The Guardia officer coughed delicately.
“That call was made by the fact that his ankles and feet are missing,” he admitted.
Roslyn was looking at the photo. It…was not the Angus Killough she’d met.
A few commands brought up the MISS file on the agent. The photo matched the dead man, a chubby, heavyset man of middle age. A few more commands brought up the man she’d been working with.
The stranger looked like Angus Killough…but an Angus Killough that had lost weight. She’d assumed that was exactly what had happened—he’d been missing for over six weeks, after all.
“Fuck,” she said softly. “Bolivar…the civilian we went into the Orpheus lab with was supposedly Angus Killough, a Martian Interstellar Security Service agent.”
The channel was silent, and Bolivar looked at his screen again.
“You gave us a DNA profile, everything,” he told her. “There’s no question. John Doe One-Three-Five-Six is Angus Killough. We can keep the body on ice and return it to his family—or to MISS, I suppose—but he’s definitely been dead for at least…forty days. Maybe more.”
“I’m not doubting you, Victoriano,” Roslyn said. “It’s just…if this is Angus Killough, who the hell did I lead into the Orpheus lab?”
53
The last security hatch shredded under the force of three fully trained Combat Mages. Black-exosuited Nemesis troopers surged through ahead of Mage Kent Riley, penetrator rifles firing as they engaged the holdout Augments aboard the space station.
“Remember,” he said calmly. “We need Dr. Carpenter alive.”
“Room is secure, sir,” a trooper reported.
There were no names here. Kent Riley had adopted that from his mentor, the man he’d eventually known as Winton. Roslyn Chambers had known him as Angus Killough—and he did not miss the facial prosthetics for that disguise, though the young Mage had impressed him.
Among people who knew what he was, even his closest people only knew him as “Kay.” Everyone else knew him as Nemesis One, the only leader the organization had left now.
Those who even knew that much. With Winton’s death, they were doing everything they could to make sure the Protectorate thought Nemesis had died with their founder.
Kent walked into the room, flanked by two other ex–Royal Martian Marine Combat Mages. One of his black-armored troopers was being treated for a gunshot wound that had gone through the exosuit, but all of his people had survived the breach.
None of the Augments had been so lucky.
In the middle of the space station command center was the man those Augments had died trying to protect.
“Dr. Damir Carpenter,” Kent said calmly. “Project head of the Orpheus Project.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carpenter said, glancing nervously at the rifles pointed at him. The penetrator rifles could go through exosuit armor. What they’d do if they hit the unarmored scientist was indescribable.
“You were the mind behind the Orpheus nanotech system,” Kent told Carpenter. “Initial concepts were developed here, on this station, and then forwarded to a secret lab on Sorprendidas when you realized you needed more test subjects than you’d be able to source in an uninhabited star system.”
“This is a private corporate research facility, registered with the Protectorate out of Legatus,” Dr. Carpenter insisted. “This is an act of piracy and murder!”
“All of that is true, yes,” Kent said cheerfully. “But it does not change that your operation—and the corporation that is the registered owner of this station—is funded by money Samuel Finley defrauded the Republic of before its fall.
“You could play all the games you want about authority and legal proof and suchlike if I was with the Martians, but I’m not,” he told Carpenter. His own exosuit loomed over the suit-clad doctor.
“My people are already placing thermonuclear demolition charges throughout this station while others are stripping your databases of anything useful. They’ve already told me that the files here are a disappointment.
“The Sorprendidas lab made it further than you did. The test subjects were important, I guess, for all that their acquisition doomed you.”
“Who are you?” Carpenter asked.
“I am the man charged to see that humanity survives the inevitable,” Kent told the scientist. “And everything that has been done on this station and on Sorprendidas alike is an atrocity I would love to execute you out of hand for; do you understand me, Dr. Carpenter?”
“We lost contact with Sorprendidas,” Carpenter said grimly.
“Yes, six months ago, when one of my agents destroyed the covert Link facility you were operating,” Kent agreed. “The Protectorate finished the job after that. I’m afraid your wife is dead, Dr. Carpenter. Mage Lafrenz was killed resisting arrest when the Navy came for her.”
“Bastards,” Carpenter cursed.
“You are not one to talk,” Nemesis’s leader snapped. “Your life now hangs on one very simple question, Dr. Carpenter.
“If I can provide you with Rune Scribes to work on the matrix, and all of Lafrenz’s notes and experimental data, can you complete the Orpheus nanotech?”
“The Orpheus weapon is—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the weapon,” Kent cut him off. “It’s horrific and frankly impractical. I am charged with the task of preserving humanity, Doctor. A planetary-denial weapon that only works on humans is useless to me.
“No, Dr. Carpenter, you only get to live if you can complete the original Orpheus System. Can you or can you not complete the mind-control nanotech?”
Thank you so much for reading A Darker Magic. The story will continue in Mage-Commander, due out fall 2021. For all the Glynn Stewart news, announcements, and more, join the mailing list at GlynnStewart.com/mailing-list
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If you haven’t already, check out the Starship’s Mage: Red Falcon series, starting with Interstellar Mage, featuring David Rice and crew.
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