Tech opened the door and stepped inside; the interior was nice and simple and almost entirely empty. A television off on the wall has the early-morning Sportscenter loop playing; noon here meant four a.m. on the American East Coast. A pair of small flags hung from either side of the counter, each a tricolour, one French and one Italian. Gentle ambient music fell from speakers mounted in each corner of the room; a quiet conversation in French floated through the air from a booth off to the side. The two figures speaking looked at Tech, the six-eight man in a suit that felt just a smidge too tight around his biceps and shoulders, and the conversation tapered away into nothingness.
He looks to the side, where the conversation originated. Looked at a dark-skinned man, with high-cropped hair; then at the fair-skinned woman with long, spindly limbs and freckles and auburn hair cut asymmetrically, long locks that fell in front of her right eye. Desmond Okonkwo and Claire St. Laurent, apparently. They looked familiar.
“So, uh, how are we doing this?” Cyrus asked.
“Without any bullshit,” Tech replied. He pulled his blazer tight over his frame, emphasizing that he could beat the shit out of these two if they tried anything. He wished he could’ve taken off a pair of shades too, but Eva told him earlier that they looked stupid on him. He was trying too hard or something, she said.
The two Montagne switched up positions; first across from each other at a four-person table, then to a more united front, both in the chairs, when Tech entered. Tech and Dimitri took spots on the red and white booth opposite to them, while Cyrus a seat at a table to Tech’s right, right next to the man. He did not in the slightest look like any kind of bullfrog.
“So,” Tech started, putting both hands on the table. Dimitri did the same. Cyrus grabbed a magazine from a nearby rack. The monthly Sports Illustrated.
“We’re not talking to you,” Desmond replied, crossing his arms. “We were told Dawn Howard was coming.” His accent is fierce, but similar to Tecumseh’s. More street-worn, through, and a hint of French. Both grew up in London, but only one really grew up in London.
“She’s busy,” Tech responded. “We’re here on behalf of her.”
“Not good enough,” the woman snapped. Her accent is harsh. Quebecois? “We’re not talking to anyone but Dawn Howard. And especially not you.”
“You know me?”
“You’re Ajax Archer’s Janissary,” Claire hissed back. The name fills her soul with disgust. Knowing the Montagne’s recent anti-aether turn as of late; it makes sense. But weren’t they trying to acquire an aether weapon? “He bribed the American government to declare us a terrorist group.”
“So, what are we doing here?” Dimitri asked. “We have other things we could be doing.”
“We’re waiting for our legal counsel,” Claire responded. “She’ll answer any questions.”
Tech looked around.
“Where…is your lawyer?”
The two Montagne looked at each other. Came to a psychic understanding not unlike how Dawn and Jake operate.
“We’re waiting for our lawyer to answer that question,” Claire responded. Then she smiled. Smugly, cat-like. The same kind that Dawn smiles sometimes. Either she rubbed off on them or they rubbed off on her.
She’s spent eighteen months in this city, what was she doing before?
A door opened on the other side of the building; out of the restrooms stepped a woman who was striking beyond belief. Blood-red hair, alabaster-white skin, about six feet tall and dressed in a black-on-black-on-black suit and shirt and pants. Her face was soft and round, her eyes were hazel, except for a gold ring that surrounded her pupil. The same kind that Dawn and Jake had. Aether exposure?
She silently walked up to Cyrus, the heels of her shoes clacking on the plastic tile, and she stood in front of him until he realized that there was a woman staring bullets at him. He looked up at her and stared back. Enraptured. His jaw fell, almost agape. Alright, alpha boy, work your magic.
“You are in my spot,” the mystery woman commanded. Cyrus immediately complied, taking the spot in the booth next to Tecumseh. So much for the magic.
The woman looked at Desmond, who moved over to the now-empty seat and took her seat across from Tecumseh. Sized up the competition nearly instantly. Leader sat in the middle. She’s good.
“What do you want with my clients?” the woman asked.
“Are you their lawyer?” Tecumseh asked back.
“I am many things.”
“Can we know your name?”
The woman adjusted her tie, pulled down on it to tighten it around her collar. Only one of her hands was gloved, the left, black leather with the fingers exposed past the second knuckle. She didn’t respond.
“I’m Tecumseh Sherman. I’m with C-SPEAR,” Tech introduced himself first. “On my left is Dimitri Zhukovsky, on my right is Cyrus, uh –”
“Cyrus Guerrero,” Cyrus finished. “I’m new. Did you hear about the, uh, whole –”
“The M/V Brighton?” the woman asked. Her voice as smooth, too smooth. From some part of France, soft but not weak, like Jake’s voice. Tech could listen to her talk for hours. She was dangerous. Why did Davison’s pair keep popping into his head?
“Yeah, I, well,” Cyrus stammered out. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. “I was cargo.”
The woman nods, slowly.
“Are they treating you well?”
“I’ve only been out for, like, a day, maybe less.”
“You’re with C-SPEAR, yes?”
Cyrus looked over at Tech. Tecumseh nodded. Until the company that was his and Jasmine’s benefactor spoke up and took legal action, they belonged to C-SPEAR. Cyrus turned back to the woman and nodded too.
Desmond leaned over and whispered something in the woman’s ear. Tech caught ‘Ajax Archer.’ The woman shooed him away with her gloved hand. She pulled out a card holder and handed Cyrus a crisp, sharp business card. The name ‘Celine D’Ambrosia’ was emblazoned upon it, gold against white. She was apparently an independent lawyer associated with Gide Loyrette Nouel A.A.R.P.I, some fancy law firm in France. She had her own phone number and email address and a small resume that included stints at places like Dubois & Dubois, Mediterranean Legal, Sullivan & Cromwell, and Clarke, Gallagher, and Co, and even had the location of her office on there, in Marseille, south of France –
Wait, Sullivan & Cromwell? What’s a lawyer of that calibre doing, representing, these people? Terrorists! This isn’t some backwoods yokels like the other European ‘terrorist’ groups, these people are international! They blew up an aether pipeline in the Balkans four weeks ago! They were in the news!
Tech pushes all of that down. He’s a professional. He’s here on behalf of Dawn, who is an associate of these people. He has to be polite and courteous. Behind this D’Ambrosia woman, a man who looks like the owner – dressed in jeans and a white polo, a significant belly, and a handlebar moustache floating off his lips and curling upwards into a spiral.
“Bonjour, bonjourno, ciao!” he said in an accent that was clearly from, like, Buffalo or something. “You must be the people they were waiting on! What can I get all of you?”
He handed laminated sheets of paper to all six. Tech looked at Dimitri, who made a subtle cutting motion across his neck. Then Tech looked to Cyrus, who wore an exited grin. He didn’t have to pay.
“Well, what have you got for us?”
“Oh, everything! Sandwiches, wraps, coffees, drinks, pizzas, desserts –”
“Why does your menu say to email this address for real estate questions?” Dimitri asked.
Tech looked closely at the menu – everything has a big 10 next to it, but the symbols were different. A basic sandwich was $10 – ten American Dollars – while a wrap was €10 – ten Euros. Even the drinks were ten of something – ten cents for a glass of water, ten Saudi petrodinars for a coffee, ten vodarubles for a can of soda and ten rubles for a 500ml bottle of that same soda. And on the bottom, in fine print, an email address that you could contact for real estate inquiries.
The man paused; his brown eyes wide. His hair was long but slicked back with some sort of product.
“You see, that is my side-gig.”
“Side-gig?” Dimitri asked.
“Yes. You see, real estate in this city is easy. It is a buyer’s market! Everyone is selling, and everyone wants to buy in to the future. I can do a transaction just like that.” He snapped his fingers at ‘that’. “Takes me twenty minutes. I can do it on my breaks. But food has always been my real passion.”
I’m sure you’re life’s dream was setting up a bistro in the apartheid-metropolis. Tech pushed those thoughts down to the bottom of his soul with the others.
“Ah,” was Dimitri’s response. He had no interest in real estate. Tech knew that Davison and C-SPEAR had an interest – the Imperial London Academy is known for building Janissaries both good at Janissary things and good with money – in that they were betting on it to collapse. Shorting stocks, bonds, loans, that sort of thing. The system was convoluted – people took loans from the local banks for real estate, then big banks in the U.S and U.K and China bought those loans from them, then compile them into various collateralized debt obligations and blah blah blah. Finance talk. But Davison and C-SPEAR had an interest in all of it falling apart, which Tech always felt was strange considering that they lived in it.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“The three of us will just have water,” he said. “Ice.”
“Just water?”
“But –” Cyrus tried.
“Just water for us,” Tech repeated, firmly.
“Are you sure?” the owner asked.
“Until our business here has concluded. No distractions,” Tech told him. The owner smiled and nodded. Business tends to empty the stomach.
Celine told him the same, and the owner collected the menus and retreated back into the bowels of the restaurant.
Tech turned back to Celine; back to business.
“What were these two doing in Mosul yesterday?”
Celine looked over at Desmond. She nodded. He had permission to speak. More than just a lawyer.
“We weren’t there just yesterday. We were there for a week.”
“My question still stands.”
Desmond exhaled, deeply. Looked across at his lawyer again.
“Look, mate, it’s going to sound bad at first –”
“What do you mean?” Cyrus blurted out. “Were you trying to buy a nuke or some shit?”
Desmond looked across at D’Ambrosia. The woman cracked a small, reserved smile. A smile that she was fully in control over.
“We were, hoping, to purchase an aether weapon.”
“A bomb,” Claire clarified.
Tech opened his mouth to speak –
“Why?” Cyrus asked.
“What do you think we would do with an aether bomb?” Claire asked back.
“We were going to rip it off the prick, then ship it to Crimea and blow the hell out of those Eastern European aether lines,” Desmond clarified, not letting any of the trio think for themselves. He’s lucky Tech isn’t some bloodless prosecutor.
“What good does that do?” Cyrus asked again.
“It’ll make people re-think our world’s reliance on this thing that fuels our society,” Claire replied. “Do you know how they make aether?”
“They just pull it from the air! From the void!” Desmond continued. The two worked as a tag-team. “You cannot just pull things from nothing, that violates every single law of matter. They get it from somewhere and wherever that place is, we have no business going there.”
“I thought they synthesized it,” Dimitri said.
Don’t tell me you believe them, mate.
“Well you can’t just say ‘We steal it from another dimension,’ can you?” Desmond responded. “I know it sounds absurd but do you have an alternative?”
Yes.
“It’s the industrial run-off from the collision of particles. They slam atoms of carbon and oxygen into noble gases like helium and krypton and xenon and it’s the run-off.” It’s a process that’s been refined over the decades since the 2070s. People have won Nobel Prizes for it.
“No, that’s completely insane!” Claire energetically replied. The owner of the establishment stopped by to drop off the six waters while Claire went on. “What you get when you slam one element into another is another element, its how they made plutonium and neptunium and everything up to one-twenty-one. The ‘run-off’ is radioactive decay, alpha and beta particles. This is basic nuclear physics that they’re lying to you about. But you work for Standard Aether, so why do you care where it comes from?”
“Standard Aether could go bankrupt for all I care,” Tech replied. “And I don’t know anything about nuclear physics.”
“I know biology,” Dimitri added. “Plants and fish, mainly. Salmon.”
Tech looks at Cyrus. For a moment, it looked like he blushed.
“Political science,” he said in a tiny, tiny voice.
“That was my first degree,” D’Ambrosia replied. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Your Dawn Howard specialized in international relations too. It is a good building block for the future.”
Why was she being nice to him?
Cyrus cleared his throat, brought his voice back to its usual volume. Tech let him take the wheel. The trio obviously liked him more than they liked Tech or Dimitri.
“So, what exactly is an aether bomb?”
“Functionally, it is just a bomb, a warhead, what-have-you, that has a much larger explosive yield because the explosives within are infused with aether,” Claire cleared up. “Usually, they just dip it in a big tank and keep it submerged for a day.”
“How do you know?” Dimitri asked.
“I worked at a Phalanx Defense factory in Quebec City,” she answered. “Saw it all happen. Saw the results on television and realized that it’s evil. We, humanity, the West, make these big technological jumps, but we use it to make oil companies richer by combining aether with gasoline, or we just use it to find new ways to kill people.”
“How big was the factor?” Cyrus asked. Tech saw Dimitri’s eyes gradually close as she explained. Unless he drank more after going back to his apartment, he couldn’t be that hungover. Right?
“Ah, I think the warhead we were trying to purchase had a factor of three.”
“Big?”
“Tres big.”
“So who’s selling them?”
Claire looked across at D’Ambrosia. The lawyer nodded again. Giving them a lot of leash here.
“His name was Yuri Ivanov.”
Dimitri’s eyes snapped open. He practically jolted back to consciousness. And…
“Ivanov?” he blurted out.
“You know him?” D’Ambrosia asked.
“Of him, yes. Wait, was he in Mosul?”
Desmond shook his head.
“Nah, he had a fuckin’ ‘representative,’ some fuckin’ gaylord from Bulgaria or something. He was the bastard we were going to take it from.”
“Is he a big deal?” Cyrus asked.
“Big deal is not quite accurate,” Dimitri replied. “He was, allegedly, all of this is alleged, ex-VDV paratrooper who went rogue when the civil war broke out. He was a Colonel, so he commanded brigade, or battalion, or something, and he took half of his men and went rogue. From what I have heard, he trades guns and missiles and tanks and even warships.”
“Not aether weapons?”
“It is possibility,” Dimitri admitted. “I would have expected Russian government to keep a close eye on their supply. Unless they were paid to look away. Government, is, ah, very corrupt.”
“So, how do we find this guy?” Cyrus asked, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Claire almost snorts in response.
“You don’t. He hasn’t left Russia in a decade. If he still lives in Russia.”
“I have heard that he relocated to Kazakhstan,” Dimitri helpfully added.
“And he just, has access to these bombs and shit? How?”
Desmond shrugged. Claire shook her head.
“Your guess is as good as ours,” D’Ambrosia said. “Whatever we say, our accuracy is hampered by the fact that we are a thousand miles away from his current operations.”
“So he’s just some recluse now? Lives in the middle of nowhere and shit, like in a palace? With slaves and shit?”
“What we told you was the collective extent of our knowledge,” D’Ambrosia said.
“How can we know?”
Then D’Ambrosia affixed him with her eyes, hazel with that golden ring. Tech had never been on the receiving end of a Scott Davison glare, but he had seen his boss take it, and he withered. Completely folded and doubled the Republic’s contribution to C-SPEAR’s operating budget. Cyrus did the same.
“Fine, shit, whatever. Is that it?”
D’Ambrosia’s glare subsided, and her calm, controlled smile returned. She looked at him like he was a puppy who got out of order. Pulled on his leash too hard.
“If that is all the questions you have, then yes. Tell Mademoiselle Dawn that we want to meet her tonight at the Osiris.”
“Where’s that?” Cyrus asked.
“She knows.”
Then she stood and retrieved a briefcase from underneath the table. Something tugged on Tech’s neurons, telling him to remember something important. But no matter how hard it pulled, the name didn’t come to the forefront of his mind.
“Thank you for not causing problems,” D’Ambrosia said. She turned on her heel and signalled for the pair to follow. They stood and began to walk out, but Desmond halted in his tracks.
“One more thing.”
The two women turned back.
“Dez!” Claire exclaimed. This wasn’t in the playbook.
“Desmond?” D’Ambrosia asked. This definitely isn’t in the playbook.
“It’s fine!” Dez clarified. “Just, the guys with armour have been bothering me.”
“Guys with armour?” Cyrus echoed.
The three Janissaries all exchanged glances. He couldn’t have meant Tecumseh and Dimitri, right? Guys with armour?
“All right. Let’s hear it,” Tech said.
Desmond walked back to the table but didn’t sit. He put his hands on the top of the chair’s back and leaned on it. Like Dawn did last night. Something’s gotta be up. The man took a moment to gather his thoughts.
“Right. It’s not going to be much. But there were these guys walking around Mosul with fuckin’, I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, power armour, I guess. Big, bulky, looked like the fuckin guy from Halo or Warhammer or something.”
Desmond did not strike Tecumseh as a Warhammer 40k kind of guy. Tech’s flatmate at the Academy was and he spent all hours of the night painting these intricate miniatures. And for what?
“They called themselves the E-Kay-Ay-You, something like ‘E-Ris-Key-An-Ur-Ass’ or something. Not bloody Arabic.”
“Power armour?” Tech asked. How could a militant group get power armour? It was still experimental. Tech and Anastasia’s little jaunt was effectively a trial by fire for a model from Wolfe.
“Yeah, looked like a cyborg. Had a helmet like an astronaut or something, and plates of armour over what looked like, I don’t know, spandex or something, something that fit snug to the body. But the plates were all sorts of colours. One was all black, one was grey with a red stripe, one was one half red and one half orange, like a fuckin medieval times jester. The biggest was seven feet tall, and carried a big, fuck-off machinegun like a pistol, fifty-cal or something. Another had this fucking, huge claymore. Fuckin massive.”
“Like, the anti-personnel mine?” Dimitri asked.
“The bloody sword! Damn near six feet tall, about as tall as whoever it was carrying it. Probably could cut through a fuckin’ battleship or something. And-and, they had this guy, he was handing out fliers for recruitment, and he had this weird, like, silver mask, just covering his face. Cut-outs for his eyes and nostrils but that was it.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, they left the day before the bombings. And they were handing out recruitment fliers,” he continued. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a piece of paper, folded over and over again until it was barely an inch by an inch.
“Kept one. Bloody Ikhwan fuckers missed it when they pinched us.”
Tech took it in his hands and unfolded it. All he could understand was the picture in the middle. It looked almost ancient Sumerian or Babylonian in style, an eagle’s wings and tail and talons but where the head would be was the side-profile of a bearded man with a square-shaped cap, a crown maybe, holding a book in one hand and a sword in another. The man reminded Tech of those ancient Assyrian frescoes and carvings of the empire’s kings hunting lions – all two-dimensional. The rest was in Arabic, and Tech’s middling-at-best Arabic had stayed behind at the Academy in London. Almost ten years since he needed it; now he needed it and it escaped him entirely. There were also rows of arrowheads of varying size and direction, and it hit Tech that it wasn’t just random bullshit but a sort of cuneiform. Whatever it was, he sure as hell didn’t speak it. Could’ve been from the moon.
He handed the recruitment flier back to Desmond.
“Give it to Dawn tonight,” he said. Desmond nodded. Not an order, but this E-K-A-U situation was weird enough to bother a Montagne.
“Do they have anything to do with Khanpasha Mateev?” Dimitri asked, and the gremlins pulling at Tecumseh’s neurons lit up.
That’s the cunt!
Desmond looked confused. D’Ambrosia stepped back into the bistro.
“You said, Khanpasha Mateev, right?” she asked for clarification.
“Yes. Chechen warlord. Independence fighter, terrorist, loved mixed martial arts.” Dimitri knew more about this guy than Tech ever could. “Very strange man. He is our next target.”
“Next target? That’s impossible.” How. What did D’Ambrosia know?
“C-SPEAR says he is effective heir to Ikwan’s leadership now that Malik ibn Hassan is, well, exploded,” Dimitri continued.
“But, he died, two years ago. Russian special forces got him in a raid in Bishkek,” D’Ambrosia replied. “How can he be your next target?”
Tech looked at Dimitri. Dead? Did Palantir assemble the folder from last night?
“He just, is, I suppose,” Tech answered. “I will talk to Dawn about this as soon as possible. I will let her know that you want to see her.”
“How do you guys know her, anyways?” Cyrus asked.
D’Ambrosia turned to face him and Tech expected him to face the same withering stare as before.
“She has greatly helped us in the past. But I do not believe that it inside your jurisdiction,” she gently replied, with that same, controlled smile. It seemed utterly fake, but the muscles in her eyes moved enough for your brain to register that it was sincere.
Jurisdiction made it sound like they were cops. Fucking Blue Line Security were the cops around here.
And with that, she gave a courteous nod to the trio, and then turn around and walked out again.
Tech looked at Dimitri. The Russian just shrugged his shoulders.
“Palantir probably just got it wrong,” he said. “They got it wrong yesterday, too.”
Tech nods. Fuckin’ Palantir.
“How do you know about this Ivanov dude?” Cyrus turned and asked Dimitri.
Dimitri’s blue eyes lit up.
“Ah! Before Anastasia and I were relocated here, we were assigned as security officials for enormous aether syntharium and refinery in Siberia, deep Siberia, almost Anadyr, closer to California or Alaska than Moscow. Voronin Group refinery, obviously. Some mercenary would always have tale about him, about how he had twenty concubines and he let this one mercenary sleep with then, or how he has pet tigers he feeds prisoners to, or something. Always something dumb. Urban legend, but man is real. Still on Russian FSB Most-Wanted list. One hundred million rubles for information that leads to his capture.”
While Dimitri gave his story, Tech pulled out his phone and dug through his contacts list. There were too many; names of people that he couldn’t in good conscious take off the list because they weren’t on this Earth anymore or names that belonged to people he hadn’t spoken to in years or names of people he grew to despise. Somewhere in that morass was Dawn.
He pressed the call button, and he found himself on the other end of Dawn’s phone and listened to it ring six times.