“These supplies are a little more difficult to acquire,” said Bowie leaning in.
The ladies were already winding their way up toward the gardens, flirting with the dark suited private security goons as they went.
“Do you mean illegal drugs, sir?” shrieked G464.
“I do.”
“Excellent. I shall instruct you to see Varo in the main house. He’ll meet you at the end of this path. I shall warn you, though… he is a dangerous sociopath who has threatened to disable me piece by piece should I ever displease the master. He handles the items you’re offering.”
“Good,” said Bowie and headed up the walkway through the strange and wonderful gardens.
A moment later, the HUD inside his sunglasses announced he had an incoming message.
It was a text message.
The voice was stentorian and matter-of-fact.
“Congratulations, Mr. Bowie. You of all the applicants have managed to make it into the target area. Mr. Nilo sends his regards. Proceed into the party’s restricted area known as the Pleasure Palace and await further orders.”
That was all. Nothing more.
Varo found him at the top of the path, before the rising walls of the impressive estate. Other guests were arriving, some wearing Diablo masks, others donning them as they entered. Servants and security were everywhere.
And yeah… Varo was a psychopath. The kind of guy who got kicked out of the Legion for being a little bit too murderous. He was small, trim, compact, and scrolling sleeve tattoos peeked out from the starched white cuffs of the dress shirt he wore. His suit also was well cut and well made. Most likely tailored on Utopion.
He saw Bowie coming from a long way off and didn’t move to approach him. But the two men knew they were aimed straight at each other. A security team intercepted Bowie within five meters of Varo and deftly removed the last blaster and both dangerous knives. They let him keep the corkscrew.
“Butler-bot says you got some drugs to sell.”
Bowie nodded.
“So…” Varo inhaled and looked around. The look of a bully who was scanning to see if anyone was going to catch him for the beatdown he was about to hand out. “I’ll play a little game. If you’ve got the usual… H8, Coke, Lotus Weed… I’m gonna have to kill you for even thinking about getting in here. Not because I don’t like you, I’m incapable of that ’cause I’m a sociopath, see—Legion docs finally figured it out. I’m incapable of liking or disliking anyone because I don’t see other people as people. You’re all just things to me. Which is why I don’t mind hurting you. So… back to what I was saying… If it’s just same old, same old, I gotta kill you. Nothing personal. Just we can’t have everyone doing what you just did, and so if I kill you, in the long run it saves a lot of lives so that other idiots, like yourself, don’t try the same stunt. We got all that stuff and the best of it. But… on the off chance you got something else, something specific, then I don’t kill you. I take you and you get paid with the hope you got more because the boss and his friends they always want more. The boss, not really. But it’s how he keeps his friends and enemies close, know what I mean?”
Bowie nodded.
“So whatcha got?”
“Ice.”
Varo raised both eyebrows.
“If you’re lyin’ and I take you in and turns out you just got Lotus, I’m gonna feed you to the baby tyrannasquid he keeps in the grotto. He’s got one. It’s sick. We feed it sheep. The guests love it at the end of the night when they’re all drugged out and crazy. Zhee especially.”
Varo paused.
“Yeah… the zhee imams come here too and they’re into some pretty sick stuff. Which is sayin’ something when that comes from me because even I know I’m not right in the head, know what I mean? Sociopath and all.”
“Ten kilos.”
Varo’s mouth dropped wide open.
His whispered some vulgarity.
“All right… let’s go see the right-hand man.”
Varo led Bowie into the party. Within the main entrance, there was a grand room that towered up into the heights. At least three stories high. The walls were hung with rich tapestries and famous paintings dating back hundreds of years. Bowie had no doubt many of these were the real deal. And that many had gone missing years before during art museum heists, or wars the House of Reason had fought on foreign worlds. Delicate vases from Sinasia stood in prominent positions. Fabulously elaborate, expensive beyond mentioning, these were ogled at and awed over by clutches of guests stuffing dainties into their mouths while murmuring over the rims of delicately sculpted cocktail glasses. The women were models, and the men were heads of banks, politicians, and movers and shakers despite the Republic’s recent problems. Maybe even more so because.
There was no sign of the courtesans. This area, for all intents and purposes, was a mere A-list gathering of the wealthy and powerful inside a private enclave of a man who controlled a planet.
It wasn’t Jack Bowie’s first A-list rodeo.
Upstairs and into private rooms guarded by security, they moved deeper and deeper into the forest. Passing small gardens where entertainers entertained, or orgiastic bacchanals were already underway. Everywhere was the murmuring tinkle of party chatter and always the elusive zither of Psycalrian hypno-string music.
Bowie knew things were heading for a conclusion when they deviated out of the festivities and into a suite of private offices that were conspicuously absent of personnel. Antique desks and state-of-the-art computer terminals indicated that much of Sustus Caul’s empire was run from here. Finally, they came to a double door that screamed boss’s office and entered with little fanfare. The room was a high cupola that looked out over the inner walls of the estate. Beyond the windows, four red-bricked minarets rose up into the orange-colored garden party afternoon sky. The songs of exotic birds could be heard along the walls and eaves.
Behind a large desk sat a diminutive man with the face of an accountant. And the expression of an undertaker.
“Boss…” began Varo. “This guy says he’s got Ice. Ten keys. If he’s lying, I’ll feed him to the squid. But… I don’t think he is.”
“It would be very foolish of him to say so at this point,” said the accountant. “Foolish indeed. I’m Mr. Tocker. I run… everything for Mr. Caul.”
Bowie stepped forward and set the case on the large desk.
“My name isn’t important. Pay me the going price for ten kilos and they’re yours.”
“Precisely. That’s what we’ll do,” said Tocker in business-like tones. As though he were already outlining the terms of agreement at hand. “Because Ice is the rarest drug in the galaxy and it would be our pleasure, Mr… ah… yes. You don’t want to be named. Except that your name is…” the accountant looked down and consulted a screen on the ornately carved desk. “Mr. Bowie. One Jackson Bowie late of the Republic Navy. Dishonorably discharged. Interesting skill set.”
Jack took off his sunglasses.
“We have very detailed files of everyone on planet. Mr. Caul prefers to know with whom he’s dealing at all times. Especially during these times. But please, don’t worry. We would very much like to conclude this transaction with the highest of hopes that you can provide more of your specialty import. Much, much more. Big things are happening for Kublar. And we find that Ice helps make much better arrangements with our friends. Either because they’ve acquired a taste for the stuff, or because the antics they get up to under the influence can be used against them. Either way works for us. So… I’m authorizing a data card now for twenty million. Non-traceable. And before you do a happy dance… don’t. Because the credits only exist there for the moment. I’d like to see the goods.”
Bowie stepped forward and undid the locks and biometric scans on both. Then he opened the case. He had no doubt that if there weren’t ten bags filled with translucent si
lver powder, Varo might not even let him make it to the tyrannasquid feeding.
But there were, and Varo whistled at seeing so much of the stuff.
“Excellent.” Mr. Tocker held out the card. It flashed a secure bank QC and the amount it contained. Twenty million credits.
“You may enjoy the rest of the day with us, Mr. Bowie. We’ve ordered some girls up. The finest from out along the Rigel Worlds. You may select any one of them and consider it a bonus from Mr. Caul personally. And we hope we might have further business with you in the near future.”
Bowie stepped away from the desk as Tocker and Varo set to collecting the bags from the briefcase. He put on his sunglasses.
Incoming message. Via text this time.
Terminate Zahid Bum Shak. He is located within the Pleasure Palace.
Then an ident targeting file installed on his HUD. If he spotted the target, it would confirm through visual comparison with a ninety-eight point nine percent certainty that the target had been verified by facial recognition scan.
Varo’s security team had searched him for the blaster and taken it. And the two knives. They’d left him with the corkscrew.
Bowie returned to the desk and closed the briefcase.
“You won’t be needing this?” he asked easily.
The accountant nodded. Busy at the business of accounting high-end drugs. Varo had his hands full of the sliver-dust bags. He smiled dumbly.
“Which way to the Pleasure Palace?”
Without looking up, the accountant tsk-tsked.
“Even with the considerable deal you’ve just done, those areas are off-limits to all but Mr. Caul’s closest business associates. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do for the evening with any number of our other… ahem… activities.”
But Bowie already had a pretty good idea in which quadrant the palace was located once he’d looked out on the inner garden of the fortress from Tocker’s cupola office. The area with the cameras mounted on the roof and the two snipers standing guard in the shadows of some demonic-looking gargoyles along the roof. He could cross the other covered gardens to access it.
He tapped a button on the side of the case and the weapon entered its primary configuration as panels and plates deployed out and forward and a trigger and metallic stock took shape.
In an instant the briefcase wasn’t.
Both men heard the low metallic whine of the weapon assembling itself. It looked vaguely like a Steiger sub-compact internally suppressed assault blaster. Used for close quarters fighting and never good at any real range. A mean vicious weapon used by tactical police forces to clear buildings and put down threats with extreme prejudice.
Some thought it was a little excessive. Bowie had always found it to be just right for the job that needed doing. Especially if that job was close quarters killing.
It looked like a Steiger sub-compact because it was that.
Except this was the very expensive model that could disguise itself as an actual high security briefcase. Bowie leveled the weapon and pulled the trigger firing a continuous burst that tore both men, and the bags of drugs they were holding, to pieces. The muffled blasts sounded like the flash of ancient cameras. On highspeed. And dozens in seconds.
Silver dust blossomed into the air as both men fell over dead, bleeding out on a carpet that was beyond expensive.
Bowie remained still, listening to the local silence within the deserted suite of offices, and the distant murmur of party chatter and music.
Late afternoon was coming on quickly. He moved toward the window, staying far enough away so as not to be seen from outside. His sunglasses switched over to IR and picked up both snipers hiding in the rooftop shadows of the two gargoyles. Private contractor types. Both were scanning the rooftops against outside infiltration. Oblivious to the activities going on in the Pleasure Palace below their eyes.
Both were working for the wrong team.
Bowie took something from a hidden panel in the weapon’s stock and attached it to the sight of the Steiger while covering behind the heavy curtains. He worked fast, taking quick, furtive glances to scan the roof and towers. A spectrum connection opened up and synched a scope to the sunglasses. He tagged both snipers. All security had been oriented toward external threats.
The koob resistance had been making noise of late.
Bowie pulled an attachment out of the front of the stock and screwed it into the end of the barrel. A longer suppressor that increased accuracy and muffled sound. From the shadows of the room, he fired and hit the first sniper with a single shot, and then with barely a pause, nailed the second. Both men slid onto their backs and lay on the sloped roof. The sunglasses confirmed that fading vitals indicated death.
Then Bowie stepped out onto the roof and made his way across the covered gardens, following long beams of wood that supported the screens guarding the parties below. He could hear the guests cavorting and cackling. Shrieking as more alcohol and drugs were consumed along with the lives they were debasing.
Some distant part wondered what the sweet little Tennarian girl was doing. She didn’t belong here. She was from some other place, not this one.
Not your problem, Jack, he told himself and made his way toward the edge of the Pleasure Palace. Below him he saw nothing like the bacchanal going on in all the other quadrants of the garden. This was nothing more than a gathering of the most stately and powerful of the guests. All of them in clusters of earnest conversation. Doing big business no doubt, he thought as he scanned the crowd looking for the zhee. The sunglasses were picking up vocals and translating. Interesting stuff. Private plans the public would scream murder over.
Dividing up the carcasses of the Kublarens. And the Republic. Making everything new the same as it was before. The House of Reason 2.0.
He spotted the target.
In his sunglasses he got another message.
Target confirmed.
He fired once. That’s all it took. Looking right down at the zhee not more than forty meters from him, it was an easy shot. The zhee holy man was surrounded by his coterie of body guards. All of them armed with suicide vests as per protocol. That was something you learned in navy intel. Because you didn’t want to learn it the hard way.
They were talking with the local head of the koob clan. A frog dressed in Utopion clothes and sporting gold medallions and even a crown. A dozen others like him all looking nothing like the dirty rebel tribesmen they’d been less than a decade before. Looking now like any of the many on all the worlds of the Republic who’d sold out their own for a bigger, better deal.
The single blaster shot fired from Bowie’s sniper rifle variant hit the zhee in the head. Had to make sure. Pumps and pipe wasn’t good enough.
Target termination confirmed.
The donk’s head exploded across the other guests, showering them with blood and matter. They stood there for half a second, stunned that they wouldn’t hear the rest of the deal he’d been making with his publicly avowed enemies concerning the fate of everyone on Kublar.
But Bowie didn’t see that. He was already gone and moving for the exit. Quickly back across the covered gardens as Kublar’s sun sank behind the walls, throwing blue shadows along the interior.
He made the window back into the accountant’s business suite when the first zhee body guard detonated, thinking it was a double cross and convinced that his religious fervor to murder assured him a place in the eternal pasture the zhee believed in.
Bowie had no idea how many of the inner sanctum guests were killed in that fiery moment. He had already reconfigured the weapon into a briefcase and was briskly making his way back into the party. Stunned guests, having heard the blast, were already making their way toward the grand main entrance as security professionals pushed past, racing for the maelstrom of mayhem that was unfolding in their most secure zone. Desperate to protect Sustus Caul
.
Jack Bowie spotted the Tennarian named Honey. She was pressed against the pillar. Suddenly forgotten and scared. Her prized orange skin standing out against the contrast of the white sculpted column she was anchored to. Clinging to it as though that were the only constant in the galaxy. To leave it was to fly off into insanity. Her large wide eyes were uncertain and filled with not fear, but definitely worry. Her tentacle arms writhed across the column. Her beautiful humanoid body rigid with fear.
Guests screamed and raced for the exits and their private vehicles and security teams.
Bowie spotted a bottle of Fraught and picked it up as he approached the beautiful Tennar.
“Care for that drink?”
She looked at him in stunned amazement that quickly turned to fear. And then suddenly recognizing him as the pilot, she smiled like they were old friends well met.
“I think something’s happened… Is the party over?”
Bowie looked off toward the Pleasure Palace.
“Yes, Honey. I think it’s over now. Would you like a drink?”
“Where?” she asked.
Jack Bowie inspected the bottle.
“Probably not here. But this is a serviceable gin. Allow me to escort you out of here and we’ll find somewhere to drink it.”
“Where?” she asked, refusing to peel herself away from the column. As though she were frozen, or petrified, unable to leave and trust the unknown. Stuck to the pillar forever like some mythical beauty about to be fed to monsters.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Bowie said, taking her arm. “Someplace cozy, I suspect.”
And then they were off. He was leading her away through the chaos, and filching a ride just as the koob resistance suicide-bombed the main gate. And their assault teams came out of the feathery trees and across the UberGolf course.
She looked at him as he drove away from the sudden battle. A fireball rising in the rearview mirror. The sound of automatic blaster fire being exchanged between security and koob insurgents.
“Today turned out a lot differently than I thought it would.” She took a deep breath. Then she smiled at him. Because she could breathe now. She wasn’t afraid. Not here. Not at this moment.
Galaxy's Edge: Takeover: Season Two: Book One Page 7