Spoils Of War Collection E-Book

Conor H. Carton

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

All three books in 'Spoils Of War', a series of science fiction novels by Conor H. Carton, now available in one volume!
Bottle Born Blues: Shakbout Mansard, an artificial life form, wants a quiet life with his family. However, his dangerous knowledge of a plot to overthrow the government of Mengchi makes him a target for terrorists and security forces alike. To make matters worse, he has been hiding a secret that could threaten the lives of all free bottle-born life forms across the systems. In this gripping sci-fi novel, Shakbout must take desperate measures to protect his loved ones and prevent a systems-wide war between factions.
The Thousand Year Fall: In the second book in the series, Shakbout finds himself pursued by his past and embroiled in a race against time to stop a cult from destroying inhabited systems. As he becomes a pawn in the struggle to harness the power of the Bottle Born, Shakbout must rely on allies to survive.
Ladder To The Sun: Shakbout is forced back into a dangerous situation when a claimant to the Emperor's throne arises, risking a return to war in the Inhabited Systems. Along with his allies, Shakbout fights to stop the process, but faces many obstacles from those who wish to prevent him. As he delves deeper, he uncovers a conspiracy that reveals the dark truth about the spoils of war.

Leseprobe

SPOILS OF WAR COLLECTION

THE COMPLETE SERIES

CONOR H. CARTON

CONTENTS

Bottle Born Blues

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

The Thousand Year Fall

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Ladder To The Sun

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2023 Conor H. Carton

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

BOTTLE BORN BLUES

SPOILS OF WAR BOOK 1

For Helene and Hannah

PROLOGUE

The war was finally over. No one had actually won, and no one had actually lost. It had simply stopped when the woman who had surfed a tsunami of blood across the Inhabited Systems was swamped by an even bigger wave of blood created by those who opposed her. She had made a desperate dash to the place where her doomsday weapon was held only to die on the threshold. Everyone was so exhausted from the conflict that they simply stopped when she was no longer leading the charge.

There were no winners, no triumph, but there were clear losers. The bottle born had lost long before the war and continued to lose long after the fighting had stopped. They had lost their freedom, then their energy and finally their natural physical bodies. Developed in vast farms, harvested for their inherent energy, they were the most important and valuable commodity in the Inhabited Systems situated on the fringes of deep space. Finally, they were realising their own strength and were ready to get off their knees.

A war that is not lost nor won never ends; it just moves to the shadows and continues without the flash and clash of military battles. Those who had not lost developed new plans that would finally bring them victory. They knew what others had forgotten: to the victor goes the spoils of war. The time to leave the shadows and stand in the blazing light of final, absolute victory had arrived.

1

“Welcome to the Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge. My name’s Shakbout, and I’ll be your guide today.”

I always paused after this introduction to gauge the group of visitors and to get ready for another cycle of the winner’s history recited by one of the losers. My somewhat slim self never stood out in a crowd—not at a height of two metres, with pale skin and dark-red hair, sage-green eyes, and extraordinarily ordinary features.

The group I was about to lead on a short tour through the carefully edited and constructed narrative that the Centre preferred to broadcast was the usual spread of off-world tourists and local school students. We were all standing in the entrance hall of the CPHK, the place where all tours started. It was a beautiful space, a kilometre long and 750 metres wide, paved with off-white slabs that were comfortable to walk on, with the main entrance at one end and the gift shop at the other. No visitor ever walked the length directly; they were carefully guided, either by visible guides like me or by more subtle means, to take one of the numerous moving spiral stairways up to the exhibition galleries.

The walls rose for two kilometres up to a ceiling that was a wide spiral ascending for another two kilometres. The distance did not prevent the details of the decoration of the spiral being easily visible from the floor. Magnifying charms were used to make the distance appear much less than it was. The spiral was decorated with an instantly recognisable and understandable map of the systems. Your eye was gently led around the Inhabited Systems up to where Thiegler itself was, right at the edge of deep space. It looked as if Thiegler might fall into the dark void, which was funny since Thiegler had tried very hard to drag the inhabited systems into a different void.

Every tour started from the same point and followed the same route across the hall. After that, they could follow different trails depending on the tour. The Standing Committee was very careful to ensure that the historical narrative that was served up matched the profile of the group. The differences were not obvious unless you went on each tour, heard the shifting emphasis, and had the interest in comparing them all to see what was being included and excluded. I had followed each tour, recorded them, and spent many hours watching and listening. In the event I was ever asked, I would have said it was a training exercise for myself to ensure I could be deployed on any tour. The truth was that I was looking for something, and the CPHK was as good a place to search for it as anywhere.

Since everyone looked ready, I started by leading the group over to the imposing—in fact, absolutely astounding—image on the west wall of the lobby. The image was huge, over two metres tall and three metres long, hovered close to but not touching the wall. It was 1.5 metres off the ground, and as we assembled in front of it, we all looked up at exactly the angle that the maker of the image had intended. Standing at that point, it appeared that we all stepped into the image and became an active audience for the event taking place in front of us. We stood in the doorway of a long rectangular room with rows of columns down each side. Each viewer saw different patterns on the columns. I saw something different each time I stepped into the room. Sometimes I saw flowers, and sometimes I saw blood. Once, I saw bodies trapped in the columns, writhing in pain.

Directly in front of us, a handsome woman—no one ever described her as beautiful—dressed in a clearly high-ranking military uniform, was driving a double-headed war axe into the skull of a somewhat fishy-looking lifeform standing before her. She did not look upset or furious or murderous, simply determined. This was a woman clearly doing something that needed to be done.

There was no blood, which always disturbed me. There should have been blood—oceans of blood spilling out on the floor of the CPHK. Blood should have been gushing over us as we stood in front of the image. Instead, we stood safe and clean in front of it. I started my information fog machine and spoke.

“The creator of this image is unknown. No record has ever been found of who created it, when it was created, where it was displayed, or if it was in fact displayed anywhere before its discovery in a submerged warehouse in Lake Zan following restoration work carried out on the outer banks 150 years ago.”

I took the scripted pause before continuing,

“There’s some debate about the subject of this image. The most likely suggestion is that it is a scene from the Ranger Cycle, the stories of the gods first told by Oxlus of the Thakaan System. In the centuries that followed, more details and stories have been added. It is estimated that at the present time there are fifteen different Ranger Cycles that cover the actions and deeds of over a thousand gods. As you may imagine, there has been considerable debate since this image was first discovered as to which event from the variety of Ranger Cycles this is. While there is no firm agreement, the current majority opinion is that it shows the triumph of Hardleigh, a god from the Olean Ranger Cycle, over the assassin sent by her jealous cousin.”

Gazes were riveted. So far, so good. “The image is woven from trapped light, fractured air, and some unidentified crystal dust with an unknown process. This level of magical mastery has arguably not been demonstrated again. The Standing Committee wishes to preserve this image as a unique viewing experience: it should only be seen and appreciated in its original form.”

I paused, allowing them to study the picture while I waited for the question. This time it came from one of the students.

“Can I get a copy of the image?” he asked with that acquisitive tone the question always rests on.

“I’m afraid not, but there’s a range of very attractive items available in the gift shop, which we’ll visit at the end of the tour.” I waited for the regulation two seconds, turned, and headed for the stairs, confident the group would follow.

My shadow stayed behind, staring at the image. My shadow was a dangerous mental necessity for me to survive intact in the job. It provided an alternative script, saying words I longed to say but dared not—they had to be voiced somehow, or the pressure inside would become so great I might do something extremely stupid.

My shadow turned to address his group, the shadows of everyone I had ever guided through the maze of “almost information” during my time at the Centre. “It’s true that the creator of that extraordinary work is unknown, but there’s no question as to what this image is—this image of Empress Ingea driving an axe into the unsuspecting head of the leader of the Wrexen Federation, who had arrived to sign a trade agreement. This action marked the start of the longest, most devastating conflict in the history of the systems. It was the signal to the Imperial Fleet to launch an overwhelming attack on the Wrexen Federation. The Wrexen Federation is better known today as the Sickle Quadrant. When you look at the Empress, you have to admire her—the creator demands it—she’s confidently and calmly taking decisive action. A leader in fact, as well as in name. The Wrexen Chief has a subtly malicious air about him; clearly, he intended to harm the Empress, and she responded with decisive action. That one of the most extraordinary creations in history celebrates one of the most stupidly malicious events in history has to be one of the most effective jokes ever played. Best of all, the unknown maker makes us all complicit in this action—we are the approving audience for it.” My shadow surveyed the crowd, and they all stared back dumbly.

My shadow swallowed a bittersweet smile. “The Standing Committee had a collective shit fit upon discovery. It clearly celebrates the moment as a triumph; the image is woven with the most explicit sense of justified pride at the Empress’s decisive strength and wisdom. Thiegler was Ingea’s home planet, the location for the action. Despite a genuine regret at the unimaginable misery and destruction caused by the bottomless greed of the Empress, there is an unavoidable and sneaking pride at the scale of her achievement.”

Dramatic pause. My shadow, incidentally, was a total ham when it came to public performances. “The Sickle Quadrant is still holding who knows what creatures—brewed in Ingea’s own farms as a last-ditch effort to defeat the Quill Alliance forces—creatures which are still a threat to all lifeforms in the systems to this day. Displaying the image is a dangerously balanced risk, only achievable by the mystery that surrounds it. Allowing the image wider circulation would be a reminder of things best left undisturbed. Ambiguity is a good tactic, as it creates breathing space, which allows for utterly breath-taking artistry to emerge and overshadow content.” My shadow didn’t take questions.

I led the tour group into the Hall of the First Instance. In the short tour, this was the first stop, a look at the development of the most important industry in the combined systems. There was no way to avoid this place on any tour; it was one of the most significant reasons that visitors came to the CPHK. It was also one of the most truthful exhibits in the Centre. I led the group to the first exhibit, a large cabinet containing models of strange-looking creatures. Some were cut in half to display internal arrangements; others appeared to be wrapped or bound in an assortment of cages. I could feel the prickles of curiosity among the crowd; each one was a barbed needle stabbed into my gut.

“This exhibit is a unique Cabinet of Curiosities, the result of the work of a dedicated collector who, over the course of his lifetime, sought to gather specimens of original Pre-Shoshone artefacts. What you see are ornamental versions of functional artefacts; they survived as they were designed simply for display purposes. There’s also evidence that they were used as teaching aids. On the top row, three in from the left, you can see that the StoneBeater has been carefully arranged to show internal lines of energy, each highlighted in a different colour. This energy is sometimes referred to as magic due to the complete lack of convincing alternative explanations for the source and nature of the energy and its properties. There are some lifeforms here which have never been identified; they became extinct, and no records have been found to identify them. It has been suggested that these lifeforms were used exclusively for the production of Ornamentals and as such fell out of mainstream production and have been lost to history.”

My shadow had slunk into the room while I’d been talking and was hovering by the first exhibit. It took a minute for the crowd to join him. He spoke without facing them, staring at the contents of the exhibit.

“Someone realised that some of the small native Thiegler lifeforms were capable of manipulating their surroundings sub-atomically to support themselves in an extremely hostile environment. Someone else realised that if a human picked up one of these lifeforms, they could channel and focus that process quite usefully. Due to the completely mysterious nature of this power, it was called magic, and that essential mystery is the only thing that has stayed the same since the start. Of course, magic is a horribly unscientific word, so it was quickly replaced with the much more suitable ‘energy’.

“All it took was the bottomless greed and limitless imagination of humans to realise that this magic was a road to dominance and power … if it could be reliably harvested. They had to find a more convenient way to carry the lifeforms, so they invented frames. It was then discovered that these frames increased the quantity of energy each lifeform produced, and they channelled it more efficiently … and also killed the lifeforms a lot faster. This is when the commercial farming of the lifeforms began—factories that twisted, broke, and carved lifeforms to fit into frames, which killed them even faster when they forced power at a greater rate. These relics date from before the Shoshone developments.”

Carefully ignoring my shadow, I moved my tour group over to a large display, cut in half to show various layers and interactions. A marvel of precision and detail, it delivered an astonishing amount of complex information at a glance. The model was one of the early pre-Shoshone super-farms. There were 15 levels on display—from breeding bottles on the bottom to final saturation and production stations at the top. To the far left, you could see recycling chutes where depleted product was directed to the furnaces as high-grade fuel.

I waited as three group members ambled around to peer at the model from various angles. They seemed quite intrigued. “This is a scale model of the largest of the pre-Shoshone super-farms that we had here on Thiegler. Frames were linked together to create greater levels of power output. These frames became bigger and bigger, producing more power and requiring a greater supply of lifeforms to fill them. The farming process had developed very quickly as innovations led to greater production, and finally the development of bottle breeding, which vastly increased the supply of power-rich lifeforms. It was bottle breeding that led to the development of super-farms and allowed for the production of power on a scale sufficient to alter the lives of everyone in Thiegler. Power was distributed across a grid, which drove industrial development and expansion. Thiegler quickly became the manufacturing hub for the systems. The power from the farms allowed for production processes that could not be achieved anywhere else. To support increasing demand for power, depleted product from the bottle-breeding process was used as fuel to provide for the requirements of the farm. This provided for nearly 70% of the power requirement and enabled the economics of the super-farms to be profitable. Still, the whole process was reaching the limit of development when the Shoshone process was established, and we moved into the modern era of production.”

I waited for questions; there were none, so I escorted them to the next stage of the tour.

My shadow waved at the model of the bottle farm and spoke his script to his crowd as I did to mine.

“Depleted product—the words burn my tongue with acid hate—is the name for the bodies of the lifeforms that had been bred in bottles below, drained of energy and thrown into a furnace to enable more lifeforms to suffer the same fate … reduced to product, denied any independence in the great web! Look at yourselves with your vacant stares eyeing this slaughterhouse without seeing it; you’re the depleted products, and I’d gladly recycle all of you right now.” My shadow burned with all the impotent rage and hatred that I carried, stoked to a furious heat by the sight of the atrocities enshrined in the model. History could only be acknowledged, not undone.

Showing the group through a door into a large room dominated by an enormous display of all the systems, not to scale, but a strategic political map that gave greater space to the more important locations, regardless of their actual physical scope. This had become the standard way to show the systems, so it proved a shock to view an actual scale display. The version in the room was simply another piece of the winner’s history, nudging out reality and reinforcing necessary messages.

We stopped before a highly polished oval conference table in the middle of the room; every place had a nameplate and on the centre of the table was a solid state-of-the-art comms block. In its day, it was the most advanced piece of technology in the systems, often cited as the hinge of the conflict, the vital edge that cut to victory. The group spread so that every person stood before a nameplate, and I took the position at the head of the table.

I straightened my shoulders and took an authoritative pose. “This is not a replica, but the actual strategic command centre for the Quill Alliance. It was in this room that the strategy that led to the final victory in the War of Empires. The configuration of the table and the whole exhibit is the same as it was when the decision was taken to close the Archen Corridor. It was this action that proved to be the turning point in the War of Empires—and this action was only possible because that block there allowed for the simultaneous co-ordination of over 16 million separate spaceships, spread across 5,000 separate Quill Alliance fleet forces, all of whom had to act in exact sequence. The scale of the operation was what had made it so unlikely; it was never considered a viable possibility and thus never planned against. The entire process took 10 seconds to complete, done with no resistance. No action of this scale has ever been repeated and may never be. Now that the possibility has been established, it’s part of defensive planning everywhere across the systems. The Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge was chosen as the display location after considerable negotiation. We’re very proud to have this extraordinary exhibit.”

The group gazed at the antiques on display with a casual lack of interest, exactly the response that the Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge hoped to achieve. The less interest inspired by the events, in particular the part played by the Thiegler hierarchy, the better. If amnesia wasn’t an option, then a bored lack of interest was a perfectly acceptable alternative.

My shadow, still following after me, had a desire to shake up the crowd, to force a realisation on them that history gripped them as tightly as it did him.

“This exhibit is the reason for the existence of the Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge, just as the blade that lopped off Ingea’s head would be the centrepiece display in a museum housed in her palace. There have been a huge number of re-developments of the site over the centuries since; this has never changed and is always the physical centre for the place. Closing the Archen Corridor was a death sentence for twenty-two billion inhabitants in the trapped systems. They died trying to escape as the noose closed around them. This noose was the only thing that kept the inhabitants of the Sickle Quadrant contained, and if it ever fails, the future will be one long drawn-out scream of blood-soaked terror for everyone.

Ingea was a one-off, willing to dream, plan and act on a scale that others simply couldn’t comprehend, believe or accept. She rode that weakness for all it was worth and nearly came to victory. She lost because other wolves in the Inhabited Systems were willing to take big steps. The sheer numbers working together proved that a pack will beat a lone wolf no matter how powerful. One of the great absences in history is a common understanding of what Ingea was planning when she launched the conflict. That she had a clear aim isn’t in doubt; the question is what it was. At least part of it’s obvious, to me at least, and is never spoken of. Superimpose a map of her attack points on the display here and join them up, and what do you see?” My shadow gestured dramatically. “You’ve seen it recently before, no? She was shaping the systems into a frame just like the one that the lifeforms were forced into to allow their energy to be used by humans.

“Ingea was going to create the biggest power source in time and space. I’ve no idea what she was going to use it for. My imagination fails when I consider what possible use that power was required for. I’m positive that it was a means, not an end … that there is unfinished business here … and that we all hope will remain that way.”

The tour group had moved to the final exhibit of my short tour, the real reason they were here: the glittering treasure of the Centre. I could sense the group’s attention awakening as we walked. The entrance couldn’t have been plainer—a solid stone wall, whitewashed with a narrow-arched doorway in the middle, no signs or notices. The wooden door stood open, and we entered single file. The walls of the circular room were made of the same whitewashed stone; the floor was plain hardwood. There was nothing in the room except a small table, slightly bigger than the domed glass case sitting on it. The plain setting was all that was needed to display the most extraordinary item in the Inhabited Systems: the Shoshone Circlet.

The group gathered around and stared at the blank model of a human head. On it sat a very plain band of twisted gold with a large blood-red stone that rested on the middle of the model’s forehead, above and between the eyes. It deliberately suggested a third eye, one that held gleaming, shifting light within. Before speaking, I left space for everyone to be drawn into the spell cast by the artefact.

“This is one of the most profound mysteries in the Inhabited Systems. There’s no information regarding who, when, or how the Shoshone Circlet was made. It’s not clear if it was found or discovered, or by whom. The first mention of it is found in the laboratory notes of the Shoshone farm, and it’s clear that they didn’t create it themselves but were trying to understand how it had been created. Unfortunately, the entire farm was obliterated in an explosion linked to their efforts to replicate the Circlet. The Circlet itself had been sent to a lab at a super-farm situated here in Mengchi just prior to the destruction at the farm.

“The Circlet was the first charm, the first artefact that contained energy taken from an energy-rich lifeform. Before that, the energy was always in the lifeform, it was channelled through the frame. In the Circlet, the energy had been removed from the lifeform and stored to be used at will. It was at the central lab that the Circlet was first replicated … where energy transfers from lifeforms into separate containers were performed. The energy could be stored and directed with precision. Charms meant that the power could be exported to other systems, and thus the fundamental reorganisation of the economies and societies of the systems started. Without a continuing supply of charms, life in the combined systems would effectively stop.

“It’s been stated that the existence of the Circlet was the necessary requirement for the breakthrough of harvesting and storing the energy of the lifeforms. Until it was demonstrated that it could be done, no one was willing to try it. Once done, however, the forces required to achieve it were again harnessed. No one knows if the second process developed by the central laboratory is the same one used to create the Shoshone Circlet. To discover this, the Circlet would have to be subjected to destructive testing, and that’s never been allowed. To this day, the mystery and importance of the Circlet remain.

“This is the conclusion of the tour.” I bowed my head to the group. “Thank you for taking the time to visit the Mengchi Centre for the Promotion of Historical Knowledge. When you exit this room, to your right is the gift shop and restaurant. Please stay as long as you wish, and feel free to explore more of the exhibits not included on the tour. There’s a particularly fine collection of Darkham crystals on the 15^th floor and a full-scale replica of the Far Deep Space Explorer craft launched 100 years ago to scout beyond the combined systems, still relaying scientific information today. The exhibit contains a live feed of the transmissions and commentary. Thank you.”

The tour group exited the room after lingering for a little to gaze at the Circlet. It exerted a powerful attraction on everyone who saw it. I followed the group out while my shadow remained. My shadow stood in front of the glass case, with arms crossed, as the members of the tour pressed around to view the Circlet.

“Lanken, forgive me, I’m dazzled by beauty every time I see this death warrant for my ancestors and the ancestors of others. This glowing clot of blood is the full stop to our history; from that point on, we’re lost amid human dust and can never be found. This little trinket did more than change the energy industry, indeed more than simply changing life in all the Inhabited Systems; it changed the possibilities of what could be done with lifeforms, and it took little time for this to be understood and acted upon. The lifeforms may have been drained of essential energy, but there were still breeding possibilities if a minute spark was left and then utilised to animate them. The lifeforms could be shaped to any purpose. Not just a charm but also a set of living charms designed to fit any task. Work in the most hostile of environments, work in the most intimate of environments. The only boundary was imagination and the willingness to apply it. Humanity was never short of either. And look here, in all their splendid forms are some of those purposes—workers, slaves of every shape, size and capacity able to work under any conditions, ready to create waterfalls of money to flow into the mouths of their masters.”

My shadow always gave an extended tour and always came to this exhibit, and this was where the danger was greatest. It was a comfortable room that held a first edition, possibly the only surviving one. It lay open to the dedication page on the grand desk where its author had completed the work. The dedication never changed, no matter how often I looked and hoped the sheer weight of the lies it held would have made the words bleed off the page.

“The spark of life burns equally in all. Let it shine forth in freedom and dignity.” Such a shining lying truth, or a blazing truthful lie.

“I stand before you a bottle-born free citizen of the inhabited systems. I am exactly the same as you except for one matter, a minor one to be sure, I have no parents, yet I am not an orphan, humans made me but did not breed me. I do have a human ancestor and we are not his descendants. He had a name, but I won’t use it. Let it rust in silence. He wrote Radical Reason: The Spark of Life, a rallying cry that awoke the conscience of the human race and turned a great chapter of history. Here you see a very rare first edition … which frightened those in power enough that they realised it was far better to have an enormous population of bottle-born lifeforms on the inside pissing out, rather than risk a flood flowing in. So, any lifeform that wasn’t brewed to a single specific purpose, a general-use lifeform in whatever shape they might be, was granted full, equal and inalienable citizen status of the combined systems.

“I am expected, by some, to be grateful for my status as a free citizen of the combined systems, grateful for the opportunity to have a life utterly dependent on the process of stripping other lifeforms of their essential natures, grateful that this process pushed me out to one destination rather than another. Free citizen should be more important than bottle-born. Naturals who would never accept me as an equal are deeply anxious that I should not parade my differences in case it makes them uncomfortable. I cannot undo history; we are long beyond recovery as we were, we need to live in this time as we are. I want to live a quiet life without having others seeking to des... Is that the time? Thank you all for listening so patiently to me, I have to finish now.”

That was much further than I could afford to travel. The pressure can be so great that I need to release it and control it, one pushing fiercely against the other. What could happen if I lose that control is on the list of things I scrupulously do not think about.

* * *

I headed for the small staff room to get ready to head back to my space. I had some time off and was ready to rest. It was hard to believe that I was stopped at the exit when my pass didn’t open the gate. Returning inside, I walked as slowly as I could without actually stopping at the management offices. I turned the corner in the corridor and saw a long queue leading up to the Resources Office. I’d been Waved in and was now being Waved out.

The Standing Committee of Thiegler was composed of people with a finely tuned apparatus for detecting problems that might become a danger to their continued presence on the Committee. One of the most significant problems: a large standing, if not stagnant, pool of unemployed citizens. Agitating this pool was one of the major preoccupations of the SC members and the Wave Policy one of the ways they did it. Moving large numbers of citizens of every type and stripe through jobs at various organisations decreased the total number of actively unemployed. When a very small percentage of this group actually got full-time employment at an organisation, it was a triumph of public policy.

For the rest of us pool algae, we got Waved into employment and Waved out again to make way for the next set of bodies. For the most part, we were never going to get substantial employment for all the reasons we were in the pool in the first place, unless fantastically lucky or much less fantastically, unlucky. By the time I’d made my way up to the counter at the Resources Office, I was still hoping to be marginally lucky and get a ticket for a private sector job, or even a spell on a bench filling out forms at employment agencies. When I saw the smile on Philbean’s face after he noticed me, I knew I wasn’t going to be lucky; still, I had enough time to harbour a completely fruitless hope that it wouldn’t be the worst. I was wrong.

“Mr Mansard, how nice to meet you again. It seems that there’s going to be a small change in your circumstances. Let me be the first to congratulate you.”

The malicious sarcasm that Philbean breathed with every word clung to me like damp fog. The only reason Philbean hadn’t been clubbed to death a long time ago was that he was a three-metre-high lizard with a proven taste for blood and the willingness to take it in a fight. He never started one, but always finished one, and I’d been very careful during my time at the Centre to stay out of his way. Not that that did much good; he always seemed to want to take a well-placed stab at me. Maybe it was my lack of response that aggravated him. Certainly, I was an object of unusual attention. Nowadays, I just waited for the next jab.

“We received a Quota Requirement Notice and I naturally thought of you. After your sterling service here, I was happy to have the opportunity to ensure that you found permanent employment matching your talents. It took a little effort, but what’s that among friends when the results are so beneficial? I shouldn’t delay you; the Public Service Allocation Bureau waits for no lifeform and, I’ve heard, can get tetchy if applicants aren’t on time. Your appointment is at seven, so I’m sure you can make it if you don’t delay.”

It was a classic Philbean set-up. I could give in to my temper and jump him, and I’d lose, but I could do damage on the way down. I would be late for my appointment and be treated as an absconder, failing to report for legitimate employment. That would get me an automatic ten-day sentence in misery shackles, ten days in an induced form of depression that usually led to suicide. Which was very convenient, as death in service made you automatically eligible for the Involuntary Public Servant programme where you were revived and continued your career as an animated corpse. I could turn and run with the already failed hope of getting to the Public Service Allocation Bureau on time and avoid a beating for being late. A beating was preferable to misery shackles, so I ran, scrambling over the security gate to save time, hitting the street and trying to gain speed with every step as I raced across the square to the top of the moving stairs that dropped into the dark.

Dodging gargoyles, however, slowed me down. Now that I was no longer employed, protection had been withdrawn and I was fair game. Gargoyles infested the streets on Mengchi; one of the perks of employment was being shielded from gargoyle attacks. One of the miseries of unemployment was trying to fend them off. They were small, vicious and fast, swooping down on prey, and when they landed, biting through pretty much any material to get a mouthful of your blood. A very persistent gargoyle, perched determinedly on my back, bit me on the shoulder as I reached the entrance to the underworld of the Public Service Portal. I slipped on the steps and fell, hitting a hard surface with a jarring impact. A voice muttered something as I exploded with body-filling pain and heard the gargoyle scream before passing out.

I woke up fresh and alert in a comfortable padded chair and looked across an impossibly beautiful desk at the most alluring woman I’d ever encountered. Soft amber lights emphasised the multiple shades of red—crimson, scarlet, ruby, and berry—in her perfectly cut hair. Smiling, pale grey eyes caressed me with promises of sweet, shared pleasures. I had an erection that could have lifted her off the ground unaided, and the energy to do so as often as we wanted. All of which would start as soon as I’d signed the form she was presenting. I took it and my fingers brushed hers; more intimate contact would be a delicious, life-altering experience.

“My name is Shakbout Mansard, I am a free citizen of Thiegler. My residence number is 2269334789521.”

This didn’t please my beauty, nor me, but I had no control over my voice or my arms, hands and fingers, which refused to sign the form. A tiny but heart-rending frown line appeared on her forehead and her lips pouted with disappointment that our blissful union was being delayed. I struggled to move my hand, to get on with the task. Instead, my monotonous voice droned on. “I fully and deliberately invoke the protection enshrined in Clause 7C, Subsection 36, Paragraph 78, and Item 2231 of the Establishment of Citizenship Decree, as amended by Decree AGMLZ500788453 and confirmed by ruling ODDETSGH7931 of the Standing Committee.”

I had no idea what I was saying and was desperately trying to stop; I could see that each sound was hurting my heart’s desire, and I’d never be able to make it up to her. The form was snatched from my hands and I found myself sitting in an old and worn office chair in a rather shabby cubicle, facing a Harvester across a strip of scuffed plastic desktop. The form was a charm that activated when I touched it. If I had signed the form, I would have given away precious rights and the Harvester would have earned a bonus. The Thiegler Public Service was not a generous employer and it systematically tried to recover value from those it employed by using very questionable means that just barely met the legal requirement for informed consent.

The Harvester didn’t look like my beauty, but like a sentient flower with a large blood-red cluster of small flowers serving a vague approximation of a face, hanging on a green reed of a body. The reed would be resting in a basin of swamp water fed from a tap in a wall. One of my previous jobs had been in a swamp-water fermentation plant and had gifted me with a weight of knowledge I’d have given a less vital organ to forget.

The flower cluster rippled, and I felt as much as heard the Harvester say, “Your Notice of Service will be delivered to your habitation before the start of the third shift tomorrow. Do not be late.” Before I could get up or move out of the way, the Harvester sprayed me with sweet-smelling pollen. Harvesters were about the most mean-spirited lifeforms in the systems, which was exactly why there were so many in the PSAB; they were perfect for the work. Going forward, I’d have a hyper-reaction to any sexual attraction encountered, a massive and uncontrollable reaction that would ensure that wearing anything except very loose underwear would be a very serious and painful mistake for the rest of my pre-death life.

I was on time for the start of my new working life in the sewers of Mengchi. The good was that it was paid employment, the bad thing was everything else. The sewers were old, complicated and in constant need of repair and cleaning. Everyone new started in cleaning, and you quickly discovered that shit was the very least of your worries; it was what was hiding in the shit that you had to be very careful about. Not all charms are made equal, from the precision cuts at the top end to the illegal, unlicensed bashers at the bottom, you get what you pay for. A charm that does exactly what it should, a piece of junk that will do something without any idea or indication of what it will be. When they break, are stolen, lost, hidden, discarded accidentally or deliberately, they fall until they are trapped in the sewers.

Broken charms are not the same as deactivated charms; broken charms still have energy. Energy that can combine with the energy in other charms can produce unexpected results. The most serious are holes that you can fall into that lead to anywhere and nowhere. There is no way back. Each sewer worker has an alarm that warns of any rise in energy above background levels. Getting an alarm might mean standing still with your foot in the air, or it might mean run, or it could mean that you are approaching a safety fence.

What an alarm means most often is that a shit golem is approaching, a collection of charms has provided the power to move a mound of shit. Sometimes these collide and form super golems. A crew of Involuntary Public Servants with axes hack them into small pieces, sift through the lumps and smash the charms to bits. You, as the team leader, get to be splattered at a distance until everything has been neutralised. I encountered my first super shit golem on day three. I got too close and nearly lost a foot to an axe blow. The Involuntary Public Servants do not discriminate—everything in range is a target.

With time, it moved from being oppressively awful to being awful. There were always turds waiting to be stepped on. Then, in a depressingly familiar way, I moved from stepping in shit to being in shit.

2

“Hey Screw-Top, The Knob wants to see you in his office re your achievement assessment, I believe.” Lincoln delivered the news in a cheery tone, which was entirely fair since it wasn’t her who’d waste precious time in the company of Thobald Ivton the Third, Deputy Assistant Sub Manager for Branch 12 of Area 96884/AQ/X, known to all as The Knob, and my direct line manager.

Lincoln was glowing with pleasure at the near miss. The day previous, she’d been stuck for three hours in a presentation on the strategic direction of staff development and was happy to use all that she’d learned, even when merely delivering a message. Lincoln was an Ornamental whose ancestors had been bred to fill giant pools and fountains on a long-lost estate; they swam and darted between water sources, their wet blue skin a perfect backdrop for the sparkling light that burst through the droplets engineered to stay on them. Nowadays, she worked cleaning sewers.

“You know that’s a birth slur and an objectionable term under the objectionable terms rules, don’t you?” I stood up from the bench where I’d been putting on slurry boots.

“Really?” Lincoln replied with peerless innocence. “I read just yesterday that it was a term of endearment among citizens who weren’t subject to a natural birthing process and could be employed to indicate friendship and respect for a shared heritage.”

“Stay off those Human Rights lines. They’ll lead you astray. Then what will you do when you find you’re the only blue-skinned citizen in a room of hungry Naturals looking for someone to blame for their body hair and lack of success in mating?” With that, I strolled from the locker room and headed up the lower depths to the Knob’s office. Unfortunately, he was in. I’d hoped he might have wandered off to another meeting and forgotten all about this one.

When I entered the dim office, he looked up. I say “he”, but the truth was that no one had the slightest idea what the Knob actually looked like, or if “he” might be a “she”. The Knob used a glamour charm keyed to the leading cast member of the top-rated show on the lines for that day. The worst “top-rated” show had spotlighted a semi-dismembered, decomposing corpse running for a seat on the Standing Committee; a huge hit, it ran for weeks through the election cycle. The charm called up the stench, as well as the look, and that stink hung like a bloodsucker, taking at least four showers to remove.

This time he was two metres tall with broad shoulders and a nipped waist, flowing golden beard, and long, thick pigtail. Piercing sky-blue eyes were set above etched cheekbones. An air of casual, yet complete, mastery was wasted once he started to talk. Seated behind the desk, he waved me to a chair, strategically lower than the desk so I had to look up.

“Ah, good. Please sit down for this important meeting. A performance appraisal is a serious career event, a time for reflection and consideration … assessing what’s been achieved and contemplating what will be achieved. This is a moment to look back and to look forward from the firm footing of the present. We need to use it to read the lessons of the past and sow the seeds of the future, so we might harvest success in time.”

He beamed with benevolence and encouragement, and I did my loyal follower part by nodding agreement and sticking the pin I’d brought for this moment into my thigh to stop from laughing out loud.

“Excellent, excellent. Shanksworth, I believe your performance on the road-development project in Sector 15 was an example that all should follow. I’m delighted to tell you that you’ve been promoted to Assistant Lead Supervisor on the project. Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

I shook my head to convey modest acceptance of his gratifying, if not wholly deserved, praise, and how overcome I was at his generous recognition of my efforts. I took the cue to leave and left to speak to Rosby, the Knob’s guardian angel.

“Hi Rosby. Would you let someone call Shanksworth know that they’ve been promoted? I’m guessing that they’re a StoneBeater, involved in a road project in Sector 15.”

Rosby smiled, and I wished she hadn’t, as it triggered a major reaction barely held in check by charms. She was another Ornamental, with lovely wings on her back made of the whitest feathers; when fully unfurled, they lifted her off the ground and transported her with considerable force. Rosby was tall and muscular, with olive skin, wavy jet-black hair and matching eyes. Usually dressed in flowing, close-fitting robes, she was stunning … and enchanting when she smiled. While I struggled to move blood from my dick to my legs so I could step away, Rosby placed a hand on my arm and asked, “You okay, my friend? You look like you’re going to faint.”

Her gentle touch burned my arm like a heat restraint and prompted my blood to circulate; the charms moved into overdrive and I was able to regain enough control to respond. “I’m fine, just experiencing a shock of relief. I heard last week he gave an execution order instead of a transfer. Getting an accidental promotion was too easy.”

Rosby smiled again and waved me off as I walked with stiff legs, grateful for the alterations I’d made to my suit to accommodate such events. I took the long route back to the locker to let the reaction dissipate.

Lincoln was sitting on one of the many benches, clearly waiting for me. Her work comm blinked with unanswered calls. She eyed me with concern. “You took so long, I thought you’d received an execution order and I’d have to find a new drinking partner for tonight.”

I was surprised. While we’d been using the same locker room for the last 18 months, I’d been working for the Public Service Board. Lincoln worked in an office shovelling paper, and I worked in the sewers shovelling shit. As a rule, the two groups didn’t mix at work or outside it. But Lincoln was a cheerful locker-room acquaintance, and we often chattered or batted insults. This was a very abrupt change. Even at the best of times (long-gone times), I’d never had the best social skills, so I was a bit stumped as to how to respond.

Happily, Lincoln knew how to take charge and move things forward, normally in the direction she wanted. “Scrub up and be at the Red Eye 20 after the shift.” With a nod, she left.

I finished dressing and headed to the gates where I found my Involuntary Public Servant crew standing around like a bunch of reanimated corpses waiting to be told what to do … which, incidentally, was exactly what they were (reanimated corpses, in case there was any question).

I formed them into a hollow square and stood in the middle. To my left, right, and behind, the IPS staff were wearing chainmail trousers tucked into slurry boots. All had a nerve-stick with one setting that would kill any creature with a nervous system that it touched. The nerve-stick used on me when I entered the Public Service Portal was designed to subdue, not kill, and the memory of that encounter still reverberated through my muscles.

In front were three IPS members, wearing lighting rigs that illuminated the sewers for a 20-metre distance. Overlapping lighting meant no shadows for something to hide in and ambush us as we drew near. We were going to check on a blood lake inspection point. Our route would be outside any predators’ hunting range, but stupidity was always fatal.

Off we marched, with the IPS crew falling into step with my pace. We managed to travel as a unit rather than stumbling scrum. It had taken me three months to figure out how to get them to work together, and now we fell into it perfectly. The journey to the inspection point was uneventful—no attacks, cave-ins, or gas bubbles. The inspection point seemed ordinary enough too, at first. There was an anomaly, a recess in a sewer wall that wasn’t on the map or on any inspection reports I called up on the link. There was nothing remarkable about the recess in itself; it looked like an inspection port found near any blood lake.

That was the problem. We were too far from the nearest blood lake for there to be an inspection port, which made it very likely that it was, in fact, a smuggler’s niche—the point where an inbound courier dropped off a delivery and an outbound courier picked it up without the two ever meeting. Naturally, such niches had pretty serious security, way beyond anything I could deal with, and the best plan was simply to pass by.

Curiosity, perhaps the single most dangerous force in all the systems, causing more trouble, chaos and disaster than anything else, nudged me to request the nearest IPS shine a light into the niche. It looked like a smuggler’s niche, four metres deep and empty, except for a glistening geometric-like pattern on a rear wall, above floor level.

Three things happened simultaneously. I saw the pattern, Jovial made a move, and I died.

There was a saying attributed to the Red Halls: it isn’t dying that kills you, but waking up and realising that there’s no rest for the indebted.

I woke up to the realisation that my problems weren’t going to be escaped by something as simple as dying. I’d have to work much harder than that. The initial moment of wakeful clarity about the cesspit of my life vanished, and the shock subsided enough to let pain register. I fell to the floor and screamed. This was the best thing to do, as it triggered a response from an IPS who stepped over and shot me with a cool dart. This was standard protocol for someone attacked by a blood-lake predator, which usually resulted in them falling down and screaming.

The dart numbed the pain sufficiently for the person to think and be mobile enough to move from the problem area. Finding no predator to kill, the crew re-formed, two supporting me, and we marched to a pre-planned recovery spot. Once there, I took the charm from my pack; it would speed up the recovery process so that I’d be reasonably functional within hours rather than weeks. With that, I lay down on the sewer floor and slept for the remainder of the shift.

The alarm awakened me, and I headed back to the office with myself and the crew intact, which made the day wildly successful, and one I was in no mood to celebrate. Which was very unfortunate, as it appeared that Lincoln was, and she wasn’t about to let me escape. I saw her waiting at the Red Eye 20, and it was clear she’d seen me.

She ambled over and smiled gaily. “Ready for the night of your life? You’ll never have tasted beer like this before in your life.”

With that, she headed off, and I followed. It took less energy than resisting, and the prospect of cool beer was inviting. Lincoln walked past the office quarter and turned into the Old City, the remains of the original Thiegler, dating back to pre-war times in several places and no later than post-war reconstruction in others.

Lincoln was walking leisurely, so this time I could soak up the place. There was a jumble of building styles and sizes, no sense of underlying order, and it was impossible to keep track of where we were going. We turned at a large glass bowl of an edifice with rainbow colours and hazy shadows cast by movements and lifeforms inside. It was suggestive of stories of other lives and activities, and when I looked back, there was a diamond-shaped, metal-clad building in its place.

I turned back to Lincoln, but she was no longer in sight. I stood shocked for a second, but then she appeared from a shadow between two identical, low-rise brick office blocks and called to me. “Come on. Beer won’t wait!”

Stepping into the shadow, I found myself in a wide room filled with long tables where lifeforms of all types were sitting, standing, hovering, or hanging while eating, drinking and talking. There wasn’t a lot of noise, however; just cheer-filled murmurs and whispers that created a welcoming atmosphere of unthreatening sociability. Lincoln was moving across the room and, judging from the various greetings, was well known. I followed her to a table beside a wall with a nice view of the room. The only other chair was positioned so that I’d be sitting facing Lincoln with my back to the crowd. Whatever this was going to be, it was much more than a social event with a colleague; this was Lincoln’s event to manage as she saw fit.

When I sat down, a natural female human came and wiped the table with a cloth before asking for our order. The table was already clean, but when she was leaning over to wipe it, I got a clear view of very nice breasts supported by a charcoal-grey work shirt and a nerve-stick in a holster at her curvy hip. It was a low-power version, capable of disabling temporarily, but not killing. The message was still very clear: be nice and enjoy the view or be carried out and dumped on the pavement.

Lincoln offered a cordial greeting. “Hey Nanteer, two Top Drawers, a mixed scald for the Screw-Top, and a scale one, extra sauce for myself please. How is the new space working out?”

“Great. It’s much more convenient, and that was a good tip, so thanks. Drinks first, food to follow.” When Nanteer walked away, the view from behind was as pleasing as the front, and I allowed myself to linger a little before turning back to a grinning Lincoln.

“All natural, not a single charm on her. She owes it to no one but her ancestors, not like you and me, Screw-Top.”

“If we’re going to be eating and drinking together, call me Shakbout.”

“That’s a bit of a mouthful and very formal. Screw-Top is more relaxed, more honest.”

Lincoln was needling me. Why? We shared a common heritage; we’d been built to order. We also spent our lives ignoring that fact; otherwise, it would overwhelm us and destroy us. Having it called up the way Lincoln was doing was a dangerous game. If a Natural did this, they’d risk severe punishment in the name of maintaining civic harmony. No court would rule for murder if death were the result. They’d simply rule it suicide.

Context mattered too. At work in the locker room, it was recognised that tolerance was required to give everyone space to work with one another. Sitting in the dining hall was different. This was a public space, and words had a very different weight. I was so battered by the day, and numbed by the charm, I wasn’t going to take offence quickly. “Let’s be honest. Why am I here? What do you want from me?”

Before Lincoln could respond, Nanteer appeared and placed two large glasses of dark, froth-topped beer before us. She departed without a word.

Whatever direction the conversation might have taken was lost in the glorious, enticing sight of the delicately fragrant brew. Without waiting, I took a mouthful and realised that I was in the presence of a masterpiece. The hoppy taste filled my mouth and then my brain with pleasure.

Lincoln put down her glass. “Sorry for that, Shakbout, sometimes I speak without thinking.”

“No problem. This beer is astonishing. Why is this place not packed to the rafters?”

Lincoln’s expression held an are-you-joking? cast. “The Losers Lounge is in the Old City.” Which really wasn’t an explanation. Mengchi was a patchwork, and the older sections had much more time to accumulate fallout from charms working as they should or not. Lincoln smiled patiently. “The Old City was designed as a retreat for the Imperial Court if Thiegler was invaded. It’s designed to be unnavigable to anyone without a trinket. Rather than try and unwind the process, the city was simply expanded around it, and the Old City became a place where you could become deliberately lost. Even the lost need to eat, so the Losers Lounge came into existence, and it developed from there.”

“How does anyone find their way around the Old City if the spell is still in force? I don’t think Imperial trinkets would have survived that long.”

“True, they didn’t,” Lincoln agreed. “However, you’re forgetting something: The Imperial Court required a lot of support staff to help with relocation, as well as to ensure the Court could continue. Someone had to make trinkets for them, so after the Vanishing, they decided that getting lost was the safest course of action. So, they moved here, including the trinket makers. Still, getting a trinket is no easy task. The inhabitants of the Old City like to keep its secrets.”

“How did you get one?”

Lincoln grinned, waved a hand, and took another quick sip. “I won it in a bet. When I saw you at the Red Eye, you looked as though you’d seen a ghost during the shift. Had you?”

The events of the day, the beer, and the relaxation of tension that had been building between us all lent themselves to me being colossally stupid. “I did.” The words leapt from my lips. Damn, I’d just blown up my life … again.