by Jason Letts
This was the longest she’d ever gone without speaking to her children since they were born, though even if her trip had gone as planned she might not have returned by now. For all she knew, they might have thought she was camped out on a beach and reluctant to end her vacation. If only.
The husband and wife proved another source of discomfort during her stay. When the husband would come home from work and the wife asked him for money, he would refuse, the two of them fighting until the husband left. He would return later with more liquor, but would become angry if there wasn’t any food, and the fighting would resume. This seemed to be a frequent occurrence that played out in front of her, but her presence did nothing to pacify them.
Tris struggled to make sense of the stressful situation she was suddenly thrust in. The husband didn’t earn enough from whatever he did to make ends meet, and as a result he squandered what he had on booze to chase away the ill feelings. The wife had a cart so flimsy and light she could lift it with one hand, and she used it to try to sell scarves in front of the house, but no one had money or interest enough to buy one.
After those two cycles, Tris decided she was either healthy enough to venture out or she would die trying. She had to get to the airport near the Iron City so she could get home, but to do that she had to find a way out of Madora. Using the scarf to cover her head and neck, she trudged through the streets in search of help. The dusty roads had few cars but lots of rusty bicycles and wagons. To her surprise, one of the first things she found was the port, but there was no sign of her remaining bag.
After much searching, she became familiar with a few sections of the city. All of her attempts to talk to people or get help pointed her to the city’s northwest quadrant, where the brothels, sweatshops, and slums gave way to a market for Madora’s wealthy citizens with cafés, trade shops, and even a caravan office.
The caravan consisted of a few armed travelers, their pack animals, and some supplies assembled in the shade behind a makeshift warehouse.
“Iron City,” she said to one of the men, but then she remembered that was just the name the Cumerians had for it. The people there had their own name for their city, as did the other languages.
But making a typing gesture as if on a computer got the message through, and the man, who had clearly spent far too much time in the sun, finally understood where she wanted to go.
“Two sleep,” he said, laughing, presumably because he was speaking a strange language. He put out his hand, which Tris took to mean he wanted some payment to hold her place, and she gave him one of the bloodless money cards she’d stowed into her pocket. It must’ve been a lot, because the man gawked at it and stared at her.
“Two sleep,” she repeated, confirming with him. It didn’t matter how much money it was as long as it got her home. And those two cycles couldn’t pass quickly enough.
Before returning home, the ritzy market area caught her interest. Guards carrying scythes kept the poor out to allow rich young women to peruse shops full of fine goods. They poked through feathery hats and other items of strange fashion.
Maybe it was because of her clothes or because the poor knew better than to try to enter, but the guards let Tris right in. The first shop she came to had spools of thread in every color, which seemed a perfect gift for her hosts. When she bought a couple, the woman selling them stared at her neck, making Tris think she could see her scar until she realized it was the scarf that had gotten her attention.
That gave Tris a brilliant idea, and she raced back to the one-room house as fast as she could.
It was late by the time she made it back, but not late enough to miss any of the fighting. The incomprehensible shouting made Tris plug her ears, but she suffered through it until the husband finished off another bottle, smashed it on the brick floor, and stormed out. He left his wife sobbing in the corner, and the sight of her stirred a great well of pity in Tris, who knew that the cure to these problems was just a little more money.
Slowly approaching the wife, Tris kneeled down and reached for her hand. The wife was startled, but Tris tried to calm her.
“I’m going to help,” she promised, handing over the spools of thread. The woman’s face was like the sun peeking through stormy clouds, and she said something that could only have been heartfelt thanks. But after a moment she cast a dejected look at her cart through the door, which still had plenty of scarves on it. What good was a few more going to do?
“Don’t worry. This is just the beginning,” Tris said.
The two of them spent the whole next cycle fixing up the cart, arranging the goods, and finishing the last scarf. Tris was a wretched knitter, but the wife didn’t mind giving a few pointers as she worked. They finally were able to communicate that her name was Agjam.
The last touch for Tris was making sure that she herself was ready. A neighbor let her wash her dingy outer clothes and face, and before she knew it, the time had come to return to the northwest quarter.
“Let’s go,” Tris said, excited, but it took a lot of coaxing to get Agjam out of the door. The wife hauled the simple cart herself, and each scarf on the poles was like a radiant flag shimmering in the sun. When they made it to the edge of the market, Tris pointed to a spot near the guards where the cart should go. Once it was in place, Tris sauntered into the market in search of some eager shoppers.
Walking down the trendy alley’s painted brick surface, Tris searched for the most fashionable woman in the place. Although she didn’t know much about the local customs or styles, it wasn’t hard to tell who had a flair for extravagance. One market-goer wearing a wide sun hat that would perfectly match the scarf Tris was wearing seemed the best target.
Tris sidled up to her as she scanned a case of rings, casting a quick glance to appraise her impression. Leaning close to the case in the woman’s field of view got the exact response Tris wanted. She released an excited gasp and immediately reached out to feel the sleek fabric as if Tris were a mannequin.
The woman said something incomprehensible and Tris pointed down the alley to the meager cart and the solitary woman near the guards. The young woman’s eyes widened into saucers, and Tris knew exactly what was running through her mind. The scarves were gorgeous, no one else had them, and she could get them for next to nothing.
Within a minute, the woman had cleaned out Agjam’s entire stock, including the scarf Agjam wore over her head. Tris smiled at their first customer as she walked past and hurried to catch up with Agjam, who appeared ready to collapse with joy. Her fists were full of cash, more than she might normally see in a year. With any luck, the woman would show off the scarves and Agjam wouldn’t have any trouble finding patrons.
“Pretty good, right?” Tris grinned, accepting another tight hug. It wasn’t too bad being the Virtuoso of Madora, and if saving one family were so easy, how hard could it be to save more?
But the time to leave with the caravan had come, and together they walked the short distance to the warehouse that served as the departure point. Tris felt more attached to her partner than ever, but getting home was what she was supposed to do. She hoped the defender wouldn’t take it too hard that his virtuoso couldn’t finish the task.
When they approached the warehouse, a cacophony of voices met them. Instead of a handful of men ready to make the long trip to Iron City, there were now over twenty of them standing around. One glance at Agjam told Tris that she was suspicious.
The extremely tanned caravan leader came out to welcome her. His smile was a mile wide, and he took the extra step of bowing to her, something he hadn’t done the first time they’d met. Her approach got the attention of the entire group, many of them carrying weapons in plain view, and more must’ve been hidden.
“We welcome for going,” the man said, taking pains with her language.
Tris couldn’t take another step forward. He was being too nice; she didn’t believe that nearly two dozen mercenaries had happened to elect to travel to Iron City with this caravan, and all Tris
could think about was the possibility of getting robed, raped, and killed once they were out of sight of Madora. Damn. She shouldn’t have given him so much money.
“Please,” the man added.
“No, thanks. I’ve changed my mind,” she said, quickly taking Agjam’s arm and turning around. She squeezed her eyes closed and gritted her teeth in the hopes they wouldn’t come after her, but fortunately an argument broke out among them that kept their attention.
Once they’d turned a corner away from the warehouse, an inspiring feeling struck Tris. Maybe she would get a chance to be the Virtuoso of Madora. There had to be other people who needed a little help to make their own way; together they could siphon money from rich shoppers, and soon they’d have enough to be able to buy each other’s goods. Tris would find a way to call or write to her family as soon as possible, telling them she was doing something far more important than anything she’d done at the Cumerian Horticultural Society. Whether it took a few months or a year, what was the harm?
After passing the alley market, Agjam squeezed Tris’s arm urgently. Fearing the mercenaries from the caravan had changed their minds, Tris glanced behind her to see if they were following her. But all she could see were four women not too different from Agjam walking along behind them. It seemed like a good time to meet some new people to help, but Agjam pulled Tris and her cart off the road and onto a side street.
The four women followed them, increasing speed though still acting casually. Tris wanted to ask Agjam if this was something they really needed to worry about, but another glance back revealed the women’s harsh glares. One of them had a knife peeking out from her sleeve. It dawned on Tris that they’d probably seen the transaction at the market and thought it would be far easier to steal Agjam’s earnings rather than set up their own carts.
Tris looked ahead and found two more women standing their ground. One of them wielded a short pipe and the other a pair of sticks.
Stopping in their tracks, Tris searched for a way through the nearby buildings, which had no gap between them, sealing off any other escape route. If only they could run up the walls for two or three stories to get to the roof.
Agjam tried saying something, but all six of the women laughed and heckled her. They closed in and Tris put her hands up. She had nothing with which to fight, and the thought struck her that she’d need awfully strong Moa to make it through this.
The woman with the pipe slammed it down on the cart, cracking a board in half and knocking the rest of the contraption over.
“Hey!” Tris shouted, but it was no use. Suddenly a hand was on her shoulder, pulling her around. The women all wore nasty snarls, especially the one swinging the sticks at Agjam. It was only a matter of time until the one with the knife moved in.
The woman holding Tris grabbed the scarf around her neck, irritating her scar. It made Tris wonder if revealing the scar and making the claim that she was the savior from the picture would encourage the women to back down, but the bloodthirsty look in their eyes seemed beyond logic or reason. Their desperation trumped any possible argument.
The glint of the knife caught her eye, solidifying Tris’s sense of dread and urging her to redouble her efforts to pull away from the hands, but no amount of thrashing got her anywhere. She put her arms over her head and curled up, bracing for sharp pain and thinking she might’ve been better off with the caravan.
The hands fell away and the bodies of the women thudded against the gravelly street. Peeking through her fingers, Tris saw a needle protruding from one of their necks. She got up and looked around for the source of the attack, finally spotting a man in a hooded cloak on the roof. The defender had a blowgun that he tucked away before leaping from the building and dropping three stories onto the street.
“Radakai timo Madora!” Agjam gasped, falling onto her knees and clasping her hands together.
“I’m watching you,” he warned Tris, a strange glare in his eyes. Tris opened her mouth to reply, but a wind kicked up through the side street that concealed the defender. And in an instant he was gone, leaving no clues as to where he had gone.
Whether the bodies around them were dead or paralyzed, Tris didn’t know for sure. But the one certainty she did grasp was that it would be far more difficult to be the Virtuoso of Madora than she had first thought.
CHAPTER 12
“Damn it! Someone tell me where my wife is!” Lowell shouted at Bracken Energy’s transportation department manager before growing quiet and contrite. He’d been hollering for a few minutes, unable to restrain himself over the unbelievable debacle this trip had been, and then something he shouldn’t have said slipped out. “I mean Tris, my ex-wife.”
Referring to Tris as his wife was a mistake that could not be made again. His marriage to Melody was largely in name only, and if he took the name away then he’d be right back where he was before his alliance to the Hockley banking empire. He needed them to protect his finances.
The transportation manager, a tall, gaunt man with sunken cheeks who sat behind a desk, leaned forward now that the tirade had ended.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Bracken, but I’ve been trying to tell you. We haven’t received any communication from the jet, from Tenny, the pilot, from the Lus—anyone. I don’t know what more I can say.”
No possible excuse could explain why Tris and the plane hadn’t returned yet. The sun had come and gone several times, and even if the Lus had force-fed her tea until she burst, Tris should have already come back, regardless of how the deal had gone. Even if she had taken his advice and spent some time on a beach or searching for flowers in a marsh somewhere, she should still have been back by now.
“So did the plane crash?” he asked, not wanting to think about the possibility. “I want you to find out what happened by any means necessary. That’s your job now. I don’t care what it takes!”
“Do…do you want me to actually go out there? We don’t have another plane.” The manager shrugged.
“Then strap yourself to the wheel of one at the Ristle airport!” Lowell suggested before taking another breath and lowering his voice. “Find out where Tris is and tell me she’s OK. That’s all I want. I sent her on this foolish trip and I have to make sure she gets back in one piece.”
The manager nodded, still appearing a little stunned, and Lowell quickly thanked him before heading out the door to return to the towers. Overcome with fatigue, the walk across the plaza felt like a death march. He’d hardly been sleeping, and each day forced him to resort to yet more desperate measures. Everything was falling apart at once, and each time he got a foothold it turned to dust.
The investigation had largely run its course. Inspector Toggler had ransacked everything, and now the investigators were merely there to intimidate the staff and remind them of the sorry state of their chief executive. Any cycle Lowell expected to be served with papers documenting all the lies he ever told and a one-way trip to face sentencing at the behest of the Private Oversight Committee.
Taking the elevator to the battlefield on the top floor, Lowell convened a secret meeting with the major department heads. Taking a seat at the end of the table near the shining sword of his family, he knew he needed to act now if he wanted to shore up any meaningful support. Unlike the board members, he’d been in the trenches with the guys who actually ran the company for decades. They would never turn their back on him.
“The situation in the west has gotten outrageous,” the head of Grid Operations said. “Bolt & Keize has started severing our power lines, causing outages throughout the desert. We need to fix them, but currently we can’t even reach every power node in the region.”
“So we need guards?” Lowell asked.
“No, what I’m saying is we need an army, because we’re under attack out there. If we let them keep at it, soon we’ll have nothing left,” he declared.
Lowell grimaced. They were under attack and needed to take action fast, but at present he could barely make it to the bathroom with Shel
man Toggler around. These graying men had worked their way up from the bottom, trusting Lowell to guide them. For once, he needed guidance from them.
“I hate to say it, but my hands are tied until I can get past this investigation. I need to be able to count on your support, and then we can get to some of these problems hobbling the company from the outside. Now do any of you have any sway with members of the board?” Lowell asked, trying not to sound desperate.
He got plenty of sympathy but not a lot of responses.
“I used to fish with one of them, but that was a long time ago. I could put in a call,” one of them suggested.
“Please do,” Lowell urged, looking around the table. These were work-with-your-hands guys who had little to do with the investors and fund overseers on the board. The first thing he should’ve done was change the company by-laws to give these men more power, but he never could’ve known that the board would turn against him.
At the far end of the table, a squirrelly guy with dark hair and bangs that came down over his big, thick glasses leaned forward in anticipation of the inevitable. Instead of a suit he wore overalls brimming with wires and tools. Most people didn’t even know what he did for the company, but he had been involved in every Bracken success for the past few decades. Lowell swallowed, not wanting to go down that road but having no other choice.
“Milford,” Lowell called to him, and the man clutched his blistered hands and allowed a subtle grin.
“We can convince them,” he said, leaving far too much to Lowell’s imagination. Milford’s official title was Head of Intercorporate Relations, but that really boiled down to Head of Demolition and Espionage. If there was an unexplained explosion, accident, or disruption with one of Bracken’s enemies, Milford was behind it. Using him on the board could mean anything from homes going up in flames to a corpse in the tower plaza to serve as a warning to others.
Lowell shivered. He never wanted to run a company that executed its will through fear and brute force. That was too much like the old Bracken empire, the one he’d spent his life trying to forget. But now his options had grown finite: either rule without mercy, or watch as his family lost their birthright forever.
