A hildago, just beginning to gray at the temples, kept looking at Taldageron, his dark blues eyes following Taldageron as he acclimated to his new surroundings.
Taldageron tried to ignore him and carry on with the mission. A few days ago he had walked in a Phulavana forest for the first time, and today he stood on the west coast for the first time. The “wild” west. Especially Puerto Juarez. The proverbial ‘exception that proves the rule’ for just about every rule on Nuevo. Hildagos and Niyatian nobles and wealthy businesspeople mingled together, sipping their wine and ale and chatting amiably together all around Taldageron as he checked out the spectacular view. Supposedly even a few Cosaks and Boltamen have been seen here.
As he looked down on the bustling, crowded city from eight floors high, it all seemed just as alien to him as that of the Phulavana. But hopefully, there would be no hybrid monsters or glowing fairy aliens lurking here. He wasn't sure what happened back there, a part of him insisting it must have been some kind of weird hallucination, a part of him insisting that it was all too real.
The view from atop La Torre had its own level of un-realness, but nothing like being face to face with alien creatures. From here he looked upon the crowded, chaotic jumble of centuries-old urban sprawl. All these people living right on top of each other was so against everything everybody on Nuevo had been conditioned to believe was wise. The kings of Nuevo had always frowned upon providing the Umpala with high population targets. A few “cities” were tolerated for commerce, but the urban sprawl of Puerto Juarez was unlike anything else on Nuevo, warehouses and stores and apartment buildings and houses and whatever all crammed right up next to each other, a hodgepodge of building styles and building materials from various eras. Wood next to brick next steel next to who knows what that went on for miles and miles outward from the harbor.
La Torre itself had been built by the same people who had built the citadels, built of materials no longer found on Nuevo and reinforced by a low-level force field, protecting it from the elements here so close to the sea. And atop the open roof eight floors high, a swanky club for the well to do. The style was very hildago-like, furniture of fine leather and wood beneath embroidered umbrellas, a few mariachis providing soft background music. The low-level force field extended over the club, allowing the fading sunlight to stream in but blocking some of the noise from the city as well as keeping the breeze from becoming too strong.
Here Taldageron mingled with the nobles and hildagos and the just plain rich, pretending to be one of them. Like just about everyone here, he wore a fine white shirt under a polished leather vest, dark pants, leather belt, and polished leather boots. It was the current style here in Puerto Juarez for both Niyatian nobles and hildagos, though the hildagos all included a fancy scabbard to hold their sword. They typically made their individual fashion statement with their choice of leather and the embroidery. Pantera boots seemed popular. Taldageron thought his attire seemed pretty much in line with everyone else, but one of the other patrons kept eying him, making Taldageron a little nervous that he wasn’t playing his part as well as he had hoped.
Getting the stink-eye from a suspicious hildago though was much preferable to those glowing red eyes he encountered in the forest, though nobody believed the full extent of what he saw. He didn’t even mention the duende. Nobody would believe tales of forest faeries. He was not sure he believed it happened. The claw mark on his shoulder though was clear evidence that he had at least run into a pantera, even if he couldn’t prove it had an insect head and glowing red eyes. Captain Avangar and the others found it much more likely that a purplefooted hick ran into a pantera in the dark and the pure terror of it distorted his memory into a blend of reality and nightmares. Avangar said the pantera should be nightmare enough without embellishing it. He said that even a man with a pulse rifle rarely survives an encounter at night.
He would not say though who the Marines were fighting there in the woods or what they discovered. Taldageron wasn't a part of the Suraskar quite yet. Just one of their tools. They did seem genuinely pleased, and even a little bit impressed that he had survived his encounter with the pantera. Perhaps that was why they had confidence enough to assign him to his current mission. Hunting traitors. Not just ordinary traitors, but traitors of noble blood. A situation where a pretend-noble might come in handy.
As Taldageron watched the Niyatian nobles sit side by side with their hildago counterparts, smoking their cigars and sipping their distilled concoctions, he thought they all looked like traitors. But that was the alienness of the west coast. Of Puerto Juarez.
Taldageron sipped his beer and walked the perimeter of the roof, getting his bearings, both of the city and of the personalities around him. It wasn't uncommon for young noblemen, particularly those not in line for much inheritance, to come west to find their fortune. It also wasn't uncommon to find these young noblemen trying to worm their way into the social fabric of Puerto Juarez.
He was used to playing the part from his struggle to get into flight school and to maintain his secret identity there, but he just wasn't sure that all this cloak and dagger stuff interested him anymore. If they weren't going to allow him to be a pilot, then he would kind of rather be himself. Perhaps join the Royal Marines. Fighting enemies with your pulse rifle just seemed more satisfying than all this business of sitting around and sipping cocktails with smug, corrupt noblemen in hopes of finding the one who was secretly a bigger bastard than the others. They did give him a stunner pistol, tucked into his boot, but he thought the chances of him needing it was pretty slim. The Suraskar would determine who the traitor was, and then they would deal with it.
Just about everyone Taldageron had ever known felt some trepidation where the Suraskar were concerned, too many stories of people being "disappeared," but he had no qualms about the Suraskar abusing any traitor that sided with those who used nuclear weapons against other humans.
Taldageron stopped for a moment to take in the port itself. He had seen the ocean before on the east coast, though not a port of this size. It was a massive port with everything from wooden sailing ships to mammoth electric powered cargo-carriers left over from before the Fall. The harbor here was the largest naturally protected bay on all of Nuevo. On the habitable continent anyway. Most people rarely gave a thought to the other continents since to go there would mean certain death.
Taldageron found this continent dangerous enough. Panteras with glowing red eyes. And perhaps the hildago who kept looking at him as though he knew that Taldageron was a spy. Taldageron suddenly had a disturbing thought -- maybe the traitor was actually in the Suraskar itself. Maybe this guy that kept staring at him truly knew that Taldageron was a spy.
It could prove interesting. Taldageron had a natural aversion to noblemen, but he totally despised the hildagos. One murdered his grandfather. A hildago challenged his grandfather to a ‘duel.’ A campesino, a peasant, could not refuse a hildago, even though campesinos are forbidden to own or train with a sword. The only time they are allowed to touch a sword is when a hildago challenges them to a ‘duel.' It's ritual murder.
But this hildago would be in for a rude awakening if he challenged Taldageron. Taldageron’s father secretly learned the sword, hoping for a day of revenge. That day never came, but he passed the tradition down to his son.
Taldageron took another sip of beer and turned his attention back to Lord Maldi, one of the most senior men present. Maldi was in his seventies, but other than the grey hair and weathered face, looked rather robust for his age, standing rather than sitting as he conversed with those around him. No crest for House Maldi adorned his attire, but he did sport a black and green shoulder cord declaring his loyalty to House Ashoka.
The Suraskar hoped that Maldi’s loyalty remained true. Lord Maldi would be dangerous if he turned against the Crown. He had once served on the Intelligence Council for close to a decade, and one of his sons currently was a colonel attached to the staff at the High Command.
Because of his con
nections, he could be dangerous even if opposition to the Crown was not his intention. Greed or even carelessness could lead to the betrayal of certain secrets. One in his position might even think they know best about which secrets were worth hiding and which could be sold or divulged without true harm.
Taldageron had a hard time seeing why anybody, even the most radical hildago or Cosak or Democratist or Bhagavata, would intentionally ally themselves with a would-be tyrant who nuked fellow humans. But his experience told him there were people out there that just might do it -- people so self-absorbed in their own pursuits that they didn't notice or didn't care how it might affect others. The pursuit of individual goals without regard to the consequences to others had doomed many nations, many worlds, according to the history books.
The hildago that had been staring at him suddenly walked over to Lord Maldi. He glanced back once more to Taldageron, a small smile forming on his lips. He placed his hand on Maldi’s shoulder, and suddenly something dark came out of his sleeve and moved across Maldi’s shoulder. A centipede of some sort. Maldi had glanced back to the man and nodded, but he seemed unaware that something crawled across his white shirt.
Taldageron started walking towards them while he talked into the secret comm in his collar. “We have a situation here.” Adrenaline began to flow.
The centipede just kept coming out of the hildago’s sleeve, forming a loop around Maldi’s neck.
The men that Maldi had been speaking to noticed the creature first, pulling back and pointing at it. Maldi maintained a nonchalant expression on his face as he started swatting at it. Out here on the west coast, overreacting to some bug could make you a laughingstock.
The hildago who had delivered the insect had stepped aside and looked to be trying to fade away from the scene.
As Taldageron approached, he shifted his angle to work his way between the hildago and the elevator. He had the stunner pistol tucked into his boot, but he focused on physically getting in front of the hildago and blocking his escape. Taldageron’s years of practicing the sword had given him a good foundation for close combat training, and his years farming the Vastedad Morada had made him a lot stronger than most nobles he had encountered.
Maldi’s expression did finally start to become strained as his attempts to swat the bug away proved to be less than effective.
The centipede suddenly wrapped itself tightly around Maldi’s neck, like the slack being tightened in a noose.
One of his companions snapped out of the shock and stepped forward to aid Maldi, trying to grab the centipede with both hands.
Maldi’s friend screamed as barbs or spikes bristled all along the centipede’s length, puncturing through his hands and out the other side.
The barbs didn’t only bristle outward. They apparently bristled inward too, through Maldi’s neck and throat. Maldi fell forwards as blood gushed from all over his neck.
His friend screamed again as Maldi’s fall ripped the barbs free from his punctured hands.
“Maldi’s down. Assassinated,” Taldageron said into his comm. Nobody else up here on the roof seemed to realize what was happening. They reacted as though a man in their midst suddenly had experienced something like a heart-attack, not as though one of their own was just murdered right before their eyes. Nobody moved to stop the assassin.
Taldageron shifted his focus back to the assassin who was maneuvering towards the elevator just as quickly as he was. Taldageron dashed forward the last few steps to get in front of the elevator first.
The hildago pulled up short and stared Taldageron in the eye. Up close, Taldageron thought he noticed a red flicker around the man’s blue irises. It had to be his imagination.
“Who sent you?” asked Taldageron. He thought it was worth a shot and every little delay gave more time for the Suraskar to seal off the escape routes in case this guy got past him. It suddenly dawned on him though that while standing almost face to face with an assassin, he probably had better things to concern himself with than chatting. Like staying alive. But for some reason, compared to his encounter with the pantera, this didn’t seem that bad. He was focused and calm. Ready for action.
The man let out a brief smile and replied to Taldageron’s question. “The Lords Triumphant.”
“I see,” said Taldageron, not even sure that he heard the man right or if the man had spoken Universal or some other language. Hopefully, his comm transmitted the words, and the Suraskar could decipher it at some point.
“You will,” said the man as he began to yank at his belt.
Taldageron shot forward and threw a roundhouse kick.
The assassin spun away from and under his kick and came back around and swept Taldageron’s legs out from under him.
Taldageron let out a big “umph" as he impacted the roof -- the roof of a building that had stood strong for at least five or six centuries not compelled to give even a little by the impact of a mere man. He regretted not pulling out his stunner pistol.
As Taldageron rolled quickly back onto his feet, he noticed that the assassin had entered the elevator and just stood there nonchalantly looking back at him. His belt had wrapped around his arm, and all kind of strange insect appendages seemed to writhe along the belt.
Their eyes met, and this time, the whites of his eyes seem to glow with a faint red light.
Then the elevator doors shut.
“He got past me,” said Taldageron into his comm as he fastened the comm receiver to his ear, hoping somebody would give him some direction. “He’s in the elevator. A hildago with greying temples. He has something on his right arm. It might be a weapon.” He chose to leave off the part about the red glowing eyes. For now. He did wish that Captain Avangar or somebody would reply back. He was kind of worried that nobody was bothering to monitor his comm channel.
Nearby he found the stairwell, and luckily it didn’t require a key card to open. He would need one to exit onto any floor except the ground floor. Much of La Torre had become apartments for the rich and powerful.
With the stunner pistol now in one hand, he ran down the steps as fast as he could, trying to get down to the ground in time to at least follow the assassin. His leather boots were more for show and weren't the best for descending stairs in a hurry. "I'm coming down the stairs," he said into his comm.
He reached the bottom floor and just before he shoved open the doors, he said into the comm, “I’m coming out the stairs into the lobby.” He didn’t want to get hit by friendly fire.
He pushed out the doors, keeping the gun to his side, and saw that everything was quiet. He hurried towards the elevator just in case he somehow got down first. The decor of the small lobby area was very hildago-esque as well, dark with hardwood floors and wood paneling on the walls. A few high-end shops occupied most of the ground floor, surrounding the small common lobby.
Taldageron raised his gun just as he stepped up to the elevator. The doors were open, but it was empty. “Elevator is empty.”
He immediately turned and headed for the building entrance, the heels of his boots clopping against the hardwood floors. He noticed for the first time that the building security people were not manning the front desk. When he had arrived at La Torre less than an hour earlier, a bored security guard had greeted people entering the building. "Security guard is gone."
Pushing through the main doors and feeling the tingling run all across his body, he passed through the low-level force-field that surrounded La Torre and plunged into the damp, fetid air of Puerto Juarez. The transition from the climate controlled interior to the dank, fishy-smelling streets was something of a shock to the senses.
The sight of the bodies and blood scattered across the sidewalk before him was an even bigger shock. His heart rate shot up.
Taldageron crouched down and raised his gun, scanning the area for the assassin as adrenaline surged through him, and his heart pounded away. Shops and little cantinas seemed to fill the upscale neighbor. They all seemed eerily quiet, especia
lly as dusk approached. Nobody was on the paved street or sidewalk in the immediate vicinity. Everybody must have run for cover when the fighting started.
He looked down at the bodies. The security guard in his blue uniform and two others in white shirts under leather vests - pretty normal attire for this neighborhood filled with nobles. Both had stunner pistols just like the one Taldageron had in his hand. “Security guard and two others are dead on the street. Look like ours,” he said into his comm. He only knew a handful of people in the Suraskar, but he thought it was a pretty reasonable assumption. "Burn marks. Not like standard pulse rifle wounds," he said as he glanced at the bodies and quickly turned away.
He wondered if the assassin had taken down three armed men by himself. This had begun to feel almost as intense as the encounter with the pantera. Especially as his mind processed all that he had just seen -- the man with the faintly glowing eyes, the centipede weapon, the insects writhing around on his arm, and now two or maybe even three armed and highly trained Suraskar agents murdered in the streets.
Just then Captain Avangar came running around the corner of the building. He wore a policeman’s uniform, a square-cut, dark blue button-down coat with a high collar and silver badge attached to the front. It struck Taldageron as little strange to see a member of the secret police disguised as a regular policeman. But he saw its advantages. Nobody would question you when you ran down the middle of the street brandishing a military-grade pulse rifle, which is what Avangar wasn’t currently doing. He also wore a full headset comm unit.
“With me, Shvank," he yelled as he cut across the street, heading towards the northeast.
The ground suddenly shuddered as thunder rumbled through streets -- an explosion perhaps, seeming but mere blocks away. In the direction that Avangar was heading.
Taldageron took a deep breath, and he ran to join Avangar.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I have seen the storm. It will come no matter what we do. Perhaps we should embrace it.
- Journals of Bellona I, Sacrator Maximus of the Order of Calista (368 to 693 P.D.), recorded on the refuge world of Nuevo in 368 P.D. (1 year after the Fall of Man.)