Cardinal Summit: Cardinal Machines, #5

By Tracy Eire

Zoey has avoided the powerful magnates in the Cardinal family for decades. Her life as a Private Investigator has no contact with theirs, and the formidable Cardinals turned their backs on her long ago. But you don't walk away from a legacy that easily. Zoey's late Great Aunt Katherine, the woman responsible for giving Zoey her beloved C001-Oisín, Ocean, and influential C.E.O. of Cardinal Machines, also decided that Zoey would attend Cardinal Summit. And Zoey knows she has to go, too. The changes ushered in by Zoey's powerful uncle aren't all good, not for Zoey, and not for androids.

Zoey soon finds herself on Cardinal turf at Soliel moon-base, where everything is foreign, and her late mother's family is ruled by secrets. Half-truths and intrigues lurk behind every gesture. Pulled into the orbit of her celebrated family, but isolated and starved for information, Zoey must punch above her weight, and not just for Ocean's fate either. For the safety of Cardinal Machines, everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracy Eire
• Release date: Jan 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393543985

Tracy Eire

My name, Tracy, means warrior in Irish, and that's apt. I come from a much-storied island off the coast of Eastern Canada, where kids weren't handled with kid-gloves. We had the run of the place -- icebergs and all! The land, the storms, and the beliefs shaped me into a storyteller. But I'm also an avid collector of things, like dolls, books, and... ghost hunting tips. I have a background in literature and psychology, with an entirely unhealthy dollop of technology (that's run a decade now and includes Clouds of all kinds)! I paint too much and think about trivia and oddities about the same, but it all comes out on the page! I've been writing professionally for about 7 years now. You'll like my work if you're interested in near-future science fiction, ghost-stories, or kick-@$$ heroes and heroines. And if you're Street Team Strong? Let me know on my site's Contact Page! Thanks and happy reading!

Book preview

­Prologue

It was spitting rain along Black Marsh between Noble and Nobel. Zoey always found it odd that the rain brought out the low lives around here. That wasn’t in the maths of the Weather Coordinators, she figured. But it was a side-effect of the dark and inhospitable gloom that surrounded the place in the wetter months.

Of course, the bars, raves, and dives in this area didn’t help. There was more than one drug-den along Black Marsh, she knew from her youthful experiences as a getaway driver for her Private Investigator uncle. Back then, he’d get out of the driver’s seat and leave the car running, and that would warn her she should get in. Zoey had only had to drive them away once or twice, and it seemed mad now, since she’d been about 10 or 12 back then, but after witnessing a couple of fist fights she’d rapidly figured out it was better than the alternative.

Zoey was the master of her own ship now, so to speak – she had the Private Investigator’s licence and she ran Collins Investigations. She was the Private Eye now. Tonight, she was wrapped in a clear, waterproof rain poncho from her car’s emergency pack, which was of cheap make, but it only had to work once. She was better off than her Ocean, who was soaked to the skin, but these considerations didn’t mean much to a Cardinal Machine. He stood against a wall, still as a mast in dry dock. His body leaned slightly so that he could scan the parking lot, trees, and small lake behind the strip of blocky ­cinderblock bungalows where they’d come to do their work.

Thunder cracked overhead, a loud, high cork-pop in the realm of the gods up there. The rain gleefully renewed its efforts. Zoey murmured into her cuff. I think it’s going to be a wash tonight, big guy. Literally.

His darkly melodic voice came back through the cuff at her. I don’t think so, Zoey.

This surprised her.

Suspect’s car is at the corner of the lot. It showed up roughly 17 minutes ago and put out its lights. The driver reclined his seat and is relatively out of sight. Shortly afterward, a Nobel police cruiser passed. He caught no attention.

She shut off her feed for a second to quiet-sneeze into the elbow of her poncho, her entire face was wet with rain when she was done. Driver?

Car is a manual. A reissued Camaro novelty model, green, with California plates that trace back to Edgar Agro. Ocean told her. He was somewhere ahead of her, motionless and immune to the cold. Ocean was, and was becoming if you asked her, a lot of things, but he was always ‘Android-strong’.

And Zoey? She was an 18-year-old human being.

Zoey shut her feed, leaned against the cinderblock wall in the rain, and considered her lot. Did she really, really want to mess with the Agro clan? A while back, her uncle had, and they’d tormented him for months. Killing birds and scattering them on the porch. Bricks through the back windows. A brush fire that had been truly dangerous. The Agros were career criminals whose icky little cobwebs spread all the way along the coast. Did she really...?

Maybe not? What was smartest? Walking away? She exhaled a puff of steam and waited, lost in thought and otherwise hidden between a cinderblock wall and a dumpster. She put her head down into shadow, thinking, when several minutes later the second car passed.

Memories had made her blood come to a slow boil. The Agros had done a lot to her and her family and gotten away with just about all of it. Yeah. Okay. She wanted to fuck with them.

Second car is-

I know who it is, Ocean. Get ready to gun your heaters. I’m going to need them when this is over. She got out from between the dumpster and the building and went around the front toward where she could more easily reach her android.

Ocean waited for her to press to the wall behind him. She sing-songed quietly, So. How’s it goin’?

And she could hear the smile in his voice. Just talking right now. No money has changed hands. He went silent to watch then.

Most money transactions went via contact of a person’s cuff to a scanner, though big money still meant paper when it wanted to be shady, and, at the top of the heap, gold and even more precious articles. Ocean had seen real money change hands more times than she could easily count. As Cardinal Machine’s models went, he was one of the first made for law enforcement. And, man, did he excel at maintaining law and order. She blinked a little bit too long, thinking of this. She felt worn and run-down, like a battery someone had forgotten to charge, and it was close to 1AM. Zoey drifted on her feet for a minute or two. Her next moment of awareness was when Ocean went.

She just jumbled along behind him, because her bleary mind snapped to the plan they’d gone over and over in her front room, like a dog glommed onto a food bowl. Taser gun in hand, she hunched through the rain after Ocean’s flawless S.W.A.T. team hustle.

His voice was the thunder now. Hands where I can see them.

Bitch! one of the Agros howled in his front seat and hit the roof of his car. Heat! And the worst thing about this was probably that he sounded excited instead of freaked.

She steeled herself then. Agros never travelled alone. Never.

The back door opened, leading with a baseball bat, and Zoey popped out from behind Ocean, her brand new taser-gun up. Nope! she shouted. The bat froze for a moment.

Hit those bitches! cried the guy in the front passenger seat.

That was the designated ‘crazy one’ that the Agros popped out every 10th pez. Sure enough, the car revved alive, and the driver punched the accelerator. What odds, since Ocean brought up one long leg, smacked it down on the bumper, and leaned against the car. Its tires screamed.

Crazy-Agro stared at Ocean and yowled a good old, God-fearing, The fuck?! and started rooting around for something in the glove box.

GUN! Zoey shouted. She nearly lost her breath on the end of that.

Ocean put a plasma round into the ground right between the front-passenger and the back-passenger door, and it burned in the rain. His voice boomed, loud, Hands where I can see them, right now! Thunder cracked overhead.

All the bullshit stopped.

In his sleek auto-car beside the Agros, Kyle Riley sat agape, just... shocked at what was happening. In the face of the G110 plasma, no one was moving. Even the car idled.

Zoey backed away and looked in at the faces in the Agro car. She knew the guy with the bat from when she’d been a little girl going around with her uncle. Cut ‘em loose.

Ocean took his foot off the bumper in time with whipping out the second G110. These were the nickel-plated ones, and they glinted in lightning that made the lot bright blue and the rain like streamers for an instant. Zoey’s hair and skin lit up a ghostly white. Then it was done.

The back door of the green Camaro shut.

Crazy, with his hands still up, said a drawn out, disbelieving, "Fuck me."

Not on your best day. Zoey nodded. Go.

The Agros pulled out slowly, drove to the corner slowly, turned slowly. Then she heard tires scream as they punched it out of there.

That was when Kyle started his sleek autocar, overrode the safeties – something he’d rigged it to do long ago, she bet – and put his foot on the gas.

Zoey stumbled back.

Kyle, Ocean slammed a designer shoe down on the bumper so hard the back of the little sport’s autocar hopped off the ground. Not this time.

The car shut off. All the way off. That was Ocean’s doing for certain. When he lifted the wingtip off the bumper, he’d left a dent. He put away one of the G110s, but the other he kept on Kyle.

Zoey took her taser gun to the front seat and got in with Kyle Riley, her housemate’s brother, whom she’d last seen in a back alley, and who had once hit Ocean with a jimmy. Hands on the dash.

Kyle looked repulsed, What do you want, little bitch?

She felt an unfamiliar surge of fury that made her lean in close to his cheek, "No, I’m a big bitch. I’m a real big bitch, you moron."

"Fuck, he said softly. This about what I did to your robot, again?" His fingers flexed hard enough on the light-form steering wheel, itself caused by his override of the car’s automatic-driving settings, that fists passed through. He struck the glassy dash with a smack. Fitting, for his temper.

He was scary-strong, but she kept on-mission. It’s about a lot of things, Kyle, her voice dropped to a whisper, "but if you touch him again, I’ll get you hooked up, and once that happens, I’ll make it so you get lost in the prison system for as long as I fucking can. Understand me?"

He exhaled slowly because he believed. He believed she could do it. He was trying to keep calm, All right. Then keep its lead ass away from me.

Shut up, she told him. It’s one thing for daddy’s darling to hang around with the Agros, it’s another for him to buy hits of anabolic steroids from them, Kyle, which we now have on video. I’ve been to the house enough to know Bruce Riley is hot to get one of his kids through college. Don’t you have a football scholarship coming your way?

He didn’t make a sound.

Stacking the deck, huh? I can appreciate that. She said frostily. "Actually, I don’t give a shit. I hope those fucking needles make you sterile. Until then, two things. First thing, I own your ass. Any more of Bruce showing up unannounced at my home, I’ll be taking it out of your ass. Are we clear?"

His voice was soft. Yep.

Second thing, she told him. Big thing.

All right, he seemed to be bracing himself.

Lucy Hunt.

For the first time he turned his head a fraction. Looked at her. It was unnerving how like Noah’s those big dark eyes looked. Lucy?

She’s really pregnant now, Kyle. And, as it’s your kid and all, she’s going to need money. Steady money. There’s diapers and formula, and high school, and college. Zoey pointed at the syringes he’d tried to hide in the car door. Or it can all end now. Football. Your scholarship. Your rich-boy college flat. Your relationship with Bruce.

Stop it. He said and then moderated his tone. Lucy... I’ll look after Lucy and... the kid. He gathered himself, What’s it gonna be...? Do you know?

Yeah, I know, Zoey said and got out of the car. "I’m going to set up an account. You’re going to transfer a grand to it every month. The rate will go uphill from there. Fail to do that, and I will make your life disappear... the image of her missing aunt’s face flickered through her memory, causing her to blink and go cold, like smoke."

She straightened and stepped back from the car. Ocean was clear too, so she said Go.

The car pulled out smoothly, like autocar’s were designed to do.

Zoey watched him coast through the lights at the intersection – that car’s code was heavily edited – and vanish into the night.

Then she shivered and hunched her way to Ocean. His heart purred against her ear, his body was wet and warm. She squeezed against him and felt the rain and cold.

It’s done, he said.

Yeah, I don’t think he was playing, Zoey stepped away and shivered. But we’ll find out when I send him the account number and wait for the transfer. We can go home.

I’ll monitor the account. He said above her, and his pretty head, hair plastered to him by rain, considered hers curiously. Your temperature is elevated. You’re having respiration involvements. Perhaps you should lean on me until we reach the autocar.

Betcha say that to all the girls, she laughed a little, but did tuck in under his right arm. He was so warm she could hardly stand not to.

I don’t, he said in muted confusion as they started walking toward the road together, and Zoey strung an arm around the narrow heat of his waist.

Chapter 1. Countdown

The phone rang at 5:15 AM. Zoey sat upright, struggled out of her sheets, and grabbed her cuff from the charger beside her. She had the phone form out and was saying ‘Collins Investigations’ before she really knew much more than that she was alive.

Case?

Officially, she’d been working on capturing a skip worth a considerable amount of money and, having more-or-less located him in Nobel, she’d been trying to recruit a resource to help draw the squirrelly guy out... before the flu, anyway.

Also, the room no longer seemed to move around her. Nice. Zoey shook herself and realized someone was speaking. Someone with a great voice. Rick, her number 1 Sheriff’s department crush since she’d been old enough to have hormones. Now she shook herself. Slow down, Rick, Zoey rubbed her eyes. I’ve been sick for a few days. Not focusing well, so-

He stopped short. You’ve been sick?

It’s just a cold. But, she thought as she glanced at the meds beside her bed, she’d been hiding out where Ocean couldn’t see her for... was it 5 days?

Want me to drop by with... she could hear the noise of the Sheriff’s department waking up behind him as he paused. Anything?

Zoey felt herself flush and then cupped her hot cheek. Uh. No need. I’m, uh, pretty much patchy and not fit for company at the moment, Rick.

"I don’t know if you’re ever fit for company." He chuckled.

Okay, she was a bit hard around the edges, now. True. Wow, I really hope you didn’t call me at 5 in the morning to offer me Funyuns and a bottled water.

Well screw that, Rick’s voice was warm. Long as the android’s not babysitting, you’re living large. It’s soda and family-sized potato chips when you’re with me.

Zoey chuckled on her end of the line. How can I pass up an offer like that?

God only knows, he laughed in that appealingly masculine way that made Zoey feel overheated, entirely without her head-cold. It was true, Rick’s voice, alone, was enough to make her feel lightheaded. He seemed to shake himself back on track again. Okay... so... about why I called.

On her end of the phone-form, Zoey straightened in her shorts and strapped top. Her expression went solemn, and she realized, distantly, that she’d heard the same transformation in her uncle Ryan’s voice many times in the past. It made her shake herself out a little.

So, I can’t get through to your little roommate.

He couldn’t be talking about Ocean, who wasn’t ‘little’ by any stretch. No. He meant ‘little’ like ‘younger than me’. Noah?

Yeah.

His cuff is never by the bed, she told him quickly and Zoey felt her nerves kick up a notch, So he can sleep. What does this have to do with Noah?

Well, there’s going to be a lot of noise on the news about a raid the Sheriff’s department conducted earlier today. Rick was perfectly serious now.

Zoey felt her heart wheel and set a hand over it. There was so much fodder in Noah’s past – his abusive, but powerful Union Leader father; his stupid and dangerous, often drunken, brother. Who?

Coach Geary was arrested on suspicion of sexual misconduct with a student.

Now Zoey dropped down to sit on the end of her bed. When he’d left home during his final year of High School, Noah had run awry of Coach Geary in a different way than when he’d ever slouched through the halls as a kid with a home to go back to. As a runaway, he’d had no where to turn, and suited the Coach’s appetite just fine. Noah had ended up living in the school and bartered favours with Geary in exchange for a place to sleep and shower. Zoey would let other people add ‘allegedly’. Her chin tipped up. He won’t walk, Rick?

A little help from Noah, and I’m hoping a miracle and a shoe-store full of porn won’t get this guy off. He’s a chem-cass-case, Rick told her bluntly.

A shoe-store? Zoey asked him.

Yeah, you know, because shoe-boxes full of, he dissembled, "you know."

Oh, Rick, she clapped a hand to her face and smiled. Oh damn. He was so sweet that it was downright lovable, But all right. I’ll warn Noah. You going to want to talk to him?

"Yeah, I’ll be coming by later today for that. Doesn’t mean he has to come to court, there are 6 other guys to choose from... more or less. We’ll get to that, just, it doesn’t mean that yet."

They wouldn’t have a Court date so soon in the- Zoey ‘s back stiffened. Did you say 6?

You heard me right, he exhaled and seemed tired. Just... warn Noah Riley. He ought to know the arrest is going to be in the news.

Okay. I need to get up... deal with this. Talk later. She rubbed the side of her head, cut the call, and then chucked the phone form back into her cuff. Outside the call, the house was quiet. It was still asleep. The storm of what had happened in the night hadn’t reached her doorstep yet.

When Zoey went through her study room to look out at the garden, it was whispery and thick with a ghostly mist. A whorl at the base of her dark drive told the story of a breath of wind from the South she could see in the single lonely light along the bend. It had been there since she’d arrived in this town, to drive the ghosts away. Like her, the light was maverick. Offbeat. It had never been updated to the new synthetic wood pole, and the new sensors. Invisible from the road, the city of Noble had forgotten it. One day, some linesman-of-a-dying-breed would wonder where the single wire that branched through trees toward her house actually went.

Until then it was hers, alone, this quirky, glowing sentinel. It was personal.

Unbidden, she thought of Ocean standing on his disk in his postage-stamp of room, downstairs, and went back through the expanse of her bedroom for a shower. If only... she could make herself give him a place... up here. If she could even bring herself to clear one space. But her heart sped up when she thought about it, and Zoey could hardly go in the spaces that had belonged to Ryan and Kim. Even now.

Still... he deserved so much more than he had. More, she realized, than what she could give him. But this thought – that there was something better for her android out there; someone better – plagued her. And she had to forget about it. It could, she knew, come between them. It had in the past. And she hadn’t seen him in days.

The heat of the shower, minutes later, seemed to soak into her very bones. The dull ache inside began to die down. She breathed the moist, hot air, deeply, and her thoughts got away from her dwelling on Ocean – the texture of his skin under her fingers, his smooth, dark hair, and how he tasted. She shook herself from this spell before she used up all the hot water.

But she emerged more human to dress in the few new clothes that she’d gotten mail-order: blue jeans she was told were designer, and a thin sweater top she stretched in. She went down the stairs in her sock-feet and the kitchen wasn’t rumbling with action yet. It was only 6:05. She turned and... jolted in surprise.

Her C001-Oisín was sitting on the arm of the couch in the front room, and Ocean’s powerful hands seemed braced beside him like something was wrong. Zoey danced back and clapped a hand over her bosom. "Jesus! Ocean." He sat, caved in, with the most gorgeous curving shape. His body, which broadened in the chest and shoulders was wrapped in a light blue button shirt. His tie was undone, and his coat – which matched the slacks – just doffed on the back of the couch behind him.

His head was bowed so that she couldn’t see his face. Just his dark hair. Her fingers flexed with the desire to glide through the soft curve of waves at one temple.

It had been days since she’d seen his face, and she wanted, badly, to look at it again. I’m sorry, she stammered and kept her voice down. Noah wasn’t awake yet and he rarely slept-in these days. She cooled her jets, deepened her breathing. Ocean. What is it?

Finally, he turned his lovely face up at her, and his expression was guarded. He shut his eyes to ask, Are you angry with me?

Say what? He looked breathtaking right then. But she owed him her full consideration and Zoey felt her head quirk to one side. Angry? She’d hardly seen him for about a week. How could she be-?

"Do I hear Zoey? Oh my God. She’s alive," Noah came out of his room with his black hair in a morning-mess. It looked really good, in fact, and Zoey smiled at his stagger up the hallway. Her eyes widened when tall, dark, and tattooed Bryn came out of the room next, pulling on his shirt over his pale skin. What the...? It stomped the gas pedal inside her brain, and she flushed, unexpectedly pissed off. Sure, she’d been sick for a few days, but when had that started happening? And why did Noah think it was okay to have his boyfriend stay the night in her house? She set her hands on her hips and it seemed that Noah suddenly realized what he’d done.

Ohp. Noah paused with a finger raised.

Bryn blanched, Oh-my-God. Nothing happened. I just got tired and Noah said-

Noah said, huh?

For right now, shut up, Zoey directed at the tall young-man sharply. She pushed her hands through her wet hair and scowled at Bryn as he minced around her in pursuit of his boyfriend. Zoey didn’t get out of his way either. In case he was confused whose damn house this was. Noah might be paying a little rent, but the deed was in her name, dammit, and she didn’t really know Bryn.

"So, can he shut up in the kitchen and make breakfast with me?" Noah sounded sharp.

That was good. Zoey was more than ready for a fight. She squared on him, "He has no right to be here. This is my home, and I never even got the choice to say-" And she stopped cold and leaned back, because she suddenly remembered the monsoon of what was coming for Noah today.

Fuck.

Her gaze jumped to Bryn and she shook her head, no, softly. She didn’t trust him, and the message was there in the back of her gaze, along with the detritus of death, decay, and gunplay in the grand manor house that was her home.

Noah flicked on the light and looked aside at her from the kitchen, plenty displeased, "Never got the choice to say what? Because from where I’m sitting you can’t judge, Zoey. Since you got sick and decided he wasn’t allowed upstairs, Ocean’s only been waiting for days to go up and see you. Anything. Literally anything would have been better."

What? She blinked at him.

"Anything. You could have sent him to Anchorage by train and Nome by-"

This revved her engine, Noah, he’s not a sled dog! Zoey growled at him. The world slid slightly sideways, but she was willing to ignore that. Was he being simple? She’d looked like hell and had hardly been able to shower. Who wanted the guy they... they liked to see them in that kind of shape? Ocean, who had become increasingly more precious to her, had only really been here for about half a year, and she was, hell, only 18, so it was a little much for Noah to ask.

Noah snapped back, It’s not like I took care of you for days and came down here and – what? Do you think I plugged him in out on the porch and didn’t deal with him?

Don’t talk like that, Zoey squared on him. She had to follow Noah into the kitchen, Don’t you talk like he’s some dog you can crate-up on the porch!

I said it, Noah gestured at her, "but you did it. Which of us is worse?"

"I would never, she had to pause to breathe, her face red with fury. I would never do that to him. She stabbed at her chest with a finger and the words popped out, I’d charge a live gun for him-"

The doors opened behind them, and Ocean, now fully dressed and tucked, like a model on a stroll in every sense of the word, stepped outside into the purple mist of the early October morning.

Bryn interjected with a quiet, Noah, Zoey’s still sick. And she’s right. I shouldn’t have stayed. That’s a serious overstep of my-

Honey, now’s not the time, Noah also watched the android draw away up the path. He looked at Zoey. Where do you think he’s going?

She bit her bottom lip. Yeah. I don’t know.

Ocean went along the flags, his designer shoes clacking after the fashion of smartly-dressed men, and Zoey took the coat that Noah handed her, her ribs shivering in the crisp air of her garden. I think... I didn’t do the right thing. Maybe he’s really pissed?

I’ll start the fireplace, Noah said gravely. He gestured at his confused-looking boyfriend, Bryn will do breakfast. Do you need my help to go and get him?

Zoey was already stepping into her slip-ons, already out the door. She threw the coat around herself and jolted as she jogged after him in her driveway. Damn. Being sick had taken the wind out of her and she stopped to bend and cough as he disappeared in the shadows.

Her eyes watered as she eased upright again, and she had to mop her face and red nose with a tissue. It was no good to stare into the darkness after him, but she did so until she had to buckle and cough again. When she looked up, he came out of the shadows before her.

Unable to speak to him for a moment, Zoey set her hands on her thighs and caught her breath.

I thought... you would come walk with me, he said to her. On the road.

Zoey bent and coughed again, because she’d forgotten to take the syrup at the side of her bed, and then decided to run into a shock of cold air – straight-up bad planning.

Are you..., the android tried inexactly, "is this... ill?"

Now she nodded and pulled a small breath that didn’t cause her lungs to spasm. She looked at the crushed stone of her darkened driveway. And her voice was gruff with coughing, I’m not angry. I wasn’t angry with you. Just... just sick. Humans get, she had to pull a rattling breath, sick....

He murmured, "I have read about that." through the muffling fog.

Right, Zoey said softly. She took a moment on the lonesome driveway to look at his face, at his near silhouette, against the haze of light from behind him, and how welcome it was to spend a moment alone with him. Across from her, he pulled a little closer, but she couldn’t guess what he was thinking. His shoulders seemed to beckon to her though, like they were just the right place to rest her head. It had been hard being sick without him, lame as it sounded. Which was pretty damn lame. She caught hold of herself and said, It was a flu, I think. I’m sorry, she eased up a little, dizzy, pointed at her coarse throat.

In the books, people die of the flu.

Zoey chuckled, because her android had hit the house’s library hard, and he was reading classics at the moment, Ocean, you’re in the Victorian period. What are you reading now?

"Middlemarch, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."

"Ouch. Well... folks don’t generally eat arsenic pudding or die by ennui on a Stonehenge plinth these days, so get your head out of the 19th century, hot-stuff. I’m going to be fine."

Zoey. He sounded anxious, like she might flit away again.

She felt his fingers carefully take hold of her hood and pull it up over her golden head. Yep. Zoey straightened slowly and stepped forward to lean on him. He was... so warm. So comforting. She could feel herself sagging. Okay, Ocean, 1-time. I mean, 1-time you can-

Mm. He tucked a hand under her knees and scooped her up.