by Larkin, Matt
He nodded. “Yeah. This way,” he said, ushering her toward the monorail.
“You just killed seven people,” she said when they neared. “You killed them. You were supposed to protect me, not—”
“I did protect you. Those men will never threaten you again.” He trotted down the steps into the monorail. “If we left them alive, what do you think they’d do? Come after you again, right?”
Ice filled her heart. Was that her own fear, or was she sensing his cold emotions? Almost afraid, she probed them. God, he really believed it, even if a buried hint of fear underlay his words.
And worse, he was right. Redeemers did not stop.
“They seemed pretty intent on taking you along, rich girl. What’d you do?”
Rachel shook her head. She was paying him, not the other way around. “It doesn’t matter. But you didn’t have to kill—”
Knight spun on her and shoved her against the station wall. He leaned in so close his hair tickled her cheek. “This isn’t some Mizraim paradise, rich girl. This is Gehenna. You leave enemies behind you, sooner or later you’ll have more enemies in front of you than you can handle.”
Rachel grit her teeth and pushed him away. “Fine.”
Knight shook his head. “You want protection? Sure seems like you need it.” He glanced at an arriving rail. “But you’re right. Why should I care what they want? I only care about what’s in your bank account.”
Rachel started for the monorail. Could she in good conscience continue to associate with a man who killed so casually? But he was right, she needed him. The Redeemers wouldn’t have stopped. Of course, losing an entire Heart would likely make them even more determined. If she sent Knight away now, the Redeemers might kill her without even waiting for her surrender.
“You’re a Smogger, aren’t you? That’s how you can breathe the atmosphere here.” In the Days of Glory the Angels had created several subspecies of humanity designed for varying habitats. Knight’s ancestors must have been ash-worlders—Smoggers. Like David.
Knight shrugged. “You have your secrets. I have mine.”
Fair enough. “Come on,” she said. “I need to get back to my hotel.” And shower off this acid rain.
Knight walked beside her, just slightly behind. “We should get you some armor if this is going to continue.”
So his coat was nanomesh. Maybe one of the slugs had even hit him. She paused. “How in the holy universe did you dodge a MAG slug?”
Knight snickered and kept walking toward the train. “I didn’t, rich girl. I dodged the trajectory of where he was pointing it.”
“I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. Are you cybered?”
Knight stopped, then slowly turned on her. He walked back, menace in his steps. She’d seen a vid of a tiger stalking prey once. The cat moved like that. Knight circled around to her side. “Did you just accuse me of violating the First Commandment?”
Rachel swallowed. Apparently even on Gehenna, that was a hefty accusation. But she had to know. The First Commandment, “Man shall not alter the form of man,” was held the most sacred throughout the universe. Angels outright forbade humans from altering their genetic structure—though they’d done it themselves to create the Races of Man—or enhancing themselves with cybernetics. But there were always rumors of khapiru—outcasts—hunted down by Redeemers for breaking that law. Some said such violations ran rampant on Asherah. But out here on Gehenna…
Rachel forced herself to look straight into the eyes of this tiger. He was a killing machine. What if he were literally part machine? “Have you violated it?”
“No.” It came out as a growl. And she didn’t really blame him.
“Then how do you—”
“Training. Do you want my services or not, rich girl?”
“Stop calling me that. My name is Rachel, and I’m not rich.” Not really, though she did well enough on what QI paid her for relics.
“All right, Rachel. But you can afford me?”
She shut her eyes. She had to afford him. It was the only way she’d live long enough to find the Sefer. “Come on.”
CHAPTER SIX
The first time I met Knight I found him to be arrogant, self-centered, and detestable. The first time I saw him fight, I decided I’d best keep such opinions to myself. Hard to believe someone could manage such preternatural reflexes without cybernetics or genetic enhancements. But he claimed not to have violated the First Commandment, and I had no means to challenge his claim.
Rachel swiped the key card and let herself into her room at the Royal Palace. Knight held her back by the shoulder and stuck his head in the door first, then waved her inside. At least he took the bodyguard thing seriously.
“Wait out here,” she said, and slipped into the washroom. The acid rain had corroded her clothes a little, but since she had no others, thinning clothes would have to do. She dropped them in the laundry for the second time today, then took a quick shower to wash the burning off her skin. The initial sting gave way to a soothing warmth.
Best she not take too much time, with Knight waiting out there. Quite possibly imagining her in here. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. He was powerful, fit. Fast and deadly. A tiger. She prayed he was no empath. Given the attraction he obviously felt to her, if he had any idea she was even a little hot for him—and she knew what the warmth in her abdomen meant, much as she might like to deny it—she’d never hear the end of it.
Shit, maybe she should just bed him and get it over with. A simple nanotab could ensure she didn’t get pregnant and… God, what the void was she thinking? It was just the adrenaline. It did this to people. There was no way in the holy universe she’d let that happen.
She switched off the water, activated the dryer, and threw her clothes back on. Knight was sitting on her bed, seeming to stare off into nothing. His eyes glanced at her when she entered, but he didn’t turn his head.
“Do you want to shower?” she asked.
He smirked, like he might make some smart remark, but then he just rose and ducked into the washroom. Rachel blew out a long breath and sat on the bed. Who had she let into her room? The man was clearly very dangerous, and probably a bit off rotation. But he had saved her, too.
He came out a few minutes later, his long coat draped over his arm. He wore a sleeveless vest, probably nanomesh armor itself, she’d guess, the slate gray of most buildings around here. His exposed arms were very, very toned. Rock hard, ready in an instant. She shook herself, trying to shift her focus. This man was a killer—and that’s why he had a body like this.
But it wasn’t just the strength of his muscles that made him so deadly. Something allowed him to react much faster than he should have.
“Are you a Psych, Knight? Is that how you moved like that, sensing what they intend even when they start to act?”
He tossed the coat on the bed, then sat down beside her. “If I was psychic, do you think I’d be doing this kind of shit?”
Why not? She was. “It’s a fair question. There are five million people on this planet. It stands to reason some fifty thousand of you should be Psychs, and at least five thousand should be powerful enough to—”
“Not on this planet, Rachel. Psionic genes don’t run strongly here.”
Rachel brushed her fingers through her hair, pausing for a moment. “Then how would you navigate the Conduit, without Psychs?”
“We don’t.”
So the people on this world were trapped here, unless an outside Psych came to take them away, or they could afford passage. It made a terrible, sadistic sense. This was a prison once. Even if the inmates could build ships capable of reaching the Conduit Gate, without Psychs, they could never navigate it. They’d enter the Conduit and be lost forever. And to try to leave a system without the Conduit—the journey would take years.
God, they were stuck in this hellhole. Some of them had probably never committed any crime, and the Angels had damned them here for the sins of their ancestors
. She stilled the urge to brush Knight’s cheek with her hand—he was no lost child. Instead she sighed.
Knight smirked again. “Figured out the Angels’ great joke on us, huh?” Palpable frustration leapt off him, clouding her mind until she couldn’t help but share it.
What could she say? What had been done to these people was the Angels’ fault, just like so much else in human history. Their perfect society in the Days of Glory had no tolerance for anything on the fringes. And people like Knight were punished for things that had happened hundreds of years before they were born. She had to believe they’d have known the inmates would be trapped, that their descendants would be trapped. Or maybe they just didn’t care. Damnation via apathy. It made her want to scream.
“Why are those people after you?” he said after a moment. “I can protect you best if I know who they are and what they want.”
Rachel stood and paced in front of him, as she’d often done as a lecturer. She knew it was a nervous habit, but she’d never been able to break it. “The Redeemers. Know about them?” Knight just stared at her. “One of the seven megacorps of the Conglomerate. Unlike the other corps, though, they don’t make anything or offer any services. They’re the self-appointed enforcers of Angel doctrine. Any deviation from what they perceive as the wishes of the Angels, and they name you khapiru.”
Knight shrugged. “So they enforce the Covenant?”
“Officially the other corps support them, because officially they enforce the Covenant, yes. Unofficially, they persecute anyone doing anything out of line with what they think the Angels would have wanted.”
“And?” He spread his hands and raised his brows. “Have you broken a Commandment?” A smirk spread over his face. “Need help with the Third?”
Cocky little punk was still offering to take her to bed? Maybe it was best to just ignore it—lest he realize she’d actually considered it. “I’m an Angelologist. I study the Angels, in particular their technology, and search for things they didn’t leave us in the Vanishing.”
Knight shrugged again. “These Redeemers sound like the good guys to me. Not that I care, as long as you’re paying.” He raised his eyebrow. “You are going to pay me, right? A little up front sounds only fair, considering the events of tonight.”
“Yes, I’m going to pay you! Is that all you care about? I’m talking about the future of the human race. We are enslaved to traditions forced on us by alien beings claiming it was in our best interest.” She paused for effect. “It’s been more than three thousand years since the Exodus. We still have no idea where Eden is, and we’ve barely advanced technologically from what they gave us all those years ago. The only progress we’ve made at all has come after the Vanishing, and people like the Redeemers fight us every step!”
Knight sat straighter, scowling. “Some rich girl from the Mizraim Empire, and you think you know what it means to be enslaved. These beings you call aliens came from God to save us from the Adversary. I doubt God cares about this place, but you seem to want to make the Angels out as despots. Trust me. I’ve seen real tyrants.”
Rachel resumed her pacing. “But all that history you’re talking about, the Adversary destroying Eden and the Angels saving us, that’s history they gave us in the Codex. Meaning you believe it because they told you to believe. Because your ancestors believed—”
“Everyone believes it. Someone tried to drive the human race to extinction three thousand years ago. Are you saying it’s not true?”
Rachel pointed at him. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. We only know what they told us about the past. We almost went extinct? Well, now there are trillions of us, spread across more than thirty galaxies. All we know for sure is that the Angels were tyrants, Knight. Their word was law, and that’s all there was to it.” They took away humanity’s God-given right to decide their own destiny, and no one seemed to care!
“Makes sense if God sent them.” Another goddamn shrug.
She scoffed. “They said He did. We have to take their word for it.”
“So you want the Word of God direct from His mouth?” Knight rose. “That’s a tall order.” He almost, almost glared at her. She could feel irritation wafting off him, though it was hard to say how much he really cared about religion.
Rachel scowled. She was a fool to think this man would understand her when no one else had. A few students, here and there, might have grasped the things she’d tried to teach. Those precious few almost made it worthwhile. Most people just couldn’t open their eyes to reality. You had to understand the past—not cling blindly to it. And she’d lost her place, lost her chance to teach because of that blind obedience that permeated Mizraim. And apparently beyond.
“Knight… You have to understand—”
“I don’t have to. You’re free to believe whatever off rotation nonsense you want, as long as I get paid.”
So that was it? He didn’t want to be enlightened. The apathy was almost worse than blindness through faith. And she was stuck with him. He was all she had here.
Rachel yanked a credit chip from her jacket and thrust it at him. “Ten thousand, up front.”
“Then you’ve got yourself some protection from Redeemers, or whoever else you’ve manage to piss off. Which is probably a lot of people with that spiel.”
If he only knew. Two years ago she’d been a lecturer at New Rome University. Youngest professor on the Days of Glory. But neither the faculty nor most of the students had liked hearing the Days of Glory might not have been all that glorious. For everything the Angels had given mankind, they’d demanded something in return.
Eden probably had existed. People had to come from somewhere. And no history debated that something had attacked the human homeworld. But even if she took it as a given the Angels had selflessly rescued mankind from extinction—after something like seven billion people had died—it didn’t permit them to rule an autocratic theocracy for the next two and a half millennia. Of course, most of the people who heard her lectures didn’t see it that way. They believed what they had been told to believe.
If she had to guess, hearing she’d been kicked out of NRU had probably quite disappointed her father.
But nothing would compare to his dejection, his rage when she refused to join him in the Redeemers. Rachel was fifteen when Jeremiah had joined their father on that path. And they had always thought she’d follow. But they had never understood her. Even now, the thought of his face clenched her heart. That look of betrayal when she left home—that look would haunt her forever.
But Quasar Industries hadn’t cared who wanted her dead. Jobless and scorned by the academic community, she’d fled straight to Galizur. And he’d given her the chance to earn a living and change the future. And she was damn well going to take that chance. Because one day, her father, Jeremiah, and even David would look back and see she’d been right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
September 23rd, 3096 EY
I have acquired a protector, after a fashion, who may allow me to continue down this path. However, despite his actions, or perhaps because of them, I have no reason to believe the Redeemers will stop. Their membership in the Conglomerate is shaky at best, but because of their reach and support throughout the universe, no other megacorp truly wants to question them. Go up against them and risk being named khapiru—no. Who would take such a risk? So instead of hiring a Shiza Security team, I find myself with a local Gehennan.
Funny how much less intimidating the Babel Bazaar seemed with Knight at her side. He didn’t say much while they walked, which was just as well. When he did speak he had a tendency to piss her off, and she needed a level head.
On the other side of the breezeway she spotted a flashing sign for Calnehian food. She’d never see anything from Calneh without thinking of David. He might have spent his young adult life on New Rome, same as her, but he’d never quite lost the accent or culture of that ash-world. Still, Rachel could never pass up the chance to sample some new dishes.
“You’re meeting your informant here?” Knight asked.
“No, I’m meeting my dinner here.” The door slid open, and Rachel stepped inside. “Come on. What’ll you have?”
“I’m not wasting my money on this place.” His eyes were scanning the half-full establishment, searching for some threat.
Rachel scowled. “I’m buying.”
Knight glanced at her. “In that case I’ll have steak.”
Rachel sat at a table, trying not to glare at him. Even she knew they didn’t raise livestock on this planet, and imported steak would probably cost a week’s rent at the Royal Palace. But she’d offered.
She tapped the display for steak, then selected salmon for herself. Most of these places had underground fish tanks, so at least they’d be fresh.
The meal came after about fifteen minutes of awkward silence. She’d tried making conversation with Knight, but he kept his eyes on everyone but her. She couldn’t even get a read on his emotions. So when her food arrived, she dug in and pretended she was eating alone.
Knight pulled off his gloves to eat, revealing several scars on his hands. Rachel tried not to stare. Maybe they really didn’t use nanobot regeneration on this planet.
He greedily devoured the steak then licked his lips. “Who are you meeting?”
Rachel leaned forward. “Her name’s Ariel. She’s somewhere on the second sub-level, but I don’t know her and I need to find her. She may have information crucial to my mission.”
“Right. To save the human race from its own ineptitude. Sure.”
Rachel ground her teeth and bit back any response.
“Give me money for bribes. I’ll find her.”
“I have done this before,” she said.
“Fine. Then you find her.”
She would. She’d been doing this work for a while now. Still, the punk was from around here. He’d know the place, and probably feel right at home with the seedy crowd. The truth was, he’d get them there faster, which would get her away from Gehenna faster.