Emerald Eyes

by Emerald Eyes (new ed) (mobi)

  A man's voice from the doorway. "Trent!"

  They knew his name. Oh, I've fucked this up bad, Trent thought.

  Trent yelled back, "Yeah!"

  "We want the stone!"

  Trent didn't hesitate. He reached into his coat without hesitation, pulled out the small, velvet lined bag. He threw it at the entryway, watched it bounce to a stop just inside the storeroom. "Take it!"

  One of the Macoute made a long arm, reached inside and pulled out the bag.

  Trent could feel the girl, shivering, panting at his side as though she couldn't draw enough breath. "Are they leaving? Are they leaving?"

  Trent shook his head. "Probably not." We're about to die, he thought very calmly.

  The note of pure terror that touched her voice was one of the worst things he had ever heard. "Oh no, please, please"

  Trent turned to her. He actually saw her for the first time, clearly; she couldn't have been more than fifteen, pretty, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. "Listen to me," he whispered, "listen."

  She stared at him, eyes wide, panting in short, sharp breaths.

  "Life is movement," he said urgently. "We start in one place and move to another, and even death is just a part of that."

  A beat. When she spoke Trent could hear the surprise in her voice, the startled realization. She said, "We're going to die."

  Trent could not look away from her. He heard the Macoute pulling down the barrier at the storeroom's entryway. "Don't be afraid. We'll go together."

  Laser light cut into the darkness around them. Trent pulled the girl to him and curled up around her, protecting her body with his own. Beams cut through the darkness, illuminated her terrified features. Trent felt one of the beams touch him and heard the girl whispering over and over, "Oh God, oh no, oh no"

  He barely even heard the gunfire that saved his life.

  "Here," said Jimmy. "I thought you'd want this back."

  Trent took the small bag with the jewel inside it, tucked it back in the inner pocket of the coat laying on the ground beside him. A Temple Dragon medic, Old Rodrigohe was twenty-sevenwas just finishing applying a salve to the laser burn on Trent's back. Old Rodrigo had told Trent, regretfully, that he wouldn't even get a good scar out of the burn, just a little patch of irregular color in all likelihood.

  Trent pulled his shirt back on, and then his coat, ignoring the pain in his back. Whatever the medic had used on him, it wasn't a pain killer, or it wasn't enough of one. He ignored Jimmy's offered hand and sat in one of the dining room chairs and looked around at the wreckage of the restaurant.

  Out here in the dining area it didn't look too bad. One destroyed table, shattered windows, a lot of overturned chairs. Jimmy stood at Trent's side, grinning, obviously pleased. Two dead Macoute had been propped up against the wall.

  "How many dead?"

  "Three Macoute," Jimmy said proudly. "None of ours. Couple minor burns, yours was the worst."

  Trent said flatly, "You shouldn't have come."

  Jimmy didn't even look angry. He said blankly, "What?"

  "The girl died. That makes four." Trent paused. "You know, I hate slugthrowers even more than I hate beams. They" He waved a hand, vaguely. "ricochet."

  Jimmy stared at him. The fury in his voice barely registered on Trent. "If I hadn't come, you'd be dead."

  Trent looked up at him. "If you hadn't come, it would only have been two. And she wouldn't have had to make the trip alone." He got to his feet, slowly, trying to ignore the flaming pain across his shoulders, and walked toward the front entrance, and out onto the street, without speaking again.

  Jimmy stared after him. Finally he gestured to a pair of the armed Dragons standing nearby. "Escort him! Put some guns around him and escort him home!" The two of them ran out into the street, after Trent. Jimmy shook his head in disbelief, turned and went into the back of the restaurant where the medic was laying out the girl's body.

  The medic looked up at Jimmy. Jimmy couldn't take his eyes off the dead girl's body. She'd been burned by the lasers, three separate scores he could see, but from the bleeding it was clear her death had been caused by a slug in her stomach. The sight of the blood froze Jimmy. Abruptly he had difficulty breathing.

  "Rodrigo…were any of the Macoute…carrying slug throwers?"

  Old Rodrigo blinked lazily. He spoke with an island accent that Jimmy had always suspected was an affectation. "The Macoute? They don' usually carry impact weapons, man. Lasers and masers, you know."

  After a moment, Jimmy said, "I think I might throw up."

  "Don't do it on the body, man," said Old Rodrigo reproachfully. "That's disrespectful, you know?"

  Milla and Reverend Andy sat on the porch at the rectory next door to the Temple of Eris, each of them bundled up against the cold of winter, and watched the sun sink in the cloudless sky.

  "I don't really remember it very well," Milla said. "How the Troubles started. Most of us don't. I was outside when it happened. The telepathsscreamedand then I remember seeing the nuke go offseeing that mushroom cloud." She shook her head. "Most of the grownups went crazy, and most of the crazy ones died. Kids handled it better. But afterwards there were a lot of kids with no parents. So we ended up with big kids taking care of the little kids 'Wendies.' " She glanced at him to see if he'd gotten the reference, saw him nodding. "I'm their Wendy. I love them so much it hurts. They try so hard and as hard as they try it's barely enough just to stay alive."

  Reverend Andy sighed. "I wish I'd been here, darlin'. I was travelling when it happened. By the time I got back the Peaceforcers had sealed the area off. The rioting wasbad." He shook his head. "Here I'm telling you about it."

  Milla shrugged. "You won't hear it the other way."

  Reverend Andy said slowly, "I've heard some of the survivorssaw things."

  The images were as clear to Milla as the day she'd had them. The telepaths had screamed, at her, at her personallywhich was the experience everyone had had. For days she hadn't been sure who she was, or where, or whenand she was not alone. Children struck by it survived better than adults, but there were girl children who were not old enough yet, five and a half years later, to have born children of their own, who could tell you in detail what childbirth felt like, or who knew the names of the husbands they were going to have, some day, in time to come

  Several days after the Troubles began, Milla's jumbled memories straightened out, and all that she was left with were flashes. Just flashesand until she'd met Trent she hadn't been sure they were not the product of her own imagination. She'd never told anyone about them, and was surprised, even now, to hear herself telling Reverend Andy. The words came haltingly, but they came….

  "...I saw him. Not the way he was when I met him. Not even the way he is now. He's...different. Older. He has his arms spread out, like Jesus on the cross. And then he says, 'I love you all.' And then..." She shivered, hugging herself. "And then they shoot him."

  "Who shoots him?"

  Milla simply shook her head.

  "Did you see anything else?"

  She shook her head again.

  Reverend Andy sat quietly beside her, breath pluming in the air. After a moment he reached over and patted her on the shoulder, almost awkwardly.

  Milla looked up at him and the word spilled out of her. "Help me get them out. I'm going to lose one of them if we don't get out of here. He's making enemies, people are starting to hear about him and know who he is. I've beenresignedI gave up hoping I could make them safe and if there's any chance I have to get them out of here!"

  There were two flashes of imagery that Milla remembered, not one. The second image she had carried away from the telepath's assault on her was an image of herself. In it she was about her current age, and she was standing in front of the Barrier, with a laser rifle in her hands, while laser bolts rained all around her, striking her repeatedly.

  She tried not to think about that image, but there were two things she was sure of:

  She was going to die
when that day came.

  And it was going to happen on the other side of the Barrier.

  Jimmy put down his coffee and got to his feet, respectfully, when McGee entered the restaurant.

  He didn't know how old McGee was, except that he was old, ancient not just by the standards of the Fringe but by those of the outside world. A hundred? Older, probably. For a man of his years he was still strongthough the word that came to mind when Jimmy thought of him was, simply, evil. Not that Jimmy thought that McGee was essentially evil, necessarily, exactly; he was willing to concede that there might have been an actual person behind those ancient features somewhere. Jimmy just had no evidence of it.

  McGee had five armed men with him, which was enough to make Jimmy grateful that several of the Temple Dragons had waited with him, helping him drink McGee's coffee. McGee looked around the mess of his restaurant, in no particular hurry, with no particular expression.

  Finally Jimmy said, "McGeethey came in shooting."

  McGee appeared to notice Jimmy for the first time. "I have thirty cameras in this place. I'm going to know what happened here."

  "Macoute broke the treaty, sir. We just came in to get Trent."

  The old man sighed. "What was he doing here?"

  Jimmy thought about it. "Seeing a man about a rock."

  McGee nodded. "Where is he now?"

  "At the Temple."

  "I'll want to talk to him." McGee brushed by Jimmy, heading toward the rear of the restaurantpaused and turned back to Jimmy, and said in a tone that Jimmy would have called, in a real human being, complaint: "You have any idea how hard it is to get insurance in the Fringe?"

  The bodies had been laid out in the center of the Temple, in the area where the preacher normally preached, in body bags that had been sealed up to their throats so that only their faces showed. The Temple was dark, only the lights on the altar providing illumination. Reverend Andy had dressed in his official robes, and appeared to be angry about having had to.

  Jimmy and four other Temple Dragons stood near the bodies, carrying their rifles.

  "I don't believe I'm doing this," said Reverend Andy.

  Trent, sitting in the darkness toward the back of the Temple, was looking up at the stained glass windows showing the life of the Prophet Harry. The one he was looking at showed the Prophet Harry's beating at the hands of the IRS. Usually he liked looking at that plate; it reminded him that life was essentially ludicrous, even for the great. Today he barely saw it. The numbness that had stolen over him made him feel as though he could have sat there, without moving, for weeks, until his life drained out of him. He didn't feel sad, or angry, just numb and detached.

  No one answered Reverend Andyafter a moment Trent said, "There are no police in the Fringe. No Peaceforcers." It was important the man understand. Trent knew he didn't.

  Reverend Andy didn't even look at Trent. "I'm not going to start breaking your treaties before I've been here 24 hours," he said, the anger evident in him, "but by God and the Prophet Harry there will be changes here."

  In the darkness, Trent smiled. "Not long after the Barrier went up, Gypsy Macoute overran the Temple on Gold Street."

  Jimmy bowed his head slightly, and suddenly looked weary and older than he was.

  Trent continued. "There was no one to stop them. There were no Temple Dragons, then. So the Macoute killed the men, killed the children, raped the women and then killed them. They didn't kill them fast. What they did, they tied people to steel poles and poured oil on them."

  Jimmy said softly, almost a whisper, "And burned them."

  "Burned them," Trent repeated. "Four, five at a time. When the fires burned down, they'd bring out a new batch. Whole families at once. People who were there say that"

  "Torches burned from dusk 'til dawn," said Jimmy Ramirez.

  "There's a reason the Temple Dragons exist, Reverend, that we have treaties. You don't have to like it ... but it would help if you understood that there are reasons." Trent glanced over at Reverend Andy, saw the man looking illturned back to look at the stained glass. He wondered if Reverend Andy was going to throw up. First Jimmy, and now maybe Reverend Andy. Trent couldn't remember if he'd ever seen two people throw up on the same day just because they were upset.

  Trent heard the doors to the Temple swinging open, and shifted in his seat to watch them enter.

  The Macoute were here.

  They came into the Temple together, six of them, unarmed. The Temple Dragons shifted their rifles, but did not point them at the Macoute.

  The Macoute stepped forward, led by One-Eye, stopped ten paces away from Reverend Andy and held out the empty hands, palms up. Trent came forward to meet them.

  One-Eye was about fifty years old. Old, for the Fringe. The right side of his face was savagely scarred, and the left side was only an improvement by comparison. He'd been ugly even before he'd lost his eye, Trent had heard, and what was left of his features supported that. "Trent, Jimmy." One-Eye glanced a Reverend Andy. "Who he?"

  Trent said softly, "Hello, One-Eye."

  Reverend Andy said, in the voice he used when he was preaching, "Reverend Andrew Strawberry."

  One-Eye measured him, dismissed him with a visible shrug. "We come for our dead."

  Jimmy gestured at the girl, off to one side of the dead Macoute. "Do you know who the girl is? She's not from our territory and she's not wearing colors."

  One-Eye glanced at her. "Dominique...I don't know her last name. She got family on Legion Street."

  Trent nodded. "One of yours...take her home. Tell her family the Flatbush Temple Dragons will pay death benefits."

  There was a stir among the Macoute. The offer obviously startled them. Trent got to his feet, came forward until he stood in front of One-Eye. "I'm sorry for your dead. I wouldn't have had them die overa thing."

  One-Eye stared at Trent briefly, warilyfinally made a small gesture with one hand. His men came forward and sealed the body bags the rest of the way up, lifted them and headed for the door. One-Eye backed up with them, still looking at Trent. "I heard you stole a jewel this time." He shrugged. "Not worth dyin' for."

  Trent said, "Almost nothing is."

  One-Eye stopped at the door, grinned at Trent. "You and mewe know that." He stepped backward through the Temple Doors, and Trent saw the Temple Dragons relaxing slightly.

  Reverend Andy turned to Trent. "He seems to like you."

  "Yeah. Everyone likes me. Even One-Eye."

  Revernd Andy said, "Man has some appreciation for the value of life."

  Jimmy snorted. "His life."

  Trent said, "One-Eye burned Jimmy's little brother when the Gold Street Temple was destroyed." He paused. "He's a bad man."

  Trent did not think he had ever seen anyone more truly, deeply appalled than Reverend Andy was at that moment. "And you made a treaty with him?"

  Trent and Jimmy exchanged glances. Finally Jimmy said, "Who else? Don't need to make treaty with people you don't hate."

  The big man was genuinely shaken. Trent couldn't think of anything he wante to say to the man. The Macoute should be clear of the building by now, he thought. I can go. Not that he felt like moving, now or ever.

  Reverend Andy said, "How can you live like this?"

  Trent pushed himself to his feet, left without looking back.

  Jimmy Ramirez watched him go, thinking about Reverend Andy's question. Finally he shrugged. "It's the Fringe."

  Trent sat at the edge of Prospect Lake, in the dark. From here he could see the Barrier, and the spacescrapers in Manhattan, climbing up into the night sky. Prospect Lake was Temple Dragon territory, though by the treaties Gypsy Macoute were permitted to travel through this area without being harmed. After nightfall, almost no one ever came out here, except Trent, and that only occasionally.

  He had the gem in his hands. It was the first time he'd really gotten a chance to look at it, and it was too dark to really see it well. Every now and again, holding it up against the lights of the spaces
crapers, he saw a glint of blue in it.

  Toss it into the lake. No one would ever find it.

  Instead he put it back in its bag, put the bag into his inner coat pocket, and went home to get dressed. He couldn't go into the city wearing colors.

  Half a dozen vehicles were lined up at the check point, to pass through the Barrier. About twenty people on foot, standing in line, were being processed through, one at a time. Armed PKF troops patroled the check point; it was one of only four places on Long Island that people and vehicles were permitted to pass throughwith proper identification.

  The line moved forward, slowly it seemed to Trent, standing there in the line wearing his business suit. After what seemed a long time he was at the check point himself.

  The Peaceforcer on duty said in a bored voice, "ID and retinal scan, please." He glanced up and saw Trent for the first time. "Oh. Good morning, M. Vera."

  Trent leaned forward and put his eye up against the scanner. "Vera, Thomas. Is it morning already?"

  The Peaceforcer looked down at his display. The message flashed up at him: Retinal scan and voice print match. He looked back up at Trent. "Yes, M. Vera. Two a.m."

  Trent shook his head. "It's been such a long day."

  Trent let himself into Randall Getty Cristofer's hotel room.

  He had seen holos of the man, but he had never seen him in the flesh before. He was younger than Trent would have guessed from the stills he'd seen, about 40, and more handsome as well. Getty was talking to someone visible in a holo off to his side, while watching another dozen newsfeeds at the same time. He broke off when Trent stepped into the room and pointed his gun at Cristofer.

  "Tell them you'll call back."

  Cristofer stared at Trent. After a moment he said, in a distinct Australian accent, "Command, kill the feeds." The newsfeeds vanished. "Jack, I'll have to call you back. Something's come up." He made a gesture with one hand and the caller disappeared.

  Trent lowered the gun. "You're Randall Cristofer."

  "Who are youwhere's my security?"

  Trent smiled at him. "They're asleep. Out in the hallway of this really nice hotel room you've got here. I hope someday to have stolen enough from people like you to be able to stay in hotels like this one."