Citizen Pariah (Unreal Universe Book 3)

by Lee

  “Kant Ingrams.” Garth supplied helpfully. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I totally hope you do kill him. That guy is a total wang.”

  “Know ‘im, does ya?”

  “He held me and fifteen of some friends captive for a solar year. Threatened all sorts of shit. Tortured us.”

  “Cor blimey it’s a small Universe, in’t it?”

  “Actually,” Garth said, surprised at what was coming out of his mouth, “it’s seven hundred million times bigger than it should be but that’s okay, I can work with that.”

  The two of them sat there, staring at each other in silence, mulling over the ridiculously precise and utterly bizarre statement.

  “Well,” Chad replied, scratching their nose, “that were a bit weird, weren’t it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah it was.” Garth grabbed the conversation and pulled it back on track. “So by soon, I assume sometime today. Because nothing else will fuck me over more.”

  “Erm, we is finkin’ tonight, round midnight? Only cos on account of ‘ow it’s a full moon and there’s s’posed to be a wicked storm as well. All sorts of lightning and thunder and wotnot.” Chad grinned and nodded excitedly. “We is goin’ for a theme, yeah? Ordinarily we’d be lookin’ for some sort of way to kill you all artistic-like, yeah? Like that Bolobo lad. The one in the news as was posed like ‘e was crucified? That was us. We is proud o’ that, even though Mister Annoying Voice was the one who did the actual killing. Anyways, as we said before, we is sick of this place, so we can’t be fucked to come up wiv anyfing innerestin’. So, lightning and thunder under a full moon’s a bit cliché, we know, but landscape art ‘as it’s place.”

  Garth thought it sounded like the cover of a thrash metal band’s limited edition EP release. The only thing missing were naked chicks and dragons belching fire all over the place. “Sounds awesome, actually.” He nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Midnight. On the roof?”

  “Cor, mate, we is two peas in an Unreal pod, in’t we?” Chad gave a little half-bow. “Oh, an’ before we is signin’ off, we feels it imperative to point out that we ‘as got four Hand of Glory missiles and an imperial fuckton of uvver weapons of mass destruction. If you is not on the roof by midnight, we is just gonna fly all over everywhere blowin’ shit up. Understand?”

  “Yeah.” The Hand of Glory missiles didn’t even faze him. Nothing did and probably never would ever again. If this Unreal Universe would do something as completely fucked up as letting something like Chadsik al-Taryin exist, then it would also surely make certain that a schizophrenic lunatic would also be in possession of world-cracking weapons.

  Garth waved goodbye to Chad then summoned up the q-circuit diagrams again. He looked at the clock. There wasn’t enough time to cook the quadronium properly and lace himself up before the fight. He was going to have to use the last of his mojo defending himself against a cyborg that definitely fell into the Kith range of arms and armament.

  “Well, shit.”

  Everyone is in Attendance

  OverCommander Vasily Aurick Tizhen stared at the list of things that needed attending to and decided that he wasn’t going to deal with anything other than Naoko Kamagana. He had absolutely and utterly failed to find the woman, a humbling defeat. He was the bloody OverCommander, for Pete’s Sake. He was in personal command of forty million God soldiers! He could overrun a solar system and conquer it within days and he couldn’t find one solitary girl.

  The facts that Jordan Bishop had been doing so for well over three hundred years, that he had no doubt influenced the development of the tracking equipment they used in subtle ways to prevent such discoveries, in no way lessened Vasily’s guilt and rage.

  If only they had AI. If they had AI, Naoko would be home already. During his stint in Trinityspace –all of it carefully monitored, maintained and manipulated by Trinity Itself- Vasily had concluded that while they were doing just fine without artificial intelligence, they could be so much better with it. Those thoughts were buried in the deepest parts of his psyche, and they only ever came out when he was in the direst of straits.

  And dire didn’t cover the half of it. Dire barely described the first few seconds of the call he needed to make. Tomas Kamagana had already gone out of his way once to risk his life issuing no idle threats over what would happen if his daughter was injured or killed. Strictly speaking, any vendetta or revenge that the elderly Kamagana sought should be directed at The Palazzo, but Vasily knew Tomas well. The old man had risked much by coming to The Museum that day, and Vasily had seen a side to his old friend he’d never imagined possible. No, any reprisals would be brought to bear against the whole of Latelyspace.

  Vasily looked around the room. Empty. It’d been empty since Harredad had brought him news about the oxygen replicators. That news was right at the very top of the list of things he wasn’t dealing with but should, right above the dual entries of Garth Nickels and Chadsik al-Taryin. He was glad his support staff –colonels included- had opted not to return, though privately, he could do with some of U-Ito’s homemade tea and biscuits. It was a terribly sexist thing to wish for, but the woman made amazing biscuits. A junior officer had joked that she should open a cookie shop and she’d shattered his collarbone, a cheekbone and popped both arms out of their sockets before anyone could move, so, again, something he kept to himself.

  Vasily hit the call button and dialed the Kamagana residence. Tomas answered within a few seconds, head wreathed in pale blue smoke.

  “Mm.” Tomas said around the pipe stem. He was surprised Vasily was calling so soon, but chose to say nothing. The OverCommander had led them a miserable dance through the years by being so mulish, he could be the first to talk.

  “How are you, sa?” Vasily asked, gauging his brother-in-law’s mood. Naoko had been gone for several days, something he assumed was completely unheard of in that family. Though he was Latelian in every way, EuroJapanese morals didn’t vanish. Tomas had to know that The Palazzo was shut down over the bizarre little debacle between Chadsik and his still-unknown counterpart, which should have the man frantic; where in the world could his daughter be, especially in the company of the Most Famous Specter.

  “Very well, sa.” Tomas put his pipe down. “Busy and strange days, yes?”

  Vasily chuckled softly. “When the strange becomes commonplace, every day is busy. How are you dealing with the Martial Law?”

  “Fine. A wonderful young man opens his properties three times a day to a rotating roster of Port City citizens. According to the short fat man who assists him, they wish they could do more, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire food.” Tomas’ eyes lingered on the pipe. “I heard that he has come to some sort of agreement with a shubin rancher.”

  Egads. Vasily slumped. Just a bit, but he slumped. The bullet from the Old Gun. It wasn’t as if they’d forgotten about it or anything, they’d just … repositioned the necessity at the bottom of the list. Following the absolutely ridiculous reprisal issued by Chairwoman Doans, every single man and woman in command had assumed that any party capable of liberating that bullet would think twice.

  What could a man like Garth Nickels do with a hundred tons of duronium? Come to think of it, what could he do with a Conquistador plate? Vasily … Vasily couldn’t believe he’d let Naoko’s kidnapping so thoroughly captivate his attention that he’d forgotten that there was really only one person on the entire planet who’d even consider stealing something so brazenly like that. Vasily shook his head. There … there was nothing else he could do.

  Tomas chuckled. “Events have outpaced you, old friend.”

  Vasily had dropped the ball so hard it’d fallen through the planet and was now tumbling merrily through space, never to be seen or heard from again. What was he going to do? “It seems they have, old friend.”

  “I shouldn’t worry, if I were you, Vasily.” Tomas shifted, wincing when an elbow creaked. After talking with his schoolboy chum Alistair, his mind wouldn’t quit returning to a singular trut
h; he was The Kamagana. A great deal of wealth and power awaited him on the other side of Latelyspace, if he but dared reach for it. A prize like that –especially in his old age, especially with how the system was these days- was an almost irresistible Siren’s song.

  The only downside was that he would have to become as bloody minded as Katainn and the rest, and though he was quite capable of such merciless behavior, he rather suspected … he shook his head. Naoko would resist, if the offer came to her. She had to.

  “Oh?” Vasily tried to fathom what was on Tomas’ mind. They’d not spoken in too long. Body language had become a mystery.

  “The young man is …” Tomas faltered, trying to find the right words. “He is …” He actually reached out with a hand as if to pluck the word from a tree. “Not a threat? I do not think that is the right word at all.”

  With what he personally knew of Garth’s antics since being on Hospitalis, ‘not a threat’ was perhaps the most incorrect explanation of what the man represented that’d ever been uttered aloud. The man was a threat to life, liberty, the Regime, sanity and sleep. Tomorrow, he could quite possibly destroy eight God soldiers in the Ring, eviscerate Gurant –unlikely considering the absolute … demon … that Foursie had become since ‘waking up’- and then open the bloody damn Box on systemic television. Well, he couldn’t open the Box. Then they’d discover just how badly Chairwoman Doans had underestimated her ability to control Garth Nickels.

  “He does seem to be particularly altruistic. For a Specter.”

  “Indeed.” Tomas reached for his pipe and took a pull. “Why have you called, Vasily?”

  There. It was out. He couldn’t avoid it. It was equally refreshing and aggravating talking to someone as capable as Tomas; the elderly man had to know he was the bearer of bad news, had undoubtedly realized it from the second he’d seen who was calling.

  “It …” Vasily swallowed, a lump in his throat preventing him from getting the words out. “It … it is ab… about your daughter, Naoko.”

  “Of course it is about my daughter.” Tomas replied.

  “Sa?” Tomas was a man of many talents, but …

  “I have just the one. Unless you know of something I do not?” Tomas’ eyes twinkled merrily.

  Vasily laughed aloud. Having a ‘simple’ conversation with Tomas could wind up being a testament to patience. “Indeed. I …”

  Tomas waved a hand. “She is fine.”

  “You don’t understand, Tomas …” Vasily’s ears refused to hear the absolute sincerity in Tomas’ voice. The man couldn’t know something that he, the OverCommander, did not.

  “I do understand, Vasily.” Tomas took another pull on his pipe, enjoying the flavor. He had very little tobacco left and he doubted that Garth and his man Herrig would even consider supplying the people of Port City with their various vices. Though perhaps if he pointed out that he was father to a certain female … he shook his head. “I spoke with her some time ago.”

  “I … you … she …” Words jumbled to a crashing halt in Vasily’s throat. His brain spun stupidly.

  Tomas’ eyes gleamed merrily once more. “It is amazing to see you speechless, sa, I find myself regretting the sight. I assume you have spent considerable time looking for my daughter, and I apologize for not contacting you.”

  Vasily nodded dumbly. ‘Considerable’ didn’t justify the amount of time. “How?”

  To his way of thinking, the only possible way one person could locate someone else in the vastness of Latelyspace was through their proteus, and the only way to do that was with the Prometheus Device. The odds of Tomas Kamagana calling Chairwoman Doans up and asking her to do so were roughly equal to him doing the same.

  “Parent tracker.” Tomas responded quickly, lest he flub the lie. It was a passable attempt, and besides which, Vasily was distraught. “My … my own version.”

  Tomas was lying. Vasily was certain of that, but there was no way to prove it; if he demanded a copy of an avatar program capable of tracking Naoko Kamagana across stellar distances, the OverCommander was certain that the old man would do precisely that. It probably wouldn’t work, but all the avatar wizard would need to say was something along the lines of ‘it will not work now because she is too far away’ and the lie would pass.

  “Parent tracker.” Vasily responded dryly, rolling the words off his tongue.

  “Yes. I installed it when Naoko was quite, quite young. I assume that when she began designing her own protes, she merely copied all the avatars over onto the new one, time and again.” Tomas nodded sincerely. He was enjoying this.

  “Parent tracker.” Vasily repeated, if possible, more dryly than before.

  Tomas nodded again. “Quite. When I realized that Naoko had not come home in some time and she failed to pick up my calls, I took a risk and activated the avatar. It was quite surprising. Naturally, my version of the tracker allowed me to … ah … force the call?”

  “Naturally.” Who was Tomas? Vasily didn’t know this man, not at all, and the previous OverCommander, had definitely done his diligence in digging into the then-young man’s personal history. The OverCommander was beginning to think that the ‘humble young man fleeing from Trinity over personal differences’ was as far from the truth as you could get before transforming into some bizarre concept too alien to comprehend.

  “Indeed.” It was marvelous, watching the thoughts spin and burn through Vasily’s mind. Tomas promised that if his old friend suddenly blurted ‘you are The Elder Kamagana for the Yellow Dogs’ he would admit everything and figure out a way to apply that considerable power to the continuance of the Latelian Regime.

  “And the … the men she is with allowed her to talk to her Father?”

  “Ah, well.” Tomas allowed a sly smile to play across his face. “Being from Trinity, they didn’t even consider removing her proteus. They failed to consider that the person they were kidnapping was the elite programmer on Hospitalis, sa, an underestimation on their part.”

  If they survived the Final Games, Vasily was going to apportion as much capital as he could possibly muster –and that included stealing from banks across the solar system if needed- to fund an actual fact finding mission concerning Tomas Kamagana. He would bribe every man, woman, child, AI, sentient sponge and seventeen-armed Offworlder until he found out precisely who the grinning elderly man was.

  Clearing his throat to keep from hollering, Vasily spoke with enforced calm. “And though … as you have pointed out, with a staggering amount of tranquility… she has been kidnapped by Trinityfolk and is undoubtedly slated to leave the system at some point, she is ‘fine’?”

  Tomas said nothing. He merely nodded and continued smoking his pipe.

  “And how by all things that are not holy is that even remotely possible? Why are you not baying at the moon and threatening the Latelian Regime with whatever it is inside your head? Why are you not using your next generation avatars to commandeer battleships and Missile Plateaus and whatever else you need? You threatened precisely that not three days ago.”

  Tomas switched his lips from side to side. He really should’ve made an effort to let Vasily know Naoko was okay. “Sa, as OverCommander, you are obviously aware of the only individual in the Universe who feels compelled to kidnap Latelian programmers from their beds. Where others have long-standing contractual agreements with the various centers for education, Jordan Bishop has an ‘agreement’ with the Latelian Regime to steal. A very lucrative one, as I understand, one that has allowed the government to keep this system from self-destructing. An odious pact, to be sure, but even I recognize that the ratio balances out. A few dozen missing students a year versus the abrupt dissolution of a government? Bah. Entirely acceptable.”

  Tomas took a pull on his pipe, saw that it was empty and harrumphed. It would be terrible etiquette if he left the Screen to refill. He put the pipe aside and continued. “Since it is obvious that she was kidnapped, the only one who would do so is none other than Jordan Bishop. While we
… I … cannot know to what ends the man needs so many programmers for, it is relatively certain that he does not harm them overly much. The geniuses of our system are … well, fragile is not the word I would use to describe them, but if they are pushed too far, they stop being fruitful.”

  “You haven’t answered my questions. How can you know she is fine and why aren’t you tearing through our ‘LINKs to get her back?”

  He really should’ve filled his pipe. “She told me she is fine and she asked me not to rescue her. That is, she asked not to be rescued. It seems that my daughter is of such value to Jordan Bishop that he has agreed to return all the men and women he currently … possesses. Some may not wish to return, but again, the ratio balances.”

  The offer was overwhelming. From what he knew of Naoko –a paltry amount given the amount of time that’d passed- agreeing to be kidnapped was something she would do, especially if doing so garnered freedom and safe passage home for those who’d gone before.

  There were a million things Vasily could say, wanted to say, but he decided to go simple. “You should’ve told me.” he said chidingly.

  “I know, and I am sorry.” Tomas dipped his head in apology.

  “I very nearly cost me my own damned head.” Vasily muttered. “I virtually abandoned my post, Tomas, in search of your daughter. Alyssa is … displeased.”

  “You seem quite fond of swearing these days, Vasily. It is uncharacteristic of you.”

  “Ah well. The times.” Vasily’s concentration was drawn to a side Screen. Someone was calling. Routine avatars couldn’t trace the origin. “I … must go.”

  “As you will, OverCommander. If our young man doesn’t destroy the planet tomorrow, it would be my honor to have lunch with you, two old men eating food and reminiscing of times gone by.”

  Vasily nodded absentmindedly. “That would be … nice.” When the ‘routine’ avatars failed to find an address, next level codes kicked into gear. They failed even quicker. “If the world doesn’t end.”