Asterion Noir: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 4)

by G. S. Jennsen

* * *

  EBISU

  DASHIEL STEPPED out of the building’s lobby and into a line of people.

  He instantly tensed, and for a second struggled to keep evidence of it off his face. With preparation he wasn’t too bad at subterfuge, but the unexpected continued to rattle him.

  A security checkpoint had been erected at the edge of the plaza bordering the Briscanti Materials building. Subtle but nonetheless active force fields bounded the space between the entrance to the building and the checkpoint, ensuring everyone exiting the building was corralled through it. The line was lengthy, but it was also moving fast. The security personnel were searching for something, or someone, in particular.

  What were the odds it wasn’t him? He pinged Nika.

  We may have a problem. I didn’t run into any trouble at Briscanti Materials, but security has erected a checkpoint outside the building that wasn’t there when I arrived.

  I’ll be there in seven minutes. Do what you can to not reach the checkpoint before then—but stay close.

  And when you get here?

  Just be ready for anything.

  Anything. Got it.

  He studied the progression of the line as two people were processed and cleared.

  Ηq (visual) | scan.physical(270°:90°, 5 seconds)

  Τ → gridpoint (27.4,14.3).minTime

  Four minutes, thirty-six seconds until he’d reach the checkpoint.

  With a loud grumble, he turned around and trudged out of the line. “Left the damn weave in the meeting room.” He continued acting exasperated as he reversed course and headed back inside. Once in the lobby, he feigned an interruption and a brief virtual conversation, then exited once more and reentered the end of the line.

  The math said the delay he’d manufactured was long enough. But what if seven minutes became nine or ten? He shouldn’t try the same trick twice with the same crowd, and anything more dramatic risked drawing the attention to him he was trying to avoid.

  The urge to march up to the checkpoint, proclaim his Advisor status and demand to be allowed to pass was a strong one. He’d done it a thousand times over the years without even thinking twice about it; it was second nature. His position and all the privileges accompanying it had become part of who he was. They had come to define him.

  Stripped of the trappings of power now—in practice if not in form—what remained? A smart, if somewhat reserved, man with a penchant for making useful things, then making a lot of them?

  The two dynes staffing the checkpoint abruptly began jerking erratically before collapsing to the ground, without any visual clue as to what caused their malfunction.

  People looked around in confusion, and gradually the line began to disintegrate. In the growing tumult, the dissipation of the force fields went unnoticed by most until someone shouted, “Screw this!” and strode off toward the nearest street.

  Should he? He was still waiting to hear the plan, though it was apparently now in progress.

  A hand at the small of his back preceded a small device pressing into his spine. He spun around, but no one…wait, there was a faint outline of a person. More like a vague, body-shaped shimmer cast against the landscape behind it.

  Hold one.

  He felt the hand on his back again, followed by the tingle of a mild surge of electricity enveloping him. The hand grasped his and started tugging him away from the checkpoint.

  Okay, let’s go.

  To his right, one of the security dynes clambered to its feet.

  We need to hurry!

  They can’t see you. I stuck a kamero filter module on you. Don’t run or make sudden movements, but we’re going to walk away. Also, don’t bump into anyone.

  He stared at his free hand as he matched her pace. He could see it fine, and the idea that no one else could was disconcerting. But the absence of running feet or shouted orders from behind him suggested this was in fact the case.

  He risked a glance back before they rounded a street corner to leave the plaza behind. Both dynes were again functional, bullying the remaining people into a reforming line. They seemed completely unaware he’d escaped their grasp.

  Once they were out of sight of the plaza, she reached around and fiddled with the module she’d attached to his belt. “You’re gradually becoming visible to everyone. Keep acting normal.” They turned left at the next street. “We need to get off-planet soon, in case security was specifically looking for you.”

  “It could have simply been bad luck. Or at most, the system deduced someone who wasn’t Adlai was pretending to be him, not necessarily that it was me. Anyway, there’s something else I want to do first.”

  She arched an eyebrow in question.

  “Something happened at the Chosek embassy within the last few days that resulted in a total body loss for the CEO of Zanist Circuitry. Simon Granger asked for information on it, and he let slip that Cameron Breckel is handling the ‘incident,’ as he phrased it. I’d like to try to catch Cameron and get the details.”

  “Why? I’m not sure I see how it’s relevant to our mission.”

  “We don’t know, do we, until we get those details? Besides, at this point any strange and unusual incident could be related to the Rasu Protocol.”

  She studied him until he broke under the weight of her gaze. “Because I have important kyoseil contracts with the Chizeru, and I want to know if they’re threatened. Because I was at the embassy a week or two ago, and everything was perfectly normal, so I’m curious what went wrong. Because once upon a time, the embassy was practically your second office, and if you remembered your time there, it would be terribly important to you to find out what happened. In the absence of those memories, you’ll have to trust me when I say you would want to know.”

  “Oh.” She peered at the street beneath her feet. “I gather I spent a lot of time interfacing with the Chizeru when I was a diplomat.”

  “You did. You were fond of the little scamps.”

  “I’d believe it. But this Advisor’s office is in Ebisu Tower, isn’t it? I’m not comfortable subjecting our simmed IDs to such a high level of scrutiny for a tangent.”

  “It is. But I happen to know that whenever he’s on Ebisu, Cameron takes his lunch at the botanical gardens. If we hurry, I bet we can catch him, out in the open and away from security. If I can talk to him, I might be able to find out what the Guides have and haven’t said to the other Advisors about me.”

  “You’re using his first name. Is he a friend?”

  “Sort of? He’s a good man, I think. You thought so, too.”

  Her steps slowed. “He’s a diplomat, which means I regularly worked with him and so on.” She gave Dashiel an almost sad smile. “I’m getting used to this story.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not any failing on your part. I’m glad to learn these tidbits about my past. It’s just hard sometimes…like I’m an imposter in my own life. Which I’ve always known I’ve been, but hearing and seeing such stark evidence of it….”

  “No, you’re not.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently but with enough insistence to bring her to a halt. “Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, this is your life to own. Always has been, always will be. You’ve merely forgotten a few moments of it.”

  An odd expression passed across her face, but she quickly hid it by tilting her chin down to kiss his hand. “Thank you for the vote of confidence. Fine, let’s go see if we can find Advisor Breckel. But if he’s not at the gardens, we need to leave.”

  The Ebisu One Botanical Gardens hadn’t started out as a public park. An abundant variety of colorful plants and herbs grew natively in the planet’s expansive temperate zone, and while the city’s architects initially tried to avoid clear-cutting the land to make way for civilization, any plants left untouched soon became overgrown.

  Eventually, some residents began tending to an area that at the time remained outside the city limits, sculpting and cultivating the local flora to complement the natural
beauty of the region without overpowering it. When the city’s natural expansion reached the gardens, they became officially protected space, and now they served as an oasis of quiet respite in the center of a bustling metropolis.

  Dashiel found Cameron sitting at one of the many gazebos situated above the lily ponds dotting the gardens. He called out a greeting.

  Cameron looked over in surprise, a half-eaten sandwich held aloft in one hand. “Dashiel? This is a surprise. I thought you took a leave of absence.”

  “I did. But it turns out it’s a lot harder to shut off my work brain than I expected. I was in the area, and I wanted to ask you about something, if you don’t mind.”

  Cameron pursed his lips. “Unofficially, we’re supposed to report any contact we have with you to the Guides. Why we’re supposed to wasn’t made clear.”

  Dashiel nodded. “I’m not trying to put you in a difficult position. You’re more than welcome to report this conversation. But if I can beg an indulgence, wait until I’m gone?”

  Cameron set his sandwich on the plate beside him and gestured to the opposite bench. “Of course. Please, sit down. What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “If I tell you, you’ll be in it, too. I don’t want to drag you down with me.”

  “Fair enough. I am already carrying enough on my shoulders this week, since we’re down an External Relations Advisor.”

  “What?”

  “I guess you are out of the loop, and this is being kept under wraps. Iona’s out—permanently. Bodiless for the time being as well, while the Guides decide what they can do with her, or to her, that will placate the Chosek government.”

  “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. What happened at the embassy?”

  Cameron blew out a breath. “We’re not supposed to discuss the details, but I frankly need to talk to someone about it. During a negotiation between Zanist Circuitry and an up-and-coming Chizeru tribe, Iona lost her mind. She killed the Chizeru representatives and shot the Zanist CEO and two executives into nonfunctionality, then shot herself in the head.”

  “Good gods. Iona’s a bitch—pardon my bluntness—but she’s not homicidal. I met with her recently and gave her plenty of reasons to shoot me, but all she did was glower.”

  “Her actions defy comprehension. Adlai mentioned some kind of artificial pathogen as a possible culprit, but he hasn’t elaborated on the theory.”

  Did he say what I think he did?

  Nika was listening in on the conversation, ostensibly so she could swoop to his rescue again if it became necessary. He suspected what she really wanted was to get a sense of her former colleague. To fill in a few more blanks.

  He did.

  Dashiel tried to look blandly befuddled. “That all sounds uniquely awful. Let me guess. You’re tasked with smoothing things over with the Chizeru?”

  “More like sentenced to. Have you ever seen an enraged Chizeru? It’s not a pretty sight. I’ll be honest, things are touch-and-go with them. Three of their leaders are dead by our hand. Their views on murder are strange and mostly incomprehensible. They abide by this complex yet archaic retribution-based justice system, and they want us to somehow apply it to Iona. We can’t—it doesn’t work under the Charter. But they don’t understand why not.”

  Tell him to explain to the tribal governors how Advisor Rowan will be subjected to civic shaming for the maximum number of days allowable under our laws and her personal belongings garnished for the benefit of the victims.

  How do you…?

  Like with the Taiyoks, information about Chizeru culture and societal customs came embedded in my second-layer core programming.

  Right.

  Nika Kirumase had taken her diplomacy very seriously.

  Dashiel made a show of appearing thoughtful. “Have you tried assuring them that Iona will be publicly and officially shamed for her actions to the greatest extent our laws allow and promising to convert her personal wealth into some form of recompense for the benefit of the victims and their families? It wouldn’t need to be a lie, just a slight glossing over of some of the details.”

  “I’ve never considered taking that approach—why have you?”

  He chuckled lightly. “Oh, I haven’t. But Nika used to talk a lot about the unique struggles and joys of dealing with the Chizeru. I picked up a few details.”

  Cameron got a pitying look on his face, the one everyone donned when the topic of Nika came up in Dashiel’s presence. Before, it had always stung bitterly; now it didn’t touch him.

  “She really could work magic with them. I’d give anything to possess a fifth of her skill for the next few days….” The man’s voice trailed off weakly. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” And it genuinely was, but he didn’t dare tell Cameron why. “Good luck—I mean it. Thank you for humoring me, and for giving me a few answers. You can make that report now.”

  “Eh….” Cameron waved a hand in his direction. “What for? I never saw you.”

  3

  * * *

  STARSHIP #PV79-24116

  Asterion Dominion Space

  NIKA SETTLED INTO the left-side cockpit chair as soon as they boarded the ship. “I didn’t get everything done I wanted to, but now we really should vacate the planet. It’s only a matter of time before the Guides connect the dots and send Justice squads to sweep the city.”

  They’d chosen to dock at a Ridani Enterprises factory complex on the outskirts of Ebisu One rather than any official spaceport. Here, Dashiel controlled the landing and departure logs and was able to keep their presence out of the system. Soon, though, Justice would have every Ridani Enterprises facility under surveillance. They’d gotten lucky this time, but the near-miss at Briscanti Materials meant they needed to start being more careful.

  Dashiel leaned in over her shoulder. “What held you up from getting everything done? Other than rescuing me, that is.”

  “Another assassin.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She finished the pre-flight checks and engaged the in-atmosphere engine. “Departure first, stories after.”

  They lifted off the landing pad and arced toward the sky. The approaching clouds bringing the next rain shower quickly engulfed them, then almost as quickly they broke through the gloom—and were promptly greeted by the planet’s punishing mesosphere.

  “Can we talk again about why we use d-gates to travel between planets?”

  His question sounded as if it was delivered through gritted teeth. Nika sympathized with his discomfort, but the truth was it had only taken a few hours of flying for it to become natural to her. She hardly ever needed to call up the routines she’d installed on starship piloting and maintenance. Yes, the atmospheric traversal was bumpy, but she didn’t mind the visceral realness of it. When you were leaving behind a planet for space, you should know it.

  After a few minutes, the turbulence eased and the haze dissipated to reveal the stars. As they shifted into a trajectory that would avoid a close fly-by of Ebisu’s moon, a periwinkle sun peeked out above the planet’s profile.

  Such peacefulness, such astonishing beauty waiting to surprise you on every horizon, and so few ever saw it. “Wayfarer.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ve been trying to decide what to name the ship. If it’s going to be our home for a while, it deserves a name.”

  “And seeing as we’re depending on it to see us through this journey, this search for answers…you’re right. Wayfarer is perfect.” He kissed her ear before heading into the main cabin. “Speaking of journeys, where to next?”

  “We need to talk about it. For now, an empty patch of space a parsec or so away.” She let the navigation system choose the details of their destination, engaged the autopilot and stood.

  Dashiel had his back to her while he pulled his dress shirt off over his head then dug through one of his bags for a t-shirt. Her breath caught in her throat, and a mischievous grin crept onto her lips as she watched the show. Her former
self had left behind more than one gift for her.

  He turned around as he put on the selected t-shirt and caught her blatantly ogling him. Probably looking rather lecherous. Oh well, she couldn’t run from it now.

  He stared at her in something resembling wonder for several seconds, and finally she started fidgeting. It wasn’t the response she’d expected. “What?”

  “I was afraid you would never look at me that way again.”

  She dropped her chin, and with it eye contact. “I’m merely enjoying the view.”

  He closed the distance between them. “I’m glad. But might there be a little more to it?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him how much he’d come to mean to her in such a short time, how he made her feel emotions she hadn’t experienced since waking up in an alley and sentiments that didn’t come with words adequate to convey their worth—but she stopped before giving voice to any of it. She didn’t feel like herself when those emotions ran free and unchecked, and she didn’t yet know what that meant.

  Instead she flashed him a light, breezy smile and went over to the equipment storage cabinet. “So, yeah, assassin. I decided not to try to hide from them. In fact, I decided to confront them head on. I swung by the nearest transit station and deliberately picked up his tail. This way I controlled the encounter. I picked my location, baited him in and disabled him.”

  “You didn’t kill him this time?”

  “No. I gave him a message to pass on to the Guides for me.”

  He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Dare I ask?”

  She relaxed a little, relieved he wasn’t upset at her avoidance of his question. She didn’t want to hurt him; she just wasn’t ready to put her full weight down. “I simply informed them I would thwart every assassin they sent after me, but if instead they wanted to try a different strategy and talk, I would be willing to listen.”

  “You—”

  She twisted around to face him. “I know what you’re going to say: I’m being a diplomat. And you’re…right. But implicit in the diplomacy is a threat to burn their regime to the ground if they betray me a second time. If they betray the people, the Dominion.”