If I did that, I’d have to kill you.
“Well, what are you waiting for then? Death is the only freedom.”
“Why do you think I keep you alive?”
That struck Hoff speechless. He returned to his desk and sat down, battling depression and despair. Omnius was keeping him alive as a form of punishment. Hoff leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, longing for simpler times when good had been human and evil had been Sythian. Now that the Sythians turned out to be descendants of humanity, a threat created by Omnius, who had in turn been created by humans, all the lines between good and evil had become depressingly gray.
We did this to ourselves, Hoff thought, appalled by the sheer truth of that statement. His next thought was an inevitable progression of the first—
Evil does exist, he decided, and it’s human.
* * *
The hospital discharged Ethan after just one day. He’d suffered a minor concussion and multiple lacerations in the crash, but all of that had been easily treated, and now he was fine.
Physically fine.
He left the hospital on foot rather than call an air taxi. Memories of his wife and daughter played on an endless loop through his brain, distracting him to the point that he barely noticed his surroundings. One street looked the same as the next. People passed by; shop lights and streetlights competed to peel back the night; air cars whirred and rumbled overhead.
Ethan’s throat felt cut, and his chest felt like an empty cavity. It was a familiar feeling. More than two decades ago he’d lost his first wife and his son, Atton, when he’d been exiled to Dark Space for stim-running. Then the Sythians had invaded and he’d feared the worst. He’d never given up hope, and he’d been right not to, but this time was worse. He knew exactly what had happened to his family.
Ethan’s eyes burned, and he shook his head to clear it. He needed to forget and fast. He stumbled into the nearest convenience store and went hunting for the most potent bottle of liquor he could find. The first candidate was a bottle of amber-colored single malt whiskey.
Good enough. Ethan snatched it from the shelf and walked outside. The auto-pay scanner at the door charged him as he left.
Once he was back on the street, Ethan wasted no time cracking open the whiskey. He took a long pull straight from the bottle. It burned down his throat like fire, raising goosebumps on his arms and hairs on the back of his neck. A few passersby turned to look at him, while others gave him a wide berth.
Ethan walked up to the edge of the street and leaned heavily on the railings, gazing down. The city disappeared below him in a dizzying swirl. Solid streams of traffic raced by on level 15. A pair of trucks racing beside each other caught his eye, provoking a visceral flashback.
Headlights shone bright through the passenger’s side window. Alara’s hair looked ablaze in the sudden light. Metal shrieked, and Alara screamed as the car crumpled in toward her—
Ethan grimaced and took another gulp of whiskey to wash away the memory. He wondered what Alara’s clone was doing in Etheria right now. She would have all the same memories. No doubt she was waiting patiently for him to join her and Trinity, but what would be the point? That would just kill him, too.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, Ethan thought, still gazing down on the gloomy city. Just fifteen floors below lay a thick, curling gray mist. That murky cloud of moisture and pollution obscured the darkest, most dangerous part of Avilon—a netherworld full of murderers, thieves, prostitutes, and strung-out Bliss addicts turned to Psychos.
Ethan took another gulp from his bottle, thinking it wouldn’t be long before he ended up down there—probably dead and forgotten in some abandoned alley. In the Null Zone, death was like gravity, always dragging people down.
May as well beat the rush, he thought, and turned away from the railing, intent on finding a way down to the surface. But the best he could manage was a drunken stagger, and the world spun dangerously around him. Ethan frowned, only now realizing how drunk he was. He examined his bottle and saw that it was more than half empty. Adding to that, his stomach burned like it was on fire, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten.
He just managed to stumble over to a nearby bus stop, where he sprawled out belly up, and watched the vertical sprawl of the Null Zone slowly spin around his head. Twenty-five levels up from there, shone the hazy blue glow of the Styx. He imagined he could see past that, straight through Etheria, and up to the Eye of Omnius shining down from the top of the Zenith Tower.
“I’m going to kill you,” he whispered.
No reply came, but Ethan knew that was because he’d been de-linked when he came to the Null Zone.
He blinked slowly. His eyelids felt heavy, and his body felt numb and weary. He had no idea how much time had passed since leaving the hospital. Was it night already? Ethan checked the comm band on his wrist. Blurry digits came together, showing that it was still the middle of the day.
Ethan drifted off and the bottle of whiskey slipped from his hand with a hollow-sounding clunk. His dreams were a wish fulfillment of a bloody war against Omnius and all his faithful followers. He saw the streets turn red with blood, and he was perversely satisfied by the violence until he saw his wife lying among the dead, surrounded by broken plants and UV lamps. Her violet eyes were wide and staring, her face and lips blanched white.
Ethan screamed. Alara opened her mouth and made an inhuman honking sound, as if she weren’t really dead, but somehow possessed by a horrible beast.
His eyes sprang open to see an air taxi parked beside him. The driver honked his horn and waved to get Ethan’s attention. He shook his head, confused, his mind still trapped in a drunken haze. Why was that taxi honking at him?
“Sir? Is there somewhere I can take you?” the driver asked.
“I…” A wave of dizziness washed over him, making him feel ill. He winced and pressed a hand to his forehead.
“Let me take you home,” the driver suggested. “You shouldn’t be out here sleeping on the street.”
Ethan was about to object to that—wasn’t there somewhere he’d been meaning to go? He turned to look around and noted that the previously steady stream of pedestrians had dispersed. The only ones left were a few unsavory-looking types. It had to be the middle of the night.
Ethan turned back to the cab driver. “Okay.”
The rear door slid open and Ethan stumbled up to the railings at the edge of the street. Not bothering to open the boarding gate at the bus stop, he hopped over it and stumbled toward the cab.
“Careful!” the driver warned as one of his feet sank into the gap between the curb and the hovering taxi. That was a twenty five floor drop. Ethan peered down, considering it. Then the taxi door began sliding shut and he retreated inside.
He didn’t quite manage to sit up straight in the back seat. His head lolled, and his mind drifted off into dreamland again.
“Where do you live, sir?” the driver asked.
Ethan mumbled something he assumed to be the address. He wasn’t sure if it was correct, but he didn’t care. Maybe going home wasn’t such a good idea. His apartment would be empty. There’d be no end of reminders about who and what he’d lost. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.
“Don’t worry, sir. You’ll be home soon.”
Ethan nodded, unable to muster a reply.
Chapter 24
Atton almost choked on the lie—”Don’t worry, sir. You’ll be home soon.”
Sir was a strange way to have to address his father. Atton kept half an eye on Ethan in the rear-view mirror of the taxi. He was already passed out on the back seat. He’d drunk himself senseless. Atton grimaced and looked away. Given Ethan’s beliefs about Lifelink transfers, Atton couldn’t blame him. He really believed his family was dead.
When Valari had told him where his father was and asked him to go pick Ethan up, she’d put it in terms that he couldn’t refuse. “I need a favor from you, Atton.” Having led with that, Val
ari had proceeded to explain the situation and where Ethan was.
Atton had been unable to argue with the necessity of picking Ethan up before someone decided he was too tempting a target to resist, but he wasn’t sure how helping his father would mean doing a favor for Valari. Or he hadn’t been sure, anyway, until Valari had told him where she wanted him to take Ethan.
“I want you to bring him to my penthouse.”
At that point he’d become suspicious. He failed to see how Valari could seduce Ethan while comatose and grieving, but Atton didn’t want to underestimate her. “Why should I bring him to you?”
“He’s in no shape to be alone right now.”
“You’re planning to take advantage of the situation to get closer to him.”
“Love can’t be forced, Atton. I’m going to prove mine by helping him through a difficult time, much the same way Alara proved hers by helping him when he was grieving over you and your mother.”
“And if I say no?”
Valari had just smiled. “By now you should know better, Atton. No one says ‘no’ to me.”
She hadn’t directly threatened him, but it was enough to remind him that he didn’t have a choice.
Atton pulled the taxi up to the entrance of Admiral Vee’s hangar. The shield lowered automatically for him and he cruised inside.
The sight that greeted him on the other side of the shield wasn’t that of a spacious hangar built to hold a dozen or more air cars. This was a single car garage, the walls close, the sole landing pad empty. Atton shook his head and checked his current location via the car’s nav console. The computer confirmed he was at Valari Thardris’s apartment, but that meant she’d somehow completely remodeled since his last visit.
Since yesterday.
Atton hovered the car down onto the landing pad and waited, his eyes on the door at the top of the short staircase leading from the hangar to Vee’s penthouse apartment.
Moments later the door at the top of the stairs opened, and Admiral Vee came striding down. Atton exited the taxi with a frown, determined to ask her about the recent renovations.
Something was wrong.
As Valari reached the bottom of the stairs and turned toward him, he saw instantly what that something was. His jaw dropped, and his entire body began to tremble with fury. He’d never hit a woman before, but there was an exception to every rule.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Shhh,” Valari replied, placing a finger to her ruby lips and winking one big, violet eye at him.
Now he understood why Valari had asked him to break into his father’s apartment and make holo recordings of the entire place.
“I didn’t agree to this,” Atton said.
Valari looked amused, but her face was all wrong. From the playful curve of her red lips and the shape of her small oval face and button nose to her violet eyes… she was an entirely different person. Even her body had taken on a new shape, with wider hips and more pronounced curves. The disguise was perfect. Too perfect. It was a bio-synthetic suit. The Avilonian version of a holoskin. This was Valari Thardris A.K.A. Neona Markonis, but she looked exactly like Alara Ortane.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked as Valari walked past him and waved the side door of the taxi open. Clearly the car’s scanners could still see past her disguise, but it wouldn’t be hard to fool a drunk and grieving husband that this was his dead wife.
“I’m not going to let you do this,” Atton said, walking up behind her with deadly purpose.
“You don’t have to,” she replied. “You can leave now.”
“I’m going to tell him.”
Valari looked at him. “No, you’re not.”
Atton tried to scream a warning to his father, but his lips wouldn’t move. Then he tried to physically intervene, but his entire body was paralyzed.
“I warned you. No one says ‘no’ to me.”
Atton watched, helpless as Valari turned and woke his father.
“I missed you, Ethan,” Valari said, taking him by the hand, and drawing him out of the taxi. Ethan stumbled out, his eyes wide and blinking. His jaw dropped open, and a husky croak was all he managed. “Alara? How?” Then he appeared to notice where he was. This was his garage. Even drunk, he had to recognize it.
Still frozen, Atton looked on as Ethan grabbed Valari’s face in both hands and kissed her roughly. The kiss went on and on. Atton’s rage had reached a climax; he felt like he was about to have a stroke, but his body still refused to respond. Omnius had paralyzed him, but why would he participate in something as petty and perverted as this?
The kiss ended and Ethan squeezed Valari into a crushing embrace. She played her part well, sinking into the hug, and cooing soft words in Ethan’s ear, all the while he blubbered confusion in hers.
Valari managed to wink at Atton over Ethan’s shoulder. Then she gestured with one finger, motioning Atton toward the car.
Just like that, Atton’s legs became unfrozen. His arm came up of its own accord, waving the door open. He climbed inside, watching in horror as his hands and arms moved to fly the taxi out of the garage. He tried to turn and see what Ethan and Valari were doing, but he couldn’t. She wanted privacy. It occurred to him that Valari Thardris was exactly like Omnius. Both of them had an insatiable desire to dominate and control. Atton could only guess what would happen next, and he felt sick about his part in the charade.
The taxi slid out through the hazy blue shields at the entrance of the hangar and into the night.
How far would Valari take her deception? Would she pretend to be Alara forever?
The very thought of it made Atton’s stomach churn and his mouth fill with saliva; he broke out in a cold sweat, and his stomach heaved.
By the time he regained control of his body, he was already far from Valari’s penthouse, back in the lower levels of the Null Zone. The Taxi swooped down to the pedestrian streets on level 10 and stopped right in front of his apartment building. He tried using the flight controls to turn the taxi around, to go back and get his father, but the car had been remotely disabled.
Atton grimaced. He’d allowed Valari and Omnius to suck him in too far. He should have put a stop to things a long time ago.
A quiet, loathsome whisper rippled through his thoughts. You said you would do anything, remember?
Atton did remember, but he hadn’t realized at the time just how despicable that would make him.
I want out, he thought back.
It’s too late for that, Omnius replied.
No, it’s not, he insisted.
No one says, ‘No’ to me, Atton.
Atton clicked his teeth and set his jaw. He wanted to argue with that, but there was nothing he could say. Omnius was in complete and utter control. Resistance was futile, and The Resistance was a sham.
It would take someone more powerful than Omnius to defeat him, and no such one existed.
* * *
Ethan awoke with his head pounding. His throat was sore, and his chest and back felt raw as if they’d been slashed with knives. Ethan lifted the sheets to check. He didn’t notice any bandages or scabs, but there were plenty of scratch marks. Coupled with the fact that he was naked, Ethan could only imagine what had happened last night, but his memories were hazy and awareness was slow in coming. Maybe he was still dreaming…
“Good morning, handsome.”
A lithe shadow slunk up beside the bed. Ethan looked up to see that it was a naked woman. Desire stirred. Alara was here with him… The dream was getting better. He remembered something about last night that made sense of the scratches he’d found crisscrossing his chest, and a smile graced his lips….
That smile died with a strangled gasp as soon as he recognized the woman’s face. It was Valari, not Alara.
Ethan went cold. This is a dream, he said. He sat up and shook his head.
“Are you all right?” Valari asked, crouching down beside him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She laid a hand on his knee and he flinched. Everything was so real. He began to doubt he was dreaming. But if this wasn’t a dream, then…
The events of the previous days came back to him in vivid streaks of color and emotion. He saw his wife die. He remembered getting drunk on the street, lying down to sleep at a bus stop, a taxi coming to pick him up and take him home… and then…
He’d come home to find his wife waiting for him.
“No,” Ethan said, still shaking his head. “I went home. What am I doing here?”
“You don’t remember? You came here to argue with me about whether or not I sent your message to your daughter—which I did, by the way—and then… well, you were very upset. I tried to make you feel better.” Valari gave him a meaningful smile and her gaze flicked up and down his naked torso.
Ethan could hear the blood roaring in his veins. The thudding in his head sounded like the drumbeat of a marching band. Valari was lying. He’d gone home last night. He remembered going home, seeing his garage, his apartment, his wife.
My wife? Ethan frowned. Alara was dead, resurrected in Etheria. How could he have seen her?
“Oh my…” Valari placed a hand over her mouth to cover a gasp. “You don’t remember. You didn’t even know who you were with, did you?” Valari’s turquoise eyes grew round and a shimmer of moisture appeared. She looked away suddenly. Ethan saw her shoulders begin to shake. “I thought…”
Ethan felt like he was going to throw up. Was she crying? After taking advantage of him, she was acting like the victim. “You knew I was drunk!” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing!”
Valari cast a bitter look over her shoulder. “You said your wife was dead, Ethan. You said marriage is until death do us part. You convinced me! Don’t you remember that?”
The hurt in her eyes ran so deep that Ethan was taken aback. He almost reached for her shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze, but just the thought of touching her made him want to vomit. He couldn’t have slept with her!
Armageddon Page 19
