Chapter Nine

The Kingmaker

‘It was an honest mistake,’ Marty said on the way back upstairs. Agloff remained silent. ‘I doubt you’d have had much help asking for directions. Would have got some weird looks for one. No, you had every reason to follow Mel.’

Agloff thought better than to tell the truth, that he had just been struck by dumb curiosity to follow Mel and hadn’t been lost at all.

Wordlessly, they headed past the kitchens, and into the decadent embrace of Fall’s palace. Marty stopped in Agloff’s doorway, while Agloff dropped, legs crossed, onto the end of his bed.

‘What will you do now?’ Agloff said.

‘I? I think I need a whisky, with an old film; something light-hearted.’

Agloff scoffed. ‘You’ve changed.’

‘For the better,’ Marty observed defensively. ‘Sorry for the cloak and dagger, Agloff, truly. If it didn’t concern you I’d say nothing.’

‘Isn’t it weird Fall just lets me walk around the Underground alone?’ Agloff asked.

‘Not so weird when you think about it,’ Marty said. ‘You’re important to Fall. It’s important to him he curries your favour. He isn’t going to endear himself to you by shutting you in your room. Fall wants you to feel free here.’

‘Why?’

Marty paused thoughtfully. ‘Makes what comes later easier.’

Agloff fell back on to his covers. He wanted to spit and curse. Could Marty not just say whatever it was. What if Fall wanted to kill Agloff, or experiment on him, or torture him, or hand him to Jask? Countless possibilities swam through his mind, each worse than the last.

‘I know, Ag,’ Marty said, as if he had read Agloff’s mind. ‘It’s easier to show you, than to tell you. You remember the way back to Mel’s workshop?’

Agloff nodded.

‘Come at the start of the next night shift. It will be easier to move around.’ Marty’s voice was blunt. Agloff couldn’t tell if he was irritated.

‘It just feels like no one tells me anything. Not you, Drake, Fall. I’m not a child anymore. I’m eighteen,’ complained Agloff.

Marty chuckled softly. ‘Don’t worry. I understand.’

You don’t, snapped Agloff in his head.

‘But to us, you’re no less a child than you were ten years ago. Such is the curse of age. Speaking of, wait here.’ Marty vanished from Agloff’s doorway for a moment, returning with a rectangular parcel wedged between his thick fingers.

‘I wanted to apologise. It ain’t fair all this involves you and… Well, I know I missed your birthday by a couple days, but I wanted to give you this. Eighteen, it’s a big one.’ Marty passed Agloff the parcel. Agloff clawed at the wrapping. ‘Wasn’t easy to get a hold of.’

Agloff shed the paper to the floor, tracing his fingertips across a book cover. New Sol Atlas, 2701 Edition: Updated and Expanded.

Marty continued as Agloff flickered through the pages. ‘I wish you saw the way things were before. When all these cities had people in ‘em. Couldn’t move for bodies.’ The Commander chuckled hoarsely. ‘Figured you’d enjoy looking at all the names, and places and stuff.’

Agloff wanted to complain he wasn’t ten anymore. ‘Thank you,’ he said instead.

‘It was overdue.’

‘Can I ask,’ Agloff began, staring down at the book, ‘how come you never wrote. You said you were gonna. When you left, I thought something had happened, or— or you’d forgotten about me. I was only a kid, Marty.’ Agloff let his voice trail off before he stepped too far.

Marty swallowed. ‘You were better off without me.’ He feigned jest. But that wasn’t for him to decide, Agloff thought. ‘I was a silly, old, mad distraction. You had Ariea and Michael.’

He paused for a long time. His eyes tightened. Like he was contemplating some deeper truth.

Agloff hesitated. ‘Okay then.’

Marty left Agloff at that. What tangled conspiracy was he about to embroil Agloff in? Did Agloff even want to know? They said ignorance was bliss.

Agloff resisted the urge to go on another aimless wander. He couldn’t excuse himself from getting into trouble a second time. Instead, he did what was expected. He stayed in his room, occupied by Marty’s Atlas, tracing his finger over the colonies of the moons of Jupiter. Then, Osara summoned him for the evening banquet.

He placed himself as far from Fall as was polite, while Ariea had taken to dining in her room. Agloff distracted himself from the Governor’s monologues with the portraits and landscapes scaling the hall walls. Blotted and beautiful snapshots into Earth’s potted history. Eventually, Fall vanished to attend some other business, and Agloff stacked his plate with sausages and hashed browns, smoked gammon and turkey, filling the gaps with all the vegetables he could manage. By the time Osara returned, Agloff had sunk into his chair, his belly bloated to twice its normal size. She guided him to his bed chamber, and he collapsed, grateful for the three hours to nap before night shift.

Each minute, that bloated feeling turned to sickness, dread. Agloff’s body was taut, overcome with an energy that would not dissipate. His knee jerked against the tick of the clock, and his mouth clasped around his thumbs.

Agloff’s brain blared as the clocks buzzed zero. Abruptly, he straightened himself and stared at the empty doorway. Taking bites of stale air, he marched like a dutiful soldier, out and down, below the palace and past the kitchens, into the obscurity of Maintenance. His journey was shared by the scores of workers traipsing down into the armpit of the Underground. Agloff ruffled his shoulders and tightened his jacket, as if that made him any less conspicuous to the labourers donning their boiler suits.

He followed the path to Maintenance 1, marking out in his mind the alleys and doorways that led to the workshops and tunnels servicing the entire Underground. Agloff muttered the directions under his breath, over and over, eyes glued to his feet. The mop tied with a ribbon and the affectionate note of apology were gone, in its place, someone had attached a scrap of paper.

Thanks, no problem :)

Jo

Agloff wondered if this was how folks on opposite shifts spoke in the Underground; friends and colleagues, forbidden from ever seeing each other by Fall’s bureaucracy of control. He passed by, finding the door to Mel’s workshop open a crack.

‘Agloff!’ The door opened for him and Marty appeared, beaming.

Agloff followed Marty inside the workshop, pacing the room with vigour. ‘What is it you’re showing me?’ he asked.

‘Nothing in here, so you needn’t try and get a head start,’ Marty replied. ‘We’re going down.’

‘Bottom of Maintenance?’ Agloff pried.

‘Below.’

Marty led them away, down deeper into the bowels of the Underground. It was an assault on Agloff’s senses. The air was ripe, almost putrid. Bare-chested workers paraded the corridors in a veil of steam. Short shorts were drawn tightly around their waists with belts where their boiler suits had been slashed short. Bare feet slapped against the metal grating as oily bodies hauled equipment across their shoulders.

Agloff offered Marty a questioning look to which the old soldier smiled. ‘It’s like a sauna down here at the best of times. You get used to the smell… and the view after five… or six visits. It’s funny, you know. Everything about this place- the food, the Privileges, the cellular housing- it’s designed to be just uncomfortable enough that no one has reason to be lazy, and strict enough that no one has reason to disobey.’

‘It’s the opposite of Backwater,’ Agloff observed, before stopping. Marty turned on the absence of footsteps behind him. ‘Did you mean what you said?’ Agloff said.

‘About what?’ Marty replied, though Agloff was sure he knew.

‘About my dad.’

Marty sighed. The man looked in pain. ‘I made a promise to her.’

‘And I know her name isn’t Andromeda. She killed those people, didn’t she? Her ‘parents’.’

Marty’s lip tightened. His stoic face hardened further still. ‘I assure you; Andromeda did not kill either of those people. You’ve been talking to Drake.’

‘Her name’s not Andromeda,’ Agloff corrected, like a petty child, anger rising inside him, like a viper coiled to strike. Was this not what Marty had to say to him anyway? Why should Agloff be withheld information that was his birth right.

‘It was the name she chose, and the life she endeavoured to live.’ Marty insisted, weighing up the implications of what he should say next. ‘I respected that. She has right to be who she wants to be. She was involved with some dangerous people. She called them the Sign of the Tondrus.’ His voice snapped, almost bitter. ‘I don’t know anything about it. I never asked. But she smuggled for them during the war. She was a travelling war nurse to the colonies; it was a good cover.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

‘One day, I walked in on her, precisely when I shouldn’t have and she levelled a gun at me. She was much younger than I, but I- I was terrified of her. I swore on my life I’d never…’ Marty paused. ‘I became her… confidant I suppose. She threatened me.’ Marty drew back the cuff of his sleeve. ‘She marked me.’ He unfurled his fingers to reveal a thick, pale scar across the width of his left palm. With time, we became friends.’ Marty bowed his head, sombre.

Agloff had no sympathy for Marty that he had kept this for so long. ‘So, was she some kind of spy then? You knew her better than anyone.’

Marty laughed dryly. He was agitated; impassioned. Agloff could sense his adoration for her. ‘Please, nothing so trite. She was a very, very small fish in an extremely large pond. But she knew how to handle herself. When she took the name Andromeda Ashborne that was because she wanted out, not because she was some undercover agent. Her desperation was very real.’

‘What was her birth name?’

‘Treya Wyse.’ Marty looked ashamed for having revealed this information even as he had not hesitated to do so. A betrayal of the identity Agloff’s mother had committed herself to living by. Agloff couldn’t help but pore over those two words in his head. Silence descended over them, and they filtered down, through all four levels of Maintenance, to the very base of the Underground: a narrow tunnel, dug out of the rock.

It was only wide enough for one. It looked threatening almost, though Agloff was unsure if that were the line of the shadows or his rampant imagination. At the end of the passage, a bulky steel door sat under the glow of a spot lamp. It was unlabelled, marked only by a padlock dangling on a chain.

Marty turned to face Agloff with a furrowed brow. ‘What I’m about to show you… you do not speak about it to anyone. Not Ariea. Not Fall. Not me once we leave.’

Agloff nodded, focusing his eyes on the numbers on the lock. His eyes were just able to make out the combination, 190512, before he followed Marty down darkened steps within. Bright lights fizzled into life. From the murky greys of Maintenance, Agloff squinted in the glare, his jaw ajar.

Lines of cells puffed smoke, paraded in rows across a great hall decked in glistening white tiles. A bubble of glass was stretched across the fronts of each cell and a mess of cables and wires led from their backs to a black box at the back of the chamber. Each was almost twice Agloff’s height. He reached a hand to feel the cold glass guarding each. Smoke obscured the screen from whatever lay within.

‘How many of them are there?’ Agloff exclaimed.

‘About two thousand. I became part of Fall’s circle. Not deliberately but… I earned a level of respect. Every so ofen he’ll convene his sanctum to discuss urgent matters of state. Few weeks ago, he showed us this.’ Marty paused. ‘If the HabComs are bunkers, this is the bunkers’ bunker.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Agloff said. ‘What are all they all?’

‘The four HabComs were built just over a hundred years ago during the war with the Feng, including this chamber. In nuclear war, you could sit it out down here and wait for the radiation to clear safe and sound. For those who could afford it, this chamber, each pod, could protect some important person for, perhaps centuries. It could preserve a colony.’

Agloff rolled his fingers across a plaque engraved onto the foot of the pod in front of him: In the enduring memory of Ayla Zhao. Here lies the second cradle of humankind. May it rest until the dawn of a new beginning.

‘So, I guess they never used it?’

‘Fall’s had every cell checked and repaired. They were never occupied. Humanity sooner fled to the stars. The war with the Feng-Hal was won after all.’

‘So, Fall plans to use these?’

‘Yes.’ Marty’s voice fractured. ‘Governor Fall wants the elite of the Underground to relocate to this chamber, in these pods. And you with them. Agloff, I’m so sorry this is my fault.’

‘Why,’ Agloff breathed. He could manage to say nothing else.

‘You remember I said I was the one that brought you here?’

‘You said “after a fashion”,’ Agloff recited.

Marty looked forlorn. ‘Quite. I always suspected after Ann disappeared that Jask would try to take you by force. He knew you were at Backwater. He had informants.’ His face twisted in momentary disgust, like he was sucking on lemons.

‘He took his time,’ Agloff said, shrugging. ‘I mean, if he knew where I was.’

‘He did. But Malvo Jask made a mistake. Can you guess what it is?’

Again, Agloff shrugged.

‘He had no reason to believe you would ever leave Backwater. That was his mistake. He assumed you were alone, that you had nowhere else to go. Whatever he needs you for, he thought he had the luxury of waiting until Winter was strong enough, he could be absolutely certain he could take you. Why risk you slipping through his fingers?’

‘But I did!’

‘And that was his mistake. I daresay had he moved on Backwater as soon his plan to lure Andromeda failed, he would have taken you. But he saw waiting as a lesser risk.’

‘So, you moved me out his way?’

‘As I said, I suspected he would come for you, and very soon. I told Norman as much. He was very easy to convince you were of great value. He acted as I intended. Bartered with Drake for you. He is desperate for anything that segregates the Underground from Winter. You’re his deterrent. Jask can’t risk Fall harming you, or that’s Fall’s hope.’

‘That’s what Ariea said. I’m his Winter-deterrent.’

‘Quite. The rest of the Underground will go about their lives none the wiser, while Fall outlives Winter in one of these pods.’

‘Why not just give me to Jask then in exchange for him staying away? Make a deal like he did with Drake.’

Marty looked amused. ‘Would you trust Malvo Jask to keep to his word in that case?’

Agloff said nothing.

‘I thought not. Fall is playing a dangerous game, but I agree you’re safer here than anywhere else. Jask cannot attack without risking Fall use his deterrent.’

‘Killing me,’ Agloff said coolly.

‘And Fall can’t kill you without losing his insurance policy over Winter. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think it safer than Backwater. Oxford told me about your immunity too,’ Marty said, as matter-of-factly as the weather, almost as if this information wasn’t surprising. ‘Your blood brings a potential cure for winged fever. If he gets it, Fall would have control over every fort, town and settlement with you in his possession. If he were to develop a vaccine, imagine the wealth and power he could gain. There’s nothing the Forts wouldn’t give for it. You are the kingmaker of Colony Two. If he owns you, he owns everyone else.’

Agloff stepped back, his eyes uncertain. A sickness began to crawl up his throat. What about what he wanted?

‘So why does Jask want me if not because I’m immune?’ Drake had had no answer to that.

Marty looked tired. ‘My guess would be less than speculation. If Ann knew, she never told me. But I can’t imagine it’s entirely unrelated. Jask and Ann had dealings before either ever came to Earth.’ Marty said it so casually, but the words felt profound. Is this what brought the pair of them to Colony Two in the first place? ‘I want you to know, Ag, I didn’t do what I did for Fall. My interest was protecting you. And here, I can do that, even if Winter comes. Whatever it takes. Had I known Fall’s intentions for you at the time, I… I would have acted differently.’

‘And what about Mel?’ Agloff said. ‘Where’s she fit?’

‘Winter’s taking children from every town, and every fort and marching them into Eden, most never coming out. It’s the cheapest, most versatile resource in the Colony. It’s what he wants, second only to you. As labour, for experimentation- I don’t know what- but he… we’ve heard he mutilates them. Children.’ A redness surrounded Marty’s eyes. ‘Every time Jask gets too close for Fall’s liking, a few children end up missing from their cells on the mid-levels, never making it home from school. Left to Winter like post.’

Memphis was right, Agloff thought. He felt disgusted for where he stood and wondered how Oxford’s ego might have reacted to that. ‘I can’t allow that to continue, much as a part I play it,’ Marty said with a finality.

‘So, that was your meeting with Mel? That’s what you were talking about? How many of you are there? Some plan to get rid of Fall?’

‘There’s nine of us, Oxford included. The Underground deserves better than Fall. They’ve never known it, but there is a better way for these people without him. So,’ Marty whispered, ‘we committed to regicide.’

Without thought, Agloff stepped forward and gingerly embraced Marty. Momentarily, his anger and confusion ceded. The feeling was bittersweet. Agloff then pulled himself away to sit on the concrete. ‘You’ll make a great Governor.’

Marty smiled. ‘Where do you get that notion from?’

‘Intuition.’ Agloff studied the inky bags hanging beneath the soldier’s eyes and imagined how long it had been since they had gotten a long night’s rest.

‘A final thing,’ Marty said. ‘Wilson!’ he beckoned and the box to which the cell’s cables led hummed and glowed.

‘Matthew Naples,’ an almost-human voice said.

‘Agloff, this is Wilson.’

The machine hummed. ‘Welcome, Agloff.’

‘H-Hello,’ he said, unsure of the etiquette for talking to a machine. The transcription of Wilson’s words was projected in glaring red letters real-time on its side. ‘Marty. Explain.’

‘Wilson. Explain,’ Marty called to the box.

‘I am a repurposed AI construct recovered from the wreck of the USF Avon. I formerly specialised in strategic planning and defence in order to aid my commanding officers. However, following an engagement with a House of Hal dreadnought, the Avon was decommissioned. The ship’s commanding officer attempted to make an emergency landing on the nearest habitable system, Colony Two, known colloquially as Earth. The Avon’s hull delaminated in the upper atmosphere and its remains impacted thirteen klicks west of our current location. The surviving crew retrieved my interface module and I have been reassigned the task of maintenance and logistics of the Underground’s automated systems, including this cryo-chamber.’

‘Who was the Avon’s commanding officer?’ Agloff asked, having a feeling he knew the answer.

‘Last registered commanding officer of the USF Avon is Commander Norman Fall. Is there anything else you would like to know? Perhaps select from one of the following topics.’ A drop-down menu was displayed on the screen, but Agloff turned back to Marty.

‘Fall brought a war AI here to run the Underground?’

‘An efficient job he does too. Interesting thing about AIs is they have no allegiances. Wilson’s understanding of the Underground’s systems and schedules helped me plan Fall’s… demise. Fall always ran a ruthless ship during the war. I suppose that reputation precedes him in the Underground. There was a settlement here before Fall but Fall made it… great.’

‘So, if Fall does his plan, with the cryo-things and everything… that means Wilson is running the Underground?’

Marty nodded. ‘Oh yes, but Wilson does a lot already. In my experience, it’s no different to having the Underground run by politicians. They are equally procedural, equally bureaucratic entities.’

Agloff swallowed a brave breath, for fear he was about turn the conversation in an altogether darker direction. ‘If Fall wants me as protection from Winter…. What will actually happen to me? Physically?’

‘He will place you in that cell, under armed guard, night and day. You’re Fall’s insurance policy against Jask. You’ll stay there. Once Fall and friends wake up to their Winter-less world, you’ll remain, preserved, I daresay as insurance against the rest of the Colony. Like I said, your immunity gives the promise of a cure, a vaccine. But I won’t allow that to happen. Under any circumstances.’

Marty’s plan kept Agloff brave enough not to break where he stood. The thumping in his chest told him every cell in his body should run and hide in some obscure corner of the Colony. Death was better than this.

‘Thank you, for looking out for me, and for Ariea.’ The last word caught in his throat. ‘You kill Fall, then what? Don’t you ever sleep?’ Agloff managed a smile.

‘Ha. I can sleep when I’m dead. For me, another whisky would be good. For you, the Colony would be yours to search. I’d never deny you that. Remember Agloff, the world is full of loud idiots telling you how things must be. How we should be. But we owe it nothing but the truest version of ourselves.’ The old soldier smiled warmly.

‘So, you do think she’s still alive? You know her better than anyone,’ he asked. But Agloff couldn’t help an inevitable sense that this plan, this dream would surely fall apart.

‘I think… Andromeda and Eron both may be. My head the pessimist says as she never came back, she should be gone. Knowing her as I did, I have a feeling she might just still be alive.’

Agloff considered telling Marty that Jask’s men had recognised him, and so knew Eron, but, unsure of what Marty’s reaction might be, he decided against it.

‘You were wrong though,’ Marty said, a moment later.

‘About?’

‘I don’t know Andromeda better than anyone. There’s three names.’

Agloff’s eyes lit up. The desire to know was irrepressible. ‘What names?’

‘Malvo Jask. Tomas Wise. And Abbadiah Thawn.’