by Jim Spencer
‘Only a couple of minutes. I’ve got ten computers here, so we should be done in an hour.’
‘Good. So how does this work?’
‘It’s simple. I give the instruction, it lasts as long as you need.’
‘You still don’t trust me, do you?’
‘No, it’s not that. I trust you. I don’t trust some of the other soldiers, or Atan. I’m sure you noticed how he approved of weapons use so quickly.’
‘Yeah I noticed. Unusually quick, especially for him.’
‘Exactly, which makes me wonder. What else is he up to?’
‘You lost me’
‘I mean. The Nargus it is now. Who’s next, The cabinet, Tribe Country?’
‘That’s a pretty big allegation to put forward, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I know. That’s why I need your help. Try to find out what the high chancellor is up to.’
A moment of stunned silence as he contemplated what Arion had just asked him,
‘Have you gone mad?’
‘Not yet,’ Arion replied, which was not comforting for Cordell.
‘Arion, seriously, you’ve just asked me to spy on my cabinet. If I get caught, it will be considered an act of treason. That’s the capital punishment.’
‘Well I can’t break into a person’s house and look into their files without someone knowing. But you have the authority’
‘Well, maybe. But Arion, this isn’t right.’
‘And killing creatures is right, is it?’
‘Why did you come with us to the expedition then?’
‘I had to. No choice. I’m not the cabinet.’
‘And if you were?’
‘I’d find a home for the nargus.’
‘You know we’re at war with these creatures. For our very existence!’
‘I know.’
Cordell was still having difficulty listening to this. He tried to reason with Arion,
‘Look Arion. I know you’ve lost your father. It is a tough time for everyone, but you can’t suddenly stop trusting people. Besides, everything’s fair in love and war.’
‘Then why do we have a human rights act?’
‘It was a figure of speech, Arion. Look, you know for a fact what will happen if I get caught Arion. I can’t believe we’re talking about this.’
Arion stayed silent for a few moments. Cordell was unsure what to make of this man standing in front of him. The friendly Arion he knew had suddenly turned cynical. Arion spoke after a long pause,
‘I need to know. For my peace of mind. I started this research to save lives, not create death. Please, just do this one thing for me.’
‘And what exactly am I going to do? Just walk up to his house and say, ‘Hey, got any secrets you wanna tell me about?’
‘No, but you could arrive late at the next council meeting and say you had intelligence that some Nargus were close by.’
‘What?’
‘And then go to his house and look for anything which may show anything about what he has in mind.’
‘Like what?’ Cordell asked, almost raising his voice now.
‘Recent correspondence maybe.’
‘This is insane,’ Cordell shook his head.
‘You’ve said it yourself. You never particularly liked Atan.’
He had no answer to this. It was true; he wasn’t fond of the man, but still.
‘Look, if I do this, will you promise not to ask me anything like this again?’
‘I promise.’
There was a moment’s silence as Cordell contemplated this. Then he said,
‘Fuck it. What the hell…I’ll do it.’
*
‘Where’s Cordell?’ Atan asked, as soon as Arion sat down.
‘He’s bringing the remaining weapons. I couldn’t carry all of them. Some he still had to finish.’
‘How long will he be?’
‘About ten minutes,’ Arion responded, calmer than usual. He commenced explaining what the weapons could do and how they were programmed. Atan was not particularly happy with the weapons being controlled by Arion only and having a limited number of days to work. ‘You have to understand, I need to make sure this does not get into the wrong hands. And that it is not used unjustly,’ he added.
Atan simply nodded with one raised eyebrow. Arion ignored this and carried on. As he finished his explanation, Cordell walked in, clearly out of breath. He put down the remaining cache of weapons and asked if he could keep hold of them until they were required.
‘I see no reason why not,’ Arion interjected before anyone could speak, ‘I mean, I do trust him. The weapons will be safe with Cordell,’ he added quickly.
Atan narrowed his eyes at this, but made no other movement as the rest of the council agreed that keeping the weapons with the army would be the best bet. The meeting was adjourned until a response was received from neutral country.
*
‘What does he mean by response?’ Arion asked Tali.
‘We received comms from neutral country today. They wish for the Nargus to be contained. We just need a rough location as to where they are before we can go out again.’
Arion looked at the time, 9.45pm. He had to get back to the lab. Cordell stopped him.
‘I need to talk to you.’
They walked a little distance until he knew they were out of earshot.
‘I found something.’
‘What?’
‘Tali said that we received comms from neutral country, but he didn’t mention Tribe Country.’
‘No, he didn’t.’
Cordell sighed before speaking again,
‘I found the comms from tribe country, received today, only an hour ago,’ he looked around before playing the piece on a hologram.
‘Greetings to the high chancellor Atan. I have communicated the news of this GOD Particle that you spoke of to my people. Following our sordid history and recent conflicts, my people believe that this is a violation to the peace treaty as this insinuates that you have found a means to act in an unholy fashion. My people deem this to be the highest level of blasphemy and request that this…weapon, as it is, should be destroyed and any trace of it should be forgotten. Since this has probably been in development for a while now, my people feel that if you do not comply with our request, then we will consider this as an act of sedition and will have no choice but to declare war upon the country of Civil. We await your response with the utmost urgency.’
‘This is not good,’ Arion responded.
‘Oh yeah, it gets worse,’ Cordell played another comms with Atan’s response
‘My fellow tribesman. We have not discovered this GOD particle to eradicate it because you deem it to be of a superstitious nature. Our researchers are using it for means of healing and not weaponry. So with this in mind, I have to deny the request of the tribes’ people to eradicate this formula. I am not in the intention of giving up something which will change our perceptions on how to live. If you wish to take this as an act of sedition, then that is entirely up to you. My forces will be ready at my disposal. If you wish to negotiate, then I am willing to discuss this matter further. Thank you.’
‘Is he crazy?’
‘Apparently so,’
‘I can’t approve this.’
‘Well, we can’t just walk up to him and say that we know what his response was. It’ll raise too many questions. I barely got out of there today.’
‘I’ll interrogate him then.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll figure it out.’
Chapter 10
He arrived at the lab to find the rest of his family awaiting him to enter. To his surprise, Atan was there also. He was in a rather difficult situation here, he couldn’t explain to his family what he was doing, but he didn’t want to try anything rash in front of Atan. As he let his family in, he activated shield protocol on his system. This would allow his data to be safe, and tell him if anyone stole the data from him. As everyone came in with flowers, he opened the
dorm that he was sat under to allow the night sky to come in.
‘Lovely night for a fitting man,’ Atan spoke.
‘Yes, it is,’ Arion spoke as the rest of his family went to work in raising his father above the stance and began to put wooden planks around him. All Arion could do was stand and watch as there was simply no way of explaining what he wanted to do. He simply had to accept that his father was gone. As he began to feel emotional, Atan spoke,
‘It is a great loss that you have suffered, Arion. And I am very sorry that I have to bring this up in front of you now. But I received a response from Tribe country today.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Arion managed to say, still watching the wooden planks being put on the pedestal.
‘Yes, unfortunately they do not approve of our new…shall we say, discovery.’
‘You mean my discovery.’
‘Yes of course. You must understand, Tribe country is a very superstitious bunch, and would consider anything that we do as part of science a means of blasphemy. It’s as if they can’t think of anything else,’ he seemed dazed as he said this.
‘We have to maintain some form of peace however. I believe you are still in office because you have managed to maintain a degree of this over the past couple of years.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Atan spoke, as the last piece of the plank was erected and oil was sprayed on the wood.
‘So you do understand I hope that to declare, say an act of war would be most unwise right now. It would be better to establish dialogue,’
‘Of course, I am aware of this,’ Atan spoke, somewhat impatiently, ‘but I do feel that sometimes dialogue is not possible.’
Arion waited for his father’s body to begin burning, when he finally answered with a big sigh.
‘Are you telling me we’re no longer at peace with Tribe Country? Because I believe we should have no real grudge against them.’
‘No, no, not at all. I’m just saying that if it gets to a state of war, then we may need to utilise more of this…discovery than we wanted to initially.’
‘I told you before, this is no weapon.’
‘But it can be used in that way, you understand?’
‘Yes, I do. But I cannot approve of this use. On the Nargus, fair enough, they are a threat, but Tribe country is not. I’m sure a man of your stature can understand this.’
‘This has got nothing to do with stature.’
‘Then what is it. A dictatorship?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Don’t be. Everyone knows that we have had troubles with Tribe country for a while. We have finally managed some level of peace, and you’re now hinting at the possibility of war again! I can’t approve of this.’
‘This may be a decision that is out of your power, Arion. You work for me. Not the other way around.’
‘No, I work for Tali.’
‘Who works for me, so anything he has, I eventually own.’
He was silent for a few moments, before repeating,
‘I’m sorry. I can’t approve of an act such as this.’
‘We’ll see,’ Atan spoke, his voice low and dangerous.
Arion simply answered with a sneer and left him to it. He knew he might try something, but the best course of action was to wait, at the moment.
*
Atan left later on, without so much as a goodbye. This didn’t bother Arion too much as he had more pressing matters. He knew his father’s land would automatically go to him, his uncles had to respect that much about him. As they left and said their final goodbye’s, Arion sat down to rest for a moment. He didn’t even realise when it started, but he suddenly began to cry loudly. All the emotion he had been keeping inside him was flooding through without warning. He suddenly realised how much of a miracle it was that he had kept himself calm for this long.
As the minutes went by and the tears flowed, eventually easing up, he wiped them away to scan the system. Just as he suspected, one item was missing. That son of a bitch was daring enough to try and steal his creation. He saw the video evidence as Atan walked away with a GP-002. There was no time to waste. He went straight on the intercom to Cordell and told him,
‘That’s not all,’ came Cordell’s voice.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘He just ordered us to be on high alert.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Cordell, we can’t do this. The only way forward is together. We’ve been divided for too long as a society. You know this.’
‘I know, it’s just…I have my orders.’
‘Oh… fuck your orders’
‘Look, Arion. Just get that weapon away from Atan. He’s clearly too dangerous to be trusted. We’ll have to take him down, together with the senate house.’
‘He is the fucking senate,’ Arion reminded him.
‘I know. Just get the gun.’
*
He rapped on Atan’s door. Initially there was no answer. After a few more raucous attempts, the door swung open. Arion simply acted on impulse. He threw himself into the high chancellor’s house and made his way back up to his main chamber. He knew where it was, everyone did. As he opened the door, Arion saw Atan arguing fiercely with Tali. As Tali stood there shocked, Arion simply moved straight for the high chancellor.
Before anyone could move, he had punched the high chancellor to the ground and taken the gun off him. As he bled from the nose, words formed from his lips;
‘Are you insane?!’
‘No, you son of a bitch. I am taking back what’s mine. How dare you steal my stuff!’
‘This is not yours to keep.’
‘And what exactly were you planning to do with this, create more?’
‘Of course, I was. We need this in our fight with Tribe Country.’
‘You said it wasn’t a fight,’ Arion burst out. Atan realised he had just made a big mistake there by declaring what was on his mind.
‘I told you not to use this.’
‘You can’t do anything Arion. The pieces are moving.’
‘Not if I stop the weapons from functioning,’ Arion spoke, though with less conviction, for he knew there was no definite way of doing this.
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘I would. I told you not to mess about with me, Atan. I discovered this to help people, not kill people. And you,’ he pointed to Tali, who had stood there in stunned silence, ‘were you in on this?’
‘Of course, I wasn’t Arion. Atan just told me now. That’s what we were arguing about. I don’t agree with this course of action either.’
‘Are you telling me that you don’t approve of the council’s decision?’ Atan spoke to Tali. Arion was getting angry now. There was no way Atan was going to change his decision, and Arion had inadvertently helped him, even after he was so careful not to. He pointed the gun at him. Atan looked at Arion in astonishment and then great fury as he contemplated what Arion was thinking. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
There was intense silence for a moment as Arion seriously contemplated this, but he eventually turned the weapon away.
‘You won’t get away with this, Atan.’
‘Oh, I will, Arion. For I am not the one who stormed into your house. I didn’t beat you up to steal the formula from you. I didn’t threaten you with a weapon of mass destruction.’
Arion strained to keep himself calm, as he spoke,
‘You wouldn’t dare accuse me of this. After all, you started this.’
‘And how many people know this? Tali can only do so much you know.’
There was no way out of this. He had to leave. He looked at Tali, who signalled for him to go as he picked up Atan. Arion ran out of the house as quickly as possible and spoke straight into the intercom.
‘Cordell,’ he said breathlessly.
‘Did you get it?’
‘Yes, but I’ve got bad news,’ as he told Cordell what had happened, there was a stunned silence for a few moments, before Cordell a
nswered.
‘Well, that’s probably more than I would have done.’
‘This isn’t the time, Cordell. Atan is gunning for me. I need to get out of here.’
‘I can help you there.’
‘Oh, there’s something else…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Atan is planning war with Tribe country. I’m guessing he wants to eradicate them.’
Again, stunned silence for a minute. Arion simply waited for a response as he sat in his ptactyl pod. then he spoke,
‘I never approved of this.’
‘It doesn’t matter if you did, Cordell. He’s gonna get people to approve it, one way or another.’
‘Damn that bastard.’
‘So… what now?’ he was silent for a couple of seconds longer, before he responded,
‘I’m going with you. Let’s see how well Atan does without his Marshall.’
*
‘You got it?’ Cordell asked.
‘Yeah,’ he showed him the weapon as he stopped near the army base. He sat in the ptactyl pod with Arion. Arion had his father’s ashes next to him. Cordell didn’t ask as he got his gun and they made their way past the gates.
‘What are you going to do about your confederates?’ Arion asked as they drove out.
‘Don’t worry, my boys are coming with me.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yeah, they’re behind us. See,’ he pointed behind himself. Arion looked behind to find Patrick and the remaining brigade on their own separate ptactyl pods. They had some big bags in place.
‘What’s in the bags?’ Arion asked.
‘ROMS,’ Cordell explained as they made their way out of the complex and into the fresh air. Cordell ordered Arion to stop. As he did, Cordell pressed some comms button on his intercom. The main shutter began to close.
‘What are you doing?’ Arion asked him.
‘Let’s face it. If they come for us, then we have to slow them down,’ he replied as they entire complex began to shut out the sunlight.
‘That’ll take ‘em a couple of days.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’m the only one with the codes.’
They made their way across the gate and into what used to be the Pacific Ocean. The journey to tribe country had begun.
*
‘What’s going on?’ Atan asked as he saw the shutters closing around him. The entire arena of a city was becoming enclosed. Luckily, they had enough to sustain themselves, but he wasn’t interested in that right now.