He'd never been much interested in politics, and never would, but he had developed a grudging respect for the rebels, and a willingness to fight on their behalf. Apart from that he didn't have anything much in common with them. He had nothing to say to them and didn't understand or care about what interested them. They thought he was naive, and he thought they were boring. He also spent a lot of time sulking because he no longer had access to the pretty clothes and sparkling parties that had so distracted him when he wasn't in the Arena. The underground didn't have time for nonessentials like fashion or parties. When he wasn't sulking, Finlay tended to brood about the destruction of his Clan, the triumph of his enemies the Wolfes, and what Evangeline was doing without him. All in all, he was a pain in the ass most of the time, knew it, and didn't give a damn. So the underground did their best to keep him busy with missions, for both their sakes. It wasn't difficult. The underground had a lot of enemies, and Finlay had an endless need for a little action.
So he volunteered for all the high-risk missions. The underground accepted, and they were both happy. It was hard to tell which of them was the more surprised that he kept coming back alive.
This mission was pretty typical. The underground had marked a powerful and particularly vocal opponent for death, and Finlay was to be their instrument. Only this time the target and intended victim was the notorious Lord William St. John, Second in Command to the Lord High Dram himself, and therefore constantly surrounded by a small army of well-armed guards and high-tech security. Never moved in public without his people covering the ground for miles around in advance. A portable force Screen for emergencies and his own personal flyer to carry him everywhere. Completely untouchable. Unless you were mad, desperate, or supremely skilled. Like Finlay, who was all three at various times, according to his needs. Which was why he was currently crawling up the side of Tower Silvestri like a tiny gray spider, hopefully overlooked by all.
He finally reached the relatively deep recess he'd noted earlier on the architectural plans the cyberats had dug up for him, and he pulled himself into it. There was just room for him to curl up into a ball and still keep a weather eye on the scene below. He was about a hundred and twenty feet up, and snug as a bug in a rug. Waiting. Lord William St. John would be here soon, according to the underground. Billy boy the bully boy, whose word was death for clones and espers and anyone else who got in his way. Billy the Butcher, hated and reviled by practically everyone, but entirely untouchable because of his position. The Empress was said to be quite fond of him.
And he was coming here to Tower Silvestri, stopping off with his armored entourage to pay his compliments to his friend and ally Lord Silvestri, on his way to officially open a new orphanage nearby. Appropriate really, given how many orphans St. John and his people had created over the last few years. Since Dram became the Empress's official Consort, as well as Warrior Prime, he'd had to delegate most of his duties in the field to his Second in Command, St. John. Billy boy had taken over the pursuit and persecution of potential rebels, and the execution of rogue clones and espers, and did it all with great efficiency and even greater gusto. Blood and death followed in his wake, and he was never known to bring in his prey alive. Cruelty and slaughter were his pastimes; mercy was not in him. The underground had voted unanimously for his death. St. John's execution would send a message to the Imperial Palace that could not be ignored.
No one would weep for his passing, not even his own kind. Of late, St. John had taken to playing politics, seeking to improve his position to something more than just the Lord High Dram's shadow. He went about it with his usual vim and venom, and made enemies among his rivals with sneering abandon. Opening a new orphanage was safe and uncontroversial, and bound to get St. John good publicity. The man of action with a soft spot for big-eyed children. Couldn't fail. All the big holo networks would be there. Finlay grinned. They didn't know it, but they were in for some of their best ever ratings.
Finlay hadn't missed the similarities between himself and St. John. They were both men with a need for blood and death, and a willingness to get their hands dirty in the process. As soldiers in a war they'd have been heroes, feted by all, with medals and commendations. They'd have been comrades, perhaps even friends. Sitting around a roaring fire in winter, with drinks in their hands, toasting old campaigns and lost comrades. But if there was a war, Finlay and St. John were on different sides. And the similarities between Finlay and St. John just made it that much more of a challenge.
Finlay looked up sharply. He could hear the publicity circus approaching. A brass band led the way, marching down the street in full ceremonial uniforms, playing something pointedly martial and patriotic. After them came a full company of St. John's private guards, conditioned by mind techs to be loyal unto death, surrounding a small personal flyer on which St. John stood tall and proud, smiling and waving to the crowds that packed the street. Finlay sniffed, unimpressed. The crowds had appeared with suspicious speed. One might almost think they'd been paid to gather in just the right place to impress the holo cameras.
St. John was looking good in his everyday uniform with no decorations. Nice touch, that. Meant to suggest that at heart he was just one of the boys, just another soldier doing his job. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a barrel chest and a handsome face—the best the body shops could supply. And if his smile was a little practiced and his eyes a little cold, well, people were used to that in the politicians.
Finlay ignored the man, concentrating instead on his flyer. It was really nothing more than a large personalized gravity sled with extra armor, decorated so lavishly with precious metalwork and studded jewels that even Finlay's taste was faintly appalled. You needed style to bring off that kind of excess, and Finlay had a strong suspicion St. John wouldn't know style if it walked up to him on the street and bit his nose. Just another reason to kill him, and put him out of everyone else's misery. The air was shimmering slightly around the flyer; force Screens generated by the craft to ensure the onlookers kept a respectful distance. Strong enough to turn aside an energy beam or the blast from an explosion. St. John's security people knew their business. However, force shields kept out everything. Including air. So the force shields covered only the sides of the craft, leaving the top open so St. John could breathe. It wasn't much of a risk. At the first sight of a flyer or gravity sled approaching from above, the top would be sealed instantly and maintained for us long as it took the potential threat to pass. No problem. Unless of course there was no flyer, no gravity sled. Just one man crouching precariously in a recess in the wall of the tower above St. John.
Finlay grinned. He'd spotted the opening the moment the underground had explained St. John's security setup to him. Attack from above was thought to be impossible, given the surrounding towers' security systems, but even the most sophisticated instruments could be fooled or bypassed by a man willing to take risks; a man who didn't care whether he lived or died. The openness of that thought shocked Finlay for a moment, mostly because it was true. He could live without a Family or his place in society, but he couldn't go on without Evangeline. Events were conspiring to keep them apart, possibly forever, and a life without Evangeline wasn't worth a damn to him. He looked down at the entourage moving into place below him, and his smile widened into a death's-head grin. Someone was going to die soon. St. John stopped his flyer before the tower's main entrance, directly below Finlay, and was preparing to begin his speech. All Finlay had to do was draw his gun and shoot the little toad through the head.
Except, of course, that would have been far too easy. Finlay Campbell had a reputation to uphold.
And he liked to get his hands dirty.
A flick of his hand was all it took to send his rope darting down the side of the tower till it hung unsuspected over St. John's head. It had the same elusive qualities as his chameleon suit, and was for all intents and purposes invisible, even to security systems. Finlay eased himself out of his concealing niche, clinging tightly to his rope
, and leaned out over the long drop. He paused, savoring the moment, and then pushed himself away from the side of the tower, sliding down the rope with gathering speed. Leather gloves protected his hands from the growing friction. Wisps of heated smoke escaped between his fingers as he hurtled down, but he waited till the very last moment to clasp his hands shut, slowing his descent. He freed one hand and drew the dagger from his belt. At the last moment St. John must have heard or sensed something. He looked up, and it was the simplest thing in the world for Finlay to let go of the rope, drop down, and stab St. John neatly through the eye.
The Lord convulsed, his arms flying wide, but he was already dead. Finlay's feet hit the deck of the flyer hard, his leg muscles absorbing the impact. He jerked the dagger out of St. John's ruined eye in a gush of blood, and the Lord slumped bonelessly to the deck, twitching and shuddering. The flyer was still rocking sickly from the impact of Finlay's sudden arrival, and the handful of guards on the flyer with St. John were too busy trying to regain their balance to put up much of a defense when Finlay tore into them with his sword and his dagger and his death's-head grin. He swung his sword in short, chopping arcs, doing the most damage possible without risking the blade getting caught in flesh or clothing. He laughed breathlessly, cutting down the disorientated guards with brutal professionalism, and if sometimes their blades came too close for comfort, he didn't give a damn. He was in his element, doing what he was born to do, and loving it.
His sword slammed into a guard's gut and out again in a flurry of blood, and the blade rose quickly to parry a blow from another guard that would have taken his head off. Finlay was glad someone was making a fight of it. He threw himself at the guard, and for a moment they stood head-to-head, neither giving ground. And then something in the guard's eyes gave him away, and Finlay flung himself to one side, just as the other guard behind him lunged forward. Finlay laughed nastily as the other guard ran through his previous opponent, and cut the man down from behind while his sword was still trapped in his comrade's body. There were only three guards left now, and Finlay disposed of them quickly. He didn't have the time to savor it.
He ran the last guard through with a flourish, jerked the sword out in a welter of blood, and looked about him, taking in the situation. He wasn't even breathing hard. Only a few minutes had passed since he'd struck St. John down, and outside the flyer most of the dead Lord's security people were still trying to figure out some way of getting into the flyer so they could get at his assassin. The force shields were still keeping everyone well back, as they'd been designed to, and as yet it hadn't occurred to any of them to try climbing Tower Silvestri, as Finlay had. One poor fool fired his disrupter at the flyer, and they all had to duck and dodge as the energy beam ricocheted back. Someone with his wits about him was yelling for extra flyers, and Finlay took that as a sign it was time for him to leave.
He moved quickly over to the flyer's controls, stepping carefully over the bodies, and lifted the flyer up into the air. A quick glance around showed him more flyers approaching at speed from the south, and he sent his flyer weaving quickly in and out of the pastel towers, accelerating rapidly to a speed his pursuers would be hard-pressed to match if they had any sense of self-preservation. He laughed aloud and stamped his feet on the deck for the simple pleasure of hearing his boots squelch in the pooled blood of his enemies. He'd done it again, made the kill that everyone said was impossible, and got away with it. He'd shake off the flyers behind him and make his escape. He always did. He glanced back at the dead Lord William St. John, lying very still with a surprised look on his bloody face, and Finlay laughed again. It sounded loud and confident; and if it was a crazy kind of laugh, too, well, Finlay could live with that.
Adrienne Campbell, wife of Finlay, once the scourge of polite company and owner of the biggest, loudest, and foulest mouth in all society, sat fuming before her blank viewscreen and wondered whom to call next. She'd tried practically everyone she could think of, including some she would have sworn she wasn't talking to, but no one would talk to her. Some made excuses, some were rude, but most just instructed their servants to say that they were not at home, the liars. Adrienne had fallen from grace when the Campbell Clan went down in flames, and she was taking it hard. She was now banned and ostracized from the very society she once dominated through the sheer strength of her personality. But that was when she had the power and position of Clan Campbell behind her. Now she was just one of the very few survivors of a broken Clan, and isolated as she'd never been before. No one would talk to her. They were afraid that what happened to her might be catching.
Her cousin by marriage. Robert Campbell, had been protected from the fall by his position in the military. The fleet looked after its own. It was only through his influence and protection that Adrienne had survived the vendetta pursued so viciously and methodically by the triumphant Wolfe Family. Blood had flowed in the streets, with no one to answer the begging and the screams, but she had been left strictly alone. As long as she didn't interfere. So she hardened her heart and locked her door, and didn't answer the desperate knocking that came again and again. They begged and threatened and called her name, and some of them cried; but she sat as far away from the door as she could, with her hands over her ears. It didn't help. She could still hear when the Wolfes came to drag the screaming voices away. Sometimes they stopped screaming suddenly, and the silence that followed was worse.
Finally, the voices stopped coming, and no one knocked at her door anymore. Adrienne Campbell was alone. The Wolfes now owned everything the Campbells had, leaving her nothing but a few scraps of personal jewelry. Her credit rating had been revoked. A few very minor Campbell cousins escaped the bloodbath, usually because they had connections or protection, like Robert, but they wanted nothing to do with her. She didn't blame them. The reign of the House of Campbell was over in every way that mattered.
Adrienne was of average height and a little less than average weight. Nothing like fear and desperation to back up a restricted diet. She'd lost pounds in the past few months she would have sworn would be with her till the day she died. She couldn't go out to buy food or even order it through her viewscreen. She had no money. She was dependent on Robert for everything now, and he had his own problems. He still did what he could, bless him. When he could. And whereas previously she'd proudly worn the latest and most garish outfits society had ever seen, outside of her husband, she now made do with a wrinkled housecoat of plain, subdued colors. She'd had to leave her wardrobe behind when she fled for her life. She didn't really miss her clothes. She'd worn most of them only to annoy and upstage her fashion-obsessed husband. But it was the principle of the thing. She couldn't bear to think she looked boring. Robert provided her with clothes now, when he thought of it, just as he'd provided this bolt-hole. Like most men he had no taste at all.
She scowled at her reflection in the viewscreen. Adrienne had a sharp face: all planes and sudden angles, her scarlet mouth currently compressed into a flat angry line. She had dark, determined eyes, and a ridiculously turned-up nose that had seemed like a good idea at the time. She still had her great mop of curling golden hair, though it looked more than a little distressed at the moment. All in all, she'd looked better.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She was too tired and dispirited even to stay angry for long. How far had she fallen to end up here like this. A bedraggled wreck in a dingy apartment, trying to wheedle invitations and support from boring acquaintances and lesser Families she would have disdained only a few months previously. Not that Adrienne was a snob. It had always been a point of pride with her that she despised everyone equally.
Now here she was, trying to improve her position by playing politics with the only card she had left: Finlay. He'd managed to disappear very thoroughly, which surprised Adrienne. The Finlay she'd known had never been that good at anything. Still, a lot of people wanted him, for reasons they mostly preferred not to discuss, and thought perhaps they could get to him through her.
Either through bribes or threats. Adrienne knew nothing, but took their money anyway, and spun them out as long as she could with hints and promises before they finally wised up. She ignored the threats. Robert and his friends in the military were protecting her, and everyone knew it. No one was ready to go head-to-head with the fleet over knowledge they weren't even sure she had. The fleet had a long memory for insults, and it bore grudges. So Adrienne played her little games, a small fish in a big pond, and tried to avoid being eaten by the sharks.
She assumed she was currently ahead of the game. She was still alive, after all. If you called this living. She sniffed angrily and glared at her reflection in the viewscreen. She'd spent a lot of time with her thoughts lately and had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that she didn't like herself much. She was too busy being negative about everything to be positive about anything, even herself. But she knew she was right about this one thing. Adrienne had built her personality quite carefully and deliberately, being hard and harsh and uncompromising, because that was the only way she knew to get things done. Being soft just got you hurt, or even killed. High society had always believed in the survival of the fittest. Besides, she'd enjoyed being rude and obnoxious and loud. If only because she was so very good at it. But all her strength and all her hardness and all her clever, vicious words hadn't been enough to save her when the House of Campbell fell.
Her children were safe, at least, in a military school. Not quite the future she'd intended for them, but a safe haven, none the less. Robert had arranged it for her. Strange to think that that young man with the naive background and the vague smile was now the Campbell, head of the Family. There was no one else with a better claim but Finlay, and he had given up all claims to power and position when he chose to disappear into the underground. Now only a few very minor cousins remained with any legitimate claim to the title, and they were mostly still in hiding—keeping their heads well down till the storm passed and the waters calmed. The rest were mostly dead, or missing and presumed dead. A few had married hastily into lesser Houses, giving up their name in return for protection. Some of those had gone missing, too. The Wolfes had a long reach and endless malice.
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