by Hanna, K. T.
For a second Dael watches him thoughtfully. “I think you know she will be. I do believe in that.”
“I’m glad one of us does then.” Dom stretches out on the floor, the way the rest of them are. It’s oddly relaxing being around people who completely understand him. “This is strange for me.”
“It has always just been you before, even when we were connected. So it makes sense that it would be.” It’s the first time Joe has spoken, and even as he speaks, Dom knows the name is wrong for him—but you can’t tell a person that. He smiles.
“Strange but nice, though?” Evan asks, almost timidly.
“Definitely nice. I now understand how Aishke makes Sai feel—it’s a comfort level.” He leans his head back and looks at the ceiling. “Are you still confident about fighting with us?”
“What do you mean?” Dael’s tone has changed slightly, almost tinged with annoyance.
“With all of your individuality coming to the fore, with your beliefs becoming your own and your own sense of self and preservation developing—do you still feel this is a fight you want? Or does it feel out of reach, out of touch, none of your business?”
No one speaks, and even though he’s fully aware that they’re all mulling over what he’s said, it almost seems unfair of him to have asked it. Before he can retract his question, though, Dael speaks up.
“Sai took us with her when they withdrew from Central. That is more respect for us and the lives we have than the GNW ever showed. And they created us. So if you are to ask me, will we still fight? I would say yes for one simple reason. The GNW do not deserve to have power in their hands. It’s been there for too long and they’ve become complacent. What once might have been good intentions have decayed into monstrosities. They are not fit for rule. Let the people find another way themselves.”
Dael sighs deeply and reaches down to what is apparently going to be Mele’s new console. “Does that answer your question?”
Dom smiles. “Perfectly.”
Dael and Evan work so well together, it’s almost like intruding on them to help, but it doesn’t take long for Dom to feel a part of their synchronous workings. Adjusting some of Mele’s settings and giving her a new navigation center makes more sense than Dom ever thought it would. He always thought she was perfect.
Not so, though. These minor changes and improvements will cut time off their journey, reinforce her connection with her central systems, and make her cloaking process much easier and less detectable.
“What do you think?” Dael stands back with him to survey the effect of their work. It’s not that outwardly visible; there are only subtle hints. But to Dom it’s like new life has been breathed into her.
“Perfect.” He smiles. “Really outdid yourselves with those schematics.”
Evan shrugs and comes over to join them. “The sooner you are back, the sooner the people wake up. The faster the GNW will be brought to justice and the quicker we can all get on with our lives.”
“When you put it that way…” Dom leaves it hanging and smiles. Evan is very exact in his thoughts. It shows in the design, but Dael has raw talent when it comes to actual implementation. In another time, they’d be famous.
“Dom?”
He whirls around. “Sai, I said I’d help when you were ready.”
She crosses her arms, scowls at him, and shrugs. “I got a scratch.”
“A poisonous, up-your-whole-side scratch,” Dom corrects her, biting down on irritation.
She levels a glare at him and then looks at Mele, wonder in her eyes. “What did you do—she’s so sparkly!”
“Sparkly?” Kayde leads a group of dominos and Ebony-stocked pallets into the bay.
Sai scowls at her friend. “Shiny, then.”
Kayde shrugs at her and Sai laughs. “I really need to get back out there. Training and recuperating in here while we could be out there…doesn’t sit well with me.” She winks at Dom as she stows her bag in the back. “I’m not sure what you’ve done, but Mele feels happy. Blissful, almost. We’ll have a happy ship this trip.”
“Yet another thing about you.” He watches her more intently now after the conversations with the other dominos. They were right.
“Mmm?” She cranes her neck slightly. “What was that?”
He smiles down, the expression soft. “You even understand Mele.”
Sai’s face lights up with another smile. The bags that were under her eyes two days ago are gone, and her skin glows fresh and healthy.
“The adrium connections still working solidly after all the climbing then?”
She nods. “Yeah, they’re not pulling at me as much. Jeffries had me go through rigorous mental exercises to trigger the adrium into morphing quicker for me.”
“That’ll definitely help our next few stops then.” He winks at her. “Unless you’re not up to it yet?”
“Of course I am! A thousand times. Two days of downtime and I’m raring to go.” She pauses for a minute, and a flush passes over her face. The blush is so fast he would have missed it if he’d blinked, but she stands up on her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. “Thank you, Dom.”
His hand touches the place she kissed involuntarily, the strange sensation of her flesh against his own skin feeling welcome and needed. “For what?”
“For being there and being you.” Her eyes sparkle briefly with a real happiness that suffuses Dom’s system.
He laughs. “Being me is not something I can avoid, and being here is not something I want to avoid.”
“Good.” She secures the bag and goes to help them position the canisters in the hold. Or maybe to torment Kayde—Dom can never be sure.
“She likes you.” Mason has an odd habit of popping up where Dom least expects him and often least wants him to be.
If Dom could blush, he’d probably do so about now, but as he can’t, he’s stuck with responding. “Of course she likes me. I crushed her legs and made it so she had to get adrium grafts. I’m pretty sure she secretly loves me.”
“Come on, Dom.” Mason grins, but the effect is oddly skeletal with his sunken cheeks. “With layers of sarcasm that thick, you’re not fooling anyone.”
“Only trying to fool myself. It’s no one else’s business.” Dom grins at Mason’s stunned face. Admission is probably not what he was expecting, but Dom’s getting too irritated with the constant innuendo to bother being subtle.
Unexpectedly, Mason claps him on the back. “Fair enough. There are sometimes I forget you’re so much of your own person, and I remember the you I despised as my younger brother’s playmate and how you drew attention to him. Do you remember the looks you got? Do you remember the way everyone reacted to you?”
Dom feels his temper rise, feels the parasite rising to the call—testing, needing and trying to break free, all to be dashed on the rocks with Mason’s next words.
“You show them. Show them you were always far more worthy than they were. We’re going to show them we’re all much more than a tool or a pawn.” Mason smiles at Dom before the expression breaks and he hacks for several seconds. “I’m glad Bastian has you, and Sai is good for both of you—you’ve mellowed. If we all make it through to the other side of this, I’ll teach you to drink beer.”
“Exiled and proud?” Dom holds out his hand in the timeless gesture.
“Exiled and proud,” Mason echoes, shaking his hand and laughing.
Aishke blinks at them, suddenly standing close. “I need to steal Mason away from you, Dom. He has training he’s been shirking for two days. If he doesn’t keep it up, he’s going to kill our entire group next time we’re sent out.” There’s a smile in her eyes despite her words, and Mason takes his leave.
Before she leaves, Ash lays a hand on Dom’s arm. “You take care of her. She might need you, but I need her. Don’t let her get hurt again, Dom.”
“I don’t plan to.”
Ash looks into his eyes for a few moments before finally nodding and leaving. She’s gone as fast as she arr
ived, leaving Dom to wonder if he’s been missing something all along.
The silence of Mele’s engines is a beautiful sound. Its slight hum is only audible if you focus on it.
“She’s purring like a kitten.” Sai runs her hands over the new navigation panels. Thousands of little lights and tiny switches, most of which are Mele operating herself. She really only needs to be guided.
Dom watches as her fingers caress the dashboard with care. “I like that analogy.”
“Me too.”
They lapse into silence until Sai takes a deep breath and speaks. “They’re making you check on Bastian even though he told us not to?”
Dom keeps his gaze straight ahead. “Yes.”
“With the tightened security, we can’t even get in to Central to place the Ebony.” There’s concern in her voice and something else. Maybe irritation. “How do you plan to get to Bastian?”
“With the new equipment, Mele is practically undetectable. You’ll be perfectly safe in here.” He hopes to ease the tension rising in the small cockpit.
Sai clucks her tongue, irritation shining through in abundance now. “Safe isn’t exactly what was bothering me.”
Dom risks a side glance at her. “Oh?”
“He told me to tell you not to come. He specifically told me to tell you that. I don’t think he was using reverse psychology.”
“Sai, I have to do this.” He tries to keep his voice calm.
She scowls at him. “No, you don’t. Everyone trusts me to train us, to lead us, but no one trusts my judgment with this? It’s him. I know it’s him.” She twists in her seat, and he gets the full weight of her gaze.
Dom chooses not to speak, probably not his wisest decision ever.
She leans back in her chair, eyes never leaving his. Her voice is soft, with a hint of resentment when she speaks again. “He’s been in my head enough for me to know him.”
It’s hard to look her in the eyes and lie, so he doesn’t. “I know he has, and I know you think you know, but I have to be sure.” Even if he’s starting to second guess that decision.
“Fine.” She leans down to pick up her reader and throws herself back into her seat. “Go then. I don’t care. If you get caught, make sure Mele knows I can drive her to escape.”
It’s the last thing she says to him before he leaves. For the entire drive and as he’s getting ready to head out. Her face, softly illuminated by the damn reader in her hands, is closed to him for the first time in so long he can’t remember.
Even as he slinks out from his transport, he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t be going. But there’s something inside that won’t let up, and it has nothing to do with Mathur and Mason’s requests. Dom frowns as he works his way through the city and into the central filtration area. Security is about as tight as it was, which is surprising. Or else they’re fairly certain that since they caught Bastian, they can catch anyone. A small smile plays on Dom’s lips.
If he remembers correctly, Sai mentioned something like that. The whole situation irritates him beyond belief. She’s right, of course. They should trust her by now. He should trust her by now.
Part of him can completely understand where her indignation is coming from, but the other part has to see for himself. After all, he’s known Bastian for longer than he’s known anyone. They were the closest thing they each had to a friend. If he didn’t go and check on him personally…
Still, though, creeping through the underbelly of the facility and making his way to the top is difficult. If the information Sai has been fed is anything to go by, there’s no way he can creep through that passageway. It’s up through the bowels and into the main halls he has to go.
The parasite pushes at him, nudges him, encourages recklessness. It’s like a constantly hungry bear with a gaping maw. He can’t give in to it because not only will people die, but he might never be able to reel himself back in.
The labs underneath Central are bustling, but the people walk through them with their heads down, focused on their readers. Several of them have eyes that flicker through blue and green, only vaguely seeing past the files they’re sorting through their ocular implants. No one notices him. In fact, the more difficult element of this equation is to squeeze past them as they walk two and three abreast down the halls.
For one second he thinks he’s caught when someone with a nametag of Harrison bumps into him and stops to whirl around with his mouth open in indignation. Dom crouches and moves slowly away. The man blinks, spins once more, shrugs, and goes on his way. It’s only a few moments, but they’re enough to make Dom more cautious.
The real test is the full patrol stationed directly outside Bastian’s quarters. All four soldiers and their Hound. And the Hound is the one that poses the problem. Or it should. Dom frowns as he walks close enough to touch it, blending perfectly. It smells like rotten meat, the skin hanging loosely like stretched and worn leather, like it was embalmed. It stretches over the cheekbones so taut that it cracks in places, allowing a sliver of white bone to peek through with the occasional droplet of red-brown ooze. The repugnant smell is only amplified when it breathes out, and Dom knows that if he had a gag reflex, it would long have been triggered.
But instead of sensing him, instead of alerting the patrol surrounding it, the Hound just stares through him. Not a muscle twitch in its face betrays the fact that it may have noticed him.
The huge doors swing inward, and Bastian walks out, accompanied a few meters behind by one huge lieutenant. Dom watches the patrol fall into line behind Bastian and thanks his good fortune before slipping into the office quarters undetected.
The only difference in Bastian’s office is the addition of three new camera signals. Bastian wasn’t kidding when he said he was being watched. Relief floods Dom as he realizes using the passageway caused a lot of problems when the camera caught the invisible door in the wall suddenly opening.
He finishes his sweep of the living area, noting three vantage points where the cameras don’t quite reach perfectly. Dom wracks his brains for some of the games they used to play as children. The ones where they’d leave messages for each other than no one else would ever be able to understand.
He frowns and notices a jacket hanging precariously on a hook at the front of the living area. Assisting its fall from the hook, he manages to place the right and left arms up and to the left, in a mimicry of an age-old song called “Thriller’s Dance.” It’d been his way of telling Bastian he was there if he needed him. Something lurking in the dark.
To the cameras, nothing would be amiss. Dom sits back and waits, running through the myriad of Ebony canisters they still need to deliver and the delivery methods in his head. Four to five days left, depending… Although the longer he waits, the more obvious it is that Sai was completely right. A fact he will have to apologize for as soon as he sees her again.
When the office doors open, Dom can hear quiet steps sinking into the carpet as Bastian nears his living quarters and hesitates briefly before stopping and turning to the lieutenant following him.
“I feel unwell. I will try a bath and may need the infirmary if my stomach doesn’t ease up.”
“Yes.” The sound is grating, like fingernails on a chalkboard—really long fingernails at that.
“Thanks.” Bastian walks into his living area and glances around, tsking with exasperation at the coat on the ground. He makes a show of picking it up and dusting it off before throwing it over the back of his chair and flopping into said chair in a beautifully artistic manner facing one of the three camera-blind spots.
Dom doesn’t say anything. Hee just appears and grins. Bastian buries his head in his hands, and from the rise and fall of his shoulders, Dom is pretty sure he’s laughing. “Damn it, I feel ill,” he mumbles into his hands and stands up, half-staggering to the bathroom.
It’s more of a drunken stagger than a sick one, but it does the job for anyone watching. Dom follows his friend into the bathroom, feet absorbing the sound, and waits
while the man turns the precious water on and makes obvious noises of being sick.
“Dom,” he whispers in between retching. “That tap shuts off in eight minutes. Make it fast. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“They wanted me to check if you were okay. We wanted to make sure the visits weren’t a trap.” The words sound hollow when he says them out loud.
“Did she not tell you or did you all just not listen?” Bastian’s whisper is angry, so much that he stops and checks his volume.
“We listened. I just…wanted to see for myself.”
Bastian closes his eyes for a second before opening them. The remnant of a welt remains on his face, marring the perfection that preceded it. “I contact Sai because she has the same wavelength, and I’ve been in her head numerous times to teach her. Her walls are far too tight for anyone not uniquely linked to her to penetrate them. I am fine here. I will do what I can when I can and find out what I can, but we can’t risk anyone coming to see me or visit me.” He glares pointedly at Dom until Dom looks away. “You trying to see me could end with me dead. They think I was trying to save the people by stopping the Damascus before they could malfunction. I let them believe that. I’ve fostered it. I’m under lock and key. I’m chipped for crying out loud.”
Bastian sighs and pushes his hair out of his eyes. “You don’t get to play spy anymore, Dom. This is serious. This is dangerous for all of us, and I can’t get caught again. When the time comes, get Sai to reach out to me. I’ll be at full strength and can help from within. If there’s anything I can do, I’m doing it now. But don’t come back until you’re ready to storm the gates and free every person in this damned country.”
Dom looks at the worry lines around his eyes, the few strands of grey marring that perfect hair—and he nods. “The other dominos are functional now. It shouldn’t be much longer, Bastian. Hold on here.”
“I don’t have much choice. You tell my brother not to forget to take care of himself. And if Sai says she has a message from me, then she has a message from me. Now go. I have crap to do here.”