Foreign Devil (Unreal Universe Book 1)

by Lee Bond

  Garth wasn’t used to sitting in silence when he was with another person, but didn’t want to say anything stupid. In SpecSer, when you had downtime and you were with grunts, you sat around filling the quiet with smack talk and reminiscences. The meaner the smack talk, the better, the more violent and bloody the memories, the better.

  All his stories revolved around getting absolutely hammered and blowing shit up or were disturbing tales of inciting domestic warfare. And that was just the stuff that he was maybe legally allowed to talk about. Everything that happened across The Cordon was so top secret and need-to-know Trinity would probably hear about it if he even whispered. He had nothing up his sleeve in regards to chatting with a pretty woman on a nice afternoon.

  Naoko picked through her garden salad, aching to tell Garth that she was the rogue hacker Lady Ha. She trusted his honesty implicitly but was concerned with his direct connection to the OverSecretary. Her hacks into government servers were sufficient for her own needs, but it’d be impossible for her to protect Garth losing her cover. She couldn’t even run any scans to determine whether or not they were being watched, which, frankly, scared her half to death. Blurting out her greatest secret in the middle of a crowded café would be like knocking on the OverSec’s door and introducing herself as one of the few banes of his existence.

  “What did you mean, earlier?” Garth finally asked. He poked gingerly at the side of his head that’d taken the brunt of that first roundhouse kick. The bruise was still quite tender and achy. After all the physical punishment he’d taken in the last little while, the pain he was in suggested quite loudly that he’d narrowly avoided death. Rather than unsettle him, the belief was soothing; if he could handle blows like that from an augmented soldier, the possibility that his freaky-deaky genetics were still on the case was a strong one.

  Either that or he’d suffered a severe concussion and he was still back in the Arena, busy dying and Naoko was a dream. Hallucinatory death throes certainly explained her exceptional beauty.

  Naoko dabbed her lips with a napkin and set her fork aside. She looked directly at Garth for the first time since they’d left the Arena. Doing her best to put her inexplicable emotions aside, Naoko adopted her best business-like tones. “You haven’t read the rules for the Game, have you?”

  “Uh, no, not really. Well,” Garth tapped his prote, “I have them here, and I sorta went through ‘em real quick, but I figured it was a waste of time. The last man standing gets to open The Box, right? Lots of punching and kicking and stuff in the middle.”

  Naoko had to remind herself Garth wasn’t a native Latelian. It wasn’t his fault. “That is the simplest explanation, yes. There is much more to The Game, though, so much more. When I told you to come with me if you wanted to live, I meant it quite seriously, Sa Garth. You are the first non-native to fight in the Latelian Game. You will probably also be the last. Not only that, but you defeated a God soldier. That has never happened. Most likely, Sa Antonio will be under suicide watch. Whether or not you realize it, every single thing you do from this moment on will have an impact on our society.”

  Her Game models -while strictly engineered to handle the relatively easy-to-determine variables for the Game- could also be applied to Latelyspace as a whole. The results weren’t nearly as comprehensive and left an awful lot to the imagination, but with it, she could predict certain trends with relative ease, if the effects were large enough. The disturbing ripples Garth’s presence had on the uniform patterns of the microcosmic competition were but a shadow-image of what could happen throughout Latelian society.

  Garth didn’t know what to say so he kept his yap shut. Naoko had more on her mind anyway, so he continued picking at his food.

  “I don’t blame you for thinking The Game is nothing but a simple test of last man standing. That is how it was presented to you, to the other Off… the others.” Naoko took a sip of apple juice to wet her whistle. “The Offworld portion of The Game is that and nothing more. Yes, the competitors believe that the winner of their games could possibly also win a chance to open The Box, but the likelihood of this happening…. The chaos that would ensue should an Offworlder do what no Latelian has managed to do in five thousand years would be crippling, sa.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, Garth thought puckishly. “All right, I get it. You’re offering to explain the subtle nuances of The Game to me, to keep me alive?”

  “More or less.”

  The breeze on the rooftop shifted slightly, and for the briefest of moments, a familiar smell lingered in the air. It was too diluted by the over-bearing odors of other people’s meals but it reminded him of something he was supposed to remember… “Why?”

  Naoko considered telling Garth a number of different things, but all of them would be lies. There was only one truth, and as bizarre a truth as it was, to tell him anything less wouldn’t be the right thing to do. “I …” she began hesitantly, hands fluttering at her throat, “I feel like I’ve known you for my entire life.”

  Naoko’s sincerity threw Garth for a loop. The admission was totally unexpected. Garth was fairly certain he could’ve gone the rest of his life without bringing up the strange sense that they knew each other. He was aces at keeping shit like that secret. His decision to distance himself from Naoko hadn’t been made to hurt her but to protect his sanity; late at night, while the other Offworld contestants slept off their drug or alcohol induced stupors, he’d sat in his room, trying to find the answers to his questions. One such was Naoko, and their … whatever … it was they had. Thought they had.

  It made no kind of sense at all, but the woman was right: looking at her, with her green eyes that changed with the temperature, the gentle blush that was always on her cheeks, the sound of her voice… All these things and a million others that she did without thinking were familiar to him. Somehow, in some bizarre way, the two of them were linked.

  She had to know she was taking a huge risk by offering to help an Offworlder understand the nuances of the Game. The dark undercurrent roaming through the Arena after Antonio’s defeat had been hard to miss. A Latelian allying herself with a brash, arrogant ‘Trinity spy’ was bound to have drastic repercussions on her personal life. The set of Naoko’s jaw told Garth even before he opened his mouth that she wasn’t going to listen to anything but the honest truth. Rather than upset Naoko Kamagana, Garth nodded glumly, put out by his own feelings. “Same here.”

  Naoko wondered if the entire world could see her blushing cheeks, which burned so fiercely that she was certain her head would catch on fire. “Excellent.” She replied, trying vainly to recover some of her previous demeanor and failing. She wanted to gush over him like a schoolgirl with a crush and she had the feeling Garth knew it, which made her blush even more. “The first thing you need to know is that you don’t fight tomorrow”

  “Well that’s good news.” Already beaten and sore before Antonio’s piston-driven leg kicks, he’d nevertheless have still gone on to rescue Huey later that night and, saints willing, show up again for the next round of eliminations the next morning. Learning he had the day off was awesome news.

  “The second thing you need to know is that if you ever put on a display like you did today, someone will ruin their career in The Game to kill you in the next match you fought.”

  “See, now, that just doesn’t make any fu… er, fri… doesn’t make any sense.” Garth argued hotly. “All those guys were dancing around the go… fu… ring like fu … as… ahem maniacs.”

  Naoko smiled at Garth’s attempts at being polite. It was sweet that he was trying to protect her ‘virginal’ ears from his foul mouth. In the course of her duties at the spaceport, Naoko heard far worse things than he was likely to spout. Though she had a personal bias against swearing, she’d never go out of her way to stop someone else from cursing, so long as it wasn’t done in front of children. Regardless of her views, Naoko saw no reason to let Garth off the hook. He could use a little humbleness in his life.

&
nbsp; “Pre-fight antics are a part of the show, as are the flash and dazzle of the actual match itself; a contestant’s approval rating is incredibly important, both for survival and for enjoyment. The end of the match, though, is a time for the victor to respect the loser.”

  It was going to take a major mental overhaul for Garth to stop thinking of The Game like a futuristic version of the WWE; all the ingredients were there, from the cheesy smack-talk, the flashy, impractical maneuvers, and the boring-as-toast announcers. He was willing to make a go of it for Naoko’s sake. Whether or not he succeeded was a whole other story. “That’s just plain strange, but all right.”

  Naoko ordered desert and asked if Garth wanted to share. The expression on his face said yes, but he declined, so she let the wait-bot place an order for a single person. She placed a hand lightly on his. An electric thrill rushed through her with such intensity that it took her breath was quite literally taken away. Lightheaded, Naoko took a deep breath before talking, inwardly marveling at the strength emanating from Garth. She’d known God soldiers with less personal force. “I’m one the best gameheads in Latelyspace, Garth. I know more about the other contestants than practically anyone except perhaps my father and some very rich people. If you let me help you, there is a very good chance you can win all the matches in your division.”

  Naoko’s hand was like a butterfly, while his was a slab of dead weight the size of small bus. He’d spent every spare moment trying to find the source of his feelings for Naoko without finding anything logical. To an outsider, Naoko was probably very pretty and nothing more, but to him, the slender Latelian/EuroJay was a source of divine beauty. It was troubling to imagine that he, a man born, bred and raised as a soldier, would ever enjoy something as rare and precious as love, let alone true love. It was something that happened to other people, to men and women who didn’t spend their days and nights running around battlefields carving the enemy into little bits before having the favor returned. Even thinking about his feelings distracted him, leaving him uncomfortable and confused. Love was dangerous, risky, and altogether likely to cause him no end of pain and anguish.

  To make matters worse, he didn’t give a damn. Naoko Kamagana was unexpected, but there all he could do was roll with the punches. Concerns about security risks flew out the window in a heartbeat. Worries that she would betray him to the Latelian government the moment she found out his secrets –and she would find out sooner or later- hurried along after his other fears. There was a chamber in his heart that hadn’t existed before coming to Hospitalis, and Naoko Kamagana was the key.

  There was finally a compulsion within strong enough to compete with his inexplicable desire to open The Box. Now that there was someone else in his life -however temporarily, however unwise- he found himself hoping that his feelings for Naoko would temper his more irrational proclivities

  “All right.” Garth said. “I’d like your help.”

  Naoko smiled. “Wonderful news. Now, unfortunately, I have a class this evening and another in the morning, so we won’t be able to get together until late afternoon. Is that all right?”

  A smile creased his face. He nodded like an idiot. “Yeah, absolutely. Here’s my prote-sign.”

  They finished their meals in relative silence after that, exchanging the occasional pleasantry before promising to get in touch with one another sometime in the early afternoon. Garth watched Naoko climb into a taxicab feeling utterly, wildly out of control.

  And loved it.

  Looking for Strings

  Jamal had proved willing to die before divulging the name of the Portsider’s main benefactor, a definite sign Sa Ashok Guillfoyle was very powerful and equally dangerous. A trueborn Latelian would worry about that, but Garth didn’t care how; he’d ordered the Portsiders to kill him and to steal his AI buddy, needlessly complicating an already complicated life. It didn’t matter that Sa Guillfoyle couldn’t have possibly known his target was already gearing up to embroil himself in some hardcore shenanigans.

  It was the principle of the thing. He could’ve asked.

  Guillfoyle’s assholery made him Enemy Number One. OverSecretary Terrance weighed in at Number Two only because his plans hadn’t come to fruition yet. Garth personally wanted Terrance to make a move soon so he could have two Number One Enemies; it’d give him another reason to start blowing stuff up and making their lives miserable. What he didn’t want was an Enemy Number Three. That was just moronic.

  Lounging in the most decadent bathroom ever devised, Garth read through the specs of Sa Guillfoyle’s operation with only half a mind. The other half was running down the list of pros and cons surrounding a relationship with a civilian; every time the ‘con’ side came up with what it thought was a pretty good reason to avoid getting involved with a civvie, the ‘pro’ side whacked its opponent over the head, a goofy smile on its lips.

  Guillfoyle was himself a civilian, but one with a number of military and civil defense contracts. According to the files his prote possessed, the man’s primary focus was defense; one of the more interesting –yet ultimately fruitless- goals project teams were currently struggling with was the development of duronium-IV, a theoretical upgrade to the alloy that they’d never reach. To go further with the alloy than they had, the Latelians needed a deeper sense of spiritual togetherness. Without it, they’d never understand the direction their non-existent study of field harmonics would need to go. There were dozens of other projects on the go, ranging from high-impact, low-damage weapons for use against rebels to drug trials.

  Of more interest, though, were Guillfoyle’s offensive contracts. With the climate for military aggression rapidly waning, the man had still somehow managed to wrangle a number of rich deals with the God army. There were no dollar values, but each had to be in the trillions; each file ran dozens of pages, outlining project titles and associated engineers, doctors, research assistants and others, a veritable glut of personnel. Making things even more interesting were classified project files: anyone in their right mind knew that when you happened across the word ‘classified’, serious graft was going on. It was just the way things were.

  Reading through Guillfoyle’s projects and future undertakings put the businessman’s decision to steal Huey into a whole new light; Latelyspace’s netLINKs, computers, and the undeniably powerful programming skills could only take an entirely human design team so far. As amazing as the human intellect was -and always would be-, there were just some concepts too alien, to multifaceted for an organic brain to comprehend, never mind solve. Work that would take a Latelian scientist armed with the very best computational programs and teams centuries or longer to accomplish would take a properly configured AI a few weeks at best. Huey, rated a Level 8 artificial intelligence, could solve the bulk of the Latelian design problems in a few days. If they started on a Monday, everyone could party their heads off over the weekend.

  With an AI of that magnitude in the Guillfoyle’s hands? He had the means, motive, and wherewithal to use Huey ‘properly’. An explosion of ideas unlike any other in the Latelian history would rip through all layers of society, and the entire system would suffer for it. Though each project file made no mention of his dreams of owning an AI, you could easily translate ‘technology to assist in the quick development of this idea is not yet present’ as ‘I need an AI to do this job properly’, and there were dozens of versions of that sentiment laced throughout. Latelyspace or her citizens weren’t ready for the kind of dynamic upheaval the Conglomerate head was shooting for, but the man, driven by greed, clearly didn’t care.

  Ashok Guillfoyle deserved what was going to happen.

  Garth drained the tub a little bit before refilling it with hot water; he’d been in the tub since returning. No plan existed on getting out until a game plan showed itself.

  By now, the Portsiders had learned of the slaughter in that quiet suburb. They’d be hot for revenge, meaning they could be nudged into doing something stupid with little amount effort. He’d speci
fically treated Jamal like a science experiment for reasons other than personal satisfaction; street gangs, no matter how ‘elevated’ they were, were still street gangs. The mentality was the same now as it’d been in the 20th century. Garth imagined long, sleek cruisers stuffed full of Portsiders cruising the mean streets of Port City, angry and full of a desire for revenge, no matter the cost, no matter the risk. They’d drive those streets day and night until they found their target, ignoring all other aspects of their ‘business’, making them ripe for plunder.

  How to use that blind rage without risking his own narrow ass more than was strictly necessary?

  Next, Garth opened up as Intelligence directory on the ‘Devil’s Left Testicle’ gang and scrolled through the information. They were newish, and from their collective resume, it was pretty damned clear they were running around without corporate sponsorship or a real clue. Beyond not having the cool jackets and intelligent-sounding name, the bulk of their crimes were abundantly vanilla-flavored. Gangland assassinations, home invasions, a faltering protection racket, a terribly paltry prostitution ring and an equally sorrowful drug trade. The Portsiders had damn near everything on Hospitalis sewed up tight.

  As a matter of fact, the Devil’s Nuts could probably coexist fairly peacefully with the Portsiders were it not for the leader, Bobby ‘Devildong’ Horatio, and his ridiculous thirst to ‘get back’ at the Portsiders for stealing the ‘best’ members of his gang. The ‘Nuts had lost a quarter of their core membership during the Portsiders’ last expansion phase and dear old Devildong had taken the loss personally, never a good idea when you were a gang lord. It made you stupid.

  They’d since recouped their losses by keelhauling stupid teenagers and by staying out of range of the Portsiders whenever possible but writing on the wall was clear; The Devil’s Nuts were practically nothing more than an urban youth gang playing basketball on street corners.