Warden: A Novel

by Gregg Vann

  So pretty and wise, Cobin mused. And that skin…so white that it’s almost luminescent. If she were larger she could almost pass for one of the First Ones.

  Tana had her raven-black hair pulled back tightly in a simple ponytail, making it easy for Cobin to be drawn in by her radiant blue eyes.

  If she didn’t dress like one of the downtrodden, and would put on some makeup for Barent’s sake, Tana could fit in almost anywhere in the city, including the Central District.

  Is that how she did it? he wondered. Did she disguise herself as one of the Collective to liberate their belongings? But then Cobin looked at her body again—noting the lean muscle and natural fluid movements. And he realized that Tana truly was a talented and gifted thief. She had the physical ability and mental talents to get into anyplace she wished, no matter how well it was protected.

  Cobin reminded himself to check his own security precautions after she’d left.

  “Then it’s agreed,” he said. “I’ll make some discreet inquiries about these.”

  Cobin pulled the twin pistols from the silk-lined box and held them up in the light. As he turned them over in his hands to get a better look, the gleaming metal barrels sparkled, sending flashes of light throughout the small room. He knew what they were, of course, a ceremonial graduation set—stolen from one of the Collective, no doubt. Each of their representatives was presented with a pair when they were elevated to the higher ranks of government—a custom stolen from the Wardens, Le’sant’s elite military group. And by the looks of these, it was someone very high up indeed. Cobin didn’t think he’d ever seen reproductions of this quality before, and knew they must have cost a fortune to produce. That meant the owner would certainly be looking for them, and would make the pistols difficult, if not impossible, to unload. But if he could pull it off, Cobin knew he would make a pile of money big enough to stand on.

  “Give me a few days and I’ll let you know something,” he said. “I’ll have to hold onto them to show potential buyers.”

  “No problem,” Tana replied. “I can always steal them back if you hold out on me.”

  Yes, Cobin thought. I definitely need to reinforce my security.

  Tana pulled open the well-worn door leading out of the small shop and stepped into the busy street—one of many such thoroughfares that wound their way through the southern part of the city. She looked back at the sign above the door and suppressed a chuckle. Antiquities and Small Electronics Repair, indeed. Any antiquities were of dubious provenance, and the only electronics Cobin repaired were the types used by the shadiest characters in the city—bypass rigs, field dampeners, serial lock interrupters, and the like. But this place was an open secret. The police didn’t bother Cobin as long as he didn’t go too far, and as long as he provided them with helpful information about his more successful and troublesome contemporaries. The authorities had much bigger fish to fry, and Cobin was more than happy to help them cook his competition. It was yet another reason that Tana chose to shun the bigger players.

  She’d always focused on the higher-end goods, even when she was a child. The objects that were more difficult to both acquire and dispose of. Part of this decision, a rather large part, was due to the sheer challenge of it. But it also meant that Tana didn’t need to constantly steal in order to maintain her lifestyle. She could make enough in one haul to match what the daily thieves did in a month…often, even more. But you would never know it to look at her, or by where she chose to live.

  The fences that handled such expensive items paid handsomely for them, but they were far too visible for Tana’s comfort. And the police always took a strong interest in their operations, so Tana had stuck with Cobin through the years. It may have meant less money in her pocket, but Tana had never been arrested. For her, it was decent trade-off. Tana already took enough chances on the heists themselves, she didn’t need danger on the backend as well.

  As she began walking to her apartment Tana pulled her cloak around herself tightly to fend off the growing cold. The further out you went from the city center, the more the planet’s real environment began to exert its influence. And even though the frozen wasteland surrounding Le’sant was nearly half a kilometer away from where Tana lived, here in the Common Ring, she felt like it was much closer today. It was absolutely freezing outside, and she couldn’t imagine how those in the Outland—the outermost ring of the city—even survived. But then Tana remembered from her own time growing up there that sometimes, often actually, they simply didn’t.

  Despite the cold, Tana ignored the moving sidewalk and decided to make the short walk to her apartment the old-fashioned way, one foot after another. The motorized walkway was one of the few modern conveniences the Collective installed in this part of the city—back when they were still actually developing Le’sant. But those municipal projects had ended centuries ago, and now the residents mostly fended for themselves. Except for those living in the Central and Middle districts, of course. They continued to have everything…as always. One of Tana’s neighbors nodded to her as she opened the front door, strolling into the foyer of her run-down apartment building.

  “Byr,” she said.

  “Hey, Tana.”

  The man jerked a thumb toward the back of the building. “The power is out again so the lift is down.”

  “But the sidewalk outside is still running,” she protested.

  “I saw that too,” Byr replied. “I think it might be a billing issue.”

  “Ahhh.”

  Tana mounted the stairs and made her way up to the sixth floor, barely breaking a sweat as she moved. Third time in just two months, she thought to herself.

  Tana knew it wasn’t the landlord’s fault; if your tenants didn’t pay, it was hard to keep up services. But the outages were becoming more and more frequent, and if they continued, she would have no choice but to move somewhere else.

  When she finally reached the door to her apartment, Tana unlocked the myriad security devices running down both sides of it—including one that would push out a cloud of paralytic gas if triggered—and then she pulled the door open and entered the small dwelling.

  “Ident confirmed,” a mechanical voice rang out. “Entering standby mode.”

  Tana patted the floating defgun like a waiting pet, not the lethal weapon it was. The small disk, no bigger than her clenched fist, was trained at the door, hovering approximately head high. Its barrel trailed her movements as she walked across the room.

  “Shutdown,” she stated flatly.

  The gun returned to its charging station, resting on an old bookshelf near the door, and then it slowly settled down into it. The defgun had been active for several weeks now, so Tana thought it was a good time to recharge it—then she could re-deploy the device before she went to sleep.

  Tana dropped onto the couch and glanced around the small apartment, noting that everything was just as she’d left it. The tiny, unused eating nook was still full of sealed crates, each housing part of Tana’s collection of stolen objects—the ones she’d chosen to keep over the years. The neatly stacked metal boxes were mostly stuffed with jewelry and small antiques, as a reserve to sell later if things got bad, but there was also some unique tech stashed in them—things that had piqued Tana’s interest, and she was reluctant to part with.

  Just to the right of the nook sat Tana’s minimal bathroom, and it represented the last of the apartment’s amenities. There was no bedroom; Tana slept right on the couch where she was sitting.

  It may not be much, she thought to herself, but it’s a lot more than many others have.

  She looked over in the corner and saw that the emergency generator had sprung to life when the building went dead, sending power where it was needed throughout the room—including a makeshift workbench running down the longest wall of the apartment. The flat surface was completely covered with the tools of Tana’s trade, many of which had been modified to accommodate her own unique style of thievery. Satisfied that everything was in order, Ta
na leaned back and kicked off her shoes.

  Maybe if Cobin gets a good enough price for those pistols I can finally move in closer to the city center, she thought to herself. Maybe it’s time.

  Tana already had a good deal of cash stashed away; she’d learned to be very frugal as a child. But she knew that moving to a better part of town would mean more expenses, and that meant more work—which invariably, lead to greater danger.

  There was always a balance to maintain.

  “Screen on,” she called out.

  A video newsfeed began playing on the wall monitor in front of her, but noise rising up from the street below made it difficult to hear. “Volume up by two,” Tana directed, and the sound level rose up loud enough to drown out the interference.

  A Collective representative was talking about the next day’s festivities; it was the annual celebration of Sergeant Barent’s Day. The scheduled citywide parades and ceremonies were meant to mark the victory of the prisoners over the guards and colonists five centuries earlier—the epic struggle between the First Ones that had shaped their entire society. But unlike most of Le’sant’s population, Tana was neither excited nor impressed.

  The Collective had been in power for nearly five hundred years now, and as a result, their favored had enjoyed a period of tremendous prosperity—all while the ranks of the downtrodden grew, and the Outland slums where they barely eked out survival continued to extend further and further out. According to everything Tana had read, it went against the very core of what Sergeant Barent believed in. In fact, it was that exact type of disparity that drove him to become the Great Betrayer in the first place.

  Tana’s eyes drifted over to the bookcase where Barent’s collected treatises rested on the top shelf. It was an original compilation—contemporaneous with his life—not the newly edited versions put out by the Collective. It was the most valuable thing Tana had ever stolen, but she’d vowed to never part with it.

  Tana had read and understood every word, imagining a society that might have been. But Sergeant Barent died in the final battle of the Pardon War, and his promise of an egalitarian society had perished right along with him.

  Barent’s elaborate tomb filled the video screen now, drawing Tana’s attention back to the broadcast. The Collective had spared no expense while building the tremendous monument to the fallen leader, and they celebrated his victory every year with speeches and elaborate displays. But Tana knew it was more to extol their own power than it was to revere Barent’s memory. And while they sang his praises to all who would listen, in practice, the Collective debased everything Sergeant Barent had fought for, systematically corrupting his legacy with their oppressive policies. They’d twisted his dream into a mockery of the pro-populace society Barent had so staunchly championed. Things were no better now than before the Pardon War, and in fact, they were much, much worse. Well…unless you were a part of the Collective, of course, or one of their wealthy sycophants.

  Tana had seen enough.

  “Screen off,” she said. “Auto-defense initiate at full charge.” The defgun beeped twice to acknowledge the instructions.

  Tana stretched out on the sofa and closed her eyes tightly, reaching under the cushion to feel for her handgun. She found it nestled next to one of her daggers—right where it should be.

  “Set motion alarms.” Tana yawned, and then she tucked her head into a deep fold between the cushion and the back of the couch and began drifting off to sleep.

  With all of the festivities tomorrow, it might be a great time to pull a job, she thought. Then I’ll really have a reason to celebrate Sergeant Barent’s Day.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Celebration

  Tana woke with a stiff neck and a pounding headache, to say nothing of a stomach in complete revolt. She knew it would give her no peace until it was sated with food, and came to the unwelcome realization that she needed to get up.

  She pushed herself off the cushion and swung her legs down to the floor, placing her face in her hands, and using her long, delicate fingers to rub the sleep from her eyes. The defgun pivoted at the movement, and its barrel made a high-pitched whine as it spun and locked into place. But the lethal machine quickly identified her, and then returned to its slow and lazy patrol around the apartment.

  As Tana rose to her feet, she slowly stretched her back, pressing her arms far overhead to push out the kinks that had set in overnight. A poor night’s rest, she thought. But Tana knew how lucky she was to sleep in relative peace. So many in the city, especially the downtrodden, could never relax their guard. They had to remain forever vigilant to protect what precious little they had—to protect their very lives—living in constant fear that someone even more desperate than themselves might come along and try to take their meager possessions. And many of them were trying to do it without so much as a solid roof over their heads—to say nothing of electricity or running water.

  Those living in Le’sant’s two inner circles commonly referred to the downtrodden as criminals, going so far as to extend that epithet to the children and innocents among them as well. And even here in the much poorer Common Ring—the penultimate circle of Le’sant, and the last stop before reaching the Outland—many thought the downtrodden weren’t merely a symptom of Le’sant’s problems.

  The downtrodden were the problem.

  Most of the city’s crimes were attributed to them, whether legitimately or not, and the common mindset was that something needed to be done. Not about the abject poverty that drove those poor souls to such acts of desperation, or through a concerted effort to improve their circumstances and bring them into the greater fold of humanity. No, the larger part of Le’sant’s population believed that the downtrodden simply must be brought to heel. It was the best way to control the growing crime problem, or so the common theory went. Tana thought the belief was not only ridiculous, but rather hypocritical coming from a society founded by convicts.

  She heard a commotion and turned around to gaze out through the reinforced window. Down in the street below, Tana saw a small group of people already lining up for the best spots to watch the parade.

  Fools.

  She strode over to the nook and tried to locate something to eat, but Tana never really kept much food around. Who did? But she hoped that maybe this time she’d get lucky, and find something missed during previous foraging attempts. When a brief search through the empty cabinets turned up nothing, Tana decided to head out to a restaurant and get a proper meal. It was a holiday, after all. Why not splurge?

  She closed her eyes and then rapidly squeezed them twice, mimicking a blink. This triggered Tana’s embedded link, granting her access to Le’sant's citywide datanet. When she opened her eyes again, a translucent display filled Tana’s vision, and using eye movements alone she called up the local eateries to see which ones had food today.

  Slim choices, she thought to herself, scrolling through the listings.

  Fresh food, real food, was always a constrained resource in Le’sant’s outer rings—an expensive luxury that most couldn’t afford, including Tana. The majority of the population was forced to content themselves with the Nutriall distributed by the government. It was a generic and tasteless food that kept you alive, but little else.

  Most on the outer rings didn’t even give food a second thought; eating was just a necessary part of living, not an experience to be relished. But there were some, like Tana, who had sampled real food, and understood that it was something to be enjoyed. Of course, in her case, Tana developed that appreciation by stealing food as an added bonus—while thieving in the richer parts of town.

  As she sifted through the modest menus of those restaurants that actually had something to offer, an incoming call popped up on the display. It was her old friend, Sri. But she—

  Tana answered it.

  “Sri? I thought you were still in prison.”

  “I was. But I just got out.”

  The image from the public terminal wasn’t the best, bu
t Tana could tell that Sri looked healthy…so much better than the last time she’d seen her.

  “But I thought you were supposed to be in for another two years.”

  “Don’t sound so disappointed, Tana. I scored an early release. They’re pardoning some of the non-violent offenders in celebration of the holiday.”

  “I’m not disappointed, Sri, just surprised. The Collective has never done anything like that before.”

  “From what I understand, Tana, it wasn’t the Collective. It was the Wardens.”

  “The Wardens?” Tana repeated, confused.

  “My exact reaction as well.” Sri laughed.

  How odd, Tana thought. The Wardens rarely—if ever—interfered in such minor affairs. They provided security for Collective representatives, and guarded the Tomb of the Great Betrayer—along with other clandestine responsibilities that people could only speculate about. Why would they involve themselves in something so trivial?

  The display wavered as Tana shrugged the mystery off, speculating that it was probably just some new initiative by the Wardens to honor Barent. But whatever the reason, it was good to have Sri back. She had been a good friend—and for a time, even more—but Sri had struggled with a habitual drug problem that pervaded every aspect of her life. The disease made her do hurtful, careless things, and eventually led to Sri’s capture by the police. The irony was that she had finally cleaned herself up by the time they arrested her.

  That was nearly two years ago, and Tana had missed Sri dearly. Because despite all of her faults, she was the closest thing to family Tana had.

  “Where are you now?” Tana asked her.

  “One block from your apartment.”

  “Great. Then I’ll meet you out front and we’ll go get something to eat. My treat.”

  “Well in that case, how could I refuse?”

  “See you in five minutes.”

  Tana quickly located a restaurant that had live fish and pinged in a reservation. A deposit automatically shifted from her account to theirs—to ensure that she would show, and to guarantee the meal. It was far more than she’d intended to spend, but this was cause for celebration.