by Julian North
I rolled to the edge of the bed. I could hear Arik purring behind me. I reached down to the floor. It was hardwood—the same as Kristolan remembered. It had been sanded and polished, but not replaced. There was still hope. I ran my palm along the wood. Kristolan had known every crack and crevasse of that old floor, but those markers had been erased. I moved quicker, became more frantic. I sensed Arik’s impatience.
He came up behind me, wrapping his apish arm around my waist. I tapped my fingers on the floor. I thought I found the spot, but the floor had been sanded and refinished, so I couldn’t be sure. Arik’s hands kept moving, becoming more insistent. He tugged me back toward him so that I could no longer reach the floor. Deuces. If I was going to die, I was going to go with my dignity intact. I rolled back around to face him and smiled my best Anise smile—then rammed my knee into him as hard as I was able. He howled like a maimed wolf, and I rolled off the bed, out of his grasp, and onto the floor. I pounded on the wood, then stood and hit it with my foot. A board cracked.
“You little cretin.” Arik’s face was red, his teeth bared. Within those pale eyes there was animalistic fury. “What the hell kind of stupid game…” His eyes narrowed. Suspicion joined fury on his face. “You aren’t Anise.”
I dove back to the floor, my knee smashing the aged wood beneath me. Arik jumped on top of me. He probably weighed twice what I did, and the wind flooded out of my lungs. I jammed an elbow into his face, catching his nose. A satisfying crunch followed. I twisted beneath him as he grabbed the back of my neck in a vice-like grip and lifted my head just enough that when he shoved me back down my skull would crack.
“You are going to die, girl.”
My hand plunged into Kristolan’s hiding place. It was a small space beneath the floorboard, and she knew exactly how each of the items inside had been arranged.
“Arik, it’s Daniela Machado. I want you to know that for what your mother did to my blood, I will make her know fear before I kill her.”
My words shocked him, if only for a moment, but that was all I needed. I called on my reservoir of cold will. Raw strength surged through me as my fingers wrapped around Kristolan’s sonic blade. I yanked it from its hiding place in the floor and flung my arm at Arik’s ribs. The angle was bad, but the weapon’s edge was beyond sharp. Arik yelped as the blade grazed him. He loosened his grip on my neck enough that I could twist beneath him. I plunged my second blow into his chest, activating the knife’s power setting as I did so. His white eyes nearly burst from his skull as the electric charge surged into him. His heart stopped mid-breath, and he fell on top of me. I heaved a relieved sigh and slipped free. I flipped Arik over and felt for a pulse. Nothing. I grabbed the knife and stood over the body, a magnificent chill coursing through me.
I had killed him.
He had tried to steal Alexander’s company; he wanted to cleanse Tuck of non-highborn, and he certainly would’ve killed me, if I’d let him. But I still should’ve felt worse than I did.
It was necessary, Kristolan assured me.
The noise of an aircraft drew my attention to the window. I watched the plane’s engine rotate as it settled onto the ground, the presidential seal on its wings. Virginia Timber-Night had arrived. I smiled a triumphant smile that was not mine.
Chapter 32
I stuck my head outside Kristolan’s old doorway, looking in each direction for any indication that the struggle upstairs had attracted attention. There was no one in the hallway. The party below was loud, and it was two floors down. The second floor was entirely empty.
I went back into the room and watched the president disembark. Onlookers clapped with nauseating enthusiasm, the way only the greedy and terrified did. Virginia smiled and waved graciously, as if she believed them. She stopped to speak to the most important of her guests. I knew California’s spy satellites were watching from above. It wouldn’t be long until Ansel gave the order to begin the next stage of the operation. I had to get into position quickly.
I hurried out to the hallway to the back staircase. It led to the basement. The noise of the party on the floor above seeped through the old wooden floors. The underground level was far less expansive than the floor above due to the difficulty of constructing anything below sea-level this close to the ocean. The walls were rock but specially lined to repel moisture. The whole space consisted of a large central storage area, a laundry room, and a durasteel-reinforced room that Landrew Foster-Rose-Hart had ordered constructed when he assumed the chairmanship of the Orderist party. There were ancient rusted landscaping tools leaning against the storage room’s walls—shovels, rakes, mowers, and other devices for those rare few with lawns to care for. They would’ve served as decent weapons for my original plan, but I didn’t need them now—I had the sonic knife. Running into Arik had turned out to be a stroke of good fortune. My blood was pumping too fast for any regret. I knew my chance to finish this would be coming soon. I would make Rhett’s death count.
I didn’t have to wait for very long. Claxons sounded not five minutes after I’d hidden behind the door of Landrew’s safe room.
Ansel had planned carefully. Aboard the patrolling razorFish above me, Northern pilots would be staring at their sensor screen in horror as half a dozen aircraft approached the estate, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. They would see planes moving at high speeds—quicker than would’ve been possible for any Southern warplane. The captains would inevitably conclude that the aircraft were Californian.
On the ground, Gilead Ross-Frank, Chief of Presidential Security, would be in a panic as he struggled with how to protect the president. His contingency plan would’ve called for a rapid evacuation, but that would be far too dangerous when facing aircraft that were more advanced and more numerous than what he had available. He would conclude that the president had to be kept safe until reinforcements arrived and the danger passed. He knew the house, of course. He would’ve studied it before the party. He’d know about Landrew’s safe room.
An explosion from the first Californian air-to-ground missile echoed in the basement as it struck the upper floor of the house. The warheads had been recalibrated to do minimal damage—they were mostly noise and smoke—but it would be enough to create panic. A second explosion ripped through the house. Screams followed as the sounds of running and chaos sounded above me. Heavy footsteps followed, the kind made by burly men with weapons. I pressed my back against the cold wall, my presence in the room hidden by the thick durasteel door of the chamber. My fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of Kristolan’s blade.
A stickish man carrying a black briefcase ran into the room, panting. “It’s clear,” he called back. More hurried footsteps. Another missile hit. I smiled. The next set of footfalls were slower, deliberate—they were the steps of an individual who did not run, who was not accustomed to fear.
“Toren will stay in here with you, Madam President. These walls can take any bomb. Please do not open that door unless it’s my voice on the other side. Reinforcements are on the way. It won’t be long.”
“It had better not be, Gilead. I hold you responsible for this.”
It was her.
The door swung shut, the locks sliding into place; the room was sealed from the inside. Three inches of some of the toughest durasteel ever produced surrounded me. I struck like a viper the moment the door was locked. Virginia’s personal security team wore armor beneath their fancy clothes, so I went for the neck. The man—Toren—was fast and well-trained, but it wasn’t enough to save him. I had a split-second head start, and my reflexes were amped by the genetic power pumping through my body. The enhanced blade sliced through his throat. He managed to get his arms up before I delivered the fatal blow. As crimson poured from his neck, he tried to stop the bleeding with his hands. He fell to his knees, then his face hit the stone floor with a definitive thud.
The stickish man spun away from me, clutching the briefcase to his chest like a shield. He was frantically searching for something—perhaps an exi
t, perhaps a weapon. The chamber contained neither. I jabbed him in the back, and he too fell. It was easy. I felt nothing. I had just killed two people, and I felt nothing.
I was face-to-face with Virginia Timber-Night. She showed no outward sign of fear or panic. In her eyes, there was only controlled fury.
“Who are you?” Her voice was one accustomed to being obeyed. She had gotten used to power quickly; Kristolan understood that feeling. “I know you are not Anise Titan-Wind, that is certain.”
“Care to take a guess who I am, then, Madam President?”
She snarled, exposing a taste of the ugliness beneath her genetically crafted exterior. “You mock me, girl?”
“I just want to make sure you know who it is that takes back all you have stolen and leaves you with nothing. I want to make sure you know who takes vengeance upon you for the harm you have done to my blood.” A voice that wasn’t mine added, “And I want you to know fear.”
Those calculating eyes searched me and the room, hunting for an advantage. She would not go down without a fight. I realized it might be difficult to get what I needed without killing her. There was no surrender in this creature before me, no ability to settle. She could accept nothing but total domination.
“You must be from California or in league with them. Those aircraft above were a diversion… to get me down here.” She showed her teeth, as if she had somehow regained a piece of leverage. “Did Jenn Ansel send you, perhaps?”
I thought I kept my face still, but apparently not.
“Yes, of course she did. And you were able to get all the way here, evade my security, wearing that false face. That took something… extraordinary. Yes, I do know who you are, Daniela Machado.” Virginia chuckled, a gnarled, coarse sound. “And I know a secret that you are going to want.”
“I hold your life in my hands. We aren’t going to be bargaining.”
“You think you are so clever—you and Ansel and the rest: you destroyed my research station. I suppose by now you have figured out how my special visers work, how they spread themselves—you even discovered that I alone have the ability to command the drones. That’s why you’re here—probably with some kind of interrogation drug.” She cackled again. “It won’t work. The special interface will detect the chemical in my system. It won’t accept any command under those circumstances.” Her lips crept upward as she declared her premature victory.
I had limited time. I had to get to work.
“No drugs, just me.” I squeezed the hilt of the sonic knife, reducing the power setting. I didn’t want her dead. She was no good to me then.
“You can’t… trill me, girl. Havelock explained it all. I am highborn. I was among the first, and the strongest.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you have no right to rule others? That what you have done is an affront to humanity?”
Virginia barely heard me. Her mind was working furiously behind her smoldering glare. “You are a crusader, then, who wants a better deal for your so-called people—although, of course you have no ‘people.’ I am not your enemy. I too was once called a freak. I too was once kept down by others—the old bloods of the South at first, then by men like Landrew Foster-Rose-Hart and Arthus Ryan-Hayes. I have merely claimed what should be mine. What we want may not be so different. I will bring about a new order, and I am the only person who can do it.”
Her voice was seductive, dangerous. I was more curious than tempted by this woman who trafficked in slavery to further her own ends. I needed to control her. “What new order?”
“Your friends in California are dead, they just don’t know it yet. The same goes for many of the highborn here. Out there, the people at that party, they are walking dead too. I confess it wasn’t what I intended—that damn schoolteacher of yours did it. His information was too freely offered, his price for it too low. I knew he was up to something. I confess I underestimated his treachery.”
“You aren’t the only one who has made that mistake. Havelock got what he deserved.”
Virginia moved closer to me. I stepped back. I had the knife, yet there was something about her presence that made me uneasy—a wrongness. “Perhaps it is better this way—what Havelock did. Many will fall, and that will make space for others to take their place. The world must be cleansed. You and yours could be among the survivors who remake the world into something better.”
A better world.
Rhett’s last request lingered in my thoughts. “I’m listening.”
“The visers’ control modifications are spreading, but they are contaminated. The visers allow people to be controlled by my drones via the interface, but they are infected with a defect, a disease—the Waste. That damn Havelock embedded it inside the genetic information he gave us. It’s even spread outside the country, to Korea and elsewhere. It kills those with heightened intelligence, with leadership skills—everything the highborn were engineered to be. Millions will succumb. I can’t save them, and I don’t want to. Neither do you. I can see the conflict inside you; I can sense it. If you stick with Ansel and men like Jalen Aris-Putch, nothing will change. They are products of a system. They will keep you down, just as they sought to do to me. I’m offering you a chance that no other person can.”
“Thank you.” I flicked off the record feature of my viser. I had everything I needed. Virginia saw it; her face flushed with rage. Her hands trembled.
“Jenn Ansel will never let you live. You are a threat to her. You are a fool.”
Virginia expected me to come at her with the knife. Cold power flooded through me as I focused on what I had to do. Instead of charging, I feigned a slash and swiped at her legs. Virginia jumped back quicker than I expected, then stumbled to the ground. Only she hadn’t stumbled. She had fallen to the ground intentionally—next to the body of her bodyguard.
Virginia grabbed for the dead man’s pistol faster than I would’ve guessed possible for someone of her age. It seemed her claim to be the strongest of the highborn was not just vanity. Her hand moved like a viper’s strike. But I ran at her, first slamming my leg into her side and then planting my heel into her ribs with all the strength I could muster. I heard the crack. The blows would've finished anyone in the barrio. Virginia cried out in agony, rolling away from my attack. But she had the pistol in her hand.
If it hadn’t been for the icy cold and the quickness it bestowed, I would’ve died from Virginia Timber-Night’s desperate shot. She rolled away from me, her teeth locked together in pain, yet she still fired dead center of where my chest was a fraction of a second before the force blast erupted. The vault-like room shook from the impact, dust flooding the air. I launched myself at her from the floor. I could’ve put the knife into her chest, but that would’ve meant all that had happened would’ve been for nothing. I needed to own this creature, not kill her. So I slashed at the arm that held the force pistol. A long, deep gash opened across her forearm. Virginia screamed as she dropped the force pistol. I smashed my fist into her jaw; the blow yanked her face to the side. I slashed her hamstrings with the knife. A desperate, agonized howl followed. The reality of Virginia’s situation finally became inescapably real to her.
As she writhed in pain, I powered up the knife and sliced open the case carried by Virginia’s thin, stick-like aide. Anthony Draper-Blane was his name, according to Jenn Ansel. He went everywhere with Virginia. It wasn’t hard to deduce he carried the drone interface with him.
The device was deceptively simple-looking for something that offered such power—a plain circle of gold that looked and felt like a viser in my hands. I stared at this machine, visions dancing in my head. They weren’t Kristolan’s memories this time. They were her dreams, her ambitions. She recognized the possibilities of this device. I had a singular chance to use it. Kristolan hungered for it. She whispered in my head that there was a way not to destroy the control drones, but to make them mine.
That is what Rhett would want, Kristolan whispered to me. Only you can do it. Use the drones. Mak
e her power yours.
Virginia got control of her pain with impressive quickness. Perspiration built on her forehead, yet she held the agony she must have been feeling in check, somehow. She looked at me, her face burning red but defiant. “I won’t help you, and you cannot use the interface without me. Go to hell, girl.”
Kristolan spoke again. Bend her to your will. There can be only one voice in the night.
I jammed my knee into Virginia’s spine just hard enough to add to her pain and yanked both of her hands behind her back. Once she was immobilized, I put away the knife.
You must break her will if you wish to command her, Kristolan whispered.
“You will be enslaved the way you sought to enslave others,” I whispered to Virginia, shocked at the cruelty in my voice.
Virginia unleashed an animalistic cry. I had no pity anymore; I was barely even me.
I ripped the viser from her arm and placed my own on hers in its place. I took her device for my own use, linking the two machines and prepping the program that Nythan had developed. Then I placed the drone interface on her head like a crown.
“What is this?” she spat, but I think she had already guessed what I’d done.
“The viser on your arm is one of your special control visers.” I said it softly, almost distantly. “It’s been modified by a very special friend of mine. It doesn’t spread the Waste, but it does work like a control chip. It’s similar to the others, but with one important difference: it doesn’t need to receive its commands from your special drone. Instead, it takes a direct feed from another viser. The one I took from you will work fine.” I held up my arm, then I leaned down next to Virginia’s ear and whispered as if we weren’t mortal enemies. “My friend Nythan, who you almost turned into a chipped slave, told me that interrogation drugs wouldn’t work on you, that you’d have taken precautions. But I don’t need them if I have this viser. I want you to know that I intend to take everything you have and make it mine.”