Noble Conflict (9 page)

‘What gives?’ asked Dillon of the nearest dry Guardian as he squelched ashore.

‘Absolutely nothing,’ came the reply. The dry Guardian, a tall, lean guy with steel-grey eyes and matching coloured buzz-cut hair, raised a quizzical eyebrow in Kaspar’s direction once he read his nametag. Kaspar didn’t recognize the senior Guardian, but his nametag read TILKIAN. ‘We’ve already cleared the building. No intruders, no bombs, no sabotage – nothing.’

‘Then why are we all here?’ asked another.

Forty-nine pairs of eyes turned and looked at Kaspar expectantly.

‘I  . . . I thought  . . .’

Suddenly there was a squawk from Kaspar’s link that was so loud he had to turn the volume down.

‘229 Voss to deployed Guardians. Verification Omega-Two-Epsilon. Code green. Stand down. Repeat, stand down. Voss to 4518 Wilding. Get your arse back here. If you aren’t in my office by 0830 hours then don’t bother coming back at all.’ The line went dead.

‘Man, what’ve you done? You have really stepped in something this time,’ added Dillon unnecessarily.

Kaspar turned away. ‘Shut up, Dillon,’ he snapped as he walked back to the hovercar.

The fiasco with the plastic stun rifle and the dead ninja had been a setback, but survivable. The unauthorized bot-fest with Mac had used up any lingering goodwill that his boss may have felt. And now this  . . .

Sick to his stomach, Kaspar knew that his military career, short and eventful as it had been, was probably over.

Kaspar would have preferred the ride back to be conducted in silence, but that was never an option with Dillon around.

Dillon on extra-curricular bot-searches: ‘You did what? Are you a frickin’ idiot?’

Dillon on inter-departmental co-operation: ‘You cooked this up with who? You mean the one with the rainbow hair and the nice butt in Library Services? Kas, you gotta start diverting some blood supply back to your head!’

Dillon on crying wolf before breakfast: ‘Even after what Voss told you? You
are
a frickin’ idiot.’

They arrived back at base just in time to prevent Dillon’s death. Another minute and he would have been found floating face down in the lake. Kaspar parked the hovercar and sprinted towards the accommodation wing. He reckoned he had seven minutes or less to change out of his soggy uniform before he had to see Voss.

This is going to be bad enough without me being improperly dressed, he thought.

He was surprised to find the block full of Guardians he
didn’t recognize, and even more surprised to be asked for his ID before he was allowed to enter his own room. But the biggest surprise came when he got inside. His room was occupied.

‘Good morning, young man.’ Brother Simon was standing by Kaspar’s bed. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’

Brother Simon extended his hand and Kaspar immediately accepted the handshake. The councillor was so clean and smooth he might have been polished from marble. Not a silver hair on his head was out of place. His suit was simple but beautifully tailored.

‘I’m honoured, sir. Please sit down. What can I do for you? Can I get you something? A drink? I mean, water? I wasn’t offering a beer or anything, unless of course you’d like a beer.’ Kaspar was hyperventilating – and gibbering. ‘Have you been waiting long? I’m sorry, I only just  . . .’

‘Relax,’ smiled Brother Simon. ‘I know where you’ve been. And I know where you’re supposed to go next. Don’t worry about Commander Voss. I’m sure he’ll understand if I keep you a little late.’ Brother Simon glanced down at Kaspar’s sodden uniform and the puddle forming around his boots. ‘Perhaps you’d like to change? I don’t mind waiting.’

Kaspar hesitated. Undressing in front of a member of the High Council just didn’t seem appropriate – but on the other hand, sitting talking to one while squelching didn’t seem too good either. He couldn’t exactly ask the High Councillor to leave while he got dressed; that would appear rude. Kaspar compromised by stepping behind his
wardrobe door before slipping off his uniform. He felt faintly ridiculous.

‘I just came to say that I am impressed with you, Kaspar Wilding. You are very like your mother.’

‘You knew my mum?’ Kaspar paused from towelling himself.

‘Oh yes. She was in the Special Support Group and one of my close protection officers for six months. A very strong, very capable woman.’

Kaspar’s mouth fell open. His mum had been a bodyguard to a member of the High Council? That was news to him.

‘I’ve checked your file. Why didn’t you put your parents’ names on your Guardian application form?’ asked Brother Simon.

‘Is there any particular reason why I should’ve, sir?’

‘Is there any particular reason why you didn’t?’ asked the High Councillor.

‘I wanted to be judged on my own merits, not those of my mum and dad,’ said Kaspar.

‘The Special Support Group are always looking for Guardian recruits of the right  . . . calibre. You would’ve been fast-tracked for bigger and better things if you’d used your family history.’

Kaspar was well aware of the kudos attached to belonging to the SSG. They were the elite, given the best jobs, not to mention a salary and perks to match. But everyday Guardians couldn’t stand them. Members of the SSG swanned around, noses held high, as if their pee was vintage champagne.

‘I’m satisfied with the track I’m currently following, sir,’ he said carefully.

Brother Simon leaned forward, considering Kaspar. ‘Do you lack ambition, Guardian Wilding?’

‘No, sir. But I know I still have a lot to learn and I believe Guardian Voss is best placed to teach me at the moment. I wouldn’t want to bring anything but my absolute best to the SSG,’ Kaspar replied.

‘And you don’t feel you’re there yet?’

‘Not yet, sir. But I will be one day. And sooner rather than later, I hope.’

‘Less than your best is still noteworthy, Guardian Wilding,’ smiled Brother Simon. ‘I, indeed the whole Council, was greatly impressed by your exploits at the graduation ceremony. Kristin would have been so proud.’

‘I’m afraid my exploits
since
graduation haven’t been quite so impressive, sir. I’ve been making a lot of mistakes.’

‘Which brings me neatly to the point of my visit. We’ve all been struck by your bravery and your zeal, but those qualities are not exactly rare among Guardians. Certainly not unusual enough to qualify you for a visit from the Council. No, what brings me here today is your desire to learn.’ Brother Simon’s eyes twinkled as he said that. He had obviously been fully briefed on the bot incident. Kaspar cringed.

‘Brother Simon, I was just trying to understand,’ said Kaspar. ‘All the data seems contradictory. If we understood their motivations better, we could predict the Insurgents’ actions, disrupt their plans.’

‘And d’you really think you’re the first to try and analyse the behaviour of the Insurgents?’ said Brother Simon. ‘Forgive me, but better minds than yours in the Ministry of Information and Intelligence have tried and failed. They don’t have a coherent plan, as you said yourself.’

‘Yes, sir, but there is something. A lot of data seems to indicate that they are all wild, unthinking, vicious – almost deranged.’

Brother Simon sat back, his gaze speculative. ‘Go on.’

‘But I’ve seen two of them now, close up. They weren’t mad. They were calm and collected. I don’t know what they were doing, but they were definitely doing something rational, something with a point and a purpose.’

Brother Simon smiled knowingly. ‘You are right, up to a point. They aren’t entirely devoid of cunning. I must admit we tend to exaggerate their stupidity so as not to scare the populace. But they are still
relatively
unintelligent. Their ancestors may have had an educational system second to none, but that was a long time ago. They are smart enough to realize the importance of our data network, but they are not smart enough to grasp that it is practically invulnerable. They are nihilists.’ At Kaspar’s blank look, he explained, ‘They have no moral principles or beliefs. Their fate was of their own making, and because they believe their lives are meaningless, they feel they have nothing to lose by terrorizing us in the Alliance. Have you read some of the transcripts of their interviews?’

A moment’s hesitation, then Kaspar nodded.

‘Then you saw for yourself. Savage unreason for the most part. Mindless, ruthless fanaticism, bent on domination and exterminating everyone who is different from them. They are also superstitious, with bizarre, unintelligible belief systems.’

Brother Simon’s words sounded rehearsed, like they’d been delivered many, many times before. Kaspar nodded, trying to suppress his doubts.

‘Why the suicides, sir?’

Brother Simon raised his immaculately clad shoulders. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they really don’t care about anything. Maybe they really do prefer death to life within the arms of the Alliance. We believe that all life is sacred, that one death diminishes us all. Read your history, Kaspar. Any time a society has started down the path of expediency, arguing that the end justifies the means, they’ve inevitably ended up more vicious than the ones they were fighting. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was their ultimate goal, to make us animals too. That’s why we send you into battle armed only with non-lethal weapons. We have right on our side. That’s why the Insurgents – the Crusaders – will not win.’

Kaspar sought to keep his expression neutral and accepting. But each of Brother Simon’s words sat like a jagged stone in the pit of his gut. Kaspar’s short career had shown him that real life was more complicated than an academic treatise on moral philosophy.

‘I want to say something about what you did today,
raising the alarm about the unauthorized access to the Kehone Reservoir—’

‘I’m really sorry about that,’ interrupted Kaspar. ‘I just got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I was convinced that—’

Brother Simon held up his hand to silence Kaspar. ‘You didn’t get it wrong.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You weren’t wrong. You were correct. There
was
an unscheduled access.’

‘But—’

‘I’m afraid I have a confession to make,’ said Brother Simon. ‘Today you stumbled across  . . . well, let’s call it what it is, a cover-up. Traditionally, when someone discovers such a thing, they can either be effectively silenced, or included.’

‘Silenced, sir?’

‘Not what you’re thinking, Guardian,’ said Brother Simon drily. ‘We in the Council have found that a posting to some godforsaken, remote part of the Badlands to guard grains of sand works wonders.’

I just bet it does, thought Kaspar. Was that what they were going to do to him? If so, then he would’ve preferred Voss’s retribution.

‘Now we could order you not to pursue it, but you would disobey. We could threaten you with dire consequences, but your mother’s stubbornness would prevail,’ sighed the Brother. ‘No, for a man of your intelligence and drive, the only sensible thing is to enlist your assistance.’

‘Sir, I don’t understand  . . .’

‘What I am about to tell you is not to leave this room.’ Brother Simon leaned forward, his expression earnest. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Of course, sir.’ Kaspar nodded.

‘The attacks in our cities are bad, but they could be much, much worse. The Crusaders have access to deadly weapons – poison gas and a nuclear arsenal. In the hands of their Insurgents, they’re capable of causing tens of thousands of deaths.’

Dread, so icy cold it hurt, shot up Kaspar’s spine. He was silent for a while, stunned by the enormity of what he was hearing. ‘Why have they not used them yet? Wouldn’t nihilists just deploy them?’ he asked finally.

‘We in the Council believe it’s only a matter of time before they do – that the Insurgents are conserving what weapons they have until they can locate a significant target or, more likely, they are seeking the knowledge to learn how to use them. That’s why we think they are hitting particular data nodes. Unfortunately, there is method to their madness.’

‘How did they get hold of nuclear weapons in the first place, sir?’

‘During the War to End All Wars, Guardian Wilding. That war decimated our planet’s population, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for our planet’s weapons. Up until now, the Insurgents’ attacks have been all about retrieving the launch codes for those weapons so they can use them against all of us in the Alliance.’

Shocked, Kaspar stared at the High Councillor. ‘But surely those weapons wouldn’t work after all this time?’

‘Wishful thinking, soldier. Nuclear weapons are like cockroaches, they will outlast all of us,’ said Brother Simon. ‘That’s why we hit the Insurgents hard and fast and we make sure that they never get to a place or a space where they can become a serious threat.’

‘I see.’ And Kaspar did see.

‘I hope you do, Guardian Wilding. If the Insurgents
could
strike decisively at the Alliance government, they would plunge us into chaos and bring about their total victory. That is why we twenty-one Brothers and Sisters of the High Council never meet face to face.’

‘So that you can’t be simultaneously targeted?’

‘Exactly. And because we fear their use of bio-toxic weapons, a special detachment of Guardians adds a cocktail of protective drugs to the water supply every month.’

‘So someone did sneak into Kehone today. It was Commander Tilkian, wasn’t it?’ Kaspar realized.

No wonder the guy had got to the scene so quickly. Kaspar should’ve smelled something fishy from the time Tilkian announced he was less than five minutes away. No routine patrol would’ve put such a senior Guardian anywhere near the reservoir.

Brother Simon nodded, obviously impressed that Kaspar had managed to put it together.

‘But why a covert Guardian operation? Why not just add the drugs at the same time as the water management
teams add all the other chemical treatments to the water? Why the secrecy?’

‘Because the more people that know a secret, the more likely it is to leak.’

‘But why make it a secret anyway? Why not just tell everyone that you are adding chemicals to the water as a matter of public health?’

‘Then we’d have to tell them why. What do you think would happen if people knew that the Insurgents had bio-toxic weapons? They would be paralysed with fear, and fear is corrosive, Kaspar. It falls to some of us to bear the extra burden of knowledge. It is not for all to share.’