She glanced at Will, who nodded.
She stood up in one smooth motion. Two new dots appeared on her overhead map, courtesy of the positions Will transmitted, which corresponded to the new beam turrets. She ran toward the closest.
The beam deployed as she arrived, and she cut the turret in half. Behind her, the second beam had already resurfaced, and Will was firing at it. The turret ignored him and targeted Rhea.
She somersaulted out of the way, and switched to her pistol in one hand, so that she could open fire at it with Will. Together the two of them reduced it to a smoldering pile.
Will joined her side and glanced at the entrance. “Not sure how much longer they can hold out there. Where’s your friend Khrusos?”
Rhea glanced toward the steps leading to the metal box. She started walking that way. Will joined her.
She slid the pistol back into its holster but did not reactivate her rightmost Ban’Shar. The leftmost, however, she kept enabled, leaving it in disk mode.
They passed Min and Burhawk. The two of them were still frozen in place, their bodies locked into the last postures they’d assumed before the beams hit.
“You can’t revive them with your nano machines?” Will asked.
“I’d have to give up my nano machines entirely,” Rhea explained. “And I can’t trust that they’d give them back if I did so.”
“You can trust Horatio,” Will said.
“Are you certain?” she asked, dead serious.
Will considered for a moment. “Actually, you’re probably right. Hang onto them for now. We’ll repair these dudes manually later.”
She climbed the steps with Will, crossed the platform, and halted before the metallic box.
“So, Khrusos?” Rhea said, addressing that box. “Are you going to come out? Or are you going to make me destroy your throne?”
She transformed her disk Ban’Shar into a sword, and pointed it threateningly at the metal box, which reached just to her upper chest.
Miles emerged from a hidden panel in the wall behind the throne. Will pointed his pistol at the man.
“No,” Rhea said, lowering Will’s hand. “Miles, what are you doing?”
Miles didn’t answer. He merely stared at her; his eyes filled with hate.
She heard a buzzing coming from the metal box. A small panel slid forth on top of it, and a human head ascended into view from within. A male. The face appeared bulky, with fleshy lobes in place of cheeks. He sported short-cropped hair, with a beard that reached well below the chin. The rest of his body remained hidden inside the throne.
Rhea recognized the face from pictures she had seen online.
Khrusos.
16
At a loss for words, Rhea merely stared at the head of Khrusos protruding from that metal box.
“My good friend Miles informed me you knew the positions of all my beam generators,” Khrusos said. “So I took the liberty of moving two of them. He also warned me about your little robot army. I decided not to stop it. Think of it as penetration testing. Qui Fon Chin now knows what he has to work on improving for the next attack. Some might call it an expensive test. I call it entertainment.”
Rhea glared at Miles.
“Yes,” Khrusos said. “Your loyal Wardenite Miles told me everything. How your mind has been wiped once again. You have no memories of the fantastic working relationship we once had. This means I don’t have to chip you, like I originally planned. Unless you intend on killing me again, of course.”
“That depends on what caused me to kill you in the first place…” Rhea said.
Khrusos continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I suppose I should have merely chipped you when you betrayed me, instead of ordering your execution. Death seemed a mercy at the time. The light goes out in one’s eye when one is chipped. I didn’t want to take away your fire, which I so dearly enjoyed. But I could have simply removed the chip when I grew bored of your tamed state. I blame it on the anger of the moment. I didn’t like what you did to me.”
His gaze drifted to the room behind her.
“Your Wardenite told me about Burhawk, too,” Khrusos continued. “It was a mistake to let him live after he retired. I see that now. Then again, he did lead you right to me. So perhaps it wasn’t a real betrayal, after all, but a man doing a favor for an old friend.” He smiled brightly when his eyes alighted on the sensei. “And Min! It will be good to have her returned to my inner circle. I have missed her so very much, like yourself. A fresh mind wipe is probably in order however…”
Rhea stared at him, unsure where to begin, now that she finally had the president of the free world before her. The man who had captured her, wiped her mind, and turned her into his greatest assassin.
The man who had eradicated her people.
She decided that the water crisis was the best entry point, as it was the most important. “We have eight months before water runs out on Earth. The Europans have—”
“Is that why you’ve come?” he interrupted, seeming astonished. “To intervene in an affair which is none of your concern?”
“Of course it’s my concern,” she said. “Earth is my adopted homeworld. You need to sign the deal with the Europans. They want to help Earth, but you keep vetoing their proposals.”
“The Europans offered to sell water at cost, but you don’t understand, at cost is still too much,” Khrusos said.
“Why, because you’d rather the people of Earth die of thirst than negatively affect your coffers?” Rhea spat.
“They’d have us entirely at their mercy!” Khrusos told her. “Once we agree, and become dependent upon them, they’ll very likely jack up their prices. They’ll butcher our economy. Make us give them all our technology. If I agreed
