“They who dream of conquered nations are but fools, but they that conquer themselves are mighty.”
~ from the teaching of Soyala Méihuâ I4—2067
Day 189/365
Year 5 of Progress
(July 8, 2069)
Central Command
Third Continent
Prime Reality
Sirens blared, bringing the base to high alert. Donovan stood by the outer door, the scent of rust and desperation palpable, but no gates dropped down. He pulled his uniform jacket on and ran for the stairs. Where had he been?
Where should he have been?
Senturi hadn’t asked him to do the security sweeps on the lower levels. Didn’t even trust him with that job. Rose might accept running, but Emir?
Better if he wasn’t found near the stairs at all.
He hit the bottom living level, where the ghosts of shops remained as a promise of better days ahead. Tree-shaped abominations glistened in the darkness like an invasive, oleaginous vermin choking out the place of true autotrophs. The planning committee said this would be a promenade, a place for free commerce, shopping, entertainment, and socialization. Donovan didn’t think they knew what those words meant.
The brown commbox secured at his hip squeaked. Wincing at the technical reprimand, he punched in the code to reset the box to the Command frequency.
“Repeat, Captain Donovan, Soldier, sound off.” The frazzled voice was edgy with panic, and unfamiliar.
He unclipped the box. “Donovan, 21505. Present.”
“Location?” The voice asked.
“Living-area stairwell.” Paranoia whispered he shouldn’t divulge his true location. Seventeen months ago, Rose’s team had used the exact same method to trap a missing node in an iteration scheduled for demolition. He lifted the box back to his ear. “Comm check?”
“Lieutenant Shelle Sonand, authentication code: cloudberry.” That made Lieutenant Sonand Central Command Intelligence.
“Authentication confirmed. Where should I go, Lieutenant?”
There was a longer pause than required, and when the commbox turned back on, there were several voices in the background. “Captain, repeat request?”
Donovan swore. He’d missed a code early on. Now he was on the hot list no matter what he did. “I wanted to know if I was required in the war room, but I’ll report to my squad’s designated area.” That would get him a mark for insubordination and possibly some of Emir’s sideways censure, but nothing more.
It took him ten minutes and two guesses to find his squad in one of the small communal rooms designed to be team-building recreation areas. To the best of his knowledge, the only time his squad had all been there together was when they’d painted a new shade of beige on the walls.
“Captain Donovan.” Commander Eriant wasn’t regular army, like Donovan, but Command Fleet with prior service in UN Intelligence, like Rose, and he looked the part. His black uniform was pressed to a shine, with chrome buttons embellished with the adder-and-mongoose insignia of IID. “You’re late.”
“I was meditating,” Donovan said.
The adder checked his tablet. “The meditation room log has no record of you entering today.”
“There are other places to meditate. The promenade is quiet this time of day.” The damning words slipped out before he could stop himself. “I wanted to walk.”
Commander Eriant took this at face value. “Very well. Please be seated.”
Donovan took his seat on the edge of the semicircle the squad had formed. Red plastic chairs with aluminum legs and matching tables . . . what had they called it? The Aluminum Wasteland? No, the Aluminum Desert. Private Torman had joked about painting a cactus against the sand-covered walls.
Now no one was joking.
The private in question was studying his boots. The others were looking anywhere but at Donovan and Eriant. Only the E5s and up maintained the facade of being relaxed.
Sergeant Coughlin’s personal techpiece chimed.
Commander Eriant spun as if he’d been hit up his fat-lipped head. “What is that?”
“Duty reminder, sir,” Coughlin said.
“A reminder?” The commander sneered. “Disciplined individuals fall into a routine.”
“I know, sir,” Coughlin said without a trace of rancor. “I switched shifts yesterday, and I’m trying to get into the new rhythm. This is helping me out.”
Eriant’s nose twitched, probably because Coughlin had given the right answer, and Eriant couldn’t put him on report.
Quick boot steps heralded the arrival of Commander Rose. She looked in, eyes wide. “Captain Donovan?”
There was only a second, but he saw the flash of relief there. The quickly hidden look that said she’d found someone to blame.
He stood. “Commander?”
“You’re needed in the war room.”
Donovan followed Rose to where Emir waited, along with the other jump team leaders—Senturi included—and Atlee Brost, director of internal security. Brost couldn’t be happy about IID’s intrusion. It was a weakness in Central Command Donovan could exploit.
Brost frowned at his arrival. “Captain, you were late reporting to your rally point.”
“I took the stairs.”
Rose shot him an angry frown, but he knew that when she turned around, her face would be placid as the fake lake in the city’s central dome. When he thought about it, fake was a very good word for Rose. And Central Command. They were shells, and in a few days, they would crumble into ash.
Donovan took his position at the fourth monitor from the left—a plush, half-egg chair with computer console and a constantly updating data stream from any live missions. He’d planned more deaths from that chair than he could count. Now the screens were dark. The chair’s overhead light was dim. It was either restful or coffin-like, he supposed; it all depended on your point of view.
Emir did his trademark hand waggle, which meant there was information that didn’t matter in the grand design, and he was going to let someone else deal with the humdrum details of things much like he handled questions about vanishing rations or tainted water. “Proceed, Brost, proceed.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Brost’s chest puffed with self-importance. “Security did a random sweep of personal locator beacons at 0719 this morning and found an anomaly. Are any of you familiar with a tech named Laura Para? She works on the air systems in this building.”
Most of those assembled shook their heads.
A tertiary team leader raised his hand. “I’ve seen her, sir. She was handling the repairs to our training room air conditioning. The heat wouldn’t turn off. Is there a possible security breach?”
“Miss Para is dead,” Brost said, his eyes narrowing. “I will need you and your team to proceed to the adjacent room to talk with my people.”
The team leader’s back went stiff. “Sir, I know where my people were all day.”
“I am not suggesting the killer is here,” Brost said in the same tone Macbeth had used to humbly take his leave of Duncan before stabbing him. “We’ll start by establishing a timeline for Miss Para. Please, if you’d move in, the sooner this is handled, the better.”
The team leader reached for his commbox as he walked out, an unhappy look on his face.
“How was Miss Para killed?” Rose asked.
Brost stared at her for a moment. He’d probably never met someone as arrogant as Commander Rose before. “How does that matter?”
“Answer the question.”
Brost turned to Emir for support and found none there. “I . . . she was beaten,” Brost said finally. “Slammed into a wall or pushed down the stairs, and then kicked repeatedly.”
Rose wasn’t the only one suddenly looking at people’s boots.
“Standard issue footwear?” she asked.
“I . . .” Brost cleared his throat. “My team has yet to determine that.”
“Dr. Emir?” Of course Rose went over security’s head. “Permission to follow the case? If this is an intrusion from another iteration, my team is best equipped to handle the matter.”
“It is most likely an internal matter. No need to concern IID at this time,” Brost said quickly. Perhaps a shade too quickly. Emir could scent weakness like a shark smelling blood in the water.
One more gear was about to be snapped off the machine. Donovan hid a twitch of a smile by rubbing his chin.
Emir turned to Brost with a look of cold fury. “Of course it’s an internal matter! Rose, are you suggesting our perimeter has been breached.”
She shrugged off his rage with a casual nonchalance too perfect to be real. “It has happened.”
“Not in years,” Emir said, his mouth tightening into a thin line. “Every transfer is documented.”
“Except at the anomaly points.”
Donovan was grateful he was in a chair. The existence of the temporal cyclone touchpoints in Prime was a hotly debated subject. Central Command officially denied their existence, but the Ruling Council would pay good money for that information. There were over a half dozen people in the room. Including Senturi, who was already on the Council payroll.
Having Rose confirm it openly was . . . not good. Especially for his long-term plans. He’d have to take that into consideration. If nothing else, working for Emir had made him adaptable. Everything here could be twisted to his advantage
Emir made his dithering hand-waggle motion again. “All blocked. All cordoned off. Brost, see to this matter. Rose will offer her assistance and her teams. They are, after all, expert killers.”
Her hands started shaking as soon as she was certain she was alone. Rose stopped, practicing the calming breaths she’d learned as a child. Barely eleven, destined for war, she’d sat in a pale gray room as hidden lights slowly changed color behind translucent panels and learned to control herself. Training had taught her how to slow her heartbeat, hide the panic growing in her body, even keep her mind clean of the poisonous whispers of doubt. It took ten seconds, then she was herself again.
One more deep breath, then she continued down the dimly lit hall. The low ceiling was testament to the afterthought this floor was. Squished between the control levels and the main living areas, the Floor of Boxes was just that: eight-by-eight-by-eight-foot cubes created when the control areas were expanded with new ductwork and two floors were sacrificed. Technically, her rank gave her a living suite in the main area closer to the food court, but she’d declined it in favor of the tiny triad of rooms she’d claimed so she could have a measure of privacy. The living-quarter walls were thin and the halls crowded. Every once in a while, she wanted to be where the people weren’t.
Her door was unmarked, indistinguishable from the neighboring ingresses in every way. The anonymity gave her an added measure of safety. Looking over her shoulder out of paranoid habit, she typed in the fifteen-digit lock code to her room and stepped inside. Her kidnapped node sat sulking on the far side of the room.
“I apologize for the delay,” Rose said, her voice frosted-metal cold. “There was a minor disturbance that required my attention.”
“You have sirens and a lockdown for a minor disturbance?” MacKenzie asked. He was seated on the floor, arms and legs crossed, and his expression gave her no sympathy. “What do you do in a real emergency?”
Rose smiled, pride warming her chest. “We have no emergencies. Our future is set. By controlling the other iterations, we ensure a smooth progression from day to day.”
“So why does this look like a military gulag in North Korea?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m not familiar with that term.”
“This looks like a prison camp. Locks on the doors. No windows. No clearly marked exits. I didn’t get to see many people, but I’d say you’re one wrong turn from a coup.”
She sucked in her cheeks. Soldier Nodes were not usually lauded for their intelligence. It would be nice to work with someone who could think their way out of a wet paper bag, but not right now. “Habitats are not safe to leave,” Rose said. “The air outside is toxic. You can walk outside, but you won’t get far. And there will be no burial. The acid rain will wash you away before anyone knows you’re gone.”
He stood, unfolding and stretching as if she needed the reminder how physically imposing he was. “I’m so glad you brought me to this little piece of paradise, Jane. It’s charming.”
She stiffened her spine. “My name is Commander Samantha Lynn Rose.”
“The only Sam Rose I know is my wife: former CBI Agent Sam Rose, now MacKenzie. You aren’t her.”
“I’m her original,” Rose argued, as her heart drummed with anger. “I’m what she can only aspire to be.”
“That’d be a serious step down for Sam.” For all his smiles and relaxed posture, MacKenzie’s eyes were cold.
She shook her head. This was going all wrong. MacKenzie was a soldier, he was supposed to understand survival and the need to adapt. He just needed time, she counseled herself. And she needed him so she could buy time to stabilize the iterations. “I’m not arguing with you,” she said. “You have the understanding of an infant. In a year, if you want to hold this discussion, I’ll consider you qualified to have this debate.”
His sharp smile said he thought she was wrong.
Rose turned away and hit the unlock code for her dresser, hyperaware of the man in her room.
“Would you like me to leave?” MacKenzie asked, his arms still folded across his chest.
“If my clothes make you uncomfortable, turn around. I have no intention of showering or changing in front of you. But I accept the mental limitations that were imposed on you by a backward iteration.” A place that smelled of salt, flowers, and strange foods in the kitchen she’d found him in. It was alien as the surface of the moon. She pulled the dresser open and lifted a silky, canary-yellow camisole off her uniforms. It hung as limply as the dead woman it belonged to.
There was a suppressed cough from behind her.
“You have a comment?”
“Is that blood?”
“Yes.” Cold, dried blood that spread like across the shirt in rivers of death.
“Is that your shirt?”
She hoped the look she gave MacKenzie conveyed how truly stupid she thought he was. “No.”
“Then, as much as I hate myself for saying this, put that down before you contaminate the evidence any more.” He sighed, then wrinkled his nose. “Sam would laugh if she saw me right now. That woman . . .” For the briefest moment, a smile flitted across his face. “My badge is showing.”
Rose looked him up and down. He was still wearing the same clothes she’d found him in, long, black sleep pants and a gray shirt, with an unseemly stain on the bottom left corner. There was no badge, tattoo, or identity card. A sudden change in his mental stability was not what she needed. “What are you talking about?”
MacKenzie pointed to the shirt. “That belongs to a murder victim.”
“Yes, a young female in her late teens or early twenties.”
“Did you kill her?” MacKenzie asked in a slow, almost patronizing voice.
“Certainly not.” Rose lifted her chin. “I only make authorized terminations of einselected nodes who need to be removed to collapse an unwanted iteration.”
“Do you know who killed the woman?” MacKenzie asked in the same tone as if she hadn’t said anything.
“Of course not.”
“Then you are currently smearing your holier-than-thou DNA all over evidence.”
She stared down at the shirt and tried to adjust her brain to think like the primitive man MacKenzie so obviously was. “You want to find out who killed her?”
“Yes, after I find out who she was and report the death to the proper authorities, the killer will need to be found, put on trial, and dealt with in the manner appropriate to the current laws.”
Understanding crept over her like a winter sunrise clawing its way through the mountains and clouds. “You think this should be investigated?”
“Yes, of course I do. A woman is dead—that’s grounds for investigation in every iteration I’ve heard of.”
“But she’s not from our iteration.” Rose held up the shirt. “This color doesn’t come from here! She’s not one of us. Would you investigate the murder of a body that came in from another iteration?” She shook her head with a wry chuckle. “It’s . . . you’re not laughing.” They stared at each other for an uncomfortable moment. “You’re serious?”
MacKenzie nodded. “My specialty is forensic medicine. I solve murders all the time. Two cases I know for sure were from another iteration: Jane Doe and Juanita Doe. Juanita was Captain Samantha Rose from the Federated States of Mexico. Her killer is a man named Nialls Gant. He’s in jail.” Mac stopped and shook his head. “No—he will be in jail in spring of 2070.”
Rose shook her head. “I’m not concerned about finding a stranger’s killer.” She held the bloody shirt up. “I’m concerned with finding out who put a dead woman’s clothes in my locked room.”