by Lee Bond
“Garth Nickels?” The one in the lead asked, mangling the last name.
“I’m wearing his underwear.” Garth smiled politely, wondering just how much the operation to have their sense of humor surgically removed had cost Latelian taxpayers.
“Come with us please.”
Garth made his way slowly, gently, off the dais. No sense in aggravating squirrely suits. Some of the rioters were beginning to regain consciousness and looked like they were going to start kicking up a fuss, and the last thing Garth wanted was to panic his detail; having a basketball-sized beanbag fired at his head with enough force to punch through a wall was no way to start the day. “You wanna handcuff me or anything?” he asked when he was down.
“No need.” The agents arranged themselves around Garth and escorted him out of the building.
As they passed the front desk, Si Mijomi launched another patented gargoyle smiles at him.
The five agents hustled Garth into a waiting hovercar and strapped him firmly into the seat. If they hadn’t been dead set on doing things their way, Garth would’ve readily announced his willingness to play nice. But since they were working their hardest to make his life as miserable as they could, Garth didn’t fuss when they tightened the last restraint up to the point where stones would’ve bled. They were taking their jobs so seriously it wouldn’t be fair.
The car took off with a faint hum of AG turbines. When they were aloft, one of the agents, the same one who’d addressed him in the banquet hall, turned, a shimmery metal hood in his hands. “This is a duronium-laced hood, Sa Nickels. It is more for our benefit than yours. We would like you to agree to wear it.”
“Why are you even asking?” Garth indicated his securely stowed body. “It’s not like I can refuse.”
“A preliminary report from the body of the man you struck indicates that these restraints aren’t sufficient to hold you in place for very long.” The agent smiled thinly. “We are aware that you are coming along willingly. We are aware that you can free yourself in short order and that you possess the necessary skills to operate this vehicle should you somehow manage to subdue us.” He gestured, and the pilot took up a holding pattern a few miles above the Hotel. “We are asking you to put the hood on to protect our confidence with the people of Hospitalis. If you agree to wear the hood, it will be placed over your head and left to rest. If you choose not to put the hood on, it will be done so, only tightly.”
“I get it.” An interesting picture was beginning to develop. Garth was glad he’d agreed to go along. “You’re taking me to see someone who shouldn’t be connected with me.” He smiled. “All right, I’ll wear the hood.”
The agent seemed relieved, and when he was sure Garth wasn’t going to pull any tricks, slid the metallic hood over his head. “The hood,” the agent explained as the car began moving again, “is made out of duronium and keyed to my DNA. Attempting to remove the hood the first time will result in it tightening gently around your neck. The second time will cause it to cinch up enough to restrict your breathing until you are unconscious. A third time will decapitate. This particular bag is God soldier-rated, so even though you are stronger than you appear, it is unlikely in the extreme that you will manage to remove it before you suffocate. If by some chance you manage the impossible, the pilot is instructed to drive this vehicle directly into the ground, where it, and anyone surviving the initial crash, will be consumed in an explosion powerful enough to turn us into dust.”
“You guys have got your skills down pat.” Garth said with an appreciation he didn’t feel. The idiots had given away their hand by showing their willingness to die in order to protect the identity of the person who wanted to see him. The only sort of person to demand that kind of loyalty was someone high up in the food chain. This alleged ‘mover’ had certainly read his extensive dossier from cover to cover, and was looking to ask –or force- him into doing something ‘easy’ and ‘non-risky’. The smart money was on one of Doans’ underlings; after the dirt Jimmish had dished on the woman’s popularity, Garth was sure all legal options of ousting her from office were either too lengthy or not terminal enough.
Who better to get rid of an unwanted, powerful official than a highly trained Offworld operative who’s specialty was doing just that sort of thing?
If any of the agents took his compliment for what it was, they said nothing in return.
Arrived at their destination twenty minutes later, the men led Garth through an intentionally confusing route that took them up and down stairs, into innumerable doorways, across a long stretch of unbroken interior, and back again, using a different route. They used four different elevators that operated at four different speeds and at least three different escalators before deciding the rigmarole had been sufficient enough to disguise their location inside the building.
Garth, who’d been struggling to identify distinct sounds the moment he’d stepped out of the car, was completely lost. He suspected the hood was outfitted with tiny devices that masked the senses. If he ran into trouble, the only option left was good old-fashioned running away. It’d been a long time since he’d been lost. It didn’t sit well. Last time he’d been lost, he’d used a tank to find the path.
“Sit here.” Chatty Agent guided Garth to a chair and removed the hood.
Garth sat still and waited for his eyes to adjust. The moment he could discern individual shapes, he beamed from ear to ear. He was in the private offices of someone with a great deal of political power; the wall behind the other seat in the room was ornamented with the Latelian Seal of Office, a ridiculously idealized Box surrounded by stars meant to indicate the number of worlds under Latelian control. Other than terribly patriotic, it was downright ugly with a capital Ugh.
An old-fashioned case sporting very thick volumes that Garth took to be the printed matter of the Latelian legal system dominated one wall of the room. The only other wall bearing any embellishments played host to a number of impressive looking plaques proclaiming someone named Terrance Curtis to be just about every-damned-thing a guy could be, from Varsity Champion to OverSecretary. His eager-beaver Latelian buddy was second in command of the entire Latelian populace, and was just the sort of cat who’d find it expedient to break the laws to make the laws.
Garth found he’d much prefer being in some kind of trouble. Guys this high up didn’t like being lied to, were paranoid enough to find out they’d been lied to –usually fairly quickly- and had a tendency to overreact.
A few seconds later, the man who’d contrived to bring him into his presence walked in. Like most Latelians, he was over seven feet tall. Unlike his constituents, he carried himself with the aura of someone used to command. He seated himself, nodding to the agents standing on either side of Garth.
“For reasons of national security,” the same agent who’d talked to him throughout their journey removed Garth’s proteus with a well-practiced maneuver, “we are required to process your proteus for data packets that may reveal the location of this meeting, or the OverSecretary’s identity. It will be returned to you at the end of the meeting.”
Garth didn’t point out that it would have made more sense to take his proteus off at the Hotel and leave it there. He hoped they didn’t think he was stupid enough to imagine that his proteus was safe in their hands. It’d probably come back loaded with viruses or something. “Sure, fine. Do what you gotta do.”
Another nod from the OverSecretary kicked the agents out, each warning Garth that he was under surveillance and that if he did anything foolish, nothing short of a miracle would see him through to the end of the day.
OverSecretary Terrance smiled with warmth he didn’t feel. “I trust your trip here was comfortable.”
“More or less, uhuh.”
The OverSecretary perused some data from a Screen built into his desk. “According to the logs of your entrance into our system, you have come here to fight in The Game.”
Garth didn’t say anything. He had no intention of divulging any
thing that might get him into trouble.
Terrance narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Garth’s stoic approach, and felt the smallest bit of appreciation for the man. “As part of the exchange of information between your vessel and the space station, it was revealed that you are a member of Special Services, a paramilitary organization working indirectly for the Trinity government. Luckily for you, that is all the information the man you spoke with was capable of accessing, else you and I would not be enjoying this pleasant chat.
I myself know quite a bit about Special Services and that most of the work you do for Trinity occurs preeminently across the Cordon, acquiring solar systems for the continued expansion of Humanity. I wonder, do many of the men still call themselves Specters? No matter, no matter. As I was saying, the methods used to accomplish these goals for the Trinity AI can be … excessive … no? From time to time quieter but equally effective methods are used as well? You are a master of both techniques, if I read your dossier correctly. Is this true? You do these things for Trinity?”
“No.” Garth saw how deftly the OverSecretary quashed the surge of irritation that flared briefly in his eyes.
“You are not a member of Special Services?” Terrance sent the information he was examining to a Sheet on the wall and waited for Garth’s response.
Garth read some of the documents passing on the Sheet with interest; since finishing his tour of duty, he hadn’t taken the time to go through all the textual material to find out just what his instructors and commanding officers thought of his performance. When he was satisfied that the OverSecretary had waited long enough, he explained his previous answer. “I don’t know how complete your info is, sa, but I can tell you with all honesty that I quit Special Services several months ago.”
Terrance knew very well what the documentation said and didn’t say, but Trinity lied as a matter of course. He said as much to Garth, adding, “Your presence here at this time is too difficult to dismiss as happenstance, sa. You’ve been planetside for several days now. What is your opinion of Hospitalis?”
“It’s a very nice place, Sa OverSecretary.” The effect Garth’s banality had on the man was immediate.
“Do not play games with me, Sa Nickels.” OverSecretary Terrance said with a deep rumble. “I am second only to the Chairwoman herself, and if I so wish, you will not leave this room alive. I asked you a question, and I am certain you plumbed the true inquiry. I ask again, what is your professional opinion of Hospitalis?”
“You’re on the brink of civil disobedience on a massive scale, OverSecretary, maybe even war. As I understand it, the introduction of the Offworld component to your Game five years ago was done in an effort to smooth some of the more turbulent waters, and to maybe get people accustomed to the idea of the reality that Latelyspace isn’t alone in the Universe. In theory, it makes sense because as near as I can tell, The Game is immensely popular.”
“In practice?” OverSecretary Terrance asked, eyes glittering.
“I’d have to say that things aren’t going as planned. There’s notable anti-Offworld sentiment coming from people who are in a position to foment that particular brand of chaos. Doesn’t matter that Port City’s home to a bunch of legal immigrants, either. The riot the other day at the weigh-in proves that and the Chairwoman’s heavy-handed responses are only going to fuck things up worse.”
Garth gave the OverSecretary a few seconds to chew on that before continuing. “Then there’s your military, which is hugely bloated and probably over-budget across all the boards. It’s supposedly been in the process of ‘standing down’ for around a hundred years, which you gotta know is way too long. I don’t know how many wars and on which fronts you fought over the preceding centuries, but I do know you’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of forty million warriors, most of ‘em those freakishly enormous God soldiers. The pressures and stresses from a military with nothing to do and nowhere to go are well documented, Sa OverSecretary. If the Chairwoman isn’t careful in her dealings with the military commanders, you could very well be looking at a coup de tat in a few years, and that ain’t pretty. If the military honchos don’t decide to take charge and actually do start discharging troops en masse into gen pop, you’re looking at another problem that won’t ever go away. At least not quickly enough to matter. Men and women who’ve spent their entire lives in the rigid structure of a military environment do not transition well and if you dump millions of those behemoths out into the streets… shit, you’d be lucky to have a city left. The burden on your social and economic backbones will be immense. Crime, especially violent crime, will quadruple in the first year.”
“My son happens to be one of those ‘freakishly large’ God soldiers.” The OverSecretary snapped. “You’ve only been on the planet for a few days, Sa Nickels. How on earth did you come to so many conclusions?”
“Am I wrong?”
Terrance raised a hand. “Pretend for the moment that this is just an exercise in curiosity. Tell me how you came to your assumptions.”
“Television, mostly.” The admission bounced off the OverSecretary’s blank face. “The journey from Smash All Infidels to Hospitalis took over a week, OverSecretary. Your ‘airspace’ is alive with thousands of broadcast new channels, entertainment shows, and music. Anyone who knows how to extrapolate data based on popular trends, memes and tropes can easily make informed decisions on what troubles a particular society has. I can easily tell you the names of politicians that are out of favor right now by one-liners dropped in comedy shows, which policies instituted by your government have the highest chance of success or failure based on music videos. It’s endless, really. For an ultra-paranoid society, you leak the most appalling amount of Intel into space.
The number of active soldiers is an estimate based on previous numbers of God soldiers joining in The Game over the past hundred years. The figure of those … guys … making it through to the final round has gone from four or five to all of them. With God soldiers dominating the prelims, which start with as many as forty thousand contestants, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to forty million. And there’s more this time around than ever. Everyone wants a shot.
As for the Chairwoman’s decisions to introduce filthy foreign devils into the Game, well, it only makes sense why she’d do that. With the kind of troubles you’ve got brewing, the safe bet is on letting Trinity have some kind of vested interest in this place continuing on. The best way to make that kind of crappy decision palatable to a pack of paranoid xenophobic giants is to put the people you apparently loathe into the one thing you can all agree is one hell of a good time. Sooner or later Game viewers are gonna get all rubbery in the knees when their favorite Offworlder gets on the Screen to kick some ass. Again, from there, it’s a short journey to induction into Trinityspace, which is something I’ll bet your military leaders are already aware of, and which is where a lot of internal, secretive pressure is coming from. The rest? Historical knowledge, mostly.”
“Trinity has no history, Sa Garth.” OverSecretary Terrance snapped chillingly. “What is your basis for comparison?”
Garth kept his gob shut. Terrance was getting under his skin and he had a tendency to say things better kept secret when he was pissed.
The OverSecretary took Garth’s inability to answer as an admission of guilt. “Let me be candid, Sa Nickels. I’m all too aware that many of the Chairwoman’s policies aren’t the best for this system, but in a number of ways, I’m hampered from acting directly against her. This doesn’t mean I don’t agree with her fundamental platform; I do. Only fools and the willfully blind ignore evidence put in front of them. We haven’t been completely annexed by Trinity yet, and I doubt it’ll ever happen in the form of a military strike. Culturally, though, you Trinityfolk are more socially advanced than we are. Cultural indoctrination is something insidious and rarely stoppable. And, there are things you have that we do not.”
“AI.”
Terrance nodded. “Precisely. Our programmers are the be
st in the known Universe, sa, especially in the last fifty years. Many of our top programmers are leaving to work for Conglomerates who deal with AI personality constructs and some of the more esoteric software they run.”
“Deny them permission to leave.”
“We can’t. Many Conglomerates have ironclad contracts with our government. The … benefits … brought to the table are too great to ignore at this time.”
Government kickbacks were as old as Roman roads and Garth decided he’d done enough dancing. It was time for the politician to put up or shut up. “Why am I here, OverSecretary?”
“Truthfully, a number of reasons.” Terrance accessed a file he’d received, putting it up on the Screen for his guest to read. “I received this from our legal avatars yesterday. It seems a Sa Herrig DuPont was in the process of filing a motion on your behalf. The focus of the motion was your titular claim to our most valuable possession?”
“Was?” Garth queried quizzically.
“The claim was squashed before it could be brought to the attention of someone in the media. The last thing this system needs is a ludicrous attempt at bypassing the Game.”
At great cost, Garth controlled the urge to curse. The people on Hospitalis were just so … boneheaded. The right thing to do was let him try to open The Box on the sly; if something happened, they could pretend it hadn’t and the world would never know. Garth had zero inclination or desire to burn Hospitalis down just so he could find out whether he was imagining a relationship with this Box or not, but he would. Feelings that getting to The Box was the most important thing he could do simply would not go away. He had no choice when the other option was to go insane.
