Masked (2 page)

T
hey came
after the sun had set. We couldn’t see them. But we could sure as fuck hear them. A thunder that cracked the hot night. A boom that thudded through our chests, down to the soles of our feet. Glasses rattled on nearby shelves. Bottles rocked; one tumbling to the bar’s concrete floor with an almighty clash, the hint of alcohol mixing immediately with the scent of the chilli crab I’d just eaten.

The air changed, hung suspended, and then tore apart as the last roar faded into the heavy sky.

Stars twinkled. Clouds rolled in. Everyone held their breath.

And then they were back.

A roar. A crack of thunder. A boom that hurt the ears.

Two orange orbs streaked through the night sky, then were lost amongst the clouds again.

“What the…?” Paul started.

“Oh fuck,” Si added.

“Where’s Lena?” I asked, because if the world was coming to an abrupt end, then I wanted to know where my damn woman was.

People started panicking. Tables turned over, screams shattered the artificial stillness. The bar manager yelled for calm in Wáitaměi and then repeated it in Anglisc. The ground shook as feet stampeded toward the exit - where the hell they thought they’d hide from fighter jets, I didn’t know. And then someone got trampled.

Alan waded into the chaos, and because I was still trying to locate a missing Lena and “frantic” had never been my thing, I moved to help him. Elbows prodded, knees knocked, and fists started flying.

I felt my kidneys bruise, followed quickly by the sharp sting of nails as they raked down my arm. Hands flailed, shoes were lost in the melee, a fucking forehead came out of nowhere and connected with my cheekbone. A woman started crying; for a second I thought it was Lena. Then I promptly discarded that ridiculous notion. Lena Carr would have been silently laughing.

Or flying through a fucking window in a makeshift wing-suit.

Where the fuck was she?

I grappled with a guy who was determinedly walking over the top of his female companion, while Alan reached down and lifted the woman up with one hand, using his other to fend off the panicked bar patrons. A quiet night at this open-air bar had turned into a bloody riot. The woman fainted. The man - loser arsehole that he was - spat in my face, our eyes momentarily meeting. And then he promptly started squealing in his zest for escape.

I growled, curled my fingers in his shirt tighter, and shook him. The woman came to right at that second, still in Alan’s arms, took in the sight of her partner being flung around like a wet blanket, and started screaming.

And then a laser gun whirred to life.

The whole courtyard froze.

Laser guns had been outlawed by the interim government; headed by none other than Lee Fucking Tan. I still had bloody nightmares about that. Every single gun had been painstakingly located over the past six weeks by the Cardinals; our provisional peacekeepers. We suspected some might have got through the cracks. Drones had fallen like flies when Shiloh had been deactivated. Any Citizen with half a brain could have looted any one of them. But on the whole, evidence had suggested we’d rounded up the majority.

Maintaining order in post perfect Wánměi had been a delicate affair. Panic, somewhat dissimilar to that which we were experiencing right now, had taken root in society. Lena had called the Citizens rudderless. But I’d known worse was to come.

I’d just never considered it would come on a night when our skies were invaded for the very first time since Shiloh. For the very first time since General Chew-wen had closed Wánměi’s borders forty years ago.

My eyes scanned the now stunned immobile crowd searching for the origin of that laser whir. I half expected to see Lena standing there holding one. I wouldn’t put it past the Elite to have pilfered a drone’s gun without telling me. But I’d watched her hand over her own laser gun to Tan himself.

Knowing Lena, though, that could have all been an act.

But it wasn’t Lena.

A young woman, late twenties at a guess, stood on top of the bar, laser gun slung over her arm, dark eyes assessing the crowd from behind a masquerade-style mask. It wasn’t the decoration on her face that stood out; in Free Wánměi anything goes, and the latest fashion statement was to complement your outfit with a jewel encrusted mask, regardless of your previous status in our society. Usually, though, the mask matched the dress; both equally as sparkling. But this woman wore tired jeans and a simple singlet, showcasing well defined arm muscles, with no jewellery - or sparkles - to speak of. Her hair was black. Short. And artificially curly. Smooth skin, the darker shade of a Mahiah, glistened with a fine sheen of sweat.

Wánměi was different now. Merely six weeks after the final revolution had freed our nation, castes had already been put aside. You could no longer tell by looking at someone if they were an Honourable or an Elite. A Citizen or a former Overseer. Cardinals were the only ones who could be identified, simply by the uniform they still chose to wear.

But everyone else was a mishmash of cultures and fashions and freedom.

This woman could have been anyone in our former life.

Save for her physique. Lena was the only Elite I had ever come across who was toned. Sculpted. She was beautiful when dressed in a tight fitting nylon-lycra wing-suit. Stunning when draped in fine figure hugging silks. And devastating when lying naked in my bed.

No other Elite came close.

This woman, standing still as though the weight of sixty odd wary eyes weren’t upon her, holding a now illegal laser gun with apparent nonchalance, was buff. Cardinal buff.

If we had a rogue element in amongst our new peacekeepers, President Tan was going to flip his fucking lid.

“Pull yourselves together,” she demanded in an elegant tone of voice dripping derision.

My eyes cut to Alan’s. He raised his eyebrows and offered a small shrug of his shoulders, but I saw it. The recognition. The slight hint of incredulous humour.

She sounded like an Elite.

She sounded like Lena. At least, the Selena Carstairs I’d first met. I didn’t notice Lena’s rounded vowels anymore. I didn’t hear the clipped tones and formal language. Whether that was because Lena had changed or I had, I wasn’t sure. But this woman, clearly of Mahiah decent, clearly not bothering with the old world model clothing or hair styles, sounded just like Lena had when we’d first met.

“Lena mark II,” Si whispered to my side. Paul snorted, garnering our laser wielding Elite’s hard stare.

“Panic is counter productive,” the woman announced. “They have left.” She indicated the empty sky with the lift of her chin, her eyes scanning the crowd, not letting one person out of her peripheral vision. Her gaze washed over us several times. Most wouldn’t have noticed her interest. She never lingered on our group for long. But her eyes came back to our corner of the quiet courtyard three times more than any other.

She knew we were the greatest threat here. But
we
weren’t the ones holding an illegal gun.

“Are you a Cardinal?” someone yelled from the safety of their anonymous position in the middle of the crowd.

The woman shook her head. One sharp shake to the side, nothing more. She slung the laser gun over her shoulder in a practised move and prepared to leave.

“They might come back!” someone else cried, sudden fear at the thought that their saviour was leaving evident in their high pitched words.

She paused in her movements, and then turned hard eyes on the poor sod who’d just spoken.

“Then I suggest you leave in an orderly fashion and not embarrass yourself.”

She hopped down off the bar and started to move toward the rear of the courtyard, and the back entrance I knew was located there.

“Do we let her go with that gun?” Paul asked.

“We’re not fucking peacekeepers,” Alan growled. His dislike of Tan’s new government equal to my own.

Nothing’s perfect.
Our new national motto.

I watched her head of curly black hair disappear through the exit, the bar’s lights glinting off the edge of her mask. She appeared alone. No one trailed after her. No one flanked her sides. In fact, everyone here gave her a wide berth.

Laser guns had left a mark on our people’s psyche. She definitely had balls holding on to that one.

Fuck, I felt uneasy about all of this.

I glanced up towards the rooftops, to see if she’d had cover of some sort there.

No. She hadn’t. But we had.

Lena’s silhouette stood out only because I was so used to seeking her. Crouched low, one hand resting on the tiles of the roof for balance, the other flicking the blade of her knife over and over in her palm.

Now, look at that. My Elite was anxious.

My eyes followed the trajectory of her gaze; no doubt still watching the non-model Mahiah Elite as she left this area of Wáikěiton. But I quickly found myself pulled back to the sleek creature crouched on the rooftop. Her shocking white blonde hair had been hastily tied up, and now lay hidden beneath a dark hood. She blended into the night as though not quite there.

Lena didn’t look away from the masked woman. She didn’t move a muscle or make a sound. Stillness wrapped around her like a shadow. But I knew she’d be aware of every little detail in the vicinity.

Nothing got past Lena Carr.

On that thought, pale blue eyes shifted to me. She held my gaze silently. Words weren’t needed.

Yeah, Lena felt uneasy too.

F
reedom comes at a price
. We all knew this. We’d always known it. Rebellion costs lives. Liberty costs something altogether different.

It can cost a nation its security.

Without Shiloh to man the satellites above, and the ground to air missiles below, we were as good as sitting ducks. Waiting for the first opportunist nation out there to target our, until now, well hidden assets.

Wánměi had always been advanced in its technological achievements. Until recently, we hadn’t known just how advanced our nation was. Drones, similar to those that had walked our streets as sPol and iPol enforcers, had been traded with the few states out there that still existed.

Those trades had ceased as soon as Lena hit the button, shutting down Shiloh for good. No more drones. No more street-cams. No more airspace security. No more sat-loc keeping our Net safe. We were exposed, as we’d never been exposed before.

Well, before general Chew-wen, that is.

“Six weeks,” Alan said into the silence of the van. “Six weeks and they come now?”

Tension hung on the air as thick as an impending thunderstorm. Not one of us could see a good outcome to this.

“We can assume it’s not the city of lights we can see from Hillsborough,” Si offered. Then shrugged his shoulders when he received a few odd looks. “They haven’t indicated any air flight capability before, and they would have come a lot sooner than this if they’d had it. Simply sent their fighter jets out as soon as they realised our Net was open. Our missiles inoperative.”

“They can tell that?” I asked, as Paul exclaimed, “Those… jets. Fantastic!” He’d clearly missed the salient point to all of this.

We ignored him. Si nodded his head towards me and said, “They’d have known the instant Shiloh went dark.”

“How?” Alan asked.

“Sat-loc went offline, dumping a shit-tonne of information on the greater Global Net in what would have amounted to an atomic bomb going off in cyber-space. Any decent tech would have known we had crumbled.”

“If they were on-line,” Lena added from the front seat.

“All it would have taken was a programme set to search for such things,” Si argued.

“If they wanted to search for such things.”

“Why so argumentative, Elite?” Alan asked, poking the proverbial bear with a stick. I’d never actually seen a bear. Let alone a bear being poked with a stick. But I’d seen pictures of bears and Lena looked as unimpressed with Alan’s comment as one of those Merrikan grizzlies facing off against a pussycat.

She turned in her seat and looked at him. I watched his passive face from the rear vision mirror, keeping half an eye on the busy late-night street. Curfew would have been in play hours ago, if this had been Old Wánměi.

Not anymore. People walked the streets; colour and light and atmosphere drowning out the anxious looks on those who had been above ground to hear and feel the fighter jets as they came. Word was spreading. The Net would be abuzz.

Signalling our fear to the outside world.

Should they be looking.

Where had our bravery gone? Where had our convictions disappeared to?

We’d been so sure they’d look at us and see only a strong, inclusive, welcoming nation.

Who sends fighter jets when getting to know a potential friend?

“Why such doom and gloom, Citizen?” Lena countered. The castes meant nothing nowadays. But Alan and Lena had never shied away from slinging labels at each other.

I pulled the van over to the side of the road, ignoring their continued passive argument, and looked up at the building we now called home. On the edge of where Wáikěiton ended and Parnell began. Halfway between Lena’s two old homes. Halfway between her two old worlds. It represented the halfway mark more than just in location.

The top floor of the building had been recently renovated and then put up for sale just before Shiloh went down. For a few days there, post revolution, not much happened in our city-state. Financially. Physically. Mentally. The nation paused for breath and then we partied. But while most of us were drunk off our faces from either joy or angst, Lena quietly emptied her bank account, taking every single stipend credit she’d ever been given as an Honourable Elite - though never touched before then - and bought the penthouse floor.

Before the interim government put a halt to any transaction over a certain credit value.

A nation in flux can quickly become a nation in crisis, Tan had said. In some ways he was right. And Lena had known. Killing Shiloh did not mean the end of control.

We’d just handed it over to a different Overseer.

“You can’t tell me, you’re not concerned,” Alan pressed, as we all slipped out of the vehicle. “You of all people, perched on the rooftop like a gargoyle, flicking that little needle of yours in your hands.”

“Concern and paranoia are not to be confused, Alan,” Lena pointed out in the perfectly rounded tones of an Elite.

“It’s not like you,” he added softly, just as we reached the front door.

Everyone stopped in their tracks and stared at him. Even Lena.

“Downplaying a threat to avoid panic,” he explained.

“Are you saying I escalate emotions normally?” Lena asked, just as softly.

Alan turned to look at her. Meeting her, steady glare to steady glare.

“I’m saying you’ve never been so afraid as to not call something what it truly is.”

It was, in a way, a backhanded compliment. Alan saw Lena as fearsome. Courageous. Sometimes, recklessly so. But something had changed.

I shifted my focus and took Lena in. Really looked at her. Was she scared? Or just being cautious?

“Fighter jets in our airspace,” Alan whispered. “Laser wielding masked Elites calming panicked citizens. Coincidence?” he asked.

Lena didn’t say anything, just reached forward, typed in her key-code to unlock the front door, and pulled it open when it released.

I met Alan’s eyes, but didn’t pass comment. He was right. Lena
was
afraid.

We followed behind before more could be said, but by the time the door closed at our backs, Lena had disappeared. I knew where I’d find her, though. She always went straight there.

“See what chatter you can locate on the Net,” I said distractedly to Si, as a waiting elevator door opened and we all piled in.

“On it, boss,” he replied, just like old times.

“Get in touch with Tan,” I directed to Alan. “Find out if he needs us.”

This felt too damn familiar. And way too fucking thrilling for our own good.

Once a rebel always a rebel.

“That’ll be fun,” Alan murmured sarcastically as he leaned against the mirrored wall.

“And me?” Paul asked with all the enthusiasm of a puppy.

“Stocktake the armoury. I want to know how much protection we’ve actually got.”

“Cool,” he enthused.

“Keep this from Xiu Ying and the others,” I added for everyone’s sake. “I don’t want to get anyone too excited.” Chance would be a fine thing. Lena’s zebra-lookalike and her cohorts would be well aware what it meant to have fighter jets over Wánměi.

I didn’t wait for a reply, just headed towards our apartment as soon as the lift door opened. This building was just like every other apartment block in Wánměi. Save for the upper floor. Instead of the standard twelve flats every other level had, it housed only eight. But they were special.

Beneath the building was the usual array of cafés, restaurants, and the largest supermarket in the area. We were slap bang in the middle of residential Wánměi; a hub of activity and noise and distraction. Little did they know that thirty storeys above them lay eight remodelled apartments hiding a sophisticated tech-room, well stocked armoury and a self-contained safe-room.

Rebel HQ. We called it home, but each one of us knew why we were here.

Wánměi might be free, but freedom is costly.

Even subconsciously we’d all agreed that this wasn’t over.

And now fighter jets and masked Elite with laser guns. Alan had the right of it. Coincidence?

I was thinking not.

The apartment smelled of Lena. Vanilla and fresh blossoms. Cinnamon from breakfast earlier today. And coffee from my quick espresso before we’d headed out to the bar. It wasn’t as flash as her Parnell Rise home had been, but it didn’t lack for class. Lena had been raised around the finer things in life, but she’d surrounded herself with colour. And culture.

One wall displayed a bright painting of Wáikěiton. Red paper lanterns dotted across a vibrant slash of gold and blue; Elliott Street, showing the crooked buildings and character-filled people and clamouring street vendors. Lena’s former Wáikěiton home, that had burned to the ground, was one of the buildings depicted. It had been the last place she’d felt close to her father.

My eyes flicked across the open living space, over knick-knacks and trinkets, comfortable sofas and a sturdy, well worn dining table with a decorative orchid sitting on top, to the Shiloh unit that hung suspended inside the kitchen wall. A green light flashed in its upper right hand corner. Two quick bursts of light, a long gap, and then repeat. We had a message, but Lena hadn’t cleared it.

Or even seen it, would be my guess.

I climbed the spiral staircase that led to the mezzanine floor and our bedroom there, and then stepped through the open window out onto the roof.

Lena sat under a potted travellers palm, on soft cushions designed to handle the heavy air; her eyes all for the city she loved and had sacrificed so much for. She didn’t stir as my boots hit the bitumen rooftop. Not a flicker of an eyelash or a soft inhale of air. She was statue still. A magnificent sculpture of brittle beauty.

No. Lena wasn’t afraid.

She was mad. Furious even. Livid.

I’d never thought her more irresistible as I did right then.