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We meet outside of what looks to be a plain, crumbling warehouse with brick walls. A simple metal door stands before us, but when I wrap my fingers around the handle, I’m greeted with a series of beeps. The door unlatches.
Welcome, Viridian Huntress.
I hesitate before pushing on the door. I’m still not sure Maria should come here. “This way.” I lead her down five flights of stairs until we arrive at B5, the fifth floor of Koenigin Corp’s extensive basement. The floor with the laboratories.
“Agnes, please erase our presence from company records,” I say.
Yes, Viridian.
Now that we’re no longer in the anti-tech field at the Snow estate, my Network connection is back. I make sure to mute my presence so that my Network tag doesn’t appear, and since Maria isn’t augmented, she doesn’t have to worry about anyone noticing her.
Then I use the Network for my own purposes: I keep track of where the various NEL are wandering, where Dr. Johnson is still working in her lab, and where any of the technicians might be passing through. Maria isn’t supposed to be here, and I don’t know what sort of orders Mr. Saito may have given the workers in the wake of his new leadership. For that matter, I’m not entirely sure if he’s still the one in charge, or if the board members are quarreling over who the rightful leader should be.
Dim yellow lights glow in the hall, lending to triangular patches across the floor. Behind me, Maria Snow is absolutely silent. Technically, she’s been here before... when she was escorted out after the enhanced rescued her. But then, she was probably still dazed from the cryogenic chamber.
Now she’s fully aware. Was she fully aware when she kissed me back?
I cringe, hoping she was. It had been so automatic. I was so glad she was still alive...
I suck in a breath and square my shoulders. If she doesn’t like me, I’m trusting that she’ll tell me. And I’ll know soon enough, anyway. She might want nothing to do with me once she sees what happened to President Koenigin.
We round the corner and a sharp stench stings my nose. Maria grimaces, trembling, and covers the lower half of her face with her sleeve. I don’t blame her. I’m used to the musty warehouse smell, but we’re coming close to the rooms with the acrid chemical baths, and I never did like the stink. It burns the nostrils... and the skin it dissolves.
I pick up my pace, my boot heels clicking as I hurry past this corridor. A technician’s Network tag rounds the corner in my vision, and I sharply step back into the shadows and keep my arm out so Maria doesn’t pass me. We wait as the technician crosses the hall. Thankfully, she’s so caught up in her duties that she doesn’t look to the shadows. It’s not dark enough to conceal anybody here, but it is dark enough to keep the untrained eye from seeing someone without a second glance.
I hold my finger to my lips and lead Maria the opposite direction, and then, finally, to the room with the mining creatures. I’m counting on Mr. Saito not sending Koenigin into the mines yet—if he ever does. Sure, it would keep her out of the public eye, and the installed chips means she would have to respond to his orders, but I’m hoping he’s not that cruel. It’s bad enough that my dear president resorted to such tactics, given that, as it turned out, not all of the people subjected to this fate were really criminals.
I lay my hand on the door, take a deep breath, and then turn to Maria Snow. “Are you sure you want to know what happened?”
She raises a thin eyebrow, but nods once. I suspect she doesn’t know what to think. After all, we said the president was gone, and she is. Sort of.
But she’s not dead.
Not if you consider changeling laws.
I hold the door open for Maria, then follow behind her and carefully close the latch so it doesn’t make a sound. Inside, there are a series of angry screeches and a bloodcurdling wail that makes me flinch—which suddenly goes quiet.
Maria looks this way and that in the darkened room, the low red lamp glowing on her face and barely revealing the contours of her misshapen cheek. “What... is this place?” she asks, stunned. “And what does this have to do with President Koenigin?”
The same creature that wailed hisses and extends a lumpy arm through the bars of a cage on the far wall. This whole room is filled with cages, each stacked two high. A few are filled with stocky, ugly creatures that can only see in the night, have three nostrils—the better to smell verwandlungium with—and not much in the way of ears, since Network implants provide most of the communication they need. My attention is on the one with the outstretched arm. There’s an invisible field between us and the cages, so there’s nothing to worry about, but if there wasn’t the field, then we’d need to consider the sharp, near-invincible claws extending from the malformed fingers.
“President Koenigin wasn’t killed in the traditional sense,” I say quietly, eyeing the creature before us. She bares her yellowed teeth. “From the way I understand it, she used an illegal sapience jammer to control the enhanced inside the corporate building in order to send them after you and me. I was knocked out during the course of the fight, and during that time, the enhanced—who were able to get free because of Jorgen’s mangled tech—captured Koenigin, took her impression, and then used her body to make a changeling miner... one of these creatures the company uses for mining verwandlungium. In retribution for what she did to them, they stuck her impression into the new changeling miner body.”
Maria’s mouth hangs open as she stares at me in abject horror.
I motion to the creature in front of us. “That one there is what remains of our dear president.”
The creature howls angrily, banging her fists on the floor and screeching. It’s a hollow sound that echoes around the walls and amplifies, over and over... muffling the strangled squeak Maria emits. She covers her mouth with her hands, her beautiful eyes wide with terror.
“They didn’t... they can’t have!” She stares at the creature, the whites of her eyes completely visible. “You’re telling me the enhanced did this?”
I bite my lip, then nod. “Yes.”
“But...” She shakes her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it. They would never...” Her lip quivers, and she says nothing for a really long time. Slowly, she crouches to her knees, bringing her to the same level as the changeling miner.
“President Koenigin...”
The creature bares her teeth, hissing, but doesn’t strike. She might already know the force field blocks her.
Or maybe she doesn’t want to hurt her daughter.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.” Maria sighs. “I can’t judge what should and shouldn’t have happened. But all this...” She looks around to the cages, then shakes her head sadly. “Why did you do this, Koenigin? Were you really my mother?”
The creature pounds her fists on the bars, shrieking up another storm. Maria scrambles back, startled, and I quickly wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Come on,” I urge. “We should go before anyone comes to investigate the fuss.”
Maria leans against me, not quite refusing to go but not exactly leaving either, and then hurries out as I pull on her to leave. The moment we’re outside and the door clicks shut, closing out the terrible shrieks, Maria pushes me against the wall in one of the shadowy triangles and buries her face against my shoulder, her hands drawn up to her chest defensively.
I freeze. What am I supposed to do?
“Maria...”
“This has to go to court,” she says, her voice stubborn even through her tears.
“What?” I stare down at her, alarmed. “If any of this gets out, Koenigin Corp is done for. Your enhanced friends... me...”
She scowls up at me, her good eye teary and red, the other quivering. “You don’t think I know that? They’re my friends! Granted, they might manage to get a legal excuse, especially if they can prove Koenigin tampered with their sapience chips, but this has to stop!”
“It will!” I assure her. “Mr. Saito won’t... I don’t think he wants to continue this.”
“What makes you so sure?” she hisses, her words slurring now that she’s not so careful to compensate for the ruined half of her lips.
The lips I ruined.
If the public finds out...
“Maria... please. Give Mr. Saito time.” I place my hands on her shoulders, but she jerks away, retreating into the center of the corridor. “He wants to make this right,” I protest. “He wants the company to look good. The videos are already out. He has to deal with that. He can’t sweep it under the rug like Koenigin did. He can’t—”
Maria Snow holds up a shaky finger. “The truth must be told, Verdi. Not just about Koenigin, but anyone else who was illegally captured and turned into one of those miner changelings. How many have vanished who were innocent? Is this what happened to them? The public, especially those who lost someone to your president’s exploits, deserves to know what happened.” She clenches her fists. “If you were telling me the truth about wanting to bring the different companies and the Progressionists together, then you have to understand that the public must be able to trust the companies. That means you have to be beholden to the same legal structure as they are. If you’re not, then there’s no accountability.” She takes a deep breath, her shoulders drawn back with a sureness that resembles her mother. She’s infuriated. I shiver, watching her good eye dart across me, evaluating me. This is the Maria who has no problem standing before a crowd despite being scarred. The one with a fire inside her that Ebs foresaw.
“I understand Mr. Saito needs time,” Maria continues, her voice strangely calm. “I really do. So I’ll give him a few days to sort himself out before I press the matter. But if he wants me to work with bringing Koenigin Corp and the SNP together, then tell him this... I know how impressions work. I know they can be transferred into other bodies. Koenigin needs to stand trial for her crimes. And he better give the enhanced, and everyone else who got caught up in her schemes, a fair chance.” She huffs. “I’m ready to leave.”
I swallow hard, and then nod quickly. I check the Network to make sure no one is coming, and then speed-walk her back to the exit.
My whole body shakes. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I can say.
My heart sinks, and it feels like the world is crashing down on me and pinning me under the rubble of a dozen wrecked cars.
I broke a promise. Now Maria is furious, with good reason, and I’m about to find out what Mr. Saito does to those who break their word.
