Subversive Elements (Unreal Universe Book 2)

by Lee Bond

  “No, little one. We are here to process the survivors. Temporary camps and medical facilities are already being erected on site.” Vasily turned his attention to the quietly waiting crowd.

  They were so silent, so accepting of their destiny, that there wasn’t a man in the world who could follow through with an order to kill them as they were. These changes to his people were troubling.

  Latelians weren’t sheep, they were warriors. By every right, the world-weary, battered and bleeding men and women should be foaming at the mouth and trying to bite their way to freedom. Yet they … they just stood there. Horrendous.

  “Sis and sas!” OverCommander Vasily ignored the flinches as best he could. “I congratulate you on your survival. It is beyond commendable. Those of you who wish to contact loved ones or other family members may do. A new Museum netLINK has been installed. Please, follow these officers to the facilities behind us. There, you will be treated for your injuries, you will be fed, and given a place to sleep. In the morning, you will provide us with a statement concerning your activities and what you witnessed.”

  “Are you going to kill us?” Someone asked, his voice filled with weariness. Murmured echoes rose up from the assembly. It sounded as if they’d prefer to be shot, just to have the day done with.

  “No, sa.” Vasily tried to smile encouragingly and failed. He was no good at smiling. “Not today. Today, we all live. Today, we all have a story to tell.” Vasily rubbed the spot on his forearm where his proteus used to be. He felt naked without it and wanted to put the replacement prote on, but his medical advisors suggested he let the cooked flesh heal first. According to those medics, the insufferable itch he felt was a sign he was healing. Vasily wasn’t so sure he believed them.

  “Harry Bosch!” The crowd shouted. “Harry Bosch! Harry Bosch!” They continued shouting it all the way to the red and white striped tents at the far end of the pavement. Sounds of their elation continued for quite some time.

  Alyssa had her work cut out for her. If, over the next twenty years, any survivor died in any way other than old age, what had happened today would come back. The merciless engine of conspiracy would bring The Museum Incident back into the light, wasting their efforts at secrecy.

  Garth was elated. The myth of Harry Bosch was going to kill his own accidental popularity as surely as a man with a flyswatter takes down a fly. That alone made all the suffering he’d endured worthwhile. With Garth Nickels firmly out of the limelight for –hopefully- the rest of his natural born life, he could begin preparing to find and open The Box in earnest, without any more surprises from anyone. God, that’d be nice.

  “Are you tired, sa?” Vasily mused wryly. Gazing surreptitiously at Garth as he and his niece made their way towards the waiting car, Vasily had to look away lest his face and posture betray the sudden, shocking revelation slamming into him.

  One of the primary traits of an OverCommander is the ability to think, to make intuitive leaps that no ordinary human could make and to be right.

  Vasily’s mind wheeled with the effort of appearing calm.

  Garth Nickels was Harry Bosch. There was no way to explain the man’s utter weariness. It held a flavor, carried with it a unique tang that any soldier worth his salt could feel on his skin, and Garth Nickels exuded battle-ache as readily as any fallen Goddie. There was no sign of Garth on any of the News4You footage, and someone as famous as their newest resident would draw just as much –if not more- attention than Bosch and al-Taryin. Besides, Vasily had looked, desperate to make sure Trinity’s pet stayed alive.

  But ... how had Garth become Bosch?

  The answer lay in the thing that’d given Vasily the immediate supposition in the first place; the massively unwieldy, ill-constructed and heavily damaged proteus adorning Garth’s battered forearm explained everything. Pieces of a puzzle clicked into place, giving Vasily answers he didn’t quite know what to do with. Garth Nickels had successfully altered a protean creation unit, a feat no one had been able to come close to in five thousand years of incessant effort. However … improbable … the whole thing was, it was the only theory that made any sense.

  To his credit, Nickels had used his … creation … in an attempt to disabuse himself of unwanted fame and to save the lives of as many Latelians as he could.

  Vasily set his countenance, shrewdly biding his time. Confronting Nickels now would draw unwanted attention to the incredible prote and the identity of Harry Bosch. Alyssa needed time to spin the day’s events, and part of those efforts, he suspected, would revolve heavily around the unstoppable Harry Bosch.

  Besides, Vasily was certain that having Garth Nickels in a position of debt was something to be greatly desired. He might not be crafty enough to become Chairman, but the OverCommander was still quite brilliant. Garth Nickels was a designer of weapons, an engineer of destruction. No matter what other talents the Offworlder-turned-Latelian developed, his genius in terms of warfare could –would- be of vast benefit to the Latelian Regime.

  Whether he wanted it or not.

  Nervously, Garth and Naoko climbed into the vehicle. The OverCommander’s desire to talk to them away from the others was nerve-wracking. The police officer who’d driven it up hopped out and saluted to the OverCommander before clambering back in.

  Vasily got in the passenger seat and looked over his shoulder at his charges. They were both ash grey and barely able to keep their eyes open, though the fatigue in Garth was greater than any he’d ever seen. It was a … it was a miracle the man was still breathing. “The Palazzo, I believe?”

  Garth nodded blearily. “Once around the park, Jeeves, and then home before midnight.”

  Chapter Five:

  Crimes, Punishments and … Favors?

  The Palazzo wait staff could barely contain their … well, their panic.

  The OverCommander of the entire Latelian God Army was standing in their lobby, shouting angrily at anyone who walked by, filling the foyer with a near-hypnotic tirade of insults, epithets and threats.

  Barely comprehensible at times, the content of the OverCommander’s ire suggested that the security protocols preventing him from entering the main portion of the hotel were only functional up until he ordered an air strike to level the motherhumping hotel to the sub-basement, at which time no one could keep him from going any motherhumping place he wanted to motherhumping go because it would all be dead earth and broken bodies.

  Si Anastazia continued apologizing profusely as someone tried to locate Ute, their senior security advisor. Only one thing kept The Palazzo from absolute destruction; Vasily’s prote was smoldering piece of molten slag somewhere in his abandoned command post.

  Garth finally woke up with a snort shouting something about ‘Britney Spears’ just as OverCommander Vasily was about to wrestle someone’s proteus off their arm to call in the aforementioned airstrike against an innocent Hotel.

  Wiping sleep gunk out of his eyes and making an awful face in the process, Garth checked on Naoko, who was slumbering peacefully beside him on a bench, then hustled on over to help the OverCommander out.

  “Hey, uh, hi, uh, wow.” Garth narrowed his eyes at the woman bearing the brunt of Vasily’s wrath, “Uh, Si Anastazia. What’s the … what’s the dealio here?”

  “We were more than willing to have our staff take you and your … friend … up to your room and put you to bed, sa,” Anastazia whispered quietly, trying to return the foyer to its ordinarily system-renowned serenity, “but …”

  Vasily’s face intruded, as dark as the storm battering the rest of the city into submission. Growling, he threw his hands in the air. “She claims that even though I appear to be who I say I am, she cannot prove it because I do not have a proteus. I am personally in command of enough God soldiers to cover this entire building from top to bottom and back again in greencoats and I cannot use the elevators for fear I might inadvertently run into someone doing something they shouldn’t. As if,” Vasily pointed to an overweight man who’d been hiding unsu
ccessfully behind a floral arrangement for fifteen minutes, “I haven’t already seen the Minister for Education or,” he jabbed a finger at the thin woman doing her best to imitate a lamp post, “the Minister for Funding. Who apparently hate each other a great deal. Or so we’ve all been led to believe.”

  Garth put a hand on Vasily’s shoulder and smiled gratefully at Anastazia. “Lissen, I don’t know if you were watching the news today, but um, the Uber-General here… he’s had kind of a rough one. Me and the beautiful woman over yonder were inside The Museum, you know, with all those evil terrorists, and the Gen-Gen here was nice enough to commandeer a police vehicle for the ride over here. Forgive him. He’s not used to having people say no.”

  Anastazia’s eyes widened to the point where they almost took over her entire head. “You were in The Museum? Both of you? They say this terrorist man Vilmos Guelf…”

  “Gualf.” Vasily corrected, bristling at being treated like a common vagrant. He was OverCommander! He didn’t need a motherhumping proteus to prove who he was. When he was fully kitted out, he was going to come and deal with The Palazzo. Was he ever.

  Undaunted, Anastazia continued, “… killed innocent people. Is that true?”

  “Oh yeah.” Garth nodded. “Loads. Dead people everywhere. It was awful. They had all these guns and…”

  “Did you see him? In person? Did you talk to him?” Anastazia oozed excitement.

  “Uh?” Garth asked. Inwardly, he was high-fiving himself all over the place. Long live Harry Bosch!

  “Harry Bosch!” Anastazia gushed. “He was so brave! The way he fought … I had to physically restrain half the men in our employ from rushing out to join the Army today, all because of him. So handsome, so br-”

  Vasily had had enough. Before he could control himself, he slammed his proteless hand slammed down hard on the counter. Anastazia jumped three feet in the air. “Ignoring for the moment that he went to considerable lengths to attack my soldiers and did nothing at all to actually assist the situation, there is no proof that Harry Bosch is even who he claims to be. Plus,” he added ominously, frightening Anastazia out of her wits, “there is the matter of the netLINK hack he perpetrated. He is guilty of crimes even worse than that. If ‘Harry Bosch’ is ever caught, he will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. His suffering will become legendary. I daresay we will invent a new form of punishment solely for him.”

  Frostily, Anastazia ignored every word Vasily said, turning to the only person in the conversation who mattered. “Would you like to authorize this man entrance?”

  Garth felt Naoko’s arm slide through his and he nodded. “Totally. I don’t really want to, except, uh, he is OverCommander. He seems to like hanging out and I’m worried if I don’t let him he’ll start dropping God soldiers on me.” He grinned when Anastazia let loose with an aborted burst of laughter. He continued when he deciphered the dour look on the OverCommander’s stressed-out phiz. “I’m … we’re going to need one of the conference rooms, Si Anastazia. Load it up with food and drink, would you? Something tells me the OverCommander here isn’t quite done with me.”

  Anastazia nodded with crisp professionalism, expediting the order immediately; as usual, the man was going beyond the call of any citizen’s duty; their security chief was down at The Museum, helping the green and bluecoats. She smiled at the man’s nobility. They were absurdly lucky to have him on their staff. “Absolutely and already done, sa. Thank you. Ah. Conference Room 312.”

  “Awesome.” Hand in hand, Naoko and Garth headed for the elevators, an infuriated OverCommander in their wake.

  xxx

  It is a firm and unshakably Latelian rule of thumb that when there is food on the table, idle pleasantries ruled, making an ordinarily intrinsically awkward meal actually quite pleasant. Garth -who’d been expecting to endure the third degree the moment they entered the conference room- was very enthused when Vasily instead commented inanely on the services offered to residents of The Palazzo.

  From there they’d wended their way through a very diverse spectrum of topics, jerking swiftly away from anything that brought them close to his time in Special Service, the OverCommander’s duties as … OverCommander and, naturally, Harry Bosch.

  Naoko –who Garth fell in love with more every time he opened his mouth- guided most of their talk with superfluous ease, bringing up the Game, some fascinating tidbit of history, or anything at all. Throughout it all, Garth tried to analyze the fatigue he suffered from. When he wasn’t preoccupied with that –trusting his mouth to answer any question coming his way- he fretted about Odin; the massive prote was charred beyond comprehension, tiny bits of blackened duronium flaking off every time he picked absentmindedly at it. Whatever had happened in those last few seconds of his aerial battle with Gurant had to be responsible, not only for Odin’s shoddy condition, but for his inexplicable weakness as well.

  Alas, all good things eventually end and no one in the room could forget the reasons why they’d been brought together.

  xxx

  Vasily gazed speculatively out the bay windows behind Garth and Naoko, glad he was able to savor the view. Central was finally at peace.

  From his vantage point high above the city proper, the destruction at The Museum was quite visible and … embarrassing. What an absolute foul-up. Polyphemus’ permanently destroyed carcass leaned drunkenly against the Latelian Bank Towers, military fliers swarming around the blasted thing, recording it from every angle, ancient components no doubt struggling with the avatars’ processing demands as they determined how best to deal with the monolith. He could only imagine the number of civilian casualties they were going to have disappear; Latelians were too curious for their own good and a hundred-foot tall man would have them risking Watergate Men by the dozens. By tilting his head somewhat, Vasily imagined he could see one of Old Tim’s feet.

  Vasily shook his head in disgust. He didn’t know where to lay the blame. Alyssa certainly deserved some. If only she’d ignored Vilmos from the start! Beyond that, though, the … sickness in their streets came from everywhere and nowhere. They were at a crucial moment in their plans, and it was as if the entire system knew something was happening beneath their awareness. Since they were ignorant of the details, their people … rebelled, like teenagers and young children. They kicked and they screamed at everything, even if it was at things that were good for them. Vasily grunted. What a day.

  Sensing that the fun times were drawing to a close, Garth pointed to a huge pile of seasoned onion rings and the plate of fries that both the Latelians had avoided.

  “You guys gotta try these things!” he commanded around his last mouthful of steak, “they’re awesome. And they’re finger foods so they don’t count as a taboo. These are French fries and these here are onion rings.”

  Naoko contemplated the ‘French fries’ and decided to take the plunge. Her Uncle Vasily was eyeing the ‘onion rings’ with dubious concern. The ‘fries’ were incredibly delicious and unlike anything she’d ever tried. “These are amazing!”

  Garth, mouth full of fries, gave them a double-thumbs up, motioning with a handful of onion rings towards the plate.

  Vasily -who normally ate at the base with his commanding officers- was already partially overwhelmed with the rich food they’d already consumed. The ‘onion rings’ looked tasty, to be sure … Naoko nudged his leg under the table, and thus the OverCommander caved to his niece’s demands.

  The taste was astonishing, an absolute shock of flavor. “These are onions?” Never in his life could he have imagined something this tasty coming from onions.

  Garth assaulted his fries with salt and pepper, nodding. “Heck yes. And these,” he brandished a handful of fries before stuffing them into his mouth, “are tates. If either of you are in the stock market or anything like that, seriously consider buying into an agri-farm. The value of tates and onions are gonna skyrocket. I’m letting you in ahead of the curve here. When I get time to figure out how to turn shubin meat in
to burgers … watch out, man. It’s gonna be fast food all over everywhere and it will be paradise.”

  “First of all,” Vasily asked after a few quiet minutes of extra eating, “do either of you need medical attention? As I understand it, The Palazzo has a fine staff of doctors.”

  Garth scratched carefully around the half-healed bullet wound in his shoulder, ever mindful that in his weakened condition it was important that he avoid putting too much pressure on the wound; the last thing he wanted was for Vasily to see him wince or -God forbid- shout in pain.

  It was impossible to forget the look of astute assessment he’d received from the OverCommander back at The Museum. The leader of the God Army was too intelligent by half and the last thing Garth wanted right then was for the man to realize his Number One Subversive Element was weak as a kitten.

  For added fun, it was almost certain that the stoic Latelian was considering it all too probable that he was Harry Bosch, regardless of the insanity of the idea.

  One punch and all of Latelyspace’s problems would be over. He demurred politely then looked to Naoko. The woman, who hadn’t received so much as a bump, shook her head firmly, clutching possessively onto Garth’s arm.

  Vasily nodded, scrupulously avoiding looking at the bullet wound or the dried blood. After his lengthy stay in the hospital under Doctor Sullivan’s ‘care’, it was highly unlikely Garth Nickels would seek medical aid unless someone pulled an arm off, and even then, at most he’d ask for a bandage and some pain pills.

  Beyond having been in The Museum, his niece was remarkably free and clear of injuries. Vasily held no fear for Naoko’s mental health; any trauma she might’ve experienced in The Museum paled in comparison to the sorrow and pain she’d already endured.

  “As you wish.” Vasily gazed austerely at the both of them. “I need to speak with both of you, separately. I am well aware that you will both run to one another with what I say the moment I am out the door, but protocols must be observed and obeyed at all times. Is this clear?”