by David Bowles
“Don’t you get it? He’s playing you, Nestor. Has his own agenda. You thought you had him, exclusive? I’d wager the two of them, him and Santo, have spent years working together to punk your trusting arse. That old ronin passed Jing to Santo and had him rig my kewbox so that your boss’s little bro would die. Him and Hark, they were planning on hiding out on the station till the Brotherhood was wiped out; then Yen was gonna come and pick them up.”
Veins stood out on Nestor’s head as he struggled to keep his composure.
“Torture them, you want to confirm it. But I don’t think you need to. Why was it so easy for me to snag that psycho Felipe, eh? Hark was who I had to get through. How was it he got out of the brig so quickly, eh? Come on, Nestor. Yen fucked yall. Whatever plan yall had with Santo, it’s gone to shite now. Hell, Yen might be working with the AF, which is on its way, you know.”
Nestor let go of Brando’s hair with a brutal shove. The squadman collapsed on his hands, twisting his wrist painfully. He noticed they’d stripped him of his suit, leaving him with just the one-piece undergarment. He was utterly vulnerable now: the black edged closer; he could feel its cold nails on his nascent soul.
Let me take Konrau out before you devour me. I beg you.
There came a low beep.
“Yeah, Nestor here.”
Into his percom?
“There’s a message for you, tunneled to the nebula first, then bounced back over here. Kind of a big delay, sorry. It’s from Wu.”
“Patch it through to the bay office.”
Brando closed his eyes and waited.
INTERCHAPTER H
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Archon Koroma
Date: May 5, 2697 15:37:24 (SST)
Prime Minister Muntso:
I’m reporting to you again as promised to update you on the situation here on the surface. About two hours ago, the Oracle and the Archon made official the fatuous process that has been going on since this morning. He seems bent on impatronizing to Jitsu all CPCC-controlled territory without regard to any treaty stipulations. Speaking in specific terms, he has transplanted some four thousand citizens of Station City to the Rasaro and Tod platforms. Commander Ly, head of our constabulary force here planetside, continues to shine in admirably; however, his gendarmes are spread thin, some of them keeping the demolition crews at bay near our office complex, others engaging both the planetary security forces and anti-terrorism squads. They are at the very ends of their abilities and resources: without immediate backup, they may not be effective for much longer.
CPCC citizens are being treated roughly. I personally spoke to a few that complained about brutality and disregard for the rights of individuals. ATS captains, confronted with their troops’ behavior, have pointed to how many citizens are taking up white arms, knives and such, against the soldiers. I imagine this is an ostensible explanation for the violence. We’ve got personnel taking depositions from complainants whose cases warrant future investigation.
There are continued reports of significant underworld movement. I received word that several dozen transports of the sort L’ermandá uses were seen shuttling between an orbital platform and the spaceport. No independent evidence of this claim. I remain firm in my assertion that Archon Koroma is working in cahoots with elements of the underworld to engineer the crisis that permits him to immure him and his people behind walls of isolationist religious fervor.
You and I both believe how important it is that all independent worlds join the Consortium, true umbrella of humanity. When I accepted this position, moving my family to a dangerous world even after the tragedy and pain we went through, it was because of your vehement resolve not to let what it happened on Dhara ever repeat its self.
I remind you of your words to me concerning Jitsu: we can’t afford to permit the precedent of its socio-political solipsism, and we will not allow it to become another Dhara.
I truly hope you intend to back those words up. Soon.
Meygin Soral
CPCC Ambassador to Jitsu
Ministry of State
CHAPTER 41
Konrau stood before a bank of monitors in the platform’s control center, watching events on the station unfold: Nestor and D’Angelo talking, Nestor going to the shuttle bay office to read and answer a com from Wu, Nestor having the two New Beijingers shot, Nestor and a pair of guards dragging the ex-professor toward the control center.
Beserra knew something needed to be ferreted out here, something crucial to the Brotherhood’s survival, but he was unable to focus. Events seemed distant and unconnected to him. His plan continued to unravel before his eyes in a spiral that had begun with the Kunti, whose attacks had galvanized the CPCC just when Konrau had hoped to weaken it. Yes, his tenuous plan, held together with threats and bribes, was spinning apart, but Beserra no longer cared.
Eight hours of distance between his initial dispassionate response to his brother’s death and his present blinding anger had taught him that all he wanted was D’Angelo before him, on his knees, begging and broken. He shrugged off attempts to massage his shoulders made by a pair of sluts that Nestor had brought into the control center and sank deeper into himself.
Nearly twenty-seven years had passed since his hit on Bruno Andrade, and Konrau hadn’t felt quite as alive since. It was as though he’d lost his only real possession, and not even years of amassing those of others could replace it. Those two years of planning, savoring the revenge that he’d exact, basking in the glow of hate and anticipation, an eagerness to win her back and make her father pay—there’d been purpose in his life, a reason to fight through the day.
Preparing to bring the CPCC to its kneew had eased the psychic pain caused by her loss, but it had been a dead joy, a lifeless pleasure unconnected to anyone that mattered, a masturbatory exercise in isolation on a grander scale than had ever before been attempted.
Until he’d focused on Felipe. The closest that he’d come to recapturing that vital feeling was in his efforts here, on Jitsu, watching his brother thrive, the young man’s talents no longer squandered as someone’s soldier but taken to their maximum extreme as a leader of men. Nestor’s whining about Felipe’s methods had been meaningless to Konrau.
His brother had potential to be a greater kasike than he. Nestor had no inkling that this move to convert the Brotherhood into the most powerful organization in human space was meant for the younger Beserra, not the elder.
But this Brando fellow, just like Bruno—their names were even similar, he mused—had stripped Konrau of what was his, and now he would pay. Once the cop was taken care of, then Konrau could turn his attention to Nestor and those triad punks, one of whom had been part of Felipe’s vanguard, and the other of whom had been serving with Brando.
There was something there, no doubt about it, the very sort of treachery he’d always suspected, the feared holes in his organization that had kept him from revealing the imrizabu’s existence to any but a select few, that had pushed him to grip each family head in a vise of blackmail and leverage.
But he would take one thing at a time.
The door cycled open, and in the reflection from the monitors, Konrau saw how two of his men, one hilariously taller than the other, deposited D’Angelo in the middle of the room. Nestor strode up to his side and announced, “Here he is. I had to ice the triad putos. They were being, you know, uncooperative.”
Konrau nodded. “Fine. We’ll discuss that later. For now—”
He turned and regarded Brando. Though short, a bit like old Toni Benemerito, he was massive, reminding Konrau of the gorillas in the primate protectorate on Ganymede. His knotted muscles were barely contained by a ripped and blood-specked one-piece undergarment, standard issue for use with battle suits.
As Konrau examined him, memorizing the form of his enemy, Brando jerked his head up, his brown eyes murderous beneath the inverted Vs of his eyebrows.
“Konrau Beserra. F
unny, I was expecting more. I don’t know; you sure don’t look like an evil gangster overlord to me. More like a street punk, flexing his muscles for the rest of his sib.”
Konrau looked at the guard to Brando’s right, who had pulled his rifle up, and nodded. The butt of the rifle slammed into the squadman’s mouth; a spray of blood sketched a half-circle at Beserra’s feet.
“That’s right, D’Angelo. Keep it up. Get it all out of your system. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re done, and you might as well do the bravado thing now, since later— well, later you just won’t want to, let’s leave it at that.”
Unable to wipe the blood and spittle running down his chin, Brando simply lifted his eyes and, his demeanor completely altered, though not cowed, directed what seemed the most compassionate gaze a human is capable of at the triumphant cacique.
The sketchy smile on Beserra’s face melted away. He hadn’t expected such a look. No one had looked upon him with pity since he was a child, and Konrau had sliced that look right off its owner’s face.
“What?” he spat. “What the fuck are you trying to say with that naffing expression, dead man?”
“Just trying to imagine what’s it like, being so empty inside, so uncomfortable with yourself, that you have to surround you with tons of yesmen and assorted panocha, fawning over you and licking your arse, making you feel somebody when you’re not shite. Back off, hosupin.” The shorter gunsel had drawn his rifle back for another blow. Konrau motioned for him to hold. “Ever been alone, Konrau? Just you and you and you and the blue-spangled blue?”
“Fuck you talking about, pendeho?”
This was not what he’d been expecting at all. Rage, yes. Threats, shouting, silence even. Konrau had been prepared to deal with all of it. But this piercing consciousness boring into him—it was maddening, maddening that with one look the ex-professor should understand so much.
“The nothing that is everything. Sparks in the void. Drifting in the swirling black. Just your ego and the universe. Didn’t like it, right? Made you feel small, nothing. Couldn’t handle it, true? Got to play pretend now, blaze up with the orange heat of false godhood.”
Just behind Brando, the ghostly outline of Jeini’s ruined head threatened to resolve itself into being. Konrau felt his face flush, his hands tremble in anger and trepidation.
Got to get him out of here now, before I lose it in front of them all.
In a measured voice, struggling against the pain that began to pound mercilessly in his skull, Konrau directed, “Yebesen esta myerda d’aki.”
Konrau's counselor motioned at the guards to follow him. Each of them took hold of an arm. Brando remained limp, not trying to struggle, resigned and almost happy, judging by the smile he wore. As they dragged him away, he raised his voice.
“I’ve been there, my criminal friend. Eight mothergod years, Konrau. Learned to spin in the abyss, like oni dancing beneath the belly of a jagen, ready to slice. Now I’m going to rip the life out of you as sure as if you’d never been born!”
The threat was uttered without a hint of anger, just with plenty of volume, as if Brando were making a decree before an assembly of subjects. As echoes died, Beserra saw her out of the corner of his eye.
You sent him, ain’t it, bitch? He closed his eyes, chilled to the core. Her blood-specked smile hung in the dark of his own mind. You sent your brother years back, but that hoto left off fighting soon as the Kunti moved in. So now you’ve brought this fucking loko against me. Well, fuck you. Send all your fucking ghouls, bitch. I ain’t backing down.
Really? Jeini’s smile grew wider and more cadaverous. What about him?
Felipe’s tattooed visage floated into view beside hers, and Konrau opened his eyes with a start, stifling a scream.
Standing abruptly, Konrau muttered in hoarse whisper, “What do yall want?”
Revenge. Their voices in unison declaimed, and the implication was not lost on the mafia boss.
CHAPTER 42
Several corridors. Lifts lowering him into the ancient platorm’s depths. He struggled to pay attention, memorize the route. Nestor caught on pretty soon, had a guard smack him across the forehead, long gash from which blinding blood began to trickle.
“Not the first tough guy I’ve had to deal with, dekaman.”
The submerged linguist in Brando flipped through a mental file: dekaman. Solpat. Cop. They passed another yegster, just standing there, trying to act like he was supposed to be guarding something, when in all reality he was probably loafing. Nestor snapped at him.
“Tu, deha d'aserte pendeho; be me trais gaz i alkol d'infirmari.”
The yak straightened as if slapped. “On kea?”
“Lebol seis. Purale, baboso.”
Infirmary, level six. Information, though who knew whether it'd ever be of use.
Soon they reached a gaol block, the typical set up on smaller platforms: ten cells in five groups of two, each group with its own guard station, a dull metal control console with an uncomfortable swivel chair meant to discourage sleeping on the job. Not that it would help the prisoners any for the guard to take a nap: the cells consisted three walls of solid, seamless plascrete and a ceiling and entrance of high frequency energy mesh, powerful enough to keep even the most pain-resistant captive snugly inside.
The yak from the corridor rushed in, the alcohol and gauze in hand.
No medskin for me; oh, well, another scar.
Nestor motioned at Brando's forehead, and the yegster splashed the cold, stinging fluid directly onto the gash, dabbing at it with a wicked smile. The powerful smell and the sharp bite in the wounds on his face brought Brando back to full attention, forced him to focus on any opportunities.
The ugliest of the gunsels stepped behind the console and shut off the energy mesh at the entrance of one of the cells. Brando was immediately booted inside, his head banging against the metal slab that jutted from the back wall as he fell. Blood began to flow again over his left eye.
He lurched to his feet and spun about as the mesh hummed back to life. Lunging toward the mesh as if to run right through it, he saw Nestor shake his head with sarcastic disappointment.
“I was you, wouldn't even try it.” Konrau's counselor glanced around, grabbed a metal stool from behind the console. “This energy mesh is a bit different than you're used to. Has a real nasty effect on things.”
He thrust the seat through the entrance, releasing his grip on it with a grimace as the sparking heat was conducted up the three legs. The stool's forward momentum sent it completely through the mesh; it collapsed in a molten pool at Brando's feet.
“Imagine what it would do to your flesh, dekaman.”
Brando said nothing as he stared at the cooling mess before him, then tilted his head back to regard the series of horizontal and vertical energy bars a meter above his head.
Not getting out of here, am I?
As Brando pondered his situation, the mobsters all left, except for the shorter yak, who stayed behind to guard him.
An hour later, drenched in sweat, bitterness rising within, Brando concluded that there was indeed no way out. Dark despair settled upon him, and he slumped onto the metal slab, his cuffed hands pulled taut behind him. Impotent fury boiled beneath the despair; black waves threatened to drown him in madness.
So close. So damn close.
Closing his eyes, Brando began to breathe in deep, ragged gulps, forcing his heart rate down and clearing his mind. He focused on Kongan 71.
The cosmos is a mirror. I looked into it. There was nothing looking back.
The myriad flashing images and voices vying for attention in his brain faded as he envisioned a sea of blue blotting everything around him completely out. Despair was his enemy. The orange flame of hate was his enemy. He himself was his own enemy.
He’d learned this lesson well in the months following his wife and daughter’s deaths. Powerless, raging in wounded solitude, he’d nearly given in to the inverse of the Blue. That ancient fire t
aunted him, beckoned him, promised cessation of pain, offered surcease of sorrow through immolation of self.
His Pathwalker teachers and Tenshi’s simran had pulled him back from the blind embers, but they’d not given him the key to his survival.
The Oracles had.
A month into the sea pilgrimage, Brando’s cohort had reached a remote set of coordinates near the equator, in the nearly landless western hemisphere of Jitsu. The shard from the Urim had been passed up from the hold, hand to hand, until everyone had touched it except Brando, standing by the gunwale, contemplating the green-gray sea. He had reached for it, but as his wedding ring had touched the rough black rock, he’d been knocked onto his back on the deck.
A vision. Like after the fairground massacre.
Tenshi’s bloody body in his arms.
Her eyes flitting open, utterly black, sparks swirling in their depths.
The voice. Not her simran. Not his spark. Tenshi.
“Read deep the hidden words. Take one away. Bring two back. Prepare them.”
A pause, and then more gentle, less cryptic.
“I will come back to you. I swear it.”
Brando had jerked awake from the vision to find the others kneeling around him. They had helped him to his feet, and he had thrown the spike into the sea, watching it sink into the depths. One more point on an inscrutable grid.
Read deep.
Shutting himself up in his cabin, he had spent the return trip scouring the two sacred books he’d first seen with his wife years ago on the Distant Isles.
First was Kitabu ra-Chiwaga, the Book of Bricolage.
He had read the text before, twice. Not trusting his own brain—which filled in gaps and skipped over words—he now ran searches.
Tenshi. Five occurences. Once passage resonated most.
“There are two fires we face. The Roaring Orange comes not from without, but within. It roils inside us all, for we are facets of the Grey Prison, the smoke that rises from that raging blaze. Some never need face it. Community and family give us sufficient support. It has no opportunity to rise, to engulf the selves we attempt to align. But others must fight off their personal auto-da-fe. Even learned professors huddle at dusk, on a ‘darkling plain,’ lighting not torches but kindling at their own feet.
