The Iron Swamp

by J V Wordsworth

  I was about to close the article I was reading when my eyes stuck on a line near the bottom.

  Liegon has received spiritual council from Archbishon Kenrey's old adviser, Master Benrick.

  It was placed after a section about Liegon's home life, an afterthought with little to no relevance to the protests. It was relevant to me though. Suddenly, the thought of the rib suit donning, pole holding Master who met me at the gate of Kenrey's compound, gave me a boost of adrenaline. I brought up Benrick's message with the list of Kenrey's enemies, 20-30 individuals from bishons to businessmen, but Liegon wasn't on it. My ears started ringing as my heart picked up speed. Benrick could not have missed her off the list accidentally. I'd found footage of how much Liegon hated Kenrey within minutes of investigation. He was protecting her. Not necessarily because she was the killer, but then why had she hired him? Was it his price for killing Kenrey?

  She would have to be desperate to hire Benrick if he was the murderer. It looked too suspicious. I remembered her dead children, killed by the mech army in Diamond City. People did stupid things when their children were involved. But what did Benrick gain from Kenrey's death? She had given him exactly the same position he had before, and he couldn't fit through the window to commit the crime. I was reading too much into it.

  I nodded a few times, convincing myself it was nothing.

  I failed.

  The following hours I spent checking his history. He was in the compound the day of Kenrey's murder, which meant I couldn't rule him out, but I found nothing to indicate he and Kenrey were on bad terms, nor that he had any reason to care about mech rights. By the time work finished, I was exhausted.

  Becky turned from her network screen as I rose to my feet. She was on some social site I recognized but didn't know the name of, looking at pictures of animals in precarious circumstances. "Want to go for a drink, Boss?"

  Despite everything, I found that I did. Our relationship would never be what I wanted it to be, but it could still be a relationship. We both got in my slider, and she took me to a place adjacent the River Lanne. Even in the low season the brown water filled its passage, flowing fast enough to shift rocks. Like all the riverside buildings, Marson's was on a giant air-filled ring bolted to the ground with enough give to slow any jolt to the structure during flash floods.

  Sitting at a table by the window, the green and blue plants on the far bank made the image of Lisbold's face shrivel into nothing. Even the furious water looked peaceful once I was shielded from the cold.

  We raised glasses of some concoction she recommended that I instantly forgot the name of. The murky green color looked like Lanne water, and one sip was enough to reassure me that my inattention was of little consequence. I would never be ordering it again.

  "Cheers, Boss."

  "Cheers."

  "So I guess you and your partner don't get along?" Her thick lips spread into a dark grin that I chose not to interpret as derision.

  "He won't be my partner for long."

  She rubbed her chin in mock scheming. "Maybe we should come up with a plan or something so he doesn't do it again. Show him we aren't to be messed with."

  I despaired at the memory of my last plan that cost me my priceless action figures. "Already taken care of," I said, more because I wanted her to believe it.

  Becky nodded. "Nice."

  I wasn't sure how I would explain it when Lisbold not only stuck around, but continued to bully me while I was forced to endure the constant humiliation. If I went to Hayson, he'd probably say I might have written the note, and Lisbold had a legitimate grievance. Nothing would happen.

  I changed the subject. "Do you know how Clazran became President of The Kaerosh?"

  "He killed Granian," Becky said with an inflexion of disinterest.

  "That was the end of it. But there were a series of moves that precipitated his rise to power. Very few people know where he came from, because he doesn't want us to."

  "How do you know then?" Becky said.

  I shook my head. I wasn't in the mood for lying, but neither could I tell her that my mother was an SP traitor. "How I know isn't important. What I know will probably be taught in classes in the future as a cautionary tale."

  "Well, you certainly know how to tell a story, Boss. If it's a stinker, it's gonna fall twice as hard now."

  I ignored her. "Clazran started his career pouring jaffee for SP desk agents."

  "You're fracking with me."

  I smiled, though the tale was a humorless one. "There are very few even in The Sodalis that have climbed so high from so low in such a short space of time. But Clazran never once missed a trick. He got himself in a relationship with an SP Boss named Walden, who was a closet homosexual."

  "You're fracking with me," she said again, looking as if I'd told her we were under water. "Clazran isn't gay."

  "Clazran is ambitious. Walden got him trained as an assassin, and no doubt with some demonstration of skill, Clazran shot up the ranks until people started to know who he was. Walden began to hear rumors about the two of them that he found disquieting. He was married to a powerful woman with two children and didn't want his relationship with a young boy becoming public knowledge. He decided to put an end to their relationship by having Clazran killed in his sleep. Except Clazran was waiting for him. It turned out that he had been spreading the rumors about their relationship in order to force Walden's hand. He was in league with Walden's second, a man called van Holf, who you might recognize is the current head of the SP. van Holf raised Clazran higher than he could ever have hoped to achieve on his own."

  "I never understood why gay men don't just admit it. It's never women, always men you hear these stories about."

  I looked at her for a moment, unsure whether she was serious. "Well religious reasons, I think, or intolerant families or something."

  "But that doesn't explain why it's only men."

  That was true. I had no idea why it was only men, if indeed it was. "Perhaps the men are just more promiscuous, so they are more likely to get caught."

  She grinned widely, giving me the feeling I'd said something her grandfather might say. "I'm only messing with you, Boss. So how did Clazran go from there to head of the SP?"

  I was slightly red faced now, and for a moment the story escaped me. "He was stuck as an SP enforcer for a while, the lowest of the officer class, until the Carasaki Rebellion. When our machine armies rose against us, we needed the SP to fight them. Outside the military, they were our best source of trained fighters, so Granian was forced to give them more and more power as we became increasingly dependent on them to fight the mech army. Clazran was not idle. He took full advantage of the cover of war to massacre his enemies, offering information to mech assassins on how to kill the SP agents he wanted dead. When they killed his enemies, he replaced them with friends so that more and more of the SP were loyal to him, not Granian. As our army was fighting against us, Granian couldn't turn to them, so within seven cycles of the rebellion's end, he was dead, and Clazran was the new President."

  Becky nodded. "Impressive."

  That was one word for it, but it didn't account for the risk. There was a long while during the Carasaki Rebellion where it looked as if the mechs might win the war, and the deaths of the SP bosses created chaos in our main source of defense. Clazran was playing with the lives of every person in The Kaerosh.

  Conversation waned after that. We endured more than a few clicks of silence before she took another gulp of sugary green liquid. "I always wanted to be a detective. If I hadn't been kicked out of school, I think that's probably what I'd be doing now." She shrugged. "But instead, my dad still helps me with my rent, and I work wherever they've got a job for me. Been at Kenrey's compound for over a cycle now, almost two."

  "How come you got kicked out of school?"

  "It wasn't so much kicked out, as not allowed back. But the short of it is that the President, Cythuria take him, didn't want me to go back."

  I offered a
quick laugh. If she didn't want to tell me that was her prerogative. "Close with Clazran are you?"

  "If I was, then we'd quickly have a new President."

  I coughed as a sip of green drink went down the wrong hole. "You shouldn't say things like that. People might hear."

  She looked around the empty room. The closest people were five tables away, chatting as if there was loud music playing right behind them. "Who?"

  "Me for starters."

  "I'm not worried about you, Boss. I looked you up. I bet in your spare time you rescue kittens from trees. Your record makes you a soldier for decency."

  Sam was the soldier for decency. His reward, if he was still alive, was spending his days in some backwater hovel watching for assassins while attempting to remain as disconnected from the rest of Cos as possible. My mother was a soldier for decency as well, and she was dead. Filled so full of holes that not even her skeleton was recognizable as human, or so I was told.

  I had diverged from my parents' beliefs. The man who had sacrificed his career in a fight against the state had died in the dank pit they buried him in. But I would not say that to Becky. Part of me wanted to be that man again, for her, but that was the same folly as before.

  My mother never allowed me to join the KFF. She was full of excuses about how it was too dangerous, and I needed to come of age, but every time she shut me out I only became more determined to follow in her footsteps.

  Did she think I couldn't do it? That I wasn't good enough? That I was too selfish or weak to sacrifice myself as Sam had? I plagued myself with these questions until there was no avenue left to me but the fire. I wanted it. I wanted to prove that she had a son she could be proud of.

  It was her love I craved. All I wanted was for her to value me as she valued her cause. And now I was in danger of doing the same for this girl. For the first time, I saw the real reason I hired her. She was a young Shia Nidess. They shared the same pale skin, dark eyes, and most importantly an impatience for changing Cos into something better. Becky was just one more way of winning acceptance from the mother who could never give it to me.

  But I couldn't change. It had been too long. "I've never rescued a kitten in my life," I said.

  They shouldn't allow lonely men to go out drinking with beautiful girls. It was like giving chocolate to famine victims. My system was not ready for it, filling me with hopes I knew I shouldn't have. Friendship was one thing, but I wanted more. All I was doing was setting myself up for pain. She could be the killer, but even beyond that I did not trust her. My general contempt for the human race did not permit a flattering interpretation of her motives for working for me. Isolation was safer. To desire otherwise could lead only to disaster.

  *

  The next morning I awoke with a feeling of hope. We'd only had one drink, but for the first time in my life I felt less alone. She would never see me in a romantic way, but as a friend, that was possible. I hadn't even wanted to jack-in last night. The ether had finally lost its appeal. Cos was so full of possibilities that a fantasy world could never meet.

  I walked through the glass doors with their reddish brown tint from the bodies of the blood sucking insects of Cosaw and Lisaw. In the Elvedeer parking lot, lent against a slider taking in the view, was Wesley Pressen.

  He wasn't instantly recognizable from school. His face had lost the excess fat that some children maintain throughout their youth. But the scruffy curls flattened slightly on the pillow side were as unique now as they were then.

  His eyes flickered scanning me for weakness. "Finally hit your growth spurt I see."

  I didn't smile. There was no need to pretend. The indifference we'd felt towards each other at school was finished. If he really had evidence of what I did for Sariah then it was now a race to destroy him before he could destroy me. "Journalism, Pressen? I figured you for something with a better wage."

  He shrugged, inspecting the gunge under his finger nails. "It pays me enough. The press is the only institution with any power in this place. We're the only ones who don't suck Clazran's cock every time he undoes his zip."

  "Then you're a fool." Clazran was the only one with any power in The Kaerosh. The press gagged on it as much as everyone else.

  Amusement infected his voice. "I'm not the one who stole evidence from a police department. That's a death sentence, Nidess."

  I forced my gullet still before he could see me swallow. "You're just the one making unsubstantiated threats against police officers."

  He brushed away a few oily hairs from his eyes. "You were a belligerent little fracker even at school. I remember when Colcheck dropped you into that bin on that trip to Kyene, you came away with a piece of his arm in your mouth." He smiled. "I'm not quite such a fool as Colcheck though. Anything happens to me, and the next day they print my little story."

  Colcheck had never forgotten that scar, but it didn't improve my situation any. The next bin he dropped me in, someone else held my face and another held my legs. Inside I felt sick, the mist seemed to cling to me, suffocating me, but I forced myself to smile back at him. "I've got better at protecting myself since then."

  Pressen's grin flinched. "I'm writing this story. The people have a right to know."

  I wanted to ask what evidence he had, but I couldn't know he wasn't recording the conversation. The question was an admission that evidence existed, and that would be enough to have me walking up the scaffold at Blay Square. "You don't care dis about the people. If you want to make up some pile of lies to elevate your own career, then you go ahead."

  "I'm no hack. When I bury you, it'll be with the truth."

  It hurt slightly to hear such threats from someone so neutral. There were plenty of kids from school who would have reveled in my suffering, but Pressen had never shown me enmity. I couldn't even remember a conversation we'd had from all the seven cycles at the same school. "Why would you even want to bury me?"

  A raised brow suggested the question surprised him. "I don't want to, but if it isn't me it will be someone else. You were always a fighter, Nidess, but never a survivor. You can't get mixed up with fracking terrorists and not expect Clazran to kill you for it, just as biting a hole in Colchek's arm never did you any good."

  I glared at him. "If you continue down this path, it will not be my ruin but yours." He still took me for the boy, not the man.

  Pressen smiled, but his eyes held anything but humor. "I'll give you a chance to comment before I publish."

  "The last person who thought he could crush me is rotting in a cell."

  Pressen stepped closer. "I haven't come here unprepared."

  I turned away, walking to my slider. "You think you haven't."

  It was pure bluff. I had no friends and a list of enemies longer than Kenrey's list of staff. Pressen was right. My only course of action was to kill him, but if his death resulted in publication of the story then that defense was impossible.

  I told myself I wouldn't have tried it anyway. I had not sunk so low.

  The evidence we stole didn't even get Sariah off the charges. She was locked away in Sytheria for the rest of her life, while I spent five cycles in the basement only to come out and get killed for my failed attempt at trying to save her. That was my parents' legacy – symbolic self-destruction.

  I was no symbol. I'd defeated Figuel and Vins. I could stop a journalist greasy enough to fry chips on. If he had proof, he wouldn't have come to me. He was hoping I would give myself away. A desperate strategy, suggesting he didn't have an easy route to obtaining the evidence he lacked. For the moment I was safe, but if he ever got proof then my first warning would be my arrest. I couldn't just sit around and wait for that. Something would have to be done.

  I got into work and Bernard hurried out from behind reception, leaving the man he was talking to with the wave of a finger. "Mr. Nidess, Mr. Hayson would like to see you."

  Of course he does.

  "What does he want?" I said, trying not to sound nervous.

  "Don't
know. Probably has something to do with what happened in the foyer yesterday."

  My ankle had swelled during the night from where Lisbold had dropped me, barely fitting in my shoe. I limped to Figuel's old office and knocked on the door.

  "Come in," came a voice from the other side. "You're late."

  I said nothing, staring at the other man in the room.

  "Nidess, this is Sikes, your new partner."

  Sikes got up from the small chair. "Wayland Sikes, pleased to meet you. You can call me Wally." He smiled as we shook. "I'll do my best to last longer than your previous partners." His baby face looked as if stubble was a thing of the future, and a few zits still poked through the surface, making him look adolescent at best. His grip was firm, and he seemed confident, but he was an odd choice for such an investigation. The obvious reason was that Sikes was a man Hayson could trust.

  "He's my nephew," Hayson said.

  I nodded. Of course he was. "I trust it was the President who deemed Lisbold so unsatisfactory so quickly?"

  Hayson grimaced. "I heard about your little dispute yesterday, and this morning I get a call from the President's office telling me to fire him; some nonsense about his performance at the palace."

  I nodded as if I'd whispered the order in Clazran's ear.

  "Sikes isn't a full detective yet," he continued, "so he is more of an assistant than a partner, and he is too junior to make an individual report, but he was top of his class, so with your instruction I'm sure he could make a valued contribution to solving this case. How far have you gotten with it?"

  "I have a list of ten or so suspects."

  He nodded then waved me away. "Get out both of you."

  I had a message from Becky asking where I was, so I sent one back telling her to meet me in the basement.