Payback Is A Bitch Read online

  “Let’s talk about this central pit area Michael suggested.”

  “Yes?”

  “I like the idea of three tiers, each with seven desks on each side. Each at least forty-eight inches wide, with monitors layered into the desktop. Let’s have a set of steps going from the entry to the bottom on both sides. Large table at the bottom good for meetings of…uhh…” She thought about it. “Ten? No, we might have larger meetings there and need everyone, so make it seven to each side and two on the ends. So sixteen.”

  “Screens in the tabletop as well?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “Make it piano-black. In fact, make everything black…and maybe a little chrome. Carved out of the rock, smooth floors with carpet down the steps and in the main area, but stone under the work areas on the three tiers. Wait, add a fourth on the same level as the entrance with space for chairs for different species to sit.”

  “Areas for reporters?”

  “Oh, hell no.” She shook her head. “Fuck that. Make sure we place enough video cameras in there to get every person from every angle. Some of them will have high-enough resolution to grab headshots out of the input for PIP efforts. The last thing I want is a bunch of questions about why I just ripped off some annoying twit’s head for asking the wrong question. They can send in their questions via messaging or video, or wait. But that’s a good point. Have our second phase build a large news-and-reporter area for discussions near the pit.”

  “Very well.”

  “Okay, give me a second.” Bethany Anne thought back to when Michael had suggested the pit. He had caught her attention with his first sentence.

  It hadn’t been positive attention, but it was nevertheless attention.

  Michael had said, “We need to build you a babysitter.”

  “Do what? I’m going to sit with our little girl for the most part.”

  “Not for him, but for you.” Michael had clarified.

  She had considered throwing a ball of red-hot energy to burn off his hair. It would have been easy enough: Pull from the Etheric, shape it, toss it at his head.

  That would teach him a lesson.

  “Before you try to burn off my hair—”

  “Am I that transparent?” Her eyes had narrowed. “Or were you reading my mind? Because I’ll kick your ass—”

  Michael had put up a hand. “You have multiple favorite ways to harm me, I’ve noticed. The latest is burning the hair off my head.”

  Mollified, she had twirled her fingers in a “go on, you can live for now” gesture.

  Michael smiled. “What I am suggesting is a place where you can operate for now. Handle the issues from around the planet, and yet you’ll be safe. Eventually, it will be the central area to support High Tortuga when we leave the planet, and those who’ve worked in there will already be trained.”

  Bethany Anne’s mind came back to the present. Michael had been right; she did need it, and it would be useful for his original purpose and so much more. He didn’t have the knowledge she had acquired as the Etheric Empress.

  She smiled. He was so cute when he came up with ways to help her. He knew she was going to go batshit-crazy being stuck in a safe cocoon when her whole life had been about going wherever she had wanted whenever she had wanted.

  Children could put such a damper on your playtime.

  She came back to ADAM. “Okay, we need to create something that will help keep High Tortuga safe, protected, productive, and eventually educated and advancing.”

  “You realize we do not have the infrastructure of the Empire. High Tortuga is behind the times. Advanced compared to Earth, but horribly behind compared to many places in the galaxy.”

  “I’m aware,” she replied. “But we have technology that can help us. I’m going to bend a few rules.”

  “You mean break them outright,” ADAM clarified.

  She waved a hand. “You say tomato, I say tomah-to.” She tapped her lip. “I need you to discuss additional thoughts with Addix beyond this: We want constant input from data-acquisition drones in all major and minor cities right now. Deploy the drones into the deepest sections first. I want our changes to first be noticed by those usually ignored by the police. Make sure these drones have video, sound, and holographic capability. They will have Etheric connectivity. If they are captured, they should slag themselves so they won’t leave any technology behind.”

  “Are they supposed to implement justice?”

  “Yes, if we can build that in.” She nodded. “I’d like that, but given who frequents the tunnels where we are putting them I doubt we will do much more than corporal punishment.” She looked up at the ceiling as she thought further. “We will need to also have body disposal abilities, which means we need to record the events for legal reasons, and we’ll need a cemetery or body-disposal area. You can never tell if a criminal has parents who eventually will want to know where the body is.”

  “You want specific plots?”

  “No, slap a GPS on them so parents or loved ones can stand above the body and know it’s beneath them. I might hate the jackasses, but we need to be a bit more sympathetic to those left behind. However, I’ll not take any shit from the parents; they’d better realize this stain is on them too. I won’t blame the parents for what their adult child does, but they can’t lay their emotional bullshit on me. That’s on them.”

  “Which brings us to being productive,” ADAM replied.

  “Yes. We will have jobs available for everyone, or at least responsibilities. Continue the library project, but make some of the rooms private and semi-private. I want places for people to be safe. No weapons allowed, and implement roaming small versions of the security globes. We should keep them out of sight for the most part or some jerkoffs will try to steal them.”

  “Who should I tap to help build the war pit?”

  “’The War Pit?’” Bethany Anne made a face. “I don’t want to go that far. Let’s just call it ‘the Pit’ for now. Could be ‘Security Pit.’ I don’t know, maybe there is an acronym.” She stood up and grabbed a drink from her fridge. “Let’s find out what William is doing, if he isn’t with his woman fulltime yet. If that doesn’t work out, let me know and we will find another person.”

  “William has responded and has availability.”

  “Well, damn.” She took a sip. “That was fast. Is he ok? Do I need to have a talk with him?”

  “His relationship is fine. She is just busy working on a couple of projects, and William hasn’t decided if he wants to work on barbeque pits so he’s happy to help with this project.”

  “Ok, great. Sounded like either there was trouble in paradise or he was bored.”

  “Now, we have to talk EI infrastructure.”

  “We have to get those from Dad. The only ones we have at the moment are—”

  “Practically all of the ones on the superdreadnoughts. Even ArchAngel II is bored running attack scenario after attack scenario.”

  “We should make her responsible for…” Bethany Anne sat down. “Shit, that might work!”

  “What?”

  “EIs for general tasks reporting to an organic body, but holding the subjective efforts. Tell ArchAngel she is responsible for figuring out practical methods to defend the planet while taking us from a strategy of hiding High Tortuga and managing issues while we are hidden, to helping protect us when we come out of hiding as an advanced and very tasty society for others to want to steal or take over.”

  “She says that sounds like fun.”

  “I’ll bet.” Bethany Anne took another swig of her Coke. “Grab whatever other EIs want in on this, but tell them they need to have off-ship support. The planet can’t be left hanging if they have to go to battle.”

  “Ok. What are the areas of responsibility?”

  Bethany Anne chewed on the end of her straw. “Send me the responsibilities and roles of the President of the United States before we left.”

  She continued to chew on the straw as she reviewed the informat
ion. “Okay, we need to talk with my dad, so set up a request. I want EIs that will handle this place: one to focus on planetary power and infrastructure, one for weather, emergency services and population support, one for defense, one for legal and police-type efforts, one for trade and commerce—labor and banking responsibilities—one for the interior, for land, natural resources and other items I’ve no fucking clue about, so I guess that includes our version of an EPA, one for food and shelter issues and planning, one for education and one for future analysis.”

  “What kind of future analysis?” ADAM asked.

  Bethany Anne smiled. “Wargaming.”

  “Why did I even ask?”

  “Beats the fuck out of me. I was told that we received our next shipment of long-range reconnaissance ships for trying to find Kurtherians, so I would have bet you’d guessed I would like someone to focus on kicking Kurtherian ass. I can’t help it if your guess-fu is imperfect in your old age.”

  ADAM chose to let that statement go. “How do you want them to work together?”

  “Ahhh…shit.” She thought some more. “No way we want anything but a common response for those not used to working with EIs. I need something that will be the central entity for relationships….and, ahhh…exploration, and biofeedback-reporting operations.”

  “That’s a mouthful,” ADAM stated.

  “It’s the best I could come up with quickly for my acronym.”

  “CEFRAEABRO?”

  “No, of course not!” She huffed. “Take out the words ‘for’ and ‘and.’”

  “CEREBRO.”

  Bethany Anne smiled. “Yes. I was never fond of the X-Men, but that dome the Professor had was kick-ass.”

  4

  High Tortuga

  It had been a mere two weeks since the one called Baba Yaga had proclaimed on every video and audio news source that crime and illegal activities would be punished.

  The challenge would be enforcing her mandate.

  Devon wasn’t as highly populated as most planets, but it wasn’t sparse either. There were seven large cities, dozens of medium-sized and hundreds of smaller towns dotting the Northern Continent. There were thousands of criminals, petty and major, who figured it would take decades for their new self-proclaimed leader to work her way down to them since they didn’t live in the major cities.

  Why go after honest crooks when the politicians were a much more visible target?

  How many people could this Baba Yaga have, anyway?

  High Tortuga, Northern Continent, Thon (Third Largest City), Haroom Sector, Lower South by Southwest Quadrant, Subsection H

  New patrol initiated. Descending to lowest level.

  Time: 0113:3800:11 Crawling Subsection M… Cleared

  Time: 0114:0103:88 Crawling Subsection L… Cleared

  Time: 0114:0403:12 Crawling Subsection K… Cleared

  Time: 0114:0735:39 Crawling Subsection J… Cleared

  Time: 0114:1088:39 Crawling Subsection I… Cleared

  Time: 0114:0755:39 Crawling Subsection H…

  Time: 0114:0756:66 Problem in Progress

  Connecting to ADAM…

  Security En Route. Command, record, and archive…

  RECORDING

  —

  “Will you bite the hand that feeds you?” The alien was probably three times Ricole’s height and a full ten times heavier.

  Damned Leath.

  As a Noel-ni she wasn’t large to begin with, and since she had barely progressed from her learning stages into very early adulthood she wasn’t fully grown. What she did have—and this asshole knew it—was lightning-fast reflexes and the ability to take a finger off with her teeth.

  The rat-waste was wearing metal gloves.

  Her eyes darted around the sooty tunnel. They were three levels beneath the core, and already the lack of maintenance or cleaning was evident. She hated being down here without shoes.

  The gunk she couldn’t avoid stepping in got all over her feet and fur. It was nasty as hell, but usually worth it.

  Until today.

  Today Bracht and a couple of his gang had been hanging around in the tunnel annex, and they’d trapped her while she wasn’t paying attention.

  Now they had her cornered. Working to keep her breathing even, her eyes flicked to the two exits.

  She had no weapons with her, but with just one small break she could get past all three of these jackasses.

  Damn the luck.

  “I’ve bitten the hands that fed me before,” she glanced at his gloves, “and you know it—as those gloves prove.”

  “Hehehehe.” Bracht’s nasty chuckle and deep voice didn’t do anything to endear him to her. He lifted his right hand and displayed the protective glove. “These protect against vicious little bites like the ones you could give me. I can never be too careful.” He gestured to the dirt and crud around them. “With all this slime here, how would I know you haven’t caught something horrible? You might infect me just by slobbering on my hand.”

  “I wouldn’t waste the spit if you were on fire and I was the only one who could help you, Bracht.”

  “Now, Ricole.” He shook his head. “Is that any way to talk to your boss?”

  “You?” Ricole spat to the side but kept her eyes on him as she hissed, “I wouldn’t disgrace my family—who I hate by the way and don’t care if they all go up in painful and mutilating flames—by working with you. We Noel-ni are known for our quick reflexes, not stupidity.”

  It would be a miracle if she got out of here unscathed. Bracht’s two minions were eyeing her, each hoping she would come in his direction so he could get a pound of her flesh… and beat her with it.

  “Having a Noel-ni on my team is important,” Bracht admitted, “but it doesn’t have to be you, Ricole. I’ve got options.”

  “Bullshit. Why are you chasing me at all, if that’s true?” Ricole’s hands itched for knives or guns—anything. She had been reading at the new resource center that had been created by the Mistress of the Planet but their anti-weapons technology was too good for her to defeat, so rather than chance being rejected at the entrance and barred from the knowledge she could gain there she had left her stuff at home.

  Bad decision on her part.

  “You are the Noel-ni every gang boss wants on their team,” he admitted.

  “The others have given up,” she retorted. “Why can’t you understand the same message? Is your skull just too damned dense?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but the same obstinance that won’t accept your ‘no’ for an answer,” he jerked a thumb at himself, “will help me win in the end. I use my thick skull to keep battering at the challenges until I gets what I wants.”

  Shit, Ricole thought. The scum-sucking asshole makes harassment feel like a damned compliment.

  —

  Bracht wasn’t sure he was going to get Ricole to pledge her allegiance to his group, but right this minute she didn’t have many choices. Catching her without any weapons had been a miracle.

  The gods, which he didn’t believe in, were smiling on him.

  His group had fifty-plus members. Most of them were from Leath like him, but there were also a couple of other species—a few Zhyn and even a human. But he had no Noel-nis. Hell, no gang his size or smaller had a Noel-ni member.

  To start with, they were too expensive if you just wanted to hire them. Secondly, any who were willing to be in the trenches could easily join a better-funded gang than his.

  However, he could offer opportunities for upward mobility and right now he was in a position to push to have her accept his offer.

  That was when the third voice interrupted their conversation.

  High Tortuga, Northern Continent, Thon (Third Largest City), Haroom Sector, Lower South by Southwest Quadrant, Subsection H

  Ricole’s eyes flicked to the right as both Bracht and his minions turned to face the newest threat.

  “You will cease to threaten Citizen Ricole immediately,” a deep human voice called
, “or I will take steps to force you to do as I require.”

  Ricole slowly moved to her left, hoping Bracht’s goons, who were focused on the newcomer, would allow her to sneak by them.

  She just needed a bit more of an opportunity.

  “Show yourself,” Bracht demanded in a guttural voice. “I don’t take to threats too well.”

  Ricole’s desire to leave the subterranean tunnel was momentarily put on hold by the entrance of a silent black gliding orb.

  Ricole stopped when Mint—Bracht’s number two and the jackass presently stopping her from just running—spoke up. “Let me grab a stick. I’ll solve our problem.” He grunted as he looked around, then accepted a long pipe from Ricole. “Thanks,” he remarked absently, taking two steps forward before he realized that the Noel-ni had been the one to hand him the pipe.

  “You!” Bracht shook his head as the patter of Ricole’s feet on the tunnel floor receded behind Mint. “You’re an idiot!” He turned back to the orb. “Well, now that we have to track her down again, we might as well see what this technology is made of. It’s antigravity of some sort, and that’s probably worth a lot of money.”

  The orb spoke again. “Do I understand correctly that you intend to touch one of Baba Yaga’s security orbs?”

  Mint chuckled, slapping the pipe in his palm. “Well, ‘touch’ might be a bit mild, since I plan on smashing you against the wall.”

  A second voice interrupted the first. It was a female’s voice, but darker. It made the three Leath’s hair stand on end. “Why are you playing with these three, John?” she asked, the sandpaper quality of her voice reproduced by the Leath’s translator chips. “Just kill them and be done with it. They were trying to force themselves on the female.”

  “But Baba Yaga—”

  “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  Mint was starting to swing his pipe when a small piece of metal entered his brain cavity. The shock exploded his brain out the back of his skull, and he dropped to the tunnel’s floor. The momentum of his swing turned him around so that he faced up, his dead eyes gazing straight at the black orb.