Read Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) Online
Authors: Caleb Wachter
As they came to the edge of the crater—and it was a literal
edge, much to Masozi’s surprise, rather than a gentle slope—she looked down and
saw a tiny settlement nestled inside of a smaller crater within the larger
crater which she now overlooked.
“It’s amazing that life can flourish in places like this,”
Jericho said with a note of something approaching admiration in his voice. He
gestured out to the far side of the crater and said, “First we’ve got to skirt
the main settlement and make for that smaller crater. Do you see it?”
Masozi strained her eyes for a few seconds before
seeing what she thought he meant. It was well-lit with what looked to be
several large, neon signs around the perimeter. “What do you need to do there?”
she asked.
“Collect a final piece of the puzzle,” he replied, “once
we’ve got it we can make the Adjustment.”
Masozi wanted to object, to say that she didn’t want to be a
party to any of this any longer, but her sense of caution won a short-lived
battle with its counterpart, temerity, and they moved to find a less
treacherous path into the crater.
As they approached the far side of the crater, Jericho took
a glance over his shoulder at Masozi. She was a truly impressive physical
specimen, having never once requested a break from the arduous trek across the
unfamiliar—at least, unfamiliar to her—terrain. But her physical attributes
were among the least interesting aspects he had admired in the young woman
since their meeting in New Lincoln.
He knew she still harbored doubts about what they were
doing—and likely even some personal resentment toward him—but Jericho had done
everything he could to convince her of his mission’s validity without
jeopardizing that very mission.
As they approached the edge of the settlement’s distant
subsidiary, Jericho’s eyes settled on what he took to be their destination. One
of the dozen, gaudy signs made of old-fashioned neon lights was that of a
voluptuous woman wearing absolutely no clothing. She had several religious
icons scattered around her, and her hands were folded across her breasts and
groin while her pouty lips seemed to blow an eternal kiss through South
Virginia’s thin atmosphere.
“That’s our stop,” Jericho said, gesturing to the building,
“the Saint’s Blessing.”
He was mildly surprised when Masozi failed to make some
predictable barb about men and whorehouses, and a concealed grin spread across
his usually stoic features when he opened the door for her and she strode into
the structure as though doing so did not offend her.
But, as usual, Jericho knew better. Still, he felt more than
a twinge of trepidation as he followed her into the building. He knew that the
actual degree of her involvement in his plan would be determined in the coming
hours—and he prayed to God that he hadn’t misjudged her.
Too much depended on it.
“We’re here to see Tera St. Murray,” Jericho said, and
Masozi looked around the room to see a surprisingly sterile environment—for a
colonial brothel, anyway.
There was a handful of ‘employees’—some men, some women, and
even one whose gender Masozi wouldn’t have ventured to guess—as well as a few
patrons who appeared to be making last-minute additions to their ‘orders.’ She
noted with alarm that all but one of the patrons of the establishment had
severely blotchy skin riddled with small sores, and she had learned those
symptoms were signs of radiation poisoning during disaster training. One of the
women who had come to avail herself of the ‘services’ offered within the locale
had a large, clearly cancerous, lump growing on her neck.
“Madame St. Murray does not see couples,” the docent at the
desk said smoothly, diverting Masozi’s attention from the clientele. The docent
was a thin, lithe woman with skin that almost shone yellow in the soft, white
light suffusing the building’s interior. “But I am certain we can accommodate
your desires, whatever they may be.”
Jericho shook his head, and Masozi eyed the docent
critically. She seemed tense, as if expecting violence to erupt at any moment.
But the way the woman carried herself it appeared to be a more or less natural
state for her. “We’ve got an appointment,” Jericho said in a tone that brooked
no dispute, “tell her we’re here.”
“I am sorry,” the woman replied in her silky smooth voice,
“but as I said, Madame St. Murray will be unable to entertain you. If you
cannot find your pleasure among her employees, I encourage you to try at any of
the other establishments in the Sense Quarter.”
Jericho leaned fractionally across the desk and said, in a
lowered voice, “I’m a friend of General Pemberton’s. He sent me here, and told
me I was to speak with Tera St. Murray—T-E-R-A,” he added pointedly, for some
reason at which Masozi could not guess.
The docent’s eyes hardened briefly and her hand twitched, as
though it was about to move for a concealed weapon beneath the counter. But she
stiffened suddenly and, after a momentary pause, she relaxed and gestured with
her long, slender arm to a nearby door, “Madame St. Murray has been expecting
you. Please proceed to the end of the hall.”
The door popped open of its own accord, and Jericho nodded
wordlessly before proceeding to the door. Masozi followed close behind, briefly
making eye contact with the yellow-skinned docent—who gave her the barest hint
of a smirk—before she entered the corridor and moved close to Jericho. “This is
a trap,” she whispered as they made their way down the hall to a simple door at
the end.
“Of course it is,” Jericho replied blandly, making no effort
to quiet his voice. “But it’s baited with some evidence we’ll need; we don’t
have a choice.”
“Evidence?”
Masozi repeated. “What
kind of evidence? I thought you had everything you needed for the Adjustment to
be legal?”
“We do,” he agreed simply, before reaching the end of the
corridor and opening the door.
Inside was a large, circular room about fifteen meters
across, with a depression set into the floor. That depression was ringed with
various pieces of furniture, and at the center was a soft, padded bed of some
kind.
Sitting opposite the bed from the door through which Jericho
and Masozi had just entered was a woman, who appeared to be in her forties. She
wore a lacy, frilly gown which Masozi would have never been caught dead in,
with a neckline that plunged so far that her belly button was exposed.
“Any friend of the General is a friend of the Saint’s
Blessing,” the woman said, gesturing for them to be seated at a nearby sofa.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
“Comfort’s not necessary,” Jericho replied as he closed the
door behind them. Masozi heard mag-locks engage instantly, and her body tensed
reflexively while Jericho strode down the trio of steps which led to the
depression. “I’ll skip the formalities: I’m the one who killed Pemberton, but
before he died he gave me a message to relay to you.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed as Jericho continued to move
casually across the floor. When he was halfway across the lowered section of
the room, the woman flicked her wrist and a quartet of panels on the ceiling
slid back to reveal multi-barreled, slug-throwing weapon turrets. Those weapons
spun up and trained on their individual targets—three of which settled on
Jericho and one aimed itself squarely at Masozi. Jericho stopped his approach
and gave the weapons a pointed look before setting his gaze back on the woman
with the frilly dress.
“A bold confession,” the woman mused, “considering he was my
brother.”
“Not so bold,” Jericho retorted calmly, “if I hadn’t killed
him then his granddaughters wouldn’t have made it back from their little
graduation cruise.”
The woman cocked an eyebrow. “I will enjoy watching my
turrets tear you apart,” she said just as calmly before
flitting
a look to Masozi and then re-settling her gaze on Jericho. “Do you have any
last words?” she asked icily as her hand began to rise from the arm of her
chair.
“For the good of us all,” Jericho replied evenly, and the
woman’s hand stopped mid-motion as her eyes widened briefly.
Her eyes then narrowed in silent contemplation. “You coerced
that from him,” she concluded as her voice turned hard. “I don’t know how, but
you managed to break him…he loved those girls, and would have done anything for
them
including
giving you that phrase.”
Jericho looked around pointedly at the room, and Masozi
realized she hadn’t taken a breath in several seconds so she slowly released
what air remained in her lungs before drawing in what may be her final draw of
life-giving atmosphere. “In an establishment like this you’re privy to all
kinds of information,” Jericho observed, “such as the truth about certain
events at Chambliss, I presume?”
The woman cocked her head, and Masozi thought she could
detect surprise in her expression.
Before she could reply, Jericho continued, “Whatever powder
you’ve been keeping dry for the opportune moment, I’m here to tell you that
moment has arrived.” He slowly pointed to his long overcoat’s pocket, “I’m sure
you’ll understand if I show you what I’m carrying in this pocket.”
“You are ‘sure’?” she quipped icily, and her gaze sliced
over to Masozi once again. “And what of you?” she asked sharply. “Or are you
merely a well-formed sex-cessory who lacks a tongue?”
Masozi opened her mouth to reply, but Jericho held up a hand
haltingly. “Please,” he urged, “time is of the essence.” He slowly reached into
his pocket, and Masozi felt her pulse pounding in her ears as he withdrew a
small, familiar-looking piece of metal: a T.E. insignia.
The woman’s features, which had been cold and calculating,
veritably exploded in surprise and she actually had to steady herself against
the arm of her chair. “Impossible…” she breathed.
“Far from it,” Jericho replied as he set the insignia down
on the bed. They stood there for several seconds, none of them so much as
moving their eyes until the woman blinked rapidly and made a gesture with her
hands. Masozi drew a sharp breath as she braced for death, but when the guns
retracted into their concealed locations in the ceiling she exhaled loudly. “I
can sympathize with your trepidation, Ms. St. Murray,” Jericho said as he took a
step toward her, “but you have to understand that time is against us. Whatever
you have, I need it—and I need it now. So if you’re not going to kill us we
need to get down to business.”
“It’s ‘Mrs.’,” St. Murray corrected, “but you should call me
Tera. And you’re right; we don’t have much time. Follow me.”
She turned and moved to a nearby chair and, after reaching
deftly beneath its cushion for a moment, a nearby section of floor fell away to
reveal a tight, spiral staircase leading straight down.
Masozi stopped at the bed to collect the T.E. insignia,
which Jericho had apparently forgotten, before following him and Tera St.
Murray down the stairs. They descended for what must have been fifty feet of
continuous descent before the staircase stopped at a solid metal door. With
just a wave of her hand before a bio-reader, St. Murray opened the vault-like
door and the three of them entered.
Inside was a small, but absolutely packed, set of data
processing stations each of which was currently manned. St. Murray turned after
Masozi had entered the room, and Jericho nodded approvingly. “An underground
data nexus,” he mused, and after looking at a few of the monitors—of which
there were hundreds—Masozi concurred with his conclusion. Judging from the raw
feeds being streamed through them, it appeared that the little room had tapped
into every single data feed in the System.
“Freedom of information is the only freedom of consequence,”
St. Murray said grimly.
“I’d argue that point,” Jericho said dryly, “but we’re short
on time.”
“Quite so,” the woman agreed, and Masozi marveled at the
sheer volume of data being processed—and presumably stored somewhere nearby—in
the tiny chamber. It could be no more than ten meters on a side, but it housed
two dozen technicians who were frantically working to keep the feeds alive by
changing between satellite relays, ground-based transfer nodes, and other
systems with which Masozi was completely unfamiliar. “You’re here to kill
Governor Keno, correct?”
Jericho nodded, and the casual way the two of them had
broached the subject actually gave Masozi a shiver as Tera St. Murray turned to
a nearby workstation. With the input of a short series of commands, the
workstation unexpectedly popped open to reveal its still-active internal
components. Using her long, delicate fingers, St. Murray reached inside and
retrieved a tiny data crystal, impressively avoiding contact with the
highly-charged processing equipment within.
She handed the crystal to Jericho, who reached into his
pocket before freezing as a look of concern crossed his features. Masozi
produced the T.E. insignia and said, “You forgot this.”
Relief came over his features before he sighed and rolled
his eyes. “I must be getting old,” he muttered before gesturing to the data
crystal. “Go ahead and load it—all you have to do is make contact between the
two devices.”
Masozi warily took the data crystal and did as he had
suggested. A moment after placing the crystal on the insignia’s flat,
eye-shaped icon at the center of the interlocking triangles which made the
device’s base, a series of soft flashes began to occur with increasing speed on
the various panels of the insignia. The speed and regularity of those flashes
increased until it made the lights appear to glow a solid, yellow color for several
seconds until abruptly darkening.
Jericho took the crystal from Masozi and handed it back to
Tera St. Murray. “Can I assume you’ve vetted the information?” he asked.
“I have,” she replied with certainty, and Masozi watched as
the woman pulled the right side of her dress away from her skin, revealing a
beautiful tattoo of a Timent Electorum ‘Mark’ insignia, “but you are free to do
so at your leisure if you believe time will permit.”
“I’m guessing it won’t,” Jericho replied with a shake of his
head, “we’ve only got two days before this window closes for good.”
“Excuse me,” Masozi cut in irritably, “would someone explain
to me why we’ve only got two days? And if you’re an Adjuster, why haven’t you
gone after Governor Keno?”
The other two exchanged a look before St. Murray replied,
“In two days’ time, Governor Keno will leave to attend the annual System
Summit.”
Masozi was aware of the pending event, which had always
seemed to her to be nothing but an excuse for the System’s highest-ranking
officials to meet and congratulate each other on their mutual greatness.
“When she arrives at the Summit,” St. Murray continued,
“Governor Keno will be taken to Virgin’s most secure facility where she will
participate in a series of annual votes.”
“Ok,” Masozi allowed, but she was unwilling to abandon the
topic, “but why does that necessitate the Adjustment—and why didn’t
you
attempt to make the Adjustment?” she repeated irritably.
St. Murray shot Jericho a glance, and he nodded after a
brief hesitation. “You can trust the Investigator,” he said with a tilt of his
head toward her, and Masozi felt her neck hairs stand up at his words. “For
better or worse, she’s in this thing as deep as any of us.”
The brothel owner nodded slowly before tapping out a series
of commands on a nearby console. “I am an Adjuster,” St. Murray explained as
she called up the information, “but I have nowhere near the requisite RL
accrued to qualify for the Keno Adjustment. In fact,” she said, slicing an
appraising glance over at Jericho, “every Adjuster but one in the Virgin System
who
has
qualified for the job in the last decade has died shortly
thereafter…until now.”
A screen in front of Masozi sprang to life, and it
showed a series of what looked to be shipping manifests. The manifests
minimized to one side of the screen, and a stream of real estate transactions
loaded onto the display before they, too, minimized and were replaced by a
series of executive orders—orders signed by Governor Keno.
“Since her family overthrew the Marques administration decades
ago, Governor Keno and her cohorts,” St. Murray explained tightly, “have
systematically worked to undermine the most fundamental component of Philippa’s
economy: rare element exports.”
Masozi arched a brow incredulously. “Her approval ratings
are through the roof,” she argued as she took a step toward the monitor to
examine the data more closely, “on Virgin she’s regarded as the only
undefeatable political figure in the System—maybe even the Sector.”