“Didn’t he?”
Silver detects the slightest hint of bitterness. “Well, even if he did,” she fumbles, “he’s less than a year away from retirement.”
“So?”
“Alex will take his place, and then—”
“And then nothing. Alex wouldn’t make me his Deputy if his life depended on it.”
“He will if he trusts you.” Silver locks eyes with him. “So no more inviting me to steal booze and get drunk with you, okay? This isn’t the Fringe District. We can’t do that anymore.”
In the corner of her eye, she clocks Alex weaving his way toward them. Rather conveniently, and just in the nick of time, Luka’s dragged away by one of his peers and Silver’s blindsided by an older man in a suit.
By the time Alex reaches her, the Omega suit is quizzing her about the election of a Deputy General.
“Do you plan on selecting an individual from the Hunter units? Or is it your intention to pull a qualified candidate back from the other Division?”
A qualified candidate?
Luka fits the profile, but he’s referring to Alex and she knows it.
“I have no intentions.”
“The Governor seems unusually keen to leave the decision making in your hands.”
“Are you asking me a question, or making a statement?”
Pushing away the last dregs of jealousy that’d flourished when he first caught sight of Luka, Alex excuses himself and interrupts their exchange. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He smiles at Silver. Realizing they’ve never before met, he holds his hand out to the suit. “Alexander King.”
The suit takes his hand, seemingly reluctantly, and they shake.
“Congratulations on the promotion. I had no idea you were even being considered for the position.”
“Neither did I.” Alex smirks.
“Generally speaking, the convention is that members of staff with the greatest level of seniority are to be given priority consideration.”
“In this case, I think priority consideration was given to the member of staff displaying the greatest level of aptitude,” Silver butts in with a smile.
“Well, be that as it may, I’ll be lodging a formal complaint with the Governor’s office.” He flicks his eyes to and fro between Silver and Alex. “Everyone here knows of your personal involvement, and I’m not the only one who thinks this situation reeks of nepotism.”
Alex adopts a protective stance beside Silver, sneakily reaching his arm around her waist, eyeballing the suit. “You might want to consult the rule book first, because the last time I checked, government policy outlines no prohibition on members of the dual divisions engaging in personal relationships with one another.”
The suit regards him with disdain. “Well, then perhaps I will include a suggestion for revision of the current guidelines along with my complaint.”
Silver extricates herself from Alex’s arm as the suit turns and walks away.
“Did you have to be so antagonistic?”
“Did he have to be such an asshole?”
Maydevine appears from the bustle of shoulders around them. “Nice spread.” He nods to the buffet table. “Don’t eat the green stuff, though. I’m not sure what it is, but it tastes like pureed nutsack.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Silver cringes at the mental imagery.
Fishing in his pocket, Maydevine pulls out a packet of cigarettes and wiggles them toward Alex. “Care to join me?”
He welcomes the chance to get out of the jam-packed, claustrophobic room, and so does Silver. Out on the balcony, Maydevine and Alex both light up while Silver, passing up the offer, takes a seat on the very edge of the balcony railing, balancing herself precariously, but confidently.
Night fell over the city long ago. In the distance, fires can be seen burning just beyond the Belt. They’ve been deliberately lit on the outskirts of the Out District, and a foul stench drifts through the air.
Alex wrinkles up his nose. “That’s rank.”
Silver looks out at the fires, a Fringer’s perspective giving her a clearer understanding of the desperation facing the Fusion colony, and the futility of their predicament. “They’re burning the corpses of the dead CV2 victims. The fires have been burning for seven days straight.”
“Well, it stinks.” Alex hopes to obscure the smell with cigarette smoke, but fails.
“The Out District has become a death trap,” Maydevine throws in. “The Old World buildings are elaborate chunks of firewood, just waiting for ignition. It’s not safe.”
“It’s smart, though,” Silver justifies it. “They’re destroying everything with fire, and the virus can’t survive under those conditions. Besides, there’s a storm on the horizon; they won’t be burning for long.”
“Hmm.” Maydevine nudges Alex. “Any luck with the laptop?”
Alex shakes his head. “You’ll be the first to know.”
Maydevine tosses the last of his cigarette onto the ground and crushes it with the heel of his shoe. “I have many virtues, but I’m afraid that patience isn’t one of them.”
Silver jumps off the railing and steps in front of Maydevine. “I’m sorry, I could be wrong, but are you sure this is the best use of your Deputy’s time? Given the circumstances.”
“The circumstances?”
“I just don’t think that diverting your Deputy’s attentions to a fool’s errand will prove to be very productive when the whole city’s about to be besieged by hordes of angry, rioting Fusions that could be infected with a deadly virus. The fortifications around the entrance to the City Bridge are weakening. They’re pushing their way in, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
Maydevine stares her down, saying nothing to allay her concerns. “I’ll see you in the morning, General.”
That’s brisk, even for Maydevine. The tension between the two of them is still at a critical level, and neither of them is willing to break the stalemate. Aware that she deliberately chose to cut him out of her life after her second banishment, Maydevine’s resentful.
After all he’s done—and continues to do—for her, he sees her avoidance of the topic as the behavior of an ungrateful child, rather than as a symptom of her shame.
He doesn’t know how much she craves his forgiveness and approval.
The latter perhaps even more so than the former.
Leaving them alone on the balcony, Maydevine disappears back into the Omega soup, their unsettled dispute left festering for another day. Sensing her agitation, Alex slides a hand over Silver’s shoulder, trying to calm her.
“You’re both too stubborn.” He nibbles on her earlobe. “Come on, we should get going, too.”
Still captivated by the Out District fires and the trouble brewing there, she shrugs his hand away. “What’s the point? I won’t sleep.”
Refusing to take no for an answer, Alex spins her around by the arm and compels her to face him. Before she can object, he flicks his cigarette off the balcony and cups her face in his hands, pushing his lips against hers.
She likes giving in to him.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she smothers a squeal of pain when he holds her tight against him, slightly crushing her bruised and battered body.
To her, this is just a kiss. A passionate lover’s kiss, but nothing more.
To him, it’s a display.
Before he locked lips with her, he saw Luka watching them from inside the function room, and the message here is clear: back off.
*************************
Alex wakes up alone in his bed, several hours post-coitus. The clock says it’s still the middle of the night and he looks around for Silver, but she’s not there. Yawning, he slips out of bed to look for her, noticing on his way out of the room that the sock drawer is ajar. He pulls it open to find that the socks have been disturbed, and finds Silver’s socks in there also.
Shit.
The ring box.
Moved.
Unsu
re whether or not the surprise has been ruined, he shoves it back under the socks on his side of the drawer. His search for Silver resumed, he follows the light that’s emanating from his home office down the hall.
Bingo.
There she is, in front of the laptop.
“Silver …”
Silence.
“Ella …”
Slowly, her face pale and her expression grave, she looks up at him.
“Your program finished decrypting the laptop.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Phase One
Alex manipulates data on the laptop while Silver paces back and forth behind him.
“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head. “The CV2 virus was deliberately engineered. Why would someone do that?”
Alex selects files to save onto a portable flash drive. “I don’t know, but this explains why you were infected.” He looks over his shoulder at her. “With this evidence in your possession, it was no accident: someone did this to you on purpose.”
“But who?”
All Alex can offer to that is a one-shoulder shrug. “I’m not sure. The registration files are either blocked, or non-existent.”
He tries to save the data to the flash drive, but the laptop has other ideas. A warning icon alerts him to the fact that the laptop is equipped with an anti-tamper device that will automatically erase the contents of the hard drive if they’re altered or copied.
Undeterred, he cancels the file transfer and flips the laptop upside down.
“Fortunately for us, everything leaves a data trail and Omega is nothing if not predictable.” Retrieving a screwdriver from a desk drawer, he swiftly dismantles the laptop and removes a tiny microchip from the motherboard. “See?”
“What is that?” Silver squints at it.
He puts the laptop back together and reboots it. “It’s a suitably predictable—and highly ineffective—anti-tamper device.” He logs back into the files and quickly copies them onto the flash drive, this time without a hitch. “This gives us everything on the manufacture of CV2, from its conception to its release. It even contains a written execution order from Phaeden Rist.”
Alex is pleased with the findings, and the measure of the smile on his face speaks to that.
Silver picks up the phone.
He stops her. “Who’re you calling?”
“Maydevine.”
“It’s the middle of the night and that’s not a secure line. We’ll have to be a little more direct.”
*************************
Alex pounds on the door to Maydevine’s ground floor apartment, Silver by his side. This was her home from the age of five until her first banishment, and it’s been almost seven years since she’s been inside.
Moments later, Maydevine opens the door dressed in pajamas and a robe, his hair ruffled. “This can’t be good.” He sighs.
Leading them into his kitchen, he offers them a seat at the table and Silver goes to claim her usual chair, but Alex gets there first.
“This is where I sit,” she pouts, ready to fight him for it. “It’s my chair.”
“It’s not your chair. How can it be your chair?”
“Historically, it’s my chair. I always sit here.”
“Does it have your name on it?”
Silver yanks the chair away from him, pointing to the inside face of the back rest. Upon it is an Ella Cross , crudely carved into the cheap wood with a kitchen knife.
“Good enough?”
“Fine.” He relinquishes it with a smile.
He knew. He’ll pretend that he didn’t, but he knew. He just likes to spar with her. Maydevine, on the other hand, is nearly falling asleep on the other side of the table.
“Can’t you kids learn how to flirt like normal people?” He yawns. “Why the hell are you even here?”
Alex takes a seat beside Silver and slides the flash drive across the table toward his boss. “I decoded the laptop.”
“And?”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
“I haven’t liked much of anything in almost a decade. How bad could it be?”
“The virus was deliberately engineered.”
Silence.
Eventually, “Engineered? Are you sure?”
Alex points at the flash drive. “Full details of its preparation and manufacture.”
“By whom?”
“Your guess would be as good as mine.” Alex shrugs. “This was all done off the books, of course, and there aren’t any official records. We do know that the virus was originally created on the order of Phaeden Rist, but the real trouble is that the work continued after his demise.
“He was only responsible for the release of a prototype virus: a less virulent strain that targeted just the Chimera. Since his death, a more destructive version of the virus was introduced into the population—the strain that infected Silver.”
Maydevine nods with understanding. “So now we’re looking for the person who put the final nail in the coffin. Someone who wanted to see to it that Phaeden’s work didn’t die with him.”
Silver taps her fingernails anxiously against the table top. “Do we tell the Governor? I’m supposed to meet with her in the morning.” She spots an old photograph stuck to the fridge: a picture of a woman. “Is that my mother?”
“What of it?” Maydevine shrugs it off.
“Nothing, I just … after all these years, I didn’t think … I mean, I thought you only kept that stuff around for my sake.”
“Jonathan Cross wasn’t the only one who loved your mother.”
Alex looks from Silver to Maydevine and back again, as Maydevine expertly deflects away from any potentially awkward questions about his relationship with a woman who died over thirty years ago, and tries to get the conversation back on track—a conversational trick that Silver learned from him back when she still rode her bike with training wheels.
“You’re meeting with the Governor to talk about the refugee crisis?” he asks.
Silver nods. “She wants resolution.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“Extermination or asylum. That’s all we have.”
Alex furrows his brow. “I thought you said asylum wouldn’t work? Too many people, not enough manpower.”
“It’s not ideal, but it might be better than the alternative. And let’s face it, that’s got to be a part of the reason why I was chosen for this job. I thought about it all night, and it’s the only thing that makes any sense to me.”
“I don’t follow.”
“She didn’t hire me because I’m the best.”
“You are the best,” Alex butts in.
“The best you’ve ever had.” She winks.
It’s been nearly twenty years, but any reference to their sexual relationship in front of Maydevine still makes Alex feel uncomfortable. The old man made it very clear how he felt about their developing intimacy, right from the outset. Though Alex had never been completely certain if it was because of his genetic lineage, or simply the circumstances under which he and Silver had begun their romance, he always felt like he’d been an unworthy suitor in Maydevine’s eyes.
Not to mention the added complication of Luka.
Silver’s voice brings him back into the conversation. “The Governor knows my history with Alice. Any other Hunter General would leap on extermination like it was a dirty whore. I’m the only person who she knew would be willing to approach this problem from different angle. This is what she wants, I guarantee it. She just didn’t want to put her neck on the line by signing the order for it.”
Somewhere in the apartment, a toilet flushes.
A bedroom door clicks shut.
An awkward silence settles.
Silver opens her mouth, but doesn’t get past “Who’s—” before Maydevine slams the brakes on her question and steers them back on track.
“Let’s say you’re right.” His thumb and forefinger find the bridge of his nose. “You think you
can pull it off?”
“If not, then I become the scapegoat she hired me to be in the event of a complete catastrophe.”
“Are you serious?” Alex surges with a sudden rush of overprotection.
“Her scheme is foolproof. If I do this right, I save the city and hundreds of Out District lives in the process, and she becomes a hero for hiring me. If I fail, the disaster will land at my feet. She’ll condemn me, and force my resignation. Or better yet, my failure will result in my death.”
“No.” Alex shakes his head, half in denial. “That’s not how this is going to end.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Silver smiles. “Even if it is what she wants, it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“No, it doesn’t. Granting asylum into the Belt is just phase one, and my plan goes way beyond that.”
“Okay. So what’s phase two?”
“Incineration.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Asylum
Silver stands at the head of the Hunter Division’s front line, heavily armed and in full regulation uniform.
The front line is the best of the best.
As usual, she’s not wearing the optional protective headgear. Rather unusually, though, she’s the only one. Under normal circumstances, the split is often fifty-fifty. Depending on experience, rank, and line designation, it’s not out of the ordinary for a Hunter to go into the field ‘soft top’.
But today is different.
Preparing to face the Fusion colony for the first time, the entire Hunter Division front line has opted for the added safety of a helmet. Standing in perfect formation behind Silver, they wait for a unit of Police Division Agents to open up the gate to the city.
From a nearby watchtower, Alex and Maydevine observe the proceedings, side-by-side with the Governor.
Though he tries not to, Alex bites nervously on his fingernails. “Couldn’t she at least wear a helmet? Just this once?” he fusses.
Before the gate is opened, a junior Police Division Agent cuts in front of the Hunter Division front line and scurries over to Silver, carrying a black leather case.
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