"It has to be him. How long before you can get here?"
"Give me an hour." She broke contact and glared into the mirror. "Bastards. Do they really think I'd betray Finlay, even for the Cause?"
"This gets more fascinating by the minute," said Adrienne, coming over to join her. "Dear Finlay, the last best hope of the underground? I'm beginning to think you're right, and I never did really know him. Since you apparently know him better than I, what do you think? Would he go on a suicide mission if it was important enough?"
"Oh, yes. That's what worries me. Most of his recent missions would have been suicide runs for anyone else. He never was very strong in the commonsense department, and since he lost his Family, he's become increasingly reckless. He feels guilty for having survived, when so many died. If this mission is so dangerous that even Finlay would hesitate, it must be really bad. I've got to go, Adrienne. Thank you for all your help; I wish there was something I could do for you."
"There is," Adrienne said briskly. "Take me with you. There's no place safe here for me anymore now that I've made an enemy of your father. If I'm to find protection for my children, the only people left to turn to are the underground. Though, God knows what I've got to buy their protection with. Gossip, maybe. I know more secrets about more people than half the Court put together. Some of it has got to be prime blackmail material. Besides, whatever you eventually decide, you're going to need my help to convince Finlay. I always could talk him into anything. I think I'm going to enjoy being part of the underground."
"What makes you so sure they'll accept you?"
"What makes you think they'll have any choice? I can be very determined when I put my mind to something. Besides, I really can't wait to see this whole new Finlay I've never known. I have a feeling I might like him a lot more than the old one. Shall we go?"
Julian Skye, rogue esper and agent of the underworld, had been handsome once, but that was before the Empire interrogators got their hands on him. They'd started with a vicious beating, not because they expected him to talk, but just to soften him up. They didn't even ask any questions. Two of them took it in turns holding him up, while the third worked him over in brutal, efficient ways, until every part of him moaned with pain. Then they hurt him some more. They paid special attention to his face. Damage there was psychologically damaging as well. Eventually they left, and he sat naked and alone in the interrogation cell, held upright by the thick straps holding him to the bare metal chair, waiting for them to come back and start again. One eye was swollen shut, his nose had been broken, and dried blood crusted his face. They'd left his mouth pretty much untouched. He was expected to be able to answer questions when they finally got around to asking him any.
He'd been left alone to consider his position and worry about what was to come. And Julian Skye, who'd always thought he was a hero, was ashamed to find he couldn't stop crying. He was a young man, with a young man's courage and ideals, but he'd had the courage systematically beaten out of him. All he had left now were his ideals, and they didn't seem as strong and convincing as they once had. He finally managed to sniff back his tears, though the occasional harsh sob still took him by surprise, and looked around him as best he could. He was in a bare, featureless room, deep below the surface, in the dark metal bowels beneath the Imperial Palace. The walls were bright shining steel, without windows or details, showing vague distortions of himself in the painfully bright light from the single unit directly above him. He could feel the heat from the unit beating on the top of his head, as though his brains were on fire. The door was a dull black metal, right in front of him, sealed electronically. It could be opened only by someone from the outside with the correct access codes.
Julian Skye sat naked in his metal chair, stripped of everything that might give him physical or psychological comfort. They'd even taken away his suicide option; a hollow tooth with poison in it. They ripped it right out of his jaw with a pair of pliers. He probed the gaping hole with his tongue now and again, as though hoping it might be there this time. It had been a small hurt compared to what came afterward, but he still cried when he thought of it. The tooth had been his last hope. He'd pissed on himself, and he couldn't clean it off his legs. Just more of the softening-up process.
He knew he had no one but himself to blame for his capture. Julian Skye had always been too wild for the slow and steady underground, too bold and impetuous even for the esper terrorists of the Esper Libereration Front, the elves. So he'd been left alone to run his own operations with his own people—attached to the underground, but not a part of it. Which was how he'd come to be in the middle of everything when the raid on Silo Nine went to hell in a hurry, and the underground had to scatter. He'd been the only one at a safe enough distance to take charge. He ran things for as long as he could, setting up safe houses and new names and passwords, until he, too, was compromised by the treachery of the man called Hood, and he had to run for his life. He'd got away, as he always did, leaving the security guards nothing but the echo of his mocking laughter. Julian Skye was an old hand at the great game of intrigue, after all, despite his young years. He thought he was unbeatable, untouchable. He was wrong. Truth was, he'd just been lucky. And his luck finally ran out when he made the mistake of trusting the wrong person.
At least he wasn't in Silo Nine, with one of Wormboy's engineered worms burrowing in his brain, controlling his thoughts. If nothing else, the underground had made a thorough job of trashing the detention center and destroying Wormboy, before the raiding force was betrayed and routed. It would be years before the Empire could get it up and running again, even if they could create another artificial esper like Wormboy to be their perfect gaoler again. And the worms wouldn't work without him. Which was why Skye was being held in a detention cell, mentally neutered by an esp-blocker. He smiled slightly for the first time. He might be prevented from using his esper abilities, but at least his thoughts were still his own. His smile quickly disappeared. The mind techs would get his thoughts out of him, along with anything else they wanted.
He wondered what would happen to him in the end, when they'd got everything they wanted from him and he had nothing left to tell them. Wipe his mind clean, probably, and replace it with a new personality more suited to the Empire's needs. They'd send it back to the underground with his face in front of it, and a convincing story to cover his escape; and what little he hadn't already betrayed would be wiped out in quick order, long before the espers could crack his new persona. Or perhaps he'd do such a good job betraying the underground right here in this cell that they wouldn't need him anymore. He'd heard they saved some of the monsters from Silo Nine. The espers and clones they'd experimented on, stirring their sticky fingers in their subjects' DNA, shaping their flesh and their minds into new, monstrous shapes. Maybe that was his destiny. To be no longer human, except on the genetic level. To be a living weapon, unleashed as needed on the Empire's many enemies.
He didn't care. He just wanted it to be over. The pain and the fear and the horror. He wasn't a hero anymore, if he ever had been. Just a man, waiting to be broken. A small gush of rebellion surged within him at the thought. He wasn't broken yet. Don't think about what they want. Keep it out of his mind. Bury it deep. Make the mind techs work for it. Buy time. Don't think at all. Be a blank page. Give them nothing to work with or on.
But he couldn't stop thinking. His body hurt too much to be ignored, and held helpless and naked in his chair by a dozen thick straps that cut painfully tight into his flesh, he had nothing else to do but think. He was safe for the time being. Underground espers had gone deep into his head long ago and constructed a series of mental blocks there, impervious shields that would keep out all but the most powerful Empire espers. He'd activated the safeguard with a conditioned code word the moment he realized he was trapped, and the shields had come slamming down in his brain. Now he no longer had the information his torturers wanted. It was locked away where he couldn't get at it. Can't tell what you don't know. Push
the blocks too hard and his mind would self-destruct, taking the information with it.
So for the moment they were being very careful what they said to him. When they chose to speak to him. Between the beatings. They couldn't use an esper on him without first removing the esp-blocker from the cell, and the moment they did that he'd have access to his own esper abilities again. He'd rip this place apart with a psistorm like they'd never seen. The only way into his head now was through the mind techs. The Empire's specialists in pain and truth and mental conditioning. They'd use drugs and technology and all the psychological tricks they'd spent centuries perfecting. Until finally the shields went down, and he had nothing to hide behind anymore. Then he'd break and tell them anything they wanted to know. He'd beg to do it.
He knew it had to happen. Everyone broke eventually. All he could hope to do was hold on for as long as possible, to buy the underground time to rescue or kill him. He wasn't putting much hope in a rescue. He wasn't afraid to die anymore, not after what his tormentors had done to him and what he knew they planned to do, but he was afraid of being made to betray the underground. Once he was safely dead, his secrets would die with him. He couldn't do it himself. After pulling out his poison tooth, the interrogator had put a full spinal block on him. He could still feel everything, but all he had left were involuntary movements, and the straps took care of them. He could hear himself whimpering, but couldn't stop it. He'd never been so scared. But then, he'd never thought he'd end up here. Getting caught was something that happened to other people. He was crying now. He could feel the tears trickling down his cheeks. He would have screamed if he could. It didn't matter. He'd scream enough later.
There was the sudden sound of electronic locks disengaging, and the sealed door swung slowly open. Julian would have cringed away, but even that was denied to him. His chief interrogator strode in, a tall slender man dressed all in white, so the bloodstains would show up dramatically. So much of pain is in the mind. He nodded briskly to Julian and moved around the chair, taking his time, checking the straps were still tight and the spinal block on the back of his neck was still in place. He was always polite and never raised his voice. He didn't need to. His movements were sharp and precise and very efficient. Julian didn't know the man's name. He didn't need to know, so nobody told him. The interrogator moved around to stand before Julian.
"You have a visitor, Julian. I've adjusted the spinal block so you can talk freely. Make the most of your time together. When you've finished, it'll be my turn to talk to you."
The interrogator left, while Julian tried to get his thoughts in order. Who the hell could it be, that the mind techs would allow the visit to a man they were in the middle of softening up? Some other poor bastard from his team, perhaps. Someone else they'd caught, that they thought he cared about. Someone they could hurt or kill in front of him. He moved his head slowly back and forth, partly in denial, partly just to feel it move after being still for so long. He licked his lips and tasted dried blood and salt from his tears. He heard footsteps approaching and braced himself as best he could.
And then BB Chojiro stepped through the door and into the cell, and Julian thought his heart would stop. She looked beautiful, as always, a petite little doll of a woman, with long dark hair and sharp Oriental features. She wore a bright scarlet kimono, to match her lips, and looked at him steadily with dark lustrous eyes. She stopped before him, and the door swung shut behind her. Julian looked at her and felt the horror rise in him again. They knew about BB. If they hurt her… he thought he'd go out of his mind, just at the thought. She stepped forward, moving even here with the perfect grace of all her Clan, and produced a small metal box from inside her sleeve. She pressed the single stud on the top, and the spinal block released the rest of its hold on him. He slumped forward, held up only by the restraining straps. His fingers spasmed helplessly. BB Chojiro knelt before him, so she could look right into his face. Julian tried to smile for her, but it felt more like a grimace. She put away the metal box and produced a silk handkerchief to wipe some of the blood and tears from his face. Her touch was very gentle.
"My poor Julian, what have they done to you? You used to be so strong, so sure. Now they've broken your wings, and you'll never fly again."
"BB," he said hoarsely, forcing his mouth to obey him. "Have they hurt you? What…"
"Don't try to speak. Just listen. I can't stay long. I want you to tell them everything, Julian. I want you to tell them everything you know. It's for the best, really. You know they'll get it out of you anyway. They always do. Only what will be left of you then won't even know who I am. If you cooperate, they'll let you go eventually, and then we can be together again, just like we were before. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Julian?"
He looked at her and didn't say a word. He'd known her less than a year. She'd been his younger brother's lover originally. Auric Skye had tried to get a position in Clan Chojiro, so that he could be with her. To impress the Clan, he fought the Masked Gladiator in the Arena. The Gladiator killed him. Auric never stood a chance against that legendary butcher of men. Julian had told him that, but Auric wouldn't listen, and Julian had watched in silence as they dragged his brother's body away across the bloody sands. Julian would have avenged Auric if he could, but he at least had the sense to know he couldn't beat the Masked Gladiator in a fair or unfair fight.
So he put it behind him, as just another evil episode in an evil Empire, and went to see BB Chojiro, to comfort and console her over Auric's death. They talked about Auric all through the evening and on into the night, and at the end she cried in his arms. They met again, and again, and fell in love. Julian felt guilty about that for a while, but BB talked him out of it. She made him see that Auric would have been glad for both of them. He cried in her arms then, finally saying good-bye to his brother. After that, Julian and BB were together as often as they could be. It wasn't very often. It was vital that the Clan Chojiro didn't find out. They were very strict and wouldn't have approved at all. And Julian had his obligations to the underground. It was a long time before he told her about that. She was surprised at first, but then she hugged him and kissed him and told him he'd done the right thing in telling her. It wasn't long after that they came for him. Not long at all.
Julian Skye looked at his love, kneeling before him, and knew for the first time who it was who had betrayed him.
"I thought you loved me," he said finally. "How could you do it?"
"It wasn't difficult, darling. My duty has always been to my Clan, first and foremost. Auric knew that. That's why he died trying to be a part of Clan Chojiro. You never did ask me what my real name is. What the BB stands for."
"You told me not to."
"Yes. And you always did what you were told. But the fact that I kept something as basic as that from you should have told you something. BB isn't my name, darling. It's my designation. I'm from Blue Block."
The words hit Julian like blows. He'd heard of Blue Block, but only in whispers. Blue Block was the Company of Lords' deepest secret: a hidden private army of lesser cousins, to be the Families' final defense against the Empress and her people. Every Family provided a number of candidates, willing or unwilling, and sent them to Blue Block, where they were trained and conditioned to be totally loyal to their Clans. Even to the death. They were everywhere, unknown and unsuspected, programmed to get as close as possible to people who mattered. In the last resort, they would be the Lords' last poisoned weapon to throw at Lionstone, or anyone else who tried to take away their power and position. Or so it was said. Blue Block was only a whisper, less than a rumor. Lionstone didn't take it seriously. If she had, she wouldn't have rested until every graduate of Blue Block had been tracked down and executed. She would never have allowed such a threat to her power to exist.
BB Chojiro. Blue Block. Bound to her Clan beyond hope or honor, life or death.
"Our love meant nothing to you, did it?" he said finally.
"There's no room in my life for what y
ou think of as love. I was very fond of you. I still am. That's why I want you to tell the interrogators what they want to know, and get it over with. The interrogator's one of us. He's Blue Block, too. Once he's got everything out of you, he'll put you back together, as much as he can, and you can come back to me. You can be part of Clan Chojiro, just like your brother wanted. You'll have to go through Blue Block, of course, but it's really not so bad. And then you won't care anything about who you used to be or what you used to be."
"If I talk," Julian said hoarsely, "hundreds will die. Thousands will be endangered. The underground would have to scatter again. It might never recover. I can't do that. I won't."
"You will. You know you will. Talk to the interrogator, darling. Do it for me."
"Do it for you?" Julian would have laughed, but his throat was too dry. "Who are you? I don't know your real name. I don't know the real you. I loved you, you bitch. I would have done anything for you, even die for you. Now just looking at you makes me feel sick."
"Don't be like that, Julian; we had some good times together, just the two of us. Remember flying out over the Ravenscar mountains, and chasing each other on gravity sleds in and out of the great waterfalls as they came thundering down? Remember watching the double stars burning brightly over the Tannhouser Gate? Remember us dancing around a fire on the Dust Plains of Memory, dancing and singing as though the night would never end? Those were real times, Julian. Times we shared. We could share them again. We could still have a life together. It's up to you. You'll forget all about the underground, with me."
"BB. Will you do something for me?"
"Of course, darling. Would you like some water?"
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