Critical Path (The Critical Series Book2) (20 page)

Augustus winced at the jibe, now suddenly self-conscious about the burns and scars on his face. At least he had a spare mask in his cabin.

Despite his desire to not care, he thought about getting the mask later. “There’s no need to get personal. I didn’t give the order.”

“Bullshit,” Gregor said. He looked around the sparse, whitewashed walls of the ludus office and cackled. “How the mighty have fallen. From running over two thousand farms to being stuck in a shitty little office, under the thumb of a woman in a frilly dress.”

Augustus clenched his dagger and stood up before relaxing back in his chair. There was no need for a giant stag to lock horns with an insect like Gregor. “I am under no thumb, especially not Aimee Rivery’s, or whatever she calls herself nowadays. I can make you or break you. The decision is yours. Do you want to work for me or fight a monster in the arena?”

Gregor narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t you just go fu—”

The guard knocked on the office door four times, slow and deliberate—the signal that one of his spies had news.

“One moment,” Augustus said.

He sprang up and shuffled to the door. He opened it ajar, peeping out of the gap. The barwoman stood next to Augustus’ guard. He nodded at him, and she handed him a rolled-up piece of paper. “Your report on the cult. You might want to read it straight away.”

“Thank you. Have a guard give you a leg of ham. You can also choose an item from my storeroom.”

He closed the door and returned to his chair. Every time he’d visited Unity before Jackson wrecked the ships, Augustus would bring items along with him and stockpile them in the storeroom.

Things like shampoo, knives, cutlery sets and coffee. Usually confiscated from workers on farms. Normal items in the previous world, but now few and far between in Unity and excellent for bribing purposes.

“You have people delivering reports?” Gregor said.

Augustus sat back and unrolled the paper. “I’m a lot more powerful than you probably realize. A house arrest won’t stop me. Unity owes its very existence…”

He leaned toward the paper. Read through the text again. Squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. He took a deep breath and mentally counted to five.

Hagellan was alive! Hiding underground and conspiring with Aimee! She kept it all a secret. They were both probably planning against him.

Augustus screwed the paper into a tight ball and crushed it in his fist.

“The backstabbing whore,” he muttered under his breath.

“Not good news I take it?” Gregor said.

Augustus roared, reached under the desk, and flipped it over. Root wine splashed over the floor. The jug smashed on the stone surface, shattering into pieces. His cup bounced with a clink and rolled, stopping by Gregor’s feet. The spiteful gangster kicked it away.

“I’m going to watch vultures feed on Aimee’s rotting corpse!”

He kicked his chair with the bottom of his sandal. It slammed against the wall.

Gregor’s eyes shot to the dagger. Augustus leapt around the table and picked it up. He pressed it to the gangster’s cheek with just enough force to draw blood. “Thinking of using this against me? Do not mock me or I’ll slice your throat from ear to ear.”

Gregor leaned away from the knife, looking at Augustus from the corner of his beady eye. “We want the same thing. What do I get in return for helping you?”

Augustus took a few deep breaths and smoothed his robe. He scraped his chair across the room and positioned it in front of Gregor. Not close enough to be in the filthy rogue’s reach. “I keep you out of the arena, and you work for me.”

“Not good enough,” Gregor said. “If I help you, I want to control the supply of root in Unity and have my own gang. If we’re taking over, we’ll do it properly.”

Augustus maintained eye contact while considering the suggestion.

With root fields being burned, it would become a precious commodity. Although the steps running around the left-hand side of the basin provided Unity a plentiful supply—for now.

Croatoans would die without it; humans would suffer due to the lack of any proper health care or medicines. If he controlled the root supply, he controlled the population of both species.

“You maintained discipline well on the farm,” Augustus said. “I could see you doing the same here after we’ve taken the town. You could act as my number two, making sure people are brought into line and the root supply is managed efficiently.”

“And when you get sick of me again? How do I know I can trust you?”

“I’ll have my guard remove those manacles right away if you agree to one condition.”

“Which is?”

“There’s a large croatoan living underground, close to here, called Hagellan. Find the exact location and ascertain what’s being planned behind my back. After you furnish me with those details, I want you to kill him.”

The gangster broke eye contact and slowly nodded. “I can do that. What about the others?”

“You mean the Jackson group?” Augustus flipped the desk back on all fours and perched on the edge. He had a flashback to Jackson hitting him in the face and stamping on his mask. “They will end up being collateral damage. Does that bother you? I know you were with them in one of their farm complexes. I need to know if they’re going to be an issue for you.”

Gregor relaxed against the wall and grunted. “Fuck ’em. I don’t care.”

Augustus smiled. It was proving easier to recruit him for the second time. Though he still didn’t trust him. Gregor would need to earn Augustus’ trust like everyone else. With pain and sacrifice.

“Fine,” Augustus said. “But you will need more than a blade to kill Hagellan.”

He opened a drawer in his desk and removed a wooden box. He flipped the lid and checked the contents inside. The two vials were still intact, full of chemicals that he had stolen while living on the mother ship.

The croatoan council had used these for executing only the most powerful of croatoans who committed a crime against their race, or in the case of Hagellan, wiping out the opposition who threatened his position within the hierarchy.

The older aliens, like Hagellan, were far too old and ancient to simply be killed by a flesh wound. Their physiology would easily cope and adapt, but a shot of this poison, or whatever it was, brought them a swift death.

The guard called from outside, “Do you need help in there?”

“Give me a minute.”

“What’s this?” Gregor asked. “A new kind of drug?”

“An accurate observation. You can’t take him out with conventional weapons. At least, not easily. He’s a pure-blood croatoan and thus extremely difficult to kill. He’ll be on top of you before you know it. We have to be sure he dies from your first attack.”

“What do you suggest?”

Augustus gently tapped the tube on the table and smiled. “They use this stuff for executions. When a pure blood steps out of line. An injection anywhere in the body is fatal.”

“Will covering a blade and stabbing him work?”

“Should do,” Augustus said. He fumbled in the drawer and placed a syringe on the table. “Or you can use this. Either way’s good with me. He doesn’t know who you are. You shouldn’t have a problem getting close. I have a disguise for you.”

“I’ll approach as a friend and kill him.”

Augustus smiled. “Et tu, Brute.”

“Pardon?”

He closed his desk drawer and sighed. “Just another incorrect quote from history. Don’t worry about it.”

Gregor wasn’t worried. He felt butterflies of excitement.

“Guard, I need your help,” Augustus said.

“Yes, Augustus?” the swarthy man said after entering the office.

“Do you still have that friend at the tavern? The one who was handy in the arena.”

“Yes. He’ll be there now,” the guard said.

“Do you think he’ll make an attempt on Aimee if we pay him enough?”

“He’d kill his own mother for a joint of beef and refined root.”

“Go and make the offer. I just hope he’s better than the ones I hired.”

“He’s never let us down before.”

“Good. Release Gregor from his manacles and speak with your friend.”

The guard did as he was told and left the office, locking the door behind him in order to keep Augustus’ cover up.

“Seems you’ve got quite a little network here,” Gregor said, rubbing his wrists and ankles.

“It’s called being a natural leader.” He handed over the box of syringes.

Gregor reached out and took them.

“You will be my tool of vengeance and justice. You will bathe in the blood of my enemies and rise with me as we remake this world in my vision. But know this. I will not tolerate failure. For now, my guard will get you out of here and will give you directions to Hagellan’s hideout. This is your chance to be someone.”

Gregor smiled and followed the guard who had entered the room.

“We’ll go out the secret exit. Just be quiet and follow me,” he said to Gregor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Mike heard birdsong from beyond the farm facility. In the past, he’d hear a single bird whistling a solo, but a chorus joined the individual this time.

He leaned back in his repaired Adirondack lounger and took a sip of tea and rum as the cool evening breeze brought the scent of pinesap. The air no longer had that metallic tang of the root in it.

For a moment, with Mai sitting by his side, both enjoying the silence and stillness, he felt like the world was getting back to normal. But the colossal harvester parked just out of view in the courtyard reminded him just how different things were.

Even the revelation that Charlie was still alive didn’t change matters. If anything, it added to their woes. There was no way they could leave them out there with those others. Everyone owed Charlie a debt of gratitude for what he did. Sighing, and realizing he had ruined his own moment of relaxation, he leaned over to his wife lounging next to him.

“Mai,” he began.

“I know,” she said without opening her eyes. “We should get to work. It’s been all of what… five minutes? We can’t laze around all day, love.” A smile crept onto her thin lips. She turned to face him, opening her eyes, the wrinkles gathering by their edges.

“Aye, we ought to get back to it. We don’t want to be accused of slacking when Charlie’s out there, needing our help.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Mai said, sitting up and throwing her legs over the side of the lounger. Her farm uniform, in gray and orange, hung loose on her frame. “We’re old; we’re not like the others. We won’t be any use to them working ourselves into exhaustion.”

“You’re right, as ever, my love,” Mike said, returning the smile.

He knew he was truly blessed to have found Mai during the ice age. They had hit it off immediately. She had an infectious curiosity and sharp mind that attracted Mike like iron filings to a magnet. Without her, he doubted he would have survived this long.

Mai stood and held out her hand to him. “Come on. Let’s get back to analyzing that video I found in the harvester.”

Taking her hand, Mike stood and brought her in for a hug. He couldn’t help but admire her spirit. The harvester they had found was of an old design. Only Mai had noticed that when she and her group of engineer students came upon it abandoned in one of the northern harvesting territories.

On initial inspection it appeared similar to all the other harvesters, but Mai had spotted that some of the construction and layout had a different design. When they entered and checked the computers for power, she knew instantly that this one was an old design. Whereas all the others had alien encryption on the systems that so far Mike and the others hadn’t been able to crack, this one didn’t. Mai got into the system and managed to access the solid state drives.

The drives stored petabytes of data and information on the harvester’s operations. Everything from maintenance reports to harvesting quotas and GPS locations, but that wasn’t all. Mai had found hours upon hours of video footage both from the external cameras and the internal ones used to monitor the staff inside.

After copying over the data, they wanted to wait for it to be backed up before they started to analyze the video.

Mike and Mai gathered their flasks and cups and turned back toward the Freetown lab. Before they could reach the doors, they turned at the sudden cessation of bird song. The whine of a hover-bike’s engine soon followed. Squinting into the low evening sun, Mike held his hand above his eyes to see who was coming. Mai’s body stiffened beside him. He pulled her close as they waited for the bike to come into view.

The hover-bike descended into the clearing from above the tree line in a graceful arc. There were two people on there. Was that…? Mike’s eyesight wasn’t as sharp as it used to be, but he recognized the driver and rider.

“Layla, Maria!” he called. “You have news?”

The two women waved back as they got off the bike and hurried over to him, their hair wild and swept back. The two of them looked like they’d been dragged backwards through a hedge. He couldn’t tell if they were scared or excited, but they rushed over and eventually, gathering her breath, Layla informed them of what had happened. For a full ten minutes, she and Maria told him about Gregor, Denver, Khan, the aliens, the town, Aimee, and finally the mission.

A tense hush descended among the group as Mike fell quiet after hearing the news. It was so much to take in; not because of it being surprising—nothing really surprised him anymore, but the fact they had come so far and Charlie had done so well to survive that he was not committed to this one-way trip to God knows where.

“He’s a brave boy,” Mai said, her face neutral.

She had come to love Charlie almost like a son, having never had a child of her own. When he took the bomb and took out the aliens, Mike had consoled her for weeks. With the news that he survived the event, she had brightened immeasurably, and now this.

“So what exactly happens now?” Mike asked.

“Let’s go inside to your lab,” Layla said, “where we can talk privately. We need to start making plans.”

Mike didn’t like the grim expression on her face. It never meant anything good.