by Simon Archer
“Just… remember what I said, Mr. Joch,” the chief warned.
“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” I sneered, and with that, the chief of police clicked away just as the Prime Minister had. I’d been personally burned twice now in the same day.
Enough was enough.
I banged both of my fists down on my desk, this time so hard that its contents rattled, and the phone itself fell onto the carpet. I didn’t bother to pick it up.
I pulled up my watch and called for Gunnar to take me to the Parliament building. I was done playing nice. It was long past time these people fessed up and gave me some information. If the chief wouldn’t talk, one of these scrawny, cowardly politicians would. The likes of them were more interested in saving their own skin than anything else, after all. A little prodding would go a long way with assholes like them.
I paced back and forth in my office until the notification came that Gunnar had arrived, and for a brief moment, I remembered Elias Berg doing similarly when the whole world was crashing down around him, as well. That was an uncomfortable thought. But I was confident that I, at least, was on the right side of history. In the end, I would come out on top. I was a Joch, after all.
Winning was in my DNA.
I met Gunnar in an alleyway behind TelCorp, away from all the cameras and microphones and reporters who were still clustered out front, willing to do anything to get some kind of comment from me. Well, they weren’t getting it.
I whipped out my E-pad as I climbed into the air car and sent a message to Kira, asking her to prepare a public statement. She responded immediately to inform me that she already had. I grinned at the E-pad. I had the best people in my life. That was something, at least.
“Howdy, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said, waving to me. “I’m glad to see you again.” He’d taken us back to the north side that morning, as well. At this point, I didn’t trust anyone else to chauffeur me around the city.
“You too, Gunnar,” I sighed, leaning back against the back seat. “I didn’t get the chance to ask you this morning, how’s your family doing?”
“Oh, they’re just fine, Mr. Joch,” he said, giving me a small smile as he pulled the air car up above the media circus and the other traffic. “Getting a bit stir crazy stuck in the apartment, mind you, but they’re safe and sound.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” I said, and I meant it.
“You know something, Mr. Joch. You’re the only passenger I’ve ever had that’s ever asked me a damn thing about myself or my life,” Gunnar said. “I appreciate that, I really do. Especially comin’ from someone as big and important as yourself.”
“Really? Well, that’s their loss, Gunnar,” I assured him. “Though there are some people out there who want to make damn sure that I’m not nearly as big or important sometime in the near future.”
“Aw, those guys are just lookin’ for their fifteen minutes of fame,” Gunnar said, waving away the suggestion as if it were the height of lunacy. “You, Mr. Joch, you have staying power?”
“Why’s that?” I asked, laughing a little. I really did like Gunnar.
“‘Cause you’re the only one to ever ask me about myself,” he said simply. “Those other guys, they don’t care about people like me. And because you do, you’ll stick around. The people like you. You see what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah, I think I do,” I said. “And I hope you’re right, Gunnar, I really do.”
“Mark my words, Mr. Joch, this is just a blip on your radar,” Gunnar continued, unfazed. “You’ll be back on top in no time.”
“Thanks, man,” I smiled, shooting him a more-than-generous tip on my E-pad as we pulled up in front of the Parliament building. It was a short drive, after all, just a few blocks. I could have walked, but I didn’t want to be hounded by the press, and I could have skirted across the tops of buildings, but I was too damn tired. Better to save my energy for that little thing called a civil war between the binding corps.
“Good luck in there,” Gunnar called after me as I departed the air car.
“Good luck out there,” I called back to him and made my way up to the gorgeous circular building with tall pillars out front.
While the rest of Termina looked more than a little bit like an urban, technological wasteland, the Parliament was designed to be something different. It was something out of a dream or a period drama on the holo shows. It was long, round, and looked like it was made out of fine wood. But up close, you could see that it was really a strange kind of marble designed to look like wood. It was the most brilliant building in the city, and I’d always loved going to it. But now, I was just filled with righteous anger and a sense of foreboding.
I practically crashed into the doors, my fatigue replaced with a wave of energizing anger as I grew closer to the place and the people who had screwed me over so royally in the past day and a half. Several interns and staff members stared up at me as I walked inside, and one even tried to step in front of me, but I waved them away ferociously.
“Get out of my way,” I bellowed. “I have places to go and people to see.”
Knowing what was good for them, they all scrambled out of the way and back to their posts.
I stalked over to the elevator and took it up to the top floor, where the members’ offices were. While the main floor was wide and open and filled with historical monuments to the Prime Ministers throughout Termina’s history, the top floor was a round circle of offices that stretched in a thin line around the outer circle of the building, and generally was not accessible by the public.
But I wasn’t just any ordinary citizen.
A security guard tried to stop me, but I gave him a scathing look.
“I belong here just as much as you do,” I growled, “and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay the fuck out of my way.”
The big, burly man opened his mouth to respond but shut it as I fingered the hilt of my holo knife. I gave him a small, knowing smile.
“Threatening a law enforcement official is against--” he started to say, but I interrupted him.
“Did you hear me threaten you?” I asked. “I don’t recall doing such a thing, do you?” I kept my hand rested comfortably on the base of the weapon, and he stared down at it with wide, scared eyes.
“No,” he said after a long moment had passed. “No, I didn’t, Mr. Joch, sir. Forgive me. Let me know if I can help you with anything.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, smiling at him again. “Thanks, but I know my way around pretty good.”
And I did. But it didn’t help me much, at least not at first. Every single door I knocked on was unoccupied, to my surprise. Usually, this place was packed to the brim during the day. But it was practically deserted now, no more than an hour after the Parliament had been in session.
This was… not good. I’d been banking on being able to track some of the members and spook them into talking. And I thought I’d have time to spare before they packed up for the day. It wasn’t even noon yet, for Christ’s sake. But here I was, coming up empty-handed just like Lin, Kira, and I had earlier that morning with the phone calls.
Apparently, I should have stalked down there before the session even started and waited out in the hall to pounce before they could even get back to their offices. Or something like that. Fuck.
I made my way around the entirety of the circular building, knocking on each door and kicking them in when there wasn’t an answer. But the place was deserted but for a smattering of security guards who seemed to have gotten the message early that I wasn’t up for any funny business.
I figured I didn’t have much time until some kind of higher law enforcement officer showed up to have me forcibly removed, so I moved as quickly as I could.
In the end, not a single member was in the office save one. But that one was the one I wanted to talk to most, so I figured it could have gone worse.
When I knocked on the Prime Minister’s office door, surrounded by ornate wood carved with i
ntricate shell-like patterns, I heard a rustle come from inside, but no one answered, however. I pressed my ear against the door and listened closely. There was more rustling, faint but still there.
I knocked again, and whoever was inside the office went perfectly still.
I knocked a third time, louder and harder this time. There was another faint rustle that stopped abruptly.
“Halit, if you don’t open this door, I’m going to carve it open with my holo knife,” I called through the door, deciding that I’d already threatened an official Parliamentary security guard, so why not the Prime Minister himself? “And you know I will.”
More silence, and then more rustling ensued, and then more silence. Finally, Halit seemed to make a decision. The rustling grew closer, and the door slipped open just a crack.
“How did you get in here, Joch?” Halit hissed through the crack, his breath coming out hot against my arm, which I pushed against the door, holding it open in case he changed his mind.
“I have my ways,” I said simply. “You shouldn’t underestimate me, Halit, just like I told you before. TelCorp will come out on top in… well, whatever this is. I’m not sure what to call it, exactly.”
“We have the full force of all the law enforcement agencies and the other corps on our side.” Halit’s voice was both hushed and rushed as if he were afraid or out of breath.
“And who is that we exactly?” I harkened back to our earlier conversation. “Is it Parliament? Or whoever Parliament’s working for?”
“The Parliament works for the people,” Halit hissed. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“It doesn’t even sound like you believe that, Lucianus,” I chuckled. “How do you expect me to buy it, let alone everyone else in the city?”
He didn’t respond for several long seconds, and though I couldn’t see him through the dark crack in the door, I could wager a guess as to how panicked he appeared. I had him backed into a corner, quite literally, and he knew I wasn’t stupid.
“I don’t know what to say,” Halit said finally, his voice even smaller than it had been before.
“Now that’s the first true thing that’s come out of your mouth in two days,” I said, laughing under my breath again. “Are you going to let me in, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?” I tapped my fingers on the door, reminding him that my hand was there. Several more seconds passed in silence.
“I… very well,” he said, and the door swung open about halfway, enough for me to slip through.
18
Halit’s office was normally pristine and devoid of clutter, but today there were files everywhere and furniture scattered haphazardly across the room. I could even see dust across the surface of his desk and shelves, illuminated by the sliver of light shining in from the doorway behind me. The lights were off, and the window shade was shut tight.
Halit quickly pulled the door shut behind me when I didn’t do it myself, and the only light that remained was the thin sliver slipped underneath the door frame, and the small bit that leaked in around the window shade. I moved to flip the switch on the wall, but he held up his hands and nearly screamed at me while still managing to keep his voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” he cried, waving his hands in front of me. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”
“Aren’t I the one you’re hiding from?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him and putting my hands on my hips, imitating Cindra’s characteristic gesture. We were bonded, after all. People who were bonded tended to grow more and more alike over time, kind of like those old married couples with similar facial features.
“You were,” Halit stammered. “I mean… you are.”
“Well, which is it?” I asked, arching another eyebrow at him. He stared down at the darkly carpeted floor.
He didn’t respond.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as gentle as I possibly could. “Just a day or two ago, you were with us. What changed?”
He still didn’t respond.
I made a decision right then. “Where’s the burner phone, Lucianus?” I asked quietly. “Where d'you get it?”
Halit stared up at me then, his face stricken.
“The what?” he asked, his mouth hanging open, his voice practically blubbering.
“The burner phone,” I said quietly. “Where is it, and how d'you get it?”
His wide eyes and stricken expression told me that I’d made the right call. Revealing that we knew about the burner phone calls revealed that we had the upper hand, at least for now. That we knew more than this secret organization thought we knew. And that just might sway Halit to talk. He was on our side, after all. He was just afraid of the tunnel people more than he wanted to help us. Maybe now he’d be afraid of us, too.
“I… I don’t know what you mean…” he said, but this was the least convincing he’d sounded yet.
“Come on, Prime Minister, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, I get that,” I implored him. “But given that, wouldn’t the best thing be to do what’s right? Even though you’re afraid? We know about the people in the tunnels, okay? And we’re going to stop them. Don’t you want to be on the right side when this is all said and done?”
“I… but how…?” he stammered, his mouth still hanging open at me.
“We have our ways, just like I told you,” I said, giving him a thin smile. “Just like we had our ways when we blew up one of their tunnels last night.” Halit’s eyes widened even more now, and for a minute, I was afraid that he was going to have some kind of stroke.
“You… you did what?” he asked, sinking down into a sitting position atop the edge of his elegant mahogany desk.
“You heard me,” I said, still keeping my voice quiet. “They haven’t told you that, have they? No, I’d guess not. They don’t want it getting out that they’re not nearly as powerful as they’d like you to think they are. That TelCorp in its current form just might be a match for them. That wouldn’t suit their narrative, now, would it, Halit? That wouldn’t justify you turning your back on the citizens of Termina that you vowed to represent.”
Halit averted his eyes from mine again and looked out where the window was supposed to be as if it weren’t covered. “How did you know?” he finally asked again, in barely a whisper.
“I’m not going to tell you that,” I said flatly. “So stop asking. And if you even think for a second about picking up that burner phone and calling whoever it is you’re in contact with to rat me out, you’d better think again. Because I’ll know, and then you’ll know I know. That is a threat, by the way, so take it as one.”
“I can’t call him,” Halit.
“Ah, that’s right, the calls only go one way, don’t they?” I asked, remembering what Malthe had told me. “So you have no way of contacting him… and it is a him, thanks for confirming that much… without using the burner phones?”
Halit shook his head. “No, there isn’t a way, but when they need to contact me, they call me.”
“So now it’s a they?” I asked. “What is it, a he or a they? Are you talking to multiple people?”
“Well, no, just the one, really,” Halit admitted, “but I know they’re a they. You know that, too, I imagine.”
“Oh, I know,” I said darkly. “I blew about thirty of them up last night. Or this morning. It’s all relative, I suppose.”
“You did?” Halit shot his head up and looked at me with an expression that was almost… hopeful. “You did? You destroyed them? You’re able to do that?”
“So you are still on the right side,” I mused, looking him up and down. “You don’t want these people to control the city any more than I do.”
“Of course I don’t,” Halit spat, speaking above a whisper for the first time since I knocked on his door. “You think I like this? Do you think this is what I want? What any of us want? Well, most of us, anyway.”
“So you think you can bring Parliament back to my side,” I said
, narrowing my eyes. “How soon?”
Halit laughed and not happily.
“How soon?” he repeated incredulously. “The fact that I’m talking to you now could very well get me killed. You want the Parliament back? Take these guys out, because that’s the only way you’re getting it.”
“Okay, then,” I said, nodding slowly. “We’re planning on it, though it’d be a hell of a lot easier with your help, mind you. These new laws are taking up a whole lot of our time that’d be better served going into the tunnels.”
“Then just focus on the tunnels,” Halit hissed, growing impatient with me. “Leave the rest for later!”
“And let the other binding corps take over my city?” I asked, incredulous myself now. “No fucking way. Besides, we don’t want to draw any more attention to the fact that we’re moving on the tunnel people, whoever they are.”
“More attention than blowing thirty of them up?!” Halit cried. “Or was that just a ploy to get me to talk?” His eyes darted wildly around the room, as if looking for an escape, but there wasn’t one. I had him cornered.
“No, it wasn’t,” I said, holding up my hands to try to calm him down, “but the train terminal we blew up was on the south side. No one up here on the surface has any idea about that unless this org told them, and I doubt that’s going to happen any time soon.”
“Why does anyone up here matter?” Halit asked, shaking his head, flustered. “They’re the ones with all the power!”
“And we’re the ones with the numbers,” I explained calmly. “There’s more of us up here. If word gets out that there’s some secret cabal controlling the city from beneath the surface, all hell’s gonna break loose. Is that what you want? Is it? There’ll be hell to pay then, I’m telling you.”
“And what do you think would happen, exactly?” Halit asked, sighing and dropping his hands to his sides.
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe another series of riots, but this one with more than just one segment of the population doing the rioting?” I asked. “As if the brawlers and binders wreaking havoc on the city last night, not to mention the foxgirl riots a few months back, weren’t enough on their own. Give me a break.”