by Lee Bond
Chadsik’s fingers twitched. He plastered a grin on his face. How long could he pretend, this time, before he truly lost himself again? How long before the madness resurfaced? How many of him were left before he could make no more? What would happen then?
Chad opened his mouth to agree, but the thought of fishing the hims from that deep ocean of the Unreality curdled the words before they were formed.
He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t. Them as were left were the only ones left, as it were, and he’d grown accustomed to them bein’ there. To throw them into the machine, to see them warped and altered by it…
Chad did the only thing he could think of besides escape; he eyed the unbreakable glass windows of the Armory thoughtfully, crafted a careful and meticulous path to his destination and then rammed his head as hard as he could against the nearest pane.
Chadsik al-Taryin flashed Nanny Taint a blood-spittled, drooling grin, tossed her the bird and rammed again. And again. And again. And one more time for good measure. He went to give his warden another nasty grin but he felt his peepers go cross-eyed in his melon. He pissed his pants as he fell unconscious because fuck that old robotic twat.
Nanny eyed the damage Chad had done to himself and tsked. Always so headstrong.
Somewhere Else Entirely
Lieutenant General Leftbridge Stewart was, to say the least, ecstatic. Why, he was happy enough for three whole people and was more than inclined to give everyone an extra day off. Should they manage to complete the duties that would be required of them for the coming day, that is. Happiness and success and extra days to relax were all well and good, of course, but only if everyone’s work was done.
Mm. Perhaps not a day off then. Lefty knew his staff could barely tie their own shoes without several hours’ notice. Expecting them to be able to complete their chores for the next day in addition to that which they were already expected to do would be to incite interoffice warfare. Across a whole planet …
Lefty shook his head. His betters tended to notice things like burning planets.
Perhaps a parade, then. Lefty’s shoulders, slumped over the notion of his world burning, straightened. Yes, a parade. With floats and marching bands and those humorously sized balloons of favorite characters floating by. Nothing too cheerful, though; there’d have to a bit in there where the recently deceased were dealt with, and that’d have to be handled very carefully indeed, because there were so very many of them…
Lefty tsked angrily. No, they couldn’t do a parade either. “I guess,” he said through his laborious handlebar moustache, “I guess it’s rather just going to have to be an execution alone.”
The assembled officers in the room, present to oversee this final interrogation, grumped and murmured to themselves. They, too, had been looking forward to some sort of celebration after the fact. Public execution barely counted as afternoon entertainment, and the fellow they’d caught had run them through the ringer. Had been running them through the ringer for upwards of two years.
A serving girl bustled through and refreshed everyone’s tea, leaving in her wake a scattering of gingersnap cookies and one buttered scone.
Lefty perused the files on the man they’d taken to calling ‘Scourge’, to get more of a handle on things before the guards ushered him in to his last proper conversation. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, of course; they might be getting ready to kill him, and he’d done such terrific damage that many considered him an animal, but there were ways of doing things.
Lefty looked over his shoulder at his long-time chum, Shorty, who was busy relating the Improbable Story of the Lusty Serving Girl. “I say, Shorty, is all of this the work of one man?”
Shorty nodded. “Indeed, sah, indeed. Well, towards the end there was a kind of despicable network of ruffians and ne’er-do-wells, to be true, but in the beginning, ‘twas just Scourge himself.”
“A one-man demolition team, if these records are correct. Egads, I’d plum forgotten about Knotworth Station. What a blow, that.”
Two hundred thirty-five dead, a space station worth eighty million … quite a blow indeed. But then there were also seventy raided space ships, fourteen planet-based military installations destroyed, a Quantum Tunnel shut down for two solid months … the list read like an anarchist’s cookbook on how to make a man look like he couldn’t handle command.
“Seven jailbreaks?” Lefty shook the paper he held irately. “When did escapes six and seven happen and why hadn’t anyone told me?”
Snotty, or Major Johnson Nottingham, saluted crisply, then cursed as he spilled tea down the front of his uniform. Ignoring the chuckles from his comrades, Snotty answered. “Sah, six was not so much a jailbreak as a break in, sah. One of the rogue’s own main hands, as it were, got himself incarcerated for singing ‘The Ballad of Bawdy Jane’ on the street. Set to be flogged in the am. Scourge heard about it and broke the scurrilous lad out. Took out half the division and three local pubs. I hear tell Scourge swung back ‘round and blew up a statue of the King for good measure.”
“The devil you say!” Lefty cleared his throat to keep from saying more. No wonder no one had mentioned anything to him. Blowing up a statue of the King indeed. What a villain. “And the seventh?”
“No one made mention of that one, sah, as the desperado made his break in, ah, in the altogether, sah.” Snotty shook his head at that. Such an embarrassment!
“My word!” Lefty put the papers down. “Escaped incarceration in the buff! What a cad! This is most … disturbing!”
“As you say, sah, as you say. It seems our Scourge was most upset at having to break free in the nudd himself, as the first thing he did, rather than flee for the hills like the blaggard he is, was nip ‘round to a shop and steal some clothes. Then he…”
Lefty held up a hand. “I’ve heard and read enough, Snotty. Bring the reprobate in. Let us see what he has to say for himself before he swings from the gibbet.”
Shorty cleared his throat politely, then waited for Lefty to address him with a curt nod. “I feel we should warn you, sah, the scum is in the altogether.”
“What is this all about, hey? Nude again?” Lefty stared suspiciously at his commanding officers and friends. What happened at boarding school was supposed to stay at boarding school. If he suspected they were using this Scourge to have one over on him, why, they’d all find their beds short-sheeted before dawn!
“It seems, sah, that … that he has used articles of clothing to variously destructive degrees in the past. There was the explosive tie pin, the laser cufflinks, the … remote-controlled predator drone shoes. Am I forgetting anything?” Shorty looked around the room.
“Garrote shoe-laces. Holographic trousers. The regrettable incident of the Flying Pants of Doom.” Someone supplied without stepping forward.
“By the heavens!” Lefty roared. “Flying Pants! This man knows no sense of decorum or shame! By all means, kill as many as you like, we’ve got loads of citizens, but … flying pants! What did they do, by the by, these aerial undergarments?”
“They, er, they stuck themselves after a goodly flight through a square directly upon the forehead of a City Matron, sah. Matron Champrese, to be exact. It took four Square Guards and a great deal of … pulling and … jostling. The Matron’s own clothing may have been … disarrayed towards the end.” Shorty hid a smirk and was unsurprised to see Lefty hiding one of his own; even though Matrons kept the cities nice and tidy and under organized control at all times, they could be sticky wickets in their own right. The thought of a Matron being manhandled by Square Guards in an attempt to free her from Flying Pants was equally disturbing and tremendously hilarious.
Lefty bit back an undignified chortle and motioned for the prisoner to be brought in. The meeting was a formality; sentencing had already been decided. In truth, sentencing had been decided the moment the Scourge had gotten his own nickname.
Four Square Guards, resplendent in their King’s Armor, dragged the prisoner into the room. Beyond
being naked as a babe, their prisoner had been treated to the manacles and the shackles, and then some; metallic tubes called ‘Prisoner’s Choice’ stretched from fingertip to elbow. Lefty quirked an eyebrow at that. Even here, in the capital, surrounded by guards and watched every which way, still the man had attempted escape at least once.
It took all kinds, Lefty supposed. And really, the sort of person who attacks a harmless woman with flying undergarments would have to be the sort of man who’d risk his life when it was all over with.
The Square Guards, all red and marigold yellow, dropped the prisoner into a chair and arrayed themselves behind, splinterguns at the ready. The Scourge slumped down, resting his chin on his chest.
Lefty raised a hand, both at the discontented muttering of his comrades and at the martial display. “Now, now, gentlemen, surely we’re free from the rapscallion’s ministrations now? He’s clad in Prisoner’s Choice. He’ll blow his own arms off should he even think about causing us harm, yes?”
The Square Guard commander shook his head. “Orders may be orders, sah, and you may be making all the orders you wish, but you is Lieutenant General. We can’t be risking your life, sah. The Scourge is dangerous beyond comprehension.”
Snotty waved a hand in the air. It was creeping on four. He had –they all had- places they’d rather be. “Oh, do let the Guards have their moment, Lefty. I’ve got tee time at six and if I’m not mistaken, tonight is steak and kidney night at the Stewart household?”
Lefty puffed, and his majestic moustache ends wiggled. Snotty was bang on the money, as always. Cold steak and kidney was terrible. He nodded. “Right then, let’s get on with this. You, sir, are known as the Scourge, Terror of Elysia, destroyer of …”
“Your name,” The Scourge interrupted, head still slumped across his chest, “is Lieutenant General Leftbridge Stewart?”
“Of cou … see here, this is a formal reading of your charges and announcement of your punishment.” Lefty cleared his throat, ready to resume. “Destroyer of Homestead and Hampton Quinting and …”
The Scourge interjected again. “Of the Swinting Stewarts, formally of Whinny-on-the-Rocks System?”
Shorty stepped forward. “You will be silent, you blighter, else the Guards will slap you silly.”
Lefty tilted his head to one side, suddenly, and against caution, very interested. The Scourge was incredibly well educated, at least on familial matters. There were, outside of the artificial intelligences, perhaps three people in the entire solar system who knew that his family had come, once upon a time, from Whinny-on-the-Rocks. “How did you come by that information, sirrah? That’s not publicly available anywhere.”
“Just learned it.” The Scourge tilted his head up and everyone within eyesight gasped; as a matter of course, they all knew that there current, ‘greatest’ enemy was missing an eye, but they hadn’t been expected the man’s socket to be glowing blue.
Lefty surreptitiously signaled for more guards. As keen as he was on maintaining civility and decorum, he was also not entirely a fool. He had an itch in his spleen that said The Scourge was not likely to play fair, even now, even shackled with The Choice and surrounded by guards. “And how, pray tell,” he leaned forward until his elbows rest on the table, steepling his fingers together, “did you do that.”
“My replicated eye does … things. Things I wasn’t really expecting. I sacrificed the original for a bit of knowledge, and when it grew back, well, it took a fucking long time, first off, but … yeah. It can see the quantum emissions of AI spheres and if my body’s in the mood to be nice instead of a dick, I can hack in. It’s pretty neat.” Garth smiled. “Anyways, you are Leftbridge Stewart, yes? You received the honor called ‘King’s Favored Son’ for valor in the face of danger?”
Lefty ran his fingers thoughtfully against the chassis of his robotic left hand. He had indeed won that particular award, and it had indeed been for valor. In his youth, he’d lost his hand saving a school full of children from burning to death. Some foolish child had lit a candle after lights out so he could read under the covers. The damn bed sheet had gone up like it’d been soaked in kerosene. “I did.”
“And, under King’s Law, that makes you a relative of the King, right?” Garth leaned forward, an action which scared the Square Guards behind him so fiercely that they shuffled forward until the muzzles of their splinterguns were pressed against his skull. “The Law makes no distinction between blood relatives and those recognized under the Favored Law, right? As far as anyone is concerned, anyone like, sayyyy, King Blake, an attack against you is an attack against the Crown?”
“Indeed, sah.” Lefty didn’t rely as much on his status as King’s Son as much as he once had. In his youth, he was ashamed to admit he’d rather used it for nearly anything he could think of. The King or his representatives had never once contacted him or warned him away from the excesses he’d gotten up to, but over time, Lefty had matured and mellowed out. Those in the room unaware of his impressive nobility were doing a fine job of keeping calm. “Raise a finger to me and the punishment will go from bad to worse. Tell me though, sah, why does any of this matter? You are caught. You are bound in Prisoner’s Choice, which, if you are unaware, will blow your arms up to the elbow clean off. If the shock doesn’t kill you outright, blood loss a few moments later will. And should miracles occur and neither of those things happen, there are seventy more Square Guards outside the door.”
Garth nodded, hefting the Prisoner’s Choice modules approvingly. “Great design. Keyed into about fifteen different physical and neurological measurements. Really hard to fool. The explosion’ll pulp everything inside the modules, but the ‘shackles’ won’t blow up at all. They’ll fall off, all full of goop and bone and stuff, which is gross. I approve. A bit barbaric, but whatever. Anyways. I found another King’s Son, a Jonathon Kingston, but as it turns out, that guy really was a son, or, well, a kid. Like, all of seven years old. I won’t kill a kid, even if he did steal my wallet to buy himself some hookers and guns.”
The room went awkwardly quiet. Violence began to fill the air as the Square Guards began to panic.
Garth continued, merrily. “And just for my own benefit, an attack on you results in specifically which punishment?”
“If,” Lefty checked the readout from his AI, and frowned behind his moustache; if the Scourge had somehow hacked into their artificial intelligences with a glowing eyeball, the damnable machines couldn’t find any proof of it. “If,” he resumed with all the frosty hauteur he could muster, “if that even happened, you would find yourself on the next ship to Trinity Prime, sirrah Scourge, to be set before the King Himself, beneath the Dome, in his wondrous and legendary Arcade City. There, cowering before the majesty of Our King, you would be given but a single command; survive. Survive against the madness. Survive against the FrancoBritish wardogs that howl like crazed beasts in the night. Survive against the best soldiers with the worst appetites. Perhaps a dozen men a year are sent to Arcade City for slights against King’s Sons, from a foul word to an accidental touch on the wrist. Some last minutes, others days. I have been given to believe that a gentleman’s gentleman once lived an entire year. But I, sir, am a gentleman. Desist this line, receive the reading of your crimes, take your punishment and if you are lucky enough to be reborn, hopefully you shall remember your P’s and Q’s and be a good fellow the next time around.”
Garth took a deep breath and sighed miserably. “I am sorry.”
“It is a bit late for that, sirrah. You cannot receive forgiveness for your crimes. Mayhap if you’d apologized last year, or even six months ago, perhaps we could’ve seen clear to imprisoning you for life somewhere. But I’m afraid it’s the gibbet for you.” Lefty picked up the papers bearing the Scourge’s list of crimes and began reading.
“No.” Garth said woefully and with such heartbreaking sorrow that some few of the men arrayed on Lefty’s side of the room twitched. “No. I’m sorry for this.”
Everyone in th
e room gasped theatrically when The Scourge raised his arms most dramatically, as if he expected the Prisoner’s Choice to fall from his arms.
Nothing of the sort happened. Everyone in the room, including the normally stoic and rigid guards, chuckled and tittered.
Lefty motioned for silence. “You did indeed have us going, sirrah. Well played, yes? A bit of a last minute uproar before the end.”
“Goddamnit.” Garth muttered angrily. “Are you fucking kidding me? That would’ve been awesome. Very dramatic. I raise my arms, the doohickeys clatter off, everyone gets spooked, I karate chop Lefty McGee and His Moustache into paste.” Garth shook his head and looked up at his audience, which was staring at him as if, in addition to being a world-class villain, he was a loon. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s the fucking operating system for … it’s this operating system. It has concerns over collateral damage. The Prisoner’s Choice modules might explode and hurt some of you guys, but I’m like ‘eff that, that was a cherry moment’ but … yeah. So. Um.”
No one had a chance to move. The Scourge, a living bane on their solar system for two long and dreadful years, presumed trapped, secure –and mildly insane- moved. Later, the guards responsible for keeping him at bay with their splinterguns would assure their gibbet-masters that no being could’ve moved that fast, with the gibbet-masters replying with something pithy about the condition of the immortal soul before pulling the rope.
Shorty and Snotty bellowed in FrancoBritish confusion, flinging themselves forwards to assail the suddenly rampaging Scourge while the other members of the junta did the opposite; it was all well and good to protect their leader –who was also a King’s Son- but when a madman suddenly flings himself forward faster than the eye can properly follow, one must also ensure that there are leaders left behind.
