Free The Austin Job by David Mark Brown

her.” Starr shook out the cobwebs and slowly gazed at the faces around him cloaked partially in shadow. He saw worry on Daisy’s, but Lickter and Ms. Lloyd revealed a steady, cold anger. None of this surprised them.
    “Just enough to get some answers.” Lickter cast his eyes about the capitol lawn before stooping over the fallen figure. “Starr, find us some transport. We’re leaving.” With a grunt he hefted the mysterious girl roughly over his shoulder. “At least she doesn’t weigh much.”
    ~~~
    Striding confidently through the pitch-black tunnel, Oleg led the others away from the Capitol and back toward campus. The smells and echoing sounds directed him. He found the exercise of suppressing one sense for the benefit of others to be rewarding. Plus, keeping the system of tunnels blacked out maintained their mystique along with their power over weaker minds.
    The students huddled behind him, relying on his intellect rather than their own. Fear dimming their awareness, they failed to create sensory maps despite having four of five senses available. Most of his foot soldiers held little promise.
    But they were obedient, and tonight they’d done well. They had sent a message to the lazy and corrupt. Oleg Rodchenko is no lap dog. He wears no leash . He stopped at a juncture. “Shhh.” After several seconds his trailing entourage stilled. He projected his sense of hearing several meters down each possible path one at a time. Separating the dripping water from the surface world’s din of vibrations, he sought the faint whisper of scaly armor on slick cement and crumbling brick.
    He shivered with delight on detecting the familiar sound. The guardians. What they were or where they’d come from, his scientific mind could only hypothesize. In his youth he’d seen something similar in a textbook—prehistoric, long extinct. The inventor in him marveled at their form and function. “This way.”
    Moments later he stopped at the base of a metal stair and congratulated his faithful as they rose up the rungs ahead of him. Only after the last of them reached the ladder, did he scowl for the first time that evening. Emerging from the trap door in Bradley Hall, Oleg stood in the middle of his student assault team. “Where is Oleander?” He grilled them with his gaze, crumbling their smug expressions. “How was she left behind?”
    A slight yet iron-willed youth stepped forward. “Brutus is gone as well.” Of course. Oleg closed his eyes to regather himself. He’d purified the mole privately moments before the expedition, his usefulness expended. “You don’t think the two of them—”
    “No. I sent Brutus home. He had objections, is no longer one of us. I failed to assign Oleander new partner. Is my fault she’s lost, but I’m sure she’s waiting at assigned spot.” He reassured them with his posture. “You should celebrate. You have done great thing this evening. Together we have begun purification of land—your land. Soon rest of people will see truth, will know truth you bring to light. You will succeed where I have failed. I’m proud of you.” He smiled like a grandfather holding his favorite grandson on his knee.
    “Tomorrow is big day. We finish what we begin. Those who steal land from workers, those who start wars they depend on you to fight, those who prop up hollow government to mask evil deeds will gather tomorrow at auction ready to put price on human suffering.” His warm face dissolved into a snarl. “We make them pay in more ways than one.” Softening again, he dismissed them with a nod, each to their individual lives—the worlds they inhabited outside their secret life as insurrectionist anarchists led by the unassuming mastermind, Oleg Rodchenko.
    Wisely, the United States government restricted official power to a small crowd of insiders, like all powerful governments. But their affection for individuality ironically left their young easy prey for social and political movements. Or in