The Catalyst

Chatper 16 of The Triple World

This is a completely un-edited first draft, just like the others, so let me know if you think anything in particular could do with improvement!

Oh, Ancestors. Why do men have to swing their dicks around like fucking swords? And why, in the name of all I hold dear, am I in the middle of it? Daphne had managed to get herself into a lot of questionable situations, but she never felt quite as uncomfortable as she did whenever Lord Roman Pangol and Duke Halbert Nabrinsky were in the same room together.

“Hello, Hal.” Lord Pangol glittered in all his finery, baring his teeth at his political rival.

“Roman.” Nabrinsky adjusted his glasses.

The clinical, black walls became more claustrophobic than ever as Daphne stared at the ground, half-hoping that it might swallow her up.

“How’s the corporation?” Lord Pangol asked, venom rising to the surface of his voice.

“Fine.”

Dissatisfied with the answer, Pangol probed further. He scoffed, smirked, and slithered further into Nabrinsky’s eyeline. “Why are you always so secretive about your beloved family business?”

He raised his eyes to meet his rivals. “Why are you always so desperately interested?”

“I wouldn’t call showing interest an act of desperation,” Pangol retorted. A little too quickly. “I’m simply enquiring.”

“Well, you can be assured that the Memory Market Corporation is in good health. Business is better than ever, especially with you and Marina buying more and more memories each week.” Nabrinsky smirks right back at him, before shifting his eyes to Daphne. “I imagine you’ve tired poor Miss Warner out with your constant demand.”

Fuck. Daphne’s head snaps up and her eyes meet Lord Pangol’s. “You could never tire me out, sir. I adore our meetings at the Apex every week. I’m just grateful I have enough memories to keep you returning for more,” she added demurely. 

Nabrinsky sneered, a grey eyebrow shooting up to his receding hairline. “Yes, every week,” he said softly. “Almost like an addiction.”

“Now, look he-”

Mack, the head of the Skyreen Guard, came barrelling through the doors. He entered the room like a storm: all white wind and black thunderclouds. A monochrome giant.

But Nabrinsky rose to the occasion. “And how is CloudTap, Roman? Still using your monopoly to control the state?”

Lord Pangol visibly bristled. He seemed unable to contain his venom this time, not even taking the time to turn his poison into a nasty, toothy grin. “Sentinel sees to it that we maintain power and control. Thank you for your concern, Hal.”

Nabrinsky remained impassive. Completely expressionless. Unreadable.

“My Lord,” Mack grunted.

“Ah, Mack. Good to see you.” Pangol shifted his attention. “Daphne.”

She stood to attention: straight-backed and chin lifted in a pretense of pride.

“You will head up a team of Skyreen Guards. You will select targets. Mack’s men will do as you say.”

Mack grimaced.

“Won’t you, Mack?”

“As you wish, my Lord.”

Daphne left her eyes resting on Mack. He wasn’t going to like taking direction from a woman. It was 3457, and still, men felt themselves superior because they could piss a greater distance.

“And Daphne,” Lord Pangol brought her back into the room with his metallically cold voice. “You will then deliver the Earthbound memories to Duke Nabrinksy.”

“Not you, my Lord?”

“No. Memories are, after all, the Nabrinsky’s livelihood. And we must allow them that, at the very least. They will deal the memories out to their franchises. You, of course, will get first pick.” Lord Pangol clapped his hands together.

Nabrinsky looked her up and down, his forehead furrowing. Judgment ensued on his face, trying to ascertain whether or not she was a trustworthy dealer. Daphne held his gaze. She had always wondered why the Nabrinsky’s let themselves age. Both the Duke and the Duchess had allowed themselves to become grey and wrinkled; whereas Lord and Lady Pangol didn’t look a day over twenty-one, having stolen the DNA of much younger, more attractive street-slickers their whole lives. 

The door banged open once again. A rivulet of black and white uniforms marched in, their feet thumping the floor in unison, creating a screeching, metallic din. They stopped in a line, backs against the wall.

“Guard, unsheath,” Mack yelled.

The visors slid down each soldier’s face with a small, vibrating thrum. They all had the same empty eyes, drugged up on power and intimidation.

Daphne was the only woman in the room and she suddenly felt keenly aware of it. She kept still, forcing herself not to pick at the skin around her fingernails. Her expression remained cold and calculating. She looked over the hardened faces in front of her. So this was the team she was taking to the Surface. She’d have to be the scariest, most dominant version of herself she could muster if they were going to do what they were told.

“Miss Warner, I believe you’ve been briefed?” Nabrinsky asked.

She cleared her throat and strode forward. Standing directly in front of Mack, she met his eyes. He glanced away, down at the floor.

She waited.

His eyes darted everywhere, tiny little bullets drilling holes into everything and anything else in the room.

She waited.

His time was up. “Mack.” Her smile was something akin to a wolf. She forced any glint of humanity from her eyes, her lips forming a hard line of feigned camaraderie.

And at last, his eyes met hers.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” she asked, sweetly - very nearly seductively. “See, I’m not that scary.”

Mack gritted his teeth as his officers sniggered.

Daphne’s smile abruptly left her face, eyes locked onto his.

“Darling Daphne, you pack quite the punch, don’t you?” Lord Pangol seemed impressed.

“Well, my Lord, as you have shown, by making such a supreme success of Skyreen, we need to make sure people know the order of things. Especially those who are beneath us.” She spoke without removing her eyes from Mack.

Pangol burst out into laughter, diverting Mack’s attention. “Oh bravo. Bravo!”

Nabrinsky narrowed his eyes and pushed his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose.

“I have certainly noted the order of things,” Mack grimaced.

“Good,” Daphne replied curtly. She walked swiftly past the head of the Skyreen Guard, without giving him a further glance.

“And you are?” she asked the first ruddy-faced soldier in the line-up.

“Fen, Ma’am.”

“I’ll remember that. Fen the Florid,” she remarked nastily.

The man might have blushed, but nobody could have seen. More chuckling erupted from Lord Pangol.

“Next?” Daphne ordered as she stepped towards the second soldier.

“Daris.” A familiar, confident smirk clamps down over his mouth. “Ma’am.”

“You winked at me in the Colosseum.” Daphne paused. “You will not do so again. Do you understand?”

“And here I thought I was just one of many black and white suits to you. You have a good memory.”

“Your questionable charm might work on some of the lesser intellectually gifted, but I am not some simple street-slicker here for you to toy with. Exhaust my patience and I will leave you down there once the mission is complete. Daris,” she added with particular venom.

“I wouldn’t dream of exhausting your patience,” Daris said with mock sincerity, his smirk still plastered across his face.

“Are they all this defiant?” Daphne asked, turning to Lord Pangol. She knew it was a gamble, challenging Lord Pangol like that. But if these men didn’t respect her connection with the most powerful man in the city-state, if they didn’t know just how important she was to the Pangols, she would be in real trouble when Pangol and Nabrinky left the room.

“They shouldn’t be,” Lord Pangol replied coldly, staring Daris into submission.

“My apologies, Ma’am. I was simply joking,” Daris conceded.

“Now’s not the time for joking, is it, soldier?” Daphne shot back.

“No, Ma’am.”

“Glad we’re on the same page, Daris.” She patted his shoulder, proudly displaying her superiority with the non-consensual intimacy of her simple movement.

She moved on to the next soldier.