The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “Funny,” he said. “Hand me some of that emergency skin because I’m about to break out laughing.” The sarcasm in his voice was just so strong she couldn’t help but laugh. And then despite everything he was laughing with her. “That was pretty cool the way you chewed him out.”

  “Well I couldn’t let him get away with that, could I?” she asked. “I mean, what did he honestly expect was the best thing that could come out of this for him?”

  “He’s a snake,” Theo said simply. “He’ll appear when you least expect him, he’ll strike right for the heart and him showing up usually doesn’t mean anything good for you. If you come out unscathed, it’s usually a good day.” He paused for a moment, looking out at the ocean. “There were more bad days than good growing up, I know that much.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand. “It’s over now though, right? He’s not coming back?”

  “Shouldn’t do. He doesn’t like failure. He’ll give it a few months skulking about on his own, bitching about how the world is against him or the Senate or how Unisco are trying to slip tracking devices into his coffee. Then he’ll try something stupid. And because he’ll do it badly, he’ll get caught. I know how that man works and it’s usually routine.” Theo went silent, just craned his head back to stare up at the sky. “And I suppose you could say I’m representative of his biggest failure of the lot. Whether he sees it that way I don’t know. He wants to be a lot of things but he’s never quite worked out why it never happens.”

  “When you say failure…”

  “I never wanted to be his son. Changed my name and everything as soon as I could. Got out of there. Didn’t want him to be a part of my life. His ego couldn’t take that.”

  Anne said nothing. It wasn’t uncommon for names to be changed these days. In fact, it felt like it was becoming a more and more common practice. But for that reason, she’d never heard of it before. Hatred of a parent.

  “He was a bastard growing up. Unreasonable. Cold. Emotionally shut off.”

  Who does that sound like? She almost asked it, held her tongue at the last moment. It probably wouldn’t go down well.

  Theo scuffed the toe of his shoe against the grass absentmindedly. She caught a flush of frustration rippling out from him, curiously strong.

  “He’s right though, you know,” she said. “You can’t change the past. You can’t. He can’t. What’s done is done.”

  “And I’m supposed to forgive him for it?!” That tiny seedling of frustration started to swell in him, not quite anger yet but it felt like developing that way.

  “Well maybe not right now,” Anne said placidly. “I’m all about forgiveness. You should know by now that people aren’t perfect. They tend to be bastards. But maybe, you ever think there’s a chance he might be genuine?”

  Theo shook his head without hesitating. “No. Absolutely not! He’s not genuine. Don’t trust him. Absolute bastard.”

  “But at least you’re willing to give him a chance,” she said dryly. “He’s your father…”

  “And is that supposed to mean something to me? Because it sure as hells doesn’t to him.” She could hear the conviction in his voice, the belief that he knew he was right and everyone else was wrong on this subject. In a way, she admired that. In a lot of others, she wanted to slap him for his pig-headedness.

  “I’m not saying believe him,” she said. “Just… I don’t know. Listen to him. Give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being. If he lets you down…”

  “And he will!”

  “Then he lets you down, you were right and I was wrong,” she said. “And I’ll apologise for that but you only get one family.”

  “No, you don’t,” Theo said. “You can’t choose your family but you can choose your friends. The people who you desire to spend time with rather than being forced to. And eventually they become your new family.”

  “I’m not quite sure it works like that but go on. I mean, you already lost your mother…”

  She saw the flash of anger in his eyes. “Yes. I did. And look what’s happened since. She was… She didn’t deserve it. And bloody Cyris carried on living. Where’s the justice in that?”

  “Hate to disappoint you but justice doesn’t exist in the way you’re thinking,” she said. “You want those who are good to live and those who are bad to die horrible deaths. It’s not going to happen. You know what they say about the good dying young.”

  He looked at her with a rueful look. “That’s probably you going to die before your time then.”

  She blushed. “That’s either really morbid or really nice. Can’t decide which.” Still she felt a warmth in the pit of her stomach. It had been a nice thing to say. Today more than ever she felt like she was on the path to understanding this strange anti-social man who had slowly become a part of her life.

  “Meant to be nice,” he mumbled. “Sorry. Not got a lot of… Compliments don’t come easy to me. I…”

  She patted him on the shoulder, an almost reflex gesture. “It was nice. Sort of. I appreciate what you were trying to say.”

  He stayed silent for several long moments, more than that she let him keep his tongue to himself. If he didn’t want to say anything, even if he didn’t have anything to come out with, she wasn’t going to force him.

  “You know, this is not how I pictured my day ending,” he eventually did say with a sigh.

  The third day of Summerfall.

  They were here.

  Cyris knew that the moment he strolled into the hangar, one hand in his pocket, one on his cane. He didn’t need the cane but it had become a public affectation he’d employed. People saw him, saw him with the cane and underestimated him. They thought him lame, a cripple and felt pity. He wanted to laugh at that notion. Plus, it was lined with cadameenium, a metal so dense and strong they lined aerofighters with it. It made one hells of a weapon, if you got hit with it, you stayed hit.

  He limped out towards the aeroship in the middle of the hangar, aware of the eyes in the dark but kept his eyes straight ahead. Don’t show any sign of weakness or fear and they’ll be on you. He didn’t think that they’d turn violent but you never know. Already he was forming up a plan in his head. The way to use this situation to his advantage. He didn’t want to be arrested on some trumped-up charge and never seen again. There had to be some way to do it.

  And then it hit him. Something so simple that anyone could have thought of it. And it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch until it came to the simple act of telling the truth. John Cyris knew he had told so many lies over the years it would be hard for the truth to be believed. But regardless, he needed to make them see.

  He stopped, cleared his throat. The little signs were there that someone was here. The lack of people about, just in case it turned violent. No mechanics or maintenance staff, no pilots milling about or even security. The aeroport on Carcaradis Island was not the busiest in the five kingdoms but still he’d seen all of this on the way out. Barring his cane and his summoner, Cyris had no weapon. Nothing illegal there. The way parts of the hangar fell unilluminated as well didn’t bode well. Darkness was something easy to hide in, at least in a physical sense. On a philosophical level, getting in was sometimes easier than getting out.

  “You know, if you wish to ask me something,” he said, both pleasant and loud. “Then please do. Let us not skulk around with each other. It’s unbecoming for one thing. Rude is another. I know you’re there. I know how you work.”

  They came down out of his aeroship… Madam Coppinger’s aeroship… weapons out if not pointed at him. Three of them, faces blanked out with those damn mufflers they wore. He’d been trying to score up schematic plans for those things for years but no dice.

  “There we are,” he said, resting his weight on the cane. “So much more civilised than you grabbing me and forcing my head into a bucket of water, wouldn’t you say?”

  “John Cyris,” the figure in the lead said, voice suitably distorted. He got the hint it might ha
ve been male but beyond that, very little. Certainly nothing to identify who was beyond the mask. “Former leader of the Cyria criminal organisation.”

  “Cyria never dies,” Cyris said, the pleasantries still in his voice. “It’s just dormant. But I’ve done my time. Society has judged me reformed. You can’t arrest me for dormancies, thankfully. Someone else will pick the idea up sooner or later.”

  “We don’t care about Cyria. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” This second voice was more than likely female, the speaker’s body also added that impression. Something familiar about her, Cyris couldn’t quite place it on the moment. An unusual sensation but not one that he cared about implicitly. It was designed to hurt him and although it might have been a stab in the ribs, it did miss his heart.

  “That’s my benefit then,” he said loftily. “Sorry boys and girls, got nothing to say on Cyria. If you’re harassing me on that, then you’ve got nothing.”

  “Good thing we don’t want to talk about that then,” a third voice said, suitably different to the other two, Cyris guessed at it being male. All of this was starting to both unsettle and annoy him. It made him want to look over his shoulder to check that nobody was coming up behind him.

  This was how it started. First there was idle chatter, then you had a bag over your head and knockout drugs in your system with them determined to make you talk no matter what. It was an experience he very much wouldn’t like to repeat. Of course, nobody admitted that they did it but everyone knew. Everyone was complicit. And when you’d done some of the things that John Cyris had done in his life, it was a bit much to ask for the public to cry out on your behalf.

  “Well Cyria is about all I know, if you want anything else…”

  “Want to tell us about any association you might have with Claudia Coppinger?”

  Okay, that threw him, he had to admit he hadn’t been expecting that to be the next thing he heard. And he laughed out loud at it, not quite able to suppress the grin down. “Okay, you’ve got me there. Who?”

  “You think this is a joke?”

  “I’m just wondering if you do,” he said innocently. “Never heard of her. Should I have?”

  “You came in on a Reims-registered aeroship,” voice number one said scornfully. “She’s the top dog at that company. She’s someone that we’d very much like to talk to.”

  “Wow, the inner workings of the most secret bunch of bastards across the five kingdoms. Is there anyone you won’t go after?”

  “So, you don’t know her then?” voice number two, the probable woman asked.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yeah, you just did. You said you’d never heard of her.”

  “Oh yeah…” Cyris said. Inside he was smirking. On the outside, he gripped his cane just a little harder. It wouldn’t do much good if they opened fire, but it’d put one of them down if they came closer to him. Broken bones minimum. A touch of defiance would do wonders for his story.

  He also knew if he came out with it all straightaway, they wouldn’t believe him out of principle. They were expecting him to lie and be as evasive as the hells. On that regard, he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint them. People overall were an easy bunch to manipulate when you knew how. “Did I say that?”

  “Yeah. You did.”

  “Right well, yeah maybe I know who she is. Pretty woman. Nuttier than nutkin shit, I think is the term. But she’s definitely got something going for her.” He smiled at them. “Kind heart to let me come here. Shame she didn’t know how quick Unisco were off the bat.”

  “Where can we find her?” voice number one asked.

  “Well it’s not that easy, is it?” Cyris replied, stretching his arms out lazily. “If it were, you’d have done it already. Take it you tried her homes and her offices?”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Don’t give me that, boy! I asked you a question!” His hackles were up suddenly and he fixed a glare on the three of them. In his peripheral vision, he could see two more, both armed and doing their best to look dangerous.

  “She’s not there.”

  “I know she isn’t,” Cyris said, taking a perverse delight in the way voice number one came out with that crestfallen revelation. “You won’t find her. You can’t. Not without my help.”

  Here it was. His gambit. His moment of truth.

  “You’re going to help?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said, clasping both hands on the top of the cane. “I really didn’t. See she’s got a grand vision for the future and I think she’s determined to follow it through to the end.”

  “So are we!” voice number three said. “Her end, preferably. We don’t know what she’s doing but it’s probably not good. There’s a trail of events on this island that can all lead back to her and it needs to stop now before it gets even worse.”

  Cyris knew all about it. Of course, he wasn’t about to reveal that information. It probably would have helped them massively, but on the other hand he was asking them to believe a lot of what he had to say already. The whole truth would shatter that credibility. Better they found out on their own. He nodded in agreement.

  “She wanted my help. She wanted everyone’s help. The big guns. The Montella family, the Fratelli’s, me, Mazoud, Kenzo Fojila, the Regan’s, a whole bunch of enterprising bigwigs in the underworld. She wanted an army and she had plenty to offer in exchange. As I said, she has a vision. A good one.”

  “What is it?”

  They had to ask. He’d have been shocked if they hadn’t. He gave them a sweet smile. “Nothing less than total domination and subjugation, of course. Already got the first piece of the puzzle. She’s on a ship.”

  “That narrows it down then,” voice number two said. “Must be thousands of ships in the five kingdoms.”

  “But,” Cyris said, wagging a finger at her. “Not ones outfitted with god-class cloaking devices. She won’t show up on any radar anywhere. So good luck finding her without my help. She could be sat a few hundred miles above us right now and you’d never know.”

  “What’s it going to take for your help?” voice number one asked. There was just the right note of defeat in his voice to satisfy Cyris.

  “Well I’m glad that you ask and that we might be able to do business,” Cyris said gleefully. “Since you do… How about you make sure you put the bitch down!” He almost spat the words out, he saw them recoil in surprise. “Nobody tries to put me on a leash and I don’t bloody follow! You understand me?! You kill her, you forget anything you have against me and I’ll give her to you. It’s a good deal boys and girls. They’ll give you all medals.”

  He smiled at them and felt the glee rush through him. If they went for this, it’d be a good day. It’d be a good day indeed.

  Chapter Sixty-Three. The Silence Before the Fireworks.

  “It’s when it’s calm that you need to worry. While there’s the potential for improvement, there’s an equal or greater chance that things have the propensity to grow worse with the passing of time.”

  Wim Carson to Claudia Coppinger in a private moment.

  The third day of Summerfall.

  Boredom was slowly working its way into every fibre of Nick’s being. The irony was not lost on him that he’d gone from one cell down on the island to another here. If it wasn’t for the frequent releases to take meals with the staff here, he’d have probably gone crazy by now staring at the four walls. A gilded cage, he reminded himself, was still a cage. And though the bed might be comfortable and the reading supplies slightly more substantial than they had been back on the island and there was fresh water on demand, he still couldn’t help but feel like he was waiting for the other foot to fall.

  Something had to give sooner or later. He hadn’t seen much of Claudia Coppinger since those first nights, hadn’t had the chance to subtly probe her for more information or even go deeper. More than once he’d proclaimed out through his cell door that he wanted to speak to her but they’d fallen on
either deaf or ignorant ears. He wasn’t sure which was worse. If he squinted through the bars on the peephole on his door, he was sure he could see one of the Taxeen strolling around outside, keeping a tight guard.

  Still he’d tried to occupy both his mind and body, a few hundred push ups every morning, alternating with sit-ups, he’d found himself running through a dozen possible scenarios for escape or attack in his head. He had to do something sooner or later. The inaction was probably the worst bit about the entire thing, not too much he could do about it. It all boiled down to the Taxeen outside as his first great obstacle. He remembered what Tod Brumley had said in unarmed combat practice about facing an opponent both armed and skilled with a knife. His first words?

  ‘Try to avoid a fight with someone with a knife if you can help it. If they’re any good…’ and the Taxeen undoubtedly were… ‘then they’ll cut you to shreds before you can take it off them. If it’s a fight you can’t avoid, hit them hard and early. You’ll usually get one free shot at them, depending on how fast they are. You hit them right, you can gain an upper hand.’

  It was one thing to think about it, it was one thing to practice it, it was entirely another thing to go out and do it against a knifeman whose reflexes had been honed and sharpened throughout the years, whose bodies had become part of their armoury. They’d adapted themselves to suit the weapon, not the other way around. They were serious, dedicated individuals.

  It might not come to it. Nick liked a fight as much as anyone but he’d prefer to walk away from it at the end.

  The rattle in the door that told him the bolt was being pulled back. In this era of high tech security, a simple bolt might have felt out of place. All it meant was they had faith in the guards. To withdraw it by hand and let him out, they had to get past the Taxeen. A security lock could, admittedly a pretty big could, be hacked. As the door swung back with a scrape, Nick saw two of the Taxeen staring unblinking at him with those large eyes set against dark skin. He smiled at them.