Polished

by P. S. Power

  Softly, sadly, the woman sighed.

  “Yeah. That’s the best part. It just isn’t the best way to deal with things, this time. Still, all of this would hinge on having help that we don’t yet. I can’t think of a single reason for Eva or Samantha Canton to aid us in this at all, can anyone else? I’m open to suggestions here.” She looked bright eyed then, as if she were about to cry.

  That probably wasn’t real. The woman might have broken her compulsion to murder for no reason. That didn't mean she wasn’t a psychopath still.

  Dareg looked at her, his dark face considering. After a moment, the newly minted black kid pulled a handheld out, and then spoke, without tapping it at all. Meaning that the person he spoke to didn’t need that kind of thing at all. Which spoke of them hearing everything, all the time, at least in certain ways.

  “Samantha? Eva? Can you come to the café? Mars one. We have people who want to make requests of you.”

  There was no answer. Not over the fancy magical handheld. Instead two women, both of whom he’d seen before, walked into the room. One of them was identical to Eve Benson. That or she was a short version of Tiera Baker. Either way, she was incredible to look at. Dressed in plain brown clothing, that matched the base outfit which the clothing amulets tended to use.

  The other woman was also familiar, though no one that he’d met, outside of herself. Samantha. The one that the cafe they were in was named after, if he’d heard correctly. She, just like her sister Eva, were all over the place on Mars. There were some of them on Harmony as well.

  Single individuals with hundreds, possibly thousands, of bodies for each of them. No one else spoke, as the two walked up, smiles plastered on their faces. At least Richard felt like that would be the case. They actually both looked happy. Innocent, really. As if they were just being asked to a party. That or to do something even more fun than that.

  They might be made of energy, but even more than June or Riggs’ other friends back on the base, these two were real people. They were themselves. He stood up, and bowed, going low and holding it. Everyone else there did the same thing, with Gillian going last, after being elbowed a bit by Kate, so that she’d know to take action.

  The girls got the basic idea, being from there originally, so did it back, nearly matching everyone else, who were all well and truly bent in half. Rich spoke from there, not standing first. That was, if he had the idea right, begging. Honestly, he was supposed to at least get on all fours for that, to do a proper job, if not lay on the floor, his face pressed to it. That would be incredibly humbling, which was the point. Such begging was meant to be socially hard to resist, but also humiliating enough that no one would be willing to do it if they didn’t really have to. If anyone did that in front of you, the rules pretty much said you had to say yes to what they were asking.

  At the same time, it was so galling that people would starve themselves to death rather than do it.

  He knew all of that because Cindy caused words to float in front of his eyes, explaining it. In blue print, which meant she didn't really think it was that important. The woman used bright reds and orange colors for things she wanted to be paid great attention to.

  The trick there was that she understood that on some level he wanted to leave the two beings, who were much more than human in their own way, to be able to tell them no. If they begged too hard, then they might feel obligated to aid them, when their ethics and morals told them not to.

  No one else spoke and he was the one who bowed first, so he spoke, his eyes closed.

  “We need help. In our world. Removing some very evil people who have taken power. We have a plan, but can’t carry it out ourselves. We’d need space ships and an army of hundreds of people to help us take over ground facilities, in order to put a message out to the populous. One that can’t be hidden or stopped.” Rich didn't add anything else.

  Really, it probably wasn’t enough to even start a conversation. It simply wasn’t their problem, after all. Samantha and Eva had other, more wholesome things to do.

  They both stood up then and looked at each other. Their words were different than his would have been on the subject if the same thing was asked of him. Richard Drake would have probably asked what was in it for him. If not that, directly, then he would have defaulted to questions about the exact nature of the job itself. The two energy beings took a different, more human, route.

  Samantha, the blonde one, looking serious, tilted her head to the right, just a bit.

  “Is there proof of great wrong doing? Sometimes those who have to lead must do things that others don’t like. It doesn’t always mean they are really being evil or even bad. Even if it feels like it at the moment. Could it be something like that?”

  Rather than explain himself, Gillian spoke then. Still glowing, since she had a truth amulet on.

  “They rape children. Torture and kill them when the kids are too broken to provide entertainment or enough fear to be used in their rituals. They slaughter and eat them, sometimes. Worse, they make the kids, their own children, do that kind of thing. Over and over again. It’s part of their religion, but illegal back home. Is that enough? We have proof, which is why we need your help. The ones we need to fight are so powerful that these people haven’t been able to release the evidence against them.”

  Richard nodded at the words, feeling a bit ill, hearing about what was really going on again. Knowing it was real. A thing that it was clear Eva and Samantha knew as well. It took him a second to realize that was down to the truth amulet field, though. A thing that he’d never seen before that day, but which was probably a part of their society or at least the law enforcement there.

  Samantha went wide eyed and then nodded.

  “You have my aid then. Anything I can do. Sister?”

  Eva looked away, her face stone like.

  “Is our task to kill these… Things?” She didn't sound like that would be a deal breaker, if it was.

  Cin Mableton shook her head at those words.

  “No. We need to take over television, radio and internet locations. Then flood the world with evidence holding all of those things long enough that everyone in the world will see it. After that… Well, whoever does that will be considered a super villain, is my guess. Even if no one is killed. Except that my plan is to do that, as well. So guess who will get to take the blame, if anyone is caught or seen at the wrong time?” She locked eyes with first one girl, then the other. Letting them in on that part of things, if they decided to help at all.

  Eva, instead of throwing in instantly, nodded.

  “I need to know the plan and my part of this. What will I have to do, before I sign on completely.”

  Tor and Dareg both looked away as if they were being shamed by her sensible and sane words. Willum Baker simply laughed a little, deep in his throat.

  Then he spoke, as if it were a normal conversation.

  “There are many space-based platforms. Relays, like the satellites we use, but not magically created. Like Austran comps, I think. Those will need to be influenced, using machines, at a close distance, to prevent anyone else from preventing it from happening. That portion is pretty safe. They have a space fleet, but their ships are mainly inferior to our own. They have twenty-two jump ships available, however, so that needs to be kept in mind. Unarmed ones. They could, in potential, move to those locations in space and stop you from taking action somehow. Using their bodies as shields, perhaps, so that you cannot take action?”

  The man paused for a moment, looking around. When he started again, his words weren’t kind sounding.

  “The ground facilities that need to be taken will be the real danger. There are thirteen of them. They will have guards and the local police, their guardsmen, will come in and fight to retake the places. We need to do all of this without harming them, if possible. Most of them will have had nothing to do with the rest of this, correct?”

  Will looked over at Cindy for information on that, for some reason. The tw
o were close, after all. In fact, Mableton was supposed to be letting the guy know she was saying yes to his marriage proposal. Not that it was the right time to do that kind of thing at the moment.

  The blonde just agreed with the dark-haired man, on what he’d said.

  “That’s true, more or less. Some of them are involved, of course. Most police aren’t. Not on the street level, which is who will be sent in. On the good side they won’t have weapons that can do anything to either of you. Especially if you have shields on. You can wear masks. That illegal there, but so is taking over the internet. We can probably show you what to do for that part of things.”

  Richard just waited then. To him it was clear that they were asking the girls to do most of the operation, while the rest of them sat back, in safety. Lazily waiting for the real work to be done. It was the right call, if they were both willing to help.

  Eva took a deep breath or at least faked doing that, then looked at him, directly.

  “We can do this, then. I have three hundred versions of myself that can be spared. It will take a few days for them to all be collected into one place. Sam?” She glanced to the right, at her sister then.

  The other girl, and she didn't look old at all, seeming like teen, more or less, gave a somber nod of her own.

  “I have about two hundred and twenty versions who can be spared to this. Is that enough? It will place most of myself in your reality. I’ve never done that before. I could free up more, at need.”

  Richard shook his head.

  “That should be fine. Really, we probably won’t need to ask that much of either of you. What about ships though? Or, can we use the shields you gave us for that?” It suddenly made sense to him, if they were space worthy and could fly. The satellites were in orbit around the Earth, not in a different solar system.

  His old friend, Katie, smiled at the words.

  “Honestly… We can do that. It makes even more sense than taking real ships in. One or two people going up, almost invisibly… You can do that, both of you?”

  That was for the girls. The force that they had for the mission. A thing that was bigger than anything Richard had ever been involved with at all. Most of his jobs had been done alone or with a team of less than five people. This was going to be more involved than that.

  Except that Samantha and Eva were only one person, which did drop the numbers a lot, that way. Really, it probably meant they could train four of them, which would keep the numbers down. One set for the space work and one for the ground facilities. Then, when the time came, all of them would have the needed information, without their bodies ever having been around at all.

  Sam nodded.

  “Oh, sure. I did that when I helped put the mapping satellites up here, for Mars. It only takes a few minutes to fly up that high. Those shields are a lot easier to get than jump ships, as well. This way we can do it with only one or two ships, instead of a hundred. So that we can come in from space, to do it? That makes sense to me, anyway.”

  Kate, who was called Brie now, for her work with the IPB, stood up again.

  “That sounds great, actually. We need to get back to Noram, in order to finish our documentary on the life changing process. We’ll need to meet again, to go over everything. How to get the needed ships and to move you all to our Earth. We don’t want to bring you through the base there. Unless we can show you were there for some innocent reason, when everything goes down. That might be a bit obvious, and we are being watched by these people. Others as well. That’s one thing that never really changes. It’s as if they think we might be up to something… go figure?”

  She smiled then, as everyone else got up as well, moving to the little red transport hut to the left of the front door there at the café. The Samantha and Eva that were with them simply followed along, going to Tor’s in the same group of five people that had packed in to the extra fancy elevator with him. The only person that didn't go back with them was Gillian.

  She explained that to him at the door.

  “I have work in ten hours. Waste management. It isn’t glamourous, but High Leader Hess told me that it had the best growth potential here, since the incoming fleet has about a half million people moving here in the next few months. Just to Third City, I mean. On the good side, the way they do it here is hardly as dirty as what we use. Everything is incinerated and then the solids are recycled into other products.” She shrugged as if that was going to make sense to him.

  Which it kind of did. The girl, for all she had to figure she was going to die or at the very least never be able to really go home without doing that, was trying to find a place where she could redeem herself. A thing she was doing with decently good humor.

  Even without a first mode, that part of her spirit was shining through still. She was a fighter, in her own way. The kind of person that should be admired, in the end. Not that anyone would recall the individuals that much, when they were finished taking apart big sections of their ruling class back home.

  If everything went well, the most likely outcome was probably a stressful set of new elections. That wasn’t likely though. Instead of lining up to go to prison for their own spot of rape and loss of power, the people behind the scenes would most likely try to take them into a very massive civil war.

  That couldn’t be allowed, of course. If it was going to happen at all, then Cindy and anyone else they had on their side who could kill from a distance would need to stop them, first thing. Maybe even those who had to do it in person would have to be brought in.

  Because there was no way Richard was going to let these evil people hide behind the deaths of millions. Not if he could help it. The problem there being that he wasn’t certain he had a choice in the matter.

  When the door to the little red booth closed, he was inside with Lydia, Cindy, Eva and Samantha. Before Sam could tap the right name, which played in brilliant and glowing blue along the back wall, even if he couldn’t read it himself, Cindy held up a hand.

  “This can work, but we need to try and save the latest batch of kids as well. There are a few thousand of them in the latest crop. I… Really, we probably can’t do anything for them. I was thinking that we’d put Lydia in charge of that. You two… Well, you have the numbers we need, possibly. I can find the locations, for most of the kids. Probably not all. The thing is…”

  Lydia made a face at the words, seeming hard.

  “The thing is that we can’t have the main team split like that. Sam and Eva have to be focused on the main job right now. The same is true of Richard and you, Cin. I… Can’t do it on my own, either.”

  Everyone seemed almost defeated by that idea. Richard cleared his throat then.

  “You’re an inter-world walking ancient being, Lydia. We don’t have the resources to do this, so… How do you find them? This is a hard task to give anyone. No matter how well you do, people are probably going to die. Innocent ones. Think though, who do you know that can do this kind of thing without being pegged as our people?”

  The girl didn’t tell him any names, just standing there as Sam triggered the box into action. When they got into place, the short Korean girl took a deep breath.

  “You go ahead. I’ll… go and see if I can put something together. I don’t really know if I can. Not in time.”

  Richard had to agree with that one. It might be impossible to put anything together that way. Not in the time they had. After all, the faster they could act, the better things would work. At least in theory. That probably wouldn’t be to the benefit of the current crop of abused kids.

  Except that, in a week or two, a lot of those children would be dead or dying anyway. If they took six months to get things ready, thousands or tens of thousands would be raped and murdered. Stopping the people behind it was the important part.

  It was a thought that left Richard feeling dirty inside. That didn’t mean it wasn’t true. It was, of course, why Lydia was being put to doing that for them. Not because she might not be useful for the
rest of the mission, either. No, it was due to the idea that, when everything was over and it all came out, the IPB was going to need to have the knowledge that at least someone had tried.

  Especially once word of how many people were killed, trying to clean up the evidence of wrongdoing, got out. At that point… Well, if anyone believed them at all, then the whole world might need to know that an attempt was made to stop it.

  The thing was, these thousands of kids were probably in almost that many locations. One girl, or even a hundred men and women, couldn’t be expected to get to them in time.

  Turning, he put a hand on Lydia’s arm.

  “Do your best. Plan it out and practice what you can first.” It was all the advice he had for her on the matter.

  Hopefully, it would be enough.

  He doubted it would be.

  Chapter Twelve

  The trick to mastering his current job was that Richard couldn’t actually stop, or even slow down, on his primary task. That meant going back to the base every day to bring in a new crew of people to have their first modes ripped out. Not that tearing of any kind was actually needed for the work to be done.

  Honestly, the whole process was gentle and so boring to watch that it was always a bit surprising that anything had taken place at all when people took up the healing amulet to speed up their changes at the end.

  That meant doing other things as well, like helping to come up with ideas to showcase how easy, simple and safe the work itself really was. How they were supposed to get anything on television or even the net about it all, he wasn’t certain. That kind of thing was really going to be down to Charlot Chambers and her super-secret powers when it came to arranging things like that. Their own private super hero of all things dealing with the public and influencing their opinion.

  At the moment that, clearly, meant following her instructions in regards to getting nice pictures of Olga. They had a lot of before footage, and had actually showed the transformation portion of things. It involved, as it normally did, holding a healing amulet for a while. The results of that got a bit strange for a few moments, which was kind of common as well.