Dominant Predator (9 page)

We’d shed our uniforms before leaving the bunker, trading in the fitted black uniforms for the muted earth tones and humble cloth scraps of the jacquerie. While they weren’t technically part of the Revolution, the citizen-led movement was an ally. For all intents and purposes, we followed the same agenda. But their leadership had long ago refused to cede what little power they did have to the vast machine that was the Revolution. So we worked in tandem—parallel lines—ideologies and actions that fought for a common future but never crossed.

Armise pulled at the sleeves of his tunic and grumbled.

I crooked an eyebrow in silent question.

“Too much fabric,” he mumbled unhappily.

Exley and Jegs looked at him with disbelief.

“And you worried about the respirators being too obvious,” I observed.

The citizenry glanced at us warily as we worked through the shops, past the water treatment plants and into the heart of the jacquerie camp—aptly named the Underground. The title wasn’t indicative of their physical location but instead of the jacquerie’s status as the poorest of the poor. The citizens forgotten, abandoned and used.

Regardless of how we dressed, our group was one that would be noticed wherever we went—Armise and I were heads taller, and Jegs had her fuck-it-all air that made people take an unconscious step back. Only Exley looked like he belonged. His plaited braids swung as he manoeuvred us through a gated wall and into the tent city on the periphery of the capital. The guards stationed at the entrance watched us but didn’t make a move to intercept us. They carried rifles—real ones, not sonic—belts filled with clips of those antiquated bullets.

“You armed them, too?” Armise asked as we passed by.

“Of course,” Exley replied, with a hint of annoyance. “We are allies to the Revolution.”

“This is where I break off,” Jegs interrupted, disappearing into the crowd.

“Do you know what that’s about?” Armise inquired.

I looked to Exley first who steadfastly pretended that he hadn’t heard the question.

I nodded. “Yeah.” But I didn’t explain further. If Jegs was truly cutting off her loose ends then there would be a major power shift coming in the war. But I didn’t have much faith in her ability to definitively cut her ties. Jegs’ family was her emotional weakness.

Exley pointed down a line of ramshackle tents. “This way.”

The sun was nearly relentless, only the battered wind-whipped structures providing safety from the dangerous rays. Plumes of grey dust kicked up and swirled around us as we moved deeper into the permanent encampment. The stench of sewage—ammonia, methane and fetid water—was overwhelming in spots. As was the pungent aroma of cheap mass-manufactured spices used to mask the complete inedibility of the food the citizens consumed. I crinkled my nose in distaste.

There were no children roaming the streets and I had to assume that that was a reaction to the instability that threatened them. We had to step over prone, weakened and diseased people sheltered under tarps. Had to dodge the determined press of citizens going about their daily business, their faces emotionless masks and eyes black voids. Small animals skittered in the periphery of the aisles, sliding in and out of the intermittent shadows. The packed city was in perpetual motion, but nearly silent. I didn’t know what kind of animal could even exist in these conditions, let alone human beings.

I could feel anger building within me at the injustice of it all. And I hated that this was new to me. Shocking. I’d seen and participated in the atrocities of war, but I’d naively thought that there was no way any existence outside of those horrors could be worse. I was wrong. That I was this unaware of the harshness of their reality when it was in direct correlation with the cause I fought for was nothing less than unacceptable. Pathetic.

“How do they survive?” I managed to ask around the tightening in my chest.

“They don’t,” was Exley’s stark answer.

“This is sick,” I nearly spat out.

Armise stepped up next to me. “Where have you been, Merq? This is the life most of the citizenry leads.”

His accusation cut way too close.

“Working,” was my curt answer.

I’d never been into the tent cities. Never strayed far from the Peacemaker facilities in truth. I’d been in constant motion since actively taking on official missions. I didn’t have a home of my own, preferring to use whatever barracks or beds were open as I came and went between the States and foreign soil. What I needed I carried with me or kept in the guarded military stores. My kit was usually ruined after each mission anyway. I didn’t carry any remembrances of my life before. And except for the files I’d studied about my parents, I had no recollection of what they looked like. I couldn’t have picked out their faces or voices if someone had had a gun to my head.

None of the other members of my team led the same life. Both Jegs and Simion had families and dwellings within the city, outside of military zones. The President had his official government residence as well as a string of safe houses throughout the country, along with his various bunkers, all partially designed with his feedback and tastes in mind. Even Neveed maintained the house he’d grown up in on the southern coast of the States.

I lived a disposable life. One disassociated from a cause I was tasked with protecting and advancing. It was a disconnect I’d never realised existed and that I couldn’t find the justification for.

“How much farther?” I said, trying to force my thoughts back to our mission.

“We’re cutting through the middle of the camp to the other side. There’s an abandoned string of facilities on the other side of the Underground.”

“Currently abandoned?” Armise asked.

“No one in the jacquerie will use them.”

“Why? These people are resourceful. Why wouldn’t they utilise permanent structures?”

“You’ll see,” Exley said with a glance in my direction.

I gritted my teeth and trudged forward.

“How close can we get?” I asked as I sidestepped another prone form.

“They already know we’re here,” Exley shrugged. “Get as close as you want.”

“You sure about that?” I said distractedly.

“Which part? That they know we’re here? Yeah, I’m positive.”

I huffed in frustration, sweat sliding down the back of my neck, making me uncomfortable despite the fact that I was wearing tattered clothes that flapped in the wind. “So why not just come out in full uniforms and storm the place?”

It wasn’t intended as a question, instead in complete frustration for how inefficient this operation seemed. For fuck’s sake, we knew where my parents were located. The Opposition forces holding them knew we were looking for them and intended to mount a rescue. We were staring down our barrels at each other and yet we were dancing around each other instead of just pulling the fucking trigger. Armise and I had been held back, delayed, and now were being ordered to gather intel for a mission that would be more useful as an outright attack.

“Because they’re already tracking us. That part of our system has already been hacked. Chen can’t keep them out—no matter how many times she kicks them out they find their way back in. May as well take our time and do this right.”

“The President knows the systems have been compromised?”

“Yeah.”

“So we’re here because they’re expecting us.”

Exley shrugged. “I’m just your fucking escort.”

I looked at Armise. He narrowed his eyes and flexed his jaw. He could feel it, too. There was something else to this. Something both of us were missing and that the President hadn’t shared with either of us.

“It’s too quiet,” I said out loud, finally putting words to one of the aspects of this clusterfuck that was unsettling me.

“This isn’t normal,” Exley confirmed.

“I’m willing to bet it’s not our presence here or the attacks.”

“For it to be this pervasive? Yeah, it’s something else.”

“There aren’t any kids,” Armise noted.

So he’d noticed it, too.

“It’s creepy,” Exley said with a shudder.

This whole scenario wasn’t feeling right. There were too many unknown variables, too many pieces not fitting together with the information we’d been provided. The President had been adamant about me rescuing my parents, but maybe the reason he’d put Armise and me on this mission was because there was more to it than just their return.

We passed through the last row of tents into a wide unoccupied area. Almost a buffer zone between the Underground and its borders. There was an expanse of that fine, grey dirt, no vegetation then the crumbling remains of what I’d been told were former manufacturing facilities.

But as soon they came into full view I knew better.

These were the former headquarters of the PsychHAgs.

“Is this where you were trained?” Exley asked in a quiet voice.

I stared at the building trying not to remember any of those years, no matter if their training had made me a better soldier. I could only nod in response. I understood immediately why the jacquerie refused to occupy these buildings. If there was any truth to the notion that evil could exist as a physical thing, then this was the place it would manifest.

“We’re done here,” I instructed Exley. He nodded his head and led the way back through the tent city.

Armise looked over his shoulder at the deteriorating building and with surety said, “We’re being manipulated.”

I gave him a clipped nod to acknowledge that I agreed with him.

We were definitely being manipulated.

But by who or what, I wasn’t sure yet.

Chapter Six

The bombings restarted after we returned to the bunker.

The timing of them was farther apart than the initial barrage, but just like the first time, the ground shook beneath my feet with each blast. I could feel the difference in distance from where they were striking based on the rolling of the ground. I wondered how long we could keep up at this pace before we ran out of munitions. Before the citizenry went mad with the strain.

Before I went mad with the strain.

I stared at the ceiling, flat on my back on the mattress, and forced myself not to flinch, not to react when the room around me shook. I was alone in bed. Which was more normal than not. Armise could function on little to no sleep and the night before had been a rarity in our years together. With a start I realised it was the only night when I’d awoken before him. The first time I’d found him still in bed with me. The unease of his static presence wasn’t gone, but definitely diminished after today—displaced with the surety that there were moving pieces that I had no knowledge of, but that were aware of me.

I was suspicious as to why the Opposition was holding my parents in the abandoned headquarters of the PsychHAgs. It was possible they’d chosen to utilise buildings they could control, but I doubted that any decision Ahriman made was coincidental. He’d told me just before my shot that he’d taken my parents for protection. I knew better—it was for insurance. A direct threat. What Ahriman hadn’t anticipated or known was that I had no tie to them. The President was more my creator than they were.

That my parents were still alive despite my assassination of the Opposition leader was a complication. And his decision to hold them in the facility I’d nearly died in was in no way unplanned. Both the President and Neveed had to be aware of what the buildings were and the violent history they represented. As well as my involvement in that time.

All of those facts, combined with the President’s insistence that Armise and I were to lead this operation, were enough for me to conclude that the rescue of my parents was not the main purpose of that mission.

For some reason, that made the whole thing much more palatable.

I couldn’t see the value of putting Armise’s, my and our team’s lives on the line for two people who hadn’t been politically relevant in over three decades. Judged by the same standard, however, I didn’t know if my legacy added up to much more.

Nothing I’d ever done had been enough. No mission, no death, had kept us from this inevitable point. We were no better off as a society than we had been when I was tasked as a Peacemaker almost two decades ago and I didn’t know if we would ever be.

Fatalism suddenly seemed much more reasonable.

I kicked my feet from under the sheets and tugged on a T-shirt and the loose cloth pants of the jacquerie. I left my feet bare and stole silently out of my room and through the hallways. It was the middle of the night and this wing was all residences, containing none of the operational rooms that would be active no matter the time of day.

It didn’t take me long to hear the hushed sound of Armise’s northern Singapore cadence coming from the galley, and I went to push open the door when I heard who he was speaking to.

“We live in a world of impermanence,” the President mused.

I stopped, my hand on the door, and waited to hear Armise’s reply.

Armise didn’t respond with the muffled snort of disbelief I would have expected from him. Instead I heard the scratch of chair legs against the floor, and a creak as if Armise was leaning forward in his chair and resting his elbows on the table in front of him. A table he apparently shared with the President.

“I don’t know you, Armise,” the President continued. “Not like I know him. But I can already tell that you two are very different people. Similar upbringings, nearly identical professions, but completely different outcomes.”

“You’ve known him a long time.”

“His entire life.”

“You know him better than his parents do.”

“Perhaps. We’re all his family.”

“
You’re
his family,” Armise insisted with a fierceness that surprised me. “Tell me, are they worth the risk of him dying to rescue them?”

“That’s not for me to decide.”

“Except that it is. You are the President. The commander of the Revolution. This is exactly your decision to make and denying that is tantamount to cowardice.”

“No, Armise. I’ve asked enough of him. There will be more he can do. But this mission is important. One I owe to him whether he understands that or not.”