“Could have arranged something? And who the Dust are you?”
“Alejandro Reyes. Senior Council Agent. And the only man in Azcon, other than you, interested in keeping her out of the hands of the Council. But that doesn’t matter now.” He leaned back into the bar and slid the glass away in a quick, angry motion. “Now she’ll have the Council’s attention. Having their attention is bad. It’s worse than either of you think.” He let that sink in. “I’m not talking about giving up her freedom outside for a spot in a power plant line-up, I’m talking about real danger and being shipped away and forced to—”
A hand dropped onto Ace’s shoulder, pulling him away from Alex. A young man, blond hair cut into a shaggy frame for his long face, glared at Alex. He turned to Ace, eyes wide and indignant. “What the hell is this?”
Ace reached out and ran a placating hand across the young man’s lower chest. “It’s business, Jimmy. It’s just work.”
Jimmy’s gaze flicked over to Alex and ran over him. “He doesn’t look like work to me.”
Ace’s hand closed around Jimmy’s shirt, and he pulled the younger man in close to get his attention. “It’s work. Go on back, and I’ll—”
Alex tossed back the last of his tequila and shook his head. “No worries. We’re done. Get her to come to you. Send word to me at work. Quietly. I’ll get her somewhere safe.”
He turned to push through the crowd, but Ace’s hand left his boyfriend’s chest to shoot out and grab Alex’s arm.
“Wait.” Ace had been leaning against the bar. He stood now, towering over Alex and Jimmy both. “Why are you doing this? Telling me—it’s a little dangerous, isn’t it?”
The implied threat hung there for a moment, amusing Alex.
He met Ace’s dark expression. “You don’t get anything without giving a little. I’m giving you trust. So trust me. Convince her to trust me before it’s too damn late. Once she’s in custody, my hands may be tied. She’ll be on her own.” He pulled his arm free. “I can buy her a few days. Move fast.”
Alex slid off into the crowd. He didn’t look back. He didn’t have to. He’d planted the seed. Now to wait for it to bear fruit.
Alex dropped his pen into its holder, leaned back, and rubbed his eyes. They ached, and it wasn’t simply the tedium of the paperwork waiting when he’d returned from the Piece of Asp. His office was dim. He could have flipped a switch and turned on the artificial lights, as the Zone Three Council offices were well-powered by Azcon Sparks, but he knew what it took to provide the energy. He preferred to conserve. He also genuinely liked the light of the beeswax candles that were the alternative. He liked the rhythm and elegance of the dip pens everyone else bitterly complained about, too.
He should go. Full dark had fallen hours before. He still had to report in to Fort Nevada about what had happened, and the Fort was a long way away. He rarely risked a written report outside of regularly scheduled message drops. When something worthy of the attention of his partner, Thomas, occurred, Alex disappeared from his life here in Council Zone Three and made the report in person. It would be a long night before Alex got any rest. Lena was worthy of Thomas’s attention.
She was worthy of attention, period. Alex kept turning her around in his head like a living puzzle box. His fascination wasn’t solely because they had been searching for her, believing in her existence, for so long. He admired what she had built. She lived life on her own terms, without any safety net.
The revolution Alex and Thomas were quietly stoking was dangerous and could be fatal. But they’d built a network to support their efforts. And if all else failed, they had a friendship spanning decades. They had each other. Lena was alone.
If he had been in her position—if his parents had held onto him like a treasure instead of handing him over to the Council in exchange for prestige and a bump in their monthly allotment of charge—could he have made his way, as she had, with no training, simply independence and that ass-kicking attitude?
Alex leaned back in his chair, a grin spreading at the memory of her clawing and kicking for freedom as she’d come down that slope with a Council agent doing everything he could to restrain her. She’d pulled free, and then when she’d seen Alex waiting for her, she hadn’t panicked. She hadn’t given up. She’d marched up that road to get in his face.
They needed her.
He turned to look out the wide-ledged window his rank afforded him. Azcon was dark. It was one of the largest of the relocation centers turned cities, and a little more than twenty thousand people lived here, though few of those citizens wandered the streets now. They were safe at home or, if they were night shift, tucked in to work. The Council touted the comfort it offered citizens during this time of “new prosperity.” Were they comfortable? Or were they resentful but complacent in the aftermath of two centuries of hunger and fighting and uncertainty? Perhaps they didn’t even care who ruled them.
And what about the men and women in Councilor Three’s offices, the bureaucrats and peace officers and agents? Did any of them care? Lucas did. He was a Council man. Alex’s lip curled. After spending the last year and half dealing with the ambitious little prick, when the time came, Lucas would be one of the first to die.
As if the thought of him was a beacon, a quick double knock sounded at Alex’s office door. Lucas entered, reaching over and flicking the lights on as he did. Alex squinted. He continued looking out the now reflective glass for a moment, enjoying that last thought, before he turned to the younger man.
“Hey,” he said mildly. “I thought you were done for the day. What’s up?”
Lucas showed his teeth and slapped a file on Alex’s lap. He kept some papers in reserve, a few thin, faded sheets. “I got her.”
Alex arched a brow. “You got her? How’s that?” He sat forward and lifted the file to inspect. He’d seen it before, the last time about a decade before. Family name, Gracey. He flipped open the family file and read aloud the Citizen Contact Sheet from the top. “Daniel Joseph Gracey. Son of Joseph Michael Gracey and Mercedes Solano Gracey. Home address: 235 Ochoa Street, Unit 9A. Status: Mid-level Spark. Occupation: Junior Assistant Councilor Aide to Councilor Three.” None of this was news to him. He paused, arching his brows. “Is this brother Danny?”
It damn well better not be. He’d been grooming the young Mr. Gracey as an informer for close to a decade. If the kid had been hiding a high-powered sister the whole time, there’d be hell to pay.
He looked over the top of the paper at Lucas, who gestured for him to continue with the next page.
Alex flipped to the next page and read, “Teresa Maria Gracey Luevano. Daughter of Joseph Michael Gracey and Mercedes Solano Gracey; Widow of Roberto Luevano; Mother of Joseph Gracey Luevano. Home address: 18 Martin Circle. Status: Mid-level Spark. Occupation: Electrical Source Level Two, Water Resources, Day Shift.” He flipped through the rest of the papers, reading the names. Mama Gracey, another mid-level Spark, assigned to work the electrical plant here at the Council building. Gracey Senior, former Senior Councilor Aide to Councilor Three, deceased. All of the birth and education records, and the one death certificate, were in order. He frowned, searching his memory. The papers for the little sister who had died as a child were missing.
“I’m tired, Lucas. Councilor’s aide named Danny. Well-placed family—not the kind you go throwing accusations at, and I’m not in the mood for games. You’re holding back his dead sister’s papers. If you think they’re relevant, give them to me.”
Lucas allowed a smirk to stretch across his thin face, pulling the skin around his eyes down. He produced the folded papers with a flourish. Alex took them.
He dimly remembered seeing them before. The first was a Certificate of Live Birth. Same parents. Daughter, Magdalena Elizabeth Gracey. He checked the date. Almost twenty-five years ago. Magdalena. Lena. He unfolded the death certificate dated five years after her birth, shortly after she’d started her Testing Year. His eyes narrowed.
Alex had seen the fil
e twice before. Once, ten years before, he had done a check on Junior Aide Daniel Gracey when he’d signaled his intention to follow his father’s footsteps in service to the Councilor. And before that, as a young agent brimming with suspicion, he’d pulled this file shortly after the child’s death. He and Thomas had been investigating every girl who had died or disappeared during the Testing Year. They both suspected the Council abducted highly powered little girls. Alex remembered he’d found nothing amiss, just the grieving family of a Councilor’s Aide.
Her parents hadn’t just held onto Lena, they had buried her. Somehow, they had managed to fake her death and hide her away from the Council. Alex had missed it. He’d screwed up.
And now Lucas had information on her family, information he’d use to draw her to the Council. Alex couldn’t allow that to happen. He and Thomas hadn’t been able to find any of the missing girls over decades, couldn’t prove the Council had them, let alone what they were doing with them. This time, it would be different. The Council couldn’t have Lena.
Alex nodded at the younger agent, thinking fast. He had to buy time. He turned back to the file, flipping through. “Bring the sister in. She has a child, so she has the most to lose.” He closed his eyes, thinking. “Bring little Joseph in, too. Put her in interview room six and park him right outside on a chair. Make sure she sits where she can see him.” He smiled thinly. It would serve to get Danny’s attention, as well. No more secrets.
Lucas’s brows were bunched. “Not the brother? But he’s the contact.”
Alex said nothing. He handed the file back to Lucas.
“Not the brother?” Lucas asked again.
Alex had known he would, and with the hard edge to his voice indicating he knew Alex made him wait on purpose. It was a little game they liked to play. Well, Alex liked to play it, anyway.
“Okay. Not the brother,” Lucas said. “You want me to bring the sister in now?”
Alex looked at the floor. He really needed to discuss how best to proceed with Thomas. Bring her in and keep her safe here while Alex worked on convincing her to join them? Or disappear her to Fort Nevada and worry about convincing her later?
“You know what? No,” he said to Lucas, “we’ll go get the sister tomorrow, after a morning strategy meeting. We’ll pick her up at work. Get the boy from school. Make sure she sees we’ve brought him in, too. We can go together after we’ve hammered out our approach and questions first thing in the morning.”
Lucas laughed. “You are a bastard, Alex. I like it. I’ll have a team ready for when she cracks.”
“Whoa. Hold on, cowboy.” He shook his head, raising one finger up and shaking it back and forth. “Overconfidence is as bad as ineptitude.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Lucas’s smile vanished. The camaraderie went with it.
“It means slow down,” Alex said.
“Slow down?” Lucas waved his arm at the window, seeming to indicate Lena, far off in the desert. “Think about what she can do. She’s what the Council’s been looking for. Besides, do you have any idea what a Neo-barb could do with that kind of power under his control?” Lucas was obsessed with the mostly nomadic people who lived independently of the Relo-Cities. The Council referred to them as new barbarians due to the quality of lives outside of civilization.
“She’s not going to take up with a Neo-barb.” Alex’s voice held all the withering disdain he felt for the idea. “And even if you get a positive ID on her, you can’t ride into Kewa country and snatch her. We already did this your way once, too fast, too soon, too hard. It’s time for the Reyes way. Be patient. Be subtle. Let the woman come to you, Lucas. C’mon, man. You’re making me think you haven’t played the game before.”
The muscle in Lucas’s jaw twitched in fast-time. “I take it I’m no longer lead on this?”
“Oh, no, you’re still the lead.” The ink was dry on his reports. He gathered them up and neatly stacked them, setting them inside the top drawer of his desk. “But I’m still your senior. So come find me in the morning. We’ll plan out a proper interrogation—together—and then you can go lead it.” He stood, ignoring the ugly flush creeping across Lucas’s cheeks, and leaned across to tamp out the candles with his fingers. “That’s about it for tonight. Get some rest. It’s been a helluva day.”
Alex crossed to the hook on the wall where an old wire hanger held his black wool coat. He opened the door and held it for Lucas.
Lucas preceded him out but turned left instead of right, mumbling something about working on his interview questions for the morning. He continued down the hall to the big, open room where the junior agents shared desk space. Alex locked his office and pulled his coat on as he made his way through the hallways, down four flights of stairs, and through the locking security doors to the ground level exit at the rear of the building.
He stepped into the cold night, clamping his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. He’d been born and spent the first five years of his life in the east coast’s Zone One before being shipped across the country by electric car, steam-powered train, and then wagon train to the Ward School. In the decades of training there and after his assignment here, he’d never gotten used to the high desert temperature shifts. It had been a warm spring day, breezy but enjoyable. Now, even with his thin wool coat, his body hunched against the cold. His breath fanned out in front of him.
Alex shrugged deeper into his jacket, tugging it around himself and fastening the buttons before shoving his hands into the pockets. He glanced up and down the road to be sure there weren’t any horses or bicycles to be wary of, but no one else was out, so he bowed his head against the cold. He walked the two blocks home quickly. At his gate, he flipped the latch, letting himself into the small communal patio. He’d lived in the same lower level unit of a block of four for well over a decade.
All of the apartments faced out onto the little plaza. He could see the warm, hazy glow of a candle moving behind one of the windows of unit D. Either the Quiroz family meant to conserve as they headed into the end of the month, or they had used up their charge allotment for this pay period. Rough. No lights, no heat, no hot water, and no way to cook except in the communal horno here on the patio. He passed the huge, hive-shaped oven as he crossed the plaza, and the heat still radiating from its use at dinner warmed him.
He entered his dark apartment, not bothering to light a candle. He moved through to his bedroom by memory, crossing to the small closet to change into a warmer shirt. He shrugged back into his jacket then slid the small chest in the corner toward him.
As designed, it pulled the carpet back as it slipped out, revealing a trap door. An electric lock held it closed. He focused briefly, and the Dust stirred to life, cycling the lock open. He pulled up, spun around, and backed down the short ladder into the dark opening, leaning out to pull the chest and door back into place as he descended.
He followed the low, sloping tunnel that was his frequent route below the city walls. It emptied into a narrow branch of canyon outside. Once he reached the end of it, the top opened up again into a small vestibule barely wide enough to accommodate his shoulders, but six and a half feet in height. He gratefully stood and leaned to use the eyepiece of the tiny, real-time camera mounted just below eye-level, manually swiveling it to give him a view of the hatch and the surrounding canyon.
All clear. He took up the rare night vision goggles he’d brought from Fort Nevada and slipped them onto his head, then left the security of the tunnel. He moved quickly through the cover of canyons and arroyos that hid him all the way to the edge of old town, the largely crumbled ruins of what had been Los Alamos.
This close in to Azcon, the houses and businesses had been long-since stripped of any usable materials, right down to pulling the wiring from the walls. In the post-Industrial world, where the most basic products were again hand-made, everything was valuable. He entered a dilapidated former restaurant with one wall crumbled away and the roof partially collapsed after some long-ago fire
. Tumbleweeds climbed the wall opposite the openings, trembling in the slight breeze.
In the back, he levered his body through an opening that had probably once been covered by a grate then walked easily through the sub-level drain to where it joined a larger pipe. He crossed to a sealed door. The faded scrapes and gouges that spoke of attempts to force it open always amused him. He worked through the security by memory—security box and code, hidden tube with a lens for his eye, and a quick green pulse of light. He keyed the code to reseal tube and box and waited.
He didn’t doubt he’d be granted access. He was one of the few in Council Zone Three who even knew of the existence of the ancient train. Those who did know had graduated from the Ward School in the last twenty years. To a man, they gave their loyalty to Alex and Thomas, not the Council.
Locks at various levels cycled, and the metal hissed open, extending from the wall a few inches. In moments, he’d entered the controlled environment on the other side, nose twitching at the flat, stale smell of the air, and hauled the door closed again. As the edge of it engaged, it pulled itself back in and recycled through the locks, sealing him in.
He cycled on the lights and left the goggles for his return, then jogged down three levels of metal steps to reach the locomotive of the old mag-lev train. It had long since been disengaged from the passenger cars. Whatever the cars had been used for by the old military before the collapse, the need to transport so many people through the secret tunnels had died with them.
He stepped into the cab and crossed to the controls. After a brief pause to power up and run a check, he pulled it away from the platform. It moved slowly at first then built speed through the deep tunnel. A trip that might take him weeks by horseback had been cut to half an hour.
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