by Jenn Thorson
The pair snickered and bobbed their heads in affirmation.
“Running for OL-fraggin’-IU?”
Backs didn’t answer, just folded his arms under a smug smile.
“Well, you are ancient; your brain was bound to go free-space at some point. But flamin’ Altair, Backs. You really think you’ve got what it takes to sway public opinion, pull some major Underworld scores, and scrap that self-important slaggard, Zenith Skytreg?” Rollie asked. “Because, you know, I was rather hoping to do that last bit myself someday.”
“Who’s Zenith Skytreg?” asked Bertram quietly.
Fess cringed. “Aw, here we go …”
Backs was already gathering in a chair for Bertram, and motioning him into it. “Zenith Skytreg is the current Official Underworld Leader for the whole GCU. Big into overblown PR and fundraising, but offering absolutely no substantial reform for our group interests.”
“You make it sound like you’re organized,” Bertram observed. “Like a union.”
“Union? Hardly. Smart Underworld dealing, son, is a craft. An art.”
“Formally, we’re a Society,” Rollie explained.
“And Skytreg has made a mockery of that art,” continued Backs. “Publicly, he takes credit for all the key Underworld deals, the biggest unifications, the greatest in illegal acquisitions, and the most important uprisings …”
Nodding, Rollie input, “Last time I saw him, Skytreg was all over the Uninet, claiming to have personally led the Feegar Rebellion. The Feegar Rebellion, if you can believe that!” The other beings exclaimed with shock and outrage.
Bertram had never heard of the thing.
“Well, three of us fought in the fragging Feegar Rebellion,” Rollie went on, “and I know firsthand that Skytreg wasn’t out tending to the fallen Klimfals or rallying our troops to victory. Zenith Skytreg is a liar and a coward. All celebrity and no tsarangees. And he has sullied the good name of the Underworld by his example.”
“He’s very popular, though, isn’t he?” said Wilbree. He moved one of his playing pieces on the board.
Backs grinned. “Not for long. That’s what I’ve been saying. So shall we show him, fellahs?”
“Errr,” Wilbree choked and coughed. “Show him? Show Rollie?” He tossed a quick, terrified expression to Fess. “Um, you all go ahead. I’ve got to … um … got to … Fess?”
“Gonna finish up here,” Fess said, twirling a playing piece between his digits. “Wilbree’s gonna owe me a serious pile of yoonie cards by the time I destroy him in this game. I’m not missing out.”
“That’s right,” said Wilbree with a relieved grin. “Fess is going to destroy me. We’ll catch you gentlemen later.”
“Suit yourselves.” Backs turned to go.
“But, say, Backs!” Fess called, putting up a thoughtful digit. “Ya sure you guys don’t want to just hang around with us instead, and watch Wilbree’s painful defeat?”
“It’s certain to be dramatic,” encouraged Wilbree.
“No, Fess,” Backs said pointedly. “You know how I hate reruns.” He motioned to Rollie. “C’mere, Tsmorlood. Got something you’ll want to see.”
Bertram might as well have been invisible, and this total shift in attention intrigued him. Out in back of the little domed bar, he tried to tug the tail of his flannel shirt out of the now-closed hatch of Backs’ spacecraft.
His admittance had been close—almost painfully so—and he could still hear the metallic ring of the door clanging shut just behind him. What would it have sounded like with just a fraction more Bertram in its path?
Cursing quietly under his breath, he unbuttoned the shirt and slipped his arms from the sleeves, feeling chilly and strangely vulnerable now in the underlying t-shirt of his prestigious Plus-D’Argent University.
He’d assumed he’d been invited—and why not, really? It was his hallucination. But now Bertram found himself hanging back in the dark entryway, silent and unsure. Beyond him, Backs pressed a button revealing a room, empty except for a few supply crates, crates that sat like a small island in the room’s center.
Backs grinned up at Rollie. “Ready, mate? You ready to see the score that’ll put me on the Underworld star charts?”
Arms folded, Rollie gave the crates a critical glance. “Plan to impress me with your non-perishables, do you?”
But at Backs’ voice command, the entire back wall dropped into the floor, opening up a second storage area behind. Stacked straight to the ceiling were rows of pressurized shipping boxes, all of them emblazoned with the logo of a robotic hand holding what looked to be a snack cake. They were marked with various sets of numbers.
Bertram was just trying to make sense of them, when Rolliam Tsmorlood already had. He flew toward those boxes like a large, wrathful raven. “DiversiDine Quad Four shipments? Sector Nine?” he spat. He spun on Backs, eyes narrowed and jaw set. “Oh, ‘It’s a craft. It’s an art.’ Very nice, you hypocrite! Might as well have just fragged me permanent, you two-faced Deltan slaggard.”
“Now, son, surely—”
He clenched and unclenched his hands, then turned to the cases once more, shaking his head. “Not enough companies in the blasted GCU for you, you have to go after my target group, in my assigned Quadrant, my Sector? Were you working it all along, or just when you thought I’d gone soft and left the game?”
“I—Well, it wasn’t the first time you fell off the back of the GCU, kid, so—”
“And you dragged Fess and Wilbree in, too, didn’t you? … No, don’t even bother lying, it was written all over Wilbree’s pasty face. Tell me—” Rollie seized Backs by the throat and shoved him up against the wall. He had pushed him to the rafters, removed Backs’ gun and tossed it out of reach in one fleet move. “—What’s to keep me from killing you as you stand?”
Backs’ feet were well off the floor.
“You were out of circ, kid,” Backs croaked, trying to strike a casual pose, despite his place on the wall. “Vanished. You could have been living large on Blumdec, life-merged to another young lady who didn’t appreciate your career path, or sucked into a black hole clear across Quad Two, for all we knew.” He gasped for another breath. “Way I see it, I was helping you out,” he wheezed. “Picking up the slack.”
“The slack,” Rollie growled. “The slack.” He dropped Backs and turned away, closing and unclosing his fists. “RegForce’ll be picking you up, you flash this stuff around. You’ve just proven the Underworld’s gone to rot. There’s no solidarity, no honor anymore; someone’ll spill. Then when DiversiDine learns their pretty packages took a detour … They aren’t hesitant to haul in fellahs who cross them. Believe me, they’re not as charitable as I am.”
Bertram sighed quietly in the shadows. Backs sighed against the crates and massaged his purpling throat.
“In fact,” Bertram caught an orange spark in Rollie’s eye, “I’m not that charitable.” He pulled the ergonomic gun from its holster and waved it generally at Backs and the crates. “Let’s have a look and see if it’s something I want.”
At first Backs acted like it was a joke. Then Rollie aimed more precisely and Backs realized the wind had changed direction. “Now, come on, Rollie … Rollie … this was my big break. As you so often point out, I am not exactly young anymore. I may not get many more opportunities for OLIU.”
“You can work on becoming OLIU with your next big score. I won’t challenge you; you know I hate titles. Now open it,” he said.
Frowning, grumbling, Backs pressed a panel on the side of a crate and the crate opened. From his vantage point, Bertram couldn’t make out what the box contained, but Rollie stepped forward and peered right inside.
A smile spread across his face, slow and amazed.
And then he started to laugh.
“What?” asked Backs. “What’s so funny?”
Now laughter rang out off of the metal ship walls. It was like it was the best joke anybody had ever heard, but Bertram hadn’t caught the punchline.
“Soft drinks? A load of DiversiDine Entertainment Systems and Aeroponics soft drinks?” Rollie clapped Backs on the shoulder and holstered his gun. “Holy Karnax, Backs, you had me all worked up for nothing! You rip off the single biggest manufacturer of prime piratable goods … And is it holowatches? Or vis-us? Or the latest implantable phone seeds? No! You loot a freighter full of fizzy kiddie drinks. You were gypped, mate. What a scab kind of score. If I was you, I’d be blasted embarrassed to show my ugly face round the Underworld while toting this.”
“Your ugly face, and I’d be embarrassed anywhere,” Backs said, but without his previous ease. Realizing he’d lived to utter it, he nudged Rollie. “Really, Tsmorlood, how can you not love this? It’s a brand new product, not even hit the shelves. I should be able to grab a pretty yoonie for something that’s not yet been released. Not to mention the publicity it’ll bring on Uninet news when DiversiDine reports the theft.”
Rollie raised a doubtful eyebrow and picked up one of the bottles. “DrinkThis? They named it DrinkThis? Well, I’ll say one thing for it: it’s direct. You try it?”
“You know I leave the soda-pop to the little ones. You feel free, though. At least take one and save it. For posterity.” Backs winked. “Be able to say you knew me when.”
“Like I won’t remember you long after you can’t anymore, you old zonker.” Rollie examined the bottle amusedly and, shaking his head, dropped it into the pocket of his coat. He looked up, only to spot Bertram’s shirt dangling from the hatchway.
Backs zeroed in on it a moment after. “Where’d that come from?”
“It seems we have a guest.” Rollie scanned the room, and it was no time before he’d settled his gaze on the shadows in the corner.
Bertram could only hold his breath and try to be very, very small.
“Ludlow, I see you,” Rollie said. “And you can stop scrunching. You’ll pull a muscle.”
Bertram exhaled, straightened, and took a half-step into the light.
“Son of a Keeltsar,” said Backs, hand to his forehead, “how long’s he been?”
“Whole time, it looks like.”
Bertram said, “Uh, well, the hatch was …” He hooked a thumb toward the hatch and how it was …
“Closed,” observed Rollie.
“Um, yeah,” said Bertram.
Backs grimaced. “What is the deal with this Tryfling, Tsmorlood? Did you get him on a bet or something?”
“Were it that simple,” Rollie acknowledged. “And you’re right, mate. This has gone way too far. Looks like I’m going to have to take care of it.” Rollie stalked toward Bertram and twirled a dial on the wall, opening the hatch in the door. The plaid shirt tumbled to the floor and, as Bertram snatched it up, Rollie grabbed hold of his other arm and started ushering Bertram Ludlow down the ramp.
“Look, Rollie, don’t. Don’t ‘take care of it,’ um … It- it’s already ‘taken care of.’ It’s great, it’s fine, it’s practically fixed itself.”
“We’ve a miscommunication,” said Rollie quietly, “me and you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Real or delusion, you’re under the misapprehension that just because the Seers bribed me to pluck you from the comfort of your primitive Tryfling home-unit and drop you into the cold, black expanse of the GCU, that I am in some small way responsible for you.” Rollie’s low, firm tone was actually more chilling than if he had been shouting.
“No, no, never,” Bertram insisted.
“But I’m not the answer man, am I? I’m the A-to-B-to-C man. So this saving your planet gig? It’s out of my range. Will it be natural disaster? Or war? Ten to one, it’s just some fragged-up fantasy from three spaced-up wardens. So what I suggest you do is, raise a few yoonies, find an understanding cosmic tour guide, and just hire yourself a—” A large shadow fell over the ramp and they gaped up at a sleek, low-hovering space vehicle. “—Interplanetary Cruise Vessel,” Rollie breathed.
“OOGON BUNGEE,” buzzed the voice from the audio projection system. “HALT IN THE NAME OF THE PODUNK PEACE GUARDS.” The pulse from the sound rattled Bertram’s vital organs.
“Strange,” Rollie whispered. “Local boys.”
“And looks like they have a new toy, too,” said Bertram, squinting at the gleaming, flawless ship surface. Flawless, except for the price tag still stuck to the side.
“OOGON BUNGEE, YOU ARE BEING PLACED IN OUR CUSTODY UNTIL YOU CAN BE EXPEDITED TO QUAD FOUR FOR A HEARING ON COUNTS OF PIRACY. DO YOU SUBMIT?”
Rollie called up to them, “I submit that if you’d learned to do a voice print or, perhaps, proper sneeze identification in that fancy contraption of yours, you’d see you’ve got the wrong fragging men.”
“WE HAVE CORRECTLY IDENTIFIED THIS AS OOGON BUNGEE’S ICV. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SURRENDER.”
“And what if we just bought this ICV from some guy out in Quad Four before we came here, eh?” asked Rollie. “That all the same to you, too?”
There was static for a moment, then transmission cut off abruptly.
The portals of Backs’ ship were dark and still. Bertram wondered if Backs were in there, securing himself into storage with his stolen soda-pop.
There was some whirring from the Peace Guards’ vehicle overhead. Bertram tried not to look nervous. Rollie gnawed at a fingernail in a bored way.
Then: “OUR COMPUTER-MATCHING SYSTEM CONFIRMS THAT WE HAVE MADE A MINOR MISIDENTIFICATION, AND THAT NEITHER OF YOU ARE POSITIVE VOICE PRINTS FOR OOGON BUNGEE.”
“There you go,” said Rollie.
“WE DO, HOWEVER, HAVE A POSITIVE A-LEVEL MATCH FOR ONE ROLLIAM TSMORLOOD, WHO WE SEE SHOULD PRESENTLY BE SERVING A 300 U-YEAR SENTENCE FOR FORCED ENTRY INTO PRIVATE PROPERTY, ILLEGAL SEIZURE AND REMOVAL OF GOODS, USE OF AN UNLICENSED ARMAMENT WITH CRIMINAL INTENT, THREE POINTS OF ASSAULT, AND … OH, A LOT OF OTHER STUFF.” The voice sounded thrilled.
That happy, elated voice was the last thing Rollie and Bertram heard before the Peace Guards figured out how to work the ship’s exterior stun ray. Bertram imagined vaguely, before his brain numbed over, that they’d probably started working that one out the first day they got the thing.
Chapter 4
“Okay, ‘Lock up’ … Lock-up … Lock-up …” Bertram heard a sigh from somewhere beyond. “Hey, Zlotni, I don’t see no ‘Lock-up’ listed.”
“Try looking under ‘Containment,’ then,” suggested someone, presumably Zlotni.
There was a pause. “Nothing. Why didn’t this manual come on infopill?”
“Because I asked for print. I don’t trust those infopills. I don’t like putting foreign contaminants in my body.”
All of Bertram’s effort went toward turning his head, and the world did a 180 swivel with him. His stomach tried to turn itself inside out and expel the nothing Bertram still had left inside it.
A third voice piped up, sounding nervous. “Ohh, he’s twitching! Hurry, Wezzag, one of ’em’s twitching!”
“You want hurry, Nak? Here: you look for it, then.” This was followed by a loud thump. “I miss our old cells, Zlotni. What was wrong with our old cells? And our guns, our old guns? And our old—”
“I’ve found it!” said Nak. “‘For Arming the System.’ Page 63!”
“Great, let’s hear it.”
Peace Guard Nak cleared her throat. “‘Now that you finish install of Klinko LK-31 Prisoner Confinement System, kindly ready yourself to enter a very exiting new realm of inbreakable security. Please to welcome to the knowledge that, in proper use, the Klinko LK-31 will be always having for you a highest level of safety comfort with even your most dangerful apprehensions. It has specials super sensor to detect movement in confinement cell area. Also, it measure heart rate of cell occupant (if occupant is containing heart org
an), as heart rate rise may indicate suspicious activity and nervousness in many life-form. Klinko LK-31 Prisoner Confinement System is unharmable to hand-laser shooting, flame, and extreme weather condition if outside in its placement…’”
Zlotni grunted. “Are you using Translachew on that at all?”
“Look,” said Nak, “that’s what it says.”
“Skip a little,” Zlotni told her.
Bertram opened an eye and could make out some blurry uniformed beings standing in the narrow hall on the other side of the bars. One was leaning over a technical manual roughly the size of a mini-fridge.
“‘To begin good use of Klinko LK-31 Prisoner Confinement System, you are first to be finding the Klinko Prisoner Confinement System keypad.’” Nak looked up as one of her fellow Peace Guards motioned toward the shiny new keypad.
“Good,” she continued. “‘Once it is to be in your eyeball-looking, find yourself pushing the green Start button.’”
Wezzag reached over and depressed a button on a keypad mounted on the wall. A bulb embedded in the hallway ceiling went green, bathing the cell block in a weird, slimy glow. “Next?”
“‘… But only after you to push the blue Clear button for clearing system …’”
Grumbling, Wezzag presumably pushed “Clear” and then the green button, which re-lit the hall light. “What now?”
“‘Now enter sixteen-digit number code which you choose.’” Nak looked up. “Anybody got a number in mind?”
Zlotni handed Wezzag a slip of paper, and he keyed the numbers into the system.
“Okay. ‘Now you are to be pressing the red Arm button.’”
Wezzag pressed the red button. The light in the hall shifted from the bright green to a warm, deep red.
“‘And congratulations are to be had for your arming the system with good happy success,’” finished Nak.
Wezzag peered over her shoulder at the manual. “That’s it? We’ve done it?”
Nak reread the passage, apparently determined that nothing was missed and, throwing her entire weight against the tome, managed to snap the giant book shut.