Trask took a final sip for the road, and got to his feet. As he did so, he heard her voice speak directly behind him.
“It was good of you to come,” said Meia.
Trask smiled.
“I promised you that I would.”
“It’s good, because it makes it easier for me to kill you.”
And his smile disappeared.
CHAPTER 37
Meia asked him if he had a weapon. Trask said no. She told him that if she searched him and found he was lying, he would regret it.
“How?” he asked. “It’s not like you can kill me twice. Incidentally, you might like to tell me what I’ve done to deserve dying by your hand.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she asked him again—this time more forcefully—if he was carrying a weapon.
“No, but search away,” he said. He had still not turned to face her. “I’m not fool enough to walk the streets of Edinburgh at night with a gun in my pocket.”
Trask heard her footfalls moving behind him. Moments later she took a seat on the next bench, folding her body onto it so that she could lean back and watch him. A scarf concealed most of her face, but he could see that she had changed, even before she let the material drop. Only her voice was the same. It was odd, knowing that it was her yet looking at the features of another. The cosmetics that she had applied lent her face some individuality, but it still looked unfinished.
“Was it hard?” he asked.
“There was . . . pain.”
That wasn’t what Trask had meant, but he let it go. Anyway, if she was talking with him then she was one step removed from killing him, and he wanted to avoid that if at all possible.
“I thought robots couldn’t feel pain.”
“I’m not a robot.”
“Mechs, then. Whatever. I mean, you’re not—”
Trask paused. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, or even if he should say it.
Meia finished the sentence for him. “Alive?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I . . .”
He trailed off. It was wrong to say that Meia was not alive when she clearly had life of some kind. She had emotions too, but could an artificial life-form be programmed to feel or did it just imitate emotions, making all the right sounds and expressions but, in fact, experiencing nothing?
“Pain was not part of our design,” she said.
“Then why do you feel it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure it was real?”
Meia smiled bleakly.
“Yes, it was real.”
They were silent for a time. Finally Trask spoke.
“That’s very peculiar,” he said.
“Yes, it is. It’s why we were marked for destruction. Our designers believed that there was a flaw in our programming, that our emotions were a—what is the word?—a ‘glitch.’”
“And what do you believe?”
“I believe that I am alive, and all sentient beings have the capacity to develop. My feelings are real, because I am real.”
She looked at Trask. Her eyes were still the same as well, he realized; her eyes and her voice, and both were filled with a depth of emotion that could not be counterfeited. When Trask spoke again, he did so softly.
“Earlier, when I asked if it was hard, I meant losing your face, losing your identity.”
“My face is not my identity,” said Meia. “My identity lies within. I have a soul.”
Bloody hell, thought Trask, we’re on strange ground here, make no mistake about it.
“Do you believe in God?” Meia asked him.
“Sometimes,” said Trask. “I lost my faith after your lot appeared, but sometimes it still surfaces.”
“Do you believe that you have a soul?”
“Yes, I suppose I do. But—and no offense meant here—I wasn’t made in a laboratory, or built in a factory, or however you were put together.”
“You were created in the factory of the womb. You are an assemblage of cells, just as I am.”
“But your creators were the Illyri.”
“The Illyri simply put my cells together in the correct order. What I am made from came into being with the birth of the universe, just as the materials of your body did. The Illyri did not make the matter of the universe, and neither did humanity. We both come from elsewhere.”
Trask nodded. Very strange ground. Very strange ground indeed.
“Does this mean that you’re not going to kill me after all?” he asked. Throughout their conversation, the little pulser in Meia’s right hand had not wavered from its position. It had remained pointing at him throughout.
“No,” said Meia. “It will take more than that to save you.”
“Why do you want to kill me?”
“I gave instructions. Lord Andrus was not to be touched.”
“With respect, you’re in no position to give instructions to anyone.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand. In case you haven’t noticed, the Illyri are burning and killing their way through Scotland. We haven’t seen oppression like this since the early days of the invasion. Your beloved Lord Andrus is in charge here, and the buck stops with him. He’s a legitimate target—more than legitimate. We’ll be doing humanity a favor if we wipe him from the face of the earth. Althea says he’s not the same anyway; she’s says he’s changed.”
Trask took a deep breath to calm himself. It didn’t seem wise to shout at someone who had a weapon leveled at him, but for the first time Meia’s resolve faltered.
“Althea?” she said, thrown. “When did you speak to Althea?”
“This morning,” said Trask, and he gave a dull laugh, “when she woke me up with a truly dreadful cup of tea. She’s back, or did you miss that, Spymistress?”
Meia knew of the old affair between Trask and Syl’s governess, yet nothing had been heard from Althea since she left for the Marque with Syl and Ani. In her own way Meia missed her, for while Althea had been quiet she had also been smart, and unfailingly loyal to those about whom she cared—and she’d cared about Meia. Not many among Lord Andrus’s staff had.
“Where is she now?” she asked.
“At the castle. Watching and listening, as always. The killings would be far worse without the intelligence Althea provides, but of course you’ve missed all that too.”
“No,” said Meia, and her hand steadied on the weapon. “I have seen it. I was in the Highlands. I watched burnings and murders. Where possible, I did what I could to stop them, even to the point of killing Securitats. But the Andrus I know would not act in this way. He is not as he once was: I admit as much. Perhaps what has happened to him can be undone, perhaps not. But I also owe him a debt of loyalty beyond anything you can comprehend, and for that reason, and that reason alone, he is not to be harmed. If another attempt is made on his life, I will make all involved pay dearly.”
Trask frowned, and any remaining affection for her vanished from his face.“Was it you who killed the sniper?” he asked.
“His name was Benton, and, yes, I killed him. He felt nothing, and he wanted to die anyway. It was an act of mercy.”
“I know his bloody name! I sent him to do it!”
“Which is why you’re only a couple of breaths away from being killed in turn.”
Trask closed his eyes.
“Shoot, then. Just do it and stop babbling at me.”
“Open your eyes.”
Trask kept them closed for a few seconds more, then did as she told him.
“Why? So you can look into them as you shoot me?”
“No. So that, if I let you live, I’ll know we’re in agreement. Tell me, Trask: why did the Green Man tell you that he wanted a senior Diplomat captured and brought to him at Dundearg?”
&nbs
p; Trask answered reluctantly.
“He said that the Illyri were developing some kind of new Chip. He spoke about biomechanics. He said that it could change the course of the conflict, and it was important that he got a look at it. We heard whispers, though. They spoke of something medical, an infection.”
“The Green Man lied to you, or perhaps he was just mistaken. Certain senior Diplomats, Consul Gradus included, were carrying something new in their skulls, but it wasn’t an enhanced Chip.”
“What was it, then?”
“A life-form. An unknown organism. It may have infected Andrus—his own daughter sent me word that he was compromised before she was exiled.”
Trask’s confusion was reflected on his face. “But why? Was that the infection? Where does it come from?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve been trying to find out. Lord Andrus may be able to provide some of those answers, but he can’t if he’s dead. Listen to me: I believe that these things, whatever they are, represent a threat to both the Illyri and humanity. There is much going on here that we do not understand. I need space to do what needs to be done, to uncover the truth. I cannot waste my time second-guessing the Resistance.”
Trask was thinking. He was a bright man. It was why Meia liked him, and why, if she had to, she would kill him before she left the zoo.
“Those rumors of people going missing,” he said, “do they have something to do with this?”
Meia considered lying, but opted instead to tell the truth. She needed Trask. Only a handful of humans and Illyri knew precisely what had happened at Dundearg, and they were either being hunted, like Fremd and Maeve Buchanan, or were far from Earth, like Syl, Ani, and the Kerr brothers. Meia could not continue alone.
“At the Eden Project in Cornwall, I witnessed countless bodies—both human and mammalian—being used as seeding beds for something, but back then I wasn’t sure what it could be. Anyway, it’s all gone now. I am the only one who saw it.”
“We have to warn people,” said Trask.
Meia was expecting this.
“Warn them about what?” she said. “We know next to nothing. And if we reveal our suspicions now, and cause a panic, the Diplomats and their Securitats will act, and what will follow will make the Scourging of the Highlands seem like a gentle rebuke. It may even lead to the destruction of this planet.”
Trask rubbed his face with his hands. The action made his eyes water.
“We’ve had word from across the globe,” he said. “The Corps is withdrawing its Diplomats on a daily basis, and not replacing them.”
“I know.”
“Pretty soon there won’t be a senior Diplomat left on Earth,” said Trask. “We had started to hope.”
“Hope what?”
“That we’d won. That the Illyri were leaving.”
“They are leaving, but you have not won. We were all misled. The Conquest was only the first step. The true invasion has not yet begun.”
Trask noticed that the zoo had gone silent, as though something of what they were discussing, a hint of their fears and the consequences if they were correct about it, had communicated itself to the animals.
Meia lowered her weapon.
“Trask,” she said, “I trust you. Now you have to trust me.”
CHAPTER 38
So Meia and Trask settled down to talk. They had no fear of being apprehended by the Illyri. Trask had entered the zoo unaccompanied, for that was his agreement with Meia: their working relationship was a matter for them alone, especially now that she was being hunted just as much as, if not more than, the members of the Resistance. But the roads to and from the zoo were being monitored by his people, and as a sign of the faith that he had in them, his daughters were inside the zoo perimeter. They were under strict instructions not to approach the old raven cages, not unless half the Illyri forces in Scotland suddenly descended from the skies.
“I heard whispers that you made it to Iceland,” said Trask.
“They were true,” said Meia. “The Highland Resistance arranged to move me between a series of fishing boats. The Green Man helped.”
“How is he?”
“Alive. Maeve too.”
“I’m glad.”
Trask took a swig from his hip flask. He didn’t bother to offer it to Meia. She’d never accepted it in the past, and now that he knew she was a Mech, he understood why.
“I was surprised to hear that the Green Man was an Illyri,” said Trask. “Shocked, even. Still doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“We’re not all bad.”
“Do you still think of yourself as one of them?”
“I’m not sure. Even before they began hunting me, I always felt like an outsider. But I had their skin, and their eyes, and I fought for their Conquest.”
“Complicated,” said Trask. “It’s a wonder you didn’t blow a circuit.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Maybe. What were you doing in Iceland?”
“I was curious to know why the Corps had sealed off the whole island nation.”
“And what did you find?”
“The ruins of a research facility at Dimmuborgir. Parts of it were still smoldering. I also discovered bodies in the volcanic caves. Lots of bodies. Hundreds of them. Teenagers mostly, but also older men and women. Some children too. All torn apart.”
Trask had another drink. It seemed appropriate.
“We’d lost contact with the Resistance in Iceland,” he said.
“That might explain why.”
“Any Illyri left?”
“A handful—mostly Securitats and a few junior Corps aides.”
“Did you manage to interrogate any of them?”
“One. His name was Suris. He was among those who torched the Illyri base there.”
“And what did he have to say about it?”
“He was little more than a janitor, but he said that humans were brought into that facility and didn’t come out. Quarantine procedures were in place for them. He never saw the laboratories at the core.”
“He could have been lying.”
“No,” said Meia, “he was not. Well, maybe at the start, but not by the end. He said the scientists left once they were certain that the facility was burning.”
Trask stared at his hands.
“I’d like to have had a few hours alone with the Illyri bastards who killed those people.”
“There are doubtless similar facilities elsewhere,” said Meia. “If we could pull together all of the rumors about them, we might have a better picture of what was, or still is, happening. Not that it matters. As I said, I visited the Eden Project some time ago now. I believe what I saw inside the laboratories was evidence of attempted implantations. They were seeding human beings with an unknown alien species, but they kept failing.”
Trask wiped his face with the back of his arm and stared away into the middle distance. He blinked rapidly, opening his mouth as if to speak, but then shutting it again.
“If it’s any consolation,” said Meia, “the Illyri I found in Iceland are all dead now.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose.”
“It seemed like the least that I could do.”
“And yet the evidence is gone, up in smoke along with the entire Eden Project too,” said Trask. “They claimed that the fire at Eden started accidentally, but I suppose I know better after what you’ve told me.”
Meia said nothing.
“What will they do with us?” Trask asked.
“I think that they will kill you all. Every human being. Every life-form on Earth.”
“Jesus.”
Meia turned to face him directly, and her unblinking eyes were unnerving.
“Trask, I need your help. I have to get off this planet.”
“Are you deserting the sinking ship too?”
“They will find me if I stay here, and if I am captured, I can be of no help to you.”
“And you can be of more help to us billions of miles away?”
He could not keep the skepticism from his voice.
“Trask, you have no idea who I am, or what I am capable of,” said Meia. “All you have is my name. You can’t even say that you recognize my face any longer. But I promise you: if you help me to escape from Earth, I will do everything I can to save your people and your world. Right now, Earth is about to become like Iceland: a sealed-off island where the Illyri can do as they please, and that means any help has to come from outside. Am I making myself clear?”
“Not really,” said Trask.
“You are a frustrating man.”
“I know. But it doesn’t matter if I get what you say or not: I have to trust you. I don’t have much choice, do I? What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to do what you do best: I want you to attack the Illyri, and I have one particular Illyri in mind . . .”
• • •
Later, when she was gone from the zoo, Trask remained seated on his bench, smoking and drinking. Eventually his daughters came looking for him, fearing that he might be dead, but they still did not approach him directly. Instead they spoke his name when they were sure that he was within earshot.
“Dad?” Nessa hissed. “Dad, are you okay?”
He heard her voice, and grinned. Even when she was trying to be quiet, Nessa was loud. He loved that about her: her confidence, her brashness. Just as with her size, it was how she had been made, and she luxuriated in it. Nessa was happier in her skin than anyone else he knew, and he was glad. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be hurt. She had her tender spots and insecurities, just like any other girl her age, but they were not the obvious ones. A boy could call her fat and she would not even blink. She’d take his head off, aye, but only to teach him a lesson about keeping his opinions to himself, and because she didn’t like the way he’d said “fat.”
Jean—she was a different matter. Lord, but he didn’t know where she’d come from. She was quiet where her sister was loud, and always seeking the insult that she believed lay buried at the heart of any compliment. A rage burned inside her, a kind of madness, but he had no idea what its source might be. Jean had simply been born angry.