by Mark Teppo
FIFTEEN
It finally dawns on me where the tiny buzzing noise is coming from. It started shortly after I lay down next to Mere, and I had been trying to sort through the pieces of this puzzle I had scattered in my head, but the tiny beelike buzz kept intruding. I get up from the bed, and find the noise-maker in the inner pocket of my wrecked coat. My cheap cell phone has been trying to tell me that I've missed a few calls. All from the same number.
There's only one person who has this number. I put on the clothes that Mere bought and slip out of the room, all without waking her. I take the back stairs down to the ground floor, and duck out into the open parking lot. The moon is peeking around the edge of the office building on my left, and the sky is clear. I stare up, wishing it were darker so that I could see the stars.
I call Ralph back and he answers on the second ring, out of breath and somewhat guarded. “Ah… hello?”
“It's me,” I reply.
“Oh, you,” he says. “Yes. You got my message?”
I glance at my phone and see the tiny blinking symbol that indicates that, yes, I do have voice mail. “No,” I say. “Why don't you tell me again so I don't have to figure out how to access my voice mail.”
“You haven't seen the papers?”
“No.”
“There was a fire at Eden Park.”
“When?”
He doesn't say anything, and I realize why he's being cagey. “You think I started it?”
“I… I don't know,” he says. “Why don't you tell me your version of what happened.”
“My version?” I stop myself before my anger takes over control of my tongue. “Are you covering the story for The Independent?”
He makes a noise in his throat that I take to be a yes.
“What about Secutores?” I ask. “You know they're involved. You know they had people at that location, that they want to keep things covered up. You know about Kyodo Kujira.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “But I don't know who you are.”
I stop looking for the stars. “I'll have to call you back, Ralph,” I say.
“No! Wait—”
I end the call before he can say anything else. He's got a valid point. He doesn't know me. He doesn't know what my motivation is or who I might be working for. I don't blame him. Until he knows enough to trust me, he's going to be worried that he's getting involved in a personal spat between me and Secutores. The type of disagreement that involves people with guns. Ralph strikes me as the type who steers clear of those sorts of disagreements.
I glance back at the hotel. Should I let him talk to Mere? He'll trust her; she trusts me. Can I keep things contained? Can I keep my secrets safe?
I dial another number. It rings a long time before it is answered; even then, the line clicks and hums for a bit before I hear his voice. “It's me,” I say.
“Where are you?” Callis asks.
“Same place, more or less.”
“Progress?”
“There's a private security company called Secutores that is running interference. They came in shortly after the boat was found and scared off Prime Earth's legal team. Spirited the survivors away to a place called Eden Park—old asylum outside of the city.”
“This wouldn't be the same Eden Park that burned down less than twenty-four hours ago?”
“The same.”
He waits for me to provide more information. I had been hoping that he'd be the one offering up news, and I exhale noisily before I continue. “I was there. They were waiting for me. Not just there. At the hospital too. They've been waiting for an Arcadian to show up.” I tell him what has been bugging me about my mental puzzle. “They want one of us. They want to capture an Arcadian.”
“Why?”
“I'm not sure.” I'm starting to see the shape of the puzzle. The weed killer is lethal, but the CO2 pistols are a clumsy delivery system, as evidenced by how readily I was able to avoid the pellets. They should be dipping ordinance into the chemical. Since they haven't been—so far—it means they're using it as a deterrent, like using dogs to flush quail toward a blind where the hunters are hiding. Like shocking cows to get them to move in the direction you want.
“How do they hope to manage this?” Callis asks. “Did you see anything that suggests they have a weapon of some kind? Something that could incapacitate us or…?”
“Oh, they have something all right,” I laugh. “It's pretty nasty.”
“What is it?”
“Something that makes Agent Orange look like Tang.”
He's quiet for a moment. While he's thinking, I wander farther away from the hotel, heading for the darkness beyond the parking lot. Heading for someplace with more trees.
“Where did they get it?” he asks, following the same line of thinking that I've been chewing on. A security company like Secutores might have an R & D budget, but not for the sort of high-tech science that it would take to develop something like the weed killer. Someone gave it to them, which means they're following orders.
“Unknown,” I tell him. “But it involves Kyodo Kujira.” I give him a brief rundown of what happened on the Cetacean Liberty. My version. He doesn't ask about Mere, and I don't volunteer any tidbit that involves her.
“The whole mission was a trap,” I finish. “It was all a setup to grab an Arcadian. We were supposed to lose someone on the processing boat, but we didn't. Then Nigel went out of his head and things got messy. They've been waiting ever since, hoping that one of us—or another Arcadian—would come and investigate what happened to the crew of the Liberty.”
“What about the others?” he asks. “Talus and Phoebe? They were on the Cetacean Liberty, weren't they? It was just you and Nigel who were on the harpoon boats.”
“We were,” I say. “I don't know what happened to the other two. I'm assuming they didn't get snatched because why else would Secutores be hanging around?”
“Unless it's you they wanted.”
I shake my head, rejecting that idea. I'm not that important. “That's too complicated,” I say. “Keep it simple. They're ex-military. They know any mission gets astronomically more likely to be fucked up the more moving parts.”
“So, any Arcadian then,” he says.
“Probably, but where would the others go? We were out in the middle of the Southern Ocean. Australia is the closest land mass.”
“It's not the best destination,” he says. “Especially if you're damaged.”
“Who?” I ask. “You think Nigel took his boat somewhere?”
“If you were him—body burned, poison in your system, half out of your mind with shock and pain—where would you go?”
“Back to Mother.”
“And if you couldn't make it that far?”
I exhale slowly. “Some place safe,” I say. “Some place where the soil was good.” I shake my head, knowing the place he's thinking about. “The temple isn't there anymore. It's been gone for more than a hundred years.”
“It's still there,” Callis says. “The soil is still good, even if all the trees are gone. Even if there is no steward.”
“You think he's gone to Rapa Nui,” I say.
“Wouldn't you?”
“I don't know,” I say, which is only partially true. My legs are still a mess, and my back is a solid slab of scarred flesh. If I had received as big a dose as Nigel, I'd want good soil too. The temple on Rapa Nui—Easter Island—has been abandoned for a long time, but he's right. The soil is better there than almost anywhere else. “Yeah, okay,” I relent. “I'd consider it.”
“Get out of Australia,” Callis says. “Follow the money. Find the others.”
“What about the reporter?” I ask.
“What about her?”
“The last time we talked, you said I should find her. And now you're telling me that I should find the others.”
The line is quiet for a moment. “Well,” he says, “you found her, didn't you?”
My hand tightens on the phone and I do
n't say anything.
Callis chuckles lightly. “I know you, Silas. I would have done the same. Don't let her get under your skin. Find the others. Let her follow the money. She's good at that.”
* * *
Mere is still asleep when I return, though she has rolled onto her back and tangled herself in the sheet. One of her legs sticks out, and I pull her toes gently until she starts to wake. She stretches languidly, unaware that I can see perfectly well in the dim light spilling into the room from the partially open curtains.
I click on the lamp sitting on the side table, and the light chases away the thoughts starting to form in my head.
“What is it?” she asks as she sits up, pushing her hair back from her face. “I fell asleep.”
“You did.”
She glances around the room, still waking up. Still wondering what she's missed in the last few hours. “What time is it?”
“There's been a fire at Eden Park,” I say.
Mere stares at me. “No, that's not—” she starts.
I toss my phone onto the bed. “Call the number in the log. The man who will answer the phone is Ralph Abernathy. He's a reporter for The Independent. He's on the story. He also covered the Cetacean Liberty fire.”
Her face hardens, a mask meant to hide the torrent of emotions threatening to overwhelm her. “But. Why?”
“I don't know,” I tell her. “Talk to Ralph.” I stand up and walk toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
She hadn't picked up the phone. It lies there on the tousled sheets like a black blot, a stain that no amount of bleach could get out.
“I need to find… transportation,” I tell her.
And, if my suspicions are correct, I will be the last person she wants around when Ralph tells her who died in the fire.
She asked me to save them, and I refused. It won't matter that Secutores kidnapped the survivors from the Liberty or that they started the fire. I didn't save them when she asked me to. That's what will gnaw at her.
I can't blame her. She's human, after all.
BOOK THREE
HUMUS
SIXTEEN
I hear voices coming from the hotel room as I exit the stairwell. I pick out Mere's voice easily enough, and after listening for a moment, I recognize the other voice. I fumble with the door handle, pretending that I'm having trouble with the electronic key, and by the time I figure it out, all sound from inside the room has stopped. I enter the room, casually looking around as I shut the door behind me. She is sitting in one of the chairs and the bathroom door is nearly closed.
“Don't slip in the dark,” I call out to Ralph as I walk by the bathroom.
Mere's wearing comfortable jeans and a gray turtleneck sweater, made from the same grade of wool as the sweater she bought me. She's already started stretching the arms over her hands. Her hair is pulled back into a loose pony tail, and her eyes are bright—she's been crying, but not recently, and there are other emotions that have taken precedence.
“I have very good hearing,” I remind her as Ralph catches his foot on the edge of the bathtub and nearly pulls the shower curtain off its rings.
“I know,” she sighs. “He… I don't know what he was thinking.”
Ralph comes out of the bathroom, and when he nervously steps past me, I can smell bourbon on his breath.
“I only made travel arrangements for two,” I say.
“Where are we going?” Mere asks.
I glance at Ralph. “Why don't we start with why he's here.”
“You told me to call him.”
“Call, yes. Invite him over for a drink, no.”
“We're not drinking,” Ralph says. “Not… not now,” he amends when I look at him again.
“What sort of travel arrangements?” Mere wants to know.
“Mere,” I say patiently. “There's a Need to Know conversation we need to have. Is Ralph an asset or a liability?”
“Jesus Christ.” Ralph backs away from me, and when the bed hits him on the back of the legs, he sits down heavily. “You did do it.”
“Do what?” Mere demands.
“He set the fire. Oh, shit. The guys at the hospital. What did you do there?”
Ralph's had too much time to speculate and he's letting his ideas get the better of him. This meeting is going sideways, and it needs to get back on track. I move, slapping Ralph down on the bed and putting my hand over his mouth. He squirms for a second and I apply pressure. He quiets down, his eyes bulging with fear. Mere is half-out of her chair and I stop her with a word. “Don't.”
She glares at me, not entirely cowed but smart enough to not make any sudden movement that I might interpret as threatening.
“Do you remember the boat?” I say. “Do you remember what I said when I held you?” She nods and I don't have to say anything more. “All of that still applies. More so, perhaps, because I am under a bit of stress right now. Do you understand?”
She nods again.
“Everything is either an asset or a liability,” I explain, partially for Ralph's sake. “You want to be an asset.”
“I know,” she says quietly.
“Eden Park was not my doing, nor was it my responsibility. Why?” She doesn't answer at first and I repeat the last word. Firmly.
“Because you had retrieved your asset,” she snaps, “and no one there was a liability.”
“Correct.”
Ralph starts to squirm under my hand, and judging from the amount of white I'm seeing of his eyes, his panic is getting the better of him.
“That's… You're a cold-hearted bastard,” she interjects.
I bare my teeth at her. “I'm a soldier of Arcadia,” I remind her.
She stares at me for a long time, still furious with me, but when I do nothing but wait for her to say something, she finally sets aside her outrage and thinks about what I just said. And why I am waiting. “He's an asset,” she says, nodding toward Ralph.
I take my hand away; gasping and coughing, Ralph scuttles back on the bed until he runs into the headboard; even then, he tries to press himself as far away from me as possible. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says when he can breathe more readily. “What the fuck is going on?”
Mere sits down again and her shoulders slump as she leans back against the seat. “You heard him,” she says. “He's a soldier. He follows orders.” The last word comes out dripping with venom.
“Whose?”
Mere lets loose with a brittle laugh, and Ralph flinches at the sound.
“I don't understand,” he whines. “I really don't. This… this is weird, and I don't know what is going on between you two, but it isn't going to be …”
“Safe?” She shakes her head. “No, it probably isn't going to be. For any of us. So, the question becomes: What do you want, Ralph?”
“What… what do you mean?”
“You want in on this story or not?”
“What story?”
She smiles at him, a predatory curl of her lips. “How much do you know right now? Maybe you can slip some speculation past your boss, but you don't have much and Secutores is going to disappear. Unless you start making wild accusations and then, well, they've set two fires already, right? I don't think they'll have any problem starting a third.”
“What about him?” His eyes dart toward me. “What did he say he was? A soldier of what?”
“He's mine,” she says flatly. “But you can have the Liberty and Eden Park.”
He licks his lips carefully, his eyes darting back and forth between us. “And…?” His fear is gone, replaced by an expression not unlike the one I had seen on Mere's face not a few minutes ago. Animal cunning. Looking for an angle.
“Anything more will make you a target,” she says. When that doesn't make him blink, she continues. “I'll need someone I can trust for research—quiet research, without attracting attention.”
“I'm a staff journalist with the largest independent Australian newspaper,” he argue
s. He sits up straighter as his spine starts to come back. “I'm not an intern.”
“Write whatever you want based on any research you do,” she says. “But I don't have to tell you why I want things or what my conclusions are.”
“Fair enough,” he agrees.
“You play games with me, and I cut you off,” she says. “You tell anyone anything that puts us in danger and—”
“Who would I tell?” he interjects. “I mean, willingly. Right? I know how this works. I'll keep my mouth shut.”
“What if Secutores comes looking for you?” I ask.
He takes the question well. “I don't know,” he says.
“Tell them everything,” I say. “If it comes to torture, don't be a martyr. They'll probably know more than you anyway.”
“Oh, that's reassuring. So they'll just be ripping out my fingernails and tasing my testicles because they're that sort of psycho perverts?”
“Well, they certainly won't be doing it because they think it'll make me come running to your rescue.”
“Yeah.” He glances down at his hands, which are balled up into fists in his lap. “I kind of figured that out already.”
“What's it going to be, Ralph?” Mere asks again.
He exhales heavily and his fists tighten again. “Nnnnn,” he starts, strangling a single letter. “Fuck it. I'm in.”
“Okay,” she says. “Then it's time for you to go.”
“What?” He stares at her, looking as if she had just ripped his heart out and stomped on it.
“Silas says we're leaving,” she says. “Do you really want to know where we're going?”
“Oh, right. Right.” He nods, caught between elation and disappointment. “Right. I don't even want to know.” He pushes away from the headboard and gets off the bed. “Okay, I'm gone. Yeah, I can be gone.” He gives me a wide birth, but stops before he reaches the bathroom. “I can work with Secutores setting the fire. I can stir the pot a bit on that. I might even be able to get some speculation going about Kyodo Kujira, but I need something else. Something from the big picture.”
