The Misrule series Box Set

by Andy Graham

  “I sent him home. He’ll be safer in the Towns. More use, too.”

  Behind a glass wall opposite the door, guards strapped people back to the gurneys. White-coated figures ran between them with syringes in hand. A guard dropped to the floor, clutching his shins. A figure in a wheelchair spun away and rammed into another guard from behind.

  “I’ll say this for you Bucket-born, you have a lot more loyalty than people from the Gates.”

  “We have fewer things than you city people, paradoxically, that means we have more to lose.”

  “You said that?”

  “My mother.”

  “The lovely Rose Franklin,” Lind said, wryly. “Sounds just like her.”

  “You know her?”

  “Not in the way I wanted to.”

  Leave it. He’s trying to distract you. Focus.

  Behind the glass wall, the guards were losing control. One of the patients had got hold of the syringes and was using them as darts. Her enthusiasm made up for her aim and the irregular twitches of her arms. “I wasn’t planning on being here tonight,” Lind said as another cloud of dust floated down, “but I got a confused message from Joanna Miescher. I suspect she hasn’t told me everything. I warned her not to push Avery too hard. How is she, by the way?”

  “Alive.”

  “Good.” Lind took in the destruction. “Miescher’s not really to blame. She thought she was a player. She wanted to be a queen but she’s just a pawn. I guess she reckoned you were just a squaddie with a grudge. I don’t think she realised how destructive you Rivermen can be.”

  Ray’s grip tightened on his baton. His plan had been simple: get in, get his brother out, if he still lived. Since the discovery of who was in the cell downstairs and the revelation that Lind knew him and his mother, he’d been struggling to keep the plan symmetrical. His head was spinning with the possibilities.

  “Where’s my brother? What are you doing in this hellhole?”

  “There is no such thing as hell.”

  “Shut it. You were the one who just said ‘damn you’ to the VP. What use is that insult if hell doesn’t exist? And before you ask, no, my mother didn’t say that, I did.”

  Lind watched Ray appraisingly. “OK. Seeing as you’ve taken the trouble to pay us a visit.” He gestured round the room. “This, Captain Franklin, is the way forwards. Science drives society. Street lighting, soap and soup have saved more souls than any number of sermons. This place is a temple to a rational religion for the masses, the next stage of evolution.” He glanced over his shoulder at the carnage. “At least it was until you put it to the torch. The religious extremists creeping back into our lives would be proud of you, they’re into burning things and people they don’t like. They’re too obsessed with pain for it to be healthy, in my opinion.”

  “Get to the point.”

  Lind watched the baton warily as Ray came closer. “Science is the future. A tip-and-hope approach to life based on faiths rooted in superstitions and scaremongering has a regressive effect on society. I for one am happy with the absolute truth of what I do. Apart from anything else it has spared me the indignity of having to sit through supposedly scientific lectures which turned out to be poetry readings.”

  Behind the glass, the chaos had spilled out into the corridors. An older patient with a straggly handlebar moustache was tapping on the wall separating him from Ray and Lind. His body was tilted forwards, arms and neck rigid, fingers rubbing up against each other. A bald woman walked over to the wall to join him, lifting her knees unusually high. Her bare feet slapped down hard on the floor. Ray hefted the baton in his hand. “Sounds to me that you enjoyed those poetry meets a bit more than you want to admit. Now, without any more of your prepared speeches, tell me what you are doing here. Tell me where my twin brother is, where’s Rhys?”

  “Dead. A long time ago. I’m sorry, son.” Lind’s calm demeanour was at odds with the scene unfolding behind him. “I guess you want proof.”

  He tapped a button in his desk and a wall-screen flickered into life. The picture snapped into focus, showing Lind with his arm around a young legionnaire on Family Day. Seeing them up close, standing next to each other like that, the resemblance was obvious. Another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. Ray kicked himself for not having seen it before. He’d been so focused on finding his brother he’d been blind to everything else.

  Lind tapped in a new password. An old document replaced the picture.

  “Franklin, R. - Deceased,” Ray read.

  Ray’s date of birth, his twin’s date of birth, and a death date just under two years later were listed. A series of blurred pictures and clips of a child scrolled under the text. They ranged from the jelly-like mass of curves and creases that were indistinguishable from any other newborn to a baby struggling to lift its head. The next was a toddler reading a plastic book upside down. The last picture was of the same toddler with more hair, apparently sleeping. Lenka hadn’t kept many pictures, but Ray could have been looking at himself. He had been prepared to find out his brother had died a long time ago. Seeing him, having a face to go with the name, changed things. It made his brother real.

  “Your twin drowned while your mother was supposed to be taking care of him. Parental visits were rare, even back then. They were stopped soon after.” In the room behind the clear wall, the guards had fled the lab. Patients were studying the glass, running their hands over the thin cracks that had appeared during their battle. “I’m sorry,” Lind said. “Truly. I spent a bit of time with the boy when I was new here. From what I remember, he was a good kid, stubborn and wilful, but essentially decent. I did what I could to help. You know how it goes.”

  Ray fought back the anger surging through him, locking it down next to the blue-eyed vengeance. He was not going to lose it now; he owed it to too many people. “Let me guess. You were allowed to bring your son in to keep Rhys happy while you studied them both. And then you took James, your son, home. Rhys stayed here, just another walking test tube to be categorised.”

  “How do you know my son’s name?”

  Ray laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound as the puzzle shifted again. “You don’t know what happened under the Donian Mountains, do you? You didn’t know I was there.”

  Lind grabbed Ray’s forearm. “Where is my son? What do you know?”

  The colours on the transparent wall blurred. The figures behind it looked to be swimming in inky water. The man in the wheelchair was pointing through the glass, talking to his colleagues.

  “Let go of me, Lind.”

  “Where is my son? Tell me!” Lind’s shout was lost in a cry of pain as a streak of blue sparks spiralled up his arm.

  “First,” Ray said, pointing the stun baton at the still twitching Lind, “Tell me what you’re doing here. Then we’ll get to James.”

  53

  A Folly Tree & a Field-Marshal

  The digital arrow above the main lift in Bethina’s tower was set into an aged, faux-bronze housing. The architect had pompously described it as a ‘regressive progression of style’. The VP had found her to be a ‘minor irritance’, to use another of her phrases. The rest of her work designing the leaders’ towers had turned out to be ‘skin-savingly superlative’. His phrase. This lift stopped short a few floors of Bethina’s office and the VP patiently completed the security checks before being allowed up the final flights of stairs. They were unevenly spaced and twisted clockwise, just like in the ancient, pre-Flood castles. It had been another feature the architect had insisted on, though how much use those features would be against invaders armed with guns rather than swords, the VP didn’t know. He guessed — and permitted himself a snigger — that they’d be worse than useless against a bomb, especially the one he was planning. Bethina did have a private lift that connected directly to her office, but he had been denied access to it today. That smacked of another of the woman’s endless power plays. He reached the railing-free landing where there was nowhere to go but into her office or bac
k down. The landing was, naturally, equipped with wall-mounted cameras and murder holes in the ceiling. He suspected that was more Bethina’s doing than the architect’s.

  The presidential office was not quite at the top of Melesau Tower. Bethina had claimed it would be too ostentatious, that a show of restraint was often appreciated. Instead, she had filled the upper levels with books and newspapers saved from the Great Library of Tye. There were sections of that private library that were off-limits even to him and that needled him. He refused to let it get to him this evening. Neither was he going to let the last-minute wrangling with Lind annoy him. He’d let the guards’ insistence that he use the plebs’ elevator slide, too. Despite the lack of sleep, he felt a thrill that he had never experienced before. Political power was one thing but it was distant and removed. What he had been part of early this morning was much more visceral. It had even managed to dull the memories of his mother covered in bruises the colour of a diesel spill.

  His lie about the energy crisis and the truth about having slept with Prothero’s daughter had been a delicious way to top off the fool’s plummet from the VP’s office. It was an apt way for Prothero to die given the man’s role in the Window Riots. And with proof of the former Spokesperson’s part in the sabotage of Substation Two, the VP reckoned he was off the hook with Bethina. He could, however, do with some rest. His day had turned out to be inordinately busy. After all, schemes didn’t plot themselves. He was so tired he was convinced he had seen Ray Franklin skulking around Lind’s lab.

  “You’re imagining things,” he whispered as he smoothed down his jacket. “And speaking to yourself.” Not nerves. Just fatigue. Or madness? He chuckled. Maybe he could go to the Ward later, see who was around. He’d noticed a few fine young things that looked promising. “And now you’re just stalling. Get on with it.”

  He marched through Bethina’s office, heels clicking on her hardwood floor, past her desk and its antique phone, tossed his jacket onto the sun-worn leather sofa behind the balcony door and stepped out to join the president.

  Apart from a table, a few chairs and the dogs, the balcony was empty. If you ignored the wretched tree that took up most of the space, of course. The surrounding walls had been treated with a paint that mimicked the ambient light. They were currently a deep blue that blended with the darkening sky. It made the balcony look as if it were floating above the city. It also made him feel sick.

  “You’re here, then?”

  He bit back the obvious snide retort. “Thank you for seeing me so quickly, ma’am.”

  “When you contacted me regarding an urgent issue, I initially thought you wanted to talk about stepping up the protests in Mennai.” Bethina squatted to pick up a leaf. For a woman who must be almost in her seventieth year, she was still lean and graceful, moving with an ease that many half her age would struggle with.

  What does she mean by ‘initially’? The hairs prickled upright on the back of his neck. “I do. That and the gwenium solution. Both have been taken care of.”

  “What else have you ‘taken care of’ today?”

  “Ma’am?”

  Bethina placed the leaf on the top of the wall and nudged it with a fingertip. It tumbled into the night sky, spinning and twisting down to the frosty pavement far below. Ignorance, he decided, was the way to go.

  “I’ve drafted a request for tender for someone to design and run an automated processing plant for the gwenium. I think I’ll give first refusal to the Chief Energy Officer from Lind’s place; he seems to have a thing for electricity. And no family. Odd man, even by CEO standards.” Gingerly, he backed onto the glass sheet that took up half of the floor. He knew the floor would take his weight, had witnessed the stress tests, but his brain would never let go of the irrational fear of it cracking and him falling. Piercing that floor, reaching up from a garden three levels below was Bethina’s tree.

  The president called it her Folly Tree, ‘a reminder of what should and shouldn’t be’. Thick foliage, dotted with patches of snow, caressed the steel and glass walls. The bottom branches were barely within reach, stretching out into the empty space around them. Someone had added tinsel and lights flashing in the four colours of Ailan. He had never worked out where the roots went. He guessed to some of the restricted rooms below. Or had the builders managed to feed them into the walls?

  Bethina hadn’t moved from watching the leaf fall but her silence demanded an answer. “Where’s that Swann woman Franklin was so interested in?” he asked. “I saw her briefly last night but she hasn’t been seen since.” Clumsy. Why did he feel the urge to say something?

  “For whose sake are you asking?”

  “When we find Dr Swann, we can use her to flush Franklin out. I’m sure he’s going to come looking for her. Genes never let you down.” He joined her by the parapet. One of the moons had just crested the horizon. The silver light cast a shimmering streak that was reflected in the painted wall between them. Below the president’s tower, Effrea sprawled into the distance, a mass of lights and the occasional dark smudge of smoke. The dizzying view was worse than through the glass floor. His stomach twisted with a momentary pang of horror for what must have gone through Prothero’s mind as he had sat on the windowsill.

  “I’ll deal with Captain Franklin,” Bethina said. “I feel I owe it to certain members of his family to do this myself.”

  “Who?”

  “I knew Rose Franklin’s father well. The man who gave us the sun-fans and the elecqueduct. The so-called hero of Castle Brecan, though he hated that accolade,” she said with a fond smile.

  The VP’s mood soured. “Rick Franklin was a traitor and a coward, despite what the public thinks. I read it in the archives.”

  “And therefore it must be true.”

  “Of course it’s true. The man married a foreigner. She gave birth to another traitor, and that baby, Rose Franklin, gave us Ray. The family is heresy made flesh.”

  “I’m not sure I’d call it heresy, and Rose wasn’t a baby when she had her three children.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said, anger washing away his fatigue. How dare Laudanum defend that family! “The world would be a better place if her bastards had been drowned at birth.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, young man. As for Dr Swann,” her voice picked up, “Chester’s on it.” The balcony door swept open. “Perfect timing, as always. Thank you for coming so promptly, Willa. Wine?”

  Chester offered her thanks and took the glass. She strode out on to the glass floor around the Folly Tree. Her black and silver uniform was immaculate, matching her skin and hair in a way that must have been planned. It’s almost as if she’s wearing a patch of midnight sky, the VP thought whimsically. He poured himself a glass and held it up for a toast. “Chester, no hard feelings?”

  “Of course.” Her face was unreadable, eyes glittering like frosted coal.

  “If it makes you feel better,” he continued, “I caught up with some of the people responsible for what I showed you in my office. There are some things I will not tolerate, regardless of how long ago it happened. Matricide is one.”

  “You murderous swine.”

  “I didn’t kill them. They were put to good use.”

  “Enough,” the president snapped. “Both of you. We have enough problems without this bickering.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Chester said.

  The sickly feeling in his gut twisted into something more acidic. Vengeful. No one spoke to him like that. Why should Bethina get away with it? He shifted his attention back to the legionnaire and offered her a slight bow. She had been cowed. She was easier to deal with. “My apologies, General Chester.”

  “Field-Marshal Chester.” She twisted so the discreet emblem on her shoulder was visible, a half-smile playing across her face.

  The VP felt the terrain shifting. This was his game, his rules. He won. He always won. “I’m the Field-Marshal!”

  “I changed my mind and promoted Willa,” the president said. �
��I should have told you earlier.”

  The momentary indignation the VP had felt before paled behind what flooded his veins now.

  “Your acting rank has been revoked; there’s no shame there,” Bethina said. “It will be noted that the country owes you a debt of thanks. For temporarily taking on the responsibilities of the role, on top of everything else you were doing, we are all grateful. But we need strong, balanced leadership. Now more than ever.”

  Chester raised her glass to the last rays of sunshine. “Yesterday will rise again. The dragon will fly once more.”

  “Careful with the hyperbole, Field-Marshal,” the president warned. “I don’t want the power vacuum filled with fantasies. Keep your myths on a firm leash.”

  “Of course, ma’am. Now, if you will excuse me, the Forum awaits.” The new field-marshal poured the contents of her glass into the VP’s. “All our ancestors are dead,” she whispered into his ear. “Let’s see how our successors get on.”

  The VP scowled after her as the door closed. This wasn’t over. Something wet nudged his hand. He lurched backwards onto the glass pane surrounding the tree trunk. Fighting the momentary illusion of falling, he forced himself to calm down. One of Bethina’s dogs sat in front of him, head cocked to one side.

  “She’ll have to be watched,” said the president, settling into a chair. “I fear Chester may not be as malleable or predictable as David was. You’d better resolve your differences with her; Chester’s not going to cut you as much slack as he did.”

  Whatever she was about to say next, Bethina appeared to think better of. She held her hands out to a steaming pitcher of wine on the table.

  He snatched a strand of tinsel off his shoulder and dropped it through the glass hole. Halfway down the trunk, it snagged on a branch and hung there, twinkling in the draft. Rumour had it that tinsel sprang from the Bucket Town tradition of using entrails as an offering left on trees to appease the emaciated spirits of winter. He hoped they hadn’t got the remains from humans. Some of the Buckets still used apples, nuts and other foods as decorations. Tinsel and trinkets, though juvenile, suited the Gates much better. They were less crass, more in keeping with the true spirit of Midwinter: money.