Phel spun a penny to him. “Grrr. Keep the change, and no meddling.”
“That’ll be two more pence, my friend,” Roland said nervously, staring at the sword hilt under the green robe.
“Highway robbery!”
“Prices of drink hasn’t been a penny in two summers, lad.” Phel kicked himself for his miscalculation.
A silver dollar shimmied on the cracked wooden bar and slid to Roland. Surprised by the intruding money, Phel looked up to see who had come to his aid. Two merchants, one tall and good-looking and the second dwarfish in stature and composure, sat at the nearby stools. The handsome man declared with a tentative generosity, “Trade us some drinks for tales of Waver Town.”
The dwarf guzzled his mug, motioned for another, and questioned with dwarfish rudeness, “Tell us, my forest friend. Can trade make its way north to those Driston-slime-covered lands?”
Phel looked around the room as he gripped the pewter mugs and slid his stool over to join the merchants. A band of eight Sonz knights huddled in the corner around a wide circular table. A long-haired solder with red boots grabbed at the servant girl, Orai. She was a comely sort with a busty personality. She giggled and slipped out of the soldier’s grasp. Melase had no such luck, it seemed. The other servant girl was struggling to free herself from a bald rat of a soldier. Melase was the shy type, at least until she started drinking her favorite red wine. Her pa brewed the best wine in the whole northern forest of Haunted Ngela. Orai returned to the bar. With her out of the way, Phel saw that Eddy, a freckly, pock-cheeked man, and Faral, a wiry, suntanned fellow, both from his training days, were among the solders. He turned back to the bar and hid his face.
“Let the girl be, Demtor,” a rugged captain drawled. “Girl, bring my men sustenance.” He flipped the rosy-cheeked Melase a golden coin. She was relieved at being freed. She stared in shock at the generosity of the golden coin.
“My forest friend, beguile us with your tales of the north.” The dwarf’s mug had been filled once more.
Phel raised the first pewter mug. “To your health and mine.” He poured the thick plebian ale down his throat. He was so thirsty. He raised the second mug, slamming the first down. “To my horse.” Before finishing the second, he answered part of the question. “War seems to be brewing, by the look of the band in here.” Always turn a merchant’s question into a question. Merchants were a talking breed.
“You think the lot in here is unusual?” the handsome man answered. “You should see the oxen they have tied out in the stockade. Those Dristoners look like animals sent from hell.”
“I agree. To hell with the lot. We should’ve taken the land back and ravaged the bastards as punishment by now. Where’ll a man get northern pelts and sea trout and…” The man rambled on about the hopelessness of the northern market.
Food was being served to the warriors’ table, and Phel stopped paying attention to the merchants. The Sonz soldiers were busy with their meal. It was an opportune time. He asked for another drink, buying himself time from the unwanted banter, pretended to need an outhouse to do business, and left the inn’s sanctuary.
“Thank the Creator,” Phel said, more out of habit than with conviction. The coast was clear. Phel dropped his pretense, removed his hood, and ran to Drane and Mark. “Drane, we must go now!” Phel pulled his sword out and slashed the lock off the stockade. The wooden gate flew up.
“Phel, you’ra a sight for them sore eyes.”
“Sword brother.” They grasped arms.
“Lookin’ pretty torn up.” A blunt statement, but it was true. Mark and Drane were battered. Their clothes hung loose, and wounds covered their faces.
“Merely scratches,” Mark boasted, lying. “Not as bad as the others.”
“The bastards inside decide to feed us some of our mates.” The two stood stiffly.
Mark shrugged as if to say, all is fair in war. But he said, “Horses and gear are behind the barn. Saw ’em stow it.”
The casual attitude bothered Phel. “We need to be on our way. The soldiers are inside eating but’ll emerge soon.” He was nervous.
It was then that Phel noticed Drane’s stance. “Mark and Phel, I’m not leaving without the correspondences that the Sonz captain took from me.”
Phel watched in disbelief as Drane limped toward the Draping Wheat. “Are you daft and mad? They’ll kill us all.” Phel stopped the muttering, stubborn bear with a firm fist planted on the wide chest. “Drane, Meldz gave you this mission so that you’d be turned over to the Sonz. You are a pawn in his game. You don’t need to guard a lie with your honor.”
Drane’s lips quivered at the implied scenario. “I know not the intentions of others, but my success will restore me and give glory to the Moonz.”
“Drane, I intercepted a letter from a spy in Castle Bend itself,” Phel explained—how could he get Drane to turn from his fool’s mission? Drane shook his grizzly beard in disbelief. “Believe me when I say I wish it weren’t so. Lord Meldz is playing at something sinister.”
“Phel you’ve much to learn of our ways.” Another stumbling step trying to pass Phel. “I will complete my mission. I will return to Jillian and the war band with a victory.” Drane wouldn’t be stopped. He brushed past Phel and stumbled toward the inn. “May the moon guide my fists.”
Phel didn’t know what to do. “Mark, make him stop.”
“Retrieving the correspondence was all Drany whined about for the last day, Phel. Nottin’ gonna stop the stubborn ox.”
Stating clearly to Drane’s back, Phel tried the only thing he knew might work: the truth. “I betrayed you, Drane.”
Drane stopped in his tracks, turned, and glared at Phel, eyes like daggers.
Now that he had started, Phel couldn’t stop. He needed to heap on the hurtful truth. “I slept with Jillian. I fled as a fugitive from Lord Meldz after a direct command to join his special, secret project. I killed a messenger, stole a horse. Shamed your house. Meldz may kill Jillian for all I know.” It was working; the daggers in his friend’s eyes turned to storm clouds. “I promised myself, promised Jillian I’d warn you. I was too late.” Phel gulped. “Drane, you need to return and set things right with Meldz. A storm is brewing, and dying for a handwritten lie isn’t worth it.”
Drane squared his shoulders and stepped in front of Phel. He towered over the smaller man and to Phel’s surprise said, “Fight me.”
“What? Didn’t you hear me? We need to escape now. We’re needed in Waver Town.”
Mark had slipped from sight behind the barn while the two argued. He returned moments later with retrieved weapons in his arms. “Thought you might need these.” Phel took a shield from him. Drane took an axe.
“Fight me, friend.”
“I will not, Drane. No one needs to die. This ain’t the place to bicker.”
“How little you know of our ways. Honor demands retribution. Circumstance will wait for honor. Death is merely a path to another destiny.” Drane raised his ax, stumbled forward, and attacked. Phel sidestepped without drawing his blade.
“The pigs are free!” A shout sounded from the creaking doorway to the inn. Phel groaned in despair. Soldiers’ boots pounded frantically inside the inn. Eight warriors emerged, strapping on weapons as they stumbled from too much beer over one an. The wary captain, sober as a nun, walked to the front, cool and collected. The less experienced soldiers fiddled with their weapons nervously.
“We must fly from this place, Drane,” Phel urged, stepping back from the pack of advancing knights. Drane grimaced and stepped forward.
Chapter 26
Cataloging
David and Manda flipped through the bios of Mop, Arc, and Gimp to plan out the day’s experiments on the slaves.
Manda said exasperatedly, “We give more than we get. If we give them too much info about exchange, QC might require us to terminate them.”
“But look at the bio of the Tri-Coalition state that we’re constructing!” David rolled his hand aroun
d, and a 3D image of their collected information displayed like a globe on the projector. “The most extensive empirical data on the Tri-Coalition on this side of the divide.”
“Unconfirmed data is biased information.”
“It is cross-referenced at least.”
“Unless they are all playing us.”
“These aren’t missionaries. I doubt the info we are gathering is a coordinated effort to undermine our understanding of our enemy, but one day we may find a means to test out the soundness of our information.”
On the 3D screen, main categories included “Raising Youth,” “Work, Life, and Career Paths,” “Government,” “Health Care Systems,” “Products,” and “Technology.” Each category was being filled with information. “Weapons” and “Defensive Fortifications” remained generally empty. Only the conjecture tabs were filled in these two areas.
“The structure of their society is so different from ours.” Manda flipped to one of the law subfolders. “Look here. Two of the slaves mentioned a governmental structure that requires a public vote.”
“What is a ‘public vote’? I heard Jim and Joseph chatting about that earlier.”
“Essentially it boils down to everyone gets a choice.”
“Choice of what?” David was confused, but he let Manda finish as he snorted a red energy dust off a disposable tray. The trash-collector arm on his desk sucked the tray from his hand and made it disappear.
“Who rules. The government is held accountable to the public by some sort of written regulation.” She pointed at a topic title and explained, “They rotate leadership through this voting system.”
“That sounds like a lie.” Some of the information they gathered was outlandish and hard to believe.
She flipped to another section labeled “Education for Postadolescent Youths.” “And look here, David-23. At a certain age, the youths decide whether they go to school or to work.”
“Does that say, ‘Human beings have to pay for education’?” He was baffled that education was not standardized and forced equally on all. “Imagine the chaos of people being held to different intellectual standards.”
“Believe it or not.” She shifted the screen again. “We only have three accountings of this strange reality. Gerry, from Carl’s cohort, has a lot of other questions about costs for education but are putting together more questionnaires to find out more about this.”
“Manda, I can’t wrap my head around this ‘optional’ society.” He agreed with Manda that human being society was illogically based on personal choice. “What an unstable structure.”
“How does a society allow individuals to take part in making laws? What demented leadership gives untrained youths the option between education and career…?”
David cut her rant off. “Not just choice of career or education, Manda. Lab Experiment Seventy-Four indicated that Mop mentioned a system where an individual chooses the company they work for.” He drew an X on over his heart.
Manda similarly warded off evil by signing the X. “Stock take it all. It’s blasphemy. How they stay knit together as a society is illogical.”
“Anarchy would ensue.”
David and Manda continued to brainstorm and comment on other findings. The world of human beings was spellbinding to the scientists. After several minutes of analysis, the beautiful Manda brought the discussion back to the task at hand. “So what scenario will we do today? This is the last day of observation before we compile and brainstorm with the entire management team. We know a lot more about their world, but they seem to be getting a ton of information out of us.”
“In some ways it doesn’t matter how much they get out of us, since they’re never going home. Anything we learn may help us figure out how to make freedoms off these human beings. Nnect may figure out how to crack their tough military defensive shell.”
A level-two technician in a blue Nnectonian lab coat, with the usual sleeveless left arm showing his twisting Nnect letters, stopped the conversation as he came to attention with a sharp click of his shoes.
“Speak, Tech Jack-5.” He had read the tech’s name tag. Bothering to learn all your employee’s names was a waste of time. David recognized him as the tech monitoring the health feedback quality on Mop, Gimp, and Arc.
“Sir Manager,” he huffed out, catching his breath from the jog across the lab.
“No need for formalities; I am still a manager-in-training and similar to all of you. I still have my brand, after all.” David waved his tattooed arm. “What is it?”
“We began running a threat of torture routine on the subjects, and we can’t get any more info out of them. Mop just keeps talking nonsense. Arc is silent. Gimp is preaching. They’re demanding to speak to someone in authority. Our writers and actors are at an impasse. They’ve tried everything.” He wheezed it out.
“That’s not so bad. We can expect opposition.” David tried to sound reasonable.
“Also, some of the techs are talking about asking the other managers for advice.”
“They are what?” The idea of asking for help evoked David’s anger. “By the stock, none of my team will betray me.”
“Think of something, David. We don’t want our team to doubt you,” Manda interjected.
“Hmmm.” David looked across the balcony and down to the home units. Mop, Arc, and Gimp were being shuffled out of the scenario hallway and into their units. What to do?
Manda reemphasized Jack’s comment. “They see through the acted scenarios very quickly.”
Jack-5 said, “We’re learning that they’ve many distorted notions that seem to ground them in who they are as people. It’s intolerable.”
“Information gathering is slowing?” David questioned, giving himself a moment to think.
“Yes. The team has realized that we’re making very little headway.”
Manda added, “After our initial informative successes.”
“How can I put it?” Jack said. “Those devils under our supervision have become exasperated but not broken. Fuming but not malicious. Apprehensive but not cowed. Doubtful but not faithless. Hopeful despite the tragedy. Always looking for a bright side to the situation.”
“Are you a damn poet or a scientist, Jack?”
Jack shrugged. “I was transferred from a news-lying division. I am good with words.” He was obviously at a loss for what to do with these strange humans.
David spent the better part of the next hour, as he went about his duties as a manager, thinking about a solution to his team’s dilemma.
David stopped in to deliver some stimulation beverage to Mop in his containment home. David occasionally interjected himself into the life-support roles, acting like a technician, so he could observe the slaves face-to-face. Mop always spoke in loud obnoxious statements and asked outrageous questions. The scientists didn’t know what to expect when a test began with Mop.
Don’t engage him, David warned himself as he stepped into Mop’s containment home. The dark-skinned, broad-shouldered man was beating a swollen palm against the mirrored-glass wall. Don’t break protocol and engage. Mop has two more scenarios before we decide what is next.
The coffee stimulator, served without sweeteners, as the subject preferred, steamed like campfire smoke as David placed it carefully on an eating table in the room. He checked his ever-present manager’s tablet to give himself an unobtrusive moment to watch Frank You. Keeping busy didn’t make him invisible, and the frizzy hair spun to face him. Their eyes made contact. Frank You’s eyes were deep and brown like a chocolate cream. They seemed to swirl shrewdly.
The slave asked, “Why not AI?”
This random statement was confusing. David ignored the slave and looked at the tablet in his hand stepping nearer to the exit.
Mop persisted in his line of inquiry, standing taller, his beer belly wobbling, and then he strode in front of David, obstructing an abrupt exodus.
“You seem like you’re in charge.”
How did he kn
ow?
“You must be cannier than those preprogrammed shits you call actors.”
David automatically responded to the compliment, as was ingrained in him. “Thanks. My on-the-job training helped me to advance quicker than normal. I’ve been privileged.” He didn’t even realize what he was doing until he spoke. The cycle of habit prompted him to continue by saying, “The Nnect way is the smart way. We train our people for real life. Work life.” He was grateful he hadn’t let it slip that he was actually a manager. He tried to step around the wobbling beer gut.
Ignoring the plug for a company he knew nothing about, Frank You repeated, “Why not AI?”
David ignored the man and performed a casual—he hoped it seemed ordinary—sweep of the home unit, picking up an empty scent canister. He moved toward the door around the slave.
Frank You did not cease his inquisition. He persisted, “Why not AI?” He marched between David and the entrance once more. David didn’t have a clue what the man was babbling about. David felt his heart skip a beat in fear.
The rudimentary one-day crash course in self-defense had not prepared him to deal with a bigger, stronger assailant. Shame in the face of his helplessness and at the indignity of a slave speaking to him as an equal stimulated rage. His brand sent a wave of pleasure through his being to reward the emotion of anger; the anger, fear, and pleasure mixed internally. “How dare this slave prohibit my work!” David said aloud to the hidden speakers, attempting to alert the guards.
Muffled shuffling behind the closed cell door indicated that security was mobilizing. This gave him more confidence to take a deep breath and pause, because he knew they’d move in to subdue the crazed slave on David’s signal. He let his fear and anger lower their defensive guards.
“Wow, chill out with the degrading profiling, bro.”
“Your slang is telling. You’ll refer to me as manager. ‘Sir.’ I can’t reduce you to a lower level on the food chain by pretending to speak respectfully to you, Mop.” Conversation came too naturally to David.
A Tale Of Doings Page 33