by David Bruns
She never would have left Ruben alone. MoSCOW would still be an experiment locked in Viktor Erkennen’s lab. Elise Kisaan would have died in the explosion of the Neo space station.
And her father would still be dead.
All but for the lies of Anthony Taulke. His deception had set her on this course. She would avenge her father’s death, but then her path led her back to Anthony Taulke’s doorstep.
She felt the sting of sweat in her eyes, the sound of her breath, the smell of fresh tea leaves ripening in the morning sunshine. And she felt clarity of purpose.
The old Ming Qinlao was dead, replaced by a version that was half computer, half woman, and all business.
A Qinlao aircar passed overhead and lowered over the landing pad within the walls of the house. Ming sprinted home.
• • •
From the anonymity of a second-story window, Ming watched her mother’s maglev chair move slowly across the yard. Ito emerged from the house, still clad in his workout gear.
He bowed to Wenqian and spoke to her. If he had been facing Ming, Echo would have allowed her to read his lips, but his back was to her. Her mother, on the other hand, was facing in her direction.
The old woman was slumped in her chair, her body no more than a slack bag of bones and sinew. But her mother’s lips said to Ito: “I will see her now.”
So her mother hadn’t been fooled by Ming’s faked death and had tracked her here. Ming’s gaze swept the small room where she stayed, alighting on the 3-D picture of Ming and her father and the butterfly.
That was the only possible answer. It was the only item she’d brought with her from Shanghai. In spite of the situation, Ming smiled at the craftiness of her mother. The old woman had deliberately shown the picture to Ming, knowing it would prove irresistible to her daughter.
Ming blew out a breath at the ceiling. For all her newfound strength and clarity, meeting with her mother filled her with a dread she could not explain.
Ito appeared at the door. He saw the picture in her hand and his eyes narrowed for a split second. “Your mother wishes to see you.”
“You told her I’m not here, of course.”
A ghost of a smile. Ito stepped back to let her pass into the hallway.
Her mother’s lips twisted as her daughter walked into the room. The old woman had slumped over in her chair, her shoulder and the side of her face pressed against the cushion. Ming gently centered her and tucked pillows around her frame to keep her upright. Her ribs felt like a sack of loose twigs under Ming’s fingers. Her mother nudged away the amplifier with her chin—the extent of her range of motion. She normally used the amplifier to conduct a conversation with someone more than a foot or two from her face. She could still speak, but it came out as a whisper.
Ming lowered the chair and sat on the arm. She stroked her mother’s thin gray hair.
“It is good to see you,” her mother whispered. “And unexpected, as well. Your funeral was beautiful.”
“I’m sorry,” Ming said automatically. She wasn’t, and it showed.
“You’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
Wenqian started to slump again and Ming held her up. Her rheumy eyes locked with Ming’s and held on.
“This is about your father,” she said.
Ming nodded. “I’ve changed, Mama. I can’t explain it.”
“I never should have given you that video. I was afraid…” She took a break, wheezing slightly. “I thought I might not see you again.”
Ming chuckled. “If I hadn’t stolen the picture, you might not have seen me again.”
Wenqian’s laugh was a sputtering of breaths. “I know you, Ming-child.”
“You knew me, you mean.”
Her mother’s chin wavered—her version of shaking her head, Ming knew.
“You are my daughter. That will never change, no matter the circumstances…” More wheezing. Ming found the old woman’s oxygen feed and looped the tube under her nose. The old woman breathed with her eyes closed, then opened them again with an effort.
“I see things in you. Your natures are stronger now—and at war. You are half angel and half animal. One will win.”
Ming let a flash of anger show through. “She killed my father, Mama. She deserves what is coming to her.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about, Ming. It’s you. Which side will win?”
Ming scowled. “You started this, Mama. I will finish it.”
“I was wrong. Nothing will bring your father back.” She pressed a slim disk into Ming’s hand. “A life taken cannot be restored.” Her hand nudged at Ming’s thigh, a signal to move.
Ming stood and her mother engaged the chair’s drive.
“Goodbye, Ming.” The old woman’s amplified voice felt cold and impersonal as it echoed throughout the room. The chair disappeared out the door.
Ming stayed where she was until she heard the engines on the aircar hum into life. A shadow traversed the window as the vehicle took to the air.
She held her palm flat, held the disk up to the light. It was carved from green jade, a simple medallion in the combined teardrop shape of the traditional yin-yang symbol.
Half the medal was creamy white-green and carved with an angel’s wing. The other half was a deep green jade, almost black in places, with the face of a snarling wolf.
Half animal, half angel.
The same crackle of energy and purpose she had felt on her run earlier surged back. Ming found a silver chain and attached the medallion. The disk hung heavy, centered over her breastbone.
Half animal, half angel. One will win.
It was time to decide which one.
Chapter 17
Adriana Rabh • New York City
From her perch on the Louis XV chaise, Adriana studied Tony Taulke as he stood at the window. He raised his drink to his lips and she caught him in profile. So much like his father as a young man—and so unlike him at the same time.
Young Anthony had been an unabashed optimist, as if he could will his projects into existence by sheer force of personality and enthusiasm. As an early entrepreneur, it was nearly impossible to say no to Anthony Taulke. There was a group of people still who said he built his ByteCoin empire on bullshit and bravado—and they were mostly right.
But they were the sour ones, the ones who had not drunk the Taulke Kool-Aid and tasted the sweetness of victory—and money. Lots and lots of money. But Anthony had proven to be more than just a pretty face when he also managed to exit of the volatile secondary market at exactly the right time.
Accumulation of capital and preservation of capital. The foundational concepts of true wealth. He had managed both in spectacular fashion.
But Anthony Taulke, then barely thirty years old, had not rested on his laurels. He sought out new frontiers. Space elevator in Darwin, Australia. The Mars project. The weather control experiment. Not all of them worked out, but no one ever accused Anthony Taulke of thinking too small.
Adriana nursed her own drink, enjoying the cool bite of the bespoke gin in her cocktail. Tony could have been her son, she mused. She was older than Anthony by a few years—not enough to matter—and they had flirted in the same circles, but never connected in a meaningful way. That was her fault. The Rabhs were old money; Taulke was nouveau riche, and his wild moves in the market by no means ensured he would retain his riches. When it came time to start a family, Anthony had settled on a commoner and the result of his coupling was Tony Taulke.
The subject of her thoughts turned from the window just then and she caught him in an unguarded moment. He was not like his father. There was no enthusiasm there, no optimism. But there was energy and plenty of intelligence. His father might secretly mourn over the young man’s lack of certain qualities, but the ones he did possess were exactly the ones Adriana needed right now.
She used her retinal display to turn on the wallscreen. A clip of Anthony’s interview played without sound. The elder Taulke smiled at Nancy W
atson and said something witty. This was at the beginning of the interview, before that disastrous part at the end where Tony’s father lost control of the narrative.
“You can turn it off, Adriana,” Tony said. “I’ve seen it plenty of times already.”
Indeed, it was hard not to have seen the interview. Anthony had managed to direct almost every commercial channel on the planet to the live interview, and the following days were nothing but a nonstop commercial and pundit fest of speculation over the details of the Taulke Renewal Initiative. At least he’d managed to regain part of the narrative by announcing General Graves and Corazon Santos would be his special guests at the UN ceremony this evening.
She chuckled to herself as she wondered how Graves liked being a prop at one of Anthony’s media spectacles. Her decision to put him in charge over Teller had proved prescient. She now had Teller at bay and a conduit into the inner workings of Anthony’s new endeavor. But she needed more. She needed to insulate herself from Elise Kisaan’s meddlings on the council. She needed an inside man.
“We’ve never really gotten to know one another, Tony,” she began.
Tony drained his drink. “It’s a little tough when I’m stuck in the old man’s shadow.” He crossed the room in a few loose strides and took a seat across from her. “Still, I’m always willing to make new friends.”
“And what is your opinion of the New Earth Order?”
Tony shrugged and slouched in his seat. “The Neos? Religious crackpots that will burn themselves out eventually.”
Not the answer she expected. “You don’t see a linkage between LUNa City and the Fort Hood fiasco?”
“Such as?” Tony was challenging her, she realized too late. He was daring her to name another council member as a traitor. Maybe she had underestimated him after all.
“The Neo space station was destroyed,” Adriana began, “but Elise Kisaan managed to escape and secure herself a place on the council and maintain the loyalty of the Neo masses. You saw the same spectacle I did of the Santos woman touching her belly and weeping on the newsfeeds, right?”
Tony propped an ankle on the opposite knee and waggled his foot as if he was already bored with this topic. “You’re trying to connect dots between a few unrelated incidents. Elise is a symbol to a few diehard zealots, nothing more. She’s harmless. Easily dealt with.”
Adriana sniffed. This was not the answer she expected from the son of the man whose fusion reactor fuel supply was being threatened. Or maybe he was bluffing.
“So you’ll have no issue if I take some action against her?”
Tony’s lips thinned. “I would think a woman in your position would be loath to ‘take action,’ as you call it. If anything were to go awry, you’d be the obvious suspect.”
“You have another idea?”
Tony’s eyes defocused for a second and then there was a knock on the door. “That’s for you,” he said.
The young man who entered was mid-twenties, medium height, with brown hair that was already thinning. She wondered why he didn’t get some cosmetic work done to fix that. He had a wiry frame that made his every move a study in efficiency. His dark eyes swept the room, taking in everything at a glance.
“Eugene Fischer, meet Adriana Rabh,” Tony said without bothering to get up. “I think Eugene can offer the kind of services you might need on an exclusive basis. He has many talents.”
Adriana rose and shook his hand, feeling every tendon and muscle in the young man’s grip, and felt his quick eyes measuring her. She realized now why he hadn’t bothered with the cosmetic treatment. He looked ordinary, completely unremarkable—and that was a gift in his line of work.
Eugene Fischer was a hit man.
“Pleasure, Ms. Rabh,” he murmured. An unremarkable voice for an unremarkable man.
She pointed to the book stuck under his arm. He saw her looking and offered it to her. It was a hardback volume of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. She hadn’t bothered with reading an actual paper volume in decades, but when she passed it back, Fischer carefully tucked it back under his arm.
“Yeah, about that,” Tony chimed in. “Eugene is an old soul, born in the wrong era, I think. He’s not a big fan of technology. No implants, no integrated tech. He likes to keep a low profile. Reading is his only vice. He’s good at what he does, so I keep him around for special assignments.”
“I see.” Adriana nodded at Fischer and pulsed a message to her staff to arrange for Mr. Fischer’s security clearance. Eugene read the room and left as unobtrusively as he came. “You seem to have come prepared, Tony. I don’t know what to say.”
Tony came alive. In an instant, he went from slouching insolence to seated upright at attention. “Then perhaps I can put words in your mouth, Adriana. Young Eugene is a master, an artiste, if you will, in the finer aspects of corporate problem-solving. As it so happens, I have needs of my own that you can help me with.”
Adriana took her seat, arranging the fold of her dress over her knee with extra care. She had underestimated this young man. Tony had not only anticipated her needs, but arranged a very high-risk solution and pressed it on her. She was now implicated with Mr. Eugene Fischer, hit man.
She pushed those thoughts aside. “What can I do for you, Tony?”
“I want the GEMDrive tech. I need you to squeeze Teller until his cotton ball head pops off or I get some answers.” So that’s what was sticking in his craw. The tech that powered the mysterious Haven ships. That stunt had caught them all by surprise. The ships were on their way to another solar system and the secret of their superfast drive with them.
Adriana regarded him coolly. “You know Teller says he had no knowledge of the GEMDrive program. It was started three decades ago and buried in the depths of the black operations budget.”
Tony launched himself out of his chair and paced to the window. “I know what they say, but there has to be a record somewhere. I refuse to believe that not a single scientist exists who can replicate the drive.”
Adriana suppressed a sneer. For all his hipster cool, Tony was just like his old man. He’d been bested and all he could think about was getting even. A family flaw, it seemed. One she could play to her advantage.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
Tony whirled. “I just gave you a weapon, Adriana, I expect more than just an effort. I need results.”
She stood slowly and walked to the window, never breaking eye contact, always advancing. He stood his ground, but his gaze softened.
“I said I would do my best, Tony. I mean what I say.”
He squinted at her, then nodded. “Okay. I need your help on this, Adriana. It’s important.”
She air-kissed the space next to her ear and watched him leave. He had swagger, that one. The question was, did he have the balls to make the big calls, the life-and-death, bet-the-company kinds of calls that left you empty inside but also launched you into the realm of business genius.
Adriana shaded her eyes as she peered into the late afternoon sunshine. There was more smoke in the atmosphere today from the Canadian forest fires. The sun was a hazy disk that turned the cityscape below her blood red.
She had made those kinds of choices before and she would make them again. The issue with Elise Kisaan was shaping up to be one of them, a choice that could go either way.
The way that woman—Corazon Santos—had dropped to her knees at the sight of Elise. There was a disturbing aura of sainthood there. If she went after Elise directly, that would only turn her into a martyr. No, she needed to find a way to break Elise, crush her spirit without killing her outright.
Adriana sighed. The red engulfing the city sprawled beneath her deepened.
As a mother, she did not make her decision lightly. As a woman of power, she knew it had to be made.
Elise Kisaan would live. Her child needed to die.
Chapter 18
William Graves • UN Headquarters, New York City
Graves pressed his back agai
nst the column in the center of the United Nations ballroom and clutched his glass of seltzer water. The last time he’d been in this building, Teller and Adriana Rabh had hoodwinked him into a new job. That was not going to happen tonight.
He surveyed the assembled guests. The women in brightly colored gowns and the men in tuxedoes, their happy chatter filling the air with a noisy drone. His own dress uniform with the row of miniature medals felt gaudy and pretentious.
It was times like these that made a man seriously reconsider his life choices. These elites were worlds apart from the common man. The brilliant pearly shimmer of the gown on a woman a few meters away probably cost more than Graves’s annual salary and the bar bill for these guzzling people could run a small city in Africa for a month.
And somehow he was in the middle of it.
It was the property of inertia, he decided. He’d entered West Point at eighteen and tackled every challenge put in front of him without ever asking if the challenge was right or was even what he wanted for his life. From a wet-behind-the-ears infantry officer to a commander in the Sinai to leading the Disaster Mitigation Corps to this … whatever this was. He’d just followed the dots until someone told him to stop.
But no one ever did. And so he was here, locked in a room full of glad-handing politicians and their plus-ones, each sizing up the other as their next meal on the ladder of upward mobility.
The setting sun, red with atmospheric haze, blazed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. A pair of security drones shot past, just outside the building point-defense perimeter. They flashed across the red-orange ball, their deadly silhouettes outlined for a split second.
Millions of people lived in the city below this lofty perch. Millions who would be impacted by Anthony Taulke’s announcement tonight. They might watch on their data glasses, but more likely they would consume it encapsulated in some other newsfeed or comedy show. Many of them wouldn’t even care. They would tell themselves that what was said here tonight would not change the trajectory of their lives.
