All the King's Men

by Alex Powell

  Seven smiled. “Why is anyone’s domain the way it is?”

  Fox apparently remembered the desert in his mind and grimaced. “Usually people have a domain that reflects something about them, or so psychiatrists say. Why is yours a house?”

  Seven looked around his sitting room. It was a normal room with hardwood floors and a fringed rug, and King was sitting on his sofa made of plush, black fabric. There were no windows, but that was because Seven didn’t want to give King an easy method of escape. Fox stood and went to the nearest wall, which sprouted a wooden door with a brass handle, without Seven willing it.

  He frowned and followed as Fox went into the next room. “You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he said.

  “I’m good at getting through MindWalls.”

  Now they stood in a modern-looking kitchen with a floor of stone tiling and what appeared to be an island with a marble countertop. The wood cupboards were all stained a dark grey. It had gleaming, metal appliances, but Seven knew if Fox opened the fridge or any of the cupboards, there wouldn’t be food anywhere.

  “It’s a house,” Fox said again, going to different rooms. A bathroom, an office, a solarium, a bedroom.

  It was all there, but without the lived-in touch of a real home. It was big enough to house a family, but Seven was in here by himself most of the time. King was a quiet visitor, who didn’t seem to care that he couldn’t access the rest of the house.

  “Does it really bother you that my domain is a house?” Seven asked, curious.

  “People don’t generally have domains of anywhere they actually associate with their home IRL,” Fox told him matter-of-factly.

  “I suppose,” Seven conceded. “This is my only home. I like the impression, that I have a real place to live. Here is where I go to sleep. It’s safe, generally.”

  “Haven’t there been studies finding it’s not good for the body to sleep in the Cerebrum? How often do you sleep here?”

  Seven frowned. “Whenever I need sleep, obviously.”

  “It sounds like you never leave the Cerebrum.”

  “I don’t.”

  Fox stared at him with an expression that looked a lot like horror. Seven didn’t like that, and looked away uncomfortably. No one complained that they weren’t allowed outside the Cerebrum. Well, hardly ever. Sometimes they wondered, but there was endless data here that told them what it was like anywhere in the world.

  “How are you alive?” Fox asked faintly.

  “I’ve been told my body is being given the best possible care, government-provided. I don’t know where it is. I suppose that the link-in is somewhere deeper in the government domain, a part I don’t have access to.”

  “You can’t get to your body.”

  “Correct.”

  “Have you ever been outside the Cerebrum?”

  Seven tried to remember, thinking back, but the time before training to be an agent was all a blur. He shrugged because it was possible he had been.

  Fox paced back and forth in obvious agitation. “That can’t be true. You are a human being, right? You’re not a computer program with enough sentience that it can fool us into believing you’re human?”

  “Do computer programs have domains?”

  “They can create Public domains,” Fox said, scratching his head. “They can’t create Private domains, however. Maybe you are a Public domain!”

  “Do you really think the government would keep your leader imprisoned in a Public domain that anyone with half a brain cell could hack, never mind your revolutionaries?” Seven demanded, wondering now, if it could be true.

  He had to be human. A program didn’t need training. They could be encoded with all the necessary data without needing to be told how to process that data. Programs didn’t feel pain, or emotion, or anything like that. What would be the point of creating an AI that could feel?

  Fox seemed completely unaware that he had caused a minor meltdown and that Seven was on the verge of questioning his own existence.

  “No, you’re right, we’re in your domain, you must be human,” Fox said, mostly to himself. He turned a scrutinizing eye on Seven’s face. “I suppose there’s a way to check that.”

  Before Seven had a chance to ask what way that was, Fox stepped right into his personal space and crowded him against the nearest wall. Fox’s hand touched his face, tilting his head slightly to the side. Seven raised his hands, not sure what he was doing with them, just certain that he should be doing something.

  Oh.

  His eyes were still open in shock, but he wasn’t seeing anything, too concentrated on the feeling of a mouth, soft against his own. A shiver ran down the length of his spine, and Fox gathered him closer. Lips moved against his, trying to coax a response from him, one he didn’t really know how to give. He gasped, and his legs quivered. His response was so strong it was almost frightening.

  “Shhh,” Fox whispered against his mouth, and rubbed soothing circles on his spine with his fingertips.

  Seven tentatively pressed back and Fox made an encouraging sound in the back of his throat, tilting his head more to get in closer. It was a far more gentle exchange than Seven had come to expect, given what he saw in the Cerebrum database on the subject.

  Fox pulled back and looked him over, seeming pleased with himself. “Dilated pupils, elevated pulse, erratic breathing…oh, definitely human. Your face is even flushed.”

  “I could have told you that myself,” Seven replied, his voice more breathless-sounding than he’d have liked, given the circumstances. “Had a logical explanation and everything.”

  “I like this way better,” Fox said, his voice thrumming like a purr, sounding like a promise for more.

  “You should leave,” Seven said instead of giving into whatever it was Fox was promising.

  “What, so soon?” Fox asked, frowning.

  “Don’t you want to know how I found you?” Seven asked. “How we found you all those times, when before we couldn’t lay a hand on you?”

  Fox pulled back, eyes narrowed.

  “I know,” Seven whispered, looking him dead in the eye. “Your body is in Canada.”

  Chapter 6: Angel of the Revolution

  Fox fled.

  He could hardly think as he aimlessly jumped deeper into the Cerebrum. He needed to get as far as possible from the Canadian sector. He shouldn’t be panicking like this. It was a knee-jerk reaction to having his previous suspicions confirmed. He’d known this was a likely possibility.

  He should go back and ask Seven what else he and the other agents knew. Why had Seven been so forthcoming while Fox was in his domain? Why hadn’t he immediately tried to expel him? There had been so much on display in his domain, and Seven hadn’t cared.

  None of it made any sense, but he did know one thing: there was a spy in their midst. No one had known he was in Canada except his fellow revolutionaries and the people he knew IRL. His contacts IRL had no idea he was the infamous Fox, so it had to be one of his supposed allies.

  The problem was, he still didn’t know the spy’s identity..

  The second part of that problem was that he’d found out vital information about King that he had to tell everyone, but he’d also be alerting the spy. They’d been doing that the entire time, letting the other side know their every move.

  Seven was right. How else had the agents known where they were time after time unless they had an inside source? The agents had found them so easily lately, which should have tipped off Fox about the inside job. Fox just hadn’t wanted to see it.

  He felt so stupid, and didn’t know what to do. Anyone he could ask for advice might be the very spy he was trying to outwit.

  Except Seven.

  That was even more stupid since he knew Seven was an enemy agent. So why had Seven given him information that might warn him about impending betrayal?

  Did kissing agents somehow work like a truth serum that made them randomly decide to release vital information at inopportune moments? From Sev
en’s reaction earlier, one would think he’d never been kissed before.

  Maybe he hadn’t.

  Fox hadn’t meant to kiss him, actually. The idea hadn’t even crossed his mind until he’d gone to invade Seven’s domain, and the agent had given him a look of momentary panic. Fox hadn’t even been sure why that was until he was in the domain, and he’d seen the flicker of an after-image on the surface of a metal vase that had been in the sitting room. Seven didn’t seem to realize that all the reflective surfaces in his domain betrayed flashes of thoughts and emotions.

  It had just been a glimpse, a split second of chaotic imagery, but Fox had picked out what Seven had been thinking just as they’d crossed over. It was curiosity that drove Fox to kiss him, he was certain. What was Seven afraid of?

  The more he learned about Seven, the more he wanted to discover. Maybe the government had figured it all out. Maybe they knew that the best way to seduce him was to give him bits of intriguing information and deny him the rest. It was thrilling, and dangerous, and it had completely captured his attention.

  What to do? On one hand, he had to keep moving forward with the plan to free King, but even as he did, the spy would know everything that happened. If they stopped to try and find the spy, the delay increased the chance that the government would actually manage to catch them.

  Not only that, Fox had no idea how much the spy knew about the rest of the rebels. Whoever it was, they were finding out more and more the longer they helped out with the memory quest. They knew what Joanne and Mrs. Parks looked like and what countries they were from. They’d also probably worked out where Fox was from, going by the clues. They knew where he was. Maybe not the exact location, but they could find out, if they put their minds to it.

  What to do, what to do?

  Everyone had already agreed that they wouldn’t try and search for a spy, but that was back when there was no evidence there was one. If Fox came back and said an enemy agent told him that the government knew he was in Canada, they might not even believe him, or think he was the spy. People who were scared tended to attack the nearest threat, and the messenger might suffice for their purposes.

  He couldn’t cause the spy to panic, or the consequences might be disastrous. Even more pertinent, he couldn’t cause his own allies to panic and abandon their plans. So right off the bat, he couldn’t tell them that there really was a spy. He also couldn’t tell them that he’d found out where the government was keeping King’s mind, because if the agents discovered that they knew, the government might do something drastic.

  So that left him to figure out the spy’s identity and rescue King’s mind by himself, and he had to do it before the agents found him.

  First thing’s first—find out the locations of everyone else and pretend he wasn’t freaking out. And that was the easy part.

  But finding everyone was much easier than he’d thought it would be, considering how much trouble it had been the last time. They were all still where he’d left them earlier, and were unsurprised when he rejoined them.

  He was slightly miffed that they’d moved on to solving the next clue without him.

  There was another board set up with the clue written across it, this time in Mrs. Park’s small, neat writing. Her domain was set up like a studio of some sort, with a lot of windows, lights, and wide spaces. Everyone was gathered around the board, but no one was talking. Fox came up behind them to look at the clue. He’d been distracted before and hadn’t gotten a good look at the clue when he’d first seen it.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, eyes still on the clue. “I thought you were all leaving.”

  “We were going to leave, but Karl persuaded us to stay, even Mrs. Parks. No one knows what this one means,” Joanne said, shrugging. “We thought it might be yours, but as you were not here to contribute, we became stuck.”

  “Why mine?” Fox asked in surprise.

  “Karl and Simon haven’t been particularly forthcoming with information about themselves that might help us solve it. I can tell you right now, they are being very frustrating.” Joanne crossed her arms and wrinkled her nose across the table at them. “Me and Mrs. Parks didn’t hold anything back!”

  Fox looked at the clue again in lieu of answering. He couldn’t find it in himself to blame Karl or Simon for not wanting to spill their intimate moments to others. After all, he felt the same.

  Here is my fury, full bright in my heart

  Rebel at my message, nightly I scrawl

  Splash it on windows and on every wall

  By word, by image, rebellion my art

  No one can catch me but what I impart

  A friend to the broken, peon and all

  The ones standing up and others that fall

  The end may outlive the movement I start

  You are a moment, a blip in my time

  Passion to rival the red of my mind

  While I can see you all things I forget

  Your face in my head, a beauty sublime

  To all other causes, you make me blind

  Revolution started the day we met

  “It’s not me,” Fox said immediately. “Are you sure you don’t recognize it? It looks pretty specific, and there are only three of us to whom it could be referring.”

  It was a passionate declaration, and privately, Fox thought he knew exactly to whom the clue was referring. Not many people were so dramatic that they would put their message everywhere to see. All Fox could think of was Simon’s little cape flaring every time he turned.

  “It’s a Petrarchan sonnet,” Joanne added. “From what I can tell, the person in question is dedicated to the cause, and yet someone distracts them from it.”

  “Yes,” Fox said wryly. “I wonder who that could be.”

  He gave Simon a pointed look. How did Simon not realize the poem was talking about him? How did no one else realize it? It was the most blatantly obvious clue they’d received so far.

  Simon saw him staring, and his eyes widened. He shook his head ever so slightly, then gestured for Fox to come closer. Fox frowned, but sidled over, unnoticed by the other three.

  “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Fox hissed in his ear. “You know it’s for you.”

  Simon looked miserably at him. “Of course I know it is for me. Everything about this stupid clue practically screams me! There are a million little things in this clue that no one else knows, but I can pick them out just fine. I know exactly which memory it is.”

  “Then hurry up and say so,” Fox grumbled. “Look, you got to see Joanne and Mrs. Park’s secrets, too, so why are you holding back?”

  “Well, you know,” Simon snarled under his breath. “Just look at the second half of that sonnet. You’re the only one besides me who knows exactly who it’s talking about.”

  “So what?” Fox asked.

  “The memory makes it much more obvious.”

  Ah.

  “Simon, there are lives at stake,” Fox said. “You do realize that by refusing to tell everyone, you’re making the second half of the poem true? You’re putting your feelings above the cause.”

  Simon closed his eyes in anguish. “Why did King have to choose this memory? Of all the ones he could have chosen.”

  “Maybe he figured if you resolved the problem in the sonnet, then you could reconcile the two halves? Were you never going to tell her, after all this time?”

  Simon didn’t answer, just stepped forward and said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “You know, it’s funny. The last line isn’t just metaphorical. A revolution really did start the day we met.”

  He leaned forward and touched his head to Mrs. Park’s, and they whirled away.

  The memory was dark, and Fox could barely pick out the outline of ramshackle buildings and the packed dirt streets that ran in between them. A wall ran along one side of the street, high and made of stone. A ladder leaned up against the side of it, and a figure was on it, painting the wall. The light was too dim to clearly make out the i
mage.

  “That is obviously me,” Simon said, sounding tense. “This is not long after I released those prisoners under the effects of Dream Dust.”

  “Why are you painting a wall at night?” asked Mrs. Parks. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do during the day, when it’s light out?”

  “Because I am a revolutionary IRL as well,” Simon said, gesturing. “If I was caught doing this, I’d probably be executed. Like the poem said, I am putting up my message everywhere I can. Not everyone in my country is literate, so it is easier to write messages in images.”

  “So when you say a revolution started…” Karl said, drifting off, watching the memory-Simon continue his task with single-minded intensity.

  “It had been brewing for months at the time of this memory,” Simon said. “I am a painter, and sometimes a poet, and I use these mediums to gather followers to the cause. Little did I know, this night was the night the dam broke.”

  Out of the night came a sudden whistling noise followed by an explosion, near to where memory-Simon was working. He looked up with a start, and more explosions followed. Yelling and screaming started in the distance, some of it panicked and some of it building to a triumphant war-cry.

  The noise grew louder and closer, prompting Simon to scramble up the ladder, wobbling alarmingly. He climbed on top of the wall, dragged the ladder up and over, then stayed there hidden, watching.

  They didn’t have to wait long for a crowd bristling with torches and guns to come around the corner, singing a blood-curdling song that probably made more sense in Spanish. As the torches lit up the wall, it revealed the painting in all its glory, the orange glow adding intensity to the already evocative image.

  The man leading the procession saw the image. “An angel! An angel to guide us on to freedom! An angel of the revolution!”

  “An angel of the revolution!” the crowd echoed as they passed.

  The image was of a woman dressed in silver and white, holding a flaming sword. She was wearing a helmet plumed in white feathers, and Fox could tell right away it was Joanne.

  “Usually I have time to write an inscription with my images, or at least give it a title,” Simon said, sounding resigned. “But a war was starting, and skirmishes were popping up all over the country. This city burned, but this wall still stands. They called it as they first named it: the Angel of the Revolution.”