by Nik Korpon
“Whoa, hold on.” I sit upright. “Greig said he took out Tobeigh?” I look from Morrigan’s blank face to Greig’s smug smile.
“Is this a surprise to you?”
I’ve wanted to bury this bastard. And now I know how.
“Only because it was so easy for Greig to take Tobeigh out, since Greig has so little field training.” I motion for her to continue.
“Given that there is the potential for another uprising, we will disseminate a story that he was killed by one of his own because he had been secretly relaying information to the Tathadann, but we expect a reaction to his death regardless. The rebels have already threatened to disrupt Macuil’s dedication ceremony and I need not tell you what will happen if they do.”
I clear my throat, compose myself. Actually, I won’t bury him. I’ll let him hang himself. “Can I ask what proof you have of Henraek in this? Do you have any photos linking them?” Greig starts to speak but I talk over him. “Because I find it interesting that Greig could have such sensitive information about this bombing, especially given that the men who are supposedly the architects – Henraek and Tobeigh – were highly trained rebels who thrived on secrecy.”
Her head tips slightly to the side. She’s listening.
“So if this information is as reliable as you say it is – and I’m still on the record as saying it’s useless at best and contrived at worst – then I would reckon it could only be gathered by someone close, someone who has intimate access to the architects.” Finally, I look over to Greig. He clasps his hands, then repositions them, crossing and uncrossing his leg. He is so ready to tear into me.
“Intimate is one way to describe it.” He reaches into his jacket and produces a grip of photos, dropping them on Morrigan’s desk. “This is a complete broach in protocol and amounts to treason. Belousz and his superior,” he says, looking at me, “should both be brought before a tribunal.”
She snatches the photos from the desk and examines them. Her nostrils curl up, like he’s handed her a carcass left out in the sun. She regards me with a sideways glance, holds them up for me to see as well. I close my eyes and press my thumb and forefinger against the lids, as if this is the hardest thing for me to accept. I feel a tear well beneath the skin and it takes me by surprise.
“It’s true, ma’am, Belousz was with Forgall Tobeigh. Quite frequently, and for the last two weeks.”
“I wouldn’t begin to tell you how to govern, Lady Morrigan,” Greig says, “but I doubt the people would balk at a decree for these two to be stripped. Especially given that this has been going on for two weeks, and so close to the anniversary.”
“Two weeks, Walleus?” she says.
“Two weeks, ma’am.” I steeple my fingers, clear my throat, and blink a few times. Don’t break, Walleus. Don’t you dare break. “In my experience – and, Greig, that includes six years under the purview of Lady Morrigan and another ten before I saw the light – it’s incredibly difficult to gain the confidence of a source quickly without them suspecting you and providing whitewashed intel, rendering the entire operation useless.”
Greig’s face pales.
“Source?” they both say.
“Yes. Source.” I blot my forehead with a handkerchief. “I took your advice to heart, ma’am, and decided that instead of relying solely on Henraek to infiltrate the rebel cells, I would recruit Belousz to go deep cover. Which he did,” I gesture to the photos, “until Greig went and ruined that.”
“Why wasn’t I notified?” she says.
“It was a quick operation and, obviously, required a high level of secrecy and trust. Young Greig here, ambitious as he is, has shown he can’t play well with others. And I sure as hell don’t trust him. For all I know, he took out Tobeigh because he is the leak and he’s protecting himself.” I clear my throat. “I made an executive decision for the safety of my team to keep this one close to the chest. I apologize for leaving you in the dark.”
The room hums with silence, all the commotion outside not more than a whisper.
She holds up the photo of Henraek and Emeríann. “What of this one? Is this another operation you’ve yet to tell me of?”
“I told you he could do it, we just needed some time. Judging from the size and shape, I’d wager that’s a liquor cabinet, given they’re headed into a bar.”
Greig speaks up. “That’s now two rebel sympathizers Walleus is tied to.”
“No,” she says, her voice so sharp I can nearly hear the air part in front of me. “You killed one of them. The other is useless without Tobeigh.”
He bows his head, like he’s actually deferring to her. “My apologies, Lady Morrigan. I was acting in the best interest of the Tathadann and Eitan. If everything were running above board, as I run my operations–”
“You have no operations, son,” I say. “I give you tasks.”
He purses his lips. “If we were all notified, this source would still be active. However, it was a well-intentioned operation and one that could have been used to obtain a large amount of intelligence on the rebels. Despite our difference in opinions, Protectorate Blaí is a good leader and I have learned a lot from him. I have become very good at my job under his supervision.” He pauses, maybe for dramatics or to let me crap my pants in surprise at getting a compliment from him, in front of her no less. “Which is how, in addition to uncovering Belousz, I recently gathered information that none other than Daghda Morrigan plans on returning to Eitan City.”
Morrigan’s eyes ricochet to mine. I let her stew for a couple breaths. The noose is set around his neck. Now I make the floor disappear and hope like hell this memory can be verified.
“It’s an amazing feat, I’ll give it to him. He probably would’ve come back early for his nephew’s funeral today too.” I nod at Greig, whose apparent confusion leads me to believe he didn’t know Daghda and Forgall were kin. “Except Daghda died five years ago.”
Greig’s face goes completely white. Morrigan’s is stone blank.
I pull the viewer out of my jacket and set it in front of her, then hit play. “We found this memory on the network.”
It’s subtle, but her expression does change. At first it’s something like spite or revulsion, but as she lowers herself into her chair, it softens into a sadness that’s been battened down beneath years of anger and bitterness. The moment makes her uncomfortably human.
“I’d reckon that I could identify the reason for all this miscommunication,” I say to Morrigan. “It would be a lack of focus, from having one eye on my seat and the other on my back, looking for somewhere to rest a knife.”
“This is in fact the problem,” she says, still looking at the screen. “You can’t have your men’s eyes going in two different directions. It’s impossible.”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“It’s attention to detail, and the lack of it here.” She sets the viewer down and pushes it back to me, then leans back and assesses us like cattle. “Greig, you will be accompanied on all operations by a senior field scout of my choosing and submit extra logs with all observations verified by that scout. Walleus, you will clear everything – and I mean everything – with me first. There will be no dark operations. I will see to it that someone else investigates these rumors of Daghda.”
“Ma’am,” I say, “you saw that he’s dead.”
“This cannot be altered memory, or hallucination from too much Paradise? Have you seen his body?” Her expression is blank but I can see the anger roiling behind that purple-tinted skin. “Attention to detail, Walleus. I will make one of you an example. It’s up to you to decide who it is.”
I swallow hard, nod.
“And if no one decides, I’ll kill you all and start over,” she says. “Have Belousz report immediately for a debriefing. I want to know everything he learned from Tobeigh about the attack.” She turns away, ending the discussion.
“Thank you for your time,” Greig says, giving a slight bow before pushing his chair toward the desk.
&nb
sp; Blood crashes against the inside of my face. I wait for him to start toward the door before I move, making sure he can’t snake his way further into her graces.
She calls my name before I reach the door. “You’ve been a loyal asset to the Tathadann for many years,” she says. “Both I and the Promhael recognize that.”
“Thank you. I’m glad–”
“But that won’t save you from the firing squad if you don’t resolve this immediately.”
I nod. “I know.”
I push the door open and see four of myself in the hallway mirrors. As I walk toward the exit they disappear; I wonder if it’s a trick of perspective or a suggestion.
Greig stands before one mirror, smoothing back his hair in a compulsive way, like he’s willing his pulse back to normal. I stand behind him, watching the reflection of his hand go over the same spot repeatedly.
“I’ve got a hangover, so I’ll give you this one,” I say. “Next time you go over my head, I’ll shoot off your kneecaps so you can’t reach so high.”
“Walleus, you ever think I’m not reaching higher, but you’re sinking lower? Oh wait, maybe I am rising. After all, I’m the one who took out the legendary Forgall Tobeigh, right?” He smooths back the same piece of hair. “I’m going to bury you.”
“I would love to see you try.”
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, old man? Undercover operations? Insinuating that I’m working with the rebels? We both know you’re a rat. You’ve always been one,” he says.
“And you’ve always been a spoiled shit who lives off his father’s heroics.”
“Your kind is a relic,” Greig says. “You don’t have the constitution for this anymore. It’s only a matter of time before you expire, so you should do the honorable thing and step aside before someone really gets hurt. This is our war now.”
Then he lets loose with a smile, adjusting his collar and smoothing the front of his shirt, and in his teeth I see the tombstones of all the men I fought with, men with conviction and spirit and more balls than this little snake who has found his way into my yard. His smile grows, knowing he has my goat.
I slam his face against the mirror. Spiderweb cracks spread, a smear of blood tinting the hundred shards of my reflection. He falls to a knee, cupping his nose.
For some reason, I don’t kick him. Instead, I continue toward the entranceway.
“I warned you,” he shouts behind me.
I leave the droids to clean up his blood.
25
Henraek
Rows of two-foot metal tubes wind from the concrete floor, small control modules sitting at the bases before the tubes twist up forty feet, passing through a bank of filters then disappearing in the ceiling where they’ll meet three more levels like this. A metal walkway sits atop girders, crisscrossing the space above the ten gleaming silver vats that line the central path, five to the left and five to the right. Each could hold thousands of gallons of processed water, but are likely only filled by whatever condensation drips down to the bottom. There’s no longer reason to store water, because as soon as it’s processed in the area beneath us, it’s diverted out to the Tathadann neighborhoods that paid the most for the privilege. At the far end of the plant sits a larger bank of dials, levers, and knobs, a mix of localized controls and read-outs for the electrical capacitors one floor beneath us that store the power the plant runs on. The control panel for the entire operation sits inside an office in the northwest corner of the plant, separated from this space but connected by eight surveillance cameras that feed into a series of display monitors beside the guards’ desk. It’s fascinating that the Tathadann has manufactured a startling number of technological and biomedical advances, yet their water depends on systems that are more than one hundred and fifty years old.
I think to point that out to Emeríann, but she is twenty-five feet in the air, legs wrapped around a walkway pole while her outstretched arm is precariously balanced above the surveillance camera, trying to slip on a circular resampling device, something akin to a closed-circuit video recorder that endlessly loops. It’s not a perfect patch because, if someone watches beyond the duration of the sample, they’ll see a quick glitch when the sample restarts. But it’s good enough for three minutes of uninterrupted work, which is about all we can hope for. She slips the base over the housing of the final camera then activates it, and from the way her body relaxes, I can tell she’s done it without jarring the set-up and alerting the workers above to our presence. Eight cameras housed, no eyes on us.
The maps for the plant – however ill-gotten – have been essential to this job. Without them, we would not have known where to stand, which pilings to scale to remain unseen, which tubes run outside of the plant into the surrounding neighborhood and thereby will carry an electrical pulse all the way down. Without them, we would likely have already been caught and trussed up on wooden crosses, preparing to be stripped. It’s only appropriate that we will use these maps against the people who made them.
Despite all that, I feel a selfish twinge that I’m not the one who secured the maps without anyone’s help.
“You here to look pretty or are you going to help?”
I blink and Emeríann is already down from the walkway and hunkered beneath a set of tubes, attaching a pulse-charge.
“I was actually looking for the bar, but they don’t appear to be too accommodating.” I pull a set of wires from my bag and kneel beside her, instinctively reaching out to attach them but reminding myself to pull back, that she is completely competent and I should start hooking up the atomizers instead of supervising. But something about her hands – the way they twist the ends of the wire from the wrist, the way they massage the dial as she calibrates the pulse frequency for maximum conductivity – is mesmerizing, bordering on arousing. Or maybe that’s a product of the context and a dysfunction on my part.
Whatever it is, I have to consciously tell myself to get moving before we’re spotted. “You’re amazing,” I say to her.
“You’re wasting time.” She looks up at me, puffs the hair off her face, flashes a smile. “We have two minutes left.”
I can’t argue with that. I whip the bag off my shoulder and retrieve the atomizers, start doubling them up on the predetermined walkway posts, then fasten the delay charges to the other posts. All of these are synched with the detonator, one single red button. I thought Walleus was screwing with me the first time he showed me one. I told him it looked straight out of a cartoon, but the heat from the explosion it triggered singed my eyebrows. After we press the button, the pulses will fire and short all the sensors on the way out, disabling the water flow, right as the secondary posts disintegrate, all of which will be followed by the ground level floor falling out. We will take it down from the inside, then destroy the outside for good measure.
One. Big. Boom.
Emeríann finishes with the last of the pulse-charges and crawls out from beneath the gaggle of tubes. She cracks her neck left and right, stretches her arms over her head.
“All set?”
“All set.” She checks her timer. “With ten seconds to spare.”
“They’re all sequenced?”
“You want to check?” She plays with a smile, letting it shift from strained to coy to unsure.
I sling the bag back over my shoulders and fish the detonator out of my pocket. Something catches my eye in the periphery but flickers away before I can focus. An insect or something that has found its way in here. “Just making sure. We can’t unpush the button.”
“We’re never unpushing this button.” She sniffs hard. “Do it. We need to move.”
I take in the detonator, not so much worn out as well used. I run my thumb over the button, try to remember the last time I pushed it, what we bombed and how long the report echoed inside my head. I taste grit in my teeth, smell a phantom tendril of powder and wood fire.
“You’re doing it again,” she says.
I look up at her, toss the deton
ator. “This is your job. You planned it, you get to push it.”
The smile’s real this time, irrepressible. “One minute?”
“Forty-five seconds to a minute. We’re not working with high-grade explosives here.”
“Then let’s get out in thirty,” she says, and it’s not until she says thirty that I realize the flash is not an insect. It’s a reflection. A resampling of a reflection. Because the resampling device slipped off the camera housing and is now trained on the reflection of a vat.
“Why are you still standing here?” she says, shoving me toward the door.
“Emeríann,” I say, and the tube next to my head pings twice.
“What the hell?” She looks around. Then there’s a zipping sound and a drizzle of blood lands on her face.
My right shoulder is white hot. A flash of electricity radiates down my arm, up my neck, lighting up every synapse along its path. I snatch at her with my other arm and pull her into cover behind the tangle of tubes, search inside the bag for my pistol.
The guards shout a warning then fire more shots.
She kneels beside me, staying behind the tube, and tells me to stop moving so she can look at my shoulder. “Flesh wound,” she says, replacing the torn and bloody fabric of my jacket.
“Sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.” I can’t aim with my left arm.
“You’ll be fine.” She reaches behind her and produces a pistol, leans around the tubes and fires a few times. One of the guards screams something about his knee. “You OK to move?”
“I’m fine. Where did you learn to shoot a gun?”
She glances around the tube again, fires twice more, though it seems more to keep the guards back than to hurt them. “I didn’t tell you I grew up in the bogs?”
“No, you’ve never told me that.” My hand touches metal inside the bag. I pull out my pistol.
“Oh,” she says, popping off one more shot. “Well, I did. All kinds of stuff to shoot out there.”
“That’s lovely. We need to go. Now.”