by O. J. Lowe
She couldn’t answer even if she wanted to, movement hadn’t escaped her, but her limbs felt heavy, like gravity had been cranked to maximum and it was drawing her into the ground without reprieve. Hard to think, hard to focus. Her head felt like it was being squeezed, the pressure incredible against her skull. Any more and she’d hear a crack. Any defence she might have formed against that power felt painfully inadequate. Weak. Pathetic.
“I’m looking for you. I will find you. You cannot flee from me forever.” It lacked emotion, just matter of fact words, cold hard statements. “You will be needed.” She didn’t doubt the truth behind them. What wasn’t about to change was the fact that no matter how much she might be needed, she wasn’t going to oblige. “If you pursue this path you currently walk, it will be your end,” the voice said and slowly the spectre formed into a dark-skinned man, a hungered look to him like he’d been ill, his eyes wild and despite all attempts at personal maintenance, a little unkempt. “You have been warned. You must walk back into the light, Ascendant.”
Ascendant… A title she hadn’t born for a long time. She’d almost forgotten about it. Almost. The man grinned at her, teeth visible through the scruffy beard framing his mouth and chin. They were yellow, and she could feel his breath on her, hot and smelly. “We will see each other soon.”
She tried to choke out sounds of defiance but all she succeeded in doing was biting down on her own tongue, fresh pain firing through her, unceasing, unending, uncaring…
She awoke with a start, face covered in sweat, Nick still asleep next to her. She glanced at him and sighed. Heavy sleeper and all that. He could stay snoring through anything, even though she was sure she’d been screaming at one point. Wow…
That had been different. And what did it mean? That was the problem, she had to admit. She knew first hand that dreams could be powerful things, portents of things yet to come and one should not blindly dismiss them because they may be ridiculous. Yet at the same time, you couldn’t overrule the thought imagination was a powerful thing.
She hadn’t had a prophetic dream for years now, hadn’t experienced anything in her sleep that had come to pass for a long time and why it should change now, she didn’t know. She hoped it wouldn’t. As visions went, it had been a particularly unpleasant one. Maybe it was doubt. Cold feet. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was growing more worried about the upcoming nuptials every day. It took a lot of work, time was growing short and sometimes she felt she couldn’t face it.
She could. Of course, she could, it was all about working up the courage to do so. These things didn’t happen overnight. They had all the time in the world. She couldn’t forget the dream though. She wouldn’t. Nor the words that had been uttered to her within. They’d been considerably vivid. She’d been warned what would happen if she carried on. But that man was dead, wasn’t he? Dead and powerless, she’d been told. Sharon wanted so badly to believe he was her doubts given a physical form, their way of telling her not to ignore them.
She wasn’t ignoring them. But neither was she listening blindly. She knew what she was doing was the right thing.
The sixteenth day of Summerpeak.
If he was honest, Pete truly couldn’t believe the tournament was carrying on considering what had happened the previous day. Terrorists take over a hospital not a few miles away from the stadium and yet they were about to keep on going despite it. It was lunacy. What was Ritellia doing? He’d already been criticised in the media for saying they would not cancel the tournament because of a few disenfranchised. Fresh criticism had come his way suggesting maybe he didn’t quite know what that word meant. Either way he’d proved before he had the thick skin of an armoured rhino and if it was getting to him, it wasn’t showing.
Still it was what it was. And privately, although he’d never admit it aloud, he was glad it was continuing, he wanted to win after all. He didn’t think there was any shame in admitting that. Now he’d gotten this far, he had a chance. Shame he had such an impressive obstacle in his path in the shape of Katherine Sommer. He didn’t know her personally, yet he knew of her. She had a reputation as a juggernaut, someone implacable, someone unstoppable but that couldn’t be true. Everyone and everything had a weak spot, proved the previous day when Sharon had faced that Theobald kid and despite everything, been nudged out. It had largely been downplayed in the media thanks to other events, but it hadn’t entirely escaped notice. He’d never known that kid was that good. The worrying thing was it hadn’t looked like Sharon was having an off day either. He’d seen her at her best and her worst and she hadn’t been bad. Maybe he’d just been hungrier.
Except now wasn’t the time to think about Sharon, with his own bout ahead. He took a deep breath and stepped into the sunlight, hands in the pockets of his shorts. Pete could feel every set of eyes bearing down on him, he was alone on the field, Kitti Sommer hadn’t arrived yet, he decided to milk the applause, raising his hands above his head in enthusiastic greeting. He’d probably look a prat when it was played back but for the time being, he couldn’t care. If this was what it’d be like for a third-round tie, imagine it for the quarter or the semi or even think ahead to the final. He grinned in glee. This would be spectacular.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he heard the commentator say above the cheers and applause. “I give you contestant number one… Peter Jacobs!” If anything, the adoration intensified, and he felt a warm contented feeling in the pit of his stomach. Scott was probably among the crowd. Probably Sharon. Maybe Mia. He even wondered about Jess, if she was watching or not. Would she be rooting for him? He didn’t want to speculate on that part. He could see pockets of support holding placards bearing his name and he appreciated that. Look, ma! I got supporters.
Then silence fell over the crowd and he turned his head towards the other contestant tunnel. He somehow knew she was coming. Leave it to her to be fashionably late. A dramatic entrance never hurt anyone, and he saw her ascending the steps, not walking but riding a majestic stag, head bowed low, so the antlers wouldn’t catch the roof. He shook his head in disbelief, the crowd went wild, even more for her than for him.
“And the opponent, contestant number two arriving in style there… Katherine Sommer! What an entrance, she knows how to play to the crowd!” Well, it already looked like the commentators knew who they wanted to win, Pete noted with a grimace. He’d have to upset them. Oh well. If everyone in the stadium was crying because she’d lost, he’d take that.
That stag though was a majestic beast, he dwarfed Basil in size with dappled white and chocolate covered fur across his back, cream coloured down across his chest. The antlers shone in the sunlight, they looked sharp and he didn’t want to think about what they might do in combat. The hooves were the size of dinner plates, he could hear them clattering against the rock on the battlefield and he gulped down a big breath of air, staring past the stag and at the caller.
Kitti Sommer had often been compared to his sister and he could sort of see why though they didn’t look like each other. Sharon was taller, statuesque and blond, Kitti was shorter, curvy and her hair was cut in a short blue-black bob. Black rimmed her eyes and her lips, she wore a red and black cut vest revealing tattooed arms and a pair of tight blue shorts that showed off her legs, a sight Pete could appreciate even from across the field. The true comparison of course came with their abilities on the battlefield, they both had reputations for exceptional efficiency when it came to dispatching opponents without mercy. He thought Scott might have fought her in the past, he’d meant to ask, but never had the chance. Funny the sort of things you remembered when it was just too late.
The stag trotted onto the battlefield, clearly her first choice as the video referee relayed down the instructions and already Pete found himself contemplating strategies. There had to be an easy way to do this.
The match was on in the background but neither Arnholt, Okocha or Brendan were truly paying attention to it. They had too much on their minds. The mission the previous d
ay had gone off without a hitch, there hadn’t been any collateral damage, but some disturbing signs had been found in the post situation analysis. Such as one hostile being unaccounted for, they’d spied fourteen men entering the building across security footage, only twelve bodies and one prisoner found after the fact. Okocha wanted so very much to believe that they’d made a mistake. Arnholt wasn’t having it. Then there was the second detail they weren’t quite ready to release yet. Those who had been gunned down in the administrator’s office, those who held the hostages had had their weapons examined by Noorland and Leclerc in the aftermath. None had been packed with live energy cells meaning they couldn’t have been fired even if they’d wanted to.
Okocha had been stunned when he’d heard, Arnholt more so. If it got out that they’d executed a bunch of people who couldn’t really fight back, it wouldn’t look great. It’d tarnish what they’d thought a great victory. Some had possessed live weapons, that was something that couldn’t be disputed. In the corridors, the attack teams had run into them but beyond that, nothing. Okocha had been against concealing the information for the time being. Whoever had organised the attack knew and all it took was one rogue communication to make it look like Unisco was concealing things.
“Something about this whole thing stinks,” Brendan said. “We still don’t have a motive. Despite what Wade thinks…”
Okocha had read that as well. It was perhaps the most worrying piece of the whole thing. Wade, when Aldiss and Harper had found him, had claimed they’d come to his room and opened fire on his bed. They’d intended to kill him after killing Mallinson. Okocha didn’t know the man. Obviously, it was a tragedy a Unisco agent had been killed in the line of duty, but he couldn’t feel too sorry for someone whom everyone considered a massive prick. It was his family he pitied, but by all accounts, they couldn’t stand the man either so how much pity they wanted was up for debate.
How and why they’d made the choice to kill Wade, he couldn’t say, and it frustrated him. He possessed one of the finest analytical minds in the company, even if he did say so himself, and it was eluding him. He couldn’t have given an answer if he’d wanted to and that stung a lot. The only possible solution was that someone had worked out who he really worked for. But that was supposed to be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Had someone said something? Let something slip? Surely not. All options sounded just as ridiculous as the last, but he was worried. If Wade had been compromised, then everyone needed to be worried. With that in mind, Wade had made the decision to vanish, rest and recuperate in peace following his quitting of the tournament. He promised to be back before it finished but Leclerc had flown him out personally. Nobody knew where outside the two of them.
“I wouldn’t discount everything that Wade has said,” Arnholt said. Although many people truly didn’t know he was the director of Unisco, it wasn’t as closely guarded a secret as most other identities in the agency. Okocha recalled the conversation with Phillipe Mazoud Crumley and Arnholt had engaged in. Mazoud was one of the biggest scumbags in Vazara and he could do a lot of damage with that information. Privately Okocha still believed that business with his daughter’s kidnapping wasn’t entirely unrelated from his role in the organisation. He’d just been lucky that Wade had… Could that have a link with it? Rocastle was unaccounted for. Rocastle who’d tangled with Wade prior to his capture. They’d found the remains of Wolfmeyer’s squadron in the ocean, four HAX’s settled on the floor but no trace of the prisoner transport nor the two missing pilots. Was it so unfeasible that Rocastle could have tried for some retribution towards Wade. “I trust him implicitly.”
“He’s also half blind and doped up on painkillers,” Brendan said. “His mind went wild…”
“He was still competent enough to defend himself,” Okocha pointed out. “Director, Chief, this is just the latest in a line of incidents on this island we can’t explain. So much has happened and despite everything we’re still in the dark. We’re all fumbling blind, not just Wade. We’re trying to grasp something without knowing what we’re looking for. It’s not good.”
“I spoke to Ritellia this morning,” Arnholt said, a look of intense disdain on his face. “Tried to get him to cancel the tournament. Told him about the bodies down below.”
“Let me guess,” Okocha said, glancing over to the viewing screen. “He didn’t like the idea?”
“Told me to get out of his office and stop scaremongering,” Arnholt said in a quietly outraged tone. “I’m lodging a complaint with the Senate first available opportunity about his behaviour. Anything else happens here, I’m lobbying to them to step in. It’s about all I can do now. Ritellia…” He sighed in resignation. “I really do dislike that man. How he got to be president of anything is a mystery to me. No, I think we’ve started the job now and we’re not going to stop them through other means. We need to see this through to the end.”
Brendan sighed. “I hate to voice this, Director. But maybe we’re just trying to make too much into this. Maybe it just really was a bad place to hold the tournament. These might be Vazaran things. You know what they can be like around here.”
Okocha felt a stab of annoyance at the way Brendan had just dug at his heritage. He shoved it down. Starting an argument now wouldn’t help things. “Yeah, I really do,” he said dryly. “I got some results back I wanted to run by you both, if you’ll allow me?”
Arnholt nodded at him. “Go ahead, Will.”
“Well, that tentacle Wilsin and Roper recovered from Operation Monsoon…” Their unsanctioned shootout had been tagged that due to the nature of the events leading to the whole thing, a quick action on Arnholt’s part to make the whole thing look legitimate should major action ever need to be taken. “I got the results back from our lab. Inconclusive. They think it’s from some breed of giant squid, it matches the body shape…”
“I’ve seen giant squid,” Brendan said. “Never one that big. It’d have to be bigger than this cabin to have part of a tentacle that size.”
“Plus, it has a strange genetic makeup they haven’t ever seen before,” Okocha added. “I mean it. There’s stuff in its DNA that makes literally no sense to them. Talliver’s exact words to me.” If that was what Dean Talliver, a colleague and expert in natural biology had to say, then Okocha backed him. “It doesn’t look like any normal squid.”
Arnholt sighed. “Terrific. It’s infuriating for Talliver of course but I can’t see that information affecting us too much in the long term. The door is closed.”
“And yet doors can be opened again,” Brendan said. “At the very least, we should consider some sort of deterrent against whatever it was. I’ll talk to Talliver in the morning. It’s late where he is.”
“And just an update of my examination into Reims,” Okocha said. “Remember you asked me to do it?”
Arnholt gave him a smile. “I do. Please, speak.”
“Okay, CEO is named Claudia Coppinger, one of the richest women in the five kingdoms, parents both dead, one daughter, father’s identity unknown. Daughter is a spirit dancer…” It was on the tip of his tongue to add maybe Arnholt’s daughter knew her, but he kept it professional. Arnholt doubtless already had thought that. “But the company itself is thriving. Reims is the parent company; their primary focus originally was software, but they’ve gone into a lot of other business since then. Reims makes a stunning amount of credits every year.”
He grinned nervously. “Believe me, I’ve never seen so many zeroes. It’s enough to make you envious. Some of the subsidiary businesses though, they’re in different markets. Auction houses. Antique dealerships. Ship builders. Architects. Biochemistry. Medicine. Real estate. Spirit calling equipment. There’s even rumours they moved into weapons design, but I couldn’t confirm or deny it. It’s staggering. I’m surprised the whole place hasn’t collapsed under its own weight. All of this is before you consider what they did on this very island.”
“Sort of enemy you don’t want to have,” Brendan said dryly
. “I’m glad we didn’t declare war on them.”
“There’s more though,” Okocha said. “And it’s weird. You’ve heard of Harval-Pek? Premier ship design and construction?”
“They designed the HAX,” Arnholt said absentmindedly.
“Owned by Reims. They’re one of the premier ship constructors in the five kingdoms. Biggest. Best. Busiest. They have at least six workshops in every kingdom. At least. They churn out more than a thousand ships per workshop a year. Even with their workforce, they should be making huge profits. Everyone wants to use them. So why are they running at a massive loss?”
He saw Arnholt’s eyebrows narrow. “Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t make any sense. I had a bit of a poke around, it seems that there’s been some massive orders been placed but there’s yet to be any payment. It’s like they’ve been built and left to gather dust.”
“It’s unusual,” Brendan said. “But one year of massive losses for a successful manufacturer doesn’t mean there’s any criminal activity. That sounds more like incompetence than insinuation.”
“It’s not one year,” Okocha said. “Reims acquired Harval-Pek six years ago. These orders have been going in ever since then. And they’ve been running at a loss ever since. It’s not just HP either? Reims itself as a company are reporting mass profits. Everything tied to them as a subsidiary isn’t. It’s suspicious.”
“But it’s also nothing to do with us,” Arnholt said gently. “At the most it sounds like a tax matter.”
“You or I have never run a business like that,” Brendan said. “The Reims CEO obviously has. She must know what she’s doing.”
Arnholt leaned back in his chair and brought his fingers together in a pyramid thoughtfully. Brendan said nothing.
“Maybe,” Okocha said. “That was all I was able to ascertain in a small amount of time. I didn’t want to hack into their database further without reasonable cause. I wouldn’t have minded finding out what these huge orders were.” He looked at Arnholt. “Do you want me to dig deeper?”