Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (29 page)

“Your statement is unsound
emotionalism. I am merely stating what a functional theory was. It
is irrelevant, in any case. Briefing and mobilization are primary.”
She turned and faced the others. “Who has the briefing?”

“I do.” Julieta
twisted herself out of the chair into which she’d been coiled. She
sized Maeve up, wondering whether she’d misjudged the other woman.
She
seemed
okay,
and certainly sounded like she was ready to take command and lead
them. “Over here.”

“Your tactical assessments are
admirable. Who is the principal target?”

“This guy. Robert Warden.” Julieta
shoved a tablet over to Maeve.

“There is no photo.”

“We won’t need it. We have
somebody who can identify him.”

“Is this person on the ground with
Warden?”

“Affirmative. He’ll stay with or
near him as long as he can.”

“Where is Warden’s current
location?”

“We think here. It’s his summer
home, from what our source has told us.” Julieta brought a map up
on a larger viewscreen. “You can also see the other locations we
know of where he either has operations, or else what one might call
safe houses.”

“He will be here.” Maeve had
walked over to the map. She touched a section in the Mediterranean,
enlarging it until a tiny Aegean island was centered.

“Why there? His summer place is in
the French Alps, protected by high peaks…it’s like a
fortress.”

“He wishes to be found. An island
is easily defensible, but accessible. Ask your source what he knows
about this place.”

“Whoa, wait. Why would you assume
he wants us to hunt him down? He sent someone to kill us. That
would indicate that he’d rather keep us away.”

“A killer with his own agenda is
what this guy sent.” Antonio waved his own tablet at
them.

“Are you hacking the station
network?” Grace scrambled to peer over his shoulder.

“I think all bets are off right
now. The colonel has a preliminary report on his desk, as it were,
linking a murder onboard a tourist ship to what happened here. The
ship happened to make a layover here on the Nimitz, on the day that
the doctor…you know.” He made a whooshing noise, moving his hand
quickly at the same time.

“Great. What kind of
murder?”

“Well, Signorina Julieta, it’s a
nasty little story. Victim was late thirties, female, strangled.
Signs of sexual activity, but no confirmation on the nature of
same.”

“What on earth does that
mean?”

“It means they don’t know when the
activity took place yet.”

“But Jemi wasn’t strangled. Why
did they link it to her?”

“A curious little thing. DNA found
on scene, not belonging to the victim, not on file
anywhere.”

“The invisible man.”

“Not invisible. Maeve saw him. You
saw what he looked like, right?” She was silent.

“Maeve?”

“I must have informed the station
authorities. It is their responsibility now. The only relevant fact
from what took place and what Assunta has added is that a killer
with an obvious weakness was sent. This indicates that his role may
be to provide intelligence, more than to actually accomplish a set
task.”

“You’re saying that he was sent to
size us up?”

“It seems likely. He may even be a
liability to this Warden, in spite of whatever skills he has.
Warden may have posited that, if his assassin succeeded, we were
never a true threat anyway. But now he knows that he should not
underestimate us.”

“That would tend to imply that
this Warden person is possibly a lot more dangerous than we’ve
thought.”

“Perhaps you ought to pay
attention to your source, who seems to have no trouble in escaping
Warden’s watchful eye.” Julieta’s gaze traveled down to the
briefing materials, which included a quick update on Boko’s
movements. She glanced over her shoulder at Mrs. Han. The old woman
gave a nervous shrug, and quickly left the room.

Why hadn’t Boko known anything
concrete about this assassin? And while his grandfather had
predicted his return, she was bothered by the timing. Had he gone
to see Kun because he felt threatened or in imminent danger, or was
he playing both sides? She sighed and looked back at
Maeve.

Even though she sounded reasonably
rational and daresay, leaderly, there was something not quite
right. It wasn’t Maeve herself giving the indication, though.
Julieta had not known her well enough to know the difference there.
It was plain on Wallace’s face, and Leif’s as well, that something
was up.

“Mrs. Han said she’d have some
food waiting for us in the kitchen. Leif, could you give me a
hand?” He swiveled his head quickly, ready to voice dissent, until
he caught Julieta’s exaggerated eyeball rolling toward the
door.

“I guess.”

“We’ll be back in five minutes.”
She waited until they were both in the hallway headed downstairs
before pouncing. “Alright, Christensen. What is up?”

“Hard to say for sure.”

“Well, give it a try.”

“I think I mentioned that we
weren’t really sure what kind of programming she’d been through.
When they dumped her up at the listening post…I took it at face
value. It wasn’t until later, when everyone else started showing up
with orders that I really began to wonder.”

“Um, you lost me.”

“You’re not stupid. None of us is.
All that crap we were told, about dodging some evil plan to turn us
into super soldiers or whatever?”

“You think we were being trained
instead of saved?”

“Maybe not by the same people who
got to Maeve, but yes. Do you remember having a single dream at any
point we were there? Do you?” He was stuck on this point. Part of
him wished that someone would disagree. He didn’t want this to be
their reality after all.

“You can’t expect me to remember
that!”

“We’re ticking bombs, Jules.
Maeve, on the other hand, is active.”

“What!? Crap on a cracker…what the
hell are we doing, shouldn’t we stop her?”

“How? We don’t know what she was
programmed to do. And regardless of what you might think, hurting
her is not an option.”

“She must have gotten triggered
during that attack. Warden wouldn’t have done that intentionally…it
doesn’t make sense. His intel must not be complete.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
We’ve got to try and talk about this with the others, though. If
I’m right about us having been programmed at some point, she may be
the one to know our triggers.”

“Shit…there’s no fighting against
that. What are we supposed to do?”

“Go along with it. Don’t fight
her. Maybe she won’t initiate anything if she sees we’re fully
cooperating.”

“Great. Then what do we do if she
goes completely nuts?” She noted the faintly stricken look on his
face. “Sorry, Leif, but this isn’t a frigging opera here. We have
to think about it.”

“Somebody better be ready with a
big dose of something to knock her out.”

۞

Boko had received news from his
grandfather. Things were not going according to plan anymore.
Something had happened, and the others were coming back much
earlier, en masse, while his own role was being
rewritten.

“
I want you to come back here, Boko,
before he gets the news that they have left the
Nimitz
. It will be much more difficult for you
to move freely once they have. Seek out a holiday, or an assignment
that will take you away from his reach.”

“
But who will finish my end of
things?”

“
I will tell you that once you arrive.
Please, just do as I ask.” So, he had. He was on his way out of
Athens, carefully making sure that he was not being followed. There
had been a convenient flight out of the city, to within five
hundred miles of his grandfather. After that, he would make his way
slowly, and cautiously.

It hadn’t been an easy thing to
concoct a reason for leaving, either. He’d thought all night, and
walked in to his office the next day without a single thought in
mind. Providentially, or perhaps because Grandfather had realized
what a task he’d set before his grandson, something had arrived
just that morning.

A messenger was needed in the
Americas, someone highly trusted, to carry back to Warden some
documents and other materiel. It was not to be given over to anyone
outside the organization. It couldn’t be trusted to the postal
services with their invasive screening procedures. No, it had to be
given over by hand. Naturally, Warden had looked immediately to his
“good friend” and trusted colleague. He had chosen Boko so quickly,
actually, that suspicion had arisen immediately in Boko’s
breast.

There had been fear and anger in that
man’s mind as he had readied for his trip back to Peru. He had
analyzed and rethought every moment of the conversation between
Warden and him. One thought was that Warden was testing him.
Another was that, for all his black heart, Warden might actually be
naïve.

Boko still walked with an eye
permanently cast over his shoulder. He decided to make his way to
the mountains over the space of four days. That would give the
others enough time to make their way back planetside, while he
could be completely sure to lose anyone who might be
following.

He’d emptied his apartment of personal
effects before leaving, making sure to give no hint of being
permanently gone. Most of his clothes were still there, as well as
food, and plants. All his photos and letters were with him, while
souvenirs or other telling objects had been dumped anonymously at
charities in the city. He traveled lightly, carrying only a
fifty-pound pack. He would take public transportation as far as it
could go, knowing that he would have to hike the rest of the route
to the way station.

Once he got there, someone could call
Grandfather, and he would finish the journey the way he had last
time. Of course, last time, he’d hired locals to drive him to the
way station, and paid them generously to forget him. This time, he
couldn’t afford to part with money. He’d changed it all over to
gold standard upon arriving in Peru. An extremely elderly man in a
dingy storefront had accomplished this task, wordlessly
calculating, running a tongue over toothless gums. No questions, no
refunds, no negotiating, and most of all, no identity
check.

He made his way over the
countryside to the still-vast forests. The Ayamara farmers barely
paid him any heed as he passed through. Mountain climbers were
still a regular sight. The llamas were the only ones who paid him
any mind. They all trailed behind him, bleating wistfully for a
treat.

He gave them slivers of the fruit
that he’d brought with him. After that foolish move, they adored
him over quite a distance before heeding the herder’s flute. Once
they were gone, his only company was birds and monkeys. They only
watched him from a safe distance, sensing that he had nothing of
interest for them.

۞

She was still, buried, exhausted.
All the digging and scrabbling in the debris she’d done had
accomplished very little. There was no budging the long beams of
wood and piles of concrete pinning her down. It was beginning to
seem clear that she’d been drawn into her subconscious by this
other entity. She still did not recollect how something as
deliberate as this could have ended up in her brain. Maybe this was
why her friends always seemed to be watching her, as if waiting for
something.

Yes, she had been lured in, and
trapped, deliberately. If this other…thing…could manipulate her
mindscape, though, why shouldn’t she be able to do the same? It was
hers, after all. The trick was figuring out how to exert that much
control. Or maybe it wasn’t about a quantity.

She’d put out the fire after all.
How had she done that? It worried her a little; what if she hadn’t
been the one to do it? Had it been part of the lure? The biggest
unknown, though, the fear that weakened her resolve, was what would
happen once she got out. What sort of battle might she face once
she caught up with this invader? The uncertainty ate away at her
until she decided to rest. Sleep would probably help her sort
things out.

۞

“What’s up Dem? You have a really
crummy sense of timing, you know?”

“What did I interrupt?” There was
silence on the other end. “Never mind. I’ll just assume that you’re
with Sa’andy and leave it at that.”

“Would you mind telling me why you
had to send a PFC to come pound on the door to my
domicile?”

“Sorry. Yes. Uh, the thing is, I
ran into Maeve.”

“I thought she was due to stay
overnight in the clinic. No?”

“She was. They called me and said
she was discharged against doctor’s orders.”

“This doesn’t sound
promising.”

“So, no, not really. She was
behaving a bit oddly, and then she knocked me on my
ass.”