by David Bruns
He swiped his hand across his freshly shaven chin. Anthony had spared no expense in his treatment of his guests. Cora and Graves were separated as soon as they boarded Anthony’s private elevator car. “Car” made it sound mundane and small. It was more like an eight-story apartment building attached to the Darwin space elevator.
He hadn’t seen Cora in three hours, but if her experience was like his, she’d started with a hot shower, a massage, then a haircut. They took everything, his clothes, his government-issue data glasses—the only item he’d been able to salvage was his Saint Christopher medal and even that was an argument. The implied symbolism was clear to Graves: your old life is gone. You are one of us now.
After a light lunch, the tailor came next for a brand-new outfit. He couldn’t help but admire himself one last time in the mirror. A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
Cora wore a white silk shirt that hung loosely to the tops of her thighs and a shimmering dark blue pant suit with a coat that reached to her knees. The thin layers of material worked together to cling suggestively to her body as she moved, her muscles outlined by silk for a moment, then disappearing inside the loose material. A simple gold chain was around her neck and her hair was pulled back into an elaborate braid that she wore pulled over her shoulder.
They stared at each other for a few seconds. “You look amazing,” she said.
“So do you.”
She crossed the room and embraced him. He could feel her body through the thin material. “What are we doing here?” she whispered.
Cora broke away and stood at the window. The elevator was well out of the atmosphere and the curve of Earth’s horizon was a fuzzy line of clouds and haze. “How much longer?”
Graves looked up at Olympus Station. It was the size of a bright marble now. “Few hours maybe.”
“What does he have planned for us?” Cora said, her voice low. It was possible, even likely that they were being watched right now. “I still don’t understand why we’re here.”
Graves watched an armed spacecraft bearing the Taulke logo pass by the window. It looked like a full-fledged, purpose-built fighter, not a shuttle with backfitted railguns. A chill ran though him. Private companies with weapons in space. Probably better armed than any Earth-bound nation’s asset. He was watching—no, participating in—the privatization of his world.
“If I know Taulke, he’s got a plan. It’s not us he’s after, it’s power. We’re just pawns in his game.”
“I don’t believe that, William,” Cora whispered. “We are here—you and I—for a reason. It can only be us … I have seen it.”
“Visions again?” He studied her and she looked back at him with nothing but openness in her face. “You believe that?”
“I do.”
“So how does this end?” She really was a remarkable woman, the kind of person he would have liked to have met under other circumstances.
Cora smiled, but it was a sad smile. She shook her head. “That’s not how Cassandra works. We are placed at this point in time. Together. But the outcome … is not preordained.”
“So it’s up to us then?” Graves said. “What could possibly go wrong?”
They laughed together, but the undercurrent of tension never left. Cora took Graves’s hand, laced her fingers into his. “I think a straightforward approach is best.”
• • •
They found Anthony in his personal quarters of the space elevator car, lying on his back, eyes defocused. The room had a span of infinity windows affording a breathtaking view of the receding Earth and Olympus Station growing nearer. From this vantage point, Graves made out a four-fighter escort for the elevator car.
“Expecting trouble?” he said, nodding at a passing fighter.
Anthony broke off from whatever he was studying in his retinal implant. “You two look amazing,” he said, getting to his feet. “Like you were born to wealth.”
“It’s never been an aspiration of mine,” Cora replied with acid in her voice.
Anthony either didn’t notice or didn’t care about her tone. “Nevertheless, we all have parts to play, and you look the part, Ms. Santos.”
“And what is my part, Mr. Taulke?” Cora’s spine had stiffened.
Anthony energized a holograph in the center of the room. An image of the Earth, not unlike the one outside the window. As Graves watched, bands began to circle the globe, each one consuming a few degrees of latitude.
“This is what your Cassandra is doing to our planet,” he said to Cora as he stalked around the holo. “Weather patterns appear random, but they’re not. Slowly, humanity is being pushed to the margins.” He overlaid a map of population density over time and Graves could see a slow migration of people from the latitudinal bands to the interstitial spaces.
“I don’t understand,” Cora said, her voice tight.
“We’re trying to solve the wrong problem,” Anthony continued. “Look closer. The weather patterns are subtle but persistent. Weather is being used to clear bands of the planet. Either people are exterminated or they become refugees who eventually settle in a more acceptable zone. It’s—”
“Terraforming,” Graves finished for him. He touched the holo, blowing up a section of Africa. “These are agricultural zones. Food production on a grand scale, a planetary scale.”
Anthony clapped. “Very good, General. Very good.”
Cora’s voice shook. “Cassandra would never—”
“There is no Cassandra, Ms. Santos. Never has been. The New Earth Order was a religious movement that was coopted by an artificial intelligence. The mass indoctrination of people into a mind control experiment unlike anything in the history of mankind. Given enough time, Cassandra would have made the Third Reich look like a tea party.” Anthony’s eyes landed on Graves. “But thanks to the general here, she was stopped.” He turned back to the holo. “But her evil plan continues.”
“Who’s behind it?” Graves asked.
“Who has the most to gain?” Anthony shot back.
“You,” Cora said.
Anthony shook his head slowly as if it pained him to do so. “Not me.”
“Then who?”
“That’s what you’re going to help me find out.” Anthony paced now, his steps quickening as he spoke.
“There are six on the council, including me. My son, Tony, Elise Kisaan, Adriana, Viktor, and Xi Qinlao. One of them is a traitor.”
“Why would we help you?” Cora asked.
Anthony came to a sudden stop. He pointed to the holograph. Graves watched a grid of dots appear in the space above the globe. “This is a new satellite network being put in place by the council to give Elise Kisaan fine control over the weather. At least that’s my cover story.” He offered a wolfish grin. “Viktor has designed a little surprise for the satellite launch. New nanites. Nanites capable of killing the Lazarus Protocol. Nanites under my complete control.”
“I cannot go against Elise Kisaan,” Cora said. “She carries the Child.”
“It’s not Elise,” Anthony replied. “In her mind, the satellite network is for her.”
“Xi Qinlao is building the network for you, and Viktor designed it,” Graves said, watching Anthony’s response. The other man did not acknowledge him, he just stared at the holo, his expression a mask of concentration.
“That leaves Adriana Rabh. And your own son.”
Anthony Taulke nodded.
“And you’re going to help me find out which one it is.”
Chapter 26
Corazon Santos • En Route to Olympus Station
All the primping and attention from Anthony Taulke’s cosmetics staff felt unnecessary at first. But somewhere along the way, Cora surrendered herself to the process and found her bliss. The baths, the skin treatments, the hair and makeup, the massage … it all felt so decadent and so wonderful at the same time.
And then there was the new outfit made of silky material that slid along her treated skin as if to remind her of ho
w wondrous the day had been.
As she and William left Anthony’s quarters on the elevator car, Cora took William’s hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “He’s crazy, you know,” she said.
Graves put a small pressure on her hand, but said nothing in reply. He was thinking, strategizing. For her part, Cora rejected Anthony’s words. The Cassandra of her heart, of her belief, would not be a party to forced migration of people. She was a goddess of life and goodness. The Cassandra she worshipped wanted to save the world.
On the other hand, Cora had seen the devastation caused by the weather. She had buried men and women and children, hundreds of them, on her own migration from South America to Fort Hood. She had been called to go north—Cassandra had made her wishes clear to Cora—but all those people who had followed her…
Her heart wanted to fall back on the old saws—It is Her will. Everything happens for a reason—but her head rebelled. William had seen and agreed with Anthony’s conclusions about the weather patterns as if he already knew it.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “What Anthony told us about the weather patterns and the people? Cassandra is behind it.”
Graves refused to meet her gaze. “What you know as Cassandra is gone. Taulke is right, she was a construct, a computer program used to dupe millions of people. She’s behind this terraforming, there’s no other explanation.” He paused, and she felt the warmth of his hand more acutely. “Computer programs are created to do work, to change things. Cassandra was no different. She’s remaking the Earth into … I don’t know what.”
Cora’s mind reeled at the idea that her entire reason for being was a lie. “No, I believed in something better than myself. She talked to me—”
“When?” Graves demanded. “When did these visions start?”
“Last year, before I left Brazil…”
“Cassandra was dead by then. The AI running the whole New Earth Order was dead, blown out of the sky.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“Because I killed her. I was there when the space station went ka-blooey. There was no Cassandra, you didn’t have visions, there is no religion. It’s a lie, a big fat lie.”
“But the Child. The Child is the second—”
“Elise Kisaan is pregnant by a man named Remy Cade. They did it the good old-fashioned way—by fucking.” She flinched when he cursed. “Remy was just a grunt in love who got dumped and he blew himself up.” Graves’s face clenched for a second with passing emotion. “And I let him.”
They were outside the room where Cora had received her spa treatment. There was a bed in there, a place to rest. She released William’s hand and pushed at the controls for the door. “I need to be alone.”
He caught her arm. “Listen to me, Cora. There is no Cassandra, there is no child going to save the world. It’s all a giant hoax by someone on the council who wants to call the shots. Anthony’s plan is the best thing for the planet. We back him and we get out of here.”
She shook off his hand. “I need to be alone now.”
The room was empty and cold. Her hands shook as she cleared the window, allowing a view of the planet below. She laced her fingers together and squeezed as hard as she could to still the trembling.
If she pressed her forehead to the glass and looked down, it felt as if she might fall into the swirling clouds below. The patterns changed ever so slowly, like an ancient stop-motion movie. It seemed hard to believe that something so beautiful could be so deadly.
Graves claimed he had killed Cassandra. As if her god was resident in a space station. If faith was the act of believing without proof, then she was being tested. Anthony Taulke and his models, Graves and his bombs—they lacked faith.
Cora settled into a chair, feeling the gossamer trappings of her lovely dress caress her skin, and she closed her eyes.
• • •
Darkness, the roar of angry water rushing past. The smell of churned earth and crushed greenery, an undercurrent of raw sewage.
She knew these smells, these sounds. She had been there.
When Cora opened her eyes it was a day of bright sunshine, the heat of the Brazilian rain forest cloaked her skin like a wet towel.
Home.
Behind her was the clinic. The walls still new and white, the scars of red earth not yet healed. Inside were clean smells—antiseptic, plastic, ozone—safe smells.
But out here, outside, the violence of rushing water. Somewhere under that water was a village, and her house. Ricardo and the baby were there.
She was alone on the hill. Safe. Cora opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. All her breath had been stolen away.
It’s a dream. Not real. Wake up.
An entire tree floated by in the waters of the flash flood. It rotated slowly, like a child’s toy in the river of water and mud and debris.
And then, improbably loud over the roar of the river, the cry of a child. Cora whirled around, frantically searching for the sound. A tree had snagged on the bank and high in the branches she spied a speck of white.
Another wail, louder this time, filled with pain and hunger and fear. Cora raced to the tree and threw herself into the wet branches. She slipped and slid among the slimy, muddy leaves. She found footing and hoisted herself higher just as the tree trembled in the grip of the water. It was breaking loose. It would sweep away, taking her and the child with it.
The rational side of her brain told her it was all a dream. There was no baby, no child stuck high in a tree, but she didn’t stop. Cora dug her claws into a clump of soggy leaves for a handhold and came away with a fist full of mud. Another hand found a branch, she moved a few feet higher.
The child cried, even more insistent, and she called out. “I’m coming. Mama is coming.”
Her native Portuguese slipped from her tongue. She knew that was the language the child—her child—was used to.
There was no response from the baby and that caused Cora to climb faster. She broke through the canopy to find the bundle of white a scant body length away, caught in a cleft at the end of a long branch that hung over the river of mud.
Cora threw her leg over the main branch and shimmied out as fast she could. The rough bark clawed at her thighs, the sun hammered down from above, and the taste of mud filled her mouth.
“I’m coming,” she called again.
No response.
And then she was close enough to reach the baby. Her hands left streaks of mud on the snow-white cloth that swaddled the child. She lifted the bundle from the cleft in the branch and pressed it to her chest.
The child’s face was round with a fringe of dark hair peeking from the cloth wrapped close to her head. The angry red was fading from her cheeks and the tiny lips twitched in imaginary feeding.
Cora touched the baby’s face and her eyes snapped open.
Eyes the color of pure gold stared back at her. Eyes that seemed both wise and curious at the same time.
The tree branch between her legs quivered, jostling the baby and forcing her to hold the child even closer. Cora felt the tree shift as it disconnected from the riverbank and entered the main stream again.
Cora nearly lost her leg grip on the tree branch. She could hold on to the baby or the tree, but not both.
Behind them, another enormous tree bore down on them like an ocean liner. Cora hooked her ankles together and crushed the child against her chest. She freed one arm and wrapped it around the thick branch.
It was all for naught. When the collision happened, Cora and the child were flicked from their perch like a bug from a blade of grass. She screamed as she fell, rolling her body so as to protect the baby when they landed in the water. The mud swallowed them whole, the viscous liquid closing about. She tried to swim with one arm—
Her arm was trapped. She pulled and pulled but she could not free it.
“Cora!”
A man’s voice. Concern. Warmth. She tried to push the child toward the sound. Her
breath was almost gone.
Hands on her shoulders, shaking her whole body. The baby was gone, lost to the mud. A sharp slap across her cheek woke her.
William Graves had hoisted her to her feet, one hand clamped on her arm. The other raised as if to slap her again.
“Cora…” His tone was soft and full of concern. “We’re here. We’ve docked on Olympus Station.”
She nodded, allowing herself to lean into his chest, just for a second.
“The child,” she whispered.
“The what?” With her ear pressed against his chest, she felt as well as heard the response.
“Nothing,” she said. “It was nothing.”
Chapter 27
Ming Qinlao • Qinlao Manufacturing Headquarters
Ming paused in the entrance of her former quarters in the Qinlao building. The heavy wooden door was made of teak, salvaged from a temple somewhere in the north. Her father had loved this door, arranging the lighting above so it played off of and deepened the carvings.
He had taken care with the details of his life.
Ming stripped the hood off her head, not caring if the cameras detected her. If her aunt really wanted to find her, let her come. She pressed her gloved hand against the security lock on the door, feeling the haptics probe the circuits. With a whisper of oiled steel, the door unlocked.
The interior was dark and still. Ming did not bother to turn on any lights. She paused in the foyer until her eyes adjusted, then made her way into the study. The walls were bare, unskinned, and she left them that way. Outside the windows, the city of Shanghai was shrouded in fog, lights from nearby buildings no more than glowing blobs of mysterious illumination. A low-flying aircar passed, its navigation lights leaving a streak of red in the mist.
She took a framed picture from her pocket and placed it carefully on the desk. Ming watched her younger self chase a butterfly, her father watching, smiling. It was the only possession she had taken when she left.