Chapter 14
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All warnings from chapter 1 apply to this one too.
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"Did you ever think that it might have been different?" Katze asks, from behind his laptop. He doesn't look up at Iason who sits opposite him, a stack of holographic disks by his side. He is reviewing the latest sales contracts for Raoul's new line of live goods.
"How?"
"I could have been the fallguy."
"Were you?"
Katze laughs. "C'mon, Iason."
"I could see what you had done," Iason says, leaning back in his chair so he can study Katze's hunched shape, the fall of bright copper hair, not long enough yet to hide the jagged scar that runs down to his jawbone where it is exposed. "You were all but bragging about it."
"You know I wasn't. You missed it. I wonder why." Katze glances up at him, a glint of gold, his smile distorted and ugly where the surgeon's stitches have pulled the torn flesh taut along his cheekbone and down to his chin. "But not even you see everything, right? Doesn't this annoy you sometimes?"
Iason wonders briefly whether it does, and brushes the thought aside. He thinks that, if he can manage to remain composed enough to recall the events that have brought him and Katze to this, it is other things that weigh far heavier than Katze's hacking of the system. Iason thinks of Raoul's face, and doubts mingle with disappointment, a shade of pain, and a new wave of white-hot anger. He resents it, as much as the rift it has caused between him and Raoul.
Some things never heal.
Iason clutches the armrests of his chair to keep his hands from hurting or breaking things. "Have you made it your goal to provoke me? Do you find this entertaining?"
Katze's smile fades until it is just a shadow, empty in his white face. "No," he says softly, in that cool, smoky voice that makes Iason shiver with hunger. "It calms me down."
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It is Raoul who formally notifies Iason of a breach of the security protocol that protects Iason's personal computer network, something only a handful of people have access to. They have been carefully vetted by a specialised security team that answers to Raoul directly, and to the Council should the need arise.
Raoul looks pale and drawn when he talks to iason, quietly, over an untouched meal at the Eos Tower restaurant.
"I do not know how I can cover this up," he says, his hands flatly on the table. The food has gone cold, and the wine stale.
Iason says nothing. He listens to Raoul's detailed explanation without looking at him. Instead, he gazes out of the window that offers a view similar to that from his office suite.
"We nearly missed it," Raoul continues, "Whoever did it is very good, and it has to be an insider, someone with a good knowledge of our systems."
"And?" Iason breaks the sudden silence.
Raoul clears his throat. "We analysed the logs reaching back at least two months. I am still working on it, but I can say with certainty that he would also have known your schedule and habits."
Iason sits completely still. A single hair across his face stirs in the rhythm of his breathing, the only sign of life.
Raoul leans forward. "Iason," he says, barely above his breath. "There are not many who-"
Iason rises so abruptly that Raoul falls silent, gazing up at him. Iason stares down; his face is flushed, and tiny beads of sweat shimmer on his forehead. "I will deal with this," he throws at Raoul. "Do what you must."
Raoul rises, reaches into his jacket and pulls out a handheld scanner. He holds it out to Iason. "You may wish to use this. It is programmed to silent alert when it detects a fresh network breach."
For a moment, their eyes meet, until Raoul bends his head. "I will wait," he says. "I might be able to contain this."
The signal reaches Iason as he rides the elevator up to his suite, and when he yanks open the door and storms in, he sees Katze scoot back from the computer, the flicker of data bursting into cyberspace, and Katze dropping to his knees and holding his hands over his head in a vain attempt to shield himself.
Something breaks loose in Iason with the first blow he strikes across Katze's bent back. He is using his staff of office, hard and heavy, with its spearlike tip and sturdy butt, and soon Katze's gasps of pain become yelps and screams.
He only stops when Daryl steps in, shaking and silent, with a tray of coffee.
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When Iason checks with the hospital, he is told that Katze cannot be found – the bed empty, the medicine cupboard in the nurses' dayroom raided, a doctor's security pass is missing along with clothes and money from a locker that has been broken open.
Iason switches off the communication unit of his computer, sits back and folds his hands in his lap. He listens into himself. Gone are anger, disappointment and the blinding, sickening hurt that had overwhelmed him earlier. He hears silence, cold and familiar.
On the tracer he wears strapped to his wrist he can see the red dot that marks the location of Katze's tracker cuff. It slinks erratically across an area on the edge of Mistral, and when Iason zooms in requesting an interpretation of the data, he realises that the dot is bobbing over rooftops stretching along an industrial road.
He wonders briefly whether Katze has the gall to mock him by strapping the tracker to a cat, but it does not matter, because he believes that there are not many places Katze can go to, and that Mistral is along the way.
Iason orders Daryl to keep visitors out and stay in his room, and then he begins to search for Katze by following the stream of data that everyone moving in Tanagura leaves behind.
You can thin it out, he thinks, his fingers moving on the keyboard, but it will be there if you have the ability to see and the means to magnify it.
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By the time Raoul knocks on the door of Iason's office, Iason has a good idea where Katze has gone. It is a matter of time, he thinks, and pride. Non-Elite should know better than to challenge Elite.
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In a small, white room in a dirty building in the heart of Ceres, Katze slowly wakes from unconsciousness. Bare under a thin white sheet, his legs spread, he is stretched out on a narrow cot. In the back of his hand sits a drip, and and a medical monitor is attached with sticky pads to Katze's chest to count his heartbeat and measure his breathing. By his bedside sits Iason, wearing plain, dark civilian clothes and black gloves, his hair tied and tucked into his collar, a pair of black shades pushed up into it.
"I see you are awake." Iason doesn't expect an answer as he talks at Katze who lies still, staring up at the ceiling. "I was summoned to have my mind scanned – do you know what that means? We can be wiped, too."
Katze turns his face towards the wall.
"Perhaps," Iason continues, "Raoul is right. You lack the capacity to understand."
"I understand," Katze says, his voice scratchy and barely audible. "That you promised not to do this to me."
"You left me no choice." Iason leans forward until he can see Katze's semi-profile. "Do you know how alone I am?"
Kate says nothing, and Iason draws a slow breath. "You found out things that no non-Elite has ever seen, and you know things about me that not even Raoul knows. You sent this knowledge into cyberspace. You dishonoured me. Were you so scared of me that you had to betray me like that?"
Katze's cheeks colour, but he remains silent.
"Do you know what you found? You did not have time to look, did you? But you had an idea, and you gambled." Iason settles back in his chair. "I found most of the data and was able to contain the damage. But you? What should I do with you now?"
One tear trails over Katze's temple, and he clutches at the blanket that covers his prone form.
Iason lays his gloved hand on Katze's fingers and strokes gently. "Raoul understands more of this than is good for us – and him. This was the only way I could keep you."
"I don't want to be kept."
Iason shakes his head. He hits the buzzer and asks the man who peers into the room to remove the drip and monitor and bring some clothes for Katze.
It makes Katze aware just how naked he is.
Iason takes the small bundle the man brings, and sets it on Katze's belly. It is a house servant's suit of soft, off-white wool. "Get dressed. I want to show you something.
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Katze, dosed up on painkillers that numb his mutilated middle, stares blankly out of the window whilst Iason drives, shunning the autopilot of his flash silver sportster. Iason thinks that perhaps Katze is too drowsy to be surprised that they're leaving Ceres. They glide back into Tanagura's shimmering heart, but Iason passes Eos tower and carries on until he reaches a vast, steel-grey comples of buildings that looks like an apartment complex on the edge of the city until they reach its perimeter. A wall, crowned by razor wire, armed guards – Blue Elite, scanning Iason's credentials before letting him pass – and another wall and checkpoint after a broad swath of no-man's land. It isn't unusual for a gated complex of flats to be guarded, but the wire and the double-checkpoints appear rouse Katze's unwilling interest.
"This," Iason says as he steers his car into a basement-garage, "is the Academy. The real heart of our world."
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He uses a badge he wears like a keyfob in a buttonhole of his uniform coat, to swipe and open glassdoors leading into white corridors flooded by light that seems to come from the walls and seamless floors. Walking ahead of Katze, who follows because he has no choice, but Iason senses his resentment and anger. It surrounds him, thick like a thundercloud, and Iason waits for the first stroke of lightning to rip into the silence between them.
They reach another set of doors, and as they step through, a long, circular corridor opens to their sides. The corridor has a glassfront that offers sweeping view over a complex of buildings and gardens that it embraces. Like the miniature of an idealised Amoi, it stretches so far, they can't see the other side. And moving about this idyll, in pairs or small groups, are women – Katze has never seen so many of them, so beautiful. Fair, blue- or redhaired, exquisitely dressed and hung with jewellery that glitters in the golden light of the afternoon, they seem relaxed and at leisure.
"This," Iason says, linking his hands behind his back, "is where we are created."
Katze leans against the glass. He looks pained. "What?" he asks dizzily.
Iason gives him a glance that is at once scathing and amused. "What," he repeats, "what! Nothing happend to your mind. They," he nods at the women, "spend their lives here. They are created and reared, receive an appropriate education and are happy to bring new Elite into our world."
Katze stares, understanding seeping into his expression, followed by nausea. "I want to leave," he says, his voice tight. His face is ashen, and he seems cold in spite of the climatised warmth of the corridor.
Iason links his gloved hands behind his back. "They," he nods at the women, "Never do. They are conditioned to comply."
Katze sags, his head thudding against the glass as he begins to retch. Iason looks on, knowing that he cannot do anything to help without exposing himself to the cameras that monitor every part of the building. He wonders, briefly and crossly, how his power can be so large and so limited all the same, but shakes the thought off.
"Let us leave then," he urges quietly.
He has to control himself to not look back, to see whether Katze is able to follow, and he feels relieved to hear Katze's shuffling steps. He can't place what he feels, but he knows it is weakening him.
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Once in the car, Katze sags onto the backseat. Iason keyes in the co-ordinates for the Apathia penthouse.
As the car glides away from the Academy, Iason leans back and gazes at Katze in the rearview mirror.
"There is no connection," he says, "between them and us. Jupiter's Code has ended uncontrolled procreation and eliminated the coincidence of biology and unsuitable environments. Our imprints are created an optimised blend of molecules, calculated to provide traits according to specification. An imprint is injected into a single, empty cell that is implanted in the host, who will be relieved of its burden by surgeons at the right time. Once born, we are brought up by specialist staff and educated by Elite mentors."
"Where're you taking me now?" Katze murmurs, eyes closed. Iason wonders whether he's listened at all.
"Home," he says, trying to be patient.
Katze groans and lies back until he's draped across the backseat. He covers his face with his arm, as if to shield himself. Iason reaches across to touch his wrist.
"Raoul wanted to send his headhunters after you. The Council wanted my head. They were just shy of a vote of no confidence, which would mean that I would have been relieved of my position and my mind would have been cleared. If I had not been able to hold them off, I could not have saved you."
"I don't need to be saved," Katze says, his voice low and exhausted. "And I don't need you."
"There is nowhere on Amoi, or offworld, where Raoul can't find you. There is nothing that will stop him if I set you free. I could not let that happen. You only lost... flesh."
"You're a hypocrite. You made me into livestock."
There is a long silence, the car weaving its way across Tanagura. It isn't far to Apathia anymore – the skyline rises with the jagged, glossy silhouettes of exclusive apartment blocks and penthouses, and the lush green of tree-lined avenues brightens the scene.
Iason pulls back his hand. "I have not changed what you are."
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It takes some time for Katze to recover. Iason is busy navigating the choppy waters of the Council's inquiry into his private and business affairs. His trust in Raoul is shaken, but he deftly exploits their business relationship to secure Raoul's support.
In the end, he thinks as the Council decides that there is no case to answer, it all comes down to power and the will to use it.
But he knows he has lost something he cannot coerce, steal or buy back. Something of which he's barely caught a glimpse.
And Iason realises that it has changed him.
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Katze recovers at a speed Iason finds perplexing. The redhead no longer argues against his role. He moves back to Eos Tower to wait on Iason and resumes his work, managing Iason's household and parts of his business. It is, Iason thinks, as if Katze had become part of the furnishings – silent, decorative and unobtrusive.
Even Raoul, attending a business meeting with Iason, appears to approve. Iason is not sure whether he understands what has changed. He carefully conceals his mind, and their meeting passes amicably, without the note of discord that has strained their working relationship since Katze's arrival. At the end, Raoul rises and leaves with a rather formal bow and the ultimate sign of respect, a symbolic not-quite kiss to Iason's right hand.
The balance of Jupiter's laws has been restored.
Iason is both angry and relieved, and wonders how this is possible.
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Katze, a cigarette wedged between his lips, stands before the panorama window. Outside, the twin moons cast a purple glow over the sky, and below sprawls Iason's city.
Katze's clothes are strewn in a messy trail behind him. He holds a bunched tee in front of his stomach, high enough to bare him intimately but he can still pretend that he doesn't see the healing scars.
Iason, stepping into the office, pauses. Katze takes the cigarette and flicks ash against his reflection in the glass before bending to collect his rags and quickly get dressed.
Iason settles on the edge of the desk. "Does it really matter that much to you?"
Katze huffs, smoke billowing from his nostrils. "Man, Iason..."
Iason catches him as he tries to move out of reach. "Do you hate me?"
"I hate what you've done to me," comes the laconic reply.
Iason cups Katze's middle before the redhead can flinch back. "It happens to thousands. Many of you choose to have this done. It is nothing."
Katze gives a stifled groan. "You really don't want to get it, do you?"
"You have improved your situation," Iason notes, "is that not what you wanted when you agreed to come with me to Eos?"
Katze glances up at him, his golden gaze veiled by smoke yet sharp and probing. "Sometimes things change, you know. I... it wasn't enough once I got here."
"Then perhaps you want too much."
"Or you don't want enough."
Iason strokes Katze's shoulder. He has been looking for hurt or suffering, but perhaps Katze has buried it where Iason cannot find it. Iason decides to take this as a confirmation that he has been right, whether Katze wants to accept this or not. "I watched you," he says quietly. "Your kind of entertainment... it is interesting."
For a moment, Katze seems put out, before a lopsided smile curves his lips. "I guess you don't dance then? Or screw-"
Iason's grip tightens. "The purpose of that kind of... contact is to create intimate encounters. It means courting temptation, therefore Elite do not dance."
He is surprised to feel Katze go slack against him, and then the redhead links his hands behind Iason's back. "Some people gotta learn the hard way. You didn't go to Ceres yourself, did you?"
"I sent someone," Iason replies, drawing him close. Touch, he thinks crossly, the things it does to us – this kind of hunger that cannot be sated... why are we unable to stop once we have known it?
"Funny," Katze says, playing with a strand of Iason's hair behind his back, "but I think it pisses you off."
And Iason, instead of firing off a rebuke, remains silent because they both know that Katze is right.
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On to the epilogue.