Sam thought Grandover found a confident, arrogant voice since seeming subservient to Celia’s whims during the conference.
The corridor ended at a windowless door that almost disappeared inside stark, nondescript walls.
“What’s inside here,” Grandover said, “should be familiar.”
It wasn’t. At least not at first. The chamber was stark, its walls high, and ceiling spotlights cast bright circles onto the chamber’s floor. A viewing platform overlooked them a full level above.
Sam’s peers did not speak, but Grandover did.
“I see it in your eyes. You remember. It happened here, two years ago. James and Valentin Bouchet. Their blood stained these floors. One of them died here … until he was reborn. But of greater importance, a monster was given birth in this chamber. You all saw it during the inquest. You read Perrone’s journals.
“Our current nightmare began that day. A quarter-million humans have died at that creature’s hands. If he has his way, millions more will follow. He has attacked the colonies, and he recently struck at Vasily Station. We believe it is only a matter of time before he and his psychopaths turn toward Earth itself. And since we have failed to ascertain their military capabilities, we are vulnerable. A divided Chancellory and an Earth embroiled in civil strife leave us open to a catastrophic future.
“We have no desire to harm noble Chancellors of great repute, like you. What we wish to do is end the strife and unite Earth against this threat. We are Chancellors. By birth, by tradition, by inviolate law. We stand elevated at the crème of humanity.
“There will be blood in our streets. Yes. It cannot be helped. But in short order, every Chancellor of good faith will flourish, and every Solomon who disavows these radical notions of equity will continue in peaceful service to the Chancellory.”
Lucinda jumped in. “And what of those who don’t?”
Grandover licked his lips and looked away. He blinked his eyes twice and tapped his right temple.
“You’ve been listening?” He paused. “Would you like to answer?”
He threw open a holocube, fingered it, and tossed out a window large enough for everyone to see.
Celia Marsche was drinking wine.
“I don’t believe any of you have ever visited my summer estate. Look at this view.” She turned her head, and Ericsson Fjord dominated the window. “It’s remarkable. Yes? I invite each of you – and your families. We should reestablish our relationship on sounder footing.
“To your question, Lucinda, please understand. I have no interest in harming a single Chancellor. Especially our dear Miss Pynn.”
Sam heard the irony drip off the woman’s slippery tongue, Sam’s terror deepening as many eyes fell upon her. Celia continued.
“When you go home today, enjoy your life as you always did. No one will monitor your movements. Surely, that would violate the Chancellor Treaty. All I ask is that you allow the Guard and its associates to do their job. We can’t have this equity nonsense come between us. Once we cleanse the agitators, we’ll be free to move forward as a unified people.”
Sam felt sick. She knew what Celia meant, but Lucinda argued.
“What do you mean by ‘cleansed?’”
“They’re a virus,” Celia said. “They have to be eliminated. I realize this will cause employment disruptions. However, there are ninety million of them. A small culling will make little difference.”
“You intend to slaughter Solomons?”
“The Solomon Treaty is clear: Acts of insurrection against the Chancellory are punishable by death. Thousands of Solomons, whether acting on their own or at the behest of misguided Chancellors, have directly or indirectly brought death to thousands of our people. We have looked away for too long.”
“The Presidiums and the Sanctums will not stand for this.”
“For the first few days, perhaps. But they’ll come around when they consider the reputation of their descendancies. They’ll turn over their Solomon insurgents for public execution. No right-minded Chancellor would risk all by hiding this virus.”
The rumbles echoed through the chamber, but the passion Sam heard in the conference room two days ago was muted.
“Admiral Grandover,” Celia said, “I think it’s time to allow these fine and worthy Chancellors to return home. I’m sure they have important business to consider. Yes?”
“Agreed.”
“And please, all of you, come visit me before summer’s end. The fjord and the forest are magical.”
She sipped wine as Grandover scrapped the holowindow.
In the silence that followed, Sam thought only of Michael. As they were escorted back to the lift and finally to the docking platforms, she saw stunned despair in their eyes. They knew nothing of being ambushed until now, and they were as paralyzed with terror as Sam.
She tried to encourage further meetings, to not give up the fight. They were non-committal. Lucinda promised to be in touch in the coming days, but her 82-year-old voice trembled when she mentioned concerns about her grandchildren, some of whom lived on Ark Carriers far from her protection.
Seven miles removed from the GPM, Sam’s stream amp catalyzed. She searched her admin stack for messages from Michael. She opened a holocube and tried to find him, but his amp did not respond.
“No,” she whispered. “It will not end like this. I’ll find you, sweetie. I promise.”
28
Danielson Outpost
Appalachian Mountains, southern range
M ICHAEL WANTED A DRINK. HE’D GONE thirty hours without jubriska, easily the longest stretch in more than a year. His fraying nerves pointed to the thing he’d be known as on first Earth: an alcoholic. Screw you, he’d tell the holier-than-thou friends and family who would intervene to “save” him. You try living in a universe where everybody wants you dead and tell me a bottle don’t look damn sweet.
For the moment, the poltash weed held him together. The high wasn’t as potent as marijuana, but it kept him from feeling as if his body was fragmenting. Best of all, poltash did not disturb his mental sharpness. Unlike jubriska, for which the cupboard was bare, almost all the thirty Solomons who escaped to this mountain outpost brought multiple pipes and extra stock along. In their moments of desperation, his fellow assassins revealed their priorities.
After the initial, chaotic hours during which the equity movement put out the word to its members, they began arriving at this former research outpost, abandoned more than a century ago when Chancellor geologists lost interest. Rikard landed the uplift in a cedar forest after circling the eastern half of the NAC before achieving blind flight, which removed the ship from the continent’s aerial stack grid. Michael, Rikard, and Helene Yaffetz – the Pynn family cook who joined them – were the fifth through seventh to reach the refuge, lugging weapons and supplies a half mile up unstable, rocky, and deeply forested terrain. Rikard, a smaller man who was great with a navigation cylinder and a pulse gun, struggled with this journey. Helene, on the other hand, managed as well as Michael. She attributed her success to a job that kept her on her feet.
The last of them arrived after sunset. They secured provisions, determined patrol shifts, and ate a makeshift dinner as they introduced themselves. The motley collection amazed Michael. Eighteen men, twelve women, at least a dozen ethnicities, aged eighteen to sixty. Only Helene never killed a human, but she was eager to learn.
“Don’t get so cozy with the idea, Helene,” said Rikard’s husband Matthias, who reached the outpost first. “Everyone here will tell you the same: Once you take a life, there’s no going back. Doesn’t matter whether you did it because you had no choice, or you were fighting for a cause. For now, you’re the only cook here, and we don’t have any kiosks.”
Helene nodded. Michael could have expanded on Matthias’s lecture, but the night was already too tense. He didn’t need to talk about the corpses who visited his nightmares, or how easy it was to kill a man after you’d done it often enough.
A cloud of smoke domi
nated the common room as they shared their skillsets, contact circles within the movement, and offered thoughts about the most pressing question: What now?
Michael exhaled a stream of smoke. “Here’s what I need to know. When are we gonna be able to contact the people we love?”
Matthias deferred the question to Raimi Inhofe, an expert in stream amps and stack sabotage. Raimi, the last Sioux descendant on Earth, was a burly man with a twitch in his left eye.
“My contacts are still running filter analytics. Here’s the problem with catalyzing your amp, Michael. There are nine certified pilots here, including you. That means nine of us have a transponder loaded into our circastream. According to law, the Chancellors can only track your personal transponder when you’re flying a commercial vessel on attainder. But for all we know, they installed bleeder loops into these transponders. If they did, your stream amp becomes a tracking device the second you catalyze it.”
Michael understood the tech dilemma; he didn’t need a recitation from the expert.
“Look, I get it, dude. I see what’s at stake. But Sam was at the GPM when all this went down. There’s gotta be a way to contact her without mucking up the works.”
Raimi shrugged. “We’re all in the same web, Michael. Give my people another ten or twelve hours. Soon as they file the results on my admin, you’ll know first thing.”
“What about everyone here who’s not a pilot?”
Rikard intervened. “Probably safe, at least in accessing the public streams, but I want us to wait until Raimi’s team reports. We’re a hundred fifty kilometers from the closest city. If there were a sudden spike in amp traffic where no one lives, a clever analyst might deduce a few things.”
Michael wanted to argue, but too many heads nodded agreement. He took another tack.
“OK, so we’re squirreled away in a back-ass corner of the world. When we left Boston, you said we weren’t hiding. Look, Rikard, I’m just gonna say what everybody’s thinking: Are we planning to wait out these killers and hope they grow tired and go home? Cause that ain’t happening. Not for what they’re probably being paid.”
This time, Michael drew nods and grunts of assent.
“You’re right,” Matthias said. “They won’t give up. They’ve been assigned to hunt us down and kill us. If they found us, I doubt any of us would walk off this mountain alive. We’d give them a fight they’d remember, but these assassins are former peacekeepers. They’ve taken down powerful indigo armies without casualties. No, Michael, we’re not going to sit here and wait to die.”
Matthias turned to his husband, who said, “Tell them.”
“There are only two of us on each continent who appreciate the entire picture of our movement. Rikard and I have shared this burden for the NAC. We met nine years ago at an equity organizing conference in Madrid. We were the only ones from this side of the Atlantic. That week, aside from falling in love,” he grabbed his husband’s hand, “we worked with others to form a global council. We convinced the council to add subversion to our agenda. We knew diplomacy alone would not work. It never has.
“By the end of the first year, we set up a network of eight safe houses for Solomon agents pursued for acts of sedition or insurrection. This was the first. But as we grew in numbers – and after we became quiet soldiers in the Chancellors’ civil war – we created bases of operation in the event of a full-on shooting war. We have more than two hundred weapons lockers near major cities. We have supply lines maintained by contact circles who have never used their tech to speak to equity leaders. These members are clean; they’ll never be targeted.
“Once Raimi’s team has cleared us, we’ll establish links to the safe houses. Then we’ll set a plan in motion.”
Raimi tapped his noggin and took a long puff on his pipe.
“Like I said, people, ten to twelve hours. It’s all going to be right here on the admin.” He pointed to Rikard and Matthias. “I’ve known these two fellows a long time. Smartest two cudfruckers around.” Most joined Raimi’s laughter. “They never wanted it to come to this, but they made damn sure we were ready if it did.”
“I’m an artist,” Matthias said. “I design EarthIn terrariums. But I believe in what we’ve earned as human beings, and I’ve killed for that belief. I thought maybe we earned enough thanks from the Chancellors to pay for this without open combat. I’m sorry I was wrong. But I will not lead you to slaughter. I promise.”
Other voices joined in as the conversation deepened, often winding in directions Michael neither understood nor thought relevant. Never once, however, did Sam take a back seat in his mind’s eye. He thought of how hard this universe had worked to destroy them and how close … so damn close … they came to holding off every enemy. Two days ago, Sam headed to a conference designed to change everything for the better. He ate ice cream with a boy who grew up among the stars and needed help to navigate grief. Fiancé, big brother, soon-to-be husband. Damn right we’re gonna have kids.
Now he plotted war strategy against a superior enemy with no idea whether the woman he loved was alive.
“They were always jealous of you, babe,” he said an hour later, standing alone on the balcony. Clouds blotted out the stars, and the mountains were coal silhouettes, barely perceptible. “And I thought James was gonna be our biggest pain in the ass.”
“Talking to yourself?”
He recognized her voice. Silky, demure. She’d kept her distance since arriving. Michael hadn’t spoken to Maya Fontaine, opera singer and part-time assassin, since their encounter at Finnegan Moss’s home following the incident at the Entilles Club.
“It’s good to talk to yourself,” he said. “Don’t you know that?”
“I see the merits. But in my line of work, I conserve my voice.”
“Good thing you’re temporarily unemployed, huh?”
“Michael, look at me.”
He put away his pipe and faced her in the dimmed light. Shadows fell over her features, disguising the tiger who leaped upon a man at Entilles and stabbed him through the heart. He sensed a gentler woman in eyes that met him square.
“I saw your terror in there,” she said. “We’re all frightened. This is literally the fight of our lives. But you’re up for it, even if you aren’t so sure.”
“How? You hardly know me.”
“Michael, we shared a moment together at Entilles. It was savage. But earlier that night, I saw Michael Cooper the man. A gentle soul. A man who makes people laugh. You have a huge heart, and you will not lose your humanity, no matter what you do to survive this war. And she’ll be waiting for you.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. But I think after a good night’s sleep, you will. Come in now. Tell the others a joke and go to bed. You’ve earned it.”
She caressed his beard. His eyes watered as he sniffled.
“I’m not going out like this.”
“There you go. That’s my soldier. Time for bed. Yes?”
29
Pynn compound
T WENTY SOLOMONS WERE SHOT DEAD within a day of the trap being sprung. Vids of their bodies, often surrounded by DayWatch investigators, chased across the public streams and infotainment stacks. They were killed on three continents – some inside their homes, others walking the streets with their families, two felled during firefights with their attackers. The vids nauseated Sam as she flew home to Boston Prefecture, terrified she might see Michael’s blood-spattered remains.
Her fears lessened after contacting Merton Bayfield, her estate manager, and learned how Michael and Rikard raided the armory before fleeing. He had no idea of their destination but assumed they left with a plan. The estate, he said, shored up its security cascade but otherwise maintained an air of normalcy.
“We have distracted the twins,” Merton said of Brayllen and Rosalyn Helmut. “They have no access to the streams.”
“Thank you, Merton. Those kids don’t need any more trauma.”
“Of course, Samantha
. I neglected to mention we are down a cook. Helene left to join the Solomon resistance – if that is what we are to call it. I expect to find a suitable replacement within a day. Our kiosks will tide us over in the meantime.”
Sam appreciated Merton’s steadfast efficiency. He took over estate management of Pynn family holdings when she moved to Boston. The wealthiest families valued an EM like Merton, a Chancellor executive and independent contractor who ran major estates like corporate franchises. He acted as advisor, accountant, general manager, and butler.
“Are you OK with this, Merton? I’ve put you in an awful position. Your family must be concerned.”
His beard carried a touch of gray. “You don’t know my family, Samantha. I am far more concerned about you.”
She had not slept in two days. “I can’t imagine how I look. I feel worse, trust me. I just need a meal. A chance to catch my breath. Merton, can you do me a favor?”
“By all means.”
“Can you contact the other Boston families to see what they know? Maybe some of their Solomons fled, too.”
“Been doing that since yesterday, when you didn’t catalyze your amp as scheduled. I’m using what leverage I have, which is limited. So far, little progress.” He frowned. “I don’t wish to compound the misery, but there is something strange.”
“What now?”
“Finnegan Moss and his chief of staff, David Ellstrom. They are incommunicado. Outside the NAC. Apparently, they’ve been gone for several days. I spoke with the Moss EM. Their trip was unplanned, and they left no itinerary but gave orders not to contact by amp.”
Sam didn’t want to think this important, but the last time she and Michael met with Finnegan, he offered an open-door policy. “Amp in anytime,” he said. “Important evidence? Send it directly to my admin stack.” He provided the access algorithm.
“Let me try him,” Sam said. She expanded her holocube and fingered relevant directories then pushed through a stream pulse. Her signal died in darkness. No bounce-back, no return message.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 79
