Fires of Man Read online

  He switched on the TV, more out of habit than interest.

  The New Axom Aviators had won the first round of the baseball playoffs. Bruce Berengar had defended his heavyweight title for the eleventh time, and the channel showed the instant replay of the KO punch in endless loops. Nyne flipped the channel again. He went through nature programs, sitcoms, science specials on the beginning of the universe. When he could take no more, he switched off the set, pulled off his towel, and rolled onto his side, curling up in the sheets.

  He looked at his photo of Kay, her eyes twinkling, mirthful. What would she think if she saw he still had the picture? Was that something a “friend” would have? A memento of how close they’d once been?

  Or, was it no more than a reminder of the woman who had broken his heart?

  Nyne turned over, forcing himself to look away. No matter how often he told himself they were through, he still wanted Kay. Needed her. As he drifted off to sleep, he remembered the first time they had made love in this bed.

  He had told her he loved her.

  She had smiled, and called him a fool.

  4

  KAY

  It was one of those mornings.

  After running into Nyne the night before, Kay hadn’t slept well. Amid thoughts of him, she’d been haunted by the same familiar nightmares that had tormented her since childhood: gunshots in the snow; mom guzzling vodka; parental screaming matches; her brother, Tiberian Barrett, disappearing forever.

  No, not forever.

  There was no such thing as forever.

  Sleep had come late for Kay, and she’d slumbered past her morning alarm by nearly an hour. It was 0600 by the time she stumbled out of her quarters. No time to hit the gym again, not if she was going to make the briefing in an hour. Instead, she went to the mess hall for her morning coffee.

  But the industrial coffeemaker had blown. Surprise.

  Kay had no choice but to head topside. Even then, she retained some small semblance of good cheer . . . until she saw the line snaking out the door of Bon Café.

  Aw, fuck!

  She waited at first, determined to get the best damn vanilla no-foam latte in town. But time was fleeting, and she was running out of it. She finally gave up and bought a cup of watered-down coffee from a nearby street vendor—a chubby Cotino guy with a sunny disposition. Handing over her coffee, he said, “Un café para la hermosa señorita.” He smiled. “For the beautiful miss.”

  She smiled back. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Then some punk lifted her handbag while she was reaching for her drink.

  Kay chased the little shit for five minutes. She shouldered aside pedestrians, dodged strollers, skirted past traffic. She finally caught up with him in a grimy alley off Darry Street.

  The thief couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He had the emaciated, dead-eyed look of a junkie; his hair was filthy, dyed bright red and violet. When he realized he was trapped, he brought out a butterfly knife.

  She charged him.

  Shocked, the junkie brandished the weapon.

  Kay dodged to the side, hooked his arm in hers, and smashed him in the nose with the heel of her palm.

  The kid fell on his ass. Blood streamed from his nostrils. His knife lay forgotten at his side.

  Kay grabbed her handbag and turned to go.

  The kid began to sob.

  Dammit, she thought. The idiot had tried to rob her. But looking at him now—his face covered in snot and tears and wet, sticky blood—she felt like a bully. She went back to the junkie, crouched beside him. She opened her bag, dug out a packet of paper tissues, and handed them to him.

  The kid accepted them, sniffling. He was too messed up or miserable to even make eye contact. She took his knife, gave him a twenty- mark bill, and her business card. “Get in touch if you feel like using again,” she said. “Don’t use that cash to get high. If you do, I’ll hunt you down and break something worse than your nose. You got it?”

  By the time she left, she already regretted it.

  How naïve could she be? Of course the kid would use the money on drugs. Her threat had been empty; there was no way she could track him down again.

  All she ever wanted was to make the right decision. So why did every choice she made feel like yet another in an endless succession of fuck-ups?

  She was angry at the junkie, angry at the coffee vendor, the people in line, and the goddamn broken coffee machine that had started it all. She was angry at Nyne for still caring about her. Life would be so much easier if he just hated her instead. But he was so fucking decent, and kind, and it just made the fact that she’d hurt him feel a million times worse. She was angry at the military for having no answers about her brother after all these years.

  Most of all, she was angry at herself, because today was Tibe’s birthday. And she still couldn’t put it behind her.

  On her way back to base, she bought another coffee from yet another street stand. It tasted like mud. She threw it in the trash.

  It was only then that she checked her watch. 0658.

  Shit!

  She jogged back to base, wanting to howl or scream or stab someone with that fucking butterfly knife. She ran through the halls to her quarters. She hastily donned her uniform, and tore a seam in the process. She cursed and swapped out the shirt for another, then made a mad dash to the elevators, checking her watch again. 0715.

  Great.

  The briefing rooms were on the third floor. As she rode up from the basement lodgings, she tried to reclaim some sense of stability. She breathed deeply and counted through each inhalation and exhalation. One, two, three, four, five. When the elevator arrived, she strode out into the sterile white hallway, still counting. The fluorescent lights glared at her. She slowed her pace, wanting to look composed.

  One, two, three, four, five.

  The conference room door slid open before her. Seven officers turned to look at her from either side of a long white conference table. The room was small, with a laptop hooked up to an LCD display at the front. A golden Orion sun stood out on the wall. Nyne sat on the left side of the table, looking irritatingly concerned. Beside him sat Nyne’s friend, Captain Lucrasz Deregski, leering at her in a way that made her skin crawl. She didn’t know what the hell Nyne saw in that guy.

  Farther back was Major Gabriel Shore and his advisor, Master Sergeant Lisa Rowley. On the right, two seats were occupied by members of Orion Intelligence: Captain Anna Marsh, a slight, half-Isaian woman with an angular face, and Major Ryan Carder, dark-skinned and heavyset.

  At the head of the room was Colonel Cal Bringham—a short, corpulent man in his fifties, though the sleeves of his uniform bulged with muscle, rather than fat. He sported a brown mustache salted with gray, and his deep-set eyes lay beneath shaggy eyebrows.

  “Barrett,” he growled, “we’ve been waiting.”

  “Sorry, sir.” She smiled, trying for nonchalance. She held the lowest rank in the room, shouldn’t have even been there, by all accounts. But she wouldn’t let her nerves show.

  “Something we’d like you to see,” said Captain Marsh.

  “Me?” Kay asked, missing a beat.

  Bringham nodded. “Take a seat.” He picked up a remote and switched on the LCD. Kay took a chair next to Major Carder, her mind spinning. What was this about?

  A picture appeared on the screen, showing a dark-garbed man in sunglasses, in the middle of what was presumably Grisham Desert. The guy sported a strange, savage style: red dreadlocks spilled over his shoulders; his arms bore light, spiraling tattoos; spiked piercings lined his ears.

  Kay realized everyone was staring at her: Nyne, with his pitying gaze; Crasz, feigning disinterest; Shore and Rowley with detached observation; and Marsh and Carder with an earnest hunger.

  Mutely, Bringham brought up another picture.

  This one was a closeup—the creases of the man’s face were visible. His lips were curled in a scowl. There was something familiar about the con
tours of his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the slope of his forehead and his bold, protruding nose.

  It hit her all at once. Her stomach dropped.

  It was her brother. It was Tibe.

  Over the years, Kay had heard whispers of Tiberian’s rise through the ranks of the Calchan Psi Forces. Kay had not believed. Until now.

  It was Tibe in the picture. And he looked . . . like a monster.

  “Can you identify this man?” Marsh pressed her.

  “I . . .” Kay said. “Where was this taken?”

  “Near Outpost Six,” Bringham said.

  Outpost Six! He’d been so close. She thought she should’ve felt elation, but instead she was sick to her stomach. There had to be a mistake. This feral creature could not be Tiberian. There was no way.

  Officer Carder cleared his throat. “Is it him?”

  “No,” Kay said.

  “No?” Carder leaned in, invading her personal space.

  She shied away. “I don’t know.”

  Bringham brought up a third photo. This one was straight on.

  Much as she wished to deny it, it was Tibe. There could be no more doubt. She could even see the scar near his hairline, from when he’d fallen off his bike and hit his head. Nausea rose up inside her. The room began to spin. She gripped the table for balance, its hard edges digging into her palms.

  Colonel Bringham was talking again, but the words sounded far away. “. . . Recon teams have picked him up in several places around Grisham. No evidence points to Calchan forces in our territory, but the presence of a high-profile officer such as . . .” He looked at Kay.

  She shirked his gaze, focusing on her hands.

  “Such as who we believe this man to be,” Bringham continued, “indicates they’re planning an offensive. Or want us to believe such.”

  Kay breathed in and out. One, two, three, four, five. She had to keep it together.

  She chanced a look around the room. Most of the others had turned their attention to Bringham, but Nyne was watching her. It made her want to scream. When he looked at her like that, she felt small and sad, and not strong at all. Why couldn’t he see that?

  “Sergeant?”

  Kay blinked. “Yes?”

  “We’re awaiting your identification,” said Bringham. “Officially.” He took his seat and folded his hands. “Is this man . . . ?”

  “Commander Tiberian Barrett of the Calchan Psi Forces,” she finished. The words felt automatic.

  “Your brother,” said Marsh.

  “No!” She heard someone else shout, but the word came from her mouth.

  She was standing. When had she left her chair? She flushed, mortified. The room was still teetering.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I meant that . . . I can no longer consider him as such.”

  “Understood, Sergeant Barrett,” said Bringham.

  “Sir, may I please be excused?”

  Bringham nodded.

  Kay went for the door.

  When she stumbled out into the hall, it was deserted. The lights buzzing overhead were inordinately loud. The sound and the brightness made her feel more ill than before. Caffeine withdrawal, she rationalized.

  She burst into the women’s restroom, startling a soldier at the sink, who splashed water down the front of her shirt. “Sorry,” Kay mumbled. She made a beeline to the nearest stall, stopped long enough to lock the door, then fell to her knees and retched.

  It went on for what felt like ages. She clung to the toilet seat in desperation, the only anchor to keep her from drowning in a dark, bottomless sea.

  A plaintive voice asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Fuck off,” Kay said, and retched again. Her bran muffin from the mess hall came up. There was nothing left after that, so the rest of her heaving provided little relief.

  When the vertigo and nausea finally subsided, Kay flushed the toilet and sat to catch her breath. She rolled out some toilet paper and dabbed at her mouth. A second piece she used to wipe away the cold sweat on her forehead. She felt drained, half-delirious. The endorphins made her want to laugh.

  It was all so ludicrous. The man in the photo couldn’t be Tibe! Right?

  One, two, three, four, five.

  There was a tightness in her chest. She clamped down on it. To accept her grief would be to accept the fact that her brother had become . . . something else. An animal, a beast she no longer recognized. She couldn’t believe the way he looked, so different from back then.

  Unbidden, the memories assaulted her.

  Walking up to the old house, with its soaring gables and ivy-draped brick walls.

  Snow everywhere. Strange voices inside.

  Tiberian telling her to stay calm, quiet. To count: one, two, three, four, five.

  The door opening.

  Kay shut her eyes. She willed the memories to go away. But they reared up, angrier and more insistent than ever.

  A gun, glinting in the moonlight. A crack that split the night.

  Tiberian falling. The snow, so red.

  And running. Running as fast as her ten-year-old legs had been able to carry her.

  Her bladder emptying. Her pants soaked with piss and snow.

  The smell of dog as she hid in her neighbor’s doghouse.

  The taste of bile in the back of her throat.

  Days later, the terrifying beeps of Tiberian’s life support.

  Kay choked back a sob. She remembered the moment she’d woken up in the hard-backed wooden chair in his hospital room, and found him gone. Just gone. No hint, no trace. Dying one minute, disappearing the next.

  When she’d heard rumors that Tibe had shown up in Calchis, light had returned to her life. She hadn’t cared that he was with the enemy.

  But seeing that picture of him today . . .

  Her hunt for her brother was over. She knew that now.

  The Tiberian she’d known was dead.

  Body aching, Kay stood. She exited the stall and found the bathroom empty. She went to the sink, washed her face and hands with lukewarm water, then rinsed her mouth and spit until the taste of puke faded. She examined herself in the mirror and found a gaunt, hollow-eyed woman looking back—a woman she barely recognized.

  When she stepped outside, Nyne was waiting for her.

  Oh, God, she thought. Not now.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. He took a step toward her, reached for her. Then let his hand fall back to his side.

  Kay forced herself to grin. She gestured to the ladies’ room door. “All yours,” she said.

  “Kay . . .”

  “Please, N,” she said, “just once, try not to act like my goddamn hero.”

  She turned away.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She felt his hand on her forearm.

  Kay spun and twisted Nyne’s hand into a wristlock. “Leave me alone,” she hissed. She released him and stalked away, immediately feeling awful. Like a bully again. Why did she always end up hurting him?

  But she didn’t turn back.

  She would not let him see her tears.

  5

  AGENT

  Agent drove his black Pharos N-9 through the crowded streets of Chiron, capital of Calchis. City lights reflected off the sports car’s sleek chassis with a diamond shine. A breeze spilled in through the half-lowered windows, tossing the lapels of his finely tailored suit.

  He was at the intersection of Fifteenth Street and Arch Avenue. Giant signs surrounded him, hawking the latest films, the hottest fashions, the ritziest hotels, and steamiest gentleman’s clubs.

  There was a seductive debauchery to it all.

  Chiron was a city of dualities: high-rise penthouses and back-alley squalor; high-class society and low-rent trash, clogging every gutter.

  Far above, the elevated rail snaked through the city, smooth as silk. The train cars hovered off the magnetized track, their green and blue lights slinking through the skyline. It was a far cry from Agent’s homeland, where the only thing t
hat moved through the air was smoke from burning villages and funeral pyres.

  Agent had held his first gun when he was six, killed his first man when he was seven. He’d been trained by his father amid the savage civil war that had raged in Tripana, a jungle land in northern Rakhar.

  Genocide had been commonplace, and no one remembered the names of those tossed in the mass graves.

  But in those days, Agent had possessed a name. An identity. His forebears had been Prophist missionaries from the Euparan continent, to the north. Yet over a century, the white men in Tripana had become no better than stray dogs.

  Agent’s father had called him his “little mutt.”

  The war in Tripana had raged for years—drug cartels against arms dealers, arms dealers against freedom fighters, and freedom fighters against holdovers from the old regime.

  When Agent had discovered he could kill with powers beyond the scope of normal men, his father had thrown a feast and made a man of him by a hostage girl they’d taken sacking a nearby village. She had stunk of fear and excrement, and he could still recall her half-starved body, her withered breasts, her wild eyes.

  His father had watched and given him instructions. When Agent finished, his father had handed him a knife and made him slit her throat. She was a virgin no longer, his father had explained, and therefore not worth the cost to feed and clothe her.

  Agent had been twelve that day.

  A year later, the helicopters arrived. Calchis had armed the revolutionaries, organized air strikes against the criminals, and—within eighteen months—established a provisional government. Not that Agent had gotten to see it; a small team had come for him in the night.

  Watching from a tent doorway, Agent had seen his father awaken from a drunken stupor and try to resist. Agent had seen the Calchan officer shoot the old man in the head. He had seen the splatter, the bits of brain and bone. The officer was a man named David Virard, and Agent regarded him as his personal savior.

  Thirty years later, he still did. And now Virard was waiting for him.

  At last Agent arrived at his destination: the Chiron Opera House. More than a hundred feet tall, a row of white marble columns lined its entranceway. Agent pulled up in front and allowed the valet to take his car.