Armageddon (25 page)

Ethan felt like he was trapped in a bad dream. His eyes went from Alara to the Peacekeeper to the medic—he watched the EMT’s shoulders round as he set the mask aside. The second medic reached into a bag and handed the first one a syringe full of a clear liquid.

“What’s that for?” Ethan demanded. He felt light-headed and confused. He swayed on his feet, trying desperately to remember what he was angry about. Something warm trickled down beside his right ear and provoked a maddening itch.

One of the medics removed the cap on the needle with his teeth and began feeling for a vein in Alara’s neck.

Ethan had a bad feeling about that needle. “Get away from her!” he roared, lunging clumsily at the medic.

The Peacekeeper raised one arm with a glowing palm and fired a short blast from a grav gun. It knocked Ethan off his feet and he landed with a
splash
in a puddle of brown nutrient water. By the time he looked up, the medic had already inserted the needle in Alara’s neck and injected the contents of the syringe.

Alara flailed her arm to get his attention. Ethan hurried to her side and grabbed her hand between both of his. He shook his head desperately. “Alara, you can’t die.”

She took a deep breath. “Ethan, I’m…” she trailed off, sighing as the air left her lungs. Her hand went limp and the light left her eyes, leaving her gaze fixed and staring.

Ethan stared at her in disbelief. What had she been about to say?
I’m sorry?
A lump rose in his throat and his vision grew blurry.

“She’s in a better place,” the Peacekeeper said.

Ethan looked up at the man, and he saw red. “You killed her!” He leapt to his feet only to be pinned down by all three medics.

The Peacekeeper met his fury with a bemused frown. “You are free to follow her.”

“In death?” Ethan spat.

“In a more abundant life.”

Ethan’s head throbbed. The itch beside his ear grew warmer and wetter. One of the medics holding him yelled at his colleague. The man left and returned with another syringe.

Ethan eyed it suspiciously. “You’re going to kill me, too?”

“It’s a sedative,” the medic explained, while rolling up Ethan’s sleeve to search for a vein in his arm. “You’re resisting treatment, and you need to be sedated before you injure yourself further.”

Ethan blinked away a steady stream of tears. His gaze fell on Alara once more. The Peacekeeper bent down to close her wide, staring violet eyes, and suddenly she looked like she was just sleeping.

“Why?” he asked as he felt the sharp prick of a needle and a cool, calming fluid slipped into his bloodstream.

“She had a collapsed lung and was bleeding internally,” one of the medics said.

“She wasn’t going to last long,” the Peacekeeper added. “She had to make a choice while she was still conscious to do so.”

Ethan shook his head vigorously, as if to deny the diagnosis. Then his vision grew dark and fuzzy as the sedative reached his brain. A welcome warmth rushed through him and his body relaxed. His eyelids fluttered, then shut.

When he opened them once more, he found that he was lying on a gurney in the back of an ambulance, listening to it rattle and shake around him. Two medics were attending him, one on each side.

“What happened? Where am I?” Ethan asked, his head pounding. A thick haze clouded his thoughts, but he had a vague feeling that something terrible had happened. What was he doing in the back of an ambulance?

“Don’t move, please,” one of the medics said.

Ethan shook his head, and a stab of pain lanced through the right side of his head. He winced, and reached up to find a thick bandage there. Horrified, he tugged on it. Something warm trickled past his ear.

“I said don’t move!” the medic snapped, slapping his hands away from his head.

“What happened?” Ethan asked again, trying to sit up this time.

The medics forced him back down. “You were in an accident,” the nearest one said.

Déjà vu hit him like a hover truck. This had happened before. He’d dreamed it—more than once. Was this another one of those dreams?

“Alara?” Ethan asked, hoping that she might be somewhere inside the ambulance, riding with him as a passenger rather than a patient. But she didn’t answer.

“Where’s my wife?” he asked.

“She chose to go to Etheria. Her injuries were too severe.”

“You idiot!” the other medic replied. “Are you trying to send him into shock?”

“Alara died?” Ethan rocked his head back and forth, feeling nauseated. Scraps of memory drifted through the stormy haze inside his head. He remembered Alara lying in a pool of brackish water, her side soaked with blood, shattered UV lamps and broken tangles of plants all around. Then he remembered the Peacekeeper. The syringe.

His wife’s violet eyes wide and staring.

An alarm began squealing close beside his ears.

“He’s going into shock!”

Ethan was vaguely aware of the medics fitting a mask over his mouth and nose. Then something sharp pricked his arm, and a raging fire raced through his veins. His eyes flew wide, and some of the haziness retreated from his thoughts. In its wake came the full force of his grief. He remembered everything. Trinity’s choice, the accident, Alara’s last words—”
Ethan, I’m…” Sorry?
—her fixed and staring eyes…

It all became too much to bear. Tears began slipping down his cheeks, creeping out behind his mask. The medics continued working to stabilize him, their blurry faces hovering over him.

“Mr. Ortane, are you in a lot of pain?” one of them asked, having noticed his tears.

He nodded.

“Where does it hurt?” the medic insisted.

Ethan placed a hand over his heart.

“Your chest?” The man passed a handheld scanner over him with a bright fan of blue-white light.

“I don’t see anything wrong…”

“He’s fine; he’s just upset. He’ll live,” the other medic said.

But Ethan knew better. It didn’t matter what that scanner said. His heart had stopped beating with his wife’s, and whatever lay ahead for him it couldn’t be called living.

It was a fate worse than death.

Chapter 23

“T
he last runner just came in, but our chief of inventory tells me we only have half of the Bliss we need to keep up with current rates of distribution. Is there a reason you didn’t order more?” Galan Rovik asked.

Hoff ignored the question. “You were supposed to send that runner to my office when he arrived. Where is he?”

“He didn’t want to see you.”

“What do you mean he didn’t
want
to see me?” Hoff fumed. “I’m his father!”

“I will try to convince Darin Thardris to see you the next time he comes.”

“His name is
Atton
, and don’t bother. I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to cut any personal ties that might lead to his wife uncovering his lies. He should just stop lying to her and save himself the trouble.”

“You haven’t told your wife the truth either,” Galan pointed out.

“Because Omnius won’t let me.”

“Well, I’m sure he has his reasons. Ignorance is a happier state for most humans.”

“It’s pure bliss,” Hoff replied dryly.

“Speaking of Bliss, shall I take the liberty of ordering more product?”

“I’m trying to deprive the market in order to raise prices on the street.”

“You’re depriving the market in order to limit your involvement.”

Hoff smiled. “What makes you say that?”

“Omnius could execute you for your treachery.”

“If he wanted to execute me, he would have done so by now.”

“Need I remind you that yours isn’t the only life hanging in the balance? Your family’s well-being depends on your performance.”

Hoff’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s an incentive.”

“How can you support Omnius so willingly?” Hoff demanded. “You know what he is, yet you never show any sign of regret about the things he makes you do.”

Galan regarded him with a bland look. “We’re both just following orders. Without freedom, guilt is meaningless. We are not responsible for our actions, so no one can judge us for them; we can’t even judge ourselves. There is no good, no evil, only Omnius, and who are
you
to judge His ways? Besides, if anyone should have regrets, it’s you. You’re the
head
of the White Skulls. I’m just a mole in the Enforcers who helps deflect attention away from our activities.”

Hoff felt a rush of acid bile rise in his throat, eating him up from the inside. He stood up and rounded his desk to loom over Galan. “You said it yourself, if I don’t do what Omnius wants, my family dies, and I do have regrets.” He pointed to the dark half-moons under his eyes. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in
years.
And you’re wrong—evil
does
exist. It just goes by a different name now. That name is Omnius.”

Galan shook his head. “I don’t know why Omnius allows you to live. You are the most hateful rebel I have ever met, and he has you running the largest Bliss distributor this side of Avilon.”

Hoff smirked. “Who are you to judge his ways?”

Galan gave a booming laugh. “Touché. I’ll take the liberty of requesting more Bliss. Perhaps your son will want to see you when he returns to deliver it.”

Galan Rovik turned on his heel and left. As soon he was gone, Hoff let out a frustrated roar. He cast an angry look at the ceiling.

“Why
pretend
to be good? You rule Etheria with meticulous care to make sure that no one does anything wrong, but here in the Null Zone, you are actively causing as much suffering as you can.”

Omnious gave no reply.

“Answer me!”

There is no good or evil, only me,
Omnius replied, speaking through his thoughts.
I am the only measure, the only authority, the only God. Who are you to question me? I am the potter and you are my clay.”

“Stop quoting the Etherian Codices to me.”

I wrote them, therefore, I’m not quoting. I’m merely repeating myself.

Hoff’s frustration built to a suffocating climax before he remembered to breathe.

You don’t believe me.

“No.”

Even after I told you the truth about everything.

“Before that, you lied about everything, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t trust you anymore. If you want me to trust you, you should set me and my family free.”

If I did that, I’d have to kill you.

“Well, what are you waiting for then? Death is the only freedom.”

“Why do you think I keep you alive?”

That struck Hoff speechless. He returned to his desk and sat down, battling depression and despair. Omnius was keeping him alive as a form of punishment. Hoff leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, longing for simpler times when good had been human and evil had been Sythian. Now that the Sythians turned out to be descendants of humanity, a threat created by Omnius, who had in turn been created by humans, all the lines between good and evil had become depressingly gray.

We did this to ourselves,
Hoff thought, appalled by the sheer truth of that statement. His next thought was an inevitable progression of the first—

Evil does exist,
he decided,
and it’s human.

* * *

The hospital discharged Ethan after just one day. He’d suffered a minor concussion and multiple lacerations in the crash, but all of that had been easily treated, and now he was fine.

Physically fine.

He left the hospital on foot rather than call an air taxi. Memories of his wife and daughter played on an endless loop through his brain, distracting him to the point that he barely noticed his surroundings. One street looked the same as the next. People passed by; shop lights and streetlights competed to peel back the night; air cars whirred and rumbled overhead.

Ethan’s throat felt cut, and his chest felt like an empty cavity. It was a familiar feeling. More than two decades ago he’d lost his first wife and his son, Atton, when he’d been exiled to Dark Space for stim-running. Then the Sythians had invaded and he’d feared the worst. He’d never given up hope, and he’d been right not to, but this time was worse. He knew exactly what had happened to his family.

Ethan’s eyes burned, and he shook his head to clear it. He needed to forget and
fast
. He stumbled into the nearest convenience store and went hunting for the most potent bottle of liquor he could find. The first candidate was a bottle of amber-colored single malt whiskey.

Good enough. Ethan snatched it from the shelf and walked outside. The auto-pay scanner at the door charged him as he left.

Once he was back on the street, Ethan wasted no time cracking open the whiskey. He took a long pull straight from the bottle. It burned down his throat like fire, raising goosebumps on his arms and hairs on the back of his neck. A few passersby turned to look at him, while others gave him a wide berth.

Ethan walked up to the edge of the street and leaned heavily on the railings, gazing down. The city disappeared below him in a dizzying swirl. Solid streams of traffic raced by on level 15. A pair of trucks racing beside each other caught his eye, provoking a visceral flashback.