Cardinal, (Citizen Saga, Book 2) Read online

  But what would happen now?

  I stared down at the scrunched up card in my hand and finally opened it, using blood soaked fingers to prize it apart.

  It was a plain business card. One I'd seen before. My breath caught, and my heart, already so abused and overtaxed, beat swiftly.

  Sweat, again, coated my skin.

  Harjeet. Park Road was stamped on the front.

  I closed my eyes and turned it over. Then willed myself to see what message the snake had sent. The sweat of before becoming chilled as I stared down at his elegant scrawl.

  Your favour has been paid in full, Elite. So, this is on the house. I control Shiloh. Wánměi is mine. If I were you, I'd get out.

  I stared at it, my mind racing and trying to join the dots. The flash-drive had to have pertained to Shiloh. That's why he'd wanted it so much. But to gain access to what the files held, Harjeet had to sell me out, abandon the rebels, and set Wánměi on a course that he arbitrarily deemed appropriate. I couldn't get my head around it. Harjeet had been a businessman, but how did handing over Wánměi to Shiloh make sound financial sense?

  And then there was Wang Chao. Who had given up his father's dream to have his promised fiancée and lost the gamble in the end. But Wánměi was set to lose even more.

  Had the switch already been flicked by Harjeet?

  I glanced around the space and found what I was looking for, a Shiloh interface, the unit already pulled, but the wires still there, hanging out. I raced across the bunker and gripped my Shiloh, hauling it from the pillowcase and crossing to the empty slot. It took a few heart pounding minutes to attach it, several more to secure it safely in the space. And still more as I stared at it, unsure of my next move

  I stepped back and took in the reassuring green flashing light in the corner, but still uncertain if this was the correct thing to do. Only one way to find out.

  "One Wánměi," I murmured, and opened a vid-screen.

  On it scrolled the latest headlines, mentioning the Palace being on fire but strangely no news of the Chief Overseer's demise.

  "Override, Lena Carr, 241386," I announced into the suddenly ice cold underground air.

  The light held for three long seconds then blinked, still blessedly green.

  I sucked in a deep breath, my heart racing, my throat tight with emotion, my head pounding with too many variables. My fingers itching to fight.

  But how?

  More taut seconds followed, then I ordered, "Status of Shiloh circuit throughout Wánměi," before I could stop myself. Before I even realised that was what I needed to say.

  I held my breath. The moment seemed to stretch. And stretch. The green light blinking tauntingly. And then my father's gift to me finally spoke.

  "Circuit compromised," it said. "All safe guards inoperative. Artificial consciousness achieved."

  This was why he'd given it to me. This was why it was so special.

  "Guard her, Lena," my father had said. "Guard her well."

  I had. Even when I'd lost her, I'd kept her fiercely within my thoughts. Never forgetting the look on his face when he'd given her to me. And now we had a way to track Shiloh, a way to see what had become of our world.

  And, hopefully, a way to save it.

  Time would tell.

  "Check blocks," I instructed, slipping Harjeet's card into my waistband and walking towards where Trent was waiting; battered, bruised, but prepared to fight to his final breath.

  I was prepared to, as well.

  The last thing I heard, as I slipped out of the room following that inexorable tug on my heart, giving me hope and possibly something to fight with, was Shiloh.

  My Shiloh.

  "All blocks solid," she said.

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  Read an Interview with Trent Masters

  Read on for the first chapter of the final instalment in the hot, new Dystopian Romantic Suspense, Citizen Saga: Citizen.

  Have you been a model Citizen today?

  The destruction of the Chief Overseers’ Palace was meant to bring about a change. But the streets of Wánměi are just as dangerous and just as falsely perfect as they ever were. Lena Carr, now a confirmed member of the revolution, hides in the shadows of the city-state she adores and works hard to undermine those in a position of authority.

  But there are secrets among the Overseers…

  The leaders of Wánměi would have you believe that the nation is model. That Wánměi provides all that you need. And many do still believe it. Battling propaganda and brainwashing becomes more insurmountable for the rebels each day.

  But one person will never give up on a free Wánměi. Trent Masters has led the rebel army through some tough times, but now he faces the biggest battle of all. Convincing the Citizens of his beloved nation that there is more beyond the invisible, yet impenetrable, walls of Wánměi.

  And to do that he needs Lena. Because without the Elite who has captured his heart, as easily as she moves across the rooftops of the city in the dead of a storm shrouded night, he won’t find the key that unlocks it all. But what that key unlocks will be the biggest shock of them all.

  Citizen versus Citizen. The battle ends now!

  Chapter 1 - Citizen

  But This?

  Lena

  I watched the ballet before me unfold in mute fascination. Flashing yellow-orange lights atop heavy machinery dancing a duet with their quarry. The beat of metal against metal - so like the clash of cymbals - an accompaniment to the choreography they performed. It was dazzling and strangely captivating.

  But then, I’d never seen a container ship being loaded before.

  In the distance lay the ocean. It might as well have been a desert away. To the sides were the darkened, disused, and derelict docks the Overseers had let run to ruin.

  Forty years we'd been cut off from the rest of the world. Our only access was to trade partners via the rusted container ship that was currently standing centre stage in a performance as foreign and as essential our city’s freedom.

  I'd watched the goods come off this morning. Corrugated metal containers full of necessary - and not so necessary, depending on where you sat on society’s ladder - items we were incapable of producing or manufacturing ourselves.

  But what was being loaded in their place now was the real question.

  I shifted my weight, stretching out first one leg and then the other, only to resume my crouch again, hidden from prying eyes. Ever present sweat ran in rivulets down between my shoulder blades, the breathable black skin-tight suit I was wearing stuck to me in the most uncomfortable of locations. It took everything in me to ignore the need to pull bits of my outfit from their slide into uninvited spaces.

  The scent of tobacco mixed with diesel and salt invaded my nostrils, giving me thankfully something else to focus on. Someone was smoking their ration nearby.

  I pulled a mirror from my pocket and peered around the corner of the air-con unit I was using as shelter. A lone Citizen worker in reflector-striped overalls leaned against a dusty wall and inhaled his Tyger Menthol cigarette. He let out a long sigh of contentment afterwards, then dropped the stub and crushed it beneath his scuffed boot. He headed back to his fellow workers, but not before he picked the cigarette butt up and disposed of it appropriately.

  He might have only been a Citizen, but he was model.

  The question was, why?

  Revolution had co
me to Wánměi. The order threatened. Two consecutive Chief Overseers assassinated. Disgruntlement and disillusionment rife on the city streets. But it still wasn't enough.

  Wipes were happening more and more frequently. Drones, controlled by Shiloh and not the Cardinals, were walking almost every single street. The public weren't even aware that Chew-wen Wang Chao had died when the Palace had burned. The Overseers continued to hold the nation by the throat and squeezed tightly. What they said, everyone blindly believed. Despite recent events making them question otherwise.

  I'd always known the battle was too hard for just one Elite. But I wasn't just one Elite anymore.

  "What's your plan, Lena?" came a familiar male voice over the earpiece I was wearing.

  I glanced around the immediate area and noted four dock workers, but no drones. They were dealing with a broken coupling on a container door that had just been set down too heavily on the dock, before being raised for loading on the ship.

  "It's now or never," I replied. "Have you got eyes on the office?"

  "Yeah, all quiet," Simon replied. "Windows clear." The windows overlooking the dock and the deck of the ship itself.

  "I need a distraction," I said, shifting my legs and getting ready to run. "Tan, can you arrange that?"

  "On it," came his reply and then a series of orders to his men. "Sixty seconds, Elite," he added, once he'd put his team in place.

  "Acknowledged," I whispered, studying my chosen access.

  Flakes of rust peeled off the anchor chain, leaving a grimy red tinged stain down the side of what was once black paint of the hull. But I wouldn't be using that unless I had to. I pulled my palm sized binoculars from my vest pocket and checked the main deck for movement. All eyes in the bridge would have been on the next container being lifted onto the deck by a gantry crane. All personnel on the decks were engaged in ensuring that container made it onto the ship safely.

  "Five seconds," Tan said quietly over the earpiece and I had a sudden thought I should have asked what the distraction would be.

  Tan had a way of looking at a problem differently than most. The rebels I'd been working with, including Si on the earpiece, would have wandered onto the dock at the far end and drawn people's attention in a non-confrontational way.

  Tan had a lot of pent up anger. His path would not be peaceful.

  A loud explosion sounded out over by the raised dock office, followed swiftly by an ominous creaking of wood as it splintered. Shouts and cries of alarm joined the cacophony, and then a whooping siren set the scene to chaotic.

  Great. He'd blown up one of the supporting poles beneath the building, making it teeter at a dangerous angle over the top of several dock workers and drones.

  I didn't have time to question his choice of distraction, I was up and running hell for leather towards the side of the dock and then springing from the platform into the air, covering the distance to a mooring rope. My glove covered hands wrapped around the thick, and alarmingly slimy rope, and I slid several feet towards the water.

  Lifting my legs up and wrapping my ankles around the rope helped to suspend my slide, and then I was moving hand over hand up the rope, hanging upside down with my focus solely on the pitted paintwork on the side of the ship.

  The mooring rope worked its way through a hole beneath the rim of the deck, leaving several feet between where it disappeared and where I needed to be to climb over. With nothing to cling onto, raising up my hands to grip the edge was out.

  In the background I heard the continued shouts of the dock workers and Shiloh's High-Anglisc voice issuing commands. Any moment now they'd turn their attention back to the ship, realising the attack was a distraction and not the real issue.

  I narrowed my eyes at the distance required to leap, and then started swinging my body beneath the tautly strung rope. It took six swings to gain the height I needed, but on the sixth I let go of the rope, my feet going up, up, up, and my right leg swinging out and over the side of the ship's deck railing.

  I came down with a hard thump on the metal handrail, all air being pushed from my lungs as black spots danced before my eyes. My body slid over onto the deck itself and I still hadn't managed to draw breath.

  "Lena!" came Si's urgent call through the earpiece. "Status."

  I gasped, couldn't quite get any air inside my lungs, but there was no way I was staying out in the open like this. I rolled over towards the wall of a container, already loaded earlier, and tried again for another breath. A small ragged inhale reached my straining lungs. My hands pressed on my stomach, trying to aid the return of normal diaphragm movement, my ears ringing with the effort of hearing any approaching sounds.

  A second breath, and then a third, and finally I rasped, "Fine. I'm fine."

  There was silence on the other end of the earpiece, but I could have sworn I heard the relief despite the lack of sound.

  I sprang to my feet and took in my surroundings, then turned my attention to the container I was hiding beside. The ship was almost fully loaded. Only a dozen or so containers were left to bring aboard. I'd had to wait for this late in the process to gain access in a way that would not be seen. This part of the ship already secured, the dock workers moving on to the other end.

  A container ship is loaded from the centre outwards. I hadn't realised this until I'd watched the process just a week ago. The small window of opportunity down one end of the ship's deck only came towards the last few minutes of loading.

  I didn't have much time.

  I scanned the door labels on the container closest to me, the writing was surprisingly in Anglisc. I'm not sure why I thought it would be in a foreign tongue. But despite the ease of which I could read it, the manifest label didn't reveal the contents, just instructions on how to open the container at the other end.

  Shouldn't there have been a list of what was inside?

  I moved on to the next and found the same lack of inventory listed. Like the last one, just a keypad to grant access. The risk of decoding it and opening the container could mean activating what lay on the inside. And if our intelligence was true, I did not want to start up what possibly lay inside one of these forty foot long containers. There could be a hell of a lot stored inside just one of those.

  I moved on to the next and the next container and kept coming up with the same instructions but no manifest. That left just one other avenue to explore.

  I glanced down the side of the ship and checked that the coast was clear, then moved through the shadows until I found a door. It squeaked as I pulled it open, the latch rusted almost completely through with salt spray.

  I frowned at the flakes of rusted paint that fell to the dull floor, sure a ship like this would need to be kept in good working order. But choosing not to dwell on the obvious lack of maintenance, I slipped through the opening and closed the door before someone came to investigate the sound.

  Not that they'd hear much over the last few containers being loaded, or the chaos that sounded out still on the dock. And inside, it was ominously quiet. Safety lighting on, but not nearly enough illumination for the normal function of a ship of this size.

  I cocked my head. Nothing. I inhaled through my nose. No scents to indicate a galley kitchen being utilised. I let a slow breath of air out and headed down the hallway, making sure to tread carefully, keeping any sound I made to a minimum just in case.

  But the further I went, the more sure I was that the innards of this container ship were barren. Were they all on deck loading the last of the containers? Or had shore leave not been completed?

  I checked the first room I came to and found a dust coated long wooden table secured to the floor, with benches either side. A painting of a ship on high seas was barely visible through a layer of grime on the opposite wall. The porthole windows on either side were equally as grimy.

  Another breath out and I moved on, finding the galley kitchen - empty. Cabins - empty. Toilets - empty. I finally came to rest at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the b
ridge.

  I stared up the narrow incline and waited to see movement behind the small window set high up in the door. Several silent seconds ticked by. Silent but for the the sound of a container being clanged against more containers out on the deck.

  "They're moving on to the last container now, Lena," Si advised.

  No words to hurry up. Only an update he knew I would take seriously.

  "Just checking something out," I whispered and started up the metal stairs to the door perched at the top of what felt like a very long and narrow stairwell.

  Any moment I expected someone to open the door at the top. Or come up behind me just as silently as I was on the stairs. I kept glancing over my shoulder, and stopping mid step, straining to hear a sound on the other side of the bridge door.

  Nothing.

  At last I made it, crouched beneath the window, staying just out of sight. No shadows moved behind the illuminated glass. No sounds other than the odd beep of electronics from within.

  Sucking in one last fortifying breath of air I lifted up onto the tip of my toes and peered inside.

  Empty.

  Just flashing lights and winking buttons and security vid-screens.

  But they weren't showing the hallways of the internal part of the ship. They showed the decks. The greater area of the docks, which would become the sea once the ship departed port, and the containers as they sat stacked on top of each other, weathering any storms that the ship would have to sail through to reach its destination. Our trading partners.

  I stared at each screen. Each flickering LED light. Each empty seat that I could see.

  Then my fingers found the door handle and I twisted the knob and walked inside.

  The last container had been loaded outside the bank of windows across the front of the bridge, the gantry crane moving away down the far end of the dock for wherever it got housed between shipments. The workers on the pier lining up and being counted off by the drones. The lights outside so much brighter than in here I was sure I wouldn't be seen.