by Andy Graham
Rose lay on the stone, breath coming in ragged gasps. The VP threw Brennan’s pistol into the pool and crouched over his mother. He cupped her face in one hand. Her snub-nosed pistol was poking out from her shoulder holster. He slid it free.
“Cute. One shot for one child. Or one shot for one mother? I only had one mother. Not the one who gave birth to me, but the one who raised me. I lost my mother. Ray Franklin should lose his. That seems fair to me. Also means you’ll never meet your grandchild.” Spittle gleamed between his lips. “I will, however. And I intend to make that particular reunion very memorable.”
“You’re mad.” The words bubbled from Rose’s lips.
“Just prepared to work hard to make my dreams come true.” He stood, aimed Rose’s own pistol at her. “I do have one more wish, though.”
Her eyelids were fluttering in a face the colour of ashes.
“Say my name.”
“Why?” she wheezed.
“Just say it.”
“Randall, Randall Soulier.”
“Good. At least the last thing you say is true.” He stepped over her. Rose lay swaddled in his shadows beneath him, her breath short and bloody. “Motherhood is more than just pregnancy, Rose Franklin. We’re not that far off machines that can incubate fetuses for nine months.” Randall Soulier’s finger went white on the trigger. “Matricide has been the one line I would never cross. But you were never anyone’s mother.”
A shot thundered around the room. Rose’s head lolled back onto the floor.
“Mum!”
Orr slammed the butt of his rifle into Ray’s head. He lost consciousness.
The reverberations of the shot died. The echoes of Ray’s scream faded. It left an eerie stillness in the chamber. Stella Swann’s mouth was wide. The expression of horror and revulsion painted across her face matched the sick, bilious feeling spreading through Beth.
Rose Franklin lay outlined in a circle of old light. Eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. A slow red puddle leaking out from her belly. A few metres away, Ray Franklin was slumped to the floor, his head lolling to one side. The Unsung were hog-tying him. The squat legionnaire who had knocked him out kept his rifle trained on Franklin.
Beth’s guards had closed around her as soon as the shots fired. “You.” Beth forced her way past Captain Lacky. “Have gone way too far this time. You are finished.”
The VP, his face impassive, pocketed the pistol. “Are you going to arrest me?”
The Unsung shifted. Some raised their rifles. Others looked for orders. The Unsung outnumbered Beth’s guards two to one. Her people had more experience. Beth could feel the tension ratcheting up amongst her guards but, she noted with a grim pride, they held their positions.
“Tell that rabble of thugs and bullies to lower their weapons.”
“Or what?” Randall asked.
“Do what you’re told, when you’re told, and this will go easier on you.”
The VP’s lips moved, a cold smile that bared teeth. “Do as the old woman says,” he called over his shoulder. “I don’t want all of us dying down here.”
Her dogs picked up on the feelings. They were on their feet, hackles raised, ears flat back on their heads.
“Transfer your captives to the holding cells under my tower,” she said. “And for the love of all the gods that never lived, bury your mother.”
The VP stood stock-still. Those beautiful, evil eyes of his blazing.
“I’m going to turn around and go back to my office,” Beth said. “I expect to see you there within the hour.”
“You expect me to come?”
“Yes, I expect you to come. We have unfinished business.”
“If you say so, ma’am. I hear Field-Marshal Chester is conscious. Will she be there?”
“Just be there, Soulier.”
“We could kill you here, you know.” He snapped his fingers. The Unsung raised their weapons, all but Brennan, who stared at the VP with dead eyes.
Beth’s troops spread out, responding in kind.
“But” — Randall waved his hand — “I think I’ll let you go.”
“What are you doing?” Stella asked, her voice trembling.
“Ask Beth. She’s the expert at mind games.”
“He’s letting me live, Dr Swann. He thinks if I owe him, he’ll own the debt. Debts mean favours. Favours mean power.”
He should be laughing, Beth thought, the maniacal cartoon laughter of a lunatic. The silence. The impassive face made his threat even more potent. As was the fact he was right. Beth took in the scene one last time, Rose Franklin’s body, a mother killed by her own son. Her other son trussed like a pig ready for slaughter.
Did I really start this? Has all the scheming and plotting that started with Rick Franklin, Ray’s grandfather, come to this? If I did, I’m too far in to stop juggling now.
“Be there within the hour, Randall.” Her insides churning, she walked up the stairs to the tunnel she and Rose had arrived through not so long ago. The regular tramp of her guards’ feet around her, the jingle and creak of their equipment, was reassuring. It was something tangible in a world of icy madness. A world she expected to be ripped apart in a storm of bullets from the Unsung, despite the VP’s words. As they hit the tunnel at the top of the stairs and her rear guard caught up with them, the tension in the group eased a hair.
“We could have stopped him, ma’am,” said Captain Lacky.
“There were too many of them. The risk was too high.”
“Do you think he’ll come, ma’am? I can order a detail to remain to ensure he carries out your orders.”
“He’ll come but he won’t follow orders,” Beth replied. “Is everything else in place as I instructed?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lacky fell back into place alongside her.
Beth whistled. The diamond stopped in place. Her dogs sat at her side. With tears stinging her eyes, she sank her fingers deep into their fur.
“Ma’am?”
“It’s nothing. Too many deaths amongst the people I’m close to.”
The man nodded, a hard nod of understanding and loyalty. They reached a junction in the underground tunnels. A faded letter A was stencilled onto the brick walls of the junction to the left.
“I have something to attend to,” she said. “Take the legionnaires and see my dogs are taken back to the office immediately.”
“Ma’am? It’s not safe.”
“I know these tunnels, Captain. I’ll be there before you but I have something I need to do alone. My bodyguards will take care of me.”
“With all due respect, ma’am. I would feel happier if you would accept even two legionnaires.”
“I will not have professional jealousy interfering with my orders, Captain Lacky. Please, do as you have been asked and it will all work out as it should. You know where the A tunnel emerges. I have already arranged for more legionnaires to meet me there.”
She laid a hand on his arm. Lacky was a good man. Loyal straight through to his father’s bones but her dogs had more imagination than he did. And less need for reassurance. “I appreciate your concern but I’ll be fine. Now go, before the VP changes his mind and turns this corridor into a fire-trap.”
Lacky saluted and the legionnaires quick-marched down the corridor. Beth waited till they were out of sight. With her bodyguards snapping at her heels, Beth sped down the corridor, away from the letter A. An edge of terror creeping into the revulsion that was steeping her.
46
Purple Eyes
Randall Soulier stepped over the body on the floor. One shoe left a trail of red footprints behind him. Stella shied back, squeezing her son, Jake, tighter to her. “You’re mad.”
“Do you really think so, Dr Swann?”
“Rose was your mother, carried you for nine months, gave birth to you.”
“She was never anyone’s mother. Now she never will be”.
Jake was shaking in Stella’s hands, his sobs muffled by her clothes. “Yo
u’re mad,” she repeated, clutching to the words to give the world some sanity.
“Handcuff Dr Swann, Captain.”
Brennan stood stock-still.
The VP’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll talk later, Brennan. If you’re too punch-drunk to obey, I’ll promote Seth. You two there,” the VP clicked his fingers at Orr and another legionnaire, “cuff the doctor while Brennan gets over his tussle with my little brother.”
There was a struggle. Brief and fierce. The legionnaires were too strong. Jake was prised off her, tears streaming down his cheeks. Orr threw Stella’s son over his shoulder and stamped off. Jake, his mouth working noiselessly, was dragged away. The fingers on his outstretched arms grasped at air. Stella howled. Cuffs clicked around her wrists. She beat her fists against Nascimento’s chest until the skin split. “The president will never let you get away with this,” she shrieked.
“Before sunrise today Laudanum won’t be in a position to stop or criticise me.”
Stella lunged at him. Nascimento pulled her back and held her against his chest. She could feel his heart thumping through his body armour.
“What are you talking about?”
“Laudanum’s hypocrisy. She believes it’s OK for her to use whatever means necessary to get what she believes in, but no one else is allowed the same privilege.” He placed a finger under her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “And you, Dr Swann, helped me unearth another one of her dirty schemes.”
Stella had an urge to sink her teeth into that finger.
“There are some areas of the government archives and central mainframe that are off limits, even for me. I have all manner of people searching discreetly, but” — the VP shrugged — “knowing where to look, knowing which bit of Laudanum’s secretive brain to plumb is impossible.”
He stretched his arms out, like a child on top of a mountain for the first time, trying to embrace the world. “I cast my net wide, Dr Swann. I did as much probing as I could. I assigned as many people as I could get away with to unearth her plans. And you, Dr Swann, walked into one of those nets. You gave me the answer.”
Stella felt like she had just been winded. “What?”
“I guessed that in your time with Rose you may stumble across some information about Bethina I could use. A long shot, granted, but one that hit home, and your naturally inquisitive researcher’s brain pursued it. So when you tried to access the information from your home, it gave me an idea of where to look.”
Stella saw her home reflected in his eyes. She was sitting in her office. A pirate hat at her feet. Framed by moon shadows. Her back aching. Hunched over the desk screen, trawling through the Stat-Net archives.
“Genetic. Population. Control. Post Silk Revolution,” she whispered.
“Didn’t you think it odd that your researcher’s access codes still worked? You know how secretive the pharmo-medical department is. Those codes should’ve been cancelled months ago. I ordered them left on. Our computers, screens, whatever you want to call them, know all our secrets, Stella. You want to hide something? Don’t write it down, certainly don’t type it into anything connected to my internet.”
From the tunnel where Jake had been dragged, Orr cursed. Stella heard her son yelp. Then there was silence. She hurled herself at the VP. Brennan shouldered Nascimento out of the way and tugged her back. The handcuffs bit into her wrists. “What are you doing to my son, you bastards?”
The VP’s eyes gleamed. “Never mind Jake. How do you think the people of Ailan will react when they discover what their president has been doing to them? Controlling population growth by doctoring vaccines. Heading a committee who decides who can and can’t have kids. It’s something that will breach the trust the people have in her irrevocably. How will they swallow the sacrifices she expects of them for the betterment of society when she’s been interfering on such an elemental level? It’s perfect. And who knows what else she has been doing: adding things to the water supply, tampering with the GM food, mind-control agents in the muse berry lipstick?”
“You have no proof.” She yanked at the handcuffs. “Let me go!”
“We have enough proof of the vaccine scandal to be able to slip that stuff in without anyone questioning it. With the serial killer gone, we need a new internal threat to keep people on their toes.”
“You’re mad!”
He backhanded her across the face. Nascimento started forwards.
“You would do well to watch your step, Dr Swann. You have two brats. You got lucky. You won the lottery to get around the Pregnancy Directive. A few well-placed rumours and there could be an upsurge in emotion from the mono-child families. Even rational, calm people use jealousy to justify things they would never normally consider.”
She felt a spark of hope. “You’re going to let us go?”
“Of course not. I was talking hypothetically. You know I’m right, though. Every problem needs a solution. I am that solution.”
Through the burning in her eyes, Stella barely felt Brennan’s hand clamped onto her shoulder. “You think the people of Ailan will suffer your rule?”
“We’re about to go to war, Dr Swann, the people of Ailan will welcome my rule. No matter how much populations bleat about wanting peace, they are much happier when that peace and happiness is at a neighbour’s expense. Who cares if we’re starving if we can give our neighbours a good kicking. We’re going after the Donian Mountains first, after that element in the red mines. Then we’re going to use the element to ruin Mennai. Then the mainland.”
Two legionnaires pulled Stella’s husband forwards. The toes of his boots left trails in the dust behind him. They dumped him on the floor. He was rocking back and forth on his haunches.
She wrenched herself free and stumbled over. Stella peeled her husband’s hand off his face. Dan’s eyes were screwed shut. Sweat dripped down his cheeks in streams. “What did you do to him?” She cradled his head in her hands. “What have they done to you, Dan?”
He twitched, his lips curling back over his teeth.
“Dan, can you hear me?”
Using a thumb, Stella pulled one of his eyelids up. Red veins swirled around a central pupil that had pulsing flecks of purple in it.
“Gwenium,” the VP’s voice whispered into her ear. He gave her a peck on the cheek.
Stella flinched away from him, clawing at her skin.
“I think you may find it interesting to see first hand what it does to people. It’s very painful, I hear. A pain the afflicted sooth with sadism.”
Dan whimpered. He pulled back from Stella, his hands twitching.
“You’re worse than mad.”
“No, Dr Swann, not mad, driven and very, very lucid. My motives are pure and honest. I’m not doing this for money. I’m independently wealthy. I’m not doing this for power, either. I’m doing this for the future of our nation. If we do not act, our country will be dead long before your children can grow up to enjoy it. I will protect our own. I will build a genetic firewall to protect our heritage. I will not let our country be tainted by anyone else anymore. It stops here. Our country has never been great but I intend to change that! And as for him,” he gestured to Dan. “My scientists needed volunteers to try a stronger strain. Something to do with outliers on the Institute of Population Management’s Comfort and Convenience Index. The Dan-ster here volunteered.”
“Don’t you call him that!”
The VP popped a couple of mints into his mouth and grinned.
“He wouldn’t volunteer.”
“To save your son, he would.”
“You made him choose?” Stella’s jaw sank open. “Why not just kill us?”
The mints cracked. “I’m not a psychopath. Your husband is helping society. You are a mother. I don’t kill mothers, at least not those from my country.” He grinned. “And that” — he spat in the direction of Rose’s stiffening body — “was no one’s mother.”
“You . . . You . . .”
“You’re m
ad,” he finished. “Chain her to her husband and throw them both into one of the cells in the next room,” the VP ordered. “Chain my brother to that thing” — he gestured to Rose’s corpse — “and put them back in the cell next to Corporal Seth. He needs a reminder he’s been jumped by an old man twice now.”
“Stann Taille got away, sir,” Brennan said, refusing to make eye contact with the VP. “Fled in one of the sewer boats. Not before setting fire to one of the old specimen rooms.” He held out a screen.
Stella looked away too late. Smoke swirled around giant broken test tubes. There were shapes that were neither animal nor human. The skin of an eight-limbed baby was crinkled and ridged by the flames. On the floor, steam was rising off the hot, sweaty flesh of two legionnaires.
“Well, catch him then. How hard can it be to catch a half-handed, one-legged pensioner?”
“Men already on it, sir. What about the boy, Dr Swann’s son?”
The VP squatted down next to Stella, his odd-coloured eyes piercing in the gloom. He peeled back a strand of hair from her sweaty face.
“Tell Sub-Corporal Orr to bring the boy to me. I’m keeping the kid close. He’s my insurance policy.”
47
Payback
He was lying on a floor. The damp stone was both unpleasant and an oddly soothing counterpart to the thumping in his head. Something was scratching at his skin. Straw, maybe. It smelt of urine. He could feel a bruise flowering on his temple. Someone had hit him on the head. Who?
“Orr.” The answer formed on his lips. The word disappeared in a cloud of condensation.
He pointed his feet. His ankles cracked. The burning pain racking through his body was muted, distant. Hiding. His brain had more important things to deal with. What? Something to do with a half-brother or his mother. He couldn’t remember. Was that the drugs? Stella’s drugs?