Like now. I found him in a corridor near the officers’ mess, yelling at Staff Sergeant Wu, who worked in accounts. Something about his last paycheck being the wrong amount for his rank. I could see that Wu was about to blow up, so I snagged Ken’s arm, telling him I’d been waiting for our lunch appointment, and dragged him off before the situation got worse.
“We don’t take our frustrations out on people who are just following orders,” I reminded him as he struggled to calm down.
I liked Ken. We were on opposite sides of the war in some ways, but in others, we’d had the same kind of upbringing, the same kind of internal and external expectations shaping our beliefs and our ambitions. I understood him even when I didn’t agree with him, and I knew he was going through a bad patch. I just hoped he’d make it through without doing something to get himself court-martialed and executed. Not that it would be the first time.
“I’m going to keep leaning on them,” he told me between mouthfuls of lunch.
I eyed him cautiously as I hunched over my plate of food. The officers’ mess had one full wall of observation glass, and although chewing made lipreading a bit harder, it still didn’t make sense to talk about certain things in the open.
Ken shrugged at my wariness—he was backing the wall—and kept talking. “They make the rules, fine. So I’ll make them follow their own rules.”
“Yeah, Ken, I’m not sure it’s that simple.”
He leaned closer, his face coldly furious. “Listen. Our pay is less than two thirds of the standard Accordance pay for ranking struthiforms, carapoids and Arvani.”
“Why are you surprised? We are a client species. This isn’t news.”
He ignored me and continued his quiet, intense rant. “Our assigned quarters are up to 50 percent smaller than the space granted to other species.”
“They are bigger than us,” I muttered.
He slammed his knife down on his plate. Miraculously, nothing cracked. “Whose side are you on?”
“Ken, this is the story of your life. I have heard it many times. The Accordance promises you something: rank, money, power. Instead, they make you a foot soldier, cut your pay, and act like you’re disposable and replaceable—because you are and always will be nothing but cannon fodder to them. Once, it mattered to you because it was you and your pride was hurt. Now it matters because you understand that’s how the Accordance sees all humans. But you keep going back to them, hoping to find some mythical golden rule that will get them to apologize and try to be decent to us. You keep being a hero and thinking they’ll respect you. When are you going to understand that this is a fight you can’t win? Why do you keep trying to win their approval? They’ll use us, but they’ll never accept us, and you are wasting your time on this shit for no fucking reason.”
He froze. He looked so stricken that I regretted my words. No—not my words, but perhaps how I had said them.
“Look . . . Ken . . . I’m sorry. It’s been a hard day and I need a drink. We need a drink. Let’s go.” I pushed my chair back and got to my feet.
He looked confused. “Go where?”“
I paused and frowned. Mirrors were suspect, and the walls were thin. At high tide you could hear the water sloshing under the flooring. Everywhere there was the sensation of being observed.
“Can I trust you, Ken?” I asked seriously.
He took a moment to wipe his mouth clean with a napkin. “Uh-huh,” he mumbled casually, but his eyes were sharp and curious.
“Then follow me.”
2
* * *
I would have gone mad without the Speakeasy. Through the combined skills of IT and Procurement, a storeroom had been secured, proofed, outfitted, and stocked. Everything was allowed: music, sex, slam poetry, dancing. No fighting, though. The management frowned on anything that could cause damage, and no one wanted to risk being banned from the Speakeasy. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Ken didn’t know about it. I wondered if it would help him, or if he’d try to use it as leverage in some way. I didn’t want to be known as the person that got the Speakeasy shut down.
You could get to the Speakeasy via air duct (back kitchen), through a specific locker in a bank of lockers (gym), or by using the broad and comfortable VIP entrance (by invitation only) in the quartermaster’s Narnian cabinet. I chose the lockers. We shuffled sideways along a dark, claustrophobic passageway until my trailing fingers felt the edge of the sliding door that was the bar’s main entrance.
“And voilà,” I declared, opening the door and pulling a confused and slightly bruised Ken into the dim light.
People looked up warily. Only three mattered—the woman behind the bar, the man sitting at the table nearest the door, and the person who I could not see but knew to be there, on the ledge above the door, pistol drawn and ready. I nodded cautiously to the woman keeping bar; she looked Ken over carefully, then slowly nodded. I exhaled and moved forward.
Ken noticed none of this. He was too busy staring and gaping. I looked to see who was there—various admin personnel both military and civilian, several commissioned and noncommissioned officers, some training sergeants, one anxious corporal who was probably going to be acting sergeant very soon, and, naturally, Devlin, sitting at the bar with a glass of something green and frothy and a ridiculous curly straw.
Ken saw him even before I did. His laugh was mostly rueful but still slightly bitter. “Of course he knows about this before I do. Can’t let the hero be left out.”
“You’re a hero too,” I said, trying for some reason to soothe him. “But this place does love a rule-breaking, maverick hero, which Devlin is publicly known to be and you are . . . not. Something you should be grateful for, unless you enjoy execution. What are you having to drink?”
“Surprise me,” he murmured, and wandered off to speak to Grant Boone, one of the IT instructors.
I went to the bar and perched half my butt on a stool next to Devlin. “What the hell’s in that?” I greeted him with a nod to his glass.
He sipped and made a face before answering. “Don’t you know? The newest concoction from our biotech experts. A little nanosludge to seek out and destroy any internal bugs—and you know what kind of bugs I mean. At least that’s what the bartender told me. She won’t serve me alcohol. Says it’ll stunt my brain development.”
He sipped again, and I saw his eyes straying. I followed the line and saw he was watching Mal of all people, half-shy, half-competent Second Lieutenant Mallory Jonse, who was still trying to find her feet as a commander of recruits mostly older than she was. She was sitting with a group of training and admin people, looking more relaxed than I’d ever seen her. “Can you please not?” I told him wearily.
“What?” he replied with testy innocence. “We’re both officers!”
I signaled the bartender for my usual, then thought of Ken and signaled for two. I’d need something to take the edge off by the time I was done talking. “Okay, Devlin, take a deep breath because I’m about to give you a little lecture about trying to live normal in highly abnormal situations. In short, we can’t. Take my parents, for example.” I paused for an extra breath, still feeling the burn of the old resentment, and hid it with a nod to the bartender when she slid two glasses toward me. Straight vodka, with an intense herb tonic mixer lending a neon tint.
“They worked together, fought together, but at a certain point they realized they didn’t want to be together. One day, my mom said, ‘I’m tired of your father,’ and that was it. Quietest divorce in the twenty-first century. We barely noticed the difference. They still worked together, fought together. We were too busy surviving to add personal drama to our mix of problems. But she was a grown woman.”
“And I am not grown,” Devlin replied sarcastically.
I grinned at him. “In some ways, you are not. I don’t mean to mock your adolescent urges, but I can see you have a soft spot for girls who look like they need taking care of, and they won’t say no to Captain War Hero. You need to choos
e more wisely. Why not Nalima? From what I’ve been told, she’s professional, discreet, and, from what I hear, very good for relieving tensions without fucking up the chain of command.”
He looked vaguely disgusted, as if I was giving him advice on potty training. “I don’t need to do that. I can control myself.”
“Mm-hm.” I held his gaze for a couple of seconds, then flashed a glance over to where Mal was seated. Now she was engaged in a flirty, intimate lean toward a newcomer, a very handsome man, a man with lightly glowing tattoos that twined around and down his forearms and hands to his fingertips.
“Who’s that?” Devlin asked sharply.
I took a moment to sip my drink before replying with a sly smile. “That would be Jasen. He’s professional, discreet, and, from what I know, very good for relieving tensions—”
“Shut up.” He glared at me. He had the nerve to look betrayed.
I snapped, “No, you shut up. It looks like Mal has more sense than you. Don’t jeopardize what we’re building for a teenage crush that’ll last as long as a snow cone in summer.”
His glare faded as he scanned the bar with its crowd of rapidly assembling pairs and partners, including Ken cheerfully flirting with the IT lieutenant. “Well, looks like everyone’s handling their tension but me.”
“Rank has its privileges and its price. If your recreation has to be a little more scheduled than most, so be it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an . . . appointment with a friend of Jasen’s, and I’d better go after I’ve given Ken his drink, or I’ll be late.” I slid off the stool slowly and grabbed my drink and Ken’s, smirking with intent to annoy.
He smiled, sort of. At least it wasn’t a sneer. “I hate you.”
“Good!” I shouted back over my shoulder.
Ken’s table was right in front of me, but I hesitated as I approached. The atmosphere had changed. Ken was no longer making nice. He was frowning and stabbing the rough wood of the table with his finger as he spoke forcefully, making some point. Whatever the discussion, Boone’s exasperation showed in the sneer on his face and the incredulous tilt of his eyebrow. He leaned away from Ken with a touch of contempt. I wavered, not sure what to do to help the situation, then darted in quickly and plunked down Ken’s glass of vodka and tonic right between them. It was loud and it was unexpected and it broke the tension. I gave them both a strained grin.
“What’s happening, boys? Let’s not annoy the bar staff, okay?”
They looked around and realized for the first time that they were being stared at, hard, by the bartender and security. Brawls were never allowed—that could lead to discovery.
“Talk to your friend,” Boone said. His tone could best be described as calm contempt. “He thinks he’s the first person to notice how this brave new world works. See if you can stop him from being a hero or a martyr.”
He got up to go. I grabbed him by the sleeve. “Boone. Don’t be mad.”
His expression softened. “Not at you, Amira, but some of us have long memories and little forgiveness for collaborators.”
He walked away.
“What the hell does he mean by that?” Ken asked harshly.
I looked into my glass for a moment, wishing for a double shot. “He means that you can’t earn trust overnight by telling us what we already know. You can’t automatically expect us to follow your lead.”
Ken looked angry and hurt. “Oh, so in the game of us-and-them, you’ve chosen your side already?”
My hand clenched around my glass. “You really need to stop talking about things you don’t understand.”
I went to join Boone at the bar. He let me sit in silence while my head cooled and bought me another drink when my glass got empty. I didn’t turn my head, but I saw when Devlin got up and joined Ken at his table.
“You’re not their ma, you know,” Boone said.
I made a noise of disgust.
“Hart has potential. He’s young and stupid, but he looks out for others. Awojobi is all about his own comfort and status. He only notices injustice when it affects him. You’ll want to be careful with that type.”
“Boone, don’t—”
“I’m not looking to break up your little triumvirate, but you have to be realistic. This isn’t what you were trained for. Don’t waste time and resources.”
My head whirled for a moment to a degree that could not be blamed on alcohol. I blinked, straightened, and snapped at him, “I never do.”
He kept thankfully quiet after that. I had a minute or more of peace before he spoke up again. “Amira, that Alpha recruit who got zapped? His name’s George Miller. He’s dead. I know someone in Biomech who was there when he flatlined a while ago. I think you’d have found out on your own, but when you see his name disappear from the rolls, when you hear that Bright’s been transferred, remember what I told you today.”
I went suddenly cold. I finished my drink and left the Speakeasy without a nod or smile to anyone. I did have an appointment with Jasen’s friend, and my head was warning me not to be late.
+ + + +
I was walking down a hallway—no, I was walking down an alleyway. I was holding someone’s hand. I looked up and saw my mother smiling at me, a quick, nervous smile that tried to reassure. I wasn’t surprised when the screaming started. I remembered how it happened. Ahead of us, a manhole cover rolled and spun and settled in a series of clangs. Water briefly bubbled up, washing the tarmac dark with salt water, and in the midst of the puddle was a set of writhing limbs, human and Arvani. Those who stood nearby jumped back in shock, a few rushed forward to help, but it was too late. The screaming man was dragged into the flooded foundations of Manhattan with a strength and speed that no one could match. The smear of blood he left behind was quickly diluted and drained back into the sewer.
My mother was one of those who had surged forward, but she stopped, recalled to responsibility by the pull of my weight on her hand. Another hand gripped my arm gently.
“Go, Malika. Call it in, get that breach secured. I’ll take Amira to safety.”
She let go of my hand. “Go with your grandfather, Amira. I’ll be home soon.”
My grandfather quickly hustled me away from the noise and the growing crowd. “Come, it’s not safe in these alleys. We will walk along the avenue.”
We came out of the alley into a blaze of illumination. I blinked until I could see.
“Granddad. They’re staring at us.”
Tentacles pressed up against a vast length of glass, giving the impression that the squid were holding us in, molding our unbreakable bubble in their grasp. Back then, I didn’t know what Arvani curiosity looked like, or laughter, or spite, but I knew that the glass had a dual purpose—to watch us, and to make us see we were being watched.
We observed the alien audience in silence, seconds ticking by. We could have gone some other route, but my grandfather was always teaching, always delivering a lesson. The Accordance redesign of submerged Wall Street was fascinating. It forced you to understand on a deeper level what invasion was—not simply the presence of strange bodies in a familiar environment, but also the gradual perversion of that environment into something alien and inhospitable that would not support you.
“Let them stare,” Granddad replied after a while. “Let them get accustomed to seeing us and underestimating us.” And he took my hand and walked with me along the dry half of Wall Street, ignoring the bisecting glass and the Arvani crowds, chatting casually all the way.
“Did I ever tell you about my time on Wall Street? The first time I lost everything, I learned how much people love you when you have money, but when you are poor . . . that’s a different story. The second time, I learned that even when you save enough of your reputation and fortune, you can still lose so much self-respect that poverty and neglect would be easier to bear. Now I have changed and grown beyond such mistakes, but it doesn’t matter. Money is meaningless now. It was only a way of measuring power. And what is power, Amira? Think about that.”<
br />
+ + + +
I returned to the present, my hand twitching at my side as memory faded and freed me from my grandfather’s clasp. I looked around the hallway quickly. Either no one had seen me zoning out, or I hadn’t been acting strangely enough to draw attention. I moved on swiftly to my destination, hit the office door with two brisk knocks, and entered before the “come in” was over. The person behind the desk gave me a worried look.
“I’ve forgotten your name, but Jasen recommended you,” I said in haste.
“Call me Makani,” she replied, standing up and coming around the desk. “What happened to you?”
“Hallucination. Just now.”
“Sit.”
I promptly obeyed. She took my head in her hands and brushed her nano-inked fingertips over the tracings at my temples. “Oh God, when last did you sleep?”
I mumbled something apologetic.
“Idiot,” she said under her breath, more in sorrow than anger. “You should be in Biomech, but since Jasen sent you, I’ll do what I can.”
It didn’t take long to set my ink to maintenance mode, so she left me in a reclining chair to complete the process while she returned to her desk and examined the documents and diagrams flickering over its surface. It looked more like a starship console than a horizontal screen. I would have loved to have a desk like hers, but only IT pros with solid security clearance had any right or excuse to that level of tech. Anais, out of spite or caution, still kept me from official access to some levels. Makani saw my envy and smiled.
“You can’t even take care of the tech you have,” she chided. “What’s filling up your nights? Nightmares? Spying? Don’t be afraid to tell me. I always keep my office clean of bugs and shielded from surveillance.”
Jupiter Rising Page 2