Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Tycho figured it out,” said Thomas, in the tone he would have used to point out that even the cat knew how to open the door. “I mean, not all of it. But he figured out that one of the routing IDs was getting a lot more traffic. If he could do it, then a team of Augmen could certainly do it.”

  “Yeah,” I added. “If I could do it…”

  I closed my eyes, trying to ignore how uncomfortable I was and how many parts of my body hurt all at once. These guys could go from impressed to condescending in about ten seconds. Sometimes it felt like I was their pet.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” Andrea insisted. “They figured it out, and the safest bet from now on is to assume that they know as much as we do.”

  “Whoever that android was in Misha Orlow’s apartment, do we still think he went back to Artorias?” I asked.

  Andrea nodded. “I’m guessing yeah. It’s a good place to hide, and whatever he was doing there in Sif, I think we can assume he was hiding in Artorias before that. But if we’re going on the assumption that they know what we know, then we’d better put together our little trip to Artorias soon. The cyborgs will be on the way, and if they get to the android before we do, then we’ll never find out what the android knows.”

  “They could have been there already,” Raven pointed out.

  That was obviously true, and it put a damper on the conversation for a while. We rode in silence, trying not to let the cramping knees and inability to move drive us into an irrational rage.

  Or at least I did. The thing is, I would have been close to an irrational rage no matter what. When I shocked that wolf cyborg and jabbed my knife into its neck, I wasn’t even thinking about killing a cyborg. I was just thinking about killing, driven by my fury about what they’d done to Sophie. It wasn’t even the cyborgs I wanted revenge against the most. It was the whole damn world.

  I knew it was crazy, but crazy is how I was feeling right then. I couldn’t be otherwise, all I could do was keep moving forward. I decided to rest, to give my brain a chance to process. But then Veraldi spoke.

  “Next question for the debriefing. Why’d they go so far?”

  “That wasn’t really so bad,” said Bray. Everyone ignored him, because what we had just experienced was more than bad enough.

  “They always go hard.” I opened my eyes again, seeing that there was no way out of the conversation yet. “When they came after me, they ran me off the road and then executed every witness they could find. They chased me across half the city chucking grenades at me, then they busted up a maglev train car. This is just how they do things.”

  “That’s somewhat valid,” said Thomas Young. “From a psychological perspective, I’m sure we can all appreciate your need to see the attack on you as equally significant to any other event within the same rough tough frame. Still, this was different.”

  Raven made the same point in far fewer words. “Those cyborgs were weird.”

  “I have to agree,” said Andrea. “They sent some bleeding-edge stuff against us. Some of it didn’t even work all that well, but it was still rough going.”

  “They seem to react strangely when you actually hit them,” Veraldi mused. “Like it makes them curious or something.”

  “I noticed that too.” I moved my head a little, which caused Raven to wince for some reason.

  Lucien Klein was never scared of Bray for long, or at least not as scared as he should have been. “I think it’s safe to say that those were experimental models.” Bray gave him a look, but he shrugged expressively. “Hey, what am I supposed to do? This is practically my area of expertise you guys are talking about here. The question you ought to be asking yourselves is why they would send experimental cyborgs after you.”

  “The man has a point.” Andrea was looking at Klein. “So, what’s your guess?”

  “Oh, so I’m allowed to talk now? He won’t rip my arms off? Okay, then. I don’t mind giving you the benefit of my vast experience. They decided to kill you for one simple reason: to stop any immediate action on the information you’ve uncovered. They decided to use experimental cyborgs for another reason: to find out how well they would perform in combat against elite super-spies.”

  That was a chilling thought. With the prospect of war between the Sol Federation and the North Atlantic States growing closer daily, the idea of someone actively trying to get the technological jump on the Federation was not an encouraging one.

  “Have I mentioned that you know too much?” asked Bray.

  Klein sighed the sigh of the long suffering.

  “Makes sense to me.” Andrea shrugged. “Okay, conclusion of debriefing. The enemy knows as much as we do and has come to the same conclusions. His priority is to keep us from acting on them and finding out the truth about Ares Terrestrial and its involvement. The only one who can tell us that truth is probably the android, who is likely hiding in the ruins of Artorias. We have to get there before they do, unless they’ve already gotten there, in which case we’re fucked.”

  “Sounds about right, chief.” Under the circumstances, Bray’s cheerful reply fell a little flat. I closed my eyes again and dozed fitfully and uncomfortably for the rest of the long ride to our backup safehouse.

  19

  The bug-out location turned out to be a high-rise apartment suite in a major city. I didn’t recognize the skyline, and the only thing I really knew about it was that it was within several hours drive from the Grotto, which was within several hours drive of my own home. I walked in the door, went over to the window, and looked out at the city lights. It was a strange experience, to see all the glittering windows and gleaming signs, the life of a big city, and not know where I was. I wondered if that was what it meant to be a spy. To be anonymous everywhere, staring out from nameless apartments at nameless streets.

  Andrea came up and stood beside me. “You know, just because you’re hanging out with a bunch of so-called super-spies doesn’t mean you actually have to stare out windows. You don’t have to get a long coat that flaps dramatically in the wind either.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. In fact, it’s discouraged. Jones likes to dress like that sometimes just to thumb his nose at the boss, and the boss tolerates it because Jones is good at what he does. But he doesn’t like it, and if it ever caused a problem Jones would really have to pay for it.”

  “The boss? You mean the Operator?”

  “That’s just a nickname really. He’s the head of Section 9, but of course that doesn’t give him any official status. We’re not allowed to know his name, so we call him the Operator just to call him something.”

  “It’s what he told me to call him when I went to see him.”

  “Really?” She smiled. “The old vulture does have a sense of humor. So he knows we call him that. I guess he just decided he liked it. How are you doing, Tycho?”

  Her segue confused me. I guess I knew she was checking on me, but I didn’t expect her to jump right into it. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re grieving, but you’ve decided to really go wild on the anger stage. That’s okay as far as it goes, but you’re going to need some help at some point.”

  “No. I’m fine. I just need to figure out… I don’t know what I need to figure out.”

  “No, I get it. You need a direction, now that your old life has been taken away from you. You feel like you’re drifting, and the only thing giving you any focus at all is the idea of revenge. Right?”

  I thought about it. On the street far below, a StateSec vehicle went rushing past. For just a moment, I thought they were there to arrest me. They kept on going, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess so. All I know is that I can’t go back. I’m wanted for murder, Andrea. I killed an Arbiter. The life I had is over. Forever.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. We don’t want you to feel like you have no options; that’s not a good basis for any relationship. Section 9 has resources, far more than you probably realize. We’ll talk about it when this i
s over, but we can probably do something for you.”

  It sounded like nonsense, or at least hyperbole. What could Section 9 possibly do for me? Sure, they’d covered up the truth about what happened on Venus. But the Arbiter Force wouldn’t just forget. They’d hunt me all over the solar system if they had to. I was a rogue Arbiter, and worse than that, I’d killed one of my own. For as long as I lived, Arbiters would go to sleep at night and dream of bringing me in. Even my former classmates at the Academy.

  I had no future at all, not unless I disappeared. I’d be staring out of windows at strange cities for the rest of my life, however short or long that turned out to be.

  “Don’t we need to get going?” I asked.

  “You’re not wrong, but we need to get ready first. You need new gear, and a fresh set of clothes at that. A shower, probably.”

  “Are you going to dress me all in black again?”

  She grinned. “We have a wider selection here; I think we can find you an outfit you’ll like. Come with me and you can pick one out.”

  I followed Andrea, and she took me into one of the bedrooms. Sure enough, there was a walk-in closet with a wide range of clothing in a variety of sizes. I picked out clothes for Artorias—sturdy jeans, a flannel shirt, a waterproof jacket, and heavy boots. There was a full bathroom in the room, so I took a shower and changed into the new outfit.

  When I came back to the living room, Raven looked me up and down. “Not bad. Are you going hunting or something?”

  “He might as well be.” Bray had changed as well, although he was simply wearing a cleaner version of the same outfit he had on before. “We’re going android hunting.”

  Thomas wandered over in my direction, digging a handful of pills out of a plastic bottle. “Here, take these. They’ll counteract the effects of the exclusion zone radiation as long as you don’t stay too long.”

  I took the pills and washed them down with a glass of water from the kitchen. Bray took a dose as well, and so did Andrea. Vincenzo, Thomas, and Raven did not.

  “Are you three staying here,” I asked?

  Lucien called out from another bedroom. “They’re my babysitters. We’re going to sit around and tell campfire stories.”

  “Shut it!” called Bray. Then he turned to Thomas. “You probably wouldn’t be willing to hurt him for me while I’m gone, would you?”

  “I have no intention of doing anything other than sitting and talking with the man.”

  Bray grinned. “Thanks, buddy.”

  Thomas looked confused, not catching the implication that talking with him would be a form of torture.

  Raven shook her head. “Jonathan, you’re such a jerk sometimes.” She called out to Lucien. “We’ll keep you safe, Mr. Klein!”

  Klein was hardly grateful for her support. “You people can barely keep yourselves safe!”

  Vincenzo caught my eye. “How did that white phosphorus shotgun work out for you?”

  “Not so well. I tried to use it on that magnet man, but it bounced off one of the magnets and, well, that’s what burned the house down.”

  “Shit. Accounting for that little mishap was always going to be a problem. The Operator would rather have sold the place, but the fact that it wasn’t even burned down by one of us… No, I can spin this. I’ll say you were protecting a high-value witness.”

  “I was protecting Thomas.”

  Thomas scoffed. “Excuse me? I seem to remember throwing a grenade at that cyborg because you couldn’t get the job done. Then I seem to remember you trying to pull its arm off like a child with a captive fly and getting stuck to it in the process.”

  “I don’t remember any of that,” I lied.

  “That’s because it knocked you out. In fact, you’re lucky it didn’t give you brain damage. Come to think of it, are you sure it didn’t give you brain damage?”

  “I don’t know, Thomas, you tell me. Do I seem less intelligent than I did before?”

  “Less intelligent?”

  “Come on, Tycho.” Veraldi took my arm. “We have an armory here too, and you’re going to need some decent weapons.”

  He led me into another room, where there was a smaller but nearly as impressive selection as what they’d had at the Grotto. He gestured at my options and said, “Take your pick. What are you looking for?”

  “I think the white phosphorus was a good idea, but it didn’t do me any good against the magnetic man. For that, I would have needed some kind of armor-piercing round. Something dense enough to punch through anything.”

  “Something dense… like depleted uranium?”

  He pulled a handgun from the wall. It was an ugly thing, too big to be held comfortably. But if it would kill a cyborg, then it was the weapon for me. “Yeah. That ought to do it.”

  “Here you go.” He handed me the gun, then opened a drawer and pulled out a case of ammunition. “I don’t have any extra magazines for that one, but I can give you plenty of rounds.”

  Andrea came in. “The depleted uranium? Good choice. You almost ready to go, Tycho?”

  “I’m ready now.”

  “You’re impatient is what you are. You need some food; we’re going to be driving for a long time.”

  Wherever we were, it was another several hours from Artorias. Everything was far away from everything else. I wondered if the cyborgs would be able to find us on the road. They had done it before. Once the first time they attacked me, and again when they hit the convoy carrying Lucien Klein.

  We went out to the kitchen, where Andrea had prepared some plates for us. It was nothing complicated, just slices of meat and cheese with some chunks of bread. I hadn’t been conscious of feeling hungry, but the second I saw those plates I started salivating. In about thirty seconds, everything on that plate was either in my stomach or in my mouth, prompting Raven to laugh at me.

  “Sorry, Tycho, I don’t mean to laugh. You could have eaten before, you know.”

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “He was too busy brooding.” Andrea finished her plate as well, then left it on the counter. “Sorry to stick you guys with the dishes, but we have to go.”

  Thomas was about to complain, but Raven waved us off. “It’s not a problem. Take care of yourselves. Especially you, Tycho. You have a way of getting in trouble.”

  Bray noticed we were done, but he wasn’t even halfway through his plate yet. “You two are something else. The way you eat, anyone would think you were the big ones!” He shoved a handful into his mouth, wiped his hands on his clothes, and headed for the door.

  As we were getting in the car, I asked Andrea where we were.

  She looked around, as if trying to get her bearings. “Ontario, maybe?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  She winked at me and shut the screen off so I couldn’t see outside. “We’re south of the exclusion zone. When we cross the line, I’ll turn the screen back on. It’s something to see, and I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

  “Why does everything have to be such a secret?”

  “I don’t know. Because we’re spies? Misdirection is a big part of what keeps us safe and makes it possible for us to do our work. You’re seeing a lot of things that no one ever sees, Tycho, and as far as I know you’re going back to the real world when all this is over. It’s better for everyone here, especially you, if there are a few crucial things you don’t know.”

  “Fair enough, but you know I’ve never really seen you spying. Blowing things up, yes. Shooting people, yes. Destroying whole buildings—”

  “That was you. No one told you to fire white phosphorus into the wall.” She grinned.

  “Okay. But still. You’re not really spies. You’re not even that discreet.”

  “You don’t see everything. You don’t even see most things. Join up with us, and you’ll get… well, not the whole picture. But a bigger piece of it than you’re getting now.”

  “How much bigger?” I asked.

  “How do I put this? Rig
ht now, you want to know, but you don’t even know what you don’t know. If you join the unit, you still won’t know. But you’ll know what it is you don’t know.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “So, I’ll still want to know?”

  “Oh no. You’ll wish you didn’t know anything.”

  I stopped smiling.

  20

  The light flooding into the car is what woke me up. It seemed like days since I had slept in a bed and waking up to what felt like sunrise was disorienting. For the first few seconds, I thought I was in my own home, a place I never expected to see again. Then I saw the screen and realized that the light wasn’t natural at all. It was only an image, illuminating the interior of the car.

  Bray pointed at the screen. “We’re coming up on the Exclusion Zone. Thought you’d want to see it.”

  I looked out the window—it wasn’t actually a window, but it was impossible not to think of it that way when it looked so real—and saw the sign up ahead of us.

  ARTORIAS EXCLUSION ZONE: Attention! Entry is forbidden beyond this point. Dangerous levels of radiation present. KEEP OUT.

  The sign was rusted, and someone had been using it for target practice. It was pitted with holes, through which I could see the ruins of an old ramshackle guard house.

  “Where’s the guard?”

  Andrea shrugged. “There must have been one at some point, but I doubt they’ve bothered for a long time. No one wants to get in here.”

  And yet someone was in there, at least if you thought of an android as “someone.” We drove slowly past the sign, mostly to avoid getting stuck in the mud. After a few hundred feet, the mud cleared up, as we drove under the shadows of the huge, dark trees.

  I’d been in forests before, but there was something different here. The trees were taller, and the woods seemed to shift and move. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then I realized that it was all the bugs. Butterflies and dragonflies, bees and ants, mosquitoes and black flies… to tell the truth, I probably couldn’t have named more than a few of the species.