by Lee Bond
“I disagree.” Blue leaned forward conspiratorially. “Footage shows that someone broke into Guillfoyle’s main offices and proceeded to show his men exactly how to be soldiers. Sadly, not a one of those men survived the God soldiers and their … enthusiasm; else, we’d know the truth of it. Now,” he raised a slender finger, “exactly who that person was has been cleverly disguised at the source, using Guillfoyle’s own modeling software, but it is quite easy to infer who the man is.”
“And how is this?” Green demanded witheringly. “Through faith?”
“Hardly faith, sa.” If Blue was upset at the challenging tone, he didn’t show it. “Knowledge is more than adequate in this case. Simply look at what little information we possess of the man’s service record; he worked and fought for Trinity across The Cordon. I doubt there is a single soul in the entire Universe who doesn’t imagine endless tracts of space filled with bloodthirsty monsters and creations ever more bizarre than the last. Fought and survived, to come here. If that isn’t enough, reflect upon his victory in the Arena against an augmented soldier. Not a full Goddie, mind, but quite an accomplishment nevertheless. And if this isn’t enough for you yet, then by all means, take some time to familiarize yourself with stories concerning his miraculous survival. Granted, none of the reporters have used the word ‘miraculous’ outright, but I defy you to label it as anything else. If ever there was a man protected by some higher power, it is Garth Nickels.”
Black nodded in agreement, the hood of his robe bobbing up and down. “I agree, Green. Come, none of us at this table are fools or intellectual midgets. We are intelligent, rational men. If there is to be a single man responsible for Guillfoyle’s demise, it must Garth Nickels. Regardless of what the Chair chooses to believe, as wild as Ashok Guillfoyle’s tales are, they simply must be true. Our old friend may indeed have become reckless, but he was never prone to embellishment. He saved that talent,” he chuckled, “for when he was trying to sell someone something.”
Grey added his voice to the consensus. They then all looked rather pointedly at Green. As the man responsible for … for ‘shedding the light’ on their lives, as it were, he was –in a room full of equals- accorded slight deference. Without him, they would be living lives of quiet desperation. Green had freed them. For that, they would be eternally thankful.
Green shifted under the steady gazes of his fellow disciples. It was clear that they’d talked about this before his arrival and to dismiss their fears outright would be to sow suspicions he could ill afford. “What do you suggest?”
“Before determining a course of action concerning Nickels, we need to first determine if we can continue.” Blue reminded softly. “With Ashok out of the picture and his assets being auctioned off to pay for trials and lawsuits, our coffers are very, very dry. Grey?”
Grey spoke in succinct tones. “We’ve hit something of a snag. Without the last bit of money, we can’t complete construction on the last group of relays. Coverage will be less than a hundred percent. Still sufficient, I assure you, to reach over ninety percent of the system, and with filesharing … The only downside is repairs. If anything happens to a relay, it’s highly likely we won’t be able to repair it. If a primary relay malfunctions between now and then … the entire program becomes pointless. And the things break easily.”
“Indeed they do.” Black commented idly. “And doubly damned so in space. All those rocks and whatnot flying around just waiting to smack into our ridiculously expensive machinery.”
Blue turned his frown aside. “Ninety percent saturation, while not total, is better than nothing. And as you say, filesharing will more than likely fill that gap. We will just have to hope that nothing untoward happens to our equipment. You are certain, Grey, that the signal will reach every proteus, every electronic billboard, every Sheet, every Screen, every main, when the time comes?”
“I am utterly confident, brother, that this is so.”
Green interrupted. “It makes me uncomfortable, Grey, you using the word ‘brother’ so freely.”
Grey turned to Green. “Why should it? Are we not brothers? Do we not share the same goal? Have we not colluded and plotted so intently that we know each other’s minds as well as our own? Does not our … our faith makes us brothers, not of blood, but of spirit?”
Black applauded Grey’s heartfelt speech, but saw the reasons behind Green’s admonishment. “Have a care even still, sa. If words like ‘faith’ and ‘brother’ come too easily to your lips here, they will do so elsewhere. Many won’t pay attention, or will intentionally ignore you, but there are people who listen. Who were made to listen.”
Grey inclined his head. “Point taken, sa.”
Blue, who hadn’t gotten over Garth Nickels –and likely never would-, tenaciously drove the topic back to the Offworlder. “What do we do about this Offworlder? He has already proven to be dangerous. I have no reason to doubt Ashok, and neither should any of you. Any one of us could be next!”
Green shrugged. “The chances of him discovering us are nonexistent. Ashok never mentioned us to anyone, and I think we –I- would know if he had. Should this miracle, sorry, if this should happen, I find it hard to imagine he’d even bother to interfere; where he comes from, philosophical leanings such as ours are commonplace. He himself may even harbor faith within his soul.”
“A valid point,” Black shifted to get more comfortable, “but again, I find myself siding with Blue. Our plan, this paradigm shift, will be painful. We must strike while the iron is hot, or the chance will be lost. Owing to his relationship with Trinity, he may very well seek to interfere. Especially since Doans seems so intent on dealing with that AI.”
Green sighed. The road was long, the burden … heavy. “We cannot take his life. We needs must find some way of peaceably dealing with this man.”
From the postures of the other men at the table, it was clear they’d been thinking precisely of killing or otherwise disabling the man, so Green continued. “Consider the man you wish to … deal with. Consider the knowledge. Trinity soldier, victor against an augmented soldier, destroyer of Ashok Guillfoyle, survivor of the Spaceport Disaster. Do you think we have the resources to destroy such a man? Without destroying half –if not all- of this city? Besides which, any overt attempts on him will bring him right to our doorstep. I don’t know about you, but my chances against him would be terribly slim.”
That got their attention.
Black nodded reluctantly, his hooded robe moving slightly. “So we are in agreement. Something must be done, but we know not what. The time grows late and we’ve all things to do. With that said, I suggest when we meet next, we each of us proffer up some course of action that will protect our interests without taking the man’s life. Agreed?”
They all added their voices to the agreement. Before they left, though, Grey spoke. “We cannot let this go too long, friends. Our deep space relay networks are causing minor variances in the Regimist systems. As of right now, I’m disguising them as simple transmission errors. There’s no more than a three percent disparity so it’s easy enough to hide them. The closer we get to the Finals, the more concerned the technicians will get. I can hide the work orders or push the repair dates one more time. After that, my motives will become suspect and there will be no opportunity for a second time. Sooner or later, work crews will be dispatched to the areas, and they will find our secondary lines and emitters. I guarantee they’ll see what the modified equipment is designed to do right away. Once that happens, it will be an easy feat for one of Doans’ agents to track the materials to us.”
Blue stroked his chin broodishly. “How long, do you figure? Before we … we have no choice but to go ahead?”
Grey shrugged. “Ideally, the sooner the better. I know we all wanted to use the Finals as the launch date in order to maximize saturation, but without Ashok’s deep pockets, we don’t have the finances to make it that far. If we’re sinfully lucky, we can string things along for a week or so, but at this point, we
will definitely not make it to the Final Games. We should keep our eyes open for any other televised incident that can draw in at least ninety-percent viewership before then, leap on it if given the chance. If only we’d been prepared for the spaceport disaster… I digress. As to the errors… as I said, there is a certain element of danger for me personally, if I’m required to fuddle work orders to keep my men from examining those deep space relays. I cannot hide the adjustments from an investigator for long. Once more is safe, two will see me Watergated. Three, and I’m Sigma’d and in The Peak. Keep your eyes open.”
The other three, Green, Blue and Black nodded. Grey had much to risk in the endeavor by being who he was, and their order couldn’t afford to lose another of their highest-ranking members.
“As you say, Grey. Anon, then.” Blue clapped a friendly hand on worrisome Grey’s shoulder as the man scooped up their only means of hiding from their detractors. “Everything will work out fine.”
As always, Green waited for everyone else to leave before leaving himself.
Chapter Two:
The Palazzo – Customer Service Maniacs … For the Right Price
Intrigued by Ute’s explanation of the services provided by The Palazzo, Garth spent fifteen minutes familiarizing himself with all they had to offer. In the course of reading the lengthy document, he learned that The Palazzo played home-away-from-home to a diverse group of people who all had one need in common: privacy. From the superstar Indra Sahari to legislative leaders of the Latelian Regime, they all relied on Hotel staff to preserve the sanctity of their seclusion.
One such system was the security net running through the halls, elevators and stairwells. Designed to detect and destroy any intrusive recording equipment, whether the hard-to-see spEyes or more traditional methods, the net was, as Garth had already witnessed, flawless. The Management made claims that their systems -created by the best and the brightest on Hospitalis- were so advanced that even Agency equipment could not go undetected for long.
Garth wished he could tell Ute that they could change their unfounded claims into factual proof, but wouldn’t. For the ultra-paranoid, ultra-rich crowd on Hospitalis, those claims alone went far to make Palazzo the number one destination for people with secrets to keep.
Another assertion was their vigilant adherence to keeping an eye on every single man and woman the moment they stepped in through the front doors. It started with the people they hired. Configured to randomly check in with hotel servers, every employee’s prote was instantly locatable. If, for example, someone tasked to do laundry was in a penthouse elevator for no good reason, that elevator would be redirected to the security floor, at which time that naughty boy or girl would have some explaining to do.
Incoming and outgoing guests of Hotel patrons were required to make their presence or absence known to the front desk. Unauthorized visitors were forced to wait in the lobby until the person they wished to see deigned to come downstairs while people leaving the hotel were required to surrender their protes to hotel avatars for the purposes of data checking. Typically, it took less than a few minutes, and was quite painless.
Those not wearing a prote –not as rare as one might think-, well, they were tracked relentlessly through in-house cameras and security staffers. Followed even into bathrooms, the only place a person without a prote would be safe from intense scrutiny was in the room of the man or woman who’d invited them. That was, of course, if Hotel security granted them entrance. More often than not, those not succumbing to the universal machine found themselves bounced to the curb.
Of course, all of this was handled discreetly and with the utmost concern for privacy and secrecy. No one wanted to bruise the egos of the rich, famous and powerful or their friends. One bad review equaled dozens of lost clients.
Garth approved of the methodology. Combined, they made the life of overeager reporters quite difficult. But, as big and as bold as The Palazzo’s claims towards absolute privacy were –and they were as big as any Latelian could make- no security system was a hundred percent effective. If he was in a foul mood, he could just as easily call someone up and point out that some woman had, in fact, slipped –not just past the front desk- but past security guards, cameras, in-house spEyes and into his room, where she’d taken it upon herself to spread even more sophisticated ‘blackEyes’ everywhere. But he wouldn’t; his enemies were probably bigger fish than Ute and his crew were used to dealing with.
The very nature of a Hotel as big as The Palazzo meant people could slip through the cracks without too much effort. Delivery drivers, maintenance people, cooks, maids or groundskeepers weren’t mentioned anywhere in the well written brochure. Further, after a second read-through, it became evident that security staff themselves weren’t required to adhere to those rigorous steps.
Ute would certainly swear on his life that his teams were loyal, but the head man struck Garth as one of the few honest dudes on the planet. To a guy like that, no one under his employ would ever even dream of taking a ‘donation’ to grease the wheels.
Still, it was far, far better than nothing, sparing him from constant worries that he was under surveillance inside the Hotel. He was, except this time, it was to his benefit. It was a little weird and it’d take some time getting used to, but he’d make an effort not to be too angsty about it. He just hoped Bravo didn’t make him do something weird or something he’d regret.
Thinking on that ancient machine reminded him how tricky it could be, so he spent a few seconds with his head tilted to one side, ‘seeing’ how he felt. Beyond the now-familiar ever-present fear of God soldiers and a persistent, nagging worry about the Qualifying Fight he’d have to endure before he could battle in the Final Game, he didn’t feel irrationally anything. He smiled. Still in control.
The brochure finished up with a warning for those truly concerned about privacy and secrecy; owing to Regime restrictions, monitoring and tracking devices weren’t permitted to operate beyond the hotel’s ‘internal environment’. Anyone wanting to maintain the highest levels of personal privacy and security were advised not to go out on their patios or to take their meals in the open-air restaurants.
“Wish I’d read this before I went upstairs to stuff my damn face.” Garth took a deep breath.
The sort of gear the unnamed ex-Agency trackers had in their possession could’ve easily allowed them to listen in on his most recent conversation with Herrig. He might be ‘in control’, but he was still out of his depth on Hospitalis.
Garth flicked the brochure onto the coffee table, where it hydroplaned across the slick surface to land beneath one of the couches. Sighing, he picked up another brochure he’d grabbed from the hotel lobby, this one covering the ‘broad’ range of services available to people like him.
The Palazzo was used to strange requests and imperious demands from the clientele. The very same folk who ran their cities, ensured their safety and upheld the law of the land sometimes found it necessary to move things into and out of the hotel without anyone in the outside world being the wiser. No specific claims were included, but Garth figured out fairly quickly that the Hotel made extra cash in large denominations by letting the who’s who cut loose and tear shit up. Maybe that meant hiding a body or two, maybe it didn’t. If security failed to do their jobs properly and a reporter got through their barricades, maybe he’d find out. Probably, he’d be forced to find out before the end of his stay.
Beyond tactful offers hidden beneath layers of smarmy words and glittering prose, guests had been handed a lot of leeway in how they chose to pursue their relaxation. Don’t like the Hotel’s linens? No problem, bring your own. Hate the cuisine? They’ll bring new stuff in from basically wherever you want. Distrust Hotel netLINKs? Employ an on-site technician to verify system integrity or –since you clearly are paranoid and insane- use your own guy. It didn’t matter. You couldn’t upset, embarrass, or irritate any employee of the hotel because you were paying them every step of the way.
Most impor
tantly, if the hotel didn’t have something you wanted, a lackey with supreme levels of honesty would be dispatched to the four corners of Hospitalis in search of what it was you needed.
That was what he’d been waiting to see.
As a freshly minted famous person, Garth couldn’t risk heading out to the storage locker to rescue his accumulation of vehicles and junk. Although the paparazzi didn’t know where he was thanks to the ride provided by Scoom and Veo, sooner or later –if not already- the dirty bastards would find out where he was staying. Heading out to the storage locker, where Ashok’s stolen car and the van belonging to the Portsiders were parked, was a surefire way to invite speculation. When had he had time to buy a car, let alone two? Why did he have hundreds of climbing pitons and several hundred meters of duronium wire? Did he have any explanations as to why he was in possession of two items recently used in the torture-murder of a suspected Portsider gang member? Did he have any comment on the scene of death and destruction at the residence of Jimmish Dorn, a cabdriver known to have been his sole method of transportation right up until the day of the poor man’s murder? What was with all the money in the dead driver’s bank accounts and while we’re at it, where did you get all your money?
Garth shook his head. No. Not on a bet. Not even on a dare did he want to brace the paparazzi until he was damned good and ready, and with a fair portion of his brain devoted to keeping from blowing things up, he couldn’t trust he’d pick up on anyone following him.
He tossed the second brochure onto the table, and watched as it immediately joined the first beneath the couch opposite him. They were going to be under there for a damned long time because he had absolutely zero interest in digging them out.
Garth took a moment to prepare himself mentally for the chore of dealing with the abnormally chipper staff before placing a call on the room’s network.