Part 26 (1/2)
”We weren't finished,” Keiko said, voice breaking as she stared at the bodies strewn around her. Reflexively, she clenched her hand around the hypospray she carried.
It wasn't just the Slums. They still had cities to pa.s.s through, Strykers to dose in the Latin Corridor and South America where they were embedded in cartel territories or the few actual cities that had survived below the equator. Only it didn't matter anymore, because they were too late, and all the remaining doses of the virus-carrying nanites were worthless.
Quinton carefully pried the hypospray out of her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. ”Keiko,” he said, voice raw. ”Take us back to Toronto.”
He was asking her to focus when all she wanted to do was fall apart. Keiko swallowed thickly. ”Such a f.u.c.king waste.”
”I know. But our job isn't finished.”
Keiko ran the back of her hand across her nose and took in a deep breath. ”Tanya, deal with the bodies. We need to keep a presence in this city and that order comes directly from Ciari.”
”We don't have to stay,” Tanya said.
”Where will you go?” Keiko asked in a brutally hard voice. ”That's what we asked everyone else we've dosed. Where will you be safe in a world that would rather see you dead if not leashed? That's a mentality we need to change, and it won't happen if we go running off to save our own a.s.ses or for revenge. It will get us nowhere.”
Tanya ducked her head a bit, expression twisting as she stared down at the bodies of her fellow Strykers. ”Do you care about the registered humans?”
”Not as much as the people on the street,” Jason said, rubbing at his face. ”We psions need them to survive, and anyone in the city towers who's not in a shuttle right now is s.h.i.+t out of luck. The World Court has to see the tracking signals are going strong, which means they've got to know most of us aren't dead. They'll push the launch even harder now.”
”All right,” Tanya said. ”We'll hold the line for those on the street and help them fight off the military. We'll wait for Ciari's orders.”
”Try to keep the city towers intact,” Keiko said. ”We're going to need something to live in when this is all over.”
Keiko teleported the three of them back to where they started, arriving in Ciari's office back in Toronto. She looked around, realizing that everything in the office but the lights and a single vidscreen showing a map of the world was switched off. The only one to greet them was Jael.
The Strykers CMO's eyes were red. ”You're back early.”
”We didn't make it in time,” Jason said, choking on the words.
”I saw.” Jael tilted her head at the vidscreen. ”On the monitoring system.”
Keiko sucked in a deep breath and turned around to face Jael. ”Where's Ciari?”
”She's gone. Left with Lucas for The Hague.”
”Just now?”
”About an hour ago.” Jael let her attention focus on Jason and Quinton. ”Who is Aisling?”
”f.u.c.king h.e.l.l,” Jason said. ”What did they say?”
”Only that this is what Aisling wanted. Ciari's words, not Lucas's.”
”Aisling,” Quinton said, ”is who Lucas has been taking his orders from, near as we can tell.”
”Where is she? Can you bring her here?”
Jason and Quinton shared an uncomfortable look. ”We've never met her,” Jason said.
”Are you telling me that Lucas has been following orders from someone that you've never seen or spoken to? And you just blindly trusted in Lucas's word for this?”
”No, we don't blindly trust him. But he's been right every single time, and what he wants-” Quinton broke off to take a deep breath. ”What Lucas wants is better for everyone in the long run.”
”If I didn't know how many Stryker lives the Serca family has saved for us over the years, I'd be disgusted to know that you believe in their propaganda.”
”We weren't scheduled for retrieval.”
”Not by us,” Jael agreed, a sharp look in her hazel eyes. ”I'm thinking Ciari had her own agenda.”
”You think?” Keiko said. ”Aren't you in her mind?”
Jael sighed and shook her head. ”Ciari ordered me to sever the psi link.”
”What the h.e.l.l is wrong with her?” Quinton said.
”You know Erik fried her brain,” Keiko said. ”She almost died. What you don't know is that the psi surgery went wrong and she lost control of her empathy.”
”She turned off part of her own mind,” Jael said quietly, looking down at her hands. ”I told her to. It was the only way to save her.”
The silence that followed that remark was uncomfortable and difficult to fill. Keiko chewed on her bottom lip before asking, ”Can we kill the signals in the neurotrackers now that we no longer need to hide our freedom? We don't need the government knowing where we are anymore.”
”There's a way,” Jason said. ”I need access to the government's working satellites, though.”
”I can get you that. We should do it now before they try to cut us off.” Keiko waved a hand at Jason and Quinton, beckoning them to follow her out of the office. ”We'll be on the command level, Jael.”
The door slid shut behind them, their footsteps fading away. Jael looked around at an office she had wandered in and out of for years. She wondered what the walls remembered of her, if the history embedded in this place would paint her as something other than a desperate woman trying to survive.
”Computer, activate. Chief medical officer override,” Jael said, digging her fingers into her thighs, nails scratching at her uniform. The terminal behind her switched on.
”Receiving,” the disembodied voice said. ”Voice identification confirmed. Command required.”
”Pull up the Registry records. Locate the listing for Lucas Serca and backdate.”
”Acknowledged.”
The Registry had been put into effect to support the Fifth Generation Act. Every family listed in the Registry was required to submit an intact genealogy that stretched back to the Border Wars. It was viewable to the public, an issue of transparency the burgeoning World Court back then had required. Truth, in that instant, couldn't be locked away. Jael closed her eyes, hoping she was wrong as the computer began to spit out names, dates of births and deaths, the years spinning backward.
THIRTY-FOUR.
SEPTEMBER 2379.
KRASNOYARSK, KRASNOYARSK KRAI, RUSSIA.