Tilted Axis
Page 36
“Who’s it from?” she asked.
Ward stuck out his bottom lip. His address was written in marker by hand on the front, and the top had been sealed up with packing tape to protect the seam. “Doesn’t say. But it feels empty.”
“Well, open it then.”
“You know how I feel about opening things without careful consideration.” He laughed and it hurt. “I’m two for two now with doors. Why add explosive envelopes to the list?”
She shrugged, curling a smirk. “Why does it have to explode? It might be Anthrax.”
“Don’t joke about stuff like that.”
She laughed. “Give it here.” She took it from him without asking. He couldn’t hold on to it with just one hand without losing his balance.
She walked in a circle, tearing it open and then looked inside. “It is empty.”
“Why would someone send an empty envelope?”
She upended it and shook lightly. A tiny black square fell out into the palm of her hand. “What the hell is this?” She held it up for Ward to see.
The color drained out of his face and he could hear his heart in his head, pumping against his perforated drum. He swallowed, his mouth dry all of a sudden. “It’s a memory chip.”
“A memory chip?”
“Yeah — ultra-lightweight, flexible, heat resistant, acid resistant. AIA used to use them for encrypted data storage and transport.”
“Acid resistant?”
“Yeah, so you can eat it.”
“Eat it?”
“If you need to get it in or out of somewhere. Or you can put it under your eyelid, inside your mouth — wherever. I’ve had a few of these in me over the years.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “So who’s it from?”
He didn’t want to say it, but he knew that he was going to be right. “Sadler.”
Arza froze. “Shit.” She approached and laid it in his palm. It was no longer than a grain of rice.
“Shit is right. What’s the time-stamp on that delivery card?”
Arza went to the couch and picked it up off the arm. “Six twelve p.m.”
“That must have been just after I left for the city. Maybe an hour or something. Damn. I almost came back on that first night — in Old-Town. But I decided against it. Shit. If I had…” He turned and went toward the terminal in the corner, pulling out the chair awkwardly and planting himself in it with a grunt. Arza appeared at his shoulder and watched as he pulled out a little clear tray from the side of the thin keyboard under the curved glass screen, and tipped the chip onto it.
He brought the screen to life with a keystroke and unlocked it, the little tray lighting up as he did.
It scanned the chip and then pulled it up on screen, a big window opening right in the middle. Only two words presented themselves to Ward and Arza: ‘ENTER PASSCODE.’
Beneath them were eight little black squares. Ward’s hands hovered above the keys, shivering slightly.
“You don’t think…?” Arza said, her voice barely a whisper.
Ward started typing.
One.
Seven.
Eight.
Three.
One.
Two.
One.
Eight.
The numbers hidden on Sadler’s arm.
He paused, letting the breath out between his teeth, and hit enter.
The passcode disappeared and Sadler’s face appeared in a video window, frozen in time, mouth half open, a word half-formed. She looked older than Ward remembered her. He’d seen her on the slab in the coroner’s office, but she’d been pale and dead, the life sucked out of her.
He hit enter again and she came to life. Her hand moved to her hair and brushed a bedraggled strand off her tired face. Her lips looked dark and thin.
“Ward…” she said, sending shivers down his spine. He hadn’t heard her voice for years, and the last time he had, she was telling him he wasn’t going to die. She’d sounded different in his head after that.
On-screen, she sighed and hung her head. Behind her, wallpaper was peeling off old stone stained with mold. “I was really hoping to do this face to face. I know you’re here in Eudaimonia, and I wanted to tell you all this in person — so we could do it together. But… but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen now.” She smiled at the camera, her once white teeth now a butter shade of yellow.
“Looks like I’ve been made. Shit.” She shook her head, tears coming to her eyes. “I’ve been on this for four years, nearly. Totally dark. I’m sure the AIA think I’ve defected by now, but you know me better than that. It’s been tough, but I’ve been working toward something. Something big. There’s a war coming, Ward — unless we can stop it. I don’t know who they are, but they’re planning something big. They’re going to assassinate Tremel Chang. Or at least they’re going to try. We were been brought into the city via a U-LOP — I don’t know how, but they’ve got friends inside. Inside the Security Bureau, the Defense Committee, hell, probably in the AIA, too. It’s all been done through middle-men, encrypted communications. Code names and ciphers. They’re careful like that… I heard rumblings a few years back, had a chance to get in with some mercs…” She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes, a determined look spreading across her once familiar face.
“And now here I am, in the capital, being paid to assassinate the goddamn Martian prime minister. Jesus, Ward. These guys aren’t messing around. I just hope this reaches you before you get caught up in all this. I tracked you down — but they’ve been watching me, suspicious, you know? And now? Well, let’s just say I’m not in this shithole out of choice.” She gestured around the dilapidated room.
Ward couldn’t even hazard a guess as to where it was in the city.
She went on, “I’ve been asking too many questions, and now they’ve decided I’m a liability, or an AIA agent, or both. Who knows? When I was planning all this, things seemed okay. Or at least, they didn’t suspect me. But now…? They’re going to kill me first chance they get.” She trailed off and stared into space. “I can’t get to you now. They’ve got too many guys out there looking for me. The sentinels are already sweeping the city. I’ll never make it out, and it’s too risky to try. If they get me, then it’ll all be for nothing.
“But… But you can do something about this, Ward. I’m going to make it public. They’re scouting the roosts as I’m recording this — the others — overlooking Xaraniah Square. They’re going to see me, and they’re not going to miss the chance to put me down. It will make it so that you’ll hear about it, whatever happens. I can’t risk making a run for it and getting caught. But if you’re still in the city, that means that Cootes is, too. And I know he’ll hear of this. After that, it’s a matter of time until you do.
“And I know you’ll find me, and figure it out. And then you can do what I couldn’t. You can save Chang and stop this from happening.
“They want to derail the Thessaly Treaty, let corporations go back to trading and developing without imposition. They’re separatists, from what I can tell — they want to seize control of one of the exoplanets, I think, disable the gate from the other side, set up their own colony… Why? I don’t know.” She was shaking her head. “I just don’t know.”
She was nearly sobbing now. Ward knew it wasn’t because she was scared. It was because she’d worked so hard for this, and it was all crashing down around her, and leaving this message for Ward was a risk. It might never have reached him. It almost didn’t. Arza was deathly silent at his shoulder, her breaths small in her chest.
Sadler went on. “They’re trying to incite war, get the UN and UMR fighting again. Get themselves armed up in the chaos that follows. Divide and conquer. As simple as that. And getting rid of Chang is the quickest way to do it — especially if they do it right in the heart of the Martian capital. Killing him in Eudaimonia is the best way to cause a total unrelenting political shitstorm. Jesus, Ward, if you’d seen what I’ve seen
.”
She went quiet for a moment, looking down at her feet. She gathered herself back up and pushed on. “All I have is two names. Four years of work for two goddamn names…” She shook her head and laughed sadly. The laugh of a woman about to die. “I skimmed them off an encrypted video-call. I think it’s what got me killed. Leatherback and Black-Throat. Those are the codenames they’re using. Leatherback and Black-Throat. I’ve been doing some digging — as much as I could, and I think I know who Leatherback is. He’s their point of contact on Mars, the one who’s going to make this whole thing come off without a hitch. Shit, Ward, I hope you believe me when I say this. I need you to. Leatherback is Valvet Moozana, the head of the Security Bureau in Eudaimonia. I know it sounds crazy. I know it does. But trust me. Okay? You can trust me. Do you trust me?” She stared longingly into the camera and then forced herself to smile a little, more tears glistening in her eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you, Ward. I was really hoping I would. I wanted to see you. I hope you’re doing okay.” She trailed off for a while and then sighed, wiping her glowing red cheeks with the back of her hand. “All right.” She exhaled hard. “It’s time. Good luck, Ward… You’re going to need it.”
The image froze as she reached out and stopped the recording, a sad smile carved into her cheeks.
Ward leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand, closing his eyes, squeezing the tears trying to get out back into his head. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Damn,” Arza said, stepping away and lacing her hands over the top of her head.
Ward picked up his communicator and started tapping. After a second he dialed a number, breaking every rule that the AIA had on this sort of thing.
They picked up on the third ring.
“It’s Ward,” he said quickly. “Listen — tell him that we have to meet. Right now — I don’t care — No — It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore.” Ward paused, nearly crushing the communicator in his grip. “Right. Okay. Fine. Good.” He hung up and then pushed himself to a stance, locking the terminal and dabbing his finger to the chip to pick it up.
He pushed it into his mouth, sticking it to the portion of gum between his left upper molars and his cheek without a word.
“Come on,” he said to Arza, hobbling toward the door as quickly as he could.
“Where are we going?”
“To get something to eat. You hungry?” he called.
“Uh — sure,” she said, a little thrown, but following him all the same. “What’re you thinking?”
He stopped at the threshold and turned to her. “You ever had chicken wings?”
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