I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six (62 page)

I’m about to get up and tell them no, but Annun is already sitting in the little girl’s chair next to me and plates are plopped down. “Yeah, sure,” he says with a dimpled smile that makes every Hando female audibly sigh. “I could eat.”

This guy. He bugs the fuck out of me. It’s like he lives in his own private universe, unconcerned with anyone around him. But Annun is the best warrior I have right now. He might do shit his own way, but the shit always gets done. He never needs to be told what to do, he just does it. And unlike me, Ashur, and Ryse, he has no personal agenda that takes precedence and messes with the plan.

He dominates the conversation after they heap food on his plate. While I cause silence and tension as soon as I enter a room. Annun is all about being comfortable in his surroundings. And he makes everyone around him comfortable too.

They ask him all sorts of questions. The girls even start touching his wings and he sits there with a stupid smile on his face enjoying it a little too much before I growl for them to stop. The girls back off, but they send me dirty looks as they do it. Annun just smirks.

There is no point in disciplining him anymore. He’s impervious to my insults, threats, and punishments. I’ve demoted him several times, only to have to promote him even higher after he does something spectacular. I’ve kicked his ass so many times I lost count, but he neither holds it against me or changes the way he talks to me because of it. It’s best to let him do his thing the way he wants and ignore all the bullshit that clouds around him like a swarm of wasps.

He is the only one who gets away with it. He is the only one I let call the shots with me.

He is the only one now. Because he is my Braun replacement. And I miss that fucker so damn much it almost hurts.

I sigh as I look down at my plate, my appetite gone. I try not to think of the sacrifices I’ve made, of the people I’ve lost. And what that has turned me into. What kind of monster I am now.

I look around at the happy family. They know what’s happening, probably better than anyone else on this planet because they know Junco personally. They know what she is and what she can do.

But they are laughing now, thanks to Annun. They smile at each other. Mothers hold their children, fathers talk to their brothers.

My gaze wanders down to the head of the table closest to me. It’s Hando’s father. He nods when my eyes reach his.

I sigh. Because they will all be dead in a matter of days if we fuck this up.

If Junco refuses her last order.

If I refuse mine.

It’s the two of us who will decide who lives and dies.

And even if we can scrape together some sort of meager existence for the humans of Earth when this is all over, there will be nothing left for Junco and me.

I sigh again and push back from the table. “It’s time to go.” I look down at John Hando. “You should say your goodbyes. I’ll be out on the street waiting for you. Annun, walk with me.”

I get up and stride over to the security doors. Somewhere out of sight this door is manned, because it beeps and clicks until a green light flashes on a biometrics panel on the steel wall. Annun and I walk through when the door opens, repeat the procedure again to make it outside, then pass the gates and cross the street.

The last time I stood here, only a few hours ago, I was holding HOUSE in my arms.

I still had hope.

I still thought she would live, that she and I would be a little team and meet our Destinies together. I’d have more chances to badger her into doing things she didn’t want to do and put my foot down when she asked for things I was unwilling to give her.

But I was a fool.

And it’s time to just face the facts here.

I’m not gonna make it out alive. There is no possible way I will be alive when this is all over.

Chapter Six—TIER

Polar Friendly

Hando comes with me in my timeshift and Annun follows in his own shift after he floats the coordinates over to my screen. We exit seconds apart, standing on a long, flat, gray slab of granite facing a massive steel door built into the mountain.

“Not very subtle, are they?” John says, his teeth chattering in the cold. I look down at his clothes and then smile.

“Ya should’ve dressed for the weather, Hand. We’re not in Texas anymore”

“Right,” he says. “Let’s go in.”

“We can’t go in. We gotta be invited. So we have ta wait.”

“I’m taking care of it, don’t throw a fit, Hand.” Annun gets a distant look on his face as he accesses the Sphere and does his thing.

I sigh and take in the environment. Light snow, twelve degrees Celsius, wind from the southeast at seven miles per hour. Sun low on the horizon. I check my vision screen for the time. Six PM local.

A small door opens next to the massive one and I move forward. “Come on, that’s our invitation.” When we reach the door a heavily armed soldier stands aside and lets us enter. Inside is dark compared to outside, but my vision adjusts seamlessly using infrared and heat sensing.

There are twenty-two guards positioned in various hidden spots in the open cavern. I ignore them as Annun handles the soldier at the door until the conversation starts deteriorating. I look back at Annun and he shuts up. “I want ta see Subjack. I have news of Junco.”

The magic words work because Subjack appears and beckons me with a wave of his hand.

We step forward, John Hando still shivering, Annun still talking shit under his breath to the door soldier, and meet up with the burly man who is looking far more professional than I’ve ever seen him before.

The first time I met Subjack we were in his Northern Territories bunker and he looked like an insane mountain man with his long hair and beard. Junco hadn’t seen him in years since the man who had raised her since she was sixteen was a clone. Subjack had indeed abandoned her. Left her in the Rural Republic to fend for herself.

This is how the whole thing started. With this man’s bad decisions. If he’d only taken her with him when he left, we’d be much better off right now. Junco would most likely not be insane. She admitted to enjoying many parts of her early childhood with Subjack. Even the parts out on the Stag, since they were only twice a year for training and biological adjustments. And they included Gideon.

He’s another one to blame, if you ask me. Leaving her there to fuck around with Inanna.

Everything bad happened to Junco after Subjack and Gideon left. She went off on her own, started killing people for money, for sport even. Got involved with boys, both in her own unit and the Mountain Republic.

Got herself pregnant by Charlie. And her baby was murdered without a second thought by the clone father. I’m not surprised that it was killed, I ordered the death of our own child just this afternoon. But Tessen talked me out of it. That was probably a mistake, but I can only imagine how sad and confused Junco would be if I made that decision for her, without asking for her input. The same way I felt when I thought the baby was dead because of Junco’s bad decisions back in the Runout valley.

Yes. Every issue she’s now struggling with is because of this man’s absence.

He sticks out his hand. I keep mine at my side.

Annun steps in and shakes Junco’s father’s hand, then John Hando does the same. Subjack glares at me. I glare back, my eyes betraying my feelings because the red light seeps out before I can stop it.

“Raubtier,” Subjack says in greeting.

“Tier,” I correct him. “Only one man calls me Raubtier, and you’re not him.”

“You have news of Junco?” he asks, ignoring my remark, my mood, and my light.

“No, it was a ploy to make the doors open. I need information about what’s going on up here and I’m gonna get it.” His face goes red with anger so I amend my statement. “I have news of HOUSE, though. Which could be helpful. Possibly.”

“HOUSE?” he asks, confused.

“Your AI? The one inside Junco’s head?” He’s still confused and this makes me feel a little better. Because that means he didn’t know about HOUSE’s condition. Just thinking about those clone tanks makes me want to vomit. The smell comes back to me as I think about it and I have to ask my vision screen to dampen down my olfactory receptors to make it go away. “The little girl Gideon saw me with back on Sargassum. It wasn’t a clone, it was your HOUSE AI, in some sort of makeshift body that Inanna provided for her.” I’m still not one hundred percent sure how this all came about with HOUSE, so that’s all I say about that.

“What news, then?”

“Is Caleb here?”

Subjack eyes me cautiously. “Why?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. How about Gideon?” His silence gives me another yes. “OK, then here’s the deal. I’ll tell you what I know about Inanna and HOUSE, you show me what you found in the ice. And then I’ll tell you if it relates to what Lucan and I are doing. Fair?”

He swallows and his eyes soften a little. “What about Junco?”

“I can’t help Junco, Subjack. We’re on opposite sides of the equation. I’ll do my best, but—” I look over to Gideon, who appears from a doorway in the side of the mountain. “It’s up to Gideon now. He’s the only one she’s interested in.”

“This way then,” Subjack says, waving us forward into the passageway. I walk, never taking my eyes off Gideon. He stands erect, very straight in order to emphasize the slight height advantage he has over me. I almost roll my eyes at him, but it’s not the time for games, so I control my irritation. He unfolds his arms across his chest as we approach and then turns and walks back through the door he came out of.

I follow them into a large conference room, compete with a strategy table with a holographic Earth where the Pillar coordinates are illuminated with a bright yellow light.

I take a seat somewhere in the middle of the large table, Annun stands behind me and John Hando sits on my right. Subjack sits up by the holotable and Gideon stands across the table from me. I don’t care if he sits, stand, or fucking lies down. I start what I have to say. I describe the clone tanks at the Sagitta Building down in Dallas and I’m actually glad John Hando is there because after the first few sentences, they only want to talk to him. He’s the one who knows, after all.

I fill in the part where HOUSE demonstrated her ability to take over our ships and Subjack laughs at this. “What’s funny?”

“It just figures. She and Junco are so much alike.”

Huh. “I’m failing to see the amusement in that, Subjack. Right now Junco is insane and unpredictable. Our entire existence depends on her carrying out her final orders. And we’re having serious doubts that she’s well-trained enough to pull that off.” I look over at Gideon for this part. “You’re her handler. Will she follow through?”

“What’s the order?” he asks like he deserves to know.

“No one knows that but Lucan and myself, sorry. You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Gideon sneers. “Then how the fuck am I supposed to get her to follow it?”

I stare at him hard and then stand up to meet him at eye level. “Either the girl’s a soldier or she’s not, Gideon. You trained her. You turned her into this
thing
for the sole purpose of being the Seventh Sibling. So I’ll ask ya one more time. If you give the order, will she carry it out?”

“Is it choose? Us or you? Human or avian?”

I consider this for a moment and decide what I’ll say isn’t a lie. “That’s one way to look at it. Human or avian. She will have to choose, that choice will not be clear, she will need to be given an order to complete her mission, and she must do as she’s told.”

“Or what?” Subjack asks.

Every head swings back to me, even John. Annun sits down on my left just so he can hear it straight for the first time as well. I let out a long breath. “Or the whole world will cease to exist. There’s no happy ending, let’s just get that straight now. There is no happy ending in this choice. Not for me, not for Junco, not for Earth, and not for the Band.”

“But you forgot Lucan. Does he get his happy ending?”

I smile at Subjack’s gruff question, the implications it contains, the disgust. “Lucan has no ending, he is eternal. It makes no difference to him if it ends well or not. None at all.”

“Then why’s he doing all this? If he doesn’t care about his punishment?”