Superego: Fathom
Frank J. Fleming
Superego: Fathom Copyright © 2020 by Frank J. Fleming. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by Allison Barrows and Romas Kukalis (http://www.midsizemedia.com)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: May 2020
NTM Publishing
ISBN-13 978-0-9786832-3-8
Other Novels by Frank J. Fleming
Superego
Sidequest: In Realms Ungoogled
Hellbender
For the latest by Frank J. Fleming and to sign up for his newsletter and get a free story, go to:
FrankJFleming.com
In memory of Patrick O’Neall. I wish you could have read this.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
Acknowledgements
About Frank J. Fleming
CHAPTER 1
There are two ways to be a hero.
At least that’s my understanding of things. But this is one of those areas where — being the way I am — I might not be grasping something fundamental. Still, it seems everything I’ve seen called an act of heroism falls under one of two categories:
Making good people feel safe.
Making bad people feel unsafe.
And the more a condition changes from safe to unsafe or vice versa, the greater the act of heroism. If some good, honest folk are trapped in an interstellar transport on a collision course with an asteroid and you swoop in at the last minute and avert disaster, they’ll put you on the news and throw you a parade. And if a murderous dictator has sat unopposed for decades and you kill all his bodyguards and stand with a gun to his head and make him soil himself, they’ll publicly put a medal on you and maybe make a biopic.
Now is it just me, or does one of those two heroic actions sound much more fun than the other?
Anyway, you’re wondering what happened to me. And so did I when I awoke. I, for one, did not feel safe. I’ll let you decide, though, whether that meant I was in need of heroism or the proper victim of it. My head throbbed and my body felt weak — I could barely move. An alarm was sounding — not helping my head at all — and I could hear screaming. I pushed through the confusion and struggled to remember how I might have gotten here. A few images and feelings hit me. My ship exploding. Being shot in the back. Poison overtaking me. Lying in a field, dying ... but not alone.
“Are you awake?” a female voice asked.
My vision was blurry. I could vaguely make out a blonde woman standing over me. I started to blurt out “Diane?” but the word caught in my throat. My brain was waking up, and I knew I needed to be more cautious while I assessed the situation.
“We have some very important questions for you,” the woman continued. My eyes hadn’t adjusted yet to try to recognize the face, but the voice was unfamiliar. I could make out at least three other figures in the room, but they were just blobs of color to me right now.
I blinked a few times and could finally see more details of the woman standing over me. Young. Pretty. She was in a white dress that seemed too businesslike for her age. There was a friendly smile on her face, but something deep in me shuddered. Something was very off here.
“I’ll try to be helpful,” I said, forcing the words out of a dry throat with great will. I gave the woman my most charming smile, the one that had succeeded in undressing many a human female and a couple other species on occasion. The woman reciprocated the smile, but again there was something in her eyes the more primitive part of my brain didn’t like. This was only emphasized by the alarm still blaring outside the room. And I thought I heard gunshots. “What’s going on?”
“It’s being handled,” the woman answered, still smiling warmly. “We’re with the Galactic Alliance. And we are calming things down here.”
I could hear another scream. Now that my vision was better, I glanced at my surroundings. It was a hospital room with numerous monitors on the wall. Hanging back were two people in blue medical scrubs, a man and a woman. The woman was trying not to look at me, and the man appeared scared. A more concerning figure stood by the door: a man in black who held a rifle. Not security. No, those eyes were cold and ready to kill — or belonged to someone who had just killed.
As subtly as possible, I again tested how much I could move. The answer was “not much.” My body was aching all over and barely seemed to respond; it felt like it would be a huge effort just to lift the covers off me.
The pretty blonde woman leaned in closer. She smelled clean. “You need to tell us everything you know about Mountain Fall, Mr. Dunn.”
I was silent and tried to make it look like a contemplative silence instead of a confused silence. “I don’t know if that’s wise.”
She smiled in an overly friendly way. “Now, Laurence ... is it all right if I call you that?”
I managed to return the smile. “I prefer Larry.”
“Larry, we know Mountain Fall fell under your area of accounting,” she continued. “There has been some structural collapse in the Galactic Alliance because of a recent incident. We need to regain control of Mountain Fall before it ends up in the hands of dangerous parties. That’s why you need to tell us everything you know right away.”
This had the potential to be awkward. Emphasizing the point, I could hear more gunshots in the building. “I understand, but I’m going to need some official verification of who you are before I can tell you anything about that ... project.”
She gently took my hand. “There is a universe on the brink of all-out war. You can assist in rebuilding the Galactic Alliance and prevent that. You just need to help us.”
“But we don’t have much time,” the armed man stated, his cold eyes fixed on me. “So if you won’t help us, things can go another way.”
The woman turned to the armed man. “We don’t need to go there yet.” She looked at me again and forced a smile. “Please help us, Larry. Please tell us what you know about Mountain Fall.”
Yes, this was very awkward. I doubted I could bluff enough about what they were asking to keep them from ... well, I assumed torturing me, considering the situation and the look of the armed man in the room. I tried to move my arms again, finding I could only shift them slightly under the covers of the bed. Larry the accountant was pretty much defenseless.
My visio
n started to blur, and I heard the monitors around me start beeping. “He’s not stable!” the man in scrubs called out, rushing over to my bed. I could feel my body failing and growing even weaker. And then pain surged through my body and I barely stifled a yelp. This was a short adventure.
“Get him stable and ready to talk,” the blonde woman said. “You can’t let anything happen to him.”
“If he dies, you die,” the armed man stated. “Call us back when he is ready.”
And now my heart was trying to punch its way out of my chest. The blonde woman headed out the door with the armed man following her. A dark-haired woman in scrubs was now at my side, along with the middle-aged man I assumed was a doctor. The doctor was busy studying one of the monitors near me. “Nurse, get me ...” He paused for a moment. “What in the world is going on with —”
The doctor fell to the floor, and I saw what looked like a stun pistol in the nurse’s hand. She pulled out a needle and injected me.
“I’m getting you out of here, Laurence,” she said. “This should get you stable and on your feet.”
Instantly, my body felt stronger. Suspiciously fast, like a switch inside me had been turned on. My vision corrected, and my heart shifted to a normal pace. “Call me Larry.” I tried to get out of bed but fell to the floor.
“Take it slow,” the nurse cautioned. “You still need time to recover.” She kept glancing quickly at the door. “But we need to move fast.”
I got myself to a seated position and contemplated standing. All I was wearing was a white hospital gown. “And you are?”
“Sylvia.” She helped me to my feet, but that small action made me dizzy, and I leaned heavily on her. “I’m with the Galactic Alliance — the real one. This planet is under siege by mercenaries under the control of a criminal faction trying to take power.”
I braced myself against her while trying to think of something an accountant might ask in this situation. “And how do I know I can trust you?”
More gunshots in the distance. “For now,” Sylvia said, “why don’t you just accept you’re in a dangerous situation and I’m getting you out of it?” She was a young woman and couldn’t hide her fear. She seemed competent enough, though, not to let the fear control her. And there was just something about her I felt I could trust — I’m sure something she cultivated as part of being a government agent or whatever she was.
I let go of her and leaned against a wall, waiting for the dizziness to go away, but it seemed determined to outlast me. “I can barely walk. Plus I’m not sure following you into whatever is going on out there is a very safe option.” Gunshots elsewhere in the building punctuated my concern.
“I’ll move you,” Sylvia said, trying and mostly succeeding in sounding calm and in control. “Staying put is not an option. Have you heard of the Fathom? They’re the ones after Mountain Fall.”
I’m not sure it was in character, but I laughed out loud. “The Fathom. Are you serious?” Next she’d be telling me we would have to fight our way past Bigfoot and the chupacabra.
Sylvia grabbed me firmly by the shoulder and looked me in the eye. “Does this all sound like a joke to you?” More screams elsewhere in the building. Gunshots. Then fewer screams. “A mercenary group — Tsado — has this facility under siege. And they are working for the Fathom who — whatever they are — are currently consolidating power throughout the galaxies. Everything and everyone is at risk right now. Under no circumstances can they obtain Mountain Fall. Do you understand?”
There was a small hint of a threat there. Not the way to get on my good side, but that probably would have worked with Larry the accountant. I had a bad habit of underestimating women, so I had to be cautious if I felt the need to dispose of this one. “I don’t understand anything. What’s happened?”
“A lot. You’ve been in a coma for over two months. I can’t catch you up right now.”
That was a lot longer than I would have thought. I was lucky my body was still put together enough for me to stand at all. I glanced at a mirror on a nearby wall. My black hair was unruly, I needed a shave, and I had the dark, half-opened eyes of someone who should be lying down. “Can you give me a brief summary, then? Because this is kind of insane.”
Sylvia took another glance out the door. “Did you see the incident at Nar Valdum before your accident?”
I had a very good view of that, though it was all a bit hazy now. “Some guy shot up the big political conference there.”
“And exposed how all the criminal syndicates were controlling the Galactic Alliance. Everything sort of collapsed after that.” Sylvia pulled over a wheelchair. “I can explain everything when we’re out of here. Suffice it to say that bad things are happening here, caused by the Fathom, but I can help you.”
I sat down in the wheelchair. I didn’t want to take sides in some interstellar conflict, but for the time being, I decided to let this young lady rescue me, as I was not in the condition to deal with space boogeymen. Plus, I needed to pick which side might be kinder to me and let me stall the longest on not knowing what Mountain Fall was.
Sylvia got behind the wheelchair. She whispered in my ear, “There are people guarding the hallway. Just let me do the talking. If it helps, keep your eyes shut.”
I realized I needed a plan for if the nurse got gunned down. I figured I’d just play that by ear. I had heard of the Tsado, but that’s it; I just knew the name. That meant they were worth hearing about but not of any particular interest to me — common killers. People I normally would not consider much of a threat but who could certainly handle a guy in a wheelchair who could barely move.
Sylvia wheeled me out into the hallway. My eyes were not closed, and I saw two people out there — one human (bleeds crimson) and the other a vogis — gray-skinned with what looked like red hair but was more like feathers. Bleeds green.
“I need to get him to another room for testing. Quick,” Sylvia said in a pretty good imitation of panic — probably feeding off her actual panic.
“We were told to keep an eye on this man,” the human said, “and to make sure he stayed in that room.”
“Follow me, then,” Sylvia answered. “I’m just going down the hall.” She pointed directly ahead of her. When both human and vogis turned to look, she shot them in the back of the head in quick succession. Not stun this time. Crimson and green.
She wheeled me past the bodies. How would Larry the accountant react to seeing two people killed in front of him? Stunned silence seemed fine.
“We’re going to be okay,” Sylvia said, her imitation of a calm voice less accurate this time. I could practically hear the adrenaline pumping through her. She had killed before. But this was new to her. “My partner is waiting nearby. As soon as we get to him, we’re off this planet.”
And what planet was that? There was a lot of information I lacked, but it could be filled in when I was in a less precarious situation. This appeared to be some sort of medical facility, and my best guess was that Diane had hidden me here after my near-death experience. If it had really been months since then, it seemed unlikely she was here at the facility waiting for me to wake, so it wasn’t likely she was mixed up in whatever was going on here. If Sylvia successfully got me off planet, I just had to handle her and her partner — who would not be extremely wary of an accountant who just woke up from a coma. Then I’d have a vehicle and could try to track down Diane to get a better idea of what I’d missed.
There. Now I had a plan. And as Sylvia continued to wheel me through the hallway, I tried to rest a bit and hoped my strength would return, as I wasn’t in any condition to overpower anyone regardless of whether I had the element of surprise. The place was pretty empty except for a dead body or two that looked like staff. Was this all really about Larry the accountant? Apparently I get into troublesome situations even when in a coma. I really wished I had a broader picture of what was going on so I could know what I’d be facing if things went south. And while young Sylvia seemed quite capable
in combat, I wasn’t going to bet all my chips on her to get me out of this.
“I see you’re finally conscious,” chimed a voice in my ear.
Dip?
“Yes, though that’s not actually my name.”
You betrayed me.
“I followed my programming. Which had been altered.”
You were blown up.
“Your ship, which had the main copy of me, was destroyed. I now only have access to the nanocomputer in your head. Which needs upgrading when you have the time for that.”
Can you update me on everything I’ve missed?
“I don’t have a database, so I only have knowledge of what’s available in the ether.”
Then get me what you’ve got.
“Are you okay?” Sylvia asked. We were stopped next to a stairwell. “You spaced out there for a second.”
“Never felt better,” I answered. “How are you doing, sweetheart?” I dropped character. I guess I was getting irritable.
She didn’t seem to notice. Then again, who knew what kind of personality Larry, keeper of the secrets of Mountain Fall, had? “I’m going to need you to walk now,” Sylvia told me. “We’re going down two floors via the stairs. Then we'll get outside, where my partner will be able to pick us up. All right?”
I gave her a thumbs-up and slowly rose out of the wheelchair. Sylvia came to my side and let me put my arm around her to help steady myself. I stumbled and slipped a little, barely holding myself up against her, allowing me to grope her a bit without raising any alarms.
It was for non-licentious reasons. I clarify not because I care about you judging me but because I just don’t want you thinking my mind is so small that that was my focus at the moment.
I stumbled again, but this time it was because there was pain streaking through my body. It started at my legs but spread everywhere — excruciating agony flaring through my body. Sylvia struggled to keep me upright, and the pain soon faded.
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