"I don't understand, sir," Damin said. "I thought the point was to make him a leader."
Baptista chuckled. "It doesn't matter to me who leads the movement. It's all about sowing the seeds. Dorcas is one of many seeds I will plant to get my family back to the top. My daughter is close to her place. I have to make sure there are no more obstacles in our way."
Damin nodded. He understood that Baptista Lysander was playing his game. He had seen it before and was about to see it happen again.
****
"I can't believe him," Aimens said as he paced around his dining room in his home in Tier, trying not to breaks anything. "What was he thinking attacking Cyprun?"
"It's too late now," his comrade Flaminius replied. "The damage is done."
"After everything we did for him. Why would he tempt fate like that?"
"I don't see it as any different from what happened with us when we kill the Priams."
Aimens sat down in his cushion chair. It had been years since they talked about the fateful night of murder in the Santos Palace. Since then, the former cursers of the Fallen Court had established themselves as servers of the ATM's new movement. The royal court life of Crystal Metropolis had plenty of pitfalls. In the Second Renaissance, they were free to be whatever they wanted. They rose in the ranks and became drivers in the House of Latium, pushing new technology for the ATM that included the new line of brain-altering communication known as the Dreamweavers, and thanks to their connection with the Troyuvant drug gangs, they pushed new drugs into the ATM conscious.
It was Aimens and Flaminius who bridged the gap between the House of Latium and Tortila Suntoris. However, when the brute Suntoris decided to go his own way, he broke the seal put together between the sects and caused anarchy for Second Renaissance members.
"What do we do now?" Flaminius asked. "The House of Latium won't touch him and he won't listen to us. Maybe we can-"
"No! Don't even say it?" Aimens interrupted. "Don't even think it. We're not going back to Crystal Metropolis to beg for mercy. We can fix it. And we will fix it."
He took out his small cell phone and dialed a few numbers. "Gavson, it's Aimens. I need you and Zantrapa to start making plans to evacuate. We may be heading underground if Suntoris continues his rampage. For now, just prepare. Don't do anything unless I say so."
Putting up his phone, he turned back to Flaminius. "Hopefully, he won't do anything else to give us a little time to plan for the worst."
"You really think Ichiamo would continue this war?" Flaminius asked.
"I'm sure of it," Aimens answered. "Unless someone kills him first. I'm hoping the people of Crystal Metropolis take our example and do the work for us. If not...well, we cross that bridge when it comes."
****
Flaminius returned to his home in Tier after talking with Aimens. When he entered, already waiting for him was his girlfriend Theodora. She ran and hugged him hesitantly.
"What happened?" Theodora asked.
Flaminius watched her lips shake. "Aimens wants me to do nothing but prepare for the worst. The king's army might attack us without warning. We need to hide and soon. Start packing. I'm going to take a bath right quick."
Flaminius went to his bathroom and turned the water on. Theodora started getting clothes from the closets and putting them in suitcases. Flaminius stepped into the shower and let the water run down his body. He took some soap and washed his face roughly, trying to clean his body as fast as he could before he left.
Suddenly, as Flaminius rinsed some of the water off his face, Theodora entered the shower with him. He grinned as she kissed him gently on the lips. Just as he was getting into the kiss, he stepped back to find himself coughing. He covered his face to try and control it.
But he kept coughing. Blood leaked from his lips; then from his ears. The coughing became too much for him as he went on his knees. He tried to reach for Theodora, but she only moved her hand slightly. He fell out of the shower and onto the floor, holding his neck for dear life trying to find some air to breathe. Between the steam from the hot water and whatever was caught in his throat, he was trapped.
Theodora stepped over him and went back to a closed suitcase full of her clothes. She grabbed the handle and with a confident smirk, left the room and out of the house.
She exited to the outside, where a black Isaura cruiser waited for her. The door opened and Theodora slipped inside.
"It's done. He's dead, baby!"
"Good! Score one for us."
When Theodora stared into her eyes, she smiled at seeing the face of her lover again:
Pedro Santos, half-brother of King Ichiamo Santos.
"What happens now?" Theodora asked as Pedro drove over in his cruiser.
"Now we start bringing the pieces together and watch them drop each other one by one."
****
Tortila Suntoris felt on top of the universe after the Cyprun attack. However, most were only fearful of what he would attack next. As it turned out, his next attack would be on his own opponents in the House of Latium.
He heard of a revolt in Troyuvant involving a former ally, the curser Zantrapa. Zantrapa and Gavson were former gangsters turned House of Latium drivers associated with Fallen Court cursers Aimens and Flaminius. It turned worse when he found that a sect of the Byzants known as the Unknown Byzants suddenly rebelled and made their own sect in the Second Renaissance. Lately, he became paranoid of his own people to the point he started issuing assassination orders to House of Latium's key members.
Dorcas heard about this and informed his new benefactor, Suntoris' nemesis Baptista Lysander in Solaria. Just as Dorcas was going to give him the news about Suntoris, Baptista dropped his bombshell.
"He's going to do WHAT?" Dorcas bellowed.
"The king declared it. As soon as he figured out everything around it, Troyuvant will be bombed in the worst way possible."
"Does he know what kind of weapon he has on his hands?"
"He'll know soon enough, which means your time window is dwindling. Unless you have something planned already?"
Dorcas shook his head in disgust. "So either he dies or we all do!"
Seeing pressed to do something, Dorcas left Lysander and called his crew together.
****
"He wants all of us to go down there?" The charcoal-skinned Issac Arius asked his Byzant comrade Dorcas about the news Dorcas dropped at a cafe in Tier.
"Your friends the Unknowns are acting up," Dorcas answered. "But I think there's more to it than that."
"What is it?"
Dorcas drank his hot white coffee down before he responded. "It's just me, but with the way Tortila's been acting, I mean...he has nothing to lose. If we all go down, he could just go back to his Solarian harem with his whores. He could easily say he had nothing to do with it or he was threatened to do it."
"A big fool like Tortila? You really think he's that kind of guy?" Issac asked.
"I think when that time comes, he's going to turn bitch and run."
Issac shrugged. "You had time to think about this, didn't you?"
Dorcas got closer to him. "Something bad is going to happen. And I think the closer we are to this thing, the more bodies that are going to drop."
"The cost of war," Issac smirked.
"Isn't that the truth?" Dorcas chuckled and stood up. Issac stood right along with him and both hugged each other tight.
****
Tortila made his way down to Troyuvant's capital of Troy and wasted no time. Using the Unknown Byzants, he went to work weeding out his targets.
However, what he ran into was another dispute in Troy. The dispute was over the men he was targeting, Gavson and Zantrapa, and their mismanagement over Second Renaissance funds.
Suntoris was a part of Solaria's elite, but he hated any kind of nobility due to his own suspicious nature and was ruthless towards them whenever he could. He began by eliminating the close advisors. His suspicions may have been justified because two plots
against him were foiled. The first happened as he was crossing a bridge packed with explosives upon a few days of arriving. However, the plot was discovered and the conspirators executed. The second plot involved servers loyal to a Byzant named Brahado, who wanted to lead the Unknown Byzants. This persuaded another lieutenant to change sides and murdered Brahado, although this was not enough to save his own life.
Meanwhile, in another part of Troyuvant, a treasury official's extortions through false judgments in corrupt trials against some landowners ignited a full-scale revolt in the capital. These regular Troyuvant landowners armed their clients and their agricultural workers and entered Fevesham where they murdered the offending official and his bodyguards. Eventually, the revolt had not gone as planned as the Unknown Byzants once again made their presence known and ended matters. From here, the Unknowns started gaining more political power reminiscent of the nearly extinct Troyuvant drug kingpins. These soldiers had technology and the Code on their side. Some original citizens began to flock to them and those that did not became prisoners in a concentration camp in Fevesham.
When the Fevesham revolt collapsed and Suntoris gaining speed, House of Latium found itself in great jeopardy of losing Troyuvant once and for all. Having shown clear support for the Unknown Byzants, they could expect no clemency from Tortila Suntoris when he reached Troy. In this predicament, they determined to defy Suntoris and sent a message through the Dreamweaver that Gavson and Zantrapa was elevated to traders, the most powerful seat. They were given one more order:
Under no circumstances does Tortila Suntoris leave Troyuvant alive.
****
"What are we going to do about him?" Gavson asked his trader partner Zantrapa after in the throne room of the former Ajax Santos Palace. "He can't be stopped."
"Well, we have to do something," Zantrapa said. "He could be coming here any second now."
Then, a guard came to Gavson. "Tortila Suntoris is at the gate with his army."
"He didn't waste any time, did he?" Gavson said.
Both men stood silent. Zantrapa ran to one of the windows to see what was going on. He could see over three-hundred men outside with Tortila standing front and center.
Zantrapa went to the messenger guard. "How many men do we have at our disposal?"
"Not many. Fifty at least."
Zantrapa turned to Gavson. "We have to meet him. The last thing we need for him to do is storm this palace. Let's see if we can negotiate with him!"
Gavson shook his head, but understanding that they had just signed their death warrants. He ordered, "Get the men we have and let's go to him."
From there, the Troy traders' fifty men met with the hundred Byzants of Tortila. Gavson led the way. He spread his arms to keep his men back as he walked forward to meet up with Tortila Suntoris. As he moved closer and closer to the gate, Gavson nearly forgot how tall and muscular Tortila was. The last time they met, they had a little sex party involving him and his Fallen Court friends.
He stood at the closed gate facing the barbaric Solarian. "What do you want, Tortila?"
"You know what I want," Tortila said. "Make it easy on yourself and just come out here to meet your fate. All of you are sentenced to die."
"Under whose authority?"
"Mine!"
It was then that the captain of his army approached and stood on the side of Tortila.
"LAST CHANCE!" Tortila bellowed.
Gavson said nothing. He turned to see that his small army stood motionless, anticipating the storm that was about to occur. Then, Gavson's eyes turned to the captain standing to the side of Tortila. He raised his hand and took some steps back. Suddenly, four men with torquo machine guns aimed them at Tortila and fired off rounds. Bullets hit Tortila's back at warp speed and the barbarian had no time to turn around and react. Gavson could not help but stand by and watch the massacre, but he kept his mouth shut.
One of the Byzants took a sword and decapitated his head. He gave it to the captain and the captain grabbed the hair without looking at it. He gestured a petrified Gavson to come to him.
Through the gate, the captain presented the head of Tortila to his face and said, "Tell Aimens that the Byzants are a sect now. He leaves us alone, we leave him alone. He comes after us, his head will be next."
From there, the Unknown Byzants left the body of the fifty-eight-year-old Tortila Suntoris behind, signaling a changing of the guard. The head of Suntoris Faction was no more and the Byzants became another unofficial sect of Second Renaissance.
****
When Tortila Suntoris met his fate in the hands of his own army, the game changed. The Byzants controlled Troyuvant and they made it known through their lawless behavior.
But this brought another problem. Despite how they felt about Tortila, he was the reason they had s foothold for power at all. He funded their attacks and gave them a purpose to fight.
The main captains of the Byzants, or the ones claiming the title because no one else would, argued with one another in an apartment over the next move.
"Who's going to lead now? We need to vote!"
"What about the House of Latium?"
"Where are we going to get money?"
Enter Savil Nassar.
He was not a leader or a dashing figurehead by any stretch of the imagination. He was a mouthpiece that went to both Gavson and Zantrapa on separate occasions about what the Byzants was looking for.
He came with the most ingenious idea ever and in the sea of ruthless captains, he expressed it to all of them.
"Why not go after the highest bidder? Whoever puts up the most money to fund us becomes our leader."
When he gave them this idea, Nassar could see the captains' mouths salivating. It was an idea that was going to propel in another bloody direction.
****
Issac Arius sat at a Tier bar, drinking alone as he could find people walking in and out talking about the latest gossip from the airwaves. The latest news was the continuous destruction of Second Renaissance. The House of Latium brought it to the surface; the Suntoris Faction gave it a sort of celebrity; and the Byzants gave it an edge of youth for future generations to idolize.
Issac knew that he was on borrowed time, so he spent it wisely drinking and whoring with Tierian females. However, this particular night he was on a date.
The date arrived and sat across from him.
"I wasn't expecting you to come," Issac said.
"Neither did I! This is the last place I need to be."
In an unique blue suit, Pedro Santos called a waitress over for something to drink and he started on his spill. "Tortila Suntoris is dead. Your gang is acting wild in Troyuvant. The House of Latium is losing patience and you have a decision to make."
From there, Pedro took out a package of money and put it on the table. He slid the package slowly to him. "Here's what been promised. You can start a new life wherever you want."
"And what about my gang?" Issac asked.
"Troyuvant is a war zone. Going back there now is a deathtrap. Besides, what do you think your gang's going to do to you when they see you? Think it's going to be a loving embrace? They blasted their own leader without blinking and he was a barbarian. What do you think they're going to do to you?"
Issac stayed silent and put his hand on the package. "Troyuvant has been my home all my life. It was all I know." He wiped his black-skinned face with his hands. "Where exactly can I go? Who would accept this face?"
Pedro smirked. He stood up. "You're a survivor. I'm sure you'll get through this. Don't shed a tear for the Byzants. Not one solitary tear."
Pedro left the bar as the waitress brought his drink. Issac just took it, made a toast to himself and drank it down in one gulp.
****
"The Byzants will become your personal army if you accept our terms. We can even make you a trader of the Byzants. We need one right now to speak for us about our actions. And we think you have more momentum than Gavson has. At least that's what the others
say."
Savil Nassar spoke those words to Zantrapa at Ajax Park near downtown Troy. Zantrapa paced back and forth, wondering what to do next.
"If I take this deal, can they make this possible?"
Nassar smirked. "You saw what happened to Suntoris?"
For the moment, Zantrapa ruled Troyuvant with Gavson, but he knew the real rulers of the planet were the Byzants. A part of him did not want to take the deal. After he finished pacing, he extended his hand to Savil and Savil shook it, sealing a deal that did not take long to make after the assassination of Tortila Suntoris.
INIQUITOUS DOMINION: The Galactic Classic Page 20
