Masked (12 page)

“
T
his is crazy
,” Alan said beside me.
Thankfully back from the dead.

“Lunacy,” the Cardinal agreed from behind.

“What makes you think they’ll respond?” Tan asked over the earpiece.

“Because phase two was the drones,” I replied steadily, taking in the overlarge electronic billboard and the picture of me plastered across it. Flashing red letters announced,
If you can’t see the zebra, then take off your masks.

The image of me transformed into a Masked. The mask a black and white jewelled creation that Simon had digitally painted into the photo itself. The mask disappeared, and my hair turned black and white.

It was really quite well done considering the pressure he’d been under to get it out there.

Then the picture returned to the original, with the message flashing again.

It was the only billboard in the entire country that displayed it, and we were sitting in a café across the road. The sun had barely risen, the street lights still glowed a gentle orange. The sky transforming from a deep indigo to a shimmering mauve to a brilliant blue before our eyes.

A new day dawned, and I really wasn’t sure if we’d live to see it.

Calling the Masked out of hiding was a risk, but my father had insisted they would know what to do. Who these red-eyed drones belonged to. The only reasonable way to combat them was with drones of our own. We no longer had any. But my father’s Masked did.

Convincing Tan of this had taken considerably longer than Simon had needed to digitally alter those images.

But there was no mistaking the message was from my father when he’d heard it, and like me Tan had been in not just a little shock afterwards.

Federal Street slowly woke up, bright awnings rolled out over the cobbled paths, stalls peeling back their petals like wakening flowers. Reds and golds, yellows and blues, silvers and greens. The prettiest coloured flowers on our island. I’d always felt so at home in Wáikěiton.

So had my father. I had to hope he’d spoken familiarly of that to his “people.”

“It’s been twenty minutes,” Simon announced over our earpieces.

I ignored the racing of my heart and asked instead, “You’ve still got visual?”

“Calvin has infiltrated all the Rap-Trans security feeds,” he confirmed. “Any Rap-Trans station is now visually ours.”

Calvin had been another argument between Tan and myself. But the bottom line was, we needed him. Street-cams were still out. But I’d manually connected my decoder linked into Calvin to Federal Street’s Rap-Trans system just before the billboard went live. Through that, Calvin had done the rest.

We weren’t blind anymore, but we certainly weren’t all-seeing. If we left the vicinity of any Rap-Trans station, Si would lose us. Keeping this localised was paramount. But even I didn’t believe that we could.

The Masked were one thing. The red-eyed drones a whole other.

So far Federal Street seemed drone free. But twenty minutes was twenty minutes. Sooner or later they’d be drawn here. If not for the billboard, then because the whole place was swarming with Cardinals.

“Report,” the senior Cardinal -
our
Cardinal as I’d come to call him - demanded over our earpieces.

“All clear at Wellesley Street West,” a Cardinal replied.

“All clear at Victoria Street West,” came the next reply.

The Cardinal shifted on his feet. I flicked my gaze away from his stern countenance and took a sip of my cooling coffee. It tasted bitter.

How much longer could Trent wait?

How much longer could we?

I didn’t have a plan without the Masked. I had no idea where the enemy held Trent. I knew what they wanted. I knew I couldn’t provide it. I had nothing to bargain with. And nowhere to fight instead.

We might have had limited vision again, but we were just as blind as when we’d started.

“I see something,” Zhang Jun’s voice announced in my ear. “Over the rooftops,” he added and we all stood to our feet.

The awning outside the café sheltered us from sight, but stepping out onto the footpath would have made us visible to anyone prowling the street. I didn’t for a second believe the red-eyed drone masters weren’t watching every major area to some degree.

We’d snuck in, and it seemed the Masked were doing the same thing.

“Definitely Masked,” Xiu Ying, Zhang Jun’s girlfriend announced. “Maybe three.”

Just three. That meant they were being cautious. Their boat could have taken two dozen people. Or half a dozen and several drones.

I smiled. My nerves getting the better of me. These people weren’t my father. But they were the closest thing to him I would see.

Mahiah, Tan had informed me, was the city we could see from Hillsborough. It’s name stricken from our history, like so much of our past had been. Only Overseers had been privy to its identity. Privy to the fact that it was much like we once were, over one hundred years before today. Technologically disadvantaged, but beginning to grow despite its lack of advancement.

Keeping it in the dark had been an Overseer directive. No one wanted a neighbour more capable than Wánměi.

And now my father was there. Across the water. In amongst the lights that twinkled on the horizon. But that was not where he had come from. Not where Augustine and the Masked had come from either.

But the Mahiah woman? I couldn’t be sure. I suddenly knew more about our mixed ancestry than ever, and yet it only caused me unease.

Two people appeared on the street suddenly. How they’d done it was a mystery. We had Cardinals and Xiu Ying’s zebra-lookalike network watching the street. Not to mention Simon and Tan back at the penthouse, viewing it all through the closest Rap-Trans cameras.

They shouldn’t have been able to fool us. But they had. And I couldn’t help thinking it was a message. Not exactly welcoming. Not nearly as friendly as my father had led me to believe.

They may have been his people. They may have even been former Citizens of Wánměi. But they were not one of us. Not anymore. And I wondered just what they had seen. What they had experienced. To make them so foreign, so cautious, so guarded. So different.

They were indeed another caste, if we still had such things.

“It’s her,” Alan said, sounding strangely excited. “The Mahiah,” he added, in case we didn’t grasp the reason for his enthusiasm.

“And Augustine,” I whispered.

They’d chosen their representatives with care.

“Zhang Jun,” I said into the earpiece.

“Yes, Lena.”

“Stay on guard.”

The Cardinal glanced down at me. I didn’t bother to return his assessment. His men would have known not to relax. Mine didn’t. But now they
all
knew I wasn’t walking into this blindly.

My father or not, these people had led us a merry dance. For whatever reason, “observation” had become something else. And I didn’t trust it.

A part of me realised, I didn’t trust my father either.

My stomach roiled, my palms became sweaty. But when they entered the café, I lifted my chin, pasted an Elite expression on my face, and walked forward to greet them.

“Zebra,” the Mahiah woman said in an Elite accented voice that told me she hadn’t originated in Mahiah itself. But here on the more pleasant streets of Wánměi City.

“Honourable Carstairs,” Augustine added, bowing his head respectfully as he’d always done in the past, when I’d come down to the lobby and requested a limousine.

I nodded in return; my upbringing taking over in the face of familiarity. Then turned to Alan at my side and introduced him.

The Mahiah woman flicked her eyes from Alan’s face to mine, head tilted as she surveyed me.

She didn’t utter a word, but so much was conveyed in that one motion.

“Cardinal Beck,” I said, introducing the Cardinal next.

“Cardinal,” the woman said. “My name is Irdina.”

Now we knew each other. Or at least, our names.

She was dressed as a Citizen. Her clothes clean, but worn. I couldn't locate the outline of a laser gun, so had to assume one of her team was covering. If she was armed, it was well hidden. But then, so were my weapons. We surveyed each other silently; a stand-off we didn't have time for.

I turned my gaze to Augustine; he was the weaker of the two.

"You came back," was all I said. But I might as well have struck him.

He flinched and then tried to cover, lifting his wrinkled hand to his lips and coughing.

"Excuse me, Honourable..."

"There are no such things as Honourables," Alan said for me.

Augustine glanced at the rebel, then returned his tired old eyes to my face.

"You will always be Honourable Carstairs to me."

He'd meant it as a compliment, I think. He had no way of knowing it wasn't.

"How well do you know my father?" I said, the question for either one of them.

"Very." It was the woman who answered. For some reason it disturbed me. She probably knew my father better than me.

"And what is his intention in our city?" I asked, laying our cards on the table.

Intelligent eyes assessed me, and then flicked across to Alan.

"Where is the rebel leader?" she asked instead of answering.

Well, that answered that. They didn't know he'd been taken.

I let a slow breath of air out, but it was Cardinal Beck who rescued me.

"Why are you here?"

She smiled. It was calculating.

"It was time to come home," she said simply.

"And what now?" Alan asked.

She swung her gaze back to him, like a snake being charmed in a basket.

"And now," she said, "we open the gates properly."

Is that what my father wanted? To shut down sat-loc, to leave us exposed? He'd said his people would know what to do. He'd said the threat was real and to trust them.

I was more lost now than I had ever been, but I knew one thing alone mattered.

"And these red-eyed drones?" I pressed.

Those dark eyes swung back to me. For a moment she just stared, and then she murmured, "For that, we'll need Calvin."

T
he Global Net
had been the only thing Tan and I had agreed on. Shutting down sat-loc was far too risky. But what Irdina suggested could only be accomplished by updating Calvin's programming.

"Cal will be waiting," the Mahiah woman advised. Cal, I guessed, was her name for my father. He'd never,
ever
been called Cal as far as I could remember. Things had clearly changed. “Once he sees the Wánměi Net open, he'll update your Shiloh, which can then do the rest."

The "rest" was reestablishing the street-cams and finding the red-eyed drones and their owners.

I wanted to find them. I wanted that badly. Getting to Trent through them seemed to be all that mattered. But Trent had rubbed off on me. His ideals, his standards. To be a Citizen of Free Wánměi you had to think of more than just one person.

Tell that to my aching heart.

I wasn’t sure I could honour him. But I would do my damnedest trying.

“Shutting down sat-loc is not an option.”

“Shutting down sat-loc is your
only
option,” Irdina replied succinctly.

“This could be a trap,” Tan advised in my ear. Alan shifted; he’d heard the warning too. My shadow Cardinal remained resolutely still at my side, like all good soldiers should.

“Exposing us is your only suggestion?” I queried.

“Yes.” She didn’t bother to justify herself, and for that I almost admired her.

Still…

“Your drones,” I said. “How many have you got?”

“Enough.”

I smiled. Her gaze darted down to my lips and then sprang back up to my eyes.

“We seem to be at an impasse,” I offered.

“Yes.”

“Drones approaching on Victoria Street West,” a Cardinal announced in our ears.

“Red?” Cardinal Beck asked. The woman watched on silently.

“Affirmative,” the Cardinal on guard confirmed.

“Zhang Jun?” I asked, my eyes locked on the darker ones of the Mahiah.

“The rooftops are quiet,” my zebra-lookalike leader said.

We had an escape route, but I wasn’t sure running was our best plan. Time to test the waters.

“Victoria Street West,” I said to Irdina. “Show us what you’re made of.”

Her returning smile was quite dazzling. It transformed her hard features, turning her into a beautiful sculpture instead.

“You need convincing,” she guessed. “Very well.” She turned to Augustine and nodded her head. With one last look at me, my old concierge slipped through the door of the café and out of sight amongst the crowd of early morning Wáikěiton shoppers.

It made me nervous to think we were drawing unwanted attention to this street. To these people. It made it difficult not to call Augustine back and run. Pitting one risk against another, though, seemed our only option. Could I trust my father?

How could I not?

How could I?

Ten years in Ohrikee under the careful tutelage of General Chew-wen. Ten years subjected to Wang Chao’s devious attentions. Ten years of living a double life. One minute a Citizen, the next an Honourable Elite. Returning to the Chief Overseer’s palace after a taste of freedom had been the hardest thing I’d ever done.

Ten years and through it all the death of my father had urged me on. And now he wasn’t even dead.

How did I reconcile this?

“Blue-eyed drones on Victoria Street West,” a Cardinal said over the earpiece. “They’re drawing the red-eyed drones away.”

“Follow at a safe distance,” Cardinal Beck ordered.

“Understood,” his subordinate replied.

I took a sip of my coffee. It was cold just like me. I felt the chill right through to my bones. Every move I made felt frozen. Every thought I had seemed sluggish. If we made the wrong decision, Wánměi would shatter.

We waited in silence, Irdina appearing for all intents and purposes quite relaxed. Cardinal Beck stood statue still, barely breathing. Alan watched the woman, who watched me. I could see the question there, in those dark unfathomable eyes. I could see her searching for my father in my face, in my mannerisms, in the simple way I smiled.

Whether she saw him or not, I didn’t know.

Ten years.

“City Hall Station,” a Cardinal announced over the earpieces.

“Got them,” Simon said immediately. “Only the red-eyed drones, though.”

“Tell me you didn’t lose the blue,” Cardinal Beck demanded of his men.

Silence, then,” Ah, they were right there!”

My eyes met Irdina’s. Her lips quirked in a small smile.

“Our drones have features the exported drones do not,” she advised.

Of course, my father had learned a lot in ten years. Shiloh had too. But knowledge of a different kind.

“And City Hall Station?” I asked. “Why there?”

“It’s busy. The Urip drones will think they lost their target due to congestion.”

“Urip?” Alan jumped to ask.

Irdina turned her snake like eyes to him.

“Where did you think they were from?” she asked.

Urip or Merrika had been the only options. Mahiah was now ruled out. And Wánměi had traded with no others.

Urip. Which meant…

“Merrika,” I said, imagining my father in a country so far away, it had simply not existed at all. “You were sent to Merrika.”

“We were lucky,” she replied, as if being wiped had been a blessing. “Not everyone was as fortunate.”

Merrika. We knew so little about this country, other than they traded in goods we had needed. Wanted. In exchange for our drones - and our wiped - they had given us luxuries the Elite could not live without.
Would
not live without. Seafood and leather. Small electronics and essential chemicals. Cigarettes. The list was extensive, drones had been expensive items to them.

Precious. Just like they were precious to Urip.

“Why are you here?” I asked again.

She held my gaze for a long moment and then murmured, “He is important to our survival. When he asked, they couldn’t deny him. When he demanded he accompany us, despite their misgivings, they allowed him. As long as he promised not to land on Wánměi.”

My father. She was talking about my father.

“How did he get there?” Alan asked. I seemed incapable of speaking. “To Merrika,” he qualified. “We thought he’d been killed at Ohrikee.”

She shrugged her shoulder in a very non-Elite fashion. I liked her all the more because of it.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “Chew-wen or Mason Waters designed it. My guess would be Waters, because Chew-wen was not a forgiving man.”

No. He hadn’t been. My guardian had prided loyalty above all others.

Follow doctrine and all would be rewarded.

Consume your rations and all is forgiven.

And then I had a thought. “Is Mason Waters still alive?”

She looked at me and then slowly turned her gaze on Alan. Who had gone a shade paler than usual.

“No,” she said, delivering her reply to the rebel. “A body was needed.” Now she looked at me. “He supplied it.”

A body? Oh God. It had been Trent’s father who I had buried. Trent’s father who General Chew-wen had let me cry over.

A wicked web of lies.

“The red-eyed drones have left the station,” Simon quietly said over the earpiece. “They’re heading towards the National Museum.”

“And the blue?” Alan asked. I still couldn’t articulate a thought, let alone ask a question.

“They’re returning to Wáikěiton, it seems,” Si supplied.

“We led them away,” Irdina remarked. “We did it without any carnage. But there is only so much our drones can do.”

I met her steady gaze.

“It’s time, Selena Carstairs, to make a decision.” She leaned forward and placed a small vid-screen on the table between us. A type and style I had never seen.

I stared at it. At the three dimensional holographic image it displayed above its surface.

At the picture of an older man, in his late fifties. Sitting in a wheelchair beside a roaring fire. Sitting somewhere colder than Wánměi.

My father. Alive. But crippled. And older than I had ever seen him before today.