Machinations Read online

  Uh-oh.

  “Get out,” Camus says, angling his head only slightly to deliver the demand. “Now.”

  I start to leave with Samuel and Lefevre, taking the opportunity to escape, but Camus stops me with an exasperated, “Not you, Rhona.”

  Samuel looks like he’s prepared to stay behind, too—my partner in crime to the last—but I wave him off. I can handle Camus.

  I think.

  Immediately after the door shuts, Camus rounds on me. “What were you thinking?”

  The first words out of my mouth, stupidly, are, “I can explain,” as if I even need to. I don’t need to justify my actions to him. I don’t owe him anything. Not a damn thing—especially not when he’s given me nothing in return. But even knowing this, my heart still wants to make peace.

  So I try to explain. “I was trying to contribute to the investigation.”

  “No.” He cuts me off with an imperious gesture. “Stop there. Please.” His frustration overwhelms him for a few seconds, and he places his hands on the table, as if to steady the madness of a world that continues to spin. “Why must you fight me at every turn?” he asks, looking back up at me.

  “Fight you?” I say, incredulous. “Someone tried to kill me. I’m trying to figure out who and why. It has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with you.”

  Camus is shaking his head, not listening. “How do you imagine I can protect you when you keep throwing yourself into the lion’s den?”

  Protect me? No, I think. No, he does not get to play the hero card in this. “Is that what you’re doing, Camus? Protecting me? Because from where I’m standing, it feels like all you’ve been doing since I got here is knock me down.”

  He moves around the table with surprising agility for someone barely recovered from a severe leg injury. Maybe he’s so angry he can’t feel it. I’d like to be able to reach that level of anger some time, to lose myself in a hot swamp of nothing. Right now, all my feelings are rushing headlong toward my stressed mental dams. I’m not indefatigable; I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay strong before everything comes pouring out.

  “I apologized for my behavior,” Camus tells me, minimizing the distance between us. “What do you have to say for yours?”

  “How long were you watching?” I ask. “Because you should know we made progress. We got Zelda to talk. She’s even offered to help us catch the person who did it. Don’t you think that counts for something?”

  “Yes, but considering all the things that could have gone wrong…”

  “It was worth the risk.”

  “Oh, it was worth the risk, was it?” Camus says, nodding enthusiastically, though clearly not in agreement. His jaw is clenched so tight I see the clear definition of bone beneath his skin. “Worth the risk,” he repeats to himself with a note of disbelief. “Is that all life is to you, Rhona? A game of chance? Throw the dice and hope for the best?”

  In the privacy of the observation room, where there are no eyes or ears, no audience to play to, Camus doesn’t need to call me Rhona. It makes me wonder why he does.

  “Of course not,” I tell him more gently, keeping my tone under control. He looks feverish, out of control, even—frightened. As if he’s made himself physically sick with worry. Worry for me? “Camus, are you okay?”

  “No,” he answers candidly. “Not when you continue to do things like this. It’s reckless.”

  Watching his knee-jerk reaction, the pieces of the puzzle come together. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. “You’re not angry with me,” I say.

  “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

  “Okay, you’re annoyed with me, but the person you’re really mad at is her.”

  His gaze snaps away from me, ashamed. We both know who I mean, although it’s a little weird to refer to myself as a different person. Only for the sake of civility do I make the distinction.

  “Whose idea was it to form the rescue mission, Camus?”

  He swallows before speaking, but even then his voice is so quiet, raw and hoarse with feeling, I can barely hear him. “Rhona’s,” he confesses, almost sounding relieved that at least it wasn’t his plan. “I argued against it from the start, but she insisted. She refused to leave anyone stranded. So typical.”

  “She threw the dice,” I say.

  “She gambled with her life,” he corrects me, before continuing in a broken voice “And I couldn’t protect her from the consequences. That’s my failing.”

  Not for the first time, I see Camus as a complicated mesh of anger and grief, just as volatile as Zelda, and equally desperate to make sense of the senseless. The difference is Camus reins himself in, leashed by an Englishman’s control, impatient with his own feelings. While Zelda had Lefevre as a confidant, and probably anyone else who would hear her complaints, Camus has suffered in silence. Repressing—no, killing—his heart. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in that kind of daily misery. Always pretending to be okay when you are so clearly not.

  “I’m sorry, Camus,” I say, because someone should say it.

  He frowns. “It wasn’t—”

  My fault? I see the completion of the thought reflected back at me from his expression. Yes, it was. It can’t not be my fault, if it was Rhona’s. Say it, Camus. Yell it. Scream it at the top of your lungs. Rage. Anything. Hate me so you can love me again.

  But of course he does none of those things. That would be too easy. Or too hard.

  Instead, he tries to compose himself, remain outside the reach of human comfort, by moving to stand in front of the window again. His reflection is as faint as a ghost, his unhappiness transparent. “ ‘We have seen the best of our time,’ ” he says, and it takes me a moment to understand it’s a quote. “ ‘Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves.’ William Shakespeare.” In response to my blank look, he says, “Famous sixteenth-century playwright.”

  It seems I lost certain chunks of my high school or college years—English class must have been one of those periods that either never got transferred, or lacked enough emotional content for me to hang on to. Then again, maybe Camus is referencing an obscure play I was never familiar with—that would be like him. The hipster. “Well, he got the Machinations part right,” I say, thinking of the Machinations, even though I’m sure Shakespeare had no idea of the terrible things to come under that name. “But I don’t know. I think our lives can still be more than just a collection of bad events. Life should be more than just survival.”

  Camus is silent, wrapped up in old guilt.

  I approach him cautiously, like I would a wounded animal. “You don’t have to go through this alone.” I try slipping my hand into his. He recoils from my touch, but not instantly, and in that single moment when our palms are mated, I get a sense of shared longing. He’s good at hiding it, better than most, but it’s still there. That need for companionship, for a friend, for trust and love and all the things intrinsic to the human condition. All the things he’s denied himself for the past six months.

  “And you can’t keep punishing yourself, Camus. You can’t keep driving everyone else away.”

  His eyes search my face with the desperation of a drowning man looking for a lifeline.

  “Like who?”

  I mentally list the people who were Camus’s friends, only to realize most of them actually belong to me. “You can always make friends. And…” I take a breath. “You still have me. You know, if worse comes to worst.”

  The last bit is a joke. I wish he would smile again.

  He snorts. “I’d be more inclined to believe that if you didn’t seem so dead-set on getting yourself killed.”

  “Sheesh. You bleed to death one time, and no one ever lets you forget it.”

  Camus shakes his head.

  “Too soon?”

  “Is everything a joke to you?” he asks me.

  “If it’s a choice between laughing o
r crying, then yeah.” I shrug. “Why not laugh? I’m an ugly crier.”

  It’s not my intention, but he looks chastised by my remark. It’s like he’s only just realizing how hard he’s been on me. About freaking time.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.” I give him a sideways look that says, Yeah right. He exhales—part sigh, part laugh. “I guess that’s not entirely true, is it? I’m just tired and…concerned.”

  “Yeah, I get that. But I’m okay, Camus. Nothing happened—”

  “This time. What do you expect will happen when your luck runs out?” It’s a rhetorical question he expects me to know the answer to, because we’ve already lived through that scenario. What do I expect will happen when my luck runs out? I don’t know, Camus. The reset button didn’t work quite right the last time. Nothing is how I expected it would be.

  “The base is my responsibility, but so are you,” he continues with more care in his tone. “I won’t require you to ask permission for every little thing, and I’ll try not to behave like your keeper. But I do ask that you extend me the courtesy of keeping me informed. Particularly when you’re intent on endangering yourself.”

  “Okay. Fair enough,” I agree.

  Satisfied with my answer, he takes his leave, but I stop him on the way out. “Hey, Camus?”

  He stops, turning only his head. His profile is all sharp angles. I’m sure I’m supposed to say something profound now, something that will alter our relationship and radically redefine our possible future.

  I say, “Cheer up.”

  There’s a glimmer of a smile, promising, but it’s gone too quickly, and soon he is, too.

  Samuel replaces him less than a minute later, giving a playful rap on the door frame as he peeks in. “Is it safe?” he inquires.

  I shrug, half-sitting against the table. “For now.”

  He joins me, our shoulders coming together supportively, but I don’t look at him, out of fear of driving the wedge of weirdness between us any deeper. “Everything all right?” he asks, more seriously.

  “No,” I answer honestly. “But we’re getting there. And what about us?”

  “Us?” he squeaks.

  Now I turn to face him. “Are we going to be all right?”

  He nods, and only a little haltingly answers, “Of course.”

  I take him at his word. I can’t entertain the alternative.

  Chapter 17

  When the day of the attack comes, just shy of a week later, McKinley swells with anticipation. The entire base collectively holds its breath and waits.

  In the meantime, the war room has finally made good on its name, and is all geared up for the offensive. The walls are powered on, cluttered with live images from both teams. Adding to the feeling of chaos, anyone with even a small claim to authority is here, pushing the occupancy limit. It’s the fullest I’ve seen the room since I crashed the debriefing, what seems forever ago now.

  I’m in the center of activity, flanked by Clarence, who’s the real expert here. A few feet away, Camus coordinates with Meir, who now appears only as a pretty face on a screen, miles and miles away, having returned with her delegation before the conclusion of our investigation. Convenient timing at best; a sign of guilt at worst. But she’s moved her people into position as promised, and now isn’t the time to foster dissension among the ranks. I might be little more than a glorified rallying point, true, but at the very least I hope to create a feeling of community. The machines are going to present a united front; so will we.

  It’s hard enough keeping my thoughts clear amidst the half dozen different conversations going on, so when Clarence addresses me, I don’t hear him at first. “Commander?” he repeats, a little louder. “The Prudhoe teams are active and ready.”

  “Right,” I say. “Camus, how’s Fairbanks coming along?”

  He holds up a finger in the universal sign for “One second,” and covers an ear with a hand, listening to his earpiece. “Their assault teams are on location now.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  I’m watching the screens with the live feed of the area. The footage is shaky and partially obscured by a scratchy static from time to time, but it’s as close to being there as any of us in the war room are going to get. I feel a little nauseated, although I’m not sure whether it’s nerves or the shakiness of the camera feed. I close my eyes for a moment, trying to imagine a serene place like a beach to calm myself. Instead, I remember the dreams I had while in the Alaskan forest, and it has just the opposite effect. I feel like I’m back on that cliff, poised above a frozen shore, ready to jump.

  Except this time, Camus isn’t holding me back; he’s watching to see if I’ll fly.

  “Give the order,” he tells me, although the words themselves get lost in the noise. I’m forced to read his lips instead. Not that it’s necessary. I already know what needs to happen next.

  “Teams Sasquatch and Barbados, you’ve got the green light. Commence with Operation Pigs in a Blanket,” I say into my headset, somehow managing to make it sound serious.

  The mission’s code name was Hanna’s idea, joking, although I was given the credit after proposing it in council. I can just see the history books now. If anyone asks, I’m going with the time-honored excuse: you had to be there.

  “Repeat. Sasquatch and Barbados, you have the green light.” I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to add anything else, but I remember people wishing each other Godspeed, so I grant the same encouragement over the radio to my teams in Prudhoe. It’s a little awkward, given that I’m no British general, but I think I spy a smile from Camus’s direction. Worth it.

  Meir likewise gives her own teams the go-ahead at Fairbanks.

  And now the hard part begins.

  There’s very little we can do on this end, apart from provide instruction when needed. And since the teams have already been thoroughly briefed, they don’t really need any advice on how to do their jobs. Besides, the mission is pretty straightforward. In both locales, they’ll strike first from the air and move in for cleanup with the ground forces. Hopefully, the two-pronged attack will confuse the machines long enough to keep them from assembling any significant response. Once that’s done, the teams in the air will disappear, while the teams in the tanks will lure any trackers into the trees of the nearby forests, destroy them there, and then vacate with the assistance of extraction teams. We may be forced to abandon the tanks in the woods if they’re too hot with the machines on them, but I hope those will be the only casualties suffered today.

  I keep my chin up, trying to appear cool and calm, but I can’t help picking at my fingernails beneath the table.

  I need everything to go right today if I’m to prove myself as a commander. The title is mostly honorary in this day and age, no longer requiring the same military distinction it used to, but it’s still only given to the best humanity has to offer. I intend to become that again.

  The first ten minutes of the mission pass successfully, without incident. I’m standing now, with many of the others, watching the many screens, trying to interpret the footage in combination with the soldiers’ running commentary.

  Fifteen minutes in is when the trouble starts.

  “Reports indicate a medium-size force approaching Fairbanks from the south,” Clarence relays to me between his rapid communications with Churchill base.

  “Medium?” I say. “Define medium.”

  “Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Commander,” I hear a soldier onsite reply. “Not too big, not too small, but just right to throw a wrench into this operation.”

  The Texan accent reminds me of—no!

  “Rankin?” I blurt out, completely unprofessionally. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” comes the response. He pops into the view of one of his fellow soldiers’ cameras. With all his equipment, including a face mask, there’s no way I would have recognized him. He would’ve just been another soldier. And less of a concern—as terrible as that sounds—because I would have
assumed he was from Churchill. Rankin gives me a friendly little wave, like he’s on vacation, not assaulting machine-controlled land.

  My head is spinning. “What the hell are you doing in Fairbanks?” Fairbanks is supposed to be Churchill’s people—only Churchill’s, but apparently someone didn’t get the memo. “Does Hanna know you’re there?”

  “Oh, yeah, she knows. She wasn’t too happy about it. But Camus told me Churchill needed someone who knew the area, so here I am.” I doubt that was the only reason why Camus volunteered him for the job. He probably didn’t trust our allies, wanted some insurance, under the guise of a liaison and navigator. Damn it. “Not to rush you, base, but how do you want us to handle these party crashers?”

  “The station is out of commission, correct?” Clarence asks.

  “Yes, sir,” Rankin replies, voice crusty with static. “The machines aren’t going to be launching or receiving from Fairbanks any time soon. The air team saw to that. We’re still tidying up after them, but there’s only a few stragglers giving us trouble. And they won’t be any use to reparations. They’re just some half-frozen predators.”

  Camus has joined us by this time. “Do not engage the enemy if it is at all possible to avoid them, Lieutenant,” he says. “Finish the cleanup and meet at the rendezvous point.”

  “Understood, Commander.”

  What was nerve-racking before is now almost unbearable, with the knowledge that I’ve got a close friend out there, risking life and limb on my orders. Before, most of the soldiers were faceless, nameless. Now I can’t stop imagining all of them as Rankin, or Ortega, or Lefevre. I’ve put these brave men and women in the line of fire. Me.