Mission Pack 2: Missions 5-8 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  His jacket. Carl wasn’t wearing it. It hung from a peg on the wall next to the spare cue sticks. He’d taken it off shortly after arriving at Sharky’s and had hardly given it a thought since. There was always a chance he could come back for it. And worst case, he could always buy a new one. But he’d stolen that jacket years ago—or at least found it and never looked for the owner. It had a story. It had character. It was an old friend.

  Carl closed the window and headed back out into the pool hall.

  “Rack ‘em up,” he called out, snatching up the cue he’d left outside the men’s room door.

  “Your break, pal,” Panhead said. He waved a meaty hand at the table, where one of his lackeys was racking a fresh array of nine balls.

  Carl spared a quick glance at the scrawny biker with the Earth Marines tattoo on his shoulder. He didn’t want to get a loose rack, but the guy was making sure all the balls were touching. Unless he could run the table, he was going to have to count on Panhead baiting him for at least another game. Carl decided to help him along.

  “This is where I start making a dent in that roll of yours,” Carl said with a wink. He slapped his money down beside Panhead’s and made his break.

  “Not bad,” Panhead said as the 4 ball went in.

  Carl let loose a silent sigh. He was a fifty-fifty breaker at best, and he’d made the lucky fifty this time. He followed it up by dropping 1 through 6 on a series of—if he had to admit it—brilliant shots. But then he left himself a bad lie and missed the 7.

  “Nice run,” Panhead said as he settled in to set up his own shot.

  Had Carl played too well? A hustler who thinks he might lose will take what he can get and be done with it. Three balls to go was easy enough to mop up, and Carl would be back to bus fare. Hotel money was riding on this game, and hearse money on the next. This was the one he wanted to win.

  “Yeah, until I gave it away,” Carl said. “Jesus, I can’t buy a damn bank shot. Maybe this isn’t my night, after all.”

  Panhead chuckled as he aimed, squinting with one eye. “Maybe it ain’t.” He took a shot and slammed home the 7. Then the 8. Then… he missed the 9. It rattled around a corner pocket and bounced out.

  “Ouch,” Carl said. “Tough break. I’ll give you a rematch.” His own shot was a gimme, and he made it. He was up sixty dollars.

  “Make it eighty,” Panhead said. “Lemme have a chance to make my money back.”

  “Make it a hundred,” Carl replied with a grin. “I’ve got a bookie to pay off. Just lemme go grab a smoke.” Carl had never smoked in his life. He’d grown up shipboard, where putting an unnecessary load on the life-support systems was frowned upon. Some of the luxury cruise ships let you smoke, but the navy and Chuck Ramsey didn’t put up with that shit in their air filtration.

  He strutted over to his jacket and took it from its peg on the wall. He made a show of looking through the pockets. “Hey, can I bum a cigarette?” he asked the pool hall at large. One of Panhead’s biker friends obliged, offering him a cigarette from a bland red-and-white package. Carl scooped a book of matches off the bar and headed for the front door. “Back in five.”

  Once outside and with the door closed behind him, Carl abandoned “cool” in favor of haste. He shrugged on his jacket and headed for the first car in the lot. It was a vintage replica petrol-burner, powder blue with white side panels and fins on the back. It was unlocked, because this was supposed to be a utopian paradise where people didn’t steal cars.

  But they still had keys for the ignition. Fucking retroverts and their nonsensical nostalgia. Either they should have locked the damn cars or done away with keyed ignitions. He checked above the visor, under the seat, and in the glove box, but the owner hadn’t left his keys anywhere in the vehicle.

  The logical, rational part of Carl’s mind told him to try the next car. Someone around here was bound to have been trusting enough to leave keys in the ignition for him. A passing wish for the assistance of a certain laaku mechanic flashed in his mind. Hot-wiring looked so easy on an old flatvid, but he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to do it. But both the rational and wishful parts of Carl made way for the juggernaut that was the flamboyant option.

  A row of motorcycles parked in formation at the side of the lot. One caught his eye. Laid back. Extended front wheel. Giant handlebars. Engine half the size of the vehicle. Those things didn’t usually have keys, as far as he could remember. Checking over his shoulder to make sure no one was exiting the bar, he headed over and took a closer look at his new ride.

  It was no Squall. It wouldn’t get him airborne without a ramp. If he needed it to, he could outrun most four-wheeled vehicles native to the time period. Straddling the seat, he grabbed the handlebars and walked the chopper back. It was heavier than it looked, but in neutral he could get it moving with just his feet.

  The controls were a mystery. No flatvid he’d ever watched had given a close-up on the console to show the startup sequence. He flipped switches and pulled levers until one made noise. It gave a pathetic petrol-motor cough and went silent. The two parts of the controls Carl was certain of were the right grip and the kickstarter. Hoping that he’d stumbled onto the missing link, he hit the starter switch, twisted the grip, and put his weight down on the kick start lever. The bike made a variety of unpleasant noises in protest.

  “Hey!”

  That was Carl’s key to hurry. One of Panhead’s biker friends had poked his head out to investigate. It was double-down or buy time.

  “This thing got a lighter?” Carl asked. He stomped down on the kickstart lever again, hoping that maybe the simplest solution was the best. Nothing.

  Bikers poured out of Sharky’s. Carl gave one final attempt at the kickstart lever with the grip twisted, but that didn’t work either.

  “Look fellas, there’s no need to—”

  But they weren’t in the mood for listening. Carl was lifted from the motorcycle’s seat. He felt fists slam into his kidneys and his gut, blinding him in pain and robbing him of his breath. He fell to the asphalt, gasping. If he could convince them of…well anything, it might have been possible to save himself from getting killed and left for dead in a ditch. But he couldn’t get out more than a croak and not even an articulate one at that.

  They started in with the boots, pummeling him in the legs, stomping on his back. One caught him in the head, and he didn’t notice the rest.

  # # #

  The chaise drifted down and settled onto the stone floor. Mort leaned on his mop and gave a satisfied sigh. “Done. Or at least done enough. We should freshen up so it doesn’t look like we spent the day as housemaids.”

  Esper dropper her feather duster and rolled down the sleeves of her dress. “Finally. You know, I kept my mouth shut all day, wondering if this was another sort of test. But I have to ask: why didn’t you just use magic to clean? I mean, you lifted the furniture out of the way, why not march the whole parade route?”

  “I have a reputation to maintain,” Mort replied, collapsing onto the chaise he had just returned to the floor.

  “I would have thought not cleaning would have suited you better. Besides, it’s just you and me here.”

  “In one respect, perhaps, but the universe is always watching,” Mort said. “It has an image of me as an agent of destruction and chaos, a tinkerer with gravity and astral navigation. My arguments often run afoul of cleanliness and order, and if I started wheedling for tidied shelves and mildew-free floors, I’d be making a hypocrite of myself. Not worth it.”

  “You mean…”

  “One of two things might have happened,” Mort said. “No, make that three. The third would be no harm at all, which I suppose is a legitimate outcome. As for the other two scenarios, I could have altered the universe’s opinion of me in ways that would reduce my effectiveness in making my more typical arguments. I also could have accidentally tapped into my more destructive reputation and had some sort of cleaning cataclysm.”

  “Like the fable of the
Sorcerer’s Apprentice?” Esper asked.

  “You’ve been watching those ancient flatvids, huh?” Mort asked, and Esper nodded in reply. “Well, there’s truth in that one. Not the musical, dancing mops, mind you, but the magic gone over the rancher’s fence. A stampede, as it were. I might have unleashed a tornado trying to dust, or a tsunami washing the floors. Best to just roll up our sleeves and do a bit of light peasant work.”

  “Those peasants of yours might have helped if you paid them,” Esper said.

  “They live on my land!” Mort objected. “Rent free for years. You’d think proper caretaking services wouldn’t be too much to ask in return.”

  A bell sounded from the entry hall. “That’s either an angry mob, or your lady friend is here,” Esper said.

  Mort harrumphed. “Looks like break time is over.” He paused at a freshly washed mirror before heading out to answer the door.

  Esper followed a few paces behind. She didn’t care much what she looked like. If Keesha Bell decided that Esper looked like she’d been doing chores all day, so be it. Sometimes the truth was better than a veneer of propriety.

  Mort opened the ornate, wood-carved door himself. Standing outside was a woman with dark skin and white hair. Her features looked middle-aged, but her past history with Mort and her hair color painted a different portrait. Esper shouldn’t have been one to judge, since Tanny said she looked more like sixteen than twenty-four.

  “Mordecai, I hardly believed I’d see you again after you dodged me on Champlain,” Keesha said. She smiled as Mort took her hand and kissed it.

  “I had business,” Mort said. “I’m not always at liberty to pay social calls.”

  “No, only when it serves you,” Keesha said with a sigh, stepping into the entry hall. A prim, tidy, quiet gentleman followed her inside. “I trust this is Miss Richelieu.”

  “Esper, ma’am,” Esper said with a curtsy. Given her attire and surroundings, it seemed appropriate, even though she’d only seen curtsies on holovid.

  Keesha looked her up and down, then gave a sly glance over at Mort. Esper felt her cheeks burning. Why did everyone seem to hint that she was having some sort of relationship with Mort? “I assume you’ve been told why I’m here?”

  “You know about the woman who took Kubu captive,” Esper said. She figured that if Keesha didn’t want her assistant to know, she’d have kept her voice down.

  Keesha frowned at Mort.

  “I thought it would be a nice surprise,” Mort said.

  “What do you mean?” Esper asked. “What surprise?”

  “In due time, child,” Keesha said. “First, Mordecai and I have some business of our own. Be a dear and show Hobson someplace he can rest his feet for a few hours.”

  “What’ll you be—” Esper clipped off the end of her own question as Mort took Keesha by the hand and led her from the room. The grins on their faces told her more than she wanted to know. She turned to Hobson. “I guess we’re on our own for the foreseeable future.”

  “It would appear so,” Hobson replied.

  They retired to the freshly cleaned sitting room. Even with the windows thrown wide open, the room still clung to a scent of must and mildew. Hobson was the perfect guest though, and didn’t even comment about it. He sat stiff and tall without giving a hint of discomfort; he was totally at ease keeping a rigid posture. He exuded butlerism.

  Once Esper broke the ice, however, he became a charming and informative conversationalist. She wormed free the stories about Mort and Keesha’s past relationship. She’d been friends with Mort’s wife ages ago and had taken him in for a summer between Mort’s tenure with Chuck Ramsey’s ship and Carl purchasing the Mobius. Despite her wheedling, Esper couldn’t get Hobson to admit that their relationship had been anything but platonic. Esper found that hard to swallow.

  The conversation redirected toward Esper after a while and the series of misadventures that had landed her a bunk on Carl’s ship. It was a better story than she’d imagined as she started telling it. Her early life had become too easy to sum up in a few words that she had forgotten how much the details had shaped her. Once she got to her life aboard the Mobius, she became a little more cautious. She didn’t know Hobson, and the sort of things she’d done as a member of the crew were a great fountain of blackmail material. Still, with careful editing and omissions, she gave Hobson the idea of their adventures.

  “So I guess I have your boss to thank for finding Kubu in the first place,” Esper said. “If it wasn’t for her sending us off, we’d never have found that crazy zoo or helped all those people. Honestly, I think I did more for the greater good of sentient-kind that day than I did in my years teaching math as a priestess in a church-run school.”

  “Did you always have a fondness for mathematics?” Hobson asked.

  “Fondness? Goodness no! I was always good at it though. Part of learning humility is knowing when to do what needs to be done, instead of what you like doing.”

  “And is that why Mordecai has been teaching you magic?” Hobson asked. “Because you have an affinity for it?”

  Esper looked down at her hands. “That’s not it. I mean… well, you know. Not everyone can. And I can’t always resist, especially when someone’s in trouble and I think I can help. It’s just… well, it hasn’t always worked out, and Mort’s been trying to teach me the big picture. He says if I know what I’m doing, I won’t do it by accident.”

  “So you’d be a wizard either way, but Mordecai is teaching you the right way?”

  “Something like that, I suppose,” Esper said. Hobson nodded almost imperceptibly. Was he judging her? “What’s it to you why Mort is teaching me?”

  Hobson offered a wan smile. “My apologies. Miss Bell insisted on knowing.”

  “She’s the jealous type?” Esper asked.

  “She is merely careful of her associates.”

  “Not careful enough, if she still comes to see Mort,” Esper replied. She felt an instant pang of guilt at the hurt look she received in reply.

  “You have no idea how deep those two are twined.”

  “Then tell me,” Esper said. It wasn’t fair dangling juicy gossip then clamming up immediately.

  “Ask one or the other of them,” Hobson said. “I have no right to speculate, and much of what I would say is indeed mere speculation.”

  Esper steered the conversation back to small talk until Mort and Keesha came back. The giddy energy had passed, but both looked in fine spirits. Keesha’s hair was too short to muss, but Mort’s looked none the worse for their absence. Everyone’s clothes were on properly. Maybe she had the wrong idea about what had been going on elsewhere in the keep.

  “Stand up, child,” Keesha said. It was a command, firm, but not overbearing. Somehow it didn’t seem like the time to argue that she was a grown woman and didn’t have to do any such thing. Esper stood.

  She looked to Mort. “So you found out where—”

  Mort held up a hand, nodding. “Yes. Later.”

  Keesha produced a sphere of dark, polished glass and held it out. “Esper Theresa Richelieu,” Keesha said. “Repeat after me. I solemnly swear…” The sphere lit with a soft glow from within.

  Esper looked to Mort, wide eyed. But Mort gave her a wink and a nod. What was that supposed to mean? Those words weren’t the sort you just echoed lightly. But Mort made a hurry-up motion with his hand, keeping silent and raising his eyebrows in obvious exasperation.

  Esper took a deep breath. “I solemnly swear.”

  “That I will uphold the laws and traditions of the Convocation… That I will heed my master in my studies, but never abdicate my own free will… That I will take responsibility for the power I possess and the powers I shall learn… That I will keep secret the old ways, and not be drawn by the lures of science… That I will not misuse my powers, or allow them to fester unused… That I will seek wisdom, knowledge, and control of the forces I might harness… That I will act in the best interests of the Convocation, humankin
d, and the magic-capable species of the cosmos… That I will do so of my own free will and best interest in exchange for inclusion into the most ancient and noble institution of humankind.”

  Esper parroted along in a daze. She was under no spell or compulsion, but she didn’t know if she could have stopped herself from being carried along. She was a joiner. She hadn’t realized just how isolated she’d felt until she recited those words. Cut off from friends and family of her own choice, she joined the One Church. Disillusioned with the church, she’d taken up with the Mobius crew. Having faked her own death, she couldn’t even walk the streets—or pedestrian tubes—of a modern city. Now, the Convocation was taking her in.

  Keesha Bell nodded as Esper finished, then put a finger to her lips. “I, Keesha Bell, do swear this oath was taken under neither threat nor geas. I shall uphold my duties as master and take Esper Theresa Richelieu as my apprentice.” The glow faded.

  Esper looked from Keesha to Mort and back, her mouth agape.

  “Hold your horses,” Mort said. “Before that brain of yours crawls out, it’s a formality.”

  “Mordecai can’t take an apprentice officially,” Keesha said. “But aside from records in an old ledger in some dusty building on Earth, you’ll be his apprentice, not mine. It’s not as the Convocation sends inspectors out to the Champlain System to check on apprentices’ well-being.”

  “We’ll get you a medallion from a silversmith somewhere around here,” Mort said. Under his breath, he added, “Not from that ingrate down in my village though.”

  “Farewell, Mordecai,” Keesha said, turning to leave. Hobson hastened to get past her to see to the doors. “We should do this more often.”

  “We should,” Mort agreed.

  Esper kept silent until the two guests had disappeared behind the closed front door. “How can you just let her go? She was only here a couple hours. I mean… you can… you know.”

  Mort chuckled. “We got a lot of use out of those two hours.”

  Esper narrowed her eyes. “Just what is it between the two of you?”