The Renegades (The Superiors)

by Lena Hillbrand

  With an unmistakable look of pity in her soft gaze, Cali moved forward on her knees, tentative, and slid her hands around him, pressing her fingers into his back again. Draven twisted away and pushed her back. She sat down hard, such a hurt look crossing her face that he regretted it at once. “Don’t,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  He studied Cali for a moment, trying to determine if he’d hurt her, but she only looked offended.

  “Do they still hurt?” she asked when he’d turned away to look for socks in the bags.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We should pack the bags, have everything ready, in case someone comes. We’ll die without these things,” he said. “I’ll stay nearby for a bit...Until we’re certain she didn’t report us.”

  “So we can stay?”

  “I don’t imagine it is wise.”

  “But we can? Maybe? For a while, at least.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Thank you,” Cali said, and, missing or simply ignoring Draven’s wary look, threw her arms about his neck. “I’m so happy.”

  “Yes, alright, very good,” he said, and patted her back the way he might pat a dog that jumped on him. “Here now, come away.” Her heartbeat thrummed against him, beating through her clothes, that pulse inside her that always made him yearn.

  He untangled himself from her arms. If he could touch that wonderful, life-giving part of her, reach inside her and cup her hot, beating heart in his hands for just a moment, to know with all his Superior senses the wonder of a heartbeat. If he’d had one, could he feel the blood move within him, hear the sounds of beating and flowing life inside his own body? Would it deafen?

  In a way, it made sense that he no longer contained the noisy processes of a human body. He needed his other senses, the ones that would not function at optimal levels when surrounded by the sounds and scents of a warm human body. To evolve to a state of such perfect clarity, the body must be secondary but nearly indestructible, so the other senses could function at full capacity.

  So Superiors had evolved, like infinitely more dynamic humans, with sharper reflexes, senses, coordination, strength, intelligence and cunning. That was the natural order of things, to improve upon a species until a new, more efficient one emerged from the old model. Superiors used all the energy in their food, stored extra for shortages in the muscles instead of wasting the energy and growing fat as humans did. Superiors didn’t produce waste—they used or stored all the energy they ingested, unless they ingested a foreign substance. Anything beyond a human’s life-giving sap. That was the downfall. If they evolved from humans, they should have evolved in a way that didn’t leave them so dependent upon humans—and so easily distracted by them.

  Chapter 47

  A light snow drifted down as Byron walked to his car the night he made up his mind to kill Draven. If asked, he would not have admitted his intentions, might not have admitted them outright to himself, but he knew. In the deep, seething recesses of his mind, vengeance festered. If someone asked, however, he would have denied it. He would have given a different reason for his quest. He would have said something about principles, about duty, responsibility, and honor, or perhaps about friendship and betrayal and consequences. He would have rationalized.

  The pure and simple reason, however, was revenge. His friend, the person he’d nurtured and mentored, had transformed into a lying, thieving, murderous “sex pervert,” as Meyer Kidd called it. A fair description. Anyone who enjoyed torturing animals, especially in that most sickening way, qualified as a pervert of the worst nature. If Byron could find a punishment more severe than death, he’d deliver it to those capable of such filth.

  Not only had Draven lied and hidden his sickness, he’d stolen Byron’s own sapien to perpetrate those outrages against. It wasn’t enough to deceive Byron and laugh behind his back—he had to rub it in his face, defile Byron’s very property. He had forever tainted Byron’s favorite sap. Once Byron recovered his property, he would never again be able to drink from her without thinking of that foul, warm hole. About Draven violating it.

  Byron shuddered and tried to turn his mind away from his consuming, relentless fury. Instead, he focused on his plan of action. He had packed everything he needed for the trip. As of yet, he didn’t know what hole Draven had scuttled off into. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He knew one hole. But he wouldn’t think of that, not now. Now he had a plan. After all, he could track down a criminal easily enough. He’d done it hundreds of times.

  He had rerouted some of his frustration with Meyer to this problem, this more immediate concern. If he didn’t catch Draven soon, Draven would kill the sap—if he hadn’t already. Byron had gotten tired of waiting around for the right forms to go through the right channels, while every day his enemy defiled his livestock. If the trackers couldn’t do their job, he’d do it for them. Catching a criminal for such a trivial crime was beneath him, but he didn’t mind this time. This was personal.

  He’d called Lapin and Lathan a dozen times, a hundred. Neither answered. He could hardly expect more from a couple of lousy Thirds. Of course they’d screwed up their simple assignment, to find and retrieved Draven and the sap. Somehow Lathan’s pod had simply vanished from existence, which set Byron’s mind churning. Lapin’s pod still moved through the mountains, though he never answered. The government refused Byron’s request to send new trackers, since Lapin’s pod remained viable, though the two had remained incommunicado for months. Months.

  For months, Draven had been bloodbagging Byron’s sap, performing all manner of grotesque violations, things unimaginable to Byron’s conventional mind. Finally, the night before, Byron had reached the limit of his patience.

  Somehow, Draven had outsmarted the trackers—but they were only Thirds like him. For all Byron knew, they’d joined him, forming a gang of bloodbaggers, all of them taking turns indulging in their perversions. Maybe Draven had drawn them in, gained their confidences, as he had Byron, and convinced them to join him.

  Byron let himself into the Enforcement Office by the back entrance. He said hello to a few stragglers who hadn’t left for the night. Then he went into his office and switched on his computer, placing his other hand on the scan pad while it started up. After confirming his identity, the computer buzzed to life. Byron unfolded its wings and seated himself in his swivel chair, sliding the screen’s transparent blue panels around him until they encircled him like a softly glowing tube. Electronic illumination pulsed over him, calming him. He had access, full government access, at his fingertips. He moved his fingers across the screens, opening files and records on each panel, surrounding himself with information that only the elite few, Enforcers, could access.

  Though what he planned wasn’t exactly legal, neither was it a severe offense.

  Byron had never broken the Law before, though. He was the Law. In breaking the Law, he broke everything he believed in so firmly, everything he’d worked so hard to preserve and protect and instill in his people. Even as he did it, as he accessed those files and turned on codes that Thirds never dreamed existed, he knew he had crossed a line.

  If discovered, he’d only incur a few fines for violating the supposed privacy of a Third. But Byron knew this act carried a far heavier weight than the punishment the government said the crime warranted. Never before had he dared even contemplate such a gross abuse of his privileges as Enforcer. It was a sacred duty, one he took on reverently, pushing aside personal views to serve the government as it indicated, loyal to the last, trusting that each law had a purpose. His purpose was to enforce those laws.

  But he feared he had finally come undone. Something in that kid, that damned kid, had broken through all his reserves. That smug arrogance, that wide-eyed innocent act, that silent glee at the misfortune of others. On his way to kill Draven, he’d like to stop off and stick a few wooden knives in Meyer’s chest. He’d do it with a smile on his face, too.

  Of course he couldn’t do that. Meyer had mo
ney. Meyer wasn’t some lowly Third Order criminal. He had a business, money, importance. Second Order status. If he disappeared, people would ask questions, investigations would begin that could end with no one but Byron. Everyone in the office knew Byron despised Meyer.

  Now, sitting in his empty office, he glanced around before touching Lapin’s code, as if the man himself might step out of the darkened hallway and accuse Byron of violating his rights. As if Lapin would know, even standing right beside Byron, what all the codes and words on the screen meant. Even as Byron broke the Law, his absolute devotion to it remained intact. He knew without a doubt that every crime met its punishment in the end. Time was always on the side of the Law. Unlike men, the Law lived forever. So did criminal cases. Eventually, every criminal was caught, tried, punished, and sometimes, released.

  Byron hesitated before skimming Lathan’s record. More fines. But he had to know for sure. Pulling up Lathan’s contact information, he paused, checked behind him once more, and dove in, his fingers dancing across the screen so quickly they blurred in front of his eyes, pulling and sliding information across the panels. He’d seldom done tracer activations, but once he’d done Lapin’s, the memory rose to the surface of his mind.

  Code Invalid, his computer said. The trackers had vanished into the mountains and ceased, as if they’d never lived at all, swallowed up by the shifting drifts of snow, not simply murdered but snuffed from existence. Just like all the missing persons in his case. He’d sent trackers after Draven, and they’d been sucked into the vortex that all those in his case had, never to be heard from again. And so he knew with absolute certainty now. Meyer Kidd was behind all of it. He had murdered the trackers, just as he had all the missing persons. Only this time, he’d chosen his target carefully, preventing them from retrieving Byron’s sap.

  This time, he had fucked with the wrong man.

  Grinding his teeth with fury, Byron traced Lapin’s codes. Again, the man had blinked out of existence, like a candle snuffed out between a wetted thumb and forefinger, not so much as a wisp of smoke to mark his departure. Of the two trackers sent to retrieve his property, only a pod remained, rootless, anchorless, floating through the mountains. A gleeful rage rose in Byron’s chest. He had been right. They were dead, not out there searching and not responding to a Seconds commands. No one had believed a word Byron had said since coming to Princeton, and now, finally, he had his vindication. He was right.

  A cold heaviness settled in his gut with his next realization. He could not boast of his triumph, couldn’t even mention it. He had not gone through the proper channels before invading a Third’s privacy. As if they had some right to privacy.

  Byron growled in frustration. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, repressing the urge to roar out his frustration, to tear the computer from the desk, rip it apart panel by blue panel, shatter the screens over his knee, smash the walls of the office, rip the building down one frozen piece at a time. After a few minutes, Byron opened his eyes, let out his breath, and began the last file.

  If Draven had died, the bitch had, too. If Draven lived, Byron would find him. Wherever Draven had gone, he’d have kept the sap alive to indulge his perversions. Now Draven needed punishment, and as an Enforcer, Byron had every right to arrest him and bring him to justice. Whether the sapien lived didn’t even matter. Whether Draven had her in his possession was irrelevant. He had warned Draven, and the jhant chaatu hadn’t listened. And now he would pay. No one crossed Byron and got away with it. No one.

  Chapter 48

  Meyer arrived exactly five minutes before the scheduled rendezvous time, punctual as always. Molly, knowing the importance he placed on such things, was already waiting. As he parked his snowmobile, he could see her standing next to the lake, already in her skates. Once, he would have risked having this conversation over his pod, but now he wouldn’t even dare have it in his apartment. He didn’t think anyone had planted a bug, but powerful men never could be too careful—especially powerful men who were top at irritating members of Law Enforcement.

  He smiled as he slid down the slope to the lake, which he’d had swept and smoothed the night before, specially for Molly’s visit. “Hello, hello, love,” he crowed as he approached to embrace the girl who stood a bit taller than he did. Though she wasn’t his favorite among his girls, she was the oldest, and therefore the most useful. “How was your ride up?” he asked.

  “Cold,” she said, hugging herself. She had seldom come to Princeton with him, but since she’d become his helicopter pilot, he’d required it, allowing her to leave only for small errands. With Byron crawling down his back, he had to take extra precautions, like keeping his pilot on hand for quick getaways.

  “Let’s get moving before we freeze to the ice,” he said. He handed Molly his skates, and she knelt to remove his shoes one at a time and lace him into his skates. When she’d finished, she stood and brushed the snow from her knees with her self-warming gloves. “So, what did you find?” Meyer asked as he began to glide across the ice.

  “I found the man you were looking for,” she said.

  “Yes, yes, very good,” he said. “What about him? Where is he? What’s he doing?”

  “He’s living in an endlot, with the sap,” she said. She didn’t skate as well as he, but she could stay upright. “He’s somewhat scary,” she added after a moment.

  “Is that so? He didn’t look all that frightening in the pictures.”

  “Well, he sort of was.” She concentrated on adjusting a finger of her glove. “He’s pretty nice looking, though.”

  Meyer laughed. “Is that so?”

  “Kind of,” she said. “But mostly just scary.”

  “Good work, Molly,” he said. “Very nicely done. Did you get an eye in the fence?”

  “I set it up before he saw me.”

  “He saw you?”

  “Yes, he saw me watching him.”

  “What were you doing watching him?”

  “You told me to watch him,” Molly said. “I put the eye in the fence, and then I was watching him bathing in the snow, and he saw me.”

  “You were watching him bathe? I didn’t think you were interested in men that way.”

  Molly looked highly uncomfortable, which Meyer found delightful. Though he preferred all his girls to evolve while still in childhood, as he had, he wouldn’t cast Molly out if she was interested in sex. She was too useful. “I don’t,” she said. “I’m not.”

  “Very well,” he said. “So you watched him bathe, and he saw you. And then what did he do?”

  “He chased me away.”

  Meyer laughed again. “Is this all on the eye? I’d right like to see a naked man chasing you through the snow.”

  “He put on his pants first,” she said, somewhat defensively, he thought.

  “That’s too bad,” Meyer said. “I was halfway hoping he ravished you on vid. That would have been quite an entertaining watch.”

  “He didn’t,” she said. “He just caught me, and I kicked him in the face and got away. I could savor the sap, so I know she’s there, but he was super weak. He must have gotten hurt and not made up for it by eating extra. I got away without hardly trying.” She glanced at Meyer as if anticipating some reward. Maybe she did deserve one.

  “Well done, love,” he said. “You have done all I asked and more. You can go home tomorrow if you like. What would you like for payment?”

  “Maybe I could…” She faltered and began fiddling with her glove again.

  “What? Spit it out, now. I haven’t got all night. I’m very busy and important.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Well, I’ve been thinking, maybe I’d like to live somewhere else and try it out?”

  “You want to move here? Or Moines?”

  “No, I mean…I’ve loved living with all of you, but maybe I could try living alone. Like other Thirds.”

  “Ah, of course,” he said. “You are old enough to pass, I imagine, with a few alterations. I’ll
look into it. I have a few houses I could loan you, in either Texas or Moines.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I take care of my girls. Besides, asking to leave us isn’t a payment. I wouldn’t be giving you anything.” He thought as they circled the lake. “I have a place in Moines I think you’d like. Very cute little house in a nice neighborhood, one of my employees up there just moved out. I may need your services again, but for now, you can take your things and make yourself quite at home there. I’ll set you up on my system and you can make it your official residence when we get back to Princeton.”

  “Are you ready now?” she asked. “I’m a little cold.”

  “Stay a while,” he said. “Let’s skate. This is delightful, isn’t it?” They moved in concentric circles, working their way towards the center of the frozen lake.

  “What are you going to do to him?” she asked after a time.

  “Why, nothing, for now,” he said.

  “You didn’t have me place the eye so you could catch him doing something and then have him arrested, or killed, or anything like that, did you?”

  He laughed. “Well, I see he’s made quite the impression on you. That’s a lot of concern you have for a sex pervert and a criminal.”

  “I’m not concerned,” she said. “I just wondered.”

  “I’m sure,” Meyer said. “Rest assured, though, I haven’t any evil designs on the bloke. If I meant to invalidate him, I would have given you a quite different task. I only wanted to see what he was doing. That’s why I gave you an eye, not a stake.”

  “Okay,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “And next time, don’t let him see you, you daft cow,” he said. “He’s a criminal, probably bristling with stakes. If you hadn’t caught him with his pants down, he’d have had one in his hand no doubt, and he could have killed you.”