Age of X01 - Gameboard of the Gods Read online

  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 good 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?”

  Cynthia answered with a grimace. No matter how different the siblings had become, there were certain things they were still of one mind on.

  “Oh,” Tessa breathed with pleasure, looking up from her pad Thai.

  Justin followed her gaze to a commercial showing a model in a fuchsia party dress. “Look at that,” he said. “You’re a real girl after all. You want it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how it would look.” Her Gemman wardrobe thus far had been ordered straight off the stream, consisting of everyday items in sensible colors. To everyone’s surprise, she’d taken to jeans right away, something Justin had been worried about after her lifetime of ankle-length skirts. He squinted at the address at the ad’s bottom.

  “That’s right around the corner,” he said. “We can stop by after dinner.”

  “No way,” said Cynthia. “I don’t want to go into that store. All those girls are half my age. It makes me feel like I’m clutching desperately at my youth.”

  “Whatever you say, old lady. I’ll go with Tessa.”

  “Yeah, because that’s not creepy at all.”

  In the end, they decided to split up. Cynthia returned home with Quentin, and Justin took Tessa shopping. His sister wasn’t entirely off about the weirdness of being a thirtysomething guy in a teen girls’ clothing store, but it wasn’t like he was trying things on with her. He turned her over to a capable saleswoman, who was more than happy to show Tessa to the advertised dress…and many more.

  Justin made himself comfortable on a purple bench near the dressing rooms. A screen on the wall flashed the day’s news stories. Cyn is wrong. Parenting’s not that hard as long as you have an open wallet, he told the ravens.

  Horatio didn’t agree. Thank the gods you haven’t yet impregnated anyone.

  I told you not to bring up any gods now that we’re back. I’m in enough trouble.

  Not talking about something won’t make it go away, Horatio warned him.

  His mental conversation was interrupted by the sight of a familiar face on the screen. His jaw nearly hit the floor. “Is that Lucian?” he asked aloud. The question was rhetorical, but a hovering saleswoman heard him.

  “Lucian Darling? Of course it is.”

  The volume was off, but a headline on the screen read: Consular Candidates Make Campaign Stops. Justin had to read it twice. “He’s…running for consul?”

  The saleswoman, who’d seemed quite charmed by Justin when he came in, now looked at him like he was crazy. “How can you not know that?”

  “Even I know that,” said Tessa, timidly stepping out in the pink dress.

  “You live in front of the screen,” he said. He glanced back at the beaming senator as he shook hands with a crowd. “What the hell did he do to his hair? Are those highlights?”

  “They’re hot,” said the saleswoman.

  Justin didn’t dignify that with a response and instead tried to focus on Tessa and the dress. The bold color contrasted with her nervousness, but overall, the look transformed her. She looked like a typical Gemman girl.

  “It’s cute,” he told her fondly. Tessa blushed with pleasure.

  “Where would I wear this?” she asked.

  “We’ll find a place,” he assured her. “Maybe the Feriae—the summer holidays.”

  Or maybe a date, suggested Horatio slyly. Only a matter of time before boys come calling. Time to get a taste of your own medicine.

  Shut up, Justin told him.

  In the end, at Justin’s urging, Tessa ended up with two dresses. As the saleswoman wrapped them up, Justin asked Tessa, “Tell me about Lucian, media expert. Why is he running for consul?”

  She looked startled but proved to be a diligent reporter. “Because he wants to run the country? I don’t know. But he’s on the news every day. He’s one of the most popular candidates. They make a lot of jokes about his name, and his big thing is that it’s time to progress into the next phase. He says the Age of Decline is over and that the Age of Renewal should be too, that it’s time for something bigger and greater. His campaign slogan is ‘Ushering in the New Age.’”

  “Catchy. I knew that outstanding memory of yours would come in handy,” he told her.

  Tessa smiled at him as she accepted the bag from the saleswoman. “His opponents give him a hard time about it not being specific enough. They call it ‘Darling’s Unknown Age’ and ‘Age of X.’ Do you know him?”

  “He was my college roommate,” Justin said, still unable to believe this development. He’d always thought Lucian had gone into politics only to get wined and dined by lobbyists, a theory backed by Lucian’s having been on the most brainless senate committees available. How did one go from that to consul?

  “You guys have th
e same smile, you know,” said Tessa after several moments of thought. “Did you guys practice with each other?”

  Justin headed for the door. “He stole it from me.”

  His first task for SCI actually wasn’t a visit to the murder sites or even the religious groups he’d tagged as possible culprits. He’d meant what he said to Cornelia: He had someone he was certain could crack the video. If it really was faked. The problem was, his contact was being annoyingly uncooperative. Leo Chan was the best biotech engineer Justin had ever met, one Justin had eventually used exclusively because everyone else looked like an amateur in comparison. Apparently in the last four years, though, Leo had given up his government job for the private sector and relocated to Portland. Leo had been wary when Justin called, and refused the invitation to come up to Vancouver. That meant Justin had to go to Portland, since he wasn’t allowed to send that dangerous video through the stream. It had to be delivered in person.

  The morning of the trip, Justin got up early to go jogging. It had sort of become a mandatory practice after resuming his Exerzol habit. Exerzol was a hundred times better than caffeine when it came to focus and alertness, though not nearly as powerful as a similar one he’d found in Panama. Unlike that sketchy drug, however, Exerzol was much less likely to give him a heart attack. It always hit him with a jolt in the mornings, providing a burst of nervous energy that had immediately been apparent to Cynthia. “Do not hang around this house high,” she warned him the first time she’d noticed the rush. There’d been a look in her eyes he knew all too well, one that only a fool would cross.

  And so, jogging became his way of dealing with Exerzol’s exuberant entrance. An hour loop through their sedate suburb usually brought him back down to a reasonable energy level, and the exercise wasn’t a bad thing anyway. Living in a world of bodyguards and constant threats in Panama had encouraged him to stay in good shape, and he didn’t want to lose that now.

  As he returned to the house that morning, he found Mae approaching. He didn’t really think his trip to Leo required a bodyguard, but SCI had been adamant that she be his shadow whenever he conducted any official business.

  “What’s that look for?” he asked her.

  Mae crossed her arms, face impassive. He always took inventory of her clothes, and she was casual today in a damask patterned blouse and jeans that did incredible things for her legs. It was fitting, seeing as her legs could do incredible things. “What look?”

  “The one that says you can’t believe I do anything physical.” He opened the front door and gestured her inside.

  “Oh, no,” she said with icy pleasantness. “I believe you do all sorts of physical things. I just assumed they involved rolling dice and helping women out of their clothes.”

  “And I jog,” he added. He ran a hand over his forehead and grimaced. The downside of these morning runs, aside from having to look at identical lawns, was the sweat. “I’m going to hit the shower, and then we can head out to the train station. Tessa’s going with us.”

  Mae looked startled. “On an assignment?”

  “No assignment today. Not exactly. It’s a trip to visit an old friend.” He frowned as he glanced toward the living room, where Quentin was explaining to Tessa the TV social media feature that allowed viewers to see scrolling commentary from others watching the same show or movie. Tessa was intrigued but also baffled by what she simply viewed as people’s need to see themselves talk. “She should get out more, especially since she’s starting school in a couple days.”

  The scathing expression Mae reserved for him faded as she watched Tessa. In their occasional encounters this week, he’d seen Mae’s frosty exterior warm up to genuine affection whenever she interacted with Tessa. It reminded him of the woman who’d shared his wine and bed in Panama.

  “How do you think she’ll do?” Mae asked.

  “She’ll be okay,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “Once she’s thrown into the thick of things, she’ll adjust.”

  Thrown to the wolves you mean, noted Horatio.

  Justin ignored the raven and headed off to shower. He returned an hour later and found that Mae had joined Tessa and Quentin as they discussed scrolling commentary on movies. “You’ll have to ponder the mysteries of media exhibitionism another day,” Justin told them. “It’s time to go.”

  Tessa’s face fell. “I really have to go?”

  “You’ll love it,” he assured her. “Portland’s great. Think of this as your last big hurrah before school.”

  That seemed to cheer her up. Even when she was reluctant to do something, she usually wouldn’t refuse if he asked outright. She was impertinent by Panamanian standards but compliant by Gemman ones. He wondered how long it would take to shake that docility out of her and if he’d be proud or worried when it happened.

  As it was, she was looking more and more like a Gemman girl, especially with her love of jeans. She still wore her long hair elaborately braided and wrapped behind her head. It was a little odd and old-fashioned but didn’t attract the kind of attention her provincial clothing had.

  The ride to Portland took about two hours by high-speed train, but Leo actually lived outside of the city, in the wine country to the west. Limited public transit ran out that way, so hiring a car was required for the rest of the trip. The ride was beautiful, with rolling green hills and sprawling estates tucked in among vineyards. Most of the chaos and degradation of the Decline had happened in urban centers, and many people had fled to pastoral settings for safety. Some of these houses had been around since those times.

  Picturesque or not, Justin had a hard time imagining trendy Leo making a home out in the country. He was—or had been—a city creature if ever there was one. He’d lived in one of the hottest districts in downtown Vancouver, sacrificing space in order to be within arm’s reach of the most exclusive clubs and bars. They’d often gone out together, and Justin had spent a few nights passed out on Leo’s living room floor.

  It was around noon when his entourage finally reached the address. Leo’s house wasn’t one of the mammoth, century-old estates. It was small, cute, and well kept but could only be described as a cottage at best. The house appeared to be situated on a fair amount of property, with a vineyard stretching out beyond it. It was also the quietest place Justin had been since returning to the RUNA.

  “Huh,” he said as they walked toward the house.

  Mae gave him a sidelong glance. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just not what I expected.” They reached the front of the house, and he was even more surprised to see the cute wooden door rigged with a number of locks and a security panel. Leo had urban sensibilities in a rural setting. “Also didn’t expect this place to be sealed up like a federal building.”

  “I thought there wasn’t any crime in the RUNA.” He could just barely pick up a hint of mockery in Tessa’s voice.

  “Oh, we have plenty of crime.” He knocked on the door. “We just don’t have ordinary people walking the streets with guns.”

  The door opened, and Leo appeared. Maybe the ravens were right and he hadn’t wanted to see Justin, but Leo gave no sign of that as his face broke out into a grin. He gestured them forward, shaking Justin’s hand as they stepped inside.

  “You’re the last person I expected to hear from this week,” Leo said. “Or any week.”

  Leo looked the same as ever, with his slim build and delicate features. His dark hair was slicked back, and he was dressed as though he was about to step out of a Vancouver high-rise.

  “I’ve been busy,” Justin responded. “Leo, this is Mae, my aristocratic security, and this is Tessa. She’s a friend’s daughter who’s staying with Cyn and me.” It was an unwieldy introduction, but “ward” sounded like he was in some ancient novel. And anything else just conjured up sordid theories in people’s minds.

  Leo did a double take at Justin as he shook hands. “Wait. You’re living with Cynthia?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ve kind of been seei
ng the world.”

  “I don’t think ‘seeing the world’ ever came up when we were trying to figure out what happened to you,” Leo mused. “We had a pool going over in the Internal Security building. The favorite theories were rehab and starting a cult of your own.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” Justin sat down on a couch in a small living room with rustic pine floors and walls that contrasted with the media screen and sleek black and steel furniture that he remembered from Leo’s old apartment. Tessa took the spot beside him, and Mae stood near the fireplace. Her stance was casual, but her eyes were as watchful as ever. “How in the world did you end up here? Can I get in on a pool for that?”

  Leo grinned. “I didn’t end up anywhere. I chose to come here.”

  “Why?”

  “For the noblest of reasons.” Leo nodded toward the living room’s doorway. “I got married.”

  So much for his stunning powers of observation. Justin hadn’t even noticed the gold ring on Leo’s finger. The man who entered the living room, wearing a matching ring, was pretty much Leo’s opposite in every way. Where Leo was tall and slender, this guy was shorter and broad shouldered, with the kind of muscles that came from hard work or expensive fitness devices. He had the common dark hair and eyes, with a close-cut haircut framing his square face, and scarring along his chin suggested he was one of the rare plebeians to have picked up Cain. He was more casually dressed than Leo and clearly much shyer.

  Leo caught hold of his arm and steered him in while making introductions. “Dominic, this is the guy I told you about.”

  Justin jumped up to shake Dominic’s hand, wondering what exactly Leo had told him. “Well, congratulations.” Justin put on his sunniest public relations face. “If I’d known, I would’ve brought you a gift. You look like you could use some nice linens.”

  Leo laughed, but Dominic said in a very flat voice, “We already have some.”

  “Justin won’t say it, but he’s appalled by our living conditions,” Leo explained. “He’d never dream of living any place so ‘primitive.’” Beside him, Justin heard Tessa clear her throat.