Corbin looked up from the reports and files that piled his desk and leant back in the chair, closing his eyes wearily. Simply getting on top of his duties as Director and then acting Ambassador had kept him preoccupied and too busy to question whatever it was that Vash was involved in. In a way, that was a blessing. The events of the day before had shifted his priorities; the looming threat of Dyn retaliation hung over everything.

One monitor still displayed a five-second loop of grainy video; a beach alive with swarming figures, burning wreckage and, in the distance, that bizarre sea-skimming submarine. Then the view flared blinding white and the feed repeated. Corbin had heard the airblast himself; a faint rumble that arrived almost an hour after the event.

He checked his watch. Soon the driver would arrive and he’d have to leave.

Corbin stood and walked to where his Internal Security Enforcer dress uniform, a near-featureless dark red garb, was laid out on the bed. Only a few subtle markings betrayed the rank of its owner; Enforcement, especially Internal Security, aspired to be an egalitarian organisation.

He had briefly considered attending the meeting in his new capacity as Director or wearing Vash’s ambassadorial uniform, before deciding against it. The role held great authority, but the Enforcers regarded the Directorate with disdain, whilst they’d respect one of their own. Corbin doubted they’d mind that he was no longer officially part of Enforcement and was simply broadcasting where his true loyalties lay. Besides, the paperwork for his shiny new role was yet to go through.

The phone rang before he could finish getting dressed.

‘Sir, the Ambassador’s chauffeur called to say that he’s running five minutes late – there was apparently some confusion at a checkpoint,‘ his secretary hastened to explain.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘The Director’s residence has its own chauffeur, are you sure you don’t want me to – ‘

‘No, that won’t be necessary.’

‘Yes sir, I’ll ring up when he gets here. Is there anything else I can do?‘

‘That’s all, thanks.’ Corbin hung up.

Corbin had a reason to insist on using the Ambassador’s chauffeur – he needed leads, some hint about what Vash had known, but when it came to his former superior they were hard to come by. All he had to go on were some cryptic words regarding the rebel insignia and the vague suggestion that things had changed with the Dyn. He was working off of rumours, but the fact that Vash had hidden something from him was no longer cause for mere curiosity – it had become serious the instant he had abandoned Dias and the others at the coast. In doing so, Vash had jeopardised the operation they’d both painstakingly organised, he’d brought the threat of Dyn retaliation closer. Enforcers under Corbin’s command, men that he’d trusted, had lost their lives. And perhaps it had all been for nothing – perhaps Vash had been vapourised along with the hundreds of other victims of the Dyn bombardment.

Yet he did not feel betrayed; trust was an expendable resource like anything else and Corbin had no doubt that Vash had taken the best course of action, given whatever it was he knew. The man was smart and, more crucially, he wouldn’t have weighed the lives of those soldiers lightly – clearly something important had changed.

And despite the evidence, he couldn’t quite believe that Vash had died in the blast. He must have been on that submarine. Corbin told himself that it wasn’t just blind hope. The ex-Ambassador wouldn’t have abandoned Dias simply to go and get killed on that beach; Vash wouldn’t have let himself die while there was still so much work to be done. But why the subterfuge? Why not just tell him? Didn’t they both want the same thing?

Vash’s parting words surfaced from his memory: ‘She seemed particularly afraid of universal morality; that by some objective measure an action could be deemed to be fundamentally moral, or immoral.’ The Dyn feared universal morality. Somehow, that seemed important – it must be the crucial hint. K’txl was afraid of what gave humans their humanity.

Corbin had no sentimental illusions that Vash owed him an explanation. But whilst most survived by keeping their heads down and doing as they were instructed, Corbin had thrived by looking ahead and keeping the initiative.

Corbin checked himself in the mirror as he finished fastening his uniform. The sharp, angular face of a state orphanage kid looked back at him. He straightened the tunic and smiled briefly at the man in the mirror. Vash was playing his role in the great drama, and now it was Corbin’s turn to step to the forefront.

There had always been two imperatives in his life: the first was to make sure he was informed. The second was to ensure that he had as few constraints on acting on that information as possible; in other words, to transform himself into a machine for turning knowledge into action. In Internal Security, knowledge and power had been mutually reinforcing. He didn’t see why the Directorate should be any different.

The phone rang again. Corbin gathered the papers from his desk, taking two files with him and locking the rest away in a drawer before leaving his private quarters. A bodyguard and an aide waited patiently in the corridor outside, both of them recently hired replacements for Meyer’s staff. The bodyguard, Joao, would accompany him. The guy was uncomplicated, with a clean track record in the military police until an incident involving excessive use of force had ended that particular career, but Corbin believed in second chances. The aide, who’s name he hadn’t yet bothered to commit to memory, was a graduate from some Conurbation Two college and Corbin had little use for him today. He left the boy where he stood with a list of dull administrative tasks, and instructions to check with him should it at any point look like an actual decision was required.

The sleek, black ambassadorial car waited in the street outside the Director’s residence, flanked by the bulkier, unmarked Enforcer patrol vehicles.

‘Sorry for the delay, Director,’ said the driver, as they approached the car. Corbin waved the apology aside.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said as he squeezed himself into the back seat next to Joao’s broad-shouldered bulk. ‘It was an unusual request.’

‘Yes sir,’ the driver replied, careful not to ask the obvious question.

However, as they made their way through the clear, well-ordered roads of the central administrative district and Corbin made casual conversation with the driver, the man appeared quite happy to give up his guarded formality. Corbin supposed he shouldn’t be surprised the man was keen to chat like friends – to say that Vash was an aloof boss was an understatement.

As they finally passed beyond the boundaries of Conurbation One, the driver gave Corbin the opening he needed to broach the subject of Vash.

‘So, how come you asked for me specifically?’ he said.

‘I haven’t yet found replacements for all Meyer’s staff. I need to be able to trust them and I know Vash trusts you,’ said Corbin, by way of explanation. It wasn’t entirely untrue.

Outside the window mile after mile of monoculture rushed past, some of the crops in open fields, others greenhoused. The greenery had been refreshing at first after the grey of the Conurbation, but the repetitive view quickly grew tedious. Lots of GM sugarcane. Corbin had heard that the Dyn could eat it and enjoyed the taste, and it could be processed to make the biofuels that most vehicles used.

‘You know Vash well then?’

‘Well…’ said Corbin, smiling ruefully. ‘As well as anyone, I guess.’

‘I feel I’ve said more to you in the last hour than I’d say to Vash in a year,’ the driver chuckled. ‘And I’ve been his driver since I started.’ Corbin’s heart sunk – but what had he expected? That somebody like Vash must have a true confidante? Maybe Vash did, Corbin might never know, but as far as plans for how to proceed went it seemed pretty futile. Still, he decided to press on, in the hope there was anything he could use.

‘What I say to you now has to stay between us,’ Corbin cautioned. The driver nodded.

‘Wouldn’t have kept my job this long if I didn’t understand that. Or my head for that matter.’

‘Vash has been missing for a couple of days. I was wondering if he said anything strange when you last chauffeured him?’ The driver looked genuinely concerned.

‘You asking in a personal or professional capacity?’ asked the driver, conspicuously eyeing Corbin’s uniform and then Joao.

‘Personal, I promise,’ replied Corbin sincerely. The man sighed.

‘I don’t really have anything I’m afraid. I guess he seemed on edge… maybe more distracted than usual?’ He was clutching at straws, just trying to be helpful. Corbin had that effect on people.

‘Don’t worry about it. I only thought I’d ask.’

‘I hope he’s alright. He’s a good guy. I don’t buy all this ‘puppet ruler’ stuff you sometimes hear – it doesn’t fit him at all. He’s kind, you know? He made sure my daughter got good treatment when she was ill – I mean really ill – and he’s given me a bar of chocolate for her, for her birthday, every year since,’ the driver enthused.

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Corbin. It was another facet to Vash, but it was hardly useful information.

‘That’s what I mean though. Some people act nice just because it gets them something. He just is.’

Corbin let the conversation die and before long, the imposing InSec building loomed before them. A brutalist slab that resembled a tombstone, it was sharpy lit by harsh lighting that banished all shadow, as if to emphasise that there was nowhere to hide.

The car drew up alongside the structure, uniformed Enforcers opening the door. Corbin walked through the main entrance, returning the salutes of the two Enforcers on guard and entering the narrow, brightly lit corridor. People turned to stare at him, and some saluted as he passed. The bustling crowds of administrators cleared away before him. Without any explicit decision, ‘acting’ was beginning to drop from the acting Ambassador’s title. The remaining question was whether the rest of the Directorate would accept him.

Corbin’s lips curved up into a smile as he contemplated the approaching meeting. Handling the spooks that made up his old department would be difficult – they dealt in human lives on a daily basis, and they’d be bewildered by yesterday’s events, but it was a difficulty he was used to, even relished. Vash might remain a mystery, but ordinary human selfishness was a simple thing to understand and control. He’d sometimes doubted if Vash was human at all: at bottom, the man seemed to be motivated by nothingness. And as for the Dyn themselves – all this would be irrelevant if they stepped in to end it all.

Regardless, Corbin expected he’d be able to bamboozle the rest of Internal Security into ignoring the events on the coast. It was easy enough to elicit the correct reaction from people, as long as you approached the issue correctly. When it came to InSec’s officers, he’d subtly hint that it would harm their careers if they took the matter too seriously.

An Enforcer swung the door to the conference room open for Corbin. Papers and glasses of water were scattered on the large ersatz wood table. A dozen serious-looking men and women stared back at their superior. He waited expectantly, then one of the men stood up, giving a brief respectful nod. Over the next few seconds, the others followed.

‘Ambassador, thank you for joining us,’ said one officer.

Corbin sat and the others followed a moment later. He suppressed the strong desire to smile and said,

‘It’s been an eventful couple of days, ladies and gentlemen. I suggest we begin by discussing the matter of Vash’s successor.’