After the Red Rain (28 page)

Deedra knew she didn’t stand a chance against a platoon of armed DeeCees, but Markard wasn’t armored. If she could stop him or distract him, maybe that would give Rose a break. All he needed was a second to catch his breath, a cessation in the endless rain of bullets. Then he could escape.

She came up on Markard’s side before he even knew she was there. Before she could convince herself that this was a stupid idea, she threw herself against him, knocking him off balance, her momentum sending both of them down the prison steps and into the line of fire.

Rose watched in horror as Deedra and the unarmored man she’d collided with fell down the steps. The bullets stopped, rifles raised, as they crashed to the ground, tangled in each other.

Without thinking, Rose jumped up and ran to Deedra.

Markard shoved the girl off him. From his position, he could see only sky. He rolled over.

The kid. Rose. Running toward him. Of course. It had been Rose, just as Markard suspected.

“Open fire!” he screamed. “Big guns! Big guns!”

Deedra hit her head as she rolled away from Markard. She thought she heard a sound—a voice—and then something like a loud cough. Her ears rang; sound was garbled.

She saw a cluster of DeeCees at the other end of the quadrangle, heaving along something that looked like a gun that had been zoomed
in. It had a bulbous, distended barrel and a heavy stock as counterbalance. She’d never seen anything like it.

And she didn’t like the look of it. She pushed herself up onto hands and knees. As long as she could move, they weren’t going to fire that thing at Rose.

Deedra managed to get one foot under her. She realized she would never make it—she would never get to the DeeCees before they could fire.

Only one choice. One.

She couldn’t get to
them
, but she could get between them and Rose.

She ran.

Rose ran to her. Out of the corner of his eye, he, too, was aware of the big gun swiveling toward them. He put on an extra burst of speed. They would fire right through Deedra if they had to. Her life meant nothing to them.

He strained to his utmost, flipped into the air, and landed near Deedra. He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around, pushing her to the ground. “Get down!” he shouted.

For an instant, their eyes met. The joy in hers warmed him more than the sunlight.

Deedra couldn’t believe she was seeing him. Rattled, she fell to the ground again. He bent over her, shielding her. She thought he was wearing his coat—
They let him keep it in prison?
—but then it flared out and became huge and then it rippled as bullets struck it, poking holes along its length and breadth. She reached up and took his hand to pull him down, out of the line of fire.

Suddenly the world seemed to slow. She had an infinity to stare at him, but in that infinity, she could not move.

She locked eyes with him, their hands clutched.

“Good to see you,” he said quietly.

A roar assaulted her. The DeeCees with the massive gun—they’d fired it. She caught the lick of flame out of the corner of her eye.

Rose turned in that direction. Time was still sticky and impossible. She tightened her grip on his hand and pulled.

And then there was a wind. A hard, brutal wind that sucked the breath from her lungs and seemed to drive her ears straight through her skull. Fire blossomed before her, and the wind picked her up and tossed her back. She crashed into the concrete, her entire body rattling with the impact.

She was blind, the world an ever-shifting array of red and black, flashing before her eyes. She could hear nothing but the roar of wind and a high-pitched squeal. She tried to shout for Rose but could not hear her own voice.

After a moment, her hearing began to clear again, and she heard footsteps, shouts, screams. Her vision returned and no more than ten feet away from her was a heap of
something
, something unrecognizable, and she turned to look at Rose, but he wasn’t there.

It took a moment for her to realize. She shrieked as she focused—unwillingly, unable to control herself—on the heap.

That was Rose.

He’d suffered the impact from the big gun. His torso was shredded, decorated with pulpy green plant matter and sprays of blood, but he pulled himself toward her, grimacing.

His face was spattered with blood, but otherwise untouched. His eyes provided respite from the horror his body had become.

He made it halfway to her before finally collapsing to the ground, his eyes open and unwavering and perfectly still, a red and green slick trailing behind him, and there was no doubt in the world that he was the deadest thing that had ever once lived.

S
hut your damn mouth
, you blubbering—”

“Magistrate, please. Hitting her again won’t—”

Deedra’s jaw ached, the tendons stretched and strained too far, too long. She was aware of a high-pitched lament that went on and on, and she knew that the awful, mournful sound came from her. It roiled her innards; it jostled her very soul, and she wanted nothing more than to stop it, but she couldn’t. She was helpless to control her own body. It was as though she’d blinked—Rose, dead, spattered on the concrete, an abstract painting of greens and reds—and then found herself in this darkness, a light shining directly at her, her body making this sound of its own volition, as she watched and listened at a remove.

She was bound to a chair. Her left eye throbbed painfully. She’d been struck. Probably more than once.

“You killed him!”
Her wail had taken on the form of words. She felt her lips and tongue move to form them, but she had no control.
“You murdered him!”

“Shut! Up!” And a hand collided with her face once more. Deedra tasted blood, thought of Rose’s blood—and his… chlorophyll?—spilled on the ground before her; she spat into the light, a brief crimson arc.

Something in the latest blow—and maybe in the flavor of her own blood—completed her transition back to the real world. She struggled briefly and fruitlessly against the plastic cords that bound her to the chair. The light pierced her eyes and stabbed at her brain. With a near-violent intake, she hitched a breath into her chest and managed to stop her screaming. Not for
them
. Not to make them more comfortable. For herself. So that she could think.

Her heart pounded so hard and loud that her brain throbbed in sync.

They have you. Rose isn’t coming to rescue you—

(She flashed a brief tableau—Rose’s eyes looking out at her from that profusion of blood and pulp.)

—so you have to take care of yourself. Which you’ve been doing forever anyway, so what’s so different about now?

(
Good to see you
, Rose had said in that moment of perfection.)

A tear slid down her cheek. The difference was Rose. Yes, she’d been taking care of herself for years, and she could keep doing so for however long she had left (not long, judging by her current circumstances), but…

But she didn’t
want
to anymore.

She wanted Rose to take care of her, and she wanted to take care of Rose. She wanted them to take care of each other.

She wanted the impossible. Might as well want the plastic cords to melt, the room to fall away and reveal one of Amory’s opulent apartments.

Thinking of Amory recalled to her a line from the book, one that had burned into her memory. She had found herself unable to forget it and now was grateful for it.

There were no more wise men; there were no more heroes
, Amory lamented.

This was maybe the only way her world could compete with Amory’s. Dr. Dimbali was wise. And heroes… well, she wasn’t one. Not yet. But she would be.

They can kill me
, she decided, surprised only the smallest bit by how calmly she thought it,
but I won’t let them break me
.

“You’re going to talk,” a voice said from the groping dark, “and you’re going to talk a lot.”

Markard. She recognized him. His tone was not unkind, but leavened with a determination that bespoke his loyalty to the Territory and the Magistrate over any personal fondness he might have for her.

The other voice—the one she associated with the blunt smack to her face—was familiar, too. She’d heard it on vidcasts her whole life.

The Magistrate. Max Ludo. Jaron’s father.

She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him hulking in the dark.

“We need to know what you know,” Markard went on. “So we’re going to ask some questions.”

“Stop coddling her!” Ludo barked.

A scuffling sound in the dark. She imagined the Magistrate lunging at her, held back by his security agents and maybe Markard himself.

Come and get me. Kill me, if you want. There’s nothing anymore. Nothing left but death. Why keep it waiting?

She laughed.

“Make her talk!” Ludo bellowed.

“Deedra!” Markard came into view, blotting out the piercing light. She blinked, eyes watering. “Deedra, can you hear me?”

Of course I can hear you. You’re standing right in front of me.

“You killed him,” she said quietly.

“The boy you knew as Rose was an enemy combatant and a murderer,” Markard told her. “Now, we’re just trying to determine what you knew and when you knew it. I suspect you were an innocent pawn in all this. If that’s the case, you’ll go home and everything will be fine. Isn’t that what you want?”

She thought of “home.” Cramped and dirty and too hot. Roach netting. She didn’t care if she ever saw it again.

“Now,” Markard went on, without waiting for an answer, “the first thing I need to know is this: Who gave you these?” He held out the SmartSpex, enclosed in a clear plastic case with a red tag that said
EVIDENCE
.

The SmartSpex. Dr. Dimbali. Did they know about Dr. Dimbali? She didn’t care what happened to her—not anymore—but there was no reason to let them arrest Dr. Dimbali.

“I found them,” she said. “While scavenging. They don’t work.”

“This kind of tech is very difficult to come by. Where were you scavenging?”

“Why does it matter?”

Max Ludo suddenly loomed before her, eclipsing Markard. His deep-set eyes glowed with rage. “We’re the ones asking questions, you drift-rat! You answer them, or you’ll be shoved away in the deepest, darkest pit I can find!”

Deedra glanced around at the impenetrable darkness surrounding her. “You mean we’re not there already?”

For someone so old, Max Ludo moved with surprising speed—he belted her across the face before she could react. It sounded the same as when she dropped a thawed turkey cube onto her counter—a damp, hollow slap.

One of her teeth was loose. She probed at it, fascinated. She hadn’t felt a loose tooth since she’d been a little girl, losing her baby teeth. It was an old sensation made new.

“I don’t know anything,” she lied smoothly.

“You know
something
!” Ludo insisted, now so close that she could smell his breath, could see the individual crevices and pits on his teeth. “You know!”

“Magistrate, please…” Markard guided Ludo back a few paces. “Please, Magistrate. I’m trained in interrogation. Let me—”

“Get answers out of her, Markard! I don’t care if you have to pull them out along with her tongue!”

Deedra took a deep breath and released it slowly. She had a few seconds as Markard persuaded Ludo. She had to take advantage of them to keep herself calm. If she panicked, she would let something slip and things would get even worse.

“Look, Deedra,” Markard said, returning to her line of sight, “we know that you were friends with Rose. And we’re not saying that you were involved in any of his crimes, but maybe you saw something. Or heard something. Or maybe he said something that you didn’t really pay attention to at the time, but now…” He shrugged. “Maybe now it makes sense, hmm?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” It was only half a lie, really. Markard’s question was so broad that it could have meant anything or nothing.

Markard grimaced, the expression of a man chewing something rancid. “We have reason to believe that Rose may have had access to certain… technology. During his prison break, he exhibited certain… Well, the vids aren’t entirely clear. Too many bodies, too much motion. Smoke. Confusion. But Rose was doing things that no human being can do.”

No human being. And no plant, either. But when you put them together…

“We’re not sure exactly what the nature of his, well, I guess
augmentation
would be the best word. We’re not sure of the nature of his augmentation.” Markard leaned in, urgent. “Deedra, a preliminary examination of his body found no recognizable tech. But there was some strange biological matter. And that makes us think he’s been genetically modified.”

Like a turkey steak
, Deidre thought, and suppressed a sudden, frightful giggle.

“And that sort of modification… it goes far,
far
beyond anything we’ve ever seen. If other Territories have mastered this kind of technology, well…” He fanned out his hands, helpless. “You want to keep the Territory safe, don’t you? You have friends here. Help us, Deedra.”

“I don’t know anything,” she insisted. Rose’s body. They had Rose’s body. They would learn everything anyway.

“This is a hard world,” Markard said to her with some measure of sympathy. “Don’t make it harder for yourself.”

From beyond Markard, Max Ludo cleared his throat and spoke very slowly and clearly, much more calmly than he had so far.

That calm made it all the more terrifying.

“If you don’t start talking,” he said, “I’m going to begin cutting things off you.”

Deedra nodded as though reminding herself of an errand. “Well, then, you should get your knives,” she told him.

Markard stepped outside the interrogation room with the Magistrate, under the pretext of giving the threat some time to sink in. In reality, he needed a recess himself—his adrenaline had spiked during the prison break and kept him afloat in the hours after, but he was crashing now. And Max Ludo’s ridiculous threats weren’t helping at all. The man had no idea how to build a rapport with a suspect, how to insinuate himself into her psyche, how to turn her thoughts inside out. In short, how to interrogate. Markard felt as if he were working not with one hand tied behind his back but, rather, with an extra, third hand. One that did whatever the hell it wanted.

“You’re not getting anything out of her!” Ludo complained. “That bitch helped murder my boy and is setting us up for an invasion and you’re treating her like a kid!”

“Magistrate, my pardon, but I’ve cleared a lot of cases.” Markard
chose his words carefully. “I know my methods may seem slow to you, but—”

“Slow is exactly the problem.” Ludo stomped his foot. “We don’t have time, Markard. They shot up that Rose kid with some kind of drug cocktail that made him something more than human. Can you imagine an entire army of those creatures coming across the border into our Territory? Because that’s what we’re up against, I’m sure of it now. Dalcord’s been preparing for this all along, and we need to be ready.”

Markard had witnessed Rose’s physical prowess. The idea of an army of such beings terrified him, but he was professional enough not to show it.

“I understand, Magistrate.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong—we’re not totally defenseless. I’ve been stockpiling for years. All sorts of things. Like fossil fuels.”

This time Markard couldn’t suppress his reaction, but fortunately the Magistrate was gazing upward, lost in his own thoughts. There were rumors of government hoards of oil and gasoline, but he’d always imagined them to be urban legends.

“I had to do it,” Ludo went on. “For just such an occasion. Just in case of war.” He shrugged. “Ever seen a car, Superior Inspector? A
running
one?”

“No, Magistrate.”

Ludo’s expression softened for a moment. “It really is an amazing thing, Markard. They’re noisy, for one thing. Big buzzing, rattling sounds. And the exhaust! Oh, my, the exhaust…” He shook his head and stared off for a moment before snapping out of it.

“Anyway,” the Magistrate said, “my point is this: I will do whatever it takes to protect this Territory. From enemies without
and
within. Do you understand, Markard?”

“I do, Magistrate.”

“That girl”—he jabbed a finger at the door to the interrogation room—“knows something. I don’t believe in the sorts of coincidence that would land her in our laps innocently. Do you?”

Markard had to admit he didn’t. “But, Magistrate, with a little time I’m sure I can connect to her and get her to—”

“We don’t have time!” Ludo exploded. “There could be a legion of freaks massing on our borders as we speak!” He flexed his fingers, seeking something to crush. “You want to coddle her and coax answers out of her? We need to
beat
them out of her. Now.”

Markard chose his words carefully. Assuming the Ward girl had answers—which he did—the best way to get them out of her was not through random violence. Especially the sort Max Ludo excelled at and preferred. If he let the Magistrate loose in there, the girl would be dead or unconscious within a half hour. She probably had a concussion already, just from the repeated blows to her head he’d witnessed.

“I understand the urgency, Magistrate, but in my experience, physical violence can often lead to misinformation or even to—”

Ludo turned away from him. “Screw this. I’m not wasting time or energy on her. That was the mistake we made with the pretty boy—tried to get him to talk the old way. We’ll do with her what we should have done with him all along: Pump her full of SpeakTruth and get her to talk.”

SpeakTruth. Markard had heard of it, of course, but had never used it. It was a powerful combination of hallucinogen and antidepressant. The subject more than
felt
compelled to tell the truth; he or she
wanted
to tell the truth. The drug altered moods and brain chemistry in radical, poorly understood ways, which was probably why Ludo hadn’t used it on Rose right from the start: In some cases, it resulted in permanent brain damage. In others, death. Either way, Rose would have provided no more information.