“You were told to keep me out?”
“No! No, just to keep anyone out that didn’t belong. I mean, you were drafted, and—”
Pat stepped in. “I’ve got this one. Come on upstairs. We didn’t reassign your room yet, so it’s still yours.”
Kai started to follow us, but she held him back and whispered something to him. He looked hurt, but stopped following.
We were quiet as we walked up the four flights of stairs to my room. Pat stayed behind me, one hand on my back as I plodded up each step. She followed me into my room.
“Talk to me,” she said.
I lay on the bed, too worn out to even get under the covers. Pat came over and took off her jacket, placing it over me, and sat on the edge. She brushed hair from my face, but didn’t say anything more.
I closed my eyes and started talking, reliving what had happened. I told her about getting caught in the draft, what I knew of the route we’d taken, the process we’d gone through when we got there. I paused when I got to the quantity of water and food they had, letting it sink in for both of us. A full debriefing.
It was time to tell her more.
“Do you remember when I went to Doc Searls for my fractured rib?”
She seemed a bit taken aback by the sudden switch. “Yeah.”
“He did some extra tests, and . . .” I didn’t know why I was still hesitating. I blurted it out, opening my eyes to see her reaction. “You were right. I’m pregnant.”
I don’t know what I expected. Anger, an outburst, quiet resignation. What I got was a knowing nod.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” She shook her head as if changing her mind and caressed my cheek before grabbing both my hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I am. It’s a boy.”
“How far along?”
“About eight weeks.”
She was quiet for a while longer. “I guess that’s why you’ve been looking like shit in the mornings?”
I chuckled.
“Tomorrow we’ll change your diet, make sure the baby’s getting everything he needs.”
“This is between you and me, okay? I . . . I don’t want everyone to know. Not yet. It’s . . . it’s too soon anyway. You’re supposed to wait until three months, right?” It was turning into a protective mantra.
“What about Kai?”
“I’ll tell him.” Pat’s eyes widened and I could tell she didn’t believe me. “I will. I don’t want anyone else to know. It’s too soon.”
“We’ll have to tell Jack, at least. Maybe get you off the more dangerous jobs, into something less stressful. He needs to know why they let you go.”
I laughed at that. “Less stressful? I work the food lines and do the occasional surveillance. How less stressful do you want it to get? Any less stressful and I may as well stay in bed. Besides, shouldn’t that be my choice?”
She paused again, staring at the wall before coming back to me. “Okay. It is your choice. But you need to remember you’re thinking for two now. It’s not just you anymore.”
“I know that.”
“You’ll start to show pretty soon. Everyone will know then.”
“I know that, too.”
“Okay.” She grabbed her jacket. “You get into bed and get some rest. I’ll come and check on you later.”
“Wait! I overheard some of the soldiers talking about the food trucks from the military ports on Level 1.”
She listened as I told her what I had heard.
“You think it’s true?”
“Why would the guy lie? Neither of them knew I was awake.”
Pat rested a hand on the doorknob. “I agree. Now go to bed.”
I reached for her and held her back. “Thanks.”
“Get some rest,” she said with a smile.
seven
KADOKAWA SAT CITY 2—WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 2141 10:00 P.M.
ANDREW COULDN’T SLEEP. He lay in his bunk staring at the ceiling, going over Natsumi’s coded message, rolling every sentence through his mind, searching for nuances and hidden meanings. He’d memorized the note and destroyed the original. What if he had missed something? Should he have kept the damn thing so he could go over every piece of it? No, that was only looking for trouble.
The note listed the humanitarian programs that had been canceled, as well as the new military actions taking place. The takeover of Meridian had been only one of them. At the end, Natsumi had spoken of the old corporation, the one her family had created. She had closed by saying she planned to bring the corporation back to its roots. Back to being a humanitarian organization instead of a military one.
She didn’t believe the new Kaijō-bakuryōchō and president were the right people for the job. The new president had replaced her father last year. He no longer had the will to run Kadokawa. The death of his son Gorō had changed him. The first thing the new president had done was replace the head of the military with Sone. Together they had turned Kadokawa into a money-hungry, warmongering corporation. Just like SoCal and IBC.
When Andrew had joined Kadokawa, his first job as a private had been digging through the rubble in Korea, finding bodies after an earthquake devastated the region. He remembered Natsumi digging beside him, working harder than most of the men. They had paused for a brief rest and a sip of water when they’d heard the noise. It had sounded like a cat meowing deep in the rubble.
They had dug methodically, careful to not collapse anything below, and followed the sound. First with picks and shovels, and then with their bare hands. The crying had gotten louder as they got closer, turning into the distinctive sounds of young child, hurt and alone. This was seven days after the earthquake had struck.
Then the crying stopped.
The digging became frantic, both of them with their heads in the hole, their arms reaching down and scooping out dirt and broken concrete. The first thing they had seen was a foot, so tiny and filthy they had almost missed it. They had slowed down then, anxious yet unwilling to rush to the point where they might cause a cave-in.
They had followed the foot to a knee, then to a waist. The child’s second leg was broken midthigh, angled away from the body. They brought the leg together with the other one as carefully as they could. The child screamed in pain, and they both smiled. The scream meant it was still alive. Once they got the legs together, he’d held them as firmly as he dared while Natsumi grabbed the child’s hips and pulled.
That boy had been the only one they’d found alive. His only family an older sister that had been visiting a friend out of the city. At the end of every day, when all he and Natsumi had found was the dead, they both spoke of the one boy. The survivor. The boy and his sister had tried to sign up with Kadokawa when they were old enough, but his leg had never healed right. The sister now served under Andrew as Kaisa.
Kadokawa had helped rebuild, replacing the old concrete and steel structures with reinforced fibercrete, bringing the old city into the twenty-second century. There had been talk of creating another megacity, but it was quickly voted down.
Andrew knew Kadokawa wouldn’t do that today. There was no money in it, no way to make a profit. Even if it helped their own people. It had taken the new president only a year to transition the corporation into what it had become.
After Natsumi had been promoted, they had still kept in touch, mostly on a professional level, but occasionally a dinner or lunch if he happened to be in Okinawa. They had been civil, but not much more than that. Each time they had parted, his heart had broken a little more. Each time, he had tried to harden it against the feelings he could no longer display.
And now this.
It wasn’t the note that had gotten to him, though its contents were keeping him awake. It was how she had signed it. The use of her given name had torn down all the walls he had taken years to build.
He pus
hed as much of it off to the side as he could and concentrated on the letter itself. It all boiled down to one item. The one thing he couldn’t even contemplate. To help her in treason.
And yet, she had asked.
He pushed the sheets aside and climbed out of bed. The chill of the room sunk into his skin. He slipped into a pair of slippers and pulled on a robe.
Kadokawa kept the Sat City’s time synchronized with Japanese Standard Time, which meant he could catch the late news summary. Normally his information was far more accurate than what the news channels got, but his didn’t have anything local. He wasn’t getting any sleep, so maybe a distraction would help. He turned on the vid screen and switched to NHK.
The first item up was about SoCal. His reports had talked about mandatory drafts for several weeks, and it had finally gotten out to the general press. The video showed people lining up, chatting to each other, some of them smiling. It stunk like the propaganda it was. His reports had shown the reality of it, large-scale military sweeps grabbing people off the streets. It wasn’t humane. It was worth fighting against.
The story ended with a mention of Kadokawa tentatively planning to do the same thing.
Andrew’s mouth hung open, and he slowly closed it. They had to have gotten it wrong. He hadn’t seen anything in his reports. If it was true . . . He’d been in the Kadokawa military for most of his life, joining when he was nineteen, and for the first time, he thought he may have made a huge mistake.
The next piece of news only drove the feeling deeper.
Kadokawa had pulled its humanitarian aid out of Russia. The country had gone through a massive political upheaval months before, and the new regime was worse than the old one. During the battle, both sides had destroyed hospitals and bombed neighborhoods full of families on simply the rumor of dissidents collecting there.
Canada had been the first to arrive with doctors and food and water. Kadokawa took a few extra days, waiting for reports from the Canadians to see what was needed the most, and where. They had arrived with platoons of helpers and supplies, all coordinated by Natsumi. She must have known this was happening weeks ago. Knowing her as well as he did, he was certain it would have torn her apart.
This, then, was the reason for the message. This was why she would go so far as to talk treason. He couldn’t deny the reasons were valid. He didn’t have the investment in the aid program she did, but he had the deeply bound morals and training that had been driven into him by his family and the military. The military before Sone.
He closed his eyes and went over the note again. She was right, dammit.
She was right.
LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 2141 10:30 P.M.
The door closed behind Pat with a soft click, and she leaned her forehead against the frame. Miller was an idiot. You weren’t an operative for ACE and a parent at the same time. It didn’t work. Kris was proof of that, she had been a young kid with no parents. What the hell had he been thinking?
She heaved herself off the frame and walked down the hall back to the stairs. This was going to change everything for Kris. She had no idea how much work having a baby was, how much care and attention they needed. She was still a child herself! The girl was in for a world-changing experience.
The first thing they would have to do was find a quieter place for Kris to live. A small room on the fourth floor of this building was out of the question. Her neighbors on either side, and possibly all of them in a hundred-meter radius, would get pretty tired of a screaming baby at all hours of the day and night. This was no place to raise a kid.
They’d have to find a crib and clothes and toys, and when the time came, baby food. There would be bottles and wipes and diapers. It almost seemed more complex than a mission. But maybe she was getting ahead of herself.
Kris didn’t say she wanted to keep the baby. Pat sighed. She didn’t say she wanted to get rid of it either. She had said the baby was a boy. He was the only thing she had left of Ian. She wasn’t going to lose that.
Pat pulled her comm unit out of her pocket. She had a meeting with Kai and Jack in a few minutes. Keeping this away from Jack would be easy. Kai, however, seemed to have a sixth sense sometimes. Especially around Kris. Knowing him, it would come out tonight, and he’d question and needle her until she either told him or punched him. As long as she stayed focused on the task at hand, maybe he wouldn’t notice.
They met in Jack’s office, the same as they always did, but this time it was different. The guards weren’t at the double doors leading into the sanctified halls of the upper echelon; they’d been moved to the front door. The floor was still carpeted, but the extra-wide hallway had changed. In place of the comfy chairs and tables were desks, one for every two or three offices, except for Jack’s. His office had a desk all to itself.
Behind each one sat someone studiously staring at a vid screen, typing at something, or shuffling through pads of information. It was obvious they were assistants. The place looked more like a working facility than the prestigious offices of a large corporation. It was a move in the right direction. Visually, at least.
Jack stepped out of his office with a pad in his hand. He passed it to his assistant.
“Kai’s not here yet. We won’t start without him, but why don’t you come in now?” He glanced at his assistant. “When Kai shows up, let him right in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack shut the door behind them and settled into his chair. “I wanted to thank you for yesterday. I . . . I know I’m not great at this job. I didn’t want it before all this happened, and I don’t want it now. We all have to do what we have to do. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.”
“You needed a kick in the ass.” Changes were happening, but she wasn’t willing to give in yet. She couldn’t shake the small kernel of doubt that had nestled into her brain. Everything had moved too fast and seemed too perfect.
“I sent messages to the other cells I know about. I don’t know if they’ll do anything or even if they’ll pass the message to the sections they know.”
The insurgents had always been a disorganized group, but from what she was hearing, it was worse than she, or anyone else, had thought.
Kai knocked on the door and walked in, breaking the awkwardness building in the room.
“Good, we’re all here.” Jack joined them at the round meeting table in the corner, looking almost apologetic for the agenda he held in his hand. “There’s two items we want to talk about today. The first is the acquisition of ex-ACE staff, and the other is about solidifying our food chain. Kai, let’s start with you.”
“I had a conversation with Doc Searls again. He is more than willing to help us out in the same capacity he did for ACE. He is also making a permanent move to Level 5, closing his Level 6 offices.”
“Damn,” Jack said. “Our resources on Level 6 are extremely thin. He could really have been useful to us. He wouldn’t have had to come down to Level 4. We have people that know their way through the service corridors between Levels 4 and 5.”
“I had that conversation with him. He really wants to limit what he does for us to the medical area. He certainly has no interest in becoming a spy. If information comes to him via his patients, he is willing to pass it on, but he will not dig for it, and he will not become a middleman or broker for information.”
“That limits his usefulness,” Pat said.
“It does,” Jack said, “but if he’s willing to stay there, we could use him. Even being on Level 5, he could at least bring us news of the outside world.”
“No,” Kai said. “He will not do anything that jeopardizes his practice beyond medical care. Besides, the new checkpoints stop us from getting whatever he could bring with him.”
“As I said, we have ways around that,” said Jack. “We’ll need doctors, but if he’s not willing to do much more than that, why are we trying to recruit h
im this hard?”
“He can give us more ACE operatives than Pat or I combined. He has either patched up or modified the trackers of almost every operative ACE has had in the last twenty years.”
Jack sat quiet for a while, thinking. “How will he contact them?”
“He has records of every modified tracker he has ever worked on.”
“That’s not smart. What if they were found? It’s a huge back door.”
“They are encrypted.”
“That doesn’t mean shit. You know that. Can we get the records ourselves? Get rid of the loophole, the potential back door in our security?” Jack asked.
“You can’t—” Pat said.
Jack held up his hand to stop her and watched Kai shift in his seat.
“He is a good doctor,” Kai said.
Jack smiled as if Kai’s response answered all his questions. “That works for me. Let’s get this moving and on the payroll as soon as we can. If things go wrong, we’ll look into it again. Now, onto our food problem. We don’t have enough to feed us and the people. Something has to give. That being said, we’re going on immediate rationing, which will give us a couple of extra weeks. What else can we do?”
“The Pasadena greenhouses are out of the question,” Pat said. “We don’t have access and basically botched the first job, and were saved by Kris . . .” She hesitated. “ . . . the last time.”
Kai gave her a quick glance.
“What we need are nonperishables. I thought the insurgents had stockpiles of food and equipment for just this situation,” Pat said.
“We do, and they do include food, but not enough for everyone. We need to supplement and store all we can.”
“There are regular shipments of food coming in by ship from South America and China. They transport those by trucks up to Level 6 almost every day, for now. If we could take one of those, maybe a couple of dozen trucks at once, we’d be okay for a while. From what I understand, every port along the SoCal coast gets regular food shipments. If we can coordinate with the others, we could get enough food to last a long time. The same thing happens on the landward side of the city, but those deliveries get direct access to Levels 6 and 7.”
The Rebel Page 17