Empyre

by Josh Conviser

  Laing breathed deep, opened his hand and placed the shard in his palm. He gripped back down on Sarah's hand. The metal cut into them, spilling blood from their palms. Drones welled and flushed the wound, migrating into Sarah and, for a time, making her part of him. The blood link filled Ryan.

  He gripped harder.

  29

  BURNING MAN, BLACK ROCK DESERT, NEVADA

  Sarah Peters floated through a soft haze. Isolation intoxicated her. The static silence of it—like an ear buzz after a night at the bar. For so long she had forced down a constant bombardment of data. At first, she had wanted to understand Laing. To see the world as he did. She had longed for his abilities, to share a view of the world beyond human capabilities. And she got a taste of it. After the first round of knife work, perception cracked, admitting such magnificent light. It stunned her, broadened her, locked her into a course she could hardly imagine. But it brought her no closer to Laing.

  When they parted, her need didn't ebb. Instead, it built, fueled by that new lack within her. She filled the space inside with tech. Sarah shaped her perception like a sculptor, trimming it from her own clay, finding a new form that suited her better. Each round dulled out the pain, allowing her to sink deeper into a world so brilliant, so intense, that she need never look within. She pushed her pain down, blanketing it in a constant data burst.

  But the release was fleeting, the flurry of input fading to vague transparency. Then it was back to Dubai for another hit. The cycle became the person. She lost herself in the drive to cloud her pain.

  And now there was stillness. Something in her had lost the need to run. She floated, kicked out beyond perception, beyond her pain and self-loathing.

  Then the voice. Not a voice really. A communication, a transmission, resonating within her. Recog swept her, piercing the stillness with razor-perfect cruelty. The link flooded her, drove her to the spot she had feared for so long. Hate swelled in her. For the one who had driven her here.

  —Sarah. Please. You need to come out of this.

  Ryan fucking Laing.

  Laing accessed the full power of his drones to bolster the link with Sarah. His body withered under the loss. With fewer drones to fight it, the sickness surged, slow death working through him. Relentless. He ignored it, pushing deeper into Sarah, allowing his emotions to link with hers.

  Her cold silence engulfed him.

  —Sarah—please.

  No reply. Only the dawn rays of her presence coursing over him. Familiar, filling out his need. Then her hate engulfed him, the raw loathing of the weakness he had created in her. And the loss. Ryan sank into it, the pain of it flushing him. He continued to hold.

  —Sarah.

  He reached for her. Not in a way that could be translated, but on a core level as one animal to another. It was beyond words, under them. Naked. Nothing held back—the pure whole of him asking for her, defenseless.

  She raged back, cold fury and soft need. The space between them barbed, pricking him like an appendage that had lost circulation. The link blossomed. Pain ran into pleasure. Sarah writhed, lashing out at him. He took it, accepting her pain—trying to take it away. It sapped him. Her supply ran endless, welling with each gulp he took. Laing foundered under it. He couldn't continue.

  He couldn't fix her.

  So he stopped. Laing flashed reflective. He rejected her pain—refused to take it in. He couldn't make her whole.

  —I'm sorry. The words tumbled from his mind, scattered in the wave of emotion flashing over him.

  The act stilled Sarah. Laing felt relief flooding her. She didn't want to be repaired. Not by him. She loathed him for trying. In her, he felt a sea shift. The crushing swell eased to rough chop, desire churning through the hate, welling up in her.

  In this place, she drew him close. No raw sensation of flesh slapping flesh, but an emotional tug and release. She pulled Ryan into her desire, pushing into him with all of her. Roles reversed, grew malleable and shifted with their combined ebb and flow. Ryan fell into her need—her animal desire meshing with his own until he couldn't separate his emotions from hers. When release came, it hit them both, slow pulsing female, hard smashing male.

  The ripping impact of it sucked Sarah from her solitude, forcing her toward consciousness. She sensed him wrapped around her, her own being enveloping him.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  —Sarah.

  “Sarah.” The thought and the word came out together, meshed in the flood of release.

  He stood over her, hands clasped. The drone flood had faded to a trickle. Laing's face had gone sheet white. He wheezed slow, crackling breaths. He let go of her hand, but she continued to hold on, gripping hard.

  Sarah's green eyes bored into Laing's. She pushed him out, consciously, cruelly, removing herself from him by force of will. And still she gripped him, forcing the shard deep, making Ryan bleed.

  She rose out of the reclining chair. With each moment, her strength increased. She held Laing's gaze in a seared burst of remembrance. Re-initialized, her body tat flooded color, an aurora rippling over flesh, flickering with the emotions running through her. Ryan's degeneration continued, his pallor contrasting with Sarah's multicolored brilliance.

  —Ryan. Emotion burst within her. The memory of love, the gratification of need, and the anger.

  She released her grip. As if that was all that had kept him standing, Laing crumpled to the floor, hacking. Sarah stood over him, boiling color, restraining nothing.

  From the corner, Dave Madda watched. Eyes wide, mouth open. “Ummm, did I miss something?”

  30

  BURNING MAN, BLACK ROCK DESERT, NEVADA

  It's hard to unknow a man.

  To have Laing before her—to see him munch down a turkey sandwich, wash his hands, gaze at Madda's junk piles with that bemused, crinkled lower lip—all of it sucked her right back in. The ember she had doused for the last years reignited. Their shoulders rubbed over the cutting table in Madda's kitchen and all she wanted to do was to throw her arms around him. But the high faded fast. He couldn't hold her gaze. His weakness drove her to hate him. Then the cycle started anew.

  “Sarah, you're running clean. The virus's trigger has been destroyed.” Madda's clipped words broke the tension. He stood at what used to be an emergency hatch that was now linked to an up-canted fuselage leading to his workstation. Dave held a flow-screen in his hand. He walked over, somehow able to navigate the flotsam on the floor without taking his eyes off the data.

  “Everything feels smooth.”

  “Yeah—well, I do nice work.”

  Sarah smiled. She waved a hand before her, triggering the cam protocols. Pigment shifted, shade-linked to her surroundings. Her arm faded into the fuselage's monotone. Madda stood fascinated. She caught Laing from the corner of her eye, his expression unreadable. She turned away.

  “Best money could buy,” she said.

  Madda laughed. Not a comfortable laugh, but it cracked the ice.

  “And whose money was that?” Laing asked, his tone sharp.

  “Does it matter?” Sarah shot back.

  “You know, I think it does.”

  “Fuck you, Laing.”

  “After everything we did. After Echelon—you went right back to the tit. So, yeah, I think it matters. I'd like to know what you did for EMPYRE—and why.” Ryan spat each word.

  Sarah covered the ground between them flash fast and slapped Laing across the jaw. Ryan spun with the force of the blow, crashing to the floor in a hulk.

  Sarah raged hot. Before she could get to Laing again, Madda had jumped between them.

  “Wow!” Madda's eyes glassed with fear.

  The look broke Sarah's rage. She peered over Madda's shoulder and down to Laing. He brought a hand to his mouth, feeling the trickle of blood. His eyes locked on hers.

  “I'd like to know how many died to get you the best money could buy,” he said.

  The words cut her anger, but it was his vulnerability that exp
elled it. Sarah pulled the hand that hit him into her chest. She had hurt him. She had thought him indestructible—armored so hard and deep that nothing could break through. But now ...She had struck him. She had hurt him.

  For how long had she longed for this moment? Here it was—and it brought no satisfaction. The spark driving her faded. She stepped back, gaining distance from Madda.

  He caught her look. “You're jacked tight, Sarah. You're stronger than Laing.”

  Sarah took another step back. The dull pound of realization flooded her. Had her motivation over the past years been merely to get to this place—this confrontation? And how much of her was left to close it out?

  Madda mistook her look for confusion and blathered on, keeping himself between the two. “The matter annihilation got your transmitter, Sarah. You're back in business. But Laing's going to take more time. The pathogen you produced affected him on a genetic level. For most, that's instant death.”

  Madda turned to Laing, still on the floor. “Your drones will hold the line—but they can only do so much.”

  He turned back to Sarah. “There's good news, though. I got the flow-link between you two locked back in. Should be five by five now. So you've got that . . .”

  Sarah pushed off the curved wall of the fuselage. As she came at him, Madda began to realize how unwanted that link might now be. “I mean—You don't have to use it or anything.” Sarah sidestepped Madda and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Sarah stooped down over Laing.

  “Guess I'm back in your head,” she said.

  “We could continue to ignore each other.”

  “Yeah, that worked well.” Sarah's lips cracked in the slightest smile. “Maybe I can't ignore you—no matter how much I try.”

  Ryan nodded. His eyes told the rest: the depth of his feeling, and the naked need to reengage.

  Sarah's hand shot forward, snap quick. Laing did not flinch. She caught a drop of red-gray blood that had fallen from Ryan's chin. They held that moment.

  —I'm sorry. Her words seeped through him.

  —Don't be. I've been impenetrable for so long ...I needed someone to kick my ass a bit.

  Sarah smiled, raising her hand in a mock punch.

  —No argument there.

  Sarah lowered her hand, stroking his face.

  —Then maybe this is all okay, Ryan. Maybe we have a shot to make it right.

  Laing smiled. He pulled Sarah close. She fell into his chest, into the fevered heat of his body. It felt good. Right. She sank into it. The walls in her buckled and fell away. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn't care.

  31

  BURNING MAN, BLACK ROCK DESERT, NEVADA

  “You shitting me with this?” Frank Savakis had no patience for the freak sitting before him. So the twitchy fucker was rich. The fuck difference did that make to him?

  “You're not into the design?” Madda asked.

  “I'm not into dragging my ass through the desert.”

  Frank peered out through the black-tinted plexi and into Burning Man. Makeshift structures poked up from the dirt in a cantilevered maze. He shook his head. “You make the fuckers out there look sane.”

  “We're all here for a reason,” Dave said defensively.

  “I'll bet.”

  “This is a place of freedom. A place where you can—”

  “Spare me, all right?” Frank shot back. “I'm not drinking your Kool-Aid. You wanna sit out here and howl at the moon, go right ahead. Just get Laing and I'll be on my way.”

  “There's unchecked anger in you that the Burners could really—”

  Frank's look stilled Madda's train of thought. “Laing. Right. I'd give him the time. Man's fucked up.”

  Frank shrugged and sank back into the chair opposite Dave. Silence sat with them. It was an awkward threesome.

  “You built this, huh?”

  “Yup. Before Sarah came, I hadn't left it in three years.”

  “I'm shocked,” Frank said, deadpan.

  More silence. Madda squirmed. “You so ready to get back out there?”

  “Case Laing didn't mention it, there's shit that needs doing.”

  Madda's turn to laugh. “There's always shit. We go up, we slide back. We slaughter each other, we make reparations. We muddle.”

  “That why you're here? Sick of the muddle?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don't sit well. Life ain't great. In fact, it's shit out there. Always has been. But, you know what—I work better in the shit.”

  “See, I work better surrounded by it.” Madda waved his hand at their environs, drawing a reluctant laugh from Frank.

  Ryan Laing entered slowly, struggling through his grogginess. He wore jeans, faded and ripped. His chest heaved, breath thumping through him in a rapid wheeze.

  “You look like death,” Frank said.

  Ryan made his way to the coffeepot, picking through the selection of mugs for the least dirty specimen.

  “This is an improvement,” he sputtered back.

  Ryan poured himself a cup and turned to Madda “Richest man in . . . well . . . the area, and you can't offer me a clean mug?”

  “Cleaning staff is unpredictable around here.”

  Ryan grunted, hunkering over his coffee. Something pulled him from his stupor. After a moment, Sarah Peters entered the room. Hair slicked back and eyes bright, she radiated fast-twitch action. Laing's lips flipped to a grin—as if in response to an interchange Frank wasn't party to.

  “Last time I saw you, you looked markedly worse.” Frank stood, extending a hand. “Frank Savakis.”

  “Sarah.” She shook his hand. “Guessing you're here to tell us the vacation's over.”

  “Back to work.”

  “You find Taylor?” Ryan asked.

  Frank waffled. “I found a lead. Got solid intel that he's in The City.”

  “Oh, God.” Sarah's face had gone white. “EMPYRE lives.”

  The shut-in stink of Madda's cramped labyrinth was getting to Ryan, edging him out. With liquid filling his lungs, he couldn't seem to draw in enough of the lead-heavy air.

  Sarah's words pulled him from his slow-burn panic, infusing him with a quick shot of adrenaline. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Sarah looked away. “The City is a node—a focal point in world affairs. Its variable location makes it a multinational mecca. The UN may be in New York, but most serious issues are dealt with in The City. A disruption there would affect the balance of power in a dozen countries.”

  “But The City is impregnable,” Madda replied. “No goods enter or leave. They take the shirt right off your back.”

  “I pulled some time there a couple years ago, working an Iraqi businessman I was trying to turn,” Frank said. “At customs, they strip you fuckin' naked. No baggage, no personal items of any kind. Took forever. I was just glad they didn't do a cavity search.”

  “Oh, they did. They scan you six ways to Sunday,” Madda said.

  “So, with all that security in place, I'm thinking Taylor uses The City as a safe house—a place where your average assassin terrorist fuck can go to relax.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don't think so.” “We talking woman's intuition here, or you got something to tell us?” Frank pushed.

  Sarah looked up at him. “So far, every target I analyzed for EMPYRE in the past six months has been hit.”

  Frank looked away. “Son of a bitch!” “

  The City's on that list.”

  PART 3

  32

  HOBART, TASMANIA

  Heat wicked from Laing's body; he couldn't seem to retain it. Cold felt different with the drones unable to zero out the pits and peaks of experience. The wind lashed him, bringing with it mingled scents of forest and ocean. A dull wash of anxiety rose in him, the smells kicking off a cascade of memories.

  Laing took a deep breath, the snap shift of scene jarring him more than he wanted to admit. Hobart was a long way from Burning Man. And to be here with Sar
ah was stifling. The halting dance that he and Sarah now waltzed was so different from the easy confidence they had shared the last time they'd stood in this place.

  Ryan watched her from the corner of his eye. She gazed out at the cargo ships filling Hobart's Macquarie Wharf. But she wasn't really looking either. He knew she was also scanning their mutual past, hung up in its thick cloud.

  “Of all the places . . .” she said.

  Laing laughed. “Three years.”

  Sarah turned to him.

  “That's how long it takes for The City to circle the globe,” he continued. “In all that time, with all those ports—we catch up with it here.”

  The City had just passed through the Bass Strait and now sucked onto the Tasmanian coast like a giant leech. So massive it couldn't enter the port itself, the ship churned slowly down the coast. Through the cargo ships before them, Ryan and Sarah could just make out The City's gleaming white bulk on the horizon.

  “It's different now,” Sarah said.

  “You can say that again,” Laing replied, gazing down at the teeming throngs below. With The City's arrival, Hobart buzzed in an orgiastic frenzy of commerce. What started as a trickle of tourists hitting Hobart had turned into a deluge.

  “Growing up, we had a terrible mosquito problem one summer,” Laing said. “I remember a cow dying from the bites, the mosquitoes totally blacking her out. Feels like that here.” The City's hundred thousand occupants thronged Hobart, shifting the town's balance. Laing could feel the carrying capacity of the fragile island canting hard. The City did this everywhere it went. There was profit in its arrival. And it took about three years to recover.

  Sarah stared down at the masses, then to Ryan. “I didn't mean the place. Well, maybe I did.”

  “You mean us in this place.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “I know. I miss it.”