by Adam Thielen
“Well, does Ajay here have any skills?” asked Cho, looking over the well-groomed man with jet-black hair parted neatly. His cheeks were boyishly round while the rest of his features were sharp.
Ajay did not respond but allowed Anne to answer.
“I trust him with my life,” she said. “And I’ve been alive a while.”
“I’m trusting his life with you now,” said Tsenka, nodding at Taq.
Anne grinned. “He’s in good hands, dear.”
The small motel room Anne had booked was modest but clean. She and Taq continued to catch up while they waited for the delivery. Courtemanche put on some calming music with blues overtones and a rhythm of gently rolling waves. Both lay on their sides on their respective beds, facing each other.
“How did you end up in India?” asked Taq.
“That’s a long and complicated story,” replied Anne.
“Maybe it will help me sleep.”
“You can’t sleep yet, not until you’ve taken your medicine,” she chided.
“Very well, mom.”
“Mum,” corrected Anne.
“Right. So, tell me your story,” he requested a second time.
“You know, I thought if I ever saw you again, you’d want to know why I left, but I guess that doesn’t really matter,” she said. “That’s where this journey started. My mother was a rather renowned neurosurgeon, and Israel Infosys was poaching talent for their mage research division. They offered her almost double what her current job was paying. You probably know how that turned out.”
“The war.”
“Not a great word for what happened,” continued Anne. “We were lucky to be alive, really. My parents and I were transported east. They tried to protect me, but there was nothing they could do. My internment was…”
Anne stopped to breathe. “It was an awakening. I learned that at their core, below the rules and scheming and politeness, people are rotten.”
“Surely not everyone,” said Taq.
“Even someone like you, even me,” she asserted. “We just have more layers between our cores and our fellow man. Better, stronger layers. Anyway, when the camps were dissolved, we continued east. For a few years, we begged and did odd jobs and scavenged. It wasn’t a pretty life. In Pakistan, my father found steady work in construction while my mother started doing research and writing papers based on her work in Israel.”
Anne smiled faintly. “Even this broken world couldn’t keep us down. Mum hired a team, started her own company, and three years later a corp named Bright Cloud bought them out. I was thirty when we moved here, and I didn’t share my mother’s passion for the company life. So she gave me some money and let me travel around. I returned to watch over my father when he came down with toxic marrow disease. After he passed, I decided to stay in the country to keep mum company and help her when I could.”
“That must have been about the time you started your own family,” guessed Taq.
“I already had a daughter from a previous fling,” she said. “But I found a husband—a second one—shortly after moving back and had two boys. Bright Cloud became Cepheid and I didn’t care for the change in management, so I left. Then when the government reformed, I joined the Liberty party. I tried to run for office but lost in a landslide. But in the process, I had developed connections, and the UTI board offered me a role in a new department. Now I’m here.”
“Is your mom still around?”
Anne frowned. “A little of her is left, but just a little. She’s an old gal, but I suspect exposure to toxins in food and water damaged her brain.”
“Very likely,” said Taq. “Things were bad in North America. I imagine worse elsewhere.”
“She’s in a home,” said Anne. “I should visit more.”
“I’m sure it’s not easy,” said Taq.
“No, it’s not.”
A few minutes later, Anne’s neural interface notified her that her package had been delivered to the front desk. She left the room and returned a minute later with a small, flimsy-looking box. Courtemanche opened it, revealing a pill bottle and a syringe.
Taq stood next to her and peered inside. He straightened and looked at Anne. “Now, hold on, this is an injection?”
“Aww, you afraid of a little needle?” she teased.
“Maybe. You made it sound like it was something I have to take regularly.”
“The pills take a while,” Anne explained. “So I’m going to jump-start you with an injection. Then you can take two of these pills twice a day.” She plucked the bottle from the box. “There’s enough for a week here, and if it works we can get you more.”
“How much is this going to cost me?” he asked.
Anne laughed. “We don’t sell it, not yet at least. I imagine it would fetch a pretty penny, but at least for now, you can consider yourself a test subject.”
“Just have to wait until I’m addicted to start milking me,” concluded Taq. “Can you just squirt the needle into my mouth?”
“Oh, just hold your arm out,” she commanded.
Taq obeyed, wincing as Anne poked him. She managed to suppress most of an eye roll, then opened the pill bottle and dumped two capsules into his palm.
“Now?”
“Yes, sir,” she affirmed, handing him his bottle of cola fizz.
After swallowing he stared at the needle mark on his arm as a small dot of blood grew into a bead. Anne noticed and took a cotton swab from the box and pressed it gently against the spot. Her cool fingertips brushed lightly against Taq’s arm.
“Now what?” he asked.
She grinned. “Now, you get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be an exciting day.”
* * *
Tsenka sat next to the window with the bodyguard Ajay Pisha beside her. They made small talk for the first five minutes of the trip, then ran out of things they wanted to ask or reveal. As the sun disappeared behind the horizon, Cho felt her strength return and her mind sharpen. She opened the encrypted message she had received the night before. It read:
I have what you’ve been looking for. Come find me. Alone. Quickly. Delete now. -77x 120y - MT
Is it really him? she wondered. He was the only man she had truly loved, from a time when love was still a thing she felt. What does he want? What have I been looking for? Why now?
She obeyed, committing the message to her brain matter then deleting the file, and spent the rest of the trip watching video streams through her HUD and relaxing.
Bengaluru was the last bastion of a theocracy that had once been far-reaching. While technically a territory under the banner of the UTI, it was still governed by Hindu leaders and descendants of warlords. Spared much of the destruction of the north, the land remained fertile, but infrastructure for clean water and electricity had not recovered much from post-Collapse neglect. Real food was plentiful, but so was the population that remained hungry. And so the region spun its tires attempting to cultivate an agriculture industry that, through trade, could bring in much-needed foreign resources and technology.
Ajay and Tsenka deboarded onto a wooden platform. It was dark, with a lamp glowing above the nearest street corner. The stars shone as brightly as Tsenka had ever witnessed. She turned off her HUD to fully take in the sight, then heard Ajay step next to her. He looked up, unsure what he should be looking for.
“We’re so tiny,” she said.
Ajay looked at her. “Speak for yourself.” He continued moving toward their cab, a retrofitted Volkswagen with more damage than paint. The engine started as he approached, whining and hissing from lack of proper maintenance.
Tsenka lowered her gaze and followed him, carrying her sword by its blood-red sheath. They boarded the car, with Ajay in the driver’s seat and Tsenka on the torn cloth seat next to him with her blade resting on her lap.
“Is this thing safe to drive?” she asked.
Ajay pressed the brake pedal lightly with one foot and the throttle with the other. The rear wheels spun while the fron
t kept the vehicle in place. He turned the wheel and swung the back of the car around then let off the brakes and tore down the road.
“I love rentals,” he said.
“I bet they don’t love you.”
He shrugged. “It’s just how you have to drive around here. Scare off the beggars.”
“Right,” said Cho. “Is the lab far?” She stared out the window at the darkness punctuated by occasional points of light. There were more trees lining the road than she had seen since arriving in Mumbai. Small wooden and concrete-framed homes were packed tightly together, covered with proper siding as opposed to the sea of makeshift housing she had left behind.
“Not far outside of town,” replied Ajay. “Informants here tell us it’s still in use. Like they aren’t trying to hide it.”
“And they won’t mind us snooping about at night?”
“Well, the personnel won’t be around,” he said. “The security guys just have to verify who we are.”
“You and Anne seem very confident considering what they pulled this morning,” said Cho.
“All bluster,” said Ajay. “We have a large federal militia. It would be suicide for them to attack the government.”
“But he tried to shoot her,” pressed Cho.
“There’s always some idiot in these groups,” he replied, waving his hand in front of his face. “He’ll be out on his ass, but we probably won’t charge him. Not even worth the trouble.”
Tsenka shook her head in disbelief as the car rolled up to a metal barrier composed of angled slats, all driven into the ground parallel to each other. The stylistic fence went on for a hundred meters, but the car stopped at the midpoint on the side of the perimeter facing a circle drive.
The cab stopped next to a pole sticking out of the ground. Ajay rolled down his window to address it. “Ajay Pisha, assistant on authority of Anne Courtemanche, director of Mage Affairs, here to inspect.”
After waiting twenty seconds, he tried again. “Anybody home? Please answer.”
After another pause, a voice crackled from a small speaker hole, “This is an inconvenient time. Please come back tomorrow during business hours.”
Ajay turned to Cho and grinned, then back to the pole. “Has to be now. Please open.”
Without further protest, the vertical slats in front of the car descended into the ground, revealing a modern dome-shaped building. Ajay donned a smug look and cruised onto the lab’s grounds. The narrow lane led to a small parking lot with three black vans already occupying it. Lights recessed into the ground illuminated the area, casting overlapping shadows onto the dome.
A large man wearing glossy body armor on his arms, shoulders, chest, and legs approached Ajay’s side of the car.
“Mr. Pisha,” he addressed. “I will be your escort. What is it you’d like to see?”
Ajay stepped out of the cab, and Tsenka followed suit. She walked around the car, sheath still in hand. The guard captain stared at her as she pulled the strap over her neck, fastening the blade behind her back.
“We want to see it all,” declared Ajay. “Lead—”
“Your mages,” interrupted Cho.
“What?” asked the guard. Ajay jerked his head in Tsenka’s direction.
“Show us your mages,” she repeated.
The guard looked at Ajay. “What do you mean?”
“You, uh, heard the woman,” Pisha responded.
The guard seemed frozen as icy gears slipped in their attempts to turn over in his head. He turned to Tsenka, then to Ajay, then back to Tsenka. He placed a hand to the side of his helmet. “I’m taking them to the residence.” Then, “Yes. I know. I am letting you know. Okay. Understood.”
He looked to Tsenka, this time sure who to address. “Follow me. I’ll take you to where we house our mages.” He turned and walked up to a set of double doors made of smooth featureless steel. They slowly slid open while he stood and waited.
“Residences,” said Cho. “They had better look like residences.”
Ajay placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned toward her. “Easy,” he whispered.
The guard walked through the doors with guests in tow. “Despite your authority, Cepheid is acting in accordance with government regulation. And,” he continued, “before you judge, consider the poverty many in this country suffer.”
Tsenka could not help herself. “Do you apply that logic to residents brought from other countries against their will?”
Ajay sighed audibly.
The guard did not seem disturbed by the accusation. He pondered the question. “I am just a guard,” he concluded. “But that sounds ridiculous.”
“We’ll see,” said Cho.
“Yes, you will,” he agreed.
The captain of the Cepheid lab security team met with a second guard standing outside of a checkpoint just inside the entrance. Together, the four walked down a series of corridors, coming to a large metal door that swung open on its hinges. It sat ajar as if the residents on the other side were free to come and go as they pleased, but Cho suspected it had been opened in anticipation of their arrival.
Cho studied the gear both men wore, noting the dull gleam of polonium laced into their weapons and armor as they passed through the door. As Tsenka expected, the next section was little more than a prison. Tsenka stomped the tile floor with her heel, creating a loud CRACK.
All three men turned to look at her, and Cho feigned anger. “Outrageous!” As the echoes returned to her sensors, her HUD mapped out the interior of the prison segment and radiated further outward with less accuracy.
“Mages are people, too,” she declared, the men still staring at her. At this, the guards rolled their eyes and the captain gestured at the wall of one of the cells while Ajay nervously glanced around at his surroundings.
“Walls,” he said. “They get some privacy. The interior is clean. Food, water, electricity,” he lectured. “Like I said, they have it pretty good, and mages all over are imprisoned in far worse places.”
Internally, Cho agreed. Externally, she decided not to. “I would like to see and speak with each resident, and we will need to examine your records.”
The guards looked at each other. Ajay’s eyes moved from the armed men to the door of the prison.
“We have windows and cameras where you can observe them,” the captain said. “Interviewing them and giving you our records… I could lose my job.”
“We don’t want that,” said Ajay.
Cho stabbed him with her eyes.
“But,” he continued, “we still need to see them.”
“Let me make some calls,” said the guard. “This is above my pay grade.” He looked to his colleague. “Let them observe our residents, look at photos, that sort of thing. No interaction or other data yet.”
His partner nodded.
“What about names?” asked Tsenka.
The captain shook his head. “Not until I’ve talked to an executive or someone else willing to take the heat for this.” He turned and marched out of the prison section.
“Well,” said Ajay. “Let’s have a look at your inmates.”
“Residents,” corrected the guard.
“Tomato,” said Cho.
The guard shot her a puzzled look, then turned to the window of the first cell. It was small, and a curtain on the inside prevented them from peeping. The security guard placed his hand to the wall and a screen built into it displayed the feed from a camera placed in a ceiling corner of the room. The mage, as expected, was asleep on a small but comfortable-looking twin mattress. His face was only partially visible, but it clearly was not Desre. The guard pulled up a series of mug shots for further verification.
From cell to cell they traveled and spied on the mages. Half of them slept while the other half played games or read. Tsenka was earnestly surprised by the interior of the cells. Each was decorated in a unique fashion, with different color schemes, furniture, and lighting. The mages each had a translucent curtain around their bathroo
m corners, a fridge, a smart wall, and other niceties. She began to wonder how many would leave even if given the chance.
The number of prisoners sat at almost two dozen, and when they reached number twenty-three, Tsenka sighed. Desre was not among them. She turned to the guard.
“Where are the rest?”
“The—this is all of them, ma’am.”
“There are none in testing cells or in any of the labs?” asked Cho.
“No—I mean—I’m pretty sure,” he said. “No one is here to observe or do any work. We can go take a look.”
Ajay shrugged. “Why not?”
Cho nodded, and the man led them out of the prison residences and through a second checkpoint. Tsenka glanced at the guard on the inside of the security booth. He stared at her as she passed with his hand resting on the grip of his magrail rifle.
“This is the first of three labs,” the guard announced, gesturing at the darkness. LEDs in the ceiling came to life, illuminating what Cho recognized as a casting room. The walls were padded with flame-retardant foam with thick steel beam braces. Target dummies stood waiting to be tormented, many of them warped, burned, or torn with pieces missing.
“Clearly, no mages hiding in here,” snarked the guard.
As much as Cho wanted to dislike Cepheid, she had to admit that this facility would easily pass regulatory muster, even in the New Republic. She turned around, surveying the room. Ajay and the guard continued their walkthrough toward a rear exit while Tsenka stared at one of the target dummies with a quarter of its head removed. One end of a metal pole was driven up between the dummy’s legs while the other end anchored it to the floor.
Tsenka felt a familiar presence. She turned to look at the men, but their movement had suddenly ceased. She turned further around to see Desre Somer standing before her. She looked almost solid and her face wore an expression of concern.
“Desre!” Cho tried to shout-whisper. Nothing came out of her mouth, but she heard it in her mind. The seer had again brought her into a world of thought that mirrored the facade. “I need answers. I can’t keep chasing you. Where—”