Science and Sorcery Box Set

by Ryan Tang

  "What does Diligence make? Plenty makes Paragons and grows rich! We make the metal that becomes Paragons, but stay poor!"

  He scoffed.

  "We work harder than any other colony. And for nothing!"

  Emile frowned.

  "You know, I think this guy has a point. Maybe he's even someone who can help us."

  After every one of Steel's proclamations, Macob bumbled impotently through his lines in response. Eventually, the raucous boos of the crowd convinced him to cut his message short. At that point, Steel abandoned the debate entirely in favor of firing up his base.

  "Diligence! It's in our very name. We're a colony that rewards hard work! We're a colony that rewards determination! Do you feel rewarded? Do you?"

  The crowd thundered back, chanting all at once.

  "No!"

  "No!"

  "No!"

  Alex even noticed a few Strangegods waving Eternium black relics back and forth. Their presence further emphasized to his enormous appeal. The Strangegods didn't believe in concerning themselves with politics, but they'd come out for Steel.

  The handsome man raised both arms high into the air.

  Muscles bulged beneath his flannel shirt.

  "As Governor, I will end people on other colonies taking advantage of us! Diligence will create our own products. We will finally be free again!"

  The clip ended.

  ____

  "Wow."

  Alex turned to Emile.

  "I mean, I don't agree with everything he said. But this guy could be on our side. We should consider reaching out to him..."

  Alex trailed off, and her excitement fizzled. Now that the video was over, she suddenly found it a lot easier to think.

  Listening to Steel was a little overwhelming. He was so well-spoken. He was so forceful and handsome that it was impossible not to agree with him. But then Emile asked the question that'd cut through Alex's temporary stupor, the question that'd been lurking in the back of her mind through his entire speech.

  "What does he want with the Paragons?"

  Alex nodded.

  "Yeah, exactly. Does he want Diligence to start making Paragons instead of Plenty? That doesn't explain why the machines he ordered aren't standard. If anything, he'd want to build the fake Paragons himself. We already know they're popular."

  She'd seen Stock's sales numbers, particularly to Generosity. The wealthy residents were willing to spend a fortune on the worthless machines.

  Alex turned back to Jared.

  "Do you know if there are any other designs Stock could have given him?"

  He shook his head.

  "No. Before he tore the colony apart, we had a last-ditch Paragon project - one last attempt to create a working prototype - but it failed. The only machine that worked was the Peacetime model, and Stock threw a fit about it."

  He thought for a moment and then firmly shook his head.

  "I was afraid he might have tried to sell some of the Eternium-gilded machines, but that's just not Stock's style. Fifty of them would be enough to hurt him even after he'd fused with the monster. He'd never risk his skin."

  Alex cursed.

  It was such an idiotic situation.

  Why did Stock sell the fifty Paragons?

  Why would he need more money if he was a god? Hell, considering what he had in his vaults, why would Stock even need more money in the first place?

  Jared shrugged.

  "There's no point speculating. We just need to find out what's up with these modified designs. Even if this guy might be on our side, I don't want him coming to Plenty until we're ready."

  "Here's the other thing that bothers me. Heidi."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I went to high school with her. Her dad owned one of the factories. When Steel complained about the foreigners taking advantage of Diligence, it seemed like he was talking about people like Heidi's family. Her family lived off-colony - nobody wanted to live on Diligence if they could help it. There's nothing wrong with it, but like Steel said, it's boring without a lot of opportunities. Heidi herself moved away after a couple of years of high school."

  Good riddance.

  Alex remembered more about Heidi now, and none of it was positive.

  She'd been a bully. They were just girls back then, but Heidi had already known how to use her wealth and power to control people. She used to regularly threaten people with getting their parents fired.

  "I just don't understand why she's working for this guy. Heidi's smart. And she was really selfish back in high school."

  Heidi had always firmly supported Macob's opponents, the stern politicians who thought people like Alex's parents weren't working hard enough.

  "She'd know Steel is complaining about her. She'd want to work for someone good for her."

  Jared shot her a strange look.

  "You haven't seen her since she moved away, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "When was that?"

  Alex frowned.

  "I don't know. Maybe when I was fifteen? She was sixteen then. She's a year older."

  "Sixteen! Look! People change! I mean, I only started criticizing Southern Robotics after the quakes happened. Before that, I thought the company was the best we could do!"

  Alex stubbornly shook her head.

  Heidi used to call her a rude nickname she couldn't quite remember. It was weird. She couldn't remember the word, but the jeering tone echoed endlessly in her brain.

  "She was a selfish bitch."

  "Come on, people change."

  They were still arguing when Leanne entered the room. The fierce-eyed lady's flaring red dress trailed elegantly behind her.

  "Hey. I saw your post on the Forums. I know the guy."

  Alex frowned.

  "What? You grew up on Diligence? I thought you were from Generosity!"

  "I am from Generosity."

  The hawk-eyed woman pointed at the screen and shook her head.

  "That man's from Generosity too. And his name isn't Joshua Steel. That's Evan. He's an heir to one of the Ten Families."

  "What? No? He said he was from Diligence."

  The words plopped out of her mouth before she'd thought of the obvious explanation that Steel was lying. He'd seemed so earnestly angry.

  Jared and Emile were just as surprised.

  "Are you sure it's the same person?"

  Leanne chuckled dryly.

  "Not a lot of guys who look like Joshua, no. The thing is, I'm not sure why he's talking like this. Don't know why he's lying about being from Diligence. And I don't know why he's talking about foreigners like that. His Family is definitely included in the people he's complaining about. They used to make a killing off of their bets on Diligence and Plenty's companies."

  She shook her head.

  "I'm not sure why he moved, and he never showed any interest in politics when we were growing up. I'm shocked an heir moved off the colony too. That's unheard of. It was already enough to cause a stir when I left. But it's the same person. I'm sure of it."

  Alex, Jared, and Emile just stared at her.

  None of them were familiar with the politics of Generosity. The colony of games and gambling was known for being particularly opaque. Based on what little Leanne had told her, the Families were fond of bizarre rituals. Alex remembered Leanne claiming that she'd had to swear blood oaths when she was just a child, back when she was too young to even read the words. Her parents had helped her sound them out.

  Leanne sighed.

  "Alright. Well, there's only one thing for us to do. Jared, would you guys be able to produce the machines in the next few days if you had the schematics?"

  Jared nodded, slightly taken aback.

  "Yeah."

  "People from the Ten and Ten are trained to play things tight to their chests. Our only chance is to steal it from him."

  She turned to Alex.

  "It should be you. With your Eternium shards, you'll be able to defend yourself anywh
ere. And you know your way around Diligence."

  Alex's jaw dropped.

  Leanne was right, of course. They needed to get the schematics as soon as possible, and Alex was the best person to send. Besides, protecting the colony was the duty of an ace. But still. She'd never expected she'd need to do something like this.

  Emile chipped in.

  "I'll go with her."

  Her friend grinned impishly.

  "I'm not going to let you have all the fun!"

  ____

  The stars streaked past, white on black, as their shuttle flew on its automatically set course for Diligence.

  Alex held the felt pen tightly in her hand. She carefully sketched out a fin, and then extended into a sleek but muscular body. Sharks, especially hammerhead sharks, were her favorite. Before long, she had a pod of seven swimming around her left arm.

  When she finished, she flipped past the next two pages of Old Earth animals. She didn't feel like doing a lamprey or a starfish at the moment. She'd already drawn them yesterday.

  The librarian settled on a jellyfish. She switched the pen into her left hand then ran it across her forearm over and over again to create a mass of blue tentacles. After breaking her wrist battling against Falo in the Spire's book-corridors, she'd learned to draw nearly as well with her left hand as with her right. Now she had animals on both arms, a perfect match for her beautiful sleeveless dress.

  Alex sneaked another look at the mirror and giggled. The librarian couldn't believe she was wearing something so gorgeous. The dress didn't just cost more than her entire wardrobe. It cost more than anything Alex had ever worn added together. Blue and white clashed against each other all along the elegant cloth. It looked like the sky was battling the sea. The sleeveless dress trailed down far past her legs, sweeping gracefully behind her like a roaring wave.

  Alex posed again. The animals really were the perfect thing to complete her outfit. To accentuate the beauty even further, she'd tied tangles of Eternium in her hair. The haunting blue shine radiated through the air.

  "Stop posing! We need to get to work!"

  Alex whirled around then promptly stumbled on her heels. She blushed. The librarian had a long way to go before she captured Leanne's effortless grace. She'd merely borrowed her friend's clothes. Leanne had been born into extravagance.

  Emile effortlessly strode across the room in a pair of gem-studded heels. The heels were almost half a foot tall and studded with rubies. An even brighter gem winked from the ring on her left hand. Her flaring red dress was cut short at the knees.

  Alex smiled.

  "Wow!"

  Emile ignored her and headed straight for the mirror.

  "Alright. Maybe we should do a bit of posing."

  They laughed, but after a while, Alex whirled at her friend, feigning a scandalized tone.

  "Focus! Focus!"

  They could never have imagined wearing clothes like this. But now that they'd defeated Stock, everyone on Plenty could probably dress however they liked. There were piles and piles of cash in his vaults. Leanne had even given Alex a catalog to peruse.

  Emile pulled out a pair of gold bangles from her purse and slipped them on.

  "What do you think of these?"

  They looked perfect.

  "You should keep them."

  Leanne had given them wardrobes filled with glamorous socialites' clothes. They were posing as wealthy heiresses from Plenty who were hoping to learn more about other colonies. Alex had witnessed countless similar trips when she was a child on Diligence. The wealthy guests were treated with ambivalence as long as they weren't rude. Even if an incident happened, the anger was usually restricted to complaining behind their back. Nobody wanted to offend someone important.

  But now that Governor Steel was encouraging the colony to see wealthy foreigners as enemies, things might be different. Alex and Emile knew the danger of appearing at such an uncertain time, but they had no other plausible cover. Only wealthy socialites would be able to afford a sudden unscheduled trip. Only wealthy socialites could request a personal meeting with another colony's Governor, a meeting that Steel had happily accepted in spite of his critical rhetoric.

  Alex snuck another look at the mirror.

  She was almost unrecognizable compared to her high school appearance. The librarian doubted anyone would recognize her. She didn't have many friends on Diligence growing up. She'd mostly just kept to herself and her books.

  Emile made a face.

  "The good thing is we don't need to pretend to be much more than spoiled heiresses. Everyone's going to know we're just here for a vacation. Let's just say we're here to sample the culture, and we'll be fine. Spoiled kids just like to pretend that everything they do has a deeper meaning."

  She laughed sarcastically.

  "I remember my grandma showing me the trip logs from all the places Stock went to when he was a kid. He went to Generosity once a week. Claimed he was sampling the culture."

  Generosity was infamous as a place of fun and gambling, so it was no wonder Stock had frequently visited. But Leanne's description of the internal politics was shocking.

  Ten Major Families operated the gambling houses, where you could bet on anything, even events that were happening on other colonies like who would win an election or if Southern Robotics would complete their deliveries. Beneath them were ten Minor Families who managed the colony's entertainment, from the sports stadiums to the extravagant restaurants to the spectacular theaters.

  Leanne was the youngest daughter of a Minor Family, and she was nearly as wealthy as Stock. Her childhood acquaintance Evan, the man Leanne believed was now posing as Joshua Steel, was the heir of a Major Family. The Ten Major Families were some of the wealthiest people in human history. According to Leanne, the Families were fiends for pageantry and tradition. It'd already been a scandal when she left. It was almost sacrilegious that Steel would leave the Family business behind to live on a different colony.

  Alex still didn't know what to think. In Steel's speeches, he spoke about being from Diligence with such conviction. But the pictures Leanne showed her were unmistakable. The librarian pulled the photograph out of her purse and frowned. There he was with his arms wrapped around Leanne. The young man had the same brilliant blue eyes and flaming red hair as the politician from Diligence. He had the exact same freckles and even the same kind smile with the slightest undertone of menace.

  It just made no sense. Why would someone from Generosity pretend they were from Diligence?

  Jared was right that people could change their minds - he himself was an example of that. But Jared had backed up his change of heart with action. He'd created the Hands Paragon, going against Stock and risking his prosperous engineering job. He'd spent untold hours working to repair the colony's homes. Joshua had given some rousing speeches, but according to Leanne, his family was worth untold billions. If he wanted to help, he could just open his family's vault, just like what they'd done on Plenty with Stock and Waters's hoarded riches.

  It just didn't make any sense. If it was the man Leanne knew from Diligence, what game was he playing?

  Alex sighed.

  Emile caught her eye and grimaced at the photograph.

  They wanted to think it was nothing. It'd be so much easier if it were just nothing, just two similarly handsome men.

  Emile shook her head and set the photograph aside.

  "There's no use speculating now. We'll figure out what to do when we get there. What can you tell me about the colony?"

  Alex flicked at her tablet's screen and pulled out a map. The plants and factories had expanded since she'd left, but the overall structure remained the same.

  Emile frowned.

  "That looks weird."

  As far as Alex knew, all the other colonies used the Block structure. But Diligence had been built for the Mad Nobles' servants, not the Nobles themselves.

  "Yeah. To be honest, when I moved to Plenty, I thought the Blocks were weird. You coul
d probably think of Diligence as one big Block. The big business owners don't even live on the colony."

  It'd been the same in the days of the Mad Nobles. None of them lived on Diligence save for a handful of supervisors.

  Alex pulled out a map and started pointing everything out.

  "The center of Diligence is the service district, which sprawls across about half the colony. There are restaurants, stores, schools, you know, stuff like that. It's all in one central location. It's not like on Plenty where each Block had its own shops or schools. The fire stations and hospitals are here too."

  "What about the Security Force?"

  "There's a public protection force that's a small offshoot of the fire station. You know for like if people are too drunk to go home or stuff like that. But mostly it's the companies providing their own security. I think that's changing, though. I saw an article saying Steel wants to create a colonywide force."

  She shrugged.

  "It'd probably be based in the service district too. They kind of put everything there."

  She scrolled her finger out from the center.

  "This is the farm area over here."

  While Plenty's farms were right next to Margaret's pot-shaped restaurant, the Diligence farms had been constructed near one of the colony's three ports. The best food was shipped off-colony, including all the vegetables grown in farms. Diligence's residents only got cheap cell-cultured food. It'd only recently occurred to Alex how ludicrous the idea of inferior cell cultures was. She didn't see the point. There should just be good food for everybody, like they had on Plenty.

  "Here's the manufacturing area on the other side."

  The manufacturing area spread across the other two ports. Miners brought in raw materials on one end, and refined metals were removed from the other.

  "The factories bring in asteroids to be mined for raw materials, which is then turned into metals."

  "What?"

  Emile was shocked.

  "People just bring asteroids into the colony?"

  Alex laughed. Not a lot of people knew where their metal came from.

  "Yeah. The asteroid miners were always the pride of the colony. Just because of how cool it is. It's not as exciting as it sounds though. A lot of flying through space. A lot of waiting around. And it can be pretty dangerous. It's a long flight, the retrieval ships are flimsy, and sometimes the asteroids will just crash into you."