The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

Mazoud said nothing for a moment. “We all have jobs to do, Director Arnholt. I can’t turn back the clock and reverse the decisions made. Neither of us can. But that is our burden. We put people where they will be hurt. You’re making this personal and it is unbecoming of you, I have to say.”

  He was right and that stung. Arnholt drew a deep breath and took a moment to regain his composure. “It’s never personal,” he said. “Not even slightly.”

  “Yes, keep telling yourself that,” Mazoud frowned. “What you don’t seem to understand, everything about our jobs is personal. Professionalism is nice but no matter what we do, it comes back to us. Success or failure are fine lines and I don’t know about you, but I savour every victory as much as I lament every failure. Sometimes I feel we are little more than cards in a game of Ruin being moved in some never-ending game for supremacy. The only winner is the one who backs all sides at minimum cost. The least possible risk for maximum reward is the favourable outcome.”

  “I assume you’re going somewhere with this, Mister Mazoud,” Crumley said. Stood in silence, Arnholt had almost forgotten she was in the room. He was too busy pondering the words, his chin resting in the cusp of his hand.

  Mazoud inclined a head towards him. “If your director doesn’t understand now, he soon will. In some regards, you lack both foresight and understanding, Ms Crumley. Don’t contact me again. I cannot see a future in which our goals will be the same. I advise you to keep your agents out of Vazara too, for it may soon become an unhealthy climate for Unisco.”

  With that, the line went dead, and he heard Crumley sputtering with unrestrained anger. “Who in the hells does he think he is? Did he just threaten us?”

  Arnholt said nothing, still pondering what he’d just heard. It sounded that way. Mazoud hadn’t issued a threat in so many words. That wasn’t his style. A man of his position and disposition didn’t issue threats. The first sign you got he was annoyed with you was when the door came crashing in and his soldiers opened fire. No, that wasn’t it at all. Privately he was disappointed with Crumley. More to the point, he was disgusted with himself. He shouldn’t have brought Mia into it, he’d let Mazoud see what was under his skin.

  But it wasn’t a threat. That much he was certain of.

  “He doesn’t think we can win,” he said softly. “Whatever comes next, he’s playing his cards close to his chest. He thinks we’re going to be wiped out and he wants in bed with the victors. It wasn’t a threat. It was a warning construed that way.” He sighed. “I’ve known Mazoud for a long time. I know how his mind works and this is classic from him. He thinks he’s cleverer than he actually is, unfortunately which doesn’t do anybody any favours.”

  “And him giving us that information,” Crumley said, the light dawning in her eyes as she realised. “He’s keeping his options open. Just in case. He’s not fermenting outright betrayal but just giving us enough to avoid declaring him an enemy.”

  “Exactly.” Arnholt frowned at the thought. “Five million is a lot for a holding action. Someone really must have been desperate to get the Suns onside. Rocastle’s employers?” He asked it more as a question thought out loud but Crumley nodded in agreement.

  “Reims,” she said. “Once more, it boils down to them. How long before it all stops being circumstance?”

  Honestly, Arnholt didn’t know the answer. Reims were hiding something. The questions were clear. It was the answers giving them all so much trouble. “I think I’m going to send someone to talk to the CEO of Reims,” he said. “See if we can halt this from escalating any further.” Now, what was her name again? He had it on a file somewhere.

  “Sir?” He looked to Crumley, solemn in the confined space of the cabin they’d set up as their communication hub. “Thank you for summoning me here. I’m glad to be able to help.”

  Arnholt nodded. “Think nothing of it. Think you could go talk to the Lady Reims for me?” That wasn’t her name, he was sure of it. Crumley nodded. “You might just be the only one I can trust.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  That might not have been the best thing to say. “I worry sometimes, you know, Allison. And given my job, the things I worry about are a lot scarier than most. It’s enough to make you paranoid. But I do wonder how, if it was Reims, they knew how Rocastle was being transported off the island and their travel vector.”

  “You think we’ve been compromised?” It was a scary thought. “Is this why it’s just you and me here?”

  Arnholt nodded. “I’d like to not take the chances on a thing like this.”

  “Okay, this is the last place on the list that might be able to sort us the parts out,” Pete said as he shoved the door open and heard the bell chime an announcement to their entrance. He rolled his eyes at the pleasant little ting, held it open for Scott and Mia to follow in. He wasn’t sure why Mia was coming along for the ride, but Scott seemed to want her around. In the times since they’d been to that bloody dance, he hadn’t seen her and neither had Scott, he’d heard the resentful moaning enough to know he’d been hurting over the whole thing.

  Mia wasn’t looking as good as she once had, if he was honest. He could tell her nose had been broken and part of him thought of Jess when he saw it. Jess had had an imperfection as well, those scars on her arm and he’d wondered if she was jealous of the way Mia pulled off a sense of flawlessness.

  Why was he even thinking about this now? Jess was in the past, he’d seen her leave the island a few days after their tryst. In hindsight, he wasn’t entirely sure what to think about it. He’d enjoyed it, sure. But he’d also spent more than a few moments with his fingers crossed Scott wouldn’t find out. Pete wouldn’t have put it past Jess to inform on him, just to screw up their friendship as a final fuck you to them. He was glad she’d gone now. He’d just about gotten over the difficult decision of whether to pester Scott to change his contact details just in case she got in touch and felt like dropping the bombshell.

  Maybe he would. Just in case. It couldn’t hurt.

  Still it felt good to get his mind on something else. He’d help Scott here, focus on Kitti Sommer from a distance. Pondering the possible bad things that could happen wouldn’t help him any. And besides, a little ghost hunting might not be a bad idea. He knew for fact she had at least one ghost and some practice against one of those slippery bastards could benefit him. They weren’t entirely common to face as a species and had Scott not already set his heart it, Pete might have put a move in to try and claim it for himself. Especially if it was as unusual as his friend had said.

  He’s talking rubbish. No way a ghost speaks, it’s impossible. About the most you could get back off a spirit was an occasional flash of strong emotion. Never actual conversation. Then again, there always had to be something new out there. He didn’t know why that worried him more than it should, but it did. There was something comforting about the familiar. The idea that everything he’d known wasn’t quite right, Pete wasn’t sure he wanted to wake up in a world where the shields had been shifted.

  “Yay!” Mia said dryly as she took in the store around them. “Junk.” In classic Vazaran style, some of the stuff had been old five years ago. To call it junk would have been a compliment. Broken summoners lay in a pile to be salvaged for parts. Shattered container crystals stood in a mortar dish ready to be ground up and recycled into new ones. All various bits of equipment that had long reached the end of their life but not yet deemed unusable. Yet it was not the only stuff available, Pete could see a much smaller section filled with newer stuff. Compared to the prices on the old stuff, the mark-ups on the new stuff were eye-watering.

  “One man’s junk is another man’s older junk,” Scott said, glancing around. It might have been a surprise to find a place like this amidst the swank of Carcaradis Island, but Pete privately thought the owner had the right idea. Spirit callers were notorious for holding bits of valuable bits of junk, at least until they could either get rid or get it repaired. Added to the fact this place
also did repairs, it wasn’t as farfetched as it might have sounded. The sign did promise expert repairs at low prices and short waiting times. It was appealing to the skinflint living inside every caller, the equipment was expensive, and warranties short. Sometimes you needed good repair jobs, that it was a trade in which few were masterfully skilled meant they could charge whatever they wanted. A bad repairman went out of business very quickly. Maybe this guy was chancing it for the two months while the tournament was on. Even then, Pete couldn’t imagine he’d have gotten away with it this long if he was terrible.

  Both Scott and Mia were making a show of perusing, his attention moved to the guy stood behind the counter talking to the one other customer, a big guy who moved with the grace of an athlete and looked vaguely familiar. He didn’t look like someone who’d be in here for kicks, maybe the owner had done some bad repairing for him and was about to get his ass kicked.

  He did feel a little like a spare part lately, seeing those two hunched close together, muttering stuff in each other’s ears, the way Mia let out a little giggle every so often when Scott said something surely not as funny as the reaction warranted. He’d not been around when it had been the start for Scott and Jess. It surely couldn’t have been this annoying. Not with Jess anyway. Hearing her laugh had been rare and it usually had been at someone else’s expense, never the girly sound that came from Mia. Or at least if she had, it had never been something he’d heard. Jess in private… Well you couldn’t get much more private than what they’d done, and he’d still never heard it.

  Why was he dwelling on this? Must be the constant reminders. Still if Scott was happy, then good for him. He was less inclined to be a total tool when he was in a good mood. Although if Pete was honest, he wouldn’t have been looking to start a relationship right now with all the stuff going on in the tournament. He’d re-watched Scott’s bout with Steven Silver and but for an almighty effort in the last round when Palawi had put down that giant cavern crusher, he would have gone out. He’d have won their bet about being the last one standing, claimed bragging rights

  Now where were they though? Pete himself had to face Katherine Sommer, bumped up to one of the favourites since Wade had bowed out. Odds compilers had her as one of the top five winners along with Sharon, Nick Roper, Reginald Tendolini and Lucy Tait, although where those last two names had been pulled from, he didn’t know. What he did know was he had a tough bout ahead, potentially just as tough as the one he’d waged against Sharon in the group stage. That felt a very long time ago, a good few weeks that felt like months. Time was getting deceptive here in the middle of the goldfish bowl this tournament had become. He’d heard it before but had never quite understood how in the middle of something like this, time could simultaneously drag and fly at the same staid pace.

  It was the waiting around between bouts that did it, he decided. You were the first one to fight in the round, you’d have at least a few days to sweat before you even knew who you’d be fighting. Even then there was no guarantee you’d be the first to fight the next round along which would make things even more stressful. That, he decided, might just be part of the challenge. Not only must you conquer your opponent but also the threat of inactivity.

  Up at the counter, the customer finished his debate with the owner and turned, a big box under his arms and seeing him from the front for the first time, Pete recognised him. He was a hard figure not to recognise. Things made sense suddenly.

  “Al?” he asked, surprised. “Alvin Noorland?”

  Alvin Noorland, renowned spirit caller and world-famous inventor looked tired as he blinked at the sound of his name but quickly regained his composure and slid an easy smile across his face. “Hello,” he said warmly. “You, I know from somewhere. Paul? Parry?”

  “Peter,” Pete said. Inside he got a warm feeling of glee. Al Noorland remembered him from their last meeting. He’d held a tournament for his birthday, the Alvin Noorland Birthday Invitational. Pete had entered and gotten to the semi-final, hadn’t gotten close enough for the chance to face Noorland himself but he’d gotten some consolation words from the man himself. “I met you a few years ago. At your invitational.”

  “That was a good tournament,” Noorland said, nodding his grizzled head in agreement. “Must do it again sometime.” Already Scott and Mia were coming over and Pete wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t every day you got to meet someone on the level of Noorland. Well Scott wouldn’t. Mia did every time she went home. Heh, he imagined Scott probably thought he did every time he looked in the mirror. Neither of them was at that level yet unfortunately. Pete grinned. He might be when he won this thing and got international recognition for his achievement. “Must do it again sometime. And you’re Scott Taylor.”

  “You know me?” Scott asked, and Pete rolled his eyes. Duh!

  “I know of you,” Noorland replied. “Seen a few of your bouts here. I enjoyed that last round against Steve Silver. That was intense. Real intense. You fight like that again; I might bounce a few creds on you. Not everyone can take down a cavern crusher the way you did.” His gaze slid across to Mia and the smile grew. In Pete’s eyes, it was a smile screaming of sleaze, but his words were courteous and well meaning. “Ms Arnholt, a pleasure.”

  “Alvin,” she said. “Call me Mia, please.”

  “Gladly,” Noorland said. “Got to ask, what the three of you doing in a place like this? Summoner trouble?”

  Scott shook his head, a look on his face of comprehension and Pete thought he got what his friend might be thinking.

  “Well we’re looking for a particle barrier,” he said, trying to sound offhand. “You know, for trapping ghosts. But there’s nowhere here on the island that sells them. So, we tried here to see if there were any we could…”

  “Or build one,” Mia offered. “How hard can it be?”

  Noorland paused, then burst out laughing. “Mia, you have no idea. To build not just a working particle barrier but an effective one is not easy. Everyone talks about building one, but the trick is doing it, so it won’t blow up on you. They’re finickity bits of equipment at the best of times. You won’t find one here you can fix. It’d take more time than I imagine you have to do it up to standard. It’d be quicker to build a stop-gap one from scratch.”

  “Which we were sort of trying to do,” Scott said quietly. Noorland studied him with an amused look as he took in the words.

  “Kid, I like your spirit. You got any experience of protoplasmic-repellent designs? Automated frequency modulators? Phase shift oscillators? You got Thomas Rogan’s contact details?”

  “Wait, what was that first one again?” Scott asked. “Thought that was a brand of deodorant.” He grinned a little as he said it and Noorland shook his head.

  “Thought so.”

  “Well,” Pete interrupted. “I’m sure what he meant to say was we’d find someone with experience of all that stuff to knock one up. Someone with mad engineering skills. I mean there has to be someone on this island capable of doing that, right?”

  “Lik?” Noorland glanced back behind the counter at the owner of the store, the heavyset man pricking his ears up. “You want to build them a particle barrier?”

  “Could. Got stuff on though. Might take a week at least. Need some fresh parts. Going to cost you.” His voice was slow and ponderous, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as he mentioned cost and Pete hid a smirk. Oh, how had he guessed that was coming? He didn’t know how much Scott wanted to spend but he had a feeling he might be about to be fleeced here.

  “How much?” Scott asked. By the wary sound in his voice, it appeared he’d had the same thought, Pete noted.

  Lik pondered for a moment, his lips moving soundlessly as he muttered a few sums to himself and then grinned, showing several missing teeth in his smile. “You want it quick?”

  “As soon as possible,” Scott said.

  More silent mutterings, he moved onto counting on his fingers. Lik gave him a grin. “Thousand credits and I have it done
by the end of the week.”

  That was the point Scott stood up straight, turned around and walked out the store, hands in his pockets. Mia glanced after him and shrugged. “Think he means that as a no,” she said apologetically. “I’m sorry, he could have…”

  “That didn’t take long,” Pete grinned. “Before you started apologising for him. Welcome to my world.”

  They found him leaning against a street light, hands in pockets when they emerged, whistling a casual tune. For a few long moments, Pete listened, then straightened up in surprise.

  “Thought you hated Kayleigh Stafford,” he said.

  It was Scott’s turn to shrug. “Meh, I got it stuck in my head. And I don’t hate her, I just don’t like most of her songs.”

  “That wasn’t the best way to do things, was it?” Mia asked, looking at him. “Walking out like that.”

  “Hey, screw that,” Scott said. “I’m not paying that. I’d pay a thousand credits if it was done by the time my bout was over. Not for the end of the week. Someone else might have claimed it by then. I can’t wait that long.”

  “Has anyone ever told you about the virtues of patience?” Noorland smiled.

  “Yeah. But you know what else they say about the bird and the worm,” Scott retorted, folding his arms. “I can’t let this go. I won’t. I’ll go try catch it without a particle barrier if need be. I nearly did it before.”

  This time Noorland laughed out loud. “Dear me. You know what, kid, I like your spirit. World needs more callers like you. I think sheer bloody mindedness counts for a lot. I tell you what. How about I fix you one up. Think I might have something for the job. Might need repairs but…”

  “And you’re just doing that out the goodness of your heart?” Scott inquired. “I mean, not that I’m not grateful for the offer, but…”

  “I’m not giving you it for nothing,” Noorland replied. “I’m loaning you it. I want it back. Plus, payment for the trouble.”

  “How much?” Scott asked. “And how quickly?”