Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  “Thank you for letting me sit back down.” Garth said politely, though truthfully, he’d rather be standing; his lower back and legs were killing him from sitting in Larry’s non-ergonomic chair.

  Plus, also, sitting while killer rifles were pointed your way was kind of a bummer.

  If he survived the unexpected interrogation, Garth promised himself that he was going to get a top-of-the-line ultra-ergonomic supernerd chair for those long nights devoted to fucking Samiel’s shit up in proper time-travel style. And if one didn’t exist, he’d just invent it.

  “You make my men nervous.” Angela tapped her earbud meaningfully. “Bally over there,” she gestured at burly Greg Bally, who nodded his head once, “wants to shoot you on general principles. Says anyone as big as you has reasons for being that big.”

  “It’s called ‘you can’t add years to your life, but you can add life to your years’.” Garth replied earnestly. “It’s a thing they teach you in Switzerland? Where I grew up? Only, I moved. Because it is cold there and funnily enough, being from there, I hate the cold. Even as a kid. My parents and friends thought I was weird as fuck. Anyways, yes. I am in great physical shape. I can’t help that. If the Federal Government would like for me to design a …”

  Angela handed her Colt to one her operatives and sat down in the chair opposite Nickels. “Cooper here would like to ventilate you because you had absolutely zero reaction to a bunch of armed Federal agents bursting into this place. It’s what she keeps calling an ‘atypical reaction’ to the situation. Most people behave like Larry Cumer outside. Look at him. He’s jabbering into his cell right now, telling every single one of his friends how awful his night has become. If we didn't warn him very explicitly, I expect we'd also be trending on everything from Vine to Reddit before midnight. You’re sitting there talking about how you hate the cold. And I’m pretty certain you’ve actually got one eye on … what did you call it?”

  “Buckaroo Banzai.” Garth shrugged apologetically. “Technically, it’s ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension’ but that’s kind of a mouthful, don’t you think?”

  “It most definitely is.” Angela agreed, changing her tone to something a little more businesslike. “As I told you, you're being investigated for Unfair Advantage.”

  “I got zero fucking clue what that means, Special Agent Devlin.” He made eye contact with the armor-wearing individual identified as ‘Cooper’. “And could you remind your Agent Cooper that at this range, anyone firing a rifle that close to your currently unprotected ears will result in permanent loss of hearing. Not to mention flaming hot cartridges leave wicked scars, and not wicked like 'hey, this is fucking bad ass' but like 'Jesus, someone turned the side of her face into melted cheese' wicked. I'm a cooperative individual. Please notice that I haven’t started screaming about my rights as a private citizen, nor have I started blabbering on about any hot button issues that might give you all reason to transform me into a well-ventilated meatbag.”

  Devlin ignored Cooper’s insistence she be allowed to shoot the idiot, choosing instead to issue a command for them to fan out a bit; irritatingly enough, Nickels wasn't wrong about her team's deployment inside the shop. Then she ignored their complaints about leaving her in such close proximity to someone who looked like he could bench press a small car.

  She smiled at Garth once her team reached their new positions. “Better?”

  “Much. Thanks.” Garth flashed a wink at Cooper. “And in response to Cooper’s interest in my lack of panic, please remind her that as an ex-citizen of Switzerland, I spent a few years in the army as well. Mandatory conscription is still a thing in some parts of the world. So while, say, Larry Cumer might very well shit his pants at the intrusion, I had bunkmates who thought it’d be fucking hilarious to rappel from the rafters in the middle of the night, screaming like assholes and pretending they were going to murder me.”

  When Devlin didn’t say anything, Garth indicated the now empty screens where he’d been busy building the starting steps for his quest for world domination and ‘not-simulation’ destruction. “So. Unfair Advantage. What gives?”

  “Unfair Advantage, Mister Nickels…”

  “Please, Special Agent, call me Garth. I feel like we’re practically family already.”

  “Mister Nickels, is similar to Insider Trading.” Angela watched the lights go on inside that head of Garth’s. “We became aware of your trading activities relatively early on in the day, sir, and as part of the new regulatory commission dealing with All-Day Trading, monitors were set to watchdog your progress. It’s not unheard of for people fresh to trading to experience reasonable success in making quick cash, especially if they’ve spent time investigating the areas into which they’re trading. Beginner’s Luck is a thing, and if people are smart, they call it quits when they’ve reached a certain threshold.”

  “If they don’t?” Garth wanted to shake his head at his stupidity, but gave himself a pass a heartbeat later; he’d never traded a single stock in the original Dream because he hadn't been working from a SpecSer-approved standpoint yet, and the 'Universal Stock Market' in Trinityspace was an entirely different animal again, so how in the hell could he have known anything about any weird-as-fuck rules that could summon your very own personal Federal Murder Squad?

  Garth's ears quivered. The sounds inside the cafe grew … wobbly. An uneasy tension began to mount, and the already tense Federal Agents situated throughout the aisles shifted their feet.

  Someone was paying attention.

  The Engineer refused to respond to Samiel's sudden temporal scrutiny in any way. With Devlin's team already made uncomfortably tense because of the incongruity's remote presence, any frowning or squinting or whatever would see him ventilated.

  SA Devlin resumed speaking once she was certain Nickels was on the same page.

  “If they don’t, they’re quietly investigated for Insider Trading. Standard stuff, these days, especially after the trading floor was left open for twenty hours a day.” Angela smiled. “Many, many brokers and CEOs and other people involved in that sort of thing found themselves drawn, quartered and hung out to dry, Mister Nickels. The new government of the United States does not allow or appreciate it’s citizens the luxury of attempting to profit on the destruction of others. Anyhow. We very quickly determined that you weren’t involved in Insider Trading. All those fields you needed to fill out to begin, you know?”

  “I wondered at all that personal information going out.” He’d filled out more forms, divulged more personal data, to get online and trading than he’d ever given anyone, even in Specter.

  The wobbliness increased. Samiel knew he was in the cafe. But … nothing was happening, leaving Garth to wonder … was Samiel's presence in the here and now happening at the same time for the time-traveler up The Line, or was it further up? Or further down?

  Fucking time travel. Garth hated it almost as much as he hated olives.

  “So there you have it. Once you were cleared of Insider Trading, we pegged you for Unfair Advantage. There’s a threshold there, as well, and approximately one hour ago, you not only breached that ceiling, you pole vaulted over it.” Angela leaned forward. “So what’s your secret, Nickels? You treated some of those companies very poorly. Profited on their destruction by driving their stock prices into the toilet, snapping up the blasted remains and selling them on the open market. We don’t like venture capitalists of this sort on American soil anymore, Mister Nickels. We like to let our boys and girls fail on their own terms. Why would you do that?”

  Garth held up a hand, smiled blandly when Bally barked an angry order, then smiled a second time, apologetically, when he put the offensive appendage in his lap. "Before we get down to what's what and who's who, how's about you 'splain me what the fuck ’Unfair Advantage’ is?"

  Devlin cleared her throat. "Unlike Insider Trading, where information is passed from someone inside a given company to someone else for the purpose of exploiting
intelligence, Unfair Advantage addresses a particularly new threat. AI modeling."

  Garth nodded. "Ah. Copy."

  "That's it?" Devlin blinked, taken aback. "'Ah. Copy'?"

  "I’m a smart guy." When it became apparent Devlin wanted a better answer, Garth hastened to give it. "AI modeling. You prolly got dudes all over the place with super-computers monitoring the boards, tracking everything, compiling and correlating hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of individual threads and then boiling that data down into workable bytes. Reckon it wouldn't be too hard to use AI to slaughter the competition. Right?"

  Devlin nodded. "Just so. Now. What’s your secret, Nickels? We weren't able to backtrace any of your open connections to an online AI server, nor did we locate any dox detailing your targets for today. Help us out now, maybe we can come to an agreement, keep you out of jail, from being fined."

  The invisible tension grew, sending a spike of discomfort through the front of Garth's brain, but he kept himself under rigid control.

  If Samiel hadn't popped yet, he wasn't going to. At least not in this particular now now, which meant -theoretically- the asshole wasn't going to start fucking with this Line until later, which was a fucking weird thing to think because hot on the heels of that thought was the frankly bizarre-o contemplation as to what, precisely would happen to him whenever he was, when the Baron did choose to screw around in this particular now.

  Fucking time-travel. It'd be the death of him. A sizeable, shooting pain settled in quite nicely behind one eyeball.

  “Special Agent Angela Devlin, there's no secret. I came to America to help. Your world is in danger. Poverty is at an all-time high. Unemployment is through the roof. Crime rates are rising like a thermostat in Vegas in the middle of summer. Your economy is broken, your dollar worth half what it used to be. Education is finally a right, not a privilege, but only the rich and richer get what they need, unless extraordinary measures are taken by teachers to prove they’ve got an Einstein or a Crux in their classroom.”

  Angela bit back the automatic retort that it seemed they all had when it came to people pointing out how badly off America really and truly was, choosing instead to focus on Garth’s admission. “How is destroying fledgling companies before they get their chance considered helpful?”

  Garth took a deep breath. “My goals are simple, Special Agent Angela Devlin.” He pointed to the screen with all the Changetech press packets and logos. “Changetech is a privately-owned, soon-to-be privately funded company owned by me, and it’s function is to provide America and Americans with the sort of innovative technologies they need to get themselves back to where they used to be. I’ll be focusing primarily on cutting- and bleeding-edge hardware, machines and other implements aimed at maximum functionality. Beyond that, I’ll also be concentrating on developing sustainable tech, things like enhanced solar panels, algae oxygen generators, that kind of thing. If the government is amenable, I’d also like to look into things like combat gear, weapons’ tech. Hell, even new forms of counter-intrusion software. Look, I didn’t destroy those companies out of reckless abandon, or just to make a dollar, Special Agent, I did it because they’re the competition. They just didn’t know it.”

  “You’re telling me,” Angela looked at Garth so dubiously it was a miracle the man didn’t fall over unconscious, “that you took the time out of your life before immigrating here to specifically target these companies because of the threat they might pose to your impending attempts at singlehandedly saving America from itself and then did just that? In a single afternoon? You familiarized yourself with their business models, investigated the avenues their research would take, that sort of thing? Then just decided to kill them before you even got started?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, it makes me sound like a terrible human being, but yeah, basically.” Garth put some heartfelt emotion into his voice, feeling like a sham as he did so; with the hollowness where his guilt used to reside and doubts over the 'real reality' of the people around him, he was having a real tough time giving any kind of shits.

  It was high time he tried, though, precisely because of the jam he was in.

  Whether they were real or not, whether or not they were just the Emperor fucking around, they were present. If he pushed things in the wrong direction, they could quite easily make his life a living hell.

  “Ask yourself this, Special Agent Angela Devlin. What’s more important? Letting a bunch of slow-starter companies weave their way through dead ends and wasted time? Letting them fart around with non-starter concepts, all the while running the risk of the usual things that affect high-tech companies who have themselves a few hundred million dollars in government grants and other monies? Or would you rather have a single dude … me … running point on all that stuff?”

  “And, precisely, who are you?” Angela demanded stridently. “Why on earth should I let you get away with this kind of thing? How can you even possibly imagine I, or the Federal Government, would believe one man can accomplish of all those things? If anything, history has proven that if you give a single man that kind of freedom, it gets abused. In every way possible. You still haven't proven to my satisfaction that you're not using AI or some other sophisticated data-trawling. Let’s get back to that, shall we?"”

  “Well, I dunno what to tell you, Special Agent Angela Devlin.” Garth crossed his arms, a motion that got Cooper and Bally hot under the collar; both armored agents shuffled forward until the muzzles of their rifles were basically pushed right up against his skull. “And unless this is your first day at the rodeo, I'll bet everything I own that you got your data jockeys all up in my shit, here and at home. Prolly the first thing you did when that little red light in your office went off. Which means that since we're all just sittin' around a huge box of cold pizza -help yourself, bee tee dubs- instead of rushing to a black site for some good ole fashioned waterboarding, I reckon you didn't find anything. Coz, uh, there ain't nothin' to find. Which also means everything I did today, while being kind of shitty, ain't illegal. You got a fancy legal term for that?”

  Angela smiled thinly, heart cold as ice. “No, Mister Nickels, the Federal government has no legal classification for what you did. The business of ruining businesses for business’ sake is a tried and true process. Without it, without that fear of company B’s success, without trying to outdo them before they beat you, there’d be no growth at all. That being said …”

  “Yeah?” Garth flashed Cooper and Bally a smile.

  “We have a term for people like you. It’s called asshole.” Angela gestured at her squad and they began filtering, single file, out of the café. “Everything we’ve got locked down will be returned to within the hour, Mister Nickels.”

  “Word.” Garth released a small sigh of relief. He’d been gambling quite heavily there at the end concerning the rapacious acts of businessmen looking to destroy the competition before they were even really a threat and considered himself more than lucky to’ve come out on top. Were it not for the fact that phrases like ‘Unfair Advantage’ were even a thing, he might not even have tried; with the new business models the good old US of A was undertaking in an effort to get back on top, it’d just felt like the Federal government would have something on the books to deal with his practices.

  Special Agent Angela Devlin rose and handed Garth back his piddy. “We apologize for the inconvenience, Mister Nickels. The Federal government appreciates your understanding in this matter, and moving forward, we officially request that when you resume your rapacious destruction of companies in order to clear the way for your own business, you extend every courtesy to this office by informing me personally of your activities.”

  Garth accepted his piddy and saw a new data file had been uploaded to the little device. He clicked through until he opened it up, nodding when he saw that it was Special Agent Angela Devlin’s digital business card, complete with fancy eyeball and Latin motto. “You’ve got your eyes on me, eh?”

  “Exa
ctly, Mister Nickels. I do have my eyes on you.” Angela turned to walk away, then stopped. “What you did today may have been legal, Mister Nickels. You may indeed be intent on being of assistance to our poor nation. Your scholastic credentials certainly support your claims. Degrees in pretty much every area of engineering, software development, mathematics. You’re some kind of wunderkind. We’ve got a few here, as well, so yeah, you might have the brains to do what you claim, but I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did, I don’t like the fact that all those people are out of work now. Think about that. They all got up to go to work today, thinking everything was fine, and then along comes you. You engage in some frankly awful tricks and suddenly, they’re out of a job. Hundreds of people, now in a position to need assistance, where before everything was fine. You did all that in less than a day, because you could. I’ve seen it done once or twice, to a single company, but you did it do a half-dozen, Mister Nickels. Masterpieces of destruction, every one. So yes, Mister Nickels, when I say I’ve got my eyes on you, I mean it. You do anything I don’t like again, I’ll have you under investigation so fast you’ll think I traveled through time. I will bury you under a ton of paperwork. I will confiscate everything you own and I will rake you over the hot coals. We may encourage … enthusiastic and vigorous competition, but you took it too far. Are we clear?”

  Garth riffed off a salute. “Clear as crystal, Special Agent Angela Devlin. I’ll be a good boy from now on.”

  Angela shook her head. “Somehow, I don’t believe you, Mister Nickels. Be seeing you.”

  Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, then held it up to his left eye. “Be seeing you, too, Special Agent Angela Devlin.”

  And then, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, muttered, “Well, shit.”