Superego-Fathom

by Frank J. Fleming

  I looked Sylvia in the eyes. “I know you don’t trust me — and that is probably the smart move — but know I am going to end this. You’ve done your part ... you’ve done more than could be expected of anyone. Now go with Diane and take care of yourself, okay?”

  I saw a few more arguments boiling, but she seemed to sense the uselessness of them and let them go. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you, Sylvia.”

  “Apologize,” Dip told me.

  “Sorry for ...” I thought of all the slights I had given her, and it was too long a list to go over. “For having to deal with me.”

  “And tell her you couldn’t have done this without her,” Dip said.

  I don’t know if that’s true. I probably would have found a way to do this all by myself.

  “As things worked out, her help was crucial,” Dip answered. “Admit you needed that help.”

  I suppressed a sigh. “We couldn’t have done this without you,” I said, and it came out sounding surprisingly sincere.

  “Have you heard from Wade?” Diane asked Sylvia.

  “Yes, he’s not fully recovered, but he’s helping the Calipa resistance, which is under attack again,” Sylvia said. “A new Fathom-controlled government formed after the bombardment of Calipa. I think they had it in place and waiting.” She looked at me. “I’m afraid you’re no longer their representative.”

  I shrugged. “I’m too moral for politics.”

  “Anyway, I told Wade to get back to Redden’s ship as soon as he can,” Sylvia continued, “but I’m not sure when that will be.”

  “He’ll be fine, I’m sure.” I did not care about Wade. “Oh, there is one thing I need.” I looked at Diane. “Do you have something capable of interstellar transmit — something with a camera?”

  Diane motioned to a nearby cabinet. I opened it and found a small device with a camera and microphone meant for concealment. There was another, larger boxy device with it that looked like the receiver. I took them both. “So this will work with any relay it finds?”

  “It should,” Diane answered.

  I handed her the receiver. “I’m going to transmit something. When you see it, I need you to transmit it everywhere. Everywhere. I want it as public as possible.”

  Sylvia looked alarmed. “If this is about Mountain Fall, you can’t make that public.”

  “It won’t be about that,” I assured Sylvia. “When the transmission comes, though, I need you to make sure Redden and anyone else important sees it right away.”

  “What is it going to be?” Sylvia asked.

  I smiled. “Don’t worry; it’ll be good.” I turned to Diane again. “And I’ll need some pistols. Biggest ones you’ve got.”

  “There are plenty of guns in the armory,” Diane said, with perhaps the slightest look of disgust.

  “What do you need guns for?” Sylvia asked. “The place should be empty.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.” I took one last look at them, lingering on Diane. “Well, I need to get going.”

  “Be safe, Rico,” Diane said. Her expression was too complex for me to read. There was worry, but I could tell it wasn’t just for my physical safety but something deeper. And there was something else going on there, but I couldn’t hope to understand what.

  I briefly had a notion that I should grab her and kiss her before leaving, but I dismissed it. I wanted something from Diane I was never going to get, and I had to learn to be content with that. “Be safe, too,” I said and left.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It’s just us now,” Dip said as I watched the Prodigal disappear.

  “Just us,” I said aloud. The little ship — about as small as I’d seen a ship with a jump engine — had been a bit battered in our escape from Guiliv, but it had sustained no real damage. “Have you calculated where we’re going?”

  “Yes, I have,” Dip answered. “I’ve interfaced with the navigation and should have Mountain Fall’s next destination based on the codes. Should we jump?”

  “Let’s go.”

  I felt gravity shifting as the stars outside the cabin changed to a new pattern. This was more empty space but not for long. Into view materialized a very boxy-looking space station, one with giant detachable compartments for storage. It had lots of gray blocks all bunched together, with one large windowed compartment in front that would be the control room of the jump engine. I moved my ship to dock with that section, soon finding a small enough docking port to connect with my craft. Some basic Alliance codes were enough to get the craft to respond to me, the port connecting to my airlock and letting me inside.

  I emerged into a hallway and was hit with the stale air that had been recycled for decades with no one breathing it. The hallway led to a large open room with high ceilings and monitors everywhere. The monitors reported on the contents of the different containers of the ship, readouts of weights followed occasionally by video feed. I watched them for a little while. Here it was — the thing everyone was after. The final destination.

  An odd feeling crept over me. It was hard to discern at first, but something was spreading through me. Not pain, though — more the opposite. The Fazium that was keeping me alive was a sort of ache — a background pain — that I had become used to and almost tuned out, but now that was fading. That wasn’t the only thing fading, either — all the strength and feeling in my limbs began to leave me as well. I fell to the floor, barely able to hold myself up with my arms as I heard something. Footsteps. I wasn’t alone.

  I pulled one of the large pistols out from under my coat — a heavy Arco X5 blaster that felt like a giant weight in my hand — and fired at one of the figures heading my way before I could even see who it was, but the gun just made an odd noise on the trigger pull, like it didn’t have enough power.

  “Having some trouble there, Rico?” I looked up, and the first person was a figure in a white mask with red eyes — Drav — backed by six other Shade operatives in white masks. They didn’t need disguises, though. Their intentions for me were obvious, and they wanted it so.

  The one who had spoken was someone new. Beside Drav was a large, physically intimidating human male. I had never seen him before, but his crooked smirk was very familiar.

  I struggled not to lie completely prone on the floor. “What did you do to me?”

  “A doctor helped you on Vesa,” the man explained, his smirk begging for a punch even more. “She shared the medical information with the Old Alliance — and I’m afraid some of that made it our way. A lot of interesting data there. Including the kill codes for the Fazium that’s keeping you alive.”

  The poison. It was now attacking me unabated. All the feeling was leaving my body. I tried pulling the trigger on my gun again, but still nothing happened.

  “There seems to be a disruptive field here that breaks most electronics,” the man said. “You’re looking rather helpless right now, aren’t you?”

  “Are we even needed?” Drav asked.

  “I thought he might not be alone,” the large man answered. “Or he might have a trick left up his sleeve.” He stared down at me, enjoying this too much. “But I think he’s all out of tricks. I guess he thought he was safe here — didn’t realize the bank had two copies of the data key and we were still on his trail.”

  “So are you the real one?” I asked. “The real one of whomever I’ve been talking to through the Messengers?”

  He laughed. “You will never get within a million parsecs of doing any real harm to the Fathom.” He motioned to himself. “This is basically another Messenger. We decided to always use females for the purpose of diplomacy, but this here is not about diplomacy. I want to end you, Rico.” He cracked his knuckles. “And I want to feel it myself.”

  “So what the Messengers felt all went back to you guys?” I asked. “You felt all those times I killed you?”

  “It meant nothing to me,” the Messenger said. “You really don’t get it. You think you’ve been threatening us and outwitting us, but
you’re just a cockroach. You’re a hard-to-kill little pest that was never a real threat to us — just an irritation. But that’s over now, and it’s time to crush you once and for all. But thanks for helping us get all this.” He motioned to the room and monitors around them. He turned to Drav. “So how’s it looking?”

  One of the Shade operatives was busy at a monitor. “There’s ... there’s a problem,” he said.

  The Messenger’s smile finally faded a bit. “What problem?”

  “It’s empty,” the operative answered.

  “The Old Alliance couldn’t have gotten here first,” the Messenger said as he joined the operative at the monitor.

  “No,” the operative answered. “It says the place was emptied decades ago.”

  I laughed, the shaking almost causing me to fall flat to the floor. “Well, this was a bust.”

  “No matter,” the Messenger said as he walked back toward me. “We didn’t need this. We never needed this. The Old Alliance needed it to have any hope of delaying the inevitable, but it is almost finished. All that’s left is —”

  The room began to quiver as the station’s jump engine came to life. They could probably all feel that strange feeling in their guts that goes along with getting shifted through space, but my body was too numb to feel a thing.

  “How could we jump?” the Messenger asked. “That shouldn’t have happened yet. It hasn’t been an hour.”

  I laughed some more and looked up at the Messenger. “Do I scare you?”

  “We’re not scared of anything,” he said, though now looking frustrated. “Nothing can touch us.”

  “You’re scared,” I said, barely managing a smile. “I told you I would find you all and kill you, and as safe as you Fathom have convinced yourselves you are, I think deep down you know I’m coming.”

  The Messenger frowned. “I’m tired of you. You die now.” He stood over me and cocked back his fist to punch me in the head. He swung forward with all his strength, but I caught his fist in the palm of my left hand. I kept an iron grip on his fist and slowly rose to my feet, the expression on the Messenger’s face becoming something that did look a lot like fear. The expression was turned into a bloody mess when my right smashed into his nose. A second blow and you couldn’t even see a face through the blood, as the Messenger dropped dead to the ground.

  It had felt like my strength had left me, but that was just the numbness — the loss of feeling. It was all still there, now uninhibited by my body’s natural restraint. The poison was shutting down all feeling within my body, leaving me numb. Empty. A place where I was quite comfortable. I looked at Drav and his red eyes and smiled my famous smile.

  Drav stood back with his six thugs. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it’s over. There’s no escape for you.” Their guns useless, they all took out knives.

  With a loud thump, the doors to the room sealed all around us. From Drav’s red eyes, I could see this surprised him. I picked up my pistol from the floor and took out my second one. “Like you said, no escape.” I flipped the heavy pistols around and held them like cudgels. “You’re quite a team, and I thought I needed to work with a team to stop you. But that’s not who I am. That’s not my strength. I’m a loner. And here you are now. Alone. With me.” I looked each of them in the eyes, daring one of the seven to make the first move. But they all stood back. So I approached them, slowly and methodically, just as death should move.

  CHAPTER 33

  There is no artful way to describe what happened next. I pistol-whipped seven people to death. It was very brutal — the specifics are not what I’d want people to remember, just that nine people entered this space station and only one left alive. They had me outnumbered and should have won that fight, but that’s where the theatrics come into play. The surprise that I was not as disabled as they thought. The way I came at them with a total lack of fear. The psychopath smile. It was all to convince them that this was it — this was their final mistake, and death was at hand. Mentally, they had accepted it: They were about to die. And it showed up in the way they fought — desperately but knowing it was ultimately futile as I relentlessly came at them. The only one who gave me a real fight was Drav, who stabbed me in the leg before I caved in his red eyes.

  But maybe my beating to death a bunch of trained killers isn’t foremost on your mind right now. You’re probably wondering why the Mountain Fall space station was empty and why I didn’t seem that surprised that the Messenger and the Shade had followed me to it. Yes, the whole thing was a trap. The search for Mountain Fall was just a wild goose chase, set up to get the Messengers to follow me around the galaxy. It seems a bit convoluted, but it needed to be to keep the Fathom off guard. The prize had to be good enough that the Fathom would feel the need to stop us, and our search for it had to be desperate enough that they bought that we were really going all in after it. Part of that was that only two people knew the truth: me and the architect of the ruse. The last element of the plan was that I had to be annoying enough that the Fathom would keep sending Messengers to personally watch me die. This confrontation on the space station was the final step, and we made sure they had the codes to deactivate my Fazium so I’d know exactly how they were coming at me.

  Hopefully it was all for a purpose.

  The locks on the doors disengaged, and I walked back to my ship. I probably should have been limping because of the wound in my leg, but my body was completely numb. Technically, I was dying right now, as the numbness was from the poison destroying my system, but I’ve been dying plenty of times and was kind of used to it.

  I went through the small airlock and disengaged my ship from the now useless space station. I caught a glimpse of myself in a cabin window. I was covered in blood, but it wasn’t my own. From a small compartment over the seat, I took out a metal syringe. I injected it into my arm and then girded myself as I hit the transmitter button on the syringe. The Fazium engaged, and I felt the rush of pain once again throughout my body. And then it suddenly just stopped, and the pain vanished.

  “What happened?” I asked aloud.

  “I don’t know,” Dip answered. “I’m seeing that the Fazium is highly active in your body right now. You should be screaming.”

  I wasn’t numb; I could feel the console of my ship in front of me. I took a bit of the flesh on my arm between my fingers. I could feel the pressure as I began to squeeze, but as the pressure of the pinch should have started converting to pain, I felt nothing.

  “I think ... I broke my ability to feel pain.” That wasn’t good. Pain was sometimes a useful signal of something that needed to be acted on right away.

  “You are not well,” Dip said. “You need to get to a hospital as soon as possible.”

  I gave a noncommittal grunt.

  “You have a call,” Dip informed me. “From Anthony Burke. Patching you through.”

  “We have it,” announced Anthony’s smug voice.

  “We have a location?” I asked, almost incredulously. It was such a long process, it was hard to believe it had actually worked in the end. But this was Anthony’s specialty: long, devious plans that looked like one thing while something else was going on entirely. It was nice not to be the victim this time.

  “We do. That last bit of data was all we needed. I can have someone else handle this next part, though. I assume you need some rest.”

  “That’s not the deal,” I stated firmly. “I go first. I have a promise to keep.”

  “All right. I’ll get what intelligence I can and direct you.”

  “Good. Let’s get it done.”

  “Sending you the coordinates.” I heard him take a deep breath. “By the way, good work, son. This would all be very desperate without you.”

  “Glad I could help,” I said, laying sarcasm on thick. “We’re about to the end, though, which means it’s about time I start worrying about you again.”

  “I’m really not the bad guy here,” Anthony responded. “I know you find it har
d to believe because of my methods, but I’m trying to build a lasting peace for all the civilized species in this universe. Something that will outlast me. A legacy. You don’t have to trust me. You can trust people like Redden, who will actually be running things.”

  “Whom you’ve compromised,” I said.

  “Out of desperation to defeat the Fathom,” Anthony answered. “And I wasn’t the one who made him sign an agreement with Nystrom. Things happen when you’re trying to accomplish a greater objective. And if nothing else, you’ve always been someone I can count on to get the job done.”

  I smiled bitterly. “My father’s son.”

  “You’re ready for this?”

  “Let’s finish it.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was a nice planet. Nothing in particular stood out about it. It was only sparsely populated, so much of it was pristine wilderness. My destination was a building out by itself, on one side a forest and the other a beach. It looked like a resort, but it was a large private residence. Nice, I guess, but I had seen nicer. The idea was not to be too conspicuous, though.

  Security was tight, but it could have been tighter. Being out in the middle of nowhere on some planet barely anyone knew existed gave them perhaps too great a feeling of safety. I easily blasted through the guards on my way inside now that my Arco X5 blasters were working again. This was me in my element. Screaming. Desperate gunfire. Everyone racked with fear, while I’ve never been more comfortable.

  I barged into the final room, a spacious area bathed in sunlight from large windows; ironic, considering how hidden this whole place was. The first things I saw were the guards making a final stand, but they were practically moving in slow motion compared to me. A few more shots, and all the “threats” were taken care of. That only left a number of important-looking people of various species resting in chairs, a few female servants cowering near them. I thought about just shooting the servants to completely clear the room, as that was easiest, but remembered I was still trying to be a hero. “Out!” I ordered them, letting them run past me to the exit as I set up the camera I had gotten from Diane. I positioned it to show everything. Now it was just me and the masters of the universe.