Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Any questions?” he asked.

  “No, sir.” Came from three underlings.

  Garrison swiped one arm to the side at the corner of the holo-table and shut down the tactical map. “Based on those numbers, it should be quite doable for a little sabotage to tip things for the UCF.”

  “Sir,” said Lieutenant Huang, “this operation seems like we’re helping them. Aren’t they our enemy as well?”

  Risa folded her arms, making it a point to keep her expression unreadable as she glanced at him. She held back the urge to roll her eyes at his rank pins. This wasn’t a military force. The Front still felt like a bunch of oversized kids playing soldier with live ammo―and dead friends.

  “You are correct, lieutenant,” said Garrison. “However, bear in mind the UCF controls the territory we live in. Also, they are more apt to yield to diplomatic pressure where the ACC never will.”

  The other three, a short dark-skinned man with a huge jaw and two Marsborn women, exchanged uneasy looks.

  “My brother was―”

  Garrison held his hand up and bowed his head in a somber moment of silence. “I understand the sacrifices our people make, Kwan. Nothing will diminish that. However, I imagine somewhere along the course of your training, you studied the concept of fighting battles on multiple fronts… and how that usually ends?”

  Lieutenant Kwan Huang put his hands on his hips and scowled at the table. Anger wafted from him, though he seemed at a loss for a logical counterargument.

  “We redirect their greater strength to our own ends.” Garrison mimicked an Aikido-inspired takedown. “Before the day comes when they are our only opponent, we will have enough sympathetic minds in places of power so our revolution day will pass without bullets or bloodshed.” He gestured at the room. “Any one of us here is willing to die for liberty, but to die when there are other options is the mark of a fool or a zealot.”

  “Sounds like wishful thinking to me, sir.” Huang started away, nodding, but paused long enough to salute. “A good wish at least.”

  Garrison returned the gesture to the departing lieutenants and headed for Risa, a little too fast to maintain their illusion of detachment in public. Before he could say a word, she snapped her right hand up in a sharp salute. He stopped in place like a doll suffering total power loss.

  “Mission completed, sir.”

  Shocked, Garrison turned his stare on the room around them.

  People found things to do other than gawk.

  He pointed east and stomped off the raised central platform. She followed him down a short corridor to his office, ducking inside when he waited by the automatic door. It hissed closed after he entered.

  “Damn, Risa, what were you thinking?” His tone was far from hostile or scolding; the worry dripping out of his voice morphed some of her anger to guilt.

  “I know.”

  He grasped her by both shoulders for a moment, trying to look her in the eye, but she kept her gaze downward. After a light shake failed to make her look up, he wrapped his arms around her.

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  She left her arms lax at her sides, tolerating his squeeze. “Why did you lie to me?”

  “What?” He pushed her back to make eye contact. “Look at me.”

  “Who is Andriy Voronin?”

  Garrison’s expression went blank. “Sounds Russian.”

  A silent stare lasted twenty seconds before Risa’s somatic detection system flagged a stress response: dilating pupils and mild perspiration. He was lying… again. Her face hardened, but tears dribbled from the corners of her eyes.

  He reached for her shoulder, but she leaned back.

  “I’m sorry, Risa.”

  “You lied. You’ve lied to me from the start. You just lied to me now.” Though she wept, her voice showed no trace of it. “If only I had the soma when I was ten, I’d have known you were full of shit before you let them make me into a monster.”

  “Risa…” He reached for her again, but she dodged. “You’re not a monster, and if you remember, I tried to talk you out of it.”

  “Am I not?” She held her arms out to the sides, claws extended, each eight-inch transparent blade tipped with a droplet of blood from where it pierced her fingertip. “Look at me. How much of this body is electronic? What kind of father lets his little girl sell her eyes?”

  Garrison backed up until he bumped into his desk. Something small and metal hit the ground with a clack. “It was never Maris’s intention to force you to do anything. You could’ve said no.”

  “Oh, but I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to help the man who saved me from the shadows.” She retracted her claws, staring at the triangular holes in her skin sealing as the blades sank out of sight. “When you found me, I had nothing to my name except for my underpants. Now I’m worth millions. You saved my life… how could I have said no to the cause you’ve given yours to?”

  “That’s not how I remember it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, staring at the floor. “You screamed your head off. How dare I stop you from doing everything you can for the cause. You were all piss and vinegar. Seventeen and you knew how the world worked. It hurt.”

  “Why didn’t you stop me?” she whispered.

  “You want out?” He gazed at her feet. “I don’t want you to get hurt. No matter what you think of me right now, you must believe me when I say you are my daughter in all ways that matter. I’ll lay down my life to protect you just like every other ordinary citizen if that’s what you want to be. Your eyes can be regenerated.”

  Fire blew out of her sails. She slouched. “We both know Maris won’t sign off on that. That would cost two or three million… and they still wouldn’t be my eyes.” Risa kicked at the ground. “Sometimes I daydream about what my real eyes are seeing right now. I wonder who’s got them. Is it someone beautiful? Is it even a woman?” Quiet lingered for a moment. “We both know they’re not going to spend that much on me, especially not to help me retire.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Bit.”

  She gulped. He hadn’t called her that since she was thirteen. She’d been tiny as a child. Living off rationed, stolen food had a habit of doing that to a person.

  “When did you find out Colonel Black was a false identity?”

  He stared down, flicking at his pants pocket with one thumb.

  Risa’s fingers grew icy. “You knew all along…”

  “We had been watching him for a while. The military was going in, normal ground troops. They had no idea you even existed. Oberlin was supposed to have grabbed you before your father got home that night and made it look like a random kidnapping. An out-of-control auto taxi mauled him less than four hundred meters from your door. It’s a damn miracle it took the strike team as long as it did to get the door open. If their electronics tech wasn’t a moron, you’d be dead. Voronin never would’ve had time to get you into the vents.”

  “I…” She gazed into space, recalling faint memories of sirens in the background of her e-school. That must’ve been Oberlin. The virtual classroom created by her Senshelmet wasn’t supposed to have sirens. She knew it had come from the real world, but noises like that happened all the time in that part of the city. “The MLF was monitoring him too?”

  “Yeah,” Garrison muttered at the floor. “My finding you wasn’t an accident. I’d been hunting for you for months.”

  Risa jumped on him, shaking him as hard as she could by two handfuls of shirt, which barely moved him. “Look at me so these things in my skull can tell me if you’re lying.”

  Garrison held her wrists, caressing the backs of her hands until he looked up a few seconds later. She wanted to cringe away from the pain on his face, but didn’t. He repeated it exactly as he said before.

  “I’m sorry for not trusting you, but…”

  “I deserve it.” He let out a breath. “My team was assigned to watch Voronin in case the Marines jumped the gun. We had made contact with him, and he was helpi
ng us. His people didn’t know.” Garrison’s jaw tightened. “His planted wife―sorry, your mother, didn’t know either.” He looked away.

  She trembled. All the glowing text dancing around his face at the end of hair-thin lines showed indicators of truthfulness.

  “Some military idiot not high enough up on the food chain to make these kinds of decisions made the call to take Voronin out. We were caught off guard when they decided to hit the apartment with you there.”

  “Everett?” She stared down at her glass-like thighs.

  “No. Everett was the commander of the intelligence group. Direct oversight would’ve come from someone under him. It’s possible Major Wymar could’ve given the green light, or it might’ve been Colonel Hideki.” Garrison sighed, as if barely containing anger. “Everett knew Voronin was ACC, but he didn’t know my unit got to him.”

  Her fists loosened, she went from throttling to clinging. “What was so important about me?”

  “Only that you were an innocent who didn’t deserve what was coming.” Garrison shifted his stance and put an arm around her.

  “You’re lying again.”

  He took a wavering breath. The look on his face said he might cry. “I’d watched you grow up. I couldn’t let them hurt you. When the strike team went in, we all thought the worst had happened.”

  Guilt hit her like a wet cloak. Truth. He does care.

  “A couple days later, we noticed the left-wing NewsNet idiots hadn’t started screaming about a little girl killed in a domestic attack. They love dead children, makes for great ratings. As soon as I realized you’d survived, I started looking for you. I’m sorry it took me so long to get you off the street.” He smiled and patted her on the cheek. “I never expected it to take eight months. You certainly made yourself hard to find.”

  “How’d you manage it? He taught me how to survive… never to take the same route twice in a row or use the same pattern.” Risa let off a wistful chuckle. “Guess he wasn’t paranoid after all.”

  “A bit of luck I suspect.” He wagged his NetMini at her. “My Navcon client would target random points in the city all on its own. When the replacement did the same thing, I decided to follow it… and there you were.”

  Risa grabbed a handful of his shirt collar. “The soma says you’re full of shit again.”

  Garrison chuckled. “Okay, it wasn’t luck.”

  She tapped her foot.

  “I guess it was an angel.” He winked.

  Garrison’s words hung in the air, a ponderous weight upon her shoulders threatening to crush her to the ground. Risa stared, her jaw lax. Years of wary glances and whispered comments flashed by in her mind. Most, if not all, of the Martian Liberation Front thought her Cat-6 for ‘talking to angels.’ They called her crazy, said she heard voices, was delusional. Now, the closest thing she had to a father confessed to believing in Raziel. How suspicious was it a Marine Corps electronics guy couldn’t get a common apartment door open? Or an autocab went out of control at the exact moment necessary to mangle Oberlin.

  “You knew?”

  He took a step back, a posture not quite sitting on the edge of his desk. “I found out too late to do anything. Everett was already on scene by the time word got to me, but the PVM had it handled… their feelers run deep.”

  “No, I mean―” She covered her face in both hands.

  “Why do you think we stay deep in UCF territory?” He kept his gaze on the desk to his right while fidgeting with small bits of junk behind him. “We have enough influence in the system here. Even if you were to be captured, the odds of you being… hurt… are slim.”

  A rush of warmth flooded her cheeks. “That’s not what I mean. You knew I wasn’t nuts.”

  “I never thought you were nuts.”

  “No, but everyone else in this place does,” she yelled. After a pause to collect herself, she whispered. “Raziel made contact with you.” She glanced around for a place to sit, sensing the strength about to leave her legs.

  “Of all the things”―he moved away from the desk and put an arm around her―“you’ve endured. A couple of people thinking you’re strange seems petty.”

  “Petty?” She squirmed away from him. “You think it’s petty to have everyone you work and live with think you’re crazy? You think it’s petty to have people hide behind doors or run away from you all the time? Half the safehouse thinks I could snap and kill them at any second. You think it’s petty they all think I’m a synthetic assassin who has no feelings, or that they whisper behind my back?” She raked both hands over her head and pulled them down through her hair. “You should’ve seen the way they all stared at me when I walked in.”

  He let his arm drop. “Risa…”

  “It’s part of the plan, isn’t it?” She squinted, anger the victor over sorrow. “Make me feel isolated from everyone but you. You needed to keep me hating the government, only trusting the Front. That’s why you never told me you knew about my father.”

  Garrison pinched the bridge of his nose again, the other arm across his chest, clutching his elbow. “No. You were a scared child. I didn’t want to cause any more damage. I thought it kinder to leave your memories of him positive. It’s not like you were destined to fight for the Front. I felt bad for you, the way you feel for those kids from the mineshaft. All I wanted to do was take you in, give you a safe home.”

  “You wanted me angry.” Risa pointed at him, shouting. “You wanted me ready to kill anyone in a military uniform without hesitation. You groomed me into the monster I’ve become. Now you tell me you believe Raziel is real?” Air leaked between her teeth. Kinder to leave my memories positive… he sounds just like Raziel.

  Garrison winced as if slapped. “You’re not a monster.”

  She whirled, putting her back to him and staring at her legs. “I’ve got wires all over my body, more silicon in my head than in my NetMini… What’s it been, twenty-six bombs? I’ve killed hundreds of people I never laid eyes on. How is that not a m―”

  He moved up behind her, grasping her arms. “You are not a monster.”

  “You made me―”

  “Stop,” he yelled. “Risa, just stop it. I’m sorry.”

  A feeble attempt to wriggle away caused his grip to tighten. “Let go.”

  Garrison held on. “For everything. I didn’t mean for things to turn out like they did. I offered you a home, but you kept running off into the vents, afraid of open places and all the people here.”

  She squirmed. Idiot. He knows what I could do to him if I wanted to.

  “You always came back. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you run off. Maybe if you weren’t so comfortable in the dark, Maris wouldn’t have suggested the augments.”

  He knows. She stopped struggling. He knows I couldn’t hurt him.

  Risa let head her sag to the left, staring down at the battered slats over the duct she had so often crawled through. The fire couldn’t follow her into the vents. “You could’ve told him no.”

  “You were seventeen then, or thereabouts.” He loosened his hold on her arms and pulled her around to face him. “You know how you get when you want something. I didn’t want you to hate me for holding you back.”

  Her lip quivered. She swallowed her emotion, becoming the cold specter everyone thought her to be. “I thought I owed my life to you. How could I say no? I thought they blinded me when they took my eyes, but I think I was blind well before that. Even if these metal things in my head can do things living eyes can’t, they feel…” She lifted her head, meeting his gaze. “What was so special about me?”

  “You’re my daughter.” Garrison squeezed her hands. “The last thing I wanted was for you to go off into harm’s way.”

  “What are you holding back?” Emotion crept into her voice. “Am I really? Are you sure I’m not just a weapon?”

  “Risa…” His face went red with rage. For an instant, she expected him to slap her, but he slouched. “Maris leaned on you because of a mysterious financier. Some
one, we still don’t know his real identity, offered to send us enough credits to cover the augmentation as well as a healthy bit more, if…”

  She blinked. “If? If what?”

  Redness returned to his cheeks. He looked at the wall. “I just sat there and let Maris shit all over your life.”

  “If it was me?” Risa covered her mouth with one hand. “Some deck jockey wanted me to be the one? Why? There’s hundreds of tí-zhèn out there already. Did they really need to find some other desperate bitch to wire up?”

  “I wish I could answer that.” He brushed a few strands of hair away from her cheek. “Even six years ago, the Front didn’t have the financial strength it does now. We couldn’t have hired a tí-zhèn, nor would the brass have trusted a mercenary. Maris worked himself up over the offer to the point of believing if you refused, the revolution would have been doomed.”

  “I thought I was helping the citizens.” Her gaze fell to the floor. “I thought I was fighting to avenge my father’s murder at the hands of a corrupt government.”

  “You are helping the citizens, and the government is corrupt. Some more than others.” His glare softened. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this. If it’s what you want, I’ll find a way to pay for a dunk at the med center so you can have as normal a life as you can.”

  She pulled away, pacing a lopsided figure eight in the space between his desk and the door. Her boot soles squeaked with each step, the only sound encroaching on the draw of breath from outside the door. A mental impulse switched her eyes to thermal mode, outlining six child-sized handprints on the door in red-orange, plus two shapes hinting at heads pressed to the metal. She blinked, switching back to standard vision.

  “There’s no real difference,” said Garrison. “The process regenerates tissue from your own DNA. New biological eyes would be no different from what you were born with. You scared the hell out of me, Risa. I’ve a lot of faith in the PVM, but there are some risks not worth taking. Say the word and I’ll do everything I can to―”