Powerless (5 page)

It wasn’t lost on me that I was surrounded by degrees and gradations of evil and yet so little good.

I had yet to meet anyone that I could have said was pure in their intentions or selfless in any way. Perhaps people like that no longer existed, if they ever had.

The door to the control room opened and I expected to see the usual cadre of analysts beginning to filter back in, but only Jegs came through the door. I was entirely sure I didn’t want to see anyone at this moment, but Jegs was at the bottom of that list. Primarily because of that last conversation we’d had before Armise and I had gone out on our mission where she’d questioned my loyalty to the cause.

“You and I have something we need to discuss. You have a moment?”

“My time is the Revolution’s,” I replied sarcastically.

“Noted. I suppose you’re still fuming about me questioning your integrity before you left. Let’s just say I’m not in that mental space anymore. I fully expect it will take time to rebuild your trust in me.”

“Noted,” I grunted, and left it at that.

Jegs hesitated for a second then said, “That last bit of our aircomm was interesting. Lovers’ quarrel?” she probed with a lighthearted lilt to her intrusive question.

I frowned. That was definitely not the approach to earn herself back into my good graces.

It was the first time Jegs had outright acknowledged to me that she knew Armise and I were involved. I hadn’t bothered to hide our affair the first time Armise and I had been in this bunker and I wouldn’t do it now, even as infuriated as I was with him. “Something like that,” I gave as a non-answer, then grimaced as my login was denied once again.

Jegs leaned over my shoulder and tapped on the BC5 screen. “Here. Use my login. Neveed had your credentials frozen after you left. He wanted to make sure your identity couldn’t be used to access the Revolution mainframe against your will if you were captured or killed. Plus, he fully expected Armise to stab you in the back as soon as you landed in the UU.”

“You all must be supremely disappointed,” I retorted and flicked the BC5 screen away without doing any searches. I wasn’t in the mood to accept any help from her, rebuilding trust be damned.

Jegs yanked out the chair next to me and plopped down, crossing her arms. She shook her head slowly. “Fuck, Merq. You sound like him.”

I bristled. “Give me one reason why that’s bad. I spent five months on an undercover op with him—with the two of us working together for the cause. He put his life on the line just as readily as I did.” I ran my fingers through my hair and slumped against the back of my chair. “Didn’t I just have this fucking conversation with Neveed?” I gritted out, but Jegs didn’t back down from her defensive posture.

I put my elbows on the table and leant forward, invading her personal space and staring her down. “I really don’t give a shit what you think of him or the fact that I’m fucking him. Or that your act of contrition is more selfishly contrite than sincere. When I transported into this bunker five months ago I told you that this shit ended. That order is still in effect. I haven’t asked for your opinion, and don’t expect me to.”

Jegs huffed. “Oh, I know you’ll never ask me. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to hold back. I happen to have learned from the best, Colonel. I know when it’s appropriate to act on orders and when it’s time to question why the fuck I’m being commanded to do something that goes against what I believe. Shit. You know me. My moral tracker strays dangerously off course, but what is happening here… Fuck. This is not going how I planned.” Jegs took a deep breath and appeared to be forcing herself to calm down. She uncrossed her arms and laid her hands on the table. “You realise that one bullet has the capability of changing the course of history?”

“And many bullets have the potential of wiping out humanity. Are you really looking for a philosophical debate on the lessons of our past versus present actions versus future implications? I think we’re all a bit crippled when it comes to thoroughly understanding the past. The Nationalists’ destruction of the archives ensured that.” I left the mention of her brother Grimshaw and his leadership of the Nationalists unsaid, even though I knew she was bright enough to catch my intention to unsettle her with the words. “So what’s your point here, Jegs?”

She pointed a finger at me. “Your bullet is the one that changed the course of the Revolution. You. Not Armise. You treat him as if he’s infallible. As if he’s a better, smarter, and stronger soldier than you are, when all of us know that’s not true. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but if he wants to kill himself going after Ahriman, then let him do it. We don’t need him here, but we need you. Leadership is strained, that’s probably the mildest I can put it without sounding like a dick. Things changed when you were gone. And not all of us are sure Ahriman won’t find a way to take over. I’m not switching sides—it’s not who I am—but I am questioning whether or not our own leadership has become too myopic to effectively combat Ahriman’s tactics. The moral lines that divide the Revolution from the Opposition are still there, but blurring. And that is something I won’t stand by and watch happen.”

“Let’s be clear here, Jegs, and stop toying with words. When you say ‘leadership’, do you mean the President or Neveed?”

Jegs tipped her head back and scrubbed her hands over her face. I was aware that our conversation was likely being monitored, if not in live time then for review later. Jegs would have the same knowledge about the lack of privacy in the control room as I did. She was taking a risk with making any of the accusations she had so far, but there had to be a reason she wanted to have them heard, and not just by me. She cracked her neck and opened her eyes, looking up at the black screen at the front of the room and flexing her hands into fists. Then she met my eyes and said, “I’ll give you the answer you want, but let’s start with this first—Exley is gone. He left the bunker a couple months back when it became apparent that the kids from the jacquerie weren’t just in hiding.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You saw it in the Underground when you were rescuing your parents. Exley told me about how eerie it was to see the camp so empty. But, thing is, the kids never came back. All children under the age of ten were gone from the tent city months before the jacquerie abandoned it.”

“The jacquerie completely abandoned it? No one came back? The whole tent city—”

“Is abandoned. Empty. And I have to assume Exley is with them. I can’t tell you how it’s all connected, because I simply don’t know. But the disappearance of the youngest children happened over a period of weeks before you left. All communication ceased between jacquerie leadership and the President or any Revolution contacts then the entire populace picked up and left over the course of one night.”

“Where did they go?”

“As far away from any city as they could get. They didn’t try to hide their movements. They’ve all relocated to the mountains in the Central Territories.”

“They’ve taken up high ground,” I observed.

“They’re smart. Likely smarter than any of us are.”

“Fuck, Jegs. What the hell is going on with the kids?”

“No idea. But you should also know that the PsychHAgs have been particularly active recently as well. From what I hear, their reach has extended to classified use of Revolution scientists. The President approved that expansion of their powers. You’ll have to talk to Feliu to see if he knows more.”

“You’re assuming there’s a connection there. Between the kids, the jacquerie’s movements and the PsychHAgs?”

“I’m not assuming. My gut is telling me there is. And the leadership—our President, to be specific—is unwilling to explore any of this. He’s so focused on his own survival and destroying Ahriman’s regime that he’s overlooking the welfare of his own people. Of the citizens he insists are the heart of the Revolution.”

“These are serious allegations, Jegs.”

“I know. But evil is only allowed to take root in the absence of good. I said it earlier, I won’t stand idly by. Let Armise go after Ahriman. Let him follow the President’s agenda. But we need you here to help the President see reason. He will listen to you. And if he won’t then it will be his own hubris that takes him down.”

I stilled. “Are you saying you want the President to be assassinated?”

She nodded slowly as if we were discussing a training exercise and not mutiny. “I’m saying that one bullet is sometimes all it takes. You, out of all of us, know that’s true.”

She couldn’t be telling me what I thought she was—that if the President didn’t change his tactics I would be the one asked to eliminate him. But I couldn’t see any other meaning behind her words. I had to wonder if Jegs had come on her own to me or if she had been voted as the person to have this conversation with me. Did Neveed know what she was telling me? And if he did, did he agree with this course of action?

That Neveed not only knew, but had also sanctioned her approach to me was the only conclusion I could come to since Neveed would have access to everything said within the control room walls. Unless this was a test by Neveed to see if I was still loyal to the President. The thought chilled me.

And that wasn’t even factoring in the information she was feeding me about the jacquerie and the disappearance of the children. That was disturbing to say the least. Adding the PsychHAgs into the mix complicated it all further. And much more than I was prepared to handle at that moment.

Now I was even more sure that I needed Armise to stay by my side. Yes, Jegs believed that I was a better soldier than Armise, but she didn’t know him the way I did. Armise was more than competent. He was battle-ready at all times and constantly one step ahead of me.

And I would have been lying if I didn’t admit that the fact that I might not be able to trust the President anymore was an unsettling thought.

It didn’t matter that Armise had sprung this desire to go after Ahriman on me. I’d been working with him and living with him for long enough to trust he had my back because his only agenda was
me
. There was no other way around it—the only person I could trust anymore was Armise Darcan.

Regardless of everything Jegs had told me, I wasn’t ready to give anything away that could illustrate a shift in my position until I had investigated every accusation for myself. “You have to be aware that by telling me this I’m going to be watching you extra closely and making sure you get nowhere near the President?”

Jegs shrugged casually, completely unaffected by my statement. “Then you’ll be watching the wrong person.”

* * * *

I found Armise in the galley, picking at a plate of food in front of him.

“Exley’s not here,” he said to me with ease, as if our last interaction hadn’t ended with him walking out on me. With the convoluted entanglement of issues Jegs had just thrown at me, it was the least of my concerns, too. Armise pushed his plate away in disgust.

I sat down across from him and realised there wasn’t one piece of meat on the plate. I dragged it in front of me, my stomach rumbling in response. “Yeah, we’ve got more to worry about than how the food tastes when it comes to Exley.” I picked up his fork and stabbed at the pile of vegetables and rice, barely getting one bite into my mouth before I was spitting it out. I pushed the plate back towards him. “That is shit.”

“How do you fuck up vegetables?” Armise sneered, then leant forward and spoke to me in his home dialect of Mongol, “What’s the deal with Exley?”

I furrowed my brow and studied him, trying to figure out why he was speaking to me in a language that few, if any, people in the bunker would know. Armise tipped his chin up in silent reply, glancing over my shoulder.

“Fuck,” I ground out as I followed his gaze to the table set against the wall where my parents sat. They were both staring back at me openly, wearing matching frowns. I shook my head and turned back to Armise, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge their presence for anything less than the inconvenience it was. “Let’s head back to our quarters,” I said to Armise in Mongol. “We need to talk.”

Armise stood immediately and walked out of the galley without one look back to me or my parents. I had to fight not to consider them one more time. They were an enigma to me, so naturally that made me more curious about them. I didn’t know anything about their status since being held by Ahriman or how they were contributing to their precious Revolution. At one time the President had said that they would become faces for the cause and move into his home in the capital. But at some point, obviously, that plan had changed. Jegs had mentioned nothing about them, though. So I had to assume for the moment that their presence here was inconsequential to the larger issues. But I would find out for sure later.

“How safe do you think our room is?” I asked, keeping to the northern Singaporean dialect of Armise’s home as we tracked down the hallway.

Armise ran his hand over his chin, in a motion that was reminiscent of the years he’d had his grey and silver beard, even though he’d shaved it off months ago and had kept it off. He shook his head and answered me in continental English, “Does it matter?”

For a couple of seconds I considered how we could stay in the bunker and still talk freely, thinking about ways to mask our conversation, but realised quickly that I needed to be able to speak to Armise without the worry of what may or may not be intercepted or overheard.

“It might,” I admitted.

Armise looked around the hallway and over his shoulder. “Above ground then.”

I motioned for him to follow me as I tracked back to a passage we’d passed. “This way.”

I could remember enough about the layout of the bunker for us to make it to the door we’d used on the op to rescue my parents with Exley. The exit was guarded by a low ranking soldier who wore the fitted black uniform of the Revolution and carried a real pistol on his hip and a rifle slung over his shoulder, but I didn’t bother to stop and ask if we would be able to gain access into the bunker again. It was probably a safe assumption that if I didn’t return soon Jegs would be out hunting my ass down and forcing me back into the bunker to deal with our potentially rogue President.