Through a beaded curtain, Kanet Solan made his entrance. He looked like his psionic projection, a thick robe covering his body and circuits covering his hairless scalp. At least he was solid this time. Ramus wondered if that meant he could be killed.
“I wouldn’t try it,” Solan remarked, having apparently read his mind. “But you’re welcome to try.”
“No thanks,” Ramus replied wryly. “I wouldn’t want to stain the rug.”
Solan motioned towards a low table surrounded by pillows. Taking a seat, they eyed each other from across the table.
“I see you still love jasmine,” Ramus said finally. “You should try sandalwood. I hear it’s very popular among evil geniuses.”
“Is that how you see me?” Solan replied.
“Well, the evil part anyway.”
“Good and evil are just words, Rowan, you know that. If the universe doesn’t care what we do, why should we?”
Ramus didn’t reply. He had heard the argument before and didn’t feel like retreading yet more familiar ground.
“You wanted me here, so I’m here,” he replied. “What’s the assignment?”
Solan smiled. “Yes, of course. No sense wasting time I suppose.”
Between two pillars draped in silks, a video screen came to life. The image of a humanoid with a nearly featureless head appeared. The face had a pair of eyes and a mouth, but no ears or nose except for small indentations, and the skin was a light shade of blue. He wore a tunic woven from rough, white fibers with a tall collar. His three-fingered hand was raised as if speaking to an audience.
“What do you know about the Erudites?” Solan asked.
Ramus shrugged. “They’re a race obsessed with racial purity. They adhere to strict breeding protocols, trying to keep as close to a perfect specimen as possible.”
“Indeed,” Solan replied.
“My engineer Fugg would say nobody can tell them apart, but in this case I have to agree. They all look alike.”
Solan nodded. “In fact, they use telepathy to tell each other apart. It must be highly confusing.”
“So, what about them?” Ramus asked.
“The Erudites are holding a formal dinner tomorrow night at their consulate. Our client has hired us to attend and gather information.”
“How am I going to do that? You realize I don’t read minds...”
“That won’t be a problem,” a woman’s voice said.
Behind Ramus, a woman in black priestess robes stepped into the light. A respirator covered her nose and mouth while circuits were sown across her emerald scalp. Only her blue eyes remained untouched, their gaze fixed on the Wanderer‘s captain.
“Demona,” Ramus said.
Orkney Fugg, chief engineer of the Wanderer, was usually irritable on the best of days, but without a reliable supply of fungus beer, he was downright unruly. With his captain away, Fugg decided to find the nearest bar, and take Gen along for company.
“Where are we going?” Gen asked, trying to keep up with Fugg who was walking surprisingly fast, considering he had short, stubby legs.
“I know a place,” Fugg grumbled without losing step or turning around.
“A nice place?”
“Not really.”
“Is it another gentleman’s club?”
Fugg halted, rubbing his sausage fingers against his knobby chin, lost in thought.
“No!” he said, making a decision. “I’ve got to keep my focus.”
Gen, with large eyes and an eager expression, leaned closer. “Focus on what?”
“Drinking!” he shouted and started off again.
Sparky Joe’s Saloon was conveniently located just outside the Regalis starport, within easy walking distance from both a brothel and a bail bondsman. When Fugg barged through the door, he knew he had the right place. Filled with smoke and loud arguing, the saloon was crowded with ship crews and technicians from the starport. With Gen stepping cautiously behind him, Fugg zig-zagged between the tables until he reached the bar.
“What’ll you have, bub?” the bartenderbot asked. The robot, his torso and head a faded blue, had no legs. Instead, a metal shaft was connected to a track behind the bar, allowing him to run up and down the rail. On his chest was a name tag that read Joe.
“Fungus beer,” Fugg said.
“Do you want the genuine draft or the new, cruelty-free formula?” the robot asked.
“What’s the second one?”
“It’s made from only non-sentient fungus. No sporemen were harmed in the brewing or bottling.”
“Why the hell would I want that?” Fugg asked.
The bartenderbot nodded and headed down the bar. “Genuine draft it is...”
When the robot returned with a mug, lightly frosted and brimming with a dark amber brew, Fugg relished it for just a moment before downing the entire drink in a single, swilling gulp. He followed this accomplishment with an enormous belch for which he felt even greater pride. Saluting with the empty mug in his hand, he asked for another.
“And keep ‘em coming!” he said.
As the number of vacant glasses grew, Fugg became dimly aware that Gen was standing beside him.
“Have you been here this whole time?” he asked.
Gen perked up. “Yes, Master Fugg!”
“Well, as a drinking companion you suck,” he replied.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry!”
“You didn’t even offer to buy me a round!”
“But you and Master Ramus don’t pay me,” Gen said.
“You’re damn right!” Fugg shouted. “What would you spend it on anyway?”
“I might buy music,” she said. “Sometimes I like to sing...”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy!” Fugg replied. “Did you hear that, Joe? My robot wants to be a singer!”
Joe, looking unimpressed while polishing a glass, shrugged. “So?”
“Don’t you... don’t you ever wish you could be, you know, something else instead of a bartenderbot?” Fugg asked, slurring his words.
Joe stared down at the metal pole securing him to the track.
“Not really,” he said.
Past midnight, Ta Demona lay on a bed in a hotel room. The lamp next to the bed flickered, the light casting irregular shadows against the walls. Now in her early twenties, Demona still wore the same black priestess robes from her days with the Augmentors, even though it had been years since she left Technas Delphi. She liked feeling connected to her sisters back home, their treatment of her notwithstanding. She had the satisfaction, at least, of knowing her powers had grown far greater than if she had stayed.
The hotel was in Ashetown, the seedier part of Regalis. The room was musty and the bedspread smelled like someone may or may not have died on it recently. Lying on her back with her blue eyes staring at the ceiling, Demona laced her fingers together as she relaxed the muscles of her body. An implant connected to her adrenal glands kept the adrenaline in check. Others might have used a sedative, but Demona preferred a more direct approach. Most of her augmentations were designed to enhance her innate psionic abilities, as well as the additional powers the Psi Lords had taught her. However, other enhancements also came in handy. She had even crafted some of them herself.
Kanet Solan had been generous with the resources put at Demona’s disposal.
Wires and electrical nodes covered her head resting on the pillow. Green veins along her temples pulsed quietly. If she strained her ears, she might have heard the two men talking in the neighboring room but there was no need. She could understand every word they were thinking before they said them. More importantly, she could read the things they weren’t saying. Their deep thoughts contained secrets, kept to themselves, but open to Demona’s probing forays into their minds. It was good that they didn’t know she was next door. They would have surely killed her if they knew.
That’s why the implant on her adrenal gland came in handy.
She sm
iled, her emerald lips curling at the corners. If they tried killing her, she knew how to handle herself. Dark Psi, sometimes called Death Magic, didn’t get the name by chance, and Solan had made sure her mind could do more than just read thoughts.
Situated in Ashetown, the Fat Cat Casino was the most popular gambling house in Regalis. Games of chance filled the luxurious halls, filling the coffers of the Si-Sawat crime syndicate that used the casino as an elaborate money laundering operation. Although gambling was legal, the origin of the money that was funneled through it was not. Credit transactions, often through bogus shell companies, were the primary source of these illicit funds. The companies, and the bank accounts they used, were secrets Si-Sawat wanted to keep that way.
Unfortunately, a rival crime syndicate had other ideas.
Wearing a red dress and a pearl necklace, Ta Demona strolled nonchalantly through the casino’s main floor with a Dahl on her arm. Demona was twenty-five years old. She wasn’t sure how old the Dahl was, but she thought his red hair and earrings paired well with her ensemble.
“Your tuxedo looks heavenly, Rowan,” she said with a broad smile.
Rowan Ramus tugged at his collar. “I feel like a monkey in a suit.”
“Don’t be so grumpy,” she replied. “Solan doesn’t normally let us dress up for an assignment.”
Ramus scoffed. “He’s not doing us any favors.”
The slot machines to their right were buzzing with lights and noise, still audible over the steady cacophony of people’s voices flooding the cavernous room. Beyond the one-armed bandits, two security guards stood to either side of a doorway. Both guards were Tikarins, the feline race who controlled the Si-Sawat syndicate.
“That’s our way in,” Demona said, motioning discreetly toward the door.
“You want me to take them out?” Ramus asked.
Demona snickered, patting her escort on the arm. “That’s cute, but I think I can handle this. Remember, you’re just here as eye candy.”
“You know I can do more.”
“I do,” she replied, “but tearing them limb from limb wouldn’t be very subtle now, would it?”
Demona, casting her blue eyes at the guards, focused while holding her hands in a fist. Within moments, the two Tikarins appeared agitated and the brown hair on the back of their necks stiffened like a brush. Their teeth bared in a snarl, they charged off, leaving the door unattended.
“See?” she said, smirking proudly as Ramus rolled his eyes.
Past the now unguarded doorway, Demona and Ramus found themselves in a corridor. With the Augmentor priestess leading the way, they followed a series of turns until discovering another door. Safely through, Demona switched on the light to find a room filled with craps tables stored on their sides. Open boxes contained chips of various colors.
“I should grab some of these for later,” Ramus remarked.
“Stay sharp,” Demona said. “We’re directly below the data center.”
Centering her mind, she reached out and heard the voices of two Tikarins discussing the night’s receipts. Over the next several minutes, while Ramus entered the information into a datapad, Demona read out the account numbers she heard them say in her mind. When she was done, Demona gave Ramus a satisfied smile.
“And that’s how it’s done,” she said.
Ramus tucked the datapad into his tuxedo jacket and went to the door. In Demona’s mind, she heard another voice speaking.
“Wait!” she said, but it was too late. Ramus had palmed the controls on the wall, opening the door. When it slid open, a Tikarin guard was standing on the other side.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” the guard demanded.
“We’re lost,” Ramus replied.
The gangster pulled a blaster from his shoulder holster.
“I don’t think so,” he said, but hesitated, a pale blue glow reflecting across his gray fur.
Demona knew that light well. Even standing behind Ramus, she knew his eyes were blazing with a magical fire. His jacket tore along the seams, briefly revealing bright tattoos of an ancient language on his arms before a thick mat of hair sprouted over them. With a roar, Ramus had transformed into a wolf-like animal, the nails at his fingertips extended into claws.
Before the guard could recover from the shock of what he was witnessing, Ramus had already sunk his ferocious teeth into the Tikarin’s neck. Like an exploding fire hydrant, blood splattered across the hallway, the red droplets painting the wall on the other side. All Demona could hear were the gurgling screams uttered from the guard before he fell down lifeless in the corridor. Ramus turned to Demona, blood dripping from his mouth.
She frowned.
“Subtle,” she said.
He growled before morphing back into his normal shape.
“With you covered in blood, we can’t go back through the main room,” she continued. “Let’s try the loading dock in back.”
With Demona again in the front, the two made their way down a set of stairwells and into a long corridor. Draped in torn clothing and smeared with blood, Ramus received several alarmed looks from the casino staff along the way. By the time they reached the loading dock, a phalanx of Tikarin security were waiting.
“This isn’t good,” Ramus remarked. “I doubt I can slash through all that.”
Seeing the dozen or more gangsters, each holding blasters, Demona was composed, even tranquil.
“Just follow my lead,” she said.
Demona raised her hands and spread her fingers apart. Like a falling shadow, a thick, inky wall descended across the center of the loading dock, concealing the guards in complete darkness. A few bolts of energy, fired from the blasters, came streaming out of the gloom. Both Demona and Ramus ducked, but the shots were aimed too high and hit the wall in a shower of sparks.
“In a couple of seconds, they’re going to come running out of there,” Ramus said.
“You think so?” Demona replied.
This time pointing toward the pitch blackness, Demona focused her mind, sending a vision of terror into the thoughts of the Tikarins. Instead of more blaster fire, panicked shrieks rose from inside the shadows.
She took Ramus by the hand while the implants in her eyes switched over to the infrared spectrum.
“Come with me,” she said and led him through the darkness to the other side and out into the night.
Ramus followed Demona to her apartment, a loft at the top of an otherwise abandoned warehouse in Ashetown. He had never been there before, but it was exactly what he expected and yet nothing like he expected.
With windows looking out over the lights of Regalis, the main room was sparsely but efficiently decorated. The dining table was glass and metal, but the couch was brown leather and covered in fur, cold and warm at the same time. Personal touches were minimal, as if the apartment had been decorated by a robot. Ramus didn’t see any photos or holograms anywhere, not that Demona had any family he knew about.
While Demona was busy uploading the account numbers from the datapad, Ramus wandered off to the bathroom, a bare-bones affair with stainless steel and glass everywhere and counters of white marble. Still wearing the tattered tuxedo, he removed it and tossed the remains on the tiled floor. He got into the shower and, running the water hot, started scrubbing the dried blood from his body.
Steam filled the glassed-in space, enveloping Ramus in a gray mist. He spread soap along his arms, partially covering the tattoos that Solan had given him. They were the source of whatever power allowed Ramus to transform, even if he didn’t fully understand how they worked. Demona said it was Dark Psi, but she said that about a lot of things. All he really knew for sure was the shock his family would feel if they could see him now. He was already an outcast and an exile, but if his people knew how far he had fallen, Ramus doubted they would barely recognize him.
Letting the water wash over his face, Ramus realized he was no longer alone. Demona had slipped into the shower beside him. Ramus wondered if her impl
ants would short out.
They did not.
Later, after they had moved to Demona’s bed, Ramus got up and returned, bare-footed, to the bathroom to use the toilet. While doing his business, he thought he heard something. He wasn’t sure what it was, far off and indistinct. After he finished and wrapped a towel around his waist, he listened.
Sounding like the cry of a lost cat, it was coming from somewhere in the warehouse.
Ramus pictured the Tikarin he killed earlier. The gurgling moan and the taste of blood returned in an abrupt flash of memory. He pushed it back into the back of his mind, determined to rescue whatever was making the noise now.
Finding a door and a stairwell behind it, Ramus followed the sound down several flights. With just a towel, he was cold, the chill of the evening creeping into his bones still aching from the fight. The cry was growing louder and more distinct. Ramus was sure now it was a person, possibly in pain.
He came to an unmarked door and, pushing it open, discovered a dark room. Flipping on the lights, Ramus nearly ran directly into a table stacked with equipment. The devices appeared medical or at least scientific, but he could only guess at their purpose.
Another cry came from the back of the room.
Moving around the table, Ramus saw an apparatus on the wall in the shape of a cross. A man was strapped to it, his arms and legs secured at the wrists and ankles. Completely naked, his head sagged against his chest. He was groaning.
Ramus came closer. The human was in his mid-thirties, his chest covered in red boils and blisters. He struggled to raise his head, revealing his face which was also heavily scared.
“Can you hear me?” Ramus asked.
The man’s eyes opened. Through dry and scaly lips, he tried to speak. “Help me.”
“Who are you?” Ramus replied.
“Help me.”
“Who did this to you?”
The man convulsed, his body shaking violently. Enormous boils bubbled along his skin like lava across a field of fire. Pustules erupted, oozing yellow liquid. Horrified, Ramus took a step back, unable to do anything except watch the human as he suffered. The metal frame rattled and bent, the man straining against it to free himself. With one final gasp, he screamed and went silent.
The Imperium Chronicles Collection, 2nd Edition - Stories Page 17
