“Hell with that,” said Owen. “If we fight, with our powers and their implanted weapons, we’ll die, they’ll die, and most of the poor bastards captive here will die. And I won’t stand for that. No one’s dying here today. I’ve had a bellyful of death.”
He reached out through the link again, gathering up all of those who’d been through the Maze, and focused their joined minds through Tobias Moon. Together they dived through Moon’s mind and on into the joined consciousness of the augmented men, like swimmers of light entering a vast dark ocean. The Hadenmen tried to force them out, their minds backed up by the great computers that linked them all, but Moon was still a part of them, a door into their joined mind, and he wouldn’t let them shut him out. The shared consciousness of the Hadenmen. It was a huge place, the product of hundreds of thousands of minds, and at first the Maze minds were lost in the sheer scale of it. But the Hadenmen minds were limited by the logic of the computers they allowed to link them. Owen and the others were fueled by the rage and horror of what they’d seen in the labs, and magnified by the power of the Maze, they combined their feelings into a single hammer blow of outrage that slammed into the joined Hadenman mind and shattered it like a mirror. Hundreds of thousands of separate fragments fell apart, broken on the anvil of a greater faith than theirs. The darkness dissipated, and there was only light. Owen and the others looked on what they had done, saw it to be good, pulled out of their link, and fell back into their own minds.
Owen blinked his eyes several times, gathering his thoughts, and then looked around the laboratory. The Hadenmen still stood where they had been, but the glow in their eyes had gone out. None of them were moving. Hazel reached cautiously out and gave the nearest augmented man a gentle push. It rocked on its feet and nearly fell, but made no move to right itself. Owen had an almost hysterical need to see it fall, and topple all the others like dominoes.
“They’re not dead,” said Moon quietly. “But they are shut down. All of them. Their minds have turned themselves off rather than face what we showed them.”
“Hold everything,” said Hazel. “We shut them all down? Everyone in the building?”
“Everyone in the city, everyone on Brahmin II,” said Moon. “I’m still plugged into the main computers. The systems are still functioning, but no one’s home to guide them. Hadenmen elsewhere, on other worlds, are unaffected, but the reign of the Hadenmen here is over.”
“I brought them back into the Empire,” said Owen. “I guess it’s only fitting that I should shut them down again. Who knows, maybe some day we can . . . reprogram them, reawaken their humanity, the way we did yours, Moon.”
“Yes,” said Moon. “Maybe someday.”
“In the meantime we’d better contact the Empire, and call for a relief team,” said Owen. “There’s a lot of people here who are going to need a lot of help once we unplug them from the Hadenmen machines. We may never be able to undo everything that was done to them, but we have to try. We have to save as many as we can.”
“They’re not your responsibility, Owen,” said Hazel gently. “None of this was. Let it go.”
“Maybe,” said Owen. He looked at Moon. “You’ve lost your people again. I’m sorry.”
“They were never really my people,” said Moon. “I just wished they were.”
“Come with us,” said Hazel. “Be one of us again. We’re your family now.”
Moon looked at Bonnie and Midnight. “That should be . . . interesting. Are you two really alternate versions of Hazel?”
“We like to think she’s an alternate version of us,” said Midnight. “And we’ve decided to stick around for a while, see how things play out in this universe.”
“Right,” said Bonnie. “I could use a break from running Mistworld, and I do miss a little action now and again.”
“And it’ll mean we can spend more time with Owen,” said Midnight brightly.
“Oh, good,” said Owen, and glared at Hazel as she tried to stifle her laughter.
CHAPTER FIVE
Old Hatreds and New Revenges
Jack Random paced back and forth in Ruby Journey’s luxurious apartment, waiting impatiently for her to make an appearance. They were running late again, but that was nothing unusual where Ruby was concerned. She never let herself be hurried by anyone, outside of actual armed conflict. He kept himself from looking at the clock on the wall yet again by an act of extreme self-control, and glared around the apartment as though he could force Ruby into appearing through sheer willpower. It didn’t work.
There was a lot to look at in the apartment. It had all the comforts money and intimidation could bring, including a few that were technically illegal, though Jack doubted anyone had dared point that out to Ruby. There were thick rugs on the floor, tacky paintings of dubious taste on three of the walls, and a huge holoscreen that covered all of the fourth wall. A glass chandelier, quite amazingly awful in its clumsy ostentation, hung far too low from the ceiling of a room far too small for it. Ruby had one in each room. She liked chandeliers.
Rickety antiques stood next to the very latest in leisure designs, ostentatiously ignoring each other. The antiques looked as though they’d collapse under him if he so much as thought about sitting on them, and the comfy chairs all insisted on giving him a massage whether he wanted one or not. Jack gave them a wide berth. He felt very firmly that furniture should know its place, and not get overly familiar.
Scattered across the room were all kinds of high-tech gadgets, some of them still half unpacked. Every labor-saving device, every new convenience and overpriced fad of the moment, had wheedled their way into Ruby’s apartment, only to be forgotten or discarded almost as soon as they arrived. For Ruby ownership was everything. And she never threw anything out, partly because she didn’t believe in giving up things that were hers, and partly on the grounds that you never knew when it might come in handy.
The massive ironwood coffee table set exactly in the middle of the room was covered with piles of discarded style magazines, the last three issues of
Which Gun,
and no less than four opened boxes of chocolate, with all the coffee creams missing. Jack looked wistfully at the chocolates, but wouldn’t allow himself to be tempted. Thanks to the Maze, his weight never changed by so much as an ounce, no matter how much he ate, and he knew that once he started, he probably wouldn’t stop till he’d emptied at least one entire box. Ruby wouldn’t mind, but she’d undoubtedly give him one of her knowing looks, and he hated that.
He didn’t even look at the massive bar, with its proud examples of every kind of liquor, gutrot, and sudden death in a bottle known to man or alien. The Maze had made him immune to all kinds of poison, including hangovers, and he had always believed one should suffer from one’s excesses. That’s how you knew they were excesses.
A chair purred invitingly at him as he passed, and he gave it a good kick to shut it up. At least Ruby had got rid of her small army of servants and hangers-on. At one point he hadn’t even been able to get to see Ruby without making an appointment or threatening to shoot several people. But she soon saw through the hangers-on, and got bored with the servants, and threw the whole lot of them out one memorable afternoon that the neighbors were still talking about. It turned out that several had tried selling their stories of Life With Ruby to the media, and one had got all sulky after she kicked them out of her bedroom, and tried to knife her. Bits of his body kept turning up in the sewers for weeks afterward.
Jack sighed and finally came to a halt, staring at nothing in particular. He felt tired. And tired of being tired. For weeks now he’d been working all day and long into the evening, fighting to keep his dream of democracy alive, and struggling to make himself over into a diplomat rather than a warrior. Parliament had many enemies, and when they weren’t trying to undermine or discredit it, the MPs seemed perfectly happy to tear the whole institution apart themselves. After so long as a glorified rubber stamp, real power had gone to the heads of many MPs, even if they weren’t too sure yet what to do with it. New political parties were forming every day, wrapped around a kernel of dogma or the cult of a personality. The news shows were stuffed with talking heads, promising everything up to and including the Second Coming in return for votes, and poster gangs fought vicious wars in the streets during the wee hours.
Jack found himself facing one of the several full-length mirrors on the walls and studied himself soberly. He looked young, fit, in the peak of physical fitness. He’d overcome all his enemies and seen the old order thrown down. Lionstone was gone and the Families fatally weakened. He should have had the universe by the throat. So why did he feel so damned tired? Part of it was having to do so much on his own. Owen and Hazel were always off on their own missions, and Ruby had no interest in politics. Or anything else much these days. The novelty of immense wealth had worn off very quickly, much to Ruby’s surprise. When you can have anything, very little has value anymore. Of late she seemed to spend most of her time sleeping, drinking, or trying to start fights in places where they hadn’t heard of her. She tried to get into the Arenas, but no one would face her. Even the aliens tended to go sick rather than face Ruby Journey, including a few that hadn’t previously been recognized as intelligent.
Jack supposed he should be grateful that he at least still had some purpose in his life. Even if it was one he wouldn’t have chosen. Nursing the new democracy through its birth pangs was hard, bitter, and often disillusioning work. He’d always vaguely supposed democracy would just sweep across the Empire like a great tide, washing away the old nonsense of aristocracy and privilege, and the people would joyfully step forward to shoulder the burdens of power and responsibility. He should have known better.
His reflection looked back at him with quizzical eyes. He had a lot to be grateful for, after all. He was young again, his personal clock turned back by the Maze to a man in his early twenties. He was stronger, faster, and fitter now than at any time in his life. Acknowledged by many as one of the greatest warriors of his age. So why did he feel so damned
old
?
He turned his back on his reflection and looked around the luxurious apartment, trying to see it with the eyes of his old, previous self, the legendary professional rebel. This wasn’t the kind of place he’d ever expected to end up. Most of his life had been spent living in poor, temporary accommodation on one oppressed planet or another, hiding away from prying eyes or potential traitors. He hadn’t cared then. All that mattered was the cause. He had no right to live in ease or luxury while so many slaved in poverty.
Of course, such feelings had come easily enough when he was young and fit, and bedding a new stars-in-her-eyes comrade of the rebellion every other night. As he got older, as his failures grated on him more and more, he’d found the rebel path harder and harder to follow. So many good friends dead, so many hopes raised on so many worlds, only to be dashed by superior Empire forces and firepower. He’d always got away, but he had left armies of the dead behind him. It was almost a relief when he was finally betrayed and captured on Cold Rock. His legend had become an impossible weight to carry, and after his people eventually broke him out of captivity, he’d sunk into anonymity on Mistworld as the janitor called Jobe Ironhand with simple gratitude. It felt so good not to have so many people’s lives depending on his every decision. His living accommodations had still been bloody basic, though.
And then, of course, Owen bloody Deathstalker had arrived out of nowhere to call him back to duty and destiny, and later the Madness Maze rebuilt him, the rebellion had come and gone so quickly he could hardly believe it, and he was left with the sobering effect of seeing all his dreams come true. He’d achieved pretty much everything he’d ever wanted or dreamed of, but . . . what do you do when you have no dreams left? Oh, he had enough chores and duties to keep him busy for years yet. He could make a living out of politics. But it wasn’t the same somehow.
His present circumstances were comfortable but modest. He had a one-bedroom apartment in the office building adjoining Parliament. He’d chosen it so he could always be there on the spot if he was needed, and also because he needed the extra security to ward off his many enemies. He’d upset a lot of people in his time, on all sides of the political spectrum. Everyone agreed the deal he’d struck with Blue Block over the Families had been necessary, but that didn’t mean anyone had to like it.
Personally, he didn’t give a damn. The assassination attempts were the only real excitement he got these days. But he worried about innocents getting hurt or even killed just by being near him at the wrong moment, so he had reluctantly moved his few belongings into more secure accommodations. The frequency of attacks dropped dramatically, but his new home wasn’t the kind of place where friends could just drop in. There were times when the spartan apartment seemed unbearably quiet and empty.
After the rebellion Jack and Ruby had set up house together, but it didn’t last. They were just too different. Their opposing tastes, needs, and characters drove them apart inside a month. His spartan clashed with her sybaritic; he wanted to work, she wanted to play. He was a man of duty and honor, and she . . . would rather go shopping. Or start a fight in a crowded tavern. Just because they loved each other, it didn’t mean they could live together. And they couldn’t spend all their time in bed. Their growing frustrations finally culminated in a major shouting row, in which they both said unforgivable things and then threw heavy objects at each other. They wrecked their house room by room and then walked out on each other. Once they were set up in separate apartments, a comfortable distance apart, they were soon friends again. Jack didn’t blame Ruby in the least. He’d never been easy to get along with, as any of his seven ex-wives would no doubt be only too happy to point out, in considerable detail.