“Nonetheless. I categorically refuse your request. Karim Sabir is unfit to return to Central, much less for active duty as an Auditor.”
Gaul subjected Alice to his fiercest glare, one that he generally reserved for Board meetings, and Alistair, back when he had been the Chief Auditor. Alice just grinned back like they were having a pleasant chat. Water off a duck’s back.
“I guess it’s a good thing I don’t need your permission,” Alice said lightly, picking at the cloth that covered her chair arm. “I’m not asking, Gaul. I’m doing you the courtesy of informing you of my intentions.”
His expression soured.
“I see. That is how it will be between us, then?”
“I hope not,” Alice said, standing and shrugging. “I prefer to think of this conversation as an anomaly in an otherwise congenial working relationship.”
***
It was weird to see his homeroom class at the Far Shores, gawking at the buildings like they were kids on a class trip. Which, technically, was exactly the situation, but the context was all wrong. Alex was used to being the one out of his element. Watching his classmates tour the campus that was currently his home, broken into small groups and assigned a white-coated minder, gave him a bizarre feeling of seniority.
Of course, he knew that the feeling was exaggerated, having only been here a matter of weeks himself.
“Alex!” Eerie waved to him as she abandoned her group, ignoring her minder’s pleas and hurrying in his direction. Alex met her halfway, in the center of the concrete plaza, bordered by sod so fresh that it was still fenced off to foot traffic. “It’s good to see you!”
She hugged him as if they had been apart more than a few days, and he couldn’t help but reciprocate. He wasn’t sure what had changed since their evening together, but he had missed Eerie more fiercely over the last few days than he had in the past several weeks combined. In her embrace, he found reassurance that the feeling was mutual, and that was gratifying.
“You wore the hat,” she mumbled into his chest, clearly pleased. “It looks good.”
Alex mentally congratulated himself for having worn the knit cap Eerie had made for him during his period of prolonged unconsciousness that winter. Not that it had been a clever move on his part or anything – he actually had been wearing it with some regularity, as the cold wind that blew perpetually through the Far Shores toward the sea of Ether practically required it. That it pleased his Changeling girlfriend was an added bonus. And it was grey, so he didn’t have to worry about it matching anything.
“Thanks. For making it, and everything,” Alex said, strands of blue hair tickling his face, carrying the faint scents of sandalwood and fresh hair dye. “How was the trip?”
“We had to take a bus,” Eerie complained, releasing her hold on him only to take his hand, her back firmly to her group and their dismayed guide. “The drive was long. Vivik got carsick.”
“That’s not fair,” Vivik objected, approaching from behind them. “I felt sick. I didn’t actually get sick.”
“Same difference.”
“Vivik!” Alex exchanged an awkward handshake with Vivik, because he didn’t feel comfortable hugging him – and anyway, it would have been impossible with Eerie clinging to his other hand. Behind Vivik, another group was halted by an equally dismayed tour guide, who could only watch and voice objections as the students fragmented to talk to various friends. “Good to see you, man. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah,” Vivik agreed, smiling. “I’ve been really busy. Sorry I missed you the last couple times you came to the Academy.”
“It’s okay,” Alex assured him. He was actually curious to know what had occupied Vivik’s time and attention so thoroughly, but that would have to wait for another time. “What do you think of the Far Shores?”
“Pretty amazing,” Vivik said enthusiastically. “The labs here are better equipped and more extensive than the very best facilities at the Academy. I can hardly believe it. The place must have cost a fortune to build.”
“Several fortunes, actually,” Dr. Graaf offered amiably, joining their little group with a smile and Katya in tow. “We were fortunate to have access to the level of funding we needed. But I digress – I am afraid that your little reunion is proving somewhat disruptive to our scheduled tours...”
Vivik nodded reluctantly. Eerie pouted and tightened her grip on Alex’s hand. Katya rolled her eyes.
“Ah, yeah. Sorry about that,” Alex said, not sure why he was the one apologizing. “We haven’t seen each other in a while...”
“No need to apologize,” Dr. Graaf assured him. “Quite the opposite. This is actually rather convenient. I have a particular need to discuss matters that pertain to all three of you, so why not take the opportunity that has presented itself? That is, if you wouldn’t mind a bit more walking?”
“If it’s okay,” Vivik responded, glancing nervously at his departing tour group.
“I’m staying with Alex,” Eerie said firmly.
“Then it is settled,” Dr. Graaf said, chuckling and clapping his hands together. “I believe you will all find this very much of interest.”
Katya folded her arms and cleared her throat.
“Um...”
Alex struggled to find a way to defuse the situation, but Dr. Graaf proved imperturbable.
“And, naturally, Miss Zharova will accompany us,” Dr. Graaf added. “Why would I pass up such a prime opportunity to deflate some of her unfounded suspicions? And I am certain that, somewhere, Miss Martynova is simply dying to know what we are up to.”
***
“You are a very curious creature, Miss Martynova. I must confess that I had no expectations that the two of us would ever have the opportunity to speak, much less find ourselves in our current circumstances. I find it fascinating, the way our lives are dictated almost entirely by fate, despite our pretensions of control and free will. Would you not agree?”
Brennan Thule paused to pour brandy from a crystal decanter at his side into a cut-glass snifter. The decanter sat on a modest wooden table, and in stark contrast to the rest of the room, which had the sanitary feel of a medical examination facility, if one ignored the reinforced doors and the absence of windows.
There was pain. Of course.
Her memories of the last many hours were fragmented by injections and trauma, but the pain was a constant, threading through her awareness like a live electrical wire, vivid against a drug-dimmed background.
“I am aware of your reputation, naturally,” Brennan Thule remarked, swirling the brandy in his glass and then setting it abruptly aside. “Despite my relatively short tenure in Central, it would be nearly impossible not to hear the rumors and speculation. There are any number of parties that have sought your demise, after all, and none that have achieved that particular satisfaction. I am somewhat surprised,” Brennan admitted, with a small smile that exposed crooked teeth, “to count myself among their ranks. Forewarned is purportedly forearmed, and the Thule Cartel invested significant resources into your investigation. Our plan was constructed on the basis of past failures.”
Anastasia stared at Brennan Thule with dispassionate eyes, weeping at the corners, a side effect of the drugs that still wreaked havoc throughout her system. She became aware of powerful, profound thirst, and once she became aware of it, the sensation swelled and became maddening. Her vision was clouded, and his face swam and mutated as she watched, fixated on his bad teeth for unknown and unknowable reasons.
She succumbed to the fixation. It was better, after all, than looking at the tools arrayed neatly on the countertop behind him, better than ruminating over her thirst. To the untrained eye, the tools would have appeared to be instruments of surgery, but Anastasia harbored no such illusions, and steeled herself for things to get worse.
“I have no objection to sharing our reasoning with you,” Brennan Thule offered generously, taking up his snifter again, but not drinking. “We felt that previous attempts on your life
failed because of their dependence on the usage of protocols. This is rather natural for our kind, is it not? They are the abilities that differentiate us from the chattel, the tools that define and exalt us above others. When one is capable of causing instantaneous, telepathic death, or empathically inducing suicide, a firearm seems a crude instrument by comparison. More than one Operator has fallen due to overreliance on their protocol, so we were determined not to repeat past mistakes, when it came to the necessity of your elimination.”
She was dressed in a hospital shift, a garment that implied vulnerability and accessibility, which was not lost on Anastasia. She – and by extension, the Black Sun itself – abhorred such blunt and crude methods, on the rationale that they debased the questioner as much as the subject of the questions, but her reasoning on the subject was far from universally acknowledged. The rough fabric of the shift was wet beneath her, soiled as a result of her prolonged restraint. Another tactic to embarrass and degrade. The restraints that bound her wrists and ankles were metal, tightened to the point that they abraded her skin, and angled so that her shoulders and legs were pressed painfully against the table, forcing her into a contorted and exhausting position.
If she could, Anastasia would have laughed at the base and pathetically transparent tactics of her captors. But her brain was heavy with drugs, and her tongue swollen in her mouth, so she did not.
“The initial attack was made via cruise missile,” Brennan Thule added, taking a sip from his glass and then setting it aside. “The high-explosive warhead demolished your vehicle, and the impact and shrapnel were assumed to be more than sufficient to kill all occupants. Nonetheless, I dispatched a unit of assassins in its wake, to make certain what too many have assumed. They discovered the partially incinerated corpses of your two security guards and your driver, and yourself, unconscious with smoldering clothing, otherwise unharmed.”
Brennan Thule paused for effect, studying Anastasia for any hint of a reaction. Whatever he expected, he was apparently disappointed by her continued stoicism. His expression briefly soured.
“There proved to be insufficient time to finish the job before your servants could respond,” Brennan Thule added airily, gesturing as if what he described was meaningless to both of them. “Given the shortage of time, the decision was made to transport you to a more secure location, where a more prolonged and thorough examination could take place. As you are doubtless aware, further attempts have proved just as fruitless. We have established, over these last few days, that you can be injured, that you can suffer, but you are rather persistent in your refusal to die. That is rather vexing.”
Brennan Thule paused for another long drink. The sluggish nanites within her were slowly purging the drugs from her system. Despite her parched throat and thick tongue, Anastasia decided to risk speech, sensing that he would shortly end his monologue if not provided with a response.
“I am puzzled by your actions.” She managed not to slur, but her speech lacked its normal crisp diction. Anastasia was mildly disappointed in her body’s weakness, but the value of silence had run its course. “It would seem to me that, if you viewed me as an adversary, then the potential worth of my capture – for both informational and bargaining purposes – would greatly exceed the reward of my demise.”
Brennan Thule clapped in evident delight.
“Finally, a word for your hosts! Truly, this morning’s progress has been astounding.” Brennan Thule stood and walked across the room, to a callbox inset near the steel-lined door, and whispered a series of commands in Danish that Anastasia was too hazy to understand. “Allow me to clarify. You deeply underestimate the amount of respect that we of the Thule Cartel accord you, Miss Martynova.”
Anastasia glanced at the examination table, the soiled shift, her contorted body.
“I wonder how I could have misunderstood that.”
Brennan Thule laughed uproariously.
“In our decades of exile, we have had ample time to consider possibilities. Our return was inevitable – the Director would have declared us Anathema and been done with it, otherwise. It was natural that we would speculate on the circumstances that would await us, when we were welcomed back. We watched all that happened, all of the affairs of Central, with great interest,” Brennan Thule explained, standing to her right, his hands resting on the table. “You may take some satisfaction in the fact that there were only two factors which gave us pause – yourself, and the Anathema.”
“My ability to take satisfaction in anything is quite limited at the moment.”
He laughed again. The door opened with a clang as magnetic bolts slid back. Two functionaries in featureless white masks entered and deposited a carafe of water and a pile of what appeared to be clothes on the countertop, beside the tools of examination, and left without saying a word.
“To extract information from you, or to use you to bargain, would mean it would be necessary to keep you alive.”
“A tragic necessity.”
“Indeed. One that we decided outweighed any possible gain. Though circumstances have conspired to bring about that which we feared nonetheless. Something I would guess you are beginning to understand yourself, no?”
If he expected an answer, then he didn’t wait for it. He walked to the counter, took a glass from a cupboard, and filled it halfway with water from the carafe. Anastasia’s throat tightened involuntarily.
“We feared your unknown abilities, and the rather well-known abilities of your followers, too greatly to assume the risk of keeping you alive,” Brennan Thule explained, pausing to drain the glass of water, smacking his lips in satisfaction. “Since we have yet to devise a solution to the problem of your continued existence, we naturally elected to make the best of a bad situation. Thus, you were brought here in order to maintain perfect secrecy while we attempt to divine the nature of your Deviant Protocol, and a manner by which we might end your life.”
Anastasia said nothing. Her thirst had become overwhelming the moment she saw water. A side effect of the drugs and her prolonged confinement, surely, but it was almost enough to challenge her cultivated self-control.
Almost.
“I must admit that your nature is a great curiosity – to us, perhaps, more than most,” Brennan Thule mused, refilling the glass and then resting it on the edge of the table, beside her hand. “You are aware of the nature of the sins that led to our expulsion from Central, I assume?”
Anastasia shook her head, though she knew perfectly well, keeping her eyes off the glass by an act of will.
“I doubt the truth of that very much, but I will explain nonetheless. The precognitives of our cartel survey potential recruits from among our children. Those who show potential are registered with Central and promised to the Academy – as the law demands. Our violation of that law is that we have withheld nanite injections from the children whose potential is deemed to be insufficient. Instead, multiple injections are provided to the recruits selected by the precognitives to have the most potential.” Brennan Thule smiled as he ran his finger along the rim of the glass of water. Anastasia fought to keep her eyes from drifting to the movement. “Naturally, this limits our numbers in two ways – first, the loss of low-potential Operators; second, the higher instance of death upon repeated nanite injection. I’m told that the mortality rate typically doubles each time another dose of nanites is introduced. The reward to our philosophy, however, is that the strong among us are very strong. I believe that I can say, without braggadocio, that I am one of the strongest among a group from which the weak have been culled.”
Anastasia felt that definitely qualified as bragging, but she had no intention of interrupting his speech.
“The reason that I bring this up is rather simple – one of the protocols that I operate allows me a measure of control over technology – technopathy, as some have called it. Machine telepathy, in simpler terms.” Brennan Thule allowed some of the water in the glass to slop on the tile. “Suffice to say, for the last hour, I
have been instructing the nanites inside you, Miss Martynova, to end your life. Failing that, I have entreated them to cease functioning, denying you access to both your protocol and the biological enhancements with which all Operators are gifted. I have found them to be most recalcitrant, which is an event so rare in my life that I would describe it as unique.”
Now she understood – the malfunctioning communications and jamming gear in the limo, the cruise missile, the sluggishness of her system in ridding her of the toxins, and the feebleness of her own protocol. Brennan Thule’s abilities were considerably beyond what her intelligence had indicated – an oversight that could prove dangerous, if not handled delicately.
“I have been told,” Anastasia said, her voice raspy with thirst, “that new experiences are what keep life fresh and exciting.”
Brennan Thule laughed again as he refilled the glass with the remainder of the water in the carafe.
“It is as you say,” he agreed pleasantly. “I am not overly fond, however, of phenomena that I cannot understand. I assume – and I am not fond of assumptions, either – that this remarkable turn of events is due to your Deviant Protocol. As I see it, this leaves us with two potential courses of actions to remedy our current impasse.”
Anastasia’s throat ached as she struggled to swallow, to clear her mouth enough for words.
“You have my rapt attention.”
Brennan Thule smiled. She simply could not understand why his teeth were so crooked. Were there no orthodontists in Iceland?
“The path that I regard as preferable requires concessions from us both. I would initiate the process by conceding that I was, in fact, mistaken, and that killing you was not the best way to rectify our various differences. I would recognize the greater value in keeping you alive, and use you to strike an acceptable balance of power with the Black Sun Cartel, in turn securing a viable future for both our organizations. This would require the concession of dominance on your part – but in return, you would have the conciliation of continued existence. Should you choose this option, all that would be necessary to begin is for you to share the secrets of your intriguing Deviant Protocol, the knowledge of which would obviously grant me considerable power over you. Then we could continue our conversation in more comfortable circumstances, away from the potential unpleasantness that surrounds us, with you provided with the clothing, sustenance, and drink that you currently lack. I believe this is the course of actions which befits two civilized personages such as ourselves. Don’t you agree?”
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 30