by Loren Walker
“So we take advantage of your position,” Phaira said. “And my talent for persuasion.”
A slight smirk appeared on his face. “Quite the team.”
“We’ll see now, won’t we?” Phaira grinned back. “Just try to keep up.”
“You know,” he said, his smile dropping. “I got in a lot of trouble when I got back from Liera. Gone for a week, almost killed the guards who came looking for me.”
Uneasy, Phaira sat back. She remembered every detail of that week in Liera, the nights in his company, more than she would ever admit. And yes, she recalled how, again and again, he’d mentioned that his grandfather would be looking for him. And yet he stayed with her, night after night.
“Well, Bianco administered the punishment, under my grandfather’s direction,” Theron said. “He froze my accounts. Placed me under house arrest, like I was grounded. Had to do menial labor and make deliveries. Took some smacks upside the head. It was like they didn’t know what to do with me, like they only understood how to punish a child. And I let him beat me. I did nothing, like I always do.”
He glanced at her. Phaira realized she was wincing.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, dropping her face into a neutral glaze.
“In the back of my mind, I’ve always wondered what it would take to make me let go of my control.”
He turned to look out the train window again, a cold edge to his words. "I guess now I know.”
* * *
The ride to the Lea skerries was quiet. Running his hands down the leather seats, Renzo wondered what Jetsun was thinking, as she gazed out of the window, her blonde hair like a wave down her shoulder.
“So why aren’t you the head of the Savas? Why Theron?”
Jetsun cast a look at the driver, through the privacy glass. There was no sign that he overheard. “Why are you asking?” she said warily.
“Because you seem to be the one running the show,” Renzo said. “And I’m curious why it’s not official.”
“Not qualified,” she said loftily.
“Why not? Shouldn’t it be the best person for the job?”
“And what makes you think Theron is the wrong person?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“Hmm,” was her only response. “The answer is: I’m adopted.”
“So? Does that matter?
“It does to the Savas. They have strict ideas on their lineage. I serve a purpose, but I can only go so far.” Renzo wondered if he heard bitterness in the blonde woman’s voice.
“So who succeeds Theron? He doesn't have any other family, right?”
“He’s the last legitimate heir. So the syndicate would implode, and there would be a scramble for leadership.”
“You should know,” she added. “We’re being watched. By more than one set of eyes.”
“By who?” Renzo yelped.
Jetsun crinkled her nose. “Law patrol. Detective Ozias, probably,” she listed. “Some hired spies from some end of the Savas, tracking our movements.”
Renzo looked around frantically. “We need to make another plan, come back at night -”
Jetsun shook her head. “I’ve been watched for most of my life. You just don’t give them anything to use against you.”
“Like the place where we are going?” Renzo hissed. “They'll arrest us as soon as we try to access the skerries.”
Jetsun gave him a withering look. “They won't. And in this situation, it’s to our advantage to be watched over.”
They arrived at the barrier that separated the Lea skerries from the city. The wall was cement, and ten feet high, but there were hidden entry points, if one knew where to look, and Jetsun did. She pushed lightly on the cement, and a heavy door swung open. Renzo looked right and left, and in the sky, searching for signs of being watched. There were none.
On the other side of the barrier, Renzo squinted in the sun, taking in the view of several abandoned, crumbling apartment buildings, and signs marking each one as condemned. The ocean wind whistled through broken windows, a strange, eerie sound. Gravel crunched under their feet, along with the ashes of cigars and little fires, strips of cardboard with black edges, the popped-out eye of a doll or some other toy, rolling in a lazy arc in a puddle.
Jetsun stepped through the mess with ease, walking on the balls of her feet, her high heels hovering just above the mud, heading for a crooked house in the distance. She walked along the edge of the rotting stairs, and waited for Renzo on the porch. He peered over his glasses at the front door, bolted with rusty locks.
“He brought Kuri here?”
“So the rumor goes.” She was waiting for something, running the edge of her thumb along her fingernails, back and forth.
“What's the problem?" Renzo said impatiently. "Get us in there, or get us out of here.”
Jetsun bit her crimson lips. Then she let out a huge exhalation, and shoved her shoulder into it. The locks weren’t sealed, Renzo realized, just lightly affixed for the appearance of security. The door swung into darkness: mold-covered walls, a staircase to the basement.
The smells changed as they descended, from rotten to clinical: bleach, and antiseptic, and a strange, metallic aroma that seemed to stick to Renzo's tongue. He felt along the damp, peeling wallpaper, straining his eyes to see.
The staircase opened into a basement, windowless, but lit in the corners. There were metal shackles attached to one wall, hanging limp, amid dried brown smears. Discarded wires with electrodes were strewn across the floor. A standalone console with a seat, several screens, measurement tools, discarded pens. A tiny closet, its door ajar. Horrified, Renzo peered inside. The walls were covered with fiberglass, with strange horizontal and vertical patterns. It smelled of sewage in here, and old sweat. Someone had been shut up in there. He was growing more nauseous by the second, with every flash insight into what Theron had been doing in those five days. And by the look on Jetsun’s face, she was experiencing the same level of distress.
“I didn’t think he had it in him,” Renzo said.
“Nor I,” Jetsun confirmed, her voice strained. Not for the first time, Renzo wondered what the blonde woman really thought of her cousin.
A series of looming metal cabinets stood on the far side of the room. Four-by-four compartments. Handles freezing cold to the touch.
Renzo jerked one open and slid it back. Empty. The next three, the same.
The fourth, he jumped back at the shock of white hair that appeared, as the light hit the inside of the drawer.
Kuri Nimat, at least a much older version of the man Renzo remembered. His lower body wrapped in a sheet. Scratches across the surface of his chest, his arms, his skin. Purple smudges under his eyes, skin sunken into his skull. Renzo peered underneath his head. The scalp was sagging, hastily stitched back together, more for neatness than any kind of healing. He could even see the faint white of bone through the severing.
“What is he thinking?” Jetsun was gasping, her hands to her chest. “Why wouldn’t he get rid of the evidence? What am I supposed to do, now that I’ve seen, I can’t - ?”
“That’s your question?” Renzo snapped. “Not: why is there a dead guy being kept cold in some torture chamber, with his head sawed open?”
“Is he dead?” she flustered, looking crestfallen. “I thought we had a lead.”
Renzo studied the body of Kuri Nimat. There was no breath, no pulse in its neck, and the skin had a sunken-in, waxy look. "He's dead.”
“So we are back to nothing, then," Jetsun moaned. "No clues. No leads.”
“Well, he had Kuri in here for five days,” Renzo muttered, trying to remain clinical about it all, listing the facts. “Then Theron, or someone else, performed surgery on the back of Kuri's skull, for some reason. He was looking for something."
His thoughts turned. "He created the HALO with me. He sent me the proposal to start the manufacturing company for NINE-defensive equipment. His focus has always been on how to contain people with thes
e abilities. Maybe he was trying to understand how Kuri's brain worked.”
He glanced at Jetsun. “Maybe he’s not finished with his research.”
“But it’s been weeks,” the woman said weakly. “All this time - ”
A BANG! from upstairs. The two froze. “Who did you call?” Renzo hissed.
“No one,” Jetsun snapped back.
Footsteps creaked over their heads. Whoever it was, they weren’t trying to be quiet. The pace was casual, drawing closer to the stairwell.
Panicked, Renzo looked in all directions. There was no exit, other than the stairs that led them there.
A set of red boots appeared at the stop of the stairwell. A shadow stretched across the basement.
Before Renzo could blink, Jetsun had a gold pistol in front of her, trembling in her grasp.
Then the red silhouette appeared, shrugging with every step, a weird, jerking gesture, like an alien mimicking human traits. There was something large and round in its right hand.
“Stay back!" Jetsun ordered shrilly. “Surveillance is everywhere. You’re trapped.”
As if tossing a flower through the air, the Red sent its arm forward, letting the ball go.
It landed with a heavy wet thud in front of Renzo: dark, brown and black and red, spinning on the floor. Purple veins, white bone, ragged skin.
And a man’s terrified eyes, staring up at Renzo.
* * *
“Squeeze the trigger slowly,” Cohen instructed. “It’s going to be loud, but you have to keep breathing.”
CaLarca's black eyes narrowed at the target. Her arm muscles were more pronounced, Sydel noticed.
A shot fired, making Sydel jump. There was a hole in the paper target, thirty feet away, up in the left corner. At least she hit the paper.
“Better,” Cohen said. “But here’s the real challenge. Can you generate Nadi and still fire with accuracy?”
CaLarca closed her eyes, her finger grazing the edge of the Compact firearm unearthed in Theron’s cabin.
Standing out of the way, Sydel kept her arms crossed tightly in front of her. This is wrong, this is so wrong; she couldn’t shake the old, rigid thinking. The rules of Jala Communia ran deep, even with Yann gone. Even though her own morals were no better than lies, she still felt reverence for the gifts she had been given.
As Sydel watched, threads of green-streaked hair lifted from the woman’s multiple braids, as if charged with static electricity.
The Compact fired. The paper target burst into flame.
“Whoa,” Cohen gasped. “That really works?”
CaLarca was panting, her white skin even paler. “That takes a lot of Nadi,” she remarked. “More than I would have thought. I don’t know how many shots I can get off. Maybe three?”
“Better than nothing,” Cohen said. “Slow the Red down, and Phaira and I take care of the rest.”
“And me, too,” Sydel heard herself say.
Both CaLarca and Cohen glanced at her. Then infuriatingly, at each other. Sydel felt her frustration bubbling up again. “Give me that,” she ordered, gesturing for the firearm.
“Syd, you don’t - ”
“I do, and I will,” she interrupted Cohen, snatching the pistol from CaLarca’s hands.
“Careful!” Cohen yelped. “Syd, don’t just grab it like that, you have to check the safety.”
Sydel gritted her teeth, and held the firearm in both hands. It was heavy, and still warm from CaLarca’s grip. She braced her legs, rocking back and forth on her feet. Then she aimed at the target, which had cooled and stopped burning, and was now blackened with ragged edges.
Cohen shook his head. “That just looks wrong,” he protested. “This isn’t you, Syd, you know it’s not.”
“You are not helping!” Sydel snapped.
“You don’t need his help,” came CaLarca’s quiet voice.
Yes, CaLarca had shown her that, in those weeks in Toomba. All the hours training, holding a plank position to improve her abdominal strength, to increase her physical strength and focus, all happening in the midst of her maddening, disintegrating mind. CaLarca had pulled her from darkness when she couldn’t stop rocking in a tight ball, couldn’t stop the thoughts layering in her head, telling her that she was worthless, soulless, murderous. CaLarca had cared for her like a mother.
She closed her eyes, and remembered the words spoken in training: Tighten your muscles. Control the Nadi as it generates in your core. Strength is key to channeling it, to mastering it.
A cool hand lay on her wrist, pressing down.
Startled, Sydel opened her eyes to see CaLarca.
There were faint lines on either side of the woman’s black eyes, finely etched lines that weren’t there before.
“Don’t,” CaLarca said. “Let me.”
“I can do it,” Sydel protested, shaking off her hand.
“I know you can,” CaLarca said. “And better than me, I don’t doubt it. But it will be far different when you’re aiming that Compact at a living being, no matter how evil. If you hesitate, it’ll be over. Your instinct is to use your gifts for good, not to channel them through another machine.”
“And you won’t hesitate?”
“No,” CaLarca said. “I have nothing to fear.”
* * *
The world shifted from black to a hazy yellow. His head was on the ground. His wrists itched; when he tried to separate them, the cold metal pierced his skin.
The sound of chains rippling. Renzo tried to see through his crooked glasses. He was on the floor, in that secret underground space of Theron’s. He tasted blood in his mouth. His temples were throbbing. He smelled sweat, and harsh chemicals. He held back his coughing and sat up.
Jetsun was crumpled on the ground next to him, her hair ground into the dirt, so tangled and matted and smeared. She was bound at the wrists too, both of their chains attached to a bolt in the floor, like some kind of medieval torture dungeon. Was this really Theron’s design? Was he behind this all along? How else would that thing, that Red, know where it was? What was it doing here?
With a shudder, he recalled the severed head of the man; one of the people charged with surveillance, no doubt. How many bodies were lying dead outside these walls, rotting in the sun? Someone would notice that the patrol wasn't checking in, that the Savas were missing in action.
Someone could come looking, find Renzo and Jetsun and rescue them. Phaira would. Theron would. They just had to hold on and stay alive until the raid.
He caught sight of the Red by the metal cabinets. Kuri's corpse was still rolled out, and the Red stood over him, staring down into his face. Slowly, the Red removed the metal mask it wore, and unwound the cloth around its head. Shaved head, mottled skin, and underneath the metal mask, sharp jawline, angular nose. Feminine lips.
Female?
As if reading his thoughts, the Red turned to Renzo. They stared at each other for several seconds, the Red unblinking. Renzo couldn’t summon the courage to even speak, or barely breathe. Woman or not, she was ripped with muscles; artificial, by all the stretch marks and discoloration. Veins protruded in her neck, by her temple. Bizarre, freakish creation. Man-made.
The blood hearts, he remembered. Drawn next to the bodies of the victims.
Heartbroken. For Theron?
“What did he do to you?” he burst out.
It was an enormous risk. But maybe if he just tried to talk, an idea would spark; maybe something would come to him; maybe if someone would blast their way through, to rescue them.
The words spilled out of him. “This isn’t the way. I mean - I can see, clearly, that you’re very upset, and you probably have good reason to be, I don’t know, but - ”
Was he really giving relationship advice to a mutated assassin?
“He’s not worth it,” he kept going. “You can still start over - ”
The crack across his head made him blind for several seconds. White pain shot down his neck and spine.
“Renzo.”
A frightened voice behind him.
Through the blaze of his pain, he saw that Jetsun was awake, frantically pulling at the chains.
A shadow came over him. Renzo froze with fear. But it was Jetsun who cried out.
He twisted at the waist, yanking at the chains, catching sight of Jetsun’s terrified gold eyes, before she was pushed into the padded room, the door slammed shut. Then the Red stared through the tiny window, as if fascinated at the sight of Jetsun's fists banging on glass with no sound.
He couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.
Hold on, he thought, wishing for the first time in his life that he were an Eko, that he could pass on his thoughts to Jetsun in that tiny, windowless space. Hold on.
* * *
Officially, there was no record of Bianco Sava as a child. He would have had a different surname back then, before he legally became a Sava and dyed his eyes gold. But there was no trace of his previous identity. The grandfather, Iyo, claimed they were friends from long ago, but by Phaira and Theron's research, there was no history of them attending school together, or weddings, or any kind of event. They even went to Lea's storage facilities, rummaging through his registered belongings. There were only remnants of Bianco Sava from the past twenty-odd years, in letters, cards, and photographs.
“How can there be no history on this guy?” Phaira asked, as they sat back, dusty, exhausted, and utterly confused. “You never looked?”
“I never saw the need to,” Theron admitted, wiping dust from his brow. “He was just there, and always loyal. I never had any reason to suspect him of anything. No one did.”
The last stop: Bianco Sava lived in an apartment in East Lea, one that Theron had never entered, because Bianco was always in everyone else’s houses, offices, and condominiums. Theron checked a few times for the address, to make sure it was correct. But it was now in front of them: a five-floor squat box, wedged between two other complexes, with rusted ledges, peeling paint.
Staring at its angles, Phaira remembered what Theron had told her about Bianco. He had no children, no wife. He came to work for the Savas shortly after Theron and his cousins came to live with their grandfather. The grandfather, Iyo, brought him through the ranks, until Bianco served as his personal advisor. There were rumors that the two of them were gay, but nothing that anyone would admit to. Bianco was the mouthpiece for Iyo in trade affairs, black market arrangements, partnerships and terminations. Everyone knew him, everyone respected him, and secretly, it seemed that everyone thought that he would be named the successor to the Savas, despite his lack of blood connection. As Iyo’s health began to deteriorate, Bianco travelled constantly on behalf of Iyo over the last ten years…
