The Elderon Chronicles Box Set

by Tarah Benner

  I take aim and squeeze the trigger, and my shot reverberates off the walls. A jolt of fear flashes through Jade’s eyes as the tile explodes six inches from her foot.

  “Holy shit!” she cries as the shot rings out. I can smell the primer and the smokeless powder.

  “I’m not fucking around,” I growl. “Drop your weapon, and get on the ground. You’re on my space station now.”

  10

  Maggie

  As the acrid smell of spent ammunition settles, Jade begins to cooperate. She holds my gaze with steady eyes and bends down slowly to place her rifle on the ground. She straightens up, hands in the air, and I feel a strong sense of relief.

  So she’s not completely crazy. She still has a healthy fear of death, which means we at least have something in common.

  “Turn and face the wall,” I say. My voice comes out much more calm than I feel. Inside, my heart is seizing.

  I can’t believe I discharged my weapon. Jonah would crucify me if he knew. The Space Force doesn’t fire warning shots. Members of the Space Force only shoot to kill. When I think back to the first day we practiced, Jonah kept repeating, “You better fucking mean it.”

  The truth is, I didn’t have it in me to shoot her, but Jade seems to be listening. She turns obediently to face the wall, and Tripp stumbles over to retrieve her rifle.

  I take a deep breath, trying to get a grip on my spiraling thoughts. Someone will have heard the shot. Bots will come running. It’s only a matter of time. And when they do, Mordecai will learn that I’m back on Elderon.

  “Hands on your head,” I say, brandishing my pistol.

  Jade does as she is told. There’s something about the way she moves — as if she expected this.

  Suddenly, the ground shakes with a tremendous boom. I stumble, nearly face-planting against the wall, and Jade throws out an arm to steady herself.

  “What the hell was that?” cries Tripp. It sounded like an explosion, and it came from the tech sector.

  Jade doesn’t answer, so I throw out my booted foot and catch her in the shin.

  “Ow! Fuck!” she hisses, rubbing her leg where I kicked it. “I don’t know.”

  I point the pistol at her head — this time ready to shoot. “Stop — lying.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  Then my Optix dings. It has to be Ping.

  Glancing at Tripp, I touch my Optix to answer the call. Ping’s face appears in my feed, looking more anxious than I’ve ever seen him.

  “Get out of there,” he says. “There are twenty bots headed your way.”

  “What was that?”

  Ping raises his eyebrows, cracking a grin. “Adra took care of our bot problem at Maverick. Come see for yourself.”

  At those words, I don’t waste any time. I hang up and press the muzzle of the pistol directly between Jade’s shoulder blades. I see her entire body constrict as her muscles pull together, and she seems to be holding her breath.

  “Move,” I say, pivoting my feet so that I can walk behind her. “That way.”

  “Did you do that?” Jade asks. “The explosion?”

  I don’t answer. I don’t tell her that making stuff blow up is way outside my skill set — unless it’s a story about the best pizza in New York. The truth is I like that she’s scared of me. It seems to improve her listening skills.

  I march Jade back toward the tech sector, Tripp stumbling along behind me. I seem to have shocked him into silence, and I like this quiet version of him. We pass the newsroom in Sector L and keep going until we reach the tech sector.

  Returning to Maverick is risky, but I don’t have a better plan. We can’t exactly take Jade to the defense sector. The Space Force will lock her up and throw away the key, and I need to know why she’s here. More importantly, I need to know how she tricked all those bots into thinking she was one of them.

  But before we reach Maverick, I hear a sound coming up behind me that fills my heart with dread: the synchronized clacking of forty high heels attached to mechanical legs and hips.

  I swallow and turn, completely at a loss. I don’t have a circuit stunner. I don’t have any weapon that will do us any good. We can’t outrun them, and there’s nowhere to hide. We don’t want to lead them back to Maverick.

  Then Jade turns to face me, and I see a different look come over her. “Don’t shoot,” she says, holding my gaze.

  Right now, I don’t know what to do, so I don’t do anything at all. Jade turns to face Tripp and puts her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back against the wall. Tripp looks too shocked to fight it, and Jade presses me back, too.

  I feel my shoulders bump Tripp’s chest, and Tripp clears his throat loudly when my butt jams against him.

  Before I even know what’s happening, Jade has turned her back to me and crushed herself against my chest.

  “Oaff!”

  “Shh!” she snaps, smashing me between her and Tripp. The bots’ footsteps are growing louder and louder, and I can hear the blood pulsing in my head. We’re like three human dominos stacked one in front of the other. It’s got to be the oddest thing I’ve ever done.

  The bots round the corner — all twenty of them — moving like an army outfitted for J.Crew. My whole body recoils at the sight of them, and I cringe as their heads pivot toward us.

  Jade shifts her body slightly, blocking my view, and I tighten my grip on my pistol. Any second now, they’re going to charge us, and we literally have our backs to the wall.

  But the bots keep walking, eyeing Jade with disinterest. They turn back in the direction they’re headed, still marching together with eerie precision.

  We wait, holding our breath, and then Jade pulls away. What in the hell just happened?

  “I’ll explain later,” Jade mutters. “We need to take cover.”

  I nod numbly. If the bots were on us that quickly, there’s no way Mordecai didn’t see the feed. He’ll know that I’m back on Elderon, and every bot will have orders to kill.

  I lead the way back to Maverick HQ, Jonah’s gun hanging loose in my grip. I’m still reeling from our near-bot experience. I still don’t know why they ignored us.

  We reach the long hallway leading to Maverick, and I cough. A fine white powder is floating through the air, and I realize with a jolt of unease that the powder was discharged from a fire extinguisher.

  Through the mess, I see the destruction. There’s a gigantic hole in the floor and black smoke stains all over the walls. Down below, I can see the remnants of duct work and several exposed wires. Pieces of the plastic paneling have been blown to bits, with stray bot limbs scattered in the mix.

  Adra didn’t divert the bots — she destroyed them.

  “Holy shit,” says Jade, stopping dead in her tracks.

  “What — did she do — to my hallway?” sputters Tripp.

  I can only grin. Leave it to Adra to blast a hole in the tech sector to clear out a few pesky bots. Jonah would be proud.

  Cutting around the edge of the hall where the floor is still intact, we lead Jade into Maverick HQ. The first set of doors whoosh open, revealing a lounge outfitted with ping-ping, foosball, and a cooler stocked with drinks. Jade takes it all in with a look of contempt, and Tripp strides through the second set of doors.

  A couple dozen programmers are gathered inside the Workshop, which is painted a loud construction orange and cluttered with workstations. The programmers are all huddled near the doors, looking as though they might wet themselves.

  “It’s all right,” says Tripp, forcing a smile. “The explosion was . . . completely intentional. You’re free to return to your suites.”

  The programmers stare in stunned silence as we march toward the C-suite with Jade. I hear whispers at our backs, and I realize they must know who she is.

  “Not a word,” Tripp snaps at a few wide-eyed programmers. “Not a word of this to anyone.”

  I roll my eyes. There’s no way to guarantee that his employees will spread the news like telling them it’
s forbidden.

  We breeze through another set of doors on our way to Tripp’s office and nearly smack into Porter and Chaz. Porter lets out a yelp of alarm. Chaz bobs his head like a goose and lets out a high-pitched scream.

  “Don’t say anything,” says Tripp in a low voice, eyeing Porter as we walk by.

  We file into Tripp’s office, and I slam the door to shut them out. My patience for Porter is already waning, and I don’t think I can take any extra hysteria.

  “Whoa,” says Ping, looking up from Tripp’s desktop. He’s staring at Jade just as everyone else had. Even though he knew she was here, part of him can’t seem to grasp that she’s standing in this room.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask her.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious,” grumbles Tripp.

  “The real question,” says Ping, “is how did she get here?”

  “She was on board the Impetus with me,” I say, not taking my eyes off of Jade.

  “You were on the shuttle?” Jade’s expression is different now — intrigued, maybe even impressed.

  “Yes.”

  “How come the bots didn’t know you were there?”

  “Funny . . . I was just going to ask you the same question. How did you manage to trick all those bots on the shuttle? Why did they all ignore you just now? Why did they ignore us?”

  “Camouflage,” says Jade coyly, looking around Tripp’s office with disdain.

  The irony isn’t lost on me. Here’s a cyberterrorist whose life goal was to destroy companies like Maverick Enterprises. Now she’s standing in Maverick’s offices, and we’re trying to get her to help save the company.

  “Would you like me to call in the Space Force?” asks Tripp, his whole body bristling with aggression.

  Jade scowls. “I stole one of the bots’ tracking chips, okay? When the other bots see me, they just see another bot. I’m basically invisible. I only wore the outfit to avoid drawing attention to myself once I got here.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. She’s good.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “I’m here to assassinate Mordecai Blum.”

  For a moment, nobody says a word. Ping, Tripp, and I just stare at her, trying to decide if she’s telling the truth. Her tone is breezy, almost blasé, and we have no reason to believe her. On the other hand, her statement comes out so casually that I’m inclined to think she’s telling the truth.

  Tripp is the first to speak. “Why should we believe you? You’re a wanted criminal.”

  “Does that matter?” snaps Jade. “As long as I kill the right guy?”

  “How can we trust you?” I ask. “You could just be telling us what we want to hear.”

  “Why would I lie?” asks Jade. “Why wouldn’t I just have let those bots gut you? Why wouldn’t I have gotten you out of the way while I had the chance?”

  I look over at Tripp. She makes a good point.

  “Why did you help us?”

  “Because I figured it was pointless to let them kill you. You obviously have reason to want Mordecai dead just as much as I do.” She turns to Tripp. “I was sorry to hear about your dad. He was one of the brightest minds of his generation.”

  Tripp just scowls. I can tell he doesn’t want condolences from the likes of Jade. The whole thing strikes me as slightly bizarre. Strom represented everything Jade’s organization claimed to hate. Why would she offer her condolences? I can feel the tension simmering between them, and I know I should step in before it escalates.

  “Even if that’s true,” I say, “we can’t just let you walk out of here.”

  “Why not?” asks Jade, her expression neutral.

  “You’re a known terrorist,” I say. “Your organization is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people.”

  “And what organization would that be?”

  I glance over at Ping. I can’t be the only one who’s confused.

  “Would that be the Bureau for Chaos circa 2065 or Bureau for Chaos 2072? Because the second one isn’t me. It has nothing to do with me at all.”

  There’s a long beat of silence as we all try to work out what she just said. I never knew there to be any difference. The Bureau has always been a source of fear.

  Finally, Tripp glares at her and says, “What are you talking about?”

  “My organization was founded with the purpose of exposing corrupt corporations for what they were. We were small . . . tight-knit. We’d hack a company’s products just to show we could, but it was harmless. Nobody got hurt. Then one day I got a message from a guy wanting to get involved. I just knew him by his screen name, buumblum26.”

  “Mordecai?”

  Jade nods. “He seemed annoying at first, but not dangerous. Arrogant. Pretentious. He kept talking about exposing Strom Van de Graaf for all the data his company was collecting on its users. He wanted to expose the scandal, but there was no scandal. Everyone knew about the data they were giving away. It was perfectly legal, and the devices were secure. He didn’t care. He said Maverick was evil and that it had to be destroyed. I booted him from the group — figured he was nuts — but then he started sending me threats.”

  “Mordecai wanted Maverick gone?”

  Jade shrugs. “Who knows what he really wanted. But he managed to pick off a few of my guys by convincing them that they needed to take down any organization that had become too powerful: car manufacturers, enterprise-level security companies, personal-data aggregators, the AI that dominated the futures market . . . He told them the Bureau had to think bigger. To him that meant killing people to show how flawed the technology really was.”

  “He took over your organization?” Tripp asks. He sounds as though he doesn’t believe her. I’m not sure I do, either.

  “It wasn’t just Mordecai, but he was the catalyst. A lot of the people I’d recruited up to that point had very different goals. They were more radical than I realized. It’s hard to know someone just by a screen name. It’s my own fault, I guess. I built the pyre. Mordecai just lit the match.”

  “Well, that’s convenient,” Tripp mutters. “The Bureau is evil. It just isn’t you.”

  “Not anymore,” says Jade sharply. I can tell Tripp is wearing on her last nerves. “Why do you think I went underground? My fingerprints were all over the group, and they were doing crazy shit. I tried to shut them down, but they would disappear for a few months and pop up again. When I tried to cooperate with police, I couldn’t help them because I didn’t know who any of these people were in real life.”

  “Couldn’t you have just hacked them to find out?” I ask. “Isn’t that sort of what you do?”

  “Have you ever known a group of people more paranoid than hackers? They know every trick to conceal their true identities.”

  Tripp frowns and crosses his arms over his chest. I can tell he doesn’t like Jade, but he’s starting to buy into her story.

  “Where have you been all this time?” asks Ping.

  “Los Angeles, mostly,” says Jade. “I’ve been underground.”

  “The police never came for you?” I ask, still doubtful. If Jade is the terrorist responsible for killing all those people, I’m sure she’s perfected her story by now.

  Jade rolls her eyes. “They tried. But I went offline — disappeared. I’ve been working one crap job after another for the past five years . . . anything that pays in cash.”

  “So stripper, then?” says Tripp.

  “Fuck you.”

  “You know we can’t just let you go, right?” says Tripp. “I’ve spent billions making sure the Bureau can’t touch my space station. And then, instead of hacking us, you stroll off a shuttle with a bunch of evil humanoids. You see how I might find that slightly problematic?”

  “I can see how you might find your security problematic,” Jade mutters.

  We fall into silence, and I watch her face. I can tell Jade is frustrated — not angry, just frustrated. But whether she’s frustrated because we aren’t swallowing her story or bec
ause no one ever trusts her, I can’t tell.

  “Look,” she says. “I’ve been trying to get to Mordecai for three years, but he’s barely set foot on US soil. I couldn’t fly to Russia or Turkey or anywhere else . . . The FBI would be on me instantly. But I kept an eye on him all these years. When Mordecai touched down for his father’s funeral, I planned to kill him then. But he and Ziva had a falling out, and he took off before I could make my move. When I lost him, I swore that if I ever had another chance, I would take it — no matter what.”

  I take a deep breath. I actually believe her. It’s strange to find an accused terrorist trustworthy, but my gut says she’s telling the truth.

  “Wow,” says Ping from across the room. “Maverick’s security really does suck if it’s easier to get out of Earth’s atmosphere than out of the country.”

  Jade lets out a snort of laughter.

  “You know, Mordecai murdering my father and blackmailing the rest of my board did throw a wrench into things,” says Tripp bitterly.

  “How do you plan to get close to Mordecai?” I ask. “He isn’t stupid. He knows everyone in the Space Force would love to kill him. He’s probably got his bunker so fortified that nobody stands a chance.”

  “I have a plan,” says Jade. “But I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “You just threatened to turn me over to the Space Force,” she says. “If you decided to execute my plan yourself and then botched it, I might never get another chance. I’ll probably never get this close to Mordecai Blum again.”

  “Well, then I guess you better get pretty comfortable on my couch, because that’s where you’re staying until the Space Force comes to get you,” says Tripp.

  “The Space Force?” Jade feigns a shiver. “Oh, you mean the entity that’s currently under Mordecai’s thumb because of his killer bots designed by a company which you also own?”

  “Watch it,” mutters Tripp.

  “Are you drunk?”

  Tripp scowls.