Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(81)
And those babies had never come. Lots of reasons why folks didn’t procreate these days, but with the kind of money and other resources at her disposal, she wouldn’t have even had to carry a child. And they wouldn’t have taken her wishes into account, anyhow. They could have made it happen despite her. The consortium could have put all the biological bits together in a lab. And all without her say-so.
They could have held that threat over her, forcing her to do their bidding. Even if it hadn’t been physical control, it had still hurt her. Incrementally, maybe, over time. God, what would that have felt like?
She’d finally had enough, he guessed. And then what? She left Daniel, threatened to divorce him, and let herself be mollified with a mech-clone replacement?
Something here didn’t fit.
Kellen’s thoughts tumbled, imagining a whole soup of horrible scenarios. And here the whole time, he’d been thinking while he was off saving people and doing good works, she was living large in California, married to her superstar and unfazed by one ill-fated and ill-advised teenaged love affair. He’d assumed she’d gotten over it all, that she’d moved on and only he’d been stuck remembering instead of living.
But there’d been more to her story, behind the scenes. She’d told him just a little, about some of the things Daniel had done, and he’d known even then that there was more.
He hadn’t left her for her own good. He’d left her to their devices. And, lord, they had used her.
Chapter 15
Modernists could say whatever they wanted about the efficiency of remote management or the speed of spaceplanes, but there was something relaxing about this underwater transportation business. Floating. Working. Floating and working. Angela wasn’t about to burst out in sea shanties or anything, but her schemes were coming together and she was hurtling forward through space. Efficient.
No need to think about anything. Just act. Inhabit the moment. Make all the things happen.
She was trained for this, good at this. She could see success from here. So why did it look so…empty? Lonely. Stop it.
The communications room here was crammed with everything she needed, all the gizmos, and she’d been super busy this morning. She’d arranged to have Rafa meet her physically in Tampico, and he was bringing a style suite along. Fez was prepping a big show, simultaneously cast to all corners of this continent, an interrupt-level brief. The kind of shot across the bow that Zeke couldn’t possibly ignore.
She had reserved a sound stage/transmission suite in Veracruz, just inland. That’s where the magic would happen. The reservation was for tomorrow evening, and by then, her petitions would be closing, and she’d have a clearer picture of where her efforts stood, whether the public was backing her. Whether she had told the best lie.
From that point, if everything went well, she’d travel to the Capitoline. She’d crash the goddamn inauguration, while the entire population of this planet watched. She’d arranged ticketing through one of her false identities, but according to Chloe, resources weren’t really an issue. The Pentarc crew was loaded, and apparently, Heron was so deep into the cloud that Angela’s own dead-girl accounts were available, if she wanted them. Security didn’t mean much to him. By tomorrow she wouldn’t even be legally dead anymore.
It was all coming together. And it was all falling apart.
What happens after? If this works, if I oust Zeke and stop the attacks, then what? What must I do then? What must I become? What must I leave behind?
No, no thinking. Just planning. Planning was a safe place. Alone is safe. Even if it sucks.
One leg bent in her chair, one foot on the floor, swinging her back and forth in an arc while she fiddled with the communications board. She tapped through her petitions, watching the numbers climb. Public petition to impeach an elected official. Public support for independent tribunal to investigate the rigging of national elections. Public petition of no-confidence in President Ezekiel Medina. She’d started with one verified electronic signature, hers. The highest-count petition now contained signatures in the millions. That was the impeachment document.
Protests were gathering in femacities all over the continent. She’d logged on to rally in three so far today, gaunt in her smartfabric dive suit and shorn hair, and more were scheduled for the coming hours. Her fans were amazed at her story, at her seeming rebirth. They marveled at her courage to pursue the criminals, the masters. Immortal, they called her, having no clue of the irony.
She was calling her coalition The People Rise. It was earthy, vaguely menacing, but that was okay. That was the mood among the displaced thousands. She’d thought of something milder, like The People Speak or The People’s Voice, but this wasn’t really a peaceful movement of people. It was an act of desperation, backed by her personal hammer of justice. She would stop Zeke’s violence. She would do it now. And he would not silence her.
This was happening. All of it.
An hour ago, she’d gotten word from the Pentarc. Zeke had tried to contact her through mech-Daniel, and Heron offered to relay the communiqués as they came in. Fine, she’d said. Put them through.
“Angela! First, are you okay? Second, where are you? And third, what are you doing, kiddo?”
“I am alive. Surprise,” she responded. “Nice of you to ask. Eight weeks after the fact. Are you sure you don’t want to confess anything?”