Ingenious #1

Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

P resident Brooke distracted the soldiers, lumpy and sluggish from stings, while Quiggs and the dean slipped away from the hut and raced on foot along the fringe toward Port Memphis. The green courier pouch, slung over Quiggs’s shoulder, carried urgent information for the commander and cleared them past the watchtowers. Running three miles along the canal’s outer bank was quicker than paddling a small boat against the current and pulling aside to give larger vessels the right of way.

The dean lasted two miles before gasping for breath and waving Quiggs on. “Dammit, Quiggs… I… I… have no words. Good luck.”

Quiggs kept running. He did not want words. Words made his actions real. Words weighed down his limbs with fear.

He reached the city with his badass uniform drenched in sweat, chest heaving, legs wobbling from the burning run. He avoided the busy main dock and circled around to the quiet rear drawbridge used by herders on the southside. An archer on the rampart tracked his approach, bow aimed at the fringe to kill anything that could leap out to snatch Quiggs .

The gatekeeper sat in a shaded niche of the wall. “State your business, soldier.”

“Confidential for Commander Bronn.” Quiggs showed the mail pouch slung over his shoulder.

With a musical ratcheting, the flat bridge slid out from the wall. Beau had loved jumping on the bridge and riding it back and forth. Quiggs walked the middle line, conscious of the murky water below. His steps faltered. Once he entered the city, he committed himself. He sucked in a breath. He could do this. The dean had given him a powerful sleeping tablet to swallow before the security guards seized him.

Quiggs hoped the sun’s reflection off his shield hid his face because he recognized the gatekeeper waiting for him to hurry up so he could retract the bridge: Cadet Locke from the Academy three grades ahead of him. He sported an unflattering shaved head and cropped beard. He was young and fit, and his amber eyes definitely sized Quiggs up for a flirtation. Members of the Border Patrol were always good for an uncomplicated fuck when they hit the city after days of isolation.

When Locke got up close and personal to squint through the shield, Quiggs swallowed uneasily. A frown pulled Locke’s brows when his gaze dropped to the padded biceps, then the long scrawny legs encased in tight pants. “Do I know you, private? Maybe we hooked up in the clinic.”

Quiggs roughened his voice. “I’d have remembered you.” He jerked a thumb at the small gate in the wall, his last obstacle to getting inside. “I need to deliver the pouch.”

“The commander’s away. The Legislative Building is closed, and police have blocked the portico. No one gets in or out while the Assembly’s in session.”

“Why the secrecy? Have the Mothers changed their minds about voting for exile?”

Locke swung open the gate to the city. “It’s not just about voting exile for Concubine Quiggs. Word leaked out this morning the Mothers are setting up a land office to sell deeds. Men are waiting for the doors to open so they can rush inside and put their names on the waiting list.”

“Commander Bronn made it clear his team chooses qualified farmers.”

“You know the Mothers. Haggling over the vote until he agreed to let them profit off the farms. It’s about time ordinary men get a chance to own a piece of land.”

Things would get ugly when the Assembly announced men were prohibited.

Inside the city, Quiggs stopped at the first drinking fountain he saw. He checked he was alone before lifting his face shield and gulping the tepid water. He rested his hands on the curved lip of the basin until his stomach settled.

The smell of baking bread drifted by. Across the street was the Canal Alley Bakery, minus the usual line outside. Nearby was the bench by the stairs to the rampart where Max had tried to hook up with him. A few minutes earlier or later and they would never have met because the assassin would have succeeded in killing Quiggs and changed the fate of the Triangle. Beau would be alive to fight beside Max, whose title would be undisputed until his death.

And Rosamunde would still have called Quiggs a rapist who’d fathered her child. Probably announcing it at his memorial service where the commander—in perfunctory attendance because the deceased was his concubine—would have believed the lie.

Truth, lies, rules, greed—nothing mattered had Quiggs died then. Once the advanced ferals rafted across the canal, mankind was doomed.

But his death today saved the Triangle.

The Plaza was a good walk away on the other side of the city. As Locke had warned him, the police blocked the portico to the excited crowd packing the Plaza. Quiggs circled behind the Legislative Building and sneaked in through an unguarded back entrance. He remembered the combination to the locked door, a shortcut he’d used when his presence on stage as a member of the First Family was demanded, and he ran late. Some of his best theories bloomed on stage during those mind fogs… until Rosamunde’s sharp elbow jarred him awake.

A sloping corridor took him backstage where he tiptoed through a dim and musty maze of props and painted backdrops reused for centuries. The city held concerts, oratories, and funeral services here when the Assembly wasn’t in session.

Had he arrived before the voting? The heavy curtain muffled the words of the moderator speaking on the podium. He groped his way along the red velvet folds until he found the part in the middle. He spread it a couple of inches and peeped out.

The colonists had anticipated a flourishing population when they built the auditorium in three tiers seating three thousand in the designated capitol. Rows of butt-numbing stone benches led down to a simple raised stage with a flag-swathed podium to Quiggs’s left. Attendees brought cushions. To the right was a long table with straight-back chairs. A center aisle divided the tiers. Faded red draperies covered the walls, rumored to hide the engraved original declaration of rights because they conflicted with the later regime of the Mothers.

The Ruling Mothers, in their fitted black jackets and long skirts with padded bustles, sat in the front tier. Expressions ranged from smug to frightened. Unfortunately, smug outnumbered frightened. There would be no deadlocked vote.

If it took Quiggs’s surrender to bring men and women into a new future, so be it. He checked the stage. Where was Governor Lyre? Until she was seated at the table, the session couldn’t begin. He wasn’t complaining. The longer the delay, the longer he lived. He patted the pocket with the sleeping tablet.

Say what you need to say, then take the tablet.

Don’t wait until the last second to swallow the tablet.

Don’t panic and drop the tablet.

And what was he supposed to say when he stepped from behind the curtain and removed his helmet? Hello , bitches. Guess what? I’m alive. In the ringing silence that followed, he’d call Rosamunde a liar, name Palmer the father, and condemn the Mothers for voting to retire Max. He’d have three minutes tops to get the words out and swallow his tablet before the security guards posted near the exits bound and gagged him.

Governor Lyre would rush his execution before the citizens thronging the plaza questioned why she hadn’t proceeded with the exile vote. Quiggs had killed the vines—the greatest feat in the history of the Triangle. Couldn’t the Mothers show mercy?

How would Governor Lyre explain Quiggs was promptly executed because rigidly upholding the laws was necessary to preserve the Triangle? There were never exceptions—until a law inconvenienced the Mothers, at which point such law was blithely amended.

Like retiring the people’s idolized commander in order to annex his outland and auction his land to well-connected women. Thus forcing the majority of men into spending their lives as underpaid and underappreciated laborers.

Heh. A perfect setup for Max, with Quiggs ultimately proving he was right about fighting back.

In his farewell letter lying on the table in the hut, Quiggs had carefully chosen every word to incite Max’s wrath.

My dearest Max, give others the life we’ll never live together. You’ve never lost a fight. I’ve always found a way out. My surrender is the way out of the bleak future for men. I have feelings for you, Max. I’ll wrap myself so deeply in them that pain and fear won’t touch me when I die. I know you can’t feel the same back. What matters to me is knowing you will fight.

Quiggs breathed deeply clearing the scared lump in his throat. His resolve firmed. His heartbeat steadied. Max would fight back.

While he waited for Governor Lyre’s arrival, his breathing slowed and evened. He listened to the moderator, traditionally the oldest Ruling Mother, in the middle of a rambling speech. Years stooped her back. Her chin barely cleared the podium as her wavering voice invoked the need for the guiding touch of women as the future stretched beyond the confines of the canal.

He yawned. At this rate he’d make his entrance by falling through the curtain flat on his face, sound asleep. He stayed alert by preparing his speech. His lips curved, anticipating the impact on the audience when he declared Palmer had fathered Rosamunde’s child. He’d stand before the Assembly with his hands on his hips, feet apart, chin lifted. He’d tell the Mothers to watch for the babe, inheriting his true father’s eyes, nose, chin, and graceful limbs instead of Quiggs’s gangly body and rounded face.

The moderator’s droned words snipped his smile. “Please welcome Rosamunde Lyre.”

What? No way. He clutched the curtain to keep from falling. What the fuck was Rosamunde doing here in a closed session?

“Come forward, my dear, and take the podium.” The moderator stepped down.

The Assembly stood and clapped for Rosamunde serenely walking down the center aisle, one hand resting lightly on her rounded belly. Still a deb until she took a husband, she wore a pink maternity robe. Her skin glowed with maternal calm. Her rounded figure symbolized the ultimate goal of a woman.

Palmer escorted her down the aisle, his hand on the small of her back should she falter. He regarded Rosamunde’s tummy bump with heavy-lidded eyes only a blind fool would mistake as platonic. Her mother, escorted by Cyrus and William, followed a few sedate steps behind, the three beaming like proud grandparents. Quiggs fingered the hilt of the poisoned stake in his weapons belt.

Palmer assisted his daughter up the two steps of the podium before standing aside with the First Family. William, as First Husband, stood to the right of his wife, Cyrus to her left. Palmer stood on the end by Cyrus. The Third Husband visibly flinched when Cyrus pulled him close, linking hands to demonstrate solidarity. Or maybe not a gesture of solidarity, but the pleased afterglow from a morning fuck.

Frankly, Quiggs hoped the husbands fucked the cheat incontinent. As he wondered why the Assembly welcomed Rosamunde, he saw a guard pushing a beribboned wheelbarrow down the aisle. All eyes veered toward the gleaming pile of gold coins minted centuries ago, the fabled bounty at long last removed from its vault. The applause escalated in tribute to this historic moment.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

Quiggs choked down a yowl, bouncing foot to foot. The Assembly was presenting Rosamunde his rightful bounty. His, his, his!

Rosamunde waited for the Assembly to take their seats. Her voice held a shy tremor as she addressed them. “Thank you for awarding the bounty to my child.” She rested her palms on her belly. “This child is a reminder to all of us that buried deep inside the best of men is an inherent stain. It is a mistake for women to relax their guard.” She paused dramatically. “A mistake for which I have dearly paid.” She dabbed her eyes with a lacy handkerchief, though she could no more squeeze out a tear than a feral a drop of pity for its prey. “Never forget our laws were created to protect women from this stain. The time has come to ask ourselves if it is safe to allow the formation of a separate territory across the canal. I say we must protect ourselves by annexing the outland to our Triangle and govern it by our proven laws.”

Clever timing. The governor used Rosamunde’s plight to incite a prompt vote to retire Max, then a swift auction of the farms. Rosamunde would walk away with vast tracts of land for sputternut orchards bought with the gold coins conveniently at her feet.

And Grandma would get a share for cooperating.

Rage consumed him. Timing? He’d show them timing!

Quiggs stepped onto the stage. Eyes widened, obviously concerned why a border patrolman was interrupting the session. He heard the audience murmur .

Rosamunde’s voice stuttered to a stop at the distraction. She scowled at him. “Explain yourself, soldier. This is a closed session.”

He removed his helmet and tucked it under an arm, giving her a good look at his flushed face and short dark curls matted with sweat. “You lying bitch!”

Rosamunde’s glowing complexion turned dead white. “Q-Quiggs… you’re alive?”

The guards appeared uncertain what to do. They stood rooted, tapping their batons against their thighs and glancing at each other, waiting for someone else to make the first move against the hero who’d killed the vines.

Quiggs forgot his eloquent speech. Angry words shot up. “You’re carrying Palmer’s bastard! I never touched you! I’d sooner breed a stinking feral!”

Rosamunde’s chest heaved, panic setting in.

He raged on, words ringing like ax strokes to expose the rot behind her infallible wall of womanhood. “You were fucking your third father before you caught me with Beau. Our marriage was already dissolved, yet you forced me into the lottery. When you discovered you were pregnant, you and Palmer hired an assassin to kill me. You stole my inheritance, my inventions, my freedom, my name. Now you steal my bounty for Palmer’s child.”

Rosamunde’s composure crumpled. “I… I… I…” Totally flummoxed, she looked at her family for help.

Quiggs faced the Assembly. “The bounty belongs to me. Bear witness should I die, I declare Commander Max Bronn my beneficiary. However, if you grant me a new trial where I have the chance to defend myself against the outrageous lies, I’ll donate half the bounty to your qualified sons for the purchase of farms. So… who’s in?”

The Mothers nodded at each other to give him a fair trial. Shit, this was easy. He waited for the governor to protest.

Governor Lyre’s horrified expression said it all. She was a scorned wife. She shrieked at Palmer, “You bedded our daughter!” The entire room witnessed the heinous accusation.

The Mothers leaned forward to catch every word.

Palmer dropped the pretense. “I loathe my marriage.”

“Shut up, Palmer!” Rosamunde cried.

He shook his head at her. “You were meant to be my wife. Your mother bought me to fund her campaign. She knew I hated submitting to Cyrus and William. She knew and watched.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” the governor shouted.

William gripped Palmer’s arm before he could escape. “You defiled our daughter!”

“Your daughter, not mine!” Palmer swung his free fist at William’s perfect nose. Blood spurted. William screeched but held tight.

Cyrus grabbed Palmer’s fist before it landed a second punch. “Always denying us, blaming your headaches when all the while you—” Cyrus bellowed from a hard kick at his kneecap.

Governor Lyre shook with rage. She yanked Rosamunde off the podium and slapped her. “You seduced my husband!”

Rosamunde sank to her knees, sobbing. “Never, never! Palmer raped me!”

“You begged me for it like a bitch in heat,” Palmer spat. His head snapped back from William’s punch.

Quiggs smiled. Well, damn. Could it be this simple? Both admitted having sex with the entire Assembly listening. He hadn’t factored in Rosamunde being here, shocked stupid by his appearance and casting the blame on Palmer. She depended upon a carefully spun web of lies to support her. Quiggs alive, confronting her, was an unforeseen event tearing a wide hole in the middle.

Rosamunde held a hand to her stinging cheek and wailed that the excitement endangered her baby. The governor lifted her black skirt and aimed a hard kick at Palmer’s balls. She lost her balance, hitting William’s balls dead center instead. He doubled over and vomited on Palmer, who gagged. Cyrus took advantage and punched Palmer’s liquid brown eyes.

Quiggs savored the spectacle. The First Family had walked the bridge with their eyes on the prize instead of their steps. They’d fallen off, and no one was tossing them a rope.

The elderly moderator returned to the podium and tapped her gavel. “A trial wastes our time. I submit Quiggs Fallon is innocent of all charges. All in favor, please stand.”

The entire Assembly stood.

The monitor warbled, “Quiggs, we declare you a free man. What was stolen will be returned. The lottery drawing was illegal. You are free to marry and live the life you deserve.”

He whooped and tossed his helmet in the air.

Except he didn’t want a wife. He wanted to continue living with Max.

A guard leaped onto the stage. He thwacked a baton against his palm. “I got you now, you little shit.”

Oh, fuck. Quiggs recognized that tinny voice—the assassin. He was younger than he sounded, in his late twenties, with a long, narrow face and a forehead deeply scarred from slashing claws when he’d served in the military. The cruel eyes and toothy smile said he knew it was over for himself once Rosamunde started talking, but he was taking Quiggs down first.

Where the fuck were the guards? Waiting for an engraved invitation to save him? Quiggs stalled. “You’re the one who threw me over the wall. You placed the boiler nest on my balcony. Did Rosamunde keep half your fee for not finishing your job?” He dodged a swing. Barely. “For fuck’s sake, somebody help me!”

He glimpsed the guards separating the First Family. It looked like a bloodbath over there. He feinted toward the front of the stage. The assassin lunged to intercept, and Quiggs sprinted for the curtain. He intended to dive under and hide among the props backstage, but he tripped over his helmet and fell to the floor. The baton fanned the air where his head had been .

“Fucking little shit!”

The curtain was a few feet away. Quiggs rolled for it and butted into a pair of legs. The bastard was fast. Quiggs groped for the poisoned stake in his belt. He was worthless in hand-to- hand combat, but a surprise thrust into the thigh would incapacitate his attacker within a minute. The baton splintered the stake, the blow numbing Quiggs to the elbow.

A boot stomped down on his stomach, pinning him. “You cost me a wife!” The pale blue eyes shot hatred down at Quiggs.

What woman would let herself be courted by this ugly brute? Understanding dawned. “Rosamunde?” Quiggs wheezed.

The man boasted, “My Rosamunde fancies a man with vigor.”

Quiggs caught his breath. “Seriously, you and Rosamunde? Taking turns with Palmer?”

“She swore she was done with him. Called him a mewling boy.”

“You’re an idiot to believe she’ll give up Palmer.” The taunt earned a kick to his ribs.

“Think you’re so smart? Your brains will look as slimy and gray as the dumbest fuck around when I’m done with you.” The assassin grinded his boot in Quiggs’s stomach, then swung the baton high with both hands.

Pinned to the floor, the breath squished out of him, Quiggs squeezed his eyes shut. He regretted there’d be nothing left of his face for Max to kiss goodbye.

He heard the air whistle. Oh, fuck. This was it. The baton glanced off his shoulder without force and rolled to the floor.

Quiggs opened his eyes. Was the fucker toying with him?

An odd look shadowed the ugly face. He clutched at an arrow lodged in his throat. A second arrow whistled past, driving through the left eye in a kill shot to the brain. The right eye rolled up as the assassin toppled into the curtain, the heavy folds swallowing him.

“About damn time,” Quiggs muttered at the guard dropping his bow on the floor to kneel beside him. The hands had wicked claws, which sheathed an instant before running his hands under Quiggs’s tee for cracked ribs. “M-Max? You… here?” He sounded as shocked stupid as Rosamunde.

“Take several deep breaths.” Fingers traced each rib with a delicacy belied by the harsh voice.

He inhaled the musky battle sweat of a feral. Max at his fiercest.

“A raft of herders caught up to where my barge had tied off to deliver supplies. They were curious why Dean Cagney was running toward Port Memphis with a border patrolman carrying my courier pouch. So was I. I jumped off the barge and raced to your hut with men lagging behind me.” Max pulled his hands away. “I don’t feel anything poking out.”

“Heh. Give me a minute and feel lower.” Quiggs grinned up at him.

Max gave a humorless laugh. “I read your letter. No feelings for you?” His gray eyes flashed with pain. “You marched off to your death thinking I have no feelings for you? I ought to—why didn’t you hide and wait for me?”

“Because you were supposed to seek revenge for my death. You were supposed to have the people fighting on your side to change the laws. Not just men. Women, too.” Quiggs tried to sit up and groaned. Definitely bruised ribs and a sore stomach for a week.

“I almost lost you.” He wrapped an arm around Quiggs’s waist. “Had I arrived here a second later, you would have died.”

He flicked a look at Max through his lashes. “Dying was the whole point of surrendering myself. It’s now or never to fight for us, our people, the Triangle. Stand up to the Mothers and fight for what we deserve.”

“I won’t start a bloody rebellion.”

“The rules are a thousand bloody cuts bleeding every man dry as surely as a sword thrust to the heart. Look around you. The Assembly is a group of long-winded Mothers. You’re the force to knock the breath out of them.” Quiggs’s words were treason. He glanced at the Assembly. If they heard, they would order him killed outright.

The Ruling Mothers weren’t paying attention. They shrank in their seats, dazed by the number of grim herders, soldiers, and citizens of all ranks filling the auditorium. Ignoring the Assembly, the security guards were removing the First Family from the room down the center aisle, with Rosamunde pleading her condition and the governor aloof as if this were a brief family squabble before she resumed her duties. William and Cyrus held bloody handkerchiefs to their faces. Palmer lay senseless on a stretcher.

On opposites sides of the auditorium, Dean Cagney and President Brooke tore the red draperies from the walls with policemen helping them. Etched in stone on each wall was the original Triangle of Equal Rights in the old language.

Max’s eyes frowned around the room.

“It’s now or never,” Quiggs pleaded.

“Always so fucking right.” Max moved aside as medics arrived with a stretcher. “Later, my—” Quiggs wasn’t his concubine. Affection was unseemly. “Later, Mr. Fallon.”

“Later, Commander Bronn.”

Max took the center of the stage with his hands on his hips, feet apart. “So who out there wants me to retire?”

The Ruling Mothers looked at each other. A few dozen stood. “We do,” they said, smoothing their skirts, calmly regarding him as if he were but an annoying insect to pinch between a thumb and forefinger.

“Get out. You are no longer members of the Assembly.”

They huffed at his audacity and linked hands in unity.

A ruthless edge entered his voice. “Get out before I add your skulls to my cuffs.”

They waited, confident the other Mothers would join in. None did.

“I’m not bluffing, ladies. It is my sworn duty to defend the Triangle against its enemies. You are the enemy. Your rules will destroy us.” He displayed his claws and bared his teeth.

The Mothers dropped hands and fled the room, screeching, with every woman for herself .

Those remaining shrank in their seats.

Max boomed out. “Until a new government is established, I’m in charge of the Assembly. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

The elderly moderator tapped Max on the arm. Oh, fuck, no. If Max harmed her—

She handed him the gavel. “Take it, my boy. I’m retiring.”

The rebellion ended without bloodshed.

Quiggs missed the rest. The medics strapped him to a stretcher and carried him off the side of the stage.