Devoted - Merritt's Story 2 - Chapter 25

It's here. :O

FYI, freelance *finally* slowed down as it typically does in June, so I expect to wrap up the belated Sketch Tier sketches by the weekend.  The Redbubble stickers have all come in except for the one transparent sticker, which I'm expecting any day, so that means I'll be able to send out the stickers, May sketches, and May snail mail letters all together.  June email and snail mail letters are expected to be on time.

Only a few more chapters left of book 2!  As always, you can read the chapter inline or download the attached PDF.  Here's the DOTU Discord if you want to chat with each other about the latest chapter!  Make sure to link your Discord account to Patreon so you can get access to the Merritt's Story channel!

[Table of Contents]

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Chapter 25

“You think my uniform’s here yet?” Merritt asked, sticking his head out from behind the shower door.

Belmont stood at the sink, slicking fresh gel over his still-damp hair. “Probably sitting in the dumbwaiter,” he said. “Ellis doesn’t message you when he sends you stuff? What a shitty aide.”

“I don’t take my phone in the shower with me,” Merritt retorted.

They shared a bathroom as if they’d lived together for years. The close quarters were comforting. Despite Belmont’s questionable stylistic choices, Merritt wished he could always live like this—waking up in each other’s arms, juggling shampoo in the shower, elbowing each other while brushing their teeth. He stepped out of the shower and started drying off with a bloodred towel while idly watching Belmont pat some expensive aftershave on his cheeks and chin. He recognized the comforting smell and had to resist the urge to grab Belmont and nibble at his jaw.

It was barely seven in the morning when they returned to the bedroom. Belmont slipped on a tiny pair of royal blue briefs, and Merritt remained with a towel wrapped around his waist. They paused in front of the bedroom door for a few more kisses and flirty whispers before Belmont said, “Let’s go see if your uniform’s here.”

They emerged to see Archer seated at the kitchenette counter, fully dressed in her usual white lab coat, boots, and cropped wide-leg trousers. “Good morning,” she said as she casually stirred a cup of tea.

Belmont sputtered. He turned an accusing glance to Merritt, then saw that Merritt was just as shocked as he was. To Archer, he asked, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Proving a point,” Archer replied. “I told you my place was more secure than yours.” She cast a side-eyed glance toward the bedroom door, then took a sip from her cup of tea. “Next time I’ll bring headphones.”

“You… you….” Belmont held up his hands as if wishing he could throttle her.

Unperturbed, Archer gestured over her shoulder. “Fresh uniform for Merritt.”

Merritt hurried toward the hanging garment bag, embarrassed to be nearly naked in front of Archer. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said before ducking into the bedroom. As he threw on his uniform, he could hear Belmont through the door, trying to wheedle information out of Archer to find out how she’d managed to get into his suite undetected. Belmont, unlike Merritt, didn’t seem the slightest bit uncomfortable verbally sparring with Archer in nothing but a pair of skimpy briefs.

“You rode up in the dumbwaiter, didn’t you?” he snapped. “How ‘bout I send you back down in the garbage chute? It’s a better fit for that trash outfit of yours.”

“This tea tastes a bit stale,” Archer replied lightly. “Perhaps your canisters aren’t as airtight as they should be. Did you buy them on clearance?”

After Merritt emerged from the bedroom fully dressed, Belmont snatched his own suit from the closet and put it on by the kitchenette counter while staring Archer down, as if he didn’t trust her to be out of his sight for a single second. Archer watched him dress as if evaluating every garment he put on. Merritt might have felt the urge to break up the tension between them if he hadn’t found it a bit hilarious.

“I have to be in the office at nine,” Belmont said to Archer as he tightened the perfect knot in his double-banded blue tie. “You’re not staying here another two hours.”

“I’ll go when Merritt goes,” Archer replied with an untrusting squint.

Merritt scratched the back of his head. “I’ll be okay, Archer. I have to leave soon anyway, to get back to Station 1.”

“Do you have a guard detail?” Archer asked.

“I’d rather not endanger any guards,” Merritt replied. Archer and Belmont exchanged eye rolls. Apparently the only common ground they shared was an agreement that Merritt was ridiculous.

Merritt was about to respond when his cell phone buzzed. Archer and Belmont both reached for their own pockets, and Merritt was about to tell them that he thought it was his phone when realization struck him. There could be only one reason for all three of them to get a notification at the exact same moment. Merritt watched, his heart pounding as Belmont and Archer unearthed their phones and glanced at the screens.

Archer sat as cold and unmoving as an ice sculpture. Belmont’s eyes widened, and his face went pale. He looked up at Merritt. “What did you do?”

Merritt wasn’t sure how to respond.

Belmont held up his phone so Merritt could see. Again, his voice almost weak, he asked, “What did you do?”

A bold notification took up the entirety of Belmont’s cell phone screen. The North’s Dirty Little Secret: “We Test Poisons on Kidnapped Orphans.” A short paragraph excerpt, then a link to read more. It was Odell’s news bomb.

Archer finally looked up from her phone and met Merritt’s gaze. Her poker face was as inscrutable as ever. After a long pause, she said, “Either that guard detail is obsolete now, or it’s more necessary than ever.”

“Merritt,” Belmont snapped.

Merritt swallowed hard. “It had to be done. You know that.”

Belmont gritted his teeth. He turned the phone back around, pacing as he continued to read. He said nothing, but Merritt could sense his anxiety. He pulled out his own phone, reading the news bomb for himself.

It was scathing, just as he’d expected. The news bomb exposed the entire child testing program, then highlighted the elite children who were taken from the sub-Albany orphanage and Wilson’s attempts to cover up his mistake. It tore Wilson, his allies, and the Department of Science and Medicine to shreds. There was no mention of Belmont, but the author finished by stating that the odds of Mercury being unaware of the program were slim to none.

“What’s wrong?” Merritt asked when Belmont turned off his phone and sucked in a furious breath.

“What’s wrong?” Belmont threw his hands up in the air. “Do you have any idea what this means? Can you even comprehend the magnitude of this scandal? Because I don’t know if I can. You just broke the North Sphere, Merritt.”

“The North Sphere was already broken,” Merritt retorted. “I thought you agreed with me. I thought you were willing to help me get this all shut down.”

“I didn’t think you’d do this! I would have gone through North Sphere channels. But you….” He shook his head. “You blew this up across the entire underground. You gave our rival spheres ammunition against us. It’d be one thing if we hadn’t gotten involved in the West Sphere embargo, but now everyone is going to paint us as hypocrites for going after underage dogs when we’re doing even worse to our kids. The West is out for blood, and this gives them the perfect chance at revenge. If Mercury finds out you were the one behind this….”

“The guilt all falls on Wilson’s shoulders. No one knows I’m the one who passed the information on to the South.”

“You spent the last two days running around the underground asking everyone in the world about those missing kids!”

“And the South caught me on their surveillance feeds and decided to do their own investigation,” Merritt challenged. “If Mercury makes that assumption, I’ll keep my mouth shut. But if he figures out that I’m involved, I won’t deny it. I’ll take full responsibility.”

Belmont stared at him. His teeth were clenched so tight Merritt could see the muscles in his jaw. After a long pause, he began pacing back and forth, as wound up as Merritt had ever seen him. “Right. You’re right. This was the South’s investigation. You had nothing to do with it.” He said it as if it were the truth. Then he glanced across the room at Merritt. “But the North is still going to blame you for drawing attention to it. Wilson’s allies—”

“By the end of the day, Wilson will have no allies,” Archer cut in. “I’ll see to it.”

Belmont didn’t look satisfied. He rushed across the room and grabbed Merritt by the shoulders, then pulled him into the bedroom and closed the door. Lowering his voice, he snapped, “You have to go somewhere, hide somewhere. I couldn’t get the Mantis yet, but take my Peregrine back to that place—you know the place. Don’t let anyone find you.”

“I’m not going to hide, Belmont,” Merritt replied incredulously.

“You have to!” Belmont gave him a jarring shake. “You have no idea what you’ve just opened up!”

Merritt clenched his fists, but he didn’t reply. He knew full well what awaited him if he was implicated in the news bomb. Archer had used the word “treason” to describe going against Wilson’s testing program. But Belmont was more anxious than Merritt had ever seen him, and Merritt didn’t want to make things any worse.

Belmont’s phone buzzed. He grabbed it and glanced at the screen. “Shit. It’s Mercury.” He answered the phone and exchanged barely three words before hanging up again. Then he headed briskly for the door.

“Where are you going?” Merritt asked.

“Emergency meeting in Mercury’s office.”

Merritt caught his arm. “Wait.”

Belmont glanced back at him impatiently.

Merritt swallowed. How in the world would he phrase the thoughts that swirled in his head? He knew he couldn’t state them eloquently. Instead, he croaked, “I think Balbo would make a great general—if you find yourself needing to choose a new one.”

A look of horror flashed across Belmont’s eyes before shifting to anger. He shoved Merritt back a few steps. “Don’t go there,” he muttered as he threw the bedroom door open.

He charged across the living room, buttoning his suit jacket while he walked. When he reached the exit, he paused with his hand on the doorknob, then glanced over his shoulder at Archer. “If you aren’t out of my suite in two minutes, my guards will remove you.” Then, to Merritt, he swallowed and said, “The key to the Peregrine is in the gold box on my dresser. Take it.”

He dashed out of the suite, disappearing from sight long before the door swung shut in his wake.

*   *   *

Merritt didn’t take the Peregrine. Archer asked him one more time to consider calling in his guard detail. He promised he’d think about it, and she left looking less than satisfied. He remained behind in Belmont’s suite, having decided it was best to stay nearby in case Belmont needed him. He didn’t have to be at Station 1 until nine.

He almost felt like he was still by Belmont’s side. The suite was brimming with Belmont’s aura, from the ostentatious statues to the little details he hadn’t noticed during his earlier visits. On a console table beside the bedroom door, Merritt spotted a glass vase holding three dried flowers he recognized from textbooks: gladiolus, snapdragon, and purple crocus. He had no idea how Belmont had managed to get his hands on something so rare and expensive.

An autographed album of sappy ballads by a famous West Sphere musician sat in a stand on the corner table, cast in shadow by the neighboring hutch. Inside the hutch were various trinkets, notes, and cards. One greeting card caught his attention. It was addressed by Belmont to an arrogant young pharmacist Merritt knew to have recently been killed in a freak accident, and its ends were tattered as if it had been recovered from the trash. It read, in glittery, swooping script: Wishing You Die Young, Alone, and Unfulfilled. 

Each item carried so much of Belmont’s energy. Merritt never thought he’d feel so comfortable sitting in the midst of Belmont’s stuff. He never thought Belmont would have felt comfortable leaving him there. He wanted more than anything to know that Belmont was doing all right, that he’d return to his suite later today with no less spirit than the collection of baubles on his shelves.

Just as he was readying to head out to the military district, his phone buzzed with an incoming call. It was from headquarters. He answered immediately.

“General Merritt,” a woman’s voice greeted him. “Assistant to the King speaking. Mercury has requested a meeting with you this morning at nine thirty. Please confirm.”

Merritt’s stomach churned. It couldn’t be a good sign if Mercury suddenly wanted to meet with him on short notice. But he had no choice. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll be there.”

He had forty-five minutes to kill before going downstairs. He used the time to call in to his officers and make sure they were ready to take command in the event he didn’t return. He chose his words carefully so as not to give any impression that his situation was dire.

Shortly before his scheduled appointment, he headed out. He took the private back elevator down to the elite garage, then reentered the headquarters building through the front so no one would see him leaving Belmont’s suite. The public offices at ground level were unusually busy, and Merritt could read tension on the faces of the associates behind their desks on his way to the main elevator. He rode up to the seventh floor, where Mercury, Belmont, and the sphere’s directors had private, securely compartmented offices designed for the discussion of sensitive information.

He’d never before met Mercury at his private office. When he stepped inside, he spotted an armed guard beside the reception desk. “Packs and weapons,” he said, motioning for Merritt to remove his arms.

“I’m perpetual duty,” Merritt replied. “The King’s requested that I—”

“Packs and weapons,” the guard repeated sternly. “King’s orders.”

Merritt’s skin went cold. He unbuckled his holsters, then his packs. He wished he could keep his concealed weapons, but he knew he’d be searched. Reluctantly, he shed his ankle blade and hidden poison packs. The guard checked him with his scanner, then nodded his approval. “Please proceed to the lounge.”

Merritt turned left and headed through a tall glass door into a long, narrow hall. At the end of the hall, he passed another door into a luxurious waiting room. The elegant furnishings did little to calm his nerves. The door to Mercury’s office loomed, an obsidian monolith that somehow felt threatening by its mere presence on the wall.

The faint sound of voices leaked into the waiting room. It was Mercury and Belmont. Merritt glanced at the door, stunned. The faulty soundproofing couldn’t have been an accident. He quieted his breathing to better hear the muffled conversation.

It was immediately clear that they were in the midst of a heated argument. Mercury never raised his voice, but his tone carried a bite so potent that Merritt could feel its venom in his veins.

“Phone calls have been coming in all morning,” Mercury said. “Major distributors from inside the North Sphere and out have threatened to cancel all their drug orders unless Wilson resigns. They’re furious over what he did to those orphans, and our economy will suffer for it. But you, Belmont, were in a position to prevent all of this. You’ve been through advanced training. You know how to shoot a gun or throw a poison vial. You could have stopped him, and you chose not to. You were blinded by petty emotion.”

Merritt could barely contain his urge to burst through the door and come to Belmont’s defense. Wilson had Mercury’s approval. Why would he ever expect Belmont to intervene? Would a gun or poison vial have done anything to stop his program?

His chest suddenly tightened when the realization struck him. Mercury hadn’t been talking about Wilson. He’d been talking about Merritt.

“Petty emotion?” Belmont snapped, and Merritt winced at the sound of him raising his voice at his King. “You want to know the pettiest emotion of all? Envy. And you’ve reeked of it for months.”

What followed was the unmistakable sound of an open-handed slap. Merritt sucked in a breath, bracing himself with a hand against the wall. There was no greater embarrassment in the North Sphere than to be on the receiving end of an open-handed slap. A punch at least showed respect. A slap was an insult. Merritt could almost feel Belmont’s shock in the silence that followed.

At last, a footfall broke the silence. “Give it to me,” Mercury said in a low voice.

There was no response.

“Give it to me,” Mercury repeated.

Belmont’s tone changed from confrontational to plaintive. “Oh, come on, Mercury. This had nothing to do with me. What do you want me to say?”

“Give it to me.”

“King….”

The room fell silent again. Merritt rose and quietly approached the door. He could almost feel the hostile energy emanating from behind it. The longer the quiet stretched, the more his worry grew.

No more words were spoken. After another moment of loaded silence, the door flew open. Merritt had to dodge to avoid it. Belmont burst out into the waiting room, slamming the door behind him. His head was down, his face partially concealed by his hat, but Merritt was just close enough to see the cold glow of the ceiling’s white icicle lights glinting off the trails of tears on his cheeks.

His neck was bare.

Merritt’s eyes widened. That was what Mercury had been demanding. He’d taken Belmont’s double-banded blue tie and left him with nothing.

“Belmont,” he whispered urgently. He tried to approach, but Belmont held up an arm, blocking him. Merritt stood with clenched fists, his heart aching for Belmont. “What happened? Why did he take your tie?” Merritt’s eyes widened. “You’re still his right hand, aren’t you?”

Belmont didn’t reply, and Merritt had trouble reading his odd caginess. He’d once again put up a wall between himself and Merritt.

Merritt wanted more than anything to wrap Belmont in a protective embrace and tell him that, somehow, things were going to be okay. But Belmont’s arm still stuck out a bit from his body, as if ready to block Merritt’s approach. After squinting at him for another moment, Merritt realized the cause for his stiffness. He knew, and he was trying to signal to Merritt, that they were being watched. There was nothing Merritt could do to comfort Belmont, and he could barely withstand the pain of feeling so useless.

Belmont raised his head just enough for Merritt to see the storm brewing behind his eyes. He could tell what was going on in Belmont’s head. Belmont had made his choice: he’d protected and defended Merritt when Mercury already knew he was culpable. And now, for the first time, Belmont was realizing what it would cost him to stand by Merritt. Merritt could see the pain, the anguish—and the doubt—in his shimmering eyes.

When Belmont began stalking past him, Merritt tried to catch his arm. “You can’t go out there without a tie.” He undid his own tie and whipped it off, holding it out for Belmont. He knew he had to show his face in front of Mercury in a few minutes, but he didn’t care.

Belmont swatted Merritt’s hand away without hesitation. “Don’t.”

“Belmont, please, just tell me what I can do. There has to be something—”

Belmont shoved past him. “Don’t talk to me,” he said before charging out into the hall.

It took Merritt a minute of staring across the empty room before he managed to collect himself. He felt numb and hollow as he redid his tie and took a seat on the edge of the nearest armchair. After half a minute, the heavy black door opened and Mercury peered out at him.

“Come inside,” Mercury said, his poker face in full force.

Merritt crossed the threshold, and Mercury closed the door behind him.

* * *

Mercury sat behind a black wood desk, his fingers steepled. The dim blue light reflected off his gold ring—the ring Merritt had once fantasized about kissing, but no longer. As he gazed upon Mercury’s hands, he saw the blood of countless ghosts. How much of it was the blood of innocents?

He stood at attention on the other side of Mercury’s desk, chin high, feet together, hands clasped behind his back. Mercury looked him up and down. His gaze was a weapon trained on Merritt’s unarmed body. “Do you know why I called you here, Merritt?”

“I received the news bomb like everyone else, Damen.”

He’d used the name purposefully, as a test to see if Mercury would rescind permission to use his name just as he’d had his guards confiscate Merritt’s weapons. But Mercury’s expression didn’t falter at the sound of his given name. “You received the news bomb and expected me to call you in?”

“No, I didn’t expect it. But I’m not surprised either. I’m sure you know of my… disagreement with Wilson over the past few days.”

Mercury tilted his chin up, the light glinting off his five o’clock shadow. Merritt remembered meeting him for the first time, imagining what his stubble might feel like. He remembered being impressed by Mercury’s ice cold composure. Now he felt nothing but disillusionment.

His gaze fell upon a shimmering blue tie folded at the corner of Mercury’s desk. Belmont’s tie. He diverted his gaze before it could linger long enough to draw Mercury’s attention, but he couldn’t purge the thought of the tie from his mind. With all the confidence of a general who’d been on the job for years, he said, “With all due respect, firing Belmont would be a mistake. He wasn’t involved in either the test program or its outing to the public. But he’d be a powerful asset in mitigating the damage.”

“I didn’t fire Belmont,” Mercury said. “I’ve removed some of his privileges and relieved him of some of his responsibilities. Think of it as probation.”

“His tie….”

“That’s something he’s going to have to earn back. He can wear a commoners’ blue tie for now.” Mercury leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes. “I suggest you stop thinking about Belmont’s defense and start thinking about your own.”

Merritt fell silent. He’d expected to feel apprehensive—Mercury probably wanted him to—but he didn’t. He felt free.

“I have talked to Wilson, I have talked to Belmont, and I have conducted my own investigation, and yet I can’t find any definitive evidence as to your role regarding the orphans. Everyone tells me a different story, and no one can tell me why the South Sphere suddenly decided, after years of Wilson’s activities, to launch a news bomb now.” Mercury narrowed his eyes. “What I do know is that you grew up in the Norwood Orphanage. This makes me suspect you lack objectivity in regards to Wilson’s methods of collecting test subjects.”

Merritt bit his tongue.

“I have reason to believe you were involved in the South Sphere’s news bomb. This was a domestic matter, and you made it an international one. You aired our dirty laundry for all the other spheres to see, rather than allow the North to address the matter privately. And I believe you did it to force my hand, just as you did for the West Sphere embargo. With the attention from the other spheres, you’d be more likely to get the outcome you desired. Never mind that the path you chose was the most damaging and disruptive to your sphere.”

“Those orphan aces are North Sphere citizens,” Merritt said. “I saw them getting stuffed into an East Sphere cargo bike, and I did what it took to protect my sphere from what I initially believed to be a foreign invasion. But what I found out was even worse. Countless North Sphere citizens have been deliberately sickened—poisoned—by their own sphere. By Wilson.” He cast a challenging glance at Mercury. “Surely, he’s done this without your permission. You never would have allowed him to poison blue-tie children, especially not elite blue-tie children. Wilson should be held accountable for his department’s actions, so that the rest of our sphere can move on.”

Mercury stared at Merritt as coldly as ever. “Who instructed you to go to the South Sphere? Who connected you with their journalists?”

“I went to the South on my own, Damen. I told no one about my plans until they were already in motion. I didn’t know if I could trust anyone who ranked above me in the North, so I turned to the South.”

Mercury narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying to me, Merritt. You’re lying to my face.”

Merritt shook his head, shocked. “I’m not lying.”

“I’ve watched you for years. I know more about you than you realize. I know that you lack the standing, and the sophistication, to pull off a stunt like this on your own. And I also know that you’d do anything to protect your commander. This was all Belmont’s plan, wasn’t it?”

Merritt clenched his fists behind his back. “I give you my word, it wasn’t.” It took all his effort to hold up his poker face. He couldn’t allow the blame to fall on Belmont. Mercury respected Belmont far more than he did Merritt—meaning Belmont would suffer that much more if Mercury believed him to be a traitor. 

Mercury leaned threateningly across the desk. “You are not the same person you were when I brought you into your first board meeting. Working with Belmont has changed you in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Have you forgotten your vow to serve?”

“Everything I do is for the sake of my sphere, Damen. I’m duty sworn to serve my sphere.”

“And King,” Mercury snapped, finishing the words Merritt had omitted from his pledge. “You’ve forgotten the role that obedience plays in your job. You are a servant to your sphere, to the board, and most importantly, to me. Belmont failed as your commander. He knew that I prized you for your loyalty and obedience, so he did whatever he could to strip you of those qualities. This was his way of making sure you wouldn’t be a threat to him. He did it all, and you never suspected his motives. He operates on a level so far above you that you can’t even see the strings he’s holding.”

Merritt’s blood boiled, but he remained silent. He knew nothing he said would change Mercury’s opinion.

He watched Mercury rise to his feet, and a chill ran down his spine. Mercury’s footsteps echoed as he approached, and Merritt instinctively held his breath.

Mercury leaned in close, and Merritt couldn’t tell if the move was meant to allure or to threaten. He ran his fingers almost intimately across the back of Merritt’s neck. “You were once a loyal soldier. What happened?”

Merritt remained standing at attention, exuding all the pride his sphere had never allowed him to have. He wouldn’t hang his head in shame for what he’d done. He met Mercury’s gaze, and he saw a horrifying glimmer of realization in his King’s discerning eyes. Mercury stood barely an inch away from Merritt, the scent of his cologne enveloping them both, and he’d noticed that Merritt was holding his breath.

Mercury’s gaze turned lethal. In a lightning-fast motion, he undid the knot in Merritt’s tie, then circled behind him, wrapped the tie around his neck, and pulled hard. The fabric snapped tight, cutting off Merritt’s blood supply. Merritt stumbled back, letting out a choked gasp and clawing at his neck. In response, Mercury twisted his hands, snapping the tie even tighter.

Merritt’s body slid against Mercury’s as he struggled. Mercury loosened his grip just enough for Merritt to suck in a breath before yanking the tie taut again. The scent of cologne filled Merritt’s nose, warming his throat and lungs, blurring his mind, and coaxing him into surrender. His muscles weakened, and his fingers loosened around the fabric. His vision went black, then erupted with white flashing lights behind his eyes. He was going to pass out.

A tiny ping of clattering metal called his mind back to the present. At first the noise sounded alien. Then he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Belmont’s tie clip lying on the marble floor. It had clung to his tie when Mercury undid it, and then finally fallen in the struggle.

The sight of the tie clip snapped him back to attention. He struggled in earnest, trying to loosen the fabric at his neck. Mercury’s fists remained at either side of his head, gripping the tie relentlessly. Merritt could see the strain in his knuckles. It was taking all his strength to keep Merritt under control.

Mercury gave his fists another twist, and the fabric dug into Merritt’s neck. He choked and sputtered.

With one hand still gripping the tie, Merritt reached down with the other. He stepped backward, pushing into Mercury’s body. Then he twisted his back and yanked his arm downward as far as he could reach. His fingers brushed the polished wood handle of the knife strapped to Mercury’s thigh. Another yank, and he pulled it free of the sheath. Taking a wild swing, he sliced through the fabric of the tie at his throat, leaving just the faintest scratch on his own skin. The last threads tore from the strain of being stretched past their limits, and a clean rip echoed in his ears. The fabric gave way. He collapsed to his hands and knees, sucking in heavy, gasping breaths.

The tattered halves of his tie fluttered down from above. One of them landed across his outstretched fingers. The sight of the severed fabric was more shocking than the sight of cut flesh.

He’d just cut through his own blue tie—the symbol of his sphere citizenship, of his servitude. He felt nauseated. He felt a kind of shock he’d only ever felt on the battlefield, at the sight of fallen bodies. Like he’d lost something but couldn’t yet process the magnitude of the loss.

A blur of motion caught his attention. It was Mercury’s foot, kicking the knife out of Merritt’s reach. But Merritt had no intention of grabbing for it again. His fate was already sealed.

At last breaking his paralysis, he raised his head and met Mercury’s hard gaze.

Not even a poker face could hide Mercury’s radiant fury. Merritt wondered if this had been a test—if Mercury hadn’t planned to strangle him but instead wanted to see if Merritt was willing to submit his life in accordance with his pledge. If this was a test, he’d failed.

“You’re not the soldier I thought you were,” Mercury said. “You’re not the soldier I asked you to be.”

He reached into his pocket, and a short, rumbling buzz emanated from somewhere within the room. Seconds later, four guards appeared at the door to Mercury’s office. They stepped inside, armed in riot gear from head to toe. Merritt recognized the insignia on their uniforms—a syringe with a single black droplet hovering from the needle’s edge. The Blackout Division.

“Take him,” Mercury said.

*   *   *

He never would have imagined he’d end up in the military prison for a second time, strapped into the same unsettling metal chair that had restrained him when he’d first met Damen Mercury. This time, in addition to the straps at his chest, wrists, and ankles, he was hooked up to a cardiosphygmograph and pneumograph to measure his heart rate and breathing. Electrodermal sensors on his hands measured his perspiration, and a camera aimed at his eyes measured the dilation of his pupils. A portable fMRI scanner was affixed to his head. He’d been connected to an IV, which he suspected held the amobarbital derivative that the North often used in interrogations. With or without the truth serum, Merritt had no intention of lying.

Two Blackout Division soldiers paced back and forth around him. They demanded that he recite his pledge three times. Then they asked him a series of questions he remembered from his perpetual duty qualification. The questions hadn’t been a challenge when he’d parroted back the correct answers at age eighteen. “Do you pledge to protect your King from any threat big or small, known or unknown, foreign or domestic?” At eighteen, his answer had been an obvious and resounding yes. But now he saw a web of consequences behind every potential answer he could give.

What qualified as a threat? An attack to the King’s ego? A dying six-year-old orphan ace demanding to know why she was sick? Who would suffer as a result of him carrying out his order of protection? Would that suffering be justified?

After nearly half a minute of silent introspection, he asked the questions out loud. The soldiers exchanged glances, a move that spoke volumes despite their solid poker faces.

At the corner of the room, a computer fan whirred. The machine logged not just his vital signs but the time it took for him to respond, the rate and pitch of his speech, the video from the cameras stationed around the room, and a transcript of all his spoken words.

The soldiers quickly grew impatient with him answering their questions with questions of his own. They asked, “Do you pledge to serve the needs of your sphere and King?” and he responded, “What happens when the needs of my sphere are in opposition to the needs of my King?” The soldiers scribbled down notes on their pads and moved on to the next question.

He knew what lay ahead of him. He could be charged with treason and executed. But he would not lie or cower or hide. He may have been alone in the room with these Blackout Division soldiers, but he wasn’t alone. Archer was out there, working on a treatment for Torrence and the other survivors. Belmont was never without a plan. And by now, blue-tie aces were probably lining up in the streets to riot. It was only a matter of time before Belmont or Archer convinced the elite to join them. If Merritt were to turn up dead, after publicly questioning the fate of the kidnapped children, it would only stoke the flames of the revolt. His life may already be lost, but the uprising would live past him. He had faith that it would bring about the changes his people demanded.

After the last question was asked and answered, one of the Blackout Division soldiers looked down at his notepad. He glanced at Merritt, raised an eyebrow, and said, “I never thought I’d get the chance to black out a general.”

*   *   *

At three o’clock on the dot, the obsidian door to Mercury’s office swung open. Mercury leaned out and said, “Come inside.”

Archer rose from her seat on the waiting room sofa and offered Mercury a measured smile. After almost three decades of practice, she knew just how much to turn the corners of her lips. It was a common misconception in the underground that blue-tie men liked their women cold. In truth, a blue-tie man liked for a woman to be cold to everyone except him. A lifetime of calculations shaped the parabola of Archer’s smile—cold enough to be taken seriously as a blue-tie, warm enough not to make her all-too-insecure King feel threatened.

Mercury ushered her inside. Instead of returning to his desk, he led her to a round table by the wall, alongside a window overlooking a rocky cliff with intricate patterned carvings and a manmade waterfall cascading gently down to the ground several stories below. The table was cleared except for a single file folder and a sculptural metal swirl that looked precarious enough to be blown over with a single breath.

Mercury always preferred to meet with her at the table instead of the desk. It gave him the opportunity to lean across it in hopes that his cologne would waft toward her. She’d never been affected by his cologne, but sometimes she injected herself under the table with a vasodilator to trigger a flushing reaction. Whenever he saw her reddened cheeks, he’d believe she was entranced by his “charms.”

The trick worked on others in her vicinity too. No one who’d seen her with Mercury had any reason to believe she was skeptical of his tactics. Belmont sure seemed to believe she was in Mercury’s pocket. In a way, it was almost tragic. In a building full of sycophants, she and Belmont were likely alone in their distaste for Mercury. They could have bonded over their shared hatred of him, but Archer knew better than to let Belmont know how she felt.

Mercury motioned for her to sit, then took the seat across from her. Just as she’d expected, he leaned across the table a little too familiarly. “I just got out of a meeting with Wilson,” he said.

“I see,” Archer replied. She waited for him to elaborate.

“Wilson has been conducting dubious business in the name of the North Sphere,” Mercury explained, as if he didn’t already know that Archer knew. “He’s been kidnapping children from orphanages to use as test subjects for military poisons and blockers. His team even kidnapped some children of elite parents. I’ve stripped him of his position, and he’s now on probation while I decide his fate.” He cleared his throat. “Wilson’s actions were disgraceful. I’m ashamed to say I was shocked when I found out about them via the news bomb today.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Were you shocked as well?”

“I never would have believed Wilson was capable,” Archer replied. “I’d thought he was conducting his business with integrity. It’s such a shame when your heroes fall from grace. But rest assured, his act had all of us fooled. Don’t hold it against yourself, King.”

Mercury flashed a satisfied, conspiratorial smile. For a moment they simply stared at each other, each knowing that the other was lying, each evaluating the strength of the other’s lie. Mercury was likely imagining how Archer might fare during a press conference, in front of journalists and flashing camera bulbs. After a long pause, he smoothed a hand over his tie and said, “You’ve always done good work, Archer. You’ve been an exemplary blue-tie. Over the past few years, working with you on various projects, I’ve come to know the breadth of your expertise. You never fail to impress me.”

“Thank you, King. I’m flattered that you see me that way.” Her face remained cool, but her heart rate began to quicken when she realized where their conversation was going. Mercury had his tells. She knew he was going to offer her Wilson’s job.

Then the blood chilled in her veins. She knew Mercury well enough to know he didn’t reveal his intentions by accident. He wanted her to anticipate that he would make the offer. He was playing an angle, but she hadn’t yet figured out what it was.

“I would hate to lose you as my Director of Surgery, Archer. But you’ve proven yourself to be capable of greater things. And I can think of no other person more qualified for Wilson’s former job.” He donned a gleaming white smile. “Archer, I’m pleased to offer you the position of Director of Science and Medicine. You’d be the most powerful director in the North Sphere—a jack of spades. Additionally, the position of top advisor has been vacant since Belmont was named my right hand. I’d like to give it to you.”

Archer raised a hand to her heart, projecting a measured amount of surprise—enough to flatter Mercury, but not so much to suggest she didn’t see herself worthy of the title.

But before she could respond with words, Mercury held up a hand. “There’s just one matter we need to settle before I can make your promotion official.” He opened the file folder on the table and retrieved a chart. “Please take a look at this.”

Archer took the stack of papers from Mercury’s hand. It was a medical and psychological evaluation of a soldier, performed by the military’s Blackout Division. Archer felt a lead weight drop in the pit of her stomach when she saw the name at the top of the chart: Merritt North.

“It’s unfortunate,” Mercury began. “In the course of Wilson’s outing, it seems our general’s perspective has turned treasonous. He is, after all, raised from offal. I wish I could say this was a momentary lapse in judgment for him, but the results of his military readiness evaluation suggest his values have changed fundamentally, and he can no longer be considered loyal to North Sphere leadership.” He scrutinized Archer as she read through the file with her best poker face. “That said, I haven’t been a physician for years. Perhaps I’m reading his vital statistics incorrectly.”

Archer knew Mercury had no trouble reading the data. She looked up from the file, waiting for him to make his point.

“I understand you and Merritt were close.” He narrowed his eyes. “I used to wonder how you, a woman with no military experience, came upon your military poisons expertise. It makes sense that Merritt helped you.”

Mercury would take any opportunity to deny Archer credit for her success, but she could plainly see that he found it equally unpalatable to ascribe her success to an ace-born soldier. “I consulted with Merritt on various occasions to gain clarity on my research,” she said evenly. “In return, I taught him how to behave properly when in the presence of the elite. It was a business relationship.”

“But your relationship went further, did it not?”

“We sometimes met over lunch, for the sake of convenience,” Archer replied. “We found it professionally beneficial to share our resources. But our relationship was never personal, and now that our poisons work is complete, I have no stake in his future success or failure.” Another lie smoothly delivered. She couldn’t afford to be any less than perfect.

“Then I trust you can be objective in the task I’m assigning you,” Mercury said in challenge. He gestured toward the file. “As you know, higher-ranking military officers cannot just be released from duty after being found guilty of treason. It would be a threat to our sphere’s security. I need to decide how we will handle our errant general. I’m left with two options: retraining or final dismissal. Are you familiar with these terms?”

“Yes, King,” Archer replied, ignoring the sickness that rose in her stomach. Retraining, also known as brainwashing. Final dismissal, also known as execution. The North almost always chose final dismissal. The retraining process required the work of several high-level experts, long hours of education and evaluation, and some of the rarest and most expensive pharmaceuticals the North had produced. Mercury was loath to expend such effort on a lowly soldier.

“As you know, Archer, our sphere has limited resources,” Mercury said. “We must choose to allocate them wisely. Retraining is a costly process and is rarely viable.”

Archer nodded along as if she were grateful for the knowledge Mercury was imparting upon her.

“So, here’s what I need from you. I need you to review Merritt’s files, both as a physician and as someone who’s hoping to become my top advisor. And I need you to give me your professional judgment. Shall Merritt be put through retraining, or will we instead choose final dismissal?”

A hurricane of dread and disgust threatened to tear down Archer’s poker face. That was the catch. She’d expected Mercury to play exactly this kind of repulsive game with her. There was only one answer he’d accept, and he was testing her to see if she’d give it to him.

The corners of his lips were turned up ever so slightly, and she knew that he enjoyed the mind games he was playing with her. “Show me that you can evaluate the data,” he said. “Show me that you can be objective.” Then he leaned forward with an air of faux warmth. “Do that, and the promotion is yours.”

Archer returned a mechanical smile. She said nothing. For the first time ever, she couldn’t trust herself to reply to Mercury in a steady voice.

Mercury stood and motioned for the exit. “Take that file with you. I’ll give you until tomorrow night to think it over.”

Archer rose to her feet, stone-faced. “Thank you, King. I’ll give the matter full consideration.”

Before she could leave, Mercury stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He flashed her a sinister smile, then gave her shoulder a brief squeeze before withdrawing his hand. “You’re a valuable asset to the North, Archer.” As she passed him on her way to the exit, he said, “I trust you’ll make the right decision—the appropriate decision—for our sphere.”

*   *   *

Belmont sat rigid behind his desk, gripping the armrests of his chair with white-knuckled fingers. He’d spent the hours since his meeting fuming, then panicking, then making plans, then fuming again. He couldn’t leave his office. Mercury’s guards had escorted him inside via a restricted hallway, but if he tried to go back out in the public halls without his tie, he’d be beaten or thrown behind bars. It didn’t matter that he was still technically a right hand. His position meant nothing without a tie to back it up.

Mercury had put him on virtual lockdown. His cell and office phone service had been disconnected, and he had no idea how long it’d be that way. He couldn’t even call his assistant. He needed to come up with a plan—and fast.

The door to his office opened. He went rigid in his seat, his fists clenched. Only one person could override the thumbprint lock on his door.

Mercury stepped into his office. On his face was the most infuriating smirk Belmont had ever seen. The subtler Mercury’s smile, the more exponentially punchable it became.

He sauntered across the office as if he owned it. Then he stopped in front of Belmont’s desk. For a moment, he glanced down at Belmont’s bare throat. He looked up again, his heartless gaze meeting Belmont’s. He reached out and set something down on Belmont’s desk. Belmont didn’t look; he refused to break eye contact.

Mercury held Belmont’s gaze in challenge. Then the corner of his lip twitched upward as if he’d proclaimed himself victorious. He turned and left the office without a word.

After the door swung shut, Belmont finally looked down at the object on his desk, and his heart shattered like struck glass.

It was Merritt’s tie clip.

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