Thirteen hours earlier, Leo’s metal palms hit the little kitchen table with a crack, startling both his parents. “Why does it have to be me?! What’s stopping you from going? Taking your rightful place? Weren’t you born for this? Made for this? That’s what they say about you, Dad--that Hein bred you to lead us.” He felt like he was repeating himself. He was. His father gave him a small smile and put down his knife and fork. Mom gave them both warning looks, but Dad put out a hand to assuage her worries. His frigid calm irritated Leo like nothing else. Leo reiterated plainly: “You haven’t even talked to Nina in, like, ten years and this is the message you’re going to send her? Why the fuck does it have to be me that delivers it?”
“Language,” his mother warned off-handedly.
His father put out his hands in a placating gesture before steepling them over his half-eaten dinner plate. Instead of confronting his son about opening the letter he had promised not to read, he said evenly, “I’ve been on display for most of my life, Sinbad. Maybe it’s time you got to share in the spotlight. You keep saying you want Doulosi out from under the nutsack of the regime--His words, Ricky, don’t smite me.” Emil Volya grinned, his bright, augmented eyes roving over his son, judging him. "Maybe it's time I passed on the mantel to you. You seem to be the only one who wants to wear it."
Leo turned to look at his mother through his plexi helmet. Alericka Volya was just watching her husband, scrutinizing him with a neutral expression. “And you’re fine with this?” he demanded of her. “It’s not my place, and you know it. You told me just a couple days ago I wasn’t even ready to live on my own, but you’ll send me out to play with--in your words--terrorists and warmongers without a second thought?”
His mother gave him a reproachful look and he instantly felt guilty for putting her on the spot. Her words were quiet and measured. “I’ve made my peace, Leonid. You should make your own.”
Leo turned back to his father and made a flustered sound, fogging up his vision for just a moment before the rebreather did its job, aiding to clear it. Emil just gave his son a shrug of finality. Deal with it, the shrug said, or don't.
Before he came of age, he had learned of his father’s revolutionary past and had been so stoked. Dad--King of Puns, Dirty Socks, and Ruler over All that Irritates Mother Dearest--was also the god-like revolutionary that sparked a war between government and escaped program “assets”… Leo could hardly believe it! His father was the most important mage on the planet! His friends at school certainly hadn't believed it. Promptly thereafter, Leo and his family had moved without recourse. They moved a lot back in those early days.
It wasn’t until his teen years that he confronted his parents about it all, and the truth in all its canned, wormy glory came out completely. Once, Emil Volya had been the proud, unshakeable enemy to the Imperator of the Interceptor Corps… but no more. Why?
After being attacked about his lack of recent participation, Emil told Leo to drop the subject altogether. Emil had “changed his ways” after Leo had been born. Now, he only wished to live in serenity with his family, away from the plots and the intrigue and danger--away from the responsibility of carrying a whole populace into its assumed, prosperous future.
"Oh, because constantly uprooting your life is just the ultimate definition of serene," a sixteen-year-old Leo had retorted. "You're no Doulosi savior, Dad! You're just a fucking pussy!"
Leo really thought he’d perfected the art of the comeback back then, but he had to have gotten his prowess from somewhere or, rather, from someones.
Back then, his father had laughed out loud at his response, utterly mortifying his son in the process. Leo’s mother had only shook her head at them both, trying to hide a smile behind a fist. They hadn’t taken him seriously, of course.
Had that changed in the past few years?
Now, just shy of turning twenty, Leo sat back down, crossed his arms, and thought about a really juicy one-liner to lambast and amaze them this time. He ruminated on it long enough that both his parents returned to eating their modest meal. Then, out of the blue, he said mildly, “I don’t even know what to wear.”353Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOCfT4Wf9aE
Emil sputtered a laugh, eyeing his wife.
Alericka grinned and pat her son's back consolingly.
A couple hours later and he was already packed to leave.
"You have your extra pylon?" his mother asked.
"Uh huh."
"And your emergency numbers?"
"Memorized."
"What about the safe house loca--"
"Mom…"
"Did you ask him if he packed extra clean underwear yet?" Emil asked as he wandered into the room.
Alericka rolled her eyes at him. "Because he might have packed extra soiled underwear?"
Emil smirked and said to Leo, "You know the drill. If you overcharge--"
Leo shook his anesthetizer pouch at them both. "All needles present and accounted for. Enough to knock out a small herd of antelope."
"Is it called a herd or something else?" Emil wondered. "An up-the, maybe?"
Leo tilted his head, unimpressed.
Alericka gave her husband a chiding expression. "Up-the-ante-lope? Get out." She pointed at the door.
"Lemme give my freedom fighter a handshake before he leaves to blow himself up." He came forward and gripped his son's arm, then left before his emotions could get the better of them both.
Alericka sighed once he was gone. She gave her son one last once-over. She put her hands against the sides of his helmet and left a kiss mark on him, standing on her tip-toes even as he bent down a little. Her worried expression was reflected on the black mirror of his face. She said very deliberately, "You've already made us proud. Don't die trying to prove anything to anyone else."
"Never," he assured her. "Dad would never let me live it down."
She tried to smile, but it fell as soon as it reached her eyes. "Leonid…"
He took her hands from his helmet and grabbed up his pack. He strapped it on the magnet on his back and straightened up even as she used her sleeve to wipe her mark off his face.
"I love you too," he told her.
She gave him a small nod, then said, "I wish I could see your face before you go." He bristled at the thought, but before he could come up with some excuse, she shook her head and said with a sad twist to her mouth, "But I think it will just make it harder for me once you're gone." When he didn't say anything to that she nodded, almost to herself this time, and let out a shaky breath. "Give 'em hell, Darling."
"That's the plan." He hugged her as gently as he could manage and then stepped passed her before he could think about saying anything more. If he had… he might have thought twice about driving to Miami on his own.
For the first time since his accident three years back, he hopped onto his Edison-90 with no intention of returning home before dusk. He didn't look back as he hit the Skystream headed south. He wove through traffic, stitching lanes through airways and hovering construction zones. When he reached peak elevation, he switched on his solar panels and told the bike to cruise for an hour. After, he took over control once more, deactivated the collectors, and made his descent. Passing through an overcast blanket of cloud cover, he had to constantly wipe condensation from his helmet for visibility's sake.
Coming down off the Skystream, he took an onramp headed south-east and broke the highway's designated 110mph speed limit. At around 160, he cruised again. He wasn't worried about white-car patrols. Most of them would be policing the Skystream where there was always significantly more traffic. For an hour, he let his gravbike have its own way, gliding along GPS-inspired routes aided by sensitive proximity sensors. In the meantime, he enjoyed the unfamiliar sights.
Florida was greener than he'd expected. Raised in a plethora of metropolitan utopias, it was strange to Leo to see so much foliage and agriculture all in one place. Some of it looked deliberate, but the majority of it all looked like someone had stopped caring at some point. Kudzu vines covered every surface that could be covered, to include power lines and concrete overpasses. Fields cloaked in hydro-webs glittered in the afternoon sun, looking like row after row of emerald encrusted orchards.
Delighted by the awkwardness of its location, he stopped by a produce stand off the side of the road that was selling strawberries by the crate, and bought enough to fill the rest of his pack to bursting. It only cost him around a hundred bucks and he could hardly wait to try one once he was sitting down somewhere. While he chatted with a surly looking woman for the goods, he caught the eye of a boy watching him with wide eyes from the back of the white tent, his child’s uniform loose and off-colored in an obviously hand-me-down fashion.
The woman seemed to notice then that the boy was staring and snapped, “Damien, shut your mouth before you choke on a fly!” She waved a rolled up baton of parchment paper at him and the boy’s mouth closed with a click.
“It’s no problem,” Leo insisted with a small laugh as he stuffed the strawberries into the rest of his belongings.
“He’s never seen an artifi before,” the woman said, shaking her head.
“Ah,” Leo said. He looked toward Damien and gave a friendly wave. The boy managed a small wave and a curious smile in return. In truth, Leo was no artificial intelligence stuck in a humanoid shell, but he wasn’t about to correct them. It was better to let people assume whatever they wanted to about him. It made things easier when folk didn’t question his appearance. Being thought of as a dumb machine had its upsides for the most part.
“Be sure to have whoever wash those as soon as you get home,” the woman said professionally. Then she smiled and said, “If you ever need more, be sure to visit us at our ‘ponic on down the way. It’s the only one that has real strawberries for miles around.”
“That right?”
“As true as magic.”
The Doulosi expression made him pause for a moment before he said kindly, “I’ll be sure to pass that along.” Before paying to leave, he hesitated a moment, gesturing, and withdrew a small black box the size of a cigarette pack from his bag. “Uh… this might be strange, but do you have need of a portable at all?”
“A portable charger?” The woman looked like she would automatically insist she didn’t need it, but then she asked a little shyly, “How much juice?”
“Enough to sell off."
She put a hand to her chest, but then she gave him a shrewd look. “What do you want for it?”
“Just some information.”
“Oh. How, uh… can I help you?”
“I’ll be hitting the coast soon and I was wondering if you’d ever heard the name Collette spoken of around here.”
Her eyes flicked between him and the portable in his outstretched hand. Then she slowly reached out and took it from him as she said, “I may be Doulosi, but I’m no fool. Only an Interceptor would dare be outfitted in black… Collette used to come out to the hydroponics when she first moved into the area. I thought she reminded me of a politician trying to make nice to the dirt movers. She’s got a few good-looking mansions all along Miami Beach now, and keeps to herself for the most part. It’s just her and her little circle of unsanctioned mages. Magic knows why the Corps lets her carry on the way she does, all open-like… but me and mine have never had a problem with her lot.”
Nina hasn’t endeared much loyalty in the locals, Leo remarked internally as he nodded and said aloud, “I appreciate it.” He reached into his back and pulled out another little black box. “You’re welcome to test them before I go.”
The woman was a little overwhelmed by the gesture. She looked uncomfortable as he pressed his wrist chip against her toll pad to pay for the strawberries and then set the second box on the fold-out table next to the pad. She slowly said, “I trust you on your masters’ words.”
He suppressed a laugh then and said, “I’m not with the Interceptor Corps.”
“Then… who are you with?” This time, she scrutinized him sincerely.
He wanted to answer her honestly, just to see the usual shock and awe, but she had already proven herself a survivalist. It would be better if he remained an unknown quantity for as long as possible. Besides, he rarely gave up an opportunity to be oblique or mysterious.
Leo gave her a casual bow like he was some street performer and then turned on his heel and went back to his Edison. It was better to leave her wondering. Often, people’s imaginations produced much more interesting speculations. He couldn’t wait to hear the rumors himself.
Back on the road, the sun set behind him as he swung completely east. Fields gave way to marsh. Marsh gave way to swamp. Swamp gave way to concrete. Concrete gave way to sand. Sand gave way to the saltwater of the Atlantic. The transition from natural to unnatural was jarring, to say the least, but at least now things were starting to look a bit familiar to him.
Civilization. Oh-ho, civilization, he thought acerbically.
He stopped at a rest area at the edge of a manmade mesa. The tourist site looked out over the northern half of the Biscayne Bay and all of Miami--Well, most of it anyway. From his vantage, Miami Beach was completely eclipsed by the white and gold spires of the expansive cityscape to the west of it. Leo wasn’t entirely familiar with the area, but seeing the white walls made his jaw twitch. The class divide was the same as everywhere else then. There truly was nothing new under the sun.
The city had designated anti-magic areas and only the most gifted of Doulosi were invited inside their heavy defenses to take advantage of the best healthcare and infrastructure. Miami, with its three, hexagon-shaped districts and its spread-out outer areas, looked like a carbon copy of some of the Californian cities he and his family had infiltrated in the past. Inside the walls, the buildings were sleek and white and new; connected by a dozen Skystreams that bypassed the gravity-bound traffic below. Outside those orderly cells, the city looked overgrown and mismanaged, like metal Jenga towers half-played out. He could almost smell the alleyway funk, the underground dog fights, and the overcrowded homeless shelters.
“Welcome to Paradise,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled away from the guardrail and got back onto his bike.
Leo took his time scouting around the beaches for Nina Collette’s latest homestead. Celebrities, political officials, and other such self-importants had laid claim to all the prime real estate, but there were a handful of privately owned timeshares along the beachhead that looked promising.
If I was an infamous group of underground Free Doulosi… how bright would my HERE I AM neon be? Leo asked himself offhandedly, but then he saw it. The villa was positioned on a hill, overlooking a driveway that wound its way up the two-acre rise at a pleasant grade. The manse was made up of three buildings. There was a garage at the edge of the property, adjacent a lavish-looking greenhouse made out of glass and intricate iron-wrought lattice. The villa itself was T-shaped, with the top of the T facing the driveway and the main road Leo idled on. There was a privacy wall, but because the house was on a rise, the nine-foot tall barrier did little to grant privacy to anything beyond the thick, thorny vines that clung to it like a secondary security measure.
“If you’re gonna hide in a forest…” Leo muttered before he followed the road along the wall until he came upon a huge security gate with guardhouse and four-story tower. Under his breath, he said, “... turn your tree into a sniper’s nest.”
One of two guards wearing black body armor put up a gloved hand as Leo approached the gate. “Beach is that way, Bot,” the guard said, gesturing. Both the sentries were outfitted with shock batons and knives that very clearly violated federal length limits.
“I’m here to see Nina Collette,” Leo said.
“Invitation?” the guard asked.
“Invitation?” Leo parroted lamely.
The sentry looked over at his fellow guard and the other keyed his comm with a casual finger to the temple. “Possible Suit,” the second guard said under his breath. Even without Leo’s enhanced hearing, he could have read the man’s lips.
“I could say the same about you two,” Leo said stiffly. “Decked out in black on a nice day like this makes you look like Interceptor lackeys.”
“Where’s your handler?” The first guard demanded.
“I’m not an artifi. I’m here on behalf of Emil Volya.”
“And I’m Imperator Ward,” the guard huffed. “Get lost.”
“Or what, you’ll call the cops?”
The guard put his hand on his baton. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Leo kicked his bike into idle mode and got off. Towering a solid foot above the guard, he asked in a deathly quiet voice, “Oh, but could you?”
The guard evidently had balls of plexi. He slowly pulled down his balaclava with one hand so that he and his dignified mustache could state as clearly as possible, “I said, get--”
“That won’t be necessary,” a voice called from behind the gate. A brief alarm rang out and the gate slowly opened to the side, admitting a man dressed down in a tuxedo. He approached confidently. Scanning the newcomer over, Leo noted that the tux was tailored to conceal a biometric handgun of some kind and at least four pulse grenades. The man was also cybernetically augmented. Both of his legs and part of his torso were entirely synthetic. He was also sporting a dated comm implant that glowed green through his dark hair.
“Robert Everyman?” Leo asked. “Good. You can take me to Nina.”
The man did a double take at that and gave each of the sentries a nod to stand down before he came close to Leo. Despite his calm, Robert’s hand went to hook into a belt loop on his gun-side. To anyone else, the position would have been marked as casual in nature. “What’s your relation to Volya?”
“Personal,” he said curtly. “Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk.”
“No,” Robert said with a small smile. “That’s not how this works, Kiddo. You tell me who you are or I get to shoot you.”
The colossus sighed audibly. He said, “I’m Leonid Sinbad Volya and I’m here to pass on a message to Nina Collette--Her eyes only. If you’re here, then I know she’s here. You never let her out of your sight these days. Not since that attack in St. Louis.”
He could almost hear the numbers crunching in Robert’s head. It might have sounded like an old dial-up connection working its magic behind the scenes of a computer’s loading screen. Then Robert nodded once and said, “Follow me. Have the boys take your bike up to the garage.”
Leo tossed his Edison’s fob at Mustache who only just caught it as he watched them go, his mouth hanging open slightly.
He and Robert climbed into an open-air four-by and the cyborg hit auto and leaned back in his seat as the cart took off across the green rise toward the mansion. He said over the whine of the engine, “I didn’t expect a Volya to be so conspicuous.”
Leo wanted to ask if Robert had ever actually met his father, but he just chuckled and said, “Guns, mansions, and a reputation that extends to the outskirts of Miami… Seems to me, Nina has an issue with subtlety as well.”
Robert laughed out loud, blindingly white teeth flashing. “I’ll have to tell her you said that. I’ve been trying to convince her to go back underground for a while now.” Then he looked over at the suited Doulosi and asked, “So how did you find us?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. Dad said to go to Miami and look for a house gilded in stolen gold. The rest was simply keeping my eyes open. Armed guards instead of drones? Black uniforms in a white-washed world? Gun towers in a place that prohibits guns? No automated entry in a place that venerates automation? Ostentatious presentation even for the Floridian elite? If this wasn’t where Nina was living these days, I would have had other questions for those guards out front.” Leo gestured to Robert’s white corsage. “So what’s the special occasion? Did you know I was coming?”
Robert swallowed at that, a paleness coming over him for a moment as his eyes followed the road. He said, “I’d explain, but Nina will want the honors.”
“And you want the chance to have a neuromancer verify my identity.”
“No offence.”
“I’d be offended if you took my words at face value,” Leo said.
“No pun intended, I’m sure?”
“Pun entirely intended.”
Robert smirked as the four-by pulled up to the front door of the mansion and slowed to a stop. As the cyborg’s shoes hit the gravel of the drive, he said, “The last time we saw you…”
“I was a baby. I’m aware.”
“So they still talk about us?”
“Only when I’ve pried,” Leo told him honestly.
Robert didn’t hide his disappointment, but he nodded after a moment of thought. He held out a palm, letting Leo take the lead. “Dot’ll show you to the greeting room. I’ll go get the lady.” As they came inside, Leo cataloged the exits he could see and began making a mental blueprint of the place. A spidery woman nearly as tall as Robert approached them, resetting thin spectacles on her knife-like nose. Robert said to her, “Dorothea, this is Mr. Volya. Take him to the Reunion Suite.”
“Of course,” Dorothea said, smiling pleasantly. Her skin was stretched over her bones like hastily applied paper mache; translucent, dry, and wrinkled. She looked up at Leo and said, “Follow me, Mr. Volya.”
“Leo, please.”
“Of course.”
She led him through the villa with a smooth, measured stride. After a few twists through the halls, Leo could hear distant merry-making. When he tried to enhance his hearing, there was magical interference. He wasn’t surprised. He was in the heart of a Doulosi combine. He would have been disappointed if they didn’t have any protective charms in place. Almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, his suit blocked a neuromatic needle and notified him of its proximity. It was coming from Dorothea.
Dot gave him a surprised, respectful look over her shoulder as she said, “Forgive me. It’s just protocol.”
“Oh, the fault's mine.” He let down his magical defenses for just a moment and said, “I didn’t feel you touch me. I didn’t think you would try a dry poke.”
“I was trying to use your suit’s reception, but it seems you’ve anticipated that kind of approach before. I’m surprised you thought of something like that, but it makes sense if you really are who you claim to be.” Dorothea paused then and turned toward him. They stood in a deserted corridor, walled with tapestries and flat works of holographic art. She held out a bare hand. “May I?”
He reached forward and the metal encasing his pointer finger retracted up to the first knuckle. If Dorothea was dispirited, she didn’t show it. He touched the palm of her hand and she closed her eyes for a moment.
Leo felt her inspection just at the front of his mind. She was medical about it. She touched his identity for a second, then checked for any strings attached. If there was any evidence of tampering--there wasn’t--she might have dug deeper to see if another Neuromancer had planted it there. She could have ended her investigation there, but she didn’t.
Leo recalled something his father had once told him about neuromancers. “By our very nature, we’re voracious consumers of information. A layman sees a maze of electrical pathways constantly connecting and breaking. I see a treasure map.” He remembered his father’s far off look--the devilish smile that twisted Emil’s scarred face--the glow of his blue, mechanical eyes. “Sinbad, if someone ever reads more than they should from you, give them what they want. It’ll scare the ever-living shit out of them.”
Practiced with this defense, Leo shoved a memory at her. She had no choice but to see it. She jerked her hand back like his finger had burned her and his second skin slipped back over his index, closing himself off from the rest of the world once more.
“I-I’m… Excuse me, I didn’t realize I--” Dorothea stammered.
“Be careful next time,” Leo said quietly. “So?”
“Yes… Of course.” Dorothea turned slowly and led him further into the unknown. Then, after a minute of total silence, she said, “You are your father’s son.” Her tone implied more than a passing familiarity. But before he could voice a question, she said, “I knew him a long time ago, before he met your mother outside of Hein’s Sapienization Program. I was there when your parents were born. I was part of Natalie and Emelia’s test group.”
That surprised Leo. He’d only heard those names once before, and by accident. She knew my grandmothers before they died, he concluded in dumb silence. He felt a little sorry for scaring her. When he found his voice, he asked, “What were my parents like back then?”
“Your mother was unremarkable. Your father was important,” Dorothea said simply. “If not for Emil, none of this would be here… I wouldn’t be here, if not for him.” Then she slowed a bit so she could walk next to him, abreast. “He doesn’t talk about those times, does he? Otherwise he would be here.”
Leo bristled a little. “Both of them sent me. What does that tell you?”
“It tells me Alericka is a fool, but Emil trusts you,” Dorothea said. She took the lead again before he could reply and took a sharp turn up a flight of narrow steps. Through the landing’s door, they entered a beige and brown colored sitting room. “Lights on, sixty-percent,” Dorothea invoked and a plethora of lamps and lanterns filled the room with a dim, warm light. The neuromancer nodded then and turned her gaze to his mirror-like face plate. “It’s a shame you feel the need to hide in that suit, surrounded by your fellow Doulosi.”
“You know why I wear it,” he said quietly.
“You think you’re protecting us,” she stated.
He didn’t argue the point. He did think he was protecting them.
“Dot, are you harassing our guest of honor?” a mellow voice inquired from a doorway Leo hadn’t marked earlier. Green evening gown trailing behind her supple form, Nina Collette stepped into the light with her hands clasped before her. There was a blinding smile on her face as she held out her bangled arms. “Leonid Sinbad. Good Lord, is that really what they’re really calling you?”
Dorothea gave Leo one last look filled with a shocking amount of despondency before she let her expression fade into neutrality. I see you, the look told him. And I don’t approve. She bowed at the two of them slightly before vacating the room.
“Forgive Ol’ Dotty,” Nina said. “The years haven’t been kind to her.”
“But they’ve been kind to you,” he said as he shook one of her hands delicately. “The jury’s out on what they call me these days. Mom’s stuck on Leonid Amedeus Christian. Dad insists it’s Sinbad Hasslehof. Legally, I have seven names. It’s a total mess.”
Nina laughed. “Sounds just like ‘em. They were fighting for months over what to call you. Seems fitting they’d still be fighting about it…” She looked him over in a cursory way before she invited him to sit down, “H-How are they, if you don’t mind my asking?” She didn’t sit herself. Instead, she went to a decanter of clear liquid behind one of the plush couches and poured a couple glasses. “You take ice?”
“I don’t drink.” He sat down in one of the hardy single chairs, but then stood when it groaned in protest at him. “I’ll just stand…” She gave him a polite chuckle and he said, “Sorry, I’m a little overwhelmed is all.”
“Weren’t expecting this kind of finery?” she asked.
“I didn’t expect to be in the presence of a legend this morning… but here I am.” When her lip only slightly curled up in a look of mild annoyance, he took a deep breath and said, “The parents are good… They miss you.” He took that opportunity to reach around and pull his backpack from his back. He set the bag aside after he pulled a crumpled envelope from its contents. He handed the missive to Nina and she took it from him before taking a seat herself, sipping at her coastered drink periodically.
At long last she laughed out loud and carefully wiped a tear from an eye. She rubbed the fingers of one manicured hand together and then touched the edge of the letter. It started to smoke, then a flame flickered up from between her digits. She cupped the letter into a flaming ball and extinguished it between her hands. She crumbled a small amount of ash into a tray on one of the end tables, then took up the photograph that had also come out of the envelope. She didn’t look at it for more than a couple seconds before she placed it face down on the coffee table. A smile didn’t reach her eyes as she asked, “Was it you who broke the seal?”
“It was,” he admitted. There was no point in lying.
She nodded. Then she said, “I miss them too…” She stood up and paced around the room as he watched her, silently. “It’s a shame they didn’t come… They wouldn’t have been obligated to stay. A toast would have been nice… Together, for old time’s sake.”
“What’re you celebrating exactly?” Leo asked.
“My family’s reunion… My son’s return… A lot of different things.”
Leo knew Nina had a son five years older than him. He couldn’t remember having met him in person, though. “Beauregard is back? I thought… he worked for some tech company.” I thought he abandoned the Free Doulosi years ago were the words he refrained from voicing.
Nina gave him a knowing smile. “He still does. He’s also doing some inside work for the Interceptors.”
That revelation startled him. “Excuse me?”
“He’s not their only spy here,” Nina said, affecting a bored tone. “And frankly, I’d much rather have them where I can see them.” She let out a breath and said quietly, “I have nothing to hide here.” She went to a painting on the wall and studied it with her drink glass sandwiched between her hands like a cup of cocoa. She sipped it idly, contemplative.
Leo came up beside her and regarded the work of art that had grabbed her attention. It depicted a ship in fine detail. The light of the piece focused on a uniformed captain standing at the helm, sword thrust forward toward another ship on the horizon line, caught sidelong on a gigantic, cresting wave. He huffed a little under his breath. “Why’s his crew readying the cannons?”
Nina, pulled from her thoughts, stared at him for a moment before she said, “Because they’re about to go to war.”
“They’re flying the same colors. The captain is going for a rescue.”
Nina shook her head slightly, but instead of disagreeing with him, she gave him a little smile and said, “I never noticed… Maybe the crew intends mutiny?”
Leo shrugged. “No… More likely, they’re going to scuttle the other ship.” He pointed to the tiny double-mast on the horizon. “She looks like she’s seen some action…” He nodded at his own assessment. “This is Mars’ Wrath and The Sinister by Morrington, isn’t it? 1843… Uh, ‘44, rather.”
Nina Collette took a slow sip of her drink before she nodded just as deliberately. “It is.” She smiled to herself before she turned from the painting. “I suppose first impressions… can be misleading, can’t they?” Before he had a chance to agree with her, she said, “Your father thinks that I mean to brainwash you into becoming some kind of Doulosi warmonger.”
“Warmonger was one of my mother’s labels. Dad just doesn’t want to see me caught up in fighting for something I don’t believe in. He started this war… but if he isn’t going to finish it, I will.”
Nina stopped herself from laughing and asked seriously, “What do you believe in?”
Leo thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “I think I have an obligation to act if someone is forced to live a life apart from their own choosing. To have power and not use it for the good of the people… might be worse than using it to destroy or control them.”
“I feel the same,” Nina said, almost too quickly. “We have a responsibility.” She was quiet for a moment before she said, “That’s the price of freedom that must be paid, and someone must be willing to pay it.” She found her dark irises reflected on the mirror of his helmet and said, “It seems your heart at least is in the right place. Perhaps that’s where you and your father differ. You wish to serve your fellow Doulosi. He--”
“Served his time,” Leo said stiffly. “Now it’s time for me to serve mine.”
Nina nodded. “It was his right to deny his calling.”
“I don’t intend to deny mine. What needs done?”
The Collette matron laughed. “You obviously get your decisiveness from your mother! She always proved wise beyond expectations.”
“Call it wisdom if you want. She called it dumb luck.”
“She’s still humble too. That’s reassuring.” Nina made herself another drink and sipped it slowly before she asked, “I realize you’re eager to throw your lot in with us. I appreciate that. It’s hard to come by young Doulosi these days that haven’t been seduced by the prospect of success within humanity’s embrace.”
“Like with Beauregard,” Leo said and regretted saying it so flippantly when Nina’s expression chilled slightly.
She finished off her glass in one gulp and poured another drink before saying, “Yes, like Beauregard… You understand then how wonderful it is for me that he’s returned, even if I find myself in a less than desirable position because of him.” She gave him a sardonic smile when he turned his head slightly to look beyond her. “Enemies are always knocking on our front door… At least some of them still have manners.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I trust you more than any one person in this whole villa, Leo.”
“That’s not saying much, is it?”
“It’s not. But it’s enough.” Nina paused again and Leo finally recognized her broody pauses as hesitations. She was reluctant to continue the conversation, but he couldn’t pin exactly why. There were a lot of things he didn’t understand about Doulosi--being so far removed from their culture and their way of thinking--but Nina Collette was even more inscrutable. It was strange to think of a pyromancer as inscrutable. Most fire-flinging mages were impassioned and violent, but Nina’s temperament reminded him of his father’s cold composure.
Ah, that’s what it is, Leo thought. It’s not moodiness. Her hesitations are on purpose. She’s not worried. She’s playing against my reactions… Clever, but to what end? Leo asked bluntly, “It’s enough? What do you want, Miss Collette? You obviously wanted my father here for a reason. What was it? If you can’t tell me at least that much, maybe I’m better off joining with one of the Georgian gangs. I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind the trade, but Dad would be royally pissed if he found out you turned me away because of plain-jane paranoia.”
Leo had guessed right. Nina turned a quick glare on him, but then her expression relaxed and she smiled slightly. She knew he’d found her out and she was impressed. She’d strung him along, flattered him, pretended to be in control… but ultimately, she needed him. She needed someone she could count on. She said, “I apologize… I took you for a child. But you are your father’s son.” Oh, he was going to enjoy hearing that over and over again, wasn’t he? “I need your help, but I’m loath to trade a knight for a pawn…”
“Needs must if you’re in check. What can I do?”
She let her guard down for a moment, let him see her fear, and then she had that confident smile on again. “It must be fate,” she said airily, but before he could question the statement, she turned to him and raised her glass. “Your father was honest to a fault. Are you the same?”
“Well, I wouldn’t consider it a fault, per sa--”
“I need you to guard my son.”
Again, Nina had him surprised, off-balance. “From what exactly? You suspect some kind of internal plot?”
“No, nothing so dramatic,” Nina said, distractedly. Her laugh was forced. She steeled herself before she said, “I’ll be gone for a few weeks to work on a new project and I’ve decided to leave him in charge of our headquarters while I’m gone. This place basically runs itself, but there needs to be a familiar face at its helm.”
“Why not let Robert run things? He’s operated in your stead before.”
“Things were different back then. He at least had Doc, Leath, and Daily to help him back then… No, it has to be my blood. Things have changed between the clans. A lot more credence is put into reputation than into personal merit… and I understand how corrupt that must sound, but it’s true. The only thing holding the clans together right now is the faith in the Collette name--the faith in our magic.” She sighed. “Plus… I need Robert where I’m going.”
Leo crossed his arms, sliding metal across metal. The position change made Nina flinch unconsciously. Leo said, “They know Beauregard is a spy.”
“There’s no confirmations right now, just rumors. But rumors can break a regime just as quickly as truths can… I need someone at his side that the people already inherently trust.”
“The son of a Doulosi Savior comes to mind,” Leo said a little tiredly, but he was nodding in understanding. “If I backed your son, it would solidify his hold… and he won’t need to keep it for long. What kind of project will you be working on?”
Implying that he already agreed with her proposal, his words made Nina relax. She let out a relieved breath before she said, “It’s going to change our future without changing anything about the world humanity knows. We won’t need to rely on them for anything after I’m through… It’s been going well, but now I’m needed on-site for the final touches. I wish I could tell everyone what I’m doing, but the more people that know… I can’t risk it.” She looked up at him with such beseeching eyes, he reckoned she was actually sincere for once. “I need you to look after Beau. Watch his back, make sure he stays on the straight and narrow, help him juggle his responsibilities… and make sure no one puts a needle through his eye.”
He nodded his head slowly. “Sounds easy enough. You said this place basically runs itself. I’ll keep his Interceptor friends from interfering with the clans in the interim.” When Nina sat down heavily and smiled like a satiated cat, he asked, “What’s he like?”
“Beau is the best parts of me and the worst parts of his father,” she said starkly. Then she bit her lip and said, “That’s not fair to him… He’s his own man. I forget that sometimes.” She had a faraway look in her cocoa-colored eyes as she continued. “Rob raised him mostly. Then, when Beau was fifteen, he ran away from Robert and turned himself in to the ultimaximum prison in Illinois. I still don’t know what happened to him there… I don’t know why he felt like that was the only place that would take him… I managed to contact him after he graduated from college, but he wanted nothing to do with me. So I let him hate me. I kept tabs on him, or I tried. But he never hid from me. He… He never hid from me, but he still always managed to feel like he was a world away.”
Leo, upon consideration, couldn’t imagine being at those kinds of odds with his own parents. Growing up, he’d known about the struggle with identity and rebellion that some kids had, and he’d had his own phases, but he’d never considered running away. Then again, most kids didn’t have Nina Collette, the revolutionary Free Doulosi pyromancer, as a mother. He knew what it was like to live in the shadow of heroes, and to listen to them when they told him to clean up his goddamn room for the tenth time, but he couldn’t imagine throwing himself in jail just to avoid the chore.
He uncrossed his arms. “And… you’re sure about putting him in charge?”
“I don’t trust anyone else,” Nina repeated. “You’ll hear tell that the reason I can keep the clans together is because I trust that they won’t tear each other apart with their agendas, and that’s true… but I don’t trust a one of them to lead this family into the future like me and my own can. The only others I would trust aren’t here.” She looked at his helmet then and he could tell she was searching for his eyes in the one-way mirror of his helmet. “Besides you.”
The word trust was being thrown around a little too much. In the end, Leo didn’t know who to believe--Nina, with her contradictions and charisma, or the cold hard lump in his stomach named Foreboding.
“You really think he’ll listen to me?”
“You don’t think he will?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “If it were me, I’d wonder why Emil Volya’s son wasn’t running the show, knowing his reputation… After all, this is supposed to be my mantel by inheritance, isn’t it?” He wanted to take back his words as soon as he’d said them--not because they weren’t true, but because Nina Collette laughed at him like his parents had.
She eventually mellowed out and pat him on the arm. “Oh Babycakes, if only it were so simple! How do you think I got this job? You think they gave it to me by default? When Emil left, I had to wrestle his power from hands that would have run this rebellion into the ground years ago. The wealth we sit in now wasn’t made by Volya hands. It was made by Collette hands… and the clans know that.” She smiled sweetly at him. “You are powerful in name alone, to be sure, but you have a lot to prove before you can contest leadership with the likes of me and my own.”
He waved his hands dismissively. “Alright, whenever you finish with your project, I’ll make my case. For now, I’m not going to use Beau’s weakened position to strengthen my own. That would be rude.”
Nina nodded. She was still smiling slightly. “I suppose I should thank you then…” When Leo sighed at her, she laughed. “ Ultimately, as long as the clans believe you’re qualified to take care of my son, that’s all that matters.” She smiled ruefully. “That’s how leadership goes. Convince enough people that the sun shines out your asshole and people will pay you to tan under your skirt. Bonus points if it's a protected skirt.”
Leo actually laughed. “Is that what you did? Doesn’t seem so hard.”
“I’ll let you borrow a few if you think you can do better.” She grinned.
Leo could guess why people chose to follow Nina Collette after his father left the throne vacant. But he wondered why she took up the heaviness of the crown in the first place. Was is really because she wanted to unite the clans in peace? Or was she simply enthralled with the idea of securing her own kind of personal security?
All I can do is wait, watch, and learn, Leo decided.
The maxim reminded him of his homeschooling years, when he could only observe the outside world through a small, fist-sized window for the hours between lessons. It reminded him of his seventeenth year, when they isolated him for seven months and he could only read his parents’ lips through a plexi door treated with anti-magic shielding.
Wait.
Watch.
Learn.
“Leo.”
He snapped to.
Nina said, “I want you to meet him tonight before bed--Just to acquaint yourselves.”
“That’s fine,” Leo said neutrally. Nina was about to continue when he suddenly asked, “What about his Interceptor contacts?” When the pyromancer gave him a questioning expression, he asked, “If Beauregard’s involvement with them becomes an issue, what should I do?”
Nina realized what he was asking and she actually flushed for a moment before she regained control of herself and said, “I trust you’re as good a judge as any, given your family’s history with them… If you feel like the revolution is on the verge of something that would leave it open to the Corps’ influence, you have my permission to do everything in your power to thwart them… including remove my son from the situation.” She grew quiet as she added, “But you will answer to me when I return from The Keys.”
The Keys. Leo filed her verbal slip away for later. “Of course,” he said just as seriously.
“I swear… Men and their ambitions,” Nina said under her breath, but she winked at him and set her drink down. “Come on then. Follow me.” She stood straight and smoothed out her dress before leading him to a bookcase in the parlor. He was about to ask her where she thought she was going when she knocked loudly on its side and waited. “The other side is Robert’s cigar lounge,” Nina explained. “I had him try to relax our future fearless leader.”
She planned this, Leo realized. I don’t know how, but she planned this. “Uh, relax?” he asked dumbly.
“He wouldn’t have agreed to meet you if he wasn’t completely hammered.”
“Excuse me?”
Nina laughed at his response. “Goodness, Leo, it’s like you’ve never prepared to coerce anyone before!” She knocked again.
“You mean, he doesn’t--”
The bookcase swung suddenly inward and Nina stepped through the portal. The room on the other side was bright, warm, and filled with cigar smoke. Leo’s HUD notified him that the life of his filters would decay exponentially if he prolonged his stay in the room. Leo saw Robert in a smoking jacket first and nodded his greeting to the Doulosi sympathizer. Robert had a tepid smile on his face, but he nodded back.
Nina said to Robert, “Ah, excellent. The jacket’s off.” She gave her second in command a grateful nod and Robert returned the gesture with a sly smile. Nina gestured at Leo then and said, “Beauregard Day Collette, this is Leonid Sinbad Volya.”
Beauregard Collette was completely skunked. He was wearing a tailored, cream-colored vest, but the first couple buttons of his collar were undone and there was no tie to be found anywhere. He shared Nina’s dark skin and their regal facial features, but his bloodshot eyes were green in color. Curious, Leo ran their likeness through a couple databases, but couldn’t determine if they were augmented in anyway. Beauregard was accompanied by a thin, skeleton-like robot of some kind, its head a holographic projection instead of something solid. Upon its screen, it was currently emoting a caricature of Beau’s own expression: unfettered fear.
What’s got him so afraid of his mother? Leo pondered. Then he went rigid as he realized Beauregard was staring directly at him. Oh. Right.
Nina said, “He’ll be your right-hand man while I’m away. He’s the only one I trust with the job.”
There was a tense moment of confused silence before Beauregard blurted nonsense in a stuttered voice. “B-B-B-Budap-pe-pe… ssss…” Thereafter, he promptly fainted, falling bodily to the side and dropping a half-done cigar onto the beige carpet as his arms splayed out like a murder victim.
The robot immediately stepped over Beau’s sprawled form to step on the dropped cigar, putting it out with a small sizzle. “Inferno averted. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.”
Nina threw her hands up in the air, but then fixed a heated look on Robert who physically flinched and threw up his hands in defense. “I ordered him out of his jacket, Rob! I didn’t want you to poison him!” she shrilled, her queen-like composure degenerating as her motherly ire took over.
As the two of them bickered over how drunk Nina had or hadn’t suggested Beau be when she arrived, Leo and the razor-thin robot helped to collect a catatonic Beau from the carpet.
The robot said, “Hello there, Leonid Sinba--”
“Leo’s fine,” Leo said. An artifi? Interesting, he noted.
“You may call me Boomer unless Beau instructs otherwise,” it told him pleasantly. The machine helped him lift the listless body of their future leader to his feet, but quickly realized that it wasn’t well equipped to take on the full weight of a drunk, adult male. “Leo, I would like to ask after your assistance in this endeavor.”
Leo slung the drunk over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. It wasn’t a dignified thing, but it served for transportation purposes. Boomer’s projection head expressed admiration as the robot exclaimed, “Wow Leo, you are incredibly strong! Your exo-suit seems very practical, but it also has a pleasant design. Your metal has a nice pigmentation and gloss. I would also like to cure my chassis with a four-percent lightness along a zero-percent saturation scale!” It puts its hands to its face as its vector and status lights all turned a shade of pink in color.
“Uh, thanks, Boomer. That’s… an oddly specific compliment.”
“You are most welcome.” Boomer turned to the still bickering couple near the bookcase entrance and announced, “We will be taking Beau to bed if you two would like to--”
Nina saw what they were doing, and put up one finger to silence Robert’s latest rebuttal. She put that hand to her forehead after a moment. “It’s useless. Why did I think this was a good idea? He isn’t ready, Rob. This place isn’t ready. I’ll never get to leave if this is what I’m leaving behind...” Robert grabbed her shoulders at that and shushed her.
Leo almost laughed at the display. She was so obviously manipulating him into feeling guilty, it was almost comical. She was clearly doing it for fun, otherwise he couldn’t see the point in cutting the cyborg down with tears. Leo just made obvious grunts and cleared his throat before he pat Beau’s trousered rump and said, “I’ll have our prince tucked away shortly. Does he have a favorite bedtime story?”
Nina looked over Robert’s shoulder and sighed before she said, “There will be a meeting with the clan heads in the morning. Make sure he doesn’t miss it. Dorothea has all the details.”
“I’ll make sure,” he promised.
Robert said, “Now, come on. I bet you still haven’t packed.” He put a hand to her back and pushed her back towards the Reunion Suite. “The boys’ll take care of things while we’re gone.” He gave Leo a wink over his own shoulder at that. “Don’t you worry.”
“That’s not very reassuring after what I--.”
“Mamacita, what’s the worst they could do? Burn down the villa?”
“Not funny!”
At that, their voices disappeared behind the closing bookcase.
Leo looked to Boomer and the bot gave him a blinding, electronic smile.
“So, where’s his room?” Leo asked, readjusting Beauregard.
“I do not know!” it proclaimed. “We arrived less than five hours ago.”
“An hour for me,” Leo said after indulging in a sympathetic sigh. “I guess we’ll just wander around the property until someone yells at us.”
“That sounds like an excellent course of action,” Boomer agreed.
Beauregard took that moment to vomit down Leo’s back.
Boomer gave Leo a mortified emote and said, “Leo, I believe--”
“Yeah, I know. Come on.”
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