Subversive Elements (Unreal Universe Book 2) Read online

  “Now, I is admittin’ I got a little carried away. I is promisin’ I won’t do anymore killin’ uvver than Garth.” To drive the point home, he held a hand over where his heart would be.

  “How long?” Frustration rolled through the light years.

  “Assumin’ that wivvout this fella-me-lad drawrin’ attention to me,” Chad counted off on his fingers, “I would say no more than … a week or six.”

  That was all it took. “What?” he shouted hoarsely. “I told you I wanted him dead as soon as possible.”

  Chad let The Boss’s aggravation roll off him with grace. “I is remindin’ you Jordan Bishop, that you is in Zanzibar whilst I is on Hospitalis, so there is little point in gettin’ yourself in a twist. Further, does you not remember wot both your android and I is tellin’ you? I is an artist, my son, not a common thief wiv a shank and a shiv. If you was tellin’ yourself it was all an act, I is suggestin’ you speak to a therapist about the way you perceive the world in which you live. You is a master of self-delusion.”

  “How much?”

  “Oh, Jordan,” Chadsik said sadly, “it’s never about the money. No amount will get me to kill Garth Nickels before we are ready. As we’ve only just landed, we don’t even have a good idea of where he is. We are not nearly ready. The time will come when it comes.”

  Chad gifted Jordan a smile of positively intense work ethic, unaware that he’d already answered. “Don’t you worry, mate. He will die. I promise. No need to offer more dosh, yeah?”

  Jordan looked confused and as if he wanted to shout some more all at the same time, so Chad ended the call before he had to endure another second. People wanting to be a patron of the arts should consider themselves lucky to find an artist willing to put up with their attitudes. They simply lacked the refinement and intelligence to understand the mysterious inner workings of the artistically inclined.

  Chad tucked the Q-comm back into his pocket before returning his attention to Bolo. “That was my boss.” he replied apologetically. “He’s one of them fellas as wot don’t get it, know wot I mean? Hey? Wot? Bugger! He’s gone and died.”

  Stepping back to admire his handiwork, Chad spent fifteen minutes fussing over Bolobo’s Crucifixion. He spent considerable time in getting the placement of the hair just right; without good hair, the artistic arrangement of internal organs on the floor just wouldn’t have the proper impact. He wanted whoever came across this masterpiece to marvel at the grotesqueness of it all, but walk away wondering who in their right mind would comb a crucified man’s hair.

  The Devil -especially in Latelyspace- was in the details.

  Chad wished Jordan understood the level of perfection he committed himself to every time he undertook a Job. No one ever did, though.

  It was a source of perpetual sadness that he -Chadsik al-Taryin- should be the only one in the entire Universe who gave a damn about appearances. His stomach, or the thing that counted most as a stomach, growled fitfully.

  Art made him hungry.

  xxx

  Garth wanted nothing more than to eat his crappy Continental breakfast in peace and quiet. Really and truly. He was not a morning dude, never had been. In SpecSer, you were lucky if you had a few seconds to yourself in the bathroom for a quick bout of Personal Molestation; quiet breakfasts, lunches and dinners never ever happened in Special Services. That institution was like a high school gym locker room, except you had genetically modified super-soldiers instead of steroidally enhanced PE students.

  The same went for every meal taken in the Hotel Hospitalis. It’d been incrementally worse than Special Services because everyone in the Hotel not trying to kill him had been trying to kill each other.

  One day, Garth promised himself resolutely around a mouthful of lousy food, one day, he’d get a quiet breakfast and it would be awesome. He was going to find a world with three suns and a brilliant green sky and create a glorious hat made from wheat –or suitably applicable Offworld variation- and sit there, waiting for that triple sunrise, and then eat his breakfast in total, utter silence, with glorious sunshine all around him.

  This morning, something had affected the world so greatly that -however briefly- both he and The Game were ... disinteresting. From the moment he’d strolled into the airy room, every rich and snooty Latelian around him had been talking nonstop about ‘the horror of it all’ over their not-champagne and un-steak-and-maybe-egg breakfasts. No mention of The Game or his antics. Nice.

  Garth sat there spooning boring food into his mouth, listening to the hubbub and buzzing whispers of politely outraged richfolk. Eventually, curiosity won out and he asked a passing waiter what had everyone all aflutter.

  “They found a man pinned to a wall, sa.” The waiter replied with vivid repulsion. “Apparently he was cut open. Apparently,” he added with gusto, leaning in with the absolute reverse intention of keeping anything a secret, “whoever did it took some … some … stuff with him. Or her.”

  “Great.” Garth shoved the remains of his meal away. He had this to say about Hotel Hospitalis: it might have the world’s worst manager and it might be jam-packed with homicidally suicidal morons, but they rolled out one helluva good breakfast. Cuisine for the rich and famous wasn’t for him. Garth wondered if he could find a place that sold army rations. They might taste like warmed over ass, but at least they’d be filling.

  “So someone got himself stuck to a wall and it wasn’t me as did it.” Garth fished his Sheet free and started plunking through the clumsy interface. He couldn’t believe he’d considered Sheet technology the coolest thing since Kool-Aid. Now it was all he could do not to chuck the thing into the orange juice fountain adorning the buffet-style feed line.

  That problem was going to be solved, though, in short time.

  The story was everywhere. Everyone and their dog were doing the Latelian version of Tweeting their damn-fool fingers off over this murder, which was quite a thing. It was a natural fact that people died every day, and in Latelyspace, that could be ramped up to every few hours.

  Rather than cough up a few dollars to watch a live feed, Garth went for a free text report. His imagination was well suited to envisioning dead bodies, thanks very much. Garth read with interest.

  Some poor schmoe named Bolobo somebody or other had been crucified to a wall, not ‘pinned’. The distinction was a massive one, one that all the reporters were doing their best to avoid making. As the nutty waiter had enthused, many of Bolobo’s internal organs were missing, the author wondering quite prominently in the process what anyone could want with someone’s insides.

  Before closing with a spooky bit on the immaculate condition of Bolobo’s hair, the journalist attempted to draw some very uncool parallels between a suspected Portsider murder the week before and the current death.

  Garth felt like calling the reporter up to harangue him for a bit before cooling down.

  There were no similarities at all and besides, anyone with one-quarter of a functional brain could see they were looking at some sort of weird-as-fuck religious murder.

  His ‘murder’ had been a necessarily violent torture for information ‘murder’. The two were totally different, and one wasn’t even really a murder. It’d been justified. An eye for an eye, and all that. The other dudes in the room fell into the category of self-defense deaths. He grumbled unhappily and squashed another errant bolt of anger that tried to ripple through him. It was easy enough; he wasn’t responsible for the death of this Bolobo character and no one was going to come looking for him for an explanation. Bravo wasn’t going to win any points this round.

  A huge shadow descended behind him, casting a gloomy shadow over the Sheet. Garth tucked the gadget away and grinned. “Ute. My, aren’t we looming today?”

  “How did you know it was me?” Ute asked, moving around to the other side of the table. He sat without being invited, snagging a piece of toast on the way.

  “Superior sixth sense.” Garth quipped. “That and you reek like gun oil.”
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br />   “Smart.” Ute leaned easily back in his chair. “Have you heard the news?”

  “About the guy stuck to the wall like a butterfly?” Garth drank some orange juice.

  At least that hadn’t changed much in thirty thousand years. Why people the Universe over kept fucking with apple juice, though, was beyond his ability to reason. Granted, it’d probably take less than a minute to find out the answer, but griping about the condition of juice was one of the things that’d kept him ‘sane’ over the years.

  Ute nodded, interested to see Garth’s response.

  Garth shrugged, showing his hands. “Yep. My waiter was all excited about it, and not in the good kind of way. Why? Religious murders aren’t that interesting where I come from.”

  “What makes you think I’m the least bit interested beyond casual conversation?” Ute asked wryly.

  Garth snorted, coughing loudly as orange juice came out his nose. He grabbed a napkin to dab the mess away. “Dude, you’re head of Security for the biggest, baddest Hotel on the planet. I’m your number one gun-toting customer. I’d be crazy not to think you’ve got an ulterior motive.”

  Ute nodded appreciatively. So many of The Palazzo’s ‘powerful’ customers tended to believe they were above the law or that their relationship was something other than what it was, and all simply because they were permitted a few more freedoms within the walls than out on the streets. Garth recognized where he stood, and by association, so did Ute. “Fair enough.”

  Ute put a Sheet onto the table between them. While Garth went over its contents, the Security manager helped himself to more food.

  While he’d had been busy messing around at UltraMegaDynamaTron, Ute had devoted time and effort into cleaning up the shots taken of the two people suspected of lacing his suite with blackEyes. The quality still wasn’t great, but they were clearer.

  The one photo Garth had already seen of the woman from the other Hotel was much sharper, detailed enough now to take to the police for proper identification. Garth speculated it wouldn’t go too far; once Ute provided authorities with an image of a woman he knew to be a spy, all proof would vanish. If Ute was smart –and the man gave every indication of being top-notch in that department- he’d understand the implications and not even bother. Anyone targeted by government agents wasn’t likely to get police assistance. In point of fact, anyone bringing the activities of agents to light –even if it was their job- would probably find themselves in a passel of trouble.

  Garth considered the other photos of the youngish man. Beyond his obvious association with ’not-ERT woman’, Garth didn’t know the fellow from Adam. Undoubtedly a cohort, Bolo had stayed completely out of sight the whole time he’d been staying at the Hotel Hospitalis. He told Ute as much, snatching the last piece of ‘bacon’ out of the much larger man’s hands scant seconds before it reached the man’s mouth. He waggled the rescued piece of almost-pork triumphantly before jamming it into his mouth.

  “Before I begin,” Ute said, relishing the look on Garth’s face –it said he’d been on the receiving end of this particular line often-, “you need to understand that I’m completely aware of your innocence in the matter and will go to the highest possible levels to clear your name. If necessary.”

  “Huh?” Garth burped wetly.

  “The man killed this morning is the man in these photographs, sa.” Ute helped himself to some of Garth’s orange juice. Watching the Offworlder work his way through the possible threat to his reputation was hugely enjoyable.

  Garth grabbed a waiter by the elbow. “Hey, could you tell Management they’re not feeding this guy enough? Only he’s eaten everything on the table and something tells me he ain’t paying.” He let the bewildered woman go. “What’s this got to do with me?”

  “As part of our operational duties, we are required to inform the authorities of breaches in security.” Ute explained. “Of course we kept your name out of it, but we provided the police and the Ministry of Examination with the photographs we took and a sample of the blackEyes you … accidentally … flushed out of your room.”

  Pointedly ignoring Ute’s skepticism, Garth shook his head wearily. “So someone somewhere knows this guy was spying on me and now he’s pushing up daisies. This mean guys in dark suits are waiting for me somewhere? Because if they’re gonna try to beat a confession outta me, I need more calories.” He snorted derisively. “You guys and your conspiracy theories.”

  “Do you know anyone besides these people who would wish to bring you harm?” Ute asked casually.

  Garth was about to hotly deny that anyone in the known Universe would have cause to want him dead when he remembered Injiri Katainn. The Yellow Dog Elder had freely confessed to being in the employ of someone in Trinityspace, but either hadn’t known or hadn’t cared to divulge that person’s name. Then he rubbed his forehead. Ute was grinning as much as a man in his position could afford to; it was the tiniest bit of a quirk at the corners, but it was enough for Garth.

  Ute nodded thoughtfully. Of course, he’d seen the News4You piece. Everyone had, and the security chief knew enough to see that there was even more that hadn’t been said about Garth Nickels. A duo of murders –well, one was obviously a murder and the other … death … defied explanation- had happened inside the walls of the Offworld Hotel. There was little doubt in Ute’s mind Garth was responsible for those deaths, but wasn’t concerned; every story coming out of that place intimated that it was a barely controlled and poorly contained festering pot of insanity and murder-on-the-boil. The man shoved down the laundry chute was a typical display of mayhem, while the second murder … that had drawn Ute in like a bee to honey, prompting him to try and discover more about Garth Nickels.

  His 'casual' search for ‘Special Services’ on Latelian databanks revealed an impressive lack of information. While he’d been sorely tempted to reach beyond Latelyspace in search of answers, Ute had pulled up short. Whatever Nickels had been, whatever he’d done before coming to Latelyspace … trouble followed the man. Ute was sure of it and didn’t want anything he looked for to be responsible. “I thought as much. Is this going to become a problem for the Hotel?”

  Garth shrugged. He truly had no clue. The only thing he knew for certain was that his mystery hater would send someone else to kill him sooner or later. People who typically hired assassins weren’t the sort of people who –when finding out the assassin had failed- went ‘oh well, let’s just leave this guy alone, he’s had a rough day’.

  No. Men who hired professional life-takers would continue onward until he or she found it difficult to find anyone who’d take the job. The only remaining question was what kind of assassin had been greenlit.

  Injiri Katainn had been one of the greatest warriors Garth’d ever come across, and that was including standardized human beings with similar levels of illegal bodmods on the other side of The Cordon. Not comparable to entities hanging around in the deepest areas of The Cordon, mind, but those bastards were of a type that required being shot at from light years away, so comparison there was pointless.

  So if his Trinityspace detractor had gone out of the way to employ someone as deadly as Katainn, was it even possible he –or she- could find an assassin worse than the Yellow Dog master assassin?

  “Dunno.” Garth saw mild disappointment in Ute’s eyes and shrugged. There was nothing he could do.

  “Hotel Management has asked me to inform you that we are only willing to protect you up to the point where doing so becomes more of a problem for other guests.” Ute liked Garth well enough, but it always boiled down to the needs of the many. “If The Palazzo is host to a scenario similar to the one that played out with this Bolobo character, we will be forced to ask you to vacate the premises.”

  “Makes sense.” Garth hated the thought of being kicked out of The Palazzo. It suited his needs perfectly. “I’ll do my best to ensure that doesn’t happen, Ute. I like this place.”

  “Excellent.” Ute settled even further back into his chair
when a plate of food arrived. He pointed to the pile of tates, saying, “A colleague tells me you showed the chef how to makes these. What are they?”

  “French fries.” Garth whispered, stunned. “They’re called French fries. What in the heck are they doing on your plate?” If he recalled properly, part of Charbo’s agreement at even attempting to make fries was a promise that no one else anywhere in all of time and space even know they existed.

  Ute swallowed a mouthful of the delicious, golden brown deep-fried starchy tate-sticks. “Apparently, on your way out of the hotel yesterday you shoved some of these into another guest’s hands. If you know anything about us, sa, it’s that we …”

  “Like to eat. Yeah. I kinda noticed. So this guy just ate some stuff some other guy put in his hands? That’s … hilarious.” He barely remembered doing that. He found himself imagining that guest promptly storming up to Charbo and demanding that he have more of the amazing foodstuff and the Head Chef reluctantly agreeing.

  The man’s culinary efforts had gone through dramatic improvements over the course of twenty-four hours. Charbo’s initial results had been overcooked and lacking in the deep-fried goodness that he remembered so well from his ancient childhood. The French fries on Ute’s plate, though, were damned near perfect. The only thing missing was ketchup. How in the hell was he going to reinvent ketchup? He couldn’t just say ‘hey, this needs red goopy tangy stuff drizzled on top’ and expect the admittedly genius-level intellect of Charbo to translate that into ketchup. He didn’t even know how ketchup had been invented back on Earth. He wasn’t even sure actual tomatoes were a part of the process.