by J J Hane
“Mr. Holt taught us that every programmer has their own special language,” I continued, worried that I was losing my audience. “He says that the way someone writes a program can tell you as much about their identity as their own signature. You can use the virus’ programming to figure out who wrote it. Probably on which computer, too.”
“That’s a nice thought,” the director said, glancing up at Mr. Holt, who was busily tapping away at the screens, returned to his work. “But without the original copy of the virus, it is unlikely that we could determine precisely what its code is. Your teacher, as well as our other very capable programmers, have been working to destroy the virus for the past several hours. It will be unrecognizable now.”
“Unless you have the original,” I prompted.
“That’s what I said, yes.”
“Will this work?” I held up the little memory stick for everyone to see.
I heard a startled inhalation from somewhere in the room, but I couldn’t see who it was.
Director Kelley reached out, snatching the device from my hand between two bony fingers. He held it up, eyeing it. “This just might…” he said.
Suddenly, the red rectangle on the huge screen flashed through a series of colors, bathing the room in strobing light. All eyes turned toward the screen. After a moment more of flickering, followed by a long, indecipherable computer code, the screen resolved itself into a satellite image of the Martyrion and surrounding land.
“Got it!” Mr. Holt shouted in triumph. His face was shining in sweat when I turned around. There was a general noise of celebration and relief that swept through the control room. My heart sank as I realized the implication: the Archangel could fire on the surviving outlanders at any moment.
When everyone else was looking at their consoles or the huge wall of screens, I saw Mr. Holt’s eyes on Director Kelley. Or no, not the director… The director’s hand. I remembered what Azrael had said just before leaving me to die. He hadn’t trusted the pretentious old man. While Mr. Holt wasn’t old by our standards, he would be to the tribes.
My teacher caught me watching him. Our eyes met, and that was when I realized the truth. My teacher, Abishai’s mentor, the best programmer in the entire city, was the traitor. He must have known the kill switch for the virus already, just in case his plans went awry. He would look like a hero in front of everyone for saving the city just in time.
Unless someone else was able to get a look at the virus on that memory stick. The Martyrion’s forensic teams were incredibly efficient, as well. They might be able to identify the original owner.
“Mr. Holt!” I shouted above the din of excitement. “How did you disable the virus?”
Chapter 20
Attention returned to me at that question. Mr. Holt spread his hands in humility. They were shaking.
“I’ve been working with the satellite codes since I was your age,” he replied. “I know a thing or two about them.”
“About how to disable them, too?” I asked.
Mr. Holt laughed nervously, glancing up toward the council members above him. “What’s that, son? I’m not sure I understand you.”
“Director Kelley,” I said, turning back to the wary man. “It might be a good idea to have someone else look at the program on the device. I have a feeling that Mr. Holt is a little too familiar with it.”
“What?” Mr. Holt asked, his voice a little too loud. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. Isaac, tell me you’re not listening to this nonsense?”
Director Kelley looked at the memory stick, then up at my teacher over the rim of his glasses. “Commander Lenci,” he said, turning toward the silent, blocky man beside him. “How do you recommend I proceed?”
“Isaac,” Mr. Holt said with a nervous little laugh. “This is silly.”
“I’m sorry, Abraham,” the director said. He sounded like he might actually mean it. “This sort of thing is beyond my purview. You’ll have to appeal to the council.”
A thin, papery voice spoke from the back of the rounded room. I looked up to see Randall standing beside his peers on the council. “I think it would be wise to investigate the young man’s claim.”
“What?” Mr. Holt practically shouted. He turned to face the Council. “You won’t let a baseless accusation like this be taken seriously, surely!”
Randall shrugged his bony shoulders. “I think we ought to consider all sources until we discern the real traitor. You don’t have a problem with that, do you, Abraham Holt?”
The elderly woman beside Randall, Shirley, stood. She glared down at Mr. Holt with a fierceness far too intense for her age. My teacher withered under the look. “I believe my fellow councilman is correct,” she said sternly. “Though it pains me to admit it. Will you submit to a thorough investigation?”
Mr. Holt looked like he might protest, turning to look at the others in the room for support. Seeing nothing but frightened, confused faces, his shoulders drooped, his chin touching his chest.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said quietly. “Everything has already been set in motion.”
“Excuse me?” Director Kelley said.
Mr. Holt turned to face us. I had expected to see a look of fear or defeat on his face. Instead, I saw pride and resolve as he set his shoulders, pulling himself together to face the consequences of his actions.
“There’s no need for an investigation,” he announced. “It’s true. I was the one who supplied the code to the savages.”
Gasps and murmurs of horror rose in the room like a tidal wave.
“Don’t act so offended,” he snapped, glaring around at the other technicians. “You all know it had to be done.”
“What are you talking about?” Director Kelley asked. He had one hand pressed to his chest as though he was trying to catch his breath.
“I did what I did for the good of the Martyrion!” Mr. Holt shouted. “I helped the savages feel more comfortable, a little safer. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect the artillery. That came as quite a surprise, but it’s just as well. We needed the motivation to use the Archangel.”
“Why, Abraham?” Director Kelley’s voice was just above a whisper. All eyes were on the exchange.
“Because the savages have been a threat to this city for generations!” Mr. Holt replied, his eyes alive with fiery passion. “Because those disgusting, uncivilized brutes have killed our people whenever they have the chance. They seek our destruction, regardless of the kindnesses we have shown them. The only reason they haven’t succeeded is our superior technology. As they just demonstrated, however, they have the ability to acquire weapons we thought were long gone. How much longer before they build enough of an army to overwhelm us? How long before they develop ways of attacking our city that even our defenses cannot prevent? We needed to strike first. We should have done it much sooner, but you, Isaac, and you, esteemed council members, lacked resolve! Now, you must finish what you started! If you don’t destroy the army that is coming after us, they will lay waste to this city. They’ll slaughter our people by the thousands before they destroy the last vestige of civilized humanity on earth. I did what had to be done to start this. Now you must finish it.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “You disabled the satellites so that you could destroy the tribes?”
Mr. Holt pinched the bridge of his nose. “I disabled the satellites to induce panic and confusion. Azrael was supposed to attack the city when they went down, which would have given us all the reason we needed to annihilate the problem. I didn’t expect him to have artillery, but I suppose it all works out in the end. If we don’t finish what we’ve started, they will overrun the city. All of the people will be on our side now.”
“Not your side,” Director Kelley replied imperiously, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height. “You have no part in the future of this city.”
Mr. Holt gave a slight bow, like a fencer acknowledging a touch. “A price I knew I might pay.”
> The old councilwoman, Shirley, spoke up, her voice ringing through the control room. “Commander Lenci, arrest this man. Place him in custody to be dealt with later.”
Commander Lenci moved to obey. I thought I saw a slight smile touch Mr. Holt’s lips. No, not mister Holt. He didn’t deserve any type of honorific. Abraham. Abraham Holt, betrayer of the Martyrion.
As Commander Lenci ascended the stairs, seizing Abraham’s arm in a vicelike grip, one of the technicians seated a level above raised her hand.
“Excuse me, Director,” she called over the murmurings that rose and fell like waves around us. “We have a… situation.”
“Put it on the screen, Moriah,” Director Kelley told her, turning his back on the room to look up at the wall of screens. The main screen shifted, zooming in to show a large patch of forest, flicking from a simple photograph to an infrared view.
There were thousands of colored splotches concentrated in one area. Azrael’s army.
“The tribes appear to be moving toward us,” Moriah said. She sounded professional, but I could hear her voice trembling.
Director Kelley placed his hands on his hips, elbows sticking out like bent branches.
“It’s for the best,” Abraham called out. The commander of the MSF had already guided him to the elevators. “Our children will think of this as an atrocity, but they will be better off for it.”
“Get him out of here,” the director ordered, refusing to acknowledge the traitor in any other way.
When the elevator doors closed behind Abraham, Shirley spoke again. “The man may have been a traitor,” she said, “but he was right about one thing: we have to destroy their army before they get close enough to attack us.”
Director Kelley let out a sigh so quiet that only Sophia and I could hear it. “Prepare the Archangel,” he said.
“Wait!” I shouted, reaching out to grab his arm. “You don’t have to do this.”
He shook me off with an expression of profound distaste. “I’m afraid we do, young man. If we let them get close, more lives will be lost. Abraham’s intentions may have been evil, but we have no choice now.”
“There might still be a way,” I insisted. The director looked back at me. Every eye was turned toward me.
“Do tell.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I began hesitantly. “The point is, Azrael betrayed some of his own followers. He knew that the mall was going to be destroyed, so he left behind anyone whose loyalty he didn’t trust, along with anyone who was sick, old, or too young to be useful to him. He used you all the same way Mr. Holt used him. Some of the people escaped the mall, though, and if I can convince the army that you won’t fire the Archangel on them if they don’t attack, they might turn back.”
“Why should we preserve their lives?” Shirley asked.
“Because this city was founded on the idea that human life is important,” I said, addressing the whole room. “The founders never intended the Archangel to be a weapon. They never planned to use it to commit genocide. We shouldn’t commit horrors just because they’ve been committed against us.”
I saw Randall stand shakily to his feet. “The boy is correct,” he said. “Violence should be our absolute last resort.”
One of the other council members, an old man I didn’t recognize, leaned forward. “Where did you get the memory stick?”
My heart stopped, and I could feel the color draining from my face. I wanted to lie, to say that I had found it when Serenity took me captive, but I knew that my body had already betrayed me.
“I took it from the girl who used it,” I said, quietly.
“And why did she not destroy it?” the man pressed.
“Because…” I began, trying to think of options. It was surprisingly hard to come up with a convincing lie under all of that pressure. In hindsight, I wish I could have said something like ‘she was planning to blackmail the traitor’ or ‘she planned to use it again later’ or something. Anything but the truth, that I had been there with her, practically escorted her to the mainframe.
“Because I was there when she plugged it in,” I told the room. My voice hitched a little, like I was about to cough, although my chest was constricting. I felt the guilt once again washing over me, a tidal wave threatening to knock me off my feet, drown me in my own despair. The fiery red beam of the Archangel’s wrath, the bodies in the forest, Mac’s gurgling struggles after the crash… It was all too much.
“You are saying,” the councilman said slowly, carefully. “That you knew the girl was here, and that you knew of the cyber-attack when she performed it? Yet you did not bring the device to the proper authorities then?”
“Yes,” I mumbled, unable to look up.
“Might we conclude, then, that you were not, in fact, a hostage to the girl when she fled the city, but an accomplice?”
“No,” I said, looking up to the man. “I was trying to stop her. I wanted to stop the attacks, but she did kind of force me along. I was going to help her get out of the city so I could try to explain the situation to the tribes, but things went so wrong at the gate… It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. Most of them didn’t know that the Archangel could still fire while blind.”
“Azrael knew this, though, yes?”
“I guess so. I don’t know how he knew, or how much he knows about any of this.”
Shirley made a curt motion. “We have heard enough from this boy,” she announced, triumphant. “He is clearly just as guilty as the traitor.”
“Now, hold on,” Randall began, but Shirley cut him off.
“I propose,” she said, glaring at the old man, “that we send him on his way to fulfill his desired mission.”
I was stunned by that. Evidently, everyone else in the room was, as well.
“We can provide him with a hoversled,” she continued. “That should let him intercept their army before it gets too close. He can have one hour to persuade them to turn back. If he fails, we can use the Archangel.”
“With him in their midst?” Randall asked in disbelief.
“Indeed.” Shirley’s ancient eyes glittered with malice. “The punishment for his betrayal is clear within our laws. This is a serious crime, and as he presents no further danger to the city, I propose that we revoke his citizenship, effective immediately.”
“Exile the boy?” Randall cried. “He just outed the real traitor!”
“After being a traitor, himself! It is no excuse. We must act on our laws. As members of the Council, it is our duty to uphold them.”
Lionel, another of the council members I recognize from earlier that day, stood, adjusting his flowing robes pretentiously. “I second Shirley’s proposition.” He looked at the other council members, ignoring me. “The boy may be able to prevent further loss of life, if that’s what you call it for the savages. Fine. But in order to allow him to do it, we must accept the necessary risk of sacrificing him. We cannot do so if he is a citizen. What kind of precedent would that set? We have no choice but to exile him for the good of all. I vote for exile. There is not time for deliberation on this matter.”
“You can’t call for a vote at this moment!” Randall shouted. “There are procedures…”
“In point of fact,” Lionel said, giving Randall a reproachful look. “I can call for a vote in a crisis. This is most certainly a crisis, wouldn’t you agree?”
Randall looked at a loss for words. The other council members exchanged glances, murmuring to one another. Not one of them made eye contact with me.
“I vote for exile, as well,” Shirley announced.
“As do I,” said the man who had questioned me. His eyes were sad, his gaze on the floor in front of him.
“Aye,” called another, with a little more enthusiasm.
“Exile.”
“Agreed.”
“We have no choice. Exile.”
“Aye.”
The remaining four council members were silent.
“That is eight votes,”
Shirley said, pleased. “A three-quarter majority is all that is required for exile. It passes.”
She looked down at me. Even through the distance separating us, I could feel her hatred. “Your citizenship is hereby revoked, Raphael Peregrine. You will be transported to the wall. May your mission succeed with all haste.”
I opened my mouth, closing it again when I realized that I had nothing to say.
“This is wrong, Shirley,” Randall said.
“Then we may discuss it in a closed session,” she replied sternly, shutting down the conversation as easily as if she had flipped a switch.
She looked back down to me, addressing the rest of the room. “Have this traitor escorted to the city limits immediately. There is no time to waste on niceties.”
Seconds later, strong hands seized on my arms. I looked around to see two guards holding me, already guiding me toward the door. I could hear Sophia shouting, trying to argue with the guards and the council simultaneously, but her voice seemed distant, as if it was echoing down a long tunnel. There was other noise, too: the sound of people chattering, working on their consoles, the soft beeping of various monitors. It all sounded so far away.
Exiled? That didn’t make any sense. I’d lived in the city since I was a baby. They couldn’t just cast me out, not after everything I had just been through...
Could they?
The guards dragging me into the elevator certainly seemed to think they could. Just before the doors closed, I looked up to see some of the council members hurrying out of their seats, moving on to some other important project that I would never be a part of. Despite their age, I would probably die long before any of them.
Exile was a death sentence, and everyone knew it. In general, the tribes did not take kindly to citizens of the Martyrion who had committed crimes grave enough to be cast out. Not only that, but life in the city was comparatively easy, with no need to forage for food or scrounge for supplies. None of us even had the basic skills to survive. Then there were all of the diseases still active outside the city, with no access to any real medical care. Oh, and let’s not forget the ambient radiation from all the wars and the reactor meltdowns during the Fall.