The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “Alvin,” she said. “Call me Mia, please.”

  “Gladly,” Noorland said. “Got to ask, what the three of you doing in a place like this? Summoner trouble?”

  Scott shook his head, a look passing across his face of smug glee and Pete thought he got what his friend might be thinking.

  “Well we’re looking for a particle barrier,” he said, trying to sound offhand. “You know, for trapping ghosts. But there’s nowhere here on the island that sells them. So, we tried here to see if there were any we could…”

  “Or build one,” Mia offered. “How hard can it be?”

  Noorland paused for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Mia, you have no idea. To build not just a working particle barrier but an effective one is not an easy thing. Everyone talks about building one but the trick is doing it so it won’t blow up on you. They’re finickity bits of equipment at the best of times. You won’t find one here. Not one that can be fixed. It’d take more time than I imagine you need to do it up to standard. It’d be quicker to build a stop-gap one from scratch.”

  “Which we were sort of trying to do,” Scott said quietly. Noorland studied him with an amused look as he took in the words.

  “Kid, I like your spirit. You got any experience of protoplasmic-repellent designs? Automated frequency modulators? Phase shift oscillators? You got Thomas Rogan’s number?”

  “Wait, what was that first one again?” Scott asked. “Thought that was a brand of deodorant.” He grinned a little as he said it and Noorland shook his head.

  “Thought so.”

  “Well,” Pete interrupted. “I’m sure what he meant to say was we’d find someone with experience of all that to knock one up. Someone with mad engineering skills. I mean there has to be someone on this island capable of doing that, right?”

  “Lik?” Noorland glanced back behind the counter at the owner of the store, the heavyset man pricking his ears up at the ongoing conversation. “You want to build them a particle barrier?”

  “Could. Got stuff on though. Might take a week at least. Need some fresh parts. Going to cost you.” His voice was slow and ponderous, he rubbed his thumb and finger together as he mentioned cost and Pete hid a smirk. Oh, how had he guessed that was coming? He didn’t know how much Scott wanted to spend but he had a feeling he might be about to be fleeced here.

  “How much?” Scott asked. By the wary sound in his voice, it looked like he’d had the same thought, Pete noted.

  Lik pondered for a moment, his lips moving soundlessly as he muttered a few sums to himself and then grinned, showing several missing teeth in his smile. “You want it quick?”

  “As soon as possible,” Scott said.

  More silent mutterings, he moved onto counting on his fingers. Lik gave him a grin. “Thousand credits and I have it done by the end of the week.”

  That was the point Scott stood up straight, turned around and walked out the store, hands in his pockets. Mia glanced after him and shrugged. “Think he means that as a no,” she said apologetically. “I’m sorry, he could have…”

  “That didn’t take long,” Pete grinned. “Before you started apologising for him. Welcome to my world.”

  He was waiting outside when Pete, Mia and Noorland made their way out, leaning against a street light with his hands in his pockets, whistling a casual tune. For a few long moments, Pete listened to it and then straightened up in surprise.

  “Thought you hated Kayleigh Stafford,” he said.

  It was Scott’s turn to shrug. “Meh, I got it stuck in my head. And I don’t hate her, I just don’t like most of her songs.”

  “That wasn’t the best way to do things, was it?” Mia asked, looking at him. “Walking out like that.”

  “Hey, screw that,” Scott said. “I’m not paying that. I’d pay a thousand credits if it was done by the time my bout was over. Not for the end of the week. Someone else might have claimed it by then. I can’t wait that long.”

  “Has anyone ever told you about the virtues of patience?” Noorland wondered with a smile.

  “Yeah. But you know what else they say about the bird and the worm,” Scott retorted, folding his arms together. “I can’t let this go. I won’t. I’ll go try catch it without a particle barrier if need be. I nearly did it before.”

  This time Noorland laughed out loud. “Dear me. You know what, kid, I like your spirit. World needs more callers like you. I think sheer bloody mindedness counts for a lot. I tell you what. How about I fix you one up. Think I might have something for the job. Might need repairs but…”

  “And you’re just doing that out the goodness of your heart?” Scott inquired. “I mean, not that I’m not grateful for the offer, but…”

  “I’m not giving you it for nothing,” Noorland replied. “I’m loaning you it. I want it back. Plus, payment for the trouble.”

  “How much?” Scott asked. “And how quickly?”

  Noorland didn’t make anywhere near as much of a show of considering it as Lik had. He stared Scott down and smiled. “I don’t want your credits. I want a bout with you. No holds barred. Been too long since I had a good fight.”

  Scott didn’t blink. “Well I got a bout tomorrow. I don’t really want to fight you before then…”

  “That’s okay,” Noorland replied. “Take me a few days to spec it up to standard anyway. When I’ve finished it, we will engage in a bout. That is my price. Take it or leave it?”

  He’d have to be an idiot to turn it down, Pete thought. Although why Noorland, a pretty tough spirit caller by anyone’s standards would want to fight someone like Scott was beyond him. Still, good for Scott getting a deal like that. He wasn’t too dumb to turn it down as he reached out and shook Noorland’s hand.

  “I accept,” Scott said. “We going to be in touch then?”

  “Count on it.”

  Inquisitor Mallinson was back and Wade was already sick of his presence. More than that, he was tired of the same repetitive questions that only seemed to be used to provoke a reaction, Mallinson’s extensive brand of sarcasm being wielded in great flourishes like an oversized knife.

  “Right, I see, so Agent Okocha informed you that… Let me get this right, someone was disturbing the peace on something that looked like a pterosaur… You do know those things have been extinct for a while, do you not, Agent Wallerington?”

  Through gritted teeth, Wade nodded. He wasn’t too bothered about Mallinson picking the holes out of that bit of the story. There were no holes to pick. Unless he was going to ignore about a hundred plus people who’d all seen it, upon which case he wouldn’t be around much longer to carry on the investigation.

  “I guess extinction isn’t quite as permanent as it once was,” he said. His sight was slowly returning, it had been bathed in alska treatments three times now, all at tremendous cost and he could now make out Mallinson in glorious blurred detail.

  “Try not to be flippant, Agent Wallerington while we’re in the process of investigating a very serious matter, will you?”

  No wonder people often wanted to punch him in his piggy little face. Wade settled back in his bed and tried to focus on the sounds of the viewing screen in the background, the opening bout of the third round was getting underway and he wanted to hear what was happening beyond that tormenting drone. Sharon Arventino and Theobald Jameson were about to go at it and he was interested.

  Interested and sad. Quitting the tournament had been the hardest choice he’d had to make in a long time and he hadn’t wanted to do it. But circumstances had been what they had become and he hadn’t had a choice. He’d made his decision; he knew it was the right one but that didn’t make it any less of a painful one. It could have been him standing on that battlefield going at either Arventino or Jameson and he’d have loved nothing more. But sometimes that was the price you had to pay. What you loved sometimes came second. Every Unisco agent found that out sooner or later. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced it. He would have to again no doubt. It was
just as sure as the sun rising in the sky.

  “Flippant? Me?” He did his best to sound nonchalantly insulted. “I don’t know the meaning of the term.”

  Mallinson glared at him. At least he imagined he did. He fought the urge to smile at that. Just keep calm, don’t aggravate him… At least don’t show him that you’re enjoying making a fool of him. He then moved in front of the viewing screen, much to Wade’s irritation.

  “I don’t know how seriously you’re taking this, Agent Wallerington but let me tell you this, you might be in bad trouble here. Choke on that, smart guy. You did some dumb things and someone has to pay.”

  “I did my job,” Wade said. Sounded like the two callers had drawn, sent out their first spirits, he couldn’t hear what they were. “I always do.”

  Out in the corridor, he could hear something. Footsteps. Sounds of commotion. It was probably nothing. Maybe an aggrieved relative. Maybe someone was getting violent. Either way he felt the hair prickling on the back of his neck.

  “You doing your job endangered countless innocent people this time though,” Mallinson said, his attention slowly turning away from Wade. He could hear what was going on in the corridor as well. His hand reached inside his jacket, pushed it aside to reveal the X7 holstered at his waist. Wade might have missed it had he not smelt the familiar scent of blaster oil. “I imagine you didn’t consider that when you were rushing around…”

  He was interrupted by a scream. Two screams. The burst of blaster fire out in the corridor and Mallinson drew out his X7, swearing quietly.

  “What’s going on out there?” Wade asked. Mallinson didn’t reply, moving over to the door, weapon out in front of him. More blaster fire, he could hear people screaming and running. “Damnit, Mallinson, what can you…?”

  “Quiet!” Mallinson hissed as he put his hand on the door and twisted the handle, slowly tugging it open. He advanced out slowly, his head and his blaster out, taking in the environment…

  Wade heard it more than he saw it, the sound of the blaster firing and the impact of laser into skull, Mallinson didn’t even scream as he heard the body hit the ground, the X7 skittering back across the floor into the room. He could just about make it out through the haze of his vision and he knew he had to react quickly or go the same way…

  Several seconds later, they reached his room following the crash and through the door, they emptied their power packs in the direction of the overturned bed.

  Chapter Forty. Blind Voices.

  “The darkness of the unknown often weighs light in comparison to the weight of wickedness in human hearts.”

  Proverb. Author unknown.

  The tenth day of Summerpeak.

  She rose up from darkness into further darkness and the sudden vicious snap of electricity at her wrists threatened to send her down again into the abyss. Not expecting it, she let out a moan and flailed helplessly as the spasms in her arms subsided. She wanted to rub them, get some feeling back but they wouldn’t respond. She blinked several times, trying to take in her surroundings but they were hidden amidst the inky black that permeated through everything. Wherever she was, wherever they were taking her, it wasn’t going to be in style. It rather reinforced the point home as to her predicament. She was a prisoner. Nothing else.

  A prisoner. Her? If Kyra Sinclair was honest, that simple little fact annoyed her. She wasn’t supposed to be a prisoner. Not her. She struggled against the cuffs binding her wrist to no avail, felt them crackle with their debilitating charge and the involuntary spasms sent her head cracking into the floor. She yelled in pain, felt it fill her head. Wasn’t going to be doing that again any time soon.

  “Shit.” It didn’t sound angry. That single word sounded lost and lonely, like a terrified child in the darkness. Her head felt wet. Maybe she’d cut herself when she’d struggled. The pain made it hard to focus, she could feel the sharp throbbing clamouring for attention but not for nothing had her master insist on her training in discomfort. He’d used the Kjarn to induce headaches in her more than once, some mild, some on the verge of skull splitting migraines that made her want to curl into a ball and cry.

  But she hadn’t. And he’d told her that until she did what he’d expected of her, then the pain would carry on. Come the end of some sessions, her brain felt like a mangled sponge but she’d had the techniques down and the relief was almost as potent as the pain. Nobody could ever say pain wasn’t an effective teacher.

  Of course, you needed balance. Couldn’t just solely rely on it. Her master had understood that, even if his teaching ratio had been heavily weighted that way. What was the saying about catching more bees with honey than with a stick? That wasn’t right. Not even close. But the metaphor applied. If you have a big enough stick, you can keep the honey for yourself.

  She wanted to giggle, would have done had it not been an embarrassing situation. Honey and sticks. Who thought that up? Somehow that thought was more distracting than the pain as she closed her eyes and tried to focus through the Kjarn, just to take root of her surroundings. She could see more with that than she could with her eyes. They were the most prominent of the human senses and they were the ones most likely to lie to her. She’d trained blindfolded in the past, gone blade to blade with Cobb while relying on nothing but her other senses and the Kjarn substituting in. She still bore the burns but he had failed to come away unscathed as well.

  Scrabbling for concentration wasn’t easy at first but the closer she got to it, the more some of her old poise returned and she found herself managing it after only a few minutes. A painfully long time, it had been a while since she’d been this ineffective with it, but at the same time she’d not trained for these circumstances. A lot of the time, her touch of the Kjarn was instinctive. She reacted to it and doing it instinctively was a lot easier than planning it out beforehand.

  She hadn’t trained for these circumstances before but she was in them now and there was no point complaining. She needed to do what she needed to do, the only other option was to lay there and do nothing. Somehow that would feel like more of a betrayal than failing to rise to the challenge. She would not be crippled by inaction. She would get herself out of this situation.

  She was in a cell, laid on a cold metal floor. Through the Kjarn, she could picture the rivulets that made up the pattern across it. She could sense the few droplets of her blood across it where she’d nicked herself on one of them. The bars were thick and metal, she might be able to pull them away with the Kjarn but it might take time. Easier with her kjarnblade, which she couldn’t sense anywhere in her immediate presence. Past the bars, she could sense another cell, this one strangely impermeable to her senses.

  Curious, she moved on for the moment and sensed human life far beyond her, her captives no doubt. They were uneasy but professional, no sense of doubt or fear burning through them. There was a sense of calm rationale about them. They weren’t thinking about what they’d done. How many? She couldn’t differentiate between their minds… It was like staring into an interlocking set of puddles all mingling together with each other. You couldn’t tell where one began and another ended. She frowned, filed that bit of information away and moved past them out to the metal shell that surrounded them all and…

  Her breath caught in her throat and she almost lost focus but had to bite down to keep herself from gasping in surprise as beyond the shell, she felt the force of the atmosphere outside. All of it assaulted her senses, the rush of air, the roar of engines, the force of the pressure buffeting against the side of the ship. Still she persisted, expanding her senses outwards just to get a further glimpse. She couldn’t hold on much longer now, her head was screaming with pain, she’d have to relax down and let it go or risk doing even further damage.

  Just a little more…

  Further and further she expanded her mind, farther than she’d ever done before and she could feel it, the sensations of going past her limits. Her breathing was becoming more ragged, she wasn’t sure how much longer she c
ould continue before blacking out, her eyes were burning…

  There!

  She saw it and her heart fell. Almost immediately, she let go and snapped back suddenly to her fragile body, all that sensation of being everywhere and all-encompassing gone in a heartbeat. Suddenly she was just herself again. Limited painfully to her own senses. She’d suspected but to have it confirmed was disheartening. The same ship she’d seen on the plateau. Escape might have to be delayed for the time being. There was no leaving this place right now.

  Even if she did get out her cell, even if she did have to deal with the guards, she couldn’t land this thing. Pilot training was something her master had omitted from her and right now it was going to cost her dearly. She cursed him silently. If she did it out loud, no matter how alone she might be, past experiences had scarred her for the memory that he might always hear her. And he always knew…

  No, she’d see it out until they landed. Patience. If she acted now, the chances of her survival were painfully limited.

  For a few moments longer, she lay there huddled on the floor in a puddle of her own sweat and blood, recovering from her exertions and then her curiosity slowly returned in patches. She couldn’t see the cell from here, not through the dark but she gave it her full attention.

  If there was anything there to see, it wasn’t apparent. She tried to shift herself out, get more comfortable and managed to a point. She lay on her back, head tilted back in the direction and coughed. Her mouth and lips felt dry. How long since she’d drunk? That mountain had been humid, she’d been parched before getting to the top and the mouthfuls she’d swallowed earlier hadn’t cut it. She could draw sustenance from the Kjarn if it got worse. It could be done but it wasn’t the best idea out there. Doing it could cause long term damage because while it might be all encompassing, it couldn’t substitute for actual food and water. If it got worse… When it got worse. Somehow, she doubted this would be the worst part of it all.