A Shadow in the Flames (The New Aeneid Cycle) Read online

  A Shadow in the Flames

  Book One of the New Aeneid Cycle

  ~~~

  Michael G. Munz

  Revised edition.

  Text copyright ©2007 and 2013 Michael G. Munz

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Amalia Chitulescu

  Other novels in the New Aeneid Cycle:

  A Memory in the Black

  Other novels by Michael G. Munz:

  Mythed Connections: A Short Story Collection of Classical Myth in the Modern World

  Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure

  For Marina, in memory.

  Table of Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  Epilogue

  A Memory in the Black excerpt

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I

  Michael Flynn felt naked. The sidewalk outside of a transit station on the edge of The Dirge was far from the safest place to stand alone at night. Even so, waiting there to rendezvous with his roommate was less risky than walking home into The Dirge alone.

  He glanced up and down the street from his vantage point atop the steps that led back down to the transit bay. The other passengers who had left the bus with him dispersed into the night along isolated paths. A homeless woman sat hunched beneath a small overhang, silently begging as they passed without taking notice. Michael supposed he could be in a worse situation than having to stand a few extra minutes waiting for his roommate to meet him. The woman had been in the same spot when he had left that morning. Did she have a place to sleep?

  Sleep. He'd welcome it after such a fruitless day. Maybe, if he could just get home and relax, his problems might go away for a bit. They might even look better in the morning.

  A soft rain began to fall. It spattered on a fallen poster that proclaimed the arrival of the new 2051 model year Uhatsu sedans. The woman's bare feet pressed on the pavement as she tried to better position herself in the dry spot beneath the overhang. Michael watched her and doubted anyone in the neighborhood was in the market for a new luxury car. Then he noticed something more.

  She'd worn shoes that morning.

  He cursed under his breath that someone would have stolen them from her, and his wallet was open before he'd really even thought about it. What insignificant cash he had clung to the inside and made the empty space there all the more prominent. He stared at it for a few moments, and then put it away again. Soon he would need to think about from where his own next meal was coming.

  Yet there was still no sign of his roommate. After casting a few more glances along the street, he found himself meeting the woman's chance gaze. The resignation in her eyes struck him, devoid of hope and heavy with loss. Michael's heart sank in the brief moment before she turned away, and, once the contact was broken, he looked down at his own shoes: barely six months old. He'd bought them just before coming to Northgate. Though the city had marred them a bit, they were still in solid shape.

  He reached for his wallet again and walked the short distance to the homeless woman with the regret that he wasn't better equipped to help. At the very least, he wished he could have caught whoever had taken her shoes.

  Her hands were chapped, weathered, and dusted with the grime of street life. She took the few bills he offered, and her dirty fingers briefly brushed Michael's own before withdrawing, almost apologetically, from the contact. After a moment, he took out another five and passed that to her as well. Tired eyes looked up at him and a melancholy smile passed over her worn face before her gaze quickly dropped again.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  He opened his mouth to offer some form of comfort, but any words he could think of only sounded hollow. He cast his eyes about in a search for what to say, yet all he managed to find was the sight of his roommate's arrival. The older man kept his distance down the sidewalk, waiting in the evening drizzle. Michael left the woman with a weak smile to cover his loss for words and then hurried to join him.

  His roommate turned and began to walk as Michael reached him. "You've found a job, then?"

  "Well. . ." Michael shrugged. His search that day had been a bust. "Not really, no."

  "You shouldn't be throwing away money on strangers," the other said. "Thought you said your savings are running out."

  "Yeah, I know." It was true: he was twenty-two with almost nothing to show for it, and giving her a portion of what little money he had left probably wasn't the smartest thing he could have done. "But. . . she probably had less."

  "It won't help her. You might need it." He quickened his pace towards the bridge ahead. "Come on."

  Michael looked ahead of them, across the water. The clouds broke along the horizon, and the Moon was just beginning to rise over the degenerating slums where he lived. Most just called it The Dirge, a violent, forgotten section of the city where police seldom went and those elsewhere tried to ignore. Roving gangs had long ago torn down the security cameras that were otherwise common on public streets and the corporate run sectors of the city. Even so, his pace quickened to get there. Meager though their apartment might be, it was a place to call home, and sometimes just the fact that he had a roof over his head was a comfort. At least it was in one of the more subdued quarters of The Dirge. Still dangerous, yes, but there were worse places, and it certainly wasn't expensive.

  Yet he still had to eat, and if he didn't find a source of income soon, well, he wasn't exactly sure what he would do then. The small sum he'd given the woman might buy her a meal or two. Even so, his roommate was right. If he wasn't careful, he'd be in the same position.

  Yet there were so many like her.

  "Uncle Frank always used to give to charity. Even as the farm was going under," Michael said suddenly.

  "He was a good man. Hard worker. I liked him. But in the end he couldn't afford to pay the hands. Things changed."

  Michael nodded, forced to agree. "I am trying to find a job, you know," he said. "It's just—no one wants to hire a bodyguard without experience. They all want real freelancers. I figured that Aegis course would be enough—they certainly said so when I enrolled—but even they won't hire me."

  "They only hire from their elite courses," the older man said. "Give everyone else the rest."

  Michael grimaced. "Yeah, well, they forgot to tell us that."

  Most of his money had gone into Aegis Security's training program when he'd first arrived in the city. They'd seemed the best place to start. They were the largest security corp in the world. They handled most of the downtown corporate district's policing. Everyone respected them.

  "I don't know," Michael said. "I just figured security would be the way to go. Protect myself, protect other people."

  "So you've said."

  Michael blushed at his venting. "Well, it's what you do, right? I'm starting to think everyone else had the same idea. I don't know. I guess maybe I'm just not looking in the right places."

  He caught his reflection as they passed a darkened window
and saw beside his roommate's silhouette the short brown hair and youthful green eyes of the man for whom no one seemed to have a purpose. At least he had the build for security work. Years of laboring on his uncle's farm had helped to develop him, and while he was not quite as tall or muscular as his six-foot-three roommate, Michael hoped to one day be just as imposing.

  His roommate grabbed his arm and stopped them both. Michael turned from his thoughts to find him looking into the distance of the sparsely lit street ahead. "Trouble," he said. "Better cross over."

  With that, he let go of Michael's arm and started across to the other side of the street. Michael followed, peering toward where his companion had indicated. "What is it, Diomedes, gangers?"

  One of the streetlights ahead was dark. He wasn't able to make out much in the gloom, yet Michael trusted that the other had seen something. While Michael's eyes were the same ones he was born with, Diomedes had replaced his with cybernetic implants. Not only were they marginally better than the norm, they also had a few enhancements installed that Diomedes would rarely speak of.

  "Maybe."

  They reached the opposite sidewalk and continued walking. Michael kept looking for some sign of the group ahead and was soon able to make out a small pack of figures. While he still couldn't tell if they were gangers or not, Diomedes had seven more years' worth of experience than he and knew what he was doing. Michael might not have seen them on his own until it was too late.

  Diomedes, on the other hand, was a freelancer: a modern-day knight errant, part of a new caste of society that supplied security and protection for those who needed it. The very word excited Michael's imagination. Michael wasn't sure if Diomedes was in service to any particular company. Only some freelancers were affiliated. In a time when a corporation might control more land than some countries, some few freelancers even signed lifetime fealty contracts. Most, however, had more freedom to find their own causes. Diomedes's attitude made it clear that his own affiliation was not to be discussed. To Michael, that only added to the mystery and adventure that surrounded this man, through whom all of his dreams had come.

  "How much was it?" Diomedes asked suddenly.

  "How much?"

  "How much did you give her?"

  "Oh," Michael said. "About ten."

  "Here." Diomedes pressed a twenty into Michael's hand. "Don't give it away."

  He was right. Michael pocketed it. "Thanks."

  His roommate only grunted.

  Across the street, the group of people Diomedes had spotted ran in the opposite direction that he and Michael were walking. Cackling, laughing and screaming in a way that Michael had once only attributed to the mentally disturbed, they took no notice of the two men on the other side of the dim street. He tried to steal a glimpse of them as they passed by, avoiding direct eye contact in an effort not to attract any attention.

  "I hate when they do that," Michael muttered.

  "Just noise."

  "Yeah, but it seems like every single ganger in the city has to do it."

  "I told you you'd get used to it. So get used to it."

  "Yeah, but. . . Yeah." Not wanting Diomedes to think less of him, Michael left it at that. At least the fact that it didn't bother his roommate was still some comfort. Geez, how he could hope to be as strong as the other when he couldn't even deal with a little screaming? "I'll get used to it," he added, almost to himself. Eventually.

  A brief while after the howling group had continued onward, Michael looked up from his thoughts to see that they were nearly to the run-down apartment building where they currently lived. "It's dingy, it's ugly, it probably should have been condemned years ago," he mused, "and it's still good to see it."

  "Don't complain."

  "I'm not, really," Michael insisted, genuinely glad for a safe place to sleep. "You rigged up some great security."

  "Never trust a lock that's not yours."

  Michael nodded and took a few more steps before deciding to ask something. "Why do you still live here? If you can afford the gear you've got in there—"

  "Shut up about that out here," his roommate whispered.

  Michael winced. "I only meant—"

  Their building exploded without warning. Debris ruptured out of the front entrance, framed by fire that billowed out and up into the night. Though Diomedes seemed to duck on instinct, the force of the blast and sheer surprise caught Michael off guard and knocked him down. The explosion reverberated off the other buildings around him as he lay stunned on the concrete. He blinked to clear his eyes and raised his head up.

  God, did that really just happen?

  They'd been only half a block from the building when it erupted. While technically still standing, the old tenement was now a gigantic bonfire. Flames jetted from windows and the hole in the front, lighting the rubble that had been thrown into the street by the initial blast. Michael, still struggling to his feet and hindered more from shock than the explosion itself, saw Diomedes running at full speed toward the fire. Others rushed about the chaos.

  What the hell happened?

  Diomedes made straight for the section of the building where their unit had been. He bolted past the few shocked residents staggering out, and Michael realized that Diomedes was going to attempt to salvage whatever he could of their belongings from the flames. Michael stared, his head still swimming. Their building had just exploded! Feeling as if he would vomit, he ran in to help.

  Michael's world became a blur. The initial shock of the explosion gave way to frantic, desperate despair as he rushed into the blaze after Diomedes. He was barely able to force himself in against the blast of heat and acrid black plumes of smoke that filled the hallway. Chaos and heat engulfed him before the sight of a wall painted in flames greeted him with the terrible realization that his bedroom lay on the opposite side. The door to their unit was wide open. Michael hoped that meant Diomedes was somewhere ahead of him inside.

  Half blind, and with the front of his shirt up over his mouth and nose, Michael pushed on. He got only as far as the middle of the room immediately inside that had served as their kitchen and common space. Fire was nearly everywhere. What wasn't aflame was wrapped in smoke that stung his eyes and fouled his sense of direction.

  He nearly panicked then; he couldn't be sure where anything was. The next thing he knew, Diomedes came rushing past him, and Michael's confusion was such that he was nearly sent toppling into the flames. His roommate paused with a backward glance as Michael caught himself, and then disappeared again towards his own room.

  Cursing himself for standing in the way like an idiot, Michael moved in a rapid crouch toward the direction he hoped his own things were. The heat intensified with each step. It scorched and slapped him as he passed into his room, and what little hope he had of saving anything almost completely evaporated then and there. Just a few feet away lay nearly everything he owned, swallowed in the fire. He barely spotted his tablet just ahead atop a burning dresser, but the flames seared his hands and forced him back from even that.

  There was nothing he could do. His heart was pounding. He could barely breathe, could barely see in the choking heat. There was no longer any doubt: if he didn't get out immediately, the next thing he'd lose would be his life.

  Two hours later, the whole affair was a haze of flame, smoke, and loss. He vaguely recalled Diomedes yelling at him to get out while Michael had fought through a storm of panic. It had filled his senses even as they had finally abandoned their home and, shortly after, taken refuge in a midtown bar. Now, sharing a booth there with Diomedes, that storm had narrowed into a single stain on the table at which Michael stared.

  Dried and red, it was entrenched within the cracks of the table surface. Age had turned it almost as faded as the gray color of the table itself. Michael didn't think it was possible for gray to fade, yet apparently it had. He stared at the stain, clenching his fists and struggling to keep from thinking about the mess that his world had become. He didn't want to think about it. He
would not think about it! He had to be strong.

  Life had been difficult since his uncle had died, and now that he looked back on everything that had happened since, at all of the failures and catastrophes that resulted in him being nearly broke and unemployed, it seemed. . . well, he didn't exactly know how it seemed. All he knew was that no matter what he did, he didn't do it right. No, some things he did right, but then it never seemed to matter. Having a stable and semi-decent place to live was the one thing he'd had going for him. Now he didn't even have that anymore.

  Now he had nothing.

  It wrenched his stomach like a punch to his gut. He saw himself lying in the rain where the homeless woman had been, abandoned and forgotten, his resources gone. He could almost feel it: soaked to the bone, shivering, hungry. He was lost in the world without a lifeline or anchor. Michael began to well up and squeezed his eyes shut against the tears, cursing himself and forcing them back angrily.

  Pull it together! Michael gathered up his grief, swallowed it down, and silently traced his fingers along the stain to distract himself.

  He hadn't cried since his uncle's heart attack. Uncle Frank had been his only family since he was a little boy, and his farm had been all Michael had known. He'd stood alone on the porch of his uncle's house after the funeral, head in his hands, grief pouring out of him. He'd felt ashamed for it then, and no one had seen him. He would not let Diomedes see him so weak now.

  Yet what was he going to do? How could he possibly pick up the pieces? Before he'd been able to sell what was left of the failing farm and follow his dreams into the city. What options were left to him this time?

  He looked up and across the table to where Diomedes sat silent with rage as he had been since they left the scene of the fire. Michael had asked, multiple times, what they were going to do, but dark, angry looks had been his only reply. After a while, he gave up asking. He should have known by now that Diomedes would want to be left alone. Michael was just glad that he'd been allowed to follow when the older man had stormed off from the ruin of their home.