by V. St. Clair
It’s impossible to know where the traitor is, or how high up in the government they are.
If their traitor was somewhere in the communications hub, Topher would find out soon enough, depending on how they reacted to his next call. If it was somewhere in the Provo-Minor—which seemed more likely—then they would lack sufficient clearance to even know that Jessamine was attacked, let alone injured. If the leak was in the ranks of the Provo-Major…well, then things were going to be a lot more complicated.
Topher hesitated for a moment longer and then punched in his emergency override code to call the Viceroy directly.
It only beeped twice before the ruler of Elaria answered, his expression visibly terse in the display window of the communicator.
“Major, I am in a meeting. Can this wait?” he said by way of greeting.
“No, it cannot,” Topher replied as calmly as possible, not knowing who the meeting was with, or whether they could hear anything from the Viceroy’s comm.
The Viceroy’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly at this, and without breaking character he turned to the other people in the room and said, “Excuse me for a moment. Please help yourself to refreshments until I return.”
Topher waited until the Viceroy had left the room, walked down the hall, and entered another one before speaking again, after Roald shut the door behind him. The background of the room looked vaguely familiar; probably the Viceroy’s personal sitting room, if he had to guess.
“What’s going on, Augen?”
Topher registered his superior’s tension in the address. He was ‘Topher’ when the Viceroy was feeling convivial, ‘Major’ when he was in full business mode, and ‘Augen’ when he was angry or worried.
“Jessamine has been injured by razor-spikes,” Topher said without preamble. “We are currently at GMH on the top floor. They’ve removed the spikes from her back and are nearly finished removing her damaged skin. Organ damage appears minimal right now, since most of the spikes were caught by her ribcage. There was some spinal damage, but the ambulance techs paralyzed that region and did some quick gluing, and the surgeons here are about to begin repairing the nerves and augmenting any chipped bones.”
The Viceroy of Elaria registered the fact that his oldest daughter and heir was critically injured with barely a blink, though some of the color seemed to drain from his face and his hair suddenly seemed greyer than usual.
“Where was she hit?” her father asked in a flat tone.
“In the middle of her back, Excellency.”
“I meant where was she located when she encountered someone who happened to be carrying a spike launcher?” This time the Viceroy’s tone was more clipped, less calm.
“We were in the courtyard across from First Orbital Bank headquarters,” Topher amended quickly, knowing already that he was going to be asked some very difficult questions about why he and the Vicerina were gallivanting around downtown together when he was supposed to be on business and she was supposed to be in the Augenspire.
“I see,” the Viceroy’s tone had an icy edge to it now. “And the assailant?”
“There were two assailants, Excellency,” Topher continued on, thankful that the Viceroy was more interested in hearing his full report than in blowing up at him for being out with his daughter in an unsecured location. For the moment, at least. “Both attackers are dead, though the municipal officers are canvassing for other leads. One was carrying a military-grade laser cannon and the other had the razor-spikes.”
The Viceroy digested this in silence and then asked, “Will she live?”
Topher’s heart almost stopped at the suggestion that Jessamine could die from this, but he swallowed his emotions and said, “It’s too soon to say. She is unconscious at present, but we both know infection will be her greatest risk now, even with all the Bactrin they’re pouring into her.” There was always the chance the surgeons couldn’t fix her spinal damage as well, which could mean paralysis, but that was a problem to worry about after he knew she was going to survive.
“Are you alone with her?” Topher knew that what his superior meant was, “Did either of you have the good sense to bring a clutch of Majors with you, or were you idiots out by yourself and unarmored?”
“Yes.”
The Viceroy’s jaw tightened slightly, but all he said was, “I’m sending backup to your location. You will tell them only what they need to know regarding her injury and set a rotating guard on her. You will remain in the room with her at all times until she is well enough to be transported back to the Augenspire. I will arrive to receive your full report in—” he glanced at his watch, “—two hours.”
And with that he cut the comm. Topher briefly entertained the tempting idea of throwing himself out of the window and falling a few hundred stories to a messy death. It would be more pleasant than what he was going to face in the next day or so.
And then who would Jessamine have fighting for her?
Well, presumably all of the other Majors would do their duty to defend her to the death, though the Viceroy had to at least be entertaining the possibility that one of them was betraying him or he wouldn’t have told Topher to restrict the flow of information to his peers.
He sighed and stepped back into the room, feeling a hundred years older as the smell of Bactrin hit him again. Jessamine was still lying on her stomach, head tilted to one side so that she currently faced him, her eyes glassy slits that showed she was still unconscious. The surgeons were cleaning up the remnants of the molded plascrete they had mixed, and the skin experts were at work now, overlaying sheets of thin white skin that looked like cheesecloth over her back. The nutrient-soaked sheets would begin attaching and filling in rapidly once they held up their special lights to it, which would activate the hyper-growth of the new skin.
There must not have been many bones or nerves that needed to be repaired, or it would have taken them longer. He tried to convince himself that this meant she would be alright. Then again, if part of the spinal column had been irreparably damaged, it wouldn’t take much work to make her stable and declare her paralyzed for life either.
Topher addressed the surgeon who looked the least busy.
“Inform the sky-level security team that four Provo-Majors will be landing shortly and that they are to be brought to this level immediately. The security team will also need to prepare for a visit from the Viceroy in two hours.”
The woman looked surprised to hear that the Viceroy would be arriving so soon, decontaminating her clothing more rapidly so she could hurry from the room to make the proper notifications. The security nightmare involved in hosting the Viceroy on short notice was—fortunately—not Topher’s concern.
It took ten minutes for his peers to arrive, and another two for them to clear the security at sky-level and make their way to the top floor. Topher exited the room to greet them and was only mildly surprised to see the four of them in full heavies, walking towards him with all the intimidation factor of a group of armored tanks.
They’re even wearing those God-awful earpieces.
The Viceroy clearly wasn’t playing around with security for his oldest daughter, and wanted his people prepared for a full-scale invasion of the hospital. Topher felt especially small and inconsequential in his street clothes and surgical scrubs, a crust of blood still on his face from the gash on his forehead, which was beginning to throb painfully in time with his previously-dislocated shoulder. He swapped out one of his Talents for the one that deadened pain, instantly feeling better, though still physically drained.
“What the hell is going on?” Gareth greeted him, taking in his overall appearance with a glance and frowning slightly. All in all, Topher was glad the Viceroy had sent Gareth and Reya; they both seemed fairly loyal and competent. He was less excited about the presence of Andro and Kristoph, who regarded him as The Royal Boy-Toy, but as long as they guarded Jessamine, he didn’t care what they thought of him personally.
“The Vicerina was hit in the back
with a ball of razor-spikes,” Topher explained. “She is in critical condition and currently having new skin grafted on. The Viceroy has asked me to remain with her in the room while a rotating guard stands out here.”
There was no question of four fully-armored Majors going into the room with the Vicerina. For one thing, it would be impossible to properly scrub them in, and hygiene was of dire importance right now. For another, they wouldn’t all fit into the room in their heavies. And thirdly, Jessamine was grievously injured and weakened, and no one else needed to see her like that if Topher could help it.
“Why aren’t you in your armor?” Andro asked, as though this was the item of greatest importance right now. “Did they make you remove it to put those ridiculous scrubs on?”
“My armor is at the Augenspire,” Topher answered flatly. “I was on a plainclothes assignment when the incident occurred, though they would have made me remove it to permit me access to her room either way.”
Kristoph raised an eyebrow at that.
“Where the hell was Jessamine when she got hit by razor-spikes, anyway? The Viceroy wasn’t exactly clear in describing that part.”
Topher blinked and said, “I’m sure there will be many questions for the Vicerina to answer when she is feeling better. If you’ll excuse me, my orders were to get you four set up and then remain with Jessamine until the Viceroy arrives.”
The others could tell he knew more than he was letting on, but said nothing until he reentered the hospital room and went through the decontamination process once more.
The grafting was still finishing up when the Viceroy arrived, after what felt like an eternity. Topher was so tense by this point that when he heard the door to her room open he almost slit the throat of the first person across the threshold—thinking they were under attack—before realizing it was the Viceroy.
“Stand down, Major,” the Viceroy instructed him, remarkably calm for someone who had a knife to his throat. “Though I do appreciate that you are taking your job seriously.”
“Your pardon, Excellency, I did not recognize you at first,” Topher blinked hard several times to focus himself. Even with the pain-killing Talent equipped, he had burned a lot of adrenaline and was beginning to feel the resulting fatigue.
The Viceroy walked past him and stopped in the center of the room, watching the doctors finish their wrappings around Jessamine’s back to hold the new skin on until it bonded properly. His expression was impassive, but Topher could sense the tension in his body.
After a long moment he said, “Major, I’ll hear your report now.”
This was the part of the visit Topher had been dreading the most. There was no way he would come out of this looking good, having barely been able to fight off the Vicerina’s attackers before they could kill her. Hell, they might still succeed in killing her if the doctors couldn’t keep infection from setting in.
The doctors appeared to be finished with her for now, and at the Viceroy’s pointed look they paused their cleanup efforts and left the room.
When they were alone, Topher said, “I was continuing my work on the assignment you gave me to search the financial district for clues to Hera’s whereabouts. It was a plainclothes assignment, which I judged to be fairly low risk, though I did bring my full complement of Talents, my ion-sword, and some other odds and ends with me for protection, in case things went badly. Having canvassed the part of the city I had allocated myself for the day—in conjunction with the Minors’ reports—I decided to stop in at First Orbital Bank and see how repairs were coming along, since I was in the area. Jessa—the Vicerina encountered me on my walk.”
The Viceroy was staring at him so intensely, Topher was almost afraid to blink.
“The Vicerina was coincidentally checking up on F.O.B, in person, at the same time as you?” He seemed to know the answer even as he asked the question.
“No, Excellency. She told me she came into town in search of me. According to her, she had recently finished a call with her husband-in-waiting and was feeling—well, she wanted some fresh air.”
The Viceroy’s lips tightened slightly. “Go on…” he said at last.
“I advised the Vicerina against being outside without proper backup, but she was—”
“Willfully ignoring your advice?” her father supplied helpfully.
“To put it bluntly, yes,” Topher agreed. “After my arguments proved unsuccessful in getting her to return home, we stopped by F.O.B and looked around briefly before departing.”
“Were you recognized?” the Viceroy interrupted him.
“We were,” Topher admitted uneasily, remembering the guards who had let them in after realizing who they were. Could one of them have called someone to come and attack Jessamine while they were sitting in the courtyard across the street?
“Go on,” the Viceroy waved an impatient hand at his hesitation.
Topher frowned and said, “We went to a small park across the street and sat down for several minutes to talk. I suddenly became aware of a massive energy source building up nearby, due to my Talents, and I activated her shield-stick just as we got blasted by the laser cannon.”
“You took a direct hit from a laser cannon and weren’t incinerated?” The Viceroy looked skeptical now.
“The first attack hit the bench we were sitting on, rather than getting either of us directly. I was also wearing a disperser at my beltline, which was completely burnt up from dissipating most of that energy away from me. The impact—and the translation of the energy into force by my disperser—was still enough to send me flying, but it redirected enough of the blast to prevent me from being critically injured.” And thank heavens I thought to add it to my belt today and bear the extra weight of it, or Jessamine and I would both be dead right now.
“I cut down the assailant and went to assess Jessamine, but she seemed alright. I sustained minor injuries, and she was helping me reset a dislocated shoulder. We were discussing our next steps when I saw someone take aim at her back with the spike launcher. I tried to push her out of the way but was not fast enough, and she was hit. I took down the second assailant and returned to her as the sky-ambulance arrived.”
The Viceroy contemplated this in silence and then said, “It would have been nice if you’d left one of the attackers alive long enough for questioning.”
“I realize that,” Topher admitted. “My first thought was for the safety of the Vicerina, and I was unarmored and uncertain how many assailants there would be after the second.”
The Viceroy waved a hand at this to acknowledge the point.
“Tell me about the weapons.”
Topher frowned and said, “The laser cannon appeared of military grade, perhaps from the Augenspire itself.” Saying the words out loud made him shudder inwardly. “We’ll be able to confirm once your cleanup crew hauls everything back for analysis,” he added. “The spike launcher was non-commercial, professionally made but without any obvious markings on it.”
“And the assailants?”
“I didn’t recognize either of them—likely patsies. Both dressed in civilian clothing, no real identifying features, tattoos, or piercings. I didn’t have time to scan their biochips since I was more concerned with getting Jessamine to the hospital, but I did tell the municipal police to have everything saved for our investigation.”
The Viceroy looked away thoughtfully for a moment to process all of this, but when his gaze returned to Topher there was a challenge in his eyes.
“Why did my daughter seek you out, of all people, this morning? There were plenty of places she could have gone to get some fresh air that didn’t involve venturing into the heart of downtown Silveria without a proper escort.”
Topher’s gut clenched at the question and he wildly thought, Well, I didn’t get around to asking her why she picked me, because I’m in love with her and I was really pleased to be spending time with her…
“I would not presume to speak for the Vicerina,” he replied instead.
/> The Viceroy exhaled heavily and glanced back at his daughter, still unconscious on her stomach.
“Someone in my government is betraying us,” he said heavily. “I strongly suspect the Provo-Minor are involved, but there are thousands of them to sort through. I intend to quietly begin interrogating all of them to reaffirm their loyalty, but it will take time to get through that many people. What bothers me most is I’m beginning to think a Major is in on the corruption as well.” He stared thoughtfully at his daughter. “There are much fewer of you, and it would be significantly easier for me to focus in on you all, but the enhancers make it impossible to use chemical interrogation methods.”
“Well, not impossible,” Topher allowed, “but they would be much less accurate due to the remapping of our neural networks.”
“It is worthless if I can’t trust the results. I could revert to old-fashioned physical interrogation tactics, but those are also unreliable, since people will admit anything when they are in enough pain.”
Topher swallowed bile at the thought of being locked up in the high-security prison level that Maxton had just recently escaped from.
“It might do more harm than good in the long-run, as people who are subjected to long hours of torture tend to hold grudges and become less loyal in future.”
“Agreed,” the Viceroy nodded. “Which effectively makes you all untouchable to me. So I must work this from the ground up, starting with the Minors and support staff, then with the military itself.”
It would take a year to interrogate all of those people properly, even with an aggressive schedule, and judging by today, it didn’t seem like the Viceroy and his daughters could survive a year.
“On to the things I can control,” the Viceroy blinked. “I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me with complete honesty.”