System Seven (53 page)

“It’s okay Ryota,
you’re okay. We’re just hiding in the dark. Relax.”

“Where are the bad
men?” His little voice carried fear.

“Not here, Ryota, not
here. They’re looking for us but we’ll be okay. We’ll be just fine. Help is
coming.”

Help better be coming
, he thought to himself.

Twenty minutes later,
lawn sprinklers split the silence. The white noise became a symphony playing
outside their hiding hole. Ryota lay in a ball in his lap. The moist earth
soaked through to his pants but he didn’t care. Waiting only made him more
anxious.

Johan finally
returned.
Get ready. Hatch will open at
the hole.

He barely had time to
stand before reality split open above them to reveal the ship’s interior. Anki
had the ship at an angle to receive them. Johan stood there ready to help them
up.

He rose with the boy
in his arms and cleared the hole. Before landing on the ship’s floor, he saw a
golf cart rolling not twenty yards off.

“Close it, quick!”

It closed and Anki
pulled the ship away. “What was it?” She looked at the screens. “Oh shit! How
did I miss him?”

“I think someone’s
gonna have a helluva story to tell about that hole in the ground.”

Before returning to
Martin’s in Velletri, they flew up to the Astra satellite to check on the blog.
They found a new entry.

The angry king plots
this night

Revenge colors morning
light

Blooming fire in the
city

So many lives, so much
pity

“Oh god,” Anki said.

“Which city?” Austin
asked, frustrated. “Can’t she do something?”

Johan set the laptop
aside. “It’s beyond her. She can’t break ranks.”

“I told you. I
told
you.” Anki pulled the ship away and
set a mark for Velletri. She didn’t hide her displeasure. “When will you listen
to me?”

• • •

The barn doors opened
to receive them, pushed by the two guards. Standing just inside was Martin. He
met them as they climbed out.

“Cathbad has ordered
you separated. Johan, Anki, there’s a car waiting for you. Austin, I’ve got
coordinates and instructions for you. You’ll take the craft with Bario here.”

Johan glanced at the
two guards. “And if we don’t want to split up?”

The old druid shook
his head in disappointment. Before he could speak, Anki left Johan’s side to
join him.

She looked at Johan
with conviction. “We’ll go.”

When he didn’t reply,
she said to Austin. “It’s time to get with the program before we really screw
things up.”

All things come to him that waits - provided he knows what he
is waiting for.

- Woodrow T. Wilson, 1856-1924, Twenty-eighth U.S. President

Austin hefted his
duffle bag over his shoulder.

“Thanks, Niko.”

“See you in the
morning.”

The beat-up station
wagon pulled away in a u-turn. He watched until its taillights disappeared
around a bend in the road. The night sky beckoned from behind a blanket of
clouds, hidden but still expansive. Knowledge of life throughout the galaxies
made the planet under his feet feel tiny. Remembering that alien species might
be as devious as humans left him frightened for Earth. He fingered the ship’s
remote and thought about the blogger’s message. If true, tomorrow would be a
fucker of a day and it was again partly his fault. Guilt shadowed his every
thought. It had to stop and soon.

He started up the
stone walkway. The sprawling two-story villa sat amidst rolling olive orchards
on the Greek island of Corfu. He counted four garage doors and at least three
decks. A pool glowed in between shrubs.

At the door a portly,
tan-skinned gentleman in his sixties appeared. Gus Apostolos welcomed him with
a gravel baritone voice.

“Long time, my nephew
from America. You look great. Come in, Tasia will take your things.”

If Gus feared taking in one of the most wanted
men in the world, he didn’t let on. Despite his resemblance to a crime boss,
his warmth was genuine and his vibe relaxed. A thin, dark-haired woman took his
duffle bag and jacket and disappeared. They strolled into a home of white
stucco and earth-tone tile.

“You’re tired and
hungry.” He gestured down a hall. “There’s something ready for you in the
kitchen. Tasia will take you to your room when you’re ready. There is a spa and
sauna and a pool if you want them.” He stopped and faced Austin. “I’m told a
method for monitoring the web page has been found so the long trip up won’t be
needed. I need the remote. Scientists will arrive soon to continue studying the
ship.”

Austin gauged the man.

“It won’t go anywhere,
you have my word. They need to study it more.”

Trust was possible. He
handed him the remote.

“I have business
tonight but we’ll talk in the morning. Welcome. Be at peace and relax.”

Austin devoured a
plate of fish. He had to ask Tasia what kind.

“Mediterranean
red-mullet. You never had?”

“Never had.
Delicious.”

He retired to the
adjacent living room with a glass of wine and turned on the television. He
couldn’t help but tune into the news. Another airliner down, outside Detroit.
Large bombs in Amsterdam and Los Angeles had killed more than four hundred
people.
Our hometowns.
A new terrorist
group had claimed responsibility. Pakistan’s military had taken charge of the
country, its intentions unclear. Tensions between Israel and both Iraq and Iran
had flared to the point nuclear exchanges were feared.

He turned the
television off. There was more but it was too much. Sitting at the tip of so
much death made him sick with guilt. The High Comannda were pressuring the
families to turn over the Change and return their ship.

He closed his eyes and
worked hard to put down rising anger. Vividly, he imagined Bastion’s severed
head falling, slow motion, and him drop-kicking it into a blazing campfire by
the sea. Instead there was nothing to do but wait. Anything else would risk
losing the opportunities that lay ahead. That truth had been hard earned.
Still, to have so much raw power at his fingertips and not use it to fight back
grated against every instinct he had. He opened his eyes and thought of Maria.
If she came through he might have a chance to stop the campaign of death.

He finished his wine
and rinsed his glass in the kitchen. Tasia watched from a chair in the hallway.
Probably in her late forties, as unreadable as stone except for her servitude.
She reminded him of Williams at Shamrock but without the outgoing spirit.

“That’s it for me.”

She gave a small smile
and led the way upstairs to his room before disappearing down the hall.

The room was more a
small suite with couches, sink, and wine cooler. A slider led to an attached
sun balcony. A PC and printer sat on a narrow desk. He couldn’t shake the
images of the bomb damage back home or of the ring of fire at Montevideo. More
and more people dying. Because of him.

Again he thought of
his dad.

He went to the cooler
and poured another glass of wine with the notion of truly dulling the guilt and
anxiety. Dad, dead or alive...? That he couldn’t feel him at all hurt. Good guy
or bad guy? To even have the thought was crushing. What the past held was a
mystery. Anything was possible.

He drank half his
glass in one lift, filled it again, and stepped out onto the balcony. A probing
wind stirred an otherwise serene night. Rows of olive trees stretched away in
the dark. A pair of headlights wound along a distant hill.

He tried to empty his
mind and succeeded only in emptying his glass.

• • •

The thrum of engines
below decks sounded like music, a powerful beat of physical freedom. Maria
stood in the galley and poured a drink. Her guards kept watch outside as the
sixty-four foot luxury trawler
Dionysios
left Port Alacati headed for the Aegean Sea.

She padded barefoot
towards the couch and stopped to look out at the lights of the remote Alacati
Resort. The dark waters and clouds overhead swallowed everything around the
resort – it could have been a space station in a lonely patch of space and
Dionysios
a small shuttle departing. She
suppressed profound relief at being clear of the Core but deep down her feet
tingled. This very ship helped avoid what could have been an unpleasant outcome
with Bastion.

Her encounter with the
god Dionysus held lingering emotions that Bastion had alerted to. He’d labeled
them subversive. She convinced him that when she had laid down to rest, her
last thoughts were of leaving for home on her boat and that she remembered only
the sexual experience with the Greek god. Purely a random dream. Any residual
emotions were complex and beyond her control. She even managed to chide him for
his paranoia.

She feared it had been
one of those ‘roles of your life’ moments that if she hadn’t given her all she
wouldn’t be on her way back home.

Under the dimmed cabin
lights she curled on the couch and pulled a blanket over her lap. She sipped
her wine and closed her eyes. The additional protection she’d ordered to ward
off suspicion made conducting intrigue much harder. She managed to reach out
and see how Samantha was doing. The old woman was fine, unmonitored and
untouched. Adding to her concerns was the possibility that Bastion might not
actually come. If so, all her posing and plotting would be for naught.

Her interaction with
Bastion before leaving the Core would have him appearing in Mykonos for a lusty
reunion. The fascination he still held for her would finally serve a useful
purpose. She opened her eyes in response to a troubling thought: what if Bastion
did not wait for her to return to Mykonos? A seven hour cruise... he might not
be able to hold off. It would be just like him to yank open the door once
unlocked and rendezvous by sea instead.

She reached out once
more and conveyed a message for Samantha, modified for the circumstances. The
autistic received it via the ‘special place’ she always looked to for
inspiration in her writing. No matter the hour or present activity, she would
drop everything to post to her blog.

She breathed deeply
and raised her glass for a sip.

The druids would check
the page. They had better be prepared to act. Fucking Bastion for nothing would
really piss her off – worse if it happened while on her beloved
Dionysios
.

• • •

“It’s unthinkable she
would give us her position,” Sean said, pacing the room. “We’re talking one of
the twelve.”

“It’s either a measure
of her solidarity with us or it’s a ruse,” Cathbad said.

Fire flickered behind
the glass insert of the woodstove, a magnet for his gaze. There was little else
in the second story apartment to look at. Pizza cartons and wine bottles from
the rural pub and pizzeria next door lay on the wicker coffee table. An ancient
television’s rabbit ears angled towards the front door, the set itself
unplugged. They were south of Rome in a dingy apartment complex tucked amid the
many small family orchards and vineyards. A chill braced the countryside and
pressed through thin walls. He tipped his wineglass and drank deeply, engaged
in the primal input of the physical.

Johan lay in one of
the bedrooms working with bràthair to locate the ‘god-like ship’ departing ‘the
thanksgiving bird’ en route to ‘the party island’. They’d already located the
estate described in the blog entry, a hilltop affair overlooking the northern
sea inlet on Mykonos. Property records showed it belonged to a Greek shipping
corporation.

The blog’s latest
suggestion that Maria might be intercepted by Bastion at sea required they try
to find and track her ship somewhere between Turkey and the island.

“It could be a ruse,
yes,” Sean said. “But Clare read nothing of that.”

Cathbad nodded slowly,
a kind of shrug. “If she’s sincere about wanting to remove Bastion, she needs
to draw him out of the Core. I suspect we’ll soon have a better feel of what
she’s up to.”

Sean came around to
face the old druid.

Cathbad looked up.
“What?” he asked, then knew. He straightened in his chair. “No, no, I’m fine.
Don’t start with the nurse routine. I’m slowing down, what do you expect?”

“Worse than slowing.
You shouldn’t be here. A driver will take you back to Hastings for treatment.”

“That is not my
choice.” He set the wine down and pulled his sweater close. “I’m tired, nothing
more. Focus on what’s important, Sean. Keep the bràthair on task, on their
toes. I’ll hold my own and go if and when I need to.”

The creak of flooring
signaled Johan’s rising. He appeared from the hall looking worn.

“Found her.” He sat at
the couch and took up a bottle and glass. “I’ve trained two bràthair with a
screen they can follow from as long as they stay quiet. Two at a time.”

Cathbad didn’t
approve. “Relying on your new techniques is dangerous. You can’t be sure they
won’t find them.”

Johan paused mid-pour.
“It’s that or have them rounded up by riders. They’ve cordoned half-mile around
the boat and are scanning miles further. Besides, it’s not that different than
the folding they’ve been doing. Better, I think.”

Sean shook his head.
“Great. Maria’s reinforced and now she’s covered. She’s been made. Has to have
been.”

“Anything’s possible.”
Johan set the bottle down and lifted his glass. “The riders around the boat are
to be expected if he’s coming. And yes, it may also be a trap. They’ve got an
AG out looking around. Anything near her ship will be suspect, in the water or
air. I’ll go back and join the monitoring if you’re uncomfortable with it. It’s
the best I can do. Otherwise, they may hide Bastion’s approach too well and
we’ll miss the opportunity.”

“There’s a few
satellites that touch that area,” Sean said. “I’m checking what’s available.”

“That’s fine but we
need to monitor things up close right now. I trust Austin is ready to go?”
Johan drank, painfully aware Cathbad was in bad shape and working hard to hide
it. The old man would rather die part of the game than idle under treatment. He
asked, “Friend, have you considered giving up that old shell in favor of a new
one?”

Sean answered for him.
“Won’t do it, not his style. We’ve tried.”

“You’re feeding that
thing more than you can afford to give. You’re strong, but not that strong.”

“So be it. You’ll help
me to Gwynvyd.”

Johan didn’t reply. If
the old druid didn’t sleep soon, the damage would compound and the drain would
kill him. He had given too much to expire before the first results of the
Conflict came.

Cathbad sighed,
finally responding to their concern. He stood and asked Sean to keep on top of
the satellite effort. He lumbered down the hall to the bedrooms to rest.

Johan sat back, glass
in hand. “He’s dying, alright.”

“You’re not going to
let him move on when the time comes, are you?”

Again Johan didn’t
reply.

• • •

The first shades of
dawn revealed bulky clouds on the march. Winds from the still-dark north
pressed the tips of waves into spray. The
Dionysios
kept speed despite heavier seas, the engines’ changing pitch an angry growl.
Two guards stayed deck side with IR goggles scanning for anything the radar
might miss. Three other guards took position on the bridge. Bastion’s riders
stayed on, spread out in a wide circular swath without attempts to hide.
Nothing had been seen of the druids or Gerrit. Or of Bastion.

Maria stayed below
deck and nibbled on cheese. The coup would occur in her other beloved space
then, unless she’d already been made. His growing displeasure with her had been
tempered only by allegiance to his obsession with her. If not for that lust,
fixation, or whatever it had become, she probably would have long been deposed.
To have it come down to an elimination round both scared and relieved her.
Mastery of her hidden world was not without a constant effort. One way or
another it would be over.