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

by Lee Bond

  Well, per’aps ‘casual’ weren’t the right word to use, but Dom were tired and really only wanted a quick pint and a chance to get ‘is ‘ead down, so he weren’t the best at picking ‘is own mood. Beyond that, the man knew ‘is name, which were all kind o’ innerestin’.

  Markelda’s fingers closed around the handheld and so he fished it out and held it aloft for Dom to see. “This man knew everything about me, like I said. Knew enough about you to tell me where you’d be, and when. And how long I should wait.”

  Dom eyeballed the handheld suspiciously. He recognized it from his time Above, when he’d been the captive of unkind and cruel scientists looking to turn him into some sort of laboratory experiment. Inside these kinds of machines, he recalled, all manner of thing could be stored.

  “And when were this, squire? No need to be exact. Earlier today, when I were in Sub_Zero’s Reclamation Pit, hawking the last of my, er, ship’s insides? Or the week prior, when I were in Stack 17? News that some coalition or other managed to stay Trinity’s hand long enough to get most o’ the people free an’ clear ‘ere It dropped the whole thing into the poisonous ocean reached down to here, hey, so is that it? Is you some Stacker from Voss_Uderhell, come to collect a blood debt for my escape?”

  Now, now Markelda grew nervous again. His answer would make no sense. No sense at all. “N…neither, sir. I … nearly four months gone.”

  Dom blinked. There weren’t anything else he could think to do. Four. Four months ago he’d been ‘neath The Dome, dealin’ wi’ Nickels and Pointer and Agnethea and not only that, ‘e’d ‘ad the King inside ‘is mellon, whisperin’ all sorts o’ madness into his insides, hey? The last place ‘e’d ever believed ‘e’d be is on the Outside and so Far Down natural light no longer existed.

  And yet, were it really so hard to believe in summink like this? After all he’d seen and done? Back ‘neath The Dome, some of the wittier amongst the Book Club Regulars had posited the theory that everything a man did, from birth to death, was charted out somewhere, in some vast Book, and if you were the right sort of person, you could open that Book and point and say, ‘Here is where so and so shall be, and at such and such a time. This particular thing shall happen.’.

  So wi’ all that in mind, were it so perishingly impossible to imagine that someone here in the Outside had managed to do just that? Nickels himself spoke of destroying the entirety of the Outside as if it were as simple as taking off your shoes. In comparison, a wee spot of prognostication seemed … inconsequential.

  Dom held out his hand. “Give it over, squire.” He gestured impatiently when the device weren’t instantly there.

  Markelda pushed the handheld into Dom’s hands, asking, “You believe me?”

  The Arcadian spun the dull-gray metal handheld around between two fingertips. “Squire, I is seen shit you wouldn’t believe. Shit as would make you wish for the death, and nowt but silence on t’other end.”

  Markelda didn’t know what to say, so he just kind of stood there, awkwardly watching the man he’d passed through three solar systems to see.

  “Is there anyfing else?” Dom demanded, swallowing a mouthful of beer whilst he waited for the tongue-tied deliverer of odd messages to answer.

  “I … I … don’t know what to do, now.” Markelda admitted hesitantly. “The … the man … didn’t tell me. I …”

  “Well, squire,” Dom responded with one hundred percent earnest consideration, “if I were you, I would make myself absent from this here location, as if I is find the information contained within,” the Arcadian wiggled the handheld so it flashed candlelight across the other man’s eyes, “to be to my disliking, I might very well take the loss of time out on the man as put it into me hands, hey? I is ‘ave a problem controlling me temper these days. So that’s wot I would do. If I were you. I’d make haste to be elsewhere. Possibly e’en out o’ Sub_Zero.”

  “But I…” Markelda licked his lips once more.

  Dom slammed his free hand down on the table hard enough so that it sounded like a gunshot. His courier twitched once so spasmodically it were a genuine fluke he didn’t fall to the ground, then he were gone, out the front door so speedily that the shoddily attached slab of wood near about fell free. He smiled madly at the people around him until they rediscovered their drinks and their personal conversations.

  The handheld beckoned. Dom slid his finger across the bottom, watched the screen’s boot sequence, and then …

  ***

  “You are Dominic Breton.”

  Dom quirked a crusty brow at the visage on the tiny screen. “I am.”

  “We are the Mycogene Empire.”

  “Hain’t that wonderful.” Dom swallowed more beer. “I hain’t never heard o’ you.”

  “Who we are is unimportant, Dominic Breton of Arcadia.”

  Dom inspected the handheld much closer, flipping it around and around in search of hidden compartments or anything that were out of the ordinary. Finding none, he turned it back ‘round until he were looking at the shadowy, oddly-shaped figure that were on the screen. “Now, Mycogene Empire, I admit, I is new to the Outside, but I is relatively certain I is see these things called Q-Comms before now, hey, up in them Voss_Uderhell offices, and I is certain wot I is hold right now hain’t e’en close. Which begs the question, ‘how in the absolute and pristine fuck is we ‘avin’ a conversation on a piddly little handheld?’.”

  “We are the Mycogene Empire.”

  “Yeah, I is get that the first time ‘round.” Dom beetled his forehead. “I is require summink a little more … explainey.”

  “The Mycogene Empire possesses the power to see the moment, Dominic Breton. Everything, everywhere. All we need do is focus on the place and in time, all is revealed. If enough energy is expended, Arcadian, We can see the future. And so we know what you are going to say before you say it.”

  Dom accepted the explanation. Again, exposure to the Mad Goth King and everything else ‘neath The Dome made future-telling seem positively banal in comparison. “Orl right. That is make sense enough for me to keep chit-chatting.”

  “We suspected it would.”

  “Well now you’re just being … superior.” Dom wrinkled his nose. “I is not a fan o’ folk who is act better than the rest, hey? Now, let us get down to them brass tacks, unseen squire. This shithole has better beer than I were expect, and I is keen to drink the place dry. Wot is it you want?”

  “We looked and looked and looked through the whole of the Universe, Dominic Breton, for a man like you, a man who can give us what We need.”

  That piqued Dom’s interest. What in the hell could an Empire capable o’ seein’ the future need from a bloke like him? Surely beings with that kind of power ‘neath their belt could get wotever they wanted, whenever they wanted it?

  "So..." Dom fiddled with the concept in his mind a moment, "you can see the future then?"

  "As We just explained, yes." The shadowy figure representing the Mycogene Empire nodded.

  "And you is say you is see everything?" Dom wondered that would be like. 'neath The Dome, it'd seemed as though King Barnabas Blake and his wretched Nannies had indeed known everything about everything all wi'out effort, but since being on the Outside, he'd come to believe that the King and all had been using summat similar to cameras and whatnot. So in truth, not actual omnipresence, merely your garden variety snoop.

  "This is the truth."

  "All right." Dom surreptitiously slipped summink from the table into his pocket, all on the sly-like. "Wot 'ave I got in me pocket?"

  There was a discernible pause, and when the Mycogene Rep spoke again, there was a mild hint of annoyance in his voice. "Immaterial to the matter at hand, Dominic Breton of …"

  "I is know where I is from and wot me name is, squire, no need to keep remindin' me o' it, hey?" Dom let some of his own annoyance slide into the mix, and wi'out any fear or concerns; he'd already grown bored as dirt over the whole conversation and frankly speaking, unless this shadowy
weirdo offered him summink tremendously exciting to do, he were in the same boat as he were five minutes ago. "Now, speak plain and true and get to the heart o' the matter, if you please. As I mentioned, there's beer to be drunk and whores to be purchased, if you take my meaning."

  "Agreed." The Myco Rep nodded stiffly. "It has been determined that you are the best person in the Universe to provide for Us a most important and virtuous revenge upon a being who has wronged the entire Mycogene Empire."

  "Go on." Dom finished his beer in a single gulp and motioned for his waitress to bring him another one. "This is beginning to sound interesting. Who 'as done such an 'orrible thing to your mighty Empire?" The ex-Book Club Regular suspected the Representative were using flowery words like 'important' and 'virtuous' to play upon his particular mindset, and he weren't averse to such treatment so long as they didn't think him a fool.

  "You know him as Garth Nickels." The Mycogene Empire waited for the silent rage to wash through Dominic Breton before continuing. "We know him as Garth N'Chalez and he is the destroyer of things We held most dear to Our heart."

  “Welladay.” Dom said, the strangest smile growing on his face. He’d nowt never felt anything like it in his entire life, but as the corners of his mouth seemed to stretch past the furthest point they’d ever gone ‘ere this day, he felt righter than he had in months. He were so interested in what this whole bizarre turn of events meant for the future that he didn’t even notice the waitress winging in, fast as she could, to drop off his next beer before buzzing back to the bar. “It do seem to me, don’t it just, that our man N’Chalez gets around a fair bit, hey? I do enjoy the thought of doing for ‘im, only … there are a few fings as you might not know.”

  “We have it on good authority that by the time you are ready to capture him for Us, he will be in no position to resist your efforts.” The Mycogene Empire’s Representatives words sounded hollow and empty, yet carried great purpose. “There is no fear in Our hearts that you will fail in your endeavor.”

  Now that prognostication were a thing, Dom had no reason to fear or be fearful of the words coming out the Representative’s mouth. It were just like reading summat out of Book, only more … informative.

  One thing he didn’t like, though, were the rules already laid down. “Now hold on just a mo, squire,” Dom rest a hand on the table to keep from gesticulating wildly, “I is intent on bringin’ this man as much pain as possible, hey? ‘e might’ve taken a thing from you, yeah, but he went an’ destroyed me entire world. That right there deserves death! I want to pull ‘is ‘ead from ‘is shoulders, wear ‘is guts for garters, take ‘is skellington and fashion it into a bicycle and ride it about town so every single muvverfucker in this miserable Outside knows it were Dominic Breton as done the doing! ‘andin’ ‘im off to you sounds like a load of bollocks.”

  “Dominic Breton of Arcadia, there is a thing you want more than the death of one single man, while all We want is that death.” The Rep’s shadowy visage appeared to smile. “Give us the one thing We want and all you want shall be yours. The resources of an entire solar system are at your beck and call.”

  Instantly mollified, Dom plopped his arse back down in the chair. There were one thing he wanted more than all else in the world, and now he thought about it, this Mycogene Rep were sayin’ all the right things. Surely another side effect of future-seeing, but … wotever.

  The madman nodded. “Oh aye, there be all sorts of things I do want, squire. Me old partner is out there still, doin’ wotever ‘e’s doin’. I need to ‘ave a bit o’ a word wi’ ‘im, then there’s gnarly old Queen Agnethea too, hey? Last I checked, her name were still on the Bad Golem Board back in the Barn. Need to do for her right quick and proper, and then?”

  “Yes?” The Rep asked, tone full of prescience.

  “Well, there’s Mirabelle, hey?” Dom scratched the top of his skull absentmindedly. “She only still got Book, don’t she just. Can’t let a slattern like that walk this Outside wi’ such power in her scabrous hands. Tell me now and tell me now for true, Mister Representative, how is we to go about preparing for this snatch and grab? Now you’ve got me interest, I is nowt but ears.”

  “As We knew you would be, Dom.” The Rep bowed deeply. “As we knew you would be. Now. Our Great Foe will be …”

  A Kennelman and his Hounds

  As Chevy knitted, he hummed a gentle tune under his breath. It was an old tune, possibly one of the oldest to’ve ever been sung or hummed or tootled out on a woodwind, so old in fact that it had more names than made sense. The first time he’d heard it, it’d been on the mechanical lips of Nanny Primrose, and while some would find the tune distasteful owing to her dire madness and the dark secret behind her famous gardens, he found it just as relaxing today as that very first time.

  He’d been a wee babby, lost and alone, crying and crying ‘til a snot-bubble of impressive standing had been attached to his wee babby nostrils. She’d come out o’ nowhere, she had, all clanking and whirring and full of deep lights floating ‘neath metallic undercarriage, and why, she’d scooped him right up off the ground and had started singing that tune. He’d calmed down straightaway and off he’d been delivered to the King’s Own Bastard House.

  “Bless me,” Chevy squinted at the steel VII chain links he were knitting together, “I do think that were near about a th…”

  “I recognized that song.” Thierry said from the door. “Were called ‘Daddy’s Gone Bye’ when I were a wee ‘un.”

  Chevy continued on knitting, pleased he hadn’t finished ‘is sentence wi’ Thierry skulking around the outside. It weren’t proper for comrades to know how old ‘e were. It’d lead to all sorts of awkward questions and all manner of prying after the fact. “Daddy’s Gone Bye? I’ll add that to the list, if you don’t mind, Thierry. That were one I’d missed.”

  “What did you know it as?” Thierry moved into the room, eyeing the longcoat that their Kennelmaster were whippin’ up. It were odd and more than a little … well, stranger than odd, if you took his meaning, to see a man knitting steel VII chain links together wi’ nowt more than ‘is ‘ands. Well. The wardog scrubbed at his face.

  It were damn sight more than just ‘is ‘ands ‘e were usin’, weren’t it? The longcoat the Kennelmaster had worn into battle not too long ago had –right from the beginning- been a thing of impressive utility and wonder, hadn’t it just, but … summat had happened inside poor Stack 17 there at the end to transform it into summat considerable more than just a fancy coat as did a few tricks.

  Tricks you could do with other things. But now? Now Chevril Pointillier were sitting in a semi-dusty workshop, humming to ‘imself, making each of them their own metal longcoats so when they was out and about, them as looked their way could see who and what they were.

  It were important, you see? The whole Universe needed to know about The Kennel. And the Hounds of War. And their leader, him as were brave beyond brave. Their loyal Kennelmaster, him they’d die for if he asked. Him they’d suffer for, if he but crooked an eyebrow askew.

  Oh yes. People the Universe over needed to see the Hounds in all their glory, for Arcadians had come to the Universe.

  “Hm?” Chevy looked over his shoulder at Thierry. “Oh, ah. Yes. When I were a wee ‘un, not much taller than wee Linders, I expect, well, we did call this here tune ‘Toora Loora Loora’.”

  Thierry flapped a hand towards the Kennelmaster. “You is makin’ up words. Hain’t no sense to summat like that, Master Chevril. Toora Loora Loora indeed.”

  Chevy looked at the section of coat he were workin’ on, caught sight of the silver tendrils flexing out from the cuff o’ his longcoat, then took a quick peek to see if Thierry’d seen the same. The younger wardog were standin’ there, starin’ at other things in the workshop, which meant to Chevy that aye, the snoopy lad had indeed seen the strangeness and weren’t about to cop to it unless death were on the table.

  Well. The Kennelman supposed it’d help if a few o’ ‘is secre
ts were spilled through the Kennel, hey? Wot they were trying to accomplish weren’t summat as would be easy under the best of circumstances, and they weren’t nearly operating under that kind of umbrella. Nay, ‘worst’ would be a better adjective to start, and if things got to be e’en sourer still, Chevy reckoned he might need to open up a thesaurus.

  “Now see here, young Thierry, I can guarantee you that at least fifteen percent of the time I shall be telling you some version of the truth that is close enough to the actual truth so that it makes no never mind to anyone listening on.” Chevy nodded to himself.

  It were time to take a break. Working on the longcoats by hand was a thing as needed to be done, but it were terrible tiring all the same.

  Work done for the moment, he spun on his delightful little stool and confronted Thierry, his number two man inside the Kennel.

  “Now then.” Chevy planted a hand on each of his knees and quirked an eyebrow. “How goes things?”

  Thierry dragged a blackened thumbnail across a scarred jawline. “Near about as well as can be expected, I reckon. Gerry’s turned into a right cunt, as we all figured, hey? Hear tell from the usual sources that ‘e’s tryin’ to get a Trinity Representative down atop your ‘ead, only, none of them are really keen on listenin’ to anything ‘e’s got to say. Rumor mill has it that things within the machine mind’s organization are riled up o’er summat. Too busy to care about the blathering whingein’s of a self-entitled rich arsehole.”

  “Now, now.” Chevy replied soberly. “Were it not for that self-entitled rich arsehole, Thierry, there’s simply no tellin’ where in this humungous Outside you’d be, hey? Neither you nor any of the others should have call to speak ill of the man as offered you your freedom.”

  “It weren’t all rosebuds and … and … fuckin’ fancy drinks, Chevy, you understand that, don’t you?” Thierry knew damned well that the Kennelmaster had a complete appreciation for what they’d all been through under Eli Crane-Hawthorn’s ‘employ’, and of the enforced slavery to other powerful Conglomerates and wealthy folk. It was just so difficult to accept that particular truth.