"It was my grandfather's sword. "My father never wanted it; he kept it hidden in a closet for almost fifty years. Hidden away, and wrapped with cloth behind his business suits. He never brought it out or showed it to me. He didn't want me to follow the path of my grandfather. "My grandfather was a lieutenant in the Imperial Army of Japan. The military junta ruling the nation sent him to Manchuria under the purple lotus of the Emperor. My grandfather would have died on this sword for the Emperor. The European Christians at the college he was attending told him that the Emperor was wrong, that the war was not right, that he shouldn't fight because God didn't want him to. He was a devout Christian, my grandfather, but he told them to all go to hell. He would have died on this sword for the Emperor. "He went to Manchuria and fought for twelve years, against the Chinese and later the French, the British, and you Americans. He had hundreds of men die under him, all for the Emperor. They all went down yelling 'Banzai.' He would have followed them at a moment's notice. "But even though the Imperial Army was never driven from China, it lost to the combined forces of Russia, Britain, and America. It took two atomic bombs and thousands of tons of incendiaries to beat Japan into surrendering. No other nation on the face of the planet was granted the honor of losing two cities to nuclear blasts. Japan surrendered alone; the lesser Axis powers had been killed off months before. "My grandfather saw this coming; he sent this sword home in the hands of a family friend who had lost his legs in the fighting. So when the Chinese made the Imperial Army surrender its weapons, my grandfather was the only one who did not throw his sword into the rivers. "No true samurai would have turned over his sword! "For the Emperor, they would have died on those swords! "He gave up another sword, one that didn't mean anything to him. My grandfather gave it up and went home, because he knew that not all the samurai were meant to die in that war. Some had to survive, to serve the Emperor by rebuilding a nation burned and blasted to the ground. He kept his sword, too, because he knew that there would be another time, another time when Japan would need its samurai and their swords to fight for the Emperor. "So my father kept that sword hidden. He despised it, despised everything that it meant: honor, tradition, loyalty. He saw it as the Japan that invaded Manchuria, that invaded Shanghai and Hong Kong, that invaded the Philippines and Vietnam, that invaded New Guinea and Thailand, that bombed Pearl Harbor, that was buried on the USS Missouri when she sailed into Tokyo Harbor. He despised it, wanted nothing to do with it, but could not part with it. He hated it because it was part of him, just like the samurai which were meant to carry it were part of Japan. "He hid it for fifty years, hid it when I graduated high school, and hid it until I joined the Self Defense Forces. My father broke down and cried when he heard the news. He had hidden it so long that I had followed my grandfather's path out of instinct. "He gave me that sword then, gave it to me and begged my forgiveness for never telling me about it, teaching me what it meant to my grandfather and even to him. "I took that sword and hid it well. I, too, knew what it meant. I was raised on anime and video games. I was young, I did not think I could give this sword the respect it demanded. I thought I was unworthy of it, because I was not prepared to die for the Emperor, for Japan. "Then the invaders came. "My company was one of the first Self Defense Forces units into Osaka. We fought to the best of our Western training, probing, sniping, trying to spread the enemy out, eliminate him one by one. We failed so utterly in this, and I lost a platoon as the invaders swept down over us like some terrible kami, demons. "I survived that battle only because of luck. I should have died with the thousands of other people, because I was nothing against the invaders. I was no samurai. I survived because I fled. "It was XCOM that stopped the invaders in Osaka. It was XCOM that requested recruits from the Self Defense Forces. I was not about to volunteer; but then my superior officers charged me with a new mission: Protect Japan. I was sent into XCOM to 'protect Japan' from this strange organization. I did well; I soon became an assault team leader, a Captain. My team, the Fourth Kansai, killed more invaders than had destroyed Osaka. "But I was not XCOM. I was always outside, waiting for that special message from my true superiors: the Self Defense Forces. You did not see this; we were all Japanese to you. But I was alone, waiting. "They sent me that message after we raided the China Hive and detonated the Hive's nuclear reactor. Fallout was spread across the Pacific, across Japan. XCOM was threatening Japan. I was to eliminate this threat. I was to kill Commander Schancer. "Before I could complete my mission, though, I was sent to retrieve an invader ship in Korea. It was a trap. My team was massacred and I was the only one to survive. I could not even mourn for them--their faces still haunt me; every base in all of XCOM had been raided and it was only us, the few survivors, who could travel to Mars, to Cydonia, and destroy the invader master computer. "My senior sergeant, Hideo Suzuki, died protecting me from a bomb on that Korean hillside. I vowed to avenge his death with that of my enemy or my own. I vowed to kill the invaders once and for all or die protecting Japan. "Cydonia was a trap, a huge, crab-infested trap. There were so many invaders that I had to search the bodies of my fallen comrades for weapons. It was there, in that breeding pit of hell, that I felt the Kamikaze--the divine wind. I became XCOM even as the number of soldiers who could call ourselves such became so few I could count our numbers on my fingers. I knew I was about to die, and that is how I earned my grandfather's sword. "We won by luck; Commander Schancer broke through the invaders, found the brain, and killed it. Yes, they say it was you, but I know the truth. I saw what you saw in the Commander. He too was samurai; but his nation was the world. I hear you say 'He was XCOM,' and I agree. Commander Schancer was XCOM. He was samurai. "After the First Alien War, I went home. Like my grandfather, I was convinced that I had been spared so that I could serve the Emperor. I went into politics. I served him by rising in the ranks of the Diet for many years until I could stand, alone, Prime Minister of Japan. I will tell you a secret--I did it so that I could hear the Emperor's words better--by that time he was a very old man. "I had a family, too. Misao was her name, and I loved her very much. It was my luck to have one son born to me; his name was Hideo, after my friend and savior. "Hideo married well. His first child was Deko, a daughter. "She was also his last. "In 2041, the invaders returned. The United Nations thought a small organization on a par with the original XCOM could fight them adequately. I was not in favor of such half-measures! I berated the Security Council for its ignorance, knowing that only a full-scale, global mobilization could stand a chance at defeating the invaders a second time. "The didn't believe me, and XCOM was born again. "You know that story; the combined forces of XCOM, Japan, and France could not destroy the invaders and the invaders could not destroy us. Two years, I poured half the national budget of Japan into the Pacific, building submarines, training soldiers, holding the invaders at sword's length. "Then they launched T' Eleth. "By a stroke of fate, I was returning home from Geneva on a suborbital shuttle. Deko, and her mother Mayumi, were on board. Hideo was in Tokyo. "You, you curse yourself and lament your loss of Commander Schancer's child Jacob in the Inferno! How does that compare with mine? I watched as invader missiles detonated over Sapporo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo! They took a son away from you! They didn't stop with Hideo for me; they took my nation! A hundred airbursts up and down the spine of Japan, every population center over a hundred thousand erased! A hundred fifty million people dead! "The invaders killed Japan. "Or at least they thought they did. The didn't get me, Deko, or my grandfather's sword. It was all I had left. "I came to America in June of 2041, as your nation was being shredded by partisans and factions, a thousand snarling little dogs tearing apart the 'greatest nation on Earth.' Your president wouldn't even meet with me for a week because he was so fearful that there might be another missile barrage coming for him. I was so offended that within days of passing my citizenship test, I was running for a United States Senator's seat. "The previous man had been impeached for election fraud. I won because I could speak English better than the next candidate--so quickly they had forgotten that I was Japanese. I was re-elected because I hadn't been assassinated. I couldn't stand the religious right, so I formed a new political party--the Technical Republicans. They laughed at the name, but in twelve years, my party became the majority. "But that didn't matter, because the United States had ceased to exist. Fifty separate states had gone fifty separate ways, with California going to war against Nevada, Utah, and Arizona for water rights. Orbital space was a living hell; you know that, you made it that way. Colonization of Mars wasn't going to happen any time soon, also thanks to you. "Thus, a little side project of mine became a consuming priority: the creation of a self-sustaining city-state capable of roughing it through the quickening ecological, political, and economic collapse the whole planet was undergoing. I turned my attentions to MegaPrime, coaxing a dozen different multinationals to transform a barren patch of Northern Wisconsin--then a boggy, abandoned wasteland--into the last hope of the human species. "I wanted to leave something to my granddaughter; a place to live, a home for the next bearer of my grandfather's sword. Japan might be ashes, I say, but the Emperor still commands, and samurai must answer. "Deko married in 2066, already three months pregnant. Her husband was a Synthmesh middle executive who she'd met on the club circuit. "He was an American, but he was young, ambitious, intelligent, and quick-witted. Over my better judgment, I gave him Deko's hand." I wake with a start, the crisp syllables of Sakurai's voice still in my head. A confession: I have actually come to enjoy his ponderous monologue. For all the pain and suffering that it drips, it is still something of an escape for me; at least it is someone else's pain. My pain is much more diffuse, a kind of reddish haze that colors my vision. It is the pain of realizing that I am twenty three years old and I have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. It's the pain of having alienated, betrayed, or just plain lost most of my friends. It's the pain of knowing that I should be feeling more pain . . . I can't mourn my parents. We were honest and communicative towards each other, but we were never a family. They were just the other people who lived with me in my house in Buenos Aires. But I never really noticed the separation until I actually needed them; when the Popo knocked in the doors to the University news site room, when they hauled all of us downtown, when they gave each of us one call and I dialed long-distance and was told by the AI router that my parents were temporarily "indisposed." In actuality, my dad was on a ski trip and my mom was on another line, trading on the futures market. By the time they got my message, I'd stayed overnight in jail, pled no contest to a violation of the Weapons Control Act, and paid my fine. Silly me; I had the incredibly foolish audacity to assume that my parents would come to my rescue, dragging a half dozen lawyers after them. I was wrong and I never forgave them for it. I'm not mourning my parents because they were never really alive for me. Which makes me fucked up. But if I am reading these terrible nocturnal visions correctly, I'm quite the model of normality compared to a close acquaintance of mine . . . "Wolf is in the Labyrinth," states Ben, jarring me from a shallow snooze. "I thought I told you not to wake me. Besides, I know that," I mumble. "Excuse me. But this of extreme importance. You must go at once to the David Lowery Building." How much time do I have? "Forty minutes." I stand and dress. "There, you must go to the offices of Hasbrouck and Neuharth. It is a small law firm located on the nineteenth floor. Ask for the Jazz." The Jazz? This is a law office, right? "The Jazz. Tell them you are a former acquaintance of Warren. Tell them you are interested in bankrolling their case. Tell them anything you have to to earn their interest or trust. You must be there by eight thirty, because that is when they leave for the Labyrinth." What? "They are representing your friend Warren. The Senate is prosecuting him on terrorism charges, and he is allowed one day to face-to-face with his attorneys. This is that day. Hurry up, you have only thirty-five minutes to get there." Stomach rumbling, I tear down the hallway to the lift. The Lowery Building is a small, nasty office tower constructed in the warehouse district in order to house excess staff for Transtellar. Brown sandstone covers its sides, with once delicate carvings disintegrating in the corrosive air of MegaPrime. Dark and brooding, it would be an ominous, threatening sight on a par with Marsec headquarters if it wasn't barely a tenth its height. The tubes don't even stop at it, and I'm forced to walk from a nearby Synthmesh warehouse to reach it. Rawlings hasn't returned all my personal belongings that he took so many days ago, and I don't have a watch to tell the time. Thus, as I'm striding up the steps, an autotaxi pulls up and a pair of extremely well-dressed women come marching down the Lowery's front steps. They both wear long grey overcoats, white blouses with vests, and conservative skirts--lawyers. "Pardon me, is Hasbrouck and Neuharth inside?" I ask. "I'm Jasmine Neuharth," answers the lead woman, a big, floppy grey hat over her red hair. I do a double-take. Yes, it's her. A little bit older--her brown eyes are worried, not like those of a young woman's--and not dressed in an evening gown like all the Sensovision pictures, but it's definitely her. Definitely the wife of a Senator. The wife of the Senator. Senator Ademino. "Jazz?" I gasp. "That's what they call me now." "I'm Wolf's friend, Karl Williams. I heard that you were going in to see him today. Can I go with you?" "Mike didn't mention any friends-" "Mike, Wolf, Warren; he's got so many names that I just stick to one." She's not going for it; I can see it on her face. The other woman speaks up. "Bring him along, Jazz. If he really does know Mike, we can use all the help we can get. And if he doesn't; we can just leave him there." Jasmine shrugs and strides down to the door of the autotaxi. "Very well. Come along, then." We pile into the back of the cab, Jasmine on the far side, the woman who I assume is her secretary in the middle, and myself on the near, the right side of the vehicle. "Mister Williams, this is Mary, my personal assistant," introduces Jasmine. "Hi." "Hello." The autotaxi whines down the street, the driver up front reading from the Bible. "What are they charging Wolf with?" I ask. "Everything in the book," replies Jasmine. "Passport Fraud, ten counts of Forgery, Conspiring to Initiate a Riot, Initiating a Riot, a couple each of Slander and Libel, Harboring a Fugitive, Resisting Arrest, Disorderly Conduct, and Assaulting an Officer. The really big ones are the Initiate and the Riot; they want to put him away for ten years on each of those, considering everything that happened . . ." Knowing what I do, they could have added a couple counts of First Degree Homicide to that. Wolf is lucky. "Were you there?" I inquire. "No, but I watched the reports-" "I was there." That shuts her up. "He didn't do a damn thing," I state. "He didn't do a damn thing and they still beat the shit out of him." Mary turns to her boss. "See, I told you it was a wise idea! He was there, he saw what really happened. He can validate Mike's story." Considering my own involvement in that day's violence, I don't believe that would be a good idea. I nearly voice this, but the ex- Mrs. Ademino shakes her head. "What really happened doesn't matter." The autotaxi bounces slightly as it pulls into Judgment Central, the main Popo station. "What is important is what the Senators believe happened." Senators, eh? My good old friend from Buenos has really landed in the hot stuff this time. Only the really high-level cases receive a trial by Senate. Most violators of the various laws that bind MegaPrime are dealt with by the standard Megapol slap-on-the-wrist method; if their professional jurists find you guilty of one or more trespasses, they'll slap a handcuff around your wrist, unless you pay heinous amounts of money and serve ludicrous sentences of community service. However, a good lawyer and/or a very large bank account can get most anybody out of trouble. Not so with the Senate. Unlike the juries, you can't "come to an agreement" with them--in other words, bribe them. Unlike the juries, you can't argue with the Senate; often, their minds are set even before opening statements. And unlike juries, the Senate never fails to convict. The Labyrinth is fifty kilometers southeast of MegaPrime. It is a sprawling complex of geodesic domes bearing a not-unintentional resemblance to the South Projects as they were built within a year of each other. However, these half-buried footballs of great gray reinforced- concrete hexagons and pentagons were not built to house people; this is the original stronghold of MegaPrime's planners, built exclusively to withstand assault from the marauding militias of post-Inferno America. The Labyrinth was the first redoubt in a loose necklace of similar sites surrounding a growing MegaPrime; but it was axed as soon as the Senate became aware that their greatest threats were internal, not external--just another casualty of an impossibly advancing entropy. So Megapol bought up the facility at a pittance of what it would have cost them to built it. Now it is an all-purpose munitions factory, scrapyard, training facility, and prison. This prison is the newest of the structures, a flat cement disk adorned with air vents and automated guard towers. Most of it is underground; the Popo likes to boast that it is the most secure facility of its nature in the Solar System. A quick review of Rawlings' memories refutes this--Marsec's very own "Babylon Five", properly known as the Oort Detention Transfer, is a much, much worse draw. However, the Labyrinth is unmatched in MegaPrime's popular myth. Here is where the Senate sends rapists, terrorists, serial killers, and all the mass butchers Megapol can catch. Grown men fall to their knees and beg forgiveness when its name is called. This is where the condemned are gassed and then microwaved--thus preventing the propagation of their genes. The Labyrinth is our Sing Sing, our Alcatraz, our Maze, the fear of its name so much stronger than the steel and concrete of its walls. Our flight in, an Elephant modified for passenger transport, lands in the hollow interior of a nearby dome. We stride out under the watchful gaze of at least a company's worth of Popo enforcers--all wearing riot gear. Hard black helmets are secured to their dense skulls by way of over-tightened synth-leather straps crushing shut their chiseled jaws, a collective confirmation how thin the husk of humanity is and how little effort is required to shed it. I enjoy making pointed generalities about fascists like these, who throw back their shoulders and stand with feet apart the regulation fifty centimeters. These toy soldiers could have been made in a Clinic factory, their bodies perfect, their minds honed to a wicked, killer's edge . . . I may be the weak among these strong, but at least I have a soul. Here comes their captain, a bleached blond woman of stunning brutality. A hate-stick loiters by her side. A sneer is etched upon her lips. I'll bet she drinks bile straight--just for the refreshing taste. "Prisoner's counsel?" she asks, probably because it was written on a PDA screen somewhere. The captain doesn't even wait for Jazz to nod her head; she mutters "this way" and we are chasing after her, her stride short but quick. We are instructed to proceed through a series of fortified grav lifts down the mandatory one hundred meters, that being the maximum penetration capability of a shaped nuclear charge. Doubtlessly, there are hundreds of layers of lead, concrete, steel, and-- of course--cydonium above us; even the domes on the older buildings of this facility are but hangars and defense stations. The Labyrinth was built in the bad old days--when sixteen city-states in North America boasted ballistic missiles . . . when everybody went about their daily business knowing that at any moment one hundred megatons of delayed Inferno could fall out of the sky. Now, thanks to Senator Sakurai, we no longer live under that threat. There is only one nuclear power on this continent. The other fifteen simply disappeared. Megapol, working at the behest of a younger, more ruthless Senate, can be thanked for that mass extinction. Jazz, Mary and I walk underneath another huge cydonium door, suspended in a slot above our heads. If the Labyrinth either went under nuclear assault or simply lost power, those massive gates would come down. Right onto our heads. The Popo scan us for the tenth time, searching us for the slightest trace of chemical explosives, biological toxins, or even something as crude as a sharp tack. They are calculatingly rough on Jasmine. A few of the pigs recognize her and remember what she did to their staunchest ally, the man who fought tooth-and-nail to renew their contract after the ludicrous violence of four years ago--the Wall riots. With the original architect of the checkpoint-and-toll system being martyred in a spectacularly cold-blooded fashion--Senator Chin took a pair of delayed fuse lawpistol rounds in the back of his head-- the city needed someone to blame for the bloodbath. The goat of choice was the Popo, disregarding entirely the numerous protests their senior administration had voiced over the feasibility of the scheme. Intelligent decision-making had long ago been abandoned; goodbye Megapol and hello Marsec. Then Senator Ademino pulled their asses out of the fire with his bare hands. Using the uncollected favors of a twenty-three year career in the Senate, he finagled, dealed, begged, lied, bribed, and bludgeoned his way to a five year, "probationary" renewal of Megapol's contract. Any Popo veteran--most of whom depended upon that contract for their employment--will recall that triumphant announcement with a quivering lip and moist eyes. Ademino on Sensovision. Ademino on the radio. Ademino announcing, "Prudence and patience have prevailed. MegaPrime is quiet tonight, and as long as Megapol continues to patrol the streets, to hunt the wicked, to uphold the law, and to protect the just, MegaPrime will continue to be quiet." I swore and threw a beer at Memorial Union's widescreen projector. Jasmine picks her coat off the floor, its collar crushed where an errant foot landed. "The conference rooms are rigged for gas. If the prisoner becomes unruly, don't think we won't use it," the blond captain with the severe haircut states. Jasmine doesn't bother to ask what kind of gas. I don't play my usual role and snipe at these hooligans; this is the heart of their territory. I won't make it out alive if I start cracking jokes. Anyhow, I'm sure Wolf has it bad enough without my help. Wolf looks up, his blue eyes darker than before. He looks up, nods to Mary and Jazz, and completely ignores me. "I'll plead guilty," he states, his voice rough, "to everything but 'Inciting Riot' and conspiracy." Mary shakes her head and looks away. Jasmine clears her throat. "They want to put you away for those two. They're not going to drop them." She conspicuously avoids naming that not-so-ambiguous "they." "Then I'll plead guilty on just those two." "They want to convict on everything. All charges." "Then I'll plead on all of them." "You'll stay here for a long time, you know." "I don't care." Jasmine frowns and turns away from Wolf, striding from the conference room exit. Mary opens her mouth, but obediently follows. Leaving me. I hear the hiss of the door opening; the thud of it shutting. "What are you still here for?" he mopes. Asshole! He's taking this whiny bitch act too far! I too, turn away from his gaze, but in a sweeping motion, I spin around, grab him by the collar of his disposable prison oranges, and begin to choke him. "What the fuck?" gargles Wolf, my nails ripping through his shirt. His hands and legs are useless, strapped down via heavy cydonium shackles to his chair. The veins begin to show in his neck. "UNHAND THE PRISONER," orders the ceiling PA. "UNHAND THE PRISONER OR YOU WILL BE EJECTED." Wolf gasping, his chest heaving, I begin to walk away. "What the fuck was that for?" he yells after me. "Fucker!" "You want to know what that was about?" I shout, turning on him. "You want to know what that was about? That was for the rest of us who wouldn't mind it if you wouldn't always take such a fucking defeatist attitude every time you get into trouble! You could go to jail for twenty fucking years on this shit! And you're just playing idiot! I, I for one, happen to need some help! Remember my mom and dad?" Wolf, stony-faced, is silent. "Remember them?" I bellow, stepping closer. "What happened?" he asks, quiet, far away. "They got fucking killed. Dead. Not even enough fucking pieces to stick them in a vat and regrow them." Wolf blinks. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "So guess what? I'm the property of Marsec, now." A thought crosses my mind. "And they haven't even told me yet. In fact, they probably had them killed." "That's pretty fucked up." "My exact fucking thoughts." I quiet down, successful in having pried Wolf out of the psychological shell he is oft to crawl into. He was like this, withdrawn and purely asinine, when I saw him last in Buenos Aires. I didn't even say goodbye to him. Just "have a fucking great life" and I was gone. "That's why I need to get the old crew back together. I need protection-" "What happened to the others?" I pause. How do I answer this? The truth. "Hap was almost killed getting Flannery and me out of the Church when the Race of Man raided it. Got shot and lost a lot of blood. Flew like a fucking madman, though. Saved both of us. I thought he was dead; last time I saw him he didn't have a pulse. But he met me yesterday; he wants me to think that he's working for XCOM--but I'm pretty sure that he hooked up with the Mars Union." Wolf rolls his eyes. "They have cameras in here," he bluntly states. That shuts my mouth. But Wolf just as quickly rips it open. "What happened to my 'slum queen'?" "She was . . ." "What? Dead?" "Incarcerated." Wolf frowns. "No, not by our mutual friends. During the raid, Marsec grabbed her." I conveniently fail to mention my role in her capture. "Raid?" I snort. "There is only one Senate now." Wolf thinks about this for a long time, his eyes averted from mine. "Who'd they get?" "Everybody." "Everybody?" "Everybody that mattered." Wolf understands. He nods his head and closes his eyes. And slowly grins. "I could get used to prison," he states, slowly and controlled. "They're teaching me--get this--violin. Helps control my 'violent tendencies' the shrinks say. I wanted to learn guitar, but as a 'terrorist' they wouldn't let me within ten meters of one. Can't play the 'music of rebellion' or whatever." "Nice," I murmur. "They're not supposed to mess with my head until after the trial; not that they will psi-scan me or anything, but at least Megapol is pretty good about the self-incrimination stuff. They don't have to make you lie--they're pretty good at that themselves. But anyway, after the trial, I'm going to get a full psi-implant for playing violin. The doctors say I should be pretty damn good at it, with my hands. I figure that by the time I get out of here, I'll be pretty fucking great and can make a decent living performing." "You don't want to leave, do you?" "No, Peace, I don't believe I do." "Why?" Wolf sighs. "Did you look at her? At Jasmine?" he asks. "Yes, why?" "Pretty nice package, yes?" "I suppose." "I thought so." Wolf remembers something from not so long ago. "I'm not going to play into her hand." "What-" He looks up, a wry smile on his face. "She figures she can win this one. Might even be able to; I wouldn't put it past her. She thinks she can win this one, turn the Senators on each other with a split vote, and grab my white ass out of the deal. Then she'll dump me back onto the street where she found me. That's what she wants, revenge, pure and simple. She's a fucking whore, and this is all one big ego trip for her." "I thought you loved her!" "At one time, yes," he answers. "But so did that poor fucker Ademino. Is he still alive?" "I don't know." Wolf chuckles. "You know . . . I think I'd almost want to sit down with the asshole and share a bottle. Know something? We were played. We both got played by that bitch. She convinced him that I was the one who started things; and then later, once I was on the run, she probably told him that she never really loved him. It's just funny, if you think about it," he says dreamily. "Ademino must have really, really loved her to send the entire Popo force after me. I wonder why she left him . . ." I close my eyes. "You're not going to even try to get out of here, are you?" "I answered that already." "Wolf, this city is so fucked up." He could mock me, or laugh, or nod his head in vigorous agreement. He sighs. "The people don't help." Mary, Jasmine, and I ride back to MegaPrime in silence. There were cameras and microphones inside that conference room. And Jazz watched our whole conversation. As we are led out of the hangar at Judgment Central, I wish I could say something . . . so I do. I tap Jasmine on her shoulder. "If you do one thing in this trial," I mumble, "win it for Wolf." She smiles, sadly. "Contrary to everything Mike said, I still love him." I blink slowly. OK, maybe you do. But I am his friend, and I will take his lies before I take your truth. That is my way. That is our way. A taxi pulls up. Mary offers her hand. I shake it, my eyes still on Jasmine's brown orbs. "Good luck," I bid them. Jazz and I shake. "Don't worry, we'll get him out." Do that. Pull his shackles off, give him a new set of clothes, and make sure you hold tight on his leash. Wolf is an idiot, putting me in this position. Do I want him out of that jail? Yes, he, at least, is one person I can count on as a true ally. I'm no pawn of his and he's no pawn of mine. We are equals. But we're still pawns. Do I want him free? Yes! "Little friend" of Misha. Property of Diablo, of Oscuro and Nat. Toy of the Senator's wife. Now he lounges in the Labyrinth, and he is grateful, for once, that his prison is one of cydonium, concrete, and silicon--not one of the psyche. Now he is free, free of all obligations and emotional binds and lawpistols tied down to long, creamy thighs. This is all sad, disgusting and ailing to my stomach. "You do that," I state. Jasmine and Mary slide into their autotaxi. I ride the tubes back to Marsec. The taxis, the chariots of the patricians. The tubes, the cobblestones of proletariat. Some two millennia! Everything, and yet nothing, has changed. The tell-tale jab of a revolver in the small of my back jars my thoughts. "What do you want?" I ask, quietly. "Step off at the next platform," she quietly states. Shit. This is the last thing I need now! A twisted smile appears on my lips. "I don't have my cards on me." I don't. Rawlings has them all. I'd better ask about his returning them--along with that damn plasma pistol. I could use it right about now. "I don't want your money." Shit on a stick! The next platform is at Sensovision's Rupert Murdoch Tower. It's late in the afternoon--the whole process of visiting the Labyrinth having taken far more time than I expected--but nobody is there, not even a maintenance droid. I start to sweat as I tense my legs for the short hop required to clear the grav field. If I wasn't feeling so introspective, I'd probably try something. I make the jump. My captor is a quarter-stride behind me, her left arm going around my waist and her right, holding her pistol, tucks behind my right kidney. She pushes me forward, and we walk, more or less nonchalantly, off the platform. The lower levels of this office tower are devoted to mid-sized stores, the kind of glass boxes where they have a lot of really expensive toys for jaded executives. Usually tended by a very bored, somewhat attractive college co-ed. Nice place to go to flirt, but I wouldn't recommend shoplifting. I try to subtly crane my neck around to get a glimpse of this terrorist, eyeing a pane of glass parallel to us in the process. "Eyes ahead," she orders. Someone short . . . Down a dead-end hallway, through a pair of double doors, and into a small maintenance worker's restroom we walk. She slams shut the final door and throws its bolt. "You going to kill me?" I ask. "Let me see your face, at least." "Shut up." She pushes me away from her. I stand in the corner, next to a toilet. I turn around, my suit coat only mildly ruffled. She wears tinted goggles, the deep purple of full UV protection. Her hair is pulled up underneath a canvas, brimmed baseball hat, exposing the pale white of her neck. I look over her body; she wears a shapeless jumpsuit that doesn't reveal too much. "Where is Vice President Kaleta?" she asks, a nasty snub- nosed .38 hovering halfway between us. Who is this and who is she working for? Must be one of the groups after Kaleta's ass . . . Martian Unionist? Osiron assassin? Probably not Marsec or Megapol, and certainly not Diablo. "I don't . . . I don't know," I stammer, moronically, my hands held up behind my head. "You met with him last night, didn't you?" "You could say that." "Was he well?" "I don't know--I was incapacitated at the time-" Was he well? Who talks like that? What the hell--oh damn, that's who it is. "Lara?" She reaches up and pulls her goggles off. Same brown eyes. "Mister Williams." Pause. "Do you know how to use that?" I ask, pointing at the pistol with an index finger. What the hell is a Secretary to a Special Assistant doing in disguise and armed with a museum piece? "Should I demonstrate, sir?" she replies, immediately returning to her line of questioning. "Was Vice President Kaleta well?" "He was alive enough to try to attack me, if that's what you want." "I sincerely doubt that he attempted that. Was he suffering any visible injuries?" "He had some blood on his shirt, but I don't think it was his. I mean, if he really was hurt, I would have helped him. But he was just ranting about how everyone was out to-" "You didn't aid him?" "No. I did, however, give the fucker a piece of my mind." "Only you could," she growls. Hmm? And what does that mean? "Why are you doing this?" I ask. "I was travelling with the Vice President to the spaceport yesterday evening via limousine. We were forced off the street near the Juventus Building by a staged accident; the Vice President and I escaped before a squad of armed men killed the driver and the others. I have not seen him since." Maybe I should have cried wolf and brought in some Centurions. "What, did you ship him out to Babylon Five?" "He's probably wishing that right about now." Safe and sound in the Oort. No, Kaleta would surely have taken his chances with the hitmen sooner than fold to Rawlings' superior hand--the bastard is a gambler, born and bred. Looks like he drew spades. "Do you know where the Vice President is now?" Lara asks. "No. You already asked me that." "And you could have been lying." We glare at each other. "Is there anything else?" I sneer. "Yes," she replies. "Go back to that den of murderers and tell them to leave their stock gene monsters back on Mars." She opens the deadbolt and backs out of the door. As soon as she retreats out of sight, I pop my head out the doorway. "Hey Lara!" I yell. "What?" she shouts back, somewhere hidden among the environmental equipment of this back corridor. "Fuck you!" OK, that was far-fetched. Normally, when I herd someone into a deserted back hallway, I make a decent attempt at roughing them up or telling them something pertinent. Well, not that I make a habit of mugging people . . . but frankly, I've had enough experience in getting dragged around by gun-toting psychopaths that I have come to expect a little more the way of threats and injuries. I step through the checkpoint at the front entrance of Marsec Headquarters. "Karl, where have you been?" snarls Rawlings, the nasty little man standing in the mostly deserted lobby. His arms are crossed and he stands chin down, his brown eyes glaring at me. He is furious. "Getting some chores done. Can we eat? I haven't had any food since . . . I don't think I've had a full meal today." "Karl, we have to talk. Now." He beckons me with a crooked finger and begins to march off to a gravlift. The man wants to have at it. One of my English professors considered the art of conversation akin to that of the art of war. Feints, thrusts, ambushes--all the tools necessary to keep your opponent constantly off his balance and stumbling backwards. With my wits recharged from Wolf's mere proximity today, I think I'll test this old warrior and see whether his mind is as nimble as he would have me think. "Where are we going?" I whine after him, knowing full well that we're riding the lift down to the Internal Security Front Desk. The floor slams shut right above my head; ten centimeter cydonium plates cut off the grav field at that end. "Marsec Crisis Command," he yells back. "If you haven't noticed yet, we, and I mean Marsec, are in the middle of a very large war. If you hadn't skipped out on me yesterday just to get drunk, I might have gotten around to explaining things." "Yeah?" I shout down to him, the warm, damp cement of Marsec's hangar caverns approaching. "I learned some worthwhile information. Like the fact that-" my feet touch the floor, "-my parents are dead." Here we go. "Did you have them killed?" Rawlings turns to me in shock, his mind grasping for the edge of the cliff I just pushed it over. "Karl-" "Did they vote for a pro-Kaleta Board of Directors? Did you have them killed? Are the answers to those two questions the same?" "No--I would never-" "Tell me you didn't order a bomb planted in the Blue Pacific!" "I did not. Listen to me-" "No, you listen to me! Thanks to you, I know what you're capable of. I've seen all the blood you've spilled, and I've also seen how it doesn't bother you at all." "Karl! For God's sake, listen to me! It could have been the communists, it could have been Kaleta himself! I sure as hell didn't do it!" "You fucking liar! Why didn't you tell me? You knew all along, didn't you!" "Karl, I didn't! I received the news just after you left! You haven't given me a chance to until now! Why the hell do you think I wanted to speak to you in private?" I'm not sure why I'm doing this, but I think it has something to do with the impotent rage I've been generally feeling for the last month or so. This feeling of being someone else's tool is generally an unhealthy one--the metal filings of my internal gears grinding out of frustration has mixed with my bile to form a decisively dangerous poison. Right now, that black ooze runs through my veins as something evil in me gloats at the sight of Rawlings pleading for my forgiveness. "Did they vote for Kaleta?" "Yes, but-" "You're a power-mad freak just like him, you know." Rawlings tone is even, but he is on the edge of control. "They may have voted for the new Board, but we beat them Karl. Beat Kaleta and your parents by a healthy margin. That doesn't matter." "This coming from the fucker who said we have to 'send a sign to the rest of Kaleta's coalition that mutiny is not tolerated'!" Nice one, Karl. "I would never-" "Didn't you also say 'I too have killed'?" Something in Rawlings snaps. "OK, Karl. You want to hear something traumatic? You may think you've inherited a great deal of money, but you're wrong. I read their fucking will--guess who gets all the money? I do. You want to know why?" "Why?" "They didn't trust you, Karl. Your own mother and father didn't put it past you to murder them." Uh-oh. "LIAR!" "You, the murderer. I've been inside your head, too." "FUCK YOU!" "It's in the will--it's specifically spelled out that I'm to take charge of the entirety of their estate until it can be determined that YOU were not responsible for their deaths." "THAT'S A FUCKING LIE!" "It's not, Karl. They raised you, and they didn't even trust you that far. You call me fucked up? Look in the mirror!" "That's insane," I rasp, sucking for breath. It feels like Rawlings has gut-punched me. "Fucking lying murderer." "Hey, you wanted to fling around allegations and assorted bullshit." He leans down next to my face. "None of that is any good against the truth." Rawlings strides off, snickering. "Next time, choose your fights more wisely. I may be older than the dirt, but my kinda age brings wisdom. You college pricks want to play games? That's fine. I'll fight a war." Asshole. I'm no lawyer. I can dish out the punishment, but I always end up being blindsided by something that I should have seen coming. I should have known, having seen Rawlings' soul, that he would do something like this. I should've known that he was capable--he rants on and on about the arrogance of us Lifetree grads--and he may be right. Rhetoric is shit when you don't believe a word of it. I'm no lawyer, cold and objective, surgical and yet brutal in the skills of language. I can't go toe-to-toe without justification . . . "You're right. You are no 'lawyer.'" Funny, it worked so well on Kaleta last night. "Kaleta is a man cast from a different mold than Jack Rawlings. They are of different materials, too. Kaleta is aluminum; Rawlings is iron." Maybe that's why he's running for his life and Rawlings is still CEO of Mars Security, Incorporated. "Watch who burns first." Damn it, Ben, I want out! I just want to go back to the University and hide away in the parks and libraries and laboratories! I don't want to go to war against this man or any other! "Coexist, then. Learn to live amongst the titans." I can't just take myself out of this game, though. "Then break this one down." How? "All of your kind, no matter how great and noble, have their weaknesses and flaws. Those that are considered successes are simply the gifted few who have learned to disguise them. You are lucky, Karl. Rawlings may have cursed you with his memories, but what may be a dead weight to you now may become a weapon in the near future. A ball and chain need not be tied around your leg; it just as easily swings orbits from your hand." What is his weakness? "You already know." 7/17/98
X-COM (and XCOM) are trademarks of MicroProse Software. Get yourself a copy!
X-COM: UFO Defence is copyright 1996 by Microprose Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
X-COM is based on characters and design by Mythos Games.