Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Olline was positive Casimir’s chip was still offline. She felt no trace of it when she shut Bode down. Casimir couldn’t say for sure if Bode had found them completely by accident. He was leaning toward coincidence, as Bode wasn’t acting like he was on assignment. Which left only one other explanation for how Bode found Casimir to begin with: there was something in his apartment that alerted Etzel to Casimir doing something unscripted.
If their plan was going to succeed, Olline needed to dismantle whatever tracking device may be hidden in Casimir’s home. Never mind that Casimir had already told her his place was most likely being watched, so it wasn’t safe for her to be seen there. Forget the possibility that it was Olline who tripped something, who Etzel had sent Bode to find. Those were details Olline was trying to pretend were small and didn’t matter as much as they most certainly did.
Olline’s stomach was already churning. Any more anxiety and she was liable to puke. So, ignoring certain things seemed like a great idea.
“Are you certain you don’t need to get back to the sub-basement?” Casimir asked, looking at her askance, his hands clenched within his pockets.
They were idling on the sidewalk a safe distance from where Bode remained on the bench. Olline refused to move farther away until the emergency services team arrived to ensure no one took advantage of Bode while he was vulnerable. Even this high in the city, there were plenty of people who would scavenge tech right out of an unconscious body. So far, the steady stream of business attired people hadn’t stopped. They were too focused on their own wrist-comms, or their gaze hazy as they watched something from an ocular implant, but guilt kept Olline rooted nearby.
Olline shrugged, tugging the strap of her satchel higher on her shoulder. “It doesn’t really matter now. Either this thing with Bode was completely accidental, in which case, no, I don’t need to get back to the Government Plaza. I never clocked out, remember? Or this thing with Bode wasn’t random, which means the bigger threat is to you. Either way, this is the smart play.”
She wasn’t about to tell him how nervous and wary she was about this. Casimir would just do the nice thing and tell her to forget it, and his freedom. His life mattered too much to her to allow him to do that. Even after such a short time together, she found she enjoyed his company. Perhaps it was because she knew no one else, but she found she looked forward to his easy, dry sarcasm, even his effortless flirting. Especially the flirting, actually, despite her constant flushing.
Casimir was still frowning, trying not to glare in Bode’s direction, but his body still tensed whenever someone got close to the man. She bumped his shoulder playfully to distract him. “What’s the matter, Cas? You afraid to bring a lady to your home?”
He gave her another sideways glance, but this time amusement danced in his deep red eyes. “Quite the contrary, Tav. But I wanted your first visit to my humble abode to be a bit more carnal than this.”
His words had Olline choking on the air in her lungs, coughing and sputtering at his side. Which made Casimir chuckle, watching her with a devilish smile on his face. Olline wasn’t sure if he had simply been teasing, he enjoyed getting a rise out of her, but with how his eyes lingered on her lips . . . Her core turned to liquid and her cheeks blazed like a wildfire. She grappled for some witty retort, but couldn’t think around the possibilities his words brought up in her mind. She was positive she would think of the perfect reply the next day, when it was too late to matter.
The biomagitech disaster services saved her. Their drones appeared almost out of nowhere to hover over Bode Collins. The few people glaring that this lone man was taking a whole bench to himself scattered as the drones zipped in. Yellow light washed over the inert Bode, scanning him as the drones established a perimeter, pushing those who craned their necks to see what was happening out of the way. A second later, the wailing sirens cut through the din of traffic and the pedestrians as the main response team arrived.
Casimir tilted his head, tracking the sound. When the blaring red lights became visible, bouncing off the glass and polished steel mega sky-towers surrounding them, he gently put his hand on the small of her back and turned her away. “Come, we can cut through here and save some time. I know all the shortcuts. Here’s hoping none of my other coworkers decide to surprise us.” He didn’t bring up the whole carnal thing again, so Olline decided he was simply teasing her. It was better for her sanity to believe that, anyway.
He insisted on taking the automated pathways and high-speed elevators to get to where he dwelled, lower in Antal. There was less risk of getting stuck in a sky-cab where Etzel could override the robotic driver. The way Casimir was leading them was meandering—to better see if anyone else was following them—so it took what felt like forever to get anywhere in the city.
Antal pulsed with life everywhere they travelled. The dim mauve tones shifted to blue as they went higher, and a copper-green when they descended lower once again. The megalithic towers showed their age with cracked plexi-glass and rusty splotches that the cruel blare from the neon advertisements highlighted. No amount of work from a maintenance bot could repair some of the rust or the damage from centuries old gang wars. One day, developers would strip these buildings and replace them with new businesses and coffin-sized apartments void of personality. But for now, even in their disrepair, there was an almost cozy quality to them with how lived in they appeared, how they seemed to sag closer together for comfort.
Throughout their meandering flight, not once did Olline spy anyone who looked like they were following them. While she appreciated the tour, she was getting antsy and uncomfortable with the silence. It didn’t seem to bother Casimir, though.
Perhaps the thing Olline was uncomfortable with wasn’t the silence, but her own growing attachment to a man who seemed to know more about her than she did about him.
“Can I ask you something?” She skipped closer, making sure she was at Casimir’s side so she could observe him better.
He smiled at her, dipping his head. “You’re rather adorable when you’re thinking of what you want to say. Ask away, Tav.”
Her heart tripped over itself, and she tried to stop being moved by his compliments. He was so casual with them; he couldn’t really mean them.
Focus, Olline.
“You said something about Bode. That he’s endured worse? That you know he has based on experience?” She saw the slight stiffening of his shoulders and licked her lips, deciding to press on anyway. “What did you mean? Was that how you got . . . captured by Etzel?”
His stride slowed, but then Casimir seemed to catch himself and picked up the pace again, his expression shifting into that all too familiar granite mask. “I suppose it’s only fair for you to know the whole story, since you’re trying to ensure my freedom.” He shrugged like it didn’t bother him, but the muscles in his neck and jaw were tense, making his words slightly clipped.
Casimir eyed the people around them for a moment before turning down a sloping alley between businesses, thick with the smell of soggy refuse. “For any of this to make sense, you have to understand that I idolized Kullen. He took care of me when we had no one else. He was my flawless big brother. I’d have continued to follow him blindly if he hadn’t sold me to Etzel.”
Olline couldn’t suppress a gasp of horror. Her chest tightened, her heart squeezed too tight, and her gut fell through her. She couldn’t imagine someone selling another person, let alone your very own brother. She’d had her own issues with her brothers. Their family was a complicated one given she was their humani half-sister, but even in those darkest moments when she was still a child, she would never even think that they might do something so unforgivable.
Casimir shifted, as if uncomfortable with her horrified reaction, and quickly pressed on as if he didn’t want her to apologize on his brother’s behalf. “In order to rectify his own mistakes surrounding his . . . vices, my brother made a deal.” He sighed heavily, turning her down another narrow walkway next to a service road, this one managing to smell even worse. “Kullen loved the pleasure club scene. The sex, booze, and debauchery of it all. He had no business sense. But I did. We made a good team in that regard. Then Kullen let his taste for narcotics get the best of him.”
Olline sucked in a breath, ready to tell him how awful addiction was, because it was, when Casimir shot her another sidelong glance, and snorted. “Oh, I didn’t care what he consumed. Narcotics shouldn’t be illegal. Regulated, yes. But illegal? All it does is ensure that recreational drugs remain unsafe. It doesn’t, and won’t, stop their production.” He shrugged off her scowl, then shook his head. “But I digress.”
He was silent, which worked well for Olline because she really couldn’t think as she hopped over one questionable oily puddle after another. Once they left the alley behind, Casimir found his voice again. “His penchant for drugs, he took too many for me to remember them all now, got the best of him. He was caught in several compromising positions with men and women who shouldn’t have been in his clubs. I had cleaned up his messes before. I didn’t mind doing it even though I told him time and again his vices would be the death of him. Of us. But I’d no idea that he resented me the way he did.”
They walked down a cracked and uneven side-walk giving the few people huddled on the street a wide-berth. Soon enough, Casimir stopped and squinted up at the decrepit, mega sky-tower in front of them. The building was dull with age, several windows were broken, or replaced with flimsy tarps. Rusty oily stains trailed down the side of the building. The longer Casimir peered up at the complex, the more Olline worried he would change his mind about sharing his story with her. But with another little shake of his head, he waved for her to follow him.
“I didn’t know that Kullen begrudged the fact that it was me that made our club enterprises as successful as they were. If I’d known his jealousy had begun to fester. . .” He sighed, pushed open the grimy door to the complex, and ushered her inside. “It doesn’t matter now. Kullen got himself entangled in another mess. But instead of going to me, he turned to the Under Senator who’d given us our latest business license.”
Casimir trailed off, his gaze going distant, lost in a memory. He moved on autopilot, leading Olline through the shabby lobby marked by unidentifiable stains and the stale smell of smoke. Olline’s skin crawled like little bugs were all over her with how filthy everything around them was.
He summoned the elevator, his eyes blankly settling on his reflection. She reached out and gently put her hand on this taut shoulder blade. She wanted to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone, not anymore. With a slight shudder, Casimir came back to himself. He didn’t shake her hand off. In fact, he seemed to lean into it ever so slightly, and her heart clenched.
“I never learned the details of their deal. Etzel never cared to tell me. At first, it was too heartbreaking to ask, and now, well, it hardly matters. I can see the results clearly enough without knowing how little my life was worth to my brother. Kullen operates our businesses with impunity now. And Etzel has— had me,” Casimir said with a mirthless laugh, cut short by the elevator doors opening.
They stepped inside, and Olline was slightly comforted by the high floor number Casimir pressed. He wasn’t buried in the toxic underground of the city-state, at least. “All I know is why I was such an attractive offer. Etzel loves to tell that story.” Casimir couldn’t hide the sneer in his voice as he glared at the elevator doors, staring at something she couldn’t see. “Etzel had a million ideas for how to utilize someone with my looks, charm, and intuition for finding the right clientele for our businesses. It’d have been a nice boost to the ego if I hadn’t been strapped naked, face down on a table with a surgical bot above me, poised and ready to install the control chip.”
“Oh, Cas, I’m so sorry,” Olline murmured. She couldn’t stop herself. His voice wavered with so much repressed emotion that he tried so desperately to hide behind his nonchalance. He had been pretending, hiding, for so long that Olline didn’t think he knew how to stop. She hated that his tenderness, his need to help his older brother, had backfired so cataclysmically that Casimir tried to bury that side of himself so thoroughly now. She looped her arm through his, at a loss for how else to comfort him.
His gaze whipped to hers, fury making his eyes flash like emergency lights, but then he seemed to remember it was her that held his arm and not someone else. “I don’t need your pity, Olline,” he said, words clipped as he jerked his arm free. “It is what it is. I managed to survive and I’ll continue to do so, regardless.” Olline winced, his words a sharp barb straight to her breastbone. Casimir cringed. He licked his lips, and watched the numbers blip by as they raced up the building, and Olline tried to ignore the chill spreading through her arm from where he had shaken her off. Worry prickled at her scalp. Had she messed everything up?
His face fell briefly, and he ran a hand through his silvery-white hair, dropping his gaze to the elevator floor, and mumbling, “I apologize. I didn’t mean to be an ass. Not to you.” Almost shyly, he took her hand. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t until Olline gave him an encouraging squeeze that he relaxed again.
After a moment, he shrugged, still trying so hard to appear unbothered by what he was sharing, and Olline wished she could tell him it was okay to not be okay. But Casimir didn’t seem to want to hear that, either. “Etzel primarily uses me for luring people involved with the business and government panels in charge of his campaigns—or in opposition to his plans—and get them into compromising positions. He records the blackmail, stores it on the server, probably the one you’re digging through, and ensures that no one can oppose his power.”
“When you say he uses you,” Olline began, but trailed off while she searched for the right word.
“Oh, I mean that quite literally I’m afraid,” Casimir said, forcing that same mirthless chuckle in an attempt to make light of the situation. “The chip allows him to use my body. When he’s in control, I’m no better than a puppet. I have no idea what happens when he takes control anymore. I’ve gotten very good at disassociating, you see. I’m still left with the aftermath when Etzel’s grip loosens. It gives me a good idea of what kind of evidence Etzel collects. Sometimes I awaken covered in blood, not always my own. Other times, I wake up covered in the aftermath of some orgy. Occasionally, I’ll be standing in the operating room where I have led his next victim. I’ve been through the gamut. So, when I told you that I know Bode’s endured worse, it’s because we all have. Every single one of Etzel’s thralls is used similarly.”
Olline was speechless. At least when the elevator slowed to a stop, and Casimir led her out into a grim, grey hallway, it gave her an excuse to remain silent, to come to terms with everything he was saying. She couldn’t in her wildest nightmares imagine someone so willingly collecting living, breathing, people and using them in such a way. And for what? So they could remain in political power? It was so . . . small, so unimportant, for what Etzel Straub was doing to people like Bode, like Casimir.
Mutely, she followed him down a narrow hallway, stopping in front of what she assumed was his apartment door. “The thing that’s kept me sane the century I’ve been his slave,” Casimir said, his voice barely above a whisper, “is the knowledge that it’s not me doing these things Etzel forces my body to do. That each time I have to do something horrible, I get to use this.” Casimir pulled out a mechanized stiletto. The long-bladed knife unfolded in his hand, flashing such a bright silver it looked made of liquid. With a tiny gasp, Olline realized this was the blade he had almost used on Bode, the one she had, most likely, felt pressed against her own skin.
He tucked it away quickly, still staring at his front door. “Kullen gave me this when we opened our second club. For protection, he said. I never got to use it for that. But I use it now when Etzel forces me to do violent things, as a way of transferring the blood on my hands to Kullen’s instead.” He hung his head, sighing. “I know that’s not how that works, but it does let me sleep at night occasionally.”
Olline’s stomach was rolling, vines of bile crawling up her gorge, and her eyes stung with unshed tears. Casimir had been through so much, had survived everything that Etzel had forced him to do, and he seemed so . . . functional despite it all. Or perhaps it was in spite of what he had survived, the betrayal he had endured.
If Olline had been in Casimir’s shoes, she would have turned into a crying blob on the floor decades ago, unable to function at all. Casimir made the choice every day to accept that he wasn’t the one responsible for the reprehensible things he did and had done to him. It made her feel even more childish for having run all the way to Antal to get away from the mistakes of her misplaced loyalty.
“I’m going to free you. I’m going to help you get back to the man I know you are, the one who cares about people like me not getting caught up in stupid shit. I’m going to make sure no one uses you again, Cas.” Olline’s voice was steady despite the revulsion still coating her tongue. Casimir blinked slowly, mouth slightly slack, his posture slumping forward, heavy with disbelief. She didn’t blame him. Hope would be a deadly thing for someone in his position.
“I’m impressive, remember?” Olline murmured. “Let me do more impressive things, and watch as I save you.” She squeezed his hand, taking a step closer, wanting to cup his face in her palm and smooth away some of the sharpness.
“I’m going to save all the people Etzel’s trapped. But,” she said, frowning at the apartment door that Casimir had yet to open, “how come you haven’t been able to go to anyone and tell them what Etzel was doing? With as many chips as he has, he can’t monitor you all every minute of the day.” Casimir narrowed his eyes, and she held up her free hand, adding quickly, “I’m not judging or blaming you! I need to know so I can get countermeasures in place for when we do pull the plug on everything. I need to know what Etzel does to keep you, and everyone like you, from alerting, well, anyone to what he’s up to.”
Casimir waved his key fob in front of his apartment, his locks and security system clicking, and his door opened a crack. He took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know exactly what it is, but we’ve tried.” He pushed open the door and entered, letting Olline follow in after him. “Something about our brain chemistry when we’re about to alert someone literally shuts the thought down. It’s similar to a thought you have, and the moment just before you can share it, you forget what you were about to say. After we’ve gone home or left the situation, the thought returns. By then it’s too late. It reinforces the idea that we’re powerless around Etzel, which I’m sure is by design,” Casimir growled, flicking on the lights. “But the specifics of what or how that process is triggered, I haven’t the faintest idea. I just know that since my chip stopped talking to his command center, I haven’t had any such restrictions or lapses in memory. If it weren’t for Etzel’s hands on so much of the Department’s inner workings, I’d have gone to the authorities properly, but with his control system still technically active,” Casimir trailed off, waving his hand vaguely.
“I can work with that,” she said, trying to sound more optimistic than she felt. “Because I meant it, you know. I’m going to free you. You won’t ever be controlled like that again.”
Casimir huffed out a sound that could have been a sob of relief, or a snort of disbelief. He didn’t turn to look at Olline, so it was impossible to tell, especially when he deadpanned, “You’re sweet to want to try.”
Well, fine. He could doubt her if he wanted. She would take that much more joy in proving him wrong.
Olline was puzzling over what in the biomagitech chip could force such a response, when Casimir’s apartment came into focus, the lights bathing the space in comforting periwinkle and azure. He had no windows, but a holo-projection screen that displayed a view of the city not dissimilar from her own. His apartment was a standard cramped little studio with barely any space to maneuver between the bed and minuscule kitchen island, and the small pathway to the bathroom. Even this small space that Etzel “gifted” Casimir, was another thing the Under Senator could rip away at a moment's notice. As she blinked at the surrounding space, she got the feeling she had been here before.
Then it hit her like a speeding sky-cab: Casimir outfitted his little apartment to look almost identical to the artist’s haven he had taken her to the night before.
The barstools tucked under the kitchen island looked like the bar they had sat at together, and the art on the wall were prints of performers that had been at the space. Even the lighting was the same. The biggest difference was the enormous bed taking up so much of the room that there was no space for much else besides one tiny bedside table, with nothing on it. Everything in the room had an oddly antique feel to it, something old and worn in, but looked new still. Despite not being given any kind of additional compensation for his work by Etzel, Casimir cared a great deal for his few comforts, if the bed and emulating the performance space were any indication.
Olline tried not to let her gaze linger on the bed with its plush, stone-grey comforter. Or the black silky sheets she saw peeking out from underneath.
She could feel Casimir’s gaze on the back of her head as she took another step into the room. The intensity of his stare made her skin prickle. But she wasn’t sure what to say, too torn with a desire to comfort and save him while being all too aware that they were sharing a small space with a massive bed between them. Because she was Olline, nervous laughter won out.
With a giggle that sounded shrill even to her own ears, Olline slipped her satchel off her shoulder. “Shouldn’t take me long to clear you of any spying devices. There’s only so many places someone can hide them in such a small space.”
Casimir chuckled, and Olline flinched at how poorly her words came out. “I’ve had no complaints on the size, or what I can do given a few . . . inches.”
Olline rolled her eyes, dismissing his flirtations as a way to move them past the horror he had shared with her. She cleared her throat and silently got to work. True to her word, it didn’t take her long to clear Casimir’s place for spyware. She only found one, and it was a simple motion sensor of sorts. She was able to subvert the signal with help from her earth caster abilities, ensuring the device appeared to be working, without accurately telling Etzel when Casimir came and went.
It didn’t make sense that there was so little here with how Etzel controlled his people. Olline had expected even such a small apartment to be full to bursting with covert surveillance.
Olline bit her lower lip, turning to face Casimir, whose gaze locked instantly on her lip and the indents her teeth made. She sucked in a quick breath, but there was no denying the hunger that flashed in his eyes ever so briefly. She gave her head a little shake, focusing on the task at hand. The task, ironically, was safer territory than anything to do with that look.
“Is there another place you frequent where Etzel may be monitoring you?” She waved her hand at where the bug was, which she put back so nothing would be out of place. “Hard to believe that’s the only external method he uses for watching you.”
Casimir leaned against the wall closest to his door, idly watching her as he thought. After another moment, his eyes widened and his coy smirk returned in force. Leaning toward where she was sitting on his bed, he said, “There’s one place. I haven’t visited since the chip stopped working. Perhaps my absence triggered something? It’s where Etzel has me keep an office, for lack of a better word. I’ll take you, but first,” he said, beckoning her forward, “you’ll have to go home and change. You can’t go where I’ll be taking you dressed like that, my dear.”