by Mercedes Lackey; Cody Martin; Dennis Lee; Veronica Giguere
This was how Karamjit Bhandari had come to be in Verdigris’ observation room. He had been a little too interested in Freshette Filters, LLC, after it had gotten the contract to supply Bombay with a series of new pure water treatment plants when their water infrastructure was destroyed in the Invasion.
Karamjit had never been very imposing before Verdigris’ people had gotten hold of him. A typical Bombay specimen of the prosperous sort, he was a little soft around the middle, and just starting to lose his hair. His suit had been very expensive, and nicely tailored to hide that beginning spare tire. Just another CEO in the never-ending flood of same that poured out of business schools every year. He would have looked at home at any boardroom table across the globe.
But he was not at a boardroom table. He was handcuffed to a steel chair that was itself a work of art—and as a consequence, not very comfortable to sit on. He’d clearly been handled roughly in transport. That lovely suit was abraded and torn, as was his shirt, and his face was bruised and battered.
“Glad to see you made it, Mr. Bhandari. We don’t really need to go into how you got here, or what brought you here. You know it, I know it, so on and so forth. It’s a really old story; you got greedy. So, I’ll cut to the chase.” Verdigris held up a small PDA. “This controls several charges that have been placed in your home. Your family is currently asleep, as of about thirty seconds ago. It’s a lovely gas, my own invention, so there will be no traces that police forensics will find. It’ll be enough to keep them asleep until I want, and paralyzed while still experiencing everything when they do wake up.” He pursed his lips. “It’s not ideal yet, the paralysis is permanent, but I’ll work that out later. I’d like you to direct your attention to this screen.” He pointed at an LCD monitor positioned on a table in front of Karamjit. Pressing the touch screen, the LCD flared to life, showing a live image of a rather impressive three-story home. Activating a function on the PDA caused the house to burst into flame, with gouts of fire spewing out of almost every window. Karamjit started trying to shout and cry through his gag, bucking in his chair against the restraints. “That takes care of the Bhandari clan. You’ll be fingered as the one responsible for the arson; a cleverly constructed trail of evidence that hints at your coming psychotic breakdown will make sure of that. It’ll also show that you fled the country after raiding your bank accounts, heading for parts unknown and never to be heard from again.” Dominic pocketed the PDA after switching off the LCD monitor, and began to pace in front of Karamjit.
“This could have been avoided quite easily, you know, but don’t worry, your death is rather convenient for me. You are actually doing me a bit of a service, here. Criminals of all stripes have a habit of forgetting loyalties and debts fairly quickly.” He paused in front of his victim, who was now sobbing uncontrollably through his gag. “This will be a reminder, not just for your associates, but for everyone: don’t fuck with Dominic Verdigris.” Khanjar stepped behind Karamjit, and in one smooth motion brought a small kuboton down on the back of his neck with a sickening pop. Karamjit, now limp, went into shock almost immediately, though he retained consciousness.
“You’re paralyzed now. I think this concludes our business, Mr. Bhandari.”
Khanjar released the helpless man from his bonds, and shoved him out of the chair. He rolled to the very edge of the observation platform, which did not boast anything like a railing. Verdigris did not care for “nanny architecture.” If you were too stupid or helpless to avoid falling . . . too bad, welcome to Darwin’s Waiting Room.
Dominic and Khanjar both walked towards the helpless man. The shark tank was directly below. Verdigris smiled; a model of efficiency as ever, Khanjar had applied just the right amount of force to Karamjit when she ejected him from the chair. He dug a toe—elegantly clad in a gorgeous Italian shoe—just under Karamjit’s pudgy waist, and shoved. Sometimes it really mattered to add a personal touch when making business decisions.
The former CEO of a company that was shortly going to be as dead as his family plummeted into the shark tank. The sharks had been primed by a high-tech version of “chumming” that left the water crystal clear. Also Verdigris’ invention. On the way to it, he’d come up with a brand new BBQ sauce flavor as well. The sharks reacted to the sudden intrusion with a ravenous feeding frenzy.
Verdigris observed for a few long moments before turning to his confidant and companion. “I’m starting to get hungry. Want to shower, and then we’ll work up an appetite together?”
CHAPTER ONE
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Revelations
MERCEDES LACKEY
Some people worshipped her. Most people feared her. Some people hated her.
Few of these people mattered.
She was a seraphim; the Seraphym, as the media were calling her now, some in jest, some in good earnest. It troubled them all that they could not take any sort of picture, no matter what sophisticated equipment they used. The images showed only a brightness, a wash of flame with a slim, vaguely human-shaped brighter space in the midst of it, and the flames spreading out like wings. There was no use in telling them that this was her native form. It would not make them worship or cease to worship, fear or love her any more nor less. This did not matter.
She had killed; one innocent, many guilty. The innocent life troubled her no less than the guilty—but she had removed him from pain at his own request, and that was, in this case, permitted. Her life revolved around what was permitted and what was not. Her life centered on somehow being able to steer the course of the present to a future in which there was a future. There were so many paths in which the instruments of the Fallen had won . . . and there were some in which there was no world of humans here at all, only charred rubble and the crawling things that could even survive Apocalypse. The Infinite did not wish that. Though the worlds that had been blessed with life that was aware, and alert, and sentient were myriad, the Infinite cherished each and every one. When a sparrow fell, the Infinite mourned: how much more so for a world?
So there it was. This world was in her charge, to steer by imperceptible degrees. Save a life here; let fall a word there. Nor did the instruments matter, only the end.
Thus she found herself, for the moment invisible, hovering in the study of the man called Verdigris.
He was a bad man, an evil man, evil in the way that only the most steeped in evil can be: he was utterly, utterly selfish and self-centered. A sociopath, one might call him, and yet how much of that was due to the atrophy of one little, little part of his brain? Properly stimulated, that part might grow, might learn, might grant him, one day, that thing called a conscience.
But today, this was not her concern. It might never be. Today she was going to use an evil man to steer the future.
She allowed herself to become visible, filling the room with her flaming wings.
Verdigris, she said into his mind, as he looked up, and she felt his surprise, and his surprise at his own surprise, for she was a new thing to him. She was doing what she rarely, rarely did. She was forcing the image she chose of herself into his mind, past his unbelief. He saw her as the frightened little magician had seen her; as the thing that turned the knees to water.
She would not tell him, Fear not. She wanted his fear. She needed his fear.
And he did fear her, but, typically, he refused to show it. That did not matter.
He leaned back in his chair, full of insouciance. “Well,” he said. “This is new. The Vatican taking out a contract on me now?”
It would not matter if they did. Your own methods would foil their mortal attempts, and I am not their creature.
“You interest me.”
I should. You have never seen my like. You may never again. You cannot control me, measure me, persuade me, nor ever understand me.
“You think?”
She did not answer him, or at least, not his challenge. I come to tell you of the Thulians.
He laughed. “I doubt very much you can tell me anyt
hing I don’t already know. Unless it’s where their base is or how I can negotiate with them?” He waggled his eyebrows.
There can be no negotiation with them—for you, she said gravely. You are on a list; a handful of people they wish removed from their more perfect world.
He laughed again. “Bunk! There never was anyone I couldn’t negotiate with sooner or la—”
She did not let him finish the sentence. She simply opened the most likely future to him, narrowed in focus down to what his most likely future, at this moment, would be.
Oh, the Thulians wished Verdigris removed from their more perfect world, indeed, but they never, ever wasted anything. Verdigris had a brain, an intellect, the likes of which was unmatched in this world for sheer inventiveness. And for every twenty inventions of his that were of no particular use to them—new flavors of foodstuffs, a seat cushion that could be compressed down to the size of a thimble and uncompressed to memory-foam softness, a way of creating neon signage that took a tenth of the power the same signs took now—there would be one that was something they could use.
So here was the future for Verdigris; the worst future he could possibly imagine.
He would be a brain in a box.
Removed from his body, that body he loved so much and loved to pamper, removed from all physical pleasures, provided with no sensory input but visual and auditory, he would be left with nothing to “play” with except his own tremendous intellect. And they would take the children of his intellect, discard most, and use the rest to further enslave what was already in bondage, taking their rule further out among the stars.
And he would live forever, or nearly so.
She felt his reaction as he did; he could not care for the billions dead, billions enslaved. But he could care—a little—for those he personally knew and to a lesser or greater extent, depended on as they depended on him. He was not altogether a sociopath; there were some connections there, atrophied as they might have been. He prided himself on being able to take care of “his own.” As she slowly unfolded the Thulian progress to him, he watched as they smashed that pride in the dirt, wiped out his empire, and rendered him into an attachment to a computer system, the ultimate AI. And he could not even have the satisfaction of denying them the fruits of his neurons. They had the ability to wrest them away.
The future, for Verdigris, was imprisonment, impotence, and a futile immortality.
Then she shut the future to him. He sat in his chair, no longer insouciant, no longer carefree, and his fear of her and of what he had seen naked on his pale, sweating face. No one had ever seen this expression on his face before.
“That—”
Is a future.
He seized on the article. “A future? So there could be others?” Fear gave way to hope.
It is the most probable. For now.
“But I can change that!”
Any mortal can. If he is in the right place, at the right time, and does the right thing.
“You wouldn’t have come here, shown me that, if you didn’t think I could change it!” He would have seized her by the shoulders and shook her if he had dared. His hands clenched and unclenched on the arms of his chair. “Tell me what to do!” he demanded, in the tones of a man whose demands were always met.
That is not permitted.
That stopped him short, anger blooming in him. “That’s bullshit! Why bother to show this if you won’t tell me how to fix it?”
I answer to a higher power than you. It is not permitted.
He stared at her in outrage. She knew all the things he would have done if he could have. It mattered to her not at all. She knew that in that moment, he had joined the ranks of those who hated her. That, too, mattered not at all.
You know the ending of the journey. Find a way to make another path. Or do not, and find yourself there. I have shown you what is permitted. Go well, and wisely.
And with that, she took herself out of his world. She had done what she could. He was not the only, or even the best, of the choices for those who could make those changes, but he was now one of the most motivated. He would see that future in his nightmares from now on, and he would do everything in his considerable power to prevent it. That he would use any tool went without saying.
But so would she.
The future of this world depended on it.
CHAPTER TWO
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Running on Empty
VERONICA GIGUERE AND MERCEDES LACKEY
So much we didn’t know—including the flip side of the frantic warning from Mercurye, and that last image we had of him, battered and running from the captors that should have been our saviors.
The room resembled the inside of a gallon of milk. White walls, white carpet, white ceiling, even white microfiber furniture that seemed to absorb any spill or stain dropped onto the opulent cushions. The pants they had given him after a few days’ containment were also white, a light silken fabric that made a soothing shushing sound when he walked from one side of the room to the other. Color, he realized, came in the form of food, entertainment, and the occasional visitor. Left alone in this pristine prison, Rick Poitier decided that he would give anything for a fistful of crayons or a few pots of fingerpaint. Anything to make his quarters in Metis less . . . perfect.
This was his second room in the forbidden city of innovation. When Mercurye had boarded the saucer to accompany the body of Eisenfaust, the ambassadors had mentioned that he would be quarantined for disease following his exposure during the Invasion. They never mentioned what sort of quarantine, and so he had spent a good portion of the trip trying to get details. The only ones who bothered to talk to him without the Stepford glaze in their eyes were the three young women on the bridge of the ship. Wearing identical gold and silver jumpsuits, these gray-eyed and violet-haired Metisians spoke with Rick at length without making him feel like a piece of dumb human ribeye, answering his questions as best as they could. When they couldn’t answer due to some security protocol, they seemed genuinely sorry and apologized that they couldn’t say more.
Once they had dropped him off, Mercurye had gone into a holding room in their medical center, where Metisians in skintight cleansuits swabbed him from ears to toes. The cleansuits covered them, faces and all, with a breathable yet sterile second skin that made them all resemble the creepy horror flick aliens who were rumored to sneak into bedrooms and perform probing experiments in all sorts of uncomfortable places. They scanned him with a host of chirping boxes, and when that was over, had him ingest some pureed concoction that they assured him was full of protein and nutrients to compensate for his journey and any ill effects that the Metisian environment might have on him.
He thought it tasted like cheap elementary school paste. No amount of Tabasco would have made it any better.
The discussions about the Invasion and Eisenfaust took days, it seemed. Not only did the faceless cleansuits record every answer, they seemed interested in the society reactions to the Thulians as well as the technological response. Any questions that Mercurye tried to ask were met with a shake of the head and a reminder to adhere to the standard interrogation protocol. When he would lose his patience, the cleansuits would stand as one and shuffle out of the room as soothing music was piped in through unseen speakers and the faint smell of vanilla and peppermint wafted through the air.
It was maddening. Infuriating. Insulting, considering all that he’d been through with the Invasion and with Echo. They denied his requests to speak with Tesla or to contact anyone, but they did allow him into his current room with a collection of every clichéd science fiction series ever created. And so, Rick spent his days alternating exercise with reruns that had kept him company during his teenage years in New Jersey.
Which meant that he watched the entire series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Twice.
He had the volume turned up as he exhaled and kicked himself into an armstand against one of the walls. The lack of dirt made footprints impossible. A
s the precocious teenage heartthrob got in over his head once again, Merc mouthed the lines and began his post-breakfast routine. Fifty press-ups, slowly and deliberately, not even trying to go for speed. This was something he had started long before Echo. Between breakfast and school, he would turn on the television and try in vain to build up his ropey form into something that the cheerleaders would notice. He wanted to be that kid on the screen who stumbled over words with girls but who would inevitably save the day at the end with some key skill or lucky happenstance.
By the end of his second year of high school, Rick Poitier was just as stringy and acne-ridden as any other fifteen-year-old kid. He hadn’t saved the school or become a standout in any of his classes, but he had gotten pretty good with the armstands. He watched the show to obsession and his mother even humored him with his own blue shirt as a birthday gift, but there were still no cheerleaders nor any rise in popularity. Instead, he took the bus home, walked a few blocks, and finished his homework like the good son he was supposed to be.
He passed one hundred, a light sweat on his skin that the Metisian environment tried to correct with a rush of cooler air. If he was lucky, one of the ship navigators would show up after he hit two hundred and hang around for a while to chat. They rarely gave him a lot of information about what was going on back home, but they did try, which was more than he could say about the rest of the population. According to one of the navigators, there were well over ten thousand Metisians, from the very young to the very old, and they all had a say in how the society functioned. It reminded him of a Law and Justice class he’d had to take in high school. Every rule was voted upon, all options explored alongside consequences, and each vote was equal. The teacher’s vote didn’t count more or less than a student’s, and they voted on everything from exam dates to project requirements. The shared responsibility had its perks but the biggest drawback was the time involved. Every decision took minutes, sometimes hours.