by O. J. Lowe
She clicked her clicker and it showed the compound, weird seeing your old house like this. The three acolytes, Jenghis looking as fine as he remembered her… Mom…
“Fuck me,” he said quietly. Someone heard him and laughed, although they probably didn’t get why right away. He didn’t have any pictures of his mother. They’d been lost, allegedly, when she’d died and Cyris had been typically unapologetic about the whole thing. Theo had been grief stricken and his father had just carried on like nothing had happened, more than that, like he’d been glad she was gone.
Charlotte Cyris. Memories were one thing. Actual physical evidence was another thing entirely. He’d forgotten… Not the blonde hair but how shiny it was. Not the brown eyes but how soulful they were. She looked… Happy here. He coughed a little, tried to blot out the feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like feeling like this, he always tried to shove down how much he still missed her to this day. If there was any sort of Divine justice, his father would have died, and his mother would have lived. Instead, he’d been condemned to the cruellest twist. One parent who’d died and one who didn’t love him at a time when he’d needed them both.
More than once, he’d wondered how the two of them had ended up together. His mother was an angel; his father was a demon. He’d always heard that opposites would attract but that was taking the piss massively. Even Cyris looked happy in the image. The only one who didn’t… How old was he there? Ten? Twelve? He couldn’t remember. Didn’t want to if he was honest. It was painful thinking back to that time. What sort of shit had his dad been up to? Had his mom known? He didn’t know. Maybe he should find out but…
He gulped a little. For so many years now, he’d always laboured under the impression his mom hadn’t known. She’d been innocent, his father had tricked her like he tricked everyone else. Only Theo had seen through him. He didn’t want to believe the worst of her. It’d destroy everything he’d ever thought of her. Now he thought about it, he wondered how she couldn’t have known what her husband did. Nobody could have been that blind.
Some of them were looking at the picture, then back at him. That irritation only grew, the idea that they knew forming like a tumour in the back of his mind, itching away at his brain. One guy smirked at him, he didn’t know his name, but he was going to find out… No! No, he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t strike out like that. He’d learned so much here in the academy that he wasn’t going to risk getting kicked out over something stupid like this.
“Eventually though he did fall,” Melane said. “Cyris and his Freedom Triumphant philosophy, the idea that we’re all free from any sort of shackle, that’s our right and we should honour it, even the entire organisation he named for himself, Cyria, it all came crashing down around his ears. He was arrested, although not convicted. His reputation however, as someone respectable was destroyed. Close eyes have been kept on him ever since.”
It sounded like something his father would do. Slip through the cracks and get away with it, if not smelling of roses but not entirely caked in the shit stink. Something ground in his hand and Theo realised he’d been clenching his fists, cracking his knuckles together hard.
“His wife died,” she said. “His son broke away from him, cut all contact.” Theo was sure she met his eyes when she said that. He felt the blood flush his face. He wished he was somewhere else right now. There wasn’t anything about this that was really bloody awkward. He wished she’d just come out and say it, point him out and advertise to the room that he was sat here. It’d cut out any of the suspicion, any of the mutterings. It’d be out in the open and he wouldn’t mind that rather than wait to feel a dozen knives sink into his flesh, opening him up by degrees.
“Jenghis was killed when Cyris was arrested. Silas evaded Unisco personnel. Mara was arrested along with her boss. You might wonder why you’re being told all of this,” Melane continued. “The short answer is that it matters. To learn for the present, you must look at the past. If something has happened before, it can happen again. Claudia Coppinger has employed some of the techniques that John Cyris employed, techniques that worked so well for him. Like Cyris, she hid behind a façade of respectability, unlike Cyris, her reach has the potential to affect billions. Already she has broken the five kingdoms with the help of the Vazaran Suns, who incidentally, we’re going to talk about next in great detail.”
“So, is it true then?” Roberts asked, leaning over the table to look at him. Theo gave him such a scornful look that he ducked back in retreat, suddenly apologetic. “Sorry.”
“Personal space,” Theo growled. “What do you think? More than that, why do you even want to know? It doesn’t matter that bloody much!”
“John Cyris, he really your dad?” Roberts asked with a whistle. “Woah!” He sounded more than a little impressed. Theo wasn’t sure why. “How did they even let you in here then? Wouldn’t you fail a background check?”
“Clearly not,” Theo said dryly. “Or I wouldn’t be here, would I?” He tried not to think too much about the good words that Anne had put in for him. Already he’d had this thought, he’d guessed that there might be those reluctant to allow him to enrol in the academy because of where he’d come from. “I’m not him and I never will be. You want him; you can have him. He means nothing to me. I’ve never considered him my father.”
He meant it as well, it felt good to get the words out. Like a great pressure had been released off his chest. Weird. He tried not to think about it, gave a relieved smirk to nobody and finished the last of his meat.
“Hey, we all got secrets,” Pete said. He looked at the meat on his plate, rolled his eyes. Theo noticed he’d only eaten his vegetables, left the meat behind. Maybe he didn’t eat meat. Or he might be reluctant to eat this shit. He couldn’t blame him. If there was any better choice, he wouldn’t have touched it either. “I don’t care your dad was a nutcase… I mean…”
“Are you going somewhere with this?” If he was trying to make a point, Theo wanted him to get it out, rather than suffer through this excruciating little back and forth much longer to try and avoid hurting feelings. Suffering by degrees was worse than one great poke that got to the heart of the matter.
“Just that we’re all in this together,” Roberts said. “We need someone to partner up with for the next set of exercises. We want you.”
Okay, he’d figured they’d wanted something. But that… That was unexpected. He hadn’t even heard that. Normally he didn’t do teamwork, yet that had been one of the first things Anne had pointed out to him. You join Unisco, you damn well better learn to work as a small piece of a much larger part. If you don’t, you’ll die. Worse than that, you’ll get others killed as well. So far it hadn’t come up. But now…
“Why?”
The question looked like it had surprised them both, like neither of them knew how to answer. “Well,” Roberts said, shrugging. “We know you’ve not got anyone else.”
“Plus, you’re a total badass,” Pete added. “I mean, it’s not like there’s people queuing up to ask you. We’re totally getting in there. Look, I’m not saying let’s be best friends…”
Good, Theo thought, because there’s likely little chance of that happening. If I wanted friends, I’d find better ones than you two jokers.
“… I’m saying let’s work together to get through this, let’s all graduate together and then take it from there. You get me?”
The really worrying part was, yes. He did get him. Everything he said made perfect sense. There really was very little arguing with it. It did work out for everyone. Him, these two idiots. Unisco. Everyone.
“Well your logic isn’t disputable,” he said eventually. He offered each of them a hand which they quickly shook one at a time. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Nobody could ever say he wasn’t a pragmatist when he needed to be.
Chapter Seven. Back to the Battlefields.
“I’m happy to announce that now we’ve sorted out our internal disputes, professi
onal spirit calling bouts will resume imminently with our sanctions. Although it may yet be weeks before we can set up any ICCC sponsored tournaments, any town with a stadium that wishes to place a bout on can now do so with our blessing. We all have troubles in our lives of late, we face threats that we cannot see, and it is always good to take the time away from that worry to relax and recover.”
Words at an ICCC press conference from newly elected president, Adam Evans.
It had been too long since Wade had last been to Burykia. Not that there was a particular reason for it, he’d long since come to realise that there were only so many places he could spend his limited time and neither his personal travels or any professional duties had taken him there. That had changed when Pree Khan had wandered into his office and dropped a portable projector on his desk. He looked at it for several long moments before raising an eyebrow to her.
“Good morning to you too, Prideaux,” he said, saw her face twitch. Nobody called her that. Not even her mother and she was a fearsome woman. Rumour had it, Pree had been avoiding her since Parley had been promoted. Family affairs could be tricky. He was glad his cousin wasn’t part of the same hierarchy as him.
“Fancy a trip?” she asked, leaning over his desk with a big grin on her face. She looked pleased with herself, like a cat that had managed to snag some cream. “I’ve got a thing in Burykia and I want someone I can trust as backup.”
That should have sent his danger senses jangling. There was something in her attitude that didn’t sat right with him. On the surface, she looked calm enough, her face not giving anything away. It might have been easy, might have been difficult. He wasn’t getting any gauge of it from her. Pree was a strange woman to judge, she didn’t let her emotions control her behaviour.
“That’s suitably vague,” he said, reaching over for the PorPro and squeezed the activation button. Wade glanced around his office, one he shared with sixteen other agents when he wasn’t in the field and felt glad he was alone. This didn’t feel like something he wanted to share with others. On his desk, a few casefile discs had been slowly building up across the last weeks to an almost unhealthy pile, a never-ending cycle of work replacing what he’d already dealt with. He might share the office with sixteen others, but he didn’t think all sixteen of them had ever been here at the same time.
“It’s a suitably vague prospect,” Pree said, shrugging. He didn’t quite hear her, already busy scanning through the digital file projected up in front of him. “Got a tipoff. Someone wants to talk about Coppinger and her lot. They want someone reliable out there to talk to them. Could be nothing. Could be everything. Absolute fucking A-Squad.”
“And there’s nobody reliable currently in Burykia?” Wade had asked, leaning back to look up at her. “Nobody a little more anonymous than you or me?”
“It was handed to me,” Pree replied. “Don’t have to like it but what can you do? They wanted me to go deal with it. It’s only a few hours flight from here. I want you to cover my back.”
“Why?”
She gave the impression the question had taken her by surprise, even if he didn’t entirely buy her act. “Excuse me?”
“Why me?”
“Well, my choices aren’t exactly numerous now,” she said, casually waving a hand around the office, empty but for the two of them. “And you should see the other offices. You’re miles ahead the best of a pretty mediocre bunch.”
“Interesting way to describe your co-workers,” Wade said, leaning back in his seat while resting his arms behind his head. “Makes me wonder what you say about everyone else when they can’t hear you.”
She smirked at him, the mischievous grin of her teeth bright against her brown skin. “You really want to stay stuck in the office for a while longer?” Pree gestured at the pile of file discs on his desk, one of them fell from the top with a faint clatter and Wade felt an itching sensation run across the back of his neck. Idly he rubbed at it, caught it with his nails and worked at it. “You really want to work your way through that stuff when everyone else is out having fun?”
“I’m not sure I’d entirely count getting shot at as having fun,” Wade said. Unconsciously he reached up and rubbed his eyes. The skin around them still felt rough like the scars might have faded, but they were still there beneath the skin, his eyes still sensitive to harsh light. He remembered that day he’d nearly lost his sight all too well. Going out into the field hadn’t quite had the same attraction since the day he’d nearly died.
“But it beats running overview, right?” Pree said, sitting down on the edge of his desk, the toes of her boot resting on the nearest chair as she gave him a grin. “They can get someone else to do that. Screw the small stuff. You’re Wade fucking Wallerington. The bad guys see you coming, they run the other way, well they would if they knew who you were.”
He shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Pree? I got assigned it, the least I can do is see it through. That’s what we do, remember? What we’re told to.”
Pree smiled at him, reached out and grabbed a handful of the discs. “Tell you what,” she said. “Make you a deal. Come with and I’ll take half of it off your hands, do the other half on the round trip. It’s an easy job.” Something about her smile tugged at him, something he couldn’t explain. It did sound reasonable. It was nice of her to consider him…
Why would she do that?
He’d said the words out loud, could remember his lips forming the shapes and the sounds coming out of his mouth, even if couldn’t remember the conscious decision he’d made to utter them. Her brow furrowed as she studied him with surprise.
“Because I’m nice,” she said. “Interesting.” She carried on as if she hadn’t said that last bit. “Because I want someone deadly as my backup in case the shit hits the fan, Wade. Would you really be able to live with yourself if you sent me off with someone worse and I don’t come back?”
That caught him. That was the million-credit question, wasn’t it? Being an Agent of Unisco came with an inherent sense of responsibility at the best of time, not just for yourself, but for your fellow agents and those charged with your protection.
More than that, he couldn’t actually think of a single reason to claim to her that she was wrong in what she’d said.
At least the flight towards the back end of Burykia had been quick enough for him, he’d not been entirely comfortable with it since the accident. Falling off a dragon could do that to you. Instead, he’d read through Pree’s files to try and keep his mind from the roar of the engines outside, the electronic documents telling him they were making a rendezvous with her contact outside a little place called Ryoti. Someone who allegedly wished to spill the beans on the Coppinger operation, just as she’d promised was the case. He had to agree with her in one respect. If this truly was the prize, then they needed to check it out. They couldn’t afford not to. Intelligence wasn’t so heavy on the ground that they could afford to ignore so tempting a carrot like this. Without intelligence on the enemy, they wouldn’t triumph, their hand would weaken, and they’d have to fold before even the thought of victory could blossom in their minds
Now he’d gone through the whole thing, he agreed with the Unisco assessment that they needed the very best people on it and soon.
The transcript of Pree’s meeting with her boss had even been included as additional intelligence for reference purposes in the future, they didn’t want to use local assets due to the risk involved, just in case the whole thing was a trap to lure out some of the locals. It wasn’t a healthy time to be involved with Unisco, Coppinger had seen to that. Therefore, they would bring someone in from outside, nobody that could be traced back to local Unisco operatives. That someone had turned into Pree and himself. A strange turn of events to be sure. It made sense in a strange sort of way. Still it was what it was and here they were on their way towards the meeting. Secrecy was still the name of the game and it was the best disguise they had.
Pree hadn’t helped with his growing
sense of disquiet, instead she’d sat curled up in one of the seats with her head lolled back and her eyes closed like she didn’t have a care in the kingdoms about the situation. She looked so peaceful and it pissed him off more than anything. So much for helping him with the workload. He’d gone through the overviews of several current operations, offered his professional opinion on kinks and weaknesses that could compromise the whole thing. A detached third party with a critical eye. How easily the mighty fell at times. That’d been his job for the last several months. Technically he was still on reduced duties due to his injuries. It’d been a nice slowdown for him, even if he did miss being in the field. When one suffered an injury like his, it made you stop and think things through. He wasn’t a young man any longer and privately he was worried it was showing. Another part of him knew that he was being ridiculous. What had happened to him could have happened to anyone…
But it hadn’t… It had happened to him and that was the truth that couldn’t be denied.
It took him several moments to realise Pree was no longer asleep and studying him with a bemused expression. He slid his eyes up and met hers, regretted it immediately. It was like trying to outstare a pair of diamonds. Something about them cut through him. He’d never noticed it before. Pree was like a chameleon sometimes, he’d thought often. You tended not to notice her unless she wanted you to. No wonder they nicknamed her the Spectre.