by Wesley Chu
Hamilton was right about one thing. Command was already unhappy with Io inhabiting a new host and choosing to stay in a hostile country. She was given some leeway only because the Prophus respected a new host’s considerations. To a degree. For how long would depend on if the girl ever became satisfactorily trained. Io was sure both Hamilton and Manish were reporting the girl’s progress to Wyatt. The analyst would make the call to extract her if he deemed it necessary. At the rate her training was coming along, Command might feel the need to intervene sooner rather than later, with or without Ella’s consent.
Io sat back down on the couch and logged into the laptop. Within minutes, she was in the Prophus network, gathering information on the region and catching up on personal messages. Most were condolences regarding Emily. News of her death had spread quickly. The woman, while low-ranking, was popular among many in the organization. It was very touching. Io wondered how many of the other Quasing blamed her for Emily’s death.
She looked in the mirror. “What a mess,” she muttered. No matter what, she had to stay in India until she accomplished her goal. Everything would be all right after that. First things first, Io had to begin making amends for the mistake that had resulted in Emily’s death and forced Io to extend her mission.
She picked up a phone and dialed a number. “This is Io. Something is coming down the pipe.”
Fifteen
Bijan
After Quasar was claimed, we set our sights on space. We experimented with our potential, forming structures that rose up past the Eternal Sea and toward the stars. We bred massive ships that could withstand the difficulties of space travel, and quickly colonized Quasar’s fourteen moons, bringing our Eternal Sea to those once-barren worlds.
We sought to expand even further, looking past our solar system to the beyond. This was the birth of our empire and how we arrived on Earth.
* * *
Ella had to admit she immediately took a liking to the man who appeared one morning at her front door. It was something that rarely happened for someone who lived on the streets. He had a gentle and kind face, and reminded her of what she thought her grandfather would be like if she had ever had a grandfather. Of course, some jerk out there had to have been the father of her father, but whatever. She had never met the man, so she might as well assume he didn’t exist. But, if she had met him, she’d like to think he would look like this friendly old man.
Still, this was Crate Town, and she was a woman, so she greeted him in the appropriate manner. She brandished her shank and sicced Burglar Alarm on him as he clanged his way up her stairs. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The man, slightly stooped, thin-armed, with a long flowing beard, did not look threatened. If anything, he seemed amused. “Your dog is very pretty. Is your mother home?”
“My amma is dead.”
The man looked taken aback, and then she saw the sympathy in his eyes. “Then you must be the person I’m here to see.”
He walked up another step. Burglar Alarm was barking bloody murder. Ella stepped forward and waved the shank near his face. “One more step and you won’t be able to see at all.”
The man held up his hands and spoke in a soft voice. “There is a reality so subtle.”
It took Command their sweet time to send someone.
“What? What crazy are you saying, Io?”
Repeat after me. That it becomes more real than reality.
Ella wasn’t paying that close attention so she gave it her best shot. “It’s more real than real?”
The man frowned. “You’re new, aren’t you?”
“New to what?”
“The Prophus. The job. Being an operative.”
It was Ella’s turn to make a face. “I didn’t know I was one.”
The man smiled. “Well, if you’re working for us, then welcome to the family.”
“Am I, Io?”
Yes, you are. Congratulations, you are now officially logistical support for the Prophus in this region.
“What does that mean?”
It means when agents run operations here, you are here to provide support: food, housing, equipment, and expert knowledge on the local area.
“Sounds an awful lot like I’m running a hotel.”
Logistical support sounds more official.
“How much does it pay?”
Is this all you think about?
“Yes.”
The man standing at the doorway interrupted her negotiations with Io by sticking out his hand. “I’m Bijan. Bijan Baraghani.”
Ella shook it. “Ella. This is Burglar Alarm.”
Bijan scanned the area and then looked at her half-opened container door. “Can we go inside?”
Ella became suspicious again. “Why do you want to come into my home?”
Let him in. He is a Prophus scout here to conduct surveillance on the construction site at Command’s request. Your job is to assist him.
“Why can’t I do that survey thing? I know Crate Town like the back of my hand.”
Because you have no idea how to survey. However, you know Crate Town like the back of your hand, so show him around. He will probably use your home as his base of operations.
“Since when are you renting my home out and booking me as a tour guide?”
Since you got on our payroll.
Greed overcame outrage. Ella made a face like she had just smelled something foul. “Fine.” This free money she was getting from the Prophus was getting less and less free by the day.
Fifteen minutes later, Bijan had settled into her couch, and she had laid out the ground rules. The man was allowed to stay in the living room side of her home, but her bedroom was off limits. This also wasn’t a hotel, so she wasn’t cleaning up after him, nor was she going to feed him. Also, the bathroom was hers, so he would have to shower and relieve himself outside.
Your hospitality skills could use some work.
Bijan seemed to take her many rules seriously and in his stride. He even jotted down notes and asked her questions about some of the particulars, specifically the use of her toilet, which really was nothing more than a hole outside in the corner of the catwalk next to Burglar Alarm’s nest. He sat down on her lumpy couch, which was doubling as his bed for the next week – he had assured her his mission wasn’t going to last longer than that – and looked around. “Now that I’m settled, I’m hungry.”
“I told you,” she snapped. “This isn’t a hotel. There’s no room service.”
He smiled. “Can I take you out to lunch, Ella? As a thank you for putting up with an old man?”
That shut Ella up, and she stared at the ground, slightly ashamed. She spoke in a small voice. “Well, all right if you’re paying.”
Can you take realizing you are an asshole a little more gracefully?
“You’re the asshole, Io.”
Ella…
“It’ll give me a chance to show you around,” she said gruffly.
“Excellent,” said Bijan. “And thank you again for your hospitality.”
“Shut up,” she muttered under her breath. People acting too nice weirded her out.
The two spent the next half hour wandering the narrow streets of Crate Town. Ella showed Bijan the safer main streets to use and the alleys to avoid where some of the meaner street rat gangs holed up. She walked him through the shortcut along the canal leading back to her container, and pointed out the tall cluster stacks he could use as landmarks in case he got turned around. She familiarized him with Wiry Madras’s bathhouse and laundry, pointed out the decent restaurants, and took him to Twine Alley when he asked where to buy changes of clothing.
They settled on a restaurant she had never been to before to try some American food. This was a first for her, so she let Bijan, who claimed to have been to the States at least twice, order for them. He got her what they called a lamb cheeseburger. After being such a big fan of their film and culture, Ella was completely underwhelmed by her first taste of supposed A
merican cuisine. She took one bite and gagged. “There’s no seasoning, and it tastes undercooked.”
“That’s how they do it in the Americas, I think.”
Certain types of raw meat are a delicacy in many countries.
“Raw anything is disgusting!”
During their disappointing lunch, Ella got to know Bijan. She was surprised to learn that he had grandchildren. Shouldn’t he be bouncing toddlers off his knees and chasing them in the yard as opposed to, well, whatever it was he did for the Prophus? She realized she still had not grasped all the nuances of this war between the alien sides.
Bijan chuckled. “I suppose I should be playing with young Omid and Jaleh back in Tehran. However, this sort of work is all I’ve ever known, and the Prophus have a horrible retirement package. Also, my dearest wife, Leila, may Allah cherish her forever, loves me more than life, but can only put up with me in small doses. If I never leave the house, she really will be the cause of my death.”
After lunch, Ella took him to the marketplaces for things he could buy legally, and introduced him to Little Fab for things he couldn’t. She berated Little Fab until he offered the Prophus agent a good discount on a pair of military thermal binoculars the fence had had in his possession for years. Bijan’s own pair had cracked during his trip here.
It was early evening by the time they parted ways. Bijan walked Ella back to her cluster and then hoisted his pack over his shoulder. “Don’t wait up for me. I’ll probably be gone all night. When I return, how do I get inside?”
“Just knock,” she said. “I’m a light sleeper. If I don’t hear it, Burglar Alarm will wake me.”
Bijan nodded. “Thank you for showing me around, Ella. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She felt a strange tightening in her gut. She called out to Bijan as he turned to leave. “Be careful. If any of the street rat gangs try anything, you give them my name and tell them I will beat them into the mud if they bother you.”
He grinned. “Don’t you worry about me, girl. I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and this one is as by the books as they come. Tomorrow, why don’t we try sushi for lunch? Can you find a restaurant that’s not too far away?”
“Sure,” Ella beamed.
“Io, what’s sushi?”
You will absolutely hate it.
Before going to bed that night, Ella looked up what sushi was, and then went to sleep wishing she hadn’t. The lone restaurant in Surat that served Japanese cuisine was on the opposite side of the city in an upper-class neighborhood that she never had reason to step foot in. The very thought of eating fish raw made her want to puke. Still, if someone else was buying, who was she to turn it down? Ella fell asleep looking forward to spending time with her new friend.
The next morning, she woke up alone. Bijan’s things were untouched. He had not returned that night. Ella waited until late afternoon before finally leaving her home. She went to the markets and to Wiry Madras’s and Fab’s Art Gallery to see if the kind old man had stopped by. He hadn’t, and Ella never saw or heard from him again.
Sixteen
The Stick
We were one, but we were not equals. Some became the building blocks of our kind, becoming parts of ships and infrastructure. Others transformed into different forms of energy or matter. Many of us with talents and skills and knowledge coalesced to occupy positions of power.
While the collective was the combined thoughts of trillions of Quasing, each of us had our own roles and purposes within the whole. The ones who morphed into energy were known as the Catalysts. The Foundations formed the basic structures of our civilization. The Keepers held our history and our future direction. The Carryalls bred to become giant ships to take us across the galaxy. The Minds were the brightest who existed solely to process thoughts, ideas and data.
I was a high-standing Receiver, one who facilitates the communication between worlds in our burgeoning empire. The other Receivers and I were tasked with the great responsibility of keeping the many as one even across the galaxy.
* * *
Contrary to what Shura had told Faiz about shutting up and being happy with the deal she forced upon him, word of what happened had spread like a fire across Dumas, the contested area of Crate Town between the construction site and the docks. Perhaps it was the burn marks on Faiz’s face or the injuries to his guards or the mass eviction notices to his tenants that he sent out the very next day, but soon everyone knew that the white foreigner who accompanied the minister was not to be trifled with.
When Surrett asked if she was going to punish Faiz for leaking the events of that night, Shura said no. This news had the exact effect she intended. If she was willing to be heavy-handed to a powerful businessman, what chance would anyone else have?
In a few days, half the businesses and land owners in Dumas had sold their properties to her at slightly depressed values. Most were just happy to walk away from the transaction in one piece and with some sort of return. The remaining half were still holding out, but Shura was confident they would fall in line soon enough. They just needed a little more of the right sort of encouragement.
“Why even pay a fair value if we’re just going to bully them into selling?” Surrett had asked.
Shura shook her head. “It’s one thing to give them a bad deal they can live with, it’s another to steal from them. If they feel robbed, they’ll seek to address that injustice, either through the court or through violent uprising. If they get a raw deal but feel it’s not worth the trouble, they will just walk away.”
I have taught you well.
“My Holy One deserves only the best vessel.”
Shura walked along a street on the north end of the construction site. The last of the properties outside the perimeter had just been sold this morning, and the tenants vacated. At this rate, they could begin demolition of the container structures immediately and expand the site perimeter by the end of the week.
This was already a promising start to her new reign as the head of the Bio Comm Array project. This was the exact sort of news the Council needed. She would wait a little while longer until she had enough positive updates that the Council would have no choice but to consider passing her permanent ownership of this project, and possibly India.
Right now, she was on her way to the docks to deal with a more serious problem. While the businesses and residents of this neighborhood were easy to intimidate, the dock union had dug in and made it clear they intended to fight her every step of the way. Shura was going to speak with their leader, who not only was the head of the dockworkers’ union, but incidentally one of the more powerful gangsters in the slum.
The headquarters of the union – a squat, ugly building three containers tall by fifteen wide – looked like any other warehouse on the beach, except for the fifty or so orange-garbed dirty roughs milling in front. Some wielded machetes, others two-by-fours and metal rods. None wore a smile as Shura, Surrett, and their escort of policemen approached.
I count at least forty outside. Probably more inside.
“Uh,” Surrett stammered. “Perhaps we should return another time.”
“And show weakness?” Shura said. “You don’t think there won’t be even more the next time we come?”
“We can come back later with more police.”
Shura looked at the half dozen officers guarding them. “Two or twelve, it probably won’t make a difference.”
Not true. If the situation escalates, the humans around you will provide proper fodder and buy you time to escape. I will not lose a vessel to these vermin. I do not see any firearms.
“That seems to be the case around here for some reason.”
In fact, Shura hadn’t seen anyone else with a gun since she had arrived. No one within the slum was ever packing. Even Inspector Manu’s men escorting her were only armed with batons.
The crowd parted before them and then closed in behind them as they made their way up the rusty planked path leading to the front entr
ance. Her guards squirmed nervously as the smelly, scowling dockworkers came within arm’s length and herded them through the wide open warehouse. Instead of containers and cargo, it was filled with even more dockworkers. A rumbling of mutters and the banging of sticks and blades on the metal floor grew as they ventured deeper into the building.
“Seems they’ve rolled out the welcome mat.”
There are hundreds here. They knew you were coming.
“I wasn’t particularly hiding this item on my itinerary.”
This is a show of force. The crime boss is letting you know he will not be pushed around like Faiz.
“That, or we just have more bodies we’ll need to wade through.”
Shura, staying relaxed, scanned the perimeter. There was the small double-door they walked through, three sets of large garage bays on the far right, and a set of smaller windows a little too far out of reach on the left. Several round staircases dotting the ground level led upstairs to a catwalk that crisscrossed the ceiling above them.
You will never make the bay doors. Go up.
“That will depend on how close I am to the stairs.”
See that stack of containers at the side? If something happens, head in that direction. Abandon the minister if necessary.
Near the center of the back wall, a group of men huddled together under the shine of a low-hanging ceiling light. One of the hunched-over men noticed the rabble of dockworkers herding her group toward them, tapped the man next to him, and then one by one, like lemmings, they looked her way. The cluster of people between her and the table parted like the Red Sea, revealing a cluttered round table with piles of paper, several bottles of booze, batons, metal rods, and enough bats to start a cricket league. Only one person at the far end of the table was sitting down, just outside the edge of the spotlight.
Their escort stopped at the end of the table and took several steps back. The muttering crescendoed and several began to bang the ends of their shovels and sticks in unison on the metal floor until the noise became deafening.