The Last Good Man

No Unwinding It

There in the shadows of the courtyard, beneath a distant, dark-blue sky pearlescent with dawn, the past reshapes itself, taking on a new definition, a new truth. Past the filters of her anxiety, her regret, her horror, her exhaustion, True sees at last the process that brought about Diego’s tortured death… if not yet the reason.

The mission Rogue Lightning was tasked to carry out was an almost-routine action in a war that had been ongoing for decades and whose battles usually passed unspoken. The mission plan was based on cooperative intelligence from both Chinese and American sources. The plan denoted a precise time and place where critical leadership elements of the Saomong Cooperative Cybernetic Army could be found isolated and vulnerable—a precision that implied a spy deep within enemy councils, with ready access to outside communications.

In retrospect such a spy seems unlikely. Far more credible to believe that Kai Yun quietly deployed an autonomous combat swarm to monitor the region, with individual elements situated to eavesdrop on Saomong councils.

The swarm would have been experimental—every ACS was experimental then—but it must have been successful at first. True imagines the little mechs present but unnoticed in the villages and the forest for days ahead of the mission, gathering the intelligence that eventually guides Rogue Lightning to the planned site of the ambush. Then something goes wrong.

“You know what was funny about that mission?” Shaw asks her.

True looks past the fountain, gaze drawn to a point high on the wall at the mouth of the passage where she left a surveillance beetle. Colt will have heard Shaw’s story. She’s glad for that. He’ll follow up on it, if she’s not able to. She tells Shaw, “There was nothing funny about the mission.”

“No, you’re missing the point. The funny part, the laugh-out-loud part, was that none of us needed to be there. Not me, not Diego, not Mason or Francis or Hector or Jesse. None of us were needed because Kai Yun had made us obsolete. They had better fighters in place. More efficient soldiers. Kai Yun could have targeted the CCA leadership with that swarm and done our job for us. I think that’s what they meant to do. Show us up, show off what could be done while we were wandering around like bozos lost in the woods. But we fooled them. We were better than they thought. We got there—late, but still in time to execute the mission.”

True feels dizzy. Had Rogue Lightning been meant to arrive late? The mission plan had woefully underestimated the difficulty of the terrain. Was that on purpose? She summarizes it, needing to understand: “The swarm was there ahead of you, ready to execute the ambush… but things went wrong and Rogue Lightning was taken down by friendly fire.” It’s the conclusion True reached just a couple of days ago, after she’d met Daniel, heard his story.

“So it happens, right?” Shaw works hard to compress his voice into a casual tone, but she’s not fooled. She hears the underlying agony. “You gotta expect mistakes with an experimental system. The swarm was operating on its own, doing what it was designed to do. It just picked the wrong enemy. Those algorithms needed a little work.” He draws in a deep breath. “But that wasn’t the end of it. After Saomong captured us, when they were marching us on this trail to Nungsan, I saw another mech. I saw it twice, following us. Watching. Someone at Kai Yun watching us through its camera eyes.”

A shudder runs through him. He stands up abruptly as if to escape it. The rifle falls naturally into the crook of his arm. “That last time I saw the mech, I screamed at it to send help.” He touches the scar on his lip. “Saomong knocked a couple of teeth loose for that one.” He presses his lips together, shakes his head. “Fuck me, anyway. Fuck them all. Because the truth is that we were abandoned to the enemy to save a black mark showing up on someone’s resume. And what happened to D… it didn’t have to happen. But there’s no taking it back. No unwinding it. Shit. I’m gonna go make coffee.”

True says nothing. He needs time and she doesn’t trust herself to talk, not yet. She stares across the courtyard at the bubbling fountain, exhaustion and adrenaline forcing her heart into a frantic, shallow rhythm as she thinks again about Li Guiying, a skilled and highly respected robotics engineer, a specialist in swarming algorithms, who began her career at Kai Yun Strategic Technologies.

Guiying was behind the swarm. True has no hard proof but she believes it. She’s sure Shaw believes it too.

Guiying cultivated True’s friendship. Why would she do that? Was she a psychopath, wanting to win the trust of those she’d hurt? Or was it a ploy to keep a potential enemy close? Or was it guilt?

True imagines Alex there with her, asking: So now that you know, what will you do?

Over the years she’s envisioned retribution in a hundred forms—righteous justice—though it was never more than a what-if fantasy, her vengeance denied because no one involved was left alive. She thinks now it was lucky not to have the choice.

Early morning light spills into the courtyard, coloring the limes and tangerines on the little trees. She gets up, follows Shaw to the kitchen—a narrow but modern room with high-end appliances and a quartz countertop. They’re out of sight of her surveillance beetle here, probably outside the range of its audio pickups too.

Shaw looks up from his contemplation of the brewing coffee. His AR visor is on the counter. No screen filters his pale gaze.

“I thought they were all dead,” she says. “Everyone who had hurt him.”

“You were lucky, then. I always knew someone was left. I never thought I would know who it was.” Gentle words, wrapped around a cold promise.

True is surprised to discover she wants no part of a murder—if that’s what he’s thinking. “You need to come home with me,” she says, shifting gears, resolving to persuade him. “You are the survivor, Shaw. The only witness. You need to testify, demand an investigation.”

“No.” He says it casually.

“You don’t have a choice,” True insists. “You promised them justice. Righteous justice. You owe them. It’s up to you to shine a light on what happened. That’s what she’s afraid of. That’s why she’s been following me.”

“No,” he says again. “She’s not afraid. Not of that. She’s had eight years to clean up the mess. There won’t be evidence left to find, no proof she had any part in it, or that it ever happened. All you’ll hear from officials on both sides is denial and outrage. If they respond at all.” He surprises True with a slight smile. “She’s tried to get close to you because she wants you to take care of it.”

This requires a few seconds to sink in, a few seconds for her to grasp his meaning.

When she does, she recoils. “No, you’re wrong.”

She wants him to be wrong. True wants to imagine Guiying as a psychopath drawn to her because of some twisted fascination at the magnitude of what happened at Nungsan. A psychopath requires no consideration. But if instead she is a secret penitent? Someone haunted by guilt she cannot bring herself to reveal?

True clutches the counter as she is slammed by the weight of a bone-deep exhaustion.

“You going to forgive her?” Shaw asks.

“No.” One syllable uttered in soft certainty. No.

It isn’t possible. It’s not possible to escape. In her head the video plays again: Diego’s screams, the crucifixion, the flames. The resolute grip of a black hole. Could Shaw be right? Was even Guiying caught in that inexorable orbit?

“I’m putting up a bounty on her,” Shaw says as he pours the coffee.

True catches her breath. Her hand goes to her mouth. Deeper and deeper, she thinks. She asks, “Don’t you want to hear her side?”

He shrugs and hands her a cup that she accepts automatically, only to be startled at the heat against her hands. He says, “Better if you take care of it. That’s what she wants. Why don’t you call her? Let her know her options. Let her know it’s time.”

True sips the coffee, a strong brew, perfect, and wonders, What is right action, in this circumstance, in this time? She despises the idea of a private bounty. That’s retribution. A warlord’s justice. Guiying’s involvement has not been proven, may never be proven. If Shaw is right, there will be no legal way to make the case.

So don’t resist.

Call her. Confront her. Invite her to speak in her own defense. Isn’t that right action? It’s something close, anyway. Better than a warlord’s bounty.

Her gaze returns to Shaw. “You haven’t posted the bounty yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t post it.”

“Call her.”

True decides instead to compose an email. She keeps it simple, one line:

She appends the number of her temporary phone and sends it.

Does she expect a response? Yes and no. The moment feels like a break point between alternate timelines, each branch equally likely. She leans against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee, not thinking too much. Shaw busies himself collecting tangerines from the courtyard trees and peeling them, perfuming the kitchen with citrus oil. After twenty minutes, True says, “She’s not going to call.”

Seconds later, the burner phone rings.

Shaw meets her gaze, an eager glint in his eyes. She nods, swipes to accept the call, puts it on speaker. She doesn’t say anything though, and after a few seconds Guiying’s voice speaks into the silence with tentative uncertainty. “True? True, are you there?” Shaw cocks his head, the slant of his eyebrows posing a question. “True,” Guiying whispers, “I never wanted any of it to happen.”

True hears this as a confession but, if so, it’s also a lie. “Yes,” she counters. “You did.”

“No, I did not want it to happen,” Guiying says in a soft, confessional voice. “Please, before you say anything, do anything, will you see me?”

Shaw predicted it but True is stunned all the same. “In person?” she asks.

“Yes. I am… on my way to Rabat. After last night, I… I do not want it all to start again but when I saw that picture of Rogue Lightning, I knew it would.”

“The picture?” True asks.

“On the fighter, shot down during your operation in the TEZ.”

Shaw looks puzzled but True remembers what Tamara told her about a freelance intelligence agent visiting the crashed Arkinson, taking pictures. Guiying must have had an ongoing search set up for that emblem, maybe for anything to do with Rogue Lightning.

“I hope you are still in Rabat,” Guiying says. “I hope you will see me.”

True mutes the phone. She tells Shaw, “It could be a trap for you, with Guiying as the bait.”

“It’s probably a trap for both of us,” he says, touching his centipede bracelet, setting it to crawling in slow motion around his wrist and hand. “You willing to take the chance?”

Her smile is bitter. She’s been taking chance after crazy chance ever since she returned to the gate in Manila.

She unmutes the call, asks Guiying, “Will you be alone?”

“Yes. I’ve told no one where I’m going, and I’m flying on a French passport.”

So she expects to be followed but not right away. “I am not alone,” True warns her.

Shaw gives her a sharp look but his expression eases when Guiying says, “I understand.”

Do you? True thinks, though she doesn’t pursue the question. Instead she asks, “When will you be here?”

“I am scheduled to arrive at the airport in three hours.”

“Once you’re here, call me again.”

The tangerines are sweet and good for a burst of energy but it doesn’t last. “I’m going to lie down,” True says.

She goes upstairs to one of the bedrooms, lies down on a bare mattress. Stares at the ceiling, thinking. After a few minutes she gets out her burner phone, whispers a text to Colt: Don’t know if you heard all that, but we’re waiting on Li Guiying. Going to be quiet for a few hours. Take a break, and don’t text me back.

She closes her eyes. She’d like to sleep but Lincoln’s presence in the city weighs on her. Using ReqOps’ resources, it took only a few days to locate Hussam in the TEZ. If Lincoln fields the same kind of human/machine intelligence here, he might find her in just a few hours. He might find Guiying and follow her here.

True cannot allow that to happen. She can’t take the chance that Lincoln will interfere. This drama needs to play out to the end.

So she decides to check in. No more operating in the dark. She gets out her TINSL, knowing that if she wants to contact Lincoln, she has to do it legitimately. No way would he pick up an anonymous number.

“Heads up, Ripley.” Her whisper activates her digital assistant. “Text Lincoln. Message to say: Stay out of sight. Don’t go about. Don’t text me. Don’t call. I have an ongoing operation and any competing mission you launch will endanger me. You need to stay clear.”

Ripley reads it back.

“Approved,” True says. “Send it.”

“Text function is turned off,” Ripley reminds her.

“Right. So turn it on again. Leave it on this time.”

Ripley says, “Message sent.”

She closes her eyes and after a time she passes into a fitful sleep that lasts until midmorning.