LEGACY BETRAYED (7 page)

Legacy cleared her throat. “I’ve got, uh . . .” She shook her head clear. “Audio Swan. Scan for Audio Sw –Wait . . . wait.” She shook her head again. Her pupils seemed to shrink in diameter, just a fraction. “Why wouldn’t I go to this rally?”

“It’s a trap. They’re all going to be arrested on sight.”

“Arrested?” Legacy repeated, extricating herself from their anti-gravity knot of limbs. “Did Trimpot defect?”

“Well–”

“What, is he in alliance with Malthus now?” Legacy demanded. Her passion had cooled to calculation.

“M-Malthus is dead,” Kaizen replied. He broke eye contact, still unsure how he was supposed to feel. If he should’ve felt anything at all. Why did he have to feel anything at all for that prick?

Legacy pulled a deep breath. “Then it’s you,” she said. “He’s in alliance with you, and you’re arresting all the rebels.”

“It’s for their own good,” Kaizen retorted, looking up to her again. “You don’t know.”

“When is a trap ever in someone’s best interest?” Legacy asked, moving away from him. “And if it was, why would you tell me not to go?”

“Do you
want
to be arrested?” he countered.

“Do
they?
”

“I have my reasons,” Kaizen said. “You wouldn’t understand, Legacy. You think –you think everyone can win. But sometimes –sometimes there are only degrees of loss. Trust me–”

“Trust you?” Legacy stooped to wrench the broad, metallic case up from the porch where it’d fallen. “Why, because you have nothing to gain by arresting the rebel force beneath you? You just want to snuff out the fire.” She moved rapidly down the stairs, using two hands to tote the unmentioned instrument. Kaizen glared and bolted after her, uninterested in its nature. Legacy called over her shoulder, “You want the fire smothered because it’s under your ass now!”

“Do you think I care about the damn crown?” he demanded, circling down to the third porch. “Have I ever led you to believe that I
wanted,
really
wanted
to be the duke? I was born into this, and I’m just –doing what I have to!”

“Yeah, well, everyone was born one way or another,” Legacy replied, thundering across the second porch. “And that’s what Chance for Choice is about. People who weren’t born into stations quite as accommodating as royalty.” She trundled down the last set of steps. “The CC isn’t fighting for themselves and what’s ‘best’ for them. They’re fighting for people everywhere, people never given the choice to be anything else. People like Dax.” She pounded down onto the last porch with both feet, setting off a shrill, tinny
Rrrah! Rrrah!
from deeper within.

Kaizen, distracted, glared toward Unit #1 for a moment before turning back to face Legacy.

“Who’s–”

But she was already halfway across the lot, carrying that case as if it were a child and heading toward the line of dumpsters that signaled the boundary between the factories, the domestic district, and Groundtown.

Meanwhile, Dax Ghrenadel gazed down onto the retreating figures below. Having heard the bang of the falling case, he’d slipped onto his porch to discern its source, and there found Legacy three floors down, lulling backwards with a shameless expression of rapture, being mauled by every girl’s earl. He hadn’t been able to hear everything they’d said: something about people wanting to be arrested, Legacy seeming incredulous that she should trust Kaizen, Kaizen seeming incredulous that he had struck her as ever wanting the crown.

And if Kaizen had the crown, that meant that Chance for Choice had killed Malthus Taliko after all.

             
Source: Vault footage,
Liam etched as a footnote to the Tuesday morning report Dyna would give. It was littered in phrases such as “explosive,” and “intriguing,” each one causing a pang to his chest as he’d written it. But this was his job, and he supposed it was all for the best, if it exposed the crown’s corruption by fraternization with the CC.

              The door shuddered open and Dyna Logan, her chestnut hair wrapped in a beehive of tight braids and her waist cincher a glaring, vinyl lavender, leaned in. “Are my notes ready,” she commanded. It was framed like a question, but it was not.

              “Yes, Miss Logan.” Liam handed her the sheath, the skeletal outline of the coming report involving “Earl” Kaizen and his own Companion, a Chance for Choicer.

              But Dyna’s eyes only ticked along its bullets for a second before flitting back to him. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.

“It’s the story,” Liam answered feebly. “Isn’t it?”

“We are
not
running this story,” Dyna insisted.

Liam swallowed. “Another . . . cover-up?” he asked her, confused. What had they become? Was he only just seeing it now that he’d been promoted from personal assistant to report preparation?

“It’s not a ‘cover-up,’ darling, don’t be so dramatic,” Dyna replied with an ugly smile. “It’s just . . . business. Now, I don’t have the time to wait for another draft, so never mind. I can wing it.”

Dyna bustled from the room, and as Liam exited behind her, she pulled the lever from OFF to ON AIR, snatching up her microphone. “Good morning, Icarus. I’m Dyna Logan, your premiere source of breaking Icarus news in these trying times, and I’m delighted to bring you a small ray of sunlight in all the confusion.” Liam crossed the room toward the exit door, but paused to hear what she could possibly have brewed up in this few seconds between the preparation table and her seat. “Yours truly has been nominated by the duke to join his court of six, receiving a new office for public relations.” Liam imperceptibly shook his head, wrenching the door open and stepping out. “This means I’ll be representing the people of Icarus at every court meeting beginning next Monday. Please leave messages with the
CIN-3 MAIN
bot and let us know–”

              The door slammed shut behind him. He had to get a break.

              Liam’s head spun as he marched toward the lift at the end of the hall. The story was huge, and insanely meaningful to the political arena. How could she just smother it like that? For some paltry title in the duke’s court? His stomach was spinning, too. He’d known that the system hadn’t been perfect, of course, but he’d always believed that those imperfections had reason and the public interest behind them.

              But where was the public interest in this bribery?

              How could he continue to churn lies for that beast, and maintain his integrity?

              If his work was truly of so little value that it was thrown into the trash?

              When the lift arrived at the ground floor, Liam made for the door and didn’t look back.

              There was only one person he knew who would receive these thoughts openly, and that was Exa Legacy, resident rebel.

              Legacy jolted from where she stood, washing her face beneath the frigid spigot, as the door to her rental shuddered. Dax didn’t normally knock like that.

              “Hello?” she called meekly.

              “Exa,” Liam’s familiarly authoritarian tone rang to her. “Let me in.”

              Legacy grimaced, but she went to the door. As likely as Liam was to lecture her, she knew he was also unlikely to turn her in. He’d had his chances before and not taken them. And if someone – Dax? – had told him where she was, it must have meant that he was trustworthy.

              Legacy opened the door and Liam Wilco strode inside, pale and all clenched up, which wasn’t an unusual countenance for the man. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did something happen?”

              “I did it,” he told her.

              “Did what?”

              “I betrayed you. And –then –Dyna didn’t even run the story. She traded it to the damn duke for a position in his court. ‘Personal relations’ or some tripe.”

              “Ah,” Legacy replied, glancing at the radio with a nod. Though quiet, it was constantly on. “Now it makes sense.”

              “I don’t understand how or where or when it all got so messed up,” Liam went on, heavily pacing away from her, then treading back. “I mean, if the rebels have the duke, and the duke has the media, and the media has all the damn people of Icarus, then the rebels have won, haven’t they?” He paused and shot his former Companion a searching gaze of mild panic.

Legacy glared. “We haven’t won, Liam. We don’t have the duke. I –‘had’ the duke. That was all. It wasn’t political, you know. Trimpot didn’t make –I’m not a whore, Liam! It was personal.” Liam glared back, but Legacy forged ahead. “And so is the revolution. None of this is subterfuge. It’s honest. Real people who want genuine, open change. We’re not seducing the crown to push some secret, self-serving agenda. I just kissed Kaizen because I kissed Kaizen. It was before I was even in the CC, you know.” She shook her head. “And trust me, the duke is not interested in doing any favors for the rebels. He’s got a trap set for all of them this Friday. I know that much.”

“You know about the fake rally?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, I know about the fake rally,” she replied. “Kaizen is alive, and Malthus is dead, and Trimpot defected, and the rally is an ambush.”

“Then you know about the disinformation campaign we’ve been running through Dyna Logan all damn week. It’s killing me. Pretending that Malthus is alive. Pretending that no one knows where Trimpot is. Oh, but I can tell you where Trimpot is.”

“Oh?”

“Lion’s Head, that’s where,” he snapped. “Dyna let it slip during a rant about her new neighbor, who is a ‘security risk’ that the duke had shoehorned into the community, that she could hardly sleep at night, because ‘there might be some kind of CC arson or vandalism at any moment.’ It’s enough to make me sick. Royals in bed with rebels all around. Lies on the news. Me, forced to write them all down and act like nothing is happening. I don’t know where the line is anymore between the two sides.”

Legacy almost smiled. Liam was finally having his doubts.

“At least he’s going through with that rally-ambush,” Liam added. “He hasn’t totally lost his senses.”

The near-smile dropped from her face. “Liam!” she snapped. “If those arrests happen, it could mean the deaths of a hundred innocent people!”

“Innocent? They’re murderers!” he countered.

“They’re members! They didn’t have anything to do with that assassination plot against the duke! There were only two members out of that hundred at the entire coronation. The real murderer is Neon Trimpot, the mastermind, and he won’t even be there, will he? No, he’ll be at his cushy mansion in Lion’s Head, won’t he? Letting everyone else take the fall.” What she said next, she knew wasn’t true, but she pushed the suggestion anyway, because it was the one way she knew she might be able to enlist Liam’s help. There was nothing he hated more than a scheme. “You know, this could all have been an intricate rouse between Kaizen and Trimpot to oust Malthus all along. Trimpot whips up some disenfranchised commoners to frame, Kaizen receives the crown, and in return, Trimpot is given a place in his court. It’s really perfect, isn’t it?” She could see him thinking, so she pressed again. This was, ironically, the closest she’d come to subterfuge since joining the rebels. “I mean, look at me, afraid to show my face in public for fear of execution, and all I really did was ask a question at the centennial.”

“But what can you do about it now?” Liam asked, seeming genuine.

“What can we do, you mean,” Legacy corrected.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! Do you really want to see all this happening and do nothing? You work for the damn
CIN-3
, don’t you?” Liam’s mouth flapped silently, finally speechless. “Well?” Legacy kept on, knowing she had him in her grasp now. “Do you want to see more evidence of corruption swept under the rug? Only this time, it’s not just a roll of film; these are the lives of one hundred innocent people. But you could stop it. You could get out the message! That it’s a trap!”

The final shove caused Liam some backlash. “And lose my job?” he retorted. “And get arrested? Tried for treason? Executed myself? Exa . . . I don’t know–”

“Then let me,” she replied flatly. “Because I do know.”

“Let you what?”

“Let me have your
CIN-3
key.”

“Exa,” Liam said again. “I don’t know.”

“If I get caught, I’ll tell them that I stole it from you.”

“But –what if you do get caught? That’s what I’m worried about,” Liam replied.

“Remember how our personality scores were so alike, Liam?” she asked him. “Our results noted that we were both people of action. Neither one of us can just stand by and let something go wrong when we could stop it. Let someone get hurt when we could stop it.”

Liam sighed and extracted a double-ended key. This key could be used to bypass high clearance checkpoints, and only belonged to staff members. “Here,” he said.

Legacy kissed the key. “And you say I never listen,” she said.

Liam grimaced. “You listen when you care,” he corrected. “So hear this: Dyna is usually in the studio. But she always leaves during the commercials to refresh her drink.”

              Liam had gone long ago, and now, it was getting dark, and Legacy was all alone.

              There was a leak forming in the drywall over this bed. It hadn’t started to drip yet, but it was just searching for the seam.

              Legacy stared at the dark, sagging paint, wondering how long it would take before she was awoken by a torrent of some ceiling pipe’s runoff.

             
“Duke expressed frustration in an interview earlier this week with his complete lack of leads regarding the terror attack of the coronation ceremony . . .”
Dyna Logan went on quietly from the radio.

              This was the fourth day since Legacy had seen anyone from Chance for Choice. Rain hadn’t visited at all, but she had mentioned before leaving for work, Monday morning, that the hospital would likely be flooded and her shifts unusually burdensome. More noticeably, though, Dax had not visited either. Legacy had been lonely and bored, and more than once drifted down to the bar for comfort. Its patrons called it “the oil den,” she now knew. She kept it to a single drink minimum, worried what she might do under the influence of too much Calm. Abandoning Glitch’s for the comforts of home had been insanely irresponsible.

She’d returned once since, to gather a burlap sack set out by her parents. It’d originally been sent home with her from the prison tower of the Taliko Archipelagos, jammed with her hosiery, boots, jacket, and a glass blunderbuss called a color cannon, magenta paint still sloshing in its chamber. Her parents had jammed some clothing on top of all this and left it on the porch for her.

Thankfully, she now wore the coppery, vinyl tank top and pleated skirt, a (clean) garment which was the staple of her summer selection.

Legacy sighed.

That’d been the only time she’d left Glitch’s in two days.

Dax couldn’t possibly be that busy, could he? The selection labs, like most other businesses of repute in the city, closed their doors at sundown. She’d called him, too. No answer. Just messages.
CIN-3
mentioned no recent crimes or arrests. If anything, it was almost as if Dyna Logan’s streaming updates were on a loop.

What if Dax was taken to the castle and tortured for information on my whereabouts?
Legacy wondered, unblinking.
But then again, I know Kaizen is the duke now. He wouldn’t do that . . . would he?

              Dax wouldn’t just leave her to languish at Glitch’s, either, though, and he didn’t know that the Widow Coldermolly had offered her several hundred pieces. As far as he knew, she had only forty, which would’ve been gone yesterday at the rental price of twenty pieces per night. As far as he knew, she was broke by now, sleeping on the streets. It didn’t make any sense.

              Suddenly, the automaton in the corner – who hadn’t moved in the past several days, except to alert Legacy of the date, the time, and his need to have his key turned – sprang to life. Rusting and inexact, this complimentary automaton made Bart-12 look state-of-the-art.
“Hell-hell-o, D-D-Dax Ghrrrenadel!”
the automaton greeted, bringing a fresh pang to Legacy’s chest. “
Grouuup b-b-bull-bulletin incoming from Leopold Comstock. Grouuup b-b-bull-bulletin incoming from Leopold Comstock. Prrrivate! CC meeting! Friiiday night! Mmmidnight! Industrial territory, lot-lot #3! Again! Prrrivate! CC meeting! Friiiday night! Mmmidnight! Industrial territory, lot-lot #3!”

             
Legacy glared at the automaton, a shuddering silhouette in the corner.