by O. J. Lowe
“Sorry,” he said. “Not many people call me that anymore. It just came across unsettling. You know when you don’t expect something?”
“I’m just surprised you managed to get Criffen to acquiesce to this visit. He likes to restrict access to this prisoner. Less chance of someone getting in close to silence him or free him that way.”
“I’m a persuasive guy, Talia,” he said loftily. “You should remember that. You taught me a lot of it after all.”
“Mmmm,” was her only reply as they came to a halt outside an ominous looking door, sturdy and triple locked, card reader, padlock and fingerprint access. They weren’t joking about when it came to prisoner security, he saw it and he appreciated it.
“Is moving him around all the time really the best idea? I mean surely Claudia wants him back or at the very least, she probably wants him dead. Criffen’s probably a massive target for her as well so putting the two of them together, that just feels like it might be a bit reckless.”
“Criffen wants him close,” she said simply. “And what he wants, he gets. He doesn’t want him in some secure facility where a lot of people have access to him. I don’t agree with it, for the record but by the same token, I can see his logic. It is just a massive pain when it comes to moving him. He has to be sedated heavily, strapped down, kept under heavy guard…”
Nick nodded. “Okay. Look, I’ll talk to him after, see if I can get him to acquiesce to move him into Unisco custody. It’s surely got to be better than what he’s currently doing, dragging him around like some sort of trophy. Not that I have a problem with him doing that but still you’ve got to see how mad it is. Sooner or later, it’s going to backfire on him.”
She only shrugged. “I’ve told him this and it’s not happening. Criffen’s a stubborn man and there’s no getting past that.”
Larsen had unlocked the door and he’d stepped through it, hearing the locks close behind him. His first thought was that Reda Ulikku had seen better days in his prime. The formerly coiffed Varykian had run to dishevelment, a scruffy beard masking what had been a smooth face before, not a hint of makeup covering him this time. Nick remembered him from the Quin-C, he had been engaged in a bout with Sharon, after all. He’d spectacularly kicked off in the media about the way a bout had unfolded between her and her brother. An action, Nick had later surmised, that had brought him to the attention of Coppinger and set him down a path which had led to him being locked in this cell.
At least he couldn’t criticise Criffen’s choice of restraints, though human rights campaigners might have. He’d read the file, Ulikku had been handcuffed, straitjacketed and under constant sedation to cut out violent outbursts which had been the norm when he’d first become incarcerated. He could see the drip in his neck, could see the pack attached. Already it was half-empty, his irises were little more than pinpricks amidst the messy pools his eyes had become.
“Good morning, Mister Ulikku,” he said. There was nowhere to sit so he stood leaning against the wall, keeping his eyes locked on the mans. If he was overtly aware of him being here, he didn’t show it too much. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”
No response other than Ulikku baring his teeth. Another change. Some of them were missing. He wondered if that had been an act of violence on the part of someone guarding him or if he’d only worn dentures in the past that were now being denied to him. Hard to say. Didn’t really matter. Maybe it had even been him. They’d fought at the final, Ulikku had tried to shoot him, Nick had dropped him. Hard.
“Do you remember that day on Carcaradis Island?” he asked. “That was the day that they locked you up and threw away the key. I hope Coppinger was worth your freedom. Because she’s running around there like a lunatic and you’re rotting away in here. You know what she just did? She took Vazara, she’s living like a Divine over there. They’re building shrines to her.” Enough of the truth seeded his words to sell the lie. “And nobody remembers who the hells you are!”
“Every sacrifice is its own price,” Ulikku said finally, the formerly high voice now low and raspy. “We knew that some of us would cease to live, yet we chose the cause to die for.”
“You’re not dead yet.”
Ulikku’s grin only grew. “No. And that’s your first mistake. You should have killed me when you had the chance. But you didn’t. You showed mercy. You played by the rules and that means you’ll all lose. Because we don’t do rules, we don’t do niceties, we won’t stop until her vision has been achieved.”
“They,” Nick said. The level of sycophantic devotion in that voice sickened him. He’d have given Ulikku a slap if he’d thought it’d do a damn bit of good. “They won’t stop. You on the other hand, well you’re not going to see daylight ever again. As it stands, they’re going to break you open like a giant egg, make you spill your secrets. It’s not a case of if they do it, it’s a case of when. Sooner or later, you’ll sing. You’ll sing and sing and sing and when you can’t carry a tune any longer, they’ll drop you then and there. Be nothing left of you to bury, just an urn of cold grey ash and a wasted career.”
“So, if they’re going to do that anyway, what’s my motivation to talk willingly,” Ulikku said. He didn’t sound impressed. “Might as well make them work for it. Longer they do, the longer the glorious mistress can run around unchecked. By the way you keep bothering me, I take it that you’re no closer to stopping her than when she announced her glorious magnificence to the kingdoms… You said you lost Vazara… That was careless of you all. How do you lose a kingdom?” He tittered manically at his own joke. He might have been six shades of high, but his mental faculties didn’t appear to have taken the hit. That, Nick found worrying.
“I’ll tell you your motivation,” Nick said. “Because you can make a choice. You don’t have to die. It’d be a massive waste. Do you really want to die for her, deep down? I mean what has she actually done to get you out of here?”
“When she wins, she’ll welcome me back for my loyalty…”
“Not really worth it if they’ve got to wheel you out in a chair though, is it?” Nick said, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at the comment. “Or if you’re too busy drooling to realise what’s happened. You really think you’ll have a place close to her if you’re brain damaged by all the drugs they’re going to pump into you? They’re going to cut into your mind and they’re going to shatter every little window to your sanity they can in the name of answers. And when they’re finished, either you’ll be shunted off to a place not unlike this or she’ll give you what she calls mercy and have Domis kill you. You’ve already lost some of your teeth to this place…”
“Oh, that wasn’t this place!” Ulikku hissed, venom suddenly in his voice. Nick studied him, raised an eyebrow in curiosity. The first show of emotion was always an interesting one.
“Do tell?”
For a moment, he looked to be considering it and then just came out with it, his eyes a little uneasy. “That was my father. I…”
A hesitation and Nick leaned forward. “You can tell me, you know. It’s not going to give anything up to Coppinger. I’m just curious.”
“… Absolute bastard!” Ulikku wailed. “You’ll not get me to talk like this! More of us are coming! Sooner or later they’ll find me, and I’ll be welcomed back as a hero! I’ll be the one who didn’t give up the glorious Mistress, the light of order and justice in our heavens!”
“That’s a new one,” Nick said dryly. “You come up with that one in here or that one you’ve been keeping to yourself?”
“Mock all you want, but soon you’ll be in here and I’ll be taunting you. That is if she doesn’t kill you first. She really hates you, you know that?!” Ulikku shouted. The bag of drugs on his arm contracted and he let out a little moan, relaxed back in his seat as more of its contents pumped into his system. The acrid smell of urine filled the room, Nick fought the urge to react. “She really fucking hates you. You know what you did to her. Betrayed her. Spat on her kindness. Messe
d up any chance of her doing this bloodlessly.”
Nick actually laughed at that. “Yeah, of course I did. You do know there was no way she was going to be able to do this without blood, don’t you? She wants a revolution, there’s always those that fall in those. What about when she killed Ritellia? Are you honestly telling me that was never always on her cards? What about Nwakili? He’d have died before giving up Vazara and she duly obliged. If she didn’t want blood, she went about it the wrong way. I don’t know why she does it…”
“She wants the kingdoms to become a better place! They’re broken, and she wants to fix them!”
“… Beyond that soundbite we’ve all heard before,” Nick said, his voice calm as if Ulikku hadn’t interrupted him. “I’ve never gotten that, truthfully. If she wanted to do that, there are better ways of going about it than building an army of clones, souped-up spirits and highly trained callers to command them and declaring war on them. I think you’re being lied to, Mister Ulikku. More than that, I think you’re deluding yourself. There’s definitely something else going on here and you may or may not be complicit in a great deceit. Whether you’re happy with that or not, I don’t care. I really don’t. But when people are dying for it…”
“Are you appealing to my better nature now? I went through the Coppinger training. Twenty hours a day connected up to the program, they hooked it right up to my brain. I don’t even feel compassion any more. They kicked it all right out of me. I don’t have a better nature anymore. It wasn’t that good to start with!” He bared his remaining teeth in a savage mirth at his joke, if that was what it had meant to be. Nick couldn’t tell.
“Way you kicked off in the media like a little bitch because things didn’t go your way, I’d say you never did,” Nick remarked. “I mean, that one little thing led you here. Just think about that. One life choice. You lost it. I really hope she was worth it.”
For a moment, Ulikku looked thoughtful, pensive even, his face contorted into deep thought. And then the visage cracked, his ruined teeth bared in mirth. “She is. More than you’ll ever know. Because you have nothing in your life now. We all know what Rocastle took from you and you’ll never get it back…”
Nick whistled, hid his hands behind his back to hide how his fists were suddenly clenched together, his knuckles white from the pressure. He kept his face calm. He’d heard it before from other Coppinger sympathisers. And he’d made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t react by smashing their face back up into the rear of their skull. That would have been unprofessional. Satisfying but unprofessional. And he very much wanted to stay involved with this whole thing, rather than being cast aside for making it personal.
“Death is only the start,” he said thoughtfully. “You know; she was a Vedo. They don’t believe it’s the end but a new beginning. One day I might see her again. I might not know her, but they have a thing about cycles. What happened before will happen again.” Best way to deal with an insult. Remove any power it might have over you. Honestly, he didn’t believe it himself. But Baxter had. Baxter had told him it all, maybe in some attempt to make him feel better but definitely had told him it.
When two souls form a connection, they are forever bound through the Kjarn, the Vedo master had explained. That connection cannot be severed simply by death, it takes real work, real betrayal and torment. And when a connection such as that exists, it will endure. In one way or another, two will become one again. He’d asked if it was like reincarnation, Baxter had considered it for a long moment before explaining that it wasn’t entirely the same but nor was it entirely different either.
“Now who trifles with delusion,” Ulikku said scornfully. “Dead is dead. End of.”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Nick replied. “You’ll believe in a leader who is going to go five for five in terms of wrecking the kingdoms to pieces and yet you don’t truly believe what she does. She keeps Wim Carson by her side.”
“Ah the wizard,” Ulikku said. His voice hadn’t lost that edge of scorn. “Things were better before he came along.”
“Unlikely. Our intel suggests that because of him, she was able to get where she has. I think she’d disagree with you.”
Ulikku was too busy studying the ceiling of the cell to give him an answer, head lolled back, glancing high up. Nick wondered if there was something he could prod him with to get a reaction. Nothing looked close to hand.
“What do you miss the most?” he asked suddenly. That got a reaction, Ulikku snapped back to attention, shaking his head like a dog as their eyes met.
“Honestly? Decent food. Cheeseburger. Never used to eat them, had to watch my figure for the circuits but…” He laughed bitterly. “What’s the point? I’m never getting back there. I’ve made my peace with that.”
Nick didn’t laugh. “I wouldn’t say that, Reda. I’d say you’ve got a long time to make peace with whichever deity you believe in yet. You’re not going anywhere so don’t get any plans about it.”
He was glad to be out of there. A wasted trip but it might not have been. Only time would tell. He’d stopped by the catering van down the road, bought a cheeseburger and asked them to deliver it to one Mr Ulikku care of Mr Roper. A token gesture but it might appease him some more. It might only cost him the credits. It stank of boiled fat and greasy cheese, but it was the sort of thing someone living in a five by five cell might appreciate. Small gestures. You want someone to act like a decent human being, you treat them like one and you act like one yourself. Simple things.
For a few hours, he paced outside the building until he saw her leave. Natalia Larsen saw him, smiled and inclined her head towards him. In seconds, he was by her side, didn’t take her arm or her hand, just followed her through the streets without hesitation. The block of apartments had a sign advertising rooms for rent up, she walked inside like she owned the place, he followed her up the stairs and into a first-floor room little bigger than a large closet. All it had was a bed, a bathroom, a table and an even smaller closet. It stank of takeout, too many varieties for his nose to distinguish.
He didn’t care as he took her in close and kissed her. Still didn’t feel anything but numb as the buttons of her shirt came undone revealing a black bra underneath supporting sagging breasts. Still his mouth worked hers as the rest of their clothes came off, they didn’t even hit the bed, just lay intertwined on the carpeted floor, their limbs a mess of each other. It wasn’t the first time. From the moment they’d stopped being partners, they’d had an arrangement. As long as they were both single, as long as both were willing and available…
He didn’t love her. Sometimes he just wanted her. Sometimes she just needed him. It worked for both of them. She wasn’t his first since Sharon had died. But she was the first whose name he knew, the first he cared for. She always smoked after they were finished, always lay with her head tucked into the crook of his arm. This time was no different, he could smell the tabac as she lit it with a match.
“I never thought I’d do that again,” she said softly. For a moment, he thought her eyes were rimmed with tears and then realised that maybe he’d imagined it. Larsen didn’t cry. He wasn’t even sure she had ducts in her eyes. You hurt her, she’d hurt back. Tough old bitch.
“You and me both,” he said. It was different to that last times they’d been together. Larsen was older. They both were. She was in her forties now but wearing it well. She was keeping in shape, but it was probably getting harder he’d guess. She was going a little soft around the stomach, the thighs. It wasn’t her. She wasn’t the reason that he felt cold inside. “Nice while it lasted.” The lie came easy. Way too easy.
“You miss me?” Too matter of fact, he noted, her voice sounded like it was trying to conceal something.
“Honestly?” he asked. “Yes.” As blatant a lie as he’d ever tell. If she had anything about her, she knew it as well. Inquisitors policed Unisco agents, they could pick out a lie amidst a hailstorm of bullshit if the urge took them. Before she’d b
een promoted to liaison, Larsen had been one of the best, second only to the deceased Stelwyn Mallinson in terms of notoriety.
“Ulikku,” she said. The subject was changed. She knew he wasn’t going to talk. Not about whatever it was that they had. Maybe they’d both moved on from convenient arrangements, become different people than they had been when they’d started. He’d have to ask Steinbru at some point, the next time he saw her. “He enjoyed his burger. Ravished it down.”
It sounded like Ulikku had gotten more out of the meeting than he had, he thought with distaste in his mouth. Some people just had all the luck. “Uh huh?”
“Yeah,” she said, scratching at her stomach. “He said he had something for us to pass onto you?”
That caught his attention. “Go on?”
Larsen shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Not yet.” She pointed down to her groin, cupped his chin in her hands and gave him an admonishing smirk. “You can do it bloody right this time. Then I’ll tell you.”
Despite it all, Nick had to grin. “Oh, you bitch!” He didn’t mean it. “They teach you that negotiation tactic at Unisco training?”
“Some things,” she said, “are all picked up on the job, Nicholas.”
Chapter Three. Midnight.
“Approval of mission based on the intelligence accrued from captive Reda Ulikku has been granted by both myself and those above me in the Senate. Act swiftly, but with great care for they have despatched an impartial observer to witness the mission. Ensure that Unisco is not embarrassed in the presence of our friend from Arknatz.”
Message from Terrence Arnholt to Acting Operations Chief Nicholas Roper.
Nothing about this whole thing felt right. Still there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it now. Nick found himself thinking as he watched the black-clad figures moving through the night on the screen. They moved as a unit, perfectly coordinated in their formation, absolute silence. Even their breathing would be kept to a minimum. They were in heavily hostile territory and even the slightest mistake would be punished. That couldn’t be allowed to happen.