Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part Two

 Notes: And we're going, we're going, we're--wait, we stopped, FULL STOP, what the what, plot? What are you thinking? ARE YOU EVEN THINKING!?

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Five, Part Two

 

When Elanus stepped into Moreno’s cell and immediately found himself on the business end of a guard’s modified stun gun, he was grateful that he’d taken the time to plan for Contingencies F-I, because he was going to need them. It wasn’t that he didn’t have tabs on Moreno, that he wasn’t tracking which of his guards were sympathetic to his cause and which ones he was blackmailing, but he honestly didn’t think the man had the guts for this more dynamic course of action.

Shit. Kieron had to be losing his mind, seeing this with the girls. He hoped they were doing a decent job of calming him down.

“So, I guess you didn’t ask me here to talk,” Elanus said in as uninterested a tone as he could muster in the moment.

“Not in the slightest,” Moreno replied, a smile splitting his too-wide, sweat-damp face. “You must think you’re so clever, you shit. So damn clever, all the trouble you made for me ever since you got back here. No, before that—I had deals in place with Moritz that would have made me wealthy beyond even your wildest dreams, and you scuppered it all when you got rid of him.”

“I’m not at all sorry for that.”

Moreno nodded. “I’d respect you less if you were, not that I respect you very much to begin with. You’re not much of a politician, but even you have to realize that there’s no way to change a ruling society as deeply entrenched as ours. Nothing you or Caria do is going to make a difference in the end. Everyone, and I mean everyone above a certain threshold in society, wants to see you fail. The only way you could get around that is killing a lot more of them, and I don’t think you’ve got it in you.”

“I only threaten to kill, I almost never follow through,” Elanus said. “Just like everyone else ‘above a certain threshold.’”

“That’s going to change after this,” Moreno said, his voice thick with satisfaction. “I’ve got people whipped into a righteous frenzy—not even the ones I give a shit about, either, but the second they know that something has gone wrong with me, they’re gonna come down on you and everyone you care for like a supernova. You think you know chaos? You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Elanus nodded slowly. “And you plan to be far away by then, I take it.”

“You’re damn right I do. I’d like to stay,” he added with a bit of regret, “but this planet’s too hot for me now. I always knew I might need to get out of here in a hurry, and I’ve got plans in place to make that happen.”

Ah. He’s actually counting on his wife. Not too surprising, since he had her parents and their son guarded by people who were loyal to him and prepared to kill them all, but the ruthlessness was almost stunning. Almost. “What’s my role in this going to be, then?”

“What do you think, smart guy?” Moreno waved the stun gun theatrically toward the door. “You’re going to get us out of here. I’ve got a skimmer waiting for me underground, and you’re going to lead the way. I don’t want a single door to give us more than a second’s pause, or I’ll strike you dead one limb at a time. And to show you I’m serious—” He raised the gun and shot Elanus in the left shoulder.

Fuck! The energy beam hit him in the joint, numbing the nerve cluster and deadening his entire arm—and across his chest and partially up his neck as well. It became harder to breathe, and he felt his heart stutter and skip a few times before it settled back into its regular rhythm.

“How,” Elanus asked through gritted teeth, “am I supposed to get us out of a secure government building with half of my dexterity taken away?”

Moreno smirked. “Please, you think I believe that you need your hands to do anything? If you can’t open doors with your implant and the angels on your shoulder at this point, then you’re not half the man I thought you were.” He puffed his chest out a bit. “Too bad I’m ten times the man you thought I was, aren’t I? Now move.”

Kieron is definitely freaking out now. But that was something to be handled later. Moreno had to be handled now. Elanus nodded, then turned back toward the door he’d come through. “I suppose you can handle this one,” he said over his shoulder to Moreno. “Since it’s your guard who lent you that stunner, after all.”

“Sure, but I want to see the whiz kid in action.”

“All right.” [Catie, activate blue zone, path eighteen. We’re going down.]

[Initiating. Daddeeeeeee, are you okaaaay?]

[I’ll be fine, sweetheart. Just don’t let Kieron come after me.]

[Don’t worry, Daddeeeee, Lizzie is with hiiiim. Door opening in point-two—]

It opened, and Moreno chuckled. “God damn, where were you when I needed you, kid? We could have ruled this entire planet together.”

“Nah,” Elanus said because he was a bit of an idiot. “I prefer to work with smart people.” He stiffened as the stunner poked him in the middle of the back. “You won’t,” he said quickly. “You need me to get to the basement.”

“Don’t tempt me otherwise. Move.”

Elanus, with Catie’s help, managed to not only open every door he needed to go over a hundred floors down without interruption, he also wasn’t seen by anyone—physically, at least. He didn’t bother to stop the video footage from being recorded, but he was careful not to let it be registered and seen by the building’s AI or its human security officers yet. After all, he didn’t need Moreno to have more useless charges heaped on him. What was Caria going to do, after all—put him back in the cell? Put him in a darker one? His followers would wreak havoc.

That was a place where they’d been outplayed, and Moreno had been right about one thing—Caria’s ideals had run into Elanus’s practicality there and left them where they were now. Not that he was entirely comfortable with the idea of simply killing the man and putting an AI fake in his place for all video appearances, but it would have made things considerably easier.

They got to the basement, Moreno’s gun still firmly fixed on the center of Elanus’s back. “Two more doors and we meet my friends,” Moreno said confidently. “From there it’s to a private spaceport, and you’re coming with me for that as well, because I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you. Once we break orbit, then I’ll put you in the ship’s lifepod and set you loose.”

Well, that was almost certainly a lie. Elanus thought about it as he opened the first door, which led to a set of actual stairs—stairs, no lift or moving walkway, how quaint—down two more levels to another door. Obviously he wasn’t going to let things get that far, and it would be child’s play to run interference with both the ship and whatever transport they were using now, but he had to do so in a way that wouldn’t put him in danger. That meant—

The moment the second door was open, Elanus felt a harsh blow impact his ankles. He fell to the dirty floor, winded, and felt the energy beam Moreno had reflexively squeezed off fire above him. It hit—nothing, because whoever had taken him down was already moving, grabbing Moreno by the front of his jumper and pulling him forward until he tripped, rather painfully, over Elanus himself.

Oh, shit.

“Wait!” he croaked, but a second later he felt a warm splash against the side of his face and neck. A second after that, Moreno’s head had been forcibly severed from the rest of him.

Elanus slowly turned to look up at Kieron, who scowled fiercely from where he was crouched beside Moreno’s body, garotte in hand, and snapped, “You fucking idiot!”

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One

 Notes: Okay, I had to backtrack a little bit, but we're back on schedule now. I hope you enjoy this one! I'm feeling overall much better--still super dizzy going from flat to upright, but sitting is fine. OMG. Bodies.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One

 

The setup was beautiful. Elanus wasn’t directly a part of it; that would have been too obvious, a ploy that even someone like Moreno could see through. Instead, Fritz took the lead in drawing Moreno out of his cone of silence and into a state where he was willing to say and do things that would be useful.

And he did it by being a whiny bitch.

He carried out a series of “interviews” with Moreno over the course of three days, each one less successful than the last. Moreno refused to speak, stonewalling Fritz at every turn despite how he cajoled, begged, and eventually threatened. It was when the threats broke down that Moreno began to get interested, because that was when Fritz went from clear enemy into potential ally.

“Look,” he snapped at Moreno, “you’re making my life hell, do you understand me? That bitch Caria is going to have my fucking head if I don’t make some sort of progress with this fucking interview, and she’s more than ready to take my show away if you don’t help me out. What do you want, a nicer cell? That expensive brandy you always drink? The last remnants of my dignity? You can have it all, but you need to give me something, you—”

“How would your new president feel if she could hear what you’re saying?” Moreno broke in, taking control of the conversation with effortless ease. He had always been a good talker, Elanus thought to himself.

“She can’t,” Fritz replied blithely. “It’s one of my conditions for talking to you. My implant is deactivated right now, but this—” he gestured to the ugly black pin on the front of his copper-toned bodysuit “—prevents electronic surveillance devices from detecting anything we have to say.”

Well, except for Elanus’s.

“I did notice that new decoration of yours,” Moreno said. “Who gave such a powerful piece of technology to you?”

“Who else?” Fritz rolled his eyes. “Elanus Desfontaines, of course. Caria’s ace in the hole. He’s the reason she managed to go so far in the first place, although I think he would have bowed out of it if she hadn’t really been pushing him to help her. And if that shit with his boyfriend hadn’t gone down so badly.” Fritz shook his head. “That was dumb, okay? Just dumb. They say the heart opens doors, but when you went after that guy you locked them all down.”

“I did no such thing,” Moreno protested mildly.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Now. Are we going to talk today, or what?”

Moreno eyed him narrowly. “What does it mean for you if I continue to refuse?”

Fritz sighed. “Didn’t I already make this clear? It means losing everything I’ve worked so hard to gain for the past two decades in the public eye. Twenty years of selling myself to the entire planet, gaining their interest and their trust, and it’s all going to come crashing down because Caria decided to be bold all of a sudden. I wish to hell you’d just kept your damn head down and pacified those damn Elfshotters, you were a way better president than that crazy piece of—”

“You don’t care about their welfare?”

Fritz put a hand on his forehead—rather dramatic, Elanus thought, but Moreno was watching him with baited breath. “Are you kidding me? Why would I care about them? Do I think it’s stupid, and a policy that was destined to backfire? Yeah, sure, because Desfontaines or someone like him was inevitable. These things never stay in the shadows forever; believe me, I know.” He gestured to himself. “I considered going into investigative journalism before I realized that high society was a much better place for me than low. Every conspiracy has an end date. Yours ended when you let your vice president conspire with Desfontaines behind your back.”

That was the hook—the bit of private information meant to make Moreno start thinking about breaking his silence. Having Fritz bitch to him was one thing, but making him curious in turn was vital to making this work.

“What are you talking about?” Moreno asked, still not confirming any details. He was too clever for that, but Elanus could see that the hook had been set. He had his attention now.

“Oh please,” Fritz said disgustedly. “Like the entire planet doesn’t know that Sanclare had Elfshot disease? Or that xe was one of only two civilians on the Cabinet when it mysteriously exploded? Or that the other civilian turned out to be none other than Elanus Desfontaines’s freaking boyfriend? It’s not like Desfontaines has hidden why he’s been shut up in his house ever since then instead of appearing with Caria at speeches and shit like that.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm indeed,” Fritz said a bit mockingly. “Admit it, Restaria was cleverer than you thought. Xe used the boyfriend as a go-between, and you didn’t even think about him until it was too late because he’s an outsider. That moron doesn’t know how things work on Gania, but he’s dumb enough to care about what happens to his sociopathic lover. Restaria left a thread, and Desfontaines pulled it. And now you’re upset you’re in here? You’re upset?”

Fritz banged his hand on the table between them. “What about me? I was on the verge of elevation to the highest levels of society! The old guard was stepping aside—Caria is two generations past her prime! Her protégé was a desperate fool—and Desfontaines actually hates her, you know. She still believes Moritz was innocent, that Desfontaines pushed him into acting how he did. The only reason he allied with her is because she was the only one willing to acknowledge the Elfshot shit was happening and promise to do something about it!

“Meanwhile, people like you, Moreno, you represented the future—” never mind that he was closer to Caria’s generation than Deysan Moritz’s “—for people like me, the ones to strive for, to get close to! And I was getting there, and then all of this came crashing down, and now? I get the silent treatment from you one more time, and Caria’s going to kick me out of my timeslot, and that’s it for me. I’ll be done. Spent. I’ll have to host a fucking late night quiz show, it’s going to ruin me, and it’s all your fault!”

Elanus held his breath. If Moreno stonewalled them now, they wouldn’t get another chance at this. If he decided to hold his tongue, instead of trying to go deeper…

“Fritz.” Moreno folded his hands on the table. “Calm down, son, it’s all right. Listen…do you think you could get me a meeting with Desfontaines?”

Fritz blinked. “You want me to get Elanus Desfontaines, whom Caria Jayde distrusts, into this secure facility, to get the interview that’s supposed to save my career, instead of giving it to me?”

“No. I want you to get Elanus Desfontaines, whom Caria Jayde still needs, in here to meet with me privately for a quarter of an hour. After that’s done, I promise you, I’ll give you the interview of the century.”

Fritz bit his lip. “I want that in writing.”

“Of course.”

“At least an hour long. And you answer every question I ask.”

“Right down to the time I spend on the shitter each morning,” Moreno promised with a twisted smile.

Fritz made a face. “I don’t think I need to know that, but…fine. I’ll see if I can get him in here before your trial’s due to start.”

“You do that.” He nodded. “You do that.

And Fritz plays his part beautifully.

Now it’s up to me to get the rest of it done.

Darlins, my brain...

 Is just not working right at the moment. I woke up with vertigo a week ago* and it's been intense in an on-off way ever since. I'm working on four books for other people and can't skip a day, but it's taking twice as long to do everything :( I'm so sorry, but I need a little extra recovering time before I can kick more ass at Chelen City. I'll do my best to get a chapter to you next week!

*After being kneed in the head in BJJ the day before, which--I'm pretty sure I'm not concussed, I get vertigo a few times a year just for living life, but it probably didn't help :(

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

 Notes: Sorry there's nothing quirky or funny today, I have huge vertigo and need to be lying down, lol. 

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

 

The problem, Elanus reflected two days later on his way to see ex-President Moreno, was that he really shouldn’t be given time to think about things. The more time he took to think about things, the more emphatically he tended to respond. The old Kieron would have said he was “dramatic,” but the new Kieron didn’t because he didn’t remember enough to know that.

That was the memory that pushed Elanus over the edge when it came to the meeting. Kieron is fucked up because of this man. Because Moreno took it upon himself to assassinate his Vice President, who took it upon xirself to find the most foolproof protection out there. And it worked, for xir.

And it almost ruined things forever.

Elanus had taken his revenge on Restaria for that. It was over and done with—too late for regrets, and who would listen anyhow if he wanted to bitch about it? Saying more to Kieron would only burden him, and the girls were too sensitive about it to handle a discussion without getting distracted. Maybe he should design a new ship that had more adult sensibilities, who he could talk these things through with…

Or maybe that would lead to the dissolution of all law and order in this part of the galaxy. It was fifty-fifty as far as Elanus was concerned.

No, he should make do with what he had. But that meant he needed to keep himself in check. He had to rely on his own better instincts to keep from torturing Moreno just because he could, because it was what he deserved after everything that happened with Kieron. So, fine. No torture, but that didn’t mean Elanus wasn’t going to make things hard on him.

He was just going to do that by giving Moreno everything he wanted.

The protests concerning the fallen idol were approaching a fever pitch, with counter-protestors making their presence known at the rallies that were still going on around the capitol building. Caria was calling for peace, promising that while Moreno was in a cell, he was being treated humanely and was attended to by his lawyers. His lawyers, meanwhile, did their best to fan the flames by decrying the lengths that Caria and the rest of the government had gone to to isolate Moreno, calling his treatment “inhumane” while defending his continuation of the centuries-old Elfshot program as “a regrettable oversight.”

As if he hadn’t benefitted directly from seeing the best and brightest taken down in their prime. As if he hadn’t had lengthy discussions with politicians, business leaders, Deysan, about how he could “guarantee” the status quo remained intact as long as he was president. How he would protect them from the innovator, the creative, from anyone who might topple them from their pedestals.

Catie had even found record of a conversation that Elanus himself had been the subject of—“an outlier, the sort of person we need to look at as an opportunity instead of a threat. After all, how could they ever say we weren’t doing everything we could for them when he’s right there, reaching the pinnacle of society despite his…disadvantages?” Restaria was looked at the same way; useful as long as xe was being obedient, a perfect shill for the message that Moreno cared, he really cared.

He didn’t care, not about anyone but himself. He’d had two of his ex-wives assassinated—successfully, not even just threats of death, he’d flat-out tried to kill them until it worked because he was afraid of what they’d say. Two of his three children were also dead, and the third one had left Gania several decades ago. His third wife was fifty years younger than he was, uninterested in children, politics, or any work beyond what it took to keep up appearances, and currently on a luxury cruise around the Central System—paid for by Ganians—that was ostensibly for diplomatic reasons but was mostly a chance for her to have fun with her lovers without flaunting them. She’d been on Moreno’s list as well, once she returned.

The point was, the protests were getting violent, misinformation was everywhere, and without a statement directly from Moreno, nothing was going to get better. Moreno himself refused to give any such thing, content to fan the flames.

Well, fuck that.

“You understand what you’ve got to do?” Elanus asked as he checked in with Fritz an hour before they were due to begin.

“Of course I do,” Fritz said, rolling his brilliant eyes—he’d redone them in gold, they were shockingly visible even across a crowded room now. “You’re talking to someone who got his first degree in theater; I know how to do this. I’m just surprised you got Caria to agree; she’s far more straightlaced than I ever thought before I really got to know her.”

“She’s doing what she needs to do,” Elanus said. “She’s got to present a contrast to Moreno, and the best way to do that is to be a little bit serious.”

“It’s not inspiring, though.”

“No, it isn’t,” Elanus agreed. “Which is why we’re going to perform our little play.”

Fritz arched an eyebrow. “And what does your man think of that?”

“He’s fine with it.”

Kieron, in fact, was not fine with it. He was pretty upset about it, actually, and more upset at the fact that Elanus was keeping him completely away from the entire operation rather than letting him take a role. It wasn’t, Elanus had told him, that he didn’t want Kieron there. It was that “I need you to be safe for this.”

“How would I not be safe?” Kieron demanded. “The only person putting himself in an unsafe position is you, I’d be perfectly safe.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t need to! I—”

“I need you to be safe!” Elanus had shouted. “That means you here, with the girls, in a place where no one can reach you!”

Kieron had stared at him for a long moment before saying, “I’ll stay. This time. But you can’t keep me locked up forever.”

And Elanus wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. But that was an issue for another day.

Today, the issue was getting Moreno to incriminate himself in a way even a fucking idiot could understand. And that, Elanus could see to himself…with a little bit of help from his friends.