by Jack Lance
It’s not what you know, but who’s ass you kiss.
Just before it was a raised flower garden with Barton and Cix Beldin tending to it with the aid of a large, spider-like droid. Within its mesh of tentacles could be seen that same clear and coloured cranium as the others.
Bailey jogged up to them where they stood with their backs to him, and hearing his approach they spun around and smiled.
“Bailey!” Barton smiled widely. “Glad you made it.”
“Your food, Sire.” the droid spoke in an electronically drowned tone as it handed a cardboard twist filled with steaming foods to Barton.
Cix was also given one, but she handed it to Bailey.
“Freshly grown, freshly roasted.” she said and Bailey picked a few out with his fingers, and eating them found them to be to his liking.
“Simply delicious.” he said quietly.
“We have a place for you here, now.” Barton said fishing in his back pocket, and then pulled out a keyring with a set of old fashioned keys. “Stay away from the fight leagues from now on. You’re too important to us.”
“Important, how?” Bailey said, looking up from his food.
“We will discuss this with you later today. I’m bringing together a group of syndicate leaders from all sides to meet you. That is… all three crime syndicates here in the city. We all need to speak with you urgently.”
“Golly!” Bailey said with a strained sincerity. “This sounds pretty serious. I really hope I can assist you... with whatever it is.”
“You can.” Cix nodded. “I’m sure of it.”
“Go find your home and get freshened up. It will be the perfect place to rest up after everything you’ve been through.” Barton said.
Bailey looked down at the keys and then squinted at them and said “Alright then. That’s good for me.”
With that Bailey turned and walked back across the green and pink grasses, and then out onto the ring road. He found his street, Carter Lane to his left and began walking along it, searching for number seventeen.
These houses were large detached properties not unlike the kind you’d see back on any custom-terraformed planet. They were quaint and secluded along the side road, blocked off at the end by the down turning subway that led to the private automobile stables.
Bailey had already noticed the wireless stable key on the chain, that could only be for some car they had decided to shovel into the bribery package they had set out.
He strolled along the right path that was darker beneath the shedding tops of the old trees that reached up from each of the front gardens along the way. They were broad, tall, temperate trees from their homeworld, gently dropping their blue brown leaves at the end of the autumn.
Ahead he saw the mail shed for number seventeen and walked casually toward it, it being only one home away from the end of the row. There the road ended and the sink of the stables began, surrounded by a cluster of the same large trees. Nearer to it he could almost see down into the yellow-lit underground parking bays where his car would now be waiting.
It can keep waiting for now. As can the rest of the city.
Bailey licked the food from one of his incisors, momentarily reminding him of the river animals his species had evolved from. They were arguably still carnivorous even in human form, as was the optimal shape of evolution for those born into vertical gravity environments. He doted on this as he ate the rest of the roasted vegetables, and then threw the card wrapper into the gutter, not caring much that it was the only piece of litter in sight.
Bailey looked back up and down the street and then began walking up the curving drive toward his new home.
What a dump.
He kind of agreed, but didn’t know why. Was he used to something far better? If he was he couldn’t remember, along with the other traces of before. Being a terrorist must have its’ own rewards, he guessed.
There was a marble arch in the white face of the wall that led into the ground floor lobby of the home. The lobby ran under the whole of the house and then out through other archways into the back gardens, where the loom of a stilted section of the home darkened the area.
As he approached the center of the cold stone floor a glass and steel elevator plate floated down automatically as he approached with the keys, and he stepped up onto it.
“Living one, two, three, Basement or Attic.” a tinny voice said after a while of standing in confusion.
“Err… Living… one.” he said and the elevator tugged upward briefly and delivered him into the dining room of the house, on the first floor.
He looked around the tall hall with its wood floor and dining table close to a half open bay window. The tall, lace curtains blew gently in the breeze around the first chairs of the table.
Then suddenly in front of him gasses blurred momentarily and the figure of a thin man dressed in formal wear materialized and cupped his hands together.
“Hello master.” he said in a matching formal accent. “Would you like to view your holo screens?”
Bailey said nothing and stepped back onto the elevator plate.
“Living two, please.”
Again the antigravity tugged the glass flooring upward and he found himself in the main living space of the house.
He stared at it all for a moment, with its two tiers of floor and far windows looking out over the gardens. The ceiling was slightly lower here but still continued the same style of décor, as if someone had lived here and left. The same laced curtains blew out of control across the arranged sofas and living room floor at the far side.
A dizziness was taking hold, and he could feel the walls leaning inward, although they obviously were not.
He steeled his mind against those sensations as the same holographic tv guide materialized in front of him.
“Would you like to view your holo screens, sir?” it said formally, and Bailey walked forward and around him.
“The others who lived here. Where did they go?”
“They were caught in a terrorist bomb blast three days ago. None survived.” It said. “Their holo-theatre presets now belong to you, unless you wish to change them.”
“No, it’s fine.” Bailey said, rubbing his now throbbing forehead. “Start it, please.”
Without another word the man smiled slightly and bowed his head, then disappeared. Behind him, along the wall close to where the elevator had arisen, the wall faded away to be replaced by a view of a clapping audience. The live noise hit him, giving the acute illusion that he were actually looking through into another room of the house.
The applause died down and the view moved to the stage where it focused closer on two men that were about to begin some sort of interview.
As the last of the applause died the interviewer cut in “Welcome to the show kind viewer, and also our guest, Morton Fincle. Thank you to those of you joining us live and also to our subscribers who will watch a saved archive as it becomes available later in the week.”
Bailey assumed this had been saved, and set to begin when whoever had lived here had returned, which now would never happen.
“Now Mr Fincle, you are the oldest living member of the Old Gang crime fraternity, or rather their representative group here on Narcosia. This is your first real interview since being exiled, so I suppose the question on mine and I assume all of our lips is… why now?”
Bailey listened intently, and could feel a harsh analysis of every finest detail the ultra definition holographic cameras picked up.
He could feel the cool breeze on his back as he stood, alert with his hands on his hips.
Morton Fincle seemed to squirm slightly, and clearly was at odds with even being there. He had a large beard that he seemed to hide behind, glancing with narrow eyes every now and again at the interviewer.
After a pause he began “I have lived a long time, and living here in this city has seemed like an eternity. Like everyone in exile I have had all age inhibitors revoked and so soon I know that I will die.”
>
Bailey sucked in a breath of the cool air.
“My family has a bad reputation, I accept this, so I guess what I really want is to give some sort of explanation. We, like all of you feel the pressures of prison life. We are used to far greater things and to be sent here affects us more than most. We realize now that we have acted inappropriately, and we want to change. I’ve wanted to change our operation for years but with our family, well change can be slow.”
The interviewer tried to cut in here and said “This will be welcome news to the average lifer here in the city, but going from your record of the past two hundred years you have murdered over sixteen thousand people that we know of, been responsible for the creation of hundreds of terrorist cells that have been responsible for many more fatalities. Torture and extortion of…”
“You’re not hearing me…” Morton quietly cut in, with more than an undercurrent of threat. “People can change. I’ve changed. And soon, everything will change. I’m making a promise here, okay? Anyone can change.”
Bailey closed his eyes, and waited for his rapid mind to cool.
After about an hour of switching between the various saved and live channels available on the local city network he went up to the top floor and began the large shower.
It filled a quarter of the floor with the rest of the room being a toilet and washbasin for two. The rest of the floor was filled with dusty dressing rooms that had been used at one time to ready the occupants for life and formal occasions.
The steam had built up in the room and Bailey swept the condensation from the mirror over the broad washbasin. He stared back at himself momentarily before turning and stepping into the shower basin.
After washing he walked naked through to the closest of the dressing rooms and began to get dried beside those same white curtains, blowing from the light winds outside.
With a towel around his shoulders he walked to the window and looked down the four floors at the garden below, and noticed beyond his back fence, some kids climbing in an old tree.
It was one of many trees on the triangle of grass between the back of his row and the next row over.
He turned around smiling momentarily and then looked over his shoulder at them as they climbed and hung from the branches.
He made brief eye contact with one of the younger boys who smiled a naughty smile back to him, and then started pointing at Bailey and shouting for the others to look.
“You dirty bastard!” he yelled and dropped from the branch.
The boy ran away along the houses, as Bailey frowned at them all. The others stared at him a little confused and one looked to be on the edge of tears.
That little shit.
Bailey watched the kid run away, no doubt to start some gossip snake that would come back to bite him. But Bailey found that he didn’t care, and carried on drying his shoulders.
As time rolled on he instinctively felt that gossip was being generated somewhere, and so closed the dressing room windows and then the heavier, gold curtains. The room was too dark to see, and he stood there for a few moments.
Outside the kid must have brought his father or something, as he heard him cry “Bastard!”
Responding to the darkness the home lit a single buzzing bulb in the middle of the ceiling.
This looks strangely familiar. We’re not out of the cell yet.
Bailey looked around at the tall mirrors that surrounded him.
You must listen and obey or you’re going to get yourself into more trouble.
He looked between his reflections as they each turned to look in a different direction.
We need to create a false ID print from the cards you stole from Gen Colec’s body.
There had been a family here at one time. Perhaps a father, mother and child. For whatever horrible reason they didn’t live here anymore and the place had been retouched for a new occupant. Still, the scars of their life could be seen on everything, but Bailey set it aside in his mind.
He needed to gather his thoughts, this much was obvious. But beyond all of it he saw one single priority glaring out of the night like a piercing star.
“Who the hell are you?” he hissed, finding a reflection that stared back. “I thought you were… that weird thing I killed on the edge of town. But it can’t speak to me now it’s dead.”
There was no answer and he stood for a while, trying to ignore the piercing screeches of the children that still played at the tree.
“What are you?” he repeated.
He suddenly felt lonely, but Bailey was still too happy to care, having found a place to call home.
Right follows right. You will listen and obey, angel child.
“These people have been so good to me.” Bailey whispered in the twilight.
These people aren’t your friends. They are a drug and gambling syndicate and cannot be trusted.
“But they’ve given me a home?”
This place is no use to us. We need to find Gen Colec’s home. There we will make our world away from these worthless people.
Bailey lay back against the canvas curtains, crumpling them against the glass, and in the darkness he sighed.
For the rest of the morning Bailey examined the layout of the perfectly reconstructed suburban home they had given him. He quickly found the home computer in the study on the top floor of the house, and taking the crystal sphere in hand, he returned to the ground floor and walked out to the area below the stilts.
There were a few ponds connected by slate covered rivulets, and Bailey watched the fattened fish as they bobbed dopily together in their enclosed world. He sat at a stone table by one of the ponds closer to the light of the gardens, and then rolled the sphere onto it.
“On.” he said, assuming it was the command to start it.
A pin prick of light could be seen within the glass and then above the table a set of icons sprouted out in a holographic operating system.
He had brought a pocketful of stationary too, and placed it neatly to the side of the now hologram swamped tabletop.
Now we must forge an identity here in the city. A simple double identity.
“What for?” Bailey blurted out as the hologram icons encircled him, awaiting his touch.
The clock is ticking. Those gangsters will be here in a couple of hours. We need a faith between us.
“I trust you. I’m sure of it. But why a double identity? I assume you mean Gen Colec?” Bailey said, looking down at the spinning face of the old man on the left third of the card. “We don’t need it if we are escaping, right? That was the whole plan right?”
A second skin can always come in handy, especially in a technocratic hell hole like this.
“Okay, whatever I guess. But I don’t know how.”
I will guide you, always. We must create a double identity amongst identities. Expand the central window, and let’s poke about the guts of this measly city.
He sat back and looked at the floating collection of pages that had appeared within the orbiting icons. They had appeared by default as chosen by the family, with hardly any of them interesting him.
Bailey followed that dark potential from within, and tapped the centermost page, which was what passed for a search engine here on the prison. As he did the others flew away, as did the spinning icons, only to be replaced a moment later by new icons. The page spread out before him in two pages for forward and backward navigation. The search engine displayed its search box that Bailey then pressed a finger to and began speaking aloud his commands.
“Gen Colec?” he said first, and the pages filled with random information posted about the man on various networks.
The prison internet would no doubt track and record everything biometrically according to the dna print of whoever was touching the hologram surface.
No matter. We’ll unplug from the internetwork before we begin reskinning the identity card.
It was much like the early internet, that had matrixed their society near the end of the 'Age
of Acceleration'. It wasn’t anything like the super-mind that the internet had eventually evolved into but it was a quick way to dip into colony life.
After a few more encyclopaedic searches he found that it connected to a handful of primary networks, with lesser search results pushed way to the back of the listing.
It was all pretty mundane information, and he found already that the most important information was that which he already possessed.
As he surfed and linked between each headline and article about city life he found it a harsh shadow of what their lives would have been had they not been exiled.
A video submission site called ‘We Are Megacity’ showed the sardonic view the exiles had of their prison. There was nothing mega about it, it being locked at a primitive, pre Harmony level.
Each site reflected the city and its cultures, that themselves reflected the popular cultures back in the free world.
Bailey remembered everything about life back in the empire, only he couldn’t remember when and where he had learnt it, or who he had been at that time. Everything he found on these networks were a sad reminder of that lofty existence, and the world they had come from.
The Lantis species were just one of many in the Eclipse Empire, that was the largest of a few similar empires that had gained dominion over the vastness of intergalactic space.
From early in history, like most human cultures the Lantis civilization had come up through its ages. After the first metal ages there had been the industrial age, and then the Age of Acceleration, where people wanted more and faster. And then finally The Harmony, where many sciences combined over the quantum, and from it a new society was born.
Time began again at this point, so it was said, since The Harmony had brought into people’s lives a new blissful form of existence. Advancements had unchained man from his natural limits, from curses such as boredom, aging and disease.