This Shattered World

Lilac grins, an expression I never would’ve expected from her. “Well said,” she says approvingly. “I see we’re all experts here at seeming to be what we’re not.”

Except me, says a tiny, seething thread inside my mind. I’m only exactly what I ever was.

I expect Merendsen to go into a detailed explanation, relaying what I told him. Instead, he cuts straight to the point.

“From everything Lee’s told me,” he tells the girl on the screen, “I think you were right.”

“Whispers?” Her face in the glow of her monitor is ghost-pale.

Merendsen nods. “And they’re getting stronger. People here are going mad, like the researchers in the station did, but much quicker.”

Lilac’s eyes close, the features so suited to laughter and frivolity now bearing signs of a deep, biting grief. “I knew it,” she murmurs. “I told you I could feel—”

“I believe you,” Tarver interrupts her, and though he doesn’t look back at us, I know he’s unwilling to share the whole story behind their cryptic conversation. “I’m not about to make that mistake again.”

Lilac’s eyes fly open then, refocusing on her screen. “Are your friends okay? Have they…Are you okay?” She’s addressing me and Flynn directly now. There’s such a shift in her voice, her compassion so clear, her expression transformed. Somehow she knows what we’re going through. But how? It’s her own father’s company; what could it have possibly done to her?

My voice tangles with uncertainty. “I—I’m not sure.”

Merendsen speaks up again. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll help them.”

“Tarver, you know you can’t stay there for long. I’ll try to find out what I can, but if what’s happening there is connected to the whispers, then your poking around will only draw the wrong kind of attention. They’re watching us constantly as it is; it’ll only get worse.”

Who’s watching? Her father? But their conversation is moving lightning quick, and I don’t have time to analyze that before they’re moving on.

“I know. I’ve only got two days here before I’m due off-world with the report. But Lee and Cormac are looking for a facility LRI might have here, somewhere out in no-man’s-land. It’s not the first time they’ve used another corporation’s territory in secret, so they’ve had practice burying the records.”

“Patron.” Lilac’s face is grim, her eyes glued to her monitor as though trying to read the minute details of Merendsen’s face.

He nods. “But this one would have been moved recently from one location to another, and that’s got to leave a paper trail somewhere. Can you look into that?”

“I’ll try to get into my father’s files. He’s changed his passwords, but I can…” She hesitates. “I’ll talk to the Knave.”

Merendsen grimaces. “Are you sure? We keep feeding him more information, trusting him with more of our secrets.”

Lilac shakes her head. “Come on, Tarver. He taught us how to protect ourselves, keep our lives private. Without him we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We have to trust him.”

Merendsen grumbles wordlessly, the sound approaching a growl, but he nods.

I clear my throat. “The Knave?” I can hear the dubiousness in my voice. It’s one thing to bring in Merendsen and to let him bring in his fiancée. But this is rapidly spiraling out of my control.

“The Knave of Hearts,” says Lilac. “A hacker based somewhere on Corinth. Don’t worry, Captain. He can be trusted.”

Merendsen’s eyes are still on the screen, and when he speaks his voice is soft. He misses her. “I’m sorry to bring you into it, Lilac. We may not be able to call again. It’s hard enough setting up a completely secure line under the best of circumstances, and these aren’t those.”

“I’ll get word through somehow,” she says confidently.

Hackers, socialites with hidden tech skills—it’s all too much. “This is ridiculous,” I burst out, earning stares from everyone. “Sir.” I shift my gaze to Merendsen. “I expected you to help me bring this up the chain of command. It’s what I should’ve done in the first place.” I can feel Flynn’s eyes on me.

“You can’t.” Lilac’s voice cracks whip-like from the speakers, stopping me cold.

“I appreciate you wanting to help, Miss LaRoux.” Speaking to her, this creature from a world entirely separate from mine, feels strange. “But if I take this to General Macintosh, he’ll have the power to actually do something.”

Lilac LaRoux doesn’t answer immediately. I half expect Merendsen to take over and fight this battle for her, but instead he waits, watching the girl on the screen. Finally, she tilts her head to one side and speaks. “The planet we crashed on, Captain, was not what the reports later said it was. By the time Tarver and I were rescued, we had discovered a mountain of evidence implicating my father’s company in a conspiracy that would have ruined him.”

My mouth goes dry, and I find myself looking for Flynn, who has finally pulled his gaze up off the floor. “So why not go public with it?”

“Because he destroyed it.”

“No one can destroy all the evidence of a conspiracy like that,” Flynn argues, and I know he’s thinking of the LaRoux Industries ident chip I found in the swamp.