A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (24 page)

"Gid, you
're not a slave! We're indebted to them, yes, but you're not a slave!"

"
We
? They didn't force you into service!"

"
Yes, they damned well did! They saved you! They kept me from losing another brother. We're both in their debt. Do you think I'd put you in this situation if there were any other way? You can't tell me you wouldn't have done the exact same thing for Isaac if you could have!"

Gideon looked away without answering.

"You're not a slave," she said. "Once you're healed, they'll let you leave the building. You'll still have to do the job, but you won't be chained to a wall or anything like that."

He faced her again.
"Once I'm healed."

"Yes."
She fisted her hand until her nails pressed into her palm. "But they need to know you're still going to do it, or they won't continue your treatment."

"A
nd after that, I will be done with them. Is that true?"

She hid her fist behind her back
and squeezed tighter. "Yes. They'll likely offer you a steady position, but you only need to do the one job, and you're done."

"Good.
Then I will be done."

"It might be a good idea to hold off deciding on that.
It could be a good offer, you never know."

H
e watched her. She fought to keep the unease from her face. "There are things you still haven't told me," he said. "You said you'd tell me everything."

She swallowed.
"What do you want to know?"

"How much do you know of the man who shot me?
And what's really causing my blackouts? I want to know about this experimental procedure that you couldn't talk about in front of the others."

Ondrea had spent half her night thinking of how she would answer those questions.
She hesitated only a moment, to take a seat in a chair across from the lab bed.

"Diomed
es," she began. "I only know what I learned about him from your recordings I found, so I think you probably know more about him than I do. I was more concerned with making you better than trying to find the one who did it." She paused and then, aware he might take the anxiety in her voice for a sign of the lie it was, added, "I hope you can forgive me for that, Gid."

His
response told her nothing. "And the rest?" He touched the back of his head. "How is it that he shot me here and one of the few things Marquand let me keep is my brain?"

It was the second time he'd asked.
Again she hesitated, knowing that even the piece of the truth she'd thought to tell him might upset him. She reached down into herself to find her courage, and began.

A brief while later, Ondrea was staring across a desk at Julius Tseng. The fact that she'd be telling him news he wanted to hear made her no less eager to be out of his office. The haze of self-satisfied superiority that typically surrounded him had grown stronger since he'd forced the armed team on her to find Gideon. If she hadn't needed him to authorize the floater so he could reach her brother so quickly, she wouldn't have told Tseng about it until Gideon was safely back. That she had to galled her, and made him doubly superior.

Now, she didn't waste time with empty greetings.
"Gideon's going to cooperate. I've convinced him that he still needs to be treated and recover. He won't try to leave again."

Tseng shrugged.
"Good, then the guards we've posted won't have to work too hard."

"He
won't try to leave."

"That remains to be seen.
For what it's worth, Ondrea, I believe that you think so."

"Then no guards."

He brushed his hand at her as if shooing a fly, and she fought not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her seethe. "Then at least," she continued, "don't let him see them."

"Oh, he shouldn't notice them.
As long as he keeps his word and continues on Project Phoenix, things will be fine."

It was a crumb, but she took it and went on. "He will.
And I think I can convince him to continue to work for Marquand after the project is completed."

"No matter how successful
Phoenix is, the company isn't about to let him just go his own way after it's done. You know that."

She begrudged a nod.
"I know that. But things will work out much better if he believes it's his choice."

Tseng sat back in his chair.
"As you like. He will remain with us, one way or another. He's a substantial investment."

She stabbed him with
her glare. "He's a person."

Tseng merely smiled.
"Well, he's two people actually, isn't he? But Phoenix is our primary concern for the moment. What comes after is academic for now. To that effect, I want you to increase the intensity of his 'treatments.' We need to speed things along."

She hesitated.
"Why?"

"Obviously we want to move forward.
Your brother's Houdini act cost us time, and before that he wasn't exactly hemorrhaging the information like you said he would."

"He needs
more time, not stronger sessions."

Tseng swung his desk monitor around to face her.
"You said weeks ago that the intensity of the recall sessions could be increased if necessary with minimal risk. You supported this statement with data. At this stage, minimal risk is acceptable. Has something changed?"

She could tell from his tone that he expected the answer was no.
He'd hit her with her own data and if she said yes, he'd know something was wrong. He'd find out about the instability and force her to abandon her brother to save the project. If she said no. . .

Ondrea tried to run over the numbers in her mind. There was no way to be so quickly
certain how much further Tseng's proposal would push the instability. All she knew was that it was a risk. Walls were closing around her.

S
he shook her head. "No. Nothing's changed."

It was a risk she'd have to take.

In the
AoA Council's emergency session, Marc's avatar sat in the center of the virtual meeting hall as a guest. The avatar images of Michael and Abigail beside him wore the flat expressions that indicated their mic-and-view screen interfaces.

By contrast, the four attending members of the council
—Councilors Knapp, Lin, Ramis, and Arbiter Szendroi—were positively alive. Like Marc's, their avatars' expressions mirrored their real ones, wherever they sat in the world, via direct neural links. None on the Council wished to limit their own communication to a mere voice over a microphone.

It was an irony the dynamics of which Marc sometimes found himself pondering: sitting with their eyes closed and a wire in their brain in the real world made for a more humanized conversation in the virtual one.
For the moment, however, Marc was more occupied with what the Council had said thus far: an unknown disaster had severed contact with the Omicron Complex. Marette gave the quarantine order, they'd said, but there was no word on her status since. The news troubled him on multiple levels.

Arbiter Szendroi was still speaking. "Agent Clarion had no time to transmit any information directly to us before the quarantine.
Indeed, it was not even she who sent the quarantine order to ESA, although all indications are that it was given on her authority."

Councilor Knapp broke in, her avatar's face a
stern mask of apprehension. "Yet it remains possible that her duplicity was discovered. Others may have issued the quarantine in her name as a containment measure until they discovered if she was working with anyone else on the site."

The arbiter nodded.
"This remains a possibility, though Agent Clarion is currently the only one of us at the complex, and has been since Agent Triton left."

"If I can offer an opinion to the
Council," Marc began, taking advantage of the free speaking privileges his guest status allowed him, "given Suzanne Namura's death when we tried to hack
Paragon
's computer, I'd say it's more likely something similar happened to the complex itself. Her last report did say they were going to analyze the chamber they found."

"That might be true," Councilor Knapp agreed, "but precautions were in place to keep such a thing from recurring."

"All due respect, Councilor, but we didn't expect such a thing could have happened the first time, either."

"While I concede
the point, Agent, we have no clear indication either way."

"And that is why
we've called you three here," the arbiter said. "We need reliable intelligence regarding what truly has occurred. One thing that is clear is the situation at Omicron has destabilized to the point where we're forced to move up our timetable. For the benefit of those who have not yet heard," here he made motion to the shadow around the chamber where the rest of the AoA in attendance watched, "we'll replay a recording of a conversation involving the Northgate freelancer Diomedes, assassin of ESA mole Joseph Curwen."

The bug recording was played again.
It was the third time Marc heard it, and he found himself concentrating instead on what the arbiter had just told them. Marc was sincere in his suggestion that the quarantine was due to
Paragon
, but he couldn't help but wonder if Councilor Knapp was right. ESA was hunting him; what if they'd found out about Marette? Neither possibility seemed more comforting than the other. But the AoA would find a way to get help to her soon. Whatever form it took, he hoped it wouldn't be too late.

The recording ended and the arbiter spoke. "We now have a clearer picture of the fallout from the death of the ESA mole.
While the identity of those responsible for hiring the freelancer to kill the mole remains unknown, the reality of the situation is that we now have a line on a route to the Omicron Complex that is separate from ESA."

Councilor Lin spoke. "So we use this to get assistance to Agent Clarion."

"The idea merits examination, yes," the arbiter said.

"And just what sort of
'assistance' do you plan to send?" This came from Councilor Knapp. "If we blindly send more of our people and they too are lost or compromised, things go from bad to worse!"

"Then
what do you suggest, Councilor?" Lin asked. "We have no other way to gather intelligence. Waiting for further contact from Agent Clarion, I'm sorry to say, may be fruitless in this case."

Knapp
looked over her colleagues. "If we are to act, we must do so in strength or we risk exposing ourselves and losing control completely. We need to be ready to take the entire complex. This
is
what we've been planning, isn't it? Arbiter?"

The arbiter nodded. "But not all is
in place for us to act in strength. Unless this has changed since our last meeting?"

Councilor Lin shook her head
. "We've pushed forward, but the timetable depends on manipulating a number of non-AoA elements. There's only so hard we can push."

"So our only choices are to wait, or to push harder," Knapp declared.

"And I said pushing harder is not an option."

Knapp responded with a stare that, digital simulation or not, made Marc shiver.
"This is an extreme situation. The entire Exodus project is at risk. It is incumbent on the arbiter to sanction more extreme action!" She turned her eye to the arbiter, adding, "As a temporary measure."

The arbiter held up a hand.
"I don't believe we've reached such a point yet. In light of this recording, our prior plan of opportunity regarding the mole may again be workable."

"We abandoned that plan when the mole was killed!" Knapp snapped.
"We can't waste time with a defunct course of action!"

There was a moment of silence as both Knapp and Arbiter Szendroi waited for others to support the former's statement.
When no one else seemed willing to speak, the arbiter broke the silence himself. "Councilor Ramis and I spoke briefly before this meeting. I think the Council will agree that recent circumstances merit a revote."

Marc looked to Samuel Ramis and recalled
that he still owed the man a response to a friendly email from the previous week. He gave Marc a smiling glance before speaking in his usual rapid manner. "Ah, yes well frankly it's clear that this Fagles is preparing to send Diomedes to Omicron—in fact
would
be doing so as we speak if not for the issue of access codes, so we have essentially the same situation that we'd decided to exploit when the mole was alive—a presence at Omicron belonging to neither ESA nor the AoA, but nonetheless one that we have a clear means of manipulating." He motioned to where Michael's avatar sat next to Marc's.

Councilor
Knapp raised an eyebrow. "You mean to send
him
?"

"Ah, actually I would say we should send b
oth of them."

Marc's heart stopped.

"Not only does Agent Triton have first-hand experience of the Omicron Complex," Ramis continued, "but he provides a credible way to provide Fagles and the freelancer with the codes they need. To say nothing of the fact that Agent Flynn would of course be invaluable as a liaison to Diomedes given their history."

"You'd
entrust this to someone so inexperienced?" Knapp argued.

"I agree with Councilor Ramis's assessment," Lin put in.
"Given the freelancer's profile, Agent Flynn provides the best chance of success."

At that, Michael spoke up.
"It's true I've only been with the AoA six months, Councilor, but I know Diomedes. If he's going to trust anyone, he'll trust me."

All heads turned to Michael, and Councilor Knapp asked,
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Agent Flynn, but didn't Diomedes nearly kill you earlier today?"

"He had a gun on
me nearly the whole time, but that's the way he is. If he wanted to kill me I wouldn't be here. As long as he's got a bounty, he's going to be even more paranoid than usual; I doubt he'll let anyone else talk to him. If I could offer him a way to clear his name in exchange for helping us, I can almost guarantee his cooperation."

Marc had to admire Michael's confidence in speaking to the
Council, though if his argument succeeded it would result in Marc's returning to the Moon under less than ideal circumstances at best.

Ramis gave Michael a nod and said to the
Council, "That was my thinking also."

Knapp scoffed again.
"You all assume that Diomedes killing the mole really is a coincidence! If you hang our hopes on a man who may have a secret allegiance—"

"Councilor," Lin began before Knapp shouted her down.

"We cannot commit to this without knowing for certain!"

T
he arbiter held up a hand and then asked Marc and Michael both, "You've found no evidence regarding Diomedes's claims that the assassination was just a job?"

Marc shook his head.
"None either way beyond his word to Fagles, I think." He looked at Michael to confirm.

"But I think I believe him about that."

"You
think
you believe him?" Knapp shot.

"I believe him," Michael corrected.

"So this is purely a hunch."

Michael paused a moment
, as if considering his words. "Based on what I know about him, yes. But I told you, Diomedes wants his name cleared. Even if he is lying about the assassination, he's obviously not getting any help getting the bounty removed. If we offer that in exchange for bringing us to the Moon, he'll use Fagles to get us there. And once we're there, isn't that all we'd need?"

Most of the C
ouncil seemed to consider this while Knapp spoke again. "And you claim he won't trust anyone but you."

"I hon
estly think I'm the best choice."

"Agent Brittan," the arbiter asked, "what's your assessment of Agent Flynn's abilities?"

"He may be young, but he's got potential. In my time working with him I've had no cause for complaint."

"Your
short time working with him," added Knapp.

"Yes, Councilor, my short time.
But his relationship to Diomedes renders him uniquely qualified to take advantage of the opportunity this situation gives us. Rejecting him based only on his youth is—and I say this with all due respect, Councilor—not only narrow-minded but unbecoming of the AoA."

"I think you may be taking the youth issue more personally than you should, Agent."

"Something else we disagree on, Councilor," she answered sharply. "I'm young for my rank on the Northgate PD, so I've dealt with this sort of attitude before. If I hadn't overcome that, would the AoA have an agent placed quite so high in the force? This is a meritocracy, Councilor. All other issues aside, I believe Agent Flynn is the best person for the job in question."

"It's exactly his merit that I'm questioning, Agent
. And I don't appreciate your tone."

"The arbiter asked my opinion, Councilor.
I was giving it. My tone shouldn't be the focus here."

Marc spoke up at the same time as the arbiter, managing
, "If it's a question of merit—," before he yielded control to the other.

"The opinions of both Councilor Knapp and Agent Brittan are heard and noted, and now in the interest of time I'll request we refrain from any further restatements by either.
Agent Triton, you had something to add?"

"Ah, yes
. I was going to say that. . ." Marc reminded himself of what he could be getting himself into, and the consequences of going back into not only ESA's reach but whatever else lurked at Omicron. Even so, with what needed to be done, there wasn't much for it; the Exodus Project was in jeopardy, and they had to get help to Marette somehow—if she remained there to be helped. "I was going to say that Agent Flynn's performance so far has been excellent. Not only has he led us to Diomedes and this new lead, but he's already saved my life and risked his own doing it."

"You would support the proposed plan, then?" t
he arbiter asked.

Where he sat in his apartment, Marc swallowed for real.
"I would, sir. And I don't do so lightly. I know Agent Flynn's involvement would mean my own as well, and, frankly, if I could get someone to go up there in our place, then I would. But if Diomedes is going to trust anyone, it'll be him, and I think he can handle the job."

The time on Marc'
s visor read eleven thirteen p.m. Four wireless networks in the area. Room temperature was seventy-one point two degrees. He wondered if the Council could tell he was sweating.