by David Ryker
Ward couldn’t see the look on Ferlish’s face, but he knew that he was smiling. He’d just won. With a few words, he’d shattered what little faith Erica had in Ward and squeezed her back into the shape he’d been molding her into for the last three decades.
Ward watched, and knew with every fiber of his being that he was screwed.
He felt the tombstone around his neck again, this time fastened by a noose. And it was tightening.
“Come on,” Ferlish said, barely above a whisper, his face in her hair, hand on the back of her head. “Let’s go home and get you debriefed. It’s time to eradicate the AIA infestation in the Security Bureau once and for all. And you’re going to help us do it.” He turned her around and started walking her back toward the command ship, following slightly behind, one arm on her waist, the other on her shoulder, his thumb on the back of her head so she couldn’t look back.
Ward watched her go, willing her to try all the same. But she didn’t.
His hair stood on end an instant before he felt a searing pain in his left knee and crumbled, catching a glimpse of a retreating asp in the hand of one of the Peacekeepers at his flank.
His knees groaned as they hit the cold steel of the floor and he looked up just in time to see another asp flying toward his face. He barely had time to screw up his eyes before a blinding warmth spread through his head.
After that, there was darkness.
25
Ward hated waking up handcuffed to a chair. But it seemed to happen quite a lot. Or, at least what he deemed to be quite a lot. This was probably his six or seventh go-round. After the third time, it just got tedious.
His face was throbbing, the taste of old pennies swimming around his teeth. They’d gotten in a few shots while he was out, for good measure. Soften up the flesh a little, ready for the main event.
He could feel the sting of blood in his eye and his head was aching and smarting in equal measure. They’d struck him just above the temple, on the corner of his skull — which meant that he didn’t think it was cracked. A few centimeters lower and he probably would have woken up brain-damaged, or not at all. Still, he could feel the fuzzy embrace of a mild concussion. Nothing he hadn’t taken in his stride before, though.
He blinked himself as clear as he could and looked around.
Everything was dark, but he could tell he was in a small-ish room. At least small enough to force a sense of claustrophobia on someone not trained to endure this sort of thing. The walls were stark concrete. No, check that — he sniffed the air — alcrete. It had that slight rotting-vegetable tinge. He was back on Mars then. But they were bare all the same. No padding. Which meant that this wasn’t an interrogation room — at least not at the Security Bureau HQ. There was no two-way mirror, no security door. None of that. The walls were unpainted and unsoftened so that screams would ring, so that rattling breaths would echo, and so that heads could be smashed against them.
The chair was steel and not bolted down, so it could be dragged or thrown over, or worse, held back so the person could be waterboarded.
The Martians were supposed to be less brutal than the Humans — more reserved and human even than them. But hell, didn’t torture rooms all just feel the same — whether they were on Earth or not.
Ward grimaced, clicked his sore neck and then spat blood between his bare feet. They’d taken his boots and zip-tied his ankles to the legs of the chair. He wiggled his cold toes and traced them in tiny circles on the floor, feeling the dust and grime build up on his soles. It felt a little sandy. He stamped his foot as well as he could and a little plume rose up. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose. Yeah, smelled like the plains. But that didn’t really narrow things down.
He could feel the scratch in his throat and eyes that came with having had a bag over his head, too. They really weren’t taking any chances.
Ward could make out a door in front of him, thin shafts of light bleeding around it. Daylight. Splinters cutting through swirling dust. He squinted hard and outlined the shapes of blocks in the walls. He wasn’t underground then. That much was something. Probably just some little building somewhere out in the desert, far, far from anyone who might be around to hear him scream.
He cleared his throat, chewed on his dry tongue and rolled his shoulders, limbering up. He’d been stripped of his jacket and sat there just in his shirt and trousers. His pistol was obviously gone as well. He couldn’t tell if he still had the lens in. His face was hurting too much. Though it didn’t feel like his eye had been scraped or gouged so it was a fair bet that it was. He doubted the comm dot that had been recording audio to go with the video was still behind his ear. That much would have been found on just a cursory sweep.
He’d destroyed his own communicator, but he’d managed to transmit the footage to Moozana. So he still had hope they might be able to prevent Chang from eating a bullet. And yet, it was a double-edged sword. If Moozana knew about the footage, then he’d also know it was being recorded. And once he thought about how… Ward imagined a grapefruit spoon being used on his eye. Or maybe they’d just use a knife, or dig it out with their fingernails. He groaned at all the possibilities and wondered if he’d be able to squeeze it out with his eyelids before it got to that.
Erica knew about it too, of course — though whether she’d spilled was another thing. Maybe she hadn’t yet. Maybe she had. Maybe they were leaving it so whoever was watching on the other end could witness what was done to moles in the UMR regime. Wasn’t that just a great thought.
Ward sighed. The waiting was the worst thing of all. At least once the pain started, you could employ the training you had, blocking it out and putting yourself under a sort of hypnosis. But as for the waiting, there wasn’t much you could do about that.
“Hey, dipshits,” Ward called gruffly. “I’m awake if you want to come in here and punch me.”
He heard footsteps crunching outside — like on gravel — and then they faded away. One of the guards had been sent to get someone. Ward betted there was another at the door.
He thought about trying to make a break for it, but decided that what was to come naturally would be the better option, at least for now. He had no idea where he was yet, and he could well be running outside and straight into the middle of a UMR Defence Committee military base.
A few minutes later a heavy-sounding bolt slid out of the door, a chain drained off the latch, and the thing swung open. Smart. Ward might have some way to hack a terminal for all they knew. But you couldn’t hack a chain.
The doorway was a square of bright white light for a moment, and then a figure filled it. It was Ferlish Arza.
Ward sighed. Shit. This was going to hurt.
He approached slowly, with the sort of casual patience that told Ward he was in no hurry at all. Maybe he should have been. If Ward had been out all night — which he guessed he probably had been judging by the sun outside — then it meant that Chang was arriving tomorrow. Which either meant that the shooter was already in custody, or that Ferlish wasn’t concerned about the shooting.
Ward stared at him, trying to read his darkened face, the sun at his back. A sense of dread choked Ward. Ferlish had known. The voice in his head spoke clearly. He’d known about Fairbright and Zenith. That’s what Ferlish had said. But how?
Cootes was sure that there’d been no chatter at the SB or DC — of course, he could have been wrong — it could have been under wraps… But it still didn’t sit right. If Ferlish had known, then Moozana wouldn’t have given Ward and Erica the go-ahead to chase down Fairbright. And why wouldn’t the director of the SB have known about the DC’s plan to move on Fairbright? Surely it was the first thing Moozana would have told them when he got them on the phone? Surely he would have known that the DC was ahead of them on the investigation into Edelweiss and the satellites? There couldn’t have been that much of a disconnect — especially not between two lifelong friends. Cohorts. Confidantes.
Ward looked up to see Ferlish Arza’s fist
flying at him. “Shit,” he muttered, seeing the sinister glint in the old man’s eyes.
The force of the blow made his jaw click and almost threw him over.
It was Ferlish. It had to be. He was the one shielding Edelweiss and Zenith. He was the one who’d have known about Fairbright, about what they were capable of making. The claim of investigation was just a smokescreen to cover his ass.
It dawned on Ward.
Ferlish was the one who was organizing it all — the mastermind behind the shooting. The one who’d found the weak links at the SB, who’d paid off the investigators and the sentinels to clean up the mess and try and kill them. It must have been before he’d known Erica was on the case. Before she’d begged Moozana to put her on it. He’d known Ward was assigned — probably told Moozana to put him on the trail. Try and smoke out any AIA moles at the SB and pin the shooting on the Humans at the same time. Sadler and Ward, former partners. Put them both in the middle of all this and create a divide between the Martians and Humans. It was all designed to look too coincidental to ignore. How could the Humans not be involved? Ferlish had chosen Sadler for the job because he knew Ward was in the city. He’d organized it like this to create unrest. To make ripples that were guaranteed to rock the Thessaly Treaty to the point of capsizing.
Ward thought about what Cootes had said, not feeling the fists hitting his body — The SB thought it was them. The Humans.
If Ferlish was whispering that in the Bureau’s ears, then it made sense. Hell, if he’d gotten Ward put on the case, Ferlish probably knew he’d make it to the clinic. Had a kill squad waiting, ready to finish him off. Tie up some loose ends. This was all his plan. All his doing. All of it. And why? To get rid of Chang? To see a Half-Breed out of office, dead on the streets of the capital? To what end? The end of the Thessaly Treaty? But why?
Ward was pulled back up. He’d disconnected his body from his mind, wrapped it up in padding while Ferlish went to work on his body and face. He just kept thinking, not even acknowledging the pain, though it came in stabbing waves, hacking at the layers of protection around his thoughts.
He hit the floor and slid, the chair crushing his left arm under him. His skin grated on the concrete.
A toe hit him in the stomach and the wind exploded between his split and bloodied lips.
Ferlish Arza. It was Ferlish Arza. But why him? What was his gain? Ward thought, remembered. What had he said, in the airlock — ‘with this human’ were his words to Erica. You’re throwing in with this human. The disdain there was unmistakable. It made no sense, really, but it was there. He’d married a human — Erica’s mother — fathered two Half-Breed daughters with her. And yet he’d spat the word like it was acid.
Did he really hate humans that much? Was his wife an anomaly? The only one he accepted among the eighteen billion he didn’t?
Did he really hate humans so much that he’d see Chang killed for fighting for their rights in the UMR colonies? Did he want to see the treaty thrown out, broken? See Human/Martian relations set back decades? Plunge the OCA back into a state of all-out war? Ward kept coming back to that. It was what lay in a future without Chang. But it couldn’t be the end goal. What would follow was turmoil and bloodshed. There was something beyond it that Ward couldn’t see yet. But he would. He’d see it eventually. If he could get out of this alive.
Ward’s eyes snapped open just in time to see Ferlish Arza’s boot flying toward his face.
The heel connected with his nose and he felt it crack under the force, breaking down the same fault-line it always did for what felt like the hundredth time.
It was blinding.
He couldn’t breathe.
The padding was stripped away, the white-hot eruption of pain lancing across his face enough to blast his thoughts into orbit.
He swore and cried out, blood pouring from his pulped nose and into his mouth. He could feel a few of his teeth loose against his cut-up tongue. His eyes were streaming, his chest heaving dry shallow breaths. “Stop! Stop!” he called out, the roaring in his ears like waves on a distant beach.
There wasn’t another blow.
Ward didn’t recall being asked any questions, though he’d deafened himself to everything other than his mind — and yet, he didn’t think he had been, either. Ferlish had just come in and started beating on him.
Bargain basement torture like this was below the paygrade of a senior advisor in the Defense Committee, that much was for sure. So this had to be personal. Probably for the ship. And definitely for Erica. If it was Ward, he’d probably have done the same, and worse.
But, at the end of the day, the only reason Ward wasn’t dead already, or at least fingerless, was because they wanted information — and corrupt or not, Ferlish Arza still worked for the DC and the UMR, and not everyone would be crooked. He’d still need to appear to have a semi-legitimate reason for dragging Ward out here. Or at least that’s what he guessed in his concussed state. He’d have to come back with something tangible, and not just a corpse.
Which meant that for now, at least, Ward’s life was safe. But he still needed to get out of there — find Moozana — convince him of Ferlish’s guilt. And then… Shit… And then, stop the third shooter from making the kill. No doubt, by now, Ferlish had shut down the investigation. Put Moozana off the trail. Gotten to the investigators. Maybe set up another safe house for the shooter. Hell, he’d have it in his power to reroute Chang, probably. Put him somewhere else that he could be picked off.
Ward looked up at the old man standing there, shoulders curved, teeth bared, hands clenched at his sides, fists dripping blood onto the cold concrete floor.
Sweat ran down Ward’s temples, blood down his chin.
Arza was seething, his shoulders rising and falling behind a bull-lowered head, snorting breaths of fire down over his blood-flecked shirt, open at the collar and rolled up to the elbows over veiny, muscled forearms.
His belt pulled tight around slim hips glinted gold, his creased dress-trousers and once shiny shoes filthy with torture.
He came forward and hauled Ward back upright with the strength of a much bigger man, dumping him onto the chair legs with a screech of metal on concrete.
“Stop,” Ward pleaded, coughing mucus onto his thighs. “Please. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“Pathetic,” Arza muttered. “Weak human blezlach.”
“Please, just stop,” Ward said, shaking his bowed-forward head, his dusty, wet hair flicking droplets onto the walls. “No more. Please.”
Arza stepped forward and cocked his head. “You? She chose you? Unbelievable. Worthless.” Arza spat and Ward felt a globule hit him in the head, the splatter landing on his shoulder.
“Please,” he sort of whimpered, mumbling under his breath.
Ferlish didn’t come too close. He wasn’t that stupid. But it didn’t matter, because despite being quick for an old man, he wasn’t as quick as Ward, or expecting him to slip his cuffs like he did.
Though it looked real, his right arm was cyber from the shoulder down, courtesy of that door-bomb on Ganymede. And, though he tried his best not to use its full potential — mostly because repairing cyber was expensive as hell and required lots of paperwork — when the situation called for it, the augmentation came in pretty handy, one facet of which allowed him to pop his thumb out of the ball and socket joint and press it flat into his palm. His wrist, fingers, knuckles, and elbow all had a greater range of mobility than the real thing, and could move a lot quicker, too. Pneumatic joints, and all that.
Ward reached up with his index finger and pulled his thumb out of the socket with a gentle pop, hooking his finger over the side of the cuff and ripping down, over his knuckles.
The cuffs glinted on his left, catching the shards of sunlight around the door and Ferlish looked up for a fraction of a second, eyes widening before Ward’s right hand, balled except for his flopping thumb, flashed around on his right.
The knuckles connected — braided carbon f
iber over titanium bone — with Ferlish’s solar plexus hard enough to stun the diaphragm but not to crack his sternum — just.
Ferlish staggered backward as the forward force threw Ward over, his knees hitting the floor with a dull thunk, his hands leaping out to catch him before his chin hit the concrete.
Arza stumbled sideways, clutching his stomach, his face purple and veined as he tried to yell or even breathe.
Ward dumped himself onto his side, pressing his thumb to the floor and ramming it back into the socket as he did.
His fingers closed around the ziptie around his right leg and ripped, his pneumatic grip snapping the plastic clean through. Sometimes when design reached a pinnacle, things didn’t evolve anymore. Door bolts. Zipties. A towel and a five-liter water bottle. Sometimes things were just perfect for the job and didn’t need to get more advanced.
Ward was glad that zipties were one of those things and prosthetics weren’t.
His right foot got free and shot out, hitting Arza in the hip as he tried to make for the door, sending him flying into the wall.
By the time he’d even managed to push himself to his feet, Ward had snapped the second tie and was up and charging.
Ferlish pulled his arms up and out of the way as Ward threw his shoulder into his chest, driving Ferlish back against the wall.
He felt the old man’s elbows smash down into his back, but a tight uppercut into his already-winded gut made the man crumple in his grip.
He wheezed and spat onto Ward’s back — he wasn’t sure if it was blood or spittle — and tried to hit him again, raining down with fists on his ribs.
Ward socked him again and pulled back, driving his left elbow up into Ferlish’s jaw. He watched his eyes loll in his head, his mouth producing a strange gurgling noise. Blood poured between his lips and over Ward’s forearm as he pressed it against his throat. Ferlish had bitten into his tongue — or at least Ward had knocked his teeth together and his tongue had been in the way.
