LEGACY BETRAYED

by Rachel Eastwood

  And if Kaizen had the crown, that meant that Chance for Choice had killed Malthus Taliko after all.

  Chapter Three

  Source: Vault footage, Liam etched as a footnote to the Tuesday morning report Dyna would give. It was littered in phrases such as “explosive,” and “intriguing,” each one causing a pang to his chest as he’d written it. But this was his job, and he supposed it was all for the best, if it exposed the crown’s corruption by fraternization with the CC.

  The door shuddered open and Dyna Logan, her chestnut hair wrapped in a beehive of tight braids and her waist cincher a glaring, vinyl lavender, leaned in. “Are my notes ready,” she commanded. It was framed like a question, but it was not.

  “Yes, Miss Logan.” Liam handed her the sheath, the skeletal outline of the coming report involving “Earl” Kaizen and his own Companion, a Chance for Choicer.

  But Dyna’s eyes only ticked along its bullets for a second before flitting back to him. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.

  “It’s the story,” Liam answered feebly. “Isn’t it?”

  “We are not running this story,” Dyna insisted.

  Liam swallowed. “Another . . . cover-up?” he asked her, confused. What had they become? Was he only just seeing it now that he’d been promoted from personal assistant to report preparation?

  “It’s not a ‘cover-up,’ darling, don’t be so dramatic,” Dyna replied with an ugly smile. “It’s just . . . business. Now, I don’t have the time to wait for another draft, so never mind. I can wing it.”

  Dyna bustled from the room, and as Liam exited behind her, she pulled the lever from OFF to ON AIR, snatching up her microphone. “Good morning, Icarus. I’m Dyna Logan, your premiere source of breaking Icarus news in these trying times, and I’m delighted to bring you a small ray of sunlight in all the confusion.” Liam crossed the room toward the exit door, but paused to hear what she could possibly have brewed up in this few seconds between the preparation table and her seat. “Yours truly has been nominated by the duke to join his court of six, receiving a new office for public relations.” Liam imperceptibly shook his head, wrenching the door open and stepping out. “This means I’ll be representing the people of Icarus at every court meeting beginning next Monday. Please leave messages with the CIN-3 MAIN bot and let us know–”

  The door slammed shut behind him. He had to get a break.

  Liam’s head spun as he marched toward the lift at the end of the hall. The story was huge, and insanely meaningful to the political arena. How could she just smother it like that? For some paltry title in the duke’s court? His stomach was spinning, too. He’d known that the system hadn’t been perfect, of course, but he’d always believed that those imperfections had reason and the public interest behind them.

  But where was the public interest in this bribery?

  How could he continue to churn lies for that beast, and maintain his integrity?

  If his work was truly of so little value that it was thrown into the trash?

  When the lift arrived at the ground floor, Liam made for the door and didn’t look back.

  There was only one person he knew who would receive these thoughts openly, and that was Exa Legacy, resident rebel.

  Legacy jolted from where she stood, washing her face beneath the frigid spigot, as the door to her rental shuddered. Dax didn’t normally knock like that.

  “Hello?” she called meekly.

  “Exa,” Liam’s familiarly authoritarian tone rang to her. “Let me in.”

  Legacy grimaced, but she went to the door. As likely as Liam was to lecture her, she knew he was also unlikely to turn her in. He’d had his chances before and not taken them. And if someone – Dax? – had told him where she was, it must have meant that he was trustworthy.

  Legacy opened the door and Liam Wilco strode inside, pale and all clenched up, which wasn’t an unusual countenance for the man. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did something happen?”

  “I did it,” he told her.

  “Did what?”

  “I betrayed you. And –then –Dyna didn’t even run the story. She traded it to the damn duke for a position in his court. ‘Personal relations’ or some tripe.”

  “Ah,” Legacy replied, glancing at the radio with a nod. Though quiet, it was constantly on. “Now it makes sense.”

  “I don’t understand how or where or when it all got so messed up,” Liam went on, heavily pacing away from her, then treading back. “I mean, if the rebels have the duke, and the duke has the media, and the media has all the damn people of Icarus, then the rebels have won, haven’t they?” He paused and shot his former Companion a searching gaze of mild panic.

  Legacy glared. “We haven’t won, Liam. We don’t have the duke. I –‘had’ the duke. That was all. It wasn’t political, you know. Trimpot didn’t make –I’m not a whore, Liam! It was personal.” Liam glared back, but Legacy forged ahead. “And so is the revolution. None of this is subterfuge. It’s honest. Real people who want genuine, open change. We’re not seducing the crown to push some secret, self-serving agenda. I just kissed Kaizen because I kissed Kaizen. It was before I was even in the CC, you know.” She shook her head. “And trust me, the duke is not interested in doing any favors for the rebels. He’s got a trap set for all of them this Friday. I know that much.”

  “You know about the fake rally?” Liam asked.

  “Yeah, I know about the fake rally,” she replied. “Kaizen is alive, and Malthus is dead, and Trimpot defected, and the rally is an ambush.”

  “Then you know about the disinformation campaign we’ve been running through Dyna Logan all damn week. It’s killing me. Pretending that Malthus is alive. Pretending that no one knows where Trimpot is. Oh, but I can tell you where Trimpot is.”

  “Oh?”

  “Lion’s Head, that’s where,” he snapped. “Dyna let it slip during a rant about her new neighbor, who is a ‘security risk’ that the duke had shoehorned into the community, that she could hardly sleep at night, because ‘there might be some kind of CC arson or vandalism at any moment.’ It’s enough to make me sick. Royals in bed with rebels all around. Lies on the news. Me, forced to write them all down and act like nothing is happening. I don’t know where the line is anymore between the two sides.”

  Legacy almost smiled. Liam was finally having his doubts.

  “At least he’s going through with that rally-ambush,” Liam added. “He hasn’t totally lost his senses.”

  The near-smile dropped from her face. “Liam!” she snapped. “If those arrests happen, it could mean the deaths of a hundred innocent people!”

  “Innocent? They’re murderers!” he countered.

  “They’re members! They didn’t have anything to do with that assassination plot against the duke! There were only two members out of that hundred at the entire coronation. The real murderer is Neon Trimpot, the mastermind, and he won’t even be there, will he? No, he’ll be at his cushy mansion in Lion’s Head, won’t he? Letting everyone else take the fall.” What she said next, she knew wasn’t true, but she pushed the suggestion anyway, because it was the one way she knew she might be able to enlist Liam’s help. There was nothing he hated more than a scheme. “You know, this could all have been an intricate rouse between Kaizen and Trimpot to oust Malthus all along. Trimpot whips up some disenfranchised commoners to frame, Kaizen receives the crown, and in return, Trimpot is given a place in his court. It’s really perfect, isn’t it?” She could see him thinking, so she pressed again. This was, ironically, the closest she’d come to subterfuge since joining the rebels. “I mean, look at me, afraid to show my face in public for fear of execution, and all I really did was ask a question at the centennial.”

  “But what can you do about it now?” Liam asked, seeming genuine.

  “What can we do, you mean,” Legacy corrected.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you! Do you really want to see all this happening and do nothing? You work for the
damn CIN-3, don’t you?” Liam’s mouth flapped silently, finally speechless. “Well?” Legacy kept on, knowing she had him in her grasp now. “Do you want to see more evidence of corruption swept under the rug? Only this time, it’s not just a roll of film; these are the lives of one hundred innocent people. But you could stop it. You could get out the message! That it’s a trap!”

  The final shove caused Liam some backlash. “And lose my job?” he retorted. “And get arrested? Tried for treason? Executed myself? Exa . . . I don’t know–”

  “Then let me,” she replied flatly. “Because I do know.”

  “Let you what?”

  “Let me have your CIN-3 key.”

  “Exa,” Liam said again. “I don’t know.”

  “If I get caught, I’ll tell them that I stole it from you.”

  “But –what if you do get caught? That’s what I’m worried about,” Liam replied.

  “Remember how our personality scores were so alike, Liam?” she asked him. “Our results noted that we were both people of action. Neither one of us can just stand by and let something go wrong when we could stop it. Let someone get hurt when we could stop it.”

  Liam sighed and extracted a double-ended key. This key could be used to bypass high clearance checkpoints, and only belonged to staff members. “Here,” he said.

  Legacy kissed the key. “And you say I never listen,” she said.

  Liam grimaced. “You listen when you care,” he corrected. “So hear this: Dyna is usually in the studio. But she always leaves during the commercials to refresh her drink.”

  Liam had gone long ago, and now, it was getting dark, and Legacy was all alone.

  There was a leak forming in the drywall over this bed. It hadn’t started to drip yet, but it was just searching for the seam.

  Legacy stared at the dark, sagging paint, wondering how long it would take before she was awoken by a torrent of some ceiling pipe’s runoff.

  “Duke expressed frustration in an interview earlier this week with his complete lack of leads regarding the terror attack of the coronation ceremony . . .” Dyna Logan went on quietly from the radio.

  This was the fourth day since Legacy had seen anyone from Chance for Choice. Rain hadn’t visited at all, but she had mentioned before leaving for work, Monday morning, that the hospital would likely be flooded and her shifts unusually burdensome. More noticeably, though, Dax had not visited either. Legacy had been lonely and bored, and more than once drifted down to the bar for comfort. Its patrons called it “the oil den,” she now knew. She kept it to a single drink minimum, worried what she might do under the influence of too much Calm. Abandoning Glitch’s for the comforts of home had been insanely irresponsible.

  She’d returned once since, to gather a burlap sack set out by her parents. It’d originally been sent home with her from the prison tower of the Taliko Archipelagos, jammed with her hosiery, boots, jacket, and a glass blunderbuss called a color cannon, magenta paint still sloshing in its chamber. Her parents had jammed some clothing on top of all this and left it on the porch for her.

  Thankfully, she now wore the coppery, vinyl tank top and pleated skirt, a (clean) garment which was the staple of her summer selection.

  Legacy sighed.

  That’d been the only time she’d left Glitch’s in two days.

  Dax couldn’t possibly be that busy, could he? The selection labs, like most other businesses of repute in the city, closed their doors at sundown. She’d called him, too. No answer. Just messages. CIN-3 mentioned no recent crimes or arrests. If anything, it was almost as if Dyna Logan’s streaming updates were on a loop.

  What if Dax was taken to the castle and tortured for information on my whereabouts? Legacy wondered, unblinking. But then again, I know Kaizen is the duke now. He wouldn’t do that . . . would he?

  Dax wouldn’t just leave her to languish at Glitch’s, either, though, and he didn’t know that the Widow Coldermolly had offered her several hundred pieces. As far as he knew, she had only forty, which would’ve been gone yesterday at the rental price of twenty pieces per night. As far as he knew, she was broke by now, sleeping on the streets. It didn’t make any sense.

  Suddenly, the automaton in the corner – who hadn’t moved in the past several days, except to alert Legacy of the date, the time, and his need to have his key turned – sprang to life. Rusting and inexact, this complimentary automaton made Bart-12 look state-of-the-art. “Hell-hell-o, D-D-Dax Ghrrrenadel!” the automaton greeted, bringing a fresh pang to Legacy’s chest. “Grouuup b-b-bull-bulletin incoming from Leopold Comstock. Grouuup b-b-bull-bulletin incoming from Leopold Comstock. Prrrivate! CC meeting! Friiiday night! Mmmidnight! Industrial territory, lot-lot #3! Again! Prrrivate! CC meeting! Friiiday night! Mmmidnight! Industrial territory, lot-lot #3!”

  Legacy glared at the automaton, a shuddering silhouette in the corner.

  So Kaizen had been telling the truth.

  And if this automaton, registered to Dax, received that message, it also meant that Dax’s personal automaton had received that message. And if he didn’t visit her within the next three days, he’d have no way of knowing that it was a trap.

  And what if . . . what if Trimpot had already been around? What if he . . . had gone to see Dax, and was slowly building up an arsenal of incriminating evidence? How deep did this newfound allegiance to the monarchy go? What if he had to make sure that no one could possibly blame him for Malthus’ death? And Dax wouldn’t know. Dax would never suspect. The guilty party would be ferreted out, for all intents and purposes, the monarchy secured, Trimpot given an informant’s stipend and a new home beyond the gates of Lion’s Head, and Dax gone forever.

  Legacy lunged from the bed, spinning the key-corsage on her golden vest – which she still mentally considered to be “Flywheel-2.”

  “Good m-m-morning, Audio Swan,” the assistant greeted. “The date is Wed-wed-wednesday, August the Sixteenth, Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Twelve. The time is 7:38 pm. No events on schedule. Two old messages. No new messages.”

  She had to do something, something big, before Friday . . . It wasn’t just about Dax. She couldn’t let all those good people – people just like her, who wanted the option to love and work as they pleased – go to jail.

  Preoccupied by thoughts of this, the old messages played on. The first message was from her parents.

  Mr. Legacy’s voice came over the iris-speakers first. “Just calling to let you know that we’ve got some clothes and vitamins all packed up for you–”

  “Just in case!” Mrs. Legacy added.

  “–so drop by and grab them if you can, okay–”

  “But be safe!”

  “–and we love you.”

  “We love you!”

  The second message was from Kaizen. Legacy stared numbly at the brass dragonfly as the shadows encroached from outside.

  “I bet you’d hoped that I’d forget,” he said with a forced, self-conscious laugh. “But I . . . clearly . . . did not. Uh, Legacy . . . look. Can we–? Let’s talk. It’s not what you think. I’m not –I’m not–” He sighed. “Just call me back.”

  She hadn’t called him back.

  Legacy continued to stare down at Flywheel-2, her fingers playing across him idly, then shook the daze from her head and commanded, “Send call to Dax Ghrenadel.”

  She heard the free automaton in the corner begin to vibrate. “Inc-c-cominnng call f-f-frommm Audio S-s-swannn.”

  She ignored the sputtering bot and felt the release of relief as Dax’s familiar tenor emitted from Flywheel-2’s button-speakers.

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  “It’s Legs,” Legacy answered. “This was just a gift so that I could be reached. Not registered under my real name, obviously.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Well?” Dax prompted, oddly brusque. “What is it?”

  “I–I don’t know if I want to say it like this, over automata,” Legacy went on, unsure exactly what was goin
g on. Hadn’t come back since Monday, and now this tone?

  Dax muttered something.

  “What?” Legacy asked.

  “Nothing. Look, Legacy, what is it? I don’t feel like playing around. Just tell me.”

  “I–Okay.” Something was definitely wrong, but she didn’t know what she could do about it from Groundtown. “I just wanted to warn you: don’t go to that thing, the event, in the message from you-know-who.” The automata of Icarus weren’t the most secure form of communication, so she spoke in simple code. “It’s a trap. Okay?”

  Another long pause.

  “I don’t know, Leg,” he finally said.

  “You just have to trust me,” she pressed.

  “No,” he elaborated, suddenly colder. “I mean I don’t know if I’m going to stay with Chance for Choice.”

  “What?” Legacy asked, tensing at the frankness with which he spoke. “What are you talking about?”

  Dax sighed. “You’re right, this is a shitty conversation to have through miniature speakers,” he agreed. “I’ll just come by.” As if it was a matter as simple as going out the door.

  “Where have you–” But the connection had gone dead. “. . . been,” she finished to herself, frowning at Flywheel-2 as if this were his fault.

  The leak in the ceiling found its seam and dripped.

  There was a knock at the door and Legacy went to let Dax in. As soon as their eyes met, the air in the room shifted and became stifling. Uncomfortable. “Hey,” Legacy greeted weakly, falling back to allow him entrance. She had a terrible feeling about this.

  “Yeah,” Dax greeted in a strangely clipped, casual tone. “The thing is, Legacy–” He passed her, entering the center of the room, and looked all around, though never at her. His eyes fixed on the wet spot over her bed. “–your roof is leaking.”