Fragments by Dan Wells Read Free Book Online Page A

their own representative on the council.
     If you think a soldier would kill another soldier, you don’t know much about soldiers.
     They’re ferociously vindictive when one of their own gets attacked. They wouldn’t
     be covering this up, they’d be lynching the guy.”
    “That’s exactly what I mean,” said Xochi. “Whatever else Weist did, he killed a soldier
     in cold blood—maybe not personally, but he gave the order. He arranged the murder
     of a soldier under his own command. The Grid would never just let that slide, you
     said it yourself: They’d hunt him down and lynch him. The new Grid senator, Woolf
     or whatever, Isolde said he was practically screaming for the death penalty, but then
     they didn’t get it, so they went to plan B.”
    “Or more likely,” said Haru, “this is exactly what the Grid says it is: an attempt
     on Woolf or Tovar or someone like that. One of the senators still in power. There’s
     no reason to kill a convicted prisoner.”
    “So the sniper just missed?” asked Xochi. “This amazingly competent super-sniper,
     who can evade a full Grid investigation, was aiming for one of the senators, but he’s
     just a really crappy shot? Come on: He’s either a pro or he’s not, Haru.”
    Marcus tried to stay out of these arguments—“these” meaning “any argument with Haru”—and
     this was exactly why. He’d seen firsthand the way the soldiers had reacted to the
     attack, and he still had no idea if it was a conspiracy or not. The soldier had tried
     to pull Marcus off Weist, but did he do it because he was trying to save Marcus, or
     because he was trying to keep Marcus from saving Weist? Senator Woolf seemed practically
     offended by the attack, as if killing the prisoner had been a personal insult against
     him, but was that genuine or was he just playing up the ruse? Haru and Xochi were
     passionate, but they were too quick to jump to extremes, and Marcus knew from experience
     that they’d argue back and forth for hours, maybe for days. He left them to it, and
     turned instead to Madison and Isolde, both cooing quietly over Madison’s baby, Arwen.
    Arwen was the miracle baby—the first human child in almost twelve years to survive
     the ravages of RM, thanks to Kira’s cure self-replicating in her bloodstream. She
     was asleep now in Madison’s arms, wrapped tightly in a fleece blanket, while Madison
     talked softly with Isolde about pregnancy and labor. Sandy, Arwen’s personal nurse,
     watched quietly in the corner—the Miracle Child was too precious to risk without full-time
     medical attention, so Sandy followed mother and daughter everywhere, but she had never
     really fit into their group socially. There were more in their retinue as well: To
     help protect the child, the Senate had assigned them a pair of bodyguards. When a
     crazed woman—the mother of ten dead children—had tried to kidnap Arwen the day Madison
     first brought her to the outdoor market, they had doubled the guards and reinstated
     Haru to the Defense Grid. There were two guards here tonight, one in the front yard
     and one in the back. The radio on Haru’s belt chirped softly every time one of them
     checked in.
    “Any luck with that?” asked Madison, and Marcus snapped back to attention.
    “What?”
    “The cure,” said Madison. “Have you had any luck with it?”
    He grimaced, glancing at Isolde, and shook his head. “Nothing. We thought we had a
     breakthrough a couple of days ago, but it turned out to be something the D team had
     already tried. Dead end.” He grimaced again at his own word choice, though this time
     he managed to avoid glancing at Isolde; better to let that reference disappear in
     shame than call any more attention to it.
    Isolde looked down, rubbing her belly the way Madison always used to. Marcus worked
     as hard as he could—everyone on the cure teams did—but they were still no closer to
     synthesizing the cure for RM. Kira had figured out what