Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  Alligorni let out another blissful sigh of smoke, puffing his lips out and laughing at the rings wavering in the air. He did this for a few more seconds, frowning when he noticed that the further away the smoke rings got, the thinner they grew. That’d never happened before.

  Then, in a mind-numbing flash, Alligorni watched as the smoke disappeared!

  He hammered the ‘open’ button on the airlock without even thinking about it. If there was even the smallest chance that the external door was open -even a crack- it could spell doom for the whole ship.

  The door wouldn’t open. Of course not; if the exterior door was open –even a little bit- the one leading back into the ship wouldn’t budge. That was safety 101. Warning lights above his head turned on for a second, and then went out. That wasn’t safety 101. Alligorni pursed his lips and stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette.

  “H-hello, sa? Can … can you hear me?”

  Alligorni’s head whipped around and he stared at the speaker mounted into the ceiling. “Seta? Is that you?” Seta wasn’t normally one for practical jokes, but threatening a man with asphyxiation or explosive decompression –while not terrifically funny- did fall inside the woman’s range of things that were amusing. “Quit messing around, si, and let me out.”

  “No, this isn’t Si Seta.” The female voice continued. “Si Seta is having a shower right now.”

  Alligorni hit the open button again, this time harder. “Let me out, you little bitch.” It was the girl they’d kidnapped. Had to be. What was her name? Naoko. “Let me out, Si Naoko.”

  “I do not think we’re that friendly, sa, that you may use my first name.” Naoko chided. “And certainly not after you beat me then suggested the type of … the things you would like to do to me then.”

  Alligorni looked at his cigarette. The cherry red tip was glowing fiercely and the smoke burning free was forming a permanent line towards the opposite wall. For the smoke to be moving that quickly, the outermost door of the dual-door system had to be fully open. His hearing –not the best after thirty years of gunfights and bar brawls- strained to detect the faint sounds of precious air being sucked away.

  Nothing. He could hear nothing.

  He knew he shouldn’t’ve hit the woman. It was bad business, hitting a kidnapped woman, but … the escape from The Palazzo had been rough. Security personnel had been relentless, pursuing them through the whole of Central and into Easson before they’d finally given up. From a Hotel! They’d broken into banks with less trouble.

  The woman continued, her polite voice sounding even more threatening for its measured tones. “Have you been doing this long, sa, kidnapping innocent people?”

  Alli pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing at the pain. He’d treated the woman badly because of the broken nose, and now … it was coming back to haunt him. He didn’t know how it’d happened, but he was somehow, mysteriously, at this woman’s mercy. “Yes, I have been. A very long time.”

  “Are you paid a lot, sa? To steal people from their homes? To tear them from their families?”

  A pause filled the air, and the soft, subtle the hiss of oxygen being slowly funneled away filled Alligorni with icy dread.

  Naoko’s voice shattered the terrified silence. “Was it worth it?”

  “It … it’s something to do. A job like any other.” Alli winced at his own stupidity. You just didn’t say some things aloud. He reflected quite ruefully that his tendency to do just that was why he’d fallen into the life of a criminal. In the underworld, there were two choices for people who couldn’t keep their mouths shut; you got yourself killed quickly or you became tough enough to keep people at arm’s length. “How you doing this?”

  Naoko tsked. “Kidnapping people for a long time, selling them to Jordan Bishop, did you ever once see or hear of him speaking with the victim? Did you ever hear him make a deal for the release of every other si and sa under his control? Even a piratical sa like yourself should understand numbers, sa. If one programmer is worth three thousand other programmers, how good is that one? Is that one, perhaps, the best? The very best?”

  Alli opened his mouth. He shut it. How had they missed that? The woman they’d kidnapped spoke again.

  “I am much more than a programmer, sa. I am a hacker. The hacker, although I do not like to brag. I am the Lady Ha, sa, and while you may not have heard of me, there are people in this system who have. They tremble at the mention of my name, they spend millions of dollars improving and upgrading their systems and ‘LINKs, they convert their electronic secrets into written down words so they might hide from me, but in the end, I always win. I am the Lady Ha, Alligorni, and hacking into a spaceship’s ‘LINK was something I could’ve done at five. I came voluntarily, Sa Alligorni, I agreed to Jordan Bishop’s terms, I secured the release of my people and yet you still saw fit to hit me, to hurt me, blaming me for the risks that you and your ‘friends’ took. Do you know who you took me from?”

  “J-j-just some sa.” Alligorni had never heard of this mysterious Lady Ha, but the tone in the si’s voice, the way she spoke … how she spoke … it had him frightened out of his wits. From where he leaned against the internal door, Alli thought he could see the opposite door move a crack. The temperature dropped suddenly, brutal cold piercing his sweaty, clammy skin, matching the shards of terror filling his soul prick for prick.

  “Hardly just some sa. Garth Nickels. Even you have heard of him. Victor in the Ring, survivor of the Spaceport. He’s much more than that, though. I know who he is. They call him Specter, sa, whole solar systems tremble in his shadow. They throw down their arms and they run into their homes, sa, they offer peace and willing obedience to Trinity if only he will turn his ship around and go the way he came. He has done things that fill me with dread, but I love him so.”

  Against his better judgment, Alli asked, “What does this have to do with anything? Your boyfriend? We knocked him out; we’re far enough away that he’ll never catch us.”

  “This is very true, sa. Very, very true. My love will probably never find me, not now, and definitely not when we cross the Tunnel to Trinityspace.” Naoko sighed. “Think of the woman who could love such a man, sa, love a man like that and turn a blind eye to the horrors he’d done in favor of the good he would do. Think of the darkness that a woman like that would have to accept into herself.”

  Alligorni felt his skin go white. He opened his mouth to apologize, to beg for his life, to offer anything and everything he could imagine and more to be let back into the ship. Horrifyingly, terror had grabbed his tongue.

  “I am the Lady Ha, Sa Alligorni, and I am loved by The Specter. If you do not want him to come hunting for you, your family, your friends, your planet, your solar system, you will ensure that from this moment forward, I am fed on a regular basis. That I am given privacy. That no one curses in my presence. If a man who has destroyed a world of billions can try to keep from swearing, petty little pirates playing their petty little games can do it. I will be given a proper room to sleep in and no one will touch me without my permission. You will tell your Captain Greuz all of this, Sa Alligorni, every word I have said. You will tell him that any attempts to reprogram the avatars running this ship will fail. You will tell him that attempting to remove my proteus will destroy the ship. I cannot be bargained with. I will make no compromises. Are we clear, sa? Do you understand?”

  Alli blinked back tears. He whispered, lips thin, voice thinner. “Yessi.”

  “Good.” The doors slammed shut and air, precious, delicious, wonderful air filled the lock. “I am sorry it came to this, Sa Alligorni, but it is for the best.”

  Alli nodded, and when the door to the ship opened, he crashed through it drunkenly. He leaned against the inner wall, panting and weeping for five solid minutes before he ran hurriedly to let Greuz know that they had made the biggest mistake of their lives.

  xxx

  Naoko closed her eyes. She’d come so close to letting Alligorni into space. So close. She under
stood Garth that much better after seeing how easy it actually was to take a life. All it would’ve taken was just a few seconds more of doing nothing at all and the final door to space would’ve opened. And a life … gone. Snuffed out almost immediately.

  Silent tears fell.

  Anything was worth it to free her people. Anything at all. If she had to become more like Garth to save three thousand men and women, she would do so. She was, as Morgan the Dead had put it, a woman of fire and iron.

  She would do what it took. Hopefully, her love would help her come before she went too far.

  Whatever it took.

  The Lady Ha opened her eyes.

  An Old Man’s Secrets

  Tomas Kamagana sat in the small office off his bedroom, puffing away on his pipe, considering the implications of Martial Law. The most worrisome aspect of the grip soon to be choking the life out of each city were the rules shutting down all businesses; in her haste to ‘protect’ Hospitalis from the apparent threats coming from every corner, Chairwoman Doans had neglected to think things through.

  Food. It was about the food. She’d forgotten that her people weren’t hoarders as they were on other worlds, that her people took enjoyment in leaving their homes to go out, to pick fresh food from the aisles on a daily basis. Even the citizens had forgotten about the food. They were too busy being upset and outraged at cancellation of all public events save the Final Game.

  Tomas chuckled around a mouthful of smoke, remembering the look on the grocer’s face as he’d purchased enough food to last a month. He was known in their little corner of Port City as one who liked his vegetables as fresh as possible, his meat just off the animal.

  Martial Law, Tomas knew, was rough and hectic. From his time in the military, working hand in hand with Alyssa and Vasily to improve their worlds, he’d seen the ravages long-term lockdown caused. With everything that had already happened on Hospitalis, Tomas could easily see why the Chairwoman had opted for this most brutal undertaking, but he also knew it was a mistake. Sometimes, burning the village to save the village just left you with a smoking, empty collection of destroyed homes.

  Things weren’t going to settle down. Tomas could feel it in his bones. Change –desperate, violent, wild change- was in the air and there was nothing anyone could do about it except … pray. No amount of internal fortitude, no level of self-actualization … nothing could protect you from this kind of revolution except hope, except faith. Hope they’d have a chance to survive. Faith that they would.

  Tomas flicked the Screen back to the report he’d been watching on the partial destruction of the Hotel Palazzo, puffing on his pipe and pulling on his beard. Bad news, the loss of that den of vice. A necessary thing for the rich and powerful. With no place to revel in their excesses, and no one willing to hide the end results of that revelry, those who visited the Palazzo would turn outwards.

  None of the channels had anything to say, except that two unknown men had fought in the foyer. The destruction was quite interesting to say the least; whoever those two men were, they’d proven themselves quite capable of wreaking astonishing amounts of damage in a very short time.

  Tomas looked at his proteus. He was going to do something he hadn’t done in a long time, something he hadn’t felt the need to do since immediately after Maurna’s death and his fall from the heavens. He was going to use … use systems better left silent.

  He was going to locate his daughter through a small tracking device he’d implanted in the very early days of her life, a foul thing to do, perhaps, but necessary all the same. His blood, his … progeny … needed safekeeping. Protection.

  After Maurna’s death, little Naoko had run away. Not far, not with the intention of disappearing into the seamy underground of Port City, but far enough away to make an old man’s heart seize in his chest. And so he had done as he had done, and regretted the decision every day, but his life before Latelyspace, before Maurna, before Naoko …

  Naoko was with the powerful and wild Garth Nickels. Tomas was sure his daughter would prefer he not know, but he'd never left anything to chance. Information –as Naoko would agree- was the most powerful thing in the Universe. If you didn’t know everything, you remained at risk. If his daughter ever discovered the chip, she’d understand. She understood risk and necessary evils.

  Naoko was with Garth and Garth lived –had lived- in the Palazzo. A sensible location for a man with more secrets than anyone else alive. Tomas had toyed with prying into the man’s privacy since his arrival on Hospitalis a few months ago, deciding not to only out of practicality; knowledge of who and what Garth Nickels was and what he’d truly done for Special Services was to hold something dangerous in you. OverSecretary Terrance had known, and he was destroyed. Chairwoman Doans knew, and she was unbalanced and on her way to true tyrannical mania.

  Tomas stared at his prote, pipe forgotten. He’d prefer it if Naoko wasn’t with Garth, but she was a grown woman. Besides which, it was generally safer at the center of the storm than on the edges. Tomas swallowed and entered the command to track his daughter.

  Prote signature not found checking … checking … checking…

  Tomas took a long, steady draw on his pipe. When that proved an ineffective cure against the tremor in his soul, he poured himself a long draught of sake from a nearby bottle. Naoko didn’t approve of his drinking, but he was an old man and entitled.

  In the end, it took fifteen minutes and two solid drinks before he located his dear, cherished daughter. His mind whirled, spun, and tried to build a reasonable explanation for Naoko to be on a ship headed –if his avatars’ interpretation of data was correct- for the Q-Tunnel. None came to mind. Garth Nickels would not –could not- leave Hospitalis. His intention to fight and win the Final Game was one of the most heavily publicized declarations Latelyspace had ever witnessed. There was nothing happening anywhere in the solar system that would draw him away.

  Tomas sighed. The alcohol coursed through his system, weakening his resolve. He was going to have to talk to Naoko. He needed to know what was going on. In so doing, he would reveal himself to be … not precisely a liar, but as more than what he’d always been; his daughter was a genius, possibly the smartest woman in Latelyspace. She’d intuitively comprehend how complicated a task it was to first locate someone not on the planet and then the even more difficult operation of contacting them with nothing more than a proteus.

  Tomas placed the call.

  xxx

  Naoko took the call, face slack with surprise. “F-father.”

  Tomas nodded, face wreathed in smoke. “Daughter.”

  “T-this call …” Naoko’s lips moved independently for a few seconds before giving up. “You … how …”

  Tomas puffed on his pipe. “An old man is entitled to his little secrets, Daughter. By contrast, a young woman is allowed very few. Are you in the company of Garth Nickels?”

  Naoko shook her head. Images of the almost-handsome Garth Nickels, with his wicked blue eyes and easy grin that hid the worst pains imaginable, flashed in her memory. He would be so alone without her. “I … I am not, Father. There is … there have been … complications.”

  Tomas glanced off-Screen. “This … Zhivago is listed as an ‘agricultural ship’. For ‘livestock’. Have you decided to cast off the mantle of Spaceport Supervisor to move into farming?” he nodded. “Feeding people is a noble cause.”

  Naoko fumed and fretted. Her father was no fool. Triply not, for finding her so quickly, moreso for learning the identity of the ship and its assignation. Even as she sat there trying to figure out how her Father had accomplished all of this without being arrested, Naoko settled on the most obvious choice: the entertainment satellites. Powerful enough to beam data from Hospitalis to any other planet –or, in this case, space station- in Latelyspace, there was no other system save those in use by the government capable of doing as he’d done. She smiled, dipping her head in acknowledgment. “Elegant.”

  “Thank you, Daughter.”
Tomas wondered what solution his young daughter had arrived at.

  “And also impossible.” A grin tugged at the corner of Naoko’s mouth.

  “I may not have a fancy nickname, Daughter mine, and I may not be the scourge and terror of wicked men and women everywhere, but I wrote the first new avatar this solar system of gangly giants had seen in over four hundred years. I know things that may not have occurred to you just yet and there has always been a need for engineers to work on equipment without managers underfoot, no?”

  Naoko’s heart clenched in her chest. She wanted to weep. She wanted to run away and hide. She wanted to pretend her father hadn’t just called her Lady Ha to her face. She did none of those things, mostly because she saw a gleam of ferocious pride in her aged father’s eyes that burned away all the fear, all the doubt. How long had he known? Known and said nothing, nodding and smiling and pretending to believe her sometimes-outrageous lies about sleepovers, or that work demanded all her free time?

  Tomas continued, slowly, with careful measure. “Still, you have done an old man proud. It is not the life I wanted for you. We are living a life I would have never chosen, but we must take what we are given. You have done wonderful things and will continue to do so.”

  Tomas grimaced; the connection was weak, the picture grainy, and his daughter was doing her best not to look right into the camera, but everything said she’d been hurt and was crying. He’d raised Naoko on his own. He knew when she was hurt, or sad. The old man wished he could do more than reach through space and talk to his daughter. Wished for the first time in a very long time that he held the power he’d once commanded.