Occupied Earth Read online

  What was it her daughter had said before she stormed out that final time? Adeline had tried to remember it, but all she could picture in her mind’s eye was the door slamming, the swoop of her hair. Adeline tried to reform the young woman’s face, tried to picture it the way it had been before, when they had loved each other, when they had been each other’s world. But all Adeline could see was the puffy, distorted visage of her daughter’s corpse. At first, Adeline tried to brush the image away, covering her eyes with her still shaking hand as if it would clear her mind. But she needed to remember it; needed to keep that horrible impression in front of her at all times. It was why she was betraying everything that she had been—everything she had built for the last twenty years.

  Later, Adeline sat alone on her back porch, wrapped in a heavy flannel robe, a cooling cup of tea between her hands. The clouds had broken open, so she watched the sun set behind the trees. She had seen it once; miles above the Earth’s surface, shortly before the war had begun. She remember thinking how small it looked, and wondered how insignificant it must seem to beings like the Mahk-Ra, who had seen blue stars, white stars; who conquered alien worlds as custom, who rode the vacuum like sailors had once done with the seas. Was it any wonder that she had said yes?

  But then they had killed her daughter.

  She glanced down at her tea, the small flecks of leaves collecting at the bottom. Tea was a luxury that her position allowed her. A luxury she used to share, but now drank alone.

  The call was coming soon; she could feel it in her bones, rattling like the decades-old timer in her grandmother’s kitchen. In the darkening twilight her phone, placed by her elbow on the deck table, seemed to have become monolithic; it was a talisman, a harbinger…

  She jumped when it buzzed against the metal tabletop. She carefully set down her cup and let the phone buzz three more times before she tapped the screen and brought it up to her ear.

  “Is the line secure?” Duncan asked flatly.

  Adeline leaned back in her chair and wrapped her free arm around her midsection. “You think I would have answered if it wasn’t?”

  A low choking sound came from the other end and Adeline realized it was Duncan chuckling. “Are you sure you didn’t want to go into comedy?”

  “I take it you’re pleased with what I provided,” she said, suddenly needing a cigarette.

  “It was everything you promised and more. I had to kill a few good people since it turned out that they were, well, your people.”

  She couldn’t help but smirk. “I always aim to please.”

  “I guess we should start talking next steps, shouldn’t we?” he asked, his tone shifting from jovial to grave.

  Adeline glanced up at the heavens. The stars were beginning to punch through the bruised sky. “If you wish.”

  “You have something special planned, don’t you? But, I guess it wouldn’t be a good idea to discuss it over the phone.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be. But we don’t have to, do we? You looked over everything; you already know what I want to do. I made it quite clear.”

  Duncan again made that strangled chuckle. “Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I must say… I was impressed, but not surprised. You’ve got balls, lady. With you on their side, I suppose I can finally see why they won.”

  “Two days from now,” she said in reply. “That should give you enough time to obtain what I require. I will pick the location. Bring a couple of your men if you want. I will be alone.”

  “I look forward to it, Director Adeline.”

  Adeline hung up, dropped the phone on the table, and realized she was shivering. She debated going inside, but chose to sit outside a little longer, taking several long breaths of cold night air, savoring it while she could.

  The next two days moved slowly. Even the resurgent cloud cover seemed to roll at a glacial speed. Adeline was careful, working her way through her schedule as she normally would, keeping her face placid and unreadable. During her conference with the Eastern governors, she made sure to listen to their concerns before tramping down their requests with her natural cold-hearted efficiency. Franklin still eyed her with concern, but kept his thoughts to himself.

  And her chauffer, though shaken from the previous day’s sojourn, was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. The understanding between them had been implicit, if he were to speak of what he had seen he would most certainly face the firing squad, for who would believe Joanne Adeline a traitor? Even her daily meeting with the Grand Commander was uneventful. He kept his face forward, his questions clipped and simple, his pace brisk as ever.

  That was, until the second day.

  S’Fek met her outside the Magistrate Building, which, in all the years she had worked with him, had never occurred before. Adeline kept her face steeled over as she exited her car. She had expected this, but not so soon. She would not comment on the change in procedure, would not even acknowledge that he was standing outside without his sunglasses. She brought her mind back to the conversation she had had with the then President of the United States just after the Mahk-Ra had appeared in the skies, and how she had feigned ignorance and shock. The President had been killed the next day in the first wave of attacks.

  “Grand Commander,” she said with a nod.

  “Did you sort out the discrepancy?” he asked, immediately to business. Adeline expected him to turn on his heel and begin marching through the hallways of the Magistrate. When he didn’t, she stopped at the second step on the staircase, arms at her sides, her head craned back to look up at his black eyes.

  “Yes, it’s been taken care of,” she replied, knowing full well what he was asking without needing elaboration. It wasn’t as if the topic had been far from her mind. “I should have the report ready for you in a day or so.”

  “What was the source of the discrepancy?”

  “Simple mistakes in reporting, nothing too significant. Call it human error.” S’Fek nodded and began to move toward the entrance when Adeline suddenly added, much to her own surprise, “I also noticed that there were several gaps in the Incident Recordings.”

  The Grand Commander stopped short and slowly turned back at her. “Were there?” he asked in a dry growl.

  “Nothing serious, I assume,” she said, forcing her eyelids not to flutter with the lie. “Probably just a malfunction in the recording system. I’m having TechOps take a look. I’m certain it will be corrected.”

  They studied each other in silence for several seconds. Somewhere, very deep inside her mind, Adeline wondered whether S’Fek knew what she planned, if he had a drone follow her two days ago; if Franklin or her chauffer had talked; or, even more implausibly, if the Red Spear had sold her out. And while the ghost of panic boiled in her chest, she kept her expression, as always, composed and slightly impatient.

  “Yes. See that it is,” S’Fek said, at length.

  Their meeting ended there. He walked off without another word. Adeline’s hands unclenched and she noticed the four red crescent imprints in her palms.

  When Adeline sat down at her desk she brought up the Talon IRs and accessed the base code, wondering why it hadn’t occurred for her to do so originally. The system took a moment to access the code, the billion lines of text that made up much the IRs inner workings were something the boys in TechOps understood like the devout understood a book of worship, but Adeline only needed one simple word. She typed in a search request into the program and—

  Adeline leaned back heavily in her chair, not sure why she had expected anything different.

  And yet… And yet she couldn’t help the chill that iced through her veins nor could she ignore the strange sense that there was a gun pressed to the back of her head. It had always been there, she supposed, ever since she first had become the Mahk-Ra’s chief human ally. Everything and everyone had a period of efficiency; hers was bound to have ended sooner or later. Her daughter’s death had simply expedited the matter.

  “Well,” she said alo
ud so she could hear the words, feel them vibrate through the air. “I suppose that’s all there is.”

  Her meeting with Duncan occurred that evening in an abandoned school in Redmond. The building had no significance, no vital function; to both parties it was simply brick and mortar remains. Duncan and Adeline both entered the building alone, though Adeline had little doubt that Duncan had set up a contingent of sentries and snipers around the building.

  They situated themselves in a bombed out classroom, shattered glass lined the floor between the rows of wooden desks speckled with splashes of maroon. Adeline ran her hand over the shape of a large bloodstain, the dust piling up against her fingers. Not all of the war had been fought in the sky and in the cities, she reminded herself; not all the victims had been soldiers.

  “How did they find you?” Duncan asked as he entered the room. “Back then, before the war? How did they make you turn traitor?”

  Adeline shrugged. “They did their research. They knew my husband was weak, that with all the power of his office, I alone truly controlled it. But they didn’t make me do anything. Everything I did I offered willingly, not for their sake, but for mine.”

  “You took a peak at their cards and decided to fold before your hand was dealt.”

  “I already knew my hand, Briggs, which is why I bet on theirs.” From the corner of her eye, Adeline noticed the large black case in Duncan’s hand. She nodded to it. “Did you bring me a present?”

  Duncan carefully placed the case on what was once the teacher’s desk and unlatched the locks with a grin. “Christmas came early.”

  There was a small hiss of air as Duncan deftly pulled the case open. Adeline saw what, to the untrained eye, looked like a small golden pin. It was little larger than the size of an old fashioned American quarter, the design simple and elegant.

  “Lovely brooch you have there, Briggs.”

  Duncan gave her a croaking laugh. “Isn’t it lovely?” He picked it up between his fingers and turned it over, the metal gleaming subtly in the moonlight. “Wonderful little thing. Makes our homemade IED’s look like kid’s play. It’s exactly what you requested, mocktard tech, something they won’t ever be looking for. You’ll be able to wear it straight through the Needle’s various security sweeps, even walk it right into Talon headquarters while people compliment you on how nice it looks.”

  “The Mahk-Ra are too proud to consider their own weapons used against them. It’s why they lost Dro’midus.”

  Duncan gave her a puzzled look, but Adeline indicated its irrelevancy with a wave.

  He handed it to her. Holding it in her palm, it was heavier than she had expected. She studied it closely, noticing the small wireless receptor on the back. “It’s remotely activated,” she said with little surprise. “I take it you don’t trust me to do it myself.”

  Duncan’s smile was her answer. “I assume you know the size of the blast radius.”

  “I do.”

  “As per your plan, you need to contact us immediately after you plant it in Talon Central Command. We’ll be able to track your movements, of course, there’s a GPS installed in the bombs circuitry, but…” He rolled his hand in a circle as if that was all the explanation that was necessary. “We’ll give you a good two minutes to get clear of the building before we detonate it. If you’re not clear of it in time you’ll hear a low pitch whine right before it pops.”

  “Only two minutes?”

  “Only two.”

  A crooked grin tugged at the corner of Adeline’s mouth. She knew he wouldn’t even give her one. She doubted he would even wait for her to step fully through the doorway before detonating the bomb. But that was fine, that was expected and planned for. She wasn’t going to go to Talon Central Command. She pinned the bomb to her lapel and found it was indeed, in its way, beautiful. It looked like something her mother would have worn. She smoothed out her suit jacket and admired it.

  “You ever feel guilty?” Duncan asked after a moment. “For what you did to this world, to us?”

  Adeline sighed audibly. “If you’re going to lecture me, might as well use the chalkboard.”

  Duncan nodded slowly, his expression distant and cold. “Just wanted to make sure.” He held out his hand. “Good luck, Director Adeline.”

  Adeline took his hand without hesitation, his rough, calloused palm like sandpaper against hers. “And to you, Briggs.”

  Adeline slept soundly that night and awoke shortly before the sunrise. She had kept the bomb on her bedside table, leaning it against the base of the lamp. She spent the morning slowly drinking tea while she watched videos of her daughter’s childhood birthdays, smiling wistfully at the precocious girl that scampered around playing hide and seek with her friends; whose rolling, bubbly laugh was infectious and uplifting; whose pale blue eyes looked at the world and only saw magic.

  She chose an outfit of a simple black suit with a white shirt. She pinned the bomb on her lapel and studied herself in the mirror. No, she didn’t feel guilty. Had never, would never. She had done what she had done and there was little point in regrets and second-guesses. She rolled back her shoulders and raised her chin.

  The time had come.

  Her car was waiting outside, just as it always had. Her chauffer stood with the passenger seat open, his gaze on the ground. She climbed in without a word and they drove toward the Needle in silence. Halfway there she brought Franklin up on her car phone, his youthful face filling the screen on the back of the driver’s seat.

  “Good morning, ma’am. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Franklin, I seem to have forgotten some of my files at home. I’ll need them later today for my meeting with the Water Rationing Commission. Could you grab a car and go there to pick them up? I know I only just left but I wouldn’t want to be late for my meeting with the Grand Commander. You know how he can be.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I understand,” he said with a nod. “I’ll make sure to have everything in hand by the time you’re finished with the Grand Commander.”

  “Thank you, Franklin. You’ve been a splendid assistant.”

  Franklin’s brows furrowed briefly, stunned by the uncommon compliment. “I—ah… Thank you, ma’am. I’ll see you soon.”

  “What’s your name?” Adeline said to her driver after Franklin hung up. “I’m afraid I never learned it.”

  “Gregory, ma’am,” the chauffer replied through the rearview mirror. “Gregory Chapel.”

  “Gregory Chapel.” Adeline nodded her approval as she watched the city of Seattle roll past her window. “Gregory, do you have any children?”

  “Ah… No, ma’am. A little young for that, though don’t tell that to my mother.”

  “Did you know I had a daughter?”

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t.”

  “I had never wanted her. She was an accident, or rather, she was a surprise. You’ll hear people say you can never truly prepare for having a child, and that is true. Especially when you don’t think you can have one… You try and do all you can for them, make the world safer, better. And you end up loving them, with all of yourself. But then they become people, with thoughts of their own and you don’t know them anymore and they—” Adeline’s voice briefly caught in her throat. She rapped her knuckled against the door’s armrest. “Everything I’ve done was for her, do you understand that? Everything I did was for her. And she—”

  Adeline caught Gregory’s eyes in the rearview mirror; his distant look of confusion and panic, and saw that there was little point in continuing. There would be no proselytizing, no grand statements, no confessions, or justifications. There would only be the task at hand. Through the front window she saw the Needle appear in the distance, and wave of calm suddenly washed over her. She glanced down at the bomb, knowing Duncan and his men were currently hunched over a computer terminal, tracking her movements, their fingers hovering over the trigger. She smiled wanly and kept her face forward as the car moved through the first gate and then through the second.
Security personnel paced around vehicle, sweeping their bomb and weapon scanners over every inch of its metal frame. Adeline watched them through the tinted glass and tapped her nails impatiently against the armrest, knowing, or perhaps just hoping, that the scanners would fail to pick up the bomb pinned to her jacket.

  When they finally waved her on, Adeline realized she had been holding her breath. Her heart was hammering.

  The car turned onto the round-about surrounding the Needle. As it made its way around the curve, Adeline saw S’Fek-ra waiting for her on the steps of the Magistrate, alongside a dozen Talon enforcers, their guns at ready.

  She smiled to herself. Finding herself strangely happy that this wouldn’t be a surprise for the Mahk-Ra, that at the very least, they knew what she had become, what she had always been.

  And perhaps, hopefully, her daughter’s killer was among them.

  Gregory parked the car in front of the Magistrate and glanced at the small army of Talon enforcers surrounding them and then looked back at Adeline, his face leeched of color. “Ma’am?”

  Adeline stepped out of the car without an explanation or apology. There would be no chance of him getting away in time. A part of her felt guilty, but most of her didn’t care. No matter how many innocents had to die, now, as before, as it had always been, was for that little girl with the pale blue eyes, for her daughter. Adeline had failed her once, and she wouldn’t do so again.

  The morning air was crisp; a slight wind rustled her hair. All around her the Talon’s guns were activated. High above, the sun broke through the clouds.

  S’Fek tilted his head forward. “Director Adeline…”

  “Evelyn,” Adeline said.

  “What?” said S’Fek, a rare look of puzzlement on his face.

  “My daughter,” she said.