Kou was tired.
She leaned against the doorframe of her dark and empty audience chamber, feeling every year, every day, every hour of her age. Her robes of office weighed her down. Heavier were the titles it carried with it. General. Wizard. Chancellor of the Supreme Parliament. They bent her shoulders and stooped her back until she felt that she could barely stand.
Old, she had grown too old for all of this. All of the intrigues and the arguments and the plots and counterplots of the Parliament. They debated the fate of lives like crows squabbling over carrion
She hardly had the energy to reach out with her mind and touch the command circuits in front of her, to bathe the chamber in brilliant white light. With a sigh, Kou stepped away from the doorframe and started over to the iron and glass edifice that stood at the far end of the room--a place that served as both nerve center and throne.
There was a bird perched on one of the metal rails, waiting for her.
It wasn't a real bird, Kou could see that immediately. It was a replica, one with beautiful red and gold wings. Kou's expression immediately shuttered, her back unbending slightly as she walked towards it. The bird's head swiveled, and it watched her approach with one unblinking dark eye.
"I've been expecting you," she told it.
The bird did not make a sound, but instead unfolded its wings, and hopped off its perch to hover in the air in front of her. She stood motionless as its small metal body became angular, broke up into shards of light, and re-formed itself into a small, rectangular screen--a screen which remained supported by those brilliant red and gold wings. The monitor was black. A wise choice. The one who had sent the bird did not wish to be seen.
-- You chose not to help them --
Bright green letters scrolled across the flat glass surface. It was impossible to tell if those words carried curiosity, accusation, or indifference. No matter what the intent, guilt was the inevitable result. Kou bowed her head wearily. "I have protected A from the wrath of the Parliament. That's all I can do."
-- Iris will be forced to act tonight. --
"I know." Kou hoped that the delay the female Three-leaf had unwittingly provided would be enough. There was such a small margin of error there, and such an overwhelming opportunity for catastrophe. Kou gazed directly at the small, hovering screen. In a steady voice, she asked, "What do you plan to do?"
The cursor on the black screen blinked a minute in deliberation before scrolling out a single line of text. -- You already know the answer. -- As soon as Kou read the letters, they began to blur together, and the surface of the screen began to fragment. Within seconds, the entire device deconstructed itself, the bright shards vanishing away into nothingness.
Kou let out a deep sigh, the weight of her weariness falling over her shoulders once more. "Yes," she said. Then, more softly, "I'm sorry, Suu."
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Faint moonlight filtered down through panes of glass, frosting the long grasses of the garden with silver. The sun had gone down long ago. The moon was a pale crescent, it's lower edge just barely skimming the shadow that marked the top of the tree line. The sky beyond the surface of the dome was amazingly clear. There were no clouds, and no man-made lights to obscure the grandeur of the countless points of brightness that glittered against their backdrop of endless black.
Lan had lost track of how long he'd been standing out here in the open. It had been long enough that his neck hurt from staring straight up at the panorama above. The cool night breeze through his thin black T-shirt had started to give him a touch of a chill. Despite this, he just couldn't bring himself to look away from the night sky. He had seen the stars before through windows, their light faint and nearly intangible--no competition against the brighter illumination of buildings and street lamps and headlights that were everywhere in the city. He'd never seen stars like this, so brilliant and countless, nearly filling his whole field of vision.
Footsteps approaching through the tall grass shushed into respectful silence behind him. Lan had been waiting for them ever since he had sensed the other Three-leaf enter the wide boundaries of the dome. Iris was silent for a long moment, as if she were also taking time to gaze upward and admire the stars.
"Does it bother you," she murmured at last, "to always see them from behind glass?"
Lan's gaze shifted, from the shining lights to the black lattice of triangles that framed them. The iron bars of the dome. Another, more familiar image, one of thick square panes of glass set into the frame of a tall, arching window, rose unbidden in his mind. His enjoyment of the night sky dampened somewhat, Lan turned around to face her.
"Sometimes," he admitted quietly.
Iris did not reply. She stood motionless, the night breezes ruffling the hem of her sundress and her sweater. She held a small, shuttered lantern in her right hand. Her expression in the faint light leaking through the chinks and cracks was composed and neutral. "I've brought tea," she said, breaking the silence. "Please follow me."
She led him back the way she had come. A little bit beyond the open patch of grass were some carefully tended rows of cultivated flowerbeds separated by cobblestone paths and neatly-trimmed hedges. A row of tall evergreen bushes gave way to another patch of grass, at the center of which was a large white gazebo. Paper lanterns hung from the roof at each of the structure's corners, shedding flickering light onto a wicker table and four chairs. The table had been set for tea.
Iris gestured for Lan to take a seat as she picked up the teapot, her hands still wrapped in those fingerless knitted gloves. Lan slowly sank into the chair across from her and accepted the cup she offered. The aroma of green tea wafted up with the steam. The taste of the tea, when he drank, spread through his mouth, both warming and relaxing him. The fragrant cup cradled in his hands was like an old and intimate acquaintance. Here, at last, was something known, something familiar in the midst of all this strangeness.
"Do you like the flowers?" Iris asked suddenly. It took a moment for Lan to realize that she referred to the flowers that were arranged in a large crystal vase in the middle of the tea tray. They were tall flowers, dark purple painted with yellow, with leaves like blades of grass. Three of the six petals of each blossom curved upward in a graceful arc to meet over the center, the alternating three curving downwards toward the stem. "This is my namesake, the iris," she said, reaching out to stroke the fragile petals. "Many years ago, the person who named me told me that this flower is supposed to represent prosperity and..." she faltered slightly, "contentment."
The statement seemed to require a response. After a moment of hesitation, Lan said simply, "They're pretty."
The words earned him a brief but genuine smile. Then Iris' gaze traveled past him, past the arching doorway of the gazebo, to the tree line and the glass of the dome beyond. Taking a deep breath, she began to speak. "This place--as you may have guessed, I'm not free here. But I am happy. I have plenty to do to keep me occupied. I have the freedom to travel throughout this garden and part of the outside complex. The guards here have been instructed to obey me, and even wear the symbol of the iris as part of their uniform. Most importantly, this place is where my heart belongs. I have someone special here, someone who means more to me than anyone else in the world. The bars of my cage are not so terrible as long as I can be with her. But..." she turned her right hand over and traced the Clover mark on her palm through the surface of her knitted glove, "we may not be together for much longer."
She stopped and took a sip of tea, then looked across at Lan with a sad little half-smile. "In spite of my cage, I consider this country my home. I have lived here since I was sixteen, ever since leaving the research institute where the Clover Project was started. The government and the people here have been good to me. In return, I feel loyalty to them, and have always done what I can to help this place prosper.
"The country beyond the walls of the dome is one-tenth the size of most others. It also has one of the highest population densities in the world. It used to be a beautiful place with hundreds of acres of agriculture and natural preserves. Over time, however, all of the places that once held wildlife and forests have been demolished to make room for housing projects and factories to keep up with the growth of the population. The fields have been bulldozed to provide space for waste disposal and treatment facilities. The area under this dome is one of the few green places left. It's an archive, a living record of all the plants that used to grow outside but have been wiped out by our "progress".
"Our overpopulation has caused even more difficult problems than the eradication of trees and wildlife. We have reached a point where the population of this country has overwhelmed the carrying capacity of the land. Our natural resources were exhausted years ago. Our electricity comes from wind and water, but we have run out of materials to build dams and windmills, and no longer have places to put them. Food has become so expensive that many families have difficulty keeping even the most basic necessities in their kitchen. Wasting drinkable water has become a crime."
She absently brushed back a strand of dark hair that had come free of her ponytail. Her eyes had slipped from Lan's, and she didn't look at him as she spoke. "We have managed to survive by trade. Currently we acquire every single raw material of value from other countries. In exchange, we export technology, ideas and prototypes and services. Because we have always managed to stay at the forefront of research and development, we have always been successful despite the burden of overpopulation.
"Unfortunately, neighboring countries are now reaching the same point we were at ten years ago. Their supplies are growing scarce, they don't have the surplus of natural products--of building materials, metals, fuel...and food. They can no longer afford to trade these goods away. In addition, the items we are forced to sell become more and more valuable, and less and less replaceable. I'm afraid that my country is dying." Iris fiddled with the handle of her teacup. Her voice lowered. "Our scientists are working on a project, something that may provide the technological advantage to stave off our current decline. But internal difficulties have caused setbacks in the schedule. As a result, our one last hope may not be ready in time to save us.
"You asked me earlier why you were brought here." Iris set her cup aside and folded her gloved hands on the table. "Under normal circumstances, your government and mine would never have allowed us to meet. Powerful Clovers are to be kept separated from each other at all costs. But bringing you here was the only way I could talk to you face-to-face. It was also my last opportunity to meet you." She raised her eyes to Lan's. "I'm sure you know that your Parliament of Wizards met yesterday. I'm also sure that you know what they met to talk about."
Lan looked away from her searching gaze without saying anything. He had known. Suu had warned him. He wondered how Iris had found out.
"Lan," Iris said quietly, "What do you think they decided to do?"
He hesitated. "I don't know," he answered.
Iris studied at him with something like pity in her dark eyes. "Now that the aging curse that they put on you is gone, you know as well as I do that there's only one choice they can make. The Wizards are ancient, kept alive with medicine and mechanical replacement parts. They won't live forever. There's no way they can allow a Three-leaf to stay Outside. Far better to have you in a place of their choosing with time to prepare defenses against escape, then to keep you in your current cage with only a few thin walls and a threat to hold you there." She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes. "But you already knew that, didn't you. That's why, when those men showed up at your house, your first reaction was to try to run. Because you were already expecting the Parliament's soldiers to come and take you away."
Lan was silent.
"Lan," Iris leaned forward earnestly, "I helped to arrange your arrival so that we could talk, and so that I could offer you an alternative--one in which you wouldn't have to become a fugitive, or be separated from the Two-leaf who is so important to you."
He already knew what she would say. "You think your country can protect me, if only you can convince me to stay here."
Now it was Iris' turn to look away. "I told you that I would do anything for my country--but I can't change what I am. I have no talent for engineering and building things, that's not where my skills as a Clover lie. But you have that talent. No one has ever taught you, but you have trained yourself to be a builder, a programmer, an expert in designing electronics. Your talents could help keep my country alive.
"I'm offering you a chance to use your skills. But more than that, I'm offering you the chance to have a life with your most important person. Because we could bring you here, away from the spying eyes and the long reach of your government, and because the Two-leaf followed you, you have the opportunity. An opportunity to be happy. An opportunity to stay with the person you love." She reached out and touched his hand. "Please..." she started, her voice pitched low with entreaty. But she was interrupted before she could finish what she had been about to say.
-- Iris. --
It was just one word, spoken urgently in a tone barely above a whisper. Lan froze, recognizing it instantly as something sent over the Minor Waves. Only a Three- or a Four-leaf Clover could use that method of communication. The voice had belonged to a woman. Lan had heard that voice somewhere before.
Iris, too, had gone very still. She was frowning, staring hard into the shadows beyond the trees. She started to get up from the table. "I'll be back in a moment," she said.
Lan forced himself to take a breath. "Who was that?" he asked.
The other Three-leaf looked at him sharply. What she read in his expression--the dawning understanding that the two of them were not the only Clovers here, caused her own features to go pale. Several moments passed before she tore her eyes away from him, her face suddenly flushing bright crimson. She pushed back from the table so abruptly that she almost knocked her chair over. "I'm sorry, I have to go."
Lan stood up as well. "Please..." the earnest note in his voice caused her to pause at the edge of the gazebo floor. "Please tell me what's going on."
She stood there with her back to him, seeming to shiver in the flickering lamplight. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice almost pleading. "Just wait a little longer. You'll understand everything soon. I have to go." Then she hurried from the gazebo, out beyond the place the paper lamps illuminated, and disappeared into the night.
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The underground corridors all looked the same--white floors, metal walls, metal doors. The place was a labyrinth that seemed designed to mislead and confuse. The numbers painted in black on every doorframe were the only guide to prevent a person from walking in circles. Gingetsu had been keeping track of the numbers as he and Ryuu crept cautiously along the echoing halls. He didn't trust the instructions A had given them, and wanted to be sure that Lan's younger brother wasn't trying to do anything to deliberately get them lost.
The corridors deep under the research complex, like the ones at ground level, were nearly deserted. Gingetsu had only seen three guards so far, each wearing the blue uniform and badge that they had run into earlier. They had been easy to avoid. There had been no sign of Barus or Azurite soldiers. No alarms had gone off in response to their intrusion here, either. Gingetsu could only assume that A had taken care of any automated security measures already.
Ryuu, who had been ranging about ten paces in front of Gingetsu, came to a sudden halt and waited for him to approach, nodding to the painted plate on the doorframe. This was the number that A had told them to find. Gingetsu had been anticipating an elevator or a stairwell, but this door looked no different than any of the others they had passed. There was a palm print pad in the wall beside the door. As Gingetsu watched, the red LED on the front blinked off and the green one blinked on, accompanied by an audible clicking noise.
The lights of the room came on as Gingetsu pushed open the door. Beyond were several rows of laminated counters that seemed to serve as cluttered workspaces, with drawers and cabinets built into their base. Above them were tiers of shelving containing hundreds of labeled glass bottles. Against the walls were cases of books, filing cabinets, and desks littered with papers and computer equipment. Ryuu activated the Modem on the back of his hand, giving up his ranged weapon in favor of his wicked looking feathered blade before stepping forward. He started down one side of the room as Gingetsu soundlessly swung the door shut and stepped toward the opposite side.
The display on the computer monitor two desks down flared to life. "You needn't worry," A's voice said, as his smug young face appeared on the screen. "There's no one here."
Ryuu kept going as if he hadn't heard. But Gingetsu halted in front of the image of A. He found it difficult to keep his features impassive. "This is a dead end."
A only smiled. "Of course it is."
Gingetsu ignored the threat in A's voice. If A had wanted to kill them, he could have tried at least a half-dozen times by now. Speaking slowly and precisely to mask his growing irritation, he said, "This lab won't help us find Lan."
"It won't." The teenager was watching him steadily. He seemed faintly disappointed when he didn't get any further reaction. "But there's something in here that's important. Are you curious?"
"You're wasting our time."
"Am I?" A's eyebrows arched. "I was doing you a favor, letting you see for yourself what's actually going on. It's your loss if you choose not to pay attention."
He didn't elaborate, and Gingetsu refused to ask. Instead the Lieutenant Colonel stepped away from the computer, surveying the room around him intently. Anything that A took an interest in was definitely dangerous. However, it was also unlikely that they could afford to overlook it...whatever it was.
Just past A's computer Gingetsu saw a windowless door with a latch but no lock. He reached out and opened it cautiously, and was greeted with a wash of cold air. When the lights didn't come on automatically, the Lieutenant Colonel reached for the switch just inside the door. The room lit up in a burst of harsh white fluorescence.
The walk-in refrigerator was filled with shelves of bottles, some equipment, and four squat metal cylinders sitting on the floor. The cylinders drew his attention. There was something written on each of them. Gingetsu moved closer, his gaze fixed on the tanks. No, not on the tanks, but on the symbols printed on the metal of each lid.
One-leaf Clover. Two-leaf Clover. Three-leaf. Four-leaf.
Gingetsu stared at the tanks for several moments without moving. Then he stepped out of the refrigerated room and closed the door behind him. A quick search of the nearest desk revealed two notebooks with dates from within the last year. It didn't take long to confirm what he had seen.
The tanks were dewars of liquid nitrogen. They housed the culmination of nearly a decade of research--a frozen cache of human embryos that had been characterized and catalogued, and then genetically altered with the Clover mutations that were supposed to have been lost from knowledge. Gingetsu had been old enough to remember the destruction of the first Clover lab. It had never been re-built. The next desk over contained other, older notebooks detailing earlier findings. The scientists of this country had started over at the beginning, painstakingly recreating the work that had gone into the first Clover Project.
But the scope of this project was much larger. There must be hundreds of cells here. The only thing currently required were mothers willing to accept the cells, and bear the developing children to term. The scientists had already begun to screen potential volunteers.
Gingetsu looked at A's hovering face, which had appeared on the monitor beside him. Lan's brother was looking extremely pleased with himself. "Is this why you led us here?" Gingetsu asked.
A folded his arms casually across his chest. "Oh no," he said smugly. "There's something in here that's much more interesting than that."
"Ah," Ryuu spoke softly from across the room, "You should come see this."
He was kneeling beside one of the desks against the opposite wall, gazing up at the upper surface of the opening that would usually fit a chair. As Gingetsu dropped to one knee beside him, he saw a piece of machinery about the size of a small backpack magnetically attached to the metal underside of the desk, a large dark box with several knobs and wires. Packed underneath was about a half a kilo of high-powered plastic explosive.
"My military knowledge is a little out of date," the other man said grimly, eyeing the ugly electronic device, "but please tell me that this isn't one of ours."
Gingetsu didn't answer. Not only was the bomb of a design used by their own military, he could tell at a glance that it was one he wouldn't be able to disarm. There was a small leaf imprinted in the top surface of the bomb, a Cord. Secret and proprietary information. It encrypted and magically protected the device so that other Wizards would not be able to sense it or to use their powers to disarm it. That symbol was never present on military weapons unless the Wizards of the Parliament had acted unanimously.
"This is why they let us come," the former Vice-Captain said flatly, "and why the Parliament sent us in at night, so the building would be empty. They sacrificed Secret Colors soldiers to go against the Azurites so that others could sneak in undetected to plant bombs. We were the decoys all along."
Gingetsu studied the explosive device in front of him. General Kou had tried to warn him. She had said that Lan must be retrieved alive--implying that if he could not be, he would be eliminated. How long had the Parliament known about the underground Clover lab beneath the domed complex? Was it intelligence they had gathered while investigating the Three-leaf's disappearance, or had they known for years, and finally taken advantage of the opportunity that Lan's kidnapping had provided them? It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was accomplishing their mission--to rescue Lan before the detonation timer went off.
This bomb contained enough explosive to wipe out a large portion of the labs here underground, but it would never reach the dome hundreds of meters above them. ...Which meant that this probably wasn't the only explosive that had been planted. "We need to get to the surface," Gingetsu said.
"It's no use." A had switched monitors yet again. "There's less than fifteen minutes left before that bomb detonates. You'll never find a way out before then."
Ryuu stood up abruptly, his fists clenching with anger. "You were supposed to help us find Lan," he said harshly.
"I was," A replied in an offhand tone. Then he looked at Gingetsu, and hatred flashed in his eyes, "but then I decided that I'd rather watch you both die."
Gingetsu drew even with the image of A. He knew he didn't have enough magic to go against a Three-leaf, and there was nothing he could do to reason with him. Lan was the only one who had ever understood what went on in the mind of his demented twin.
"It's the perfect solution," A hissed with satisfaction. "You'll die down here, and I won't even have to be the one that kills you. C won't ever know that I got to watch the whole thing. At last, I'll get revenge on you for taking my brother away. And once you're gone, C will have no one left. He'll have no choice but to come back to me. We'll never have to be apart again."
"Lan will be dead."
A shook his head. "He won't. There are plenty of people here who have come to rescue him." He smiled. "I knew about the other team from the beginning, even though they tried to keep it a secret from me. No one can keep a secret from me, not even the old Wizards of the Parliament. Those soldiers are placing the last of the bombs now. When they're done, they'll go and get C and then get out of here, abandoning you."
"No," Ryuu said, with sudden cold certainty. Gingetsu looked at him, knowing that the former Vice-Captain had just come to the same conclusion he had. "With fifteen minutes on the clock, they'd already be leaving." He looked grimly into the gloating face on the computer monitor. "You haven't just killed us. You've killed your brother, too."
Something in the young eyes faltered. There was a fleeting glimpse of uncertainty, a fleeting glimpse of fear. A's expression darkened to mask it. "They've left the lower levels, but not the complex," he declared loudly. "They have to stop for C. He's too valuable to leave behind."
"They won't stop. They've already accomplished their objective. There's no reason for them to stay any longer."
A's face suddenly twisted into a mask of fury as he stared at the former Vice-Captain. "Stop it. You're lying."
"No," Ryuu answered simply. "Go and see for yourself."
A looked at him calculatingly a moment. Abruptly, the computer screen went blank.
Gingetsu wasted no time. Immediately, wires materialized in his hand, attaching to the side of his visor. He connected them to the port in the front of it the keyboard, and watched as data began streaming across the monitor, mirrored on the inside of his visor. Ryuu, who had been scowling at the screen after A's hasty exit, suddenly leaned forward to peer at the scrolling text. "The main system isn't blocked any more."
Gingetsu, absorbed in the data, didn't bother to answer Ryuu's statement of the obvious.
Kazuhiko fell silent. The scanned blueprint of the underground tunnels came up on the screen. The point of view narrowed to their location, then panned away, following twists and bends of the labyrinth like some crazy holographic computer game. It stopped at a circular shaft, another of the missile silos. A circular platform was already rising from the depths up to their current level.
"Looks like our ride will be waiting," Ryuu said, with forced cheer. He clapped Gingetsu hard on the shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get out of this dump."
...But even as the two men left the room, the unvoiced certainty hung in the air between them--that fifteen minutes was not enough for them to make it to the surface in time.
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