I sat up when she emerged and headed for the closet to open a suitcase where her clothes were kept. A wadded tissue was wedged inside her right nostril, and she kept her head turned from me to avoid any concern. Her hair covered the entirety of her naked back, hanging all the way to her upper thighs, disheveled from sleep. After slipping on a white sling dress, she swept it across her shoulders, knotting it into a messy braid.
“I need to go,” she said quietly, reaching for her Jury coat that had been thrown beside the bed. She pulled the blood-covered tissue from her nose and tossed it into the trash.
“Where?” I asked. “We haven’t been called.”
“Reinforcements should arrive soon. Cereli and I have been tasked with seeing them in. No one has called for you yet. You should stay and rest while you can.”
“I’ll go,” I offered. “Seems like you need more rest than me.”
“No,” she said. “No amount of rest will fix this anyway.”
As she moved toward the door, I called, “Wait.”
She paused, looking back.
“Why now?”
Leid hesitated, confused. “What?”
“You could have had me any time before this. Why only now?”
Her eyes turned mean. “You honestly need me to explain?”
“Alezair, I, was in love with you. You knew that.”
“I did know that,” she murmured, opening the door. “But he wasn’t you, and I didn’t love him.”
Before I could respond, she left.
Leid was wrong. I was still Alezair, and her words had been like a knife to the heart. My programmed Nexus self wasn’t replaced by my former self. Instead I was two men in one body, blended together in a potion of chaotic halcyon. The ferocity of Qaira was dulled, the virtue of Alezair razor-edged, and the end result was me, adrift somewhere in the middle.
Leid hadn’t meant to hurt me; those parting words should have come as a relief. She was trying to tell me that she loved Qaira, not the man who had stolen his body. But the Alezair in me had heard that too, and for a second I was sick with heartache.
A chime interrupted that thought, and I looked toward the bedside table. The Aeon that Yahweh had assigned to me was blinking, its screen alit with soft blue light.
I snatched it from the table. There was a message which read:
Meet me in the lab.
XXIII
WE ALL HAVE A WEAKNESS
Qaira Eltruan—;
IT TOOK ME A LITTLE WHILE TO find the lab again. I also mooched some clothes off Adrial so I wasn’t forced to walk around in armor while off duty. He was broader and taller than me, his clothes a couple sizes larger than mine, but no one noticed beneath my coat.
The entrance to the lab was guarded by soldiers. At the sight of me they moved aside. Yahweh must have told them that he was expecting me. Or maybe I was a higher rank than them and they were obliged to yield. I actually had no idea of the ranking system around here, but surely Judge trumped guard.
Ezekiel’s laboratory was two levels tall, both floors the size of a gymnasium. Equipment I’d never seen before, nor could I even take a guess as to their functionality, was arranged in rows across the room. I found Yahweh seated at a desk on the second floor in a little room partitioned along the eastside, glaring sleepily at a computer screen, giant mug of coffee in-hand. His hair was disheveled and his clothes were rumpled, like he’d gotten out of bed without looking in the mirror. For a second it felt like old times.
“Hi,” I said, trying my hardest not to startle him. It didn’t work and he jumped, whirling around.
“Don’t do that,” he scolded.
“Don’t do what? Say hi?”
He rolled his eyes and looked back at the computer. “I’ve scanned your drawing and am running a comparison match to our genetic library. If the strain you gave me matches any other species within Apaeria Minor—at least among those that we know of—then it’ll ping me.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Probably several hours. There are a lot of species in our universe, Qaira.”
I frowned at his ‘you’re an idiot’ tone. “Fantastic. Maybe we can finally get started on this sometime next week.”
“Like I said, these things take time. In the meantime I’d like to take a sample from you, which is why I called you in here.”
“A sample,” I repeated, raising a brow.
“It’s likely the drawing you gave me is a genetic representation of a noble, not a guardian. I gather guardian DNA will look slightly different since it was derived by extramural speciation.”
“Leid’s a noble, not a guardian.”
“She was a guardian before that.”
I squinted. “How do you know that?”
“How I know is none of your business,” he said, typing away. “But I could have made that deduction based on her phenotype alone. She doesn’t look like a true noble.”
Fair enough.
“Since you don’t want to include Leid in this yet, a sample from you will have to suffice.” He spun around in his chair, looking up at me. “Okay?”
I nodded.
“Good, come with me.”
We took a lift back down to the first floor. Yahweh led me to a station decorated in centrifuges and a square, black chamber that was the width and height of his desk. The temperature inside the chamber was relayed on the monitor above the keypad. Absolute zero.
He pressed several buttons on the keypad and the chamber’s temperature rose to cryogenic levels. I was beginning to grasp his plan.
“To keep the sample from petrifaction,” he explained, but I’d already gathered that. Vel’Haru turned to obsidian when they died, but that also went for dismembered limbs and/or other body parts.
I didn’t respond, eyes fixed on the surgical tools beside the cooler. “What are you taking from me?”
“A finger, please.”
I glared at him. Yahweh frowned, tilting his head.
“You’ve lost limbs, been nearly castrated, had all of your organs rupture simultaneously, and yet you’re reluctant to part with a finger.”
“It still hurts.”
“I could try giving you some local anesthesia if you’re that concerned, but you’ll metabolize it in a matter of minutes.”
“Minutes will be long enough, right?”
“Maybe,” muttered Yahweh, kneeling in front of a tiny fridge beneath the centrifuges. He pulled out a vial of clear liquid, tapping it twice with his index finger. “We’ll have to time the procedure perfectly. This is the strongest stuff I’ve got.”
A shame his brother wasn’t here. I’d bet he had a few tinctures that could knock me flat on my ass.
Rolling up my sleeve, I placed my hand on the examination table as Yahweh filled a syringe with anesthetic. As he injected the needle into a vein on the top of my hand, I grimaced and kept my gaze ahead. I’d always hated needles, and seeing them reminded me of all the track marks I had accumulated as an addict. Overcoming a phobia in order to get blasted said a lot about someone like me.
The anesthetic worked well enough. By the time I looked down, Yahweh had already excised my middle finger. The sight was psychosomatic, however, and no sooner had I seen the severed finger, the ache started. I cursed, looking for something to regenerate with.
Yahweh quickly shoved the finger into a capsule and dropped it through a hole in the cryogenic chamber, sealing it thereafter. Done, he handed me a box of stone paperweights. “Here.”
I snatched one, feeling it erode into my palm within seconds. “You came prepared.”
“Of course I did.” Yahweh paused, smiling at me. “I’d like to thank you for your help this morning. Without you protecting the deck, I might not be standing here right now.”
I hadn’t done any of that for him, but held my tongue. “Just keeping up my part of the deal.”
Rue wicked across Yahweh’s face, but he quickly looked away, feigning nonchalance. “Yes, about that; plea
se see Seyestin in the conference room. I’ve charged him with overseeing plans for your specialized team.”
Oh, great. “Am I done here?”
Yahweh nodded, sauntering back to the lift without another word.
I looked down at my injured hand, whose middle finger was already in mid-regeneration, resembling a fat, pink worm. Gross.
Pulling down my sleeve, I grabbed another paperweight and headed for central headquarters. Let the fun begin.
*
General Trede was alone when I entered, sitting at a desk beside the idle holo-map projector, sifting through a stack of files. He was out of uniform, too, now dressed in a grey long-sleeve button-up and black slacks. I almost didn’t recognize him.
As I made my way down the aisle, he tossed the stack of files across the desk. “Those are the soldiers who were selected by Cereli’s ground officers.”
I reviewed them while Seyestin sat there, making a point not to look at me. Things between us had changed since our last scuffle at Cerasaraelia. He probably hated me more than ever, but the knowledge of who I really was kept his attitude in check.
“No,” I said, tossing the files back at him. This time he couldn’t help but look at me, surprised. “None of these soldiers will do.”
“They’re the best of our army,” he said, insulted. “With commemorations and everything.”
I didn’t want squeaky clean do-gooders. There had never been any heroes in my Enforcers. Hell, half of them were on par with the criminally-insane. But that was what it took—I needed ruthlessness, chaos, the kind of men who’d take a swing at their command if they thought it was warranted or break the rules if it meant getting ahead. Yahweh wanted a replica of the enforcers, and for that I needed monsters. Cut throats.
Seyestin wouldn’t understand any of that, so I spared us both the time. “Gather your delinquents. I want to look at some of the black sheep in your army. The more demerits, the better. Especially the violent kind.”
“The unruly scrappers,” he muttered, collecting the rejected files into his folder. “And what will you do when those misfits disobey your charge?”
“Let me worry about that.”
He reclined, staring coolly. “Why are you even helping us?”
“Just upholding my part of the deal,” I recited.
“And what deal is that?”
“It’s a little above your pay-grade.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with why my Commander is sitting in Ezekiel’s lab while he should be strategizing our next move, would it?”
I smiled. “Just find me those unruly scrappers, General. Neither of us have time to sit here staring daggers at each other. Or I could just pull out my dick and show you how much bigger it is than yours, since that’s the kind of vibe I’m getting here.”
Seyestin didn’t humor me with a response. Instead he tucked the folder under his arm and left the conference room. Puzzlingly enough, he didn’t even seem upset by my remark. Actually, he’d smirked.
*
As reinforcements settled in and all the aviation mechanics and engineers put the final touches on Ezekiel’s repairs, Yahweh and his officers held a banquet in honor of our victory. Everyone was welcome to eat, though the upper-echelon military dined exclusively in the officer hall, overlooking the bow, while the middle and lower ranking soldiers had their meals in the mess hall, located below deck.
I hadn’t seen Leid or Yahweh for the remainder of the afternoon. They were busy strategizing our next move with help from Belial and Naberius. I’d spent the evening helping Adrial and Zhev with some heavy lifting in the hangar, all the while waiting for Seyestin to get back to me with any potential recruits.
He threw another folder at me when I sat down at the table. It almost knocked over the glass of water beside my plate. I glared at him and he smiled curtly, nodding at the files.
“There you go; every misfit two steps away from discharge that I could find.”
Yahweh wasn’t here yet, his chair at the head of the table vacant. I sat between Leid and Adrial, across from Seyestin and Cereli. Servers brought around crafts of wine and other liquor, along with bread and an assortment of fruit spreads. I ignored the food for the meantime, studying the recruits.
This was more like it. Each page was filled with demerits of insubordination, scrapping with comrades, and one guy had even hit an officer. The circumstances must have been out of the ordinary or else he would have been thrown out, if not arrested. Intriguing nonetheless.
Celestials had a Machiavellian way of rule—absolute respect and obedience to their upper chains of command, especially among their military. The strangest thing about that was Celestials (angels, mostly) never questioned their ruling party. The moment Yahweh stepped into office, he became the ultimate voice of his people, despite a glaring lack of experience in leadership and military function. Luckily Yahweh was a decent ruler and a (generally) good person, but such a practice turned deadly if someone like Jehovah Telei, his father, took the throne.
The Nehel had also used a Machiavellian form of rule, but in that case leaders had to first prove their worth before they earned the respect of their people and army. You weren’t just handed a shiny pin to place on your suit and then everyone automatically bended their knee to you. That was nuts.
Leid cast a quizzical look at the documents in my hand, but didn’t inquire about them. She’d already heard about Yahweh’s special team, though my requested picks seemed to surprise her. I didn’t know why, as she of all people knew the sordid types I used to mingle with.
Adrial poured wine into his glass and handed the craft over to me. I rejected it with a wave, and he stared at me in disbelief. My former self would have never turned down alcohol, but all of that was over. I couldn’t traipse around Ezekiel fully loaded. Alezair hadn’t had any responsibility—well, any responsibility unachievable after a bottle of Pelo Segua. Times had changed.
“These’ll work,” I announced. “When can they be handed over to me?”
“Whenever you like,” answered Cereli. “The sooner the better, really. A few of them are set to be dishonorably discharged tomorrow morning. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled at a chance to clear their name.” She’d said that with sarcasm.
I handed her the documents and she tucked them into her coat. Then we all piled bread onto our plates and slathered them with fruit spreads.
Halfway into the meal, Yahweh entered, and everyone stood as the Commander made his way to our table.
Except for me. I didn’t stand. Neither did Leid, Zhev or Adrial. He wasn’t our Commander, after all.
Belial and Naberius joined him, and it was strange seeing the Argentia Leader walking side by side with two former members of House Obsidian. Judging by a few expressions around the room, I wasn’t alone on this.
Once they were seated, the conversation switched to Ezekiel’s plans for departure. No one could seem to decide how many jets to place ahead of the ship for defensive measures. Seyestin and Adrial both advised a meager militia, as according to Belial and Naberius, it was very unlikely of a large scale attack in Lochai. Leid disagreed.
“That’s exactly what they hope us to think,” she said after the decision was nearly finalized. “Lucifer has placed stock in us believing that the rest of Lochai’s army has fallen back to the Lohr-Tehlor borderlands with the larger fleet.”
“Sacrificing smaller armies in lieu of an ambush seems like a fruitless endeavor,” said Adrial. Seyestin nodded. “None of them would get past our defenses, no matter how meager its number.”
“Less is never better, in this case,” said Leid, sipping her coffee. Although her tone was strong and authoritative, she looked sicker than ever and had barely touched her meal. She seemed to be getting worse by the hour, and I really had to fight to hide my concern. “A smaller defense means more deaths than we can afford. They wouldn’t ambush us to win—only to whittle down our ranks to hurt us in the long run.”
Her hand shook vio
lently as she set her cup down on the dish. It rattled, and coffee spilled over the brim. Several pairs of eyes around the table glanced at the cup, then at her. Nothing was said for a minute.
“I agree with Leid,” said Yahweh. “Send a thousand jets ahead of the ship, General Trede. I don’t want any more damage to Ezekiel while on route.”
“Sir,” said Seyestin, conceding. Leid had posed a valid argument, one that even he seemed to agree with.
“Is there any sweetener?” interrupted Belial, puckering at the coffee. “This tastes like muddy water.”
“We don’t use refined sweeteners,” said Cereli. “It rots our teeth.”
“You don’t seem to use salt or any other type of seasoning either,” muttered Belial, though it was probably only audible to ears as good as mine.
When the meal was done, all of us parted ways again. Zhevraine and Adrial headed to the hangar with Cereli, Leid and Yahweh to the command station to plot Ezekiel’s next course, Belial and Naberius to the residential sector to find Archdemon Uhnem a place to stay other than the interrogation room, and Seyestin ordered me to the bow to welcome the misfits whom I would be training.
I took a detour to the armory, three levels below the deck. I had kept pieces of that Primer’s armor in hopes of getting it replicated—with some modifications. When the specialists confirmed that replication of the armor was achievable (with a bit of time, minus the shields since that was a job for the config engineers, whoever the hell they were) I left the primer armor with them and headed to the bow.
My recruits were waiting, most of them restless and impatient. I’d been at the armory a while. Didn’t want to seem too eager. All part of the game.
At the sight of me they straightened, forming a row in front of their higher ranking lieutenant, who handed over the files I’d given Cereli.
“Dismissed,” I muttered to the lieutenant, sifting through the files. I took another few minutes to pace the row, staring at each recruit.
The Antithesis- The Complete Pentalogy Page 78
