Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  “The woman you sat next to in my outer foyer was Minister of Examination, Jane Paulson. Her proteus is configured to detect secrets, sa, and you are a secret. You could have very easily avoided exposure. Multiple ‘LINKs? A terrible lack of caution.” Upon ascending to the dizzying heights of the Chair, she’d been shocked to discover the … awe-astounding nature of Hamilton Barnes’ lifetime servitude to the Regime. As her own style of dictatorship had relied upon secrecy and dissemination –much the same as Scottsdale, excluding the last few years of his life- Alyssa had never seen the need to … well, rebuild the enduringly loyal Barnes.

  Until now. With Nickels, al-Taryin and Bosch roaming free and wild on her much-loved and even more abused Hospitalis, she needed someone that was capable of more … overt … activities.

  Thus, Hamilton Barnes had been reborn into a fresh, new body complete with a veritable storehouse of cybernetic and avatar upgrades unavailable last time.

  Hamilton smiled briefly, an ever-so-scant flicker of the lips. “If I am not safe in the Chairwoman’s own office, Si Chairwoman, then I am safe nowhere. Your Jane Paulson has a most interesting history. She is quite enamored of secrets and habitually accesses documents not pertinent to anything at all.”

  “She keeps them secret.” Alyssa smiled. “Look at you, sa. Fresh and new and amazing. How does it feel?”

  It was of great regret that there was only one machine capable of bringing a person ‘back from the dead’, one that Alyssa wished she could correct every time she looked in the mirror, every moment she considered the great and vast war she planned to wage on Trinity. With even the most advanced regenerative techniques available –most of those stolen from geneticists in Trinityspace- Alyssa knew already that she would not live to see the fruition of her most ambitious dreams. Alas, the staggering genius responsible for developing the Rebirth Machine had died in a fire. No one since had been smart enough to comprehend the machinery.

  Not even Hollyoak, which was in itself unfortunate. The closest that homunculus had come was an android with a person’s brain, and Alyssa Doans most definitely did not want to live life in a robotic body.

  “I feel young.” Hamilton admitted, reaching out with a hand and marveling as the appendage flexed and wiggled fingers full of youth and suppleness. He brought his hand back and looked at the woman who commanded his loyalty by dint of sitting in a particular Chair. “What is my purpose, Chairwoman? To what ends have you resurrected me into this new flesh?”

  Alyssa tsked. “Resurrection, Barnes? That is an ugly word.”

  “What else would you call it, si?” Hamilton shrugged. Words from the Bible as read to him by Chadsik of the Many Voices crowded his ears for a moment. “Rebirth is no different a word, Chairwoman. There are scant few ways to describe what has been done to me. ‘And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth’. Is that not what has happened? Did you not pass the order to pry loose my memory chips to add them to the … library … of my life and then tell Hollyoak to give me life once more?”

  Alyssa did not like what she was hearing. She’d read of this before, from previous masters of Barnes’. From time to time, it seemed that ennui suffused their most loyal of Latelians until he was positively … dour. Granted, the things he did, the tasks Hamilton undertook in service to the Chair didn’t necessarily promote the growth of happiness and joy, but upon occasion, he was –to be blunt- morose.

  Even greater still was the quote that’d fallen from his freshly made lips. Alyssa had never personally read a single word of religious prose, but she knew those who had. She’d interviewed enough faithful before putting them to death to recognize words of faith wherever she heard them instantly, in any context.

  “You sound troubled.” Alyssa wondered what to do. Previous Chairs had demolished their moody incarnation of Barnes in the hopes that a fresh body would somehow remove the personality defect, only to find themselves saddled with an even more distraught servant. Over time, they’d all come to the conclusion that it was best to deal with the man as he was, for even though Hamilton brooded and glowered and generally stank up the place with misplaced emotion, his loyalty was bright and shiny as it’d ever been.

  Hamilton gestured with a hand. “My last directive turned … unfortunate.”

  Alyssa wanted to hang her head. Chadsik al-Taryin. What mania had possessed her to believe something like Chadsik could be manipulated? “Yes. I read the reports of your demise.”

  Hamilton bit back a bark of laughter. The discomfort on his Chairwoman’s face upon realizing her faux pas was entertaining. No Chair would ever come to grips with the reality of what they’d wrought in him. They’d all been profoundly awkward about it and he’d never found reason enough to disabuse them of that feeling. “Chadsik al-Taryin is miraculous. A truly phenomenal being. Capable of devilish destruction.”

  Alyssa narrowed her eyes at Hamilton’s repeated choice of words. What had happened to him on that rooftop? Oh, Hollyoak had given her a very comprehensive toxicological breakdown of the drugs in Barnes’ system and the forensic teams had worked up a gut-churningly precise chain of events leading up to the man’s physical demise but something had happened to his … Alyssa loathed the word ‘spirit’, but there it was. Hamilton Barnes’ very spirit had been affected by this latest death.

  Unable to shake the feeling that she’d somehow let Hamilton down, Alyssa turned the conversation aside. “You accessed the News4You coverage of last night’s events?”

  “I did.” Truth be told, Hamilton was pleased he’d been dead for The Museum Crisis. To be even peripherally involved in such ridiculousness would’ve been an embarrassment. “Rather fantastic.”

  “To say the least.” Alyssa flashed some footage onto the Screens. “What is your opinion on this man?”

  “Bosch?” Hamilton had given much thought to Bosch. “Superlative combatant. Infinitely moreso than his counterpart in this debacle. Where Chadsik al-Taryin resorted to mayhem and violence, this Harry Bosch displayed a level of martial excellence I doubt anyone can mimic or reproduce. Then, of course, there is the matter of his invulnerability, Devince’s Mace, the explosion that darkened all of Hospitalis and his abrupt disappearance. Is he truly a Fivesie?”

  At that, Alyssa laughed. “No, no. Not ever. Should any Foursie display even the smallest sign of transformation, we would kill it dead.”

  “Best to avoid even an echo of what happened so long ago.” Hamilton’s lips flickered at the quake of surprise flashing across the Chairwoman’s face. To assuage her sudden fears, he spoke calmly. “Some Chairs treated me as a sounding board, Si Chairwoman, revealing unto me many, many secrets. Fear not. I am a loyal citizen still. The most loyal. As my record of nearly eternal service indicates.”

  Alyssa wanted to tell Hamilton that a thousand years hardly approached ‘nearly eternal’ but chose not to; his mood was already too dark and forcibly reminding him of his bondage to the Chair would only exacerbate things.

  Hamilton continued, bleakly enjoying himself. “There must be some Foursies on the evolutionary way up, my Chairwoman. Is this why you have summoned me?”

  The Chairwoman reached a decision with that simple observation and question. There was no room for something like Hamilton Barnes in the new Regime that awaited them in the stars. His loyalty had always and forever been beyond reproach, but the duration of the man’s service –without the same sort of yoke God soldiers carried with them wherever they went- had to be the source of this sudden and appalling incarnation.

  One last mission… one last … undertaking for the Latelian Regime and then The Most Loyal Man would be given what he so plainly sought.

  “No. And again, there will never be a Five. I have asked you here to deal with these two men.” Alyssa pointed to Bosch and al-Taryin, frozen on Screen, two warriors demolishing God soldiers as if they were children. “Though the OverCommander has been tasked to eliminate these problems, it is incumbent upon me to make absolutely certain
that they die. OverCommander Vasily is a soldier, Sa Barnes. I witnessed a few talks between Bosch and the OverCommander, and while I am positive that the former is not a Fivesie, he is almost certainly an ex-God soldier who has fallen in with an unknown element. The OverCommander may very well allow Bosch to live, to find some way to augment his men in a similar manner. Ordinarily, I would approve.”

  “Ordinarily.” Hamilton said this with perfect neutrality.

  “I cannot condone this man’s continued survival. He was … disrespectful.”

  “Say no more, my Chairwoman.” Barnes nodded perfunctorily. “I will locate Harry Bosch before the OverCommander and I will find a way to kill him.” It would take some doing. Of that, Barnes had no doubt. Even with his new flesh and bone, Bosch represented an interesting challenge.

  He nodded at Chadsik, the man who had filled his head with words. “And him?”

  “More or less the same, sa, more or less.” Alyssa wasn’t sure how she felt about being referred to as ‘my Chairwoman’ either. The Chairwoman decided it didn’t matter, not really; Barnes was living on borrowed time now. She’d let him call her by her first name, so long as Bosch and al-Taryin were handled. “Try to keep the destruction to a minimum, if you please.”

  Barnes flexed his jaw at the request. To anyone other than him, the Chairwoman’s plea was obvious; she wanted the cyborg gone by any means necessary, but was asking that her cities suffered as little as possible during the effort.

  Except that wasn't what the Chair meant. Not at all.

  “Adapt or die, yes, my Chairwoman?” Adding the cyborg’s impressive augmentations to the military engine that was at the heart of Latelyspace would make them truly mighty. He rose, saying, “I caution you, Chairwoman; Chadsik al-Taryin still outstrips the abilities of my new flesh. I should be able to find a way to take his life, but there will be … damages.”

  The Chairwoman looked up from her proteus. “At this point, Hamilton, if you need to level a city to deal with Chadsik, so be it. There are so many bloody explosions these days one can barely go to the toilet without watching a building fall to the ground.”

  Hamilton bowed. “By your command, Si Chairwoman.”

  xxx

  On his way out, Hamilton Barnes accessed the personnel database for the Ministry of Examination A personal word with Minister Jane was necessary.

  xxx

  Chairwoman Alyssa Doans sat at her desk, tapping a finger on her lips and thinking quite deeply on what else she could do to Garth Nickels. The man was a Specter and was extraordinarily –some would say supernaturally- capable of dealing with anything that came his way. Therefore, it made perfect sense to keep throwing things at him until he was finally overwhelmed. It was just a matter of finding the right combination of elements.

  She smiled that special, wintry smile that had made so many people in these offices fear for their lives. She placed a call to the Promoter’s Guild.

  The Palazzo Loses Its Greatest Employee and Experiences some … Hasty Remodeling

  Si Antonia couldn’t believe her eyes. She was literally incapable of comprehending what was happening!

  Sa Ute was standing in the foyer being stripped of his access privileges.

  Beside him was the short Latelian Garth Nickels, and he was shouting into a Sheet at the top of his voice, all while standing very protectively near a Main terminal. Si Antonia had heard that Garth and Ute had fought their way up to the Ultra Suite and then back down again, carting that computer the whole way. Antonia wondered what could make something so valuable. The few Security guards they had left were just sort of … hovering.

  Antonia didn’t blame them for their reluctance to get too close. Between Ute’s formidable presence and Garth’s undeniable anger, there was just too much … too much.

  The worst thing for Antonia was that Ute wasn’t arguing, wasn’t pleading, wasn’t explaining. Anyone being fired did everything in their power to get one more chance. It rarely worked, but the money and the perks and the prestige of working for the greatest Hotel in the system were worth humbling yourself.

  As it happened, Ute looked like he was in a hurry.

  “Did you see what happened?” Si Anastazia asked with a whisper. “I went by the Security Room … he destroyed everything!”

  Antonia looked over her shoulder. “Someone kidnapped his girlfriend, si. That pretty woman with the amazing hair and the green eyes. What would you do?”

  Ana eyed Ute up and down hungrily. “If someone kidnapped Ute, I’d do the same. Well, I wouldn’t want to break a nail or anything, but…”

  “You’re terrible!” Antonia slapped her friend lightly on the wrist. “He’s being fired! And he helped Garth. Is helping.”

  “Uhoh.” Ana said softly, pointing at Garth, who was just in the process of throwing his Sheet against the heavy glass doors.

  xxx

  “Fuck this place in its fucking ass.” Garth muttered angrily, gazing at the crazy spider web of cracks in the glass doors unhappily. Was a time not so long ago that the Sheet would’ve gone right through, a high-tech missile moving preposterously fast. Did he miss the strength? Yeah, he supposed he did, but in the grand scheme of things, being able –however painfully- to move freely for a time was well worth the loss.

  “Problems?” Ute asked softly. Against common sense, he was enjoying himself. The ‘fight’ to get to the Ultra Suite to rescue a main –a main that Garth had stared at quite thoughtfully and worriedly for a solid five minutes before nodding- had been … invigorating. He hadn’t gotten up to anything ridiculous in, well, forever. The only difference between this time and the last was that he probably wouldn’t have to change his name or move to another planet. Ute found the possibility of resuming heroism without baggage … intriguing.

  Garth snapped his fingers at the nondescript sa working patiently on his prote. “Hey, pal, how much longer? This world is going to … shit. We got stuff to do man, really super mega important stuff and you one-finger typing your way through those protocols is making me mental.”

  “He’s just doing his job, sa.” Ute watched another layer of avatar access to the Palazzo disappear from his prote. At the beginning, when he’d first joined the staff at the Palazzo, it’d been so much fun. It’d been amusing, watching the antics of the rich and powerful. He’d enjoyed ever-so-politely using his power, his authority, to make elite men and women suffer in silence for their trespasses against Hotel policy.

  After sixty years, that enjoyment had palled. Substantially. Which, Ute reflected as another layer of power faded from his prote- was why he’d started putting in so many volunteer hours at the Port. If he wasn’t standing in the lobby right then being demoted to ‘regular person’ once more, Ute assuredly knew he’d either be there or at The Museum, seeing what good he could do. As long as he stayed under the OverCommander’s radar, that was. Catching Tizhen’s eye would be catastrophic. There was being out in the open and then there was being recognized.

  Ute repeated his question.

  Garth ran a hand through his hair, itching to get moving. To some, ten hours was enough time to do damn near anything. You could demolish a city in ten hours. You could blow up a planet. Given enough preparation and lead-time, you could even conquer a solar system.

  Ten hours to save a world was nothing. They’d already pissed away half an hour fighting up to the Ultra Suite and now fifteen more minutes had burned itself into the ether. Ute had explained the absolute importance of what was taking place right then in the simplest terms; they let the Palazzo Management disempower his prote, or they’d be hunted by men who followed no rules across the whole of Hospitalis.

  “Fuck me. No one wants to sell me any duronium.” Garth groused. He couldn’t believe it. He had all of the money ever and, during his last call, he’d started offering mountains of cash as well as highly improbable sexual favors from fifteen different types of sexy Offworld aliens in return for a quarter of the duronium he needed to safely cap the pile and �
� and nothing. He was a Conglomerate. He was allowed.

  It was the volume. Had to be. He’d made the mistake of asking the dude from DuroMetrics Incorporated for the whole shebang. The sales rep had laughed his ass off for a solid minute before hanging up. Then, on account of Hospitalis sucked as much as it was awesome, the DuroMetrics’ guy had probably called up his other duronium-owning buddies to warn them about the crazy rich Offworlder looking to buy a hundred tons of their super-metal.

  “A hundred tons is considerable, Garth.” Ute sighed as the final levels of his Palazzo authority was stripped clean. The agent of Management hit a few final buttons on his own prote, and he received an update on his employment status. Not only was he now unemployed, The Palazzo was now going to be aggressive in blackballing him from similar work in the future. Ute genuinely hoped his instincts were right about working with Garth. Forging new papers and acquiring a new identity under Alyssa Doans’ rule would be nigh on impossible.

  Turning to offer Garth a few suggestions, Ute was instead treated to his new ‘employer’ swearing a blue streak and advancing angrily on a non-Latelian.

  xxx

  Kant Ingrams didn’t like Hospitalis.

  Truthfully, the Adjutant loathed the entire solar system, but Hospitalis was … different. On edge since entering the system, his most recent and highly regrettable actions aboard The Midnight Song had him feeling out of sorts. Already gloomy, walking the streets of Hospitalis was a barely endurable torture.

  The only system capable of surviving the ravages of a Dark Age and they were, to a one, stark raving mad. They were crazy. Every man, woman, and child roaming the world were maddened freaks. They squandered their safety, their … their freedoms.

  Luckily, they were self-destructing. It was only right. It was only proper.

  A burly Latelian, nearly ten feet tall, brushed accidentally against Kant and for a brief, brief moment, the Historical Adjutant stood stock still, breathing frantically and holding the sides of his head worriedly. He was the boss of him. He was in charge. There would be no further incidents.