by Lee Bond
Osiris interrupted smoothly, sincerely impressed with the Commander’s speaking voice. The man was definitely someone used to running things. “Because, Commander Aleksander Politoyov, leader of the Assembled Armies of Trinity, I am the one responsible for preventing them from traveling though Quantum space.”
“You.” You met a lot of crazy in SpecSer. It was part of the job. For every Garth Nickels –who at first blush had seemed as insane as the rest- there was a Zurich. For every Captain Edio Tekmara, there was a Ripper Jack.
There was even a formula for it. One of his Tech Experts had come up with it, but it essentially boiled down to one salient factor; the more powerful you were, the more likely it was that, one day, you would wake up stark-fucking-bonkers. Osiris, who was no more an Adjutant or a Rep than he was Father Frost, fell into both categories by his presence in a Commander’s sanctum sanctorum uninvited.
Osiris nodded, smiling and wiggling his eyebrows. “Me.”
Aleksander sniffed. “Prove it.”
***
Herrig put his pants on one leg at a time, like every other citizen of Latelyspace. It was one of the things the Chair PR department kept hammering home, every day, every night; trying to demystify –humanize, really- the post of Chairman to the rest of the solar system was a difficult one when you were working against five thousand years of nearly bulletproof propaganda and brainwashing. But try they would do, and continue on until there was success.
The head of the PR Department, a highly voluble and relatively unlikeable si by the name of Chantelle Beauchamp thought it was a bad way to do business, but the Chairman got what the Chairman wanted.
And the Chairman wanted to put his pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.
Well, he was trying to put his pants on. He’d got both legs in no problem, but … the pants didn’t fit any longer. He sighed. Sidra moved up behind him and he practically quivered. There were times he considered his luck in finding her to be nearly impossible. She said the same, and there were times … there were times he believed her.
“You are losing weight.” The God soldier chided gently. “You are not eating enough.”
“I am kept so busy, Sidra, it is a miracle I can even find time to drink a glass of water.” Herrig pulled his pants up again, sticking his once ponderous gut out as far as it would go.
No use. Even straining as mightily as he could to get his belly to hold up his pants, there was a three inch gap. He let the pants drop to the ground, and turned to Sidra saying, “As most powerful and omnipotent Chairman, I hereby decree that I shall henceforth rule Latelyspace in my boxers.”
“So it is said,” Sidra laughed, eyes sparkling merrily, “so shall it be.”
Herrig ran a hand through his love’s hair, unable to get over the heartbreaking joy he felt every time he could without standing on tiptoes and having her duck down. His mind swam with the first time she’d stood in his presence, focusing on nothing, swearing and cursing as though she were in a contest with his long-lost friend Garth.
At first, fear that Sidra was losing control of the Harmony within had consumed him.
It still happened, sometimes; the pressure of Harmony occasionally proved too much. Generally with the newest batch, but here and there, yes, some of the Goddies found the warm community –as Sidra herself referred to it every now and then- of Harmony distasteful, and they tried severing themselves.
With disastrous results.
Attempts to sever yourself from Harmony brought one of the original Harmony soldiers to your doorstep, full of brimstone and fire and fists and eyes burning with the baleful side of Harmony that few outside the fold ever got to witness. Things ended quickly after that and dead God soldier made a lot of mess. As of yet, not one of them had stuck around to help with cleanup, which made them all the more unlikeable.
Herrig remembered the burst of soul-piercing fear shattering his heart as he’d gazed upon Sidra, the woman he loved, seemingly in the middle of suicide, remembered running to her, intent on … well, he didn’t know what he would’ve done had … had she not been successful.
Sidra smiled at the look on Herrig’s face. “What?” she asked gently.
“Just remembering the first time you shrank yourself down like them.” The Chairman chuckled softly and put his arms around Sidra, kissed her. That was something else it was taking a long time to get used to. He still fought the urge to ask permission.
“You thought I was trying to sever myself from Harmony.” Sidra put on a very serious face, planted her hands on her hips, and began ‘Mimic The Chairman’. “’Sidra, you listen to me now! I am Chairman! You will stop this, er, foolishness now! I, er, I … need you! The … that is to say…’”
Herrig rolled his eyes. “If only I had known you would find such amusement in my affection for you, Foursie Sidra…”
“You would have done nothing at all, Chairman DuPont, nothing at all.” Sidra countered whimsically, offering up the prize she’d been holding in one hand. “This is for you.”
Herrig accepted the belt gratefully. He’d been so busy of late with meetings and Q-Comm conversations with Huey and the others trying desperately to end the war with Trinity that he’d literally walked to his offices, holding his pants up the whole way, and had conducted all of his meetings sitting down.
More than a few Latelian senators and businessmen had walked away from meeting with their Chairman with the suspicion that the non-native leader thought he was better than them, and all over his steadfast refusal to rise from his chair to shake their hands.
Hence the current ad campaigns. Herrig wanted for the effort to prove even partially successful; the primary thrust of his dominance within the system was to show Latelians that he was –in no way at all- even remotely similar to the any previous Chair. Thus far, there were some notables that refused to believe the hype.
The last ‘businessman’ to meet with him and leave similarly conflicted –not to mention singularly vocal- towards their leader’s erroneously perceived aloof manner was none other than Petros Vasco. The father of the ironically monikered Morgan the Dead had made it his business to make scandalous statements to anyone willing to listen. The thrust of his current argument was that the Latelian paradigm of governance was now so flawed beyond repair that the system teetered on the edge of financial and moral apocalypse, and all thanks to the most unscrupulous non-Latelian the Universe had ever seen.
With anti-Trinity sentiment over the rise –thanks in no small part to the partial invasion of their space- Vasco’s personally motivated rhetoric was aimed squarely at hugely disenfranchised old guard politicians and corrupt businessmen who’d flourished under ‘the old and better way’ of doing things but were now suffering hunger pangs under the Commonwealth’s new drive of transparency and legitimacy. Vasco’s words had garnered nearly instant traction in those quarters.
Everything up to that point had been going according to plan, but bloody damn Petros Vasco had ignited a furious firestorm with his baseless accusations and acrimonious behavior, not only driving his new friends to newer and greater efforts to oust their ‘unwanted and useless’ non-Latelian dictator but sidelining more important efforts, like dealing with the invasion.
Naturally, those politicians and businessmen who spoke too loud and foolishly about things that were either blatantly wrong or ingeniously skewed lies had their asses hand to them, in public, on the platform of their choosing; Herrig knew people considered him less than average, saw very clearly that those who came at him assumed because they were Latelian and he was not that they would come out the clear victor.
He knew it, and took advantage every time. Those who got beaten badly enough in the public eye backed down, quietly disappearing when the time was right.
Frustratingly, the only man who wouldn’t spar with him was Petros; unlike his friends and deceased son, Petros was no fool. Where his friends were pompous twits who shouted from all corners, Vasco hid himself away, squandering frien
dships like coin. When things on the political front got too hot and heavy, with his backers and cronies falling by the wayside, the odious man –who was just as guilty if not more so than his son- began leveling thinly veiled accusations that the administration had willfully and willingly assisted in the foul murder of his one and only son.
‘round and ‘round they went. When hand-wringing and crocodile tears gained a new roster of sympathetic ears, it began again from square one, with everyone on Petros’ side believing that this time they would be successful.
Herrig sighed miserably and began threading his new belt through the loops in his pants.
Sidra sensed her love’s mood and ran her hands across his bare shoulders. She wished her brothers and sisters could find their way to a similar place, but of all of them –save perhaps Ute- she was the only one to expend massive effort in discovering the way to change her size as Fenris and his brothers could.
The Foursie knew that the ascetic ‘brothers’ weren’t pleased with the discovery. Similarly, they disliked the reasons behind the tremendous effort, but what had been done had been done and there was no going back.
“You cannot let that ‘man’ bring you down.” Sidra kissed the top of Herrig’s bald head loudly. “He is a child.”
Herrig let out another woeful sigh. “Child he may be, Sidra, but he is nevertheless still Petros bloody Vasco, number one shipping magnate in Latelyspace. We are using his transport vessels more often than not, and Ministry of Examination has detected grumblings.”
“Oh. That sounds serious.” Sidra grabbed a shirt and handed it over.
Herrig eyed the purple shirt skeptically. It provided stark contrast to the black pants and the bright color apparently made him look taller –at least, that was what PR claimed- but … purple. “It is. Vasco is demanding satisfaction on a number of fronts. First, he has an entire legal team and a slew of first-rate avatars combing through every single historical document available in search of even the weakest phrasing that limits who can actually be Chair to a Latelian native. That alone is eating up a lot of my time.”
“Second,” Herrig continued, morosely buttoning his purple shirt up, “secondly, this miserable excuse of a man is grumbling about the war effort eating into his profits. The threat there is that he intends to charge us.”
“Do you not have access to the single largest accumulation of money in the known Unreality?” Sidra selected a tie –black with understated mauve designs- for Herrig and dropped it around his neck. “Correct me if I am wrong, but are you not still president of, ah, UltraMegaDynamaTron?”
Herrig hung his head in mock sorrow over the unwieldy name. He’d tried to surreptitiously change the name to something less ridiculous, but Garth had anticipated that move ages ago. There were thousands of well-programmed avatars doing nothing but protecting the ludicrous name from erasure.
“I am, yes, but the restrictions are quite clear. A privately owned and operated company, no matter how preposterously wealthy, cannot fund military ventures, which is, in essence, the argument he would make, and what we’re using his vessels and lanes for truly does count as ‘military’. Vasco wants to cripple my government by charging me exorbitant fees and there’s already an injunction against me from lining my own political pockets.”
“UMDT is hardly private, my love. A surprising number of your subsidiary companies own military R&D contracts. Surely there’s … ‘wiggle room’ there?” An idea struck Sidra out of the blue and she smiled; the thought came from Threesie Semea, traveling through the Harmony to reach her. “I assume Vasco’s argument is that those ships not outfitted with Latelian black hole engines are preventing the man from moving his own merchandise? That his ‘lanes’ are plugged with our traffic?”
“They are. And he is.” Herrig fussed with the tie. If only they had access to actual AI spheres! This issue with Vasco would be a non-starter. They could have black hole ships identical to Trinity’s forces and that would be that! Then their small vessels could hop around the system with the same kind of impunity as the invaders instead of either being bulk shipped or –as of late- paying Vasco to leave broad swathes of ‘his’ lanes empty to facilitate the sudden arrival of a jumping super-carrier..
Herrig would trade half Garth’s fortune for a dozen AI spheres. Then Vasco would have no ground to be so irritating. Huey claimed he was doing everything possible to grow synthetic diamond fiber optics, but Herrig wasn’t holding his breath. In any event, even if Huey was successful, Vasco still needed dealing with.
“Well.” Sidra kissed Herrig’s shiny bald head once more. “Then all you need to do is buy Vasco out.”
Herrig paused, stunned. Too long in the Chairman’s … Chair already, and it’d only been a handful of years, to miss such a simple solution. “Garth would’ve thought of that.”
“Actually, from what I know of Garth, he would’ve either stolen the company from the man or blown it up.”
“This is true.” Herrig considered what he knew of Vasco’s shipping business. It was vast, one of the largest companies in the entire solar system, running very close to being an actual Conglomerate. Buying the man out would cost billions. Possibly trillions. The Chairman of the Latelian Commonwealth turned and kissed his girlfriend squarely on the lips, then slapped her behind. “Now, Foursie Sidra, be about the process of making yourself big. Can’t have the people see you looking like a normal person. They’d freak right out.”
Sidra loved it when Herrig broke out of his normally very staid and traditional mindset long enough to utter something mildly naughty. It showed he did have an adventurous side.
Though, she reflected as Harmony flooded her body and began stretching it back to ‘proper’ shape, falling in love with –not to mention successfully wooing- a giant God soldier had already proven that point.
When she was done growing, Foursie Sidra turned to Chairman Herrig. “How do you plan on broaching the subject with Petros?”
“First,” Herrig answered, sticking his feet in his shoes, “I’m going to assign government avatars to put a … blue book value … on Vasco Enterprises. Then I’m going to add fifteen percent.”
“And if he doesn’t like the offer?” Sidra asked as they left the bedroom together.
Herrig shrugged. “Just because I haven’t played dirty yet doesn’t mean I won’t. There is precedent.”
***
Ever since Warden Peemes and his men had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, every Warden of every door had put their little encampment under high alert, wondering and worrying just what’d happened. No one seemed to know anything and Trinity –blast It’s cold mechanical heart- was refusing to get involved because ‘the King commands the area’. The only thing It seemed interested in doing was keeping interested parties away from The Dome. Whatever had caused the disappearance wasn’t something It had any interest in solving.
Although the Wardens and the men guarding the Geared Doors did often wake up one night deciding they’d had enough of the whole damn thing, this time … this time was different. Distressingly so.
Peemes’ Door –each door unofficially ‘belonged’ to whosoever was tasked with tossing criminals through it- had changed. And that had the remaining Wardens quite frankly squirming in their shiny boots. They all knew Peemsey had had a spot of bother with Enforcers doing battle with some strange fella-me-lad right on the doorstep of late, then there was also that overpowered bloke who’d voluntarily gone through for no damned reason, but all that had happened ages ago. Since then, though … oh, it was all so worrying.
“Changed once before, you know, though not like this.” Warden Gaston commented through standard comm units; he was talking with his mate Warden Bastille at the far end of their wondrous King’s even more wondrous Dome. “Before your time.”
“Before your time as well, Gassy.” Bastille snickered at Gassy’s attempts to become ‘senior man’ now Peemes was gone. They were all clambering for the unofficial title because it got you �
�best’ pick of criminals -which led to interesting things like a man apparently capable of punching a moon in twain yet still willingly allowing himself to be tossed into Perdition- and first choice of delivery parcels from proper FrancoBritish solar systems. Bastille wasn’t sure how he’d feel about them truly strange goings on, but he did know he’d murder his own men for a bag of proper tea.
“Before all our times, truth.” This, from Lady Hanover, the one and only female Warden –if whispers were to be listened to, because she’d gotten up to some kind of hijinks with a Son. Which meant those shenanigans were the sort of thing that would normally get her bunged up ‘neath The Dome good and proper but also that were juicy enough to keep her out.
The three of them were good friends, forming themselves a little clique to armor themselves against the other eleven –well, ten, now Peemes had hightailed it hither-: Door Wardens were amongst the snootiest and most ridiculous people in the world. The three knew this was the case and never tried to pretend otherwise while the eleven –ten- did their level best to exude a ‘common-man’ vibe that irritated the living daylights out of their guards, all while keeping everyone at arm’s reach and downwind.
“Why d’you reckon he buggered off then?” Bastille asked, fiddling with a pen. He came from Morninghouse, and they did things the old-fashioned way out there. Oh, of course they used AI and computers and all that sort of thing, but … taking notes and filling out paperwork was something FrancoBrits excelled at. Bastille found it quite calming.
“Any number of reasons, I expect.” Gaston speared a cube of chocolate with a filigreed fork and stuffed it into his mouth. “Firstly, the man had been Warden for something like fifty years. Longer, even.”
