by V. St. Clair
Then some nights, such as this one, Maxton and Hera would sit down to a nice family dinner at home. It was weird, at first, since he barely knew Hera on a personal level, but they soon grew more comfortable with the routine. It was better when Ana or Risa joined them, because they always brought news from the Academy, and they could all take turns updating each other on current events.
Ana came in through the basement rather than the front door, as usual, and Max breathed a sigh of relief when he heard her clomping up the stairs in her thick boots.
She really is the least graceful human being I’ve ever met.
He smiled at the thought as she walked into the kitchen wearing a wig of straight black hair and bright red lipstick, complementing her all-black t-shirt, skinny-jeans and boots.
“You look intense,” Max greeted her, thinking that black hair didn’t favor her as much as her natural brown, but that she was still somehow attractive no matter what color wig she was sporting.
“I look like an emotional wreck who just tried to put lipstick on for the first time,” she said in response. “I’ll never understand how some women put makeup on and it just looks perfect; mine seems to bleed within five minutes of application.”
“Skill?” Max suggested sweetly, earning a growl from Ana as she sat down.
“Where’s Hera?” Ana glanced around the kitchen, all business.
“She went to the store to get some sweet sauce for the meatballs. She should be back any minute now.”
Ana pulled a face at this and removed her black wig, hanging it off of the back of her chair and revealing her pinned-up brown hair beneath it.
“It’s weird to think of her going to the grocery to get things for dinner, like she’s someone’s mother. I’m used to her plotting to overthrow the government, acquiring explosives, and so forth.”
“For all we know, she might be someone’s mother,” Max pointed out. “What do we really know about her other than her codename and a few of her safe houses? Do you even know her real name?”
For a moment the conversation faltered here, until Ana frowned and said, “No, I don’t, but I don’t need to know her name to believe in what she’s doing.” She shrugged.
“Anyway, what’s going on at the Academy?” Maxton changed the subject abruptly, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, lest she stop visiting in the future.
“More of the same. The Provo-Minor are still hanging around, popping into classes or interviewing people on the fly whenever the mood strikes them. A few more Gifted have been hauled back to the Augenspire for various reasons, including one of Hera’s other contacts, but she assures us that he doesn’t know enough to sell any of us out under close interrogation.”
Max, who had his own unpleasant memories of the Augenspire’s hospitality, made a sympathetic face at this. “How are people feeling after the attack on the Vicerina a few weeks ago?” he asked. “The media is still blaming us, of course—well, Hera at least.”
Ana rolled her eyes and said, “I know, and I hate it, but I don’t see what other choice they have. Even if Major Topher told his higher-ups there might be a problem in the government itself, the Viceroy can hardly go on the news and say they are being betrayed from within. He looks weak if people know that the upper level of the government is tearing itself apart.”
“It does sort of play out like a drama, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” Ana asked curiously.
“Well, Hera’s group started out against the government because they are monsters, but now the Viceroy and his daughters are trying to make a stab at integration. So now we are trying to keep them in power, which they may or may not know, but they still have to blame us for every attack against them, either way. Meanwhile, Carl is going to start working for the evil government that has oppressed us for a century, but who we now support in some backhanded way, with the intention of helping the integration effort by helping the military hunt down Gifted who get out of hand. Don’t even get me started on the nefarious Provo-Major, and the fact that they tortured me after wrongly imprisoning me, hauled off a bunch of girls they thought might be you for questioning, and are possibly the source of the attack on Jessamine. Who, I might add, is only alive today and still calling for peace with the Gifted because she was saved by Major Topher, who seems to be one of the less-evil Majors, but still murdered Risa’s boyfriend, a whole bunch of other people, and helped drag off those innocent girls from the Academy recently. What kind of drama have we gotten ourselves into?”
Ana snorted and said, “It is a bit of a mess, isn’t it? I usually try not to think too much about it or it makes my head hurt.”
Just then, Hera returned home and came in through the basement, which put an end to their conversation and turned things back to business.
“Hello, Ana, glad you could make it,” she joined them at the table, shooting Max a vaguely amused look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Any news from the Academy?”
They began portioning food onto their plates as the conversation started up again, with Ana informing them there was no breaking news from her end aside from the Provo-Minor still being on campus.
“And how is Risa holding up?” Hera asked, earning a frown from Ana.
“She’s still…very hurt, by what she considers a huge betrayal by Carl. She never admitted it to me directly, but I know she likes him, and given her history with crushes not working out, she’s taking it pretty hard.” She paused here to push a meatball listlessly around her plate. “She isn’t still pretending he doesn’t exist, but she’s a lot more guarded around him; you can cut the tension with a knife. It makes things awkward whenever we’re all together, so I feel like the only non-mourner at a funeral.”
“What does he think about it all?” Max asked curiously.
“Well, Carl’s not an idiot, so he knows he’s hurt her horribly, but he does really seem to be interested in his new career path, so he’s going forward with it. We’ve been doing like you said, Hera, and not telling him anything related to you or your businesses, and I know he’s been chugging whatever cocktails your scientists have been cooking up to help him lie through a chemical interrogation when they finally get around to giving him one.”
Hera sighed and said, “The one good thing to come out of his horrible accident is that they probably won’t risk testing him under Veritan, which no one has found a way to beat—not even my top scientists. They won’t want to risk long-term damage to his brain, which is a hundred times more likely since he’s already had his head worked on after the bus accident. We’ve been gradually dosing him with a couple of the next most-likely truth serums in the hope of building up a tolerance.”
“Ah, so he should theoretically be able to lie through the dose they give him when it’s time for questioning,” Max admired the approach, though he imagined practicing for it wasn’t much fun.
“That’s the theory, and so far he seems to be holding up better to it than when we first started, though he still cracks whenever he feels threatened by our acting interrogator. Stress appears to make it much harder to resist the effects of the drugs, so if our questioner begins shouting or banging his hands on the table, Carl folds. I’ve been making notifications and moving businesses he knows about to other locations, in case the worst happens and he fails the real test.”
“What happens to Carl if he admits he’s been in collusion with the resistance for years while he’s being questioned in the Augenspire?” Max asked, not sure he really wanted to know the answer.
Both women looked grim, which was all the response he needed. Carl was putting everything on the line for this opportunity.
“I’m still being officially blamed for the attack on Jessamine—though what she was thinking wandering around in civvies without a proper guard I’ll never know—which is an utter disaster. Jessamine is well-liked by the general population, so their support and sympathy towards our opposition to the government is drying up fast.”
“So what do we d
o?” Max pressed. “What’s our next step to show people that we aren’t the ones trying to kill her, without getting caught and arrested in the process?”
Hera looked strangely diminished as she said, “I’m not sure. Perhaps the movement has run its course and it’s time to just call it quits.”
“What?!” Ana and Max yelled at the same time. “You can’t be serious!” Ana continued first. “Just because the Viceroy’s family has made a few small concessions to move towards integration with the Gifted doesn’t mean our work is done! Besides, there’s the not-so-minor issue of Jessamine’s real attackers still being out there and in a position to act against her. Everyone knows she’s the fulcrum of this whole thing, and that her father is only beginning to reach out to the Gifted because she is persuading him. If we lose her, this entire thing falls apart.”
“Yes, but how are we supposed to keep her alive?” Hera asked with maddening calm. “I can hardly send a postcard to the Viceroy saying I’m not behind the attacks on his family; either he knows that by now or he never will.”
“We could send a letter…” Max suggested.
“It would have to be to someone very high-ranking, and even so, the letter would be opened and checked long before it got to the intended recipient to make sure I’m not sending poison or explosives. Besides, even if it did make it to the right person, anyone can send a letter. They would never believe it was from me unless I appeared in person and confirmed my identity under Veritan, which would be a bad idea for several reasons.”
Maxton frowned and said, “But there has to be something—”
“I’m fresh out of ideas,” Hera cut him off, looking strangely shuttered and defeated. “Ana has said as much as she dares to get the Provo-Major thinking in the right direction, and short of us turning ourselves in, there is nothing more we can do. I will not throw away all of your lives to a dying cause; I’ve already lost enough people to this.”
The ghost of all the people killed in Ash’s failed rebellion seemed to fill the room, lingering over them oppressively. They were silent in the face of this depressing announcement, though Ana seemed unable to leave things alone because she eventually said, “Well, if Carl gets into the military, we’ll have a sympathetic officer on the inside. He would be in a position to hear things…”
“It will take years for him to build up the kind of networking required to make a difference, and at the rate things are going I don’t think we have that long. If Major Fox wants to see the Viceroy and Jessamine dead, then I expect they’ll die sooner rather than later.”
It seemed Hera was determined to be bleak tonight, but Max hated the sight of Ana looking so miserable, so he continued the unpleasant conversation in the hopes of directing her thoughts somewhere else.
“If they die, then Shellina is still there to inherit the Viceroyalty, unless you think Fox is planning to make a clean sweep of it.”
Hera lifted her eyebrows at this and said, “It’s hard to say what our enemies are thinking. Shellina is young and her father has kept her out of the spotlight, so we don’t know much about her. He may be trying to protect her, or maybe she is incompetent and he doesn’t want her embarrassing him—anything is possible. It makes her a wild card. If our enemies think she can be swayed, her family’s killers may keep her alive to give legitimacy to their cause. I have no idea who they’ll put up for the Viceroyalty if they do away with the entire family—the Elaria’s have always ruled since the original colonization.”
“What if Jessamine has a child before they get to her?” Max asked. “She’s due to be married within the year, so it’s possible. Wouldn’t her child inherit before Shellina?”
“Historically, no,” Hera explained. “The first Viceroyals of Elaria were determined not to lose power, so they were hell-bent on the importance of bloodlines. Every time one of them marries and reproduces with someone who is not of the family, the bloodlines become more dilute, which is why Viceroy Cassian would only bed his own sisters. So by that definition Shellina would be more ‘pure,’ and thus more entitled to rule than any of Jessamine’s children by Darius Hamish.”
“Well I refuse to accept there’s nothing we can do to try and make things better,” Ana said stubbornly. “We’ve come too far and spent too much time on this to just give up because you’re feeling defeated today,” she addressed Hera directly. “I know you’ve suffered losses before, and that you’ve been fighting this uphill battle ever since your old mentor’s rebellion fell apart at Halstead. But there are other people out there who are trying to protect the Viceroy and Vicerinas, far more than are trying to harm them, and eventually I’m going to come up with a plan to get them whatever information I can give them, even if I have to turn myself in as the psychic they’re hunting in order to do it.”
Max almost jumped out of his skin at the thought of Ana being tortured in one of those awful prison cells on the two-hundred-and-eighty-first floor.
“Ana, you can’t!” he insisted. “You really don’t understand the inhospitality of the Augenspire as well as I do, or of the Provo-Major. Just because you met one who hasn’t seen fit to kill you yet—”
“Because he has been too busy trying to keep the Viceroy and his daughters alive,” Ana cut him off sharply. “Or did you not see his face all over the news from when he single-handedly defeated two people wielding a laser cannon and spike launcher when he was unarmed and unarmored?”
“Just because he’s pretty doesn’t mean he’s not a monster,” Max grumbled mutinously.
“Of course he’s still a monster,” Ana threw her hands into the air in frustration, sparing Hera a brief glance at the mention of the Major who was responsible for the death of her old friend and mentor. “But right now he’s one of the only monsters I know of whose objectives are aligned with ours, so he’s the monster I need to find a way to get in touch with.”
Hera closed her eyes momentarily at this, looking weary. At last she said, “I wish you would find a way to do this without him.”
Max could appreciate how horrible it would be to rely on your friend’s killer for anything. Max had spent enough time with Hera to piece together parts of the story; she had only taken up the rebellion after Ash and his people had been slaughtered during the Halstead massacre.
“I wish I could do this without him too, believe me,” Ana softened slightly, calming down in the face of Hera’s displeasure. “Of the two Provo-Majors I’ve ever met, he was definitely the scarier of the two, and the more dangerous, which is really saying something, because Fox was the one who was trying to kill me at the time. I don’t relish the idea of seeing Topher—” she finally said his name out loud “—again, because every conversation with him feels like a verbal minefield that only he has the map to. It would be better if I could find a way to get a note to him explaining everything, but I can’t count on just bumping into him casually on the streets of downtown again. Even if I could, he’d probably stab me before I got close enough to put a note on him; the man has lightning reflexes.
I’m going to have to find a way to get through to him directly, probably on the comm, which means he’ll be able to track me and know everything about me and I’ll be on the run just like Maxton, but it will be worth it if it means we save Jessamine’s life and they can continue with their work to make peace between the military and the Gifted.”
“A text-message would be safer,” Max pointed out.
“I don’t know if messages go to him directly. Besides, I would need his private number for a text, and they don’t exactly advertise them online. For all we know, everyone high-ranking in the government gets their electronic messages filtered through a secretary or a spam firewall or something, anyway. I won’t know for sure if he got the message unless I can see him.”
“Then why don’t I do it?” Max suggested in a moment of bravado he almost immediately regretted.
“What?” Ana asked in bafflement.
“I’m already being hunted by them, so they know my fac
e. I can call Major Augen and say I know the psychic he’s looking for and that she—you—said to tell him Fox is trying to kill the Viceroy. That way he still gets the intel, but you don’t have to risk yourself.”
“Have you forgotten he can still track the comm you’re using and haul you back to the Augenspire?”
“That’s true…” Max wound down, giving the idea some real thought now. He had never gotten his personal comm back from the government after being arrested, and in order to get a new one activated he would have to scan his ID-chip, which would doubtlessly flag the Augenspire to come and get him. He would have to borrow someone else’s communicator to call Topher, which could be traced back to whoever was helping him and would compromise them needlessly for hiding a fugitive.
Ana glanced at her watch and said, “I’d better get going. Keep thinking, and I’ll be in touch. We need to come up with something before it is too late.”
“I will. Don’t do anything before you tell me about it; I don’t want to hear secondhand news that you’ve been imprisoned by the same bastards who once held me,” Maxton told her seriously, wishing she could stay longer.
“I won’t.” Ana nodded grimly, shooting Hera a last, concerned look. Max had no idea what had happened recently to shaken the woman’s confidence so badly, but maybe it was because this entire thing felt like it was spinning out of control, or maybe getting the blame for the attack on Jessamine was just hitting her particularly hard.
Either way, he hoped she would snap out of her funk soon and go back to being their brilliant leader once more, or this entire thing would fall apart.
