Gameboard of the Gods aox-1 Read online

  “Lucky,” muttered Mae, not voicing what the others were thinking.

  If they’d assigned a Scarlet team to the capital, she might have been in it—if not for recent events, of course. The most celebrated prætorian posts were in places with active fighting, like the provinces and borderlands. Those were around-the-clock missions and also the ones prætorians died in. Prætorians were also rotated through the capital, however, to guard senators and important national monuments and buildings. It was relatively sedate work for soldiers like them, but there was power in it. The prætorians were a symbol of the RUNA’s strength and perfection. Putting prætorians on display in Vancouver reassured citizens of their country’s superiority, even if it also sometimes frightened them. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, though. Capital duty had shifts like ordinary jobs, meaning prætorians received a lot of time off. Having a significant amount of one’s cohort on hand was an unusual perk since they were normally split and scattered around the world.

  Val and Dag were fully aware that they’d landed a very sweet assignment, but Dag diplomatically tried to make Mae feel better. “I’m sure you’ll see cool stuff with a servitor. Maybe you’ll get to take down some crazy cult. I saw this one on the news that was sacrificing animals and having naked moonlight dances.” He turned wistful. “I wouldn’t mind a little of that. The naked part, that is. Not the animal part. I heard they tried to stone the servitor.”

  Mae gave him a smile for his effort. “Cults usually get taken down with paperwork instead of brute force. They only show the sensational ones on TV.”

  “Well, just remember, it could’ve been a lot worse for you.” Val’s voice was light, but there was a warning note in it. Nobody was mentioning the funeral, but they were all thinking about it. “And hey, how crazy is it that you’ll be with a mysterious exile and a provincial girl? That’s drama right there. You can’t make that stuff up.”

  “No,” agreed Mae, thinking back on what she’d seen. “You really can’t.”

  “Is he cute?” asked Val, with a look Mae knew all too well.

  “Don’t get any ideas.” Mae wasn’t going to breathe a word about what had happened with Justin. There’d be no living with Val or Dag then. “I don’t need you showing up at his door.”

  Val’s eyes lit up. “Ah, he is cute.”

  Dag shook his head. “Ignore her. She hasn’t been laid in, like, a week. It’s a wonder she’s still alive.”

  He was joking, although prætorians did tend to have particularly active sex lives. It was another side effect of the natural physical responses that the implant kicked into overdrive. Justin had been Mae’s first sex in almost six months, an astonishingly long span for prætorians, but after Porfirio, she hadn’t really felt up to it right away.

  Val elbowed Dag for the joke, but at least Mae had the answer to a question she’d wondered about. Val and Dag were constantly on-and-off-again, making it hard to keep track of their current status. Apparently they were off right now. That always made Mae a little sad, but at least the two stayed friendly.

  She glanced at the time and finished her drink. As much as she loved her friends, she suddenly longed for some downtime. “I’ve got to go, guys. I’ll give you a drama report the next time I see you—unless you see us on TV first.”

  “Where’re you off to?” asked Val. “Hot date? Wouldn’t hurt you to get laid either, you know.” If only Val knew the truth. “You’re cycling back to that castal stiffness of yours.”

  “That never goes away,” Dag said. “But you do need to relax, Finn.”

  Dag had started calling her that back when they’d first been assigned to their cohort and begun prætorian training. He’d never been able to remember her last name, but he could remember that she was Nordic, hence the nickname he and eventually Val had both started using. Everyone could tell she was castal, which had made for some rough adjustments in the military. Val and Dag had bonded with her immediately and unquestioningly, maybe because they needed her as the straight man for all their jokes.

  “I can’t relax,” said Mae, standing up and swiping her ego to pay for the drink. “I’m not the one on vacation. I mean, monument duty.”

  “Ha ha,” said Val. She rolled her eyes but was obviously relieved at the turn of events, and Mae felt a small pang of guilt for not getting in touch with them sooner. They’d had no idea what had happened to her after the funeral and had probably assumed the worst. They were closer to her than her biological family.

  “Hey…” Mae hesitated and rested her hands on the back of her chair. “Do you guys know how Kavi’s doing?”

  “Still hospitalized,” said Dag, sobering. “Well, that’s what the rumors say. The Indigos aren’t really talking to us.”

  That queasy feeling Mae got whenever she thought about Kavi returned. “I guess that’s normal. It hasn’t been that long.”

  Prætorians were hard to hurt, but for most injuries, they healed like ordinary people. There were always whispers of stem cell treatments or other biological breakthroughs to facilitate prætorian recovery, but the RUNA’s policies against biological and genetic manipulation were still too harsh, even for its prize soldiers. Medical research was one thing, but no one wanted to risk abuse that could lead to another virus-caused Decline.

  Val stood up and hugged her. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I broke her leg,” Mae pointed out. “If it’s not my fault, whose is it?”

  “She was asking for it,” said Dag loyally. He rose too and gave Mae a crushing hug of his own.

  “She was just upset about Porfirio.” Saying his name brought about that familiar pain in Mae’s chest. “We all were.”

  “Holy shit,” said Val. “Did you hear that, Dag? I think she acknowledged having some human emotions.”

  Mae wished she had the courage to ask them the burning question that still lingered in her mind: Why was Kavi so slow? But she knew they’d have no answers. They’d reiterate what Gan had said about her simply being better than Kavi, except they’d use more profanity.

  “Let’s head out too,” Val told Dag. She finished her drink in a gulp. “That Amber party should be starting.”

  That was one thing you could count on with prætorians in the city: There was always a party going on somewhere. Val and Dag invited her to join them, but Mae declined. Her ambiguous status had left her glum. She wasn’t active in combat, nor was she really part of the ceremonial prætorians. It felt weird to go out with them, and she didn’t want to be reminded that she’d missed a chance to be assigned with other Scarlets.

  Val and Dag’s party was on the way to the subway station, and the three of them set off into the crowded streets. In the short time since Mae had been out earlier, the partiers and pleasure seekers had nearly doubled. Some were only starting their adventures, while others had just left the theaters and restaurants and were calling it a night. The three eventually parted ways, and Mae had the good fortune of having her train pull up right when she reached the platform.

  When she reached the stop a few blocks from her home, she emerged and found a much quieter scene than the theater district. Although it was still very urban, there were no flashing screens in this residential neighborhood. Live oaks had been strategically planted to complement the neat brick town houses lining the street, interspersed with ornate streetlamps that cast dim light and created new shadows. When she was nearly to her door, she sensed a presence near a tree and spun around, gun in hand.

  “Damn, you really are fast.” A man stepped out of the shadows, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “Easy.”

  Mae didn’t lower the gun as she took him in. He was no one she’d seen before. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he appeared close to her age and to also belong to some northwestern-European caste. He might very well have been Nordic, but it was difficult to make out too many regional specifics in the dim lighting. Despite his ostensibly nonthreatening attitude, there was something about him that set her on edge.

 
“Who are you?” she demanded.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets and smiled, perfectly at ease. “You can call me Emil, prætorian.”

  Mae didn’t blink or ask how he knew who she was. “And? What do you want?”

  “You,” he said bluntly. “You had to have known we’d send someone eventually.”

  “Oh, yeah? Are you some kind of bounty hunter sent by my mother to drag me home?”

  “Somehow, I don’t think that would be too easy a task.” He chuckled. “But it’s funny you mention your family, because I do have something that might be of interest to you—something that’s a sign of our goodwill and desire to welcome you.”

  Adrenaline flooded her. She kept her face perfectly still, refusing to let on that she was completely clueless about the context of this visit, seeing as he seemed to think she should know it. Revealing her ignorance would be a weakness.

  Emil reached toward his pocket, and Mae’s finger tensed on the trigger. “See if this looks familiar.” He produced an ego and casually scrolled through until he found a picture. Holding it up, he showed it to Mae.

  Again, she made sure her expression gave away nothing, though this time, keeping that control was much harder. “I’ve never seen her before.”

  The girl in the picture was about eight years old, wearing a bizarre, homespun dress made of a drab brown fabric. A white kerchief covered her head, but wisps of sunny blond hair escaped it. She stood outside in a grassy area that had no other identifying features. She looks exactly like Claudia, Mae thought. Well, a prettier version, which would make sense.

  “Would you like to?” he asked, slipping the ego back into his pocket. “We have the resources to help you.”

  And that’s when Mae knew. Her breath caught. The Brödern, at long last. She’d tried getting information from them for years, but the Swedish mafia wasn’t all that eager to help someone in the military. She never thought they’d finally come through. “Tell me where she is.”

  Emil shook his head, still wearing that condescending expression. “I can’t give it away so easily.”

  Of course he couldn’t, but Mae was prepared for that. She’d had to be, with the kind of sordid contacts she’d made in this quest. “How much will it cost? I have Eastern currency.”

  “Money, bah. We have plenty. What we don’t have is the influence and access of an enterprising young woman in one of the military’s most elite units.”

  The insinuation was ludicrous. “I’m not going to use my position to help your group with whatever plots you’ve got going.”

  “You should’ve joined us a long time ago,” he said ominously. “It’s your birthright.”

  She wasn’t surprised by that attitude. Organizations like the Brödern tended to have separatist inclinations even more extreme than those of regular patricians. Pointing out that she had more Finnish than Swedish blood, by Nordic ranking, probably wouldn’t make a difference.

  “Sorry. I’m not interested in joining up.”

  He tapped the pocket that his ego had disappeared into. “But you’re interested in this.”

  “It could be a fake. It could be anyone.”

  “Perhaps,” Emil conceded. He reached for his pocket again and this time pulled out a tiny, sealed plastic bag. He handed it to Mae and after several moments of hesitation, she took it with her left hand. A lock of golden hair was inside. “But this could only belong to one person.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He shrugged. “Get it tested and see. Maybe then you’ll show a little more respect for doing your duty.”

  She had to force herself not to study the hair. “You still haven’t really explained what it specifically is you want in return.”

  “It’ll depend on how we need to use you.”

  “You think I’m going to trade some open favor?”

  From his face, that was exactly what he thought. “It’s a small thing compared to all we’ve done for you and all we can do.” He nodded toward the hair. “Get it tested. Then we’ll talk.”

  He began to walk away, and she toyed with the idea of shooting or at least tackling him. But he hadn’t technically done anything wrong. And so, Mae stayed where she was, watching until the darkness completely swallowed him. Only then did she put the gun away and slowly walk toward her town house, clutching the bag he’d given her.

  CHAPTER 10

  MASTER AND APPRENTICE

  Justin’s first week flew by like some kind of dream. Part of it was spent getting up to speed with SCI and his upcoming caseload. He essentially had to be rehired, so there were countless authorization hoops to jump through and reams of the paperwork so ubiquitous in government. The delay gave him a lot of free time, allowing him to immerse himself back in the world he’d longed for these past four years.

  He spent long days in the city, rebuilding his wardrobe—no more flammable knockoffs—and exploring old haunts. There was no difficulty in resuming his old vices. Sure, the stuff you could score around here wasn’t as lethal as Panama’s never-ending supply of drugs, but debauchery was one thing you could always count on, no matter the region, and it was easy enough finding dealers and shady doctors to give him the stimulants he used during the day and the more euphoric things he used to unwind.

  One thing he hadn’t expected was a technological learning curve. People often said that if not for the Decline, mankind would’ve been off into the stars by now. Progress had stalled and even regressed in the chaos of the Decline, especially in other parts of the world. In the last decade or so, the RUNA—stabilized by its triumph over Mephistopheles—had rapidly made up for lost time. His time away had proved no exception. Justin saw progress in more than just the egos, and at times, it was a little embarrassing to have to learn something that was second nature to Quentin.

  Of course, Justin had nowhere near the adjustment that Tessa had. She made admirable strides that first week, and though she was hesitant to travel into the city as much as he did, she became obsessed with the media stream and would spend hours in front of the screen, watching anything she could get her hands on. TV, news, instructional videos…she took it all in, trying to become an expert in Gemman culture from the safety of their living room.

  But he wasn’t convinced that was good enough. He hadn’t brought Tessa back to the RUNA so that she could hide away at home. She could’ve stayed in Panama for that. And so, the night before SCI finally told him it was time to get to work, Justin sacrificed a debauched send-off for himself to take his family out to dinner in the city. It was good for his relationship with Cynthia too. Despite living together, each had been preoccupied with adjusting to his or her new life and they hadn’t had nearly as much contact as they should’ve after a four-year separation.

  Tessa gazed with wide eyes around the restaurant Justin had chosen. It served some of the best Thai food in Vancouver but had exploited its popularity by pretty much covering every square inch of wall space with advertising screens. Even Justin, who’d grown up with constant media exposure, had to admit the constantly changing images were a little distracting. But after being denied any real Asian cuisine in Panama, he found he could tolerate the media blasting.

  “There’s so much…stuff,” Tessa said. “That’s the fifth ad I’ve seen for ego cases. Do you really need different ones to coordinate with your clothing?”

  “Yes,” said Justin.

  “Sometimes,” said Cynthia.

  Justin didn’t pay much attention to Tessa’s dubious look because he decided the particular case she’d just pointed out would work perfectly with a suit he’d picked up yesterday. He held up his own ego, snapped a shot of the ad, and had an order placed in seconds.

  Cynthia frowned in disapproval. “That’s so overpriced. You could get a cheaper one just like that at that store down on Market Street.”

  “This one’s a Bloomfield,” he argued.

  She still didn’t approve. “Label whore.”

  He smiled at her. Life was still too goo
d for him to be upset about much of anything. He had his life, he had his family, he had his job. The only thing that could’ve made his situation better was having citizenship in the National Registry.

  And the guarantee that you’re not going to get sent away, said Horatio.

  And Mae not hating you, added Magnus.

  Why are you guys such buzzkills? Justin asked them.

  But both were valid points, especially the former. As much as he’d enjoyed his mini-vacation, SCI’s bureaucratic delay had eaten up days he really couldn’t afford to waste. At least they’d reinstated his database access, so the time hadn’t been completely wasted. He’d been able to check current servitor records against what he remembered of cults that might have silver and moon connections, creating a list of groups worth visiting. He still wasn’t sure whether cracking the case would ensure or harm his ability to stay, but there was no use worrying about it tonight.

  A server delivered several dishes to their table, all of which earned wary looks from Tessa—at least until the rice showed up. Her expression brightened at that and then almost comically plummeted again when she saw the chopsticks. Justin requested a fork for her but warned her that she needed to try everything.

  “So this is what parenting’s like,” he murmured to Cynthia. Quentin had eagerly jumped in to teach Tessa how to use the chopsticks, just as he’d also volunteered to be her media guide. With his simpler explanations, Quentin actually did a pretty good job and seemed to have a crush on her to boot.

  Cynthia shook her head. “You don’t know anything about parenting. Thankfully. It’s a lot harder than you think. Speaking of which…I don’t suppose you’ve told Mom you’re back?”

  Justin nodded his thanks as a glass of bourbon arrived. Not the greatest complement to curry, but he felt he deserved something before returning to the grind tomorrow. “I don’t even think she realized I was gone. Besides, if she finds out about our living situation, she’ll want in on it too. Do you want to risk that?”