by J. S. Morin
“Here’s the catch.” Carl held his hands out, holding an imaginary piece of wire or cable. For a moment, he wished he’d planned ahead and brought props. “Making ends meet isn’t always easy. Sometimes, you need to bend the rules a little.” He pantomimed twisting the cable around so that the ends touched. “Other times, the ends are a little farther apart, and you’ve got to bend the rules an awful lot, maybe even ignore them completely, to get things to where you need ‘em. See what I’m saying?”
At his side the erstwhile Lieutenant Kwon sighed through her nostrils and spoke up. “What he’s saying is that he’s an outlaw.”
Carl held up his hands, accepting the censure. “So, we’re calling it what it is. Me and my crew are outlaws. You all owe your freedom to a bunch of outlaws… and Lieutenant Charlton here. She’s the one who found you, and she’s technically not an outlaw.”
“Um,” Amy said, leaning Carl’s way. She kept her voice low. “I couldn’t exactly say that.”
“I stand corrected, it seems,” Carl said to the crowd. “This is a 100 percent outlaw rescue. Now I know you’ve all got a lot to think about. Give it time. We still don’t even have a working way off this moon yet, but we will soon. Just remember this: being a rich outlaw is a hell of a lot more fun than being a poor fugitive.”
Carl took a shallow bow and excused himself, confident he had said what he needed to say.
# # #
The hangar door of the ENV Odysseus had been hauled open with winches; main power had yet to be restored. Roddy was part of a maintenance team tasked with getting the battleship’s engine operational. Even if it was embedded in a mountainside and they would never need the thrusters, the engine could still power the internal systems.
Nearly a hundred of the Odysseus survivors had accepted his offer. The rest had returned to the chasm until such time as they could be delivered offworld. It was more personnel than Carl had ever commanded before. The week since his speech had been a blur, with more demands on his time than he’d ever imagined possible. After an initial panic, he’d begun delegating the shit jobs like sleeping assignments and rationing. Who needed Tanny when he had a trained navy crewmen who knew all that shit? Instead he focused on the big picture: what to do with the salvage from the biggest score he would ever see. While it was a heady feeling being a nascent Don Rucker, he was still looking forward to putting the Mobius back into space, even if his first dozen missions would be acting as a taxi service.
Esper had been underfoot for days, asking for tasks to do. With modern science back, medical supplies made her healing magic obsolete. The survivors had their own chaplain, so no one was coming to her with spiritual questions. With no ship that could hold vacuum, there was no call for astral travel, and since she was a wizard, none of the officers were keen on giving her orders. That left her pestering Carl, and he was getting suspicious that she had an ulterior motive.
And she was at it again. “I was just wondering, if you had anything you needed me to—”
Carl held up a hand. “For the love of whatever non-Devraa gods might be out there, spit it out.”
With a swallow and a nod, Esper came clean. “It’s Tanny. I mean, she’s out there somewhere. I know I said some things, but… isn’t this the part where we run off and rescue her? You know, free her from whatever influence Devraa has over her?”
She flinched at Carl’s reaction—he hugged her. “I saw enough of those marines to get the idea. Tanny’s not a drone or a slave. She picked sides, from the sound of it. It hurts, because you’re friends. She’s done it to me enough times I guess I’ve gotten numb to it. We’d have started a family if she’d have gone off those drugs of hers long enough, but she picked a slew of pills over me, time and again. I had a standing offer that I’d marry her a fourth time if she cleaned up.”
“But I thought—”
“I let people think what they want. Rolls off my back.”
The sound of familiar engines drew Carl’s eye to the skies outside the hangar. From the flight deck, Carl watched as Amy maneuvered the Mobius in for a landing. With all the tools and spare parts kicking around the hangar, they’d have the materials at hand to properly restore the ship to its original glory—no, better than that. There were weapon and shield systems to tune the old bird to taste. Leaner engine signature. Hotter guns. Smaller but more efficient shield generators. It was a candy store for a starving child.
“And Charlie? You’re not just using her because you’re lonely? I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“I’ve been living in the past so long, I forgot what someone loving me back felt like. No more living in the ‘what was.’ It’s time to try ‘what might have been.’ Now scram, kid. My lady’s landing my ship, and three’s a crowd. Oh, and try calling her Amy.”
Esper planted a quick kiss on his cheek before wishing him luck and departing. Ladies Man Carl did a quick check and confirmed that Esper didn’t wear lipstick or perfume. Amy hadn’t known signs of being the jealous type, but it never hurt to play safe.
The Mobius powered down and Amy hopped out a moment later, bounding across the flight deck to meet him. She was grinning, as she was so often these days, and kissed him as soon as he was within reach. “How’s the cleanup going?”
“Mriy’s busy with the new security detail, buttoning down a perimeter. Mort’s scouring that city for signs of Devraa’s other strongholds. His latest theory is that there are a few dozen, and Azrael and his pals might be headed for any of them. As long as we keep that one city from rebuilding its temple, we shouldn’t have to worry about anti-magic extending orbitally.”
“I meant the Odysseus.”
“That’s Roddy’s department. The navy techs are still bristling over reporting to a civilian, but he’s handing it. Ship’s getting there,” Carl replied. “Internal air quality’s still too low to move people in, but I’ve got my eye on some quarters for when we’re planetside. How was flying the Mobius?”
“It’s a little sluggish, but I put that up to the crash damage.”
Carl winced. “Yeah, about that… it’s not going to get much better. It really is a diplomatic shuttle with the heart of a freighter.”
“You tell the rest of your crew about making me pilot yet?”
“Not yet. Just Esper,” Carl said. “The rest have been a little busy.”
“I can always just go back to flying the Mermaid, you know…”
Carl smiled and kissed her again. “No. No more flying solo unless that’s how you want it. We’ll pick up the Mermaid at some point, but you’ve got a place on the Mobius.”
“Carl…” Amy said, turning the word over in her mouth like a seashell she was seeing for the first time. “Does this seem weird?”
“It feels new and fresh and liberating,” he replied, kissing her again. “I mean, I always loved you, but never in the same way as the past few nights.”
Amy wrinkled her nose. “Not that. The sex is great. The hell were we waiting for, right? No, I meant setting up shop in this rotting hull of a dead battleship.”
Just at that moment, a set of overhead lights switched on with a thunk. Followed by another set adjacent to those, then another, and another on down the ceiling of the hangar. Carl watched the line of lights as power came back on line. A low hum reverberated in the floor, part of the life-support systems. “Not so dead,” he said dryly.
“I guess not.”
He looked into Amy’s eyes. She was as good a pilot as he’d ever flown with: brave, smart, and witty when she wasn’t trying to act serious. Maybe she had a few loose wires in that head of hers but certainly fewer than in his own. Amy Charlton knew him for who and what he was and didn’t bat an eye. And now they had an Earth Navy Battleship. Gun emplacements to defend against orbital threats. Top-of-the-line military scanners. Repair facilities. Officer quarters for everyone in the crew. The briefing room would make a kick-ass holovid theater. Plus, there were tens of millions of terras worth of equipment that the black markets wo
uld snap up like piranhas.
Carl started giggling, still meeting Amy’s eyes. He could tell she was on the verge of joining in, just in reaction to his own ridiculousness. “What?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”
“We’re not small-time anymore.”
Pinball Wizardry
Mission 8.5 of the Black Ocean Series
J.S. Morin
Pinball Wizardry
Mission 8.5 of: Black Ocean
Copyright © 2015 Magical Scrivener Press
Esper sulked over a plate of scrambled eggs that tasted too much like science. They tasted like eggs too, of course, but there was that nagging sensation on the taste buds that spoke of artifice. It was the laaku food doodad to blame, mooshing nutrients into goo and squeezed them out to look and taste like whatever someone ordered. Before she had started practicing magic in earnest, Esper used to think it was a wonderful invention . Now she couldn’t overlook the scientific taste despite the maintenance tech’s insistence that human senses couldn’t tell the difference.
With a resignation borne of a desire not to starve en route, Esper shoveled another forkful of eggs into her mouth. She cast a glare at the sleeping wizard in the bed they had shared for the shuttle trip. Mort snored; she’d grown used to that in short order. Esper had lost track of the months they had slept side by side in the same bed without once ever having “slept together.” It was an odd arrangement, but close proximity was required to share dreams. She had awakened first, pulling herself back from the constructed dream realm of Mortania. That was the place where he taught Esper magic.
Mort grunted and turned over, stretching and blinking before sitting up. He wore the same jeans and sweatshirt he’d worn the entire trip. With a gruff “G’morning,” he shuffled past her to the coffee spigot, and a brief argument ensued over how he’d like his morning cup. The machine was ultra-modern and apparently programmed for conflict resolution, because despite Mort’s best efforts, he failed to anger it before getting a satisfactory beverage.
Mort slumped into a chair across from Esper. “Infernal thing’s about ready to run for public office. I have half a mind to melt it to slag before it kills us all.”
“It’s not sentient. It’s just programmed to be friendly.”
“You say charismatic leader, I say despot.” Mort took a sip of his coffee, glaring across the room at the machine. “Pretty soon, you’ll be expected to kill any AI on sight. Soon as you pass your final exam.”
“What?”
“Any wizard confronted with an artificial mind has a duty to—”
“Purge the computer plague before it wipes out organic life,” Esper finished for him. “I’ve heard the spiel. I meant what’s this about a final exam?”
Mort threw back the contents of his cup, squeezing his eyes shut. He came up for air with a gasp. “Ahh, wakes a sluggish mind. Well then, you didn’t think I’d let you loiter around my private refuge indefinitely, did you? The point of an apprenticeship is to teach you to get by on your own.”
Esper’s fork clattered to the plate. “But I’m not ready yet. Isn’t a typical apprenticeship eight years?”
With a snort, Mort looked her square in the eye. “You measure time in the real world, it might look like I’m shortchanging you. But in mental years, that noggin of yours is past due for retirement.”
“I know a year passes every night we’re—”
“Getting on toward a year and a half, actually. Been stretching the old thinker these days. My best guess, that brain of yours thinks it’s about 200 years old.”
A cold feeling sank in the pit of Esper’s stomach, threatening to evict the science-tainted eggs. She’d tried to avoid considering the rough estimate of just over 100 that she’d been using. It made her life in the real world seem paltry by comparison. “But I don’t feel old.”
“Course not. Got palsied hands? Rheumatism? Failing eyesight? None of the above. You haven’t got so much as a wrinkly forehead when you frown… like you’re doing just now. An apprentice comes in, eight to twelve years old, mind supple as licorice. I got you at four-and-twenty with a mind like dry clay. Took a lot of kneading to make it worth the trouble of shaping.”
“But I’m not ready to—”
“To what? To be me?” Mort snorted. “I’ve turned loose worse students than you. Kept you around longer than I should have, but only because it gets lonely in here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Sometimes it’s a task too far to trick myself into believing all the constructs are real people. You spruce the place up, but it’s not right, keeping you in there so long. You’re getting desensitized… can’t even stomach food on the outside.”
“These eggs are shit.”
Mort sneered. “Lost your filters, too. Just me around, and you forget those stodgy old real-world rules.” He reached over and stole a pinch of eggs from Esper’s plate, working the morsel around in his mouth before swallowing. “You’re right though. These are shit.”
Esper stared out their cabin’s window, into the flat gray of astral space. “Is that what this trip is all about? I thought you promised a vacation.”
“You think Carl would let both of us offworld for something so trite? I promised him a second wizard to handle star-drive duty. Travel to Ithaca is at a standstill while I’m away, and I’m not keen to spend my remaining years as a bus-driver.”
Esper stood and backed away, wagging a finger. “I’m just for emergencies. We had an understanding.”
“I understand that I’ve now known you longer than my own wife. Things change with time; no getting around that. You’re ready. You’ve read 10,000 books and memorized a good 500 of them. You have a feather touch cajoling the universe to get what you want, but it listens.”
“Maybe if we focused more time on—”
“And you’ve worn out your welcome.”
Esper held her ground under Mort’s withering glare. “I thought you stopped watching me constantly.”
“Constantly? No. But I didn’t leave The Tome of Bleeding Thoughts lying around without some trigger to alert me that you opened it. On five occasions you opened the cover, and on the first four you shut it instantly. On the fifth, it trapped you, and you read it cover to cover.”
Esper swallowed. He knew all along. Tears welled in her eyes as those horrible words came back to her, unbidden. There was no scrubbing them clean. “You could have stopped me…”
“Knowledge is a wizard’s weapon. I’d no sooner stop you learning than I’d take away Mriy’s guns or Roddy’s tools. But you’ve seen under the bonnet now, and you could alter Mortania against my wishes. You should take it as flattery; I can’t trust you to wander my head anymore.”
An unexpected chuckle warred with the tears wetting Esper’s face. “Me? A threat?”
“You’re like I was, a little kerfuzzled after reading it. But that book’s going to nag at you. You can kill with what you read, once you turn it over in your mind enough times to see it from all angles. But for now, we’ve got the formality of passing your final exam, so I can have Keesha submit the result to the Convocation. You’ll be a real wizard, without direct association with you-know-who.” Mort hooked a thumb at his chest.
“So…?”
“Planetside. You’ll see.”
# # #
The weathered gray planks of the boardwalk thumped with each step Esper and Mort took. They stepped in time, arm in arm, as if they were a real couple. Esper wore a midriff top and baggy trousers; Mort a black button-down and blazer with no tie. Neither wore the wide-ended sleeves most people associated with wizards. For this trip, they were incognito.
Crowds were thin at Trestman Depot. Modern styles mixed with tourists and locals who threw in full-force with the retro look of the place. Once the tram station disappeared from view over their shoulders, it was mid-twentieth-century Atlantic City in all directions. Calliope music wafted from a carousel. Shrieking children wielding wands of cotton candy pelted past. Both sides of the boardwalk w
ere packed with tiny shops selling knick-knacks and candies, cheap showings of flatvids or live stage performances, and games of luck that appeared at first glance to be games of skill.
Mort guided them with the same calm assurance he did everything, but in this case, she suspected he knew where he was going. “You’ve been here before?”
“Not in my life. Just stop gawking and feel. You’ll know where we’re headed.”
Esper tore her attention from a clown twisting balloons into toy animals for a gaggle of children. Trusting Mort not to run her into a hotdog cart or other pedestrians, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Two piers down. There’s… something out of place.”
Mort patted her hand. “A place out of place. The whole place, misplaced.” He winked.
“It’s hidden. Someone is overplaying a concealment charm.”
“You’ve never had much trouble with perception. They actually haven’t done a bad job keeping the riffraff off the scent. But finding the place isn’t your test.”
Gaps between buildings were scarce; the one between Saraam’s Taffy and Susan’s Seashell Souvenirs was blocked off by dingy gray stockade fencing. One side was rusted iron hinges, the other a latch and a length of chain with a padlock. Mort stopped them right in front of it.
Esper eyed the lock and chain. “Doesn’t look friendly.”
“Isn’t meant to.” He grabbed the fence door by the latch and pulled. The chain and padlock did nothing to stop him, since the support post swung right along with the door. With a suspicious glance over his shoulder, Mort ushered Esper through ahead of him.
The other side was anything but the grimy alleyway Esper anticipated. The fence door had been holding back a tsunami of electronic sound. It was frenetic, zappy, beeping, and chiming with simple melodies. Screens flashed with low-res images, and cabinets were painted with cartoonish murals and logos. Many of the cabinets had people manning controls like scanner techs, but most of these ‘techs’ were children.