Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Yours?” Olline’s heart stuttered in her chest, and she could barely choke out her words. “You have a control chip. Implanted in you?” Her mind spun, a chilly numbness spreading through her limbs, unable to accept his words.
A control chip was the darkest side of biomagitech. Completely able to override a person’s mind, body, and free will, the chip would, essentially, allow remote access to the person being controlled by the chip's owner. It was a violation on a scale Olline couldn’t fully comprehend. Yet here was Casimir, calmly sitting beside her, saying that he had such a device implanted in him .
Suddenly his statement from earlier, of not working for Etzel willingly, made much more sense.
Casimir nodded slowly, anger flashing in his eyes. He blinked, and his mask of nonchalance fell back into place. “I didn’t lie to you, you know,” Casimir began, a vicious sneer pulling his face into severe lines. “Etzel has ensured that, at least where he’s concerned, democracy isn’t an issue. He’s found a way to guarantee his complete control lasts for centuries. The power he’s cultivated is untouchable. All because of these tiny little chips.”
Olline struggled for words, wanted to reach out and comfort him or . . . But his body was so tense, every muscle flexed like he was ready to defend himself, that she didn’t think he would appreciate even a comforting touch. “Casimir,” she started, her voice raw with disbelief and pity.
His head whipped toward her. “Don’t,” he snapped. She startled, and he blinked, taking a deep breath. “Now is not the time for pity, precious Tav. I’ve survived, on my own no less. I will continue to do so regardless of the outcome of this little misadventure. Save your pity for someone more deserving, hmm?”
She swallowed the heaviness in her throat and nodded, sitting on her hands lest she reach out to smooth away the lines of pain, making his beautiful face so severe. “Why,” she began again, then shook her head. The why of it didn’t really matter, now did it? “How did this happen?”
He laughed, harsh and low, his hands flexing, then clenching. “Ironically, I was trying to help someone. I learned my lesson very fast about the cost of doing the right thing. I had minor influence because of Kullen and his pleasure club enterprises. Nothing spectacular, nothing like what Kullen had—has.” He couldn’t keep the anger from his voice, with how clipped his words were, though Olline knew he was trying. “It was enough for our businesses to catch the eye of Etzel and, well,” he flicked a silver-white lock of hair off his forehead, masking the cringe, but Olline noted it all the same. “There was an issue I needed— wanted to take care of. For my brother. Turns out this issue was orchestrated by Etzel. He wanted someone with my look, with my access to places where, if other important people in Antal were seen, it would be more than just a tad embarrassing. So, I was lured to a place I shouldn’t have been.”
Casimir’s words cut off abruptly. His jaw shut with an audible snap, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed whatever emotion sharing this history brought up for him. Olline was about to tell him to forget it, that it was okay, that he didn’t have to continue, when Casimir took a deep, ragged breath.
“Etzel doesn’t ask for the things he believes are his right to take, and I fit that mold. Thanks in no small part to Kullen. Simple as that. I was knocked out, and when I woke up, I had this . . . control chip.” He gestured vaguely to the base of his neck. “Etzel stood over me, explaining exactly what our relationship would look like going forward. How I’d be the first of many to help him create and mold Antal into his version of utopia with none being the wiser. A long game, he claims. But at some point, you have to wonder,” Casimir grumbled, then shrugged. “A century of this shit seems more than merely a ‘long game’.”
A million things ran through her head at once. Horror and disgust for what Casimir must have undergone, that someone could even do that to another person. A sick curiosity about what he had to do in order to . . . what? Collect blackmail from his brother’s clubs? The fun Olline thought she would have dismantling a corruption ring was utterly and completely quashed. Icy terror washed over her skull, sending a shiver throughout her body, when a terrifying thought occurred to her. “You’re still implanted? Is this a trap, too?”
Casimir’s shoulders sagged, his firm body deflated, making him look smaller, somehow. “I am, but this is no trick of Etzel’s, Olline,” he said gently. “I was his first, you see. My chip? Little better than a working prototype from my understanding. When you did your fancy little back door peek into that file, it did something to my chip. It’s not connected to what Etzel uses to control—give me assignments anymore. I’m, temporarily, free.”
Olline sucked in a breath and would have covered her mouth with her hands if she wasn’t still sitting on them. “My fake update,” she murmured. Casimir raised a brow at her, and she hastily added, “It’s what I used to look at the files initially, remember? I knew at the time that if one of those chips was a different version than the rest, it may not sync properly. I just didn’t think something with that level of sophistication would even include an outdated device.” The more she spoke, the quicker her words came out, the full scale of what she had accidentally done clicking into place. “My update made it so the server Etzel uses can’t communicate with the client. Your chip can’t receive instructions, basically.”
Casimir grew still. His eyes widened slightly as she spoke, drinking in her words. Finally, he asked, “Ever?”
She bit her lip, not willing to go that far, but not wanting to destroy whatever hope he may have. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I need to dig around more. We’d have to find the schematics of your particular chip so I could make it inert permanently. But, if nothing else, no new actions will make it to you. I just don’t know how long that’ll last.” She leaned forward, glancing at all the files within the folder containing the chips. “There’s so many of these, Casimir. So many people, all enslaved by one crooked politician. And you couldn’t tell anyone this was done to you?”
“Etzel is, unfortunately, clever. He took such things into consideration. The chip, dear Tav, isn’t the only means of control he employs over his thralls .” Casimir’s smirk was as vicious as a serrated knife, and Olline figured it was best to move on. For now.
Casimir needed help. Not just with his chip, either, though that took priority. Olline may find him incredibly alluring, in a poisonous flower kind of way, but the ache she felt toward him now was something else. No one should experience what he had undergone. She didn’t need to know the specifics to know that much.
“So that’s how you know so much, right? Like with this?” she said, moving her hand to wave at her holo-tablet and the file they had opened.
Casimir laughed, but there was no mirth to it. “You mean with Everleigh’s file? Yes. Etzel is a crafty bastard for most things, but he’s like any old seersha when it comes to passwords.” He examined his nails, as if bored, but there was still such a despairing look in his gaze that Olline wondered if he truly believed he was fooling her. “It’s like you said. There are too many of us for him to get cute with naming the files. But being Etzel’s first has its advantages, I suppose. I got to see behind the curtain, so to speak.” He waited, as if waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued, “The man has hobbies. Hobbies that are tangentially related to his business interests.” Olline stared at him, a blank look on her face, and he sighed, dropping his hands. “Etzel collects beautifully rendered paintings of the elements and periodic tables. All the things that go into making his evil little contraptions.” Casimir paused, unable to hide the contempt from his voice, the scorn from his face.
“He gave us little pet names based on them. I heard him once, commenting on one of my coworkers . Called him as ‘interesting as carbon’, which is to say he’s rather boring. He laughed while he said it, put something into his holo-tablet, then seemed to remember I was in the room and sent me off on an errand. Ever since then, I had a hunch as to how to get into the files. I just couldn’t access them.” His words drifted off, and his face smoothed enough to give her a tired grin. “Until now.”
Olline tried to smile back, but the coldness throughout her body and the heaviness in her chest made that impossible. She swallowed, hoping her words didn’t sound as scratchy as her throat felt. “Why gold for Everleigh then?”
Casimir’s gaze took on a far-off quality, his smile slight and private. “She’s beautiful, rare in that she’s an upper class humani, making her worth a lot to someone like Etzel. But Everleigh is . . . soft. So, gold.”
“So, it’s not like you knew- knew the passcode, you still just . . . guessed?”
He shrugged, his head hanging slightly, as if embarrassed. “In a fashion. But I’ve been one of Etzel’s thralls for a long time, Olline. I know all these people. Some I even recruited . With enough time, I can figure out the elemental code name Etzel has for all of us.”
Each time he revealed a little more about the chip and what he had done, a million little fault lines splintered through her heart. But if she wanted to help Casimir and all the other people under Etzel’s thumb, she had to be smart about this. Or smarter, really. Smarter than she had been when she had first casually approached the issue, and now smarter than a seersha politician who literally had centuries on her. Failing to silence an alarm quickly would not only reactivate Casimir’s chip, but it would also mean that she would never discover the identities of his other thralls, leaving them enslaved indefinitely. Then there was, of course, that in failing to help, Olline would place herself in the crosshairs of a dangerously powerful man. If Under Senator Straub found her? Well, at best, he would kill her.
No pressure.
Olline shut her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Okay, so we have a time limit here. Probably. There’s no telling how long we have before Etzel tries to give you a command and notices it hasn’t worked, even while at this conference. What I did wasn’t obvious, but it will be if he wants you to do something. Not to mention that if we want to really ensure that this practice of using illegal biomagitech in people is shut down for good, then we . . .” she trailed off, her heart sinking to her stomach with the realization. “Then we can’t shut the other chips down. Not yet. Etzel will notice and he’ll just start the program up again.”
Casimir clenched his hands, the only sign of his agitation. He leaned closer to her, and despite his white knuckles, there was curiosity sparkling in his deep red eyes. “What are you suggesting we do then, Tav?”
She scrubbed her hands over her face, fingers digging into the base of her Mohawk, disheveling the jade and ebony strands. “We have to collect the information from the chips first, divert everything into a clone program. Then we need to get access to wherever those contingency plans are stored. They aren’t in here, from what I can tell. We need all that in a safe location first before we find someone not in Etzel’s influence to give it to. Someone who can and will use the coercion and blackmail to dethrone Etzel and not further their own political agenda.”
Olline groaned. She was too new to Antal to even make a guess who to go to, who to trust. She couldn’t even be sure if she could trust Casimir. What if his chip reconnected? She would need access to more of the schematics before she could even attempt to dismantle the chip with her magic. Biomagitech was tricky; it was practically a living thing and required delicacy and finesse to dismantle without causing irreparable harm to the person the biomagitech device was implanted in. The last thing Olline wanted was to cause Casimir even an ounce more pain or discomfort.
“Not to mention I still have a job to do, even if it’s a farce.” She scrubbed her hands over her face until she saw spots. “If I’m supposed to be making a new server and moving all this over, it’s because Etzel needs it moved and he’ll be monitoring my progress. Probably through Karter, given he was so anal about me clocking in and out. If I stop doing that to focus on this, he’ll suspect something, and I’m assuming that kind of attention will be a bad thing. And all this has to happen in the week before Etzel comes back to the Government Plaza.” The amount of work was staggering on its own, but that’s not what made her breaths come in shallow bursts. It was the ticking clock that made her heart race, her vision blur at the corners, as she fought to keep from getting overwhelmed.
“Look at me,” Casimir said. “Ollie, look at me,” he said again, his tone gentle and coaxing as if he were wrapping her in a warm blanket. “I’m here. I have a vested interest in your success, don’t forget. I’m going to help you. Just take a deep breath. You can always give me the files and I can use the power that gives me to keep us safe.”
Olline couldn’t tell if he was joking, merely saying something so outlandish to get her to smile . . . or if he meant it. He took her hands in his. The gentle, soapstone feel of his powerful hands, the tenderness in which he looked after her when he was the one so abused that Olline couldn’t phantom his hurt, left her lightheaded and her chest aching anew.
He studied her a moment, letting her breathing become deeper, then gave her a sad smile. “Let’s break this down into manageable bites, all right? Let’s spend today getting as many passwords figured out as possible. That is within my power to give you. While you do your magic with cloning files and what not, I’ll look for the right person to give this information to. I’ve spent enough time crawling through the shadows of this city to avoid Etzel’s detection for as long as possible. If that fails, we still have options we can discuss.”
His thumb ran over her knuckles, once, twice, and then he was carefully putting her hands back in her lap. Without his warmth, Olline felt oddly cold, the familiar pang of loneliness ready to strike. She was so focused on the sensation, she almost missed Casimir’s words as he said, “We will divide and conquer, my dear. But you have to recognize the things we can’t control and let them go.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but his sad smile remained as he moved a fraction closer to her, dipping his head a little closer. “I have too much practice in relinquishing control, and you don’t have enough, for good or bad. If Etzel figures out my chip is disconnected? We can’t control that. All we can do is work as fast, and as long as we can, until that happens.”
“ If that happens,” Olline was quick to add.
Casimir lifted a shoulder. “I’m too jaded to have hope, but I’ll borrow your optimism. If the chip is reconnected, I’ll have mere moments to alert you. That’s how you’ll know to avoid me at all costs. Until then, I’ll help you look for the contingency plans. I don’t have your expertise, but I’ll recognize the files when we find them.”
Olline took another deep breath; it helped to compartmentalize the way Casimir suggested. It helped her see the building blocks making up the tower of things they needed to do and take them apart one by one. Wiggling her fingers, Olline leaned over the holo-keyboard once more. Offering Casimir a sly smile, she said, “Let’s bring this system to its knees, shall we?”
His smile was a slow, seductive one that made every one of her nerve endings tingle. “Oh, Olline, I like the way you think.”