"So kill me now, if you must. I will die for the sake of peace, to keep you from killing anyone else. I'm no innocent. I have the blood of hundreds on my hands. There is no one left who loves me enough to mourn me, and the Mer have sworn they will not avenge me. So kill me."
Still Galen stared at her. "Allie, I…Halcyon." He swallowed. "I can't."
Allie – Halcyon – waved at the box on the desk. "Fine. Be a coward. But if you use that to kill all the people in the Complex instead, you'll be a worse man than your father ever was. You'll be sealing the fate of your entire species, because the remaining sirens will not let such a deed go unpunished. I'm ashamed to think I considered you a friend. You are what you call us – monsters." She turned on her heel and stalked out of his office. Perhaps even out of his life.
"Allie, wait. Please," he begged, but she didn't return. Why would she? She was right. He was horrified at the thought that he'd nearly detonated a nuclear weapon here, in a city full of civilians. With children, for stars' sake. It was small comfort to know that he hadn't killed anyone. He'd planned it, and come so close to executing that plan that it was a miracle the Complex was still standing.
Saved by Halcyon. She'd saved him and the city. And he loved her, because she was Allie.
Though she had every right to hate him.
Galen buried his head in his hands. He hated himself.
He wasn't sure how much later it was when the Intra came for him. Minutes, maybe even hours, but he wasn't aware of the passage of time. Only the crushing weight of guilt that he knew he deserved.
"Mr Galen Tasker?" a female voice asked.
"Yes." The word came out as a barely audible whisper. Galen didn’t want to be himself right now. Not ever.
"You're under arrest for possession of a weapon of mass destruction. I'm to request you come with us willingly, or we'll press additional charges for acts of terrorism, resisting arrest…" she continued in the same vein for a little while, but Galen wasn't listening any more.
He didn't care. He deserved everything he got for what he'd done, and for what he'd almost done. The universe would be safer with him locked away where he couldn't hurt anyone again.
Galen rose to his feet and held out his arms for handcuffs. The things his mind could imagine and his hands could build…better if both were restrained. He only wished there were a way to turn his brain off, too, so he no longer felt or thought.
"Bring the box," the woman in charge ordered to one of her underlings as she and another Intra seized Galen's arms to march him outside to a waiting zipper. "And be careful with it," she called over her shoulder.
Galen kept his head down, not caring where they took him. It was either a holding cell or a jetter off-planet. When they reached the Intra building, his escort guided him left instead of right, toward the offices belonging to high-ranking Intra, as opposed to the cellblock. Perhaps the interrogation rooms were this way, Galen told himself. Or maybe they had torture chambers like his father once had, and they kept them close to the offices so the bigwigs didn't have as far to walk to get their sadistic urges satisfied.
If he survived the torture, or even if he didn't, he should try and get a note to Allie, telling her about it so she could deal with those who did it. Maybe the universe would be a better place with Halcyon loose. His life had been.
"Don't know what you're smiling about," the female Intra muttered, tugging on Galen's arm to keep him walking.
Her companion opened a door at the end of the corridor and pushed Galen inside.
"Mr Tasker, sir," the woman said before she shut the door behind Galen, leaving him alone with…
Lennox, the man in charge of the Intra, and the whole Complex, or so Galen had been told.
"Take a seat, Mr Tasker." Lennox gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Identical chairs to the ones where Galen had sat with Allie when he'd tried to frame her for his own stupidity.
Galen shook his head. "I prefer to stand."
"Suit yourself. I take it you know why you're here."
Galen started to shake his head, but another Intra officer stepped into the room, dropped the incriminating box on Lennox' desk, and left. Galen sagged. He might not know exactly why he was here, but he had a damn good idea.
Lennox began, "One Halcyon Mavros, an undercover Intra operative whose cover is her role as Complex plumber, initiated a search for radiation leaks. This morning, she reported several in the region of your office, Mr Tasker. When she investigated further, she found not just a radiation source, but what she identified as a weapon of mass destruction. On your desk."
"Does Halcyon really work for you?" Galen blurted out. "How do you know she's not just pretending to work for you while she'd biding her time, to pursue her own agenda?" What if everything she'd said and done with him had been a lie to seduce information out of him?
"Ms Mavros is not a patient woman, Mr Tasker, but she is an honest one. Perhaps a little too honest at times. I've worked with her since before the treaty was signed. Long enough to know that she will pursue her own agenda, no matter what you want her to do, and the only way to make sure she's following my plan is to make sure it shares the same goals as hers." Lennox coughed. "If she says pigs are falling from the sky, then I would advise looking out the window, because you'll see a remarkable sight."
Galen's eyes darted to the window, but there weren't any pigs to see.
"I was speaking figuratively, of course," Lennox added, his eyes glinting with amusement.
"So if she talked about people torturing prisoners…" Galen began, unsure how to finish.
"Then prisoners were tortured."
Galen wet his lips. "And her husband? Seeks, I think she said his name was?"
"Ceyx, yes," Lennox said. "He was captured by Humans and tortured for information. The chief interrogator assigned to him was Claudius Tasker. Your father, I believe."
"She definitely killed him? And fifteen hundred…more than fifteen hundred other people?"
Lennox frowned. "That number does seem high. Much higher than my estimates, but I imagine she'd know. If you asked her, she could probably tell you the names of each and every one of them."
Galen shook his head. "I don't think she wants to talk to me any more. Not after what I did."
Lennox folded his hands on the table. "Tell me, Mr Tasker. What exactly did you do? Not the version you gave me last time. The truth, please."
So Galen told him everything, from his first contact with Humans First, finding the nuclear fuel they'd smuggled into the Complex, building and planting the bomb, right up until he arrived in Lennox' office today. It felt good to get everything out in the open. After all, what did he have left to lose? Nothing.
The only thing he didn't talk about was his personal time with Allie. That was…private. Glorious. And none of his blasted business.
As if the man had read his mind, Lennox asked, "So what are your current intentions toward Ms Mavros?"
His intentions? He'd wanted to marry the woman. Galen wanted to go back in time a few hours, to when Allie was naked in his arms, and stay in bed. Forever. He wouldn't know she was a killer, and she wouldn’t know he was an idiot, and everything would be perfect. If time travel were possible, he would, too.
"Is my operative in danger around you, Mr Tasker?"
Allie? Never. He couldn't hurt her. It didn't matter how many people she'd killed or who she was. She was still Allie. Galen couldn't live with himself if he hurt her. Even if she did hate him now.
"No. No, she's not," Galen said finally. "I don't intend to do anything with her, because I don't think she wants anything to do with me."
Lennox nodded, glancing down at his tablet. "I have two choices here, Mr Tasker. I can ask you to repeat your confession so we can record it, as I seem to have forgotten to set up a recording device for our interview, and I can then have you shipped offworld for trial. Or, I could use your existing, recorded confession and that of Ms Mavros from earlier in the week, wher
e she states her belief that your mind might have been in the control of another, such that your actions were not your own. If that were true, you might not need to be sent offworld at all. Your lesser offence would be under Lorn jurisdiction, which means I could sentence you to house arrest for a year. The likely terms would still allow you to live and work in the Complex, but when you leave your apartment, you would be escorted by a guard at all times."
"A year?" Galen expected a life sentence in prison if Lennox sent him offworld. Why would his sentence here be so light?
"That could easily change, depending on your behaviour. Good behaviour might lessen your sentence, while any infractions, however small, could lengthen it considerably, or make me change my decision and send you offworld after all. I'll receive monthly behaviour reports, of course."
Galen still didn't understand. There had to be some darker purpose to keeping him here. His eyes strayed to the pump box of plutonium. "What will happen to that?"
"It will be stored somewhere safe. With the rest of the radioactive material," Lennox replied. "Now, I'm a busy man, Mr Tasker. Do you wish to repeat your new testimony so it can be recorded, before you are taken offworld, or would you prefer to return home under house arrest?"
Like there was a choice to make. "I'll stay."
Lennox nodded. "Your guard will be waiting outside." He dismissed Galen with a wave of his hand.
Galen opened the door and stopped dead at the sight in the corridor. "So that's it. You don't expect me to survive the year."
"You don't expect me to survive the year."
Allie wanted to cringe away from the hostility in Galen's eyes, but she forced her expression to remain neutral. Lennox had made it clear that if Galen was to stay out of prison, she would have to be the one guarding him, because he wasn't about to allocate any of his other staff to such a menial assignment. Allie knew he wouldn't last five minutes in a prison. It wasn't like he'd killed anyone, and she truly didn't believe he would. She was willing to bet her life on it.
She was hurt that he thought so little of her that he believed she'd kill him, but she wasn't surprised. After all, he'd hated her for a decade, with good reason. Just because he'd slept with her when he'd thought she was someone else didn’t mean he'd give up ten years of loathing. He probably hated her even more now for fooling him, however necessary it might have been.
"Have you changed your mind already, Mr Tasker?" Lennox called.
Galen dropped his gaze to his handcuffed wrists. "No."
The door hissed shut behind him, leaving Galen alone in the corridor with Allie. He looked ready to bolt.
"I can take the handcuffs off now, if you like," she said, pressing her thumb to the scan panel. The cuffs clicked open. She was relieved to see Violet hadn't fastened them too tightly The cuffs had left no red marks on Galen's wrists. "Your ID chip is now coded to mine. You'll have to stay within a certain distance of me, or both the Intra and I will receive an alert. You can still go to work and you'll have some privacy, just…oh, and if Beems spots you near an unusual radiation source, it'll notify me, too." She took in his slumped shoulders and the way he wouldn't look at her. "Would you rather go to prison?"
"Ask me in a month," he said bitterly. "His high and mightiness in there said it's still a possibility."
Not if she had any say in it, Allie vowed. Lennox would get nothing but good reports about Galen, if she had to mind control the man herself to make him behave.
For six weeks, Galen endured the conditions of his house arrest. The best and the worst part of it was Allie.
She wished him a good morning every day as she unlocked his apartment door to release him from captivity, walked him to work or worked alongside him if a maintenance job required two of them, and shared every meal with him in silence. At night, she wished him a good night before she locked him in and escaped to her own apartment, or a hot date, or whatever she chose to do with her freedom in the evenings.
More than once, he'd considered following her. He was an engineer, after all, and the door controls were hardly more complex than anything else he'd built. The only thing that stopped him was the thought of seeing her happy with someone else. He understood that she hated him now, seeing as she could barely stand to look at him, but he wasn't sure he could handle seeing the woman he loved in another man's arms. It was hard enough knowing he'd lost her through his own stupidity.
But it wasn't until they were working together on a bunch of blocked drains at the strip club that he noticed she wasn't singing any more. Allie had always sung or hummed something while she worked.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asked her.
"Of course not," she said. "I have yet to meet anyone who can keep their lunch down after they've unblocked three toilets in a brothel and the fourth one looks like…looks…ugh."
She did look distinctly green, he realised, but that went right along with doing a disgusting job. The dark circles under her eyes were new, though. He tried to remember if she'd looked like this yesterday. "Yesterday, you missed lunch. Today, you're throwing up. Plumbing aside, what's wrong?"
"Nothing that won't go away on its own," she said. "Look, can we just finish this job so we can go do something else that doesn't stink like someone died in here?'
Galen nodded and switched the pump back on, but he found his eyes straying to her more and more as the day progressed. She seemed listless and tired, like she'd never been before. When the day ended, he'd made up his mind.
"I'm sick of eating by myself at home every night. Want to go out for pizza?" he asked her.
The eyes she turned on him looked almost haunted, they were so hollow. "I'm not hungry, and it's been a really long day. I'll go with you to pick up a takeaway pizza if you want, but then I'm going home."
If that was the best she had to offer, he'd take it. She called for a zipper instead of a glyder, so they wouldn't have to travel as closely together, he guessed, but when she sank onto the seat with a little sigh, he wondered if it was more about her exhaustion than anything to do with him at all.
Despite her protests, he ordered a pizza for her as well as the one for him, knowing the seafood one was her favourite. He carried the boxes back on his lap in the zipper, grinning as several of the other passengers cast covetous glances at their dinner. Just as long as it tempted Allie into staying with him for the evening.
They arrived back at his apartment and he palmed open the door. "You coming in to join me for dinner, or are you taking yours home with you?" he asked, hoping she'd choose him.
"I'm really not hungry," she began, then clapped a hand to her mouth and bolted for his bathroom. Galen heard the sound of retching from behind the closed door.
He propped the pizza boxes open on his kitchen counter and grabbed two plates. He waited a few minutes for Allie to emerge from the bathroom, but when she didn't, he decided to eat a slice before it got cold. He could always reheat hers when she was ready.
He was three bites into his second slice when Allie staggered into the living area. She clutched at the doorjamb to stay upright and her face was paler than he'd ever seen it.
"You're not going anywhere like that. Come and sit down." Galen pointed at the dining chair across from him.
She almost made it, then stumbled as she reached the table. Galen grabbed her as she reached for him, and for the first time in weeks, he finally had her in his arms. He breathed in her scent – fresh, intoxicating and salty, like the sea, as always – and he almost moaned. He'd missed her so much.
"Let go of me. I'm fine," she said, grasping the table and hauling herself to her feet. She made it to her chair this time, but not without effort.
"You're not fine. Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or should I call a doctor?"
"Nothing's wrong!" she exploded. "Not yet, anyway. I'm pregnant, all right? This is normal."
Galen wanted to cry. She had moved on, finding some other man to seduce…no, some other Meta, he realised. It had to be, if the guy cou
ld get her knocked up.
"Whose is it?" he asked.
"Mine, for the moment," she said.
"I mean, who's the father?" Galen paused to think. "It was that green merman, wasn't it? I saw the way he looked at you. Like he wanted to cover you in cream and eat you."
"You mean Sven?" Allie snorted. "He wishes. He's had a crush on me since before he learned to turn his tail. He used to sneak off from the crèche to watch Ceyx and I, I'm sure of it. He might be a Patriarch now, but I remember when he was too small to swim."
"Who, then?" Galen persisted. He wanted to start an interspecies war with whoever the Meta man was.
"The only man I've slept with this year is you, Galen, so I'll give you one guess," Allie said. Before he could respond, she added, "Not that it matters. I can't carry a child to term. Five miscarriages have taught me that. Ceyx said it was the combination of his genes and mine, but I knew better. It was me. There's a reason no one else has a tail the colour of mine. Inbred is what I am, because the Mer community aboard our ship was so small genetic diversity was damn near impossible. So I'll have to endure a few weeks more of morning sickness before I miscarry this one, too, in a wave of blood and pain. The universe never meant me to be a mother. I should have learned my lesson by now." She inhaled deeply. "You know, I think I will have some of that pizza. It smells really good."
Galen stared as Allie picked up a slice and took a huge bite.
Not sick. Pregnant. With his child. It wasn't possible.
"But we're different species. We can't breed," he said.
Halcyon (The Complex series Book 0) Page 9
