“Thank you, Mr. Scroo- Sorry. I’m terribly sorry for calling you that,” she said sniffing her nose.
“It’s fine, I’m getting quite fond of the name,” Scrooge said, thumping the old book under his palm. The pages felt nice. “We’ll have to get a contract and everything of course, but for what it’s worth, just say you agree and we are partners from now on.”
“I agree,” she said quick and excited, as if the opportunity could vanish away in an instant if she took too long. She was laughing out loud. “I’ll be there tomorrow, early in the morning.”
“What do I care?” Scrooge said in mock strictness. “It’s your company too. Sink or swim, it’s up to both of us equally. Oh and Clara?”
“Yes Mr. Scrooge?”
“Merry Christmas.”
The End
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What's Antigravel Anyway?
It’s what I call this insane universe of stories, I just like how it sounds, but it is an actual thing in this world. Inspired by the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks, I decided to add a bit of a more human-centric plot and then just took off in various directions.
The Antigravel universe is zany, fun, adventurous. This omnibus contains the entirety of the stories set in Antigravel universe so far, both short novels and short stories.
Hope you like it.
George Saoulidis
January 2019, Athens
GIRL GONE NOVA
Chapter 1
Castor is the fastest driver for about a thousand light years around, and now he has to throw the race for a spoiled fat kid. He revs his antigrav bike and makes some extra dust for the fans to enjoy. There aren’t few of them, every eye in the solar system is fixed on the race broadcast. Not because they’re so anxious to see who wins, but rather to have an extra second or so of warning in case something goes wrong. He drives up a hill and turns back to locate his opponent. He lifts his helmet’s visor and covers his eyes from the scorching sun.
He sees him struggling to get his fat ass past some narrow rocks, but he is soon about to catch up. Castor turns around towards the finish line and accelerates. The fat kid isn’t stupid. Castor has to give him a good challenge, make him sweat for the win. If it’s possible, they had instructed, he should let it get toe-to-toe right before the finish line. They’d given the fat kid the best bike there was, bought from those alien traders that demanded payment in pounds of flesh. They had installed an AI that made it impossible to make a mistake, which was of course banned from racing. Everyone just looked the other way when it came to that particular family.
Castor picks up speed and turns to a rock formation that provides a ramp for a nice jump, but reduces his lap time severely. The rocky, dry moon that this race track is on provides excellent grounds for showmanship. Barely 0.2 g, you can perform the most impressive jumps and spins in the air. The crowd, gathered in a remote part on their bleachers in a strategic part of the track, stands up and roars for him. Castor brakes a little and the fat kid finally catches up to him, whooshing past at enormous speed. The crowd doesn’t hide their disappointment at that.
Castor makes it hard for the fat kid. He overtakes him a couple of times, and cuts him off at a couple of bends, gets millimetres away from touching his bike and causing a crash. The highlight reel shows the near misses to everyone. It’s an excellent show for the fans, but most importantly, for the fat kid. In reality, he is always in complete control and could have him eat his dust at any given time. He gets angry. Who’s he to stroll over in his own sport, in his own domain, and force him to give away his victory? Had the spoiled kid ever worked tirelessly for decades to become the number one champion at something? Maybe it would be good for him if Castor taught him a lesson. Maybe, a slap in the face like that, would show that you can’t just win against Castor, you’d have to work really hard at it. Life lessons and stuff. Wouldn’t he rule over all of them in a standard year anyway, his Royal Highness, Alexander Diairetis?
He shakes his helmeted head. Get serious, Castor. You know that there’s no way to educate that fat kid. Who are you to teach him humility, when others have spent their entire lives teaching him the exact opposite? He decides he’ll give him a good win, an adrenaline rush to remember. He accelerates at the final bend of the track and takes it lousily, the fat kid running in parallel, staring at Castor all the time instead of the road.
That’s how you get yourself killed, asshole.
On the final stretch the bikes rev and glow brilliant blue light, the fans scream at the top of their lungs, the finish line is on the horizon. Faster, foot on the pedal, their places infinitesimally close, the fat kid glares at him angrily, his bike catches up, rocks blast away as they hurtle past, faster, BOOM, they both break the sound barrier, the shockwave sweeps the ground behind them, faster, the bikes vibrate at their endurance limit, the finish line is coming close, one thousand, seven hundred, five hundred metres, the crowd is ecstatic, the commentator stands up to announce the predestined winner and… The fat kid loses control of his bike and crashes on the ground. Castor has fractions of a second for his superhuman reflexes to register what happens. The first snapshot simply allows him to see the fat kid smashing through a rock and slamming into the crowd. The second snapshot allows him to brake hard, but momentum equals mass times fucking speed. It’s physically impossible for him to halt before the finish line. Castor shuts his eyes and comes to a stop. He doesn’t dare open them. Maybe he miscalculated and he’s come to a standstill before the finish line. Maybe the bloody moon moved out of the way. The silence is deafening. Tens of thousands of fans who had been tearing their vocal cords off mere moments ago are holding their breath. The wind rushes through the rocks, picking up dust as it always does. He knows, that he has won the race. Castor gulps and forces one eyelid open.
The fat kid stands up, tosses his helmet on a spectator’s head, steps on a couple more so he can get free of the mass of blood and gore that has absorbed his crash. He looks up at the monitor for the race’s result, sees Castor’s name as winner. Nobody is celebrating about that. For a moment he seems like he’ll accept his loss. Maybe, just maybe, it will be an excellent life-lesson in humility. Then, he starts hammering his fists on his knees like an overgrown baby who dropped his pacifier. He gets even redder than his normal skin tone, then he glows, and then they all die.
The member of the Diairetis royal family who has just lost the race, starts a chain reaction with his rage from a single tiny Higgs field. The boson tunnels from the pseudovacuum into normal vacuum, an asymmetry which starts a catastrophic vacuum decay. The sphere of death spreads out at the speed of light, simplifying all the matter it encounters into simpler and simpler elements, moving down the periodic table step by step till it reaches the most basic one, Hydrogen. It also leaves behind some new unfathomable rules of chemistry.
The black sphere vanishes the moon, Castor, the bikes and the spectators before anything can register in their eyes. In 1.2 seconds, it consumes the gas giant in which they were in orbit of. In four minutes it consumes the next planet, in six, the one after that, and in ten minutes it extinguishes the star, plunging that solar system into darkness.
Chapter 2
Guillermo inspected the damage on the luxury suite of hotel Rafael. Torn curtains, lines of coke on the coffee tables, strings thrown on the couches. Bodies and limps splayed everywhere, some intertwined, tight young breasts peeking in the twil
ight. He only cared for a specific pair of them. He stepped carefully between the half-asleep youngsters and made his way towards the bedroom. He found a similar situation there, he couldn’t make out who was who in the dim light. He illuminated a couple of faces with his phone, and pulled back some strands of hair, ignoring the mumbled complaints of the sleepy celebriteens. “Zeezy?” he whispered, in an attempt to locate her. A butt moved in reply, but it was hidden under two young men. “Hm,” Guillermo said and had an idea. He loaded Zeezy’s social profile and scrolled through her pictures. He found one that was suitable but Not Safe For Work, and held the phone next to the butt in question. He compared them, and then snatched her legs and pulled her off the bed.
He picked her up in his arms. She stretched and pulled her blonde hair out of her mouth. Guillermo was reminded at that moment of the irony that women around the world were getting plastic surgery to look like this one.
“You missed the party, Guillermo,” she said sleepily.
“You had enough fun for the both of us, judging by all this,” he teased.
“Mmm, you’ve no idea,” she moaned in a sexy way that would rile any man. But Guillermo was unaffected by this. He had seen the ugliness hiding behind all those beautiful faces, and wasn’t seduced by them any more.
He carried her to the next room in the enormous suite and stood her up on her legs outside the bathroom. “You can handle it on your own from this point on, I assume?” He touched her on her back and propped her up.
“Shhuure,” Zeezy slurred and eyed him with a naughty expression.
Guillermo deftly grabbed her hair in a ponytail and secured them with a rubber band. Zeezy kept the sexy pose for a while more, and then she retched and ran to the toiled, where she vomited. He turned his back to give her some privacy and shut the door. He looked out the balcony and took in the lovely view, the Eiffel tower from Champs Elysees. The city, the skyscrapers in the distance, the floating wind generators tethered by the buildings who were lazily turning to the wind like a school of fish.
He was happily miles away in his thoughts when his phone rang. He checked it, it said, ‘Teacher.’ “Alo, Joaquin, how’s the palace?” He swiped the call to the suite’s system, and a middle-aged man appeared on the room’s screen. He radiated authority, with his smart suit and his silver hair.
“Palacio is fine,” Joaquin said with his deep, careful voice. “You know the drill, lawmaking, incest, scandals. The usual.”
Guillermo smiled and nodded in agreement. “I’m sure you’ve got everything under control, profesor.”
“Naturally. But I wouldn’t mind having you back, to be honest. You know, helping me out, like old times. I’m not a young man any more,” he frowned. Then he noticed the condition of the suite, appalled. “Having a bit of fun, are we?”
Guillermo sighed and pointed towards the bathroom. Water could be heard in the shower. “Zeezy is a bit… Tireless.”
“If you’d stuck to the royal circles you wouldn’t have to deal with this crap.” Joaquin rubbed his fine-combed beard. “Okay, fine, who am I kidding? It’s pretty much the same thing. But the status level is higher…”
“Profesor, don’t get me wrong, I love talking to you but let’s not repeat the same conversation. It’s done, I’m using the very same things you taught me about royalty handling to the celebrities. It works out fine. I’m not coming back to the royal circles, you got to get on with the times,” he shrugged apologetically.
“I know. But I have a task for you, and this time it’s very important. It is imperative this one is handled properly,” Joaquin said dead-serious.
“What’s it about?”
“Unfortunately it’s top secret. You’d have to accept before you get any details on the matter.”
“Okay,” Guillermo said. It wasn’t uncommon for their speciality, being royalty handlers, or in his case the evolution of it, being a celebrity handler. The people involved were either very important or very wealthy, which made security and discretion a top priority. All the handlers were vetted of course and were expected to follow all safety procedures. Guillermo glanced at the top right corner of the screen, which showed a padlock, indicating an encrypted call. “Is it royalty or celebrity?”
“Both. In their culture it’s one and the same,” Joaquin said, picking out the words carefully.
“You know I don’t do royalty any more!”
“This is a special case. Trust me. The Diairetis family, the proper handling of her visit… It’s a matter of life and death. You know I wouldn’t say that lightly.”
“I haven’t heard of that family. How is that possible?” Guillermo started. There weren’t many royal families in the world, just over twenty countries with constitutional monarchy and a few families kicked out of their countries, like Greece did. Well, those are actually called ex-royals, but don’t call them that to their face. The point was, that Guillermo knew all the family trees by heart, which was required reading when studying under Joaquin.
“Well, you wouldn’t have,” Joaquin said raising his palm to stop him. “They’re an alien royal family.”
Chapter 3
“Alien? Are you sure?” Guillermo whispered at the screen, leaning forward.
“Positive. Look, here’s what I can tell you without you signing the NDA. There’s going to be a royal visit, they asked me to find a suitable handler. And you’re the best I have,” Joaquin said simply.
“What about Francisco? Or Vicente. Vicente is good enough!” Guillermo protested.
“Vicente is a moron. I need you. I cannot state hard enough how important this is,” the teacher spat out.
“Okay. But, Joaquin, you’re still the best royalty handler there is. Why don’t you pick up the task if it’s so important?”
He sighed. “The princess… She doesn’t like old people.”
Guillermo snorted. “Old people? That’s new.” He walked across the room and picked up a towel from the cupboard.
“Laugh all you want. Yes, she says, ‘old people smell funny,’ or something like that.”
“It’s okay profesor, you’re not that old yet,” Guillermo teased.
“Will you come?” Joaquin demanded.
Guillermo squeezed the bath towel. He didn’t like to say no to his teacher, but he didn’t want to go back to handling royalty. It pained him to reject the offer, but he had made up his mind long ago. “No,” he said finally.
Zeezy strolled out of the bathroom at that point, completely naked and dripping all over the thick carpet. She turned towards the screen and saw Joaquin, who frowned at her. She beamed, “Who’s the hot daddy?” and struck a pose.
Joaquin gave an abrupt goodbye and hung up.
Guillermo passed her the towel and averted his eyes to inspect the room’s fine upholstery.
Later that day, Zeezy was huffing and puffing at a restaurant, while her friends were eating and having fun. She put her phones face down on the table.
“What’s bothering you?” Guillermo leaned down and asked.
She pointed at her three smartphones, “It’s the fans, I can’t deal with them today. I have a crazy hangover.” She rubbed her temples in circles.
Guillermo checked his agenda. “Well, that’s too bad, cause you have a meeting with a fan in two hours.”
“What? No, no, no, reschedule it.”
He shrugged. “I’m not your PR guy, I’m just here to make sure you get to the meeting. It’s from some popular blog giveaway, you can’t weasel out of it. You’ve got a contract and everything,” he said, as if it was a done deal.
Zeezy complained, “No, come on! It’s probably some boring ugly bitch again, like in New York. I’m not doing it.” She crossed her arms.
“Okay, let’s try to find a solution to this, shall we?” Guillermo said in a patronising tone. He was really worried for a minute. Zeezy was notoriously flaky, which was the precise reason he was hired to handle her. Her friends were laughing, Bobby was goofing around with a milkshake and
a straw, making a mess and streaming it online to their fans. They were quasi-celebrities themselves, nowhere near Zeezy of course, but with respectable audiences. Guillermo ground his teeth and checked his watch.
He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Hey, here’s an idea: Why don’t we move up the meeting, now that your friends are here? We can call it a surprise, she can meet both you and them. Won’t she love that?”
Zeezy mumbled, “I guess… But what good will that do?”
“You can let Bobby entertain her. Instead of having to chat her up for an hour yourself, you’ll just have to talk for a while and snatch a few selfies, then pass her on to the others.”
Zeezy thought about it for a while. “Hmm. Okay. Call up my people.”
Guillermo did nothing.
She turned around to look at him. He simply frowned at her. Then she said, quietly, “Please?”
Guillermo smiled, “Of course,” and called up the PR office.
“Get that freak away from me,” screeched Zeezy as she saw the mega-fan coming over.
Guillermo gripped her arm, “Five minutes. Give me five minutes, that’s all.” The fan ran over to Zeezy, squealing loudly, her mascara running in tears of happiness. She was dressed like Zeezy from some popular video, but she lacked the charisma to support it. It looked awkward on her, trying to be sexy in those bold designer choices.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” the fan yelped and touched Zeezy’s reluctant handshake. “I’m never gonna wash that hand again!” she said, excited.
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