Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  “Did you kill them?” Ute demanded loudly, the back of his brain quietly assessing Garth’s capabilities. “Are they dead? How did you move that fast? I didn’t even see you and I … how did you do that?”

  Garth narrowed his eyes at Ute, but didn’t say anything. “It’s a move. A ninja move. They only teach it to ninjas.”

  “What’s a ninja?” Ute asked, following Garth, casting a worried eye over his colleagues. “And when are they going to wake up?”

  “A ninja is me.” Garth replied drolly as they stepped out into the hallway, keeping an eye out for more guards. “And maybe tomorrow. Probably. Possibly the next day. It’s been awhile. Now come on. We gotta rescue Huey.”

  “Who is Huey?” Ute repressed the urge to sigh even louder. He should’ve realized agreeing to follow Garth into danger meant an awful lot of confusion and mystery.

  Still, it’d been a long time since he’d had to save a planet. It’d be nice to do something different for a change.

  Alyssa Doans Takes Some Meetings

  Alyssa permitted herself a smile –so very small a smile- and a sigh of relief as she looked out over her beloved cities. The world was amazingly silent, for a change. It felt like the events surrounding The Museum had taken a week to endure instead of a single evening, and her people were resting the rest of the shell-shocked. They’d barely had time to recover from the Port Disaster and then … more tragedy.

  The Museum, Vilmos, the Gunboys –all of it- had been agonizing to the men and women of Hospitalis, and so, this very morning, she’d declared a holiday. Everyone, including her, needed a break from the hectic life they all seemed to be living.

  Except, Alyssa thought dourly, Chairs don’t get breaks, they don’t get respite, they don’t get holidays.

  Beyond that, the Chairwoman knew that it was probably only a matter of minutes before something else went insanely, bizarrely, world-threateningly wrong. As long as Garth Nickels was still alive, still on her planet … everyone was in jeopardy.

  She swore for the millionth time since waking up that if anything went even slightly wrong and Garth was within a hundred mile radius, even if the man was sitting in a diner calmly and quietly eating a sandwich, she was going to drop a missile from their freshly reclaimed Orbital Cannon onto his head. She couldn’t take it anymore and had concluded that only the man’s death would undo whatever had happened to the Sigma Engine. At this point, even if the Sigma stayed mute until the end of days, at least she’d have the satisfaction of seeing the man dead. She might even have the corpse stuffed and mounted somewhere in her office. Such a grim reminder of what happened to people who crossed the Chair would keep everyone in line.

  Alyssa took a deep breath and let it out. Her cities were quiet now, but not for long. She was thankful no one had noticed what’d been happening at The Peak. That nonsense would’ve been hard to keep a secret, even with the threat of Sigma.

  The doors to her office opened and OverCommander Vasily swept in. Alyssa turned to greet him, a faint smile on her lips; people closest to the powerful man could see through the bold posture, the strong cast to his jaw. Her love was bone tired and was only getting through the day on sheer willpower.

  “OverCommander.” Alyssa dipped her head and held her arms open for him.

  “Chairwoman.” Vasily took his ladylove in his arms and held her close. He smelled her hair, inhaling the fresh scents of whatever expensive product she used. He rolled his eyes. He knew he’d forgotten something this morning. He’d been so focused on brushing his teeth and getting on with his day that a shower had clean slipped his mind. Of the two, Vasily admitted he’d rather smell like a freshly unearthed body than deal with unclean teeth.

  They broke the embrace, each subconsciously adopting what many referred to as the ‘poses of power’. Alyssa Doans properly became Chairwoman Doans and Vasily Tizhen became OverCommander Vasily in truth. How anyone had figured out they were an item was beyond the two of them; when they stood near one another in the mantle of office, they were as stone.

  “I have questions, OverCommander.” Alyssa moved to her desk and sat herself down with a guilty smile.

  Vasily nodded and moved to stand behind the chair facing the Chairwoman’s desk. He wasn’t –technically- being called out for his actions this morning, but he was going to have to explain. This, for him, wasn’t a sit-down meeting. “By your leave, Chairwoman.”

  Alyssa gestured and a map of Hospitalis appeared on the Screens behind her. Dots appeared in all the cities of Hospitalis, and beside each dot a list of names, a list of crimes and a list of supposed contacts. “What are these?”

  Upon a time, Vasily had tried being angry at the sheer volume of information Alyssa had at her fingertips. Tried, and failed. There was little point; she was the greatest Chair the system had ever seen, and she was so precisely because of her never-ending stream of informants and knowledge. Vasily cleared his throat. “They appear to be secondary blast sites, Chairwoman, pockets of men and women possibly related in some unknown way to the events of last night.”

  Alyssa quirked an eyebrow. “Possibly?” Her own investigators had offered the same vagary, but then again, her people were honestly only capable of finding things. Understanding their meanings was another talent entirely.

  Vasily nodded his head once, firmly. “The … nature … of that final explosion at The Museum, the one that blacked out the planet for a few moments, is unrecognizable. There is not a single instance of the energy used recorded in any of our Army databases and, as you are aware, they are … extensive. There are very few possibilities as to the source. One, it was a parting gift from Chadsik al-Taryin. It will be a long time before we even scratch a fifth of what we saw from that … ‘man’s’ performance.”

  “Have you found him?” Alyssa asked quickly. The notion of Chadsik wandering around without anyone having eyes on him was just as disturbing as the thought of Nickels being free. Her own people had thus far come up with nothing.

  “No, si, we have not. Analysis of the final attack by the Gunboys shows him … well, as preposterous as it sounds, transforming into … something capable of enduring the damage. Owing to the explosion, many systems and ‘LINKs worldwide were down for any number of hours, making it impossible to find the man. We will have to wait until he chooses to resurface. My gut says he won’t be so brazen moving forward. His peculiar need to protect the man he is here to kill has made him a target. He will lie low. Nothing else makes any sense. Everyone is waiting, Chairwoman. The moment Chadsik al-Taryin sticks his head out, we will lop it off.”

  Alyssa didn’t like it, but the alternatives were just as unpalatable. That blackout had affected every single system on the planet. As she understood it, some ‘LINKed areas still weren’t at one hundred percent functionality. “Continue.”

  “The second possibility is Harry Bosch.” Vasily listened to the lies coming out of his mouth with something akin to horror. Now. Now would be the time to say ‘I have learned that Harry Bosch is Garth Nickels’. The Chairwoman wouldn’t bat an eye. It was the perfect moment. The mysteries surrounding Harry Bosch were great enough that Alyssa would be pleased he’d found out anything at all. He could do it and get away with it.

  Yet, doing so meant Nickels’ death. Vasily raged against the urge to shout Nickels name, then raged against that emotion. Why couldn’t he say anything? Why did he believe that the man who’d wrought more destruction on Hospitalis than all the civil wars combined was of greater benefit alive than dead? It made no sense!

  It was already too late. The damage was done. The lie had fallen from his lips.

  He pushed on. “We’re analyzing the force mace in a –I believe- futile attempt to understand how the man powered it, but so far, nothing. Whatever batteries he had in the weapon were removed. If it is Bosch, he is remarkably cautious.”

  Vasily opened his hands and continued. “Without questioning him, it’s pointless. All we have is anecdotal evidence. There isn’t a single tra
ce of blood or other genetic evidence in the room. It is as if the man doesn’t exist.”

  “Could Bosch be Nickels?” Alyssa asked quietly.

  A second chance to reveal what he knew. Vasily tried to open his mouth, tried to say ‘yes’. Again, certain knowledge that Nickels needed to stay alive rose in him and crushed rational thought.

  “Extremely unlikely, Si Chairwoman.” Vasily flashed data concerning his third choice for the explosion, one he knew Alyssa would accept wholeheartedly, especially since the events of this morning. “This,” he announced, indicating the Screens, “is who I believe is directly responsible for that explosion, the other micro-eruptions throughout our cities last night. Quite possibly, given what little we know about Enforcer tech, he could even be Bosch. Trinity is known for It’s … sense of humor.”

  Alyssa obligingly watched the footage for a few minutes. She knew Vasily knew she’d already seen the Enforcer in action. The man was being incredibly forthright. Vasily wasn’t really born and bred to do that so therefore deserved courtesy. ‘Old school’ military men like Vasily believed that what happened in his domain –his ‘turf’- was his responsibility alone. The two of them had worked long and hard to mesh the posts of OverCommander and Chairwoman into a more cohesive unit, but the events of the last month had her keener than ever to create a gulf. You never knew what sacrifices you’d need to make to save yourself.

  Alyssa resisted the urge to look at her feet. More accurately, she stopped herself from looking to the hidden room where the Sigma Engine idled; previous Chairs had hypothesized that –in addition to keeping them free and clear of Dark Ages- the ancient machine was responsible for keeping Trinity from their doorstep.

  Following that rationale, that protection meant no Enforcers. Alyssa didn’t know how it worked, couldn’t even begin to imagine the processes involved, but she knew one of the six commands that Chairs entered on a regular basis had to be responsible.

  With the machine down, there was no hope.

  When they got to the part where the Enforcer developed suicidal curiosity over the massive cannon pointing his way, Alyssa paused the footage. “The Old Gun, Vasily? Really?”

  Vasily shrugged. “We had nothing else at our disposal, Alyssa. The man was ignoring the worst of our ground-based weapons with appalling ease. Those Suits are … daunting.”

  “Have you found it yet?” Alyssa pointed at the Screen. “Have you found the Enforcer’s corpse?” While there were only two types of people across space who knew the capabilities of a Suit -Trinity and the person who wore it- the Chairwoman couldn’t imagine anyone or anything surviving direct impact with a duronium slug that big traveling those speeds. As Chairwoman, with the plans they’d forged, she couldn’t allow herself to imagine otherwise.

  “We…” Vasily hated admitting failure at the best of times, over things that weren’t important –like leaving the toilet seat up-, so being this truthful was downright painful. “We are tracking the trajectory of the … flight. Owing to the nature of the Suit, it is simply unwise to assume anything. The operator of the Suit may have been able to move away from the missile at any time. Alternatively, he could’ve just … fallen. There is a sixty-eight thousand mile trajectory to follow. It will take time. We are operating under the assumption that the Suit was damaged from the strike, though.”

  “Will wonders never cease.” Alyssa grated darkly. She’d spent decades improving the military might of the God Army and it seemed lately that no matter where she turned, single entities were doing their absolute best to make those efforts seem pointless. The litany caroled through her mind; Garth Nickels, Chadsik al-Taryin, Harry Bosch. The list went back and forth, back and forth, but the only name her mind could focus on was Nickels. Without him, the others wouldn’t have come. Without him, her worlds would be safe.

  Now this unnamed Enforcer could be added to the list.

  Vasily took the mild rebuke with a grunt. His ladylove was under a lot of pressure. Personally, he was happy she wasn’t throwing things around the room. Though there was a growing concern this change might not be a good one, he'd take a little respite from Alyssa's temper. “As you say, Chairwoman, we are working on the problem of locating the Enforcer. Still, though. Injured or not, damaged or not, what is it you would like us to do?”

  “What I would like you to do, OverCommander Vasily, is your job.” Alyssa snapped, hating herself for doing even as her rage took over. Vasily was tough. He’d take the tirade on the chin and keep going. “Get the Enforcer off my planet. Kill it if you can, steal the Suit if it’s even remotely possible, but get whoever is inside that damnable armor off Hospitalis. Find Chadsik al-Taryin and do the same. Find a way to keep those Glory Missiles so we can reverse engineer them. Find Harry Bosch and hand him over to Hollyoak. I want that miserable excuse of a Latelian dissected and ground into a fine paste before the end of the week or I will order someone killed on general principles. Bring me the head of Garth Nickels.”

  “A…’lyssa?”

  Alyssa paused, frowning, embarrassed at that last bit. She hadn’t intended her innermost desires to be revealed so … honestly. She rolled her eyes. “That sounded … despotic, didn’t it?”

  “Indeed, Alyssa, it did.” Though Vasily agreed good-naturedly, he felt a stab of concern. Every person who sat in the Chair for any length of time began acting… well, irrationally wasn’t the proper word, but it’d do. Sometimes Vasily wished he was better with words so he could define what happened to Chairmen and women, if only for himself. Students of history knew better than anyone what happened to their glorious leader; the pressure of a dictatorship combined with the powers of a truly technologically advanced society eventually –ultimately- resulted in a crazed leader. Some went quietly mad, some went extravagantly insane, but in the end, the Chair claimed them all.

  Alyssa Doans was the first one to resist the smallest outward change for so long. Others had done a good job, but the beautiful –in his eyes- woman before him had managed to do it longer and better than any of her predecessors. The pressure was getting to her, though. The pressure was undeniable.

  Attempting to build an Army capable of defeating Trinity’s troops during a Dark Age, desperately juggling the appearance of … cohabitation … with the Trinity Representatives with the art of being a tyrant, dealing with the sudden and brutal tidal wave that was Garth Nickels … all of it was monumental. It had to be.

  Alyssa shrugged. “Either way, Vasily. Those are the things I do not want to see on my planet any longer.” She smiled prettily for a second before continuing. “Is there anything else you would like to tell me? Any … random explosions anywhere on my wondrous planet?”

  Vasily pursed his lips. Other Chairs hadn’t displayed the depth of their knowledge with such openness. It was because of their personal relationship. There were days –such as now- that he genuinely wished she hadn’t stabbed him in the chest. As eye-and-chest opening as that moment had been, it truly chapped his ass from time to time. The woman took far more liberties with him than vice versa.

  Alyssa smiled again and crossed her arms. She was surprised at Vasily’s expression. How anyone could imagine she wouldn’t hear about the most important building in Central going up in a tremendous explosion of fire and smoke was beyond her. “My own investigators,” she began, getting the ball rolling, “were rebuffed at the scene by a combination of Protean researchers and your own military intelligence staffers.”

  “Indeed.” Vasily tried to remember the last time he’d ever blatantly lied to Alyssa and couldn’t come up with a single instance. Oh, he’d told little white lies every now and then, but that was all part of being in a relationship. Answering ‘yes’ to ‘does this makeup make me look like I eat children when I’m on camera’ was never a good way to go, but this … this was different. A lie like the one getting ready to come out of his mouth was the sort of thing that got people dead in Hospitalis. At the end of the day, he was OverCommander, Alyssa was Chairwoman. If she wan
ted him dead, shot and killed for being a traitor or a liar or simply because she’d grown tired of his face, then it’d happen. The damned woman probably wouldn’t even blink an eye.

  “Analysis of the rubble indicates that every single piece of equipment in the Guillfoyle Building was rigged to overcharge and explode.” The lie came out smoothly, thanks in no small part to him practicing it on the ride over. “Forensic avatar analysis suggests that this was a … what would you call it … failsafe event left behind by the late Ashok Guillfoyle. There were numerous pitfalls throughout the building. We assume Ashok put them in place on the off chance that he would have to one day survive a full on God soldier attack.”

  Alyssa fought the urge to snap again. Ashok Guillfoyle. How she was mightily glad that man had bounced his way down one of the highest mountains en route back to The Peak. “That building was cleared.”

  Vasily opened his hands. “Guillfoyle was –regardless of his treachery- a genius, Chairwoman. Besides which,” a brilliant addition to the lie flared into life, surprising even himself, “our clearance of the building was done with compromised equipment. Even though the man himself was in The Peak at the time, even though we’d erased all the avatars and information on his ‘LINKs, everything the man did was hardwired.”

  Alyssa opened her mouth to decry such tomfoolery then snapped it shut with a click. It was true. Ashok Guillfoyle had been a genius. The x-and-c-DEC hack was purely inspired brilliance. He would have definitely prevented any investigative teams from detecting any wrongdoing. Oh how she longed to kill Ashok Guillfoyle all over again! It was regrettable she hadn’t had the foresight to have someone record the bouncing for her. “And the … device?”

  “Destroyed. Vaporized, really.” Vasily was impressed with Garth’s handling of the situation. The ex-SpecSer had literally shaped the overcharging of each piece of equipment in his building to erupt in what could only be described as a ‘sloped funnel’ reaching to the very apex of the structure. By the time the eruptions burst through the final few floors, the raging torrent of power had –according to his men- been no more than ten feet across.