Foreign Devil (Unreal Universe Book 1)

by Lee Bond

  “What?” Ashok asked, feigning ignorance. This was one very well informed corpse.

  Harry pulled his gun and pointed it at Ashok from across the table. “I know about the Portsiders, Guillfoyle. They talk when they drink, and they told me you can get them into the port whenever they, or you, want. I know they’re going there tonight.”

  “If you kill me, you won’t get anything. You won’t even get out of the building.”

  “If you don’t give me the drug, I’ll die, so what the fuck should it matter what happens to you?”

  Ashok found that to be a very good point. “Other than killing me, what possible reason could I have for helping you?”

  “If you don’t help me,” Harry grated, “I’ll send all your files out. Billions of people will learn what you’ve been doing, about your lies to the government and all your other secrets. That’d be worse than dying for real, Guillfoyle. You’ll find yourself in The Peak in no time flat. Tell me you think otherwise.”

  “All right,” Ashok nodded, holding up his hands in defeat, “assuming I could make this happen for you, what is it exactly that you want to happen?”

  “Before I tell you,” Harry grinned maliciously, “I need to know how you can do this. How you can keep getting people onto and off of the spaceport property without being caught. I don’t want to go out there and get shot full of holes, even if I am dying.”

  “I can only assume that you’ve somehow managed to program my systems to vomit their contents out into the world netLINKs if something happens to you?” Ashok continued when Harry nodded smugly. “I built the netLINK systems that run the port. Foreseeing the need to have unlimited access to its environs, I told my engineers to build backdoors. I can make anything with a transponder or prote signal vanish. The surveillance programs automatically erase any location where the relay nodes get a hit using pre-recorded footage. There’s absolutely no way to trace it short of taking the entire netLINK of systems down and installing a new one.”

  “That,” Garth said, putting the barrel of his Stretch against Ashok’s spine, “is just what I wanted to hear. You’re a very smart man, Sa Guillfoyle. Or, you were.” He killed the hologram.

  Ashok watched in astonished confusion as Harry Bosch disappeared with a burst of disintegrating pixels. “I… I don’t …”

  “Of course you don’t. Asshole.” Garth shoved Guillfoyle forward with his gun. He pushed his captive all the way over to the expensive leather chair and forced Ashok to sit down. When the Latelian realized who his captor was, the look on Ashok’s face was utterly priceless and well worth the momentary diversion.

  “You!” Ashok shouted. “YOU!”

  “Me.” Garth sat on the desktop and pointed the gun casually at Ashok’s head. “Pretty rad, hey?”

  “What’s this really all about?” Ashok demanded, still unwilling to believe that the God soldier Harry Bosch had been nothing more than a complex hologram. Even in the midst of his confusion, Ashok marveled at the innovative use of his extensive holographic emitter array; by the time the Offworlder made to speak, Ashok believed he’d figured out the methods used to perpetrate such a flawless simulation. And all from a system he himself had used only to keep a close eye on his projects, to interact real-time with scientists and development teams. Unbelievable!

  “You want my AI.” Garth replied simply. He tapped a few commands into his proteus, pulling up the design specs on the device Guillfoyle and his team of pet scientists had dreamed up. “Where is this sexy little bitch?”

  “That’s purely theoretical.” Ashok whispered hastily.

  Garth pulled up the purchase reports for the materials required. “Where is it?”

  Ashok paled. “I … it’s … I … don’t have it.”

  “Do the Portsiders have it?” Garth demanded, pressing the muzzle of his gun firmly against Ashok’s kneecap. “Having a kneecap blown off hurts like a motherfucker, Guillfoyle, so I would think carefully before answering.”

  “Y-y-yes.” Ashok swallowed nervously.

  “What do you need me for? You can get into the port unannounced, you can apparently hide the AI’s quantum emissions with this baffle dealie, and so what possible reason do you have for wanting to kill me?” Garth moved the gun to one of Ashok’s eyes. He’d played around with that earlier, staring into the muzzle himself, and it was very disquieting. It was big enough to see the round in the chamber quite clearly.

  “T-t-two reasons.” Ashok swallowed again, this time also repressing the urge to scream and babble. Garth Nickels had already proven himself very capable of considering life expendable. “One is because y-y-you would alert the authorities to the theft. T-t-t-the other is because I w-wanted to steal your money.”

  “That is really disappointing, Ashok. You’re already richer than shit, what the fuck could you do with a few trillion more credits?”

  “M-my net worth is only two and a half b-b-billion credits, Nickels.” Ashok snapped, suddenly angry. “You’re the richest man in Latelyspace and you don’t even know it.”

  “Well, I kinda did.” Garth admitted lazily. “Just didn’t really give a damn. Now, are the Portsiders going to try and steal Huey tonight or what?”

  “Huey?” Ashok asked blankly. He spoke again as soon as he realized Garth was talking about his AI. “They were, yes, but now they’re on a manhunt for you. They’re not responding to any of my calls. The idiots.”

  “Yeah, well, if you’d seen what I done to their buddies, you’d probably wanna kill me just as dead.” Garth poked the gun at Ashok’s nose. “You’re in luck, though. You’re going to have a chance to get what you want and the Portsiders are gonna get a crack at me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ashok frowned.

  “You’re going to tell the Portsiders I’m at the spaceport. You’re going to tell them I’m there to visit with my AI, and that now is the best chance for them to grab the AI and to kill me. Two birds, one stone.”

  “You think you can beat them all?” Ashok really couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Offworlder was completely insane. “The entire gang is looking for you. There’s at least a hundred of them! They will tear you to pieces.”

  “I know. Here’s the catch.” Garth flashed Ashok’s main with the list of prote-sigs he’d stolen from the Devil Nuts. “You’re going to tell the port systems to ignore everyone on this list, as well as any associated vehicles and weapons.”

  “You want me to stage a gang war at the space port?” Ashok shrieked. “Are you mad? God soldiers will show up within minutes. Not even I can tell the system to ignore gunfire.”

  “You do this for me or I just go on ahead and call Doans up at home. I got her number off your private list. I think she’d be interested in learning a few things. I especially bet she’d love to hear from an Offworlder.” Garth poked Ashok in the ear with his gun. “What do you think? Sound fun? I bet she’d send some soldiers down here pretty fucking quick, yeah?”

  “But it’ll be a massacre.” Ashok couldn’t deny that he’d gotten used to having the Portsiders at his beck and call. Here and abroad, the Portsiders gave him freedom to move more assets around without jeopardizing the legal components of his company. Losing them would be like losing an arm or a leg…

  Garth shot Ashok in the foot, and when the Latelian lurched forward, gasping and aching with shock and surprise, he grabbed hold of the man’s neck and slammed his forehead into the desk. Ashok’s screams subsided into mewling whimpers.

  Garth leaned in and began whispering in the deadly earnest voice that’d driven Jamal insane at the end. “Listen to me very closely, Ashok Guillfoyle, and understand everything I say. Either I get what I want or I kill you and do it anyway. Your participation isn’t necessary. I have the tools and the means to convince your gang leaders I am you with absolute flawlessness. I am giving you this opportunity to stay alive. The manner of that life isn’t high on my priorities because you tried to have me killed. Repeatedly. I don’t care at all about th
e Portsiders or the Devil Nuts, but they have their uses in life just as they will in death. I assume your life is worth more than some mangy street thugs. Yes?”

  Ashok nodded into the pool of blood streaming out of his nose. His foot was a dimly remembered ache at the end of his ankle.

  “Groovy. Now. Do as I say and I can probably guarantee I won’t shoot you again.” Garth pulled Ashok’s head back up. He’d broken the poor bastard’s nose. He reached out with blinding speed, took hold of the broken appendage, and savagely twisted it back into place. Garth smiled at Ashok when the bleeding stopped almost immediately.

  “W-w-what do you want me to do again?” Ashok felt absolutely deflated. His pomposity had been beaten out of him with ruthless efficiency. His therapist was going to have a field day.

  “Call your boys. Tell them I’m going to be at the spaceport in around an hour. Program the Devil Nuts prote-sigs into the system so they’ll be invisible as well. You can do that, right? Not too hard? I’ll know if you lie.”

  Ashok slumped in his chair. Even if he managed to survive Garth Nickels’ appetite for destruction, Chairwoman Doans would eat him alive for scientific misrepresentation and shoot his remains into the sun for stealing billions of dollars. There would be very little left of Ashok Guillfoyle. It’d almost be worth it to tell Nickels to go screw. Almost, but not entirely. There was still a chance he could get out unscathed. Taking a tremulous breath, Ashok began the procedures, first adding the Devil Nuts proteus signatures into the backdoor pass at the spaceport and then flashing a message that Garth had prepared to his Portsider contacts.

  Garth clapped Ashok heartily on the back when all was said and done. “That wasn’t so damned hard, now, was it?”

  Ashok didn’t say anything. All he could think about was getting medical assistance.

  But Garth wasn’t done.

  “Now,” Garth began, swiveling the monitor towards him, “I know what you’re prolly thinking. You’re thinking that once I’m gone, you’ll be able to call the God soldiers and the Portsiders and whoever the hell else you want to get me out of your hair once and for all. And you can. Or, well, no, you can. But it really won’t be worth it.” He moved the monitor back so Ashok could examine the viruses. “All I wanted to do was come here and participate in the Game, but you’re forcing me to be a really bad guy. So here’s what’s going to happen. If you place a call to any proteus other than my own in the next twenty-four hours, all of your data will be copied to zillions of netLINKs and then ultra-encrypted so you can’t delete it to save your skin. The only way to keep this from happening is if you call me up and apologize, and it’d better be a sincere apology, or I’ll extend the time limit to some stupidly unrealistic length. This caveat includes all your employees, so you can’t tell one of your security guards to place the call for you. Uncool, I know, but fuck you. The second virus is way nasty. Of the two, she’s my baby. If you don’t stop your experiments on God soldiers right now, the next time you or anyone who works for you, says, types, or implies in any way anything that sounds remotely like God soldier, all your money goes to charity. Now, because you’ve really pissed me off, you and whoever else is in this building is going to be stuck here for a while; the doors and windows and all the other lockable doodads are gonna shut down once I’m outside. If you try and circumvent or otherwise alter that programming, you and everyone else will automatically be identified as intruders and you’ll all get murdered by a building. Still with me, Ashok?”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  “Awesome.” Garth smiled toothily. “Oh, and I feel I should do my due diligence and tell you I’ve got a personal copy of a lot of your data on duronium and your anti-soldier techniques. I plan on working them through to their most logical conclusions, but only after the government tears you a new hole.”

  “Don’t bother.” Ashok sighed. “There’s no way to improve beyond tertiary stage duronium.”

  “Latelians are tremendously hampered by their philosophical leanings, Ashok.” Garth replied as he made his way out of the office. “No one in Latelyspace is emotionally, intellectually or spiritually capable of discovering the proper methods to turn duronium into quadronium and q-IV into … into whatever’s next.”

  “What’s next?” Ashok demanded loudly, hobbling after Garth. “How do you know all this?”

  Garth paused at the elevator. He turned back Ashok was leaning against the door frame, breathing heavily and favoring his unwounded foot. “You’re looking at the guy who helped build your damned Box, Ashok. I know everything about everything.”

  Ashok fish-mouthed for a few seconds and watched aghast as Garth stepped happily into the elevator, whistling a merry tune.

  Strings, Being Pulled

  Fifteen minutes into the drive to the spaceport –he’d paused to steal Ashok’s fancy antigrav ride using data ripped from The Man’s prote- Garth received confirmation that Ashok was indeed a consummate dumbass. Everyone on Hospitals was congenitally unable to take advantage of information they at face value. It was almost like they’d rather go ahead and do the exact opposite, even though they knew exactly what was going to happen to them.

  It made no goddamn sense.

  Garth looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. He didn’t think he looked like a liar. As a matter of fact, with his handsome black hair, chiseled face and ice blue eyes, he expected he looked like the most sincerest guy on the planet. Add the fact that he’d specifically told Ashok what would happen if he tried to make a call into the equation … there was absolutely no doubt. Garth Nickels was as honest as the day was long. And the days on Hospitalis were pretty damned long.

  So now, all of Ashok Guillfoyle’s research data was leaking onto worldwide netLINKs at a furious pace, filling up all the spare data nodes in a rush of incriminating data. The entire process would take more than an hour to complete because Guillfoyle had been working on a great many complicated and detail-laden projects. Even without the doctored reports on the alloy or Ashok’s evil experiments on helpless soldiers, the man’s predilection for tailoring the truth and fiddling with numbers was everywhere. Taking node crashes and routing errors into consideration, enough data had already fallen out of that building to ruin Ashok Guillfoyle, and there was more to come.

  While writing the avatar code to destroy Ashok’s life, Garth had changed his mind about a few things; R&D discoveries on the God soldiers’ abnormal physiology and cybernetic implants were too juicy –and too sorrowful- to give to the rest of the world, so rather than being puked into the air, those particular experiments were being erased. Not only had the research team done extensive work at determining the stress and fracture points of the cybernetic joints and other mechanisms, they had tested a range of ‘non-lethal’ weapons that would definitely do the trick as soon as some modifications were made. There were some things that the average Latelian could do without knowing.

  Garth was also keeping all Guillfoyle’s work on alloy experimentation. Although no one in the system would figure out what to do next without a major creative burst of near-Divine proportions, there was gold amidst the dross. It would be an inexcusable lapse in judgment to give anyone an opportunity to come close to cracking the quadronium angle. Besides, people were freaky. Someone might wake up tomorrow morning with a hardcore desire to get their pray on, and KABOOM!, as they said in the comics.

  Everything else, though, all of it was going out and Devil take the hindmost.

  Garth pulled his vehicle –well, it was his now, as far as the Department of Motor Vehicles was concerned- to a halt five hundred feet away from the space port’s closest relay repeater and took stock of his situation just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. He’d managed to arrange a deadly clash between the Portsiders and the Devil Nuts on spaceport property, which was good, because the fight would attract attention. The God soldiers would turn both groups of adolescent gangsters into piles of wet pink goo and they would find him hurt but alive with bits and pieces of Meadowlark Le
mon stuck in him. There’d be no reason to search his new car for signs of illegally exported AI spheres because of the blown up ship, and when everyone was finished asking him questions, he’d go to the Palazzo and free Huey.

  One facet of the original plan he wished he could’ve brought forward was reconfiguring Lemon’s interior to limit the severity of the eruption. Sadly, Meadowlark Lemon was going to go up like a million dollars’ worth of pyrotechnics, taking with it a sizeable chunk of port real estate.

  Collateral damage was definite, and as the ship’s owner, he was very excited over the definite lawsuits coming his way. If he got lucky, legislative avatars would let cause for the destruction fall at the feet of the warring gangsters. If that didn’t work, blaming the God soldiers and their mentally challenged approach to peacekeeping was the next step; hopefully the cyber-morons would flail around with cannons and grenades and what-the-fuck-ever, making a world of mess all over the place. The more damage they caused in the pursuit of smacking the shit out of the Nuts and ‘Siders, the better.

  It was probably a given that an interrogation room lurked in his future, too. If some agency drone somewhere hadn’t started piecing together his relationship with the Portsiders since planet-fall, the appearance of an entire gang outside his ship would certainly demand a deeper investigation. Even with the ‘protection’ of a military grade proteus and ill-defined promises from OverSecretary Terrance, inspection teams would question him if it came down to shitty luck. The trick was to make it difficult for them to find any wrongdoing or malfeasance on his part. He hoped he’d survive the steps necessary to convince them it was a ‘wrong place, really wrong time’ kind of day.