Interzeit: A Space Opera (10 page)

Without understanding
the
planetary way of life
, the
Kuipterra
ns
cannot r
emove this danger from the sky. T
hey simply do not have the passion to do what is necessary, to stop these threats before they appear in the first place!”

The crowd roars in a predictable linguistically activated wave of approval.

“By all rule and law Paresh Alwar is the rightful Executor of Earth and the Planetary Cabinet. Not only did M
ars win the games by the rules, but t
hese guidelines are vital to maintaining order
.
W
e cannot flout them at the first sign of ambiguity! They were codified for a reason, to bring order to a chaotic reality, to a humanity not bound by resource or material, but by mind alone!”

Flavius paused pointing his finger to the crowd, shaking and wagging it slowly, building up faster and faster. Then shaking madly he points to the cabinet building behind him.

“If law and due process is not enough to convince them!
Then let our resolve be clear! An Earth army must be for Earth! It must be controlled by
planetaries for the planet! A terrestrial leader is not only just, but the people of Earth demand it!”

“To the atrocities committed by spacers! I ask you people humbly!” He yells bombastically once again casting his finger at the Cabinet.

“Cui Bono!?”
He shouts accusingly, “Cui Bono! Cui Bono!
Cui bono!”
(Who benefits
?
Who benefits
? Who benefits?
)

The crowd soon joins in, angrily shouting along with him, “Cui Bono!? Cui Bono!? Cui Bono!?...”

Someone soon recognizes the pale
Kuipterra
n in the crowd for what he is, and points him out. A mob forms around him blocking his exit. They drag him to the stage by force. His
eyes are wide, frighten
ed
,
but
his body resists little, and allows
them to place him beside the pulpit of Flavius.

The senator unleashes a flurry of provocative insults into the
Kuipterra
n
’
s
face.
Streaks of foam spittle forming in the corner of his mouth, frothing with rage.
The crowd joins in, a cacophony of discordant insults wash over the stage in caustic waves.

The insults soon turn to trash and rocks. The
y
pelt the stage, Flavius shoves him away, to safeguard himself, and make him an easier target. He becomes the target to
o,
of his accusing finger, replacing the faceless cabinet building with a very real in the flesh spacer.

Locked in a stoic faced stasis, he watches the crowd. Large rocks begin connecting, bo
uncing off his suit with
force. His expression never changes from detached shock and fear. His lack of apparent suffering only serves to enrage the crowd further. Large
rocks,
and pieces of metal somehow find their way into the rabbles possession.

A piece of concrete smashes against the ground by his feet.
The rock crashes hard against the stage, shattering into sharp shrapnel pieces that scatter everywhere. The familiar noise triggers something inside of Nol, his hatred boils over, and he snaps into impulsive action.

He stands and angrily and grabs Polystratus by his shoulder with his one arm, and spins him around.
Polystratus
,
like before
,
offers no resistance.

“What are you doing you damned moron, do you want to cause a bloodbath?” Nol spits,

“The…people need to know that I’m not violent.” He says very quietly,

“Get out of here now!” Nol yells, “
Or your non-violent self is going to be ripped to pieces!”

Polystratus stares back at Nol almost with condescension.

“Go!” Nol punches
him
in the ribs. Through the drugs he cannot feel the pain, but he hear
s
his knuckles pop as they make contact.

The suit despite being tight and
thin,
resists the punch so completely that Nol is sure he broke his wrist.

“Very well, stay safe survivor Nol.
L
et us meet again.” He says calmly, and walks to the far end of the stage slowly.

The crowd chee
rs this apparent victory by Nol.
T
wo security officers escort Polystratus through the crowd. He is led out somewhat civilly, rocks not withstanding. Everyone seems to misread Nol’s actions, Coronado included, cheering and chanting his name.

The senator lifts his one arm up in victory, declaring triumphantly, “We will never surrender to tyranny!”

The rally continued building in momentum.
Nol began feeling weak, and naseuous. The crowd
’
s energy was too much to
cope with
in
t
his state. He felt it
flowing through him. His handler
pulled him behind the scenes temporarily. They gave him more drugs, some food and water. After letting everything settle, the drugs began to do their work.

This made him feel better, something else was there though, perhaps it was the crowd or a different drug was slipped into his cocktail, but a warm euphoria seeped through his body.
They wheeled him back on stage to the booming approval of the mob. Their cheers amplified the euphoria three fold.

As the sun came down
something slipped loose about the whole event. As it grew darker, natural fires were lit. The primal flames lit the rally dimly, but provided warmth. Things became frantic, a new energy took hold. The rocks made a come back, being hurled at the windows of nearby cabinet buildings. Hitting a fever pitch, it almost broke
into a riot
.

T
he
Earth loyalists
in attendance
bec
ame more and more savage, working
into
a frenzy
. Soon they had
nothing else to
contend with
except their
inflated pride and
hatred.

Nol felt their hatred resonate
through
him,
it mixed in delightfully with the euphoric dope. I
t felt good.

H
e hated them, but despite that t
he
y were
fe
eling
what he wanted them to feel, pain, anger, grief
, and rage
.

The demonstration nearly broke into a full riot, with Polystratus gone they turned their attention once again to the building, rushing it, trying to defame, trash, and destroy the smooth stone angles and corners.

The security
present eventually was
forced to step in to contain things
.
A
lthough their enthusiasm for this activity was not great,
they were still bound by the
form of duty and law, the religious application of order.

He was returned to his room late in the evening, the drugs wearing thin, he fell into a deep long sleep.

Nol had expected his stunt to ca
use a backlash from his handlers
within the Cabinet. He was very much wrong about this however, and he soon became a propaganda darling for them. His intention was simply to save the naïv
e spacer from his own ignorance, and p
erhaps he had
been successful in that goal
, but the other edge to this had resulted in him appearing to be a brave supporter of an independent Earth.

The surgery for his cybernetic prosthetic was scrapped by the hospital. Instead a private donation had funded a much more exotic and expensive route of care.
Over the next few days they took samples from him with little mention as to why. He was use to the routine probing and fluid measuring, so he thought little of it.

Using this they cultivated a complicated series of stem cells programmed to convert to the proper biological type in a large vat. The cells grew along a scaffold
. This experiment of cloning soon produced an arm
ready to be transplanted.

The doctors informed him as the operation neared, that this was not just any arm. It wasn’t a replacement arm, it was an upgrade. The bone was made out of a specialized designer cell type, replacing many of the minerals with tough lightweight polymers.

He knew little on how one could clone a
n
arm that could be biological yet so artificial at the same time, but he had no room to complain.

The surgery was the most pleasant Nol had experienced thus far. The usual uncomfortable pre-operation procedures were still executed, however when Nol awoke with the typical soreness and groggy feeling from under the knife, he saw a bandaged mass attached to his nub.

His entire right half was numb, he probed the arm,
and the
sleeping flesh had no reaction. The next day physical therapy for the arm began. There was a painful series of exercises forcing him off his dependency on the chair. This continue
d
for hours, it was painful
just
like the surgeries, and his wounds had been, but at least there was a sense of agency buried in the pain.

It was pain he chose (nominally anyway), pain that had a purpose of some kind. When he was returned to his hospital room, he found a message on his ionic. It had a very important series of numbers and symbols
in its
message
routing.

“Greetings Tomson Nol,

The global cabinet has responded to the popular appeal to address the security concerns of the people. The demand for security is an honest one, yet there are still concerns over the safety of manufacturing a large scale mechanized army. The original concern of the game founders has not been made irrelevant in today’s world.

On
the contrary with improved technology, the threat of complete annihilation is
only even more possible. However the threat of this happening looms with or without such an army, as recent events have proven
.

You have been selected as a potential candidate for a pilot program to respond to this outcry and the attack on Turzion.
A limited few will be introduced to this program over the following weeks, and be tested for compatibility with the programs objectives.

Until then, the Cabinet wishes you the best of luck in your recovery, and all of our condolences for the loss of your sister.
”

The letter was signed by several high level dignitaries, from the moon to deep space. Down at the bottom casually was also his name,

“Maxelus Calatian the Third”

His mind was too haggard to comprehend it. The brain loses its ability to absorb new stimulus after a certain degree of exhaustion (especially of the neural chemical variety), Nol knew this. So the news which was of great importance passed through him because of the intensive rehab, it was translucent like a ghost.

It was a far away entity, a car’s headlights peering over a hill. A rolling comet whose miniscule size burned tails in pursuit of the solar reunification, or was it a struggle for freedom?

Nol
slips away into a drugged dream. The direct line and word loses its capacity and meaning. It breaks into derivatives, conversation to image, and movement.
A conversation, an internal conversation on the unreachable conversation
,
externally waiting in deep space.
It lay outside the sealed environment of his mind, but was ever observable and existent.

It grows more sophisticated, the sealed conversation begins the dream. A conversation on many levels, it becomes another derivative. With the discarding of the middle and connecting conversation, it is set adrift, floating in a sea of black ignorance.
The nothingness of potentiality.

A cresting hill, its angles are steep and curved, brimming with evergreen trees. Their bristling greens
breathe
dewy breaths and flutter in the clean mountain air. The trees stick straight out, defying any impossible angle that it appears to be rooted in.

Yes that’s what it was,
h
e realized it now. A memory now, it was a memory. The perfectly smooth road snaked around the hill, and off to its other consortium of land terrain unions. His car was parked along the curbside hugging the rising slope of the hill. The thing was covered in sharp fins, notably in two large curves riding down the sides of the car like a pseudo spoiler.

They came to a sharp point in the
back,
the sun glinted of the paint rolling backwards off the thing. The shine glimmers in the roll almost moist and wet, as it hits the back fins it condenses to the single point drip
ping watery drops of light
.

It had a mismatch of black and primary color decals. People called it gaudy, but he had worked hard for it, earned it. A piece of vintage nostalgic futurism, he got the alert he was waiting for. He throws his cigarette down on the wet earth, and enters the super car.

His “bat car” he joked to his friends all the time. His friends and people he thought it would
impress,
most of all this impressed himself. What exactly it impressed was ever changing, his radio beeps and comes to life.

“What are you waiting for? Accept!” The voice demands.

Nol kicks his feet up on the dash, grinning, “Sure sure friend, I’ll accept, gotta get here first though.”

“Fuck that, accept, I’m almost there.”

“Alright, you won’t have to wait long then.” He flicks a switch, his eight hundred horsepower
engine
shrieks to life.

Nol checks the map, and the challenger isn’t lying. He finds their
position,
they zip around the mountain corners at full race speeds. The sound of screeching fills his ears as the car drifts violently
around the corner. It slides to a halt just short of him,
and
then cruises
,
straightening out along side of the bat car.

It’s a glossy pearl finis
h thing, shaped vaguely like a
short
flighted
arrow. Slim blue metallic lines trimmed the sides like robotic scales.

“What’s your game?” Nol asks suspicious.

“Simple,” the stranger answers, “Death race, no distance or time keeping.”

“No restrictions?” Nol asks,

“Are you a purist, don’t like the thrill of luck?”
The stranger answers, “Or simply a coward?”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page, that’s all. Let’s do it!”

The batcar’s tires squeal
leaping after
the arrowhead. Nol shifts up with glee, and powers towards the other car.

He tries to T-bone it off the cliff, but the other racer’s quick reflexes pulls them away in the nick of time. The batcar smashes them behind the back tire, but the shallow clip only fishtails them, aiding in their tight turn around the first corner.

“Don’t run!” Nol cackles, accelerating after them, “Trying to run already?”

The racer doesn’t respond, a sure sign of concentration, the real mark of the game’s start. He speeds and drifts frantically after them. They both carve tight paths against the mountain pass
, Nol leaping in after them as they dare further and further
,
braving the blind corners, sliding into the opposite lane.

He closes in, or they let him close in anyway. He maneuvers around the shoulder drafting around th
e car. It inches slowly into
place, reaching past the car slowly,
setting
up the eventual deadly jack knife on the rear axle.

They cut off his
advance, making contact early, t
he rear bumper smashes his headlight,
they
lose speed, battling for control over the leverage fulcrum of their impacting cars.

The arrow wins out
, shoving
his car onto the sharp angled dirt shoulder.
They match
his braking looking to guide his car in a shove. The flipping angle is threatened as
his
car tips upwards on the rising shoulder.

He turns into it, the car slides up and spins
dangerously around the shoulder
like a clock. After two caustic spins
,
it rights, and plops back onto the road.

The other racer laughs, “Almost had you there you little fuck.”

“You must not
race
much ,
I wasn’t going to buy into that retarded maneuver.”

“Catch up already then!” They yelled,

He rights the car, and roars back after them. He flies past them. They were waiting on the other end of a turn, and slide behind them taking the pursuing role from him. “Finally” Nol grins, speeding ahead.

His dashboard is alight with ga
udy possibilities and programs, and t
he
batcar
has finally flown into the right position for the best one. Nol makes the appropriate adjustments, setting the car to autonav, and then…

There’s a low clunk as the
rear mounted harpoon cords fire in rapid succession. The discordant drum beat gives way to a dragging on the car, assuring a solid connection. Excited he crouches, leaning out of his seat. His gloved fingers trace around the disorganized horde of
weapons piled in the back seat
. Finally they land on a weapon t
o
o large to even fit properly into the car. He grabbed its components, and punched the hatch to the roof open.

When fully assembled it was
ridiculous
, really shiny,
mimicking the
old Macedonian
sarissa
style
. Nol clambered to the roof with the spear. He held it over hand, it casted away its terminal point parallel to his vision, a guide arrow to the arrow car.

The triggers in his shoulder were frantic for a throw, but his mind commanded a deeper madness. He runs down the end of the car, charging even. He leaps up into a suicidal parabola, at the crest of the
jump,
Nol swings the spear down, aiming to land all his weight into the
windshield
of the car.

Suddenly the grill and front bumper to the car drop away, spitting the anchoring harpoons onto the road uselessly. The arrow pulls back, sl
ipping
away from the spear’s grasp.

Instead the spearhead cracks on the road, snapping. Nol hits the ground roughly, in a tumble he rights himself diving into a recovered pole vault with the remaining shaft.
He threatens a
moment of serene agility, but the shaft snaps again under the force and momentum. He skids with the splintering weapon burning off his thighs, palms and belly.

The arrow rolls over him. Nol manages to roll under the barren spot left by the bumper, but the tires compress him ruthlessly. The car brakes, stopping short after. Nol pulls around his outfit frantically, finally slipping a vintage 1911 from his pants pocket.

Unable to run, sit up, or move at all really, he aims it at his sideways angle
lying
on the ground, both hands gripping the gun weakly.

The drive
r
door kicks open, the racer steps out we
aring a suit matching their car with
a blue and white monkey mask. Its primate face melds into plastic metallic helmet surround
ing
their entire face. Silently they pull off the head gear revealing the chestnut hair of Clara’s avatar. The hair rolls gently onto her shoulders, and she brandishes an autopistol from the car door.

“You said you were the best
!
” she mocks,

His fingers crawl into the trigger guard, “Let’s find out.”

He fires aimed lead into a hail of returning stinging death.

“Shit” He sit up in a chair, flinging off his headset, “You sneaky
bitch
.”

He wakes up suddenly in his bed, the morning dawn already creeping into the room. He looks around, orienting, re-compressing, his head falls, and hits the back of the pillow with a thump.

“Sneaky…”

His routine recovery continues for time. As he normalizes however
,
it is cut short. The word his trainer used was “Expedited” to be precise. A flight suit is w
aiting for him back at his
room
,
the hospital staff sorted through his things, and packed them up in various suit cases.

A chauffeur arrives the next morning with a cart, they load it up together, and Nol allows them to pull it ahead. They’ve been given instructions and the address to escort him to. In that way they are already more informed about the process th
a
n he is.

Th
ey walk several
miles,
Nol’s so—
so physique suffers through this the best he could. Through their journey to the unknown destination, Nol feels a creeping paranoia.
Something watching him almost.

He knows logically this is patently ridiculous, its one of the largest cities in the world. The streets are stuffed with cars, and pedestrians, slipping passed them narrowly. Still it hits him in the brain stem. That prickling sense you get when someone locks their gaze with yours. His nerves fluctuate, as it feels more and more dangerous to not stare back, and meet the eyes of the inquirer.

Still this must be dismissed as paranoia, perhaps fueled by withdrawal from his major chemical dependencies. There is no great set of eyes
floating through the street. No ghosts waiting on the corners for him, although on every one, every corner, balcony, and car window he expects them to flash suddenly. Some dead spectral form that glints and vanishes upon mortal detection.

“Do you feel that?” He asks the chauffeur.

“Yes,” he responds absently, “Its very muggy out today, wouldn’t you say so?”

“Yeah,” Nol agrees, “
It’s
really taking it out of me.”

“We’re nearly there
sir,
I believe it’s
just a bit further.”

Nol nods and thanks the man for his assistance. The standard banter of server and served ensues, the polite dancing of words sealing the compact into the shrine of language. Sure enough after a turn and two more city blocks they stopped at a small bus depot.

Nol dismisses his helper, but they insist on staying until they are picked up.

“Part of the job sir, no offense.”

He laughs nervously and assures him at his lack of offense. Still it gives dripping leaks of life to his
paranoia,
others did not seem to think it was crazy that he need
ed
an escort.

Sitting on the cart of his possessions, his mind wanders around the bus depot. A pretentious extension of his mind, he visualizes himself wandering around the empty concrete lot disembodied,
a ghost
.

The benches, covered areas, and
communication terminals, dusty from age, but humming with well checked performance capabilities. In this day dream he runs into solid empty space. It is randomly placed
,
innocuously in the center of an empty bus storage area. Nol tests it, and finds it to be a ghost as he is, the thing watching him.

His ghost body presses against it a few more times, when it moves, aware of its detection suddenly. Nol flails grazing it one last time, and then it re-adjusts and flees. Only it doesn’t leave, it simply re-locates to a new hiding spot, every inch of ground a possible shelter.

Finally his transport
arrives,
a large van pulls up, emblazoned with the globe and Planetary Cabinet insignia. The driver and chauffeur help him load his possessions, and with final goodbyes he climbed inside.

The van was a circular couch facing inwards. The smoked windows let in little sun, as such the primary lighting was prov
ided by artificial candles installed on the edge of the table in the center.