A Covenant of Thieves

by Christian Velguth

  He must have passed out, because he was awoken by a bright light and a voice. Someone had finally come to give him a spare set of the weird outfits everyone wore here and speak to him. Unfortunately, what they said made absolutely no sense.

  As he reached the entrance to Operations, the ground trembled ever so slightly beneath his feet. It was almost too subtle to notice, a buzzing vibration almost less than that of a wristband notification; yet Booker, his “escorts,” and everyone else currently outside, paused to stare up at the looming slope of Mount Sinai as if they had practiced it. A twinkling trail of lights twisting up its face marked the path to the summit, which blazed with even more light. Another buzz, this one slightly stronger. He waited, holding his breath as the camp fell into sepulchral silence. Beneath the wind there was a slight rhythmic squeaking as the floodlights swayed on their poles. Thirty seconds passed, a minute. When nothing more happened, the activity in the camp resumed. Everyone seemed to be moving a bit faster than before.

  They’re worried, Booker thought. It wasn’t a good sign, when the only people who knew what was going on grew anxious.

  The main space of Operations was divided by several stiff partitions and filled with workstations. Technicians in green high-collared uniforms hunched over their terminals, chattered into headsets, and called to each other across the tent. It was a well-organized operation, reminiscent of paramilitary. His “escorts” turned him from the main space towards a small cube set off in one corner that passed for an office. One of the men with him knocked once, and a voice called for him to enter. The other man opened the door and ushered Booker inside.

  The door closed softly behind him, and the cube must have been made of soundproof material, because the buzz of the Operations tent nearly faded away. Booker found himself standing before a desk that was basically a card table. On one side sat Kai. On the other was Nasim al-Faradi.

  She nodded to Booker as he entered, then returned her attention to Kai. “Thank you again for being so cooperative.”

  Kai shrugged, which seemed like a bit of a dangerous gesture for the chair beneath him. His wheelchair had been replaced with a red and white medical exoframe, which added to his already-considerable bulk. “You guys saved Rick’s life. And got me out of that chair. I’m ok with playing nice for the moment.”

  “Still, I understand how distressing all of this must be. There will be answers, once we have time. Until then…” She touched a hand to her left ear, where an earring glittered in the light. “Dr. Miles tells me that Rick is awake and ready to receive visitors. I’m sure he’d be pleased to see you.”

  Kai nodded, taking the hint, and stood with a soft whine of servos. He turned, meeting Booker’s eye, and for a moment Booker saw a deep weariness and sadness. It was covered almost immediately by a bland smile. “Glad to see you on your feet, Hopkins.”

  “Yeah, you too.” He stepped aside to let Kai exit. The door was closed behind him.

  “Sit, please,” Nasim said, gesturing to the chair Kai had just vacated. Booker took it. For a moment they regarded each other silently across the desk, Nasim’s legs folded, hands resting atop her knee. She wore her own uniform, the only red one he’d seen in the camp. “You’ve been to see her,” she said finally.

  Booker nodded. “Yeah. I saw her.”

  Nasim sighed, dropping her gaze to the desktop. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful when arranging your flight to Cairo. If I hadn’t been so distracted --” She stopped abruptly and raised her head to meet his eyes. “That’s no excuse. What happened was my fault, and that’s all there is.”

  He was a little surprised by this display. Booker hadn’t really known what to expect from this meeting, but remorse and an apology hadn’t been on the list.

  “Investigation is still ongoing, but it seems K’ebero and her men ambushed my flight crew. Their bodies were found in a drainage pipe running beneath the tarmac, stripped of their uniforms. I…” She paused, and a hard edge entered her voice. “I am not at all displeased to hear that K’ebero met her end in that cave. I only wish it had been unnecessary.”

  “How did she find us? Hell, how did she even get into Gondar, with the whole Ethiopian army looking for her?”

  “We’re not sure yet. She must have had help.”

  “Rick suspected it was his client. Ibis. That he somehow arranged it all to get his hands on the Ark.”

  “That’s our suspicion as well. Which makes this man much more dangerous than we knew.”

  “Who the hell is he?”

  She hesitated before answering, “We’re not sure.”

  We. Always this omniscient we. He supposed it could only refer to Radical Dynamics, though the badge on Nasim’s crimson uniform read Pharos. It bore a lighthouse, twin beams sweeping out to either side, with an arc of five stars overhead and the words Lux ex Arcanum beneath the insignia.

  Booker raised his eyes from the badge to find Nasim watching him, her expression unreadable. “You knew, didn’t you?” he said. “About what the Ark really was.”

  “Yes. Or at least, we suspected. AUOs are difficult to locate by nature, but there are certain signs. Indicators one can look for --”

  “AUOs?”

  She caught herself and smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Artifacts of Unknown Origin. Although pretty much everyone around the office calls them Remnants.”

  Unknown origin. The implications of that phrase struck him, leaving him off-kilter. Again the universe took on an unreal quality, moving just a tad further from what he had thought he’d known. He cast about for something to anchor himself to. “Remnants,” Booker repeated, trying the word out. “There’s more of these things?”

  Nasim nodded. “Yes. Though we’ve never found one like the Ark. They come in different…classes, I suppose. Or, rather, we’ve created classes to put them into.”

  That sparked a memory. Identification tags, indecipherable without the proper context. “R-LGD. R for Remnant. What’s the rest of it mean?”

  Nasim looked taken aback, but she answered. Full honesty seemed to be her current stratagem. “Legend. I could explain what exactly that means, but that would require a lot more time. Where did you come across it?”

  “The documents I was sent by Martin Kingston. Each stolen artifact was given a tag. R-LGD and another one, AM, followed by a string of numbers.”

  “AM is Ancillary Material. Non-Remnant artifacts.” She nodded, taking a breath and folding her hands. “So they did come from Martin. I didn’t want it to be true, when you told me. To think that so much bloodshed could have been taking place under our roof, right under my nose. But now I can’t convince myself of any other possibility.”

  He should have felt vindicated, exhilarated to see the threads of this long, bizarre case finally come together. Instead Booker felt tired. “Kind of got away from you, didn’t it? This whole operation. Not as clever or all-powerful as you thought.”

  “I never claimed to be clever, Booker. And I am certainly not all-powerful.”

  “Is that the goal? Find these Remnants and use whatever it is they can do to rule the world?”

  She smiled ruefully. “All I want to do is save the world. Others are free to rule it if they wish.”

  Somehow he doubted that. Power, like any other drug, was almost impossible to give up once it got into your system. With power like what these Remnants seemed capable of, Booker very much doubted Nasim would be able to just let go. She might call it saving the world, but she would still be the one deciding which parts to save.

  “How long has this been going on? Is Radical Dynamics just a front for Pharos?”

  “Not exactly. When I first founded the company I knew nothing of the Remnants. Once I learned -- once they were revealed to me -- I knew they were our only hope.”

  He saw the hook, the invitation to ask and be pulled into her ideology, her rationalization. He resisted, instead changing tack. “Who knows? Outside of Pharos, I mean? The U.S. government? Any government?”r />
  “Only those who need to,” was her cagey reply.

  “Well, you’ve set up a paramilitary operation in the middle of the Sinai Desert. So I’m guessing someone in the Egyptian government is on your payroll.”

  “As I said. We have connections and assets where we need them. But very few know the whole truth. Most simply wish to form partnerships with Radical Dynamics. Few would believe it without seeing for themselves.”

  “Assets.” Booker laughed bitterly. “That’s how you see all this, isn’t it? Just pieces to be pushed here, sacrificed there, all in pursuit of your greater good. Did Estelle know? When you shanghaied her into going to Ethiopia, putting her life at risk, did she know what it was she was really looking for? Or did you keep her in the dark all the way to her death?”

  Nasim’s face stiffened, but she didn’t look away from him. “Estelle did not know. She would have learned, eventually, after the Ethiopian job had been completed. Perhaps it would have been best to fill her in beforehand, but given the circumstances, I thought it best --”

  “You thought,” Booker scoffed. “Of course. You thought, and how could you be wrong?”

  “Do not think for a second that I don’t regret each and every life that has been lost.” Her voice was like a whip crack. “Estelle. Her father. Even those thieves hired without my knowledge, enlisted to steal and undermine the work of Pharos. I feel them all, and I take responsibility. I accept their deaths. But I will not sit here and be accused of carelessness. I have been nothing if not meticulous in my work --”

  “Then how does this happen?!” The words burst out of him in a shout, but Booker couldn’t stop himself. “How do things get this fucked up? Why is she dead, how do you let that happen if you’re so goddamn careful?”

  The door opened and one of the security personnel poked his head in. “Ma’am?”

  “Everything is fine,” Nasim told him, perfectly composed. “Please give us the room.”

  The man glanced at Booker for a long second, then shut the door. Booker stared at it, breathing heavily, eyes burning. Images flashed through his head and he couldn’t make them stop. Images and sensations. Estelle’s smile. Warmth. Her head snapping to one side in a spray of blood. Desolate emptiness. Her skin flushed during their single night together in Gondar. Peace. Estelle’s body tumbling down the stone steps of the well, already vacant, already absent of whatever it was that made her her.

  “Booker.” Nasim spoke softly, drawing him back to the small office. He opened his eyes, not aware of having closed them, and turned slowly to face her. She was looking up at him, the shining trail of a single tear on her cheek. The room still rang from his outburst, and a part of him felt ashamed. “I don’t know. I don’t know why any of this happened, but I’m trying to make it right. I’m trying to keep Estelle’s death from being completely pointless.”

  “Don’t do that,” he whispered. “Don’t try to turn her into something she wasn’t. She didn’t know about any of this, so you don’t get to use her.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it and nodded. “Very well. But we can’t ignore the reality of our situation. It must be dealt with, quickly, or we could lose everything.”

  He sighed. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Ark is unique among all the Remnants that we’ve ever found. Already it’s shown itself to be infinitely more powerful, infinitely more complex. It is what Pharos has been searching for since the inception of the program.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “Because,” she replied patiently. “It is our best hope for survival. All of us, humanity, everywhere, regardless of borders or ideologies. These artifacts, objects, technology -- whatever they are, they possess the ability to remake the world. To undo the damage we’ve already done. To free us from material needs, energy limitations, disease, famine. They can even take us to the stars, someday. But not if we don’t do all we can to understand them.”

  Only one part of this monologue stuck with him “Whatever they are. You mean you don’t know?”

  “We have hypotheses. But at this point they’re just guesses. The Ark may be what we need to finally change that.”

  Booker shrugged. “So why are you telling me this? What do you expect me to do?”

  Before she could answer, another vibration ran beneath his feet. This one felt closer to a rumble, and was strong enough to shake Nasim’s desk and the chair he was sitting on. The lights swayed overhead. Nasim pointed towards the ceiling. “That. We need to figure out why it is doing that.”

  “And you think I know?”

  She shook her head. “But I need your cooperation if we’re going to find out. We will all need to work together, to have any hope of understanding this mystery. And when I say all of us, I mean all of us. Including Richard Álvarez.”

  Booker laughed as her intent became clear. “You want me to convince him to help you?”

  “All I need is your support.”

  “Rick doesn’t care about what I think. I don’t think he cares about anyone outside himself. Not really.”

  Nasim took this in stride. “Perhaps not. But yours is a more familiar face than mine. After all you’ve been through together, it wouldn’t hurt to have you in the room during the conversation.”

  “It could,” he said seriously. “Why do you need him on your side so badly? What is it you think he can do?”

  Nasim leaned forward, elbows on the desk, holding his eyes with an intense gaze. “Everything.”

  Thirty-Four

  Hospital Tent

  Camp Moses, Sinai Desert

  Rick didn’t sleep well. Rather, he lingered in a dark and shapeless limbo. There were no dreams or flashes of blue-green light, but neither was there any real rest to be had. When he awoke, he was keenly aware of the fact that he’d been down for less than an hour. He also had the distinct impression that something had shaken him awake.

  He rolled over, looking around. The tent was empty again, Julie Miles gone to get a late-night snack or whatever it was you did with your free time in Camp Moses. His empty food tray sat on the bedside table. The hanging lamps had been dimmed, and the exterior lights of the camp made blooming, diffused spots on the walls. Silhouettes moved against the canvas. Distantly he heard the babble of voices and the hum of electric generators.

  Everything seemed relatively normal and calm. So what had woken him? There had been something --

  The ground shook, rattling the frame of his bed and causing the lamps to swing overhead, throwing shadows across the standing equipment and empty beds. Rick froze until it was over. It only lasted a few seconds, but it left his heart pounding.

  It reminded him of the CDZ. In Houston, sometimes the foundations of the city would shake as old sewer tunnels collapsed and new sinkholes opened up. They’d spent many nights sitting up, wondering if the ground would suddenly swallow them or the ceiling fall in on their heads. Just one more thing to worry about.

  Going by the concerned timbre of the voices outside, this was no different. Nobody was panicking, so it didn’t seem to be a recent development. If anything, that made it even worse.

  Now seemed a good time to find a way out of here.

  Rick swung his legs out of bed, feeling a bit more energized than the last time he’d tried this. Fewer aches and pains. He made sure to shut down the medical monitors before yanking the leads from his skin, and carefully slid the needle from his arm. He searched for some tape and gauze to stem the bleeding, then cast about for his clothes. They were nowhere to be seen; in fact, none of his stuff was in the tent.

  Great. He’d have to go sneaking across a secret desert base with his ass flapping in the wind. Well, he’d been in worse situations. And it might buy him a few seconds of shock to work with if he was discovered.

  He moved quickly down the rows of beds, bare feet silent on the floor. The entrance was held shut by a line of magnets sewn into the fabric; carefully Rick pulled several apart, opening a small hole to peer throu
gh. The tent opened onto a wide space, a sort of courtyard, brightly lit by towering floodlights and surrounded on all sides by more tents and prefab buildings. One of those buildings had to Operations, where Julie said Kai was being held. Groups of people regularly scurried across the camp, looking busy. Not busy enough to miss him sneaking out, however.

  Not that way, then. Rick hurried back down the aisle, stopping to gulp down what remained of his water. There was no rear entrance, just a smooth expanse of nylon, but if he could find a seam and something to cut it with -- well, it wasn’t the cleanest escape he’d made. But he didn’t have many other options.

  Julie Miles, unfortunately, hadn’t left any scalpels lying around, or even a scissors. The drawers and shelves of the cabinets standing between the beds contained only medications, gauze, cotton swabs, and tape. After searching the last one Rick turned on the spot, trying to find something, anything sharp…

  The line was still dangling from his IV drip. Rick removed the needle from the end of it, then returned to the back of the tent and poked it through the nylon, near the bottom where a seam joined the wall to the floor. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. From a crouched position he began working at the seam, slowly widening the opening. Soon he could nearly fit his hand through it.

  “Woof,” a voice said. “Not what I wanted to see, after the night I’ve had.”

  Rick whirled around, the open back of his gown flapping. Kai stood just inside the entrance, grinning tiredly but also looking relieved. He was wearing a medical exoframe, white with red detailing. Rick got to his feet and hurried over. They embraced, Rick careful not to stab him with the needle, Kai squeezing him so hard he cracked his back. He stepped back quickly, looking worried. “Shit, sorry. I hope that didn’t fuck anything up…”

  “No. Actually, I’m…pretty ok.” Rick patted his abdomen, where he could still remember the burn of K’ebero’s bullet shredding its way into him. “You?”

  “Can’t complain, all things. Beats a wheelchair.” Kai waved his arms to demonstrate the mobility of the exoframe. Or rather, he waved his left arm. His right was still in a cast and sling, and had not been inserted into the housing of the exoframe, leaving an empty arm scaffold hanging at his side. “Would’ve come earlier, but your doctor told me you needed the rest. And I was getting my own bandaids put on, too.”