Eye of the Abyss Read online

  “I think he’s processing, or something,” Lina said after a short time.

  “Maybe.” The only other Abyssian Cylus had met was Nero Graves, and Nero hadn’t acted like this one at all.

  “I have reported to Daedalus,” Praetor Modulus said, startling him.

  He had never heard of the machine entity taking such a direct hand in an individual’s affairs before, or of it kidnapping barons for that matter. He thought of Daedalus as a kind of ally and protector. The AI was built by the Cronus family, after all, and he figured that as long as he was allied with them, he had nothing to fear—

  An icy hand gripped his heart as he realized he wasn’t allied with the Cronuses anymore, not publicly. Did Daedalus know about their newly repaired relationship? Would they have told it? Was this some way of the machine getting back at him for defecting to the Mercantile Party? He refused to think that the universe would be so cruel as to offer him revenge on Zalor Revenant only to snatch it away with the hand of a former ally. This had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

  “Why is Daedalus holding us? We are allied with House Cronus again. Maybe he didn’t hear about that.” His voice seemed to squeak in his own ears, and the sound disgusted him. I will not be prey!

  The Praetor’s gaze turned to him. “Daedalus requires your patience, and informs you the methods of your involuntary compliance with his requirements are regrettable. The control program running in your cerebral implants was computed to be the course of action leading to the greatest percentage chance of successful cooperation.”

  “What?” Cylus’ mouth hung open.

  “You asked us who we were by name. How did you know we would be here? What happened to Captain Fukui?” Lina said in a loud voice.

  “You are to be held here until it is safe,” Praetor Modulus said.

  “Safe?” His blood went cold. “Safe from what?”

  “Further data is irrelevant to your processes,” he responded.

  “Irrelevant? Why are we being held here. I don’t buy this ‘safe’ bullshit. Why won’t you tell us what happened to Captain Fukui?” Lina said.

  Cylus felt himself starting to tremble inside, though he couldn’t tell if it was from fear or anger.

  “Further data is irrelevant to your processes. Daedalus commands that you be fed at regular intervals and allowed freedom of movement about this residence only. Please stand by while I prepare this domicile for your biological and aesthetic needs.” Praetor Modulus turned and began to pick up the debris. When his arms were full he left the room, returning moments later for another load.

  “What the hell is going on?” Cylus asked. He would not be robbed of his revenge, not now, not when he was so close, and not by a stupid machine with an over-bloated sense of itself. What was Daedalus thinking holding them here? It served no purpose that he could see.

  “I don’t know. He’s blocked access to most of my implant’s functions.” Lina silenced herself when the Preator returned for another load. “I can’t even access most of the local Cyberweb.”

  “Damn it, Modulus! I am a Baron of the Confederation of Sovereign Systems! You will release us now!”

  “Negative. Please stand by while I prepare this domicile for human biological and aesthetic needs.” Praetor Modulus continued to clean the room.

  “You can’t do this to us!” Lina shouted.

  “Please stand by.” Praetor Modulus turned and exited the room, leaving them to stare at his back as their cries fell on his uncaring ears.

  He wasn’t sure if he slept or not. After Modulus released them from the implant-induced paralysis he warned them not to leave the house, then departed. Stunned and horrified, Cylus and Lina lay on the bed together. Modulus had somehow found fresh sheets that smelled like Anilonian flowers and calibrated the mattress to Cylus’ ideal settings. How the Praetor knew what he liked was another mystery to him. If the circumstances were different he would have had a good night’s sleep.

  Lina shifted against him with her head in the crook of his arm. An almost imperceptible snore escaped her petite nose. He put a hand on hers, feeling her arm as a reassuring weight on his chest. It was warm, even through both of their e-suits.

  “I’m awake,” he said when the lids furled back from her sky-blue eyes. A small smile appeared on her red lips, and she squeezed him to her. He frowned at the gravel in his damaged voice. It was a memento of what Zalor did to him before they left the capital, and though he hated the memory of the humiliation he suffered, it was a reminder of what he had to be to win.

  “Good morning.” Her voice was a sharp contrast to his—melodic, strong, and beautiful.

  “For a prisoner you sound cheerful.”

  “I’m with my baron, why wouldn’t I be?” She squeezed his body to her full curves a second time.

  “Because we’re being held against our will by a mad Praetor?”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes, I know. I just wanted to enjoy the first few moments of the morning with you before facing it.”

  He felt a stab of shame. “I’m sorry.”

  She breathed in and crawled up his body to put her face beside his. “Don’t be. You’re a baron,” she said before planting a kiss on his lips.

  He pouted for a moment, then put a hand into her blond ringlets and kissing her back. He did it twice more before letting go.

  “That’s more like it.”

  Her words brought a smile to his face, and he sat up. The floor was spotless where it was covered in dirt and blood the day before. The job was so good that he had to wonder if Modulus downloaded his cleaning protocols from the same place Ben did. Only the holographic pictures on the walls remained to remind them of the Achinoi family whose bed they slept in. It was a sad thing. As isolated as this colony was, it was likely that everyone who knew them died here. Maybe the bronze-scaled humanoids had some relatives back on Achinax or somewhere else in the Confederation, but anyone close to them would have been here.

  He got up and moved over to the picture. The female wore a dress with many folds, and the membranes of her wings that connected her clawed arms and legs stuck out from its sides. Beside her, the male he assumed was her husband, stood stocky and strong in an Extra-Terrestrial Mining Corporation uniform. Two smaller Achinoi danced about the field in front of them. All four had the same, white and brown striped Mohawk of quills on their heads.

  “We have to tell people what happened.”

  “We will, Cy,” Lina said from behind him. He felt her hands on his long, copper-red locks. “I’ll try to find a comb.”

  He watched her look around the empty room before she headed out into the hallway. On impulse he followed her down its short, carpeted length into a bathroom that looked little bigger than a broom closet. He was surprised a sink, toilet, and bathtub could fit in such a small space. There was a mirror above the sink projecting the image of a glowing orange line beside it. Lina swiped her finger over it, and the mirror slid up into the wall baring the shelves and sundries behind it.

  “They lived in such cramped quarters,” he said, putting the seat down on the toilet. His elbow banged into the lip of the sink as he sat down.

  “This is how most people in the Confederation live.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “I used to sneak out of Brudah’s compound on Ganymede all the time. Come to think of it, I did the same on Dorgar as well.” She rifled through several containers with cosmetics labels printed on their sides. She paused, turning one so that she could read its label, then placed the small jar down on the lip of the sink.

  “What did you do while you were out?” he asked, trying to envision Heiress Pasqualina Olivaar on the streets among the working class. The idea was so absurd it made him chuckle.

  “Mostly I just got up to no good, associated with people I shouldn’t have, and put a few illegal substances in my body.” She started shuffling through the items on the next shelf.

  He raised his eyebrows. “You did narcot
ics?”

  “A few, but I guess they didn’t take. I think I only did them to fit in.”

  “You were trying to fit in on the streets?” This whole story was getting more unbelievable by the moment.

  “Yeah, well, I was a teenager. Doing anything to fit in where I thought people would accept me was the only thing on my mind. Ah,” she said, pulling out a narrow, oval rod about as long as the width of her palm. Once she got it into the light and had a clear look at the rod she frowned and went to put it back.

  “Wait.” He recognized the device, though he hadn’t used one in years. “Let me have that.”

  She looked at him with widened eyes, but did as he asked.

  Cylus took the device in his hand and held it up, watching the play of light on its glossy surface. He flipped it over and located the control stud on the bottom. The top shot up when he pressed it, extending a narrow rod that doubled the device’s length. A red light glowed on the underside of the top portion, and a corresponding spot formed on the base below it.

  “Are you sure you want to use that?” Lina asked.

  He wasn’t, but something drew him to it when she pulled it out of the cabinet. The feeling grew stronger the more he looked at it.

  “Something’s gotten into me this morning,” he said. “I feel different somehow. I’ve been thinking about Hagus and Vargas all night.”

  “Cy—” she started.

  “No, it’s all right. I mean, I don’t feel bad. Something took hold of me when Vargas threatened you, and I’m not sure it let go.” He drew in a breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it out in a rush. “It’s been growing since then, on the trip over here, and even right now. It’s like a voice whispering in my head, reminding me of what matters. You know, I haven’t always been this weak.”

  “You’re not weak, Cy.” She looked concerned.

  “Yes, I am. Sable is off doing Matre-knows-what right now, but I bet it has something to do with avenging his father. That’s how he is, you know. He always does the right thing no matter how hard. That’s real strength, Lina. I’m not like that.”

  “Cy—”

  He held up his hand. “Let me finish. I don’t always do the right thing. I hide behind Ben, behind you, and this beard…” He sighed. “I hide and let others solve the problem for me. When my family was murdered I hid behind mansion walls and among the plants of the garden that they planted. I would have stayed there until I died if Sable and Sophi hadn’t come to get me. It was Sable who pushed me to go back to Earth last year. I think Sophi would have been content to have me stay on Anilon, but that’s really not the point.”

  He paused and looked up at her blue eyes. She had one hand on the edge of the sink right by the jar she pulled out. The other rested by her side. There was a visible tension in the way she stood with her weight evenly distributed between her legs. The light shone through her ringlets, making them into a nimbus of gold around her head.

  “The point is,” he said in a more muted tone, “that I’m a coward. I murdered two people, Lina. One of them was my uncle. I killed them, and instead of staying where I was most needed, I ran off to hide again.”

  “You wanted to investigate Captain Solus. Aren’t we here to find evidence against Zalor, too? That’s not running. That’s arming yourself so you can win the battle to come.”

  He smiled with sad eyes. “I should have stayed on Kosfanter to face what I did and sent someone here to do this. That’s what I would have done, except I was scared.”

  “You didn’t look scared after you did it. You were… amazing.” She stared at him with an intensity he’d never seen in her eyes before. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he couldn’t let it stop him.

  “I don’t think I knew it at the time, but yeah, I was scared. I’ve left Sophi in charge of my family’s House. Who knows what she’s doing with it now? Nothing good, I bet. She turned her own staffing corporation into a spy agency. What do you think she’s doing with my barony? I shouldn’t have come here. If I hadn’t—if we hadn’t—we wouldn’t be prisoners of this malfunctioning Praetor. We are because I didn’t want to face the consequences of my actions. I pushed us to come here because we are as far from my responsibilities as we can be right now. I used this Solus thing as an excuse, but that’s all it was. We’re not going to find him here, or any evidence against Zalor Revenant. We’re here so I can hide yet again. I think I know that now.”

  She looked at him with an unreadable expression. He waited several breaths, at first to see if she would say something, and then because he couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. He decided he should get to the point.

  “I swore to myself I would never be the prey of the Big Bad Wolf, or anyone else, ever again. Prey hides, Lina. I can’t hide anymore.” He looked down at the device. It was a cheaper one than what he was used to, and it was starting to heat up from being on for longer than its designers intended. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

  In his hand the device hummed with electromagnetic power. He grabbed the base of his braided beard. The first swipe of the device severed it just below his chin with a puff of smoke and the smell of burnt hair. For a moment he considered just how cheap the device really was, his own had a way of neutralizing the smoke and the smell, but that wasn’t important right now. He held the rope of wiry, red hair in his hand and realized there was no going back. He set about freeing himself from the mask he wore for the last seven years. It was strange not to use a mirror as he separated the thick wire of his beard from his pale skin, but he didn’t need one. There was no need for style or finesse; he was going to be rid of it all. The copper hair fell in clumps into his lap. When he was done, and the heat of the laser-razor caressed the skin of his face, he shut it down and placed the device on the lip of the sink.

  Lina’s eyes hadn’t moved from him as he worked. She licked her lips once, then picked the device up and reactivated it.

  “You missed a spot.” She caressed his throat with it just below the curve of his jaw. Her hand came up to touch the side of his naked face and she kissed him. The shock of contact on his freshly exposed skin made him shiver. She ran a finger across his lips and caressed the dimple in his chin with a serious expression. “Hello, Baron.”

  “Hello,” he said, not sure what to make of her actions.

  “We’re going back right after we get out of here,” she said.

  He nodded. “I can’t fight Zalor from this place, and I don’t know if Daedalus has turned on us or not, but I do know we won’t learn that here.”

  “Zalor is going to be angry about Hagus and Vargas. Even if Ben’s cover-up works he’ll know what happened. Air-cars don’t just fall out of the sky. He still needs you for the election, though, but I expect he’ll find some way to strike at you elsewhere,” she said.

  He felt a tremor in his gut at the thought, but fought it back. He would let nothing destroy his new resolve. He took deep breaths until the tremor passed.

  “I have friends who can help us. You aren’t defenseless. We’ve been gathering information on Zalor and his organization for a long time—” She stopped at the hissing sound of the front door on the floor below them. She looked towards the hallway. “Modulus.”

  “Lina, why do you think Modulus is here? Could Daedalus be investigating what happened on this world, or is there some other reason?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. He found us very quickly, though.”

  He nodded. “Too quickly, I think. Do you think Daedalus tracked us here, somehow?”

  “We came in a top secret Shiragawa ship.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean Daedalus didn’t know about it. It’s possible, yes. But why does Daedalus want to keep us here?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered, hearing the Praetor’s footsteps coming up the stairs. “But we’ll find out. Lina, thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “Done what?” she asked.

  “Become the man I
am supposed to be.”

  She met his eyes and nodded.

  Behind her Praetor Modulus darkened the doorway. In his hand he clutched a lumpy satchel.

  “I have brought sustenance for you.” His silver-ringed eyes moved over both of them twice and then up to the open cabinet. “Come to the dining area.”

  Cylus sighed. He might be a prisoner for now, but inside he already felt free. When they escaped he would make it back to the capital, and he would set things right. No one would stop him—not Zalor, not Daedalus—no one.

  He swore it.

  Chapter Seven

  Annihilator 87136, Deep Space

  41:2:41 (J2400:3171)

  “Thank you for saving us,” Nero said and vowed never to take heat, light, or air for granted again.

  Athame floated beside him in the Akanda’s infirmary, a narrow space in one of the ship’s many compartments with nanomed tubes built into the walls. Sorina occupied one in a state of self-induced suspended animation called “nholelhon,” her species’ adaptation to the hazards of space. Her vitals glowed on a holographic panel beside the tube, faint but stable.

  “We do not have much time,” Athame said through Prospero’s link. “What is your condition?”

  I feel like shit, but Prospero’s patching me up inside. His skin was covered in blotches where capillaries burst and was prickly all over. He wanted to return to the niche in his quarters and enter standby mode, but he knew he couldn’t. The first steps out of this nightmare were taken, but they weren’t free of it yet.

  “I detect that the Q-virus has regained control of my ship’s defenses. We should expect an attack soon. How long will Agent Khepria be incapacitated?” Athame asked.

  I don’t know. He shrugged, looking at Sorina through the nanomed tube’s window.

  “This could present a problem when we reach the other access port. There will be a risk to both myself and your Prospero unit should it be necessary to uplink to my ship. It would be optimal of Agent Khepria was operational before we arrive.”