Chapter 29
Ran doc min stands in the doorway. He looks different in person.
Less cartoon villain and more real-life villain, with his long face and black cape and pointy goatee.
His eyes are blue. Not teal blue like a summer ocean, not sky blue like a sunny day—dark blue, bruise blue, the color of your fingers when you’re being held underwater.
He whistles, and a swarm of guards descends.
It’s not my finest fight. I’m not too proud to admit that.
My first mistake is trying to battle more than one combatant at once, losing sight of individual targets in lieu of the greater mass.
And hell, it’s a mass. I don’t know where all these uniformed soldiers were hiding, but they appear in a swarm of gray coats and yellow gloves, some holding ray guns, some wielding stunners, some simply with their hands clenched to fists.
I realize—instantly, with an intuition honed over years at the Academy—that I don’t stand a chance against so many, not like this, trapped and outnumbered in the depths of an enemy starship.
I get off a whopping total of one ray gun shot before I’m disarmed, my weapon wrestled violently from my hand.
That reality—losing my gun—has my head spinning.
I throw a punch at random, but this turns out to be another mistake, because my fist connects poorly with a guard’s ballistic chest armor, the impact reverberating up my arm.
Pain shears through me. My hand goes numb.
I barely manage to think hope it’s not broken before that same guard grabs my wrist, twists my elbow, and forces me to my knees.
I give a cry and try to fight back to my feet, but it’s no use. Working as a unit, the guards cuff my hands behind my back, then yank my hair, forcing me to look up at Ran Doc Min.
“I had hoped,” Doc Min says in that deep, distinctive rumble, “when I invited you onto my ship, it would not come to this.” A sigh. “Nina will be so disappointed.”
“Yeah, well.” My voice sounds like a wet balloon. “That makes two of us.”
“I take some responsibility, of course,” he continues, pacing toward me.
He’s wearing black loafers that are polished to such a shine, I can see my reflection in the toes.
“I told Nina we should have reestablished contact with you years ago. That’s our usual protocol with Legion placements.
It was risky to hope you would give us your loyalty simply because of familial ties, but Nina was adamant you finish your studies at the Academy.
The entire point of the exercise, she said, was for you to realize your potential.
“I do not disparage Nina for her hope,” Ran Doc Min goes on with infuriating calmness.
“You showed such promise as a cadet. You’d established yourself as a top Academy recruit by the end of your first year, and had we interfered, we might have waylaid your concentration.
Nina was determined to see how far you could go, and she was so pleased—”
“She has no right to be pleased by anything I do,” I snarl, in part because it’s true, and in part just to stop him from finishing this agonizing monologue. He’s speaking like I’m some sort of study experiment. Like my life is a test.
“She is a mother,” Doc Min replies. “That is reason enough.”
“She stopped being a mother the moment she walked away from me.”
“But she didn’t walk away. Haven’t you been paying attention? Nina may not have been visibly in your life, but she made the ultimate sacrifice by putting your future beyond her own desires. She has been watching you grow all along.”
“No.” My brain hurts. My lungs are wadded cotton. “She doesn’t get to do what she did and then try for sacrifice points. It doesn’t work like that.”
“And yet, she has missed you.”
“Fuck you.”
“I see,” Doc Min drawls, “you do not wish to speak about this reasonably.”
“Reasonably?” I bark a laugh. I don’t have a plan for getting out of this mess, no ideas, no strategy.
If I was smart, I’d try to reason with Doc Min, apologize, call this a misunderstanding.
But I’m not smart. It’s too much. Years of pent-up pain and anger are leaking out of me like oil from a well.
“Nina made me an orphan so I could be a better Determinist pawn. And that’s to say nothing about what being a Determinist even means.
” I jerk my head around the room. Professor Morton is still standing in its center, looking twitchy and uncertain.
Behind him, the tubes and bottles glow and bubble.
“You’ve got half the galaxy convinced you’re some kind of savior,” I accuse, “but there’s no simulation, is there? You can’t see the future, you can’t determine our fate. You’re just pretending, and now, as part of your ploy for power, you’ve poisoned a volcano and will kill millions of people—”
“No one has to die.”
“Right, of course not, as long as they pledge their allegiance to you, you narcissistic, clown-caped wanker.”
Which is right about the moment I remember I’m on my knees, weaponless, surrounded by guards, and at the mercy of a man who is so sociopathic he’ll willingly gamble the lives of an entire planet for his own personal ends.
Doc Min eyes me. “And what about you, Keller?”
“What about me?”
“You claim I’ve convinced the galaxy I am some sort of savior, but are you not a member of an institution that does the very same?”
“The Legion does save people—”
“The Legion has Romothrida locked under its iron thumb,” he clips.
“For years, Determinists have struggled to find our footing under their rule. The Legion bars us from interstellar agencies—and from establishing representatives in the Legion itself—on the premise of objectivity, but their motives are thinly veiled. They despise Determinists. If your superiors had their way, we would not exist at all. So I’ve found a way to fight back.
Yes, my methods are extreme, but what other strategy would work against a goliath like the Legion?
If I want freedom for my people—the ability to practice Determinism openly, without fear of persecution—I must first grow our numbers.
I must make our movement so big we are undefeatable. And I will.”
“If you don’t want the Legion to persecute you,” I say, “maybe be less evil?”
Doc Min’s expression is colder now. “Is this a joke to you?”
“No.” A beat, where I consider not risking my life on a wisecrack and decide against it. “But you are.”
He looks at his guards. “Search him.”
They do, roughly. There’s nothing on me, no hidden weapons or maps, nothing except the keening.
It doesn’t look like anything says the memory of Jester’s words.
Just a piece of lint. But one of the guards tugs my pockets, and out the keening falls, the scraggly little fuzzball tipping onto the floor.
I try not to look at it. I try to channel my inner Lament and prevent a single thought from showing on my face.
I think I probably do show something, though, when Doc Min stoops to pick it up.
He brings the keening up to his face. Squints at it.
And there’s still … I don’t know why there’s still any hope left in me.
I’ve already been caught. I’m already doomed.
But I think, maybe if he tosses the keening aside, I’ll have a chance to salvage this.
I can strike some sort of deal with him. Buy myself time.
Doc Min crushes the keening in his fist, then drops it to the floor. It gives a shudder and withers, fading from light brown to black. I think it might be dead. But worse, worse, is the look on Doc Min’s face.
He knows what it is.
Fear spikes through me as Doc Min looks at the guard beside him and says, “I have reason to believe The Parallax will soon come under attack. It will be an attempted rescue mission.” Doc Min turns back to me. “How many will come?”
“None,” I croak, too quickly. “No one is coming.”
“It’s in your best interest to answer honestly, Mr. Hartman.” That’s Trey Morton speaking now. He looks … not triumphant. I don’t know how to describe the way he looks, except to say afraid.
He’s afraid of Doc Min’s anger. He’s afraid of what’s coming.
Hey, Trey. So am I.
Doc Min speaks again. “Whether or not the attackers will be sanctioned by the Legion is unknown. We have our fingers pulling many threads, but the Legion is vast, and there are many departments still beyond our control. I can, however, say with near certainty that the members of Keller’s fleet will be among them. ”
One of the guards—a captain of some sort with a blue badge stitched to her breast—gives a terse nod. “Should I sound the alarm?”
“No. I want this contained. When the invaders come into range, eliminate them as quickly and quietly as possible. The fewer people who find out about this, the better.”
My heart makes a fist. “No. Wait. I’m the one who broke into your ship. They had nothing to do with this.”
Ran Doc Min snaps his gaze to mine. “More lies, Keller?” His lip curls, and almost before my eyes, I see him transform.
Gone is the diplomatic man from before. His serenity vanishes, dropping away to reveal his true face, like a skeleton under rotting skin.
The guards draw back. Trey Morton wrings his hands.
A vein appears in Ran Doc Min’s temple, throbbing with rage.
“I should kill you where you stand,” he hisses. “What a weasel you are. What a poor reward for a woman like your mother. To think she was so certain you could be trusted.”
I should shut up, I should shut up right now. “What? You’re saying your simulation didn’t predict this?”
Doc Min sneers. “You will regret this.” Then, to the guards: “Get him out of my sight.”
They shove a blindfold over my eyes, which seems unnecessary, since I’ve already seen the worst of what they have to hide.
Anyway, I can tell by the number of twists and turns we take that I’d never be able to find my way back out of here, even if I could catalog every hallway and corridor and door, even if I had Jester’s heat map completely memorized.
I’m afraid, of course I am, but that’s not even really what has my focus.
I’m thinking about Lament. I’m thinking about how he didn’t want me to come on this ridiculous mission, how he already lost one partner.
I promised him everything would be okay. I’m breaking that promise.
We walk. The guards are silent. I get the sense we’re traveling downward, though there aren’t actually any stairs.
I count the number of footsteps around me, try to estimate just how terrible my odds of escape are.
For one crazed moment, I imagine trying to break free.
I’d tear out of my cuffs, rip this blindfold off, grab one of their ray guns and just have at it.
The guards would take me out, but at least I would go down fighting.
Not doing what I’m doing now, which is simply letting my fate happen.
A lamb being led to slaughter. And yet, I remember Vera’s words. We’ll come for you.
I don’t want them to die for me.
I don’t want to be abandoned.
The guards pull me to a halt. I hear the sound of a key being inserted into a lock, which seems really old-fashioned given the technology on the rest of The Parallax.
There’s something so visceral about the sound of that lock.
I wonder if Ran Doc Min installed it on purpose.
Like he wants his prisoners to hear the finality of the bolt driving home.
Someone unlocks my cuffs and pulls off my blindfold before I’m shoved into a cell, the door clanging shut behind me.
I blink, rubbing my wrists, my eyes adjusting to the low light.
I’m in a freestanding prison in the center of a circular room.
It’s small—both the cell and the room—with metal bars on all sides.
Nowhere to hide, no privacy. The cell is completely bare inside. But it’s not empty.
There’s another prisoner in here. They’re huddled against the other side, knees drawn up to their chest, face buried behind their arms. They’re dressed in rags, their hair overgrown. They look like they might be sleeping.
The guards are gone. The room is quiet. I have the wild thought that the other person in this cell is some kind of lunatic sent by Ran Doc Min to torture me while I’m in here. But no—they’re a prisoner just like me, right? And they’ve been here a long time, from the looks of it.
I want to poke my cellmate awake, even as I very much do not want that. But there’s this urge in me to just get it over with. Rip off the bandage, meet my companion, see how bad this is really going to be.
The prisoner lifts their head. Blinks at me.
“Keller,” Master Ira says.
And then the world crumbles at the edges.