Payback Is A Bitch (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 1) Read online

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Ten?”

  Bethany Anne put a hand on his arm, drawing Michael’s attention. “The efficiency of the design allows for the new needs of families. There are many alcoves for when someone wants to be alone, but larger rooms for when they congregate. Typically these structures have an area outside which is covered and permits bigger groups to congregate. The expectation is for multigenerational families to remain together.”

  “That is a good point,” Stephen agreed. “With healthier individuals, you can end up with a lot of large families, even if they did not start with one. Just one set of parents having two children each generation could reach thirty members by the third generation when you include spouses.”

  Michael started doing the calculations in his head. “That’s a lot. So one of these buildings with four families can hold forty. Eventually the heads of the families will build one for themselves?”

  “They could,” Bethany Anne agreed, “but remember our previous conversation. Our goal is to make sure those who like the status quo are able to be productive members of society where they are. Those who can’t or don’t will be offered positions better suited for them.”

  “And those who believe a criminal life is optimal?”

  “Then there is always the position of prisoner in a jail.” Bethany Anne shrugged. “We can do the Australian option and offer them one-way tickets to somewhere else. I understand Australia ended up doing pretty fucking wonderfully by the end.”

  “They did have a wicked sense of humor,” Stephen added. “You couldn’t be around an Australian without blushing half the time.”

  “Australians are who?” Lerr’ek asked.

  “One of our countries back on Earth,” Bethany Anne replied, “used a large island to help clear out their overpopulated jails for eighty years. The island had indigenous people called Aborigines who lived there before the early settlers found a part they could farm on, and then the convicts came. About fifty years later many went willingly to Australia because there was a gold rush. Somewhere around 1900 it was known as a federation, and it wasn’t until the late twentieth century that it was independent, even though they had been acting independent for decades and they still had the same Queen as Britain when we left.”

  Bethany Anne moved a piece of hair that had fallen into her face. “The point is, for many of us who didn’t live there, all we remembered was the shit-ton of convicts who made up the population. You never knew which people who looked like me had one of these convicts in their family tree. Either way, Americans always assumed that Australian humor was part of the same attitude that got the convicts shipped to the island in the first place. We tend to admire rugged individualists in the US, so we liked the cheeky Australians. Plus since we stopped Britain from sending their prisoners to us, we are one of the factors in their history—at least if I remember it correctly.”

  “You remember that from high school?” Michael asked.

  “No, it was in my classes for my job with the government. Plus, I rather liked the stories. It’s not like I gave a shit if someone was tossed in jail for telling some lord he was a sodding bastard. He probably was, so I’d likely have been on that boat to Australia anyway.”

  “And yet,” Lerr’ek pointed out. “You are called Queen?”

  Stephen snorted. “That wasn’t by her choice, actually. And since she left the Etheric Empire she has been demoted from Empress to Queen.”

  “My people still like it and I’m comfortable with Queen, so it stayed.”

  “So is High Tortuga your Australia?” Michael asked.

  “I guess in a way it is.” She nodded. “We have many of the castoffs; the unwanted and the unsupported. This planet is a melting pot of opportunity.”

  Lerr’ek chuckled. “That’s the nicest and most generous description anyone has given of High Tortuga.”

  “People are resources too,” Bethany Anne noted. “It’s the duty of anyone who is hoping to expand the opportunities for the current residents and those in the future by supporting those in the present to achieve greatness. The challenge is getting some of them off their lazy asses and doing something. That’s when the tough love that pisses people off occurs.”

  “Have any experience with that lately?” Michael asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Too damned much,” she replied. “People—well, let me change that to humans—can expend more energy trying to figure out how not to work than the job would have taken in the first place. It’s when they realize that they aren’t going to put one over on the system by manipulating either the system or others that they finally make the hard choice of working—or doing something incredibly stupid.”

  “Thus the need for police,” John pointed out.

  “Exactly. The police aren’t there to force anyone to do anything. They are there to protect those who work and strive hard from those who would prey on the workers to enrich themselves. THAT is where the line is drawn, and choices have life-threatening consequences.”

  “We, however,” she pointed down to the screen in front of her, “need to be sure we have enough resources for everyone on the planet. If we offer jobs to everyone, we can’t have restrictions on food, clothing, shelter, or any other basic necessities or we give those who would like to undermine the system an opportunity to argue against it.”

  14

  High Tortuga, Hidden Space Fleet Base, Queen’s Personal Quarters

  Michael followed Bethany Anne into their quarters. Once her guard understood he was going with her, they peeled off and went to eat.

  “We need to have a discussion,” Michael started, only to have Bethany Anne put up a hand. “Please close the door first.”

  He raised an eyebrow but made sure the door was closed before turning back around, eyebrow still raised in a question.

  “I don’t want anyone to hear me yell at you,” she explained and sat down on the couch. “It isn’t respectful to you.”

  Michael cocked his head. “Ok, where is Bethany Anne, and who am I speaking with?”

  She grabbed a pillow from the couch and threw it at him. “Ass. I’ve been off my game a few times. TOM isn’t helping with all the chemicals and shit, and I’m sorry. I’ve tried to give you space, but it isn’t easy during the times I want you next to me—either to cuddle up or punch the very next second. This shit sucks,” she added as she rubbed her stomach; she was starting to show more now. “I’m not happy with my figure, I’m not happy how mother nature made women the childbearing ones, and you look scrumptious and it pisses me off.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Michael sat down next to her, put an arm around her, and offered his side for her to punch if needed.

  It was the smallest sacrifice he could make at the moment. It took a lot for him to allow her to hit him without reciprocating. He had spent over a thousand years killing anyone, gender-equal, who touched him.

  Now he offered his ribs up as a sacrifice.

  This time she leaned into his embrace. “You look too scrumptious and it bugs me.”

  “So,” Michael held her tight, “you are saying you are emotional, perhaps unrealistically so due to chemical imbalances while your body is trying to create a new human being.”

  Bethany Anne took a moment to parse his sentence. “You’re lucky there wasn’t a dig in there.”

  “I’m just clarifying the facts,” Michael replied. “If I had wanted to say something—”

  “Don't. You. Dare.” She chuckled. “I can always pull your heart out.”

  Michael kissed the top of her head. “Sweetheart, you do that every time you are mad at me.”

  He didn’t realize until he felt the tears soak his shirt that her quietness was due to her silently crying. “What did I say?”

  She wiped her face. “I’m sorry. Just…” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  He started to object, but Bethany Anne put her fingers over his lips. “Don’t go there. Just accept my apology and let me know why
you thought we should talk.”

  He nodded and she pulled her fingers off. “I was wondering if you had thought of any names yet?” He smiled.

  “Jessica?” she offered, then leaned back into him and rubbed his chest. “James Michael?”

  She felt him chuckle. “I think we have enough Michaels in this family. I’m okay not using it, but I appreciate the offer. So, do you want a Jessica Bethany?”

  “Oh, hell no.” She shook her head. “I don’t need a mother’s curse to come down on me so that I have a child just like me. I think I’ve done enough in my life of helping others to believe I will have an angel.”

  “You really are pushing it, aren’t you?” He rubbed her back. “How about Ava?”

  Bethany Anne patted his chest in rhythm with his heart beating. “Ava? I rather like it. There isn’t a previous girl in your past named Ava, is there?”

  He chuckled. “I’m over a thousand years old. If you require our daughter to have a name I’ve never come across, we might as well start looking at Yollin names.”

  “Not what I’m talking about. I mean previous lovers.”

  “No, no Avas, and for what it is worth that would be a short list, not a long one.”

  “Say no more,” she replied, then a moment later asked, “How short?”

  “Seven, and two of those were before I was turned. The other five were over a thousand years ago.”

  Bethany Anne leaned back to look Michael in the eyes. “You’ve been celibate for over a thousand years?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Bethany Anne waved a hand. “Never mind, I know how celibacy works. I guess I mean why?”

  “In the beginning,” he explained, “I was a monster. After that phase, it was an ego boost. I had to leave a person because it was obvious I wasn’t aging to speak of, and a few people were trying to figure out why their cows were dying. They looked at me and rumors started.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?” Michael asked.

  “Did you suck the cows dry?”

  “No, it was a disease, and what we would call a veterinarian nowadays came by and helped heal the cows and stopped the problem. However, all it would take would be another problem like the cows and I would come under discussion again. So when everything died down I made a fool of myself at the local bar; drank too much and stumbled out into an ice storm. Everyone assumed I’d died out there and I left, never looking back.”

  “So, no others?”

  He looked at her meaningfully. “Not until I could find a woman who was strong enough to make me desire to live again.”

  Michael frowned. “You know, it won’t be easy for our daughter.”

  “Why?” she asked. “There is no reason she can’t be strong.”

  “I’m not suggesting she won’t be strong, but you know what they say about old-fashioned dads when their daughters date.”

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  Michael sighed. “Well, there aren’t any fathers more old-fashioned than me, Bethany Anne.”

  Above High Tortuga, Anti-Piracy and Boarding Action Ship 12, Eastern Hemisphere, Second Quadrant

  Ricole tried to relax into her seat. Now she was on a ship among the stars where just months before she had been running around the sewers in Thon.

  She wore a proper boarding suit, matching the dark blue of her teammates. She was enjoying the stars when she overheard Mark and Jacqueline chatting with Sabine in the back.

  “It’s an old story from before when the world was destroyed,” Mark was saying. “It had to do with three guys and one girl, but we will upgrade it for our current reality.”

  “That being one guy and three females?” Sabine’s reply was laced with amusement.

  “Well, that and Ricole being a Noel-ni, Jacqueline being a Were, and me being a vampire.”

  “And I am?” Sabine asked.

  “A good shot?” Mark replied.

  “Preternaturally fast?” Jacqueline added. “You are a freak of nature, Sabine. And I mean that in a nice way.”

  Sabine’s voice was flat. “I’m not too sure that ‘freak’ is ever associated with nice.”

  “Yes,” Jacqueline replied, “but that is what I mean. ‘You are unique in nature’ might have been a better way to put it, but it’s still right. Something in you worked with something Akio gave you and BAM! Your reaction times… Damn!”

  Ricole smiled. The people Michael had placed her with were constantly chatting amongst themselves. Some of their barbs would have caused a Noel-ni to demand honor, but all it did was cause the other two to laugh.

  And often the one the comment had been aimed at. They had become friends.

  So now she was stuck up in space guarding the planet for the Queen, whom she had finally figured out was the same person who’d recruited her.

  Baba Yaga WAS the Queen, and vice-versa. It had been a chance meeting with Bethany Anne while Sabine was taking Ricole to meet Demon, who turned out to be a four-footed large cat creature from her home planet. Bethany Anne had noticed the confusion in Ricole’s eyes when she’d said hello…

  “Ah.” Bethany Anne had smiled. “You don’t remember me from our meeting at the library.”

  “I’m sorry, but I only met Michael and the Witch at the library. Although your smell is similar to… Oh.”

  Bethany Anne had looked both ways in the hallway, and when the coast was clear Ricole was looking at the face of Baba Yaga. “I am always watching over the planet, little one.” She had winked and her face became normal again. She had waved as her guards followed down the corridor.

  “Oh!” Sabine had whispered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you weren’t aware that Baba Yaga and Bethany Anne were the same person!”

  “I haven’t met Baba Yaga but twice,” Ricole explained, “so I wasn’t sure of anything—although it helps to know that Michael isn’t being amorous with two women.”

  This pronouncement had caused Sabine to place her hand over her mouth and laugh so hard she’d had to step out of the hallway. It wasn’t until Ricole could see Sabine’s eyes that she had realized she was amused. “What?” Ricole had looked around before getting close and stomping her foot. “It is a good thing?”

  Sabine put up a hand. “I’m sorry!” She got herself under control. “It’s just the thought of Michael with two women where one of them wasn’t Bethany Anne, for two reasons. One, you didn’t know that he was going to flap his arms to get into space if he had to.”

  “But that wouldn’t work.” Ricole’s furry eyebrows shot up. “Would it?”

  Sabine shook her head. “No, but that was how hard he was working to be with Bethany Anne.”

  “Oh… And what about the second thing?”

  “Um,” Sabine sobered up. “She wouldn’t take well to another woman.”

  As the two continued down the hall Ricole had asked, “What does ‘wouldn’t take well’ mean?”

  “Oh, Michael would be dead.” The two had turned a corner, their voices still lingering behind them. “The other woman would be dead…”

  “That doesn’t seem too harsh…”

  “Half a million of the people closest to them when she found out would be dead because of the meteor Bethany Anne would have smashed them with…”

  “Well…” Ricole’s voice was fading, “even I might think that is overkill…but not by much.”

  —

  Now Ricole was up in space, hoping for some action without actually hoping for any action.

  They trained hard, but in between the training were long bouts of trying to figure out what she would like to do with herself.

  A voice interrupted her thoughts. “Hello.” Ricole looked over her shoulder, but none of her friends were nearby.

  “Hello?” she responded. She only felt partially stupid. Her friends answered disembodied voices all the time. She would only be annoyed if Mark was pranking her.

  “Oh good, you aren’t freaking out,” the voice continued. “I’m Eve, one of the EIs
that came back from Earth with Jacqueline, Mark, and Sabine.”

  “Oh, hello.” This Eve Ricole knew about. “Do you want me to get Mark and the others?”

  “No, I needed to ask you a question or two about High Tortuga, or Devon—whichever you prefer.”

  Ricole smiled. “Oh, you can call it ‘the rock I live on’ if you’d like. I’m not particular about names.”

  “All right, High Tortuga it is.” There was a slight pause. “You had an interaction with Baba Yaga’s security before you were brought to the base, am I right?’

  “That is right.”

  “Can you tell me how it made you feel? I am writing an article on why you might think the security was good, and then I’ll have you tweak it for publication. That is, if you don’t mind?”

  “Why would I mind?” Ricole fumed for a moment as she thought back to that asshole and how he had captured her. It was his fault she’d had to carry a weapon into the library. While she was happy enough to be at the base, it was embarrassing that she had forgotten the weapon on her body.

  “Well, some don’t want their stories to be told to the general populace. I will hide your name if needed.”

  “No need to hide my name. I am not ashamed of my actions, just my inability to protect myself.”

  “Good, keep going.”

  “Well…” Ricole spent the better part of the next half hour explaining what had led to the encounter. How her people were sought for their martial skills, and whether or not they wished to be involved, they were often drafted into gangs.

  “I will have this written and sent to your communications box in approximately five minutes. You do have one?”

  “Oh, yes.” Ricole supplied the information. “In just five minutes? That’s fast.”

  “I need to get it approved by Bethany Anne. Otherwise I would have provided it to you immediately.”

  “Wait, you have it finished already?”

  “Of course…I’m an EI. I have replied to over nine hundred and sixty different social messages from accounts around High Tortuga while you and I have been talking, as well as composed our article.”