Swan Song (Book Three of the Icarus Trilogy) (6 page)

The young executive wondered when this resistance was going to end.  If men were resorting to violence over mass-produced meat, then it wouldn’t be much longer before things got more serious.  He had no worries whether or not the EOSF would be able to handle unruly civilians; the advanced weaponry would rip through the lower class like cattle.

It was just that blood in the streets was so completely uncivilized.  Darren wanted no part in it.

-

The gin martini seemed to be staring back at Eric Jones.  The former anchor of
War World
had spent the last two days drowning his sorrows and trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life.  He had considered it absolutely outside of the realm of possibilities that it would be handed back to him, that he would ever escape from that prison, but that was exactly what had happened.  One minute they were trying to get him to recant his allegiance to the revolution and the next minute EFI agents were swarming all around him.

He was happy at first, freedom does that to a man, but that was only until he was able to see what they had done to Douglas.  It was enough cause for Eric to vomit, even though all he had in his stomach was some water the EOSF had given him earlier that day.  He didn’t understand why Douglas had been tortured that way, and even when Urlov had explained the circumstances it didn’t make anything better.  Douglas had been tortured for information because he had stood up and taken Jamie’s place; Eric had been left alone and hadn’t suffered the slightest amount of pain because he was worth more if he stayed hearty and whole.  He even remembered a number of steaks being served to him.

With the recollection of the incident, Eric broke the staring contest with the martini and drank it in one gulp.  The bartender had not bothered to put much vermouth into the drink and Eric didn’t blame him.  Alcohol was a bit of a luxury in the bunker; Eric only got his drinks like this because the bartender felt sorry for him.  The first thing the former television anchor had wanted to do was escape and go to the nearest bar, but Atlas had explained that because of his face and celebrity that the EOSF would pick him up immediately.  The only compromise that could be made was that Eric could drink in the company of the EFI.

Eric Jones didn’t have to say another word before the bartender came back with another drink, this time abandoning the pretext of the martini and just leaving a mason jar filled halfway with gin.  Eric nodded and lifted the drink in respect before draining a few ounces of the liquid.  He appreciated a man who recognized the habits of the regulars, and Eric surely was one of those.  The celebrity had to find some way to blot out the memories.

As his liver was busy trying to keep up with his drinking, Eric’s memories fell back to the heyday of
War World
.  His status as the lead anchor was more than enough for him to live the dream.  He was more famous than most movie stars; the program was the most-watched television show of all time, after all.  All he had to do was smile at a girl and the clothes would fall off.  All he had to do was laugh and a drink and a designer drug were in his hands.

That was all gone now.  Now Eric was hiding between reinforced dirt walls beneath a bustling city which was the symbol of everything wrong in the world.  He had done it to save his brother.

It didn’t take long for him to find out that Phillip hadn’t made it.  In fact, it was only two hours before Atlas broke the news and told him that only about forty teams had made it off Eris before Jasper had gassed the entire asteroid.  Phillip, his half-brother, and the rest of the Grizzlies had not been on any of those shuttles.

Eric drained the rest of the glass in his brother’s memory.  Phillip was the reason he had been swayed into betraying his celebrity and fighting the good fight.  Now, in the bunker, Eric wondered if he would still make the same choice if he knew that this was the reward.  He wondered if he would be looking down at this doomed resistance from his gorgeous hotel room or if he would feel pity for these men and women dying for humanity and the freedom it needed.

As the bartender poured more gin into his mason jar, Eric knew that he wouldn’t have cared at all.  The guilt, the grief and the grotesque things done to Douglas were more than enough to cause the celebrity to choke down the entire glass of liquid.  The burn hurt his throat, but there was already a deeper pain at work.  He didn’t deserve this gift; he didn’t deserve this life.

He was alive and he didn’t deserve it.

-

Douglas felt a pain at the back of his throat and knew it didn’t come from any real injury or any reaction to the atmosphere in the bunker.  He was fully immersed in it now; he had fully realized the extent of his misery and his pain.  He would never be whole again; he would never be useful again.  Douglas had traded away his comfortable menial job for the life of a blind cripple living underground. 

He knew it was selfish and he knew that every member of the EFI was grateful for his sacrifice, but he could also hear the hints and the undertones as to what they were really thinking.  They were all filled with pity once they saw him, and understandably so.  Douglas had become a thing of pity and he was now spiraling into his own.  His life was over; all that was left to him was this darkness and the certain nature that no one would ever respect him again.

He had known before they had told him, of course.  There was no way that Edwards had left any shred of nerves left to recover his eyesight.  The tormentor wouldn’t have even considered it; he knew that Douglas would meet his end at his hands sooner or later.  It was dumb luck that Douglas had outlived the man.

Whether or not Douglas had known, it was a crushing blow once the doctors had told him for certain.  They had told Douglas that they would find a replacement leg for him and that he would be able to walk again, but it meant nothing to the broken man.  He had been given back his freedom and now he was destined to never see the world he had helped to save.  And that was if the EFI was successful; there was still every possibility that his sacrifice was in vain.

Douglas was giving into moans of despair and letting the tears fall freely over his scabbed-over eyes when he heard a knock at the entrance to the clinic.  He let his legs stretch out away from his torso, there was no dignity in the fetal position, and tried to find a way to greet his guest appropriately.  It would have helped if he had known where the person was coming from.

“Oh, don’t stop crying on my account, Doug.  I respect a good cry,” a wry voice said from a few meters away.  Douglas was confused for an instant as he turned towards the source of the noise and the footsteps approaching him, but after just a moment his sadness was replaced with anger.

“You’re going to make fun of me?  Really?  What makes you think you can do that?” he asked accusingly, not realizing that he had become accustomed to being treated as a delicate thing.

“Well, for one, it’s gonna be hard for you to stop me.  Didn’t you know?  Cripples are easy targets,” the voice said in a snide tone.  Douglas furrowed his brow and could hear something scraping against the floor and then heard the man grunting.  He guessed that his tormentor was sitting down.

“Who the fuck are you?” Douglas asked, already tired of the exchange.  He wanted to know who would stoop so low to mock him like this.

“C’mon, Doug, or Sean, whichever you wanna go by.  You don’t recognize my voice?  I wasn’t exactly a silent member of the Crows back when we were up there,” the voice said from a meter away.  Douglas let go of his anger for an instant as he tried to remember the sarcastic voice.  As he found the memory, he immediately understood; his personality was completely the same during the scarce interviews on
War World
.

“Goldstein.”  The middle-aged Crow chuckled and clapped his hands loudly.  It was enough to shock Douglas out of his anger.

“There you go, Doug.  And you can call me Zachary, or Zack, or even Shylock, though I've graduated to Odysseus, now.  We have a thing about multiple names in the EFI,” Goldstein said in his usual sarcastic manner.

“Shylock?”  Douglas asked, curious as to what the former gladiator was after.

“Atlas-slash-Thomas came up with that one.  Used to be all about the black market back on Eris.  Shylock was a merchant in a .... well, a story.  Most of the names are about stories around here,” Goldstein said, his voice becoming slightly serious.

“How clever,” Douglas said, starting to get frustrated at this conversation.

“Indeed.  I think it’s about time we get you one,” Goldstein said, accenting the statement with a familiar metal clink and a distinct inhaling sound.  Douglas could smell the smoke almost immediately, but he was distracted by the soldier’s words.

“What are you talking about?  Why would I need another name?” he asked, his anger starting to come back to the forefront.

“Well if you’re going to be part of the resistance, Doug, you’re gonna need to join the club.”  The smoke was starting to fill the room and memories of the interrogation room were coming back to Douglas, but he chose to ignore his brain for now.

“How,” Douglas said as he shook his head, “how would I be part of the resistance, Goldstein?  I’m crippled.  Broken.  Blind.  I’m useless, now.”  He was about to give into his self-pity again but was interrupted by giddy laughter.  He flicked his attention back to his antagonist and opened his eyes, exposing the soldier to the full horror that Edwards had created.  “Why the FUCK are you laughing, Goldstein?”

“Why wouldn’t I, Doug?  What was your job back before all this happened to you?  By the way, nice job with the eyes.  Someone could get sick looking at that, but that’s besides the point.  What was your way of obtaining income, Douglas?” Goldstein asked, his tone light in spite of Douglas’ actions.  The cripple shook his head and brought his mangled right hand up to support it.

“You already know, Goldstein.  I was the announcer for
War World
.”

“And what did you have to do in your line of work?”

“You kidding, Goldstein?  I fucking talked for a living, ok?  I read words off a display and went by a different name.  I was all kinds of fake.  Not worth a damn when I was whole.  Was that what you wanted to hear, you bastard?!” Douglas shouted at the middle-aged man somewhere in the darkness.  There was a moment of silence where Douglas breathed heavily, but he heard another deep inhale and the acrid smoke filled his nostrils again.

“’Bout half of that.  You talked for a living and went by a different name,” the man said, softly.  Douglas sighed and scratched at the side of his face.

“What are you talking about, ‘Shylock?’” Douglas asked, his voice filled with derision.

“I’m saying that nothing’s wrong with your voice,
Sean
.  They barely even touched your lips and it looks like most of your teeth are still around.  I can see from this little conversation that your tongue is still pretty effective, too.  So, my friend, you can talk and I can give you a different name.  Already have a perfect one for you,” Goldstein said, breathing in deeply at the end of the statement.  Douglas furrowed his brow in his confusion before shaking his head again.

“What good is my talking, Zachary?” the former announcer asked, forgetting his anger and letting his self-pity leak back to the surface.

“Plenty, Doug.  This revolution of ours isn’t going to be won by sheer force and death and killing.  It’s going to be won by swaying popular opinion.  We have to make sure that Jasper Montgomery can’t order people around anymore because they are more ashamed of their actions than afraid of what he might do.  We have to get to the point where the conscience of military men is tested,” Goldstein said, borrowing one of his favorite lines from the dead titan on Eris.  He had watched that conversation between Templeton and Feldman over the camera feed, smiling at Darius’ frustration.  Now he was using the dead giant’s words.

“So you want me to .... talk to them?  To the ordinary people?”

“Exactly, Doug.  We have to boost morale and let people know that we’re on their side.  An old president back in the twentieth century did it during one of the darkest times in history.  You’d be surprised what a gentle and kind word of support can do for a man,” Goldstein said, the sarcastic and wry tone completely absent from his voice.

“What.... would I even say?” Douglas asked, unable to completely process the fact that he might still be worth something.

“It doesn’t always matter what you say, Doug, just that you say it.  Sometimes the noise is enough; sometimes people just want the sentiment.  Helps people sleep at night.  Helps them find a reason to keep going,” Goldstein stated, picking out just the right words to manipulate the crippled man.  The former merchant was very, very good at his job and he didn’t mind using it to his full advantage.  Douglas raised his head and gave a slight smile, which hurt him just a small amount.  There were still a dozen cuts all around his mouth, but he ignored the pain.