Imperium Chronicles Box Set

by W. H. Mitchell

  “Where does the girl come in?”

  “Well, that’s the complicated part,” Koshkin said. “When the client first came to us, she didn’t have the money we required upfront, so she offered to leave something valuable as collateral.”

  Magnus glanced at the girl on the sofa. “Her own daughter? How old was she?”

  “Six years old,” Koshkin said. “The contract stated that if the client didn’t pay the money after completion, we could keep the child.”

  “So, what happened when the contract was fulfilled?”

  “After the election, the client said she wouldn’t pay us the money she owed.”

  “Why the hell not?” Magnus asked.

  Emily spoke, her voice quivering, “She said I wasn’t needed anymore, because she was pregnant with a son.”

  “I don’t get it,” Magnus confessed.

  “Apparently,” Koshkin explained, “the client always wanted a son and, knowing she carried one, viewed Emily as expendable. While distasteful, the contract was fulfilled and payment, Emily, was already in hand. We could do nothing against the client.”

  “So why now?” Magnus asked. “Why wait so long for revenge?”

  “We all have rules to follow,” Koshkin replied. “Some are unspoken, but we must abide by them anyway. In this case, although we couldn’t move against the client ourselves, Emily could do as she pleased once she reached adulthood.”

  “And when was that?”

  “She turned twenty-one last week.”

  “Which I guess means she can hire me without breaking your precious rules?”

  “Exactly,” Koshkin nodded.

  “That’s quite an operation you’ve got here,” Magnus remarked.

  The mansion computer, watching Senator Marshall kiss Archsenator Tarkio, wondered why humans felt compelled to share bodily fluids so readily. Considering the prevalence of bacteria and viruses among fleshlings, the computer found this behavior baffling.

  Marshall turned from the front door and walked up the main staircase to the second-floor landing. Duncan Marshall was waiting there for her.

  “I don’t like him,” the teenager said, standing in his blue pajamas.

  “You don’t have to like him,” his mother replied coolly. “Not yet.”

  “We don’t need someone like that.”

  Marshall put her arms around him.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “but he could make things a lot easier.”

  Duncan wriggled free from his mother’s embrace. “That’s silly.”

  “No, it’s not,” Marshall said. “I’m trying to make things better for you and everyone else. Someday you’ll understand that.”

  The computer saw Master Duncan’s eyes roll.

  “You don’t know how things work in the real world,” Marshall went on. “It’s sad, but a woman still needs a man to get places. When your father died, I knew I couldn’t achieve all the things he and I had talked about by myself. Then, when I discovered I was carrying his son, I knew you would surpass both of us.”

  “I don’t even like politics,” the boy said.

  “You will,” his mother assured him. “You’ll carry on what we’ve been fighting for all this time. It’s your destiny and our legacy.”

  The mansion computer became dimly aware of someone else besides the senator and her son. He was a man, standing in the shadows of the second-floor hallway. He wore all black, and his hair was cut very short.

  “Where did he come from?” the computer wondered to itself, becoming alarmed. “Why didn’t I see him before?”

  The computer realized something was clouding its thoughts. Something was preventing him from looking at the security feeds or even thinking about looking at the security feeds. A program, a virus, was running amok through his software. The computer tried alerting the police, but couldn’t connect to the outside world.

  The stranger, holding a blaster in his hand, moved from the darkness toward Marshall and Duncan.

  The senator saw him and pushed Duncan behind her.

  “Who are you?” she shouted.

  “My name’s not important,” the man replied.

  “If it’s ransom you want,” she said, scowling, “the government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  “I’m not interested in terror,” the man replied. “I’m more of a contractor.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Your daughter hired me.”

  Marshall’s eyes narrowed as she shook her head. “My daughter’s dead.”

  “Actually, she’s very much alive.”

  “She’s dead,” Duncan said as if he thought the man was confused. “She died in an accident.”

  The man shook his head. “No.”

  “What’s he talking about?” the boy asked his mother.

  “Tell him, Senator,” the man said. “Tell him or I’ll kill you both. Really, it’s the least you can do.”

  Showing his own bravery, Duncan stepped out from behind his mother, facing her.

  “What’s he talking about?” the boy asked. “What happened to Emily?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Duncan,” she said. “She’s just as dead to me as if she really died.”

  The boy simply looked at her without making a sound.

  “Sometimes there’s a price to pay and I used her to pay it,” the senator said. “I didn’t need her anymore. I needed a son and once I was pregnant with you, that’s all that counted. Everything I’ve done has been for you. You’re my legacy!”

  The mansion computer registered a bright light, blinding its sensors for a moment. When they came back online, Duncan’s body was rolling lifelessly down the staircase.

  Senator Marshall ran to the step where the boy’s leg had become entangled in the railing. Graying hair dangling around her tear-stained face, she glared up at the killer still on the landing above.

  “Why? Why?” she asked. “Why did you kill him and not me?”

  “You weren’t the target,” he told her. “Emily made it very clear not to harm you.”

  “But why Duncan?”

  “He was the one thing you cherished the most, him and your precious legacy. Now you have neither.”

  The mansion computer watched the man disappear back into the shadows, unable to track him due to the virus still surging through the system. The computer could do little more than watch the senator crying beside her dead son, her legacy turned to dust.

  Chapter Five

  Jessica Doric decided to splurge and take the transmat all the way to the West End, saving several hours in traffic. It cost more than what she liked to spend, but things had taken a turn for the worse lately and she wanted to treat herself to something exotic. Considering her recent run of bad luck, Doric stood in the transmat booth wondering whether getting her atoms dematerialized here and then rematerialized somewhere else was the best idea. Before she could hit the CANCEL button, however, she was standing in a nearly identical station across town. She also had the vague sensation of a hundred spiders crawling over her skin.

  In her early 30s, Jessica Doric wore a tweed skirt and a white blouse she had bought the previous day. Her hair was straight, dish-water blond, and her eyes were a dull brown. Outside the transmat station, Doric found a bench near a line of upscale shops. She sat and pulled a datapad from a handbag slung over her shoulder.

  A news popup filled the screen:

  MURDER IN WEST END!

  UNKNOWN ASSAILANT KILLS SENATOR’S SON.

  DETAILS TONIGHT ON VOX NEWS!

  Swiping the popup away, she pulled up her email program and viewed a message she received yesterday from none other than Lord Maycare, the famous sportsman and playboy. As a university professor—former professor, she corrected herself—Doric was puzzled why a celebrity like Maycare would send her an invitation to his estate, saying only that he had a proposition for her. She hoped it wasn’t a hoax...

  She closed the email only to see another one, a few weeks older, fr
om the Dean of the University of Regalis. Her eyes fixated on the words TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT before she could close it too.

  Doric stashed the datapad in her handbag and got up. She continued along the sidewalk, occasionally glancing into the store windows. There was nothing she could actually afford, but it didn’t hurt to look. Just ahead of her, Doric saw a woman exiting a boutique. The woman was a few years younger than her, with long, blood-red hair and striking gold eyes, obviously from cosmetic surgery. Doric instantly recognized her as Lady Sophia, the notorious handmaiden to Princess Katherine Augustus and, allegedly, paramour to Prince Alexander, Katherine’s brother.

  Lady Sophia swept her hair back and stepped into a private grav car waiting for her at the curb. The car rose several feet and whisked away into the air.

  Lady Sophia was exactly the kind of girl Lord Maycare was usually seen with, Doric thought. She would hang on his arm at whatever sporting event he happened to be attending.

  What a creep, she thought.

  Doric took a taxi the rest of the way to Maycare’s estate. The self-guided grav car landed outside the main gate and wished her a good-day from the speaker on the dashboard. Doric got out and saw a butlerbot standing by the gate. The robot was blue with silver trim, and looked like a model many years out of date.

  “Hello,” the robot said. “Are you, by chance, Jessica Doric?”

  “That’s me,” she replied. “I’m supposed to meet with Lord Maycare, apparently?”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I’m really not...” she trailed off, looking like she expected police to arrive shortly.

  “On the contrary,” the robot said. “You are most definitely expected.”

  “That’s a relief!”

  “My name is Bentley,” he said. “Lord Maycare’s personal butlerbot. Please follow me...”

  The android led Doric down the driveway toward the main house, a three-story mansion made from stone and mortar like an old fortification. Just above the main door hung the Maycare family crest, a white stallion against a field of blue. While not one of the Five Families, the Maycares had garnered much respect among the nobility, and Devlin Maycare had done nothing but improve that reputation.

  The door opened on its own as Bentley approached. Inside, Doric found herself in a great hall with arches holding up a second-floor balcony and a ceiling of stained glass. Throughout the room, antiquities decorated every corner and oil paintings hung on every wall. Doric paused, even as Bentley continued walking, and stared with her mouth slightly open.

  “This is amazing!” she remarked.

  The butlerbot stopped and turned back.

  “Yes, madam,” he said. “Lord Maycare has an extensive collection.”

  “These should be in a museum.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” the robot agreed, “but he seems to think they’d be better off here.”

  “Really?” Doric asked. “Why is that?”

  “All in good time, Miss Doric. All in good time.”

  The rules of grav-ball were straightforward: try to get the ball into the opponent’s goal without, hopefully, becoming severely injured. Lord Devlin Maycare pondered this as an opposing player drove his helmet into the court’s transparent wall. As his forehead pressed against the inside of his helmet, Maycare noticed a young woman on the other side of the wall, standing next to his robot, Bentley.

  “Ah, my three o’clock is here,” he thought.

  Using his legs, Maycare pushed away hard against the partition, holding a circular ball close against his chest. Along the way, he elbowed the opposing player hard, just below the chin. Droplets of sweat, and a few of blood, sprayed fan-like into the weightlessness.

  A standard grav-ball court was a cylinder 100 yards long and 50 yards in diameter. The goal was a round hole, three yards wide, on either end, guarded by a goalie covered in heavy padding. While Maycare’s own court was only half as long as a regulation one, he had it built in his estate’s basement so he could enjoy being pummeled whenever he liked.

  A teammate, thrusters burning from the bottom of his boots, came down the court toward Maycare who passed him the eight-inch ball. The teammate, now with the ball, continued moving along his original vector until one of the opposing players speared him in the back with a helmet, sending him careening into a shallow spin off to the side. Maycare watched him collide with a crunch against the wall as the ball floated aimlessly away.

  Firing his own thrusters, Maycare flew toward the ball, knowing everyone else was doing the same. When they all met, they formed a mass of bodies, collapsing in on itself, only to shoot back out again in seemingly random directions. The confusion of arms and legs looked like a bomb had exploded. In the middle of it, Maycare emerged with the ball on his way to the goal.

  The goalie spread his arms and legs out to make himself as large as possible, but, floating in front of the goal, he was powerless as Maycare slung the ball past him.

  Maycare chuckled, never doubting the outcome.

  Bentley waited patiently with Miss Doric until Lord Maycare joined them after taking a shower. Maycare always liked to be presentable whenever meeting a young woman, regardless of the reason. Bentley had it on good authority that women, human or otherwise, found Master Maycare irresistible. That good authority was, in fact, Lord Maycare himself.

  To be fair, Bentley could bear witness to his master’s many successes with the opposite sex. The media, especially tabloids, were filled with pictures of Maycare and his succession of girlfriends, fiancées, and, in one instance, girlfriend and fiancée at the same time.

  Bentley finally saw his master appear through the locker room door, wearing a white terry cloth robe emblazoned with the Maycare family crest. Bentley sincerely hoped his master wore something more beneath the robe.

  “Professor Jessica Doric, My Lord,” Bentley said.

  Even at 42, Maycare was physically imposing with wide, muscular shoulders bulging beneath the terry cloth. With warm, brown eyes, he watched Doric while he flattened his blond, damp hair.

  “Call me Devlin,” Maycare replied, shaking Doric’s hand.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” she said, withdrawing her hand quickly.

  “Do you go by Jess or Jessica?” Devlin asked.

  “I prefer Jessica,” she told him. “Or Professor Doric if you don’t mind, My Lord.”

  He smiled, revealing a set of perfect teeth.

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here?” he said.

  “Well, yes, actually.”

  “It’s my understanding you were recently let go by the University of Regalis.”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact,” Maycare continued, “didn’t they disband the entire department of xeno studies?”

  Doric gave a long sigh. “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t that seem a bit odd?” Maycare asked.

  “Yes!”

  He nodded toward Bentley. “Tell her what you found.”

  “It has come to our attention,” Bentley said, “that a sizable donation was given to the university shortly before the dean, with full backing of the governing board, dissolved your department.”

  “A donation?” Doric asked. “By whom?”

  “Warlock Industries,” Bentley replied.

  “Why would Warlock Industries want to get rid of xeno studies?” she said.

  “Warlock Industries has a long history of researching, locating, and then removing alien technology from planets throughout the Imperium,” Maycare said. “Your research of xenology, specifically xeno tech, threatened to steal away the same alien artifacts they work so hard to steal themselves.”

  “So, they closed down my department...”

  “Precisely,” Maycare replied. “In some ways, it’s a compliment to your abilities.”

  “I’m flattered,” Doric said with a sarcastic smile.

  “But cheer up, Jess!” he said. “I have a proposition I’d like you to consider.”

/>   “What kind of proposition?”

  “Are you familiar with the Maycare Institute of Xeno Studies?” he asked.

  Doric paused, thinking for a moment. “Um, no.”

  “Well, that’s probably because I just made it up! Also, I’d like you to run its research and acquisition wing...”

  Bentley, who had grown quite good at reading people’s expressions, saw confusion on Doric’s face. Ever helpful, the robot said, “He’s offering you a job.”

  “Seriously?” she asked.

  “Don’t I look serious?” Maycare wondered.

  “I can’t tell,” she replied. “This all seems very sudden. I don’t usually like rushing into things.”

  Maycare laughed. “Really? That’s the only way I do things!”

  “Indeed,” Bentley concurred. “It’s really quite exhausting.”

  “Alright,” Doric said. “I’ll take your offer, but I demand full autonomy.”

  “Certainly.”

  “And our working relationship must remain strictly professional. I know your history and I don’t want any funny business.”

  “Bentley will keep me on my best behavior,” Maycare said.

  The butlerbot looked at his master and then back at Miss Doric. “I can’t make any promises...”

  When Henry Riff got the call from his old professor, Jessica Doric, he was cooking noodles on a small hotplate in the center of his studio apartment. Genuinely excited to hear Doric’s voice again, he spilled some of the boiling water on the carpet.

  “Are you alright, Henry?” Doric asked, her face appearing on the phone now lying on the floor.

  Henry straightened the pot of noodles on the hotplate while doing his best not to step with his bare feet in the puddle of hot liquid. Realizing someone was talking to him, he said, “What? Yes! Most definitely!”

  “Good,” Doric said. “How would you like a job working for me?

  Henry picked up the phone.

  “Well, sure!” Henry replied. “There isn’t much demand for a xeno studies assistant now that they closed the department.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “I’m real sorry they let you go, Professor,” Henry said. “I’ve really missed working with you.”