Powerless by S.A. McAuley Read Free Book Online

issues Jegs had just thrown at me, it was the least of my concerns, too. Armise pushed his plate away in disgust.
    I sat down across from him and realised there wasn’t one piece of meat on the plate. I dragged it in front of me, my stomach rumbling in response. “Yeah, we’ve got more to worry about than how the food tastes when it comes to Exley.” I picked up his fork and stabbed at the pile of vegetables and rice, barely getting one bite into my mouth before I was spitting it out. I pushed the plate back towards him. “That is shit.”
    “How do you fuck up vegetables?” Armise sneered, then leant forward and spoke to me in his home dialect of Mongol, “What’s the deal with Exley?”
    I furrowed my brow and studied him, trying to figure out why he was speaking to me in a language that few, if any, people in the bunker would know. Armise tipped his chin up in silent reply, glancing over my shoulder.
    “Fuck,” I ground out as I followed his gaze to the table set against the wall where my parents sat. They were both staring back at me openly, wearing matching frowns. I shook my head and turned back to Armise, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge their presence for anything less than the inconvenience it was. “Let’s head back to our quarters,” I said to Armise in Mongol. “We need to talk.”
    Armise stood immediately and walked out of the galley without one look back to me or my parents. I had to fight not to consider them one more time. They were an enigma to me, so naturally that made me more curious about them. I didn’t know anything about their status since being held by Ahriman or how they were contributing to their precious Revolution. At one time the President had said that they would become faces for the cause and move into his home in the capital. But at some point, obviously, that plan had changed. Jegs had mentioned nothing about them, though. So I had to assume for the moment that their presence here was inconsequential to the larger issues. But I would find out for sure later.
    “How safe do you think our room is?” I asked, keeping to the northern Singaporean dialect of Armise’s home as we tracked down the hallway.
    Armise ran his hand over his chin, in a motion that was reminiscent of the years he’d had his grey and silver beard, even though he’d shaved it off months ago and had kept it off. He shook his head and answered me in continental English, “Does it matter?”
    For a couple of seconds I considered how we could stay in the bunker and still talk freely, thinking about ways to mask our conversation, but realised quickly that I needed to be able to speak to Armise without the worry of what may or may not be intercepted or overheard.
    “It might,” I admitted.
    Armise looked around the hallway and over his shoulder. “Above ground then.”
    I motioned for him to follow me as I tracked back to a passage we’d passed. “This way.”
    I could remember enough about the layout of the bunker for us to make it to the door we’d used on the op to rescue my parents with Exley. The exit was guarded by a low ranking soldier who wore the fitted black uniform of the Revolution and carried a real pistol on his hip and a rifle slung over his shoulder, but I didn’t bother to stop and ask if we would be able to gain access into the bunker again. It was probably a safe assumption that if I didn’t return soon Jegs would be out hunting my ass down and forcing me back into the bunker to deal with our potentially rogue President.
    The guard warily stepped to the side and let us pass, but I noted him going immediately to his comm, likely to notify Neveed that Armise and I were leaving the bunker. Especially since neither of the two of us had any chips remaining in our bodies that would allow us to be tracked.
    I pushed through the door and into the dark grey sky of winter in the capital. It was January but the temperatures had yet to hit freezing. Each year the cold spells grew shorter and