This Bloody Game

by Dan Schiro

  Orion’s poker face crumbled to a smile. “I think you’ve hit the mark exactly. And Zo, call me Orion.” He re-crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “Now, the big question. Who would want you dead, Zo?”

  Zovaco smiled wanly. “I’m afraid the list is as diverse as it is long.”

  “Prime suspect would be the incumbent you’re running against,” Orion offered. “A durok, right?”

  “Curkas Dur Trag Curkar,” said Mervyn. “And no, that fat bureaucrat doesn’t have the steel for that. But as for a dozen other Union politicians…” He shrugged. “Well, that’s what happens when you try to end lobbying as we know it.” He listed the points on his fat gray fingers. “Then there’s the military-industrial complex, prisons for profit, Big Mining and Big Consulin, all of which will see significant changes if Zovaco finds a seat in Parliament.” He glared at Zovaco with his dark eyes and began counting out more enemies on his left hand. “He’s antagonized crime syndicates, route pirates, cyber thieves and fringe science groups. Then Dawnstar, of course, for his raids on the Golden Bowl systems that swept up so many of their sleeper cells.”

  “Dawnstar,” Orion muttered as he thought back to the fanatics in the sephilon throne room who were ready to embrace nuclear fire. Unlike the Independent Kingdoms, the Dark Spacers from beyond the galactic rim or the fallen Crimson Claw Empire of the vycarts, the Dawnstar terror network represented a unique threat to the Union because they weren’t centralized anywhere. Lately, they seemed to be everywhere, suicide bombing spaceports, hijacking pleasure cruises and grabbing high-profile hostages like they had on Phantak Ro. “What about the first attempt?” Orion asked as he came out of his reverie. “Were you able to apprehend the assassin?”

  Zovaco sighed. “Unfortunately, the gunman was killed as he tried to escape.” He shook his head. “Authorities on Corvis Stoat weren’t able to connect him to any of the unsavory local groups, and the Union investigation is mired in red tape created by my political enemies.”

  “I see.” Orion nodded, his mind racing. It took him a moment to realize that Mervyn had said something. “Hm?”

  “So you’ll take the job?” repeated the great ape.

  “Oh, absolutely.” Orion rose from his desk with a smile spreading across his face. The paycheck would keep AlphaOmega afloat for another couple of years, and the relationship with Zovaco — if he could indeed win one of the 12 seats in Union Parliament — could secure their future. He offered a firm handshake to Mervyn, as was the custom of great apes and humans alike, and looked at Zovaco. Before he could even try to guess at what the trislav gesture might be for sealing a deal, Zovaco reached out his hand as naturally as any human.

  “Oh, you’re good,” Orion chuckled as he took Zovaco’s alien hand and shook it warmly. “And don’t worry, Zo. I’ll get them before they get close to you again.”

  “I truly hope so, Orion,” said Zovaco, the eye on his forehead opening a little larger.

  Mervyn flexed his leg stiffly and leaned on his cane. “We leave early tomorrow morning, Mr. Grimslade, aboard the Star Sentry.”

  “The campaign trail waits for no one, I’m afraid,” Zovaco said.

  Mervyn raised a bushy eyebrow. “I trust that the rest of the day is ample time to put your affairs in order?”

  Orion waved away his concerns. “Ample time, no worries.”

  Zovaco Ralli and the so-called Kingmaker departed. Orion turned and looked down at the Hub through his floor-to-ceiling windows, flexing his right hand anxiously. He paced for a few moments, his genetically engineered Cane Corso lumbering along dutifully at his side. When he was certain his new clients had left the AlphaOmega lobby, he exhaled sharply.

  “Leaving tomorrow morning,” he muttered. “That is not nearly enough time.” His fists clenched into tight balls as he filled his lungs. “Koreen!”

  “What?” she said, storming into his office. “Gods, you howl like a new-hatch.”

  “Look.” Orion spun to face her. “I don’t have time for your lip, you… lipless durok.” He shook his head, trying to organize his thoughts. “First thing, get on the ether line with Costigan and his team, tell them to get to the Hub — now — for the best contract they’ll ever have.”

  “The mercs you used for strike-breaking last month on Solocor?” She tilted her horned head to one side. “Those guys were scumbags.”

  “They’re cheap scumbags, and they’re my kind of scumbags.” Orion strode around the desk. “Then I need you to set up meetings with my lawyer, my accountant, my barber and my psychiatrist.”

  Koreen folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, is that what she is?”

  “Koreen!” Orion grabbed her by the shoulders. “Please, as your boss, I’m begging you, just do it. And most importantly — get ahold of Aurelia and Kangor.” His mismatched eyes stretched wide. “Insist. Call again and again until you get them. Tell them to get back immediately, tell them to be ready to travel.”

  “Because they’ll surely listen to me.” Koreen blew out a double-decker sigh. “Anything else?”

  “Koreen,” Orion sputtered as he pushed past her, headed for the lobby. “Just… walk Bully and don’t complain about it, okay?”

  Chapter 7

  Orion made a quick stop at the small locker room down the hall from his office and changed clothes, stowing his smartcloak and kinetic bodysuit. Then he hurried for the executive tube wearing polished black shoes, comfortable gray pants and a long-sleeved red shirt with a crisp white stripe along one arm and an AO emblem on the breast. His first stop was the Grand Plaza on the ground floor of Echohax Tower, a huge market ringed with shops and cluttered with kiosks and food carts. He needed to see his barber immediately — the old poxgane’s blade scraping up the back of his skull always helped him think things through.

  “Goin’ away?” said the black-bearded poxgane barber, his voice rough with age.

  Orion caught his eyes in the mirror. “How did you know, Skagg?”

  Stocky old Skagg shrugged, his four arms working in concert with multiple scissors and razors. “Seen that look. Man needs a good haircut when he’s goin’ off ta war.” His thick, gray face twitched, wrinkling the scar that ran down over his right eye.

  When Orion’s blond hair had been trimmed and styled to his liking, he went up to floor 86 to see his accountant, a freyan with mousy-brown wings named Eugeo Bentleaf. The small, twitchy man informed Orion that all but a pittance from his reward for saving the sephilon royals would be going back into the belly of AlphaOmega Security. Aurelia, Kangor and Koreen would need to be paid, and Bully had a huge feed bill they had been putting off. Although Orion had used the majority of his trust fund to purchase the office space in perpetuity, rent was overdue for their private hangar bay, as were payments for the company dropship and Orion’s skysled. Orion felt like the cluttered shelves and tables of the small office were closing in on him, tighter and tighter, but eventually they squared away everything down to the last credit. Next they decided how to spread around Zovaco’s seed money to make sure the AlphaOmega team would have everything they needed to depart the next morning.

  “I’ve said it before,” Eugeo said toward the end of their meeting. “And I’ll say it again, because apparently I like wasting my breath on humans who have less financial sense than they do feathers.” He leaned forward on his desk and leveled his owl-like brown eyes at Orion. “You need to find a cheaper headquarters. This overhead is killing you, but that space on the 98th is worth a fortune. Think what you could do with that kind of infusion of cash!”

  Orion shook his head. “Can’t do it, Eugeo. Echohax Tower is the soul of the Hub, and the Hub is the beating heart of the Union.” Orion stood from the finely crafted wooden chair and prepared to leave. “Image is everything, you know?”

  Eugeo laughed with three short clucks as he took a look around his undecorated office, overflowing with documents and d
atacubes. “It most certainly is not. And Orion, if I’m honest, you should have a cheaper accountant too.”

  Orion smirked at the freyan. “That’s why, besides my barber, you’re the only person in this tower I trust.”

  Eugeo eyed Orion’s freshly cut blond spikes. “You shouldn’t trust your barber that much.”

  The next meeting waited 15 floors up at the offices of Shadowglen, Shadowglen and Longshore, Interstellar Attorneys at Law. Orion suspected that Vlad of Longshore, his personal attorney, might be a complete moron. However, people respected the great apes, and the law firm itself was hundreds of years old. That alone often got the minor lawsuits regularly incurred in Orion’s line of work dropped before they went to trial. This was the case with most of what they discussed over the course of the hour, but one weighty legal matter had appeared on the horizon; an artist guild’s had filed a class-action lawsuit against Orion Grimslade III for the destruction of the Great Painted Dome.

  “But don’t worry about that,” Vlad concluded with a sigh as he slouched behind his desk.

  “Don’t worry about that?” Orion almost leaped out of his chair to shake the doughy, hirsute creature. “They’re suing me for a billion Union credits, why wouldn’t I worry about that?”

  “If it goes through, you won’t have a company to worry about anymore.” Vlad shrugged. “No point in dwelling on it.”

  Orion walked back toward the executive tube slightly bewildered. Stopping by a large round window that looked down on a busy lane of aircars from a dizzying height, he activated his datacube and contacted Koreen. “How we doing?”

  Koreen cleared her throat. “Well, Costigan and his crew are on their way.” She hacked and spit, coughed one more time. “Those boys, they jumped at the contract.”

  “Good, excellent.” As well they should, Orion thought — Costigan was bright enough to know whose coattails to ride. “Are AD and Kangor back yet?”

  “Can’t get ahold of either of them,” said the dry voice from his floating datacube. “Left red flag messages for both.”

  “Keep calling,” Orion said through gritted teeth. “We need to be in orbit in a matter of hours.” He took a deep breath and stifled a long string of expletives. “I’m not going to fetch them like their nanny.”

  “I’ll relay that message.” Orion could almost hear her rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. “You realize that you’re due for your appointment with Dr. Tessia in three minutes, correct?”

  “Uh, yeah, on my way now.” Orion snatched the datacube out of the air and spun away from the large window. The meeting with his accountant had dragged on a little long, and the meeting with his ponderous lawyer had dragged on even longer. He didn’t want to keep Dr. Tessia waiting, especially with the news he was about to deliver. He dashed for the nearest executive tube with long strides.

  Orion arrived on the 65th floor at Tessia and Associates Mental Health, just a few ticks late. He checked in with the receptionist, a slim, ever-smiling s’zone. The young female — probably only 15 years old or so, considering how the s’zone raced to adulthood — had long limbs, large eyes and a fast metabolism, like all who had evolved on the low-gravity moon called S’ai. A gracefully arranged widow’s peak of sky-blue spots crept down the back of her hairless white head and neck, re-emerging at the cuffs of her slick suit in a pattern as unique as fingerprints. The s’zone manipulated a holographic interface with her spidery hands to alert her employer, and after a moment she waved Orion in. Orion swaggered past the receptionist with a smile, and the door to Biz Tessia’s office opened before he could even knock.

  “Barely late at all,” said the temba nubu woman, a hand propped on her hip. Dr. Biz Tessia wore a tailored skirt-suit that highlighted her slinky curves. “I consider that progress.” A smile crept across her feline face, and her white-blonde prehensile tail twitched back and forth behind her.

  “Biz,” Orion said, attempting to look contrite, “we need to talk.”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” she said, grasping a handful of his shirt and pulling him inside. “That’s Dr. Tessia to you. And therapy should really be more… interactive… than just talk, don’t you think?”

  An hour later the two of them collapsed panting in a sweaty tangle of limbs. When they finally separated, they sprawled out on the complicated mandalas of the rug between Biz Tessia’s throne-like therapist’s chair and the comfortable couch where her patients usually unspooled their problems. Orion took a moment to enjoy the feel of her soft, short fur against his bare skin. Then he steeled himself. “Biz, we really need to talk.”

  She lifted her head and gazed at him with her green cat eyes. “Oh?”

  “Here’s the thing.” He pulled himself away from her and laced his hands behind his head. “I’ve been offered a job, a big one. One that could open a lot of doors for AlphaOmega.”

  “That’s wonderful, Orion,” she said, her voice level. “That sounds like the kind of thing we’ve talked about. Congratulations.”

  “Oh, yeah, thanks.” Orion cleared his throat. “Yeah, so the thing is, I’ll be away a lot for the next few months, and I think… well, I think I had better cancel… all… future appointments.”

  Biz Tessia sat up, a sneer baring her needle-like fangs. “I would strongly advise that you do not.” She curled an arm across her supple, downy-white breasts. “It’s very important that we continue the work we’re do—”

  “Come on, Biz.” Orion shook his head. “Work?”

  “No,” Biz Tessia snapped. “Between your sex addiction and your abandonment issues with your mother, you’re in no shape to stop therapy now.” She glared at him. “I would anticipate another mental health incident very soon if you did.”

  Orion got to his feet with a groan. “Come on, Biz. We left therapy behind a while ago.” He shimmied into his pants and reached for his shirt. “I’m sorry, but—”

  “No.” She got to her feet as well, shaking her head. “No, it is imperative that we continue, for the sake of your mental health.” She thought for a moment and nodded resolutely. “I’ll come with you. I’ll take a sabbatical from my practice, and wherever your job takes you, we’ll push forward… toward emotional stability… and responsible decision-making.”

  “Oh my.” Orion snatched up his shirt and slipped it over his head. Experience told him that he had about 15 seconds until things started flying and breaking, perhaps longer if he found the right combination of words. “Look, Biz, Dr. Tessia, I think we’ve made real progress here…”

  A full 30 seconds later, a slender pink vase flew by Orion’s head and smashed against the door. He slipped into his polished black shoes as he hurried down the hall and bid the receptionist a fond farewell. The s’zone only scowled as Biz Tessia’s angry oaths echoed down the hall after him.

  Back in the bustling corridors of Echohax Tower, life flowed by as if their affair had never happened. Orion looked back at the solid blue logo on the wooden doors and sighed. He knew he would miss Biz, at least for a little while. He knew he would always wonder if the doctor had seduced the patient or if it was the other way around.

  After a few turns, he came to the sunken lounge in the open middle of the 65th floor. He took a couch in a quiet corner and tossed up his datacube. “Koreen,” he said as the floating device opened at its seams. “Any word from the partners yet?”

  “Nothing,” she said, speaking to her datacube somewhere else in the massive tower. “I left — hey, goddamn you!”

  “What is it?” Orion sat forward. “Koreen?”

  “Your dumb dog is trying to piss over the edge of the 125th’s observation deck.” He heard her snort and swear on the other end. “Anyway, I left them a few more messages emphasizing just how far you had a spear up your ass.”

  “So very helpful, Koreen.” He grabbed the cube and stuffed it into the pocket of his pants.

  Orion stood and walked to
the nearest observation deck to look out at the pink-glowing Hub. He saw that a vast solar panel had begun to creep over the city. True night never really fell over the Hub or any part of the Maker Rings, as the bands always faced the artificial star at the center of their rotation. Yet the long-gone Engineers had devised a system of solar panels, as wide as the rings themselves and hundreds of miles long, that floated above the surface of each band. When each equally spaced panel floated over a segment of the rings, midnight painted the landscape for 11 hours until the next 11-hour period of dazzling noon.

  “I’m not getting out of this, am I?” he growled. The hour was growing late, and they needed to be on the politician’s campaign ship when it departed the next morning. “Fine. I’ll just go get them… yet again.”

  Chapter 8

  Orion hurried to the AlphaOmega hangar bay and mounted his skysled. The curvaceous chrome hummed beneath him as he blasted off, soaring over the pinkish glow of the Hub with the warm wind screaming through his blond hair.

  After a few minutes of down-ring flight, Orion broke away from the air traffic lanes and the city fell away beneath him. For a short while he coursed over the country estates and resorts that lit the landscape, gradually inching his skysled up to its maximum speed. When the SkyStreak automatically raised a clear diamond-glass bubble to ensconce him, Orion flipped a switch and activated the illegal afterburners grafted onto his ion engine. He quickly surpassed the speed of sound, and soon he outdistanced the monolithic solar panel drifting above him. When he emerged into bright sunshine, the landscape blurred by beneath him — mountainous fists of rock, great blue lakes, snaking streams, small cities and more. After nearly an hour of jet-speed travel, the woody frontier of the Kapata Wilds appeared in the distance.

  Orion landed his skysled deep in the nature reserve, as close as he could to Kangor’s last datacube ping. But what now, he wondered — yell really loud? Tall trees much like Earth’s redwoods rose up all around him, and ferns and moss covered the rolling land beneath his feet. Orion listened, but all he heard was the sharp trilling of colorful birds and woodland rodents scurrying through the underbrush. Kangor could be anywhere within a hundred loamy square miles. Orion could try to track him but, frankly, that would go better if he had Kangor’s senses and skills.