He said it hatefully, spitefully, but with a smile.
“We had zero intel on you and your role in the organization. Suddenly, this plan was lopsided. I was getting what I wanted, but the sudden rise in Amrian’s stocks after your little stunt with the food distribution was hurting Rock Solid in a big way. You were a ticking time bomb, and we needed to diffuse you before you caused some real problems.
“Fortunately for us, our mole in The Red Hand kept us up-to-date on all the important stuff. She’s how we knew there was a breech in the security system, she’s how we knew when the attempted takeover would be happening, and she’s how we knew the reason they’d been able to install it was because they had gotten in the house with you two.”
He points at Jacob and me. “But you started showing your hand early, Maverick. The decisions you made were bizarre and counterproductive. Chatting with Gwen? Why? Talking to my staff? Made no sense. It made me start to think that you really didn’t have any idea what you were getting yourself into.
“But the thing that did it for me was the donation. That donation was the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever seen. It was clever from a public relations perspective, no doubt, but I knew the second I heard about it that anyone saying Don Merkatz was a humble philanthropist had never met him before.”
“Don Merkatz was a heartless bastard,” Mingo says.
Greenstreet smiles. “I knew you were vulnerable. You weren’t an embedded member of the Merkatz elite like you made everyone think. You’re just a stupid girl with schizophrenia that thought she was someone important.”
A sensation like every cell in my body pausing comes over me. “What did you say?”
Greenstreet chuckles. “That’s the other fun little thing that makes this whole mess clearer. Aletheia analyzed your fear response and mapped your brain. You’ve got paranoid schizophrenia. Based on the tapes of you in your cell, though, I imagine you already knew that. But the strange decisions, the delusions of grandeur, all of that makes sense to me now. You’re crazy.”
“No,” I whisper. “That’s a lie.”
“Oh really? How do you explain all those voices you’ve been screaming at for the last four weeks?”
I can’t explain it, but it can’t be true.
-Stupid girl. You’re just like Scarlet,- the Dark Voice says.
Just like Scarlet, an unidentifiable voice whispers.
Just like Scarlet.
Just like Scarlet.
Just like your mother.
Just like your mother.
Just like your mother.
Crazy is as crazy does.
Crazy is as crazy does.
Crazy is as crazy does.
“Which is great for me. Because now anything you say can’t be taken seriously. Poor Norah put all her eggs in the wrong basket.”
“Norah?” I croak, my throat suddenly dry.
“I always knew she had something to do with this, but I could never prove it. She and Don are cut from the same cloth: cold, conniving, selfish. I could never pin the underground movement on her, though. Auntie wouldn’t tell us who was in charge. Norah’s too well connected, has too many resources. Auntie was afraid to snitch on her until the very end when we had a gun to her head.”
Mingo grimaces. “Norah’s gone, though. Her home was empty, and we couldn’t find her at Amrian. Wherever she hooked herself up for the debate was somewhere secret. She’s long gone now.”
“Doesn’t concern me too much,” Greenstreet says with a smirk. “Her whole plan was to stop me from blowing up those ships. In five minutes, she’ll have officially failed.”
Look at the guards.
I blink in surprise, because that voice is mine. My voice, shouting to overcome the whispers of the others.
I look. The one standing by me is looking at Greenstreet and Zimmerman, holding his assault rifle loosely. He’s wearing what I can assume to be a bullet proof vest and a holster with a handgun in it. The clasp that holds the firearm securely in the holster isn’t clipped.
The other is standing by Jacob, a bit more attentive but still not on alert. Both guards are dressed identically. But why are there only two? This is the vice president. Why isn’t there a security detail?
An idea slithers into my mind and hardens like concrete.
I know how I’m going to get out of this.
I pull myself to my feet with great effort. I sway a little, then find my footing. “Norah will beat the two of you,” I say. “Just wait and see.”
Greenstreet rolls his eyes, but Mingo’s face twists into a knot of rage. He stomps over and slaps me in the face.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!”
The hit throws me backwards into my guard. I bounce off him and fall to the floor in a heap. I lift my head to look at Jacob. His eyes lock on to mine. I give him a quick nod and hope he understands what it means.
Mingo takes a few more steps, then stops and sneers at me.
“Stupid little bitch.”
I smile.
I pull around the handgun I’ve swiped and shoot my guard in the side of the head.
Mingo staggers backward as Jacob rams into his guard. The guard and Jacob hit the ground.
I pull the handgun up and shoot Mingo Zimmerman in the face.
Then I take aim at Greenstreet. He’s vaulted over a glass desk and is trying to get away. I run after him, pulling the trigger at will.
One bullet finally catches him in the knee. He collides with one of the chairs on his way down. I walk over to him as he starts to scream in fear.
“No! No, no, no, leave me alone, get away from me!”
I shoot him in the other knee.
He screams again, covers his head with his hands, and buries his face into the ground. “Oh God! No, please, please, leave me alone!” he screams.
I walk to his side. “Turn over!”
He hesitates.
I fire the gun. The bullet lodges into the floor next to his head. He scrambles to turn and face me. “No, no, no, please don’t kill me.”
Since I’ve known him, I’ve never seen Greenstreet scared. He’s ugly when he’s frightened.
I raise the gun and take aim. “Go to hell.”
A gun fires. But it’s not mine.
Searing, ripping pain blasts through my right shoulder. My body spins out of control with the force, and I slam into the ground before I understand what has happened.
I turn my head, looking for the person who took the shot. I find him, still pointing the gun at me.
It’s Jacob.
Chapter 15
Jacob walks over to the vice president, steely faced.
Greenstreet is still screaming. “Please don’t kill me!”
Jacob pistol whips him across the temple. Greenstreet stops moving.
I’m trying to call out, but I’m having a very hard time breathing. I clutch my shoulder. It’s covered in warm, sticky blood.
Jacob grabs the vice president under the armpits, drags him to a console, and drops the body in a lifeless heap. He taps the glass on the podium a few times, then looks at the giant screen on the wall. I turn to look as well, but I can’t read the words. My eyes won’t focus.
I look back to Jacob. He’s hoisting Greenstreet’s body into a chair. He takes the VP’s hand and presses it into the glass. There’s a loud beep, then silence.
Jacob pries Greenstreet’s eyes open and presses the vice president’s face into the glass.
Another beep.
Jacob collapses in a nearby chair and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he looks around the room, then down at me.
I try to speak, but all I do is gasp.
“None of this was supposed to happen,” Jacob says without blinking. “I wasn’t supposed to be locked in a dungeon for a month and tortured. I didn’t expect to relive every bad memory I’ve ever had.”
Tears fall down my blood-splattered face.
“It was never about you, Maverick. It was never about Norah o
r a new form of government. There’s already a group of people who know how to rule us. We don’t need anyone else.”
He points to the screen.
“The Martian ships will land soon. Everything will be better. They’ll treat us fairly and not like animals. They’ll unite humanity, not divide it. It’s the only way to fix this broken world. We have to go back to the way it was. The way it used to be. Before Mars. I … I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes and keep my hand pressed against my chest, but it’s doing very little to staunch the blood pouring from it. I’m very, very tired. I’ve heard enough people talk about being shot and watched enough crime dramas to know I shouldn’t fall asleep.
But I can’t help it. I close my eyes and give in to the soft blackness waiting for me.
Chapter 16
Voices. From outside my head. My one good ear hears voices.
I take a breath to call out. The pain makes me want to die.
I can’t think. That’s what happens when you lose a lot of blood, right? I’ll feel cold soon if the movies are right.
Eric Whitacre’s “Water Night” starts to play in my head. It’s nice. Really nice. I could slip into the In-Between right now and cease to exist.
But the pain. It hurts so much to live right now. My heart is broken, and I’m in so much pain. I want to die. Why won’t I die?
The voices are closer, but I don’t care. Literally nothing could happen to me right now that would make this situation worse.
Then a hand presses into my shoulder with what feels like the force of a rhinoceros. I take a shuddering breath, one lung filling with oxygen while the other fills with blood.
Nope, I was wrong. Things are somehow worse. I open my eyes to see who I’m going to wish an early entry into hell.
It can’t be. I must be dead, because there’s no way.
Esau?
I try to shout his name. I feel myself smiling, and I want to reach out and touch his stupid robot face. I never thought I’d miss him, but my overwhelming joy eclipses my pain for a brief moment.
Oh my God, he’s crying! Over me! I try to talk, but I can’t. But I need to tell Esau that I’m happy he’s alive. That I need him by my side. That he and Mika are the closest things I have to friends. That I love them both dearly.
He smiles back. Tears are cascading down his face, but he’s smiling with me. He’s still pressing really hard into my wound, but I don’t care anymore.
My poor right ear, working overtime, gets some words through to my brain. Esau’s saying something like, “Hold on, Mav.” He may be saying something else, but I don’t care. I know I’m going to die.
My vision swims, and Esau’s face slips in and out of focus. All the words I want to say won’t come out, so I smile. I put all my energy into keeping a grin on my face because I want Esau to know I’m happy to see him.
I focus all my energy on listening to his voice. It’s angry and desperate.
“Jacob, how could you do this to her? She’s dying!”
Jacob’s voice comes from somewhere around me. “I told you, Esau. You, Naomi, and I were supposed to be the only ones here when this happened. The Martians won’t take anyone else.”
Esau looks up and away from me, presumably at Jacob. For someone who never shows emotion, seeing rage on his face is terrifying.
“You didn’t have to shoot her!” he yells.
“She was going to kill Greenstreet!” Jacob shouts back. “I didn’t know that you’d be here! I couldn’t risk her blowing his head off when we still might need his voice to gain access to the computer.”
Esau looks back down at me. “No, I don’t believe that. There had to be another way. You could have shot her in the knee. In the hand. You shot her in the back!”
Jacob grabs Esau by the front of his shirt and jerks him upwards. I can only see his hands and arms.
“Are you criticizing me, brother? After being locked away and tortured, are you criticizing me?”
“Yes!” Esau yells back, trying to break free. “I thought you were better than this. The Jacob I thought I knew would never shoot someone in the back to save himself.”
“Spare me the speech, Esau. I just secured you a comfortable living with the Martians. I did what I had to do for us.”
Esau shakes his head. “No. Not for us. The Red Hand was a resistance. One person had to die, and that person was Greenstreet. No one else was supposed to get hurt. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“That’s too damn bad, brother. You can’t walk away.”
“You’re right. I can’t walk away. From Mav. I’m not going with you. I’m staying here with her.”
“Will both of you shut up!” someone else shouts from across the room.
If I wasn’t delirious from blood loss, I’d be surprised to hear Naomi’s voice.
“I need silence for this next part. I’ve got one shot. There’s no guarantee the recording we got will work. We have Greenstreet alive and could use his actual voice, but we all know that could take some time.”
Esau breaks free from Jacob’s grip and squats back down to where I am on the floor. He presses his hands back into my chest wound. It still hurts, but not as badly as before. That’s probably not a good sign.
As I look into Esau’s face, I watch in horror as the end of a handgun presses against his temple.
Rage on Esau’s face was terrible, but betrayal is worse.
“Jacob …”
“You say one word to keep the recording from being analyzed, I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
Esau stammers, but falls silent.
“Here we go,” Naomi says.
Like a ghost, Greenstreet’s disembodied voice echo’s through the chamber. “This is Michael Greenstreet. Password is Aletheia.”
A third beep occurs, then a series of whirs and clicking sounds.
Jacob pulls the gun away from Esau. “Looks like Plan A worked. We don’t need you after all, Mr. Vice President. Goodbye.”
The sound of a gunshot tears through the room.
“How much more time do you need?” Jacob asks.
“Two minutes, tops,” Naomi responds. “I’m shutting down the guns pointed at the ships as we speak. The window will be short, but they’ll be descending as soon as the nukes are fully offline.”
Jacob wastes no time. “Esau, I know you’re upset, but the Martians are coming. We can talk about this later, but you need to come with us.”
Esau doesn’t look up. He stays focused on me.
“Esau, come on.”
“It’s okay, Mav. Everything’s going to be okay,” Esau says to me instead.
“Esau!” Jacob screams.
Esau flinches, but won’t look up.
“After all we’ve been through, you’re going to abandon me? Here at the end?” Jacob asks. His voice is desperate, almost like a child’s would be if they were being separated from their parent.
“Come on, Jacob,” Naomi says with caution. “We need to go. The Martians are expecting us.”
“No, not without him.”
“Jacob, he’s not coming. Let’s go.” I hear the heavy fall of her tactical boots as she hurries away from us.
“Esau … I can’t do this without you.”
“You’ll have to figure it out, because I’m not coming.”
Jacob stutters and stammers, but no actual words come out.
“Jacob!” Naomi shouts.
Esau still hasn’t looked up to acknowledge his brother. He’s pressing into my chest and smiling, but tears are running down his face. Seconds later, I hear rapid footsteps moving away from us. An automatic door swooshes. Then silence.
“Water Night” is still playing in my mind, the sorrowful strings the perfect accompaniment to the end of my life. I close my eyes again.
I wish Esau knew how happy I was to see him. How much it meant to me that he would stay with me here at the end so I wasn’t alone.
For a robot, he sure is a wonderful human being
.
Hey.
The voices have stopped.
It’s finally quiet.
Chapter 17
Damn it. I’m alive.
I know I should be grateful and all that garbage, but I’m not. That was a beautiful ending. Tragically dying in an attempt to make the world a better place. Discovering one of my friends survived and loves me. Knowing I’d ended things trying to do what was best.
Now, I have to live with the ugly truths of my life instead. Before I even open my eyes to discover where I am, I know my existence from this point will be broken.
Mika is dead. Jacob shot me and left me for dead. I killed Mingo Zimmerman and a guard. I helped assassinate the vice president of USEM. Or are we just the US again?
My newly awakened consciousness is bombarded with suffocating fear, heart-wrenching sadness, burning rage, and overwhelming pain.
This. This is why I want to be dead.
The soft beeps, blurps, and whirls of hospital equipment surround me, but I don’t know if this is a public hospital or one in a prison. I haven’t stirred or made a noise. If anyone is in the room, they won’t know I’m awake. Despite the fact my eyes feel like they’ve been glued shut, I know I have two seconds to scope the room. It could be the most important two seconds of my life.
With all my strength, I open my eyes.
I’m in a windowless hospital room. Three people are in it with me. Esau is on my left, asleep in a chair. Amina is sitting right next to my bed, holding my hand. She’s asleep, too. Sybil Metross sits in a chair positioned in front of the door.
Sybil Metross. A woman who, like me, is supposed to be dead.
She and Norah share a similar queenly air of control. But Norah exudes a loud confidence: bold colors, bold statements, every little detail of her appearance and speech in place. I can tell by the way she sits and dresses, though, that Sybil possesses a quiet confidence. Her gray toned clothes match her silvering, dreaded hair. Her soft brown skin and freckled, aged face is unremarkable but at the same time make her very approachable.
Norah is the kind of queen who would send her fair share of enemies to the guillotine. Sybil strikes me as the kind of person I’d confess my sins to before I realized what was going on.
Betrayed: Episode Three of the Sister Planets Series Page 6