Irena looked up at him. “How are you doing?”
“I wouldn’t say okay as such. But—” He just shook his head, unable to find the words to express what had happened to Bashir, Greta, and Wilbur, their lives in the balance. And the finality of ending Luca. He had finally slain the revenant of the man he had thought had died once before. At least now he knew that he was gone for good. They had scared off the earthers and recovered his body, placing it in one of the vacuum bags that came standard with SMF ships. That was then secured in what remained of the ship’s hold. They had set it up as a makeshift morgue, not knowing who would or wouldn’t survive.
As though able to read his mind, Irena said, “It’s not your fault. We all came here willingly. We knew the risks, and all wanted the same thing.”
Harlan just nodded, not really taking in her words. He knew she meant well, but right now words were no use. He looked back at her, trying to focus on the present. “How are you doing? You showed incredible courage with the satellite dish situation. Bella told me everything, that you nearly… well, that we might not be speaking here now.”
“It was quite the experience. I’ll be sure to forward my psychiatric bills to you when we get back to Atlas.” She cracked a smile full of pain and barely held horror.
“Maybe we’ll get a group discount. How’s Bella’s injury? It looked pretty nasty.”
“I’ve managed to get the assistant to do most of the work. The wound is severe but not life-threatening. She’ll be fine in the long term, but we can’t stay here for more than three or four days.”
“Is she at any immediate risk?”
“No, as long as she stays in the med-bay and lets the drugs and systems work, she’ll remain stable, like the others, barring any disasters.”
“I should speak with her. She must be devastated about Gianni.”
“I’d wait. I’ve given her a sedative to help. When the shock wears off, the grief is going to hit her hard. We really need to get her back to Atlas for proper care sooner rather than later.”
Leanne stepped out of a bulkhead and joined them in the passage.
Harlan closed the door of the med-bay and stepped back from Irena, suddenly feeling self-conscious with his wife standing there staring at them. Although, wife wasn’t quite right. They hadn’t divorced, but she had been missing for so long Harlan had come to think of her as an ex. Yet here she was.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Irena said. “I guess you’ve got some catching up to do.”
Harlan grabbed her elbow. “It’s fine. You don’t have to.”
A tense silence hung in the air. Irena let her arm drop. Harlan let go and glared at Leanne. “I suggest you both get some rest, perhaps eat something. I’ll get in touch with Gylfie and tell him everything that has happened. We need to let the authorities know and stop the election.”
“What will happen to my parents?”
“If I have anything to do with it, they’ll be arrested for conspiracy, amongst other charges. Will that be difficult for you? You will have to be present at the impending trial.”
“No. They betrayed me. They treated me as nothing but a tool to be used. I want to see them go down for this.”
“Okay. I’ll get the ball rolling as soon as we get off this planet.”
Irena gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before sliding past and heading back into the med-bay. Leanne continued to watch Harlan.
“What?”
“She likes you.”
“Imagine that, eh? A woman liking old Harlan Rubik. Would make a change.”
“You’re still bitter about me leaving you?”
Harlan turned his back and headed to the cockpit of the ship. Leanne followed.
When they had both entered, Harlan closed the door behind them and faced Leanne. “Bitter? No, bitterness has long since left me. Now I’m just pissed off. You don’t make any sense. For the best part of a decade, you gallivant about the system working as some kind of assassin for the very people you helped me stop. In all that time, there was no word of what you were doing. Then there was that business back at Asimovia—and today. For once, why don’t you explain yourself and tell me the truth? Why did you leave? And why, after all these years, did you show up again?”
Leanne sat in the pilot’s chair. She had changed into one of the ship’s standard-issue jumpsuits in the olive drab style from yesteryear that the SMF was so fond of. She’d also found time to wet her hair and wash her face. Her brunette locks were slicked back, giving her a diva-like appearance.
She regarded him with bright green eyes, no less startling after all these years. Harlan remembered the first day he saw her walking through Atlas Station. It was her eyes back then that first captivated him.
“The truth is,” she began, leaning forward, staring directly into his eyes, “it was all for you. I struck a bargain with the Vanguard hierarchy when they first learned about my skills. They wanted me to work for them. Naturally, I said no. I was happy doing my own thing. But they threatened your life. I knew Hugo and Aurier were in with that lot. They could have got to you at any moment. They made that quite clear to me.”
Harlan rocked back and leaned against the ship’s bulkhead. Looking at her now, hearing her words, he knew she was telling the truth. It was just like when they had first met. She would often talk with little emotional baggage attached, always happy to say it how it was. It was one of the reasons he had loved her. She had made loving her easy.
“So you were essentially their indentured slave for a decade because of me?”
“To begin with, yes.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
She looked away from him, her cheeks reddening with what he thought was shame. He’d seen it in the face of many a criminal having come to terms with their being caught and sentenced. “Stockholm Syndrome isn’t just something we learned about in history class, Harlan. I grew to see them as a family, almost. Although I knew the threat was always there, underlying my every move, I also grew to form strong bonds with people within the group—well, the ones I was allowed to know about. You have to understand, they’re a throwback to the old days of terrorist cells and compartmentalized information. I didn’t know anyone or anything outside the sphere I worked in. And then there was Luca…”
She looked up at him now, sincerity clear on her face. “He loved you like a brother. Even up until he brought Fizon here, he bargained with the hierarchy to leave you alone, but when Hugo killed himself, those in power knew it would be just a matter of time before you learned too much. They had doubted Hugo toward the end. It wasn’t Vanguard’s preferred choice to have you investigate Fizon. That’s why Aurier was ultimately activated.”
Harlan could barely believe it. Luca had taunted him for years and played the archetypal nemesis at every turn. But then, perhaps that was some form of brotherly connection? Some of the greatest enemies either started out or ended up as friends. The idea wasn’t a new one; it went back to Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty—two apparently distinct individuals who were so alike they could have been twins. And, he supposed, even farther back to Cain and Abel of the Christian faith.
“If he felt anything for me, he wouldn’t have tried to kill us back there.”
Leanne smiled wryly and shook her head. “If he wanted us dead, he would have made sure of it. He was just buying time to escape. Even when you were at his mercy, he couldn’t end you.”
“What about the abbot with the railgun? It might have killed Bashir. It could have easily been me among the wounded.”
She shrugged. “It was getting down to the crunch. Besides, as you saw, Fizon had manipulated him the entire time. Luca wasn’t in control of the rogue abbot any more than he was in control of Fizon. And think about it—you were in Fizon’s clutches. If it weren’t for Luca, neither of us would be here now. He saved you from certain death.”
She had a point. It didn’t change the fact that Luca had needed to be stopped. Letting Harlan live was his o
wn downfall, and perhaps that’s what he had secretly desired. As far as Harlan was concerned, justice was justice whether the perpetrator wanted it or not.
“Perhaps you’re right, perhaps I owe my life to you and Luca, but I still had to do my job. I couldn’t just let him get away with all this. Especially the whole Gianni business. When Bella comes around and has to deal with his death, it’ll likely kill her. She needs to know what Luca did to her brother. She needs justice as much as I do— as much as the entire Sol-Fed does.”
“I can help you there,” Leanne said. “Before you arrived, and before Gianni became catatonic, we managed to speak for a while. During his investigations into radio signals, he stumbled across an unusual set of broadcasts coming from Europa. The Sol-Fed Space Agency had strict rules on extracurricular work, and he was already on thin ice from having previously abused the agency’s resources.”
“So he decided to take a shuttle and go out there alone?”
“Where Vanguard captured him. It was mine and Luca’s cell who were patrolling the area. Luca had him sent to the lab for experimentation. When things presented themselves regarding the QCA, he didn’t want to leave his pet project behind. He brought Gianni along and recaptured me after you had taken me into custody. In hindsight, that was a stupid thing of you to do, what with Aurier and Hugo working there. As soon as you brought me in, they got to work. It was no coincidence that you were in a meeting with Hugo when the shit hit the fan.”
Harlan took a seat in the copilot’s chair as all the revelations continued to spill out, shining a light on the events that had led him here, all the opportunities he’d had to learn the truth but just missed out.
“So how did Gianni end up catatonic? What the hell did Luca do to him?”
“I don’t know the specifics. Yesterday Luca injected Gianni with something that completely switched him off. For all I know it could have been a backup plan in case we won.”
Now that definitely sounded like something Luca would do. A malicious act to have the last word. But like his dreams of hacking the QCA and controlling all the abbots, it had backfired.
“You told me what happened to Gianni, but what about you?”
“I was never allowed anywhere near the details of this Project Inception.”
Harlan sat there in silence, taking in everything Leanne had told him. There was so much to write up for the case file. So many charges to bring against various people—not to mention handling the fallout from Fizon going rogue. The thought of dealing with the aftermath exhausted him. But the job wasn’t finished yet.
“Thanks for finally coming clean with everything.” Not that it helped a great deal. Sure, for those who believed closure was more than a platitude, he could say he had that regarding the reason why Leanne had left him. But that was now replaced with a sense of guilt that she had done all she had to keep him alive. How could he ever redress that balance?
Despite her being back in his life, he was still at odds, in limbo.
Leanne stood up, perhaps sensing that her role had ended. She patted him on the shoulder, brought her face close to his, but then turned away and left him alone in the Wickham’s cockpit.
He reached out to the controls, activated the communication array, and sent a message through the silicon runners’ relay system. He had quite the tale to tell Gylfie. He just hoped the old man could get Harlan’s evidence to the president before the election started.
41
Even with the runners’ relay system, the signal took an initial two minutes to get to Gylfie and back to Harlan before the network made the communications almost instant. For the next half an hour, Harlan strategized with his old boss of how to deliver the evidence to President Kallstrom.
“I’ve sent you the details for a secure channel,” Gylfie said. “Upload the video streams from your suits’ helmet cams, and I’ll forward those to Kallstrom’s aide. I had already made contact with her when you left for Earth, suspecting we’d need to move quickly once you stopped the hack.”
A minute later, the login information arrived.
Harlan set about creating a network of the helmet cams and hooked them into the Wickham’s system, ready for uploading. While the data was being transferred, he told Gylfie about Fizon.
His old boss whistled a sigh. “I never expected that. I think it’ll be absolutely critical for that information to remain secret. We cannot let it get out to the public. It could trigger one of the humanist groups to call for the end of a connected abbotkind. We’d be right back to the dark days before the war.”
“I agree. But it’s concerning that Fizon even had the ability to manipulate Vanguard in the first instance. We have to assume he’s not the only abbot working against the treaty. Every single one of them is a potential insurgent now. What trust existed, for me at least, has completely disintegrated.”
“We can’t afford to be impulsive, Harlan.”
“I know, I’m just saying that the ramifications of this are vast. There’s only one way I can see handling this: we need to expand the role of the silicon runners. And we need a new boss. Or perhaps an old one.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” Gylfie asked, although, from Harlan’s point of view, it was pretty obvious and the only way to reestablish the silicon runner department after the revelation that Hugo and Aurier were Vanguard sleeper agents.
“I’m saying that you should put any retirement plans on Mars on the back burner and come back to what you do best: be the boss.”
There was silence for a few moments. Harlan waited, letting the idea seep into the old man’s brain. Harlan knew Gylfie wasn’t the retiring type; it was why he had taken the role at the RDC. It was a way for him to remain a part of the network of whispers. That he worked on level one was no accident: from there, Gylfie could keep his hand in with the criminal underworld. And with Hugo out of the picture, he was the perfect candidate to take over.
“You don’t want to take the position, Harlan? I daresay once this goes public, Kallstrom will want you to be his new man in the runners.”
“I’m not leadership material. Besides, I feel like I’m getting back to my best. Admit it; you’ve missed it.”
“You always were the perceptive one. I’ll take it under advisement. Let me talk with Kallstrom and his people first. We still have the issue of the Selles couple to deal with. Victoria was on the network just a few minutes before you called, condemning Kallstrom’s approval rating.”
“I suspect that’ll take a sharp uptick once this goes live. Tell Kallstrom from me that he’s more than welcome to take credit for this whole affair. I’d rather the spotlight and approval be on him. I won’t be able to do my job if I’m dogged by the media and other interested parties.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on.”
Harlan stretched and yawned as he stood from the pilot’s chair. His back ached, and his mind buzzed with all the events of the past few hours. Then he remembered: the Wickham crew.
“Gylfie, there are a couple more things I need you to arrange.”
“I’m listening.”
“The first is that we… not sure how best to explain it, but let’s just say we swapped ships with the SMF. We procured their vessel, the Wickham, the crew of which are now in a small transport shuttle that’s currently on an orbital path around Luna. I made sure they had enough rations and water, but I shut off their communications. Could you make the authorities aware and have them recovered?”
Gylfie laughed with a sudden snort. “And I suppose you want me to explain to Kallstrom that you had to do that and had no other option?”
“Of course.”
“You’re pushing your luck, but I’ll be sure to defend your decision. I can’t promise the SMF won’t try to have you up on charges.”
“I’ll deal with that if and when the time comes. But I just wanted to make sure they were safe and recovered. I’ll arrange to send them my apologies. Once they know the situation here on Earth, perhaps they’ll
understand.”
“You said there were two things. What was the other?”
“We need a lift off the planet. The Wickham is in no shape to go anywhere currently, and we have three of our crew completely out of action. We have Luca’s ship, but it's barely large enough for two people and doesn’t have the medical facilities we need for our wounded.”
“I’ll be sure to get a ship to you as soon as possible. Let me deal with Kallstrom’s people, and I’ll get back to you. You did good, Harlan; you all did. You sit tight and stay safe. I’ll be back in touch shortly.”
“Thanks, Gylfie, I appreciate your help.”
The line cut. Harlan leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. His head throbbed with a deep ache. Every muscle felt fatigued, as though he had spent an afternoon in the gym weight-training to prevent muscle loss in low-g environments.
The extra gravity of Earth did indeed feel different from that generated on Atlas and the other stations. How humanity ever managed to live here for the long term, he couldn’t imagine, but then he remembered one element of his species that he had observed in his lifetime: they were adaptable—for good or bad.
A tapping on the cockpit door pulled his attention.
“Come in.”
The door slid aside. Irena appeared in the doorway. “Hey, you.”
“Hey, is everything okay?”
She walked in and closed the door behind her. Her eyes were red, and puffy bags hung beneath them. “As much as things can be, I guess. It’s all so horrible. It feels like the aftermath of a nightmare.”
Harlan stood and stepped closer to her. He reached out, but she stepped in and hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her, and there they both remained, both needing human warmth after such an inhuman experience.
Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure Page 29