The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1)
Page 23
Bruck glanced at me, his hand hesitating on the ramp lever. “You know he will shoot at us the moment I open this, don’t you?”
I stood up. “Let me speak to him, then you won’t have any more problems.”
He grimaced and threw the lever. The ramp touched down on the roof and I stepped in front of him.
“I should go alone.”
“I can’t let you do that,” he said.
“Believe me, he will be a problem otherwise.”
Bruck started to argue, but when he saw my expression he moved aside.
“Go ahead, then.”
I headed down the ramp and saw Flick standing a few meters away, staring at me. Relief/incredulous.
I crossed the rooftop, not sure what to expect, and found myself crushed in a strong embrace.
Then he held me out at arm’s length and took in my sculptured white dress.
His eyes flashed. “Keeley, what did you do?”
A weapon swung from a strap over his shoulder and I could see it was not a smoker. He had been busy planning a way to come rescue me and intended to use lethal weapons to do so.
An ungrateful, stupid and selfish thing to do, considering that he would certainly have failed and probably died.
This, after everything I had done to free him.
Could I have expected anything else?
“I made arrangements for your transfer,” I said.
“Transfer to where?”
“I’ve negotiated terms to secure your freedom, but there are certain promises I made in order for this to occur.”
The four enforcement officers stepped off the airship behind me at that moment and walked toward us. Flick lifted the muzzle of his weapon.
I put my hand on his arm. “That is not necessary. They work for me now.”
Shock/astonishment. “They work for you?”
“I am the Governor of New Dublin. I replaced my brother after Nasha removed him from the position.”
Flick took a step away from me. “I don’t believe it.”
“Perhaps it would be better if you packed while we spoke. Then we can leave.”
“Leave to where, exactly?”
“Bay Harbor.”
He lowered his weapon slowly.
I motioned to the four approaching officers and they halted in place. As they stood still and waited, Flick’s face distorted from the blow of realization.
“This is probably difficult to process,” I said.
“I’m processing as fast as I can.”
“There is no other choice that meets all of my requirements.”
“Your requirements,” he said resentfully. “And what are those?”
“To prevent you from becoming another me.”
He stared at the ground. “That’s what they planned to do? Erase my memory?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. Thanks for throwing me out the hatch.”
I swallowed and tried to speak without my voice breaking. “You will be taken to Bay Harbor and continue in your position as a Grey munitions specialist. But you will not be allowed to leave. Ever.”
He thought about that for a moment. “I won’t ever see you again, will I?”
“No. Nasha has no trust left for you.”
“That is the concession you had to make? That I would stay in Bay Harbor permanently?”
I nodded. “It is.”
“Why would you agree to that?”
My voice trembled minutely, and involuntarily. “I agreed to cooperate with Nasha so long as she provides me proof of your well-being on a weekly basis.”
“What if I want my future well-being to include you, Keeley?”
“It cannot. The only reason you are still alive is because I swore an oath not to escape again if you are unharmed.”
He ran a hand over his eyes. “You can’t trade your freedom for me. It isn’t right.”
I grasped his hands. “Flick, when you first brought me here, I wanted to elicit feelings of sympathy from you to rouse your protective nature and increase my chances of survival. I wanted you to develop a bond with me that would encourage you to sacrifice yourself for me if necessary so that I could escape and live.”
“Well, it worked,” he said raggedly. “I’d probably die for you, you know that don’t you?”
My eyes misted over. “The bond I managed to establish with you came with an unintended consequence.”
“Which was?”
“It is reciprocal.”
For a moment he seemed unable to speak.
As he realized the implications of what I’d said, he reached up and brushed my cheek with one shaky hand. “You mean to say, you feel the same way?”
“I jumped out of a helicar at 9144 meters without a parachute to save you.”
His face lost some of its color, and he rocked back on his heels. “So, Nasha can make you do anything she wants, so long as I am alive?”
“Exactly.”
“But, what happens to you now?”
No doubt I would have a veritable legion of medical personnel seeing to my every whim, examining me and studying my physiology, attempting to learn why I had survived and what made me unique.
Flick did not need to know the details of my medical servitude to the New Authority. Needless to say, I would be well looked after.
“We need to go now,” I said. “Bring whatever you can carry comfortably.”
He went back inside the building for a few minutes and returned, holding a single bag he could manage with one hand, and we walked to the airship together.
The flight to Bay Harbor lasted three hours, and not once during the trip did I release Flick’s hand.
When we landed on the outskirts of what could only be described as a primitive looking city, crammed with older wood buildings and marginal infrastructure, I found myself detesting my bargain with Nasha, but I knew it was the only way to ensure that Flick would be safe.
I walked with him to the edge of the city, flanked on both sides by an enforcement officer. Bruck was taking no chances and had insisted that two armed men accompany us. They had taken Flick’s weapon away, but when I glanced at their faces they clearly displayed cautious/dread toward him, even though he wasn’t armed and was cooperating.
We stopped a short distance from the end of a narrow alleyway between two dilapidated buildings, and I turned to face Flick, an inconvenient lump already forming in my throat.
He pulled me into an embrace that crushed the air from my lungs. “Does our communication work both ways? When Nasha shows you that I am still alive, will I be able to talk to you?”
“We can speak to each other once a week. Supervised.”
He kissed me deeply and then leaned back to look into my eyes.
His hands gripped my shoulders as he spoke. “I know this is the right thing to do. I’ll abide by the rules.”
I studied his face. “I see.”
My two escorts watched us openly, but neither one gave any indication that they understood the deeper implications of Flick’s statement.
“Keeley, I can’t say goodbye,” he whispered.
“I understand.”
He lifted my hand and kissed the underside of my wrist. “Be well.”
“And you.”
Flick turned, shouldered his bag, and walked away.
I watched him until he disappeared from sight, and then I went back to the airship and took my seat.
We lifted off, creating a great spray of leaves and dust, and as we banked slowly, gaining altitude, I allowed myself a tiny smile.
Flick’s words had indicated he would agree to Nasha’s arrangement, but his face had not.
When he promised to abide by the bargain, anyone else would have believed him, and in fact, my two escorts had believed it.
But I knew better.
I’d seen his expression quite clearly and there was simply no mistaking it.
Flick had not exactly been telling the truth.
In
fact, he hadn’t told the truth at all.
He had no intentions of honoring the agreement, and I found myself reevaluating my situation…again.
The probability that I would be seeing Flick in the future was no longer zero. Now, based on the gleam in his eye, I estimated the chances somewhere between highly likely, and absolutely certain.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.S. McClelland is the author of the Marley Dearcorn novels, a series of murder mysteries set in south-central Montana. She is a librarian, avid archer, and sings with the Western Colorado Chorale. She and her husband divide their time between Colorado and Wyoming. This is her first science fiction novel.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and locations are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The New Authority Conspiracy
Copyright © 2017 Jessica McClelland
Red Sky Inc.
All rights reserved.
Cover Design by Y. Nikolova at Ammonia Book Covers
First Edition: June, 2017.
ISBN-13: 978-0692872260 (Red Sky Inc.)
ISBN-10: 0692872264