Havoc (16 page)

Minutes then hours of freezing in the semi-dark ticked by, and I thought, what if
these minutes and hours turned into days and weeks and months, years even. How would
I cope? How would anyone? What if the only people you ever saw were the ones bringing
the occasional tray of food, and syringes packed with ‘truth-telling' drugs? You
could be fairly sure that you'd betray your friends under the hammer of those drugs.
And what if you found out while you were here that you'd not only betrayed your friends,
but you'd lost your wife and your kid? You would be completely alone. You'd despair,
wouldn't you? What could possibly keep you going?

Revenge might. Hope for revenge. But that's not what I'd seen in my father. Strategic,
determined and utterly single-minded, he was all those, but I'd never seen him vengeful.
What then? A promise. Suppose you made a promise to yourself here in the dark, that
if you ever got out you would pour everything you had into the cause they'd made
you betray.

Suddenly the lights blazed up and left me flinching. When I could see again, a light
metal table and two chairs had appeared. Frieda was standing inside the door with
Jono at her shoulder. He held out a chair for her and she sat down. Jono was in the
black uniform now, same as Dash, and he looked huge and solid, as if he ate often
and worked out even more. His eyes flicked over me then returned to a blank, straight-ahead
stare.

Frieda pointed to the chair opposite her and said, ‘Sit down, please.'

I thought about retreating and refusing to talk to her, but Jono would have other
ideas. Some things are worth a useless act of defiance, but this wasn't one of them.
Besides, there were things I wanted to know. I sat.

Frieda smiled her thin smile and placed her hands, one on top of the other, on the
table. ‘Nikolai Stais,' she said.

‘Here,' I said. ‘Still alive, no thanks to you. Do you know how many people died
in your latest attack?'

‘Time of war,' she said smoothly. ‘How did you get out of Moldam?'

‘Twenty-eight people,' I said. ‘At least. Twenty-eight on the night, probably more
by the time I left.'

‘When you left,' she said, musing. ‘And how did you leave?'

‘I flew.'

She tutted and shook her head. ‘I shall have to punish someone for their failure
to maintain a simple cordon.'

‘What's it for?' I asked, because anything was worth a try.

She considered for a moment then said, ‘Since you ask, I'll tell you. It's going
to end this seemingly endless war. I intend to bring it all to a close within a matter
of days.'

Days. Not good. I said, ‘A ceasefire could have brought it to a close a week ago.'

She gave a little shake of her head. ‘I intend to bring it to a close on my terms.'

‘How?' I asked.

But that she didn't answer. There was a knock on the door, and Dash came in and whispered
in her ear. Frieda nodded, murmured, ‘Oh, good,' and looked even more pleased with
herself than usual. Dash left without looking at me.

‘What's the point of bringing me here?' I asked. ‘I don't know anything.'

‘I'm less interested in what you know than in what you can find out,' she said.

Whatever that meant. I didn't ask.

I said, ‘Don't expect my father to come for me. He won't.'

Her eyebrows rose. ‘Actually, I think you're wrong about that. But I have a quicker
way of getting what I want than tracking down your father, who is proving, I must
say, to be rather elusive.'

‘Good,' I said.

‘I think he would come for you, but he knows our ways here and has built up, shall
we say, some measure of resistance to them.'

Unlike me, I thought. Not reassuring.

‘But in fact,' she sat back, ‘I don't want to trade you for your father. I want to
persuade you to join us. I'm a fair person. I'm giving you a chance. You'll save
yourself a lot of grief if you take it.' The eyebrows went up, the mouth tried to
smile again, but that wasn't its natural state and the attempt was short lived. ‘What
do you say?' she said. ‘Now that you know the facts about your mother, you've no
reason to oppose us.'

‘I don't know the facts about my mother, and I have twenty-eight reasons to oppose
you,' I said. ‘And that's just in the last week.'

‘Oh, please. That's no argument. Southside has plenty of blood on its hands.'

‘Southside is prepared to talk.'

‘Only because it's losing. And it is going to lose, make
no mistake. Why tether yourself
to a losing side that you only encountered a few months ago? So your mother was Breken—so
what? She made the right choice. Listen, Nikolai, your mother—'

‘Don't talk to me about my mother!' I said, louder than was maybe wise.

Jono made a move towards me.

But Frieda said, ‘Now, now. Calm down. Thank you, Agent.'

Jono returned to his post behind her shoulder, but now he was staring at me as though
he was sizing me up for dismemberment.

I pushed my chair back and walked to the far wall.

Frieda said, ‘Loyalty is admirable, but you cannot be loyal to both your father and
your mother. You must choose.'

But I wasn't thinking about loyalty right then. Standing against that wall, feeling
its cold seep into me, I was thinking about the people who'd been in this room before
me, including, possibly, my father. People whose sweat was ingrained in the walls
and floor, people who'd cried here and bargained and bled. Some must have died here:
we held memorials on Southside for those who went into the Marsh and never came out.
And I knew, too, from half-heard conversations, that some people left and died later,
unable to live with the bargains they made here. Who would be next? Mr Corman, if
he stood in the doorway of
his bookshop and defied the bulldozers? Those behind the
posters, who were trying to get the real news out?

‘Well?' said Frieda. ‘I don't have time to waste. What do you think?'

I said, ‘I think that if you need a room like this to run your city, you can count
me out.'

She shook her head. ‘You are naive and foolish. It's time you saw the world for what
it is.'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘Like all those people who are deserting the city so they don't have
to watch what happens next? They're not so keen on seeing the world for what it is,
even though they're the ones who could change it.'

She looked at me impatiently, ‘I'm not getting anywhere, am I? Time for a new approach.'

She nodded at Jono who took a step back and knocked on the door.

It opened and Dash came in. And with her, Lanya.

CHAPTER 21

My heart lurched and all the breath leaked out of me. Lanya looked around, defiant.
She didn't even come up to Jono's shoulder but she was ready for a fight. Her eyes
locked on mine and she mouthed, ‘I'm okay.'

No, I thought. Neither of us is okay.

Frieda said, ‘How are those ideals now? Let's see if you can hold onto them in the
real world.'

I barely heard. My heart was hammering too loud.

Dash moved back to stand guard by the door and Lanya came across the room holding
out her hand. I grasped it, held it tight.

‘Now,' said Frieda. ‘Let's talk, seriously this time, about what you want. What you
both want. Southside is beaten, you know this to be true. But you want a future,
perhaps together, worthwhile work, food, money, a place to live. I can give you that.'

Sure you can, I thought. But not for nothing. ‘For what?' I said. ‘What do you get?'

‘Something very simple. We need to locate the Breken sympathisers here on Cityside.
They call themselves One City. They aren't Breken, they're misguided Citysiders,
clinging to an old cause while the world moves on. We are going to rebuild and revitalise
the city. You can help with that. The bridges will open. People from Southside will
move freely: they'll work here, even live here. A new start.' She held up a hand.
‘Don't answer yet. Think for a minute. Imagine how it might be.'

Lanya spoke, in halting Anglo. ‘You sent rockets to our town.'

Frieda inclined her head. ‘That was regrettable, but necessary. A message to an old
generation of leaders. I'm offering this to you, a new generation.'

Lanya nodded.

‘So you understand?' said Frieda. ‘You see what's possible?'

‘I do,' said Lanya. ‘Will you tear down the wire around Moldam?'

‘In time.'

‘Tell us what it's for,' I said.

Lanya said, ‘Why not tear it down now?'

Frieda shook her head. ‘I said, in time. You must answer on the information you have.'

‘Then my answer is no,' said Lanya. Her hand
tightened in mine. ‘I do not speak for
Nik.'

Frieda raised her eyebrows at me and I said, ‘What do you think? No, of course.'

She said, ‘You are foolish, both of you.' She spoke to Jono. ‘Take the girl to Ward
23.'

‘
Wait!
' I said. ‘I can give you something else.'

Frieda held up a hand, and Jono paused halfway to Lanya. ‘Indeed?' she said. ‘What
would that be.'

‘I know where Nomu is,' I said.

I was watching Jono about to plant his hands on Lanya so I barely registered that
Frieda gave a little start and moved her hands off the table out of sight to her
lap. Several seconds went by. Then she said, ‘That's irrelevant for our purposes—'

‘But not for her people,' I said.

She stood up abruptly. ‘Don't interrupt me! You don't get to bargain.' She nodded
to Jono. ‘Get on then.'

‘No!'

I moved between Lanya and Jono. He slammed his fist into my gut. I doubled up and
he drove his knee into my temple, and then I was breathing floor dust.

He said something like ‘Pathetic' and stepped around me. Through a blur I saw him
grab Lanya's arm, and they were out of the room before I could see clearly or stop
gasping.

I climbed onto my hands and knees, pulling in air. I heard Frieda say, ‘So like your
father.' She stood and
watched me until I was breathing evenly again. I was fairly
sure that if I stood up I'd fall over, so I sat on the ground and looked at her.

She sighed. ‘I did try. You are my witness that I tried. How like your father you
are. So stubborn. Uselessly, stupidly stubborn. You have forced my hand. Here's what
you will do now. You will find a way into the network of One City sympathisers and
report back to me on the whereabouts of their leadership. For every day that you
fail to locate these subversives, we will inject that young woman with a cocktail
of sodium pentothal and other useful drugs. Sadly it's not as reliable as we would
like; it can take time to get a result, so we'll be starting immediately. Even so,
perhaps she will be unreceptive. I rather think she will.' Frieda paused, watching
me, to check she was making an impact. She was.

She went on, ‘That means we'll have to escalate the drug regime day by day. On the
third day—Friday—she'll start to hallucinate. By Saturday she'll no longer be able
to tell dreams from reality and her personality will begin to change, permanently,
in unfortunate ways. Shall I go on? No, I can see that you understand. I'm going
to send you out now, into the city, and the sooner you return with information—reliable
information—of the One City network, the sooner we'll stop the injections and you
and your friend will be free to go. You have until Friday at about midnight before
the irreparable harm begins.
Sooner would be better for her, obviously.'

I thought about grabbing her and breaking her neck.

‘Why—' I stopped and got my breath under control. ‘Why should I believe you—that
you'll let us go if I do what you want?'

She frowned, impatient with me. ‘Because you are living proof that I keep my word.'

I was staring at her like an idiot.

‘You're here,' she said. ‘Alive and well, and not a casualty of war.'

It was dawning on me, oh so slowly. I said, ‘You promised my mother.'

She didn't answer.

‘You promised my mother that if she turned in my father and his network, you'd let
me live.'

She inclined her head and watched me.

My mother's choice was my choice now: betray the uprising and my father, or lose
Lanya for good. I struggled to my feet and managed to stay there. I looked from
Frieda's self-satisfied face to Dash's blank one.

I said to Dash, ‘Is this what you wanted?'

She stared straight ahead and said nothing.

I turned to Frieda. ‘Look, this is mad. You've got all those agents and the army
at your back. If you can't find them why do you think I can? Don't you have a plant
in there? You said you did.'

She smiled. ‘I did say that. We don't, as it happens,
have a presence in One City
at the moment. You are about to be it. Doors will open for you, you'll see. Take
these.' She handed me a bag with my watch and wallet and boots. ‘You're a fool, like
your father, but that's your choice. Now you're wasting time.'

Jono came back, and she said to him, ‘We're done. He can go.' She marched out the
door.

I put my boots on, and when Jono came to grab me I swung an elbow and connected with
his cheek. He yelled in surprise and in the nanosecond of advantage I had, I landed
a fist on his face. It hurt like crazy, but was it ever gratifying. He staggered
backwards and I put a boot in his belly. My advantage ended there. He grabbed my
boot and wrenched me off balance. We landed on the floor and tore into each other,
fists, feet, everything. It lasted longer than it would have once, but the short
version is that he beat the shit out of me. Finally he had me pinned on the ground
with his arm pressing on my throat. His nose was bloody and he was breathing hard,
but he managed a sneer.