So Michael waited, and rested.
Brian Savagewood's interview with Gideon—and the subsequent connection to the RavenTech arsons—populated the sheets and news broadcasts. The pod that Gideon had placed on the first transport had done its job, and the reporter had done his. Scandal raged around Wallace's scheme. Footage of the illicit deal was plastered on what seemed like every broadcast and the evidence that Gideon had passed to Brian had found its way to public knowledge. Wallace was wanted for murder, arson, theft, and industrial espionage. The public, though normally jaded and apathetic to one more murder in a violent city, responded to the production with the zeal of the crowd at The Arena. They seized Wallace as a scapegoat of corporate transgression while RavenTech itself distanced itself from the man, citing Wallace's theft upon his own company.
Ken Wallace was found dead within two days. Michael wondered if Felix had been right. Had RavenTech killed him as both an example and to prevent him from drawing them deeper into the scandal? Theories and rumors erupted, but none had yet been substantiated. Michael doubted if any would ever be, and often wondered what had caused Wallace to embark on the scheme in the first place.
According to Felix, the streets abounded with rumors about Gideon and where he might turn up next. There was no mention of his death. The recovery of a nameless body from a construction site received no coverage.
As for their part, Michael, Felix and Diomedes had been left out of Brian's account of things. Maybe Diomedes's threat still hung over the reporter's head, or maybe he just didn't want to share the spotlight. Whatever his reasons, neither Michael nor Felix were of a mind to complain.
Michael had come to realize that he resented the reporter a little when he had first met him. Brian had a purpose, or at least a career. They were about the same age, but the reporter was on his own and doing well. Though Michael wasn't sure that he resented the man anymore, he still envied him that purpose even if Brian was, as Felix admitted, an ungrateful putz.
Michael tried not to think of Diomedes. Felix had already offered to look into what had become of the man, but Michael had declined. He wasn't ready to deal with that yet. He wanted to separate from his old mentor as much as he could, feeling guilty just for knowing him. For so long he'd thought of himself in terms of being Diomedes's partner. Michael wanted to stand alone. He tried to put the man out of his mind.
It was during the afternoon of the third day that Felix turned to him and said, "Well, they should be just about ready for you now."
Michael blinked. "What?"
"Them," Felix replied with a grin. "Them! Them!"
Michael smiled. He was getting used to the man's joking manner. "Oh, yes. 'Them.' How silly of me to forget."
"Yes, well, I'm sure you're forgiven," Felix replied. "Come on, get your coat. Let's go."
"Are you going to tell me who 'them' refers to?" he asked as he rose.
"Oh, probably, probably. You sure you don't want to guess? I'll even give you a hint: it's got nothing whatsoever to do with giant ants."
"Giant ants."
"Nothing at all."
"Uh, huh."
"Well, it doesn't!"
They headed out the door and made their way down to the street. Wherever they were going, Felix insisted they walk. "So do I have to guess, or are you going to eventually tell me?" Michael asked. Felix had a glint in his eyes that was making him increasingly curious.
"Not even going to try to guess? I did give you a hint."
"You said it has nothing to do with giant bugs."
"Ants!" Felix corrected. "Giant ants. 'Them!' It's an old, old movie from the 1950s. Giant nuclear-mutated ants crawl out of the desert and generally cause havoc. They eventually go to Los Angeles."
"And this has nothing to do with that." Michael shook his head. The man was perpetually weird, but it was a good quality.
"Yes, I already said that. Weren't you listening?" Felix shot him another grin as they walked up the street.
Michael shook his head again, smiling. "I'm not much in the mood to guess, Felix."
"Oh, sure, I've got this great secret I'm actually able to tell you, and you're going to take away all the fun of dangling it in front of your face."
"I'd guess you're having quite a bit of fun already."
"Yeah, well, can't deny that, I suppose. Fine." He paused as a group of teenagers passed them on the street. "Ever heard of Aeneas?"
Michael thought about it. The name seemed familiar, though he couldn't place it. "Not quite, no."
"Heard of the city of Troy?"
Michael nodded.
"Aeneas was, as the story goes, a cousin of the king of Troy. Just before the city fell, his mother Aphrodite—goddess of love, in fact—came to him and warned him. She told him to leave Troy before it was destroyed completely, to lead a group of his countrymen to another land and start a new kingdom. He did, and, to make an epic poem short, supposedly founded what would eventually become the Roman Empire."
"Okay?" Michael said, wondering at the point of the story.
"Yeah, I know, great story—actually it is. Pick up Virgil's Aeneid sometime." He chuckled. "But I'm babbling. On to the point! There are people who consider our modern society something of a present day Troy. Only this time, it's not the Greeks coming to destroy us, but the nature of what humanity has become that will eventually tear us apart. Violence growing as compassion shrinks. Environmental destruction. Power centered more and more in the hands of those who wield it for their own gains. They're worried our self-destructive tendencies are very near to winning out, that we may have already passed the point of no return."
Michael said nothing as he listened, inwardly agreeing that these people might have a point. He'd seen a great deal of humanity's dark side in the past few months alone.
"Some of these people have formed a sort of secret society that's been around for—well, I'll spare you the details, but it suffices to say that it's been awhile. Time enough for them to have established fields of quiet influence in a great number of other organizations."
Michael looked at Felix with more than a little skepticism, though the man had never lied to him before. "So they're controlling everything?"
Felix chuckled. "Oh, no. Heck, no. Nothing that drastic. They have a great deal of eyes, but not as many hands, so to speak. They do have some influence, but they wield only as much as they can without being discovered. Where they can though, they act for good. You asked once who Lifesaver—er, Marc—worked for. (Call him Marc now, by the way, or I'll owe him dinner.) This's the secret I couldn't tell you at the time. He's part of the Agents of Aeneas."
"Agents of Aeneas?" Michael hadn't heard of them anywhere. "So if they think this is all another Troy? They're going to try to leave before it crumbles?"
Felix nodded. "That's one of their main goals, yeah."
"And just where do they think they'll go? I haven't heard of any newly discovered continents lately, have you?" he joked before a thought jolted him. "God, they don't mean to kill off anyone who's not with them, do they?"
Felix laughed. "Oh, no, no, no. Nothing like that. They don't want to do away with society. For one thing, they're not killers. The whole group works on the assumption that society will do away with itself. They don't want to get rid of society, they just want to leave it."
"So where are they going to go?"
"Where, indeed?" Felix gave him what might have been a knowing smile. "Like I said, that's one of their goals. The other, which I'm guessing will more perk your interest, is to try to prolong the life of society by doing as much good as they can."
"Like what?"
"Oh, things. Shelters, humanitarian aid groups, aiding the police, exposing corruption. Sometimes they'll keep watch on important figures who've made enemies through positive acts, protecting those that need it. Maybe even a little redirection of funds now and then. Not always legal, but. . . positive."
"Like what?" Felix was being rather vague. Michael suspected it was del
iberate.
"Can't tell you specifics. Not yet, anyway."
"But you do know."
"I might know some things," he said with a wink that all but screamed yes.
A question that Michael realized he should have asked by now sprung to mind. "I'm assuming we're going to talk to someone from this group, but I'm guessing you're one of these 'Agents of Aeneas,' too?"
"Well, based on all I've told you about a secret society, that'd be a pretty valid assumption, wouldn't it?"
"That's what I thought." How many secrets did the man have?
"Although," Felix added, "it'd be an incorrect one."
Michael shot him an amusedly annoyed glance. "You really like doing that, don't you?"
"Oh, now I'm sure you know the answer to that one." Felix grinned.
"So how do you know so much about them?"
Felix smiled and glanced skyward. "Oh, that's a story I think you'll have to wait to hear," he mused. "Best not to complicate things too much for you today. I will say that I am currently, oh, a friend of the organization."
Michael nodded and remained silent awhile as they walked down the sidewalk. Ahead was Marc's building, and Michael guessed it was not a coincidence. He also guessed that the reason for this journey was not simply to say hello. An excitement born of curiosity and hope began within him, and he picked up his pace as more and more questions filled his mind. Before he could get them into words, Felix spoke.
"They've had their eye on you, Flynn. They trust you enough to let me tell you about them." They reached the entrance to the building. "And you're under no obligation to join. It's not the mafia. I wouldn't bring you here if it were. But they will ask you to keep their secret."
Felix raised his finger to the door buzzer. Beside the button was a small outline of a shield-bearing figure that Michael hadn't noticed before. "This is the Palladium, an artifact that was said to guarantee the safety of any city that held it, and one of the things Aeneas was said to have carried out of Troy. It's their symbol." He paused. "Do you trust me?"
Michael nodded.
Felix pushed the button. A moment later, Marc answered and released the door locks. Michael considered what Felix had told him so far. ". . . protecting those that need it. . ." Perhaps, as Felix predicted it would, purpose had found him. He stepped through the door first, leaving Felix to follow.
Epilogue
History was no stranger to exodus. Life had left the oceans to crawl its way up to existence upon the land. Humankind had spread across the globe via ice bridges and precarious ocean voyages. Countries had formed of former refuges settling in a new land after fleeing persecution or searching for their own freedom. The Earth, once a vast expanse of seemingly endless frontiers, had now grown small from exploration, settled over seemingly every inch of its surface, and had seen doubling after doubling of human population. An exodus, in the true sense of the word, was no longer feasible within a global frame. They had journeyed to the planetary shore, and they knew not how to swim.
It had been nearly a century since mankind had first launched a simple beeping transmitter into orbit. A century of aircraft development bridged the gap between the rudimentary glider and the surface-to-orbit fighter craft. Yet in a century of space flight, they had barely learned to travel in a cost-effective way beyond the Moon.
No one in the Agents of Aeneas doubted that faster and further travel was possible. Progress had never been forged from the fires of doubt, and to believe that what they wished was impossible would serve no purpose. They had researched and studied. They had searched. And when a survey scan of the Aristarchus crater had turned up a solid mass of extra-lunar material, one emitting faint levels of energy, they dared to hope that their search had been fruitful. A simple asteroid or meteor would have been obliterated in the ancient impact that had formed the massive crater. That the mass remained solid and undistributed hinted of something designed to withstand such an impact—designed to weather the violence of cosmic radiation and the theoretical stresses of interstellar travel. It had hinted at the AoA's holy grail, a means to their exodus: an ancient, derelict starship buried beneath the Moon's surface.
And so they had released a hint of the data to ESA, a nudge to lead the space agency to direct its resources toward an investigation. The Agents of Aeneas had observed and influenced that investigation. Marette Clarion herself had been placed as the overseer, waiting for the moment when the protocol-obsessed mining foreman would uncover the alleged vessel and report to ESA.
The presence of an active defense system inside the ship had been a tragic and unexpected element. That anything at all functioned after the centuries the ship had lain dormant had been a surprise that became both a blessing and a curse. That any lives had been lost was disastrous, but the discovery of operational technology and the black substance that appeared to hold some sort of computer system held much more promise of their salvaging and understanding the science that had got it there.
In the few weeks that passed after Marette's first team had lost their lives, five more of the security drones had appeared. A total of three had challenged the second team's turrets. Crewmen Soto and Dietrich had tragically given their lives in their destruction. When the entry was declared secure two quiet days later, they discovered two more drones lying in the corridors beyond. Neither functioned. They had been removed for study to the small field base that ESA had rapidly set up just outside of the ship.
Everything was kept contained at the immediate site—a technological quarantine that the AoA had pushed for. The mole inside the space agency was still operating, but the Agents of Aeneas had discovered that he had not had a chance to make his deal. His initial buyer, the American named Wallace, was dead. He had not as yet attempted to find another. For now, they watched him and let him remain with ESA where they could trace his movements. He would not be exposed. Not yet. Handled properly, he could be turned to their advantage. For now, the roadblock he had posed had been removed. They were free to continue.
And so they did, cautiously, beginning to explore the interior of the ship. The black substance coated nearly every surface they found inside. The eerie displays that the second team had discovered would appear wherever a wall surface was touched, and techs had managed to decipher the simple sequence that would open a door in some places. They mapped a very limited section of corridors, including a small, empty room thought to be the source of the drones, when suddenly the sequence stopped working, and, for the moment, they could go no further.
Marette watched a full Earth hang above the lunar landscape. Slowly, their exodus was taking shape. More scientists were inbound to help unravel the nature of the black substance. Was it truly a computer of some sort? Did it contain the data they were searching for, or was it more than that? The first sensor techs had reported that the ubiquitous material was at least partially organic. They later determined that it displayed properties of photosynthetic respiration, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen like a plant. It was both solid and liquid, both mysterious and baffling. Was it the key to the puzzle, or the puzzle itself?
Somewhere inside its unexplored reaches, the ship concealed the technology they needed behind—or within—the blackness. Wherever it hid, Marette vowed, the AoA would find it.
It waited for them.
Michael Flynn's journey continues in A Memory in the Black, now available for Kindle:
As the Agents of Aeneas struggle to unlock the secrets of the alien craft, word of its discovery has leaked, and various groups conspire to seize its technology for themselves. While Michael Flynn protects a fellow Agent from those who believe he knows too much, the two are tasked with renewing contact with Diomedes, wanted for the assassination of a man suspected of trying to sell the technology.
Meanwhile, Gideon has been seen alive. . .
Here's a glimpse of what's in store…
~ ~ ~
The unfolding trolley doors released Caitlin into the late-afternoon warmth. Air
cooled by the river that flowed a block south provided small relief from the stifling atmosphere that had surrounded her moments earlier. Ahead waited the grey stucco of her flat, and she took to the bits of shade beneath the sapling maples that the city had been kind enough to plant along the sidewalk. Against the colour of a clear blue sky, they could be verdant and gorgeous as leaves danced with golden light, yet today they seemed mere refugees amid grey concrete and white haze. They resonated perfectly with—or perhaps because of—her mood.
A cloud of worries and personal demons hounded her thoughts with troublesome whispers. What Felix referred to as a second wave of grief over Gideon's fate again forced her to examine the guilt she felt over her own part of it. Then and now, she'd told herself that she'd done what she'd thought was right. It was the solid ground she had found to stand on; though she inarguably felt safer with Gideon gone from her life and the lives of her fellow Scry, the means were not her choice, and she certainly hadn't pulled the trigger.
And yet the possibility that she had not left a dead body there that night—that he had continued on and could have been aided somehow instead of simply discarded in the mud—had sewn a seed of remorse in her heart. Had she been so anxious to be rid of someone—someone to whom she and others owed their lives, even—that she'd treated his life as no better than trash? Though his association with The Scry put all of them at ever-deepening risk, she never believed that she wished him death.
Could she have been wrong about herself?
Shame was a good part of what she was fighting, Caitlin knew. And yet hadn't they made certain he was dead? Even summoned an ambulance to find him? After seeing Gideon again, she could no longer be sure how much of what she remembered was real and how much she had created to protect herself. That Felix remembered the same events that night should be reassurance enough, but Gideon's return created a doubt that continued to fester.
A Shadow in the Flames (The New Aeneid Cycle) Page 29