Noble Conflict (19 page)

Kaspar nodded slowly.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked.

‘Find you? You found me. I live here.’

‘No, before. How did you find me at the gym?’

‘Gym? I know someone called Jim. He’s really tall.’

‘The gymnasium, where I gave you the massage – how did you find it?’

‘Oh yeah  . . . the massage. You have great hands, apart from the strangling thing. That was bad. But you have great hands – and boobs too. I like your boobs. I like them a lot.’

‘Concentrate. Why did you go to that
particular
gymnasium?’

‘’Cause of the croissant and the cottage by the stream. She smells of mellisse berries, you know.’

‘The cottage? What about the cottage?’ Rhea’s faraway voice suddenly became sharper in tone. ‘Where is it? Tell me about it.’

‘Oh, you’d like it. It’s nice, near a stream that runs into a river. The wind talks to you if you listen carefully. It’s such a lovely cottage. There are mellisse bushes out back, and in early autumn they fill the whole cottage with their smell. Wolves don’t like mellisse berries. Did you know that? The bushes keep the wolves away. The berries keep the wolves at bay. Hey, I’m a poet! I should turn that into a song.’ Kaspar began to hum tunelessly to himself.

Rhea leaned back and studied him hard. After a few moments, she took off her gloves, leaned forward again and placed both palms on his temples.

Kaspar started sweating. The tiny part of his brain that could still operate rationally wondered if she had poisoned him after all, or if he was having an allergic reaction to the drugs. His mind was a whirl of images and memories,
some his own, most not. His parents in their uniforms, Grandma at the cottage, working on his uncle’s farm, Insurgent attacks, screens with screeds of data flashing past too fast to read, the face of his mother  . . .

‘What’re you doing?’ Kaspar whispered.

‘Some of us Crusaders have a heightened sense of empathy. We can share emotions and sometimes even memories. Seems you have it too,’ said Rhea.

‘Did you give it to me? ’Cause if you did, you can have it b-back. It sucks.’ Kaspar nodded his head vehemently. His head was swimming and he felt totally blitzed. What the hell had she given him?

‘Yeah, it’s a bitch, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what the Alliance needs. More people sharing the pain of others whether they want to or not,’ said Rhea.

Kaspar couldn’t imagine anything worse. Rhea stood up abruptly and walked to the window. She was going. He was going to be alone again  . . .

‘Don’t leave  . . .’ he whispered.

‘Why not?’ Rhea turned to ask.

Kaspar had no idea why he was so desperate for her to stay. She was evil, a stone-cold killer, but after all the recent events Kaspar didn’t want to be alone.

‘You’re having nightmares?’ Rhea questioned.

Kaspar nodded.

‘So am I. Every night,’ said Rhea. ‘Every time I fall asleep I see images of death and mutilation and the images don’t stop until I’m awake. And sometimes not even then.’

Kaspar wondered at the accusatory tone to her voice. If
she was having bad dreams about her past, how was that his fault?

‘I’m sharing the nightmares of all my fallen friends, captured and locked away by the Alliance,’ said Rhea. ‘Your people are cruel beyond words.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Kaspar, but at that moment unbidden images from the North Wing of the Clinic crowded into his mind.

‘Yes, you do. But you don’t want to. That’s your trouble,’ said Rhea.

They regarded each other. Kaspar couldn’t shake the feeling that Rhea was trying to tell him something. ‘Talk to me. I need to understand why  . . .’

‘I should go,’ said Rhea. And yet she hesitated.

‘Please don’t leave me alone.’

After a moment she returned to the bed. She stood looking down at him, as if still trying to make up her mind what to do. Then she sighed softly and slipped under the sheet next to Kaspar. Now face to face, Rhea put her arm round his waist, and closed her eyes. Her face was mere millimetres away. Kaspar could feel her breath, warm and moist, mingling with his own.

Joining the Guardians, meeting Dillon for the first time, hitting on Janna at the Sci-Fair only to realize afterwards that Janna had eyes for no one but Mariska, graduation, Brother Simon  . . .

Images tumbled through Kaspar’s mind uncontrollably.

The Clinic, Loring School, Gnea-with-a-G  . . .

‘Oh, my God  . . . all those children. All those poor
children. How could you do it? Why? Why? I don’t understand  . . .’ Kaspar started to cry, awkward, racking sobs that he couldn’t control.

Lying beside him, holding his head in her hands, tears streamed from Rhea’s eyes too.

‘Why?’ Kaspar whispered.

He was now incapable of saying anything else. He was just desperate to know the reason. But Rhea didn’t reply, she just cried with him, holding him tight. Kaspar clung to Rhea as if she were his life raft in an emotional storm, but Rhea didn’t attempt to push him away or let him go. And the sorrow in her eyes was a mirror to his own.

Close to four in the morning, Kaspar finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Lying on her side, Rhea studied Kaspar. He made no sound, though the movement of his chest was easy and regular. It had taken him a long time to stop shaking. The slightest of smiles and a kiss on the lips later, Rhea got up and slipped out of the window before disappearing into the pre-dawn shadows.

It took a long time for Kaspar to realize that the incessant buzzing he could hear was real and not just the sound of his brain spinning. His head still buried under the pillow, he fumbled around on his bedside table for the alarm. Finally grasping it, he flung it across the room with as much force as he could manage. The buzzing inside his head still continued.

Kaspar couldn’t figure why he felt so wrung out. Normally, he sprang out of bed as soon his eyes opened. Dillon used to hate that. The alarm went off, Kaspar sprang out of bed, had a shower, got dressed and tried to get his comatose roommate to class while Dillon snored, swore, threatened and snored again. But today Kaspar’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and he just wanted to sleep for a week. Everything in the room was a swaying blur, his stomach an erupting volcano of acid, and every muscle in his body felt like Mariska had spent the night using him as a punch bag.

Great! All of the hangover with none of the drinking. Kas wobbled precariously as he struggled to his feet.

‘Flu,’ he sighed. ‘That’s all I need.’

He headed for the shower, setting the controls for the lowest temperature and maximum power – what Dillon used to call the masochist setting – and stood there until his head cleared. Once he had shocked himself awake, he showered properly, but there was a sticky area on the right side of his neck that was really difficult to shift. It was also slightly sore. Shower over, Kaspar looked in the bathroom mirror to examine his neck. The area was slightly reddened, but he had no idea what had caused it.

Once dressed, as he was leaving to go down to mess, he realized something. It was the first night in a week that he hadn’t had a nightmare.

Kaspar’s ‘hangover’ turned out to be the high point of his day.

‘Kaspar mate, you look rough,’ Janna informed him as they waited in the queue for breakfast.

‘However bad I look, I feel worse,’ said Kaspar. If only his head would stop hammering, just for five minutes. ‘Can’t this queue move any faster?’ he grumbled. ‘I need coffee now!’

The shriek of the siren made Janna jump and shot through Kaspar’s head, doing him no favours.

‘Damn it.’ Janna frowned. ‘My tongue was hanging out for bacon, eggs, sausages and toast.’

‘I just wanted some coffee,’ sighed Kaspar.

But it wasn’t to be for either of them. They raced out of the building along with everyone else.

‘What is it this time?’ Janna called out to Gina.

‘An attack on a government building,’ Gina yelled.

‘Damn. The terrorists are really ramping up.’ Janna shook her head.

She and Kaspar jumped into a small transport and eight others also piled in. Janna fired up the motor while Kaspar
checked that the computer had correctly auto-logged who was on board. They left the barracks and hit the road as part of a convoy heading downtown.

The traffic on the network was relentless. Reports of terrorist attacks were springing up like weeds.

They’d been driving for less than ten minutes when Voss’s voice came over the CommLink: ‘Attention, all Guardians. 229 Voss to vehicles three, seven and eight. New target. Power distribution node in the fourteen-hundred block of Radial Eight.’

Kaspar and his group were in car seven, so Janna immediately pulled them out of the convoy and led the group of three vehicles towards the power node to the west of the city.

‘This is big, Kas,’ said Janna. ‘The Insurgents are really going for it today.’

For a couple of hours they raced around from incident to incident. Sometimes they arrived in time to do some good – and sometimes they didn’t. At around 1300 hours, a support assistant turned up carrying rucksacks of supplies. One contained field rations, the other spare battery packs for their stun rifles.

Whilst Kaspar was halfway through gulping down a hot black coffee, a major report came through over the net.

‘Seismology indicates a large explosion – strength four – in the area of Radial Six and Rowan Avenue. Acoustic profiling confirms. All non-engaged units respond.’

The geology department at the University had
originally set up the network of seismographs to monitor earthquake and volcanic activity, but the instruments were so sensitive that they could also detect explosions. Within seconds of a bomb going off, the Guardians got a location that was good to within twenty metres.

Janna started up the transport and spun the car around to accelerate hard onto the elevated section of Radial Seven heading downtown. Kaspar scanned through his telescopic sight. There was quite a deep valley that separated the road they were on from Radial Six where the explosion had been reported. He tried to get an early glimpse of where they were going.

‘Hold on, Janna,’ he said.

‘No, buddy,
you’d
better hold on,’ she replied as she swerved round a civilian who was strolling across the road like he hadn’t a care in the world.

‘Something’s wrong here,’ Kaspar persisted.

‘No kidding, genius.’ Janna took her eyes off the road just long enough to give him an incredulous look. ‘Just when in the last five hours of mayhem did you get your first clue?’

‘Listen, Janna, that report is wrong. We’re being spoofed.’

‘Come again?’

‘Radial Six and Rowan? Don’t you recognize the address?’

‘Yeah, of course I do. It’s the Museum of Light. Very big, very pretty, and I should imagine, an irresistible target for terrorists.’

‘Stop! Stop the wagon. Janna, please, I’ve gotta show you something.’

Janna looked doubtful, but slewed the car to a halt anyway.

A chorus of protests broke out from the back.

‘What the hell?’

‘Why have we stopped?’

‘C’mon, Janna! We’re wasting time.’

‘This is no time for sightseeing!’

‘Look there.’ Kaspar was aiming his rifle. ‘Bearing twenty degrees.’

Janna picked up her weapon and followed his lead. ‘This had better be good. What am I looking for?’

‘The Museum of Light.’

Janna lifted her aim slightly, out of the valley, and swept a couple of degrees to the left. ‘Well?’ she asked.

‘You see the Museum Tower?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you see any broken windows?’

Janna’s brow furrowed. ‘No,’ she said quietly.

‘Are you telling me that someone detonated a strength-four explosion, and that a hundred-metre-tall glass tower didn’t get a single broken window?’

‘Maybe the blast was underground?’ She didn’t sound convinced.

‘No, the acoustic profiling microphone network confirmed it. So it was above surface. Someone’s messing with us.’

‘Don’t talk wet, Kas. Who would  . . . ?’

‘I’m telling you, we’re being spoofed. Maybe they’ve hacked the system. You know these guys have a real thing for computers. Maybe they’re running the warning systems?’

‘Call it in for instructions,’ ordered Janna. ‘I’m not getting court-martialled over this.’

Kaspar got on the comms net and spoke to Central.

‘4518 Wilding to Central. The seismic alert at Radial Six and Rowan is not confirmed. I repeat – not confirmed. Run an authenticity trace on all the intel.’

‘Negative, 4518. You are not authorized to request that trace,’ came the reply. It sounded like that snot-rag, jobsworth Nirven.

‘Listen, someone is sending in false reports. Either we’re being pulled into an ambush, or it’s a diversion. You’ve got to—’

‘229 Voss to Central,’ the radio crackled. ‘Run Wilding’s authenticity trace. Do it now.’

‘Roger that. Tracing.’ The office-bound git didn’t sound quite so officious now.

Kaspar glanced down at the hovercar’s tactical display. It was lit up with incident reports all over the city. A moment later, it went blank. For ten seconds there was nothing except the rapid blinking of the SECURE light as the Guardian network resynched its protocols and all the computers exchanged authentication codes. Then the map of the city came back.

‘Oh, crap!’ exclaimed Janna.

Three-quarters of the incident reports were gone. All
over town, Guardian IDs could be seen converging on nothing and setting up perimeters around non-events.

‘We’ve been had,’ said Kaspar. ‘And I don’t think they did it for jollies.’

Attacks continued sporadically for another thirty minutes. Then, around three in the afternoon, a massive tanker bomb exploded at an industrial park on Radial Nine. That one wasn’t a fake. Everybody in the city felt it and saw the smoke plume so high that it obscured the sun.

By nine o’clock that night Kaspar and the others had returned to barracks. They had been to every corner of the city, chasing a mixture of ghosts, shadows and real incidents, and Kaspar wasn’t the only one who was dead on his feet.