by Jim Heskett
“How do we find one of those?” Yorick asked.
Camila smirked. “I have no idea. No civilian does; only the engineers who work on the network. Breaking into the most secure building in the entire kingdom and finding the right terminal is your job and has nothing to do with me, got it?”
“We understand,” he said.
Her face turned grave. “I’m not joking. I’m all for rebellion, but I’m not willing to die for you. There is no way any of this can ever come back on me. And, if you are going in, today is a good day to do it. There’s a rumor the king is about to double his in-building security force, starting tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s what I heard.” Camila held out her hand, impatient. Yorick hesitated a moment. Then, he let it slip from his fingers into hers, giving up the only thing of value they had left in this world.
Chapter Twenty-Six
In the basement of this brick building the sun worshippers called their hideout, Tenney sat. It was damp and stale and smelled of old plumbing, but he didn’t care about the aesthetics. He wanted to be alone down here. Away from these terrorists who called themselves freedom fighters or patriots or whatever. They were murderers.
Had Tenney murdered? Yes, he had. But he had done it in self-defense, or to protect the innocent, or to overthrow an evil or right a wrong. Two days ago, these sun worshippers had blown up a tea shop filled with regular people who had done nothing wrong. Not even soldados. Civilians. Expendable cards in a game of Fours, and the sole purpose of their deaths had been to send a message to the king. But, there was no way to know if he received it.
It may have even killed Yorick and Rosia.
No, Tenney didn’t believe they were dead. They were out there in the city, somewhere. He had to think his friends were smart enough to find a way out of that mess.
But, none of this mattered much to Tenney. Sooner or later, the sun worshipper leader Santiago would kick him out of the group. It was only a matter of time. They would realize he was not like them and wasn’t here for the same reasons.
Tenney had been in trouble with the boss for not participating in the tea shop bombing, for running away from the group when he’d found out about it. When he’d come back, Tenney had said he’d stashed a box full of gold at the abandoned building across the street. His excuse was that he worried the gold would have been obliterated by the bomb, so he raced to save it.
And Santiago had believed the lie or had at least given the impression he believed it. But, in the days since, Tenney was starting to think the boss had soured of him. That, one way or another, Tenney’s stay with these people was about to come to an end. Santiago had promised to send the entire crew to beat him up for any infraction. So far, that had not proved true. Maybe it was still coming.
So, Tenney sat on the cold floor in the musty basement, staring at the exposed brick, waiting for someone to come tell him he was no longer welcome to sleep here and eat here if he would not participate in their inhumane acts. And then, Tenney had no idea what he would do. Yorick and Rosia were off somewhere. Maybe even dead. Malina was gone. Forever. What did Tenney have left to care about?
Memories of their last night together rolled around in his head like tumbleweeds. It hadn’t been much of a night, actually. They were in the back seat of the car they had bought from that old lady in Rock Springs. When the battery ran down, they pulled over and slept on the side of the road. Tenney had reclined, his stomach wound throbbing, with Malina nestled in the crook of his arm. No idea he would never see another night with her after that one.
Malina had said little since returning from her brief imprisonment at the brothel. She cried silent tears most of the evening and through the night, clinging close to Tenney. He knew her well enough not to press her for answers about what her involuntary time in the brothel had been like. When Malina was ready to talk, she would talk, and not before.
So Tenney let Malina weep against his shoulder in the back seat of the car, and he held her tight. A few hours later, she would die from a random bullet in the darkness of the tunnel between Wyoming and Colorado. He would never know who had fired the shot. Never would he have closure on the worst day of his life.
That was something he would have to learn to live with, however much life Tenney had left.
The basement door opened. Due to a sharp turn on the staircase, he couldn’t see who had opened it from his spot. Two shadows darkened the wall of the bend. Two sets of feet took a couple of steps down the rickety stairs, then paused.
“I don’t think he even knows,” said one male voice, raspy and high.
Tenney turned his ear toward the stairs, to isolate their voices. “No, he knows,” said another male voice, this one fast and cracking. “But, it’s less about having the information, and more about what he does with it.”
The stairs creaked as they made a small movement. Tenney assumed they were turning toward each other. He slowed his breathing, for some reason curious.
“The lord's name was Wymond or Wybert or something like that,” said the raspy one.
Now Tenney shut his eyes to listen, his curiosity swelling. He focused his energy on picking out each word they said.
“He had an army of machines under his plantación,” said the raspy one. “War machines, like robots. But, the guy’s dead, and the machines are all unaccounted for. Hundreds of them. Santiago says our people in Cheyenne have them, and they’re on their way.”
“To Denver?” said the fast one.
“Yeah, if you believe him.”
“Why wouldn’t we believe Santiago?”
“I don’t know. Everybody out there is saying a lot of stuff right now. Our guys claim the machines will be here in three days, maybe sooner. It would have happened already, but the king closing the tunnel gates into Colorado slowed them down. When they get here is when it’s all going to start.”
“Wait a second. Did you bring fire?”
“Uhh, no.”
“Then how are we supposed to smoke this thing?”
“We can just borrow one. I know Roberto’s got a lighter, for sure.”
A loud and long sigh. “Fine. I’ll go ask him. Meet me back here in ten minutes.”
The footsteps shuffled back up the stairs. Within a few seconds, the basement returned to complete silence, and Tenney heard only the sound of his own breath whistling in and out of his nose.
Tenney waited a couple of minutes, then he stood. If Yorick and Rosia were still alive, they needed to know about these robots possibly coming to Denver. But where in the stars would Tenney find them?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tenney marched down the street. At every intersection, he had to persuade himself not to turn around and return to the sun worshippers. Not that he felt any kinship or community with them. Far from it. They were horrible terrorists, but at least they’d taken him in. They gave him a place to hide and pretend he didn’t exist.
No, he didn’t want to return out of any loyalty or affection. Part of him didn’t want to see the destruction at the tea shop again. Part of him didn’t want to go there and still see no sign of Yorick and Rosia. He wanted to give up and sit down on the street, only to wait for the soldados to inevitably arrest him.
But, he kept on. If there was a chance Yorick and Rosia were still alive, they needed to hear about Wybert’s incoming army. For whatever it was worth, something big would happen in Denver in three days.
A block away from his destination, Tenney passed a crew of women who he figured were homeless, loitering between two buildings. The one on the right, Tenney didn’t know, but the building on the left was a bakery. It had already closed for the day. Perhaps these women were hoping for handouts. Any bread that hadn’t been sold. A couple of them clutched small children by the hand or even carried smaller children on their hips. They waited, expectant.
The looks on the children’s faces broke his heart.
Malina and Tenney had talked about having chil
dren, someday far in the future. Once all of the various chaotic elements of their lives were far behind them.
When he turned the corner onto the street with the tea shop, a flash of queasiness hit him. While the dead bodies had been cleared away from the area, the crumbled building still stood as a reminder. There were marks of soot on the surrounding buildings that resembled human shapes. Or, maybe Tenney had imagined that part.
But, on a building across the street, one mark did stand out. Not soot, but black, as if drawn with burnt wood. Tenney recognized it. The symbol of two concentric circles with a cross and a triangle inside, the same as had appeared in clandestine locations at Wybert’s plantación.
Tenney whipped around, looking for the creator of the circles. No one here. But who could have made that, if not Yorick or Rosia?
When he couldn’t find the owner, something told him to wait. They’d been here. Maybe they would come back.
He crossed the street, sat underneath that symbol, and closed his eyes.
Sometime later—Tenney wasn’t sure how long because he fell asleep—a hand grabbed his shoulder. Before opening his eyes, he prepared himself to stare down the barrel of a soldado’s rifle.
But instead, he saw a grinning Yorick standing over him. Rosia right behind. At least, that’s who he thought he was seeing. The sun shined behind them, right into Tenney’s eyes, and he let hope take over what he couldn’t see for certain.
“Is it you?” Tenney asked.
“Of course it’s us,” Yorick said. “It’s good to see you, big guy.”
Tenney leaped to his feet and threw his arms around Yorick, then he reached out and pulled Rosia in for a group hug. A small part of him wasn’t sure how it would feel to see them again, but nothing except relief coursed through his veins.
A moment later, he pushed them both back. “Let’s go around the back of this building. A lot has happened.”
“Lead the way,” Yorick said. “We have news, too.”
Tenney cast eyes at a small contingent of soldados on the other side of the street. They were dormant, standing at attention, with eyes focused on the wreck of the tea shop. But, Tenney didn’t want the king’s men to see them leaving for the alley.
Once he felt sure they weren’t paying attention, Tenney escorted his friends off to the side, behind the abandoned building. When they were all together and had caught their breath, Tenney said, “It’s about Diego.”
Rosia nodded. “He frequents the brothel near the capitol.”
“How do you know that?” Tenney asked.
“We have kitchen jobs there.”
“You found work at a brothel?”
Yorick grinned. “I know. It was the first place we found that was hiring.”
“We think Diego has access to the capitol building,” Rosia said, “and we were going to try to get his keycards. But, there’s no time now. Things have changed.”
“What changed?” Tenney asked.
“The king is going to beef up his security. Allegedly. We don’t know that for sure, but it’s the rumor. So, now we’re talking about a plan to sneak in there right before the building closes this evening. We’re going to end this.”
“How would you do that?”
Yorick cut in. “We have a modified control chip to infect the system with some kind of virus.”
“You have the control chip?” Tenney asked. “How did you get it back?”
Yorick shook his head. “Long story. The end result is we’re now wanted by both the soldados and the White Flames.”
“I see,” Tenney said. “And it has to be tonight? What if this rumor about the security isn’t true?”
“It’s not just that. Things are happening around here. Things are changing, and not only because of the people after us.”
“I agree,” Tenney said. “But, that’s not what I wanted to tell you about Diego.”
Rosia frowned. “Then what is it?”
Tenney met Yorick’s eyes. There wasn’t a good way to say it, so he decided to let the words spill out of his mouth. He cleared his throat to give himself a little inertia. “A few days ago, I saw Diego with your dad. They were together in Denver, in the same car.”
Yorick’s head jerked, his lower lip pushed out. “Diego and Laertes? That doesn’t make any sense. How do they even…” He drifted off for a moment until his eyebrows shot high up. Rosia gasped as the same realization crawled across her face, too.
“Diego is my brother?” Yorick said. “All those years fighting me, and he was my blood this whole time?”
Tenney shrugged. “I don’t even know if he knows about you. All I know is that he was there when Laertes met with Santiago, the leader of the group I’m hiding out with. Sun worshippers.”
Yorick drifted off and took a step back, steadying himself against the side of the building. He seemed dazed. Understandable, given the news he’d received. “Hamon is alive,” Yorick said, his eyes blank.
“You’re kidding,” Tenney said. “You mean the guy who used to lead your team of guerreros, right? That guy who disappeared inside the mansion?”
“Yes,” Rosia said, “and he works at the brothel with us. He helped us find a contact who is reprogramming the control chip to unlock all of the plantación gates across the kingdom.” She paused a moment, then stared deep into Tenney’s eyes. “You’re in close with sun worshippers?”
“Yeah, but they’re terrorists. I’m looking for a way to get out.” Tenney recapped the last few days of his time with them and the horrible things they’d done.
“Don’t leave,” Yorick said, still staring at the ground with dead eyes. “We need to know what they’re doing. If we invade the capitol building and they’re planning an attack, we need to know about it. We don’t want to get blown up with the building.”
Tenney pursed his lips. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“A couple more hours?” Rosia asked, her eyes pleading with him. She pulled close and looked at him dead on. “Just go back and find out their plan. Find out this one thing, then you can leave and meet us, and we’ll stay together from now on.”
He frowned, breath whistling in an out of his nose as he stared at her.
“You can do this,” she said. “You’re braver than both of us put together. We wouldn’t be here if not for you, remember? Overthrowing Wybert happened because of what you did. You organized the farm workers. You made the rebellion happen.”
He knew she was trying to encourage him, but it wasn’t helping. All he heard was Malina would still be alive if it weren’t for you.
With a sigh, Tenney nodded. “Okay. I can go back and ask around.”
Yorick rejoined their circle. He seemed to have regained his composure. “If you can’t find out something soon, you’ll have to get away from them anyway. We’re on a tight deadline.”
“And you’re definitely going to try this tonight?”
Yorick nodded. “As soon as we get the chip back, we’re going in, this evening. It could all be over in a few hours.”
“How does that work?” Tenney asked.
“We have a plan. Rosia and I will pose as kitchen workers, and you will be our distraction to get us past building security. Then, we go upstairs and insert the virus into the computer system. We’ll meet outside the lobby in two hours. Can you do that?”
Tenney looked back and forth between them a few times. “I can do that.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tenney strolled back toward the sun worshipers’ building with a million different thoughts stampeding through his head. First of all, Hamon was still alive. They hadn't ever been close, because Hamon was a guerrero and Tenney a lowly field worker, but Tenney had known of him. It made him wonder what happened to all of the other people who disappeared inside the lord's mansion and were never seen again.
Also, Tenney kept thinking of the look on Yorick's face when he learned Diego was his brother. That dead stare of disbelief, morphing into passive acceptance.
Unless Diego hadn’t known what his father was doing. That seemed to be the more likely explanation.
Finally, Tenney couldn't stop thinking about returning to the sun worshipers. Walking among those terrorists. Of course, from one perspective, Tenney had been a terrorist at the plantación. Lord Wybert had certainly thought of him that way. But, these people didn't seem to have the pure motives the serfs had displayed at the plantación. Their acts weren't about freedom for the sun worshipers. This was about causing pain and suffering as a form of protest.
Tenney understood why he had to go back, though. Rosia had been right. If the sun worshipers were planning something big, they all needed to know about it. Of course, given Tenney’s lack of participation in their operations over the last couple days, he might still return to find himself banished from the group. Or worse.
He only had to stay with them for a couple more hours, though. Then, he could join Rosia and Yorick to infiltrate the capitol. A real chance to end it all.
Near the brick building, he saw a crew of the sun worshippers in the parking lot, loading objects into the back of a van. At least six cultists plus Santiago were there. All of them armed. Two of them bared their teeth to lift a footlocker from the ground and set it inside the van. It made the back end dip.
More explosives? Tenney didn't know if they had used all of their supply in the tea shop bombing. What horrible thing were they planning this afternoon?
When Tenney drew nearer, Santiago lifted a hand to block out the glare of the sun. He watched Tenney approach. "There you are. Just in time. We need you."