Page 31 of Redstone
After a minute of tense silence, the voice finally spoke up again. “Acknowledged, Garrett Helms. Please wait for touchdown before moving from your seat.”In other words, no sudden moves, or we’ll blast you to space dust.Garrett sat perfectly still as the shield opened to admit him, and the shuttle followed its preprogrammed path down to the landing bay.
Berengaria’s home was large, a shimmering sea of metallic rainbow colors that shifted depending on the angle. Inside the biodome, every corner was home to some sort of plant, and beyond the main house, Garrett caught a glimpse of terraced fields before his line of sight was obscured. It was a beautiful place, and the air, when the shuttle doors finally opened to let him out, was warm, almost tropical.
He walked down the ramp and onto the dark-blue landing pad. A humanoid bot came out to meet him—shockingly humanoid, actually. If Garrett hadn’t known better from the identification code glowing subtly across its forehead, he would have mistaken it for a person.
“Welcome, Mr. Helms.” The bot, masculine but wearing almost shapeless dark-brown clothes, inclined its head. “Please follow me inside.”
“Lead on.”
Chapter fifteen
Garrett had seen pictures of Berengaria Alexander, of course; the entire Alexander clan was very photogenic, and while Berengaria had never been the politician or socialite that many of her siblings were, she hadn’t always been a recluse either. She and her brother Raymond actually looked very alike: the same long nose and high cheekbones, the same dark hair and height. Their mother had been Foster’s first wife; they’d had three children together before mutually moving on.
Garrett was fairly sure she was dead now, actually, like most of the people Foster Alexander had either married or produced. Six wives, seventeen children, and yet there were only four Alexanders left now, and one was doing research so far out in the Fringe it was practically the Beyond, with no interest in returning home or, indeed, in being involved in any way with his family.
Garrett knew. He’d asked.
Berengaria met him in a solar at the back of the house, the room warm and brightly lit. It was full of plants, even tiny vines that had insinuated themselves into what were probably deliberate cracks in the walls. The air was moist and scented with some sort of mint that made Garrett’s lungs feel like they were expanding more than usual with every breath. There was birdsong of some sort as well, unidentifiable but sweetly trilling, and he felt his shoulders relax.
Berengaria stood up from a replica of an ancient wicker chair as the bot led Garrett in. She was dressed in a gauzy white gown, nothing skintight, just shaped enough to give an idea of the body that lay beneath it. Her dark hair, liberally sprinkled with gray, was pulled back in a tight bun. Her face was smooth, but her hands were oddly wrinkled as though she hadn’t been in a Regan tank in decades. She couldn’t be more than sixty, though. Why did she look so old?
“Madame Alexander,” Garrett said as he approached. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
Berengaria inclined her head, as regal as any queen. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Helms. I appreciate what you’re trying to do although I must say, even for you and your father, this seems an undertaking so vast as to be a fool’s errand.”
“That’s entirely possible, but we have to try. Millions of lives are at stake.”
“Hmm. But you’re not here to talk to me about millions of lives,” Berengaria said. “Please, sit. Would you care for a drink?”
“Do you have bissap?” It felt like it had been forever since Garrett had drunk bissap juice. It was Claudia’s favorite, a part of her childhood, but without the nearness of the vineyards she’d cultivated before they’d left Paradise, her supply had run out.
“I grow it here. Some will be brought for you.” The bot left almost soundlessly, and Berengaria took a deep breath. “You want to know about Kyle.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Garrett hadn’t been able to explain over the comms exactly what he was doing, out of fear of being overheard. “I’m trying to get him out of prison and back into a situation where he can act as a foil to the president’s influence. Kyle didn’t do what he took credit for; he’s not a murderer. He’s trying to create change, and I want to help him with that.”
“So, you recruited him to your little insurrection and then took advantage of him, you mean.”
Well, she didn’t pull her punches. “No. There are different branches of action stemming from the same idea, which is that the Alliance is ill served by its current ruler and his allies. I was on one branch, Kyle was on another, and then we happened to intersect. I don’t want his sacrifices to be for nothing, but in order to get him out of prison and not have the courts label him a fugitive, I need information.”
“How do you even know he’s still alive?” Berengaria asked, so softly Garrett could barely hear her. “Redstone hasn’t released any information about his status.”
“I have people on the inside, ensuring he stays alive. But I need leverage to get him out and keep him out. I need to know things that your older brother would probably rather no one knew.” Garrett didn’t miss her shudder at just the mention of Raymond Alexander. “What scares him so badly about Kyle? Why doesn’t he want to take things to trial?”
Berengaria folded her wizened hands and stared at them for a long moment. “Do you know very much about our family history?”
“More than most people do, I think.”
“And you clearly have no problem using illegal means to get your information.” Garrett opened his mouth to defend himself,but she shook her head. “I only bring it up because I assume you’ve looked over our health records.”
It was one of the first things he’d hacked into, actually. “They were mostly redacted.”
“Yes. Supposedly because as the first family, we’re more deserving of privacy for security reasons than others, but in actuality, those records have been completely expunged. Everything dating back to our births, everything showing our early issues and therapies—all gone. It is relevant, though, because among other things, my older brother Raymond was diagnosed very early on with a number of psychiatric conditions. The strongest by far was clinical narcissism.”
Well, hewasa professional politician. Garrett could relate. “I’d think that comes with the territory.”
