The Cleanway Read online

  “Good,” said Cannwald. He looked down at the filthy handkerchief in his hand, then snorted and tossed it onto the long table between him and Ryan. “Get your team and go to work. I’ll send you the full information on your way.”

  Ryan saluted, then turned. The young officer outside looked just as nervous as before. Ryan raised his eyebrows at him, wondering if the young man knew what Ryan had just learned from the colonel. If he did, that would explain his anxiety.

  After breakfast, Rebecca and I took the train south toward my home in Lotdel Tower and along the way, the building from which Elizabeth and I planned to run our new network. We had the rent paid through January and would launch the network fully in early December. We were still courting sponsors, so I wasn’t surprised to find an unfamiliar black car in the parking space before the front ramp.

  Rebecca glanced at me, one eyebrow arched.

  “I don’t know. Could we have a new benefactor?”

  “I hope so,” said Rebecca, “Soliciting investors has been tough on you and Elizabeth.”

  “She’s been working at it more than I have.”

  Rebecca touched my shoulder gently. “Are you always humble these days? Take some credit.”

  “I would if I could.” I grinned. “It would be easier if I had any idea who owns this car.”

  We climbed the ramp and double glass doors greeted us at the top, both scratched but still heavily polished. The doors were on our list of things to replace once profit started coming in, but they weren’t too important. Most network buildings did not see a lot of foot traffic.

  After all, the business of networking went on more outside than in physical structures.

  Rebecca held the door for me. I glanced at her and she rolled her eyes. “Chivalry’s dead, alright?” She waved me inside, then followed once I obeyed.

  The front lobby of the network building for mine and Elizabeth’s as-yet-unnamed network looked overly large from the entryway, brightly lit from a series of pulsing light-veins in the ceiling and two more along each wall. The tiled floor gleamed, still a bit slick from a late-night mopping.

  There was no one behind the front desk, as we had not yet brought a secretary on full-time. Ever since the incident with Yashelia and her human henchmen, I had been a little nervous to interview personnel. The purifiers had never managed to catch the illusionist the Rogue Star had employed to defend her garden, and all I knew for sure was that she had been both female and human.

  Rebecca and I made our way to the stairs behind the wide front desk. We climbed them to the landing outside the two offices where Elizabeth and I had set up as co-executives. I felt odd considering myself a leader, and someone’s boss to be, but if I didn’t adjust soon I would embarrass myself in front of my new employees in no time.

  I beat Rebecca to the conference room door and held it open for her. “After you.”

  She smirked. “You can’t resuscitate old-fashioned manners on your own, Jeth.”

  I shrugged and let the door slam shut. “Oh well, a man can dream.”

  Rebecca laughed and slapped my back. “And a woman can open doors.” She pulled the door handle, then stepped inside.

  Once again, I went second through the doorway. My co-executive, Elizabeth Ashwood stood at the far end of the table. Golden brown hair flowed down the back of her black dress. Her bright brown eyes were on the woman across the table. The woman I didn’t know had an elegant build and wore a dark gray tailored suit. She turned as Rebecca and I entered. One eyebrow arched.

  “Mister Gall, I presume?” she said.

  “That I am.” I smiled. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Elizabeth nodded to me. “I missed telling you who we were meeting, earlier. Jeth, this is Sarah Harper.”

  I really should have recognized her from the papers, as the foremost co-executive of one of the largest networks in the city, Balanet. I tried not to look too surprised. Sarah’s other eyebrow rose, telling me I failed.

  “Good to meet you,” she said. “Your partner wasn’t sure if you would be here today, and said she couldn’t contact you.”

  “I don’t use ichor on the weekend,” I said. “Excuse me for the inconvenience.”

  “Understandable. I’ve heard your old employer, Omasoa, pushes her memeotects hard.”

  She casually mentioned the aeon who ran the entertainment network I was in the process of leaving, but I had to wonder how much she had studied me and Elizabeth prior to this meeting to find out where I worked, yet I had known nothing about it. I couldn’t blame Elizabeth, though, given the time I spent helping Rebecca settle in over the last few months.

  “She does, indeed.” I held a hand out to Sarah. “As a result, I regret to say I am somewhat uninformed.”

  “Of course.” Sarah clasped my hand and shook it. “Mister Gall, I was just discussing with Miss Ashwood the possibilities of subsidizing the launch of your new network.”

  I had guessed as much but knew better than to take it for granted. Sarah Harper commanded a great deal of respect, along with her brothers who were also her co-executives at Balanet. She made dealing with governing aeons for favors look simple, at least in black and white. Her company’s credit was nearly limitless as a result.

  “I hope we can agree to something mutually beneficial,” I said.

  The risky parts of dealing with such a powerful benefactor came to mind at once. Aside from the obvious predatory scams, which I mostly wrote off if Elizabeth had set up this meeting, I considered the possibility Sarah would demand something we were not ready for in return for Balanet’s support. Most of all, I wanted to maintain our independence from any single aeon, and that meant not getting in too deep with Balanet or its numerous suppliers and supporters.

  “Likewise, Mister Gall.” Sarah gave me a small smile. “Though if we are to continue talking business, I must ask who this is?” She indicated Rebecca with her eyes.

  “Of course, Miss Harper. This is—”

  “My name is Rebecca Waters,” she said, “I’m new to the city.”

  “New? From the west? Interesting.”

  I nodded. “She’s an old friend. I’ve been helping her settle in.”

  “So she is not part of your company?”

  Rebecca shook her head.

  “You’ll understand if we discuss this behind closed doors then, Miss Waters.”

  Rebecca nodded, then glanced at me. “I’ll wait outside.” She pushed the door open and went to stand on the landing.

  I did not like making her wait but figured she would understand the importance of this meeting. Rebecca may have said she was new to the city, but in actuality had lived there for years more than I had before she’d been cleaned. She knew the Harper’s influence as well as I did. The door closed.

  “Shall we begin?” Elizabeth said.

  The room felt warm as Sarah Harper took a seat, then extended her mind toward me and Elizabeth. I had heard she been using ichor almost constantly over the past year but thought it a rumor. I wondered if there was any truth to the tabloid claims Thomas sometimes read out loud while we were in the elevator back in Lotdel Tower after meals.

  Elizabeth approached my side and offered me a plastic bottle with a drinking cap. I wasn’t on a dose but decided it would be better to go along with Sarah’s plan to communicate it. I took the bottle and sipped it.

  The flickers of light at the edges of my vision brightened. The warmth from before was replaced by the tendrils of chill from Elizabeth’s crystalline mind as it brushed the edge of my thoughts. Sarah’s information packets delivered a set of documents, which I accelerated through my language-processing center. The packets constituted a contract, one with reasonable terms according to my quick analysis.

  My mind touched Elizabeth’s, allowing us to confer silently without having to compose messages and send them individually.

  I think it looks good, I sent.

  I agree. Barring any traps, we can take it. Elizabeth withdrew from me, an
d I took the cue to release my grip on the network in the room.

  When I could see again, a second later, Sarah nodded to the two of us. “There is my offer.”

  We needed the funds, and like Elizabeth had mentioned, the contract looked tidy enough.

  “Looks more than generous,” I said.

  She shook back her dark hair. “Consider it carefully. We can sign the print version before the end of the week if you don’t change your mind.”

  “Thank you.” Elizabeth smiled. “I only have one question, Miss Harper.”

  “Go ahead,” said Sarah.

  “How did you hear about us?”

  “An aeon named Sudhatho mentioned your network to me two weeks ago while he served as an arbitrator on a recent dispute my company engaged in with another network.”

  Sudhatho. I smiled to cover my urge to frown. “Sudhatho, the teloite fleet commander, of course.”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth nodded without missing an instant.

  Neither of us mentioned that Sudhatho was the aeon who nearly sealed me and Thomas in a garden with a murderous, renegade aeon just a few months ago. He commanded powerful forces but had used a small group of them as a sacrificial diversion in the process. My friend, Ryan, knew all too well how dangerous Sudhatho could be to his own people, having worked analysis on that operation.

  Of course, I was suspicious, but Sarah seemed genuine. I wanted to trust her, at any rate.

  Sarah stood. She collected the slim black case she had brought with her. “Good to do business with you. Your company really ought to find a name. I would have addressed you by it just now.”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said with a smile.

  We walked Sarah out of the conference room. Elizabeth escorted her the rest of the way out. I stopped to talk to Rebecca, who waited to one side on the expansive landing.

  She clasped her hands in front of her and inclined her head toward me. “How did it go?”

  “Good, for now. But there’s something else.” I frowned and lowered my voice. “She heard about us from Sudhatho.”

  Rebecca inhaled sharply. “The aeon warlord. He knows something even I don’t about Yashelia.”

  The name of the deadly, insane, aeon sent a chill down my spine. “We’ll be careful while we deal with Harper.” I didn’t know if Yashelia was still alive, but she still scared me. What I’d seen in her garden could not be easily forgotten.

  “Let’s go,” said Rebecca. “This place can’t be empty much longer.”

  Rebecca, Elizabeth, and I rode the train south, toward Lotdel Tower and the district nearby where Rebecca lived. We planned to meet up with another friend of ours, Thomas.

  I wanted to get back home and discuss the possibilities of Sudhatho’s involvement in this new deal with all of them. Visible from the windows, street sweepers worked below us, pushing leaves into bags. Except for the directors, who guided the action from light-powered trucks spread along the road, these people were cleans, former people without memories or willpower.

  I watched them with a frown on my face. Not so long ago, Rebecca had been Rain, a clean, her memories stolen by Yashelia. Before we had brought her back, the means of restoring a mind had been only a rumor. For most people, they remained that way.

  Elizabeth leaned toward me from the seat opposite mine. “Hey, you alright?”

  “Fine,” I said, “except…I’m not sure if I like dealing with Harper.”

  She frowned at me, a thoughtful expression more than one of frustration. “You could have said so earlier, but consider this, Jeth, with their funding we won’t need any other new sponsors. Our network will be ready.”

  Rebecca put a hand on my arm. “It’s not Harper, is it? It’s Sudhatho.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. Sudhatho recommended us to Harper. Even if we can trust the Harpers, I don’t think we can trust him.”

  “Do you have any proof he did something wrong?” Elizabeth asked. “I mean, back at Shelly’s garden, that was one of his ships.”

  “Not just any of them either, a light ship under his direct command.”

  Rebecca’s eyes returned from the haze of a brief info-dive. She removed her hand from my arm, leaving a tingle behind on my skin. She had that effect on me, even through my sleeve.

  “I’m certain of it,” she said. “Everything fits.”

  “So, he was there.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why would he leave all those purifiers to die?”

  “That’s exactly what Ryan has been trying to find out.” I sighed. “He hasn’t gotten too far yet.”

  Rebecca pointed past me out the window. “What’s that?”

  Elizabeth and I turned as mirrors of each other. Outside, the cleans had stopped sweeping the street. A motorcycle idled in their midst. The directors were nowhere to be seen. One of the trucks was overturned. Smoke rose from its dented hood. Could it be another Rogue Star, like Yashelia? In a wild moment, I watched the rider of the motorcycle turn toward the elevated tracks and our train. The cleans on the street turned in unison with the rider.

  What the hell was going on down there? The train carried us past them. Before they vanished into the distance, I was already using the vestiges of the ichor in my system to enter the network. Rebecca and Elizabeth did the same. We dove in deep, looking for news alerts related to the scene we had just witnessed. There had been no wide-range warning, but something was wrong.

  Not another rogue. Not another rogue. I never prayed any more, but my fear got the better of me in that moment. Please, don’t let it be another rogue.

  With a squeal of breaks, the train began to slow. We were close to the station near Lotdel Tower. The cleans in the street stared at the train. I only wanted ordinary after what I’d seen in the garden, but my suspicion became, I was moving further from ordinary than I had ever been before.

  The train rumbled toward the station.

  Unregistered Memory, Thomas Fenstein, Lotdel Tower Train Station

  At first, Thomas did not notice anything out of the ordinary at the station. He had been waiting patiently—well pacing at least—for Jeth and the others to arrive. Then some of the other people in the station started pointing to the street outside, through the wide gaps in between the roof supports.

  When Thomas looked, he recognized the tell-tale vacant gazes of cleans, dozens of them. They left the tracks clear but mobbed the entrances of the station. They looked like zombies from the fiction of the old world, though substantially less gruesome. Thomas had seen far more horrific sights, both on the battlefields of his service days and, more recently, in Yashelia’s garden.

  Yet, the sheer number of cleans blocking the way out, packed tightly together, gave him cause for concern. Not only that, but why are they swarming? He had never seen or heard of anything like this in the past. How does one coordinate that many mindless bodies as one?

  Thomas suspected he would not like the answers to his unspoken questions.

  Cleans pressed in on the crowd. Thomas frowned as people at the entrances of the station began backing away from the mindless mob on the outside. Someone screamed as cleans reached through the turnstiles, grasping for clothes, arms, and limbs. He peered over the cleans, looking for any source of their sudden aggression.

  He saw nothing to explain their actions. The train pulled into the station. Cleans swarmed through the entryways.

  Thomas whirled to face the nearest set of turnstiles. He clenched his fists as panicked people began to push. A young boy fell to the floor with a cry of alarms. Perhaps a dozen cleans rushed toward him.

  A woman in black gloves and a form-concealing jacket stepped out of the crowd to place herself between the boy and the on-rushing cleans. His mother? Thomas did not spare another thought. He raced to the boy and then helped him to his feet, then tugged on a hand to direct the child toward the newly-arrived train.

  He looked back as the cleans swarmed the woman. She hur
led them back with surprising strength, given her slim frame, but only one by one. They fell but immediately scrambled up to attack again, groping with hands and slashing with fingernails. One of them raked at the woman’s face, but the fingers glanced ineffectually off a white mask set within her jacket’s dark hood.

  Thomas let go of the boy’s hand. “Keep moving,” he said to the kid. Then, he charged toward the place where the woman flung cleans this way and that. She clearly had some kind of experience brawling, but there were too many to let her take them alone. Here I go, playing hero again, he thought and clenched his fists tighter. The sound of his footsteps pounded like a second-heart-beat in his ears.

  “What’s going on out there?” asked Elizabeth.

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell. But those people attacking, they’re—”

  “—Cleans,” said Rebecca. “But why would they attack?”

  The train doors did not wait for us to reach a verdict. The sides of the car slid open, letting in the people mobbing the sides of the platform as they tried to get away from the hostile cleans pouring into the station. A stab of worry hit me in the gut as I recalled Thomas was in there somewhere.

  A small form squeezed through the crowd and jumped into the car where Rebecca, Elizabeth, and I were getting to our feet. The kid, Max, who I recognized because he and his mother lived on my floor, barreled toward us.

  I stopped him with both hands on his shoulders. “Max, what’s going on?”

  “Cleans! They’re inside!” he said.

  I patted his shoulder. “It’ll be alright.”

  “Mister Fenstein helped me get away. He’s still out there.”

  Rebecca and Elizabeth shared a glance. I nodded, reaching the same conclusion I suspected they had. “We’ve got to find him, and keep the panic from getting out control.”

  Even as I spoke the train rocked with more people piling on board, swamping those already in the cars, and pressing Rebecca, Elizabeth, Max, and I against the seats. I pushed back, not wanting to start a fight, but not wanting to be crushed in the press.