by Lee Bond
Tomas moved a knight halfheartedly. Vasily was going to trounce him. That much was for certain.
Vasily eyed his friend worriedly; he was playing chess as poorly as he had when Maurna had been dying. This thing with Naoko was tearing him up inside, and with typical EuroJapanese reticence combined with Tomas Kamagana absurd ‘don’t-want-to-be-a-burden’ attitude … “So, my friend, tell me about your neighbor. What is her name? Si Sunnyvale?”
“Stonigvale.” Tomas puffed on his pipe and started morosely at the board, trying to think his way through Vasily’s moves. The man was a soldier born and bred, and though he wore the cap of a spiritual advisor to demigods these days, he still lived his life as though everything was a military objective. “Hildy.”
“Is … is that short for Brunhilda?” Vasily tried to picture the sort of woman that belonged to a name like Brunhilda Stonigvale. This whole time, whenever the tight-lipped Tomas made mention of ‘Si Stonigvale’, Vasily had to confess he’d envisioned a thin, iron-willed woman. Brunhilda, though … that evoked images of a veritable IndoRussian descended giantess.
“It is.” Tomas pointed at the board with his pipe. “Are you going to make your move?”
Vasily leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You have gone from an impish jokester to a moody old man in a matter of minutes, Tomas Kamagana, and I will not have it. You are playing the worst game of your life and we’re only fifteen minutes in. You allowed me to be miserable and to wallow in my own crapulence for a long time, and then you rode with me to dispatch what I considered my duty. Never has there been a greater gift, or a greater friend. Sadly, I cannot allow you the same luxury. There is something eating at you, and it is painful to behold. Where I was already ousted by Fenris and his brothers, there is no one in the wings waiting to do for the war what you do. What is it?”
“Always the soldier’s way.” Tomas muttered, not unhappily. “It is my daughter, Vasily. I worry about her.”
Vasily’s brow furrowed. Naoko had been outsystem for two years and in all that time, Tomas had shown no real concern. The IndoRussian said as much asking, “What has changed?”
Tomas sighed, looked to his pipe, and then put it off to the side. “Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. It is … I … I may have made a terrible mistake, Vasily. One that cannot be undone and … and with the shield up, there is no way to know.”
“Tell me.” Vasily summoned up a smile for his friend. “And remember, nothing can be worse than deciding to conquer the Universe only to discover that the woman you intended on doing it with was monumentally insane, or that your efforts wouldn’t even work in the first place.”
Tomas Kamagana, titular Yellow Dog Elder of the Kamagana Clan, looked Vasily in the eye. “What I did, I did for love, Vasily, of my daughter. I was born into the Kamagana Clan of the Yellow Dogs, and we were the most powerful of all the families. Firstborn and most loved of the Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles himself, Kamagana held in its grasp as much power as all the other families combined. They conspired against us…”
***
Candall knew he was being a fool. It didn’t matter. An honorable man –never mind that he’d been the ‘enemy’- had died for no good reason, and the urge to do the man justice would not go away.
Shane Markson had been a good man. Yes, he’d worked for Trinity, yes, he’d taken an entire moon hostage, yes, he’d been intent on constructing weapons of mass destruction, but what everyone was failing to consider was that if their troops had landed on a Trinity world, they would be doing the same damn thing. Men and women didn’t become soldiers ‘just because’. They fought for their country, their leader, their solar system. They fought for honor, justice, because they believed in doing what was right.
Candall had learned that from Shane.
Captain Shane Markson, whether he was on Trinity’s side or not, had been a soldier following a soldier’s orders. It wasn’t until he’d seen that the enemy had a face, had names, had hopes and dreams of their own, that things had changed.
And then that fucking God soldier had crashed down on his head, destroying their base, displaying for everyone Harmony’s power, and that … that’d been the end.
Candall bit back the urge to start cursing under his breath and failed. A litany of words bubbled and boiled out of him, but he whispered them, bits of foam flecking his lips.
What he was doing was insane, but there was no other choice. No, no there was no choice. It needed to be done, needed to happen.
Candall realized he was getting loud, looked apologetically around, but no one was paying him any attention. Most of the people in the restaurant were preoccupied with eating or had their heads bent to their protes. A quick look at the news flash updates on his prote showed that News4You was replaying Vasily’s interview.
It was a good piece, the interview. For what it was: a blindfold to cover the eyes of the doubters, the people who could see through the bullshit to the truth beneath the lie. Candall could not deny that Harmony was a good thing.
For God soldiers. That was it, that was all. For mortal men and women, for those who lived a normal span of years, it was the worst thing in the world.
And to someone who’d witnessed the ultimate power that Harmony bestowed upon God soldiers?
It changed a man. It gripped hold in ways that no one could predict. In Markson’s case, it’d filled an aging soldier with the paramount belief that words and sincerity would win the day.
Oh, how he’d been wrong. Candall squeezed his eyes shut. Markson had been irrevocably changed, and for the worst.
Markson’s foolish, unnecessary, blind death demanded justice. Not one single person in the chain of command for the operation against that ‘Deep Strike’ beachhead had looked at the Trinityman and said ‘you are crazy insane and not one of those cyborgs is going to listen to you, least of all because you are talking about things that will make no sense to them’.
And they should’ve.
It was a bone this dog couldn’t put down. The men in charge … Huey, Herrig, Ute … one of them should’ve stepped in, put a stop to the ‘mission’.
Candall’s eyes fell on a small girl sitting a table with her parents, swinging her legs so they banged on the bench. Clunk clunk clunk. Her tiny little fingers were poking away at oversized buttons of a children’s prote. He tried to smile, but the feeling wasn’t in him. He’d come to grips with the fact that he’d lost his chance for a normal life a long damn time ago, and … that was fine. Not everyone out there could have the house with children, the good job, the newest flying car. For every si and sa that got to live the life they wanted, there was the si or sa that couldn’t.
Candall realized he was staring and looked hastily away. He couldn’t afford to be ousted from the restaurant, not after everything finding the place had cost.
A waitress came by to ask if he wanted another cup of coffee, suggesting he try some French fries or possibly a hamburger. Candall nodded absentmindedly, telling the pretty young thing she could bring him whatever was best. He hadn’t eaten since the day before yesterday. Had, in fact, spent the last of his money to get out to Southon, where his quarry was currently situated.
Candall swept the restaurant again, eyes roving, calculating and tabulating threat, identifying those likely involve themselves if something went wrong, those who’d run, those who’d … those who might not make it. There was no telling at all how the ‘meeting’ was going to go. No telling at all, and like it or lump it, Candall was willing to go whichever direction he was pulled at this point, guns blazing or otherwise.
The double-wide doors banged open and one of the largest Latelians Candall had ever set eyes upon entered the restaurant. In that moment, that oh so brief moment of being confronted by the man he’d come to see, Candall almost changed his mind.
Unfortunately, just as he had seen Ute, Ute had seen Candall. Confusion -quickly replaced by understanding- flashed across the broad man’s homely IndoRussian feat
ures. A cautious smile of greeting crossed Ute’s lips and the broad Harmony soldier made his way over to where Candall sat, coinciding quite nicely with the delivery of French fries and a hamburger.
Ute eyed the fries as he nodded greetings to Sa Candall. “Sa, how are you today?”
“I am well, Sa Ute. Yourself?” Candall wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the moment. Ute was no fool. He never had been. His story was out there, if you but knew where to look, who to talk to. The one and only God soldier to remain aware of who and what he was for the whole passage of his life, the only one to be free and clear of the crippling drugs force fed to millions of combatants.
Four thousand years –long years- of life, watching as brother and sister suffered in moronic torment, never able to step forward and show himself for what he was.
If there was anyone in the solar system who could understand the pain he felt, it was Ute.
Ute dipped his head in greeting, though only half-heartedly. Candall had seen better days. He didn’t quite stink; no self-respecting Latelian –no matter how deep in the dumps as Candall definitely was- stopped caring for their basic needs. There’d been times when he’d been homeless and destitute, yet Ute had gone out of his way to find fresh water for bathing no less than once a week. It was easy to wind up a poor vagrant in Latelyspace, but that didn’t mean you lost respect for yourself. Latelians held their heads up high even as they fell so low rising once more seemed impossible.
Candall flashed a wan smile at Ute and gestured for the man to sit, saying, “Please, feel free. I only ordered it so the waitress wouldn’t tell her supervisor –the man at the counter staring at me still- that I’m …”
“Dangerous?” Ute said this around a mouthful of French fries, eyebrows rising as he did so. By now, the secret behind Chef Charbo’s amazing food had leaked system wide. While none could –obviously- match the Master Chef’s grandeur, each variation on a theme nevertheless held their own surprises for the foodie to discover.
Candall shrugged. “Who can say what I am, these days?” He didn’t feel dangerous. He didn’t feel anything, anymore, not really, except sad.
“No man but you.” Ute signaled to a waitress that he would like a pitcher of water brought to the table through the diner’s open-access ‘LINK. The two men sat in uncomfortable silence until the pitcher and another glass was deposited. Pouring himself some water, Ute proffered Candall a top-up on his barely touched glass. The haggard looking man declined.
They continued sitting in silence for a few moments longer, Candall’s hands and lips twitching restlessly. Ute knew why the mercenary reclamation specialist was here, yet had little desire to broach the topic. Of late, Candall had been rattling the cage doors on something everyone associated with Harmony flat out wished had never happened. Even Fenris went stony when fallout from that … that debacle reached his ears. Nothing could be done about it now, save … ignore it. In time, there was every likelihood that what’d happened to Shane Markson would barely even be a footnote in the history of this war.
But Candall was being difficult.
Candall watched Ute shovel food and drink into his mouth calm as a springtime breeze. How he wished he could be like that. Only without Harmony. Candall thought quickly back on his life, hoping to find a moment where he’d been calm. Didn’t even have to be as cool as the Harmony soldier in front of him, oh no, just some … moment. Where the clamor of his employees, or the rigors of the job just past or the one just ahead, where all the old haunts in his bitter heart didn’t ring the bell … no. He’d never been calm, not in his whole, long life.
Hah! That wasn’t true. The heartbeat or two after stabbing that dirty old bastard dead with the garden tool. That had been a wonderful, quiet moment, there, in the garden, with the breeze blowing.
And those times with Markson.
Those had been good and calm and quiet.
Candall seized that memory and locked eyes with Ute. “Harmony owes me a life.”
Ute froze for a split second, then turned his head cautiously to the left, then the right. His heart was hammering in his chest and the few soldiers in Harmony he shared personal moments with fled, equally banished by Ute and overly distraught at the declaration. “Shout it louder, why don’t you, asshole.”
Candall made no apologies. He stated it again, with more passion. In his mind’s eye, fresh poured Scotch glinted and Markson was telling another story of his life beyond Latelyspace. So calm, finally. Telling Ute this truth had settled his heart in so many ways. Markson’s untimely death deserved revenge.
Ute tutted with his hands. “Please, not so loud. The people here are … on edge.”
Candall waved his prote-arm in the air. “Spontaneous Harmonic uprising. That’s what the local news calls it. Ha. Never heard something so fucking hilarious and wrong in my entire life. What’s really going on?”
Ute rolled his eyes. The story was that a double handful of teenagers had woken one morning able to ‘access Harmony’ and that they’d been given specific instructions on how to bring the rest of this sleepy little village in Southon ‘into the fold’.
The ‘procedure’ to usher new adherents into Harmony?
Murder.
Oh, the ‘flock’ called it ‘transubstantiation’ and had taken great pains to pretend that the people they’d killed were still there in the room, still alive, still talking, only now deep in peace and therefore at rest. With the whole system embroiled in a war with no end in sight, even the merest promise of freedom at the end of the road was an offering many people desperately sought.
Local police and law enforcement had been unable to break the teens, and thus they’d reached out to the Chairman, who in turn, had dispatched Ute to deal with things before the story broke systemwide. Ute felt nauseous every time he imagined what would happen if the lie spreading in this sleepy little town reached even more desperate ears.
The truth, now he’d wasted a solid week of his time –time better spent figuring out how to stop Trinity’s forces from killing more people or taking more assets- was much simpler, much grimmer: it was a cult. Plain and simple. Over five thousand years, Ute had seen or heard of thousands of religious cults popping up across the Latelian Regime’s spiritually bereft landscape. It seemed that no matter what you did, no matter how hard you tried, you simply could not rid Man of the longing for … gods. There was something intrinsic in the human soul crying out for an omnipotent, omnipresent being, some presence, to bring them solace, gift them with succor.
The Universe wasn’t such a forgiving place. Not yet.
Ute relayed the tale of foolish children with grand ideas and murder in their hearts around mouthfuls of French fries.
“So a bunch of weird kids got it into their heads to kill a pile of people, believing that’d bring them to Harmony.” Candall laughed bitterly at that. Then he shot Ute a painfully sober glare. “You and I know that isn’t how it works. Right, Ute?”
“Look,” Ute leaned forward across the table, whispering furtively, “if you don’t keep your voice down I will be forced into something very unpleasant. I’ve only just dealt with the leader and it got … messy. He was well-liked around here and people are pissed. If you rile them up, I’ll be pissed. Now I can see you undertook great pains to find out where I’d be, something that shouldn’t have even been possible, and because of that, because of our previous relationship and a million other things, I am willing to sit here and listen to you, but so help me, Sa Candall, if you force me to act, it will be a very short play.”
Candall put his hands up like he was blocking out a headline. “Act One, Scene One. Ute the Harmony soldier pulls Sa Candall’s head from his body in front of small children and horrified adults. End.”
“Something like that, yes.” Ute prayed it wouldn’t come to that. He’d already been forced to pull one man’s head off today and the possibility of a second was distasteful. Fenris and the others were already terribly amused at how Latelians were reacting to Harm
ony. Spontaneous cults emerging everywhere had them practically rolling in the aisles.
Yet there was nothing that could be done about it, or them. The others were the first, they’d been with Harmony the longest. No matter how hard anyone tried to bring them to task for their dismissive attitudes towards Latelians –indeed, people altogether- all they’d be met with was defeat. Anything brought to them would either be ignored or laughed at, and the five brothers would simply go on as they’d been going on since time immemorial.
Candall scanned the restaurant again. The family with the child banging her feet had been replaced by a young couple obviously on a date from the way the way they were making googly-eyes at one another. He snorted. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. If only they knew what was really going on. The mercenary tapped the empty plate on the table, saying, “You really enjoy these ‘French fries’.”
Ute nodded. He really did. He had stock in one of the companies supplying Hospitalis’ fine eating establishments with tates, and his bank accounts were positively swollen with cash. He didn’t need it, wouldn’t be able to … to take it with him … but it was the thing you did. The God soldier put a hand on the plate holding the hamburger, raising an eyebrow. Candall shrugged, which was, in Ute’s book, as good as a yes. He pulled the food to him. Then, “So.”
“So.” Candall replied firmly. “Harmony owes …”
“I remember, Candall. It happened only a few minutes ago and is just as scandalous now as it was then.” Ute chewed and swallowed. The fries were better than the burger. Always the way. The majority of places mimicking Charbo’s revolutionary food concepts could handle one or the other, sometimes two, but all of them was a culinary wonder that only a man like Chef Charbo could pull off.
Candall tensed, disliking Ute’s dismissive attitude. “You’re just like the rest,” he hissed angrily, spittle flecking his lips, “just so superior, so much better than everyone else. Living the life you’ve lived, being able to do what you can do, you don’t care…” He got ready to leave, face waxy with anger.
