Legion and the Emperor's Soul (7 page)

“Maybe he wanted freedom,” I said. “To use his invention as he wished.”

“If that’s the case,” Ivy said, “he wouldn’t have approached a rival company, as you proposed. Doing so would have put him back in the same situation. Prod Monica. She looks like she’s thinking about something.”

“What?” I asked Monica. “You have something to add?”

“Well,” Monica said, “once we knew the camera was working, Razon
did
ask us about some projects he wanted to attempt. Revealing the truth of the Kennedy assassination, debunking or verifying the Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot video, things like that.”

“And you shot him down,” I guessed.

“I don’t know if you’ve spent much time considering the ramifications of this device, Mister Leeds,” Monica said. “Your questions to me on the plane indicate you’ve at least started to. Well, we have. And we’re terrified.

“This thing will change the world. It’s about more than proving mysteries. It means an end to privacy as we know it. If someone can gain access to
any
place where you have
ever
been naked, they can take photos of you in the nude. Imagine the ramifications for the paparazzi.

“Our entire justice system will be upended. No more juries, no more judges, lawyers, or courts. Law enforcement will simply need to go to the scene of the crime and take photos. If you’re suspected, you provide an alibi—and they can prove whether or not you were where you claim.”

She shook her head, looking haunted. “And what of history? National security? Secrets become much harder to keep. States will have to lock down sites where important information was once presented. You won’t be able to write things down. A courier carrying sensitive documents has passed down the street? The next day, you can get into just the right position and take a picture
inside
the envelope. We tested that. Imagine having such power. Now imagine every person on the planet having it.”

“Dang,” Ivy whispered.

“So no,” Monica said. “No, we wouldn’t have let Mister Razon go and take photos to prove or disprove Christianity. Not yet. Not until we’d done a
lot
of discussion about the matter. He knew this, I think. It explains why he ran.”

“That didn’t stop you from preparing ways to bait me into entering into a business arrangement with you,” I said. “I suspect if you did it for me, you did it for other important people as well. You’ve been gathering resources to get yourself some strategic allies, haven’t you? Maybe some of the world’s rich and elite? To help you ride this wave, once the technology goes out?”

She drew her lips into a line, eyes straight forward.

“That probably looked self-serving to Razon,” I said. “You won’t help him with bringing the truth to mankind, but you’ll gather bribery material? Even blackmail material.”

“I’m not at liberty to continue this conversation,” Monica said.

Ivy sniffed. “Well, we know why he left. I still don’t think he’d have gone to a rival company, but he would have gone to
someone
. The Israeli government, maybe? Or—”

Everything went black.

S
even

  I
awoke, dazed. My vision was blurry.

“Explosion,” J.C. said. He crouched beside me. I was . . . I was tied up somewhere. In a chair. Hands bound behind me.

“Stay calm, skinny,” J.C. said. “
Calm
. They blew the car in front of us. We swerved. Hit a building at the side of the road. Do you remember?”

I barely did. It was vague.

“Monica?” I croaked, looking about.

She was tied to a chair beside me. Kalyani, Ivy, and Tobias were there as well, tied and gagged. Monica’s security men weren’t there.

“I managed to crawl free of the wreckage,” J.C. said. “But I can’t get you out.”

“I know,” I said. It was best not to push J.C. on the fact that he was a hallucination. I’m pretty sure he knew, deep down, exactly what he was. He just didn’t like admitting it.

“Listen,” J.C. said. “This is a bad situation, but you
will
keep your head, and you
will
escape alive. Understand, soldier?”

“Yeah.”

“Say it again.”

“
Yes
,” I said, quiet but intense.

“Good man,” J.C. said. “I’m going to go untie the others.” He moved over, letting my other aspects free.

Monica groaned, shaking her head. “What . . .”

“I think we’ve made a gross miscalculation,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I was surprised at how evenly that came out, considering how terrified I was. I’m an academic at heart—at least, most of my aspects are. I’m not good with violence.

“What do you see?” I asked. This time, my voice quivered.

“Small room,” Ivy said, rubbing her wrists. “No windows. I can hear plumbing and faint sounds of traffic outside. We’re still in the city.”

“Such lovely places you take us, Stephen,” Tobias said, nodding in thanks as J.C. helped him to his feet. Tobias was getting on in years, now.

“That’s Arabic we hear,” Kalyani said. “And I smell spices. Za’atar, saffron, turmeric, sumac . . . We are near a restaurant, maybe?”

“Yes . . .” Tobias said, eyes closed. “Soccer stadium, distant. A passing train. Slowing. Stopping . . . Cars, people talking. A mall?” He snapped his eyes open. “Malha Railway Station. It’s the only station in the city near a soccer stadium. This is a busy area. Screaming might draw help.”

“Or might get us killed,” J.C. said. “Those ropes are tight, skinny. Monica’s are too.”

“What’s going on?” Monica asked. “What happened?”

“The pictures,” Ivy said.

I looked at her.

“Monica and her goons showed off those pictures of Razon, walking around the church,” Ivy said. “They probably asked every person there if they’d seen him. If he
was
working with someone . . .”

I groaned. Of course. Razon’s allies would have been watching for anyone hunting him. Monica had drawn a big red bull’s-eye on us.

“All right,” I said. “J.C. You’re going to have to get us out of this. What should—”

The door opened.

I immediately turned toward our captors. I didn’t find what I’d expected. Instead of Islamic terrorists of some sort, we were faced by a group of Filipino men in suits.

“Ah . . .” Tobias said.

“Mister Leeds,” said the man in the front, speaking with an accented voice. He flipped through a folder full of papers. “By all accounts, you are a very interesting and very . . . reasonable person. We apologize for your treatment so far, and would like to see you placed in much more comfortable conditions.”

“I sense a deal coming on,” Ivy warned.

“I am called Salic,” the man said. “I represent a certain group with interests that may align with your own. Have you heard of the MNLF, Mister Leeds?”

“The Moro National Liberation Front,” Tobias said. “It is a Filipino revolutionary group seeking to split off and create its own nation-state.”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said.

“Well,” Salic said. “I have a proposal for you. We have the device for which you are searching, but we have run into some difficulties in operating it. How much would it cost us to enlist your aid?”

“One million, US,” I said without missing a beat.

“Traitor!” Monica sputtered.

“You aren’t even paying me, Monica,” I said, amused. “You can’t blame me for taking a better deal.”

Salic smiled. He fully believed I’d sell out Monica. Sometimes it is very useful to have a reputation for being a reclusive, amoral jerk.

The thing is, I’m really only the reclusive part. And maybe, admittedly, the jerk part. When you have that mix, people generally assume you don’t have morals either.

“The MNLF is a paramilitary organization,” Tobias continued. “There hasn’t been much in the way of violence on their part, however, so this is surprising to see. Their fundamental difference with the main Filipino government is over religion.”

“Isn’t it always?” J.C. said with a grunt, inspecting the newcomers for weapons. “This guy is packing,” he said, nodding to the leader. “I think they all are.”

“Indeed,” Tobias said. “Think of the MNLF as the Filipino version of the IRA, or Palestine’s own Hamas. The latter may be a more accurate comparison, as the MNLF is often seen as an Islamic organization. Most of the Philippines is Roman Catholic, but the Bangsamoro region—where the MNLF operates—is predominantly Islamic.”

“Untie him,” Salic said, gesturing toward me.

His men got to work.

“He’s lying about something,” Ivy said.

“Yes,” Tobias said. “I think . . . Yes, he’s not MNLF. He’s perhaps trying to pin this on them. Stephen, the MNLF is
very much
against endangering civilians. It’s really quite remarkable, if you read about them. They are freedom fighters, but they have a strict code of whom they’ll hurt. They have recently been dedicated to peaceful secession.”

“That must not make them terribly popular with all who would follow them,” I said. “Are there splinter groups?”

“What is that?” Salic asked.

“Nothing,” I said, standing up, rubbing my wrists. “Thank you. I would
very much
like to see the device.”

“This way, please,” Salic said.

“Bastard,” Monica called after me.

“Language!” Ivy said, pursing her lips. She and my other aspects followed me out, and the guards shut the door on Monica, leaving her alone in the room.

“Yes . . .” Tobias said, walking behind the men who escorted me up the steps. “Stephen, I think this is the Abu Sayyaf. Led by a man named Khadaffy Janjalani, they split from the MNLF because the organization wasn’t willing to go far enough. Janjalani died recently, and the future of the movement is somewhat in doubt, but his goal was to create a purely Islamic state in the region. He considered the killing of anyone opposed to him as an . . . elegant way to achieve his goals.”

“Sounds like we have a winner,” J.C. said. “All right, skinny. Here’s what you need to do. Kick the guy behind you as he’s taking a step. He’ll fall into the fellow next to him, and you can tackle Salic. Spin him around to cover gunfire from behind, take his weapon from inside his coat, and start firing through his body at the men down there.”

Ivy looked sick. “That’s awful!”

“You don’t think he’s going to let us go, do you?” J.C. asked.

“The Abu Sayyaf,” Tobias said helpfully, “has been the source of numerous killings, bombings, and kidnappings in the Philippines. They also are
very
brutal with the locals, acting as more of an organized crime family than true revolutionaries.”

“So . . . that would be a no, eh?” J.C. said.

We reached the ground floor, and Salic led us into a side room. Two more men were here, outfitted as soldiers, with grenades on their belts and assault rifles in their hands.

Between them, on the table, was a medium format camera. It looked . . . ordinary.

“I need Razon here,” I said, sitting down. “To ask him questions.”

Salic sniffed. “He will not speak to you, Mister Leeds. You can trust us on this count.”

“So he’s not working with them?” J.C. asked. “I’m confused.”

“Bring him anyway,” I said, and carefully began prodding at the camera.

Thing is, I had
no
idea what I was doing.
Why, WHY didn’t I bring Ivans with me?
I should have known I’d need a mechanic on this trip.

But if I brought too many aspects—kept too many of them around me at once—bad things happened. That was immaterial, now. Ivans was a continent away.

“Anyone?” I asked under my breath.

“Don’t look at me,” Ivy said. “I can’t get the remote control to work half the time.”

“Cut the red wire,” J.C. said. “It’s always the red wire.”

I gave him a flat stare, then unscrewed one part of the camera in an attempt to look like I knew what I was doing. My hands were shaking.

Salic, fortunately, sent someone to do as I requested. After that, he watched me carefully. He’d probably read about the Longway Incident, where I’d disassembled, fixed, and reassembled a complex computer system in time to stop a detonation. But that had all been Ivans, with some aid by Chin, our resident computer expert.

Without them, I was useless at this sort of thing. I tried my best to look otherwise until the soldier brought back Razon. I recognized him from the pictures Monica had shown me. Barely. His lip was cracked and bleeding, his left eye puffy, and he walked with a stumbling limp. As he sat down on a stool near me, I saw that he was missing one hand. The stump was wrapped with a bloody rag.

He coughed. “Ah. Mister Leeds, I believe,” he said with a faint Filipino accent. “I’m terribly sorry to find you here.”

“Careful,” Ivy said, inspecting Razon. She was standing right beside him. “They’re watching. Don’t act too friendly.”

“Oh, I do
not
like this at all,” Kalyani said. She’d moved over to some crates at the back of the room, crouching down for cover. “Is it often going to be like this around you, Mister Steve? Because I am not very well cut out for this.”

“You’re
sorry
to find me here?” I said to Razon, making my voice harsh. “Sorry, but not surprised. You’re the one who helped Monica and her cronies get blackmail material on me.”