by Julian North
“Please put these on over y’all’s eyes,” Hopper said as he handed out a trio of black silken bands. His accent was thicker even than Polken’s. “No cheatin’ and no trouble, or we’ll stop on the side of the road and y’all can make yer own way back.”
I did as Hopper said. Nythan’s breathing quickened, but Alexander was a rock beside me. His fingers wrapped themselves around mine. I let him, and I liked it. He tightened his grip, and I did the same. Together, we had power. This wasn’t over yet.
The car’s electric engine was the loudest noise apart from the occasional siren and a single gunshot. Atlanta—at least the part we drove through—still slumbered in the early hours of the morning. After a few sharp turns, we accelerated, speeding along without interruption. An expressway. After about ten minutes, we slowed and began turning again. I heard a garage door open. We drove inside a structure, then stopped.
“Y’all will be switching vehicles here,” said Polken’s voice. “We’ll help you out. Don’t take off them blinders.”
Thick hands helped guide me outside of one vehicle and then into another that reminded me of home; it reeked of cheap gasoline and human sweat. The gas-powered engine trembled as it came to life.
“This beauty is on autodrive. The windows are blacked out, so you can take those blindfolds off.”
We did. The vehicle’s interior looked just like it smelled, with stained seats of fabricated leather and a filthy floor. A clear plastika barrier separated the passenger compartment from the front of the vehicle. All of the exterior windows were pitch black.
“What happens if we need to drive?”
“Can any of you drive?” asked Polken.
“We’re quite resourceful,” Alexander told him.
Polken laughed, a deep rumble that shook his whole frame. “The car looks like a local crapper on the outside, and the inside for that matter, but the frame is good durasteel, the windows are almost as strong. It would take something heavier than a force rifle to breach it. The Authority barely comes into the areas y’all will be going through. Gangs mostly don’t have anything heavy enough to dent you up. ’Course, I ain’t making any guarantees. I said back at the house there’d be risks.”
“Let’s get going while it’s still dark,” I said. “Waiting increases those risks.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself, miss. Your visers are in a box in the front seat. Don’t activate them, don’t get out of your seats, or the autodrive’s destination will wipe itself. The door will lock automatically when I depart and will unlock again only after you reach your destination. Safe travels.” He shut the door, we heard a click, and the vehicle lurched forward onto Atlanta’s mean streets.
Traveling in a blacked-out sedan was a slightly better experience than being blindfolded—at least I could see my friends, although neither appeared pleased. Nythan rubbed his viser-less arm, as if in withdrawal, which perhaps he was. Alexander’s face was taut, his eyes intense.
“Rudolph isn’t the trusting sort, it seems,” Nythan said dryly.
“His measures are quite prudent,” Alexander said. “Atlanta is a very big place. And it’s the birthplace of the Orderists. There will be a lot of old-time Traditionalists like Rudolph to assist him here. It’s as good a place as any to wait out the storm.”
“This storm cannot be waited out,” I declared. “It must be turned aside.”
My words were followed by silence, but it didn’t last. Into the quiet came the crackling whine of aircraft engines. We listened as the noise drew closer.
“It’s flying low to be this loud,” Nythan said unnecessarily. “Those are jet engines, not turbines. That probably means it’s government—the STF or the military.”
The whine became a howl, deep and angry. Our car vibrated. Debris from the road kicked against the windows. The v-copter, or whatever it was, must have been landing nearby. Alexander and I shared a look. We would do what must be done. My cold power was there without my asking for it. But the sound dissipated. There were no explosions, no shouting of men. Our vehicle kept on its way. Part of me was disappointed; there would be no immediate battle. The cold withdrew like the ebbing tide.
Signs of local life emerged from beyond our blackened windows: catcalls, shouts, even laughter. I made out snippets of what sounded like a dialect of Barriola. The car turned, then slowed. A dog barked nearby. We passed over several speed bumps, then heard the sound of mechanical doors opening. The car stopped; the doors unlocked.
“Knock, knock,” came a voice from outside.
I jumped up in my seat. The door beside Alexander opened. Rudolph Banks’s sickly smile hovered just outside.
“Nice of you all to make the trip,” he rasped. “I’ve got breakfast on the stove, so I’ve got to hurry back to the kitchen. Collect yourselves and meet me inside. You’ll find your way easy enough.” Rudolph chuckled as he walked away.
We all gaped at the now empty doorway. “We came to Atlanta to meet with a madman?” Nythan asked.
I turned toward him. “We need madmen to fight Virginia. Let’s get our visers. I’m starving.”
We stepped warily from the car into a closed, windowless concrete garage lined by rusted metal shelves packed with dust-covered boxes, ancient paint cans, and an assortment of unidentifiable junk. Alexander wore a steadily deepening frown. Nythan too, looking around with shifting eyes. I led the way through an open doorway into Rudolph’s house.
He was right about it being easy to find our way. The house was a small, cramped place assembled around a central kitchen. The living room was no bigger than Kortilla’s. The bedroom doors were closed, but I could imagine their interior space based on the dimensions of the rest of the place. Moldy floral-patterned curtains had been drawn across the windows, but the light of the new day crept through the holes. The place reminded me of a Bronx City apartment, except no one in BC would have those hideous curtains.
In the kitchen, Rudolph stood in front of four working gas burners, his attention wholly focused on the pots and pans. Smoke and the smell of sizzling sausages was thick in the air. My mouth watered.
“I hope you like your eggs over easy,” Rudolph said. “My mama did it this way. I got grits and biscuits too. Go find yourselves a seat at that table over there. Help yourself to juice. I’ll be with you shortly.”
We found seats at a plastika table coated to resemble wood. The chairs were fabricated metal and didn’t match. There was a pitcher of orange juice in the center of the table and five glasses.
“Are we expecting one more?” Nythan asked.
Rudolph scraped food onto plates as he answered. “Smarty boy can count. I’m not here all by myself, of course. One is for my nephew, Rhett. He’s keeping an eye out for us at the moment.”
Nythan grabbed the pitcher and poured four glasses of juice. I didn’t need to taste it to tell it wasn’t fabricated. Just like the food Rudolph was cooking. Banks might be hiding in the underbelly of Atlanta, but he’d taken certain luxuries with him.
Rudolph placed two plates crammed with thick sausages, grits with melting butter, and the aforementioned eggs on the table. The yolks were a delicious-looking sun color. He put one plate in front of me; the other he gave to Nythan.
“Ladies first, of course,” he said. “We haven’t forgotten our manners down in these parts.” Three more plates were delivered a moment later.
“This looks amazing,” I said.
“It ain’t there to be looked at. Get started, young lady.”
I did, sinking my teeth into a fat sausage. The hot juice poured down my chin. Rudolph let loose a good-natured laugh, while Nythan shook his head in mock disgust. Even Alexander let a half smile creep onto his face.
“Glad you like it,” Rudolph said. “Appreciate you all makin’ the trip down to Georgia. Not that you had much choice, I suppose.”
Nythan glanced down at his wrist. “The net is barely functioning, and Manhattan has been sealed, it seems—although it’s unclear by whom. D
o you know what is happening?”
Rudolph shoveled an overflowing spoonful of grits into his mouth, chewing slowly. “Ah, yes, that’s good. My mama taught me to put a bit of sour cream in the grits. That’s where that little kick comes from.” He wiped some residual grit off his mouth with a cloth napkin. “I had some friends in the White House when it started.”
“By ‘it,’ you mean the attack. This is a coup, correct?” Alexander said.
“If Virginia Timber-Night and her people win, then I believe they’ll call it a revolution. Or a liberation. Or whatever. But for the moment, let’s call it an attempted coup.”
“It is her, then? You are certain?”
Rudolph tore at a sausage. He spoke while chewing. “She didn’t send me a postcard, as such—unless you count those military v-copters buzzing over the city every so often. But my people in the White House got a couple of messages to me before they went dark. It’s the Special Threats Force in the lead—Varin-Lynn’s men, backed by enough of the military to make this interesting. It’s always a mistake to underestimate Virginia.” He released a history-laden sigh.
“You said your people in the White House went dark,” Alexander said. “Does that mean that the White House has fallen?”
“Yep, that’s what I’ve heard. SPF got the White House and captured the capitol complex. Downtown Manhattan has fallen.”
“Then who’s still fighting? If they’ve got the president and Congress…” Nythan asked.
Another barking chuckle. Rudolph had a strange sense of humor. “The White House fell in the first hour of the attack. Virginia planned it well and acted quickly, as always. But her turncoats didn’t know one thing—one very important thing.” He grinned.
“What’s that?” Nythan asked.
“Hoven’s a jackin’ letcher.” Banks smacked the table, cackling. “He was off with his girl. You might say Virginia caught the government with their pants down, but luckily Hoven had his down at a friend’s house.”
Alexander blanched. Such a prude. Nythan smiled boyishly. “The president got away?”
“Sure did, boy. Sure did.”
“Where is he?” Alexander asked.
Rudolph shrugged. “Don’t know. Wouldn’t say if I did, of course.” He took a long swig of juice, puckering his lips when he had finished. “But what you really want to know is, do you need to start running for California?”
Alexander lifted his chin. “I have no intention of—”
Rudolph held up a hand. “Relax. Relax.” He leaned over to me. “A bit too serious, isn’t he?”
“He grows on you.” I struggled to keep a grin off my face despite the circumstances. I couldn’t help but like Rudolph Banks, even if Alexander didn’t share my affection.
“Alexander Foster-Rose-Hart, I’m tellin’ you there is still hope. We’re in the South, you see. Right here is the birthplace of the Orderist movement. And it’s the Traditionalists who hold sway around here—plenty of people like me know President Hoven personally. Oh, you might see some big estates, and some crap areas like the one we’re sitting in here, but ain’t no one around here wants chipping of people. We’ve been down that road in these parts; we know history. Going to be plenty of opposition to Timber-Night down here.”
“It’s civil war, then,” Alexander said.
Rudolph sat back in her chair. “It smells to me that’s what’s coming, but only if Hoven can rally some real support. He needs to show he’s got enough backing to put up a fight. Virginia is ruthless. People will only fight her if they think they can win.”
“And will people fight for him?” I asked, knowing full well I wouldn’t, not if it was just for him. He was still a richie, still an Orderist. Yet to people in Manhattan, he wasn’t a highborn. He lacked a natural base of support from either side.
Rudolph fixed his drooping eyes at me. Ugly lines of red clung to the fringes. “Vander Hoven’s never been a fighter—not the kind we need. He’s a decent sort. Loyal. But he doesn’t have Arthus’s steel. And it was Arthus who was closest to the military, who helped sell them on the Orderist idea. Vander’s no coward, though—he’ll go down fighting. But I don’t know if that will be enough.”
“What if people feel their back is to the wall? That it’s more than mere power Virginia wants.”
“What do you mean, miss?”
I looked over at Nythan, then Alexander. Both nodded their agreement with what I was thinking.
“We think she’s working on something… dangerous. To everyone. Something to do with chips.”
I told him about the facility in Bronx City. Nythan added in the technical jargon. Rudolph scowled at any word over two syllables.
“I remember when we held phones up next to our ears, son. Save the fancy talk for the ladies.”
When we finished our tale about the prefabs stuffed with chipping equipment and told him about the innocents rounded up in Bronx City, Rudolph merely sat back in his chair and put two hands on his stomach.
“Well?” I asked, annoyed at his nonchalance.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What part did you find interesting?” Nythan asked.
Rudolph pushed his empty plate aside. He opened his mouth to speak, but the roar of engines interrupted him. They were coming fast, and hard. The roof of the house rattled. Our plates vibrated. We all looked at the ceiling, as if it would open to reveal us to the world.
“They’re looking for you,” Alexander proclaimed.
“Yep. And not just me. For you all as well,” Rudolph said, as if discussing the weather. To Alexander, he said, “Son, why don’t you take a plate of food over to my nephew up front. Make sure it’s all clear out there.”
Alexander’s mouth opened in shock for a moment, but he took the plate and got up reluctantly.
Rudolph leaned in closer to me. “Love getting those highborn to jump. He must be pretty desperate for my help to run chores without complaining. Or else you trained him well.” He winked at me.
“Cut Alexander some slack. He’s one of the good ones.”
“You trust him, then?” Rudolph’s eyes scoured my face.
“I do.”
He nodded. “That counts for something. Coming from a Bronx City nope, it sure does.”
“You mentioned before something about Tyrell Industries buzzing about in the Atlantic, where they had no business. They had patrol boats too, you said.”
“Ya, I did say that. And they have been. Brought in one of those Norwegian TrollMaster drilling platforms. Massive thing. Stuck it out on the Atlantic shelf. Damndest thing I ever heard of. No gas hydrates out that far south. But that’d be the only rational reason to spend so much. Must’ve found something down there. They’ve got drones and military ships all around, making sure no one gets too close.”
“What if they aren’t using it for drilling? What if it’s a research and chip production platform?”
Banks coughed. “Out in the middle of the ocean? That’d cost a fortune. Why bother?”
“Because their research is illegal within the country,” Nythan said. “Because there are probably Korean nationals on board and they don’t want the government to know they are working with them.”
“You said they are building a chip installation center in Bronx City. What kind of research do you think they are doing out in the middle of the ocean?”
“Something even worse than regular chipping. It’s a new technology from Korea that can produce more than just slaves—it can make assassins, or mindless scientists, or just about anything else Virginia needs, given enough time. They turn children into eternal servants.”
Chapter 27
“My ol’ grandpa spun some scary yarns in his day,” Rudolph Banks told us. “A conspiracy monger if there ever was one. But I’m not sure he had anything on you and your friend Nythan, Ms. Machado.”
“Except ours is no yarn, as you say,” I said.
“You don’t believe us?” Nythan asked.
A new,
amused voice, answered, “Uncle Banks doesn’t trust Yanks.” I detected a southern accent, but it was far less pronounced than Rudolph’s.
A man I assumed was Rudolph Banks’s nephew stood at the threshold of the kitchen’s entrance, Alexander beside him. They were like night and day, those two. Where Alexander was carved and refined, the young man next to him made me think of a young farmer from an ancient net flick. His eyes were large, round, and bright like polished leather in the sun. His face curved softly like an apple. Black bangs dropped down nearly to his eyes. He had a force rifle slung casually over his shoulder, like a soldier on leave.
“Ah, young Rhett, meet Daniela Machado and Nythan Royce. And I presume you’ve already met the very serious Alexander Foster-Rose-Hart.”
Rhett gave a single half-hearted wave and a twisted smirk in greeting.
“Went to college in Boston, you see. No manners,” Rudolph grumbled. “He’s right about not trusting northerners mostly. That’s a southern thing—we tend to trust in families and blood. Relationships, not contracts. But you don’t need to convince me Nia—Virginia, she calls herself now—is ruthless. She always was.”
“We’ve seen the results of the chips,” I said, shivering as I remembered. “They take kids and grow them into scientists. They can be assassins. Virginia sent these creations to kill Alexander, and later Jalen Aris-Putch. They incinerated themselves rather than be captured.”
Rudolph furrowed his brows. “If Virginia really is developing chip slaves that can do complex tasks—that would be something to be feared by many. Maybe it’s enough to get some to switch sides, or take a side—it could help ol’ Hoven. If Virginia broke the law and brought them into the country to do her dirty work already, that might be even more useful.”