Stormblood, стр. 145

‘Vak?’ Artyom was just staring at me. Sokolav’s mouth was set in a grim line; as if angry I hadn’t escaped when I could.

‘Who else?’ snapped Jae as two men in armour dragged my limp body towards the centre of the room. They forced me to my knees, one locking my arms behind me so tightly my shoulders ground in their sockets. Hideko smiled at the sight of me in pain. The other guard stripped me of my palmerlog and slingshiv.

A sea of emotions spilled across my brother’s face. ‘Hey,’ I choked out to him. ‘How’s things?’

‘I told you to stay away,’ he said. ‘Why couldn’t you listen?’

‘Because he’s a fool, like all his kind,’ Jae said. ‘What did you think you could do in here, Fukasawa? Take on the whole of the House of Suns by yourself? You can’t hold back an avalanche with a broom.’ She gestured at the flexiscreens. ‘Have a good, long look. This is only temporary, you know that. We’ll step in with the cure, fix what Harmony could not. There will be blood. They’ll fall as we show the world the truth.’

Hideko and her guards murmured a slow, eerie chant of agreement.

‘You think you’re getting away with any of this? We are coming for you.’ I nodded towards the flexiscreens showing Harmony fireteams clawing their way through the hallways. I twisted my face into a wolfish grin. ‘What, you Harvesters losing to Harmony once wasn’t enough?’

‘“We”,’ Jae mocked as she cupped my jaw. ‘You really believe that Harmony is on your side.’ Another knife of a smile. ‘You tiny, tiny thing. Harmony is not your friend. They are no one’s friend. They let you bloody your hands for them. And for what? Revenge? They’re a parasite. They destroy everything they touch. They’re not coming to save you.’ She pitied me. She actually pitied me. ‘You’re alone, Vakov. You’ve been alone from the day you became a Reaper.’

But she was wrong.

There were people who’d fight with me, die with me. My new fireteam, walking into hell with me to do right by others. The Kaiji who thought Harmony deserved a second chance. Grim, who’d stuck with me even when I’d almost driven him away. And Katherine. Who treated her men like family, who’d seen past the blue parasite twitching through my body, to the person she wanted me to become. All of them fighting towards me even now.

Most of the Reapers who’d fought with me in the war were gone. But their spirit, their courage and sacrifice had remained with me, remained in others, and always would. Jae and her people only understood blind devotion, a faux-unity that stemmed from hatred and a desire to cause harm.

‘You’re not just a walking disease, Jae. You’re not just an untidy afterbirth. You’re stupid. And you’ll never understand what we have.’ The stormtech was boiling like thunderclouds in my chest, swaddling me in an unnatural cloak of heat. My lips peeled back from my bared teeth as I swung up to look at her. ‘I can’t wait to watch Harmony nuke you and your psycho cult from orbit until you glow.’

Jae didn’t flinch. Instead she gave a laconic smile and leaned in to whisper, ‘You won’t get the chance.’

‘If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already.’

Jae looked surprised. ‘Oh, you’re not going to die. Not for a very, very long time. I’m told you’re very familiar with the torture rooms that Harvest used in the war. I don’t think you spent nearly enough time in there. We’ll prepare another one. I hope you got a good look at our stormtech experiments on the station, because you’re going to get very familiar with them. How long do you think you’ll hold out in there? Three months? A year? More?’ She smoothed my hair back, gently. ‘Maybe we’ll hunt down a few of these friends of yours and put their severed heads in there with you for company.’

Hideko jabbed the pole between my shoulder blades. I was sent writhing and spasming on the cold floor again before being jerked back to my knees. Artyom’s breathing seemed to get a little tighter. A sudden cold wetness stabbed down into my neck. An immobilising agent. Numbness spread through my limbs, turning them to stone. Within seconds I was limp.

The floor rocked beneath me. Harmony, desperately trying to carve a way inside.

‘Should we take him now?’ one of the men suggested, kicking me until I rolled onto my back. Crooked yellow teeth gleamed behind a veil of scruffy dark hair that came down to his shoulders. ‘Get him tied up on a ship in the meantime. They’ll never find him that way.’

‘No. Let him see Harmony fall. Pack up what we need and get it to the next base, those dogs might be here soon. They will not get their hands on the databanks.’ Jae gave me another smile. ‘We have cells and data storages scattered all around Compass, slowly growing into the roots. We’re here to stay, Vakov.’

‘Don’t you need someone to protect you against him?’ he asked.

Artyom raised my arm, limp and heavy with paralysis. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’

The two armoured cultists exchanged a bow, hands clasped into fists. There was a chainship parked nearby, next to an old-fashioned airlock. They began loading most of the canisters and databanks into the chainship’s open hatch. Jae turned to Sokolav, laying a hand on his arm. He reached back to touch her, his features mellowing into the brave and loyal man I’d once known. Bile rose in my throat. So that was the nature of their relationship. Sokolav’s fingers tightened in Jae’s hand before the two drifted apart. He tilted his head to deal me a long, resolute look before sealing his spherical spacesuit helmet and following the cultists into the chainship. My hands shook and I tried to squirm into a sitting position. Nothing. Even if Harmony did get in