Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6)

by Matthew S. Cox

  He tried not to think about being in the rear seat of a CSB vehicle. It bothered him more that Anna occupied the rear seat of a CSB vehicle, even if she had asked for the ride. Aaron slid his hand over the seat and held hers. She startled at the contact, dragged out from wherever her mind had wandered.

  “Where are we going again?”

  “Oh.” She stared at her lap. “Near Finsbury Park.”

  “You’re not popping in on a Frictionless match?”

  “Certainly not.” A hint of a smile played on her lips, faded, and her grip on his fingers tightened. “I need to know.”

  “He’s not the sort to appreciate the likes of my company,” said Hughes. “Shall I wait on the roof?”

  Anna looked at Aaron, questions in her eyes.

  “Might want to join us,” said Aaron. “Just in case we need the extra finesse.”

  “Right.”

  The CSB agent brought the car about in a gradual upward spiral, passing over the park on the way to the top of the apartment tower. Anna seemed to find her confidence again as they touched down, and stormed across the roof to a small elevator shed. Aaron had to jog to catch her before the doors closed.

  She backed against the inner wall, fidgeting with her coat. “Sorry. I’m not sure I’m going to like what I find here.”

  He moved to her side and held the door for Hughes, who walked with a casual government-issue stroll. “Blighter thinks he’s got all day.”

  Hughes cracked a smile as he stepped in.

  “Thirty-ninth,” said Anna.

  Aaron pushed the button. A debate went back and forth in his head. How much distance should he maintain? Should he press his luck and try to turn her now? If she misconstrued his intentions attempting to reveal Archon’s true nature to her as simple male rivalry, she’d get herself hurt. He couldn’t rightly ask Hughes to help check Anna for any latent programming either, not without giving away who he suspected—and potentially igniting a massive headache with the CSB. How much of the Bureau does the bastard control?

  A chime flooded the cabin as the elevator halted on the thirty-ninth floor. Anna sucked in a breath and marched down a blue-carpeted hallway with windows for a right-side wall. Tiny dots, people, moved about in the grass across the street. Aaron raised an eyebrow at the strange impressionist sculptures along the interior wall. One bore a pair of hovering silver cubes, spinning around each other in an endless dance. At the word engraved on the pedestal, Aaron raised an eyebrow.

  “How the bloody hell do a pair of spinning boxes equate to lust?”

  Anna’s serious face cracked with a chuckle. “I thought the same thing the first time I was here.”

  “Who lives ‘ere, anyway?” asked Aaron.

  “Calls ‘imself Mr. Orange.” Anna pushed the buzzer by a door marked 3915. “Someone who helped me once.”

  A muscular man about Aaron’s height with thick black hair answered. He wore a white silk robe in a Japanese style, open down the front, over a loose-fitting pair of dark pants. Matte-black plastisteel covered his neck and shoulder area. Aaron didn’t want to imagine what sort of injury required reconstruction of an entire neck.

  “Pixie… Never expected to see you again.”

  “Hello, Nathan.” Anna looked up at him. “This is an unplanned trip. I know you’re funny about psionics. I think someone might’ve hacked your brain and I’d like to find out.”

  The man looked Aaron and Hughes over. “Who’re these two?”

  Anna chuckled. “Don’t panic, but remember how you were worried about me leading the authorities to your door? Aaron’s an ex-cop and Hughes is CSB.”

  Mr. Orange became Mr. White.

  “Relax, Nathan. His loyalties lie with us, not the Crown.”

  “Which one’s Hughes?” Orange stared at them for a moment before pointing at Aaron. “Wait, I know you. Pryce. Aaron Pryce.”

  Aaron held his hands up as if surrendering. “Aye, guilty.”

  “That leg thing was a face job, wasn’t it?” Orange shook his head. “Damn, the boys’ve been gettin’ mullered since you vanished.”

  “Sodding Hell. You too?” Anna scowled at the ceiling. “I’m surrounded by bleedin’ Arsenal fans.”

  Hughes whistled innocently.

  “Look, Nathan. I need answers. I know I still owe you one. Call it two? If someone did a bodge job on your brain, would you want it undone?”

  Orange backed up, allowing them in. “You’re serious? No one knows this place.” He glanced at Hughes. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to burn it and move now.”

  “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about your electronic forays. I deal with psionics.” Hughes’s eerie calm seemed to unsettle the man more.

  Aaron offered a hand. “Always nice to meet a fan. Look, mate. I’ve a feeling some tosser’s gone traipsing about your grey matter with a sledge. Mind if I ‘ave a look see?”

  “There’s enough in here to get half the people in London wanting you dead for knowing.” Orange fell into his chair, elbows on his knees.

  “I ain’t interested in your secrets.” Aaron sat on the end of the Comforgel pad, facing him. Much to his pleasant surprise, Anna joined him. “Just hers.”

  “The place hasn’t changed at all.” Anna looked around.

  “You have.” Orange winked at her. “Now, I’d believe you were a competent operator. The entire way you carry yourself is different. Okay, Pryce. One condition. If someone did mess with my head, I want names. There won’t be a rock on the planet or a colony world where he’ll be able to hide.”

  Aaron stuck out his hand, and Orange took it. “Deal.”

  He leaned forward, staring at Mr. Orange’s eyes until his perception slipped past them and into the man’s thoughts. He concentrated on Anna in an effort to respect privacy. A Vid call between Orange and Anna struck him as odd. Anna’s blasé reaction to him telling her he’d eradicated ‘the video’ confused him, though he could find no evidence of tampering there on Orange’s side.

  Chasing down the meaning of ‘the video,’ Aaron caught flashing memories of a paunchy slovenly bastard of a man pounding away on a rather unconscious Anna, who lay face down on a cheap bed, naked except for a set of holographic pixie wings.

  He recoiled from the remembered video, racing ahead to a glimpse of Anna’s reaction to learning Blake had not only raped her, but sold the recording of it across the GlobeNet. He pursued linked memories to a time burp a day later. Orange had lost an hour and change and hadn’t noticed. After a short while of going over every thought, mood, scent, and sound occurring in the span of fifteen minutes before and after, Aaron realized the difference.

  After the time burp, Mr. Orange believed he found evidence the man Anna killed was a CSB agent and not her real father. She hadn’t asked him to look; it came out of nowhere.

  Rage at what he had witnessed brought shaking to Aaron’s hands as he dropped the telepathic link. “Hughes. Found it. Need a hand.”

  “Right.” The CSB man walked over.

  Orange shifted, uneasy. “What did you find?”

  Aaron smiled. “Nothing too drastic. A tiny false memory implant. We can remove it if you like.”

  “What was it?” Orange scratched his head.

  Anna stared at him. “You look about ready to kill someone.”

  “Aye, but no one here.” Aaron covered his face in his hands and rubbed the fury away. “Okay… Looks like someone put a fragment in your memory that made you call Anna with a bit of bollocks.”

  She looked down. “Tell me.”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” He put an arm around her back, caution be damned.

  “Alexi’s a child. It’s different.” Anna’s sapphire eyes glimmered in the light when she stared into his soul. “I’d rather a painful truth than a comfortable lie.”

  “I…” He glared at the rug. “I can’t hate him for sparing you this.”

  Anna leaned into him. “How bad is it? Please, you have to tell me. I can’t stand not
knowing what’s real and what isn’t.”

  “Can you hold your emotions in check?” Aaron raised an eyebrow at Orange’s impressive quad-deck cyberspace rig. “That’s a few million credits you’ll cook if you lose yourself.”

  Anna shivered. “It’s that bad?”

  “Aye. I want to kill some paunchy bastard.”

  She stopped shaking. “Blake?”

  “No idea. Orange doesn’t know the fat shit’s name.”

  Anna’s eyes gleamed. An image of a four-day unshaven face leering through a gap in a door manifested in his mind, along with Anna’s shame of being looked at like a piece of meat.

  “Aye, that’s the fucker.” Aaron clenched his hands into fists.

  “He’s already dead. I killed him for leavin’ me locked in a cage overnight.”

  “Anna…” Aaron pulled her close, touching foreheads. That’s not why you killed him. He’s made you forget.

  “Tell me,” she said, her voice empty of life.

  Aaron shot a look at Hughes and Orange before answering with telepathy. That Blake chap… He… You were unconscious, face down on a wreck of a bed with blue wings. He shuddered, trying to hold back the urge to smash something. He took a holo-vid of what he did to you and sold it.

  She sat paralyzed; only the tears rolling down her face moved.

  He clasped a hand over the back of her head and peered into her thoughts. The painful memory peeled like an onion, opening layer after layer. She had no conscious recollection of the assault, only of waking up naked in an alley. With the cork pulled, Anna recalled every detail of her return to Bristol City, every blubbering scream her lightning coaxed out of the fat man. Even Archon’s implant couldn’t keep its grip on her brain against the tidal wave of emotion crushing it.

  “I-is that it?” Anna trembled, holding on to him.

  The look she gave the floor showed no sign of shame or imminent sobbing. She appeared livid, and barely holding it in.

  “Orange was programmed to tell you the man you killed was a CSB agent and not your real father.”

  Anna jumped up, looked around for a second, and tossed a brilliant arm-thick serpent of lightning into the bathroom. The smell of ozone grew staggering.

  “What did that poor bog do?” asked Hughes.

  “It was either that or everything within fifty meters of me.” Anna shocked the toilet a second time. “You’re saying I really did kill my father?”

  “I’m saying Orange was programmed to say you didn’t. I don’t honestly know, but I would say yes given the circumstances.”

  “It’s gone,” said Hughes. “Little effort on this one. I don’t think the person who did this expected us to track them here.”

  “Who did it?” Orange growled.

  Aaron reluctantly looked away from Anna. “One moment.”

  Once more in Orange’s mind, he searched for the moment of implantation. The white outline of a person made no appearance. The source of the false memory appeared to be a holographic male angel, face obscured by a white hood with metallic gold trim. Whoever it was had done it via a Vidphone call. Aaron pulled the image to the forefront of Orange’s consciousness.

  This is the bloke what did it. He got to you over the wire.

  Orange’s pupils dilated with fear.

  There’s only one person I’ve run into who can do that. Aaron took a breath. I’m already after him. I need you to sit back and let me handle it. You are of no concern to him. He used you to control Anna.

  Aaron released the link and groaned, reaching for his NetMini. “Oi. Anyone want coffee?”

  “Black,” said Orange.

  “Caramel latte with two extra shots,” said Hughes.

  Anna had her hands in front of her face as if praying.

  With a grunt, Aaron stood and staggered over to her. “Anna?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  “You don’t look fine.” He didn’t risk touching her.

  “I mean fine in the sense of I don’t want coffee, twat.” She looked at Orange. “Can you tell me who died at Number Six Woodseer Street about fifteen years ago? Freak ‘sem accident.”

  Orange pulled a thin wire from one of the cyberspace decks and plugged it in behind his right ear. The machine’s tiny lights betrayed a flurry of activity, though nothing appeared on any screen, nor did Orange seem to lapse into the far-off trance common to net jockeys. A moment later, Aaron’s NetMini chirped. He answered the door to take coffee from a delivery bot. It glided off down the hall to a purpose-built hatch for bots, and disappeared. He gave the button a telekinetic poke to close the door, and carried the holder of coffee cups back to where everyone sat.

  “Multitasker?” asked Hughes.

  “Aye,” said Orange, sounding a little distracted.

  “He was trying to help me,” whispered Anna. “All he wanted to do was help me.”

  Aaron couldn’t tell if she spoke to him, or to herself. Rebutting her could prove disastrous to both of them, but letting her convince herself being used had been in her best interest seemed equally poor.

  “Anna,” he whispered, grasping her by the arms at the elbow. “I am certain he wanted to spare you the pain of that memory. Consider one thing.”

  She froze, staring at him.

  “What if he thought you weak? What if he thought you’d be no use to him burdened by such guilt and pain? You saw what he did to Melissa’s parents. They wanted her home, but he drove her away and made them terrified of their own daughter. Why?”

  She pulled back, but he held her. “Stop it.”

  “Anna. Please think. The best lies are three-quarters truth. Penny and Spawny are the same situation. They were your ties here. He wanted you away from London.”

  “I…” She struggled as if to get away, but didn’t try terribly hard at succeeding.

  “You are a strong woman.” Longing burned in his chest. He wanted to pull her close and hold her until the world ended. Fear kept him paralyzed. What if she ran? “You have to decide for yourself.”

  “I—” Anna gasped.

  Aaron tracked her wide-eyed gaze to the image of a middle-aged man on one of the holo-terminals over the desk. A silvery-black scruff covered his face, and he had the general disheveled appearance one would expect from the sort of chap who toddled out of bars at two in the a.m.

  “Andrew Morgan, age thirty-nine at the time of his death,” said Orange. “Former employee of Harrington-Donner Associates, a junior account manager. His background is pretty boring, even for a stock trader. He was on the verge of being dismissed for tardiness when he was killed in a”—he coughed—”accidental electrocution in his home.”

  Anna sank to the floor. Aaron picked her up and guided her to sit on the bed, holding her up with an arm across her back.

  “His wife, Heather Morgan, died at the age of twenty-three nine years prior. From what I can find, it looks like she was caught by a stray bullet from a gang turf war.”

  “That’s bollocks,” Anna whispered. “CSB.”

  Aaron glared at Hughes.

  “I wasn’t out of primary school then,” said Hughes. “Besides, that was the Mi6 guys, operating under a project named Glass Derby. They always were too quick on the trigger. They’re the sods who want to keep us all in boxes and poke us with needles.”

  “What bloody happened?” Aaron spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Breeding program,” said Anna. “My mother was a test subject. She escaped and ran away after the in-vitro. It took them three years to find her. No idea how they missed me.”

  “They didn’t.” Hughes pursed his lips. “Someone decided it would be a brilliant idea to ‘observe you in the wild’ and see how that affected the test. I don’t think they planned on your dad turning into an abusive drunk.”

  Anna held on to Aaron, not that he minded.

  “Why didn’t they intervene when he got out of control? The man could’ve killed her.” Aaron yelled.

  “Buggered if I know.” Hughes
sighed. “Probably wanted to see how she’d react.”

  “Did I pass that test?” Anna snapped.

  Hughes studied the carpet.

  “Look, I think we’ve imposed on Mr. Orange for quite long enough.” Aaron patted her on the back. “Perhaps we should take our leave.”

  “What about my bog?” asked Orange, scratching his head.

  “What about Ol’ Jack?” Anna folded her hands in her lap. “He was always so protective of me; then out of nowhere, he thought I was a threat. Was he CSB or was he tinkered with?”

  “Lieutenant Jack Evans, formerly with His Majesty’s Special Air Services,” said Orange. “Transferred to Mi4 for a few years before winding up in the employ of Mi6 and later the CSB.”

  Anna slouched.

  “We’ll take care of the bog,” said Hughes.

  “Hang on. I’m going to need to go full in for this one.” Orange plugged a second cable in behind his other ear and went limp over the back of his chair.

  Aaron held her, no longer caring what she thought of him as much as trying to comfort her. Hughes flipped pages on the screen of his NetMini, offering a useless shrug after a few minutes.

  Orange sat up without warning. “Buggers have some security on that node.” Both wires fell out of his head, ejected by auto-prongs. “Seems like Ol’ Jack had an attack of conscience. After two other volunteer project mothers had their babies and vanished under mysterious circumstances, he broke your mum out of her secure hospital room and helped her escape the facility.”

  “Miracle the chap’s still alive,” said Aaron.

  “A man like that is nothing if not methodical.” Orange went to the window to let a delivery bot in. “If I was in his position, I’d have gathered as much dirt as I could on the operation before going rogue. Then, told my former bosses if they came near me I’d blast it to the NN.”

  Aaron laughed. “The NewsNet would’ve had a damn orgasm with that information.”

  “He felt guilty over mum.” Anna blasted the toilet again. Bits of porcelain clattered to the tile floor. “Sorry. Cheaper than the rigs.”

  “Much appreciated,” said Orange, as he handed out coffees.