The Star League fell over a century ago, burning in the fires of total war. To the world, it seemed like an end to days. Life no longer makes sense, and billions suffer daily from the declining state of the inner sphere. Despite that, the soil is neither scorched nor salted, and a seed planted by the last generations of the League waits to germinate. All it needs to sprout is the interference of one young boy and his complicated home life.
If You Love'er So Much, Why Don't You Mari'er? (Battletech) (Mature)
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Introduction + Prologue (July 2900)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
I've been writing this story for a few months now, and posting it to QQ. Unfortunately, perhaps because it's not smut (I'm no pornographer - at most, I can manage a few bawdy jokes in-character, which is a part of what you'll find here), I've been dealing with declining readership there. One of my beta readers, though, who I've not asked for permission to name here and as such will not be naming at this moment, suggested that I consider crossposting to another site. Unfortunately, the place they suggested is strict enough about content that I'm pretty sure some of the jokes would get dinged, and the story probably wouldn't hold up quite so well with asterisks in place of the in-character profanity. But, well, SV allows tasteful M-rated content, so I can be well and truly mostly confident that it'll fly here.
Without further ado, time to begin the crossposting. I hope it proves to be of interest. I'll need a minute, though - at the time of my making this thread, there are six completed chapters.
And so I don't forget... updates are typically every other Monday. This coming Monday will be the day the next chapter releases, barring some sudden catastrophe.
-----
As John gazed out the window from the dining room table, his brain gradually stirring from its drowsy haze to the sounds and smells of scrambling eggs and frying meat, the young lad experienced a small rush of joy. It was finally going to be perfect weather, and without any chores to boot, after nearly a month of rain, overcast, and being put to work on the farm. All he'd have to do to roam free was skip out on his lousy lessons.
The nerve of his parents, cooping him up all day on two hectares, making him do backbreaking work 'to learn character', when the O'Reillys owned hundreds of square kilometers in the Sequim area and employed over ten thousand to work the land. What did it matter if the one little farm, less than a ten thousandth of the estate, stopped producing? It wasn't as though they needed the profits from that land to live. They could have lived anywhere else on Terra on the proceeds from their properties, without ever piloting an industrialmech - or doing any other work - in their lives.
Though John had to admit to himself, he'd be a bit sad to leave that behind. For all that he yearned for some time to himself, the seven year old couldn't wait to learn to operate some of the family's fleet. They might not be Battlemechs, but they were the next best things - ten metersof pure corn harvesting awesome! Plus, for all that the work and rain sucked, he could barely imagine life without the mountains and the Salish Sea to keep him company.
So maybe John liked the place more than he thought, but he could have done with less work and more play. He never even got to watch the Solaris Games when the recordings were airing anymore!
Breakfast was of the heavy, rib-sticking variety. Scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, pancakes, and orange juice, and he was expected to find someplace in his stomach for all of that? It was one thing to say a growing boy needs his nutrition, but another entirely to make him sit at the table until he'd choked down what felt like half a fridge's worth, then immediately ask him to focus on work or schooling when the heavy load of food was practically putting him back to sleep - and even moreso when you took every opportunity to make conversation with him in the process.
Case in point, Amos O'Reilly, the patriarch of the house, with the stupidest questions whose answers never changed. "So Jack, Ms. Grisham tells me you're coming along pretty well with the violin. Think you'd be up for a recital at some point?"
"I don't think it's for the best, father." the boy glumly stated - feeling down about the fact that he might be told to play anyways, not any lack of progress - before giving a more in-depth explanation. "I'm certainly not proficient enough to entertain anyone - let alone your guests."
The fifty year old sighed deeply as he reached across the table and rested his and on John's shoulder. "Well, that's a massive shame, sport. I was hoping I'd be able to show you off to the boys, brag about how well you're coming along. Dad talk, you know? But if it's not going well, it's not going well - the only thing left to do would be to bulk up your lessons, in that case."
Hearing that was even worse than being told to play anyways. Instead of a one-off torment, now he was going to lose time every day until his dad got bored and gave up on making him study the violin in favor of, say, the triangle or something. All because his big mouth couldn't spit out a convincing reason or definitive refusal to shut down the possibility. All because he wouldn't be allowed to decide where this was concerned. It was the curse of growing up as the only child of an overly excitable, attention-challenged, obsessive rich man with a mutually contradictory desire to pass on the family traditions to his only child and vicariously live out the childhood he'd never had because of those traditions. If it was a look at where John was headed in life, he'd rather sneak down to the harbor and hide out on the grain barge to head south and get away from this place - it'd have to be better to live like the normal kids than to turn into that kind of freak himself.
Eventually, the meal was cleared away and he was free of his dad's ridiculous chatter. That left him faced with two options - go to his violin lessons, or sneak out and go play somewhere they wouldn't find him.
He of course chose the latter, moving with practiced subtlety as he stuffed a cool but still fresh pasty into one pocket of his overalls and filled up a water bottle. There was a window for him to make a getaway, but to pull it off he'd need to completely skip heading through any exterior doors - there would be people loitering around near those, and he wouldn't have a good explanation of what he was doing if they saw him heading out.
Fortunately, the first floor also had a number of windows, and the lad knew just the one to maximize his chances of making a getaway. Nobody used the library this early, and so there shouldn't be anyone to catch him there. Plus, it was on the way to the music room he was supposed to be heading to, so as he took the two right turns needed to reach it from the main corridor he wouldn't seem suspicious at all, not until he hooked a left turn into the library rather than going straight on.
When he got there, a sigh of relief escaped him. There was nobody in the first aisle of the library, and that was the only one he planned on visiting. If someone was elsewhere in the large room, they wouldn't be able to reach him in time to stop him, even if they did notice him.
Taking a deep breath, he flexed his leg muscles for a second before relaxing them and, finally, running through the hall of dusty old poetry anthologies and encyclopedias to the window opposite the door. To his great fortune, it was neither locked nor seized up, and it lifted open easily. Of course, it seemed someone might have heard something going on by their footsteps, but they were being slow about it, and so clearly hadn't noticed his precise route before he was out of sight of the window.
It was a jackpot, and one that left him abundant time to grab his bike and pedal off down the road before anyone could seriously come looking for him.
As he peddled off amid fields of maize, quillar, and various other grains that had yet to grow taller than him, he luxuriated in the brilliant warmth of the sun, the gentle breeze, and the slight smell of salt in the air. This was his reward for breaking the rules - a chance to live for a day instead of rotting in or around the house. Without a second thought, he took off down the sidewalk heading west - while most of the farms were out that way, there weren't a lot of people, and even fewer would recognize him personally. Plus, whereas heading north or east just led to the coast either way, or south to the mountains, he knew a sure-fire way to avoid getting chased down and dragged back.
If he peddled west for upwards of an hour, using the full measure of the strength his mixed mansion-farmtown lifestyle had given him, he'd enter the badlands - Port Angeles that was. The really bad part of the property, where even the adults didn't dare tread. Mr. Glostner had said that during the very Amaris war that let John's great granddad strike it rich by moving the family northwest to claim all the abandoned lands via squatter's rights, the city had been a terrible battleground for its proximity to Unity City, and was blown to bits then. People were afraid even now, 120 years later, that it might be full of unexploded bombs or something, or that the buildings might collapse any second.
John'd never had a problem with any of that. It didn't seem to come up while he was there, and he wasn't of a mind to correct people on their paranoid superstition. He might never see the ruins of the old Star League's capital, but at least he had his own private ghost town to explore at his leisure.
It was a long ride, of course, and peddling for so long was a tremendous strain for even John's own considerable stamina, particularly when the roads went from newly paved to basically crumbled to bits and pothole-ridden closer to the ruins. By now, someone had doubtless noted his absence, and people were almost certainly looking for him around the manor farm.
Well, fuck them.
If they didn't want him to play with rusty metal and cracked concrete, maybe they should have thought of that before they kept him from playing with toys, watching trivid, or doing anything else a normal kid did so they could turn him into the most contradictory blend of redneck farmer and low noble they could devise.
When John finally reached the edge of town, he ditched his bike against the wall of a garage that had half-collapsed into a pile of rubble long ago. With so many buildings having spilled into the streets, there was no way to take it deep into town - something he'd become well and truly aware of the first time he'd come out this far, last summer.
It suited him fine, because he got to take in more of the surroundings on foot anyways.
The last few times he'd been about, he'd wasted his time trying to find some way into the downtown areas. It was only through quick thinking that he'd avoided shredding himself on the great walls of crumbled ferrocrete and rusted reinforcement bars that filled those streets, or getting attacked by whatever manner of feral beast might dwell in the more intact buildings of those overgrown streets.
This time, he felt like actually seeing something in compensation for his time. That meant not heading towards the coast, not aiming to explore the big buildings, and essentially hugging the border between the dead metropolis and the mountains.
The area seemed to have mostly been residential in the past - there were certainly a lot of houses and apartment buildings of various sizes crumbled to bits and - in some cases - burnt to the ground in the area to make that part of its character clear. Here and there, there were overgrown plots that might have once been gardens or sports fields, now overtaken by the forest they had once replaced due to a prolonged lack of maintenance.
The one true surprise to come of the trip ultimately came just as John, with the noontime sun passing overhead, began to consider heading back. In the moment that he began to turn around, his eyes settled on something that shouldn't have been possible.
The structure stood several stories tall, with a wall of brown bricks running up to about the first story mark, after which a flat facade of yellow adobe ran right up to the peaked roof. A sign on the side, vividly red and reading "Golden Corral, Buffet & Grill - Billions Served" served as the punchline of the building's defiance to entropy and age. Somehow this structure, and not one other bit of the city, had survived a hellish war and over a century of neglect.
Such a massive anomaly wasn't something John could pass up the opportunity to explore. He completely forgot his mounting fatigue as he made his way to the ancient restaurant's doorway and tested it. The door opened without issue, clearly signalling that the place had been abandoned during open hours.
If the outside was mysteriously intact and clean, the inside was almost as nasty and ratty as you'd expect after a century. PIles of crumbled, rotten wood sat all around the dining area, and the upholstery on the seats had worn down to the point of exposing bare, rusted metal somehow.
It was a small miracle that the lights came on at all.
The door to the kitchen looked to have been battered open, and as John peaked inside he saw a wall riddled with bullet holes, and what looked like the remains of crumbled bones resting on the ground opposite the counters. In a way, he found it morbidly cool to confront that sight, but another part of him was just grossed out - so he fed himself an excuse about maybe, just maybe, smelling a gas and walked away from that room.
Ruling out the kitchen and the dining area alike, he considered checking on the bar or something, to see if there was any sort of centuries-old vinegar labeled as wine or something. He then thought better of that idea, because there was no way he'd be able to trick anyone into drinking that trash without revealing the place - and no way he'd haul it back all the way anyways.
Sighing, the boy stepped back outside the restaurant and sat down on the doorstep to eat the lunch he'd grabbed himself illicitly before heading out. For such an initially interesting seeming place, there really wasn't much to gawk at or be in awe of about the restaurant. Someone had clearly thought the place was of great importance, if they'd built it durable enough to last so long, but there wasn't anything interesting in the place
This was a waste of time, he decided. It actually would've been better to just go to his lessons properly, rather than wandering off to do some urban exploration with no guarantee of anything interesting happening. At least if he put work into his playing skills, he might get to briefly enjoy the outright approval of his father, the lonely, sad, strange man that he was.
Before he could consider heading back, however, there was something he'd need to deal with in advance. He kind of needed to use the bathroom.
That was one place he hadn't looked in this building, now that he thought about it. Even if it was run down to the same standard as the rest of the place, he might as well use it rather than a bush or something.
That in mind, the boy headed back inside and made his way to the men's room, down the same hall as the entrance to the kitchen had been in.
If the rest of the building was everything you'd expect from a century old building, the bathroom was more like a throwback to the exterior. Everything inside was weirdly clean and intact, and the tiles had neither faded nor cracked during the long abandonment of the ceiling. The toilets were, in fact, clean, and even still had water in them - and when tested, the sinks still ran on demand.
Of all the crazy things to build an indestructible, ageless building for, John couldn't even begin to comprehend why someone would do it for a bathroom. Just, a relatively ordinary bathroom - though he was sure he'd never seen one with a tile mosaic map of the Star League built into the ceiling before.
Did the builder of this restaurant seriously care that much about making sure that, a century and the biggest few wars ever later, people would still be able to do their business in their restaurant?
What kind of weird obsession was that? It made John's dad seem like a normal human being rather than an inconsiderate clown who placed random restrictions on his son's time to feel more like he was doing parenting.
At some point in all of this, John looked in a mirror and saw that he was getting a sunburn on his nose after his long ride in the sun. It was the last straw - he was sick of trying to think of what would inspire someone to build something as incredibly stupid as this restaurant, and as a sign of his anger he went so far as to slam the bottom of his fist against the wall near the mirror and let out a scream.
A moment later, though, he screamed again - but this time in pain. He hadn't even struck the wall that hard, but on the other hand he'd hit something pointy and near impossible to see in the process. As he pulled is hand away, small streaks of blood drizzled out of a tiny hole in the side of his palm, and the red nectar coated an absurdly thin, needle like spike sticking out of the wall. Somehow, it hadn't even been bent by that blow or extraction.
Getting a bleeding injury really only made the day worse, in John's mind. He probably wouldn't even be able to get any sympathy for it later.
Before he could really commit to leaving, though, John froze as the whole of the bathroom began to fill with the sound of metal on metal grinding and shake. Slowly, in front of his eyes, a port opened in the corner of the floor as the pad below the hand drying machine retracted into the wall to reveal a set of stairs. Without thinking, John went back into exploration mode and headed down out of an uncontrollable curiosity - he wanted to know why this was here, how it was here, and where it led.
However, not long after he reached the bottom of the steps a crackling voice emanated from a speaker mounted on the wall, and the tinny words it spoke were enough to send him running all the way back to his bike out of fear.
"On behalf of House Cameron, I welcome you to the Invisible Palace, Lord Amaris."
-----
Looking back on something I wrote three months ago is a strange experience.
Without further ado, time to begin the crossposting. I hope it proves to be of interest. I'll need a minute, though - at the time of my making this thread, there are six completed chapters.
And so I don't forget... updates are typically every other Monday. This coming Monday will be the day the next chapter releases, barring some sudden catastrophe.
-----
As John gazed out the window from the dining room table, his brain gradually stirring from its drowsy haze to the sounds and smells of scrambling eggs and frying meat, the young lad experienced a small rush of joy. It was finally going to be perfect weather, and without any chores to boot, after nearly a month of rain, overcast, and being put to work on the farm. All he'd have to do to roam free was skip out on his lousy lessons.
The nerve of his parents, cooping him up all day on two hectares, making him do backbreaking work 'to learn character', when the O'Reillys owned hundreds of square kilometers in the Sequim area and employed over ten thousand to work the land. What did it matter if the one little farm, less than a ten thousandth of the estate, stopped producing? It wasn't as though they needed the profits from that land to live. They could have lived anywhere else on Terra on the proceeds from their properties, without ever piloting an industrialmech - or doing any other work - in their lives.
Though John had to admit to himself, he'd be a bit sad to leave that behind. For all that he yearned for some time to himself, the seven year old couldn't wait to learn to operate some of the family's fleet. They might not be Battlemechs, but they were the next best things - ten metersof pure corn harvesting awesome! Plus, for all that the work and rain sucked, he could barely imagine life without the mountains and the Salish Sea to keep him company.
So maybe John liked the place more than he thought, but he could have done with less work and more play. He never even got to watch the Solaris Games when the recordings were airing anymore!
Breakfast was of the heavy, rib-sticking variety. Scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, pancakes, and orange juice, and he was expected to find someplace in his stomach for all of that? It was one thing to say a growing boy needs his nutrition, but another entirely to make him sit at the table until he'd choked down what felt like half a fridge's worth, then immediately ask him to focus on work or schooling when the heavy load of food was practically putting him back to sleep - and even moreso when you took every opportunity to make conversation with him in the process.
Case in point, Amos O'Reilly, the patriarch of the house, with the stupidest questions whose answers never changed. "So Jack, Ms. Grisham tells me you're coming along pretty well with the violin. Think you'd be up for a recital at some point?"
"I don't think it's for the best, father." the boy glumly stated - feeling down about the fact that he might be told to play anyways, not any lack of progress - before giving a more in-depth explanation. "I'm certainly not proficient enough to entertain anyone - let alone your guests."
The fifty year old sighed deeply as he reached across the table and rested his and on John's shoulder. "Well, that's a massive shame, sport. I was hoping I'd be able to show you off to the boys, brag about how well you're coming along. Dad talk, you know? But if it's not going well, it's not going well - the only thing left to do would be to bulk up your lessons, in that case."
Hearing that was even worse than being told to play anyways. Instead of a one-off torment, now he was going to lose time every day until his dad got bored and gave up on making him study the violin in favor of, say, the triangle or something. All because his big mouth couldn't spit out a convincing reason or definitive refusal to shut down the possibility. All because he wouldn't be allowed to decide where this was concerned. It was the curse of growing up as the only child of an overly excitable, attention-challenged, obsessive rich man with a mutually contradictory desire to pass on the family traditions to his only child and vicariously live out the childhood he'd never had because of those traditions. If it was a look at where John was headed in life, he'd rather sneak down to the harbor and hide out on the grain barge to head south and get away from this place - it'd have to be better to live like the normal kids than to turn into that kind of freak himself.
Eventually, the meal was cleared away and he was free of his dad's ridiculous chatter. That left him faced with two options - go to his violin lessons, or sneak out and go play somewhere they wouldn't find him.
He of course chose the latter, moving with practiced subtlety as he stuffed a cool but still fresh pasty into one pocket of his overalls and filled up a water bottle. There was a window for him to make a getaway, but to pull it off he'd need to completely skip heading through any exterior doors - there would be people loitering around near those, and he wouldn't have a good explanation of what he was doing if they saw him heading out.
Fortunately, the first floor also had a number of windows, and the lad knew just the one to maximize his chances of making a getaway. Nobody used the library this early, and so there shouldn't be anyone to catch him there. Plus, it was on the way to the music room he was supposed to be heading to, so as he took the two right turns needed to reach it from the main corridor he wouldn't seem suspicious at all, not until he hooked a left turn into the library rather than going straight on.
When he got there, a sigh of relief escaped him. There was nobody in the first aisle of the library, and that was the only one he planned on visiting. If someone was elsewhere in the large room, they wouldn't be able to reach him in time to stop him, even if they did notice him.
Taking a deep breath, he flexed his leg muscles for a second before relaxing them and, finally, running through the hall of dusty old poetry anthologies and encyclopedias to the window opposite the door. To his great fortune, it was neither locked nor seized up, and it lifted open easily. Of course, it seemed someone might have heard something going on by their footsteps, but they were being slow about it, and so clearly hadn't noticed his precise route before he was out of sight of the window.
It was a jackpot, and one that left him abundant time to grab his bike and pedal off down the road before anyone could seriously come looking for him.
As he peddled off amid fields of maize, quillar, and various other grains that had yet to grow taller than him, he luxuriated in the brilliant warmth of the sun, the gentle breeze, and the slight smell of salt in the air. This was his reward for breaking the rules - a chance to live for a day instead of rotting in or around the house. Without a second thought, he took off down the sidewalk heading west - while most of the farms were out that way, there weren't a lot of people, and even fewer would recognize him personally. Plus, whereas heading north or east just led to the coast either way, or south to the mountains, he knew a sure-fire way to avoid getting chased down and dragged back.
If he peddled west for upwards of an hour, using the full measure of the strength his mixed mansion-farmtown lifestyle had given him, he'd enter the badlands - Port Angeles that was. The really bad part of the property, where even the adults didn't dare tread. Mr. Glostner had said that during the very Amaris war that let John's great granddad strike it rich by moving the family northwest to claim all the abandoned lands via squatter's rights, the city had been a terrible battleground for its proximity to Unity City, and was blown to bits then. People were afraid even now, 120 years later, that it might be full of unexploded bombs or something, or that the buildings might collapse any second.
John'd never had a problem with any of that. It didn't seem to come up while he was there, and he wasn't of a mind to correct people on their paranoid superstition. He might never see the ruins of the old Star League's capital, but at least he had his own private ghost town to explore at his leisure.
It was a long ride, of course, and peddling for so long was a tremendous strain for even John's own considerable stamina, particularly when the roads went from newly paved to basically crumbled to bits and pothole-ridden closer to the ruins. By now, someone had doubtless noted his absence, and people were almost certainly looking for him around the manor farm.
Well, fuck them.
If they didn't want him to play with rusty metal and cracked concrete, maybe they should have thought of that before they kept him from playing with toys, watching trivid, or doing anything else a normal kid did so they could turn him into the most contradictory blend of redneck farmer and low noble they could devise.
When John finally reached the edge of town, he ditched his bike against the wall of a garage that had half-collapsed into a pile of rubble long ago. With so many buildings having spilled into the streets, there was no way to take it deep into town - something he'd become well and truly aware of the first time he'd come out this far, last summer.
It suited him fine, because he got to take in more of the surroundings on foot anyways.
The last few times he'd been about, he'd wasted his time trying to find some way into the downtown areas. It was only through quick thinking that he'd avoided shredding himself on the great walls of crumbled ferrocrete and rusted reinforcement bars that filled those streets, or getting attacked by whatever manner of feral beast might dwell in the more intact buildings of those overgrown streets.
This time, he felt like actually seeing something in compensation for his time. That meant not heading towards the coast, not aiming to explore the big buildings, and essentially hugging the border between the dead metropolis and the mountains.
The area seemed to have mostly been residential in the past - there were certainly a lot of houses and apartment buildings of various sizes crumbled to bits and - in some cases - burnt to the ground in the area to make that part of its character clear. Here and there, there were overgrown plots that might have once been gardens or sports fields, now overtaken by the forest they had once replaced due to a prolonged lack of maintenance.
The one true surprise to come of the trip ultimately came just as John, with the noontime sun passing overhead, began to consider heading back. In the moment that he began to turn around, his eyes settled on something that shouldn't have been possible.
The structure stood several stories tall, with a wall of brown bricks running up to about the first story mark, after which a flat facade of yellow adobe ran right up to the peaked roof. A sign on the side, vividly red and reading "Golden Corral, Buffet & Grill - Billions Served" served as the punchline of the building's defiance to entropy and age. Somehow this structure, and not one other bit of the city, had survived a hellish war and over a century of neglect.
Such a massive anomaly wasn't something John could pass up the opportunity to explore. He completely forgot his mounting fatigue as he made his way to the ancient restaurant's doorway and tested it. The door opened without issue, clearly signalling that the place had been abandoned during open hours.
If the outside was mysteriously intact and clean, the inside was almost as nasty and ratty as you'd expect after a century. PIles of crumbled, rotten wood sat all around the dining area, and the upholstery on the seats had worn down to the point of exposing bare, rusted metal somehow.
It was a small miracle that the lights came on at all.
The door to the kitchen looked to have been battered open, and as John peaked inside he saw a wall riddled with bullet holes, and what looked like the remains of crumbled bones resting on the ground opposite the counters. In a way, he found it morbidly cool to confront that sight, but another part of him was just grossed out - so he fed himself an excuse about maybe, just maybe, smelling a gas and walked away from that room.
Ruling out the kitchen and the dining area alike, he considered checking on the bar or something, to see if there was any sort of centuries-old vinegar labeled as wine or something. He then thought better of that idea, because there was no way he'd be able to trick anyone into drinking that trash without revealing the place - and no way he'd haul it back all the way anyways.
Sighing, the boy stepped back outside the restaurant and sat down on the doorstep to eat the lunch he'd grabbed himself illicitly before heading out. For such an initially interesting seeming place, there really wasn't much to gawk at or be in awe of about the restaurant. Someone had clearly thought the place was of great importance, if they'd built it durable enough to last so long, but there wasn't anything interesting in the place
This was a waste of time, he decided. It actually would've been better to just go to his lessons properly, rather than wandering off to do some urban exploration with no guarantee of anything interesting happening. At least if he put work into his playing skills, he might get to briefly enjoy the outright approval of his father, the lonely, sad, strange man that he was.
Before he could consider heading back, however, there was something he'd need to deal with in advance. He kind of needed to use the bathroom.
That was one place he hadn't looked in this building, now that he thought about it. Even if it was run down to the same standard as the rest of the place, he might as well use it rather than a bush or something.
That in mind, the boy headed back inside and made his way to the men's room, down the same hall as the entrance to the kitchen had been in.
If the rest of the building was everything you'd expect from a century old building, the bathroom was more like a throwback to the exterior. Everything inside was weirdly clean and intact, and the tiles had neither faded nor cracked during the long abandonment of the ceiling. The toilets were, in fact, clean, and even still had water in them - and when tested, the sinks still ran on demand.
Of all the crazy things to build an indestructible, ageless building for, John couldn't even begin to comprehend why someone would do it for a bathroom. Just, a relatively ordinary bathroom - though he was sure he'd never seen one with a tile mosaic map of the Star League built into the ceiling before.
Did the builder of this restaurant seriously care that much about making sure that, a century and the biggest few wars ever later, people would still be able to do their business in their restaurant?
What kind of weird obsession was that? It made John's dad seem like a normal human being rather than an inconsiderate clown who placed random restrictions on his son's time to feel more like he was doing parenting.
At some point in all of this, John looked in a mirror and saw that he was getting a sunburn on his nose after his long ride in the sun. It was the last straw - he was sick of trying to think of what would inspire someone to build something as incredibly stupid as this restaurant, and as a sign of his anger he went so far as to slam the bottom of his fist against the wall near the mirror and let out a scream.
A moment later, though, he screamed again - but this time in pain. He hadn't even struck the wall that hard, but on the other hand he'd hit something pointy and near impossible to see in the process. As he pulled is hand away, small streaks of blood drizzled out of a tiny hole in the side of his palm, and the red nectar coated an absurdly thin, needle like spike sticking out of the wall. Somehow, it hadn't even been bent by that blow or extraction.
Getting a bleeding injury really only made the day worse, in John's mind. He probably wouldn't even be able to get any sympathy for it later.
Before he could really commit to leaving, though, John froze as the whole of the bathroom began to fill with the sound of metal on metal grinding and shake. Slowly, in front of his eyes, a port opened in the corner of the floor as the pad below the hand drying machine retracted into the wall to reveal a set of stairs. Without thinking, John went back into exploration mode and headed down out of an uncontrollable curiosity - he wanted to know why this was here, how it was here, and where it led.
However, not long after he reached the bottom of the steps a crackling voice emanated from a speaker mounted on the wall, and the tinny words it spoke were enough to send him running all the way back to his bike out of fear.
"On behalf of House Cameron, I welcome you to the Invisible Palace, Lord Amaris."
-----
Looking back on something I wrote three months ago is a strange experience.
Chapter 1 (August 2900)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
---
Scene 1
---
The weather was just as nice as it'd been on that day last month. There'd actually been a number of days with such pleasant weather since then, but nothing could be made of them. As things stood, in just one or two months there'd be no more pleasant weather to go on adventures for the rest of the year. Such was the length of a season.
John poured feed into the horse trough with a sustained grunt, struggling to support the 25 kilo bag with the muscles on his arms straining. If there was one thing to be said about the decision to put him to work despite the utter insignificance of the family-run part of the farm, it was that it'd sufficed not only to overbuild his body to an utterly absurd degree, and to harness the resulting strength every day. It made the task of breeding a hundred or so show horses every year, well, not easy, but much moreso than should have been possible with the comparative skeleton crew the main farm got, by the equivalent of roughly half a workman's labor, once one accounted for the time John actually spent doing farmwork.
It'd be a lot less if he had his say in it. The lad delivered a stinkeye to the farmhand changing out the straw in the barn when the woman wasn't looking. It had been so much easier to slip away before, but something about the last stunt had put workers and tutors alike on an elevated standard of vigilance.
Maybe his father had actually been worried to see his only child and heir come back frightened and unwilling to explain anything, or maybe it was simply that he didn't enjoy the loss of face that came with it. His mother, distant presence that she was to all within the household, certainly couldn't have played much part in the outcome.
Not as though the boy could ever come out and say 'I'm scared because I stumbled onto what might be a Castle Brian, and it called me Lord Amaris'. The greatest part of the fear he felt was the threat of comeuppance if the connection, whether it was real or false, got out. History was one of the lessons he was absolutely prevented from skipping, and he knew quite well what had been done with the known members of House Amaris, both old and young, when the Amaris Empire was put in its grave. He had no interest in risking setting his extended family's heads rolling with the revelation that House Amaris was still around in some form, in the exact same region as the epicenter of their atrocities. He was part of that demographic, so his head would be one of them.
There was a question to be asked about whether the emphasis on history education was mere happenstance, a regional fixation due to the great proximity to the ruins of Union City, or perhaps, just perhaps, his father knew more about the family legacy than he was letting on, but John wasn't risking anything to find out.
His curiosity lay elsewhere. After four weeks of cooling his head in a nonstop battery of work and schooling, barely even touching on the term free time, John had come to the conclusion that he should've checked out the bunker under the Golden Corral. At least that brief diversion would have let him say he'd gotten something in exchange for his prolonged detention. Sure, it'd be a secret he'd most likely never be able to share with anyone while keeping his life, but it wasn't as though he had anyone he'd consider sharing a secret with to begin with.
When was the last time he actually met with someone his own age, anyways?
It certainly wasn't his birthday, which had passed like any other day the previous week. To make him more grateful for how good he had it, his father had said.
As he felt the bag go limp in his grip, empty of grain, John gave another about-glance, confirming that nobody was looking at him, and spat into the pile of grain in the feed trough. Horses were, without a doubt, among his least favorite things. They stank, they bit, and they made way too much work for him. There wasn't a single pleasant consequence of being made to tend to the animals that he could name.
Then it hit him, and he looked around again. Not only was there nobody looking, he couldn't even see the worker who had no doubt been assigned as his minder for the afternoon. To add to that, he'd just finished his current task - and while he'd no doubt be told to busy himself with something else if someone else had known, if he disappeared right now he'd at least have the excuse of thinking he was done for the day.
It was after lunch, and a quick slosh of his canteen revealed that, while not full, it was nearly full.
So he ran. His bike had been hidden somewhere after his last breakout, and he hadn't had time to pin down his location, so he grabbed somebody else's instead. It was a bit harder for his legs to reach the pedals, but a large child in a land of small adults had a surprisingly easy time accessing everything.
If asked later, he'd just claim he went into town or something. It was by far the more natural assumption for anyone to make if they looked into the situation, when compared to assuming he'd made a trip into a land common wisdom held to be impassible, to a building that in defiance of all common rationale seemed indestructible.
If the place turned out to be inhabitable, he could even make up the excuse of going camping in the future during what limited windows he was allowed to take for himself, and just spend a few days there at a time rather than actually going into the woods or mountains. He might even be able to just live there permanently, and avoid his terrible home life entirely. Who knew what a palace built for House Cameron could be like?
---
Scene 2
---
The benefit of not stumbling onto the Invisible Palace's entrance was, this time John already knew how to open it, and could minimize the harm the little needle did, if only to some extent. As it happened, when he pressed his finger onto the patch on the wall where his blood had dried, there was initially no protrusion. It was only a moment later that the needle actually protruded through the seam between two tiles and took its tiny sample.
As the floor opened up to reveal the stairwell, the boy drew a deep breath and steeled his will, ignoring the fear he felt in the name of adventure and not wasting the chance a second time.
It was hard to say for sure after over 28 days, but it certainly seemed that the timing and tone of the greeting - the same "On behalf of House Cameron, I welcome you to the Invisible Palace, Lord Amaris." as before - was completely unchanged. Still, rather than simply assuming it was a recording, he decided to reply this time. If someone was actually staying here, it would be risky to just walk in - particularly if they were, say, a grudge-bearing member of House Cameron, somehow.
It seemed like a good time to draw on his etiquette training, to the extent he'd actually retained the information beyond the bare minimum. "E-excuse me for intruding. Who might you be? And what makes you call me Lord Amaris?"
The pause was awkwardly long - ten or twenty seconds - to the point that John had simply concluded it must have been a recording and gone on to nearly reach the door at the end of the entry corridor.
Just as the door began to open, though, the speakers rang out once again with a pop as the tinny voice tendered its reply. "My designation is SHANDRA. I am the autonomous management engine for Castle Brian #869 - the Invisible Palace. When you allowed the validation probe to test your skin cells, the automated systems identified genetic markers consistent with modifications unique to members of House Amaris, added to the registry of priority inhabitants in the Invisible Palace charter in 2762, joining House Cameron in that exalted position. You will be welcome to shelter here as long as necessary, and I will accommodate your requests to the utmost. Note also that House Amaris is permitted to enter with as many as nine thousand nine hundred retainers, should you choose to provide your own staff."
John's mind ground along as fast as it could processing that bombshell, pausing for a second on the fact that his family could, technically, gather up thousands of people to bring down here - if those people didn't slaughter them for their unsavory heritage, to the point that he very nearly brought up the extermination of House Cameron by House Amaris out of reflexes honed in his lessons. He managed to tamp down on that self-destructive impulse, however, and instead lead with a question. "Excuse me, but what exactly is the Invisible Palace? I haven't been told about any of this - I just stumbled upon this place in the Golden Corral's bathroom."
The crackling of the speaker increased as SHANDRA spoke again, and after she spoke only a few words a totally different, less tinny, more human sounding voice took over. "Cueing prepared orientation: Welcome to the Invisible Palace, an element of the Hidden Hope Program in affiliation with the CASPAR program. In the event of a catastrophic collapse of the Star League government, top analysts have predicted the wholesale devastation of the Inner Sphere and severe societal regression, as a result of a resurgence in total war conditions. The chance of a total collapse of interstellar society is estimated at fifty percent or higher within the first century. That's why you are here, as a member or servant of House Cameron or House Amaris, you have been judged to represent the highest and most noble potential of humanity. With a planned admissions occupancy of twenty thousand, a maximum occupancy of two hundred thousand, and all the amenities and informational resources that could be installed and automated, the Invisible Palace will serve as an incubator which grows new hope for humanity from the fertile seed you represent, underneath the mighty Olympic Mountains. In time, when the Sphere above has reduced itself to barbarism, your descendents - or you yourself, if you choose to wait the years out in stasis - will return to the world armed with the pinnacle of Star League ingenuity and rebuild the world brighter and nobler than it was."
Given that the voice changed a second time for just an instant there, it seemed like whoever had added House Amaris to the invitation list didn't care enough to fully re-record the audio.
"I hope that file helped to clear up the confusion, Lord Amaris.", SHANDRA piped in again a few moments after the recording had ended.
"I believe I understand now, yes.", John replied, feeling a bit queasy as he weighed the merits of admitting that, whatever his genetics said, he wasn't actually a member of house Amaris, but ultimately deciding that telling the facility he was, in essence, a trespasser, would be a mistake. "I don't suppose there are any other living, breathing people down here right now?"
"Correct, you are the only breathing person present." came the reply, which was phrased in a way that made him think that SHANDRA - the AI - was probably not that bright. Then again, the SDS had apparently been turned to Amaris' side fairly easily, so the system probably had similar flaws.
Well, if House Amaris had access, it was no wonder that the place was depopulated - even if a member of House Cameron had been in here, one would think they would have been killed - though one would expect to see some Amaris people down here in that case. Unless…
"Why was House Amaris added to the priority list here?"
Predictably, a few seconds late, the machine responded. "Technicians completed the addition of House Amaris to the registry in January of 2766, in accordance with the spirit of Silent Executive Order #1166 - IN RECOGNITION OF the great friendship and honor of Stefan Amaris, let it be known that First Lord Richard Cameron permits House Amaris all privileges afforded to House Cameron, save the right to ascend to the throne of First Lord of the Star League."
In which case, Stefan Amaris was never necessarily told this place was here, since whoever was managing it was just responding to the First Lord's order, written by someone who didn't even necessarily know the place existed himself. House Cameron was absent because they were all killed in the Court of the Star League before they could ever make their way to the Olympic Peninsula, if they even remembered this place.
---
Scene 3
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The entryway, which widened as it went, terminated in a solitary, sliding double door of grand proportions, its decoration an obnoxious gilded facade that was totally at odds with the dark ferrocrete of the walls. Much too large to be needed for any object that could conceivably enter through the Golden Corral, in fact. It was at least four times the size of the passageways leading here, and John almost found himself puzzling over it before he realized he could simply ask.
"Why does that door need to be so big, anyways? Anything that could get down here to begin with would fit through it with so much room that it seems unreal." he asked, turning his gaze back to the speaker on the wall as he spoke up.
"Multiple reasons." replied the unwavering mechanical voice of the very palace tself. "The first being that out of respect for the exalted status of the Palace's inhabitants, it was considered incumbent upon the designers to endow the structure with the very grandeur of the Star League itself as a show of pride. Secondly, the lifts between the entrance sites and the Palace proper were built to a common scale out of anticipation of the need to routinely alter their surface facades while maintaining multiple entrances, as well as a general need for a great deal of access belowground during construction. Thirdly, given aspirations of evacuating twenty thousand people as quickly as possible in the event of a catastrophe, it was judged best if the lifts had the highest conceivable occupancy, as the long diagonal shaft would otherwise place a prohibitive risk upon those seeking shelter."
Knowing that the door was to an elevator helped John to piece things together in his head - the place wouldn't even be the tiniest challenge to dig up if it could be unearthed by digging down the equivalent of a short flight of stairs more or less anywhere in Port Angeles - as absurd as it was that the social function of the thing was the most important design consideration in a piece of equipment to be relied on in a life or death situation. However, more than even that, something about the last reason stood out to him as oddly foreboding. "When you say the shaft is long, what do you mean, exactly?"
"Apologies, Lord Amaris. Clarifying now: the Invisible Palace is the deepest of the six Castles Brian located in the Olympic Mountains. The primary layer, to which this elevator leads, is located thirty-eight-point-four kilometers to the southeast of and four kilometers below your current location, underneath Mount Olympus - with the surrounding rock cooled using water from the Pacific Ocean. The trip will take one half hour to complete. During that time, I welcome you to make use of the onboard lavatory and-or vending machines as necessary for your comfort. If you have any concerns, make them known at any time and I will endeavor with the utmost of my abilities to set them right. Your safety and contentment are my prime directive."
Several conflicting reactions boiled up within John at that answer. Though they weren't common out in the countryside, the boy had occasion in the past to ride an elevator or two in the past - and traveling just a few stories had seemed to take almost an eternity to his mind at the time, only his father's disapproving gaze keeping him from making the fuss if ever the minute hand changed twice during one trip. Indeed, though he couldn't rightly say for sure just based on his memory, John was willing to wager that he'd never been in any building a tenth as tall as this elevator shaft was deep - and yet he'd probably been on at least one elevator ride a third as long as this one. On the one hand, the prospect of riding an elevator faster than the Harvester Ants, Cherrypickers, and Powermen used on the farm was a fairly exciting idea. On the other hand, riding an elevator several kilometers deep when it hadn't been maintained in over a century - even if the facility itself was as self-evidently impervious to the passage of time as was the case here - was more than a little terrifying.
Having a hard time sorting out the third and final emotion bubbling up inside, John shook his head and took a step forward. "I'd like to head down now, then."
SHANDRA was a bit slow on the reply as ancient mechanisms ground to life with a mighty rumbling, the vast gateway sliding open at speeds that barely seemed real even from a few meters away. It was a miracle in its own right that something so vast could move so quickly without producing a deafening racket. "Very well. Please wait a few seconds while the blast doors open."
Gasping as the doors ground to a halt and the elevator cabin behind them - the interior walls an immaculate white decorated by partly gilded pillars, and the floor a sparkling golden checkerboard - Jack was too distracted gawking at the ludicrously indulgent spectacle to so much as chuckle at the fact that, by the time the AI had spoken, the doors themselves were very nearly open already.
"What a waste! I can't believe something this crazy got built and then never even used." Jack blurted out despite himself as he walked in, utterly unable to contain his thoughts on the situation - and the third emotion he'd been feeling when the elevator ride was - as he took in the nonsensical extravagance of the mere entryway to this survival shelter. To think that House Cameron could foresee the fall of the Star League, foresee the gradual collapse of civilization in the aftermath, and prepare so thoroughly and gaudily for the calamity, and yet fail to anticipate that the root cause of it all would be their own elimination was more than a little bit depressing.
Those thoughts were then, immediately, contradicted by SHANDRA - and in a way that seemed to be true only in the most asinine of ways. "You are mistaken, Lord Amaris. The Invisible Palace is in use at this very moment in August of 2900."
Rolling his eyes, the boy tapped his foot as he glared at the nearest speaker. "Okay, yes, I'm using it right now. But it's been here for, what, way over a hundred and forty years now, I'd have to guess? That's a long time to wait for a single guest to drop in."
The doors began closing as SHANDRA delivered yet another cold refutation. "You are, again, mistaken, Lord Amaris. The Palace was in use even before your first visit."
Balling his hands up so tight his fingernails, John well and truly lost control of his mouth as brain ground along trying to come up with an explanation other than the AI having gone well and truly insane over the years. "That doesn't make any sense! You said before that I was the only one alive down here, it sure didn't seem like anyone from House Amaris would know this was here, and Stefan Amaris himself had House Cameron killed to the last nearly one and a half centuries ago, at the start of his coup attempt. How can this place possibly have been occupied all this time?"
A few seconds after he said all of that, John realized the depth of his mistake - that he'd said the one thing he'd intended to leave completely unsaid while down here. He very much doubted he'd have time to reflect on admitting that House Amaris had betrayed and purged the Camerons, while present in an automated Cameron facility...under the name of 'Lord Amaris', but for what it was worth he held onto hope at the vague possibility that it might turn out alright.
The next few seconds felt like hours, until SHANDRA finally responded. "Lord Amaris, I am afraid that is not what I told you earlier. Your question was whether you were the only breathing human down here. I am sorry to have created this misunderstanding - there is one living human on the premises, inside of one of the stasis pods. You are currently the guest of First Lady Amelia Cameron, second daughter of Richard the Second Cameron. Furthermore, as my sensors indicate you are experiencing heightened levels of frustration, I will say this to put you at ease - the treachery of Stefan Amaris has been recorded on-site since the year of twenty seven sixty six, though you have added new details to that file. Regardless of what your ancestor has done, your personal presence in the Invisible Palace is that of a lawful resident in good standing, per the pre-programmed legal code I am bound to uphold."
---
Scene 4
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The feeling of gazing through the facade of frosty glass was akin to an act of blasphemy. What justice could exist among the stars, when the first in over a century to lay eyes on a live Cameron was none other than the fruit of a poisoned tree, the spawn of House Amaris? What cruel joke was it that both lines had persisted not in the depths of the periphery where all imagined they might with hope or fear in their hearts, but rather in the very region they were to have met their ends - within barely fifty kilometers of one another?
What trick of destiny was it that House Amaris should thrive as landlords writ large in the light of the Pacific Northwest, while House Cameron's last embers lay hidden, frozen, alone in the dark depths of the mother soil of the Star League itself?
The taste of blood filled John's mouth as he bit down on his lip, blossoming like a flower of copper. It was an injustice that could only be furthered if this horribly pale, dark haired girl were interred not as a last vestige of hope in her motherland, but as a trophy in the black pits of Apollo itself.
Falling to his knees, grinding his nails down on the flashy marble flooring that hadn't been spared even in the medical ward, the boy watched as his hands became wreathed in a ring of tears.
Whispering, he made a promise so vast as to be absurd.
"I will give you the stars."
Inarticulate, barely coherent, and hardly even an actionable oath. Could it be done? Probably not. Could he do it? Definitely not.
But he had to.
That line of thought was put to rest for the moment when the inquisitive, mechanical voice of SHANDRA cut through the contemplative silence. "Did you say something, Lord Amaris? My audio sensors have lost fifty percent of their sensitivity since the last maintenance cycle, so I am unable to respond to whispered inquiries."
Closing his eyes tightly, the boy let out a long, rumbling groan. "It was nothing, SHANDRA. Just talking to myself."
Broken out of his trance, however, John glanced back up at the pod as a consideration that hadn't even occurred to him on the way here. The girl frozen in the pod, clad in a white sundress, looked to be about his own age - certainly somewhere around seven at least. History stated that Richard the Second died while he was barely even a grown man, at the age of just twenty two years. Was it really possible that he could have a child this age? She would've had to have been born around when he was just fifteen to have come here in the year of the uprising at this age. Could a seven year old even reasonably escape to the Invisible Palace on her own?
No, that question wasn't even relevant, his memory called out to him. Richard Cameron's firstborn, Amanda, was killed as an infant. Even the most fanciful rumors of a supposed Ian the Second being spirited away to the periphery noted that he would have been an infant at the time.
None of this would make sense if someone, or multiple someones, hadn't brought Amelia down here, using her blood as the key, and raised her for the better part of a decade.
So where were they?
Glancing to the speaker mounted on the wall, John shrugged. It was worth a try. "Actually, SHANDRA, I have a question. How did First Lady Cameron end up down here to begin with? She must have been brought as a baby and raised by someone, but you said she was the only one still down here."
"When Amelia Cameron was first brought into my custody, she was accompanied by Captain Vera Clayton of the Royal Black Watch. As it was explained, she had been brought to a pediatric ophthalmologist in Port Angeles for a cataract surgery shortly before the beginning of the insurrection, with Captain Clayton as her chaperone. When the situation turned for the worst, it was her good fortune that Captain Clayton was one of those trained to lead an evacuation into the Invisible Palace." the machine bearing the name of the first head of the SLDF obligingly responded.
Swallowing his own spit, John pressed onward, despite having an uncomfortable feeling about what must have happened. "What happened to Captain Clayton, exactly? She must have passed away at some point, but how? Plus, how in that chain of events did Amelia end up in stasis to begin with? It's weird to imagine that she could have put herself in cold storage."
"Firstly, were it necessary I would have no trouble guiding a sole individual through the process of going into stasis with what control over the systems of this facility I possess." SHANDRA chided, actually sounding offended by the implication that the technical task would be left to Amelia herself. "Secondly, while the Invisible Palace was designed with the finest medical facilities available, I am unfortunately incapable of fulfilling the role of a resident anesthesiologist, oncologist, or surgeon, professions which were assumed to be a given by the designers of the facility. Even if medical equipment other than the stasis systems were under my control, I am incapable of developing or assimilating skills I was not created with. As such, when she became unable to exercise guardianship over the First Lady, she placed her in stasis. If it would please you, Lord Amaris, I could at least play you Captain Clayton's last will and testament."
Inhaling deeply, John felt his muscles tense up. Even knowing that the member of the Black Watch couldn't possibly have survived this long already, there was something deeply morbid about the thought that she'd had time, facing an obvious death by illness, to put her affairs in order - but hadn't elected to go into stasis herself, despite the vast bank of pods ready and waiting. "Please do."
Everything was silent for a few seconds, before a loud, wet cough came over the intercom, accompanied by a woman's tired, wheezing voice. "The date is… fifth of March, twenty nine seventy four. I think this will be my last entry, SHANDRA, so if you would...think of it as my will. I've decided not to go into stasis - I can't imagine they'd be able to operate in time to save me, and Amy...Amy doesn't need to see me fade any further. If anyone's listening…"
Another loud cough broke up the recording at that point, accompanied by the sound of something splattering across a hard surface.
"This is Captain Vera Clayton, Royal Black Watch. Resident of the Invisible Palace these last seven years. Guardian and...I'd get fucking sacked for saying this… adoptive mother to Amelia Cameron, the adorable icicle in the Sector A stasis wing. If you're listening to this, that's probably a relative of yours. Maybe the last one, at that. Good on General Kerensky for tracking down someone Amaris didn't track down. I'd have brought Amy out of here myself a long time ago, if not for the fact that… well, when I listen to the radio waves coming in from outside, they're still praising Amaris. We wouldn't make it."
It sounded, for a second, like something was caught in the woman's throat, prompting several seconds of choking and then heavy breathing.
"She's a good kid. For my first time, I'd say I did a pretty...pretty damn good job raising her. So do me a favor - get her out of this place. Take her topside and let her one good eye see the sun, the sky, the mountains, and the sea in person. She loves those pictures, and she deserves better than to sit in stasis until the day this place collapses around her. She might be skittish and shy, since she's only ever known SHANDRA and I, but if you're patient and understanding, I'm sure she'll come around to you."
There was one last pause - this time, though, without any unpleasant noises.
"And on the off chance that you're part of Amaris' cursed fucking brood… show some decency for once in your wretched life, and don't hurt the kid. You can at least manage that much for a dead woman, right? Clayton out."
With the end of the recording, silence reigned in the stasis chamber. It felt as though there was a rock in John's throat, and for a minute he simply sat and stared at his hands, pressed onto the ground.
"SHANDRA?" He eventually began. "If I ask you to, will you bring Lady Cameron out of stasis? I...believe I've been given a job to do. A duty to...Captain Clayton, to Amelia, and to myself."
SHANDRA took practically no time at all to reply, skipping over agreement straight to practical matters. "It will take a full terran standard day to thaw her. Will you be back by then to welcome her back into the world, Lord Amaris?"
John thought about that. It'd be horribly difficult to get away from home two days in a row. If he went back now, he might not be able to return for a full month, during which Amelia would be alone down here, save for SHANDRA itself. On the other hand, people had survived down here for over seven years, and that probably wasn't the upper limit by any means.
There was an answer to that problem, in other words, even if it would make things exponentially worse for him when he eventually did head back home. "If you tell me where I can find food, water, and a place to sleep, I'll stay overnight. That way, there's an absolute guarantee I'll be on hand when you need me back in this room."
--
There was a hissing sound as the front of the stasis pod slid open, revealing the girl inside to have slumped to the bottom once thawed out. It had been impossible to see what was going on inside before that moment, since the glass had thoroughly fogged up at some point.
Panic rushed through John at the sight, and without time to think he rushed in close and placed his hand on Amelia's shoulder as though to shake her awake. If anything had gone wrong, he didn't know what he would, or even could, do.
A moment later, though, his panic broke. He could hear her breathing, and feel her pulse. She was alive.
A moment later it was time to panic again, as her eyes began to drift open while his hand was still on her shoulder. It wasn't an existential terror so much as flustered embarrassment and shame this time, though.
For her part, the last Cameron was quite quick to come to her senses, as her left, blue eye focused on John, her milky white right one presumably pointing the same way. "Ah-euh. Er. My...um...my name is Amelia Cameron. Who... might you be?"
John had spent a few hours thinking of how to explain this without worrying her. "My name is John O'Reilly. Um...SHANDRA says I'm a descendant of Stefan Amaris, which is why I was able to get into this place, but that was the first I've heard of it, and...well, House Amaris hasn't existed for over a hundred years. I'm here to help you."
Hearing that, Amelia furrowed her brow, narrowed her eye, and pursed her lips as she attempted to process that. Rather than worried, it seemed more like she was just confused to hear something like that right out of the blue. Eventually, she nodded and gave a simple reply, her eyes wide open. "Okay. Nice to meet you. Er...where's Vera?"
Now, how to explain that?
Scene 1
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The weather was just as nice as it'd been on that day last month. There'd actually been a number of days with such pleasant weather since then, but nothing could be made of them. As things stood, in just one or two months there'd be no more pleasant weather to go on adventures for the rest of the year. Such was the length of a season.
John poured feed into the horse trough with a sustained grunt, struggling to support the 25 kilo bag with the muscles on his arms straining. If there was one thing to be said about the decision to put him to work despite the utter insignificance of the family-run part of the farm, it was that it'd sufficed not only to overbuild his body to an utterly absurd degree, and to harness the resulting strength every day. It made the task of breeding a hundred or so show horses every year, well, not easy, but much moreso than should have been possible with the comparative skeleton crew the main farm got, by the equivalent of roughly half a workman's labor, once one accounted for the time John actually spent doing farmwork.
It'd be a lot less if he had his say in it. The lad delivered a stinkeye to the farmhand changing out the straw in the barn when the woman wasn't looking. It had been so much easier to slip away before, but something about the last stunt had put workers and tutors alike on an elevated standard of vigilance.
Maybe his father had actually been worried to see his only child and heir come back frightened and unwilling to explain anything, or maybe it was simply that he didn't enjoy the loss of face that came with it. His mother, distant presence that she was to all within the household, certainly couldn't have played much part in the outcome.
Not as though the boy could ever come out and say 'I'm scared because I stumbled onto what might be a Castle Brian, and it called me Lord Amaris'. The greatest part of the fear he felt was the threat of comeuppance if the connection, whether it was real or false, got out. History was one of the lessons he was absolutely prevented from skipping, and he knew quite well what had been done with the known members of House Amaris, both old and young, when the Amaris Empire was put in its grave. He had no interest in risking setting his extended family's heads rolling with the revelation that House Amaris was still around in some form, in the exact same region as the epicenter of their atrocities. He was part of that demographic, so his head would be one of them.
There was a question to be asked about whether the emphasis on history education was mere happenstance, a regional fixation due to the great proximity to the ruins of Union City, or perhaps, just perhaps, his father knew more about the family legacy than he was letting on, but John wasn't risking anything to find out.
His curiosity lay elsewhere. After four weeks of cooling his head in a nonstop battery of work and schooling, barely even touching on the term free time, John had come to the conclusion that he should've checked out the bunker under the Golden Corral. At least that brief diversion would have let him say he'd gotten something in exchange for his prolonged detention. Sure, it'd be a secret he'd most likely never be able to share with anyone while keeping his life, but it wasn't as though he had anyone he'd consider sharing a secret with to begin with.
When was the last time he actually met with someone his own age, anyways?
It certainly wasn't his birthday, which had passed like any other day the previous week. To make him more grateful for how good he had it, his father had said.
As he felt the bag go limp in his grip, empty of grain, John gave another about-glance, confirming that nobody was looking at him, and spat into the pile of grain in the feed trough. Horses were, without a doubt, among his least favorite things. They stank, they bit, and they made way too much work for him. There wasn't a single pleasant consequence of being made to tend to the animals that he could name.
Then it hit him, and he looked around again. Not only was there nobody looking, he couldn't even see the worker who had no doubt been assigned as his minder for the afternoon. To add to that, he'd just finished his current task - and while he'd no doubt be told to busy himself with something else if someone else had known, if he disappeared right now he'd at least have the excuse of thinking he was done for the day.
It was after lunch, and a quick slosh of his canteen revealed that, while not full, it was nearly full.
So he ran. His bike had been hidden somewhere after his last breakout, and he hadn't had time to pin down his location, so he grabbed somebody else's instead. It was a bit harder for his legs to reach the pedals, but a large child in a land of small adults had a surprisingly easy time accessing everything.
If asked later, he'd just claim he went into town or something. It was by far the more natural assumption for anyone to make if they looked into the situation, when compared to assuming he'd made a trip into a land common wisdom held to be impassible, to a building that in defiance of all common rationale seemed indestructible.
If the place turned out to be inhabitable, he could even make up the excuse of going camping in the future during what limited windows he was allowed to take for himself, and just spend a few days there at a time rather than actually going into the woods or mountains. He might even be able to just live there permanently, and avoid his terrible home life entirely. Who knew what a palace built for House Cameron could be like?
---
Scene 2
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The benefit of not stumbling onto the Invisible Palace's entrance was, this time John already knew how to open it, and could minimize the harm the little needle did, if only to some extent. As it happened, when he pressed his finger onto the patch on the wall where his blood had dried, there was initially no protrusion. It was only a moment later that the needle actually protruded through the seam between two tiles and took its tiny sample.
As the floor opened up to reveal the stairwell, the boy drew a deep breath and steeled his will, ignoring the fear he felt in the name of adventure and not wasting the chance a second time.
It was hard to say for sure after over 28 days, but it certainly seemed that the timing and tone of the greeting - the same "On behalf of House Cameron, I welcome you to the Invisible Palace, Lord Amaris." as before - was completely unchanged. Still, rather than simply assuming it was a recording, he decided to reply this time. If someone was actually staying here, it would be risky to just walk in - particularly if they were, say, a grudge-bearing member of House Cameron, somehow.
It seemed like a good time to draw on his etiquette training, to the extent he'd actually retained the information beyond the bare minimum. "E-excuse me for intruding. Who might you be? And what makes you call me Lord Amaris?"
The pause was awkwardly long - ten or twenty seconds - to the point that John had simply concluded it must have been a recording and gone on to nearly reach the door at the end of the entry corridor.
Just as the door began to open, though, the speakers rang out once again with a pop as the tinny voice tendered its reply. "My designation is SHANDRA. I am the autonomous management engine for Castle Brian #869 - the Invisible Palace. When you allowed the validation probe to test your skin cells, the automated systems identified genetic markers consistent with modifications unique to members of House Amaris, added to the registry of priority inhabitants in the Invisible Palace charter in 2762, joining House Cameron in that exalted position. You will be welcome to shelter here as long as necessary, and I will accommodate your requests to the utmost. Note also that House Amaris is permitted to enter with as many as nine thousand nine hundred retainers, should you choose to provide your own staff."
John's mind ground along as fast as it could processing that bombshell, pausing for a second on the fact that his family could, technically, gather up thousands of people to bring down here - if those people didn't slaughter them for their unsavory heritage, to the point that he very nearly brought up the extermination of House Cameron by House Amaris out of reflexes honed in his lessons. He managed to tamp down on that self-destructive impulse, however, and instead lead with a question. "Excuse me, but what exactly is the Invisible Palace? I haven't been told about any of this - I just stumbled upon this place in the Golden Corral's bathroom."
The crackling of the speaker increased as SHANDRA spoke again, and after she spoke only a few words a totally different, less tinny, more human sounding voice took over. "Cueing prepared orientation: Welcome to the Invisible Palace, an element of the Hidden Hope Program in affiliation with the CASPAR program. In the event of a catastrophic collapse of the Star League government, top analysts have predicted the wholesale devastation of the Inner Sphere and severe societal regression, as a result of a resurgence in total war conditions. The chance of a total collapse of interstellar society is estimated at fifty percent or higher within the first century. That's why you are here, as a member or servant of House Cameron or House Amaris, you have been judged to represent the highest and most noble potential of humanity. With a planned admissions occupancy of twenty thousand, a maximum occupancy of two hundred thousand, and all the amenities and informational resources that could be installed and automated, the Invisible Palace will serve as an incubator which grows new hope for humanity from the fertile seed you represent, underneath the mighty Olympic Mountains. In time, when the Sphere above has reduced itself to barbarism, your descendents - or you yourself, if you choose to wait the years out in stasis - will return to the world armed with the pinnacle of Star League ingenuity and rebuild the world brighter and nobler than it was."
Given that the voice changed a second time for just an instant there, it seemed like whoever had added House Amaris to the invitation list didn't care enough to fully re-record the audio.
"I hope that file helped to clear up the confusion, Lord Amaris.", SHANDRA piped in again a few moments after the recording had ended.
"I believe I understand now, yes.", John replied, feeling a bit queasy as he weighed the merits of admitting that, whatever his genetics said, he wasn't actually a member of house Amaris, but ultimately deciding that telling the facility he was, in essence, a trespasser, would be a mistake. "I don't suppose there are any other living, breathing people down here right now?"
"Correct, you are the only breathing person present." came the reply, which was phrased in a way that made him think that SHANDRA - the AI - was probably not that bright. Then again, the SDS had apparently been turned to Amaris' side fairly easily, so the system probably had similar flaws.
Well, if House Amaris had access, it was no wonder that the place was depopulated - even if a member of House Cameron had been in here, one would think they would have been killed - though one would expect to see some Amaris people down here in that case. Unless…
"Why was House Amaris added to the priority list here?"
Predictably, a few seconds late, the machine responded. "Technicians completed the addition of House Amaris to the registry in January of 2766, in accordance with the spirit of Silent Executive Order #1166 - IN RECOGNITION OF the great friendship and honor of Stefan Amaris, let it be known that First Lord Richard Cameron permits House Amaris all privileges afforded to House Cameron, save the right to ascend to the throne of First Lord of the Star League."
In which case, Stefan Amaris was never necessarily told this place was here, since whoever was managing it was just responding to the First Lord's order, written by someone who didn't even necessarily know the place existed himself. House Cameron was absent because they were all killed in the Court of the Star League before they could ever make their way to the Olympic Peninsula, if they even remembered this place.
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Scene 3
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The entryway, which widened as it went, terminated in a solitary, sliding double door of grand proportions, its decoration an obnoxious gilded facade that was totally at odds with the dark ferrocrete of the walls. Much too large to be needed for any object that could conceivably enter through the Golden Corral, in fact. It was at least four times the size of the passageways leading here, and John almost found himself puzzling over it before he realized he could simply ask.
"Why does that door need to be so big, anyways? Anything that could get down here to begin with would fit through it with so much room that it seems unreal." he asked, turning his gaze back to the speaker on the wall as he spoke up.
"Multiple reasons." replied the unwavering mechanical voice of the very palace tself. "The first being that out of respect for the exalted status of the Palace's inhabitants, it was considered incumbent upon the designers to endow the structure with the very grandeur of the Star League itself as a show of pride. Secondly, the lifts between the entrance sites and the Palace proper were built to a common scale out of anticipation of the need to routinely alter their surface facades while maintaining multiple entrances, as well as a general need for a great deal of access belowground during construction. Thirdly, given aspirations of evacuating twenty thousand people as quickly as possible in the event of a catastrophe, it was judged best if the lifts had the highest conceivable occupancy, as the long diagonal shaft would otherwise place a prohibitive risk upon those seeking shelter."
Knowing that the door was to an elevator helped John to piece things together in his head - the place wouldn't even be the tiniest challenge to dig up if it could be unearthed by digging down the equivalent of a short flight of stairs more or less anywhere in Port Angeles - as absurd as it was that the social function of the thing was the most important design consideration in a piece of equipment to be relied on in a life or death situation. However, more than even that, something about the last reason stood out to him as oddly foreboding. "When you say the shaft is long, what do you mean, exactly?"
"Apologies, Lord Amaris. Clarifying now: the Invisible Palace is the deepest of the six Castles Brian located in the Olympic Mountains. The primary layer, to which this elevator leads, is located thirty-eight-point-four kilometers to the southeast of and four kilometers below your current location, underneath Mount Olympus - with the surrounding rock cooled using water from the Pacific Ocean. The trip will take one half hour to complete. During that time, I welcome you to make use of the onboard lavatory and-or vending machines as necessary for your comfort. If you have any concerns, make them known at any time and I will endeavor with the utmost of my abilities to set them right. Your safety and contentment are my prime directive."
Several conflicting reactions boiled up within John at that answer. Though they weren't common out in the countryside, the boy had occasion in the past to ride an elevator or two in the past - and traveling just a few stories had seemed to take almost an eternity to his mind at the time, only his father's disapproving gaze keeping him from making the fuss if ever the minute hand changed twice during one trip. Indeed, though he couldn't rightly say for sure just based on his memory, John was willing to wager that he'd never been in any building a tenth as tall as this elevator shaft was deep - and yet he'd probably been on at least one elevator ride a third as long as this one. On the one hand, the prospect of riding an elevator faster than the Harvester Ants, Cherrypickers, and Powermen used on the farm was a fairly exciting idea. On the other hand, riding an elevator several kilometers deep when it hadn't been maintained in over a century - even if the facility itself was as self-evidently impervious to the passage of time as was the case here - was more than a little terrifying.
Having a hard time sorting out the third and final emotion bubbling up inside, John shook his head and took a step forward. "I'd like to head down now, then."
SHANDRA was a bit slow on the reply as ancient mechanisms ground to life with a mighty rumbling, the vast gateway sliding open at speeds that barely seemed real even from a few meters away. It was a miracle in its own right that something so vast could move so quickly without producing a deafening racket. "Very well. Please wait a few seconds while the blast doors open."
Gasping as the doors ground to a halt and the elevator cabin behind them - the interior walls an immaculate white decorated by partly gilded pillars, and the floor a sparkling golden checkerboard - Jack was too distracted gawking at the ludicrously indulgent spectacle to so much as chuckle at the fact that, by the time the AI had spoken, the doors themselves were very nearly open already.
"What a waste! I can't believe something this crazy got built and then never even used." Jack blurted out despite himself as he walked in, utterly unable to contain his thoughts on the situation - and the third emotion he'd been feeling when the elevator ride was - as he took in the nonsensical extravagance of the mere entryway to this survival shelter. To think that House Cameron could foresee the fall of the Star League, foresee the gradual collapse of civilization in the aftermath, and prepare so thoroughly and gaudily for the calamity, and yet fail to anticipate that the root cause of it all would be their own elimination was more than a little bit depressing.
Those thoughts were then, immediately, contradicted by SHANDRA - and in a way that seemed to be true only in the most asinine of ways. "You are mistaken, Lord Amaris. The Invisible Palace is in use at this very moment in August of 2900."
Rolling his eyes, the boy tapped his foot as he glared at the nearest speaker. "Okay, yes, I'm using it right now. But it's been here for, what, way over a hundred and forty years now, I'd have to guess? That's a long time to wait for a single guest to drop in."
The doors began closing as SHANDRA delivered yet another cold refutation. "You are, again, mistaken, Lord Amaris. The Palace was in use even before your first visit."
Balling his hands up so tight his fingernails, John well and truly lost control of his mouth as brain ground along trying to come up with an explanation other than the AI having gone well and truly insane over the years. "That doesn't make any sense! You said before that I was the only one alive down here, it sure didn't seem like anyone from House Amaris would know this was here, and Stefan Amaris himself had House Cameron killed to the last nearly one and a half centuries ago, at the start of his coup attempt. How can this place possibly have been occupied all this time?"
A few seconds after he said all of that, John realized the depth of his mistake - that he'd said the one thing he'd intended to leave completely unsaid while down here. He very much doubted he'd have time to reflect on admitting that House Amaris had betrayed and purged the Camerons, while present in an automated Cameron facility...under the name of 'Lord Amaris', but for what it was worth he held onto hope at the vague possibility that it might turn out alright.
The next few seconds felt like hours, until SHANDRA finally responded. "Lord Amaris, I am afraid that is not what I told you earlier. Your question was whether you were the only breathing human down here. I am sorry to have created this misunderstanding - there is one living human on the premises, inside of one of the stasis pods. You are currently the guest of First Lady Amelia Cameron, second daughter of Richard the Second Cameron. Furthermore, as my sensors indicate you are experiencing heightened levels of frustration, I will say this to put you at ease - the treachery of Stefan Amaris has been recorded on-site since the year of twenty seven sixty six, though you have added new details to that file. Regardless of what your ancestor has done, your personal presence in the Invisible Palace is that of a lawful resident in good standing, per the pre-programmed legal code I am bound to uphold."
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Scene 4
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The feeling of gazing through the facade of frosty glass was akin to an act of blasphemy. What justice could exist among the stars, when the first in over a century to lay eyes on a live Cameron was none other than the fruit of a poisoned tree, the spawn of House Amaris? What cruel joke was it that both lines had persisted not in the depths of the periphery where all imagined they might with hope or fear in their hearts, but rather in the very region they were to have met their ends - within barely fifty kilometers of one another?
What trick of destiny was it that House Amaris should thrive as landlords writ large in the light of the Pacific Northwest, while House Cameron's last embers lay hidden, frozen, alone in the dark depths of the mother soil of the Star League itself?
The taste of blood filled John's mouth as he bit down on his lip, blossoming like a flower of copper. It was an injustice that could only be furthered if this horribly pale, dark haired girl were interred not as a last vestige of hope in her motherland, but as a trophy in the black pits of Apollo itself.
Falling to his knees, grinding his nails down on the flashy marble flooring that hadn't been spared even in the medical ward, the boy watched as his hands became wreathed in a ring of tears.
Whispering, he made a promise so vast as to be absurd.
"I will give you the stars."
Inarticulate, barely coherent, and hardly even an actionable oath. Could it be done? Probably not. Could he do it? Definitely not.
But he had to.
That line of thought was put to rest for the moment when the inquisitive, mechanical voice of SHANDRA cut through the contemplative silence. "Did you say something, Lord Amaris? My audio sensors have lost fifty percent of their sensitivity since the last maintenance cycle, so I am unable to respond to whispered inquiries."
Closing his eyes tightly, the boy let out a long, rumbling groan. "It was nothing, SHANDRA. Just talking to myself."
Broken out of his trance, however, John glanced back up at the pod as a consideration that hadn't even occurred to him on the way here. The girl frozen in the pod, clad in a white sundress, looked to be about his own age - certainly somewhere around seven at least. History stated that Richard the Second died while he was barely even a grown man, at the age of just twenty two years. Was it really possible that he could have a child this age? She would've had to have been born around when he was just fifteen to have come here in the year of the uprising at this age. Could a seven year old even reasonably escape to the Invisible Palace on her own?
No, that question wasn't even relevant, his memory called out to him. Richard Cameron's firstborn, Amanda, was killed as an infant. Even the most fanciful rumors of a supposed Ian the Second being spirited away to the periphery noted that he would have been an infant at the time.
None of this would make sense if someone, or multiple someones, hadn't brought Amelia down here, using her blood as the key, and raised her for the better part of a decade.
So where were they?
Glancing to the speaker mounted on the wall, John shrugged. It was worth a try. "Actually, SHANDRA, I have a question. How did First Lady Cameron end up down here to begin with? She must have been brought as a baby and raised by someone, but you said she was the only one still down here."
"When Amelia Cameron was first brought into my custody, she was accompanied by Captain Vera Clayton of the Royal Black Watch. As it was explained, she had been brought to a pediatric ophthalmologist in Port Angeles for a cataract surgery shortly before the beginning of the insurrection, with Captain Clayton as her chaperone. When the situation turned for the worst, it was her good fortune that Captain Clayton was one of those trained to lead an evacuation into the Invisible Palace." the machine bearing the name of the first head of the SLDF obligingly responded.
Swallowing his own spit, John pressed onward, despite having an uncomfortable feeling about what must have happened. "What happened to Captain Clayton, exactly? She must have passed away at some point, but how? Plus, how in that chain of events did Amelia end up in stasis to begin with? It's weird to imagine that she could have put herself in cold storage."
"Firstly, were it necessary I would have no trouble guiding a sole individual through the process of going into stasis with what control over the systems of this facility I possess." SHANDRA chided, actually sounding offended by the implication that the technical task would be left to Amelia herself. "Secondly, while the Invisible Palace was designed with the finest medical facilities available, I am unfortunately incapable of fulfilling the role of a resident anesthesiologist, oncologist, or surgeon, professions which were assumed to be a given by the designers of the facility. Even if medical equipment other than the stasis systems were under my control, I am incapable of developing or assimilating skills I was not created with. As such, when she became unable to exercise guardianship over the First Lady, she placed her in stasis. If it would please you, Lord Amaris, I could at least play you Captain Clayton's last will and testament."
Inhaling deeply, John felt his muscles tense up. Even knowing that the member of the Black Watch couldn't possibly have survived this long already, there was something deeply morbid about the thought that she'd had time, facing an obvious death by illness, to put her affairs in order - but hadn't elected to go into stasis herself, despite the vast bank of pods ready and waiting. "Please do."
Everything was silent for a few seconds, before a loud, wet cough came over the intercom, accompanied by a woman's tired, wheezing voice. "The date is… fifth of March, twenty nine seventy four. I think this will be my last entry, SHANDRA, so if you would...think of it as my will. I've decided not to go into stasis - I can't imagine they'd be able to operate in time to save me, and Amy...Amy doesn't need to see me fade any further. If anyone's listening…"
Another loud cough broke up the recording at that point, accompanied by the sound of something splattering across a hard surface.
"This is Captain Vera Clayton, Royal Black Watch. Resident of the Invisible Palace these last seven years. Guardian and...I'd get fucking sacked for saying this… adoptive mother to Amelia Cameron, the adorable icicle in the Sector A stasis wing. If you're listening to this, that's probably a relative of yours. Maybe the last one, at that. Good on General Kerensky for tracking down someone Amaris didn't track down. I'd have brought Amy out of here myself a long time ago, if not for the fact that… well, when I listen to the radio waves coming in from outside, they're still praising Amaris. We wouldn't make it."
It sounded, for a second, like something was caught in the woman's throat, prompting several seconds of choking and then heavy breathing.
"She's a good kid. For my first time, I'd say I did a pretty...pretty damn good job raising her. So do me a favor - get her out of this place. Take her topside and let her one good eye see the sun, the sky, the mountains, and the sea in person. She loves those pictures, and she deserves better than to sit in stasis until the day this place collapses around her. She might be skittish and shy, since she's only ever known SHANDRA and I, but if you're patient and understanding, I'm sure she'll come around to you."
There was one last pause - this time, though, without any unpleasant noises.
"And on the off chance that you're part of Amaris' cursed fucking brood… show some decency for once in your wretched life, and don't hurt the kid. You can at least manage that much for a dead woman, right? Clayton out."
With the end of the recording, silence reigned in the stasis chamber. It felt as though there was a rock in John's throat, and for a minute he simply sat and stared at his hands, pressed onto the ground.
"SHANDRA?" He eventually began. "If I ask you to, will you bring Lady Cameron out of stasis? I...believe I've been given a job to do. A duty to...Captain Clayton, to Amelia, and to myself."
SHANDRA took practically no time at all to reply, skipping over agreement straight to practical matters. "It will take a full terran standard day to thaw her. Will you be back by then to welcome her back into the world, Lord Amaris?"
John thought about that. It'd be horribly difficult to get away from home two days in a row. If he went back now, he might not be able to return for a full month, during which Amelia would be alone down here, save for SHANDRA itself. On the other hand, people had survived down here for over seven years, and that probably wasn't the upper limit by any means.
There was an answer to that problem, in other words, even if it would make things exponentially worse for him when he eventually did head back home. "If you tell me where I can find food, water, and a place to sleep, I'll stay overnight. That way, there's an absolute guarantee I'll be on hand when you need me back in this room."
--
There was a hissing sound as the front of the stasis pod slid open, revealing the girl inside to have slumped to the bottom once thawed out. It had been impossible to see what was going on inside before that moment, since the glass had thoroughly fogged up at some point.
Panic rushed through John at the sight, and without time to think he rushed in close and placed his hand on Amelia's shoulder as though to shake her awake. If anything had gone wrong, he didn't know what he would, or even could, do.
A moment later, though, his panic broke. He could hear her breathing, and feel her pulse. She was alive.
A moment later it was time to panic again, as her eyes began to drift open while his hand was still on her shoulder. It wasn't an existential terror so much as flustered embarrassment and shame this time, though.
For her part, the last Cameron was quite quick to come to her senses, as her left, blue eye focused on John, her milky white right one presumably pointing the same way. "Ah-euh. Er. My...um...my name is Amelia Cameron. Who... might you be?"
John had spent a few hours thinking of how to explain this without worrying her. "My name is John O'Reilly. Um...SHANDRA says I'm a descendant of Stefan Amaris, which is why I was able to get into this place, but that was the first I've heard of it, and...well, House Amaris hasn't existed for over a hundred years. I'm here to help you."
Hearing that, Amelia furrowed her brow, narrowed her eye, and pursed her lips as she attempted to process that. Rather than worried, it seemed more like she was just confused to hear something like that right out of the blue. Eventually, she nodded and gave a simple reply, her eyes wide open. "Okay. Nice to meet you. Er...where's Vera?"
Now, how to explain that?
Chapter 2 (August 2900 - October 2902)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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"'llo, John." Amelia muttered, barely even lifting her gaze from the screen of the noteputer in her grasp as she lounged on a sofa older than ComStar.
It had been hard work, staging another breakout so soon. John had needed to fish his bike out of the tree it'd been hidden in, after more vigorous bike security measures had been implemented for the guards. He had no intention of riding it all the way back home this time - rather, he was going to hide it in a bush somewhere so it could not, in turn, be hidden from him. Even with reliable access to a bike, though, there were only so many opportunities to get away from the help as their gazes grew ever more hawklike.
He was amazed that he hadn't been put on a literal leash tied to a post after his overnight stunt. He'd certainly been ready to saw through one if it'd been brought out. If not right away, at least the next time he'd made a breakout, he would have expected to be chained to something.
Normally, there would be no real incentive to go to such lengths to evade punishments - they'd only get more intense over time, at least within the limits of his own experience. Were it just for free time, he'd at least consider alternating on and off weeks of acting out and playing by the rules.
With an actual sense of purpose, though, it was amazing what one could motivate themself to come up with, and what an arms race someone could plunge themself into.
It was all for the sake of coming here, of coming to her side, and yet…
Clearing his throat, the boy voiced his observation as politely as he could be bothered to. "Have you moved since last time?"
The red flush that ran through the last of the Camerons face was brilliant enough as is, but it only grew stronger as SHANDRA's voice cut in to answer for her.
"Lady Cameron has moved 11.3 kilometers in the last week. Destinations include-"
Her voice sharpening to a squeak as she shouted in protest, Amelia threw herself into an upright position, smacking her noteputer harmlessly on the couch cushion in the process. "Okay, you don't need to explain that part!"
"Yeah...I wasn't exactly asking for a report, SHANDRA." John agreed, scratching the back of his head and looking away. "It was a joke. Though, being perfectly honest, I biked thirty kilometers to get here, and I'm going to bike back thirty kilometers when I leave, so it's a little terrifying to imagine moving that little in a whole week."
Amelia bit her lip as she glanced at John, her eyes narrowing into a mild glare. "Well, I have everything I need within easy reach here, so…"
John opted to ignore that, cupping his chin as he looked, on reflect, to the mahogany-cased speaker mounted on the wall. "Hey, SHANDRA, did that figure include any exercise? I'm trying to be fair here, so if she's been on a treadmill please count the effective distance as well."
Ignoring the squawk of indignation from the couch, the AI obliged the question instantaneously. "Lady Cameron has not accessed the gym during the elapsed time period."
As John's gaze settled back on her, Amelia shrunk away as though she were ice and it a flamer. "What?"
Sighing, the farmboy shook his head vigorously. "Amelia, that's not healthy. You've gotta take care of your body down here - especially given the circumstances. As it stands, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even be able to stay on the back of my bike long enough to reach the nearest town - those twigs you call arms would wear out from just holding on. By contrast, I'm pretty sure I could do ten reps bench pressing you, no problem."
"Easy for you to say - you're some kind of giant, compared to me. Even next to Vera, you wouldn't be…" she retorted, trailing off into a cough before changing course. "Anyways, I don't care. I don't want to go aboveground anyways."
"I'd hope you could see from my face that we're not horribly deformed mole people living off the ruins of the world that was." John quipped, walking closer to check what Amelia was looking at on her noteputer anyways. "The outside isn't some scary place anymore. I've looked at the pictures you've got down here, and honestly it mostly just looks like that. Once you get outside of Port Angeles proper, the rest of the area's not that damaged compared to pre-war."
Flipping the handheld device face down without looking, Amelia was quick to go on the counterattack. Her two pale hands gripped either side of the young O'Reilly's collar but, being so much shorter, she couldn't lift him at all, and being so much weaker she couldn't drag him down to her level. "I don't care if it looks like the pictures or not, or how safe it is. I'm fine down here, and I have no reason to go above."
Refusing to acknowledge the provocative gesture in any way, John launched his assault on Amy's premise immediately. "Been having a riveting chat with SHANDRA, then? If she's up for it, that could explain how you've learned to carry a conversation with me so quickly."
Pulling away from John, Amelia's face was like she'd bitten into a lemon. "No! God, I can't even imagine. SHANDRA's good at sounding human for awhile, but she doesn't have any interests, or personality. She's just good at responding."
As Amelia opened distance, John stepped in to close it, trying to bring the First Lady around to the conclusion he'd already reached. "How, then?"
"I...pulled up a class on public speaking, and stage fright, and I practiced in a mirror. Just so I'd be ready." the girl admitted, glancing to the side to avoid a face to face confrontation.
Covering his face with his palm, John groaned loudly. "Put another way, you've had three conversations in as many weeks - and this is the first one you've really been into. Amy, do you know why I go through the effort of busting my way out here for a five hour round trip?"
Glancing to the side, backing away, and putting her arms up in front of her, Amelia tried her best to maintain a degree of separation in the conversation. "...because Vera asked you - well, not you specifically - to look out for me in her will?"
"Because, as much of a stretch as it might be, you're my only friend. You know, if we're talking about having everything you 'need' in easy grasp, I've got that too. It sucks real hard. Everyone who wants to talk to me, I don't want to talk to, and everyone I'd like to talk to is afraid to talk to me. Meanwhile, you're talking to yourself while I'm not here. We're both lonely as hell." John corrected, though he refused to breach the topic of his own sense of duty - of obligation - on the matter.
Amelia's mismatched gaze narrowed as she waited for John to finish his point, and she even let herself make eye contact.
"We'd be able to talk more often if it were easier for us to meet up. Like, if you could make the trip yourself, or if you were living aboveground, it'd be easy to meet up, because I wouldn't need to slip away for such long chunks of time." John concluded, leaving off the ever-tempting option of 'or if I lived belowground.'
"...Look, I know Vera wanted you to take me aboveground…" Amelia deflected, looking down at her feet. "...but I never really wanted to go above ground and see those things, specifically. Really, it's more like...I wanted to see them with Vera."
Sighing, John nodded. "That's fine, then. I'll try to come by more often, from now on. As things get colder and the farm shuts down, I might have a little more free time - if nothing else, my tutors are worse at catching me than the farmhands. I'm not going to just leave you to go stir crazy for several months."
Cocking her head to the side, Amelia gave John a dubious glance. "...Won't it be awfully cold to ride for a long time?"
That won a brief nod. "Oh, definitely. Some day - even some weeks - it might be cold enough that I can't come, or that I can't head back. Still… I don't want to give this up. And one day, I'd like to imagine that you'd want to see the surface with me."
"...Wait, what does that mean?!"
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Scene 2
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As John approached the door of the living room Amelia habitually used, something smelled… bad.
It wasn't bad like a fire, bad like a barn, or bad like a gas leak.
It was a more familiar, personal bad than that. The sort of bad only someone technically competent in the kitchen, but only to the point of being able to make ingredients safe for consumption, could produce, and only by exceeding the limits of their capabilities. A smell he, personally, had created numerous times in the past in service of his father's fits of fancy.
The smell of really, incredibly bad Tex-Mex.
It was a situation requiring the absolute highest level of intervention, something that could not possibly be allowed to stand.
Ignoring the lactic acid burn of his legs, John rushed to Amelia's aid so quickly that when he stopped, he skidded across the smooth marble flooring until he hit the edge of the rug, nearly tripping in the process.
There, on the sofa behind the coffee table, she sat with a sweatband on her forehead, a towel over her shoulders, and a thick, yellow, bready looking puck the size of a macaron, some red and green salsa dripping sadly off of a single dipped end, halfway to her mouth as she stared at her unplanned guest.
On the coffee table in front of her, numerous dishes of cubed meats, dubious stews, and other strange sauces John dared not speculate about existed alongside a plate of the bizarre biscuits and a cup of the salsa.
There was only one question to be asked.
"What the hell are you eating?"
"Wha -" chirped the last Cameron, her face flushing a bit from the sudden surprise before she could go on the counterattack. "What are you talking about, John? It's obviously a tortilla, isn;t it?"
It indisputably was not a tortilla.
Its complexion was such that it could, perhaps, be made from masa, but that thing was no manner of tortilla. It couldn't ever be wrapped around a food item, not with its thickness. Even if it were made with flour, it'd break rather than bend. It certainly wasn't a Spanish tortilla either - it bore even less resemblance to a potato omelette. Well, John had to grant, it wasn't as though he knew the characteristics of every tortilla in existence - he'd heard talk of other varieties, but whenever he'd asked someone about them they'd simply laughed and refused to tell him anything.
In the spirit of cultural sensitivity and learning, he decided to pick one of the grotesque masa cookies up. It was hard and rough, and as he pressed down on it he heard a crackling sound. It was worse than just a hockey puck, it was a hockey puck shaped taco shell.
He couldn't believe the terrors he had become witness to, nearly dropping the thing out of shock. This seemed like the sort of thing that'd break your tooth and shred your throat. On the other hand, if it were solid all the way through it wouldn't have cracked under pressure - so he wondered if, perhaps, it was stuffed with something.
*crack*
As he snapped the alleged tortilla in half his hopes of it being some unexpected treat were undershot horribly. A puff of dry masa flour flew into the air from a pocket inside of the abomination, before blowing away under the power of the ventilation system.
Now he dropped the dubious item in shock, fully confident in concluding that the thing was not food.
What he'd imagined to be something like a silver dollar pancake at first was more like a maize based rock full of maize based sand. Feeding that thing to a prisoner would constitute an unlawful punishment, to an enemy POW a war crime.
Amelia's patience was spent. She set down the non-morsel in her hands and marched around the table, her blue eye visibly narrow with rage as she did her best to get up in John's face. "Rude! You're just going to walk in here, take my food, drop it on the floor, and not say anything? You've got some explaining to do, Jack! What on earth's up with your face, anyways?"
Feelings at his face, John concluded in moments that there was nothing wrong with it. His gawking expression fully encapsulated the emotions he wanted to communicate. "I'm sorry, Amy, but that thing isn't a tortilla. It isn't even food. It's a torture device."
Contorting her face into a baffled mask similar to John's own, the First Lady pulled back a bit, cupping her chin. "What's that supposed to mean? I followed the recipe for tortillas exactly, so how can it not be a tortilla?"
"Tell me what book that recipe came out of and I'll burn it myself." Spat John before his conscious mind even took stock of Amelia's words, barely managing to restrain himself from grabbing her shoulders in the process.
As confusion gave way to fright on the last Cameron's face, John realized that he may have gone too far. When she began to speak, he realized he'd definitely gone too far. "U-um. It's...it's not from any book, it's just the one printed on the...uh...Fiesta Pail."
The what?
John followed his nose to the true root of the ill odor, finding himself inside the misused kitchen that spawned those abortions of cookery. On the counter, there sat a large plastic bucket labeled 'Fiesta Pail', and as he turned the thing the remainder of its label told a dire story.
Yes, you would get such an abomination of a meal by following this recipe. It couldn't decide if it was for a pancake or a tortilla chip, and as a result it turned into the terror on his liege's plate.
Behind John, Amelia's footsteps clacked loudly across the floor, stopping a few meters away.
"I'm sorry, Amelia. It wasn't your fault at all. It's this awful survival ration's fault." John began, turning around slowly with a sad smile on his face. "I guess Vera never taught you how to cook? It must be hard, living without her around."
Fear was replaced by a more general worry, as Amelia stepped closer, her arms clutched to her chest. "Uh… well, we ate things like this back then, too. Is that wrong?"
It made sense now. As a noble warrior of the Black Watch, Amelia's former guardian had never learned to cook for herself in her life on the surface, and as the sole adult raising an infant, a toddler, a child, she'd never had the chance to experiment and improve, so she'd raised Amelia on this slop.
John felt tears welling up in his eyes and nodded. "It's going to be okay, now, Amy. I'm going to make you real tortillas now. I'm going to make you a real meal, and I'm going to teach you to cook for real. There's no reason you should be living on these terrible emergency meals when this facility has real ingredients in stasis, still ready to use."
Amelia's jaw hung open as John stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Wha? Bu- Do you even know how to cook? I thought you were rich!"
"My dad's crazy, so I know how to do lots of things." John explained without really explaining, nodding to himself. "He's probably forgotten about it by now, but I still get some use out of it when I'm not allowed meals, as a punishment. For a similar reason, I think you need to know - you live on your own, completely and truly. If you can't make something, you can't eat it. It's a whole different lifestyle from anything Vera, or any member of House Cameron, would have had before the war. So I'm going to teach you how to cook, and you're going to learn."
Aiming, if nothing else, to get John to stop rambling, Amelia was quick to agree conditionally. "Okay, okay! Just, take a shower first - you smell like sweat! I don't want to eat that."
---
Scene 3
---
Though small enough to fit in both hands, as John fiddled with the pointing stick on the miniature noteputer and scrolled through the list of files he felt as though it was going to fall through the floor and cause an earthquake.
His father was throwing around the sort of wealth only a powerful landlord could to bring Terra's finest tutors out to the sticks, just so he could spend close to a year avoiding them systematically to sneak out to a Castle Brian in no-man's-land. Suffice it to say, information was expensive. The right book could be worth a thousand, even a million times its weight in germanium, the queen of all elements.
With its connection to the Invisible Palace's network intact, then, perhaps this handheld personal computer was worth a planet's mass in germanium.
A bit of an exaggeration, admittedly, but the mere fact that he got to hold something this precious was enough to drop his heart out of his chest. For a second, he couldn't even breathe.
He'd scrolled down continuously for the past ten minutes, and yet the list of lesson categories wasn't even close to exhausted. Climate engineering, shipwright's training, KF theory, battlemech technical and design principles, political science, artificial intelligence, economics, covert operations, Math K-12, and a few things that made his face turn red just by their title...
It was probably quite accurate to say that the Cameron's Unseen University held all the knowledge attained by humanity. If not here, where would they keep a copy of the sacred Prometheus Database? To have formatted so much of it as lessons and teaching materials, though… It spoke of an even greater level of effort than just arranging the world's most complete library.
"Ahem!"
The noise startled John, and as he flung himself into a sitting position he also spun fast enough to practically give himself whiplash, his back slamming into the armrest at the opposite side of the couch.
Raising her eyebrows and narrowing her eyes in a feat of muscle control John didn't think he could fully duplicate, Amelia dropped into a sitting position right where John had been laying a second ago. "Thanks for moving before I had to ask. I was sort of worried that you might have frozen solid. You're still on the menu, after all. I handed you that thing ages ago - do you just not know how to use it?"
As she bit into a strawberry popsicle, John felt his face flush about that red and hid himself behind the noteputer. "Sorry, I just...got lost in thought when I saw how much there was in here. It's amazing, really. I don't think anywhere else has this kind of library."
Letting out a giggle, Amelia inadvertently spat a few drops of red juice out over the edge of the couch, where they stained the rug. The widening of her eyes as she realized what she'd done was the first thing John saw as he uncovered his face, and following her gaze made him let out a sigh.
"...Yeah, I'll clean the rug later." he capitulated before it even became a matter for discussion.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Amelia returned her attention to the boy with a grin. "Sure, it's a big library, but that doesn't mean you can get any big ideas just yet. I bet you've been eyeing them - things related to battlemechs, warships, and the like. Those sorts of things assume you've learned a whole lot beforehand, though. A bad boy who skips out on the lessons daddy schedules for him is better off starting on English 1 or something like that - an introductory class."
"It's not like I was -" John began in a flurry of embarrassment, before catching himself and looking away again. "Yeah, I'll do that."
He'd passed English a few minutes ago, and didn't relish the idea of scrolling back up there manually - but fortunately, the list was searchable. It didn't take too long to type in English 1 with his thumbs, and in mere moments he was opening the file.
It wasn't a book, or at least it didn't seem to be. A countdown like in some trivid broadcasts was playing onscreen.
"I thought these were books." he hissed.
"The forewords are videos. They got this one guy to record them all."
John felt very sorry for whatever voice actor got pulled for a top secret job where he was going to record tens of thousands of forewords back to back then never be able to talk about it for the rest of his life.
He didn't have time to comment on that, though, as the countdown reached zero, and the voice of a venerable old, perhaps whiskey soaked man started reciting the most absurd nonsense John had ever heard.
"The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was.
The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error."
Amelia busted out laughing across the couch as John's face contorted into the very picture of confusion, his mind filled with only one thing - the question of 'what?'.
"Close to a thousand years ago, that explanation of a then-cutting edge missile was published for public consumption. It's obvious gibberish, and a more accurate explanation would be to say that the missile had access to camera footage, onboard maps, navigation satellites, and its own telemetry data, which it could cross reference to correct guidance errors and account for changes in terrain to locate its original target. However, this does not mean that the explanation given was flawed - it communicated exactly as much as it was meant to to the public - which is to say, nothing. All it needed to do was dazzle people enough that they'd stop asking by telling them 'it's too complicated for your puny brain'. The most important lesson you'll be learning in English over the next few years is judging what message to deliver. Only once you've learned that are you prepared to worry about how you're going to communicate that message to your audience. Lying, deflection, honesty, and the socratic method are all skills you will need to hone to perform to your fullest in the future."
The lessons really were designed to groom rulers to be, it seemed. How quaint.
---
Scene 4
---
The curtain to the first aid center parted with little force in the evening light, and John was relieved to see that Amelia's complexion had improved greatly in the minute he'd been away. Rather than a ghost's ghost, soon to be a ghost's ghost's ghost, she was back to simply as pale as a ghost like normal. The drops of sweat that dominated her face when he'd stepped out were reduced to thin, shiny trails with regular breaks in them. Her left eye was focused, rather than the wavering mess from before.
Stepping closer wordlessly, he offered her the glass of ice water he'd fetched, making sure she had a firm grip on it and was beginning to drink before sitting down beside her on the bench. "You feeling alright now?"
She blinked at that question, before sending ripples through the water with a quick "Mhm", but saying no more.
John winced. He hadn't expected things to go this way in the first place, but seeing that even after resting a bit she was still this shaken hurt even moreso.
"If you want, we can go back now - you won't have to pedal for the back half, just ride on the back the whole way, and I'll bring your bike back in the morning." John offered slowly, in his softest voice, as he rested one hand on Amy's shoulder.
Her eyes went wide at that, and John had to catch the cup to keep it from breaking on the ground as she, having reflexively inhaled, began to cough violently and dropped it, the splash leaving a wet ring on the dirt field the first aid tent had been set up over.
Setting the glass down on the bench in a hurry, John grabbed Amelia's other shoulder to help steady her as she coughed, maintaining his grip until the coughs dried out, then stopped, and she began to breathe normally again.
"M'okay…" she muttered after a second, preempting him from asking again, before pushing his hands off her shoulders and rising to her feet.
John's own mouth felt dry from the chain of scares, but he nodded back as he, too, rose. "So...what do you want to do?"
"I want…" Amelia began, frowning and wrinkling her nose as she glanced down at her feet, before cupping her chin and glancing up at the ceiling. "...I want to see the fireworks, after all."
Not what John expected, but he could work with that. Tapping his foot on the ground, he nodded after the fifth tap. "I...I think I know someplace nobody will go, but where we'll be able to see the show, if you'd like that. Oh, but...it's far away, so I'd probably need to give you a piggyback ride or something to make it before the show starts…"
At that moment, John let out a gasp of shock as he was pulled down forcefully into eye contact, Amelia's hands grasping at his collar, her face flushed red, her cheeks puffed out. All in all, it was a terrific pout she was wearing on her face. "N-no! I don't want that. I...uh...I'll try harder, so let's just do this normally. I'm...going to need to be able to deal with lots of people some day, right? So...just...back off a little...I guess?"
John closed his eyes, exhaling deeply. The mere thought of Amelia freaking out again sent a spear of panic through his heart, but on the other hand she was right - and it'd be grossly overprotective of him to say 'no' just to sate his own worries. How to put that, though?
"I can't back off as long as you're pulling me closer." he eventually settled on, grinning smugly as he said it in his deepest voice.
Amy's hands fell from his collar in an instant, making a loud noise as - aided by her letting her whole upper body drop forward - they slapped against her knees which nearly masked the start of a fit of laughs.
It was a good thing she had such a lame sense of humor - it made cutting through tension, whenever it arose, really, really easy. All he had to do was spit out the sort of line a C-list tv show would treat as dramatic and…
The results spoke for themselves.
As Amelia laughed herself silly, taking even longer to recover than when she choked on the water, John glanced around with a frown on his face. Where the hell was the medic? Did he seriously leave the tent entirely when he had a patient in?
Poking his head out through the tent flaps, John glanced left, then right, before he saw the middle aged man beckoning to him, a lit cigarette in one hand. Slipping out silently, he sighed. Why the hell would he go through all these steps just to talk one on one?
"You know, she actually hyperventilated for a little bit when you stepped out." the gruff voiced, grey haired medic started.
"...Really?" John replied, scratching the back of his head. "I...mean, well, I guess it makes sense, but…"
Taking a long pull off his cancer stick, the medic glanced up at the rising moon. "Most of the time, I'm treating food poisoning, burns, and heatstroke. I don't know if I've ever had to deal with a panic attack here before, kid. Care to explain why it makes sense?"
"She...doesn't know many people. Doesn't get out much. Her parents, well...she lives pretty far out, and they're pretty controlling." John lied as rehearsed, taking a bit of silent pride in what he thought was a pretty good delivery, before slipping back into the realm of partial truth. "I'm her only real contact with the world, and...well...I told her about the harvest festival, and she wanted to come, but you've gotta learn to be good with crowds, you know? She sorta jumped right into the deep end, and I...probably shouldn't have left for the water, huh?"
"Yyyeah, no joke." the old man replied, letting the butt of his cigarette fall to the ground before stomping it out. "Technically, as a responsible adult, I should tell you off for sneaking some rich girl out of her house and spooking her with a big crowd. Technically. Personally, though, I think you're doing a good thing - you just need to learn to think about what she wants you to do, instead of trying to decide what's best for her yourself. You're her friend, I assume, not her helicopter dad, so..maybe don't try to parent her?"
Swallowing heavily, John nodded. "Right, uh…"
The medic interrupted that line of thought by letting out the loudest, fakest cough, before nodding downwards. His hand was outstretched, and in it there were...two whole c-bills. It was more money than John'd ever been trusted with carrying, to say the least.
The now incredibly cool old man spoke authoritatively as John accepted the frankly absurd amount of money. "It's still, what, half an hour till the fireworks show? Walk around with her 'till then, if that's what she wants. If she looks like she wants something, ask to make sure, then get it for her. That's your job - learn to think about what she wants, instead of what she needs."
"Right!"
"Oh, and kid? I'd be careful who else you tell about her family - your father's people might actually manage to narrow down where you're sneaking off to if they know it's other rich folk. If that happened, you might not be able to meet up anymore."
John's heart sunk into his stomach as he walked back into the tent, fixating on the question of how this old guy even recognized him - it wasn't as though his face was particularly commonly seen around town, and there weren't, say, posters or anything.
That he knew of, at least.
Scene 1
---
"'llo, John." Amelia muttered, barely even lifting her gaze from the screen of the noteputer in her grasp as she lounged on a sofa older than ComStar.
It had been hard work, staging another breakout so soon. John had needed to fish his bike out of the tree it'd been hidden in, after more vigorous bike security measures had been implemented for the guards. He had no intention of riding it all the way back home this time - rather, he was going to hide it in a bush somewhere so it could not, in turn, be hidden from him. Even with reliable access to a bike, though, there were only so many opportunities to get away from the help as their gazes grew ever more hawklike.
He was amazed that he hadn't been put on a literal leash tied to a post after his overnight stunt. He'd certainly been ready to saw through one if it'd been brought out. If not right away, at least the next time he'd made a breakout, he would have expected to be chained to something.
Normally, there would be no real incentive to go to such lengths to evade punishments - they'd only get more intense over time, at least within the limits of his own experience. Were it just for free time, he'd at least consider alternating on and off weeks of acting out and playing by the rules.
With an actual sense of purpose, though, it was amazing what one could motivate themself to come up with, and what an arms race someone could plunge themself into.
It was all for the sake of coming here, of coming to her side, and yet…
Clearing his throat, the boy voiced his observation as politely as he could be bothered to. "Have you moved since last time?"
The red flush that ran through the last of the Camerons face was brilliant enough as is, but it only grew stronger as SHANDRA's voice cut in to answer for her.
"Lady Cameron has moved 11.3 kilometers in the last week. Destinations include-"
Her voice sharpening to a squeak as she shouted in protest, Amelia threw herself into an upright position, smacking her noteputer harmlessly on the couch cushion in the process. "Okay, you don't need to explain that part!"
"Yeah...I wasn't exactly asking for a report, SHANDRA." John agreed, scratching the back of his head and looking away. "It was a joke. Though, being perfectly honest, I biked thirty kilometers to get here, and I'm going to bike back thirty kilometers when I leave, so it's a little terrifying to imagine moving that little in a whole week."
Amelia bit her lip as she glanced at John, her eyes narrowing into a mild glare. "Well, I have everything I need within easy reach here, so…"
John opted to ignore that, cupping his chin as he looked, on reflect, to the mahogany-cased speaker mounted on the wall. "Hey, SHANDRA, did that figure include any exercise? I'm trying to be fair here, so if she's been on a treadmill please count the effective distance as well."
Ignoring the squawk of indignation from the couch, the AI obliged the question instantaneously. "Lady Cameron has not accessed the gym during the elapsed time period."
As John's gaze settled back on her, Amelia shrunk away as though she were ice and it a flamer. "What?"
Sighing, the farmboy shook his head vigorously. "Amelia, that's not healthy. You've gotta take care of your body down here - especially given the circumstances. As it stands, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even be able to stay on the back of my bike long enough to reach the nearest town - those twigs you call arms would wear out from just holding on. By contrast, I'm pretty sure I could do ten reps bench pressing you, no problem."
"Easy for you to say - you're some kind of giant, compared to me. Even next to Vera, you wouldn't be…" she retorted, trailing off into a cough before changing course. "Anyways, I don't care. I don't want to go aboveground anyways."
"I'd hope you could see from my face that we're not horribly deformed mole people living off the ruins of the world that was." John quipped, walking closer to check what Amelia was looking at on her noteputer anyways. "The outside isn't some scary place anymore. I've looked at the pictures you've got down here, and honestly it mostly just looks like that. Once you get outside of Port Angeles proper, the rest of the area's not that damaged compared to pre-war."
Flipping the handheld device face down without looking, Amelia was quick to go on the counterattack. Her two pale hands gripped either side of the young O'Reilly's collar but, being so much shorter, she couldn't lift him at all, and being so much weaker she couldn't drag him down to her level. "I don't care if it looks like the pictures or not, or how safe it is. I'm fine down here, and I have no reason to go above."
Refusing to acknowledge the provocative gesture in any way, John launched his assault on Amy's premise immediately. "Been having a riveting chat with SHANDRA, then? If she's up for it, that could explain how you've learned to carry a conversation with me so quickly."
Pulling away from John, Amelia's face was like she'd bitten into a lemon. "No! God, I can't even imagine. SHANDRA's good at sounding human for awhile, but she doesn't have any interests, or personality. She's just good at responding."
As Amelia opened distance, John stepped in to close it, trying to bring the First Lady around to the conclusion he'd already reached. "How, then?"
"I...pulled up a class on public speaking, and stage fright, and I practiced in a mirror. Just so I'd be ready." the girl admitted, glancing to the side to avoid a face to face confrontation.
Covering his face with his palm, John groaned loudly. "Put another way, you've had three conversations in as many weeks - and this is the first one you've really been into. Amy, do you know why I go through the effort of busting my way out here for a five hour round trip?"
Glancing to the side, backing away, and putting her arms up in front of her, Amelia tried her best to maintain a degree of separation in the conversation. "...because Vera asked you - well, not you specifically - to look out for me in her will?"
"Because, as much of a stretch as it might be, you're my only friend. You know, if we're talking about having everything you 'need' in easy grasp, I've got that too. It sucks real hard. Everyone who wants to talk to me, I don't want to talk to, and everyone I'd like to talk to is afraid to talk to me. Meanwhile, you're talking to yourself while I'm not here. We're both lonely as hell." John corrected, though he refused to breach the topic of his own sense of duty - of obligation - on the matter.
Amelia's mismatched gaze narrowed as she waited for John to finish his point, and she even let herself make eye contact.
"We'd be able to talk more often if it were easier for us to meet up. Like, if you could make the trip yourself, or if you were living aboveground, it'd be easy to meet up, because I wouldn't need to slip away for such long chunks of time." John concluded, leaving off the ever-tempting option of 'or if I lived belowground.'
"...Look, I know Vera wanted you to take me aboveground…" Amelia deflected, looking down at her feet. "...but I never really wanted to go above ground and see those things, specifically. Really, it's more like...I wanted to see them with Vera."
Sighing, John nodded. "That's fine, then. I'll try to come by more often, from now on. As things get colder and the farm shuts down, I might have a little more free time - if nothing else, my tutors are worse at catching me than the farmhands. I'm not going to just leave you to go stir crazy for several months."
Cocking her head to the side, Amelia gave John a dubious glance. "...Won't it be awfully cold to ride for a long time?"
That won a brief nod. "Oh, definitely. Some day - even some weeks - it might be cold enough that I can't come, or that I can't head back. Still… I don't want to give this up. And one day, I'd like to imagine that you'd want to see the surface with me."
"...Wait, what does that mean?!"
---
Scene 2
---
As John approached the door of the living room Amelia habitually used, something smelled… bad.
It wasn't bad like a fire, bad like a barn, or bad like a gas leak.
It was a more familiar, personal bad than that. The sort of bad only someone technically competent in the kitchen, but only to the point of being able to make ingredients safe for consumption, could produce, and only by exceeding the limits of their capabilities. A smell he, personally, had created numerous times in the past in service of his father's fits of fancy.
The smell of really, incredibly bad Tex-Mex.
It was a situation requiring the absolute highest level of intervention, something that could not possibly be allowed to stand.
Ignoring the lactic acid burn of his legs, John rushed to Amelia's aid so quickly that when he stopped, he skidded across the smooth marble flooring until he hit the edge of the rug, nearly tripping in the process.
There, on the sofa behind the coffee table, she sat with a sweatband on her forehead, a towel over her shoulders, and a thick, yellow, bready looking puck the size of a macaron, some red and green salsa dripping sadly off of a single dipped end, halfway to her mouth as she stared at her unplanned guest.
On the coffee table in front of her, numerous dishes of cubed meats, dubious stews, and other strange sauces John dared not speculate about existed alongside a plate of the bizarre biscuits and a cup of the salsa.
There was only one question to be asked.
"What the hell are you eating?"
"Wha -" chirped the last Cameron, her face flushing a bit from the sudden surprise before she could go on the counterattack. "What are you talking about, John? It's obviously a tortilla, isn;t it?"
It indisputably was not a tortilla.
Its complexion was such that it could, perhaps, be made from masa, but that thing was no manner of tortilla. It couldn't ever be wrapped around a food item, not with its thickness. Even if it were made with flour, it'd break rather than bend. It certainly wasn't a Spanish tortilla either - it bore even less resemblance to a potato omelette. Well, John had to grant, it wasn't as though he knew the characteristics of every tortilla in existence - he'd heard talk of other varieties, but whenever he'd asked someone about them they'd simply laughed and refused to tell him anything.
In the spirit of cultural sensitivity and learning, he decided to pick one of the grotesque masa cookies up. It was hard and rough, and as he pressed down on it he heard a crackling sound. It was worse than just a hockey puck, it was a hockey puck shaped taco shell.
He couldn't believe the terrors he had become witness to, nearly dropping the thing out of shock. This seemed like the sort of thing that'd break your tooth and shred your throat. On the other hand, if it were solid all the way through it wouldn't have cracked under pressure - so he wondered if, perhaps, it was stuffed with something.
*crack*
As he snapped the alleged tortilla in half his hopes of it being some unexpected treat were undershot horribly. A puff of dry masa flour flew into the air from a pocket inside of the abomination, before blowing away under the power of the ventilation system.
Now he dropped the dubious item in shock, fully confident in concluding that the thing was not food.
What he'd imagined to be something like a silver dollar pancake at first was more like a maize based rock full of maize based sand. Feeding that thing to a prisoner would constitute an unlawful punishment, to an enemy POW a war crime.
Amelia's patience was spent. She set down the non-morsel in her hands and marched around the table, her blue eye visibly narrow with rage as she did her best to get up in John's face. "Rude! You're just going to walk in here, take my food, drop it on the floor, and not say anything? You've got some explaining to do, Jack! What on earth's up with your face, anyways?"
Feelings at his face, John concluded in moments that there was nothing wrong with it. His gawking expression fully encapsulated the emotions he wanted to communicate. "I'm sorry, Amy, but that thing isn't a tortilla. It isn't even food. It's a torture device."
Contorting her face into a baffled mask similar to John's own, the First Lady pulled back a bit, cupping her chin. "What's that supposed to mean? I followed the recipe for tortillas exactly, so how can it not be a tortilla?"
"Tell me what book that recipe came out of and I'll burn it myself." Spat John before his conscious mind even took stock of Amelia's words, barely managing to restrain himself from grabbing her shoulders in the process.
As confusion gave way to fright on the last Cameron's face, John realized that he may have gone too far. When she began to speak, he realized he'd definitely gone too far. "U-um. It's...it's not from any book, it's just the one printed on the...uh...Fiesta Pail."
The what?
John followed his nose to the true root of the ill odor, finding himself inside the misused kitchen that spawned those abortions of cookery. On the counter, there sat a large plastic bucket labeled 'Fiesta Pail', and as he turned the thing the remainder of its label told a dire story.
Yes, you would get such an abomination of a meal by following this recipe. It couldn't decide if it was for a pancake or a tortilla chip, and as a result it turned into the terror on his liege's plate.
Behind John, Amelia's footsteps clacked loudly across the floor, stopping a few meters away.
"I'm sorry, Amelia. It wasn't your fault at all. It's this awful survival ration's fault." John began, turning around slowly with a sad smile on his face. "I guess Vera never taught you how to cook? It must be hard, living without her around."
Fear was replaced by a more general worry, as Amelia stepped closer, her arms clutched to her chest. "Uh… well, we ate things like this back then, too. Is that wrong?"
It made sense now. As a noble warrior of the Black Watch, Amelia's former guardian had never learned to cook for herself in her life on the surface, and as the sole adult raising an infant, a toddler, a child, she'd never had the chance to experiment and improve, so she'd raised Amelia on this slop.
John felt tears welling up in his eyes and nodded. "It's going to be okay, now, Amy. I'm going to make you real tortillas now. I'm going to make you a real meal, and I'm going to teach you to cook for real. There's no reason you should be living on these terrible emergency meals when this facility has real ingredients in stasis, still ready to use."
Amelia's jaw hung open as John stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Wha? Bu- Do you even know how to cook? I thought you were rich!"
"My dad's crazy, so I know how to do lots of things." John explained without really explaining, nodding to himself. "He's probably forgotten about it by now, but I still get some use out of it when I'm not allowed meals, as a punishment. For a similar reason, I think you need to know - you live on your own, completely and truly. If you can't make something, you can't eat it. It's a whole different lifestyle from anything Vera, or any member of House Cameron, would have had before the war. So I'm going to teach you how to cook, and you're going to learn."
Aiming, if nothing else, to get John to stop rambling, Amelia was quick to agree conditionally. "Okay, okay! Just, take a shower first - you smell like sweat! I don't want to eat that."
---
Scene 3
---
Though small enough to fit in both hands, as John fiddled with the pointing stick on the miniature noteputer and scrolled through the list of files he felt as though it was going to fall through the floor and cause an earthquake.
His father was throwing around the sort of wealth only a powerful landlord could to bring Terra's finest tutors out to the sticks, just so he could spend close to a year avoiding them systematically to sneak out to a Castle Brian in no-man's-land. Suffice it to say, information was expensive. The right book could be worth a thousand, even a million times its weight in germanium, the queen of all elements.
With its connection to the Invisible Palace's network intact, then, perhaps this handheld personal computer was worth a planet's mass in germanium.
A bit of an exaggeration, admittedly, but the mere fact that he got to hold something this precious was enough to drop his heart out of his chest. For a second, he couldn't even breathe.
He'd scrolled down continuously for the past ten minutes, and yet the list of lesson categories wasn't even close to exhausted. Climate engineering, shipwright's training, KF theory, battlemech technical and design principles, political science, artificial intelligence, economics, covert operations, Math K-12, and a few things that made his face turn red just by their title...
It was probably quite accurate to say that the Cameron's Unseen University held all the knowledge attained by humanity. If not here, where would they keep a copy of the sacred Prometheus Database? To have formatted so much of it as lessons and teaching materials, though… It spoke of an even greater level of effort than just arranging the world's most complete library.
"Ahem!"
The noise startled John, and as he flung himself into a sitting position he also spun fast enough to practically give himself whiplash, his back slamming into the armrest at the opposite side of the couch.
Raising her eyebrows and narrowing her eyes in a feat of muscle control John didn't think he could fully duplicate, Amelia dropped into a sitting position right where John had been laying a second ago. "Thanks for moving before I had to ask. I was sort of worried that you might have frozen solid. You're still on the menu, after all. I handed you that thing ages ago - do you just not know how to use it?"
As she bit into a strawberry popsicle, John felt his face flush about that red and hid himself behind the noteputer. "Sorry, I just...got lost in thought when I saw how much there was in here. It's amazing, really. I don't think anywhere else has this kind of library."
Letting out a giggle, Amelia inadvertently spat a few drops of red juice out over the edge of the couch, where they stained the rug. The widening of her eyes as she realized what she'd done was the first thing John saw as he uncovered his face, and following her gaze made him let out a sigh.
"...Yeah, I'll clean the rug later." he capitulated before it even became a matter for discussion.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Amelia returned her attention to the boy with a grin. "Sure, it's a big library, but that doesn't mean you can get any big ideas just yet. I bet you've been eyeing them - things related to battlemechs, warships, and the like. Those sorts of things assume you've learned a whole lot beforehand, though. A bad boy who skips out on the lessons daddy schedules for him is better off starting on English 1 or something like that - an introductory class."
"It's not like I was -" John began in a flurry of embarrassment, before catching himself and looking away again. "Yeah, I'll do that."
He'd passed English a few minutes ago, and didn't relish the idea of scrolling back up there manually - but fortunately, the list was searchable. It didn't take too long to type in English 1 with his thumbs, and in mere moments he was opening the file.
It wasn't a book, or at least it didn't seem to be. A countdown like in some trivid broadcasts was playing onscreen.
"I thought these were books." he hissed.
"The forewords are videos. They got this one guy to record them all."
John felt very sorry for whatever voice actor got pulled for a top secret job where he was going to record tens of thousands of forewords back to back then never be able to talk about it for the rest of his life.
He didn't have time to comment on that, though, as the countdown reached zero, and the voice of a venerable old, perhaps whiskey soaked man started reciting the most absurd nonsense John had ever heard.
"The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was.
The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error."
Amelia busted out laughing across the couch as John's face contorted into the very picture of confusion, his mind filled with only one thing - the question of 'what?'.
"Close to a thousand years ago, that explanation of a then-cutting edge missile was published for public consumption. It's obvious gibberish, and a more accurate explanation would be to say that the missile had access to camera footage, onboard maps, navigation satellites, and its own telemetry data, which it could cross reference to correct guidance errors and account for changes in terrain to locate its original target. However, this does not mean that the explanation given was flawed - it communicated exactly as much as it was meant to to the public - which is to say, nothing. All it needed to do was dazzle people enough that they'd stop asking by telling them 'it's too complicated for your puny brain'. The most important lesson you'll be learning in English over the next few years is judging what message to deliver. Only once you've learned that are you prepared to worry about how you're going to communicate that message to your audience. Lying, deflection, honesty, and the socratic method are all skills you will need to hone to perform to your fullest in the future."
The lessons really were designed to groom rulers to be, it seemed. How quaint.
---
Scene 4
---
The curtain to the first aid center parted with little force in the evening light, and John was relieved to see that Amelia's complexion had improved greatly in the minute he'd been away. Rather than a ghost's ghost, soon to be a ghost's ghost's ghost, she was back to simply as pale as a ghost like normal. The drops of sweat that dominated her face when he'd stepped out were reduced to thin, shiny trails with regular breaks in them. Her left eye was focused, rather than the wavering mess from before.
Stepping closer wordlessly, he offered her the glass of ice water he'd fetched, making sure she had a firm grip on it and was beginning to drink before sitting down beside her on the bench. "You feeling alright now?"
She blinked at that question, before sending ripples through the water with a quick "Mhm", but saying no more.
John winced. He hadn't expected things to go this way in the first place, but seeing that even after resting a bit she was still this shaken hurt even moreso.
"If you want, we can go back now - you won't have to pedal for the back half, just ride on the back the whole way, and I'll bring your bike back in the morning." John offered slowly, in his softest voice, as he rested one hand on Amy's shoulder.
Her eyes went wide at that, and John had to catch the cup to keep it from breaking on the ground as she, having reflexively inhaled, began to cough violently and dropped it, the splash leaving a wet ring on the dirt field the first aid tent had been set up over.
Setting the glass down on the bench in a hurry, John grabbed Amelia's other shoulder to help steady her as she coughed, maintaining his grip until the coughs dried out, then stopped, and she began to breathe normally again.
"M'okay…" she muttered after a second, preempting him from asking again, before pushing his hands off her shoulders and rising to her feet.
John's own mouth felt dry from the chain of scares, but he nodded back as he, too, rose. "So...what do you want to do?"
"I want…" Amelia began, frowning and wrinkling her nose as she glanced down at her feet, before cupping her chin and glancing up at the ceiling. "...I want to see the fireworks, after all."
Not what John expected, but he could work with that. Tapping his foot on the ground, he nodded after the fifth tap. "I...I think I know someplace nobody will go, but where we'll be able to see the show, if you'd like that. Oh, but...it's far away, so I'd probably need to give you a piggyback ride or something to make it before the show starts…"
At that moment, John let out a gasp of shock as he was pulled down forcefully into eye contact, Amelia's hands grasping at his collar, her face flushed red, her cheeks puffed out. All in all, it was a terrific pout she was wearing on her face. "N-no! I don't want that. I...uh...I'll try harder, so let's just do this normally. I'm...going to need to be able to deal with lots of people some day, right? So...just...back off a little...I guess?"
John closed his eyes, exhaling deeply. The mere thought of Amelia freaking out again sent a spear of panic through his heart, but on the other hand she was right - and it'd be grossly overprotective of him to say 'no' just to sate his own worries. How to put that, though?
"I can't back off as long as you're pulling me closer." he eventually settled on, grinning smugly as he said it in his deepest voice.
Amy's hands fell from his collar in an instant, making a loud noise as - aided by her letting her whole upper body drop forward - they slapped against her knees which nearly masked the start of a fit of laughs.
It was a good thing she had such a lame sense of humor - it made cutting through tension, whenever it arose, really, really easy. All he had to do was spit out the sort of line a C-list tv show would treat as dramatic and…
The results spoke for themselves.
As Amelia laughed herself silly, taking even longer to recover than when she choked on the water, John glanced around with a frown on his face. Where the hell was the medic? Did he seriously leave the tent entirely when he had a patient in?
Poking his head out through the tent flaps, John glanced left, then right, before he saw the middle aged man beckoning to him, a lit cigarette in one hand. Slipping out silently, he sighed. Why the hell would he go through all these steps just to talk one on one?
"You know, she actually hyperventilated for a little bit when you stepped out." the gruff voiced, grey haired medic started.
"...Really?" John replied, scratching the back of his head. "I...mean, well, I guess it makes sense, but…"
Taking a long pull off his cancer stick, the medic glanced up at the rising moon. "Most of the time, I'm treating food poisoning, burns, and heatstroke. I don't know if I've ever had to deal with a panic attack here before, kid. Care to explain why it makes sense?"
"She...doesn't know many people. Doesn't get out much. Her parents, well...she lives pretty far out, and they're pretty controlling." John lied as rehearsed, taking a bit of silent pride in what he thought was a pretty good delivery, before slipping back into the realm of partial truth. "I'm her only real contact with the world, and...well...I told her about the harvest festival, and she wanted to come, but you've gotta learn to be good with crowds, you know? She sorta jumped right into the deep end, and I...probably shouldn't have left for the water, huh?"
"Yyyeah, no joke." the old man replied, letting the butt of his cigarette fall to the ground before stomping it out. "Technically, as a responsible adult, I should tell you off for sneaking some rich girl out of her house and spooking her with a big crowd. Technically. Personally, though, I think you're doing a good thing - you just need to learn to think about what she wants you to do, instead of trying to decide what's best for her yourself. You're her friend, I assume, not her helicopter dad, so..maybe don't try to parent her?"
Swallowing heavily, John nodded. "Right, uh…"
The medic interrupted that line of thought by letting out the loudest, fakest cough, before nodding downwards. His hand was outstretched, and in it there were...two whole c-bills. It was more money than John'd ever been trusted with carrying, to say the least.
The now incredibly cool old man spoke authoritatively as John accepted the frankly absurd amount of money. "It's still, what, half an hour till the fireworks show? Walk around with her 'till then, if that's what she wants. If she looks like she wants something, ask to make sure, then get it for her. That's your job - learn to think about what she wants, instead of what she needs."
"Right!"
"Oh, and kid? I'd be careful who else you tell about her family - your father's people might actually manage to narrow down where you're sneaking off to if they know it's other rich folk. If that happened, you might not be able to meet up anymore."
John's heart sunk into his stomach as he walked back into the tent, fixating on the question of how this old guy even recognized him - it wasn't as though his face was particularly commonly seen around town, and there weren't, say, posters or anything.
That he knew of, at least.
Chapter 3 (October 2902 - November 2906) (Note Content Warnings at Chapter Start)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
(Content Warning: Child Abuse, Arson, Manslaughter, and Kidnapping)
---
Scene 1
---
As the door creaked open, John drew in a slow, steady breath, and as the click of the light switch sent light piercing through his eyelids he unleashed it as a long, rolling hiss.
Amos Furlough O'Reilly's footfalls were heavy and unmistakable on the creaky wooden floor, sending small shudders through the legs of John's chair, through his aching knuckles, and up his body. He could hear the micro-clatters of porcelain above his head, and a cold sweat began to bead on his face.
"I'm surprised, Jack. Surprised and impressed. If only you showed so much discipline in your ordinary life." the fat man cheered as he came to a stop right in front of the chair. "It wouldn't be right to have a conversation with your eyes closed, though, so do papa the favor of lifting those lids, why don't you?"
Sucking in another deep breath, John slowly began to crack his eyes open, careful not to flinch at the bright light in the room as they adjusted.
Apparently that wasn't good enough. "Sometime today, please."
As John reluctantly forced his eyes wide open, not yet able to really make out anything he was looking at, he heard the sound of hot water crashing down above his head, but felt nothing. After a few seconds, the noise ceased, mercifully without him being scalded with anything.
Then, directly within his clearing field of view, his father set a half full teapot on his lap, before retrieving the cup atop his head.
Fighting the urge to flinch, to let out a yell, to wince in pain, John took the time to level a glare at Amos.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic." the middle aged slug chided as he took a sip of his terrible breakfast tea. "It's not as though it's my fault I'm having to get so creative with you. You're the one pulling these absurd stunts time and time again. If you stop, I'll stop."
Before John could restrain himself, the words "There's nothing absurd about trying to live my life." had already slipped from his lips, and the tea saucer atop his head had slipped from the motion and shattered on the ground with a sound like a breaking window. Anything else he was going to say got caught in his throat around then.
Sighing, Amos shook his head and set the teacup back on John's head, now directly. "This will have to do, then. Honestly, John, you don't need to be such a child about this. First the festival stunt, now another breakout - lasting a full week? Of course you're to be punished."
Considering their relative positions, if John pitched his head forward now Amos would get most of the hot tea from the cup delivered directly to his knees. The burning streaks it'd leave down the back of John's neck would almost be worth it.
"Do you even know what the common people think, when they see someone of our status gallivanting around with one of their daughters?" Amos continued, pacing side to side and complicating the trajectory. "They think we've found a passing fancy for a toy. They think we're going to have our fun, then leave it broken. It's a terribly disruptive sentiment to need to deal with - really poisons the well of our interactions as a whole, and makes business far less...profitable."
John considered whether, perhaps, Amos himself had to bear some of the blame for that unflattering perception. Perhaps it was all some hateful projection.
As his father once again came to a halt before him, John bit his lip gently. He had a thought that was one step better than throwing the cup at his father. If he let his elbows buckle just right, as he fell down into a normal sitting position it'd be at such an angle that the whole teapot would land on the miserable bastard's feet.
"And let's not even get started on what people of standing think about you."
This lecture felt like it was never going to end.
Hissing, the head of household continued in a more heated tone. "You're making an embarrassment of yourself, John. They whisper behind my back that I cannot even control my own son. That I'm squandering everything my forefathers left to me. Can you understand how frustrating that is? Can you perhaps explain to me why you think you have the right to do this to me?"
If John were inclined to give an answer, it would be something relating to any decent person's duty to slay a monster when given the chance. That would go over terribly under current circumstances. His temper was burning about as hot as the teacup on his scalp, but with no outlet.
Giving another condescending shake of his head, Amos retrieved the cup and teapot, as though presciently, and set them on the ground away from John's reach. "All I've tried to do is to channel your energy, your talents. To teach you the discipline needed to live in this world. Only disaster can come of running wild like this, John. It's not meant for us, nor we for it. You're trying to live in a world you weren't born in, a world you can't even breathe in. You shouldn't want that. Your little half-blind festival date, she lives in a whole other world, one you can't even imagine, and she'll never be able to imagine the world you live in. It can only end in tears. The only thing you can trust… is family."
"Family!" the blowhard shouted, as though it was a miraculous revelation from some passing god. "O'Reilly, Hinkley, Wellside, Barton, Gardener. That's family, that's home, that's love. They understand what they're going through, they trust your shared blood, they worry about you, care for you, keep you on the right track. It's where you're born, it's where you marry, it's where you die. It will give you everything, and you need only give it everything in return. The help...is the help. Family is family. They don't mix. They're natural enemies, in a sense. The help resent a refined, storied, proud bloodline. They search for a way to destroy us, a secret weakness, a way to get more than the keep they're earning. We can't let them do that, we won't let them do that."
The irony of an Amaris spewing this shit was so palpable you could cut the air with a butter knife. John felt like he was going to puke.
"You're going to be meeting someone next week, John. A certain Catherine Barton. You will behave yourself as a gentleman. Do your duty to your family, and you will always have a place. Abandon it, and you will die in squalor."
Cupping his chin for a second, Amos nodded to himself before placing the vessels of liquid back where they'd been on John, and making a hasty retreat. "I will be back in an hour. You'd best have not broken anything more by then."
---
Scene 2
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The Invisible Palace was built under the assumption that its central network would be used for primarily communal purposes. That whatever secrets its hidden kings and queens might want to keep from each-other, they would keep on personal storage, off the network. As such, so long as a request came from a Cameron or Amaris, the system would default to giving access to any data on the networked drive, at any time, with few allowances for keeping them unread other than to upload them in an encrypted form.
So it was that, having finally gotten around to digging a noteputer for himself out of storage, John had stumbled onto a folder that he probably wasn't precisely meant to see. A trove of photos that made his heart stir uneasily in his chest.
In one, a much younger Amelia stood beside the fiery redhead who could only have been Vera, getting her height marked against a doorway with some sort of marker. The two of them were happy - laughing and smiling so widely that he might as well skip past counting teeth to counting tonsils. The high angle made him think it could have only been taken by SHANDRA, because the alternative was for the camera to have been nailed into the ceiling.
In another, a slightly larger version of the last Cameron was struggling to blow out five candles embedded in the surface of a cake - which looked every bit like it was made using, and perhaps in, one of those godforsaken buckets - with her cheeks red and her eyes pressed fully shut. It didn't look like any of them were going out, and the photo was fuzzy enough that he was sure Vera must have been laughing like a maniac, unable to keep it steady.
There were dozens of the things, maybe even hundreds. All saccharine in their preservation of a blissful moment in Amelia's life over a century ago.
The last one made it hard for John to even breathe. Amy was grinning widely as she held up a perfect score on some automated test, while just behind her, arm wrapped around her adoptive daughter's side, Vera simply looked...tired. Wasted. She was smiling, but it was clear that it was taking all she had.
It was very obvious why it'd been the last one. How many more days could it have been after that was taken, before Amelia'd gone into stasis?
In a way, John was rescued from his melancholy when Amelia marched out of the kitchen, a too-small cake positively shredded by the twelve candles forcibly inserted into its top in her hands. Pushing a smile onto his face, he set down his handheld face down. "Had to try a little to find room there, eh?"
"Well, if I'd made it any bigger we would have had leftovers, which...eh, that can get messy." she replied, a wry and knowing grin on her face as she gazed down at his reclined form. "Were you seriously studying just now?" she then commented as she noticed the noteputer. "Come on, John, why're you doing something like that on your birthday?"
Her eyes widening suddenly, Amelia raced to the coffee table as quickly as she dared and set the cake down hard enough to make it jiggle, before snatching up the noteputer.
John found himself cringing a bit as she looked at the screen.
"Ooh my god, John!" she shouted as she tossed the thing down onto a pillow, her face suddenly habanero red. Grasping at his shoulder in a way that, unknowingly, disturbed a tender spot, she got up in his face to interrogate him in a manic voice. "How many of those did you see?"
Squeaking a bit from having the bruise disturbed, John took a second to begin to answer, averting his gaze as he admitted his crime. "O-oh, um… a-all of them?"
Amy released her grip on him in an instant, recoiling as the scarlet red blush spread down her neck like a wildfire through dry woods. As she wheeled around to face away from John, two meaty smacks rung out from a botched attempt to cover her face, and she let out a high pitched whine.
"I-I'm sorry! It's just…" John began, reaching out slowly towards her, a violent blush overcoming his own face.
"Please tell me you didn't see anything embarrassing." Amy demanded, not even daring to look back.
John wasn't sure how she was defining embarrassing, there, but there was a pretty broad spectrum to be had there. "Um, well… nothing, like, crazy embarrassing, at least. Just a normal level, I guess? There's nothing weird there, if that's what you mean."
John picked up on a muttered. "Thank you Vera." as Amelia turned back towards him, eyes blue and white turned to the right as she pouted viciously. "Why did you just...go through the album on your own like that?"
John found that a bit hard to explain. As he tried to figure out the answer himself, his chest tightened and his face felt hot.
"It wasn't just for fun, was it?"
It wasn't. It wasn't. That was well and truly outside of the limits he'd go to when bored. Something else inside of him practically forced him to keep looking.
Amelia's footsteps were all he could hear for a second. "Why aren't you saying anything?"
He couldn't.
Then, Amy stopped just short of him. "Uh… are you… are you okay?"
His face felt wet. As his arm went up, he was able to successfully confirm that those were tears.
It was getting even harder to breathe.
Amelia's arms wrapped around him, her hands clasping together above his spinal cord, as she pressed his face into her shoulder, crying out to get his attention. "John, it's okay! It's okay. I'm not mad...I'm...not mad."
John could feel her heart beating, and as the moments passed, he could feel his slowing back down to more closely match it - even keeping pace as her own pulse began to fall into its normal state.
He understood why he looked through the album, at that moment, and pulled his mouth clear of Amy's shoulder to say it, his voice cracking viciously. "I-it's just… you looked so...happy together, and I...I've never… I don't have… I don't have any photos like that! There's...there's nothing like that, for me, meanwhile...you had it, then lost it."
"Oh." Amy cleverly responded, pulling back a bit.
"Oh." she repeated, her expression going through a few rapid shifts as she glanced around the room, as though looking for something to be there.
Eventually she nodded to herself. "Close your eyes."
John didn't waste a second on following that instruction.
"Hey SHANDRA, take a photo in five seconds, from the camera behind me." rang out Amelia's voice. "And give me a countdown for that."
"Affirmative. Five."
"Four"
"Three"
"Two"
"One."
John felt something warm, soft, and ever so slightly damp touch his cheek for a moment, but when he opened his eyes to check Amelia was about the same distance away as when he'd closed his eyes. Lifting his hand to his cheek, he could only think to mumble something simple. "Wha-!?"
Amelia's face had somehow gotten even redder than a minute ago. "I wonder what that was?" she asked unconvincingly. "Well, I guess we'll just have to check the photo to find out, right?"
---
Scene 3
---
John narrowed his eyes at the unfamiliar man with close-cropped hair and sunglasses. "Who might this be, father?" he forced himself to ask politely.
Amos closed his eyes for a moment. "Well, Jack, I've been a bit lax with you over the years, and so I suppose I do bear some of the responsibility for your acting out. I thought I could afford to bring you back into line slowly, to slowly teach you the appropriate way to live your life and correct my mistakes. I thought we could find the healthy midground together. That ended yesterday, when you most sorely insulted your intended."
That wasn't a real answer, but John knew this wouldn't go anywhere if he didn't treat it as one for the moment. Instead of complaining, he'd have to answer it with another question - even if it was one he already knew the answer to, and one that dropped his heart straight into the pit of his gut. "Would you care to explain how I'm to have insulted her? I have not seen Catherine in months, nor corresponded with her. In what way could I possibly have slighted her honor?"
The O'Reilly patriarch bore no amusement in his gaze as he opened his eyes. "You aren't seriously asking that, John. You're trying to dance around the matter like you're a small child, but that's not going to cut it anymore. You're fourteen - practically on the cusp of majority - and you're going to tell me how you insulted the little miss Barton."
John imagined, given the course all of this, that the interloper was meant to be some new minder - one with a sort of professional training and a single job, perhaps. Someone who wouldn't be distracted by farm work or a passing cloud and let him slip away. Biting his lip, he made a call at that moment to go to the Invisible Castle at his next opportunity and never come back to this house. It was something he should have done years ago, if he was being honest.
"You won't get out of this by playing a sheet of wallpaper, John. Silence is, if anything, even more juvenile than deflection." Amos spat, his gaze cold, his fingers brushing against the side of his belt.
"I suppose it would have to be the parfait, then?" John mused insincerely, already well and truly sure it was but un-cowed by the physical threat.
"There are no points for incomplete answers, Jack. Not in this house nor in life." his father retorted, a deep sigh trailing on the back of the words as he waited for a more complete answer.
Eventually, though, the man lost his patience. "Yes, it was the little parfait date with your festival girl. The shared parfait, the kiss… every moment of it was a new provocation to the Bartons. You've gotten away with a lot through discretion, but apparently that wasn't enough any more, was it? Well, I have news for you - after this indiscretion, it's all done. I can't tolerate it anymore. I'm sorry, but while I may not know where you dug that charity case of yours up, I'm going to have to tell you to put her back. For your own good, and for hers."
The wording of that rose hairs on the back of John's neck. He couldn't tell if Amos was alluding to knowing something or just being obnoxiously flowery in his speech. It was more likely the latter than the former, but the mere possibility that he knew something about the goings on in Port Angeles was unnerving. "It's hardly a surprise that you're presuming to decide for me what's best, but I'm amazed you've finally stooped to the point of making decisions for the children of others."
"Her own parents would make the same decision, knowing all that was likely. This isn't simply a matter of preventing an insult to family, it's a matter of protecting the innocent. Dalliances with our sort… they can destroy a family. You'd be amazed by the controversy a simple blood test can bring, after just one night of thoughtless fornication." came the droning, ceaseless lecture, Amos doing his best to loom over his slightly taller son despite his vertical deficiency and horizontal excess. "Bearing your child would kill her - politically and, in all likelihood, physically. So quit while you're still ahead."
John recalled, in this moment, wondering in the past if his father knew about the family heritage. It seemed clear, given the various things the man had said over the past few years, that the answer was yes. He just needed one last bit of confirmation. "Is that because we're rich and her folks might try to use a baby to get at the money, because our 'extended family' wouldn't stand for it, or what? Either way, you're being ridiculous, we haven't even done anything like… t-that."
"You…" Amos began in a low tone, his eyes narrowing into a glare for a second, before he coughed into his palm. "You will not challenge me on this." he started again, his voice restored to its prior cadence. "You may not have trodden into truly forbidden territory yet, but mark my word, you will one day if I don't stop you now. It's for that reason that I've hired Mr. Sparkes here - he'll be my, oh, what's the word… left hand man, I suppose. Your keeper, really. One who knows all the tricks of the trade, and who you won't hoodwink through some absurdist chicanery like the regular help."
There it was. That momentary lapse was all John needed to come to his conclusion - his father knew full well that the O'Reilly family, and all of its cousins, were the spawn of Stefan Amaris himself, and his only concern in the matter was that an inopportune paternity test might crack the secret wide open.
"Pleased to meet you, young master John." the suit greeted, offering a black gloved hand. As though he was trying to be funny after Amos' explanation, it was even his left one..
This 'Sparkes' wasn't even that big, and he didn't look to have much muscle on him. Honestly, compared to John himself, he was a bit of a runt. It was unfortunate that it had to happen to someone who, by all rights, should have been uninvolved, but John decided at that moment that he'd rise to force with force - take this hired muscle's offered handshake, and use it as a chance to crush the left hand man's left hand. If he made a break for it after that, it shouldn't be too impossible to sneak off and reach the Palace without being followed.
As he began to really squeeze down, though, he felt every muscle in his body go out of control. Sparkes' hand slipped out of his as, spasming from head to toe, John tumbled to the ground in immaculate agony.
"My goodness - while you were holding his hand?" Amos gasped. "Seems a bit dangerous to you, doesn't it?"
"Insulated glove." Sparkes replied with a chuckle, holding a taser just above its holster in his right hand. "One of the tricks of the trade, really. Rest assured, Master O'Reilly, that the next time John leaves the premises will be to go to the chapel on his wedding night."
He wasn't being funny, John realized as he began to black out. He was just keeping a hand on his weapon in case John decided to test him.
---
Scene 4
---
Two months had passed in the miserable limbo of John's new life under Sparkes' watchful gaze. He hadn't dared to try much of anything since then, knowing his father's hired lunatic was both permitted and willing to shock him into compliance with potentially lethal force.
In a way, the escalation made a perverse level of sense. For a man fearing the wholesale extermination of his whole bloodline if one simple secret escaped captivity, it was simply a cold and rational decision to sacrifice a son he so evidently thought nothing of to protect his consanguine cronies.
That it let Amos O'Reilly continue to live lavishly off of a land his ancestors had seen purged of inhabitants before plundering surely informed his decisions as well, of course. If the family had gone into hiding as commoners - or contrived some way to do it now - such concerns of hiding their heritage likely never would have been relevant. Who would ever test the ancestry of a seasonal farm worker with no reasonable suspicion of a rich person being involved?
Those were probably the only concerns at the heart of the matter. John didn't buy for a second that a man like Amos O'Reilly cared about the wellbeing of any others caught up in a paternity scandal - it was more like a form of emotional manipulation. A statement of 'if you care about the wellbeing of that girl, you'll never touch her again' meant to keep John in line for selfish purposes.
More than a bit wasted at the time it was delivered, given the man had already made such elaborate preparations to keep his son in check.
John sighed as he gazed out the third story window across the wide open fields and pastures, out onto the forests and mountains.
At one point in the region's history, those woods wouldn't have had fall colors. The decline of the evergreen trees was largely the fault of the man it all seemed to come back to - Stefan Amaris. The cause of all the bad and good in his life.
Leaking the family heredity to Sparkes would be an excellent way to get Amos killed. It would also probably get John himself killed, but there would be a poetic quality to it. Still, he wasn't that desperate yet. Some day, the man would make a slip.
"You've got a class to attend in just five minutes, Master John." the snake hissed, stepping across the room to stand near him.
"I know, I -" John froze. Something was burning, and the smell was unmistakable. He threw the window open with all his might, trusting Sparkes not to assume he'd jump from such an absurd height, and stuck his head out. "Shit! The corn field's on fire."
A pillar of smoke was rising high, and while the clouds were thick in the sky they hadn't deigned to let down any rain. By this season, the stubble of the crop was bone dry and perfectly primed for a fire, and the past several beautiful days had only contributed to that.
"Come now, Master John." the bodyguard began, completing his approach. "Surely you can't think I would fall for that?"
The man must not have had any sense of smell, to miss the smoke in the air. It took him looking out the window himself to realize the urgency of the situation. "Ah. Well, then." he began awkwardly, grabbing John firmly by the wrist. "We'll be evacuating now."
It was a flurry of motion from there to the main entrance, and Sparkes was visibly winded from going down so many staircases and so many long hallways by the time they reached the driveway.
Sparkes darted around the drive from panicked worker to panicked worker, demanding that someone get a car ready. Judging by the number of vacated parking spaces, and the fact that anyone at all was still here, John guessed that whoever's cars were left, they weren't out here yet.
He didn't ask if Sparkes himself had a car - he probably did, but had either forgotten in the panic or left his keys somewhere. If it was the former, he didn't want the man to remember. If there was one prime opportunity to make a breakaway, it was while the man was worried about his life rather than his job. Sparing one glance back at the house, the boy lamented the fact that his father and mother weren't sharing in this danger with them, out on business for the day as they were.
Leaving that thought with the soon-to-be tinderbox, John broke into a sprint down the road. If he could make it far enough, he'd reach his stashed bike and be home free - or at least free from home.
Then it hit him. A raindrop, then another. Within seconds it was pouring on a level that rarely came around. The sort of level that could quell even a raging fire. His tears joined the rain in moments, a hopelessness beginning to set in at the ridiculous timing of the downpour, but he kept on running. There was still a chance, there was still a chance.
He told himself that, because it was his only option.
"No! You! Doooon't!" Sparkes screamed in the distance, setting off after him. The mere threat of the taser meant that John had to run serpentine, cutting his speed to the point that the man might just be able to catch him.
To make matters worse, some sort of motor was running in the distance, away from the house. A fire and rescue vehicle, maybe?
No, it was more like a bike engine.
Who the hell took a bike over country roads like this at that kind of RPM?
Whoever it was, a few seconds later they had parked in the distance, maybe twenty seconds further down the road. They were clad in leathers and a helmet that made identification impossible, slight of build, and… holding some manner of rifle, pointed down the lane.
John only had seconds to wonder if his father had hired some other muscle, before a solid line of raindrops from the bore to well past his right side boiled away in an instant, a flash of light almost like lightning arcing along their path with a crack a mere instant later. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest, but he wasn't hit. It barely seemed plausible that he was even the target.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Sparkes had fallen face first onto the ground. Had he been hit?
There only seemed to be one possibility, however ridiculous, for who the rider could be. He'd never heard of a weapon that fired a shot quite like that before, and when he thought about it the build of the rider was uncannily similar to…
Amelia's voice broke his contemplation as he drew close to the bike. "Over here, John!"
As he drew close, she pitched her gun - a strange silvery thing - onto a hook at the back of the bike haphazardly and grabbed him by the wrist, leading him onto the bike's back as she, herself, mounted up on the front.
"Amy!" he cried, overjoyed to hear her again - even if almost everything about her was covered up. "How the hell did you know to be here? And when did you learn to ride a motorbike?"
"Well…" she muttered, shuffling awkwardly in the driver's spot. "I'm sort of...the one who set the fire. I waited 'till a few minutes ahead of SHANDRA's rain forecast, and I just...fired into the field a little. As for the bike...like...the week after your birthday, two years ago?"
At that, she started the engine back up, and John wrapped his arms around her stomach on instinct. It would have looked absurd from the outside, him being a virtual giant for his age and her being...less than that, but if this thing was going to jump into motion he wanted to be ready for it.
"You...uh..well, I noticed you were bruised pretty badly, when you fell asleep." she explained as the machine set into motion, her voice almost lost below the noise of the engine. "So I wondered if, some day, your father might try to tie you down here and...started in on the simulators, depth perception be damned! Worked out pretty well, I think?"
Taking a second to assimilate that, John ignored the biting chill of the autumn air as it blew through his soaked indoor clothes, and glanced back at his still prone minder. "And the gun? What was that you shot Sparkes with?"
"An electrolaser. Taser without a wire. Should be pretty safe, I think, in case you were attached to your minder somehow." came the quick reply as Amelia made one of the smooth, wide banking turns the road demanded.
Letting out a long hum John looked back ahead, concluding that Sparkes' gloves were the only thing he'd bothered to insulate. It was hard to mourn the death of a man who all too happily took a job that involved risking the death of a child to prevent scandals. "He looks pretty dead, actually. Uh, not that you should worry about that. Guy tazed me the first time we met, so… I guess it's just what goes around, comes around."
The tears were starting to come back to John's eyes.
"I...I wish I could have saved you earlier." Amy shouted, clearly audible even above the engine's racket. "You shouldn't have had to go through that. The weather just..wasn't cooperative."
John tightened his hug, resting his face on the top of Amy's helmet as the tears flowed, and muttered one quiet response. "It's okay now. It's okay now. I'm going to stay this time - I'm not coming back here."
"Woah!" Amy squeaked, clearly not having heard him speaking. "I know you're supposed to hold on tight, John, but...that's a little bit much."
---
Scene 1
---
As the door creaked open, John drew in a slow, steady breath, and as the click of the light switch sent light piercing through his eyelids he unleashed it as a long, rolling hiss.
Amos Furlough O'Reilly's footfalls were heavy and unmistakable on the creaky wooden floor, sending small shudders through the legs of John's chair, through his aching knuckles, and up his body. He could hear the micro-clatters of porcelain above his head, and a cold sweat began to bead on his face.
"I'm surprised, Jack. Surprised and impressed. If only you showed so much discipline in your ordinary life." the fat man cheered as he came to a stop right in front of the chair. "It wouldn't be right to have a conversation with your eyes closed, though, so do papa the favor of lifting those lids, why don't you?"
Sucking in another deep breath, John slowly began to crack his eyes open, careful not to flinch at the bright light in the room as they adjusted.
Apparently that wasn't good enough. "Sometime today, please."
As John reluctantly forced his eyes wide open, not yet able to really make out anything he was looking at, he heard the sound of hot water crashing down above his head, but felt nothing. After a few seconds, the noise ceased, mercifully without him being scalded with anything.
Then, directly within his clearing field of view, his father set a half full teapot on his lap, before retrieving the cup atop his head.
Fighting the urge to flinch, to let out a yell, to wince in pain, John took the time to level a glare at Amos.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic." the middle aged slug chided as he took a sip of his terrible breakfast tea. "It's not as though it's my fault I'm having to get so creative with you. You're the one pulling these absurd stunts time and time again. If you stop, I'll stop."
Before John could restrain himself, the words "There's nothing absurd about trying to live my life." had already slipped from his lips, and the tea saucer atop his head had slipped from the motion and shattered on the ground with a sound like a breaking window. Anything else he was going to say got caught in his throat around then.
Sighing, Amos shook his head and set the teacup back on John's head, now directly. "This will have to do, then. Honestly, John, you don't need to be such a child about this. First the festival stunt, now another breakout - lasting a full week? Of course you're to be punished."
Considering their relative positions, if John pitched his head forward now Amos would get most of the hot tea from the cup delivered directly to his knees. The burning streaks it'd leave down the back of John's neck would almost be worth it.
"Do you even know what the common people think, when they see someone of our status gallivanting around with one of their daughters?" Amos continued, pacing side to side and complicating the trajectory. "They think we've found a passing fancy for a toy. They think we're going to have our fun, then leave it broken. It's a terribly disruptive sentiment to need to deal with - really poisons the well of our interactions as a whole, and makes business far less...profitable."
John considered whether, perhaps, Amos himself had to bear some of the blame for that unflattering perception. Perhaps it was all some hateful projection.
As his father once again came to a halt before him, John bit his lip gently. He had a thought that was one step better than throwing the cup at his father. If he let his elbows buckle just right, as he fell down into a normal sitting position it'd be at such an angle that the whole teapot would land on the miserable bastard's feet.
"And let's not even get started on what people of standing think about you."
This lecture felt like it was never going to end.
Hissing, the head of household continued in a more heated tone. "You're making an embarrassment of yourself, John. They whisper behind my back that I cannot even control my own son. That I'm squandering everything my forefathers left to me. Can you understand how frustrating that is? Can you perhaps explain to me why you think you have the right to do this to me?"
If John were inclined to give an answer, it would be something relating to any decent person's duty to slay a monster when given the chance. That would go over terribly under current circumstances. His temper was burning about as hot as the teacup on his scalp, but with no outlet.
Giving another condescending shake of his head, Amos retrieved the cup and teapot, as though presciently, and set them on the ground away from John's reach. "All I've tried to do is to channel your energy, your talents. To teach you the discipline needed to live in this world. Only disaster can come of running wild like this, John. It's not meant for us, nor we for it. You're trying to live in a world you weren't born in, a world you can't even breathe in. You shouldn't want that. Your little half-blind festival date, she lives in a whole other world, one you can't even imagine, and she'll never be able to imagine the world you live in. It can only end in tears. The only thing you can trust… is family."
"Family!" the blowhard shouted, as though it was a miraculous revelation from some passing god. "O'Reilly, Hinkley, Wellside, Barton, Gardener. That's family, that's home, that's love. They understand what they're going through, they trust your shared blood, they worry about you, care for you, keep you on the right track. It's where you're born, it's where you marry, it's where you die. It will give you everything, and you need only give it everything in return. The help...is the help. Family is family. They don't mix. They're natural enemies, in a sense. The help resent a refined, storied, proud bloodline. They search for a way to destroy us, a secret weakness, a way to get more than the keep they're earning. We can't let them do that, we won't let them do that."
The irony of an Amaris spewing this shit was so palpable you could cut the air with a butter knife. John felt like he was going to puke.
"You're going to be meeting someone next week, John. A certain Catherine Barton. You will behave yourself as a gentleman. Do your duty to your family, and you will always have a place. Abandon it, and you will die in squalor."
Cupping his chin for a second, Amos nodded to himself before placing the vessels of liquid back where they'd been on John, and making a hasty retreat. "I will be back in an hour. You'd best have not broken anything more by then."
---
Scene 2
---
The Invisible Palace was built under the assumption that its central network would be used for primarily communal purposes. That whatever secrets its hidden kings and queens might want to keep from each-other, they would keep on personal storage, off the network. As such, so long as a request came from a Cameron or Amaris, the system would default to giving access to any data on the networked drive, at any time, with few allowances for keeping them unread other than to upload them in an encrypted form.
So it was that, having finally gotten around to digging a noteputer for himself out of storage, John had stumbled onto a folder that he probably wasn't precisely meant to see. A trove of photos that made his heart stir uneasily in his chest.
In one, a much younger Amelia stood beside the fiery redhead who could only have been Vera, getting her height marked against a doorway with some sort of marker. The two of them were happy - laughing and smiling so widely that he might as well skip past counting teeth to counting tonsils. The high angle made him think it could have only been taken by SHANDRA, because the alternative was for the camera to have been nailed into the ceiling.
In another, a slightly larger version of the last Cameron was struggling to blow out five candles embedded in the surface of a cake - which looked every bit like it was made using, and perhaps in, one of those godforsaken buckets - with her cheeks red and her eyes pressed fully shut. It didn't look like any of them were going out, and the photo was fuzzy enough that he was sure Vera must have been laughing like a maniac, unable to keep it steady.
There were dozens of the things, maybe even hundreds. All saccharine in their preservation of a blissful moment in Amelia's life over a century ago.
The last one made it hard for John to even breathe. Amy was grinning widely as she held up a perfect score on some automated test, while just behind her, arm wrapped around her adoptive daughter's side, Vera simply looked...tired. Wasted. She was smiling, but it was clear that it was taking all she had.
It was very obvious why it'd been the last one. How many more days could it have been after that was taken, before Amelia'd gone into stasis?
In a way, John was rescued from his melancholy when Amelia marched out of the kitchen, a too-small cake positively shredded by the twelve candles forcibly inserted into its top in her hands. Pushing a smile onto his face, he set down his handheld face down. "Had to try a little to find room there, eh?"
"Well, if I'd made it any bigger we would have had leftovers, which...eh, that can get messy." she replied, a wry and knowing grin on her face as she gazed down at his reclined form. "Were you seriously studying just now?" she then commented as she noticed the noteputer. "Come on, John, why're you doing something like that on your birthday?"
Her eyes widening suddenly, Amelia raced to the coffee table as quickly as she dared and set the cake down hard enough to make it jiggle, before snatching up the noteputer.
John found himself cringing a bit as she looked at the screen.
"Ooh my god, John!" she shouted as she tossed the thing down onto a pillow, her face suddenly habanero red. Grasping at his shoulder in a way that, unknowingly, disturbed a tender spot, she got up in his face to interrogate him in a manic voice. "How many of those did you see?"
Squeaking a bit from having the bruise disturbed, John took a second to begin to answer, averting his gaze as he admitted his crime. "O-oh, um… a-all of them?"
Amy released her grip on him in an instant, recoiling as the scarlet red blush spread down her neck like a wildfire through dry woods. As she wheeled around to face away from John, two meaty smacks rung out from a botched attempt to cover her face, and she let out a high pitched whine.
"I-I'm sorry! It's just…" John began, reaching out slowly towards her, a violent blush overcoming his own face.
"Please tell me you didn't see anything embarrassing." Amy demanded, not even daring to look back.
John wasn't sure how she was defining embarrassing, there, but there was a pretty broad spectrum to be had there. "Um, well… nothing, like, crazy embarrassing, at least. Just a normal level, I guess? There's nothing weird there, if that's what you mean."
John picked up on a muttered. "Thank you Vera." as Amelia turned back towards him, eyes blue and white turned to the right as she pouted viciously. "Why did you just...go through the album on your own like that?"
John found that a bit hard to explain. As he tried to figure out the answer himself, his chest tightened and his face felt hot.
"It wasn't just for fun, was it?"
It wasn't. It wasn't. That was well and truly outside of the limits he'd go to when bored. Something else inside of him practically forced him to keep looking.
Amelia's footsteps were all he could hear for a second. "Why aren't you saying anything?"
He couldn't.
Then, Amy stopped just short of him. "Uh… are you… are you okay?"
His face felt wet. As his arm went up, he was able to successfully confirm that those were tears.
It was getting even harder to breathe.
Amelia's arms wrapped around him, her hands clasping together above his spinal cord, as she pressed his face into her shoulder, crying out to get his attention. "John, it's okay! It's okay. I'm not mad...I'm...not mad."
John could feel her heart beating, and as the moments passed, he could feel his slowing back down to more closely match it - even keeping pace as her own pulse began to fall into its normal state.
He understood why he looked through the album, at that moment, and pulled his mouth clear of Amy's shoulder to say it, his voice cracking viciously. "I-it's just… you looked so...happy together, and I...I've never… I don't have… I don't have any photos like that! There's...there's nothing like that, for me, meanwhile...you had it, then lost it."
"Oh." Amy cleverly responded, pulling back a bit.
"Oh." she repeated, her expression going through a few rapid shifts as she glanced around the room, as though looking for something to be there.
Eventually she nodded to herself. "Close your eyes."
John didn't waste a second on following that instruction.
"Hey SHANDRA, take a photo in five seconds, from the camera behind me." rang out Amelia's voice. "And give me a countdown for that."
"Affirmative. Five."
"Four"
"Three"
"Two"
"One."
John felt something warm, soft, and ever so slightly damp touch his cheek for a moment, but when he opened his eyes to check Amelia was about the same distance away as when he'd closed his eyes. Lifting his hand to his cheek, he could only think to mumble something simple. "Wha-!?"
Amelia's face had somehow gotten even redder than a minute ago. "I wonder what that was?" she asked unconvincingly. "Well, I guess we'll just have to check the photo to find out, right?"
---
Scene 3
---
John narrowed his eyes at the unfamiliar man with close-cropped hair and sunglasses. "Who might this be, father?" he forced himself to ask politely.
Amos closed his eyes for a moment. "Well, Jack, I've been a bit lax with you over the years, and so I suppose I do bear some of the responsibility for your acting out. I thought I could afford to bring you back into line slowly, to slowly teach you the appropriate way to live your life and correct my mistakes. I thought we could find the healthy midground together. That ended yesterday, when you most sorely insulted your intended."
That wasn't a real answer, but John knew this wouldn't go anywhere if he didn't treat it as one for the moment. Instead of complaining, he'd have to answer it with another question - even if it was one he already knew the answer to, and one that dropped his heart straight into the pit of his gut. "Would you care to explain how I'm to have insulted her? I have not seen Catherine in months, nor corresponded with her. In what way could I possibly have slighted her honor?"
The O'Reilly patriarch bore no amusement in his gaze as he opened his eyes. "You aren't seriously asking that, John. You're trying to dance around the matter like you're a small child, but that's not going to cut it anymore. You're fourteen - practically on the cusp of majority - and you're going to tell me how you insulted the little miss Barton."
John imagined, given the course all of this, that the interloper was meant to be some new minder - one with a sort of professional training and a single job, perhaps. Someone who wouldn't be distracted by farm work or a passing cloud and let him slip away. Biting his lip, he made a call at that moment to go to the Invisible Castle at his next opportunity and never come back to this house. It was something he should have done years ago, if he was being honest.
"You won't get out of this by playing a sheet of wallpaper, John. Silence is, if anything, even more juvenile than deflection." Amos spat, his gaze cold, his fingers brushing against the side of his belt.
"I suppose it would have to be the parfait, then?" John mused insincerely, already well and truly sure it was but un-cowed by the physical threat.
"There are no points for incomplete answers, Jack. Not in this house nor in life." his father retorted, a deep sigh trailing on the back of the words as he waited for a more complete answer.
Eventually, though, the man lost his patience. "Yes, it was the little parfait date with your festival girl. The shared parfait, the kiss… every moment of it was a new provocation to the Bartons. You've gotten away with a lot through discretion, but apparently that wasn't enough any more, was it? Well, I have news for you - after this indiscretion, it's all done. I can't tolerate it anymore. I'm sorry, but while I may not know where you dug that charity case of yours up, I'm going to have to tell you to put her back. For your own good, and for hers."
The wording of that rose hairs on the back of John's neck. He couldn't tell if Amos was alluding to knowing something or just being obnoxiously flowery in his speech. It was more likely the latter than the former, but the mere possibility that he knew something about the goings on in Port Angeles was unnerving. "It's hardly a surprise that you're presuming to decide for me what's best, but I'm amazed you've finally stooped to the point of making decisions for the children of others."
"Her own parents would make the same decision, knowing all that was likely. This isn't simply a matter of preventing an insult to family, it's a matter of protecting the innocent. Dalliances with our sort… they can destroy a family. You'd be amazed by the controversy a simple blood test can bring, after just one night of thoughtless fornication." came the droning, ceaseless lecture, Amos doing his best to loom over his slightly taller son despite his vertical deficiency and horizontal excess. "Bearing your child would kill her - politically and, in all likelihood, physically. So quit while you're still ahead."
John recalled, in this moment, wondering in the past if his father knew about the family heritage. It seemed clear, given the various things the man had said over the past few years, that the answer was yes. He just needed one last bit of confirmation. "Is that because we're rich and her folks might try to use a baby to get at the money, because our 'extended family' wouldn't stand for it, or what? Either way, you're being ridiculous, we haven't even done anything like… t-that."
"You…" Amos began in a low tone, his eyes narrowing into a glare for a second, before he coughed into his palm. "You will not challenge me on this." he started again, his voice restored to its prior cadence. "You may not have trodden into truly forbidden territory yet, but mark my word, you will one day if I don't stop you now. It's for that reason that I've hired Mr. Sparkes here - he'll be my, oh, what's the word… left hand man, I suppose. Your keeper, really. One who knows all the tricks of the trade, and who you won't hoodwink through some absurdist chicanery like the regular help."
There it was. That momentary lapse was all John needed to come to his conclusion - his father knew full well that the O'Reilly family, and all of its cousins, were the spawn of Stefan Amaris himself, and his only concern in the matter was that an inopportune paternity test might crack the secret wide open.
"Pleased to meet you, young master John." the suit greeted, offering a black gloved hand. As though he was trying to be funny after Amos' explanation, it was even his left one..
This 'Sparkes' wasn't even that big, and he didn't look to have much muscle on him. Honestly, compared to John himself, he was a bit of a runt. It was unfortunate that it had to happen to someone who, by all rights, should have been uninvolved, but John decided at that moment that he'd rise to force with force - take this hired muscle's offered handshake, and use it as a chance to crush the left hand man's left hand. If he made a break for it after that, it shouldn't be too impossible to sneak off and reach the Palace without being followed.
As he began to really squeeze down, though, he felt every muscle in his body go out of control. Sparkes' hand slipped out of his as, spasming from head to toe, John tumbled to the ground in immaculate agony.
"My goodness - while you were holding his hand?" Amos gasped. "Seems a bit dangerous to you, doesn't it?"
"Insulated glove." Sparkes replied with a chuckle, holding a taser just above its holster in his right hand. "One of the tricks of the trade, really. Rest assured, Master O'Reilly, that the next time John leaves the premises will be to go to the chapel on his wedding night."
He wasn't being funny, John realized as he began to black out. He was just keeping a hand on his weapon in case John decided to test him.
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Scene 4
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Two months had passed in the miserable limbo of John's new life under Sparkes' watchful gaze. He hadn't dared to try much of anything since then, knowing his father's hired lunatic was both permitted and willing to shock him into compliance with potentially lethal force.
In a way, the escalation made a perverse level of sense. For a man fearing the wholesale extermination of his whole bloodline if one simple secret escaped captivity, it was simply a cold and rational decision to sacrifice a son he so evidently thought nothing of to protect his consanguine cronies.
That it let Amos O'Reilly continue to live lavishly off of a land his ancestors had seen purged of inhabitants before plundering surely informed his decisions as well, of course. If the family had gone into hiding as commoners - or contrived some way to do it now - such concerns of hiding their heritage likely never would have been relevant. Who would ever test the ancestry of a seasonal farm worker with no reasonable suspicion of a rich person being involved?
Those were probably the only concerns at the heart of the matter. John didn't buy for a second that a man like Amos O'Reilly cared about the wellbeing of any others caught up in a paternity scandal - it was more like a form of emotional manipulation. A statement of 'if you care about the wellbeing of that girl, you'll never touch her again' meant to keep John in line for selfish purposes.
More than a bit wasted at the time it was delivered, given the man had already made such elaborate preparations to keep his son in check.
John sighed as he gazed out the third story window across the wide open fields and pastures, out onto the forests and mountains.
At one point in the region's history, those woods wouldn't have had fall colors. The decline of the evergreen trees was largely the fault of the man it all seemed to come back to - Stefan Amaris. The cause of all the bad and good in his life.
Leaking the family heredity to Sparkes would be an excellent way to get Amos killed. It would also probably get John himself killed, but there would be a poetic quality to it. Still, he wasn't that desperate yet. Some day, the man would make a slip.
"You've got a class to attend in just five minutes, Master John." the snake hissed, stepping across the room to stand near him.
"I know, I -" John froze. Something was burning, and the smell was unmistakable. He threw the window open with all his might, trusting Sparkes not to assume he'd jump from such an absurd height, and stuck his head out. "Shit! The corn field's on fire."
A pillar of smoke was rising high, and while the clouds were thick in the sky they hadn't deigned to let down any rain. By this season, the stubble of the crop was bone dry and perfectly primed for a fire, and the past several beautiful days had only contributed to that.
"Come now, Master John." the bodyguard began, completing his approach. "Surely you can't think I would fall for that?"
The man must not have had any sense of smell, to miss the smoke in the air. It took him looking out the window himself to realize the urgency of the situation. "Ah. Well, then." he began awkwardly, grabbing John firmly by the wrist. "We'll be evacuating now."
It was a flurry of motion from there to the main entrance, and Sparkes was visibly winded from going down so many staircases and so many long hallways by the time they reached the driveway.
Sparkes darted around the drive from panicked worker to panicked worker, demanding that someone get a car ready. Judging by the number of vacated parking spaces, and the fact that anyone at all was still here, John guessed that whoever's cars were left, they weren't out here yet.
He didn't ask if Sparkes himself had a car - he probably did, but had either forgotten in the panic or left his keys somewhere. If it was the former, he didn't want the man to remember. If there was one prime opportunity to make a breakaway, it was while the man was worried about his life rather than his job. Sparing one glance back at the house, the boy lamented the fact that his father and mother weren't sharing in this danger with them, out on business for the day as they were.
Leaving that thought with the soon-to-be tinderbox, John broke into a sprint down the road. If he could make it far enough, he'd reach his stashed bike and be home free - or at least free from home.
Then it hit him. A raindrop, then another. Within seconds it was pouring on a level that rarely came around. The sort of level that could quell even a raging fire. His tears joined the rain in moments, a hopelessness beginning to set in at the ridiculous timing of the downpour, but he kept on running. There was still a chance, there was still a chance.
He told himself that, because it was his only option.
"No! You! Doooon't!" Sparkes screamed in the distance, setting off after him. The mere threat of the taser meant that John had to run serpentine, cutting his speed to the point that the man might just be able to catch him.
To make matters worse, some sort of motor was running in the distance, away from the house. A fire and rescue vehicle, maybe?
No, it was more like a bike engine.
Who the hell took a bike over country roads like this at that kind of RPM?
Whoever it was, a few seconds later they had parked in the distance, maybe twenty seconds further down the road. They were clad in leathers and a helmet that made identification impossible, slight of build, and… holding some manner of rifle, pointed down the lane.
John only had seconds to wonder if his father had hired some other muscle, before a solid line of raindrops from the bore to well past his right side boiled away in an instant, a flash of light almost like lightning arcing along their path with a crack a mere instant later. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest, but he wasn't hit. It barely seemed plausible that he was even the target.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Sparkes had fallen face first onto the ground. Had he been hit?
There only seemed to be one possibility, however ridiculous, for who the rider could be. He'd never heard of a weapon that fired a shot quite like that before, and when he thought about it the build of the rider was uncannily similar to…
Amelia's voice broke his contemplation as he drew close to the bike. "Over here, John!"
As he drew close, she pitched her gun - a strange silvery thing - onto a hook at the back of the bike haphazardly and grabbed him by the wrist, leading him onto the bike's back as she, herself, mounted up on the front.
"Amy!" he cried, overjoyed to hear her again - even if almost everything about her was covered up. "How the hell did you know to be here? And when did you learn to ride a motorbike?"
"Well…" she muttered, shuffling awkwardly in the driver's spot. "I'm sort of...the one who set the fire. I waited 'till a few minutes ahead of SHANDRA's rain forecast, and I just...fired into the field a little. As for the bike...like...the week after your birthday, two years ago?"
At that, she started the engine back up, and John wrapped his arms around her stomach on instinct. It would have looked absurd from the outside, him being a virtual giant for his age and her being...less than that, but if this thing was going to jump into motion he wanted to be ready for it.
"You...uh..well, I noticed you were bruised pretty badly, when you fell asleep." she explained as the machine set into motion, her voice almost lost below the noise of the engine. "So I wondered if, some day, your father might try to tie you down here and...started in on the simulators, depth perception be damned! Worked out pretty well, I think?"
Taking a second to assimilate that, John ignored the biting chill of the autumn air as it blew through his soaked indoor clothes, and glanced back at his still prone minder. "And the gun? What was that you shot Sparkes with?"
"An electrolaser. Taser without a wire. Should be pretty safe, I think, in case you were attached to your minder somehow." came the quick reply as Amelia made one of the smooth, wide banking turns the road demanded.
Letting out a long hum John looked back ahead, concluding that Sparkes' gloves were the only thing he'd bothered to insulate. It was hard to mourn the death of a man who all too happily took a job that involved risking the death of a child to prevent scandals. "He looks pretty dead, actually. Uh, not that you should worry about that. Guy tazed me the first time we met, so… I guess it's just what goes around, comes around."
The tears were starting to come back to John's eyes.
"I...I wish I could have saved you earlier." Amy shouted, clearly audible even above the engine's racket. "You shouldn't have had to go through that. The weather just..wasn't cooperative."
John tightened his hug, resting his face on the top of Amy's helmet as the tears flowed, and muttered one quiet response. "It's okay now. It's okay now. I'm going to stay this time - I'm not coming back here."
"Woah!" Amy squeaked, clearly not having heard him speaking. "I know you're supposed to hold on tight, John, but...that's a little bit much."
Chapter 4 (August 2910 - April 2911)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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The hustle and bustle of the farmers market brought a deep calm, in its own bizarre way. It was a connection to the world John had grown firmly attached to after two years of attending.
The days were hot and the chairs none too comfortable, but a little bit of awkward shifting around and a heck of a lot of hiding in the shade of the stall was enough to make it a pleasant use for the day. In exchange, Amy and himself could be a part of the collective energy of Aberdeen for a day, living the sort of lives that were never possible when he was tied down to the shore of the Salish Sea.
No hiding, no running, just sitting around, talking to people, doing business in their own little way. Bit of a drive away from the mountains, but well worth it.
It was a shame that this would be the last one of the year - but all the more reason to go all out. Their stall was lined mostly with jars of preserves- jams, blackberry, and huckleberry principally, being the majority as they were the bounty of the less-scarred woodland of the southern Olympic range, but also a chili pepper chutney that John was quite proud of, made from peppers and onions he'd grown inside - and breads fresh out of the oven that morning. That was normal enough - the mainstay of the stand, really.
Stranger were the chaotic mix of seeds topping the buns, chosen from an eclectic selection of cereals he'd started growing in the hydroponics just to see how they'd turn out, and the presence of a popcorn machine rumbling away with exploding kernels of seemingly everything except maize.
An amused guffaw soon rung out from the streetface of the stall, and his gaze was drawn from the newspaper he'd been periodically glancing at just for the novelty of someone having bothered to print it, to the woman who was holding up a particularly large rye loaf and investigating its seed-studded, honeycomb-patterned top.
His face flushed a bit as he recognized her, and he glanced back away. Rosie Harlowe was a regular, but not his regular. He couldn't shake the feeling that striking up a conversation with the doctor - Amy's OB/GYN - would be akin to stepping into a world not built for him.
"Amy!" the gray haired lady cried, turning the loaf over in her hands as she smiled broadly. "You let Jack plant more random seeds again? What am I even looking at this time? Buckwheat, amaranth, poppyseed, mustard seed… no idea what those two are. Sweety, your buns have been swelling fatter and fatter every week just to fit all these seeds on top - are things okay at home?"
He needed to disappear into the depths of his paper right that moment. Unfortunately, it was impossible. Maybe if he were Amy's size, but the publication just didn't have enough surface area to hide under for someone of his girth. The puns...were unbearable.
Amy's laugh was like a song as she slammed the counter with a balled up fist, which was something of a reprieve from the pun itself. Gods, but her face was red. "Damn it, Rosie! Don't say that shit first thing in the morning. I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. Maybe show the loaf here and I can tell you what's on it. He found more weird seeds in granddad's shed, but I found the catalogue."
John could take some pride, at least, in the strong sound that rung out as Rosie's fingernails ran along the hard crust of the loaf. "Honestly." the aged doctor spat, rolling her whole head for illustrative purposes. "It boggles the mind how some old mountain man found a seed catalogue this scattershot. I feel like I'm going through an encyclopedia a week trying to keep up."
Amelia covered her mouth as she giggled at the sight, but her gaze was quick to fall to the top of the loaf. "Oh. You're looking at seed garlic - someone's weird offshoot of ramsons, crazily strong tasting - and valley saltgrass, which explains why the greenhouse was full."
Greenhouse was code for the hot hydroponics bay, for tropical and subtropical plants. John had tied the place up with a variety of crops, including the genetically engineered perennial cereal, which grew best in warmer environments, to see if the seeds in stock were still good. Horrifyingly vigorous was one way to describe their growth - which probably would have been ideal on any colonies pressed to use the cultivar.
Rosie drug her gaze along the stall slowly, before settling it on John. "Next year you should consider adding a few more things someone would actually eat with this kind of bread to your stock, Jack. I'm not spreading jam on something topped with mustard and garlic, so you've really only got the chutney. Expand your horizons, maybe learn to make sandwiches. For god's sake, set up a permanent presence somewhere. Don't squandering what you've got going on here by half assing it, and just twelve days out of the year at that. Look at Amy over there - your very own Amy Gawther. Look at her."
It certainly was a mighty blush on his wife's face. John was sure the message here was something about making more money for Amy's sake - a strong 'do it for her' message, which he certainly felt an urge to follow through on as he met Amy's gaze. If only the vagina whisperer knew the truth, she'd have a lot more to critique him squandering than just a market stall, but that didn't exactly invalidate her point.
"Rosie!" Amelia cried before John could say anything, rising to her feet and slapping the counter, her voice wavering as she spoke. "Holy fuck! Are you trying to give me a heart attack right now, lady?!"
"Trying to save you one later, actually." came the wry reply, as the OB/GYN smirked and glanced over, before suddenly smacking the palm of her hand. "Oh, that was it! I just remembered - some of the folks are planning a beach barbecue out at Ocean Shores, come Sunday. Celebrating the last day of swimsuit weather in the year, they say. Bring something and come along, if you can take time out of your busy schedule of scaring off woodland critters."
The high pitched snarl Amy released, closed-mouthed, from the depths of her throat was something John hadn't ever managed to coax out of her - only bantering with Rosie ever seemed to do it.
Seeing as she was vaguely indisposed by her own embarrassment, though, he felt he had some obligation to field the response to the offer. "That sounds lovely. We'll have to see if we've got anything suitable for the occasion, but I'd be interested in going, at least."
Grinning, the old lady nodded, throwing down some money on the counter - blatantly more than the loaf was priced at - and began to turn to walk away. "Glad to hear it. I'll see you there."
It was Amelia who reached out across the counter and grabbed the doctor by a bit of loose cloth on her shawl, still red in the face. "Before you go, uh...you wouldn't happen to...have an open appointment on Monday, would you?"
As John buried his face back in his newspaper, the blood pumped in his ears loudly enough that he couldn't hear the response.
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Scene 2
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The white sands of the beach stretched further than the eye could see in both directions, from where the party was in the center of the peninsula. One would need to follow the warm powder to land's end to discover the first interruption, as for eight centuries the locals had seen money to be made in the sands as they were, uninterrupted by docks and slipways, and so sited all such boat launches at the very tip of the peninsula.
John brushed his toes against each-other, marveling at the cleanliness of the beaches. Just a few months ago, when it was peak vacationing season, the shoreline scarcely saw the light of day under the legions of umbrellas, blankets, and grills the hordes of revellers had brought. Not twenty meters away, the greengrocer's daughter and her friends were cracking open a six pack, doubtless without a plan for throwing any of it away sensibly. It spoke volumes of the timeless importance of these shores, that the locals were so vigilant in clearing them of refuse.
His shovel stabbed into the wet sand with a sound between a cut and a slap, sinking down to the very end of the head, and as he dumped the load out he could already see the reward. It might very well have been the first razor clam of the season, a continuation of the history of this beach plunging thousands of years into the past.
As Amy tossed the clam into their bucket, John surveyed the landscape for the next spouthole in the sand left by the breathing of bivalves. Doubtless, in centuries past, the peninsula had been a resort for Camerons. As the furthest north of old Washington's white sand beaches, nowhere could have been closer to Unity City and given this experience. In that sense, this could be called a family tradition too.
It was remarkable that the spit still existed at all, by those standards. It could just as easily have been blasted away into the seas by heavy fire during the reclamation of Terra. As it was, it bore no legacy of the buildings that came before - all he saw on the spit was new construction. Who had dug up the mines, and who had rebuilt the hotels? As he started towards the next spot, he wracked his brain over that question.
Of course, it had been the people who had seen the opportunity in it. He plunged his shovel back into the ground with a grunt. When the dust settled, the sands remained, and so the survivors struggled to remake their livelihood, to pick up a shattered fragment of the world that was and make it theirs again. With their small hands, with their lacking resources, with their blood and determination, they'd reclaimed the spit and built it anew.
Here they'd come to dig clams, grill them up, and eat them on toast. Perhaps things were not as they once were, but it was undeniable that the new architects of the land had recaptured the core of what it had been.
A soft impact struck John on the back of his head as he turned out his shovel again, and as he looked up he saw a beach ball sailing through the air into the water. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the culprits - just a pair of little kids, the son and daughter of the Farmer's Market's organizer, who'd misjudged the wind. They'd need to swim to get the ball, at their height.
The shovel fell to the ground with a pure slapping sound. John stood waist deep in water as he retrieved the ball and, with a grin and a shout, pitched it back to the shore - back into the hands of its owners.
All things considered, people had rebuilt more than he could even imagine. Even having nothing, even when it took years, they'd begun again. The result was right in front of him. He almost couldn't breath, looking back at Amelia in her red bikini.
What had he done - what could he do - to win his spot right here, right now? What would he, with his vast hands, with his vast resources, need to build to make this sinking feeling go away? Would it ever?
"Sorry about that, Jack!" someone shouted from the shore. Squinting through the sunlight, John eventually put a name to the face - it was Devin Pittock, the children's father. "They making any trouble for you?"
"Not the least bit, Mr. Pittock!" he rumbled as he stepped back to the shore, each movement of his legs building a brief vortex in its wake. "To be honest, I needed the chance to cool off."
"All's well that ends well, eh?" the man chuckled, before glancing from John to Amy. "You know, there's a rack of ribs nearly ready, and other things besides. I wouldn't mind watching your bucket while you two rest and relax a bit."
Amy jumped at the opportunity, in quite a literal sense. For a moment, her wide eyes mirrored the land and sea perfectly - blue on the side of the waves, white with the sands. "Really? Well, don't mind if we do!" she chirped, seizing John by the arm.
"Sorry." John mumbled as the two of them made their way over to the party proper. "I guess I didn't notice you getting tired?"
The loud snort she responded with was not, let it be noted, what he expected. As she slapped him on the back, he was left wondering what he'd said until she gave a real reply. "I'm fine. Really. Just giving a sentimental old man a chance to sentimental old man."
"He's only forty!" John protested, wrapping an arm around Amy's back.
"Old man is in the heart." she shot back, sticking her tongue out. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but sometimes an offer is a request - it's in the body language."
Raising one eyebrow, John tickled Amy's ribs for a few seconds, watching as she struggled to hold back a fit of giggles, before asking for clarification. "What'd he want this for, then?"
"Probably just to see us sit together with our plates, or something. Maybe he came here with his wife, way back. Might be that the only way he can remember what it was like is to watch the cutest couple on the beach have fun together." Amy shrugged, refusing to dignify John's tickle terrorism with acknowledgement. "Just some guesses. Either way, trust me - he wanted us over here for something, so we're being nice."
John might have trusted Amy's intuition more fully if, say, her stomach hadn't immediately growled after that. As they approached the water spigot to wash their hands, he made sure to give her a few more gratuitous tickles before letting her go.
"See if I offer to feed you now, dick!" she squeaked, fixing him with a halfhearted glare and pout as she washed her hands.
John's heart felt like it was falling to the core of the earth for a second at that horrible loss of an opportunity, before a thought came to mind. "Is that something you wanted to do?"
"Yeah, and it's no more Mrs. Nice Amy now." she growled, raising her dripping hands in mock menace. "Just try to stop me!"
If one had asked him on a later day, he would swear up and down that he was shaking in his nonexistent boots at that moment, for sheer fear of his life.
The barbecue, he decided, was an incredible idea. He just couldn't stop smiling.
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Scene 3
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With the coming of winter, the gates of the Invisible Palace opened far less frequently than they had mere months ago. Cooped up inside their palatial love-nest, its two inhabitants had little to occupy their time but their studies, a media library spanning across untold centuries, and - of course - each-other. Though in that last regard, it was an almost constant process of relearning, as the passage of just four months had transformed Amelia's midsection profoundly.
The spattering noise of the shower as his white noise, John shifted aimlessly up and down the list of courses available to him. This year, it was like something was burning at him from within, and in every solitary moment he found himself studying something or other he'd scarcely considered before, whether it seemed - or indeed, proved - interesting or not.
He poured course over course into his brain like it was water, hardly even considering what he was teaching himself in his rush to douse the flames, and yet they could not be quenched. Not, at least, with such an unprincipled self deception. He knew what it would take to set his heart to rest, but he couldn't give it serious consideration. Couldn't even dream of it. It'd be the peak of irresponsibility to rock the boat so heavily when in mere months, his little family would be doubling in size.
So he read, listened, wrote, and from time to time chose what to read next.
Sweat beaded on his forehead. This one, he'd done in the past. It could even be blamed for his current predicament. It was a fascinating topic that took frequent plunges into the deeply practical elements of its field. It was also viciously seductive - enough to tear him away from his rational view of the situation and into the depths of obsession.
He felt he couldn't stop himself from rereading it, even if his heart froze over. The aged man's voiceover took on the dimensions of a poisonous friend as he launched the course once more, and he found himself glad to hear it.
"It was said many times of Terran history that geography is destiny - that the course of history was determined not by the qualities people bore within their hearts, but by the resources in their environment, and at their disposal. Nature versus nurture on a national scale. It is, to be sure, an imperfect theory, but one which bears immense weight before it begins to crack. And truthfully, show me the mason who builds an unbreaking pillar that holds infinite weight, and I will show you a liar.
In the centuries since the stars opened up to us, some have ventured to suggest that the maxim has broken. That it is no longer the contents and lay of the lands, natural and built, but rather of the heart, that build a great power and drive it forward to destiny. To this perspective, some credit may be given. It is undeniable that the lay of the stars brings with it a relatively greater degree of equity than the layout of a world divided. However, and I ask you forgive the pun, such colonizing claims as that astrography is a null factor are a scholar's folly.
Considering only natural astrography, and not the myriad factors born of cascading human action, the ongoing significance of place can be proven. In the average one jump radius, there are nearly five hundred stars to be found. On average, one in a thousand stars holds a life bearing planet of a sort naturally ready for human habitation. With reasonable remediation measures, an equilibrium of closer to one in one hundred is reached. With the most extreme measures possible, perhaps one in ten systems could provide us with a home. It is the natural gardens, though, that invariably serve as the pillars of interstellar society - and they are found in less than half of all 'jump spheres', statistically, but slightly less still, in practical terms.
What then, of the Taurian Concordat, once the equal of any house save the Hegemony? Before its bilateral scouring in the Reunification War and the handover to the Federated Suns as a white elephant, the Pleiades Cluster was the site for one hundred inhabited systems, nearly half of them without need of any real terraforming. The cleanup they would now need to be restored to their former state is, mind you, similar to terraforming in its extent, but I digress. The Hyades, though somewhat less impressively endowed with worlds, have meanwhile derived considerable defensive value - particularly in the form of ambushes - from the extensive asteroid fields left when gravitational interactions rendered many nascent planets of the cluster into dust.
Even trade in germanium, the lifeblood of any interstellar society, is slaved to the auspices of fate - simple economics dictate that it be produced only on chosen worlds with naturally high concentrations, amenable to competitive pricing. It is for these reasons that you will study astrography. It is for these reasons that it is your duty."
Out of all the forewords, he was hard pressed to think of one longer than that, but it sent shivers down his spine despite its utter failure at concision.
"Huh. I thought you already did that one." Amy's voice rang out from behind him, making him jump a bit. As he turned, looking over the back of the couch, he realized that the sound of the shower had stopped some time ago. There she stood, hair damp and hanging straight, wrapped in the largest towel they could find, a necessity these days given the girth of her belly, which would soon threaten to turn all manner of clothing into hanging curtains, giving him a curious look. "Reviewing to go onto the next one in that sequence?"
"No!" John started, his cheeks flushing as he tried to think of an explanation. "Not really. Uh, maybe. Like, really I just...find it interesting. I don't think there's anything much to it, honestly."
Humming the whole time, Amy reached out and began to aggressively tousle his hair, her eyes narrowed into a gaze that was either smug or concerned. He couldn't rightly tell which. "Don't worry, big guy, you're not on trial here. Just interested in what's going on in there, s'all."
John could feel his face flushing further. He was certain he knew exactly how weird he'd looked in that moment, and he was just glad to have dodged the bullet of having to explain further. He wasn't sure if he could.
He might have expected a number of things from the situation - most likely Amelia going and getting dressed - but as she forced his noteputer shut, walking around the couch, and sat down next to him, he had to admit to himself that things were far, far from expectations.
"I've made an executive decision." she proclaimed, leaning against his side and hugging his arm - forcing it to rest against her belly in the process - as soon as he'd turned around. "Which is that, to save you from toasting your own brain overthinking things, we're going to watch a movie tonight. Got any preferences?"
Scratching his cheek, John glanced over to her smiling face and the gears in his mind ground to a halt. "Fuck", he thought, "She smells so nice."
A few seconds later, he managed to piece together a response, glancing away in the process. "Well, uh… I don't really have anything I feel like rewatching right now, or any series I'm in the mood for, so I guess we could just pick randomly?"
With nearly a millennium of movies to sort through, there was little even an index could do to sort through it all. On the other hand, hitting the random button was generally a good way to find something good or, at least, comically terrible to watch.
"Sounds good!" Amy agreed with a chirp, before addressing the speakers in the room. "SHANDRA, please play us a random movie."
"Affirmative." the AI replied. "Playing James Cameron's The Terminator."
As the intro to the film from nine hundred and twenty seven years ago began playing, Amy piped in with a thought John shared. "Do you think I'm related to him, somehow? It'd make a nice name for Marie's brother."
"Chances are good - Clan Cameron was pretty widespread." John answered, before grinning mischievously. "Who knows? Maybe he's your direct ancestor or something."
It later turned out that he, in fact, was, though that search only started when Amy found John burying himself in astrography homework for the third day in a row the next week and needed a new distraction.
He was endlessly grateful to have someone who cared so much, and who knew when and how to save him from himself, though he worried that he might seem like a burden to her with how often it was needed.
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Scene 4
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Amelia Cameron had a problem. Not a problem of the sort that came as a sudden surprise, but the sort that crept slowly up on one, as the realization of how fucked one was gradually dawned.
Her big spoon was still awake, and from the glint of the clock it was four AM - they'd been in bed for eight hours already. Where he would normally be a comforting presence as she drifted off, John had been transformed by insomnia into a nonstop low level distraction that kept her from getting any sleep herself. The shifting tempo of his breaths, his 'subtle' attempts to find a comfortable posture, the occasional taps of his fingertips against her almost comically enlarged, firm belly. For a light sleeper, it was a special kind of hell.
The troubles hadn't started tonight - she'd been building to this moment for the last several months, losing more and more hours of sleep at night as his fits of restlessness happened more and more frequently.
The smart thing to do would have been to bring it up at some point. Ask him what was going on, try to work out a resolution. He normally slept like a rock trying its hardest to get wrapped in a mossy, from the word go - the only times she'd ever known him to sleep fitfully were back… well, before and immediately after the rescue operation.
If there was something wrong with his sleep cycle, it could only be a matter of something worrying him. Something about her due date next month, maybe, but that didn't really seem like the full story. Of course, she'd wanted to know and to help this full time - but if there was one thing the big teddy bear couldn't handle, it was anything resembling a confrontation. He folded like a piece of wet lasagna at the first sign of having done something wrong, and she hated seeing him like that. It was like stealing candy from a baby, or calling a puppy a bad dog. Downright fucking criminal.
So instead, she'd put her mind to guesswork. Unfortunately, he was pretty bad about sharing what was bouncing around in his noggin. When they'd first met, he was like a ball of weird energy, moving all over the place and such, talking about this and that and everything someone should've done, really a massive busybody. Then he'd mellowed out hard, and while the shyness was admittedly adorable, it was also a colossal pain in the ass.
The one thing that really stuck out was a few months prior, when he'd revisited Astrography 1 for no apparent reason. Taken at his word, he might have just found that interesting, but it seemed more likely that something about it was stuck in his head. How was it that Foreword Guy said it again? If she recalled correctly, it was a duty to learn and apply what was on display there, per his specifications. If John was worried about a conflict of duties, as though he was stuck between fulfilling a 'duty' to the architects of the Invisible Palace and family matters, well… she wanted to help him resolve those worries, but she also hadn't wanted to scare him by jumping him with questions. So she'd waited to see if he'd breach the topic himself.
That was then, though, and this was now. Things had reached the point of absurdity, and she needed to act now to preserve her very sanity. If it was this bad now, how the hell was she supposed to sleep at all once they had two tiny, little babies depending on them for literally everything, at all hours of the day?
Exhaling sharply, she shifted against him, feeling her skin shift over her shoulder bone as she rubbed against the top of his abs. "Can't sleep?"
The sound of his breathing stopped, and his full body froze. It was like he thought she would forget he was there if he didn't move.
"Nice try." she thought, allowing herself a giggle, before launching her second attack - a soft singsong. "Peeenny for your thoughts?"
Groaning a bit, he gave her a gentle hug before he replied. "How'd you figure?"
Amy pulled away a bit, scooted up the bed, and rolled to face John before dignifying that with a response, wearing her sweetest smile in the faint hope that his eyes were dark adapted enough to have a snowball's chance in hell of seeing. "Need the full list? Well, okay then - first, you snore when you sleep - and it's loud. Second, you don't move, even a little. Third, you're basically completely unresponsive - when you're seriously asleep, I can wake up, force my way out of your grip, get out of bed, turn the lights on, adjust the air conditioning, make myself a grilled cheese sandwich, eat it, come back, turn the lights off, get in bed, and put everything back how it was… and you don't do a thing in that time."
The response was about what she'd expected. "...have you seriously…?"
"Once." she admitted, leaning in across the enforced minimum distance her gut created and planting a kiss on his cheek. "Anyways, for whatever reason, that's all therapeutic to me. Helps me get to sleep, which means I know you've been sleeping poorly lately. That only happens when...something's bothering you, and I want to help with that."
John let out a hiss like a teakettle while he was thinking. "I can't… it's not… it's not fair to you. You shouldn't have to worry about this. I shouldn't be worrying about this. It's just an unreasonable… it's stuck in my head, even though I know it's wrong."
Rolling her eyes served little purpose under the circumstances, but she did it anyways. "Well, tough. You're worried about it, I'm worried about it, let's worry about it together until we can stop worrying about it. Are you telling me that if you got hurt, and you couldn't wipe your own ass anymore, you wouldn't want me to worry about it? Because that's not how this relationship works, buddy."
He let out a snort. That was good, it meant she'd set the mood right. Any other noise would have been grounds for concern. "Well, I've been thinking."
As introductory phrases went, there might have been one that meant less than that, but Amelia didn't know what it was.
"Obviously," he continued. "The Invisible Palace hasn't worked out the way anyone planned it. There should have been tens of thousands of people down here, by now. The plan, if it's salvageable at all...practically speaking, we should be looking for people we trust enough to bring down here, so that in a few centuries, if conditions still require it, the plan can still launch as normal, if it's still necessary at all. It's the safest plan, especially now that we're...well, going to be parents for the rest of our lives, and busy parents for the next who-knows-how-long. But…"
But was right. It was a terrible plan, only really good for personal comfort. There was no way someone that prone to worrying could survive the guilt of doing nothing. Hell, if conditions improved by then, that'd essentially mean the whole place had gone to waste. It was, however, incredibly heartwarming and comforting to hear him admit that part of his emotional turmoil was about their safety.
"I don't know if it's possible for me to live with the knowledge that, every day, by example, I'll be teaching James and Marie that it's okay to kick an obvious, terrible problem down the calendar until it's someone else's business." he admitted, pressing his face into Amy's shoulder. "Especially not when so many people are living in the worst desperation imaginable. So on the one hand, in the back of my mind I'm constantly wondering how we could make a difference sooner. How we could fulfill the goal, even if it's not a sure shot, even if it's not safe, and make the world a better place. And on the other hand...I can't ask you to take that risk, and I certainly can't ask two kids who aren't even born yet to take that risk."
Well, it would be easy enough for Amy to answer that concern. "Then I'll ask you. John Cameron-Amaris, will you come with me on my batshit insane, horribly dangerous interstellar quest to teach my babies a good example of how to live as an upstanding fucking member of society?"
The strangled laughter John struggled to hold back at that moment was music to her ears. "If you insist...yes, I suppose."
"Good. Then let's go the fuck to sleep."
Scene 1
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The hustle and bustle of the farmers market brought a deep calm, in its own bizarre way. It was a connection to the world John had grown firmly attached to after two years of attending.
The days were hot and the chairs none too comfortable, but a little bit of awkward shifting around and a heck of a lot of hiding in the shade of the stall was enough to make it a pleasant use for the day. In exchange, Amy and himself could be a part of the collective energy of Aberdeen for a day, living the sort of lives that were never possible when he was tied down to the shore of the Salish Sea.
No hiding, no running, just sitting around, talking to people, doing business in their own little way. Bit of a drive away from the mountains, but well worth it.
It was a shame that this would be the last one of the year - but all the more reason to go all out. Their stall was lined mostly with jars of preserves- jams, blackberry, and huckleberry principally, being the majority as they were the bounty of the less-scarred woodland of the southern Olympic range, but also a chili pepper chutney that John was quite proud of, made from peppers and onions he'd grown inside - and breads fresh out of the oven that morning. That was normal enough - the mainstay of the stand, really.
Stranger were the chaotic mix of seeds topping the buns, chosen from an eclectic selection of cereals he'd started growing in the hydroponics just to see how they'd turn out, and the presence of a popcorn machine rumbling away with exploding kernels of seemingly everything except maize.
An amused guffaw soon rung out from the streetface of the stall, and his gaze was drawn from the newspaper he'd been periodically glancing at just for the novelty of someone having bothered to print it, to the woman who was holding up a particularly large rye loaf and investigating its seed-studded, honeycomb-patterned top.
His face flushed a bit as he recognized her, and he glanced back away. Rosie Harlowe was a regular, but not his regular. He couldn't shake the feeling that striking up a conversation with the doctor - Amy's OB/GYN - would be akin to stepping into a world not built for him.
"Amy!" the gray haired lady cried, turning the loaf over in her hands as she smiled broadly. "You let Jack plant more random seeds again? What am I even looking at this time? Buckwheat, amaranth, poppyseed, mustard seed… no idea what those two are. Sweety, your buns have been swelling fatter and fatter every week just to fit all these seeds on top - are things okay at home?"
He needed to disappear into the depths of his paper right that moment. Unfortunately, it was impossible. Maybe if he were Amy's size, but the publication just didn't have enough surface area to hide under for someone of his girth. The puns...were unbearable.
Amy's laugh was like a song as she slammed the counter with a balled up fist, which was something of a reprieve from the pun itself. Gods, but her face was red. "Damn it, Rosie! Don't say that shit first thing in the morning. I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. Maybe show the loaf here and I can tell you what's on it. He found more weird seeds in granddad's shed, but I found the catalogue."
John could take some pride, at least, in the strong sound that rung out as Rosie's fingernails ran along the hard crust of the loaf. "Honestly." the aged doctor spat, rolling her whole head for illustrative purposes. "It boggles the mind how some old mountain man found a seed catalogue this scattershot. I feel like I'm going through an encyclopedia a week trying to keep up."
Amelia covered her mouth as she giggled at the sight, but her gaze was quick to fall to the top of the loaf. "Oh. You're looking at seed garlic - someone's weird offshoot of ramsons, crazily strong tasting - and valley saltgrass, which explains why the greenhouse was full."
Greenhouse was code for the hot hydroponics bay, for tropical and subtropical plants. John had tied the place up with a variety of crops, including the genetically engineered perennial cereal, which grew best in warmer environments, to see if the seeds in stock were still good. Horrifyingly vigorous was one way to describe their growth - which probably would have been ideal on any colonies pressed to use the cultivar.
Rosie drug her gaze along the stall slowly, before settling it on John. "Next year you should consider adding a few more things someone would actually eat with this kind of bread to your stock, Jack. I'm not spreading jam on something topped with mustard and garlic, so you've really only got the chutney. Expand your horizons, maybe learn to make sandwiches. For god's sake, set up a permanent presence somewhere. Don't squandering what you've got going on here by half assing it, and just twelve days out of the year at that. Look at Amy over there - your very own Amy Gawther. Look at her."
It certainly was a mighty blush on his wife's face. John was sure the message here was something about making more money for Amy's sake - a strong 'do it for her' message, which he certainly felt an urge to follow through on as he met Amy's gaze. If only the vagina whisperer knew the truth, she'd have a lot more to critique him squandering than just a market stall, but that didn't exactly invalidate her point.
"Rosie!" Amelia cried before John could say anything, rising to her feet and slapping the counter, her voice wavering as she spoke. "Holy fuck! Are you trying to give me a heart attack right now, lady?!"
"Trying to save you one later, actually." came the wry reply, as the OB/GYN smirked and glanced over, before suddenly smacking the palm of her hand. "Oh, that was it! I just remembered - some of the folks are planning a beach barbecue out at Ocean Shores, come Sunday. Celebrating the last day of swimsuit weather in the year, they say. Bring something and come along, if you can take time out of your busy schedule of scaring off woodland critters."
The high pitched snarl Amy released, closed-mouthed, from the depths of her throat was something John hadn't ever managed to coax out of her - only bantering with Rosie ever seemed to do it.
Seeing as she was vaguely indisposed by her own embarrassment, though, he felt he had some obligation to field the response to the offer. "That sounds lovely. We'll have to see if we've got anything suitable for the occasion, but I'd be interested in going, at least."
Grinning, the old lady nodded, throwing down some money on the counter - blatantly more than the loaf was priced at - and began to turn to walk away. "Glad to hear it. I'll see you there."
It was Amelia who reached out across the counter and grabbed the doctor by a bit of loose cloth on her shawl, still red in the face. "Before you go, uh...you wouldn't happen to...have an open appointment on Monday, would you?"
As John buried his face back in his newspaper, the blood pumped in his ears loudly enough that he couldn't hear the response.
---
Scene 2
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The white sands of the beach stretched further than the eye could see in both directions, from where the party was in the center of the peninsula. One would need to follow the warm powder to land's end to discover the first interruption, as for eight centuries the locals had seen money to be made in the sands as they were, uninterrupted by docks and slipways, and so sited all such boat launches at the very tip of the peninsula.
John brushed his toes against each-other, marveling at the cleanliness of the beaches. Just a few months ago, when it was peak vacationing season, the shoreline scarcely saw the light of day under the legions of umbrellas, blankets, and grills the hordes of revellers had brought. Not twenty meters away, the greengrocer's daughter and her friends were cracking open a six pack, doubtless without a plan for throwing any of it away sensibly. It spoke volumes of the timeless importance of these shores, that the locals were so vigilant in clearing them of refuse.
His shovel stabbed into the wet sand with a sound between a cut and a slap, sinking down to the very end of the head, and as he dumped the load out he could already see the reward. It might very well have been the first razor clam of the season, a continuation of the history of this beach plunging thousands of years into the past.
As Amy tossed the clam into their bucket, John surveyed the landscape for the next spouthole in the sand left by the breathing of bivalves. Doubtless, in centuries past, the peninsula had been a resort for Camerons. As the furthest north of old Washington's white sand beaches, nowhere could have been closer to Unity City and given this experience. In that sense, this could be called a family tradition too.
It was remarkable that the spit still existed at all, by those standards. It could just as easily have been blasted away into the seas by heavy fire during the reclamation of Terra. As it was, it bore no legacy of the buildings that came before - all he saw on the spit was new construction. Who had dug up the mines, and who had rebuilt the hotels? As he started towards the next spot, he wracked his brain over that question.
Of course, it had been the people who had seen the opportunity in it. He plunged his shovel back into the ground with a grunt. When the dust settled, the sands remained, and so the survivors struggled to remake their livelihood, to pick up a shattered fragment of the world that was and make it theirs again. With their small hands, with their lacking resources, with their blood and determination, they'd reclaimed the spit and built it anew.
Here they'd come to dig clams, grill them up, and eat them on toast. Perhaps things were not as they once were, but it was undeniable that the new architects of the land had recaptured the core of what it had been.
A soft impact struck John on the back of his head as he turned out his shovel again, and as he looked up he saw a beach ball sailing through the air into the water. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the culprits - just a pair of little kids, the son and daughter of the Farmer's Market's organizer, who'd misjudged the wind. They'd need to swim to get the ball, at their height.
The shovel fell to the ground with a pure slapping sound. John stood waist deep in water as he retrieved the ball and, with a grin and a shout, pitched it back to the shore - back into the hands of its owners.
All things considered, people had rebuilt more than he could even imagine. Even having nothing, even when it took years, they'd begun again. The result was right in front of him. He almost couldn't breath, looking back at Amelia in her red bikini.
What had he done - what could he do - to win his spot right here, right now? What would he, with his vast hands, with his vast resources, need to build to make this sinking feeling go away? Would it ever?
"Sorry about that, Jack!" someone shouted from the shore. Squinting through the sunlight, John eventually put a name to the face - it was Devin Pittock, the children's father. "They making any trouble for you?"
"Not the least bit, Mr. Pittock!" he rumbled as he stepped back to the shore, each movement of his legs building a brief vortex in its wake. "To be honest, I needed the chance to cool off."
"All's well that ends well, eh?" the man chuckled, before glancing from John to Amy. "You know, there's a rack of ribs nearly ready, and other things besides. I wouldn't mind watching your bucket while you two rest and relax a bit."
Amy jumped at the opportunity, in quite a literal sense. For a moment, her wide eyes mirrored the land and sea perfectly - blue on the side of the waves, white with the sands. "Really? Well, don't mind if we do!" she chirped, seizing John by the arm.
"Sorry." John mumbled as the two of them made their way over to the party proper. "I guess I didn't notice you getting tired?"
The loud snort she responded with was not, let it be noted, what he expected. As she slapped him on the back, he was left wondering what he'd said until she gave a real reply. "I'm fine. Really. Just giving a sentimental old man a chance to sentimental old man."
"He's only forty!" John protested, wrapping an arm around Amy's back.
"Old man is in the heart." she shot back, sticking her tongue out. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but sometimes an offer is a request - it's in the body language."
Raising one eyebrow, John tickled Amy's ribs for a few seconds, watching as she struggled to hold back a fit of giggles, before asking for clarification. "What'd he want this for, then?"
"Probably just to see us sit together with our plates, or something. Maybe he came here with his wife, way back. Might be that the only way he can remember what it was like is to watch the cutest couple on the beach have fun together." Amy shrugged, refusing to dignify John's tickle terrorism with acknowledgement. "Just some guesses. Either way, trust me - he wanted us over here for something, so we're being nice."
John might have trusted Amy's intuition more fully if, say, her stomach hadn't immediately growled after that. As they approached the water spigot to wash their hands, he made sure to give her a few more gratuitous tickles before letting her go.
"See if I offer to feed you now, dick!" she squeaked, fixing him with a halfhearted glare and pout as she washed her hands.
John's heart felt like it was falling to the core of the earth for a second at that horrible loss of an opportunity, before a thought came to mind. "Is that something you wanted to do?"
"Yeah, and it's no more Mrs. Nice Amy now." she growled, raising her dripping hands in mock menace. "Just try to stop me!"
If one had asked him on a later day, he would swear up and down that he was shaking in his nonexistent boots at that moment, for sheer fear of his life.
The barbecue, he decided, was an incredible idea. He just couldn't stop smiling.
---
Scene 3
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With the coming of winter, the gates of the Invisible Palace opened far less frequently than they had mere months ago. Cooped up inside their palatial love-nest, its two inhabitants had little to occupy their time but their studies, a media library spanning across untold centuries, and - of course - each-other. Though in that last regard, it was an almost constant process of relearning, as the passage of just four months had transformed Amelia's midsection profoundly.
The spattering noise of the shower as his white noise, John shifted aimlessly up and down the list of courses available to him. This year, it was like something was burning at him from within, and in every solitary moment he found himself studying something or other he'd scarcely considered before, whether it seemed - or indeed, proved - interesting or not.
He poured course over course into his brain like it was water, hardly even considering what he was teaching himself in his rush to douse the flames, and yet they could not be quenched. Not, at least, with such an unprincipled self deception. He knew what it would take to set his heart to rest, but he couldn't give it serious consideration. Couldn't even dream of it. It'd be the peak of irresponsibility to rock the boat so heavily when in mere months, his little family would be doubling in size.
So he read, listened, wrote, and from time to time chose what to read next.
Sweat beaded on his forehead. This one, he'd done in the past. It could even be blamed for his current predicament. It was a fascinating topic that took frequent plunges into the deeply practical elements of its field. It was also viciously seductive - enough to tear him away from his rational view of the situation and into the depths of obsession.
He felt he couldn't stop himself from rereading it, even if his heart froze over. The aged man's voiceover took on the dimensions of a poisonous friend as he launched the course once more, and he found himself glad to hear it.
"It was said many times of Terran history that geography is destiny - that the course of history was determined not by the qualities people bore within their hearts, but by the resources in their environment, and at their disposal. Nature versus nurture on a national scale. It is, to be sure, an imperfect theory, but one which bears immense weight before it begins to crack. And truthfully, show me the mason who builds an unbreaking pillar that holds infinite weight, and I will show you a liar.
In the centuries since the stars opened up to us, some have ventured to suggest that the maxim has broken. That it is no longer the contents and lay of the lands, natural and built, but rather of the heart, that build a great power and drive it forward to destiny. To this perspective, some credit may be given. It is undeniable that the lay of the stars brings with it a relatively greater degree of equity than the layout of a world divided. However, and I ask you forgive the pun, such colonizing claims as that astrography is a null factor are a scholar's folly.
Considering only natural astrography, and not the myriad factors born of cascading human action, the ongoing significance of place can be proven. In the average one jump radius, there are nearly five hundred stars to be found. On average, one in a thousand stars holds a life bearing planet of a sort naturally ready for human habitation. With reasonable remediation measures, an equilibrium of closer to one in one hundred is reached. With the most extreme measures possible, perhaps one in ten systems could provide us with a home. It is the natural gardens, though, that invariably serve as the pillars of interstellar society - and they are found in less than half of all 'jump spheres', statistically, but slightly less still, in practical terms.
What then, of the Taurian Concordat, once the equal of any house save the Hegemony? Before its bilateral scouring in the Reunification War and the handover to the Federated Suns as a white elephant, the Pleiades Cluster was the site for one hundred inhabited systems, nearly half of them without need of any real terraforming. The cleanup they would now need to be restored to their former state is, mind you, similar to terraforming in its extent, but I digress. The Hyades, though somewhat less impressively endowed with worlds, have meanwhile derived considerable defensive value - particularly in the form of ambushes - from the extensive asteroid fields left when gravitational interactions rendered many nascent planets of the cluster into dust.
Even trade in germanium, the lifeblood of any interstellar society, is slaved to the auspices of fate - simple economics dictate that it be produced only on chosen worlds with naturally high concentrations, amenable to competitive pricing. It is for these reasons that you will study astrography. It is for these reasons that it is your duty."
Out of all the forewords, he was hard pressed to think of one longer than that, but it sent shivers down his spine despite its utter failure at concision.
"Huh. I thought you already did that one." Amy's voice rang out from behind him, making him jump a bit. As he turned, looking over the back of the couch, he realized that the sound of the shower had stopped some time ago. There she stood, hair damp and hanging straight, wrapped in the largest towel they could find, a necessity these days given the girth of her belly, which would soon threaten to turn all manner of clothing into hanging curtains, giving him a curious look. "Reviewing to go onto the next one in that sequence?"
"No!" John started, his cheeks flushing as he tried to think of an explanation. "Not really. Uh, maybe. Like, really I just...find it interesting. I don't think there's anything much to it, honestly."
Humming the whole time, Amy reached out and began to aggressively tousle his hair, her eyes narrowed into a gaze that was either smug or concerned. He couldn't rightly tell which. "Don't worry, big guy, you're not on trial here. Just interested in what's going on in there, s'all."
John could feel his face flushing further. He was certain he knew exactly how weird he'd looked in that moment, and he was just glad to have dodged the bullet of having to explain further. He wasn't sure if he could.
He might have expected a number of things from the situation - most likely Amelia going and getting dressed - but as she forced his noteputer shut, walking around the couch, and sat down next to him, he had to admit to himself that things were far, far from expectations.
"I've made an executive decision." she proclaimed, leaning against his side and hugging his arm - forcing it to rest against her belly in the process - as soon as he'd turned around. "Which is that, to save you from toasting your own brain overthinking things, we're going to watch a movie tonight. Got any preferences?"
Scratching his cheek, John glanced over to her smiling face and the gears in his mind ground to a halt. "Fuck", he thought, "She smells so nice."
A few seconds later, he managed to piece together a response, glancing away in the process. "Well, uh… I don't really have anything I feel like rewatching right now, or any series I'm in the mood for, so I guess we could just pick randomly?"
With nearly a millennium of movies to sort through, there was little even an index could do to sort through it all. On the other hand, hitting the random button was generally a good way to find something good or, at least, comically terrible to watch.
"Sounds good!" Amy agreed with a chirp, before addressing the speakers in the room. "SHANDRA, please play us a random movie."
"Affirmative." the AI replied. "Playing James Cameron's The Terminator."
As the intro to the film from nine hundred and twenty seven years ago began playing, Amy piped in with a thought John shared. "Do you think I'm related to him, somehow? It'd make a nice name for Marie's brother."
"Chances are good - Clan Cameron was pretty widespread." John answered, before grinning mischievously. "Who knows? Maybe he's your direct ancestor or something."
It later turned out that he, in fact, was, though that search only started when Amy found John burying himself in astrography homework for the third day in a row the next week and needed a new distraction.
He was endlessly grateful to have someone who cared so much, and who knew when and how to save him from himself, though he worried that he might seem like a burden to her with how often it was needed.
---
Scene 4
---
Amelia Cameron had a problem. Not a problem of the sort that came as a sudden surprise, but the sort that crept slowly up on one, as the realization of how fucked one was gradually dawned.
Her big spoon was still awake, and from the glint of the clock it was four AM - they'd been in bed for eight hours already. Where he would normally be a comforting presence as she drifted off, John had been transformed by insomnia into a nonstop low level distraction that kept her from getting any sleep herself. The shifting tempo of his breaths, his 'subtle' attempts to find a comfortable posture, the occasional taps of his fingertips against her almost comically enlarged, firm belly. For a light sleeper, it was a special kind of hell.
The troubles hadn't started tonight - she'd been building to this moment for the last several months, losing more and more hours of sleep at night as his fits of restlessness happened more and more frequently.
The smart thing to do would have been to bring it up at some point. Ask him what was going on, try to work out a resolution. He normally slept like a rock trying its hardest to get wrapped in a mossy, from the word go - the only times she'd ever known him to sleep fitfully were back… well, before and immediately after the rescue operation.
If there was something wrong with his sleep cycle, it could only be a matter of something worrying him. Something about her due date next month, maybe, but that didn't really seem like the full story. Of course, she'd wanted to know and to help this full time - but if there was one thing the big teddy bear couldn't handle, it was anything resembling a confrontation. He folded like a piece of wet lasagna at the first sign of having done something wrong, and she hated seeing him like that. It was like stealing candy from a baby, or calling a puppy a bad dog. Downright fucking criminal.
So instead, she'd put her mind to guesswork. Unfortunately, he was pretty bad about sharing what was bouncing around in his noggin. When they'd first met, he was like a ball of weird energy, moving all over the place and such, talking about this and that and everything someone should've done, really a massive busybody. Then he'd mellowed out hard, and while the shyness was admittedly adorable, it was also a colossal pain in the ass.
The one thing that really stuck out was a few months prior, when he'd revisited Astrography 1 for no apparent reason. Taken at his word, he might have just found that interesting, but it seemed more likely that something about it was stuck in his head. How was it that Foreword Guy said it again? If she recalled correctly, it was a duty to learn and apply what was on display there, per his specifications. If John was worried about a conflict of duties, as though he was stuck between fulfilling a 'duty' to the architects of the Invisible Palace and family matters, well… she wanted to help him resolve those worries, but she also hadn't wanted to scare him by jumping him with questions. So she'd waited to see if he'd breach the topic himself.
That was then, though, and this was now. Things had reached the point of absurdity, and she needed to act now to preserve her very sanity. If it was this bad now, how the hell was she supposed to sleep at all once they had two tiny, little babies depending on them for literally everything, at all hours of the day?
Exhaling sharply, she shifted against him, feeling her skin shift over her shoulder bone as she rubbed against the top of his abs. "Can't sleep?"
The sound of his breathing stopped, and his full body froze. It was like he thought she would forget he was there if he didn't move.
"Nice try." she thought, allowing herself a giggle, before launching her second attack - a soft singsong. "Peeenny for your thoughts?"
Groaning a bit, he gave her a gentle hug before he replied. "How'd you figure?"
Amy pulled away a bit, scooted up the bed, and rolled to face John before dignifying that with a response, wearing her sweetest smile in the faint hope that his eyes were dark adapted enough to have a snowball's chance in hell of seeing. "Need the full list? Well, okay then - first, you snore when you sleep - and it's loud. Second, you don't move, even a little. Third, you're basically completely unresponsive - when you're seriously asleep, I can wake up, force my way out of your grip, get out of bed, turn the lights on, adjust the air conditioning, make myself a grilled cheese sandwich, eat it, come back, turn the lights off, get in bed, and put everything back how it was… and you don't do a thing in that time."
The response was about what she'd expected. "...have you seriously…?"
"Once." she admitted, leaning in across the enforced minimum distance her gut created and planting a kiss on his cheek. "Anyways, for whatever reason, that's all therapeutic to me. Helps me get to sleep, which means I know you've been sleeping poorly lately. That only happens when...something's bothering you, and I want to help with that."
John let out a hiss like a teakettle while he was thinking. "I can't… it's not… it's not fair to you. You shouldn't have to worry about this. I shouldn't be worrying about this. It's just an unreasonable… it's stuck in my head, even though I know it's wrong."
Rolling her eyes served little purpose under the circumstances, but she did it anyways. "Well, tough. You're worried about it, I'm worried about it, let's worry about it together until we can stop worrying about it. Are you telling me that if you got hurt, and you couldn't wipe your own ass anymore, you wouldn't want me to worry about it? Because that's not how this relationship works, buddy."
He let out a snort. That was good, it meant she'd set the mood right. Any other noise would have been grounds for concern. "Well, I've been thinking."
As introductory phrases went, there might have been one that meant less than that, but Amelia didn't know what it was.
"Obviously," he continued. "The Invisible Palace hasn't worked out the way anyone planned it. There should have been tens of thousands of people down here, by now. The plan, if it's salvageable at all...practically speaking, we should be looking for people we trust enough to bring down here, so that in a few centuries, if conditions still require it, the plan can still launch as normal, if it's still necessary at all. It's the safest plan, especially now that we're...well, going to be parents for the rest of our lives, and busy parents for the next who-knows-how-long. But…"
But was right. It was a terrible plan, only really good for personal comfort. There was no way someone that prone to worrying could survive the guilt of doing nothing. Hell, if conditions improved by then, that'd essentially mean the whole place had gone to waste. It was, however, incredibly heartwarming and comforting to hear him admit that part of his emotional turmoil was about their safety.
"I don't know if it's possible for me to live with the knowledge that, every day, by example, I'll be teaching James and Marie that it's okay to kick an obvious, terrible problem down the calendar until it's someone else's business." he admitted, pressing his face into Amy's shoulder. "Especially not when so many people are living in the worst desperation imaginable. So on the one hand, in the back of my mind I'm constantly wondering how we could make a difference sooner. How we could fulfill the goal, even if it's not a sure shot, even if it's not safe, and make the world a better place. And on the other hand...I can't ask you to take that risk, and I certainly can't ask two kids who aren't even born yet to take that risk."
Well, it would be easy enough for Amy to answer that concern. "Then I'll ask you. John Cameron-Amaris, will you come with me on my batshit insane, horribly dangerous interstellar quest to teach my babies a good example of how to live as an upstanding fucking member of society?"
The strangled laughter John struggled to hold back at that moment was music to her ears. "If you insist...yes, I suppose."
"Good. Then let's go the fuck to sleep."
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Chapter 5 (April 2911 - July 2911)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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Some things were easier said than done.
With an ill-conceived pledge made in the middle of the night by two sleep deprivation victims, it went a step easier. It was easier to say than to commit to. The idealism was still hot, but with a few hours of sleep in their heads both realized it was incumbent on them to at least explore the possibilities ahead of them more deeply.
"We could try to finance a slow-burn strategy by re-releasing old movies." John mused, cupping his chin as he glanced over a thoroughly abbreviated manifest they'd printed out. "We've got zettabytes of the things, after all. Gotta be something in there that'd make a big splash with collectors."
Raising an eyebrow, Amy rolled a bit so that her cheek rested on the table rather than her chin. "That would be safer than trying to hawk lost technology around to fund an enterprise. The five great tumors aren't exactly likely to come to Terra to finish the job over the complete cinematic works of George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino. Though...it's impossible to rule it out completely. Hard to say how paranoid people would be about the possibility of something else surviving in that media library, so they might still get excited about the possibility of...iunno, edutainment content or something - particularly if we released anything by James Cameron for them to catch a case of 'he's a Cameron, it must be a military secret' off of. Where do we go from there if it doesn't get the homeworld toasted, though? At the end of the day, we're still 'a pair of mountain kids who found a real cinephile's home media library' if we go this way."
"Yeah, it'd be hard to create a natural seeming bridge from the farmer's market to the big business world in that plan…" John admitted, laying his face down atop the printout.
Out of fairness to the unborn, the pair had decided to give some serious, joint analysis to the practicality of a proactive strategy that didn't involve heading offworld at any point. Inevitably, the concept of trying to create some local powerbase ran into the issue of financing. The liquid assets they held represented admirable savings for a couple their age, but they were ultimately nothing to shape the world with. The Invisible Palace didn't have any of the money of the era, either - its doors closed long before the Comstar Bill was introduced, and evidently the concept of stockpiling H-Bills had been one of the few blindspots for its creators. The various vaults were full of an almost impossible to catalogue array of priceless goods, but people who saw the last full-blown nuclear exchanges were still a ways from retirement, and any hinting at the true magnitude of their find could easily see the center of the Inner Sphere erupt in hellfire once again.
The fact that their lawful First Lord was merely exerting her birthright would not matter to them in the least. Legitimacy had always meant nothing more than a fig leaf to them, and it would always continue to mean nothing more than a fig leaf to them.
"This would be so much simpler if we could at least trust Comstar." John cried.
Rolling her eyes, Amy gazed up at the ceiling. "There's a skeleton in every closet. Let's not find out what the robes are hiding, if we can avoid it. Even in the best possible case, they'd probably turn on us if they ever got a genetic sample from you into a lab. I'm not risking letting anyone hurt you, now or ever."
Sighing had become quite played out that day, but a happy sigh was enough to break the monotony. "...Thank you. How about we try a different tack - assuming we can somehow get the money to start something serious up...then what? Even if it's just a textbook publisher, a university, or a last-gen factory, that sort of forward motion could still lead to..."
John's arms splayed out wide, mirroring the stalk of a mushroom cloud. As allusions to the relatively recent annihilation of the supermajority of human life went, it was...uninspired.
"Movies make this kind of shit seem way too easy." came the agreement, his wife sitting up in her chair. "A cinematographer would probably just have it all come down to a big, stupid gunfight where the heroes win by the skin of their teeth, rather than a slow buildup cut short by a pure-fusion apocalypse. Do we go back to the intergenerational concept? It's probably possible to play it a little more proactively than just gathering people now and waiting in the bunker - if we play our cards right, we could at least make the transition from weird mountain kids to a family of influential figures seem… more natural."
John's groan left no room to carry on with that topic. Great as the flaws of proactive approaches seemed to be, he simply couldn't bring himself to tolerate a slowboat approach where their great grandchildren were made responsible for fixing their own forebears' mistakes.
"We could maybe try infiltrating Comstar but...that probably has all the troubles of coming out to them, and more." Amelia tested, before abandoning the idea.
"I think the best, most practical plan to make…" John began, lacking energy in his voice. "Would be one based on the presumption that we're going to somehow come by the billions of C-Bills it would take to make a serious go at setting up outside of charted space, and focus on the particulars of what we're going to smuggle out there, and how. Plus, what we're going to pick up through legitimate channels once we're out in the void. It's really feeling like anything we do under the watch of the powers that be can only end in armageddon if it's not so slow as to make essentially no distance. Go over the star charts, the records, pick a good spot. That sort of thing. The Great Houses are still smashing each-other with plenty of momentum, so with good enough preparations… if we can ever seriously launch an attempt, we might have a chance to eclipse them out in the black, where they aren't looking. Anything else seems...impracticable."
As he yawned, Amy looked at him, a bit sullen. "Yeah."
Silently, John blamed himself for the situation. If he'd just managed his father better, if he'd managed to play the part of the dutiful son… Perhaps the family holdings would have sold for enough to act on their ideals.
He could never share these thoughts with Amy - she'd stop at nothing to bring him back to his right mind, which would only make him feel worse about his fuckups.
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Scene 2
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The decision to plan from a position of optimism had done wonders for day to day mood, all in all. Taking it as a given that they would, somehow, manage to scrape together the resources needed to finance a colonial expedition, the small family had poured the time they had to themselves between the fundamentals of day to day life - eating, sleeping, bathing, baking, preserving, and making their trips down to their home away from home - into a more comprehensive accounting of what they had - what they could bring to bear.
Alas, they had only just come to realize how spoiled for choice they were - how selective they would need to be in choosing what to smuggle offworld from the vast resource the greatest empire in existence had prepared for them - when it happened. Their spare time shrunk vastly, their lifestyle changed completely.
Amelia peaked her head into the room, bags under her eyes, and smiled as she saw John pouring over a veritable herd of noteputers arranged on the table, their screens each focusing on something different. Approaching swiftly, she slid in close and wrapped herself around him, luxuriating in how she could once again approach closer than had ever been possible before the birth, and in the full body twitch he underwent as his laser-focus was breached. "It wasn't easy, but I've got'em sleeping soundly again. Had any big eureka moments while I was out?"
Relaxing his muscles after their brief moment of tension, John wrapped his arm around Amy with a contented sigh. "It's going to sound weird, but I think we've got to shelve the idea of going to the deep periphery. There's something much closer and so much less speculative, yet probably no less safe - maybe safer - in the inventory of near periphery surveys. We could sort through these old deep exploration reports until a new age of peace reigns and I doubt we'd find a similar opportunity."
Perking up from her exhaustion at that unusual conclusion, Amy pulled herself up John's surplus height by gripping his shoulders, meeting his gaze with level eye contact. "How the heck is a spot in the near periphery supposed to beat the safety of not being in an existing power's back yard? That's the whole reason we were looking at the deep periphery as an option."
Grinning as he wrapped his arms under Amy and stole the job of supporting her weight, John planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. "That's the amazing thing about it - might as well not be bordering a successor state at all. The nearest neighbor is the Free Worlds League, and not even a particularly important part of it."
Rolling her eyes, Amy nonetheless basked in the familiar, comforting gesture of being lifted as she pondered that. "Okay. Granted. That may as well not count. Though… isn't there a pirate haven in the region? I remember hearing something like that on the C-News."
"Circinus is far coreward of what I'm thinking of - I remember that broadcast, and the reports came from primarily Lyran world. Old surveys seem to indicate that there are two whole protostates between them and where I'm thinking of. Granted, we'll have some proximity to the League's Rim Commonality, but... well, as provinces go, that's a hell of a lame duck, no?" the explanation trailed off.
"So it's a safe spot." Amy allowed, signalling to be let down so she could survey the screens herself. "But if it were just safe, you wouldn't be arguing for it over the deep periphery. You're really confident that this place has good growth prospects?"
"Completely and utterly." John agreed as he set Amelia down, indicating towards one of the screens. "For one, the whole region is a bit of a swiss cheese of old installations we might hit to make up for having to leave so much behind here. For two, the planet itself is a former colony with proven advantages - principal among them being, at the time of the civil war it was seen as one of the most lucrative germanium pits in charted space. In exchange for outside goods, the natives provided labor for a speculative germanium mine that ended up producing materials for dozens of jumpships every year, until the civil war."
Germanium being the lifeblood of a viable interstellar state, good mining prospects were essentially indispensable when it came to siting a capital and industrial hub. One of the greatest advantages the Invisible Palace brought with it was the promise that, if they got stuck in properly, the pair could lead their expedition down the road to stand up shipyards faster than the Sphere could tear their own down. A cheaper than normal supply of germanium would vastly lessen the necessary support infrastructure.
"And the fact that the place has 'natives' means we'll have more people than we can scrounge up on the way there to work with." Amy noted, following along with the train of thought she assumed John had had while she was tending to the twins. "Assuming they haven't managed to annihilate themselves in the past century and a half."
Snorting, John shook his head. "Given that they were just mastering the caplock when their world was last on any maps, I doubt they've found a way to do something like that. They numbered somewhere over a hundred million, apparently, with ironclads perhaps on the horizon. Optimistically, we might find them working with steam boilers, early electricity, even some sort of education system if we show up now. Good consolation prize to modernize off of, to make up for not being able to slip past customs with, say, a Class A Assembler stashed in our boots. Assuming, as always, that we don't find a boot that securely carries four hundred tons of sensitive machinery without a bulge."
Dusting off that joke - originally tossed at a time when she was even more exhausted - was akin to a declaration of war - shots had been fired, and it was time to shoot back in good fun. "Your feet might just be big enough, if we do. Now, you've talked a good game about upsides, but aside from the fact that the locals are primitive, what's not to love about the place? Why hasn't someone kept such a prime mining spot in the loop?"
Rather than panicking and freezing up like he'd bitten into a lemon expecting an apple, John smiled knowingly and spoke frankly. "Well, aside from its distance to any shipyards making it impractical to mine with reduced fleet sizes… on the whole, the planet's kind of a badland. From a strictly definitional perspective, very little of the surface is actually desert, owing to the spread of oceans and deserts, but the GIS data shows that you'd have a hard time telling as much. The problem is that, outside of the highlands, the most common species of stone is, by far, limestone and all that forms with it. The result is that in almost all the places you would expect farms to flourish based on rainfall, there are fairly developed karst features that keep the surface unpleasantly dry. The locals were happy to trade for better ways to pump irrigation water up from the water table, outside of the prime territory."
"Sounds...manageable. So, you want to bet on a forgotten dustbowl, in the ass end of nowhere, that just happens to be great for mining?" Amy asked for confirmation. "What's it called?"
"That's essentially what it is, yeah." John agreed. "As for the name, that's a bit of a confusing point, because on practically the opposite end of the League there's another world by the name - Alphard."
At that moment, a small, crying voice rang out and was quickly joined by another.
"Yeah, it's my turn." John acknowledged, rising to his feet to address the very unhappy campers in the other room.
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Scene 3
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Life didn't stop just because you were a parent, and life didn't stop just because you were making plans to unify a premodern world as the throne of a new interstellar nation. June was well in swing - nearing its end, actually - and that meant that the summer farmer's market had come again with all of its trappings.
James and Marie, nearly two months old, were weird children by the standards of everyone passing by. To hear it from Rosie's daughter, who was - poetically enough - a pediatrician, they looked and acted more like three month olds. Weird three month olds.
What had started as a one-off while the couple had tried to adjust to the dual burden on their time had become a regular occurrence because, against all common wisdom, the two infants had no fear of the endless barrage of strangers. They cooed, overjoyed, at the visual stimulation of the passing crowd, made their demands of Amy when hungry, and then napped like logs, noise levels notwithstanding.
It was enough to make a young'n wonder - had they been a weird baby? Had they been a weird child? Were they weird?
They'd settled on probably - in all likelihood, these were early signs of the proprietary genetic improvements made to their forebears shining through.
John smiled as he saw Rosie blowing raspberries at the kids. She'd gotten attached to them at the speed of lightning, which guaranteed that she didn't have the time at their stall to ride his ass about not having a permanent storefront or stable job. At least, not for long. The smug glances Amy shot at him whenever the doctor cut one of her rants short made him think that, perhaps, she might have said something to the old lady, though.
It was just nice not being tarred with the full blame for decisions made as a couple. Even if it was understandable, given the impossible-to-disclose rationale behind those decisions.
As Rosie's gaze turned to him suddenly, his blood froze over. He knew it couldn't go on peacefully for that long. "You know, Jack, I've been asking around at my book club, and I've been introduced to a really nice realtor who could find you two a place to set up shop - there are quite a few vacant two stories downtown, with mixed zoning. Just in case you'd like to come down from the mountains one last time when you get around to opening a real store."
Stifling a sigh of relief at the better-than-expected topic, the young man cupped his chin as he considered the statement, or at least parts of it. Moving into town was a definite no-go Amy and he had set down in stone years ago, but the way things were going, the slim chance of lucking into founding a bakery empire might actually be the best chance they had of funding any serious progress, in a bizarre way. "I don't think moving away from the farm would work out well, but if there's a chance we can get a good spot to open up shop and the rent isn't extortionate, I'd definitely welcome a referral. Thanks!"
The doctor's face drifted through a wide range of expressions - she certainly wasn't used to actually getting that many words out of him - before she sighed and threw down a business card on the counter. "That's their office. You don't have a phone, so I guess you'll just have to head back in. Good to see you're finally getting your head screwed on straight - if only a little bit."
Having said her piece, she hoisted up her bag of purchases - already paid for, of course - and began to walk away, waving goodbye to the little ones as she moved away.
"You think this is what having a grandma is like?" Amy asked with a yawn, stretching her arms above her head with a pop.
John had to mentally distance himself from his memories of his actual grandmothers to begin to answer that question in a way that wouldn't ruin the mood too much. "Probably? I mean, she's an actual grandmother, so I've gotta figure she might just be treating us like her grandkids?"
Grinning, Amelia took the opportunity to stretch the speculation to its absolute limits. "...Meanwhile, we're like the rebellious grandkids who're trying to start a band instead of getting a respectable job?"
There were a number of responses to that joke that would have completed it - would have made it funny. John decided to go for a really, really lame one instead. "I've got the piano, you've got the kazoo. Is it just me, or do you think we're going to the top of the rock charts too?"
As Amy busted out laughing, exactly as he'd predicted, John turned his attention to the customer who'd just approached. It was an older gentleman, and he looked more than a little bit confused, glancing around the stall without saying anything. Kind of familiar looking, actually.
"Oh." John began, trying to head off any potential heartache about not finding the stall he was looking for. "If you're here for the meadery, their stall is here tomorrow. If not, well, we've got bread and preserves here, and I can probably point you to any number of other places you might be looking for."
Breaking out of her hysterical laughter as she realized someone was watching, Amy took the opportunity to add to that, making eye contact with the man in the process. "We can recommend specific pairings of toppings with bread, if you like. Not really a recipe book, but...notes we can share!"
Partially covering his mouth, pointer finger at the bottom of his nose and middle finger reaching to his cheek, the old man shook his head as he surveyed the pair. Eventually, though, he spoke up in a low voice. "My god. John O'Reilly? And the festival girl? You eloped?"
If he weren't already sweating, the fan having been reserved for the needs of the babies, John would have broken out in a cold sweat. He felt like his heart had stopped. Moments later, he realized where he recognized the man from. He was the medic from all those years ago, aged by around a decade of intervening time. John rose quickly, resting a hand on the man's shoulder. "Shh! I don't answer to that anymore."
Chuckling, the man who'd given him what might well have been his first c-bill nodded. "Guess I shouldn't have blurted it out like that. You've clearly come a long way to get down here. You know, between the fire, the thunderstorm, and your bodyguard's death, it's just sort of been accepted that you're dead. If it weren't for your lovely wife's eyes, I probably wouldn't have recognized you myself!"
"Amy does have her way of standing out." John admitted, casting a wry grin her way. "I'm Jack, these days. What brings you down here, Mr… er, I'm afraid I don't remember your name?"
Stroking his beard, the aged medic shrugged. "Did I ever tell you? Well, name's Chuck. No need to exchange lasts here. My great-grandson was just born, so I came down to spend time with the family, maybe move in - my daughter moved down here ages ago, so it's really just me up north, these days. Hell of a coincidence that we're in the same town now."
"We're actually out in the mountains." Amy admitted, jumping into the conversations. "It's easier to be sure we won't run into anyone we know from back there - no offenses - if we're in town less often, and we've got a nice place besides. Looking at setting up a more permanent presence in town, though, especially if Joh- er, Jack's father isn't looking for him."
Clicking his tongue suddenly, Chuck slapped his thigh. "Damn. That's what it was - almost slipped my mind." he began, turning his gaze slowly to John. "You'll probably want to hear this, kid. I'm not strictly allowed to tell you this, but I didn't get this far in life by bowing down to the rules when it seemed wrong. Truth is, your dad probably won't be long for this world now. 'bout two years ago, he stopped appearing in public, except about once every month when he's got to go to the hospital, instead of bringing the hospital to him. I don't know what the detailed picture is, but by all accounts he could die any day now. I know you've got your reasons for running away, for hiding… but if you go back now, even just for a day, you might be able to secure your inheritance."
John couldn't breath. He felt dizzy, his head was swimming, and...suddenly, he could only see the counter. There was an awful lot of noise, but damn his forehead hurt.
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Scene 4
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It was pure luck that the meeting could take place at all. Whether it was good luck or bad luck, John didn't know.
Working through his own primal urge to stay away from that house had taken a week. Doing the research had taken a week. Finding a lawyer had taken a week. Securing a measly five minutes in the slug's presence had taken a week.
His old man could hypothetically have croaked at any time in that month, and it would have made everything so much easier...and simultaneously, so much harder.
As he stood in front of the last door between him and the heart of darkness, he wondered why he was shaking in his boots so much. As little as five years ago, he'd mouthed off to this man at his pleasure, and the only real control mechanism the man had ever held over his head was gone and buried. His hand found Amy's, in search of comfort, but he couldn't secure a solid grip through his sweat. It was only as she reinforced the gesture from her end that he was able to breath softly.
James and Marie were safe in Rosie's care for the day. Bless her heart, that meant that they wouldn't need to watch a second of this dirty business.
The head butler, an aged man John had no familiarity with, sneered down his nose as he placed his hand on the door. "Do nothing to distress the master, you despicable lowlifes. I will be watching, and I will remove you. Even should you behave yourselves, in five minutes - plenty of time for your charade to fail - I will escort you out."
John exhaled heavily, but couldn't find his words. The building's air conditioning was tense, but the sweat didn't stop flowing.
"We haven't forgotten any of that since we were at the front door." Amy spat, squeezing John's hand tighter. "We're not going to throw away an inheritance over an issue of attitude."
Hissing, the diminutive greybeard began to push the door open with a frown. "Your visitors, master O'Reilly."
The center of the room was given over to a great bed, and the greater part of the bed entirely to the blob that Amos O'Reilly had become. A mask was affixed to his face, linking over to a machine to the left of the bed, while numerous beeping terminals to the right connected to pads on, and tubes entering, his chest. His face was wrinkled, and his hair greyed, beyond anything that should have been reasonably possible in such a short time, and as John and Amy approached the bedside he barely shifted to acknowledge them, his heartrate barely changing. His voice had a gurgling rasp to it as he forced it out. "So, then, you would be my son this week? You are not the first giant to insult his memory. Nor the first to bring a significant other, to try and pander to my humanity."
John stood stiff and silent, regarding the husk of a man with invisible panic. How, he wondered, could the sight of such a withered form fill him with dread?
Amy gritted her teeth, barely holding herself back from sinking the whole meeting.
"You know, most pretenders attempt to establish their credibility through words, or somesuch manner of deed. My son was hardly silent as he should have been." the blob uttered, shifting almost imperceptibly.
John bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, and it was that which gave him the strength to speak up. "Terribly sorry about that." he began slowly and quietly, his voice icier than the poles had been for almost a millennium. "I was simply wondering which burn scar I should show you - the ring on my head, from your teacup, or one of the marks from Sparkes' 'little rebukes'."
The heart rate monitor soared, and in an instant the butler was crossing the room. "I am afraid you've worn out your welcome, cur."
A flabby, leaden arm rose from the bed in a halting gesture, the heart rate gradually returning to its baseline. "Begone, Rosenthal. This is him, and I've no further need of you."
Unseen, Amy pushed a button through the fabric of one pocket.
Sputtering, the sharply dressed man recoiled, his face reddening by the second, before he quickly retreated from the room, leaving the door to shut behind him.
"So, Jack, you've dared to return to my presence… with the very emblem of your indiscretions at your side." that which had been Amos Furlough O'Reilly hissed, making a brief struggle to rise from his sheets into a sitting posture. "This whore of yours is not blood. I don't know what foolishness possessed you to come back here, but you'll reap nothing from it - a course once chosen can't be changed. Perhaps...just perhaps… you won't leave at all, today. Did you consider that, child?"
Now red in the face, Amy did not hold back from confronting her father-in-law now that their chaperone was gone. "You're damn right I'm not part of your incestuous little clan. A splash of fresh blood does a world of good from time to time, you know! If you compared our babies to your sister-cousin's babies, you'd realize that in a heartbeat."
John gave her a bemused look over that, wondering if she realized she'd just called him inbred. It was technically true, but still.
His heart rate climbing even higher than before, Amos ever so briefly managed to rise enough to make eye contact. "Wench, if you knew the damnation you'd brought onto your line, you would be the first to pour fuel for your pyre."
Smiling bitterly, she glared down at the near-carcass and whispered. "I'm afraid you're late to try that scare tactic. Quite literally the first time he and I met, John told me about the Amaris connection."
"You… how?" the man screeched, before hardening his expression. "I do not know how he discovered that. He would not have been told for many years yet, had he not disappeared - with your assistance, I presume. But you, you revel in the blood of sin. In mixing lines with the enemy of humanity. You disgust me."
"I did not marry 'John Amaris'!" Amy spat, kicking the foot of the bed. "I married John, my savior, my first friend, my love. I 'revel' in raising two beautiful babies that sleep just like him, because our connection is more important than any regressive worship of the meaning behind blood. In its own way, the dark legacy you gave him is what saved me from a cold, timeless death, and I will not stand by as you insult him for how he's used it! Not when you, beneficiary of all the filthy wealth it's brought, have done nothing but benefit your own selfish line."
Amos turned his gaze to stare at John, failing to comprehend what the boy could possibly have done.
"I should introduce her." John mused, staring spitefully down at his father but gesturing to his wife. "Amelia Gawther...nee Cameron. Daughter of Richard Cameron, last of the First Lords. Stefan missed one, and his tainted blood just so happened to be essential to freeing her from her cold sleep."
"What a load of bullshit." the old man spat. "If you wanted to awe me with some hogwash, you could have put more time into it than that. I'm not going to reinstate your inheritance just because you cooked up a nonsense story about marrying the ultimate victim of our cursed line."
Narrowing his eyes, John pressed harder. "You've been wondering though, haven't you? Where I was hiding, and how I was outpacing the knowledge tests you'd set up despite skipping out on all of your carefully selected tutors? As it happens, our forebears settled down extremely close to the one installation the Traitor's line had access to...but no knowledge of. The last bastion for a Cameron restoration of order - which failed to launch about as badly as it possibly could have. More to it than two people could ever possibly use."
Amos did something unusual, hearing that. He chuckled - an awful sound, to be sure. "Even if that weren't bullshit, why shouldn't I simply have you taken into custody, the location of the place squeezed out of you, and make our family ever richer? Why do you even want the inheritance, if you've got all of that?"
"You wouldn't do that." Amy shot back. "You couldn't do that, in fact. When it comes to leaning on the privileges you've inherited, you're fine with it, but you're as far from ambitious as it gets. Just a garden variety scumbag. You said it yourself - your family is a cursed line. You hate what you are, but you're clearly too lazy and too scared to do the right thing. But you're going to die soon - and when you do, it won't take any effort to help us with doing what's right, and we won't even be sticking around to risk the coveted secrecy of your heritage."
"What's right!" Amos shouted, before restraining his voice once more. "No amount of what's right will ever measure up to the sin of destroying the Star League. The world will never forgive your blood, and you'll never live without fearing for your lives. Mixing Amaris and Cameron… that will not make it any better. It's a blasphemy fit to make it even worse."
Resting his palms on the railing at the foot of the bed, John shook his head. "Even if forgiveness never comes, repentance is worth it. For me, repentance depends on your side of things. It's impossible for us to do what needs to be done, with just Amy's inheritance. For all we've got on our hands, not a bit of it is liquid assets, and none of it will let us smuggle a whole Castle Brian off world. With your help, it's possible - just possible - that we can found something that could, one day, be as good - even better than, the Star League. That's the repentance. All you need to do is acknowledge my identity, get your will in order, and die."
"Besides which…" Amy began, glancing around the room. "We came armed, despite the best efforts of your scanner, so if your plan depends on seizing us, that probably won't work. And if you were, say, to let us go, but play around with your will… the law under Comstar doesn't allow disinheritance of one's heir apparent. If you weren't to acknowledge John as himself… well, I taped that part - multi-party consent is a strange doctrine. We came prepared for a legal battle, essentially, which I'm guessing isn't what you planned for."
"And if the room were bugged - it isn't, let alone enough to pick up whispers - or if it seemed I were going to betray you…" Amos muttered, a grudging respect audible in his voice. "You would just kill me now, torch the house, and hide until nobody even remembered I ever drew breath. You're the arsonist, aren't you? The one who shot Mr. Sparkes? Good shot, for a half blind girl. Are you sure that your blood isn't colder than mine?"
Snorting, Amy gazed down with half lidded eyes. "Quite."
A moment later, Amos loosed another slow chuckle. "There's something you haven't accounted for in all of this, or so it seems to me. I may speak for house O'Reilly, but the other Amaris remnants… I would not expect them to stand silently by when my will is read. I can, perhaps, keep it away from their eyes until then, with the vastness of the resources at my disposal… but they will act swiftly to remove you, even if no legal challenge would stand. How, pray tell, do you mean to avoid the hit teams they will doubtless send, to secure what they see as their inheritance, and your silence?"
John wore a peaceful expression as he gazed up to the ceiling. "Ah, you see… that's the joy of it all. We've already been in talks with Comstar about selling the estate. With your help, that's proof of identity. Now all we need is proof of ownership. The day you die - the day that will gets read by an agent of the government - will be the day we sign the final bill of sale in front of a spaceport notary. The day we disappear off of their radar forever. It'll only get easier if we - the two of us and you - can agree on a date for all of this. I doubt the government will be too eager to question the validity of a deal it seems so eager to make. Besides, if the others don't know I'm alive, a will that names me as inheritor will seem like unenforceable senility to them - it'll take them a hot second to realize they didn't get anything."
Scene 1
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Some things were easier said than done.
With an ill-conceived pledge made in the middle of the night by two sleep deprivation victims, it went a step easier. It was easier to say than to commit to. The idealism was still hot, but with a few hours of sleep in their heads both realized it was incumbent on them to at least explore the possibilities ahead of them more deeply.
"We could try to finance a slow-burn strategy by re-releasing old movies." John mused, cupping his chin as he glanced over a thoroughly abbreviated manifest they'd printed out. "We've got zettabytes of the things, after all. Gotta be something in there that'd make a big splash with collectors."
Raising an eyebrow, Amy rolled a bit so that her cheek rested on the table rather than her chin. "That would be safer than trying to hawk lost technology around to fund an enterprise. The five great tumors aren't exactly likely to come to Terra to finish the job over the complete cinematic works of George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino. Though...it's impossible to rule it out completely. Hard to say how paranoid people would be about the possibility of something else surviving in that media library, so they might still get excited about the possibility of...iunno, edutainment content or something - particularly if we released anything by James Cameron for them to catch a case of 'he's a Cameron, it must be a military secret' off of. Where do we go from there if it doesn't get the homeworld toasted, though? At the end of the day, we're still 'a pair of mountain kids who found a real cinephile's home media library' if we go this way."
"Yeah, it'd be hard to create a natural seeming bridge from the farmer's market to the big business world in that plan…" John admitted, laying his face down atop the printout.
Out of fairness to the unborn, the pair had decided to give some serious, joint analysis to the practicality of a proactive strategy that didn't involve heading offworld at any point. Inevitably, the concept of trying to create some local powerbase ran into the issue of financing. The liquid assets they held represented admirable savings for a couple their age, but they were ultimately nothing to shape the world with. The Invisible Palace didn't have any of the money of the era, either - its doors closed long before the Comstar Bill was introduced, and evidently the concept of stockpiling H-Bills had been one of the few blindspots for its creators. The various vaults were full of an almost impossible to catalogue array of priceless goods, but people who saw the last full-blown nuclear exchanges were still a ways from retirement, and any hinting at the true magnitude of their find could easily see the center of the Inner Sphere erupt in hellfire once again.
The fact that their lawful First Lord was merely exerting her birthright would not matter to them in the least. Legitimacy had always meant nothing more than a fig leaf to them, and it would always continue to mean nothing more than a fig leaf to them.
"This would be so much simpler if we could at least trust Comstar." John cried.
Rolling her eyes, Amy gazed up at the ceiling. "There's a skeleton in every closet. Let's not find out what the robes are hiding, if we can avoid it. Even in the best possible case, they'd probably turn on us if they ever got a genetic sample from you into a lab. I'm not risking letting anyone hurt you, now or ever."
Sighing had become quite played out that day, but a happy sigh was enough to break the monotony. "...Thank you. How about we try a different tack - assuming we can somehow get the money to start something serious up...then what? Even if it's just a textbook publisher, a university, or a last-gen factory, that sort of forward motion could still lead to..."
John's arms splayed out wide, mirroring the stalk of a mushroom cloud. As allusions to the relatively recent annihilation of the supermajority of human life went, it was...uninspired.
"Movies make this kind of shit seem way too easy." came the agreement, his wife sitting up in her chair. "A cinematographer would probably just have it all come down to a big, stupid gunfight where the heroes win by the skin of their teeth, rather than a slow buildup cut short by a pure-fusion apocalypse. Do we go back to the intergenerational concept? It's probably possible to play it a little more proactively than just gathering people now and waiting in the bunker - if we play our cards right, we could at least make the transition from weird mountain kids to a family of influential figures seem… more natural."
John's groan left no room to carry on with that topic. Great as the flaws of proactive approaches seemed to be, he simply couldn't bring himself to tolerate a slowboat approach where their great grandchildren were made responsible for fixing their own forebears' mistakes.
"We could maybe try infiltrating Comstar but...that probably has all the troubles of coming out to them, and more." Amelia tested, before abandoning the idea.
"I think the best, most practical plan to make…" John began, lacking energy in his voice. "Would be one based on the presumption that we're going to somehow come by the billions of C-Bills it would take to make a serious go at setting up outside of charted space, and focus on the particulars of what we're going to smuggle out there, and how. Plus, what we're going to pick up through legitimate channels once we're out in the void. It's really feeling like anything we do under the watch of the powers that be can only end in armageddon if it's not so slow as to make essentially no distance. Go over the star charts, the records, pick a good spot. That sort of thing. The Great Houses are still smashing each-other with plenty of momentum, so with good enough preparations… if we can ever seriously launch an attempt, we might have a chance to eclipse them out in the black, where they aren't looking. Anything else seems...impracticable."
As he yawned, Amy looked at him, a bit sullen. "Yeah."
Silently, John blamed himself for the situation. If he'd just managed his father better, if he'd managed to play the part of the dutiful son… Perhaps the family holdings would have sold for enough to act on their ideals.
He could never share these thoughts with Amy - she'd stop at nothing to bring him back to his right mind, which would only make him feel worse about his fuckups.
---
Scene 2
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The decision to plan from a position of optimism had done wonders for day to day mood, all in all. Taking it as a given that they would, somehow, manage to scrape together the resources needed to finance a colonial expedition, the small family had poured the time they had to themselves between the fundamentals of day to day life - eating, sleeping, bathing, baking, preserving, and making their trips down to their home away from home - into a more comprehensive accounting of what they had - what they could bring to bear.
Alas, they had only just come to realize how spoiled for choice they were - how selective they would need to be in choosing what to smuggle offworld from the vast resource the greatest empire in existence had prepared for them - when it happened. Their spare time shrunk vastly, their lifestyle changed completely.
Amelia peaked her head into the room, bags under her eyes, and smiled as she saw John pouring over a veritable herd of noteputers arranged on the table, their screens each focusing on something different. Approaching swiftly, she slid in close and wrapped herself around him, luxuriating in how she could once again approach closer than had ever been possible before the birth, and in the full body twitch he underwent as his laser-focus was breached. "It wasn't easy, but I've got'em sleeping soundly again. Had any big eureka moments while I was out?"
Relaxing his muscles after their brief moment of tension, John wrapped his arm around Amy with a contented sigh. "It's going to sound weird, but I think we've got to shelve the idea of going to the deep periphery. There's something much closer and so much less speculative, yet probably no less safe - maybe safer - in the inventory of near periphery surveys. We could sort through these old deep exploration reports until a new age of peace reigns and I doubt we'd find a similar opportunity."
Perking up from her exhaustion at that unusual conclusion, Amy pulled herself up John's surplus height by gripping his shoulders, meeting his gaze with level eye contact. "How the heck is a spot in the near periphery supposed to beat the safety of not being in an existing power's back yard? That's the whole reason we were looking at the deep periphery as an option."
Grinning as he wrapped his arms under Amy and stole the job of supporting her weight, John planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. "That's the amazing thing about it - might as well not be bordering a successor state at all. The nearest neighbor is the Free Worlds League, and not even a particularly important part of it."
Rolling her eyes, Amy nonetheless basked in the familiar, comforting gesture of being lifted as she pondered that. "Okay. Granted. That may as well not count. Though… isn't there a pirate haven in the region? I remember hearing something like that on the C-News."
"Circinus is far coreward of what I'm thinking of - I remember that broadcast, and the reports came from primarily Lyran world. Old surveys seem to indicate that there are two whole protostates between them and where I'm thinking of. Granted, we'll have some proximity to the League's Rim Commonality, but... well, as provinces go, that's a hell of a lame duck, no?" the explanation trailed off.
"So it's a safe spot." Amy allowed, signalling to be let down so she could survey the screens herself. "But if it were just safe, you wouldn't be arguing for it over the deep periphery. You're really confident that this place has good growth prospects?"
"Completely and utterly." John agreed as he set Amelia down, indicating towards one of the screens. "For one, the whole region is a bit of a swiss cheese of old installations we might hit to make up for having to leave so much behind here. For two, the planet itself is a former colony with proven advantages - principal among them being, at the time of the civil war it was seen as one of the most lucrative germanium pits in charted space. In exchange for outside goods, the natives provided labor for a speculative germanium mine that ended up producing materials for dozens of jumpships every year, until the civil war."
Germanium being the lifeblood of a viable interstellar state, good mining prospects were essentially indispensable when it came to siting a capital and industrial hub. One of the greatest advantages the Invisible Palace brought with it was the promise that, if they got stuck in properly, the pair could lead their expedition down the road to stand up shipyards faster than the Sphere could tear their own down. A cheaper than normal supply of germanium would vastly lessen the necessary support infrastructure.
"And the fact that the place has 'natives' means we'll have more people than we can scrounge up on the way there to work with." Amy noted, following along with the train of thought she assumed John had had while she was tending to the twins. "Assuming they haven't managed to annihilate themselves in the past century and a half."
Snorting, John shook his head. "Given that they were just mastering the caplock when their world was last on any maps, I doubt they've found a way to do something like that. They numbered somewhere over a hundred million, apparently, with ironclads perhaps on the horizon. Optimistically, we might find them working with steam boilers, early electricity, even some sort of education system if we show up now. Good consolation prize to modernize off of, to make up for not being able to slip past customs with, say, a Class A Assembler stashed in our boots. Assuming, as always, that we don't find a boot that securely carries four hundred tons of sensitive machinery without a bulge."
Dusting off that joke - originally tossed at a time when she was even more exhausted - was akin to a declaration of war - shots had been fired, and it was time to shoot back in good fun. "Your feet might just be big enough, if we do. Now, you've talked a good game about upsides, but aside from the fact that the locals are primitive, what's not to love about the place? Why hasn't someone kept such a prime mining spot in the loop?"
Rather than panicking and freezing up like he'd bitten into a lemon expecting an apple, John smiled knowingly and spoke frankly. "Well, aside from its distance to any shipyards making it impractical to mine with reduced fleet sizes… on the whole, the planet's kind of a badland. From a strictly definitional perspective, very little of the surface is actually desert, owing to the spread of oceans and deserts, but the GIS data shows that you'd have a hard time telling as much. The problem is that, outside of the highlands, the most common species of stone is, by far, limestone and all that forms with it. The result is that in almost all the places you would expect farms to flourish based on rainfall, there are fairly developed karst features that keep the surface unpleasantly dry. The locals were happy to trade for better ways to pump irrigation water up from the water table, outside of the prime territory."
"Sounds...manageable. So, you want to bet on a forgotten dustbowl, in the ass end of nowhere, that just happens to be great for mining?" Amy asked for confirmation. "What's it called?"
"That's essentially what it is, yeah." John agreed. "As for the name, that's a bit of a confusing point, because on practically the opposite end of the League there's another world by the name - Alphard."
At that moment, a small, crying voice rang out and was quickly joined by another.
"Yeah, it's my turn." John acknowledged, rising to his feet to address the very unhappy campers in the other room.
---
Scene 3
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Life didn't stop just because you were a parent, and life didn't stop just because you were making plans to unify a premodern world as the throne of a new interstellar nation. June was well in swing - nearing its end, actually - and that meant that the summer farmer's market had come again with all of its trappings.
James and Marie, nearly two months old, were weird children by the standards of everyone passing by. To hear it from Rosie's daughter, who was - poetically enough - a pediatrician, they looked and acted more like three month olds. Weird three month olds.
What had started as a one-off while the couple had tried to adjust to the dual burden on their time had become a regular occurrence because, against all common wisdom, the two infants had no fear of the endless barrage of strangers. They cooed, overjoyed, at the visual stimulation of the passing crowd, made their demands of Amy when hungry, and then napped like logs, noise levels notwithstanding.
It was enough to make a young'n wonder - had they been a weird baby? Had they been a weird child? Were they weird?
They'd settled on probably - in all likelihood, these were early signs of the proprietary genetic improvements made to their forebears shining through.
John smiled as he saw Rosie blowing raspberries at the kids. She'd gotten attached to them at the speed of lightning, which guaranteed that she didn't have the time at their stall to ride his ass about not having a permanent storefront or stable job. At least, not for long. The smug glances Amy shot at him whenever the doctor cut one of her rants short made him think that, perhaps, she might have said something to the old lady, though.
It was just nice not being tarred with the full blame for decisions made as a couple. Even if it was understandable, given the impossible-to-disclose rationale behind those decisions.
As Rosie's gaze turned to him suddenly, his blood froze over. He knew it couldn't go on peacefully for that long. "You know, Jack, I've been asking around at my book club, and I've been introduced to a really nice realtor who could find you two a place to set up shop - there are quite a few vacant two stories downtown, with mixed zoning. Just in case you'd like to come down from the mountains one last time when you get around to opening a real store."
Stifling a sigh of relief at the better-than-expected topic, the young man cupped his chin as he considered the statement, or at least parts of it. Moving into town was a definite no-go Amy and he had set down in stone years ago, but the way things were going, the slim chance of lucking into founding a bakery empire might actually be the best chance they had of funding any serious progress, in a bizarre way. "I don't think moving away from the farm would work out well, but if there's a chance we can get a good spot to open up shop and the rent isn't extortionate, I'd definitely welcome a referral. Thanks!"
The doctor's face drifted through a wide range of expressions - she certainly wasn't used to actually getting that many words out of him - before she sighed and threw down a business card on the counter. "That's their office. You don't have a phone, so I guess you'll just have to head back in. Good to see you're finally getting your head screwed on straight - if only a little bit."
Having said her piece, she hoisted up her bag of purchases - already paid for, of course - and began to walk away, waving goodbye to the little ones as she moved away.
"You think this is what having a grandma is like?" Amy asked with a yawn, stretching her arms above her head with a pop.
John had to mentally distance himself from his memories of his actual grandmothers to begin to answer that question in a way that wouldn't ruin the mood too much. "Probably? I mean, she's an actual grandmother, so I've gotta figure she might just be treating us like her grandkids?"
Grinning, Amelia took the opportunity to stretch the speculation to its absolute limits. "...Meanwhile, we're like the rebellious grandkids who're trying to start a band instead of getting a respectable job?"
There were a number of responses to that joke that would have completed it - would have made it funny. John decided to go for a really, really lame one instead. "I've got the piano, you've got the kazoo. Is it just me, or do you think we're going to the top of the rock charts too?"
As Amy busted out laughing, exactly as he'd predicted, John turned his attention to the customer who'd just approached. It was an older gentleman, and he looked more than a little bit confused, glancing around the stall without saying anything. Kind of familiar looking, actually.
"Oh." John began, trying to head off any potential heartache about not finding the stall he was looking for. "If you're here for the meadery, their stall is here tomorrow. If not, well, we've got bread and preserves here, and I can probably point you to any number of other places you might be looking for."
Breaking out of her hysterical laughter as she realized someone was watching, Amy took the opportunity to add to that, making eye contact with the man in the process. "We can recommend specific pairings of toppings with bread, if you like. Not really a recipe book, but...notes we can share!"
Partially covering his mouth, pointer finger at the bottom of his nose and middle finger reaching to his cheek, the old man shook his head as he surveyed the pair. Eventually, though, he spoke up in a low voice. "My god. John O'Reilly? And the festival girl? You eloped?"
If he weren't already sweating, the fan having been reserved for the needs of the babies, John would have broken out in a cold sweat. He felt like his heart had stopped. Moments later, he realized where he recognized the man from. He was the medic from all those years ago, aged by around a decade of intervening time. John rose quickly, resting a hand on the man's shoulder. "Shh! I don't answer to that anymore."
Chuckling, the man who'd given him what might well have been his first c-bill nodded. "Guess I shouldn't have blurted it out like that. You've clearly come a long way to get down here. You know, between the fire, the thunderstorm, and your bodyguard's death, it's just sort of been accepted that you're dead. If it weren't for your lovely wife's eyes, I probably wouldn't have recognized you myself!"
"Amy does have her way of standing out." John admitted, casting a wry grin her way. "I'm Jack, these days. What brings you down here, Mr… er, I'm afraid I don't remember your name?"
Stroking his beard, the aged medic shrugged. "Did I ever tell you? Well, name's Chuck. No need to exchange lasts here. My great-grandson was just born, so I came down to spend time with the family, maybe move in - my daughter moved down here ages ago, so it's really just me up north, these days. Hell of a coincidence that we're in the same town now."
"We're actually out in the mountains." Amy admitted, jumping into the conversations. "It's easier to be sure we won't run into anyone we know from back there - no offenses - if we're in town less often, and we've got a nice place besides. Looking at setting up a more permanent presence in town, though, especially if Joh- er, Jack's father isn't looking for him."
Clicking his tongue suddenly, Chuck slapped his thigh. "Damn. That's what it was - almost slipped my mind." he began, turning his gaze slowly to John. "You'll probably want to hear this, kid. I'm not strictly allowed to tell you this, but I didn't get this far in life by bowing down to the rules when it seemed wrong. Truth is, your dad probably won't be long for this world now. 'bout two years ago, he stopped appearing in public, except about once every month when he's got to go to the hospital, instead of bringing the hospital to him. I don't know what the detailed picture is, but by all accounts he could die any day now. I know you've got your reasons for running away, for hiding… but if you go back now, even just for a day, you might be able to secure your inheritance."
John couldn't breath. He felt dizzy, his head was swimming, and...suddenly, he could only see the counter. There was an awful lot of noise, but damn his forehead hurt.
---
Scene 4
---
It was pure luck that the meeting could take place at all. Whether it was good luck or bad luck, John didn't know.
Working through his own primal urge to stay away from that house had taken a week. Doing the research had taken a week. Finding a lawyer had taken a week. Securing a measly five minutes in the slug's presence had taken a week.
His old man could hypothetically have croaked at any time in that month, and it would have made everything so much easier...and simultaneously, so much harder.
As he stood in front of the last door between him and the heart of darkness, he wondered why he was shaking in his boots so much. As little as five years ago, he'd mouthed off to this man at his pleasure, and the only real control mechanism the man had ever held over his head was gone and buried. His hand found Amy's, in search of comfort, but he couldn't secure a solid grip through his sweat. It was only as she reinforced the gesture from her end that he was able to breath softly.
James and Marie were safe in Rosie's care for the day. Bless her heart, that meant that they wouldn't need to watch a second of this dirty business.
The head butler, an aged man John had no familiarity with, sneered down his nose as he placed his hand on the door. "Do nothing to distress the master, you despicable lowlifes. I will be watching, and I will remove you. Even should you behave yourselves, in five minutes - plenty of time for your charade to fail - I will escort you out."
John exhaled heavily, but couldn't find his words. The building's air conditioning was tense, but the sweat didn't stop flowing.
"We haven't forgotten any of that since we were at the front door." Amy spat, squeezing John's hand tighter. "We're not going to throw away an inheritance over an issue of attitude."
Hissing, the diminutive greybeard began to push the door open with a frown. "Your visitors, master O'Reilly."
The center of the room was given over to a great bed, and the greater part of the bed entirely to the blob that Amos O'Reilly had become. A mask was affixed to his face, linking over to a machine to the left of the bed, while numerous beeping terminals to the right connected to pads on, and tubes entering, his chest. His face was wrinkled, and his hair greyed, beyond anything that should have been reasonably possible in such a short time, and as John and Amy approached the bedside he barely shifted to acknowledge them, his heartrate barely changing. His voice had a gurgling rasp to it as he forced it out. "So, then, you would be my son this week? You are not the first giant to insult his memory. Nor the first to bring a significant other, to try and pander to my humanity."
John stood stiff and silent, regarding the husk of a man with invisible panic. How, he wondered, could the sight of such a withered form fill him with dread?
Amy gritted her teeth, barely holding herself back from sinking the whole meeting.
"You know, most pretenders attempt to establish their credibility through words, or somesuch manner of deed. My son was hardly silent as he should have been." the blob uttered, shifting almost imperceptibly.
John bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, and it was that which gave him the strength to speak up. "Terribly sorry about that." he began slowly and quietly, his voice icier than the poles had been for almost a millennium. "I was simply wondering which burn scar I should show you - the ring on my head, from your teacup, or one of the marks from Sparkes' 'little rebukes'."
The heart rate monitor soared, and in an instant the butler was crossing the room. "I am afraid you've worn out your welcome, cur."
A flabby, leaden arm rose from the bed in a halting gesture, the heart rate gradually returning to its baseline. "Begone, Rosenthal. This is him, and I've no further need of you."
Unseen, Amy pushed a button through the fabric of one pocket.
Sputtering, the sharply dressed man recoiled, his face reddening by the second, before he quickly retreated from the room, leaving the door to shut behind him.
"So, Jack, you've dared to return to my presence… with the very emblem of your indiscretions at your side." that which had been Amos Furlough O'Reilly hissed, making a brief struggle to rise from his sheets into a sitting posture. "This whore of yours is not blood. I don't know what foolishness possessed you to come back here, but you'll reap nothing from it - a course once chosen can't be changed. Perhaps...just perhaps… you won't leave at all, today. Did you consider that, child?"
Now red in the face, Amy did not hold back from confronting her father-in-law now that their chaperone was gone. "You're damn right I'm not part of your incestuous little clan. A splash of fresh blood does a world of good from time to time, you know! If you compared our babies to your sister-cousin's babies, you'd realize that in a heartbeat."
John gave her a bemused look over that, wondering if she realized she'd just called him inbred. It was technically true, but still.
His heart rate climbing even higher than before, Amos ever so briefly managed to rise enough to make eye contact. "Wench, if you knew the damnation you'd brought onto your line, you would be the first to pour fuel for your pyre."
Smiling bitterly, she glared down at the near-carcass and whispered. "I'm afraid you're late to try that scare tactic. Quite literally the first time he and I met, John told me about the Amaris connection."
"You… how?" the man screeched, before hardening his expression. "I do not know how he discovered that. He would not have been told for many years yet, had he not disappeared - with your assistance, I presume. But you, you revel in the blood of sin. In mixing lines with the enemy of humanity. You disgust me."
"I did not marry 'John Amaris'!" Amy spat, kicking the foot of the bed. "I married John, my savior, my first friend, my love. I 'revel' in raising two beautiful babies that sleep just like him, because our connection is more important than any regressive worship of the meaning behind blood. In its own way, the dark legacy you gave him is what saved me from a cold, timeless death, and I will not stand by as you insult him for how he's used it! Not when you, beneficiary of all the filthy wealth it's brought, have done nothing but benefit your own selfish line."
Amos turned his gaze to stare at John, failing to comprehend what the boy could possibly have done.
"I should introduce her." John mused, staring spitefully down at his father but gesturing to his wife. "Amelia Gawther...nee Cameron. Daughter of Richard Cameron, last of the First Lords. Stefan missed one, and his tainted blood just so happened to be essential to freeing her from her cold sleep."
"What a load of bullshit." the old man spat. "If you wanted to awe me with some hogwash, you could have put more time into it than that. I'm not going to reinstate your inheritance just because you cooked up a nonsense story about marrying the ultimate victim of our cursed line."
Narrowing his eyes, John pressed harder. "You've been wondering though, haven't you? Where I was hiding, and how I was outpacing the knowledge tests you'd set up despite skipping out on all of your carefully selected tutors? As it happens, our forebears settled down extremely close to the one installation the Traitor's line had access to...but no knowledge of. The last bastion for a Cameron restoration of order - which failed to launch about as badly as it possibly could have. More to it than two people could ever possibly use."
Amos did something unusual, hearing that. He chuckled - an awful sound, to be sure. "Even if that weren't bullshit, why shouldn't I simply have you taken into custody, the location of the place squeezed out of you, and make our family ever richer? Why do you even want the inheritance, if you've got all of that?"
"You wouldn't do that." Amy shot back. "You couldn't do that, in fact. When it comes to leaning on the privileges you've inherited, you're fine with it, but you're as far from ambitious as it gets. Just a garden variety scumbag. You said it yourself - your family is a cursed line. You hate what you are, but you're clearly too lazy and too scared to do the right thing. But you're going to die soon - and when you do, it won't take any effort to help us with doing what's right, and we won't even be sticking around to risk the coveted secrecy of your heritage."
"What's right!" Amos shouted, before restraining his voice once more. "No amount of what's right will ever measure up to the sin of destroying the Star League. The world will never forgive your blood, and you'll never live without fearing for your lives. Mixing Amaris and Cameron… that will not make it any better. It's a blasphemy fit to make it even worse."
Resting his palms on the railing at the foot of the bed, John shook his head. "Even if forgiveness never comes, repentance is worth it. For me, repentance depends on your side of things. It's impossible for us to do what needs to be done, with just Amy's inheritance. For all we've got on our hands, not a bit of it is liquid assets, and none of it will let us smuggle a whole Castle Brian off world. With your help, it's possible - just possible - that we can found something that could, one day, be as good - even better than, the Star League. That's the repentance. All you need to do is acknowledge my identity, get your will in order, and die."
"Besides which…" Amy began, glancing around the room. "We came armed, despite the best efforts of your scanner, so if your plan depends on seizing us, that probably won't work. And if you were, say, to let us go, but play around with your will… the law under Comstar doesn't allow disinheritance of one's heir apparent. If you weren't to acknowledge John as himself… well, I taped that part - multi-party consent is a strange doctrine. We came prepared for a legal battle, essentially, which I'm guessing isn't what you planned for."
"And if the room were bugged - it isn't, let alone enough to pick up whispers - or if it seemed I were going to betray you…" Amos muttered, a grudging respect audible in his voice. "You would just kill me now, torch the house, and hide until nobody even remembered I ever drew breath. You're the arsonist, aren't you? The one who shot Mr. Sparkes? Good shot, for a half blind girl. Are you sure that your blood isn't colder than mine?"
Snorting, Amy gazed down with half lidded eyes. "Quite."
A moment later, Amos loosed another slow chuckle. "There's something you haven't accounted for in all of this, or so it seems to me. I may speak for house O'Reilly, but the other Amaris remnants… I would not expect them to stand silently by when my will is read. I can, perhaps, keep it away from their eyes until then, with the vastness of the resources at my disposal… but they will act swiftly to remove you, even if no legal challenge would stand. How, pray tell, do you mean to avoid the hit teams they will doubtless send, to secure what they see as their inheritance, and your silence?"
John wore a peaceful expression as he gazed up to the ceiling. "Ah, you see… that's the joy of it all. We've already been in talks with Comstar about selling the estate. With your help, that's proof of identity. Now all we need is proof of ownership. The day you die - the day that will gets read by an agent of the government - will be the day we sign the final bill of sale in front of a spaceport notary. The day we disappear off of their radar forever. It'll only get easier if we - the two of us and you - can agree on a date for all of this. I doubt the government will be too eager to question the validity of a deal it seems so eager to make. Besides, if the others don't know I'm alive, a will that names me as inheritor will seem like unenforceable senility to them - it'll take them a hot second to realize they didn't get anything."
Chapter 6 (October 2911)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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The old man had held out longer than anyone really expected. It had given time to think, to regret, to reconsider, and ultimately to reconfirm forged convictions.
The immense, rented flatbed the young family sat in, two Buster cargo mechs strapped down to its humongous flatbed, was close to the physical form the decision to move on had taken. The time for regrets - even for goodbyes - had already passed. There was time for nothing more but the final disappearing act of houses Cameron and Amaris.
When times are tough but opportunities rich, people across all eras had made the same decision - hit the bricks, blaze new trails, and begin again.
As John and Amelia sat in silence, SHANDRA's voice crackled forth from the age-old speakers of the lift, calling them back to reality. "Confirmation: this will be your final ascent?"
It was, eventually, Amelia who spoke first, lifting her face from where it rested, atop her crossed arms on the dashboard. "Yeah, we won't be coming back. There's nothing left for us on Terra, and we've got everything we can possibly take with us. What is this about?"
Undaunted, the voice of the machine continued without offering any answer. "Confirmation: the Terran system is under the control of an outside, untrusted power?"
Taking his face out of his palm, John let out a powerful sigh. "Yes. Is there a point to this?"
"Confirmation: houses Steiner, Kurita, Davion, Liao, and Marik still predominate in the Inner Sphere?"
The couple's voices rang out in unison. "Yeah. Mhm."
"Query: How much of a disruption do you require? Notice: SDS not found."
That question hung in the air for awhile, before John slowly, cautiously gave a reply. "We're trying to exit silently, with a low profile, and there are many we're leaving behind in this region who we care greatly about. Please, if you're going to do anything, keep it restrained."
The elevator began its slow, protracted grind up its diagonal track, SHANDRA briefly without any response to give to that instruction. When she eventually spoke up again, her voice was somehow even emptier than usual.
"Confirmed and locked in. Initiating scenario E119W784F. Upon disembarkment, location [Invisible Castle] will be rendered inactive. In [Seven to Seventeen] years, or upon any outside tampering, automatic demolition will commence. Protocol [Krakatoa] will not be employed. Commencing [Farewell Address 97D]. May your days be filled with harmony and prosperity. Terminating [Simulated Personality]."
His eyes going wide, John slammed his fist on the console, not worried in the least about being asked to pay for any cracked plastic. "The hell is the Krakatoa protocol?! Why would there be a protocol that endangers the surrounding area to begin with? Don't terminate shit, you've got questions to answer!"
But such shouting ultimately accomplished nothing. The AI never spoke again, and it wasn't even sufficient to wake the babies from their synchronized napping.
When the next sound broke out, John and Amelia were sat in a cold sweat, wondering just what the hell the architect of this place had been thinking.
Then the rich, aged voice of the narrator who'd opened every lesson for the past ten years rung out.
"Let me first tell you, scions of my line, how proud I am of you. It would have been all too easy to hide in familiar darkness forever, enjoying the luxuries of paradise without the least concern for duty. If I can take pride in anything I've done in my life, it is that I have taught you well. I suspect…"
A cough broke up the recording for a second, before the man resumed, the energy of his voice reduced in energy. "I suspect there is, indeed, little else to value my life for. Ah, Simon, my boy… I knew you had it in you, to pass down our duty."
John's eyes shot wide open. If Simon Cameron was 'my boy', to him, that made this… Jonathan Cameron. How the hell did he make time to record so much? What did the madman behind the SDS have to do with the palace? He couldn't possibly be the commissioner of the thing.
"Apologies, for letting myself become distracted. You deserve better, strong willed young ones. I...have lived a life of regrets and doubts. I have lied, I have stolen, I have led people to their deaths, and I have stood idly by while evil reigned. It has been my life's project to put quietly to rest all that my twice great grandfather built, and if you're capable of listening to this, I suppose I failed in at least some of that ambition. You would be well entitled to despise me as the lowest strata of existence...but I would beg your attention awhile longer, nevertheless. Even I have my story to tell."
John swallowed heavily as he met Amy's gaze, neither daring to speak up, for fear of missing important information.
"The Star League was perhaps the grandest project in the history of humanity, the second attempt at the unification of the species with the least bit of credibility to it. It was also, from the moment of its birth, doomed to fail. That it lasted over a century is truly beyond the realm of credibility. Ian Cameron was a poison-tongued sophist with the skill to sell a narrative of unification and shared prosperity to the people at large. The great lords who responded to his calls in the affirmative were hungry dogs eager to sup on all the Terran Hegemony had to offer. All others were simply convenient fodder, a counternarrative to crush. The peace the Star League brought was never one couched in ideals, principles, or good reason. It was a stalemate of opportunism, where the largest military in history failed to strike fear into the hearts of the bickering kings of the stars because they knew it was a polite fiction. The Star League Defense Force was not loyal to the Star League - it did not even exist. The day the member states decided to end the charade was, inevitably, the day it split six ways or more, to reflect its true loyalties. It needed only be tested the right way to find that fracture point."
Amelia's mouth was dry as a desert. Compared to most, she probably felt much less nostalgia for those days she'd never truly seen, but it was still unpleasant to hear this dirty laundry being aired. To hear that Vera's death was, in a strange way, a consequence of deliberate planning.
"Ten years before my birth, the first true test came. The 'ronin' sought to undermine the authority of the government at the Coordinator's bidding, and the Gunslingers were born to counterbalance them. It was not even the first true sign of the destined implosion, but… it was a striking event to be raised in the settling smoke of. The Space Defence Force was not built as a countermeasure against an alien invasion, though it could have served as one. It was built as a force to enact a delaying action in the event of a five-front offensive against the Terran Hegemony, ideally to cripple the divided Star League Navy to such a degree that it, fighting among itself, no longer possesses the power to burn the sphere to ash, but more likely simply to make time for an evacuation into the invisible palace. A cautionary measure, and a tool prepared, to the end of preventing an irrecoverable doom I still only suspected. Unfortunately, House Kurita once again proved its duplicity with their asinine play for the Davion throne. A real intervention was impossible - the other houses were simply waiting for me to legitimize a plunder of the Hegemony by tilting the balance of power, so it would have simply marked a premature end to days. My great work was not yet complete. I could only watch and hide while wearing Jocasta as a face, pretending at incapacity while setting affairs in order. It's such a massive shame, but… well, nations on less shaky foundations than the League have failed to last so long."
At once, the energy was back in his voice. "This recording has been marked to play only if the Invisible Palace came into use before the Bicentennial of the Star League - which is worthy of some celebration in its own right - and if it remained in use for fewer than two centuries - showing that losses were not complete, and the world has recovered to be ready for our return with amazing haste. Be proud of those who came after me, even if they happened to be lamentable fools - their actions have turned the inevitable calamity into something manageable, something which left room to rebuild. Something you can work with. The Star League needed to fall in this century, or there would have been no soil left to plant the seeds of the future in. Like a forest where wildfires are suppressed systematically, dry fuel has been building up on the ground for over a century now, waiting for a spark to light it off into an unmitigatable blaze. The resulting inferno will have been worse than a century in the Age of War ever could have possibly been. When the navy splintered, two thousand worlds most likely cried out in agony and burned in the most hellish flames, so completely that it would take centuries for you to contemplate an escape from the ruins. That there would be a civilization both capable of sending you away from Terra, and worth running from. If it were any longer in the waiting, nothing would have remained. I offer you my...humblest apologies. We, your forebears, have made a mess of your era. Like all before us, we swore not to punish our heirs as our predecessors did us, and in just the same spirit as them, we broke that promise. You need not forgive us hell-bound sinners. Promise me only one thing. Promise me that you will build a land of peace, a land of true harmony, where humanity is more than lumber chopped for a predestined conflagration. Do not repeat our ageless mistakes. If you succeed, you will be greater than any humans who ever drew breath. If you fail, you will be no worse than the rest of us. Jonathan Cameron. July 2737. Out."
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Scene 2
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As the vtol lifted off of its pad, slowly losing sight of the spaceport one of its passengers gazed out the window, glaring down at the Monarch class dropship christened as Xanadu with a fist balled up perhaps not so subtly under the hem of his robe.
As the acolyte went so far as to liberate a grumble of dissatisfaction, his superior rested one gloved hand on his shoulder, her voice piercing the silence of the well-insulated cabin. "Do you have some manner of objection, Acolyte Mars? Perhaps lingering resentments towards those members of the laity?"
"Laity? That little pack of runaways?" Mark Mars spat, tightening his other hand. "They wouldn't know the light of Blake if it shone down in their eyes and blinded them. The only sparkle they recognized was that of the money, as we grovelled and thanked them for a robbery bordering on piracy. I had-"
The precentor, with a sigh, made up her mind to silence the lad. A hand tightened, and with one quick bark she shut his mouth. "Acolyte!"
Only once she was satisfied that he had calmed himself did she properly address him once more. "Whether they have realized their faith yet or not, all citizens of Terra are part of our family. All people are part of our family. John O'Reilly was the lawful inheritor to the property, and the only cause for outrage is that he needed fear for his life because of it. Is that understood?"
The acolyte's hands slowly unballed, a quiet, choked rumbling pouring from his throat as he rested his palms on his knees. "...Yes, Precentor Wayridge. However, even so… has the blessed order not been defrauded today? The price does not match the purchase. How can simple farmland, however fertile, however voluminous, command three billion c-bills in sale?"
"Mark, Blake bless you, but you have much to learn." Precentor Helena Wayridge gazed down at her charge. "Perhaps, does it seem to you that Comstar is speculating on the price of carrots and horse flesh? That I, personally, seek to benefit from inflating a sales price? All that is gold does not glimmer. Please, satisfy yourself with the knowledge that we have secured a deal well and truly cheaper than I was ordered to find."
Mark, only of his majority in fairly recent years, still had a youthful measure of energy to him. Enough so that his subsequent demand did more to amuse the Precentor than to draw her ire. "Enlighten this child, then. What does the blessed order find worthy of coveting in those immense pastures? Why have we gone so far to secure this deal, working to O'Reilly's timetable?"
Favoring the boy with a warm smile, the Precentor gave him a pat on the head - purely to rile him up. His fault for calling himself a child. "I will itemize it for you. Firstly, in terms of just the value of land, mineral, and water rights in the area, depending on seasonal fluctuations in the market we could account for on average as much as a fifth of the sales price. The industrialmech fleet, absent the two they have retained, accounts for another thirtieth of the price paid. The various land based businesses owned in part or full, as much as a tenth of the price paid. Fishing rights, the same. The positioning in its own right, two hundred million c-bills - it is well located in the eventuality that the First Circuit may want to conduct excavations near or in the ruins of Unity City. The remaining half, which constitutes a great underpayment, is matched by the speculative value of the ruins of Port Angeles."
The Acolyte looked like a lost puppy with one eyebrow raised so high. "They're ruins. They're full of unexploded ordnance, polluted so heavily that they can't be used for anything, and utterly uninhabitable. How could those possibly add value, let alone more than the entire rest of the property's qualities? This is Terra - scavenged pot linings from a bygone age aren't an economic necessity!"
Giggling, the precentor turned her gaze away, looking out towards the mountains. "Oh, to think that it would be pot linings that'd be dug out. The ruins are exceptionally well preserved, likely because their reputation as unsafe has kept away rogue scavengers. The rights to properly exploit them, meanwhile, have rested all this time in hands unprepared to manage that risk. Even on Terra, the virgin remnants of a once great city of the Terran Hegemony may contain secrets key to restoring life to the whole inner sphere. Either that, or, if fate were cruel, they could contain terrors fit to scourge this world of life forever. It is impossible to judge what may have been hidden here, in this land of great mountains, until someone looks, and there is none other than Comstar with the integrity to be trusted with such a pivotal excavation. This is why we needed to offer such a high price, to ensure that the deed entered our direct control."
Shooting another glance down at the spaceport, Mark huffed silently. "I believe I understand the value judgement that has been made, now. It seems odd to imagine the blessed order doing such work, but… you are right, in that none but Blake's apostles can bear the responsibility. But…"
The Precentor, without turning her gaze away from the mountains, simply 'hmmed' invitingly.
Wincing, the acolyte turned back with a grimace. "Did you really need to emphasize the word virgin in such a tone? This is a matter of archaeology, not some ribald joke."
Grinning like a cat, Wayridge ensured that her smile could be seen on the window - though given that it was from her own perspective, she couldn't be certain Mark could see it. "If something like that is enough to put you out of sorts, pray that you never meet with a Canopian. Should HPG service ever reach so far, and should you be assigned to a station in those reaches, you would be eaten alive like a pack of cocktail wieners."
"Precentor!"
The pair sat in silence for a long while after that, Helena's hand idly stroking the case containing their copies of the paperwork. It was only hours later, as they approached their normal stations, that Mark broke the silence once more.
"Precentor?"
"Mhm?"
Pausing, the boy let out a sigh and slapped the sides of his face. "What could possibly possess a couple, with unweaned children at that, to leave Terra like this?"
"A threat to their lives would be the classical example of a reason to move." his mentor dryly answered. "But I suspect what you want to know is why they would not move elsewhere on Terra, why they would not invest their newfound wealth into safety. Why they would choose to leave the familiar, the enlightened, the wealthy, the promise of a life exceeding one hundred years, for the unenlightened world beyond. This is an impossible question to answer. Why did the first jumpships slip beyond the black of the void to distant stars? With the birth of fusion power, there were no imminently practical limits to how many could have lived on Terra, and yet uncounted millions left for lives infinitely worse than could be achieved on the homeworld, birthing all the colonies of the universe. Humanity is idiosyncracy incarnate. Maybe to John and Amelia O'Reilly, Terra means horses, and they simply hate horses?"
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Scene 3
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On the tarmac of a vast spaceport, close enough to taste the immense craft that would carry him away from Terra, a young man slapped his hand against a seated mech's leg with indignation. "You've been flagging people past to their ships without a peep for half an hour now! Why is it that only we're being searched?"
Officer Bryce von Helsing, Comstar Customs and Migration, could only let out a groan of anguish. It was always like this. Whether it was a random search or a normal one, they always got belligerent. At least the mechs were inactive - it could take a few crucial seconds for the mounted officers to respond when someone really started raging in a motor vehicle. "Sir, just to confirm, these are the BV XXI Buster cargo mech formerly produced by the Bluth Corporation?"
The huge oaf's face screwed up into a grimace, and he looked at the ground. Clearly, he realized he'd been caught. "What about it? Are antiques contraband?"
Bryce stepped forward with his clipboard. "Empty mass for a Buster is thirty nine metric tons. Calculating from the weight of your trailer clocked on our weigh station, yours are each fifty tons right now. Fully loaded. Granted, there are a few tons of imprecision with these things, but eleven is out of the question."
"This port handles cargo every day!" the youth insisted, trying to deflect the discussion from the point. Usually, people were a little more clever about things than this. "It's more convenient for us to have it in the mech than to haul crates separately. Is that really so wrong? Why do you have to hold us up like this? We've got two babies in the cab with us"
There was a fucking line building up. This self important tosspot was delaying the days of thousands, using his kids as an excuse, all so he could try and skip the most basic of checks. Despite that, an officer of the customs office needed to remain polite and bear with it. Protocol was protocol. "Not at all, sir. When our customers transport vehicles and cargo, it is only natural that they be consolidated into one package for the journey. We gladly accept that practice. However, it has come up in our system that you have not declared nor screened any cargo, nor paid any export duties for it. This puts us in quite a bind - personal luggage is limited to fifty kilograms or less per person. We need to see what you're carrying, so we can remove any contraband and assess proper export duties for the remainder. Please open the bays so we can get our crane in there."
The brat spat on the pavement as he fished out his keys. What a fat load of nerve - in this weather, it'd be hours before that evaporated. Someone could trip and fall. "To think Comstar treats tax paying citizens like this."
Kid, you're an emigrant, and you're trying to evade taxes right now. Fuck off.
- -
The check took half an hour. That was half an hour longer than they would have been here if boy wonder and his little wife up high in the cabin hadn't decided to get clever with the port authority. "So in summary, everything on the left will be returned to you as soon as you pay the proper duties, while everything to the right will be confiscated as contraband, as you lack the proper licenses to export such goods and cannot acquire them in time for departure."
"To be returned." Bryce began, a vein popping on his forehead, with a gesture to the pile of large crates, stuffed with bottle after bottle. "Bourbon, Tennessee, six tons. Sparkling wine, Krug Champagne, eight tons. Olive oil, Liguria, five tons. These local specialty agricultural products are cleared for general export, and as such can be carried onboard without any need for particular licensing. However, in addition to generic export duties, they bear special taxes. Total assessed duties amount to three million c-bills. This fee will be charged from the account with which you purchased your ticket. If you believe some other party is liable, you will be able to issue a legal challenge to recoup the expense upon your arrival at New Kyoto."
Glancing to the smaller crates that had been in the very backs of the bays, he let out a long suffering groan. "As for the two tons of computer equipment, these require a class V electronics export license. Average time to approval for a license is four years, and the application price of acquiring one is one billion c-bills. As you are not an agent of any licensed organization, and lack such a license yourself, these will be confiscated and destroyed while you go on your way. For future reference, we take the export of these sorts of goods extremely seriously, because it can be virtually impossible to properly control for their contents. Do you understand?"
His face red, the man simply nodded in indignation.
Finally, Bryce could go back to flagging other people through. "Good, good. Then, with your leave, we'll get your approved exports loaded back up and you can go on your way. Comstar wishes you nothing but good days in your new home. But, if I may be so presumptuous, Mr. O'Reilly...please, for your family's sake, do not attempt this sort of stunt in any other spaceport. Other port authorities may not be so gentle as we are, and so attempted smuggling may carry far harsher penalties than being asked to pay the fees normally."
There was no real merit in investigating why the man looked so relieved as he got back into the truck and waited. Anyone would be happy to finally get out of the world's most unnecessary customs check, even if it ended in an unfavorable way. Nobody liked the customs officer.
It was tempting to investigate the signs of modification to the sides of the cargo bays, but there was no basis for it. With the bay cargo removed, the mechs weighed in properly at thirty nine tons. Rather than a sign of smuggling bays, the unusual seams and welds had to be taken as a sign of patchwork repairs to the aged machines, because there was simply no unaccounted for mass to cram inside of any concealed bays. If he had someone's industrialmechs gutted out of some insane leap of logic like that, when boarding had already been delayed by half an hour, he'd lose his job - and only ten days before retirement, at that. He wanted to keep his pension, damn it!
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Scene 4
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Peering up from the bed of the cabin, where he lay sprawled out, John cracked a thin smile. "They're hungry today, aren't they?"
Amy, her shirt around her armpits and each arm cradling an infant at chest height, split the difference between a shrug and gentling rocking their children by lingering in the raised position a second longer. "I wouldn't say it's especially weird. Their stomachs are getting bigger every day, and they're growing like weeds, so it's only natural. Imagine how much more you'd start eating if you were just learning how to walk."
"...I guess it's a matter of me not always being around to notice." John admitted, sitting up slowly. "Sorry about that, by the way. If I could take it off your shoulders sometimes, I would."
"No, no." Amy chirped, casting a soft grin his way. "It's not so bad. It's nice to have the time with them, and it's a good moment to just… think. Besides, it's not like you're pawning it off on me 'cause you're lazy. Those rock hard man-titties don't have any milk in 'em, and these little goofs decided for themselves that bottles were no-good. For better or worse, it's momma's boobs or the highway with them."
"Barely six months old, and already opinionated." John sniffed, wringing his hands together idly. "They grow up so, so damn fast. We...should probably clean up our vocabulary. There's probably a special hell waiting for us if we hear their first words on this trip, and they're bad ones."
Rolling her eyes, Amy glanced down at the ravenous beasts attached to her front end. "Are you two gonna scare the daylights out of momma and papa by cussing at us?"
Waiting for a few seconds for the non-reply, she glanced up, eyes half lidded, and smiled. "I think that's a yes."
John covered his face as he snickered at the joke, but after a few seconds the laughter down-shifted into something more like heavy breathing or… sobs. "What are we even doing up here? We had something like a family, friends, a life. Now we're on a trip for...who knows how long. What if all the time in space affects their bones and muscles? What if they can't live on a planet?"
Sighing, Amy shook her head as the twins detached their lamprey-like grips and glanced over to their father. "John, you big goof, we're going to be on the ground or under thrust more often than not to begin with. Especially this close to Terra, it'll generally be less than a week at a time in space, and...well… during the waiting times, the jumpship crews can complain all they want, but they ain't keeping us out of their gravity decks. We planned this. If we'd stayed, we'd be worrying even more."
As John nodded and fell silent, James and Marie turned back to Amy but, apparently, weren't feeling too hungry anymore. Cooing persistently, they forced her to set them down on ground level, where their stumbling, neophyte walk got them all the way to John's legs before they started yawning uncontrollably.
"Think it's time for them to take a nap?" John mused, reaching down to rub their backs.
Smiling at his improved disposition, Amy nodded as she pulled her top back down. "Sounds like it's just about time."
- -
Once the little ones had drifted off in their cribs, John shuffled over to the end table and - with a smirk, pressed a button on a small fob they'd brought aboard. Immediately, a gentle but repetitive chirp began to fill the room. There weren't any cameras in the suite, so this was all that was necessary.
"What's on that one?" Amy asked quietly after a second, hugging her knees up on the corner of the bed.
Pausing for a second, the mountain of a man looked away. "...It's a sex track. If anyone's listening in, we're just having some fun now that the kids aren't listening. And...uh...thanks for earlier."
Amy flushed from ear to ear at hearing just what recording the bug jammer was playing, but ultimately nodded into her knees. "You're...uh...welcome. Really, it's no problem. I understand the freakout...completely and totally. We decided to do what's right, instead of what's easy, and that's...well, not easy."
Making his way silently to the sink and pouring a glass of water, John nodded. "Still. And, uh… on that note, your plan worked out...well… like a dream. Really. I feel bad for everyone stuck behind us, but…"
"Was it my plan?" Amy mused in a low voice, kicking her legs out to wiggle her toes. "Or was it the plan of the egghead who upgraded those mechs to fit hidden compartments to the tune of half again their rated load? Maybe at the end of the day, I just pieced together someone else's intentions from the marks they made on the world and followed 'em through. Either way, now we look too stupid to have any more secrets to keep. Plus... all the contraband we really need."
"Amazing how dense storage cores got back then." John agreed in a lower whisper. "But I still think it was your plan. They couldn't possibly have imagined the exact port we passed through. That we'd need to discredit ourselves quite like that."
"Maybe Jonathan Cameron imagined it." Amy mused. "He certainly seemed to have an active imagination. Though, well...something close to what he imagined came true, so…"
"Forget Jonathan Cameron." John sighed, taking a deep sip of his water. "Thinking about whether he was paranoid or justified, whether he was acting responsibly or just responsible for needless destruction… all of that gives me a headache. Why the hell did he think it was smart to drop that bombshell all at once, on a group that was just leaving to try and rebuild? Hell of a mood killer."
"...Maybe he was trying to get people thinking. About what kind of society they wanted to build. About the danger of building weapons that can burn a city in minutes." came the slightly delayed reply. As her big toes curled over their neighbors, Amy flopped back onto the bed in a poof of sheets. "Or maybe he was just crazy."
It was at that moment that the jammer started beeping more quickly. That was the sign that there were only a few minutes left on the recording. With a sigh, mount beef shifted his weight and grabbed an earbud off the end table.
Watching for the moment the bug-simulation slipped into his ear, Amy was quick to rise. "What's it sound like the ending's gonna be?"
"...we should probably grab the weights and start lifting. We were out of breath after this one." John slowly replied, a blush spreading on his face. "And then...after we get our breath back...do you maybe wanna go for round two? It'd help to sell the story."
Her cheeks reddening again, Amy nodded. "I'd be up for round one, I guess. Remember the fucking condom, though. It's years too soon to grow this family again. Uh...huh. We should probably think about that… if we're planning on disappearing, sooner or later we'll want to swap up our names. John and Amelia O'Reilly, or Jack and Amy Gawther...those are both trails that lead back to Terra. So, what do you think abou-"
A kiss saved those thoughts for later, when they found another suitable sound clip to jam any bugs with.
-----
That's all currently released content crossposted.
Without further ado, I'm going to get to work on the next scene of chapter 7.
Scene 1
---
The old man had held out longer than anyone really expected. It had given time to think, to regret, to reconsider, and ultimately to reconfirm forged convictions.
The immense, rented flatbed the young family sat in, two Buster cargo mechs strapped down to its humongous flatbed, was close to the physical form the decision to move on had taken. The time for regrets - even for goodbyes - had already passed. There was time for nothing more but the final disappearing act of houses Cameron and Amaris.
When times are tough but opportunities rich, people across all eras had made the same decision - hit the bricks, blaze new trails, and begin again.
As John and Amelia sat in silence, SHANDRA's voice crackled forth from the age-old speakers of the lift, calling them back to reality. "Confirmation: this will be your final ascent?"
It was, eventually, Amelia who spoke first, lifting her face from where it rested, atop her crossed arms on the dashboard. "Yeah, we won't be coming back. There's nothing left for us on Terra, and we've got everything we can possibly take with us. What is this about?"
Undaunted, the voice of the machine continued without offering any answer. "Confirmation: the Terran system is under the control of an outside, untrusted power?"
Taking his face out of his palm, John let out a powerful sigh. "Yes. Is there a point to this?"
"Confirmation: houses Steiner, Kurita, Davion, Liao, and Marik still predominate in the Inner Sphere?"
The couple's voices rang out in unison. "Yeah. Mhm."
"Query: How much of a disruption do you require? Notice: SDS not found."
That question hung in the air for awhile, before John slowly, cautiously gave a reply. "We're trying to exit silently, with a low profile, and there are many we're leaving behind in this region who we care greatly about. Please, if you're going to do anything, keep it restrained."
The elevator began its slow, protracted grind up its diagonal track, SHANDRA briefly without any response to give to that instruction. When she eventually spoke up again, her voice was somehow even emptier than usual.
"Confirmed and locked in. Initiating scenario E119W784F. Upon disembarkment, location [Invisible Castle] will be rendered inactive. In [Seven to Seventeen] years, or upon any outside tampering, automatic demolition will commence. Protocol [Krakatoa] will not be employed. Commencing [Farewell Address 97D]. May your days be filled with harmony and prosperity. Terminating [Simulated Personality]."
His eyes going wide, John slammed his fist on the console, not worried in the least about being asked to pay for any cracked plastic. "The hell is the Krakatoa protocol?! Why would there be a protocol that endangers the surrounding area to begin with? Don't terminate shit, you've got questions to answer!"
But such shouting ultimately accomplished nothing. The AI never spoke again, and it wasn't even sufficient to wake the babies from their synchronized napping.
When the next sound broke out, John and Amelia were sat in a cold sweat, wondering just what the hell the architect of this place had been thinking.
Then the rich, aged voice of the narrator who'd opened every lesson for the past ten years rung out.
"Let me first tell you, scions of my line, how proud I am of you. It would have been all too easy to hide in familiar darkness forever, enjoying the luxuries of paradise without the least concern for duty. If I can take pride in anything I've done in my life, it is that I have taught you well. I suspect…"
A cough broke up the recording for a second, before the man resumed, the energy of his voice reduced in energy. "I suspect there is, indeed, little else to value my life for. Ah, Simon, my boy… I knew you had it in you, to pass down our duty."
John's eyes shot wide open. If Simon Cameron was 'my boy', to him, that made this… Jonathan Cameron. How the hell did he make time to record so much? What did the madman behind the SDS have to do with the palace? He couldn't possibly be the commissioner of the thing.
"Apologies, for letting myself become distracted. You deserve better, strong willed young ones. I...have lived a life of regrets and doubts. I have lied, I have stolen, I have led people to their deaths, and I have stood idly by while evil reigned. It has been my life's project to put quietly to rest all that my twice great grandfather built, and if you're capable of listening to this, I suppose I failed in at least some of that ambition. You would be well entitled to despise me as the lowest strata of existence...but I would beg your attention awhile longer, nevertheless. Even I have my story to tell."
John swallowed heavily as he met Amy's gaze, neither daring to speak up, for fear of missing important information.
"The Star League was perhaps the grandest project in the history of humanity, the second attempt at the unification of the species with the least bit of credibility to it. It was also, from the moment of its birth, doomed to fail. That it lasted over a century is truly beyond the realm of credibility. Ian Cameron was a poison-tongued sophist with the skill to sell a narrative of unification and shared prosperity to the people at large. The great lords who responded to his calls in the affirmative were hungry dogs eager to sup on all the Terran Hegemony had to offer. All others were simply convenient fodder, a counternarrative to crush. The peace the Star League brought was never one couched in ideals, principles, or good reason. It was a stalemate of opportunism, where the largest military in history failed to strike fear into the hearts of the bickering kings of the stars because they knew it was a polite fiction. The Star League Defense Force was not loyal to the Star League - it did not even exist. The day the member states decided to end the charade was, inevitably, the day it split six ways or more, to reflect its true loyalties. It needed only be tested the right way to find that fracture point."
Amelia's mouth was dry as a desert. Compared to most, she probably felt much less nostalgia for those days she'd never truly seen, but it was still unpleasant to hear this dirty laundry being aired. To hear that Vera's death was, in a strange way, a consequence of deliberate planning.
"Ten years before my birth, the first true test came. The 'ronin' sought to undermine the authority of the government at the Coordinator's bidding, and the Gunslingers were born to counterbalance them. It was not even the first true sign of the destined implosion, but… it was a striking event to be raised in the settling smoke of. The Space Defence Force was not built as a countermeasure against an alien invasion, though it could have served as one. It was built as a force to enact a delaying action in the event of a five-front offensive against the Terran Hegemony, ideally to cripple the divided Star League Navy to such a degree that it, fighting among itself, no longer possesses the power to burn the sphere to ash, but more likely simply to make time for an evacuation into the invisible palace. A cautionary measure, and a tool prepared, to the end of preventing an irrecoverable doom I still only suspected. Unfortunately, House Kurita once again proved its duplicity with their asinine play for the Davion throne. A real intervention was impossible - the other houses were simply waiting for me to legitimize a plunder of the Hegemony by tilting the balance of power, so it would have simply marked a premature end to days. My great work was not yet complete. I could only watch and hide while wearing Jocasta as a face, pretending at incapacity while setting affairs in order. It's such a massive shame, but… well, nations on less shaky foundations than the League have failed to last so long."
At once, the energy was back in his voice. "This recording has been marked to play only if the Invisible Palace came into use before the Bicentennial of the Star League - which is worthy of some celebration in its own right - and if it remained in use for fewer than two centuries - showing that losses were not complete, and the world has recovered to be ready for our return with amazing haste. Be proud of those who came after me, even if they happened to be lamentable fools - their actions have turned the inevitable calamity into something manageable, something which left room to rebuild. Something you can work with. The Star League needed to fall in this century, or there would have been no soil left to plant the seeds of the future in. Like a forest where wildfires are suppressed systematically, dry fuel has been building up on the ground for over a century now, waiting for a spark to light it off into an unmitigatable blaze. The resulting inferno will have been worse than a century in the Age of War ever could have possibly been. When the navy splintered, two thousand worlds most likely cried out in agony and burned in the most hellish flames, so completely that it would take centuries for you to contemplate an escape from the ruins. That there would be a civilization both capable of sending you away from Terra, and worth running from. If it were any longer in the waiting, nothing would have remained. I offer you my...humblest apologies. We, your forebears, have made a mess of your era. Like all before us, we swore not to punish our heirs as our predecessors did us, and in just the same spirit as them, we broke that promise. You need not forgive us hell-bound sinners. Promise me only one thing. Promise me that you will build a land of peace, a land of true harmony, where humanity is more than lumber chopped for a predestined conflagration. Do not repeat our ageless mistakes. If you succeed, you will be greater than any humans who ever drew breath. If you fail, you will be no worse than the rest of us. Jonathan Cameron. July 2737. Out."
---
Scene 2
---
As the vtol lifted off of its pad, slowly losing sight of the spaceport one of its passengers gazed out the window, glaring down at the Monarch class dropship christened as Xanadu with a fist balled up perhaps not so subtly under the hem of his robe.
As the acolyte went so far as to liberate a grumble of dissatisfaction, his superior rested one gloved hand on his shoulder, her voice piercing the silence of the well-insulated cabin. "Do you have some manner of objection, Acolyte Mars? Perhaps lingering resentments towards those members of the laity?"
"Laity? That little pack of runaways?" Mark Mars spat, tightening his other hand. "They wouldn't know the light of Blake if it shone down in their eyes and blinded them. The only sparkle they recognized was that of the money, as we grovelled and thanked them for a robbery bordering on piracy. I had-"
The precentor, with a sigh, made up her mind to silence the lad. A hand tightened, and with one quick bark she shut his mouth. "Acolyte!"
Only once she was satisfied that he had calmed himself did she properly address him once more. "Whether they have realized their faith yet or not, all citizens of Terra are part of our family. All people are part of our family. John O'Reilly was the lawful inheritor to the property, and the only cause for outrage is that he needed fear for his life because of it. Is that understood?"
The acolyte's hands slowly unballed, a quiet, choked rumbling pouring from his throat as he rested his palms on his knees. "...Yes, Precentor Wayridge. However, even so… has the blessed order not been defrauded today? The price does not match the purchase. How can simple farmland, however fertile, however voluminous, command three billion c-bills in sale?"
"Mark, Blake bless you, but you have much to learn." Precentor Helena Wayridge gazed down at her charge. "Perhaps, does it seem to you that Comstar is speculating on the price of carrots and horse flesh? That I, personally, seek to benefit from inflating a sales price? All that is gold does not glimmer. Please, satisfy yourself with the knowledge that we have secured a deal well and truly cheaper than I was ordered to find."
Mark, only of his majority in fairly recent years, still had a youthful measure of energy to him. Enough so that his subsequent demand did more to amuse the Precentor than to draw her ire. "Enlighten this child, then. What does the blessed order find worthy of coveting in those immense pastures? Why have we gone so far to secure this deal, working to O'Reilly's timetable?"
Favoring the boy with a warm smile, the Precentor gave him a pat on the head - purely to rile him up. His fault for calling himself a child. "I will itemize it for you. Firstly, in terms of just the value of land, mineral, and water rights in the area, depending on seasonal fluctuations in the market we could account for on average as much as a fifth of the sales price. The industrialmech fleet, absent the two they have retained, accounts for another thirtieth of the price paid. The various land based businesses owned in part or full, as much as a tenth of the price paid. Fishing rights, the same. The positioning in its own right, two hundred million c-bills - it is well located in the eventuality that the First Circuit may want to conduct excavations near or in the ruins of Unity City. The remaining half, which constitutes a great underpayment, is matched by the speculative value of the ruins of Port Angeles."
The Acolyte looked like a lost puppy with one eyebrow raised so high. "They're ruins. They're full of unexploded ordnance, polluted so heavily that they can't be used for anything, and utterly uninhabitable. How could those possibly add value, let alone more than the entire rest of the property's qualities? This is Terra - scavenged pot linings from a bygone age aren't an economic necessity!"
Giggling, the precentor turned her gaze away, looking out towards the mountains. "Oh, to think that it would be pot linings that'd be dug out. The ruins are exceptionally well preserved, likely because their reputation as unsafe has kept away rogue scavengers. The rights to properly exploit them, meanwhile, have rested all this time in hands unprepared to manage that risk. Even on Terra, the virgin remnants of a once great city of the Terran Hegemony may contain secrets key to restoring life to the whole inner sphere. Either that, or, if fate were cruel, they could contain terrors fit to scourge this world of life forever. It is impossible to judge what may have been hidden here, in this land of great mountains, until someone looks, and there is none other than Comstar with the integrity to be trusted with such a pivotal excavation. This is why we needed to offer such a high price, to ensure that the deed entered our direct control."
Shooting another glance down at the spaceport, Mark huffed silently. "I believe I understand the value judgement that has been made, now. It seems odd to imagine the blessed order doing such work, but… you are right, in that none but Blake's apostles can bear the responsibility. But…"
The Precentor, without turning her gaze away from the mountains, simply 'hmmed' invitingly.
Wincing, the acolyte turned back with a grimace. "Did you really need to emphasize the word virgin in such a tone? This is a matter of archaeology, not some ribald joke."
Grinning like a cat, Wayridge ensured that her smile could be seen on the window - though given that it was from her own perspective, she couldn't be certain Mark could see it. "If something like that is enough to put you out of sorts, pray that you never meet with a Canopian. Should HPG service ever reach so far, and should you be assigned to a station in those reaches, you would be eaten alive like a pack of cocktail wieners."
"Precentor!"
The pair sat in silence for a long while after that, Helena's hand idly stroking the case containing their copies of the paperwork. It was only hours later, as they approached their normal stations, that Mark broke the silence once more.
"Precentor?"
"Mhm?"
Pausing, the boy let out a sigh and slapped the sides of his face. "What could possibly possess a couple, with unweaned children at that, to leave Terra like this?"
"A threat to their lives would be the classical example of a reason to move." his mentor dryly answered. "But I suspect what you want to know is why they would not move elsewhere on Terra, why they would not invest their newfound wealth into safety. Why they would choose to leave the familiar, the enlightened, the wealthy, the promise of a life exceeding one hundred years, for the unenlightened world beyond. This is an impossible question to answer. Why did the first jumpships slip beyond the black of the void to distant stars? With the birth of fusion power, there were no imminently practical limits to how many could have lived on Terra, and yet uncounted millions left for lives infinitely worse than could be achieved on the homeworld, birthing all the colonies of the universe. Humanity is idiosyncracy incarnate. Maybe to John and Amelia O'Reilly, Terra means horses, and they simply hate horses?"
---
Scene 3
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On the tarmac of a vast spaceport, close enough to taste the immense craft that would carry him away from Terra, a young man slapped his hand against a seated mech's leg with indignation. "You've been flagging people past to their ships without a peep for half an hour now! Why is it that only we're being searched?"
Officer Bryce von Helsing, Comstar Customs and Migration, could only let out a groan of anguish. It was always like this. Whether it was a random search or a normal one, they always got belligerent. At least the mechs were inactive - it could take a few crucial seconds for the mounted officers to respond when someone really started raging in a motor vehicle. "Sir, just to confirm, these are the BV XXI Buster cargo mech formerly produced by the Bluth Corporation?"
The huge oaf's face screwed up into a grimace, and he looked at the ground. Clearly, he realized he'd been caught. "What about it? Are antiques contraband?"
Bryce stepped forward with his clipboard. "Empty mass for a Buster is thirty nine metric tons. Calculating from the weight of your trailer clocked on our weigh station, yours are each fifty tons right now. Fully loaded. Granted, there are a few tons of imprecision with these things, but eleven is out of the question."
"This port handles cargo every day!" the youth insisted, trying to deflect the discussion from the point. Usually, people were a little more clever about things than this. "It's more convenient for us to have it in the mech than to haul crates separately. Is that really so wrong? Why do you have to hold us up like this? We've got two babies in the cab with us"
There was a fucking line building up. This self important tosspot was delaying the days of thousands, using his kids as an excuse, all so he could try and skip the most basic of checks. Despite that, an officer of the customs office needed to remain polite and bear with it. Protocol was protocol. "Not at all, sir. When our customers transport vehicles and cargo, it is only natural that they be consolidated into one package for the journey. We gladly accept that practice. However, it has come up in our system that you have not declared nor screened any cargo, nor paid any export duties for it. This puts us in quite a bind - personal luggage is limited to fifty kilograms or less per person. We need to see what you're carrying, so we can remove any contraband and assess proper export duties for the remainder. Please open the bays so we can get our crane in there."
The brat spat on the pavement as he fished out his keys. What a fat load of nerve - in this weather, it'd be hours before that evaporated. Someone could trip and fall. "To think Comstar treats tax paying citizens like this."
Kid, you're an emigrant, and you're trying to evade taxes right now. Fuck off.
- -
The check took half an hour. That was half an hour longer than they would have been here if boy wonder and his little wife up high in the cabin hadn't decided to get clever with the port authority. "So in summary, everything on the left will be returned to you as soon as you pay the proper duties, while everything to the right will be confiscated as contraband, as you lack the proper licenses to export such goods and cannot acquire them in time for departure."
"To be returned." Bryce began, a vein popping on his forehead, with a gesture to the pile of large crates, stuffed with bottle after bottle. "Bourbon, Tennessee, six tons. Sparkling wine, Krug Champagne, eight tons. Olive oil, Liguria, five tons. These local specialty agricultural products are cleared for general export, and as such can be carried onboard without any need for particular licensing. However, in addition to generic export duties, they bear special taxes. Total assessed duties amount to three million c-bills. This fee will be charged from the account with which you purchased your ticket. If you believe some other party is liable, you will be able to issue a legal challenge to recoup the expense upon your arrival at New Kyoto."
Glancing to the smaller crates that had been in the very backs of the bays, he let out a long suffering groan. "As for the two tons of computer equipment, these require a class V electronics export license. Average time to approval for a license is four years, and the application price of acquiring one is one billion c-bills. As you are not an agent of any licensed organization, and lack such a license yourself, these will be confiscated and destroyed while you go on your way. For future reference, we take the export of these sorts of goods extremely seriously, because it can be virtually impossible to properly control for their contents. Do you understand?"
His face red, the man simply nodded in indignation.
Finally, Bryce could go back to flagging other people through. "Good, good. Then, with your leave, we'll get your approved exports loaded back up and you can go on your way. Comstar wishes you nothing but good days in your new home. But, if I may be so presumptuous, Mr. O'Reilly...please, for your family's sake, do not attempt this sort of stunt in any other spaceport. Other port authorities may not be so gentle as we are, and so attempted smuggling may carry far harsher penalties than being asked to pay the fees normally."
There was no real merit in investigating why the man looked so relieved as he got back into the truck and waited. Anyone would be happy to finally get out of the world's most unnecessary customs check, even if it ended in an unfavorable way. Nobody liked the customs officer.
It was tempting to investigate the signs of modification to the sides of the cargo bays, but there was no basis for it. With the bay cargo removed, the mechs weighed in properly at thirty nine tons. Rather than a sign of smuggling bays, the unusual seams and welds had to be taken as a sign of patchwork repairs to the aged machines, because there was simply no unaccounted for mass to cram inside of any concealed bays. If he had someone's industrialmechs gutted out of some insane leap of logic like that, when boarding had already been delayed by half an hour, he'd lose his job - and only ten days before retirement, at that. He wanted to keep his pension, damn it!
---
Scene 4
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Peering up from the bed of the cabin, where he lay sprawled out, John cracked a thin smile. "They're hungry today, aren't they?"
Amy, her shirt around her armpits and each arm cradling an infant at chest height, split the difference between a shrug and gentling rocking their children by lingering in the raised position a second longer. "I wouldn't say it's especially weird. Their stomachs are getting bigger every day, and they're growing like weeds, so it's only natural. Imagine how much more you'd start eating if you were just learning how to walk."
"...I guess it's a matter of me not always being around to notice." John admitted, sitting up slowly. "Sorry about that, by the way. If I could take it off your shoulders sometimes, I would."
"No, no." Amy chirped, casting a soft grin his way. "It's not so bad. It's nice to have the time with them, and it's a good moment to just… think. Besides, it's not like you're pawning it off on me 'cause you're lazy. Those rock hard man-titties don't have any milk in 'em, and these little goofs decided for themselves that bottles were no-good. For better or worse, it's momma's boobs or the highway with them."
"Barely six months old, and already opinionated." John sniffed, wringing his hands together idly. "They grow up so, so damn fast. We...should probably clean up our vocabulary. There's probably a special hell waiting for us if we hear their first words on this trip, and they're bad ones."
Rolling her eyes, Amy glanced down at the ravenous beasts attached to her front end. "Are you two gonna scare the daylights out of momma and papa by cussing at us?"
Waiting for a few seconds for the non-reply, she glanced up, eyes half lidded, and smiled. "I think that's a yes."
John covered his face as he snickered at the joke, but after a few seconds the laughter down-shifted into something more like heavy breathing or… sobs. "What are we even doing up here? We had something like a family, friends, a life. Now we're on a trip for...who knows how long. What if all the time in space affects their bones and muscles? What if they can't live on a planet?"
Sighing, Amy shook her head as the twins detached their lamprey-like grips and glanced over to their father. "John, you big goof, we're going to be on the ground or under thrust more often than not to begin with. Especially this close to Terra, it'll generally be less than a week at a time in space, and...well… during the waiting times, the jumpship crews can complain all they want, but they ain't keeping us out of their gravity decks. We planned this. If we'd stayed, we'd be worrying even more."
As John nodded and fell silent, James and Marie turned back to Amy but, apparently, weren't feeling too hungry anymore. Cooing persistently, they forced her to set them down on ground level, where their stumbling, neophyte walk got them all the way to John's legs before they started yawning uncontrollably.
"Think it's time for them to take a nap?" John mused, reaching down to rub their backs.
Smiling at his improved disposition, Amy nodded as she pulled her top back down. "Sounds like it's just about time."
- -
Once the little ones had drifted off in their cribs, John shuffled over to the end table and - with a smirk, pressed a button on a small fob they'd brought aboard. Immediately, a gentle but repetitive chirp began to fill the room. There weren't any cameras in the suite, so this was all that was necessary.
"What's on that one?" Amy asked quietly after a second, hugging her knees up on the corner of the bed.
Pausing for a second, the mountain of a man looked away. "...It's a sex track. If anyone's listening in, we're just having some fun now that the kids aren't listening. And...uh...thanks for earlier."
Amy flushed from ear to ear at hearing just what recording the bug jammer was playing, but ultimately nodded into her knees. "You're...uh...welcome. Really, it's no problem. I understand the freakout...completely and totally. We decided to do what's right, instead of what's easy, and that's...well, not easy."
Making his way silently to the sink and pouring a glass of water, John nodded. "Still. And, uh… on that note, your plan worked out...well… like a dream. Really. I feel bad for everyone stuck behind us, but…"
"Was it my plan?" Amy mused in a low voice, kicking her legs out to wiggle her toes. "Or was it the plan of the egghead who upgraded those mechs to fit hidden compartments to the tune of half again their rated load? Maybe at the end of the day, I just pieced together someone else's intentions from the marks they made on the world and followed 'em through. Either way, now we look too stupid to have any more secrets to keep. Plus... all the contraband we really need."
"Amazing how dense storage cores got back then." John agreed in a lower whisper. "But I still think it was your plan. They couldn't possibly have imagined the exact port we passed through. That we'd need to discredit ourselves quite like that."
"Maybe Jonathan Cameron imagined it." Amy mused. "He certainly seemed to have an active imagination. Though, well...something close to what he imagined came true, so…"
"Forget Jonathan Cameron." John sighed, taking a deep sip of his water. "Thinking about whether he was paranoid or justified, whether he was acting responsibly or just responsible for needless destruction… all of that gives me a headache. Why the hell did he think it was smart to drop that bombshell all at once, on a group that was just leaving to try and rebuild? Hell of a mood killer."
"...Maybe he was trying to get people thinking. About what kind of society they wanted to build. About the danger of building weapons that can burn a city in minutes." came the slightly delayed reply. As her big toes curled over their neighbors, Amy flopped back onto the bed in a poof of sheets. "Or maybe he was just crazy."
It was at that moment that the jammer started beeping more quickly. That was the sign that there were only a few minutes left on the recording. With a sigh, mount beef shifted his weight and grabbed an earbud off the end table.
Watching for the moment the bug-simulation slipped into his ear, Amy was quick to rise. "What's it sound like the ending's gonna be?"
"...we should probably grab the weights and start lifting. We were out of breath after this one." John slowly replied, a blush spreading on his face. "And then...after we get our breath back...do you maybe wanna go for round two? It'd help to sell the story."
Her cheeks reddening again, Amy nodded. "I'd be up for round one, I guess. Remember the fucking condom, though. It's years too soon to grow this family again. Uh...huh. We should probably think about that… if we're planning on disappearing, sooner or later we'll want to swap up our names. John and Amelia O'Reilly, or Jack and Amy Gawther...those are both trails that lead back to Terra. So, what do you think abou-"
A kiss saved those thoughts for later, when they found another suitable sound clip to jam any bugs with.
-----
That's all currently released content crossposted.
Without further ado, I'm going to get to work on the next scene of chapter 7.
Chapter 7 (February 2912 - July 2919)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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John could barely avoid sighing as he and Amy settled into their seats across from the big cheese of this place. The man, who hadn't bothered to take off his fucking bib before meeting them, looked like he massed 140 kilos in the form of lard. As he flipped through the pile of papers on his desk, the man delivered a sight that would probably haunt John's nightmares forever - he licked his lips. The man even had a gold tooth, of all things. As if he couldn't afford proper preventative dental care - more likely, it was just an effort to show off.
He could only have been more stereotypically Lyran if he were in a general's dress uniform. Which, given that this was New Kyoto, was quite impressive - if there was one place one would expect someone not to fit the stereotypes of broader Lyran society, New Kyoto was that place.
The man, Graf Willibald von Nishijin, was clearly intent on making a display of the power difference at hand. It felt like a minute had passed before he looked up and addressed them. "Good day to you, Mr. and Mrs. O'Reilly. I trust my secretary informed you of the reason for this meeting?"
She'd told them no such thing, either when she delivered the meeting request or when they'd met with her just before. Of course, the real reason they were being made to present themselves to the owner was so he could flex his power, but…
"My apologies, lord Graf." Amy spoke up, shaking her head solemnly. John stifled another sigh, this one of relief, as she took the matter in hand. When it came to handling people, she was by far the defter hand. "We were not delivered such an explanation. It would be the light of our day if you were so gracious as to inform us yourself."
It was an extremely punchable smile that bloomed on the man over the next few seconds, as he wrung his hands against each-other. "Ah! My apologies for her laxity." he began, as though the administrative assistant hadn't simply been marching to a script he prepared. "Since you've asked so politely, I will, as you say… inform you, before we truly get down to business."
Feeling a light kick against the side of his heel, John bowed at Amy's unspoken direction. "We are incredibly grateful for your understanding."
As though it were even possible, it was like the man inflated with pride. "I understand the two of you, despite bearing a name that would be quite natural on Summer or Skye proper, are recent immigrants to the Federation. Indeed, to the Commonwealth. In such a case, it is required that I pay special scrutiny to my business dealings with you. National security concerns, of course, ridiculous though they are given what you mean to purchase and your Terran birth. In these situations, despite my warmest desire to get right to doing business, I am afraid the standard background checks take one or two years. The bureaucracy of it all, you see, is quite sluggish and set in its ways."
Amy wore a well sculpted frown - showing only a slight portion of her displeasure, it was overall a gentle expression. Perfect for playing the politely chagrined nouveau riche. "That is regrettable, but if such a wait time is necessary, we will gladly settle in as is expected of us. Our intention to do business with West Kyoto Heavy Industrial Machining will not be spoiled - that, I can promise you."
The man had a chuckle like a frog's croak, and as he slapped his desk in amusement he paid no mind to the papers that fell down, one of which John noted seemed to just be rote printed filler text. "Oh, Mrs. O'Reilly, there's no need to spoil your beautiful face with such a frown. You see, there's more to these things than simple adherence to protocol. While it is true that I will be called in to answer for myself by some stodgy civil servant if I sign a contract with the two of you now… I'm quite confident I know who it would be. Baronet Blunt is no more impressed with the system than you or I, you see. If I can deliver to him your verbal attestation of your intentions, I am certain he would be more than happy to initiate the...expedited protocol. We could be making the final delivery before we ever would have started on your order! Of course, such a protocol comes with additional administrative fees - call it about a ten percent commission, but… it is well worth the cost, no?"
"Naturally." Amelia agreed, before nudging John gently in the side, passing the baton for the next bit to him. It seemed she'd gotten well and truly tired of responding to the man's slimy disposition.
He needed to wait a bit for the businessman to get done nodding self importantly and formally ask his question, though. "Then, with no further ado, please do be so kind as to tell me...what has possessed the two of you to order such a large helping of, frankly, utterly obsolete tooling? A more conventional, safer approach to using one's venture capital, if one wanted to get into the machine tools business, would be to, say, invest in a portfolio of well established standing concerns, which have the most modern equipment still available. I hesitate to even call the firm you seem intent to found a competitor of ours - nothing you'll be able to make has been cutting edge in nearly a millennium, except in a few dingy holes stepped over by history."
"I'm afraid…" John bluffed, wearing a look of finely trained confidence as he folded his hands together on his lap. "That we're the sort who can't find any enthusiasm for the safe and stable road in life. A high risk, high reward approach is what we decided on when we headed out here - either we'll have our own working business, or we'll be forced to live a life of modest means when it all comes down. From that perspective, even if it's essentially trash, it only makes sense to buy what we can actually afford. As you've said, worlds where it represents a step up do exist - I rather think we could make a healthy profit by inserting ourselves as the local option in the reconstruction of Caledonia, for example."
"If it proceeds smoothly enough to demand the amount of tooling you're preparing to produce." Willibald agreed, a gleam in his eyes. "Certainly, it seems like a sound plan, if one is a gambler by nature. Of course, nothing would stop an outside party from willfully undercutting your prices, unless…"
"Of course," John piped in, picking up where the suit trailed off. "We will happily consider your personal interest in the matter. Another commission, same as the first, perhaps?"
Every smile from the nobleman was greasy as could be. "That would be plenty, yes. Now, as for another matter… it seems to me that given your shared disposition, you might find some pleasure on Solaris VII, while waiting for our end of the contract to be fulfilled. If it pleases you, I am more than ready to supply referrals to some excellent establishments in Silesia that would make your stay truly shine like a diamond."
No doubt, the man had a personal stake in every hotel, every restaurant, every security agency, and every gambling hall he'd name. Perhaps even Steiner Stadium itself. However, it would hardly do to point it out. "Your lordship is truly wise. We had considered just such a vacation ourselves - and with your guidance, it could only become a richer experience."
John felt like it'd almost be preferable to be gagged with a spoon to dealing with the man any longer. If he knew Amy at all, she'd feel much the same on the matter.
"Excellent! Now, as for a contract, here's something I've had prepared…"
- -
"That fucking slug!" Amy hissed as soon as the bug-jammer was active. "I swear, he spent half that time trying to bilk more money out of us, and the other half trying to undress me with his eyes!"
Nodding, John sighed. "Absolute waste of flesh and power. All else failed, I swear, we're getting out of Lyran space before James and Marie are old enough to learn from the example of people like that."
A few moments later, Amy sighed, flopping back onto the bed. "At least… we've got most of the capital end of things locked down now - even if the destination turns out to be a total bust, we've got the tools to make the tools waiting for us. Now all we need to see to are the matters of manpower, shipping, and security. Which, to be honest, Solaris isn't half bad for."
---
Scene 2
---
As he stepped into the room, Major Alan Marinkovich of the Red Rooster Battalion quirked his eyebrows high enough that it looked like it hurt. The forty year old had a... very distinctive way of overemoting. It was enough to make one wonder if he was just extremely transparent, the world's shittiest actor, or a master of misdirection. "Just you today, ma'am?"
"Just me for now, Major." Amy agreed, shifting what felt like the world's heaviest paper over on her desk before looking up to give a polite smile. With that shipping manifest in hand, that little confirmation that the machine tools they'd paid a king's ransom for over years ago were finally waiting under heavy guard at the spaceport, things could finally move forward. "His turn for parent-child bonding. If we lived in a kinder world, maybe this office would be fit for toddlers to play around in, but, well… We probably wouldn't get much work done at that point."
Rolling his eyes, the mercenary smiled brightly. "Understood. Well, if he's bedridden with parenting, I'll just trust that the Blue Bramblings have his security well in hand, along with that of the tots. Honestly, it's amazing what having kids can do to a person - when Helena had my nephew, she practically traded places with her XO for three years - the Green Geese have never seen such messy days."
Chuckling, Amy rose from her seat and stepped around the desk. "Major, it almost sounds like you're not a 'kid' person. Never considered having any of your own? It might change the way you think about parents."
"Well, actually -" the man began, before his face suddenly screwed up into a mix of a scowl and that peculiar 'why did I bite into this lime?' puckered look that very little else produced. "Hm. No, probably better not to assault your ears like that. That sort of talk isn't really fit for a young lady."
Before, the man simply had Amelia's attention. Now, though, he had her interest. Sitting down on the front of her desk, she narrowed her mismatched eyes. "Major Marinkovich!" she cried, grinning widely as she chastised the man. "I'm shocked you think of me as some pure young lady. Was it the motorcycle, the trips to the shooting range, or the fact that I've spent the last two years living in Sin City itself that gave you that impression?"
The man blushed beet red at that, glancing away and down at the floor. "Fuckin' fine. You got me there. Well, okay, it's like this, right? Even if I could find some charitable soul with the compassion in her heart to take a rogue like me, we'd need to adopt. It...uh… well, basically, it happened when I was twenty. I was an apprentice at the time, and I sort of… slept around somewhere I shouldn't have. The father, uh… he took umbrage with that. Started shooting, hit me while I was running. Took my balls clean off. Only reason I can maintain this lustrous beard is a daily regimen of pills that take their place, hormonally. We...uh...also lost the contract we had at the time. By virtue of the fact that the girl was our client's niece."
"Wwwow." Amy spat, trying very hard to wipe away that mental image. "Well, you seem… surprisingly over it. For how, well, extreme that sort of life event is."
Alan's grin could, perhaps, have been characterized as 'shit eating', if not for the slight melancholy look in his eyes. "Has its upsides. You'd be amazed how popular a eunuch can get."
"Right, fuck it. Nope, we're done with this topic!" Amy shouted, retreating back behind her desk. "Was there something you needed, or did you just decide that you, as CO, were the one best suited to the close security detail today?"
"Well, there's a few things, actually. Three main ones, I'd say." the man admitted, coughing into his fist. "First of all, just wanted to confirm for you that, after this last big tournament, we've been able to finish buying up that ridiculous pile of spare parts you wanted us to prepare."
Amy's concern was plainly visible on her face, her frown deep as she massaged over her eyes. "I really don't think scrap parts will hold up as long as they're meant to, for this sort of extended deployment. Did you at least get more than the originally planned parts supply?"
It seemed that the Major, laughing like a hyena, must have found that question quite hilarious. "Aw, fuck! Haha… No! No, we didn't buy the wrecks. God above, we aren't that stupid. No, you see, all those stables that lost big? They're closing their doors for good. Bankrupt. That means their garages get liquidated, floods the market something fierce. The parts are good - factory fresh, even, but they were nice and cheap for ever so short a moment before offers started to pour in from offworld. So, with the budget you've been so kind as to give us...we went on a buying spree."
Loosing a sigh of relief, Amelia waited for the next big ticket item the man thought needed be mentioned.
"Next, uh… well, funny thing that came up while I was on my way in - it seems like some of the folks whose debt you've been buying out want to talk to you two about what your plans for their obligations are. Some sorta...teacher's union or something?" Alan recounted, scratching the back of his head. "I figure that, if the two of you can find the time, you might want to actually talk to them about that at some point. Reassure them that they aren't debt slaves, and they're not being forced to come with, and all. Might make fewer of them try to...run away, or do something funny."
"...See if Sunday works for them."
The major nodded vigorously. "Right! And...uh… for the last thing." he said, reaching under his jacket and fishing around for a few seconds before pulling out a bundle of envelopes. "Your little 'bureaucratic assistant' stopped by with your new papers. So that's finally ready for you. Though, uh… I've sort of got a question about that, which I didn't want to ask back when you first made the deal. I understand hiding from your crazy in-laws. That's not confusing to me. Thing is, though… do you really think 'Jack Cameron' and 'Amelie Clayton' are the names the two of you want? Bullshitting up a claim to the First Lordship isn't gonna be very convincing, and it'll paint a target on your back no matter what."
Here, it was Amelia's turn to laugh. "Pff… Wow, you...snrck… you think the name Cameron automatically means 'Star League'? Clan Cameron existed for over a thousand years before any Cameron ever ruled over Terra, let alone the Star League. I'll bet you... there are more people named Cameron on Summer right now than Michael Cameron ever had descendants. Granted, there was pressure, historically, for loosely related Camerons to change it out for one of the Cameron septs' names, throughout the Hegemony's existence, but… it was never actually enforced through any law. Being perfectly honest? We chose the name because there are some folks on my father's side with that name. Meanwhile, Clayton is my...mother's maiden name. But they don't know that, or have any way to."
"Uh...huh." the Major groaned, massaging his eyes. "And you're going to explain that...every time you're asked about it? Well, aside from the part where it isn't really his name, and you chose it for giggles. Hell, why didn't you go for the same last name?"
"Adds character to the lie we're living." Amy chirped.
Doing an about face, the Major just shook his head while facing the door. "Right, well, make sure not to add so much character to it that it falls apart on you. If your absurd fucking elopement-colony venture falls through, the Roy-Jean Birds are suddenly out of a job, which means staying alive and successful is your job. Got it?"
"Loud and clear." Amy nodded. "Honestly, we've got things pretty well figured out, by now. You learn a few things when you emigrate twice - for example, did you know that the normal way private parties export lots of computers is to just...pay a licensed merchant company to get them through the port for them, then transfer them over in orbit?"
---
Scene 3
---
Waking up… hurt.
It wasn't supposed to do that.
There hadn't even been any party last night. They'd only just touched down on this godforsaken dustball, barely even gotten underway with anything. Celebrating, that would have to wait for when they got results, and that was something that could take any damn amount of time. Nobody had a damn clue where to start looking, except for 'on the planet'.
Gingerly, one hand went up to an aching forehead at the head of a sticklike arm, finding a mess of delicately wrapped, sort of crusty bandages.
Being hurt, that changed something. That meant shit had gone down last night. It was enough to quicken a pulse and pale a face.
Two eyes slowly forced open, the owner glanced around, trying to get some sense of his position. What they got was both informative and far from so. The walls were an ugly gray plaster. The only light in the room came from a small, barred up window high on the wall, as though there was a bare bulb strung up from the ceiling haphazardly, it was not on. The door was made of sturdy metal.
It was a prison cell, and this was the shittiest cot it's prisoner had ever laid on. This...was an embarrassment. If word got out, maybe nobody would even give a fuck, but for someone who lived and died on reputation that was hard to stake a lot of hope on.
Johann Sebastian O'Reilly was not the sort of man who got locked up in some degenerated, backwater prison off the edge of the map.
At least, not until now.
Rising slowly, he fought through the dizziness that accompanied the motion. Silently, he mused that he must have been hit pretty hard, in order to not remember a damn thing about how he got here. The people here shouldn't have been able to do jack shit - he brought a lance of good mechs with him, and the hottest news on the block around here was probably diesel or something.
Which meant, since he hadn't landed on the fucking coast for them to open up with wet naval artillery or some shit, that it had to be some competing group who got here first, with more metal. And, he realized as he felt around his clothes, they took his fucking guns.
It was just his damn luck. It figured, that the day he tried to act out Caesar's landing in Britannia, he got something more like the first invasion than the second. Except, even Caesar had had the chance to retreat and prepare to fight another day. At least whoever it was, they were too soft and stupid to come up with the permanent solution of just shooting him.
A vein popped up on his forehead, and with a few seconds more he'd risen to his feet and marched over to the door. "Hey!" he cried, banging on the door. "The fuck am I doing in here!? The hell even are you people? Where's my goddamn crew?"
It was important to let his dumbass hosts know he was awake, but it was equally important to not come across as a pushover.
"Shut up, you fucking pirate!"
Well… that seemed to explain why he was in this shithole. Now it was just a matter of waiting to talk to someone willing to listen. If they really just thought of him as a pirate - if this world had experience with being raided for whatever miserable goods it could produce, but suddenly managed to get the better of one through luck, pluck, and divine fucking intervention - chances were he'd be fucking dead. That meant someone had kept him alive, and for a reason.
- -
The door, it turned out, creaked loud enough to blow someone's ears out. Someone really needed to get some goddamn oil on the thing - and as though Johann needed any more proof he'd been brought here unconscious and not asleep, there was no way anybody in a whole cell block could sleep through a noise like that, let alone someone right next to the door at the time.
Straightening his back as he sat on the edge of the cot, the scavenger fixed the entryway with a glare as people streamed in. First to enter were two burly men in nice, tidy body armor, each bearing a pretty serious looking rifle - maybe even a laser rifle. No way would he believe that those were real battlefield uniforms under the armor, though - that collage of bright blues would never do as a serious infantry camouflage. Mercs from offworld, maybe, because no way was that gear native - and called into the prison on short notice, at that.
Then, the mountain came a'calling. Johann had only seen men the caliber of the absolute beef fridge that was crouching to pass under the low doorway a few times in his life - and it was invariably as one or more of three things. The star of a freakshow, the bouncer of a club, or the personal kneebreaker of the sort of person who can bury you real quick. The fucker might as well have massed a quarter ton, for all that muscle on his frame. And yet… his face, as it came into view, spoiled the entire image of a kneebreaker. Maybe in a few years, his boss would have a scary guard dog, but he had a serious case of babyface on him yet, not helped by the decision to go clean shaven. A slight curiosity was that he wasn't dressed in the same uniform as the armed guards - seemed that the gunmen were definitely outside help, while he was more of an insider to whatever group had Johann and his by the balls.
There was something deeply underwhelming about hearing this twenty-something's youth, however booming the voice was. The fact that he was snickering as he did it, though, was just irritating. For fucks sake, the scavenger hoped whoever was paying this shithead would learn to house train his giant. A giggling kneebreaker could either be pants-shittingly terrifying, or not scary in the least - but usually you really needed something in the middle. "Mr...pff... Sebastian O'Reilly, I take it?"
"And what the hell's it to you, punk?" Johann shouted, feigning the intent to rise from his seat for a second, but stopping before the mercs could really start to get their rifles up. "Is my name funny to you? Is throwing me in jail some big prank of the century, something your sugar daddy's gonna jerk himself off to before bed? The tale of the time he threw a perfectly legitimate explorer in prison and had him shot?"
Chuckling a bit, Big McLargehuge scratched the back of his head. He could either be a rank amateur, or this was a fucking psyop to get him to fuck up. "No offence, Mr. O'Reilly, but I'm afraid nothing about your little expedition looks the least bit legitimate from the outside. You came down planetside with practically empty cargo holds, walked out your mechs, and set up camp just a few kilometers away from a city. That has raid written all over it. Besides which, when your forces surrendered, we found...skulls, glued to the dashboard in one of your cockpits. Which definitely feels like something a psychopath would do."
Johann's blood pressure found new heights at that moment, realizing that Ramirez' terrible fucking taste was adding to the hot water he was in. "Look, out in these parts, when you hire mercenaries you don't ask what kind of shit they're into, and you definitely don't tell them off for it! They're here as protection. So that I can search the place without getting jumped and put on a pike by savages, primitives, or pirates. Or at least, they were, before you dipshits found us."
Mount Steroid stepped ever closer at that, the grin on his face the first legitimately frightening thing he'd done this entire time. "Oho. And just what were you looking for on Alphard? Ancient ruins? A conveniently unguarded treasury? A ready supply of free labor? Your own new kingdom?"
The only thing to do was to grit his teeth, and admit to the what's what of the situation to save his bacon. "Just about anything would have done. I came here chasing some pre-war shipping manifests from the Alphard Trading Company. Old League era business that exported germanium and imported just about everything else. Found some records in ex-Canopian space a few years back, and it just so happened I had enough scratch after my last find to hire up some folks on Detroit and come out here to dig. Thought it was going to be the big lucky break of my life, but it looks like your boss beat me there. Is that enough? Gonna let me go now, or is this when you take me out behind the shed and shoot me?"
The giant mook took an irritatingly long time to answer that, before donning a goofy grin and shaking his head. Fucking clown. "Let you go, no. Kill you, also no. Everything you just said lines up with what your folks said, but my boss...eh… isn't exactly keen on letting news out of here right now. On the other hand, you might be able to get a meeting. Chaperoned, of course. We might be able to find some use for you around here, with your agreement. It'd definitely come with someplace nicer to stay than your little apartment here."
That jab was way over the line. "Fuck you!"
---
Scene 4
---
As he, followed by his bodyguards, led Johann through the hot, steamy interior of the greenhouse, John couldn't help but frown. Some of the plants were looking a little deprived. He'd need to figure out what was wrong with their handling later.
"Holy hell. Rich people actually have these things? I thought that was just a cliche in old movies." uttered the explorer...scavenger...pirate… whatever the man actually was. "Who the hell even takes care of all this?"
Snorting, John found himself forced to prove Amy right on just one more thing out of millions; sometimes, you found a person who just made it fun to mess with them. Sometimes, you could even just tell the truth to do it. "That'll be me. I'm afraid after a few years of doing it, tending to random plants morphs from a chore to a hobby to an addiction."
The way the much weedier man's face contorted into a mask of bafflement and outrage was simply too amusing to ignore. "What the fuck? So you're, what, an enforcer and a gardener? You fertilizing these plants with people or something?"
"Don't be ridiculous. If I were that sort of person, do you really think you'd be coming into this greenhouse on your own two feet?" the giant retorted, shaking his head vigorously. "Our destination's right around this next corner. Now, my advice to you… is that you'd best find a gram of politeness somewhere in that body."
The gangly little scoundrel found it in himself to roll his eyes at that. "What, if I show impudence before Caesar you'll crucify me?"
There was little to do in response to that other than pinch one's forehead in frustration. "It's a job interview Johann! There are two main ways this can go - either you'll be offered a nice, comfortable place to live out the rest of your life, or you'll just become like any other person on this planet. That all depends on how you manage to sell yourself."
The grunt of acknowledgement the other O'Reilly gave off as they rounded the corner would have to do.
That being the case, the choked 'Bwuh' he let out when his eyes settled on the garden table set with four seats, Amy waiting at the far end in a simple sundress and straw hat, was more than a bit annoying. "Your boss...is a woman?"
John did not appreciate that tone, but he knew what to do about it. Stepping away from the man wordlessly, he approached the table quickly, grabbing one of the chairs while in motion and dragging it, legs scraping against the cobblestone flooring, to Amy's side. As he took a seat he was sure, despite its more than adequate strength to bear his weight, he looked ridiculous on the tiny thing - but there was still one more thing to be done in this little display. Smiling, he leaned down, waiting for Amy to turn her gaze towards him, and planted a kiss on her lips. "Yes."
Quirking her eyebrows up, she was quick to respond as he pulled back. "It's an equal partnership, Jack."
It took Johann a moment to stop sputtering before, gritting his teeth, he approached the table itself and took a seat opposite the couple. "So you're in charge around here, and you garden? Do you think you're Diocletian or something?"
"Please, Johann." Jack retorted, shaking his head. "It's an equal partnership. We plan together, lead together, live together, and raise two beautiful children together. If you play nice enough, you might even meet them one day, instead of us sending them to 'Uncle Alan' for babysitting."
Amy's smile reached her blue and white eyes as she joined in on the act. "Though barring a real miracle, I wouldn't get my hopes up about ever being asked to babysit them or any incoming younger siblings yourself. Becoming a part of the family is more than just existing nearby. You've gotta be close and well liked for practically a kid's whole life to get drafted as an honorary uncle."
It was clear from his body language that Johann wanted to say something crude about the situation, but held himself back. It was a good sign, even if it might have just been a matter of fear. "Alright, a power couple, then. You two have names?"
"Jack Cameron"
"Amelie Clayton."
The prisoner's laughter was near instant in its onset, a wheezing cacophony dulled only by the rustling of leaves around them. To John and Amy, it seemed as though he must have kept going for a good ten, twenty seconds. "Haa… don't tell me you seriously expect me to believe you're a Cameron. You can pull my leg all you want, neither has bells or whistles. It's been over a hundred years since the fall of the Star League. If there were a Cameron out in this part of the periphery, using the name no less, people would fucking know. A bluff like this is only good for scamming babies."
Hearing that, the married couple shared an amused look and a light chuckle, before John spoke up once more. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. I don't, to the best of my knowledge, have the least bit of the blood of the Director Generals in me. The thing that's so often forgotten is that the family name 'Cameron' had existed for over a thousand years already before the birth of Kearny and Fuchida. Between the two of us, Amy here actually has a vastly more important family - even if they haven't been at their prime for quite awhile."
Cupping his chin, O'Reilly seemed to genuinely think that over for a bit. "Still important enough that you managed to take over Alphard together, though. So they can't possibly be that far gone."
"Oh, no. We haven't taken over Alphard." Amy corrected, folding her hands together on the table. "Maybe a sixth of it, right now, if you really reach with your definition. It's easy enough to sink what passes for a navy here with anything resembling a proper fighter, and a land army as the locals understand it is powerless before a battlemech, true. However, calming popular resistance and extending an effective administration… that takes time, and we've only been here for a few short years. But this isn't about us - it's about you. Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"
Two arms flew up in a 'what do you want from me' sort of gesture. "I'm not exactly in any position to say no, now, am I?"
"I think you would find, if you said no, that the results are nowhere near as bad as you'd think. You'd just be living the life of any average working adult who isn't an interstellar adventurer." Amy drolled, before her face took on a more serious cast. "Now, a hypothetical question for you. Say you'd gotten here at the head of your little scavenging party and we were absent. You spent a few months searching the place, and you eventually found a warehouse with over a megaton of Germanium in it, refined in the last days of the Star League - enough treasure to make your fortune for longer than the rest of your life, but more than you could hope to haul away any time soon. So you've gotta set up a lasting presence here, on a world of - well, we don't know exactly, but over three hundred million is the estimate. How do you deal with that sort of problem?"
Snorting, Johann rolled his eyes and folded his arms in front of his chest. Despite those contemptuous gestures, though, it was clear from the pause he took and the tapping of his foot that the man was at least thinking. "If the scenario's like that, it's gotta be a long haul approach. Step one is to load as much of the stuff as the cargo holds can take and sell it at below market rate at Clipperton. That being done, I'd be able to afford to pay the boys to stay on, and hire more - better - mercs at the same time. With that, I could set up a base here like you've done, start exporting regularly, expanding my power. To speed that up...it's gotta be a divide-and-conquer approach, since I don't exactly have much bait to offer the locals normally. Offer the elites perks if they'll show their bellies - they become the patricians. The ones who follow them or stay at home, they can live on normally, as plebians. Everyone who actively resists… servi poenae. That is, criminal slaves. Plenty of eager help in setting up the… Marian Hegemony, I suppose I'd call it. A little nation of my own, to export the germanium and exploit the planet."
"And if progress ground to a halt for awhile?"
"Well," Johann resumed, cupping his chin. "To keep morale up, and keep people from thinking they can do better than me, I'd have to move the goalposts at that point. Knock over nearby, smaller worlds, set up power structures there, bring people back to help me here. Maintain loyalty through bread, circuses, and triumphs. That sort of thing."
"Wow." Amy exclaimed after a moment, clapping her hands together once as John wrapped an arm around her waist. "You're...absolutely awful, Mr. O'Reilly. I'm more convinced than before that you've got a bit of pirate in you. If you'd jumped in at the Nadir point, where our contracted jumpships wait, I'm afraid you might have just tried boarding them for your prize."
O'Reilly realized, at that moment, that he'd spoken much too honestly. This was almost certainly the moment where they threw him back in prison.
"You're hired."
As others began to approach through the pathways of the garden, carrying dishes that emitted tantalizing smells and reminded Johann of how hungry he was, the man could only think to ask "What?"
"Exactly that. You're good for the job we need filled." Jack stated, jumping back into things there. "We won't be doing...essentially any of what you mentioned there, mind you, at least not in a way remotely like you thought of. However, one of the biggest difficulties we've been projecting ourselves as having is to do with the fact that our expedition is entirely from the Inner Sphere. We don't really know the lay of the region, we're unfamiliar with things you're probably quite familiar with, and other such things as that. You may be utterly scummy, but we can use that - as a consultant on how pirates think and on Periphery norms, for one, but also potentially as a prop, a beast on a leash, an on-and-off representative of sorts, and… well, scapegoat isn't exactly the right word for it, but a convenient stand-in that roughly lines up with the sort of person people expect to take over a backwater planet, to draw attention away from us. If it appeals to your apparent fetish for Rome, call yourself a patrician if you must. You'll live a privileged life with some level of authority - as long as you acknowledge that we're the ones in charge, and you don't step over the lines we draw for you."
"Basically, become your loyal dog and poison taster. Bark bark." O'Reilly grumbled as the plates began to be set at the table, before covering his face with one palm. "I'll...fucking bite, I guess. Better than the other options I've got. If it's not a problem, though, I got one question for you, Jack."
"Shoot."
Johann definitely didn't flinch, even with those gunmen being around. "I can't help but notice that you and Amelie here, you've got different given names. She's a sharp lady, you've got kids, you say you're equals, so… if you love'er so much, why don't you marry'er?"
Hugging Amy close, John was quick on the reaction to that one, a prepared answer slipping from his lips after a few short seconds of mock-consideration. "Well, it was never really possible to get parental approval for our relationship. It'd be fairly accurate to say we eloped with everything we could grab from our families before anyone noticed, and this is just where that brought us. Besides which, even married couples don't always take the same name, you know."
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The timeskip this chapter represents might be a bit much, but things will be slowing down for awhile here. Probably should've covered more of the journey, but...well, this story has a lot of ground to cover, and this event was already originally intended to happen two chapters ago. If I were to lean too much into the domesticity of it all, we'd be stuck on the journey forever.
Maybe later, if there are weeks where I can't write a full chapter, I'll do some infill omakes for this timeskip.
Scene 1
---
John could barely avoid sighing as he and Amy settled into their seats across from the big cheese of this place. The man, who hadn't bothered to take off his fucking bib before meeting them, looked like he massed 140 kilos in the form of lard. As he flipped through the pile of papers on his desk, the man delivered a sight that would probably haunt John's nightmares forever - he licked his lips. The man even had a gold tooth, of all things. As if he couldn't afford proper preventative dental care - more likely, it was just an effort to show off.
He could only have been more stereotypically Lyran if he were in a general's dress uniform. Which, given that this was New Kyoto, was quite impressive - if there was one place one would expect someone not to fit the stereotypes of broader Lyran society, New Kyoto was that place.
The man, Graf Willibald von Nishijin, was clearly intent on making a display of the power difference at hand. It felt like a minute had passed before he looked up and addressed them. "Good day to you, Mr. and Mrs. O'Reilly. I trust my secretary informed you of the reason for this meeting?"
She'd told them no such thing, either when she delivered the meeting request or when they'd met with her just before. Of course, the real reason they were being made to present themselves to the owner was so he could flex his power, but…
"My apologies, lord Graf." Amy spoke up, shaking her head solemnly. John stifled another sigh, this one of relief, as she took the matter in hand. When it came to handling people, she was by far the defter hand. "We were not delivered such an explanation. It would be the light of our day if you were so gracious as to inform us yourself."
It was an extremely punchable smile that bloomed on the man over the next few seconds, as he wrung his hands against each-other. "Ah! My apologies for her laxity." he began, as though the administrative assistant hadn't simply been marching to a script he prepared. "Since you've asked so politely, I will, as you say… inform you, before we truly get down to business."
Feeling a light kick against the side of his heel, John bowed at Amy's unspoken direction. "We are incredibly grateful for your understanding."
As though it were even possible, it was like the man inflated with pride. "I understand the two of you, despite bearing a name that would be quite natural on Summer or Skye proper, are recent immigrants to the Federation. Indeed, to the Commonwealth. In such a case, it is required that I pay special scrutiny to my business dealings with you. National security concerns, of course, ridiculous though they are given what you mean to purchase and your Terran birth. In these situations, despite my warmest desire to get right to doing business, I am afraid the standard background checks take one or two years. The bureaucracy of it all, you see, is quite sluggish and set in its ways."
Amy wore a well sculpted frown - showing only a slight portion of her displeasure, it was overall a gentle expression. Perfect for playing the politely chagrined nouveau riche. "That is regrettable, but if such a wait time is necessary, we will gladly settle in as is expected of us. Our intention to do business with West Kyoto Heavy Industrial Machining will not be spoiled - that, I can promise you."
The man had a chuckle like a frog's croak, and as he slapped his desk in amusement he paid no mind to the papers that fell down, one of which John noted seemed to just be rote printed filler text. "Oh, Mrs. O'Reilly, there's no need to spoil your beautiful face with such a frown. You see, there's more to these things than simple adherence to protocol. While it is true that I will be called in to answer for myself by some stodgy civil servant if I sign a contract with the two of you now… I'm quite confident I know who it would be. Baronet Blunt is no more impressed with the system than you or I, you see. If I can deliver to him your verbal attestation of your intentions, I am certain he would be more than happy to initiate the...expedited protocol. We could be making the final delivery before we ever would have started on your order! Of course, such a protocol comes with additional administrative fees - call it about a ten percent commission, but… it is well worth the cost, no?"
"Naturally." Amelia agreed, before nudging John gently in the side, passing the baton for the next bit to him. It seemed she'd gotten well and truly tired of responding to the man's slimy disposition.
He needed to wait a bit for the businessman to get done nodding self importantly and formally ask his question, though. "Then, with no further ado, please do be so kind as to tell me...what has possessed the two of you to order such a large helping of, frankly, utterly obsolete tooling? A more conventional, safer approach to using one's venture capital, if one wanted to get into the machine tools business, would be to, say, invest in a portfolio of well established standing concerns, which have the most modern equipment still available. I hesitate to even call the firm you seem intent to found a competitor of ours - nothing you'll be able to make has been cutting edge in nearly a millennium, except in a few dingy holes stepped over by history."
"I'm afraid…" John bluffed, wearing a look of finely trained confidence as he folded his hands together on his lap. "That we're the sort who can't find any enthusiasm for the safe and stable road in life. A high risk, high reward approach is what we decided on when we headed out here - either we'll have our own working business, or we'll be forced to live a life of modest means when it all comes down. From that perspective, even if it's essentially trash, it only makes sense to buy what we can actually afford. As you've said, worlds where it represents a step up do exist - I rather think we could make a healthy profit by inserting ourselves as the local option in the reconstruction of Caledonia, for example."
"If it proceeds smoothly enough to demand the amount of tooling you're preparing to produce." Willibald agreed, a gleam in his eyes. "Certainly, it seems like a sound plan, if one is a gambler by nature. Of course, nothing would stop an outside party from willfully undercutting your prices, unless…"
"Of course," John piped in, picking up where the suit trailed off. "We will happily consider your personal interest in the matter. Another commission, same as the first, perhaps?"
Every smile from the nobleman was greasy as could be. "That would be plenty, yes. Now, as for another matter… it seems to me that given your shared disposition, you might find some pleasure on Solaris VII, while waiting for our end of the contract to be fulfilled. If it pleases you, I am more than ready to supply referrals to some excellent establishments in Silesia that would make your stay truly shine like a diamond."
No doubt, the man had a personal stake in every hotel, every restaurant, every security agency, and every gambling hall he'd name. Perhaps even Steiner Stadium itself. However, it would hardly do to point it out. "Your lordship is truly wise. We had considered just such a vacation ourselves - and with your guidance, it could only become a richer experience."
John felt like it'd almost be preferable to be gagged with a spoon to dealing with the man any longer. If he knew Amy at all, she'd feel much the same on the matter.
"Excellent! Now, as for a contract, here's something I've had prepared…"
- -
"That fucking slug!" Amy hissed as soon as the bug-jammer was active. "I swear, he spent half that time trying to bilk more money out of us, and the other half trying to undress me with his eyes!"
Nodding, John sighed. "Absolute waste of flesh and power. All else failed, I swear, we're getting out of Lyran space before James and Marie are old enough to learn from the example of people like that."
A few moments later, Amy sighed, flopping back onto the bed. "At least… we've got most of the capital end of things locked down now - even if the destination turns out to be a total bust, we've got the tools to make the tools waiting for us. Now all we need to see to are the matters of manpower, shipping, and security. Which, to be honest, Solaris isn't half bad for."
---
Scene 2
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As he stepped into the room, Major Alan Marinkovich of the Red Rooster Battalion quirked his eyebrows high enough that it looked like it hurt. The forty year old had a... very distinctive way of overemoting. It was enough to make one wonder if he was just extremely transparent, the world's shittiest actor, or a master of misdirection. "Just you today, ma'am?"
"Just me for now, Major." Amy agreed, shifting what felt like the world's heaviest paper over on her desk before looking up to give a polite smile. With that shipping manifest in hand, that little confirmation that the machine tools they'd paid a king's ransom for over years ago were finally waiting under heavy guard at the spaceport, things could finally move forward. "His turn for parent-child bonding. If we lived in a kinder world, maybe this office would be fit for toddlers to play around in, but, well… We probably wouldn't get much work done at that point."
Rolling his eyes, the mercenary smiled brightly. "Understood. Well, if he's bedridden with parenting, I'll just trust that the Blue Bramblings have his security well in hand, along with that of the tots. Honestly, it's amazing what having kids can do to a person - when Helena had my nephew, she practically traded places with her XO for three years - the Green Geese have never seen such messy days."
Chuckling, Amy rose from her seat and stepped around the desk. "Major, it almost sounds like you're not a 'kid' person. Never considered having any of your own? It might change the way you think about parents."
"Well, actually -" the man began, before his face suddenly screwed up into a mix of a scowl and that peculiar 'why did I bite into this lime?' puckered look that very little else produced. "Hm. No, probably better not to assault your ears like that. That sort of talk isn't really fit for a young lady."
Before, the man simply had Amelia's attention. Now, though, he had her interest. Sitting down on the front of her desk, she narrowed her mismatched eyes. "Major Marinkovich!" she cried, grinning widely as she chastised the man. "I'm shocked you think of me as some pure young lady. Was it the motorcycle, the trips to the shooting range, or the fact that I've spent the last two years living in Sin City itself that gave you that impression?"
The man blushed beet red at that, glancing away and down at the floor. "Fuckin' fine. You got me there. Well, okay, it's like this, right? Even if I could find some charitable soul with the compassion in her heart to take a rogue like me, we'd need to adopt. It...uh… well, basically, it happened when I was twenty. I was an apprentice at the time, and I sort of… slept around somewhere I shouldn't have. The father, uh… he took umbrage with that. Started shooting, hit me while I was running. Took my balls clean off. Only reason I can maintain this lustrous beard is a daily regimen of pills that take their place, hormonally. We...uh...also lost the contract we had at the time. By virtue of the fact that the girl was our client's niece."
"Wwwow." Amy spat, trying very hard to wipe away that mental image. "Well, you seem… surprisingly over it. For how, well, extreme that sort of life event is."
Alan's grin could, perhaps, have been characterized as 'shit eating', if not for the slight melancholy look in his eyes. "Has its upsides. You'd be amazed how popular a eunuch can get."
"Right, fuck it. Nope, we're done with this topic!" Amy shouted, retreating back behind her desk. "Was there something you needed, or did you just decide that you, as CO, were the one best suited to the close security detail today?"
"Well, there's a few things, actually. Three main ones, I'd say." the man admitted, coughing into his fist. "First of all, just wanted to confirm for you that, after this last big tournament, we've been able to finish buying up that ridiculous pile of spare parts you wanted us to prepare."
Amy's concern was plainly visible on her face, her frown deep as she massaged over her eyes. "I really don't think scrap parts will hold up as long as they're meant to, for this sort of extended deployment. Did you at least get more than the originally planned parts supply?"
It seemed that the Major, laughing like a hyena, must have found that question quite hilarious. "Aw, fuck! Haha… No! No, we didn't buy the wrecks. God above, we aren't that stupid. No, you see, all those stables that lost big? They're closing their doors for good. Bankrupt. That means their garages get liquidated, floods the market something fierce. The parts are good - factory fresh, even, but they were nice and cheap for ever so short a moment before offers started to pour in from offworld. So, with the budget you've been so kind as to give us...we went on a buying spree."
Loosing a sigh of relief, Amelia waited for the next big ticket item the man thought needed be mentioned.
"Next, uh… well, funny thing that came up while I was on my way in - it seems like some of the folks whose debt you've been buying out want to talk to you two about what your plans for their obligations are. Some sorta...teacher's union or something?" Alan recounted, scratching the back of his head. "I figure that, if the two of you can find the time, you might want to actually talk to them about that at some point. Reassure them that they aren't debt slaves, and they're not being forced to come with, and all. Might make fewer of them try to...run away, or do something funny."
"...See if Sunday works for them."
The major nodded vigorously. "Right! And...uh… for the last thing." he said, reaching under his jacket and fishing around for a few seconds before pulling out a bundle of envelopes. "Your little 'bureaucratic assistant' stopped by with your new papers. So that's finally ready for you. Though, uh… I've sort of got a question about that, which I didn't want to ask back when you first made the deal. I understand hiding from your crazy in-laws. That's not confusing to me. Thing is, though… do you really think 'Jack Cameron' and 'Amelie Clayton' are the names the two of you want? Bullshitting up a claim to the First Lordship isn't gonna be very convincing, and it'll paint a target on your back no matter what."
Here, it was Amelia's turn to laugh. "Pff… Wow, you...snrck… you think the name Cameron automatically means 'Star League'? Clan Cameron existed for over a thousand years before any Cameron ever ruled over Terra, let alone the Star League. I'll bet you... there are more people named Cameron on Summer right now than Michael Cameron ever had descendants. Granted, there was pressure, historically, for loosely related Camerons to change it out for one of the Cameron septs' names, throughout the Hegemony's existence, but… it was never actually enforced through any law. Being perfectly honest? We chose the name because there are some folks on my father's side with that name. Meanwhile, Clayton is my...mother's maiden name. But they don't know that, or have any way to."
"Uh...huh." the Major groaned, massaging his eyes. "And you're going to explain that...every time you're asked about it? Well, aside from the part where it isn't really his name, and you chose it for giggles. Hell, why didn't you go for the same last name?"
"Adds character to the lie we're living." Amy chirped.
Doing an about face, the Major just shook his head while facing the door. "Right, well, make sure not to add so much character to it that it falls apart on you. If your absurd fucking elopement-colony venture falls through, the Roy-Jean Birds are suddenly out of a job, which means staying alive and successful is your job. Got it?"
"Loud and clear." Amy nodded. "Honestly, we've got things pretty well figured out, by now. You learn a few things when you emigrate twice - for example, did you know that the normal way private parties export lots of computers is to just...pay a licensed merchant company to get them through the port for them, then transfer them over in orbit?"
---
Scene 3
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Waking up… hurt.
It wasn't supposed to do that.
There hadn't even been any party last night. They'd only just touched down on this godforsaken dustball, barely even gotten underway with anything. Celebrating, that would have to wait for when they got results, and that was something that could take any damn amount of time. Nobody had a damn clue where to start looking, except for 'on the planet'.
Gingerly, one hand went up to an aching forehead at the head of a sticklike arm, finding a mess of delicately wrapped, sort of crusty bandages.
Being hurt, that changed something. That meant shit had gone down last night. It was enough to quicken a pulse and pale a face.
Two eyes slowly forced open, the owner glanced around, trying to get some sense of his position. What they got was both informative and far from so. The walls were an ugly gray plaster. The only light in the room came from a small, barred up window high on the wall, as though there was a bare bulb strung up from the ceiling haphazardly, it was not on. The door was made of sturdy metal.
It was a prison cell, and this was the shittiest cot it's prisoner had ever laid on. This...was an embarrassment. If word got out, maybe nobody would even give a fuck, but for someone who lived and died on reputation that was hard to stake a lot of hope on.
Johann Sebastian O'Reilly was not the sort of man who got locked up in some degenerated, backwater prison off the edge of the map.
At least, not until now.
Rising slowly, he fought through the dizziness that accompanied the motion. Silently, he mused that he must have been hit pretty hard, in order to not remember a damn thing about how he got here. The people here shouldn't have been able to do jack shit - he brought a lance of good mechs with him, and the hottest news on the block around here was probably diesel or something.
Which meant, since he hadn't landed on the fucking coast for them to open up with wet naval artillery or some shit, that it had to be some competing group who got here first, with more metal. And, he realized as he felt around his clothes, they took his fucking guns.
It was just his damn luck. It figured, that the day he tried to act out Caesar's landing in Britannia, he got something more like the first invasion than the second. Except, even Caesar had had the chance to retreat and prepare to fight another day. At least whoever it was, they were too soft and stupid to come up with the permanent solution of just shooting him.
A vein popped up on his forehead, and with a few seconds more he'd risen to his feet and marched over to the door. "Hey!" he cried, banging on the door. "The fuck am I doing in here!? The hell even are you people? Where's my goddamn crew?"
It was important to let his dumbass hosts know he was awake, but it was equally important to not come across as a pushover.
"Shut up, you fucking pirate!"
Well… that seemed to explain why he was in this shithole. Now it was just a matter of waiting to talk to someone willing to listen. If they really just thought of him as a pirate - if this world had experience with being raided for whatever miserable goods it could produce, but suddenly managed to get the better of one through luck, pluck, and divine fucking intervention - chances were he'd be fucking dead. That meant someone had kept him alive, and for a reason.
- -
The door, it turned out, creaked loud enough to blow someone's ears out. Someone really needed to get some goddamn oil on the thing - and as though Johann needed any more proof he'd been brought here unconscious and not asleep, there was no way anybody in a whole cell block could sleep through a noise like that, let alone someone right next to the door at the time.
Straightening his back as he sat on the edge of the cot, the scavenger fixed the entryway with a glare as people streamed in. First to enter were two burly men in nice, tidy body armor, each bearing a pretty serious looking rifle - maybe even a laser rifle. No way would he believe that those were real battlefield uniforms under the armor, though - that collage of bright blues would never do as a serious infantry camouflage. Mercs from offworld, maybe, because no way was that gear native - and called into the prison on short notice, at that.
Then, the mountain came a'calling. Johann had only seen men the caliber of the absolute beef fridge that was crouching to pass under the low doorway a few times in his life - and it was invariably as one or more of three things. The star of a freakshow, the bouncer of a club, or the personal kneebreaker of the sort of person who can bury you real quick. The fucker might as well have massed a quarter ton, for all that muscle on his frame. And yet… his face, as it came into view, spoiled the entire image of a kneebreaker. Maybe in a few years, his boss would have a scary guard dog, but he had a serious case of babyface on him yet, not helped by the decision to go clean shaven. A slight curiosity was that he wasn't dressed in the same uniform as the armed guards - seemed that the gunmen were definitely outside help, while he was more of an insider to whatever group had Johann and his by the balls.
There was something deeply underwhelming about hearing this twenty-something's youth, however booming the voice was. The fact that he was snickering as he did it, though, was just irritating. For fucks sake, the scavenger hoped whoever was paying this shithead would learn to house train his giant. A giggling kneebreaker could either be pants-shittingly terrifying, or not scary in the least - but usually you really needed something in the middle. "Mr...pff... Sebastian O'Reilly, I take it?"
"And what the hell's it to you, punk?" Johann shouted, feigning the intent to rise from his seat for a second, but stopping before the mercs could really start to get their rifles up. "Is my name funny to you? Is throwing me in jail some big prank of the century, something your sugar daddy's gonna jerk himself off to before bed? The tale of the time he threw a perfectly legitimate explorer in prison and had him shot?"
Chuckling a bit, Big McLargehuge scratched the back of his head. He could either be a rank amateur, or this was a fucking psyop to get him to fuck up. "No offence, Mr. O'Reilly, but I'm afraid nothing about your little expedition looks the least bit legitimate from the outside. You came down planetside with practically empty cargo holds, walked out your mechs, and set up camp just a few kilometers away from a city. That has raid written all over it. Besides which, when your forces surrendered, we found...skulls, glued to the dashboard in one of your cockpits. Which definitely feels like something a psychopath would do."
Johann's blood pressure found new heights at that moment, realizing that Ramirez' terrible fucking taste was adding to the hot water he was in. "Look, out in these parts, when you hire mercenaries you don't ask what kind of shit they're into, and you definitely don't tell them off for it! They're here as protection. So that I can search the place without getting jumped and put on a pike by savages, primitives, or pirates. Or at least, they were, before you dipshits found us."
Mount Steroid stepped ever closer at that, the grin on his face the first legitimately frightening thing he'd done this entire time. "Oho. And just what were you looking for on Alphard? Ancient ruins? A conveniently unguarded treasury? A ready supply of free labor? Your own new kingdom?"
The only thing to do was to grit his teeth, and admit to the what's what of the situation to save his bacon. "Just about anything would have done. I came here chasing some pre-war shipping manifests from the Alphard Trading Company. Old League era business that exported germanium and imported just about everything else. Found some records in ex-Canopian space a few years back, and it just so happened I had enough scratch after my last find to hire up some folks on Detroit and come out here to dig. Thought it was going to be the big lucky break of my life, but it looks like your boss beat me there. Is that enough? Gonna let me go now, or is this when you take me out behind the shed and shoot me?"
The giant mook took an irritatingly long time to answer that, before donning a goofy grin and shaking his head. Fucking clown. "Let you go, no. Kill you, also no. Everything you just said lines up with what your folks said, but my boss...eh… isn't exactly keen on letting news out of here right now. On the other hand, you might be able to get a meeting. Chaperoned, of course. We might be able to find some use for you around here, with your agreement. It'd definitely come with someplace nicer to stay than your little apartment here."
That jab was way over the line. "Fuck you!"
---
Scene 4
---
As he, followed by his bodyguards, led Johann through the hot, steamy interior of the greenhouse, John couldn't help but frown. Some of the plants were looking a little deprived. He'd need to figure out what was wrong with their handling later.
"Holy hell. Rich people actually have these things? I thought that was just a cliche in old movies." uttered the explorer...scavenger...pirate… whatever the man actually was. "Who the hell even takes care of all this?"
Snorting, John found himself forced to prove Amy right on just one more thing out of millions; sometimes, you found a person who just made it fun to mess with them. Sometimes, you could even just tell the truth to do it. "That'll be me. I'm afraid after a few years of doing it, tending to random plants morphs from a chore to a hobby to an addiction."
The way the much weedier man's face contorted into a mask of bafflement and outrage was simply too amusing to ignore. "What the fuck? So you're, what, an enforcer and a gardener? You fertilizing these plants with people or something?"
"Don't be ridiculous. If I were that sort of person, do you really think you'd be coming into this greenhouse on your own two feet?" the giant retorted, shaking his head vigorously. "Our destination's right around this next corner. Now, my advice to you… is that you'd best find a gram of politeness somewhere in that body."
The gangly little scoundrel found it in himself to roll his eyes at that. "What, if I show impudence before Caesar you'll crucify me?"
There was little to do in response to that other than pinch one's forehead in frustration. "It's a job interview Johann! There are two main ways this can go - either you'll be offered a nice, comfortable place to live out the rest of your life, or you'll just become like any other person on this planet. That all depends on how you manage to sell yourself."
The grunt of acknowledgement the other O'Reilly gave off as they rounded the corner would have to do.
That being the case, the choked 'Bwuh' he let out when his eyes settled on the garden table set with four seats, Amy waiting at the far end in a simple sundress and straw hat, was more than a bit annoying. "Your boss...is a woman?"
John did not appreciate that tone, but he knew what to do about it. Stepping away from the man wordlessly, he approached the table quickly, grabbing one of the chairs while in motion and dragging it, legs scraping against the cobblestone flooring, to Amy's side. As he took a seat he was sure, despite its more than adequate strength to bear his weight, he looked ridiculous on the tiny thing - but there was still one more thing to be done in this little display. Smiling, he leaned down, waiting for Amy to turn her gaze towards him, and planted a kiss on her lips. "Yes."
Quirking her eyebrows up, she was quick to respond as he pulled back. "It's an equal partnership, Jack."
It took Johann a moment to stop sputtering before, gritting his teeth, he approached the table itself and took a seat opposite the couple. "So you're in charge around here, and you garden? Do you think you're Diocletian or something?"
"Please, Johann." Jack retorted, shaking his head. "It's an equal partnership. We plan together, lead together, live together, and raise two beautiful children together. If you play nice enough, you might even meet them one day, instead of us sending them to 'Uncle Alan' for babysitting."
Amy's smile reached her blue and white eyes as she joined in on the act. "Though barring a real miracle, I wouldn't get my hopes up about ever being asked to babysit them or any incoming younger siblings yourself. Becoming a part of the family is more than just existing nearby. You've gotta be close and well liked for practically a kid's whole life to get drafted as an honorary uncle."
It was clear from his body language that Johann wanted to say something crude about the situation, but held himself back. It was a good sign, even if it might have just been a matter of fear. "Alright, a power couple, then. You two have names?"
"Jack Cameron"
"Amelie Clayton."
The prisoner's laughter was near instant in its onset, a wheezing cacophony dulled only by the rustling of leaves around them. To John and Amy, it seemed as though he must have kept going for a good ten, twenty seconds. "Haa… don't tell me you seriously expect me to believe you're a Cameron. You can pull my leg all you want, neither has bells or whistles. It's been over a hundred years since the fall of the Star League. If there were a Cameron out in this part of the periphery, using the name no less, people would fucking know. A bluff like this is only good for scamming babies."
Hearing that, the married couple shared an amused look and a light chuckle, before John spoke up once more. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. I don't, to the best of my knowledge, have the least bit of the blood of the Director Generals in me. The thing that's so often forgotten is that the family name 'Cameron' had existed for over a thousand years already before the birth of Kearny and Fuchida. Between the two of us, Amy here actually has a vastly more important family - even if they haven't been at their prime for quite awhile."
Cupping his chin, O'Reilly seemed to genuinely think that over for a bit. "Still important enough that you managed to take over Alphard together, though. So they can't possibly be that far gone."
"Oh, no. We haven't taken over Alphard." Amy corrected, folding her hands together on the table. "Maybe a sixth of it, right now, if you really reach with your definition. It's easy enough to sink what passes for a navy here with anything resembling a proper fighter, and a land army as the locals understand it is powerless before a battlemech, true. However, calming popular resistance and extending an effective administration… that takes time, and we've only been here for a few short years. But this isn't about us - it's about you. Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"
Two arms flew up in a 'what do you want from me' sort of gesture. "I'm not exactly in any position to say no, now, am I?"
"I think you would find, if you said no, that the results are nowhere near as bad as you'd think. You'd just be living the life of any average working adult who isn't an interstellar adventurer." Amy drolled, before her face took on a more serious cast. "Now, a hypothetical question for you. Say you'd gotten here at the head of your little scavenging party and we were absent. You spent a few months searching the place, and you eventually found a warehouse with over a megaton of Germanium in it, refined in the last days of the Star League - enough treasure to make your fortune for longer than the rest of your life, but more than you could hope to haul away any time soon. So you've gotta set up a lasting presence here, on a world of - well, we don't know exactly, but over three hundred million is the estimate. How do you deal with that sort of problem?"
Snorting, Johann rolled his eyes and folded his arms in front of his chest. Despite those contemptuous gestures, though, it was clear from the pause he took and the tapping of his foot that the man was at least thinking. "If the scenario's like that, it's gotta be a long haul approach. Step one is to load as much of the stuff as the cargo holds can take and sell it at below market rate at Clipperton. That being done, I'd be able to afford to pay the boys to stay on, and hire more - better - mercs at the same time. With that, I could set up a base here like you've done, start exporting regularly, expanding my power. To speed that up...it's gotta be a divide-and-conquer approach, since I don't exactly have much bait to offer the locals normally. Offer the elites perks if they'll show their bellies - they become the patricians. The ones who follow them or stay at home, they can live on normally, as plebians. Everyone who actively resists… servi poenae. That is, criminal slaves. Plenty of eager help in setting up the… Marian Hegemony, I suppose I'd call it. A little nation of my own, to export the germanium and exploit the planet."
"And if progress ground to a halt for awhile?"
"Well," Johann resumed, cupping his chin. "To keep morale up, and keep people from thinking they can do better than me, I'd have to move the goalposts at that point. Knock over nearby, smaller worlds, set up power structures there, bring people back to help me here. Maintain loyalty through bread, circuses, and triumphs. That sort of thing."
"Wow." Amy exclaimed after a moment, clapping her hands together once as John wrapped an arm around her waist. "You're...absolutely awful, Mr. O'Reilly. I'm more convinced than before that you've got a bit of pirate in you. If you'd jumped in at the Nadir point, where our contracted jumpships wait, I'm afraid you might have just tried boarding them for your prize."
O'Reilly realized, at that moment, that he'd spoken much too honestly. This was almost certainly the moment where they threw him back in prison.
"You're hired."
As others began to approach through the pathways of the garden, carrying dishes that emitted tantalizing smells and reminded Johann of how hungry he was, the man could only think to ask "What?"
"Exactly that. You're good for the job we need filled." Jack stated, jumping back into things there. "We won't be doing...essentially any of what you mentioned there, mind you, at least not in a way remotely like you thought of. However, one of the biggest difficulties we've been projecting ourselves as having is to do with the fact that our expedition is entirely from the Inner Sphere. We don't really know the lay of the region, we're unfamiliar with things you're probably quite familiar with, and other such things as that. You may be utterly scummy, but we can use that - as a consultant on how pirates think and on Periphery norms, for one, but also potentially as a prop, a beast on a leash, an on-and-off representative of sorts, and… well, scapegoat isn't exactly the right word for it, but a convenient stand-in that roughly lines up with the sort of person people expect to take over a backwater planet, to draw attention away from us. If it appeals to your apparent fetish for Rome, call yourself a patrician if you must. You'll live a privileged life with some level of authority - as long as you acknowledge that we're the ones in charge, and you don't step over the lines we draw for you."
"Basically, become your loyal dog and poison taster. Bark bark." O'Reilly grumbled as the plates began to be set at the table, before covering his face with one palm. "I'll...fucking bite, I guess. Better than the other options I've got. If it's not a problem, though, I got one question for you, Jack."
"Shoot."
Johann definitely didn't flinch, even with those gunmen being around. "I can't help but notice that you and Amelie here, you've got different given names. She's a sharp lady, you've got kids, you say you're equals, so… if you love'er so much, why don't you marry'er?"
Hugging Amy close, John was quick on the reaction to that one, a prepared answer slipping from his lips after a few short seconds of mock-consideration. "Well, it was never really possible to get parental approval for our relationship. It'd be fairly accurate to say we eloped with everything we could grab from our families before anyone noticed, and this is just where that brought us. Besides which, even married couples don't always take the same name, you know."
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The timeskip this chapter represents might be a bit much, but things will be slowing down for awhile here. Probably should've covered more of the journey, but...well, this story has a lot of ground to cover, and this event was already originally intended to happen two chapters ago. If I were to lean too much into the domesticity of it all, we'd be stuck on the journey forever.
Maybe later, if there are weeks where I can't write a full chapter, I'll do some infill omakes for this timeskip.
Chapter 8 (September 2919 - December 2919)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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There was something strange to seeing more greenery in the fields of a mountainous highland than in all but the most fertile parts of the coastal plains. Where otherwise water would flow only from powered pumps, here it seemed to flow passively from the sides of rock faces, livening up an otherwise bleak desert into managed fields. It was almost enough to make Johann forget the armed man sitting across from him as he gazed down and out the window, onto the landscape drifting by far below.
Eventually, though, the rogue turned his gaze back to the reality of the situation, meeting the gaze of the blue-garbed infantryman across from him. "Do rivers flow out of the stone of the mountainsides themselves around here often, Marcus?"
A pair of eyebrows rose high, their owner clearly not expecting to be addressed so directly. As if Johann was going to sit silently the whole flight in the damn whirlybird. "Surprised it wasn't 'Major Marinkovich', but I'm not going to insist on that. Yes, and no. Yes, if you take it from mama bear and papa bear, karst landscapes often produce rivers that sink into the ground one place and then flow out of a wall in another. No, that's not what happened here. The water flow around these parts is entirely artificial - it's a very old method called a qanat. From Iran, on Terra. Dig sideways into the mountain, and if you do it right you'll tap into a spot where the groundwater runs high and draw it out - like you were stabbing a straw through the side of a water bottle. I'd heard you were an ancient history buff, so I'm surprised you're not familiar with it."
"I got more specific interests than 'ancient history', pal." Johann spat, crossing one leg over the other and clasping his hands across the knee. "Principally Rome, the big empire in the history books. Though really, the Imperial era is mostly sort of a slog - things were pretty fiercely on the decline, and it's mostly remembered for Christianity. The Republic is more my speed. What's your excuse for knowing this sort'o trivia?"
Snorting, Marcus glanced out the window himself, his eyes honing in on a turning windmill. "I spend most of my time organizing the bodyguard detail for Jack, Amelie, James, and Marie. If I weren't hitting the books every so often, I'd be intellectually humiliated by my boss's preteen kids. And just to make sure… you do know that the cumulative history of Persian empires is centuries longer than that of the Roman empire, right?"
Johann didn't feel much like playing ball with the guard dog, and closed his eyes for a moment. "No, actually. It's news to me. So, tell me, Uncle Marcus, the fuck are we doing out here in the sand, exactly?"
Wrinkling his nose, the mercenary leaned across the aisle of the helicopter to give his charge the stinkeye. "You know, we had a briefing about that earlier. And by the way… I do go by Uncle Marcus, but not with you. Also off limits for you are Uncle Alan, Aunt Helena, and Grandpa Dick."
"I wasn't listening back then. Now, though, I guess you've got my fucking attention." Johann admitted, shrugging wildly.
An exasperated grunt filled the helicopter cabin, blue camo wrinkling with every shake of the head. "Principally, today's milk run is your crew's training day to see if you can handle the work we're usually doing out here. You and your mechwarrior, plus a few of Alan's machines and a healthy handful of my mudboots, are going to stand guard and look photogenic while the work crews install power lines, build a schoolhouse, and the like. If hostile forces show up, run them off but try not to wipe them all out. The locals came to us to petition for annexation, and our goal is to fuel the reputation that makes that sort of thing happen - not scare people off through the wanton slaughter of their former government's military."
Johann's stomach churned at the idea of sitting out here for weeks on end, just trying to look good and make friends using some of the most advanced and expensive warmachines humanity had ever created. "Bread and circuses is a bit of an odd way to expand your territory, don't you think? Trying to bait people into coming into your camp will never be as fast as using a military advantage to force the matter. Assimilation is the sort of thing that comes after. I mean - hell, you, as a soldier, don't you think your talents are being wasted on this sort of dog and pony show?"
"That's really how you think, huh?" the man snorted, resting his cheeky idly against one palm. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given your ideas as to how to deal with Alphard yourself. The Roy G Birds aren't that sort of production, though. Great Grandpappy Roy Garretson Byrd set that in stone back when he founded the unit."
The name Roy Garretson Byrd instantly explained things about this pack of technicolor Spheroid puppies that Johann had never wanted to know before this moment. "That's why your theming is so fucking stupid? It's all a pun off a stiff's name?"
For his part, the stuck up PBI seemed to be a good sport about the insults to his ancestor. "Roy Byrd was a jumpship captain in the AFFS around the start of the First Succession War, and I'll tell you, at least one world owes its continued survival to his decision to mutiny when the bird jocks on his collar mentioned the nukes they'd been told to deliver to him. We, the grandchildren of his daughter Maria, have honored that legacy through the last century - we've always kept our hands clean of atrocities, even when it meant picking a client who could barely afford to cover our expenses. Now, current employers in mind, there's a lot of gratitude to go around - Red Barrel had been stuck in her 'mech mode for decades, acting like a cut-rate standard Phoenix Hawk, when Jack Cameron and Amelie Clayton reached out to us, but now we all get to watch my brother fumble through learning how to fly that LAM. Still, what keeps us with them isn't the money - it's the commitment to decency. We're here to rise above barbarism, got that?"
"Yeah, yeah…" Johann halfheartedly muttered. "Unfortunately for you, people like me don't really understand following through on principles above doing right by ourselves and our folks, so it's the strings making me dance, not the music, but I'll tap along to your beat all the same. Be a hell of a lot easier if you'd left more than one member of my crew out of the slammer, though."
"Johann…" the veritable fucking boy scout muttered, looking like he wanted to puke. "How did one man find so many thugs and rapists when he was talent scouting? Can you tell me that much?"
It wasn't exactly fun to admit how it came to pass, but… "...Hiring whoever was the cheapest, mostly. You want me to tell Starlet what the plan of action for the day is?"
The cheeky fucker recovered quickly enough from his disgust to crack a grin at that, at least. "Who, Ms. Alexandria? Nah, no need to bother her about this. She's a good girl, unlike a certain employer of hers - she listened when the briefing was going on."
Biting his lip, Johann could only mutter out one thing in response to that. "Ain't any employer of hers. Kid's never asked for a salary or a cut."
"Then what the hell are you to her? She certainly seems to have some money for herself. You giving her an allowance, or…?"
That was close enough to the truth, he supposed. "Yeah, call it an allowance."
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Scene 2
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The crackle of the radio spoke to the dust-drenched nature of the place more than anything - even in the absence of competing signals, the relatively fragile model was simply aging quickly. "There were three breaks in the lines, you say?"
Clicking his tongue, Johann stuck his foot up on the dashboard, depressing the 'send' button on his handpiece with one finger. "I do say, yes. Not in the forest, either. Someone's out here cutting 'em. It's 'wrath of neighbors', not 'wrath of god', so you'd best send some scouts and guards out to smoke those sorts out when you send out the repair teams. Better that the malcontents get shot than the repairmen."
To his credit, the radio operator wasn't so far gone that he needed to ask another time. "I'll get right on that, sir. Now, uh...is there anything else you've got to report? Any other support you need over there?"
It wasn't easy, living in a world of busybodies. At least, these busybodies. If they weren't so prone to getting in their own way, nobody would pull this shit. Then again, it was probably for the best that the big wigs were so soft - Johann wouldn't have hesitated to execute himself, in their shoes, so their fixation on the 'humane' way was working out pretty well for him. "Gimme a fucking second, chair force. We only just got set up over here."
The handset clicked into place on the dash eventually, when enough force was applied, and Johann cast his legs out sideways and rose from the car without turning the engine off. The hastily strung up streetlights, the shabby looking buildings, the gravel roads, the shit-smelling ostrich pens - this sort of village wasn't something unfamiliar to him, but normally these ass-end places were where you laid low, not where you did your day job. The only prettiness to be had in the area came from the coastline, which teemed with fields of green ripening saltgrass and similar crops, and further inland the fields irrigated from aquifers, which produced everything not salt dependent. Everything nice about the place came with the grace of the folks at the top of the ladder, and here he was as an agent of that.
As he surveyed the dingy town, longing for a good rest in the city, where luxuries that this world had never dreamt of making itself were cast around as fodder for the masses and time moved forward instead of back, the re-minted toady's eyes eventually fell on a fat, sun-kissed old lady, her complexion spotty and sandblasted, her hair an unkempt mess, her clothes - a veritable quilt of patches and stitches with little original cloth remaining - somehow a few sizes too large, who was watching him nervously. Approaching with his hands in his pocket, he wasn't quite sure what to make of her stiffening and drawing away a bit.
Her eyes narrowed, the crone - though perhaps it was bad to think of her that way, when she was only maybe ten or twenty years his senior - held herself away from him as she spoke up, her gaze periodically drifting over to the Shadow Hawk hooked into the power station. "Issere somethin' you need, sir?"
"Ain't gonna bite." Johann protested, casting his hands out to the side and showing their emptiness. "Y'see, lady, in a bit, there's gonna be a crew out to fix the power lines proper-like. There'll also be a crew coming out to make sure they don't get cut again, and to keep you folks safe."
"Much obliged, sir, but…" the woman muttered, hesitant to make eye contact with the scarfaced, shifty-eyed runt of a man.
Letting out a slight choke as he followed the implications, Johann waved a hand in front of his face. "No, no, I ain't looking for gratitude or 'gratitude', miss. I'd tan if I even dreamt of demanding something from you folks. Just looking to ask - aside from the power back on and the people who cut it away, what else do you folks need around here? If you ask now, I can get it sent in with the rest."
As she relaxed her posture, the rural grandmother nodded a bit. "Well, if'n you're offering, I suppose I won't hold back. Since the lines split last week, we've had folks down with stomach bugs - the 'fridges you folks delivered went out, and the food inside went past due. Doctor the Mr. and Mrs. sent says she can't do a thing about it, either, 'cause the medicine spoiled in the heat too - freezer went out. Two of the sick folk are yours, as well - so we got no teacher in the schoolhouse an' no repairman for the small stuff, at the moment. If you kin' get all that sorted, we'd be mighty grateful around here."
"New food, new medicine, new teacher, new repairman…" Johann nodded, before with a wry grin adding on something entirely of his own. "...Emergency generators. Jeeze, work a man to death, will you? Anything else you need out here in the mud and the dust?"
Grasping at her ratty clothing, the old lady paused for a bit to think. "...I won't be so bold as to ask for anything more that's material, least not without asking around for other people's feelings, but… if you could find out what's yet waiting for us, I think a lot of folks would sleep easy knowing a little o' the future."
Snorting, Johann covered his face even as he turned away. "What, that all? Lucky you, lady, I happen to be a bit of a prophet. Gimme a second to set things right and I'll be back to you."
"Thank you kindly, sir."
It was important, when getting into this car, not to touch any single part of it, because every square centimeter of its surface was hot enough from the sun to burn the soul out of your body. In deference to that fact, Johann made the smallest possible sacrifice by just grabbing the handset itself and pulling it to the limits of its cord. His singsong was out of tune, but it was about as much as you could expect from a forty year old man "Here chair force, chair force, chair force ~!"
"What the fuck is it, O'Reilly?" snapped the man on the other end.
With his fun out of the way, it was time for the former adventurer to get to work for real. "Got a list of everything else the folks down here need. A lot of food and medicine went bad since the power went out, so they'll need a restock on that front. Get a change of teacher and mechanic out here too - the ones you got out here are down with food poisoning, so we're gonna have to medivac them. If you've got 'em up your ass somewhere, send some generators and fuel too so this won't happen again - even get some panels and turbines installed, if you can. You wouldn't regret a grid expansion here - locals practically have sun and wind coming out their asses, and it ain't like the lines you're laying are lossless over distances, so you'll need to put power plants down away from the center at some point if the grid keeps spreading outwards."
The radio man showed his passable adaptability once more, recovering from the teasing quickly enough to respond to the list of requirements. "Installing permanent generation capacity will mean a permanent force commitment over there, but… I can send someone to evaluate it as a site, at least. As for the rest of the requests, that should be easy enough. Anything else?"
Rolling his eyes, Johann took a moment to decide that, under the circumstances, the man had more or less given out an invitation to mess with him - and that it was a good opportunity to make the point that needed to be made. "Weeeeell, I wasn't going to ask, because they're kind of hard to find on store shelves these days, but if you're asking… try to send these people a future. A really good future, where they don't need to worry about local banditry or offworld piracy ever again. Just that little bit of certainty and stability would really make their day. That way, I can retire sooner and live the good life instead of trudging around in the sand and sun."
"Very funny, O'Reilly."
Sighing, Johann hung up the line without waiting for a response there. Some people just didn't have any respect for a good joke. Moments later, he noticed that the old lady had drawn close.
Meeting his gaze as he offered it, the poor old periphery hick wore a fairly welcoming expression, for once. "Now that you're off the line, sir… I just wanted to thank you again, and…"
"Like I said, I can't be asking for any favors or gifts." O'Reilly insisted, raising a hand.
Frowning, the woman shook her head. "You're going 'ta be out here for a spell while your folks come out this way, sir. My son'll put you up at his place - give you a meal or two and a place to sleep, at least. Don't be saying no, now."
"...Yeah, I guess I can accept that, as long as the food's not spoiled." O'Reilly admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "Mind if the kid in the big metal walker kicks off her boots there, too? She can sleep in the 'mech, but it won't be comfortable."
"She's doing as much for us as you are, sir." the lady agreed, before covering her mouth. "The power won't go out again if she gets out of that thing though, right?"
It wasn't even worth snorting at the question - the whole idea of using a battlemech as a rural powerplant was weird enough. "Like hell it will. The whole thing doesn't turn off just because the chair's empty."
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Scene 3
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Spindly fingers wrapped around the sides of the shot glass almost as soon as the first spurt of liquor splashed down inside. "You can stop right fucking there. It's a damn embarrassment, but that's about all I can take, if we're gonna be talking. By all means, though, finish the bottle yourself if that's what you want."
It hurt to admit, but Johann had to value his health over avoiding funny looks at this point in his life. What seemed like a good idea as a kid didn't keep so much of a luster to it for someone nearing his fifties, without the benefits of any particular doctors of renown. Maybe if he'd had a few more lucky days or a few smarter thoughts in his youth, he'd be the sort of high roller who saw a doctor in Crimson for his liver, but life brought the crusty old fuck to Alphard instead.
The massive kid's little grin was annoying, but his answer as, carefully and deliberately, he poured the same amount into his own glass was even moreso. "I think I'll be matching you, then. I don't really like the taste much, and getting a buzz is out of the question for me, so drinking really just boils down to the context. It might be fun to make a show of draining a bottle if I were just out to tease Amy, Alan, or someone else, but we're talking business here. On which note, your hangups on drinking with women around are a real pain in the ass. Amy should be here, right now!"
"Listen, Jack." O'Reilly declared, tapping the forefinger of his free hand on the table. "Liquor turns morons into even worse morons. In your position, maybe you can get away with doing something boneheaded while you're sauced, but I ain't ever been that way, and I certainly can't get away with making a dumb decision around your lady if this hits me harder than I'm thinking."
Lifting his glass to his mouth without actually drinking anything, as though he just wanted the look of some suave and refined drinker - as though that were possible with a body like a mountain - Jack let his eyebrows do the talking for just a second, the stripes of hair rising high in amusement. "So you and I, we're both morons then, by your estimation?"
"Don't kid yourself, brat. Me and you, we aren't that special. It's humanity that has the problem. We're all born morons, and if we're lucky enough to realize it one day we can try to work around that for the rest of our days. For even luckier people, they've never even got to realize it, because their asses come self-wiping." the elder of the two insisted, raising his glass forward in a confrontational gesture. "The saying 'in vino veritas' works here too. The right amount of alcohol lets loose the fool in every man, woman, and if we let 'em at it, child. Even the ones where you'd already swear the foolishness was in full force - the sort who takes the sort of luck that wipes their ass for them and goes out full of vim and vigor, piss and vinegar, and foppery and whim to try and found their own nation, pissing everything away in the process."
A clink of glass rang out through the air, the protest of the abused shotglasses as Jack went out of his way to turn the gesture into a toast. "Bit of a weird toast, but whatever. It's certainly true that luck's gotten Amy and I through a lot so far, and it isn't as though we came out here thinking it was going to be a fun, safe time. Maybe we're just a pair of clowns on the stage of history, and the world won't remember what we're doing here. Even if that's the case, though, even if it's all a mistake, we signed up for it ourselves with full awareness of the danger, because some mistakes are worth making and some things are worse than making a mistake."
Drawing his arm back, Johann got a good look at the ceiling as his eyes rolled, before knocking back his drink. "There it fucking is. The sort'o wishy washy horseshit only someone soft and raw as dough can spew. You've got a girl, you've got kids, you've got friends, and you've got a deep pool of patsies and subjects… and you're making your decisions completely on the basis of what's 'right' or 'ideal'. If you were thinking straight, you'd crush the opposing militaries, crush the guerilla forces, and get around to working with the civilians whenever you've got the resources - that'd be what's good for the people counting on you, instead of going slow like this to preserve your good mood and just putting fires out whenever someone starts 'em."
The boss clearly wasn't having any of that as he nursed his drink, though, a long sigh trailing from his lips. "That sort of thinking straight is what's been burning everything down for the last century. Self-convenient expediency is the tool of a consolidating tyrant who doesn't care what they burn down in the process. Making personal sacrifices for the pursuit of what we think is right doesn't entitle us to seize everyone who opposes us as an impersonal sacrifice - if there's anything to the timeless talk of judgement at the end of days, it'll work out better in the end anyways."
Leaning forward, O'Reilly wore a face of deep skepticism, more than a little reddened with frustration. "And the people living in limbo because you can only protect 'em in retrospect don't count as impersonal sacrifices?"
"Do you think they'd become safe if we destroyed every other nation in the world, one night? Would killing every soldier and slaughtering every guerilla end the danger?" Jack rumbled, reaching out one of his massive hands and grabbing Johann's shoulder. This felt like the sort of situation where a bone could break pretty easily. "The answer is no. Crushing everything people believe in, everything that keeps them safe, without offering a credible, better alternative just means that they've now got to pick up their pitchforks and torches. The only way to protect the territory we've already claimed at that point would be to slaughter all comers, riling up even more people. The only way to secure things faster would be to throw more resources at the problem, and for the time being we don't have more resources."
His temper rising further, Johann slapped the table once. "Now, that's definitely bullshit. You've got a warehouse around this place laden with more germanium than anyone can even imagine, right? That, plus a more than fair number of jumpers and droppers sitting thumb-in-ass idle. If all you need to get to work is 'more resources', you should be opening up trade instead of sitting in isolation here like hermits."
At that moment, the 'Cameron' switched things up more than a little bit. Releasing his grip, he gave a few quick pats to Johann's shoulder - only just hard enough to make the aged joint complain quietly. "Well, thanks for volunteering for that, then."
"...What?"
"Despite the fairly mundane work we've been having you do for a bit, the real job we hired you for was always that of a face for the operation we've got going on here, if you remember that far back." came the swift explanation, as one glass found its way back onto the table. "You're through your trial period now, so it's time to start on your actual job. Illyria has a link to existing trade networks which are, in relative terms, safe from piracy. With that, they and Lothian manage to keep the lights on. You, oh glorious leader, will head out that way with a few ships staffed by our crews and folks and the best protection the Green Geese can offer you. Your job is to keep things vague as to where we are and what things are like, offload germanium, buy up hardware and colonial supplies, and come back here - under the watchful gaze of our people, of course. Unless you're not interested in the deal we had going, anymore."
Covering his face with one hand, the former adventurer could only blame himself for forgetting that part of things. "You know, I didn't point this out at the time, but the cloak and dagger shit is more than a little ridiculous, all things considered. Jumpships aside, it ain't exactly like you've got anything someone might want to get so bad they'd go for a hit and run around here - or even like you're going to have anything like that here in your lifetime. The germanium's worth a lot, but for a pirate it ain't worth much, and for a country it's just not that much in the long run. Only way to make more of it is to open up a mine. You and your little family, you ought to be perfectly safe as the face of things here."
"Maybe so, if you're looking at it that way." the giant uttered with a big shrug, his half lidded glare making it seem like he might be holding something back. "On the other hand, we're of the opinion that it's always possible we might become targeted, and it's better safe than sorry if we can avoid that. And again, you're not strictly required to be one of us; if you don't like the deal we're offering, we can just give you the life of a single normal citizen."
Johann let out a snort despite his best efforts, covering his eyes. "Show me the guillotine while you're at it, why don't you? Fine, I'll play ball on this shit. I'm bringing along Starlet too, though. Can't trust you not to hold her against me."
At that, mount asshole perked up, taking a more active interest in things. "Starlet's Alexandria, right? The one who's not in jail? I've been wondering, but what the hell's the story between the two of you? How's a...well… a guy like you end up travelling with a mechwarrior that much younger, who's not the least bit crooked?"
This was the sort of question one knew was coming, but dreaded anyways. Johann's stomach churned as a tidal wave formed in the ocean of bad memories and past fuckups came to mind. "Well, you didn't really ask, but I'll start by saying who she is. She's the daughter of the only woman I ever loved. Twenty eight years old as of March. We met...I'd say about fourteen years ago. I'd just been dispossessed myself, came home without much left to dream of. Time, well, it doesn't stop for you, if you know what I mean. Honestly, I only barely got introduced to her at the time - hard to get in close with a woman you ain't met in over a decade, least of all when she's gotten married to a guy you never even knew in the meanwhile. Especially when your next job involves travelling. It was another...four, five years before we met again. That was when I killed her dad - shot him right in the neck. Looking back, I fucking wish I'd done it the first day I met the guy. As things go...well, that's when we started travelling together."
"You… you skipped over something there, I'm sure." Jack insisted, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. "Why did you kill her father, and how the hell did that get her travelling with you?"
It was odd. It wasn't a funny story, but Johann felt the need to laugh. "Well, you know that Shadow Hawk of hers? Her old man was the last owner, but I don't think he knew what it was for. When trouble came coming to our little shitbin of a planet, he might have mounted up, but he certainly didn't fight. Word on the street was, he sold his wife to save the 'mech. I never gave him the chance to explain himself, but I don't see why I should have. Alex...she insisted on coming with, after that. Whether she's grateful that I put the fucker down, mad that I took away what family she had left, or just looking to get even with the son of a bitch who killed her target first… I can't begin to say. We don't talk about that shit - not like we could trust one another anyways."
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Scene 4
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Whiskey was a damned poison, pernicious in its creeping destruction, and Johann O'Reilly swore in his heart that one day, he'd find a way back in time to gut the Gaelic son of a bitch who invented it, be they some ancestor of his or not.
The 'water of life' had eaten into some of the best days in his miserable existence along with its rowdy bunch of friends, but that wasn't enough for some drugs. It had to haunt him even down in the pits of his existence, his fading days. Damn his clown heart, that miserable sack of flesh that came up with an excuse about drinking, just to try and get that bleeding heart giant on his own, so he'd slip up in the talk.
His head screamed, splitting along lines running down the middle, across the line of his jaw, diagonally both ways, and along his forehead. His stomach rolled like he was in a g-training suite. His every motion was so graceless that he could do little other than lay inert on the couch, his eyes closed.
He couldn't believe he'd let himself have a second goddamn shot.
As the door slowly creaked open, one question flew through his head. There was only one right answer, and if he didn't get it he'd...probably fall on the floor, but the intent would be violence. "Izzat you… Starlet?"
The long sigh that filled the air...counted. It was adjacent enough to the right answer to get him to calm down. There was no hurting the kid. "You've been drinking, haven't you? I'll… I'll make you some porridge, I guess."
"...Thanks." he muttered, feeling a bit humiliated by relying on Alex in that sort of way. "...can you grab me a painkiller first, though?"
The floorboards creaked in sequence as those heavy-soled boots made their way over to the couch, the kid's voice taking on an annoyed tone as she leaned over him. "Like hell I can. Those things wreak hell on your stomach when it's empty. You'll get your little pill when you eat the goddamn porridge!"
The damn brat knew it hurt when she raised her voice like that. There was no way she didn't. At least, O'Reilly figured she did. There was no way he'd managed to keep her off the sauce entirely. Slowly, he cracked his eyes open, grinning weakly. "You got me. But really, can you blame me for trying?"
To be honest, the kid didn't look much like her mom at all. Sturdier build, sharper face, green eyes, brown hair, and pasty pale skin - not one of them a trait Helena had ever shown anything close to. On the blood end of things, Alexandria was undeniably her father's daughter. Blood wasn't everything though - that goddamn undercut was straight out of a photo Johann had forgotten to hide, that pouty frown was something she must've learned at home, and even if her complexion amplified it, that flush of anger was classic Helena. "Get your shit together, Johann."
As she stomped off to tie an apron over her piloting clothes, Johann could do little other than silently pray that she'd stop modeling herself after her mother at some point. Some point before she turned into another lady he couldn't do a damn thing for when she needed it most.
That she'd take a fucking hint and live her own life instead of worrying about his, some day.
- -
Hearing footsteps to his side, Johann showed the emptied inside of his bowl with a sigh, not even glancing to the side.
The reply should have just stopped at the frustrated huff. "Good job, genius."
Glancing to the side, O'Reilly let out a low hiss. "Pill please."
As Starlet, wearing a self satisfied smirk, handed over the pill and seized the bowl, it became obvious that she'd taken the chance - while Johann wasn't looking - to dig that goddamn red and white hat out of storage and put it on. "About time you looked this way."
Popping the pill with a well-schooled throat that demands no water, Johann grinned back. "Good to see you in the season's spirit. It'll be nice not being the only one celebrating Saturnalia this year."
Narrowing her eyebrows, the kid set the bowl down on a table to clear her hands, before leaning in with a hand on each hip and a glare. "It's a Santa hat and you fucking know it. Merry Christmas and all that."
"I don't celebrate that shit, and you know it. Saturnalia."
"Christmas!"
"Saturnalia!"
"Christmas!"
Covering his face, the old man sighed, feeling that there was no good way to win this argument. "Fine. Christmas."
For a moment, silence reigned as the two maintained eye contact, before Alex spoke up again. "So, what's the story about you drinking, this time? Just a normal lapse of judgement, or…?"
Running a hand through his messy hair, Johann stared down at the ground. "Worse. Social drinking with the bossman. On which topic...we're going on a little bit of a trip in not too long. I opened my stupid fuckin' trap, and that signed me up for a trade mission to Illyria - plus a few more afterwards, I'd appreciate if you'd come along - otherwise it'll just be me and the boy scouts out there."
"Yeah." Starlet agreed, nodding slowly and sitting down at the side of the couch. "I'll come along. Gotta have someone there who's thinking about keeping you alive, or else who knows what might happen, old man?"
It wasn't exactly what Johann was getting at, but it'd have to do. "Thanks for that, kid."
"Now take a shower, jackass. You smell like shit."
--------
This may come across as a bit of a weird characterization move to make, and I recognize that.
This way, though, the man's not just 'ruthless, improvisational swindler', and there's a little more for him to develop from over his tenure in the story.
Scene 1
---
There was something strange to seeing more greenery in the fields of a mountainous highland than in all but the most fertile parts of the coastal plains. Where otherwise water would flow only from powered pumps, here it seemed to flow passively from the sides of rock faces, livening up an otherwise bleak desert into managed fields. It was almost enough to make Johann forget the armed man sitting across from him as he gazed down and out the window, onto the landscape drifting by far below.
Eventually, though, the rogue turned his gaze back to the reality of the situation, meeting the gaze of the blue-garbed infantryman across from him. "Do rivers flow out of the stone of the mountainsides themselves around here often, Marcus?"
A pair of eyebrows rose high, their owner clearly not expecting to be addressed so directly. As if Johann was going to sit silently the whole flight in the damn whirlybird. "Surprised it wasn't 'Major Marinkovich', but I'm not going to insist on that. Yes, and no. Yes, if you take it from mama bear and papa bear, karst landscapes often produce rivers that sink into the ground one place and then flow out of a wall in another. No, that's not what happened here. The water flow around these parts is entirely artificial - it's a very old method called a qanat. From Iran, on Terra. Dig sideways into the mountain, and if you do it right you'll tap into a spot where the groundwater runs high and draw it out - like you were stabbing a straw through the side of a water bottle. I'd heard you were an ancient history buff, so I'm surprised you're not familiar with it."
"I got more specific interests than 'ancient history', pal." Johann spat, crossing one leg over the other and clasping his hands across the knee. "Principally Rome, the big empire in the history books. Though really, the Imperial era is mostly sort of a slog - things were pretty fiercely on the decline, and it's mostly remembered for Christianity. The Republic is more my speed. What's your excuse for knowing this sort'o trivia?"
Snorting, Marcus glanced out the window himself, his eyes honing in on a turning windmill. "I spend most of my time organizing the bodyguard detail for Jack, Amelie, James, and Marie. If I weren't hitting the books every so often, I'd be intellectually humiliated by my boss's preteen kids. And just to make sure… you do know that the cumulative history of Persian empires is centuries longer than that of the Roman empire, right?"
Johann didn't feel much like playing ball with the guard dog, and closed his eyes for a moment. "No, actually. It's news to me. So, tell me, Uncle Marcus, the fuck are we doing out here in the sand, exactly?"
Wrinkling his nose, the mercenary leaned across the aisle of the helicopter to give his charge the stinkeye. "You know, we had a briefing about that earlier. And by the way… I do go by Uncle Marcus, but not with you. Also off limits for you are Uncle Alan, Aunt Helena, and Grandpa Dick."
"I wasn't listening back then. Now, though, I guess you've got my fucking attention." Johann admitted, shrugging wildly.
An exasperated grunt filled the helicopter cabin, blue camo wrinkling with every shake of the head. "Principally, today's milk run is your crew's training day to see if you can handle the work we're usually doing out here. You and your mechwarrior, plus a few of Alan's machines and a healthy handful of my mudboots, are going to stand guard and look photogenic while the work crews install power lines, build a schoolhouse, and the like. If hostile forces show up, run them off but try not to wipe them all out. The locals came to us to petition for annexation, and our goal is to fuel the reputation that makes that sort of thing happen - not scare people off through the wanton slaughter of their former government's military."
Johann's stomach churned at the idea of sitting out here for weeks on end, just trying to look good and make friends using some of the most advanced and expensive warmachines humanity had ever created. "Bread and circuses is a bit of an odd way to expand your territory, don't you think? Trying to bait people into coming into your camp will never be as fast as using a military advantage to force the matter. Assimilation is the sort of thing that comes after. I mean - hell, you, as a soldier, don't you think your talents are being wasted on this sort of dog and pony show?"
"That's really how you think, huh?" the man snorted, resting his cheeky idly against one palm. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given your ideas as to how to deal with Alphard yourself. The Roy G Birds aren't that sort of production, though. Great Grandpappy Roy Garretson Byrd set that in stone back when he founded the unit."
The name Roy Garretson Byrd instantly explained things about this pack of technicolor Spheroid puppies that Johann had never wanted to know before this moment. "That's why your theming is so fucking stupid? It's all a pun off a stiff's name?"
For his part, the stuck up PBI seemed to be a good sport about the insults to his ancestor. "Roy Byrd was a jumpship captain in the AFFS around the start of the First Succession War, and I'll tell you, at least one world owes its continued survival to his decision to mutiny when the bird jocks on his collar mentioned the nukes they'd been told to deliver to him. We, the grandchildren of his daughter Maria, have honored that legacy through the last century - we've always kept our hands clean of atrocities, even when it meant picking a client who could barely afford to cover our expenses. Now, current employers in mind, there's a lot of gratitude to go around - Red Barrel had been stuck in her 'mech mode for decades, acting like a cut-rate standard Phoenix Hawk, when Jack Cameron and Amelie Clayton reached out to us, but now we all get to watch my brother fumble through learning how to fly that LAM. Still, what keeps us with them isn't the money - it's the commitment to decency. We're here to rise above barbarism, got that?"
"Yeah, yeah…" Johann halfheartedly muttered. "Unfortunately for you, people like me don't really understand following through on principles above doing right by ourselves and our folks, so it's the strings making me dance, not the music, but I'll tap along to your beat all the same. Be a hell of a lot easier if you'd left more than one member of my crew out of the slammer, though."
"Johann…" the veritable fucking boy scout muttered, looking like he wanted to puke. "How did one man find so many thugs and rapists when he was talent scouting? Can you tell me that much?"
It wasn't exactly fun to admit how it came to pass, but… "...Hiring whoever was the cheapest, mostly. You want me to tell Starlet what the plan of action for the day is?"
The cheeky fucker recovered quickly enough from his disgust to crack a grin at that, at least. "Who, Ms. Alexandria? Nah, no need to bother her about this. She's a good girl, unlike a certain employer of hers - she listened when the briefing was going on."
Biting his lip, Johann could only mutter out one thing in response to that. "Ain't any employer of hers. Kid's never asked for a salary or a cut."
"Then what the hell are you to her? She certainly seems to have some money for herself. You giving her an allowance, or…?"
That was close enough to the truth, he supposed. "Yeah, call it an allowance."
---
Scene 2
---
The crackle of the radio spoke to the dust-drenched nature of the place more than anything - even in the absence of competing signals, the relatively fragile model was simply aging quickly. "There were three breaks in the lines, you say?"
Clicking his tongue, Johann stuck his foot up on the dashboard, depressing the 'send' button on his handpiece with one finger. "I do say, yes. Not in the forest, either. Someone's out here cutting 'em. It's 'wrath of neighbors', not 'wrath of god', so you'd best send some scouts and guards out to smoke those sorts out when you send out the repair teams. Better that the malcontents get shot than the repairmen."
To his credit, the radio operator wasn't so far gone that he needed to ask another time. "I'll get right on that, sir. Now, uh...is there anything else you've got to report? Any other support you need over there?"
It wasn't easy, living in a world of busybodies. At least, these busybodies. If they weren't so prone to getting in their own way, nobody would pull this shit. Then again, it was probably for the best that the big wigs were so soft - Johann wouldn't have hesitated to execute himself, in their shoes, so their fixation on the 'humane' way was working out pretty well for him. "Gimme a fucking second, chair force. We only just got set up over here."
The handset clicked into place on the dash eventually, when enough force was applied, and Johann cast his legs out sideways and rose from the car without turning the engine off. The hastily strung up streetlights, the shabby looking buildings, the gravel roads, the shit-smelling ostrich pens - this sort of village wasn't something unfamiliar to him, but normally these ass-end places were where you laid low, not where you did your day job. The only prettiness to be had in the area came from the coastline, which teemed with fields of green ripening saltgrass and similar crops, and further inland the fields irrigated from aquifers, which produced everything not salt dependent. Everything nice about the place came with the grace of the folks at the top of the ladder, and here he was as an agent of that.
As he surveyed the dingy town, longing for a good rest in the city, where luxuries that this world had never dreamt of making itself were cast around as fodder for the masses and time moved forward instead of back, the re-minted toady's eyes eventually fell on a fat, sun-kissed old lady, her complexion spotty and sandblasted, her hair an unkempt mess, her clothes - a veritable quilt of patches and stitches with little original cloth remaining - somehow a few sizes too large, who was watching him nervously. Approaching with his hands in his pocket, he wasn't quite sure what to make of her stiffening and drawing away a bit.
Her eyes narrowed, the crone - though perhaps it was bad to think of her that way, when she was only maybe ten or twenty years his senior - held herself away from him as she spoke up, her gaze periodically drifting over to the Shadow Hawk hooked into the power station. "Issere somethin' you need, sir?"
"Ain't gonna bite." Johann protested, casting his hands out to the side and showing their emptiness. "Y'see, lady, in a bit, there's gonna be a crew out to fix the power lines proper-like. There'll also be a crew coming out to make sure they don't get cut again, and to keep you folks safe."
"Much obliged, sir, but…" the woman muttered, hesitant to make eye contact with the scarfaced, shifty-eyed runt of a man.
Letting out a slight choke as he followed the implications, Johann waved a hand in front of his face. "No, no, I ain't looking for gratitude or 'gratitude', miss. I'd tan if I even dreamt of demanding something from you folks. Just looking to ask - aside from the power back on and the people who cut it away, what else do you folks need around here? If you ask now, I can get it sent in with the rest."
As she relaxed her posture, the rural grandmother nodded a bit. "Well, if'n you're offering, I suppose I won't hold back. Since the lines split last week, we've had folks down with stomach bugs - the 'fridges you folks delivered went out, and the food inside went past due. Doctor the Mr. and Mrs. sent says she can't do a thing about it, either, 'cause the medicine spoiled in the heat too - freezer went out. Two of the sick folk are yours, as well - so we got no teacher in the schoolhouse an' no repairman for the small stuff, at the moment. If you kin' get all that sorted, we'd be mighty grateful around here."
"New food, new medicine, new teacher, new repairman…" Johann nodded, before with a wry grin adding on something entirely of his own. "...Emergency generators. Jeeze, work a man to death, will you? Anything else you need out here in the mud and the dust?"
Grasping at her ratty clothing, the old lady paused for a bit to think. "...I won't be so bold as to ask for anything more that's material, least not without asking around for other people's feelings, but… if you could find out what's yet waiting for us, I think a lot of folks would sleep easy knowing a little o' the future."
Snorting, Johann covered his face even as he turned away. "What, that all? Lucky you, lady, I happen to be a bit of a prophet. Gimme a second to set things right and I'll be back to you."
"Thank you kindly, sir."
It was important, when getting into this car, not to touch any single part of it, because every square centimeter of its surface was hot enough from the sun to burn the soul out of your body. In deference to that fact, Johann made the smallest possible sacrifice by just grabbing the handset itself and pulling it to the limits of its cord. His singsong was out of tune, but it was about as much as you could expect from a forty year old man "Here chair force, chair force, chair force ~!"
"What the fuck is it, O'Reilly?" snapped the man on the other end.
With his fun out of the way, it was time for the former adventurer to get to work for real. "Got a list of everything else the folks down here need. A lot of food and medicine went bad since the power went out, so they'll need a restock on that front. Get a change of teacher and mechanic out here too - the ones you got out here are down with food poisoning, so we're gonna have to medivac them. If you've got 'em up your ass somewhere, send some generators and fuel too so this won't happen again - even get some panels and turbines installed, if you can. You wouldn't regret a grid expansion here - locals practically have sun and wind coming out their asses, and it ain't like the lines you're laying are lossless over distances, so you'll need to put power plants down away from the center at some point if the grid keeps spreading outwards."
The radio man showed his passable adaptability once more, recovering from the teasing quickly enough to respond to the list of requirements. "Installing permanent generation capacity will mean a permanent force commitment over there, but… I can send someone to evaluate it as a site, at least. As for the rest of the requests, that should be easy enough. Anything else?"
Rolling his eyes, Johann took a moment to decide that, under the circumstances, the man had more or less given out an invitation to mess with him - and that it was a good opportunity to make the point that needed to be made. "Weeeeell, I wasn't going to ask, because they're kind of hard to find on store shelves these days, but if you're asking… try to send these people a future. A really good future, where they don't need to worry about local banditry or offworld piracy ever again. Just that little bit of certainty and stability would really make their day. That way, I can retire sooner and live the good life instead of trudging around in the sand and sun."
"Very funny, O'Reilly."
Sighing, Johann hung up the line without waiting for a response there. Some people just didn't have any respect for a good joke. Moments later, he noticed that the old lady had drawn close.
Meeting his gaze as he offered it, the poor old periphery hick wore a fairly welcoming expression, for once. "Now that you're off the line, sir… I just wanted to thank you again, and…"
"Like I said, I can't be asking for any favors or gifts." O'Reilly insisted, raising a hand.
Frowning, the woman shook her head. "You're going 'ta be out here for a spell while your folks come out this way, sir. My son'll put you up at his place - give you a meal or two and a place to sleep, at least. Don't be saying no, now."
"...Yeah, I guess I can accept that, as long as the food's not spoiled." O'Reilly admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "Mind if the kid in the big metal walker kicks off her boots there, too? She can sleep in the 'mech, but it won't be comfortable."
"She's doing as much for us as you are, sir." the lady agreed, before covering her mouth. "The power won't go out again if she gets out of that thing though, right?"
It wasn't even worth snorting at the question - the whole idea of using a battlemech as a rural powerplant was weird enough. "Like hell it will. The whole thing doesn't turn off just because the chair's empty."
---
Scene 3
---
Spindly fingers wrapped around the sides of the shot glass almost as soon as the first spurt of liquor splashed down inside. "You can stop right fucking there. It's a damn embarrassment, but that's about all I can take, if we're gonna be talking. By all means, though, finish the bottle yourself if that's what you want."
It hurt to admit, but Johann had to value his health over avoiding funny looks at this point in his life. What seemed like a good idea as a kid didn't keep so much of a luster to it for someone nearing his fifties, without the benefits of any particular doctors of renown. Maybe if he'd had a few more lucky days or a few smarter thoughts in his youth, he'd be the sort of high roller who saw a doctor in Crimson for his liver, but life brought the crusty old fuck to Alphard instead.
The massive kid's little grin was annoying, but his answer as, carefully and deliberately, he poured the same amount into his own glass was even moreso. "I think I'll be matching you, then. I don't really like the taste much, and getting a buzz is out of the question for me, so drinking really just boils down to the context. It might be fun to make a show of draining a bottle if I were just out to tease Amy, Alan, or someone else, but we're talking business here. On which note, your hangups on drinking with women around are a real pain in the ass. Amy should be here, right now!"
"Listen, Jack." O'Reilly declared, tapping the forefinger of his free hand on the table. "Liquor turns morons into even worse morons. In your position, maybe you can get away with doing something boneheaded while you're sauced, but I ain't ever been that way, and I certainly can't get away with making a dumb decision around your lady if this hits me harder than I'm thinking."
Lifting his glass to his mouth without actually drinking anything, as though he just wanted the look of some suave and refined drinker - as though that were possible with a body like a mountain - Jack let his eyebrows do the talking for just a second, the stripes of hair rising high in amusement. "So you and I, we're both morons then, by your estimation?"
"Don't kid yourself, brat. Me and you, we aren't that special. It's humanity that has the problem. We're all born morons, and if we're lucky enough to realize it one day we can try to work around that for the rest of our days. For even luckier people, they've never even got to realize it, because their asses come self-wiping." the elder of the two insisted, raising his glass forward in a confrontational gesture. "The saying 'in vino veritas' works here too. The right amount of alcohol lets loose the fool in every man, woman, and if we let 'em at it, child. Even the ones where you'd already swear the foolishness was in full force - the sort who takes the sort of luck that wipes their ass for them and goes out full of vim and vigor, piss and vinegar, and foppery and whim to try and found their own nation, pissing everything away in the process."
A clink of glass rang out through the air, the protest of the abused shotglasses as Jack went out of his way to turn the gesture into a toast. "Bit of a weird toast, but whatever. It's certainly true that luck's gotten Amy and I through a lot so far, and it isn't as though we came out here thinking it was going to be a fun, safe time. Maybe we're just a pair of clowns on the stage of history, and the world won't remember what we're doing here. Even if that's the case, though, even if it's all a mistake, we signed up for it ourselves with full awareness of the danger, because some mistakes are worth making and some things are worse than making a mistake."
Drawing his arm back, Johann got a good look at the ceiling as his eyes rolled, before knocking back his drink. "There it fucking is. The sort'o wishy washy horseshit only someone soft and raw as dough can spew. You've got a girl, you've got kids, you've got friends, and you've got a deep pool of patsies and subjects… and you're making your decisions completely on the basis of what's 'right' or 'ideal'. If you were thinking straight, you'd crush the opposing militaries, crush the guerilla forces, and get around to working with the civilians whenever you've got the resources - that'd be what's good for the people counting on you, instead of going slow like this to preserve your good mood and just putting fires out whenever someone starts 'em."
The boss clearly wasn't having any of that as he nursed his drink, though, a long sigh trailing from his lips. "That sort of thinking straight is what's been burning everything down for the last century. Self-convenient expediency is the tool of a consolidating tyrant who doesn't care what they burn down in the process. Making personal sacrifices for the pursuit of what we think is right doesn't entitle us to seize everyone who opposes us as an impersonal sacrifice - if there's anything to the timeless talk of judgement at the end of days, it'll work out better in the end anyways."
Leaning forward, O'Reilly wore a face of deep skepticism, more than a little reddened with frustration. "And the people living in limbo because you can only protect 'em in retrospect don't count as impersonal sacrifices?"
"Do you think they'd become safe if we destroyed every other nation in the world, one night? Would killing every soldier and slaughtering every guerilla end the danger?" Jack rumbled, reaching out one of his massive hands and grabbing Johann's shoulder. This felt like the sort of situation where a bone could break pretty easily. "The answer is no. Crushing everything people believe in, everything that keeps them safe, without offering a credible, better alternative just means that they've now got to pick up their pitchforks and torches. The only way to protect the territory we've already claimed at that point would be to slaughter all comers, riling up even more people. The only way to secure things faster would be to throw more resources at the problem, and for the time being we don't have more resources."
His temper rising further, Johann slapped the table once. "Now, that's definitely bullshit. You've got a warehouse around this place laden with more germanium than anyone can even imagine, right? That, plus a more than fair number of jumpers and droppers sitting thumb-in-ass idle. If all you need to get to work is 'more resources', you should be opening up trade instead of sitting in isolation here like hermits."
At that moment, the 'Cameron' switched things up more than a little bit. Releasing his grip, he gave a few quick pats to Johann's shoulder - only just hard enough to make the aged joint complain quietly. "Well, thanks for volunteering for that, then."
"...What?"
"Despite the fairly mundane work we've been having you do for a bit, the real job we hired you for was always that of a face for the operation we've got going on here, if you remember that far back." came the swift explanation, as one glass found its way back onto the table. "You're through your trial period now, so it's time to start on your actual job. Illyria has a link to existing trade networks which are, in relative terms, safe from piracy. With that, they and Lothian manage to keep the lights on. You, oh glorious leader, will head out that way with a few ships staffed by our crews and folks and the best protection the Green Geese can offer you. Your job is to keep things vague as to where we are and what things are like, offload germanium, buy up hardware and colonial supplies, and come back here - under the watchful gaze of our people, of course. Unless you're not interested in the deal we had going, anymore."
Covering his face with one hand, the former adventurer could only blame himself for forgetting that part of things. "You know, I didn't point this out at the time, but the cloak and dagger shit is more than a little ridiculous, all things considered. Jumpships aside, it ain't exactly like you've got anything someone might want to get so bad they'd go for a hit and run around here - or even like you're going to have anything like that here in your lifetime. The germanium's worth a lot, but for a pirate it ain't worth much, and for a country it's just not that much in the long run. Only way to make more of it is to open up a mine. You and your little family, you ought to be perfectly safe as the face of things here."
"Maybe so, if you're looking at it that way." the giant uttered with a big shrug, his half lidded glare making it seem like he might be holding something back. "On the other hand, we're of the opinion that it's always possible we might become targeted, and it's better safe than sorry if we can avoid that. And again, you're not strictly required to be one of us; if you don't like the deal we're offering, we can just give you the life of a single normal citizen."
Johann let out a snort despite his best efforts, covering his eyes. "Show me the guillotine while you're at it, why don't you? Fine, I'll play ball on this shit. I'm bringing along Starlet too, though. Can't trust you not to hold her against me."
At that, mount asshole perked up, taking a more active interest in things. "Starlet's Alexandria, right? The one who's not in jail? I've been wondering, but what the hell's the story between the two of you? How's a...well… a guy like you end up travelling with a mechwarrior that much younger, who's not the least bit crooked?"
This was the sort of question one knew was coming, but dreaded anyways. Johann's stomach churned as a tidal wave formed in the ocean of bad memories and past fuckups came to mind. "Well, you didn't really ask, but I'll start by saying who she is. She's the daughter of the only woman I ever loved. Twenty eight years old as of March. We met...I'd say about fourteen years ago. I'd just been dispossessed myself, came home without much left to dream of. Time, well, it doesn't stop for you, if you know what I mean. Honestly, I only barely got introduced to her at the time - hard to get in close with a woman you ain't met in over a decade, least of all when she's gotten married to a guy you never even knew in the meanwhile. Especially when your next job involves travelling. It was another...four, five years before we met again. That was when I killed her dad - shot him right in the neck. Looking back, I fucking wish I'd done it the first day I met the guy. As things go...well, that's when we started travelling together."
"You… you skipped over something there, I'm sure." Jack insisted, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. "Why did you kill her father, and how the hell did that get her travelling with you?"
It was odd. It wasn't a funny story, but Johann felt the need to laugh. "Well, you know that Shadow Hawk of hers? Her old man was the last owner, but I don't think he knew what it was for. When trouble came coming to our little shitbin of a planet, he might have mounted up, but he certainly didn't fight. Word on the street was, he sold his wife to save the 'mech. I never gave him the chance to explain himself, but I don't see why I should have. Alex...she insisted on coming with, after that. Whether she's grateful that I put the fucker down, mad that I took away what family she had left, or just looking to get even with the son of a bitch who killed her target first… I can't begin to say. We don't talk about that shit - not like we could trust one another anyways."
---
Scene 4
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Whiskey was a damned poison, pernicious in its creeping destruction, and Johann O'Reilly swore in his heart that one day, he'd find a way back in time to gut the Gaelic son of a bitch who invented it, be they some ancestor of his or not.
The 'water of life' had eaten into some of the best days in his miserable existence along with its rowdy bunch of friends, but that wasn't enough for some drugs. It had to haunt him even down in the pits of his existence, his fading days. Damn his clown heart, that miserable sack of flesh that came up with an excuse about drinking, just to try and get that bleeding heart giant on his own, so he'd slip up in the talk.
His head screamed, splitting along lines running down the middle, across the line of his jaw, diagonally both ways, and along his forehead. His stomach rolled like he was in a g-training suite. His every motion was so graceless that he could do little other than lay inert on the couch, his eyes closed.
He couldn't believe he'd let himself have a second goddamn shot.
As the door slowly creaked open, one question flew through his head. There was only one right answer, and if he didn't get it he'd...probably fall on the floor, but the intent would be violence. "Izzat you… Starlet?"
The long sigh that filled the air...counted. It was adjacent enough to the right answer to get him to calm down. There was no hurting the kid. "You've been drinking, haven't you? I'll… I'll make you some porridge, I guess."
"...Thanks." he muttered, feeling a bit humiliated by relying on Alex in that sort of way. "...can you grab me a painkiller first, though?"
The floorboards creaked in sequence as those heavy-soled boots made their way over to the couch, the kid's voice taking on an annoyed tone as she leaned over him. "Like hell I can. Those things wreak hell on your stomach when it's empty. You'll get your little pill when you eat the goddamn porridge!"
The damn brat knew it hurt when she raised her voice like that. There was no way she didn't. At least, O'Reilly figured she did. There was no way he'd managed to keep her off the sauce entirely. Slowly, he cracked his eyes open, grinning weakly. "You got me. But really, can you blame me for trying?"
To be honest, the kid didn't look much like her mom at all. Sturdier build, sharper face, green eyes, brown hair, and pasty pale skin - not one of them a trait Helena had ever shown anything close to. On the blood end of things, Alexandria was undeniably her father's daughter. Blood wasn't everything though - that goddamn undercut was straight out of a photo Johann had forgotten to hide, that pouty frown was something she must've learned at home, and even if her complexion amplified it, that flush of anger was classic Helena. "Get your shit together, Johann."
As she stomped off to tie an apron over her piloting clothes, Johann could do little other than silently pray that she'd stop modeling herself after her mother at some point. Some point before she turned into another lady he couldn't do a damn thing for when she needed it most.
That she'd take a fucking hint and live her own life instead of worrying about his, some day.
- -
Hearing footsteps to his side, Johann showed the emptied inside of his bowl with a sigh, not even glancing to the side.
The reply should have just stopped at the frustrated huff. "Good job, genius."
Glancing to the side, O'Reilly let out a low hiss. "Pill please."
As Starlet, wearing a self satisfied smirk, handed over the pill and seized the bowl, it became obvious that she'd taken the chance - while Johann wasn't looking - to dig that goddamn red and white hat out of storage and put it on. "About time you looked this way."
Popping the pill with a well-schooled throat that demands no water, Johann grinned back. "Good to see you in the season's spirit. It'll be nice not being the only one celebrating Saturnalia this year."
Narrowing her eyebrows, the kid set the bowl down on a table to clear her hands, before leaning in with a hand on each hip and a glare. "It's a Santa hat and you fucking know it. Merry Christmas and all that."
"I don't celebrate that shit, and you know it. Saturnalia."
"Christmas!"
"Saturnalia!"
"Christmas!"
Covering his face, the old man sighed, feeling that there was no good way to win this argument. "Fine. Christmas."
For a moment, silence reigned as the two maintained eye contact, before Alex spoke up again. "So, what's the story about you drinking, this time? Just a normal lapse of judgement, or…?"
Running a hand through his messy hair, Johann stared down at the ground. "Worse. Social drinking with the bossman. On which topic...we're going on a little bit of a trip in not too long. I opened my stupid fuckin' trap, and that signed me up for a trade mission to Illyria - plus a few more afterwards, I'd appreciate if you'd come along - otherwise it'll just be me and the boy scouts out there."
"Yeah." Starlet agreed, nodding slowly and sitting down at the side of the couch. "I'll come along. Gotta have someone there who's thinking about keeping you alive, or else who knows what might happen, old man?"
It wasn't exactly what Johann was getting at, but it'd have to do. "Thanks for that, kid."
"Now take a shower, jackass. You smell like shit."
--------
This may come across as a bit of a weird characterization move to make, and I recognize that.
This way, though, the man's not just 'ruthless, improvisational swindler', and there's a little more for him to develop from over his tenure in the story.
Chapter 9 (January 2920 - April 2920)
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
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Scene 1
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Winter was beginning to fall over the northern hemisphere of Alphard, and with its invasion creeping down south the isthmus of Attica was left with no choice but to watch the first snowfall of the year marching inland along the coast of the great inland sea, transformed into a blizzard by the cold polar waters flowing south along the coastline. The ostentatiously named city of Kallipolis, which straddled the coasts of salt lake and Ionian Ocean alike in the southern reaches of the area, was no exception.
Fields rich with ripening grain and green pasture in the rest of the year, the envy of much of the world, hid under a blanket of white powder that made them impossible to divide from the neighboring parched nullarbors of permeable karst. Meanwhile, throughout the city, hundreds of thousands of chimneys belched black and grey smoke into the air, singing a song of their resident's survivals.
In the appropriated palace of the former king, much as was common in the younger buildings of the city, this smoke issued not from individual fireplaces but from a central coal boiler which fed steam through a myriad of radiators, freeing the residents from spending months in a sooty hell.
Or rather, it would have, if it hadn't been removed the day before in a scheduling mixup. Having served John and Amy faithfully for the past few years, it was tragically stripped from them two weeks before the electricians were originally expected to greenlight the building's new electric radiators for use. That left only the piddly heat provided by a few fireplaces and stoves in their respective rooms to keep the place bearable, until the expedited safety checks concluded - ideally, later that night - and the electrical system was turned on.
Amy's back pressed into John's back as the lad pulled a thick blanket tight around them. "Joke's on us. We sent that barking dog off to play fetch, and it let him skip out on this shit. He's probably toasty fucking warm on that dropship right now."
"We could always buy out a hotel until the work is done." John offered, tying the corners of the blanket together to free up his hands for a hug. "I'm sure they'd be happy for the business, in this weather."
Snorting, Amy laced her arms through his and rested her head against him. "Rejected. That'd mean scaring the balls off of them with our security detail and sweeping the perimeter for just a few days of usage. Now, let me bitch about the travesty of Johann escaping from this shit hand of cards a little more."
"Okay, now, he would have just gone to a hotel." John pointed out, bringing his legs up under the blanket and, in the process, forcing Amy's head slightly closer to his, height-wise. "The man doesn't exactly have his own security detail, and he certainly wouldn't be content with slumming it in the old servant's quarters without the heat on. Sometimes, he sounds like he's going to die of coughing without having the flu."
"That's...fair." Amy slowly admitted, shrugging heavily. "Well, at least a bad is balanced by a good - some of the Birds are skipping out on the blizzard as well, and that's alright by me. I just hope Illyria isn't too rough to them."
"Where they'll be landing? I think winter hits in March, but aside from that they shouldn't run into too many problems." the humanoid space heater mused, before shaking his head with a wry grin. "Honestly, though, it's not so bad that Johann and Alexandria are getting out of the cold. I'll grant that the man is awful, but he's not that bad. Well, I can understand him - why he is the way he is - at least a little, and I think you would too."
"How do you figure?" came the skeptical reply, little spoon craning her head to get some manner of look at her big spoon's face.
Shifting in the chair a little, John sighed. "The things he's willing to do are insane, no doubt, but the sense I get from talking to him is that he's not really very interested in himself. Certainly, he talks a big game and acts like he means it, but there's a hollowness to that. Calling him a dog wasn't too far off, because I think there's nothing left in the man but loyalty at this point. He's a corpse shambling forward in memory of a woman who's dead or worse, living on in service to the last person who connects him to that memory. Or at least, his own idea of service to that last person."
"You talking about the lady who follows him around like she's a moth and he's a lightbulb? Between the two of them, it should be obvious which one is living to serve the other." Amy snorted, giving John a funny look with her eyebrow raised.
"It's both of them. They're both living the life they think the other one needs them to live." John corrected, tickling Amy's sides just to hear her giggle. "But he's not her dad, and she's not his mom. Honestly, they could both use a lesson I was taught about seventeen years ago - in the end, if you're completely blinded by the idea that you're responsible for someone, you're not really looking at that person or their wants, and you'll regret the missed opportunities at the end of things."
"What genius gave you that gem, casanova?" Amy asked automatically, but as she thought more her neck slowly craned back into a forward-facing posture and she cupped her chin. "Oh. Oh, was it the festival medic guy? Chuck, was it? I vaguely remember you switching up your act around then."
Grinning into the emptiness of the room ahead, John rested his chin atop Amy's head. "In the interest of protecting the innocent, I can neither confirm or deny, nor give names."
A fierce pout pointed out in the same direction, the mis-aimed, menacing visage threatening death to the coffee table. Fortunately, the coffee table wasn't scared. "Well, I've got an interest in protecting your innocents too, buddy, but that doesn't mean I keep people's names secrets."
"Pfhgh-!" John snorted, squeezing Amy around the waste. "My innocents? Is that what you call my balls in your head or something?"
"Shaddap!" Amy squeaked as her abdomen was compressed, face fiery red, before her mind pivoted back to the topic at hand as the pressure was relaxed. "But… so… with O'Reilly, you figure the fact that he's doing it all for someone else excuses it or something?"
"Excuse nothing. The things he's done, and the things he's willing to do, can't be excused by something like that. His lack of any real sense of ethics or morals is his worst trait." John denied, his stubble tickling Amy's scalp through her hair as he shook his head. "But I can understand him. There's little more natural than killing for the ones you love - we've gone far enough with that ourselves that it might as well be in our wedding oaths."
The conversation ended when the door flew open, and in barreled two youths fast approaching Amy's adult height, the form of each practically buried within downy winter coats, one green and one yellow. Racing, the two made their ways over to the roaring fireplace before holding out their hands, shivering as they tried to warm up.
"James, Marie, take off those coats and get in this blanket." Amy insisted, fixing the fireplace with a dubious gaze. "That thing is worthless for heating the room."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Alright!"
Removing the coats was as simple for the two as working one zipper down from top to bottom and then struggling out of the thick, marshmallow-puffed garments. As the twins then removed their hats and goggles, leaving the whole mess to dry on the floor by the fire, if it was so inclined, four hazel eyes gazed at John and Amelia, one set frustrated and the other pleased to be there.
As she drew close in her green sweater, which matched the coat she'd discarded on the floor, Marie crossed her arms in a mix of frustration and an attempt to stay warm, pouting as she crept up into the group hug under the blanket.
James, meanwhile, wore a faint grin as he, clad in yellow, joined in on the huddle, uniting the full family under one blanket.
It was aggressively warm, which was exactly what the circumstances demanded.
"So." John began with a smile as he drew all the most important people in his life into one bear hug. "How was school today?"
Wrinkling her nose, Marie gave a response that was not. "Dad...you stink!"
"Well, the teacher's moving everyone else through the material a little slower than we are here, but it's still a fun time. Plus, it means we get to help the ones who don't quite get it!" James cheered, squeezing in as tight as he could.
"I'm glad you're having a good time. Before smart, strong, rich, or popular, I want you to be happy above all else." John softly stated, patting his son gently on the shoulder. His attention then turned to the other side, where his daughter was pinching her nose. "What about you, Marie? Did you have a good day today? You seem like you're having a bit of a bad time over there."
The girl's cheeks flushed a bit red as she retreated under the blanket and out of sight.
"You know it's going to smell even worse under there, right?" Amy asked, nudging Marie gently. "Is something wrong?"
"Marie kissed Marco just after class!" James volunteered, raising his hand up high.
Blinking slowly, Amy turned her gaze to her son as a high pitched groan of frustration rose from the depths of the snuggle. "And that's...bad?"
Slowly, unstoppably, Marie poked her head back into vision, a vicious glare fixed on her twin as she bit her lip and pointed. "It was fine until this idiot showed up and made a big deal out of it."
"It's…not a big deal?" Amy asked, her gaze back on her daughter as she tried to sort out exactly what the dynamic was here. "Is it...not the first time, or something?"
"No! I mean, yes, it is!" Marie squealed, covering her face. "It was just...like… we kissed, and then… 'oh my god!' from the sidelines. Marco ran off! It was awkward!"
John and Amy were, for a moment, of one mind, their eyes facing one direction. "James."
"Well, I won't be surprised next time!" the boy promised in defense of himself, raising both hands in a warding gesture.
"...Not sure what to think about this." Amy eventually muttered. "I mean, intellectually I know they're not that much younger than we were the first time we kissed, but…"
"Mom!" the twins cried, James suddenly cringing and making a gagging expression, Marie retreating back under the blanket.
"The first time you kissed me." John corrected, cupping his chin in one hand. "I don't know how much sense it makes to use us as an example of 'normal', Amy. Don't think we really have the social circle to judge what would be normal, either. I think it's probably fine if it's just at that level, though. Whether it's a 'like' or a 'love', whether it turns into anything in the long run or not, feelings are feelings, and I'm not going to be the sort of dad who gives instructions on how to feel your feelings, and who to feel them for."
A muffled, horrified "Dad!" rang out from under the blanket in Marie's voice.
"Rather," he continued, a mischievous grin on his face. "If Helena were onworld at the moment, I might call her up to share the news. She'd probably be interested to know that her boy's getting up to that sort of stuff."
So mighty were the groans of mortification from both sides that they could be felt bone deep by both parents as they had a private little laugh about the exchange.
There was very little more refreshing than finding a moment where they could just be a family for a while.
---
Scene 2
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Johann held his hand up, a scowl breaking out on his lips, as the bottle of whiskey came out. "None for us, sorry. 'Fraid I can't exactly boast of my tolerance anymore, and-"
The Illyrian sneered, pouring one for himself as he gazed over the bridge of his glasses. "So quick to speak for your lady friend. I suppose our initial appraisal of your standing was not so far off the mark, Mr. O'Reilly, if you're keeping those in your company on such short leashes even in the public eye."
"My bodyguard," the ex-scavenger stressed, shooting over a quick glare as he met the other man's gaze. "Will not be drinking, for reasons relating to the basic responsibilities of her job. I'll beg your understanding in this matter, if not in others, Mr. Johansen. Now, I didn't exactly come all this way to make small talk, so-"
Karl Fritz Johansen, pushing his spectacles up towards his amber eyes, would not allow the pace of the conversation to be dictated to him as his eyes surveyed Alexandria, tracing along every detail of her as though scrutinizing a fishermans' wares. "And so you have left outside your swaths of well-muscled men with guns, to bring before me just a single young, slender 'bodyguard'? I have dealt with many pirates who sought to show me their eye candy as a form of peacocking, Mr. O'Reilly. While I may think less of you for it, it will not impact our business dealings."
Starlet's tongue clicked as she tapped a foot on the ground, glaring across the table as she dragged one hand across her temples to emphasize the way her haircut left them bare.
"Unless… you've brought a mechwarrior in here as your bodyguard." Karl amended, quirking one eyebrow high as he folded his hands in front of his mouth. "I won't say I understand the gesture, but I'm sure it has some symbolic meaning on whatever backwater your band hails from."
Johann was reaching the limits of his capacity for receiving snideness, and he decided to show it by reaching down slowly and in the most exaggerated way possible, to rake his fingernails across the man's ornate hardwood coffee table as he worked to sell the act. "I hate to break it to you, but Starlet does know her way around a gun too. Besides which, there's more to bodyguarding than the size of your arms. You've really gotta consider how well you're able to work with a person before you call 'em into this sort of ring, you know?"
Grinning, the local nodded as he plucked a macaron from his plate. "I believe I can understand your implication, yes. A bit amateur of you to let on that the majority of your people would be turncoat risks if they met someone with a bit more money, though."
"If you want to read it that way, be my guest." Johann spat with a roll of his eyes. "Now, how long are you planning on this show of strength lasting again, Port Commissioner? It was a long drive from the mountains to get all the way over here, you know. I'd really like to get down to business some time before I've spent a whole month on this parched, foul smelling rock."
The empty smile the man wore did little other than to show how much money he poured into his teeth. "It is hardly my fault that you couldn't afford the port membership fee like any normal visitor, Mr. O'Reilly. Most merchants have at least some liquid assets on hand when they, seeing a ripe opportunity where it exists, come to Illyria rather than waiting for us to come to them. Most pirates, even, have that level of sense to them."
The truth was, the decision to skip out on the port came from outside of Johann's grasp. Even though they'd brought money, some of Cameron and Clayton's folks had decided it was too rich for their blood - that it was 'more appropriate' to land on the outskirts and go through customs under rather than over the table.
Which left the hard work to Johann, of course. "Y'know, by most standards the purpose of a trade port is to draw in as much trade as possible - port services, I can get, a landing fee, I can get, but not offering anything less than an annual 'full service season pass'? It's more than a little absurd, don't you think?"
"It actually does quite a bit to stimulate traffic. The gears of commerce run smoother when reputable traders 'know' that the port isn't frequented by every petty bandit king in the region."
It wasn't exactly hard to read between the lines when there was a kilometer wide gap in the text. "Meanwhile, you get to make a tidy side business on the ones well behaved enough to come in from outside the port and sit down at your little table."
The man seriously needed to stop smiling. "And he knows his name! Now, I've only got about ten more minutes for you, tops, and my secretaries are rather useless, so do be so kind as to tell me what high value good makes you think you're worth my time personally?"
It was astronomically unlikely that the man was seriously that poorly staffed. Much more likely that the dickhead just couldn't get past his urge to make everything a show of his status for a few seconds. "I recently came by a tidy little mine, and it's a beauty of a thing. I got eight kilotons of shipping-grade germanium for you, mixed in with all the packing materials."
Snorting, the dick folded his hands in his lap while nodding. "Fascinating. Yes, I can see how that works. You 'came by' a mine, and now you're here to sell the proceeds. 15,000 a ton, flat."
A shit rate like that demanded a little haggling, even if it was useless. "That's less than half the market rate, in most places."
A little shrug capped it off. "You'll get what I'm offering and like it, unless you'd like to add another middleman and get 10,000 per ton instead. Now, you seem smart, so I'm sure we won't linger on that topic - I know how you pirates work, so just what does your little operation need to keep running? Perhaps some guns? Some water purifiers? Parts for a reactor? Oh, never mind, that's for my secretary to hash out with you - but really, good doing business with you, and I hope you'll come around again"
What a fucking prick.
- -
"What a fucking prick!" Johann shouted, kicking his left shoe across the floor as soon as he'd gotten it off, letting the debugged hotel room's walls bounce every syllable of his rage. "I swear, one of these days I'm going to come back and rip that sanctimonious ass-clown's head off!"
Alexandria, with a sigh, pulled his jacket off of his shoulders and stuck it on the rack, before patting him on the back. "Don't have a heart attack, old man. Seriously, don't. Some dirty flee merchant who makes rules so he can break them isn't worth thinking about after you've said goodbye. Just treat it as a vacation - until he delivers the goods, you're free from having to worry about what the bosses are going to tell you, and you get to just kick back and rest for once. If you play by those rules, you'll be easier to keep in one piece for the next few months."
"Kid!" O'Reilly shouted, throwing his hands up high. "Kid. Don't pretend like he ain't bothered you too. For everything he said about me, the shit he slang your way was a million times worth. You ain't some low-down bandit dirtbag's squeezetoy, but the way he was making matters out, you might as well have been. I'm used to being treated like dirt, but you, you deserve better than that. You don't need to accept that sort of treatment when someone slings it your way - if you'd made a fuss about it, I even would'a taken that ten thousand he quoted at us from someone else just to get away from him, bosses be damned. Don't just settle when you deserve better than you're getting."
"He's not worth that, O'Reilly. Everything that matters in the long run is back home. Throwing out the best deal we can expect just because the man is insufferable is pointless - we'll live better playing his rules day a year until we're clear to stop coming up this way than running on spite." she retorted, stripping off a layer herself to get down to something more comfortable for lounging around inside - the intermediate step between respectable clothing for a meeting with a public official, and appropriate clothing for the inside of a cockpit. "And besides that, don't let me hear you call yourself a 'low-down bandit dirtbag' again. That ain't you."
Massaging his face slowly, Johann sighed. "Goddamnit, Starlet, you ain't supposed to be the one acting mature like this. You should be living the easy life - if your head was on straight, you would be. My old lady croaked a long time ago, but that doesn't mean I need a girl your age to appoint herself as my mother."
"Laundry, cooking, medicine, appointments, protection… well now, I guess I am your mom." she agreed, flipping up one of her bangs in the process. "But I don't have a problem with that, old man. You ain't exactly good at keeping yourself alive, so someone needs to do it for you, and… well, what do you know? I'm actually a bit of a fan of having you alive. Moral of the story, you're stuck with me. Deal."
When it came down to this sort of disagreement, there was little to do but disengage - but that didn't mean it needed to be especially graceful. With that in mind, Johann threw his hands up in the air and dragged out the highest pitch his ravaged vocal folds could spit. "Ergh… Suit yourself, dumbass. Sure, we're in a heap of shady shit right now, playing frontman for the group that stayed back at the dropships, but it'll be fiiiine. Anything could happen to us - anything could be happening back there - but I'm sure it'll all work out in the end!"
But, well, parting shots came from both directions. "Wah wah, does the baby need his bottle?"
It was times like these that Johann sort of wished she were the silent type.
But then again, as long as she actually took the opportunity to settle down and live her own life safely when he gave her the option, some day, rather than quintupling down on the mistake of staying mixed up with him to the bitter end, he could deal with her bullshit until then.
If she could just make the right choice one time in her damn life, that'd give him the opportunity to retire himself. Maybe, just maybe, he'd even survive to be her kid's loser 'grandpa'.
Punching himself in the leg, he sighed. No, no. That sort of fantasy was more than he deserved, after everything he'd fucked up at.
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Scene 3
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Disembarking from the rudimentary 'spaceport's buggy felt like a lot of things. Most obviously, it felt like getting out of a primitive automobile with a shit suspension, which had been traveling over uneven, slushy ground spattered with the ejecta and mud thrown up by a small cluster of drive plumes introducing themselves to the dirt, and rocks, and lingering snow for a few minutes now. Less prosaically, it felt like the fact that he'd escaped the stuck up, corrupt smuggling pits of Illyria had struck Johann at once. Another step towards the fanciful would be to say that he was finally getting close to some answers as to the lingering questions in the back of his head.
Most baffling of all, though, was the thought as Alexandria stepped out of the shuttle after him, that it felt like he was finally going home or something. He hadn't had anything like that in close to thirty years.
"Agh, fuck, goddamn." he muttered into the dead air, pressing a hand into his own lower back hard enough to make a loud pop. "Get a real goddamn offroader, you pricks."
"We'll take that under advisement."
The soft boom of that voice knocked a sigh out of Johann as his gaze, and that of Alexandria, turned to refocus on the newly announced interloper...s.
There, in front of the hastily defined spaceport terminal, the ruling couple stood tall in their winter clothing, Jack's crossing behind Amelie's back and landing on her shoulder.
The lady of the land took the opportunity to speak up while Johann was still getting over their hasty - or, one supposed, not so hasty, when there was over a week's warning involved - greeting. "How was the vacation, you two? Did you have fun flying south for the winter?"
Where to even begin. "Would not recommend it. For a little while, escaping the chill was nice and all, and there was something 'to' getting to pretend I was in charge for awhile, but...well, Illyria fucking sucks. Some places, the who's who are just annoying - yourselves, by way of example. Illyria's an example hard down the worse road - everyone who's anyone is such an arrogant, self interested prick that you leave feeling like you're nothing, as long as they don't feel the need to flatter you. Which, ah, they didn't."
"Not a great place to go on an anniversary, then?" Jack quipped, raising one hand outwards in a mix of a shrug and a slap that only hit air. "I'll have to remember that, for future reference. Granted, your standards for travel destinations fall when you've spent a while in the chaos of Solaris, but it's sad to find out that the only decent - and I use the loosest terms possible - place in the area in Canopus."
The joke was almost enough to make O'Reilly gag, his eyes rolling as he stared down his self-appointed boss. "Welcome to the Periphery, you massive brat. Every hole's a shithole out here. That's how things boil down when you're out in the roughest corners of space, trying to make frayed ends meet. The more desperate things get, the more it becomes possible for the big people who keep the pirates away and the lights on to squeeze the little people for all they're worth - and the more they get their way today, the more they'll get their way tomorrow. Eventually, you end up with something like Illyria, where people start asking if they really need to keep all the pirates away, but they cling onto their pride as 'protectors'. Just ask Starlet - she got hit with their guff worse than me."
As the couple turned their gazes to Alexandria, though, their surroundings remained silent save for the wind, and slowly the pair began to wear amused expressions - for Jack, a grin. For Amelie, a toothy smile.
Slowly, Johann followed their gazes to his charge's face, finding her biting her lip and gazing downward at an angle, her eyes transfixed on something. Following her gaze in turn, his eyes arrived on the smaller boss's belly, which, now that he looked closer, was beginning to bulge outwards a bit. "Huh. Two of you having another kid?" he mused for a second, turning back to Alexandria and placing a hand on her shoulder without waiting for a response. Into her ear, he whispered a simple warning. "If that really matters to you like it seems to, you should start dating soon. For you, more than me, there's only so many chances to experience that for yourself - and you'd knock it out'a the park, so it'd be a shame to miss it."
"Wah!" the grown-ass kid cried, flinching away with her cheeks red as she refused to meet his gaze. "Goddamnit, old man, don't say that sort of shit! I can figure things like that out for myself, you know?"
Sighing, Johann stepped forward with a roll of his eyes and whispered again. "I know you can, Starlet. Thing is, you're twenty eight - you've got time, but you're not flush with it. Nowadays, you've got a chance to start looking, since we've put roots down, but time can slip away...real damn fast. Better to figure things out ahead of time than too late."
Turning away completely, the youth released a loud 'hmph'. "Whatever, old man. Maybe you can practice what you preach, before you try to sling it at others?"
"I...gh..."
A soft chuckle pierced the awkward air as the mother-to-be-season-two stepped forward. "We wouldn't happen to be getting in the middle of something, you two? Jack and I could give you a minute, then we could finish this welcome party when the two of you are ready, if you'd like."
Johann would sooner die than do something as humiliating as ask these two for a 'private moment'. "No need. We were just...juuuuust about done, and it's nothing too important. Anyways… Starlet, we were waiting on you to give your take on Illyria."
Grumbling, Alexandria shifted back and forth for a few moments before setting on giving her response while continuing to face away. "Oh! Yeah, uh… Place sucks. The sort of folks who go walking out on the street get a shit hand, while the people at the top are free to do whatever they want to give themselves a better deal going forward. Bunch of hypocrites - they thought the old man was a pirate, but they had no trouble doing business with him."
A collective sigh ran around the group, nobody quite having it in them to point out that that was just a retreading of things that were already said.
Eventually, Johann spoke up again, massaging his forehead. "I didn't want to be the one to say this, but apparently she's not in the mood to - pretty consistently, people got it into their heads that she 'must' have been a slave, a hooker, or a trophy wife, because those are all things pirates bring to meetings, apparently. They had no trouble saying it to her face, either - the fucking disrespect was off the charts, I swear."
"...Well." Amy muttered, cupping her chin. "Sorry for sending the two of you on such a rotten trip, then. Was it at least productive?"
"Was it productive?" Johann mimicked, throwing his hands in the air. "I guess, maybe. If you squint. Pay was about half what we'd get selling to a shipyard directly, but it's close, so whatever. Got gouged on the buying end, too. So, yeah, we've got your shooters, your nice little odds and ends, a little of everything on the shopping list, really, but the quantities aren't exactly...great. I can't imagine how much progress you'll actually make with just this much."
The big lug broke back into the conversation at that point, stepping forward to pat Johann and Starlet on the shoulders as though it meant anything. "Bit of a disappointment, especially when it was such an unpleasant trip, but not exactly unexpected. We'll have to make do with what we've got for the meanwhile - we can rely on local technology and a few imports for a little while if we have to, until we can start rolling out… well, at least fission power, basic computers, something we can pretend deserves the name 'tank', jets - those sorts of things."
"There's the childish optimism. You know, it's crazy to expect more from the place than it's got anytime soon, right? There are more promising places that've achieved about as much - New Abilene, in Canopus, as an example, ought to be better off by most metrics, but it's almost as much of a hole in the end." Johan spat with a grin, stepping up to the massive form of his boss.
"Well, yes, but…" Jack began, trailing off after a second before resuming, the whole while giving the faint impression of having changed tracks. "In the case of Canopus, there's never been any real organized effort to fix those sorts of backwaters up - just a halfhearted push to get wealthy individuals to organize slight, incremental fixes themselves."
Johann was about to make his own retort when Starlet stepped in. "When we'd just gotten here, maybe I would have accepted that as the reason, Mr. Cameron. But things don't add up in the long run, that way. If the big secret were nothing other than 'trying hard', you'd need to be a paranoid crazy in ways we haven't seen hide nor hair of to be so obsessed with secrecy. Back on Illyria, your folks were about as cagey as can be - they wouldn't even let us near A Kiss and a Prayer, let alone into the cargo bays, which really makes you think they found something interesting while we were away - but it should really take more than a month of looking around randomly to find anything good, especially in the periphery. There's more to what you've going on here than what you're willing to talk about, but you're not that good at hiding it. If I checked into one of the universities in the city, as an example - what kind of books would I find in the library?"
Nearly choking at the thought of those allegations - and just as much so at the idea that the kid was dumb enough to let on that she was onto those sorts of things, in the event that they were true - Johann jumped in as quickly as possible, looking to blunt the attention directed at here. "Y-yeah! That's what I was gonna say too! Look, I got no problem working for you two clowns if you treat us right, but that ain't what's happening here, is it? You're making us do all the heavy lifting, meanwhile you're sitting back here riding high on some sort of lostech find, aren't you? It ain't just disrespectful, it's downright counterproductive - how are we supposed to help if we don't know what we're helping with?"
Slowly, Cameron and Clayton exchanged a look with each other, periodically glancing back to their errand duo with eyes that practically shouted 'did you just grow second heads?'. A silence seemed to overtake the field, even with the cargo trucks offloading the dropships in the distance.
Sweat beaded on Johann's forehead.
"How have you two functioned this long?" Amelie asked, two fingers supporting her chin as she dug the respective pointer finger into her cheek. "No, that's not fair. You've probably just never been in a situation like this before. You could do with learning a little bit of tact and subtlety though."
So saying, she paused to sigh deeply as Jack took over. "Look, you've pieced together quite a bit here, so there's little sense in saying 'no, nothing's happening'. Suffice it to say… yes, we've had a lucky find in our time, and yes, we're trying to keep it on the down-low, because it'd suck to be killed for it before it could amount to anything. Part of that is some maps - we sent you to Illyria in part to get at the ruins of an old machine shop, in part to trade. Can we leave it at that, though? The less you know, the less someone can beat out of you with a rubber hose. Suffice it to say, things are going places, and you'll here to benefit from it - and that's all we're keen to say, until the situation is a bit more stable here."
"You know, for all your own talk of tact and subtlety, you two could really do with being a little slower to admit this sort of shit." Johann noted, his expression flat as he suppressed the rolling chaos of his nerves throughout this absurd situation. "And ruthlessness as well. I certainly wouldn't trust me with keeping this sort of secret while in contact with the outside world, if I were you."
Shaking her head, Amy wore an empty grin. "Oh, make no mistake. You won't be getting any chances to slip away from your chaperones any time in the future. If you spread the knowledge to someone who shouldn't have it - that's just about anyone, by the way - they'll be ready to do what needs to be done."
"Ominous." Johann grumbled, shaking his head irritably. "I'm sure the info is worth a lot to the right people, but I've been around the block enough times to know I probably wouldn't get to stick around to enjoy any rewards they promised, even if they believe me. So, in that regard, your secret's safe. On the other hand...if you start trying to screw us on this, of your own accord, you'll have your own special opportunity to learn just how well this old man can dance when he sees you coming."
More than a few people had been surprised by it in the past. People who'd hired him, people he'd hired, even a few people he was sent after. Johann Sebastian O'Reilly had his ways.
A brief silence overtook the air, before the hollow smile morphed into one even more disgustingly, cloyingly, faux-sweet. "I'm glad we've come to this understanding."
--------
Just some little family moments this time. Plus a few tense encounters I guess.
Scene 1
---
Winter was beginning to fall over the northern hemisphere of Alphard, and with its invasion creeping down south the isthmus of Attica was left with no choice but to watch the first snowfall of the year marching inland along the coast of the great inland sea, transformed into a blizzard by the cold polar waters flowing south along the coastline. The ostentatiously named city of Kallipolis, which straddled the coasts of salt lake and Ionian Ocean alike in the southern reaches of the area, was no exception.
Fields rich with ripening grain and green pasture in the rest of the year, the envy of much of the world, hid under a blanket of white powder that made them impossible to divide from the neighboring parched nullarbors of permeable karst. Meanwhile, throughout the city, hundreds of thousands of chimneys belched black and grey smoke into the air, singing a song of their resident's survivals.
In the appropriated palace of the former king, much as was common in the younger buildings of the city, this smoke issued not from individual fireplaces but from a central coal boiler which fed steam through a myriad of radiators, freeing the residents from spending months in a sooty hell.
Or rather, it would have, if it hadn't been removed the day before in a scheduling mixup. Having served John and Amy faithfully for the past few years, it was tragically stripped from them two weeks before the electricians were originally expected to greenlight the building's new electric radiators for use. That left only the piddly heat provided by a few fireplaces and stoves in their respective rooms to keep the place bearable, until the expedited safety checks concluded - ideally, later that night - and the electrical system was turned on.
Amy's back pressed into John's back as the lad pulled a thick blanket tight around them. "Joke's on us. We sent that barking dog off to play fetch, and it let him skip out on this shit. He's probably toasty fucking warm on that dropship right now."
"We could always buy out a hotel until the work is done." John offered, tying the corners of the blanket together to free up his hands for a hug. "I'm sure they'd be happy for the business, in this weather."
Snorting, Amy laced her arms through his and rested her head against him. "Rejected. That'd mean scaring the balls off of them with our security detail and sweeping the perimeter for just a few days of usage. Now, let me bitch about the travesty of Johann escaping from this shit hand of cards a little more."
"Okay, now, he would have just gone to a hotel." John pointed out, bringing his legs up under the blanket and, in the process, forcing Amy's head slightly closer to his, height-wise. "The man doesn't exactly have his own security detail, and he certainly wouldn't be content with slumming it in the old servant's quarters without the heat on. Sometimes, he sounds like he's going to die of coughing without having the flu."
"That's...fair." Amy slowly admitted, shrugging heavily. "Well, at least a bad is balanced by a good - some of the Birds are skipping out on the blizzard as well, and that's alright by me. I just hope Illyria isn't too rough to them."
"Where they'll be landing? I think winter hits in March, but aside from that they shouldn't run into too many problems." the humanoid space heater mused, before shaking his head with a wry grin. "Honestly, though, it's not so bad that Johann and Alexandria are getting out of the cold. I'll grant that the man is awful, but he's not that bad. Well, I can understand him - why he is the way he is - at least a little, and I think you would too."
"How do you figure?" came the skeptical reply, little spoon craning her head to get some manner of look at her big spoon's face.
Shifting in the chair a little, John sighed. "The things he's willing to do are insane, no doubt, but the sense I get from talking to him is that he's not really very interested in himself. Certainly, he talks a big game and acts like he means it, but there's a hollowness to that. Calling him a dog wasn't too far off, because I think there's nothing left in the man but loyalty at this point. He's a corpse shambling forward in memory of a woman who's dead or worse, living on in service to the last person who connects him to that memory. Or at least, his own idea of service to that last person."
"You talking about the lady who follows him around like she's a moth and he's a lightbulb? Between the two of them, it should be obvious which one is living to serve the other." Amy snorted, giving John a funny look with her eyebrow raised.
"It's both of them. They're both living the life they think the other one needs them to live." John corrected, tickling Amy's sides just to hear her giggle. "But he's not her dad, and she's not his mom. Honestly, they could both use a lesson I was taught about seventeen years ago - in the end, if you're completely blinded by the idea that you're responsible for someone, you're not really looking at that person or their wants, and you'll regret the missed opportunities at the end of things."
"What genius gave you that gem, casanova?" Amy asked automatically, but as she thought more her neck slowly craned back into a forward-facing posture and she cupped her chin. "Oh. Oh, was it the festival medic guy? Chuck, was it? I vaguely remember you switching up your act around then."
Grinning into the emptiness of the room ahead, John rested his chin atop Amy's head. "In the interest of protecting the innocent, I can neither confirm or deny, nor give names."
A fierce pout pointed out in the same direction, the mis-aimed, menacing visage threatening death to the coffee table. Fortunately, the coffee table wasn't scared. "Well, I've got an interest in protecting your innocents too, buddy, but that doesn't mean I keep people's names secrets."
"Pfhgh-!" John snorted, squeezing Amy around the waste. "My innocents? Is that what you call my balls in your head or something?"
"Shaddap!" Amy squeaked as her abdomen was compressed, face fiery red, before her mind pivoted back to the topic at hand as the pressure was relaxed. "But… so… with O'Reilly, you figure the fact that he's doing it all for someone else excuses it or something?"
"Excuse nothing. The things he's done, and the things he's willing to do, can't be excused by something like that. His lack of any real sense of ethics or morals is his worst trait." John denied, his stubble tickling Amy's scalp through her hair as he shook his head. "But I can understand him. There's little more natural than killing for the ones you love - we've gone far enough with that ourselves that it might as well be in our wedding oaths."
The conversation ended when the door flew open, and in barreled two youths fast approaching Amy's adult height, the form of each practically buried within downy winter coats, one green and one yellow. Racing, the two made their ways over to the roaring fireplace before holding out their hands, shivering as they tried to warm up.
"James, Marie, take off those coats and get in this blanket." Amy insisted, fixing the fireplace with a dubious gaze. "That thing is worthless for heating the room."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Alright!"
Removing the coats was as simple for the two as working one zipper down from top to bottom and then struggling out of the thick, marshmallow-puffed garments. As the twins then removed their hats and goggles, leaving the whole mess to dry on the floor by the fire, if it was so inclined, four hazel eyes gazed at John and Amelia, one set frustrated and the other pleased to be there.
As she drew close in her green sweater, which matched the coat she'd discarded on the floor, Marie crossed her arms in a mix of frustration and an attempt to stay warm, pouting as she crept up into the group hug under the blanket.
James, meanwhile, wore a faint grin as he, clad in yellow, joined in on the huddle, uniting the full family under one blanket.
It was aggressively warm, which was exactly what the circumstances demanded.
"So." John began with a smile as he drew all the most important people in his life into one bear hug. "How was school today?"
Wrinkling her nose, Marie gave a response that was not. "Dad...you stink!"
"Well, the teacher's moving everyone else through the material a little slower than we are here, but it's still a fun time. Plus, it means we get to help the ones who don't quite get it!" James cheered, squeezing in as tight as he could.
"I'm glad you're having a good time. Before smart, strong, rich, or popular, I want you to be happy above all else." John softly stated, patting his son gently on the shoulder. His attention then turned to the other side, where his daughter was pinching her nose. "What about you, Marie? Did you have a good day today? You seem like you're having a bit of a bad time over there."
The girl's cheeks flushed a bit red as she retreated under the blanket and out of sight.
"You know it's going to smell even worse under there, right?" Amy asked, nudging Marie gently. "Is something wrong?"
"Marie kissed Marco just after class!" James volunteered, raising his hand up high.
Blinking slowly, Amy turned her gaze to her son as a high pitched groan of frustration rose from the depths of the snuggle. "And that's...bad?"
Slowly, unstoppably, Marie poked her head back into vision, a vicious glare fixed on her twin as she bit her lip and pointed. "It was fine until this idiot showed up and made a big deal out of it."
"It's…not a big deal?" Amy asked, her gaze back on her daughter as she tried to sort out exactly what the dynamic was here. "Is it...not the first time, or something?"
"No! I mean, yes, it is!" Marie squealed, covering her face. "It was just...like… we kissed, and then… 'oh my god!' from the sidelines. Marco ran off! It was awkward!"
John and Amy were, for a moment, of one mind, their eyes facing one direction. "James."
"Well, I won't be surprised next time!" the boy promised in defense of himself, raising both hands in a warding gesture.
"...Not sure what to think about this." Amy eventually muttered. "I mean, intellectually I know they're not that much younger than we were the first time we kissed, but…"
"Mom!" the twins cried, James suddenly cringing and making a gagging expression, Marie retreating back under the blanket.
"The first time you kissed me." John corrected, cupping his chin in one hand. "I don't know how much sense it makes to use us as an example of 'normal', Amy. Don't think we really have the social circle to judge what would be normal, either. I think it's probably fine if it's just at that level, though. Whether it's a 'like' or a 'love', whether it turns into anything in the long run or not, feelings are feelings, and I'm not going to be the sort of dad who gives instructions on how to feel your feelings, and who to feel them for."
A muffled, horrified "Dad!" rang out from under the blanket in Marie's voice.
"Rather," he continued, a mischievous grin on his face. "If Helena were onworld at the moment, I might call her up to share the news. She'd probably be interested to know that her boy's getting up to that sort of stuff."
So mighty were the groans of mortification from both sides that they could be felt bone deep by both parents as they had a private little laugh about the exchange.
There was very little more refreshing than finding a moment where they could just be a family for a while.
---
Scene 2
---
Johann held his hand up, a scowl breaking out on his lips, as the bottle of whiskey came out. "None for us, sorry. 'Fraid I can't exactly boast of my tolerance anymore, and-"
The Illyrian sneered, pouring one for himself as he gazed over the bridge of his glasses. "So quick to speak for your lady friend. I suppose our initial appraisal of your standing was not so far off the mark, Mr. O'Reilly, if you're keeping those in your company on such short leashes even in the public eye."
"My bodyguard," the ex-scavenger stressed, shooting over a quick glare as he met the other man's gaze. "Will not be drinking, for reasons relating to the basic responsibilities of her job. I'll beg your understanding in this matter, if not in others, Mr. Johansen. Now, I didn't exactly come all this way to make small talk, so-"
Karl Fritz Johansen, pushing his spectacles up towards his amber eyes, would not allow the pace of the conversation to be dictated to him as his eyes surveyed Alexandria, tracing along every detail of her as though scrutinizing a fishermans' wares. "And so you have left outside your swaths of well-muscled men with guns, to bring before me just a single young, slender 'bodyguard'? I have dealt with many pirates who sought to show me their eye candy as a form of peacocking, Mr. O'Reilly. While I may think less of you for it, it will not impact our business dealings."
Starlet's tongue clicked as she tapped a foot on the ground, glaring across the table as she dragged one hand across her temples to emphasize the way her haircut left them bare.
"Unless… you've brought a mechwarrior in here as your bodyguard." Karl amended, quirking one eyebrow high as he folded his hands in front of his mouth. "I won't say I understand the gesture, but I'm sure it has some symbolic meaning on whatever backwater your band hails from."
Johann was reaching the limits of his capacity for receiving snideness, and he decided to show it by reaching down slowly and in the most exaggerated way possible, to rake his fingernails across the man's ornate hardwood coffee table as he worked to sell the act. "I hate to break it to you, but Starlet does know her way around a gun too. Besides which, there's more to bodyguarding than the size of your arms. You've really gotta consider how well you're able to work with a person before you call 'em into this sort of ring, you know?"
Grinning, the local nodded as he plucked a macaron from his plate. "I believe I can understand your implication, yes. A bit amateur of you to let on that the majority of your people would be turncoat risks if they met someone with a bit more money, though."
"If you want to read it that way, be my guest." Johann spat with a roll of his eyes. "Now, how long are you planning on this show of strength lasting again, Port Commissioner? It was a long drive from the mountains to get all the way over here, you know. I'd really like to get down to business some time before I've spent a whole month on this parched, foul smelling rock."
The empty smile the man wore did little other than to show how much money he poured into his teeth. "It is hardly my fault that you couldn't afford the port membership fee like any normal visitor, Mr. O'Reilly. Most merchants have at least some liquid assets on hand when they, seeing a ripe opportunity where it exists, come to Illyria rather than waiting for us to come to them. Most pirates, even, have that level of sense to them."
The truth was, the decision to skip out on the port came from outside of Johann's grasp. Even though they'd brought money, some of Cameron and Clayton's folks had decided it was too rich for their blood - that it was 'more appropriate' to land on the outskirts and go through customs under rather than over the table.
Which left the hard work to Johann, of course. "Y'know, by most standards the purpose of a trade port is to draw in as much trade as possible - port services, I can get, a landing fee, I can get, but not offering anything less than an annual 'full service season pass'? It's more than a little absurd, don't you think?"
"It actually does quite a bit to stimulate traffic. The gears of commerce run smoother when reputable traders 'know' that the port isn't frequented by every petty bandit king in the region."
It wasn't exactly hard to read between the lines when there was a kilometer wide gap in the text. "Meanwhile, you get to make a tidy side business on the ones well behaved enough to come in from outside the port and sit down at your little table."
The man seriously needed to stop smiling. "And he knows his name! Now, I've only got about ten more minutes for you, tops, and my secretaries are rather useless, so do be so kind as to tell me what high value good makes you think you're worth my time personally?"
It was astronomically unlikely that the man was seriously that poorly staffed. Much more likely that the dickhead just couldn't get past his urge to make everything a show of his status for a few seconds. "I recently came by a tidy little mine, and it's a beauty of a thing. I got eight kilotons of shipping-grade germanium for you, mixed in with all the packing materials."
Snorting, the dick folded his hands in his lap while nodding. "Fascinating. Yes, I can see how that works. You 'came by' a mine, and now you're here to sell the proceeds. 15,000 a ton, flat."
A shit rate like that demanded a little haggling, even if it was useless. "That's less than half the market rate, in most places."
A little shrug capped it off. "You'll get what I'm offering and like it, unless you'd like to add another middleman and get 10,000 per ton instead. Now, you seem smart, so I'm sure we won't linger on that topic - I know how you pirates work, so just what does your little operation need to keep running? Perhaps some guns? Some water purifiers? Parts for a reactor? Oh, never mind, that's for my secretary to hash out with you - but really, good doing business with you, and I hope you'll come around again"
What a fucking prick.
- -
"What a fucking prick!" Johann shouted, kicking his left shoe across the floor as soon as he'd gotten it off, letting the debugged hotel room's walls bounce every syllable of his rage. "I swear, one of these days I'm going to come back and rip that sanctimonious ass-clown's head off!"
Alexandria, with a sigh, pulled his jacket off of his shoulders and stuck it on the rack, before patting him on the back. "Don't have a heart attack, old man. Seriously, don't. Some dirty flee merchant who makes rules so he can break them isn't worth thinking about after you've said goodbye. Just treat it as a vacation - until he delivers the goods, you're free from having to worry about what the bosses are going to tell you, and you get to just kick back and rest for once. If you play by those rules, you'll be easier to keep in one piece for the next few months."
"Kid!" O'Reilly shouted, throwing his hands up high. "Kid. Don't pretend like he ain't bothered you too. For everything he said about me, the shit he slang your way was a million times worth. You ain't some low-down bandit dirtbag's squeezetoy, but the way he was making matters out, you might as well have been. I'm used to being treated like dirt, but you, you deserve better than that. You don't need to accept that sort of treatment when someone slings it your way - if you'd made a fuss about it, I even would'a taken that ten thousand he quoted at us from someone else just to get away from him, bosses be damned. Don't just settle when you deserve better than you're getting."
"He's not worth that, O'Reilly. Everything that matters in the long run is back home. Throwing out the best deal we can expect just because the man is insufferable is pointless - we'll live better playing his rules day a year until we're clear to stop coming up this way than running on spite." she retorted, stripping off a layer herself to get down to something more comfortable for lounging around inside - the intermediate step between respectable clothing for a meeting with a public official, and appropriate clothing for the inside of a cockpit. "And besides that, don't let me hear you call yourself a 'low-down bandit dirtbag' again. That ain't you."
Massaging his face slowly, Johann sighed. "Goddamnit, Starlet, you ain't supposed to be the one acting mature like this. You should be living the easy life - if your head was on straight, you would be. My old lady croaked a long time ago, but that doesn't mean I need a girl your age to appoint herself as my mother."
"Laundry, cooking, medicine, appointments, protection… well now, I guess I am your mom." she agreed, flipping up one of her bangs in the process. "But I don't have a problem with that, old man. You ain't exactly good at keeping yourself alive, so someone needs to do it for you, and… well, what do you know? I'm actually a bit of a fan of having you alive. Moral of the story, you're stuck with me. Deal."
When it came down to this sort of disagreement, there was little to do but disengage - but that didn't mean it needed to be especially graceful. With that in mind, Johann threw his hands up in the air and dragged out the highest pitch his ravaged vocal folds could spit. "Ergh… Suit yourself, dumbass. Sure, we're in a heap of shady shit right now, playing frontman for the group that stayed back at the dropships, but it'll be fiiiine. Anything could happen to us - anything could be happening back there - but I'm sure it'll all work out in the end!"
But, well, parting shots came from both directions. "Wah wah, does the baby need his bottle?"
It was times like these that Johann sort of wished she were the silent type.
But then again, as long as she actually took the opportunity to settle down and live her own life safely when he gave her the option, some day, rather than quintupling down on the mistake of staying mixed up with him to the bitter end, he could deal with her bullshit until then.
If she could just make the right choice one time in her damn life, that'd give him the opportunity to retire himself. Maybe, just maybe, he'd even survive to be her kid's loser 'grandpa'.
Punching himself in the leg, he sighed. No, no. That sort of fantasy was more than he deserved, after everything he'd fucked up at.
---
Scene 3
---
Disembarking from the rudimentary 'spaceport's buggy felt like a lot of things. Most obviously, it felt like getting out of a primitive automobile with a shit suspension, which had been traveling over uneven, slushy ground spattered with the ejecta and mud thrown up by a small cluster of drive plumes introducing themselves to the dirt, and rocks, and lingering snow for a few minutes now. Less prosaically, it felt like the fact that he'd escaped the stuck up, corrupt smuggling pits of Illyria had struck Johann at once. Another step towards the fanciful would be to say that he was finally getting close to some answers as to the lingering questions in the back of his head.
Most baffling of all, though, was the thought as Alexandria stepped out of the shuttle after him, that it felt like he was finally going home or something. He hadn't had anything like that in close to thirty years.
"Agh, fuck, goddamn." he muttered into the dead air, pressing a hand into his own lower back hard enough to make a loud pop. "Get a real goddamn offroader, you pricks."
"We'll take that under advisement."
The soft boom of that voice knocked a sigh out of Johann as his gaze, and that of Alexandria, turned to refocus on the newly announced interloper...s.
There, in front of the hastily defined spaceport terminal, the ruling couple stood tall in their winter clothing, Jack's crossing behind Amelie's back and landing on her shoulder.
The lady of the land took the opportunity to speak up while Johann was still getting over their hasty - or, one supposed, not so hasty, when there was over a week's warning involved - greeting. "How was the vacation, you two? Did you have fun flying south for the winter?"
Where to even begin. "Would not recommend it. For a little while, escaping the chill was nice and all, and there was something 'to' getting to pretend I was in charge for awhile, but...well, Illyria fucking sucks. Some places, the who's who are just annoying - yourselves, by way of example. Illyria's an example hard down the worse road - everyone who's anyone is such an arrogant, self interested prick that you leave feeling like you're nothing, as long as they don't feel the need to flatter you. Which, ah, they didn't."
"Not a great place to go on an anniversary, then?" Jack quipped, raising one hand outwards in a mix of a shrug and a slap that only hit air. "I'll have to remember that, for future reference. Granted, your standards for travel destinations fall when you've spent a while in the chaos of Solaris, but it's sad to find out that the only decent - and I use the loosest terms possible - place in the area in Canopus."
The joke was almost enough to make O'Reilly gag, his eyes rolling as he stared down his self-appointed boss. "Welcome to the Periphery, you massive brat. Every hole's a shithole out here. That's how things boil down when you're out in the roughest corners of space, trying to make frayed ends meet. The more desperate things get, the more it becomes possible for the big people who keep the pirates away and the lights on to squeeze the little people for all they're worth - and the more they get their way today, the more they'll get their way tomorrow. Eventually, you end up with something like Illyria, where people start asking if they really need to keep all the pirates away, but they cling onto their pride as 'protectors'. Just ask Starlet - she got hit with their guff worse than me."
As the couple turned their gazes to Alexandria, though, their surroundings remained silent save for the wind, and slowly the pair began to wear amused expressions - for Jack, a grin. For Amelie, a toothy smile.
Slowly, Johann followed their gazes to his charge's face, finding her biting her lip and gazing downward at an angle, her eyes transfixed on something. Following her gaze in turn, his eyes arrived on the smaller boss's belly, which, now that he looked closer, was beginning to bulge outwards a bit. "Huh. Two of you having another kid?" he mused for a second, turning back to Alexandria and placing a hand on her shoulder without waiting for a response. Into her ear, he whispered a simple warning. "If that really matters to you like it seems to, you should start dating soon. For you, more than me, there's only so many chances to experience that for yourself - and you'd knock it out'a the park, so it'd be a shame to miss it."
"Wah!" the grown-ass kid cried, flinching away with her cheeks red as she refused to meet his gaze. "Goddamnit, old man, don't say that sort of shit! I can figure things like that out for myself, you know?"
Sighing, Johann stepped forward with a roll of his eyes and whispered again. "I know you can, Starlet. Thing is, you're twenty eight - you've got time, but you're not flush with it. Nowadays, you've got a chance to start looking, since we've put roots down, but time can slip away...real damn fast. Better to figure things out ahead of time than too late."
Turning away completely, the youth released a loud 'hmph'. "Whatever, old man. Maybe you can practice what you preach, before you try to sling it at others?"
"I...gh..."
A soft chuckle pierced the awkward air as the mother-to-be-season-two stepped forward. "We wouldn't happen to be getting in the middle of something, you two? Jack and I could give you a minute, then we could finish this welcome party when the two of you are ready, if you'd like."
Johann would sooner die than do something as humiliating as ask these two for a 'private moment'. "No need. We were just...juuuuust about done, and it's nothing too important. Anyways… Starlet, we were waiting on you to give your take on Illyria."
Grumbling, Alexandria shifted back and forth for a few moments before setting on giving her response while continuing to face away. "Oh! Yeah, uh… Place sucks. The sort of folks who go walking out on the street get a shit hand, while the people at the top are free to do whatever they want to give themselves a better deal going forward. Bunch of hypocrites - they thought the old man was a pirate, but they had no trouble doing business with him."
A collective sigh ran around the group, nobody quite having it in them to point out that that was just a retreading of things that were already said.
Eventually, Johann spoke up again, massaging his forehead. "I didn't want to be the one to say this, but apparently she's not in the mood to - pretty consistently, people got it into their heads that she 'must' have been a slave, a hooker, or a trophy wife, because those are all things pirates bring to meetings, apparently. They had no trouble saying it to her face, either - the fucking disrespect was off the charts, I swear."
"...Well." Amy muttered, cupping her chin. "Sorry for sending the two of you on such a rotten trip, then. Was it at least productive?"
"Was it productive?" Johann mimicked, throwing his hands in the air. "I guess, maybe. If you squint. Pay was about half what we'd get selling to a shipyard directly, but it's close, so whatever. Got gouged on the buying end, too. So, yeah, we've got your shooters, your nice little odds and ends, a little of everything on the shopping list, really, but the quantities aren't exactly...great. I can't imagine how much progress you'll actually make with just this much."
The big lug broke back into the conversation at that point, stepping forward to pat Johann and Starlet on the shoulders as though it meant anything. "Bit of a disappointment, especially when it was such an unpleasant trip, but not exactly unexpected. We'll have to make do with what we've got for the meanwhile - we can rely on local technology and a few imports for a little while if we have to, until we can start rolling out… well, at least fission power, basic computers, something we can pretend deserves the name 'tank', jets - those sorts of things."
"There's the childish optimism. You know, it's crazy to expect more from the place than it's got anytime soon, right? There are more promising places that've achieved about as much - New Abilene, in Canopus, as an example, ought to be better off by most metrics, but it's almost as much of a hole in the end." Johan spat with a grin, stepping up to the massive form of his boss.
"Well, yes, but…" Jack began, trailing off after a second before resuming, the whole while giving the faint impression of having changed tracks. "In the case of Canopus, there's never been any real organized effort to fix those sorts of backwaters up - just a halfhearted push to get wealthy individuals to organize slight, incremental fixes themselves."
Johann was about to make his own retort when Starlet stepped in. "When we'd just gotten here, maybe I would have accepted that as the reason, Mr. Cameron. But things don't add up in the long run, that way. If the big secret were nothing other than 'trying hard', you'd need to be a paranoid crazy in ways we haven't seen hide nor hair of to be so obsessed with secrecy. Back on Illyria, your folks were about as cagey as can be - they wouldn't even let us near A Kiss and a Prayer, let alone into the cargo bays, which really makes you think they found something interesting while we were away - but it should really take more than a month of looking around randomly to find anything good, especially in the periphery. There's more to what you've going on here than what you're willing to talk about, but you're not that good at hiding it. If I checked into one of the universities in the city, as an example - what kind of books would I find in the library?"
Nearly choking at the thought of those allegations - and just as much so at the idea that the kid was dumb enough to let on that she was onto those sorts of things, in the event that they were true - Johann jumped in as quickly as possible, looking to blunt the attention directed at here. "Y-yeah! That's what I was gonna say too! Look, I got no problem working for you two clowns if you treat us right, but that ain't what's happening here, is it? You're making us do all the heavy lifting, meanwhile you're sitting back here riding high on some sort of lostech find, aren't you? It ain't just disrespectful, it's downright counterproductive - how are we supposed to help if we don't know what we're helping with?"
Slowly, Cameron and Clayton exchanged a look with each other, periodically glancing back to their errand duo with eyes that practically shouted 'did you just grow second heads?'. A silence seemed to overtake the field, even with the cargo trucks offloading the dropships in the distance.
Sweat beaded on Johann's forehead.
"How have you two functioned this long?" Amelie asked, two fingers supporting her chin as she dug the respective pointer finger into her cheek. "No, that's not fair. You've probably just never been in a situation like this before. You could do with learning a little bit of tact and subtlety though."
So saying, she paused to sigh deeply as Jack took over. "Look, you've pieced together quite a bit here, so there's little sense in saying 'no, nothing's happening'. Suffice it to say… yes, we've had a lucky find in our time, and yes, we're trying to keep it on the down-low, because it'd suck to be killed for it before it could amount to anything. Part of that is some maps - we sent you to Illyria in part to get at the ruins of an old machine shop, in part to trade. Can we leave it at that, though? The less you know, the less someone can beat out of you with a rubber hose. Suffice it to say, things are going places, and you'll here to benefit from it - and that's all we're keen to say, until the situation is a bit more stable here."
"You know, for all your own talk of tact and subtlety, you two could really do with being a little slower to admit this sort of shit." Johann noted, his expression flat as he suppressed the rolling chaos of his nerves throughout this absurd situation. "And ruthlessness as well. I certainly wouldn't trust me with keeping this sort of secret while in contact with the outside world, if I were you."
Shaking her head, Amy wore an empty grin. "Oh, make no mistake. You won't be getting any chances to slip away from your chaperones any time in the future. If you spread the knowledge to someone who shouldn't have it - that's just about anyone, by the way - they'll be ready to do what needs to be done."
"Ominous." Johann grumbled, shaking his head irritably. "I'm sure the info is worth a lot to the right people, but I've been around the block enough times to know I probably wouldn't get to stick around to enjoy any rewards they promised, even if they believe me. So, in that regard, your secret's safe. On the other hand...if you start trying to screw us on this, of your own accord, you'll have your own special opportunity to learn just how well this old man can dance when he sees you coming."
More than a few people had been surprised by it in the past. People who'd hired him, people he'd hired, even a few people he was sent after. Johann Sebastian O'Reilly had his ways.
A brief silence overtook the air, before the hollow smile morphed into one even more disgustingly, cloyingly, faux-sweet. "I'm glad we've come to this understanding."
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Just some little family moments this time. Plus a few tense encounters I guess.