Time Siege (50 page)

For a moment, she thought they might have captured the one named James Griffin-Mars. Perhaps he had tired of living in the wastes among the savages and turned himself in. A life in Europa in exchange for the scientist was a worthy trade, though chances were, he would have to be taken out shortly after he reached the moon. Europa was a paradise, but like all stable colonies, it had to be tightly managed. An ex-chronman with a history of disorder couldn't be tolerated.

The two walked out of Young's office in the administrator wing and headed to the lower levels. The director walked painfully slowly, though he could hardly be blamed. In the gas giant colonies, unless he was incredibly wealthy or a person of importance, he would have long been put away or forced into a special needs center. Resources were low enough as it was without having to deal with cripples.

To her surprise, Liaison Sourn joined them on the way down. She hadn't even known he was here. The liaison had taken ill during his extended stay on Earth and now preferred to spend his time in off-world hostels, floating white ships that catered only to corporate citizens. Those giant vessels duplicated the comforts of the colonies, providing the clean air, sterile environments, and controlled atmospheres that the civilized world was used to up in space.

“What a pleasant surprise, Liaison,” she exclaimed.

“Securitate,” he replied with a cool look on his face.

Kuo knew he was angry with her. The past three reports she had filed with him had betrayed an increasingly grim scenario. He had every right to disapprove of her recent performance. He knew her declining status reflected poorly upon him, and unless she could make a proper turnaround soon, both their stocks within the company were bound to suffer. Coupled with her request for grayon gas, which was essentially her ceding project goals, there was little way either of them could report anything positive to the board of directors.

Sourn turned to Young. “I told you to only summon me if it was important. This had better be good.” The relationship between the liaison and the director must have soured as well. Young didn't look like he cared, though. Of the three, he seemed to be the only one in a good mood.

They reached the interrogation rooms, and Kuo was brought back to the last time she had been here. She had been in that room on the far end getting the answers she needed from the sniveling handler. Then the High Auditor had stepped in and ruined everything. Her humiliating defeat at the hands of these nonprofits forced her to beg management to permit her to redeem herself by finding this scientist. Now, she was facing another defeat.

The three of them walked into the interrogation room where a metal chair, table, and a young man waited for them. She didn't recognize him; it was neither James Griffin-Mars nor Levin Javier-Oberon. Pity. That would have solved many of her problems. The young man eyed all three of them warily, but his posture was relaxed. He believed he had the upper hand, or at least something to offer or sell. There were no bruises or cuts on his body, and he seemed alert. Good. They hadn't started questioning yet. Kuo preferred to oversee these tasks personally.

“Who is he and why should I care?” Sourn said.

“Tell them what you told me earlier,” said Young.

“There's a conspiracy to overthrow the agency, Director. I can get you the traitors,” the man said. “Former high auditor Levin came to me—”

“That's internal ChronoCom matters,” Young cut in. “Get to the other information.”

The young man nodded and turned to Kuo. “I can tell you exactly where in the Mist Isle the temporal anomaly, the one who is also responsible for the wasteland tribes unifying, is located.” He looked over at Young, who nodded. “In return I want Europa citizenship and a guaranteed position in the private sector.”

Kuo was suddenly alert. If she had that information, the Co-op could stop slogging through the maze of buildings. She could end this blasted project within a day. “Agreed,” she called up a map of the Mist Isle through her AI module and projected it onto the table through her eyes. “You'll be richly rewarded if your information is correct. Now, out with it.”

The man pointed at an intersection near the central lower region of Manhattan. “This building right there. Right there is the heart of the savages.”

Young leaned in to her. “Now you can have the extra monitors you requested. Do your job, Securitate.”

 

FORTY-NINE

L
OVE
AND
W
AR

Elise had always been a power-to-the-people kind of girl when it came to government. In her university days, she had protested the rise of dolphin hunting and the dissolution of the Democratic Union's congress. At the time, suspending the people's voice was controversial, and might have even been necessary. The Confederate United States, a newly formed fundamentalist theocracy, had dug in its claws and corrupted the congress, gridlocking the entire country.

Still, the thought that her beloved country was no longer being ruled by the people drove her to march in the streets along with millions of others. The first few months of the Manhattan alliance, Elise had tried to instill this same democratic spirit into her young nation. Right now though, she wanted nothing more than to rule with an iron fist.

She had a stinging headache from the twenty largest tribal chiefs, mayors, teachers, kings, or whatever the Gaia they called themselves arguing over their next plan of action. The Manhattans had won a string of small victories over the past few weeks, having caught the Co-op completely by surprise. However, their enemy had readjusted its strategy and now the blocks between Forty-seventh and Seventy-fifth streets had become a neutral zone of sorts as the two sides fell into a stalemate. What her fledgling nation had to do right now was bring more tribes into the fold and push the enemy back. Instead, more often of late, these meetings had dissolved into bickering about who got what buildings to live in and which tribe got how much of their shared resources.

Right now, six of the tribes were arguing over which of them were going to receive Levin's latest salvage of phase pistols from the twenty-fourth century. Elise had to carefully distribute the equipment among them. Every group had a convincing argument for why they needed the racks of forty weapons the most. The salvages were a large part of their recent success and an even larger part of why many of the tribes had originally agreed to join the nation. Whether they remained if the salvages dried up was up to her. The Nation's unity was unraveling slowly, because their early success had quelled the desperation of many of the tribes. Now, they were forgetting why they had all agreed to work together in the first place.

Elise looked to either side, and it told her all she needed to know about how important this meeting was. To her left, Titus was busy jotting down a complex math equation. The old man had been obsessing over ways to build a new array of solar panels on the very tops of the tallest buildings and route them to the Manhattan Nation's grid. The current output, due to the constant heavy fog, was a fraction of what they needed. Elise's lab itself took up nearly 10 percent of what was available.

To her right, Grace was leaning into Teacher Crowe, chatting with her head close to his. The High Scion had taken a shine to Crowe and the two had been seen together more often than not. When Crowe found out who she actually was, he had nearly prostrated himself before her as if she were a religious figure. Typical ex-chronman. For a bunch of people who hated their previous jobs, they all seemed to think very highly of the woman who created the industry.

That was all fine by Elise. The two old lovebirds were cute together. The teacher was fifteen years younger than Grace, but that was how she liked her men. Better have her focus her affections on Crowe than James, anyway. However, if the two smartest people in the room were completely ignoring the conversation, it probably wasn't worth listening to.

Elise's personal life wasn't going much better than her leadership role. That was something she never thought she'd hear herself say. Elise had gone to visit James every day, though had stayed outside his residence. She passed the time sitting next to his door, eyes closed and listening. She sometimes could hear him bumble around in his room, sometimes crying, sometimes snoring, usually just nothing. He probably didn't know she was there and was upset that she hadn't visited him yet. It made her feel better to know that she was close.

It was hard on Elise to stay away from him. Even harder when she could hear his agony. Titus had warned her that the first few days were the most difficult, and that James should be kept from his triggers for a while. He told her to keep their interactions to a minimum until the worst had passed. She hoped that happened soon. The Nation could really use someone like him right now. More important, his well-being was a constant weight on her. There was nothing she would rather do right now than drop this stupid meeting and sit at his bedside.

To make things worse, Sasha had become inconsolable. The ten-year-old had been clamoring to visit him as well, but so far, Elise had forbidden it. It wouldn't do the girl, who was still recovering from her own sickness, any good to see her brother like this. It was difficult to explain what they were treating her brother for and why she wasn't allowed to see him.

Elise sighed. She obviously made a lousy mother.

She leaned in to Titus. “Grand Juror, how is our patient coming along?”

Without missing a beat with his formula, he answered, “Considering it's only been three weeks, surprisingly well. The man is a flaming machine. I took him off his medications this morning. I believe the withdrawal phase is over.”

Her hopes rose. “So he's almost cured?”

Titus faced her. “James will never be cured. It is something he will have to struggle with for the rest of his life. Now is the difficult part, where you and his loved ones come in.”

“What do I need to do?” she asked.

“You need to be strong, and you need to show you're there for him.”

“You mean I can visit him?”

A smile appeared on Titus's face. “As soon as this meeting is over.”

Elise stood up and addressed the still-bickering leaders in a loud voice. “That's enough for today. Why don't we continue this conversation later? For now, Baron Kobi, pull your knickerbockers on the western blocks back until the good governor Mang and his marines can reinforce you. The rest of you, let's put the plan on that forward outpost at the Grand Central Terminal for first thing on tomorrow's agenda.” She rapped the table with small knuckles. “Meeting adjourned.”

“Well, that's one way to end the meeting,” Titus quipped.

She placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze as she hurried out. These high-level coordination meetings weren't that necessary anyway. All of these tribes knew how to fight in dense urban areas. All they really needed was someone to gather them all together, point them toward their common enemy, and sometimes babysit or referee their squabbling.

She made a detour up to the lab, where Sasha was going over the latest enzyme counts on the new batch of vaccines Grace and she had cooked up. Elise was trying to spend more time in the lab, though the responsibilities and demands of the Nation made that difficult. Mostly, she was able to sneak in some very early and late hours every day to oversee the progress and relay instructions. It wasn't enough. Fortunately, Grace and Sasha were here to back her up.

Now that the Mother of Time wasn't flitting all over the solar system, their research had picked up again. Sasha was learning quickly, as children often did. The girl definitely had a knack for science. She worked tirelessly and asked a lot of questions, which was a great temperament for this line of work. She was also fearless, which probably was not, but that was something that would be reigned in with age.

“Hey, Sasha,” Elise said. “How do the new samples look?”

The girl handed her a tablet. “I recorded them all. I think they look good. Better than the last batch that killed everything.”

Elise took the tablet and studied the numbers. “Better” was an understatement. Far better, in fact. The most recent vaccine had been able to hop over six different strands of Earth Plague. The only ones that it had issues with were in areas over thirty-five degrees Celsius, which unfortunately these days was more than half the planet. A few modifications to the formula would be necessary. She placed the tablet on the table.

“Go wash up. I have a surprise for you.”

Sasha gave Elise one look and brightened. Elise's grin grew as the girl let out a high-pitched squeal and dashed off to rinse the gunk from her hands. There was only one surprise that Sasha wanted, and they both knew Elise wouldn't tease her with anything less. She waited until Sasha had scrubbed her hands thoroughly so she no longer smelled like ammonia and manure—they were dealing with Earth Plague samples—and then together, the two bounded to the sixty-sixth floor to what all the Elfreth now referred to as the chronman level.

She saw Hory and Chawr sitting in front of the door playing a game of finger blades. The two stopped as soon as they noticed her coming and stashed the knife. They knew how much she disapproved of that stupid game. “Oldest.” Hory bowed.

“One day, when you two cut yourselves and go running to the infirmary to get fixed up, I'm just going to save the bandages and lop off the finger.”

Chawr held up both hands and wiggled them. “Still all here, Oldest.”

She rolled her eyes. “How's Elder James?”

“Quiet,” Hory said. “We feared for today after Elder Titus took him off of his medicine. However, he is in good spirits. Earlier, he ran with us around the floor.”

Elise had heard of that. Out of boredom or something, James had begun teaching a few of the guardians and fights how to fight. Within a week, word had spread throughout the entire Nation, and now, fighters from several tribes came to take classes. Supposedly, he had over a hundred students already. What a peculiar development. Elise considered this a fantastic turn of events. She couldn't imagine how boring it must be to be under house arrest for so long. Not only that, this was a fine way for him to rehabilitate his image among the tribes.