by Lee Bond
He scrunched his face up before answering. It was the truth or nothing, and if Naoko was interested in him because of his fame, then so be it. Better to find out now, before he fell hard. “Not really. I don’t like the idea of people following me around all the time. I had a lot of that in my last job and I’ve discovered I really like privacy. Being famous cramps my style, if you know what I mean.”
“I think that I do.” Naoko’s lips quirked in wry amusement. Maybe there was hope for Garth after all.
They moved on to the next mural in the sequence. This one was entitled ‘Integration of Gifts’ and held the distinction of being a particularly drab historical vision of the then Chairman’s decision to offer prize money to the winner of the Game in order to bolster national pride in The Box.
Garth stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. He couldn’t believe how boring all of this was. Latelian history was crammed full of blood and violence, intrigue and lies but this… he’d been expecting, well, he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been dry as toast wall paintings and stupidly mundane household objects sitting on pedestals.
It was his own fault; from the way the Game itself was crammed full of blood and guts and arms thrown all over the place, he guessed he’d been expecting The Museum to be full of corpses.
“Where’re all the people? I thought this place was the number one draw for the whole entire planet.” Garth made a show of looking for the alleged masses of Latelians that he’d heard flocked to The Museum day in and day out during Gametime.
Naoko pointed down the hall. “At this time of day, almost everyone is in the Viewing Room. Watching the Game.”
Now that seemed like an easy diversion. As a self-professed masterclass supergeek Gamehead, Naoko would probably be thankful he wanted to watch the Game instead of wandering around a Museum she’d already been to a billion times. Anything to stop being subjected to ‘art’.
“Wanna take a look?” Garth started heading in that general direction when she nodded hesitantly. He grinned impulsively, then turned back to look at Naoko. “Hey, I just realized something.”
“What?” Naoko asked, dreading more than anything going into the Room. At this time of day, it’d be full of Latelian teenagers and unethical Gameheads. Knowing what she did about Garth, how he’d spent his life, it was unfortunately just the sort of place that he would love.
“You’re an incredibly beautiful woman.” Garth winked, then turned away. An uncertain grin crossed lips. Now that he’d had a chance to get flattery out of his system, he was fairly confident he’d be able to keep things on an even keel; he’d had to put himself on Blurt Alert Status Red to prevent himself from vomiting up compliments all over the place. The last thing he wanted was a ‘Toots Level Event’. He groaned inwardly.
Toots. Jesus Christ. If he ever channeled a 1950’s greaser again, he’d put his head into a microwave and cook his brains all the way through.
“Oh, you.” Naoko poked Garth lightly in the chest and followed him down the hallway towards the Viewing Room.
xxx
Squads One through Six were highly trained commandos. Each member had gone through extensive, intensive schooling in those arts designed to keep them alive and unnoticed under the invisibly watchful –and frighteningly perceptive- eyes of BCU freaks as well as those teachings necessary to bring their message to a people too complacent to notice anything but large-scale destruction.
The utter devastation at the Old Spaceport was a perfect indicator of the sort of means they needed to employ to evoke the required response. Anything less and the jaded, dispossessed and disenfranchised people of Latelyspace wouldn’t blink an eye. Public consumption of data concerning that devastation still surpassed everything but main fights in the Game.
As such, the no-name terrorists were willing … no, were required to raise their game. What they needed to do was drive a dagger into the hearts and minds of every man, woman and child in Latelyspace, and the only way to do that was to supersede both the Game and The Spaceport Disaster.
The Spaceport Disaster was shocking because of the damage, of the loss of life, but that was it. Over time, even the worst destruction trickled lightly from the minds of the people. What was going to happen in The Museum was going to be infinitely worse.
The squads didn’t know the names or the faces of anyone beyond their own small cell. They wore proteii modified to emit, detect and track a slightly mistuned ‘LINK wave, though, which made connecting easy. Not enough to attract the attention of vigilant administrators, it was an ideal way to identify and be identified by like-minded brethren. Given weeks ago, they all operated on the training and orders of their leader; each of them held in their minds a dozen or more high-profile targets and their place within that mission, and so knew just what to do without the need for thinking about it.
They filtered in slowly, in groups of three or less, passing the lackadaisical security measures with ease. They were ordinary Latelians out for a good time at The Museum and besides, avatars for the place hadn’t been configured to track terrorists. No one in their right minds would ever seek to destroy such a historical landmark, no matter how enraged they were. It was unthinkable.
Pretending to be friends and lovers, brothers and sisters, Squads One through Five began seeding their way through various areas and Halls, weapons disguised as cumbersome umbrellas, tricky three-dee cameras or simply stowed in large duffel bags that looked as though they were full of lunchables.
Alone or in small clusters of three, they were nothing more than people out for the day. Once situated, they waited; the first of the tricky bits was under way. If it failed, the whole op failed.
They were waiting for Squad 6, their tech support, to do their job; 6 needed to get into the control hub for The Museum without anyone at all being the wiser. If anyone noticed or suspected that something untoward was happening, if someone triggered an alarm ... well, that was fine; the hostage taking would switch to an unexpected slaughter. Less effective in driving home the particular message that their leader wanted to deliver, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
6’s most important task once the hub was secure was to assist in paving the way for Squad 7. The members of that Squad were making their way patiently through underground shipping corridors that used to ferry hugely valuable Museum pieces through the city without attracting attention. 7 was bringing with them things that couldn’t get through the front doors without garnering unwanted scrutiny. As they made their way through those underground tunnels, members of 7 left in their wake hundreds of explosives. Necessary only in the event of a subterranean response by the government, the explosives would pull ten miles of streets and buildings thirty feet into the earth.
Without 7’s unique equipment, nothing they hoped to accomplish would make a dent in the legendary Latelian stoicism. Without Seven, the situation they were going to create would be over before it started. Latelians were used to and inured to the worst possible sorts of bloodshed, so any mere slaughter would fade in days. The Regimists needed much more than shock value.
The Regimists needed to control and dominate The Museum. They needed to limit access by regular police and to prevent any other security teams present around The Museum from getting inside.
What they needed were God soldiers. Lots of them. The Regimists needed to force Chairwoman Doans into being the despotic ruler she knew she wanted to be, and they only way to do that was by forcing her to roll out as many God soldiers as she dared.
Once 7 was in place, 6 would shine again.
It wasn’t enough simply to take hostages. That was … uninteresting. No, the only way to turn a simple hostage taking into a systemic news event was by turning The Museum’s extremely sophisticated security systems against the city. The moment the heavy doors, shutters and duronium shields slammed shut, trapping hundreds –if not thousands- of Latelians inside, everyone the world over would know something was going wrong. When they tried to access M
useum netLINKs and failed, they would worry. They’d try to scan the building using other methods, and start to panic when they saw what they saw. When they tried ‘LINKing to individual protes, well, then they’d panic because they’d learn how desperately serious The Regimists were.
When that happened, their leader would start talking. He’d show the captives what they needed to know about their lives, their world, their … everything, and he’d make sure the Chairwoman knew what was happening inside their much-loved Museum.
And then?
Doans would send in the Goddies. It was inevitable, because the policy for terrorism was instant and total eradication at the source. Doans wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to hammer The Regimists –the real and true threat behind dozens of baby resistance groups on every planet in the system- flat. She couldn’t. Not and remain as powerful as she was.
The golden opportunity to destroy the guiding force behind the only terrorist organization to work on all the planets in her system was too great an offer to ignore. She would come at them hard and fast.
The radicals infiltrating The Museum knew their lives were forfeit. They accepted that as part of the natural order of the world. They each knew –and accepted- that change could not happen without sacrifice.
Everyone who died that day would become martyrs to the Old order, to the sanctity of the Regime. Their deaths would strengthen the survivors against Doans’ dreams of Trinity colonization. They’d force her to reconsider her stand. At the end of the day, Latelyspace would have their ironclad ruler back. They would be reborn as a newer, stronger Regime. One that would force Trinity to stand and take note.
Or, just as equally, the system would burn. Either way.
All hail Latelyspace.
xxx
“Are we ready?” The hastily nominated leader for the Philosophical Brotherhood’s even more hastily thrown together team looked nervously over the forty men and women Chosen because of their controversial attitudes and -in some cases- downright peevish behavior, they weren’t necessarily gelling as quickly as their leaders had been hoping.
They were the lowest rung on the Brotherhood’s ladder for their inability to realize that primary amongst many errors ancient religious groups failed to recognize was that violence as a method of preaching to the faithful lasted only so long. Sooner or later, the meek did inherit the earth, and the first thing the meek did was put down all the zealots and crazies. Usually with fire. If fire wasn’t available, they turned to whatever was at hand, which were usually rocks.
Then if the old books were believable, they went about creating a benevolent and sensible society with realistic rules and committees, all without the need for fairy tale gods holding an unknowable afterlife above their heads for failure to believe in invisible beings.
The group chosen to inhibit the activities of the political terrorists didn’t see things that way. They saw their new directives as a chance to prove that Latelyspace would react positively to a bunch of armed faithful killing a pile of political ideologues. In their deepest of minds, each peon wrote greater and evermore dramatic scripts for themselves.
Were they ready? ‘Sort of’ seemed to be the general answer.
Leader Blue checked his weapon for the fourth time. He wasn’t very keen on the idea of going up against people who -according to Grey- really knew what they were doing, but also understood that there were no other options.
The Brothers’ assessment of the situation was perfect. If the terrorists were able to turn the opportunity of a Sigma Protocol to their advantage by staging something shocking, no one would even notice their own ‘silent-but-effective’ religious indoctrination scheme slated to happen later that very same week.
Leader Blue personally thought the notion of sending everyone in the system a cryptic message ‘designed to force them to become introspective’ was the dodgiest load of crap he’d ever been expected to swallow, and he’d initially rejected the notion of worship quite strenuously to begin with. This was why he was ‘leader’. His feelings on the matter were known by and shared by everyone in the transport bus, only that much more intensely. They all knew that the best way to give someone religion was to cram it down their throats and crush their brains with it until they woke up one morning singing hosannas.
“That’s really not good enough.” Leader Blue -whose real name was Tommy Dinkins- said loudly. “We have the power of our faith behind us. We are the righteous ones. We will prevail against mere political buffoons. It isn’t through that kind of ideology that the Latelian System will survive. It is through one of faith, belief, self-awareness of the greater cosmic mysteries and the Divine that we will grow.”
“Give it a rest, Tommy. We know what we’re doing. Just wish we had more time to prepare is all. I mean,” Dianaca Montress shook her head, “we’re sitting in a rented bus waiting to hear from The Hidden Brothers for confirmation of where we’re supposed to be. As soon as we get the go-ahead, we’ll be fine.”
Tommy Dinkins licked his upper lip. “Awesome.” He checked his gun again. Seconds later, an all-points issued from one of the Hidden indicated they should make haste for The Museum of Natural History. One of their informants had spotted a known terrorist entering the West wing carrying a cumbersome backpack.
Tommy threw the bus into gear. They were going to bring some old time religion to the unfaithful heathen terrorist/idealists in a big way.
Glory to Latelyspace!
xxx
Chad was developing an appreciation for Hospitalis. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was that made him feel … comfortable, but he did know it was bloody unacceptable.
He was an assassin, dammit, and the last thing he should feel anywhere but in the rotten underground of Zanzibar was comfortable. He was in enemy territory surrounded by godless heathens. Now was not the time to start looking at China patterns and picking out a color scheme for the bathroom. Oh yes, and lest he forget, the bloody damn Voice loved Hospitalis. He’d not had such a fucking awful time with the insane mind hidden inside his own lovely brains since he’d first come back from… since he’d first come back.
The Voice loved Hospitalis, and that was reason enough to want the whole fucking planet to burn like a melting marshmallow.
Besides that, he was On the Job and there was no more time for mucking about.
Like most of edifices on Hospitalis, The Museum was megalithic. Easily twenty stories at its highest apex, the structure could and often did house upwards of fifteen thousand clambering, yammering Gameheads. Chad had learned all this from an info-kiosk located just outside the north entrance of the main complex and was not impressed his Job was walking around inside. These Latelians were insane. What if one of them tried to kill his Job?
He couldn’t very well handle that sort of pressure.
Furthermore, the museum was broken down into four distinct quadrants; each section was devoted to a specific area of ‘Natural’ History, and from there, each broke down again to cover individual items of note. In the very middle of The Museum was a huge amphitheater-style coliseum where guests could sit in relative luxury and watch the Game with friends. It was a maze in there, with hundreds of blind alleys, awful corners … it was a nightmare. Worse, his Job was in there!
Chad hated the notion of having to go inside. Garth Nickels was the sort of man who’d know he was being followed and would probably devote an unfair amount of time trying to figure out who was following him. Any Latelian looking at him would probably just shrug their shoulders –or run screaming in terror- but the Job would know right off that something wasn’t quite right about the eight foot tall cyborg lounging idly against a wall.
“It is not my fault I is so ‘andsome.” Chad griped aloud. “I is a work of art.”
Making matters worse, the Voice was shouting inside his skull to be free. It was a wonder he could hear himself think with all the yammering.
Going inside with all that extra noise was likely to cause pro
blems. It was just a matter of who was going to experience those problems.
“Bloody bastards.” Chad muttered to himself, pushing along through the crowd waiting to go inside. “All a bunch o’ lunatics, is wot you are.”
Stopping at the ‘donation’ kiosk, Chad pointed a talon-tipped finger at the freak inside. “Don’t even fink about askin’ me for a donation, lad. You is not wantin’ wot I is feelin’ like givin’, yeah?”
“G-g-go right in, sa.” The attendant stammered. “F-f-free one millionth visitor.”
“’s wot I thought you was goin’ a say, sonny Jim.” Chad looked over his shoulder at the crowd he’d just pushed through.
The Museum was positively crammed full of lumbering, doe-like Latelians. They were everywhere, and since he was largely ignorant of Latelian culture, he wasn’t sure if large duffel bags in a crowd like this one meant anything. For all he knew, the bastards lugging the heavy-looking totes around were going to put on a show in the main hall, dancing around like xenophobic fairies, proclaiming their power and might over the rest of the proper world. Chad broke the door open, impatient to wait for the automatic swing arm to finish its job.
Parking himself in the middle of the huge lobby, Chad cocked his head to one side. Being a cyborg meant he had all kinds of neat gadgets and wonderful toys at his beck and call, but one thing that onboard computers and software programs couldn’t compete with was instinct. Chadsik al-Taryin had been an assassin long before he’d been body-and-brainnapped by a bored alien race with too much time and not enough understanding of human physiology on their hands.
His instincts -honed through decades of effort- screamed that something was wrong.
Well, not really wrong, as such, but … ‘wrong’. There was something about the way all the gormless goons were wandering around carrying things as made no sense to him; the weather outside was a bit iffy, but didn’t call for umbrellas. And there were quite a few more large bags and duffels than he’d imagine as proper for a place like this. He really didn’t think that they were all going to tra-la-la around in the Viewing Room.