They landed in a tangle on the floor. The older man was fighting just to breathe and had a leg bent in the wrong direction, but the younger was still in the fight. I was already moving in as he unholstered his weapon. I grabbed his forearm with one hand and pushed against his knuckles with the other, twisting his wrist inward.
It was a standard disarming technique but, like the throw, but I put too much behind it. His wrist made a sound like gravel underfoot and the skin split like nylon fabric. As blood streamed from the jagged wound, he screamed. I reflexively bladed my hand and struck him in the throat. As he gagged and clutched at his neck with one hand, I shifted my balance and slipped behind him. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arm under his chin.
Carefully and deliberately, I applied pressure until he went limp. I then rolled him off of me and turned my attention to the older man. He’d fallen unconscious, though I wasn’t sure if it was from trauma or shock. I rolled him onto his side and pulled his jaw open to ease his breathing. I didn’t have to search to find his dataspike. It was in plain view behind his right ear. I pulled it off and crushed it with my heel.
I looked up at the lock on Solovyov’s door. It was a proximity-based card reader, nothing too difficult for my skeleton key, but exposing the physical port to use it would be tedious. I turned back to the unconscious man in front of me and rifled through his pockets. Sure enough, I found a key card to the apartment. His dataspike was tucked into the collar of his shirt, a clever tactic that almost convinced me he didn’t have one. It was an ultrathin design from this year, too flat to crush, but it was long enough to snap in half with my fingers.
I considered taking his weapon as well, but the objective here was to talk to Solovyov. If things went bad I could easily adapt, but bringing a gun to the meeting would be a guaranteed escalation of violence. It suggested a malign intent, more so than what I’d done to his security. At the very least, these men were still alive.
I stood and waved the card in front of the lock. It played a short tone, and I heard the magnets disengage. I slid the key into my pocket, entered Solovyov’s home, and locked the door behind me.
I was in a kind of foyer, a large oval-shaped room with halls to the left and right. Arranged in a semicircle along the walls were a series of portraits, one of which I recognized as Solovyov himself. They all seemed to be actual paints on panel. Faint hints of relief accompanied some of the thicker strokes of color. Something like that wasn’t particularly rare among the wealthy—the Black Kuei syndicate used art as a form of untraceable currency—but who the paintings depicted seemed out of place.
They were each of one subject and included men and women of varying ethnicities. I didn’t recognize any of the people except Solovyov. On the far right was his portrait, looking like he did in most photos of the Russo-Sino Armistice decades ago, but on the far left was an image of a child. The only one of the series, it was an image of a young boy sitting in a street among brightly colored plasticrete-block buildings. There was a deep cut along his cheek, and dried blood stained his face and clothing. His dark brown eyes stared out of the canvas with a look that was either the beginnings of a scowl or wince.
The boy’s portrait was subtly menacing and was probably why I went right instead of left. The hall led to a guest room with a collection of historic artwork. Small jade Buddhist statues and wooden topeng masks were locked inside minimalist display cases tastefully arranged around the space almost like a gallery.
This room had a view, looking out over the neighborhood. I took a moment to glance outside, checking for any sign of StateSec. It wasn’t likely, but Lera the receptionist could have noticed that I hadn’t yet returned and alerted someone. I saw nothing but quiet streets and tree-lined skyways in the perpetual violet twilight.
I heard voices from around the far corner. I put a hand on my pocket and checked my posture, repeating my cover to myself. I crossed the room and rounded the corner into an open kitchen. There were three men in black suits gathered around the center island. The empty plates told me why I had encountered these men so far into the penthouse. One of the men was in the middle of a story.
“She said she’s married, but she’s always sticking those tits out when I walk in the building, and I’m thinking ‘how married are you?’ One day I’m gonna—”
One saw me then and motioned to the others. The man who was speaking paused in mid-sentence, arm still raised with a glass of water in his hand. As far as they knew, they hadn’t heard anything about a trespasser, and I didn’t look the part, so who was I and what was I doing here?
“Excuse me…sir? I wasn’t told—”
“It’s fine. That’s alright, really. Don’t worry about it.” I flashed a smile at them, as I approached. I leaned against the island countertop in an open posture. “Should I be waiting somewhere else?”
The man with the drink looked at his buddies, then he set his drink down on the countertop and turned back toward me. “Do you have a meeting with Mr. Solovyov, sir?”
“I do. The guys at the door told me to go on in, but I seem to have gotten lost along the way somehow.”
The man to his left closed his eyes. It was something people often did when making dataspike calls as a way to see the AR more clearly. I knew he was calling the men at the door, but I wasn’t sure how he would react when neither picked up. I could wait for him to walk away and check on them, leaving me with just two people to deal with instead of three, but that would also mean I’d eventually have one man on alert out of sight.
“What was your name again, sir,” he asked. I decided the risk of taking on three at once was justified.
I snapped my arm up into a punch, then I rotated at the hip and twisted my upper body to strike through the man standing in front of me. My fist caught the storyteller just under the cheekbone. His head whipped back, and his body folded backward over the countertop. I didn’t fight the momentum, pushing off to jump over the island as I continued to twist in the air.
The man behind him shouted something, the beginning of a threat or some exclamation of shock maybe. I couldn’t be sure. I snapped my head to look over my shoulder as I spun, and as soon as I could see him, I drove my heel into his mouth. The kick knocked him off his feet and slammed his head against the floor. Teeth skittered across the white marble, and blood seeped from his ears as I landed.
The man on the call had his eyes open by then. I pivoted on my heel, stepping into a hammerfist at his head. To his credit, the man reacted fast enough to cross his arms to block, but it was a poor choice against an augmented human. His arms gave way like matchsticks and the back of my hand met his face. He stumbled back and tripped over the second man as blood poured freely from his nose and bubbled from his mouth through gritted teeth. I lay on top of him and pressed my arm against his throat. I couldn’t imagine the pain as he fought feebly to push me off with hands dangling at odd angles from his elbows. After a few seconds, his eyes rolled back under fluttering lids and I felt his racing heart slow.
I rolled him onto his side and listened for approaching footsteps. The fight hadn’t been as clean or quiet as I would have liked, and there was every chance someone in another room had been alerted. I remained silently crouched behind the island in the kitchen while I counted off thirty seconds. Satisfied that no one was coming, I finally stood.
I took off my bloodstained coat and left it on the countertop. Five men down. For a retired diplomat and beloved public figure, Solovyov was certainly security-conscious. I went through the kitchen into a large open living room with a sweeping view of the city of Valhalla. I glanced through the windows again for any sign of StateSec, and it seemed my luck was holding. The thought crossed my mind that StateSec may not come into the neighborhood at all and every resident had their own private security.
On the other end of the living room, past the intricately carved real wood furniture and the sealed bookshelves filled with aged paper manuscripts, was a purple door. The bedroom, I was sure of it.
I gripped the door’s handle and listened. I could hear movement in the room, but it was slow and deliberate, not the rapid patter of someone rushing into position. There was a quiet voice, followed by a woman’s reply. So there were at least two people in the room. I checked my posture and made a conscious effort to relax my expression. I was just a lost executive here for a meeting with Mr. Solovyov.
I knocked as I opened the door, feigning confusion. The affectation quickly became real.
I saw the Arbiter of Shaanxi, Ivan Solovyov himself, sitting at the edge of a shallow pool of water in the center of the room. Kneeling next to him was Katerina Capanelli, looking at me with a warm smile.
“Oh, Tycho,” she said, her voice perfectly friendly. “It’s only you.”
23
Finding Katerina was not a contingency I’d prepared for.
I took a furtive glance around the room. I didn’t want to take my eyes off of her, but I needed to know the space before the situation turned and she attacked. In contrast to the rest of the penthouse, the room was nearly empty. Near the floor-to-ceiling windows was a bed with silk sheets piled on top. An ornately carved wooden bureau stood next to it. Hanging on the opposite wall was a woven tapestry depicting golden crowns above twelve genderless figures.
The only other feature in the otherwise barren room was the circular recession in the floor at its center, filled with water. Ivan Solovyov sat nude at its edge, the old man quietly staring at me with what I took as an inquisitive expression. Katerina put her hands under Solovyov’s armpits and gingerly lowered him into the shallow water. He closed his eyes as he floated.
Katerina looked up at me and asked, “What did you think of the security team?”
“They weren’t exceptionally difficult.”
“No, I suppose they wouldn’t be. Are any of them still alive?”
“All of them, as far as I know.”
There was a neatly folded linen towel and silk robe on the floor next to her, with two small black devices sitting on top. Katerina took the devices in one hand and held them up to the light, as if inspecting them. They looked like dataspikes, but larger.
“Do you think that was mercy on your part,” she asked.
“Alive is better than dead. I only came here to talk to him.”
“And you injured—likely crippled—at least five people to do it. What do you think will happen to them tomorrow? Or the day after? Do you think everyone in the system has access to prosthetics like you and Andrea?”
That coming from her. It was narcissism unbound. “I don’t care to be lectured on ethics,” I said. “Least of all by you.”
She smiled and raised an eyebrow dismissively. “Fair enough. I’ll take your dataspike now,” she said and held out her empty hand palm-up. I glanced at it, then looked her in the eye again. I didn’t feel the need to say any of the myriad reasons why what she’d just said was inane. And yet she was staring at me as if I’d missed something.
“You went to a lot of trouble to speak with the man in front of you,” she said. “It’s a simple thing to just do what’s needed to make that happen.” She motioned with her extended hand. “Let’s not waste time with the trivial.”
She was right about that of course. I needed answers. Against my better judgment, I pulled off my dataspike and tossed it to Katerina. She dropped it into her shirt pocket with an appreciative grin. She then placed the small devices in her other hand on Solovyov’s temples and he took a deep breath.
When he spoke at last, his voice was a deep bass, metallic like the synthesized voice of a proxy but with the verve and soul of a human. “Why have you come to see me, Mr. Barrett?”
Solovyov was a living legend known throughout the system. He’d negotiated an end to the Russo-Sino war. His philanthropic foundations were credited for bringing stability to the Pallas Flotilla and tripling the Antarctic crop yields. Yet here he was, in the company of a rogue Section 9 agent. There was only one question that mattered.
“Are you one of them?”
He smiled faintly and breathed deep before answering. “I am. You don’t truly understand yet what that means, Mr. Barrett, but I believe I can help you.” He turned his head slightly to Katerina. “Start the procedure, my dear.”
Katerina stood quietly and walked to the far wall. She pushed open a door I hadn’t noticed, so flush it had been nearly invisible, and disappeared into a brightly lit room beyond. I didn’t know what she was doing, but Solovyov seemed willing to answer me with complete candor, and I couldn’t waste that.
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t understand. Julian Huxley claimed that he’d lived dozens of lives. He said he’d transferred his consciousness from one body to another, for hundreds of years, and that there were others. Are you telling me that was all true? That the Arbiter of Shaanxi is one of these monsters?”
His smile dropped. “Monsters exist in children’s stories and ancient legends. Creatures that live simply to visit calamity upon the innocent. But we both know the true nature of reality. Consequence follows action, and consequence is what defines good and evil, not the action. That’s why I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time.”
“You’ve been looking forward to meeting me?”
“In my vast experience, it is rare to find someone of your disposition.”
“What does that mean,” I asked.
“You are an agent of the State. You’ve killed quite a few people, and I have no doubt you will kill many more in the years to come. And yet, you take care to ensure that violence is visited only on those whom it absolutely must.”
“What could have given you that idea?” I asked him. “I didn’t kill your security team because that wasn’t my mission.”
He looked at me with a furrowed brow. The deep lines around his eyes made his expression seem almost melancholy. “I know more about you than you realize, Mr. Barrett. You didn’t kill those men for the same reason you chose to face the Erinyes in Hellas.”
Katerina returned, closing the door behind her, and walked over to stand by Solovyov’s side once more. I eyed her the entire time, expecting an attack of some kind. She met my eyes and slowly spread her hands to either side at the waist. They were empty. She raised an eyebrow and mouthed the words “you see” before clasping them together in front of her.
Solovyov continued. “That mentality is what interests me about you, Mr. Barrett. It’s something I believe we have in common. A capacity for empathy while engaged in cruel, yet necessary action. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
He paused, as if searching for the right words. “I know you’re an educated man—exceptional marks, top 90th percentile of your class. Top 95th percentile at the Arbiter Academy. Tell me, what do you know of the Eight Year War?”
It was an odd change of subject, but I humored him. “The same as anyone else,” I answered. “It was a global war with the highest death toll of any conflict in human history.”
I was listening to the old man, but I was watching Katerina. I suspected the reason he was so forthcoming was to get me to drop my guard. I had no doubt that if my attention wandered, Katerina would make her move. It wasn’t very different from our first encounter, only this time the third party was in league with her instead of me. Solovyov looked too frail to help her in any physical sense, but there was no way to know what electronic systems he could command. From a unit of combat proxies to a fleet of drones, anything was possible when money was no object.
Soloyvov nodded. “The war began with overpopulation, dwindling access to water, and economic collapse. How did it end?”
“There was no winner,” I said. “The Thanatos Impact stopped the war.”
Solovyov closed his eyes and nodded again. “On the night of June 9, 2088, object K87P12K struck the Earth. Hot ash rained on us as we watched the sky burn. The wall of fire stretched across the entire horizon and pierced the clouds.”
I understood the implication of what he was saying, har
d as it was to accept. “The portraits in the foyer. The boy.”
“Yes. Some eight hundred years ago, crawling through the ruins of a city already ravaged by famine and destroyed by war. When the sky blackened and the year of night began, thousands died from starvation. As I would have, had I lacked the strength of will to do what was necessary.”
Solovyov arched his back and spread his arms. He floated on the water as lightly as a fallen leaf. Even in Callisto’s gravity, it looked wrong, like he was just a hollow shell.
“Drinking water was a matter of desalination,” he continued. “Simple enough for a child, but food had been scarce for years before the night. It was only on the edge of starvation that I realized my mistake. The bodies of the dead were everywhere, you see. Imagine that. Weeks of food there for the taking while all around people died of hunger. I quickly learned the proper way to butcher a corpse, how best to cleave the meat to reduce waste. What to eat and what to discard. And when the supply on-hand turned, there was always more to be found. All it took was a change of perspective to transform a problem into a solution.”
From the portrait, I would have guessed he was no more than fourteen years old then.
“Tell me, Mr. Barrett, what does history teach of the years following the Thanatos Impact?”
“That it began the Humanist Age,” I replied, trying to connect the strand of logic. “It led to mankind working together on an unprecedented scale. Is that your point? That tragedy unites people? Is that why Marcenn caused 2/77?”
“No, Mr. Barrett.” Solovyov laughed, a rasping, choking sound that made the synthesized quality of his voice even more inhuman. “August Marcenn wanted to stop our great work by becoming what we are. His reasoning was sound. Our absence would be a void that would collapse the solar system, but if he could supplant us, he could undo our efforts in time. The error was in his execution, though his end was already assured from the—”
Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 92