“Wait, you mean... you never even finished?” Joey asked, looking back and forth between the two.
Isellia said nothing, but continued to stare straight ahead, her face red as ever.
"It's true, it's true," Veda sang. "Oh, she's had some promising starts, and ran some very good races. But she has the nasty little habit —" Veda’s face was right in front of Isellia's at this point "—of crashing. Don't you, Isellia?"
Isellia remained silent, and a tear formed at the corner of her eye. She was humiliated. The crowd of onlookers, fascinated with Veda, were curious who this pink-haired person was whom Veda was treating as a rival. A few who had been on the circuit long enough remembered Isellia; she had been one of the youngest to start the circuit, and her departure seemed to confirm to them that she had been too young after all.
"What's the matter, Isellia?" Veda practically purred. “Got your plasma coils crossed?”
Isellia clenched her fists, then calmed. She stared deadpan at Veda
"If I do crash this time," she said, whispering right in Veda’s ear. "I'm taking you with me."
Veda’s faux smile held steady as Isellia stormed off through the crowd. Joey glanced at Veda, who gave him a little wave that dripped with condescendence, before rushing after Isellia.
***
"You might as well come out," Rex called out after he guided Malvers' limp, unconscious body down onto the street-lamp lit pavement. Malvers slumped on the concrete, looking almost as if he were pleasantly resting and not in the mortal danger he was facing.
Rex looked up, seeing no one had yet emerged from the shadows.
“Please,” he scoffed. “Pretty sure even he knew you were following him."
A few moments after he spoke, shapes began to emerge from the shadows. Unlike the soldiers they’d previously encountered, they carried no equipment and dressed in all black. Rex looked them over from head to toe. An ordinary observer wouldn’t have been able to identify the blades they hid on their persons, camouflaged beneath the layers of their dark clothing.
Rex, of course, was far from ordinary.
“A challenge," he said, grinning as he readied himself in a fighting stance. "Don't push me too hard. I want to keep one of you in talking condition, and I wouldn’t want to accidentally kill all of you.”
Chapter 28
Council rejects Company C project
Proposal would have given galactic corporation foothold in Farven Point
The Farven Point Council Tuesday said no to a project that would have given the green light to a project backed by Company C.
If approved, the project would have been the first foothold for the Company on the planet, and it would have been in Farven Point, known for being fiercely anti-Company.
The proposal was put forth by Administrator Hamyor Malvers, who left the council chambers immediately after the vote and was unavailable for comment after the meeting. The project would have built a multi-level facility in District 33 and would have been built by Liquid LLC, which records show is a holding company for Company C, the largest corporation in the galaxy.
Liquid applied for a land grant in the 33rd District in a blighted area that Malvers has said is in desperate need of rehabilitation. Rebuilding the area was one of Malvers’ top priorities after being re-elected last year, despite openly campaigning against the district’s alderman, Regor Trzbz.
It was Trzbz who called out Malvers for bringing forth the proposal, handing out documents to council members during the meeting detailing the connection to Company C.
“I grew up on Farven Point, and have always been proud to call this place home,” Trzbz said. “And that means being free of Company C control. Maybe some of you want to work in their mines, but I sure don’t. I’m shocked, and frankly a little sad that our Administrator would bring forth a proposal like this. This is shameful.”
Documents handed out to other council members included copies of the Intergalactic Commerce Commission filings detailing Liquid’s parent company, other examples of Liquid building in cities that later were controlled by Company C and a detailed list of nearby holdings, including in the nearby Orange Zone.
Several council members spoke out against the land grant before it was voted down, most citing shock and outrage over the proposal.
“That an official of our city would even consider a proposal that would let Company C into our backyard,” 12th District Council Member Merry Joore said. “It’s just unthinkable.”
Meara O’Merkel echoed those sentiments. “This is a disgrace to everything I stand for. Everything my constituents stand for. I’m embarrassed to even be in this meeting.”
***
Malvers blinked his eyes open, sunlight sharply angling in from the open window. He moved his arm and felt blanket. It dawned on him that he was in his bed, and he discovered how sore his neck was after looking around to survey his surroundings.
He had dreamed. The council voted unanimously against his proposal, the one he couldn't afford to lose, the one with consequences unknown — consequences he would rather were kept unknown. He didn’t gain even a single vote, something that hadn’t happened once in the entire time he had been administrator.
The worst of it all was that it was none other than Trzbz who led the charge against him. Being outed by someone he felt wasn't even fit for political office — a fool if there ever was one. How'd he figure it out? It must of been that sparkhead MaBrown. The press would have a field day with this, he remembered dreaming.
He dreamed, and when he awoke, for just a few moments, he held a glimmer of hope that it had all been just a dream, a nightmare, and that reality would wash away all the bad memories of such a horrible scenario.
Then reality hit, and his heart sunk. It was all real. Every single red vote on the council. His political career was likely over. No one could possibly vote for him in the next election cycle, if he somehow managed to make it through his term. Overnight he’d turned into a lame duck — no council member was likely to vote for a single proposal he brought before it, and the press would spend most of its time searching for a connection to Company C with nearly every project going back to the beginning of his administration to everything he tried to push through. He’d be grilled about the tiniest pothole repair project or plasma coil replacement.
Malvers was done.
He rubbed the spot on his collar bone where he’d been struck, which brought back memories of how the evening had ended. It stung, but not like the percussive blow one might expect. It had been sharp, precise. Surgical. But most of all, painful.
Who is this man who did this to me? Malvers thought, laying in bed. He had thought about the description he would tell police: tall and lanky, dark, with neck-length dark, straight hair, and dark intense eyes. The man had stood in front of him, between him and many heavily armed men. When he awoke, there had been no trace of them.
Malvers' thoughts dissipated at the sound of his room door opening. "Honey, you're awake. Are you OK? How do you feel?"
His wife made her way to the bed with a tray of breakfast. It smelled good, and so did she. It made him wince. He knew her way of life, her comfort level, the roof over her head, all depended on him. And she didn’t know it yet, but he had let her down.
"I'm fine," Malvers lied. "Just a little scratch. An unfortunate incident that we'll relegate to the back burner."
She stood up a little. "Unfortunate incident? Honey, you were attacked right here! Right in front of our home!"
“Now everything is perfectly fine, dear. It's just an isolated incident, and clearly the culprit didn't wish me any real harm, because he certainly had ample opportunity to do so, did he not?”
She started to protest, but he continued. "The constables have assured me that the matter will be resolved shortly. I have complete faith in the law enforcement detail that I have helped install in our city. Certainly this will be an opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of our highly efficient law enforcement system.
"
She looked at him and sighed a little. "Do you always need to sound like you're expecting to be quoted?”
He tucked at his pajamas, a pin-striped wool suit he nearly could have worn to the office, it looked so much like his other suit. "Now honey, that's ridiculous." He grabbed her around the waist, dragging her toward him. She resisted playfully.
"Do I have to issue an administrative order to get you in this bed with me?" he asked, as coyly as his nasally voice allowed.
“Oh, stop it!" she laughed, letting her other hand, which held a daily paper, slip more than she intended.
It caught the administrator's attention. "Is that the Star Runner?"
She attempted to toss it aside, but Malvers was too quick. His attention quickly left her as he grasped the pages. She crossed her arms and sighed as he loaded the holopaper's imager.
“Fiddlestock! I’ve got to go,” Malvers said, throwing the clear plastic news reader on the ground after reading the front page lede article.
His wife sighed, poking with a fork at the breakfast she'd made, knowing it would go to waste.
***
MaBrown's phone rang as soon as he entered the newspaper’s office on the third floor of Loen building, home of the Star Runner newspaper. He quickly dropped his well-worn black satchel by the messy desk of his cubicle and picked up the buzzing phone.
"Mr. MaBrown," a sly but familiar older male’s voice said on the other end of the receiver. "Nice article you had in the paper."
MaBrown sighed in relief. He had been waiting for the administrator's call, to chew him out for the article. It was a game they always seemed to play. MaBrown wrote a critical article, the administrator hemmed and hawed, pretending like he'd been wronged in the worst possible way, threatened to sue the paper, threatened to never grant him another interview. MaBrown would spend the next half hour sweet talking him, getting back on his good side, implying his editors had more to do with it than him. Eventually — typically toward the end of the meeting — they were back on good terms again. The administrator never really seemed to hold a grudge. Malvers knew he needed the newspapers, and could use the press more effectively if he were on speaking terms with its members.
And Malvers couldn’t have much to say about this story, after all — the facts were there for anyone to see. A follow-up for the next day’s edition might involve some more research, analysis and digging into some rather unsavory facts, of course. And there were all kinds of records to request now. Nearly every project Malvers approved would now be called into question. He could spend 40 hours per week for the rest of the year looking into connections between Malvers and Company C. But of course in reality it would be a side project while he fed the daily news beast with stories.
But that all would come another day. How he looked in the newspapers were likely the least of Malvers’s worries at the moment.
"Yeah, I like the quote you have here," Alderman Trzbz said. "Not bad, sir, not bad."
"Thanks," MaBrown said, absently searching through the morning mail on his terminal.
"Yeah, I like the creativities you took with my quote here."
"Creativities?" MaBrown felt hairs prickle on the back of his neck.
"Hmmm, not my exact words, I don't believe. Ah, close enough. Listen, I got something for ya."
MaBrown perked up, going from the panicky mode journalists tend to find themselves in to juicy tidbit mode instantly. "What's that?"
"Well, last night's little stunt might have cost the administrator a little more than he thought," Trzbz said. “Did you hear he was attacked last night?”
“What?”
“Right outside his door. Police found him unconscious, except for a note.”
“You’re kidding,” MaBrown started searching the buzz for any mention of the incident.
“You might want to make a trip down to the constable station this morning. Assuming you guys still work for a living at that rag you’re employed at.”
MaBrown smiled and rolled his eyes, suffering a minor Trzbz stab. It was the cost of getting some truly great tips from the alderman.
"Yeah, listen, there’s more. Stop by the city clerk today and ask if anything interesting's been filed this morning,” Trzbz said.
"And what might that be?"
"Oh, I don't know," Trzbz chuckled. "Might be something worth looking at, all I'm saying."
"I see."
There was a short pause, rare in a phone conversation with Trzbz, and MaBrown leapt at it, before the conversation could take one of its lengthy, hour-killing diversions. “Well hey, boss is yelling for me, got to go."
"Very good," Trzbz said. "And remember, you didn't hear it from me."
"Gotcha."
As MaBrown hung up, he spied Taylin actually coming toward him. He hung up and put his bag back on his shoulder.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked.
“Gotta head to city hall, and the enforcement station,” MaBrown said. "I'm told there's a document I need to see in the clerk's office."
"Shoulda left a little earlier," Taylin snorted. "Leeds is out front for you. You know that’s an hour conversation, at least.”
"Aw crap," MaBrown said. “I’ll deal with him later. Tell him I’m already gone.”
***
Isellia ran her finger along a gasket in the interior part of her XR’s engine, checking for a hint of oil that would signify she might have a potentially costly leak. XRs screamed overhead, rattling the hanger’s frame. As each one passed, she concentrated on every bolt, every timing chip, every piece of circuitry. She remembered back when Wallace would do the same, when she would sit impatiently, ready to hand him a requested tool. Waiting for him to grunt the name of the piece he desired, so she could hand it to him as quickly as she could. It turned into a game for her. She wanted him to know she knew what she was doing, so she could take her turn in the cockpit one day, to follow in his footsteps. She had no idea he was more eager than she to see her fly. He never said a word about it.
When she finished checking the last coil, giving a little polish with her rag, she finally decided it was ready. No one ever could say with 100 percent certainty they would be safe from a breakdown — something costly in this type of race when a pilot couldn’t simply get out and make a repair. Isellia liked to be as certain as she possibly could be. She let out a sigh and half-heartedly flung the oil-spotted rag she was using onto her tool chest. The ship was as solid as it was going to be, she figured.
It was an expensive tool set, if not a little old. She climbed into her cockpit, knowing she could leave her tools on the work platform and no one would take them. XR pilots came in all personality types, straight arrows and thieves, liars, cheats, ruffians and bullies — but no one would touch another pilot’s tools. And besides, hers were probably the oldest and most-worn on the platform. Even if someone would take another pilot’s set, there were far better tools than hers from which to choose.
If anyone touched Wallace’s tools, she would find them and make sure they were as dead as they possibly could be. They were the only thing she had left from the person she never actually called “Dad.”
She closed the cockpit, its airtight seals locking in place, and fired up her engines. The machine purred, perhaps smoother than she'd ever heard it run before. Her attention to detail paid had off, she thought. Every time she took her ship apart and put it back together (14 and a half times, not fully counting the first time when she needed Wallace’s help), she honed her knowledge about what made her machine tick. Isellia believed with a good deal of confidence that she could construct another ship from nothing but parts.
But the moment she flicked on the ignition switch is what she always worked for, and she took a moment to savor the feeling. When an opening in the hangar presented itself, she adjusted the controls and fired the thrusters. The worry, the fear, the anticipation of the race all faded to nothing as her XR screamed into the air, the hull whistling as she gained speed. She turned on an
arc, and headed for the practice area. She grinned, squarely in her element.
Every XR race was different. This particular race headed out to a stationary point in space and then brought the racers back — an out-and-back, as they're called. Alert racers might have a chance to take in obstacles on the second half of the track, which runs parallel to the first, if they were able to take their eyes off of the course in front of them for long enough to notice any significant detail.
Isellia leaned back against the chair in her cockpit as her XR roared higher and higher. She smiled with a sense of contentment. She could almost close her eyes and just enjoy this moment, this freedom, this escape.
Isellia’s XR glowed a faint red as it hit the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere. She could see the beacon sent out by the race directors guiding her ship to the start line. She started scanning for things she would need to take note of along the course — pockets of debris, strange space phenomena, subspace pockets, dust belts — all things that could trip up a less-than-cautious XR pilot.
Instead, coming in almost directly above her, was her least favorite obstacle: Veda
"So, you got that bucket of rust running, I see," Veda’s voice crackled over the intercom. XR ships are wired with a frequency that allows them to communicate at a certain range. A likeness of Veda popped up in a corner of a screen. She could flick the screen to read Veda’s bio, and get some stats.
Isellia, however, already she knew all she cared to know about Veda
"Better than ever," Isellia said cooly.
"Well, then, you should be able to keep up with me just enough to see me win from a distance," Veda laughed.
"We'll see."
"I was worried you might stall at the starting gate, and have to watch me come in while you float at the start line. Of course, it would be a better view — perhaps I could give you an imager to take a winning photo of me crossing the finish. I'd save you a copy, of course."
Robot Awareness: Special Edition Page 31