The Blue-Spangled Blue (The Path Book 1)

by David Bowles

  2682. Beserra moves the Brotherhood base of operations off of Atlantis and into the Urakã Nebula, making the syndicate harder to police.

  2683. Beserra sends crews to Jitsu to massacre extremist Neo Gnostics and cause social chaos. In apparent retaliation, Koroma sees to the creation of anti-terrorism squads to “stop the syndicate menace.” While most squad leaders are compromised, in Koroma’s pocket, he has hired one purportedly clean decorated military hero: Ben Wu.

  Though Koroma has ensured the weakest mercenaries get assigned to Wu’s squad to undermine its efficacy, Beserra wants to be able to leverage the hero at will. He has tasked Bos with getting dirt on Wu, and Bos has contacted our organization for assistance.

  Speculation is that Beserra wants Wu under his thumb to pit his squad against the others, which would indicate that the Brotherhood is planning a double-cross of Koroma and his extremist faction of the government.

  * * *

  From: nestor@familyabos.per.sat

  To: yenbandera@nannewa.per.jov

  Subject: Mum’s the fucking word (encrypted)

  Date: January 2, 2684 23:09:32 (SST)

  Decrypted 23:25:53 via FAE

  Chingau. What else could I expect from the guy that’s been top of the game for nigh on two centuries? Eh? I know more than you think, Yen. You’re not my only birdie. That’s why I’m not too worried about the dirt you’ve got. You don’t want nobody finding out that you were once an agent for Martian Intelligence, back in the day, and you for sure don’t want nobody to know that you have no name, not really, just a designation: EJH-13. Thirteenth generation clone. Reverse-sex mura, just like those crazy-arse Neogs think Hesukrito was. Let’s see, the CPCC does what to clones? Terminates them? And look! A long-fucking-standing warrant out for your arrest! Two centuries they been looking for your arse! You must be real important to them, mate. Be a real shame if they found out about you, ain’t it? And even worse if they learned the location of your hideout on New Beijing’s biggest moon. No worry. Secret’s safe with me, your Brotherhood mate. Like I’m sure mine, all mine, are safe with you.

  CHAPTER 21

  When Archon Rawe announced his plan for the preservation of the Oracle, Santo went berserk. Screaming, he trashed his office, hurling furniture and hardcopy at the pair of aids who rushed in to find out the reason for his unhinged behavior. It took him a while to regain his composure, but even then he could not escape the only explanation for the ratowanin’s move: Rawe had learned of the physical nature of Santo’s relationship with Samanei, the holy communion they shared.

  Only after a tube of moku had entered his system did he begin to see other alternatives. It was possible that Rawe believed—as many deputies did, envious of his quick ascent and open dislike of off-worlders—that Santo was behind the mafia attacks. Perhaps he further suspected collusion between Samanei and the arojin.

  Or perhaps Samanei had asked to be put on ice herself. That would be different.

  He decided to attend his scheduled audience that afternoon. If he weren’t admitted, it would mean Rawe had cut him off, a terrifying prospect. But if he were allowed into the White Room, then the Oracle herself had arranged everything, and she’d explain her reasons to him in person.

  Now that the Chamber had finally approved, after a month of heated deliberation, an investigation into Santo’s alleged complicity in the mafia attacks, he needed her counsel, so he prayed she was behind the move.

  A beep from the floor: his bouncecom had been scaled from its hiding place within the base of a statue of the Founder when Santo’d been flinging things about. He snatched it up, his heart pounding.

  Got to hide this soon or get rid of it. Tragic if the Chamber’s investigative branch searched the office and found it!

  Bouncecoms circumvented the CPCC’s automatic origin-stamping of all messages tunneled through the interstellar net and rendered communications untraceable. Santo thumbed his on: there was a tunnel-mail for him, from Nestor Bos. It seemed Ben Wu would be a loose cannon for a while, but Nestor suggested other, more aggressive ways of neutralizing him.

  Santo bounced his agreement off an orbiting medship and thumbed the illegal device off, sliding it into a tunic pocket just in time: the door cycled open at that very moment, and Speaker Kikwete strolled in, surveying the disorder with an arched eyebrow.

  “Redecorating, are we?”

  Santo smiled unctuously. “I’ve no idea how, but a hiro-hiro managed to invade my office. As you can see, I chased it about, but I was unsuccessful in trapping the little dervish.”

  “Well, you’ve made my job a bit easier, Arojin Koroma. My officers won’t feel as bad about turning this office upside down, seeing as how you’ve already begun the work.”

  Two sturdy Chamber investigators stepped in as if on cue. Santo shrugged.

  “I was just on my way to confer with the Oracle. Feel free to search all you want. And if your young men would be so kind as to tidy up afterward, I’d be most indebted to them.”

  Not waiting for a response, Santo slipped from the room into the hall, making his way to the lift. The pressure was on, and he needed Samanei to ease his angst. Still, he had an important call to put through first. He ducked into a minor functionary’s office and thumbed on a connection to Major Sosa. The gnarled visage of the former warrior surged from the transparent top of the com console.

  “Arojin. Pleasure, as always.”

  “Major. How’re things progressing?”

  “Very well. The last of the recruits have shuttled down from the platforms. I was getting ready to meet them and the captains at the barracks for grouping.”

  “Listen, Major, I need you to do something for me. Take the greenest ones, those tyros that’re lower performing, and put them under Wu.”

  “Course. You understand, though, doing this’ll make the other squads, let’s say, overachievers?”

  “Don’t worry. Their captains will curb that hankering for excellence, trust me.”

  “Understood. Anything else?”

  “No. Except my thanks. You’re a true follower of the Eight. Be enlightened.”

  “You, too. Thumbing off.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, the government transport Santo was riding in billeted to a stop within its berth at the heavily fortified, domed jinja. He found that the security checks and sterilization process were no longer required, though he was asked to change into a pilgrim’s robe and leave his belongings in a shielded locker. Sensible. A gatblast to the hypostasis chamber would kill the Oracle as surely as a projectile exploding in her brain.

  Two omedeyo—both members of the Oracle’s elite protective guard—led Santo into an observation room. Its fourth wall was solid transparent steel, permitting the arojin to make out Samanei’s form, encased in the special blue suspension gel used for cryogenics. Banks of equipment encircled the chamber, and as Santo eased into the faux conference seat, he witnessed the accustomed dazzling web of pink light playing across Samanei’s forehead, turning it a deep purple. His head came to a rest in a cushion of supple leather, and a similar shock of pink connected him.

  They were standing in the white room, as had been the standard procedure during audiences for some twelve years. Her doppelganger looked healthier than she ever had in reality; Santo’s chest felt crushed by her beauty and his adoration.

  “I imagined you’d come,” she said in Dresch’s voice.

  “I was confused, angered. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “Oh, I know you better than you know yourself, my boy. You would’ve never let this happen. You easily could have ruined the entire plan, just to keep me close to you. But this separation is necessary. Do you realize the enormity of what I’m doing for you? In ten years, you will be the absolute ruler of this world. Free to let it plunge into the depths of entropy, if that is your will. But I also have a responsibility to this vessel. Should I simply let her grow old in solitude, her body and mind withering? No.”

  “I thought y
ou’d be more concerned about her soul.”

  “Oh, how little you understand, Santo-kun. Did we let Domina flounder forever in the grasp of her captors? Our plans are bigger than your mind can encompass; this is but one minor note in a larger symphony. Don’t pretend to second guess us.”

  “It’s only that my—my faith is weak at times. Yall, rather, you’ve given me signs, but some part of me keeps whispering, ‘It’s just the girl, just Samanei.’ Wicked, I know.”

  The Oracle leapt into the air with a growl and hung suspended there, eyes ablaze.

  “You doubt me, do you? Dresch, your mother, these voices you know so well… and still you cannot let go your infidel wavering!”

  Her eyes clamped shut as her body went limp, bending backward impossibly till the back of her head touched the back of her legs, rotating 180 degree so that Santo could see her transported face. Suddenly, her eyelids shot open, and a voice Santo had heard many times as a child at the sikoro, the voice that had recorded the sacred logs so long ago on the lonely sands of virgin Jitsu, began to babble at him.

  “Wee boy with the wee-wee, hee-hee. A little called Jitsu’s here for thee. Alabaster eyes, the dark not reflecting, a baby drawn like water out of the well of consciousness, men’s invective, the gimmal will purl, prison of air and pressure and invisible bubbles.”

  Santo’s doppelganger fell to its knees. Domina Ditis, speaking to him, revealing herself as she had to no one since her martyrdom. His brain was wracked with spasms, and he could no longer move his avatar.

  Samanei’s virtual body straightened itself. It pointed a long, ebony finger at his face.

  “I’ve got some requests, so listen close. First, figure out how to get me permanent access to the interstellar net. I managed to finagle my way into limited use of it from time to time, but I now require a constant connection. Don’t try and ask why: your synapses are under my command, and your lack of faith has truly pissed me off. I’m just one doubting comment away from frying your brain and using Rawe instead. All good with me, you understand. The plan goes forward like we already discussed. When I name you ratowanin, you yank me from here, reverse this butcher job they did on my body, make me like I was. I’ll be by your side, but it’s only right I get to be as human as possible. Agreed?”

  He tried to nod, but couldn’t. The Oracle could tell he’d made the attempt, however. A sketchy smile curled her lips.

  “Perfect. I’m going to release you, but don’t bolt on me, okay?”

  Suddenly Santo’s doppelganger jerked wildly in several directions because of the conflicting and pent-up neural messages he’d been sending it. Samanei drifted softly to the floor. Sitting cross-legged, she gently bared her breasts.

  He crawled to her on all fours, sobbing.

  CHAPTER 22

  Konrau untangled himself from Asusena Gevara’s golden-brown legs without waking the slumbering sancha. He couldn’t face her this morning: during sex the night before he had called her Jeini, and when he’d apologized with a laugh while wilting within, she had shrugged the lapse off.

  “You can call me whatever you want, mi kasike grandote,” she’d responded, smiling coyly. “Just keep me, that’s all I ask.”

  Trying to ignore his irritation and the dull throb in his head, Konrau got busy with the day’s work. By early afternoon, much to his surprise and further annoyance, a faux-conference request came from his mother. After deliberately making her wait for thirty minutes in the drab keshiki of his virtual conference room, Konrau logged in.

  Karmen Beserra was fifty, the annoying bitch, but she looked thirty. Konrau had already had two of her lovers killed for slapping her, but he understood why they would feel a need to. She went through men like some women did clothes, and she had pushed his father back into the arms of his wife, condemning Konrau to a childhood spent in the cold, claustrophobic corridors of Tenochtitlan or in the presence of a stream of men flowing in and out of her bed.

  He looked at her now and his fists clenched convulsively, hatred rising in him. His hand was stayed, however, by twisted love his honor forced into him. She was his hefa, his mother, and there was something holy about the womb that gestated a brother that he had to respect, no matter how odious the woman herself was.

  “Mi kasike,” she said, bowing her head deferentially. She knew full well how to treat him now, that much was true, despite what a negligent slut she’d been all his youth.

  “K’onda, hefa? I ain’t seen you for a while. How’s the kantõ?” He had set her up in a high security mansion a couple of years ago. She was significantly safer there than she had been on Tenochtitlan. At least the new setup had curbed her fucking around.

  “Great, oh, it’s great.” She lowered her amber eyes, long eyelashes demurely veiling her gaze. Then she looked up tentatively. “Felipe’s getting out, miho. Two days. The eyre decided not to wait till his birthday, but let him go six months early.”

  Konrau narrowed his eyes. Felipe was his half-brother, conceived by his mother when Konrau had been lying in a coma in the neighboring bedroom of her flat, having nearly died from a gunshot to the eye. Desperate for money, Karmen had sold herself to Mr. Nobody who peddled sex faux-lifes in Brotherhood territory.

  She nursed you back to health, a voice whispered at the periphery of his awareness. She did what needed doing. Why are you so cruel?

  Wincing, Konrau narrowed his eyes. He remembered the smell of fear on the man who had sired his half-brother. Konrau, as an underboss, had tracked him down and fulfilled his apparent death wish. Did Felipe want revenge now, too?

  At least Konrau’s father had been a Brotherhood lieutenant, which had allowed Konrau to become a mademan and rise through the ranks. Felipe was nothing. Or was he? Being the bastard half-brother of the most powerful man the in the demimundo probably counted for something.

  “A ber. You want me to what, give him a break? Take your little square squink and set him up to mooch off me like you do? Gran Hefa Mariya. You got balls, byeha.”

  Her amber eyes began to shine with the promise of tears. “Andale, mi kasike. What does it cost you? Give him a little chance, no? Stick him on a crew somewheres, anywheres. They’re gonna eat him alive otherwise. Some pity, padrino.”

  When she got like this, he had only two choices: hit her or accede.

  Since she wasn’t really physically present, he gave in.

  Four days later, Felipe was brought before him. His five years in the juvenile reformation center on Titan had clearly purified the punk of the annoying habits of childhood. He stood tall and muscular, hands loose at his sides, one side of his face red and puffy from the Maya hieroglyphics he’d just had tattooed there.

  “So,” Konrau began. “What do you know how to do?”

  Felipe’s dull gaze looked his half-brother up and down. “Anything you tell me to.” His voice was solid, unfeeling ice. “Anything L’onda demands from me.”

  Against his own will, Konrau felt a certain pride. Besides resembling Konrau physically, his little brother was also a tough sumbitch, from what he had gathered. Ran a little klika by the time he was nine. Killed three constabulary officers when he was eleven because they had asked for his transit ID. All he needed was some direction, someone to show him the true depths of L’onda, depths that Konrau had sounded to their very bottom.

  “I’m gonna put you on a crew, Felipe. Your cap’s name is Marko Baskes. He stands for me, komprennes? You take his orders, you carry them out, you prove your self, and you’ll move up. Try to punk me, and I’ll fry your bastard arse. Got it?”

  Felipe smiled slightly, pulling his tattooed skin just a bit tighter. “Got it, kasike.”

  Then the young man was dismissed, and Konrau was left to wonder at the strange emotion that had just insinuated itself into his mind: brotherly affection.

  Strangely, his eye didn’t ache at all.

  Months passed. Marko Baskes kept sending in positive reports. Felipe was a little unstable, but he got the job done. Especially if it
required violence. The little fucker had a real talent for carnage, Marko said.

  Hearing about his brother’s wilding, watching clips of him in action, kept the ghosts of the past at bay. When he gave Felipe his own crew, they faded even further, as if dedicating himself to the younger man somehow balanced the scales of his heart, so heavy with betrayal and broken love.

  Felipe made mistakes as a cap. Who didn’t? Konrau elided them, paid off insulted or injured brothers. From time to time, he would faux-conference with his half-brother, give him advice, dress him down for the most egregious of his errors.

  The punk was always courteous, always took his licks, never gave excuses.

  And he got better. Turned a few unprofitable situations around. Used tactics rather than just brute force.

  One morning, Konrau viewed the latest encrypted video report from him and slapped his palms together.

  He’s ready for more.

  “Felipe,” he said, recording a reply. “Karnaliyo. Come to HQ for a visit. The Chamuko is scheduled to start heading back later this afternoon. I want you on it. You’ve done good. Time we talked in person again.”

  Then Konrau shot a message to Nestor. Let’s meet. Half hour, in my office.

  When he arrived, the older man folded himself prissily into a chair. “What’s up, Kasike?”