World War 97 Part 2 (World War 97 Serial) Page 3

  “I… I better go.” I had never intended to be a bad husband; I had always thought of myself as a good person.

  “Will I see you in the morning?”

  I planned on going to see Burnett then getting a drink. And, as the barman had explained earlier, that one drink was unlikely to be enough. What’s one more lie? “Yes. Yes, I’ll definitely see you in the morning.” I hung up before she had time to reply.

  The conveyor pod had already stopped at its destination, and the doors were open. The distinctive burgundy carpets of the Waldorf district greeted me. Ornate doors led to plush suites, which I quickly moved past. The cheaper rooms were located several corridors from the center. The lights over the doors were all yellow, and I wandered down several more corridors until I found a green light signaling an unoccupied room.

  I scanned my ID at the door then waited while the mechanism checked that I had sufficient funds. When it beeped, I pushed open the handle and entered the room. It was the standard size, with a double bed squashed against a wall and a small bathroom. No wasted space. There was enough room for a minibar, of course. Hotel rooms made a chunk of their profit from overpriced drinks and food. I sat down in front of the little fridge and opened it.

  The bottom shelf was refrigerated, and the tiny bottles of rum and gin and whiskey glistened with condensation. I ignored them, instead taking the bars from the upper shelf. I ripped open the packages and gobbled down the food inside. Once I started eating, I realized how hungry I was—I hadn’t eaten in well over a day. I ate every bit of food in the minibar then washed it down with orange juice. My gaze returned to the alcohol. Perhaps I should have one or two tonight? It would certainly help me sleep.

  I reached in and pulled out one at random: Findler’s Gin. The label depicted a songbird. I turned it over in my fingers. My heart began to race, and my breathing became shallow. I ran my tongue along the inside of my upper lip and twisted open the bottle. My mouth watered. I raised the bottle—then stopped myself. Burnett wouldn’t see me if I was stinking of drink. What if Celeste made a decisive attack on America, and I did nothing to stop it? I had already retreated ignominiously from battle once in the past week. I couldn’t let myself do it again.

  I scrambled into the bathroom before I could change my mind. The drain made a bittersweet glug glug sound as it swallowed the alcohol instead of me. It was a victory, of sorts, but that didn’t ease the desire the lick the remnants of the gin from the bowl. I glanced back at the minibar. There was no way I could sleep all night with all that alcohol beckoning me. I had to act while I was strong, before I had a chance to change my mind. I took every bottle of booze from the minibar and drained it down the sink. They would be added to my hotel bill, but I didn’t stop pouring until they were all gone. Then I stripped off and stepped into the shower, to wash the smell of whiskey from my hair.

  The warm water cascading down my head and shoulders didn’t refresh me. I felt like absolute shit and knew that I had just flushed down the drain the only cure for that feeling.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, I stood in front of the mirror, staring at the face of a half-dead man. Weary eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, and a sheen of sickly sweat clung to my skin. I had barely slept. At times, I’d clasped the blankets tightly around my shivering body, vainly trying to retain heat, while other times, I’d thrown off my covers and fanned air against my feverish skin. I had cursed myself to the deepest parts of hell for putting myself through the anguish.

  Waking nightmares had prowled the dark all night. Several times, I’d left the bed, determined to go wherever I could get a drink; once I’d gone as far as opening the hotel door and stepping into the corridor. Each time, I had forced myself back under the covers.

  That morning, the thirst was still strong, but I felt I could control it at least until I had seen Burnett. I could do that much for my country. Perhaps that would make up in some small way for Darius’s betrayal.

  I splashed water on my face, hoping it would refresh me and make me appear less sickly. It did neither. I sighed and exited the hotel room. At the door, I swiped my ID again and chose the option to check out. I headed back to the conveyor pod. The layout in that part of the undercity was a rectangular maze where every corridor looked the same, so I looped back on myself a few times before coming to the ornate doors that indicated the central part of the district.

  Inside the conveyor pod, I keyed in directions to the Washington district. Several other people got in at the same time, mainly suited businessmen, who all selected the Manhattan district. I leaned against the back of the pod, and my eyes drifted closed. I staggered and almost fell when the pod jerked to a stop.

  Did I fall asleep? I usually only slept in conveyor pods when several bottles of whiskey deep. The remaining businessmen got off over several stops, leaving me alone when the pod reached the Washington district.

  Most of the districts of Under Nyork were named after parts of New York. Washington had been the seat of government of the United States, so the districtthat hadbecome the center of power in Under Nyork and the wider American Conference had adopted that name. The tens of thousands of cities and towns of the North American continent had been reduced to just twenty giant undercities.

  I exited the pod. It felt strangely quiet and ordinary in the district, considering the seriousness of the situation they were dealing with, but I guessed most of the activity happened behind closed doors. Just outside the Capitol building was a chamber that was bigger even than Times Square though not as useful for meetings—a large crevasse occupied the center of the space. Most of the chasms within Under Nyork were in the outer parts of the undercity and were used as graveyards or for garbage disposal. The one in the Capitol was too shallow for those purposes and just ended up being an ugly eyesore. Though perhaps some liked having something so unique in the Capitol area. The chasm was commonly called the Shroud, and according to the comedians, all the secrets were buried there. The Shroud was also used as a graveyard and for garbage disposal, the joke went, except closet skeletons and political dirt were shoveled into it.

  I stepped up to the protective barrier that surrounded the chasm, and I looked down. There wasn’t much to see—just an ugly black pit that the artificial lighting didn’t attempt to penetrate. Sadly, the Shroud was the closest thing to an iconic structure that Under Nyork had. I had seen pictures of old New York before the Third World War, and it had been magnificent. Even when I’d flown over the ruined desolation above, I’d still seen hints of what it had once been. There had been so much glorious achievement in those old cities, but in the undercities, the most interesting thing was a giant hole in the ground.

  I continued past the Shroud to the glass doors of the Capitol building. Two mibs flanked the door, standing pillar-like as I approached. I guessed that their eyes were following me behind their sunglasses, but they remained outwardly motionless. I walked confidently up to the entrance, hoping the doors would automatically open for me. They didn’t.

  “I’m Jordi Roberts,” I said. “President Roberts’s brother.”

  They didn’t react at all. Do these mibs report to Burnett? I wondered. Or directly to Larsen? The Bureau director wouldn’t want me visiting Burnett since she seemed intent on suppressing the information about Darius. Inside the lobby of the Capitol, various other mibs stood at attention—there wasn’t any way I could make a run for the chief of staff’s office, even if I got through the door.

  I turned to the mib on my left, a stocky fellow with a forearm wider than my neck. “You mibs all have impressive self-control. Makes me wonder what training you have to go through to achieve that. Does it involve standing as still as a statue during anal probing?”

  A muscle twitched on the mib’s cheek.

  “As I said, impressive,” I continued. “Listen, I need to talk to the Chief of Staff, Samuel Burnett. I can’t tell you why—it’s above your security clearance. Is there someone I can speak to who’s higher on the evolution
ary scale—sorry, I mean higher on the chain of command.”

  My knees felt so weak that standing was difficult, and yet, I was taunting someone the size of a small tank, daring him to knock me into last week. I wasn’t sure that insulting the mib had helped at all, probably made me less likely to get to see Burnett, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted something to happen at least.

  Nothing did. The mibs continued to ignore me. Inside the building, staff went about their business, throwing disinterested glances my way as they passed. I would have preferred getting thrown to the other end of the Shroud to being left to wait with barely an indication that I had even been noticed. This wasn’t how I imagined it. I thought I would have to fight my way through a host of mibs until Burnett noticed my bravery and rewarded me with an audience or be forced to retreat to the bar, bloodied and bowed, but at least knowing I’d given it my best shot. If they just left me in front of the building, I would collapse from lack of sleep. That was exactly the kind of ignominious defeat I wanted to avoid.

  I turned my back to the glass door and leaned against it. A sigh escaped me as I took some of the weight off my feet. I had the energy of an eighty-year-old man. “What would you do if I fell asleep here?” I asked the mib.

  The mib’s head shifted toward the open pit.

  “You’d throw me into the Shroud. Is that it?”

  A ghost of a smile touched his lips. Then he lifted his hand to his ear. “Very well,” he said, not speaking to me. He reached down to his left side and pressed something.

  Before I realized what was going on, the door shot open behind me, and I fell backward and landed heavily on my backside. “Up the stairs to second floor, turn right,” the mib said. Then the glass door slid closed behind me.

  Everyone in the lobby had stopped what they were doing to stare at me lying on the floor. I gingerly got to my feet and avoided eye contact as I crossed the lobby and ascended the steps to the second floor. Stairs were unusual in Under Nyork—the undercity was structured as layers of single-story levels. The only exceptions were the Capitol and Times Square. Elsewhere, the conveyor system was necessary to travel between levels. On the second floor, the mibs moved aside to let me pass. I followed the corridor, where the vibrant-blue carpets were even plusher than the ones in the Waldorf district. Portraits of former presidents lined the walls, but I didn’t see Darius, though I didn’t look too hard for his picture.

  At the end of the corridor, a secretary was sitting at a desk. She gestured toward a set of double doors, which automatically opened for me. I stepped inside.

  Burnett’s office didn’t have the same sense of grandeur the corridor outside had. Its decor was the same, but it was in a chaotic state. I had never seen so many print books in one room, and various papers and documents littered the desk. Several screens lined the walls, although only one of them was on. It displayed a map of the world, color coded based on each country’s sphere of influence, showing the devastators as large black dots.

  Burnett came out from behind his desk and held out his hand. “I always start every meeting in this office by apologizing for how messy my desk is. It’d be easier to allow the cleaners in, I know, but I just feel more at home with clutter.”

  “Thanks for seeing me.” I shook Burnett’s hand. “I would never have taken you for a messy person.”

  Burnett smiled. “My team makes sure I’m presentable in public. Everyone has secrets they don’t want the world to know. All things considered, being messy isn’t the worst of them.”

  Was that a reference to Darius? Or me? Finally in Burnett’s office, I was hesitant to broach the subject of Celeste. I picked up a leather-bound book. I couldn’t read the full title—something about economics. “I didn’t think there were this many of these still around.”

  “Only collectors like me value old-fashioned books.” Burnett picked up another book and leafed through it, his fingers delicately turning the pages. “Some of these are not in the system, and it’d be a shame to lose the wisdom. The old world was a fascinating place, and a lot of what we learned has been lost. I understand why it has to be that way. There are more important things usually going on, but I’m a lover of knowledge above all, Mr. Roberts. Every spare moment that I’m not governing, my head is in a book.” He gestured at the map on the wall. “Not that I foresee much free time in the immediate future.”

  I put down the book and moved to the screen. “Is it as bad as it looks?” The areas controlled by Europe and America were vastly overshadowed by the swaths of the earth that our enemies had laid claim to.

  “Yes.” Burnett stood beside me. “And it doesn’t tell the whole story. The Territories have launched a ground offensive near Under Norleans. They seem to be trying to drill their way into the southern part of the undercity.”

  “What about the mines?” The undercities were ringed with mines to avoid an attack like that. Of course, they were a last resort. Normally, ground attacks didn’t happen on American soil because the devastators kept attackers away. Ever since the first devastators had been built, air superiority meant everything both in attack and defense.

  “The mines are causing delays and damage to the enemy forces. We can’t send a ground force out to stop them with a devastator hovering overhead. However, we did launch a sneak air attack. Volunteer pilots flew close to the ground during a night mission. We destroyed large parts of their base, but nine out of the ten planes were shot down, so it came at a high cost. That gives us a few days, but they are rebuilding, and they’ll be ready for a similar attack.”

  “Do you need more pilots?” Volunteering for a suicide mission—that was something I could try. I might get a chance to make up for what happened during the battle of Rockall and maybe even compensate somewhat for Darius.

  “We need more planes.” Burnett went to a side desk and moved aside a pile of books to reveal a whiskey decanter. He pulled off the top. “Where are my manners? I haven’t offered you a drink yet. Would you like one?”

  I would have torn off my own skin just for a taste. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but I thought I could smell it even from the other side of the room—a glorious golden-rich scent. I took a step back. “It’s a bit early in the morning for me,” I said. “But you go ahead.”

  Burnett smiled and replaced the top of the decanter. I bit down hard on my tongue to stop myself from changing my answer. Soon, I promised myself.

  Burnett gestured to the map again. “I’m not sure if we can stop them from taking Under Norleans at this stage. We have a firewall set up to block their network from the rest of our system in the event of a breach. Nevertheless, it’s important we make it as tough as possible for them so they think again before trying to take another city. We’re next.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’re next’? Under Nyork?”

  “I’m afraid so. The Bolivar will take up a position over New York within a day. We’re not sure when, or if, a ground offensive will happen, but we expect extensive enemy bombardment soon. Contingency plans have been drawn up to move command and control of military forces to Under Cago.”

  “And China?” Their devastators were in a holding pattern around the edge of their empire.

  “We have reached out, but they won’t talk to us. China and the United States have been enemies for so long that I don’t know how reconciliation could even begin.”

  “So there’s no escape. We and Europe are getting weaker and weaker day by day while our enemies get stronger.” The parts of the map shaded blue for us and gold for Europe looked like an ever-shrinking prison from which we could never escape.

  “No one’s giving up. A wounded animal is at his most dangerous when it’s cornered.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?” I was pretty sure that some of what Burnett had revealed about Under Norleans and the approach of the Bolivar hadn’t been announced on the news networks yet.

  Burnett leaned back against his desk and smiled. He certainly was a charming bugger. I wishe
d I could figure out if it was all an act. “Because I want you to understand the gravity of the situation we are in. So that you’ll understand when I have to turn you down.”

  “You know what I’m going to ask of you?”

  “I’m never one hundred percent sure of what will happen.” Burnett’s gaze was piercing. “I am rarely surprised. I did expect you to accept my offer of a drink, though.”

  Has everyone read my file? And what the fuck does it say about my drinking? “I didn’t come here to ask for anything. I just came to give you information.”

  “Maybe. So you just came here to tell me about Celeste and your brother? Mari Larsen informed me about that yesterday.”

  So she had told Burnett. “Why haven’t I seen anything on the news about it?”

  “You were at the funeral. I presented Darius as a symbol of hope, our light in this dark time. We can’t go and tell the people that he’s a terrorist after that.”

  “But it’s the truth.”

  “People don’t need the truth. Right now, it’s crucial to keep morale high for the upcoming battle. Survival is the most important thing.” Burnett flicked his wrist in a dismissive motion. “Truth hardly registers.”

  “But they have a plan; I know they do. Darius knew he’d be killed when he got on that transport, but he was willing to sacrifice himself for what he thought was the greater cause.”

  “It’s better not to destroy your brother’s reputation right now.”

  “He destroyed his own name. I just want what’s best for the American Conference.”

  “Do you?” Burnett went to a pile of books and riffled through them then held aloft a slim volume. “This book is called The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Around two thousand years old and still quite fascinating. Through the ages, those who followed its principles did so in secret, despite their effectiveness, because its ideas do not sit easily in the human gut. One of the main themes is that the ends justify the means. The rightness or wrongness of each individual act is unimportant in itself. The crucial thing is whether the final result is better or worse. So, say I tell you that lying about Darius is in the best interest of the country—would you do it?”