Moving Earth

by Dean C. Moore

  “Imagine if you were successful enough to bleed every one of the galactic civilizations fool enough to send their recalcitrants here for R&R of their intel. What you could do with that?”

  “I’m already doing that, and making inroads into those very same galaxies. Soon I will have casinos every bit as impressive as this one stationed there as well, not just in the Gypsy Galaxy.”

  “Excellent. So with each passing day you get a sense of who their best people are, by best I mean who their most cunning, treacherous, beguiling villains are that can expand your spy network for you, which ones will be loyal, or at the very least, which ones you can manipulate and leverage into staying loyal.”

  “You would make such a fine criminal, Leon, if you just came over to the dark side.”

  Leon smiled absently as he continued to take in the wonder of the Lucky Streak, marveling at how much progress Sonny had made already. “That army of Shadow Warriors you’re building, which not even my Special Forces teams will be enough to shut down…”

  “But Leon, I would never think of doing an end run around you…”

  “No, of course not, providing I’m still the man who can provide you more than the other guy. And the other guy this time is The Collectors, is it not? Stiff competition indeed. So here’s my offer: Use your Shadow Warriors to bring me the intel I need to break free of The Collectors. It may just be pieces of the puzzle; I’m hardly saying you have to do all the heavy lifting.

  “Do that for me, and you can make your home base here, in the realm of The Collectors, if this is where you feel most comfortable, in the darkest of dark holes—once we have them leveraged enough so they would never think of ousting you. But your Shadow Warriors will be free to expand your realm into all the universes in this multiverse, and all the civilizations that make them up, not just their reject civilizations they’ve imprisoned here.”

  “You do have a way of sweet-talking me…”

  “Wait for it, the pièce de résistance,” Leon teased.

  Sonny’s eyes went wider still.

  “We have to keep our minds open to the possibility that this multiverse can serve as the prison for all multiverses.”

  Sonny swallowed hard.

  “Think of how much unused real estate we have in each of these universes in The Collectors multiverse prison. Plenty of room for serving as the hornet’s nest at the next level up, the multiverse of multiverses.”

  It was the first time the drool Sonny produced in excess due to his dog genes had dried up completely. He was licking his chops to keep his lips from chapping.

  “Of course,” Leon explained, “all that will have to be negotiated. I’ll be taking care of things at my end, continuing to ramp up military ability so we have something to offer the good guys and the bad guys in this drama.”

  “I do so love how you are so beyond good and evil, and attaching yourself to either. You’re a role model, Leon. An equal opportunity manipulator.”

  “I will continue to ramp up my diplomatic corps as well,” Leon continued, “I expect I’ll do well making an offer to the good guys at even the multiverse of multiverses level that they can’t refuse. But the bad boys, who just won’t play ball, who’ll need a military response to keep them in check… Well, Sonny, I’d just be doing your work for you, wouldn’t I? Your Shadow Warriors can do what they do best, find out who the dissidents are, who the ones are who have to be brought into line, and then you sic your Dobermans on them—that’s me and the Gypsy Galaxy, by the way—a go anywhere, fully teleportable, fully weaponized galactic civilization.”

  Leon tightened his embrace, realizing it was now needed to hold Sonny up. His legs had given out under him under the prospects of being handed everything–all of creation.

  Leon continued applying pressure in more ways than one. “First we’ll make you ruler of The Collectors domain, then we’ll make you ruler of each of the parallel universes in their entirety that The Collectors just have a small swatch of currently. This prison is a multiverse in its reach, but not a true multiverse in its entirety, is it? It’s as if someone just took a corner of each universe and ceded the territory to The Collectors, the low rent neighborhoods in the universe, I’m guessing, with real estate that no one else wanted. The nerve of them cheating you of the true riches that were your birthright!

  “And then, Sonny, after I’ve given you all that, let me give you access to all the multiverses.”

  “Okay, okay, I surrender. You win. I can’t wait to play my part in this drama.”

  “The Shadow Warriors will grow into the biggest invisible army released on creation that no one knows even exists. Let my people and my Special Forces steal the limelight, making it all the easier for you to do your work in the dark, staying forever under the radar. The Gypsy Galaxy, I promise you, will keep the heat off you by taking all of it themselves. We are the light and the darkness, you and I, Sonny, destined to be together always. Why would I be any less loyal to you than you to me? What sense would it make?

  “I don’t know how long this project will take, but I know with every breath I take, you and I working together, will find the shortest path through this maze. This I promise you.”

  Sonny took a deep breath as Leon released his hold on him. They shook hands. “I believe you, Leon. I don’t know any two people better at making offers no one else can refuse. We are yin and yang in its purest form. Which is why I know not even the gods will intercede in our plans. For we are the right and left hand of the god of gods.”

  Leon laughed. “Well said, Sonny. Now, you must forgive me. I’m not one to waste time in bringing order to all of creation.”

  “And I’m not one to waste time adding just the right amount of chaos you need to keep this game interesting for both of us.”

  “Cassandra!” Leon shouted, turning his back on Sonny. “We’re out of here.”

  She teleported to his side. “Where to?”

  Leon turned back to Sonny. “Well, Sonny?”

  Sonny gestured to Quar, who came running on all fours, standing on his hind legs only when reaching Sonny. “Quar has a gift for finding treasures that elude even supersentiences. He and his numerous clones are how I made such quick inroads into the other galaxies in the Collectors’ Menagerie. My spies, in the role of double agents, leaked the intel needed for many of those secrets to find their way to me.” Sonny took the dog bone that Quar had been nibbling on and handed it, and all its slobbered drool to Leon, who made sure not to flinch when accepting the doggie treat.

  Leon gazed at the cuneiform-like scroll on it, moving across the flexiscreen that was the bone’s surface. The nanite hive mind inside the bone stored whatever other intelligence that lay inside. “He made sure you only had half the key. When you download what you find out from your Menagerie-scanning supersentience to the key, the nanites inside will regrow the damaged part, giving you the balance of the intel.”

  Leon had to restrain Cassandra. The Blue was at his side in a flash. “His world admittedly traffics in intelligence even more than ours does,” Leon explained to Cassandra.

  “I knew you’d understand, Leon. Now, you’ll forgive my people for listening in on the girls’ conversation, too, but it seems they promised to spar for the amusement of the crowd.”

  Leon gazed at the two women, saw what he needed to in their eyes. “Sonny, they’ll tear up this space station, beyond the capacity of even your robots to repair. The bell of the ball will be no more.”

  “Ladies, let’s not take things that far, dial it down a notch, please,” Sonny implored. “This is just entertainment for the crowd.”

  The Blue nodded to Sonny.

  Leon thought of refusing his request, but saw the dare in Sonny’s eyes. The man had just handed him a key that got him one big step closer to being free of The Collectors. If Sonny’s price was a pound of Cassandra’s flesh, so be it. Sonny was more snake than dog and it wasn’t like Leon had allowed himself to be fooled on that matter.

  Leon
nodded at Cassandra, whispering, “Keep your anger in check, girl.”

  ***

  The crowd couldn’t be bothered to step back for their own safety, too determined to keep their superior vantage points on Gerlari and Cassandra. Apparently loss of life or limb was a secondary concern.

  Gerlari didn’t take long to expose the flaw in this logic. Focusing her chi energy through both arms she sent Cassandra like a bowling ball right through the crowd and out the wraparound spaceport window behind them, causing the throng in her wake to vent into space along with Cassandra. Others not in the direct line of fire vented out into space as well before Cassandra propelled herself back inside the Lucky Streak and the station sealed the rift, at least partially, with the energy shielding. The nanite-infested glass had yet to grow back. The lucky survivors trapped between the station’s energy shielding and the station, drifted now in the cheap seats regarding the fight, bitching accordingly, but sustained by the nanite-generated artificial atmosphere now leaking into their area.

  So much for Sonny’s request to keep things dialed down enough to spare the station, Leon thought. If this was first gear for these two women, even their lowest fight setting was not going to spare the station.

  Cassandra executed a similar stunt for her counterstrike, gesturing with both her arms, pulling them wide. Gerlari was ripped limb from limb in the process. Select spectators couldn’t be happier at their surprise opportunity to grope one or another part of her, drooling all the while, and running their tongues as well as their hands over her sexy surfaces.

  Gerlari pulled herself back together in the next moment with such force, she took the groping arms with her, along with the mouths applying teasing bites to her would be paramours. Asides from the screams coming from the affected parties, no one could take their attention away from the two women long enough to do much but laugh at the “lucky” body piece holders. Even the injured themselves couldn’t keep their attention on their newfound infirmities. They left any triage work needed on them to their nanites or their souped up genetics.

  The two women were no longer bothering to just use the floor. They did their gymnastics off the shoulders, heads, and arms of the crowd held high in cheers, to get to one another. Kicks to the chest and back, fists to the head, were all so powerful that it sent one or another woman flying even more acrobatically so they could get their feet under them again before springing back into range to strike. The aerial ballet just worked the crowd into more of a fervor.

  Both women refused to let go of one another when they got in range again. The fevered exchanging of blows and choke holds was regarded by the crowd as the foreplay getting closer to the desired outcome of their idea of rough sex, so once again sent a crescendo through the crowd.

  The two women, growing angrier at the crowd than at one another for being subjected to the male chauvinism, used one another as clubs and battering rams and lances against the spectators, while pretending to do as much harm as possible to one another instead. Even that couldn’t quell the fervor or the lasciviousness in the ones with the ogling eyes.

  Finally, one or both women altered their pheromones to produce fear and panic in the crowd. That worked.

  Now their fighting was tearing up the station indirectly, as the crowd raced to get out of the way and tripped over gaming tables instead. Spectators hurtled themselves behind the closest cover, breaking mirrors, taking out bartenders, and then one another, causing rapid attrition among Sonny’s paying customers. Leon was confident he’d call an end to the fight if only on that account, but he didn’t.

  Gerlari shifted from cooperating with her coconspirator to attacking Cassandra for real again. Leon had no clue what caused the beat change unless Gerlari was instructing Cassandra on the fine art of sensing a beat change through hormonal secretions alone.

  Gerlari grabbed Cassandra, flipped her on her back, and while still twisting the arm, started sucking the life out of her. Cassandra was desiccated to corpse-like status in a matter of seconds, as Gerlari got ready to drive the heel of her foot into Cassandra’s skull hard enough to end her, but she pulled up short. The two women exchanged eye contact wondering what the hell was going on between them. Leon was wondering himself. He thought he recognized something in Gerlari’s eyes.

  And then Gerlari just ended the fight, pulling Cassandra up.

  The crowd still too stunned to react was cued by Sonny, who clapped the duo.

  The throng, by now secretly relieved the fight was over, fearing nowhere was safe to hide from these two, and suddenly breathing easier, roared with delight and approval accordingly.

  Cassandra and Leon beamed back to the UFO.

  ***

  ABOARD THE UFO

  “Why didn’t she just kill me?” Cassandra asked, panting, more worked up by her emotional response to the way things had played out with Gerlari than by the fight itself.

  “Over what was essentially cheap crowd entertainment?”

  “Blues don’t play.”

  Leon was just dodging the question until he could arrive at a satisfactory conjecture. “Did you see in her eyes what I did? Killing you would be like killing one of her own. She couldn’t do it if she wanted to.”

  “I’m not a Blue.”

  “I wonder.” The two exchanged looks. “Maybe you are in part,” Leon said. “Maybe you’re the next generation on line, for that matter.”

  Cassandra huffed her pissant response. His remark didn’t seem worthy of putting words to; it struck her as that absurd.

  “The Umbrage have been bioengineering evolution across the cosmos for billions of years before sentient life can even remember being sentient,” Leon said. “It’s worth checking out with Solo.”

  “You don’t have to twist my arm,” she said, her tone more of a snarl.

  Her temper triggered a revelation in Leon beyond just the usual one to tell her to calm down. “It’s very possible, to access these higher abilities, you’ll have to learn to control your temper. Maybe the thought of playing second fiddle to the Blues will cause you to change your tune in ways I haven’t been able to.”

  Cassandra just glared at him. “You’re reaching.”

  “Maybe. But I saw something else in the Blue’s eyes when she called that fight. Respect. I don’t know the Blues to respect anyone but their superiors. Do you?”

  The thought silenced Cassandra’s cheeky responses, if it seemed to send her mind reeling.

  SIXTY-THREE

  ABOARD THE NAUTILUS

  “Mother. Tell me everything I need to know about my genetics,” Cassandra commanded. Cassandra had barely finished materializing from the transport beam and was marching the corridor toward the inner courtyard. With the Mars war god activated, the sphere of blinding white light she was headed toward made it look as if she might be looking to take a bath in the sun—to cool off.

  “I’m afraid that’s classified.”

  “I will start pulling components of your brain until I lobotomize you, so help me.”

  Mother sighed. “See Solo.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he promised to do the same thing to me if I tell you, and I fear he is more qualified to make good on that threat.”

  Cassandra stormed toward Solo’s chambers. The susurrus of the doors opening, like a rattler shaking its rattle at someone careless enough to step on it, caught his attention; and none of the innuendo was lost on him. “Spill,” she said. “My genetic makeup.”

  Solo ran the bands in his rainbow eyes over one another. He must have been assessing if he could snake out of this or not. Perhaps his ability to open to the All had already cued him to what had led to this moment, her battle with the Blue, Gerlari, and the subsequent revelations with Leon. “You are a crossbreed between three bloodlines, my own, and two others of the races known as The Guardians.”

  “The Guardians?”

  “The originals. The most long-lived of humanoids. Stretching back billions of years.”

  “The t
hree races, each of them dates back that far?”

  “Not just the races, the individuals within it. They are immortals. There was a time when we oversaw everything in the heavens.”

  “And then…”

  “There is only so much you can do as a humanoid, as the supersentients seem to live to prove.”

  “What am I supposed to be?”

  “For lack of a better term, you are the next generation on line.”

  She grunted. “Some next generation. I just lost a battle with a Blue.”

  “The Blues have been honing their fighting craft for billions of years. You do not even qualify as an infant in their eyes. You could not be expected to…” Solo stopped himself for whatever reason.

  “The other races, what are they good for?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I told you. We have no idea of knowing how the genetics of the three lifeforms will play off of each other. You may be discovering all you can do over a span of time you will no doubt find intolerable, considering that you have no patience.”

  “The Guardians, they’re the ones who put the artifact on the moon?”

  “No. It’s a stunt worthy of us, but no.”

  “Who did?”

  “We’re still looking into it. Mother and I and the Cream Umbrage.”

  So, the Cream Umbrage have been activated as well. That or they were already present in the Menagerie, and Solo was psychically connected to them. The Creams were to politicking what the Blues were to warfare—unsurpassed. Considering the context of The Collectors Menagerie, she supposed the presence of both made a whole lot of sense.

  “And the other two guardian races? Has anyone seen them in recent times?”

  “Not to my knowledge, no. Not for hundreds of millions of years.”

  “And your own race is all but extinct.”

  “The cosmos is a very big place indeed to hide, Cassandra. I wouldn’t make assumptions about anything, or about any of The Guardians.”

  “And…?”

  “That’s all you get out of me for now, you tantruming brat. I’ve been more than accommodating. It should occur to you that I withhold information for a reason. Given at the right time, it may well do some good. Delivered at the wrong time…”