The Society (A Broken World Book 1) (16 page)

I nearly saw red as Brennan raised his glass again. "To power and glorious profit, Piter. We're two of a kind; I've just figured out that the best way to get a man to work is to make him think it's his idea. Convince a slave that they're actually profiting from their labors by offering them some cheap trinkets, and you can run him twice as hard with nary a complaint until he drops over dead from the exertion."

If I hadn't been so angry I probably would have been sick. I'd been taken in by Brennan's handsome face and sincere, almost shy, manner. I'd thought that Lexis had been right, that Brennan was trying to build something better, that he was closer to living the precepts than he was to the greedy capitalist he appeared to be from the outside. I should have known that it was all an act.

He wasn't choked up about the deaths of his people, he just knew that he needed to appear that way in order to keep the ones inside of the compound working. He was building an empire on the backs of people who trusted him, people who were running risks that they never would have run for someone like Piter.

If I'd needed any more proof than what he'd just said, their earlier talk of weapons would have done it. Brennan would be a fool to arm someone he thought could eventually become a threat to him. He had to be doing it because he really did believe that the two of them were more alike than they were different.

Brennan let Piter fill his mug up again, and then downed it in one long drink. "What about those supplies that we agreed to trade?"

Piter shook his head. "I'd like to, Brennan, I really would, but without your side of the exchange I can't see my way towards providing you with the lumber."

Brennan looked back at me, and then rose unsteadily to his feet and headed my way. I wanted to slam the butt of my rifle into his nose, but doing that while surrounded by people who were loyal to both Piter and Brennan would have been a death sentence.

"What about this rifle? I'll give it and all of the magazines she's carrying to you. What will that get me?"

I slowly relinquished my hold on the weapon, mind racing. I could easily kill Brennan before anyone would be able to stop me. Jax and the others were still focused on Piter's men. I could snap Brennan's neck before anyone would be able to get a shot off, but that wouldn't guarantee the success of my mission.

The Citizen-President had been very specific regarding the necessity of finding the prototype generator at all costs. Simply eliminating Brennan would probably be enough to make sure that his research wouldn't continue, but it wouldn't be a guarantee. I needed to make sure that he led me to the prototype before I eliminated him.

Piter contemplated the offer for several seconds. "I can give you half of the shipment for that, and in doing so I'm letting you get away with far too much. If, however, you want to throw in the girl I'll give you the whole shipment—you can even have her back in a few weeks when you've got the rifles."

Brennan shook his head. "No, I'm rather attached to her. I'll take the half shipment that you're willing to trade and keep my people busy some other way—maybe I'll have them dig holes and fill them back in just to see if I can get away with it."

"If you're sure, but I think you're making a mistake. She looks like she's ready to strangle you with her bare hands."

"I know, that's why I like her so much."

Piter's smile made my skin crawl. "Ah, I see. It's not that you're celibate, your tastes are just stranger than I expected. To strange tastes."

It only took the two of them a few more minutes and three more glasses of alcohol each to close the negotiation, at which point Brennan unsteadily made his way back to me and wrapped his arm around my waist, using me for support.

I forced myself not to break his arm, and endured his loathsome touch as we walked back towards the barricade. It took us four times as long to get back to the headquarters building as it had to cross the same distance earlier, and by the time we arrived it was all I could do not to shove him away from me.

The last thing I expected once we were inside the secure area of the building, was for him to suddenly straighten up, release me, and resume walking as though he'd never had anything to drink at all.

"Congratulations, Skye. You passed."

The change was so shocking that I was having a hard time processing everything. "What do you mean I passed?"

"Either you're a much better actress than anyone I've ever come across, or you're exactly what you seem to be. It's important that Piter think I'm like him. As long as he feels like he has the upper hand, and that our interests align, he's happy to continue believing the intelligence we've been feeding him via the agents we've turned."

I shook my head. "You can't really expect me to believe that was all just an act. It's just as likely that was the truth and this is just an act. It's a lot easier to believe someone in power is really just in it for themselves rather than to create the utopia that you seem to have here."

It hadn't escaped my notice that Jax and the others still had their weapons up against their shoulders. It was entirely possible that handling the situation incorrectly would get me killed, but I just didn't know what the right answer was. All I could do was answer as honestly as possible and hope that would be good enough.

Brennan noticed me looking at his guards and waved as though to signal for them to lower their weapons, but none of them complied.

"She hasn't tried to kill me yet, Jax. Go ahead and dismiss the rest of the detail, it's time for you and me to show her what's really going on here."

Jax frowned, but finally lowered his weapon and then waved the rest of the team away. I had started fidgeting by the time one of the guards returned with a standard-issue vest and several balaclavas. Brennan quickly put on the vest, and one of the balaclavas, and then turned and looked expectantly at me.

"You're going to have to put it on, Skye. Some of our people can get away with walking around and not being recognized, but the three of us are much too noticeable for that."

I stepped back away from the three of them and let my hair down, pocketing the steel spike Lexis had used to put it up, and then pulled on the thin black material. I positioned the eyeholes so that they didn't impede my peripheral vision any more than necessary, and then did up the top buckle on my vest. Jax had taken the opportunity provided by the second guard's presence and me being several feet further away from Brennan to slip his on as well.

We were now indistinguishable from any of the other guards inside or outside of the compound. I got the feeling that Brennan was smiling, but there wasn't any way to be sure—not with his face covered like it was.

"Once we exit the secure floors, it's important that you don't speak, Skye. We don't want to give anyone reason to think that the building where we're headed is anything other than what everyone thinks it is. I'll lead the way, then you, then Jax. Try not to make him worry any more than you absolutely have to—his nerves are already awfully abused."

Brennan accepted a rifle from the guard who had brought him a vest, and then looked back at me as though planning on telling me to get a rifle as well. Jax cleared his throat as though to remind Brennan that I still didn't know which version of him to believe, and Brennan shrugged.

"Any questions?"

I shook my head wordlessly, and then the three of us headed back outside. I'd half expected him to lead us somewhere inside of the compound, but instead we once again headed out through one of the two gates between the compound and the rest of Brennan's territory.

We moved quickly—like we'd been dispatched on an important assignment—but not so quickly as to draw attention to ourselves. Less than fifteen minutes later we were standing outside of a high-rise building that had bars welded over the ground-floor windows in much the same manner as the building I'd been forced to jump out of just a few days before.

That was unique in my experience so far inside of Brennan's territory, but I didn't realize why that was until we made it around to the doors and saw the pair of guards standing just in front of the entryway to the building.

We were challenged, but rather than responding verbally, Brennan tapped out a complex rhythm on his own arm. The guards didn't relax at all, but they let us approach to within a couple of feet before challenging us again.

"It's me, boys. Can you please usher us in without making any fuss?"

The higher-ranking guard looked startled for a moment, but nodded, and a second later we were walking inside the building. There was another pair of guards waiting for us inside. They didn't relax until Brennan and Jax pulled off their balaclavas, and even then they still eyed me with distrust. Apparently Brennan wasn't in the habit of bringing new recruits with him on his clandestine missions.

"This is the southern guard facility. It's still undermanned compared to what I'd like to see, but it gives us a safe place to station our reserves, a place that is close enough to Piter's territory that they'll be able to respond if he sees through my charade and decides to attack."

Given the high cost of electricity and the endless demands on our very finite power generation facilities, I'd been expecting us to go upstairs. Back in the dormitories the bulk of the places people spent any time had all been along the exterior of the building so that they would have natural light and not have to turn on lightbulbs.

The underground floors I'd been introduced to the night before had been unusual, and the only reason for us to go down rather than up was that whatever we were going to see was as important as the safety of Brennan and his most trusted advisors.

I was surprised to find a quartet of soldiers waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, but that was nothing compared to the astonishment of realizing that the entire basement had been sealed off with a massive steel door that looked like it could have withstood a nuclear bomb.

Brennan nodded to the guards, and then walked over to a rack of rifles and picked up two of the long weapons, both of which he handed to me.

"Don't give me that look, Jax. Neither of them is loaded, and it's not like I can carry them and all of the ammunition. This stuff is heavy enough that I should be using some kind of cart to move it around with."

I ran some quick math as he picked up a pair of big, steel boxes. He wasn't kidding. Based on how heavy the boxes of ammunition back in my room had been, and the volume of space inside of the boxes, and the probable weight of the boxes themselves, he was lifting more than seventy pounds of ammunition with each arm. That surprised me. He looked fit, but that kind of feat from someone without nanites was commendable.

Brennan wasn't some kind of useless egghead; he was apparently capable of keeping up with Jax and the rest of his guards.

The four guards who'd been stationed in front of the vault door swung it open, and I followed Brennan inside of the hallway that awaited us on the other side. The steel door swung shut behind us, and I tried not to flinch as the massive locking bolts slid into place. We wouldn't be getting out that way—at least not without someone on the outside opening it for us.

The hallway was lit only by a single bare bulb, and I spared a single thought to hope that it wouldn't go out on us while we were down there. Being trapped in the dark didn't sound like a very pleasant way to die.

We rounded a corner and were faced with another door, this one only marginally heavier than a normal exterior door. Jax stepped around Brennan and me, and unlocked it with a grimace. I got the feeling that it wasn't the act of unlocking the door that he didn't like—it was dislike of what he knew awaited us on the other side.

My jaw dropped as I took in the sight before me. We were standing in what appeared to be a massive underground parking garage, one that took up the entire area underneath the building, and even extended off to the south—underneath the barricade between Piter's territory and Brennan's territory.

The sound of high-velocity bullets brought me around to find a dozen people standing in lines, waiting for their chance to shoot one of a pair of rifles just like the ones I was carrying.

The sound was deafening, but one of the individuals waiting in the line happened to look over and see us. He got the attention of everyone else and they all backed away from the guns. I thought for a moment that they were scared of Jax, who had the muzzle of his weapon pointed at a spot midway between us and them, but that didn't gel with the smiles that broke out on their faces.

"We heard that you had a meeting with Piter, but the rumor mill was afire with news that you'd had problems with your production process."

The speaker was a thin woman in her late thirties. She looked like she'd had a hard life, but even the scar that ran from her right ear to the center of her chin couldn't dim the brilliance of her smile.

Brennan lugged the cases of ammunition over to the makeshift tables the group had been using as firing stations, and then stretched his back with a nod. "We did. We're going to be a lot further behind than I'd like by the time we get everything cleaned back up, but we've got a stock of weapons built up, and the foundry being down just means that we can't cast new cartridges—it doesn't do anything to stop us from casting lead bullets or reloading the rounds that you guys go through."

Lacking any clear instructions one way or the other, I let the woman take the two rifles I'd been carrying out of my hands. She handed one of them to a stocky kid who looked like he was probably a year younger than me. Back home he would have been fantasizing about earning his franchise and then picking up some hobby or another. Here he was handling a weapon like it was something that he'd done hundreds of times before.

Brennan looked around at the group and nodded to several of them before turning back to the lady who seemed to be in charge. "Victoria, this is Skye. Skye, this is Victoria. Skye is my newest bodyguard. Victoria is a big part of the reason I'm playing the games I'm playing with Piter."

I looked back and forth between the two of them, still not understanding, but Victoria didn't seem surprised by my confusion. "Strictly speaking, I'm not one of Brennan's people. When I leave here, I'm going back to Piter's territory and pretending to be a good little slave like everyone else."