Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling) Page 22

  Goodbye,

  Jake

  iv48

  When I came to, I was strapped to a table in the middle of a large, open room. It looked like I was in the palace prison, maybe in an unused guardroom that had been cleaned out and repurposed. Other than empty benches along the wall, there was little in this room that wasn’t on wheels or easily movable. On one side of me, someone in a nurse’s uniform was moving around methodically, but I didn’t register much more than that.

  Standing on the other side of the gurney was Laudley. He was wearing the Imperial seal on his right hand. If it had been any closer to me I’d have tried to bite him.

  Naganika stood behind him, official as ever, still and impassive. If he was looking at anything, it was the man working quietly behind me. He might have been looking at nothing at all. It was hard to tell if he even knew anyone was in the room with him.

  Laudley smiled down at me, a distinctly uncomforting sneer.

  “Hello, Jacob.”

  My voice was rusty. “I haven’t given you permission to call me that.”

  I thought I saw the briefest flicker of a smile on Naganika’s face but Laudley motioned to someone I hadn’t seen and I caught only a glimpse of a guard’s uniform before a huge fist slammed into my gut. I was strapped down and couldn’t curl up around the pain. I lay there, gasping like a fish on the beach. “Odd angle for that,” I croaked.

  Laudley looked confused for only a moment before he made a sound of disgust. He looked at the man behind me. “I’ve had enough of his smart mouth to last a lifetime. You have your orders.”

  The man moved more purposefully, placing receptors on my neck and the insides of my wrists. Laudley sneered down at me.

  “I have your children. I have the throne. I have almost everything I want, and now I’m going to get the final prize.” He looked as if he wanted to lick his lips in anticipation. “I don’t suppose you’d like to publicly confess to the murder of Rikhart IV now? I assure you, if you have to be persuaded,” he gestured around the room, “it will be an unpleasant experience.”

  I managed a strangled sound of amusement. “Confess to killing Pete? No. Not now, not later. Not ever.”

  He grinned. “Oh, I doubt it will take very long to convince you. And I’m glad you aren’t giving in right away. I’ve been looking forward to this part.”

  He nodded to the technician.

  I thought I’d known pain before. I’d been in fights and taken beatings. I’d been flogged. When I was shot at the IIC, the projectile had been coated with a nasty chemical that spread rapidly through my body and made me feel as if I were on fire, inside and out, my body charring to ash.

  This wasn’t like that. There was no place I hurt. I didn’t feel pain, I was pain. I had no body, no mind. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t hear or see. There was only the concept of Jacob Dawes and the white-hot pain that defined him. No beginning, no end. I had never been anything but this blind agony and never would be again.

  I slammed back into my body, trembling so hard my teeth chattered together. Something, blood or drool or both leaked from the corner of my mouth. I twitched and jerked everywhere, though there was no lingering pain except where I’d bit my tongue. In my head was a shadow of agony. Not the sensation but the threat, the knowledge that this pain existed and had found me, could find me again, would find me again. Was a part of me now, always there, waiting.

  Laudley wavered and shuddered in my vision. His smile was a white and pink slash in a pale face.

  “Yes. I will enjoy this part very much.”

  ***

  I lost perception of time and place for a while. Laudley and Naganika left, and I suppose guards remained, though I couldn’t see them. Another technician came to join the first. They were wearing sanitation masks, and I couldn’t see their faces. They moved competently around me as if I were only a thing to be dealt with, a cancer to excise and discard with no regrets.

  Then a woman entered the room. She wasn’t covered up in the impersonal garb of the technicians. She wore a blood-red suit with matching lipstick that perfectly offset the dusky tone of her skin.

  “Hello, Your Highness.” Her voice was thick and fuzzy, deeper than I expected, smooth and lovely.

  “Who are you?” I croaked.

  “I’m Anna,” she replied, and somehow I knew it wasn’t her name. She smiled at me, like a mother to her child. “We’re going to work together to get your memories straight so that all of this unpleasantness can be worked out. It will be much easier if you just relax and cooperate. I’d rather we did this the easy way, so no one has to suffer.”

  I made a rude noise. “Has that ever worked for you before?”

  Her smile was completely reassuring, and completely unconvincing.

  “It will eventually.”

  ***

  Most of what happened after that is lost somewhere in a haze of pain, confusion, and despair. She asked me how Pete had died, but I didn’t want to answer and she patted my hand and said that was fine because she’d help me. Then she started talking in her honey-smooth voice, explaining to me some ridiculous scenario in which I had arranged Pete’s assassination.

  “He wouldn’t take care of the unclass,” she said, not making it a question. “When you asked him to eliminate the unclass designation he laughed at you,” her voice was sympathetic, sad. “He said that was never going to happen. Of course you were angry, Jacob. If you were going to protect your little girl, you had to do something, didn’t you?”

  “No,” I croaked. The face in front of me wavered and fuzzed. Pete. No. Maybe.

  “She’s half-unclass too, and you were so afraid for her. You knew he had to die, even though you loved him. Any father would have done the same.”

  “No. I didn’t, Pete. You have to believe me.”

  I became pain.

  I don’t know how long it was before I became aware of the voice again. “Oh, Jacob, I’m so sorry. Help me, and we’ll get this over with.”

  “I’m trying,” I gulped. “I’m telling you the truth, Pete, I swear. I wouldn’t have hurt you. Never.” A squeaked sob choked me. “I love you. Please. You have to believe me.”

  “No, Jacob. Think. You killed him.”

  “I didn’t! I didn’t, Pete. I didn’t.”

  “Again.”

  Jacob Dawes fell away.

  ***

  “Oh Jake,” the voice said, and maybe it was Jonathan. “All these lies. Wouldn’t Pete be so disappointed?”

  “No.” There was hardly any voice left. “Stubborn,” I managed. “Stubborn. That’s what he’d say.” I could hear in his voice, laced with amusement and affection. Stubbornest man I know.

  I fell into the pain with a smile on my face.

  ***

  I woke in a cell. I wasn’t in pain, not exactly. I trembled all over. On the small table bolted to the floor by my bed was a cup of water. I spilled most of it just trying to lift it to my mouth. There was food, and it didn’t even look horrible, but it felt like too much effort.

  Sometimes I slept, and sometimes the door opened and they dragged me out of my cell and into that room. I never knew how long I was in there, or how long before they brought me back. There was only pain, confusion, those horrible words, and the desperation to make Pete believe I hadn’t done it.

  Owen had another bad dream last night?

  I thought you were asleep.

  I was. Until you got up.

  You should have slept. You haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.

  And whose fault is that?

  You didn’t enjoy it?

  Now there’s a stupid question.

  iv49

  I woke to the quiet sounds of someone moving around my room and for a while I lay there, listening, wondering why it didn’t sound quite right an
d if Pete had gotten up early for some reason. I opened my eyes to find the gray ceiling of the palace prison. I closed them again.

  “Your Highness?”

  I was too weak to startle. I opened my eyes again and when I turned my head I saw Sam. He was kneeling by my bed, and I wondered why he didn’t just get a chair. There was something odd about his face, his expression. His eyes were too bright. His face trembled, and for a moment I thought they must have been torturing him as well. I blinked at him.

  “Please, Your Highness,” he said, leaning closer, moving his hand as if to take mine but he stopped. “Please. Just say whatever they want. Please.”

  I stared at him for a long time. “Why?”

  “Because they’ve already won. They’re going to kill you either way. Why should you suffer?”

  I managed more of a wiggle than a shake of my head. “No.”

  “Why? Why does it matter now? Is it the children?” He looked around. He knew the room was monitored as much as I did so I wondered who the performance was for. He put his head in his hands as if he would cry, but with his face covered he continued in a harsh whisper. “We’ll make sure they know the truth. We won’t let them believe that about you. We’ll tell them all the good things.” He raised his face. “They’re too young to understand.”

  I shook my head. “Pete.”

  “He’s not here anymore to know the difference!”

  I sighed. It was surprisingly easy, as if I wanted nothing more than to blow out all my breath and let it go.

  “I know. That’s why.”

  I spent many years at the secret and clandestine work of treason, but I’d always been the puppet master. I never expected to be the puppet.

  iv50

  It was late evening the next day before we came in sight of Imperial City. We approached it from a vantage I’d never seen before. The sight of the city wasn’t the magnificent towers and skyscrapers I associated with it. They were there but in the background, smudged with the drabness of the lesser buildings and the necessary but hidden functions of the city.

  Imperial City didn’t have a slum, but there was some unclass housing on the fringes. I was sure Lady Chou would take us there, but we passed through and into the middle class section of the city. She didn’t stop until she was well into it, but still not near the high class area. We pulled into the garage of what I could only assume was a standard home for the middle class. The door shut behind us, followed by two thunks of bolts sliding into place. I didn’t think that was standard for this place.

  She led us into the house through a door that was also locked. She entered a code and swiped her thumb but told me to allow it to read my scanner instead. “You don’t have access,” she said, “but with me here, and proof that you’re bound to us, it’ll pass you through. Don’t leave the house without me, though, because you won’t be able to get back in.”

  “Lady Chou—”

  She rounded on me. “I don’t trust you. I’ll help you so long as I think you’re useful and not going to betray us. But you’ll get no considerations from me.”

  She swung around, gesturing to what looked like a kitchen. “There’s food in the fridge though I doubt you have any clue how to use a stove so don’t try to cook anything. There’s a vid with limited access in the office and you can take any bedroom upstairs that I’m not in. Right now I need sleep. Just so you know, the windows are treated and soundproofed. No one outside can hear or see you, so don’t try anything.”

  “Does limited access mean I can get information, or contact anyone?” I asked sardonically, sure of the answer I would get.

  “No. You can watch the official channels,” she said with a look of amusement. “They’re stunningly uninformative, but, you never know, you might learn something from what they don’t say.”

  With that she turned her back on me and went upstairs.

  ***

  She hadn’t been exaggerating the limits on my access. I could watch the regular programming and news channels, but I could only do a search of data that had already been dumped into the house’s main database. I had no ability to access any messages sent to me and I couldn’t send messages out. I found listings of several restaurants in the area that delivered but I couldn’t call any of them.

  I wandered into the kitchen to find what food I could eat. There were cold cuts and cheese in the fridge, and some crackers and dried fruits in the pantry. I ate. And then, with no other options, I found an adequate bedroom and slept.

  I woke to the sound of someone moving around downstairs and the smell of coffee. I entered the kitchen to find Lady Chou at the stove, cooking something that smelled much like bacon and eggs. She was wearing the clothes from the day before but her hair was mussed from sleep. I nearly laughed aloud at the common domesticity of the scene. As if we were anything like that in any stretch of the imagination.

  She turned when I entered and gestured curtly to a pot on the counter. “There’s coffee.” I nodded thanks and, after trial and error, found a mug for it. I would have preferred sugar too, but it wasn’t immediately obvious and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself hunting around for it in a place I clearly knew nothing about.

  “How do you like your eggs?” she said, almost as if it pained her.

  “Over easy, please.” She jerked and gave me an odd look. Was it because I’d said please? “I’m not really the boor you think I am.”

  She snorted. “What I have observed might not be what you’d think, Duke Blaine.”

  I wondered if I should consider it a good sign that she gave me any title at all, or if it was a bad sign because she chose one I didn’t really have anymore, certainly not the last one I’d been given. I almost laughed at myself. I was anything but the emperor now.

  “Is there any news since last night?”

  She stiffened. She was silent so long I began to think she wouldn’t answer. “Prince Jacob has been captured. He’s being held in the palace prison. There are rumors about Jonathan, but nothing confirmed.”

  “The rumors?”

  “That he’s dead.”

  My heart dropped. This was going to be so much harder without Dawes playing the hero and the diversion, and Jonathan managing everything, especially Dawes. I refused to consider that I might dislike that news for any other reason.

  ***

  We spent the day in the house. Lady Chou sat at the vid, reading and cursing. She sent and received communications, but didn’t choose to share them with me. I grew increasingly frustrated.

  “What about Owen?” I demanded.

  “Owen is safe,” she snapped. “Owen has always been safe. He should be the least of your worries right now. You can do nothing for him so long as Laudley holds the empire.”

  “Owen will never be the least of my concerns.”

  She gave me an odd look, as if seeing me for the first time. She shrugged and went back to the console.

  I switched on a vid in the main family room and tried to settle myself long enough to watch the news channel. What I found instead was a documentary of the life of the Grand Duke Laudley that had superseded programming on every channel.

  He was painted in glowing terms. His accomplishments on his home planet were embellished or made up, his dealings with the royal family were reduced to mere misunderstandings and lack of regular contact sufficient to nurture deep friendships rather than outright antagonism. His place in Owen’s life after my “execution,” and his relationship with the Imperial Family was painted as all but idyllic, and affectionate, with the glaring exception of Prince Jacob.

  For the most part they ignored Dawes’ accusations against Laudley in the illicit broadcast, instead simply painting grand pictures of the exact opposite. Those that were more difficult to counteract indirectly were mentioned and refuted with obfuscations and outright lies. The program concluded with a scene of
Laudley, Owen, and Molly playing together, supposedly only the day before. It was beautifully done, and completely fabricated.

  Most viewers probably wouldn’t see the subtle things that were off, the way they never quite interacted directly. There were certainly no hugs or affectionate touches. Someone had put this together out of stock footage and some creative additions, but it would look very convincing to anyone who didn’t know better.

  When it was over, I sat staring at the moving images on the vid, unseeing. Lady Chou entered the room.

  “Was any of that true?”

  I shook my head, not looking at her. “There were bits of truth scattered in there, most of it out of context so that it looked like something it wasn’t. Some of what he did for his own duchy on Torrea is true, though his motives were rarely as virtuous as they ascribed to him. The benefits to the common classes were side effects, not motivations.”

  I saw her nod once out of the corner of my eye. I sighed. “People will believe it.”

  “People will believe a lot of things,” she said. “In general they believe the one who yells loudest and most often, but also the one with the story they want to believe.”

  “And which do you think that is?”

  Her mouth thinned and she shook her head. “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “On whether we can rescue Prince Jacob or not.”

  ***

  As if in answer to her, a broadcast alert sounded. We turned in unison to the vid as the imperial seal appeared. I tensed.

  Citizens of the empire, Naganika said, his image replacing the seal. I am happy to bring you the news of the capture of the traitor, the former Prince Jacob. His treasonous and pernicious lies will no longer assault our loyal citizens.

  His expression was an admirable semblance of sadness. His supposed ‘liberation’ two days from now, when he would have called together other traitors to attempt to bring down the empire from within, will not succeed. No one will stand with him because we stand with the empire.