No Life But This (23 page)

I shook my head, I don’t understand.

‘How about I show you?’ Quin asked. ‘You have to see for yourself.’ He pushed me ahead of him past the pitiful panther and down the hall.

‘What are you doing?’ Rose asked behind us.

‘Just going to show Otto some of the great stuff I found
earlier today,’ Quin said. ‘They’re wonderful people here, you know that? And they all love us. It’s not just that stupid show, we’ve taken on legendary status up here.’ He never stopped pushing me along. I didn’t like it.

‘
Let go!’
 I told him, pushing his hand off me.

‘Otto, I need you to come with me,’ Quin said.

‘He’s needed here,’ Rose said.

‘No, he’s not,’ Quin muttered. ‘What he needs
is to come with me.’ He pointed down the tunnel. ‘If we go down this way, there’s a crawl space that’ll lead to the rest of the tunnels. I really want to show this to you.’

‘Why?’ Rose asked. ‘What’s so bloody important that can’t wait until tomorrow?’

‘Will you just come on?’ Quin snapped, somewhat desperately. ‘You can come too if you must, princess.’

Rose stopped. ‘I’ve got a party to attend.’

Quin actually laughed.

‘And so does Otto,’ she added, grabbing my arm away from Quin.

Quin’s eyes narrowed. ‘You let my brother go, little girl. Right now.’

‘Why? Because you’re being a selfish sped like always?’

‘Because I’m sick of him mooning about, licking the tails of murderers!’ He turned me and stared into my eyes. ‘Otto, listen to me. It’s important. I’ve been finding things out. The
people here, they’ve told me things, and you need to hear it from them, or you won’t believe it. Hell, I didn’t believe it. I need you to come with me.’

‘He needs to come back with me, or they’ll start wondering where we are,’ Rose said.

‘So?’

Rose was incredulous. ‘I’m trying to save Otto’s life. Or have you forgotten why we’re here?’

‘No!’ Quin shouted the word loud enough to echo down the
hallway. His face was twisted in rage, and there were almost tears in his eyes. ‘No, I haven’t.’ He turned back to me. ‘Please. Just come with me. Now. There’s no more time!’

‘Time for what?’ Rose demanded. ‘What are you …?’ Then her face went white as she stared at us. A flash of panic flickered through her eyes as she intuited what Quin’s behaviour meant. ‘Xavier,’ she breathed. ‘No!’ She whirled,
running haphazardly down the hallway in her pretty white boots.

I started after her. Quin wouldn’t let go of my shirt. ‘Otto,’ Quin said, his voice deep. ‘Don’t do this.’

I stared at him for a long moment, shaking my head. Then I touched his hand, thinking of the most painful thing I could imagine. The funny thing was, it was one of Xavier’s memories – I didn’t focus on which one.

Quin flinched,
just enough to release me, and I took off after Rose.

‘Otto, let her go! Get back here!’ There was a rough groan of despair. ‘You’re supposed to leave with me!’

I didn’t wait for him. I was at Rose’s heels by the time she made it back. Rose was trembling as she turned the corner back into the party.

‘Xavier, everyone, get out! There’s a bomb!’

There was a moment of silence amidst the tinkling
crystal. Then, with practised efficiency, the party filed rather neatly out the three main doors, complaining. I was impressed. Apparently, this happened frequently enough that no one even questioned it.

Xavier and Captain Jagan joined us in the hallway. ‘Where?’ Xavier asked.

‘I don’t know. I’m just sure there is one. Let’s go!’ She pushed Xavier ahead of her down the direction Quin had tried
to drag me.

‘I don’t know about you, young lady,’ Captain Jagan said, clutching the hand of his wife, who was holding tightly onto Nila. ‘But I happen to have excellent security and an extensive network of informants, and I’ve heard nothing about an attack planned for this evening.’

‘Did you hear about one yesterday?’ Rose asked pointedly.

‘There were rumours,’ Jagan said. ‘But nothing that
caused me undue concern.’

‘Xavier nearly died!’ Rose snapped. ‘And you didn’t think to
warn
 us?’ I’d never heard her so angry. ‘Believe me. Something nasty is about to go down in that room.’

‘Nothing is going to happen! I had the entire place swept before the party, the security is top notch.’

‘Rose, how do you know—’ Xavier began, but he never got the chance to finish. With a poisonous hissing,
a flare of deadly heat blasted us from behind as the firebomb went off in the room behind us. We found out later, it was in the base for the fish tank. At the time, it seemed to come from everywhere. We all went flat. Rose’s hand gripped mine, and her terror raked at me. We were splattered in shattered ice and melted water that burst through the open doorway and cracked the icy walls, but we
heard none of it. Our ears were muffled in cotton from the sound of the blast.

I crawled out from under the coating of crushed ice, pulling Rose with me. I had hold of her wrist. She was unhurt. That was all that mattered to me.

‘Rose!’ I recognized the panic in the muffled voice. It was the same panic I would have had, if I’d thought I might have lost her. Xavier picked his way through the
icy rubble towards us, blood trickling from a cut on his forehead. It wasn’t until he had taken Rose’s hands and picked her out of the debris that the terror left his eyes.

I had a bit more trouble finding my feet. I’d thrown myself between Rose and danger, again, and I had received my usual reward. Everything hurt.

Frightened, hurt, and wary, we all picked ourselves up and stared dismally back
at the flames flickering from the open gap to the icy ballroom. Everything that could burn was on fire – the banquet table, the plastic musical display, the decorative heating elements. Everything else was crushed, melting and dripping, or stained with black soot. The ceiling of the ice palace had collapsed – that was what had blasted through the doors after us. The glass fish tank had been flattened,
its glass unrecognizable amidst the shattered ice, the fish already dead, a few still shining like stars beneath the ice. There did not appear to be any human bodies, but it would have been hard to tell beneath some of the piles of ice. The lights that had illuminated the train station were out, and apart from the bioluminescent fish, the only light out there was from the night-dimmed ceiling
suns.

Then someone sobbed. We looked. It was Nila, crouching by her black panther, who hadn’t survived the blast. She lifted his massive furry head onto her lap, and caressed the coal black fur between his ears. It was the picture of misery, and I had to look away. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that he’d already been half dead from the cold two minutes before. She was careless with
her toys, that one.

‘This is madness.’ Captain Jagan turned on Rose. She cringed as his eyes met hers, and stepped back, closer to Xavier. ‘What exactly do you know, young lady? Who told you there was a bomb?’

Rose visibly shrank, and her gaze darted around the corridor in vain. Quin was already long gone.

‘I will ask you one last time, young lady: what made you think there was a bomb?’

Rose kept looking at her shoes. We were trapped in her hotel room. Rose had withstood Captain Jagan’s interrogation at first, deflecting questions and giving half answers. After about five minutes it had worn her down, though, and she’d devolved into staring at the floor with her hands clasped like a
little girl. I’d been told to stay with her, but Xavier had been redirected to have his cut treated. I found myself furious at him. He knew Rose couldn’t take this level of direct conflict from an authority figure, particularly a male – I knew it, and mostly from his memories. But I couldn’t step in, because I had no words, and I wasn’t going to touch Captain Jagan unless a life depended on it.

‘Did you see who planted it?’ Jagan asked for what must have been the fourth time. ‘Did you hear something? Where was the bomb situated?’

‘Can’t your forensics team figure that out?’ Rose asked – for the second time – but Jagan wasn’t having that.

‘I’m asking you,’ he said. ‘Did someone warn you? Who?’

Rose glanced at me, but said nothing.

The confusion after the blast had lasted an hour at
least. The first step was to make sure that everyone was accounted for. There were several injuries, but no deaths, this time. No one seemed to realize Quin had been there, and the cameras that would have shown him were destroyed in the blast.

‘If you do not tell me where you received your information, I’ll be forced to consider you a suspect,’ Captain Jagan said finally. ‘Do you understand that?
Under Europan law, I can have you detained indefinitely. Even you, Miss Fitzroy. Who are you protecting? Is it your blue friend, here?’

‘You leave Otto alone!’ Rose barked.

‘I have no intention of harming your friend, Miss Fitzroy. But you must understand, unless you can explain yourself, your actions can lead to only one conclusion. That somehow, in some way, you were involved in this attack.’

‘No!’ I tried to say. An awkward, impotent squawk.

‘Otto, it’s okay!’ Rose said. ‘I was not involved. I just knew.’

‘You’ll pardon me for saying, that seems unlikely, Miss Fitzroy.’

The frustrating thing was, that was exactly what had happened. Quin’s actions were suspicious, but he hadn’t warned us that anything was about to go down. If Rose hadn’t been as intuitive and right-brained as she’d
always been, we’d probably have been halfway down that corridor when the bomb blew, and Captain Jagan and Xavier would be buried under a half ton of crushed ice. I hit the side of my chair in annoyance.

‘Is there something you would like to say, Mr Sextus?’

I stood up, ready to find some way to tell him where he could go with his questions, when we were rescued by the door opening. Xavier came
in, yet another bandage gracing his aged face, took in my defensive stance and Rose’s downcast head, and jumped to the proper conclusion. ‘Rose is still a minor, Captain Jagan,’ he said. ‘I know you wouldn’t risk jeopardizing your investigation by questioning her without a guardian present?’

‘Such regulations do not exist on this moon, Mr Zellwegger,’ Captain Jagan said in his pristine accent.
‘If she is over the age of ten, she is considered an adult.’

‘I believe we fall under diplomatic immunity. There could be very serious consequences if Rose suffered undue psychological harm. But this is unnecessary. If you have questions, feel free to ask, now that I’m here.’

‘Miss Fitzroy does not seem to have the answers I seek,’ Jagan said. ‘Mr Sextus, there, however, seemed to have something
he wanted to say?’

I glared at Xavier and gestured to Rose, incredulous. Seriously? Look at her!

‘I believe Rose’s friend was merely attempting to convey that Rose has endured enough questions, for now,’ Xavier said. ‘At least from you.’

Jagan scoffed. ‘If you think you can get more out of her, my friend, I suggest you do so quickly. Else, we have more experienced interrogators who can make
her tell us what we need to know.’

‘Do not threaten me,’ Xavier said darkly. ‘You do not want me as your enemy. Remember, your son is on Earth, in a UniCorp run school.’

There was a moment of silence as the tension flickered between them like heat-lighting. ‘How did she know about the bomb?’ Jagan asked carefully.

‘I suspect the initial report from your forensics team can be more helpful to
you in this regard,’ Xavier said. ‘Why don’t you go and see what they have to tell you? We’ll be right here,’ he added, ‘if you have any questions after that. We shan’t go anywhere. It’s a small moon, Captain Jagan, and you have more power –
here
– than I do.’

Captain Jagan regarded Xavier for a long moment before he turned back to Rose. ‘I still have questions, young lady. I suggest you try
to find some answers before I have them asked.’ He turned and left, closing the door behind them. I couldn’t help but notice the guard posted outside.

The moment the door closed Rose ran up to Xavier and wrapped her arms around him. He did not return the embrace at all, even stepping back as if she made him uncomfortable. With one hand he awkwardly stroked her hair and then put her away from
him. ‘Rose,’ he said earnestly, his voice very different from the corporate king he had been a second ago. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t do anything.’

‘No?’ He pulled a cell out from his pocket and plugged it in to the wall screen. The video that played was occasionally blurry with pixellation, but it was clear enough. A security video of Quin entering the service tunnel and speaking
to us urgently, pulling us down the corridor. It did look as if we’d been warned. ‘We haven’t run lip reading software – don’t even know if it’ll work. The file is damaged somewhat. Jagan’s probably getting this now. What did Quin tell you?’

‘Nothing, really,’ Rose said, and then added what she hadn’t said to Captain Jagan. ‘Sometimes I know things, just little things, usually. Mostly they show
up in dreams, but sometimes I just know them. It’s happened ever since I woke up from stass. Otto?’

I nodded, it’s true.

‘I don’t know why. Otto thinks it’s something to do with my brain,’ Rose went on. ‘As if I spent too much time dreaming, and I’m … lopsided or something. I just sort of know things.’

‘Right-brain intuitive thinking,’ Xavier said. ‘I suppose that makes sense. But what was
it that you were … reading?’

‘Well, look,’ Rose said, gesturing to the video. ‘I know Quin looks suspicious, he sounded suspicious, too. I didn’t want to say anything – I don’t know if he was involved, or if he actually knew anything, or if he was just being his usual sped self. Not for sure. I just knew there had to be a bomb. And I couldn’t let you—’

‘Rose.’ Xavier stopped her. He hesitated,
anxious. ‘So you were only trying to protect Quin? Otto was not involved in this? You have to tell me. I’ll try to protect him, but I need to know now.’

Rose took a step back. ‘Of course Otto wasn’t involved. He’s so sick he can hardly stand up half the time!’

‘So he has little to lose,’ Xavier said, looking over at me. ‘And more to avenge.’

Rose stepped completely away from him and grabbed
hold of my arm. ‘Otto wouldn’t. Never. He has no reason to!’

I felt sick.

‘And Quin? Do you think he was involved?’ Xavier asked.

‘He doesn’t have any reason, either!’ Rose said hotly. ‘I don’t know why he was acting that way, it just worried me, okay?’

‘Rose,’ Xavier said. ‘It’s very important that you tell me everything. You don’t understand. This is not a game.’

‘I’m not playing a game!’

‘You can’t just put this one aside, Rose, and think about it tomorrow. This is very serious, very real. I may not be able to help. Jagan has torture squads to deal with this kind of thing. If Quin is involved, and if he is caught, you have no idea what they will do to him.’

‘Then he wasn’t involved,’ Rose said. ‘Obviously.’

‘Don’t protect him, just tell me the truth.’

‘I am!’

I couldn’t watch
any more. I disengaged myself from Rose with a meaningful look and went into the bathroom. My head ached. I could hear them talking through the door, but I had other things to think about. Quin. Of course Quin was involved. He was my brother, and he already felt as if he’d lost me.

My brother … I could barely remember him beyond this journey. His childhood was all but lost to me. All I knew was
that he was violent, and angry. But I was angry, too. I looked up at the mirror and stared at my reflection.

I did not look like myself. I knew who I was, and I was not this voiceless blue-skinned alien hybrid with the drawn face and the mouth with no natural smile. I was human, I was whole, I was Rose’s beloved friend Xavier, and I was never going to let her go again. I reached for the wall
and placed my hands on either side of the mirror, staring into my own yellow eyes as if I could drag the proper reflection out of them. (
Don’t do this to yourself,)
42 whispered.

‘I can’t,’ I whispered back.

(
You know you have to tell her.)

‘I can’t. It wasn’t my sin, I don’t have to know.’

(
Then you have to make
him
tell her. Because you do know. You don’t want to, but you do.)

Tears leaked
from my eyes. ‘Why’d it have to be him?’ I asked. ‘Why this? Why couldn’t I have found myself in someone else? Anyone else? Why did I have to escape to
this
body, burning all around me?’

(Because you set it on fire,)
42 told me. (
And you made the only door. If you were going to escape, it had to be here.)

I closed my eyes.
‘I can’t remember Otto’s life anymore,’
I confessed.
‘Just how unhappy
it was.
’

(
I’m still here,)
42 said. (
He was my brother. I’ll hold it for him. You do what you have to do.)

I grunted in frustration as unwanted knowledge burned in the corner of my brain. I shouldn’t have to know this stuff. It was the old man’s sin, not mine. I was eighteen and innocent and ready to find Rose and live happily-ever-after. No Dark Times, no corporatocracy, no mistakes. Why couldn’t
I just be innocent again? For the first time, I wished I was still just Otto.

I went back into the room. The old Xavier was sitting as if exhausted in one of the chairs, pinching the bridge of his nose, as Rose stood before him in her glittering party dress, the personification of every mistake he’d made in the last sixty-two years. ‘I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.’

‘I am honest
with you. Why would Otto hate you? I can’t speak for Quin, he seems to hate everybody, but I don’t know if Quin was involved, or even why he would be. He’s sympathetic to these
harvestara
s, but I don’t think he would have planted an actual bomb. There’s no reason for it.’

I took hold of Rose’s arm.
‘Rose. I need you to ask him a question. And you’d better sit down.’

Rose looked at me. ‘Okay,’
she said curiously. She perched on the edge of her bed, and moved her cloak onto the floor so that I’d have space to sit beside her. My eyes flickered to the old man’s drawn, pensive face. He knew so much more than he was saying. So much more than he ever said.

‘Xavier?’ she asked. ‘Otto wants me to ask you a question.’

The old man looked tired.

Rose knew the look on his face. She had seen
it before – not sixty years ago, but no more than a few months (not counting stass time). ‘
What has he done?’
she wondered.
‘Why does he feel guilty, still?’

I told her to ask a question, and her eyes widened. She stared at me.
‘Ask,’
I told her.

She took a rather shaky breath. ‘Otto thinks you know what made Quin so angry,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

Xavier shook his head, but the guilt was very
clear in his eyes. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘How could I know what’s in his head? That’s your purview, Otto, not mine.’

Of course he wouldn’t answer. Not with Rose so fond of me. I told her to ask a more direct question.

‘No!’ Rose said, snatching her hand out of mine. ‘I’m not asking that. That’s insane!’

‘Please,’
I signed. ‘
Ask.
’

Rose rolled her eyes, and reluctantly, almost dismissively
turned back to Xavier. ‘Otto wants me to ask if it was you who commissioned the EP project eighteen years ago.’

She’d already decided the answer was no. She wasn’t wrong. ‘No,’ he said evenly.

For no reason that I could see, Rose’s face paled, and she froze. ‘Xavier,’ she said. ‘Tell me you had nothing to do with it.’

‘It was never my idea,’ he said, looking right into her eyes.

‘I know when
you’re lying,’ she said, and her voice shook. ‘I’ve known you too long.’

He sighed. ‘I’m not lying,’ he said. ‘I didn’t commission anything.’

She stared at him, and a wordless communication which was easily as intimate as anything I could do passed between them. I recognized it, but I couldn’t read it, even with all I’d absorbed and become. He sighed and broke her gaze, looking down at the ground.
‘But I was sent to implement it,’ he admitted.

There was a heavy weight of silence as Rose took that information in. ‘They died,’ she whispered. ‘You sentenced them to death from the moment of their birth. How could you?’

‘You couldn’t understand.’

She looked up, angry now. ‘Try me!’

‘It’s not as simple as you make it sound,’ Xavier said.

‘Isn’t it?’ Rose said. ‘It was amoral, it was evil,
it—’

‘I know what it was. I know better than anyone.’ Then he looked at me. Stared at me. I could see his throat move as he swallowed. ‘It all turned out worse than I had hoped.’

‘You thought they’d all live?’ Rose asked.

‘No,’ Xavier said. He didn’t take his eyes off my face. ‘I prayed every day that every one of you would die.’

Rose stood up from the bed. Red spots shone high on her cheeks,
and her hands clenched by her thighs. Her eyes were shining with accusation. ‘What. Happened,’ she asked, each word stark and precise.