Episode 4 - Cold Fusion

  Chapter 34 - Power and Privilege

  “Get up!”

  The sudden unwelcome illumination sends stars across my vision as I blink. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the ceiling above me and the oppressive force of LED strips, then pull my blanket over my head with a groan.

  Pooka rolls from his back on the floor, flattening his ears and growling. His mane of black hair is ruffled from sleeping with his legs in the air, the dark skin of his naked belly exposed to the cool air of our holding cell.

  “What?” I bark in reply. Regina’s had me locked down here for the past several days since we returned, waiting for whatever judgement she and Owen come to.

  Shion and I slipped between the roll count of names that were missing when they searched the warehouse after ventilating it. There were no bodies, not even the ones that fell before Pooka destroyed the place. We got Rhett on a train between the two of us with some help from Aquila’s Obsidian Security contacts, but he suffered fitful, sweat drenched sleep for most of the train ride as the Erratic continued to wear off. Adrian was equally silent in our ears, a ball of Vespa that were all his symbionts' bodies actively traveling with us remaining huddled on the ceiling of our cabin as a writhing mass instead of returning to our ears.

  Diarbardi will be importing their water until they can repair the damage Pooka left. The operations at the port city-dome are too important to stop. I can’t imagine life there will be very comfortable on such tight water rations for a while.

  Finally, vivid in my memories of the last few days, was the aftermath of Pooka’s judgement.

  I walked Rhett out through something that was half fever dream, half artistic nightmare. Filigree ice covered every surface that was not torn apart by elemental fury. What remained of the water Pooka froze into sculptures of trees, I’d never seen ones so large or not growing in pots. I made them, just for you to see. A whole forest, towering to the ceiling of the warehouse and hanging vines of crystal. An understory of fractal ferns and herbs grew at their buttress roots. Falling leaves of pellucid ice were trapped in time and space, dropping from branches that will never age. I said I would show you the trees.

  Most of the water tanks and pipes were torn to shreds, twisted silhouettes of metal and rust like fingers stretching towards a memory of forests. The settlement ponds were frozen solid, any symbionts within them silent and gone now. The surfaces were scattered with embedded fragments of the polymer and plastic materials that were not consumed and turned to pure energy in Pooka’s rampage.

  I found Pooka as we walked back towards the headworks and the front of the warehouse. He stood on his own as a Hyaena again, his short, hunched tail wagging once at the sight of me. As we met again, he put his nose into my hand and took a deep breath, inhaling the mix of chemicals and scents from my sweat, blood, and adrenaline. Then he whined. I cupped his jaw and scratched his chin, and for once he leant into my touch. Slowly, he shut his eyes that burned like embers.

  The beauty of what he left will have melted by now. But I wonder what those who saw it thought. I think I would have liked to see it in sunlight.

  Shion hugged me once to let me know she was glad I was alive once we got out, then verbally tore me apart. When we arrived back at Apex, Blake picked me up and took me straight to a holding cell across from the armory. It’s only by the count of meals bought to me that I knew three days had passed.

  Regina bangs on the plexiglass window again. “I said get up. I’m coming in.”

  Pooka stretches his forelimbs in front of him, coughing and blinking blearily.

  “I don’t recommend it,” I call from under my blanket.

  “You think you can tell me what to do?” demands Regina imperiously over the sound of someone unbarring the door.

  “I can do whatever I want!” I cry back.

  “Clearly.” Her voice is definitely closer this time. I tug the edge of my blanket down and squint as I look up at her, standing with her hands planted on her hips. She taps one heel waiting for me.

  “Get on with it then.”

  “What am I going to do with you?” asks Regina.

  I groan, tossing aside the blanket and sitting up. “Can we not?”

  “I certainly think I deserve a little more respect, Conrada. Given your life hangs in my hands,” hisses Regina drumming her fingers against her hip.

  I eye her sideways. “Sorry Executive.”

  “Better. So, tell me your version of events then?”

  “You’ve already made up your mind. About what you are going to do with me,” I accuse.

  “I have, yes.”

  “So why does it matter?”

  “Because it is in your interest to have my mercy right now. And my mercy comes with curiosity. Yes, Aster told me it was you.”

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  I bite my lip, refusing to meet her iron gaze. “It was the better outcome than what could have happened. When we met you said you wanted people who bend rules, that adapt when complications arise. That’s what I did,” I reply, somehow managing to keep my tone defiant. I wrap one arm around my shoulder, hugging myself and sinking into my cot.

  “Hmm.” She sounds so much like Rhett with that skeptical hum. “While I’d imminently prefer you not blow things up next time that happens, I can only really blame myself. You don’t buy a bomb and get upset when there is collateral damage.”

  I pause, that was not what I expected her to say next.

  “I’ll be frank,” she continues, “here is what has happened. We are cleaning up your mess. We took advantage of the ongoing audit to recommend one of Owen’s companies support the investigation into the ‘security incident’. They will cover up our involvement in the explosion to the best of their ability, but some things are near impossible to hide, the lack of bodies being one. Stories of trees made of ice, another.” She pauses, as if waiting for me to give her an explanation.

  I sniff and tuck my hands back under the blanket. It’s cold down here in the stale basement air. My joints all feel stiff from lack of movement, I’d mostly sulked in the bed expecting the worst.

  “Rhett is almost fully recovered. Adrian has taken quite a shock, but should be back to work soon enough. I will deal with our client as best I can, and we can all move on. Aquila takes care of its people,” she finishes smoothly.

  “And that’s it?”

  Regina laughs. Full throated and lyrical.

  When she catches her breath at the end she backs off, leaning against a wall of my holding cell to watch me with an amused eyebrow raised.

  “My,” she begins, “and what part of that was so disappointing to you?”

  I stare at her, almost slack jawed. Her gaze does not waver as she watches me. “What happens to me?” I ask.

  “Oh you are grounded, but you’ll get back to work when the mood suits me. You’ve yet to even make back the money I paid for you let alone the costs incurred from this. I’ll track your debt, don’t you worry.”

  “That’s it? That’s insane!” I cry, getting to my feet and discarding my blanket behind me. “Men died!”

  “Yes,” replies Regina, a dark amusement in her voice.

  “Shouldn’t there be more? Something else?”

  “How sweet. Learning the consequences of your actions now?”

  “Consequences? There are no consequences.”

  “Exactly.” Regina grins and waits.

  I pause, suspicious suddenly of her intentions. “What do you mean?”

  “You are not stupid. I know that. I don’t employ anyone stupid. You think your mischief for so many years was tolerated by Murasaki because they knew you were a young girl finding her way in the world? Full of wanderlust and innocent rebellion that would be tamed with time. Preposterous. You were tolerated because of your potential. And now, you will be protected because your potential makes you valuable to me.”

  Her grin fades as she speaks, a firmness returning to her jaw so like the tense stance Rhett wears as a mask. She does not wait for me to question her, tightening her rouge lips and batting some of her curls over one shoulder. She taps her cheek with one fingernail and continues as she studies me. “You are lucky, this time. Next time you won’t be.”

  “Why?”

  “What an odd question?”

  I gasp with exasperation, Pooka snarls, taking a step towards her. She is blind to his threat, watching me unflinching. Regina sighs, then turns and knocks on the door. When it cracks open Blake peaks through.

  “Executive Hawthorne?”

  “Get us a drink, will you?”

  “What would you like?”

  “Whiskey. Get something from my shelf.”

  “Right away Ma’am.”

  “You want a drink?” she asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “Get a second glass.” Regina shuts the door after Blake and turns. She pivots on one heel and pulls the lapels of her suit jacket. Then she crosses the room and sits next to me, patting my knee with one hand and ignoring my flinch as she does so. Pooka starts at the motion, his lips curling backwards over his teeth and his whiskers trembling as he snarls at her.

  “Let me explain something to you,” she says slowly. “You have always been powerful. Not with titles or money, but with blood. You have lived your life under its protection, blind to the privileges it offered you. You look at your history at Murasaki and see an underdog that was always pulling on the leash of its master, cheekily dodging the system as a nimble little mouse. You told yourself that you wanted a small life, to be left alone and fly under the radar. But, I know people like you. That blood of yours lusted for freedom and danger instead. I look at your history, and I see a little girl protected every step of the way by that blood, and it protects you even now. There are no secrets at Aquila.”

  “You don’t know me!” I bite back at her, but my voice shakes as she cuts too close.

  “I know you better than you know yourself. I know what you could be.”

  Blake knocks on the door again, as he pushes the door open he has two crystal glasses in his hands. Large round ice cubes turning in amber liquid in each. Regina gets to her feet and takes both glasses. “Thank you Blake.”

  I stand, bundling my fists at my side and bite my lip. “Take it all back.”

  “Why?” asks Regina, holding out one of the glasses, the ice clinking against the sides.

  “I’m not what you think I am.”

  Regina laughs, thrusting the glass into my chest and almost pushing me back against the bed. “You are exactly what I think you are. Be grateful. You’ll live another day. Make it up to me next time.”

  I take the glass from her hands and as she steps back she holds her own glass in an imitation of a toast, then lifts it to her lips for a sip. “Don’t take too long though,” she adds, and as she turns out the room she calls over her own shoulder. “Even my patience can only be pushed so far. You do not have the advantage of being my own son.”

  When she leaves, the door does not shut behind her. I flop backwards to the bed and watch out the door listening to her footsteps, and the heavy footfalls of Blake as he follows her back up the hall.

  Did you know we made it to the top 500 best rated books of all time on RR?! (I even got a screenshot of us in the very coveted #420 position). I am so excited and proud and thankful that you all got me here with your ratings and comments and positive feedback. I've just fallen out of the top 500 atm (being a smaller book with fewer reviews, even modest ratings move me like 50+ places lol). But if you have been waiting to leave a review or a rating and this plea can convince you to leave it, I always appreciate it!