Deadman

I walked out with the Khan, and we headed toward Valdes and the man who’d shot the Khan. The Khan led the way, holding the man’s gun, and an apple. The Khan gestured to Valdes, and two other guards. Two guards brought out a table, and Valdes brought out the prisoner, who was sat in front of the table across from the Khan. He was trembling terribly and didn’t seem able to look him in the eye.

The Khan laid the apple on the table, then knocked it twice with his knuckles.

“Shank. Look at me,” he said, his one remaining eye drilling into the man’s skull.

Shank slowly looked up at the Khan. “You…you know my name my Khan?”

The Khan nodded. “I do. I know the names of all who ride with me into battle.”

“I… I am honored.”

“This” the Khan unwrapped the bandages over his now empty eye socket and pointed. “Was caused by your bullet.”

Shank looked at it for a moment, then looked away.

“Look at it.”

Shank managed to bring himself to look at the Khan’s wound without turning away, though he was trembling.

“Now. You were obeying orders to fire in my direction after changing formation. You did not shoot at me with the intent to kill, in fact, based on the state of this,” the Khan placed the gun onto the table, the pathetic rusted and pitted thing that had seen hard service and no servicing, “you were likely not even aiming for me at all.”

“I am sor-”

“The injury I suffered was not intentional, and so the punishment will be one in which I can only unintentionally hurt you.” He tapped on the rifle. “You have one hour. Clean and repair your gun in that time. When the hour is up, I will load it and shoot this apple off of your head. I will fire for as many attempts as it takes.”

Shank looked pale as he checked the state of his own weapon, seeming to pay full attention to it for the first time.

“If your gun is in order, I am less likely to miss.”

Shank nodded furiously, reaching for the gun to get started.

“Of course… with one of my eyes missing… my aim is likely not what it once was either way.”

Shank blinked and looked back up at the Khan, still trembling.

“I will see you in an hour.” With those last words, the Khan left him there to disassemble and clean his gun with shaky hands and terror in his eyes.

I thought that the ‘punishment’ was more than fair. I’d seen what type of punishments the Khan could dole out when his fury was raised. Still, it seemed to have the right impression on Shank. From what I could tell, the man was very loyal, and devastated by what he’d done. Judging by the fury with which he now serviced his weapon however, I got the impression that he didn’t feel so badly that he wanted to die over it.

I took a deep breath, and followed my nose to find Bill, sitting at a table with a number of small tools laid out in front of him, and one of the small speakers disassembled.

“Figure anything out?” I asked.

“It’s a speaker. Loud. Received a long range signal.”

I nodded, that was about what we’d already guessed. “Would there be any way to detect them?”

Bill’s nephew came into view then, holding a small device that looked like a radio had been butchered and its innards connected to that of several other devices I didn’t recognize.

“Thanks Jeb.” Bill took the device looked at it, fussed with a dial, held it over one of the speakers, and it squealed then went quiet. “You can use this.”

I moved to grab it and he put his hand on top of it. “Credit, trade, or points?” he asked.

I sighed and looked around, seeing Valdes in the distance. I called him over. “Pay the man.” I said, leaving him behind as collateral as I took the device.

I started walking through the city, starting in the garages where I uncovered only two more devices, our earlier search had apparently been thorough enough to find the rest. After that I began going through everything else, walking the entire length of Medina as I searched for any more devices. I found only three more, all of them on the battlements where Atlan had been holding back the forces of the Remnants when they broke through the wall. I thought back to the siege, remembering the order to hold and ignore the Remnants that had used Jump Packs to make it deeper into the city.

I took a deep breath, and began following what I believed to be the scent of either Atlan or Leroy, their smells had so intermingled at this point that I could no longer tell them apart. I moved back toward the buildings the Khan had made his dwelling, and walked through the front door. Atlan and Leroy were together, performing their own weapon maintenance. Leroy sharpening the claymore he’d adopted as his primary weapon, and Atlan making adjustments to her prosthetic leg. The picture of domestic bliss as far as the wastes were concerned. I activated my lie detector ability.

I went to approach them more closely and Atlan’s guards, a short woman with a scar across her face, and a large serious faced man stepped in front of me. I recognized them from my first encounter with Atlan, but I hadn’t seen them in quite some time, I noticed a few new scars and some fresh armament, but otherwise they seemed much the same as they had the first time I’d met them, which is to say in my way, and inconvenient.

“Move,” I said simply.

I saw a flicker of hesitation, but they complied, sliding out of my way. I remembered the big one, Ba’al I think his name was, trying to block my path at one point and simply lifting him and moving him to the side. It seemed they’d learned their lesson since then.

“Atlan.”

She looked up at me. “Donovan.” she gestured to her prosthetic, “you’ll forgive me if I don’t stand.”

I took the speaker I’d gathered at the battlements and placed it in front of her. “Do you recall in the defense of the city, when five of the Remnants in power armor leapt over your defenses.”

She shook her head. “No. I was focused on the ground at the time. I didn’t hear about it until the fight was over.”

TRUTH.

“Did you hear someone give the order to ignore them?”

She nodded. “Yes. I have been trying to find whatever bastard did that…” she looked at the speaker device. “No one did.”

TRUTH

I nodded. “Exactly. I found this speaker near where you’d stationed your defense. The order didn’t come from anyone in the Horde, just like the order given in the heat of battle that led to the Khan’s injury was also falsified.”

She gripped the speaker, and I heard it crack. “Cowardly pieces of shit. Nearly killed my father, TWICE!” she dropped the shattered speaker on the table.

“While you were preparing for the siege, even before that, would it have been possible for someone to slip into the city to place those?” I asked.

She looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Before the siege began, it would’ve been possible, but once we were sealed in? No. We had human eyes on the no-man’s land during the day, and deadman eyes watching it at night.”

Leroy put his sword down. “Your battlements, where Donovan found the devices, were they erected before the city was sealed?” he asked.

Atlan shook her head. “No, after.”

I saw where Leroy was headed with that line of thinking. “Whoever placed the speakers on the battlements would’ve had to have been here when the siege began… that means that whoever placed them was almost certainly not an outsider.”

That thought hung in the air for a few moments when the door opened and Valdes appeared.

“Marshal Donovan, the Khan has requested that you witness his judgment of Shank.”

I nodded, and began to walk out of the room. I’d narrowed down the potential suspect pool, but this type of espionage was harder to investigate than a simple murder. I needed some way to flush out the suspect. I could certainly keep interviewing people, using the lie detector, and gaining more information, but everyone in Medina wouldn’t be static forever, and the longer it took me, the less possible it became to solve. I noticed a notification in the corner of my vision.

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in Investigation! Here in the US we have the right to question everything, except freedom!

Well, that made sense. I just needed to keep putting that skill to use.

I arrived at Medina’s square, lost in thought until everything came into view. There were dozens of people there waiting to see what happened, none of them standing anywhere near the victim, who stood still in the center of the square, not tied down, expected to stand tall and still on his own while the Khan fired in his direction.

The Khan called me over, and I obliged. I eyeballed the gun the Khan had given him, it was spotless, so clean I could see my skull like visage in the reflection of the barrel. He was slowly loading the magazine when he spoke to me.

“Would you balance the apple on his head for me?” he asked as if discussing the weather.

I nodded, grabbing the ugly fruit and taking it over to shank. He was shaking so severely that I wasn’t certain I could balance the apple. I froze him, and gently placed it on his head.

“You’re welcome,” I said quietly to him as I walked back to the Khan.

I stood next to the Khan while he took aim, noticing an incredibly slight adjustment in his stance before he squeezed the trigger. The gun fired, and winged Shank across the shoulder.

The Khan rolled his neck and aimed again. “Still adjusting to the missing eye.” he muttered, though I was certain he’d clipped him on purpose.

The next several shots were similar, all clipping Shank without actually hitting him head on with any bullets in an incredible show of marksmanship.

“Hmm, last round,” he said, making a final last millisecond adjustment. He squeezed the trigger again and the apple exploded off of Shanks head.

I stopped renewing the Freeze on him, and Shank fell to the ground.

The Khan approached him with his gun. “Good job cleaning it.” he handed the gun back to him. “From now on, whenever you are within the same settlement as I, you are to bring me your gun and we are to repeat this. Do you understand?”

The man brought himself back up to one knee, blood seeping from wounds on each of his limbs. “Yes, my Khan.”

The Khan nodded, and looked around at the people that were gathered. “Leave,” he said simply, and the crowd dispersed. The Khan lifted a piece of apple from the ground as he walked back to where I stood, and bit off a piece of it. “How goes your investigation?” he asked.

“Bill created a device to let me detect those speakers. I’ve determined that whoever placed them is not likely an outsider.”

The Khan looked thoughtful for a moment, eating the rest of his apple. “It is a shame this man could not simply create a device that could detect the culprit.”

I nodded slowly, that wasn’t a bad idea.

…

While considering my next move, I took a walk through the Medina, seeing a number of people drinking and cavorting in exactly the manner I would expect after a heard fought victory. I was surprised to see Mercy and Nix at a table sharing a drink.

“Donovan!” called Nix, drawing more attention to me than I’d prefer.

I approached the table nodding at her and Mercy. “Nix, Mercy.”

“Sit, have a drink.”

I inhaled smelling the incredibly mild alcohol content. “I may as well drink water.”

Mercy smiled. “You can sit and drink water with us if you’d like.”

I frowned, but relented and took a seat, letting Nix pass me what I guessed was some type of Horde swill. I took a sip to clear my throat.

“So, did you hear that Mama won the nomination?” asked Nix.

I shook my head. “No, but that’s good news. How’s Pott’s taking it?”

“No one is too upset about it, though there was some tension for those first few days after. Solomon himself started telling people to fall in line though, and has become one of Mamas most ardent supporters.”

I frowned.

“He wants what’s best for Pott’s, same as the rest of us.”

I shrugged, conceding that was probably true in spite of whatever my personal opinion on the man was.

Mercy reached into her pack, and slid a book toward me. I glanced at it, recognizing it as the one I’d loaned to her. In the center of it was a bullet hold that cleaved through all, but the very last few pages and the back cover.

“Sorry to return it to you in this condition. It was in my jacket pocket during the siege and took a bullet for me.”

“Hrm… better the book than you… Did you finish it?”

She nodded. “Yes, I enjoyed it a lot.”

“Why?” I asked, starting a conversation that kept my forebrain occupied just long enough for my hindbrain to come up with a plan that would hopefully complete my investigation.