by Amber Jayne
There was an odd solemnity about him this morning. “When I was a teen, I was fighting off bullies at the work farm who wanted to get into my sweet ass without asking pretty please first.” Bongo shook his head as if to clear the memory. “If I tell you why I want to go with you, you’ll laugh. It’ll be a scornful laugh. I can hear it now…”
“Well, if you can hear it already you might as well tell me.” She slid her arms into her coat. Its pockets were stuffed with papers that were covered with formulas and the like, equations she would need at the laboratory. Bantering with Bongo had been amusing for a moment or two but now she was curious, and just a little ill at ease, about what actually lay behind his words. “Please, Bongo, tell me what’s going on?”
He beheld her with his green eyes. No devilry danced in them this early morning. “I’ve had a dream. A premonition.”
“Have you now?”
“Indeed. Don’t believe it. I don’t have the energy to convince you and you don’t have the time. The easiest thing all around is to shrug your shoulders, roll your eyes and walk out of here with me at your side. We’ll go to your lab, I’ll make sure everything’s safe, then when it turns out I’ve been completely wrong about this portent I’ve received, you can call me some clever name and I’ll go on my way. How’s that sound?”
The flippancy didn’t quite work. Again she saw just how serious he was. And she did feel the urge to argue it with him. Every time he spoke of this sort of magical gibberish she wanted to call him out on it, force him to acknowledge the primitive, pointless beliefs for what they were. But this time she deliberately restrained herself.
“Bongo,” she said, pausing to draw and release a breath. “Is this because I was picked up yesterday? Do you think it’s going to happen two days in a row? Even Aphael Chav has better things to do than to go that far out of his way to piss me off. I’ll be fine.”
Of course there was no ironclad guarantee that a squad of Guard jawbreakers wouldn’t be there waiting at her lab, set to take her into custody once more—though it was highly unlikely. The Lux methods were terror and coercion and repression, yes. But there was a certain undeniable elegance about how they operated. Repeating a tactic the very next day would be tawdry.
“I would’ve thought you’d try saying you didn’t want me in your sight,” Bongo murmured, trying to give the words a casual lilt. It didn’t quite work either. A ghost of vulnerability passed somewhere behind his eyes.
Succumbing to an urge to soothe that vague hurt, Virge said, “Well, I’m not saying that.” Which was about as comforting as she could be this early in the day. She turned and exited the house, locking it behind. Then, with Bongo at her side just like he’d said, they set off toward the lab.
The town wasn’t large. The laboratory was only a half mile away. Everything looked sleepy. There were only a few other people out, plodding along toward their own jobs. The sunlight was weak, strained through pale cloud cover. But any hint of the sun was a boon, she knew. It helped to charge the few solar collectors in town. Most of the Safe’s electricity was gathered and meted out by the Lux. They had the best equipment for accumulation and they distributed it as they saw fit.
Virge’s town wasn’t particularly prosperous. But it possessed a certain charm, a kind of quaintness. Some of its structures were quite old, maybe even pre-Black Ship, though they had been repaired and refitted several times during such a long span. It was a familiar environment for her. Here she had her home and work. There was always something threatening the well-being of the general populace—dysentery, pneumonia, tuberculosis.
The lab was a long single-story building, brick sides, with grills over the windows. The materials she used were expensive. Were it not for the Lux’s funding she’d be out of luck. But she cooked up what their military programs needed, and that kept her supplied.
“Hold it,” Bongo said, putting a hand to her arm.
Despite herself, Virge felt a twinge of alarm. “What?” She looked around the vicinity of the lab. No one was around, certainly no sign of waiting Guard. “Do you see something?” The thought of being taken in for interrogation again wasn’t a pleasant one.
“No.” Bongo was staring at the building, still on the other side of the street. “Do you?”
Annoyance pushed out her fear. “Damn it, Bongo, this is no time for games.” She shook off his hand and strode purposefully forward. Her two assistants weren’t scheduled to arrive until late morning. She preferred the first part of her day to herself, indulging in research and experimentation. In the afternoon she would open up to the public for distribution of medical supplies.
Bongo lunged in front of her, which irritated her all the more. “Just take a walk around the building first,” he said in a placating, almost pleading, tone. “Check it out. Make sure.”
His sincerity was still evident. Virge had only ever seen him in such a single-minded state when he spoke about the evils of the Lux and the necessity of resistance and revolution by the common people.
Virge pressed her lips together, then, relenting, she said, “That must’ve been a hell of a dream you had.”
“More than a dream. But, yes.” He had a hand in his pocket. Virge had the sudden distinct impression that he was fingering one of his “magical” baubles.
Together they made a circuit of the lab. Nobody was around. She even looked at the grills over the windows. Everything appeared secure. Until—
“Wait. What’s that?” She squinted. A vent was slightly out of its frame high up the brick wall. No one could’ve scaled it, though. There were no handholds and the brick was too smooth. A ladder? Well, maybe. But if so, the culprit or culprits had taken the ladder with them when they’d gone. Which meant that the lab would be empty.
Or else she’d just never noticed before that that vent was out of alignment. She gave Bongo a glower. He was making her paranoid.
“I’m going inside,” she said tightly, taking out her keys.
“I’m going with you,” Bongo said, which—though she wouldn’t admit it—was very comforting.
The metal door’s lock hadn’t been tampered with. The door opened and Virge snapped on the lights. Cluttered worktables were revealed. Stacks of equipment, crates, sheaves of paper. The instruments on the tables didn’t appear to have been disturbed. She peered down the length of the building. Still, there were places where an intruder could hide.
Bongo touched a finger to his lips and crept forward on soundless feet. His muscled body was taut with readiness, his eyes alert. Virge had never seen him like this—so serious, so obviously ready for action.
Two main aisles led to the rear of the lab. Bongo was moving silently down one. Virge, summoning courage from she knew not where, took the other aisle. The tabletops were a mess, scattered with notes, beakers, dormant gear. She could never get things so that they looked organized, yet even so, she knew where everything was, where things belonged. There was, actually, order here.
That sense allowed her to quickly spot the opened cabinet far down her aisle, where she stored some of the basic compounds that went into making the drugs for the Weapon/Shadowflash division. She gave the military whatever it demanded. If they wanted to shoot up their soldiers to go fight the Passengers in the Unsafe, that was their damn business.
She made a soft hiss through her teeth. One aisle over, Bongo stopped and looked at her, his features rigid. She pointed to the far end of the building. He nodded. She saw he had picked up a long metal instrument from one of her tables and was holding it like a truncheon. A good idea. Virge took up a smaller implement meant to calibrate some of the balance beams she had. The object had a solid weight to it. Whether she could use it effectively against anyone, she didn’t know.
She and Bongo, in their respective aisles, resumed their stalking.
By now she’d accepted the notion that someone was here, or had been here, somebody unauthorized. Neither of her two assistants had keys to the lab. Neither did she think that the cabinet
had been carelessly left open. If a burglar was after powerful drugs, he or she would want what was on those shelves.
Tension stiffened Virge’s muscles. She felt a tingle of cool perspiration at the small of her back. She had already dismissed entirely the thought of calling the local Guard contingent in. She didn’t want anything to do with those fuckers and wouldn’t abide them tramping around her lab, no matter what the circumstances.
She was near enough to the opened cabinet now to see that it had been rummaged through. Mixtures, some still in need of further tinkering, waited in vials. Some of these were lying on their sides, and some were on the floor. She crept up slowly, keeping alert.
When she saw the foot she halted sharply and hissed again to Bongo. His blond-haired head popped up. Virge pointed just a few feet further along and mouthed the words, There’s someone under the table.
He nodded gravely and advanced, brandishing his improvised cudgel. Virge eased up slowly on her side. The foot, she saw, was—no surprise there—attached to a leg. The body under the table didn’t move. As more of it came into her view, she noted that it was breathing, that it was male. He appeared to be…sleeping? Probably passed out from whatever reckless combination of dope he’d ingested, Virge judged. She felt her fear ebb a little, replaced by contempt.
Damned dopers. What the hell was wrong with just getting drunk?
The other end of the body was apparently visible in Bongo’s aisle. Virge saw him looking down, making a careful study. He didn’t lower his metal instrument but his grip on it grew lax. His eyes flicked her way.
In a whisper he said, “I’m almost sure he’s out.”
Virge was tempted to step forward and prod the man’s foot. Whoever he was she wanted him out of here. She still didn’t intend to bring the Guard in on this incident, but if necessary she would dump this dumb son of a bitch in the street and let fate take its course. This man was a criminal. He had broken in here, though how he’d gotten up into that vent she couldn’t guess, and stolen from her. Those drugs were valuable, the products of costly materials and the many hours she’d spent cooking them up.
This junkie scumbag deserved whatever happened to him.
Bongo was looking at her again across the heaped worktable. His expression had changed. Gone was the wariness, replaced by stunned incredulity and a dawning look of wonder. “Virge.”
She frowned. “What is it?”
“This guy…” He bent down as if to shift the head or brush aside strands of hair for a better look at the face. “He’s—” He shook his head then stopped abruptly. Whatever it was, he couldn’t quite make himself believe it.
“What is it?” Virge repeated.
Bongo’s green eyes were wide. “It’s Urna. It’s the Lux’s star Weapon. I swear it’s him.”
* * * * *
She looked down into the hooded scope of the blood analyzer for several minutes, her right hand jotting down notations without her even looking. When she was satisfied she knew exactly what Urna had in his system, she went to put together the necessary injection.
It was Urna. No doubt at all about it. His face was inescapably familiar from the Lux broadcasts, even though Virge had hardly ever watched them. This town had only the two screens, but people gathered at them whenever they could. Urna’s thin handsome face had splashed across often enough that Virge felt she almost knew him in a personal way. It was illusion, however.
The Weapon was very unconscious and would likely stay so for a while. She and Bongo had hauled him out from under the table and laid him on a cot where Virge sometimes grabbed a quick nap during her workday. Urna’s pulse was fast but steady. His pupils were reactive. He had doped himself good but he hadn’t done anything too hazardous.
Then again, Virge thought as she fixed up the hypodermic, the Weapon already had a lot of shit in his veins, according to the blood analysis. She recognized most of it. It had come from this lab, or some lab that produced similar compounds. The narcotic element was obvious. They had him hooked but good.
Again, it wasn’t her business, she judged as she crossed toward the cot. Bongo was crouched alongside, still staring at the Safe’s most famous Weapon.
“Do you know who this is?” he asked, eyes practically goggling.
“Of course I do.” Virge, on the cot’s other side, swabbed Urna’s arm.
“But do you know?”
She made the injection a few inches above where she’d drawn his blood. It was purely a counteractive measure, so that nothing he’d taken would lapse him into a coma or otherwise adversely affect him. He would stay unconscious for several more hours probably. But he wouldn’t die.
She gazed flatly across at Bongo. “You’re being inane. This is Urna. I know who Urna is.”
“But—but—but—”
“Damn it, Bongo, get a grip. What is this—you’re celebrity struck?”
He had his hands clasped to his chest. The fingers were worrying each other. “I dreamed that a powerful creature descended from the sky. It had big black wings. It was looking for you. Finally it made a nest in some stones. After I woke I thought they might’ve been bricks. Like the bricks of your lab. I knew it was an omen.”
She sighed. She’d had a complex dream about rooting through her closets for a particular sweater. She didn’t, however, attribute any significance to it.
“Why is he here?” Bongo was asking. “I mean, stealing your drugs, yes…but why? Wouldn’t the Lux be giving him anything he needs? Or wants.”
Knowing she would have to tell him finally, Virge stated bluntly, “He’s escaped from the Citadel. It happened last night while I was there in lockup. The Guard were out looking for him in the streets and on the roads. Obviously they didn’t manage to find him.”
Bongo was thunderstruck all over. This time his mouth actually fell open. Virge merely waited.
After a moment he managed, “And you didn’t tell me this?”
“No,” she said simply. She didn’t know what excuse to offer other than instinct had told her not to.
Bongo stared a while longer. Then he asked, “Why did he escape?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anybody else does either. But I can’t say for sure.” Nick Daphral, at any rate, hadn’t known.
“This is,” Bongo gestured broadly but vaguely, “huge. A huge thing to have happen. And to have it land right here…”
She checked Urna’s pulse again. It had slowed slightly, was remaining steady.
Still crouched by the cot, Bongo murmured, “He’s helpless. The Lux’s best Weapon. I could kill him—”
“You aren’t going to touch him!” Virge raced around the foot of the cot. She grabbed Bongo’s shirt collar and yanked. He was too big to haul up onto his feet, but she at least managed to knock him off balance. There was no way she could really do anything to the muscular man, but damned if she’d stand by while he harmed Urna!
“Hey, hey!” Bongo took hold of her wrists and pulled her down, his grip strong but not violent. “Hey,” he said more gently. “Relax. I wasn’t suggesting we kill him. It’s just the possibility of that much power, the opportunity to effect that much change all at once. His death would have massive consequences. I’ve just never had the chance to make so big a splash before. Not even close. That’s all. Really.”
He let her go. They both rose to their feet. A few seconds later she didn’t know why she’d reacted so fiercely. Maybe it was the mere suggestion of hurting someone so helpless, someone who was in her care, whether she wanted to be caring for that person or not.
“I hit a doctorly nerve, didn’t I?” Bongo gave her a soft smile, with a little impishness shining in his eyes for good measure.
“I’m a chemist. Not a doctor.” At the moment, though, she acknowledged that there wasn’t much difference, as far as Urna was concerned.
“Well, then, madam chemist—what do you want to do with him?”
The Guard. Call the Guard. This was serious. This was the sort of thing
you reported or you lived just long enough to regret with every fiber of your being that you hadn’t. Still, this man had fled the Lux. She loathed the Lux. He must have reasons for what he’d done. And who was she to decide his life for him? If he wanted to run away, he ought to have the chance to do so.
These were naїve thoughts. This was a vastly dangerous situation and she could never convince herself otherwise.
Nevertheless, to Bongo she said, “You still got that old car of yours? I want to load him into it before my assistants get here. It’ll look suspicious if the lab is closed two days running, so I’ll stay here. I want you to drive him to my place. I notice you still haven’t given me my key back. I’d like you to get him inside and keep him there until I get back. He’ll wake up before I come home. He might want more drugs. Distract him, keep him occupied, whatever it takes. Tell him I can give him what he needs.”
Bongo had listened in silence. His smile now became a somewhat devilish grin. “That’s what you want, huh?”
“You asked.”
“I did.” He nodded. “Okay. That’s what we’ll do. Give me ten minutes and I’ll go get the car. I keep in it a shed not far from here. It barely runs anymore, but I think it’ll make it the few blocks.” With that, Bongo turned and marched away toward the front door.
Virge felt a great surge of gratitude. Maybe she had drastically underestimated the man. Apparently he could be counted on in a crisis. It was a good quality in a person.
She looked down on the man in her care once more. She brushed aside a long strand of pale hair. His was the face of an elf. He was beautiful. But just how dangerous was this Weapon?
* * * * *
There were several indistinct but not unpleasant surfacings before he became truly awake. The drug need was no longer gnawing at him and that feeling of impending death had retreated to a seemingly safe distance. Urna was aware of being warm, snug, of softness underneath him, of a roof overhead. Tiny tendrils of dream wriggled through his mind and he remembered that he was the only one of his kind who did dream. Shadowflashes didn’t dream either, so far as he knew. The dreams were fragmentary, just bits of mental nonsense. Woven in amongst them were slivers of words in various languages, some from ancient tongues he’d come across in his reading of old Elyrian texts, some quite possibly conjured up by his imagination. This was the sort of linguistic lunacy he liked to scribble on his walls, in his quarters.