Forged Absolution (Fates of the Bound Book 4)

by Wren Weston

  Lila settled more comfortably in her chair.

  Her ploy had worked.

  “As to the charge of treason, we find no evidence of personal gain in your records. We also find no evidence of you handing the information over to a third party. Without the truth serum to aid us, we must find you not guilty.” Senator Masson dropped his gavel on the table with a clatter and a clink. “Dr. Vargas, as a side note, wishes he could employ you as a clerk. He called you more slippery than jelly, and I’m inclined to agree.”

  Senator Hardwicke, on Masson’s right, clicked his pen on and off rapidly.

  His neighbor ripped it from his grasp and slapped it on the table.

  “As to the charge of hacking, you were correct yesterday. We do not have any direct evidence of you hacking BullNet, unlike the other accused souls who have sat in your seat over the last few weeks. We also have no evidence that you downloaded any data from the BIRD. After consulting with Bullstow’s technical department and Dr. Vargas, we must find you not guilty.”

  Lila’s heart lifted. She’d be condemned to a slave’s term, then, and her father and Chief Shaw would be spared.

  Senator Masson cleared his throat. “You did admit to inappropriately accessing a secure government database, Ms. Randolph, something you had no right and no permission to do, regardless of your intentions. That charge carries a slave’s term of up to ten years. You also admitted to improperly accessing a government computer, regardless of whether or not we have proof. That is also punishable by up to ten years. This committee rules that you bear the full penalty for each charge.”

  Senator Masson snatched up his gavel and banged it on the sounding board.

  Lila barely heard it. She wasn’t sure how to feel about her sentence. She’d spend the next twenty years as a slave, entering the auction house as a twenty-eight-year-old woman. Only after she turned forty-eight could she begin to work off her selling price and earn back her mark. Unfortunately, she’d go for quite a sum. With no credits to her name, she had no hope of working off her price before she died.

  But at least she’d managed to save Shaw and her father.

  The senators’ eyes slid to the window, focusing on the workborn they found there, still spreading mulch. The prime minister’s daughter, charged with far worse than any other, had received the lightest sentence of all. Though the senate couldn’t charge her with more, the comparably light sentence would only increase the protests outside.

  The senators looked away, shifting in their seats.

  Dixon kept a white-knuckled grip on the seat before him.

  Oh gods, was he going to do something? Would the workborn? Would it begin before she even left the courtroom?

  She craned her head toward the window. The workborn moved away in a group, leaving their bags of mulch behind mid-job. Only one worker stayed behind, a scar cutting down the side of his face. He spread mulch over the same spot he’d worked on during the sentencing. Lila recognized him immediately. Finn Nottingham worked for the oracle. He had two young children and a new husband at home.

  He’d risk all that, just to rescue her.

  A rescue she hardly needed.

  Finn turned his head. His lips barely moved in the cold, and his breath came out in little curls of steam.

  Lila jerked at a metallic tinkling behind her. Two blackcoats marched from the door. One extended a pair of handcuffs while the other held on to the butt of his tranq gun. Their eyes followed her hands in case she’d smuggled a weapon inside.

  Everyone knew that she could draw a gun faster than most people could blink.

  But she wouldn’t draw. Not here. Not anywhere. She’d go with the blackcoats to the security building, where they’d confirm her fingerprints in the state database. They’d verify her DNA in the state registry. Then they’d take her to the clinic, and Dr. Booth would cut open her neck and insert a slave’s chip. A GPS satellite would tattle on her location if she dared run away.

  If the oracle’s people wanted her, they’d snatch her before that happened.

  She remembered Finn’s children playing tag in a small apartment, their small feet slapping against the wooden floor.

  He’d never see those children grow up if he got caught.

  When Finn and his friends came for her, she’d go. She’d escape the oracle’s compound later and turn herself in. The government gave the women plenty of money. If they wanted her so badly, they could damn well buy her at the auction house.

  At least Chief Sutton had not attended. Lila couldn’t bear the thought of her old mentor seeing her in handcuffs.

  She turned around and placed her hands behind her back. “I’m not going to resist.”

  How had her life ended up like this?

  Clothes rustled behind her. Boots shuffled upon the wooden floor. “Stop this foolishness at once,” a male voice boomed.

  Lila turned her head.

  Chief Shaw stood in the middle of the courtroom, drawing everyone’s eye. He pinned his blackcoats with a severe gaze and pointed to the door. “Return to your post.”

  “Sir?” one of his men asked.

  “I said return to your post. I can’t let this farce go on any longer.”

  Senator Masson picked up his gavel and eyed the sounding board once more. “Sir, these men have a job to do. They are honor-bound to take this prisoner to a holding cell, just as you—”

  “No, I am honor-bound to—”

  “Chief Shaw is a good man,” Lila said, glaring at the Bullstow chief. “He is understandably disappointed that he found a member of the militia betraying her calling. I apologize, sir, for letting you down. I am honored that you would deign to take me to the holding cell yourself, but surely you have much better uses of your time.”

  Hopefully, Shaw would notice the warning beneath her words. She really didn’t want the man tranqed by a dozen religious workborn on a mission.

  “I apologize as well,” Senator Masson said. “I know your men put a lot of effort into this case, but Dr. Vargas assured us that we cannot charge her for more, especially if we do not want to risk a lawsuit. There’s not enough evidence to—”

  Shaw held up his hand and threaded through the benches. He strode down the center aisle and stopped beside Lila, his fingers picking once again at his sleeves. “Ms. Randolph is doing an admirable job of protecting me, so admirable that she’s nearly given herself a slave’s term, but I cannot allow her to throw away her life like this. She is still a young woman. An heir. And as an honorable man of Bullstow—for I still have my honor, gentlemen—I cannot allow this to continue. Ms. Randolph was not in BullNet without permission. She had mine.”

  The senators stared at the blackcoat. No one said a word for a long time.

  “Why on earth would you do such a thing?” Senator Masson asked.

  “I needed a technical consultant. I asked her to help out on a case. If you wish to know more, we should retire to private chambers. It is privileged information that should not be in the public record.”

  “I do not understand. You have an entire technical department, Chief Shaw. Why did you need a consultant?”

  “Because I needed the best, and I needed someone outside Bullstow. Someone impartial.”

  “So you went to the families?” Senator Hardwicke spat. “Are you mad? Why don’t you just run to the empire next time?”

  “Cool it, Senator Hardwicke,” Masson warned, “else your season will become very cold, short, and unfruitful indeed.”

  Shaw fixed both men with a stare. “When I say impartial, I mean it, senators. We’ll speak of the rest privately, but let me be clear: every charge against Ms. Randolph is a charge against our honor if we convict her. She did nothing I did not ask her to do, nothing I did not give her permission to do, nothing Bullstow did not gravely need. And she walked in here ready to be led to the gallows or the auction house f
or our well-being, for Saxony’s well-being. If you see fit to give her a slave’s term this morning, that term should be mine to bear.”

  “You gave a highborn, perhaps a future prime, access to the state’s most private files?” Masson asked.

  “I hired the best damn technical consult in the state, sir. Do not forget this woman served as captain of her family’s technical crimes department. She aided Bullstow in its greatest hour of need, even knowing she might end up in this very position. And even after you have condemned her, she has kept our secrets. She was prepared to spend her life paying for my incompetence, for Bullstow’s incompetence. That is the reason I hired her. She has an heir’s upbringing and her father’s code of ethics. Is this how we will repay her?”

  Masson gripped his gavel. “Can you prove you hired her?”

  “Since when is my word not enough?”

  “Since you admitted to giving a highborn carte blanche in our network!”

  Shaw licked his lips. “Yes, I have documentation, and I shall take responsibility for the consequences of my actions, but I had no other choice.”

  Lila breathed out slowly. So far, he had kept her father out of his confession, but his plea to free her might very well condemn her to a longer sentence.

  “You will talk to us privately. Both of you,” Senator Masson ordered, his face paling as he scanned the curious eyes in the room. “I want everyone out, everyone except Chief Shaw and Ms. Randolph. Even you, Mr. Marquez, as well as our esteemed colleagues.”

  The lowborn senators stood and pushed in their chairs, their faces made of stone, their eyes made of fire. Lila supposed they’d never been kicked out of a sentencing before.

  Or perhaps they’d been kicked out all too often.

  “You can’t eject us from a highborn trial,” one sputtered, his tailored suit coat made of finer wool than the highborn senators before him.

  “If you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t a trial any longer,” Masson replied. “It’s an internal Bullstow matter. If it becomes a trial again, then we will not hesitate to call you back. Until then, go have brunch on High House.”

  “Fine, but we’re having lobster and truffles.” The man led his compatriots from the room, all lowborn straightening their coats and breeches, snapping the fabric around their chests with a rustle and a pop. Their boots stamped a bit too loudly against the marble. They might have been teenagers, rebelling wordlessly with every step.

  While they filed from the room, Lila slipped her palm from her pocket and scrolled through her snoop programs. She ran the device over the benches and walls, checking for bugs. The rest of the room emptied while she worked.

  Dixon ducked his head as he darted past the blackcoats, the scars on his neck hidden by his bland gray scarf. He winked before he left, taking away some of her nerves.

  The blackcoats closed the doors behind themselves, the last to exit.

  Lila opened the window, tossing at least a dozen bugs into the garden. She left the one on Shaw’s collar, hoping only her father would hear, expecting him to dismiss anyone else who might be in the room.

  Then she returned to her seat.

  Senator Masson hopped out of his chair and leaned over the seatback. “Oracle’s wrath, chief, what have you done? Don’t you dare lie to this committee.”

  Shaw folded his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels. “Six months ago, a string of arrests made by the NBM came to my attention. All of the accused possessed stolen material from the BIRD, material they could not have acquired without a skilled hacker. Some claimed they’d been set up, that we’d only found the data on their palms because they’d refused to pay a bribe.”

  “What sort of bribe? To whom?”

  “Both excellent questions. Those highborn weren’t angels, Senator Masson. They’d been trapped underneath a multitude of secrets. It was expected they’d pay monthly to keep those secrets under lock and key. When they refused, their blackmailer put them in our crosshairs. I could tell the person must be well placed from the palm data, and I grew worried about the safety of BullNet. I pulled our brightest tech aside, a man I trusted, and asked him to investigate.”

  “What did he find?”

  “Nothing. He worked fulltime at it for a couple of months and failed miserably. You see, our best and brightest are gibbering idiots compared to those outside the compound.”

  “Gibbering idiots?”

  “Yes, that’s what happens when Bullstow trains everyone as senators even when they have no desire or talent for such an occupation,” Shaw replied. “I had to find someone to help. I know Ms. Randolph well, especially her talents and abilities. I also know her to be a moral and upright person, or I never would have hired her. She’s been an asset of the highest form, and it is a great tragedy that you’ve brought her in today.”

  “So you admit that you gave a highborn heir full access to BullNet?” asked Hardwicke.

  “Senator, do you even know what that means, or are you manufacturing rage because it sounds pretty?”

  “I know—”

  “How to log on. Perhaps Senator Masson knows more because of his matron’s industry, but I’m not even sure that comes close to understanding how screwed we are when network security problems arise.”

  “How dare you!”

  “How dare I?” the chief shot back at Hardwicke. “I begged for Ms. Randolph’s help in staving off a disaster of the highest order. If I hadn’t waited so long, thinking my own man could solve the problem, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Protestors at the gate, shouting at all hours. Press ripping us to shreds. I believed far too strongly in my own men. That makes me loyal, but also deluded.”

  Hardwicke blinked. “You mean, the others we’ve sentenced—”

  “Yes, I mean the others. Every highborn and hacker you’ve sentenced has been part of this scheme. If Ms. Randolph had been granted a little more time, then we wouldn’t even be in this mess. If you want to point fingers, I can give you a place to point them. Senator La Roux did not die in a car accident last month, gentlemen. He died to preserve his honor. Ms. Randolph found the well-placed hacker, and the senate avoided a stain from which we might never recover.”

  The senators’ eyes opened wide. No whispers filled the courtroom.

  “He didn’t come through this committee,” said Masson quietly.

  “I skipped you. I do have the authority. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the authority for the truth serum. No one was in immediate danger.”

  The Bullstow chief settled into the empty chair next to Lila. “La Roux was good enough to evade us for years. He wasn’t good enough for Ms. Randolph, though. She found him in a matter of weeks. Before she fled New Bristol, she’d already sent me a list with several hackers and highborns on it, many of whom sit in our holding cells as we speak. I have the file in my possession, dated from before the press leak. I’ll let you examine it as proof of my claims.”

  “Then you—”

  “Couldn’t move until my tech department linked the senator to his victim’s financial data, if I can even call them victims. We could have dealt with the matter privately, spacing out the arrests so we did not draw the ire of the poorer classes, just as we’ve always done. Instead, we find ourselves here. It is a travesty that Ms. Randolph’s name and reputation have been besmirched in the press, that she’s been made to sit here like a criminal when she nearly single-handedly saved us from the unrest we bear witness to today. She risked her neck to help Bullstow, and I owe her father and her matron my life for what has happened. I never should have put her in this position, but to be frank, Bullstow should not have put me in this situation. We should never have needed help to begin with, or we should have made allowances to contract out for it when the need arises. Legally.”

  “You can contract it out legally,” Masson countered, “but consultants do not come from highborn families. It is
a conflict of interest of the highest order. It is—”

  “Are you not listening to me?” Shaw asked. “How was I supposed to know if I’d be hiring the very person I needed to find? There are only a roomful of people in the state who could have found La Roux. I picked the one person I knew it wouldn’t be.”

  “Is all this true, Ms. Randolph?”

  “I have tried to do right by you and your brothers and Saxony,” Lila replied carefully. “I apologize for not working quickly enough after La Roux passed. I had no idea he’d set up a dead man’s switch, and I didn’t have enough time to properly investigate his personal files and accounts before it flipped two mornings later. When he did not stop it, evidence against the highborn and the hackers leaked to the media. Be thankful the press doesn’t know about everyone in La Roux’s clutches. It could have been much worse.”

  It would be much worse once she finished working through the data, especially for two of the lowborn senators now eating lobster and truffles in a restaurant across the compound. They’d both paid well for their seats on the committee, or at least their families had paid, and they still sent money to a dead man’s account, all to keep the secret quiet.

  “La Roux tried to make several deals with me that night,” Lila continued. “He—”

  “After he nearly strangled her and beat her half to death.”

  Lila’s eyes flicked to Shaw. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know that.

  The senators’ expressions changed from rapt attention to disgust and pity.

  She might as well have been some weak child.

  But she was, wasn’t she? La Roux never should have bested her. She should have been better than that, stronger than that, able to defend herself or at least able to put up a fight. She was a militia chief, for gods’ sake. She’d had training.

  “La Roux said that if he went down, everyone else would go down with him,” she said. “Chief Shaw wasn’t dealing with a bored teenager or a random hacker. La Roux planted a sophisticated trap in the fabric of the network itself. I’ve closed that trap, but it doesn’t change the fact that La Roux made himself into a puppet master. I haven’t found all the puppets yet. Some still walk free.”