Gaia's Brood

Chapter 51

The first shot is followed, in quick succession, by a second, from my left. I hear Borker cry out, the sound of a body crumple to the ground, and running feet.

Cautiously, I peer over the side of the box. Borker is laying on the floor of the cavern. A small puff of dust hangs over his lifeless body, thrown up by his fall. Blood, lots of blood, soaks into the dirt. Borker is dead.

On the opposite side, Trent is gone. A flash of movement among the terraced houses has three of Eve's ninjas chasing in hot pursuit. A Beat guard stares helplessly at her empty gun holster.

Casually, Eve draws her own gun and points it at the hapless Beat. "Idiot," she mutters, "that was my champion agent, my assassin, my knight." She shoots the Beat dead without a flicker of emotion. I guess she doesn't suffer incompetence.

I am shocked by the casual manner in which she murders the Beat—obviously she has done this many times before. Maybe it's not the project sucking the life from her soul. Maybe she is psychotic. Maybe she did me a favour when she left all those years ago. The thought of such a monster guiding me through my childhood makes me shudder. Whatever her motivation, she is clearly past redemption, and I am best getting as far away from her as I can.

"Now, Nina." Eve holsters her weapon. "We need to get you some clothes and talk about your future, with me, in the Gaia Foundation."

"So why construct a fake journal and a fake crash?" Scud asks suddenly from the back of the crowd where he is now flanked by two beats. The mystery of the journal must be eating him up from inside. To Scud, all mysteries are logical. Any that are not really bother him, to the extent he looses sleep worrying about them.

Eve Swift doesn't even bother to look at him. I'm sure Scud it relieved, but ignoring my best friend bothers the hell out of me.

I raise my eyebrows and incline my head, I want an answer too. "I think Scud asked you a question, Mother."

"The journal," Eve returns stiffly, "was devised as a way to lure you here without alerting the authorities, especially the Science Guild. However, once we had the genes of the White Woman we no longer required you."

"Which you planted on Felix, then tried to retrieve." Two beats struggle to contain Izzy as she surges towards Eve, fury plastered across her face. Fernando tries to intervene, but he too is restrained. Izzy only stops struggling when Gaia's acolytes raise their weapons.

"Did you murder him," Izzy spits. "Or did you order one of your lackeys to do it? Either way, you are responsible.

Eve looks alarmed at Izzy's aggression.

"My cousin, Isabelle Swift," I say be way of explanation. "Your brother was her father."

"Oh, I see. A regrettable incident." Eve stops to swallow. "Lieutenant Borker could be a bit over enthusiastic in his devotion sometimes, as you have just witnessed."

Was it the flicker of her eyes, the swallow, or the inflection of her voice. Instinctively I know she is lying, and I'm not the only one.

"That's a lie," Scud accuses. He hate lies with a loathing bordering on the paranoid. "Borker was on New Frisco when Uncle Felix died. I know—I saw him. We all saw him—in the Square Balloon cafe. All you had to do was show yourself to Uncle Felix and there was no reason for him to send the journal. But he wouldn't tell you where it was, so you killed him with a crys knife, to incriminate the assassins, and ransacked the place. But the journal wasn't there, so your only option was to set up a fake crash and hope Nina turned back before she revealed your hideout to Microtough." I feel a rush of affection as Scud refers to Felix as his Uncle—as far as Scud is concerned, my family is just an extension of his family.