Tales of the Republic (The Complete Novel)

by M. G. Herron

  Po ate the chunks out of her soup first, then drank the broth slowly, savoring the rich taste. And as she drank, the rain began to come down in a slow mist.

  She was watching the crowd when a group of police officers crossed into the Square through the south entrance. She stood on a cooler to get a better look. They were too far away to make out any faces yet, but she knew that it was Ming and Wallace. Earlier than she expected, but that was fine. They must have been close already.

  “Nando!” she yelled. The boy stood from where he sat eating on the ground. She went to him. “Nando, do you know where I can find a news crew?”

  “At the front of the protests, probably.”

  “I need you to show me. And fast.”

  Nando took off into the crowd at a dead run. Po followed him. They moved closer in the direction of the earth-shaking sky-roaring noise—to the front lines of the protests. The rain was coming down steadily now, blissfully cold.

  The crowd grew even thicker and denser as they approached, until they bogged down and came to a standstill in the over-warm, stinking press of wet bodies. Overhead, the drones were as thick as a flock of birds, if birds looped in repetitive slow circles. Behind them was nothing but an endless ocean of people.

  A massive wave of protestors marched in a broad circle that filled the whole street. People hoisted signs and chanted “No guns, no mechs!” and “Corruption breeds, it doesn’t feed!”

  One of the signs pictured a smiling photo of Senator Khan with a thick red X painted across his face, and the words “Senator CON” scrawled in angry letters below it.

  This paved avenue on which the crowd gathered led straight to the capitol building. On the other side of the protestors’ circle, rows of mechs, armored cars, and alert soldiers held rifles at the ready, observant and alert. Still, they did little to interfere with the display other than keep people on one side of the line they had established.

  Beyond the protestors, beyond the soldiers and the mechs, lay the capitol building. Secluded behind a wrought iron fence and a lawn scarred by brown slashes that led to the front of the imposing building. It was made of a wide set of marble stairs, a dozen stalwart columns that held the gilded roofline. Rain poured over the domed roof down on the marble steps below, pockmarked from the attack by the malfunctioning mechs.

  Nando tugged at her sleeve. “Over there,” he said, pointing at two people standing pressed against the glass window of a closed restaurant. They both wore normal street clothes, jeans and plastic ponchos like so many others. However, they had extra ponchos draped over a couple heavy bags of gear. If that wasn’t a dead giveaway, the man twirled a small microphone in his hand. The person next to him, a Hispanic woman with short dark hair cut in a bob, held a small device, which Po quickly recognized as the remote control for a drone.

  “Nando,” Po said. “You get out of here while you can. Take the kids with you, and make a good head start.”

  “Not a chance,” he said “I’m with you.”

  She sighed, but there was no time to argue with him. Ming would have realized they weren’t in the tent anymore, and would be moving toward the protests himself now. Po waded through the crowd toward the reporters, ignoring the grumbles of those she had to shove aside to get by.

  The man with the microphone immediately recognized her, and in a breathless rush said, “I can’t believe it. What’s your name, miss? Are you working with Citizen?”

  Po held up a hand to forestall his burbling rush of questions. People standing nearby seemed to notice his urgent tone. Several turned to look in their direction, and began to whisper among themselves.

  A single drone out of the dozen that circled above dove from the sky like a bird. It slowed as it came near, and finally hovered at the level of Po’s head.

  It spun until Po gazed into the reflective round lens of a camera. The reporter, still talking next to her, asked another question, something personal. She ignored him, and took the microphone from his hand. He held onto it at first, but when he caught her eyes he relinquished it.

  The woman holding the controls pivoted the drone around until the columns and gilded edge of the capital building reflected in the polished glass of the lens.

  “My name is Po,” she began, “and I’m here to warn you that our city is in danger once again. The terrorist group you call Citizen is planning another attack. No one is safe at the protests, because they’re bound to attack somewhere public.” She looked beyond the camera, at the hundreds of faces watching her, and raised her voice. “Do you hear me? It’s not safe here! You all need to leave immediately.”

  “We’re not going anywhere!” a voice shouted from the crowd.

  “You stood up to the mechs,” someone else said.

  “We’re with you!”

  Po glared. She spotted Ming, flanked by several officers who shoved people aside as they drove a wedge through the crowd, pushing toward Po. The tall form of Captain Wallace in his dark green police uniform climbed over people with both arms.

  But no one left. No one turned and ran in fear. Po had been afraid she would cause a stampede, but the crowd was intractable, more taken by her speech by far than they were frightened of her message of danger. The protests continued unabated behind her. Po wanted to scream, but she was hyper-aware of the camera lens. She stared at her feet for a long moment, her mind racing. If she wasn’t able to help people here, then maybe she could warn those watching at home.

  She had to say something. She was running out of time.

  She looked back into the camera lens. “Citizen is not who you think they are. They’re not here to help you. If you’re watching this, get out of the city. It’s not safe. If you have a car, drive to the country. If you don’t, take what you can carry and—” Po stopped short, and swallowed an involuntary breath.

  In the reflection of the camera lens, a burst of orange and red flashed bright. Po rose her arm to shield her eyes as she spun.

  The earth trembled.

  The sky roared.

  But it wasn’t the protestors this time.

  The army on the other side of the barricade scattered immediately, jumping to action. Some men ran toward the building, and Po’s only thought was No.

  The mechs fanned out, the hydraulic expression of their powered limbs joining the cacophony of shocked shouting that came from the crowd. Armored cars jerked and sped off as their drivers shoved them into gear.

  The fiery explosion in the roof died out, and a sudden hush descended upon the crowd. They all waited with bated breath as a column of smoke took the fire’s place. With a grinding sound like teeth gnashing, the dome dimpled and caved in.

  The ground quaked a second time, and a series of explosions rattled out to her left. Po saw no fire this time. Smoke rose up from behind the building.

  Then, slowly, an entire wing of the Capitol building sagged and fell.

  And water poured from the sky.

  And Po was crushed in the stinking heat of a thousand bodies as the crowd finally came alive and panicked.

  Episode 7

  KILLER CAUSE

  CHAPTER 49

  ATTACK OF CONSCIENCE

  Ari kept the man who worked for Khan firmly in his sights. The man rapped twice on the train car window and then pried open the unpowered sliding doors with his hands. The doors hadn’t moved by the power of electricity in years—that much was evident at first glance. But they glided smoothly open, like the machinery had been greased.

  Like the place had been prepared.

  Ari stepped inside, glancing around. Felix and Khan sat each on their own bench on opposite sides of the otherwise empty subway car.

  “What did you find?” Khan demanded.

  “Just a street kid snooping around, sir,” the man said. “I chased him off.”

  Khan grunted. The man slid the door shut and went to keep watch outside again. Ari sat down next to Felix and let out a slow breath.

  They sat for a moment in silence. Ari had the di
stinct feeling he had interrupted something important.

  Khan was not wearing his usual tailored suit—which is probably why it took Ari a moment to recognize him at first—but jeans and sneakers and a dark hooded sweatshirt. A red bandanna hung low around his neck so he could lift it to cover his face at a moment’s notice.

  The men that stood watch outside were dressed in variations of the same casual clothes, but appeared more conspicuous for their darting eyes and rigid postures. They were all big, broad-shouldered, and Chinese. The guy who had chased the street kid off wore khakis instead of jeans. Another that Ari spotted lurking in the switchyard wore a zip-up track top. But the bulk under their shirts and the hard toes of their boots gave them away. Ari knew instantly that these weren’t just some goons Khan had picked up off the street. They were former military, at least. Possibly secret service. Was an allegedly corrupt senator even allowed to have secret service?

  Ari didn’t know. Even if Khan had been assigned a protective detail, no one’s presence here would be on the record. What he did know was that the men keeping watch outside were on high alert. Why else would they pursue an unknown suspect in the dark because of a little noise?

  Forcing himself to relax in his seat next to Felix was the hardest thing Ari had done that day.

  And that was saying something.

  Felix finally broke the silence. “I knew it had to be some malcontent in the bureaucracy.” Felix’s voice came out taut and high.

  Ari’s hands rose involuntarily to his wrecked face, to feel the seams in his skin. A nervous habit. He stopped his hand halfway to his face and set it back down in his lap with the other hand.

  “A minor official,” Felix went on. “Someone with access, of course. How else would we have been able to land Ari, here, a job with the Magistrate’s office if you weren’t able to pull a few strings. Who else could raid the city’s ration supplies with no one noticing except Senator Joseph Khan.”

  Senator Khan’s thin lips curled into a cold, lifeless smile. Ari shivered with the realization that he had been nothing but a puppet all along.

  “You’re a cold son of a bitch,” Felix said, admiration evident in his voice. “Stealing supplies from your own ration centers. You gave us the schematics for the mechs, for heaven’s sake!”

  “If you’d told me you were going to be using them as a trojan horse to attack the capitol, I would have positioned them elsewhere. But even that worked out, since Senator Fuquan is out of my hair now.”

  “Now you just have to deal with the magistrate,” Felix reminded him.

  He’s talking about Kai Ming, Ari thought.

  “He’s nothing but a minor inconvenience,” Khan snapped. “At least, he will be when we finish what we started.”

  Ari’s eyes darted between the two of them. Felix just stared at Khan, as if burdened with the weight of a great decision and trying to discover, by searching the senator’s face, the answer he was seeking.

  “It was safer for both of us if you didn’t know who I was before,” Khan said. “But things are different now, so let’s focus on the future, not dwell on the past. You and I are united by a common goal, Felix. Or have you forgotten?”

  Felix stared for a moment longer, before nodding at last.

  “The tunnel has been finished for two weeks.”

  “What!” Khan said, rising from his seat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Felix rose slowly. He was leaner than Khan, but taller by several inches. Ari sat on the side of Felix with the tattered ear. It reminded him of a gladiator, the fierce, broken kind who have accepted death as their lot, and knew how to look it in the face.

  “You should have told me,” Khan repeated.

  “And lose the upper hand? You would have done the same in my position.”

  Muscles popped in Khan’s jaw. “We could have been done with this already,” he said between his teeth.

  Ari couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “Felix, what’s going on? I don’t understand.”

  Felix glanced at him. “Isn’t it obvious, Ari? We’re going to blow up Congress.”

  Ari held up his hands. “I can’t be a part of this,” he said. “Innocent people will die.”

  “Innocent people have already died,” Senator Khan said. “But not to worry, Ari. You’ve done your part already.”

  Ari hissed as a brief, sharp pain jabbed into his left thigh. He reached out, and his hand closed around Felix’s hand, which was holding a syringe firmly in the muscle of Ari’s leg where it had pierced through his jeans.

  Ari’s vision blackened at the edges. He blinked and swayed as he fought to remain conscious.

  The last thing he saw was the frown on Felix’s face. “Sorry, old boy, but I knew you’d have another attack of conscience. You’ll have to sit this one out.”

  CHAPTER 50

  GROUND ZERO

  After everything that had happened, the news that Ari was alive put Ming over the edge.

  Embarrassingly, he woke on the floor of the police precinct, his broken hand and head throbbing, filled with a kind of burbling elation. His chest began to shake as an uncontainable laugh burbled up.

  Bohai and the officers around him regarded Ming warily, as if he might have to be committed. He ignored them.

  Khan’s career over, and Ari alive? Someone handed him a plastic bottle of water. After sniffing it carefully—chuckling the whole while—he took a few careful sips.

  A moment later, Senator Bohai’s wife and Ben Li’s sister, Kylie—whom he’d only met once before—rushed in through the front door.

  “She’s gone,” Kylie said, rounding on Captain Wallace. “This is your fault. If something bad happens to her, I swear to God—”

  “Easy,” Bohai said. “We’re all just doing our best here.”

  Captain Wallace flushed red, and looked at his feet. Then he growled an order for them to scour the precinct. Ming moved to a more comfortable chair while they looked around. A detective got on the phone put out an APB for a young dark-haired woman, about eighteen years old. Lot of good that would do right now.

  Captain Wallace discovered that Officer Evans’ keys and motorcycle were missing a moment later. Sighing, Wallace took a seat next to Ming.

  Ming’s mood turned even more sour as the captain filled him in on the news about Ari.

  “Ari, working for Citizen?” Ming shook his head. “Unbelievable. No, I would have known.”

  “The girl didn’t buy it either,” Wallace admitted. “Detective Camira is sure they’re both lying, which is probably true in one way or another.”

  Ming covered his face with both hands and sighed. He needed to sleep, but there was still so much to do. The protests were rising to another fever pitch, and it was only a matter of time before someone else’s finger slipped on a trigger. Ming believed that the main reason things had stayed peaceful was the rations he’d delivered to Telerethon Square following Fuquan’s death, using her name immediately following her death to cut through the red tape.

  “I need to go check on the ration storage facilities,” he said.

  “Take two officers with you,” Wallace insisted.

  Ming agreed. He, along with Officers Evans and Senai, spent the rest of the day driving around the city and checking on the rations in Fields, Factory, and the other southern and western districts. By late afternoon they were heading back to Telerethon Square to check in on Kellen, when his sat phone rang.

  His stomach dropped like he was looking over a cliff’s edge when Kellen handed the phone to Po.

  “You have to do something,” she said. “Don’t let me down.”

  She hung up. Even as Ming cussed at the phone and tried to get her back on the line.

  Officer Evans had Captain Wallace on the radio. The captain met them at Telerethon Square with a dozen officers in tow. Ming, Evans, and Senai were forced to abandon the car when the crowds got thick, but Captain Wallace put the men in formation, with Ming at the center, and together they drove
into the crowd like a wedge.

  Foolish girl, Ming thought as he walked slowly into the space secured by the vanguard of officers. What does Po think she’s going to accomplish?

  And yet he had plenty of sympathy for her. He, too, felt responsible for the deplorable state their city was in. They were all responsible.

  But the damned foolish girl was going to cause a panic! They needed to be helping each other, using all their available resources, not stirring up the mob with unsubstantiated claims of another attack.

  Of course Po didn’t trust him, not after what she’d been through these past few weeks.

  And with Ari, found and lost again?

  Dear God, what would Khan would do if there was another attack? A long, drawn-out legal battle must precede his impeachment, so he wasn’t out of play yet. Ming just knew the slimy bastard had something up his sleeve.

  The rain got heavier. It was coming down in sheets as Ming and the officers pushed beyond the tent toward the capitol building. The water sluiced through his hair and dripped off his forehead. He blinked water out of his eyes and wished he had the foresight to bring rain gear like so many others around him.

  There!

  A drone fell out of the sky like a comet and came to a rest inches above the crowd. And in front of it a dark-haired young woman stood, determination twisting her face. She spoke fiercely into the camera attached to the drone’s belly.

  An explosion rang out through the avenue. Ming ducked and covered his head. Gasps and shocked cried rose up around them. The police officers pressed together tightly.

  Ming held his ground with elbows extended. He raised his head in time to see the dome of the Capitol building as it crumpled in upon itself.

  A second explosion thundered through his body. After a long moment, the left side of the edifice sagged, the earth beneath it cracking and giving way.

  A series of rapid-fire shots rang out, deafening Ming as the rest of the stone structure collapsed upon itself like a neatly tumbled set of dominoes.