The Far Shores (The Central Series) (66 page)

“Come in.”

It was a pity there was
no time to take a seat behind his desk. He would have felt better, sitting in
an obvious position of authority, when he had to cope with the extremely rare
and disconcerting reality of an unanticipated situation. Lóa walked into the
room, her carefully retouched eye makeup threatened by wet eyes. Gaul adjusted
the position of his glasses to cover his shock and dismay, while Lóa hurried
across the room, not bothering to remove her fur-lined coat, and stood before
him, her hand extended. In her palm, the ring that he hadn’t seen in decades
rested, looking every bit as modest and dignified as he remembered it.

“Uncle,” Lóa said, her
voice quavering.

“Don’t call me that,”
Gaul snapped, stunned by his own lack of self-control. “I have many suitable
titles. That is not one of them, Lóa Thule.”

She shook her head
slowly, her curly hair unruly.

“I am sorry, Uncle.
Circumstances leave me no choice.”

Gaul was struck dumb by
the import of her words, the implication of what she had not said. In the
confines of his head, he cursed the limitations of his protocol.

Though Gaul never would
have admitted it, the decision to exile the Thule Cartel had come as a relief,
by removing the main limitation of his precognitive abilities. As every
precognitive’s method of foresight differed, so too did their blind spots.
Gaul’s was stark and simple.

He was unable to predict
the actions of his immediate family.

This limitation was made
all the more infuriating by the fact that he was not blood-related to any of
them, having been adopted as an orphan by the Thule Cartel directly from the
Academy. Gaul’s birth family – the Allens, though he had never really used the
name himself – were citrus ranchers in the West Bank, having emigrated to
Israel to promote the evangelical brand of Christianity that they adopted
during his childhood. He had not spoken to or seen them since he had left the
family at the age of eight to attend the Academy, and had no particular
feelings or attachments toward them.

The Thule Cartel, on the
other hand, was and remained a much graver complication in his life. Issues of
shared genetics aside, from the moment of his activation, Gaul’s protocol had
been utterly blind when it came to the actions of his adopted family –
including his brother David Thule, and his niece, Lóa. Even David’s nephew and
adopted heir, Brennan, also an orphan, had somehow shared his family’s peculiar
immunity to his abilities, despite joining the cartel years after Gaul had disavowed
his relationship to it.

All of this caused him
no end of aggravation, even when the Thule Cartel had no hand in the events
that threatened the peace and security of Central, which was an admittedly
infrequent state of affairs until their exile. While he had affected a public
reluctance to pass judgment on them in the wake of their attempt to take
control of the Hegemony, he had actually achieved a significant personal and
professional advantage by removing them from the equation. Gaul angrily
reminded himself that it was his own decision to recall them, admittedly a move
of desperation to retain his power, but one that he would ultimately have to
claim responsibility for. He had known that there would be consequences, even
if he was unable to predict them, and had accepted that as a matter of course.
He had made more grievous sacrifices to defend the precarious peace he had
forged in Central, and was prepared to do even more, should it be required of
him.

This, however...

This was not an
eventuality he had steeled himself to face.

“What circumstances?”
Gaul asked, taking one involuntary step back from the woman holding out the ring
to him in a bizarre rendition of a jewelry commercial proposal. “What do you
mean?”

“I believe you must
know, Uncle.” Lóa sniffled and looked so truly devastated that he felt a
transient moment of pity. Until she had taken the lead in the Thule Cartel’s
insurrection, she had been his favorite relation, and her misery seemed
genuine. “I bring you the badge of office of the head of the Thule Cartel,
handed down for generations, from the time before the discovery of Central. I
bring you grave news, and the tokens of your new responsibility.”

Gaul turned his back on
her, looking out the window at the evening sky without seeing anything. His
mind reeled as he struggled to adjust his predictions to a set of parameters that
seemed very nearly impossible.

“You know my position, Lóa.
I will have nothing further to do with the Thule Cartel, or your family. Take
that ring back to David Thule, and tell him...”

“I can tell him nothing,
Uncle.” Lóa’s voice was sad and resolute. “He is beyond hearing.”

Gaul put his head in his
hands, struck by a grief that he could not define. He could not even decide
whether he regretted the loss of his adopted brother or the consequences for
himself. His implant continued to function as before, but the mind that housed
it had gone quiet, numb with shock and unfamiliar emotion.

“Then, David...how? How
can this be?”

He could see the
reflection of Lóa’s face in the mirror, and watched a single tear ruin her mascara
anew with a misplaced fascination.

“By his own hand, Uncle.”

Gaul put his fist
through the window before he realized what he was doing, the sound of the glass
shattering startling Lóa. He shook off her hands as she reached for him,
feeling no pain as he withdrew his bleeding hand from the broken pane, shards
of glass falling to the floor.

David. Damn you,
brother
, Gaul
thought bitterly.
Damn you
.

There was nothing for it,
of course. David had always been smarter than Gaul, despite his best efforts.
Even as a precognitive, even after receiving the implant and the vast resources
of the Etheric Network, Gaul had never been as capable a plotter as David
Thule. It was no wonder that he had accepted Gaul’s offer to return from exile
– doubtless, he had seen his opportunity to set this whole plan in motion, to
put Gaul’s back against a wall and force him to accept the role that he had
worked his entire adult life to reject. They had always held conflicting views
of what an ideal future for Central looked like, and had spent years competing
to impose their disparate views on each other. Gaul had thought the argument
won when he sent the cartel into exile, but as always, his brother played the
long game.

“Then your cousin, Brennan,
is the head of the cartel,” Gaul snapped, turning back to face Lóa with a
grimace, wiping his hand on his jacket. “I refuse.”

“Brennan is dead as
well, Uncle,” Lóa admitted miserably, choking back a sob.

“How?” Gaul demanded,
taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. “How can this be?”

“Anastasia Martynova
killed Brennan,” Lóa explained tearfully. “I found the body myself. He sought
to turn her, to break her will and bring her over to our side, and he...failed.
He failed utterly, and that failure cost him...”

“Enough!” The room
echoed with the sound of Gaul’s shout. He released Lóa, his hands shaking. “Enough
of this madness. The folly of the Thule Cartel is none of my concern.”

Lóa Thule shook her
head, picking the ring up and again offering it to him.

“It is, Uncle. You are
the head of the Thule Cartel, whether you wish it or not. The matter is already
decided.”

“Why not you?” Gaul
demanded, his voice hoarse. “You have always been capable, Lóa. Why should you
not take up the mantle of your father?”

“Because he did not wish
it. Because my father,” Lóa said, pausing to fight back further tears, “did all
of this so you would take on the role. He said that he wished for a better life
for me, and I believe him.”

Gaul hung his head in
disbelief.

“And why should I?” His
voice was soft, hardly more than a whisper. “I do not wish it. And if I were to
– you know what that would mean. I would be forced to resign as Director. My
life’s work...all of it. Thrown away. Why should I do such a thing?”

He found his way to the
chair behind his desk like a blind man in an unfamiliar room, fumbling and
bashing his shins against the furniture, disregarding the pain. Lóa crouched
beside him, her arm around his shoulder. He could hardly feel it, beneath the
enormity of his grief, confusion, and anger, his head resting in his hands.

“Because we are your
family, and despite what you might say, we believe that you still care for us.
My father never lost faith in that idea, during the long years of our exile,
and neither did I.” Lóa placed the ring gently in his hand. “And...because you
need us, Uncle. Without our aid, your Auditors will die.”

Gaul looked up in
disbelief.

“What do you mean?”

“You see the future, Uncle,
not I,” Lóa explained modestly, composing herself. “But our intelligence
indicates that the Auditors are in dire straits. Some may already be lost.
Others surely will be, if we do not intervene.”

“I don’t understand...”

Lóa drew herself up and
gave him a wan smile, the shy grin he remembered from her childhood.

“I can help them, Uncle.
Myself and the soldiers of the Thule Cartel. We are staged to intervene – to
save those among the Auditors that can be saved, and stop the Anathema from
winning the day. They have been preparing on my orders since I departed for
Central. They wait for the head of the Thule Cartel to order them into battle.
I will join them.” Lóa put a hand on his forehead. “All is not yet lost. We can
still alter the outcome, but only on your order. The order of the lord and
master of the Thule Cartel. Examine the futures, Uncle, and you will find that
I speak truthfully. It is not too late. But we only intervene by your will.
What say you, Uncle?”

The potentials hung in
front of Gaul, stark and irrevocable. He searched over them with resignation,
knowing that there was nothing to find. He shook his head slowly, then reached
out and took the ring, the dull amber stone seeming to wink at him from his
palm.

“Go, then. Turn the
tide.”

Lóa Thule nodded,
smiling in relief, then hurried to the door, wiping her face with a
handkerchief.

“Lóa?”

She paused with her hand
on the doorknob, looking at him expectantly.

“Once you are finished,”
Gaul said gravely, standing from his desk. “Return to me. We have much to do.”

Lóa gave him a quick bow
and a genuine smile.

“Of course, Uncle.”

“We’re still doing this?”

Katya shot a glare at
him, from where they crouched behind a bank of machinery, in the hazy shadow of
the World Tree.

“Of course, dummy.”

“But we don’t have a
telepath,” Alex complained. “How will we let them know, even if we do clear
it?”

“One thing at a time,
Alex,” Min-jun said, groggily slotting a new magazine in his rifle and charging
it. His head was clumsily swathed in bandages from a scavenged medical kit Alex
had found, the pain of his broken arm blunted by an injection of painkiller. “Worry
about that when we get there.”

“You said it, oppa,”
Katya agreed, grinning. “On three?”

“Three,” Min-jun
confirmed, nodding.

“Three,” Alex groused,
preparing his protocol. “Fuck yeah.”

Katya begin to count,
and Alex took a deep breath, trying to slow his pounding heart. He had
dry-swallowed two pink amphetamine pills after their encounter with the
Anathema at Katya’s urging, to postpone the effects of using his protocol,
along with an injection to mute the agony in his lower back, and the
combination had given him a jittery sense of unreality. He wasn’t really
afraid, despite the Anathema that waited for them on the other side of the
equipment, and that very lack of fear was disturbing to him.

Katya counted down
softly, and Alex wondered in a vague sort of way if they were all about to die.

She said
three
,
and moved around the machine at a crouch, Alex behind her, Min-jun bringing up
the rear – and then stopped just as abruptly. Alex smacked into her back,
almost crying out in surprise, then was shoved forcefully back into concealment
as Katya scrambled for cover.

“What the fuck? I
thought we...”

“Alistair just showed,”
Katya said grimly. “Some other guys, too. There’s twice as many Anathema over
there, now.”

Alex moaned, while
Min-jun took a cautious look around a cluster of pipes that protruded from one
side of the thrumming machinery.

“Okay,” Min-jun agreed,
ducking back down. “Now what?”

“I dunno,” Katya said.
“No way we can take that many Anathema. We don’t stand a chance.”

“Maybe if we wait for a
minute, they will leave, or something?” Alex offered hopefully. “Maybe he’s
just checking up on that...thing. Whatever it is.”

“Doubt it,” Katya said,
toying with one of her sewing needles and looking frustrated. “This is bad.”

“Yes,” Min-jun agreed.
“But I still think we need to do it.”

“Or die trying, oppa?”
Katya asked with a grin. “Alright. But not without a plan. Anyone have any
bright ideas?”

“I do.”

Min-jun shouldered the
rifle faster than Alex thought possible, while they all whipped their heads
around to the source of the voice. There was a long moment while Alex struggled
to make sense of what he was seeing. Katya was already in action by the time he
made sense of it.

Mitsuru had crawled her
way through the same cluster of machinery that they had snuck through several
minutes before, bleeding and injured in more places than Alex could count. Most
alarmingly, she looked to be missing a large part of her lower left leg. Alex
hurried over to help Katya drag Mitsuru into cover, while Min-jun kept watch,
his rifle at the ready.

“Holy shit! Miss Aoki –
Mitsuru – whatever. Are you okay?”

“No.” Mitsuru shot him a
glare. “No, I am not okay. But that doesn’t matter.”

“I guess...”

Alex shut up when he
realized that everyone was staring at him.

“You have a plan?” Katya
inquired, taking a roll of bandage from her pack and wrapping Mitsuru’s leg
with it. “’Cause I am clueless as to what we can do, even if you could stand.”

“Yes.” Mitsuru took the
bandage from her and commenced bandaging herself with a quiet efficiency that
awed Alex. “Here’s what we are going to do...”

***

Alice was pinned to the ground. One
Anathema held either arm, while another sat astride her legs. Martin,
meanwhile, had a handful of her hair in one hand and held a knife to her throat
with the other. It was a big, multi-edged, ridiculously cruel knife, the kind
of thing that only appealed to teenagers and sadists, with no ready purpose other
than intimidating the naïve, but Alice was fairly certain it would do the
trick.

“I’m pretty sure,” Alice
gasped, struggling to breathe with broken ribs, “that’ll kill me, boys.”

Martin grinned at her.

“That is the general
idea.”

Alice smiled back. Why the
hell not? The Anathema had fallen on her the moment Alistair left, and subdued
her with weighted saps and a Taser. Without a gun or her protocol, injured and
hardly able to stand, she hadn’t been able to put up much of a fight. She
wasn’t sure how many broken bones she had, but she was willing to bet that the
total would top her previous record. Whatever that was.

“Won’t Alistair be mad?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Martin
said, running the edge of his knife along the line of her cheek, and then
leaving the blade resting on her cheekbone, almost touching her right eye. “As
will John Parson. But here’s the thing – I don’t really care. I don’t actually
know why they want you taken alive, but their reasons are nearly as good as
mine for wanting you dead.”

Alice coughed weakly,
careful not to move her head and impale her eye on the point of the knife. Even
that limited motion sent jolts of pain shooting through her torso.

“Wanna share?”

Martin tugged on her
hair until it brought tears to her eyes.

“Why not? In fact, I
think I would be happier if you knew. Do you remember Christopher Feld?”

Alice rolled her eyes.

“Hard to forget.”

Martin laughed.

“Isn’t he just? Well, he
was my friend.”

Alice waited.

“That it?”

Martin looked offended.

“Does there need to be
more? He was my friend for years, and you killed him.” He tightened his grip on
her hair, and Alice waited for the sound of it tearing from her head. “And now
I’m going to kill you. Actions have consequences. Simple as that.”

Alice did her best
impression of laughter while trying not to move her chest at all.

“How boring. I’d hoped
for something better.”

“I would tell you to
live with disappointment, but that won’t a problem you need to face.”

“Because I’ll be dead?”

“Because you’ll be
dead.”

“You don’t threaten
people much, do you? I can tell.” Alice gave him her most contemptuous smile.
“You should try and avoid it in the future. You’re really bad.”

He slapped her, hard,
until he got tired of it or his hand became sore.

“Are you trying to make
me angry?” he inquired, returning his attention to the ridiculous knife. It
really did look like something that should have been a prop in a metal video,
or in a Dungeons & Dragons fanatic’s collection. “Hoping to goad me into
giving you a quick death? Or perhaps that one of your companions will
intervene? Neither will happen, Alice. No point in holding out hope.”

Alice did not expect a
rescue. Assuming Michael or Xia or any of the kids were still alive, then she
sincerely hoped they were focusing their attention on completing the mission,
not saving her from the petty revenge of this pathetic member of the Anathema.
Nor did she hope to infuriate the man enough to kill her painlessly – she had a
pretty good idea of exactly what he and his friends intended when they seemed
intent on holding her down rather than incapacitating her. She had been in the
business long enough to come to terms with its ugly realities – as a matter of
fact, she preferred to think of herself
as
one of those ugly realities.
But she did need to play for time, according to the little voice in the back of
her head.

That was the bright side
of Martin’s rather transparent desire to draw this whole encounter out.

“I think you are
underestimating the Auditors,” Alice wheezed, feeling as if a weight were
pressing down across her midsection. She had forgotten how damn much broken
ribs hurt – particular if someone took the time to kick them. “You’re lot
couldn’t kill us on your best day. And this, shithead, is definitely
not
your best day.”

“On that, at least, we
can agree.” Martin used the point of the knife to force her chin up, until her
neck couldn’t bend any further. The tip pushed through the skin below her jaw,
drawing blood. “What do you think about trying to improve it, boys?”

They laughed with the
smug cruelty that came from holding all the cards.

“Rather not,” Alice
countered, the knife puncturing her skin with each word. “If it’s all the same
to you.”

“It is
not
.”

Martin followed his
words by slamming his fist into her side. Alice would have screamed, if she had
the breath. Instead, all she produced was a humiliating whimper. Martin laughed
and hit her again, causing more pain than she would have thought possible with
a punch, agony convulsing her chest and suffocating her. He drew his hand back
again.

Then his head exploded,
spraying brain matter and bits of skull across her body, and all over the
Anathema, who reached for weapons and glanced around fearfully. Her arms and
legs were freed, but she was incapable of lashing out. Instead, she just curled
into a ball around her broken ribs and focused on trying to force air into her
contracted lungs.

Another of them fell,
trying vainly to breathe through a throat that was no longer entirely there.
Alice felt a reluctant sympathy for his position. Then a third toppled over,
the back part of his head spread across several meters of floor. The third shot
finally tore a large enough gouge in the factory wall to let in the dim
sunlight of the late afternoon. Alice’s ribs cried out as she rolled over, but
she ignored them, extending her arm out at the final two men, who stared at the
punctured wall in horror, unwilling or unable to divine their predicament. Of
course, that didn’t matter, because their shadows were well defined in the pool
of sunlight that entered through the breach in the wall. This time, when Alice
reached for her protocol, it came to her with the eagerness of an obedient dog.

They didn’t even notice
the twisting and unearthly arms that extended up out of their shadows until
they had already started to disassemble them, piece by piece, leaving nothing
behind but smooth, fused flesh. Then they cried out, and tried to run, but they
just tumbled to the ground, too many pieces missing to manage flight. Alice
watched them be consumed by their own shadows.

Thanks, Karim.

My pleasure, Alice.

Nice shot, by the
way.

Again, thank you. I’m
sorry that it took me so long to get into position...

Alice started the slow
process of standing up, beginning by rolling onto her knees, and then waiting
for the pain to recede. She could feel Haley in her mind, frantically shutting
off nerve centers and pain receptors, and she allowed it with gratitude.

That wasn’t the shot
I told you to wait for, though.

Karim hesitated through
the psychic link. She could almost hear him cough to cover his discomfort.

About that shot,
Alice...

***

“This better be good news,” Alistair
warned Talia Banks as he approached the technician, raising his voice to be
heard over the increasingly tooth-rattling hum of the World Tree, the pulsating
light it emitted visible even when he closed his eyes. “Otherwise, we’re going
to need to cancel this stage, and move to seize the alternate site instead...”

Talia looked up from the
tablet she held, her face illuminated by the display, and gave him a curt nod.

“The frequency is
stable; the World Tree is aligned,” Talia said, pinching her lower lip between
her fingers as she studied the data. “We are ready to run, but the resonance is
insufficient to reach the Outer Dark.”

“Damn it.” Alistair
glanced at the tablet she offered. “What about Central?”

“Yes,” Talia said,
nodding as she manipulated figures. “Just barely.”

“Okay. We’ll have to
finish opening the way for the Outer Dark elsewhere, then,” Alistair said,
holstering his Israeli semiautomatic with obvious relief. “Send out the recall.
I need as many Anathema with me as c
a
n stand.”

“What about this site?”
Song Li inquired, scanning the wreckage around them with dead eyes. “Are we
abandoning it?”

“Not at all. I want you
to stay. There should be plenty of corpses around for you to work with. Leigh’s
still putting herself back together, but she should be up in a matter of
minutes. All I need is for the two of you to hold them off long enough for us
establish a connection with the Outer Dark. Then we’ll be back, with reinforcements.”