“Exactly,” said Marcus, “A new, unmonitored planet is the only place certain types of progress can happen, Howard.”
“I… could report this,” Howard dared. A pearl of sweat rolled down his chest under his shirt.
“You could,” Marcus chuckled, “I’m afraid you’d have to go up the totem pole a ways to find someone who could do something about it. You’d need someone who didn’t hand this order down to me, on its way to you. That particular someone might be hard to find.” Howard’s nails scraped across either side of his seat, beside his legs.
“Relax, Howard. It doesn’t need to come to that. I only need you to trust me a little ways and you’ll see. We’re getting close. Like your grandfather, we believe the perpetrators of these mineral thefts and the attack on Precinct 117 are the same. The entity called, in some unsavory circles… Dragons.”
“Many people with institutionalized family members would call you cruel for saying something like that,” Howard lashed back. Marcus leaned back, eyes wide at the unprecedented rage - but then it wasn’t so much Howard’s, as the channeled anger of another.
“Which is why I chose only to tell you this. I trust your judgment more than most anyone else’s on this. Reports from Wellsworth Labs on Neptune tell us that they’ve had a few breakthroughs with their 3D patients. Spikes in their conditions coincide with the mineral thefts. If we can use this information to find the culprits, and it does turn out to be related…” Marcus trailed off intentionally. One of his favorite coercion techniques was to let people come to their “own” conclusion just this way. They were always more apt to pursue it.
“We might find a way to undo the effects of 3D,” Howard played along. As someone who rarely trusted a conclusion he didn’t arrive at himself, he wasn’t so easily coerced.
“We might. If you can find something in the research,” Marcus nodded. There was the pitch. It was up to Howard to catch it or let it go. The nagging voice of grandpa Tim in the back of his mind was what gave him the courage. Finish what I started, with Sheba.
“I will,” said Howard. “I assume you don’t want the others knowing about the labs?”
“If there’s one thing to get straight about this whole operation, it’s the less Miller’s crew knows, the better,” Marcus affirmed.
“And Dawn?” The curve of Marcus’ smirk had just a hint too much irony for Howard’s liking.
“If she needs to fly, she’ll need to know everything you know. Otherwise… stay q
uiet about it. I think you’ll find it in your best interest to keep her safe,” said Marcus.
“It’s in my best interest to keep everyone safe,” said Howard, “However little I can do.”
“Oh, have a little faith in yourself,” Marcus waved him off, “Or take some of mine with you, on your way out. You can go now.” On his way to the door, Howard shot one last look back at the man on the screen.
“Understood. See you on Neptune.”
“If you see me, Mr. Carver, something will have gone very wrong.” With that, and an unsettled pit in the bottom of his gut, Howard left the office of Councilman Marcus Brass. He was halfway through the door when he bumped shoulders with a metal demon. Howard jumped back, astonished to find it was actually a woman, in part anyway.
“So-so-sorry,” Howard sputtered. The part of her mouth that was still human lips smirked. The steel plates in the left corner of them could only open slightly. That metal continued up the entire left side of her face, all the way to her graying hairline. A black orb with a yellow lens spun around in a steel crater substitute for an eye socket. Her human eye was a dim, slate blue. The contrast was downright ghastly.
“For what? Existing, in my way? You get a pass this time,” rasped the old woman. A steel plate arm, held by joints of bolts and brackets, creaked up to grasp Howard’s shoulder.
“Tha-thank you?” he managed, just before the woman shoved past him. Her mechanical legs popped and pumped her into Marcus’ office. Aside from part of her face and long twists of gray hair, the only human part of her was her right arm. An intricate illustration of dragons in flight twisted around it, inscribed in ink. The sliding door shut her inside the office with Marcus. The hairs on the back of Howard’s neck didn’t lay flat for another hour.
“Morgan,” Marcus greeted half of a woman he used to know. The other half of the thing before him was engineered in a lab not far from the Consulate.
“Marcus,” Morgan answered. Her yellow eye flickered alight when she blinked. “Been a while since you called.”
“Well this isn’t a mission I can afford to trust to humans alone,” Marcus smirked, “I just finished briefing the primary task force, so forgive me if I’m brief. You’re familiar with the SS Arcadia?”
“Everyone in my line of work is,” said Morgan.
“I need you to trail it, wherever it goes. If the task force on board fails in their assignment, you are to complete it. Otherwise, keep a distance and observe,” Marcus told her. Morgan’s remaining eyebrow propped up.
“And what assignment would that be?”
“Bringing back someone... I think he might be an old friend of yours,” said Marcus.
“How old?”
“You haven’t seen him in sixty years if I’m right. Not since the incident at Precinct 117. Do you recall?” Marcus dug, just to see what he would find in Morgan. Not the gold of fury as he expected, but the dark spite of oil.
“Of course I do. Better half of me was ripped away there. The other half was born shortly after, on a conveyor belt,” said Morgan, “Are you telling me you think you know where Christopher Droan is?” Marcus only grinned. Blood flooded the dried out caverns of Morgan’s desiccating heart. Even if it came to fists, the idea of seeing her old Major General again made her more alive than she’d been in years. “So… where am I going?”