Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  “There is no telling.” Vasily opened his hands again. “Perhaps Bishop learned of Tomas’ skills and intends to use Naoko to draw the father out. Perhaps there is more to Naoko than meets the eye. Tomas himself remains an enigma, and that is quite a feat in itself.”

  “Keep me posted, OverCommander. If this … Zhivago rears up and it is convenient, we need to capture … er … liberate … Naoko Kamagana. For Tomas. A father shouldn’t be separated from his daughter.”

  “For Tomas.” Vasily nodded in agreement, though he felt a stab of worry over the gleam in Alyssa’s eyes; Jordan Bishop never did anything without benefitting from it, and if he’d wanted Tomas, he would’ve taken Tomas. No, the Conglomerate warlord had taken Naoko on purpose. Knowing this, Alyssa would never return daughter to father, not without finding out what made one young girl so valuable in the first place. Then … then it was likely Tomas would receive a sorrowful stock flash from the Regime announcing the sad death of his one and only during the ‘rescue process’.

  Alyssa’s proteus chimed, as did Vasily’s. Hollyoak.

  The two of them listened in silence as the diminutive homunculus screeched and screamed, wept and howled over the destruction of Hamilton Barnes’ resurrection chamber. Reams of data flooded the office ‘LINKs, information pulled directly out of The Peak’s comprehensive security systems. Over top the recording of the old machinery suddenly and inexplicably exploding with violent fury, Hollyoak continued weeping and sobbing in his rapid-fire high-pitched stammer, begging the both of them to not kill him, to leave him alone, that it wasn’t his fault.

  Vasily schooled his face with utter caution. To betray his absolute pleasure at the destruction of what was nothing less than a total perversion of life would be to risk his own. Alyssa had been utterly reliant on the services provided by Hamilton Barnes and now, with the machine bringing him back from the dead ruined beyond all hope, the man’s implacable loyalty was a precious commodity. Barnes had become a coin that couldn’t be squandered recklessly.

  A yawning chasm of blackness swarmed over Alyssa as she fully absorbed what Hollyoak was saying. An eye started twitching. She fought the urge to order the scientist’s death. They needed him to complete his work on the engines that would get their soldiers to neighboring solar systems. Without the midget’s vast intellect, her plan to steal whole galaxies from Trinity would remain nothing more than dreams.

  Alyssa ended the video feed amidst a warbling soliloquy on the top ten reasons why he, Hollyoak, should be allowed to live. The Chairwoman rubbed her hands together thoughtfully, mastering the black urges running riot through her. “Well. Don’t pretend you aren’t pleased, Vasily. You’ve never made your dislike of Barnes a secret.”

  Vasily smiled an easy grin and pulled Alyssa out of her chair and onto his lap once more. “I wouldn’t dream of it. And unless something has gone terribly wrong, you still have Hamilton, yes?”

  Alyssa kissed Vasily passionately. “Yes, there is that.”

  The Liberated Farmer’s Front of Hospitalis

  When confronted with overwhelming odds, Ute did as he always did; he considered the intent and skill of those arrayed against him and waited to see what was going to happen next. The half-dozen burly men arrayed around in a semicircle were very comfortable with their weapons and betrayed no tremors of fear at the thought of killing a man. They weren’t –and never had been- soldiers; training for the God Army left an indelible mark on you. Even if you were only in for a year, that year remained stamped on you for the rest of your days.

  These men were hard enough to be soldiers, though, and little wonder; they were far away from ‘civilization’ and shubin were volatile. Genetically bred to be big to feed the ever-growing Latelian population, there was a tweak somewhere in their tiny little brains that sent them into a rampage at the slightest provocation, which meant the men here had learned how to fight and shoot against five to fifty ton marauding animals with horns as big as a man. There were very few distinct differences between God soldiers and shubin.

  “Impressive.” Ute was impressed. It took stones the size of watermelons to stand your ground when the ground itself was in flux, and it was obvious these men had been herdsmen their entire lives. “I assume you deal with poachers.”

  Cromwell’s face twisted into a grin. “Ayup, surely do.” he spat, then gestured at Ute. “Y’fought, din’t ya’ll?”

  A dry smile twisted Ute’s lips. The sa thought he was being insightful, pointing that out, but really, anyone with a quarter of a brain could tell he’d fought. You didn’t get to be as big as he was without long-term service to the Regime and the Chair. Most ignored the fact because everything else about him was at odds with his undeniable service; he didn’t act or sound like a Goddie of any flavor, so it was easier for everyone to pretend. “I did.”

  Cromwell leaned up against the vehicle they’d taken from the giant sa and thoughtfully stared up at the sky. “Now, Army man, we got ourselves a bit of a problem, as it were. See, we up here at th’ farm, we go months an’ months without seein’ a dang soul, ‘ceptin’ o’ course the delivery planes an’ whatnot.”

  “But?”

  Cromwell took a deep breath. “In the last coupla days, we been practically invaded by strangers. Ain’t that raght, fellers?”

  The ‘fellers’ nodded, faces dark.

  “I’m going to put my hands down.” Ute did as promised when the lead captor didn’t say anything. As he did so, the ex-soldier noticed that two of the men holding rifles at him were carrying Sonnhauser 6’s, specially modified slug-throwers not available to the public; they were big, big guns, big enough to put holes through Onesies and as such, were strictly regulated. Boys from Landmark would use guns like that, and would have the political connections to buy them. Oh, Candall must be livid. “Why are you talking like that?”

  Cromwell ran a hand across the back of his neck. Late at night, just before he went to sleep, he asked himself that very same question, repeatedly. Then he woke up in the morning and sounded the way he sounded, until it was time to put his head back on the pillow. It was the same with the others. “Whut does how Ah talk got to do with anything?”

  A few of the boys heard the tension in Cromwell’s voice and took care to re-aim their weapons. Their boss started talking again. “Now, Ah c’n tell ya’ll ain’t with the gummint no more on account o’ how yer dressed. Ah c’n tell y’ain’t here to rob us as y’ain’t got no guns. Whut in the hell’re ya’ll doin’ here then?”

  The man’s accent –if that was what you’d call it- was strangely soothing, like a lullaby, but Ute was an ex-Goddie, and you didn’t get to stay one by being weak-willed. Quite the opposite. “Sometime yesterday, a group of men approached you. Possibly they arrived with ships capable of carrying extremely large objects that weigh … a lot.”

  The men shuffled their feet and looked askance at Cromwell, whose face was set in stone.

  Ute continued. “I am certain that these men identified themselves as being from a company called Landmark Reclaimers and that they were coming to you on behalf of …” Here, the giant sighed mentally, exasperated at having to say the name out loud, “on behalf of UltraMegaDynamaTron, a new Conglomerate.”

  “They was lyin’.” Cromwell replied handily. “They work for the gummint, an’ we already tole them sumbitches they ain’t gettin’ their bullet back ‘lessin’ they pay. Killed a buncha cows, son, and one o’ the best dang bulls we ever had.” He’d already spoken to Orin about laying the death of that bull at the Regime’s feet; their employer didn’t want anyone to know that they’d had lunch with an Enforcer, or that they’d given him transportation. As rough and as tumble as they all were, if they really upset the Regime, they knew their days would be numbered. Why, hadn’t they just heard that the Chairwoman had launched missiles at some poor fool or other? They didn’t want that to happen to them, nosir.

  “They don’t work for the, ah, ‘gummint’.” Ute replied softly. “What do you have agai
nst the Regime?”

  “They refuse to accept their r’sponsibilities.” A new voice from the top of the stairs leading into the main house filled the air. “And as such, we, the Liberated Farmer’s Front, are going to keep on takin’ hostages until we are repaid for what was stolen from us.”

  There was no point in trying to figure out what the Liberated Farmer’s Front was, or why they were all taking like weirdoes; it was clear to Ute as he stood there at gunpoint that something bizarre had happened to all these men. All that mattered was that the main man had finally decided to show up. “Sa Orin, I believe?”

  “Ayup.”

  Ute tracked the old sa as he walked down the stairs. At a single word, a gesture, even, from this sa and everyone would open fire, riddling him with bullets. Naturally, the only weapons he needed to worry about were the 6’s. They wouldn’t kill him outright as nothing terrestrial could, but they could cause him considerable grief and discomfort until he healed. Bullets from an S-6 were thick around as a small child’s fist and designed to shred a Goddie’s subdermal mesh with micro-pellet explosives. If Vasily learned of these weapons being in the hands of ranchers … the planet would lose half a thousand acres.

  “I bin listenin’ in to what ya’ll have t’say.” Orin commented amiably. “An’ I ain’t heard much.”

  “We’ve only just begun, Sa Orin.” Ute shifted his weight from one foot to the other and instantly regretted it; one of the younger men panicked and opened fire, forcing the ex-soldier to bat the bullet out of the way as it hurtled towards him.

  The bullet, smacked out of the way with the force of a Foursie’s own speed and phenomenally dense skin, whistled back the way it’d come, plocking loudly into a wall of the building behind them all.

  “Ouch.” Ute shook his hand. His fingers smarted. He waited patiently while the men moved closer, ensuring that their next shots wouldn’t miss. There was no point in mentioning that they were now all within his reach, but he saw by the grim expressions on both the unnamed security supervisor and Sa Orin that they knew. It was enough.

  Ute cleared his throat and waited ­–patiently, again- for everyone to settle down. “The men I am assuming you have merely captured are members of a group called Landmark Reclamations and they are in the temporary employ of UltraMegaDynamaTron. They did come here to offer you an outlandish sum of money for the massive duronium bullet that landed somewhere on your property. I have come here to make sure you haven’t hurt any of them and to make you the same offer. Now, I don’t know what is going on with you people, why you’re talking the way you’re talking or why you’ve spontaneously decided to become some kind of militia group. These are not my problems. I have an employer who requires a huge deposit of duronium. In a hurry. He has little time to mess around with fringe lunatics. What he does have is a ridiculous amount of money and a willingness to throw it around like confetti.”

  “Who is yore ‘employer’, then, son?” Orin asked, trying to will his men to back away from the calm giant. He’d never seen a man smack a bullet away before. At least, not live and in the flesh. Back when he’d been young, when footage from ancient God Army conquests had still been available to the public, he’d seen it then. There was only one kind of soldier who could do that, and well, he reckoned they were mighty lucky the fellow was being as kind as patient as he was.

  “Garth Nickels. The Offworlder who joined our noble society.”

  “Aw hell, Ah thought they was lyin’ about that.” Orin threw his hat on the ground and spat. “Sumbitch. Fellas, put yore guns down. This here fella coulda stomped ya’ll flat like a spastic bull after a four-day rut.”

  The assembled men lowered their weapons, faces twisted with doubt.

  Ute smiled. “Excellent. Shall we begin negotiations?”

  “Ayup.” Orin snapped an order to Cromwell. “Git those idjits loose, Crommie, an’ give ‘em the coordinates to the bullet, all raght? The big sa and Ah’re gonna talk numbers.” The old man looked at Ute, who’d moved to stand next to him. “They ain’t gonna try an’ shoot mah boys or anythin’, are they?”

  Ute shook his head. “I’ll tell them not to.”

  Orin clapped a hand on Ute’s shoulder. “Excellent. Now, have ya’ll ever had barbecued shubin? Ah come up with this sauce that y’put on…”

  Fight Club, Latelian Style

  Garth read the list over for the hundredth time, then started in on the new rules that the Promoters had unleashed on an unsuspecting system and cursed the Chairwoman for around about the millionth time since landing on the planet.

  Oh, the Promoters had gone out of their way to state –time and again- in the new rules that they’d come up with this truncated, quick and easy finish to the Game so that peace and order could be restored to Hospitalis and all the other planets, but even other Latelians were blaming the Chairwoman for the act.

  ‘All Contestants save the Final Contestant shall meet with one another in the ring at the same.’

  There was no other way to read that than ‘eight gargantuan super-soldiers are going to dogpile on a tiny Offworlder in the hopes that one will squash him flat’.

  Doans wanted him gone. That was a fact. He’d always known it, had even –time permitting- wondered why she’d never been as obvious about it as right now. This, though, this, was blatant.

  Garth yawned and stretched his legs. If the Chairwoman wanted him gone so badly, why didn’t she just hire an assassin to do the deed? Oh, right, he already had an assassin waiting in the wings to snuff him, an assassin blatantly powerful enough to float above Port City in that weird-ass spaceship of his without being bothered at all.

  Free of Bravo’s interference, Garth found himself wishing he’d stuck with the fire and brimstone, Full On Apocalypse Specter that he’d been gearing up to unleash on Hospitalis. It was only ever for a few seconds at a time, but it brought a smile to his lips.

  Garth’s eyes strayed back to the list, which Herrig had … acquired at a decent price. There was one thing you could always count on in a Regime, especially during Martial Law: greed. Shockingly low-balled greed, but greed all the same. Herrig refused to comment on what’d come out of UltraMegaDynamaTron coffers, but Garth knew it had to be a million or less or the ex-banker would’ve gone all sigh-y hangdog, possibly removing his glasses at some point to massage the bridge of his nose.

  Eight names, theoretically chosen at random. Well, okay, not exactly at random, but near enough; according to Naoko, there wasn’t an avatar or cluster of avatars in the system sophisticated enough to come anywhere near eighty-five percent accuracy when trying to pick ‘winners’. It was one of the reasons why The Game Promoters had permission to use the Quantum Tunnel to talk to a branch of Bettor and Bettor; if the machine code couldn’t handle the betting, then the eight names he read over and over again were just random names.

  ‘Weapons of simple design are still permitted, pending final approval of onsite technicians’.

  Garth snickered. Doans didn’t trust him, and with good goddamn reason. He was a stellar-class inventor of the most amazing things and she was wily enough to realize that ‘simple design’ didn’t really mean much to a guy like him; the gravnetic generators –the remainder of which Oscar had jacked for some inscrutable -were, technically, simple.

  ‘Contestants in the Ring may choose to fight singly or en masse, depending on the whim and desires of the Contestants themselves. No penalties will be assigned to anyone who could be found of violating ‘traditional’ laws.’

  That was the new rule that honked him off the most. It really was Fight Club, only with the aforementioned super-soldiers looking to pull him apart like a grasshopper. It sucked. Even before, even at the height of his sheathe-born superpower-dom, it would’ve been goddamn hard to win against odds like those. There wasn’t a name on the list that wasn’t a Foursie.

  If this were thirty thousand years ago, if he weren’t so eternally separated from the moment of his paradoxical return to this Unreality, the fight
wouldn’t be a fight, it’d be a massacre. There wasn’t a Foursie alive that matched a Kith or a Kin in terms of skill, power and … insanity and he’d ripped those Heshii-loving bastards to shreds with hard light.

  But it wasn’t thirty thousand years ago. It was now, right now, today. He had no reality-spawned, rule-breaking abilities. He had his heritage gifts, but those were buried under genetic-level locks and threatened to exsanguinate him every time they were used, so there was no soft light approach either.

  Garth stretched his legs again and peered out the window. The sentries posted outside one of the training facilities Herrig had tracked down for him weren’t paying him any attention, which was nice. He was one guy, sitting in a car, in the early morning. He wasn’t breaking any of the Chairwoman’s laws so didn’t warrant any attention at all.

  At the end of the day, the new rules didn’t matter. The simple design restrictions weren’t hard to work with, and he had an idea for a weapon that no Latelian had ever seen before because they’d never seen Indiana Jones movies.

  Hopefully, the impending Garth Nickels Dogpile on Systemic Television wouldn’t really matter much anyway. If regular citizens found out what he was going to try to do, they’d probably boo him off the planet. Hell, odds were they’d start a lynch party and hound him, burning him in effigy when or if they couldn’t burn him.

  Garth opened the car door and headed across the pavilion.

  xxx

  “You want me to what?” Mari asked slowly, brain actually reeling from the request.

  “Quit?” Garth suggested hopefully, pretending he wasn’t bizarrely attracted to the ten foot tall female Foursie. She was … hot. Gigantic, but hot. It was like looking at a regular skin-colored She-Hulk, only with curly blonde hair and stupendous bone structure. “I want you to quit.”