Innocence Lost

by O. J. Lowe

  Truth be told, he’d never looked that close at her before. He wondered if he should say something. The atmosphere in the back of the transport was devoid of life but for them, just the roar of the engines accompanying them on their way. If he was even more truthful, Prideaux Khan scared him a little. Just a little. There’d always been something a bit off about her. These days, it felt a little more pronounced than it ever had before, she was walking around constantly like she was all too pleased with herself over some unseen triumph.

  “Thought you were sleeping,” he eventually said.

  “Just meditating,” she replied. “Should try it. It’s good for the soul. Very refreshing. Better than sleep. Sleep rests the body. Meditation rests the mind, the body and the soul.”

  “You sound like Baxter.”

  Just for a moment, he thought he saw a little flash of anger pass through those diamond-like eyes and then it was gone. Maybe he’d imagined it. Part of him knew he hadn’t though, and he found it unsettling. He should have stayed at home. It’d have been a lot more bearable than this.

  “Well the man knows what he’s talking about,” she said softly. “Sometimes. A lot of the time I think he’s full of wind.”

  The two of them might not be great friends any longer, largely on Wade’s part. He had his suspicions about what Baxter had done in recent months and it didn’t sit right with him. However, they had been once upon a time, and the urge to rush to his friend’s defence hadn’t quite faded with the suspicion he held about him.

  “He’s a great man,” he said. “Unisco legend, spirit calling icon and…”

  “And those powers,” she finished. “The famed powers of the Vedo. You know, I always heard those stories about him. How there was something mysterious about him, how he had a knack of surviving. I guess we know why. Kind of a bit of a kick in the balls wouldn’t you say?”

  “There’s plenty of Unisco agents with a knack of survival,” Wade said. “They don’t have to have powers for that.”

  “They also don’t walk away when they’re needed,” she pointed out, a little too harsh for his liking. “They don’t hide away for years to train an army.”

  “Some army,” Wade said. “There’s not that many of them…”

  “That you’ve seen,” Pree interrupted, her voice angry and shrill. “You’ve seen what Baxter wanted you to see. We all have. Who knows how many we haven’t seen.”

  “You really think that he’s lying about what he has behind him?”

  “You really think that he isn’t?” Pree countered. “I think I’d be more surprised if he was telling the truth. The Quin-C final… You don’t throw all your resources into something like that. Not when they should have been badly outnumbered.”

  “Well he didn’t know that something was going to happen,” Wade said, even though he didn’t believe his own words. Pree let a deep little chuckle out as he said it. She didn’t believe him either. Unisco agents were trained to detect untruths after all and he didn’t have the energy to spend his time trying to hide it. “He brought them to pay respect to Sharon Arventino, really. That’s what he told me. When it all went down, he struck an arrangement with the director.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Pree said simply. “Not all of it. You’re not simple, Wade. Don’t mistake me to be either. It sounds nice and noble and all those other empty words until you really dissect deep into it. Then it falls apart, shows its guts to us all. I know what you truly suspect.”

  “Believe me, I don’t think you do,” Wade said. He folded his arm, looked away from her hard stare. Any desire he had to continue this conversation was slowly leaking out of him. It was a lie but not a convincing one. He knew he was afraid of that being the case. In her seat up ahead, she leaned forward and smiled coolly at him.

  “You suspect that while he wasn’t complicit in the whole thing, he definitely didn’t go out of his way to stop it from happening. He had an inkling of what was coming, and he chose to take advantage of it all, to further his own goals rather than make sure the people who died could have had more of a chance. I’ve had the same feeling as you. Baxter isn’t half as good at hiding his own feelings as he’d like to think, I’m afraid to say.”

  Wade shrugged. “What if he did?” He made it sound casual. He didn’t feel that way about it. His feelings on that matter troubled him. He’d known Baxter for a very long time and never before had he suspected him capable of something like that.

  “What indeed,” Pree said, enjoying his discomfort, it would appear. She took a swing from her water canteen and smiled at him. It was a predator’s smile, the sort of expression that made him want to sit with his back to the wall, a blaster in hand. “What do you know of the Vedo preaching, Wade? Anything? Nothing? Something?”

  “Just what little bits I can glean,” Wade admitted. “You pick up bits here and there. Especially now.” Especially since Baxter had brokered his deal, he wanted to add but didn’t. He’d met a few of the Vedo that were now attached to Unisco. Fair does to them; they were sound enough in his limited experiences of them. Some of them did like their bizarre little non-sequiturs to throw into conversation when it backed up their point. They were weird folk but in a good way. Weird didn’t always have to mean bad, different didn’t have to be something to feared. Baxter had been like that, once. When they were both a lot younger. He’d not known why. Not back then. He didn’t share his secret with Wade until much later in both their lives.

  He didn’t feel the need to mention to Pree that after his eyes had been injured, he’d sought his old friend out. They’d become strangers, but Baxter had come in a hurry and with few questions. Time might have separated them, but he’d been there when he didn’t have to have been. He’d taught him things he’d only been able to imagine before. Now he could see perfectly. Better than before.

  In more ways than one, he might even say. Back then, he’d been a little in awe for some of the things Baxter could do. He hadn’t flaunted them, but they’d been there waiting to be unleashed. Part of him had always known there was something different about Ruud Baxter, even before he’d revealed the secrets he’d kept. They’d survived way too much together for him not to catch on. But when he’d learned, wracked with pain and guilt, almost blinded by fire, things had changed. He’d had a moment of realisation that the world was bigger than he’d ever suspected, that anyone ever could have guessed, and just for a moment, it had made him feel so very small.

  “Yes, because nothing helps keep the issue in perspective than a few carefully chosen bits of propaganda,” Pree said almost scathingly. The ire in her voice startled him, he hadn’t expected it and he sat up in surprise. “Sorry. Personal beliefs. It’s a long story. They serve a purpose. Doesn’t mean that I have to like it.”

  “We got time,” Wade said, glancing at her. “Sounds like an interesting tale.”

  “Bad experience once upon a time,” Pree said. “Don’t want to go into it. So, I’m not. It won’t make either of us any happier if I do.” She let out a little sigh and lolled her head back in her seat. “Hope you understand. We all have demons in our closet we don’t want to give the time of day to, I think you’ll find.”

  In a way, he could understand that, could even appreciate it. But it couldn’t abate his curiosity. Nor could it silence the feeling in the pit of his stomach, tight like a throbbing flame. He couldn’t explain it, the only thing he could even guess at was that it likely wasn’t anything good.

  “Welcome to Ryoti,” Pree murmured as the two of them stepped off the hoverjet and onto the refuelling station platform. From here, they could see out across the town below, easily at the highest point of the surrounding area. It didn’t look like much, barring the stadium up in the distance, stood erect like a fist shaking at the sky. “Home of not much and even less.”

  “You been here before?” Wade asked. She gave him a fish-eyed look of annoyed bemusement, folded her arms and took a deep breath like she was going to get on a soapbox and star
t a rant.

  “What, just because I hail from Burykia, you think I’ve been to every out of the way town here? Nah, barely heard of it. I’m not from this part. Way back west me, out in the rainless zones. Where all the cool kids hang out, you know.”

  Ouch, Wade wanted to say. Everyone knew of Burykian geography that the kingdom was largely divided in two by an invisible line only seen on maps, one side prosperous, one side not so. One side was little more than desert and sandy forests for the most part, very few large cities present within them, the other was reminisce of some of the more affluent parts of Canterage or Premesoir. Barring some odd architectural whims, it was hard to tell the difference. A lot of jokes existed about what went on in the rainless zone, the less prosperous part. If Pree came from there, he doubted she’d find any of them funny. It was a rough place. More on a par with some of the worst parts of Vazara than anything else.

  “This is the civilised part,” she said, baring her teeth in a grin. “Got to say, moderately impressed. Growing up, we used to dream of living in places like this. You know, calm, quiet, low murder rate.”

  Wade took another look at the stadium out in the distance. He’d seen many since the incident at the Quin-C and the ICCC had almost folded. A fair few of them had fallen into disrepair. This one looked like it had reached better days. Stadiums needed bouts to make income and with them being unable to display any competitive fights, they’d lost a lot of the means to make credits. There were only so many music acts and comedians they could rent out to, only so many stadiums were big enough to warrant attention. A small-town stadium like this, maybe fifteen thousand seats at most if the average was to be believed, probably never full even for final round bouts, he was surprised to see it was in as good a condition as it looked. Workers were all over the structure, scurrying about like ants on a mission, he could see them even from this distance although the nature of their activity remained a mystery.

  “Looks like something’s going on here,” Pree said. She rubbed her hands together, blew on her clasped palms. Her demeanour had changed again, she’d shifted from cold murderess to excited schoolgirl in a matter of moments. “Excellent. That’s exactly what we need.”

  Wade looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure? What happened to get in, get the intelligence and get out?”

  “I never said we were getting out,” she said with a smirk. “Hey, we need an excuse to here. Can’t wear the mufflers all the time. Like I’m going to hide this face from the public.” Her smirk grew like she was sharing some private joke with herself. “Come on, let’s see what’s happening. The exchange isn’t right away. And he said he’d meet us at the stadium tonight. Let’s scope out the meeting place.” She held out both her hands in what she might have meant to be a placating gesture. “Come now, you know it makes sense.”

  “You sure?”

  The two words echoed in the silence as Wade and Pree found themselves looking at each other once more, the unease rising in the back of his mind. Nothing about this sounded like it was going to be simple. Already he was missing the paperwork back at the office, words he never imagined he’d think, never mind say.

  “That was my contact,” Pree said. “He’d meet whoever here tonight. But this…” She threw out a hand at the big sign ahead of them, set her teeth into a grimace. “You have to admire the audacity if nothing else.”

  Wade shook his head. “I don’t have to do anything. We should cancel right now. Remove ourselves from this entire thing. We can’t run a secure op like this. There’s too many people…”

  “We’ve done it before.”

  “Not this many with this few,” Wade reminded her. Standard procedure told him that everything about this was a bad idea. If this whole thing was a setup, it had the chance to go badly wrong very quickly and the outcome could be disastrous. “You and I can’t run this whole thing… How many people does this thing hold? Fifteen? Twenty? Somewhere in the middle?”

  “I don’t think…”

  “Pree, it’s sold out. There will be that many in here. This is reckless. It’s…”

  “Just a rendezvous with an informant. We’re not going to shoot things out. I didn’t even bring a weapon, did you?” She grinned as she said it and Wade felt the unease grow. He knew this day wasn’t going to get any better. “Oh, lighten up, I’m joking. Of course, I brought a weapon. I don’t expect we’ll need them though.” She gripped her bag a little closer to her. “Come on Wade, you used to have a little more zing than this.”

  He shook his head. “Pree…”

  She turned, studied him without saying a word. He’d almost been expecting an interruption. But none came, she simply waited, face impassive and unreadable. “Pree…”

  “You can’t keep saying my name. Wade, we can do this. It’s only as complicated as we’re making it.” Pree paused, glanced back and forth, her eyes glittering with cunning. “Besides, I have a plan to blend in with the background. A pretty good one. Believe me, I take no chances with my ops. I had a contingency for this. Part of the reason why I wanted you with me. Trust me on this one.”

  Wade knew he was going to regret this. Unconsciously he rubbed his eyes. He didn’t know why. He knew she was right though. Once upon a time, he would have relished this a lot more than he was. Where his reluctance came from, he couldn’t say for sure. He could only guess, and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

  He’d nearly died. He’d nearly been blinded. Both in the line of duty and part of him was struggling to let that go even now. He remembered them all too well and they didn’t sit right with him. Not that he’d expect them to. He’d never worked with Prideaux Khan before and it was starting to feel more and more like that was a good thing. He’d never known her to be so wildly reckless, he wondered if he’d been like that before. Gifted with a sense of his own invincibility that had been sorely tested. Everyone suffered that test sooner or later. It was how you came through it that defined you. Ever since then, going back to Baxter showing his true colours, he’d wanted as little of the fight as he could get.

  Part of him had already suspected it wasn’t worth it. A lot of people were going to die over this Coppinger thing… Screw that, a lot of people had already died over it and more were going to come. And he didn’t want his own name to be added to that list. When you started thinking like that, it was time to give up. It took just a split second to register but there it was there. Shame and disgust boiling away inside him.

  What was he doing? He was better than this. One setback and he’d let himself retreat from it all like some sort of coward. He knew what it was and yet he hadn’t been able to help himself. All the counselling Unisco had offered him and what good had it done him up to this point? His boss had insisted on it; he’d thought it a waste of time but more and more he was suddenly glad that he’d done it. It was like someone had flipped a light switch on in his brain. He was done with it. No more hiding. Only getting stuff done from now on.

  “You still there?” Pree inquired politely, waving a hand in front of his face. In the past, he might have recoiled, instead he simply stared at her with cool detachment, let the grin creep across his face. Amazing the effect a few simple words from her could have had on him. He felt whole again. Alive. Anew.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, all while thinking that was true in more ways than one. “I’m here. Now, tell me about your plan. Let’s hear what you got.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen of Ryoti! Back in action for the first time in months, we have spirit calling live from our stadium! Our brand-new president, Adam Evans said let there be light, and we turned ours back on and we’re bringing the bouts here and now, straight to you live! We’ve got them first and fast!”

  Wade heard the announcer on the screen in the locker room and rolled his eyes. That was enthusiasm, he had to admit. He had the right idea. The bouts had been away from the five kingdoms for far too long, no wonder some were happy to get them back. At the same time, part of him wondered with the Copping
er crisis ongoing if it might not be the best idea. Any wannabe terrorist out there who had warm fuzzy feelings about Coppinger might find it a target hard to resist as an opportunity for maximum chaos.

  Still at the same time, people needed something to take their mind off the impending terror. Since Vazara had fallen to Coppinger control and Nwakili killed, he’d noticed a marked difference in people when he walked down the street. They were scared. Maybe it was the ICCC’s way of defying Coppinger and showing that they weren’t afraid of her and what she could do to them. That was a mistake in his opinion. They absolutely should be afraid of her and what she had. She got stronger every day. He’d seen the intelligence reports. It was scary the amounts of weapons she was adding to her arsenal every day. Not just military might but spirits of war as well. He’d seen the one Nick had managed to sneak away from her and had been simultaneously awed and terrified when he’d observed.

  He supposed this was why Pree was right. They needed to be here. This afternoon after they’d signed up to enter, he’d gone over everything again that she’d handed to him and he’d decided for himself that it was worth being here. They needed every bit of intelligence they could get their hands on. Just being back in a stadium, feeling the energy of that crowd, it was enough to revitalise him. He’d not felt like this for a bloody long time. For a few moments, he felt just like his old self.

  “But we know, folks, this bout is no ordinary bout! For the first time in our humble town, Ryoti is seeing team bouts! All the best locals and even a few internationals are teaming up to give you, the viewer in the stands or at home, the best action around. We’ve all missed it and. This! Is! Ryoti!”

  “Excited?” Pree asked, finishing sliding on her boots over her feet, strapping them up with determined vigour on her fac. She looked nice, Wade had to admit, in her fighting clothes of jeans, boots and a scarlet sleeveless shirt tied up around her midriff to reveal her navel. Team bouts were different to regular spirit calling bouts. Rather than just one on one, the two of them would fight together at the same time, each use one of their own spirits to counteract their opponents. First team to lose both spirits would be knocked out of the competition. It wouldn’t last longer than the night, but the revenue would be massive.