by Andy Graham
“All politicians are good actors but my friend here is particularly fine given the right incentives. Even when drunk. Amazing what some people can do when inebriated.”
“If you don’t—” Rick began.
De Lette held up a podgy finger. “As for the people, the government will keep stoking the fires in their bellies. We’ll release the occasional story of A Benevolent Foreigner Who Is Not Like The Others just to keep our citizens on their toes. An emotional population is more easily led. And then, my trade deals will go ahead. I have invested too much in them for them not to, and it’s the only way the nation will see its money again. It’s the right thing to do, even your friend Beth agrees, ‘a sure-thing, no ifs, ands or buts’.” He stirred the ice cube in his glass with a finger.
Rick replayed the sentence in his mind, hearing Beth’s voice overlaid on De Lette’s. “You lied to her,” he said. “That camera in my work room was on.”
“No. I had another one installed.”
Rick’s memory flashed back to his meeting with Beth in his office: her reorganising the folders, the files that had been moved, the dust that had already been partially wiped off the shelves.
“I never said I wouldn’t do that,” De Lette continued, licking the alcohol off his finger. “There was no lie. It seems young Laudanum still has a lot to learn. I’d happily teach her, in return for her sitting on my lap, but she seems to have a peculiar issue with that. She does make good tea, though; she’ll have to teach her replacement the recipe.”
Through the lead-framed window, the sun dipped behind the horizon. It dragged the last of the fierce warmth of the day with it. Moonlight flooded through the window, painting De Lette bone white. “We have a problem, Major,” the president said in flat tones. “I don’t want to lose you, your status in society is too well revered. I considered sacrificing you to the cause, a tragic, untimely death would have worked well for us, but I was persuaded you have a lot more to contribute. Your sun-fans are a genius idea, for example.
“However, I’m not going to sacrifice the fragile stability we have just re-established in Ailan. Bringing the people who committed the hangings to justice would destabilise society, undermine the peace now stalking the streets. I could have just resigned but a revolution was a perfect opportunity for me to do some late spring cleaning, clear out the dead wood and get rid of the people too honest to be bought off. And it’s so much more fun.”
“You murdered them!”
“You say revolution. I say evolution. You say murdered. I say martyred. Essentially the same thing, perhaps that’s why they sound so similar. Ever considered some of those people would be honoured to have died for the cause they were fighting for?”
Rick shuddered, hearing Beth’s words as if she were standing next to him. ‘Give someone a knock, a stinger or a bath.’ Dissembling language that ran rings around the truth. She had been right. Again. “Stop the word games. You killed them.”
“I didn’t kill them, and even in the unofficial records, my name is not mentioned.”
“But—”
“Think on this, Major.” De Lette’s fingers tightened around his glass. “If these people are not out there fomenting dissent and discord, we will have peace much more quickly. The population will be able to eat and sleep in safety much sooner. We can relax curfew, allow alcohol again, let people watch TV, switch our internet servers back on. Isn’t that a worthwhile sacrifice? Wouldn’t you cut the head off an animal if it were threatening your people? Some creatures are much more dangerous than the wasps you and your ex are so worried about.”
“And what if that animal is a hydra?” Rick asked. It was desperate, bordering on juvenile. But after being awake for over a day and half, he was struggling to think straight.
“Hydras?” De Lette’s laugh barked through the room, causing Hamilton to yelp. “Myths. Dragons, too. But I’m not sure Colonel Chester got that memo,” he said, sniggering.
“This insurrection could be just the beginning.”
De Lette slammed the glass down on a table with a crack that made Rick jump. “If it is a hydra, you make sure you chop the heads off faster than they can regrow. And if that doesn’t work, you take its legs and its heart. And then its young.”
A silence settled across the room. It was deep enough that Rick could have sworn he heard the sweat dripping off his chin. It splashed off his shoe, the scuffed one, and landed on the presidential seal stitched into the rug. He was utterly exhausted. He was alone and scared. But he hadn’t lost yet. “I still have your video.”
The president shook his head. The glass clinked as he shoved it around the table with a fingernail.
“Rick, or should I call you Richard?” He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not reading between the lines. I have your video. It turns out loyalty really does get you nowhere.”
As gooseflesh rampaged up his arms, Rick realised what that sentence meant.
The president eased himself up out of his chair. There was a slight catch in his throat, a wheeze as the breath whistled in and out. The intercom crackled into life. “We’re ready for you now,” he said.
The main door opened. Rick kept his eyes fixed on the image of Tye through the window. A fog rolled off the river, obscuring the moons and spilling darkness across the ruins. The black panel of sky above it was peppered with red and blue flashing lights.
Someone stopped just behind him. He didn’t want to turn around; he didn’t want to know. A faint smell of perfume drifted over, carrying memories he tried to crush. This couldn’t be. Not her. Not like this.
24
A Handshake
Rick refused to look round. If he couldn’t see her, this wasn’t real. Life didn’t work like this. He knew that. But right now, he didn’t want to accept it. The corners of De Lette’s mouth twitched as he studied them both. “Oh,” he said. “You think your Bethina betrayed you? Wonderful, I never thought of doing that.” He clapped his hands together, jowls of fat jiggling under his chin as he giggled. “Show him the video, Laudanum.”
Beth held out a portable computer. Rick took it, his fingers greasy with sweat. The video he had stumbled across in his office was already playing. He watched it to its conclusion, replaying it twice. “This has been edited. You’re not in it anymore.”
“This, on the other hand, hasn’t,” De Lette replied.
“No, please,” Beth whispered, staring at her feet. “Don’t do this.”
De Lette shunted the cigar box out of the way and spun the screen of his desk computer around. On it was a still image of Rick clasping Beth’s hands, lips locked in a kiss. His stomach flipped. “That’s not what it seems.”
“Oh, well then. That’s fine. I’m sure on the moral outrage scale a little infidelity is nothing that can’t be overcome. Eventually.”
Despite his rising nausea, Rick kept his gaze fixed on De Lette. He was not going to give this man an easy victory, the satisfaction of scuttling his self-esteem. “What do you want?”
The president toggled a key on his computer. The picture whirled inwards, blurred pixels refocusing on their lips, their eyes squeezed shut. A gesture of love and affection twisted into one of betrayal, just like in the Old Texts from before the Great Flood. De Lette’s voice was low and soft, like the footsteps of a thief.
“I want you to accept the fact that the people you think of as baddies need to get away with their crimes. That way, the majority of the population can keep living as goodies.” He hooked his fingers around the last word. “Then I want you to tell me where you’ve stored the other copy of this video you alluded to.
“We found the remains of the notepad you were scribbling on in your little office. We know you uploaded the video somewhere but we don’t know where. You covered your digital tracks remarkably well and the camera we installed couldn’t see your keystrokes. Finally,” De Lette said, smiling disarmingly, “I want you to keep your mouth shut.”
Hamilton downed a large glass of spirits, refilling it
as quickly as he had drunk it.
“What kind of politics is this? All this waffle about revolution and evolution and murders and martyrs?” Rick shoved the screen Beth had given him back at her. The burn marks on his wrist glistened angrily in the dull light. “This country is a democracy, a system based on freedom.”
“Freedom?” De Lette’s eyebrows rose. “My dear, naive, just-point-and-fire Major, democracy isn’t about freedom — it’s about winning. Just like any other type of politics. Isn’t that right, Laudanum?”
Beth hung her head.
“‘Right’?” Rick’s voice exploded across the room. “What you’re doing is not ‘right’. He,” — Rick stabbed a quivering finger towards Hamilton — “is far from right. This whole thing, this . . .”
“Shit show?” De Lette volunteered. Hamilton giggled.
“Have you no morals at all?”
“Morals are as varied as the people who spout on about them. And that, my dear Major, depends on the politics. So we find ourselves back at the beginning again.” He scratched at his chin, eyes losing focus for a second. “‘A vicious circle of life’,” he said, “I think that’s how you described it to your former friend in his hovel. So, Major Frederick Franklin, do we have a deal?” He held out his hand.
Rick ignored it.
Stann had been right. It was an uncomfortable thing to do to someone. An insult to someone’s pride many would rather forgo in place of physical pain. One simple gesture, one time-honoured tradition, and his life would become easy again. He could go back to his wife and child, resume his post in the military, progress work on the energy bridge now that his upgrade to the sun-fans had been uploaded. Life would be easy. Those people would still be dead. Murdered. Rick had killed someone. Was this really that different? Maybe this was the best way forwards. This was always the way it had been. Why should now be any different?
Ailan’s two moons were hanging proud in the sky now: Lesau and Melesau, chasing their prey from dawn to dusk and back again. The president’s twin moon shadows cut across the floor. Rick’s shadows had done the same on the battlements in Castle Brecan, when he had made the wish on the moons. A wish that had been gutted. Stann had warned him the moons would take their revenge. And superstition or not, his and Stann’s lives had been twisted beyond recognition since then: one gaining, one losing, a near mirror image of reward and retribution. De Lette was offering him a choice: a chance to get some of that normality back, go home to his family, maybe even redress the balance with his oldest friend.
One handshake. That was all. Rick clasped his own hands behind his back. “No.”
De Lette’s eyes narrowed, the pulse in his neck quickening. He waddled back round the desk and lowered himself into his chair. “I thought that would be the case. A man with unwavering ideals where common sense should be living will not be bought. I have another conundrum for you then, Franklin. We have a word for a child who loses their parents, and a wife or husband who loses their partner. Why no word for a parent who loses their child? Too cruel a label?”
“What are you saying?”
“That the uranium mines have some thin seams best mined by hand, by small hands. It would be a noble thing for a father to volunteer to send his daughter there for the good of the nation. We’d have to work on how we present that. It’s a little clumsy but I’m sure my friends in the press can come up with a good slant. Maybe leaking that tawdry image of you and Beth would help.”
Beth gasped. “You promised, sir!”
De Lette shook his head and tutted. “When you worked out what was going on, Laudanum, I promised you would get the reward you wanted for keeping your mouth shut. I promised you I didn’t want to use that photo to harm your reputation. I don’t. I want to harm his. I didn’t say you wouldn’t get caught up in the crossfire. And as for my promise not to hurt Franklin’s family, so far, that promise still stands.” He shunted the chair back with his knees as he stood. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple. “You should have thought this through before calling your old flame back to the capital in a romantic bid to save him, Bethina. Or were you trying to woo him back into your slender loving arms?”
He spread his own arms wide, teeth gleaming in a white crescent between red cheeks. His torso seemed to swell to fill the space in front of the large window framing the burning city of Tye. “Really, Bethina, stay here. Learn from this,” he trailed his fingernails down his shirt. “Learn from me. You’ll get so much more here than at this silly university you want to go to. But I always keep my word, my reputation is built on it. You can do this course you have set your heart on. For the same reason, I have to honour these trade agreements I signed.” He turned his gaze back onto Rick. “So, Franklin, what’s it to be?”
Rick’s head was spinning. He could see Rose running in their garden. Playing the endless games of hide and seek she never bored of. The tears that trickled down his cheek when she fell and he comforted her. Her dressing up in his clothes. His shirt sleeves trailing in the mud as she wandered through the orchard. The innocent defiance of youth in eyes that matched her mother’s. The images blurred into those of Private Marka, the bodies slain in a nameless basement. De Lette had backed him into a corner. “You’re a bastard,” Rick said.
“I’ve been called worse. So, you agree?”
“Yes, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“Not enough. You’ll keep working on your new project. We have some other things for you to do, too. You can make the occasional video call to a news provider of my choice, to reassure the public you’re still alive as they’re slowly allowed to forget you. And you will be allowed one text message a month to your family.”
“What are you talking about?”
The president slammed his fist on the table. His voice rose, drowning out Rick’s protests and the horrified noises from Beth as she saw what was coming.
“You’ll go to the mines in your daughter’s place. Tonight. I promised them new help, a man with your skills will be useful there.”
“This isn’t what we agreed,” Beth cut in. The lines of the muscles in her neck were taut and quivering. She turned to Hamilton. “You were there, tell him! Or are you too spineless to even try and redeem yourself?”
The VP’s hands were twitching, the arrogant face he presented the nation a sham. A man who would refuse to make eye contact with himself in a dirty puddle.
“Quiet!” the president shouted.
Captain Lacky stuck his head through the door. De Lette bellowed at him to disappear. He leant on the table. The flushed face poking out of his shoulders now seemed large rather than fat. With a visible effort, De Lette reined his temper back in. “Which Franklin are you going to send to the mines, Rick?”
A burning pain was eating Rick from the inside. He was torn between the desire to vomit and the urge to hurt this man. It was a hatred that surprised him. A hatred he had seen in Stann’s eyes. The words tore through his throat. The only choice a father could make. “I’ll go.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open. “No.”
“But I’m not going to tell you where the backup is stored. That’s my insurance that you’ll leave my family alone.”
“We could kill you.”
“Then you’ll never find it.”
“We could kill your family? Torture them? Pull bits off them and push bits into them. Make them squeal like all those dead pigs from your village. We can do the same to your neighbours. Make you beg for permission to tell me where the backup is.”
Rick lifted his head. He met the black, beady eyes of the president, saw the upturned button nose in De Lette’s oversized face. Through the nausea and rage that was drowning him, he grasped a ray of hope. A footing, precarious, treacherous and as slick as a frozen pond, but a footing. One of Finn Hanzel’s animals had survived. A lone pig, released and rebranded. It was not the best metaphor for hope, no sunshine and clouds, no lights, tunnels, oases or islands, but he would take what he could. It had survived. People survived. R
ose and Thryn would live on. Rick Franklin’s sanity, saved by Stann Taille’s love for bacon. He wanted to laugh.
“You harm them in any way and the videos will be released,” Rick said. “They’re set on a timer which I have to renew. And you have more chance of holding back the sea than finding them now. I’ll go to the mines. I won’t tell anyone else about the backup copies, of that you have my word.”
The president nodded. “OK.” He held out his hand again.
Rick stared at it as if it was poisonous.
“No deal until you shake, soldier.”
Rick grabbed it. The skin was rough, the grip harder than he expected.
“Disappear, Franklin. We’ll spare your family and your reputation, but if I hear a peep out of those mines about anything I don’t like, I’m sending a van full of soldiers to your village.” He turned his attention away from Rick. “Now, Luke, what have you got for me?”
Rick was dismissed. The skin of his palm still clammy. His footsteps left soft indentations in the worn rug as he walked to the door.
Hamilton had uncorked another bottle, the first one now rolling next to the globe. The fake president stared down the barrel, chewing at his lips as he reassured the real president that the broadcast updates on the situation in Ailan were ready. The news for next week had already been written.
The door slid open. Captain Lacky watched Rick with an unreadable expression. Four soldiers stood behind him: four human manacles, one for each limb.
“Aren’t you interested in who betrayed you?” De Lette called.
Rick jerked to a halt. “Not really.” He felt like he was swimming through anaesthetic. Why would he want to know?
“Oh, come now, you’re the genius with cameras, you must be interested. Show him, Laudanum.”
She held out the screen. Clouds swirled, merged into each other and drifted apart. In each fading shape, Rick saw the curve of Thryn’s lips, the tumble of Rose’s hair. He watched as the wind tore them to pieces. The picture fell through the clouds, a blurring of fog that cleared to show an expanse of sere grass punctuated by leafy blobs. The camera focused on a large, unnaturally green rectangle.
