33. Revenge
HPG Compound, Anchor City
Ingress, Capellan Confederation
27 April, 3026 (Terran Standard)/5724 (Capellan Calendar)
Adept Levato strolled out onto the stone balcony, a drink in her hand. The HPG facility compound was by the seaside, and the balcony looked out over what the natives had—with their usual monosyllabic panache—descriptively named the Wet Ocean. There was a wide railing in aged and carved stone, clinging vine plants wrapped around its pillars. A couple of deck chairs. A cool ocean breeze, bringing the sounds of the restless surf slowly, ever so slowly, wearing away at the beach below. Fat wet-navy freighters clung to the horizon, almost immobile with distance, so that you had to look away to notice they’d moved.
The sun was setting, its golden light breaking and dissolving into smears of orange and red that spanned the horizon.
“Lovely, isn’t it?”
Levato stiffened but did not turn immediately. She swirled the drink in her hand, admiring the way the copper liquid caught and trapped the light, and transformed its own shimmering surface into gold. “Don’t you mean, ‘Lovely ain’t it’ Commander Gordon?” She did turn then, and saw him sprawled loosely in one of her deck chairs, one leg thrown carelessly over a knee, a pistol resting on his lap. “Your accent is slipping.”
“Is it? Can hardly tell anymore. Lie to yourself for long enough, it gets so you can barely remember who you are.” He cocked his head at her. “Ain’t that raht, Adept Levato?”
He didn’t threaten her or tell her not to scream, and Levato appreciated that. Let them end this like adults. She leaned against the railing behind her, putting the sea and its bottomless, endless sunset at her back and setting down her drink. “You spoke with Zlato?”
Sebastian picked up the pistol from his lap, extracted the magazine and inspected it, then snicked it back into place. “Mmhmm,” he said, punctuating his reply with the metallic click of the pistol’s safety.
“You should know we have our reasons. If you’d just—”
Sebastian sighed and pointed the pistol at her, still held carelessly in his lap. “I don’t care,” he said. “We’ve all got reasons, all got things we want. Can’t all get them. That’s what war is: deciding who gets to get what they want, who has to do without.”
“And what do you want?”
He smiled tightly. “I want to get to decide what I want.”
“Only that? So small a thing for the unsung hero of Ingress. You know, I have a better idea, of a more fitting reward. All it will take is one message from me.”
Sebastian chuckled. “I think by now we’ve established how little I care about money. And you, m’dear, have sent your last HPG message.”
“I have?” And she smiled. That smile he’d seen, the first day he met her. The wolf’s smile. “There’s a message in my pocket now, to be sent with this evening’s transmission. You might find it interesting. If I may?” She moved her hand slowly towards the pocket in her robe. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, but he did not fire, nor tell her to stop. Levato withdrew a square of printout paper, neatly folded, creases sharp enough to cut.
The paper crackled in the silence as Levato unfolded it. She cleared her throat.
“To: Duncan Marik, Commander, Marik Militia, From: ComStar Truth and Reconciliation Committee into Anton’s Rebellion, Re: Pardon for Civil War Officer. It is the finding of the committee that Sebastian Gordon, Lieutenant Junior Grade, formerly of the 3rd Marik Militia is innocent of all charges made against him. Accordingly, it is our recommendation that his dishonorable discharge should be stricken from his record, and he should be immediately reinstated to his former rank, with back pay owing. Yours, etcetera, Olivia Levato, Adept.”
Levato watched the man carefully, but he seemed carved from the same stone as the parapet. She stretched out one arm, lazy as a cat, and dangled the paper over the edge of the balcony. “Well?”
Sebastian snapped back to the present, blinked at her. “Well? Well, well, well.” He smiled, a mocking smile, but the mockery was aimed at himself. “I think this is where I’m supposed to say I don’t care and pull the trigger anyhow, but.”
He clicked the safety back on the pistol, and returned it to a shoulder holster under his armpit.
“We all got things we want.” A thought occurred, and he nodded to himself, the slow light of understanding dawning across his features. “You had that message all along. Back when we first met, at the bank. You had no way to know we’d pull a stunt like that, but you’d arranged to come to meet us anyway. And I was stupid enough to hand you the perfect blackmail material.”
Levato said nothing, but took three fingers from the paper, so that it fluttered in the breeze between just her index finger and thumb.
“Deal. So. I go back to the League, and in return I keep my mouth shut about Ingress.”
Levato withdrew the paper from the edge of the balcony. “Precisely.” Folded it again, each edge ruler straight. “We did not get everything we hoped, but then, nobody did, I think. You can’t always get everything you want. We are realists, Commander … or should I say Lieutenant Gordon? We will keep our side of the bargain. I hope we can trust you to keep your word.”
“Aw now Levato, that hurts mah pride,” Sebastian stretched, then placed his hands on the arms of the chair and thrust himself to his feet. Fished a pair of sepia sunglasses from a pocket and slipped them on.
He grinned, and his distorted reflection in Levato’s dark eyes grinned back. “Mah word is good as gold.”
THE END
