Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting

by Gregory Faccone

  He introduced Khai to them, and they nodded respectfully.

  Kord wore his usual thigh-length jacket. He had programmed it midnight blue, with the remaining clothes dark, cool grays. From the looseness of the fit, it looked like he wasn't wearing securewear undergarments. That was rare. His mother lived up to her stylish reputation. Her bodysuit was so deeply red it approached black. Her chunky treaders came up to mid-shin. And her bolero jacket, undoubtedly fitted with a shoulder holster, was a different red. It was a shade Jordahk couldn't put a name to, although he surmised he could distinguish a dozen different reds.

  Khai stood formally. "Avere, progenitors of Jorh-Da —"

  Jordahk cleared his throat, and gave her a rather obvious look. She was too much of an X-factor when it came to any sort of correction, but they had talked about this before.

  "Of Jordahk," she continued.

  Kord gave Jordahk his own look of surprise. Khai examined the brooch Jordahk remembered his mother wearing during training. The pale blue gems and smokey topaz veins shone upon the leaf shape under the station's imitation daylight.

  "Your..." Khai paused.

  Vittora looked down to see what she was staring at. "Brooch?"

  "Yes. It is very pretty." Khai spoke like a girl seeing jewelry for the first time.

  Vittora grabbed her arm in a friendly, completely disarming way. "Come, let's have some girl talk." She smiled over her shoulder at Kord, who nodded as the girls took a stroll.

  "Jordahk, I'd like you to meet Zephyrean D," Kord said. "From Demeter."

  Demeter?

  He straightened up. "Avere, Zephyrean D."

  "Avere, Jordahk Wilkrest."

  Jordahk had never knowingly met someone from Demeter. The man was different, and not just outwardly. It wasn't bad, in fact, it felt familiar.

  They moved to the traditional hinged doors of the establishment.

  Jordahk read the sign. "'Café Ristorante Bistro?' Doesn't that just mean restaurant?"

  "They all do," Max answered wryly.

  Vittora and Khai returned. Two outwardly reserved women wearing relaxed, companionable expressions.

  "So what color is your jacket?" Jordahk asked. "Crimson? Vermillion? Cerulean?" He wanted to extend the peaceful moment.

  "That's blue, Jordahk." Vittora's correction was equally light.

  She stopped suddenly, peering out the corner of her eye at the construction site. Kord noticed right away. Jordahk glanced around, as if doing something else, and noticed the men who had formerly been playing the game now staring at them.

  "Let's go in," Kord said.

  The restaurant interior was a two-level, circular design. The center was open floor-to-ceiling. A bar and traditional dance floor occupied the lower level, with the tables overlooking from the second.

  Jordahk recognized his parents' subtly guarded status. They took special notice of a half-dozen construction types entering and sitting at a table where a man in a black business suit waited.

  "Max, is Highearn sound-shielding us?"

  "Yes, everything going out."

  "Double it." Then he fractionally inclined his head toward the suited man and whispered aloud to Kord, "Is that guy Consortium?"

  "I think so. Shouldn't be surprised. With all the coin flowing for construction and who knows what else, there are going to be Consortium interests."

  Jordahk's jury on the Consortium was still out. They were a network of business interests. Mostly legit, occasionally shady, and keen to keep the government out of private business. Curtailing government was a legitimate Asterfraeo stance, but the Consortium wasn't altruistic. Jordahk couldn't stomach some of the things he'd heard they had done, no matter how righteous the cause.

  They had lawyers, lots of lawyers, and even, allegedly, a ramshackle "starmada." Jordahk heard it flew into ghost systems or isolated, failing settlements to bring "law and commerce." Of course, it benefited those who invested in the Consortium, and at least in the near term, those plucked from chaos.

  Jordahk couldn't blanket condemn an outfit reducing undue government encroachment. His eyes had been opened to such things. In places like the Sino Worlds there was little Consortium influence. In the Hex it only had toe-holds on the fringes. Anywhere government had completely taken over, the Consortium's primary means of pressure, the legal system, evaporated. They were natural enemies to the E-gov. It made them allies in "an enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of way, if you could ally with a snake.

  They continued to get numerous looks from that table. It made talking details uncomfortable, even with sound precautions. Of course Jordahk had noticed the extra military presence on the way into Castellum, and Max recognized Vallum Corps HQ. Kord mentioned how they tried to convince the magistrate-elect's office of the potential danger in unwise, premature deployments.

  "My father's gathering more information as only he can," Kord said. "I'll take it to the outgoing magistrate once we have a solid picture. He's got to see prudence costs little, but ignorance is more expensive than we can pay." Kord glanced over at the construction types. "I don't think we befriended the magistrate-elect's Chief of Staff. All that coin not flowing into the staryards for defense is corrupting. Too many pockets are getting greased for them to change gears now."

  "But this is the Palisades," Jordahk said. Maybe it sounded naïve, but it was true. It was supposed to mean something.

  Vittora nodded her understanding.

  "Yeah." Kord stood to head downstairs. "I'll be right back. By the way, I got a lead on a new fanicle. A surplus dealer here is looking to dump some old inventory."

  "We wouldn't want to lose our reputation as the only fanicle in town, would we?" Jordahk said dryly.

  Vittora watched as two of the construction types went into the laver after Kord. A moment later, two more went down to the bar. She exchanged looks with Jordahk.

  "Max, did the consortium guy comm out after we arrived?"

  "Replaying visuals. He may have sub-whispered, but I can't hack the station's comm network. Castellum is still Palisades. They take security seriously, even if they don't remember why."

  Jordahk didn't want to rely on the unpredictable creation that was Wixom, but he was getting suspicious enough to ask. "Wixom, can you break through? Follow Max's untraceable parameters, please."

  The mystic AI cogitated for a couple of seconds. A lifetime for such a machine.

  "Just do it," Jordahk insisted. He put some heat into his request.

  His bracelet compy came to life. Tiny lights ran quickly through its rhodium capillaries. Jordahk could feel it whirring with great activity. The restaurant lights dimmed and flickered.

  "What're you doing? I told you to keep it untraceable."

  "It's okay," Max said. "He broke the comm network's security and masked our inquiry with the power sputter. That took some serious cycles."

  "The man in question commed a group near the restaurant and the construction site next door since our arrival." Wixom was resonant, even sub-whispering.

  "Mother, these guys were called in."

  But Vittora was already standing, looking intently at the men's laver. A sudden noise came up from below, and one of the construction men flew out the laver door. Without a second's delay, she vaulted the second level railing and dropped to the ground, transferring her momentum into a precise roll. Between hardened bones and strengthened ligaments—thanks to Aristahl's ravelen—and skills honed over a century, he doubted she even felt it.

  "She's got his six..." Jordahk sighed and shook his head. "Oh, hell. It's on."

  Four more construction types got up from the table in a flurry, racing to the stair plat rather than leaping the railing. Khai was next to him in a flash, a look of concern crossing her face.

  "Wait," Jordahk said. "Max, how many hostiles?"

  "Eight active, not including Consortium guy over there."

  He put his palm up in a placating gesture to Khai.

  Down below, Kord dodged and weaved his w
ay out of the laver, exchanging an impressive series of blocks and blows with the second assailant. Vittora engaged the first as he got to his feet while two more ran over from the bar. As if magnetized, Kord and Vittora drew together, back to back, in the center of the dance floor. The four additional assailants from the second level charged them.

  "Take a good look," Jordahk said, "you're about to see something special. It may take me a century to get that good, but I suspect you're a different story."

  Kord and Vittora had debriefed him about their experiences during the Egress Incident. Their last cooperative hand to hand fight, a riot instigated by Legion operatives at Adams Rush, occurred when they were both injured. Now they were at full power, and the dance floor seemed an apt stage for their talent.

  Solo fighting was the usual training in dojos and gung halls where he had spent many an hour with his parents. But they also trained in cooperative ways that were formidable, with or without weapons. And everyone in the Asterfraeo knew what a mistake it would be to draw weapons, even a knife, in a hand-to-hand fight. The Adams Rush adage, "If you draw down, prepare to be cut down," may not be as deeply rooted in the more cosmopolitan Palisades, but few thought it was worth endangering their lives in such a brawl.

  Kord's powerful punches, no longer hindered by injury, impacted with thuds felt on the second level. Vittora's feet were challenging to even find at times, one second placed squarely in the solar plexus of an opponent, the next sweeping the legs of another. She was the spinning top setting up finishing blows for her husband. Khai took it all in with wide eyes, and though her hands gripped the railing as if she too was ready to vault it, she could see how onesided the eight-to-two fight was.

  "Max, I don't want to make an enemy of the Consortium, but this guy's not operating with their usual subtlety."

  "I don't think he's following their protocol."

  "When news of this debacle reaches their ears, he'll be lucky if they don't space him. There's too much coin in Castellum right now to blow it with such overt tactics. Did he really think my parents would be intimidated? Didn't he even do the slightest research as to who they were? Fool."

  "Consortium guy's" comfortable smugness had evaporated, and he was looking rather anxiously at the fight not going his way. Maybe he had paid off the restaurant owner and was hoping to send a message with a public beating. Now there was too much to buy his way out of.

  "What do you want to do?" Max asked.

  Two more men burst through the front door. It was the pair outfitted with safety grapplers. The smaller of the two activated his grapple, something that couldn't happen in this environment without overruling AI safety protocols. The grapple band shot out with tremendous force, wrapping itself around Kord's torso. The momentum pushed him into Vittora. She staggered, adjusting to hold him up.

  The group jumped upon Vittora, grateful for an opportunity. The two grapplers reeled in Kord, jerking him off his feet, and began kicking him through the constricting band. It was underhanded, but not the kind of cheating that allowed anybody to draw.

  "We don't need your austerity drak here," one of them boasted. "This is Palisades, grime. We actually have coin to spend."

  Consortium guy returned to his original smugness, and Jordahk knew the answer to Max's query. Next to him, Khai shifted her momentum, ready to jump.

  Her hand was on the railing, and he put his atop it. "I think it's best we stay out of this show. They wouldn't want us on the newsVADs."

  "But we have to help them."

  He smiled. "Help who? The construction guys?" He saw incomprehension in her expression. Of course, she didn't have experience with his parents. "Don't mess with Patram..." Jordahk mused. The girl gave him a quizzical look. "Look, if my mother has a weakness, it's she cannot stand anyone mistreating her husband. And if there's perfidy or cheating involved, well, she's a force of nature." A growl came up from the dance floor. "Playtime's over. See for yourself."

  His mother's long, bodysuit-clad legs burst out of the pile from which the growl was heard. They spun around in a twisting motion that shifted the entire pile. Her treaders came down onto an assailant's head, smashing it to the dance floor. Then her arms were free. A second later, another man raced from the pile screaming, his arm bent at an impossible angle from the elbow down.

  She had buffer room and coiled like a catapult before launching into the air. Khai gasped in amazement at the acrobatic move. Vittora twisted her body in the air, her feet reaching as high as second level, before coming down on top of the owner of the grapple that had snared her husband. The man was smashed to the ground, but his safety harness absorbed enough of the blow to keep him in the fight... for about two more seconds.

  He managed a jab to her face. She moved her body with it then chopped the man's cheekbones with both hands before grabbing his ears and concussing his hardened skull onto the dance floor with a single, precise slam. She bolted to her feet above the unconscious man, and glared back at her assailants. They flinched back in fear.

  Jordahk sensed something, a deep rumbling just beneath his senses. He was experiencing it more often now, usually around his grandfather. But this centered upon his father. He could almost see swirls of gravity forming at the ends of Kord's balled fists. Where the fists joined, matter sheared. He hoped no one in the restaurant had enough mystic affinity to know what they were seeing. He couldn't fully believe what he was seeing. His father didn't do this kind of thing.

  The strength of a safety-rated grappler band was no match for impossible forces. The band tore from bottom to top as Kord moved his fists. The rending made an unusual tearing sound, and murmurs added to the clamor. He rolled out of the shredded band, and in two quick steps was upon the remaining, shocked grappler. Kord punched him so hard in the abdomen that Jordahk felt it in his own chest. Then his father threw the man out the front doors, knocking one off its hinges.

  Jordahk noticed Zephyrean D watching his father with great interest, but he was otherwise unfazed and had not left his seat. The man wore an expression of understanding that made Jordahk feel concerned over family secrets. Their bloodline was capable of incredible feats, and that was before Aristahl's enhancing ravelen.

  Kord and Vittora could take on Legion. What chance did these poor dupes have? Jordahk turned to the man who had duped them.

  "It's comeuppance time, Max, for everybody."

  Khai looked at him with an expression he couldn't pinpoint, although his cheeks grew suddenly warm.

  Concentrate.

  Jordahk closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them with new resolve. "First, I want to hack Consortium guy's compy."

  "You know I've got the tricks, kid, but you're talking about some serious cycles."

  "Wixom, are we going to have it out over this? Or are you going to do as I say?" Again the bracelet thought about it, but then Jordahk sensed its acquiescence. "Are you going to need me to drive, Max?"

  "I don't think so. Looks like he's running a Rusty and not prepared for anything like a thresh."

  "Figures." It was an AI model favored by politicians, pollsters, and other media types looking to influence public opinion. If possible, Jordahk cared even less about the man.

  Max opened the connection, building upon the previous communication hack, and soon the compy was ready to be cracked by serious power. But Wixom was hesitant.

  "Such brute force is not becoming to my master," Wixom said.

  A spike of anger ambushed Jordahk. "Apparently, your brother didn't think so, machine!" He was disgusted at his own lack of control and quickly centered his emotions in his forehead, doing the exercise that helped him regain objectivity. "Look, this is a bad guy. You know it. Are you programmed for corrective justice or not?" Created to corral his evil brother Waxad, Jordahk knew it was so.

  "Okay, I'm at his fence," Max said.

  The fence was the first of three capital firewalls in a modern compy.

  "Since you don't need me to drive, don't bring up a VAD. Let's lea
ve this guy no clues."

  "Fence looks double-sized, but not thresh-hardened. I'm running through Cranium's library of exploits."

  Jordahk did not let sadness grip him, but he had an impossible desire to thank the octal. That friendship was still benefiting him.

  "Whoa. This one will work big-time," Max said. "I just need Wixom to apply the power."

  Wixom revved up. A lumie floating just above Consortium guy's table burst. The AI revved down just as fast. Jordahk knew one second had been enough. The power of this Bitlord creation was scary, and it was at his disposal.

  "That shattered rather spectacularly," Max said. "He's aware of us now, but his internal defenses are weak. All his stock was in that double-sized fence. Oh, now I see why. This data is super encrypted. Like intelligence services level. Beyond my ability to crack."

  Consortium guy stood up before the sparking light, and appeared to be sub-whispering frantically, a look of fear in his eyes.

  "I bet there's a lot of information there to help sort good from bad," Jordahk said. "Copy an image of all his data, Max. Maybe decrypting it will entertain Wixom for about thirty seconds." Jordahk was worried about the level of corruption introduced into the Castellum markets. Maybe it was the Adams Rush in him. A distorted market was hardly more free than one directly controlled by the government. "I want access to his accounts. I think we can find a better use for his assets."

  Max looked at the files when another burst from Wixom opened them.

  "Let's see. There's the legitimate Consortium investment pool," Max said.

  "Leave that one alone."

  "One account looks like a running payoff fund. Another looks like his private stash. It's a lot of coin."

  "Let's transfer those funds someplace safe."

  "That's Barrister's territory, but Aristahl will know what we've done if I query him."

  If Jordahk couldn't defend such actions, he shouldn't be doing them. "Do it." It was done in a frighteningly quick flash, and he felt a dangerous, exhilarating sensation. "Let's send him a message."