The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  Anastasia stirred in the shadows behind her father’s desk.

  “That would all be true and legal,” Anastasia said softly, “if I planned to maintain the peace. War is my right, under the Agreement, Director, as you well know.”

  “Yes, it is your right,” Rebecca agreed, frowning. “War is also a terrible idea. You’ve already lost so much to cartel violence, Anastasia. Your mother, and now your father and…”

  Anastasia shook her head, and then put her fingers to her temples.

  “If you wished to exert your authority, then the time to do so was before my cartel and family were attacked, in violation of the Agreement,” Anastasia said, speaking in a moderate and measured tone. “This intervention comes too late, Director. Even should I wish otherwise, my hands are tied, and the Thule Cartel’s fate is already sealed. Would you ask me to show pity to your former colleague?”

  “You still have a choice, Anastasia. And even if you truly believe that you don’t, think of all the people you are about to send into battle,” Rebecca said. “The Black Sun lives and dies at your command.”

  “That they do, Director,” Anastasia agreed. “And they will.”

  “I won’t sanction the conflict,” Rebecca said, toying with unlit cigarette between her fingers. “I won’t allow it.”

  “Per the terms of the Agreement, Director, as I have been attacked, I do not need your sanction. The Agreement does not allow you to interfere in cartel matters.”

  “You sure you don’t wanna let me handle this?” Alice wondered. “Normally, I wouldn’t care much, but as mad as you are with Gaul…well, I guess you got the advantage there, what with the dead family. I still don’t like the bastard at all, though, and I can promise you I’ll bring him in the extra special hard way.”

  “I have no interest in your help – or in taking the former Director alive, for that matter – and, to be entirely frank, Chief Auditor, I am no fan of torture.” Anastasia looked them over impatiently. “The Black Sun will settle its debts, without assistance or encouragement. I do not require permission or sanction.”

  “That’s true,” Alice allowed, grinning jovially. “What if I decide I want to stop you, though?”

  There was a brief staring contest between the Mistress of the Black Sun and the Chief Auditor, resolving nothing.

  “We all do what we must,” Anastasia said, with a very small sigh. “That is the way of the world.”

  “You get that from a fortune cookie?” Alice chuckled. “This is the real shit, girl. Your people are good, no doubt, but do you think they’re up for going toe-to-toe with the Auditors? You think you’re up for it?”

  Anastasia nodded serenely.

  Rebecca snapped the cigarette between her fingers in half.

  “Anastasia, think this through,” Rebecca pleaded, tossing away the bifurcated cigarette. “You’ve helped me maintain the peace since I took the job – fuck, we both know that you and Gaul had a working relationship. You’ve always been sensible, always. You pick your moments and you look after your people, and I respect that. Every Analyst in Central would swear that you’ve been building toward a bloodless coup since you were ten years old. You don’t mean to throw that all away now, do you? For something as petty as revenge? Your father would never have…”

  “My father would have gone to war with the Hegemony last year, had I not prevented that from happening,” Anastasia snapped. “Did you began by visiting me, Director? Am I your first appointment of the day, or the final?”

  Alice shot Rebecca a look, but the Director never noticed it. She was studying Anastasia too closely to be interrupted.

  “Yes,” Rebecca admitted. “To pay our sympathies, if nothing else. And, as I said, because of our past success in collaboration, I had hoped…”

  “Did you not collaborate well with Gaul Thule, when he was Director?” Anastasia asked, eyes brimming with contempt. “Best of luck with your next appointment, Ms. Levy. I am afraid that I cannot offer you more of time, but I find my days to be very full, just lately.”

  The women stood, exchanging a very complicated look.

  “War won’t bring your daddy back, but it’ll probably punch a couple more holes in your heart, of one kind or another,” Alice said, with unexpected softness. “You sure you want to do this?”

  Anastasia was silent for a moment.

  “My wishes are unimportant. Our action is dictated by necessity.” At an imperceptible signal from Anastasia, the maid reappeared behind them, holding the door open with a calculated degree of impatience. “I am certain that I will see you at the funerals, Director and Chief Auditor. Give my regards to Lord Thule, and do enjoy Reykjavik – I assume that the weather is lovely.”

  ***

  Nero handled the Los Angeles traffic with such high-speed grace that Renton suspected he might have grown up there. They took an indirect route through the northern periphery of the city, moving east through the suburban nightmare of San Bernardino before they hit the desolate peace of the desert. The light of the sun was blunted by a high-altitude haze that did not quite amount to cloud cover, and was then rendered merely bright by the tinted windows of the BMW.

  Sleep should have been an option, but Renton was agitated, distracted by worry and opportunity. He contacted Central via the Etheric Network instead.

  Mr. Hall. Riesa Martez in his head, calm and efficient. He pictured her in her dim office in downtown Central, a plump woman with tight curls and long artificial fingernails, blurry tattoos on her fingers and tucked below her ears. What can I do for you?

  Information, Riesa. Have you put together that Thule Cartel digest?

  The question was rhetorical. Riesa Martez operated an analytical protocol that allowed her to locate and sort information based on subconscious predictions of what might prove useful, a particularly effective application of a lower-order precognitive ability. Scouted by Anastasia herself from the Academy clerical staff, Renton had initially been disappointed when Riesa was assigned to him, hoping for an entirely different sort of secretary, the kind with long legs and dubious moral values.

  That, of course, was before he took the job. These days, he would not have traded Riesa for a dozen flexible blondes.

  Your thoughts are leaking again, sir.

  Take it as a complement, Riesa. About the digest?

  It’s ready. I’ve appended your typical updates as well. Coming right up, Mr. Hall.

  Renton’s eyes briefly dilated. He mopped up a single drop of blood that leaked from one of his nostrils with his handkerchief, and settled in to review.

  An agent in Ibiza overheard a MDMA-fueled conversation between two Hegemony members at a beach party. In Vienna, the successful acquisition was made of several classified documents from the Garibaldi and Sadik Cartels, currently conducting tense negotiations over control of lucrative refugee smuggling routes in the Mediterranean. Buried in the accounts of technician complaints over telepathic interference and technical difficulties, Renton was surprised to discover that Lóa Thule had served periodically as a mouthpiece for her uncle, Gaul Thule, for a handful of days during the weeks of negotiation, stepping in during key moments.

  Frustrated at the lack of usable information, Renton shifted his attention over to his personal briefing.

  At a meeting of police and mafia representatives in Mariupol, shots had been fired, setting back months of diplomatic work and requiring a massive telepathic intervention to avoid fighting in the streets. The agent Renton had assigned to Cleveland was bored out of his mind and jumping at shadows; in lieu of a report, Renton received a missive pleading for release or reassignment.

  Renton remembered the overly familiar way the agent had once addressed Anastasia during an Academy social function, and resolved to decline.

  “Sir?” Nero’s inquisitive eyes in the rearview mirror. “Did you want to stop for anything? Food?”

  Renton said nothing. Nero looked slightly embarrassed.

  “I was a little hungry, sir. I jus
t came off another job in Seattle, you see, sir, and there was no time…”

  I never get hungry while I’m working, Renton explained, bypassing Nero’s defenses and digging deep into his head with a smirk. Neither do you, now.

  Nero drove and Renton stared out the window at sunbaked gravel.

  “Sir?” Renton’s eyes flicked over to the mirror. “Thank you, sir.”

  In Switzerland, an uptick in activity around certain numbered bank accounts was recorded. A repatriated Black Sun Operator captured by the Thule Cartel was debriefed and found to be thoroughly wiped, unable to remember even how to use the toilet, while physical exams suggested the Operator’s protocol had been suppressed during interrogation by a previously unknown biological agent.

  Renton was out in the wilds of the covert Network datastream, hunting amongst carefully cataloged deception for an unknown weapon to combat an uncertain opponent.

  An urgent dispatch warning from Lagos warned of increasing tensions between two Black Sun affiliates over the coveted Sino-Indian trade routes, while in Johannesburg rumors were flying that a recent uptick in violence between the Americans (the local gang, not the country) and splintered groups of Numbers Gangs was provoked by the Hegemony, in advance of a larger incursion into the methaqualone and methamphetamine markets…

  ***

  Lord Thule received her in what the servants called his study, a large room elevated up above the rest of the modernist compound, done in ballistic glass and chrome-treated steel. Three glass walls provided views of the currently docile sea and the presently overcast sky, while a small fire crackled cheerfully in the fireplace on the fourth. He sat near the fire, facing a vacant chair and looking for all the world as if he had been waiting all day for her to arrive. Rebecca squared her shoulders, checked her defenses, and then took a seat.

  “Director Levy. Or can I still call you Rebecca?” Gaul studied her with his pink eyes. “It is good to see you again.”

  “I wish I could say the same, Gaul, I really do.” Rebecca took a cigarette from her pack, and then leaned in close to the fire to light it. She was eventually successful. “You wanna give me a reason?”

  “For what, Director?”

  “I don’t know, shit for brains. Any of it?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  “You know exactly,” Rebecca countered. “Let’s start from the beginning, with a conversation we should’ve had a long time ago, I guess. Why’d you turn on us, Gaul? We – I, at least – believed in you. You were the boss. We trusted you with our lives. What the fuck?”

  Gaul adjusted his glasses and looked thoughtful.

  “Obligation,” he said heavily. “My brother forced my hand.”

  “That’s a nice way to say he committed suicide so that you would have to take over the Thule Cartel. I understand, he put you in a position. You had to take the job. You did not have to screw us all over on the way out. You did not need to betray your friends and colleagues, or start a war. There was no part of this situation that obligated you to become a giant dickhead, Gaul.”

  “I am not being a…you misunderstand. Listen to me, Rebecca. The futures that I have anticipated are beyond bleak. I threaded us through disaster a thousand times as Director…”

  “Right! Fucker.”

  “…and I still am, believe it or not.” Gaul gave her a weary and companionable look. “Rebecca, despite it all, I am not your enemy. I have a new title and role, as do you, but my goal remains unchanged. I seek the best possible future. For all of us.”

  “Sure you do,” Rebecca said, with a sour expression. “You wanna explain how murdering more than half of the Martynova family and starting a giant war plays into that?”

  “I would like to, yes, if only so you could understand,” Lord Thule explained mournfully. “Cartel security requires that I do not, however.”

  “I’m not giving you that option, asshole!” Rebecca flicked ash on an heirloom carpet woven two centuries earlier and dared him to say anything about it. “This is just the informal beginning of an official Inquiry, you realize.”

  Gaul shook his head slowly, and Rebecca wondered how he could have aged so much in about a year. His grey-touched temples had become salt-and-pepper across the whole of his head, and the lines around his eyes had grown deep.

  “I highly doubt the Black Sun will permit me the luxury of facing the inevitable Audit,” he said, with a slight and sardonic grin. “I do not mean to undermine your authority, Director, but this affair will be handled between cartels. This the game that we have been waiting to play. The winner will be too great for censure, and the losers will no longer be available to punish.”

  Rebecca sighed and tossed her cigarette butt in the fire.

  “I’m going to ask nicely one more time, because you used to be my boss, and this is all very weird for me. I’m gonna figure it all out, Gaul, and then I’m going to stop you – I have to stop you! It’s my job. You know that. Don’t make things worse than they need to be, okay?”

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca. If you knew what sort of future I am preventing…”

  “Director Levy, to you, asshole.”

  “I’m sorry, Director.”

  “Shut up, Gaul! Just…fuck. Okay. You wanna make this a thing? Fine. Now it’s a thing.” Rebecca stood and put her hands on her hips, glowering at Gaul ferociously. Alice, you’re on.

  Alice Gallow stepped out of the shadow of Gaul’s chair, smiling apologetically.

  “Hey boss, old boss. You guys get it worked out?”

  “Alice,” Gaul said, with the rueful smile. “I wondered why you didn’t accompany Rebecca, given the nature of her business with me.”

  “Professional courtesy, I suppose.” Rebecca lit another cigarette, this time using a lighter. “I figured that I owed you that much. Turns out I was wrong.”

  “I see.” Gaul hid his face behind clasped hands. “What happens now, Director?”

  Rebecca nodded to Alice, who stuck her hand into her shadow and rooted around. A moment later, Alice pulled Hayley and Min-jun out of the shadow, hands linked like children on an errand.

  “We are taking you back to Central, Gaul. For your own protection, among other reasons.” Rebecca blew smoke into the waning fire. “An Audit will be conducted into this entire affair. To be entirely clear, you admit to ordering the attack on the Black Sun complex in Harbin, in violation of the Agreement and all fucking common sense. Is that true?”

  “I admit it,” Gaul said, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes. “As I told you already, Rebecca, I’ve done only what is necessary to safeguard the future.”

  “Not good enough by far. Hayley Weathers is going to take temporary control of your body, Gaul Thule, until we have you secured at the Far Shores. Min-jun Kim will provide a barrier, to ensure your security during transit.”

  “I appreciate your thoroughness, Director. I am not, however, going anywhere...”

  It was not an apport. Rebecca saw something. A flash of motion that she spun her head to track, but never quite caught, and then…

  “…and I think you will find that I am sufficiently protected.”

  …Lóa Thule smiled at her from where she sat on the arm of his chair. Rebecca assumed that the nebulous anthropomorphic outline of pattern and filament standing behind Gaul’s chair was likely Mateo Navarre.

  Alice made a small movement, but Rebecca put a hand on her shoulder, locking eyes with Gaul. The Director and Lord Thule stared at each other, her cheeks flush with anger and apprehension, his eyes watery and bloodshot. The room buzzed with anticipation, as Thule soldiers eyed Auditors and vice versa. The only sound in the room was the ancient grandfather clock in the corner, brass machining ticking off seconds as it had for a century.

  Rebecca frowned.

  “Is this really how you want things to go, Gaul? There won’t be any going back, not if we do it this way.”

  “Believe me when I say that every other outcome was far worse.” Gaul’s voice was wooden and unna
tural. “That is the way of it. The future is all that matters, Director. Now,” he said, his voice slowly returning to normal, “I know my niece Lóa is needed elsewhere, and I’m certain that the Director and her Auditors have more important matters with which to contend. If we are finished here?”

  “For now,” Rebecca said.

  “Not for long,” Alice said. “I promise.”

  ***

  “What the hell is this?”

  The Anathema guards at the base of the Inverted Spire were bright enough not to answer. Explanations of any kind were well beyond their paygrade.

  “I leave for five minutes, and this is what happens?”

  This was a rhetorical flourish, an embellishment. Alistair had lingered in Las Vegas for days, waiting for a covert delivery that never arrived. The equipment seized for duplicating the archive was delicate, and reinstalling and powering it had taken hours of careful labor. Then he had waited beside the dormant machinery, growing steadily more agitated as he read incoming intelligence reports, unable to reach John Parson for reasons that the relay telepath never seemed to be able to explain satisfactorily.

  Alistair had returned to the Outer Dark a few minutes earlier in a bad mood, and had encountered nothing since that time to improve his disposition.

  “You there!” Alistair pointed at the closest of the Anathema troops assigned to guard the lower levels of the Inverted Spire. “You said that Emily Muir went down there?”

  The soldier came to attention helplessly.

  “I didn’t say…I mean, yes, sir, Miss Muir came through on your orders…”