Devoted: Merritt's Story - Chapter 14

Here's chapter 14!  You can read it inline or download the attached PDF.  Chapters 15 and 16 are both very big, and I want to post them on consecutive weeks, so next week will be an off week.  I currently plan to have 15/16 on 8/10 and 8/17, but this could potentially be delayed a week since DOTU is starting up again on 8/7.

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Chapter 14

Merritt and Archer emerged from the lab at two minutes to five the next morning, even before the scattered daylight bulbs in the underground’s ceiling had begun their weak morning glow. Merritt welcomed the dark sky and empty streets. He still felt nauseated from the IPJ-8 antitoxin, and the last thing he wanted was to be surrounded by blaring lights in every direction. Even after returning to the barracks for a quick shower, he couldn’t stomach breakfast.

By six o’clock, he’d settled into the private mess hall at the officers’ quarters. He sipped gingerly from a cup of herbal tea infused with a few drops of North Sphere nausea remedy, massaging his temples to ease the tension caused by the ceaseless chatter of a few nearby lieutenants.

Before he could finish his tea, his cellphone buzzed with an incoming call. Higgins’s name popped up on his screen. Not wanting to keep the North Sphere right hand waiting, he jumped to his feet and hurried around the corner to get away from the noise before answering.

“Merritt,” Higgins said. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

Higgins’s words struck Merritt as odd, but he gave no reaction. “Good morning, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Have you thought about our conversation last Thursday? The details of the proposal I offered you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

“And I’d like to accept your offer, sir.”

“Excellent. I’m glad to hear it.” Static crackled as Higgins paused on the other line. “I want to meet with you tonight at my suite. We can discuss plans over dinner.”

“What time should I arrive, sir?”

“Come at eight. I’ve cleared your thumbprint for my suite, so you’ll be able to get into headquarters and up the elevator without a problem. No need to stop at the front desk; just come straight up.”

“Thank you, sir. Is there anything else you need?”

He’d asked as a courtesy, but Higgins responded with a long, loaded silence.

“Sir?”

“Are you in a secure location?”

With a glance at the crowd of officers just around the corner, Merritt confessed, “No, sir. But if you can wait for a minute, I’ll relocate.”

“Do it, please.”

Merritt turned the corner and headed down the hall toward the officers’ computer labs. Once inside the private lab, he locked the door behind him. “All right, sir. I’m alone.”

Higgins didn’t respond immediately. Merritt waited through the sound of rustling cloth—perhaps a blanket being shoved aside. Had Higgins been calling from his bed? After a bit more rustling and a crackle of static, Higgins said, “You’re a smart young man, Merritt. You have a mind for strategy. And you’re trustworthy.” He gave a pause too short for Merritt to voice gratitude. “I need you to investigate something for me. Privately.”

“All right, sir. Can you tell me anything else?”

“I believe someone close to me is trying to have me assassinated. Out of all my allies, you’re the only one I trust wholeheartedly. I know you’re not involved. So I want you to find me evidence of who is.”

That was a much heftier request than Merritt had expected. He took a moment to consider Higgins’s words. “Sir, do you have any suspicions about who’s behind this?”

“Oh, I know exactly who it is. But I don’t know how, and I don’t know who else might be involved. And that means I can’t prove it.”

There was another pause, this one deliberate. Merritt’s instinctive read on the silence was that Higgins believed Merritt knew the culprit too and was trusting him to make the connection without the name being spoken.

It was Belmont. It had to be Belmont.

“I understand, sir,” Merritt said, his words just as deliberate as Higgins’s silence.

“Good,” Higgins said. “Then you know to use caution.” Merritt waited while Higgins faintly sipped a drink. “I can’t tell you more than that over the phone. Even our secure line could have been compromised by someone supposedly on our side.” Under his breath, Higgins added, “He’d have the means to do it.” Then he cleared his throat. “I’ll give you the details tonight over dinner, before we talk about your career opportunities.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll be there at eight.”

“Actually, I don’t want to wait that long. Come at seven.”

“Yes, sir.”

Merritt released a heavy sigh as he hung up. Higgins could not have possibly entrusted him with a bigger job, and he wasn’t sure how he would manage to concentrate on routine work throughout the full day ahead.

Merritt’s responsibilities for the day involved logistics and tactical planning for the poison-trapped corridors he’d proposed to the board. He would have given anything to trade in the day’s desk duty for a few rounds of hand-to-hand combat or poisons drills. The strategizing and calculating was barely enough to distract him from thoughts of Higgins. As much as he yearned to let his mind run free into the labyrinth of possible scenarios surrounding the attempted assassination, he couldn’t afford to get ahead of himself until Higgins confirmed, in words, that Belmont was his suspect.

At a quarter to seven, Merritt parked in the lot outside North Sphere Headquarters and began the long walk to the entrance. Aside from the board meeting he’d attended on the top floor, he’d only ever visited the ground floor of headquarters before. Since becoming a captain, he’d attended a handful of speeches and conferences in the spacious reception hall, usually hosted by General Rhodes, an intelligence operative, or one of Mercury’s military advisors. On the second floor was an upscale restaurant and bar named the Sheridan, which was technically accessible to the general public but too expensive for anyone but the elite to afford. Mercury, Higgins, and the board of advisors each had private offices in the building, and the servants’ quarters were housed on a floor between the public and private levels. Higgins and Mercury had their suites just below the top floor boardroom, but Merritt had never expected to receive an invitation to one of those suites.

At one minute to seven, Merritt boarded the glass elevator at headquarters and pressed the number for Higgins’s suite with his thumb. The buttons themselves had built-in thumbprint sensors, only allowing people access to a floor if they had the proper clearance.

The elevator opened into a long, narrow corridor on the sixth floor. Merritt stepped out onto the intricately patterned marble tile and headed for the double doors up ahead. Again, his thumbprint granted him access, and he entered a shorter hallway with the door to Higgins’s suite up ahead. After approaching, he knocked on the smooth wood.

No answer. He knocked again.

The air was too still. Its stifling, motionless weight felt noxious as it filled his lungs. It took all his effort to hold back the dread rising in his chest and knock one more time.

After a minute of waiting, Higgins still did not answer the door. Merritt retrieved his phone and called Higgins. Still no answer.

Pressure built in Merritt’s lungs, amplifying the pounding of his heart. The time for restrained politeness had passed. He gave the doorknob a hard rattle, but it was locked. Since the building’s elaborate security system, armed guards, and thumbprint sensors kept any unwanted guests at bay, the door to Higgins’s suite itself was low tech. Merritt could probably break it down without triggering any alarms.

Breaking into the suite would surely land him in hot water, but he had no choice. Something had happened to Higgins; he could feel it in the dead air. Armed security guards were stationed throughout headquarters, but Merritt would only call them as a last resort. Higgins had said that he trusted no one but Merritt.

He braced himself, took a step back, and delivered a hard kick to the door.

Splinters flew, but the door didn’t budge. Another kick sent a shockwave up Merritt’s shin, but he felt the wood panels weaken with the strike. Again he kicked, leaving a large crack. His next kick turned the crack into a ragged hole. The lock fell free of the fractured panel, landing atop scattered wood shards and sending the door swinging open.

Merritt stepped in with caution, analyzing his surroundings as he walked further into the suite.

Higgins lay sprawled on the floor beside the kitchen table, the handle of a shattered coffee cup still resting across his upturned palm. A chill ran through Merritt’s chest. Racing across the room, he knelt beside Higgins and checked for a pulse. Higgins’s body wasn’t cold, but it had an odd, clammy feel to it.

No pulse. Merritt’s insides twisted with dread.

He had Mercury’s direct number stored in his cell phone, but he’d never before dared to call it. Now, however, seemed to be an appropriate time for it.

After four rings, Merritt started to think that Mercury wouldn’t answer. But then the line clicked on, and he heard Mercury’s voice on the other end. “Merritt.”

“Damen….” Merritt cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to report that Higgins is dead.”

There was a long pause on the other line. His tone revealing nothing, Mercury said, “Tell me the details.”

“I got a call from Higgins this morning. He told me that he suspected someone was trying to assassinate him, and he wanted me to come by his suite tonight to help him find evidence of the culprit. But when I got here, he was already dead. I had to break down the door to get in.”

“Can you determine a cause of death?”

“There’s no visible trauma.”

Mercury paused again. “Stay where you are. Don’t call anyone. I want to keep this low key for now, so I’m bringing in my personal staff. I’ll be there to meet you in ten minutes.”

*  *  *

Merritt felt numb as he stood against the wall in Higgins’s foyer, watching the body of a former ally handled as if it were a stock of grocer’s meat for inspection. A team of medics and investigators circled Higgins’s body, which lay atop a gurney. Rarely in the underground did a body or crime scene receive a formal examination. Unless the victim had key connections or was important to the sphere’s government, bodies were simply tossed aside for chemical incineration. Higgins, high ranking as he was, would probably have a tomb reserved for his ashes in the catacombs.

Merritt’s initial response to Higgins’s death had been cool and rational, but after two hours of standing at attention, his mind charged ahead, processing the situation behind a tenuously indifferent veneer.

He’d lost an ally. A mentor. A bridge that promised to connect him to Mercury and the elite. Last Thursday’s discussion with Higgins ran through his mind on a loop. Higgins had a vision for him, and he’d committed to guiding Merritt down a path of success. That opportunity had vanished along with Higgins’s last breath.

Mercury would have to name a new right hand.

Across the room, Mercury observed the scene with the same cold detachment Merritt attempted to emulate. He gave a few directions to the team as they worked, asking for second tests on certain surfaces and requesting that certain imaging sequences from the poison tests be sent to him via file transfer. As time wore on, cracks began to emerge in his poker face, but Merritt stood too far away to discern his emotion.

The crime scene investigators scoured the suite, testing food, drink, and surfaces in rapid succession with chemical sprays designed to reveal the presence of the North’s most common poisons. Magnolia, the North Sphere Headquarters elite medical examiner, ran similar tests on the body. She used a handheld computer device to display X-rays in real time, after injecting the body with chemical agents designed to show contrast at the presence of common poisons. Despite Merritt’s awareness of the loss to himself and to the North Sphere, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the technology held in secret by Mercury’s team of experts.

“You,” one of the investigators barked, snapping his fingers in front of Merritt’s face as if he were a trained animal. “Who gave you permission to break down that door?”

Merritt could see the tension in the man’s taut, sweaty face. Having watched the team work for two hours, Merritt had sensed their rising frustration as they repeatedly tried and failed to turn up evidence in the suite. Every tested surface came up clean, and it seemed the investigator was looking for an easy suspect to relieve him of the pressure to produce evidence.

“Higgins called me to meet him at his suite, sir,” Merritt replied. He gestured toward his dual holsters. “As a perpetual duty soldier, it was my responsibility to see to his safety while I was on the premises. When he didn’t answer the door, I thought he might have been in danger.”

“Why didn’t you call security?”

“Higgins requested a confidential meeting, sir. He didn’t want anyone to know about it.”

“What kind of confidential business would a right hand have to do with someone like you?” the investigator snarled.

“That’s enough,” Mercury cut in, fixing his ice cold gaze on the investigator. “Merritt’s approved to be here. His actions are not within the scope of your investigation.”

The investigator backed down, his vexation surfacing for a split second before he pulled up his poker face. Merritt tried to shoot Mercury a smile of appreciation, but Mercury didn’t return his gaze.

After a thorough digital examination of the body, Magnolia turned her intense, bloodshot eyes to Mercury. “Sudden bone fractures throughout his body, from his skull to his toes, creating the appearance of Lichtenberg figures. This is a telltale sign of MYGG-2 poisoning, but I can’t find a trace of MYGG-2 in his body.”

“I come from a background in medicine, not poisons,” Mercury said. “MYGG-2 is an uncommon poison. It’s been out of production for several years, correct?”

“Yes, King. In powder form, it has a shelf life of five years, but once mixed, it will only stay viable for two hours in the open air or up to two weeks in an airtight container. Your suspect could have committed the murder with a years-old drug if he still had access to the powder.”

“But you didn’t find any MYGG-2 in his system.”

“That’s correct, King.”

“Do you have an explanation for this?”

“No, King, I don’t.”

“Could the poison have been administered in low doses over a long period of time, ma’am?” Merritt asked from across the room.

Magnolia turned her intense eyes on him, presumably offended at being questioned by a mere soldier. She didn’t appear interested in answering, but after Mercury gave her an expectant nod, she acquiesced, turning and facing Mercury to answer Merritt’s question. “It’s possible but unlikely, King. My equipment is sensitive enough to pick up even the slightest hints of the poison. If it was administered in a low enough dose not to appear in tests, it would have required several hundreds of applications. Because the MYGG compound oxidizes so quickly, the poison needs to be ingested within a few hours of it first being exposed to air. It would be nearly impossible to poison someone this way several hundred times without them being aware of it. This is why MYGG-2 is almost always administered via injection. I’ve never seen a MYGG-2 poisoning carried out any other way.”

“Are there any other drugs that could cause similar effects without the limitations?” Mercury asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. But I still have a few more tests to run before I make a final determination. We’ll need to transfer the body to the lab to complete the examination. I’m sorry I couldn’t provide you with definitive results on the spot, King.”

Mercury let the apology pass without acknowledgment. “I’ll leave you to finish your work. Send me your full report as soon as it’s ready.”

“Yes, King.”

Magnolia turned without another word and headed for the exit. The last straggling experts followed after her, rolling Higgins’s now covered body along with them on the examination table. They boarded a service elevator at the end of the back corridor, leaving Merritt and Mercury alone in the suite.

“You told me over the phone that he suspected someone was trying to kill him,” Mercury said. “Did he say who?”

“No, but he had someone in mind. He was going to tell me tonight when I got here.” He considered telling Mercury that he believed Higgins was thinking about Belmont, but it was too dangerous an accusation to make without evidence to back it up. After another moment’s thought, Merritt’s eyes widened. “You don’t… suspect me, do you?”

Mercury turned to look at him, his lips pressed together. Merritt was surprised when he realized that Mercury was struggling to fight back a chuckle. “The thought never occurred to me, Merritt.” After another moment, the smile faded from his face, and he headed across the room, pulling out a chair and taking a seat at the kitchen table. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped together. “Higgins was a good right hand. But frankly, I’m disappointed that he would let himself be poisoned to death. He knew better. I’ve seen him evade traps that even the most vigilant person would step into. To poison him once would have been difficult enough. To do it repeatedly over a long period of time?” Mercury shook his head. “I thought Higgins was smarter than that.”

Merritt wasn’t sure how to respond. “Is there anything I can do?”

When Mercury didn’t reply, Merritt tried to read the expression on his face, but he failed to decipher it. Mercury didn’t appear to be worried or sad or even angry. If Merritt could pick up even a hint of emotion, it appeared that his King was annoyed.

On some level, Mercury had a point. No self-respecting blue-tie would ever allow themselves to be poisoned. Poison was a weapon best used on rivals from another sphere because they hadn’t spent a lifetime learning to avoid it. Back at the orphanage, the kids used to play games to see who could sneak a drop of blue food coloring into another kid’s drink without them noticing. As they got older, their attack and defense techniques grew more sophisticated. Even the average no-name ace who worked in retail or housekeeping knew how to protect their food and drink. In fact, the orphan with the best record at blue-food-coloring-defense was Torrence, whose hypervigilance for once worked in his favor. Even the kids who’d already started combat and poisons training in anticipation of joining the military couldn’t beat him. 

But Higgins was up against enemies whose offensive techniques surely outmatched the kids at the orphanage—kids who were out for bragging rights rather than the genuine desire to poison another human being. And as Mercury’s right hand, Higgins had countless enemies with motive to kill him.

“Losing a right hand is quite the hassle.” Mercury sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I’ll want to announce my replacement before word of Higgins’s death gets out. Otherwise, people are likely to panic. My investigators are all sworn to secrecy, but it’s only a matter of time before the news spreads.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved his cell phone. As Merritt waited in silence, Mercury dialed in a number and then lifted the phone to his ear. “Belmont. Higgins is dead. You’ll be my new right hand.”

Merritt gritted his teeth. The news came as no surprise to him, but that didn’t stop him from shuddering at the thought of Belmont gaining even more power than he already had.

Belmont had done this. Merritt knew it in his gut. And now Belmont was reaping the rewards, stealing the seat of a once-honorable right hand.

Maybe he should have said something. Maybe he should have pointed the finger at Belmont. But he doubted it would have changed Mercury’s course. If Belmont was capable of orchestrating an untraceable murder, he’d probably prepared in advance for his expected promotion. Most likely, he had allies and hired hands and blackmail victims already lined up to defend him in his new position. Merritt’s hollow accusation would hold no weight, especially now after he’d lost his most powerful ally.

“Meet me at my suite in half an hour,” Mercury said into the phone before hanging up. He then turned to Merritt. “Go back to the barracks. I plan to have a crew come in and strip all the rooms in preparation for Belmont.”

“Damen, if there’s anything I can do to help ease the burden…?”

With a flippant shrug, Mercury said, “Unless you can turn up evidence of who did Higgins in, I don’t see how your services would be of use here. All I ask is that you keep this matter discreet until word of my new right hand goes public.”

“Yes, Damen. Understood.” Merritt knew that this was his cue to leave, but he lingered a moment longer, riveted in place by his concern for his King. He wished there was something—anything—that Mercury would ask of him. Even something as simple as a request for a glass of water would have satisfied him.

But Mercury gave no such request. Whatever glimpse of vulnerability Merritt had spotted through his poker face moments ago had now disappeared. As cold as ever, Mercury rose to his feet. “When someone dies, you move on. I have a new right hand to break in.” He motioned toward the door. “After you, Merritt.”

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