Scat (Scat's Universe, Book 1)

by Jim Graham

  ‘How would I know? If I don’t think I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Scat. Instincts!’

  Scat pushed back against the plastic-padded panelling of the booth and made a guess.

  ‘Get off Trevon. Find another planet.’

  Marvin shook his head and frowned.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘That just means you dodge Petroff for a short while. Meanwhile, Lynthax’ll make you unemployable throughout the Outer-Rim—just as it’s blowing up.’

  ‘Jeeze!’

  ‘Come on Scat. You know the answer. You’re just denying it. Who’s giving you this headache? Who’s dumping on you? And who do you have the most in common with?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that it’s finally come down to a choice between them and us?’

  Marvin thought “them and us” sounded better than “them and the rebels”. Perhaps Scat was already identifying with the cause. They were making progress.

  ‘Is that the way its heading, Scat?’ he asked. ‘Your thoughts, now, young man, not mine.’

  ‘Yes. A choice.’

  ‘Between ...?’

  ‘Being dumped on, or doing the dumping, I guess. I don’t see how I can keep Petroff at arms-length with a neuralnet implant. And if I don’t get one he’ll come to his own conclusions.’

  Marvin slapped the table with both hands, gently, but sharply enough to emphasise that they were making.

  ‘OK. So, we’re getting somewhere. Could you get the implant and make it work for you, not Petroff?’

  Scat screwed up his face.

  ‘I seriously doubt it. I’m told you can “think” it off, but I may not get that option. Then there’s the compatibility concern. If I get one implanted and then fall out with Petroff, it mightn’t be compatible for use on another net. I just don’t know what the long-term implications are of that. I haven’t thought it through. I don’t know enough.’

  ‘So, political affiliations aside, you’re not keen to have an implant in any case—for personal reasons.’

  ‘Yes.’ Scat sounded unusually firm. It was non-negotiable.

  ‘Does Petroff know this?’ Marvin asked. ‘Could he be persuaded that your personal objections outweigh your political convictions?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Scat said. ‘He wants a commitment. Cotton probably demands one. I don’t think my reluctance to get a medically approved procedure on personal grounds would cut any ice.’

  ‘So what do you think would happen to you if you refuse?’

  ‘Well I doubt the military could punish me for refusing, no matter how useful it would be to them: permanent enhancements are frowned upon. But Petroff could make life extremely difficult for me, I guess. Fire me. Get me evicted. Fleece me for my basic environmental needs.’

  Marvin reminded him of the one positive aspect of being on Trevon that Scat had yet to mention.

  ‘Well at least he can’t bill you for air on Trevon.’

  ‘That’s a great help.’

  ‘So, you’re screwed, my boy. Is that what you’re saying?’

  Scat couldn’t see it in a better light.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So, if you’re screwed anyway, what do you think my advice should be?’

  ‘Fark him back.’

  ‘Olay! Finally. Of course, how you do that is up to you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Marvin took a deep breath. This was a pivotal moment in their relationship. He had to make this sound like a benefit to Scat.

  ‘Well, you could get the implant and play him along with false crap for as long as possible, or you could decline and stay close by Nettles. I’m sure he’d see the value in keeping you fed and watered, even housed. What you do in the longer-term would then depend on the opportunities as they present themselves. If you want to fark Petroff over I’m sure you’d find a way.’

  Marvin then shut up and focused on sipping his coffee.

  Bloody Mary, Scat thought. If only it was that simple.

  He stared out of the window, not seeing anything through the condensation until a shadow fell across it. A waiter was delivering Marvin’s breakfast. Marvin looked up and smiled at her. As soon as her hands were gone, he pulled something green off the plate and tucked in with gusto. It looked like he was done talking.

  Despite his friend’s company, Scat felt alone again. He had sought wise counsel, and he had received it. Now he was left to play with his fork, slowly and absent-mindedly turning it end-over-end, pondering what life on Trevon would be like, post-secession or post-suppression.

  54

  Petroff was visibly perplexed. He could not understand the rationale for it. He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t like it Ronald. Once we go down that route, there’s no going back. You can’t control the fall out.’

  ‘Don’t go soft on us now, Jack,’ Colonel Cotton replied, raising his peaked cap slightly and rubbing the shiny dome beneath it. ‘You need to stay focused and on the right issues. The company needs this secessionist movement to be shut down—fast—and if we can’t talk them down, we need to make them. We just need an excuse. This is it.’

  ‘I don’t like it either Jack,’ N’bomal added, keeping his back to a Trevon House Page who stood guarding the entrance outside the briefing room. He was trying hard to keep his booming, gravelly voice from travelling. ‘But it beats spending the next year or so tackling labour disputes and being fined for the non-delivery of product. The mineral exchanges will have our hides if we can’t meet our contracts. The Abs will then move in, and Lynthax will go the way of the Dodo.’

  ‘But the delegations haven’t even started to negotiate,’ Petroff noted. ‘Wouldn’t this wreck any chance of getting some kind of an agreement?’ Petroff also realised that their plan might provoke all kinds of reactions, most of which would keep him here on Trevon.

  ‘I very much doubt the Earth Delegation will give much ground, Jack,’ N’bomal explained. ‘They’ll go for the jugular, no quarter offered. The Trevons are novices. They’ll be outplayed and outclassed. That’ll leave them with no option but to agitate outside of the negotiations. We don’t want them to get that far. Besides, several worlds are watching what’s happening here.’

  Petroff didn’t reply. It was obvious the two had discussed the situation before he joined them.

  ‘We will do it for all the worlds to see,’ Cotton added. ‘We’ve got to shock the floaters into rejecting the independence route. Once they’re on board, we’ll be given our heads to nip the whole thing in the bud, our way.’

  ‘No other options, then?’ Petroff asked. He hoped there were.

  ‘Not if we’re to continue competing with the GCE,’ N’Bomal replied, shaking his head. ‘No, we can’t allow the cost of product to go on rising because of these industrial disputes and calls for democracy. The New Worlds are company mines, plain and simple. We have to get people to see that. The Asian Worlds obviously get it, which is why they don’t have this trouble, and can supply their own people with cheaper product than we do.

  ‘We need resources, and we either produce the stuff for ourselves, and at a competitive price, or the Asians will for us. Once that happens we’ll be sending every second dollar to the Asian Bloc and then it’ll be the only superpower left on Earth. The folks back home are looking to us to sort this out. Let’s just get on with it.’

  Petroff alerted them to the first of the Earth Delegates leaving the security briefing. They fell silent as the delegates walked on by.

  ‘Then it’s a done deal? We go on Saturday?’ Petroff asked once the corridor was clear again.

  ‘Yes,’ Cotton confirmed. ‘My people will see to the details. Just keep your boys away from the East Wing after the delegates adjourn for the evening.’

  ‘Consider it done, Ronald.’ Petroff said. He then had a thought. ‘Who will manage the PR afterwards?’

  N’Bomal cut in.

  ‘No one’s being pre-briefed. It’ll be more authentic that way.’

  Petroff nodd
ed, bracing himself for chaos, come Sunday morning.

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘And we all behave as expected immediately afterwards,’ Cotton added. ‘As though it was unexpected.’

  55

  Nettles had been fighting a headache all morning. He had seen the technical negotiation programme and was trying to work out just how Earth believed it could cram so much into such short sessions. His Trevon House teams and their aides would need to carry in armfuls of briefing papers and reference materials, even though they could refer to their grafs and e-readers. He doubted his teams were up to the job.

  He reached for a bottle of painkillers from the office pantry.

  ‘I’ve just used them,’ Scat said. He had been sitting in the corner, mulling over his conversation with Marvin, ‘and they don’t work.’

  Nettles looked across the rec room. He saw Scat slumped in an armchair. He looked as though he had been up all night.

  ‘Good morning, Scat. How did the meeting go with the Gonzales family?’

  ‘OK,’ Scat replied. ‘I’ll write to the landlord on your behalf asking for their side of the story, but they’ve fallen behind in their rent on a regular basis, which is why the rent is going up: to get them out.’

  ‘Well, it’s illegal,’ Nettles shot back, ‘so we’ll follow up on it. I doubt the landlord even lives on Trevon.’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ Scat confirmed. ‘In any case, he’s an “it”. It’s an offshore company owned by Blossom Realty.’

  ‘I don’t know it.’ Nettles replied. ‘A GCE company, no doubt. They have a different way of looking at their commercial transactions than we do. There’s no messing with them, Scat: it’s an example of what this place will be like if we don’t get at least 50 honest Reps in the House—and soon.’

  Scat couldn’t give a hoot for how many honest Reps remained on Trevon, let alone sat in the House. He got straight to the point:

  ‘I need to discuss something else with you, Terrance. Do you have a minute?’ he asked.

  ‘I always do, Scat. Twice a day. Come through to my office. I need to catch up with my publicmail. I’ll read while you talk.’

  Scat got comfortable in a low-backed, padded chair. Nettles settled into a chair at the end of a long desk. He preferred to keep his PC at one end of it so he could chat with his guests without the monitor getting in the way.

  ‘Has Marvin ever told you what happened on Prebos?’ Scat began. ‘To Pierce? And how Petroff tried to apply pressure on me to work for him?’

  ‘Em, yes,’ Nettles replied guardedly. ‘He did but only loosely. I didn’t get the details. He made the comment that you were unsure and unsettled by the whole thing.’

  ‘But you still gave me this job?’

  ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ Nettles said, smiling.

  ‘Why?’

  Nettles’ head went back a little.

  ‘Because I like you and, from what I’ve seen and heard of you, you aren’t a true-blue Corporate. You’re more like us. You just don’t know it.’

  ‘Well I thank you in any event. The trouble is, Petroff is pushing harder, and I’ll have to disappoint him. I just need to know where you might stand in all of this if he comes after me.’

  Nettles turned away from his PC to face him.

  ‘And how would he do that?’ he asked, provocatively. He stared at Scat, looking for his response. He was all ears.

  Scat still didn’t know. He had just spent the last hour and a half since breakfast reimagining much of what he had overthought the night before, but the options available to the beggar were seemingly endless.

  ‘I guess he’d make my life a living hell. How? I don’t know. He’ll use his imagination.’

  Nettles counted four fingers as he spoke:

  ‘Well you’ve still got this job, and, while you have it, you can’t be deported. You have a living wage, and the rent is covered.’ He then dropped his hands to the desk. ‘So, aside from Petroff never letting you board an L-M V back to Earth, there isn’t much he can do. I think he’ll be a tad frustrated, but you’ll be OK. Just don’t bump into any of his people without your House ID. They can’t arrest you when you’re on House business, only cautioned. Well, unless it’s for a violent crime.’

  ‘And it won’t crimp your style at all?’

  ‘Why should it?’ Nettles asked.

  ‘Couldn’t Lynthax make your life difficult? With your IT business or at the next election? You know the kind of thing.’

  ‘They can try,’ Nettles replied. ‘But I’m not exactly their Playmate of the Month, Scat. It’s not as though I rely on their generosity right now.’

  ‘OK. Thanks. There’s one other thing.’

  ‘And that is …’

  ‘Can you assign me to something on Saturday that takes me out of town? I want to give Petroff a reason why I can’t meet with him that day. It’ll help delay the pain.’

  Nettles stopped scrolling through his mail.

  ‘I’ve nothing for you that I can think of, right now. Sorry.’ he replied. ‘But … I could put you on House Duties. You’ll be on call for 24 hours; you’ve got to stay in the House.’

  Scat sat up straight.

  ‘That’ll do. Any chance you could give me several—as a punishment or something?’

  ‘Crickey, Scat. How many days do you want to lock yourself up in the House just so you can avoid Petroff? If you’ve got to give him the brushoff just go ahead and do it—in style and to his face.’

  Scat shifted in his seat.

  ‘Yeah, well, I might still do that, but I need to check-up on some stuff before hand. I’ve excused myself for Friday, but the longer I have, the more informed I’ll be. Then I can give Petroff the answer I want him to have.’

  ‘OK. As you like,’ Nettles said, playing with his PC again. ‘Saturday you’re on duty. That’ll see you through to Sunday morning. I’ve just placed you. Roll call is at 7.30 am in the library. You’ll get your duties from the House Secretariat or his minion. Accommodation is usually in the East Wing, which isn’t bad. Bring an overnight bag.’

  ‘Thanks, Terrance. I owe you one.’

  ‘I’m a politician, Scat. I know you do.’

  His excuses in the bag, Scat left the office knowing he could evade Petroff for the next two days at least. He now had some grace-time to read up on the neuralnet and perhaps quiz a neuralnet user, should he find one within the Earth Delegation.

  If there were a chance of turning this thing against Petroff, then he would take it. Failing that, he would tell Petroff to take a hike.

  As he was leaving the House, he sent a message over the companynet, telling Petroff that apart from being involved in the technical conferences, Nettles had now tied him down with additional duties. He would tackle him over it, but as things now stood, he couldn’t make any meeting until Monday. He would get back to him.

  There was no reply.

  56

  Scat’s first port of call was the Palace of Prosperity, a short walk from the House along Second Avenue. He rode the elevator to the hotel’s reception on the fourth floor of a tower it shared with a condominium-cum-mall complex.

  As he stepped out into reception, a heavily body-armoured Outer Rim Force trooper slinging a semi-auto blocked his way.

  ‘Can I help you sir?’

  ‘The coffee shop?’ Scat asked, looking around the trooper.

  The guard stooped slightly to get a close-up view of Scat’s House ID. He pulled out a scanner to read the bar code embedded in it. Scat let his eyes wander.

  Guards stood with their backs to the reception’s high windows and more of them watched over passageways that led off towards restaurants, in-house shops and banqueting halls. They were all clad in body armour and carried the lethally enhanced deuterium fluoride-powered Branston 2400AVs: single shot PIKLs. It was his weapon of choice, although in his time they were sniper-issue only. These PIKLs appeared to be of the dumbed-down variety: they weren’t fitted with the prism package that
gave the PIKL its legendary multiple-target tracking option; the power pack was much smaller, and he doubted these were adapted to use dark-light.

  The guard confirmed the ID as authentic.

  ‘Around the back of reception,’ the guard said, stabbing a finger at two corridors that lay either side of a long reception counter. ‘Either one will do.’

  Scat nodded his thanks, crossed the lobby, and made his way into a large open space that served as the coffee shop and lounge. The room stretched the entire width of the tower. Its curtained high windows ran along all three exterior walls of the room, giving the place an airy feel.

  He took a seat, ordered a coffee and flicked through the menu as he glanced around.

  Earth Delegates were using the place as a rendezvous point. Small groups were coming and going, ordering coffee, knocking them back, and then moving on.

  One particularly large group seemed to have come from a presentation; they were shuffling notes and stuffing folders into their brief cases, complaining about the lack of sleep. Scat considered moving closer so he could strike up a conversation, but he didn’t get the chance: one by one they stopped talking, downed their coffees, and then headed back out to the elevators.

  As Scat wondered if anyone would hang around long enough for him to say hello, a slightly built woman in her mid-twenties sat down at the empty table next to his. She wore an Earth Delegate ID tag, but did not seem to be on the same treadmill as the others. She ordered a coffee and then leaned back in her seat to play with her e-reader.

  ‘Noisy lot you have here,’ Scat said, hoping he did not seem too forward. She was a good-looking woman, if you didn’t mind the slim-hipped, flat-chested, and small-boned type. Petit was the word that came to mind. She was probably used to shaking off unwanted attention.

  ‘Yes. Sorry. It’s a busy time,’ she replied, looking up.

  ‘I hope you’re ready to give our lot a hard time. The conferences start later tomorrow, right?’

  ‘Yes. They do,’ she said, returning to her menu.

  ‘The programme looks a tight one. We’re wondering how you’ll get to fit it all in.’

  This time she noticed Scat’s Trevon House ID tag.

  ‘We’ll get you on the preparation,’ she said, confidently.