Subversive Elements (Unreal Universe Book 2)

by Lee Bond

  And yet … the Latelians used it to make their Sheets, and by association, proteii, and had done so for thousands of years.

  Safe nanotech.

  It was the only answer to make sense.

  What an impossible answer, though!

  Garth was glad the noisy workmen and their boisterous comments on the nature of the damage done to the suite had driven him out. If they’d been civil, he wouldn’t have been drawn to the Extruder outside his door to satisfy an itch.

  And now, two hours later, an epic secret had been revealed.

  Safe nanotech.

  It was like the Philosopher’s Stone, the Holy Grail, or Annette Funicello’s belly button; everyone wanted to see it, but it probably didn’t exist.

  The first thing to draw his attention were the dimensions of the Extruder; roughly the shape of a middle-class Suburban refrigerator, the miracle of modern technology simply didn’t have the storage capacity to hold individual Sheet-shells or the circuit boards that went into its production.

  Nor was there room to house the different robot arms required to build a Sheet in a more traditional manner.

  The second was speed. Clocked in at just over three minutes, the most expensive and therefore most complex Sheet took the same time to produce as the cheapest, Seiko-like hunk of crap.

  The third -and weakest- of his speculations was ‘unit degradation’. A mass-produced Sheet coming out of the Extrud-o-Matic Series 8 had an operational life of no more than fifteen days, regardless of cost or complexity; it wasn’t a matter of battery life because the particular Sheets he was choosing to build were solar-powered. The matter itself began to fail after those fifteen days! Of course, caveats on the machines he’d come across all preached the perfection of the proteus over the Sheet, citing the ‘replacement toy’s’ lack of longevity as reason enough to part with the money to buy the real deal.

  Delving into a Sheet’s help file on troubleshooting showed an extensive list of problems that developed the closer the end days came; everything from a ‘leaky’ screen to minute shocks from the exterior casing all pointed to microscopic cellular breakdown.

  But that was for Sheets. Made quickly and cheaply, they were designed to fail, to force someone into owning a proteus. Garth surmised that if you really felt like it –and had access to the configuration files of an Extruder- you could build a Sheet that would last as long as a prote.

  Unlike their poor cousins, proteii were designed to last. According to everything he’d read on his adopted people, it wasn’t unheard of for them to wear the same proteus for sixty years or more once they stopped growing. And then there was the ‘Prometheus Device’. Fully five thousand years old, it’d adorned the forearms of Chairmen and women since time immemorial. If there was one thing he’d learned out there in the nasty old Universes, it was that nothing lasted that long.

  That is, nothing outside Latelyspace lasted that long.

  Safe nanotech!

  His life just got a whole lot easier.

  xxx

  Steve and Joanna watched Garth dance around the Extruder and the guest in 414, shaking his hips and throwing his arms around wildly. Without audio, the whole thing was incredibly funny, and before they could control themselves, the two Service people burst out laughing. A few seconds after that, everyone else was watching the footage as well.

  Coughing to cover his laughter, Steve clapped his hands loudly. “All right, people. We’ve had our laugh for the day. It seems that whatever Sa Nickels wanted to discover, he’s discovered. Dispatch housekeeping to the floors where our illustrious guest has been to gather up all the Sheets. Issue an apology to 414; tell the man we’re sorry for the intrusion.”

  Joanna raised her hand and waited patiently until Steve was done glaring his subordinates into doing their jobs.

  “Yes, si?”

  “What do you want to do with all those Sheets?”

  Steve paused. He hadn’t even thought of that. “Have … have them … tell them to give the Sheets to Hospitality. Tell Hospitality to pass them out at the front desk when people leave.”

  “And when a guest asks what’s going on?” There wasn’t a single guest in The Palazzo who’d accept a Sheet without some kind of explanation. And of those guests, close to 99% of them would almost certainly toss it into the trash the moment they left the building.

  Steve smiled. “Tell them it’s a limited time special offer. Oh yes, and contact the people who fill those machines up. We can’t have people from the first floor wandering up to the eighth, sort of thing.”

  Joanna nodded appreciatively at Steve’s suggestion to give guests the Sheets. Word of mouth was a wonderful thing, and although it was a ‘small’ gesture, nothing was better than free.

  xxx

  No more than twenty minutes later, Sa Steve received another call from Si Joanna. No matter how funny everyone found the man, Steve opted to deal with the situation in his office down. Knowing his team, he discreetly activated workflow monitors to track the actions of his subordinates. If he was right, Garth Nickels was getting into someone’s hair again and his staff was nothing if not predictable.

  After the Extrud-o-Matic Debacle, the Offworlder’s antics were mesmerizing.

  “Yes, Si Joanna.”

  “Sa, it’s…” Rather than finish the sentence, Joanna sent the data off to Steve’s office. “Well, as you can see…”

  Steve could see. Garth Nickels had taken it upon himself to wander into the kitchens and was, if he was seeing properly, attempting to cajole the staff into letting him take a stab at five star cooking.

  “Shall I dispatch Security, sa?”

  “Nnnooo…” Steve said slowly. “Not just yet. Keep an eye on things. If one of the chefs starts getting emotional, then yes, but until then …”

  “Sa, have you forgotten the last incident with Chef Charbo?” Joanna reminded sweetly.

  “Actually, si, I hadn’t.” No one in The Palazzo was ever likely to forget the infamous incident where Charbo tried to stab a high-ranking minister for complaining her steak was underdone. In the chef’s defense, the foolish woman had ordered her meal ‘blue’, the wound had healed without permanent disfigurement and the head chef had apologized.

  For the time being, Charbo was staying out of Garth’s way, wandering around the perimeter of the main cooking area, a lion ready to protect his pride. Steve pursed his lips. Charbo knew the mandate towards pampering their guests as well as anyone but he was extremely temperamental at the best of times. “Sa Nickels is very capable of protecting himself.”

  “Very well, Sa.” Joanna ended the call.

  Staring at his monitors for a long moment, Steve sent a message off to Joanna suggesting that she give the lead sous a heads-up that he may be required to come in on his day off.

  On screen, Garth continued gesturing wildly …

  xxx

  “Look,” Garth said again, with greater enthusiasm, “you’re not listening. I’m telling you the Human race is genetically programmed to eat deep-fried foods. It’s, it’s like a dietary requirement or something. Just … lemme give it a shot.” He was on a roll. If he was going to reinvent fast food anywhere in the known Universe, it was going to be in The Palazzo’s massive kitchens. He’d never seen anything like the equipment in this Hotel, not anywhere, on any planet. Toss the fact that this was the oldest civilization of humans anywhere in all of existence and you had the very real potential that racial memory would cough out greasy food all on its own.

  Charbo bulled into the small group. He’d had enough. As Executive Chef, he understood it was necessary to tolerate the foibles of the rich and famous. But only so long as they understood where the line was. But using animal and vegetable byproducts to cook with? And … and having someone invade his kitchens with the idea? It was bad enough the food they prepared had to be eaten by buffoons with unsophisticated palates, morons who couldn’t tell if something was good or not unless the price tag was in the thousands. No, this … this inv
asion was an outrage! Charbo took a deep breath, prepared himself to be sycophantically polite, and spoke. “Sa, please, enough. The sorts of food you suggest sound unhealthy.”

  Garth looked at Charbo and snorted. “Yeah, like you all don’t have the metabolism to rip through the saturated fats in a heartbeat. ‘sides,” he replied calmly, “it’s not like I want anyone else to have this stuff. Just me. And I don’t care if I have a heart attack. I need some motherfucking French fries.”

  Charbo stood there, plucking at his lower lip. It was evident the man was desperate to attempt to make ‘French fries’, and his insistence that he was the only one who’d eat them seemed sincere enough. To be fair, the idea was intriguing; he’d been listening in on the man’s outrageous explanation of ‘fast food’ for some fifteen minutes before intruding, and while the majority of items explained sounded positively rife with saturated fats and other deleterious ingredients, a whisper in the back of his head said they might taste wonderful. “Will it get you out of my kitchens?”

  Garth nodded assiduously. He was reinventing real American cuisine here. If fingers needed to get chopped off to see it happen, that was very likely what was going to happen, dammit!

  Charbo snapped his fingers. “All of you, back to work! Sa Nickels and I will undertake this fool’s quest together.” When the kitchen staff returned to their assigned stations and began preparing meals, Charbo pulled Garth off to one side. “What is it you require for these ‘French fries’?”

  The actual resurrection of fries as Garth knew them was unlikely in the extreme for a few reasons. To begin with, a far healthier Offworld tuber had replaced the potato six thousand years ago, spreading to all corners of the Universe like the bloody plague. Infinitely hardier and fast growing, the tate was as ubiquitous as the potato had once been, only for much, much longer. Garth and the tuber -commonly called ‘tate’ on thousands of worlds- had a long-standing love-hate relationship; he’d already tried this trick in a few different kitchens on other planets with disastrous results, but those joints had nothing on The Palazzo.

  His long-time quest for culinary resurrection had also revealed that oil had become an outlawed substance thousands and thousands of years ago. Long enough ago, it seemed, that five thousand year old Latelyspace carried those same health restrictions. No matter. The Chef was in on the deal.

  Garth prefaced his explanation to Charbo with the admission that he knew very well that what he wanted was the least healthy thing he’d ever be called upon to fabricate, and that he, a world-renowned chef, was lowering himself to never-before imagined depths by condescending to assist. But he didn’t simply tell the man about what it took to make fries, oh no; he told Charbo about drive-ins and Saturday nights and drinking your face off in the bar and needing fries and a million other things he realized he hadn’t known about his own memories. As he spoke, Garth marveled at the revelations. It wasn’t enough to explain why or how he was where he was or why he’d done what he’d done, but he was suddenly –gloriously- that much more … complete … with the telling.

  Charbo was not immune to Garth’s silvery tongue, and listened with patience as the Offworlder outlined what was required to make these ‘fries’. Listening to the man’s mystified recollection of things called ‘drive-ins’ filled the chef with an inexplicable longing, his inner eye burning with the thought of a restaurant like that. That was for later, though. For now, it was about these ‘fries’. Armed with an encyclopedic memory of recipes and ingredients and superlative creativity, Charbo motioned for Garth to stop after ten minutes. “I believe I can make this happen for you, sa. But, a caution; if I fail to produce what you want, you mustn’t come down here again and try this with anyone else. Ever. These are my kitchens. Do you understand?”

  “Totally.” Garth held a hand above his heart. “I totally promise.”

  “Excellent.” Charbo shooed Garth towards a chair and turned to one of his assistants. “I need the following items, and quickly…”

  xxx

  Through the surveillance cameras, Steve watched Charbo work on the tates, knife a precise blur of sharpness. Off to one side, Garth grinned like a loon. When the Master Chef prepared to dump the finger length pieces into a jury-rigged vat of boiling oil, Garth leaped to his feet and hurried closer. In went the ingredients. Out they came a few minutes later. Drawing a furious stare from Charbo, Garth’s hand snaked in to grab a fry before the chef could prepare them any further.

  The Service manager did his best to ignore the cheers and shouts of happiness from the main work area as Garth began, again, dancing around the kitchen; as expected, the whole of Surveillance had spent precious time absorbed in the Offworlder’s antics. When Garth shoved a fry into Charbo’s mouth, Steve thought for sure the chef would lose his mind and start flailing around with the ever-present knife at his waist. When the five star Chef not only didn’t try to kill Garth but started eating more, Steve relaxed.

  Satisfied that the two men were going to get along fine, Steve thumbed the PA system. “All right, sis and sas … time to get back to work. Sa Nickels and Chef Charbo aren’t going to need any assistance from us.” Groans of disappointment reached his ears, but the workflow monitors showed all of them were back to their jobs.

  xxx

  Charbo opened his mouth to ask Garth what other ancient recipes he’d like to attempt to resurrect when the man’s Sheet went off. Frowning apologetically, Garth shrugged, grabbed another handful of fries, and left the kitchen.

  When he was far enough away from the cacophony that was a five star kitchen, Garth accepted the call. His heart thumped happily when Naoko’s luminous green eyes filled the Sheet’s tiny screen. “H… hi.” He stammered.

  “Hello sa!” Naoko waved prettily. “How are you this morning?”

  “Things … are heating up.” Garth shoved the remainder of his fries into a passerby’s hands, indicating as he hurried into an elevator that they were edible. “Now that I get to talk to you.”

  Naoko blushed. “You are a sweet talker.”

  “Meh.” Garth said casually. “Only with you.”

  The two of them stared at each other across the ’LINK, feeling slightly foolish and unsure where the conversation could go after such an exchange.

  Garth, content to gaze into Naoko’s jade eyes for the rest of his life, regretfully drew the awkward silence to a close. “So, uhm, I thought I wasn’t going to get to see you until tomorrow.”

  Naoko nodded. “This is still true, Garth. Or,” she added craftily, “at least in person. My father was unexpectedly called in to work this morning, giving me a few hours to myself.”

  “Cool.” Garth smiled pleasantly at a couple who boarded the elevator with him. They were both clad in swimming apparel and carrying damp towels. “This place has a pool?”

  “Closer to an ocean, sa.” The male replied boastfully.

  “Wow.” Garth turned his attention back to Naoko. “This hotel is nuts. I found out this morning that my suite has another floor! Can you believe that?”

  “Where you are concerned, I am beginning to think anything is possible.” Naoko tried to calm her fluttering heart, but it wasn’t working. Every time she saw Garth, all the feelings -inexplicable or not-, drew her to him with a vengeance. “But, this isn’t why I called you.”

  “Oh.” Garth nodded politely to the couple when they left. He tried not to let his worries show. “So what’s up?”

  Naoko pressed her lips together for a moment before hesitantly speaking. “I … I need to make sure what you said the other day wasn’t just boasting.”

  “Huh?” Garth got out of the elevator and shouldered his way past a few workers who were finishing the additional touches he’d decided to add to the foyer.

  Once inside, he whistled low. The work was impressive, more than he would’ve believed, given both the damage caused and the time made available.

  There was no hint that a few hours ago the main rooms had nearly been demolished. Everything from the
windows to the furniture was brand-new, perfectly installed. Oh yes, and the curtains were now non-offensive and they’d replaced the mangled balcony railing without saying a word.

  Grinning, he plopped onto one of the human-sized couches. It was nice to have regular-sized furniture. It was bad enough to be afflicted with a near-permanent case of penis envy; sitting on furniture built for giants was demeaning. He’d finally perfected the Art of using Oversized Bathroom Appliances, though, which was … nice.

  His ears pricked as he heard the sounds of hammering and cursing come from what he’d mistakenly imagined as the master suite; the carpenters were putting the stairwell in the bedroom he’d been using because they’d flat out balked at destroying the ‘flow’ of the foyer and main areas.

  “About … about your still being in the Game.”

  “Oh, uh, yeah. Nope, it’s all true. Executive order, the whole nine yards. Don’t have to fight anyone but the final competitor in my weight class and then it’s into the Finals.” He grinned. That command from Doans was about the only good thing to come out of his first week on Hospitalis.

  Naoko chewed at the inside of a cheek. It was plain Garth didn’t understand the ramifications of bypassing the entire Elimination series! Without that vital exposure to Gameheads and ‘regular’ spectators … Garth Nickels was an amazing man –to be sure- but when he found himself in dire straits inside that arena, the only thing to save him would be crowd reaction. They might very well be enamored of him for his heroic endurance in regards to the Spaceport Disaster, but that was different. The Game was …was The Game. You didn’t meddle with something that was a systemic pastime.

  “Do you have a copy of this Executive order?” She asked smartly.

  Garth nodded. “Yep.” He fiddled with the Sheet’s controls, located the necessary electronic document and sent it to Naoko’s proteus. “There you go. Signed, sealed, delivered.”