The Second Rebel, page 16
CHAPTER 12 LUCE
My Pollux: I just can’t fucking stand the idea that the Elders control our future. They’ve seen Hemlock, seen all the people on Ceres falling apart and dying, and they’ve chosen to ignore that. They let us suffer because their fear of retaliation rules them.
Message on Hemlock’s private server from Castor
My Castor: As Warlord Vaughn says, “One stone may break a bone; a hundred can break someone apart.” We need a reason to unite the Elders with our goals if we want to change their minds.
Message on Hemlock’s private server from Pollux
I have to smother my anxiety at returning to the lowest level of Cytherea. Last night, I rode this train with the Keres Art Collective, took this street to our destination with airpens in my bag and hope in my heart, and look how that turned out…
At least the address Castor gave me is in the opposite direction from the Maintenance Guild’s building. The Arber neighborhood, one that I’ve only passed through despite living on this level the first fifteen years of my life, is one Mamá would call “dangerous” and coach me to avoid. I see why when I pass over a silent barrier street and into its borders: Arber is filled with Asters.
Those in the streets tower over me, goggles turning in my direction before pointedly snapping away. They know I don’t belong here, but they also know they can’t stop me from being here without buying more trouble for themselves. As my compad guides me down narrow streets, I notice the difference between their neighborhood and others. There are no parks here, no open-air restaurants or cafés. They gather in rusting refuse, sitting around stacks of crumbling cargo containers.
When my compad pings, signaling my arrival, I stand before a building like all the others I’ve passed. The design seems almost intentionally depressing, the front gray and unworthy of notice, windows too small to climb through, the door a slab of iron. Like a prison, the artistic part of me decides.
Castor didn’t give me an apartment number, so when I approach the door to look for an intercom, I’m distraught to see that there are several corresponding to each floor. But just as I’m pulling out my compad to message him for clarification, the iron opens with an unoiled creak and Castor appears, slouching so as not to hit his head on the door frame.
His golden eyes take in the street. “You took precautions?”
I puff up my chest, insulted. “I always do.” I changed lines four times in various directions, taking a circuitous route to the bottom level. If I had a tail, I lost them in my quick movements from train to train.
His sharp teeth make an appearance when he smiles at me, seemingly pleased. “Come in.”
The interior is nothing I could’ve predicted. Whereas the outside is dull, easy to overlook with its boring facade, the large room is warm and welcoming despite its dim lighting. Long tables have been set throughout the space, those against the wall covered with veritable cauldrons of food and pitchers of drink. The room is full of Asters bustling about, most without goggles. Some are cutting vegetables or cooking on a stove top right out in the open, while others take bowls and help themselves to the food on offer. The majority sit clustered together at the tables, enjoying their meals with only a few quiet words passed between them.
It reminds me of the way Mamá and my father’s mother, whom we called the Abuela (always with the preceding the), would cook together in the Abuela’s kitchen, food overflowing plates and rooms filled with a rainbow of delightful smells. Even after she passed, her home smelled of olives and garlic, a scent that hits me with a wave of nostalgia whenever I cook for myself.
“It’s an Icarii-Aster fusion restaurant,” Castor says, gesturing to the food-laden table. “Grab whatever appeals to you. I hope you like fungi. We don’t really know how to cook without them.”
When we approach the table, an Aster sets down a bowl of what looks like dark hummus. While Asters aren’t auto-identified through the feed—I can’t check her identity on my com-lenses—many have adopted a color system, so I know this Aster identifies as female from the cloth that ties off the end of her braid. “Have some porcini paste,” she says, spooning it onto a plate and handing it to me before I can protest. Castor looks at me with an expression like See?, and I have to fight back a laugh.
The Aster woman smiles at me warmly, though her expression falls flat when she looks at Castor. Something passes between them, something in their eyes, and I suppose I miss the question, because Castor shakes his head. “No, she’s not,” he says, flat and short. She goes back to the cooking area without another word.
“What was that?”
“She was asking about my sister. I’m sure you know what it’s like to have an overbearingly curious aunt,” he says by way of excuse. At the very least, I know how delicate a subject siblings can be.
I turn my attention back to the food, scooping up a bit of everything to try: bread with a grayish tint, thick ribbons of pasta adorned with fat brown truffles, a salad of fresh fruits and what looks like lichen, each with flavors I never would’ve thought to combine. And mushrooms, of course, from shiitake to spotted toadstool. The fusion element of the restaurant seems to come from the Icarii herbs and spices—parsley and basil, saffron and thyme—which must be near impossible for Asters to get in the belt.
The drink—the only one on offer—is something pink and sweet, and I have no idea what it is, just that it doesn’t taste alcoholic but is refreshing. We sit down at the unoccupied end of a communal table, and while a few Asters cast glances in our direction I could read as curiosity, Castor’s presence seems to keep them from anything more. They turn back to their plates, leaving us as alone as if we were the only two in the room.
I pick at my food, liking the majority of it—the pasta and salad especially. The bread tastes good with the paste but is otherwise too earthy. Castor completely cleans his plate, faster than even Lito would, before he speaks.
“How’s your ankle?”
“The theracast is itching, so I think it’ll fall off tonight.” And my hands are back to normal after a dose of the pelospray.
“Good. We need you in top form if you’re going to help us,” he says, and because he approaches the subject here, in what I would consider a public place, I take it to mean that the Asters around us are safe.
I think of the night before, of Hiro’s recordings, of the day I had at work. Yes, I long to say, but instead I use caution. “I have a few questions first.”
He shoves the empty plate away from him. Both of his elbows thunk down on the table between us. “Shoot.”
“Tell me again what data you want from Val Akira Labs. Be specific.”
He lets out a little sigh, but in his eyes I see approval; he likes that I’m questioning him. Or maybe he just likes that I’m interested in helping him. “There are two main things. The first is proof that Val Akira Labs is conducting experiments on Asters against AEGIS law. Recordings, write-ups, research data, those sorts of things…” I nod for him to continue; that part I understood completely. “The second is research from an Aster scientist stolen by Val Akira Labs years ago—by Souji val Akira’s father, actually—on the Icarii genelock.”
It’s shock that has me repeating his words. “The genelock?” I got a basic explanation of the genelock when I was hired at Val Akira Geneassists. Every Icarii receives basic genemodding in vitro for protection against space radiation and variances in gravity, but modding DNA in one place often changes it in others, making the person more susceptible to certain illnesses or, like the Asters, mutations. For instance, early Icarii changed their DNA so that they wouldn’t lose bone density in low gravity, but found they were then more susceptible to bone cancer. The genelock was researched and developed by Val Akira Labs to keep dangerous mutations like that from occurring.
Castor says nothing, simply waits for me to parse my thoughts.
After several silent minutes, I find my words. “Why would you want information on the genelock?”
His words are as intense as his expression. “Many Asters are ill because of experimentation, but it’s impossible to help them if we don’t know what’s been done to them. We have a complete map of the Aster genome, but without being able to decrypt the genelock Val Akira Labs chained them with, we can’t fix them.” He clenches his hands, the delicate purple-veined skin turning corpse pale. “We can’t keep them from dying. Even my sister…” He trails off, but I can feel the rage coming off of him in waves.
“Your sister?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“My twin.” He speaks the two words like they cut him. For the first time, I see a crack in his rage and only sorrow beneath. “She was born afflicted by a disease we couldn’t fix, which forced her to turn to other treatments, many of them desperate and dangerous. And now she’s…” He shakes his head, steeling himself. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to talk about this. About her illness.
I open my mouth to apologize, but he cuts me off. “You know what it’s like, don’t you?” His voice has faded to a whisper. “Having a sibling you’d do anything for, but one beyond your reach.”
“Like you’re living with their ghost every day,” I say, finding my tone has softened to match his.
As we sit in the following silence, I imagine my life in comparison with his. I’ve endured disrespect, all because of that sol in my name, but he’s watched his people suffer and die without any way to help them. Watched his sister suffer from illness throughout her life. I thought I’d seen the worst of the Icarii, but Castor has truly glimpsed the darkest parts of their souls. Just look at this neighborhood—even the lowlevel Icarii are better off than the Asters.
I run my hands over my face, the stress of the past few days and a sleepless night catching up with me. “The toplevel Icarii have all the power. They can change anything. Do anything. And what they choose to be, what they choose to do, is to hurt others so they can make themselves better by comparison.”
“They choose to be assholes,” Castor says flatly.
“I’m just…” I drop my hands to the table. “So angry.”
His burning gold eyes never dim. “Sometimes anger is all you have left.”
His desire overwhelms me with its immensity; he needs this research, not just for himself, but to help thousands—to help his sister. I think of my personal compad in my purse with the unanswered messages from Isa and my mother, messages that at one point would have consumed my life but now feel like nothing more than the wind ruffling my hair, there and gone. I love my life, but most lowlevel Icarii never achieve what I have. Lito saw that, and it changed him. And what’s more, he saw what the Asters face, even more dire than what people like us do.
Lito would help him. All at once, I’ve made my decision.
“Tell me what I need to do.” My words match his for heat, no hesitation to be found. “Tell me how to get the research for you.”
His expression changes. Softens. He looks at me with eyes full of emotion, respect and something else I can’t quite name. The restaurant still bustles around us, but it has fallen away; the entire world has disappeared, except for the two of us.
He reaches into his pocket and withdraws something. A moment later, he drops the naildrive on the table between us.
“Do exactly as I say…”
* * *
“GOOD MORNING, JUN!” I call through the waiting room of Val Akira Geneassists as soon as I arrive, a full twenty minutes before I’m scheduled to begin work. My voice is as carefree as it always is—at least, I hope it is.
“In room one!” Jun replies, her ever-chipper self now that coffee has arrived.
Before I enter, I make sure that my hands, each holding a cup of coffee, aren’t shaking. That my face, though still showing the exhaustion of the past few days, is placid. I come around the corner, glad she can’t hear the racing of my heart, and set her order with its four sugars on the corner of her desk.
“I’m glad you came in early,” she says, getting up from her chair and coming around the desk. She leans on the edge, ignoring the coffee. I swallow a curse. “After what happened yesterday, I was worried about you…”
I fight the urge to frown, and lose. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Yesterday was hard.” Let her think my disappointment is about the incident with Harmony val White, or about being interrogated by her father, instead of this moment here and now.
One of her hands reaches for and finds her cup of coffee. As she usually does, she pulls off the cap and inhales the steam.
Does she smell the wrongness of it? Could she possibly guess what I’ve done to it? Castor assured me she wouldn’t…
She puts the cap back on—good, she must not have smelled anything—then looks me over. Doesn’t take a sip. “Are you all right? You look…”
“Oh.” I touch my cheek, my forehead. I’ve broken out in a cold sweat. I remember the excuse I thought up on the way over. “I was sick to my stomach last night and didn’t sleep well.”
Jun flinches as if hit. She sets her coffee aside. “If you’re ill, you really shouldn’t come to work.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything about being sick. “It was anxiety,” I admit, forcing my nervousness to work in my favor. “I was scared after everything that happened yesterday that I would, I don’t know, show up to work and find I don’t have a job today.” I take a sip from my coffee, hoping to encourage her to drink.
Jun watches me for a moment, saying nothing. Finally, she shakes her head. “You’re a good worker, Lucinia. I wouldn’t fire you for someone’s prejudice, and I’m sorry you had to deal with it.” No apology for the interrogation, but I suspect she had little control over that. “We’ll reassess some policies before we bring you into the room again.” Her words rub me the wrong way, placing me at fault over our stuck-up clients, but instead I focus on the way her hand goes back to the cup. I fight the urge to cheer as she picks up her coffee again.
“Thank you, Jun,” I say, letting her hear my relief.
“Let’s do lunch. I’m craving noodles,” she says with a smile, and I nod in agreement. She takes her first sip of the coffee, and I leave the room with a smile on my face.
“Good to see you here early, Lucinia,” Mathieu calls to me from his office, and while I mutter a greeting, my focus isn’t on him at all.
Five minutes later, Jun streaks through the office to the back, the sound of her retching turning my stomach as she runs for the bathroom.
From the sound, she doesn’t make it all the way before vomiting…
Step one: remove Jun from her computer. Done. Sorry, Jun, I think before I excuse myself from my desk and head for hers.
* * *
I SETTLE IN her chair in room one, her ID still inserted into the computer, logging her in. I pull the naildrive from my jacket pocket and slip it into an empty slot beside her ID, then sit back and wait. Step two: insert the naildrive in Jun’s computer. Done. From the dose I put in her coffee, I have probably a half hour before she returns. Hopefully, I won’t need even that long.
As Castor told me it would, the computer reads the naildrive, and his program goes to work. A black screen pops up with white writing that flashes by too fast for me to read. Any snippet I do catch, I can’t understand. It’s all code.
I think over Castor’s words and try to control my breathing as various screens pop up. Some close immediately, but some linger, copying themselves over onto the naildrive, the program parsing what we want and what we don’t.
Step three: take the naildrive and go back to work.
Step four: meet Castor at a lowlevel safe house and deliver the data. From there, we’ll assess what we gathered and what we could still fish for. Though hopefully, we’ll get everything in this one go; I don’t know how I’ll get onto Jun’s computer a second time.
My compad buzzes. I ignore it. Then it buzzes again. And again.
I pull the buzzing compad out of my bag. It’s not my personal device, but the one Castor gave me. With my heart sinking into my stomach, I see the multiple messages from “Darling.”
What’s happening?
We’ve got an emergency here at home
Call me
Call me
Call me
My intestines, my stomach all move into my chest cavity, pressing on my heart like I’m falling. Thousand gods, what have I done?
Grab your things
COME HOME NOW!
My personal compad rings. I retrieve it from my bag, never expecting his name to appear on the screen: SOUJI VAL AKIRA.
CHAPTER 13 LITO
HARBINGER (noun): A person or thing that foreshadows an event or the approach of another; a herald; an omen.
From Val Machinist English Dictionary, vol. 1
“I found the med kit!” Sorrel calls triumphantly from down the hall.
I don’t answer—can’t answer—as the hum of the Nyx-class ship lures me toward a poisoned sleep. I’ve already bled through the hasty bandage I tied around my neck, my focus on stabilizing Ofiera rather than my own laceration, and if I slip under now, there’s no telling whether I’ll wake up.
Considering the Nyx is an Icarii spy craft, it’s not well stocked. We only found a single medbag and a handful of universal synblood packs in the med bay. The med kit was missing from its usual slot, and I could only hope that one of the duelists hadn’t taken it with them when boarding the grasshopper that’s now thousands of kilometers behind us.
As soon as we had Ofiera in the medbag—she didn’t even whimper as we cut the clothes from her body and slid her into the yellow electrofluid—we turned our focus to other important things, like getting the hell away from the location that other duelists were surely on their way to. Pressing a bag of synblood into my hands, Sorrel left me in the med bay with Ofiera in order to disengage the Nyx from the grasshopper and set our course for Ceres.
