Superego (32 page)

“Yeah, you're just an innocent soul covering up Nystrom's murders.” Diane motioned with her gun for him to move to the couch. “You're practically a victim in all of this.”

Rudle kept his hands up and sat down on the couch. “What am I supposed to do, murder a bunch of people and find God like you did? Is that how it works, you damn hypocrite?”

I could tell this was not a conversation that would go anywhere useful. I wanted to just shoot him in the head and end it quickly, but I wasn't sure how Diane would react to that. Rudle was a bad man and also in our way, so killing him seemed logical and simple. Diane apparently did not see things in such a calculating manner. I wondered if she had the capacity to execute an unarmed man; I was quite sure she used to.

“Well, Rudle, do you feel remorse?” Diane asked, though it sounded more like an accusation.

“I've been doing the best I can to keep the people of this city safe. I'm not some psychotic, hired killer in hiding.” Rudle then looked at me and back at Diane. “And you're still paired with him? Don't you know who he really is?” Once again, this conversation was about to take a useless turn. The just-blast-Rudle-and-get-this-over-with plan was gaining more support in my own mind.

Diane glanced at me and my usual unconcerned expression and once again faced Rudle. “He's someone who's helping me take on the syndicates; that's who he is.”

Rudle laughed. “Taking on the syndicates? What the hell are you two little gnats going to do to them? I thought you worked for them. How can you still be this pathetically naïve?”

He had a point.

“So what's your solution, then?” Diane demanded. “Happily assist these murderers?”

“I keep the peace in this city!” Rudle yelled. “I don't have the luxury to pretend the syndicates are people I can stand up against. If I'm to help anyone—”

“Don't give me the ‘greater good' crap!” Diane screamed as she moved her gun closer to Rudle's face. “Don't pretend this is about anything other than your own interests. You're just another person profiting off the syndicates' death and destruction, and I'm not interested in hearing whatever nonsense you tell yourself so you can sleep at night!”

Rudle's face turned stoic. “Fine. I don't care about your damn opinion of me, you psycho. Who is the worse person here? Who actually murdered for those people?”

“I'm not the one trying to justify it! I'm not the one trying to perpetuate it!” Diane was now seething. “They murdered my friend. And her family—her children! And you just cover it up for them like it's nothing!”

“I'm not covering up anything!” Rudle yelled, matching her anger. “
You
killed them! You brought this world to their doorstep! You aimed the gun right at them, you selfish bitch!” He rose to his feet and pointed at her. “If you wanted to do some good, you'd take that gun and—”

Diane fired. Rudle fell back to the couch and slowly slumped down until he fell off it and became a motionless heap at Diane's feet.

I could have done without the pointless conversation, but at least it was over.

But then I saw Diane staring at Rudle, a tear streaming down her cheek, and her gun hand trembling like it was her first time killing someone. I walked over to her. It looked like she needed some support, and all I could think of to do was put my arm around her. “It had to be done.”

She looked at me. I felt like I should have had a supportive expression, but I didn't know what that was. “He was egging me on. He wanted me to kill him.”

“Well, then he got what he wanted.”

“It means behind the bravado he felt remorse. He felt remorse, but I was too filled with rage to care.”

He'd been in our way and we needed him dead; it was just so far beyond my understanding why this was emotional for her. “This isn't an easy situation; we have to cut ourselves some slack.”

“Let's just get it done.” She bent down and found Rudle's wallet and took his police station access card. “Let's hurt the syndicates as much as we can and hope that keeps them from destroying any more lives.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

She picked up her drink and quickly downed what was left. “No. I'm not, and I need to come to terms with the fact that I never will be. I'm only good for one thing: destruction. I just need to make sure it's directed at the right people.” She looked at me, her face rather serious. I tensed for the question. “So you're the real Nystrom assassin.”

“Something like that,” I answered, though it wasn't really a question.

“And they had you handling the terrorist attacks?”

I didn't have the energy to keep up the subterfuge. It had been a mentally draining time for me, trying to be the person she needed. I just hoped she wouldn't ask too many questions. “I didn't know it at the time, but that was part of the plan. They had the terrorists attack the city so I could be the big hero and stop them.”

She shook her head. “They had terrorists murder random people as a small part of some other plan—like the attacks on Zaldia. These people have to be stopped. I can't tolerate their existence in the universe anymore.”

“You know, even if we're completely successful in this, we're not going to end them with this one act.”

“It will be a start.” Diane glanced one last time at Rudle and headed for the door. “A nice, bloody start.”

CHAPTER 35

It was called the Gray Beetle. Gray would not have been the word I would have used to describe its color, and it didn't in any way resemble the Earth animal known as a beetle. It was just a big, nearly black, hulking mass of a vehicle with a battering ram on front. It possessed extra-powerful thrust engines to allow it to break through walls while hovering. That would be fun to use…especially in unintended ways.

And it wasn't that hard to steal, since we had Rudle's access card. There were a lot of feds hanging around the police station lately, so we wore suits and dark glasses. Diane made her hair black for the occasion, and I went with the fake facial hair again. We simply strolled in late at night as if we belonged and headed into the controlled garage when no one was around. In a couple minutes' time, we took off in the Gray Beetle. We landed in an empty lot far out of the way, disabled its locating device, and then took it back near Diane's hideout.

I noticed Diane had been very quiet. For a while I assumed she was just focused on the task at hand, but she also just seemed more distant to me. Something was going on with her, but I wasn't sure what. I started to realize that not knowing the other person's thoughts was one of the more infuriating aspects of interacting with other people. Usually there was nothing more irrelevant to me than the vapid thoughts of others. The only time I cared what others were thinking was when I was engaged in combat, but fear often brought my enemies' thoughts to the surface and made them quite evident. Starting to care about someone, though, made her thoughts surprisingly of interest to me, but they were also disappointingly impenetrable. I thought perhaps I should just leave her to work them out herself, but that conclusion was partially based on my not knowing what else to do.

“I have quite a bit of info,” Dip told me. “Are you ready for it? I could send it to your local console.”

I sat down at the small computer table in the hideout. Diane came and stood behind me. “Did Dip get what we needed?”

“I'm finding out. Dip, why don't you move to the computer's audio so Diane can hear you?”

“Because I might inadvertently reveal something you don't want me to, but I'll try it out.” His cheery voice now came through speakers on the computer. “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Diane said. “Nice to finally meet you…and to know Rico's not just talking to an imaginary friend in his head.” She seemed to perk up a bit; perhaps having another person to talk to—or a reasonable facsimile of a person—made her feel less isolated.

“Nice to finally talk personally to you, too…What alias do you prefer?”

And then her mood deflated a bit. “Diane, I guess.”

“Then I will use that instead of what I have recorded as your legal name.”

“Just get to it, Dip,” I said.

“Certainly.” The screen changed to a number of images of Galactic Alliance officials. “These are Gredler's own files on the people who will be attending the conference, including which criminal syndicates they're linked to.”

Diane studied the data. “This matches my own research. A number are Nystrom bought-and-paid-for, but not enough to influence the vote on the change in the Alliance—but they're probably the ones who will be propped up as leaders in Nystrom's power grab. Is this everyone who will be in attendance?”

“The list matches all the main officials who will be in the closed conference,” Dip answered. “They'll each be accompanied by their own aides and security teams.”

“And we can be sure with all the notice of Nystrom's intentions, those extra people will be syndicate thugs,” I said.

“So many evil people…in one room.” I could see the passion come back to Diane's face. It was like a dog staring at a juicy steak.

“As for building security,” Dip said, “Gredler tried to check up on that himself. And since he has full access, I now have full access and should be able to manipulate it until the codes are changed.”

A number of different ideas ran through my head. “Good.”

“Finally, when Gredler checked on his escape plan, that included the current access code for traffic over the city. That will only allow access, though, if sky control isn't being particularly observant.”

I had plans for that. “Will you be able to get a craft into the conference if it's a one-way trip?”

“Um…that is certainly possible.”

“Um?” I asked.

“It's an optional syllable I can use when I'm busy processing information and trying to come up with a response. You told me to stop using it, but it's supposed to make me sound more human, so I thought I should use it again for the benefit of your guest, who may appreciate more human-ness.”

Diane smiled. “Well, thanks.”

“It did seem considerate, based on my considerate heuristics. Anyway, I have a few extra notes for you. As I am required by my programming to point out, your guest with the alias Diane is a wanted criminal, and what you're doing now is considered aiding and abetting by this planet's laws.”

I sighed. “Thanks, Dip; that's really useful.”

“Also, you seem to be planning a mass slaughter of Galactic Alliance officials. This is also illegal.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Actually, I have something for Diane.”

“Really? What?” she asked.

“To help with my data, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about your impressions of Rico. We can skip over the ones that are sexual in nature if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“That's enough, Dip. You can disconnect.”

I saw that Diane was giggling. “Well, he's an interesting fellow.” For some reason, it made me happy to see her happy. But the happiness didn't last long. “So,” she said, becoming quickly more serious, “this is going to be pretty big, isn't it?”

“Well, that's the point. No one will be able to ignore this. Everyone will see how embedded the syndicates are within the government.”

She nodded. “They're so powerful—so vile. What else can we do?” She had an odd smile. “No choice, really.” And she was silent for a while—that frustrating unreadable silence where I knew something was going on her head I wasn't privy to. And then suddenly she was all over me, kissing me and pulling off my clothes. It was a little weird. But I went with it.

She was much more aggressive this time, though strangely distant. I sensed she was trying really hard to get lost in the moment; I figured it wasn't so much that she felt passion for me as that she wanted an opportunity to escape her reality for a while.

Or maybe that was just in my own head. Maybe I had to admit that I didn't really know her motives. I was afraid that since she had a better idea who I really was, she would begin to reject me. Yet here she was, making love to me again, but I wasn't sure what that meant.

Afterward, she seemed to avoid eye contact. Maybe she was ashamed. I didn't know, and it was driving me crazy.

So I did what I always did when the world around me turned chaotic. I focused on the task at hand.

“We have a lot of work to do,” I said as I got dressed. She nodded, doing the same. I spent some time looking over our weapons, preparing the explosives, and studying the layout of the capitol building we'd gotten from Gredler. I needed to have the plan well memorized, as well as the backup plan and the backup to the backup plan. That's always my advantage in these situations: no hesitation. I know exactly what I'm doing now and what I'm doing next. That simple sense of purpose in every situation is always such a comfort—to get lost in the moment and not worry about later. There is just the job at hand and nothing else.

But the truth is it was always so fleeting. I could live like that for moments, but my life as a whole would always be an aimless mess struggling for purpose. What was the solution to that? I didn't know. There probably wasn't one. I just kinda wanted to believe there was one.

I looked at Diane, who wasn't working but was instead sitting on the bed looking at a handheld. From the emotions showing on her face, what she was looking at wasn't mission-related. “What's the matter?” I asked.

“I'm sorry, but I had to check on my church.” A tear glided down her cheek. “They've been my family for a decade, and I couldn't just mentally abandon them. I'm not that person anymore.”

This wasn't helpful, but there was nothing to do about it now. “How are they?”