by David Bruns
“And you are so much less than I expected,” Ming replied. “All your talk of queens and pawns and power. I idolized you. I would have died for you—gladly. And yet that meant nothing to you. You used me.”
“Used you?” It was Sying’s turn to draw back. “I made you. I molded you into a strong, confident woman. I gave you wisdom and guidance and the comfort of my bed. And this is how you repay me?” Sying got to her feet.
“Sit. Down.” Ming’s voice cracked like a whip. Sying froze. For a second, Ming wasn’t sure Sying would follow her orders, but she reseated herself.
“I sense a negotiation in the offing, Ming dear.” Her face was like carved alabaster, her eyes black ice.
Ming resisted the urge to lunge across the table and snap her neck. Until this moment, Ming had found it hard not to still love Sying. But now, she had to hold herself back from ripping her apart. Her moral decline, what Ming had let herself become, had started when this woman killed her father. Ming could see the trail of death and destruction she had wrought under this woman’s control and it sickened her.
When Ming spoke again, her voice was like glass. “The Shanghai police are in the lobby with a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Jie Qinlao and Xi Qinlao, my father and my aunt.”
“Or?” Sying eyed the cup of tea.
“That cup contains the same poison you used to murder Auntie Xi. The dose is much larger than what you gave her. The poor woman dosed herself for hours before she died. This dose will kill you instantly.”
“There will be a scandal,” Sying said. “Your part in all this, all your weaknesses and failings, will come to light. Everyone will see you for who you are.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re scared to kill me yourself,” Sying sneered, her face twisted with hate. “Don’t you want the satisfaction of killing me to make yourself feel stronger?” She leaned across the table, baring her neck. “Kill me. Break my neck. You pathetic, weak girl.”
For what seemed like an eternity, Ming fought with Echo in her head. She did want to kill Sying with her bare hands, feel the separation of her vertebrae under her fingers…
Ming won. Echo faded away. “I am not like you.”
“You are exactly like me.”
Sying took the teacup with both hands and drank the entire contents in one gulp. The poison acted swiftly. She slumped in her chair, but gracefully, as if determined to be beautiful even in death.
Ming sat still, feeling the gentle breeze on her cheek, the sunshine on her face, the emptiness in her heart. Tears would come later, maybe even regrets, but she had avenged her family the only way she knew how.
Her hand was steady when she reached out and plucked the papers from under Sying’s lifeless hand. She flipped to the last page and forged the dead woman’s signature.
Then she took her teacup and raised it to Sying’s corpse in a mock toast.
“Checkmate.”
Chapter 38
William Graves • An Undisclosed Location in the Himalayas
The hangar deck behind him was deserted and still save for the squeak of a few hungry bats. Between the cornea replacement from the damage caused by the emergency transponder, the pain of three cracked ribs stabbing him every time he stretched the wrong way, and the ongoing ringing in his ears, Graves hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he’d been brought here from Olympus Station.
The doctor told him the pain from the eye surgery and the ribs and the hearing damage would get better with time. There was no cure for the nightmares.
Instead of sleeping at night, he walked. He visited the nursery to see Cassie sleeping. He explored the underground tunnel system, surprising the young men and women on guard duty. But most of the time he ended up right here, on the edge of the flight deck, staring up at the star-studded skies.
The official name for the site was New Earth Order Assault Base Twelve, but the residents called it Shangri-La.
Not a bad likeness, Graves reasoned, as he looked out the moonlit valley. Behind him in the tunnels carved out of this mountain were enough weapons of war to start a revolution.
That’s exactly what the Sentinels were planning to do—start a war to take back the future of the human race from SynCorp.
Graves gritted his teeth. In hindsight, everyone should have seen that it would be just a matter of time before the council turned their destructive tendencies on each other. Power was a hungry beast and absolute power was ravenous.
Anthony Taulke was dead and Graves felt the loss of the man. The elder Taulke had his flaws to be sure, but when it came down to it, he cared.
Graves still chose to believe Anthony’s move to place him and Cora on the Council of Corporations was sincere. He was equally sure Anthony had some trick up his sleeve to benefit himself more than others, but that was just his nature. Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.
Now Anthony was dead and Cora was dead too.
He felt the burden of Cora’s presence in everything he did. Graves was a father now whether he liked it or not and he had to start thinking like one. That’s what Cora would have wanted.
He decided to call the child Cassie, because in his mind there was no running away from her future. Whatever they had done to the child in utero was done—there would be a time to deal with that. Graves’s responsibility now was to help her grow up as normally as possible and face whatever the future had in store for her.
For now, they would both stay at Shangri-La. Together. That was the most important part.
“I thought I might find you here.” Olga’s voice was scratchy with lack of sleep. She took his arm gently so as not to tweak his ribs. The night air was cool and she moved close to him. “It’ll be light in a few hours. Have you thought about what you’re going to say?”
Cora’s funeral. Graves had asked that her body be put in cold storage until he could decide what to do. He tried to think of what she would want him to do with her remains. Corazon Santos was a woman without a home, he finally decided. Or rather, a woman for whom the world was her home.
A funeral pyre at dawn, Viking style, was Graves’ decision. No one questioned it or even looked at him strangely and the Buddhists among the cadre of rebels here even seemed enthusiastic.
“Earth to Will,” Olga said. “Come in, Will.”
Graves slipped his arm around her waist, ignoring the tweaks of pain from his bound ribs.
“She was special to you,” Olga said.
Graves nodded. He could see a paleness spreading across the sky behind the mountains on the other side of the deep valley. “She was my friend.”
“More than just a friend, Will. A woman can tell.”
He squinted at the valley floor. In the daytime he liked to watch the herd of goats play in the sun. Cora would have appreciated their antics. He drew Olga closer and felt her respond.
“No,” he said. “Cora had bigger things on her mind than some broken-down old soldier like me.”
He expected a snarky response from Olga, but she stayed silent.
“I want you to stay,” she said.
Graves started to speak but she stopped him.
“Stay with me. Fight with us. You and Cassie belong here, Will. It’s what she would have wanted for the child.”
“I—I…need to think about it.”
“Every day matters, Will. SynCorp is consolidating their power. They will rape this planet for whatever they want. People, resources, information. There’s nothing the UN or any other government can do. The Sentinels are the resistance.”
Graves let her talk.
“They won’t stop until they have Cassie,” Olga said. “She’s part of their plan and you messed with that plan.”
The sky behind the mountain range across the valley had turned pink.
“I have a funeral to attend.” Graves left Olga on the edge of the hangar deck.
• • •
Someone had managed to find Graves a US Army dress uniform complete with co
rrect rank insignia and all his medals. The size was correct, but the uniform fit loosely. He’d lost weight.
Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he adjusted his tie and smiled wryly. The black eye patch over his damaged eye gave him a rakish look. A US Army pirate. How fitting for a member of a rebel faction out to save the world.
A young woman waited for him at the nursery with Cassie bundled into a ball of blankets. He took the child from her. Cassie was asleep, her tiny lips moving in imaginary feeding. Her features were delicate, her skin a light brown, the same shade as her mother’s. A wisp of dark hair peeked out from under her cap.
The elevator took the three of them from the main personnel deck to the peak of the mountain. When he stepped out of the elevator car, the first rays of the sun were just creeping over the distant mountains and a chill breeze cut through his uniform jacket.
Cassie’s eyes remained closed.
A group of about a hundred people gathered around a tiered pyre of wood and brush. Cora’s body lay on top of the six-foot high structure. She wore a simple, gray dress and her silver hair was braided and looped across her shoulder. She had Graves’s Saint Christopher medal around her neck. In life, her skin had a luminous glow. That was gone now. Her skin was dark and lifeless, more like clay than flesh.
Graves tried to picture her in life and failed.
He handed Cassie off to the nurse and stepped to the front of the gathering. His ribs tweaked when he took in a deep breath to speak.
“I didn’t know Corazon Santos long, but I knew her well. Or rather, she knew me well. The first time we met, she told me she had walked a thousand miles to find me. I laughed it off. She told me I would help her save the world. I laughed again.”
Graves broke off, feeling the bite of the chill breeze bring tears to his unprotected eye.
“I’m not laughing today. I mourn for my friend. I mourn for a woman who gave her life for a cause bigger than herself. A cause of human rights and freedom of choice for all people wherever they live in the universe.” He looked over at Cassie and saw the child’s eyes were open, watching him. The golden stare made him catch his breath. She was listening to him, hearing him. It made no sense, but he knew it was happening.
“There is no better example of her selflessness than her last act of saving a child. Cassandra is alive because of Corazon Santos. The child is her legacy—and ours.”
Graves took the burning brand from the hand of a young man in a paramilitary uniform. He wore a patch on his shoulder, a crossed sword and olive branch superimposed over an image of Earth. The sign of the Sentinels.
He thrust the flame deep into the base of the pyre. The dry material caught quickly, consuming loose brush with a crackling roar. The flame burst through the top of the pyre, enveloping Cora’s body in seconds. Graves took a step backwards in the face of the sudden heat.
Cassie let out a piercing wail. The sound gripped Graves’s spine and shook him to the core. The young man next to him let out a grunt and dropped to one knee, his hands pressed against the back of his neck.
“Are you okay?” Graves whispered.
“Yeah, just felt a jolt. Right in the back of the neck.” He got to his feet, and when he dropped his hands, Graves saw the young man had a Neo tattoo.
Graves’ eyes found the child. Her calm gaze captured his attention.
“I think the fire startled her, sir,” said the nurse. She bounced Cassie gently in her arms.
“Yes, I’m sure that was it,” Graves said.
Cassie, the child with the golden eyes, smiled at him.
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About the Authors
Chris Pourteau and David Bruns
David Bruns is a former officer on a nuclear-powered submarine turned high-tech executive turned speculative-fiction writer. He mostly writes sci-fi/fantasy and military thrillers. Find out more at davidbruns.com.
Chris Pourteau is a technical writer and editor by day, a writer of original fiction and editor of short story collections by night (or whenever else he can find the time). Find out more at chrispourteau.com.
Copyright Notice
First Kindle Edition: November 2018
This e-book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors.
Copyright © 2018 by David Bruns and Chris Pourteau.
All rights reserved. No part of this manuscript may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of Hip Phoenix Publishing, LLC.
Cover design © 2018 by Adam Hall. http://aroundthepages.com. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Editing by Sarah Kolb-Williams: https://www.kolbwilliams.com/.
Formatting by Polgarus Studios. http://polgarusstudios.com.