Occupied Earth Page 28

  “The Mahk-Ra had spies living among us for decades without us catching on. If they could make themselves look like us, how hard is it to make a woman look thirty years younger?”

  “Nice perk.”

  “Can’t deny it. But it’s easier to work undercover if I look young.”

  “By the way, how come you weren’t watching the place when Johnny rescued the women?”

  She shrugged. “Inter-agency screw-up. A little confusion about assignments. Some things haven’t changed.”

  We arrived back at my place, sat in the van while Johnny took his sweet time getting out of the Impala. He was wiggling around in his seat like he was trying to get the belt unstuck. Finally he extracted himself.

  We passed the main house and walked up to the guest cottage. I undid the various locks. Pushed the door open. “Ladies! We’re back!”

  They were huddled around the TV, watching the 15,000th rerun of Gunsmoke. People loved Westerns. A simpler time, when men were men and women were schoolmarms.

  Then they saw who was with me. I supposed I should have warned them I had a Mahk-Ra along. But this went far beyond surprise.

  Utter fear.

  I was such a moron.

  The guns were back out. Kone-ra’s green pistol pointed at the clutch of women and Helen had the Glock aimed at me. She sidestepped over to Johnny, reached in his pocket, pulled out the underseat pistol. Said, “I wondered what you were doing in the car before you got out. Figured it was something like this.”

  She motioned him to stand next to me. He did and put his arm around me protectively.

  Helen gestured to the TV. “Turn that thing off.”

  Gar-re’s fingers played at the remote. The volume went up, up, and up some more. Finally she looked down and found the mute button.

  I said, “You got pretty indignant when I called you a collaborator.”

  “I’m not. This is, call it a side project, for both Kone and me. Since the mocks showed up our pensions are shit.” Kone-ra showed a hint of a smile.

  “So you were hanging around hoping whoever took the women would come back?”

  “You obliged nicely.”

  “Is anything you told us true?”

  She smiled, seeming genuinely amused. “The part about us being on an inter-agency team. Oh, and the part about a screw-up leaving the place unguarded.”

  I looked over at Gar-re. “This the guy that raped you when they first took you?”

  Her hand was still clenched around the TV remote. She nodded.

  “All of you?”

  More nods.

  I turned to Kone-ra. “Pimping out your people. You must be proud of yourself.”

  “They are Mahk-Re,” Kone-ra said. “They are to me what your dogs are to you.”

  “Asshole,” Johnny said.

  “You have a saying,” Kone-ra said. “Sticks. And stones.”

  “What happens now?” I said.

  “These will go back.”

  “To your warehouse whorehouse or to your planet? And us? What happens to Johnny and me?”

  “Come on, girl,” Helen said. “You can figure that out.”

  Over on the TV, Gunsmoke had given way to Bonanza. The four Cartwrights sat atop their horses, chatting with a couple of make-believe Indians. I said, “Herman Munster over there I get. But you? Why are you doing this?”

  “Is this the part where the villain’s supposed to monologue so the hero can figure out an escape plan?”

  I snorted, like I was really amused. “As a matter of fact, we’re past that part.”

  I glanced at Gar-re. She unmuted the TV. The Bonanza theme burst forth, loud, clear … and distracting enough to make Helen look away. One of the Mahk-Re women, Palkin-re, the “short” one, jumped her. There was a struggle. Kone-ra went to step in. Two shots rang out. Both women crumpled to the ground.

  I pressed the shirt button on my sleeve. My knife popped out, right into my hand. My other knife, that is, the one that lived up my sleeve whenever I left the house, attached there by a mechanism powered by equal parts mock technology and Yankee ingenuity. The one that Helen had missed. The one that had turned out not to be redundant.

  In one motion I flicked it open and threw it Kone-ra’s way.

  It wasn’t a great toss, but it was good enough. The knife went into his cheek. As he raised his free hand to his face, he sent a couple of shots in my direction. Both went wide. You try aiming a gun with a switchblade sticking out of your face.

  Gar-Re and the other two were on him instantly. No matter how big he was, three against one usually ends up only one way. Then one of the women had the gun, and when Kone-ra continued to struggle she shot him in the kneecap. He joined the crowd on the floor.

  I picked up the remote, muted the TV. A promo was on, for The Wild Wild West, where James T. West’s gun-up-the-sleeve had inspired my knife.

  I glanced at Helen. She looked mighty dead.

  So did Palkin-re.

  “I will make sure,” one of the others said. It was a short examination. “Both are dead.”

  Before I could utter a platitude, Johnny said, “Annie?”

  I turned. Blood on him too, leaking out of his thigh. “It’s only a flesh wound,” he said, and passed out.

  I pulled my knife from Kone-Ra’s cheek. Slammed it into a stuffed chair to clean the mock off, used it to rip Johnny’s pants leg open. A through-and-through. He’d live. I bound it up, dug up the morphine, shot a dose into him.

  Kone-ra’d slipped into unconsciousness. “What do you want to do with him?” I asked Gar-re.

  “We will find a fitting solution.”

  “And your friend?”

  “Palkin-re will receive the proper respect.”

  “You don’t seem very upset.”

  “I will be upset later.”

  I motioned to Helen. “Can you get rid of that too?”

  “It will be our pleasure. We will need a vehicle.”

  “I have just the thing,” I said.

  The women bound Kone-ra with duct tape. I told them to leave his legs free. Then I made sure Johnny was resting comfortably, found the car keys in his bloody pants, and led the women into the escape tunnel. One had Helen over her shoulder. The second wrangled Palkin-re. Gar-re woke up Kone-ra, got him to his feet, and made it quite clear that she would use his gun on him if necessary. Then she took his sunglasses. I’d dug up a couple of pair for the other two.

  We reached the other end of the tunnel and emerged by the 7-Eleven. Right across the street from the panel truck. All the MRs but Gar-re, dead and living, piled into the back, along with Helen’s corpse. Gar-re took the driver’s seat. I handed over the keys, mumbled condolences about Palkin-re. Within a minute the truck was out of sight.

  I went back to nurse Johnny. The morphine was at work, but he was conscious. “Sammie,” he said.

  “Case is solved. We won’t need her help. How come you grabbed the gun from under the seat?”

  “I dunno. Seemed like it couldn’t hurt. Lot of good it did. Lot of good I did. All I did was get myself shot. Can we call Sammie anyway?”

  He was woozy and in pain. But I couldn’t help myself. “You do know she’s a hooker, right?”

  “Course I do. So?”

  “I’ll call her. Give me the number.”

  When I told her I was calling on Johnny’s behalf, it quickly became clear that, as far as she was concerned, he was just another client. My poor deluded buddy. “Okay, great,” I said, and hung up.

  I went in to see him. On the edge of consciousness. “She was very worried and said to tell you to get better, and that she looks forward to seeing you soon.”

  He said something unintelligible and was asleep.

  I thought about what came next. I hadn’t seen the two crooked cops tell anyone where they were headed, but someone could have been tracking them. Once somebody realized they were missing, all hell could break loose.

  I cleaned up the blood, took a shower, made a g
rilled cheese sandwich. And sat down to make some plans.

  “THIS WILL only take a few more moments, ma’am,” FBI Special Agent Harper said, all apologies.

  “No, it’s fine,” Joanne Adeline said, raising the fingers of her right hand ever so slightly off her desk. She kept her face still, even; that was what was needed right now. She couldn’t allow them to see beneath the surface. It would be unbecoming. “Take all the time you need. Difficult as this is, I understand you’re just doing your job.”

  The agent’s lips formed a line. He anxiously tapped his pencil’s eraser against his notepad. He was human, handsome for a man in his mid-forties. Adeline had read several reports about Harper over the years, finding his career impressively atypical to most other humans. And yet, despite his remarkable CV, the agent seemed oddly meek in Adeline’s company. That and the softness that rolled over his belt made him terribly unappealing.

  Harper looked to his Mahk-Ra partner, JoHannas-ra, who, even seated, towered over him. Adeline noticed JoHannas-ra was consciously hunched so that his height would be less pronounced. It was an oddly… human gesture, one Adeline had never seen before in a Mahk-Ra. Whether it was for her sake or his partner’s, Adeline was unclear. Either way, it gave her pause.

  “Where was she found?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  “In Salmon Bay,” JoHannas answered, his baritone voice filling the room, “though we have reason to believe she was murdered somewhere in Broadview. During the riots,” he added.

  “During the riots,” Adeline repeated without realizing. Her eyes had moved to the far windows, looking out to the grey, rolling sky that perpetually hung over Seattle like a shroud. She cleared her throat. “And you’re certain it was a non-terrestrial weapon that killed her?”

  JoHannas gave her a hesitant nod. “We are.”

  “That is…” Adeline suddenly noticed she had chipped a nail, that the skin on her knuckles was dry. Her hand was shaking. She gripped her armrest to steady herself. “That is worrisome.”

  “It is,” Harper agreed. He met her gaze and Adeline saw, briefly, a fire of rebellion in his eyes. And here she thought the Mahk-Ra had snuffed that out long ago. He knew who she was, and what she had done. Maybe it wasn’t timidity she had seen, but rather anger, hatred at the woman who had sold the world.

  She raised her chin. “And what evidence do you have?”

  “CCTV footage, eyewitness reports,” JoHannas explained. “Some other physical evidence, but I’m afraid we can’t disclose it.”

  Adeline’s right eyebrow arched skeptically. “Even to me?”

  JoHannas gave her a slow nod and a knowing smile. “Even to you, ma’am.”

  “Yes,” she said, bristling. “Procedure. I understand, but you should know that I already have access to everything in this district. So, please, save me the time and effort of turning my chair,” she indicated the computer screen on her desk with a subtle nod, “to bring up the information and tell me what you know.”

  Harper shifted in his seat before leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “There’s little doubt it was a Talon enforcer.”

  Adeline could hear the anger and resignation in his voice, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. “Yes, I surmised as much.”

  JoHannas, ever Harper’s counter point, kept his tone even, and somewhat clinical. Adeline found it comforting. “We have reason to believe that after your daughter was killed, her body was identified, and rather than register her into the system, the enforcer—or enforcers,” he clarified, hinting at his loyalties, “dumped her body into the water to hide their involvement both from us, and from you.”

  For a moment, Adeline rolled the word “daughter” on her tongue, tasting it like a foreign word her mind could not digest.

  “Suspects?” she said, at last.

  “We don’t have any,” JoHannas replied with little hesitation. While the Mahk-Ra was much better at hiding his anger than his human partner, Adeline could still feel rage wafting off him. Was this the beginnings of treason or simply the anger of a policeman denied his quarry? It was a fascinating question, if only Adeline had the ability to process it. “Even with CCTV and eyewitnesses, all Talon enforcers were wearing blacked-out helmets which hid their faces. The only way to identify the perpetrator, and their potential accomplices, would require the approval from Ra-Prime and frankly…” He held open his hands to say what Adeline already knew.

  “Hm,” she sounded through her clenched mouth, unable to find any other response that didn’t involve screaming.

  “We’re very sorry, ma’am,” Harper said with sincerity.

  Her eyes were beginning to water. Adeline quickly stood to let them know their meeting was at an end. Harper and JoHannas took the cue and followed suit. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, careful to keep the power in her voice as she tried to blink away the potential tears. She smoothed out her suit jacket. “I appreciate your coming here as well as your candor on this matter.”

  “I wish there was more we could do, ma’am,” Harper said, placing his fedora on his head.

  “As do I,” Adeline said, hearing her voice break ever so slightly.

  “We are sorry for your loss,” JoHannas said.

  She reached for her phone as the agents headed toward the door, but couldn’t remember why she had. “Agent JoHannas,” she said.

  The Mahk-Ra stopped and turned to face her while his partner left the room. “Yes, Director?”

  Adeline stared down at her phone and unconsciously tapped her chipped nail against its glass screen. “Did she… Did she suffer?” she asked, quietly.

  The Mahk-Ra gave her a smile that almost looked sad. Even after all this time, the Mahk-Ra still struggled with human facial expressions. “I couldn’t say, ma’am,” he lied.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The agent hung back for a moment, making sure his human partner was out of earshot. He shifted his feet uncomfortably and nervously brushed his finger against the tip of his nose. “Oh, and, um, ma’am?”

  Adeline looked up. “Yes, agent?”

  Agent JoHannas-ra took off his hat, bowed his head and said, “T’e toa kee-ray Mahk-Ra See-cha.” It was a Mahk-Ra sign of respect, of subservience, one rarely, if ever, given to humans. Sister of the Mahk-Ra, to you, we owe victory.

  Adeline walked out from behind her desk and slowly approached the agent. “Narrete ka-gree, Mahk-Ra, sin ta,” she reciprocated. For the Mahk-Ra, Everything.

  JoHannas-Ra replaced his hat and took a step back, his head held high, giving Adeline his full measure. He was exquisite.

  “Thank you, again, agent. Do keep me apprised if anything changes.”

  “Of course, ma’am,” he said, slipping on his sunglasses. “Of course.”

  The Director closed the door behind him; her hand clutching the knob tightly, her knuckles turning white. She looked across the room to her desk, the mahogany top clean despite the paper-thin computer screen. She looked to the walls, the counter spaces, and the small side tables placed beside the couches and armchairs. She didn’t have a photo of her daughter, not a single one. Had they really been that mad at one another? Had Adeline really said all those terrible things before she had stormed out the door forever?

  They had dumped her body in the bay.

  She jumped when her phone rang. “Answer,” she said aloud. The wall screen opposite her came to life, revealing the youthful visage of her assistant. “Yes, what it is, Franklin?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but your car is waiting outside. You have a meeting with Grand Commander S’Fek in an hour and you know how he is about punctuality.”

  “I’ll be out momentarily,” Adeline said, turning to the door, before pausing. “Oh, and Franklin?”

  “Ma’am?”

  She thought at what she would ask him and decided against it. She cleared her throat. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll see you shortly.”

  “Of course, ma’am. See you soon.” The wall screen
blinked off and Adeline felt the silence quickly fill the room and found herself drowning.

  The car was waiting outside. A gleaming black Cadillac, a pre-war original model, hand-picked because it reminded Adeline of her grandparents. The engine had, of course, been replaced with Mahk-Ra tech, a necessary change ever since oil was scarce, with so much tanked off-world. Her chauffer stood by the open passenger door. He was young and handsome, as was much of her staff. It was easier that way, they didn’t know her, didn’t know who she had been. They didn’t look at her with the recriminating eyes of those that had survived. They were born into this world and knew no other.

  “Good morning, Director,” the chauffer said with a smile and touch of his cap.

  “The Needle,” Adeline said without a preamble. She climbed into the car and let her body sink into the leather seat.

  “Very good, ma’am,” the chauffer replied, closing the door.

  Adeline’s home was in Madrona, which, even after all these years, still retained the leafy, small village feel it had had before the war. Part of that was due to the simple luck that combat had never stepped foot within the tree-lined streets, as well as the twelve-foot high, electrified fences and the hundreds of guards that now surrounded the district. Adeline watched the trees, the joggers, the dog walkers, and the children heading off to school through the tinted windows. This was the enclave of the collaborators, the humans who had turned the other cheek when the Mahk-Ra had struck. They were the men and women who had chosen subjugation over revolution, and had become part of the puppet human government that oversaw the planet. It was a time capsule as much as it was a lie.

  The demonstrators were already waiting by the gates, as they had been nearly every day for the last ten years. There had been a time when the populace would never had been so emboldened to protest, let alone so close to the home of the North American Director, but these were not the good old days. Several had signs with long, poorly written diatribes of their various grievances, while others simply held up placards with Adeline’s face crossed out with a red X. Through the bullet-proof glass, Adeline could hear them, just barely, call her name, call her “traitor.” Adeline tried to ignore them, as she had for the last decade, but found herself staring into the crowd as her car rounded the curve and headed toward the highway. Had her daughter been in that mob, shouting obscenities? Had she driven past her every day, and never seen her? And if she had, what would she have done?