LEGACY BETRAYED Read online

  LEGACY BETRAYED

  A LEGACY NOVEL, Book Two

  RACHEL EASTWOOD

  Copyright © 2015

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  The chrome storefronts of greater Icarus loomed in silence; a hush settled into the byways and alleys of its business district as if awaiting verdict. One single building stood alight, its shortwave antenna humming with streaming retractions and additions to its given story. Dyna Logan and her attentive retinue of employees bustled inside City of Icarus News-3, and throughout the eerily solemn domestic district beyond, residents of New Earth huddled around their radios for details on the earlier catastrophe.

  “Shortly before this weekend’s coronation of Earl Kaizen Taliko commenced, an as yet unexplained massacre was conducted by the castle automata, leaving hundreds dead and wounded in its wake.

  “Automata, though capable of running a complex variety of programs which may mimic sentience, are not capable of restructuring their own output processes. Furthermore, automata are designed to ‘imprint’ with either one specific person, a small number of specific people, or, in fields of general service, with any human being who passes through a given radius. An imprint functions as a master to the automaton, and never as the recipient of violence, or anything but prompt and friendly aid. It would appear that all the royal automata programs, from life-sized and sophisticated personal assistants to the very small and very simple polisher bots, were rewritten to attack their imprints without a cease-to command. The event not only brought devastation to the royal family, but to their guests from all stations, including those of neighboring cities.

  “It appeared that the castle’s staff of guards were also wounded, although the manner in which this was achieved remains unclear.

  “The time is fifteen ‘til ten, and this is Dyna Logan, eyewitness, reporting.

  “Although the body count, victim identities, and perpetrators remain unknown, recent tensions with rebel faction Chance for Choice lead suspicions naturally to its leader, alias Neon Trimpot, as mastermind. Trimpot was most recently apprehended for vandalism and destruction of public property targeting CIN-3, along with his compatriot, Exa Legacy, who you may remember as the catalyst of a small riot at the Fifty-Second Annual Centennial in earlier August. Unfortunately, both rebels had been granted leniency and were released with suspended sentences, now at whereabouts unknown.”

  Although the majority of the city of Icarus was as still as the early hours of the morning, all eyes directed to the bloodied castle in the distance –there was still a sprawl sunken into the shadows behind the crowded, disrepaired complexes of the domestic district, and this sprawl could not care less what became of their aristocratic overlords. They could hardly even manipulate the buttons on their radios into the ON position. The shell in question was another business district of sorts, but gutted by its own illegal nature to masquerade as mere motels and bars.

  To the familiar, this was known as Groundtown, a reference to the low point which its patrons had struck. Fifty years ago, when Icarus was still shiny and new, Groundtown had merely been its pleasure center, as any metropolis is wont to possess. There, you could find its casinos, its nightclubs, and its spas. But it didn’t take long for the citizens beneath the strict constitution of the monarchy to seek therein the forbidden. As these legitimate businesses slowly became the storefronts of other operations, they shied from the state-appointed technicians who would service them, and as the expectations of their clientele became lower and lower, the natural decay of this strip dubbed it Groundtown.

  The signs, once vibrantly colored, now fringed in rust, touted the likes of The Electric Palace, from whose windows sleek, porcelain automata, modified to seem unusually busty, posed provocatively and winked at all passersby; The Devil’s Chest, a parlor fraught with games of chance, some fixed, some calculated risk; and Glitch’s House of Oil, a bar of strangely colored, percolating fluids and an unsafe second floor where rooms for rent were signaled by the numbers spray-painted on their doors.

  This was where Exa Legacy, wanted criminal, wandered. Her goldenrod eyes panned over the desolate ghetto as she weighed her options. Couldn’t go home. Police had already been there, looking for her. Couldn’t go to the Chance for Choice headquarters which had become her home away from home. Police had already been there, too. The floating city of Icarus had precious few options for a suspect on the run. Insulated by a dome of glass and hardy adhesive, only one square mile in diameter and over a thousand feet in the air, there was no other country to which to flee, no sea to cross. There was only Icarus, unless she happened to be one of the few to own an airship, which she was not.

  “How long do you think they’re going to look?” Legacy wondered. She was still dressed in the garb she’d been wearing when she’d awoken from the nightmare of the coronal massacre: simple pants, a plain t-shirt, and disintegrating boots. Her silver braids –one strip of black –were loose on her shoulders. “When can we go home?”

  “You saw the mayhem,” Dax replied. He was still holding her hand, though he may have forgotten he was doing so, and was now only holding on by force of habit. “Leg, I don’t think you can go home.”

  Legacy pointedly ignored this, perturbed by his frankness.

  Dachs “Dax” Ghrenadel, the twenty-three-year-old statistician for Compatible Companion Selection Services, had been the focal point of her every romantic fantasy since Legacy became old enough to have such things. The wiry brunet was quick-witted, bright, and often left her feeling either comforted and protected, or tense and stupid. He made her laugh (usually), he made her feel good (usually), but then they’d kissed, and things had become more complicated.

  Technically, that had been her first violation of the Compatible Companion Law.

  For Dax Ghrenadel was seldom without his rebreather: a leather face mask which covered his nose and mouth, outfitted with oxygen gauge and carbon hydroxide “scrubber” (one small filtration tube). Born with a genetic and chronic lung disorder, Dax was therefore ineligible for Companion selection, illegal for anyone to kiss, and if it weren’t for that, none of this would ever have happened. Not to them, anyway. In Legacy’s mind, should Dax have been eligible, they’d have naturally been paired together by the difference engines of the selection labs and died happily of old age. Since they weren’t, she’d gone to the centennial to petition the duke for an amendment. Of course, Duke Malthus wasn’t known for his sensitivity, and even if he was, he didn’t have the power to amend the monarchical constitution. Instead, Legacy had started a small, small riot, fueled by a crowd of star-crossed lovers. She’d been held with a cell full of drunks at Taliko Center, and therein met Neon Trimpot, revolutionary.

  Legacy glanced at the boy –part best friend, part boyfriend, all question mark –and remembered.

  That’d been the night of their first kiss. Even in that brief period exposed to the sullied oxygen of the dome, his hands had grown frigid from the poor circulation.

  To go without the filter for a duration longer than, perhaps, half an hour, Dax would likely die. It was impossible to
truly say, for he’d only pressed those boundaries to their breaking point once: this night. In order to blend with the castle sentries and free her from the dungeon tower, he’d eschewed the device and consequently lapsed into unconsciousness while escaping the mayhem currently ruling the Taliko Archipelagos. He was right. It had, indeed, been mayhem.

  “Let’s go to Glitch’s,” Rain Ellsworth piped. The final of their trio and mistress of communication amongst Chance for Choice, Rain was a plump nurse with a spill of electric-blue hair and doll-like, fragile facial features. Also in her twenties, Rain possessed a timid but logical manner about herself, and was sometimes the sole voice of reason in the often wildly idealistic ruminations of the underground sect.

  Legacy had to admit that she’d felt a twinge of resentment toward the girl more than once. There was something so likable about her. Dax seemed to like her, anyway. But what was Legacy even thinking, to allow herself such thoughts? As if she had the right to be jealous of Rain, or anyone else.

  After all, Legacy was the one who–

  “They’ve got vacancy,” Dax interrupted, absently tugging Legacy along behind him.

  Legacy was the one who’d been kissing someone else.

  The dim foyer of Glitch’s House of Oil was strewn with semi-conscious bodies on ragged, cushioned benches. Some even merely reclined on large pillows. None seemed to care much for the three newcomers, or to even be aware of them, as they picked their way through the hedge of sprawled legs and limp wrists. All eyes were fully or half-closed. The air was pungent with a mixture of haunting aromas, so it was impossible to tell exactly what was smelled: sugary one second and sour the next. Legacy recognized certain beverages on sight. A bar swept the length of the back wall, the lone portion of the space which was well-lit, and behind that bar was a row of brass pipes, similar to those which would sprout from an organ, gurgling and hissing in a most pleasant way. Below the pipes were flutes of pale yellow, deep red, dark green, and any other color for which one might wish.

  Legacy had already drunk of the dark green before. It was called Calm the Nerves, and it worked through you like warm tentacles, loosening each muscle, unlocking each joint, until one would be hard-pressed to give much of a damn about anything at all. She’d been kind of high on the mossy liquid when she’d first kissed Earl Kaizen.

  Though he had kissed her first. And it hadn’t meant anything . . . as she’d repeatedly assured herself. It hadn’t meant anything . . . the first time.

  Earl Kaizen Taliko –or Kaizen, as Legacy called him–was strange. He’d spent most of his life marooned on the Taliko Archipelagos, trapped in a castle by his controlling father, Duke Malthus, and didn’t know much about people in general, even at twenty-four. He was lonesome and attentive –petty and mercurial –and romantic, and childish, and sexy. He was lamentably sexy.

  Legacy couldn’t really blame all their kisses on Calm the Nerves.

  “Her-her-herllo,” a static-mottled voice greeted the three entrants, pulling Legacy’s attention from the burbling beaker of dark green.

  A turnkey automaton with an unhinged neck joint had risen from behind the bar, and coasted closer to them as if on a rickety rail. His face was common porcelain, but faint fissures snaked over the majority of the coat, some slivers of missing glass revealing the machinations of the cogs and gears beneath. One brown marble eye had slid into an unnatural position, and in addition, the turn-key barkeep desperately needed another coat of paint. His “skin” wasn’t without paint, for it still had the faint strokes of eyebrows and circles of blush, but he also bore the scars of mildew on his visage like a gray and brown pox.

  “Her may I herp you?” he asked.

  “Uh, hi,” Dax replied, shaking his head lightly, as if to clear the fumes from it. The three stepped forward together. “Could I– could we– could we have a room for the night, please?”

  “One moment.” The turnkey barkeep held up one ball-jointed, porcelain finger –or, what was once a porcelain finger. The coating had come free from the digit, leaving only a rusted bone in its place. “GLITCH!”

  The back door of the bar opened and “Glitch,” a middle-aged man with black, oiled hair parted to one side and a pencil-thin mustache, exited in surprisingly fine clothing, considering the rest of the place. He moved like a dancer would move, adjusting his cuffs, swinging out from behind the bar, all with neat and graceful self-control. He sniffed and fussed at his mustache.

  “Marvelous,” Glitch greeted, clapping. He had dazzling emerald eyes which shone just a touch too bright. “One bed? For three?” he prompted.

  Dax glanced back at Legacy and Rain, as if searching for the words to describe their circumstance, but before he could go on, Glitch held up a hand and shook his head with a coy smile.

  “No judgments here,” he went on. “Come with me. I’ll show you our honeymoon suite.” Glitch turned and led them deeper into the chemical den, up a metal spiral of worrisome stairs. All four made a wide berth around an unexplained puddle.

  “Does the room have a radio in it?” Legacy ventured.

  “All rooms come equipped with one radio,” Glitch answered, “one washroom with one shower, one trunk for the unmentionables, and one free automaton which you may register under your name. You’ll receive its key upon payment. One night will be thirty pieces.”

  Glitch performed a needless flourish at room #3. Considering that the numeral was spray-painted onto the door, showmanship could only go so far. He swept the door open with a shriek of its hinges, and the three entered with curled nose and apprehensive eye.

  There was a legitimate hole in the floor.

  “Don’t . . . mind that,” Glitch murmured, flicking his hand toward the damaged corner.

  “Thirty pieces for a room with a hole in it?” Dax demanded. “And is that blood?” He gestured toward a copper starburst on the opposite wall.

  Glitch cleared his throat. “Invigorate the Heart,” he answered evasively. “It looks a lot like blood. Twenty, and you won’t find any lower in all of Groundtown. That’s Glitch-verified.”

  Dax glared, but dropped Legacy’s hand and rooted in his pocket to pay the man without further debate.

  “Here’s the key to your automaton,” their host went on, producing a large brass key from his slacks and handing it to Dax. “You can register it under one name, and that registration will expire in twenty-four hours. You’re welcome to visit the bar at any hour, day or night, for the refreshments of your choice.”

  “Thank you,” Rain said sweetly.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Dax parroted, less sweetly.

  As Glitch took his leave with a bow, Legacy strode to the radio –with a wary glance at that gaping hole in the left corner of the room, large enough to fall any adult of average size –and switched it on.

  CIN-3 buzzed and came to life, Dyna Logan’s crow-like tone iterating that the suspected perpetrators, Trimpot and Legacy, were un-apprehended, the body count of the ill-fated coronation unknown, and even the condition of the duke –Or Kaizen, Legacy winced –went without report.

  Rain sighed and sat on the left side of the bed, which dented deeply and groaned as if every spring were broken. “So,” she said. “How long do you think this is going to be . . . life?”

  “Forever,” Legacy grumbled, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.

  “Well, that can’t be true,” Dax informed them. “I mean –even at twenty pieces a night –and none of us going to work? Forever won’t be long.”

  Legacy’s brow knit with the unpleasantness of this thought. “Where else can we go, though?” she asked. “We can’t go home. We can’t go to work. They know where we live. They know who we are. They know everything!”

  “Well.” Dax nodded, but he wouldn’t quite look at her.

  “Well what?” Rain prodded.

  “Well . . . I watched the police,” Dax went on haltingly.

  “And?” Rain said.

  “Well,” Dax said again.

  “And?”
Legacy repeated.

  “And they didn’t go into any unit besides yours,” Dax snapped. “I don’t think they know about us. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Oh.” Legacy crossed her arms. “I didn’t know that.” And here she’d thought it couldn’t get any worse. But they weren’t all outlaws together. It was just her. And Trimpot, wherever the hell he was. “Thanks for paying for my room, then,” she forced herself to continue as lightly as possible. “I guess you guys don’t have to stay at this dump, then, if you don’t want to. Who would want to?”

  “You don’t have to stay here forever, though,” Rain contributed. “The contingency plan was always to regroup at Vector’s airship if anything happened to headquarters. But . . . but we don’t know where Vector is.”

  Legacy looked to Rain hopefully. “Vector has an airship?”

  “What doesn’t Vector have?” Rain countered with a half-smile. “He built it himself.”

  “It’ll all be fine, anyway,” Dax said with a little too much cheer. “We’ll find Vector, regroup on the airship, pool our resources, and . . .”

  “Abandon my family to become a refugee in some hostile sister city?” Legacy finished bleakly.

  “And figure something out,” Dax finished instead, sitting next to Legacy and patting her on the knee. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Meanwhile, Dyna Logan launched into her harrowing personal account of the coronation ceremony.

  Rain sighed. “I don’t know about you guys, but I could go for a drink.”

  Kaizen Taliko, who had been an honorary duke for approximately six hours, had yet to retire to his chambers. It was true that his father, the late Duke Malthus Taliko, had never been particularly kind to him, even close to him, but he’d also made it clear that a firm, consistent hand was requisite to govern Icarus, and Kaizen did not want to disappoint the memory of his father, much less the real, living populace of twenty-eight thousand which was depending on his leadership.