Icarus Effect de-1

by James Swallow

  Saxon saw her face, saw the pain hiding beneath the surface, the scars that didn't see the light of day. They were alike, the two of them. Both damaged by the same lies, both survivors of it. Both haunted.

  Beneath the shroud of flame across the surface of the water, between the shafts of light and the fall of the wreckage, they held on to life, and to each other.

  Eiffel Tower-Paris-France

  The private elevator took him to the second tier of the tower, which, as he had expected, was closed to the public for the duration. The restaurant Jules Verne was equally empty, the only figures moving between the tables a discreet pair of young waiters who doubtless had been thoroughly vetted for their reliability.

  DeBeers dismissed his men with a glance and they found themselves somewhere to stand, out of his sight line. He crossed to the table where his colleague was waiting. Morgan Everett got up, extending a hand and warm smile, framed against the windows and the view of the Champs de

  Mars beyond.

  "Lucius," he began. "It's good of you to come. It's been a while."

  "Since we were face-to-face? Indeed." DeBeers took his hand and shook it. "You look well, Morgan. Paris agrees with you."

  That got him a smile in return. "This city has always been important to the group. And the truth is, a lot of things here agree with me." Everett gestured to the chair across from his and they sat.

  DeBeers found the glass of Les Forts de Latour waiting for him and considered it. "How is Elizabeth, by the way?"

  "She sends her best," said the other man. "She has other obligations." He nodded toward the waiters. "I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of ordering for you." "I trust your judgment," he replied. "So, this is just the two of us, then?"

  Everett sipped his wine and leaned forward. "You're not going to pretend you thought it would be anything else?"

  "I suppose not," DeBeers allowed. "I'm concerned that the council might be dismayed at the thought of us meeting in secret."

  "To conspire?" Everett chuckled. "Lucius, you've been an excellent teacher all these years, and one lesson I learned very early on was that there is an elite within the elite."

  "Some believe that," he agreed. "Page and Dowd."

  "Bob Page has enough to do with the biochip initiative and his projects at Majestic 12." DeBeers detected a note of irritation in his old friend's voice, but chose not to comment on it. "And dear old Stanton won't leave New York for anyone."

  "True enough. Still, it's a rare occurrence for any of us to meet in the flesh. It's simply not done."

  Everett laughed again. "I know, it's almost reckless, isn't it? I quite enjoy the thrill." He sobered. "But the Illuminati own Paris. We have nothing to fear here." He took another taste of his wine. "Speaking of which. The events in Geneva-"

  DeBeers waved him into silence. "I have a considerable amount of influence in that city. I've made sure the blame was laid firmly at the feet of

  L'Ombre. The explosions at the airport and the bridge, the assassination attempt, the sinking of the yacht…"

  "Yes, such a pity about the Icarus."

  "I have others. The vessel was a liability, anyway. It might have been connected to me eventually."

  "Of course." The appetizers arrived and they ate for a moment before Everett spoke again. "I asked you here, Lucius, because I wanted to discuss the juncture we find ourselves at, without the… the distraction of other voices. We've recruited so many people to the group recently and I miss the clarity of our more direct discussions." He gestured airily. "It's not just Page and all his ambitions. Our lady friend from China, the scientist…"

  "I concur," said DeBeers. "We have so many endeavors. Sometimes it is difficult to juggle them all."

  Everett nodded. "Exactly. Some of the group forget that the current undertaking is only one of many lines of influence in development. Let's not forget the work on the HIV cure, the D-project, and the fault-line venture in California…"

  "All equally important, I grant you," he replied. "But the biochip is where our focus should be."

  "And we are on course?"

  DeBeers nodded. "Obviously, there was a need for some compartmentalization of events from certain subordinate members of the council. But you can rest assured that the pattern of influence fell more or less exactly where we wanted it to. As always."

  "The United Nations have agreed on the need for a referendum, then?"

  He nodded again. "I was informed of that fact just before I left Switzerland. The attempted murder of Taggart was enough to push them over the edge. That, along with our other vectors of influence and the recent decision by Senator Skyler to come around to our way of thinking, brought us the desired result."

  Everett cocked his head. "What happened at the Palais… Did you really intend that to succeed?"

  DeBeers allowed himself a smile. "Either way, it would have been win-win, Morgan."

  "I see. That explains your, shall I say, prudence?"

  He went on, paraphrasing the report that Jaron Namir had given him in the weeks after the incident in Geneva; although the Tyrants had lost half their agents, they had still been able to complete their mission objectives. The mistake of recruiting Saxon had been erased and Hardesty, while useful, was not irreplaceable. Remarkably, Gunther Hermann had been recovered alive-although severely injured-from the waters of the Rhone by MJ12 operatives. It was a testament to the German's strength of will that he had survived a bomb blast, but the detonation had rendered him physically crippled and heavily burned. DeBeers was aware that Page had already co-opted Hermann, for extensive reconstructive surgery and induction into a cybernetic mech-augmentation program. Perhaps, in time, he would be ready to be redeployed.

  "The fact is," DeBeers concluded, "the question of the global regulation of human augmentation technology is now unavoidable, and we have positioned ourselves to take full advantage of the situation. The result will be a forgone conclusion."

  "The best kind," said Everett, saluting him with his glass. "And our larger plans move on with only minor alterations. Excellent." He paused.

  "Still. There are issues yet to be resolved. Those children in the Juggernaut Collective, for example."

  DeBeers shook his head. "We've dismantled that little gang of data thugs. Those who aren't dead are on our payroll. And as for their friends in that separatist rabble… We'll keep them around. Use them for our own purposes."

  "The operative with the attack of conscience, Saxon? And the Kelso woman?"

  "They haven't resurfaced, both figuratively and literally. But then, Lake Geneva is quite deep."

  Everett accepted this and studied his mentor for a long moment. "You've yet to mention the hacker. What does he call himself-Janus?"

  DeBeers frowned. "Gone. Silent. None of our concern, for the moment." He drew himself up, dropping the mannerisms of a friend in conversation with his best student, and his behavior became more authoritative. "There are other matters of more importance to attend to.

  Like the work of Reed and the team from Sarif Industries."

  "Of course, Lucius," said the other man. "I appreciate the opportunity for… clarity." He looked up as the waiters returned with the main course, and with a nod he had the server pour a fresh measure of wine into each of their glasses. Everett raised his and smiled. "To the future, then?"

  "The future," said DeBeers, savoring the moment.

  Santa Lucia-Guanacaste Province-Costa Rica

  The hamlet was a small place a few miles past the outskirts of the main township, little more than a collection of homes and buildings clustered around the road in the lee of greenery and the encroaching edges of the jungle. Aside from the gray discs of satellite antennas and snarls of telephone cables webbing the redbrick buildings together, the scene was as it would have been twenty, maybe even forty years ago. It was basic and unhurried, and a long way off the grid.

  The man and the woman who arrived were not locals, and some of the children who played in the street
took it upon themselves to follow the pair of them, measuring these blancos and wondering who they were. The big man was an hombre de la maquina like they saw in the action vids, and they were wary of coming too close. The braver of the boys told the others that they heard men like him had chips in their heads that could read your thoughts and arms that could rip apart a car. The woman, she was different, her blond hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, the color turning back to brunette at the roots where the dye job was fading. She wore mirrored sunglasses and a wide-brimmed bush hat that did its best to hide her face from the world.

  At the Duarte house, the two new arrivals were greeted with a strange mixture of emotions. The big man was welcomed like a cousin, with a tearful hug from the mother and a sad, knowing nod from the father. Samuel Duarte's parents both wept a little, but they thanked the big man and brought him inside, the woman following a few steps behind.

  The children who asked questions about the couple in the earshot of adults were told to be quiet and speak no more of them. These people were friends, and that was all that mattered. They had come here to be away from the questions of others, and everyone in the village understood that.

  Anna sat on the balcony as the sun set and stared out into the green; in the distance the color bled away to a gray-brown haze where the jungle ended in the maws of the mammoth logging camps, in the shadow of the mountainside. One hand she kept balled in a fist, resting on her lap. It was as if she couldn't remember how to unclench it.

  She looked away and found Saxon, offering her a brown bottle of some nondescript local beer.

  "Thanks." She took a long pull. "Are we good?"

  He sat next to her, making a face as he pulled on the sutures in his belly. "We're good. This place is not on anybody's radar, you can be sure of that. It's…" He smiled ruefully. "It's just a barrio rattrap. No one knows who you are down here." The smile faded. "We're outta their reach.

  That's what you wanted, yeah?"

  She nodded. Fleeing from Europe, there had been many places they could have gone to ground, but something dark and potent inside Anna

  Kelso had driven her to seek sanctuary as far away as she could go. Somewhere off the map, far from cities and the threats of what she saw when she dreamed.

  He was watching her. "You'll be okay here."

  Anna put down the bottle. Something in his tone rang a wrong note. "I will? And what about you?" When he didn't answer she glared at him.

  "You're not going to stay?"

  He shook his head. "Job's not done, Anna. Namir and those bastards he works for are still out there, still playing their games… I can't look

  Sam's family in the eye and know that I let Namir keep breathing after I let their son down."

  She moved closer to him. "Redemption, that's what you want, isn't it?" Anna sighed. "So do I, for Matt. But I want it for myself as well…"

  "Yeah…" He drained the beer. "Haven't found it yet."

  "You're wrong." She took his hand. "You saved my life, Ben. You came to save me when you could have just gone on with the fight. Then I did the same thing. I saved you. We… we redeemed each other." At last, she opened her hand and showed him the brass coin, its surface blackened and scratched.

  "It's not enough…" he muttered, looking away. "After all we've seen, it's not enough." He went to the balcony. "They won, Anna. After everything we did to burn those bastards, they still won!"

  She shook her head. "Not yet. Not until they silence us. This game isn't over." Anna followed him to the veranda. "Stay here," she said. "Please tell me you will stay here."

  "You don't need me," said Saxon.

  "It's not about need," she replied. "It's about what's going to happen. I don't want you to die out there…" Anna heard the fear and pain in her own words, rising up from deep inside.

  "What do you mean?"

  Anna told him about what Janus had shown her, the torrent of images and sights the hacker had pulled from the depths of the Illuminati's dark schemes; things she couldn't comprehend, half-formed pictures that lurked in her subconscious and tainted the patterns of her dreams. She hadn't slept well since that day; the specter of what Janus had revealed was always there when she closed her eyes.

  "There's one thing I remember very clearly," she said. "It's burned in my memories like a brand. An image, an impression, of every city in the world." Anna shivered as she spoke, despite the heat of the fading day. "All of them engulfed in fire and fury. That's what they're planning."

  Saxon watched her carefully, struck by the strength of her certainty, and her fear. "What are you saying? There's gonna be a war?"

  She looked up at him. "A change is coming, Ben. And we can't fight it. We can't stop it. The wheels are already in motion. The only thing we can do is ride it out, and wait." "For what?" "For a new future." Anna took his hand again and looked up as the day passed into darkness. Out across the sky, night fell on the world they knew.

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