems to properly remember the orders I give.”
Adryan’s eyes change a little and quickly drop to my lips. They linger there for a split second, before lifting back up again.
Does he remember the kiss?
Locking eyes with him, I dart inside and survey his thoughts. I feel his desire to kiss me again. But any recollection of him actually kissing me seems to be faded, considered more a dream within his subconscious and little more.
“Well, that’s something,” he says, somewhat dreamily. “I suppose, if you fail, then there’s no harm done…”
He presses his hand to the interface again, and it shuts down.
Moving back to the sofa, we take seats opposite each other, and begin considering what exactly will be the best method of manipulating Mr Spencer. Naturally, getting him alone will be important, and that’s something I’ll have to work out while we’re there.
Aside from that, however, Adryan, given he’s spent his entire life living in this building, has a better idea as to what exactly we need.
His suggestion, which I rather agree with, is to start small. Well, relatively small, at least.
“Ask for detailed schematics of the building and all details of its security protocols,” he advises. “If we require anything more, then we can always go back. For now, that will have to do.”
“OK,” I say, taking mental notes. “So, ask for that, and tell him to, what, download it to an electronic file…”
“A secure, untraceable electronic file,” Adryan cuts in. “Use that wording.”
I repeat it a couple of times in my head until it’s drummed in.
“Then,” he continues, “tell him to deliver the file to you personally. It will need to be at a certain time and a certain place.”
“How about here? Can’t he just bring it to the door?”
“Unfortunately, no. His security clearance won’t permit him entry to this level, except by official dispensation.”
“OK then, how about we invite them to dinner the following night? You know, as a way of repaying the favour. They’ll get clearance, and then I can get the file off him.”
Again, Adryan stamps all over my fire.
“That would be highly unusual, to arrange two dinners together over two consecutive nights. It might raise flags. Trust me, Brie, the best option is to merely meet him on one of the communal levels during lunch the following day. Have him go to a certain spot at a certain time, hand you the file, and be on his way.”
I go through the steps in my head as he speaks. It sounds like a hell of a lot of consecutive orders to give. So far, my only experience of sending someone off on a time-specific order was that old Disposable man over in the northern quarter. Zander and I sent him off for bread, and got waylaid before we could find out if he ever got back.
Frankly, I still don’t know if he would have done so. And that, all fairness to the man, was only with a regular Unenhanced. This is on another level.
Then again, I’ve grown confident in my abilities now. With the tension always so damn high around here, and with every single action I take carrying so much weight and pressure, I seem to deliver. As I’ve said before, my powers seem to bloom when under serious stress.
“OK,” I say. “But it will be easier for me to make him do it all on the same day. I’ll order him to download the files in the morning, and then bring them to me at lunch that afternoon. Leaving it an entire day between functions would make it much harder.”
Adryan nods, deferring to my superior knowledge of how such things work.
As we continue to discuss our plans, I find myself thinking forward, based on other information I got today from Mary and Lucy.
Because getting the schematics is one thing, but actually utilising them is another. I’m still going to need to get up through the building, and that’s going to take further manipulations, most likely of extremely important and powerful individuals.
Since the levels above floor 90 are intended for the housing and operation of only the most influential of officials, and since it’s only they who deal directly with Director Cromwell and the other members of the Consortium, I’m going to need to find someone suitable to hitch a ride with.
So far, the only person I know of who lives right near the summit, and deals directly with the Consortium, is Deputy Commander Burns. As the ladies told me earlier, he reports back to Commander Fenby, who lives up in the summit.
Very briefly, the idea flashes through my head to try to manipulate Deputy Burns. As the idea comes, so my lips move, vocalising the option.
“Burns,” I say, thinking out loud. “Maybe I could use Deputy Burns…”
I cut myself off before Adryan can shut the idea down.
“No,” I say hurriedly, feeling stupid. “He’s a Mind-Manipulator too…I’d have no chance.”
Adryan looks like he’s glad I quickly came to that conclusion myself. He was all but ready to correct me on the matter.
It does bring up a discussion point, however, that I want to mine a little deeper.
“So, according to Mary, Commander Fenby’s going to be addressing the City Guard in a few days. Do you know about that?” I ask.
By now, Adryan has gotten himself a glass of wine to join me. I’m not even sure he wants it, but seems to feel obliged to have a glass so I’m not drinking alone.
All, I’m sure, part of the instruction from Lady Orlando to make my life as easy as possible. If I was a little more conniving, I could probably get away with a lot more…
Taking a sip of the wine – but only a very small sip – he considers the question as he’s prone to do, and then begins to nod. The minor delay between the two is something that still marks him out as one of them.
“Yes, I have heard. As you’re well aware, the presence of the City Guard across Outer Haven has gone up in recent weeks. His appearance will be something to help motivate them. And, well, it will be a memorial of sorts as well…for those that died in the attack on the market.”
The thought permeates me, delivering a bitter taste of disgust to my mouth.
“So, he’s there to honour those who died…because of him,” I huff, shaking my head.
“Well, I’d suggest that Director Cromwell is the man behind the whole concept of the Fanatics. He’s the one who has the final decision.”
“Yeah, but that’s not to say he came up with the idea. It might have been Fenby.”
“Perhaps,” mumbles Adryan, trailing off.
Of course…his own work for the IHR has actually contributed to all this.
“You blame yourself, don’t you,” I suggest.
His eyes come back to me.
“Are you reading my mind again, Brie?”
“Don’t need to. Not on this one. Unlike other Savants, your face is easy enough to read.”
He takes a breath and sends his gaze back out to the dark sky and twinkling stars. From up here on level 51, the air seems clearer, purer, the starlight and moonlight more dazzling than I’ve ever seen it.
“I guess I do a bit,” he says softly, his grey-blue eyes staring.
I move over towards him, and lay a hand on his. The touch is enough to draw his eyes back to me.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “You never knew they’d come up with something like this, Adryan. Anyway, everything you’ve done has been leading to this point. Being a spy for the Nameless, helping me. You’ve done much more good than bad.”
As he’s told me before, it’s not all black and white out there. The events of today has been further proof of that to me. I’ve pretty much given W. Malcolm a death sentence. A terrible
thing to do, whichever way you look at it.
And yet, I needed to. For the greater good, I needed to.
And the same can be said for Adryan.
“Why the interest in Commander Fenby though, Brie?” he asks me.
“Oh, just trying to get a feel for things, that’s all. If he comes down to address the City Guard, I wonder what it would take to get Cromwell out of his decadent little nest.”
“Impossible to say, really, and it’s not something we can count on.”
“I thought you’d say that,” I say, the wind stolen from my sails. I fill the entire space of my lungs and them empty them out once more. “I guess there’s no way around this is there.”
“Only one way,” suggests my husband. His eyes turn up to the ceiling, and mine follow. “Just another 50 floors or so…”
With a smirk to break the tension, I find myself laughing.
Because sometimes, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
And I refuse to do that until I’ve got this job done.
6
Am I ready, Zander? Am I ready for this?
I ask the question many times that day. I ask it in the morning when I wake up. I ask it when I eat a simple lunch of chicken soup and bread. I ask it when I pace from one end of the apartment to the other, needing to find some way of distracting myself from the silence and the revolving door of worries and doubts in my head.
I ask it, over and over, but get no reply until the late afternoon. Only then does my brother’s voice filter through my mind and settle in my ears.
You’re ready, Brie, he says. You have to be ready.
I don’t get much more out of him. Having finally gotten through, he tells me he’s too busy to speak right now, his mind elsewhere.
I get no time to give him the rundown of recent events. I get no time to hear the comforting words of support I need. I get almost nothing, save the unsettling knowledge that he’s clearly got more important things to be worrying about.
Which, in turn, only serves to make me more worried by what’s going on down there. Clearly, he’s wrapped up in something big, something that’s taking all of his focus.
Perhaps I can’t rely on him as I thought I could? Perhaps it really is just Adryan and me up here…
Of course, no doubt Adryan will fill Lady Orlando in on any important updates from here. High on that list, of course, will be the bullet-dodging I had to do yesterday, and the news that my mission – our mission – is starting to see some sort of reward.
Naturally, I begin to wonder exactly how my husband has been communicating with the Nameless all this time. The interface here clearly allows for communication between apartments and residences, as well as the atrium and various other parts of the building. I understand that it’s also possible to chat with buildings outside the High Tower, the whole of Inner Haven linked together by some sort of network.
Yet, communicating beyond that appears to be a different prospect. And certainly, getting in touch with Lady Orlando outside of the city wouldn’t be possible using the interface in our apartment. Nor would it be advisable were it an option, given how such interactions could be traced.
Only when Adryan arrives home from work do I get to ask him. He takes me into his bedroom, pulls out a small box, sets his thumbprint to a scanner to unlock it, and opens it up.
Inside, I look upon nothing more complicated than a series of books on inter-species relationships, the physiology of the various Enhanced, the nature of emotion, and other such accounts that are clearly important for his work.
“Um, what exactly am I looking at here?” I ask.
He picks out a couple of books, sets them to one side, and reveals a small hidden compartment at the bottom of the box. Opening it up, he pulls out a tiny rectangular device, fairly non-descript upon initial viewing but clearly important enough to be kept so concealed.
He hands it to me, I inspect it, and then look up at him, shrugging my shoulders.
The only thing of interest is a series of digits, from 0-9, written along the bottom of the device. They’re buttons, and clearly have some purpose.
Taking it back off me, he quickly inputs a series of numbers – I count at least 12, perhaps more – and as soon as he’s finished, the front of the device glows to life.
I remain none the wiser until he offers a verbal explanation.
“It’s a private communication transmitter,” he says. “That code I put in unlocked it. I’m the only one who knows the combination. The signal is untraceable, and links directly with the Nameless’ headquarters. That’s how I’ve been updating them.”
“All this time?”
He nods.
I consider asking him if I can use it, but decide not to. After all, I have my own private and untraceable method of talking with my brother. And frankly, other than Drum, who I doubt would ever be allowed on the line, there’s no one else over there I want to talk to.
Packing it all away again, I remark on how well hidden Adryan keeps it.
“Necessity,” he says. “I’ve grown very careful over the years.”
“And what if someone did find it?” I query.
“They’d never know the code for one, so would never be able to access it. And, even if they could, they can’t possibly know who I’ve been speaking with.”
A fair explanation, and sufficient enough to douse any minor concerns I have that his calls have been traced. And minor they are. I have bigger things to think about.
First on the list, and most pressing, is this evening’s dinner. With our access granted to drop down a level and visit the Spencers on the 50th floor, we set about getting ready. Having had little to do today except wait around and stress about my mission, Adryan finds it surprising that I haven’t yet picked out an outfit.
“I’m not used to it, OK,” comes my defensive reply. “It’s not like my life back at the academy involved weekday dinner parties. Haven’t I got enough on my mind! Jeez!”
Adryan escapes the room before my stress boils over, and my Dasher powers are unleashed.
Once I’m ready – I just pick out a dress at random in the end – I find myself apologising to my husband in the kitchen.
“There’s no need, really,” he assures me. “You’ve earned the right to snap, Brie.”
I kiss his cheek and inspect him for the first time. He’s wearing a slightly more stylish grey suit on this occasion, a little less formal than his work attire, if only subtly so. Mostly, the fashion range in this place is very slim indeed, so even the slightest of deviations can appear quite stark.
“You look handsome,” I tell him.
“And you look beautiful,” he responds.
And smiling together, we set off on our first official function as man and wife. The ruse is very much on.
It turns out that Mary and her husband live almost directly beneath us. Dropping down one level in the lift nearest our apartment, we head straight for room 50-37, and Adryan knocks.
It’s my new friend who answers the door. She and Adryan perform their bows and, sticking to the strict etiquette, she waits for Adryan to speak first. I find that one particularly odd, given how it’s her who is inviting us to her home. Usually, surely, it would be the host who speaks first?
Not here, though, in this alternate universe. Instead, Adryan says: “Good evening,” before she’s allowed to speak. Only then does she return the same words and invite us inside, giving me a little hug as I pass by.
Inside, we find her husband awaiting us in the main living space - it is, of course, an exact replica of our apartment above, including all the fixtures and fittings – dressed in a similar, if slightly more mundane, suit to Adryan. His hair is greying and his eyes are pale blue, but otherwise he appears as almost all other male Savants do – trim, healthy looking, if a little pale, and extremely well groomed.
“Good evening, Mr Shaw,” he says. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“And you, Mr Spencer,” returns Adryan. “Thank yo
u for inviting us to your home.”
“It is our pleasure,” says Mr Spencer. “And please, do call me Brian.”
“Yes, Brian. And you call me Adryan.”
After the rather ceremonial exchange, his eyes then switch to me. He bows, and so do I, and I await his first words. They are, as if written to script, almost identical to the greeting words used by everyone here.
“Good evening, Mrs Shaw,” he says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you also.”
I find it hard not to laugh as he extends his hand and I take it. Stifling my smirk, I’m forced to repeat the same words as Adryan, before he also tells me to ‘call him Brian’, and I do the same, saying: “Call me Brie.”
It’s an extremely rigid formality, no flow to it at all. It’s as if the Savants read in a manual that polite greetings should go exactly like that, and therefore made it part of their strict etiquette.
Still, Brian appears to have a fairly warm disposition for a Savant, which comes as some surprise, even though it shouldn’t. I suspect that any Savant who chooses to marry a regular Unenhanced must have something to them, some need for a proper emotional connection.
Leading us into the main living area, we’re invited to take a seat on the sofa. Mary goes about her business as hostess, offering drinks and shooting back and forward to the kitchen to check on the food. She also mentions that Lucy and her husband couldn’t make it, which doesn’t disappoint me given the specific task I’m here to perform.
Her slightly flustered demeanour suggests that she’s not used to hosting. The slight aroma of burnt meat suggests that cooking isn’t her strongest suit either.
Since most food here comes prepared and packed, I’m not going to hold that against her. Actually, it’s sweet that she’s trying to make me feel at home.
As she gets on with that, however, I simply sit with Adryan and Brian in the living room, listening – but rarely contributing – to a rather dull conversation between the two men as they discuss the particulars of their work.
