The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “Appearances can be deceiving, darling,” he said. “You don’t look like an invisible man. Right now, you look like an animal locked in a cage.”

  That stung. Invisible man. Never seen. Never found. He’d liked to pattern himself that way when he’d started out. He’d grown into the role, grown out of the moniker but apparently, it had remained stuck to him somehow. Lucky him. Still he let the comment go.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Because…”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I was under the impression you don’t get to ask questions. Those are not-in-a-cage privileges. I’ll ask, you answer.” He winked at him. “Our little secrets, ‘kay? I’m not interested in seeing you rot. It’d be such a waste.”

  Again, Max’s skin started to crawl under that glare. The way those glittering eyes stared at him through the gloom in the cells, it was a little uncomfortable, like he could see through him. He licked his lips and Max quickly upgraded his opinion to very uncomfortable. He tried to fold his legs together in front of him for a little modesty.

  “Come on, honey, nothing we haven’t seen before,” came the giggled retort. “Why so shy?”

  “You got questions for me, ask away and I’ll answer,” Max growled. It sounded more defiant than he felt. “Come on. I haven’t got all day.”

  He ignored that. “Okay, question one. They say you tried stealing from callers on a boat. That true?”

  “If they say so, I guess I did.”

  If he was unsatisfied with the answer, he didn’t show it. He only shrugged. “Fair enough. Just on a side note… Pickpocketing, really? That’s like the lowest form of thieving.”

  “What’s the highest?” Max asked breezily. He didn’t care, it felt like a good idea to humour him for the time being.

  “Industrial espionage, kidnapping a celebrity, knocking off a casino… Anything where they give you a sexy nickname. Something sexier, I might add than the Invisible Man. That’s so lame.”

  “See, you need all sorts of qualifications to do that,” Max said. “Pickpocketing’s easy, any idiot can do it.”

  “Yeah, and any idiot can get caught,” the fake magistrate said, blowing on his nails. “As you proved.”

  “I was unlucky!” Max protested. He didn’t say any of it aloud but already he was privately wondering if there was a point to this conversation. This guy was revelling in his misfortune far too much for his liking.

  “You make your own luck, darling,” that syrupy voice purred. “And you didn’t bring enough for your trip. But no matter. You might well be making some right now.”

  At that, Max perked up a little. “Yeah?” He tried not to sound too interested. It didn’t quite work. There might have been just a hint of it that got through.

  “Yes indeed. You see…” the fake magistrate opened the briefcase, Max stared greedily into the depths at the rows of credits, more than he’d ever seen in one place before. Had to be a few hundred thousand, if not more. “… I have the means for you to be released. I can have you out in an hour, if you want. Wouldn’t that be nice for you?” He winked at Max. “You can be out in the sun in no time. No more pissing in the corner of this hole.” The wink turned into a wrinkle of the nose very quickly. “Because, just, ewww, gross. Hey, it’s an easy choice.”

  Max had to admit to himself it did sound tempting. Getting out of here tonight would be like a dream come true. A dream he’d not had very long but a dream still nonetheless. Because he couldn’t quite put into words just how much he did not want to stay here and rot. If he was lucky, rotting would be about the best-case scenario. Of course, there would be a catch. He’d be a fool if he didn’t expect there to be one. It was just a case of finding out what that’d be. Maybe it’d be acceptable. In which case, he’d be the one playing this big fucking fool for a fool.

  Apparently, he wasn’t paying any attention to what might be going on inside Max’s head, his high voice continuing to prattle on aimlessly in the dank of the cell. “I don’t know if you ever been here on this island before but it’s so lovely. White sands, blue skies, green lawns, the foods to die for. And no matter what you say, I go back to my nice lovely hotel and sleep in a bed that’d make a king weep like a little bitch. Nice hot shower. Expensive clothes. All while you’ll be spending it on the floor here like a dog if…”

  “What’s the catch?” Max said suddenly, silencing him.

  “Catch?” That tone of innocence didn’t fool him for a moment. “What catch? Why should there be a catch? Can’t I help a fellow man out in his time of need?”

  Max let out an audible snort. It hurt his parched throat. Given he wasn’t quite desperate enough to go for the only liquid option available; he was probably going to remain parched for the time being. Again, one of the ways they liked to get you in holding cells like these in Vazara. Deny you for a while and see how long it took you to think about drinking your own piss. “You’ve just offered to bribe a whole bunch of guards here to let me out…”

  “I never said I was going to bribe them. You inferred I was going to bribe them. That’s your conclusion. Bribery of an appointed official is a crime no matter which kingdom you’re in, Mr Brudel.”

  He ignored him. Of course, he’d say that. There might well be someone watching on a screen somewhere. At least he wasn’t a complete idiot. He didn’t know if he found that reassuring or not

  “But the same thing, I doubt you’d be so interested in helping me unless there was something you wanted from me in exchange. You don’t look like the charitable kind; I have to say.”

  “Well that’s hurtful. I’m very much in favour of charity. I just have a different definition of it than other people.” To be fair to him, he did look hurt at the suggestion. To be fair to Max, he didn’t buy it for a second either. The man was either only a passable actor or he didn’t hold much faith in Max’s ability to read him.

  “Go on?”

  “I like people who help themselves. Giving money is just so… easy? Impersonal? Yeah, I think that’s the right word. It doesn’t address the problem. It’s a crutch. An easy way out. I remember…” His eyes clouded over mistily, a look of longing on his face. “I remember the first time I was ever asked for a donation to charity. There’d been some earthquake in Burykia, loads of people trapped and well, this disgustingly perky blond thing asked me to contribute. I looked at her, all primped and coiffed, nice clothes and I thought, what gives you the right to demand credits of me? You probably have more than I’ll ever make.”

  He snapped the case shut suddenly, the bang startling Max into sitting bolt upright. “That aside. She was pretty though.” He sighed contentedly. “Ah, good memories. Wonder what happened to her. Wonder if she’s still alive. After what I did to her, she wanted to die so badly. Wonder if they let her.”

  If he could have backed away any further than he could, Max would have. There was such casual menace in the man’s voice it truly bugged him out, the words were pleasant enough but the tone scared the shit out of him. The wall stopped him; he’d already pressed himself up against it as much as he could. There was something worrying about the guy in front of him, he couldn’t exactly work out what it was but every instinct told him that here was someone he really shouldn’t get involved with. It’d lead him to ruin.

  On the other hand, he really didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a Vazaran prison. Either way, he’d end up ruined. Ruined in prison or ruined on the outside. A choice between being locked up with a couple of thousand hardened criminals or being this guy’s bitch for the immediate future wasn’t a choice at all. Maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as he looked.

  Or maybe he was worse. It was a sobering thought.

  “You do want something from me in exchange for my freedom though, don’t you?” Max said. “You want me to help myself in that regard, don’t you?”

  The fake magistrate grinned at him, distinctly shark-like in the dim light of the cells. “I do indeed. I have an endeavour that your set of skills might be useful for. An
d I don’t have the time to do it myself.”

  “Is there anything about this that…?” Max started to ask, wondering the best way to word his question without sounding like he was too reluctant to involve himself. Not a way in the hells it could be worse than his current predicament. “… Is it illegal?”

  For a moment, his potential benefactor tilted his head as if considering the question. “What is illegal? It’s just a word used by some of the kingdoms to describe something that might be done in another kingdom that they don’t agree with in their own kingdom. Try not to get caught up in definitions. You won’t be doing anything they could throw the book at you for. Consider it information gathering. There’s someone on this island I want found. I want to know where they stay, what they do, who they meet with. Consider yourself involved in a new career as a private investigator. I think it’d suit you. Nice big trench coat and a hat. Well, not in this weather obviously. You’d look way sexy though.”

  It was undoubtedly nowhere near as simple as it sounded. It sounded like stalking honestly. If something sounded too good to be true, there was probably going to be something that had been left out. On the other hand, maybe he could just accept it at face value.

  Max sighed. Somehow, he knew he was going to regret this. But probably not tonight.

  “Okay, I’m in. Let’s do this,” he said.

  Very few who might have come to the island could say for sure when the little landing strip had been beaten out of the land as if by so many giant fists. The more inquisitive of minds among the Carcaradis Island populace who cared about something like that might see it and assume it had been there for a long time. A victim of nature and her cruelty at times.

  The truth however was far less than impressive. More accurately, it had been thrown together quite recently. Nothing happens by accident was Brendan King’s motto and it had served him well over the years. Everything has an explanation no matter how slight it might appear to be. Every action has a consequence, a reaction to counterbalance what came before. The truth behind the lie of the land here wasn’t really a secret in so much as Vassily Derenko knowing a guy who owed him a favour and being possessed of the willpower to get it done as quickly as possible. Time and Divines waited for no man. As of right now, that favour was considered paid off, Derenko thought as he stood almost on attention awaiting the imminent arrival. He’d been tasked to set it all up and he felt he’d more than accomplished it.

  Others might have looked at the size of the task and quailed. He had seen it as a challenge, something to be defeated. Far in the horizon, he could see a dark speck approaching his position, too large to be anything other than what he was waiting for. Three days he’d been here now and it had turned into such a lovely secret. Putting it together hadn’t been easy but the big man valued his ability to see any one big problem as a puzzle to be solved. When all the pieces were in the right place, the solution would become so much simpler.

  The little things were the key. Couldn’t argue with the little things. He’d made it this far by making it his business to keep an eye on the little things. With electrics, it was simple. Generating a current with a dozen tiny simple pieces and a viable power source to power something so much more complex was easy. Without any of those tiny pieces, the whole thing wouldn’t work. So, in a way, the sum of the parts was much more important than the whole.

  The speck drew closer in the distance, almost close enough to be made out as the airship he was waiting for. They’d be here and he’d be waiting. He didn’t have a problem with the waiting. It was something they trained you for in Unisco. Being proactive and decisive was one thing, sometimes you needed to be able to wait for hours at a time without succumbing to boredom. He’d always thought it was poor training to deal to new recruits at the time when he’d been stationed at some dead-end hole in the training camp; in hindsight he’d been wrong. Derenko didn’t have a problem admitting he’d been wrong, if he was alive to do it. If he was dead, he wouldn’t care.

  With hindsight, it turned out that training had been somewhat vital. Not only did it separate those who weren’t suitable for the job but it helped in some small way to hone another skill. Not necessarily about acting or not, but when to do so. Timing was everything. It also reinforced the notion that everything Unisco did had a purpose. Follow the purpose and you’d go far. Buy into the plan and you wouldn’t go wrong.

  It didn’t mean he had to like the plans they’d set up here though. Those Unisco agents who were attending the tournament as competitors had arrived via boat. He’d committed their names to memory; he knew where to find them in an emergency. Derenko hadn’t needed to touch them. What could they possibly tell him about the island in their short time here that he hadn’t already found out?

  He’d come in as a spectator. The rest were inbound. It was standard protocol to engage a hefty Unisco presence around the Quin-C whenever it was held. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to make threats against it. Wherever there was wealth and commerce, there was always someone with half a mind to try and blow it up. Nothing that could be done about it. All you could do was try and take every precaution. If someone made threats, you could try and take them off the board, but it was never ideal. You couldn’t lock someone up for a month just because they MIGHT do something. Half the time it was never serious anyway. Usually they were bitter. Or they’d imbibed too much. Or they thought their actions would be without consequence.

  They were back to consequences. He sighed, the ship was getting closer. He’d been wrong. It wasn’t an aeroship. Maybe just as well. They required complex filling stations to refuel them, there was only one on the island at this moment in time. More of them were under construction but to his understanding, it had been a slow process. More examples of how this had been a backwater before this tournament. Hence the reason why they’d brought the competitors, spectators and staff in by boat. Aeroships were a new thing, a more environmentally friendly option, the one up ahead was an older model, a hovership for non-civilian use. Rather than gas, it involved burning high quantities of fuel to power its flight. Good for short flights, rather than long distance ones.

  He knew some of those who disembarked the hovership by sight, some by reputation, some he’d never seen before. Either way, they weren’t keeping idle. Already they were starting to unload it with considerable efficiency. First came Terrence Arnholt, the director himself, tall and imposing as he strode down the disembarking ramp with an air of authority.

  “Agent Derenko,” he said. “Good morning.”

  Derenko nodded at him. “Sir.”

  “Status report on our HQ for the tournament?”

  He’d expected this. “All functional, just needs outfitting with the equipment. Which I guess we can get underway with now.” All he’d needed to do was set up, plan for their base of operations for the next six weeks. That had been a blessing. Moving that much equipment around on his own might have attracted the wrong sort of attention. And Unisco wasn’t about attracting attention.

  “Excellent,” Arholt said as Brendan King followed down the ramp, carrying a pair of portable work stations, one under each arm. He nodded at Derenko who nodded back. “You know Field Chief King, don’t you?”

  “Only by reputation,” Derenko said. “Here let me take one of those.” He took one of the stations from Brendan. “I’ll show you where they go. We got lucky out here. There’s some old cabins nearby. Fixed them up, they’ll serve nicely.”

  “Good,” Brendan said, following him. “You’ve done well, Agent Derenko. You have any trouble with the locals?”

  “Nobody comes out here this far from the resort. And since the natives vanished…” Derenko let it hang. Everyone knew that story, how once Carcaradis Island had been overrun with savage natives. And they’d not been seen since it had been announced the Quin-C was being held there. Without any proof of foul play, there wasn’t anything they could do. No matter how much some people wanted them to. No bodies had ever been found. Nothing ever to
suggest that they’d been there in the first place. If a job had been done making them disappear, it had certainly been an effective one.

  The area Derenko had chosen to make up as the temporary Unisco base for the duration of the tournament did indeed hold cabins. Five of them and one large shed used of indeterminate past purposes. How long they’d been there, he didn’t know. He didn’t need to know. Judging by the make and design, he had a feeling they might have been part of a doomed attempt to inhabit the island in the past. There’d been some suspicious stains he’d had to get rid of in some of them. Could have been blood. Too faded to tell. Equally it might not have been blood. Probably best not to delve too deep. They’d had to be waterproofed. Some of them had been in bad shape. Restoring them had been a job he’d had to move quickly to. He wasn’t unused to working like this. Despite his Unisco background, it took him back to his days as a lad in the Fang Mountains. They’d lived in cabins not much different from these and he’d survived.

  Of course, they hadn’t been trying to store sensitive equipment in them back then. And the technology was much better now than then. Inside they’d been lined with tempro-layer, just to keep out the elements. So much better than working in the stifling heat. Better than air conditioning and a lot cheaper. Even the shed had been lined with it.

  “I figured we could set up agents in some of the cabins, use the shed for storing weapons,” Derenko said. “And then use one of the cabins for setting up our equipment to monitor and communicate.”

  Brendan nodded. “I see. I’ll need to have Noorland and Okocha check it out for sure but I can’t see there being too much wrong with that. You’ve done everything required of you, Agent Derenko. Good job.”

  Derenko hid the swell of pride he felt to himself. A larger ego might have felt dissatisfied with the comment about checking his work. It didn’t bother him. In a situation like this, it was standard protocol. Every on-site recommendation he’d made would be checked before being implemented. Unisco was nothing if not a meticulous organisation. Far easier to double check any potential problem now than risk the workload that would ensue if it did all go wrong.