“I’ve been pitstopped?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head, unwilling to believe it. “How can you possibly tell that? It requires a series of tests, multiple trips to a specialist.”
“Or a good nose. There’s more. The tranqs are primed to react to Nick’s metabolism. Your attraction to him has been artificially enhanced, if not actually created in the first place.”
She shook her head even while experiencing a sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach. “You’re lying. Nick wouldn’t do something like that.”
Gillian stared at her. His silence was unnerving.
Bel couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. If he was being truthful, her sexual desire for Nick wasn’t natural but neurochemically instilled. It meant that everything that had happened between the two of them over these past months was built upon a horrible lie.
No. That can’t be.
Then again, Nick was shrewdly confident and without a doubt one of the most manipulative humans she’d ever met.
But it’s not like him. He wouldn’t have done something like this to me. He wouldn’t betray me in such a way.
And yet…
She struggled to get a handle on her confusion and look at the situation logically. Such a task was probably impossible, not with her emotions caught in a whirlpool. Still, she made the attempt.
OK, first off, who’s more deserving of my trust? Nick or Gillian?
Nick had opened his heart to her. Over these past months she was well on her way to falling deeply in love with him. Gillian, by contrast, was a man unaware of his true heritage. He was also a man who’d admittedly developed some sort of bizarre attraction toward her based on the fact that she smelled like his dead wife.
Attraction wasn’t the right word. She suspected that a kind of psychological transference had occurred during their initial encounter at the clinic. Nick had warned her that she’d be the first woman Gillian would meet since awakening from his personality-altering surgeries. He and Doctor Emanuel hadn’t been certain of how, as a former tway, he would react.
At some deep unconscious level, Gillian was conflating her with his slain tway, Catharine. Might that confusion induce him to tell outright lies? Might he tell blatant untruths in order to push Nick out of her life and enable himself to draw closer?
She shuddered at the prospect but the scenario made sense. Yet was it the truth?
She needed time alone, time to think.
“You need to go. Right now.”
“Of course.”
“And please understand something. I’m not going to take what you’ve told me at face value.”
Gillian shrugged. “I wouldn’t either. May I suggest that you take the appropriate medical tests. They’ll confirm my diagnosis that you’ve been pitstopped. If I were you, I’d make the first appointment as soon as possible.”
You can be sure I’m going to do just that, and before I even think about accusing Nick of something so outrageous.
Gillian left without another word. Bel returned to bed, certain she was in for a restless night.
Forty
Bishop Rikov strode up the wide staircase and entered the brand new Wellington Cathedral. It represented the Church of the Trust’s first major incursion into this country. Some nations had been more skeptical than others to the church’s doctrines; New Zealand had proved particularly resistant for a number of years. But the bishop knew that perseverance could overcome any obstacle.
Considering recent events affecting the Royal Caste, he needed such perseverance now more than ever.
“Your Eminence, we’re so grateful you could come,” a Kiwi in the audience gushed, her face beaming.
“Hear hear!” hollered a man beside her, who was garbed in walkshorts and the blue-green vest of a Level 3 devotee.
Respectful clapping broke out among the twelve hundred parishioners who’d crammed the chapel for his special appearance at the cathedral’s consecration. The bishop paused to smile at the standing room only crowd, took a short bow and continued his march to the altar. Standing at the illuminated lectern, he gazed out over the faithful with his most solemn expression.
“You are children of the Spirit of Gaia,” he began. “And those who adhere to the Trust shall know the glory of eternal life.”
He continued with the rest of the speech by rote, having given variations of it on hundreds of occasions. But his mind was divorced from that which poured from his mouth, having locked onto the grimmer meaning of those last two words, “eternal life.”
Eternal life indeed. Two of us are dead.
The Ash Ock were accustomed to setbacks, at least normal everyday ones. But the devastating events of the past few months went far beyond that.
First Aristotle had perished. And then young Empedocles had joined him. The sphere of the Royal Caste, their unofficial iconic logo, was missing two of its five components. A quintet had been reduced to a trio.
The bishop could sense that his tway and their monarch, Codrus, were similarly troubled. The links among their unique tripartite mentality were never fully severed, just weakened to a point where the tways could operate in an independent manner. His tway and monarch were painfully aware that the Royal Caste’s exquisite and carefully constructed long-term plans had suffered a series of dire blows.
Their breed, superior in so many ways to all sentient beings, human and binary, had been bred to rule. Each Ash Ock was endowed with a special skill, and the breed as a whole possessed interlocking abilities, forming a potent hydra with five heads – or ten heads, depending on one’s perspective.
In any case, Empedocles was to have been the final piece of that magnificent quintet.
Sappho had known early on that many of the breeds would fail to accord the Royals the loyalty they deserved. The reason, she’d explained, was because the Ash Ock weren’t real assassins. They didn’t possess the formidable combat skills of those they sought to rule over.
Empedocles was intended to remedy that. He was to have been the one Ash Ock that even the most obstinate of the breeds could not help but respect. Should any Paratwa assassin or group of them ever think to challenge the Royals’ supremacy by force, Empedocles, as adept at strategy and tactics as he was at combat, would have proved a daunting opponent.
Better yet, he would have possessed greater mental stability than Reemul, the liege-killer. Sappho’s errand boy was loyal but more than a bit unhinged. Reemul’s inherent viciousness was exceeded only by sexual quirks, demented even by the most liberal of standards.
But all of Empedocles’ training had been for naught. He was gone.
The loss of Thi Maloca itself was another major blow to the Ash Ock cause. Although Theophrastus’ exotic project had been unsuccessful, the facility had remained an important asset, equipped to handle other cutting-edge research. Besides that, it was the place where their breed had come into being, a place that for each of them in distinctive ways harbored the sweet sensorium of youth, the pleasing and evocative memories of home.
And now Thi Maloca was gone, its loyal servitors wiped out, the above ground and underground structures stripped of their secrets and reduced to ashes by a nuclear warhead.
Perseverance, a part of him whispered even as he continued reciting key phrases of the religion.
“The Trust shall forever bless those within its folds. Those who maintain the Trust shall be blessed in perpetuity. They alone shall come to know the Spirit of Gaia as the true kingdom of all life.”
Twelve hundred eager faces hung on his every word. But his thoughts continued to dwell on other setbacks to the Royals’ cause, not the least of which was yesterday’s unsettling discovery of a traitor within their midst.
A Paratwa at the highest level, likely one of the Ash Ock’s most trusted lieutenants, was feeding information to humans. The traitor’s identity remained unknown but enough data had been assembled to leave no doubt as to its existence.
Sappho had tasked Theophrastus to
track down the leaks and unveil this vile serpent. The bishop was certain that the traitor would soon be identified, as would the humans to whom it was leaking vital information.
However, vigorous debate surrounded what should be the culprit’s fate. Codrus agreed with Theophrastus that the most ruthless measures should be enacted. Once the traitor’s identity was learned, the liege-killer should be tasked to torture it for information, then kill it in a public way that would prove instructive to other binaries or servitors considering such treason.
But Sappho, ever the subtle one, argued that not only should the traitor be spared, it should be allowed to continue unfettered in its role. It would then unknowingly again serve its true masters, the Ash Ock, this time in a counterintelligence capacity by feeding false intel to the humans.
Sappho’s voice always carried inordinate weight but she didn’t always get her way. Most likely, the Royals ultimately would approve some kind of compromise plan for dealing with the traitor.
“Perseverance and loyalty are the keys to staying within the graces of the Trust,” the bishop droned on. “Such qualities will prove a magnificent reward to you and your everlasting souls.”
He paused for effect, then hit the congregation with his final uplifting remark. “For we must never lose sight that a wondrous afterlife awaits those who remain faithful to the end!”
He whipped from beneath his robes a glowing vial of blue misk, blessed liquid of the church. He held the vial above his head, noted how the congregation’s eyes were fixed upon it, as if it were something of great value. In truth it was plain distilled water mixed with food coloring and glittering traces of aquatic cobalt.
He smashed the vial against the side of the lectern. Luminescent droplets sprayed the first two rows.
“I consecrate this cathedral, New Zealand’s first, in the name of the great Spirit of Gaia!”
Thunderous applause filled the chapter. The bishop feigned a modest smile, a part of him already calculating the income that today’s speech and ceremony would produce for the Ash Ock coffers. Some of the monies would flow in before the day ended. Church of the Trust clerks were poised to contact every one of the twelve hundred parishioners to arrange for their donations and tithings.
The ceremony was over but many of the faithful weren’t leaving. Instead, they surged toward the altar, seeking personal blessings or private consultations with the bishop. All were gracefully intercepted by the Wellington Cathedral staff, who’d been instructed to pass on his regrets that he couldn’t stay, that the perpetual demands of the church required his presence elsewhere. In fact, he was due aboard a suborbital flight leaving in an hour for Turgay, Kazakhstan, where he was to make a speech at the church’s major cathedral there.
He exited through a back door into a private chamber. His personal travel staff, who should have been gathered at the back door ready to accompany him to the Wellington Spaceport, instead were huddled around a monitor.
The bishop sighed. Senior acolytes or not, they too often became enamored of worldly events, mainly anything to do with sports contests, rather than strictly attending to his needs. But he tried never to chastise them for such minor failings. One had to accept their limited attention spans the same way one accepted how small children were easily distracted. They were, after all, only human.
“Another exciting game of football?” he speculated, offering a weary but accepting smile. “Are the final seconds ticking down and the outcome for the home team in great peril?”
“Apologies, your eminence,” offered Valahen, the white-bearded man who coordinated his travel arrangements. “It’s Humanity’s Avenger. It’s struck down another Paratwa assassin. The battle concluded only minutes ago.”
The bishop joined them in front of the monitor, listened to the frantic jabbering of a female witness at the scene. As in that previous incident in Kuala Lumpur, the combat had occurred in plain view of hundreds, this time on a crowded street on the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan. Dozens of eyewitness videos were already online.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!” the witness exclaimed through a translation bot. “The assassin never had a chance! Our team attacked it with such fury that the Paratwa was practically overwhelmed!”
Our team, the bishop mused, more disturbed by the public’s growing hero worship of this band of soldier-hunters than by the deeds themselves.
“Have they said what breed of assassin was involved?” he asked.
“No one’s certain as of yet,” Valahen said. “But some of the expert commentators are suggesting it could have been a Fleetwood Phaeton.”
The Phaetons, bred by a large American vehicle manufacturer, were no pushovers, if that indeed was the Paratwa who had been slain. Still, this so-called Humanity’s Avenger thus far had been going after mid-level assassins, exceedingly dangerous in human terms, yet not among the most lethal. Certainly this team would be no match should it ever dare face a truly formidable foe from one of the premier breeds, such as the Jeek Elementals. Going up against a Reemul or a Meridian surely would lead to a different outcome.
The bishop gently urged his staff away from the monitor and back to the business at hand, namely, getting him to Kazakhstan, and then later to Moscow for an important church conference. Yet as he and the entourage prepared to depart, he sensed a faint tinge of worry echoing from the consciousnesses of both his tway and his monarch. Codrus in particular had deep concerns.
A full linkage was necessary. As soon as the bishop was airborne and alone in his private compartment, he would stare into a mirror. Thousands of kilometers away, his regent tway would do the same. As they gazed at their own reflections they would see one another, and bring about the peculiar interlace that was solely the province of those who could exist either as one or as two.
There were other means for enabling the interlace. But the mirror was one of the simplest and most reliable. In any event, although physically separated, the mind of Codrus would awaken. Their monarch would then be free to apply his full, undivided intellect to this upstart band of soldier-hunters, and consider what needed to be done about them.
Forty-One
Nick could tell Bel was mad at him but couldn’t figure out why. The two of them were alone in her condo, which her drudge had decorated for the holidays. A multifaith glow tree hung from the ceiling, its branches representing the world’s major religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and Church of the Trust.
This evening was the first time they’d been together since she’d visited him at the hospital as his son lay dying. They’d shared a quiet dinner, discussing the latest success of Gillian and the team in the battle four days ago against the Phaeton in Japan. The overall plan was working. Humanity’s Avenger was becoming what they’d hoped, an inspirational success. Having taken down three Paratwa assassins to date, the team had achieved one of the highest global Q-pop scores on record. People all over the world were throwing celebrations in the soldier-hunters’ honor. The human race had itself an authentic hero.
“Dessert with your coffee?” Bel asked, motioning her drudge to the table.
“Depends what’s on the menu?”
“Anything your precious heart desires.”
Is that sarcasm? Nick wondered. Whatever it was, the words lacked genuine warmth, continuing the chill that seemed to have descended upon her since his arrival.
“I’ll have vanilla ice cream over apple cake,” he said.
“Too gluttonous for me. Coffee only.”
The drudge nodded and retreated to the kitchen. Bel stayed quiet and stared at a spot somewhere above the glow tree until the mech returned a minute later with his dessert and a portable starbuckian.
As the drudge transfused their coffee into waiting mugs, Nick dug into the dessert. He smiled appreciatively.
“Scrumptious! They say instant cake isn’t as good as fresh-baked but I’ll take it anytime.”
“You should help yourself to more,” Bel suggested
with a cold smile. “After all, you’re accustomed to having whatever you like.”
Just what the hell is that supposed to mean? Was it some sort of snide comment on his wealth?
He ought to confront her, force her to upchuck whatever bone she had stuck in her craw. But he held back, sensing that it was better for her to unleash in her own good time. Besides, he felt as if he needed more information first, or at least a clue as to what was behind her behavior.
As long as their conversation dwelt on Gillian and the team, E-Tech matters or other businesslike concerns, Bel seemed fine. But every time he ventured into something of a more personal nature, especially having to do with their relationship, she grimaced and found a way to change the subject. And her attitude wasn’t limited to verbal frostiness. Earlier, on his way back from the bathroom, he’d passed behind her chair and playfully run his fingers through her hair. She’d flinched and yanked her head away.
Could her anger be some sort of delayed reaction for his having kept the truth from her about his son? Or could it have to do with his grief over Weldon’s death, his raw emotional display at the hospital? Was she so accustomed to seeing him acting strong and on top of every situation that those few moments of weakness had unnerved her?
He reviewed the questions and quickly dismissed them. Something else was bothering her.
What about the unkind remarks he’d made about Ektor Fang’s wife? Bel had made it clear that she admired Olinda Shining, whereas he’d made no attempt to hide his hostility toward the woman.
That couldn’t be it. She might not like the fact that Nick despised servitors on general principle but she wouldn’t get this bent out of shape over it. No, whatever was pissing her off correlated with something of a more intimate nature.
He wondered if the fact they hadn’t slept together for a while could be the cause. But again, the explanation didn’t hold up to scrutiny. He couldn’t imagine that lack of sex would make her this hostile. And the turbulence of recent events had been responsible for them not sharing a bed of late. It had nothing to do with lack of desire on his part.
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