The Far Shores (The Central Series) (44 page)

“Yes.” Mitsuru’s face
was impassive. “I have reviewed your record. According to the files, your
official tally was sixteen cartel members killed in eleven different incidents,
carried out over the course of six years.”

“And, as I’m sure you
are aware, the official record notes only those contracts that were made
public, as part of a vendetta or a legitimate feud, as recognized by Central
and sanctioned by the Committee-at-Large. The actual number is a great deal
higher. Sanctioning feuds and vendettas, I might add, has become increasingly
rare in recent years, or so I am made to understand.”

“A barbaric practice.
The Director should have banned it when he first took office.”

“I always considered it
something of a safety valve, myself.” Karim smiled ingratiatingly. “A method of
dispersing the inevitable tension between the cartels without resorting to full-scale
warfare, while assuring that the conflict would be conducted in line with legal
guidelines for the use of force, and resolved in a way that reduced the risk of
collateral damage.”

“You were a paid killer,
Karim.”

“As are you, Mitsuru. I
admit freely to having killed at the order of a variety of employers, whereas
you have only one – beyond that distinction, I see no functional difference
between our roles.”

“I operate within the
boundaries of the law.”

“True enough. I suppose
that I could be said to have played a bit fast and loose with the whole idea of
‘legitimate’ feuds. On the other hand, I have never participated in the wholesale
extermination of any cartel or family in Central. Can you say the same, as an
Auditor?”

“I am not interested in
contesting the moral high ground. I am interested in your relationship with
Alistair.”

“Very well.” Karim
chuckled, removing a toothpick from a container in his pocket and placing it
between his teeth. “Alistair hired me infrequently during my tenure in Central
to resolve disputes, when it would have been inappropriate for the Auditors to
intervene directly. Approximately five years ago, however, Alistair surprised
me in Tripoli, where I was conducting some civilian work, and invited me to
have dinner with him. Naturally, I accepted, if only to receive news from
Central and interact with another of my own kind.”

“Hold.” Mitsuru raised
one hand and looked at Karim speculatively as she queried the Etheric Network. “Did
the terms of your exile not forbid you from finding employment in any sort of
industry related to your original occupation?”

“Of course.” Karim
nodded in affirmation, apparently untroubled. “A prohibition I honored for the
first three years of my exile, when I still had hope that the Director might
review my case, or that my petitions for reversal might be heard in the
Committee. When both possibilities were denied, and I had ample time to
experience what a return to mundane life entailed, I decided that the worst
consequence of returning to my original occupation would be death, either in
action or at the hands of the Auditors. At the time, death seemed a preferable
alternative to living a diminished life among civilians.”

“Understood. Continue.”

“At the dinner, it
quickly became apparent that Alistair’s intentions were hardly social. Of
course, I suspected as much from the start, as we were hardly friends. After a
brief feeling-out period, Alistair offered me indirect employment, working for
him through a variety of fronts and subsidiaries. I was led to believe that I
would be performing tasks at the behest of the Audits department, tasks with
which they could not be publically associated.”

Mitsuru’s eyes narrowed.

“You suspect that you
were not working for Audits?”

Karim nodded, laying out
the materials for rolling a cigarette on his thigh as he spoke.

“Alice Gallow confirmed
as much during my debriefing.”

Karim added a pinch of
tobacco to a rolling paper while Mitsuru ran additional searches on the Etheric
Network, downloading the summary of Karim’s debriefing. There were nearly
twenty operations detailed, all taking place during the course of his exile,
which were already cross-indexed by the technicians at Analytics. Mitsuru
reviewed the references while Karim finished rolling his cigarette.

“They were hits on a
variety of cartel interests,” Mitsuru reported, her voice tinged with the
wooden tone of Etheric networking. “Most likely, they were in service of the
Anathema.”

“So I’ve come to
understand. Not the most pleasant revelation.”

Mitsuru tagged the files
for a later, more thorough review, and disconnected from the Etheric Network.

“Very interesting. But
why bring this to me? If it was operationally relevant, I am certain that Alice
Gallow would have briefed me on it…”

Karim lit his cigarette
and turned to face her, studying her with an unabashed intensity that would
have made Mitsuru uncomfortable, even made her suspect his intentions, had his
gaze not been so utterly clinical.

“You know what I do,
right? How I operate?”

“I have been briefed,”
Mitsuru acknowledged. “You are a sniper and a wideband telepath. You operate
your protocol for concealment, and for target location. As I understand it, your
protocol has unprecedented range, but no ability to modify or alter thought.”

“That’s about right. I
haven’t heard the mission briefing yet, obviously, but I think it’s a safe bet
to assume that I will facilitate telepathic communication for the team and
provide long-distance precision fire support as necessary. As I understand it,
you are generally on point during recon and assault missions.”

Mitsuru nodded.

“It’s no secret what the
Auditors are up to these days – hunting the Anathema. Alistair in particular,
for obvious reasons. I figure Alice Gallow must have a pretty good lead, to
recruit someone like me and then drop me into the mix so quickly. Which makes
me think that we might be encountering Alistair sooner rather than later.”
Karim glanced at his half-smoked cigarette with evident distaste, grinding it
out on his partially eaten plate of kabobs. “We mostly talked shop, when he came
to visit, but Alistair did mention you. I’ve been doing a bunch of background
reading for the last couple days, getting caught up on what’s happened around
Central while I was out of the loop. I understand that you have some personal
reasons for wanting to take Alistair out yourself – and I don’t blame you.”
Karim smiled out at where the ocean should have been, but instead there was
only undifferentiated darkness. “I just wanted to share a little relevant
history, maybe come to an understanding before things become complicated.”

Karim stood up,
collecting the remains of his meal and her untouched plate.

“I am sorry if I
disturbed you.”

He gave her a friendly
nod, then turned back to the fire and the party that surrounded it. Mitsuru
meant to watch him leave, but then the words came out of her, not exactly
unbidden.

“You said that Alistair
talked about me.”

“Some,” Karim agreed,
his back to her.

“What did he say?”

Karim hesitated for a
moment, though if he was a telepath, he must have had an inkling that the
question was coming.

“He said you were the
most dangerous person he ever met. That you vacillated between being effective
and unstable. That you would either get killed or end up with his spot as Chief
Auditor, and he wouldn’t have taken a bet either way.” Karim spoke without
turning to face her. “Oh, yeah. He also said you were exceptionally beautiful.
I can’t speak for the rest of it, but he was certainly right about that.”

Mitsuru watched him walk
away, no emotion at all in her bloodshot eyes.

***

“It was no accident that I was never
informed the Academy had a Fey student.”

“She’s not a
full-blooded Fey – you know as well as I do we haven’t had direct contact with
one of them in decades. She’s a Changeling of uncertain parentage, raised at
the Academy since childhood.” Alice glanced at Michael, who was eating with
Alex and Vivik near the fire. “And nobody told you about her because you would
have wanted to dissect her or mount her in your butterfly collection, or
something like that.”

“I’m appalled by your
low opinion,” Dr. Graaf objected mildly. “You make me sound like some sort of
mad scientist.”

“On this point, Miss
Gallow and I are in agreement,” Gerald Windsor said, shaking out the match he
had just used to finish lighting his pipe. “As is the Director, and Miss Levy,
should you care to ask. You are a valued ally, Paul, but the students are our
responsibility, Eerie included. We’ve given you a great deal of leeway here at
the Far Shores...”

“...and look at the
results!” Dr. Graaf cried out, pointing at the distant tower of the power
plant.

“...but we aren’t going
to include the children in the scope of your responsibilities.”

“Outside of the slight
on my character that all of this entails, I believe that you are overlooking
the tremendous possibilities that the girl represents,” Dr. Graaf said, alternating
between them as if hoping for a more sympathetic audience. “Gerald – you know
my work. You know that everything I have done has been strictly for the benefit
of Central. The Ether – and biological interaction with the Ether – is at the
very core of what we study here. And you saw the Changeling walk on top of it
as if it were solid! She could be the key to everything that I have labored
over for years!”

“She’s an eighteen-year-old
girl, Doc,” Alice said, folding her arms. “Not a breakthrough. Not a specimen.
A person, a student at the Academy, a resident of Central with all the rights
and responsibilities that entails.”

“Surely you don’t
believe that,” Dr. Graaf said, lowering his voice. “You must have read the
histories by now, Miss Gallow, even if you have forgotten them. The Fey are not
human. They are as alien as the Witches – and at one time, posed an even
greater threat to Central, to human life in general.”

“Paul, my friend, you
are wrong,” Gerald said, putting his hand companionably on the smaller man’s
arm. “And this is the sort of talk that makes people nervous about your
intentions. The Fey are long departed from this world. And Eerie is not a relic
from darker times or some sort of resurgent threat from the past. She is a
person; I can attest to it – I have known her since childhood. One could say I
even had a small hand in her rearing. Her genes may not be entirely human, but
I assure you, she is every bit as much of a person as you or I.”

“Maybe more than you,
Doc,” Alice added.

“I would do nothing to
harm or frighten her,” Dr. Graaf insisted, his forgotten cigar partially crushed
between the tense fingers of his left hand. “I have no desire to perform
research or experiments without her express consent. All I want is the
opportunity to ask. Is that so much? Have my contributions to the well-being of
Central earned me so little goodwill?”

Alice’s eyes narrowed,
and she opened her mouth to respond, but Gerald Windsor cut her off smoothly.

“Come, Doctor, you are
taking this all the wrong way.” Gerald gestured toward the children and the
campfire, his voice filled with warmth and good humor. “Look around you, Paul.
Your time of exile and observation is over. We have provided you with resources
and granted you authority. Our most valued Operators are available to work with
you at Miss Gallow’s discretion. We have even brought an entire class from the
Academy to observe your work firsthand! If I wished to hide the Changeling from
you, then I simply would not have brought her to the Far Shores. You must
understand this is nothing personal. The children – all of them, Eerie included
– are the responsibility of the Academy and its faculty. We do not delegate
that responsibility or their welfare to outsiders, under any circumstances –
neither to you, nor to any other interested party. Not only is the part of our
professional responsibility, it is also key to our mandate from Central and the
Board. Can you imagine the furor if the cartels discovered we were lending out
students to your fringe group?”

“Politics,” Dr. Graaf
huffed. “I offer you revelations and you respond with politics. Miss Gallow,
you said that the Changeling is eighteen, correct? Then she is capable of
making her own decision about whether she might be interested in participating
in my studies...”

“They are all wards of
the Academy,” Gerald reminded him gently, again speaking before Alice had the
chance. “You know that age is not a factor. Until they graduate from the
Academy, they remain our responsibility.”

“And this class
graduates within the year, correct? Well, if I must wait...”

“Eerie is a special
case,” Gerald countered, smiling pleasantly at Alice as if to defuse her
obvious anger. “Because of her exceptional circumstances, her period of
guardianship has been extended indefinitely. For her own protection, naturally.
It is only fair, after all – the Academy is the only home she has ever known,
and the only facility equipped to deal with her unique needs and physiology.”