Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2) (5 page)

She made it to the
freshener and closed the door before her lunch came back up. After her heaves
exhausted the contents of her stomach, she washed her face and brushed her
teeth. The figure staring back at her from the mirror looked haggard, the gray
eyes dull and haunted.

The cut still bled, and
she knew why.

The killer that had
ravaged her body for so many years had returned. Even a symbiont that granted
near immortality wasn’t strong enough to overcome Tinkerman-Kasahari Syndrome.
Since she’d returned from Baldark, slowly, insidiously, the TKS had crept
back—the fatigue, stiffness, and joint pain, then the nausea. She couldn’t lie
to herself any longer. The symbiont was failing.

Sometimes there is no
happily ever after.

The SpecOps aircar
spiraled down toward the landing pad jutting from the side of the Citadel, the
former headquarters of the now defunct DIS. During Tritico’s tenure as
director, the secret police organization had expanded, building annexes and
additions in every direction until it resembled a malignant growth spreading
among the high rise offices, parks, and apartments. Irrevocably tainted by its
dark history of political murders and interrogations, Ari has slated the
building for demolition after the holidays.

Fitz and Bartonelli
exited the flyer, splashing through puddles left over from last night’s rain as
they approached the entrance and the black-uniformed man awaiting them.
Nickolai Costos looked drawn, his complexion sallow, and dark smudges ringed
his eyes.

The door he ushered
them through appeared to be constructed of armorglass like they’d seen at the
lodge, but of military grade, thicker and double-paned like a warship’s
airlock. Nothing short of a missile could breach it.

As they entered the
lift and began the drop to the detention cells on sublevel twelve, Fitz studied
the older officer’s face.

“You look like crap,
Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Costos
coughed. “It’s not real pleasant down below.”

“You’re the officer in
charge, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend every waking hour there.” A
burst of static whited out Fitz’s inhead display for several seconds, then it
cleared. Costos twitched at the same time.

“I realize that, ma’am,
but if I’m ordering people to work down there, I should at least stay with
them.”

“Delegate, Captain.
Remember, they’re Normals.”

Bartonelli pinched her
nostrils, squeezed her eyes shut and huffed out a breath, trying to unstop her
ears. “You can bet it ain’t a picnic for us regular folks. I feel like I have
one hell of a stopped-up head.”

“These detention cells
were built to contain augies and, if I know the way Tritico thinks, inflict the
maximum amount of discomfort on them while they’re here.” Black lines rolled
across Fitz’s inhead, and her comm unit hummed. She dialed down the volume, but
that didn’t help.

The lift door opened
onto a featureless corridor. The walls were a stark utilitarian gray, scraped
and dented, with dark gouges that looked like recent laser scoring. Fleet
Intelligence had moved on the building shortly after Ari arrived on Scyr,
hoping to capture Tritico, but he and the rest of the high level operatives had
melted away, leaving only the clerks and data pushers. Like all soldiers on the
losing side since the days of the First World, they claimed to have only been
following orders.

“From here on we walk,”
Costos pointed to a set of stairs. “Nothing electronic works below this level.
No surveillance cameras, no comms, not even food processors. You have to come
back up here just to get a cup of coffee. And weapons don’t function, except
for antiques like the one you’re carrying.”

As they reached the
first landing, all of Fitz’s systems crashed. Even knowing it was coming, the
sudden loss of power disoriented her, had her grasping for the railing. Costos’
hand on her elbow steadied her, even though he looked as distressed as she
felt.

With each step, her
sinuses seemed to fill with plastcrete, her head pounded and a weight like
pulling five gees settled on her chest. The suppression fields hammered at her
mind, an aching itch deep inside her brain.

Her voice echoed
nasally inside her head. “Captain, when we’re finished here, go back to your
quarters for a minimum of eight hours down time. That’s an order.”

Bartonelli scrubbed her
hands over her face. “Yig’s balls. You might not want to leave normal people
down here for more than a four-hour shift, either.”

This far below ground,
nothing escaped this dead zone. No sounds. No emissions. No hope. Once
imprisoned here, even an augie was helpless, without the prospect of his
friends—even symbiont-enhanced augies—storming the place to free him. Any hope
of walking out of here was solely at the whim of his captor. Fitz wondered if
this was what Tritico had planned for Wolf. Or would he have just killed him?
No, killing was kinder. And kindness wasn’t an emotion she associated with
Janos Tritico.

The First Worlders had
a word for it: Oubliette, from the root word
oublier
—to forget.

At the lowest level,
they reached a corridor with doors opening off it, each secured with a large
mechanical lock. In lieu of a surveillance camera, an armorglass window allowed
the guards inside to see who requested entry. The room beyond was little more
than a large metal box, holding only a table, two chairs, and a pair of
uncomfortable-looking guards armed with stub-nosed pistols that functioned on
chemical propellants much like her slug thrower. With no need for electronic
surveillance equipment, the walls were bare metal, decorated with creative,
though vulgar, graffiti from years of bored guards. A room-wide window
displayed every centimeter of the cell beyond.

That room was a
duplicate of this one, with the addition of a gray steel toilet, tiny wash
basin, and a thinly-padded shelf that passed for a bed. The browns and rusty
reds of the obscenities scrawled on those walls suggested to Fitz that body
fluids were the only paints the former inmates had for their insane
scribblings.

The room’s sole
occupant pushed back from the table so quickly his chair tumbled over. He
ignored it and began to pace, hands twisting in his hair and lips moving,
although the soundproofing blotted out his words.

“He can’t see us?” Fitz
asked.

The captain shook his
head, “No, one-way glass.” He thought for several seconds, scratching his chin.
“I don’t understand. What’s this guy done that he gets stuck in here? From what
I saw yesterday, he seems little more than a mid-level med-tech. And it looked
to me like Tritico’s augies were real anxious to get rid of him.”

“Partly, it’s for his
safety. If Tritico is serious about killing him, his augies won’t be able to
get to him here. Until he’s debriefed, and we’ve had time to figure out where
his loyalties lie, he stays right here. And talks to no one but Triumvir
Youngblood, or me.” Fitz unbuckled her gun belt and handed the slug thrower to
Bartonelli. She could handle Von Drager alone, even unaugmented, but she didn’t
want to take the chance—however remote—of him getting his hands on a functional
weapon.

“No one will be able to
listen in on us?” she asked Costos.

He pointed to a small
opening set into the door at head height.

“Along with his food,
the communications go through this portal, and the suppression field assures
any sound doesn’t travel far.”

Fitz nodded. “Let’s get
this over with and get the hell out of here.”

“Amen, Chima,”
Bartonelli said.

The clank of the
mechanical lock disengaging reverberated in the metal box of the guard room.
Costos slid the heavy door aside for her.

As she entered, Logan
Von Drager stopped, whirling to study her momentarily, then looked past her as
the door clanged shut.

“Where’s Youngblood?”

“As I told you
yesterday, Wolf won’t be available for a few days. As soon as he’s back, I’ll
see to it that you get your chance to talk to him. Until then, I can handle
anything you might need to discuss.”

Von Drager’s fingers
worried at the neck of his prison tee-shirt. “When the Empire destroyed his
base on Rainbow…did anyone survive? Any of the medical staff?”

“You’re asking about
Doctor Rauschtonkowski?” Fitz smiled. “She’s fine. In fact, she’s here in
Striefbourne City. With so many people in Ari’s government carrying the
symbiont, Ski seemed the logical choice for imperial physician, being a
Lazzinair herself.”

“Cheril is here? Can I
see her?”

“That’s up to Ski. I’ll
mention that you asked about her.” She righted the chair, then grabbed his
forearm and pulled him toward it. “Now sit down.”

Von Drager stared at
her for several seconds, then pulled his arm away. “Back on Baldark, Tritico
shot you.”

Fitz nodded. The skin
over her breastbone itched at the memory of the pain from the bolt smashing
through her

“And Youngblood saved
you?”

“Yes.”

The doctor tilted his
head like an inquisitive puppy, listening to some sound only he could hear. A
veil of wonderment fell across his face. “Oh, you’re…”

“I said sit down, Doctor.”
Fitz’s patience had worn thin. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Instead, he returned to
pacing, his hands never stopping, rubbing the back of his neck, clawing through
his hair, picking at his clothes. Fitz remained standing, not wanting to place
herself at the disadvantage of sitting while he moved about the room.

He stopped and rounded
on her, fingers scratching at the day-old growth of dark whiskers on his
cheeks. “Why do you have me in this awful place?”

“You’re safer here, for
now. These cells were built to contain augies and eliminate any chance of their
buddies breaking in to get them out. At least you don’t have to worry about
waking up to find one of Tritico’s goons slitting your throat.” Fitz chuckled.
“But I guess that wouldn’t work, would it? He’d have to use one of those little
modified needlers.”

Von Drager went still.
“Be very careful with that. It’s deadly.”

“Any weapon can kill
you, Doctor. If applied properly.” Perhaps his longevity had made him more
cautious. “But we are examining the pistol and its ammunition under the
strictest biohazard protocols. In the meantime, we need to establish whose side
you’re on.”

“You think I worked for
Tritico because I
wanted
to? I had no choice.”

“You did sign on with the
DIS.”

“No. I worked for
Special Operations. And then Tritico moved in, took control of their medical
division, and rolled it into DIS. He kept me a virtual prisoner on Baldark
until Youngblood offered me a chance to escape, but that didn’t work out so
well, did it? Instead, Tritico dragged me along with him when he escaped. I
thought he’d just shoot me and throw my body out the first place we stopped.
I’d have been better off if he had; at least I could have played dead until I
healed, and then escaped. Instead, when we docked with a Home Guard ship, he
noticed I’d been wounded and figured it out.”

Rage contorted his
features. “Tritico said he had to know for certain, so he shot me. In the gut.
And as I rolled on the floor screaming, he poured a shot of vilaprim and
settled back in his chair, sipping it and watching me bleed like some researcher
watching a lab rat. And when the symbiont had healed my wound, he shot me
again. ‘Just to be sure,’ he said.” His voice rose in volume, his words ragged.
“He made it clear, very clear, that if I didn’t do as he ordered, he would hurt
me, again and again.”

Tritico terrified Von
Drager, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to throw in with their side.

“Sit down, Doctor. How
about a cup of tea?” Decaf tea definitely, he was already too wound up for
coffee. She rapped on the two-way passage, and when Costos opened it, asked for
two cups, triple cream and sugar. Von Drager slumped into one of the chairs and
dropped his face into his hands.

She took this time to
allow the doctor to try and relax, waiting for the guard to run to the closest
operating processor several flights up and return. Soon Costos pushed two
steaming paper cups through the portal to her. Paper, of course. No one could
slit their guard’s throat with that.

She sat, sliding one
cup toward Von Drager. “Did he guess that you’re August Lazzinair?”

“Gods, no.” He shuddered.
“If he had guessed I was the man who discovered the symbiont years ago, I
wouldn’t want to think about the tortures he’d have put me through until I told
him everything. Only Youngblood put it together that fast. Tritico may have
suspected, but I convinced him I’d experimented on myself. He believed me, but
that meant I knew how to implant the symbiont, so he expected me to do it
again.” He sipped his tea. “This tastes good. Thank you. It’s been quite some
time since I had a simple pleasure like this.”

Fitz leaned forward.
“Aren’t the guards treating you well?”

“As far as it goes. I
get my meals, but other than that, they pretty much ignore me. Protocol, I
suppose. A cup of tea occasionally would be nice.”

“I’ll be sure to
mention that to them. And explain how you take your tea.” She wrapped her
fingers around the cup, feeling the heat bleed through the paper.

“How many?” she asked.
“Augies?”

He looked away, his
gaze on the graffiti covered wall. “Five. Four. One died. I tried to stress to
him that he had to tell me if he had been cut by or even handled a Tzraka
blade; if there was any possibility he’d been infected with the organism they
carry. I guess the prospect of invulnerability overrode his judgment. It wasn’t
a pretty death.”

Fitz hissed a breath
through her teeth. Four augies against their two. The prospect of a few days
alone with Wolf seemed to be slipping through her fingers.