“That’s because I’m not just buying your wyverns, Harold,” said the Executive General. “I’m buying a very specific kind of assassination.” He spoke without inflection, laying the facts out, costs and benefits, profit and loss margin. “No Man’s Land,” he clarified. “Your flock will take out Zachary and Paulina, and a few others besides. I want this to look like true terrorism, not a targeted attack on a couple Incorporated executives, or the Barricaders won’t care.”
“The Aberdeens.” Jellicoe whistled. “I’m surprised. Always thought they were favorites of yours.”
“Why, because I bought their war mechs over yours from time to time? Because I expensed scotch and steaks and yacht trips for them?” That strange smile spasmed across the Executive General’s face again. “That’s not friendship, Harold. That’s a business relationship. You of all people should know the difference. And when business relationships go sour in my company, someone’s liable to get hurt.”
“Ah.” Cool understanding dawned over Jellicoe’s features. “So it’s true. They’re gunning for your office.”
“The Aberdeens want my seat in the company, and the Barricaders have been baying for your blood for years. The money I’m offering you will buy both, when your wyverns lay waste to No Man’s Land in a nice, convenient public atrocity that I can decry for the deaths of my dear friends, the Aberdeens.”
“Generous, Roman. But I can’t spend your money if I’m dead.”
“Relax,” drawled the Executive General. “You’ll only die on company record. Your assets, wyverns most importantly, will be ceded to me. But you, physically, will be sunning yourself on a nice little island, with a very fine money launderer at your service, far from the politics of this tiresome continent.”
“You’re shitting me.”
The Executive General shrugged. “You’re the one who wanted to retire soon. And this is a far better retirement than most executives of your age achieve.” The crystalline eyes stared unblinking at Jellicoe. “Take the deal, Harold. You know it’s for the best.”
The clip ended.
“A very fine cyberintelligence officer—one of Jay and Anabel’s cousins, in fact—remotely rewired one of the security feeds in Harold Jellicoe’s main offices,” said Bishop. “There are at least three other clips on that cylinder, plus documentation of some very large amounts of money being moved about, and a one-way travel itinerary for a dummy alias. It’s confirmed: the Executive General will be acquiring Harold Jellicoe’s new wyverns, and with them, the means to Incorporate the Barricade Coalition. Starting with its crown jewel: New Columbia.”
Pru stared bleakly at Hakeem. Her heart thudded inside the empty cavern of her ribcage, the Executive General’s empty, stretched smile playing across her mind’s eye. “This is war. You have a recording of grounds for war.”
“Not quite,” said Bishop. “Jellicoe agreed to sell those wyverns and do the Executive General’s dirty work like the coward he’s always been, but he’s got one last ace up his sleeve.” He tapped the cylinder again.
A bright, blue-tinted hologram burst to life at the center of the room, between the three of them. Pru flinched back from it. “That’s a wyvern.”
“Not just a wyvern,” said Bishop. “Take a closer look, both of you. This one’s an alpha.”
Pru looked, despite the prickle of gooseflesh rising on the backs of her limbs. She’d never be able to see another one of those things, even within the confines of a hologram, without reliving that night in No Man’s Land all over again. Every wyvern she saw would always be Dick Masterson, razor-edged scales blooming to bloody life from his flesh, giggling and struggling to spit his own words out, minutes before plasma fire rolled across his tongue, minutes before Anabel’s gun splattered his skull against the beach cabin floor.
This wyvern, though, once Pru took it in properly, was different from the flock at the beach. It was slightly larger, closer in size to the dragon mech than the other wyverns, its metal scales more smoothly tucked against the reptilian cyborg skin that hid the human inside. And its eyes, blinking out at Pru from the hologram—its eyes went right through you, dark blue and piercing. Not at all like the dragon’s pupil-less silver-blue lenses, hiding tiny cameras behind the chrome. These eyes were not reptilian, not machinelike, not anything that could be read as alien. They had too much vicious and familiar expression behind them for that.
The wyvern alpha’s eyes wanted to convince you they were still human.
Alex’s eyes narrowed on the alpha’s blue irises. “Who’s hosting the alpha cell? You know. You must have known for some time now, or else Jay Park wouldn’t have tried to keep you quiet.”
He’d cut to the core of the matter, by invoking the alpha’s identity. Pru could see it all over Bishop’s face, the complicated, painful thing the older man’s features did, an echo of the bitter expression he’d worn that night at No Man’s Land. “We haven’t known for as long as you think. Our operatives only got a hold of the footage of the alpha when . . . a week or two before that dragon mech of yours first made Miss Wu’s acquaintance.” The Chief of Staff chose his words slowly, syllables clipped with hard-edged care. Something shifted in his manner when he clicked the cylinder again, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. “For what it’s worth, Alexandre, I am sorry you had to find out this way.”
The hologram shifted. The wyvern, lifting its serpentine head, closed those uncanny eyes and began to transform itself. Metal scales retracted into human skin. A fall of fair hair emerged from the reptilian crown. The face beneath shortened and twisted, snout sliding backward into a human nose, while a pair of full, human lips closed over what had been the wyvern’s jaws. The eyes blinked open, the same deep shade of blue as the wyvern’s, but fully human now, wide and fair lashed.
The arrangement of the hologram’s features struck a terrible chord in Pru’s memory. Beside her, Alex drew an inhale like a knife to the lung, and buckled against the table. One of Pru’s hands, helpless and shaking, found his shoulder, trying and failing to steady him. Silent save Alex’s ragged breathing, they stared at the face of Etienne Lamarque.
“There’s been a mistake.” Alex’s voice scraped sharp through his throat. “My mum said he died. It’s . . . she said so, before she . . . before she . . .”
“Died,” said Bishop softly. “Before she died, Alexandre. They were trapped in an Incorporated labor camp that had just exploded into a warzone. Julia was badly hurt, and terrified—brave, loving, determined to the very end—but no less terrified, and no less doomed. Your mother wouldn’t have lied deliberately to you, but you can’t trust her information under those circumstances either.”