Jack of Harts 2.5: Wolfenheim Rising (3 page)

Malcolm froze for a split second and turned to watch the landscape of Landing City flash by below and around them.  As one of the oldest interstellar cities, Landing City incorporated many old, historic buildings of a dozen or so floors in height, which the limo flew over with ease.  But newer gravtech towers less than a century old literally towered above the limo, their gleaming flanks stretching up into the sky above him.  Some of them weren’t even proper buildings, floating in the air entirely on gravplating, anchored to the ground only for easy elevator access.

Malcolm wasn’t certain which he liked better.  He loved the charm of the historic districts, including the seaside boardwalk, but the towering business and manufacturing districts were filled by an intense energy as New Earth struggled to match the ever-increasing demand for war supplies of all kinds.  He took in a long breath, wondering what John knew, and leaned back in his seat as the beautiful buildings of Landing City passed by.  Malcolm hadn’t told anybody who he was coming to talk to.  Even the people he was coming to talk to.  One never advertised that one was talking to them, after all.

“Excuse me?” he asked, his tone as innocent as he could manage.

“Please.”  John aimed a paternal look at Malcolm.  “I wasn’t born yesterday.  And you never did get that innocent act down as well as you thought,” he finished with a raised eyebrow.

“Fine.”  Malcolm shrugged and shook his head.  “You got me.  But what’s this about ‘our’ friends?  I thought you found religion.”

A hurt expression took over John’s face, and wide, sorrowful eyes gazed back at Malcolm.  “I found religion.  I didn’t lose my mind.”

“Right,” Malcolm returned with a snort.  “So why do you still deal with them?”

John sighed and relaxed back in his seat.  “Well, Christ himself said that he came to walk with those who needed saving, not with those who were already righteous.”

Malcolm actually laughed at the pious statement.  “And you really think these guys are open to hearing the Word of God?”

“You’d be surprised actually.”  John aimed a sobering look at him.  “They’re not all cold-blooded, hardened criminals.  And some of them take the Confessional
very
seriously.”

The limo began to drop down towards the ground again, and Malcolm felt a scowl coming on.  He knew the neighborhood.  John really had known exactly where he was going.  “One problem with that idea,” he growled.  “
You’re
not a Catholic priest.”

John smiled as the limo slipped into the parking ramp, lights flooding on to fill the dim structure with light.  “But I was one of them long before I met you.  That makes up for a lot.  Even if I became a heathen
Protestant
,” he finished with a chuckle.

Malcolm laughed and watched the limo prowling towards the end of the parking ramp.  There’d been a time, he knew, when the difference between Protestant and Catholic had been death.  Literally.  But that was centuries ago.  After Contact, the differences between Catholics and Protestants had become very minor indeed.  The limo came to a stop and the doors opened, letting in a breath of fresh morning air.

Malcolm slid out first and looked at the open door that led down into the bar.  Dawn followed and stepped up behind him with John on her heels, and Malcolm shared a look with each of them before walking towards the opening.

An alarm blared as they approached and a guard stepped out of a nearby alcove, hand rising to stop them.  He looked straight at Dawn.  “No personal computers in the club.”

“She’s a
cyber
, not a computer,” Malcolm corrected with an upraised hand.

“Doesn’t matter.”  The guard shook his head, a mulish expression taking over his face.  “We don’t serve her kind here.”

A hot anger flashed through Malcolm, and he glared at the guard.  “Now just you see here,” he growled, but Dawn’s hand touched his shoulder and he turned to look at her.  She shook her head in a movement so slight that the guard probably hadn’t even noticed.  Malcolm suppressed a growl and turned back to the guard in silence.

“We don’t want any trouble,” John said in a calm tone, arms raised in a pacifying gesture.  “So why don’t you go tell Mikey that Johnny and Mal are here to see him,” John continued, putting only the slightest of emphasis on the first name.

The guard’s eyes widened at the name, and John continued to simply smile at him.  Nobody used that name casually, unless of course they
could
use it casually.  Because if they couldn’t and they did anyways, they never did a second time.

“Go on,” John whispered, waving his hand towards the door.  “You don’t want to keep Mikey waiting, do you?” he added, and despite the casual words, his tone left no question as to whether or not it was an order.

The guard practically scampered off down the stairs, obviously not wanting to get between anyone who thought they could call his boss that name and said boss without someone who had a lot more seniority to take the flak for him.  The man disappeared into the heart of the club at the bottom of the stairs, and Malcolm grunted in approval.

John sighed and gave him a long look.  “You really need to learn diplomacy.”

Malcolm glanced at Dawn and she cocked her head to the side, obviously waiting for his response.  “Not sure I want to deal diplomatically with idiots like that.”  She frowned at him and he stared right back at her for several seconds, making it clear that he wasn’t about to back down from that point.  Then he turned back to John, fresh determination to get his suspicions answered filling him.  “So, what are you really doing here?”

“What?” John asked, his eyes opening wide in an innocent expression that didn’t fool Malcolm for an instant.  “I can’t be here just to see an old friend off to the stars one last time?” John added in a plaintive tone.

Malcolm’s eyes narrowed.  They weren’t officially scheduled to launch for at least a few more days.  John knew far more than anyone outside the Wolfenheim Project was supposed to know.  “What do you know?”

John cleared his throat and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.  “Oh, nothing really.”  John sobered when he saw Malcolm’s raised eyebrow.  “Fine.  The courier that arrived earlier today had a message for you, right?  That’s why you’re down here?”

Malcolm sighed and nodded.  He supposed it wouldn’t do any good to deny that fact at the moment.

“That’s what I figured,” John continued, his tone serious.  “Charles sent me a message too.  He said it might be best if I get off planet before certain people we all know come by with ill intent aimed at my person,” John chuckled then.  “Not that I’d have any idea as to why anyone would want to do anything to a simple Man of God, of course,” he added with a wink.

“Right,” Malcolm returned in a doubtful tone and rolled his eyes at John.  “So you know nothing at all?”

“Not a blessed thing.”  John winked, and then gave Malcolm a helpful smile.  “But if you and Charles are conspiring here, and I know you are, it comes to mind that there may be others who would be…unhappy to find out what you’ve been doing.  Or maybe that they had some role in contributing to what you’ve been doing, even if they had no idea.”

Malcolm grunted.  He should have known that John at least would know enough about everyone involved to connect the dots even without being on the inside.  “So I suppose you want in on the project?”

“Well, if this is as big as I think it is, I don’t want to be close to Earth when Charles’ father finds out,” he said, his tone very serious again.  Then he smiled.  “Besides, you need all the adult supervision you can get.”

Malcolm snorted, but before he could respond the sound of feet on the stairs caught his attention.  An old man walked up into his view, grey hair and a wrinkled face telling the tale of a man that had lived nearly a century in one of the hardest businesses of all, even
before
Contact.  Several guards moved in his wake, scanning for threats, followed by the single guard they’d met already, moving gingerly as if afraid someone would take his head off.

“Johnny.”  The soft but firm voice came from the old man as he walked up and hugged the pastor in the way that declared someone a member of the family, whether or not they shared actual blood relation.

“Mikey,” John answered, returning the old man’s hug carefully.

“And Mal,” old Mike Callahan said as he stepped over to hug him as well.

“Hey, Old Man,” Malcolm returned, hugging the frail, old body back.  As he pulled back, he saw a necklace twinkling in the dim light of the parking garage and focused on it.  He recognized the face on the side of the coin facing him as Saint Connor, one of the Irish’s favorite saints.  The other side would be Murphy, Connor’s twin brother, and fellow enemy of all evildoers.  Malcolm smiled at the sight.  Maybe John was right about the whole religion thing when it came to working with them.

“And my dear Dawn,” Callahan said as he opened his arms towards her.  “How goes the mission?”

“He’s stubborn,” she answered and stepped into the old man’s arms.  He kissed her on both cheeks, marking her as a
trusted
member of the family for all to see.

“Good,” Callahan said with a smile and turned to the nervous guard.  “Get back to your post,” he ordered and the man scampered away, obviously happy to still have all of his digits attached, and Callahan returned his attention to Malcolm.

“Come in.  Come in.  If you came all this way, at this time of the morning, we must have something important to discuss,” the old man said as he turned to walk down the stairs.  “Might it have something to do with the courier boat that just came in from Sunnydale?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Am I the last one to hear about that?” Malcolm grumbled, but followed the man down.  A red light began to blink on the cuff of his suit, telling him that they were in a jamming zone, designed to stop anybody from listening to them from a distance.  It was safe for them to talk.

“Not quite,” Callahan said with an elaborate shrug.  “You probably knew before I did in fact.  But computers are notoriously easy to hack.  Hence our policy on them in this establishment.”

Malcolm studied the old man for over a second before responding with a simple “I see.”  Then he shook his head as another suspicion arose in his mind.  “Is that the only reason for your policy?”

Callahan met his gaze with calm eyes and shrugged.  “No.  I remember a time before AIs.  Back when humans did far more of the work that maintains our civilization.  We’ve become soft and lazy because we can rely on computers to think for us.”  He turned to look at Dawn.  There was no malice in his eyes, but there was also no give in them.  “My policy forces my people to use their own minds.”

“You’re a smart man,” Dawn whispered.  “I wish more of your people were as motivated.”

Callahan’s eyes narrowed and studied her carefully.  “Do you?  Really?  Or do you wish we would just roll over like the Peloran?”

Dawn simply sighed and aimed a sad smile at Callahan.  “That…is a very serious charge.”

Callahan pursed his lips and shook his head.  “Yes it is.  But you’ve become family.  And sometimes family has to ask hard questions.”

Dawn returned his look for a moment, and then smiled.  “We don’t control them.  They do what they want.  But they were never meant to be another Race of Humanity.”  She sighed and looked away from them all.  “The Albion genetically engineered them to be super soldiers who wanted nothing more than to live in peace.  Tailored them to lack the dream of freedom that so many other humans have, so they would never consider rebelling.”  Dawn snorted and shook her head.  “The Albion gave them a single driving purpose, and they embraced that as their entire meaning for being.  When the Albion died, most of them found the nearest planet and started grooming trees like they were programmed to.”

Malcolm’s mind actually recoiled at Dawn’s frank description.  He’d never heard the Peloran described like that.  They were super soldiers, with reaction times and senses far above the human base levels.  But he’d never considered the Peloran to be victims of actual mental twisting before.  They always seemed so calm and collected.  Never victims of what Dawn made sound almost like mind rape.

“We did what we had to do,” Dawn continued as Malcolm’s mind raced through the idea.  “We worked with the oh so very rare number of Peloran who had the…drive that you take for granted and built a society they could all live in.  We gave the rest of them the peace they craved, literally on a genetic level.  Can you honestly tell me that you would want to live a life like that?  To have life itself provided for you?  To never see something and think that maybe you could do it better?  To never have the drive to
try
?”

“Some of us would
love
a world like that,” Callahan said in a hard tone, and Malcolm nodded in understanding of what the older man meant.

He’d read a book as a kid about a man who invented a time machine and went far into the future.  He found a world exactly like what Dawn described.  And the people of that time had been helpless.  They had no reason to fight, even to defend their lives.  Since everything was free, nothing had value.  None of the Peloran he’d met acted like that, but there weren’t many genetic Peloran in Terran space.  Maybe she was right that they were simply the few who rose above the rest of their kind.