by James Axler
“Exactly. It just depends on who you think the guilty are,” Brigid repeated.
“Okay, psych report failed,” Kane realized. “Failed mag wants to kill everyone in case they committed a crime. No, in fact, I see it now—he knows they committed a crime.”
When he saw Brigid, Lakesh and Brewster Philboyd looking at him strangely, Kane elaborated. “There was this rationale among the mags, that everyone was guilty of something. You just needed to dig deep enough to find out what that something was.”
“Even magistrates?” Brigid asked.
Kane appeared to be deep in thought for a moment before nodding. “Has to be. Two of the best got drummed out of Cobaltville for poking their noses where they weren’t supposed to be.”
Lakesh smiled and so did Brigid. Brewster Philboyd laughed a moment later—too loud, and suddenly self-conscious, as he realized to whom Kane referred.
* * *
SHIZUKA SAT WITH Domi in the Cerberus canteen, nursing a cup of green tea that was slowly going cold. The room was a large area, dominated by long, wipe-clean tables that could seat sixteen people each, as well as a number of smaller, more intimate tables. Narrow windows ran along the top of the room in horizontal slits, bringing in a little sunlight in the daytime that was amplified by artificial lighting. The room was well-populated at this hour of the evening, as it was dinnertime for many. But somehow Shizuka felt alone at the large table that she and Domi had taken over a corner of.
“Tea’s getting cold,” Domi said, sipping her own.
Shizuka looked at her cup, disinterested. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
Domi reached across the table and touched the samurai woman on the arm, making her look up. “Hey, Grant will be all right,” she said.
“We don’t know what it is that he has contracted,” Shizuka replied. “We don’t know the incubation period, the full range of symptoms, the...the inevitable effects.”
“There are no inevitable effects where Grant and Kane are involved,” Domi assured her. “Have known those two long enough to know that. They’ve made a career of bucking the odds.”
Shizuka breathed heavily through her nostrils, as if expelling the weight of worry that sat on her. “But you can only beat the odds so many times,” she said. “Eventually—”
“You need more tea,” Domi blurted, refusing to let the woman finish. It was as if saying the words out loud would somehow be it, the curse cast, Grant’s destiny assured.
“No, I don’t,” Shizuka said, and she pushed herself up from her seat. “I need to be with Grant. And he needs me.”
With that, she made her way swiftly from the canteen, weaving lithely between the tables and the personnel who were engaged in lighter conversations over their hot meals. Domi watched her go, a sense of admiration welling within her. Whatever else she may have felt about Grant over the years, it was clear he had made the right choice in Shizuka. She was strength personified.
* * *
“SO THIS MOOK gets drummed out of Cobaltville,” Kane mused, “and then he gets hold of a weapon that could potentially destroy a whole ville.”
“A weaponized virus,” Brigid said, nodding in agreement.
“Where does he go?”
She smiled. “Back home.”
“Exactly,” Kane said. “The SandCat bolted to the east, putting it in line with Cobalt. The guy’s still using all the paraphernalia of his old occupation—the colors, the vehicles—it’s all Cobaltville Magistrate. So he’s nursing a grudge.”
“Or crazy as hell,” Brigid said.
“Probably both,” Kane concluded, “given the way he spoke to us. This guy thinks he’s still a mag, but the way he talked about final judgment makes me think he’s planning something big. And this weaponized disease is just that, isn’t it?”
“You think he plans to use it to infect Cobaltville?” Lakesh said, in evident surprise.
“I think it’s a possibility,” Kane stated, and Brigid nodded again.
“He was treating human subjects like...lab rats,” she said. “Our mystery man has no compunction about hurting people.”
“But if this virus is as virulent as you’ve witnessed—” Philboyd began.
“No, we don’t know that for certain,” Brigid said. “We’ve seen the results—”
“And seen Grant get struck down by a concentrated burst of it,” Kane added.
“But we don’t know how long the incubation period is,” Brigid finished.
Lakesh looked pensive. “Whatever the case, I believe it’s time we trotted out that old saw—that sooner is better in this case.”
“Agreed,” Kane said. “Plus, if we can track this guy down, we may be able to get some insight into what to do about Grant.”
Brigid swallowed hard at those words, looking to Kane for reassurance.
“Let’s find the guy first,” Kane told her, recognizing her need for comfort.
Lakesh began consulting a map, checking the location of Cobaltville and the relative parallax points—a network of destinations connected via the quantum web that could grant instantaneous access to a place—as the others discussed the situation.
“You’re still wanted fugitives within the barony of Cobaltville,” Philboyd reminded Kane and Brigid.
“As if we could forget,” Kane growled. “But that ville’s sealed up tighter’n a mag’s armory. No one’s going in there without proper authorization.”
“So you’ll need a cover story to get inside the ville,” Philboyd said. “I’ll contact an old friend on the inside, Colin Phillips.”
“Sure,” Kane agreed, nodding. “The guy owes us big time.”
Lakesh tapped a few keys on the nearest computer and brought up a representation of the map he had been consulting. “We can’t put you inside the ville—that would be far too dangerous, because we cannot look ahead to see what you’d be jumping into. I propose a destination of seventeen miles out.”
“Can’t you get us closer?” Kane asked.
“Parallax points around that area are patchy,” Lakesh said regretfully. “But I understand our R & D department may have something to make the journey a little easier. Something they’ve been itching to try.”
Kane looked at the dusky-skinned leader of Cerberus, his expression unreadable. “Whatever it is, it better not blow up or catch fire.”
Lakesh’s brows knitted in confusion. “What are you trying to say about our research people, friend Kane?”
“Nothing they don’t already know,” he said. Then he turned to Brigid. “Come on, Baptiste—let’s go get ourselves prepped and armed while these two figure out our way in.”
As they left the room, heading for the armory, Lakesh could hear Kane explaining the situation to Brigid: “Once we enter Cobaltville we’ll need to act stealthily, catch this maniac and slip out without getting dragged into the local politics. Like Brewster said, we’re still wanted fugitives in Cobaltville—you and me.”
“And Grant,” Brigid reminded him, a hint of regret in her voice.
* * *
WHEN SHIZUKA RETURNED to the medical wing of the Cerberus redoubt, her face was fixed in a grim expression of determination.
Grant had been sedated and moved to a white-walled room occupied by a single bed, where his sleeping form was being tended by Dr. Kazuko and his assistants. All three were wearing surgical masks that covered the bottom half of their faces. A large observation window looked into the room from the administration area of the medical wing, and Shizuka stood watching Grant through it for a few moments until Dr. Kazuko noticed her. He held a hand up to advise her to wait, and joined her a couple minutes later, after he had finished ministering to Grant.
“How is he, Doctor?” Shizuka asked.
“Stable,” Kazuko said grimly, drawing down his surgical mask so that
it hung below his chin on its ties. “We’re feeding him nutrients and keeping him sedated for now, while we run a few tests, but all I can really tell you is that his condition is not deteriorating.”
“That’s good,” Shizuka said, though she sounded uncertain.
“His health appears to have dipped very rapidly at the point of contraction,” Kazuko explained. “Running through the transponder records, we can see his normally strong readings dropped sharply once he was infected by this unknown malady.”
“How sharply?”
“I would estimate his health is at 40 percent of what it was when he went into that bunker,” Kazuko said grimly. “We’ve flushed his stomach, but without the drugs we have administered, he would be in tremendous pain.”
Shizuka bowed her head once, nodding acceptance of this grim fact. “I will see him now.”
Dr. Kazuko shook his head. “That is inadvisable,” he stated. “The less people who have contact with Grant, the better—for everyone.”
Shizuka’s hand snapped out, plucking the surgical mask from Kazuko’s chin. The doctor was drawn forward as the mask was wrenched from his face, until at last the ties snapped.
“You will bring me a mask,” she said, firmly, “and I will sit at Grant’s side, as is expected of me. The risks to me are unimportant, Doctor.”
“But if you contract this virus—” Kazuko began.
“Then you will be blessed with two patients on whom to practice your not inconsiderable skills,” Shizuka told him.
Dr. Kazuko bowed a formal assent, and strode away to obtain a mask for Shizuka. He had worked closely with the leader of the Tigers of Heaven for many years and had never seen her lose her tight rein on her emotions like that.
* * *
OUT IN THE hidden bunker in the Sonoran Desert, Reba DeFore was busy running through the results of the analysis of the patients in the room of cages. There were ten people in there, and some had fought bitterly against any type of testing, but it was necessary if she was to get to the bottom of this infection.
“Bad news, Reba,” Stapleton said, marching in from there. “Two more dead.”
She says it as though she’s reciting a weather report, DeFore thought. Have we really become so desensitized to horrors such as this?
“Reba?” Stapleton prompted.
“It’s bioengineered,” DeFore said, looking up from the portable computer screen. “Virulent and easy to transmit from person to person, primarily transferring in contaminated spittle.”
Gus Wilson adjusted his helmet absently, his pale eyes flicking nervously to the open door and the corridor that lay beyond. “Is there anything we can do for those people in there?” he asked.
“Two dead,” DeFore said. “Two others dead before we got here, and probably more that have already been disposed of. I don’t think there’s time.”
“Then we can’t save them, is that what you’re saying?” Wilson asked.
“The results of their tests show that they are too far gone,” DeFore told him sadly. “All we can do now is make them comfortable while they live out their final hours or days, whatever they have left.”
“I would hate to die in a bunker, like this,” Karen Stapleton said coldly. “I always feared dying in the Cerberus redoubt. When Ullikummis attacked us, I thought that fear was going to come true.”
DeFore nodded, containing the shakes she exhibited whenever that devil’s name was mentioned. She had suffered at the hand of Ullikummis, had been close to a breakdown after his attack on Cerberus. It still haunted her sometimes; at night, when she was alone.
“They should see the sun again,” Stapleton suggested. “We could walk them—”
“No,” DeFore insisted, cutting the other woman off. “The virus is too dangerous. The risk of infection, even out here in the desert, is too great. I’m sorry, but no.”
“Then they’ll die here,” Stapleton said, “caged like animals.”
DeFore reached into her medical case and drew out a vial of liquid. “We’ll sedate them.” She didn’t mean to help them sleep, but rather to put them to sleep. It was a tough choice, and one that would stay with her a long time after they left the bunker.
Chapter 20
Cobaltville Observation Post 17 was located on the west wall and was manned by two magistrates who controlled the gate there. It was a dull post and being assigned to man it was considered an unspoken demotion.
The tower was surrounded on all four sides by armaglass windows, and within, there were several monitor screens granting pinpoint-specific camera views of the area. The sun was approaching the horizon, a bright golden ball creating a dazzling scene through the west-facing windows. Magistrate Meers sat in one of the two chairs in the observation tower, bemoaning what he had done to get on the wrong side of his superior.
“I tell you, Stovepipe, I didn’t even know the skirt was there,” Meers told his partner as he oiled his field-stripped sin eater on the desk before the monitor bank. “She just come up behind me and—whack—swung her sugar daddy’s false leg at me, right across the noggin. What am I s’posed to do then, right?”
Magistrate “Stovepipe” Stover had his back to Meers and was peering through the windows at the rear of the observation post, where they looked down on the coil of streets that made up the Tartarus Pits. He was watching a gaudy slut working her patch of the street. He figured she was maybe seventeen, with a body trim through hunger, but wearing it well. She was dressed in a sparkly bandeau top, miniskirt and diamante-trimmed cowboy boots, and she took the arm of any male passerby, offering a dazzling smile as she plied her trade. Stovepipe was wondering how many men she slept with in a day, and his mind was busy conjuring images of what she did with those clients and just how depraved things could get. He had heard Meers’s lamentations before, could probably recite the words and sing the chorus if he’d been asked to. As it was, he just made a “hmm” noise that seemed to satisfy Meers as a cue to continue.
“That’s right,” he stated. “I turned and shot her, straight through the gut. I mean, my helmet cracked and there’s blood on the visor, plus I’m seeing stars from where she’d hit me. How was I to know it was an underage kid? Still a perp, right?”
Stover nodded. “Still a perp, underage or not,” he agreed. The gaudy in the street below had linked arms with a guy in a long, tailored jacket that flared below the waist, almost like a peacock’s tail. She led him to her hovel just off the street, disappearing from view. Man, what Stover wouldn’t give to be that guy right now, instead of stuck here in a dead post.
“’S’right,” Meers said. “Anyway, the family kick up a big stink, and Supervisor Hill chucks me out here till the heat blows over.”
“And that was two years ago,” Stovepipe recited, turning back from the windows to face his partner.
Meers was putting the sin eater back together piece by piece, his helmet resting on the desk beside him. He looked up. “Two years, one month and nine days,” he said. “Idiot’s forgotten all about me, that’s what it is. You’d think they’d be crying out for a good magistrate in the ville, someone to go pass sentence on some of that human detritus in the pits. A man could really clean up there.”
“He sure could,” Stovepipe agreed. He was still thinking about the gaudy slut with the trim body.
“What about you?” Meers asked, although he continued, answering his own question before Stover said a word. “Two months now, is it, since you got demoted from east sector patrol? Man, that bites. East sector is a good gig, lot of—”
Stover stopped him with a gesture, pointing to the monitor desk, where a green light had just winked on. “What’s that?” He stepped to the desk and sat down in the empty chair, tapping out a command and bringing up a live camera view of the section in question. There was a SandCat heading toward the ville, leaving a trail of
dust in its wake.
Meers leaned over and eyed the image on the screen. “One of ours?” he asked.
“Were we expecting anyone today? Outland patrol, maybe?” As he spoke, Stover was trying to remember the week’s schedule and whether there had been any reference to a patrol returning. He vaguely remembered something was happening on Thursday, then realized he didn’t actually know what day it was today, as they all kind of melded together after a few weeks on observation post duty. “You know what day this is, Meers?” he asked.
“What? Baron’s birthday?” Meers asked, mystified by the question.
“No, day-of-the-week day?” Stover elaborated. As he said it, he realized he couldn’t recall anything about a returning patrol. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go check it out.”
Stover grabbed his helmet and sidearm from the locker—which was open, naturally—and made his way down the stairs that ran inside the observation tower, with Meers trotting along a few steps behind.
* * *
IN THE CAB, DePaul eased his foot off the accelerator and let the SandCat slow as it approached the observation post at the west side of the Cobaltville wall. There were tall towers located at each of the four corners of the ville, but these could not cover the whole area in its entirety. Instead, smaller observation posts were placed at intervals along each wall, guarding for the lesser items of traffic that passed into and out of the ville, checking the credentials of outlanders with work visas who regularly topped up the Tartarus Pits, keeping population numbers stable.
DePaul approached alone. He had sent the drone car away, commanding it to hide nearby until called.
DePaul had chosen this observation post specifically. Located where it was, well out of the way of the main traffic routes, it was a sleepy post that was used only for the transport of waste product from the ville. Furthermore, its location was such that it was drenched in the rays of the afternoon sun, ensuring that its operating magistrates would be staring straight into that golden ball when he approached. It was classic military strategy, keeping the sun behind him to blind the enemy.
