“She knows me,” Thorn said, gesturing at Gammon. “She can speak for me.”
“That just means she might also be compromised.”
Compromised? Gammon? How? And by who? Him? There was no way. Thorn didn’t know what the Crow leader was talking about. His hands curled into fists. Who did this guy think he was?
He was exhausted. He’d been fighting for his life against beasts and the environment for days, and against all odds, had survived, and now he had to deal with someone threatening his life and insulting him and his friends?
Thorn took two deep breaths and decided that losing his cool wasn’t going to help them.
“Alright, alright, I’ll answer your questions,” Thorn said.
“Your delays and stalling are the only rash actions here,” Smithson replied. “Last chance, Mr. Thorn Farmer. What was in the dead zone?”
“A glitter farm,” Thorn said. “Big operation, all underground, next to an underground lake. Huge, optically fed glow lamps of a kind that I’d never seen before.”
“Optical?” Smithson asked.
“Yes, fed with huge fiberoptic cables.”
“I’ll choose to believe you,” Smithson said, then pointed up at the canopy, and more drones shot off of the armor and up into the sky. “But let’s confirm that anyways.”
“There were many beasts inside of the dead zone,” Thorn said. “Cages and chains on the shore of the lake…”
He paused. Many of the beasts they’d fought must have originally been in those cages… Had the crow that had helped them inside the cavern also been in one of those cages?
“But all of the beasts had escaped their cages. Some of them were strange. Hybrid combinations of beasts I’d never heard of existing: a turtle with a scorpion’s tail; an owl with bark for skin; a fincroc that could camouflage itself.”
“And you fought and killed them all?” Smithson asked. “You and the Warden? Excuse me. You and half of the Warden?”
Thorn ignored the naked provocation. He took the insult, the snide comments, and threw them on the fire of his rage, deep, deep down in his chest, but he didn’t let any of it show on his face.
“Most of them. Many killed each other; some died from the dead zone itself. Or the void part. Lief could tell you more, but there was an egg shape to the dead zone, and we were in the yolk…”
Smithson’s look of murderous confusion prompted Lief to interject. “Spherical cylinder topology.”
“Ah. So did you kill them all? Did any escape?”
Thorn was tempted to lie. Sorely tempted, but there was the distinct possibility they’d been observed upon their exit. He didn’t know why Smithson wanted to know about the beasts, and so he didn’t understand what he would gain or lose by omitting information.
“Well, technically one beast came out with us,” Thorn said grudgingly. “A crow; it sided with us on the inside and helped us out against the other beasts.”
“Smart,” Smithson said, then gestured at the armor behind him again, pointing into the trees as if to say, ‘go find it.’
“What else? You said a glitter farm. Were there any glitter pills?”
“There were. We didn’t bring any out though.”
“You sure? You look like the type that needs a fix to get through the day.”
Thorn schooled his face flat and stared into Smithson’s eyes for a heartbeat, and then a second one.
“I’m certain.”
“No glitter, then,” Smithson continued. “Good. Any other kinds of pills?”
The question was casual, pitched low and soft. It was the easiest thing to answer; it made Thorn’s negotiation instincts tingle in warning. All of the other questions had been a distraction. This was what the man wanted to know.
“Yes,” Thorn said.
“Ah,” Smithson replied with a smile. “Show me those pills.”
Thorn could lie; he could say they’d seen them but left them in the cavern. He could’ve lied initially and said no, but his gut told him that Smithson would know he’d lied. Lief had already told him what a terrible liar he was, and a simple search of their belongings would catch him out anyways.
Thorn’s thoughts were working in overdrive, trying to put together the pieces. He knew the Crows had a contract to monitor for dead zones. He knew that a Crow had likely murdered the operators of the glitter farm, and possibly been the fifth operator herself. He knew that the glitter farm wasn’t a simple operation, and had likely been doing some kind of experiments with beasts. Illegal ones. Lastly, he knew that the pills Smithson were asking about were far beyond what a simple glitter farm could create, and likely worth far, far more.
Thorn’s hunch on the worth of the pills was confirmed by Gammon’s reaction when he pulled the box out of his pack and opened it up. The scent of earth and cinnamon filled the clearing.
There was a squawk and the crow darted downwards out of the canopy, landing on Thorn’s shoulder and peering into the box. He quickly closed the lid but didn’t put it down.
“Give them to me,” Smithson said, holding out his hand.
Thorn started to hand over the box, then stopped. He looked Smithson in the eye and saw again the man’s emotions writ large on his face.
The delight. The relief. The pure greed.
“No,” Thorn said, taking a step to the side away from Lief.
Smithson chuckled. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing or where you think you’re going to run off to. Hand them over before I lose my patience.”
“Thorn,” Lief said warningly. “We’ve been through a lot, but we got out by the skin of our teeth. No need to throw it all away now. Just give the man his stupid pills.”
Thorn took another step left, surreptitiously moving his hand underneath the box.
“I was wondering about a bunch of things,” Thorn said, a little bit of anger finally seeping into his voice. Deep down, he felt a twinge of nervousness as well. If this gamble didn’t work, they were all dead. The cold burn of rage drowned out his fear, and besides… if his logic was accurate, they had just been waiting to die anyways.
“Why is there a colonel of the Crows Guild gracing our little corner of this frontier planet with his presence? Why are the streets of Aba awash with so much glitter you can trip and land in a pile of it? Why did we, two hunters, almost stumble on a glitter farm deep underground, outside the range of the mighty Crow Guild’s sensors? What are these impressive pills and what do they do? Why would you go to the trouble to interrogate the two of us, one of us seriously injured, without providing any first aid?”
Smithson shook his head. Gammon looked sick.
“Oh wait,” Thorn continued. “Maybe it has something to do with the dead body of a Crows Guild member I found in that cavern.”
Smithson froze, his gaze turning murderously cold.
“Hand me the pills and maybe I’ll leave your corpse intact for the worms to eat.”
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“You were never planning on letting us live,” Thorn retorted. “Not when we could potentially expose this scheme. How grateful do you think the AG would be to learn of what’s been going on down here with their incredibly important partner, the mighty Crows Guild? Maybe impressed enough to welcome a few disgraced outcasts back into their fold.”
“Think you’ve figured everything out then, have you?” Smithson took a deep pull on his cigar.
“No. There’s one more thing that’s pretty important, and that’s whose scheme it actually was. Was it your plan, personally, or was it someone else in the Crows Guild playing both sides?”
Smithson sighed, then glanced down at his cigar, already half gone He took another puff before replying.
“Everyone thinks that when you get to my level, you just nuke all your problems with a blaze of quints and System Skills, but that’s not the case. The problems I deal with, that I’m sent to take care of, aren’t the kinds of problems you can solve with superior firepower and tactical execution.
“I deal with reputational problems,” Smithson said, drawing out the words. “The sorts of dealings that reflect very, very badly on our organization. The sorts of dealings I have to take care of, before they become a problem.
“So, no. The glitter farm was not a sanctioned piece of work. The Crows Guild itself was not responsible, not that that distinction matters in the eyes of those who care.”
“Okay. I’ll choose to believe you,” Thorn replied, using Smithson’s own words in a mocking tone.
“So what’re you gonna do?” Smithson asked. “Run off into the woods once you finish your self-righteous monologue? Delay until someone from the Church shows up to rescue you? I guarantee you that won’t happen.”
“No,” Thorn said. “We’re dead meat walking, right? Witnesses and all that. Reputational risk. You already threatened to kill us once, and I believe you would do it to protect yourself and the Crows Guild.
“But once I realized our deaths are the cheapest way to ensure our silence, I’ve been working on an alternative source of leverage.”
“And what’s that? Your charming demeanor and good looks?”
“While we’ve been chatting, I’ve packed enough quints into this box to blow it to smithereens. Your precious pills will be blown to dust if I stop channeling my Skill.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not,” Thorn replied. “And you’re on a time limit as well. I can’t stop channeling the skill, and the more I channel, the more powerful the explosion will be.”
“What kind of stupid-ass Skill is that?” Smithson muttered. “I don’t need the pills, Thorn Farmer. We thought there might be a few, based on the other evidence, but they’re just a bonus.”
“If you didn’t want them, I’d be dead already,” Thorn replied. “Besides, it’s not about what you want. It’s about the cost. If you kill me, you lose the pills. You kill Lief, you lose the pills. Now it’s not so cheap to sweep us under the rug and call it a day.”
It was Smithson’s turn to stare back at Thorn. There was no anger in his eyes, just a cold calculus weighing the value of Thorn’s life versus the cost of his death.
“What do you want?” Smithson asked.
There were a couple of things he could ask for. A System contract guaranteeing their safety. Quints. Cores. Passage off-world in exchange for a System contract of their own guaranteeing their silence.
There were a few problems with those ideas. Smithson could just decide to silence them later, instead of now, for one.
No, Thorn had a better idea. He didn’t like the idea; he was angry at how he’d been treated the last several minutes. But it just might work.
If there was one thing Smithson had demonstrated so far, and that held up with everything Thorn knew about the Crows, it was that the man would do anything to protect the Crows. The Crows Guild was the single most important thing to Smithson, and it was not something that Thorn could go up against and succeed.
And if you can’t beat them, why not join them?
“I want to join the Crows.”
Smithson’s face took on a look of pure shock for two seconds, then he burst out laughing. Big, deep belly laughs booming and echoing through the forest.
“You’re serious?” he asked.
“Yes,” Thorn replied. “And Lief too, if he’s willing.”
Thorn felt a small flash of pride at Lief’s encouragement.
Smithson shook his head at Thorn and smiled.
“You had me going for a moment. I admire the gumption, kid, but joining the Crows? You can’t. You’re a cult goon, or did you forget? They tie their people up with the tightest contracts I’ve ever seen. You can join ‘em, but you can’t leave ‘em. Even in a body bag.
“No member of the CES has ever been able to defect and join the Crows. And believe me, we’ve tried.”
This whole thing with his System again, and the Church of Epistemological Singularity. It was beyond infuriating.
“I’m not in the CES. I never agreed to their contract,” Thorn said.
“I told you not to lie to me,” Smithson said, his voice growing cold.
“I’m not,” Thorn replied stubbornly. “My village elders hated me. Probably for good reasons, but they went too far. My village Patrician drugged me, loaded me up with their System, and sold me out to the cult while my parents looked the other way. But I refused to accept the contract, and I was locked out of a System for years.
“Hounded constantly by the church and their handlers and by the stupid System always in my head, trying to wear me down. I never agreed to it though. I never joined their cult.”
“Cute sob story.”
“Okay, you don’t believe me. Fine. How do I prove to you I’m not a part of their cult?”
Smithson took one last puff of his cigar, flicking the final bits of ash onto the ground.
“I suppose you’ve already given me the answer,” Smithson replied. “But I’ll have to trust you. You turn your System online, and I’ll invite you to join the Guild. If you can accept the invite… well, that would be proof enough. As an officer of the Guild, I’ll know.”
Thorn had been hoping to stay offline… possibly forever. He assumed that the CES wouldn’t like it if they determined that he had somehow jailbroken their System.
“If I go online, CES will know,” Thorn said. “I don’t want that. You don’t want that. By the way, how are the relations between the CES and the Crows?”
Smithson gave him a smile full of teeth. “Extremely poor.”
“Good.”
If true, that was better than good; it was great. There was still the possibility that Smithson could sell him out to the CES, but if that was the case, he was screwed no matter what. The most important thing was to simply survive the rest of the day; complications with the CES could be dealt with later.
“I have a Skill,” Thorn said, “that I can use to connect directly to someone. Peer-to-peer. Any way I can use that?”
“That’s a difficult ask. It’s exactly what a CES operative would want to do, to deliver a System-to-System attack.”
Thorn winced, realizing Smithson was right.
“I’ll do it, Colonel,” Gammon interjected, speaking up for the first time.
Smithson raised an eyebrow. “I told you not to meddle. This isn’t your op.”
“And I told you he could be an asset,” Gammon replied. “Despite your obvious biases. We both know it’s worth the gamble, you stubborn ass.”
“Colonel stubborn ass to you,” Smithson replied without heat, then nodded. “Go ahead then. You understand the risks.”
Thorn took that as his opportunity.
“Wish I could have given you this invite under less…interesting circumstances,” Gammon said.
One of Thorn’s worries was that contracts wouldn’t work at all when he was offline, which was apparently not the case. Going offline had not cancelled his previous contracts then; maybe it was the dead zone that had done something to his System instead.
“I got the invite, just taking a look at the details,” Thorn said, glancing at Smithson, who just waggled his eyebrows at him again.
The contract was long, detailing the obligations and rights of both parties, but it looked legitimate. Nothing appeared out of place. It had an airtight confidentiality clause, as expected. He found the exclusivity clause, meaning he was unable to take on other contracts with Guilds or have contracts with other Guilds at the same time, without express permission from an Officer of the Guild.
He also found the section that said he couldn’t be expelled from the Crows except for gross negligence, misconduct, or refusing the lawful orders of a superior officer, and only after he was tried and convicted by an internal review board.
The invite appeared legitimate.
“You got about five more seconds before I lose my patience,” Smithson said in a bored voice.
Thorn gave it one last look before accepting the contract.
“He’s accepted,” Gammon said.
“I see it. Your info is on our rosters,” Smithson said. “And I’ll be damned. A level five Integrator in the Crows… First time I’ve seen that System in our Guild; might be the first time one of the CES’s Systems has ever been recruited outside of their cult.
“A welcome is in order, I suppose. To the both of you… or, well, to the one and a half of you.”
Thorn looked over at Lief, who nodded. He’d also received and accepted an invite into the Guild.
Relief flooded through Thorn, taking the place of the worry he hadn’t realized was there and even blunting some of his anger at how he’d been treated. He’d somehow turned what would have likely ended in two shallow graves in the dirt into a new opportunity. A new life, even.
Of course, he had his end of the bargain to hold up as well. Very carefully, Thorn twisted the thread of quintessence he’d been holding onto with Concentrate and brought it back to the beginning of the loop he’d constructed on the bottom of the pill box. Confident that he’d turned the bomb into a stable loop, he cancelled the skill.
“Fascinating,” came a voice from inside the armor. “So that’s how you did it.”
“Is that you there, Beatrice?” Lief asked, his face lighting up.
“Not now, you old rogue,” Beatrice replied, a lilt to her voice.
On a closer look, Thorn now recognized the shape of the armor; he’d seen Beatrice working on it about a week ago. This was the finished product.
Smithson grabbed the box from Thorn’s outstretched hand, opened it up for a quick check, and nodded in satisfaction.
“I’m a busy man, but two more things before I go,” Smithson said.