Born Hero Read online

  David didn’t waste any time. The moment he saw the article, he rushed to the office, even going so far as to hire a taxi. When he arrived, the other staff looked at him openmouthed, even Mercy. That he would presume to come back here at such a time surely seemed absurd to them. David found Blythe alone in his office, just as planned, though David still knocked—lesson learned.

  “Ah, how was your vacation?” Blythe asked as David entered.

  “Um … exciting and boring at the same time.”

  “I think that’s called restless.”

  “Precisely, sir.”

  “Well, time to see if your little gambit worked. Are you ready?”

  David nodded, and the two of them stood and walked into the main office, where everyone else still gossiped about David’s reemergence. Mercy smiled kindly at David, but something in her eyes spoke of lost respect for him.

  Blythe pulled out a little luminous-torch as he and David walked into the file room. David rolled the ladder down the closet to the financial section, and Blythe climbed a few rungs and switched on the torch. One of the files glowed florescent purple under the light of the little torch. Blythe nodded at David. Then he waved the torch around, shining its faint light around the file room. The same florescent splotches appeared on the ladder, across a few other files, and on the closet door and doorknob. Together Blythe and David walked out of the office looking a curious sight, to be sure, as they waved the little light around, following an otherwise invisible trail across the main office—until, that is, the trail stopped at a desk. Blythe shone the light around the desk and the whole surface glowed purple—the whole surface of Samantha’s desk.

  “Ew,” Samantha said. “William, what is this? It’s on my dress!” She brushed at the substance, but it only smeared under the glow of the torch.

  Blythe didn’t answer. He shone the light around the room, but none of the other staff had anything like Samantha’s level of luminescence.

  Blythe looked at Samantha, his eyes a mixture of sadness and fury. “Samantha, hold out your hands.”

  Samantha puzzled at the request but did as asked. Blythe shined the light over her hands, and then blanched at the violet sheen.

  He shook his head. “Why? Why would you do this?”

  “Why what?” Samantha said, posturing herself in her chair and fluttering her eyes. But her feminine wiles would not work any longer. The spell was broken.

  “Why would you betray me? What did you think you would gain that I could not provide for you?”

  Samantha shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about. The only person here that betrayed you is standing right there.” She pointed at David. “Remember?”

  “What do you think you have on your hands?” Blythe asked. “What do you think is all over your dress?”

  Samantha rubbed her fingers together. “I really don’t know, but perhaps you could tell me how to get it off? I probably have it all over the place.” She sighed dramatically.

  Blythe didn’t look the least bit interested in Samantha’s innuendoes. He beckoned to David to explain.

  “Before I was fired a few days ago,” David said, “Mr. Blythe and I had a discussion. We knew there was a spy in the office, and all suspicions pointed toward me. So we decided to fire me and make the real spy think they were no longer under scrutiny. Then Mr. Blythe issued his marital statement and cleared his name after the adultery accusation. We suspected at the time that the spy would strike again as soon as they realized that their first attempt to soil Mr. Blythe was unsuccessful. This …” David pointed at the substance on Samantha’s desk. “… is a florescent powder that only becomes visible under luminescent torchlight. I sprinkled it on a document I crafted just before Mr. Blythe fired me—a document that, to a sophisticated observer, recorded the use of public funds for explicit activity. Blythe planted that document in the file room the night after I left. At some point between that night and this morning, someone removed the document and leaked it to the newspapers, creating a florescent trail in the process.” David pointed from the file room to Samantha’s desk.

  Samantha slit her eyes at him, then huffed. “Oh, you think you’re so smart Mr. ‘I got the highest score on the PLAEE,’” she said, rolling her eyes and fingering quotation marks in the air for emphasis. Her eyes flashed toward Blythe. “Did you really think of this, dearest? Seems to me that David is framing me to get his job back. He dislikes our relationship and will do anything to displace me. How easy would it have been for him to sprinkle that same powder on my desk three days ago? Hmm, did you think of that?”

  Blythe looked at her for a moment before saying, “I searched the room with the torch the same night I planted the document. There wasn’t a trace of the substance at your desk, and David hasn’t left his apartment since the day I fired him. I know, because I had him watched.”

  When David raised an eyebrow at this, Blythe only shrugged in apology, and David could only shrug back.

  For the first time in the confrontation Samantha started to panic. She looked around the room, eyes darting from person to person, ending on Blythe. “You think you can just use me and cast me aside as easily as an old towel. What? Is this not enough for you? Now you want that?” She gestured to herself and then to Mercy, who shuddered at the accusation.

  “Samantha,” Blythe said, “if you would be so kind as to collect your belongings, your services will no longer be needed at this office.”

  “Oh really? And which services would those be?” She picked up a teacup from her desk and hurled it at Blythe.

  He ducked just in time, and the mug shattered against the wall. Samantha grabbed her purse off her seat with such force that the chair fell over, though she had stomped halfway to the door before it clattered across the ground. No sway of her hips this time, no fluttering lashes or pouting lips—only fury.

  How often overt seduction and hatred walk hand and hand—as often as guilt partners with sin, David mused.

  Samantha Samille slammed the office door so hard that a pencil rolled off Bethany’s desk and skipped across the floor. Silence followed.

  “Well, David,” Blythe said after a sigh, “welcome back to the Third.”

  He began clapping and the others joined in, the clap becoming an applause.

  Blythe gripped David’s shoulder and pulled him close. “I’m truly sorry for all I put you though these past few days. I didn’t want to believe you were a spy, especially after how much you have helped my campaign. Please accept my sincerest apologies and … I hope we can put all this behind us.”

  David nodded. “There is nothing to forgive. I understand why you did what you did. We are too close to the census to risk anything.”

  Blythe smiled and looked down. “You’re a good man, David.”

  The clapping died down as Blythe walked back into his office.

  But then Blythe’s head poked back out. “Oh, David, be a dear and file that affidavit and the falsified bank transaction with the newspapers. I’d like to have a clean name again.”

  David nodded, noting that Blythe looked both sad and relieved. David returned to the desk he’d thought he might never see again only a few days earlier—his desk, his very own desk.

  Bethany sat up abruptly, eyes wide as she turned toward David. “Wait … Blythe and Samantha were having a relationship?”

  SINCERITY

  Mercy puzzled as she floated away from the Capital Orbital in an air-taxi. David was so much more than she’d originally assumed. Any other aide would have crumbled under the kind of pressure he withstood every day. He not only stood strong, but also excelled. She pulled a small book from a pocket hidden in her billowing skirts, opening it to a page titled David, though the rest of it was blank. She pressed a pen to the page, but couldn’t think of what to write.

  David is … what? Mercy thought. She looked out the window as the taxi soared between buildings toward her apartment, all the while searching for words that might be hidden between
the raindrops.

  The towers were a little shorter here, sacrificing height for elegance. The residential sector had less edifice and more shrubbery dangling from the thousands of private balconies bulging out from the different complexes. Giant orchids drooped hundreds of feet, flaunting their bioluminescent flowers, great epiphytes drawing nutrients from the moist air. Large, rubbery leaves pooled with water until they overflowed and dumped their contents onto the leaves below.

  As the taxi rocked a little, Mercy roused from her musings. She realized she was already docked and the pilot was muttering to himself about the long night ahead and needing to get along and how very lovely it would be to have an extra tip. Mercy pulled a sterling from her coin purse and handed it to the pilot. The man’s eyes widened, and he pocketed the coin with eager fingers. He tipped his cap and let the ramp down in the back of the taxi. Mercy exited and held her hands over her head as rain pelted her hair and threatened to run down her back. She ran across her spacious balcony, between tree ferns and philodendrons, to her door.

  Yet she couldn’t get David out of her head. David was different—different than anyone else in politics. She fiddled with the door for a moment, wet fingers slipping on the combination lock. Finally it clicked and she walked inside, shivering as she moved across the marble floor and plush carpets. It smelled fresh and clean, like a new skiff off the sale dock. Mercy wanted nothing more than to slip into a hot bath and soak away the evening, but her day wasn’t over yet. Instead she changed out of her pretty but restricting dress, hanging it in an expansive closet along with hundreds of others. She swapped it for a pair of fitted black trousers; a black, knee-length raincoat; and matching boots and gloves. After walking to the mirror, she piled her hair beneath a wide-brimmed hat and frowned at her final appearance. She much preferred the pretty dresses to this boyish appearance, but duty called.

  She walked through her cozy apartment, weaving between comfy couches and plush chairs until she entered a glass greenhouse that extended off the backside of the tower. The moment she stepped into the glass-enclosed room, a dozen sweet smells rushed to meet her, each competing for her attention. Broad leaves and lush flowers filled the room to capacity, a veritable jungle. A few of the flowers glowed florescent colors, casting a dim light around the greenhouse. Mercy removed a glove and ran her fingers through the leaves of her plants. A girl had to have at least one vice. She stopped after a few steps and bent to smell a cymbidium, breathing in the spicy scent and feeling it soothe her fatigue. She cupped the delicate flower in her hand, a wondrous creation. After a few moments of appreciation—moments she couldn’t spare—she pulled herself away from the flower.

  A skiff sat amidst the lush plants, concealed in their greenery. David would have known exactly what type of skiff it was, down to the last detail. Mercy snickered at that thought. She, on the other hand, knew it would get her from where she was to where she needed to be. She pulled back the cloth top, climbed in, and powered up the burner. The ship hummed as the burner flash heated the gas-filled pontoons, growing lighter by the second. After a moment she put the top back up, then pulled a lever and the glass roof of the greenhouse opened to the night. Evening fog poured in through the opening like the milky froth on an exotic drink. Warm rain pattered on top of the skiff’s cloth roof as it rose out of the greenhouse, and Mercy guided it into the night toward the industrial district.

  Yes, David knew a lot of things, Mercy thought as she guided the skiff, but it wasn’t his intelligence that had her stumped. There were plenty of intelligent politicians. As she weaved through capital traffic, the structures changed from posh apartments to industrial complexes with cooling towers and loading docks up and down their multiple stories. Massive gears rotated on the sides of the buildings as they labored away the evening hours. The airships changed too. Hers was now one of the only skiffs bobbing between freight haulers and tugs, each pulling immense loads of goods and materials. Mercy guided her craft down a sky alley between two enormous factories. It barely fit, bumping against one of the towers as she turned it into a large bay door and docked along some scaffolding. She pulled open the cloth roof and walked across the scaffolding, each step echoing in the empty bay.

  As she walked through the warehouse, she continued to puzzle over David. Innocence … That might be the word she was looking for. David was innocent, but that was still only part of it. Innocence often paired with ignorance, and David was not ignorant. Perhaps he was innocent of the lie that was politics, but not innocent in a way that made him vulnerable.

  She turned one last time in the dingy hallways and knocked on a metal door, issuing four solid thrums. The door opened, and Mercy walked into a small room with a table in the middle and an assortment of stools around it. On the far side sat an imposing figure, cloaked in the shadows. The only light in the dirty space illuminated the table, leaving the outskirts dark. Dust sparkled in the air as it floated in and out of the light. Two other figures stood to the right of the table, a male of medium height and a female of more petite stature, both wearing wide-brimmed caps that obscure their features. As Mercy walked to the table, the door shut behind her with a clunk. She knew a guard stood hidden behind the door, opening and closing it, but the door seemingly moving on its own accord still gave her the jitters.

  Mercy removed her hat and gloves and reached to place them on the table, but opted to hold them when she saw the accumulation of dust on the tabletop. “I told you not to move until I got back,” she said to the man standing to the right of the table. “As it is, we nearly lost everything in some pointless gambit.” She perched herself on a stool and crossed her legs.

  “I nearly succeeded in bringing down Blythe and extricating the boy,” Francisco said. “I wouldn’t call that pointless.”

  “If I had been here, it would have succeeded,” Mercy said. “But instead we revealed our hand, spent one of our most valuable cards, and cemented Blythe as a man longing for love in the hearts and minds of the public. He’ll have every lady, eligible or not, moving to the Third District from three houses over. And if it wasn’t for that eye of yours, you would have been caught in the act.”

  “You approved my actions before you left,” Francisco said. “You said nothing of waiting until you got back, and if I had, we would have missed our opportunity to hang it all on the boy.”

  “I approved of the original news article, but I expressly told you to wait for me before taking any further steps.” Mercy crossed her arms and looked at the man in the shadows. “You transferred me away from Representative Herald because Blythe presented a greater threat to your plans. You tasked me with sabotaging the Blythe campaign because I was the best. Let me do what you hired me to do.”

  Francisco snorted at that.

  Mercy looked at him with narrow eyes. “You are an assassin, Francisco, not a politician. You are my bodyguard and an insurance policy if I fail. I won’t interfere with your job if you stay out of mine.” She looked back at the man in the shadows. “I can do this.”

  The man didn’t speak, though his eyes glowed like two embers in the night. The silence drew on for a few moments before his deep voice rumbled out of the darkness: “Samantha Samille was a liability … an uncalculated variable. She might have been usable, but that one was always a wild card. Having her out of the picture will clear the way for you, Bethany.” He nodded at the female standing next to Francisco. “I trust you are ready, my dear.”

  Bethany nodded. “Samantha certainly made it harder. He is expecting overt sexual interaction now, and I’m not willing to go that far. I’m not sure my vulnerable routine will be enough to interest him anymore. He wants something exciting, not easy.”

  The man’s dark figure shifted, as if he were nodding. “However, from now on, Francisco, consult Mercy before making political decisions. We don’t want any more close calls. What of the rumor of hidden population within the Third?”

  “I searched some of the records at night,” Francisco said, “and I can’t fin
d anything to prove those assertions. But …” He paused and glanced toward Mercy.

  “Blythe and David speak and act as if the speakership is already secured,” Mercy said, finishing Francisco’s thought.

  “A ruse?” the man asked.

  “Not likely,” Mercy replied. “That kind of ruse could only harm a district, given all the poaching after a census.”

  The man in the shadows breathed a sigh. “Blythe is smarter than we think. He’s planned this for cycles without anyone knowing.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I don’t think it’s Blythe doing the planning,” Mercy said.

  The man in the shadows looked at her for a moment. “Explain.”

  “Blythe is eloquent, charismatic, handsome, and smart, but he was never a threat in the past, because he possessed the same fatal flaws as any other politician. He’s a philandering cheat. From what I’ve been able to glean, the transportation facility was David’s idea. Successfully transporting Public Pharmaceuticals was David’s idea, as was Beldon Construction, Linden Airsail condemnation, the false courtesan transaction documents, even Blythe’s confession of his marital status. Blythe was never a threat. In fact he would have fallen on his own face by now if it wasn’t for David.”

  Francisco waved a hand in the air and interrupted, “The boy is a nobody. No formal education, no previous training, no parents to speak of. In fact his house record doesn’t even begin until his aideship. I find it hard to believe an aide could accomplish all that in a matter of weeks.”

  Mercy shook her head. “David is different. He’s … He’s …” She racked her brain for the right word that she hadn’t been able to think of throughout the entire night. “Sincere. David is sincere. He does these things because he honestly believes that they are right. That makes him different than any other Equalist out there. When you add his sincerity to his intellect and work ethic, it also makes him extremely formidable.”