Noble Conflict (17 page)

He never saw the rocket being fired, but he saw it fly towards the hovercar – and he saw and felt the exact moment it exploded. Every sight and sound was seared on his brain. He might have expected to relive the death of his best friend, but it didn’t end there. Now the floodgates had opened, he dreamed of places he’d never been and people he’d never met and things he had never done – the peace of the idyllic cottage, the sense of freedom experienced while exploring the Donadara Forest, enduring with many others the cramped, unbearably hot living
conditions in the Badlands, raids by Guardians Kaspar didn’t recognize who used battering rams to break down doors that were already flimsy and rotting. The images were relentless.

Nor was it confined to sleep. He had what could only be described as mini-hallucinations all the time now. He would have suspected a brain tumour but his medical scans would have picked up on that. In particular, the smell of Grandma’s bread was so intense that he had taken to wandering the market district in his off-duty hours, trying each family bakery he came to in the hope of recapturing the taste. None were exactly right.

On his next day off, Kaspar was strolling along a little side street just north of the Semler Bridge munching a mellisse croissant that came closer than most to the remembered smell and taste when he came across a small dance studio and gymnasium. The gym was mostly glass-fronted, revealing a foyer dominated by a large reception desk, behind which sat a woman in her twenties wearing a black T-shirt with the name of the gym written upon it in large white letters – L
URIE’S
S
PA AND
G
YM
. Kaspar stared at the place, knowing for certain that he’d never seen it before. Yet it was so strangely familiar, he felt compelled to go in. What was that about? Moments later he stood in front of the receptionist with a three-quarters eaten pastry in his hand and no idea what to do next.

‘Hello,’ said the receptionist, eyeing the croissant with something between suspicion and lust. ‘May I help you?’

‘Hi,’ replied Kaspar, shoving the last morsel into his
mouth to give himself time to think. His eyes found a price list on the wall behind her, and he chose the first thing on the list. ‘Massage, please.’

A wave of panic swept over him as he realized that the word massage could cover a multitude of things. But the menu also mentioned martial arts classes and aerobics – so it was probably legit. The receptionist took his money and gave him a towel before showing him through a door behind her.

‘Room number three,’ she said cheerily and left him to it.

Kaspar ambled down the brightly lit corridor. Holographic posters extolling the benefits of a healthy diet and lots of exercise lined the walls, their images changing every few seconds, the messages variations on a theme. He entered room three, which was halfway along the corridor. Thank goodness it wasn’t as brightly lit as the corridor, which was almost blinding in its intensity. Inside the room, there were posters of the musculo-skeletal system on the wall and a smell of liniment that the air freshener couldn’t quite mask. Kaspar got undressed before wrapping the towel around his waist and lying face down on a professional treatment table with the appropriate face-shaped gap at one end.

‘What the hell am I doing here?’ he asked himself again as he positioned his face over the hole which gave him a fine view of the dark wood floor.

Less than a minute later, his masseur arrived, or rather his masseuse. All he could see was a pair of sensible tennis
shoes, two rather shapely legs and the hem of a crisp, white, knee-length overall.

‘Is there anything in particular you’d like me to concentrate on?’ she asked.

‘Er, my left shoulder blade area?’ Kaspar said tentatively.

Here we go. The moment of truth.

All he could do was hope this place was strictly above board. The slightest hint of impropriety and Voss would be down on him like a Badlands avalanche. A firm, warm hand came to rest gently on the point of his left shoulder and traced the outline of his shoulder blade, exploring the muscles. Kaspar began to relax. This was the real thing; this girl knew her joints.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked as her other hand joined in the ballet of rubbing and pressing that was starting to spread warmth throughout his shoulder.

‘Kaspar,’ he replied lazily. She was good, and he was already starting to drift off. The nagging ache that he’d had ever since his fight in the desert was receding and he was back at the cottage by the stream.

‘You have a lot of minor injuries,’ she said as she continued, expanding across the spine to his other shoulder. ‘Are you an athlete?’

‘No, I’m a Guardian,’ he replied.

The hands paused momentarily. ‘A Guardian? Then why come here? I thought you had extensive gymnasium and medical facilities at your barracks?’

‘Oh, we do, but I just like to get out of there from time to time and explore the town. Besides, you have
softer hands than Carlo. He could strangle a wildebeest.’

The hands resumed their ballet, working the muscle groups in his neck. Her thumbs pressed expertly alongside his cervical spine while her fingers inched up by his larynx.

‘Why did you pick this place, may I ask?’

‘I dunno really. I was just passing and eating a mellisse croissant when I saw the sign.’ He was really sleepy now. The faint sound of Grandma singing him a lullaby filled his mind.

‘Mellisse croissant? They can be very bad for you if the mellisse berries aren’t picked at the right time.’ Her voice was calm, her hands worked deeper.

‘Uh-huh,’ he mumbled, more than half asleep. ‘But all of a sudden I love ’em. Can’t get enough of them. What’s your name?’

The hands stopped again.

‘Rhea,’ she said softly.

A moment’s pause as his brain processed the name, then the room suddenly clicked into focus. But too late. While the mental fog was clearing, Rhea leaped onto the table and straddled him, using the weight of her hips to pin down his waist. Her arms slipped around his neck into a full choke hold, cutting off the flow of blood to his brain. Her upper body pressed down on his back while her legs wrapped around the supports of the table, reducing his ability to wriggle free.

An expert could strangle you unconscious in less than five seconds – and Kaspar already knew she was an expert. He couldn’t bring his arms into play. He was face down so
he couldn’t kick, and her legs wrapped around the table meant he couldn’t slide off the table onto the floor. Instead, the world grew faint, and the lights around him dimmed. He was seconds away from passing out, or worse  . . . After the initial panic, it didn’t feel so bad, though. He felt relieved, unburdened, like he wasn’t actually playing the game any more, but watching from the stands and able to enjoy the spectacle.

He was past and present, everyone and no one.

He was both Guardian and Insurgent.

He saw Brother Simon in conversation with his mum.

And there before him, standing stock still as they faced him, were thousands of people dressed in white, and all staring at him with lidless eyes in unsmiling faces. Kaspar was desperate to look away, but he couldn’t. The eyes pulsed with an intense, white, blinding light, which grew brighter and brighter until the light was all he could see, and then  . . . nothing.

Except an enormous frackin’ headache.

Kaspar’s eyes hurt. There was a roaring in his ears and the worst pain in his skull that he had ever known. He blinked a couple of times against the light. He was sitting on the floor? Where? Oh yes. The massage place  . . .

Shit! Where was she? He swung round.

Rhea was also sitting on the floor, on the opposite side of the room. Her breasts were heaving from exertion under her overall, and she was watching him intently, warily. Her face was flushed and her hair dishevelled. Kaspar couldn’t just see her fear, he could
feel
it.

He tried to get to his feet, but he moved too fast, got light-headed and wobbled. In any event, she moved faster, springing to her feet before he was up. She stood for a moment, poised like the fighter she was, ready to move in any direction, attack or defence.

‘Do you know your enemy?’ Rhea asked unexpectedly. ‘Because it isn’t me.’

He tried to speak, but all that came from his battered larynx was a croak. What was she up to? Surely she wasn’t trying to recruit him to her side?

‘Kaspar, why are all of you so accepting? Is it because it’s easier to let others do your thinking for you?’

Kaspar had no idea what Rhea was on about.

They watched each other silently for a few moments, but when he tried to take a step towards her, she ran from the room. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Two painkillers had taken care of Kaspar’s headache, but had done nothing to dispel his much larger problem. That he had failed to mention Rhea’s help in the desert was bad enough. He didn’t even know why he hadn’t mentioned her. Everyone – except Mac – had just assumed that he had escaped from the hovercar crash on his own and he hadn’t corrected them. Was he suffering from survivor guilt? Or a fear that he would be suspected of something if it were known that he had been helped by the enemy?

But then he had let her go at the Thirteenth District network sub-node ambush. He justified that one to himself as a quid pro quo, a case of ‘now we’re even’. But he had seen her so often now he could have painted her portrait from memory. He should at least release her description. And for all he knew, the gym was a hotbed of Insurgent activity. Certainly some of the locals would know who worked there. They might’ve seen things, useful things. He should call it in, organize a full-scale raid, interrogate everyone.

So why was he sitting in a café and agonizing? Why
was he protecting an Insurgent who had probably been involved in any number of outrages?

It came down to one question.

Why hadn’t Rhea killed him?

Everything he’d been taught throughout his life told him that she was a vicious terrorist, utterly amoral, who would stop at nothing.

Except killing him.

Why did they keep meeting?

How had he found her again? Coincidence? Hardly.

He pushed his treasonous behaviour to one side for a moment and thought about the other stuff – the dreams, the hallucinations. He did a datanet search on near-death experiences and found that some of what he had seen was pretty classic. A bright light, the edited highlights of his life flashing by, figures dressed in white, feelings of detachment. The medics said they were symptoms of hypoxia, a lack of oxygen to his brain, and the mystics said they were evidence of an afterlife. But what about the rest? The cottage in a valley by the stream and Grandma weren’t from his memory. And yet they seemed so real.

Up until very recently, Kaspar had been absolutely clear about what he was doing and why he was doing it. He and the other Guardians were on the side of the angels, and terrorists were pure evil. It was as simple as that. So why the creeping doubts, the sudden capacity for nuance? Why did the Insurgency seem more benign in dreams? Obviously he was grateful to Rhea for saving him, so was this a case of misplaced gratitude? Which led
on to the question of why the Insurgents were in long-term medical stasis at the Clinic instead of in prison somewhere? And what the hell was the eyelid thing about?

Question after question battered at him relentlessly, giving him no peace. Kaspar’s head was spinning. If only Dillon was here to talk to. Even Dillon laughing at his worries would’ve given him some much-needed perspective.

But Dillon was gone.

And Kaspar had never before felt so alone.

When Kaspar returned to barracks the recreation room was deserted and there was nobody on the accommodation floor. He had to go down to the Comms Centre to find anyone. Janna was working a shift on the Liaison desk. Kas wandered over.

‘Where is everyone?’ he asked.

‘There was a major incident while you were out,’ she replied sombrely. ‘The chemical plant on Radial Four got hit at 1100 hours. They got clean away with a tank of luxothane gas.’

‘Was anyone at the factory hurt?’

‘No. They sneaked in, grabbed the gas and were gone before we could respond.’ Janna spoke in a low monotone.

‘Well, at least they can’t do much damage with that.’ Janna’s deep frown told Kaspar he was missing something. ‘Luxothane is the stuff we use for crowd control and hostage situations, right?’

Janna nodded.

‘So what’s the problem? The stuff is non-lethal and non-toxic, and you can’t even use it unless you have an ultrasonic dispersal unit. It’s useless to them.’

‘’Fraid not, genius,’ she replied. ‘The non-lethal stuff we use is luxothane-G. You get that by diluting pure luxothane a million times and adding the ultrasonic inhibitor.’

Now it was Kaspar’s turn to frown. ‘So that means  . . . ?’

‘If you have a tank of the raw, concentrated form, it’s
absolutely
lethal, and it only takes a few minutes to weaponize it.’

‘Oh my God  . . . so they have a serious weapon.’

‘It’s more than serious, Kas. We’re talking about a weapon of mass destruction.’

‘Yes, but how the hell—’

The comms board made a muted bleep. Janna held up one hand for quiet while using the other to press her headset to her ear. As she listened, the colour drained from her face.

‘What is it?’ Kaspar asked.

She didn’t reply. She just sat looking stunned.

‘Janna? What is it? What did the report say?’ That pricking sensation that Kaspar knew so well and dreaded so much was back.

Janna turned, her movements halting and jerky, like those of a puppet. ‘The tank of gas  . . . they don’t have it any more.’ She was on the verge of tears.

‘What’s happened?’

‘They’ve already used it.’

‘Shit. Where?’

‘A school. Loring Primary School. Ten minutes ago. Oh, Kas, the bastards have killed over two hundred children and teachers.’

Kaspar was so angry. Even angrier than when Dillon died. He was furious at the Insurgents and at Rhea for making him question what was right, and most of all furious with himself for letting some ridiculous notion of chivalry and respect between enemies turn him into an idiot and, worse than that, a traitor.