DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 24

You need to present information of value, information Devane is really going to want. You show him you have a good reason for doing this, and that you want something in return. What you said about driving a hard bargain was right, we just need to augment it.

Ridley ran through Reb's advice in her head as she emerged from the underground subway tunnel onto the streets of Midgarde, two blocks from the Guildhall. Reb had produced a fake identity chip and a fake passport to get her through customs. The old Ridley would have just walked in the front door if she had business there, and Reb had said she must be the old Ridley in every way possible. Intelligence had indicated that Chairman Devane had not been seen lately at the old church offices near Holstonia, so Reb had selected Midgarde for her to try to make contact.

She blinked in the bright sunlight and breathed in the familiar smell of smog. She always knew Midgarde the instant the train doors opened. Thick vapors from passing transports clogged her nose like cotton, giving her an ache in her sinuses.

Hurrying people in slick suits of iridescent black and jewel hues jostled her and hardly seemed to see her. Street transports clogged the road beside her, humming as their tube-shaped bodies climbed the hill over the subway port. Cold late November air chilled her nose and cheeks as she pointed her boots towards the scarlet needle that rose stories above everything else in the city. She started walking.

The tall glass doors into the Guildhall were easy to enter, after she'd walked over the built-in scanners on the grand staircase to the entrance. The scanners would have alerted security if she were carrying any explosives. With the stairs, the baroque carved-stone banisters, and the ornate carved doors that rose into graceful points, the Guildhall resembled an old cathedral, at least at street level. Inside, a security desk blocked each entrance, with two guards scanning ID chips, taking names, and directing people to their destinations.

She held out her arm so a gray-suited guard could scan her real ID chip. The man waved his scanning wand over her arm with a brisk air. A light on the counter turned red, and his free hand came down on her wrist like a vise. "Stay right here at the counter, Ma'am." His tone held a polite and a steel edge all at once. He pressed a button on the scanning device, and instantly two new guards flanked her on her right and left. Each man grabbed an elbow and lifted her from the floor.

"I'm here to see Chairman Devane," said Ridley. "Tell him I've reconsidered his offer. That I've been out of the country, and I have news he's going to want to hear."

***

You show up and you say, I'm back because Mannaz is planning to invade. I don't want that evil empire to take over our homeland.

Reb's words resounded inside Ridley's head. Her breathing echoed off the walls of the tiny bare cell the guards had left her in. No plumbing ... no piping ... no escape. She'd been saving the drawing and the notes the King and Reb had made her write in her own hand to give to Devane, but now it seemed she might rot here unless she could demonstrate that Devane needed her. When the food vendor showed up with her evening meal, she pulled the notes, written with a laser pen on a brittle plastic parchment that crinkled like paper, from her underclothing, smoothed out the folds, and left the parchment in place of her dinner tray.

The King had told her what to write and what to sketch. Troop and equipment movements the Mannazian government would order in twenty-four hours' time, meant to make the Confederation think a strike might be imminent. Ridley sat in her cell, numb with the waiting, echoes of their planning resounding in her mind.

How do you know they won't just strike first? And then instead of a civil war, you've got a war with Mannaz instead?

Because Mannaz is going to uncover the doors to an underground bunker. The configuration of the doors—he pointed out the shape of the main doors and the flanking auxilliary doors—This is to deploy a chemical weapon. And the size of the doors—this is one big chemical weapon. One warhead this size could decimate the entire country. That would be one monster weapon. They don't want to provoke us into detonating that. Mannaz was testing a weapon like this once, but the tests failed. Ethical concerns. So the bunker was built, but the tests were halted several years ago.