Whoever that person was, he remained near the main entrance to the tower, but away from the light, covered in shadows and with his hood up.
A shot of adrenaline put Mizar on alert. His new position in the Imperial Army had attracted the attention of many, and it was no wonder that detractors used assassins to dispatch their enemies. Could it be that—?
No, no. There were his bodyguards, so he didn’t stop.
The stranger stood out from the light, very close to the main entrance to the tower.
As much as he was dying to see the face under the hood, the Secretary avoided putting his eyes there, and turning his back on the curious figure, held his breath and went up the stairs. Calm down, nothing will happen, he told himself.
He found it odd that the Grenadiers did nothing to keep the stranger away; snoopers going around the vicinity were frowned upon there, but since the guard of the building was waiting for him up there, holding the door open so that he could enter, he decided to play the matter down. Hadn’t he promised himself to relax and enjoy the moment?
According to his way of seeing things, the politicians and businessmen he knew were fools because they lived in fear and were concerned for their safety. He wasn’t like them, and that’s why he allowed himself to go for a walk at night, in the rain. Of course, the Grenadiers were there to protect him, but that had nothing to do with that—his stance of not being intimidated and continuing his life normally had been there long before he had the Empire’s protection.
Mizar left his raincoat in the building’s cloakroom, crossed the luxurious hall, and went to the elevators. A Grenadier got into it first, he went into after him, and the other Grenadier behind him. The space in the mirrored cubicle was not large, but the three of them fit comfortably.
He was about to press the button to the tenth floor, but one of the Grenadiers stepped forward and pressed it for him. Was that a security measure he had to get used to from now on? Or was the gesture one simple gallantry by his custodian?
He couldn’t see the Grenadier’s face with the helmet on; he noticed that there were beautiful eyes behind the dark-glass visor, though. What kind of face was hiding under that gleaming pointy helmet? A handsome one, perhaps.
Someday he’d invite the guards to put the duty aside for a moment and share a drink with him. To hell with protocol! Those silly rules were still in force only for the geezers of the Imperial Council.
“Is something wrong, sir?” the Grenadier asked, noticing his gaze.
“Nothing,” he replied.
The Secretary stood in front of the elevator mirror and smoothed his hair; there, where the gray hairs were. He thought about the drink with the soldiers. Yes, maybe sometime later. For the moment, he just wanted to take a warm bath and wait for the young waiter. Jake finished his shift at Alfonso after eight o’clock at night, so there was enough time to…
His custodians! They were gone!
In the blink of an eye, the soldiers had disappeared, and in the reflection, next to him, there was a single figure: The stranger with the hood and the dark raincoat. He jumped and spun on his heels.
“Sir?” The Grenadier’s metallic voice snapped him out of his reverie.
No. His guards were right there. He watched them with wide eyes and lips so tight they had lost their natural pinkish tone. Slowly, he waited for the breath to return to his lungs.
What had been that hallucination?
C’mon! You’re not afraid of anything, he said to himself. You were never afraid. Fools are the other ones, not you.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
After opening the door of the condominium, a place assigned by his new rank, one of the soldiers carried out a survey of the entire floor with the sensors of his helmet, scanning every object in each room and recreating it holographically on the visor’s inner screen, analyzing even the temperature patterns of everything there.
The soldier stepped aside and let Mizar pass.
“It’s fine,” the Secretary said. “Now, guys, you can leave me—”
He turned to his guards, ready to announce that he was going to take a hot shower—and hint that he would like to be escorted to the bathtub on another occasion—but not a word came out of his mouth.
Once again, the Grenadiers were gone.
The door slammed shut, and the Secretary was plunged into the shadows of his own house; only the faint bluish glow of his fish tank kept the darkness from engulfing him. The rectangular glass chest, where his beloved tiny goldfish swam, cast a faint glow, aiding his recognition of the surrounding shadows.
“Welcome,” someone greeted him.
A woman was sitting on the living room couch; her legs crossed, and her arms outstretched on the backrest as if she had been waiting for him in the comfort of her own home. She was bald and had long, shiny earrings hanging from her ears.
Mizar began to hyperventilate; a void had eaten his insides.
He needed light to reveal the stranger and snouted the wall in search of the lamp switch.
“Don’t,” she said, “I like darkness.”
As if a command in his brain had turned in favor of the woman, he obeyed.
The woman’s eyes stood out like two amethysts. She was one of them, one of the Originals. A Vicar.
With a hard-to-forget imprint, the Vicar stood up and walked toward him. Her hips, wide and well-proportioned, drew a swing that reminded him of the gait of felines. She wore a miniskirt, and her legs set a shocking compass with every step; her crystal earrings followed the rhythm. The bluish glow flowing from the fish tank licked her silhouette and the circumference of her breasts, natural and slightly saggy. She wasn’t young; none of the Original Ones were. She was so much older than she looked.
“Mr. brand-new Secretary of Defense,” she said, “between parties and ceremonies, you may not have heard the news yet, but your military allies have taken over something your other allies thought no longer existed: a dose of the Primary Plasma that was hidden in a bunker.”
A torrent of ice traveled through Mizar’s veins.
“That’s marvelous news!” he said, and as he tried to look surprised, he choked on his own saliva and coughed. “If the military confiscated it, I could facilitate its location to the group,” he hastened to say then. His heart was beating hard.
The Vicar shook her head. “If I’d only been interested in knowing where they kept the Plasma, I’d have called you by phone, Mr. Secretary. If I’m here, it’s for another reason.”
And at that moment, he knew. The day he had always feared had finally come. The woman knew the truth. They knew the truth.
The Vicar nodded as if she had read his mind.
“We thought there were no more doses of the Primary Plasma left thanks to He who does not forgive, but there was one last sample left. A traitor had been keeping it hidden, turning his back on his own people. And maybe out of revenge, maybe out of love, maybe out of spite; he gave it to a Binary who was believed to be dead. You know who that traitor is, right?”
The ice in Mizar’s veins turned into a hundred spikes. “I…I don’t…”
“Yes, you are the traitor I’m talking about, Mr. Mizar,” the woman accused him as if it were necessary. “Or should I ignore the last name given to you by the military and call you by your real one? Perhaps that may refresh your memory, Mr. Rotanev.”
And at that moment, even though no representative of the Empire was there to hear those words, Mizar felt that his new position was being withdrawn, and he was once again the same as before...
“Sebastian Rotanev,” she called him. “The youngest son of Jules Rotanev and one of the heirs to the Rotanev fortune. What a disappointment it will be for them to learn of your betrayal!”
Rotanev tried to move away and found that not only his hand, his entire body got immobilized. The raindrops left in his hair slid down his forehead, and before they went down the bridge of his nose, they moistened his long lashes and wet his eyes. Everything ahead of him became a blurry stain. It wasn’t raindrops; it was nervous sweat. He was scared to death.
He blinked fast to clear his vision. The Vicar was ready to come, and if he couldn’t run, at least he wanted to see what she was going to do with him.
The woman stopped short of brushing her nose against Rotanev’s. They were so close to each other that they both felt the warmth of their breaths. She slid her hands over his face and, with her fingertips, wiped away the drops of sweat, one by one.
“I want to know something, Mr. Secretary; and you will answer me,” the woman ordered. “Do you have any other hidden doses besides that?” He sighed, ready to confess, but she cut him off with a warning; “Answer truthfully.”
“No-no,” he stammered, and as if someone were pulling his tongue, he continued speaking against his will, “That was the only dose I kept.”
She nodded. “You shouldn’t have forgotten to whom you owe your true allegiance, Mr. Secretary,” she said, and closing her hand around his neck, she dug her nails into him. “They ordered me to remind you of that. Once and for all.”