Space Invaders (45 page)

The People’s Republic of Singapore

I’d known who Armise was for four years the night he kissed me for the first time.

My team had been sent into Singapore to recover Jegs. I was twenty-three years old and had advanced up in the ranks so that I was no longer just a Peacemaker and sniper, but the leader of one of the special ops teams. There were five of us transporting into Singapore, at Jegs’ last known coordinates, and beginning our search for her there.

From her conspicuous lack of response, we could only assume that her mission to bring the infochip home to us had gone tits up the night before. The analysts had been certain this time they’d located the chip. And Jegs was the most familiar with Singapore. So she’d been sent into unfriendly, foreign territory to secure it. Our superiors were now pursuing it with dogged determination. None of us knew what the chip contained, but we’d heard the rumours. That it contained the entirety of the paper and digital records lost in the purge.

That rumour alone was enough to convince us these insane risks were worth it.

The extraction should have been something Jegs could handle, but from her faint tracking signal that had showed no movement for almost twenty-four hours, it was obvious she had failed. And to make it worse, she’d been trapped in an area of the city where her transport chip, her last-ditch method of exiting the country, most likely didn’t work.

Simion sidled up next to me as we approached the warehouse. His sonicrifle was slung across his chest and his raspy voice was barely discernible, even in the chilling silence of the abandoned industrial area. He pointed to a building clouded by the billowing exhaust heaving from the industrial factories in the distance.

“That one,” he indicated.

In front of us a four-storey square-shaped building sat dark, all of the standard security lights extinguished. The building was weathered and worn. Slanted quite literally. It had probably been erected after the war began—very few of the structures from before the start of the Borders War were still standing—but the analysts told us it hadn’t been used since the government had abandoned this area when a Chemsense factory exploded. It was easier to D3 an area—detail, ditch and decimate in Peacemaker shorthand—than to clean up the mess they’d made. Everything was disposable—history, nature, relationships. Life.

A fine mist hung in the air, but none of us wore respirators. The condensation tasted metallic on my tongue as I breathed it in, wholly unlike the unmistakable sweetness of chemical weapons. Each inhale felt like a weight in my lungs from the damp, hot ocean air. The extra effort needed to drag in a full breath, combined with the weight of our gear, meant we would need to complete our mission as quickly as possible.

But I didn’t need to emphasise that to anyone on my team, they were as eager as I was to grab Jegs and get out of enemy territory.

We slid silently down a narrow alley and entered the warehouse at a back entrance, away from the street that was deserted but left us too exposed. The door clicked open without effort, the maglock long deactivated. It appeared as if nothing in this area had power coming to it anymore.

As soon as we entered, taking up defensive position, I could see the yellow flicker of light to our right. There was just enough space between rows of cylindrical containers stacked to the ceiling, disappearing into the blackness, to be able to see a faltering source of light farther back in the vast space. The soft echo of our steps was the only noise I could discern. I held up my hand, bringing the team to a standstill. Then I listened.

There were the sounds of the building settling, acknowledging our appearance in the dilapidated structure. The pop of a wooden board. A shifting breeze that slammed the decaying door shut, the shocks passing through the walls, reverberations carried across the floor, announcing our presence to anyone inside the building or around it.

Then a soft keen—one I recognised too well—and I instructed the team to move again.

We turned the corner into the main room, fanning out to take defensive positions around the battered female form tied to one of the posts holding the roof up. There were lanterns at her feet. Old, rusted objects of metal, glass and fire. Relics more than anything else. The flame in them jumped with an unfelt breeze.

Jegs had been tortured. That much I was sure of. Her black skin was slashed, the blood barely visible against the dark hue of her face, but I could see the sticky sheen down her forehead, dripping from her chin, pooling on the dirty floor. A sweet and coppery scent filled the air. She was gagged with a yellow strip of rag stained crimson, her hands bound behind the wooden post she was tethered to. Her head hung against her chest and her breaths came in long, halted, shallow gurgles.

My team slid into positions without prompting, ensuring we were alone in the warehouse. I watched Jegs warily as they moved through the building. She was struggling, but it didn’t look like any of her injuries were fatal.

“It’s clear,” Simion said as he appeared out of the darkness at my side.

I brought my rifle down and slung it around my chest and moved towards her battered form. I put my hand on her shoulder and studied the wounds. The slash across her face was fresh, the blood not yet fully clotted, and her eyes were closed. She didn’t respond to my touch.

“Jegs? I’m going to take the gag out and Simion is going to undo the restraints,” I said in a soft voice as I untied the cloth and pulled it away from her cracked lips. A low moan bubbled from her throat. I lifted her left eyelid and studied the pupil, satisfied when it contracted with the change in light. There was no way to know whether she could hear me though.

Simion started undoing the thick poly cord that kept her standing upright, and I held onto her arms, easing her away from the pole as she was freed. I ventured a glance behind me, noting with satisfaction that the rest of the team slid automatically into protective positions when Simion and I knelt over her body.

Her breathing was still laboured, but didn’t sound as if her lungs had been punctured. I put my fingers to her throat and monitored her pulse. Her heartbeat was strong. There was no way we were going to be able to use her transport chip to take her out of here though. The molecular transfer of a transport would be too painful and potentially do more damage.

“Call it in. We’re going to need a flight out,” I instructed Simion.

He moved away from Jegs and me, but still within the protective circle of the team. His calm voice, rich with an accent that seemed to shift based on where we were in the world, spoke low into his comm. I still couldn’t place his country of birth, even after years of working with him.

“Jegs?” I asked again, lifting her chin to study the gaping wound.

She groaned and her eyes fluttered, but she didn’t respond.

I went through her pockets and ran my hands over the seams of her uniform, but couldn’t feel anything hidden within the blood-caked folds. If she’d acquired the infochip it wasn’t on her body anymore.

Which meant that we would have to continue the search.

Then there was yelling, a cacophony of orders to “Stand down!” barked behind me, and I spun on my heel bringing my rifle into position even as I crouched next to Jegs.

Armise Darcan stood next to the stack of canisters, his hands raised in surrender as my team trained their weapons on him. He was clad in all black, with his hands and head uncovered, which was most definitely against the Singapore uniform code. I couldn’t see any weapons on him, but knew better than to assume he’d come unarmed.

It had been five years since I’d last seen him—from that rooftop in Bogotá. And I was much better prepared for this meeting. I now knew who he was, how deadly he could be when given the opportunity. And there were five of us and only one of him. Odds that normally would have made me feel cocky. But I’d studied too much about Armise to think that numbers gave us an advantage.

Armise’s eyes shifted to me. “Tell them to put down their guns.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. What the hell did he think he was doing demanding anything from me?

Simion tipped his head—showcasing the only external tell he couldn’t break—as he received a message through his comm. He listened intently to a voice I couldn’t hear. Then he turned to me and nodded as he gave me a hand signal. Our evac vehicle had arrived.

But I wouldn’t be leaving with my team.

While Armise was a Singaporean native, he came from the northern haunts. From the portions of the Republic that had at one time been Mongolia. It was rumoured he rarely made trips into the island’s capital city, preferring the excruciating process of transport over residing in one of the military strongholds, because of his distaste for urban areas. Or maybe it was the people. Either way, from what I knew, Armise Darcan didn’t come to the island often.

Which meant there was only one reason why Armise was here. In this warehouse. Now.

The infochip.

I didn’t bother to ask the Dark Ops officer if he was alone. The chances were slim that he would have any backup with him. Dark Ops officers rarely worked with a partner and Armise was revered, feared, for consistently operating solo. I hoped that in this case our intel was correct. Because the team had to get Jegs out and I had to take care of Armise. And fighting through additional forces to accomplish both those mission critical tasks would be difficult. And a waste of time.

I hated to be annoyed like that.

“Take her,” I ordered Simion as I stood, my sonicrifle never straying off Armise.

Simion lowered his gun and walked over to us. “And then?” he asked as he stepped up next to me.

“I need you all out of here,” I answered in a low voice so Armise couldn’t overhear. “Let me take care of Armise.”

Simion gave a clipped nod and motioned for someone else from the team to help him carry Jegs out.

Neither Armise nor I moved as they worked.

When they were out of the warehouse, only minutes later, we remained on opposite sides of the building, a track of blood droplets trailing between us, the ancient lanterns throwing shadows across his face.

This was Armise’s territory. His homeland. And that could inspire a false sense of confidence I could use to my advantage.

“So do you have it?” he finally ventured, shattering the silence.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.

Armise took one step closer to me. I held my ground. His hands were still raised, palms facing me, in a signal of surrender.

“I remember you,” Armise said as he tipped his chin up in my direction.

“If only you were that memorable,” I quipped, drawing a smirk from him.

As he tentatively took another step towards me I noted the splatter of blood on his neck and chest. Jegs’ blood I had to assume. Fury slammed through me.

“Any chance that if I shoot you I’m going to find what I’m looking for on you?” I speculated.

Armise shook his head. “Not the slightest.”

I didn’t know why I believed him. There was absolutely no reason I should have. But something kept me from just pulling the trigger. “So why are you here then?”

Armise shrugged. He kept his hands up as he edged closer to me. “The mission. It’s always about the mission, right?”

“You trying to say we are brothers in arms, huh?” I scoffed. “You’re going for that approach?”

Armise was undeterred. “We each have our orders. In this case, they’re the same.”

I raised my pierced eyebrow. “You’re here to rescue a Peacemaker? That’s a plot twist.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“The infochip,” I admitted. It wasn’t a secret that the five countries had been searching for the chip for the last decade. Why try to verbally manoeuvre around a subject both of us were aware of?

Armise’s lip tipped up at my admission. “It seems our governments both have a vested interest in getting that useless chip in their hands. If it even exists.”

If his words had been said to elicit a reaction from me, then they had worked. “Useless?” I found myself asking him without consciously framing my intentions before I spoke out loud. The other side of his mouth twitched, full lips tugging into a slow smile at my misstep. I continued, “Interesting choice of words. Care to enlighten me?”

“That chip is a fool’s journey. The Holy Grail of our time. But the solution is never that easy.”

I sneered. “Says the man also risking his life to get his hands on it.”

“I just do what I’m told.”

“Even if it means your life?”

“Makes it all the more engaging.” Armise took one last step. He had been slowly advancing on me and was now only inches away from the barrel of my rifle. I didn’t worry about him using it against me though. The customised security mechanisms kept anyone besides me from firing it.

His hands were still raised and he watched me with cold calculation. Studying me, as if he had the ability to strip me bare.

“What do you want from me?” I found myself asking, not sure why I was even asking the question.

Armise cocked his head. “I’ve seen you on other missions.”

His confession startled me, but I restrained a physical reaction.

A hank of black hair fell onto his forehead that he swiped back casually, but kept his palms facing me. “I can’t pick you apart. Not like the others. You… fascinate me.”

“Spent the last five years thinking about how you weren’t able to kill me?” I scoffed.

“So you do remember me,” he drew out. The set of his shoulders eased as did the features of his face. As if he was satisfied with my answer. “Put the rifle down, Merq,” he prompted.

He said my name as if we were old friends and the sound of my name on his tongue—with a shortened ‘r’ and a clipped ‘q’—heightened my awareness of just how close he was to me.

How long had it taken him to discover who I was? His knowledge of me, his admitted fascination with me, should have kicked my overdeveloped sense of self-preservation into action. Instead it made me more curious about him. I didn’t know what to do with that.

I noted the strong set of his shoulders. The obvious strength in every twitch of his muscled form. The crispness of the black fabric that clung to his powerful body. There was no way he’d been the one to beat Jegs into near-death. There wasn’t enough blood on his uniform. And his hands, his palms still facing me, were clean and uncut.