by Lyn South
“Where did you find her?” I ask, as we pick our way through clusters of people congregating on the second mezzanine. Some are socializing, others are making deals in hushed voices. Fagin’s suite is at the far end of the hall.
“Chicago. 1932. Anna’s father was a banker. During the early years of the Great Depression, as that time was called, he drank himself to death. Anna’s mother died of influenza a few months later. The poor thing had been in an orphanage for over a year when I saw her pick a man’s pocket with such skill and confidence that she reminded me of you, Dodger.” She gives me a sideways glance and chuckles.
We didn’t coin our nicknames. Fagin’s father—an aficionado of nineteenth-century English literature, and the man who taught Fagin everything she knows about high-class thievery—decided that our relationship fit the mold of Charles Dickens’ characters: Jack Dawkins, a light-fingered and stylish young pickpocket—called the Artful Dodger by his most intimate friends—and Fagin, the ringleader of a juvenile gang of thieves who bring him stolen goods to fence in exchange for food and shelter.
When I retire, I’ll read that book and see if he was right about Fagin and me.
A smirk lifts one corner of Fagin’s mouth, “Let’s hope she doesn’t inherent your penchant for completely disregarding rules.”
We enter her office, a spacious room filled with ornate French provincial furniture, crystal chandeliers, antique bookcases stuffed with first-edition books, and a large fireplace with an eighteenth-century carved mantle. The room is Old World elegance from floor to ceiling. The only concessions to modern contrivances are the computer monitor on the desk and the personal teleport pad in one corner.
“You see the irony in reprimanding a thief for disregarding rules, don’t you? If CVs were required for this job, ‘must ignore rules and laws’ would be a top requirement.”
I drop into an eggplant-colored chair nearest the fireplace, which casts a warm glow over the room as the fire blazes. A decanter of port sits on the side table, so I pour a glass. There is an explosion of summer berries and a hint of chocolate when it hits the back of my tongue. When I retire, I’ll buy a bottle of port for every room in my house.
“Have you forgotten something?” Fagin asks. Raising an expectant eyebrow, she extends her hand.
“No, but I was hoping that you might.” Smiling ruefully, I collect the leather pouch from the bottom of the messenger bag, and deposit it gently on her desk before returning to my chair.
She picks up it up, estimating its weight by juggling it from one hand to the other. “Hmpf. Seven or eight pounds, I’d wager.” She reaches inside. She pulls the diamond from the bag. Her lips part in surprise. “Oh, my.”
I watch as she examines it, smiling in wonder to herself. Finally, she puts the jewel carefully into a box that she locks with a key. The box goes into her desk drawer, which also gets locked.
“Worth ignoring the rules for, isn’t it?”
“The rules are there for our protection, Clémence. Without a code of conduct, it would be chaos out there. We’d lose the Benefactors’ protection and the full weight of GTC law would fall on us.” She pauses as I pour a second glass of port. “I don’t remember inviting you to help yourself.”
“Given that you interrupted my dinner, the least you can do is buy me a drink,” I reply, raising my glass to her and draining it as quickly as the first.
“You were late to the extraction point.”
“Why are you worrying? I always get myself out of trouble.”
“Not this time.”
I groan, thumping the glass down on the table harder than intended. “Carter reported me, didn’t he? Does he ever grow weary of hearing himself talk? You should have heard him scolding me like I was a child. He was ridiculous,” I laugh.
“This is not a laughing matter. The Benefactors are furious with you.”
“I’m sure you can calm them down.” I say, waving my glass at her. When I realize the glass is still empty, I grab the decanter and pour another drink. “Everyone respects and fears you, Fagin, because they know you have GTC leaders in your pocket.”
“Not all of them.” She pulls a sheet of cream-colored paper from a manila folder, and places it on the desk. She gestures for me to have a look.
My steps are wobbly as I shuffle over to the desk and lift the paper to the light. The handwriting looks blurred. God, why can’t anything be simple? I push it back toward her on the desk. “Read for me.”
“Being a cheap drunk is unattractive. You should give it up.” She doesn’t read the paper because she has memorized its contents. “You’re grounded.” She moves to the front of the desk and takes the glass of liquor from me.
“Grounded?” I repeat, stupidly, not understanding what sort of probation is implied.
“No regular missions until you prove yourself capable of following a commander’s orders, including making it to extraction points on time. Too many missed time jumps and the government gets suspicious that their machine isn’t so well-oiled.”
I feel dizzy, so I steady myself on the desk. “How long am I grounded?”
“Until further notice. Angering them earned you the wrong kind of attention. They think your arrogance puts their interests at risk. Until this blows over, we both have to play by their rules.” The look on her face is serious, and she holds both of my shoulders firmly, forcing me to stay eye-to-eye with her. “I have orders, too. If we don’t do as they say, everything blows up in our faces.”
The public view the Benefactors—a powerful cabal rumored to consist of anonymous billionaires and corporatists—as modern day Robin Hoods. If the people knew they hire mercenaries to steal riches from the past to fill their own coffers, their reputation as altruists would be destroyed.
Or maybe not. The public is quite forgiving if you tell a good story, and the Benefactors-as-philanthropists narrative had reached mythic proportions generations ago.
“They’re angry at me. I get it. Why’d they get you involved in all this?”
“Because you work for me. I’m expected to lead a specialized training mission designed to test you. Failure means execution or time on a prison planet. Neither option is particularly appealing, if you ask me.”
I shudder at the mention of prison planets. As overpopulation increased on Earth, businesses with vast resources moved off-world to pad their profit margins by maximizing cheap alien labor on other planets. One of the first to move were privatized prisons owned by the Benefactors; they didn’t want prison scum on the same planet they had rehabilitated into their private paradise.
Rumors of extreme guard cruelty pushing half of inmates into insanity earned the facilities reputations as Pits of Despair. One of my first clients—a twitchy hulk of an old man bent on changing an ancestor’s will to gain control of the family business—was a retired Mars prison guard. Curious, one day, I asked him about the rumors. He shoved me against the nearest wall, his eyes haunted and wild, and almost crushed my windpipe with his forearm. “Never ask again,” he had snarled.
The lightbulb that exploded over my head as I struggled to breathe was this: The rumors didn’t come close to the harrowing truth about the prisons.
I press my fist against my chest, trying to quell the simmering rage; it feels like a hot branding iron lodged inside me. My dreams of never again owing anyone my fealty now feel as fragile as spun sugar. “They can’t do this to us.”
“They can,” Fagin says. “It’s late. Go say goodnight to Anna. We’ll talk more tomorrow. I’ll send you a note telling where to meet me. We have a lot of work to do.”
“My fee will be in the bank by morning?” A plan to take the money and run is already forming. I could send word to Nico to join me. Fagin, too, if I can convince her we could disappear and never be found.
“Not quite.”
“Meaning?”
“The Benefactors will pay out on the de’ Medici job after we complete this assignment.”
“Shit.” Whether it�
�s too much liquor with too little food or the time lag catching up with me, I’m suddenly tired down to my bones. All I want is my bed.
“Yeah. Shit,” Fagin nods. “They’ve frozen my assets, too. From now on we play the Benefactors’ game.”
Chapter 4
The Simulation Center is sparsely populated; it’s just me and a janitor in the foyer styled in a late twentieth-century industrial complex motif. The ceiling is open and cavernous, supported by exposed steel beams and corrugated steel duct work, which makes the janitor’s mop bucket sound like thunder as he rolls it across the concrete floor. There’s nothing warm or welcoming about this space—even the chairs lining the hallways outside the individual simulation studios are uninviting with their black plastic seats and stainless-steel frames.
Yawning, I pull a crumpled piece of paper from my jacket pocket and read the instructions again. Sim Studio number eight. Five am. Don’t be late.
When Fagin draws a line for me to toe, she schedules meetings at ungodly hours. It’s Saturday, so there are no trainee classes scheduled and the weekend receptionist won’t be on duty for at least another hour. I haven’t had breakfast because eating too early in the morning makes me nauseous.
A mission I don’t want. Pre-dawn training on a weekend. No breakfast.
Merde.
Following the room number placards posted on the heather gray walls outside each room leads me down a long corridor to a sharp right turn, up a stairwell and finally through a set of double doors. Sim Studio Eight is tucked into an alcove.
I press my thumb on the Comm Panel’s bio-metric pad and the door slides open. Inside, the walls are a seamless surface that gleams like iridescence opals. The ceiling and floor are made of the same material. The room feels like an enormous blank canvas waiting for an artist to fill it with color and texture.
Fagin is nowhere in sight.
“Computer,” I say, activating the voice controls. “What time is it?
“Four fifty-nine and forty-eight seconds,” the computer answers in a tranquil feminine tone.
“Where is Fagin Delacroix?”
Strangely, the computer doesn’t answer this question about my mentor. Instead, the lights flicker and there’s a low hum like a beehive buzzing inside the walls. The artificial intelligence hologram program springs to life.
I find myself standing on a dirt path on an overcast day. A stone building facade faces me. Light, steady raindrops saturate my hair.
“Must you make everything so realistic?” It’s a rhetorical question, but the computer answers anyway.
“The simulation experience is designed to prepare time travelers for their missions through true-to-life interactions. The Simulation Center’s holographic programs create artificial environments that are as realistic to human senses as their tangible counterparts, this includes humanoid figures, and—”
“Yes, I know. Shut up,” I cut in. The computer’s droning voice instantly stops.
As annoyed as I am with Fagin’s absence, it still astonishes me that everything in our simulations—from the dirt beneath my feet to the scent of the trees mixed with the rain— feels authentic. Even the food produced in the sim rooms is tastier than the meal replacement bars on the Timeships.
Both exterior doors to the building are locked, so I’m left standing exposed to the elements. This part of the realism is not astonishing or delightful. It’s wet and cold and I’m still hungry.
Turning in a slow circle, I study my surroundings: The building stands along the banks of a river. There’s a grand multi-story stone building with a series of tall, narrow windows on both the first and second floors. A large entrance stands to my left and a short pier leads to the waterway.
The door opens and a man with a pug-dog face peers out at me.
“You are welcome to His Grace’s house, young mistress,” he says. He’s dressed in a white ruffled shirt, oatmeal-colored doublet, and knee-length breeches in the same linen as the doublet. “The Mother of the Maids is in residence, and will escort you to your chamber in the Maiden’s Tower anon. Until she arrives, the cooks will see to your comfort with bread and ale in one of the lesser rooms.”
His skin has the tone and texture of human skin. The cadence of his breathing is slow and steady. His voice is human, not tinny and automated, and it’s unnervingly familiar.
The Sim Room door swooshes open and Fagin enters. “Computer, pause program,” she says. The manservant freezes in place and the rain stops; the drizzle is suspended in mid-air creating a perpetual mist.
“His accent,” I say, trying to keep my voice from breaking. Rain drips from my hair, down my forehead and into my eyes. I’d brush the wetness away, but I can’t tear my gaze away from the man. “He’s English.”
“Computer,” Fagin says, “Load Greenwich Palace program. The royal apartments of Lady Anne Boleyn.”
The scenery transforms into a lavishly appointed chamber boasting high ceilings, wood-paneled walls hung with red velvet tapestries, and expensive furniture. Fagin crosses the room to sit at a round table adorned with a lace tablecloth and bowls of fresh fruit.
“He’s English,” she says, “because we’re traveling to the year 1532 to join the court of King Henry the Eighth. The Benefactors who devised this mission have a particular interest in Tudor history.”
“Fagin, you know what happened to my family. You gave me your word. You said I would never have to go to England.” My voice sounds shrill and panicked, even to my ears. “You promised.”
She doesn’t budge. Doesn’t say a word. Her silence drives the inevitability of my predicament deep into my core. Anger wells in the pit of my stomach, intensifying into bone-deep anguish, a pain so fierce it makes me feel hot and cold at the same time.
Steadying myself on the edge of the French-style writing desk, keeps me from collapsing in a heap on the floor. I notice a riding crop nestled among a small stack of books. A destructive urge takes hold of me.
The wood cane shaft feels well balanced. It’s thicker toward the silver handle end, becoming slenderer as it tapers down to the leather tongue on the other. I like the heft of it in my hand. It will do.
A guttural moan rumbles up from my belly, erupting into a howl that propels me forward, swinging the crop in my hand with all the force I can muster.
I thrash through the papers on the desk, sending them flying; the feathered quills and ink pots crash to the floor. It’s soon apparent that using only the crop as the weapon of my rage isn’t close to being enough.
My hands tear through the books and fragile artefact replicas on every table in the room. I overturn tall iron candleholders and every piece of furniture that yields to me. Fagin watches, but doesn’t interfere.
My arms grow heavy from the exertion. My heart is heavier still. Slumping into a corner by a tall bookcase, I let the sadness take me and the tears come in great heaving sobs. Fagin kneels by my side, sitting with me in the pain until I look at her, pleading. “Don’t make me do this.”
There’s sympathy in her eyes, and cold reality, too. “There’s nothing to be done, pet,” she says. “It’s submission to the Benefactors or punishment.” She pauses, then addresses the computer. “Reset program elements to original state.”
Within seconds, the room returns to perfection as though my tirade never happened. Fagin pulls me to my feet and holds my shoulders.
“They murdered my papa. They forced Maman and me onto a ship to the American colonies that sank from beneath us,” I say, my voice still trembling. “You can’t—”
“We must show the Benefactors they can trust you.”
She turns to walk around the room and I follow, considering her words as I inspect items the hologram has restored on her command. A tantrum isn’t nearly as satisfying when things don’t stay broken.
On a desk by the fireplace, there are jewels displayed on a silver tray lined with black velvet, including a pearl choker with three teardrop pearls at the bottom of a gold letter “B.”
Fagin puts one arm around my shoulder, holding me close like she did when I was as a child. She places her other hand on mine and, together, we run our fingers run over the smooth surface of the pearls. “We’ll bring back treasures of such rare and exceptional value, it will prove our worth to them beyond any doubt,” she says, her voice a whisper. “We will rob the English blind, darling girl. That can be your revenge.”
Touching the pearls stirs unsettling memories of the day my papa died. He was a sailor on a merchant ship that spent long months at sea on trading journeys and, on one particular trip, promised to bring fine pearls home for Maman. No gifts he brought home to us were more loved than his presence.
It was always a joyous occasion when he sailed back into Halifax. On those days, Maman and I dressed in our finest clothes. I wore blue ribbons in my hair and Maman wore a fancy beaded headband. We didn’t look rich to anyone else, but we felt like we were.
On my eighth birthday, Papa returned home from a long voyage down the maritime coast to Boston town. I saw him up in the rigging of the Anna Maria but, from where I stood, he couldn’t see me wave to him. I always thought him so brawny and handsome. Quick, too. Papa could climb down the ropes as nimbly as a squirrel scampers down a tree.
He helped the crew unload the cargo from below deck, and I felt a surge of pride that he could throw a hundred-pound sack of grain down to the longshoremen on the dock like it was filled with air. No one was as strong as my Papa.
“Ho there!” he shouted to Maman and me when he finally spotted us. “How many kisses have my girls for me?”
That was my signal to run to him as fast as my legs would carry me. We met in the middle of the gangplank where I would jump into his arms and smother his face with kisses and happy tears.
“Did you bring my present, Papa?” I asked, excitement bubbling out of me like the first time I tasted pure sugar cane.
He carried me in the crook one arm and slung his rucksack over the other shoulder. I knew my long-promised birthday gift—my beautiful porcelain doll—was in that bag somewhere. We strolled over to Maman who smiled and threw her arms open wide.