“Oh goody. So we can do away with the whole interrogation bit then.”
“This isn’t an interrogation,” says Trakiin.
“It isn’t?”
“This is a trial. We are sitting in judgment of you. We wish to hear your perspective.”
“So I can argue my case? Maybe get the chance to win my liberty, like in a proper trial? Do I have the right to an attorney?”
Trakiin leans close. “No, Ethan Nash. That is not how it works. You are going to die here today. Foster no illusion as to that. But what kind of gods would we be if we didn’t at least offer you a fair hearing?”
“Strange definition of ‘fair’,” I say. There’s still the taste of copper in my mouth and a huge-seeming hole in my gum where a tooth should be. “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
“‘Fair’ is whatever I say it is,” Trakiin declares. “If you don’t like it, we can end this now. I can have Xorin set to work on you straight away, beat you until everything is broken and you’re no more than a bag of shattered bones and ruptured organs. Or perhaps I will ask Jhan S’reen over there to weave her dark magic and suck the life out of you in slow, agonising increments.”
He gestures at the Goddess of Death, plump, pale-skinned and buxom, dressed in a combination of frilly white lace and glossy jet-black leather like she’s on her way from a wedding to a fetish party. Her eyes are eightballs — white iris, black sclera — and her fingernails are so long and curved they might as well be talons. They say she feeds on souls. I say she could stand to go on a diet and lose a few pounds, maybe cut back on the number of victims she drains for sustenance.
But I don’t voice the thought.
Because something in her eerie eightball eyes, her sickle smile, her curvaceous mama-does-kinky body, scares the shit out of me.
“Thought as much,” says Trakiin, off my silence. “So we shall do this my way. I ask, you speak.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. If it’ll postpone my death for just a few minutes…
“First of all, tell me of the forbidden zone. The location of your petty Luminous raid. Tell me about the mission from the outset.”
The mission was supposed to be a straightforward infil/exfil. Isn’t it always? The objective was to scrounge up evidence. Clues, if there were any. Stuff we could show the world. Something to demonstrate conclusively that the Savior Gods were the frauds we at Luminous knew them to be.
It wasn’t enough simply to say they were bogus. We had spent years doing just that to little effect as their noose continued to tighten around our collective neck. We had to back up our claims with cold hard data and we believed the ruins of Kennedy Space Center held just the clue we’d been searching for.
The team was five-strong. There was me, of course, the fearless leader and local asset, first-class lady killer and seasoned field agent. There was the decorated sharpshooter Carrie Lind, heavy muscle on loan from the European branch of Luminous. Tales of her exploits were so legendary they pervaded the guerrilla network here in the States. According to scuttlebutt Lind counted multiple Dominions among her hit-tally — and with that composite bow of hers no less. I intended to ask Lind about that dubious claim prior to her arrival but it turned out she wasn’t big on kill and tell.
Accompanying her from across the Atlantic was Ben Jorgensen, also ex-military, Lind’s full-time spotter and part-time lover. Affable and unaccustomed to the heat, Jorgensen adopted billowy Aloha shirts and cargo shorts as his undercover attire. Nothing screams conspicuous like a 6’5” Scandinavian dressed like a Margaritaville outcast but I wasn’t going to argue fashion with the Benny the Friendly Viking.
Ashton Roth, our science guy and allegedly one of Luminous’s brightest minds, had journeyed from Mexico to join our crusade. Roth was as tan as Jorgensen was pale. While he wasn’t an experienced operator like the sniper or her spotter, Roth roamed the world unimpeded by the Templars and their draconian travel restrictions. He knew all the wrinkles. He could be a ghost when required, slipping under every radar.
And then we had the inscrutable John-Patrick McCreedy, former Catholic priest, faith expert. McCreedy came highly recommended from a persuasive senior officer, though I couldn’t fathom what purpose a ‘faith expert’ might serve during this specific op. He was the nearest by when the call went out, and the two of us spent the better part of a month together waiting for the others to arrive. Three and a half weeks together and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about McCreedy save he always seemed to be sucking on a peppermint.
I was basking in the sun at the bar on the patio of Nelson’s Folly in Miami when I received the go-ahead to proceed with Operation Iconoclast. Four days in a row I’d visited the establishment, hoping to get lucky and instead slinking back to the safe house with blue balls — metaphorically speaking of course. I nursed a Cuba Libre while leafing through the final issue of Samson, a comicbook circulated by an underground press. I found the religious-themed narrative nonsensical and the quality of the print lacking, but I couldn’t deny I enjoyed the stylistic depictions of violence.
“Do you often go to the bar to be antisocial?”
I glanced up from a two-page spread of the titular Samson tearing down the pillars of the Temple of Dagon. A young woman with tawny skin and a pearlescent smile sidled up to me at the bar and ordered a mojito. I didn’t recognize her but that didn’t mean anything — Luminous cells were highly compartmentalized in order to prevent entire sections from being wiped out if one cell got busted.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re reading in public,” she said. “Makes conversation with other human beings a little difficult.”
“You know, once upon a time everyone carried around portable electronic devices with them. They had access to the news, weather, music, books, games all in the palm of their hand. Had their eyes constantly glued to the things. Sometimes even on dates. It made conversation very difficult,” I said.
She laughed, pretend-incredulous.
“I’ve given away my age haven’t I?”
She nodded, laughed again and sat down at the open seat next to me. I set Samson down and she appraised the bombastic cover.
“That looks like something the censors would classify seditious material. Couldn’t you get in trouble for reading that?” she asked.
“The authorities are too busy cracking down on those pesky secular humanists to bother with a harmless cartoon strip,” I replied, and it was true. I indulged in small sins in order to mask my more egregious transgressions. After all, there’s nothing more suspicious than a saint. Tradecraft 101.
“You still haven’t answered my first question,” she said.
“Hmmm?”
“Do you regularly go out to not interact with people?”
“I’m actually waiting on someone,” I said.
“Woman?” she probed. “Man?”
“Oh, I figure I’ll know ’em when I see ’em,” I said and winked.
The bartender returned with her mojito. She thanked him and paid.
“Well, if they fail to materialize and you’re in the neighborhood, some friends of mine are having a party tonight. You’re welcome to join us.” She pulled a pen from her purse and started writing on a bar napkin. “I’ll warn you, though. It’s going to get wild.”
She kissed the napkin, handed it to me, and left, cocktail in hand. I looked down at the scribbled message. Anyone else who read it would see the time and address of the aforementioned party, with an inviting lipstick mark for good measure. To a Luminous operative capable of decoding it, however, it was the confirmation we’d been waiting for. I polished off the rest of my Cuba Libre and shoved the napkin in my pocket.