Obunda cocked an eyebrow and then scrunched his features up in disgust. “What a waste,” he sighed as he tapped a few keys on the data link, causing a quartet of autocannons to pop out of concealment, “I guess this is goodbye.”
“Shouldn’t you check that Mark one last time?” Jericho said as he ran a silent countdown in his head. “I think you might have missed something.”
“Truly?” Obunda replied with open amusement as he withdrew the data slate.
Jericho nodded as the countdown reached five seconds remaining, “Check the name at the top of the notarial seals.”
Obunda’s eyes narrowed as he reconnected the devices briefly, and those same eyes went wide just before every light in New Lincoln went dark in unison.
Jericho charged across the rooftop toward Obunda, who had drawn a high-end, pocket-sized plasma pistol from concealment and snapped the trigger down with a look of calm, measured control as he did so.
But the weapon never fired, and Jericho slammed his shoulder into the smaller, thinner man’s chest as a look of horror came over Obunda’s features. Jericho’s impact broke several of the other man’s ribs—much to Jericho’s relief, since he had calculated a non-zero chance that Obunda would be augmented like Agent Stiglitz had been—and he drove the smaller man into one of the large, concrete-and-iron vent vestibules.
Several more bones crunched when Obunda’s slender back met the concrete, and Jericho wasted no time in hooking his left arm—an arm which still had no thumb on its hand—around the other man’s neck before unloading savage uppercut, after savage uppercut into the man’s face with his good arm. Obunda’s glasses were smashed into pieces after the third blow, but Jericho continued until the other man’s face was a ruined mess and he could no longer stand.
Jericho let Obunda’s slender body fall to the concrete rooftop and promptly smashed the man’s small, delicate, perpetually-sweaty hands under the metal-shod soles of his boots until they, too, had become a ruination of flesh, bone and blood.
Obunda attempted to scream, but all that came out was a wet gurgle as Jericho knelt beside him and leaned down close enough that the other man could hear him say, “You young people and your fucking gadgets. One little EMP and what good are they—or you?”
One by one, the lights of New Lincoln began to turn back on as Jericho picked up the pocket-sized plasma pistol and tucked it into his pocket.
Jericho had precisely defined the EMP so that it would completely overload everything in a one block radius more or less permanently. It was a large risk to take since it would affect so many bystanders, but at this stage in the operation the stakes had risen too high to back down over a few people losing power for the ensuing weeks.
“Jericho,” Obunda gurgled in a gurgly, barely recognizable voice, “you can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Jericho asked grimly.
“You…can’t win,” Obunda said through gasping breaths. “You don’t…know what…you’re up against.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jericho retorted evenly. “Unlike you, I know exactly who I’m supposed to be fighting—and I won’t be negotiated off my course. Now where is it?”
“Jeric-,” Obunda coughed violently, and a pair of teeth fell out of his mouth as he did. “You can’t do it…the consequences…”
Jericho shook his head piteously as the other man failed to complete his thought before his head lolled to the side and he appeared to lose consciousness.
He slapped Obunda’s face hard enough to wake him back up, and when the former ‘top’ Adjuster in the Virgin system looked at him with his lone remaining functional eye, Jericho lowered his voice and repeated, “Where is it?”
Obunda tried to spit bloody sputum in Jericho’s eye, but only succeeded in bringing about another coughing fit. So Jericho started to rummage through the man’s clothing in search of what he had come for. His fingers closed around it—along with the Mark he had slid over to Obunda at the outset of their ‘meeting’—and he withdrew it from the other man’s front pocket.
“At least you followed that rule,” Jericho said with a bitter sigh.
“Kill me,” Obunda said before beginning to sob, “kill me, you…bastard.”
“I will,” Jericho promised before smirking, “but like you, I hate to waste a valuable resource…and Holland likes his meals warm.”
“No,” Obunda said, fear evident in his lone, remaining eye, “no…please, I’ll give…you anything!”
Jericho shook his head in genuine sympathy for the other man’s last-minute regrets, and he cradled Obunda’s head in his hands. “You’ve got nothing I need,” he said as he expertly snapped the man’s neck.
He had no intention of feeding Obunda to Holland—in fact, he believed that Holland’s species was incapable of digesting human tissue—but Jericho had wanted the man to suffer as much as humanly possible before the end.
Given Obunda’s long-stated disdain for aliens, the idea of being fed to one seemed like the cruelest thing he could die contemplating.
“All systems are online, Jericho,” Eve reported in an unusually monotonous voice as he entered the Tyson’s cockpit.
Jericho considered her condition briefly and said, “I think I’m going to deactivate you, Eve.”
“I believe that would be wise, Jericho,” she admitted, and that only made Jericho more certain he had made the correct choice. “However, I regret to inform you that I have indeed confirmed Benton is dead.”
Jericho swore under his breath as he cupped his hands over his face. Benton had been the most capable hacker in the enter Sector—better even than Obunda, if Benton was to believed, and Jericho had never been given cause to disbelieve the big man’s word—and there was simply no way Jericho could replace him.
“Well…that’s that,” Jericho said as he considered the Hadden Enterprises contractors who had been recommended to him by Director Hadden prior to undertaking this first leg of what Hadden had referred to as ‘The Chimera Adjustment.’ Jericho had no idea what that meant, but Hadden had engineered most, if not all, of the major events which had already taken place during the last few months. “I suppose we should look into deactivating you permanently then, Eve,” Jericho said regretfully. “The truth is that you’ve proven to be more capable than I ever imagined…you’ve actually performed as well as any operator I’ve had except Benton. It’s been bumpy at times, but I’m glad to have worked with you.”
“The experience has been mutually turbulent, as well as satisfactory,” Eve replied neutrally, “however, while this unit must be deactivated permanently in accordance with Benton’s protocols, there is no reason you cannot continue to benefit from my program’s capabilities.”
Jericho sighed. “I wish it was that simple,” he said as he powered up the Tyson’s engines and ran through the pre-flight sequences, “without Benton, I wouldn’t trust that we could keep you online in any meaningful fashion.”
“The protocols which Benton developed were not solely his doing,” Eve replied as her voice became almost inflectionless, “and neither were the acts he performed as your operator.”
Jericho cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Are you saying that you and Benton were…partners?”
Eve actually giggled, her previous inflections returning for a short while as a stream of coordinates flooded a nearby screen. “Benton was good,” she said as the hint of inflection left her voice, “but no human is that good.”
Jericho’s eyes widened as he read the coordinates and a series of diagrams soon joined the coordinates, along with a series of incredibly complex passcodes and instructions. It took him a few moments to realize what he was reading, but when he did everything which Benton and Eve had said about her made perfect sense. He couldn’t help a grin from spreading across his lips as she continued.
“You may retrieve my primary hardware at the indicated location and, when you are one hour from arrival, you may activate the Eve portion which is still housed within Masozi�
�s suit—I have deactivated her in order to preserve the integrity of her subroutines,” she said, and her voice quickly devolved until it was a rudimentary, digital, barely-human-sounding voice. “Once she has undergone Benton’s prescribed maintenance procedures, she will become a useful member of your g–g-g-g-g-group evenifsheislessthan…”
“Eve?” Jericho pressed after several seconds, and when she made no reply, he reached down to her computer core and quickly deactivated it. He then removed the primary, secondary, and tertiary power supplies in short order. After he was done, he realized with cold certainty that he had just permanently euthanized her.
After several moments of wondering what to say—since no one else would likely mourn her passing, such as it was, since if he succeeded in reclaiming her hardware most people wouldn’t even know this part of her had ‘died’—he whispered, “You’ve earned your place on the wall…and I’ll personally see that you make it there.”
Epilogue: A Real Choice
“You’re awake,” Masozi heard Jericho say, and she quickly turned her head toward him. He looked terrible; his cheeks were gaunt and his skin had taken on an ashen appearance. He also smelled faintly of decomposing flesh—or, now that she thought about it, it seemed that she was the one emitting that particular odor.
She tried to sit up but found she was unable to do so because her legs were stuck in place. “What happened?” she asked as she looked around the sterile, white sickbay.
“You succeeded,” Jericho replied as he idly spun the Mark of Adjustment in his hands. He then leaned across the bed and handed it to her, “You should have this…I’m afraid it’s lost any value other than as a memento, at least for the time being.”
“I don’t want it,” she said, fixing his blue-grey eyes with a hot, piercing look, “you deceived me, Jericho. I’m done with you—with all of you,” she added, waving her left arm and finding it slow to respond. She looked down at it and saw with horror that it had atrophied to half its original size. “How long have I been out?”
“A little under a week,” Jericho said. “Most of your gross injuries were repairable, but your nervous system took a little while longer than the doctors had initially thought to come back around.”
Masozi’s memories of staggering through the coliseum full of bodies came back to her in a rush, and she couldn’t stop her lip from quivering as tears filled her eyes. “Those people,” she began as her hand went to her mouth.
Jericho nodded gravely and the two sat in mutual silence for at least ten minutes as Masozi tried to come to grips with what had happened. Then she noticed that her legs were covered with a blanket, and her heart sank as she steadied her nerves and gave her left leg a long, hard look.
She met Jericho’s gaze briefly as he watched her reach down to tentatively pull back the sheet. Her hand recoiled for a moment and he continued to watch her. There was sympathy in his eyes but it was accompanied by something else…something like fascination, and it sent a chill down her spine.
“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice rising to a near scream. She recomposed herself and continued, “You’re not a product tester, so spare me the line.”
“I won’t lie to you ever again,” Jericho said solemnly, and despite herself she was taken aback by his apparent sincerity. “I did what I had to because I saw no other way to accomplish the mission,” he explained, “and I used every bit of my expertise and natural ability to do that. Believe me,” he said as his jaw clenched tightly, “I didn’t want you to be the one that killed Keno…’she’ was supposed to be mine.”
“On top of everything else, you’re a bigot,” she sneered. “For all her faults—faults which I killed her for, using my own hands,” Masozi added emphatically, “Governor Keno was as much a woman as I am regardless of her surgical history.”
“Considering I voted for ‘her’ back when ‘she’ was a ‘he’,” he said pointedly, “I think I’m uniquely qualified to comment on that particular matter. But you’re right,” he surprisingly conceded, “I’ve held certain prejudices against Governor Keno for twenty years…ever since her ‘reforms’ saw my family go bankrupt.” A tear actually formed in his eyes as he continued in a tremulous voice, “And when we couldn’t afford the medicine my little sister needed to keep breathing in Philippa’s atmosphere, I had to watch her die the slowest, most agonizing death imaginable as we fought tooth and nail to get her what she needed. But Governor Keno and ‘her’ clan had closed off access to free goods by imposing sky-high tariffs on the importation of specialty goods, which my sister’s life-saving medicine apparently was. So, yes,” he said as he jutted his jaw forward defiantly, “I’m holding a grudge with ‘her’ that I’m afraid I’ll never have a chance to settle.”
They sat in silence for several minutes until Jericho shook his head and sighed. “I brought you into this for two reasons,” he said as he leaned forward and wiped his cheeks dry. “The first was to save your life, since I saw no reason why you should be punished simply for doing your job,” he said as he once again pinned her to the bed with his steely eyes, “but the second was because I thought you could be of help to us and, perhaps more importantly, I thought you might want to do it.”
“Who are you?” Masozi asked again, this time in a calmer, more reasonable tone. She hadn’t considered that Jericho’s personal life had been at the heart of his crusade against Governor Keno, but she had to admit that it was a perfectly understandable source of anger—which had been directed toward a perfectly understandable target.
“My name is Jericho Winchester Bronson,” he replied, producing a data slate and hand it to her. “That’s my entire file from Hadden Enterprises—a file I’ve never read,” he added pointedly, “so I’d appreciate if you kept the contents to yourself. What I can tell you is that I was H.E. One’s foremost xenopsychology expert. Director Hadden enlisted me, and the surviving members of my family, into Hadden Enterprises as soon as he was able to break through the Keno blockade of Philippa thirty years ago to evacuate people just like us.”
Masozi nodded as she began to understand the full scope of evens in which she had become entangled. “He was building an army of…” she wanted to say ‘zealots’ or ‘extremists,’ but she held her tongue as she searched for a more polite term.
“You can say it,” he said calmly, “he was building an army of rebels. He never made any attempt to hide his real purpose in recruiting us…but he also didn’t reveal the full truth to more than just a few of us.”
“What ‘full truth’?” she spat defiantly, feeling her choler rise at the notion that they were engaged in some sort of holy cause. “What kind of truth could possibly be worth throwing this System—and maybe the entire Sector—into a civil war?”
Jericho winced as he placed his hands over his face. “I told you I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said, “but I also want you to make your decision without undue bias. You still have a real chance to disappear and leave all this behind, Masozi,” he said, gesturing to the sickbay, and Masozi felt her hairs stand up at hearing him say her given name. He had always referred to her as ‘Investigator,’ and she briefly wondered if he had used her actual name in an attempt to somehow condition her response. “And I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to help you do that if that’s what you want…but I think it would be best if you didn’t know the answer to the question you just asked until you’ve answered the one I’m about to put to you,” he said before standing and making his way to the bedside. He shook his head seriously, “I’m through manipulating you. You deserve better than that—and I deserve whatever you want to throw my way as punishment for having done it.”
Masozi held his gaze and watched silently as he carefully reached down to pull back the blanket which had covered her legs. He hadn’t pulled the thin, sheet-like cover down very far before she saw that her entire left leg was missing.
Her eyes snapped wildly over to her right leg as Jericho continued to pull the sheet back, until he had revealed
that her right leg looked more or less like normal. It wasn’t atrophied as severely as her left arm was, and it took her several minutes before she even realized she had begun to hyperventilate as her vision narrowed.
Jericho stood there silently, seeming to observe her as she got her nerves under control. When she had done so he slowly began to replace the sheet but she grabbed it with her good, right hand. “No,” she said adamantly, “I don’t need to hide from it.” The next thing that came to her mind passed her lips almost unbidden, “Where’s Eve?”
Jericho cocked his head and said, “That’s…complicated. But I’ve downloaded her from your suit and she’s fine for now. The ordeal was difficult for her, but with any luck she’ll pull through.”
Masozi closed her eyes and breathed a short sigh, “She saved my life. I’d like to thank her if it’s possible.”
Jericho nodded, and she couldn’t tell if it was approval or something else entirely that she saw in his visage as he returned to his seat and regarded her silently for several moments. “I’ll try to make that happen,” he said. He then locked eyes with her and asked, “Do you want to continue with this, Masozi? Because I can only promise that the stakes will get higher from here on out…and so, too, will the risks. You’ve proven more capable than even I thought,” he said with a short, derisive snort, “I won’t make the mistake of underestimating you again—you have my word on that.”
It took her several minutes before she could formulate a reply. “First you tell me what I want to know, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Jericho winced slightly. “I wish you’d recons—“
“Now, Jericho,” she snapped, “or you already have my answer.”
He nodded slowly. “As you wish,” he relented as he leaned forward and drew a deep breath. “Director Hadden believed, as I believe, that there was a conspiracy among this Sector’s elite…one which even its most powerful participants don’t fully understand. The minerals of Pacifica’s Ring,” he said, gesturing to the Mark he had laid on the bed beside Masozi, “the attack on H.E. One, and even the Adjustments I made in New Lincoln over a month ago are all connected to it. But they barely scratch the surface of this thing,” he said, his eyes turning hard as he spoke. “And just when we got close enough to peel back the curtain, the largest battle fleet in the System’s history attacked Hadden’s base of operations and set his efforts back far enough that we, the survivors, will be regrouping for months—or maybe even years.”
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