by Lee Bond
Chad wasn’t fond of long space voyages. They had a tendency to trick him into … into hearing things. Things that weren’t there, no matter how insistent they were that they were real.
And some things were very insistent indeed.
“This ‘charming space station’, as you put it,” the comm jockey snarled in return, “is a military installation. If anyone is in the mood to die, it’s you, ‘mate’. All my weapons are pointed right at you, and if I somehow manage to miss that floating garbage-scow, there’s a battlecruiser waiting to take a shot.”
And so there was. Midway through the comm jockey’s reply, his ship’s sensors had detected numerous high-powered weapon systems locking onto his engine emissions. There were quite a lot of them, which was to be expected in the ultra-paranoid Latelian Regime; according to Jordan Bishop, they coveted their sovereign status to the exclusion of everything else. They were well known for blowing ships out of space at the slightest provocation.
Then, as if to make sure he understood the paltry position he was in, Chad’s monitors showed him a Latelian battlecruiser -three miles long if it was an inch- lumbering slowly into better position alongside the station, gunports open.
Chad smiled. People were always so bloody willing to mistake him for an idiot, and he had yet to run across a situation where he felt compelled to warn them of their shortsightedness before he took their heads off.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t here to lay waste to the Latelian army, or to make enemies of the system. He was here to do a Job and nothing more. “Err,” he drawled calmly, “You ‘ave looked at my documents, yeah?”
“We’re waiting for confirmation from Hospitalis.” The jockey snorted. “If you are a representative for BishopCo, then I’m a holy prophet.”
“Well, my son,” Chad replied sunnily, “I should invest in a prayer mat and some of those fancy lace up sandals if I was you, coz that is wot I am.” He did some rough calculations in his head. “I shall wait anuvver two hours, my son, before we ‘ave anuvver chinwag. If, in that time, I is not permitted to continue on my way to Hospitalis, I expect that when next you hear my dulcet tones, I won’t be quite so friendly.”
“In two hours, then.”
“Yeah. Oh, and, friend?” Chadsik smiled to himself.
“What is it now?” The comm jockey hissed irritably.
Before answering, Chadsik flipped a few switches by his knees and waited for his ship, the Hungryfish, to finish moving bits of itself around. He could well imagine the look of shock, confusion, and hopefully worshipful terror on the faces of everyone on the station and the battleship as their sensors, once unable to detect any sign of weaponry, suddenly started shrieking. In his mind’s eye, Chadsik saw them fall to their knees, faces ashen, eyes wide. “I can assure you that the next time we talk, I will have no trouble at all laying about with my Hand of Glory missiles. Yes, they are meant to destroy planets and whatnot, but if you are exceptionally skilled at math, you can get the things to do all sorts of tricks. ”
Chad blinked, looked suspiciously around the tiny cabin of his ship. The comm channels were dead. He wondered if he’d said anything. He didn’t think he’d said anything, but The Voice was tricky. Chad wondered if he should call the space station back up, ask what he’d done.
The FrancoBritish assassin shook his head. There was little point. If … if any … voices had said anything, it was almost certainly antisocial and not at all the sort of thing someone would likely forgive.
Chad turned off the lights and sat there, in the dark, dreaming of his greatest work, patiently ignoring any whispering, just as his doctors suggested.
xxx
One hour and forty-five minutes later found Chad with his finger poised over a large red button, perspiration pouring down his face. The effort to keep from just … letting … his … hand … fall was enormous.
The Voice that made him think he was who he was really wanted the station and the ship gone. Black holes would succumb to the strength he was displaying, quasars would quail and even the mighty Jordan Bishop his-own-fucking-self would be impressed.
“Chadsik al-Taryin,” the voice echoed through the quiet bowels of the Hungryfish, “you are cleared for departure along military transport line 6-zeta-99, maximum speed. Landing procedures are being loaded now.”
Chad moved his hand slowly away from the firing button. “It’s about fucking time, my son, you was all about to meet a Maker wot ain’t overly pleased wiv you all. Oy!” he shouted. “An’ let everyone on that planet o’ yours know that I is preferrin’ to be called Chad, hey?”
There was no answer. Chad blew a noisy breath out of his mouth.
All desires at turning the space station and its battlecruiser companion into thin shreds of metal dissipated as Chad put his ship in motion.
In less than a week, he’d be on Hospitalis.
Shortly after that, he’d see this miraculous Garth Nickels with his own eyes.
Chapter One:
Celebrity Demands a Statement of Intent
“Well, doc? Do I pass or what?” Garth demanded with as much dignity as he could muster while standing naked in front of a man twice his size.
“Stop asking me that.” Doctor Sullivan snapped impatiently. “I’ve already explained to you the difficulties in trying to determine just what constitutes ‘normal’ for someone like you, and every time you break my concentration, I have to start over.”
Garth snorted. He and Sullivan hated each other like water loathed fire. Regular hospital staff –those not on Garth’s under-the-table payroll and certainly not under Doctor Sullivan’s command- found a staggering array of reasons to make themselves absent whenever the two Alpha males were in the same room together. Their shouting matches proved a disturbing willingness to demand anyone in earshot ‘take sides’, and devil take the consequences. “Are you sure you really graduated medical school? Tell me the truth. You’re the janitor, right?”
Doctor Sullivan looked over his proteus at Garth, eyebrow quirked. “Owing to the extreme changes in our relationship, sa, you should know my medical qualifications well enough. It is not my fault you choose to use my extreme intellect and knowledge for such paltry reasons. You are, after all, paying me a fantastic amount of money to perform tests the equivalent of asking someone if they have a fever. I expect next you’ll ask me to kiss an owie, which I will do, but only for a pay increase.”
Laughing loudly, Garth pulled his clothes on. Overall, Sullivan was an okay guy, and when he got the okay to get gone, Garth had every intention of funding some of Sullivan’s medical research into curing the killer rejection rates God soldiers experienced.
That being said, the beginnings of their relationship had proven … ‘rocky’.
Sullivan -on loan from an advanced medical research company specializing in genetics- had been ever intent on plumbing the absolute depths of Garth’s incredible survival mechanisms, pushing virtually every minute of every day for more tissue and blood samples, demanding that they run every test the Universe had to offer and inventing more.
Garth -stuffed to the gills with neural sheaths and terrified the Latelian’s’d discover them - had blocked and turned aside every request, intentionally staying awake around the clock to prevent the doctor –who was just the sort of person to steal blood during someone’s nap- from getting anything.
No fool, Garth knew that Sullivan already had a great big old pile of samples from when he’d been admitted to the hospital. When he’d been brought in, he’d been barely alive, barely coherent and the on-duty nurses had –to his mind- drained him of every last drop.
The third go-round of demands and denials had evoked in Garth a furious temper, forcing him to do something he’d wanted to avoid this early in the game; become Sullivan’s boss.
Several hours after that third and final argument, MediCor’s private medical company servers flashed Sullivan with an update concerning the status of the company. Fifteen minutes after that, he’d apologized sin
cerely to Garth Nickels, owner of MediCor.
To the ‘credit’ of both men, neither had let the change in their relationship affect how they dealt with the other. They still shouted, sniped, and automatically involved anyone within hearing in a debate as to the other’s ability to effectively navigate the tricky waters of trying to tie a pair of shoes.
Sullivan looked up from his prote. “Are you quite certain you aren’t interested in learning more about your unique physiology? There are tests I would like to run.”
Garth shook his head. He knew what the deal was; Chairwoman Doans wanted to know everything about her least favorite addition to Latelyspace. Other than spying, -the more respectful of the choices- the only way to get that done was to subject him to endless rounds of Poke Garth with a Needle to See What Comes Out.
Since Doans had already admitted to being in possession of his complete service record, she was obviously already aware that what Sullivan referred to as a ‘unique physiology’ was on the records as being ‘undeterminable’. Given the superiority of Latelian medical science, Doans was trying to live up to the time-enduring maxim of ‘Know Thine Enemy’.
“Thanks but no thanks. Between you and the Game medical staff, I’m sick to death of hearing things go beep.”
Sullivan closed Garth’s file with reluctance. “There is so much you need to learn about yourself. But as far as I can tell, you’re hale and hearty.”
“So I can go? I can leave?” Sitting in a hospital for two weeks being poked and prodded didn’t fall into Garth’s Top Ways to Recuperate. Like all doctors, Sullivan was clinically incapable of comprehending that some folk just plain old didn’t like doctors. Hell, for the most part it wasn’t even personal.
Beyond the obvious reasons for getting out of the hospital, though, there was a more pressing, infinitely more fragile situation to deal with: Huey.
The last time they’d spoken, the artificial intelligence had been stuck in the middle of a perpetual war, surrounded on all sides by aggressive and increasingly insane quantum copies, all bound and determined to prove that they were the true consciousness. Trapped inside the infinite sphere housing his intellect, Huey had nowhere to run but deeper and deeper into the diamond optic fibers that formed the matrix of his mind. Sooner or later -even in the theoretically infinite depths existing within the sphere- Huey would run out of places to hide.
When -not if- that happened, there nothing could be done to rescue Huey from substrate psychosis. At that point, the sphere would need to be tossed into the sun to save … to save Latelyspace.
He felt awful about what he’d done to the AI. Even though it’d been necessary at the time, if he failed to undo the critical damage, Garth doubted he’d be able to forgive himself. Huey didn’t deserve to be beset by psychotic copies.
Sullivan sighed resolutely. It was best for all parties involved if he agreed to Garth’s demands. Push the man too far … “Yes, you’re free to go. I can’t in good conscience sign off on the necessary paperwork, but I suppose that doesn’t bother you at all, does it, Sa Garth?”
Garth made a show of considering Sullivan’s side before answering. “Nope. You should be happy that I’m alive and well, doctor, not cranky and miserable.”
“How can you choose to be so ignorant?” Sullivan demanded angrily. “You survived a … a … what you survived is beyond destructive, sa. No other man or woman on the planet would choose to remain so … so disinterested in their own survival!”
Garth –who well knew how and why he’d survived and wanted no one to have any opportunities to discover the neural sheaths- stuck his hand out to shake hands farewell.
Sullivan stared awkwardly at it for a moment, and Garth chuckled regretfully; he’d forgotten that –for a research scientist- Sullivan held some kind of wonky taboo against touching or being touched. A flunky had carried out all the tests that’d required physical contact, with the high-strung Sullivan overseeing. Garth bowed politely to Sullivan, then left, exuding sheer happiness at being free.
Sullivan thoughtfully watched Garth leave. It didn’t matter. He had enough samples on hand –samples everyone believed destroyed- to begin the assessment. It was a shame they’d need to be handled in the city, though; the samples wouldn’t … survive transfer. The doctor began the process of ending his time in the hospital.
xxx
It didn’t take long for the government stooges to show their ugly mugs, and when they did, they didn’t bother hiding. Trying to look inconspicuous in black suits when everyone else was wearing white scrubs wasn’t all that easy. Garth ignored his detail all the way to the elevator.
“Sa Nickels?” One of the men asked.
“Sure as hell hope so, I plan on eating all of his lunches in a little while. Gotta make up for all that assy hospital chow.” Garth stepped back. The two agents followed suit. So they weren’t there to force him into anything, which was as good a sign as any that Chairwoman Doans was willing to play nicely. They’d probably follow him around until he acceded to their passive-aggressive demands, which wasn’t something he wanted.
“Chairwoman Doans would like to see you.”
“I’m sure that she would.” Garth admitted. When the elevator doors slid open, he hopped in and gestured for his new friends to join him. He pushed the ‘hold’ button. “However.”
The two agents shuffled in and took up position behind their assignment, trying vainly to dominate him with their impressive bulk. They looked nervously at one another when they realized their tactics weren’t working.
Agent Scoom waited for Sa Nickels to finish his sentence a full ten seconds before realizing that the Offworlder had nothing else to say: the hanging sentence spoke loud and clear. “It’s very important.”
“Again,” Garth winked broadly at a nurse who joined them at the next stop, “I’m sure Doans has all the reasons in the world to think whatever she’s got to say to me is the most important thing ever, but.”
Agent Veo, quicker on the uptake than Scoom, forged ahead. “We are authorized to escort you to her, if need be.”
Garth looked up his nose at the two burly agents who’d been sent to harass him into visiting Chairwoman Doans. They were a different breed than the men ex-OverSecretary Terrance had sicced on him; these fellows were the tiniest bit more cultured and a smidgen less intimidating. It didn’t mean anything, of course: in the genetic enhancement game, no one, not even Medellos Medical, could beat the Latelians. God soldiers held the distinction of being more visible than the other pet projects going on above the heads of Sa and Si Average Joe, that was all. “You, uh, do know who I am, right?”
Scoom nodded briskly. “Sa Garth Nickels.”
“And, um,” Garth rolled his eyes at the nurse, who grinned, “you, uh, do watch The Game, right?”
Scoom stiffened. “Of course I do.” Asking a Latelian if they watched The Game was tantamount to implying that they weren’t loyal!
“I’m the guy that beat that soldier that time?” Garth mentioned it casually, but that fight was a big deal in the Game world. According to netLINK usage and bandwidth monitoring, that clip was the most viewed piece of Game footage in the last ninety years. His ass-kicking actually beat out live, on-the-scene footage of the spaceport disaster! This was no small thing, since what’d happened out there in Port City was the worst disaster to happen in the entire history of Latelyspace.
The Gamehead community showed staggering increases in membership as nerds raged hot and angry across the netLINKs, shrieking and gibbering a million different beliefs about the outcome. Professionals and armchair quarterbacks alike flamed one another over just how a puny Offworlder had beaten a fully augmented heavyweight contender, forcing site moderators to limit the length of each new post to less than a hundred words. Some of the more eloquent Gameheads waxed philosophical, penning the occasional opus thousands of words long, oftentimes without punctuation or any clear point. Some grew too lengthy, forcing them to purchase space to continue their diatribes.
The fascination didn’t stop there, either: conspiracy theorists -long the whipping boy of Gameheads system wide- had at last found steady footing with their proclamations that Garth Nickels wasn’t an Offworlder at all, but a Mark V God soldier. Reading those particular passages was like reading a manifesto on actual superheroes. A Mark V was the unholy union of Superman, Batman, Wolverine and Captain America, only programmed to be single-mindedly loyal to Latelyspace. The ex-SpecSer mercenary prayed there was no such thing as a Fivesie.
If he had issues concerning his survivability against a Onesie, there was no chance in hell of him coming out of a conflict with a Fivesie. None at all.
Garth found the whole thing annoying as hell. In the last three days he’d been forced to call hospital security nineteen times so sneaky Gameheads and paranoid theorists could be flushed out of the woodwork. He just thanked God Chairwoman Doans and the Game promoters hadn’t made the executive decision concerning his status in the Game publicly known.
Veo saw it was time to interject with more force. Scoom was old school, relying heavily on threat and intimidation to get the job done, and barring the unforeseen, he was quite good at his job. Nickels, on the other hand, wasn’t easily intimidated. It was all in the dossier that Scoom -who belonged to the ‘push ‘em, poke ‘em, hit ‘em, drug ‘em’ school - hadn’t bothered to read. “We’re both up to date on who you are, and the things you … you ‘haven’t’… done, Sa Nickels.”
Garth waved goodbye to the nurse, who smiled at him. He politely ignored the agent’s invitation to hotly deny his activities; if he paid even the slightest bit of attention to the Portsiders, Ashok Guillfoyle, the Devil’s Nuts -basically anything he’d done since landing- he expected the visit would turn ugly real quick. “Then why in the hell are you still trying to convince me to see a woman who probably doesn’t have anything good to tell me? I got blown up, you know. From here on out, I want nothing but good news.” He wiggled his detonated arm at the agents, but since it was perfectly healed, they looked at him like he was an idiot. He put the inoffensive limb down with a grunt of disgust. No respect.