Chapter 40

13 January 1 A.A.

“I can’t tell you much about that room, Jaron. Except, I’m sorry to say, you were right.”

Bryce tried not to listen. He didn’t want the gory details of someone’s sordid demise, but was unable to stop following the sound of Ri’s voice.

They’d found Jaron observing the sunrise and, after watching the parrots dance across the morning sky, had retired to this shaded grove. The parrot man was especially mellow this morning. And Robbie was simply far too cheerful a person to be around at this hour.

“Two people entered the room and other than a few stains around the recycle chute, there is no sign of what happened to the one who didn’t leave. The one who left locked the door down as hard as she could just two weeks ago. Last time she logged into the system was three days ago. I have made some discreet inquiries, but conveniently no one even remembers she existed. I may have seen her on the day she disappeared.”

Robbie leaned forward. “I don’t know if this counts. Wadworthy, one of our crew, has been missing about that long.”

Bryce tried to place the guy by name. Short and balding? Tall and wiry? Couldn’t track him down. No one wore nametags in the pub.

Jaron tapped at the screen on his commpad without looking up. “He’ll show.”

“I don’t think so, Jaron. He’ll be the second one from our crew. Known them both since Venezuela.”

Bryce rubbed his eyes trying to keep them open. The dreary heat of the jungle didn’t help. The creek burbled quietly along one side of the clearing. A few hours sleep perched on the edge of a chair wasn’t near enough.

Robbie punched his arm hard enough that he had to cradle it against him to stop the sharp pain running up its nerves.

“What?”

“Sleeping on the job, Master Barkeep. Lady asked you a question.”

He blinked hard at Ri. He could see the corners of her mouth sliding upward despite being in one of her serious modes. Great. Now he had two women laughing at him. She was perched on an arching root like some damn leprechaun. No, between the midnight hair and the electric blue shipsuit, she was more like a raven come to roost.

He shared a smile with Jaron at Ri’s expense. Even better, without her knowing why.

“Sorry, what?”

“Can you quantify what’s going on in R4U?”

“Never tried.” He closed his eyes to picture the previous night. The first thing he could remember was how she looked right before sleep. She’d yawned so deeply he could have removed her tonsils before she was done. But that couldn’t be what she meant. He opened his eyes and noticed how close Jaron and Robbie were sitting. He appeared unaware of her unusual proximity, but neither was he moving away. Surprising that he’d missed that change. Must have been recent.

“The bar?” Robbie glared at him as she noticed where his attention had wandered.

“Right. Fights are now more frequent than not. Attendance is at an all time high. Consumption has grown steadily with apparently no upper limit as Ri can attest.” She had a nice blush despite her darker skin.

“I am still brewing ahead of demand, but that too is becoming problematic. If I have to limit sales, it could get very ugly, very fast. I don’t want to risk that.”

His storeroom had already reached its physical limits despite two complete redesigns of equipment and shelving. In another few weeks, he might have to move some apparatus down into L0 and even add another assistant. Maybe he could knock a hole into the next storefront. Surely they wouldn’t mind a few brewing tanks in the middle of their restaurant.

“Have you observed any regulars who are no longer around?” Jaron looked up from his commpad and Robbie used the excuse of looking at it to lean in even closer.

“Sure. Several, but that could be meaningless. I lost track of one only to see her crop up two weeks later in an R2 pub.”

Ri rose slowly to her feet and faced him. “What was her last name?”

“Never knew. Why?” It was true. Wirden, Stevens, or something else. He didn’t know and he wouldn’t tell even if he did. He’d promised.

She took the commpad from Jaron’s hands and tapped in a request before turning it to Bryce. Emilia’s exquisite face and flaming red hair looked out of the small screen at him.

He nodded. Then the implications struck him like a blow in the solar plexus as Ri explained.

“Emilia Wirden. Hers was the print that locked down the room in Northeast. We think the blood may have belonged to this man.” She updated the screen again and handed it to him.

He recognized the digger. He was the one who’d suggested to Emilia that he was the one who was right for her. He’d unknowingly helped name the pub. Bryce very much wanted to be sick.

“Otto Kenman, formerly registered as a jungle worker, is the one she sent down the chute. It had to be in pieces, he was a big man and it’s a small recycler. The last time she thumbed into Stellar One’s computer was three days ago in R2L3 at the entrance to a system’s maintenance closet. We don’t know what happened after that because there is no recycler or airlock in there. She may still be alive somewhere, but we have no way of confirming that.”

He dropped the commpad from his nerveless fingers. “Her real name is Celia Wirden. She was married to World Premier James Wirden. And if she hasn’t surfaced by now, she’s gone.”

He tried to stand and walk away, but the blazing jungle heat didn’t give him enough air. He’d last seen her stalking out of the Desert Pub. A tall, gorgeous fire of righteous anger when Jackson Turner had leapt from her arms to follow Ri out the door.

That must have been shortly before she’d died. She’d been so angry that she’d done something stupid. He should have grabbed her and swept her into his arms. Made love to her until he reached the young girl filled with dreams who been twisted by a man wicked before his time.

He fell to the grass and hung his head. If only he’d reached out, but he hadn’t thought of it until she was out of sight. If only he’d been quicker, some part of his past might be redeemed. To undo a piece of the Old Bastard’s cruelty, but now that chance too was gone.

A small hand grasped his shoulder, but he didn’t have the strength to pull away.

“Why?” It was the only word in him.

“I don’t know. That’s why I need your help. All of you.”

He dipped his hand into the nearby stream. After running down from the sun-baked walls it was almost the temperature of blood. With the way the recyclers worked, it could be Emilia’s blood flowing through his fingers.

“To do what?”

“I’m not a scientist. Jaron and Robbie are. I’m just a fighter. I don’t know how to study a population. And you…”

He could feel a squeeze on his shoulder. Did she know? Was it possible that she’d found out he had the memories of the great murderer of the modern era?

“You are a man of many resources. I ask for your help as an observant bartender to help us solve what is occurring. You see things I don’t, but need to. Tell me what you see and hear. Is that too much to ask?”

It was too much. It meant listening with the Old Bastard’s ears, watching with his eyes. Swimming in the deep, deep memories from which he might never surface again. And what did it matter? Emilia was dead. His mother was dead too. He scooped a handful of the blood-warm water onto his palm.

Let them all die if they were destined to. That was the right choice. The safe choice, too. The Old Bastard had come too close to winning too many times. Don’t give him the least little chance.

“I won’t force you.” Ri squatted down beside him. Her voice was a whisper barely louder than the bubbling of the water.

“But I need your help. I need someone to see with your grandfather’s eyes. I think you have that ability, Bryce.”

The voice inside crowed in triumph. He slowly closed his fist on the little puddle in his hand. He turned to tell her to go to hell. To tell her he was sorry. That he wasn’t in control. To tell her that the voice in his head was wrong. He opened his mouth and felt as if he were drowning.

She reached for him and he leapt like a sprinter leaving the blocks. Through the stream, down the trail. Turned aside by every branch that lashed at him. Fighting for every breath, every step. A squirrel burst across the trail, startled from its nest, narrowly escaped. He plunged into a cul-de-sac of twisted branches. He turned at bay as Ri came trotting smoothly up the trail with all the ease and grace of a practiced runner. She stopped, blocking the only exit.

She waited him out in silence until the poisons built to toxic levels and words slashed out from him.

“Bryce Sr. used that power of observation to manipulate people. He killed Emilia as surely as if he’d pulled the trigger and shoved her out some airlock himself. He twisted my mother, my poor innocent mother. She fought. She fought so hard. But she’s dead like all the others. And you want me to…” He ran down unable to complete the sentence.

“But wasn’t there any good in him? Something you could admire?”

He could only shake his head like a bull confused by the matador into immobility. There was much to respect, too much perhaps, but which were Bryce’s thoughts and which were his parent’s? Bryce Sr. had fought ruthlessly for his ideals: a better, healthier, more peaceful race.

And he’d destroyed every person in his path, friend, foe, and innocent alike. He’d rammed a billion people into their graves. They’d tested positive for potential hereditary disease or latent criminality by his vaunted Second Human Genome Mapping Project.

“Bryce? Talk to me. Please.”

When his eyes focused on her face, he saw so much compassion and sympathy, despite who he was. But she didn’t know what he was. His knees gave way. She knelt before him but remained silent.

He ran a finger along the fine line of her cheek. She closed her eyes against the sensation. When he stopped, she reopened those dark wells to her soul. It wasn’t against the sensation. It was because of it. She took his hand, but it was too much. He pulled back, but she wouldn’t let him go.

“I grew up in his house, his favorite dancing doll. Wind me up and I’m wholly predictable. I’m a copy. My memories are his. I’m nothing but an imprint fresh off the press of the cruelest man who ever lived.” He threw the words at her to push her away, but she didn’t move, or release him.

“I’m a goddamn clone, Ri. A clone of the world’s dictator. Personally responsible for over a billion deaths. And the worst part is I remember it all. Every order. Every command. Every insanely justified decision. I’m stuck with his memories, too. Implanted. They roar. They cry to be released. I remember poisoning James Wirden, twisting Celia Wirden, possessing her body and soul, doing my damnedest to drive my birth-mother to her grave. God, Ri. Suzie Jeffers was such a great lady. I wish you’d known her.” It was true, too. They would have lik—

“What’s wrong? Ri? I didn’t know you could get so pale.” Her liquid eyes so wide they were nearly round.

“You’re the son?”

He nodded his head. Son of the Old Bastard. Grandson. Clone. Didn’t matter what he was called.

She pulled away ever so slowly. Each tiny withdrawal felt like a condemnation of his soul.

Then he noticed the tears.

Tears flowed down her face as she covered her head with her arms and curled into a small ball. Sobs racked her beyond any sense.

At last he could stand it no longer and gathered her into his arms. She turned into his shoulder and shook as new cries wracked her frame. Her words were garbled beyond comprehension as they spilled out of her. Gulping air between outbursts she finally ended up giving herself the hiccups.

He couldn’t help laughing to see Security Chief Ri brought so low that she could do little more than hiccup and weep. At last she was reduced to just the occasional gasp for breath.

She ran a hand lightly down his chest, as if pawing him gently.

“Oh, Bryce.” She paused. “I’m so sorry. I… I killed your mother. I killed the Angel-lady.” She hung her head and leaned against him until the top of her head was pressed against the center of his chest.

Bryce pictured Suzie as he’d last seen her. Immaculate white suit, flowing blond hair, stepping from his shuttle off to tackle the morning. Angel-lady. It was a good description.

“Hey,” he grabbed Ri’s chin and forced her to look at him. “What do you mean you killed her?”

She shook her head. “Angel-lady never told me who she was. She lived in a palace in Bermuda. I lived there when I wasn’t training with Levan. Until I killed her.”

She tried to go fetal again, but he wouldn’t let her.

He could hardly believe his ears—first the story of Suzie and Levan kidnapping Ri from the ruins of Japan. Then the story of Suzie and Ri’s last fight in the ruins of Nara trying to rescue the tattered remains of Ri’s Cadre.

His mother hadn’t been cowed by the Old Man. She’d done amazing things.

But Ri didn’t stop.

“I killed us, too. She built Stellar One. It was all her idea. We fought so. I drove her from Stellar One back to Earth when she would have stayed. I wouldn’t speak to her, I couldn’t, not after… I’d just killed my cadre leader and let the Zenbu take my chief hunter. To save her life, to save mine. I couldn’t speak. I drove her away. Oh God, I killed us all. She’d have known what to do, but I drove her away.”

“You don’t know that she would have stayed.”

“Yes, I do. Robbie told me. That the Angel-lady wanted nothing more than to go to space with us.”

The large biologist knew his mother as well. The jungle they were sitting in must be his mother’s work, as was the ship. Maybe, just maybe, if his mother had stood up against the Old Bastard, so could he. He’d help Ri and probably be damned. But maybe not.

He listened inside his head for a long moment, but the memories were silent. Perhaps Ri’s path was one Bryce Sr. had never walked. For once it was up to Bryce Jr. to answer Ri’s call for aid.

As he nodded to himself, he could imagine just a hint of his mother’s lavender perfume upon the jungle air.

# # #

“Where have you been? Are you okay? You look like shit.”

Ri held onto the airlock frame and stared at Jackson. She managed to reach the lounge table sinking onto the bench.

“Ri?”

She shook her head and stared down at the table. She was vaguely aware that he left the table and returned with a cup of coffee. She shook her head and pushed it aside. Juice would have been good but not coffee. Maybe he thought she was drunk. She almost laughed. Wouldn’t that be a relief?

Icarus was so neat and ordered it was surreal compared with what she just been through. The only clutter was a couple of loose vid-wafers near Donnie’s end of the couch and half-a-dozen references Hank had clearly forgotten he was reading.

“Ri?” Jackson sat beside her. He reached out a hand and rested it on her forearm. “Devra called. Seems you’ve missed your shift. I told her you were busy, but apparently it was a command shift. She ended up standing your watch last night. She didn’t sound amused.”

Ri nodded but couldn’t find the energy to move. “I’ve been touring the other rings. Have you gone there, Jackson?”

“Nope. Only the Desert Pub and that R2 ag-bay with you. Oh, I know. Let’s go back to the forest biome. We’ll make a picnic…” He’d taken her chill hand in his two warm ones. They felt strong and safe.

“I was just there.” Ri blinked and tried to focus, but all she could see was the two hands wrapped around hers. “This morning…afternoon, whatever. I’ve been walking all day and night I guess. What time is it, anyway? The rings. Christ, Jackson, they’re all different.”

“Sure different biomes. Different color schemes.”

Ri shook her head until he stopped.

“No. They’re…” she searched her weary brain for another word, “…different.” She’d left Bryce in the halls outside the jungle and decided to check Jaron’s observations of R4 by walking the corridors. She skipped R4L1 Northeast. After all, she’d already been there twice in 24 hours; and the second time had scared the daylights out of her.

It was worse than she’d ever imagined. Each ring, each level had a different character than she’d expected. And when it wasn’t more dangerous, it was simply weirder. Someone had painted all of R3L3 West in zebra stripe. The entire corridor, floor, walls, and ceiling. It had made for a surreal and intensely disorienting half-kilometer walk. Then, between one step and the next everything was back to normal. Of them all, only Ring One contained any semblance of normalcy.

Jackson, obviously piqued by her non-responsiveness, slouched back and stretched his legs under the table. He folded his hands behind his head. He had his condescending, know-it-all look. The one he wore when he was pretending to be patient.

“Okay, so they’re different. What’s the big deal?”

“Go to hell, Captain Turner.” She staggered to her feet and looked down at him.

“Just go to hell.” She managed to reach the nearest quarters and locked the door behind her. She was only vaguely aware of falling onto the bunk.