Industry & Intrigue (41 page)

“
I don’t know
why, but I remember
if as if it was yesterday. He was working for someone, trying to
uncover secrets of the colossi. Whatever it was, he found it and it
was important enough to have him killed. If the same people have
found you…”

“
Then why didn’t they kill me
already? If they thought I had this they would have come back, but
there’s been nothing.”

Lucina nodded
in agreement.
“You’re right, if the same people knew you had that, they would
have already taken action. A rival student could have taken your
other books?”

“
That’s what I figured
when they didn’t bother me again.”

She han
ded the book back to him. “You should
still keep this hidden. It’s a family heirloom after
all.”

He put the journal back into
its
hiding
place. “What are you going to do now?”

“
Leave, somewhere far away from
here. I’ll try to see if I can find a place that the Arm’s fingers
cannot reach. It should be easier with all this talk of war.
They’ll be too distracted with new contracts to look for me. The
Arm knows how to profit from a war.”

“
Or cause one
,” the anger had crept back
into Reese’s voice.

Lucina sighed. “Yes, there’s a
good chance I started a war. But I was mere
ly the weapon, not the will behind
it. And don’t bother asking, I haven’t a clue who it was. Someone
rich, powerful and hungry for war. At this point it doesn’t matter
if it was Alkos or Galria who ordered it. The one death was merely
a catalyst for all the other issues to be brought to the
forefront.”

“
And how do you
feel
,
knowing you helped start it?” he asked. He wanted to know how his
sister had become like this.

“
That doesn’t matter anymore,
what’s done is done. What I have to focus on is surviving.” She
hugged him again and kissed him on t
he cheek. “Goodbye Rius. If we stay in
contact, you won’t be safe. Keep that in mind, in case the thought
of tracking me down ever occurs to you.”

And with that she was
gone.
Away
from his apartment as quickly as she had left the scene at the
science building. Reese didn’t know what to think. His sister, a
member of the Arm of Assassins. It was too crazy to even think
about seriously.

He grabbed his afternoon books and left
the apartment. Despite what she said, he was still convinced there
was a way for them be family to each other. How could he stop her
from leaving? He didn’t even know where to start looking for
her.

He headed to
wards Cassandra’s apartment. He
wanted to see how she was doing. He had not had much time to see
her with everything that had happened and wanted to make sure she
wasn’t still drowning her sorrows.

He knocked on her door, but there was
no answer.

Maybe she
’s having lunch
he thought.
I’ll see her at the
train station tomorrow anyway.
Professor Xerin’s zoology class was due to
take the train at seven o’clock the next morning. It was a five
hour journey to the town of Crean and then another two hour
carriage ride to the actual excavation site.

I should take father’s
journal
he
thought
.
His father had visited Crean and his notes could help him
find something related to the colossi. His father had visited the
site during the early excavations, not long after its discovery. At
that time not much had been uncovered, so it was unlikely that his
father had discovered anything significant. Still, it couldn’t
hurt. He might even be able to figure out the reason behind
father’s death, if Lucina was correct. If he could do that, it
might bring him some measure of peace. He would be sure to pack the
book when he returned to his apartment tonight.

Chapter
39

Tessa and her lover
relaxed in each
other’s arms. Post-coital sweat beaded on her skin and dripped onto
the white sheets. She was never more relaxed than at times like
this. The aftermath of sex and comforting feeling of her lover left
her feeling like she was floating on air. All her problems shrunk
down to nothingness, but it never lasted.

The possibility
o
f war and
the issues with her siblings came back to haunt her mind. Her
lover, Thomas Hamilton, noticed the change in her face. “What’s
wrong?” he asked.

Tessa had first met him
years ago, as a
university student. He was a lecturer’s assistant for one of her
classes and she instantly developed a crush on him like many of the
girls. She never did anything about it and let it go by the time
she graduated. She met him years later at one of her father’s
corporate dinners. She told him of her ambition to work in the
government, while he told her about his company, Alkos
Artifacts.

It was a company
he started after
his time at university, a business trading in rare, magical
devices. Initially he had only one small building and a few
employees. After several lucrative ventures, he bought an office in
Fort Naikos, an investment that paid off hugely.

Kangur was where the ancient
Cartral Empire had on
ce stood and only fractions of it had been
uncovered. Thomas had explorers and diggers scouring the steppes
for ruins. He had made several well-known finds, the most famous of
which was the Cartral Automaton.

It was
biped-shaped form made out of metal
and bolts. It didn’t function of course and was covered in rust,
but nonetheless it garnered huge attention. Before its discovery,
historians assumed Cartral was a bronze-level society. The
discovery had spun off a new theory among certain historians, that
Cartral may have been far more advanced than first
assumed.

Thomas had
sold it for an impressive sum
to an eccentric collector from Daltilloch. Tessa had forgotten the
man’s name, but he had subscribed to a radical notion that
technology moved in cycles of advancement and decline rather than
continual growth. The automaton was his first piece of evidence of
an ancient civilization with advanced technology and he had been
eager to get his hands on it. Tessa thought the man and the
tech-cycle theorists were mad, it was nothing more than an
intricate statue.

At the dinner, after several
glasses of wine, Tessa had eventually confessed about
th
e crush
she had on him. They ended up in bed and spent the entire night
together. They had been a couple since then, Thomas wanted to get
married, but she hadn’t wanted to commit, her government career was
more important to her.

“
I’m concerned about my
brother
,”
she admitted. “He’s involved with Alyssa Huntington.”

Thomas laughed.

“
Shut up
,” she said. “It’s not funny. Once
that hag gets her claws into him, he’ll spill every little secret
about his armaments division.”

“
Do you
think Alyssa Huntington needs to
resort to tactics like that in order to get ideas?” asked Thomas.
“The woman is a mechanical prodigy, she doesn’t need to steal
anything. Trust me, she’s only interested in one thing from your
brother and it isn’t his corporate secrets. She’s infamous for her
tastes in younger men. But it never lasts long, she can’t afford to
carry on an affair and maintain the dignity of her marriage. She’ll
have her fun with him, then move on to the next
conquest.”

Tessa looked at him suspiciously. “You
sound awfully informed about the way Alyssa Huntington carries on
an affair. Personal experience is it?”

Thomas chuckled again. “Would
you be jealous if it was?” he asked.
His blue eyes were carefully watching to
see how she reacted.

She refused to rise to it. She
scoffed, “Of her? Hardly. She may know what she’s doing when it
comes to inventing, but I don’t think she compares to this does
she?” Tessa sat up, putting her naked body on display for
him.

He
caressed her gently with his hands.
“I wouldn’t know. It was one of my cousins who had the pleasure of
being the object of her affection for a night. He happily boasted
all the juicy details to me.”

She placed her hands on his chest, her
fingers running through his coarse hair. “You may be right. But I
still don’t like it. Do you have anyone inside Huntington
Mechanics?”

“
They occasionally buy objects
from me, so I have a few employees that see the inside
of the enormous
building in the Ruby Hill district.”

“
Could you tell them
t
o keep an
eye out for my brother?” she asked.

“
That depends
,” he replied. “What’s in it
for me?” He pulled himself up and kissed her hard. As they broke
off, his hand moved down her body and between her legs. She tried
to answer between gasps.

“
Uh…I think I
have…oh
…something you’ll like…ahhhh.” Her voice grew higher as he
kept up his movements and she stopped speaking
altogether.

When they were done,
Tessa panted with
exhaustion and delight and her head slapped back onto the soft
pillow.

“
Other than your brother what
else is going with your family? How’s your sister, now that
she’
s in
charge of Typhon?” he asked. Thomas had been away on business and
hadn’t been able to attend the funeral.

“
She couldn’t be
better
,”
said Tessa, with a hint of bitterness. “It’s what she’s always
wanted. I’m sure she’ll do our father proud, she was always his
little business disciple.”

“
So why do you sound
upset?” he asked
and stoked her face. “You were never interested in the
company.”

“
It doesn’t mean I want to see
my unscrupulous sister running it. She’s far more ruthless than
father ever was. Did you hear about the massacre of the
socialists?”

Thomas drew back. “You can’t honestly
believe your own sister had hand in something as brutal as
that?”

She shook her head “You don’t know her
like I do. She hates it when anyone goes against her authority. She
once had an entire family of workers fired and thrown out of the
factory because one cousins was spreading rumors about
her.”

“
That’s nothing worse than what
other big company bosses have done to their employees. Look at the
conditions of the workers in Green River Engines or Culsyth
Firearms, far worse than Typhon. The LRC has a much larger presence
amongst their employees than your family’s company. And it’s still
a long way from outright slaughter.”

Strands of hair had fallen
over
her
face. She brushed it out of the way. “You could be right” she
admitted. “Typhon isn’t my real concern for now anyway. Not when
we’re on the brink of war. I’ve carefully built up the imperial
treasury in my time as minister. I’d hate to see all that effort be
thrown away for bloodshed.”

Emperor Lawrence’s
father
had
been excessive to say the least. He had spent crowns like they were
water. He had poured money into the colony of Hidan and the
expansion of the navy, putting the imperial government on the brink
of debt. Only the income from the flare-rock mines and rail taxes
had staved it off.

During her time in charge of
the treasury, Tessa had been slowly recovering the imperial
finances and the war
looked set to ruin all of her beautiful
work.

“
War will come or it won’t,”
replied Thomas. “There’s nothing we can do about that. You only
have to make sure the empire can pay for it. Work on all of the
councilors to vote in favor of the war credits and allowing the
emperor his discretionary spending. Emperor Lawrence is not the
same man as his father. He has far better advisors. Better looking
ones too.” He leaned over and gently kissed her.

She smiled at
him
. “You
always know how to make me feel better. What about you, how’s
business?”

“
Flat out. I have folk
bringing
junk in every day, insisting that they’ve found a powerful,
magical weapon. The smell of war has brought out the hustlers and
the crazies. A woman tried to sell a plain-old defense talisman
claiming it was an Artropian artifact.”

Artropia was an island nation
far to the south. It was ruled by the descendant
s of skylords who had saved
their city from Cartral’s’ collapse by magically transportation.
The city was embedded at the top of a huge mountain. Few people in
the world were ever allowed there. The Artropians were said to have
the most powerful magic in the world and they guarded it jealously.
They didn’t even allow embassies in their capital. Those foreigners
who were given permission to come ashore were confined to the town
of Dohlsar at the northern end of the island.

“
On top of that I have security
ministry officials buying up every genuine magical
device I have in
stock,” he said.