It was a setup. We walked into a trap. We … Kai?
He stammered to his feet and scanned the cavern. The swift boats were gone.
Ryllen knew what he’d find. He saw the first bodies in seconds. He made his way around the perimeter, stopping for fits of dizziness.
Ryllen didn’t want to see. Better to run while he had the chance. But there was only one way out, and he remembered who was stationed closest to the exit.
He found Kai limp against a limestone facing, his body shattered by a barrage of flash pegs, his blood savagely painted on the rock like poor graffiti. Kai stared into the abyss, his green hair covering half his face, matted in blood.
What to say? What to do? What to feel? Ryllen didn’t want to leave him like this, but what choice did he have?
“I’m sorry, Kai. I wasn’t fast enough. I’m sorry.”
Ryllen kissed the man who brought him into Green Sun with the promise of a renewed sense of purpose. “The way without judgment,” Kai called it. Ryllen remembered their last conversation on the beach at Barrio Island.
“You were right, Kai. A man has to stand for something.”
He stumbled into the night. The botanical gardens were as quiet as when they arrived, although Ryllen had no concept of time’s passage. The scenery was familiar, yet somehow different. Alien. Askew.
Enough pieces of his memory returned to guide Ryllen to his rifter, which remained hidden beneath the bullabast tree. He jumped inside and grabbed the steering arms. This was the side where Kai sat.
Ryllen threw off his night-vision band and looked at his hands. Now his jacket. His shirt. His pants.
Blood. My blood.
He hadn’t given himself the chance to think of the impossible until now. The flash pegs tore his body apart, dug into his brain.
They killed me.
The sobs arrived in uncontrollable waves.
For Kai. For failure and defeat. For the horror that he did not lie dead alongside his brothers and sisters.
The next hours were an exercise in forward motion guided by panic on multiple fronts. He raced home and ducked inside before a neighbor saw his blood-draped visage. He showered and studied himself in the mirror, unable to find evidence of a single wound. He packed in a hurry, knowing full well the Constabulary would come around after identifying Kai’s body. If Shin Wain knew someone survived, he’d send assassins to track down every potential lead. Ryllen wasn’t going to wait around. He lived on the streets before Kai found him; he’d do it again if necessary.
Before he left, however, Ryllen opened his jewelry box and recovered the memglass Muna Lin Jee gave him months ago after revealing his birthplace to be Earth.
“I believe you exist as part of a larger plan,” she said at the time. “I have long held a suspicion, but I don’t know whether to be terrified or enthralled.”
He had never acknowledged the memglass after tossing it into the box. In time, it fell out of his memory altogether. Now, on a night when Ryllen wanted to be alone and grieve but had little choice other than to run, he tucked the memglass into a safe pocket.
He stopped at the door and looked back. He wanted to remember the best moments, but if he tried, the tears would come again. He didn’t have the luxury to hesitate.
Ryllen played it safe when he navigated his rifter onto the UpWay. He stayed between the narrows, as they say, obeying all ITD laws. Anything to avoid drawing attention. He broke off at the most convenient OutPass and surfaced the back streets to the Green Sun safehouse in Zozo. He didn’t explain himself to the landlord who kept an eye on the place for Lan Chua and crashed on a cot in a hidden room.
He never slept more than ten minutes at a time. His blood roiled with grief and rage. Sometime during mid-morning, a single knock on the door was followed by the whisper of paper slipped beneath.
The note was abbreviated, but Ryllen understood:
LC. 944X.
Lan Chua was awaiting Ryllen’s call via bicomm but altered his genetic link to receive on an encrypted channel. So, the rumors were true: Bicomms could be hacked. Ryllen opened the wrist-melded device and entered the new pathway extension to Lan’s known receptor code.
Only after Lan’s six-inch figure emerged above his wrist did Ryllen realize he never prepared for this moment. Lan did not hide his fury.
“Nine bodies,” he announced. “We lost nine. If you want to walk out alive, you’d best have a good answer. How did you survive, RJ? How are you in one piece?”
Cud. He thinks I was part of the setup. He thinks I’m a traitor.
It made sense. The intel was perfect but for one crucial sticking point. How could it have passed the vetting process without the work of a traitor? Ryllen refused to believe it. Everyone in Green Sun would have laid down their lives to save The Lagos. But this wasn’t going to satisfy Lan Chua, who must have felt the same panic. Were his enterprises collapsing around him?
This was not a moment for the truth, so Ryllen improvised.
“It was Kai,” he said. “Kai changed the plan at the last minute. He said we needed to guard our rear flank, so he stationed me outside the Swallows. He was afraid Shin Wain would bring a large security detail. But it was a trap, Lan. From the inside. There were no immos. They were trained, and they knew where we’d be. I came in after the firing started. I … I froze when I saw what happened. They left on the boats.”
Lan sighed. “Shin Wain? Did you see him?”
“No. He never came.” Ryllen hated himself.
