Meridian Six Part 4

"For some reason the Chatelaine trusted you. That saved you at first." Icarus met my eyes. "You will only remain alive if you can prove yourself useful to the cause."

I'd had enough. I was tired of being told what I would or would not do. I crossed my arms and looked him in the eye. "You can shove your cause up your a.s.s. I don't answer to you."

Hard metal slammed into my soft temple. Ripples of pain pulsed through my head, but fear was strangely absent. Shock, probably. Or just resignation. It wasn't the first time a man had pressed a gun to my head. Castor loved a little gun play before he f.u.c.ked my vein. More times than I could count, I'd taunt him into rages hoping he'd just pull the trigger.

But Icarus wasn't Castor and I hadn't escaped only to die less than forty-eight hours later. I gritted my teeth against the pain and glared into his eyes. "Fine, you want information?" I'd give them something they couldn't refuse. Then they'd have to let me go. "I can tell you how to destroy the Troika."

Dare snorted. "Bulls.h.i.+t."

The gun's pressure didn't ease up, but Icarus's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

I licked my dry lips. Time to talk fast. "Rebels have been fighting minor skirmishes with the Troika for years, but not making any major headway, right?" He nodded reluctantly. "Well, what if you could deal a major blow to the vamps' infrastructure?"

"I'm listening."

"Do you know who Pontius Morordes is?"

"He's a murderer," Icarus spat.

I glanced at him but the hatred in his eyes made me look away quickly. Good thing then that I didn't mention that I knew Morordes by more than just name. He'd attended several of the Troika parties where I'd been paraded out like a show pony. Unlike the other vampires who pawed me and looked me over like an objet d'art, he'd had a kindly smile and seemed to look down on the others who treated humans like toys. I'd even visited him at his lab a few times. Sure, he'd taken my blood and done a few tests, but he'd always had a ready smile and a gentle manner. Still, I didn't object to Icarus's characterization because I figured it wouldn't be very good for my health.

"In the camps they call him Doctor Death," Icarus said. "For years he's been collecting human specimens and conducting experiments. Many of which have left the test subjects mutilated or dead. What of him?"

I stretched my neck a little, trying to get some room between me and the bullet-spitter, but it followed me. "A few months ago he figured out a prototype for synthetic blood."

The Scribe and Icarus exchanged a dubious look. "Synthetic?"

I nodded. "They've been having trouble in the blood camps. The stress of constant bleeding is killing off a lot of the humans, and the breeding program isn't producing enough people to replace them fast enough." Because blood type is determined by genetics, the Troika had to have enough humans of the right blood types to procreate a new generation of sacrificial lambs. Since children couldn't survive long in the bloodletting wards, the Troika had logistical problems. Along the way, one of their scientists proposed the idea of creating a synthetic alternative to human blood as insurance against a blood shortage.

"The Troika would never give up High Bloods," Saga said. High Blood was the name for humans with the most desirable blood types. Like me.

I swallowed as I quickly decided how much to share, which was as little as possible. "Before I escaped, I overheard that they were starting a program to try to breed more AB types."

"The camps are filled with mostly Os," Icarus said. "If they're trying to make more ABs, they'll keep those offspring for the Troika's officials and give the synthetic blood to the lower level vampires."

Instead of blood type, vampires were judged based on the purity of their genetic line. The Troika's officials all came from the most pure vampire lines, while the rest of the vampire population came from lineages soiled by human blood.

"So the synthetic is for the plebs? Why make it at all?"

I nodded. "I heard Castor talking to his cabinet about some riots in the city over blood rationing. They're hoping the synthetic blood will mollify the plebeian vamps."

The Scribe scrubbed his hand over his face. "Which means they won't need the blood camps anymore."

"Right. The officials will still have their stables of High Bloods and the Troika will always need labor camps, but the humans in the blood camps will become ... obsolete."

"s.h.i.+t," Dare breathed.

"It gets worse," I began. Now that I was knee-deep in this story, I realized how horrible the news I brought them actually was. It was one thing for me to hear the Troika discussing their plans in the plush rooms of the compound. It was something else entirely to share the information with humans who for all I knew might have relatives or friends in those camps. But considering one of the people I was telling the story to had a gun pointed at my head, I was pretty sure I couldn't just change my mind. "Once they had a synthetic blood, they had another problem to solve. Humans are dying rapidly in the camps, but there are still millions of people hooked up to bleeding machines that will be obsolete once they roll out the blood."

Dare cursed under her breath. The Scribe went white. And the mouth of Icarus's gun bit harder into my skin. Grimacing, I soldiered on. "That's when Castor had what he's calling his most brilliant plan to date. He called it 'The Factory.'"

As soon as the words left my mouth, the room fell dead silent. Even Polonius had frozen, like he sensed danger on the air.

"Where is it?" Icarus asked, his tone grave.

The Scribe twitched like he'd just been zapped by a thought. "So that's what it is," he breathed, almost to himself.

"What do you mean?" Dare demanded of the old man.

He shuffled away, his lips moving as he muttered to himself. "It's here somewhere." With gnarled hands, he began shuffling through stacks of paper on the large table. Icarus looked at Dare and she shrugged. Since he had the gun on me, she went to investigate.

"What are you looking for, Saga?" she asked in a patient, kind tone that told me she was well-used to the old man wandering off and speaking to people who weren't there.

"It was here." More shuffling. "I didn't know what it was. But then she-- Yes, hmm. Perhaps over here." He moved to the other end of the table and started going through another sheaf of papers. Whatever he was looking for, it was clear our conversation wouldn't continue until he'd completed his search. Awkward for me, considering the gun.

"Is the gun still necessary?" I asked conversationally.

Icarus's lips tightened into a frown. "Quiet."

Before I could react to that, The Scribe bellowed, "Aha! I knew it was here."

"What is it?" Dare asked, moving closer to inspect the paper in his hand.

"A few weeks ago, one of the patrols in sector four reported some building activity near the river. They brought me that drawing."

Dare frowned at the sheet as she walked over to share it with Icarus. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse, but before I could see more than what looked like a building with three chimneys, she jerked it away. "Well, it certainly looks like a factory," Dare offered.

"When Jeremiah brought it to me, I dismissed it," The Scribe said, "but when the girl told us about it I remembered a detail I'd found odd at the time." He pointed a hand to the paper. The land around the building was covered in a spider's web of parallel lines.

"Train tracks, probably," Icarus said. "So?"

"So the Troika have transportation rovers to handle large s.h.i.+pments of goods," Saga said. "Why suddenly use trains?"

I knew the answer, but I kept silent. Better to let them figure it out than to be blamed for the truth once it hit them.

"They'll have to make large batches of synthetic blood. Maybe trains can carry more--"

The Scribe shook his head. "That factory isn't producing synthetic blood."

Icarus frowned. "What do you mean? She said they built the factory to make synthetic blood."

"No, I didn't," I said in a small voice.

"Then what are they making there?" Dare asked.

I swallowed hard and looked at The Scribe, who I could see was already well ahead of the others. "They're not making anything there but ashes."

Icarus lowered the gun and his face morphed into a mask of denial. "They ... no." He paused, shook himself. "No!" He kicked a pile of books taller than his head. The colorful spines came cras.h.i.+ng down with what remained of his illusions.

Saga remained silent and grim-faced, despite the abuse Icarus was dealing to his precious books. Dare made a distressed sound and hurried to soothe him. I turned my back on both of them and went to join Saga. "Can you show me where this is on a map?" I said quietly.

The old man hesitated, but finally nodded and walked over to the desk. Behind me, Dare spoke softly to Icarus. His anger filled the room like smoke. Saga slowly unrolled a large map across the surface. He used small stacks of books to anchor each of the four corners. I squinted at the hand-drawn image of the area that used to be called New York City.

Almost immediately following the war, the Troika government had redrawn borders to turn the United States into three distinct regions, each controlled by one of The Prime's handpicked governors. But the center of power for the Troika remained in New York, since it was during that final battle that they crippled the human forces enough to finally surrender the entire war. They'd renamed the city Nachtstadt--Night City--and destroyed every human landmark in the center of the city and replaced them with vampire-designed towers and monuments to the Prime.

The map showed not just Nachtstadt, which now included parts of old New Jersey--over the river where Hoboken used to be. My brain flashed up a painful image of the old Victorian mom and I used to live in that overlooked the Lincoln Tunnel. It had drafty windows and creaky floors, but its walls had been filled with mostly happy memories.

See? I said to myself, they're wrong. Those are my memories. My very real memories.

I looked up from the map at Saga. "You drew this?"

He nodded. "Brooklyn born and raised." His pride was evident both by his tone and the way he lovingly depicted the outskirts of the city, where the structures built by humans still slouched like crumbling memento mori.

Saga tapped a calloused finger near the top of the map, near the river. "According to the patrol, the building is about here."

I nodded and studied the map. "What is the date?"

He frowned. "Why?"

"Because when I last heard about the Factory, the impression I got was construction was almost done. I'm trying to figure out how long you have until they fire up those furnaces."

He told me the date. I looked up quickly. "Almost time for the Blood Moon."

Saga looked equally impressed and worried. "They'd want to baptize their new project in the light of their most sacred moon."

"Three nights isn't much time for you to make a plan."

He tilted his head toward me. "Why do you keep saying 'you' instead of 'we,' child?"

I stood up straighter. "What do you mean? You wanted information. I gave it to you. I'm free to go now?"

A bitter laugh echoed through the cavernous room. "You're not really that naive, are you?"

I turned to face Icarus with my hands on my hips. But before I could respond, Dare pointed an accusing finger at me. "She's lying! They sent her here to trap us!"

It took about every ounce of strength in my body not to roll my eyes at her. "Your own people confirmed that the factory exists."

"They confirmed something looking like a factory is being built." She crossed her arms. "And even if it's really what you say it's for, we could still show up and find an army of vampires waiting to kill us."

I laughed. "If you think the Troika sees your pathetic little team as enough of a threat to orchestrate an elaborate scheme like staging my escape, you're not just misguided--you're delusional. The Chatelaine brought me to you, remember? I didn't seek you out. None of this has anything to do with me. I just want to move on and try to cobble a life together."

They stared at me like I'd spoken in a foreign language. "It has everything to do with you," Saga said. "And if you think we want anything different than that life you just spoke of, you're the one who's delusional. Do you think we enjoy living underground and running from bat patrols? Like it or not, you're just as involved in all this as we are now. More, maybe."

I didn't like where this was going. "Look, I didn't escape the Troika only to get involved in some scheme that would put me back into their crosshairs. I'm sorry if people are going to die, but I don't plan on being one of them."

The unmistakable sound of a gun c.o.c.king made my heart skip a beat. I turned slowly. Dare had taken Icarus's ancient six-shooter and pointed it at my head. I was getting tired of people pointing weapons at me, but she looked determined enough for this not to be an idle threat. "You don't get to pretend to have a choice in this." Her hand shook a little, but I didn't mistake it for fear. Anger drove Dare. "Your days of sitting in the ivory tower are over sweetheart. It's time to get your hands dirty."

She had no idea how dirty my hands were, and I wanted to punch her for believing my life had been anything close to easy. But I didn't want that gun to start shouting. "Whoa," I said, "let's not get emotional here."

She blinked. "Not get emotional?" she snorted. "I lost the luxury of emotion the day they took my family."

I frowned at her. "But you're a vampire--"

She laughed like rusty nails scoring metal. "Not all vampires hate humans. Some of us loved them."

"So when you say your family, you mean ... "

Her hand tightened on her gun. "My husband and daughter."

I cursed quietly. "I'm sorry."

"No you're not!" she barked suddenly. Cold fear rose up my spine. Before she'd been angry, but now she looked crazy and fully capable of murder. "While you were sucking the Troika's c.o.c.ks, my daughter was murdered and hung to bleed out from the window of our apartment building to serve as a warning to the other vampires who were considering mating with humans."

"Dare," Icarus said, his voice quiet, "put down the gun."

Her jaw clenched and she looked entirely capable of ignoring his demand. Her fingers white-knuckled on the stock and her index finger twitched toward the trigger. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead and my eyes scanned the area for weapons and escape routes. The latter wasn't an option given we were on a platform suspended above a cavern of books. Even if I could jump down without breaking my leg, I'd be like a fish in a barrel.

"Look, I'm not your enemy and this isn't my war," I said in what I hoped was a reasonable tone. "I'm leaving at sunrise."

Dare's gun flashed menacingly in the light. "My friend Colt here says otherwise."

It only took a few moments to make my decision. Dare talked a good game, but I didn't really believe she'd kill me. All the resistance members in the world couldn't compete with the insider's knowledge I had of the Troika's top tier officials. I was worth way more alive to them than dead. Of the three, only Dare posed a real physical threat, even injured as she was.

I relaxed my shoulders and expression into what I hoped was a mask of defeat. Dare's eyes narrowed, but her grip on the gun relaxed a fraction. The instant I saw her buy my ruse, I ducked my shoulder and crashed into her midsection. As in slow motion I pivoted off her stomach and twisted, launching off my back foot into a dead run. Behind me, I heard a shouted curse and a worried exclamation from the old man. I didn't slow when a crash sounded, and I sure as h.e.l.l didn't stick around to find out if Dare's friend had anything to say.

I leapt off the end of the catwalk and ducked into the tunnel. Once the musty scent of the cramped s.p.a.ce hit my nose, I realized my error. I'd entered the underground bunker through a slide. Hardly an ideal exit route. But I didn't have the extra seconds to spare scrambling around for an alternate exit. I skidded into the cavern where I'd first met Saga and scrambled when my foot caught on a rock sticking up from the packed earth. I was three steps from the chute leading toward freedom when a heavy weight slammed into my back like a wrecking ball. I fell face-first into the cold, packed dirt and every molecule of air in my body escaped in a painful rush. A low, mean growl hit my ear like a hot wind.

"Good boy, Polonius." Saga's voice sounded amused but winded. "Miss Six, that canine on your back is trained to attack on my word. Are you going to force me to utter that word or are you going to be a good girl and surrender."

Warm drool landed on my neck. Polonius was hungry. My own stomach growled in response. As much as I wanted to stand up and fight, I knew that even if I managed to get away from the dog and up that chute before Saga gave the command, I'd never make it out in the Badlands with no food, water or provisions. So, as much as it pained, me I lowered my forehead to the red earth and surrendered.

Six.

The cell was darker than the Badlands during a new moon. My hand was on a cold stone wall, but the dirt floors made it smell like a grave. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I swiped at them even though no one could see me. It was bad enough I had to be with myself and those f.u.c.king tears. They sickened me.

A specter of a memory haunted my brain. Of lying in a similar cell, only that old one was all-white and brighter than lightning. Back then I'd been crying too. But those tears had been innocent and pure. A child mourning the loss of everything familiar, a child's fear of the unknown. That was my first night in the dormitories. They'd taken me straight there after they'd realized my blood type. Back then, I didn't know how that simple test would determine my fate. I'd been so relieved they'd let me live that I hadn't thought about what a bleak existence it would become without my mother.

I remembered blood stains on my hands contrasting sharply against crisp, white sheets. A few tears mixed with the red like some morbid watercolor painting. I remembered feeling like I was being watched even though I was alone in the room. I remembered feeling like my heart was going to claw its way out of my chest and run away without me. I remembered feeling more alone than any other girl in the history of the world. But I'd learned quickly that tears only made the beatings worse, and the more I stuffed them down, the stronger I became.

But back then I'd had a future, even if I hadn't known it. Now? Even if they let me live until morning and forced me to help them attack the Troika, it was doubtful I'd last the week.

The sound of a key in a lock echoed. I swiped away the tears and sat up. They couldn't be allowed to see me broken. Even if--especially if--they planned to kill me.

Only instead of Icarus or Dare arriving with a gun, my visitor was Rabbit, bearing a tray of food. A lantern on the tray created a halo of light around his young face. "You hungry?" he whispered.

I nodded, but only because I didn't want him to leave. That kid was the closest thing I had to a friend in Book Mountain. h.e.l.l, he was the closest thing I had in the entire world.

He smirked and set the tray down on the floor next to the bed. "It ain't much. Saga says we can't spare too much since we might have to go underground again soon."