by Wesley Chu
“Always seventy plus or minus two in Los Angeles,” he murmured, admiring the cloudless sky.
We should build our headquarters here.
“Nah, traffic’s a killer on the 405. Besides, too many paparazzi.”
Who would want to take a picture of your ugly mug?
“Hear, hear,” Roen chuckled. “I wonder what Jill and Cameron are doing right now.”
The thought of Cameron brought another stab of pain to his chest. He hadn’t seen his boy in so long, and now with him staying with his grandparents in... His thoughts trailed off. Roen stood there in the middle of the pedway, completely blocking traffic. His eyes wandered outside again, and then back at the signs floating above his head. Restroom to the right. Ticketing upstairs. Luggage Claim down the stairs. No entrance after this point. Car Rental to the left. Roen made up his mind and took off running after Wuehler. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and spun him around.
“I need to take a later flight,” he said urgently. “I have the safe house coordinates in Taipei. I’ll only be a day behind.” He turned to leave and stopped. “Sorry,” he said finally, really meaning it.
Wuehler seemed stunned and looked like he was about to blow a gasket, but then he noticed the desperate look in Roen’s eyes. “One day I can give. Two and I’ll shoot you when you walk through the door.”
Roen nodded. He appreciated this gesture and reminded himself that whatever happened, he owed Wuehler one. Then he took off sprinting down the left corridor as fast as he could.
NINE
PLANS AND PIZZA
That was my first encounter with Tao. It was not unusual for Quasing not to have crossed paths, but I had heard of him. He had a distinguished history among us, and was reputed to be a firebrand. His work as an empire builder could not be overlooked.
And though the Genjix had captured and imprisoned my host, I was not ready to join the newly founded Prophus faction. It was one thing to passively object to the old order, it was another to outright rebel. Tao made sure I had little choice in the matter.
Baji
Jill rubbed her eyes and looked at the time: 7.15pm. For the past two days, she had pored over all the documentation Tammy had pulled for the South Seas Sanction. It was a behemoth seven-hundred-page stack of trade papers that was as interesting to read as a Latin dictionary.
She looked at the lopsided battle on the white board of her office wall: sixteen Genjix senators against just three Prophus senators for its passage. Its success would come down to a list in the middle column of four senators who were sitting on the fence.
“Tammy,” she called as her assistant was sneaking home for the night. “Schedule a meeting with Gastigone, Garritano, Young, and Karn before you go. Make it before next Thursday. Then I need you to pull every initiative these senators are backing. I need it tonight.”
The look of disappointment on Tammy’s face could kill. Jill wouldn’t have ordered this if the fate of the world wasn’t on the line. She made a mental note to buy Tammy lunch tomorrow. She watched as her assistant huffed back to her desk and then focused again on the forty-page list of imports/exports in the sanction.
The Genjix were trying to slip something past the Prophus, something that they wanted badly enough to offer significant political capital for it. She notated several possibilities, from military grade electronics to rare minerals to energy sources. Then she compiled a list of elements from heavy water to experimental metals to biological specimens. By 9pm, she had gotten through less than ten percent of the banned list. She was about to order delivery for dinner when a reminder popped up on her computer. Jill grimaced.
“You think Paula would mind if we skip it? I’m not in the right mind for cocktails right now. All I want to do is finish this and get home.”
Have her meet you at your place. It is more secure anyhow.
That was a great idea. Jill might get some actual sleep for once. That and she could use a nice hot bath. She called Paula on her way home and changed their plans to 11pm. The first thing she did when she walked inside was kick off her heels and run the water in the tub. Ten minutes later, she was drinking a glass of pinot and soaking her exhausted body in a steamy bath.
She closed her eyes and tried her damnedest to unwind. Jill couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t stressed. A few minutes later, she slipped into an exhausted slumber. She woke to a light tapping on her shoulder. It took a second to get her bearings. She noticed the cold silver barrel of a pistol close to her face. With a start, she lashed out.
“Easy there,” Paula cooed. “Just me.” She holstered her pistol. “Had me worried. Thought there was foul play when you didn’t answer your phone. Can’t do my job knowing the love of Roen’s life isn’t safe. I’ll feel better when Marco arrives. “
“Stop being on his side,” Jill yawned and stood up, shivering. She must have been out for a while. The water was nippy and her fingers and were wrinkled like dried plums. “Did I miss our meeting?”
“Not if we have it now,” Paula grinned and handed her a towel.
“How did you get in here?” Jill asked, wrapping the towel around her body.
Paula shrugged. “Snuck in through the pool deck of the high-rise. You’ll need to get a new lock for your front door. I’ll wait outside.”
A few minutes later, a bathrobed Jill walked out to the living room. Paula was lounging on the couch watching the cricket score recaps on ESPN. She gestured at a large thin crust pizza on the coffee table. Jill’s stomach reminded her of how famished she was.
She grabbed a slice and sat down next to Paula. “So what’s the scoop? Is the capital of the free world going to hell in a hand basket?”
Paula handed her a large manila packet. “Here are the latest intel reports. DC is already crispy. All I can do at this point is keep you lot out of the fire, or at least not too badly burned. What’s happening on the political front?”
Jill told her about the offer Simon made to Wilks, cutting through the fat and focusing on the sanctions that the Genjix seemed desperate to lift. She then laid out her alternatives to prevent Wilks from agreeing to the Genjix’s proposal.
“Start with the list of materials the sanction blocks,” Paula said, mouth half full. Jill handed the stack of paper to her. Paula glanced at it and frowned. Then she skimmed through the pages. “That’s a long list.”
Jill nodded. “We need better specifics. A lot of the banned tech on the list is predator drone technology. Could that be it? Are the Genjix trying to build a fleet of unmanned drones?”
“None of our intel suggests Skynet coming online.”
Doubtful. Control through a host is difficult enough. It is doubly so to control a proxy through another proxy. Besides, we harbor prejudice toward artificial intelligence.
Paula finished her slice of pizza and helped herself to another. She stared at it lovingly. “You know what I love about America? Your food. Now I know why you’re all so fat. You have the best food. It’s just too bad your tea is so awful.”
Jill went to the table and began to pull notes from the reports. She was going to need more time to go through everything. That meant she had to delay Wilks’ meeting with Hogan – by weeks if possible. “I need a better excuse to keep this meeting from happening,” she muttered. She turned to Paula. “I’m going to be busy for a while. You heading back out?”
“In a bit. If you don’t mind, I’d like to finish catching up on today’s breathtaking cricket replays,” Paula replied.
“Be my guest.” Jill began laying out a new plan to entice Wilks from Hogan’s deal. It would have to be a large package with several things from his wish list. The first thing she did was write down all of Wilks’ goals, from his pet projects to his major initiatives. Then she made several lists of other senators’ goals that Wilks could support. Then she connected the dots and packaged several potential deals.
Two hours later, she finished her plan and reviewed it. It was a solid start, though she was dubious about pulling it of
f. She stood up and stretched, bending her torso side to side. She looked at the clock: 3.42am. She’d better head off to bed. It was another early day tomorrow.
“You alright there, Paula?” she asked, turning to see what the other woman was doing.
Paula was sprawled on the couch with a half-eaten slice of pizza on a plate resting on her belly, sleeping in what seemed like a very uncomfortable position. Jill smiled and went to get the extra blankets. She moved the plate of pizza aside, layered the blankets over the sleeping agent, and tucked a pillow under her head. Then she dimmed the lights and went to her room.
Paula knocked on Jill’s bedroom door. Without waiting for a response, she walked in and sat down at the foot of the bed.
Jill’s eyes fluttered open. “Hello, Yol,” she said.
“Baji,” Yol answered through Paula. “It has been too long since we last spoke.”
“October 1944, just before the death of the Desert Fox,” Baji said solemnly.
Yol nodded. “Rommel was a good man, even if he was on the wrong side of history.”
“I did what I could for him, though the SS had long decided his fate.”
“You saved his family,” Yol replied. “That was more than enough considering the circumstances. Your host’s hands were tied at High Command.” Yol looked off into space and shook her head. “I had high hopes for him as a boy. In any other time, he could have become a great person. He was my Sonya. It was too bad we could not prevent the rise of the Third Reich.”
“Nor the Japanese imperial expansion,” Baji added. “Our entire network in China dissolved in under a year. We should have rebuilt it immediately after the war. But we focused on America and the reconstruction of Europe, allowing the Genjix to gain a foothold there. Now it is the base of their power and nearly impossible to crack.”
“Many mistakes were made. The twentieth century was a catastrophe for us and for humanity. The blame for a dozen wars lies at our feet,” Yol shook her head in disgust. “Sometimes, I wonder if Tao is right.”
“Tao is a hypocrite,” Baji snapped. “He rants that our influence over the humans is just as bad as the Genjix. That we are the cause of as much misery as they, yet he wages a personal war that cuts a path of destruction as wide as Sherman ever did. Now, with Roen a willing accomplice, he is a loose cannon no one can control. At least Tao’s previous host, Edward, had a good head on his shoulders.”
“But you heard Stephen,” Yol mused. “He found truth in Tao’s claims. That means Camr does too. Stephen is cautious and Camr even more so. We cannot ignore the facts. Global temperatures have increased three percent since the turn of the twentieth century. Carbon levels by nine. The Genjix are pushing for the industrialization of humanity in the most inefficient way possible. That cannot be coincidence.”
“It is the path of least resistance.”
“That’s the curious thing. It is not; everyone knows that. The Genjix are playing a cruel joke on this planet. Humanity could advance far quicker utilizing more efficient means of industrializing, yet the Genjix take the most toxic path possible.”
“You give them too much credit. The Genjix do not care about being cruel to humanity. That would imply that they cared enough to be cruel. Their only concern is the Return. The evil they do is simply a byproduct of their means.”
A thought occurred to Baji. She turned to Yol. “What is the longest you have ever survived in this atmosphere?”
“Thirteen minutes during Waterloo. I had to jump among nine French military officers, including three captains and a general. It was a messy day.”
“Back during the second Ice Age, we lost hundreds of thousands of Quasing to the atmosphere. Survival outside of a host depended on seconds. Now, it is minutes. With the current ultraviolet levels and carbon levels, the rate the planet is increasing in temperature...”
Yol shook her head. “It will still be five hundred years before we can survive an hour. Not even the Genjix could be so ambitious.”
“Ambition is something the Genjix have ample supply of.” Baji stood up. Jill’s leg ached from the wound she had sustained last week, and she had forgotten to take her antibiotics. More often than not these days, Jill was forgetting to take care of herself. She went to the counter, took two pills from a small bottle, and popped them in her mouth. Then she paused. Tao had ranted for a year leading up to his disappearance. Now, Yol was here with the same conspiracy theories.
She squinted at Yol. “Are you Tao’s mole?”
Yol laughed. “That is the second time this week you have accused me of that. I will tell you again that I am not. And if I were, I would not admit it. From what I can tell, the only thing Tao has done with the information is look after Jill.”
Baji waved her off. “I would love to plug that leak. I do not care if Camr is using the mole to spy on Roen as well. Tao is just so smug about always appearing at Jill’s missions.”
“He saved her life more than a few times,” Yol countered. “We ask a lot of our hosts. They make sacrifices most others would not dream of. Do not be so hard on Roen, or Jill, for that matter.”
Baji walked to the window and looked at the night sky. The stars were rarely visible from the city. Tonight was no exception. On the horizon, a thick layer of clouds sped east. They would be directly overhead shortly, and with them, rain. The swamp in the nation’s capital would be rising tonight.
“Part of the reason I have not embraced Jill to the same extent as my previous hosts is because I do not think she will survive long with things the way they are. Her area of expertise is political, and they are always the first to the headsman during regime changes.” Baji bowed her head. “I should have kept her in the Midwest.”
Yol chuckled. “Maybe you should worry more about getting a mole into the Genjix Council than finding one working for Tao in Prophus Command.”
“It is not just that.” Baji turned to her. “When I had Sonya, Tao chastised me about not giving her a life outside the Prophus. With Jill, I tried to not lay a heavy hand upon her. Jill marries Tao’s host, and then he abandons her!”
“At least it was not for another woman,” Yol shrugged. “From what I understand, she kicked him out, yet he still hovers in the shadows protecting her. It was not like he ran off with his secretary.”
“Whose side are you on?” Baji snapped.
“Everyone’s, obviously.” Yol shook her head. “I have known you for a very long time. You were not like this a hundred years ago. Take a step back and look at what has been happening. You need to forgive yourself for Sonya and open up to Jill.”
Yol stood up and followed Baji to the window. The two of them stood side by side, looking up at the darkened sky. “I am tightening the sloppy DC operations for our operatives. Adams was versed at policy but useless in matters of security; it is a dangerous combination. Any success in the political arena just pushes the Genjix toward solving the problem with a knife instead. I need Jill to help push policy while I address our defensive position. Expect a visit from Marco in the next few days.”
“Ahngr was never my friend, but I do not question his host’s competency.”
“I will see you soon then,” Yol gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and walked out the door.
“At least I hope so,” Baji said before turning off the lights and going back to bed.
TEN
PRISONERS
The Prophus argue that we cannot treat humans as we do the other beasts on this planet. They say that humans are complex and not driven by instinct, that their evolutionary level required a new set of standards of judgment.
I find that assertion preposterous. All animals are motivated by pain, pleasure, and self-preservation. Humans are no different. When the rift occurred among our ranks, the Council decided to be merciful and only commanded all the Prophus vessels imprisoned or killed in order to keep the betrayers out of the way. After all, we were all still Quasing.
Zoras
Enzo watched from the upper pla
tform as the tugs dragged the Atlantis into drydock, his knuckles white as he gripped the hand rails. It was a massive sub, the only prototype of its kind. Originally christened the Scimitar and commissioned through the Soviet Navy, the Prophus had pulled a coup and stolen it the night before her maiden voyage. Now she was returning home. While she might be showing her age − some of the newer submarines were faster or heavier armed – none had the sheer scale and imperial might of the Atlantis. Yes, she was back to her rightful owners.
“Close the gate. Get the Red Army out,” he ordered. Standing next to him, Yuki, Admiral of the Genjix Orient Fleet, ordered the gates closed. Two massive gates that made up one wall of the drydock rolled shut with a jarring squeal.
Yuki paused at the next order. “The situation is volatile, Father. We may need the extra manpower if the Prophus resist.”
“Your concern is noted,” Enzo remarked. “This is Genjix business. Get the humans out. Assemble a defensive perimeter around the Scimitar. Non-lethal force only. We need the vessels.”
He watched as his minions scurried like ants on the ground level. The Chinese commander raised a ruckus about being ordered out, but eventually, he and his men were ushered out at gunpoint. He might claim jurisdiction, but he knew who wielded the real power here. The Prime Minster wasn’t a vessel yet, but it would only be a matter of time before a Genjix assumed that mantle of leadership. Regardless, there were already enough of theirs in the upper echelon of the party for them to operate unhindered.
When all the Chinese soldiers were gone, the Admiral called for “all phasers on stun”. Technically, the guns weren’t phasers and didn’t stun anything. The small gas pellets they fired released a neurotoxin that could knock out a rhino. And in case the targets wore masks, the pellets were hard enough to pierce flesh, directly injecting the toxin into one’s bloodstream. “Phasers on stun” was a tribute to Yuki’s Holy One, Galen, whose previous vessel created some silly television show an odd half century ago.