by Lee Bond
Ute swallowed half-chewed burger, rose up from his seat and put a hand on Candall’s shoulder. Then, oh so gently, he shoved the idiot back down. Very calmly, the God soldier began talking. “I see it took a lot for you to come here, Candall, that you are torn up inside over the loss of your friend, Shane Markson. I get that. You’re angry and you’re sad and all kinds of things like that. I can also see that you haven’t slept in at least three days, haven’t eaten properly in almost as long and are either keeping yourself awake on a steady diet of coffee and drugs or have just plain old slipped a cog in that brain of yours.”
Ute squeezed Candall’s shoulder when the smaller man went to speak, just tight enough for bone to grind against bone. “I can also see that you have some kind of emotional imperative to cause a scene of some kind. To ‘put me in my place’, as it were. Or to give Markson, who is dead and unable to appreciate anything you might do here and now, closure. What you cannot see is that the people in this town are deciding whether or not they want to attack me. They can’t see it either, but it’s there, eddying beneath their conscious minds. And no. That observation has nothing to do with Harmony and everything to do with the fact that I’m over four thousand fucking years old and can sniff a mob coming a mile away. Me, sitting here arguing with a spitting, swearing hobo? That’s the sort of thing that’ll set them off. So. We’re going to sit here like good little sa’s and you are going to tell me how you got here and what you want. At no point are you going to make any more shock-and-awe statements. At no point are you going to try and draw these people into our friendly chat by raising your voice or flinging your hands around or any such thing. Are we clear?”
Candall stared at Ute. Just … stared.
Ute squeezed Candall’s shoulder a bit tighter for a second, then shook the man. “Are we clear, Candall?” Ute sincerely hoped he wasn’t going to have to do something … untoward. Herrig was adamant that they all keep Harmony from the people for as long as was humanly possible, especially in light of what’d happened with Markson; the Chairman felt Huey’s assessment of what may necessarily come to pass in order to protect the general populace from Harmony infestation was both correct and something they needed to avoid at all costs, which was they only ‘free agent’ in the Army was out in the sticks instead of a ministry stooge.
Candall nodded slowly. The moment the Goddie released him from the titanic grip, his shoulder blazed with pain. He could well imagine the bruise already forming there. Another hour, he’d be lucky to use that arm. Still, despite the pain, he smiled. “How did I get here? Easy enough. All it took was everything I had. Everything I owned. And a huge amount of risk. I …” Candall laughed. “I’m sure I burned every bridge I ever crossed to come here, Ute.”
“Landmark?” Ute couldn’t believe his ears. Candall had worked his entire life to turn Landmark into a reputable company. In the right circles, people talked about the man and his team like they were legends. Candall himself had gone from untrustworthy to a man you could trust implicitly.
Candall clapped his hands together, pulled them apart, blowing imaginary dust from his palms. “Gone, Ute. All of it. No choice. The others … they weren’t … they didn’t understand. Of all of us, I was the only one to actually befriend a Trinityman. Shane. When they refused to help, to … ah … secure information that would help, I sold them equal shares. They’re a mercenary company in truth now. I should warn you, sa, there’s a very good chance your men will come across them in a … combative … stance.”
“Understood.” Ute wolfed down the hamburger and ordered another through his prote. ‘Securing information’ was a phrase he wished Candall hadn’t used. Around a mouthful of beef, he spoke. “Continue. ‘Information’?”
“I bribed and bartered and battered my way through seven levels of Army personnel, Ute, is that what you wanted to know? Where I couldn’t buy what I needed, I blackmailed, and where I couldn’t blackmail, I threatened. I know an awful lot of awful things about people who’ve spent a lifetime pretending to be good, Ute. Many of them travel in your circles, and higher still.” Candall pointed a finger at Ute, who sat there eating food like this was a regular old day for him. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“It is.” The news was disturbing, but only barely. In relative terms, Candall was the only man who could’ve achieved the difficult task of bribing and blackmailing his way into discovering the location of someone like himself; the military contracts Landmark had picked up over the last two years, the connections Candall had made, all of those things had placed him in the position to be recognizable. Since most of the work he’d done for the war effort had directly involved either himself, Herrig or Huey, military personnel would’ve found nothing untoward in his questions.
At least in the beginning. Ute wagered with himself that Candall must’ve been forced to start rattling cages early on in the game. A heartbeat later, it dawned on Ute that his old friend was likely on the run from the Military Police –or worse- right that moment. “You did all this in two weeks? Put this all together, tracked me down?”
Irrespective of motive, it was impressive work.
Candall snorted. “Hardly. Took nearly a week to arrange the sale of Landmark. Some of the Chairman’s legal avatars got involved. Seems he pegged us as a valuable asset and wanted to protect us from being acquired by people or businesses unfriendly to the Commonwealth. Hah. I’ll never get used to saying that.”
“Very few people will.” Ute replied dourly. There was every chance the Universe would end before even a tenth of Latelyspace could say ‘Latelian Commonwealth’ without tripping over the word. “Continue.”
“As I said,” Candall went to repeat ‘Harmony owes me a life’ one more time but he caught a look of supremely dire warning from the Goddie, so he rolled his hand by way of apology, “well, you recall what I said. It does. It does. By extension, you do. All of you do. They need to pay for what they did.”
“The … soldiers.” Ute leaned back against the cushioned booth, stunned. Candall wasn’t thinking small. The Harmony soldier had honestly thought the other man had been angling towards justice against someone involved in planning the operation, possibly the assassination of Herrig or Huey or, heaven forbid, direct action against Fenris and the others. Honestly, it was the only reason he’d indulged the distraught lunatic; when someone like Candall was thinking about killing someone, it was a threat that needed to be treated quite seriously but his targets weren’t Latelian at all. “The …”
“Those motherfucking Deep Strikers, sa.” Candall tapped a button on his prote and the files he’d been prepping since his whole odyssey of revenge had started sprang across the restaurant table.
Ute narrowed his eyes as the footage played. Shocked, startled, horrified, the only thing he could think of to do was break the table with a slam of the hand. The table groaned terribly, spat a few sparks and an edge cracked off. Everyone in the restaurant looked their way and the waitress started moving. Casting a furious gaze at Candall, who smiled passionlessly, Ute displayed his Army credentials to the manager.
“Charge the Army.” Ute put his papers away.
“But sa…” Gorfel’s mouth clicked shut when the Goddie’s expression turned flat. “As… as you say, sa.” The manager stammered an apology and walked away.
Ute turned his attention back to Candall. “You are pressing my last fucking nerve, sa. Possession of those files is an act of treason. Displaying them in public is suicidal. Have you done this before? Anywhere else?”
Candall shook his head. “No. Nowhere else.” The ex-reclamation specialist closed his eyes and the images sprang to life almost immediately. Shane Markson, fully deluded he was protected by a Harmony he could neither hear nor feel, approaching a squadron of so-called ‘Deep Strikers’. Getting close had been easy; every man, woman and cyborg in the invading force either knew one another personally or had recognition codes that were impossible to replicate. Markson had beamed them his codes, they’d sent b
ack green go codes, and that’d been that.
In the course of finding where Ute would be and arranging so he could meet the man, Candall had dug into what, exactly, ‘Deep Strikers’ were in the grand scheme of things.
What they were was nightmares made flesh. Candall could barely wrap his mind around what The Cordon represented, the solar systems and galaxies … he shook his head. Growing up, being a part of Landmark, Candall thought he’d seen and done it all, but apparently there were still mysteries both vast and profound in the Universe. Whatever was across The Cordon, it either ate you up –sometimes without even bothering to spit you back out when it was done- or it changed you in ways that no man could imagine.
After watching the footage for the millionth time, Candall understood the Army’s reticence to send in troops. The Deep Strikers on the moon called Corene were the equal of Foursies. Worse, even. If such a thing was even possible. There would be losses there, even if they sent in nothing but Fours. They’d torn Shane apart like a bug before moving on to the vessel he’d landed in, and that was where they’d displayed powers and prowess equal to the strongest God soldier.
Footage of the ship’s engines exploding, bathing the five cyborgs in lethal radiation and deadly hot fires … Candall’s heart had leaped into his throat the first time he’d watched, because for a long moment, it’d seemed like they’d done themselves in. Alas, that wasn’t the case; long-range scanners and cameras trained on the site had kept rolling, eventually capturing the Deep Strikers just sort of hanging out, laughing about the whole thing.
Then they’d gone back to camp, apparently none the worst for having been blown up.
It was amazing the whole of Latelyspace wasn’t lost already, not when Trinity had those kinds of weapons at Its disposal.
“Those Deep Strikers are off the table.” Ute said firmly. “They’re sticking to themselves. They aren’t building any weapons. There isn’t anything on Corene they can use against us. They seem content to just hang out.”
“Don’t you mean to say that Fenris wants them for the eventual clash with the Enemy?” Candall’s lips quirked when Ute looked like he wanted to break something in half. “I’m good at what I do, sa. I reclaim things. First time I ever reclaimed something for myself. Who knew? I did my diligence before losing everything to come here, Ute. I may be ragged, I may be unkempt, I may …hah… I may be more than half-mad, but I’m no fool. I’ve spent a lot of time with Goddies in the last few years. They talk, I listen. Deep Strikers have more tactical value in one little pinky than any standard Trinity soldier out there. Who wouldn’t want to see if they could be converted by Harmony? It’s a sound plan. But here’s the problem. Shane was from Trinity. Whatever … kink exists in Latelyspace was absent in him. Possessed by Harmony he might’ve been, Ute, but … if you want to transmit it, you need Latelians.”
Ute didn’t trust himself to say anything. They’d only just come to that conclusion themselves and here he was talking to someone who was more than half-mad who’d come to that same place, getting there in a few days when it’d taken them months.
Thankfully, Ute was spared trying to come up with a way to deal with Candall’s mad dreams by the appearance of the hamburger he’d ordered. The waitress dropped it off with a barely courteous nod –no doubt distraught by the violent scene and/or Candall and Ute- and was off again in a matter of seconds.
Ute bit into the burger, taste buds detecting something … wrong with the flavor. ‘Onboard’ systems ran an analysis of the components in just a few seconds, and the Harmonized God soldier wanted to hang his head. The owner or the cook or even the waitress was trying to poison him. With dishwashing detergent.
“They’re trying to poison me.” Ute said conversationally around the ruined mouthful of meat. There was little time, then. Not if he wanted to obey Herrig’s demand that the town be left standing.
It took a second for the words to percolate through Candall’s caffeine and narcotic addled mind. At first, it sounded like something he’d say, but then Ute wiggled the burger in his hand around. He burst out into hastily smothered laughter. “I’m sorry, what?”
Ute commanded his body to produce enzymes capable of breaking down the unwanted condiment, thereby rendering the extra ‘taste’ neutral. His mouth flooded with the satisfying flavor of good old Latelian hamburger. “Poison. Dishwashing detergent.”
Suddenly panicked, Candall went to grab his gun. A Stretch, of all things. Found in one of Garth’s warehouses before he’d decided to leave all that behind. Then he realized –weirdly enough- that his guest was still eating the hamburger. He put his hands flat on the shattered data-table. “Right. You’re …”
“Yeah.” Ute said blandly around a sloppy mouthful. “Extremely hard to kill.”
“About my Deep Strikers…” Candall trailed off hopefully.
“Off the table.” Ute thought about ordering some onion rings, only doing so would give Candall the illusion that there was more to talk about. There wasn’t. Above all Trinity’s troops inside Latelyspace, much consideration was being given on how to turn the heavily –and oftentimes impossibly- augmented cyborgs to their side of things.
The endless horde of freshly … christened … Harmony soldiers was amazing, and would provide the enemy with a great deal to think about as they were ground into the dust between size eighty combat boots, but those … monsters…
They were capable of things falling far outside Harmony. As was –to listen to Fenris, who had apparently known someone capable of knowing everything- their Great Enemy. Unspoken in that sentiment was the brutal possibility that Harmony might not be enough.
Candall fiddled with his prote. “What if …” he’d really wanted the conversation to be in a different place before laying his cards on the table… “What if I can give you a weapon none of you have thought of? A weapon capable of either destroying or shutting down one of Trinity’s greatest assets?”
“Impossible.” Ute’s position was firm, regardless of the gleam in Candall’s eye. Then, because Candall was who he was, “Tell me what you mean. Bearing in mind,” he pointed a finger at the other man, “I am not interested. This is not going to happen.”
Candall nodded, not bothering to hide the bloom of triumph on his face. “On your honor, Ute. I will tell you my plan. I will tell you how it will work. I will tell you about the weapon, which will work. Then you will give me my –Shane’s- revenge.”
Ute threaded the conversation together and sent it through Harmony to Fenris. It was something he didn’t like doing because he was still on the fence about their new ‘leader’ –oh, how Ute sometimes wished his great-great grandson was still OverCommander- but Candall’s entire demeanor had undergone an abrupt transformation.
Gone was the sketchy skeez. Back was the professional reclamation expert. Whatever Candall’s weapon was, it was tied into what he’d done for a living.
Fenris responded with acquiescence. There were very few things in Trinity’s possession –in this case, it’s military assets inside Latelyspace- that outstripped a handful of demented cyborgs hanging out on a moon. Their black hole ships. Their AI. If Candall had come up with a way to end the progression of the incursion all so he could fail at killing machine men capable of surviving the detonation of a ship’s engine, then more power to him.
“It is agreed.” Ute stuck out his hand, which Candall promptly shook. “On my honor. On Harmony’s honor. If your weapon system is viable, you can do as you wish with the cyborgs on Corene.”
“Excellent. Excellent.” Candall licked his lips, went to throw the data onto the screen, then merely flashed it to Ute. He jerked his chin. “The file I just sent you. It’s the Hungryfish.”
“The what now?” Ute feigned indifference, cursing inwardly. Fenris, paying attention, was excited, so the conversation dragged its ugly ass forward.
“Don’t play games, Ute. You can hardly miss the thing. Or the rubble and devastation in a six mile radius around the ship.” Candall
wondered if Ute was in communication with one of the rat bastard Harmony soldiers right then before deciding that the answer was ‘yes’. As powerful as Ute was, as much honor, respect and authority he held in the Latelian Commonwealth, Fenris and his damnable brothers were at the very top of the food chain now. Ute was in a position to deny, not permit.
“Fine. Yes. We know of it.” Did they ever. Groups like Landmark had been trying with dizzying degrees of failure for the last two years to salvage Chadsik al-Taryin’s bloody dangerous ship. Herrig had been forced to move UltraMegaDynamatron’s base of operations further away from the ship’s holding pattern; rebuilding lost warehouses and suing spastic salvage companies into the dust had started looking like a full-time job.
“I want her.” Candall nodded smugly at the shock on Ute’s face. “I want her, and I want everything on the ship.”
“But there’s…” Ute started rising from the table, but Fenris forced him to sit back down. Riled that the much more powerful Harmony soldier was taking such a direct interest in the discussion, Ute ground out, “Hand of Glory missiles aboard. And we’ve been trying for years to get inside. It’s one of those impossible things. Chadsik’s AI systems are unlike anything we prepared for. They’re defeating everything we send. Without resorting to AI ourselves, there’s no getting in.”
“There is.” Candall flashed Ute another file. “On your honor, Ute Tizhen. I just sent you plans for a modified Q-Comm device. Weaponized, in fact. Trinity artificial intelligence is capable of communicating with one another along quantum wavelengths. Depending on the sophistication of the minds, that range varies from about a foot to ten feet. According to my friend Shane, this substrate chatter is unassailable and impossible to decrypt.”
Ute read through the designs on his prote, eyes going wider every second that passed. “This … this is …”
Candall continued smoothly. “By modifying a Q-Comm device … for preference one of Trinity’s models, because they’re handhelds … to emit a broadband spectrum eruption of quantum chatter, like if you turned the volume up to maximum level on your Screen, turned it off then waited to get into an argument with someone, only to suddenly turn it back on again … I bet you could disable an AI permanently. You could break an AI with this device, Ute. Shatter communications between the various Trinity forces, the war starts to decline. Render their machines inoperable. A focused, powerful deluge of noisy quantum chatter. It’s a game changer.”
