Slave Line (The Young Ancients)

by Power, P. S.

  "Oh, um... Hi. I was... Actually I was just calling in to a news service with vid of you and your friend landing in that plane. The one you made vanish? They didn't want to buy it though. Too many pictures of you out there for a little video to make a difference I guess. Kind of a shame. I could use the credits. Well, can't win them all, can we? A small you said? Would you like that dipped in chocolate? We have a nice candy shell here. Or we have chopped nuts, sprinkles, that kind of thing... I'll give you a free topping if you'll let me take some pictures while asking you questions. No one has an interview with you at all yet, do they? I'd be the first to get one with the Tor." She sounded excited about it, but not like he'd take it seriously.

  He grinned.

  "Just one topping? You know I have a whole Kingdom to watch over don't you? As Magics Counselor I mean... doesn't that seem worth more than a single topping?" They didn't haggle on prices in Austra, but everyone did it all the time in Noram. It came naturally to him. He smiled and shook his head at the girl.

  "No, at least a free one of these and one for my meeting when he arrives. Also if I tell you to do it, I want you to run away and not look back. Do all that and you can have that interview. Ask whatever you like and I promise I'll answer honestly." Why not? The purple woman, Fornia Stergis, had said something about interviews. It was a thing they did here, right? He was blending in. Besides the bad guys already knew where he was.

  The girl laughed at him to begin with, but then said it was a deal and shook his hand. The cone, it turned out was a cookie in the shape of a cup meant to hold frozen and sweetened cream. He actually had had it before, it was just called something different and served only in the palace, and oddly, at his house. The young lady put chocolate on it and dipped it all in nuts which froze in place somehow. It was fascinating. Too sweet really, but he didn't want to seem rude by not eating it. The girl, who said her name was Kalie Millis held out her black communications device, except hers had a bright pink case on the outside, and started to take Tor's image tentatively, as if she expected him to go back on the deal. That was crazy though, since he might need her to flee at his command later. He wanted her good will, didn't he?

  "Um, this is Kalie Millis, of Halifax, here with The Tor, hottest new movie star in the Austra adult market and high level person of the Noram government. Mr... Tor, how do you like Austra so far?"

  He thought for a seconds and took a bite of the ice cream, a bit trying to fall off the edge, forcing him to make a slightly desperate second bite.

  "It's a nice place. The people are more friendly than I'd thought they'd be. Kind of view you as a little war like back home, but so far no one has attacked me here at all. I imagine that will change shortly, since the Larval are coming for me, but that isn't the common persons fault, or even the governments this time. More of a family problem for me to deal with, so you know, nothing for anyone to be too worked up over. Just, if you see a bunch of assassins coming, try to run away and stay safe. My brother messed up and my grandmother helped the whole thing along. Now a lot of people might die if we can't manage the whole thing carefully." He made a slight lick to get at the softening cream inside the shell.

  The girl held the device the other way while asking her next question.

  "Do you plan to make any more of those fantastic three dimensional sex shows? If so, can I be in one?" She blushed but moved the device to catch his response. The lovely thing about having been with the nobles back home was the casual way they handled sex. He even had a clue what to say to the woman about it without sounding mean.

  "Nothing in the works right now, but I think there should be a less sexy one coming in about a year. Maybe less. If you want you can help with that one? Um, Fornia Stergis will be handling the distribution, so get with her if you have questions. No promises though, I may not live through the night." It was already getting a bit dark out and was still early for his meeting, so he kept eating and chatting with the woman for a long while.

  She kept talking, which was nice, asking about his life at home, who his friends were, if he was seeing anyone. She seemed surprised that he was married.

  "Oh, too bad, I was going to ask you out after this. Well, my loss!" She mugged for the camera when she said it, which got him to laugh. He wasn't going to be sleeping with her, not that day, but she was charming enough to consider for that later. She asked questions for a long time, well past when the Larval Cordes was supposed to be there.

  Being late was probably part of his plan though, wasn't it? To set his own forces into action somehow. Hopefully the hostages were still alive. That was outside of Tor's control at the moment, so he tried not to worry about it, just smiling and tying to be charming until he noticed a change in the air around them.

  He pointed at the long black vehicle behind her with a bent arm and a single finger. He could feel the man within, and surprisingly, he was alone. She turned the device toward it and squeaked as the killer got out, his face looking young, hair jet black and eyes matching, the part that would be colored in a normal person being totally dark, like deepest night. From her reaction Tor guessed that Kalie understood that what he'd been saying about assassins might just be real.

  "This is my meeting. If you could get us another ice cream that would be great. Then I suggest you leave. He might try to take you hostage to use as leverage against me. It won't work, but I don't want you to die to prove it." He sounded cool when he said it, almost angry, even though the interview had been warm enough. Nerves he decided.

  The girl put the device away and scurried behind the counter, handed him the promised cone and then shut everything fast, making locks click as Tor held out the treat to the now familiar looking man.

  He took it without comment and started eating.

  Chapter eleven

  They sat in utter silence for a while, people standing back on the street covertly holding devices toward them, not all of those being black at all, Tor noticed. Everything was suddenly clear to his vision, sharper somehow. Probably because something deep within his mind was screaming for him to run away. He couldn't though. Oh, it was sensible, but life was always about more than just staying alive. Even now he knew that. Even when it was just about him and not the slave instructions Burks had put inside him as a child.

  The Larval in front of him grinned. It was the first time he'd seen anything like it. It was... pretty normal looking. Relaxed and calm. The frozen treat in his hand didn't hurt for that either, it made him seem almost innocent. No one on the street around them moved, just watching the two men, both in black, sitting and looking at each other.

  The black eyed man had on a jumpsuit. It was what most people wore around them too. Almost a uniform of sorts, Tor guessed. It seemed odd to him as worried as they were about seeming different from everyone else, but it was what nearly everyone did anyway.

  Tor spoke first, trying to act as if he wasn't about to soil himself, being within arm's reach of a person that he knew instinctually wanted him dead. Everyone else on the street seemed to know the same thing. They also wanted to make "credits" off of it, when they fought, it seemed to Tor.

  "So, what's with taking hostages? I wouldn't have thought that you'd have cared much about Brown. Sure, he helped the others kill you, but that was probably just taking part in a vote. He couldn't have done the deed himself, could he? You know that about him." It was just a fact. Brown wasn't a killer. Green had mentioned that. He could have killers around, but even ordering it done would about cripple the man for a long time. Rhetistics again. Stronger than what Tor had originally in that regard.

  Dead black eyes glared at Tor, then, those eyes always seemed to be glaring to him. To most of the men that saw them. Most of the women thought they were attractive though, so it was probably a gender thing. He grinned and took a slow breath, calming himself.

  "Oh, it wasn't really about him. We were trying to flush you out the whole time. You're from Noram and all out information said that you wouldn't let a family member die
if you could help it. I couldn't care less about the other Elders. They're a known quantity. No... there is only one danger to Austra and the world now that can possibly matter. You. The Great Unknown Factor. It's why we have to kill you. You understand that don't you?" He looked at Tor over the cone, the pointed brown of it uneaten as of yet.

  Tor didn't want to seem like he didn't know what the man was talking about, so he tried to get the Cordes memories to help provide information. It didn't work, since he didn't know what the crazy man in front of them meant at all.

  Great. One thing to do then. Stall for time. It was Tor's job at the moment after all.

  "Great Unknown Factor? Sorry, not a term I'm familiar with. A bit rich claiming I'm the great anything, isn't it? Besides, if it's all about me being unknown, well, why not get to know me? I'm pretty easy to like I think. A great conversationalist and a person with a witty sense of humor." That wasn't really true, but hey, what was he supposed to say, that he was a bit stiff and dry?

  The man in front of him laughed. It wasn't a hard thing, but for a second Tor could feel the overlay of the larger, mustached Cordes, the feeling far more powerful than the Larval. Older and more important to the conversation. The Larval part was more alien and strange, but known from past exposure.

  "Tor Baker... You have no clue what you really are do you? Of course not, no one mentioned it to you, either hoping they were wrong or arrogantly thinking they could control you. No one alive can do that. I'll tell you what you are. It won't be easy to understand, you coming from Noram. You're bright enough though, that's most of the problem, you're too smart for this world. Too uncontrolled. too powerful by far. So feel free to ask questions if you need to." The eyes glinted happily.

  Tor readied himself to fight, working his hand toward the multi-weapon in the pouch at his side. If he was attacked the deal was off anyway, wasn't it?

  The black eyed man shook his head ever so slightly.

  "Every culture has a weakness. Every set of cultures has conflict and friction between them. This cannot be helped. The varying needs and desires of different groups forces humanity to war and conflict. A long time ago, after the great die off, the Cataclysm I think it's still called in Noram, the term I coined for it..." He chuckled darkly.

  "The term Cordes the original made up at least... after man had killed half the other animal species on the planet with uncontrolled growth, and nearly destroyed the oceans, those you called the Ancients moved to fix things. It worked, after a fashion. We reduced the friction by separating cultures using natural barriers. We places one group on each continent, and set them each an overseer to make certain they held to the treaty. The two most damaged lands were given the lowest technological rights. North America and the Pan Asian zone. Noram and Vagus as we know them now.

  But even back at the beginning we knew that there would be threats to the structure, destabilizing influences. It was worked out mathematically. The models were all clear, there would be points of weakness in the system we'd created. The first was when most of us died in the short span of about a hundred years. There used to be thousands of us, the originals. Most had very long lives, as you do. After about six hundred years they all began to die. Mainly suicide. Life isn't meant to be that long you know, humans aren't built to handle it... Which isn't important to the discussion. Sorry." He sat back, quietly thinking for a long time, looking at the people watching him, expecting something spectacular to happen no doubt.

  After about five minutes of that he nodded, as if having come to a decision about something.

  "The rest isn't that important, but the Great Unknown Factor, that was always the clearest thing in all the models. It's in the Long term memories of the Larvals and has been for generations. After about three thousand years something would come along and destroy the entire world, tearing it apart from within, and the odds of us being able to stop it are so small as to be almost non-existent. We believe that this factor is you. It almost has to be. Look at what you've done already? You are perhaps the most powerful single being to have ever walked upon this planet, Torrance Baker."

  Tor shook his head. If this was a known thing from that far back, how come the Cordes in his head didn't know about it? If it wasn't something like that, how had Burkes known to mention it years before, after the first attacks on him? It was baffling and didn't make a lot of sense. He leaned forward just slightly and put his left elbow on the table. It was rude, but the Larval didn't seem to care. He was still leaning away a bit, looking relaxed.

  "Why would you think it was me, and not, say, the three fleets of ships coming in from space?" It was a risk, adding information like that, since it could set the man off, but he shook his head a tiny bit and finally crunched a bit of the cookie cup that held the frozen white within.

  "The big fleet invasion to come? Do you know how many times in the last two thousand years space craft have flown by, or even landed here? Including fleets? Dozens that we know about and probably hundreds that we don't. The others didn't tell you that though, did they? Wonder why? You can't have enough information to have known to ask about it, but they certainly do. White, Blue, Gray, Green, Brown and Black. They all know, I'm sure. I hold the memories of the Larval for the last thousand years as well as Cordes, and it's clear that they've dealt with this before, over and over again. Think Torrance Baker, why would they want you to deal with such a thing? You're a child and they're thousands of years old and have done this all before... At least some of them have..."

  It was a good question, but a leading one. Tor couldn't know the answer and guessing right now would mean trying to blame the Ancients for something they might not have had anything to do with. It seemed logical, but only if the man in front of him wasn't lying. That would take testing to find out and Tor really wasn't certain a Truth amulet would work on the guy. The Larval portion of him was just too strange.

  Tor shrugged and smiled. It was a bit of a mystery, but one easily enough solved. He'd just get each of the Ancients alone and ask some questions. After he dealt with the current hostage situation of course.

  Or at least did his part.

  "So, why me? I'm just a single person, not all that special really, don't you think? There are lots of people that can do what I can. Maybe better."

  "Are there? You've rewritten the history of our world already Tor. If you die today the shape of everything will be altered forever. You've literally changed it all and you don't even realize it... look at the rivers. Those damned rivers! Those alone are enough, and who knows what else you might come up with?" The man stood suddenly, almost making Tor thumb the weapon to life under the table. The killer just turned and looked away, talking loudly, not sounding all that well balanced.

  "The climate will shift again because of you, because no one told you not to reshape the world. Oh, I'm certain you mean well, but a forest in the center of Africa again? One in the middle of the wastelands of Noram? You think this won't influence the world? Just the water taken from the seas, the salt left behind, might shift the balance. You might have destroyed us all already and the others say nothing about it, do you know why?"

  Tor had an idea on that one, if what was being said was accurate.

  "The treaty?" It influenced everything they did after all.

  "The treaty. Very good. You have been paying attention. Nothing in your life is as you think. It never was. Green and Gray made a mistake and Brown has been trying to correct it, using the Larval, the only thing he has that might be able to stop you. But he can't order us to kill you, not his little brother, so he left it to us to figure it out. It took time, but we've done it. We figured it out after Glost Serge triggered our secret programming. To save the world we have to kill you Torrance Baker. We'll never stop until you're dead. We can't. If we do the world dies. There is no other way. There never was, from the second you started to learn to warp the world to your will."

  "Oh."

  It wasn't what Tor had expected at all. He'd figured that this wou
ld be about the Cordes memories, not about him being the strange and insane fixation of a group of clones because of his building skills. Surely if the rivers were all that harmful Gray wouldn't have let them be used. Green either. He would have at least tried to talk Tor out of it. Even ordered him not to do it, or better, explained the whole thing. So that part probably wasn't real.

  The man in front of him seemed to think it was though.

  It was insane. Totally and completely.

  "So, I guess you can let the innocent Austrans in that town go then? We can all just meet and fight it out somewhere safe? I have to let you know, just to be fair... I think you're not only wrong, but insane," Tor lifted his left hand to keep the man from speaking, "if I was the threat you think I am and the others know it, they would have told me already. Gotten me to change my ways, or even killed me. Brown has sworn under a Truth Amulet that he doesn't want me dead or harmed, more than once. He can't beat it yet either, though he thinks he can. So there are vast holes in what you're saying. Can you see that?"

  With a crunch the last bit of the treat was gone and so was the remaining bit of sanity in the man's eyes.

  "I can. But you see, we can't take that chance. You have to die. Now." He reached for something at his back, Tor didn't know what it was, but he wasn't waiting to find out either.

  Firing the implosion weapon setting saved the lives of the people around them as the world tried to blow up and mainly failed. It made a crater in the gray smooth stone of the ground, but the imploder caught most of the force of the Larval bomb as it detonated. The man across from Tor died instantly, but no one else did, even as Tor's shield kicked on, protecting him from the force and bits of table that tried to destroy his body.