Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (38 page)

It’s not her. It’s not her.
Not her.

The arm twitched, then the
fingers moved. The discarded viewscreens burst to life, throwing images from
every angle. Rapid flashes of code, a flickering of prismatic light, bursts of
static, chatter in unknown languages. Then they all tuned to the same channel.
A blurred picture and silence.

A muffled rhythm played, but not
from the speakers. It came from Sean’s head. The fingers twitched again. The
screen shot widened. As the picture focused, the volume boomed, filling his
head. It was sobbing—Sara’s sobbing.

The screen’s image cleared.

A woman’s naked torso filled his
view, repeated on every viewer from every angle. The body quivered, its skin
split in a thousand places and oozing black fluid. The shot flashed to the
head, bald and bruised, a hand hiding the face.

No.
He told his mind not
to believe his eyes, but his logic slipped away into some dark crevice of his
consciousness as he watched the fingers claw at the concrete floor, splitting
the nails, scraping the skin from the knuckles. The arm bent backward at the
elbow to reach the closest viewscreen, its shoulder still lost under the pile
of metal and plastic. The hand pushed into the viewscreen, pulling at the hand
hiding her face. The hand slipped away to show Sara’s face.

“Sara.” Sean’s tears
slowly blurred the image once again.

“Tell me where the data is,
and I’ll help her, let you keep your promise to her.” Faya’s whisper was a
scream in his ear, making him flinch. “And I’ll stop hurting you. Trust
me, you want to make that deal now because I learned a lot about how to break
the tough ones from your little ambasadora.”

Faya pulled the triton out of her
waist band with one hand and grabbed his bound wrist with the other. “If I
see her, I’ll give her the few pieces of you that are left…before I start
cutting on her, too.” One quick slice severed the smallest finger from his
left hand.

With no more help from the stims,
Sean screamed. Faya started on his next finger.

“Thanks for the
clothes.” Sara tugged a long-sleeved black dress over her head; the
swirling white vortex crawling down its front was like a graphic reminder of
her life since Palomin. Except for that night with Sean. Their coupling was the
only time she hadn’t been blinded by hurt and suffering. She missed his touch.
He made her feel safe.

“I would prefer you in one
of the Embassy gowns,” Rainer said.

“Yeah, well, I’d prefer not
to be here at all, so I guess we’re even.”

Even though Rainer had managed to
secure her proper attire and passage aboard this ferry, she wished he had gone
back to the
Bard
with David. The ferry’s small quarters suffocated her.
Too many accidental touches in the tight corridors. Too many unguarded looks.
From both of them.

But maybe David wasn’t coming
back. His attitude upon leaving was non-committal. Diffusing a fight with the
Armadans seemed to be the end of his involvement in this mess. She couldn’t
blame him for that.

Sara’s choice would have been to
run and hide, but not without Sean. The stress of not knowing where Sean was,
or if he were safe, made it impossible for her to control her breathing.

He was a fragger. He would be
fine.

“Isn’t the point of this so
no one recognizes me as an ambasadora?” She continued stuffing her dark
hair into a bobbed green and silver wig. They had both changed their appearance
enough to throw off the voyeurs. Though she scolded herself every time she
looked at him, she admitted Rainer’s clean-shaven face and flattened hair gave
him a softer look and enhanced his features.

“You should talk about
fashion choices,” she said.

He looked down at his new
clothes, a pair of light grey tailored pants and a button up white shirt with
navy blue pin stripes that any Embassy worker would have been proud of. “I
take your point.”

“Do you think David will
show?” Sara asked.

“He seemed hesitant. We’ll
be fine without him.”

“You don’t like him, do you?
Or anyone who’s different from you.”

Rainer fingered a few green
strands of her wig in appraisal. “It’s not about
liking
people.
It’s about their value. David’s an Armadan, and most Armadans, are of value to
our society.”

“Lyra lost her value in your
eyes.”

“She chose her shame.”

“Lyra’s not the only one
cursed. Shouldn’t Simon bear just as much shame in your eyes, or more?”
she asked.

Rainer plucked a decanter from
the bedside table and poured three fingers of brandy into Sara’s glass.
“Prollixer corrupted himself for power. He’s not whole, no matter how long
he’s Sovereign. He hasn’t had an amour in decades. No children left, not that
most citizens believed those were his original children to begin with.”

“Then how does he stay on
top?” Sara sniffed at the brandy before taking a sip. Sweet, verging on
the edge of sour.

“The Sovereign gets by with
the help of key individuals. He probably cursed some of them, too.”

“
You’re
working for
him. What if he cursed you?” she asked.

“
Used
to work for
him. I’m rogue now, remember? Becoming your bodyguard has done wonders for my
career.” Rainer filled his glass. “And I would know if anyone
tampered with my genes.”

Sara was surprised by his earlier
comment. “He didn’t order you to watch over me?”

“No.”

The admission hung in the air.
She didn’t know what to say. Now was not the time for her to begin believing
Rainer could actually care. Still, she had to ask, “Did my reconstruction
devalue me?”

He brought the glass down without
taking another drink.

The fantasies that kept her alive
during her modification were all about Rainer. Now his attraction to her was
obvious, but aside from fulfilling her physical needs, what more could he offer
her?

“They just reconstructed
your shell,” he said. “What’s in your line remains more or less
unaltered.”

Typical Rainer response.
“What does that mean?” she asked.

“So long as those irradicae
are still on your ovaries, you’ll be little more than a tumble to any Upper who
has a true pride in his heritage.” He emptied his glass without looking at
her.

Part of her didn’t believe him,
knew he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t want her. It didn’t
matter. She no longer wanted him.
Rainer
had now become the empty shell,
at least to her, because he’d never be the man Sean was.

The glass domes in the city of
Rushow glowed from the inside with soft blue light, spreading their warmth
through the gloomy afternoon. Above, a green-grey sky threatened rain. Sara
breathed the loamy scent of the approaching storm with anticipation. A rising
wind pulled at the fine hairs of her wig.

She and Rainer mixed into the
crowd of passengers bustling down the gangway. They hadn’t spoken in hours.
What else was there to say?

It was only her third time to
this part of Tampa Quad, yet Sara marveled at Rushow’s stately architecture.
The buildings in the main square intersected at a series of glass elevator
towers, giving the impression of one huge complex of alternating walls of slate
and windows.

“Hard to believe this city
was designed as a virtual world first, then built here in the real world,”
Sara said. They had been watching vids about Rushow on the cruise over, partly
for research, partly to fill the uncomfortable silence. She had been painfully
aware of his every movement, and forced herself not to stare at him and wonder
at how things could have been different.

“Ridiculous.” Rainer
moved past her into the street.

Their previous conversation had
gotten to him, which surprised her because he wasn’t the brooding type. She
told herself it was being cast out of Simon’s powerful circle which had brought
about the change in Rainer. But, she recognized a lie, especially when she was
the one telling it.

The steps were the same ash grey
slate as the exterior of the buildings. Coils of fossilized sea creatures,
metamorphed by the planet and buffed to a shine by human hands, twirled up and
down the façade, complementing the round domes and windows and glass elevator
towers. She recognized the great silica dragon skeleton winding around the side
of the third building on the left. This had to be the dragon Yul had hinted at.

“This way.” Sara tugged
at Rainer’s arm.

The elevator doors opened from
opposite sides, one leading to the second building, the other letting off
passengers to the third. A few other Socialites entered. Sara sneezed from the
mix of floral and musky fragrances spewing from their scentbots. They all
stared out different sides of the glass elevator box. She concentrated behind
them where the dragon’s skull rested just outside the elevator tower.

“What floor?” A
platinum-haired man asked.

“Three.”

Sara watched the vertebrae in the
dragon’s tail get smaller and smaller as the elevator crept toward the higher
floors.

The doors chimed and opened at
the third floor of each building, but the dragon’s tail continued to curl
upward. Everyone stepped off except for the platinum-haired man, Sara, and
Rainer.

“Sorry. Next floor,
please.”

The man smiled and pressed the
button with a shiny fingernail.

Another floor and the dragon tail
slithered still upward. She tried to crane her head to see further up the wall,
but couldn’t see past the current floor.

“My mistake,” she said.
“The next one, if you would? Thank you.”

The man nodded, no smile this
time.

Rainer shot Sara a look and
gestured to the number nine button the man had lit upon entering. He might be
in for a long ride.

Even before the lift settled
again, Sara knew it was the wrong floor.

“Six, please.”

The man cleared his throat, about
to protest, when three Socialite women swept into the elevator. One with clover
pink hair piled high on her head asked for floor six, as well, and he readily
complied.

Socialite men. Sara shook her
head. They had never held her interest, no adventure; they never got dirty.

The sixth floor slipped into
view. On the stone wall outside, framed perfectly by the glass lift’s window,
was the silica dragon’s perfectly coiled tail.

The females glided out in a
chatter. Sara stepped to follow.

“Are you sure this is your
floor?” The man sniffed.

Rainer dropped a shoulder into
him on his way out.

“How do you plan to find
this fragger doctor now?” Rainer asked.

“I’m hoping he’ll find
me.”

They stopped in the middle of the
hallway, the circular stained-glass window refracting every wavelength of blue
light over Rainer’s white shirt.

“You said you knew where to
find him.”

“Approximately….” Sara
ripped off the wig and walked around in a circle, staring at the walls and
ceiling.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get
noticed.”

Click.

A door to her right popped open a
few centimeters.

Rainer reached for cenders that
weren’t there. Sara had insisted that if he were going to walk around with
weapons strapped to his thighs, there was no need to alter their appearances in
the first place. He had back up weapons secreted somewhere, she was certain,
otherwise he would have never agreed to give up his guns.

She edged toward the door, but
Rainer stopped her with a raised hand.

Standing to the side, she spoke.
“Yul. I need your help.”

Seconds ticked by. Sara stared at
the thin line of white light that slipped through the portal. The crack
widened. Rainer held a razor disc in the hand at his side. Sara shot him a look
of alarm.

A redheaded woman dressed in a
light pink mini-dress stepped through the doorway. “How may I help
you?” she asked.

“I need to see your doctor,
Yul.”

“We have no doctor in this
suite. Perhaps you could try three floors up.”

“Tell Yul that Zak’s life is
in danger.” Sara stepped closer. Anger and impatience threatened to break
through her dam of resolve as her panic rose. “I need him. Please.”

The woman cocked her head,
listening to a subvocal feed. “This way.” She put a hand on Rainer’s
chest. “But the contractor has to leave his toys behind.”

Rainer shook his head no.

“Then stay out here,”
Sara said. She wouldn’t lose a chance to save Sean because of Rainer’s
stubbornness.

Rainer handed over the disc.

“And, the others?” the
redhead asked.

“That’s it,” Rainer
said.

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I
searched you, would you?” Her tone was mild, but conveyed a warning.

“You’re not going to search
me.” Rainer made it sound like an order.

“Then you’ll wait for her
here,” the woman said.

Sara headed for the door, but
Rainer grabbed her hand to stop her.

“Fine.” Rainer allowed
the woman to search him and take three razor discs and a retractable whip. When
he didn’t show any real indignation about the confiscated items, Sara knew
there were a few weapons the redhead had missed.

Inside, Yul waited for them
behind an empty medical table in the center of the spacious room. It was a
silvery island amidst a sea of blue tile. Sara rushed to greet him.

“I can’t believe I found
you.” Tears puddled in the corners of her eyes. “We’ve heard the
Embassy has Sean,” she whispered.

Yul looked nervously at Rainer,
but his words were tender. “I know. Word came through the ranks that they
took him to Palomin.”

Sara’s heart sank. Until that
moment there was still the possibility that all this was misdirection on
Simon’s part, but hearing that Sean was imprisoned at Palomin almost undid her.